By George E. Curry
NNPA Editor-in-Chief

HARARE, Zimbabwe (NNPA) – With several low-key, but unmistakable gestures, the United States has signaled that it is moving toward normalizing relations with Zimbabwe, the former White minority-rule nation once known as Rhodesia.

In March, former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young was dispatched by the Obama administration to meet with President Robert Mugabe. After the 2-hour meeting, Young told reporters that the State Department had sent him to Zimbabwe to let Mugabe know the U.S. is interested in repairing its strained relations with the mineral-rich country of 13.1 million people. Zimbabwe, slightly larger than the state of Montana, is bordered by South Africa on the south, Zambia and Botswana on the west and Mozambique on the north and east.

Last month, another civil rights veteran, Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., also held a 2-hour unofficial meeting with Mugabe in which the Chicago-based leader called for open and free elections and pledged to work for the removal of U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe.

In the meeting, Jackson told Mugabe, who at 89 is the oldest sitting president on the continent of Africa, “When there’s growth and investment, everybody wins. And we want to be a part of helping remove…barriers that stand between our two countries.”

After controversial land reform and what the U.S. called flawed elections, the United States applied limited sanctions in 2003 against about 120 key individuals and 70 industries. Unlike broad sanctions against Iran, the restrictions, including a travel ban to the U.S. except for UN business, are narrowly targeted.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was lifting sanctions against the Agricultural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (Agribank) and the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe, provided no transactions are conducted with any person who remains on the sanctions list.

The U.S. action came on the heels of a decision in March by the 27-member European Union to remove sanctions against 81 officials and eight firms in Zimbabwe. The sanctions will remain in place against President Mugabe and 10 members of his inner circle as well as two firms.

The EU’s action was announced after 95 percent of Zimbabwean voters approved a new constitution that limits a president to two, 5-year terms, includes a bill of rights, prohibits the president from vetoing laws passed by the legislature and establishes an independent electoral commission. The election changes are not retroactive and will not prohibit Mugabe, the only leader the country has had since gaining independence from Britain in 1980, from running again in the next election, which is expected to take place in August or September.

The international community began withdrawing resources from Zimbabwe after the democratically-elected government decided to reclaim land from White commercial farmers, land that they said rightfully belonged to them.

The western media trumpeted stories about how unfair the White farmers were being treated under the new Black government.

However, Joseph M. Made, the former minister of lands, said the Black farmers were the ones aggrieved.

“What is very critical is that 6,000 White commercial farmers controlled prime agricultural land – about 15 million hectors [36 million acres] – denying a majority of Blacks an opportunity to also be involved in agriculture in prime areas where there’s better rainfall and better soil,” said Made, who is now Minister of Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development.

In an interview, Made explained, “Our independence was the result of an armed struggle, primarily for two things: the right to vote and secondly, the land issue. We were a conquered people in terms of colonial legacy. We were defeated by the British. So, we took up arms to fight for that right to vote, which was denied to us, and the right to reclaim our land. It was a fight to reclaim what was rightfully ours. It’s not denying anything to anybody on racial grounds.”

David Bruce Wharton, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, called the land reform effort a failure.

“They have a sovereign right to do that, but there are consequences,” he said. “If you do it in a way that looks to the outside world like it’s chaotic, like the rule of law has been suspended, like there’s no real plan about making sure poor people get land as well as the wealthy people, there are consequences. Investors will walk away, tourists will stay away and that’s sort of the reality.”

Made said critics are ignoring Zimbabwe’s reality.

“We were a conquered people and our land was taken,” he stated. “Naturally, we had to fight and we won an armed struggle to the right to reoccupy our land.”

Initially, Britain and the U.S. had agreed to compensate displaced White farmers as part of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that brought independence to what would later become Zimbabwe.

Once the farmers were not paid, the blame was shifted to the Mugabe government, not the countries that reneged on their pledges.

