Civil Wars in African Countries

[redstar2000]

Human rights campaigners are calling for a probe into allegations that multinational companies and governments are profiteering from gold and other minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/3218149.stm

http://anarchist-action.org/forums/images/smiles/redstar.gif

The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[Kapitan Andrey]

Hmm...that's really interesting!!!

[Desert Fox]

What else is new, Africans have been abused, exploited for so long that it really doesn't amaze me that something new sees daylight. It may sound harsh, but it is the cruel reality. I remember vague the time when Congo was still a colony of Belgium and how they were exploited by my country. It is sad to see that but I doesn't amazes me that some new horrible event happens there ...

[Saint-Just]

Yes, redstar2000. And, the Zimbabwean government sent troops to help those fighting the anti-imperialist struggle in Congo. The Americans who are now exploiting Congo's natural resources have now begun a propaganda campagin against Zimbabwe.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Chairman [email protected] 28 2003, 12:07 PM
The Americans who are now exploiting Congo's natural resources have now begun a propaganda campagin against Zimbabwe.
Well that is only natural that they will give someone else the blame so they don't have any public opinion problems at home. And if people see another struggle between african countries they won't care anymore since it is usual news but sadly the don't see the truth and only see what the real villians want to let them see ;)

[Loknar]

Originally posted by Chairman [email protected] 28 2003, 12:07 PM
Yes, redstar2000. And, the Zimbabwean government sent troops to help those fighting the anti-imperialist struggle in Congo. The Americans who are now exploiting Congo's natural resources have now begun a propaganda campagin against Zimbabwe.
Are you claiming that white farmers aren't being kicked off their farms?

[Bodyguard]

Originally posted by Desert [email protected] 28 2003, 11:58 AM
What else is new, Africans have been abused, exploited for so long that it really doesn't amaze me that something new sees daylight. It may sound harsh, but it is the cruel reality. I remember vague the time when Congo was still a colony of Belgium and how they were exploited by my country. It is sad to see that but I doesn't amazes me that some new horrible event happens there ...
I agree that Africans have been exploited for many years....but not only by Europeans....they have been exploited by thier own citizens and their own leaders....it is a vicious circle.

[driver]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2003, 08:20 AM
I agree that Africans have been exploited for many years....but not only by Europeans....they have been exploited by thier own citizens and their own leaders....
I agree, there is no doubt that many non-African countries have exploited Africa, but one cannot deny that a lot of the problems in Africa are the result of their own leaders fucking the poeple over. It is, however, true that in a lot of the cases those particular leaders where backed by the west and it served the the west's interests.

In the case of Zimbabwe, no one else can be blamed but Mugabe. He booted out the 'white emperialists' without considering the repurcussions. People are starving as a result of his own greed and longing to hang on to power. The 'land reforms', as they are called, was more a ploy to garner support from the rural poor who were landless, not a legit reform to provide land to the people.

And what burns my arse the most id the fact that the pres of my country idoly sits by and does nothing. He has called it 'quiet diplomacy'.

END!

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Bodyguard+Oct 29 2003, 08:20 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Bodyguard @ Oct 29 2003, 08:20 AM)
Desert [email protected] 28 2003, 11:58 AM
What else is new, Africans have been abused, exploited for so long that it really doesn&#39;t amaze me that something new sees daylight. It may sound harsh, but it is the cruel reality. I remember vague the time when Congo was still a colony of Belgium and how they were exploited by my country. It is sad to see that but I doesn&#39;t amazes me that some new horrible event happens there ...
I agree that Africans have been exploited for many years....but not only by Europeans....they have been exploited by thier own citizens and their own leaders....it is a vicious circle. [/b]
I concur, the own leader of Africa exploit there people and that is sad. If they would form a front than European and American exploiters would have more problems and at the end they would be forced to leave Africa alone and than maybe after so many years Africa could start building a decent country ...

