Zimbabwe...

[REASON]

"Do you have change for a half-billion note?"

 

:hihi:

 

Yeah, but all I got is ones. ;):D

 

 

"Okay, you got a 30 pound bag of rice, 2 litres of goat's milk, 1 loaf of bread, and 4 slices of gum. That'll be 23 billion, 756 million, 348 thousand, and 82 dollars, plus tax." :D

 

Stupid!

[Boerseun]

I have no answer to this.

 

I live in South Africa, and cannot fathom, comprehend nor even begin to understand the stance taken by my government over the whole mess.

 

Xenophobic violence have now broken out in my country, with many Zimbabwean deaths the result, because of the uncontrolled influx of illegals from across the border. They are mainly here because of the disaster in Zim. Which my government, of course, denies.

 

The moment they accept the fact that Zim is a disaster, then they can classify the illegals in SA as political refugees (which they are), and the six+ million zimbabweans in South Africa can get the proper international legal protection they need and deserve.

 

But for some reason, Mugabe (as a fellow liberation struggler) is above the law. To protect Mugabe's image, the presidents of the Southern African subcontinent (in particular Thabo Mbeki) are willing to sacrifice the entire country of Zimbabwe. Optimistic estimates have placed the recovery of the Zimbabwean economy to levels reached ten years ago, at more than 50 years. Nice going, Thabo.

 

I have never been as ashamed of being a South African as I am right now.

[DougF]

Boerseun

I have never been as ashamed of being a South African as I am right now.

As an American, I don't understand why we don't do something about this, we have to stick our noses in everyones business, why not here?

If this keeps up it could destabilize the whole region, putting a real strain on the economies of the world,

 

we as the people of Earth we need to stop this and all Genocide not as Americans, Australians, Norwegian or Russians but as Earthlings.

 

It is time to stop destroying the environment and everything we touch.

Come on people, Wake UP. :applause:

[Nevermind]

Boerseun, as a fellow South African, I share your shame. The recent xenophobic attacks in SA are getting worse, Zim is deteriorating even further and our president has done nothing and is actually in denial! I can't tell you how often the word "WHAT!!!!" explodes from my mouth in absolute disbelief when i watch the news every day...I can't believe that things have become so utterly ridiculous and no-one is doing anything about it! It saddens me that our leaders, who I was once so proud of for standing tall and fighting the good fight, have totally lost the plot.

 

Thank you for making the effort to get smart people like hypo readers informed. Good job! I hope some solutions are found soon...

[InfiniteNow]

BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwe halts opposition rallies

 

But when that food runs out early next year, they say between two and four million people - up to a third of the population - will need food aid.

 

<See map of food shortages in Zimbabwe>

 

The restrictions on aid agencies - making the government the sole provider of food aid - have drawn widespread condemnation.

 

The US ambassador to Zimbabwe said Mr Mugabe's government was using food as a weapon to get votes, distributing food only to its own supporters.

 

 

He said the government was also confiscating the identification cards of opposition supporters which means they cannot get government food aid and will not be able to vote in the presidential run-off.

 

 

[Boerseun]

So, whazzup in Zim, I hear you ask. There was an election, right? The ruling Zanu-PF party lost, right? What's going on there?

 

I'll tell you. Light up a cigarette first, and if you don't smoke, consider starting.

 

Right...

 

Torture camps, in which supporters of the opposition party are "re-educated", are ran by the ruling (illegaly so) Zanu-PF party. This finding was made public by Human Rights Watch in a comprehensive report made public yesterday.

 

HRW says "systematic violence" against supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) have "destroyed any possibility of any chance for a free and fair presidential run-off election on June 27".

