It is bad enough that bully should trade on someone’s bare toes but it is intolerable that the bully should trivialise the mental anguish and physical pain of their victim. Mugabe was in Copenhagen calling for the lifting of the targeted sanctions against him but would not even acknowledge the suffering his repressive rule has caused and continue to cause on the people of Zimbabwe – was the human rights violations which trigged the sanctions in the first place.
Here is a man whose thirty year reign of terror has left the entire Zimbabwe population in object poverty and despair. 90% of the people are out of work. Hospitals and schools are barely functioning. Up to 80% of the people are now depending on food aid – the nation used to grow enough to feed its own people and had plenty left over for export before Mugabe took over. The economic poverty has reached such level of depravity, it is killing people. Life expectancy has dropped from 65 years to 34 years in the thirty years of Mugabe’s rule.
Mugabe has also murdered tens of thousands of people to secure his iron grip on power. Last year Mugabe “declared war” on the people to force them to vote for him; over 400 people were murdered in cold blood.
The token punitive targeted sanctions by the West were in response to Mugabe’s continued failure to hold free and fair elections and other serious human rights violations. The West wanted to impose more far reaching sanctions but China and South Africa blocked their passage at the UN. A country like China with a very poor human rights record of its own would never support such UN disapproval that would set a precedence by which they too would be measured tomorrow. This, sadly, has left the UN totally ineffective when it comes to dealing member countries who flout the organisation’s own human rights values.
Mugabe has used the UN platform to complain about the token sanctions against him and his cronies. He never seems to get tired of this. This time it was at Climatic Conference in Copenhagen.
“Why is the guilty north not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?” mourned Mugabe. “Where are its sanctions for eco-offenders?”
He did not say who exactly the eco-offenders are. But since the greenhouse gases started increasing significant at the start of the Industrial revolution it is logic to blame, if one has to use that word, all those who led and all those who have benefited from the revolution. So, according to Mugabe, there should be targeted sanctions against every industrialist and citizen from the all the developed countries.
Of course, Climate debate in Copenhagen is not anti-development, even his Chinese friends are very proud of their country’s rapid economic development of the last ten years or so. The debate is about how to reduce the greenhouse gases without affecting development. For the developing countries, the debate is about getting assistance from the rich to help them cope with the adverse economic condition brought about by climatic changes brought on by global warming. Of course Mugabe does not care about all that.
Mugabe is mourning the targeted sanctions are stopping him and his cronies from visiting the developed countries as often as they would like to spend Zimbabwe’s national wealth, stolen from the poor, on luxuries only a few in the developed countries can afford!
Thanks to the countless UN talk-shop, Mugabe and his cronies have been able to circumvent the travel ban and do their shopping almost every month. The West’s travel ban does not apply to UN related travel.
It is ironic that Mugabe should use a UN platform to talk so dismissively about his continued violation of the UN human rights violation, the very core values the organisation was supposedly founded to defend.
I am angry that the UN should afford a brutal dictator like Mugabe to opportunity to disrupt important world business again and again with his egotistic nonsense. My greatest fury however goes to Tsvangirai whose stupidity gave Mugabe the legitimacy without which he would never been invited to address such UN gatherings.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Saturday, 12 December 2009
MUGABE LAMBAST THE WEST: ZIMBABWEANS HOWL - THEY ARE NOT YET SERIOUS ABOUT ENDING THE DICTATORSHIP!
Mugabe lambasts Britain and USA at his party congress and right on cue Mugabe loyalists applaud and his critics dismiss it all with the usual boos.
I take great comfort from all the anger and outrage from the many Zimbabweans out there. Here we are with the nation in serious economic trouble, man-made trouble I must add, and all Mugabe talks about is this imaginary threat from Britain and the USA. Of course Zimbabweans are right to be angry and outraged. Still, is this really all we CAN do?!
I grew up in the rural areas and our home was at the foot of a range of mountains with baboons, leopards and other wild animals. You could always tell when the leopard had struck and killed a baboon; the baboons would make a racket!
For the last ten years, at least, the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans did not want Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s president. Yet he has carried on setting the national agenda regardless. Everyone was dying to know the outcome of the party talks on the outstanding issues but these had to be interrupted because Mugabe was holding his party congress. He gives his usual anti-west rhetoric and right on cue his supporters cheer and the rest of us boo. When the noise has dead down and in his own sweet time and his own sweet way, Mugabe will come back to the interparty talks. He will call the shoots and again one camp will cheer and the other boo but the bottom line is we will all go along with whatever he decides.
