Posted on 08/16/2002 6:49:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In a nationally-televised speech, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, promised to press ahead with "land reform". As a result, his country is now facing widespread famine
"ONLY the greedy are complaining," claimed Robert Mugabe. In an eagerly-awaited television speech on Monday August 12th, Zimbabwe's president claimed that his programme of seizing land from white farmers and giving it to his supporters was a great success. In fact, it has not been the greedy that have been complaining, but the hungry, and because Mr Mugabe's policy of persecuting the country's most productive farmers has created a terrible food shortage, there are rather a lot of them.
Leaders of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), are calling on the United Nations or western governments to intervene to deliver food aid, warning that thousands are in danger of starving. On August 13th, Judith Lewis, the director for East and Southern Africa for the UN World Food Programme confirmed that at least half of the 12m people in Zimbabwe will need some kind of food assistance, and that malnutrition was increasing. Nevertheless, a direct international intervention in Zimbabwe looks unlikely. Mr Mugabe might accept food aid, but he will not want foreign troops, or armies of aid workers, arriving with it.
Many Zimbabweans were hoping for a sign from Mr Mugabe that he would slow or halt the state-sponsored destruction of commercial agriculture. But they were disappointed. "We brook no impediment," he said in his speech, "and we will certainly suffer no avoidable delays." He accused his opponents of being "rapacious supremacists", and suggested that they should go back to Britain, the former colonial power.
Zimbabwe's cereal production has fallen by two-thirds over the past two years, partly because of drought, but mainly because Mr Mugabe has been waging war on the 4,500 mostly white commercial farmers who have traditionally prevented droughts from turning to famine.
Mr Mugabe is persecuting white farmers because he is afraid of them, and because, being white, they make convenient scapegoats for the disastrous results of his economic policies. He fears them because, though numerically insignificant, they are a powerful economic force: farming and related industries have in the past accounted for more than half of Zimbabwe's gross domestic product. Many white farmers do, indeed, support the MDC and some helped bankroll its campaign for the presidential election in March. This campaign was so popular that Mr Mugabe had to cheat on a mammoth scale to retain his job. It was the closest he has ever come to losing power, and he did not enjoy the experience.
So since the election, he has set about neutralising his enemies. Roughly 95% of commercial farmers were given until last week to vacate their properties. Mr Mugabe promises that their land will be given to poor blacks, but in cases where the owners have already fled or been evicted, their farms have often been given to rich cronies of the ruling party. Mr Mugabe says that the new farmers will be in situ in time for the new planting season in October. But past takeovers have resulted in irrigation systems breaking down and once fertile fields reverting to barren bush: hence the current food crisis.
Justice for Agriculture, a farmers' pressure group, estimates that 60% of farmers are still holed up in their homesteads, defying Mr Mugabe's order that they should leave. This figure is, of necessity, unreliable. Farmers who flee do not advertise the fact. It is unlikely, given shortages of fuel, spare parts and competence among state employees, that the government could evict thousands of farmers, along with their 2m or so workers and dependants, in a swift and orderly fashion. But if Mr Mugabe's militiamen start killing again-they have murdered 11 farmers since 2000, and tortured thousands of farmworkers-it could spark a mass exodus.
Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe denies eyewitness reports that his officials are using food aid as a political weapon, by denying food to people suspected of having voted for the opposition. "We shall feed all," he declared in his televised speech. "Even the stooges and puppets will have enough." Comforting words from a compassionate man.
…… The original decision to nominate Libya was taken by the U.N.'s African regional group, comprising all 54 African members. It was reaffirmed by heads of state attending the recently concluded inaugural summit of the new African Union (AU), the successor to the now-defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Joanna Weschler of HRW told IPS that the African group could change its mind on the nomination. "It is 100 percent in the hands of the African group, and if they so wish, they can reverse the decision."
