Gordon Brown has styled the Zimbabwean government as a “criminal cabal“, demanded that it accept international monitors and called for sanctions if President Robert Mugabe is not removed after the run-off.
I could go on listing those who now condemn the president and his party, or simply refer you to Google or any other search engines carrying news on the forthcoming presidential run-off. It pretty much covers the planet with even African leaders starting to come out in numbers. I would however make mention of Botswana who have led the way in expecting a fellow African state to behave in a manner that is acceptable to global civilisation.
It seems that there are many lessons South Africa can learn from Botswana, one of the few success stories in Africa.
What will be vital in the coming days is for African leaders to impress upon South Africa that as a regional leader, they expect it to set the standards and not, as it has done up to now, lower the tone of the debate. Catching the ball instead of deflecting it behind for a corner that puts our goals in danger once again.
As you will see from the article in the Times of London above, punitive sanctions aimed primarily at the Zimbabwean government, as opposed to the people, are being contemplated. This will invariably add a further block of disenchanted Zimbabweans, currently among the haves, to the have-nots.
The tricky part of the equation will be where the sanctions require South Africa’s participation. As we have seen in the past, regardless of the plight of the poorer Zimbabwe communities, the government has refused to act. When the call comes to pull the plug on the electricity as contemplated in those measures, South Africa will use the suffering of the masses, which it has ignored up to now, to refrain from implementing that sanction. If I may just point out, the vast majority of Zimbabweans are not the beneficiaries who are going to suffer, but rather the elite and organs of (destruction?) State.
In order to close Zimbabwe down and squeeze the government into accepting the will of the people of Zimbabwe, it is going to require South Africa and Zimbabwe’s other border states to act. This will not only force Mugabe to face his accusers instead of palming them off to Africa, it will also make those elite who become have-nots reconsider the plight of their starving brothers.
In this regard I would just answer a couple of questions put to me by my readers:
How do I know that the vast majority don’t support Mugabe?
Simply put: Why would a popular president close down any media but his own, murder and detain his opposition, ban rallies, refuse international monitors, ban independent electoral counting, refuse to accept the results if it goes against him, turn loose war veterans, police and soldiers on his population, force state employees to vote in front of his thugs and about two hundred million other reasons, but other than that I would say it seems to be a close run thing.
Would armies blocking Zimbabweans constitute a lack of Ubuntu? (This normally asked by people who support the ruling elite).
No, allowing an elitist group to massacre and brutalise the population removes the jurisdiction of the court on Ubuntu and replaces it with a court of higher jurisdiction. It’s based in the Hague and hopefully while there, will afford those who are troubled by this question to pose it as part of their defence on charges of crimes against humanity.
Perhaps this will teach the haves that even the have-nots are brothers as well. Maybe even get people who watch their black brothers and sisters dying before they reach 38 to have an ounce of compassion and to look out for people other than themselves.
Moving abroad, the key to all of this is also going to rest with China. As long as the Zimbabwean regime believes that it has a veto in the UN security council as well as aid which can somehow be brought in to prop up the elite, it will fight on. Don’t lose sight of the fact that once Zimbabwe is open to the world again, people are going to be shocked at just how bad the murder and brutality has been.
At the end of World War II the Nazis did a lot of posturing because they knew that once the world caught sight of their “work” the proverbial was going to hit the fan. While Zimbabwe is going to be on a much smaller scale it will still be the largest crime against humanity of this century. The elite are well aware of that and are jockeying for position while there is something, anything, worth fighting for.
One thing is for certain, if Zimbabwe does achieve liberation from this reign of terror, you will be very hard pressed to find anyone who supported Mugabe.
Particularly after the bodies come pouring out of the closet.
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26 Responses to “South Africa and China key to Zimbabwean outcome”
Traps,
Mugabe and Zanu PF seem to have the backing of most of the SADCC leaders, Mbeki and many in the ANC.
The AU seems to be silent.
Why should China oppose all these African “leaders”, especially when it is not China’s style to oppose a government, whether elected or not?