 

The report, "Bullets for Each of You" - titled after a police warning to MDC supporters - reports of the mayhem caused by Zanu-PF members in rural areas, where a destructive terror campaign is ran against the opposition: "Animals are slaughtered, food is stolen, houses are burnt down" - this in a country reeling from food shortages, where the domestic agriculture sector has been completely and utterly destroyed, because the commercial farming sector was in the hands of white people. So-called war-veterans and youth militias set up road blocks and in doing so take control of enormous tracts of rural land. Their goal is to prevent the flow of information about the attrocities comitted by them, and to hunt down, torture and kill those suspected of supporting the MDC. In the "re-education" camps, thousands of of MDC supporters are subjected to torture by beatings with poles, whips, bicycle chains and any other object handy at the time.

 

In one of these "re-education" sessions on May 5th in Chiweshe in Central Mashonaland, Zanu-PF officials and "war veterans" beat 6 men to death and tortured another 70 men and women. This included the beating of a 76-year old woman. Torture victims in Chiweshe said it was done under order of "war veteran" "major" Caito Mhandu.

 

More than 2,000 victims of this spate of post-election violence have been identified so far. Thousands of victims have fled from their voting districts, and won't be able to vote in the run-off elections held at the end of June. The Zanu-PF supporters, of course, have no reason to flee, and will be there to cast their votes.

 

The presidential run-off will come and go, and chances are very good that Mugabe will indeed step out as the winner. But in the above I give you reasons why this election will not be free and fair, and any country accepting Mugabe's victory after this sham of an election has its head up its ***.

 

We citizens of Earth, and us citizens of South Africa in particular, have allowed this to degenerate to these levels.

 

Allowing this onnosele verdomde doos* any further leeway in his actions imply us condoning his rule.

 

And I will not have that.

 

Today we have a "Million Man March" in Pretoria against crime in South Africa, and the Zimbabwe topic is #1 on the agenda. Mark my words - conditions in Zimbabwe will bring the South African government to a fall yet...

[Chacmool]

Allowing this onnosele verdomde doos* any further leeway in his actions imply us condoning his rule.

In case you were wondering what the above Afrikaans expression means:

Cruel, merciless, vindictive, brutal, vicious dictator whose favourite pastime is torturing and killing thousands of innocent people and who holds the dubious honour of driving his formerly prosperous nation into starvation and causing the inflation to soar to ridiculous levels.

[Boerseun]

Thanks, Chac - I had every intention of explaining the term in a footnote. Look! I even added an asterisk in the original post! But then fuming about the issue at hand caused it to fly out my poepol... oh boy - there we go again...

[DougF]

Robert Mugabe's militia burn opponent’s wife alive

 

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro' date=' head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

 

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

 

The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

 

Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive last Friday by Zanu (PF) militiamen. Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare, did not suffer mutilation but died later of her burns; his six-year-old son perished in the flames. [/quote']

 

Robert Mugabe's militia burn opponent’s wife alive - Times Online

 

Is this ever going to end, or is the world just blind to this? :eek:

[Boerseun]

Unfortunately, it seems there must be an enormous oil well close in the vicinity of Harare before any country with any clout will give a rat's ***.

[freeztar]

Sometimes I'm really, really ashamed to be a human. :eek:

 

What can we do about this folks?! Would writing my senators potentially help at all? I'd like to do *something* rather than just sit here and read these awful stories.

[freeztar]

Unfortunately, it seems there must be an enormous oil well close in the vicinity of Harare before any country with any clout will give a rat's ***.

 

Aha! There's the answer! :eek:

 

What we do is draft up a highly scientific study on oil exploration in southern Africa. We can make fancy graphs and all that.

We conclude that Zim has a previously unknown reservoir of oil (one of the largest in the world).

 

Then, we send the report to the leaders of every industrialized country and sit back and wait. :hyper:

 

:hihi:

[Boerseun]

"We're not going to surrender our country because of a mere "X" on a piece of paper. How can a ballpoint pen fight against a gun?"