Are we really that helpless, we are the baboons who can not see the leopard in the dark and therefore are seating ducks? Is Mugabe really that powerful, he is the leopard with excellent night vision and pick and choose who his next victim is to be? The truth is we are helpless because we chose to be helpless. Mugabe is not as clever and canning as we make him to be.
Of course when we see the ease with which Mugabe has run rings round Morgan Tsvangirai he certainly appears to be as canning as a fox. As long as we allow Tsvangirai to determine our future for us then we can expect more of the same. When Tsvangirai announced the end of his “disengagement” with Mugabe he did not have the foggiest idea what he would do next if Mugabe refused to implement the outstanding issues.
Tsvangirai has committed himself to the inclusive government no matter what. To him “it is the only game in town”. Mugabe does not have to compromise on any important issues and has already shown that is exactly what he will do. Tsvangirai should have never made so many compromises at the very beginning, the fact of the matter is he did, and now finds himself in this impossible situation.
We can howl and bark, and remind Mugabe for the umpteenth time that it was he who lost the 2008 elections and therefore he should not have all these dictatorial powers. That would not change a thing – he HAS the dictatorial power, thanks to Tsvangirai’s blundering, and that is all that counts.
I think we should call for fresh elections. If we focus all our energy and not let ourselves be side tracked; Mugabe will have no choice but take us seriously. Mugabe and the whole world have never taken the ordinary Zimbabweans seriously because we have never been serious about finding our way out of this mess!
I take great comfort from all the anger and outrage from the many Zimbabweans out there. Here we are with the nation in serious economic trouble, man-made trouble I must add, and all Mugabe talks about is this imaginary threat from Britain and the USA. Of course Zimbabweans are right to be angry and outraged. Still, is this really all we CAN do?!
I grew up in the rural areas and our home was at the foot of a range of mountains with baboons, leopards and other wild animals. You could always tell when the leopard had struck and killed a baboon; the baboons would make a racket!
For the last ten years, at least, the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans did not want Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s president. Yet he has carried on setting the national agenda regardless. Everyone was dying to know the outcome of the party talks on the outstanding issues but these had to be interrupted because Mugabe was holding his party congress. He gives his usual anti-west rhetoric and right on cue his supporters cheer and the rest of us boo. When the noise has dead down and in his own sweet time and his own sweet way, Mugabe will come back to the interparty talks. He will call the shoots and again one camp will cheer and the other boo but the bottom line is we will all go along with whatever he decides.
Are we really that helpless, we are the baboons who can not see the leopard in the dark and therefore are seating ducks? Is Mugabe really that powerful, he is the leopard with excellent night vision and pick and choose who his next victim is to be? The truth is we are helpless because we chose to be helpless. Mugabe is not as clever and canning as we make him to be.
Of course when we see the ease with which Mugabe has run rings round Morgan Tsvangirai he certainly appears to be as canning as a fox. As long as we allow Tsvangirai to determine our future for us then we can expect more of the same. When Tsvangirai announced the end of his “disengagement” with Mugabe he did not have the foggiest idea what he would do next if Mugabe refused to implement the outstanding issues.
Tsvangirai has committed himself to the inclusive government no matter what. To him “it is the only game in town”. Mugabe does not have to compromise on any important issues and has already shown that is exactly what he will do. Tsvangirai should have never made so many compromises at the very beginning, the fact of the matter is he did, and now finds himself in this impossible situation.
We can howl and bark, and remind Mugabe for the umpteenth time that it was he who lost the 2008 elections and therefore he should not have all these dictatorial powers. That would not change a thing – he HAS the dictatorial power, thanks to Tsvangirai’s blundering, and that is all that counts.
I think we should call for fresh elections. If we focus all our energy and not let ourselves be side tracked; Mugabe will have no choice but take us seriously. Mugabe and the whole world have never taken the ordinary Zimbabweans seriously because we have never been serious about finding our way out of this mess!
Thursday, 10 December 2009
A WARM ZIMBABWE WELCOME TO U S AMBASSADOR RAY - JOIN THE GOOD FIGHT!
I would like to welcome the newly appointed United State of America Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Aaron Ray. I hope your tour of duty will be a pleasant and fulfilling one.
I wish you were coming to a Zimbabwe that was at least had an inkling of hope after three decades of mismanagement, rampant corruption and brutal political repression. Sadly that was not to be. The country had its best chance ever to end Mugabe’s tyrannical rule last year following the sham elections unfortunately the MDC led by Tsvangirai wasted that chance by entering into a power sharing agreement with the dictator. A power sharing agreement that gave Mugabe all the dictatorial powers.
