Posted on 06/09/2005 7:50:31 PM PDT by blam
Speech by Mugabe 'proves he is losing his mind'
By David Blair in Johannesburg
(Filed: 10/06/2005)
President Robert Mugabe was accused yesterday of displaying "senile dementia" when he boasted to Zimbabwe's parliament that "great strides" were being taken towards "economic recovery".
The president hailed the march of progress in a capital where bulldozers have demolished thriving factories and township shacks alike, throwing tens of thousands on to the streets.
Robert Mugabe at the opening of parliament
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change denounced his stumbling, hesitant performance at the official opening of parliament, saying that Mr Mugabe had finally lost any "grasp of reality".
The razing of townships and street markets across Zimbabwe has now led to 30,000 people being arrested and 200,000 left homeless.
According to the United Nations, two young children died of exposure last week, after they were left homeless in mid-winter, with night-time temperatures falling to zero.
Yet there has been no stirring of protest or resistance.
A general strike called for yesterday flopped, undermined by poor organisation and the glaring failure of Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, to stand up to the regime.
This has allowed Mr Mugabe to escape any pressure over his urban clearances. Five years ago he was heckled by hostile demonstrators at the opening of parliament.
This time he rode unmolested to the ceremony in a gleaming Rolls Royce once used by Lord Soames, the last governor of Rhodesia.
Inside the parliament building in central Harare, Mr Mugabe, 81, sat upon the green speaker's throne and declared 2005 the year of "investment and development" for Zimbabwe.
"Investment, both internal and external, is the sine qua non for sustainable development for any country," he said.
Mr Mugabe added that Zimbabwe was making "great strides towards economic recovery". Tourism was enjoying a "strong recovery", he said, and the demolitions in the townships were a "vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity and order in urban and other areas".
In reality, Zimbabwe suffers inflation of 130 per cent and more than one third of its economy has been wiped out in the last five years.
The president's speech "reflects his senile dementia," said Tendai Biti, the MDC's secretary for economic affairs. "Any decent doctor will tell you that once you are in your eighties, you lose your memory, you lose your grasp of reality and you have no grip of time or space. That's what is happening with this old man."
Dare I post it... An untreated STD dragging him downward toward mental decay!!
A mercinary group called Executive decisions is based in Africa. They have a pretty clean history. The UN even considered sending them into Rwanda to save refugees but chose to allow the slaughter instead. E.D. should pay ole bobby a visit.
Foreign investment? I have to laugh. Zimbabwe sounds like the kind of country where you could bribe everyone including Mugerbe and still lose everything. The best advice on investing there is don't.
Howard Dean is in charge of a political party, not a country. Both are lunatics though.
He should have been worm food in 1979.
Executive Outcomes(EO) was a private military company, founded by Eeben Barlow in 1989 and ceasing to exist in 1999. Most, not all, of EO's employees were former South African Defense Force soldiers with special operations training.
They were succeeded by Sandline International, a now-defunct London-based private military company. The line between Sandline, Executive Outcomes, and associated companies was sometimes blurred by a complex web of interoperation, ownership, multinational holdings, and what may be deliberate obfuscation.
Sandline International became Aegis Defence Services and was recently awarded a $239 million contract by the US DoD to supply “75 close protection bodyguard teams to coalition and Iraqi officials” as well as “co-ordinate intelligence gathering for other private security firms in Iraq, including the multi-billion dollar US Dyncorp”
Executive Outcomes ceased trading on January 1, 1999, as South Africa passed an anti-mercenary law, though apparently its Pretoria, South Africa office remained open for some time.
Now you are somewhat up-to-date on the game....lol.
One of our finest presidents, IMHO, though I wasn't old and sensible
enough to appreciate him at the time, was born in 1911, and became
president in 1981....he served for 2 terms.
Another totalitarian, another wrecked economy, another record of thousands, even millions, of deaths. Ho hum, what else is new, eh?
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The people need to fix this mess themselves. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Yeah.....Castro's a nut job too - it's called bloody dictatorship rule.
Actually it is a group called Executive Outcomes. For those times you want to send the very best.
Ex Rhodies were allowed as well as ex spear of the nation.
Sorry didn't see your earlier comment on EO.
That's the name. I knew I was close.
Why are some phrases used by so many different people in power in so many different places?
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