A true police state (Zimbabwe)

Jewish World Review ^ | Dec. 26, 2002 | Nat Hentoff

[SJackson]

| If there were a contest naming which nation's government is the most vicious at crushing human rights and the human spirit, many countries would be leading contenders. I would vote for Zimbabwe, ruled by Robert Mugabe -- once its liberator, now its tyrant.

The United Nations' World Food program reported on Nov. 30 that food shortages in Zimbabwe are so severe that half the population -- more than 6 million people -- will be in acute need of food by March. But Andrew Natsios, the administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, testified before Congress in August:

"We now have confirmed reports in a number of areas in the most severely affected region of the country, which is the south, that food is being distributed to people who are members of Mugabe's political party and is not being distributed based on need. The children of opposition party members have been driven away from school supplementary feeding programs in rural areas."

In September, Adotei Akwei, Africa Advocacy director of Amnesty International U.S.A., told The New York Times that "people have been detained and tortured. In (Zimbabwe) now, literally, no one's safety and security is guaranteed if there is even the slightest doubt of support for President Mugabe."

The Amani Trust in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, monitors and treats black citizens of that country who have been tortured or otherwise punished as enemies of the state. Tony Reeler, clinical director of the Amani Trust -- which is supported by the U.N. Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture and the Swedish Red Cross -- told Christina Lamb in the Aug. 25 Sunday Telegraph in London:

"We're seeing an enormous prevalence of rape and enough cases to say it's being used by the state as a political tool, with women and girls being raped because they are the wives, girlfriends or daughters of political activists. There are also horrific cases of girls as young as 12 or 13 being taken off to militia camps, used and abused and kept in forced concubinage. But I suspect, as with Bosnia, the real extent of what is happening is going to take a hell of a long time to come out."

Passed by Mugabe's controlled parliament, the Public Order and Security Act was enacted this past January. Described by Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York and Washington, the act makes it "an offence to make a public statement with the intention to, or knowing there is a risk of 'undermining the authority of or insulting' the president. This prohibition includes statements likely to engender 'feelings of hostility toward the president.'"

In October, Sandra Nyaira, former political editor of The Daily News in Zimbabwe, received this year's International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award in New York. Accepting it, she said that "day in and day out, journalists in Zimbabwe work without knowing what the future holds for them -- could it be a bomb? Could you be thrown behind bars for being too critical?" Many have been arrested.

Yet, in November, The New York Times reported that "the South African foreign minister, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma, said it was time for Western nations to consider ending penalties they imposed on Zimbabwe

continued......

[Sir_Humphrey]

Another triumph of African socialism

[2banana]

Question: When do we start bombing?

Answers: ???

[Cuttnhorse]

Question: When do we start bombing?

Just curious, why would WE start bombing? This is an African problem, let Mandela step in and mediate the problem.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

And this is our fault because...

[Pern]

Question: When do we start bombing?

I wouldn't want to waste the cost of one 500 lb bomb on that sh*t hole. Yes, it's fustrating to read the news coming out of that horrible place, but history has shown us that there can be no 'civilized' Africa. They are animals, let them kill each other off.

[DWSUWF]

"...Another triumph of African socialism...

Regarding Muga-buga... Senator Byrd might say: "You can take the boy out of the jungle, but you just can't take the jungle out of the boy."

We need to tell Mugabe that we're going to kill him if he doesn't straighten up and fly right.

And then we need to kill him anyway, even if he does, just to show any other would-be jungle overlords waiting in the wings how difficult we are to please.

Next Problem...

[Republic of Texas]

We can't help Africa because WE are the problem. See, we are evil white colonialists, so lets just stay out of it an let the enlightened Africans solve the situation.

[Cuttnhorse]

While your take on the situation is tempting, I don't agree. I lived and worked in the boonies in eastern Africa for almost 2-years and there is a lot of reason for hope for Africa...but real change may not occur in my lifetime.

Africa's problems are many, but there remains tremendous opportunities, both in human and natural resources. Africa will never free itself of seemingly insurmountable problems until African nations start getting rid of lunatics like Mugabe.

