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Posted: 5/18/2005 8:08:36 PM EDT
Mugabe admits he needs food aid to rescue Zimbabwe
By David Blair in Johannesburg Telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 19/05/2005) President Robert Mugabe yesterday abandoned his confident forecasts of a bumper harvest in Zimbabwe and confessed that international food aid was needed to avoid famine. Mr Mugabe, who declared last year that Zimbabweans would be "choked" if aid was "foisted" upon them, climbed down and agreed to meet the head of the United Nations World Food Programme. Having previously pledged that his seizure of white-owned farms would make Zimbabwe self-sufficient, Mr Mugabe said he would accept outside help if it came without conditions. Renson Gasela, agriculture spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said the president should "eat humble pie, forget about the claim of a bumper harvest and accept food from whoever can offer help". Last year, Mr Mugabe hailed the "success" of his land seizures, saying they would yield a record maize harvest of 2.4 million tons, more than enough to supply Zimbabwe with its staple food. In fact, this year's harvest was below 600,000 tons. The government has quietly admitted trying to import another 1.2 million tons to meet the annual demand for 1.8 million tons. But imports on this scale are affordable and logistically possible only with international help. Yet Mr Mugabe still refused to ask for food aid. It took a personal intervention from Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, before he agreed to yesterday's U-turn. George Charamba, the regime's spokesman, said Mr Mugabe had "acceded to the secretary-general's request" to meet James Morris, the WFP's director. Mr Charamba added that food aid would be accepted only if it came without "political conditions". He claimed that the sole cause of the food shortages was a drought that had recently hit Zimbabwe. Critics dismissed this as face-saving. Mr Gasela pointed out that Zimbabwe avoided a drought last year and a desperate shortage of seed, fertiliser and farming equipment prevented a substantial harvest. The shortfall had been caused by the seizure of white-owned farms, Mr Gasela said. "Whatever machinery the commercial farmers had was vandalised after they left," he argued. "You go to those farms today and you find large areas of land are lying fallow. "The way the land issue was handled was the prime cause of the problem. There have always been droughts in Zimbabwe and we have usually been able to handle them. What is different this time? The land issue is the only difference." Mr Mugabe's request for help comes very late. The WFP has already planned its food distribution in southern Africa for 2005, having been assured by Mr Mugabe that Zimbabwe did not need help. |
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Color me whatever you like, but we need to put that entire continent under quarantine. It's a danger to civilized man.
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Having previously pledged that his seizure of white-owned farms would make Zimbabwe self-sufficient, Mr Mugabe said he would accept outside help if it came without conditions.
I say again kill him. |
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I would kill him. Just pay my airfare and give me a .308 scoped rifle when I hit the ground, and a getaway. |
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Fuck that shit. He's a murdering scumbag dictator. What the fuck are we supposed to do, pull his ass out of the fire and leave him in power? NFW. It will only prolong the suffering that the country has had to endure under this lunatic. He'll profit from the food aid like all his type do and "his" people will still starve. But, it's the UN so I expect they'll be falling all overthemselves to validate this asshole by dealing with him. Goddamn UN idiots... but I repeat myself. |
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I know somebody who must be nervous as a whore in church if Zimbabwe is unstable.
Coulndt happen to a nicer guy. |
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Get rid of Mugabe, bring in whitey. Watch the starvation disappear.
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Get rid of whitey's aide, let nature take its course. Watch starvation disappear. |
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Good novel, relatively decent movie. |
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I think the reality is the UN does not have the food to help them.
Hence it will be up to the US to fly in food. CRC |
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What is it about? |
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"Whitey's aide"? I was referring to letting Euro farmers back onto land that Mugabe pushed them off. What are you referring to? |
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They all starve to death. |
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It's shitty but we just have to stop helping those people. It's not help, it's enabling.
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Aid in exchange for Mugabe leaving seems fair to me. |
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The cold hard facts are that either 1,000,000 will die now or 10,000,000 will die in ten years and there ain't one damn thing we can do about it either way. |
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If we give them aid we are just propping up Mugabe.
You can bet he is eating caviar and lobster at night. |
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They're ordinary people. They dont deserve to die because of the moronic ambitions of a two-bit totalitarian who has no idea how to run a political system. That's just wrong. Like the Middle East, most of the big problems in Africa stem from political dysfunctions. If the proven system (liberal democracy and free trade economics) is adapted, life will at least be tolerable in Africa. At least by African standards. But starvation is no one's standard. But I guarantee they'll be able to feed themselves. There's no reason to starve off hundreds or thousands of people to prove a point that they should fend for themselves. In a lot of cases, they haven't had the chance. |
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They wanted their country back..now they have it. Let them have it, it's what they wanted.
When the asked for independance they wanted to be fucking independant. Let 'em. |
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Sad, yes. But would 10 times as many of those in the next generation make you feel better? Because that's what you'll be creating if you keep wanting to prop up and "save" Africa. |
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Trust me, propping up Africa doesn't even make my list. |
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Where are THEIR values??? Do you think this is the first time THEY'VE ever seen starvation of small children in Africa!?? This is not just a problem with Zimbabewe - it's endemic in all of subsaharan Africa. They KNOW MOST of their children will starve to death or die of AIDS, malaria, ebola, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, dengue fever, meningitis, dysentary, rabies, E. coli, Salmonella, hepatitis A, B and C, marburg virus, tetanus or any number of parasitic infestations. Yet they continue generation after generation living in absolute squallor. Yes, no one "deserves" to die like that - but don't you see that ALL the Western World has done with their aide over there is allow their populations to swell even further beyond their ability to feed themselves and create larger and larger generations of diseased and starving aborigines? In "helping" them, we're only making it worse, IMO.
