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Headlines : InternationalZimbabwe targets aid groups as crackdown expands
Since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 the world has moved on, forgetting about the revolutionary hero, fighting racist white minority rule for the freedom of his people. Mugabe’s outlook remains the same. The heroic socialist forces of Zanu-PF, are still fighting the twin evils of capitalism and colonialism, according to Mugabe.
All non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are being banned in Zimbabwe. The government accuses them of espionage and funding counter-revolutionary forces.
The saddest part of all this is the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering, and will continue to do so. The cutting of NGO’s which will help Mugabe feel more secure, will only devastate the people.
[Posted By Dilated_Rebel]Republished from Reuters
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe has deregistered all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and told them to submit new applications to try to weed out groups it says are trying to oust President Robert Mugabe, state radio said on Tuesday.
Mugabe, sole ruler since independence in 1980, has accused NGOs and aid groups of supporting the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and imposed tight restrictions on food aid distribution in the country.
Minister of Information and Publicity Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said Harare was targeting NGOs because some were using relief activities as a cover for a MDC-led campaign to overthrow the government, state radio reported.
“Pro-opposition and Western organizations masquerading as relief agencies continue to mushroom, and the government has annulled the registration of all NGOs in order to screen out agents of imperialism from organizations working to uplift the wellbeing of the poor,” Ndlovu was quoted as saying.
Posted by Dilated_Rebel
Born and raised very humbly in a “small town” in southern California, I was a product of different worlds. Literally, part of my family descends from Mexico the rest from Portugal and Uruguay. This mixture had kept me from supporting any racist psyche found...
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A friend of mine helped set up a health clinic in Zimbabwe that I was planning on helping out with later this year. I’m gonna e-mail her and see what the story on the ground is.
It hurts when revolutionaries turn to despots the minute power is within their grasp.
Mugabe will forever be the poster boy for the failures of African independence from colonial rule.
Mugabe will forever be the poster boy for the failures of African independence from colonial rule.
I’m not defending Mugabe, believe me I’m not…. But I clasify him with my leader, el commandante Fidel. It’s not easy taking a country and making it succeed, esp. when your up the U.S. and friends, and their embargoing you.
As for the failures of African independence, it was mean to fail from day one. Look at a map of Africa, what do you notice? A lot straight lines i bet, dont think thats a natural border. It was divided amonst the Europee-ons with out a single regard to the people on the ground, thats why it failed. Just like Iraq, where you have 3 groups that hate each other forced to live together under one flag. Causing amonst them war, causing our friends U.S. and friends to intervene and spread democracy and yada yada yada.
You don’t often see the history of land ownership and land reform mentioned in these articles, although it’s highly relevant. When Zimbabwe earned its independence from the UK, it was agreed that in the future land would have to be redistributed (how much was never really agreed) to the black majority. Britain undertook to assist the process with funding, political support, expertise etc…
In the 1990s the British government decided to cut off any funding for land reform in Zimbabwe. That was before the violent land seizures by “war veterans” that we all remember. Britain dared Mugabe to deal with the land conundrum, knowing that his country was dependent upon the crops grown by white farmers for export dollars (at a time when Mugabe was dallying with IMF mandated reforms and after he had racked up a fair amount of debt in the 1980s).
I don’t think they realized who they were dealing with.
We also forget other things.
Sometimes you see commentators telling a sort of edenic narrative about Zimbabwe. “Mugabe ruined paradise” “all Zimbabweans had enough to eat, none were poor” “Zimbabwe was stable” – that sort of stuff. It plays well from a dramatic perspective but it’s really nonsense. Zimbabwe was none of those things in the late 1990s. It was a very poor country, with a very rich minority.
Mugabe is not necessarily seen as a villain by those who made up that majority. They don’t see him as trying to starve his people into a brave new world. Maybe they see him as a murderous tyrant, maybe they know a little about his slum clearances, or his persecution of opponents. But we shouldn’t assume that Mugabe isn’t popular in Zimbabwe.
Well put Szamko
The 2005 Zimbabwean elections wiki is worth a read and helps us to understand why Mugabe is still there.
But we shouldn’t assume that Mugabe isn’t popular in Zimbabwe
Good point, though i imagine with acts like “the destruction of the slums”:http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_54692.shtml in 2005 as a means to ‘cultural beautification’, i would imagine that his popularity is plummeting.
