Zimbabwe - A Disgrace To Humanity

[Robert Roberts]

This is off the BBC News website dated 13/12/02

READ AND WEEP.

"President Robert Mugabe has threatened to take retribution against white Zimbabweans if Britain and other countries continue to exert pressure on his government.

We realised we had nurtured enemies among us, so we started treating them as enemies

President Robert Mugabe on white farmers

"The more they (Western countries) work against us... the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here," Mr Mugabe said at the annual conference of his ruling party, Zanu-PF.

In the speech broadcast live on national television and radio, he said countries allying themselves with Britain would be recognised as "our enemies like we recognise Britain as our enemy".

Zimbabwe's Government has been widely criticised for its controversial land redistribution programme and for controversial elections earlier this year which many said were flawed.

Mr Mugabe called Australia, New Zealand and Germany "naughty" for supporting Britain and blamed them for Zimbabwe's problems.

But he lashed out at Britain in particular, referring to Tony Blair's government as an imperialist monster, a serpent that needed to be sent into the sea and drowned.

Defiance

He said that white farmers resisting the land reform scheme had "committed an unforgivable sin... which shall always live against them".

"We saw who they were, what they were and we realised we had nurtured enemies among us, so we started treating them as enemies, enemies of our government, enemies of our party, enemies of our people."

Mr Mugabe blames colonialism for Zimbabwe's problems

Mr Mugabe defiantly rejected calls by European countries to create a government of national unity with the opposition party.

"...Let them hang wherever they are," he said referring to the leaders of opposition.


BBC correspondent Hilary Andersson says Zimbabwe is facing a severe food crisis, with around half of its population facing critical food shortages. This is partly due to the regional drought but also due to the country's land crisis.

The ruling party's leaders say their policies to date have been highly successful. They say they have so far resettled 374,000 small-scale black farmers on land formerly owned by white farmers.

Many Zimbabweans and outsiders blame the land policy for the country's drastic economic decline.

Zimbabweans now queue for basics like bread, maize, sugar and oil on a daily basis.

With inflation now at more than 150% and high unemployment, there is huge discontent in the country.

But Mr Mugabe's speech makes it clear that he is in no mood for
compromise."

ARE YOU WATCHING MR BUSH, AND WHERE ARE ALL THOSE ANTI APARTHIED PROTESTERS?

 

[zul-aid]

Re: Zimbabwe - A Disgrace To Humanity

Originally posted by Robert Roberts
This is off the BBC News website dated 13/12/02

READ AND WEEP.

"President Robert Mugabe has threatened to take retribution against white Zimbabweans if Britain and other countries continue to exert pressure on his government.

We realised we had nurtured enemies among us, so we started treating them as enemies

President Robert Mugabe on white farmers

"The more they (Western countries) work against us... the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here," Mr Mugabe said at the annual conference of his ruling party, Zanu-PF.

In the speech broadcast live on national television and radio, he said countries allying themselves with Britain would be recognised as "our enemies like we recognise Britain as our enemy".

Zimbabwe's Government has been widely criticised for its controversial land redistribution programme and for controversial elections earlier this year which many said were flawed.

Mr Mugabe called Australia, New Zealand and Germany "naughty" for supporting Britain and blamed them for Zimbabwe's problems.

But he lashed out at Britain in particular, referring to Tony Blair's government as an imperialist monster, a serpent that needed to be sent into the sea and drowned.

Defiance

He said that white farmers resisting the land reform scheme had "committed an unforgivable sin... which shall always live against them".

"We saw who they were, what they were and we realised we had nurtured enemies among us, so we started treating them as enemies, enemies of our government, enemies of our party, enemies of our people."

Mr Mugabe blames colonialism for Zimbabwe's problems

Mr Mugabe defiantly rejected calls by European countries to create a government of national unity with the opposition party.

"...Let them hang wherever they are," he said referring to the leaders of opposition.


BBC correspondent Hilary Andersson says Zimbabwe is facing a severe food crisis, with around half of its population facing critical food shortages. This is partly due to the regional drought but also due to the country's land crisis.

