BBC
6 February 09
The only problem was that the "$20 laptop" turned out to be no such thing - it's not a laptop and it's not clear exactly what it is, when it will appear or what it wil cost. But the world's technology journalists fell for the story - along with the BBC - so how did that happen?
Friday, February 06, 2009
Another Quality Washington Post Reporter!
This goes a long way towards explaining the myopic view at the WP. Jay Mattews is typical of the ill informed, supremacist, reporter that the Washington Post employs.
In contrast to this blowhard there is Bob Compton.
The segment starts at 1:00 min.
In contrast to this blowhard there is Bob Compton.
The segment starts at 1:00 min.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Cholera Outbreak Outcome of West’s War on Zimbabwe
December 8, 2008
Race and History
By Gowans
The crisis in Zimbabwe has intensified. Inflation is incalculably high. The central bank limits – to an inadequate level - the amount of money Zimbabweans can withdraw from their bank accounts daily. Unarmed soldiers riot, their guns kept under lock and key, to prevent an armed uprising. Hospital staff fail to show up for work. The water authority is short of chemicals to purify drinking water. Cholera, easily prevented and cured under normal circumstances, has broken out, leading the government to declare a humanitarian emergency.
In the West, state officials call for the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, to step down and yield power to the leader of the largest faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai. In this, the crisis is directly linked to Mugabe, its solution to Tsvangirai, but it’s never said what Mugabe has done to cause the crisis, or how Tsvangirai’s ascension to the presidency will make it go away.
The causal chain leading to the crisis can be diagrammed roughly as follows:
• In the late 90s, Mugabe’s government provokes the hostility of the West by: (1) intervening militarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of the young government of Laurent Kabila, helping to thwart an invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan forces backed by the US and Britain; (2) it rejects a pro-foreign investment economic restructuring program the IMF establishes as a condition for balance of payment support; (3) it accelerates land redistribution by seizing white-owned farms and thereby committing the ultimate affront against owners of productive property – expropriation without compensation. To governments whose foreign policy is based in large measure on protecting their nationals’ ownership rights to foreign productive assets, expropriation, and especially expropriation without compensation, is intolerable, and must be punished to deter others from doing the same.
• In response, the United States, as prime guarantor of the imperialist system, introduces the December 2001 Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act. The act instructs US representatives to international financial institutions “to oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.”
• The act effectively deprives Zimbabwe of foreign currency required to import necessities from abroad, including chemicals to treat drinking water. Development aid from the World Bank is also cut off, denying the country access to funds to upgrade its infrastructure. The central bank takes measures to mitigate the effects of the act, creating hyper-inflation as a by-product.
The cause of the crisis, then, can be traced directly to the West. Rather than banning the export of goods to Zimbabwe, the US denied Zimbabwe the means to import goods — not trade sanctions, but an act that had the same effect. To be sure, had the Mugabe government reversed its land reform program and abided by IMF demands, the crisis would have been averted. But the trigger was pulled in Washington, London and Brussels, and it is the West, therefore, that bears the blame.
Sanctions are effectively acts of war, with often equivalent, and sometimes more devastating, consequences. More than a million Iraqis died as a result of a decade-long sanctions regime championed by the US following the 1991 Gulf War. This prompted two political scientists, John and Karl Mueller, to coin the phrase “sanctions of mass destruction.” They noted that sanctions had “contributed to more deaths in the post Cold War era than all the weapons of mass destruction in history.”
The Western media refer to sanctions on Zimbabwe as targeted – limited only to high state officials and other individuals. This ignores the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act and conceals its devastating impact, thereby shifting responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe from the US to Mugabe.
The cholera outbreak has a parallel in the outbreak of cholera in Iraq following the Gulf War. Thomas Nagy, a business professor at George Washington University, cited declassified documents in the September 2001 issue of The Progressive magazine showing that the United States had deliberately bombed Iraq’s drinking water and sanitation facilities, recognizing that sanctions would prevent Iraq from rebuilding its water infrastructure and that epidemics of otherwise preventable diseases, cholera among them, would ensue. Washington, in other words, deliberately created a humanitarian catastrophe to achieve its goal of regime change. There is a direct parallel with Zimbabwe – the only difference is that the United States uses the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act – that is, sanctions of mass destruction – in place of bombing.
Harare’s land reform program is one of the principal reasons the United States has gone to war with Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has redistributed land previously owned by 4,000 white farmers to 300,000 previously landless families, descendants of black Africans whose land was stolen by white settlers. By contrast, South Africa’s ANC government has redistributed only four percent of the 87 percent of land forcibly seized from the indigenous population by Europeans.
In March, South Africa’s cabinet seemed ready to move ahead with a plan to accelerate agrarian reform. It would abandon the “willing seller, willing buyer” model insisted on by the West, following in the Mugabe government’s footsteps. Under the plan, thirty percent of farmland would be redistributed to black farmers by 2014. But the government has since backed away, its reluctance to move forward based on the following considerations.
1. Most black South Africans are generations removed from the land, and no longer have the skills and culture necessary to immediately farm at a high level. An accelerated land reform program would almost certainly lower production levels, as new farmers played catch up to acquire critical skills.
2. South Africa is no longer a net exporter of food. An accelerated land reform program would likely force the country, in the short term, to rely more heavily on agricultural imports, at a time food prices are rising globally.