You will hear endless stories of the parties negotiating on “outstanding issues”. These negotiations have been going on ever since the formation of the inclusive government ten months ago. The administration has done little else. What are the outstanding issues – they are the few concessions Mugabe had made but now would not implement.
The people are living in abject poverty and every day they face life threatening challenges and all the country’s leaders are doing is argue endlessly over trivial issues or else spent the little wealth the country has left. Mr Ambassador, you will soon understand why your successor, Ambassador James Mcghee was forced to take the regime head-on; Zimbabwe is a mad house.
In Mugabe you will find a ruthless dictator who is set in his way. All Mugabe cares about is making sure that his dictatorship survives. He and his cronies have had to steal from a helpless child to finance their luxurious life styles and they would hate to lose their loot. Many of them have committed some heinous crimes; Mugabe’s three decade iron grip on power has costed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. In Tsvangirai you will find an unbelievably naïve man who is certainly no match for the canning fox, Mugabe.
The ordinary Zimbabweans, those at the cutting edge of the country’s economic melt down and political repression, have suffered enough and need to see an end to this madness. The targeted sanctions have had to effect on Mugabe and his cronies. However, it is high time the screw is turned another full turn: the sanctions must be reviewed to include the next tier of Mugabe’s ruling elite and all their families.
Ambassador Ray, Zimbabweans are fighting for human dignity, for their very lives and those of their children. They certainly hope you WILL join them in this fight and not shy away.
I wish you were coming to a Zimbabwe that was at least had an inkling of hope after three decades of mismanagement, rampant corruption and brutal political repression. Sadly that was not to be. The country had its best chance ever to end Mugabe’s tyrannical rule last year following the sham elections unfortunately the MDC led by Tsvangirai wasted that chance by entering into a power sharing agreement with the dictator. A power sharing agreement that gave Mugabe all the dictatorial powers.
You will hear endless stories of the parties negotiating on “outstanding issues”. These negotiations have been going on ever since the formation of the inclusive government ten months ago. The administration has done little else. What are the outstanding issues – they are the few concessions Mugabe had made but now would not implement.
The people are living in abject poverty and every day they face life threatening challenges and all the country’s leaders are doing is argue endlessly over trivial issues or else spent the little wealth the country has left. Mr Ambassador, you will soon understand why your successor, Ambassador James Mcghee was forced to take the regime head-on; Zimbabwe is a mad house.
In Mugabe you will find a ruthless dictator who is set in his way. All Mugabe cares about is making sure that his dictatorship survives. He and his cronies have had to steal from a helpless child to finance their luxurious life styles and they would hate to lose their loot. Many of them have committed some heinous crimes; Mugabe’s three decade iron grip on power has costed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. In Tsvangirai you will find an unbelievably naïve man who is certainly no match for the canning fox, Mugabe.
The ordinary Zimbabweans, those at the cutting edge of the country’s economic melt down and political repression, have suffered enough and need to see an end to this madness. The targeted sanctions have had to effect on Mugabe and his cronies. However, it is high time the screw is turned another full turn: the sanctions must be reviewed to include the next tier of Mugabe’s ruling elite and all their families.
Ambassador Ray, Zimbabweans are fighting for human dignity, for their very lives and those of their children. They certainly hope you WILL join them in this fight and not shy away.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Minister Biti predicts a stunted GPD growth rate for Zimbabwe: Demerara sugar to a slave!
A GDP growth rate of 3.7 to 4.7% for 2009 compared to -10.9% last year is certainly a great achievement. And if next year the country can achieve 7% growth then that is great. But before you open the champagne and start the celebrations; we must ask ourselves what GDP growth rates could we have achieved if Zimbabwe was firing on all cylinders? Minister Biti admitted that the mining sector had failed to perform. We all know Zimbabwe is exporting, mostly illegally of course, tonnes of diamonds every week. The forced villagers doing the dirty work are paid pittance, the smugglers and their handlers are paid US$ x by the foreigner dealers who are then paid 500 to 1000 times as much by those processing the diamonds. The Zimbabwe governments get nothing out of all this.
Minister Biti said nothing about agricultural sector’s performance but it is generally agreed that the continued farm invasions have completely disrupted farming. The country will have to spend millions buying food or else depend on Donors to feed the nation. Agriculture used to be the engine of Zimbabwe’s economy.
Minister Biti also admitted that the West have largely refused to give Zimbabwe any financial assistance. They told Tsvangirai to his face in June; not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. This GNU is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship by another name only MDC pretends not to see it.
