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.

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….

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.

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.

“regime continues to go strong”

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.

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.

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 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.

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.