Tyranny wins again in Zimbabwe

The closing of the Daily News of Zimbabwe is just the latest outrage President Robert Mugabe has inflicted on his struggling country. The Daily News was Zimbabwe's last independent daily newspaper and its largest, with 932,000 readers. It had been a lonely critical voice in a nation where all other major news outlets are under the control of government. It was closed after new media laws effectively made its continued publication contingent on government whim.

Stamping out opposition by passing undemocratic laws or unleashing strongmen and thugs has been Mugabe's playbook for remaining in power. Before the Daily News was shut down by the Media and Information Commission that used trumped-up reasons for refusing to grant the newspaper a license to operate, the newspaper's offices had been bombed twice and its editors and reporters had been beaten. Now that it is closed, seemingly for good, one of the nation's last vestiges of freedom has been stamped out.

Tyranny has won out again in a country that was once a bright spot on the continent.

During Mugabe's 23 years as president, this increasingly paranoid and malevolent man has led Zimbabwe to societal and economic ruin. When he took the reins of government, it was a relatively prosperous food-exporting nation. But Mugabe's policy of violently ejecting 3,000 white farmers from their land and handing over the prime soil to political cronies has turned a country once known as the breadbasket of Africa into a basket case. Dwindling food supplies don't come close to sustaining the nation's 12-million people. Reports are that citizens in the more remote areas are dying of starvation.

There is convincing evidence that Mugabe stole the last presidential election, and his leading opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, is now being prosecuted for treason. In an effort to change this miserable course, the world has isolated Mugabe. But African leaders and South African President Thabo Mbeki in particular - people who may exert real leverage over Mugabe - have not done enough. Mbeki has suggested that a whisper in the ear is more effective than a shout, but subtlety apparently isn't getting the job done. Zimbabweans are streaming across the border into South Africa, straining its economy and government services. Mugabe is bringing the entire region down with him, and someone should be screaming about it.

AfricaWatch:

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Daily Reports Rhodesia

Rhetoric of blame is now a white lie (AFRICA, HEAL THYSELF)
The Daily Telegraph ^ | September 3, 2002 | Tim Butcher
"I remember Africa in the 1960s, everyone was filled with high expectations after independence. Forty years on, Africa is a series of kleptocracies, many worse off than they were under colonial rule. Almost all of the common people in relative worse shape to the rest of the world than they were before independence. Africans after 40 years have no one to blame but their own leadership for their problems. The leaders want to deflect blame to the West. The West's not buying it anymore..."

CIA -- The World Factbook -- Zimbabwe

First it was Rhodesia then SA now America paying the price of silence.

-A Capsule History of Southern Africa--

Parallels between Apartheid SA & USA today

South African Crime Report

ZWNEWS.com - linking the world to Zimbabwe
... Books & Videos. Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power
In Zimbabwe This book tells the story of Zimbabwe from the hopeful era of ...

MPR Books - Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African ...

Title: "Cry, the Beloved Country" - Topics: World/South Africa

The Coming Anarchy
February 1994. The Coming Anarchy. by Robert D. Kaplan. ... All rights reserved.

-South Africa - The sellout of a nation-- ------------------------------------------ ... anyone who is doubtful about the situation there, or perhaps curious about how much goes unmentioned & unreported by the laughingly-misnamed "watchdog press" need only click the "keyword: Africa Watch" or go here:

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FYI, I wrote this a while back:

I don't know what will happen in southern Africa beyond a general breakdown into chaos & anarchy... the old bugbear was the Soviets gaining control of the tip & choking our fleet's movements, coupled with control of the mineral wealth. Now it look like Quaddaffi is angling to take over Rhodesia and perhaps spread to South Africa.

At this point, we are 20 years too late, but we can at least bear witness to the debacle.

Bear in mind I am a partisan- I supported ( with reluctance ) the old white-minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa, because I knew the Communists and their puppets- including proxies like Cuba- were angling for control of southern Africa.

One big problem we have is our media. They have tried to portray the situation in southern Africa as a clone of our own civil-rights struggles when in fact just the opposite was true. Africa is degenerating into chaos and anarchy under the guise of "liberation" and "one man, one vote." All while the media here turns a blind eye to what is really happening.

What I used to tell people was that while Apartheid was an onerous, offensive system, I would prefer being a black South African under Apartheid to being a person of any color under the old Soviet system- and I still believe those words to be true and correct. Given time, the old South African government would have worked out its problems- but it was not allowed to do so.

Today, we are seeing the results of this folly in Zimbabwe- or rather, we see what tiny bits the web and small elements of talk radio cover.

The whole story of contemporary Africa is a sad tale of tribalism, class warfare, kleptocracy, and massive corruption- and one the media here "won't even talk about" because it does not fit within their template of acceptable ideas.

I would also add, that both the press and entertainment arms of the media encouraged and supported the toppling of the old governments, i. e., they were in collusion, and complicit in the fall. Now that things have worked out at variance with their idealistic fantasies, they simply "don't talk about it..."

"Why do you keep posting this stuff? Nobody cares about Africa, anyway..."

Clive, Cincinatus's Wife, blam, myself, and a few others get asked that occasionally- we are among the keepers of the "AfricaWatch" columns, and we continue to post articles about what I believe will prove to be one of the great, tragic stories of the new century.

The mainstream press never publishes more than one Africa story a day, and it's usually some fluff or dodge around how grim the situation is over there.

But the truth is archived here on Free Republic, and I maintain that one day, when things over there are too awful to be ignored any longer, those who have eyes to see will read the stories here, and be appalled at the silence.

That is all...

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