The ruling party's leaders say their policies to date have been highly successful. They say they have so far resettled 374,000 small-scale black farmers on land formerly owned by white farmers.

Many Zimbabweans and outsiders blame the land policy for the country's drastic economic decline.

Zimbabweans now queue for basics like bread, maize, sugar and oil on a daily basis.

With inflation now at more than 150% and high unemployment, there is huge discontent in the country.

But Mr Mugabe's speech makes it clear that he is in no mood for
compromise."

ARE YOU WATCHING MR BUSH, AND WHERE ARE ALL THOSE ANTI APARTHIED PROTESTERS?

Mate have you ever been to Zimbabwe?

I have, i have lived under Mugabe for six months before this all happened now i dont agree with his methods but white farmers dont belong here, Mugabe has in a way lost his mind (he is getting old) however the bigger picture is AIDS 1 in 3 kids in Zimbabwe will die from AIDS in 20 years that number increases in Harare by about 1 in 2 and even more so in Bulawayo

Mugabe is a dictator but what the british did to those people and what some of them are doing now is quite bad

Under Robert Smiths leadership more people died at a quicker rate then Adi Amin (now if you dont know who that guy is look it up). Now Britian wanted this guy out and they replaced him however when this new guy came in he wanted to give Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) independance even changing the name East Rhodesia then Rhodesia-Zimbabwe and even changing the name of the capital from Salisbury to Harare. However the current English government werent happy with this new liberal turn and decided to sack this guy leaving Zimbabwe open to attacks here is where Mugabe came in and for 20 years he let most of the people who oppresed his people in staying on his farms. Zimbabwe is dieing of AIDS and Mugabe needed to be re-elected but was against any reform to do with AIDS so used white farmers who pay there helpers NOTHING expect they can live on the farm (usually with no cover).

Now you can say ohh but he is killing white farmers THEY SHOULDNT BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE most of them were born in England. Some of the most successful farmers in Harare are infact Cricketers (Flowers, Streak, Whittals, Campbells) however they voted in favour of Robert Mugabe's younger brother to head the Zimbabe Cricket Union so they voted for this guy so you and me dont know the full story this is probably a huge publicity sunt and this isnt an aparthied this is JUSTICE served the wrong way.

 

[INFESTA]

Re: Re: Zimbabwe - A Disgrace To Humanity

Originally posted by zul-aid
Under Robert Smiths leadership more people died at a quicker rate then Adi Amin (now if you dont know who that guy is look it up).

I looked it up - > Robert Smith:

Here he is when he visited Southpark:

 

[zul-aid]

I was refering to Edi Amin or whatever he is called (funny yes) i think the other Robert Smith is died.

 

[JTNY]

I am not 'too' educated on this issue. I'll just say Zimbabwe has plenty of problems and militia's and land reform schemes are not helping.

 

[rhizome17]

I would much rather be a white farmer in Zimbabwe than a black member of the main opposition party. Mugabe is defintiely going about his business in the wrong way, but I am suspisious of the fact that it the ex-colonials who get all the media attention when there is alot worse happening there.

 

[Robert Roberts]

No I haven't been to Zimbabwe, but I do know people who have lived there and feel that they were persecuted by the racist murderer. On Ian Smith, who was leader of Rhodesia, before Mugabe came into power in the late 70's. I agree he was, and still is a evil man. On IDI AMIN, he was the brutal dictator who forced tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians, (most of whom were the breadmakers in the country at the time) in the early 70s.

You must understand that I will not begin even thinking about your campaigns about certain causes (i.e PALESTINE) until you stand up and not just condemm what the evil regime in Zimbabwe is doing to not that country, but its surrounding states, not just support the boycott which I hope certain cricket teams will do at the forthcoming Cricket World Cup, but press for action, whether diplomatic or otherwise (and that includes the utter removal of Mugabe from the Zimbabwean leadership)

Why is it that I think that you detest certain countries presidents i.e Bush, Sharon, Howard (all right-wing...funny that!) and tend to understand certain others way of ethically cleansing peoples that they hate (Mugabe and certain other leaders)

DON'T ATTACK IRAQ. REMOVE MUGABE!