That, along with things like “inflation of 1,700%”:http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0418/breaking29.htm
Also, there was a very interesting article in a recent publication of the New Statesman about “African liberation movements”:http://www.newstatesman.com/200704020016. The writer is journalist active during the aparteid era, and makes the point that supporters of african liberation movements are often keen to overlook its shortcomings so as to avoid fracturing the movement. this continues if the movement is elected, as mugabe was, and critcism is dismissed as colonial sympathy e.t.c
But I clasify him with my leader, el commandante Fidel. It’s not easy taking a country and making it succeed, esp. when your up the U.S. and friends, and their embargoing you
i would never classify the two as the same, Dont get me wrong, im certainly not an expert, Cuba has its short comings, but it also has a monthly ration, the best healthcare in the 3rd world, (and its aruguably much better than the free healthcare received in much of the 1st world), free education as far as you can get e.t.cYea i know that Rythmist, im a Cuban, i know my country is great.
Dilated_Rebel,
I’m in total agreement but Mugabe embarked on a noble voyage only to corrupt the vision and the process. I understand colonialism and the scars it left behind- however, I can’t excuse power hungry despots for backstabbing a revolutionary ideal for personal greed.
Land reform was, and always should have been, a priority- its just that the practice put into place was a sham. Widespread corruption gave huge farms to government cronies while some tribal farmers got resettled on huge commercial farms with neither the resources nor the infrastructure to make the operations sustainable.
With all of the subsequent policies of land seizures and gov’t control of farmland- its no wonder that famine and pathetic agricultural production followed. A farmer’s attachment to their land is a powerful motivator in the production process.
Rebel; Sorry man, i didnt mean to be patronising.
DR is Cubano? Well well well, Estupendo!
Mugabe, carino, did not BAN NGOs. He de-registered them. That means they have to reapply for authorization to operate. He must have had some kind of vision. Because :
OPEN QUOTE (from the Reuters piece)
The targeting of the NGOs came just days after Zimbabwe’s government cancelled an agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (*USAID*) to provide help to reform parliament.
END OF QUOTE LOL, do we all remember USAID?
Maybe not
OPEN QUOTE (Philip Agee)
Going back to the Reagan administration of the early1980’s, the decision was taken that more than terrorist operations was needed to impose regime change in Cuba. Terrorism hadn’t worked, nor had the Bay of Pigs invasion, nor had Cuba’s diplomatic isolation which gradually ended, nor had the economic embargo. Now Cuba would be included in a new world wide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organizations, what was to become known as civil society, within the context of U.S. global neo-liberal policies. The CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this program as well as a new organization christened in 1983 The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
END OF QUOTE etc etc etc
. . .
UND
Where are the Cubanos getting their news I wonder, that they think Iraq is really embroiled in a Civil War?
Moqtada recently (April 9) held a rally in Najaf and Millions of people came to demand the departure of occupation forces.
“There are people here from all different parties and sects,” Hadhim al-Araji, Sadr’s representative in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district, told reporters. “We are all carrying the national flag, a symbol of unity. And we are all united in calling for the withdrawal of the Americans.”
The presence of many senior Sunni clerics at the head of the march, which started from Sadr’s mosque in Kufa, a nearby town, and the absence of any sectarian flags or images in the parade, underlined the ecumenical nature of the protest.
END OF QUOTE
Fidel, where are your pueblo getting their information? You have a CNN inFECtion.
Microdot, im actually a Mexi-Cube. Father mexican-american, mother is cuban.
Que coño micro, tu eres un Cubano, o chica cubana? Espero que seas Cubana, porque nuestra chicas, como nuestras playas, son las bonita del mundo!!!!!
And yea, i’m not saying Mugabe=Fidel. No no not by any chance. I am saying that both have been isolated by Western govts, in a attempt to destablize them. And that they do have in common.
Now as far as Cuba goes, Vamos Bien. Compare our nation to that of Mexico (where i currently reside). Lots of poverty here, no health care, except for las clinicas, which will give you aspirin for everything, people work in las maquiladoras for 12-14 hour days, only to make 5$. If your cuban and you have family in Cuba, you know the story is much different.
BTW, we had some rough times in the past, but now we are truly indpendent, y si Vamos Bien.
Patria, Socialismo o Muerte!
Essentially? It would appear that we agree : Mugabe & Zimbabwe deserve more credit than Corporate Media would have us believe.
By now you’d think we’d all recognize what a state looks like as a direct result of standing up to Predatory Capitalism. Crippling sanctions, at the very least, should be a dead giveaway.
About that other thing : Soy Zapatista. That means I live in the broken heart and lust for life of all peoples and. My word is my weapon. Ya and also I’m an Internationalist. Viva Leon! Abajo L’Imperialismo!