They're popping out in all freedom loving countries
Posted on 05/19/2008 3:00:55 AM PDT by vikingd00d
A 77-ton arms shipment has now reached Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, with speculation rife that South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki assisted directly and confusion as to whether the arms were offloaded at Lobito (Angola) or Ponta Negra (Democratic Republic of Congo).
Mugabe, the man Mbeki recently held hands with, instructed the SAS Drakensberg to refuel the An Yue Jiang, according to the online newspaper Canal de Mocambique. The Chinese ship was being tracked by Lloyds of London; however, the Drakensberg had radar and satellite jamming equipment on board.
In any event, Mugabe now has weapons for a war, weapons to crush dissent, and he has wasted no time deploying his war machine. Forty Movement for Democratic Change activists are reported already dead, and we are about to see armed military controls increasing all over Zimbabwe.
Given the lack of outside involvement in Zimbabwe, we are likely to see escalating levels of bloodshed and disorder, in anticipation of the June 27 election.
In light of these developments, Morgan Tsvangirai has wisely changed his plans, choosing not to return home on Friday, as planned.
One has to sympathize with the man -- how can he ever return home given that his adversary has now armed himself? Only if Tsvangirai loses the election can he expect a smaller target on his back, because Mugabe certainly won't let him win. And if Tsvangirai does win, he will certainly face assassination. Either way, it appears now, that he won't and can't win.
Because of outside intransigence, particularly from South Africa's leaders, Mugabe now holds all the keys and cards to furthering his highly egregious dictatorship.
How can Mugabe get away with this? Because his backer in South Africa is powerful. Mbeki must be getting a lot of money from Mugabe to play ball. Mbeki said in his own defense of his erratic and questionable diplomacy that "someone is telling lies."
The question is not whether Mbeki is being honest or not; the question is why is he doing what we know he is doing? The answer is simple. He has been offered incentives to make sure Mugabe can continue giving him even more incentives, and that can only happen if Mugabe remains in power.
“the Drakensberg had radar and satellite jamming equipment on board”
You would think that a topedo would have been in order....
Green Bombers shore up Mugabe
Mail and Guardian
Jason Moyo 19 May 2008 06:00
Howard's mother is just happy her problem child has a job. But she has asked him to spare her the details of what he actually does for a living.
He is a “Green Bomber”, a member of Zimbabwe's National Youth Service (NYC). Zanu-PF says he and others like him are learning patriotism, morality and service to the nation, as well as skills that will stem the “unpatriotic” brain drain. But the opposition charges they are President Robert Mugabe's brutal political enforcers.
Welshman Ncube, founding secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), once said that NYC training camps are there to “force Zanu-PF garbage down children's throats”.
But jobs are hard to come by in Zimbabwe, especially if, like Howard, you are a 25-year-old high school dropout with no marketable skills.
So when the local government office in Shurugwi, a central Zimbabwean mining town, posted an advertisement seeking national service recruits four years ago, he put his illegal gold panning behind him.
The official pitch to unemployed youths was that a national service certificate would be a ticket to a civil service job.
“It sounded better to me than rolling around in the mud looking for gold, getting into fights and going in and out of jail,” says Howard. “Ask my mother.”
His mother, a retired postal worker, agrees. If it keeps him out of jail, she says, “it's something better”.
She hardly sees her son now and when on the rare occasions that he is allowed to visit the family avoids “talking politics”, she says. She is afraid of what she might hear.
Howard now claims a higher calling. “As youths we are the leaders of tomorrow. But Zimbabwean youths want Western cultures and ideas. Some of us need to maintain our nationalist outlook.”
Wearing the olive-green uniform that gave it its “Green Bomber” moniker, Howard says the NYC is something every “patriotic” Zimbabwean must go through.
“I support those of our leaders who say it [the NYC] must be compulsory,” he says. “Look at me. I'm an example.”
Is he willing to maim and kill to instil his brand of patriotism? “Do you think the [liberation] war would have been won if the comrades were soft with people who refused to support the struggle?”
But he insists: “We never kill. I've attacked only those who attacked me.”
So what did Howard, and the 20 000 youths government has trained, learn in the camps? The programme’s bible is a manual called Inside the Third Chimurenga, a reference to land reforms beginning in 2000.
Supposedly an account of Zimbabwe's history, it downplays the role of dozens of liberation war leaders, making way for an embellished image of Mugabe as the one true hero of the struggle.
Much of the manual comprises Mugabe's speeches, including addresses at party conferences and funeral eulogies for war comrades.
The manual refers to MDC members as “rough and violent high-density [township] lumpen elements” backed by “disgruntled former Rhodesians”. The MDC is driven by “the repulsive ideology of a return to white settler rule”.
And foreign governments are “enemies” using “their local lackeys to drive regime change”.
Howard denies this is brainwashing, saying: “Youths that sit in front of the TV and read magazines all day are the brainwashed ones.”
Howard is taking a break before his unit is deployed to eastern Manicaland, where police say the MDC is attacking Zanu-PF supporters.
“We are going there just to support the police and other security arms. Ours is only a supportive role.”
For this mission he will receive a daily stipend of Z$1-billion -- only R30, but still more than the average worker earns in a day.
Howard is now a service graduate. But, with his new national certificate his only “qualification”, his post-service career options are limited.
He says: “Maybe after the elections I will speak to some people and become a senior police officer after I leave the Taliban [another name by which the militia is known].”
A report by an MP committee last year gave a disturbing picture of conditions in the training camps.
Female trainees live in constant fear of sexual attacks from their trainers and fellow trainees, while the youths live in abandoned military barracks without doors or windows and are fed pap, boiled beans and cabbage, the report said.
I think Thabo Mbeki is nothing more than a bolshevik, communist loving, anti-western/anti-American, dictatorship enabling back stabbing scumbag.
Is this not remarkably consistent with globalist wishes for human population reduction?
The counter-colonial phrase "Africa for Africans" has shifted from being mighty suspect over to positively funereal.
Are there any estimates for when the Chinese undertakers will follow that arms shipment?
Gee, the story about the arms getting through is not as big as the prior story of them being turned away.
Why isn’t this POS dead already?
Chinese weapons...China is taking over Africa economically and politically.
The Chinese are already present, including uniformed officers and NCOs from the PLA.
Mugabe is paying wuth land for whatever he buys from China.
In other words, he is using capital to pay for consumables.
Gee! Whatever happened to ♪♫Africa for the Africans♫?
...with speculation rife that South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki assisted directly and confusion as to whether the arms were offloaded at Lobito (Angola) or Ponta Negra (Democratic Republic of Congo).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.