Posted on 05/17/2002 3:50:44 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Although conditions in Zimbabwe continue to deteriorate – with ongoing seizures of white-owned farms, state-sanctioned murder and harassment, and a dangerous famine – the misery has failed to gain the attention of the establishment Western media, leaving many inside the nation feeling hopeless and abandoned.
"The world seems to have forgotten us," said Zimbabwean farmer Cathy Buckle in a recent interview with WorldNetDaily. Buckle's farm recently was seized by Mugabe's supporters without compensation.
"There is almost no international coverage of Zimbabwe now. There are no foreign journalists left in Zimbabwe, and because they have taken their pens and cameras away, we are again alone."
Buckle says many of the local reporters work for free and under dangerous conditions.
"Our local journalists and writers continue to expose the horrors, but the arrests, interrogation and trumped up charges continue," she explained. "Zimbabwe is now one of the 10 most dangerous places to be in the world if you are a wordsmith."
Buckle also mentioned the plight of the youngest Zimbabweans.
"There are thousands of children in Zimbabwe who are so hungry that they walk around in rags, take food out of dustbins, hang around at the back of restaurants begging for slop and scraps and sleep under cardboard boxes in alleyways and on pavements. There are thousands of other children in Zimbabwe who are tolerating being touched, taunted and raped by men who get away with their crimes by calling themselves government supporters. There are thousands of children who have watched their homes being burnt to the ground by people who call themselves war veterans. Children have fled for their lives in the middle of the night because of their parents' political beliefs," Buckle said.
According to Buckle, there are over one million AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe.
"There are thousands of children who have lists of emergency numbers in their suitcases of whom to phone if a parent is arrested," she told WND. "There are thousands of children who are cold, hungry and frightened of being in their own country, and yet President Mugabe recently addressed the U.N. Special Congress on Children in America. The president, targeted with travel bans by the American government, took his wife and at least one of his children with him, and no doubt they have slept on clean linen in warm beds and eaten at five-star restaurants.
"We are a nation disgusted at the U.N. and at President Bush. Where are their principles and convictions? Do they not have children of their own? Is there anyone in the U.N. whose 13-year-old daughter has been raped, whose child is too scared to go to school, whose son has to find food in a dustbin, who has to tell his 10-year-old what to do if his parent is arrested for telling the truth?"
Buckle said that Zimbabwe's children are not the only ones who cannot speak for themselves. She mentioned the abuse of animals, reported last week by WorldNetDaily.
"What is happening to animals in Zimbabwe now is absolutely horrific. Wild animals, farm animals and domestic pets are suffering the most horrific and agonizing abuses, deprivations and death at the hands of men calling themselves 'war veterans,'" she told WND.
"My webmaster, who wishes to remain anonymous, has spent hundreds of hours putting together the most incredible reports and photographs of this gory horror. This week on the African Tears website, we are both proud and humbled to introduce two extraordinary women. One is Meryl Harrison of the Zimbabwe SPCA, and the other is Jenny Sharman. Details of Meryl's work in rescuing animals on invaded farms and of the Zimbabwe Pet Rescue Project and Appeal have been loaded onto the website along with horrific photographs which are not for the fainthearted."
Buckle praised the work of Harrison.
"Meryl tells of rescuing pigs on a Banket farm whose owners had been evicted by war veterans. There were scores of rotting carcasses, and the desperate surviving animals were feeding on them. She tells of live cows with axe heads embedded in their flesh; of domestic dogs being spiked and hung alive from barbed wire fences and of un-milked dairy cows dying in agony," she said. "Jenny Sharman's report is of the situation in three wildlife conservancies in South Eastern Zimbabwe – Bubiana, Save and Chiredzi. Jenny's report is horrific, and the pictures had me in angry tears. Jenny herself conducted interviews with farmers, managers, game scouts, war veterans, poachers and land invaders. Jenny's report is accurate and factual and tells of the poachers' political paradise now ravaging our beautiful country, destroying the environment and raping the heritage we should have been giving to our children. What brave, brave women."
Our own dear President Clinton said that, had he but known, he would have done something.
Truth is, we don't care about Africa. It's a lost cause. Maybe in 200 years it will be worth another look. During the colonial period and immediately after the colonial period Africa looked like it might possibly have a future. The continent has slipped back into darkness since then. I see no hope for Africa.
you don't hear a thing in the mainstream media.Not a peep. It's the same thing with Cuba. When "right-wing" Batista was in power, the press frothed at the mouth over "human rights".
With their darling golden boy Castro at the helm, gee, now 'human rights' don't matter as much. What matters are improving 'U.S.-Cuba ties', blah, blah, blah.
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