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Zimbabwe -- Quantifying disaster
ZWNEWS ^ | July 13, 2002 | John Robertson

Posted on 07/13/2002 2:19:36 AM PDT by Clive

The social disaster in Zimbabwe cannot be measured. More than 100,000 displaced farm workers are now living wretched lives in refugee camps and another 200,000 are expected to be displaced within the coming month.

More than a quarter of a million children who were being educated in schools built and maintained by commercial farmers cannot now expect to continue their education.

Perhaps 80,000 industrial jobs will be lost in industry as supplies of agricultural inputs run down, or as their former customers for crop inputs are driven from the land.

Three quarters of the agricultural exports will come to an end with the destruction of commercial agriculture and the loss of this revenue will damage or destroy the prospects of survival of most of the remaining businesses and most other urban jobs.

The only political figure in recent history who comes close to Robert Mugabe's wilful destruction of the lives of his own citizens and his country's economic resources is Pol Pot.

Because Pol Pot's romantic, but absurd vision of the perfect pastoral life under a peasant agricultural economy could accommodate only about a quarter of Cambodia's actual population, he started to ruthlessly slaughter the excess numbers, choosing to kill any with an education or who showed reluctance to slip quietly under his totalitarian subjugation.

Zimbabwe's carrying capacity for its human population has been boosted vigorously over the years by industrial growth and the adoption of first world technologies, and the population now stands at about 13 million.

However, its carrying capacity if the people are forced to revert to peasant agriculture will be no more than a quarter of that.

The climate is too hostile, the ecology too fragile and the natural hazards of crop diseases and pest invasions are too destructive to farm successfully in any manner other than in the highly capital and management-intensive commercial methods that are now being destroyed.

By being forced to accept the basic farming methods of their ancestors, Zimbabwe's new farmland occupiers will face poverty and starvation on the million small plots being carved out of the 6,000 commercial farms now being nationalised.

If Zimbabwe's carrying capacity is to be brought down to three million by these destructive acts, the ten million who are clearly surplus to Robert Mugabe's vision of the future will soon become a major hazard to the stability of the region and areas much further afield as the waves of refugees spread across the world.

Like Pol Pot's ideas, they are doomed to fail. It is up to those of us who can do something to stop the madness in its tracks to ensure that it fails sooner rather than later, and preferably before much bigger shock-waves of misery and distress coming from Zimbabwe reach across the world.

John Robertson is one of Zimbabwe's leading economists


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: africawatch; zimbabwe
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I had been expressing the apprehension that Mugabe's destruction of the economy would set off a volkerwanderung.

Robertson seems to be leaning the same way.

But then there is a case to be made that the whole world is in the grip of a volkerwanderung.

1 posted on 07/13/2002 2:19:36 AM PDT by Clive
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To: *AfricaWatch; Cincinatus' Wife; sarcasm; Travis McGee; happygrl; Byron_the_Aussie; robnoel; ...
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2 posted on 07/13/2002 2:20:13 AM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive
bttt
3 posted on 07/13/2002 2:42:06 AM PDT by Balding_Eagle
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To: Clive
Based on Eddie Cross' comparison of the efforts undertaken in 1992 during that drought, and the lack of any planning for food distribution, transport, and coordination with South Africa for expedition at the ports and railroads, what possibility is there for anything other than a disaster and the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands ?

It seems to me that the time has now come in Zimbabwe for that Biblical admonition to seize the sword, and for those lacking a sword, to sell their cloak and buy one.

Or someone should pay Grace to do the deed.

4 posted on 07/13/2002 2:47:13 AM PDT by happygrl
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To: Clive
Any whites remaining in Zimbabwe are just sheep waiting to be slaughtered by Mugabe's troops. Why the so called free world hasn't killed this dictator is beyond my comprehension.
5 posted on 07/13/2002 5:10:37 AM PDT by B4Ranch
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To: B4Ranch
Why the so called free world hasn't killed this dictator is beyond my comprehension.

Population reduction.

6 posted on 07/13/2002 5:47:51 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Clive
volkerwanderung

Learn something everyday on FR.

