Well, there goes another mess in Africa. Zimbabwe.

[Manedwolf]

It seems they're mopping up the last of them, after completely destroying the economy in 2000 by seizing the most productive farms.

Meanwhile chanting gangs of veterans of the war against white rule have occupied at least 27 farms since Saturday, with about 12 falling victim yesterday morning alone. Only about 200 white farmers are left in Zimbabwe - five per cent of the total eight years ago.

Trevor Gifford, president of the once powerful Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), predicted that they would all be forced to leave their properties. "We are preparing for the worst," he said.

One white farmer, who declined to be named, was tipped off that squatters were about to overrun his property. He gathered his wife, their three children, aged seven, nine and 11, and his elderly parents and left immediately.

His homestead was duly invaded on Sunday. Trembling with emotion, the farmer said: "I have wondered what this day would be like, whether it would come after all these years. Now I am wondering if this is it, or if I will be able to get back."

The farmer survived the land invasions of 2000 and the official seizure of white-owned properties that began in earnest in 2002.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/08/wzim308.xml

(British media is seemingly obsessed with the minutiae of Zimbabwe's politics, I'm not quite sure why.)

He produced about 500 acres of soya beans this summer, half of which was due to be harvested right now.

The invasions began on Saturday in Masvingo province, about 160 miles south of the capital, Harare. Five farmers were forced to flee or were trapped inside their homes by drunken mobs. A game lodge was also seized.

Then the occupations spread to Centenery, once Zimbabwe's agricultural heartland where the guerrilla war against white rule began 36 years ago.

So that's 250 acres of soybeans that will rot instead of being harvested. That's a lot of soybeans.

[AmbulanceDriver]

It seems they're mopping up the last of them, after completely destroying the economy in 2000 by seizing the most productive farms.

Meanwhile chanting gangs of veterans of the war against white rule have occupied at least 27 farms since Saturday, with about 12 falling victim yesterday morning alone. Only about 200 white farmers are left in Zimbabwe - five per cent of the total eight years ago.

Trevor Gifford, president of the once powerful Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), predicted that they would all be forced to leave their properties. "We are preparing for the worst," he said.

One white farmer, who declined to be named, was tipped off that squatters were about to overrun his property. He gathered his wife, their three children, aged seven, nine and 11, and his elderly parents and left immediately.

His homestead was duly invaded on Sunday. Trembling with emotion, the farmer said: "I have wondered what this day would be like, whether it would come after all these years. Now I am wondering if this is it, or if I will be able to get back."

The farmer survived the land invasions of 2000 and the official seizure of white-owned properties that began in earnest in 2002.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/08/wzim308.xml

(British media is seemingly obsessed with the minutiae of Zimbabwe's politics, I'm not quite sure why.)

He produced about 500 acres of soya beans this summer, half of which was due to be harvested right now.

The invasions began on Saturday in Masvingo province, about 160 miles south of the capital, Harare. Five farmers were forced to flee or were trapped inside their homes by drunken mobs. A game lodge was also seized.

Then the occupations spread to Centenery, once Zimbabwe's agricultural heartland where the guerrilla war against white rule began 36 years ago.

So that's 250 acres of soybeans that will rot instead of being harvested. That's a lot of soybeans.

And when more people than ever are starving in Zimbabwe, it'll still be the white man's fault.

[Manedwolf]

Assuming a yield of 40 bushels per acre, that's 10,000 bushels, and at a weight of 60lbs/bushel, 600,000lbs of soybeans.

That's a lot of food lost.

[HankB]

Too bad so many of the white Zimbabweans didn't have anything like the intestinal fortitude of Martin Olds - sadly, he seems to have been unique.

Wonder if the un-named white farmer who fled his soybean farm left behind some booze laced with arsenic or something . . . he's had YEARS to prepare an appropriate welcome.

Probably not - the whites who neither fought nor fled in Zimbabwe after farm invasions began are like the Jews who stayed in Germany after Kristallnacht - in a state of terminal denial.

[Matthew Carberry]

I don't know that is quite fair.

It's their home and once was a civilized country based on the rule of law.  To assume it will fall into anarchy and just leave is, while realistic perhaps, making the leap in logic that in fact your neighbors and fellow citizens really aren't up to the task of maintaining it themselves.