No. Not "political" - it's cultural and biological. Third-world culture and lifestyle is primative, tribal, brutal and full of pestilence, famine, death and disease. Unless you got a plan to magically transform the whole culture of 200,000,000 Africans living in dirt, that's what your'e going to see for generation upon generation - famine, disease and death. |
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Some people are culturally unequipped - culturally disqualified, even - for self-rule, assuming they want a lifestyle elevated above hunting, gathering, and bartering. That's the sad lesson of the last 60 years.
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+1 |
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It was mostly ignored in Western media, but many of the whites who refused to turn over their land to Mugabe's mobs were murdered in cold blood. So, in a sense, this is their revenge - In some cases, from beyond the grave.
Many innocent people will suffer from Mugabe's rule, but only as long as they tolerate him. This is a leadership problem, and will only go away when citizens accept nothing less than honest, fair leaders. IMO, this is something that Zimbabweans have to resolve for themselves. |
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What's fucked up is that the United Nations will pledge them aid which the United States will most likely end up supplying and paying for.
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I disagree. In my life and experience, people are a lot more alike than they are different. I know that things in Zimbabwe wont be peaches and cream once democracy and free trade arrive there, but I can read about what it was like when was. And it's clearly a better situation than the present one. Maybe it was a function of white minority rule. Actually, in honesty, it probably was; but a big part of that was the Anglo tradition of politics. But the same sort of system without white minority rule can be tried, without reverse racism or seizing property.
Most African countries don't have real democracies or transparent economies, either. I realize it's asking a lot of Africans to adopt them, but it's not impossible. And it's a much better long-term route than just giving them food and medicine for free. |
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But has anyone learned the lesson? Seems pretty obvious to me and you........but the "International community" refuses to acknowledge the fact. Bottom line: Africa is a shit-hole when left to the natives........it's that simple. |
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So the once largest agricultural exporting country in Africa is now in a famine.
God how I remember the atrocities in that country as Rodesia fell to the communists insurgents and how the world turned a blind eye and even helped it happen just because the capitalist were white and the communist black. Well apparently they got their Marxist utopia. Tj |
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And "they" will do it again!............and again..............and again |
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No amount of aid will cure starvation in Africa. Like was posted above. Starvation will end on it's own. I say let it go. No aid or money to Africa period.
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I know a white family from Zimbabwe that owned a farm and told me what it was like for them and their neighbors. Not pretty. A few years after the Brits left, they told me that the infrastructure began falling apart because no maintenance was done. Imagine potholes big enought for you entire care to fall into. |
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Heard the same thing from a bunch of South Africans I used to shoot with. |
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Is that redirection? The discussion was about Mugabe and you post your dictator d'jour. What do YOU think of Mugabe, and the way he ran off the productive farmers? |
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I saw a news item about the farmers who were displaced by Mugabe going to a neighboring country and the government of that country realized what an assett they are. They are going to use their expertise (agriculture, irrigation, etc.) to make that country the breadbasket of Africa.
I'll see if I can find anything on it. |
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Here is something:
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Are you sure this guy isn't driving a limo in Vegas? Didn't Mugabe reject our offer of corn last year because it was GM? |
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Yes, it might be nice to see CavVet say something positive about White people for a change. How about it, Cav? What is your take on the Whites in Zimbabwe being slaughtered and now the country is starving without the "crackas" to run the production? |
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+1 - We EXPORT welfare. |
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IBTL. This thread is too un-PC to remain on the new kindler, gentler arfcom.
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No matter what is done or not done by the UN, it is now too late to help many in Zim. There is neither the transportation, nor the road network, nor the storage facilities available for the massive amounts of maize necessary to reach millions of those who need it in time to be of any help. Many will starve and many more will leave the country. This will be an interesting issue for Mugabe's friend and butt-boy Thabo Mbeki in South Africa, since refuges from Zimbabwe are already beginning to come across the border, and predictions are for millions more to pour across in the next several months, while SA already has a major problem with illegals now. Let us see if the friendship continues to hold up when that happens...although you can be sure these communist thugs will not criticize each other in public.
The fact is that leaders such as Mugabe and some others in sub sahara Africa do not want their people to have the knowledge, nor the skills and means to be independant. They have always fought it and always will. They use hunger as a weapon and have for generations, and know full well that if they, and they alone, control food supplies, then they also control the country. |
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This has Somalia 1993 written all over it. Piss on the UN bastards. They are to blaim for this as well as the people who let their farms get taken by this ruthless dick. They should have had one massive uprising and destroyed him and his people.
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How are the farmers to blame? How is a tiny minority, 3% to 5% supposed to take on a whole country? The people of the country have themselves to blame and the UN just stood by allowing this to happen. |
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