7 posted on 07/13/2002 6:17:37 AM PDT by razorback-bert
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To: Carry_Okie
Senate Passes Bill That Targets Billions for AIDS Prevention, Treatment

On the other subject, have you been able to work out the dates with events?

8 posted on 07/13/2002 6:20:12 AM PDT by B4Ranch
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To: Carry_Okie
Messed up the 1st try.

Senate Passes Bill That Targets Billions for AIDS Prevention, Treatment

On the other subject, have you been able to work out the dates with events?

9 posted on 07/13/2002 6:20:59 AM PDT by B4Ranch
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To: B4Ranch
Not yet.
10 posted on 07/13/2002 6:44:22 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: Clive
A similiar result seems to be sought by the Sierra Club and Earth first eco nazis. Which of us will be the eliminated ones.
11 posted on 07/13/2002 7:29:39 AM PDT by willyone
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To: B4Ranch
Simple. He is black and therefore sacred. If Jesse Jackson or Sharpton seized power tomorrow and started policies like Mugabes the press would have nothing but praise. Compare that to the outcry about profiling in airports. Wag the dog in action. How can the gay lobby be so powerful? Less than one percent of the population dictating to the other ninety nine percent? The media and money to politicians will accomplish wonders in advancing an agenda hostile to society as a whole.
12 posted on 07/13/2002 7:35:44 AM PDT by willyone
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To: Clive
...the ten million who are clearly surplus to Robert Mugabe's vision of the future will soon become a major hazard to the stability of the region and areas much further afield as the waves of refugees spread across the world.

We should give them guns and send them back.

13 posted on 07/13/2002 8:16:33 AM PDT by Carry_Okie
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To: razorback-bert
Thank you for the link.

I will bookmark it.

14 posted on 07/13/2002 8:22:57 AM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive
"the whole world is in the grip of a volkerwanderung."

What does that mean?

Carolyn

15 posted on 07/13/2002 12:40:20 PM PDT by CDHart
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To: Clive
They have two choices. Either organize and overthrow Mugabe or - get out.

I'd get out, and quick.

16 posted on 07/13/2002 12:49:34 PM PDT by Barnacle
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To: CDHart
Clive; "the whole world is in the grip of a volkerwanderung."

Carolyn: "What does that mean?"

It was an off-the-cuff remark, but I was thinking of the manner in which significant migration is stressing the immigration systems of the righer countries such as the European Union, Canada, Australia the US and to a lesser extent Malaysia and the Philippines.

And I was thinking of the manner in which the migrations, mainly from Muslim, is altering the demographics of the target countries faster than the countries are able to cope. Examples are New York, California, the Mexican Border States, Ontario and Quebec.

In the past decade, 1.5 million people have moved out of Metropolitan Toronto area but its population continues to increase, fed by "third world" immigration and spurious refugee claimants.

I had thought of it as a low grade, gradual, volkerwanderung, not the sort of mass hunger-driven volkerwanderung that I was expecting in southern Africa.

But then razorback-bert posted a link to an article that described it as a fast volkerwanderung.

17 posted on 07/13/2002 1:07:27 PM PDT by Clive
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To: happygrl
You might recall that back in the 70's when Rhodesia was, trying to hold a lid on things by hiring international mercenaries. They lost. And now they live in a country called Zimbabwe ruled by Mugabe.

Dot com stocks have a better chance of surviving.
18 posted on 07/13/2002 1:07:59 PM PDT by Barnacle
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To: Barnacle
And they had some bloody good soldiers, too.

Not just the mercs, also the Selous Scouts.

But what finished them was international public opinion.

Today, the white population is less than one percent of the population of Zim and it is an older population.

Let any white start an insurrection anywhere in Africa and the whole of Africa will unite against them.

Any crimes committed against the whites will quickly be forgotten or excused.

Any revolt, to succeed, must origiate with and be prosecuted by indigenous peoples with no help from whites or from mercs of any colour.

Western countries such as Britain can exert military force only at the explicit request of an African government, and then only with regional acquiescence.

19 posted on 07/13/2002 1:24:51 PM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive
Clive,

From the looks of your home page, you have or had a stake in that country. If so, I hope the tragedy for you and yours was of a limited nature.

20 posted on 07/13/2002 1:42:17 PM PDT by Barnacle
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