Zimbabwe Resumes Threats Against White Farmers

[From article]
Most of Zimbabwe's white farmers were stripped of their land in often violent evictions that started in 2000. Now the remaining white farmers are on edge because of threats of new evictions linked to the country's long-running political turmoil.
[. . .]
However, human rights advocate and political analyst Gabriel Shumba said that linking the evictions to the Mujuru faction "is just political expediency by those seeking to evict them." Shumba said, "White farmers are caught up because they are in possession of an asset that is in demand."
[. . .]
There are fewer than 300 white farmers out of the original total of 4,500, according to the Commercial Farmers Union. The land eviction program that targeted white farmers starting in 2000 was defended by Mugabe as necessary to correct land imbalances dating from the era of white rule, though the upheaval was blamed for mismanagement of Zimbabwe's once rich agricultural economy.

http://news.yahoo.com/zimbabwes-white-farmers-face-threats-evictions-133521942.html

Zimbabwe's white farmers face threats of new evictions
By FARAI MUTSAKA
January 27, 2015

Shameful Misuse of Resources In Africa

[From article]
Here's how my Aug. 11, 2003, column began: "Anyone who believes President Bush's Africa initiative, including sending U.S. troops to Liberia, will amount to more than a hill of beans is whistling Dixie. Maybe it's overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people." More than a decade has passed since that assessment, and little has changed to suggest a more optimistic outlook. Now Ebola threatens the very existence of the West African nations Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Moreover, the deadly disease is likely to spread to neighboring nations.
[. . .]
Poverty is not a cause but a result of Africa's problems. What African countries need the West cannot provide. They need personal liberty. That means a political system in which there are guarantees of private property rights, free markets, honest government and the rule of law. Africa's poverty is, for the most part, self-inflicted. Some people might disagree because their college professors taught them that the legacy of colonialism explains Third World poverty. That's nonsense. Canada was a colony. So were Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact, the richest country in the world, the United States, was once a colony. By contrast, Third World countries such as Ethiopia, Liberia, Nepal and Bhutan were never colonies, yet they are home to some of the world's poorest people.
[. . .]
Once a food-exporting country, Zimbabwe recently stood near the brink of starvation. Sierra Leone is rich in minerals -- especially diamonds -- has highly fertile land and is the best port site in West Africa, but it has declined into a state of utter despair. Africa is the world's most natural-resources-rich continent. It has 50 percent of the world's gold, most of the world's diamonds and chromium, 90 percent of the cobalt, 40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power, 65 percent of the manganese, and millions of acres of untilled farmland, as well as other natural resources. Before independence, every African country was self-sufficient in food production; today many depend on imports, and others stand at the brink of famine.

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2014/10/29/africa-a-tragic-continent-n1910507

Africa: A Tragic Continent
Walter E. Williams

Oct 29, 2014

NYC Assembly Candidate Shows His Love For Dictatorship, Black Racism

Cambridge City Councilor E. Denise Simmons used to display a Zimbabwe flag on her desk during council meetings, contrary to US law for several weeks. She ignored my letters complaining, as did the veteran's department of the city. It was ignored under the rubric of free expression. But it was not protected speech in so far as it violated a federal statute. 

[From article]
Charles Barron famously hosted Zimbabwe’s repressive President Robert Mugabe at City Hall as a freshman councilman in 2002–and said yesterday he would like to repeat the performance in his first term at the state capital.
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, Mr. Barron, who won a Democratic primary for an open Assembly seat last week and is very likely to crush his GOP rival, expressed hope that he could persuade the foreign official to visit Albany.
“I would love for him to come to Albany. I would love for him to come anywhere in the United States, really,” Mr. Barron said in an interview at his former campaign office in East New York, Brooklyn. “I think he’s a shining example of an African leader on the African continent.”
[. . .]
“He was one of the few African leaders who had the courage to take the land back from the settlers,” said Mr. Barron, comparing him favorably to the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, who he argued allowed whites to retain too much property.
[. . .]
He seized control of the nation in 1983, after initiating an ethnic cleansing campaign against a minority tribe that led to between 10,000 and 20,000 deaths.
In 1987, he was declared president and instituted martial law. He also enacted draconian laws against homosexuals, whom he has described as “worse than dogs and pigs” and demanded be arrested on sight.
He has been repeatedly re-elected in referendums marred by the use of military force against rival political parties.
[. . .]
“All my heroes were America’s enemies,” Mr. Barron said.
Mr. Barron was term-limited out of the City Council last year, but voters in his home neighborhood of East New York elected him last week to succeed his wife, Inez Barron, in the state legislature. Ms. Barron had stepped down from the Assembly to take her husband’s Council seat.

