ugh... just read this article about the ever deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe. Now, even law enforcement personnel can't get enough food to survive, and prison guards have begun stealing food from prisoners to stay alive, while the prisoners have been dropping like flies:

quote:

Another passenger was a warden at Bulawayo's infamous Khami prison. The previous month he had earned 200 million Zimbabwean dollars- less than US$1 at today's rate. Of that sum he could withdraw only a fraction after queueing for four hours at the bank each morning. Every day and a bit, its value halved. He said that he had five children to support and had not eaten bread for a year. He survived by stealing the prisoners' sadza- a porridge that is now a luxury for most- or by trading favours for food brought in by families. "There's no discipline. We depend on the prisoners to stay alive." Four inmates shared cells designed for one; 400 shared a single tap. There were no working lavatories and it was overrun with rodents. Some prisoners suffered from pellagra, an illness caused by vitamin deficiency, and several died each day. Their bodies were seldom claimed because of the funeral costs. Most were kept in a stinking mortuary for the statutory 12 days, then put in sacks and given paupers' burials in the prison grounds.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...RSS&attr=797093

The only thing worse than a revolution at this point would be well-intentioned outside intervention to rescue Mugabe and his regime through humanitarian efforts. Without a change, any such intervention would only serve to prolong the misery of Zimbabweans. That wretch Mugabe MUST GO.

hes pretty fuckin old, we can look for a natural death soon...or assasination.

Is it just me or does the guy look extremely robust for his age? solid proof that in this twisted world it isnt neccessarily the good people that are granted health. shit like that makes me cynical

This just in. Zimbabwe just killed its currency. Literally.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7859703.stm

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

The only thing the government could really do considering 99% of business takes place on the black market there.

I'm not an economist, but I think this is probably a good move for the people trapped in Zimbabwe.

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This is sickening. And utterly racist. Sudan and Zimbabwe - two regimes which I utterly despise. They hurt their own people and their officials are a bunch of psychopaths. Shame on the African Union and other parties responsible for keeping Mugabe regime alive.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...al_gam_mostview

quote:

The last stand of Zimbabwe's white farmers Nine years ago, Zimbabwe had more than 4,000 white-owned commercial farms. In a fresh wave of invasions, farmers keep their guns close at hand as ZANU-PF thugs lay siege to many of the 300 that CHEGUTU, ZIMBABWE — James Etheredge relaxes on his patio and surveys a bucolic scene of green lawns and orchards, where a peaceful river sparkles in the sunshine. But slowly, as he talks of the violence and destruction that surround him, the pastoral landscape emerges as something very different: a war zone. On the river behind him, calmly fishing now, are the farm invaders, young thugs who wear the T-shirts of a prominent member of the long-ruling ZANU-PF political party. They set up their camp at the entrance gate, where they nailed their posters to the farm buildings. “Our Land, Our Sovereignty,” the posters say, bearing a large photo of President Robert Mugabe. The thugs have repeatedly ordered Mr. Etheredge and his brother to surrender their 110-hectare citrus farm, one of the biggest in Zimbabwe with 6,000 tonnes of fruit waiting to be harvested this month. So far the young invaders have refrained from violence, but there is a menace in their presence. James Etheredge talks with workers on his citrus farm, where invaders are preventing him from harvesting 6,000 tonnes of fruit. Erin Conway-Smith for The Globe and Mail Enlarge Image James Etheredge talks with workers on his citrus farm, where invaders are preventing him from harvesting 6,000 tonnes of fruit. (Erin Conway-Smith for The Globe and Mail) Related Articles Recent * Mugabe reveals human side – could it be a trick? * The long, hard road to break free of an old regime * Zimbabwe prisoners emerge with horrifying tales of abuse * A health system nearing total collapse The Globe and Mail The assault on the citrus farm is just the latest in a fresh wave of invasions of the dwindling white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe, a last-ditch scramble for free land before the new coalition government can prohibit the practice. About 80 farms have been seized and at least 50 more are under siege, sparking a crisis inside the new government as Mr. Mugabe continues to defend the invasions. “I'm not afraid,” Mr. Etheredge says, gazing at the young men who invaded his land. “I've told these guys, ‘If you come into my house, I will kill you.'” He speaks of guns and death with the nonchalance of someone who has seen violence around him for years. “I killed a person in my house last March,” he shrugs. He keeps his guns under his bed these days. Until last June, his arsenal was locked in a safe. Then a gang of young men, led by a powerful senator from the ZANU-PF government, drove onto the farm and threatened to kill the Etheredges if they refused to leave. The gang looted the farm and stole everything they could haul away, including tractors, stoves, refrigerators, freezers, furniture and even the curtains on the windows. Using a jackhammer, they blasted through a thick wall into the safe and took 14 guns. When the Etheredges tried to recover some of their looted property, they were clubbed. Later the Etheredges fired shots in the air to recover a stolen tractor, a small part of their $5-million investment. One of the invasion leaders was a soldier from a nearby military camp, they say. “If we had found him, we would have killed him,” James Etheredge says. Three months earlier, he used a shotgun to kill a military-garbed man who had burst into his house at 3 a.m. The man killed one of his guards and struck his wife with a gun before he was shot dead, the farmer says. The killing took place with one of his two young children watching. “They've been through a hell of a lot,” he says. “I just tell them we have to be careful because of the bad people.” Nine years ago, Zimbabwe had about 4,300 white-owned commercial farms. Today only about 300 remain, and many are reduced to small plots of land. Many of the invaded farms are sitting idle or neglected despite a desperate need for food in Zimbabwe, where three-quarters of the population is dependent on food aid from foreign donors. Largely because of the invasions, Zimbabwe's farm output has dropped by 50 to 70 per cent in the past seven years, and most people subsist on one meal a day. After reaching a peak of brutal violence during the national election last June, the invasions stopped for a while. But in recent weeks they have accelerated again. Senate president Edna Madzongwe has been targeting the Etheredge farm for the past two years, though she is believed to have four other farms already in her possession. She visits the farm almost every day, accompanied by gangs of young men who tell the 50 farm workers that they must work for her now. After one confrontation last month, the police filed an attempted murder charge against Mr. Etheredge's brother for allegedly trying to run over an invader with his car, a charge they deny. The farm workers are deeply worried by the senator's attempt to seize the citrus farm. “When the oranges are gone, she will move on and leave us stranded,” says Fillipo Banda, the oldest of the employees. He doesn't know his age, but farm records show that he has been employed there for 58 years. “If these disturbances continue, I won't be able to feed my family,” he says. The workers remember that the senator paid them nothing when she seized the farm for two weeks last year. “If Edna comes, we'll die of hunger,” says Lodi Jizara, a tractor driver on the farm. The Etheredges and other farmers have managed to hold off the invaders – for now, at least – by taking legal action to defend their land. They even persuaded a tribunal of African judges to issue a ruling in their favour. The judges – from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community, which includes Zimbabwe – ruled that the invasions were racially discriminatory and a breach of the community's rule-of-law guarantees, since the farmers were denied any compensation or judicial hearings. Mr. Mugabe reacted furiously, saying the tribunal's decision was “absolute nonsense.” He vowed to force out the white farmers, using a derogatory word for whites in the Shona language. “They must vacate those farms, they must vacate those farms, they must vacate those farms,” he thundered in a speech at the celebration of his 85th birthday last month. The farmers have tried unsuccessfully to persuade Zimbabwe's courts to respect the tribunal's ruling. Most Zimbabwean judges are ZANU-PF loyalists, and many have been rewarded with seized farmland. At a dairy operation near the Etheredge place, a group of armed men are in control of the property, and the farmer has fled. “He will be allowed back to collect his belongings,” says a young man carrying a shotgun. Then, showing some unease about the challenge ahead, the gunman asks a visitor whether he thinks the farmer might be willing to return as a “partner” to show them how to run the dairy operation. Another nearby 1,200-hectare farm is owned by Ben Freeth and his father-in-law Mike Campbell, who were savagely beaten with rifle butts in an invasion last June. “I can still feel the hole in my skull,” says Mr. Freeth, touching the 15-centimetre fracture on his skull. His ribs were broken, and he still he has no sense of smell as a result of brain damage from the assault. “I've been beaten up quite a few times, but it's never stopped me,” he says. “We said, ‘If you want to take this farm, you must do it legally.' We've been protecting ourselves through the courts. But it's a full-time occupation, just to stay on the farm.” Three weeks ago, Mr. Freeth and Mr. Campbell were served with a “Notice to Cease Cropping” by a local official who ordered them to “pave way for the new beneficiaries.” A few days later, gangs of young men arrived on the farm. “In a country that's starving, we've been ordered to stop farming,” Mr. Freeth says incredulously. “It's a nightmare trying to operate in these conditions. They've destroyed agriculture in this country.” Of the 30 white farmers in the Chegutu area, only about five are still on the land, he said. “Most of them are on the run, so the police don't find them.… This is ethnic cleansing, so that Mugabe can intimidate the population in the next election. He wants to get rid of the last white farmers.”