 

[zul-aid]

Originally posted by Robert Roberts
No I haven't been to Zimbabwe, but I do know people who have lived there and feel that they were persecuted by the racist murderer. On Ian Smith, who was leader of Rhodesia, before Mugabe came into power in the late 70's. I agree he was, and still is a evil man. On IDI AMIN, he was the brutal dictator who forced tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians, (most of whom were the breadmakers in the country at the time) in the early 70s.

You must understand that I will not begin even thinking about your campaigns about certain causes (i.e PALESTINE) until you stand up and not just condemm what the evil regime in Zimbabwe is doing to not that country, but its surrounding states, not just support the boycott which I hope certain cricket teams will do at the forthcoming Cricket World Cup, but press for action, whether diplomatic or otherwise (and that includes the utter removal of Mugabe from the Zimbabwean leadership)

Why is it that I think that you detest certain countries presidents i.e Bush, Sharon, Howard (all right-wing...funny that!) and tend to understand certain others way of ethically cleansing peoples that they hate (Mugabe and certain other leaders)

DON'T ATTACK IRAQ. REMOVE MUGABE!

I for one never approved of his methods but wouldnt you like your grandchildren to take back what is rightfully theres

Farms in Zimbabwe are what makes the economy going, however when you have white farmers on your land whom continually pay you nothing to work on your land then you see a little injustice

I agree romove mugabe but also remove the white farmers as you are promoting an aparthied

now you are porbably going to mention Australia and the aborigines. Many aborigines just want an apology and thats majority if not all want us to stay and or have been sadly wiped out .

Yeah double standards

BTW you forgot your leader Blair whom is left.
see **** sticks to both sides

also i believe AIDS is a bigger problem then white farmers going back to the old dart

how many white farmers were killed over the past two years what 20? how about 1 in every 3 kids dead in 20 years.

 

[rhizome17]

Originally posted by Robert Roberts
No I haven't been to Zimbabwe, but I do know people who have lived there and feel that they were persecuted by the racist murderer. On Ian Smith, who was leader of Rhodesia, before Mugabe came into power in the late 70's. I agree he was, and still is a evil man. On IDI AMIN, he was the brutal dictator who forced tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians, (most of whom were the breadmakers in the country at the time) in the early 70s.

You must understand that I will not begin even thinking about your campaigns about certain causes (i.e PALESTINE) until you stand up and not just condemm what the evil regime in Zimbabwe is doing to not that country, but its surrounding states, not just support the boycott which I hope certain cricket teams will do at the forthcoming Cricket World Cup, but press for action, whether diplomatic or otherwise (and that includes the utter removal of Mugabe from the Zimbabwean leadership)

Why is it that I think that you detest certain countries presidents i.e Bush, Sharon, Howard (all right-wing...funny that!) and tend to understand certain others way of ethically cleansing peoples that they hate (Mugabe and certain other leaders)

DON'T ATTACK IRAQ. REMOVE MUGABE!

I understand where you are coming from, whilst the last election (if you can call it that) was on in Zimbabwe, I listened to a doco on the BBC World Service (radio). The journalist was smuggled in via the boot of a car (I think there was a doco on the tv version as well) and he paid particular emphasis to what happened to those who dared to promote the main opposition party. I say I would rather be a white farmer there because what they are suffering is just can't compare with the blatant assault and murder of opposition party supporters and the imprionment of their leaders. I can see what Mugabe is trying to achieve and understand his motives i.e. historical colonial injustices, but there is no way in hell I can agree with his tactics. Much the same way as I can see what the Palestinians want to achieve, but do not support suicide bombings. And much the same way as I can understand Sharons perspective, but can not support his tactics. As far as Zimbabwes election is concerned it was completely rigged (to state the obvious) and Mugabe would not be there were it a free and fair election. I don't think that what he is doing constitutes ethnic cleansing, but there is certainly a degree of violence and oppression that warrants diplomatic attention.

