Zimbabwe Why The Silence

How can the free world stand by whilst that butcher Robert Muagbe wreaks havoc on Zimbabwe? What possible motive can there be for lack of action against this tyrant?

I cannot understand how this despot manages to stay in power when it is known that he has butchered thousands of innocent people.

New reports state that in recent days Robert Muagbe has come in for wide condemnation by the West (what a joke – at best he has received tap on the wrist you naughty boy) for the arrests and bashings of members of the opposition party.

Bush, Blair – where are you?

Are the innocent people of Zimbabwe any less deserving of help than those in other parts of the world where you have deemed it your moral right to go in and rescue?????

www.news.com.au...

[edit on 1/4/2007 by Lady of the Lake]

[edit on 1/4/2007 by Lady of the Lake]

Lady of the Lake

I've been following the whole Zim situation very closely and the only conclusion I can come to is that the whole sad state of affairs is being allowed to happen.

If you look at what is going on there has to be some sort of "puppet master/s" involved.

As crazy and despotic as Uncle Bob is, I doubt he could single-handedly have acheived this level of devistation without outside help or compliance.

By who?, why?.....Not 100% sure but I have some theories.

forget all the losers..let them rot...I say we ditch the world and deal w/ our own personal issues...

Hi amfirst

Who are "we"?
Who are "the losers"?

Originally posted by amfirst
forget all the losers..let them rot...I say we ditch the world and deal w/ our own personal issues...

Who would you let rot? The innocent who are being brutalised and murdered? If yes, why should we leave them to their fate without out lifting a finger to help them?

What personal issues can any of us here have that are greater than those who are dying from famine and war? How selfish of you...

Originally posted by amfirst
forget all the losers..let them rot...I say we ditch the world and deal w/ our own personal issues...

that is exactly how we should NOT be thinking.


A man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the man
"come, I will show you hell". They entered a room where a group of famished
people sat around a huge pot of cooking stew. Everyone in the room was
starving and desperate. Each person held a spoon that reached the pot but
each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arms that it could not
be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible.
"Come now, I will show you heaven" the Lord said.

They entered another room identical to the first, the big pot of stew, the
group of people and the same long-handled spoons. But here everyone was
happy and well nourished. "I don't understand" said the man. "Why is
everyone happy here and miserable in the other room? Everything is the
same."

"Here," said the Lord "they have learned to feed each other"

There are too many other humanitarian disasters already in progress.

Zimbabwe will have to wait in line for their turn on the world's stage.

Maybe someone will decide to help out besides the US or UK.

Originally posted by bg_socalif
There are too many other humanitarian disasters already in progress.

Zimbabwe will have to wait in line for their turn on the world's stage.

Maybe someone will decide to help out besides the US or UK.

Surely this one is easier to resolve than many of the other humanitarian disasters - just remove the person who is causing the problem.

If they have to wait how long is reasonable?

bg_socalif

So who decides which humaniterian disaster is more deserving then the other?

And the deteriorating Zim situation has been going on for quite some time now...

Of course it depends on what natural resources they have to exploit.

Mugabe should've been taken out a long ago, IMO.

Firstly, who benefits directly from him staying in power. Generally speaking, dictators and fascists support big business with subsudies, land grant, tax wrightoffs, and the crushing of labour unions and opposition parties. All in exchange for a cut of the profits.

Secondly, who benefits indirectly from him staying in power. Keeping other nation-states in constant civil strife (and ignoring humanitarian disasters) keeps the public at home pre-occupied with the horrific levels of violence across the world. Social and poltical problems take a back burner while the currnet humanitarian problem recieves a lot of bold talk and harsh words, but no actions.

Help is only offered when there is something to gain, usually monitary or land benefits. Sadly, when the situation is "resolved" rarely does the healing process actually help the people (many of them get stuck in refugee camps, with nothing to start their lives up again)

Originally posted by bg_socalif
Of course it depends on what natural resources they have to exploit.

And Bingo was his name-o.

The US, world po-po, doesn't give a DAMN about stepping in and heay-handing dictators unless they have resources to be exploited. Which is why we haven't invaded Zimbabwe, the Sudan, or other regions where "bad men are killing thousands of their own people."

Now IRAQ, on the other hand, is full of black GOLD, baby. Which is why we had to go in and heavy-hand the dictator there. Pretty simple explanation...

Originally posted by Lady of the Lake

Originally posted by bg_socalif
There are too many other humanitarian disasters already in progress.

Zimbabwe will have to wait in line for their turn on the world's stage.

Maybe someone will decide to help out besides the US or UK.

Surely this one is easier to resolve than many of the other humanitarian disasters - just remove the person who is causing the problem.

If they have to wait how long is reasonable?

Why cant the Aussies fix this one ? Why must it always be the US or the UK ?

Just to point something out to everyone, its not JUST about resources. If that was the case, than why did the US invade Grenada?

They did so because grenada was readjusting their country to benefit the needs of its people, rather than benefit the needs of the rich capitalists.

US foreign policy isnt JUST directed at who can grab the goodies the fastest, its also directed to protect the capital accumulation process and foreign investments. And also to make sure the investments stay on favorable terms.

There are several factors in play, and it's a little more complex than just invading a Muslim country...

