Blues in Zim...
I received this email, forwarded from Bibi earlier today, accompanied with the pictures here. What the fuck has Mbeki been doing all this while?
Hi guys,
I do not know what needs to happen for the world to stand up against the
bully boy tactics of Mugabe and hiss goons.
People are continuing to be subjected to horrible beatings and deaths. I
have attached pictures of some of the people I filmed yesterday. The footage went out yesterday on ITV News @ 10 in the UK and SKY and we are hoping to
have it on E in South Africa by tonight since we have no direct feed to e.tv
from Harare due to state dirty tactics.
I have attached pictures of a man who was tied down to the ground. The militia had burning plastic dripping to his body. The other pic is of a 73 year old man who had his hands and legs broken and left for dead.
The head in a pic attached is of a man who was hit by an axe and left for dead. The dark picture is an undercover filming we did 2 days ago of ZANU PF militias beating people up in the township of Highfield. The violence has taken a new twist with the military and the militias beating anyone seen outside their houses after six in the townships.
I have also attached a pic of a refuge centre where people are seeking sanctuary from the beatings. How can we hold a free and fair re-run election under these circumstances.
I have also attached a pic of an election official counting votes wearing a VOTE ZANU PF t shirt. That is the life we are living down here.
Thabo Mbeki has put a "Do not disturb" sign on Zimbabwe. We salute President Mwanawasa of Zambia who has broken ranks with his SADC collegues and is now calling a spade a spade, Jacob Zuma and the ANC. Not surprisingly, Mwanawasa, ANC and Zuma have been called sell outs by Mugabe!
Regards,
......
"To try to own knowledge, to try to control whether people are allowed
to use it, or to try to stop other people from sharing it, is sabotage."
Posts
23 comments:
Oh my God. How terrible! What IS Mbeki doing?!
This is truly horrific. Why are we not demonstrating at all the embassies of Zim all over the continent? What the fuck is going on here? I remember their independence and Bob Marley played there. This is terrible. What can we do besides just looking? Is there something we can do?
I'd like to know what can be done as well. I'm from the U.S. Is there anything I can do? Who should I contact?
At the risk of sounding like a rabble rouser, isn't a popular uprising long overdue in this country?
Aluta
The question I have is this: why is Zimbabwe, and not the Congo in the news? The answer is staring anybody who cares to find out in the face.
Mugabe ko, mugabe ni. To old Bob, ku'use. Owo yin o maa ro'oke.
propoganda! how do we know that these photo's are of zim people?? they could be of anyone!
stop this your stupid british white man, useless propoganda, and talk about the real reasons zimbabwe is what it is..... nonsense!
To the last commentor: the pictures were taken by a Zimbabwean documentary film maker in Zimbabwe.
Doubtless when you saw the first images of Rwandans hacked to death you thought that too was propaganda.
Fuck you.
To Boot,
if you have a problem with this white man why don't you say it. I don't think the issue is whether the images are of Zimbabwans are not, the fact of the matter they are atrocities committed on black, African bodies. Instead of shooting the messenger, why don't you think about what you would like to do stuff the suffering of your black brothers.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LMFBAO!! (Laughing my fucking black ass off!!)... Jeremy, I join you in saying to 'Boot'
FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU!!!! Get over yourself and the massive chip on your shoulder!
I am a bit puzzled by [email protected] pm.
Just why is Zim and not the Congo in the news?
I am assuming your props to old Bob were delivered tongue in cheek but do clarify..
Aluta continua
PS I would also like to give "boot" a "fuck you very much" to boot, but I am assuming he/she has already departed to the toxic waste zone from which he/she came, never to be heard from again...
jeremy, why play up rwanda? what does that have to do with anything here. why not mention the holocaust or slavery while you're at it. get off your fuckin' moral high horse bull shit.
you guys can act rwanda is not an anomaly and conjure up its image anytime you want to justify invading an african country
To anonymous 3:44, maybe this proverb will help.
When you rebel against your master who whips you, rest assured his reply will be with a spear and an arrow.
The spear and the arrow often comes in the form of sanctions, isolation and a bad press.
The Nigerians posters supporting Jeremy on this issue all are morons.
I can understand Jeremy's feeling, it's normal, he is English for fucks sake so he can not be objective about Zimbabwe, it's like asking a Muslim to accept Christ or vice versa.
But the Nigerians spouting shit against Mugabe, go read your history and don't stupid. The economic situation in Zim is as a result of sanctions and cancellation of credit guarantees by the British, the land issue was stuck in the colonial office in London for almost 20 years, what is the essence of having independence when 80% of the land is your country is controlled by 1% of the population, and this minority are 'European Settlers' who have no right to the land in the first place?
When Europeans die defending their fatherland it is described as valour, when Africans choose the same path it is described as stupidity. Valour or stupidity, let the people of Zimbabwe choose, make, and be responsible for their own destiny.
