For weeks now the Beeb and to a lesser extent, Iraq-fixated CNN have been reporting on the deliberate internal displacement of Zimbabwe’s urban poor and yet no-one seems to be doing anything about it or even noticing or commenting on it in this Americo-centric, Iraq-obsessed “International Politics” Forum. How odd.
No-one, it seems, gives a hoot about what is going on all over Zimbabwe as we wonder what we are going to have for dinner. Most scandalous of all is that the regional power, South Africa, is just sitting idly by. Surely, South Africa, bastion of freedom and democracy in the region should now intervene to prevent something akin to the beginnings of a genocide against a group of people who for the most part are assumed to disagree politically with the now utterly discredited and dictatorial despot, Mugabe. What is this called? Politicide? An entire strata of society, the urban poor are having their homes demolished, their businesses, such as they are, burned and are being forcibly removed from the cities carrying only that which they can carry. Hundreds of thousands have been rendered homeless, roving gangs of ZANU-PF thugs backed by police terror squads are systematically driving out civilians into the parched countryside. Tens of thousands are being interned in hastily-built camps, ‘concentrating’ these ex-city dwellers without access to food or water. That many will die is of little doubt.
Mugabe is set on creating his own apartheid. He is turning swathes of the countryside into rural ghettoes full of his political oponents. With no means to support themselves, Mugabe knows full well that the MDP’s support base will slowly die. There are some stark similarities with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge actions exactly thirty years ago. And yet, nothing is being done nor even seriously discussed.
And all the while Mbeki courts Mugabe. What a disgrace!
South Africa, her government and her people have a moral imperative to intervene in Zimbabwe, not just for the sake of the long-suffering Zimbabwean people but also for regional stability. As a Brit I would support Britain playing a significant role in ousting Mugabe’s thugs and restoring some semblance of civility to a country once regarded the bread basket of Africa.
There is about to be wholesale slaughter in Zimbabwe and the powers that be down there sit and turn a blind eye.
Soon there will be reports of death camps and massacres and disappearances and Mugabe is about to get away with it because Mbeki is going to let him because of his feeble, pussyfooting about.
South Africa (the ANC) is in a difficult position because Zimbabwe played a huge role during the struggle against Apartheid. Unfortunately the friends and enemies made during those days still strongly influence SA policies today. Add to that the disagreement amongst opposing SA political parties about what should be done re Zimbabwe (I’ll choose the red pill, just because you chose the blue pill) and it seems that SA will sit around and do nothing for quite a while.
The attitude that the West has toward Africa and its people can be summed up most eloquently by this exchange in Hotel Rwanda between Col. Oliver and Mr. Paul Rusesabagina.
Some soldiers came by the hotel to rescue trapped foreigners. Thinking that it was a relief force to take all of them away, reality soon hit home. At that point, in the bar, Col Oliver tells Rusesabagina,
[quote=“Yellow Cartman”]The attitude that the West has toward Africa and its people can be summed up most eloquently by this exchange in Hotel Rwanda between Col. Oliver and Mr. Paul Rusesabagina.
Some soldiers came by the hotel to rescue trapped foreigners. Thinking that it was a relief force to take all of them away, reality soon hit home. At that point, in the bar, Col Oliver tells Rusesabagina,
The moral of the story: black on black violence is OK, whether in Africa or not. I mean, there was real concern when a few white farmers who may have had British great granddaddies were killed, but in the end it seems to have turned out OK and only black people are getting killed. No Americans dead at all, that I’ve heard of.
So that’s OK then. Anyway it serves them right for their ungrateful casting off of the benevolent imperial blah blah blah…
[note for the stupid: this is sarcasm, the most easily misunderstood form of wit. Especially by stupid people]
A question for Africa-watchers: how the hell does Botswana (another sometime British colony) do so well for itself where others have descended into chaos? Seriously.
I was in Southern Rhodesia in the late 70s. I have been shouting about Mugabe to anyone who would listen for over 25 years. Misrule was widely predicted at the time, but I don’t know if anyone was predicting the Ugandan Crisis all over again.
And the man the chattering classes called a racist is putting his money where his mouth was and is still living in Harare, and is held in high regard by many members of what is left of the opposition.