On the other hand, if African countries did ask China to bring the Zimbabwean situation before the UN Security Council, perhaps it would oblige, although SA does not (yet) want this matter brought before the security council.
Zimbabwe can run for many months without any aid whatsoever from China (after all, it does not get electricity from China).
Perhaps the UN can still prevent an escalation into a full scale war in Zim that will cost tens of thousands of lives, but this will only happen if African countries stand together and ensure the matter gets to the UN.
Dont forget Russia recently weighed in on Mugabe’s side at the UN. Apparently because they are sensitive about discussing rigging elecions in case someone starts on them. And because if Zim Platinum mines start producing again then Russia will make less money from their reserves when the price falls.
And I note that the ANC Youth have stated “They are willing to kill” in order to prevent Zuma being brought to trial and Zuma did not condemn this threat to interfere with the courts due process. Seems he and the ANC youth wing are picking up ideas from the ZANU pf border Gezi youth militia on how to run a country.
Frankly, at this point i am actually more worried about South Africa than Zimbabwe.
Events over the last 2 or 3 months have highlighted just where we are as a nation, and we have fallen way further than i think i, and many others, had probably realised.
We ARE a banana republic, the old organs of state just haven’t totally collapsed yet, but the ANC really is working very hard on them.
We have all of these world leaders suggesting, asking for, pleading for, demanding that a free and fair election be held, as though there was some way that this might still be possible, or that the Zimbabwean ruling elite might turn round and say, ‘Actually chaps, you have a point…”.
There is only one language that will be understood now - do as the world says, or face a defined set of consequences. This piece is the best reasoning that I have seen on what to do.
There is a need for about 15,000 election monitors, and possibly UN or AU security forces deployed at all voting stations. All prior or postal votes (those cast by members of the civil service and armed forces) should be carried out again, with monitors ensuring the secrecy of the ballot.
Where is the courage of ALL of our leaders to stand up and say these things?
The idea that a legitimate and fair election can soon be held in Zimbabwe is preposterous. Mugabe is only interested in rigging the election. In the run-up to the election, he has used every tyrannical trick in the book.
China, Russia and South Africa are determined that Mugabe remains in power and will not allow the UN security council to do anything that might harm Mugabe and his junta.
Mbeki and The ANC despise “The West”. The West should, in its turn, now remove its “post-partheid we love Mandela tinted glasses” and start to see the new South Africa more clearly.
Unfortunately, the only outcome in Zimbabwe is death, destruction, starvation, torture etc. It is another disastrous African nation state. The only question that now remains is how long it will be before South Africa follows suit.
Siphiwo Qangani with kangaroos on June 17th, 2008 at 8:46 am
@Traps
The sooner we are done with Thabo Mbeki especially as far as foreign policy is concerned the better.
I doubt that it will be that easy for Mugabe to go. The question is how bad can Zimbabwe really get before Mugabe thinks it’s time to go? Worse than it is now?!!!
I have said this before and I will say this again. Zimbabwe needs a civil war. NOW!
Because I do not think that the Chinese or South Africans can do a slight bit of difference unless they are willing to use strong arm tactics of sorts. Sanctions or maybe a ‘regime change’ thing. But from what I can see, we are not willing to do that nor are the Chinese.
Nice point about China. The Security Council is certainly hamstrung by sham democracies like China and Russia. Not that the other members are angels!
I feel SADC needs to play the lead role. If China is shut out of SADC, it’ll back of its support of the Zim junta. SADC also needs to tighten the screws on Bob and his army chums. Maybe a blockade of the country. Massing troops on a border can also be a powerful persuasive argument.