Mungoven said that Libya's nomination violated African leaders' recent commitments to promote human rights and good governance through the New African Partnership for Development (NEPAD) which has been endorsed by leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy and Russia. At a meeting of G-8 leaders in Canada last month, NEPAD was assured of about six billion dollars in Western aid annually, starting in 2006. But this was based on the condition that African nations make a strong commitment to multi-party democracy, rule of law, respect for human rights, fair and free elections and free market economies.
NEPAD establishes a code of governance supporting basic freedoms and a system of peer review so African governments can hold one another to account for human rights violations, among other things. NEPAD's steering group comprises presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Daniel arap Moi of Kenya and Muammar el-Gaddafi of Libya.
HRW said Libya's nomination was a "real setback" for African governments' stated new commitment to human rights. "Libya's appointment to the steering group of NEPAD has already raised eyebrows among supporters of NEPAD," Mungoven said. "But putting Libya forward as Africa's choice to lead the world's human rights forum should really ring alarm bells," he added.****
Mugabe is right that the land was expropriated unjustly when white colonialists took over the country in 1890. But Zimbabwe is no longer the sparsely populated land the whites conquered. And the farmers are responsible for Zimbabwe's strong agriculture performance. Until a few years ago Zimbabwe was able to feed its more than 12 million people and have enough food for export. Now, thanks to Mugabe's misrule, it cannot feed itself.
The best approach would be a phased transfer of land supported by foreign donations. That would not serve Mugabe's political purposes, however. Land is used as a reward for Mugabe's supporters, and the confiscations recall his struggle to wrest the country, once known as Rhodesia, from whites. Following a tainted presidential election in March, the United States and the European Union imposed travel sanctions against leading officials. These have little impact, and it would be wrong to impose harsh measures that might harm ordinary Zimbabweans.
South Africa, which borders Zimbabwe, has tried to restrain Mugabe but in an understated way. Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, is trying to create a coalition of African leaders committed to democracy. Mugabe's misrule mocks their efforts. Public pressure ought to replace quiet diplomacy.[End]
My ISP had been rejecting emails from me since yesterday, so I cannot send the usual mass emails to editors & opinionators.
If you want to take a crack at email activism, look here:
Ignorance Making You Ill? Cure It!
for links, tools, & instructions about how to contact a pile of different people, and how to send a link to this story right here ( or anywhere else ) to a "mass email" using Outlook Express.
Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe denies eyewitness reports that his officials are using food aid as a political weapon, by denying food to people suspected of having voted for the opposition.
Catch 22, it will do no good for millions of Zimbabweans if food aid IS sent, Mugabe will not allow aid workers in to justly distribute it. So who's going to send food aid? And Mugabe will still blame the white farmers and the white Westerners for the resulting starvation. He's gone totally nuts and, as a practicing Marxist, will never relinquish power willingly.
I think that's beginning to dawn on some people. The question is, are they willing to let millions of people starve to death in order to leave a Marxist in power, or will they intercede to save lives? This is a real dilemma for LIBERALS. Then again, maybe not.
Lordy, I hope some of this is leaking out into the public's awareness... for years courageous radio hosts like Ken Hamblin have reported on this garbage coming out of Africa- and gotten a fair amount of angry calls about it, too.
I guess one of the things I detest most about so many on the Left- and most of the press & media- is the oppressive censorship of "talk they don't like to hear."
My ISP still won't accept email ( "we're working on it... no ETA..." ) so let's add some boilerplate:
We have a "bump list" here
( see the link below )
of subjects and items "indexed" to various categories of interest. Over 300 of them.
Want to know more about Home Schooling, vouchers, environmental issues? We have them. Second Amendment? Right there. All you have to do is follow the links.
Virtually all articles are "sourced"-- there's a link back to the original, so you can judge for yourself the merits. You won't get that with the TV sound bites. The posters' opinions which follow are often more illuminating than the articles.
There is a wealth of information- some of it unique- on this site for those with eyes to see.
AfricaWatch:
| To find all articles tagged or indexed using AfricaWatch, click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | AfricaWatch | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
First it was Rhodesia then SA now America paying the price of silence.
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