 

[monkee]

How can you guys turn a 'Mugabe is a racist dictator' into a competition about 'who is he persecuting the most'? Fact is he's persecuting white farmer (who probably had nothing to do with Britains colonial past) for owning the land. He's persecuting anyone who stands up or says anything against him. He's also rigging elections.

Now his people are starving because it's the fighters that are running the farms and they haven't got a clue how to farm. He's not just persecuting the white farmers, he's also persecuting their black workers, who may not have been getting paid much, but they knew what they were doing. If they were unhappy then give them more rights.

Surely, whilst we can all understand the thinking behind suicide bombers and Mugabe's actions, we must condemn them and realise that Arafat is as bad as Sharon is as bad as Mugabe... ?

Maybe Bush and Blair should open their eyes to the big picture and take the oil from them.

 

[rhizome17]

Originally posted by monkee
How can you guys turn a 'Mugabe is a racist dictator' into a competition about 'who is he persecuting the most'? Fact is he's persecuting white farmer (who probably had nothing to do with Britains colonial past) for owning the land. He's persecuting anyone who stands up or says anything against him. He's also rigging elections.

Now his people are starving because it's the fighters that are running the farms and they haven't got a clue how to farm. He's not just persecuting the white farmers, he's also persecuting their black workers, who may not have been getting paid much, but they knew what they were doing. If they were unhappy then give them more rights.

Surely, whilst we can all understand the thinking behind suicide bombers and Mugabe's actions, we must condemn them and realise that Arafat is as bad as Sharon is as bad as Mugabe... ?

Maybe Bush and Blair should open their eyes to the big picture and take the oil from them.

Not sure if those comments were directed at me ?
But I am not turning it into a competition, if my comments appeared to say that I apologise. I was just saying that I can see the logic behind wanting to exact some sort of justice when it comes to the colonialist heritage. But I am definitely against his methods. I think I said that I disagreed with the suicide bombings as well? I also condemned his actions, but maybe your post wasn't aimed at my comments .

 

[rhizome17]

Originally posted by Juventus_theres_next_year
I am not 'too' educated on this issue. I'll just say Zimbabwe has plenty of problems and militia's and land reform schemes are not helping.

This is a few months old, but interesting nonetheless:
Zimbabwe: On the brink of change, or of a coup?

By Patrick Bond

Here comes the most fascinating election of 2002: Robert Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe through guerrilla war to liberation from Rhodesian colonists in 1980, facing a presidential vote in March where the challenger is Morgan Tsvangirai, who led the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions from 1988-2000.

The confused, radical rhetoric associated with the Zimbabwe African National Union's (Zanu's) dying nationalism is contrasted with the confused, good-governance-plus-neoliberal-economics programme of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Hopes that Mugabe's repressive streak would fade after the June 2000 parliamentary elections, when each side won nearly 50%, proved unfounded. According to a report by Amani Trust, a reputable monitoring group, `27,633 people have fallen victim to human rights violations in Zimbabwe and 20,853 have been forcibly displaced by violence' between January and October 2001.

State harassment has actually worsened since then:

one day absurd (arresting Tsvangirai for not having a walkie-talkie license), the next comic (labeling any anti-government provocation as `terrorist' apparently in lip-synch with Bush's rhetoric), the next tragic (periodic murders of opposition party activists, frame-ups and intensifying paramilitary activity),

the next counterproductive (having the Malawian secret police arrest civil-society visitors to a Southern African Development Community meeting on Zimbabwe's crisis last week), the next ominous: the announcement on January 9 of military insubordination if Tsvangirai is elected president.

That threat came from a motley junta-in-waiting, led by Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Vitalis Zvinavashe:

"We wish to make it very clear to all Zimbabwean citizens that the security organisations will only stand in support of those political leaders that will pursue Zimbabwean values, traditions and beliefs for which thousands of lives were lost, in pursuit of Zimbabwe's hard-won independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests.