Pity that you forgot, Trapido, to shed light into how “South Africa’s cuting off of electricity supplies to Zimbabwe” amounts to “punitive sanctions aimed primarily at the Zimbabwean government, as opposed to the people”. Moreover, you failed to expatiate on how such electricity supply cuts would benefit “the vast majority of Zimbabweans [who] are not the beneficiaries who are going to suffer”. I think you have completely lost the plot, Trapido. It has been said a couple of times by many commentators in your blog, that these sanctions (which falsely masquerade as targetting the ‘elite’ of Zimbabwe) are nothing other than a carefully orchestrated strategy to punish the people of Zimbabwe for daring to continuously voting for Robert Mugabe: so, the best way is to conjure up strategies that would punish them, so they ‘realize’ the costs of voting Mugabe, rather than a puppet who has made it his trademark to be a mouthpiece of the West. Now that all strategies of turning the people of Zimbabwe against Mugabe have dismally failed, the British, American and all their subsidiaries want to turn to, and inflict untold suffering on, the ordinary Zimbabwean people? How sickening!
Oh, please, don’t tell anything about that meek fellow (Gordon Brown), whose obsession with Zimbabwe serves nothing other than deflecting the attention from the glaring fact that he is battling to measure up to the fellow who, very unlike Brown, had started his prime ministerial tenure as the ‘darling’ of the British people (Tony Blair). Brown’s pre-occupation with Zimbabwean, amidst a highly disapproving British electorate, should only fool those with a desperation of Trapido (of considering anything said by any insignificant person by Zimbabwe, as worthy of attention). I guess that next time you are going to read through the speech by Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea’s Kim Il-Young, to find anything they purportedly would have said about Zimbabwe.
It’s even striking that the photo capturing the reported Brown’s verbal diarrhoea about Zimbabwe portrays him as standing to another war-monger, the oil-thirsty American ‘president’ (George Bush), the latter increasingly suffering from political obscurity as his party fields a rather meek and senile John MacCain in its quest to remain in the White House, amidst the mounting pressure from the Democrats. I guess Trapido would even come back and report to his readership when Bush or Brown were ever found to have belched or had spasms; after all, any waffling by these two leaders is worth listening to.
I am yet to know of any regime in the world that was ousted by sanctions. Saddam Hussain survived the worst sanctions you can imagine, though thousands of babies were dying because the Iraq regime could not buy immunization.
If UK is going to impose sanctions, forget that any of the Zimbabwean elite will suffer. Mugabe will continue to travel as he did recently to Italy, and UK will say they could not refuse him a visa if it was a UN summit. but yes, he was in Italy and did all the shopping that any of the visiting presidents enjoyed.
Iran is under sanctions, the regime continue to oppress, and UK just recently offered its regime some incentives,Iran instead said to hell with the incentives if they came with any pre conditions.
North Korea is under sanctions, the regime there continues to oppress-and almost every six months it tests a longer range missile.
Osama Bin Laden’s assets have been frozen by the USA, the man still issues threats against the USA-did i read somewhere that the Taliban recently released more than 1000prisoners from a heavily fortified prison in Kandahar, right under the watchful eyes of the NATO command?
Cuba is under sanctions, but i admire the number of doctors and nurses they continue to churn out. and the regime continues to go strong with the former president having benefitted much from some of the world’s best health care. He was pronounced dead by the Bush regime remember, yet he seems to go from strength to strenth-Mugabe?
Traps sanctions, i said before, are a stick to only beat the innocent citizens to learn to vote wisely next time.
Traps please read what MOYO(he has out grown these calls for sanctions) has posted this time around.
I SAY NO TO SANCTIONS.
Mugabe is one of the Brotherhood of African despot leaders. SA will not co-operate with any moves by civilised countries to halt the lunacy which is Zimbabwe. Neither will the AU or the SADCC. We will pay lip service to the west and allow whatever Bob needs to get to him (we almost allowed an arms shipment already), next time it won’t be so blatant and with no border control to speak of Bob will be OK.
ZANU PF have already declared war if they lose so we can look forward to months of drama.
A civil war now is the best answer, which shows how sick this region is.
@ amused reader
I agree we should worry about SA now. It is only a matter of time before we too fall apart and as Alaister Budd points out all the warnings are there. The ANCYL (mainly old buggers)are militant,ignorant and follow blindly. The ANCWL hail the Health minister as a beacon of hope for Africa and pledge their support..the list goes on.