Living with blinders on?  Sure.  But "home" is a powerful concept, as is wanting to believe in your fellow man.

[Manedwolf]

I don't know that is quite fair.

It's their home and once was a civilized country based on the rule of law.  To assume it will fall into anarchy and just leave is, while realistic perhaps, making the leap in logic that in fact your neighbors and fellow citizens really aren't up to the task of maintaining it themselves.

Um. That's precisely what happened before. Zimbabwe was doing alright. Mugabe came along, his people seized the farms, the economy collapsed, and the place is regressing to the stone age.

[Matthew Carberry]

I don't know that is quite fair.

It's their home and once was a civilized country based on the rule of law.  To assume it will fall into anarchy and just leave is, while realistic perhaps, making the leap in logic that in fact your neighbors and fellow citizens really aren't up to the task of maintaining it themselves.

Um. That's precisely what happened before. Zimbabwe was doing alright. Mugabe came along, his people seized the farms, the economy collapsed, and the place is regressing to the stone age.

Sure, but it's still their home.  It's like people who don't leave California after every new and worse gun and nanny law is passed.

I'm not defending them, just pointing out that not every decision is based purely on reason, or even common sense.

I would hope they managed to get assets out of the country.

[thebaldguy]

It's almost hard to believe that in 1980, the Rhodesian dollar was worth more than the US dollar. I'm old enough to have watched the demise of that country over the years. I'm suprised it's taken this long.

[MechAg94]

Sort of sad.  A co-worker of mine quit and took a year out of his life to volunteer with a Christian organization over there.  Some of the stuff he said sounded like the people and country were doing well.  Hate to see the country fall down like that.  I am sure Mugabe is doing okay though. 

[El Tejon]

The people that caused this misery, Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter, the media and Mugabe are all doing fine.  The people these monsters wanted to "help" are starving to death in a morass of poverty and ignorance.

It is a great injustice that the elites that cause this are not suffering the consequences of their actions.  This is Azania's future.

[HankB]

It's almost hard to believe that in 1980, the Rhodesian dollar was worth more than the US dollar. I'm old enough to have watched the demise of that country over the years. I'm suprised it's taken this long.

IIRC, when I was in Zim in the early '90s, the official exchage rate was around Z$5 to US$1 . . . the black market rate was 9 to 1.

A year or two back, they knocked three zeros off their currency, so $1000 became $1 overnight.

Earlier this year, a newspaper story said Zimbabwe was now printing $10,000,000 bank notes . . . equivalent to ten billion dollars in the old currency . . . and at the time, one was just about enough to buy 2/3 of a hamburger in Harare.

With inflation somewhere above 100,000% - a number that makes the Weimar Republic look like an economic powerhouse - we're simply watching the total economic collapse of what once was a country leaving the stone age and entering the 20th Century.

That's what happens in Africa when you trade evil white racists for kleoptocratic Marxists because the latter are the right color.

[El Tejon]

Hank, yes, but I feel better about myself now, and, let's face it, it's all about ME.

[Matthew Carberry]

Hank, yes, but I feel better about myself now, and, let's face it, it's all about ME.

What does Maine have to do with this? 

[El Tejon]

Colby College in Maine--a training ground for namby-pamby transnationalists who screw up the world but are isolated from the consequences of their actions.

[Manedwolf]

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe deployed the army, police and intelligence officers to intimidate voters in rural areas to ensure he wins a presidential run-off vote, two top members of his party said.

The officials, who belong to the ruling Zanu-PF party's politburo, said the security forces are working with youth militia loyal to the party and groups who describe themselves as veterans of Zimbabwe's 1966-1979 liberation war against a minority white-led government.

Mugabe, 84, sought to extend his 28-year rule of Zimbabwe in the March 29 presidential election, which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it won. While the results are yet to be released, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party officials have said none of the four contenders, including MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, attained the majority needed to avoid a second round. The MDC says it will only compete if international observers are allowed to monitor the election.