3. There is a danger that fast-track land reform will create a crisis of capital flight.
4. The dangers of radical land reform in provoking a backlash from the West are richly evident in the example of Zimbabwe. South Africa would like to avoid becoming the next Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s economic crisis is accompanied by a political crisis. Talks on forming a government of national unity are stalled. Failure to strike a deal pivots on a single ministry – home affairs. In the West, failure to consolidate a deal between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the two MDC factions is attributed to Mugabe’s intransigence in insisting that he control all key cabinet posts. It takes two to tango. Tsvangirai has shown little interest in striking an accord, preferring instead to raise objections to every solution to the impasse put forward by outside mediators, as Western ambassadors hover nearby. It’s as if, with the country teetering on the edge of collapse, he doesn’t want to do a deal, preferring instead to help hasten the collapse by throwing up obstacles to an accord, to clear the way for his ascension to the presidency. When the mediation of former South African president Thambo Mbeki failed, Tsvangirai asked the regional grouping, the SADC, to intervene. SADC ordered Zanu-PF and the MDC to share the home affairs ministry. Tsvangirai refused. Now he wants Mbeki replaced.
At the SADC meeting, Mugabe presented a report which alleges that MDC militias are being trained in Botswana by Britain, to be deployed to Zimbabwe early in 2009 to foment a civil war. The turmoil would be used as a pretext for outside military intervention. This would follow the model used to oust the Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Already, British officials and clergymen are calling for intervention. British prime minister Gordon Brown says the cholera outbreak makes Zimbabwe’s crisis international, because disease can cross borders. Since an international crisis is within the purview of the “international community,” the path is clear for the West and its satellites to step in to set matters straight
Botswana is decidedly hostile. The country’s foreign minister, Phando Skelemani, says that Zimbabwe’s neighbors should impose an oil blockade to bring the Mugabe government down.
Meanwhile, representatives of the elders, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan and Graca Machel sought to enter Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian situation. Inasmuch as an adequate assessment could not be made on the whistle-stop tour the trio had planned, Harare barred their entry, recognizing that the trip would simply be used as a platform to declaim on the necessity of regime change. The elders’ humanitarian concern, however, didn’t stop the trio from agreeing that stepped up sanctions – more misery for the population — would be useful.
The Mugabe government’s pursuit of land reform, rejection of neo-liberal restructuring, and movement to eclipse US imperialism in southern Africa, has put Zimbabwe on the receiving end of a Western attack based on punitive financial sanctions. The intention, as is true of all Western destabilization efforts, has been to make the target country ungovernable, forcing the government to step down, clearing the way for the ascension of the West’s local errand boys. Owing to the West’s attack, Zimbabwe’s government is struggling to provide the population with basic necessities. It can no longer provide basic sanitation and access to potable water at a sufficient level to prevent the outbreak of otherwise preventable diseases.
The replacement of the Mugabe government with one led by the Movement for Democratic Change, a party created and directed by Western governments, if it happens, will lead to an improvement in the humanitarian situation. This won’t come about because the MDC is more competent at governing, but because sanctions will be lifted and access to balance of payment support and development aid will be restored. Zimbabwe will once again be able to import adequate amounts of water purification chemicals. The improving humanitarian situation will be cited as proof the West was right all along in insisting on a change of government.
The downside is that measures to indigenize the economy – to place the country’s agricultural and mineral wealth in the hands of the black majority – will be reversed. Mugabe and key members of the state will be shipped off to The Hague – or attempts will be made to ship them off – to send a message to others about what befalls those who threaten the dominant mode of property relations and challenge Western domination. Cowed by the example of Zimbabwe, Africans in other countries will back away from their own land reform and economic indigenization demands, and the continent will settle more firmly into a pattern of neo-colonial subjugation.
_____________________________
Zimbabwe and hypocrisy - lessons from history
From Tony McGregor
So the sham election is over and Robert Gabriel Mugabe pronounced to be duly elected President of the Republic of Zimbabwe to a chorus of condemnation from the Western powers and a significant number of African leaders also.
The gleeful condemnation from the West, under the cheerleading of the horrible two-headed monster called Bush/Brown (hereinafter called BB) is loud, vociferous and incredibly hypocritical, not to mention a-historical.
Through the 60s, 70s and 80s the US and its allies maintained Mobutu Sese Seko, the ogre of Zaire, in power while he plundered his country, exploited its people and left it in a state of undemocratic shambles, impoverished and at war with itself.
Through the 70s, 80s and 90s the US and its allies urged on the vicious exploits of Jonas Savimbi against the elected government of Angola, in a wasteful, cruel and totally unnecessary civil war which cost millions of lives.
And now they turn on Mugabe, who has not done nearly as much damage, though the damage he has done is still immense, as Mobutu and Savimbi did, not to mention other “darlings” of the West like Daniel Arap Moi.
The West conveniently forgets, while condemning Mugabe with such breath-taking hypocrisy, that the land which is now called Zimbabwe was originally stolen by chicanery and violence from its people in the late 19th Century. Then the people were again insulted and denied their rights in their own land by Ian Smith’s attempted 1000-year reich, which mercifully only lasted a few decades.
An intelligence report by an official of the British South African Company (the company owned by Cecil John Rhodes and which was the instrument he used to rob the people of Zimbabwe of their land) in a report in February 1897 wrote that the people of Zimbabwe “mean to remain independent.”
This nameless official went on in his report: “Therefore what is required are strong lessons, which we have failed to give them from the very beginning of the war. And this failure only proved to the natives that with all our men and guns we have not even been able to get at them … All this shows that our mode of fighting is not the proper one for Mashonas; even the natives laugh at it…”
The official concluded the report with these words: “In conclusion, my advice would be to give to the natives of the district as severe a lesson as possible, surprising and burning their kraals when it is possible to do so, and, at all events throughout the district, to lay waste their crops.”