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

I wonder - what was worse - Stalinist regime in Soviet Union or Mugabe. Naaaah, thats not a good comparison - nothing could be worse than Stalinist oppression.

How sad - even the prison guards begged the jailed victims for their food.

I cant believe the opposition just decided to work along with Mugabe. In a way they are now supporting his madness, too! And at the same time, they are supporting his grip on power. They should have refused until he stepped down. Why cant CIA send one of its jackals to assassinate this psychopath?

quote:

HARARE — A 73-year-old pensioner. A 2-year-old toddler. A woman who was HIV positive. Age or illness meant nothing – none were exempt from the cruelties of detention at the hands of President Robert Mugabe's security forces. More than 40 activists and opposition members – along with one activist's 2-year-old son – were abducted by Zimbabwe's security agents last fall. After months of abuse and isolation, about half of the abductees have finally been released from jail. Their accounts of beatings and torture are a horrifying glimpse into the abyss of Mr. Mugabe's prison system. Fidelis Chiramba, 73, says he nearly went crazy after weeks of torture and solitary confinement. “I thought I was going mad,” he said as he recovered in a Harare medical clinic. “After months of not talking to anyone, you become sick. I had no voice. I thought I would never see my family again. At one point I tried to kill myself.” Mr. Chiramba believes he was targeted by the security agents because he headed a branch of the leading opposition party in Mr. Mugabe's home district. Eight men burst into his house at 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 31, breaking down his kitchen door and hauling him away. He was taken to a series of police stations, where he was accused of operating a military training camp in Botswana, a common charge against opposition members. Then he was handed over to state security agents, who blindfolded him and took him to secret torture camps. He says they beat him on his feet, his arms and his back, leaving his limbs scarred and swollen. In one camp, he says, his captors forced him into a deep freezer, then poured boiling water on him, leaving his skin covered in blisters. “I suffered a lot,” he says. “I had a headache all the time.” His wife, Sophie, had no idea where he had been taken. “I thought he had died,” she said. “I was in pain. I didn't know where he was.” After almost two months in the torture camps, he was transferred to a maximum-security prison, where his family was finally allowed to visit him. But he was classified as a “security risk” and kept in solitary confinement. He says he saw dozens of prisoners dying of hunger in the prison, while guards begged the prisoners for a share of their food. “This is a government that lets people die of hunger,” he says. Mr. Chiramba was finally released on bail on Feb. 27, almost four months after he disappeared into the country's Kafkaesque system of confinement. He remains defiant, even though he suffers liver problems and has difficulty walking as a result of the beatings. “I will not give in,” he says. “I still support the MDC.” Another of the abductees was Violet Mupfuranhewe, who was not released from detention until last week. She is the mother of a two-year-old boy. The security agents kept the boy in detention too, and he was beaten by police when he cried, according to the mother's lawyer, Alec Muchadehama. Another detainee was Audrice Mbudzana, a woman who is receiving medical treatment for HIV-AIDS. Last week she told a Zimbabwe newspaper, The Standard, that her health suffered during her detention because she was forced to sleep on a hard floor and was given substandard food. Several detainees said they were tortured with a variation of the notorious water-boarding technique. They were tied up, hung upside down, beaten, and then dropped head-first into drums of water. “You feel like you are drowning,” said Zachariah Nkomo, a 33-year-old former employee of the CARE relief agency who was abducted in early December. He said he was dropped into a water drum for an hour every day for several days. “You feel like you have water coming into your ears and nose and mouth.” Mr. Nkomo, who was finally released on March 3, says he suffered eye and ear infections and still has damage to his hearing today. He also has a back injury because he was dropped onto the floor once when he was tied upside-down. He says the police repeatedly questioned him about CARE's operations in Zimbabwe, accusing the agency of supporting the opposition party, a charge strongly denied by CARE. The agency, along with other independent organizations, was partially banned by the Zimbabwe government for three months last year. Mr. Muchadehama, the lawyer for most of the detainees, said the authorities routinely denied that they had custody of the detainees, even when their relatives had seen them at police stations. Even today, with a new “unity government” in power, about 20 people are still being kept in detention in unknown places, he said. The abductions and detentions, he said, were a way for the authorities to show that “nobody is safe” in Zimbabwe, even when the opposition party is sharing power. “They wanted to demonstrate openly what they're capable of doing. It was a way of saying, ‘Don't forget that we are in control – look at what we can do.'”

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

Governments in Zimbabwe and Sudan shit me something chronic, and what irritates me more that my government here in a Australia hasn't spoken a word about it - let alone act on anything in such a long time.

I'm sick of the 'selective caring' about world issues like this. This shit is wrong

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A witty saying proves nothing.
-Voltaire