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by Loknar+Oct 29 2003, 07:41 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Loknar @ Oct 29 2003, 07:41 AM)
Chairman [email protected] 28 2003, 12:07 PM
Yes, redstar2000. And, the Zimbabwean government sent troops to help those fighting the anti-imperialist struggle in Congo. The Americans who are now exploiting Congo&#39;s natural resources have now begun a propaganda campagin against Zimbabwe.
Are you claiming that white farmers aren&#39;t being kicked off their farms? [/b]
No. White farmers are indeed being kicked off their farms, why would any leftist deny that? That is the root of the support any leftist have in support for Zimbabwe.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Chairman Mao+Oct 29 2003, 08:42 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Chairman Mao @ Oct 29 2003, 08:42 PM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2003, 07:41 AM

Chairman [email protected] 28 2003, 12:07 PM
Yes, redstar2000. And, the Zimbabwean government sent troops to help those fighting the anti-imperialist struggle in Congo. The Americans who are now exploiting Congo&#39;s natural resources have now begun a propaganda campagin against Zimbabwe.
Are you claiming that white farmers aren&#39;t being kicked off their farms?
No. White farmers are indeed being kicked off their farms, why would any leftist deny that? That is the root of the support any leftist have in support for Zimbabwe. [/b]
Those farmers are no saints, they abuse their workforce and don&#39;t have any moral or goverment problems with that. So why should the leftists deny they free farm land like C M said, they are just helping out the needy. Loknar you have to understand that both you and I don&#39;t know the real thing that is going on there so it is safe to say that whatever there happens it is with a reason ...

[(*]

Don&#39;t buy your significant other a diamond ring&#33;

[driver]

Originally posted by Desert [email protected] 30 2003, 08:09 AM
Those farmers are no saints, they abuse their workforce and don&#39;t have any moral or goverment problems with that. So why should the leftists deny they free farm land like C M said, they are just helping out the needy. Loknar you have to understand that both you and I don&#39;t know the real thing that is going on there so it is safe to say that whatever there happens it is with a reason ...
I, too, am a lieftist, but I am not fucking stupid&#33;&#33;

If these war veterans are helping the needy, please explain why they beat the shit out of the former farm workers which you claim are being abused by the farm owners? Explain why cattle were slaughtered and stables burnt with horses still inside them, farm assets that could help these needy.

If this was to help the needy, why are people starving as a result of the land seizures? Zimbabwe was a bread basket for a region, it was able to supply food to its neighbors but now there is nothing happening. The economy is in ruin and on the verge of collapse.

I am all for land redistribution. But this had nothing to do with land redistribution, as I stated earlier. It was a political move by greedy Mugabe to get the vote of the landless, by allowing them to run amock in the country. The reason for this was that for the first time in twenty years he actually faced strong political opposition; the MDC.

Now we have a problem in the area. Refugees are pouring in to South Africa and that now creates a problem for my country.

And if you think that Mugabe is this great leftist or whatever and giving land to the landless or whatever garbage you believe, just remember it is the same Mugabe that is clamping down on trade unions, removing workers rights, removing peoples basic rights and employing violence as an active means of coercion.

What a great leader... eh?

END&#33;

[Saint-Just]

The population of Zimbabwe is 13 million. The white population accounts for 70,000. 4,500 whites control half of the country&#39;s 81 million acres of arable land, while close to a million black farmers are crammed into the rest. The land the big landowners occupy is the most fertile, while that which the working black farmers have is the least fertile.

Following independance Mugabe said: &#39;It could never be a correct justification that because the whites oppressed us when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power.&#39;

So an agreement was drawn up with collaboration with the UK and U.S. known as the Lancaster House agreement that stated no land redistribution would take place for 10 years, although it could purchase the land back. The U.S. agreed the donation of &#036;2 billion to help the government purchase the land. An agreement had been drawn up for white-black co-operation. However the whites rejected the agreement and the U.S. failed to donate the &#036;2 billion. As a result Mugabe decided to confiscate the land or else Zimbabwe would forever live in the shadow of colonialism. This is what provoked the imperialist press and white farmers.

Zanu PF also decided to reject the IMF&#39;s &#39;Austerity programme&#39;. As a result sanctions were enforced and requests for loans rejected. In addition to this white farmers engaged in crop sabotage with co-operation from the imperialist powers. Whilst this went on the region saw problems with droughts to further worsen the situation.