We should all know which way we will go within the next year.
Maybe will will see our rainbow at the end of this storm
It’s worth considering whether the problem has long ago moved beyond whether the elections can be made free and fair - what would happen even if they could?
@Bonginkosi thinks it is time for civil war in Zim but would he initiate it if it was his responsibility? In any event it is clear that Mbeki is not of that mind, nor the SADC states.
If you have the patience to read it, I will try to post below a piece I wrote on SA’s foreign policy over the last eight years. You will judge if you think it makes any sense.
Traps - you are ever spot on.
The rabble rousers are so thick they come in with their garbage near the end. I will not pollute my mind any more their logic.
Keep hammering away Traps - like a mosquito it pesters the hell out of everyone. Pester is all that we can do.
Zimbabwe I no longer care a damn about - the killer is their “Liberator.” Let them have him in peace.
I do care about almost 400 years veneer of this nation - now exposing its evil mentality.
It is beginning to snowball; citizens need to wake up if it is not already too late.
Tribal warfare is an eye blink away, while the nation slumbers. Racism is a blip compared to tribal hatred.
Mbeki Xhosa - Zuma Zulu. Today’s comrades. Zulu’s consider Xhosa inferior. Black hating black, is the “here and now.” What is that intolerance called?
Inter tribal wars are vital to the African Ego.
Matabeleland, Kenya, Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Zululand - and so on ad infinitum.
Dark, primitive, savage Africa is returning to its southern tip.
old, female, pale face. on June 17th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Whether or not the sides eventually get round to fighting in Zimbabwe, President Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy there will continue to bring SA to blows for a long time to come. Nowadays even the ANC, always anxious to appear united on major issues, are openly at loggerheads over it.
It is a huge change since Mugabe’s first farm invasions planted the seeds of conflict: since whites alone got up in arms at the abuse of human rights while black comrades charged that was only because white farmers were on the receiving end. They were simpler times, when President Thabo Mbeki always got his way. He could sit opposite an overawed SABC interviewer and ask, with winning humility, what he was expected to do about the violence shown on TV every night - Zimbabwe was not SA. In those early days, Mbeki made no pretence of doing anything about it, and he did not say there was no crisis.
As Mugabe’s depredations escalated and first the Commonwealth then international pressure mounted, this candid approach could no longer serve. To admit there was a problem at all would mean having to take action. Militarily, economically, but above all politically, action was impossible. The visionary leader who preached the African Renaissance could not initiate western-style sanctions against a friendly African state and former struggle ally, nor ignore the emphatic support for Mugbe inside the ANC and SADC. Someone in the president’s office, a spin-doctor, a journalist perhaps, came up with a tactful way round the potentially disastrous demands to do something. The president was using quiet diplomacy.
These notorious words still cause terrible confusion. Intended only to fend off charges of inaction, they fatefully suggested Thabo Mbeki was deftly ‘handling’ a brother and comrade and could settle everything peaceably. It would be naive to ask the president too many questions: he was working on it. So no one pointed out diplomacy is a method, not a policy. No one asked what the president was using quiet diplomacy for.
Was it to halt Mugabe’s excesses, or get him to stand down? Was SA’s role to bring the MDC, an untried opposition in another country, to power? Was it - even more dangerously - to oppose and overthrow tyranny wherever it appeared?
It should be obvious SA’s government could never seriously have contemplated such far-reaching objectives if only because diplomacy unsupported by power cannot achieve them. However passionately South Africans felt about it, for Mbeki the Zimbabwe crisis was about weighing the direction of foreign policy. His prime aim at all times was to preserve regional stability, which in his terms also meant not dividing the ANC and keeping out the west. It could only end in failure because it put him in the hands of a dictator.
