[Clive]

We have known that famine was on the horizon for at least the past six months. At that time the government was willing to admit to a maize shortfall of 1000,000 tonnes and independent sources estimated that it would be 600,000 tonnes.

Today the estimate is 1,000,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the farm invasions continue. It is fall in the southern hemisphere and with the disruption of commercial farming it looks like there will effectively be no winter crop.

Aggravating the man-made disaster is the return of El Niño.

[Clive]

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[Clive]

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[Clive]

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[Entropy Squared]

The final vestiges of civilization will soon be stripped away from Zimbabwe. It's descent into savagery is now in full swing.

[Moonman62]

Damn those white farmers for leaving their farms.

[gg188]

Doesn't the aide just allow the government to continue the farm invasions and the ways that got it into this shape into the first place? Does the aide allow Zimbabwe to avoid the consequences of its actions?

[hoot2]

ok clive; then why do we support the u.n. n mugabe?
isn't there a better way to help the people?

[ZOOKER]

Well, that didn't take long.

I heard that ZANU PF hid thousands of tons of grain in warehouses to starve the masses and intimidate them into voting the "right" way.
Is there any truth to this? If so, where is the food now?

Who will distribute the donated food? Mugabe's regime may sell the food for profit or distribute it unequally to punish his opposition.

Are there any conditions attached to the food? We should at least force Mugabe to return the siezed farms, so can provide their own grain in the future.

[dougherty]

Let Bono shell out from his own pocket to feed them.

[cutlass]

Um.. Did this kind of thing happen when the country was called Rhodesia?

[MissAmericanPie]

Let them eat grass, dirt, they asked for it, they got it.

[Balding_Eagle]

Quite amazing they made it this long.

[Chewbacca]

I would be up to donating money to and organization that would air drop handguns to the displaced farmers to fight off the government and unwashed thugs.
The French helped our countrymen fight off the British, lets help another country overthrow their tyranical government.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Meanwhile, the farm invasions continue. It is fall in the southern hemisphere and with the disruption of commercial farming it looks like there will effectively be no winter crop.

There must be some way to stop this madman Mugabe.

[ikka]

John Galt has left the building.

[unamused]

The really sick f*cking thing is that we will give them billions to end their hunger....

[nightdriver]

"The United States government, in a bid to avert widespread hunger in the country, has provided money to buy food for starving Zimbabweans under the WFP emergency food aid programme."

Well, great! Now since the United States has provided support, ol' Mugabe can be just as nasty as he wants to be. All this food can now be used by him for his political advantage by withholding it from all opposition. Way to go, America! (/rant)

[norton]

All the rants aside, all the hopeful humanitarian wishes aside; sometimes it just might make sense to admit that there is nothing that any outside agency (such as us) can do for a country. In this instance, if we help them it'll only get worse and if we don't help them it'll only become worse.

Our tax money should be put to better uses.

What might be of better value would be a complete evaluation of just what WE did that allowed this to come about. Not to absorb blame (guilt - the American drug of choice) but to understand what we need very much to STOP doing to otuers in the name of a utopian new world.

Maybe we ought to include Yugoslavia and Mexico into that evaluation since they seem to be the two opposing poles in our recent activities.

[FreePaul]

Ship the starving people weapons and they can overthrow the government and get their own food. Not likely to happen since all of the civilized government officials want to look compassionate to black Africa. Instead of helping people help themselves we traditionally help the tyrants keep the people in slavery.