Clapping for the Zimbabwe Mugabe destroyed

Clapping for the tyrant

This is really beyond me and my understanding of issues African. I am always amazed at how problems in Africa are allowed to fester and sometimes accorded the impression that things are alright when again like I said in my blog yesterday, they really are not.

One can say they reason why Darfur has continued to be the greatest humanitarian crisis in years is because African leaders have refused to stand up to other leaders in Sudan who have decimated their people with a brutality that is now only second to the Nazis.

The Nigerian elections which were clearly unfair, not credible and definitely not free as many objective observers could see were passed off as free and fair, everyone accepting the unacceptable and moving on.

The one that really beats me is at the summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Lusaka yesterday, the gerontocrat Grand Despot of Africa – Robert Mugabe drew the greatest applause from the delegates at the summit.

Now, this might be a case of history not catching up with the present since Robert Mugabe at 83 is the oldest living African freedom fighter who is still in office, but this was at least a generation ago.

The demise of Zimbabwe

This man came into office in 1980, assumed all the levers of power soon afterwards and embarked on what is essentially the politics of anti-imperialism (PDF) – kicking the white man out and letting the indigenous black man take over the property and businesses of the white men who were forcibly dispossessed.

Now, there is more to the workings of this matter, but these few facts remain evident; Zimbabwe used to be a vibrant economy and the bread basket of Southern Africa, many of the white men who were driven out of their farms are just as Zimbabwean as any other black Zimbabwean – the white could possibly trace their ancestry back a lot further than any of their indigenous assailants.

The fundamental flaws in Mugabe’s mission was that a fair value was not placed on the property seized and after seizure, it was handed over to either his cronies or so-called freedom fighters who as mobs could raid the farms but had not inkling as to how to run the farms.

In the process, the mainstays of the Zimbabwean economy collapsed around a political situation that should be untenable if any African leader had risen up to really challenge the rape of Zimbabwe by selfsame Africans.

Now, about a quarter of Zimbabweans have fled the country to become refugees in neighbouring countries, the majority in South Africa as inflation in the country scales 4,500% and is expected to reach 100,000% by the end of 2007.

The Presidency introduced price controls which were of no effect because the shelves in the stores are empty as Mugabe still maintains a grip on power as a leviathan mite sucking dry the blood of everything that was once good about Zimbabwe.

Sorry Africans

Within this sorry tale of a catastrophic African failure, seemingly respectable people find the enthusiasm to applaud President Robert Mugabe for all he has undone for Africa.

I seriously do not get it, but this is enough to give Mr. Mugabe the impetus to carry on digging his country into the ground with South Africa being given the responsibility of resolving the democratic crisis that Mr. Mbeki has been too cack-handed to bring to any reasonable compromise.

I predict, if leaders of Southern Africa do not honestly speak up as men of principle about the unforgivable mess going on in Zimbabwe, France and Germany would be ready to host the 2010 World Cup because Zimbabwe for all intents and purposes is a man-made natural disaster that is claiming more victims and getting worse. I do not want to find myself in a security situation that could have been prevented if due attention, incentive or sanctions had been applied to get Zimbabwe out of the rut that it is in now.

Aussies put the boot in

Australia has never minced words about the situation in Zimbabwe to the extent that Prime Minister John Howard in preventing the national cricket team from visiting Zimbabwe for a test termed Mugabe a grubby dictator.

I am heartened by the fact that Australia would deport 8 students whose parents are senior members of the Mugabe government on one simple premise – “preventing those behind human rights abuses from giving their children the education their policies denied ordinary Zimbabweans”.

It is commendable and should be the kind of policy Western governments should mete out to leaders who plunder their homelands whilst seeking world-class opportunities for their kids in preparation for creating ascendant dynasties of leadership for generations to come.

As usual, Zimbabwe would react with some bombastic diatribe, to Australia this time, they are accused of “funding violence by aiding civic groups in the country”.

Two inflations one Zimbabwe

A basket of tragedy

The wicked man who rules Zimbabwe as a grubby dirty dictator must have interesting perspectives of inflation. Hardly a year ago, inflation was hitting a record 1,042.9%, then business quotations were not valid for more than 2 days - unimaginable - one year on, it has rocketed to 3,713% - it continues to fill me with amazement still where in the West an inflation rate of 4% would send jitters through the markets threatening all sorts of business confidence and possible collapse of certain financial instruments.

Poignantly, one report illustrates how traders are coping with these unprecedented inflation levels, a bar of soap gets cut into three and then each part is sold at slightly higher than a third of the price of whole.

Food stuff are now been re-weighed and repackaged into smaller quantities for more or less the same or higher price in what is referred to as the "Tsaono Basket", Tsaono meaning tragedy in Shona - a language spoken in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana.

The greater tragedy of this is the fact that hardly 10 years ago, Zimbabwe was the food basket of Southern Africa where farms which mainly belonged to white Zimbabweans produced enough to feed the people and export to neighbouring countries.

These farms were seized in some mendacious black empowerment drive and given to so-called war veterans who knew diddly-squat about agriculture or farm management - the result is a country on the verge of great famine and starvation - Mr. Mugabe might have appeared smart with what he had done but he has ruined his country and he is oblivious of this fact.

More police, still no farmers

We now find that in readiness the elections next year the police force is to see an inflation of 100%, the numbers are to be doubled to double the oppression and repression of a people who only want to survive and seek a government that would meet the socio-economic needs that any world citizen deserves.

Any wise old man would see the problem with his country and suffering amongst his people to realise that the recruitment drive should be in raising people with knowledge about farm management so as to start to bring Zimbabwe out of the doldrums.

We need to ditch the patriarchal system of patronage in Africa that allows for nasty old men to impose their selfish megalomaniac will on a people thereby impeding progress and condemning their countries to preventable suffering and unnecessary poverty.

Mr Robert Mugabe was once one of the leaders of the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, but that is now history because there is no point in being ruled by people of the same colour and then encountering such great hardship because of misgovernment, corruption and nepotism.

There may be some who would begin to wonder if the times under white rule were not times of great freedom and prosperity.

If that is not a greater indictment of Mr. Robert Mugabe and his cohorts or gang, nothing else is.