There is nothing wrong with Jeremy showing 'concern' about the plight of Zimbabwe, it is to be expected for anyone of European decent to show 'concern' about Zimbabwe, they actually show this 'concern' out of genuine feelings but it doesn't mean they are right, the joke is on the Africans who join the European bandwagon. Shame on you.
PS
Jeremy, I see you finally have broken? Nigeria has brought out the beast in you! ha ha ha.
Controversial anon: you couldn't be more wrong if you tried. You seem to think that my outcry (or anyone else's) against Mugabe must be based on his taking land away from whites, as if I should feel some automatic racial kinship.
That kind of thought can only say more about the way your mind works than mine: crass, simplistic, tribal.
Land reform in Zimbabwe was of course necessary (as it will be in South Africa under Zuma). Land reform has to be a key component of any meaningful decolonisation process.
However, you have to acknowledge that Mugabe has long used land reform as a political tool, giving appropriated land to his Zanu-PF goons. From the horrors Mugabe inflicted against the Ndebele in Matebeleland in the mid 80's, we have seen the slow transmogrification of an anti-colonialist African hero into a paranoid despot.
You also have to know that the way he transferred the land was ill-thought through - expecting peasants to be able to run small holdings and obtain from the land what the large scale mechanised agribusiness had done previously was foolish. The starvation of the people and the collapse of the economy was all too easy to predict.
Does it come down to this: that you expect me to be against Mugabe simply because I am white, and you yourself continue to support him based on his anti-colonialist stance and the fact that he is African - meanwhile people starve and those who contest are tortured? That is dangerously simplistic and crude thinking my friend.
interesting article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article3775299.ece
If love for his country and his people is what is uppermost in the mind of Mr Mugabe, then the condition today of the country over which he has presided for 28 years, and the condition of the country's people, are a poor testament to this.
Mugabe seems not to understand that the anti-colonial struggle ended nearly three decades ago. The world has moved on, and it is interesting how sharply one can contrast Mugabe's image today with that of another African leader Muammar Gadaffi, whose status three decades ago was that of pariah. Gadaffi smelt the coffee, and metamorphosed as the world changed. Mugabe has stuck to his anti-colonialist guns. The result is that Mugabe's image is that of someone who is not in touch with the rest of the world, and most importantly, the majority of his own people.
In response to Controversial Anon, Zimbabweans are not dying defending their motherland. They are fleeing from their homeland in droves.
@ Jeremy
I am 'crass, simplistic, tribal' for pointing out the obvious? Okay Oh!
Exactly what is the obsession with Zimbabwe? Is it the same obsession they had with Haiti?
1) you agree (in principle) that Mugabe was right to take back the land.
2) you know that the so called massacre of Matebeleland happened in the mid 80s when Mugabe hadn't messed with white land, hence still was a darling of Europeans. If all these people cared so much, why did they not hound him then?
3) you know that the hounding of Mugabe began after he expropriated white owned land.
4) you know that Zimbabwe got independence on condition that the new black government must not deal with land issues, rather the Land issue be left to the British to handle (stuck in the colonial office since 1980 with no one bothering to do anything about it).
4)you know that amongst a few other things, land is at the very root of the southern Africa struggle.
Very importantly, I'm sure you are not thick, you come across as a very bright person, so how is it so hard for you to put 2 and 2 together? You are overwhelmed in the west with news of how evil Mugabe is, but that really is not the issue, there are people beaten up by the police in the UK all the time, 2 years ago a Nigerian died in custody, it happened in spain, it happens in the US, we don't go about blaming it on Blair, or Zapatero, or Brown.
I do not expect you to understand, you know why? Because you are not a black man who lived at a time when it was illegal in Zimbabwe for African cattle to mate with European cattle, you can never understand, and if you think i'm simplistic and crass then thanks for pointing it out.
Zimbabwe is where it is to day cos Mugabe chose to fuck with white owned land, SIMPLE!
@ anengiyefa
are you the sort of person who believes that WWF wrestling is real?
Yes, Zimbabweans are emigrating. Yes, the economy is a shambles. Yes, Mugabe is a clown. But beneath all this, please think. Think, think, think.
Why did the Zim economy collapse? Why has there been a sustained attack on Mugabe ever since he expropriated white land? why not before the expropriation when he was allegedly killing black people?
For your information, for a lot of these countries, the anti-colonialism struggle did not end after independence, the formal declaration of independence was merely the beginning, the had to de-segregate their societies, they had to change names of cities, towns, landmarks, etc, they had to restore their dignity, and most importantly, they had to take control of the economies - Land, Mines, Natural resources, labour, and capital. Herein lies the problem of Zimbabwe. Mugabe embarked on a quest for economic independence, a quest that required that he address the thorny issue of Land, because he had waited for over 10 years and the British colonial office did nothing about it. People's patience wore thin.
For these issues, try to look beyond the surface. Colonialism is not over for a lot of people in some countries, it still is very much alive!
