Zimbabwe out of money to print money...

[KrazyHorse]

The reason it can't get foreign currency is because it's propping up the exchange rate. Nobody's going to buy from them when they can buy on the street.

[Dinner]

Everyone has known Mugabe was an asshat since atleast the late 1980's. He's progressively gotten worse and more dictatorial and his economic policies have become worse and worse the more dictatorial he has gotten. Sadly, this will give the racists much fotter since under white minority rule Zimbabwe was the second richest country in sub-Saharan Africa (after South Africa) but Mugabe has been a dictator who has run the country into the ground. It's a pretty typical story from post-colonial Africa.

[Vince278]

I'm ashamed to say I gave favorable speeches about Mugabe in early 1980.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
This is further proof of the old saying, It takes money to make money.

Good one!

[Sikander]

It should have been obvious what kind of man he was when he sicced his N.Korean trained troops on his former allies soon after he took power. But people were so thrilled by the end white rule that they looked the other way.

[Vince278]

Yeah, but Nkomo was actually worse (at the time).

[Ted Striker]

In other news, over 4 MILLION PEOPLE have died in fighting in the Congo, the most of ANY conflict since World War 2. While hostilities have "officialy" ceased, war rages on in the provinces.

Once again, Africa gets ****ed over and the West doesn't give a damn, prefering to chase after oil dictators

[Seeker]

Mugabe is not only persecuting the old Rhodesian whiites...who are by now sadly virtually eliminated...he has been turning most of his bile on his own black people for a long long time now. There just aren't enough whites to ***** about left, so the new Enemies of the State are the poor (i.e. everyone outside the army and Mugabe's version of the brownshirts, the 'Green Bombers').

The MDC, the non-racist majority black opposition opposition party, is virtually castrated at this point.

The blame game: Squarely at the feet of the South African government of Thabo Mbeki, who tacitly approved of farm invasion murders for years and who could've been a tremendous opponent of mugabe and MDC supporter....but it seems he finds little to complain about his former Marxist comrade.

[Colonâ„¢]

Zimbabwe demolition images shown
Amnesty International has released images showing the destruction caused in Zimbabwe by the government's policy of house demolitions in 2005.

The satellite images show the destruction of one settlement near Harare, which had contained some 850 structures before last May.

The human rights group says the photos are irrefutable evidence of how entire communities were obliterated.

The UN says some 700,000 people were directly affected by the demolitions.

The Zimbabwean government launched Operation Murambatsvina (Remove the filth), saying it wanted to eliminate illegal structures.

In reality, legal structures were also destroyed, and people were left in the open or trucked to rural villages. 'Horrifying transition'

Amnesty commissioned the satellite images to demonstrate the complete destruction of one particular area, Porta Farm, a large informal settlement some 20km (12 miles) west of the capital, Harare.

It also showed detailed video footage showing the forced evictions and destruction in June.

Porta Farm was established 16 years ago and contained about 850 structures, including schools, a children's centre and a mosque.

Amnesty says that last June, in the middle of winter, armed police arrived with bulldozers.

Porta Farm - which had been home to up to 20,000 people - was destroyed and the residents evicted.

Amnesty says that the images - taken last month - show the horrifying transition of an area from a vibrant community to rubble and shrubs in the space of less than a year.

"These satellite images are irrefutable evidence... that the Zimbabwean government has obliterated entire communities, completely erased them from the map, as if they never existed," Amnesty's Africa Programme director Kolawole Olaniyan said.
Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5032156.stm

Published: 2006/05/31 03:13:04 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[Seeker]

It might be my imagination, but I believe Ted is arguing for conscription or something?

I mean I don't see where else 'the West' is going to get the soldiers to chase around endlessly afrer bandits and insurgents in the jungles of the Congo for the next 20 years, getting hacked up by machetes at night and dealing with all the fun of 'jungle rot'...lead the charge Ted! I'm sure a lot of charities need volunteers for all kinds of operations, including security.

Maybe the US can just randomly throw a few million dollar submarine launched cruise missiles at bandit outhouses until consciences have been assauged?

LOL all I'm saying is that there really doesn't seem to be many viable options. I suggest we continue to do what we have been doing: allow aid into the country, support anything that looks vaguely stable or democratic, and make damn sure we don't make the mistake of acting like paternalistic idiots thinking we can 'fix' another mans country.

What do you suggest they do Ted?

[dannubis]

for one, stop selling arms and ammunition the the f*ckers...

in ten years they'll be fighting with knives and rocks again. a lot less efficient...

[Saras]

I'd say we should let the Brits run it for another 150 years.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by dannubis
for one, stop selling arms and ammunition the the f*ckers...

in ten years they'll be fighting with knives and rocks again. a lot less efficient...

I wasn't aware that the west was selling a lot of weapons to the fighting parties in Congo. It looks like a lot of old Soviet equipment to me, readily available on the African arms market and not the sort of thing likely to make a profit for western countries.

[Seeker]

Yeah, I just don't see the US, france or england shipping loads of rpgs and ak-47s to africa...

unless you're talking about some kind of interdiction...which is impossible in the case of the Congo....what're you going to do, randomly bomb bits of jungle you suspect are arms smuggling routes forever?

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢

Sounds pretty bad. From what I can tell, there have been allegations of this sort of thing for a while.

Note that once the most convenient enemy (whites) were dealt with, he moved on. The problems just got worse.

-Arrian

p.s. For the mentally challenged, please do not take this post as in any way supportive of the old Rhodesia.