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A little truth:
A FReeper of some distiction | 01-05-02 | Rob Noel
Posted on 07/23/2002 4:00:15 PM PDT by Clive
A defiant President Robert Mugabe vowed to continue seizing white-owned farms, blaming drought and Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial power, for food shortages that threaten half the country with starvation.
Speaking at the opening of Parliament, Mugabe described his land redistribution programme as "an unparalleled success", saying almost half of the some 5,000 white-owned commercial farms have now been transferred to blacks.
Mugabe has said the farm seizures were the only way to ensure landless blacks had access to farming, but the programme has brought commercial farming to a grinding halt and left the country with a 2 million ton grain deficit this year. However, many of the farms have not gone to landless blacks, but to Mugabe's confidantes.
Aid agencies have launched urgent appeals for aid, but western donors have been reluctant to pour money into Zimbabwe's mismanaged economy. The ruling party has also been accused of using food as a political weapon, saying they have refused aid distribution in some opposition strongholds. Mugabe was unrepentant.
"While Zimbabwe accepts drought related assistance from the international community, we remain quite wary of countries and organisations which seek to take advantage of our hour of need," he said.
"We certainly abhor sinister interests, which seek surreptitiously to advance themselves under cover of humanitarian assistance," Mugabe added.
The 78-year-old president said redistributing white-owned farms would boost long term food security "while it's also a way of ensuring no one takes advantage of our stomachs to get to the soul of our sovereignty."
Mugabe also announced that new laws would be introduced to enable the government to take control of appointments at private schools, a measure he said was necessary to combat racism and ruled out any possibility of Zimbabwe's flagging currency being devalued.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change boycotted the parliamentary sitting, the first since disputed March presidential elections, that extended Mugabe's 22-year grip on power.
The party's 56 lawmakers refused to recognize the legitimacy of the election, saying it was won by intimidation and vote rigging. Many international and domestic observers said the election was deeply flawed.
Heavily armed squads of paramilitary riot police prevented an anti-government demonstration from being held today. Only ruling party supporters were allowed within a block of the ornate colonial-style parliament building.
The main organizer of the protests, Lovemore Madhuku, was arrested yesterday and held overnight by the police before being released.
Opposition officials said despite today's walkout, its lawmakers would attend future parliamentary sessions in to protect voters' interests and stave off what they termed anarchy. Government officials said legislation that proposes giving Mugabe the power to ban trades unions deemed hostile to the government would be debated in the new session. - Sapa-AP
Truly unbelievable.
Uhh, guys, you can't eat dirt.
Well, you can, but it isn't very nutritious.
The silence from the U.N over the murdered WHITE farmers, is deafening -- the U.N. is nothing but a marxist turdworld scam gang....
Semper Fi
Oh, we'll get more of this type of behavior and this type of complaint, both in Africa and here at home. And why not? We do nothing but provide incentives for it.
I'll give the whole of southern Africa 30 years and then it will be a vast unpopulated wasteland ready for mass immigration from Asia.
Had the damnable Government of Harold Wilson, simply acceded to Rhodesian independence in 1965, there would be no food shortages today. The "Jewel of Africa" would still be exporting food to other lands. It is only because Wilson rallied international socialists to his call to destroy Rhodesia, that Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe, and sanity to Mugabe.
None of that solves anything now. But it is well that we do not forget what happened. The battle between individual responsibility, cultural tradition and private property, on the one hand, and Marxist and Egalitarian fanaticism on the other, which tore the Twentieth Century apart, still continues.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
You're not supposed to state these things in such a blunt, no-nonsense fashion. It is required that you ignore and dismiss that which appears obvious. Surely there must be a "less offensive" explanation.
Now please report to your nearest culturally-sensitive indoctrination center for a re-education program stressing the well-known and accepted fact that white men are responsible for all that ails the third world.
</sarcasm>
You got a deal! I say w/i 10 years, and it will look and be as politically/economically viable as the Dem. Rep. of the Congo.
Am I the only man in America who lives by what is written in the Bill of Rights?
Am I the only American-American in America?
Not immediately. It actually remained fairly prosperous for several decades. In 1810 it was still among the wealthiest areas of the world. What really killed the economy was the long-term slide in sugar prices caused by increased production in other parts of the world and especially sugar beet subsidies.
The misgovernment by the natives certainly didn't help any.
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A little truth:
Incredible. Is it possible Mugabe has some kind of dementia-inducing disease, say, syphilis?
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