“We will not compensate for land that was never paid for,” Made said. “That land was taken by virtue of conquest – our forefathers were not given money. That [compensation] is the responsibility of the British.”

Made said most of the world minimizes the suffering Blacks experiences under White minority rule.

He said, “There’s all the talk about democracy, but we are the people who were denied the right to vote. We are the people who were told, ‘You don’t come through the front door, you go through that rear door.’ That was the system that operated here. We could not sit on the same bench with a White person in a park. The Black workers could not go on the same lift [elevator] as White people. It was in this city where you could not walk on the pavement – you had to walk where the cars were driving – as a Black person. We fought and on the day of independence, the Black people walked on the pavement en masse. That’s how the law was repealed.”

Skyscrapers that dot downtown Harare are rusty reminders of a gleaming city of a bygone era. An automobile trip from the airport to center city is a bumpy one because of deep potholes. Even the sidewalks, now that Blacks can walk on them, are in desperate need of repair.

President Mugabe said international sanctions have taken a toll on the country. But Ambassador Wharton said some of the wounds were self-inflicted.

“One of the things I hear Zimbabweans say is Zimbabwe never did anything wrong,” he recounted. “In fact, I think there were some mistakes. Wharton said one was the decision to in 1997 to make large payments to veterans of the liberation struggle. “I’m not saying that was right or wrong, but when they did that, the currency blew up,” he said. “I think they made a mistake in 1999 when they walked away from their debts to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] – they just stopped servicing those debts. That cut them off from new credit and debt relief.”

In addition, Zimbabwe can’t borrow from the World Bank or the African Development Bank because it stopped servicing those debts as well.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe printed extra money to satisfy growing government debts, causing the inflation rate to soar from 32 percent in 1998 to an astonishing 11,200,000 percent by 2007. Following a decade of economic contraction, the economy grew by 6 percent in 2011 and slipped to 5 percent in 2012.

After a hotly contested presidential election in 2008, Mugabe entered into a power-sharing agreement with his chief political opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, who became prime minister. Pressure is mounting on both to make sure the next election is a fair one.

Some businessmen, such as Elzie L. Higginbottom, president and CEO of Eastlake Management Group, Inc. in Chicago, see enormous investment opportunities in the country.

“When Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia, it was the breadbasket of southern Africa. I like the size of the country – about 12 million people. I like the fact that it is an English-speaking country,” said Higginbottom, who has been traveling to Zimbabwe for the past four years. “The education level is very high – a 93 or 94 percent literacy rate. The other thing I like is that they have a basket of currency, but the predominant currency is the U.S. dollar.”

He added, “Zimbabwe is a mineral-rich country. It has platinum, gold, diamonds, chrome – it has all sorts of valuable minerals. It’s a peaceful country, it is predominantly one tribe and it’s set for redevelopment and improvement.”

Despite the sanctions, the U.S. maintains diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe. It has an ambassador in Harare and the country has a mission in Washington, D.C. Trade between the two countries has grown from approximately $100 million to $160 million annually over the past three years.

Ambassador Wharton, who says his goal is to see all sanctions on Zimbabwe lifted, predicts that investors will eventually flood the country.

“The country has extraordinary intellectual capital,” he said. “Robert Mugabe invested very well in education and health from the very beginning, from 1980 forward and the result is that you got an extraordinarily well-educated population – the highest literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa. Culturally, Zimbabweans work hard, they’re honest, they’re ethical – they are extraordinary people.

“On top of that you got great mineral wealth – gold, platinum, chrome, diamonds, coal – and you got fantastic agricultural potential, which is currently underutilized. This country used to feed the entire region. You harness that intellectual capital with those natural resources and it’s in an extraordinarily attractive position for economic growth.”

By Maya Rhodan
NNPA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to provide $150 million to community health centers to assist in getting uninsured Americans prepared for the Oct. 1 opening of the Health Care Marketplace.

