Posted on 07/03/2008 6:14:25 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Botswana has deployed units of its army along its border with Zimbabwe as "a precaution" against trouble in its crisis-torn neighbour spilling into the country, sources close to the government have said.
Relations between the two countries have become strained by the influx in recent years of tens of thousands of refugees from Zimbabwe who have crossed the border illegally, fleeing the violence of Robert Mugabe's supporters.
Botswana, one of the most prosperous and successful countries in Africa, built an electrified fence along its 300-mile border, largely desert scrub, with Zimbabwe five years ago and tightened controls at its border posts. It has refused to recognise Mr Mugabe's victory in last week's presidential poll.
The Botswana Sunday Star, under the headline "Botswana Prepares For War?" reported that the Botswana Defence Force [BDF], including units with heavy artillery, had deployed along the Zimbabwean border.
The newspaper quoted Brigadier Dikgakgamatso Seretse, the defence minister, as saying: "This is a very sensitive matter... I can neither confirm nor deny any deployment of soldiers."
A well-placed source in Gaborone, the capital, confirmed that units of the BDF were patrolling the border.
"This is purely a precautionary measure. The problems in Zimbabwe are well-known and the government clearly wants to prevent any trouble in that country from affecting us."
The newly-elected president, Ian Khama, a Sandhurst-trained former commander of the BDF, has become increasingly critical of Mr Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe and the problems it has caused in neighbouring countries.
Mr Khama, son of the first president of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama, and his English-born wife, Ruth, is believed to have been one of the prime critics of Mr Mugabe at the emergency meeting of the African Union in Egypt last weekend.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Botswana, one of the most prosperous and successful countries in Africa, built an electrified fence along its 300-mile border, largely desert scrub, with Zimbabwe five years ago and tightened controls at its border posts.We should subcontract OUR border fence program to Botswana, at least they know how to get it done.
If Botswana invades, kills Mugabe and his main confederates, then leaves, they will be savings millions of lives, and very potentially returning a nation to its recently-passed prosperity (they were the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa for years). I say give them equipment, supplies, training, and positive support in the global media and the UN. Invade away!!
Botswana is turning victims back,
We are turning invaders back.
Both cases demand a response aimed at the governments that initiated the population shift.
Meanwhile, I want OUR border fence, and permanent deportation of the invaders, up NOW!
Botswana shouldn’t turn them back without giving them some provisions, like a rifle.
Unlikely.
The Botswana Defense Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana_Defence_Force) is considerably smaller and more lightly armed than the Zimbabwe National Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe_National_Army).
Nice thought though.
Permanent? Not possible. They will come back as long as they are alive.
They could show Uncle Sam how to do it too !
How is it that Botswana can build a 300 mile long electrified fence and we can’t put up a few hundred feet of chainlink to keep out the illegals?
Zim Ping.
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They are defending themselves against being swamped by a volkerwanderung, a volkerwandering that was initiated and aggravated by government action within Zimbabwe.
The US is also confronted by a volkerwanderung on its southern frontier, initiated and/or aggravated by government action in Mexico and Central America.
I find the following to be of interest to the people of Zimbabwe:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
I wonder if we can get copies of OUR DECLARATION OF INDEPENCE to the people of Zimbabwe via Botswania...
I cannot help but notice how the words of our Declaration of Independence seems to fit the situation in Zimbabwe -- a country where the political leadership starves people to death, brutalizes the opposition beyond imagination, and is a total basket case of a government...
- We had relative parity in weapons, they don't.
- We had a tradition of governing ourselves, they don't.
- We had a rich land worth fighting for, they don't.
- We faced an enemy who would behave honorably in defeat, they don't.
Although Zimbabwe has tremendous potential, it can't begin to be realized until the current thugocracy is driven from power/destroyed.
The best thing the West could do to assist the people of Zimbabwe would be to provide weapons to the MDC so they could defend themselves. But given the attitude of the Western powers and Zimbabwe's neighboring states, they will not supply the weapons themselves nor will they permit others (i.e, the U.S.)to supply them. Of course, going to the UN is pointless, since China and Russia will veto any use of force against the Mugabe regime.
However, we can hope that Mugabe expires soon (either naturally or unnaturally, the sooner the better) and the second level officials split over secession and fight among themselves. Then it might be possible to get weapons to the MDC. It would be ugly and I think it is something that the MDC itself doesn't want to happen if it can be avoided.
There is no point in talks with the ZANU-PF. Their only intent is to use all the force of the instrumentalities of government to cling to power. They know the fate that awaits them when they fall.
thanks blam (I found both surfing his “in forum” page):
Robert Mugabe, then and now
National Post | 2008-07-04 | Dan Bjarnason
Posted on 07/04/2008 4:06:09 AM PDT by Clive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040653/posts
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