Posted on 08/20/2007 8:29:12 PM PDT by blam
Starving in Zimbabwe 'amounts to genocide'
By Sebastien Berger in Bulawayo
Last Updated: 3:58am BST 21/08/2007
Democracy takes a beating as police assault demonstrators seeking a new constitution
Zimbabweans are starving to death on a scale equivalent to genocide, a top opposition MP claimed yesterday.
Four million people will need food aid by the end of the year, the World Food Programme said earlier this month, as President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF government oversees the fastest-shrinking economy in the world.
David Coltart, a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said there was "no doubt" Zimbabweans were already starving to death.
"Arguably this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy in the world: 34 for women and 37 for men."
Mr Mugabe's mismanagement, which has also seen basic supplies disappear from shop shelves after it imposed price controls, made him culpable, he said.
"To use a legal term, I would say this amounts to genocide with constructive intent. In terms of a complete disregard for the plight of people, not caring whether there is wholesale loss of life, it amounts to genocide."
Some observers believe that an internal coup in Mr Mugabe's divided Zanu-PF party is the best, if not only, hope for change. But Mr Coltart, a lawyer and the MP for Bulawayo South, said: "I don't believe you can predict he will be gone in six months. It has been a mistake many have predicted in the past.
"If Zanu-PF are happy with the notion of a vastly reduced economy with a powerful ruling elite living in a sea of poverty, then it is sustainable.
There are several reasons Mr Mugabe has survived for so long. Few African leaders are prepared to openly condemn him despite the fact that, as Mr Coltart pointed out, "the overwhelming majority of the people who are dying as a result of the regime's policies are black Africans".
Such sentiments were echoed by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, last month. "Africans must guard against a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white, but to excuse tyrannical rulers who are black," he said.
Zanu-PF officials never miss an opportunity to denounce what they call the West's "illegal sanctions", blaming them for the country's turmoil - even though they only amount to a visa ban and asset freezes on named individuals.
"They have convinced Africa that Zimbabwe's battle is Africa's battle - that this is about race and land and imperialism," said Mr Coltart, 49.
The situation was exemplified by last week's Southern African Development Community summit in Zambia, where Mr Mugabe was welcomed with thunderous applause. The meeting discussed a rescue package for the country, and could not agree on conditions to attach to it. It made no criticism of his rule.
Internally, too, Mr Mugabe's position is reinforced by historical and geographical factors. "This country has been through two civil wars in living memory and most people will do almost anything to avoid another," said Mr Coltart.
Zimbabwe has "safety valves" in South Africa and Botswana, he added.
"Young people can vent their anger by going south. So you don't have the people who would be the vanguard of any uprising."
But probably the main factor in Mr Mugabe's survival is, ironically, the very people who have fled his rule. With unemployment around 80 per cent, by some estimates three-quarters of Zimbabweans earning a living are doing so abroad, and their families survive on the money they send home.
The funds also support the remains of the economy. Opposition figures say the remittances help the government survive, but do not condemn those sending money.
"They have no choice," said Mr Coltart. "Only a dreadful choice between wanting the regime gone and keeping their families alive."
Zim Ping.
No mention of Zimbabwe’s Platinum and mineral wealth, funneled through Mugabe’s personal accounts?
He has more impoverished Africans in his country than he knows what to do with.
where’s bono and gates?
Kill Mugabe and his thugs and that is possible, no way else. Africa and the rest of the world have turned their backs on Zimbabwe.
Somebody is making big money off all the starvation.
Who?
Bill Gates never positioned himself as the greatest human being that ever walked the earth. "Bono Vox" (in fact, his singing voice is very mediocre) is too busy building an image of a Nobel-Prize-nominated activist to actually accomplish anything. Meanwhile, Bobby Mugabe runs amok getting away with murder (1st degree, I don't use that term lightly here) while the world shrugs.
Neighbours laud Mugabe at summit of African leaders - 17 Aug 2007 - SOUTHERN Africa's political leaders rallied round Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, and publicly lauded the man who has brought his country to the brink of total collapse as a hero. Mr Mugabe was greeted with cheers, applause, dancing and laughter from fellow dignitaries when he arrived in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, for the two-day summit of leaders of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC). Mr Mugabe, 83, smiled broadly as he acknowledged the rapturous welcome....Zimbabwe's combative justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, accompanying Mr Mugabe, said: "There are no political reforms necessary in my country. We are a democracy like any other democracy in the world." Human rights organisations say all Zimbabwean parliamentary and presidential elections since 200 have been heavily rigged, but the justice minister said: "We have a most efficient electoral system. I can't see how a system can be more transparent or any fairer." As Mr Chinamasa spoke, reports surfaced that a 15-year-old boy and a security guard were crushed to death as hordes of shoppers had tried to buy scarce sugar in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo.
Summit of African leaders? More like a meeting of the Mafia Commission.
Just a difference of emphasis, between the two.
Mugabe and his pals.
Not big enough pockets.
Who else?
As long as Mugabe remains Kofee Annans pal and receiving support from the UN, nothing will change. It's pointless to send aid to that place until Mugabe is swinging from the end of a rope and a proper government is formed, and the UN kicked out.
Mugabe and his fellow Africans have not been reduced to stealing food from monkeys, it is merely the monkeys willfully rising up to charitably provide for their ignorant socialist charges in their moment of need.
Is it just me or would others also realize as they were plotting how to steal a morsel of food from a monkey, that our socialist system is just not performing as well as the capitalist system in America.
Thank heavens those black Africans are starving now and not eating the humbling spread from their white capitalist bosses farms.
It sounds like it is time for Mugabe to kill off anybody with an education and send the older folks who remember better times to reeducation camps where they can learn how socialism saved them from their former exploitation.
I can’t wait for the Democrats to bring the joys of socialism here.
Astonishing. Just astonishing.
So it seems rather official that there's no hope for any country on the African continent. Not in this generation, at least.
And all this despite having a large population of Christian believers.
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At least Capone and his ilk provided things for the poor back in old Chicago.
But there’s no doubt Mugabe’s a crook and mass murderer in the Al Capone-Mafia tradition.
Now where’s Elliot Ness.
And yet it's still Tony Blair's fault.Just ask Mugabe...he'll tell you.
North Korea vs South Korea
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