Mugabe and Zanu-PF had one aim: to stay in power. ‘The MDC will never rule in Zimbabwe - we will go back into the bush’, Mugabe threatened publicly, and it is inconceivable he did not make the same threat to Mbeki in private. Having no hand to play, and doubtless pressed by a SADC also set on avoiding regional conflict, Mbeki’s only alternative was to try to contain the crisis within Zimbabwe’s borders. The emphasis of quiet diplomacy shifted, away from ‘handling’ Mugabe to the need for Zimbabweans to work out their own solutions. The long months of talks between Zanu-PF and the MDC followed, with Mugabe playing cat-and-mouse throughout and easily finding ways to disregard the election results when he did not win.
Supporters argue quiet diplomacy has ‘worked’. They argue Mbeki’s team negotiated the electoral changes that led to majorities for the MDC in parliament and Morgan Zvangirai as presidential runner, whereas the west’s loud diplomacy achieved nothing. This forgets that Mugabe’s destruction of his country’s economy, partly brought on by western pressures, also destroyed his negotiating position – why else did he duck the crisis summit SADC called after the elections? Even so, he conceded only minor points that he clearly intended to get round when the time came.
What will haunt Mbeki most is the widespread belief that he was all along the willing lackey of Robert Mugabe, cut from the same cloth.
Mbeki is a nationalist who plays hard for all of Africa. Is this sufficient to have tied him hand and foot to Mugabe come what may? Mbeki is also a resourceful and ruthless politician, born and bred in the ANC. As Mugabe went from bad to worse, it would have been second nature to draw back from the intransigent Zanu-PF leader. After all, Zuma has found it easy enough to do so after Polokwane. Why has Mbeki not?
It cannot be because Mbeki is still the even-handed mediator – the MDC complains he is not. It cannot be just Mbeki’s usual stubbornness – post-Polokwane, he has changed direction on keeping the Scorpions soon enough. It cannot possibly be sentiment.
The truth is Mbeki always knew that his policy of maintaining the regional status quo carried a domestic advantage for him – was inseparable from it: it kept an opposition party of the left from coming to power in his own backyard. It was not the basis of policy, but as his difficulties gathered at home with Zuma and his union supporters, with their close links to union allies in Zimbabwe, it was an irresistible extra.
I think it is possible to weave endless complexitities into the Mbeki / SADC / ZANU-PF / MDC / Brotherhood tapestry. Take note please, I do not even mention Mugabe
ZANU-PF have long since passed the point where they will listen to anyone and the inability of Mbeki or anyone else to make a diffrence is because they are powerless.
ZANU-PF will show the finger to anyone who tries to interfer. The reason is simple, they are fighting to avoid the wrath of all the forces ranged against them. A cornered rat is a dangerous animal and they have a huge legacy of guilt and destruction to answer for. They have destroyed a country.
By the way I really do believe that Mugabe is past it and the devil to be reckoned with is the upper echelons of ZANU-PF. Mad Bob is now a figure head and has little real influence. His role is to spit on the microphone and rally the electorate. He has wandered off into the realm of incoherent dementia. Just listen to his speeches and look beyond him to the top men in ZANU-PF. These are the names to be remembered when the time comes for retribution and they all know it.
If I were Mbeki I would wash my hands of this and say that I have done my best, but to no avail. This would go some way to restoring his dignity.
Traps,
This situation reminds me once more the peculiar ways some nations path in order to find their own stabilisation. In this part of Africa it all started many years ago, with the Bantu south migration. We all heard of historical bloodshed events with Shonas, Tsongas, etc., which culminated with Zulus and their mythical Shaka. All these events show us that throughout time, in this part of Africa the sense of “nation” is very closely related to definition of “tribe”. So, their natural stability is pursued with a lot of blood between tribes. In fact this has also happened in other continents, although most of the cases centuries ago. We could say these sequences of historical events were interrupted by colonisation. The Europeans have worsened everything when they decided in 19th Century (Berlin Conference) to draw their own borders, thus separating tribes apart, and joining parts of former enemies.