So if there rampant corruption in the Mining Sector stopped, the seized farms were taken away from Mugabe and his cronies and given to those able to put them back into full production and the West gave the financial assistance required to repair and or replace plant and equipment Zimbabwe would be enjoying GDP growth rates on 20% to 30%. China and India have been enjoying 10 to15% growth rates and they have had to build new factories, buy machinery, train the workers, etc. Zimbabwe has all the factories, machinery, skilled workers, etc.; all the country needed is political stability and a little financial help to kick start their production.
MDC will pretend the GNU is working and give the stunted GDP growth rates as proof. The truth is whatever economic growth they achieve; they know the country could have done even better if the country had a decisive and effective government.
On the political front this GNU will never deliver a new democratic constitution and there will never be free and fair elections not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. He will never allow that to happen. Last year he graphically showed the shocking and murderous lengths he was prepared to go to retain political power. Only the very naïve would expect him to just give up all his dictatorial powers now!
Tsvangirai, the blithering idiot, started by giving Mugabe all the dictatorial powers in the GPA and is now banking on slowly eroding these powers under Mugabe’s very nose! The reality on the ground is of course different. Mugabe the megalomania is in fact refusing to give up even the little power he had conceded to MDC in the GPA.
Zimbabweans are certainly beginning to question things and it will not be long before they realise that Tsvangirai is leading them up the garden path. The people have rejected Mugabe already and it is by hiding behind Tsvangirai that he continues to rule. The people soon reject Tsvangirai and Mugabe will go with him.
Zimbabwe will never ever realise its full economic potential until the country has leaders who are democratically accountable to the people. What Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and Mugabe himself are hoping is that the improved (stunted and yet still improved compared to 2008) economic performance will make the people forget that they are still being denied their basic and fundamental rights and freedoms; freedom of expression, meaningful vote and even the right to life. This is the equivalent of the slave master offering the slave a packet of Demerara sugar and hope the slave will forget to demand his/her freedom and the dignity of being a free man!
Minister Biti said nothing about agricultural sector’s performance but it is generally agreed that the continued farm invasions have completely disrupted farming. The country will have to spend millions buying food or else depend on Donors to feed the nation. Agriculture used to be the engine of Zimbabwe’s economy.
Minister Biti also admitted that the West have largely refused to give Zimbabwe any financial assistance. They told Tsvangirai to his face in June; not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. This GNU is nothing but a Mugabe dictatorship by another name only MDC pretends not to see it.
So if there rampant corruption in the Mining Sector stopped, the seized farms were taken away from Mugabe and his cronies and given to those able to put them back into full production and the West gave the financial assistance required to repair and or replace plant and equipment Zimbabwe would be enjoying GDP growth rates on 20% to 30%. China and India have been enjoying 10 to15% growth rates and they have had to build new factories, buy machinery, train the workers, etc. Zimbabwe has all the factories, machinery, skilled workers, etc.; all the country needed is political stability and a little financial help to kick start their production.
MDC will pretend the GNU is working and give the stunted GDP growth rates as proof. The truth is whatever economic growth they achieve; they know the country could have done even better if the country had a decisive and effective government.
On the political front this GNU will never deliver a new democratic constitution and there will never be free and fair elections not as long as Mugabe remains in charge. He will never allow that to happen. Last year he graphically showed the shocking and murderous lengths he was prepared to go to retain political power. Only the very naïve would expect him to just give up all his dictatorial powers now!
Tsvangirai, the blithering idiot, started by giving Mugabe all the dictatorial powers in the GPA and is now banking on slowly eroding these powers under Mugabe’s very nose! The reality on the ground is of course different. Mugabe the megalomania is in fact refusing to give up even the little power he had conceded to MDC in the GPA.
Zimbabweans are certainly beginning to question things and it will not be long before they realise that Tsvangirai is leading them up the garden path. The people have rejected Mugabe already and it is by hiding behind Tsvangirai that he continues to rule. The people soon reject Tsvangirai and Mugabe will go with him.
Zimbabwe will never ever realise its full economic potential until the country has leaders who are democratically accountable to the people. What Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and Mugabe himself are hoping is that the improved (stunted and yet still improved compared to 2008) economic performance will make the people forget that they are still being denied their basic and fundamental rights and freedoms; freedom of expression, meaningful vote and even the right to life. This is the equivalent of the slave master offering the slave a packet of Demerara sugar and hope the slave will forget to demand his/her freedom and the dignity of being a free man!
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Targeted sanctions must stay: Mugabe and his cronies will lose more than just their loot - off with their heads
Before the formation of the GNU the shops were empty and inflation was into 12 digit figures. MDC scrap the Z$ and thus putting Gideon Gono and his money printing business out of business and over night inflation disappeared like the mist in the morning sun. MDC lifted the price controls and food and other goods flooded back into the shop. These simple common sense changes changed things on the ground. Please note, ZDERA and all the other sanctions you and your master, Mugabe, never tire of blaming for Zimbabwe's economic problems were still there. Thus proving once again that Zimbabwe’s economic problems are a result of years of economic mismanagement and rampant corruption.
