[Blunderov]
This from today's Star. Max Du Preez is a diehard journalist who has
never been afraid to bump heads with whomever. He was the editor of the
courageous "Vrye Weekblad" before it was sunk by the authorities on the
basis of the perjury of the infamous Colonel Neethling of the police
forensic laboratories. Max Du Preez was one of the first Afrikaans
journalists to apprise the reluct "volk" that the ANC was a political
reality whether they liked it or not.
<rip>
Comment : Max Du Preez (Bokassa and Amin were the first with their
horrendous, stupid regimes, now Zimbabwe's leader is another)
The people of Africa are deeply ashamed of two men who had abused their
own people and reinforced every caricature the rest of the world had of
our continent: Jean-Bedel Bokassa and Idi Amin Dada. A third man has now
added his name to this list of shame: Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
Remember Bokassa, the soldier who seized power and crowned himself the
Emperor of the Central African Republic with a real golden throne and
golden crown with a huge diamond in 1977? He had the ears and then hands
of thieves cut off, demanded 500 local francs from each citizen as a
present for his birthday, and declared his children's birthdays as
public holidays.
He had his opponents assassinated and once oversaw his police beating 80
student protesters to death.
Criticised by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, he called him a
"colonialist" and a "pimp". During his 13 years of rule, he reduced his
country's infrastructure to rubble and thoroughly destroyed the economy.
Idi Amin seized power from Milton Obote in Uganda in 1971. He spent more
than half his country's budget on the military and did not build one
school or hospital in his eight years as ruler every Tuesday a Boeing
707 flew from Entebbe to England to buy whiskey, cigars, tailored
clothes, designer sunglasses and gourmet foods for his army officers -
while in Kampala people stood in long lines for maize and milk.
Amin's loyalists grabbed the businesses of Asian merchants he had kicked
out of the country, and they lived in houses and drove cars confiscated
from civilians outside the Amin circle. Amin had everyone who smelled
like a dissident killed and his army wiped out entire villages of people
who supported Obote.
Africa said nothing about Bokassa and Amin. Muammar Gadaffi sent them
large gifts of cash.
Then there is Robert Mugabe. Unlike Bokassa and Amin, he became
president after a long and brave liberation struggle against white
colonial rule. Unlike the other two, he was a 'sophisticated man with a
sharp intellect. Unlike them, he budgeted for schools and hospitals.
But when he felt threatened, he acted just like Bokassa and Amin. In
1983 his North Korean trained Fifth Brigade conducted a full blooded
massacre among the Ndebele speaking minority in Matabeleland. After
Mugabe had lured Joshua Nkomo into an alliance, he felt safe again and
reverted to being Mugabe the New African Hero. But when it became clear
his support was waning, his dark side came back. He did nothing about
the glaring imbalance in land ownership for 20 years, but when he
started becoming unpopular, he
seized on it and turned it into a vicious race issue especially after
the majority of the black people rejected his constitutional amendments
in a referendum.
Mugabe oversaw the brutalising of the commercial farming community, and
didn't seem to care at all that hundreds of thousands of poor farm
workers would also suffer in the process.
When his political opposition became organised, he had them terrorised
too and stole the election. He had his party cronies - and now his wife
- move onto some of the prize farms seized and helped his army officers
get fat on loot from their war in the DRC. Now there is evidence that
his thugs have gone on a campaign to rape the wives and daughters of his
opponents.
I have listened to Mugabe myself saying the British prime minister was a
homosexual, as were all white "settlers" in his country, and the leaders
of the MDC were "their homosexual lovers". Like Bokassa who called
Waldheim a pimp and Amin who had white Britons carry him around in a
throne, Mugabe says his enemies are racist colonialists who want his
country. He has become crazy and unpredictable.
He has single handedly destro economy of once prosperous Zimbabwe.
Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans face starvation during the next
year. Commercial farming is almost non existent and the once booming
tourism industry with all its promise is dead. More than half the
precious wildlife of Zimbabwe have been killed during the last three
years.
And again Africa - at least the heads of state - said nothing. Many
actively supported him, mainly for fear of being seen as being "soft on
whites".
This week Mugabe is arriving at the World Summit in Johannesburg. The
man has no shame. And the sadness is that some of the desperate people
organised in the land lobbies at the summit will honour him for his
violent repossession methods instead of criticising him for not
redistributing land earlier and in a way that would not have destroyed
the economy and rule of law.
Amin is in exile in Saudi Arabia. Can someone please organise Political
asylum for Robert Mugabe in Chechnya - or perhaps Baghdad?
<tear>
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