It is not simply just this that has provoked the imperialist powers. You may be wondering why they have decided to pay such attention to this country of South Africa so far away from U.S. It is because in addition to what I have already mentioned, Zimbabwe has sent troops to aid the government in Congo in their repulsion of Rwandan and Ugandan forces, the invasion having been incited by the U.S. imperialists, as the U.S. became enraged at Congo&#39;s rejection of the U.S. economic designs for Africa.

And what about the great MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), I wonder who set up this movement and funds it?? This very movement that supports the IMF and free market, that wants retension of land by the white minority and withdrawal of troops from Congo. And which individual is in league with the MDC as part of the U.S. set up Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, Chester Crocker, the notorious racist supporter of the Apartheid regime.

The truth is that only 160 members of opposition have died in the last 2 years, hardly noteworthy since most of the deaths have nothing to do with Mugabe. Generally the imperialist press rant about economic failure in Zimbabwe and of the suppression of the imperialist press who continue to write lies about Zimbabwe.

Neither is the economic downturn the fault of Zanu PF, rather it is the illegitimate imperialist sanctions and the fact that the CIA and imperialist dog farmers have taken to burning masses of crop fields to sabotage the economy. In addition, in the last 3 years the region has seen a massive economic downturn due to drought. Zimbabwe has actually come off better than the surrounding nations because of its residual economic strength that earnt it that so cliched title of the imperialist press.

Isn&#39;t it strange that Mugabe has been in power since the early 80&#39;s and has been elected for 5 successive terms. Indeed, he and Zanu PF alone made Zimbabwe the &#39;breadbasket of Africa’ and the best educated country in Africa that has the 86% literacy rate that is by far the highest.


The MDC is a joke. They are a weak group of rich imperialists hastily banded together by the U.S. It is Morgan Tsvangiri who started calling Mugabe a fascist. The real fascists are racist American pigs and imperialist puppets such as Tsvangiri.

The Guardian:
[they]"seized 841 white-owned farms in one week, and large groups of squatters were camped out on the farms, dividing their energies between planting out maize and singing revolutionary songs. One squatter leader is quoted as saying, "This land used to belong to our forefathers. We need this land. Our government will not tell us to move from here. Even if the police tell us to move, we will stay."

The Independant on Morgan Tsvangiri:
&#39;this clown’s lack of "track record in the…struggle for independence" makes him dubious presidential material&#39;

Well, let&#39;s also think about this. The only extents the government has gone too is to constitutionally legalise these land occupations. In fact, anyone is open to go to the courts and to the police and protest. Indeed, the police have gone to the courts to protest against what would have previously been a crime in illegal occupation of land. This is class struggle, that Zanu PF, and Mugabe, as socialists have facilitated in what they hope to make a state independant from imperialism and the ills it brings.

Blak workers on white farms are forced to live in terrible conditions, working on the massive white estates picking coffee, tobacco, tea etc. Sounds a little familiar, what about 1800&#39;s U.S.?? this time though there are 4000 confederates backed by a superpower with a confederate mentality against all the landless blacks.

In 1997, the Guardian told how these workers, demanding to be paid £42 a month, "launched a wave of strikes that has brought the country’s commercial farming sector to its knees". "Thousands of singing, chanting workers … blocked highways for days," they reported, quoting one striker as saying: "We have been downtrodden too long. Zimbabwe is independent. We can stand up for our rights. We want better pay so our families can live better."

[driver]

Two years down the line after the farms have been seized, yet still no crop production. Those farms that were not seized did produce, how can you pin the problems to drought?

You did not address the question of mine regarding the war veterans beating up former farm workers. If they were helping them from their slave labor, why did they beat them up and in some cases, kill them?

If this was a socialist act for the people of Zimbabwe in an effort to rid the country of the filthy imperialists, why is it that some of the top Government officials took a few of the properties for themselves?

Independent media in Zimbabwe is continually being attacked. One cannot criticize the government for their blatant abuse of human rights. The country&#39;s leading independent newspaper has been bombed twice.

Youth militia walk round the streets of Harare intimidating and harassing anyone whom they declare opposes of Mugabe. It happened to a journalist who was wearing a shirt that expressed his support for freedom of speech.

Twenty years later; why only when there was a strong opposition to the seat of president did Robert Mugabe&#39;s regime initiate the &#39;land reform&#39; process.