After independence, there was a kind of recovery of the former tribal stability rearrangement, by means of internal struggles within several countries. Some countries where that didn’t happen went through a long rule under unique party rule system of Marxist characteristics. Such was the case of Mozambique that, although formed by many tribes of different genesis and experiences, all were united (even if by force) around the Frelimo party. More or less the same had happened in Tanzania. (In other countries – Malawi, Swazi, Lesotho, Botswana – this didn’t need to happen because they didn’t have the same tribal diversity.) But, this is what happened in Ruanda, and not long ago in Kenya. Let’s hope the same process can be controlled in South Africa.
At this point it’s important to day that this has also happened in relation to the “white tribes”. Some liberation movements’ sectors seemed to believe that economy control would be faster achieved if the whites were scared off the country. So in some of these countries, after black independence we saw clear massive terror movements – disguised in common criminality, characterized by frequent murders of absolutely gratuity – with the only purpose of scaring off the white population. It worked in early days of independence in Mozambique, and in first decade of new South Africa.
Back to the “tribal wars”, this is also happening in Zimbabwe: an hegemonic tribe has been fighting since post-Smith Era to control the country. First the Midlands/Matabeleland events, then the white farmers events, now the MDC events.
After all this ends in southern Africa, the various countries’ social patterns would be smoothed into minor differences, making way to a new stability based on a also new common patterns of peoples’ nations, now coincident with modern international borders. And this would facilitate political and economic order. After all, this is what’s been happening to Zimbabwe, unfortunately at its people’s expenses.
Maybe this is the frontline countries brotherhood bond that makes Mbeki and some others to take a very very quiet approach to the situation.
You go on in a mantra about a Xhosa-Zulu rivalry in South Africa, without hinting on the manner in which these rivalries stand as aberration to the general inter-group prejudices and feuds seen within- and between other racial/tribal/heritage groups in South Africa. For example, on what basis should a rivalry between Xhosa and Zulu speakers be more accentuated than that between pale-skinned populace of Jewish- and German communities in South Africa? Or, that between a Scott and Irish; and still that between Frech and British heritage?
You go on pompously to pontificate that, “Black hating black, is the ‘here and now.’ [and that]
Matabeleland, Kenya, Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Zululand - and so on ad infinitum”. You obviously “forgot” to read Trapido’s previous column (which you always enthusiastically endorse) when he highlighted that the conflicts that you falsely attribute exclusively to Africa, have also prevailed elsewhere sometime in world history - where it was the pale-skinned populace against some of their own. Notable examples include (but not limited to):
1) World War 1
2) World War 2
3) Conflict in the Northern Ireland (between Protestants and Catholics)
4) Ethnic cleansing in Serbia and Montenegro (during the time of Slobodan Milesovic).
5) Chilean repressive regime under President Pinochet
6) The Anglo-Boer (South African) War, where the Afrikaners were so humiliated by the mighty British, that very few Afrikaners would talk about it without feeling a lump on their throat (yet, strangely, black Africans are supposed to forget about apartheid!)
7) Still simmering tensions (over nuclear capabilities) from the Cold War era - Russia and China still feel the brunt of the US and British quest for supremacy in world politics, amidst the ongoing tussle for global hegemony
Your conveniently narrowed reading of intergroup conflict completely disempowered your understanding that conflicts of the nature that you ascribe only to the Xhosa and Zulu speakers are to be expected anywhere where two- or more supposedly powerful groups are battling for supremacy in the context of conceivably scarce resources. It’s a pity that your ignorance completely blinded you from seeing these realities.
I suggested that you retire in the village or farm, where you’d milk the cows every morning and afternoon - perhaps you would be good at it.
Could I just point out that you can get a better idea of what Mugabe is up to, with Mbeki, by studying Latin America in the 60-80s and the dictatorships.
Official torture camps against dissidents, show trials, using the “disappeared” as a method of slow terror, generals takiing over the business community and property and official sanctioning of cross border violence against refugees upto secret international death squads in “Operation Condor”.