The 1,2000 Community Health Centers across rural and urban centers in America provide medical services to over 21 million patients a year. These centers serve in many of the neighborhoods that are set to benefit the most from the coming availability of insurance options that will be provided in the new insurance marketplace.

“We’re supporting community health centers as they reach out to those in need,” Sebelius said on a press call last Wednesday, the day of the announcement.

“Many of the Americans we’re trying to reach have spent their whole lives outside of coverage,” Sebelius said. “This will be a huge undertaking, but it’s an undertaking that’s important to the American people.”

The money, which comes from Affordable Care Act funds set aside specifically for community health centers in the 2013 budget, is set to help the centers hire new staff and train staff to properly educate patients about their insurance options.

Sebelius hopes the funds will also help the community health centers reach uninsured people within communities who otherwise would not have known about the insurance marketplace, their new options in terms of coverage.

About 60 percent of the existing community health centers are in communities where racial and ethnic minorities are the majority. Currently, about 21 percent of African Americans are uninsured, along with about 30 percent of Hispanics.

Mary Wakefield, an administrator at the Health Resources and Services Administration, said on the call that community health centers are “really perfect partners in outreach and enrollment efforts.”

“Those of us who are in Obama administration have been working hard to make sure that Americans that aren’t in the health system can get in, Wakefield said. “ We can now double the outreach and education capacity of health centers nationwide.”

Each community health center is eligible to receive about $50,000 in funds, with an extra $5,000 available for additional resources like computers. The funds provided to community health centers are a mere portion of the efforts by the Obama administration, mostly being rolled out this summer, to get information out about the Insurance Marketplace.

The goal—to reach as many uninsured people as possible to ensure the success of Obama’s huge, and often begrudged, overhaul of the health care system.

Community health centers are positioned to reach a number of the uninsured, given their reputation as “trusted community partners” for people on the fringes of the health care system. According to the health care officials about one seventh of the uninsured population gets treatment from community health centers.

Wakefield said, ““It’s about making sure every American can access the support they need.”

By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Black workers are 19 percent more likely to join unions than non-Black workers, according to a recent study.

The study titled, “Blacks in Unions: 2012,” published by the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California at Berkeley reported that the jumps to 42 percent when the researchers examined labor unions in the country’s largest cities.

For economists familiar with the history of labor unions, the results of the study came as no surprise.

“The only time we kind of think about it is when we commemorate when Dr. King was assassinated and everybody says ‘Oh yeah, he was helping to organize sanitation workers in Memphis,’” said William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “It’s kind of collective amnesia for Blacks not to recognize the contributions of Blacks in the labor movement.”

As the report noted, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 45 years ago in Memphis, Tenn., as he backed the efforts of Black sanitation workers to organize non-violent protests for better treatment, an increase in wages, and the right to unionize. The ability for workers to unionize for equality on the job was central to King’s vision of what the civil rights movement was about.

Steven Pitts, labor economist and researcher at the Center for Labor Research and Education, said that it’s important to remember that the full name of the “March on Washington” was the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” He said that King’s iconic “I have a dream” speech often overshadows the work of Black labor leaders such as A. Phillip Randolph, who helped organize the march and one of the first Black labor unions for sleeping car porters on trains.

Pitts said that unions reduce the capacity of managers to discriminate based on race.

“You can’t be talked to like a dog and you can’t be abused, because of certain rights that are there, so procedures have to be followed, said Pitts. “There’s a basic sort of dignity and the basic idea of having a voice at work is very important.”

The economic benefits of unionization are just as important, often enabling Black workers to reach the middle class. According to a report on unions released by the Labor Department in January, full-time, salaried union members earned about $200 more than non-union members per week, which is more than $10,000 per year.

According to the report “Blacks in Unions: 2012,” Black union membership reached 13.1 percent in 2012, compared to 11.4 percent for Whites and 9.8 percent for Latinos.

The differences in union membership were even more pronounced in the nation’s largest cities. In the top 10 metropolitan areas union density for Black workers was greater than 16 percent, compared to 12.4 percent for Whites and 10.7 percent for Latinos, according to the “Blacks in Unions: 2012” report.