If he is such the big socialist that supports the peoples struggle, why has his wife been seen shopping in the likes of Sandton (top, expensive mall in Jhb) and staying in the top hotels around South Africa, all at the expense of the dying country?


This was not a class struggle, this was not imperialist instigated, it was a desperate man who took desperate measures to retain his seat at the top and it’s the very people that he supposedly represents that suffer.


END&#33;

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2003, 08:28 AM

I, too, am a lieftist, but I am not fucking stupid&#33;&#33;

If these war veterans are helping the needy, please explain why they beat the shit out of the former farm workers which you claim are being abused by the farm owners? Explain why cattle were slaughtered and stables burnt with horses still inside them, farm assets that could help these needy.

If this was to help the needy, why are people starving as a result of the land seizures? Zimbabwe was a bread basket for a region, it was able to supply food to its neighbors but now there is nothing happening. The economy is in ruin and on the verge of collapse.

I am all for land redistribution. But this had nothing to do with land redistribution, as I stated earlier. It was a political move by greedy Mugabe to get the vote of the landless, by allowing them to run amock in the country. The reason for this was that for the first time in twenty years he actually faced strong political opposition; the MDC.

Now we have a problem in the area. Refugees are pouring in to South Africa and that now creates a problem for my country.

And if you think that Mugabe is this great leftist or whatever and giving land to the landless or whatever garbage you believe, just remember it is the same Mugabe that is clamping down on trade unions, removing workers rights, removing peoples basic rights and employing violence as an active means of coercion.

What a great leader... eh?

END&#33;
Well I was searching a reason for your hard reaction and I found it. You are only concerned about this topic because your country would suffer thanx to it, isn&#39;t that a bit too egocentric thinking. But I can agree, you don&#39;t like it that they are pouring down your country but I can agree, but that is probally the only reason why you are concerned about this topic. However what you just said can be all true, but you can&#39;t expect change in matter of days/weeks it needs months, years before things will change for the best. So you can&#39;t really judge now about the leader ...

[Marxist in Nebraska]

Originally posted by (*@Oct 30 2003, 02:19 AM
Don&#39;t buy your significant other a diamond ring&#33;
Right&#33; Warlords are killing and maiming who-knows-how-many-people for the opportunity to get into the diamond market. That diamond ring between you and your significant other may mean love to you, but it means blood, death, and terror to many Africans.

Do not buy diamonds. Anything can be a symbol of love. It just has to be significant to the two of you.

[Umoja]

African governments are falling apart because of Neo-colonialism and Multi-National Corporations. Africa has been under Authoritarian governments for centuries, and like China that&#39;s why many of it&#39;s ancient kingdoms (like Songhai) were able to maintain such power, and so little crime.

[driver]

Originally posted by Desert [email protected] 30 2003, 02:56 PM
You are only concerned about this topic because your country would suffer thanx to it, isn&#39;t that a bit too egocentric thinking. But I can agree, you don&#39;t like it that they are pouring down your country but I can agree, but that is probally the only reason why you are concerned about this topic. However what you just said can be all true, but you can&#39;t expect change in matter of days/weeks it needs months, years before things will change for the best. So you can&#39;t really judge now about the leader ...
I am concerned about Zimbabwe because these are people that are suffering at the hands of a senile leader. Desert Fox, trust me, I am not going to suffer as a result of the influx of starving refugees. I can count myself lucky as someone fortunate enough to have a job and be in a position to that would survive an economic crisis. It is the labor class that suffers when these refugees poor into the border regions. There are no jobs in SA. In the regions xenophobia is rife. Crime is high and people suffer.

What a wonderful thing Mr. Mugabe has created. Now, don’t make assumptions about me being egotistical from the fact that I am concerned about the people flowing into the country, there are negative repercussions as a result thus a legit concern... remember, assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups&#33;

You said, "you can&#39;t expect change in matter of days/weeks it needs months, years before things will change for the best", which is correct, I fully agree with you.
Now I ask if that is the case, why did the land reform occur over night?

Instead of a process of introducing these people to farming techniques, land management, livestock control and breeding, instead of starting community projects where the landless are taught all these basics needed to sustain the development of the land, an uneducated population (in all the above) forcefully and violently took the land overnight.