Thus the “civilizing” work of the colonists! And let’s not forget that the “natives of the district” were actually the rightful owners of the land and that the lesson they were to be taught was that they should give up their land to the white settlers.
This land was being wrested from them by a combination of trickery, deceit and firepower. The deceit was in the form of the Rudd Concession which an agent of Cecil John Rhodes, one Charles Rudd, had signed with the nDebele King Jando Lopengule (Lobengula) Kumalo.
By this agreement, Lobengula had been assured, only ten settlers would be allowed to mine in his kingdom and that all people there would be considered to be living in his kingdom.
So when hundreds of settlers arrived he was, unsurprisingly, somewhat peeved!
From that time on the indigenous people of Zimbabwe suffered one depredation after another. Their land was stolen, their rights to independence were stolen, their self-esteem was stolen.
In every constitutional arrangement from then on their rights were reduced.
It should be no surprise then that Mugabe rants on about Bush and Blair wanting to rob the Zimbabwean people of their birthright. On what basis should the Zimbabweans trust the West, and Britain in particular?
The final straw for the Black people of Zimbabwe was the unfortunate so-called independence (UDI) declared by Ian Smith on 11 November 1965. This triggered a long “bush” war, known by the people of Zimbabwe as the Second Chimurenga (War of Independence). The first Chimurenga was the struggle against the colonial theft in the 19th Century.
The Second Chimurenga lasted from UDI until the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 which led to elections and the installation of a government led by Mugabe as Prime Minister.
See also Zimbabwe Image
Race and History
By Gowans
The crisis in Zimbabwe has intensified. Inflation is incalculably high. The central bank limits – to an inadequate level - the amount of money Zimbabweans can withdraw from their bank accounts daily. Unarmed soldiers riot, their guns kept under lock and key, to prevent an armed uprising. Hospital staff fail to show up for work. The water authority is short of chemicals to purify drinking water. Cholera, easily prevented and cured under normal circumstances, has broken out, leading the government to declare a humanitarian emergency.
In the West, state officials call for the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, to step down and yield power to the leader of the largest faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai. In this, the crisis is directly linked to Mugabe, its solution to Tsvangirai, but it’s never said what Mugabe has done to cause the crisis, or how Tsvangirai’s ascension to the presidency will make it go away.
The causal chain leading to the crisis can be diagrammed roughly as follows:
• In the late 90s, Mugabe’s government provokes the hostility of the West by: (1) intervening militarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of the young government of Laurent Kabila, helping to thwart an invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan forces backed by the US and Britain; (2) it rejects a pro-foreign investment economic restructuring program the IMF establishes as a condition for balance of payment support; (3) it accelerates land redistribution by seizing white-owned farms and thereby committing the ultimate affront against owners of productive property – expropriation without compensation. To governments whose foreign policy is based in large measure on protecting their nationals’ ownership rights to foreign productive assets, expropriation, and especially expropriation without compensation, is intolerable, and must be punished to deter others from doing the same.
• In response, the United States, as prime guarantor of the imperialist system, introduces the December 2001 Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act. The act instructs US representatives to international financial institutions “to oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.”
• The act effectively deprives Zimbabwe of foreign currency required to import necessities from abroad, including chemicals to treat drinking water. Development aid from the World Bank is also cut off, denying the country access to funds to upgrade its infrastructure. The central bank takes measures to mitigate the effects of the act, creating hyper-inflation as a by-product.
The cause of the crisis, then, can be traced directly to the West. Rather than banning the export of goods to Zimbabwe, the US denied Zimbabwe the means to import goods — not trade sanctions, but an act that had the same effect. To be sure, had the Mugabe government reversed its land reform program and abided by IMF demands, the crisis would have been averted. But the trigger was pulled in Washington, London and Brussels, and it is the West, therefore, that bears the blame.
Sanctions are effectively acts of war, with often equivalent, and sometimes more devastating, consequences. More than a million Iraqis died as a result of a decade-long sanctions regime championed by the US following the 1991 Gulf War. This prompted two political scientists, John and Karl Mueller, to coin the phrase “sanctions of mass destruction.” They noted that sanctions had “contributed to more deaths in the post Cold War era than all the weapons of mass destruction in history.”
The Western media refer to sanctions on Zimbabwe as targeted – limited only to high state officials and other individuals. This ignores the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act and conceals its devastating impact, thereby shifting responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe from the US to Mugabe.
The cholera outbreak has a parallel in the outbreak of cholera in Iraq following the Gulf War. Thomas Nagy, a business professor at George Washington University, cited declassified documents in the September 2001 issue of The Progressive magazine showing that the United States had deliberately bombed Iraq’s drinking water and sanitation facilities, recognizing that sanctions would prevent Iraq from rebuilding its water infrastructure and that epidemics of otherwise preventable diseases, cholera among them, would ensue. Washington, in other words, deliberately created a humanitarian catastrophe to achieve its goal of regime change. There is a direct parallel with Zimbabwe – the only difference is that the United States uses the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act – that is, sanctions of mass destruction – in place of bombing.
Harare’s land reform program is one of the principal reasons the United States has gone to war with Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has redistributed land previously owned by 4,000 white farmers to 300,000 previously landless families, descendants of black Africans whose land was stolen by white settlers. By contrast, South Africa’s ANC government has redistributed only four percent of the 87 percent of land forcibly seized from the indigenous population by Europeans.
