Posted on 06/26/2002 4:00:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:55 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
THIRTEEN MILLION Africans risk starving between now and November, thanks more to local leadership failures than to drought. Naked greed and political calculation, when coupled with spotty rains and poor maize harvests across a broad swath of southern Africa, have resulted in disaster. Wealthier nations will now have to provide relief supplies, if only needy African governments let them. When the Group of Eight leading industrial nations meets this week in Canada, feeding Africa's hungry should be high on its agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Thanks backhoe.
Bump!
I'm annoyed that people would rather have a knee-jerk reaction to the very idea of Africans wanting a better system than Mugabe's illegitamate government, than understand that they're trapped in this hell and want out. They are currently being murdered and starved to death for having the courage to vote against Mugabe. I have no problem with a caretaker government that will assist locals in democratic reform.
Who Is To Blame for Africa's Woes?***Here is how Shari Eppel, the director of the African civil-rights group Amani Trust, describes the process: "International food donors are setting up feeding centers aimed at destitute families, but once the donors have moved on, the bullies move in and decide who gets fed and who doesn't." Even the relatives and children of opposition supporters are condemned to starvation.
How can the United Nations allow this? The U.N. and its Western donors are just playing along with the post-colonialist ground rules. The West is supposed to regard Africa's poverty as the product of our evil interference, never mind the facts. So it's our duty to send buckets of money and food - but we are not supposed to enforce any rules on how the money is spent or how the food is distributed, because that kind of control would, after all, be colonialism.
In the middle of the famine he created, Mugabe had the effrontery this week to attend a U.N.-sponsored World Food Summit in Rome. There, representatives from African nations dined lavishly while they blamed their famines on the West's failure to give more aid. Welcome to the "post-colonialist" world, where Third World dictators blame the West for their sins. The West caves in - and lets the dictators keep on sinning.****
Of course, if you disagree with my response, it must be knee-jerk.
Once again, Mugabe is an evil man and a bad leader because he kills and robs people and has run his country into the ground, not because some unknown percentage of the Zimbabwean population doesn't like him. While the African population of Zimbabwe may now realize they're unhappy under Mugabe (although he's doing exactly what he said he'd do when they elected him originally), I have no confidence in their ability to choose anyone better. Where else in sub-Saharan Africa have they done so?
True, CW, so true. However, in Africa's case, we can't blame Communism for their ills. Oh, there were attempts at establishing Communist regimes there, but they failed miserably. No..............it's unchecked, blatant, yet historically persistent tribalism. These people still have Stone Age mentalities.
I pray it does not come to this.
Yes, in fact Africa has fewer people per square mile than Europe. Bad governance has been the death of Africans.
Well said, CW. If posters would make the effort to learn the facts, they would not resort to cliches and bogus beliefs in commenting on this tragedy. Zimbabweans have done what the gurus of the West have advised them in resorting to the ballot box, not the gun.
Well, it's not working.
Do the savants have any other suggestions meeting the criteria for politically correct responses, or may they just off this mad tyrant, Mad Bob ?
BTW - thank you for the nice remarks the other day. I feel the same about your participation on these threads.
How the next leader is selected is unimportant. How he leads is what matters. Pinochet came to power by a violent military coup, and turned Chile into a model for the rest of Latin America.
Mugabe controls the military and has suppressed most of his opposition. His neighbors are almost entirely in cahoots with him, and those of us living far afield have little to gain by intervening. The Zimbabweans, in other words, made an extremely uncomfortable bed for themselves, and are now going to have to lie in it.
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