Great, viva le revolution. What now? You have thousands of former landless now with land and not a fucking clue with what to do with it, where to start nor have an inkling of what is required to provide for their community.

But who is blamed for this? Ah, the white man, Blair&#39;s homosexual comrades, the imperialists, the weather, everyone else is blamed; it can’t be the fault of the landless&#33;

But had this been a slow process where these people are slowly introduced to all the above that I mentioned. Where people and communities are educated on how to sustain a piece of land that will not only provide food for the community, but also be able to be sold to get money to buy other goods.

It has happened in South Africa and it has worked. We have system, albeit slow, and it works&#33;&#33;


I will judge that leader, he is an arrogant swine who lamb bastes the west for this and that yet everything he does and the way he acts smacks of European culture. He loves his money and he likes power. He is an old school African leader. He is nothing great. He has exploited people of Zimbabwe’s weakness, the need for land, to meet his own ends.

END&#33;

[flayer2]

The white farmers have dual citizenship with the UK. Most of them have second homes and travel freely between UK and Zimbabwe. There is no genocide going on. That is pure fantasy..

[driver]

Mugabe is their darling (http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old%DFion=current&issue=2003-10-25&id=3653)

Aidan Hartley finds that the Zimbabwean president is regarded as a hero by Africa’s upper middle classes

In Johannesburg recently I hooked up with Mojo, an old drinking chum from Dar es Salaam, where in the 1980s I was an FT stringer covering the ‘frontline states’ and he was an officer in the ANC’s armed wing, Mkhonto we Sizwe. These days I’m a settler on the land in Kenya, while Mojo has risen to become Lieutenant-General Mojo Matau, South Africa’s chief of military intelligence. At our reunion the beers flowed freely into the night as we remembered the old days. Mojo and I slapped each other on the back and held hands for a bit. Then I asked my friend, this man in the kitchen cabinet of ANC power in the new South Africa, what he thought of Robert Mugabe. At his reply my heart sank. He described Zimbabwe’s President as a hero for what he’s done to white farmers, and a leader who illuminated the path ahead for South Africa. I remonstrated, as I always do, and ended by telling Mojo that I saw myself as an African first, a white second, and that it was my ardent wish to stay on the continent. ‘Your only home,’ countered Mojo, gently taking my hand again, ‘is England.’

Is this the real story behind Thabo Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe? Mugabe, to say it without beating around the liberal bush, is a hero to many of my black African friends. Most of the people I’m talking about are from the upper middle class, inheritors of the African kingdom after colonialism. According to one Zambian, who is among my very oldest of comrades, ‘Mugabe is Shaka Zulu.’

Mugabe is ‘speaking for black people worldwide,’ writes the South African journalist Harry Mashabela. Regarded as a solid liberal in his long career, and writing in the Helen Suzman Foundation’s September newsletter, Mashabela pointed to the adoration Mugabe won at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year: ‘The applause and standing ovation were a tacit expression of appreciation of the courageous stand Mugabe has taken in trying to resolve the critical land problems facing his country.’

Indeed, Mugabe and his lieutenants win ovations across Africa: at a summit of the Southern African SADC trade bloc in August, or at an ANC conference ten months ago, when President Thabo Mbeki got up and hugged Zanu-PF loyalist Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mugabe laps it up. During Zimbabwe’s sham elections in 2002, a correspondent asked him if he thought the violent land invasions hadn’t damaged his image. He replied, ‘If the perception is that of Europeans, well, I suppose you are right to say my reputation has gone down. But in terms of Africa, go anywhere and I am a hero.’

Mugabe’s pan-African admirers believe that his problems — Zimbabwe’s 400 per cent inflation, three million starving, violence — derive solely from the wish of the former colonial power and her allies to punish him for redistributing white land to indigenous Africans. Says Mashabela: ‘Not human rights violations, not absence of the rule of law and not bad governance as the British and American governments would like us to believe.’

‘African intellectuals see this in terms of Mugabe correcting historical injustices,’ my Zambian friend tells me. By now I don’t need to remind you of Zimbabwe’s colonial story, the forgotten promises of the Lancaster House Agreement, the building-land pressure and disproportionate ownership of commercial farms by the tiny white minority. ‘But surely it’s not about that,’ I say. ‘Surely it’s that Mugabe is at war with his own people. What about the MDC opposition?’ My friend says, ‘The MDC is regarded as a white-backed movement that has no credibility.’

