Posted on 02/21/2006 5:59:49 PM PST by blam
Mugabe plans a lavish party as nation suffers
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 22/02/2006)
Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe turned 82 yesterday in robust health, in contrast to the state of his country.
Life expectancy for Zimbabweans is plunging, three quarters of the population is short of food and inflation is 613 per cent. However, President Mugabe is as healthy as a man his age could be. He recently told the state press that a doctor said his "bones were not exactly as a boy of 26, but certainly someone of 30".
A shortage of bread has pushed the price up to Z$45,000
To mark his birthday, which comes in his 26th year in power, the state-controlled Herald newspaper ran congratulations, mostly from bankrupt state companies, carried in a 16-page supplement.
The notices described him as a "beacon of light", and a "statesman, an icon, a living legend". The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, unable to import fuel for a year, said in its quarter-page birthday advertisement that it valued his "wisdom". The Zimbabwe National Water Authority, unable to supply clean drinking water to the capital Harare, congratulated his "legendary existence".
The United Nations recently estimated that the average life span for Zimbabweans had dropped to 37 years, due chiefly to the unchecked spread of Aids. More than 1.6 million people, one in 13 of the population, have HIV-Aids, but only 8,000 can afford anti-retroviral drugs.
About 4,000 mostly young people die every week from complications of the disease, exacerbated by poor nutrition and a collapsed health service.
Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party is meanwhile beset by internal squabbles about who will succeed him when he steps down, perhaps in 2008. He has begun lashing out at his cabinet colleagues, blaming them for the disintegrating economy. Acknowledging a poor harvest despite good summer rains, Mr Mugabe has now blamed ministers for the crop failures. There is no maize, the staple food, in shops and bread is in short supply.
For decades about 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's foreign currency was provided by agricultural exports. This has changed since 2000 when Mr Mugabe confiscated 95 per cent of white-owned farms.
On Saturday Mr Mugabe's motorcade will speed 165 miles east to Mutare, the mountain resort on the border of Mozambique, for his birthday party.
"It's awful that he is coming here when so many people are suffering," said Misheck Kaguabadza, the elected mayor of Mutare, who was sacked by the government seven months ago. His crime was to show the UN around Mutare's poor suburbs last year after Mr Mugabe ordered bulldozers to demolish thousands of small houses.
The UN said more than 700,000 people were made homeless in the mid-winter campaign entitled "Clean out the Trash".
Mr Kaguabadza said: "They are going to spend billions of dollars on a party for him and our clinics have no drugs and people are dying of malnutrition."
Ping.
THe UN will annouce that Mugabe will be named their leader of the year and put in charge of their human rights commitee.
But remember, the horrible Satanic capitalist West does not have a right to assert its superiority over the third world. Rule by someone like Mubage is so much better than rule by the American or European capitalists. That's why people in the West are always trying to live in these countries and blacks especially are so eager to leave the oppresive West to live in paradise under Mugabe and their "own people". Also remember, any problems caused by Mugabe wasting money as if it grew in rice farms are all due to to the stench and legacy of white racism and colonialism, not because these African countries are insanely corrupt and cannot in any way compare to Western governments.
I just figured, you know, a thread like this could use some nonsensical Afrocentric rhetoric to kick it off.
...Mr Kaguabadza said: "They are going to spend billions of dollars on a party for him and our clinics have no drugs and people are dying of malnutrition."
Well that maybe so- but thanks to "Thug-a-be" billions of Zimbawe dollars is worth about $1,000 U. S. - Tops!!!!!!! Zimbabwe is one of the saddest stories of idiotic leaders in this young century.
What a neat scam! Bulldoze down what housing the poor people have. Then call in the stupid UN, show the UN idiots all the poor "homeless" people, then pocket all the financial aid the gullible UN comes up with. Darn, wish I'd thought of that.
Well yeah, I read the caption above and I was momentarily taken aback by the Z$45,000 figure. Then I just did a currency conversion:
45,000.00 ZWD = 0.453620 USD
1 ZWD = 0.0000100804 USD
1 USD = 99,202.00 ZWD
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What is even more significant is that in the year 2000, just before the farm confiscations began, the exchabge rate was Z$55.00 to US$1.00
As I have said before, professors will set Zimbabwe as a case study for generations of students of macro-economics and students of geopolitics in how to destroy an economy and how to start a volkerwanderung.
Who has time to worry about Mugabe living out his Pol Pot fantasies? We have a war on terror to fight!/sarcasm intended completely
Astounding. It's 'How to (expletive) an Economy 101'.
HEY!!! Why CAN'T a megalomaniac celebrate his birthday?
Sometimes the Turd World, which normally produces so damn little, whorfs up a ball of serious hilarity.
Ah, but there is a third benefit. The slum dwellers were more often than not supporters of the opposition. Now they have no homes at all, and are much more busy with basic survival than supporting the opposition. Horrible, but welcome to Zimbabwe.
well what was it that the ex white leader said about mugabe looking for democracy in zimbabwe
one man , one vote, one time
boy oh boy has that turned out to be true...
Animal Farm, writ large in Africa.
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