"To this end, let it be known that the highest office in the land is a straitjacket whose occupant is expected to observe the objectives of the liberation struggle. We will, therefore, not accept, let alone support or salute, anyone with a different agenda that threatens the very existence of our sovereignty, our country and our people."

Tsvangirai interpreted (accurately, I think):

"If one takes into account the recent spate of repressive laws and the general negative public sentiment towards the ruling party, it would seem Zanu is running out of legitimate ways to perpetuate its misrule. The party itself acknowledged this when it sent the top brass of the military to give some bizarre advance notice of a coup d'etat when they lose."

Panic was indeed in the air at Zanu's Harare headquarters. According to a reliable press account, a `confidential Zanu central committee report' of December 2001 had included `a submission by the party's security department' which warned: `Corrupt leaders within the party are seriously endangering and eroding the party's fortunes in the forthcoming presidential election.'

In a major city, Masvingo, the potential loss of one faction's support for Mugabe would potentially `cost the party the presidential election.'

A variety of overlapping strategies, combining carrots and sticks, have suddenly came in to play to prevent what would seem to be a certain Mugabe loss in a free, fair poll. To prevent the vote itself being free and fair, voter registration has been limited to those current Zimbabwe residents (i.e., no absentee ballots permitted) who showed proof of residence such as credit accounts, or verifiable letters from their landlords.

Everything possible was done to dissuade urban residents from registering, while Zanu-aligned rural chiefs and headmen were permitted to vouch for `their' constituents during registration.

Just as important as vote rigging, government vote-buying has begun in earnest. Populist price controls were applied late last year. State patronage was stepped up, from the capital city across the countryside. Urgent work orders were given so as to show the electorate some progress by March.

In December, the Supreme Court reversed earlier rulings so as to support Mugabe's `fast-track' (but by all accounts chaotic) land acquisition programme. Mugabe's ally, chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, replaced Anthony Gubbay, a white judge who resigned last year under threats of violence from war veterans responsible for occupying more than 1,000 farms owned by wealthy whites since February 2000.

Mugabe now claims dramatic land reform successes: 250,000 households resettled in recent months, compared to the total of 70,000 families who gained land over the previous two decades.

 

[rhizome17]

But although any improvement in access for the landless masses is to be applauded, independent media investigations found these stats to be wildly inflated. Moreover, land minister Joseph Made is maintaining a two-decade old practice by allocating the best farms to top government and Zanu officials.

Likewise, to curry favour with his most vital constituents, Mugabe offered security personnel a 100% pay raise a few weeks ago, the same as the inflation rate; most workers had to settle for increases closer to 50%.

Worse state repression was also threatened when four laws were introduced in parliament earlier this month, aiming to tilt the electoral playing field by barring monitors and banning distribution of leaflets and posters;

to impose absurd new security restrictions, including making it an offense to criticise the president;

to shackle the media by imposing licensing requirements, barring foreign journalists and making it illegal to publish news that would `cause alarm and despondency';

and to repress labour by denying rights of assembly and the right to strike.

Under these conditions, there is no way that any observer can legitimately call the upcoming presidential election `free and fair.' Virtually all the minimum conditions were sabotaged by the ruling party months prior to the poll. Virtually all political unrest is catalysed by informal Zanu militias, with MDC members (including members of parliament) as victims, some fatal.

Not only is the threat by Mugabe to make `real war'--uttered at December's Zanu party congress in Victoria Falls--being taken seriously by his loyal cadres. The political misery of the masses has been amplified by a rash of pre-election shortages: maize, cooking oil, sugar, fertilizer and even milk in some sites.

(Even I, a petit-bourgeois visitor to a mountain-resort area for three weeks over the xmas holidays, sometimes failed to get sugar for my cuppa...)

Are shortages the result of hoarding by mainly white wholesale firms, as Mugabe regularly alleges? Or does scarcity logically follow the widespread imposition of excessively-strict price controls?

To justify their interpretation that controls were not unreasonable, officials point to the consistent availability of cheap bread (whose regulaged price per loaf was lowered from the equivalent of US$0.16 to US$0.13 a few months earlier).