As one who is also familiar with the events in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from the late '70’s forward, I was also there for a while - 9 months, here is an article of recent publication. Let us remember that it was Ian Smith who declared independence from GB for Rhodesia. Also remember that when this occurred Smith stepped down, albeit under great pressure, and a freely elected Archbishop Abel Muzorewa became the countrys first black Prime Minister. What followed was a terrible war brought on by Mugabe and Nkomo both dedicated Marxists and organizers of the NDP and later ZANU. ZANU was influenced by the Africanist ideas of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa and influenced by Maoism while ZAPU was an ally of the African National Congress and was a supporter of a more orthodox pro-Soviet line on national liberation. (last sentence from WiKipedia)
[quote]Mugabe’s friends fail Zimbabwe
26 June 2005 10:21
Guardian editorial: Zimbabwe’s brutal clearances of thousands of slum dwellers from the country’s capital, Harare, might not top the league of human-rights abuses in Africa (as defendants of Robert Mugabe’s corrupt regime are quick to point out). But the almost casual cruelty of the ‘Drive Out the Rubbish’ campaign, whose victims now include two children crushed to death by bulldozers, marks an alarming increase in that nonchalant violence we associate with tyrants.
And they add, too, to a growing list of abuses that include one of the highest torture rates in the world, deliberate killings, physical assaults and torture of political opponents which together put in serious question Zimbabwe’s claim to be a democracy.
Motivated by bitterness about the colonial past and extreme self-interest, Mugabe has undermined a once independent judiciary; destroyed the country’s agricultural infrastructure, the best in Africa; closed down its free press; expelled the critical foreign press; persecuted the minority Ndebele-speaking people from Matabeleland; and driven the general population into poverty and starvation.(Read the article…) mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?ar … s__africa/[/quote]
[quote=“sheepshagger”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Some relevant discussion on this area has been posted in Africa needs reform not more aid[/quote]
Yes but what is happening right NOW in Zimbabwe is worthy of its own thread. And a little more attention.[/quote]
Yeah, unfortunately, so many of us don’t know much about the history there to be concerned or care.
I’m really interested in knowing how Zimbabwe, once a shining star in Africa, turned into just another “poor” African country. Is it all because of Mugabe and senility and pulling a Mao in the last stages of his life? Or is it more structural than that?
Mbeki isn’t blind. He thinks Mugabe offers a role model. I think that pinning any hope on South Africa acting responsibly is pointless. There is no political competition in South Africa. The ANC will be in power for a long time yet and Mbeki understands this. He is thinking about his own future power aspirations. I seriously fear that what Zanu and Mugabe are now in Zimbabwe, the ANC and Mbeki will be in South Africa in the not too distant future.
[quote=“sheepshagger”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]
Some relevant discussion on this area has been posted in Africa needs reform not more aid[/quote]Yes but what is happening right NOW in Zimbabwe is worthy of its own thread. And a little more attention.[/quote]sheepshagger -
Understood. The aticle I excerted was from 26 Jun. As YC mentions the history of the area is fundamental to understanding todays situation.
There is an old African saying - “Go to Rhodesia to see the ruins of Zimbabwe.” Unfortunately the updated version is - “Go to Zimbabwe to see the ruins of Rhodesia.”
Another current article:[quote]Zimbabwe’s secret famine As a UN envoy arrives to investigate Mugabe’s ‘Operation Drive Out Trash’, thousands of people are dying in rural poverty
By Daniel Howden in Matabeleland, 27 June 2005
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a hidden famine and as a United Nations envoy begins a tour of the country today, The Independent can reveal a deadly nexus of Aids, starvation and depopulation of the cities that is sending tens of thousands to a silent death in rural areas.
One month into President Robert Mugabe’s brutal campaign of demolition and displacement, which has cost at least 400,000 people their homes and livelihoods, the scale of the humanitarian disaster is emerging. The victims of this forced expulsion - which has been compared to the devastating policies of Pol Pot in Cambodia - are arriving in the already famine-stricken countryside, where, jobless and homeless, they are waiting to die. Unofficial estimates obtained by The Independent suggest the death rate is already outstripping the birth rate nationwide by 4,000 a week.(Read the article…) belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ … ory=650078[/quote]
As illustrated in the 2 articles I have referenced, the UN is getting media time with Zimbabwe stories. Could this be a prelude to their pushing for blue beret intervention?
[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote]Zimbabwe’s secret famine As a UN envoy arrives to investigate Mugabe’s ‘Operation Drive Out Trash’, thousands of people are dying in rural poverty
By Daniel Howden in Matabeleland, 27 June 2005
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a hidden famine and as a United Nations envoy begins a tour of the country today, The Independent can reveal a deadly nexus of Aids, starvation and depopulation of the cities that is sending tens of thousands to a silent death in rural areas.