Seems if you stopped looking at China and Russia and looked due west (historically) you would get a beter critique of Zim, since someone in ZANU seems to be getting their ideas on running a country from the military dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, Brasil and Paraguay.
You will not be hard pressed to find anyone who supported Mugabe - Mbeki did ! And Russia.
Not so sure about China anymore. Zim really does not have that much to offer, not even that many minerals. Not worth the fight. They are more interested in hosting the Olympics. Since 40 African leaders have condemned the violence, I think China will bow out and rather stay in with the other African states.
Dream on. The 1950’s era big American cars are going strong, but not much else in Cuba.
Fidel Castro’s personal wealth is estimated at some $900 million by Forbe’s magazine.
Good hospitals in Cuba are for tourists. The locals who are mostly poor, have to put up with very shabby (and sometimes filthy) hospitals.
The the poorest Cubans are blacks. While tourism has helped prevent a collapse of the Cuban economy after financial support from the former Soviet Union ended, tourism has exacerbated the economic divide between whites and blacks, as blacks only get menial jobs like porters and cleaners, if they get jobs at all in the tourism sector.
You obviously have never been to Cuba, otherwise you would not praise such a racist country.
Are you maybe suggesting that because other “tribes” who happen to have white skins have got stuck into each other that criticism of black tribes who do the same is wrong?
Humans who have bad (wicked) leaders can be lead to do wicked things. It is the job of the better led lot to try and limit this wickedness. Thus Mbeki gets 0/10, along with quite a few others. But it’s not the new SA education system where marks can be massaged upwards based on extensive failure. For African people, leaders should do the right thing. But I’m not holding my breath.
Old Fox
Thanks for understanding my point, that sanctions never hurt the ruling elite. In fact they[ruling elite] get richer and richer while the citizens are taking the beating.
By the way Forbes magazine admitted that the it estimated Fidel castro’s wealth and went further to say the estimate was ,’more art than science’.
In fact Fidel challenged the magazine to show the world any bank account he had so he could resign. Forbes utterly failed.
In fact even analyst showed that forbes magazine was brief on Castro’s wealth than every other person. Forbes was only on propaganda!?
It is true that sanctions do not hit the wealthy.
Deaths of children in Iraq due to sanctions are indeed a blot on humanity.
I am in favour of an arms embargo on Zim, incl. small arms.
However, more guns are not essential for oppression. The Rwandan genocide is proof that guns and bullets are not required for killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Not all, Sir (with capital letter ‘S’) or Madam (with upper-case ‘M’). Mine was intended to expose Old, Female, Pale Face’s selective- and prejudicial perception she obviously espouses towards and against the peoples of Africa. I trust she took note (I can safely assume she’s female - judging from her multi-phrased alias). I found her glaring omission of conflicts in other parts of the world, quite suspicious or, just to put it more mildly, curious….
When the British sent their warships to guard the coast of Africa to stop the slave trade it was the Cuban and Brazilian slave traders that evaded them and continued the trade.
When Che went on his expedition to free the Congo - he asked for only black, not white Cubans, to join him - so that they could blend in. It did not work - the mission was a flop.
Black Cubans are all the descendents of slaves. AND not slaves enslaved by the British - quite the opposite. Slaves enslaved DESPITE the British trying to stop the trade.
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Traps,
Mugabe and Zanu PF seem to have the backing of most of the SADCC leaders, Mbeki and many in the ANC.
The AU seems to be silent.
Why should China oppose all these African “leaders”, especially when it is not China’s style to oppose a government, whether elected or not?
On the other hand, if African countries did ask China to bring the Zimbabwean situation before the UN Security Council, perhaps it would oblige, although SA does not (yet) want this matter brought before the security council.
Zimbabwe can run for many months without any aid whatsoever from China (after all, it does not get electricity from China).
Perhaps the UN can still prevent an escalation into a full scale war in Zim that will cost tens of thousands of lives, but this will only happen if African countries stand together and ensure the matter gets to the UN.
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