The share of Black workers in unions was also greater than the share of Black workers in the workforce. Blacks accounted for 11.4 percent of the total workforce in the United States, but 13.3 percent of all union members. Whites accounted for 66.6 percent of the total workforce and 67.5 percent of union members.

“Unions are the only powerful voice at the moment in the national debate to argue about employment in general,” said Spriggs. “No one else is talking about employment, they’re all talking about debt and deficit.”

Even as Blacks search for greater representation in unions, overall union membership has fallen to levels not seen in nearly century. According to Labor Department, only 11.3 percent of workers are in unions. In 2011, that number was 11.8 percent.

Pitts said that the decline in union membership is no accident. Public polices and stiff competition in the labor market are making it increasingly difficult for workers to organize. Local governments are privatizing work that once belonged to labor unions and private firms that work with unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers are being forced to compete with non-union firms, including Walmart and Target.

Unions aren’t getting much help from Washington, either.

The Republican-led House of Representatives recently passed legislation blocking President Obama’s picks for the National Labor Regulations Board, federal agency that prevents unfair labor practices in the private sector and protects workers’ rights.

“The National Labor Relations board can’t function right now, because the Republican party has refused to confirm the nominees of the president to that board, said Spriggs. “They understand, right now, that they can get away with it.”

Republicans are also fighting President Obama’s selection of Tom Perez to head the Labor Department.

In the face of direct attacks against unions and workers’ rights, Pitts said that unions need to find better ways to reach out and organize, especially in the Black community.

“Blacks are a major portion of the labor movement,” said Pitts. “There’s a lot of labor support there, because of the nature of Black unionization that tends to be ignored.”

Spriggs said that people have to get involved in their locals, they have to pay attention to what’s going on in their meetings, and they have to understand that a lot of those things that they take for granted didn’t come out of thin air.

He added: “They don’t have vacations, they don’t have healthcare, they don’t have pensions, because someone was being nice. Someone fought for that.”

By George E. Curry
NNPA Editor-in-Chief

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (NNPA) – When international icon and former political prisoner Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994, it marked a watershed moment for the former minority-ruled country. Mandela, the standard bearer for the African National Congress, won with 62.6 percent of the vote. The ANC captured 252 of the 500 seats in parliament and at the regional level, the ANC took control of seven of the nine provincial governments.

“I was 20 when apartheid ended,” said Nelson Nkrsi, who owns a transportation firm here that caters to tourists. “There was so much excitement. We all sat down and thought, ‘Wow! Apartheid has ended, Nelson Mandela is free. We’re all going to be living in the suburbs. We’re all going to be driving really nice cars.’ It was a dream we all had.”

It was a dream deferred, if not erased.

Today, 19 years later, the ANC – the major anti-apartheid group representing the 80 percent Black majority – is still winning elections, but by increasingly smaller margins. Moreover, even some staunch ANC backers are openly questioning whether the group that brought about the fall of apartheid is up to the task of governing successfully. In an interview earlier this month with the Mail & Guardian, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “I’m not a card-carrying member of any political party. I have over the years voted for the ANC, but I would very sadly not be able to vote for them after the way things have gone.”

Tutu explained, “We really need a change. The ANC was very good at leading us in the struggle to be free from oppression. They were a good freedom-fighting unit. But it doesn’t seem to me now that a freedom-fighting unit can easily make the transition to becoming a political party.”

South Africa, nearly twice the size of Texas, has a population of 48.6 million. Blacks or Africans make up 79 percent of the population followed by Whites (9.6 percent), Colored ( 8.9 percent), and Indian/Asian (2.5 percent).

But the euphoria of the Mandela years in the public has faded.

Kenneth Walker, a former White House correspondent for ABC News who now lives in Johannesburg, said much of the disappointment with President Jacob Zuma can be traced to the negotiations that led to a peaceful transition from White minority-rule to a democracy.

