Posted on 08/08/2002 2:26:53 AM PDT by Clive
THE threat by Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo to withdraw the passports of Zimbabweans who are opposed to the government and to slap them with exit visas is only the latest sign, if any was needed, of a regime gone beserk and clearly nearing its end.
Not content with draconian laws rushed through Parliament earlier this year to silence democratic dissent, the besieged government now wants to clamp down further on the free movement and free speech of some citizens on the pretext that they are campaigning against Zimbabwe.
That there is a world of difference between Zimbabwe, as a nation and as a state, and individual government members who are wilfully flouting the law is conveniently ignored to try to appeal to the crude emotions of the common man.
Needless to say that the proposed measures are grossly unconstitutional and aimed at pushing Zimbabwe back into the Stone Age.
It is clear that as the siege on the government tightens because of the sins of its members now under international scrutiny, hardliners in the administration have decided to throw all caution to the wind.
They are literally telling Zimbabweans and the world to go to hell. In fact, the hardliners are almost daily proclaiming so publicly, their standard line being that they can go it alone and survive.
It is thus that the administration’s counter-sanctions lobby has hatched the grand plan of taking harsh retaliatory action against all perceived enemies, both domestic and foreign, to try to weaken a people’s resolve to end tyranny that is daily engulfing the land.
It was only the other week when none other than President Robert Mugabe made clear that his government would no longer obey court rulings which, in its judgment and that of the ruling ZANU PF party, were deemed to be unacceptable.
So there we are. We now have a situation where the government henceforth will judge the rulings of the courts, accepting and rejecting any as it sees fit for whatever reason.
If this is not organised anarchy, we don’t know what is.
But the tentacles of this anarchy, surely the harbinger of an ignominious end to what started as a genuine people’s socio- economic revolution, are everywhere for anyone who cares to see the tell-tale signs.
A whole generation of the nation’s productive farmers, most of them growers of the golden leaf which keeps Zimbabwe ticking, has been summarily ordered to quit their properties at the stroke of midnight tomorrow.
These Zimbabweans, whose only crime is that they are of a paler colour and are descendants of a bitter past authored by their forebears, will have nowhere to go and no other means of survival.
But worse still, their departure certainly points to one fact: the sinking into deeper economic and social upheaval of a country which once prided itself with self-sufficiency in food but is now the begging and laughing stock of the world.
Then look at the case of the striking doctors and threats of more turmoil coming in from the teachers’ flank, all because their genuine grievances have not been addressed.
Never mind that the government’s spending on what most Zimbabweans would consider to be non-priority areas has soared so much in recent years, triggering the present stagflation which has been accompanied by the country’s worst mass poverty.
As the noose tightens because of the government’s controversial policies and Zimbabwe is left to fend for itself, the President has had to hurriedly search for dwindling allies in undemocratic nations such as Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Malaysia.
Will his efforts, however well-meaning at a defining moment such as now, really succeed where all others have failed?
Are these countries he is embracing going to be the saviour of Zimbabwe from inevitable total collapse?
Or shouldn’t Mugabe grudgingly acknowledge that, for all his bold and imaginative efforts to hang on in there, the die is finally cast and it’s time to go?
Surely there is a limit to what any mere mortal can do. This seems to be it.
Dictators never know when it's time to go.
I think it's high time the EU sent in troops to resolve the national crisis.
< / sarcasm >
End of what? It's the unchecked progression of a dictatorship.
The only logical answer is its end/goal of mass murder of all opponents. After all it is a marxist/socialist regime that will achieve its ends by any means.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Neither the UN or the US government has so much as commented on this. I have not seen any mention of this at all in the US press, either. All of the info we get from Clive on this comes from foriegn press.
Meanwhile, Mugabe is forging alliances with countries like Lybia and Maylasia, and is probably as "Al-Quaeda Friendly" as anybody on the planet.
There are only about 3000 white farmers left in the country, they cannot put up an effective resistance to these thugs. They will lose everything they have, and will not even have the wherewithal to leave the country. They will starve while Mugabe and ZANU get fat with their stolen wealth. So will the black Africans in the opposition party, the MDC. Starving your political opponents is a remarkably cost-effective method of "ethnic cleansing" after all, just ask Joe Stalin.
I predict that sometime after mass starvation sets in, CNN will finally notice this and every liberal pundit on the globe will be demanding that we provide humanitarian assistance... I can almost hear Paul Begala and James Carville now, wanting to know how GWB could have ignored this building crisis... it's all soooo predictable.
Welcome to Somalia II, courtesy of our own policy of benign neglect.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
ahhhh..."back"?
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