"We will ensure there is a place for everyone in this country. We want to ensure a sense of security for both winners and losers . . . I urge you whether you are black or white, to join me in a new pledge to forget our grim past, forgive others and forget, join hands in a new amity and together as Zimbabweans, trample upon racism."

— Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in a statement to the country, following his election victory in March 1980.

"Our present state of mind is you are now our enemies, because you have really behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe and were re full of anger. Our entire community is angry and that is why we now have war veterans seizing the land."

— Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 2000.I HEARD Robert Mugabe's victory address to the newly-created nation of Zimbabwe when it was carried live by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's short-wave radio service (Canada is one of many Western nations that has an African radio service in an effort to engender influence there).The second statement — typical of Mugabe's current mindset — was contained in a I book I am reading about post-colonial African history. This new survey, which in my opinion is one of the most comprehensive studies of modern African history ever published, is epic both in terms of its author's ambition and the content — it begins in the immediate post-World War Two period, covers the beginning of the anti-colonial struggles and Independence movements and concludes in the modern era, prognosticating on Africa's future at the dawn of the 21st century.

The book is called Africa: A Modern History and author Guy Arnold, who specialises in African and Third World affair and has written any number of critically-acclaimed books on these themes.

It contains more than 1,000 fact-filled pages, and I have just begun to delve into this important book which — based on my initial impressions — leaves no doubt as to the sympathy the writer feels for the continent of Africa, seemingly locked in a perpetual state of crisis and inflicting massive suffering on its many peoples.ZIMBABWE is but one case study that the author deals with in the book. That long-suffering country, rarely out of the international headlines, recently achieved yet another unenviable first. It was cited by a world medical organisation which grades medical conditions around the world. The group announced that Zimbabwe now holds the dubious distinction of having the lowest life expectancy in the world — just 34 years.This sad state of affairs can be used as an example of much which afflicts too many nations of Africa. A struggle to develop viable economies; the struggle to provide adequate medical care for its people (it is estimated that there is one medical nurse per four thousand patients in much of Africa); and, in particular, the ongoing struggle to educate its children.

For even after an African nation trains its people, the few professionals who do come out of their educational institutions are often lured away by the rich nations which, no doubt, can provide better lifestyles for these individuals.

And this ongoing African brain drain takes a heavy toll, for after the professionals leave their countries for a better life abroad, their homelands are faced with an uphill struggle when it comes to maintaining the institutions that can educate their citizens to help develop their nations. The ongoing intellectual and professional exodus from Africa benefits the rich nations of the world but serves to cripple the struggling poor nations on this planet.

In Africa: A Modern History, Arnold provides the historical and cultural backgrounds to the current, lamentable state of affairs, explaining how Africa's seemingly intractable problems originally came into being — and not a little of the blame for the continent's woes can be laid at the door of its former colonial rulers, the European nations.

Last year Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a new UK initiative to lift Africa out of its state of underdevelopment and poverty. And while the focus of his approach was on economic and political reform and the end of corruption rampant in many African countries, the author points out the irony of the Prime Minister's failure to admit that Britain (and other former colonial rulers) played major roles in institutionalising the systemic problems that Africa finds itself contending with today.

But, even so, the author does not spare Africa's culpability in all of this. The blame clearly does not lie at the feet of the masses of African people, whose hopes at the dawn of the end of colonial rule have too often been dashed by their own post-Independence leaders.

In recent decades, Africa has endured too many dictatorships, genocidal civil wars, struggles and corrupt leadership all too happy to join in the looting of the wealth of their countries at the expense of their own peoples.

The whole world is after the wealth that lies under Africa's soil, just like in the days of the old European "Rush For Africa", with new players coming on the scene such as China. Even African nations themselves are not above engaging in the old imperialist game. In Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as early as the 1960s the African traitor Mobutu Sese Seko eagerly joined in the looting of the wealth of his own country, often in collaboration with outside powers.

Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War. Tutsis had long opposed his rule because of his open support for Rwandan Hutu extremists responsible for the Rwandan genocide in 1994 . When his government issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death, they erupted in rebellion.

From eastern Zaire, with the support of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda , they launched an offensive to overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him. In 1997 he was toppled and went into exile. He died in 1998.

But even after his demise what was called Africa's First World War raged on, with African nations lining up on either side of the warring factions within Zaire/Congo to who was going to control over — and exploit — the vast wealth that lies under its soil, just like the Europeans used to do.

And even with respect to the genocide committed against the Tutsis in Rwanda by their fellow Hutu countrymen, a catastrophe in which almost a million people were slaughtered, it is true the seeds for this tribalism were originally sown by that country's former Belgian colonial rulers in their efforts to divide and rule that land.

But the fact remains that this slaughter took place long after Belgium had left Rwanda — the reality is that it was an African-against-African catastrophe.ARNOLD'S book could make for extremely depressing read for someone like myself, who has strong feelings for Africa as my ancestral homeland. However, the author, in his last chapter, does provide a strong ray of hope.

He speaks of an African Renaissance based on an old theme — that of African unity, something stronger than the old organisation of African United (OAU). He proposes a new partnership between African nations simply called African Unity (AU).

I, for one, hope that his proposal is adopted at that a new renaissance for Africa becomes possible. The continent does not need yet another false dawn.