http://observer.com/2014/09/charles-barron-wants-robert-mugabe-to-visit-albany/

Charles Barron Wants Robert Mugabe to Visit Albany
By Will Bredderman

09/18/14 9:23am

Racist Leader of Zimbabwe Bans Whites From Owning Land

[From article]

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has renewed his onslaught against white farmers saying they would no longer be allowed to own land in the country.
The 90 year-old old leader, who launched a violent land reform programme in 2,000 that displaced the majority of the 4,000 white commercial farmers, on Wednesday said Zimbabwe was no country for white farmers.
“There are white farmers who are still on the land and have the protection of some Cabinet ministers and politicians as well as traditional leaders,” President Mugabe said.
“That should never happen and we will deal with ministers but as for our chiefs we do not want to harass you. We do not want trouble.
“I have been given a list of 35 white farmers in Mashonaland West (province) alone and in just a few districts that have been audited.
“We say no to whites owning our land and they should go.
[. . .]
“It is ours and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States.”

http://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/-/1066/2371326/-/7941f4z/-/index.html

THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2014
White farmers must not own land in Zimbabwe, declares Mugabe
By Kitsepile Nyathi

Female Rapists in Zimbabwe

[From article]
"Typically, male hitchhikers on Zimbabwe’s main highways are offered a lift. The drivers are sometimes male, but usually female.

The hitchhikers are then drugged – sometimes by having a cloth with a mystery substance pulled over the faces or through an injection – before they are driven to dark spots or safe houses where the attacks occur.

The victims are forced to be intimate with the female attackers, sometimes without protection, but where a condom is used, semen is collected.
Victims are typically stripped of their possessions before being dumped by the roadside."

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-6248-Arrests+in+female+rapists+probe/news.aspx

Arrests in female rapists probe
11/10/2011 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
New Zimbabwe

Foreign Flags Fly in Cambridge

Todd Hyde is concerned about tattered flags flying in Cambridge. Before she became Mayor, Councilor Denise Simmons displayed the flag of Zimbabwe on her desk during City Council meetings, a violation of US law. Complaints to the City Council, city veteran's office and state veteran's offices were ignored. Cambridge is the Politician's Republic, not the Peoples'.

http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/2011_0312flags_fly_in_face_of_cantabrigians_patriotism/srvc=home&position=3

Flags fly in face of Cantabrigian’s patriotism

By Joe Fitzgerald
Boston Herald
Saturday, March 12, 2011

Zimbabwe's Brutal Diamond Industry

[From Article]
"Some background: In June 2006, freelance miners uncovered one of the richest diamond finds the industry has seen in years, a patch called Marange, southwest of the capital of Harare. Soldiers from Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party moved in two years later, slaughtered hundreds in an effort to get control of the wealth and put local children to work under slave-like conditions."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/blood_on_your_hands_wHfD7NRqnNZbTJkGljmoGK

Blood on your hands

How the diamond industry has remained in bed with despots

By TOM ZOELLNER

New York Post

Last Updated: 5:16 AM, July 18, 2010

Posted: 12:45 AM, July 18, 2010

Zimbabwe's Mugabe at Climate Summit


"Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe turned the UN climate-change summit in Copenhagen into a farce yesterday, laughing off the travel sanctions of Western governments and throwing the harsh disapproval of his Danish hosts back in their faces."
[. . .]
"Mugabe is banned by the European Union from traveling to member states, including Denmark, as part of sanctions intended to pressure him to into allowing political reforms and improving the African nation's awful human-rights record."
[. . .]
"At the center of the summit tension is an alliance of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, which are demanding that richer nations cut emissions and pay poorer countries to slow climate change."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/now_the_un_climate_sham_evil_mugabe_GkplO3jy8oi1exD0NehdAK#ixzz0a1yWRF9s

UN climate sham - evil Mugabe an honored guest
By CHARLES HURT Bureau Chief
New York Post
Last Updated: 2:26 PM, December 16, 2009
Posted: 5:46 AM, December 16, 2009