The truth of what’s happening inside Zimbabwe doesn’t matter here. We’ve moved into the territory of black racial prejudice, which, just like its white counterpart, is rooted not in facts, or decency, or humanity, but in irrational nonsense. Among these black friends of mine in their tailored suits, drinking whisky and playing golf, I am simply reminded of those people in England who profess to be tolerant, civilised people, yet harbour ideas about niggers, yids and towelheads that make them bedfellows of the BNP.

Other than for whopping the white settlers, which is sweet to see after centuries of oppression, etc., etc., why is Mugabe admired? He has stood up to Britain and the USA, and in the eyes of Third Worlders that’s commendable even if a nation is collapsing. (The walls of Africa, it should be noted, are scribbled over with graffiti that is pro-Saddam Hussein and pro-Osama bin Laden). Thirdly, Mugabe’s got charisma, a relentless energy in his septuagenarian’s dainty frame, and he deploys rhetorical powers with an eloquence rarely matched by any other leader in Africa’s independent history. He possesses the ‘perfume’ of power, as Christopher Hope describes it in his fine recent book about tyranny and Zimbabwe, Brothers Under the Skin. Mugabe is the archetypal African Big Man.

With great authority, certain British pundits claim Africa is in a mess because its citizens have a sort of genetically implanted admiration for the Big Men. Frankly, to me, this is like saying British commuters adore train delays, because this is the way things are today. The truth is that the majority of Africans deserve and wish for better leaders, but like British train commuters, they are often powerless to alter the status quo. It’s the upper middle classes — what we used to call the WaBenzi in Kenya, on account of the Mercedes Benz cars they drive — who like the Big Men. They’ve all got their snouts in the trough.

Kenya now has a true democracy — though still corrupt and rather useless — following a unique ‘velvet revolution’ in which millions of ordinary voters ended the reign of Daniel arap Moi, the ultimate Big Man, in polls last December. Is it any surprise, therefore, that Kenya is the single African nation to speak out forthrightly against Mugabe, while calling for him to remain suspended from the Commonwealth?

Lawrence Schlemmer, in a study for the Helen Suzman Foundation in April 2002, discovered that only 25 per cent of black South Africans approved of Mugabe’s white land seizures. In terms of Mbeki’s policy, 50 per cent either thought that he was correct to pursue his ‘quiet diplomacy’ or that he should have supported Mugabe more, while 37 per cent wanted a more critical policy. But the most interesting statistics show how the views of African voters depend on their class and income. Schlemmer found that the richer the black voters, the more likely they were to approve of Mbeki’s soft-pedalling on Mugabe. ‘Perhaps,’ Schlemmer speculated, ‘they include many members of the insider elite, compromised by their interests.’

We’ve been here before. Initially Idi Amin was hugely popular among educated Ugandan blacks when he expelled 50,000 Ugandan Asians in 1971. He was then treated to a standing ovation at a summit of the Organisation for African Unity, the club of dictators that was abolished in favour of a new, squeaky-clean African Union — which recently appointed Mugabe as its envoy to oversee, among other things, ‘good governance’.

Breaking up big farms for smallholders spells economic disaster; everybody knows that. But in Africa, the mystical issue of land befuddles all rational thought. ‘Land ...is central to African politics and any politician who masquerades otherwise and dangles IMF statistics on inflation to the electorate without promising land would lose hands down,’ wrote the commentator John Kamau in Kenya’s Daily Nation. In reality, of course, the main beneficiaries of redistribution are the black top dogs.

‘As patriots who occupied the same trench of struggle with Zimbabwe when we, together, battled to end white minority rule in our region, we will do what we can to enable Zimbabweans to enjoy the fruits of their hard-won liberation,’ Mbeki wrote in the Guardian last May. I know exactly what he means. To return to my friend Mojo, what is to become of South Africa? Mashabela promises: ‘The Zimbabwe-style explosion in South Africa over the land issue may be delayed ...but that it shall happen some time in the future is beyond question.’

