Cheerleading for Mugabe

Writing in the Times on Friday, Clyde Haberman notes that only two Africans have been given the red carpet treatment at New York’s City Hall in the past twenty years: Nelson Mandela (1990) and Robert Mugabe (2002).

The man who was responsible for Mugabe’s reception in New York at a time when white farmers, and their black farmworkers, were being attacked and driven from the land was city councilman Charles Barron.

It’s easy to see why Barron, a controversial black rights activist and former Black Panther, would choose to overlook Mugabe’s attack on white Zimbabweans in 2002. (Even if that attack did lead to the suffering of countless black Zimbabweans.)

But what about now, as Mugabe tramples Zimbabwean democracy? Has he had a change of heart? Apparently not:

“Does he do things that I disagree with? Yes,” Mr. Barron said. But he clearly still regards Mr. Mugabe as a liberator more than an oppressor. “You didn’t care about black Africans when whites were killing them in Rhodesia,” he said. As he sees it, the real reason that Mr. Mugabe has come under strong attack from the West is the confiscation of white-owned farms.

Echoing Mr. Mugabe’s party line, he suggested that Mr. Tsvangirai is a tool of “British imperialism and the United States as well.” As for political violence, “I don’t think we can deny people are dying,” Mr. Barron said. “Who’s responsible and how many — we need to really get reports other than from the opposition.”

Related:
The Day Robert Mugabe Was Greeted at City Hall (NYT)
Mugabe Is Sworn In for 6th Term After Discredited Vote (NYT)