Mugabe and his cronies have disrupted Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector seizing every productive farm and then seating on the land. When they walked in, they saw the full grain barns and the healthy animals and thought all they had to do now was seat back and rack in the wealth. They never realised that they would have to work. As we say in Shona “Munda hauzvirimi!”
As much as 80% of the Zimbabwe population now rely on food aid. Before the farm seizure we produced enough to feed the nation with surplus for export. And you still believe it is the sanctions that have caused the food shortages?
The targeted sanctions were imposed on Mugabe and his ruling elite for one specific reason – the regime had failed to hold free and fair elections. The root cause of all Zimbabwe’s economic, social and political problems is Mugabe’s wanton denial of the Zimbabweans people their basic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. If the people had a free vote they would have booted this repressive regime a long time ago.
The political repression started a long time ago. In the mid 1980s Mugabe murdered 20 000 people to consolidate his grip on power. Last year he turned the whole nation up side down and murdered 400 just to ensure the people voted for him.
It is Mugabe who has caused untold suffering on the people and no amount of propaganda can ever change that.
Of course, Mugabe and his cronies are very lucky to have Tsvangirai as the main challenger; he is a very naïve blundering “dithering idiot” as Professor Jonathan Moyo rightly said. Let me rest assure you, Fungayi, not all Zimbabweans are dithering idiots; Mugabe and all his cronies will account for what they have done.
Gideon Gono will be foolish to think that the “good intention” clause in the RBZ amendment bill will protect him from prosecution. How can anyone classify such outrageous acts as spending millions of donor aid moneys, not government money but donors’, meant for AIDS victims on plasma TV and other luxuries good intentions?
In late 1945 Adolf Hitler and his murderous Nazi knew they days are numbered but since they really had no way they tried to put on a brave face. Mugabe and his cronies are in exactly the same situation. I assure Mugabe and those in the know hold any hope of ever seeing all the money frozen in Western Bank accounts. Some, like you Fungayi do – dream on. The reality is Mugabe and his cronies will take everything their looted taken away from them and all with innocent blood on their hands will hang! Personally, I would like to see hanging taken off Zimbabwe’s statute book – but not so fast, understand!
Mugabe and his cronies have disrupted Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector seizing every productive farm and then seating on the land. When they walked in, they saw the full grain barns and the healthy animals and thought all they had to do now was seat back and rack in the wealth. They never realised that they would have to work. As we say in Shona “Munda hauzvirimi!”
As much as 80% of the Zimbabwe population now rely on food aid. Before the farm seizure we produced enough to feed the nation with surplus for export. And you still believe it is the sanctions that have caused the food shortages?
The targeted sanctions were imposed on Mugabe and his ruling elite for one specific reason – the regime had failed to hold free and fair elections. The root cause of all Zimbabwe’s economic, social and political problems is Mugabe’s wanton denial of the Zimbabweans people their basic right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. If the people had a free vote they would have booted this repressive regime a long time ago.
The political repression started a long time ago. In the mid 1980s Mugabe murdered 20 000 people to consolidate his grip on power. Last year he turned the whole nation up side down and murdered 400 just to ensure the people voted for him.
It is Mugabe who has caused untold suffering on the people and no amount of propaganda can ever change that.
Of course, Mugabe and his cronies are very lucky to have Tsvangirai as the main challenger; he is a very naïve blundering “dithering idiot” as Professor Jonathan Moyo rightly said. Let me rest assure you, Fungayi, not all Zimbabweans are dithering idiots; Mugabe and all his cronies will account for what they have done.
Gideon Gono will be foolish to think that the “good intention” clause in the RBZ amendment bill will protect him from prosecution. How can anyone classify such outrageous acts as spending millions of donor aid moneys, not government money but donors’, meant for AIDS victims on plasma TV and other luxuries good intentions?
In late 1945 Adolf Hitler and his murderous Nazi knew they days are numbered but since they really had no way they tried to put on a brave face. Mugabe and his cronies are in exactly the same situation. I assure Mugabe and those in the know hold any hope of ever seeing all the money frozen in Western Bank accounts. Some, like you Fungayi do – dream on. The reality is Mugabe and his cronies will take everything their looted taken away from them and all with innocent blood on their hands will hang! Personally, I would like to see hanging taken off Zimbabwe’s statute book – but not so fast, understand!
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