In March, South Africa’s cabinet seemed ready to move ahead with a plan to accelerate agrarian reform. It would abandon the “willing seller, willing buyer” model insisted on by the West, following in the Mugabe government’s footsteps. Under the plan, thirty percent of farmland would be redistributed to black farmers by 2014. But the government has since backed away, its reluctance to move forward based on the following considerations.
1. Most black South Africans are generations removed from the land, and no longer have the skills and culture necessary to immediately farm at a high level. An accelerated land reform program would almost certainly lower production levels, as new farmers played catch up to acquire critical skills.
2. South Africa is no longer a net exporter of food. An accelerated land reform program would likely force the country, in the short term, to rely more heavily on agricultural imports, at a time food prices are rising globally.
3. There is a danger that fast-track land reform will create a crisis of capital flight.
4. The dangers of radical land reform in provoking a backlash from the West are richly evident in the example of Zimbabwe. South Africa would like to avoid becoming the next Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s economic crisis is accompanied by a political crisis. Talks on forming a government of national unity are stalled. Failure to strike a deal pivots on a single ministry – home affairs. In the West, failure to consolidate a deal between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the two MDC factions is attributed to Mugabe’s intransigence in insisting that he control all key cabinet posts. It takes two to tango. Tsvangirai has shown little interest in striking an accord, preferring instead to raise objections to every solution to the impasse put forward by outside mediators, as Western ambassadors hover nearby. It’s as if, with the country teetering on the edge of collapse, he doesn’t want to do a deal, preferring instead to help hasten the collapse by throwing up obstacles to an accord, to clear the way for his ascension to the presidency. When the mediation of former South African president Thambo Mbeki failed, Tsvangirai asked the regional grouping, the SADC, to intervene. SADC ordered Zanu-PF and the MDC to share the home affairs ministry. Tsvangirai refused. Now he wants Mbeki replaced.
At the SADC meeting, Mugabe presented a report which alleges that MDC militias are being trained in Botswana by Britain, to be deployed to Zimbabwe early in 2009 to foment a civil war. The turmoil would be used as a pretext for outside military intervention. This would follow the model used to oust the Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Already, British officials and clergymen are calling for intervention. British prime minister Gordon Brown says the cholera outbreak makes Zimbabwe’s crisis international, because disease can cross borders. Since an international crisis is within the purview of the “international community,” the path is clear for the West and its satellites to step in to set matters straight
Botswana is decidedly hostile. The country’s foreign minister, Phando Skelemani, says that Zimbabwe’s neighbors should impose an oil blockade to bring the Mugabe government down.
Meanwhile, representatives of the elders, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan and Graca Machel sought to enter Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian situation. Inasmuch as an adequate assessment could not be made on the whistle-stop tour the trio had planned, Harare barred their entry, recognizing that the trip would simply be used as a platform to declaim on the necessity of regime change. The elders’ humanitarian concern, however, didn’t stop the trio from agreeing that stepped up sanctions – more misery for the population — would be useful.
The Mugabe government’s pursuit of land reform, rejection of neo-liberal restructuring, and movement to eclipse US imperialism in southern Africa, has put Zimbabwe on the receiving end of a Western attack based on punitive financial sanctions. The intention, as is true of all Western destabilization efforts, has been to make the target country ungovernable, forcing the government to step down, clearing the way for the ascension of the West’s local errand boys. Owing to the West’s attack, Zimbabwe’s government is struggling to provide the population with basic necessities. It can no longer provide basic sanitation and access to potable water at a sufficient level to prevent the outbreak of otherwise preventable diseases.
The replacement of the Mugabe government with one led by the Movement for Democratic Change, a party created and directed by Western governments, if it happens, will lead to an improvement in the humanitarian situation. This won’t come about because the MDC is more competent at governing, but because sanctions will be lifted and access to balance of payment support and development aid will be restored. Zimbabwe will once again be able to import adequate amounts of water purification chemicals. The improving humanitarian situation will be cited as proof the West was right all along in insisting on a change of government.
The downside is that measures to indigenize the economy – to place the country’s agricultural and mineral wealth in the hands of the black majority – will be reversed. Mugabe and key members of the state will be shipped off to The Hague – or attempts will be made to ship them off – to send a message to others about what befalls those who threaten the dominant mode of property relations and challenge Western domination. Cowed by the example of Zimbabwe, Africans in other countries will back away from their own land reform and economic indigenization demands, and the continent will settle more firmly into a pattern of neo-colonial subjugation.
_____________________________
Zimbabwe and hypocrisy - lessons from history
From Tony McGregor
So the sham election is over and Robert Gabriel Mugabe pronounced to be duly elected President of the Republic of Zimbabwe to a chorus of condemnation from the Western powers and a significant number of African leaders also.
The gleeful condemnation from the West, under the cheerleading of the horrible two-headed monster called Bush/Brown (hereinafter called BB) is loud, vociferous and incredibly hypocritical, not to mention a-historical.
Through the 60s, 70s and 80s the US and its allies maintained Mobutu Sese Seko, the ogre of Zaire, in power while he plundered his country, exploited its people and left it in a state of undemocratic shambles, impoverished and at war with itself.
Through the 70s, 80s and 90s the US and its allies urged on the vicious exploits of Jonas Savimbi against the elected government of Angola, in a wasteful, cruel and totally unnecessary civil war which cost millions of lives.
And now they turn on Mugabe, who has not done nearly as much damage, though the damage he has done is still immense, as Mobutu and Savimbi did, not to mention other “darlings” of the West like Daniel Arap Moi.