``The violence being perpetrated against rural Zimbabweans has reached epidemic proportions,'' George Sibotshiwe, a spokesman for Tsvangirai, said in an interview from Gaborone, Botswana, today. ``People are being beaten and even killed, women are being raped, children abused and houses burned to the ground.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJuuozuvyD68&refer=home

[The Annoyed Man]

And nobody is surprised. I'd have been more surprised had he HANDED OVER power volountary.
Any chance the APS Pirate Hunting Expedition can deal with this clown as well? Everyone would thank us, except for the present ruling class in Zimbabwe, but they don't really count.

[Manedwolf]

Because it's going to the "legtimate" government to use for genocide, that's different. If it was going to the people, they'd scream about small-arms treaties.

Wars are prolonged and embarassing. Genocides are quick and silent, and that, apparently, is what the UN prefers.

Next up is massive civilian casualties in Zimbabwe due to an armed regime and unarmed population. 

Zimbabwe weapons ship headed for Angola

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- A Chinese ship loaded with arms and ammunition sailed away from a South African waters and is on its way to Luanda, Angola to unload its cargo bound for Zimbabwe.

South Africa's High Court ruled Friday the cargo could be offloaded in the Durban port, but it could not pass over South Africa roads to get to Zimbabwe, a country in crisis because of an election stalemate.

Durban's dockworkers also said they would not handle the cargo, fearing the arms would be used by the Zimbabwean government against its own people.

A South African government source told CNN the China-flagged An Yue Jiang had sailed away from Durban Friday evening before the High Court's order could be served to the ship's captain.

The ship was headed to the port of Luanda, Angola, according to the South African Department of Transport.

Zimbabwe is in turmoil after elections last month that saw the opposition Movement for Change party win a majority of seats in the parliament, although Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has contested 16 seats, claiming the MDC cheated.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission began a recount of 23 of those districts Saturday morning.

The presidential election, however, has sparked much more concern. The government of President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power since Zimbabwe won its independence in 1980, has refused to release results of that vote before a recount.

The MDC says its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the election, but ZANU-PF has claimed the MDC engaged in election tampering. The delay in releasing the vote sparked violence and a government crackdown on opposition members.

"This union has a proud history of taking action against regimes which it disapproves of in the past, but this is certainly the first time it has gotten involved in an African regime like Zimbabwe," David Cockroft, general secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation, said.

"I don't think there's much doubt that the (dock) workers ... are very strongly against the Mugabe regime," he said.

Cockroft said that arms had almost certainly been shipped to Zimbabwe through Durban in the past, but the size of this shipment -- "more than a million pounds" and 3.5 million rounds of rifles, small arms, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades -- made it more noteworthy.

Earlier, South African Revenue Service spokesman Adrian Lackay told CNN "that it is commonplace for landlocked neighboring states in southern Africa to use South African ports of entry for the transshipment of goods."

Lackay indicated that the ship had complied with South African regulations requiring it to disclose the contents of the cargo it is carrying.

A government spokesman, Thembo Maseko, told CNN, "There were arms on the ship."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in a fax to the Reuters news agency saying that China and Zimbabwe have normal trade relations, that the Chinese government takes a "prudent and responsible" position on arms deals and that it does not involve itself in the internal affairs of other countries.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/04/19/safrica.china/index.html

[rocinante]

Why does every discussion of Africa have to revert back to colonialism? RIGHT NOW we have an African dictator that can't even pull off a sham election his people are so feed up. Correction STARVING. What he has done to the well being of his country is so incomprehensible. Say what you want but what was once a prosperous country has melted down into the worst economy possible. FACT.

I am proud of the South African people. A Chinese ship full of arms for this tinhorn and his thugs docked in South Africa and the dock workers refused to unload it. Once they did their act of civil disobedience the government backed them and the ship scooted off for Mozambique before its cargo could be impounded. It would be grand if they rejected it also but don't hold your breath on that one.

 

[Matthew Carberry]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/chinese-troops-are-on-the-streets-of-zimbabwean-city-witnesses-say-811796.html

Well, the last time the Chinese helped Mugabe it was to indoctrinate his guerillas in Marxism and train them to kill fellow Rhodesians.

Ironically the camps and weapons were supplied in and through Mozambique, which is where that ship full of arms is going.

Going back to the well for Round 2?

[jpk1md]

I don't know that is quite fair.