[trebb]

Mugabe - the new Dem hero and spokesperson..."they would not have to die if only they could agree with and adore me.."

[hoot2]

we pay outrageous "dues" to the u.n.
aren't "they" supposed to use it for situations just like this?
c'mon kofi anonymous; shake loose some shekles; feed these people...NOW!

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Cuttnhorse]

aren't "they" supposed to use it for situations just like this?

That is a great question.

[Scribe35]

We shouldn't start bombing Zimbabwe (and I wonder if the orginal post suggesting we do so was unmarked sarcasm), but that said, there was less reason to bomb Serbia and Serbian troops in Kosovo than there would be to target a truly genocidal regime in Zimbabwe -- and half a dozen other African countries.

[freepy smurf]

More important questions:

What will Nelson Mandela do to call world attention to Mugabe's oppression?

When will Jimmy Carter arrive on the scene to negotiate an end to this?

How can Kofi Annan blame it all on the United States?

Will Jessie Jackson call on his vast finacial resources to alleviate the mass hunger?

Can Bill Clinton feel their pain (between BJs)?

[aruanan]

While your take on the situation is tempting, I don't agree. I lived and worked in the boonies in eastern Africa for almost 2-years and there is a lot of reason for hope for Africa...but real change may not occur in my lifetime.

And all the Africans I've known over the years (Zimbabwe, Sudan, Rwanda) have been gracious, optimistic, good people, entirely lacking in the cynicism that seems to permeate so many blacks in the U.S.. A major problem is that too many people have partaken of the specious idea that all people everywhere in the world are all open to some kind of spirit of progress and conclude that because some places are more ethically or technologically advanced it is because those particular people are inherently smarter or better than those who are not.

The spread of civilization and humane society has been contingent on many different factors--some of them simply geographical and meteorological. Sometimes one sees a confluence of many particularly good things such as the Judeo/Christian attitude to physical labor and inventiveness with the scholasticism of the medieval monks. When these were set in the context of a more northern Europe not so bound to the mentality of the Roman world and then combined with Medieval Climate Optimum, there were optimum conditions for advances on all sorts of fronts.

One of the really big problems in Africa was that so many of the really intelligent youngsters were sent off to school in Europe and thoroughly infected by socialism/communism and returned with the belief that 1. all woes were caused by white imperialists and 2. they would disappear when the white imperialists, their culture, and their laws were destroyed. Combine this with the too prevalant human tendency toward avarice and you have a recipe for disaster such as seen in the lust to appropriate the wealth of both white and black farmers in Zimbabwe.

Whatever the problems of the continent of Africa are, they don't come from people who are too inherently childish or too far down on some imaginary evolutionary ladder to do any better.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[zingzang]

...there was less reason to bomb Serbia and Serbian troops in Kosovo than there would be to target a truly genocidal regime in Zimbabwe -- and half a dozen other African countries.

And we can all see how great Serbia is doing today, not to mention Somalia. So where do we stop with the "humanitarian" missions? Why not start bombing Cuba? Then there's always Venezuela. And let's don't forget China and North Korea while we're at it. There are mean people all over this world and I don't think we're able to make everyone nice just because we want it that way. When our safety and economic factors come into play (Iraq) it's time for action. Otherwise, it's sad but true, these people have to work things out for themselves.

[Sparta]

If there is no such thing as a civilized Africa, then tell me about Rhodesia. I long for the day Rhodesia is restored and the green and white flag flies over Salsbury again.

[Mike4Freedom]

Yes, it's fustrating to read the news coming out of that horrible place, but history has shown us that there can be no 'civilized' Africa. They are animals, let them kill each other off.

No, they are not animals. They just must made the mistake of listening to the advice of western intellectuals that told them that socialism was the quickest way to develop a backward nation. If we do not want to see such misery and evil in our world, we must spread the word that socialism is unadulterated evil and produces only starvation and misery. We must be proud of the market system and rule of law because IT WORKS and because it is moral.