Posted on 04/11/2010 9:03:41 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
Generators
Saturday 10th April 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
When you ask people how they've survived this dreadful decade in Zimbabwe, almost everyone mentions the name Gideon Gono (Governor of the Reserve Bank.) People say they would have been able to salvage something if it hadn't been for Gono's incessant printing of money - and bragging about it; for his inability and unwillingness to control government spending; for his looting of foreign currency from private bank accounts, and for his removal of zeroes from the currency: 3 were taken off in 2006 and 10 in 2008. It's hard to understand how any of us survived really and inevitable that we will feel the repercussions for a very long time to come.
For the first time in most people's lives we do not have savings to fall back on in case of accidents, illness or unemployment. Savings accounts we had in banks, post offices and investment centres have disappeared as each removal of zeroes literally stole our money away in front of our very eyes. You have to look at your bank balance, remove thirteen digits and then understand the state we are in here. Life insurance policies and pension funds have been similarly looted.
Anyone who held their assets in cash and savings and not in immovable property, has lost everything. Anyone who held their assets in land, livestock, crops or anything to do with farms and agriculture, has lost everything.
Trust funds established for disabled, sick and disadvantaged people have evaporated in the last decade. One friend told me how her parents had established a trust fund for their mentally handicapped son and built it up every month throughout their lives. When her parents died their assets were sold and also put into the Trust leaving enough money in the fund to support the disadvantaged man for the rest of his life. Thanks to the gross economic mismanagement of Zimbabwe, there is nothing left in the Trust Fund, in fact it ran dry four years ago and the handicapped man now lives entirely on charity in a dilapidated state institution.
Pensioners are in an equally perilous position, life savings lost in hyperinflation, assets sold and cash lost in repeated currency devaluations and no way to replace anything as their age forces them into a retirement of virtual penury.
Facing a future in such perilous conditions it brings little comfort to follow the ongoing seizure and auctioning of Reserve Bank assets. The Reserve Bank ordered and took possession of 60 tractors from Farmtec which they gave out to farmers in an attempt to persuade them to grow food on the farms seized by Zanu PF. Well, the food never got grown and the tractors never got paid for and now Farmtec want their money back - US 1,2 million dollars in fact! We follow the saga with interest as Reserve Bank assets get taken by Sherrifs and put up for auction. So far we've heard that some tractors have been repossessed along with chains, hoes, wheelbarrows, furniture, fridges and hundreds of generators. Hearing about the generators being auctioned brings back memories of Mr Mugabe dishing them out at every election rally in 2008 saying that every town would be electrified thanks to this Reserve Bank programme. Writing this letter by hand during another 16 hour power cut all I can say is : I don't think so!
Now we wait, holding our breath, to see if enough money will be raised through the sale of these movable assets to pay the Farmtec debt or if some of the lavish properties we've heard so much about will be next. Maybe it is true that what goes around comes around after all, albeit very slowly.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love Cathy
Been there, done that
Saturday 9th April 2005
Dear Family and Friends,
Feelings of despair and disbelief persist a week after Zimbabwe's elections. I still have a faint pink stain on the sides and under the nail of the little finger of my left hand. This is a remnant of the ink which was used to mark me as having voted and when I look at the stain now, I can hardly believe how quickly elation and hope were replaced with anger and betrayal as the results were announced. Every day since the elections the state have crowed about peace, democracy and political maturity but they have said nothing about 3 million Zimbabweans living outside the country who were not allowed to vote or a tenth of the voters inside the country who were turned away when they got to polling stations on the 31st March. Every news bulletin begins with a countdown of how many days are left before the 25th anniversary of independence and democracy in the country but then the reports that follow do not tell of the 257 unarmed women of WOZA who were arrested for praying nor why such an act was indicative of, in their words, "a mature democracy".
In the week that followed the election result, the huge sense of disappointment has been almost too much to bear. The MDC took many days to find their voices and when they did it was to say they had evidence showing massive electoral fraud and figures which displayed huge numerical discrepancies in more than 30 constituencies. The government of course dispute the claims and the bulk of the South African observers had already made their claims of peace and freedom and so nothing has changed, we have heard all this before, been there, done that and got the T shirt. None of this gives ordinary Zimbabweans hope. Neither the outrage of the MDC nor the arrogant crowing of Zanu PF has done a thing to actually help ordinary Zimbabweans this week. It hasn't put medicines back in hospitals, kids back in schools, food on our tables or clothes on our backs. In the last seven days since the elections the prices of basic goods have increased by between 50 and 100%. Margarine, sugar and cooking oil have disappeared from the shelves and petrol queues have started again.
Across the country many thousands of people made so many sacrifices this last fortnight, giving so much and showing such courage as they worked for democracy and now the feeling of betrayal is palpable. Along with millions of others, I watched the funeral of Pope John Paul the second this week and his life long call to oppressed people to not be afraid is most apt for Zimbabweans struggling to see hope and light this week.
Love cathy.
The worst filth in human history took over her country and anyone with a brain has already left. Did she really think that a bunch of troglodyte thugs would have any idea how to run a bank? Or a country?
The woman is the very image of the shocked liberal, finally confronted with the reality of the world of the Thugs She Hugged.
Do you post them just to make fun of her?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2490916/posts
Ties to Mugabe threaten Russian tycoons plans to buy Nets team
Additional thread on Zimbabwe:
Postcard from Zimbabwe-post 33 a must read, HT backhoe
If you would like to be included in the Zimbabwe-Cathy Buckle pint list, please FReepmail me.
Suggestion: If you don't like Buckle, just ignore these threads. I will continue posting them weekly.
Why such anger, BTW? We have thugs in power here..now!
Pint list=Ping list.
Bears repeating:
“The woman is the very image of the shocked liberal, finally confronted with the reality of the world of the Thugs She Hugged.”
It’s a good idea for people to get a grasp on how this affects the real people of Zimbabwe. We can gripe about those kinds of policies until we’re blue in the face but until people actually get the idea of how that really affects them it won’t change any minds.
Is this where America is headed?
BTW, has carter /hurl certified the election as fair and honest yet?
Maybe staying in the hellhole she helped create is her iea of penance?
U.S. HANDS OVER LABORATORY FACILITIES TO ZIMBABWE
Cindy, will you ping me to any threads you post on Zimbabwe? Thanks.
Zimbabwe is a barometer.
We need more printing presses I guess.
They keep melting.
The primary reason I post these threads.
I have read every one of these posts I have come across. I find it valuable to know what is going on. BTW, I did not know she “caused” the problems there.
Hate to tellya man, but that's all your accomplishing.
Most people here see her for what she is: a fool. She actually believed the liberal claptrap that the African tribal thugs just wanted "freedom and liberty".
Now she found out the truth that everyone else already knew.
Most people are just laughing and shaking their heads. You don't get that?
You know the answer to that
Simpering idiots like her did. And she was one of them.
Now she lives in the cesspool she helped start. Sort of ridiculous to hear her bleating, isn't it?
Silly little lamb...walked into the wolf's trap.
You have proof of that? Frankly, I don't give a damn.
...I guess from your handle you are the appointed "regulator" of what content is posted on FR...I'll be sure to remember that..NOT!
I repeat...just don't click.
It is good to remind people that Jimmy Carters foreign policy resulted in exactly this outcome. The people that opposed that foreign policy predicted this outcome, and they have been entirely vindicated.
If the US had stood with Rhodesia, this could have been prevented.
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