The West conveniently forgets, while condemning Mugabe with such breath-taking hypocrisy, that the land which is now called Zimbabwe was originally stolen by chicanery and violence from its people in the late 19th Century. Then the people were again insulted and denied their rights in their own land by Ian Smith’s attempted 1000-year reich, which mercifully only lasted a few decades.
An intelligence report by an official of the British South African Company (the company owned by Cecil John Rhodes and which was the instrument he used to rob the people of Zimbabwe of their land) in a report in February 1897 wrote that the people of Zimbabwe “mean to remain independent.”
This nameless official went on in his report: “Therefore what is required are strong lessons, which we have failed to give them from the very beginning of the war. And this failure only proved to the natives that with all our men and guns we have not even been able to get at them … All this shows that our mode of fighting is not the proper one for Mashonas; even the natives laugh at it…”
The official concluded the report with these words: “In conclusion, my advice would be to give to the natives of the district as severe a lesson as possible, surprising and burning their kraals when it is possible to do so, and, at all events throughout the district, to lay waste their crops.”
Thus the “civilizing” work of the colonists! And let’s not forget that the “natives of the district” were actually the rightful owners of the land and that the lesson they were to be taught was that they should give up their land to the white settlers.
This land was being wrested from them by a combination of trickery, deceit and firepower. The deceit was in the form of the Rudd Concession which an agent of Cecil John Rhodes, one Charles Rudd, had signed with the nDebele King Jando Lopengule (Lobengula) Kumalo.
By this agreement, Lobengula had been assured, only ten settlers would be allowed to mine in his kingdom and that all people there would be considered to be living in his kingdom.
So when hundreds of settlers arrived he was, unsurprisingly, somewhat peeved!
From that time on the indigenous people of Zimbabwe suffered one depredation after another. Their land was stolen, their rights to independence were stolen, their self-esteem was stolen.
In every constitutional arrangement from then on their rights were reduced.
It should be no surprise then that Mugabe rants on about Bush and Blair wanting to rob the Zimbabwean people of their birthright. On what basis should the Zimbabweans trust the West, and Britain in particular?
The final straw for the Black people of Zimbabwe was the unfortunate so-called independence (UDI) declared by Ian Smith on 11 November 1965. This triggered a long “bush” war, known by the people of Zimbabwe as the Second Chimurenga (War of Independence). The first Chimurenga was the struggle against the colonial theft in the 19th Century.
The Second Chimurenga lasted from UDI until the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 which led to elections and the installation of a government led by Mugabe as Prime Minister.
See also Zimbabwe Image
More Blood on West's Hands
Impact of Sanctions Downplayed in Zimbabwe Crisis
New American Media
Dec 29, 2008
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, recently said sanctions imposed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union on Zimbabwe are a “side issue” and have nothing to do with the spreading cholera epidemic engulfing the small southern African nation.
Mr. Holmes, who is also the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, spoke at a Dec. 5 press conference here at the UN headquarters. By Dec. 12 there were 16,700 new cases of cholera recorded in Zimbabwe with nearly 800 deaths, mainly children and the elderly who are the most vulnerable. The World Health Organization reported an upward trend in new and suspected cases of the disease in the country.
“The degradation of the water supply and sanitation systems is one of the root causes of the cholera outbreak. There are not sufficient safe sources of drinking water,” observed Mr. Marcus Bachman, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ (Doctors Without Borders) emergency coordinator in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.
The government of Zimbabwe has been unable to borrow money from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank since 2001. Because of this, it cannot upgrade its sanitation and sewerage infrastructure which is necessary to halt the spread of cholera.
The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, legislation enacted by the United States Congress, empowers the treasury secretary of the United States to “instruct the U.S. executive director of each international financial institution to oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe.” The effect of this infanticidal and unconscionable piece of legislation, according to economists, is the refusal of all banks to extend credit and loans to the government to pay for the country’s medical and infrastructural needs.
“I don’t think that the sanctions which are essentially imposed on individuals and particular entities can be said to be a major contributory factor to the cholera epidemic. The cholera epidemic comes from basic things like the lack of clean water and the collapse of the health system. Any link between individual sanctions and the cholera epidemic is pretty remote,” Mr. Holmes declared.
According to observers, Mr. Holmes’ ignorance of the particulars of the U.S. sanctions legislation is startling. The sanctions are not “essentially imposed on individuals.” They are imposed on the entire country. When asked whether or not he was familiar with the U.S. sanctions legislation, he admitted that he was not familiar with the bill.
Even after being appraised of the specifics of the legislation, Mr. Holmes’ obsequence to the political agenda of the U.S. towards Zimbabwe was palpable. Without offering any evidence, the under secretary-general said that, “The government of Zimbabwe has had plenty of opportunities in different ways to access goods or lines of credit from different places in the world if it chose to do so.”
Some UN diplomats, requesting anonymity, observed that only an unabashed sycophant or a blissfully ignorant individual could make such a statement. They pointed out that banks shun any country that has been blacklisted by U.S. legislation. This is so because if they engage in any commercial transactions with such countries, they will be penalized both civilly and criminally, starting with exclusion from the U.S. banking system.
Mr. Holmes’ posture towards Zimbabwe is regrettable but understandable given his political pedigree. Prior to his appointment as UN Under Secretary-General in January 2007, Mr. Holmes was the private secretary of former UK prime minister, Tony Blair. It was during Mr. Blair’s administration that relations between the UK, U.S. and the EU deteriorated, culminating in the 2001 U.S. legislation cutting off Zimbabwe from the global financial markets.