The matter of the fact is, no one cares because they have nothing to gain by "helping". And those who are supposed to help - like South Africa (the strongest African power) - are buddies with Bob Mugabe. The situation in Zimbabwe nearly brought South Africa's economy (and other neighbouring countries) to its knees. Not even to mention the 3 million illegal Zimbabweans in South Africa... But the president Thabo Mbeki is too busy gallivanting around the world to know what goes on in his own back yard... It has come to the point that other African leaders have turned to president Mbeki and basically slapped him on the wrist for not doing something.

President Mbeki has now been given this specific assignment. The assignment is to promote dialogue, and we're hoping that he will be able to deliver on this one.

Another thing, the southern African (not only South African) politicians are not going to allow any indication that they're working at the behest of external governments, western governments, and white governments. They're just going to be really careful to make it look like they're doing this out of their own initiative not from external pressure. (Around here it's jokingly called "African time" ... Things are done a little slower than in the rest of the world.)

Keep in mind that many - if not most Southern African countries - just "got rid" of colonial governments or "management" thus if the west (their "old oppressors") were to come back with force it would explode a very volatile situation - not only from Zimbabwe's side, but many African countries.

The West also receives the minimal media exposure from Zimbabwe, seeing that most newspapers and TV networks in Zimbabwe is owned by Mugabe's government, and he is known to have journalists murder whom put him in a bad light.

For example this is how South African President Mbeki feels about the situation in Zimbabwe:

Zeinab Badawi:
But the problems of Zimbabwe are huge problems for South Africa. You have something like 3 million Zimbabweans living in South Africa, there are huge economic problem. I mean for example, when did you last speak to Robert Mugabe about the economic crisis in his country?

Thabo Mbeki:
Why are you insisting that I must solve the problems of Zimbabwe?

ZB:
Because you are the main country in Africa. You are the richest and he is your neighbour.

TM:
The main people who should solve the problems of Zimbabwe are Zimbabweans. You have got to respect that.
...
ZB:
So you could have done the job if you had the money from the international community?

TM:
If we’d had the resources of course we could do it.

From a May 2006 BBC Interview with president Mbeki. You can see why our president is a big embarrassment for us.

Another interesting read: A Sky News Interview with Mbeki's brother over the same issue.

If you reall want to know what's going on, I suggest this website:
www.sokwanele.com..., especially the blog. Also available on Sky News.

Originally posted by Gemwolf
The matter of the fact is, no one cares because they have nothing to gain by "helping". And those who are supposed to help - like South Africa (the strongest African power) - are buddies with Bob Mugabe. The situation in Zimbabwe nearly brought South Africa's economy (and other neighbouring countries) to its knees. Not even to mention the 3 million illegal Zimbabweans in South Africa... But the president Thabo Mbeki is too busy gallivanting around the world to know what goes on in his own back yard... It has come to the point that other African leaders have turned to president

And that is it is a nutshell.

As to the suggestion that Australia do something about this one....we are a small country playing a 'big boys' game, we are really over subscribed
in 'supporting the US and UK in a number of areas already not to mention playing the 'leader' in AsiaPac. We don't have the manpower or the money...

The US, world po-po, doesn't give a DAMN about stepping in and heay-handing dictators unless they have resources to be exploited. Which is why we haven't invaded Zimbabwe, the Sudan, or other regions where "bad men are killing thousands of their own people."

Yeah, ok. The whiners who always complain about the USA being involved in everyones business and being the "world po-po" are now the same ones who are crying over their LACK of involvement. Gimme a break. You cant have it both ways.

Lack of resources? Black gold? Hmm....last year I was paying over $3.40 a gallon in the US and its on the rise again.

Im sure glad we took all that Iraqi oil and can now use it as we wish. Matter of fact, I shave my face with oil instead of shaving cream and I have emptied all my ball point pens and filled them with oil since its so cheap and abundant since we got alllll that oil from Iraq.

I hear that the NHL is going to rid their stadiums of ice and use an oil covered surface because oil is cheaper than ice!

Have I used enough hyperbole to get my point accross!?

Im sure that if the USA went into Africa to help those poor souls there would be the same garbage spewing as we hear now.

Its a matter of public record that the US is an imperial power bent on controlling the economic fortunes of the world. If you cant accept that, i guess thats your problem.

Several good points are made that bear mentioning again – along with my input.

SwatMedic does make, in my opinion, a valid point. Quite often I hear of the U.S. being on the receiving end of negativity because the U.S. 'pokes their nose' into everything. Yet when there is a problem that the U.S. does not get involved in, they get hammered for not ‘caring’. A countries resources are limited, just as Lady of the Lake pointed out with Australia. Of course it's a given that the U.S. has more resources, but in the end, the resources are limited resulting in some issues having to go without U.S. involvement.

On the other hand, it does appear that the major countries of the world prefer not to help if there is nothing to gain in return other than the satisfaction of helping another country.

But Gemwolf brought up a very interesting aspect that I had never thought of - the fact that many African countries have only recently shed their colonial association. This could be very good reason as to why western countries are keeping their distance on this crisis.

Unfortunately, at this stage, I think the only thing that the world can hope for is that the talks being led by Mbeki will have some sort of positive outcome. Although sadly, I think that they probably won't.

What is the U.N.'s position in this? What have they done? If these countries have shed their foreign "colonization", does this include any help that might come from a U.N. involvement?