One month into President Robert Mugabe’s brutal campaign of demolition and displacement, which has cost at least 400,000 people their homes and livelihoods, the scale of the humanitarian disaster is emerging. The victims of this forced expulsion - which has been compared to the devastating policies of Pol Pot in Cambodia - are arriving in the already famine-stricken countryside, where, jobless and homeless, they are waiting to die. Unofficial estimates obtained by The Independent suggest the death rate is already outstripping the birth rate nationwide by 4,000 a week.(Read the article…)
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ … ory=650078[/quote]
As illustrated in the 2 articles I have referenced, the UN is getting media time with Zimbabwe stories. Could this be a prelude to their pushing for blue beret intervention?[/quote]
That article is pretty much what I said. I too believe that there are extremely disturbing similarities with Pol Pot. I wrote my OP to bring some attention to an imminent (if not already ongoing) slaughter in Zimbabwe. Starvation in the countryside after expulsion from the cities is already happening. It is but a small step for a thug like Mugabe to begin a process of systematic slaughter away from the media and the eyes of those left in the cities.
I fear blue beret intervention is not enough. There needs to be a much stronger and determined military intervention led by South Africa and supported by Britain (the leading wetern nation concerned about this issue). I believe that such an intervention would be supported by the British people (mainly because we won’t have to follow instructions from the Americans) and it would be successful fairly quickly
So where are all the South African (any colour will do) Forumosans and their opinions?
We already discussed Zimbabwe under various Africa threads so spare the sanctimonious outrage. Also, Botswana has one of the highest AIDS rates of any AFrican nation. It is going down the drain as well. Also, South Africa today is where Zimbabwe was in the mid 1980s. I personally believe that South Africa will go the way of the rest of the continent but then when it comes to Africa, I have learned not to be an optimist. South Africa is not going to do anything about Zimbabwe because they are becoming Zimbabwe. I figure that South Africa has about 10 more years before the corruption and rot start to get serious and then maybe five to 10 years more before there is not enough stash to satisfy all the powers that be and that is when the violence will start. The only place I see hope in AFrica is Ethiopia and Eritrea and they will always be relatively poor but they may hopefully achieve some sort of stability.
There is nothing sanctimonious about the outrage, Freda. I do concede that you may be sadly right about the inefficacy of the Mbeki clique. I am in full agreement with you about Ethiopia. Aaaah…Addis…partieeeees.
[quote=“A Concerned Person on June 26th 2005”]Mugabe is set on creating his own apartheid. He is turning swathes of the countryside into rural ghettoes full of his political oponents. With no means to support themselves, Mugabe knows full well that the MDP’s support base will slowly die. There are some stark similarities with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge actions exactly thirty years ago. And yet, nothing is being done nor even seriously discussed.
There is about to be wholesale slaughter in Zimbabwe and the powers that be down there sit and turn a blind eye.
Soon there will be reports of death camps and massacres and disappearances and Mugabe is about to get away with it because Mbeki is going to let him because of his feeble, pussyfooting about.
This is an outrage.[/quote]
Two days a go a Beeb reporter went into Zimbabwe and filmed the emptiness where the urban poor (predominantly MDC supporters) once dwelled in miserable shanties. Under operation “Restore Order”, Mugabe’s police and ZANU-PF thugs, these people have been relocated to what are in effect concentration camps in the countryside and are left to feed off cockroaches and insects. As the above poster predicted, these people are being left to die.
There is genocide occurring in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the West are doing absolutely nothing. Isn’t it about time the international community did something? If ever there was a case for regime change, this is it.
[quote=“Nora Bole”]
There is genocide occurring in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the West are doing absolutely nothing. Isn’t it about time the international community did something? If ever there was a case for regime change, this is it.
Comments?
Outrageous.
Nora[/quote]
The West is angry because simply because he is a strong, black leader.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“Nora Bole”]
There is genocide occurring in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the West are doing absolutely nothing. Isn’t it about time the international community did something? If ever there was a case for regime change, this is it.
Comments?
Outrageous.
Nora[/quote]
The West is angry because simply because he is a strong, black leader.[/quote]
Oh I see now. So it’s all OK then? Plenty of food and equitable distribution of the nations wealth. Why didn’t I just believe Mugabe in the first place. Nice chap. Pardon my error.
