Thursday,
September 22
WRETCHED
MAN, FECKLESS BODY: Robert Mugabe is at it again. Just
days after attending the U.N.'s 60th General Assembly meeting
New York where he shamelessly
lectured others about pursuing reforms that are "open,
transparent and consultative," Mugabe sent
his goons to finish the job of confiscating land from Zimbabwe's
white farmers:
"In
what appears to be the start of the final clearance of Zimbabwe's
remaining white farmers, Mr Mugabe's security forces
launched a dawn raid yesterday, firing automatic 
weapons
against Mr Wilding-Davies, his white farm manager and a neighbour
in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe.
The
operation followed Mr Mugabe's alteration of the constitution
last month, for the 17th time since independence from Britain
in 1980. He nationalised all white-owned land and prevented
white farmers going to court to challenge seizure of about 22
million acres.
Under Mugabe's
disastrous reign Zimbabwe has lost more than a third of its national
economy in the last three years. Unemployment
is currently at 70%. Between 1994-2003 the country's weighted
average annual rate of inflation was 314.66 percent. Even
by the miserable standards of economic basket cases across the
African continent, Zimbabwe consistently
ranks as one of the very worst.
Just a few
weeks ago Mugabe flew into a rage when aides presented him with
a bailout offer from South Africa because the loan was conditional
upon Mugabe doing the following: 1) entering into talks with the
political opposition, 2) repealing a series of repressive laws
and 3) implementing economic reforms. Mugabe "humiliated"
his aides, rejected the offer, and came up with Plan B to pay
the money owed to the IMF - steal
it:
"Sources
in Harare said that the Reserve Bank raided the foreign currency
accounts of exporters, seizing american dollars and paying for
them in the worthless local currency. One mining company is
reported to have lost £5 million."
Mugabe's
sinister coup de grâce, of course, was his order
this past May to begin bulldozing the homes of the poor surrounding
Harare. Operation
Murambatsvina (translated to "drive out rubbish"
or "clean up the filth") displaced an estimated 200,000-300,000
Zimbabweans, some of whom were placed inside barbed wire "holding
camps" outside the city where they underwent "political
re-education."
Naturally,
human rights groups around the globe were outraged. The strongest
words of condemnation, however, came from the United Nations which
issued a statement calling Mugabe's policy "a
new apartheid."
Naturally,
Mugabe
ignored the U.N.
And naturally,
in a fitting symbol of the fecklessness and moral bankruptcy of
the organization, just weeks later the United Nations let Mugabe
take the stage in New York and call
on the international community to:
"remain
true to the original principles and objectives of the United
Nations Charter to achieve peace, security and development.
This will allow us to bequeath the future generation with a
far safer, prosperous and stable world."
Yep. And
John Bolton is the real problem at the UN.
EXPLOITATION
101: Is this
not a textbook case of exploiting the imagery of September 11
for selfish ideological purposes? Sad to see one of the best writers
and thinkers around resort to such a tactic.- T. Bevan
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