White skin makes Mugabe shudder. Shameful silence in response to ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe***He will go on shuddering until he has rid Zimbabwe of its white population. But you won't hear Africa's leaders speak up for a threatened minority, nor will the African secretary-general of the UN, Kofi Annan, rally the international community to support the beleaguered farmers of Matabeleland. And I would bet anything you like that we won't hear any of our Western leaders use the phrase 'ethnic cleansing'. That would create an obligation to intervene to protect the vulnerable, and, for all the fine rhetoric, this simply will not happen. The whites of Zimbabwe have been abandoned.
Some will try to hang on and hope that Mugabe dies of old age or is eventually overthrown; but most will eventually be driven out, the victims of Robert Mugabe's racism and our indifference. As Naomi Raaff said, it's over.***
Zimbabwe -- Mugabe pays off Libya with an embassy*** Diplomatic sources claim that the Zimbabwean assets taken by Libya include a controlling interest in the Jewel Bank, formerly the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, and Rainbow Tourist Group, the state travel company. Colonel Gaddafi has been given a controlling share in the oil pipeline between Zimbabwe and the Mozambique port of Beira. He also has a significant shareholding in Zimbabwe's state-owned energy company Noczim and top hotels. President Mugabe is understood to have facilitated foreign travel for 10,000 Libyans by giving them Zimbabwean passports. Sources inside Zimbabwe said that more than 1,500 Libyans had been given homes, work permits and jobs in Zimbabwe.***