What’s unsettling is that Mr. Holmes’ attitude vis-à-vis Zimbabwe is at stark variance with his public pronouncements relating to how other humanitarian crises in other parts of the world should be solved.
“Humanitarian relief is no substitute for political action and the active search for conflict prevention and resolution. Which is why as humanitarians we must go on pressing the politicians for more proactive searches for solutions,” Mr. Holmes asserted at a conference in Dubai earlier this year.
U.S. President George Bush ought to read the above. His response to the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe was to call on the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, to resign. “Across the continent, African voices are bravely speaking out to say now is the time for him to step down,” Mr. Bush crowed.
Not so was the sharp response from the African Union. “Only dialogue between the Zimbabwean parties, supported by the AU and other (African) regional actors, can restore peace and stability to that country,” said Salva Rweyemamu, spokesman for AU chairman and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.
According to press reports, President Rweyemamu said sending peacekeeping troops or removing President Mugabe by force as proposed by South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who expressed personal opinions, were not options. “We have a serious humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. We have cholera. Do they think that we can eradicate cholera with guns?” he asked, incredulously.
UN diplomats say the “political action” the U.S. government must take to halt the spread of cholera in Zimbabwe is the rescinding of the sanctions legislation. The shibboleth of “bad governance” often attributed to Zimbabwe is nothing but political prestidigitation, they added.
When Iceland went bankrupt in November—the country couldn’t repay its external debts, the Icelandic currency, the krona, lost all of its value, the banking industry collapsed and businesses could no longer pay for imports—there was no call for Iceland’s president, Olafur Grimsson, to resign. There was no charge of bad governance attributed to the government of Iceland. Instead, the global community responded generously with loans totaling $10 billion. That’s about $33,000 for each of Iceland’s 300,000 citizens. Out of that $10 billion, $2.1 billion came from the IMF.
Unless it is the opinion of the UN that Iceland’s children are more worthy of being saved than the children of Zimbabwe, UN diplomats say Mr. Holmes needs to dispense with his obfuscation and call on the United States to rescind its inhumane sanctions legislation so that the children of Zimbabwe can live.
New American Media
Dec 29, 2008
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, recently said sanctions imposed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union on Zimbabwe are a “side issue” and have nothing to do with the spreading cholera epidemic engulfing the small southern African nation.
Mr. Holmes, who is also the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, spoke at a Dec. 5 press conference here at the UN headquarters. By Dec. 12 there were 16,700 new cases of cholera recorded in Zimbabwe with nearly 800 deaths, mainly children and the elderly who are the most vulnerable. The World Health Organization reported an upward trend in new and suspected cases of the disease in the country.
“The degradation of the water supply and sanitation systems is one of the root causes of the cholera outbreak. There are not sufficient safe sources of drinking water,” observed Mr. Marcus Bachman, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ (Doctors Without Borders) emergency coordinator in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.
The government of Zimbabwe has been unable to borrow money from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank since 2001. Because of this, it cannot upgrade its sanitation and sewerage infrastructure which is necessary to halt the spread of cholera.
The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, legislation enacted by the United States Congress, empowers the treasury secretary of the United States to “instruct the U.S. executive director of each international financial institution to oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe.” The effect of this infanticidal and unconscionable piece of legislation, according to economists, is the refusal of all banks to extend credit and loans to the government to pay for the country’s medical and infrastructural needs.
“I don’t think that the sanctions which are essentially imposed on individuals and particular entities can be said to be a major contributory factor to the cholera epidemic. The cholera epidemic comes from basic things like the lack of clean water and the collapse of the health system. Any link between individual sanctions and the cholera epidemic is pretty remote,” Mr. Holmes declared.
According to observers, Mr. Holmes’ ignorance of the particulars of the U.S. sanctions legislation is startling. The sanctions are not “essentially imposed on individuals.” They are imposed on the entire country. When asked whether or not he was familiar with the U.S. sanctions legislation, he admitted that he was not familiar with the bill.
Even after being appraised of the specifics of the legislation, Mr. Holmes’ obsequence to the political agenda of the U.S. towards Zimbabwe was palpable. Without offering any evidence, the under secretary-general said that, “The government of Zimbabwe has had plenty of opportunities in different ways to access goods or lines of credit from different places in the world if it chose to do so.”
Some UN diplomats, requesting anonymity, observed that only an unabashed sycophant or a blissfully ignorant individual could make such a statement. They pointed out that banks shun any country that has been blacklisted by U.S. legislation. This is so because if they engage in any commercial transactions with such countries, they will be penalized both civilly and criminally, starting with exclusion from the U.S. banking system.
Mr. Holmes’ posture towards Zimbabwe is regrettable but understandable given his political pedigree. Prior to his appointment as UN Under Secretary-General in January 2007, Mr. Holmes was the private secretary of former UK prime minister, Tony Blair. It was during Mr. Blair’s administration that relations between the UK, U.S. and the EU deteriorated, culminating in the 2001 U.S. legislation cutting off Zimbabwe from the global financial markets.
What’s unsettling is that Mr. Holmes’ attitude vis-à-vis Zimbabwe is at stark variance with his public pronouncements relating to how other humanitarian crises in other parts of the world should be solved.
“Humanitarian relief is no substitute for political action and the active search for conflict prevention and resolution. Which is why as humanitarians we must go on pressing the politicians for more proactive searches for solutions,” Mr. Holmes asserted at a conference in Dubai earlier this year.