Tanzania’s President, Benjamin Mkapa, demanded the lifting of Western sanctions at the August summit of SADC — once formed by the ‘frontline states’ to isolate apartheid Pretoria. ‘I find it insulting that there are powers and people who believe food shortages in the region can only be averted when Africans become servants on white people’s land, rather than when they work on their own land,’ he thundered.

His words remind me of what happened 35 years ago, when Julius Nyerere, founder of Mkapa’s Revolutionary party, expropriated my family’s farm on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Like the robbed white Zimbabwean farmers now wandering the earth, our lives were ruined for several years. My parents pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, survived and even prospered, as will the Zimbabweans. Our land, meanwhile, fell into ruin. Nyerere’s men brought North Koreans and Soviets to visit the results of my father’s hard work, holding it up as a fine example of socialist development. They feasted on the livestock. The borehole broke down. Into a business which my parents had once run out of a family bank overdraft the Swedes poured a million dollars of aid, in a ‘development’ project that quickly failed. Our former employees lost their jobs. Today our houses lie in ruins. The pyrethrum and dairy have been turned over to marijuana production. Most of the wildlife has been wiped out, the trees chopped down for charcoal. Occasionally the Maasai drive their cattle across the eroded plains, but in times of drought these proud people are forced to live on handouts of Western food aid. This story was repeated across Tanzania, thanks to Nyerere, who despite his disastrous attempts at ‘self-reliance’ is still revered as ‘Mwalimu’ — the Teacher — by Africa’s champagne socialists. Mwalimu, of course, died while being treated in a private London hospital, not a Tanzanian one.

================================================== ==============

END&#33;

[Desert Fox]

Well driver I respect that you as member of the higher class of civilasation in South-Africa cares about the working class. But without a doubt your views on the matter are different of them. I am not trying to say you have a bad view on the matter but your view is clouded by the fact that it doesn&#39;t affect you so hard ...

[Saint-Just]

I largely agree driver. However, what I hate is the big pro-U.S. imperialist, pro MDC stance that stands against Mugabe.

[The Feral Underclass]

The African continent was dominated for centuries by western countries. This does not just have a economic and political consequences but psychological ones also. Throughout the entire period of domination by colonial powers they have been slaves and second class citizens given nothing but scraps to survive. For centuries they have had to develop new ways in order to keep on living. This has had a detromental effect on the minds of african people. They know only how to survive.

this is why you have corrupt governments and people exploiting natural resources. Those in power now have the ability to control their own surivival and will take what ever they can. If you go to Africa people there think the west is this paradise where you can have DVD&#39;s and computers etc. They worship material wealth as some kind of promise land and I think western leaders and business men can exploit this fact.

As for the war vetrans in zimbabwe, mugabe has wipped up hatred against whites in order to retain power. nothing more. It is the same thing as the governments here blaming immigrants for the economic problems. If you have nothing, and you know nothing and some big man comes along and says it is the white farmers who keep you oppressed you are going to do something about it.

[driver]

Chairman Mao, so an extent I agree with you, but which would have better suited the country? Going into a fair election against te MDC and winning the election purely on merit, or taking extreme measures which result in the economic collapse of the nation which does not benefit anyone at all.

I am pro land reform. I think it highly unfair that most of the land is held by a small minority. But there are definatel better ways to go about it, like I have mentioned, there has to be a massive community driven education and assitance campaign beforeyou hand overland to people and expect it to flourish. Ultimately, that is the aim of giveing that land to them&#33;

END&#33;

[Saint-Just]

I think the question is not particularly important. My hope would be for a working class party to come to power in Zimbabwe, I do not know whether a liberal democracy or a one party state would aid that either way. I would prefer Zanu PF to be in power to the MDC. I think even with elections at the moment Zanu PF would stay in power.

[Loknar]

I suppose I don’t have a problem with the land reform (this is of course easy for us to say, we don’t stand to lose anything) but the truth is it is being executed very poorly. When the whites are evicted from their farms the land seems to remain out of use, the only thing that happens is war vets and their families rob the farms and leave. Zimbabwe used to be a food exporter, now they are practically in famine’s Mugabe should take steps to fix this situation not only for Zimbabwe’s sake but for his own as well.