Posted on 11/17/2001 7:22:32 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
HARARE: Police looked the other way as a rampaging mob of President Robert Mugabe's "war veterans" kicked and Beat whites in the streets of Bulawayo yesterday. Panic gripped the city centre at lunchtime when the 500-strong mob, escorted by police, stormed through the streets attacking passers-by, particularly whites, witnesses said. They forced cars to a halt and dragged whites - in some cases elderly women - into the street and beat them, a German aid worker said.
The man, who did not want to be named, said his car with his three daughters inside was surrounded and he was dragged out and beaten. Mduduzi Mathuthu, a reporter for a local paper, said: "An old white man - he must have been in his 70s was passing. They beat him to the ground."
The veterans gathered outside the offices of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), broke down the concrete wall surrounding the building and set it alight. "There was smoke and flames all over. The police were on the other side of the road, but they did nothing," party worker Joe Ncube, said. About 1000 MDC supporters took to the streets and clashed with riot police as they marched on the offices of the ruling Zanu-PIP party.
They set fire to a building belonging to a party official and burnt two cars before police restored order. The violence the most serious single incident since the country's crisis over lawlessness began in February last year, followed a wave of inflammatory rhetoric from President Robert Mugabe's regime, promising revenge against the MDC over the abduction and killing by unknown assailants of a war veteran leader. The pro-democracy party has denied repeatedly it had anything to do with the murder.
In other developments:
THE MDC claimed Zanu-PIP was considering assassinating its leader to ensure President Robert Mugabe's Re-election next year. It claimed to have a copy of Zanu-PFS strategic plan for the campaign and published extracts in the independent Daily News. Referring to MDC leader Morgan Tsvan_ girai, the text, under the heading, "Outright Elimination", read: "This could be dangerous to the Government, but it needs a very serious consideration."
THE Government has declared it would bar non-government organisations from distributing food because they would use the aid to campaign against Mugabe. The ban threatens a major international relief operation as famine grips the country, with almost a million people in "dire need", according to the UN.
IN another move to shore up support, the army has offered land to serving soldiers in exchange for their votes. Land requests by soldiers will be given priority, with officers receiving the largest plots. THE political turmoil has had a dramatic impact on inflation, with Zimbabwe's consumer price index rising by a record 97.9 per cent in the year to October, after rising 86.3 per cent in September.
WASHINGTON has warned it will not recognise the results of next' year's elections unless Harare agrees to international monitoring of the ballot.
Nothing to see here, move along. They're just beating some white people that have been keeping them down for centuries.
Nothing to see here, move along!
.../sarcasm
sorry i screwed up the heading oops
Where have all those leftwing loonies gone who were so concerned about oppressive rule in that country?
Sounds like Cinci and LA
Advice-- move out
diversity isn't really all its cracked up to be.
.....to leave the freakin' country!!!!!
Let 'em have their piss ant, 3rd world country as they want it.
Just let us know, down the road, how many billion$ you need to [pick one]...1) save the starving millions, 2) re-build your country's infrastructure - you know, just the luxury items like electricity, drinkable water, control all those nasty little diseases, etc., 3) compensate your entire population for all the wicked problems that the USA inflicted upon your wasteland of a country, etc.
Call that cross-dresser (disco - African tribal) Mr. Aman - right now! I'm sure he will tell the world that the plight of your country is entirely the fault of the USA. If he doesn't respond, call Bill or Hillary. I'm sure they will plead your case - for a fee, of course.
Ummm...where, exactly, is your country? I'm sorry, it just doesn't ring a bell.
Oops, there I go again with my arrogant, decadent, capitalistic, non-world order thinking again.
Maybe, just maybe, if the persecuted minority had the proper tools (auto's, semio-auto's, etc) to ward off this behavior, this country might remain a productive member of the world community.
IMHO.
LVM
And a (possibly redundent) ping to the rest of the list.
"Africa Implodes, and
nobody seems to care."
Namely, the sovereignty of 'states', and the unbounded legal capacity of governments to inflict whatever harm they wish on the population under their control.
Personally, I see no merit in affirming the legitimacy of regimes such as Mugabe's; there ought to be open season on tyrants, and no bag limit. ;^)
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