U.S. President George Bush ought to read the above. His response to the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe was to call on the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, to resign. “Across the continent, African voices are bravely speaking out to say now is the time for him to step down,” Mr. Bush crowed.
Not so was the sharp response from the African Union. “Only dialogue between the Zimbabwean parties, supported by the AU and other (African) regional actors, can restore peace and stability to that country,” said Salva Rweyemamu, spokesman for AU chairman and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.
According to press reports, President Rweyemamu said sending peacekeeping troops or removing President Mugabe by force as proposed by South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who expressed personal opinions, were not options. “We have a serious humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. We have cholera. Do they think that we can eradicate cholera with guns?” he asked, incredulously.
UN diplomats say the “political action” the U.S. government must take to halt the spread of cholera in Zimbabwe is the rescinding of the sanctions legislation. The shibboleth of “bad governance” often attributed to Zimbabwe is nothing but political prestidigitation, they added.
When Iceland went bankrupt in November—the country couldn’t repay its external debts, the Icelandic currency, the krona, lost all of its value, the banking industry collapsed and businesses could no longer pay for imports—there was no call for Iceland’s president, Olafur Grimsson, to resign. There was no charge of bad governance attributed to the government of Iceland. Instead, the global community responded generously with loans totaling $10 billion. That’s about $33,000 for each of Iceland’s 300,000 citizens. Out of that $10 billion, $2.1 billion came from the IMF.
Unless it is the opinion of the UN that Iceland’s children are more worthy of being saved than the children of Zimbabwe, UN diplomats say Mr. Holmes needs to dispense with his obfuscation and call on the United States to rescind its inhumane sanctions legislation so that the children of Zimbabwe can live.
African Union urges scrapping of Zimbabwe sanctions
France24
01/02/2009
AFP - The African Union Saturday urged the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime as he prepares to share power with his opposition rival in a unity government.
The AU's executive council adopted a resolution ahead of of Sunday's summit here calling for "the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe to help ease the humanitarian situation in the country."
African Union head Jean Ping, when asked about sanctions levied by the United States and European Union, said: "I think that everybody today should help Zimbabwe to rebuild its economy, because an agreement has been reached.
Since disputed elections in March 2008, Zimbabwe's shattered economy has nosedived further. It has the world's highest inflation rate -- 231 million percent -- and is struggling with a cholera epidemic that has claimed some 3,000 lives.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai this week acceded to a decision by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc that a unity government be formed according to a strict timeline which would see him sworn in as prime minister on February 11.
The 53-nation AU asked members and partners "to solidly back the implementation of a comprehensive pact" to end the ruinous political and economic stalemate.
Mugabe's party, which had previously threatened to set up a unity government with or without Tsvangirai, has said it will accept the timetable.
Ping said: "Imagine that you don't help Zimbabwe, who will be blamed? Everybody is expecting that today, because Tsvangirai is going to lead the economy and everything, that the economy should recover. So if you don't do that who will be blamed by the population?
"Today SADC told us they have agreed on a solution, the two parties have agreed on that solution," Ping said, adding: "In politics nothing can be forever. We hope this solution can be a lasting one."
The 84-year-old Mugabe -- in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980 -- has long accused Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party of being a tool of Britain and the United States, whose governments are opposed to his regime.
Both countries offered up restrained hope in response to the announcement Friday of a unity government being installed in February.
"I've seen the reports about this agreement, but as you can understand, we are a bit skeptical. These types of things have been announced before," US State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said.
"The key is always implementation," he added.
An equally tempered reaction emerged from London, where British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he looked forward to seeing details of a deal that would hold Zimbabwean lawmakers accountable.
"The new government will be judged on its actions, above all by the people of Zimbabwe," he said.
EU foreign ministers on Monday tightened sanctions on Zimbabwe, freezing the assets of companies based in British tax havens for the first time and adding 26 more names of people close to the Mugabe regime or their families to a travel-ban list, bringing the number to 203.
The amount of companies whose assets in Europe must be frozen was increased sharply from four to 40 and for the first time European-based firms are included.
According to EU sources, all 18 of the European company names added are based on British territory, including tax havens Jersey, the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands.
01/02/2009
AFP - The African Union Saturday urged the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime as he prepares to share power with his opposition rival in a unity government.
The AU's executive council adopted a resolution ahead of of Sunday's summit here calling for "the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe to help ease the humanitarian situation in the country."
African Union head Jean Ping, when asked about sanctions levied by the United States and European Union, said: "I think that everybody today should help Zimbabwe to rebuild its economy, because an agreement has been reached.
Since disputed elections in March 2008, Zimbabwe's shattered economy has nosedived further. It has the world's highest inflation rate -- 231 million percent -- and is struggling with a cholera epidemic that has claimed some 3,000 lives.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai this week acceded to a decision by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc that a unity government be formed according to a strict timeline which would see him sworn in as prime minister on February 11.
The 53-nation AU asked members and partners "to solidly back the implementation of a comprehensive pact" to end the ruinous political and economic stalemate.
Mugabe's party, which had previously threatened to set up a unity government with or without Tsvangirai, has said it will accept the timetable.
Ping said: "Imagine that you don't help Zimbabwe, who will be blamed? Everybody is expecting that today, because Tsvangirai is going to lead the economy and everything, that the economy should recover. So if you don't do that who will be blamed by the population?
"Today SADC told us they have agreed on a solution, the two parties have agreed on that solution," Ping said, adding: "In politics nothing can be forever. We hope this solution can be a lasting one."
