Mugabe is the real deal: Kenny Kunene
Category: Exclusive Created on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 07:17 Published Date
18-04/2012
by SAVIOUS KWINIKA, Head of Africa News
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) - SOUTH African multimillionaire and prominent television personality, Kenny Kunene has castigated all African leaders as "cowards" suffering from an "inferiority complex", save for Zimbabwe's leader President Robert Mugabe whom he hailed as a man with "balls".
In an exclusive interview with CAJ News, the controversial Kunene said Mugabe was the only African leader, ahead of the likes of former SA president and world icon Nelson Mandela, who was brave enough to seized land "stolen" by white colonialists and give it to indigenous blacks.
"Apart from Mugabe, Africa will never ever have another fearless leader of all times," Kunene said.
Zimbabwe's land reform, dubbed the Third Chimurenga, started in 2000.
Detractors castigated the programme as "violent and chaotic", and have blamed it for reducing the country, once the breadbasket of Africa, to a basket case.
"Zimbabweans may not realise this today, but the next generation will definitely bear testimony to Mugabe's visionary and brave leadership in reclaiming stolen land that he gave back to its rightful owners," said Kunene.
"Mugabe gave Zimbabweans what we cannot be given here in South Africa -- land. I am 100% African National Congress (ANC), but President Mugabe is my true hero! I salute him (Mugabe) with both hands."
He called upon Zimbabweans to stop criticising Mugabe saying what he stood for was economic empowerment of the nation that would never be reversed.
"Beneficiaries of the land reform programme must be wise; they must not sell their land, instead they should lease it. If you lease the land... you have control over it. If you sell the land and use the money, you become poor and lose this precious natural resource," said Kunene.
He said after carefully following Mugabe's "war" of economic liberation, he was convinced that Mugabe was the "real deal" for Africa.
"Some Zimbabweans can despise him (Mugabe) in an attempt to please white imperialists, but sooner or later the truth will be witnessed when true millionaires emerge out of that land reform. With land you have everything! It's a pity that some of us here will never be given that fortune in South Africa," said Kunene.
He said Mugabe and the liberation war heroes, popularly referred to as "war veterans", did not owe whites anything arguing that the so-called willing-buyer- willing-seller arrangement was the work of oppressors who feared losing what they stole.
Kunene said the rule of law only applied when blacks rose to correct the injustices perpetrated against their forefathers by whites, arguing that when blacks sought to reclaim their stolen land the issue of the rule of law emerged.
"Where was the rule of law when our forefathers were removed from their prime land? Where was the rule of law when whites just occupied land without paying a single cent?" Kunene asked.
Kunene's comments come barely a month after South African President Jacob Zuma admitted that the country's approach to the land redistribution process based on willing-buyer-willing-seller arrangement was "frustrating".
Zimbabwe, the first country in Africa to embark on a land reform programme, was punished by the US and its Western allies who accused the southern African nation of violating the rule of law and embarking on "violent, chaotic land invasions".
In its defence the country says the programme was necessary to correct the injustices of the past when land was stolen from the indigenous blacks.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have since stopped giving balance of payment support to Zimbabwe while the West is only giving humanitarian aid in protest against land reform and perceived lack of the rule of law.
