Posted on 10/01/2007 7:08:53 PM PDT by george76
Harare admits land reform has failed as the deadline passes for the last white farmers to leave their land.
Zimbabwe's bakeries have shut and supermarkets have warned there will be no bread for the foreseeable future as the government admitted that wheat production had collapsed following the seizure of white-owned farms.
The agricultural ministry announcement that the wheat harvest is only about a third of what is required, and that imports are held up by lack of hard currency, came as a deadline passed today for the last white farmers to leave their land or face prosecution for trespass.
The maize harvest is expected to be equally dire and price controls to contain hyperinflation have emptied the stores of most other foodstuffs...
Last week, the government said it plans to import 100,000 tonnes of wheat but acknowledged that a shipment of 35,000 tonnes was held up in Mozambique because of a shortage of hard currency to pay for it.
The agriculture minister, Rugare Gumbo, has blamed the food shortages on black farmers who have taken over formerly white-owned land.
"I am painfully aware of the widespread theft of stock, farm produce, irrigation equipment and the general vandalism of infrastructure by our new farmers," ...
"I am disappointed that our new farmers have proved to be failures since the start of the land reform programme in 2000..."
The ministry of agriculture has also blamed electricity shortages...
The power shortages are likely to continue. Mozambique has reduced electricity supplies to Zimbabwe because of a $35m... unpaid bill...
Zimbabwe, once the world's second largest exporter of tobacco, has also seen production of its main cash crop nosedive...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
You are exactly correct.
Not only does the average middle class American have a higher standard of economic living and health care, the individual political freedom are even more important.
The elites are a step away from ruin all the time. If the boss is not happy, they disappear. Thus the temporary elevation can and is often very short.
[The elite] have everything from Octopus to Steak to varieties of bread, the shelves are packed,
So does the Wal-Mart near my house, which caters to the lower classes. Live lobsters, wild salmon, prime steaks, exotic fruits, fresh fancy breads... plenty for everyone. Too pricy? one can make a rather nice dinner for two for $2.
Even the high-budget fancy grocery store near my work offers a nice mix of salmon, tuna, tilapia, etc. chunks for a paltry $2/lb.
Of course, all this is limited to the "elite" of tyrranies. Not quite sure why the tyrants don't just cash in & move somewhere nice where they can get by much better than our "poor".
Classic death wish.
I always wondered about countries like Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) when the collapse happens, why they don’t switch to a free market wide open economic models?
I know the reason “why” of course, it’s just a pity that the “new” Govt has to tax to raise money to pay the secret police to oppress anyone who might threaten the “new” Govt’s existence...a truly vicious cycle.
Just ask Hillary the next wannabe black woman communist president of the renamed Socialist Republic of the Americas with it’s satellite capitol in Mexico City, DF.
Please reread my post
Critics say the legislation amounts to expropriation because it effectively forces the companies to hand over half of their value by taxing them to raise the money to "buy" the 51% stake for black investors approved by the government.
The government has ignored the protests of some foreign investors, including South African banks and mining houses. With the collapse of tobacco production, mining is now the country's largest source of foreign currency.
Zimbabwe's minister of indigenisation, Paul Mangwana, said those companies that do not like it can "pack their bags and go".
"If they feel that we went into the bush [to fight against white rule] for them to enjoy our wealth then they can leave. We are talking about the total liberation of this country. I have no apologies for that," he said.
Not so much the kicking out whitey that is the cause of our smugness, it is the fine example of a workers revolution smashing capitalism and the consequences. I'm reminded of Atlas shrugged when the lights go out in the cities.
but a few weeks later, along came another ‘veteran’ who also wanted to build a little shack and plant some corn on the same 400 acres...
when ‘veteran’ two wouldn’t leave, ‘veteran’ one shot him.
Dang, I'll have to re-write that tale in the style of Joel Chandler Harris. (Sample: "By-um-by, anutha Vet'rin come along. De firs' Vet'rin, he grip his rifle and lay low, and he doan say nuttin!")
People are going to starve no matter how much aid is promised or even delivered. That would have happened anyway due to impossible economic damage but starvation is now a tacit state policy as well. These are the hostages to our own goodwill and human compassion - show us enough babies with swollen bellies and the West will come across as it always does. It does not appear to be ironic even to the thugocracy that the principal product of a country that once fed its neighbors is now or will be shortly pictures of starving children.
I shall find it difficult to watch - the victims do not "deserve" this and are the very last to be able to do anything about it. They are by a large minority young, black and poor. The talk, the politics, the incessant rhetoric has been all race but it was never really about race underneath, it was about a Western party tribalism that has grafted itself onto the existing ethnic tribalism that is the curse of Africa. Race has been the tool used by the cynical to manipulate the credulous, many of which (especially in South Africa) still refuse to admit that for the fear that it might necessitate a reassessment of their own accession to power. It ought to, but it won't. Wealth is transient, self-righteousness is permanent.
The West - I am speaking of the EU, Canada, the United States, the usual suspects - will not allow this to happen although it will happen anyway. Part of the reason is human compassion that is perfectly legitimate. A darker part is shared politics. There is in many Western political enthusiasts the same drive toward Marxian tribalism, forced collectivism, "social justice" that is neither just nor social, and rule by a self-proclaimed elite that is precisely what led Zimbabwe down its present road to disaster. If Zim has arrived first it is only because there was less there to steal. That is now gone.
To be blunt, the thugs in Zimbabwe will be in power long after Mugabe has departed the scene, and they will be kept that way by Western compassion and political sympathizers. The best of many evils is for those of us in the West to deny those sympathizers the power to prolong the hideous social experiment that is Zimbabwe. That is our best option, and still the people will starve. This dilemma is the fruit of Marx and at this point we're stuck with it.
This is horrible for the poor folks of Zim....does it take death by starvation to rid this country of that monster, their so-called leader? Other African nations must step in and help those people. Not that joke of a government, but the people...
Sure, the end justifies the means. Makes perfect sense to someone trying to establish a society based on man being basically good and if only given the equal wages of others...ad nauseam...
Many folks have already fled Z for South Africa. These workers send money home to Z as a short term fix.
Many expect this flood to SA to increase.
The only real long term solution is for other African nations to recognize that socialism and communism do not work.
Z use to be and can be again the bread basket of Africa. They were easily be able to feed themselves and export the surpluses.
Yet, this is an African problem and Africans need to take care of it. Whites brought great things to this continent...many African nations NO longer welcome whites...so I consider this no longer our problem...so let African nations solve this problem. They need to step up to the plate...and show the world they can solve their own problems without us/whites.
Didn't that Zim leader pocket lots of the monies? That seems to be the MO of these types of so-called leaders.
Pretty soon Minister Gumbo himself may be on the menu, so to speak.
Socialism, under whatever guise, is morally and practically indistinguishable from cannibalism.
Didn’t that Zim leader pocket lots of the monies?
I believe yes.
Like the former dictators from Haiti; he may have a French Villa and Swiss bank accounts.
The double whammy of communism and racism have failed. Hmmm—that's odd! In theory...
/sarc off
And it's now allowing Indians to take American call-center jobs.
You could understand his grammar well enough to draw that conclusion? Wow.
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