It's their home and once was a civilized country based on the rule of law.  To assume it will fall into anarchy and just leave is, while realistic perhaps, making the leap in logic that in fact your neighbors and fellow citizens really aren't up to the task of maintaining it themselves.

Um. That's precisely what happened before. Zimbabwe was doing alright. Mugabe came along, his people seized the farms, the economy collapsed, and the place is regressing to the stone age.

Sure, but it's still their home.  It's like people who don't leave California after every new and worse gun and nanny law is passed.

I'm not defending them, just pointing out that not every decision is based purely on reason, or even common sense.

I would hope they managed to get assets out of the country.

Fair point about common sense but I don't think you can make a decent analogy between the passing of a couple of really assinine laws in Kali and the total/utter collapse of a backwater country in Africa that was propped up by colonial rule for a very long time.

Africa as a whole is one of the most corrupt places in the entire world.....

The only reason it made any steps forward at all was due to colonial rule and the desire to obtain the natural resources that exist there by the Europeans....now the Chinese are making a play for those resources...the only difference is that they could care less about establishing/maintaining any semblance of order and will rely on the dictator or despot of the week to get what they want.

[El Tejon]

Mane, yes, the genocide will come here shortly, but it will be Blacks killing Blacks thus everyone can feel better about themselves.

[Matthew Carberry]

Feel better about themselves?

You mean, blame the United States for not unilaterally intervening... mutter mutter no oil there, that's why... mutter mutter colonialism... mutter mutter don't care about black people...

[Scout26]

Any chance the APS Pirate Hunting Expedition can deal with this clown as well?

Depends on how well Gewehr98 does his carrier launched B-52 plan.   

[HankB]

From cathybuckle.com . . .

19th April 2008

Dear Family and Friends,
Behind every tree, under every bush and around every corner, it seems there is a British enemy waiting to invade Zimbabwe.
"We must maintain the utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations," Mr Mugabe warned as he spoke at his celebration of Zimbabwe's 28th anniversary of Independence.

No one that I've spoken to this week had even the vaguest clue of what a machination is. A few thought it had something to do with machinery or engines, others that it was a mispronunciation of the word imagination. Still others wondered if these mysterious machinations had anything to do with the Chinese ship steaming around looking for somewhere to unload its cargo of death destined for Harare. The ship loaded with 3 million bullets, 1500 rocket propelled grenades and 3000 mortar shells. So we sat on the edge of our chairs this Independence day wondering just exactly where the British are hiding and what their unknown vicious something-or-other means to our daily lives.

Nearly thirty years after Independence the threats and warnings of British plots haven't just worn thin, they've worn out altogether. It is generally agreed that at most there are perhaps thirty thousand white people left in Zimbabwe - a miniscule percentage in a population of approximately 11 million people . . .

Bloody British schemers!

Sunday 13th April 2008

Dear Family and Friends, I received a call early one morning this week from a friend in a small country town. Speaking quickly and quietly for fear of being overheard, he told me of the frightening events that were going on all around him. Eight double cab vehicles had arrived in the town. Armed men in civilian clothes alighted. They had lists of names of people who had been involved in the election campaign for the opposition MDC in the area.

"They are hunting us down," he said. "Each and every one of us is being sought out, beaten and punished for supporting the MDC." Some have had their homes burnt down, large numbers of people have been beaten and a local opposition organizer said :" it is terrible, there are injured people everywhere."

Later another call came, this time the story was of events on one of the few remaining commercial farms. Again the eye witness account was of armed men. There were youths too, many scores of them and they were clearly high on drugs and drink. The drumming, singing, shouting and intimidation carried only one message: there will be no change in Zimbabwe . . .

No change . . . but I thought CHANGE was a good thing?!?

[rocinante]

That Chinese ship got turned away at Mozambique. Partly because the good old U.S. of A. diplomatically asked them too. Lets see if they have souls in Angola and Namibia.

Time for a China rant. At least in the bad old cold war days the Soviet Union at least pretended to have principles even if all someone had to do was scream death to America and know Karl Marx wasn't Groucho Marx's brother. China will give any cut throat arms in Africa for economic gains. Nothing personal folks of the Sudan and Zimbabwe. WHILE I AM AT IT where did they get off changing Peking to Beijing??