To the Mugabe apologist in our midst: your analysis is flawed on several fronts:
1. You lay all the blame at the door of the British Colonial Office for failing to instigate land reform. Of course, no one with an independent perspective would disagree that as in many parts of the world, the British Government's colonial policies spread the seeds of destruction in many parts of the world. Kenya and Nigeria are two clear examples of this.
However, historical legacies must be balanced against contemporary activity. Is your position that Mugabe is simply a victim in a longer-term historical dynamic? Do you really see no culpability or agency on his part? At this point, you are staring delusion in the face.
2. You use the word 'alleged' in reference to the Matabeleland massacres. Is it that somehow you think that these may have not taken place? Are you the equivalent of a Holocaust-denier on this? Again, you are walking on thin ice here.
3. You take the west and the western media to be a monolithic machine which is dominated and determined by a racial consciousness.
In reality, the western media frequently picks up on atrocities and injustice elsewhere in the world that does not involve white faces and is not motivated by some form of automatic racial sympathy.
The most recent example is the free-Tibet cause popularised during the recent Olympic torch-carrying fiasco, where an entire people are being ethnically cleansed from their homeland.
Other examples from the recent past include East Timor, ravaged by the Australian-equipped Suharto regime of Indonesia.
The fact that some aspects of the press in the West, and some of their readership, may become interested in a foreign story only because it involves white people, should not be taken to be an analysis of how the whole media machine for picking up stories begins.
Mugabe has been constructed as a monster and a tyrant in the Western media not because he has turfed some white farmers off their land, but because of what he has done to Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans.
@ Jeremy
I must say you are beginning to surprise me. Are you unfamiliar with basic principles of justice? The Matabeleland massacres are allegations, no one has been proven guilty of any such crime, not Mugabe, not me, not you, therefore these are allegations. Until someone is tried and found guilty, allegations they remain.
I see you are on the Tibetan bandwagon, how pleasantly ironic, not that i am surprised anyway, you fancy liberals often mean well, but in the process you are often soooooo hypocritical. You have highlighted that the British colonial policies came with the good and the bad, I agree, so why can't the Chinese policy in Tibet be looked upon objectively by yourselves?
China invaded Tibet in 1950 - Tough. Britain invaded Tibet twice if I am not mistaken (1888 and 1904/5), and many Lands have been invaded in the past, maybe we should have protested before the Sydney Olympics to force Europeans to leave Australasia, or the Americas, or Southern Africa. But we know better not to, because sovereign countries and borders are clearly defined and respected by member of the UN and last time I checked, Tibet was a province in a sovereign country called China. I'm sure you'd be happier if the Tibetans were governed in a serfdom, with an impoverished masses, no democracy, and a fraud of a leader called the Dalai Lama? Of course you would, it would make so much more sense than the wicked Chinese. Sorry for Digressing.
I have made it clear that I am not a Mugabe fan, I do not like the man, but to suggest that he somehow single handedly crippled the Zim economy is beyond naive. I have also made it clear that I honestly believe that you genuinely mean well, most liberals do, it doesn't however mean that you are correct in your worldview, and it doesn't mean that I am 'simplistic' for objecting to your way of thinking, I simply recognise the way the world really is, not the way it ought to be.
I'd like you to point to one MAJOR news source in the west that is objective? FOX? CNN? BBC? FRANCE 24? DW? CANAL? SKY? NBC, ABC, CBS, DIE SPIEGEL? AFP, REUTERS, AP? Guardian Unlimited? All news sources advance their 'interest', the hard left news sources are no exception! When that interest is economic, they will advance it, when it is racial, they will advance it, gender, ideological, policy, religous etc. In the case of Zim I'll let you decide.
P.S.
Sometime the news sources just report news. :-)
@ Controversial Anon, in my view Mugabe has been irresponsible by playing political games at the expense of the well being of his own people. The facts today are that the rate of inflation in that country is the highest on the entire planet; the life expectancy of the country's citizens is thought to be about the lowest. I believe that there are more intelligent ways in which the matter of land reform could have been handled. It should have been systematic and planned, and organised in such a way as to benefit the generality of black and white Zimbabweans, not the ruling elite and their cronies. A land reform policy should be one that is sensitive to the economic and societal needs providing food and jobs. It did not need to lead to the collapse of the economy.
We always seem to ignore the fact that the white Zimbabwean farmers have a right to live in Zimbabwe, because are themselves legitimate citizens of the country who were born there, and whose families have lived in that country for generations. Destroying the productive capacity of this very important segment of the Zimbabwean population in the name of land reform was not very sensible.
I cannot accept that the snatching of the most productive land in the country and handing it to incompetents, has restored the dignity of Zimbabweans. On the contrary, a people who are reduced to crawling under barbed wire in order to escape their homeland in search of their basic survival needs, have not had any dignity restored to them at all.
Lordy! I cant imagine that happened to somebody let alone people. This is serious!
eww that is so digusting...wat is going on in the world...so many things we dont know aBOUt....btw ur blog is interesting,luv it
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