But private-sector suppliers of many other essentials can't keep up with demand, given the shrunken and in some cases negative profit margins. Zanu isn't ready to try either nationalisation of these suppliers, or provide sufficient subsidies to cover the gap.

The economy continues to decay, with output down more than 15% over the last two years.

To pay for vital imports such as gasoline and medicines, Mugabe was reduced in late 2001 to emergency band-aid measures, including trade deals with Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam, and import finance from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, Afreximbank, the African Preferential Trade Area Bank and the People's Republic of China.

Still, he announced in his December 2001 State of the Nation address,

"US$150 million of privatisation proceeds will go towards repayment of the external debt'; in relation to the electricity company Zesa, Zimbabwe allocated scarce foreign exchange to South Africa to cover `supply arrears and service debt, equivalent to US$259.9 million, as well as paying for current power imports.'"

These boasts provide hints about how the ruling party would bust sanctions, were they to become more serious than already exist due to non-payment of foreign debt and the Western donor's aid boycott.

After the Southern African Development Community's summit in Malawi last week failed to generate sufficient pro-democracy rhetoric, Tsvangirai angrily told the BBC that he expected far more from Big Brother to the South:

"The threat to undermine the elections by the military, by President Mugabe himself, should actually send shock waves to South Africa and say, under those circumstances, we are going to cut fuel, we are going to cut transport links. Those kind of measures, even if they are implemented at a low level, send the right signals."

South African deputy foreign affairs minister Aziz Pahad quickly dismissed the request to turn his government's failing `quietly-quietly' strategy into more concrete solidarity:

"We've been working at this for a long time, trying to convince (people), that what is called (for is) quiet diplomacy. Calls for sanctions are misplaced. Effectively sanctions have been applied in Zimbabwe. All foreign aid has been terminated. There is effectively no new development aid. Investment has been frozen and exports from Zimbabwe have been stopped, I think. Sanctions are not the way to go."

Such condescending `I know better' tone and content remind me of capitalist-class rhetoric against the African National Congress during the 1980s, when Pahad was a vociferous proponent of anti-apartheid sanctions.

The ANC began its sanctions-campaigning during the 1960s, and Pahad and his comrades always argued that even if black South Africans were hurt in the process, the short-term pain was justified by the long-term gain: removing the illegitimate regime. Is Pahad now merely self-interestedly hypocritical--or could a case be made that Tsvangirai's call for a more serious targeted-sanctions threat from Pretoria will backfire?

The main reasons Zimbabwean democrats debate this very point are, firstly, Mugabe will use tightened sanctions as a whitewash excuse for his own economic mismanagement; and secondly, while Zanu can retain power especially through its monopoly of military might, sanctions will mainly disrupt the white-owned business sector, which supports the MDC financially, and employs most of its core working-class loyalists.

These points are valid. Yet at some stage in a struggle for political justice, a people must decide what kinds of pressure points they are willing to ask others, acting in solidarity, to impose upon their enemy, even if there are detrimental side-effects. And what they ask of those of us who are able to help, we must respect.

Did Tsvangirai's call for a serious South African sanctions threat reflect a full-fledged debate amongst Zimbabwean democrats (or even amongst MDC leaders)?

Was the decision arrived at through as much reflection and consensus as is probably required?

Apparently not, yet the need for the MDC to ratchet up the pressure is obvious, especially in the event Mugabe illegitimately clings to power, or Zvinavashe carries out his threatened treason.

The mass of Zimbabweans need all the support that they can get under such circumstances, including sanctions, once popular organisations advocate them in the wake of mass consultations.

But indeed that remains the most important variable, namely, the independent, critical capacity of the progressive movements: labour, residents' associations, human-rights advocates, left-leaning churches, women's groups, the National Constitutional Assembly, and many others which attended the National Working People's Convention three years ago.

After nearly 15 years working in and around the beleaguered Zimbabwean Left, I think the question remains: can enough ordinary people align with progressive civil-society challenges to *both* Zanu's repression and the MDC's orthodox economic policies, to make a real difference to their own country's future?