The 84-year-old Mugabe -- in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980 -- has long accused Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party of being a tool of Britain and the United States, whose governments are opposed to his regime.
Both countries offered up restrained hope in response to the announcement Friday of a unity government being installed in February.
"I've seen the reports about this agreement, but as you can understand, we are a bit skeptical. These types of things have been announced before," US State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said.
"The key is always implementation," he added.
An equally tempered reaction emerged from London, where British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he looked forward to seeing details of a deal that would hold Zimbabwean lawmakers accountable.
"The new government will be judged on its actions, above all by the people of Zimbabwe," he said.
EU foreign ministers on Monday tightened sanctions on Zimbabwe, freezing the assets of companies based in British tax havens for the first time and adding 26 more names of people close to the Mugabe regime or their families to a travel-ban list, bringing the number to 203.
The amount of companies whose assets in Europe must be frozen was increased sharply from four to 40 and for the first time European-based firms are included.
According to EU sources, all 18 of the European company names added are based on British territory, including tax havens Jersey, the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands.
Zimbabwe blames EU sanctions for cholera deaths
"The only reason I googled up those articles about Zimbabwe was a few horrifying seconds of BBC News I happened to catch in the car last week, on the public radio program "The World," about the United Nations World Food Program having to cut in half the already inadequate monthly rations it provides that country. It takes about 36 pounds of corn a month to keep an adult alive. But now, because of donor shortfalls (the United States and Europe are unwilling to lift sanctions, including famine aid, on Mugabe), the World Food Program is being forced to reduce its rations to 11 pounds of corn per person per month. They only way someone can survive on that is to scavenge enough wild fruit to stave off malnutrition and disease. Seven million people could die by April."
Zimbabwe blames EU sanctions for cholera deaths
December 7th, 2008 in Medicine & Health / Diseases
AFP
Zimbabwean state media on Sunday blamed the country's cholera outbreak, which has claimed nearly 600 lives, on European sanctions imposed on the regime of President Robert Mugabe.
"The cholera outbreak is a clear example of the effects of sanctions on innocent people," The Sunday Mail newspaper said in its editorial as the European Union prepared to tighten sanctions on the government.
"The people who are suffering most are not politicians they claim they want to punish, but poor people," the newspaper said.
"All the victims (of cholera) are as a result of the freezing of balance of payments support, depriving the country of foreign currency required to buy chemicals to treat our drinking water."
European Union foreign ministers are expected to adopt in Brussels on Monday a draft text tightening sanctions against Zimbabwe amid worries over the deteriorating humanitarian situation and political stalemate in the country.
They will add names to the EU's sanctions list of 168 members of the Zimbabwe regime, including Mugabe and his wife Grace, who are banned from entering EU nations and whose European assets have been frozen.
Meanwhile, a South African team will on Monday meet with stakeholders in Zimbabwe and assess how it can aid the nation stricken by a food crisis and cholera outbreak, a South African government spokesman said on Sunday.
"There is no change in our plans to send an official delegation to Zimbabwe tomorrow (Monday). It is going to be a one-day mission during which the team will meet all stakeholders," Themba Maseko told AFP.
He did not give further details.
Maseko had on Friday told reporters that the team would "assess the situation on the ground, determine the level of assistance required and consult with the representatives of the various stakeholders in Zimbabwe on how a multi-stakeholder distribution and monitoring mechanism could be set up."
The team would then brief South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and ministers who would decide on humanitarian aid to be provided by South Africa.
Mugabe has been under intense pressure over his country's collapse from both the West and his neighbours who have urged a stronger stance against the 84-year-old veteran leader.
© 2008 AFP
Zimbabwe blames EU sanctions for cholera deaths
December 7th, 2008 in Medicine & Health / Diseases
AFP
Zimbabwean state media on Sunday blamed the country's cholera outbreak, which has claimed nearly 600 lives, on European sanctions imposed on the regime of President Robert Mugabe.
"The cholera outbreak is a clear example of the effects of sanctions on innocent people," The Sunday Mail newspaper said in its editorial as the European Union prepared to tighten sanctions on the government.
"The people who are suffering most are not politicians they claim they want to punish, but poor people," the newspaper said.
"All the victims (of cholera) are as a result of the freezing of balance of payments support, depriving the country of foreign currency required to buy chemicals to treat our drinking water."
European Union foreign ministers are expected to adopt in Brussels on Monday a draft text tightening sanctions against Zimbabwe amid worries over the deteriorating humanitarian situation and political stalemate in the country.
They will add names to the EU's sanctions list of 168 members of the Zimbabwe regime, including Mugabe and his wife Grace, who are banned from entering EU nations and whose European assets have been frozen.
Meanwhile, a South African team will on Monday meet with stakeholders in Zimbabwe and assess how it can aid the nation stricken by a food crisis and cholera outbreak, a South African government spokesman said on Sunday.
"There is no change in our plans to send an official delegation to Zimbabwe tomorrow (Monday). It is going to be a one-day mission during which the team will meet all stakeholders," Themba Maseko told AFP.
He did not give further details.
Maseko had on Friday told reporters that the team would "assess the situation on the ground, determine the level of assistance required and consult with the representatives of the various stakeholders in Zimbabwe on how a multi-stakeholder distribution and monitoring mechanism could be set up."
The team would then brief South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and ministers who would decide on humanitarian aid to be provided by South Africa.
Mugabe has been under intense pressure over his country's collapse from both the West and his neighbours who have urged a stronger stance against the 84-year-old veteran leader.
© 2008 AFP
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