Germany is threatening to cancel all aid to Zimbabwe following the seizure of a white owned farm belonging to a Germany national by Mugabe thugs. Mugabe propagandists were quick to tell Germany, Zimbabwe does not need the aid.
It is all very well for Mugabe and his cronies to say that, they do not depend on aid. It is a different kettle of fish for the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who are now totally dependent on it.
Only last month UNSEF stepped in to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean children because the Zimbabwe government did not have the funds to carry out this important duty. Funny enough the same government had just spent US$10 million renovating the National Stadium and a few weeks later paid Brazil US$1.5 million to play football there.
Aid from the West has been used for basic necessities such as food and medicines. It is ironic that as many as 80% of Zimbabweans should be dependent on imported food aid when the country used to be the biggest exporter of food before the land redistribution programme, Mugabe thinks so highly of.
“Which country had its economy built on aid?” asked a Mugabe loyalist. I do know that aid constitute a significant part of many countries, especially in Africa. I also know that after Zimbabwe’s economic melt down; we will need aid to rebuild our economy. But I do not expect you to acknowledge these economic realities; you do not care about the ordinary people to whom aid means life and death.
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The West and the world at large have treated Mugabe with kid gloves for far too long. It is about time that the world put its foot down. What is happening in Zimbabwe is the machinations of the dictator riding rough shod over the white farmers, his political opponents and defenceless civilians for one purpose and one purpose only – to retain political power at all cost.
Mugabe has used the white farmers as a cover to hide his forced acquisition of their land and to give his cronies as a reward for their blind loyalty and support. Zimbabwe’s economic melt down was triggered by this reckless and selfish behaviour by Mugabe. Not even his cronies have benefited from this since they did not have the commitment or ability to make productive use of the farms. It is the ordinary people who have paid the highest price for this failed land redistribution programme.
There are but a few white farms left now, Mugabe is keeping up the pressure on this because it suits his anti-white rhetoric itself an important smokescreen for political repression. Mugabe has his beady eyes on the Marange diamonds as the source of money to bride his ever demanding cronies and to bankroll the coming elections. In 2008 elections Gideon Gono had bankrolled that election from money looted from other people’s bank accounts held by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe does not care about the property rights of the white farmers, international law and norms; the basic rights of ordinary Zimbabweans and their right to life itself. He stopped caring about all that a long time ago; he crossed the Rubicon a long, long time ago. It is high time countries like Germany, the West realised that and treat Mugabe accordingly!
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