- Robert Mugabe, Harare, yesterday (16/06/2008)

 

These are the "Liberation Fighters", who struggled to enfranchise their people. They are now stomping and grinding into the ground those very same freedoms and liberties they fought for, purely for one crazy power-hungry loon to stay in office. That "mere "X" on a piece of paper" is exactly what it's about.

 

How do you get these "liberation fighters" to see that?

[Buffy]

Unfortunately, it seems there must be an enormous oil well close in the vicinity of Harare before any country with any clout will give a rat's ***.

Oh that won't help. Haven't you noticed all the dictator coddling that the Chinese are doing in Sudan?

 

Sounds though like Mugabe and Bush have a lot in common: they both think that Democracy means that the people get to vote to approve what ever they already have decided is the right thing to do....

 

YouTube - President Bush -- As long as I am the Dictator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvUEsm0wNIA

 

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger, :shade:

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

Looks like this crazy lunatic might just get his way.

 

 

Mugabe's Opponent Quits amid Escalating Violence : NPR

In Zimbabwe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew Sunday from the upcoming runoff election. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, said he's stepping down because he can no longer watch his supporters being killed for the sake of power.

[Boerseun]

The United Nations have, apparently, decided to now acknowledge Morgan Tsvangirai as the elected president of Zimbabwe, and declared Robert Mugabe and his government as illegal. Any dealings to be done by the international community and Zimbabwe is to be done with Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now to appoint his cabinet.

 

Apparently, only China and South Africa (big bloody surprise) voted against the above.

 

China and South Africa's hands are dripping with the blood of an entire country destroyed for no good reason.

 

"African Rennaisance"? My ***. Africa will, in a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years still be exactly where it is today. No progress, no advance, no alleviation of the terrible conditions found here. And simply because of idiots like Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki. The rest of the world have lost interest in Africa, and you really can't blame them. I'm seriously considering packing my bags.

 

...which is sad, if you consider that the Afrikaners have been in South Africa for longer than Americans of European descent have been in America. This is my country, my place of birth. But there is simply nothing to be done to make common sense prevail. Tribalism. That's one thing that the West have absolutely no notion of. And tribalism will be the end of this place yet.

 

I'm going to be flamed for this, I'm going to be castigated from all sides, but sometimes I'm beginning to think that Apartheid wasn't altogether a bad idea. Because of tribalism, what many outsiders tend to forget, is that one of the main tenets of Apartheid wasn't only to keep whites and blacks apart, it was also to keep the tribes apart. Tribes had their autonomous homelands, KwaZulu for the Zulus, Bophutatswana for the Tswanas, and so on. Today, you can't get into government unless you're a Xhosa. White/black doesn't have anything to do with it. The Xhosas are running the show, and they simply will not let anyone from another tribe into their little circle. And now? Guess what - the Zulus are getting tired of it. The Zulus are taking up arms, and have been running a low-scale war of terror against the Xhosas in both the Gauteng and KZN provinces. This would not have happened, had the tribes been kept apart.

 

Apartheid completely bad? Well, now... lemme think...

 

Also, keep in mind that in the Zimbabwean situation, Mugabe is a Shona, and Tsvangirai is a Matebele. The two have hated each other since the Zulus and Boers have chased Mzilikasi over the Limpopo in the 1800's, whence he formed the Matebeles. A Shona will never, never give up power to a Matebele, and vice versa.

 

Democracy on the European/American model will work here, only, and only if the map of Africa is completely re-drawn to give each group its own territory. Or, as is it is also known, Apartheid is re-instated. Sounds shocking, doesn't it?

 

Keep in mind, the most stable country in Africa is Botswana. It is a country with a 100% Tswana population. No tribalism. There ya go.

 

Goddamn, I digress. Ever so little...

[Boerseun]

Please go to this site , sign the document and show your support.

 

Current high-profile signatories so far:

 

Kofi Anan, Desmond Tutu, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Richard Goldstone, Kenneth Kaunda, Johann Rupert, and others.

 

Sign up with these guys and make history!