Or are radical rhetoric and ideological confusion associated with the exhaustion of both African nationalism and Zimbabwe's capital accumulation cycle, going to close the current window of opportunity for social change?

 

[monkee]

Originally posted by rhizome17
Not sure if those comments were directed at me ?

They weren't directed at anyone, it just seemed that a lot of comments made by people seemed to be missing the point I thought Robert Roberts were trying to make, that all the 'World Leaders' that were hungry to get Iraq with any excuse were obviously missing what is going on in other countries, particularly Zimbabwe, because there's nothing for them to gain from these other countries. As we have said in other threads.

But I am not turning it into a competition, if my comments appeared to say that I apologise. I was just saying that I can see the logic behind wanting to exact some sort of justice when it comes to the colonialist heritage.

I can fully see what your saying about wanting to exact some sort of 'justice' when it comes to Englands colonial past. With you being a NZ-er and me a Welshman, we'd both know and have learned how our people were persecuted by them in the past. But I don't feel that you can get justice in the sense that you say Mugabe wants, it appears to me what Mugabe wants is revenge.

But in my opinion it's not even revenge that he wants, I doubt he thinks about the colonial past except to have a go at Blair. He is a power hungry dictator that's trying to hide it under a blanket of false democracy. He doesn't actually care about his people, as your article showed, he cares about staying in power by rewarding his 'military' and punishing/bribing/repressing his people, especially those that question and oppose him.

But I am definitely against his methods. I think I said that I disagreed with the suicide bombings as well? I also condemned his actions, but maybe your post wasn't aimed at my comments .

You don't have to explain yourself mate. I realise this, because everyone that's posted in this thread has said in other threads that they condem these sorts of actions but can, in some way, see that they are desperate to get their point accross to people that don't seem to be listening.

 

[Robert Roberts]

This is off the BBC news Website


Zimbabwe's white farmers own much of the country's best agricultural land.
According to government figures published before the current crisis, some 4, 400 whites owned 32% of Zimbabwe's agricultural land - around 10m ha - while about one million black peasant families farmed 16m ha or 38%.

But much of the white-owned land is in more fertile areas with better rainfall, while the black farming areas are often in drought-prone regions. So in terms of prime farming land, whites own a disproportionate share.

Where they do exist side by side, huge, modern, mechanised estates are divided by a mere fence from subsistence farmers living in mud huts.

The situation was created in colonial times when blacks were forced off their ancestral lands.

"The land question" was a major cause of the guerrilla war which led to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

Twenty years later, little has changed.

Land reform and redistribution is expensive: farmers asked to give up some of their property demand compensation; and infrastructure, such as roads, bore-holes, schools and clinics, is needed for those who are given the land.

President Robert Mugabe says Britain should pay because it was in charge when the problem was created.

He also points out that the colonialists did not compensate Africans when they first took the land.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's government responds that £44m has been provided for Zimbabwe's land reform since 1980, and that much of the redistributed land has so far ended up in the hands of cabinet ministers and other government officials.

Other donors agree and have refused to support further land reform unless it is more transparent.

There is also concern that taking large, sophisticated farms and then sub-dividing them into plots to give to people without the means to manage them properly could spell disaster for Zimbabwe's agricultural economy.

A steep fall in production on white-owned farms is one reason why two years of drought look set to become a famine in which up to six million Zimbabweans could go hungry.

Despite promises that the main targets for seizure would be under-utilised farms, many of those on the so-called "hit-list" have been efficient growers of tobacco - Zimbabwe's major export.

The white farmers themselves do not see why they should have to pay because of what happened in the past.

Many say they bought their farms at market rates since Zimbabwe's independence and reject the whole "colonial sins" argument.

Some farmers have been paid compensation but under a new law, they must leave their farms and wait for their money - not the other way round.

Mr Mugabe's opponents accuse him of exploiting the land issue to win back rural support amid the current economic crisis.

They say he is sacrificing the country's future in order to remain in power.

For more information on Zimbabwe go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/africa/2000/zimbabwe/