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« Apartheid Reality Check | Main | Human Rights Day »

March 21, 2007

Comments

capdog

Nice one, but did you have to use the term "bread basket"?! If I ever hear it again I may just get sick.. ;)

Steve

Mike,
What was the difference between the White rule in Zimbabwe and the White rule in SA?

Also, how did freedom in Zimbabwe initially transpire?

mike

Although there was as unequal treatment of whites and black in the former Rhodeisa, there was no formal policy of segregation (or Apartheid) as in South Africa. The best analogy I suppose was to compare it to pre 1948 South Africa.

Land allocation although grossly unfair was far better than South Africa. The Land Apportionment and Tenure Acts for example reserved 25% of the land area as ‘Tribal Trust Land” which was available to be worked on a collective basis by black tribes.

Black people were not specifically prohibited from voting either. The system was based on a limited franchise with property and education criteria. But in all the year until 1979 Blacks never constituted more than 5% of voters.

NoPCThoughts

There is Zimbabwe exiles blog calling for the British to invade it and restore democracy. http://radicalzim.blogspot.com/2007/03/britain-should-invade-zimbabwe_12.html

A somewhat radical view point but a sign of how desperate things have got in Zimbabwe.

I am of the "All Africa's a Basket case" school of thought (Sorry capdog) and having visited South Africa last year, I am not convinced they are out of the woods yet.

Populist leaders such as Zuma are perceived as corrupt and likely to promise "Land for votes" in the next elections. The killings fields of the South African farms, and first court seizure are signs that lessons have not been learnt yet.

As for Zim, well It will be a very long time, if ever, before Zimbabwe fully recovers from the damage. All the farm infrastructure has been destroyed, the farmers dispersed, and capital goods (tractors etc) gone, and livestock diseased or eaten. Even just repairing the broken fences will cost millions.

Where is the money going to come from, Switzerland? I don't think so.

The country has effectively been destroyed, and will never regain the chances lost, because even if Mugabe’s regime collapses, all the "squatters", "veterans", and "activists" etc will still be there, and no one will be able to control them. It would need a military government just to protect people, let alone enforce the courts orders.

I guess I am being ultra pessimistic, but I suspect that when Mugabe’s party lose power, they will revert back to guerrilla violence to get it back

Steve

Perhaps something along the lines of what happened in Muritania may be required.

Sandmonkey writes

"I mean, a country that was ruled by a despot for 21 years gets a military coup, that gets done by a group of military officers who chose not to rule the people but hold fair and democratic elections, where not a single one of them or anyone backed by them gets to run, and where they will resign from power and the military after the new government is in place, and this is the middle-east? And they did this totally by themselves, without foreign intervention or pressure? How could you not love that?"

See full link here

Mike

NoPCThoughts, I am not sure I agree with you entirely. Don’t think it is legitimate for Britain to invade Zimbabwe. If there was an international intervention it would need to be far more broad based. It would at a minimum require AU or SADC support.

I think Zimbabwe’s problems can actually be solved with out a military invasion. I will deal with this in a future post.

Lastly, I would not assume that the MDC will be the next government in Zimbabwe. Many Zimbabweans expect reforms to come from within the ZANU PF. I also don’t know what the true democratic credentials of the MDC are?

I don’t know if you have seen the movie ‘The Last King of Scotland’? I particulayl liked the last scene. Where the people embrace and cheers for the new strong man just as the did for Idi Amin and the strong men before him. The international community too tends to make that same mistake. Change is not of itself good.

Gary

I have no doubt that if free and fair elections were actually held in Zimbabwe, the MDC would win by a wide margin.
ZANU PF is the Nazi Party of Zimbabwe and must be removed and destroyed before Zimbabwe can move forward.
The main problem is, that in the event of any coup or revolution against Mugabe and ZANU PF, South Africa will likely forget it's non-intervention stance and send the troops in to put their struggle buddies back in power.
SA's Satanic foreign policy is to suport totalitarian regimes and bloodthirsty terrorist regimes wherever they can..

The Dictator / Embittered Correspondent

Ronno Einstein categorizes Israel as an apartheid state.

Would he define Mugabe's Zim as a "post-racist democracy"?

Gary

Ronno has already praised Mugabe's regime and vowed that SA would march
shoulder to shoulder with it.
Show me an Israel basher and I will show you a hypocrite-always.

mortfaucheur

Wow, excellent photos.
Thinking and knowing the sort of 'society' Zimbabwe has descended to makes the cave paintings of Europe, Africa, America, Asia, and Australia look like a hopeful sign there's a potential glimmer of human decency whenever there's an Ice Age! :)

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