During the transition, Whites – representing only 16 percent of the population – had disproportionate representation in government and were not forced to make the kind of land concessions White farmers experienced in Zimbabwe.

“The ANC cut a bad deal,” Walker said. “When the farm seizures started in Zimbabwe, I asked President Mugabe why was it that in the African countries that used to be colonies, Africans controlled the governments, but the economies were still largely controlled by Whites. He said, ‘We thought once we got the government, everything else would follow. We were wrong.’ By the time the ANC cut its deal, this model was well known and thoroughly discredited; yet the ANC settled for it anyway. Basically, they accepted the government and pretty much agreed that apartheid would continue to rein everywhere else – the economy, access to health care, education and decent housing.”

A report last October by Statistics South Africa painted a mixed picture of South Africa. Over the past decade, annual earnings of Black households increased by 169 percent to 60,613 rand (approximately U.S. $6,644). White household earnings over that same period rose by 88 percent to 365,134 rand (about U.S. $40,927).

“These figures tell us that at the bottom of the rung is the black majority, who continue to be confronted by deep poverty, unemployment and inequality. Great strides have been made,” President Zuma said. “However, much remains to be done to further improve the livelihoods of our people especially in terms of significant disparities that still exist between the rich and poor.”

Those economic disparities were highlighted last year in a report by the World Bank titled, “South Africa Economic Update: Focus on inequality of opportunity.”

According to the report, the top 10 percent of the population receive 58 percent of the country’s income. The bottom 10 percent accounted for only .5 percent of South Africa’s income. Overall, the bottom 50 percent of South Africans receive only 8 percent of the country’s income.

Earlier this month, The Economist noted, “… the gap between rich and poor is now wider than under apartheid.”

South Africa has an official unemployment rate of 25.2 percent – 33 percent if discouraged workers are counted – according to the World Bank.

“… Africa’s population, unlike Asia’s, is growing fast. From 1 billion now it is set to double in little more than a generation,” said The Economist. “A youthful population is a blessing in many ways. But if the extra people cannot find jobs, they may cause unrest and instability. South Africa knows this too well. Joblessness is one reason for high crime rates that make it necessary for rich South Africans to sleep behind heavy barred doors and windows.”

A U.S. State Department report on South Africa observed that although most U.S. tourists travel safely in South Africa, crime is a major concern.

“Criminal activity, such as assault, armed robbery, and theft, is particularly high in areas surrounding certain hotels and public transportation centers, especially in major cities,” the report stated. “Theft of passports and other valuables is most likely to occur at airports, bus terminals, and train stations. A number of U.S. citizens have been mugged or violently attacked on commuter and metro trains, especially between Johannesburg and Pretoria.”

The report said, “South Africa also has the highest reported occurrence of rape in the world.” A country profile by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said South Africa ranks No.1 in the world with the 5.6 million people living with HIV/AIDS. The number of deaths from AIDS – 310,000 in 2009 – also places South Africa ahead of all other nations.

Jesse Jackson said that anti-apartheid activists in South Africa were so focused on ending rigid segregation in the early 1990s that they didn’t have the luxury of focusing on broader, economic matters.

“What we’re seeing increasingly is Africans are free, but not equal,” he said, ticking off a list of areas that ranged from healthcare to banking.

Still, Jackson said, the “born frees” – those born after apartheid ended in 1994 – will be responsible for addressing remaining issues, such as economic inequality.

Ranjeni Munusamy, one of the top political writers in South Africa, is hopeful about the country’s future – but not under Zuma, who has a year left on his term.

“When Zuma began his presidency, there were high hopes and goodwill for him to succeed in the targets he set,” Munusamy said. “It was neither in the national nor international interests to wish him to fail. When a president fails, the country fails. In the past four years, South Africa has looked on in astonishment as his administration lurched from one crisis to another. Even by his own standards, and in his own mind, Zuma cannot believe that his presidency has been a success.”