Zimbabwe President to give Control of Firms to Blacks
Posted on March 10, 2008 - Filed Under Zimbabwe |
These are difficult economic times in Zimbabwe. Hyperinflation is now running at over 100,000% percent annually. The unemployment rate hovers around 80%. On March 29th there is a presidential election to determine the future of this once proposerous nation. For the past 28 years, Robert Mugabe has ruled with little challenge to his authority. But he now is in a tough fight and Mugabe was looking for a way to restore his name with voters.
Today he signed a new law intended to help “indigenous” Zimbabweans by forcing businesses to hand them a majority of ownership in each business. The new laws would require companies such as banks, mining companies and phone companies — among other foreign businesses — to end control of their ownership. Clearly, a pre-election tactic, Mugabe hopes that this measure is met with approval from voters. It is also a sign at how desperate the 84 year-old leader is to retain his power.
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4 Responses to “Zimbabwe President to give Control of Firms to Blacks”
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This is what the U.S. should do with all the
foreign investor’s instead of letting them take over the U.S. the way they have.
This is what the U.S. should do with all the
foreign investor’s instead of letting them take over the U.S. the way they have.
Zimbabwe: The Bleeding Sadza
Back in 1999 when I took a bus ride from Lusaka to Harare, it was like flying from Douala to London. However, before the bus ride from Lusaka, I remember my first landing at the airport in Harare. I was greeted by the southern winter and a people who seemed discipline, in step with the legendary Scandinavian moral code. Hectares and whole countries of rice fields, corn, tobacco, sunflower and herds of cattle graced the countryside below. It was a green and fertile territory, flowing with milk and honey. Essentially that is what Africa should be.
I got to Harare and found two worlds, one with people living in affluence and opulence, and the other with people in abject poverty. Beyond the glitter of Harare, which contrasts harshly with the decay of the townships and the squatter villages, you could perceive the many worlds of a mismatch African sprawling diseased settlement.
The blacks who have made it, have done so, either by joining the ZANU-PF of Robert Mugabe or by carving stones, the Shona style. Those black artists too, had qualified to buy their own estates and farms and were now rich like the white farmers. They were also some poor white folks who had traded off their heritage and went into begging. The first time I saw a white face begging was in front of the Zimbabwean High Commission in Lusaka. Notwithstanding these differences, the black Zimbabwean was able, at least, to have his daily three bowls of sadza.
Mugabe decided to enter into his now infamous land expropriation. I remember how I debated the issue with my Zimbabwean hosts. Fortunately, they had a sense of objectivity. Though it would seem the land reforms were in their favour, some smart artists were able to conclude that the reforms were only to favour Mugabe and his ZANU-PF cronies. To understand this, in the context of Cameroon, the reforms would mean the president grabbing the lands and sharing them with his party comrades.
Seven years down the road into reforms, the ordinary Zimbabwean is unable to have a bowl of sadza. Sadza is the staple food of Zimbabwe consisting of corn flower turned into a paste and eaten with cabbage or stew, 3 times, 7 days a week.
Two years after I returned from Harare I was having a discussion with the historian, John Tazifor. He asked me to sum up the situation in Zimbabwe. ‘Bleeding Sadza’, I said. Can you imagine your bowl of corn fufu running with blood? The bowl does not only look insipid but repulsive. The tragedy is becoming apocalyptic and just a sad reminder of the Ethiopian famine.
As a liberator, Mugabe can never be a pro-development president. He should have quit power 5 years after the liberation of Zimbabwe.
That is the tragic error of most African Heads of State and pliticians; they do not know when to quit. After the trail of blood Fon Doh Gah Gwayim left in Balikumbat, he returned to parliament hanging to a position he had lost on his conviction. Curiously, parliament watched on.
After 10 years of failure, I wonder the magic wand any bloodthirsty oligarch is going to wield, to turn things around. But they hang on like leeches, and would suck fellowman dry.
With an inflation of over 1800 percent, the sadza is really going to bleed to anaemic proportions. Yet this is a situation that could easily have been averted. It is unwise to seize land from those who have the know-how and logistics and give to marijuana munchers. Most ordinary black Zimbabweans are addicted to drugs, alcohol and sex. Correct me if you may. The figures of HIV/AIDS prevalence (a trophy for deviance and sodomy) are there to speak for themselves;. Grabbing the land from the white and giving it to the black does not optimize its use but returns it to bareness. The same applies in Cameroon. Simply reserving all juicy positions for the Beti ethnic oligarchs has seen the country slide, tactlessly, into abysmal corruption and underdevelopment, the fate of African countries under hopeless oligarchs.
After the bleeding Sadza, may be, it would be the turn of achu to bleed. That canvas on my wall is always thought provoking. The bleeding sadza spells the doom and death of a people, the demise of a whole continent. The continent of Africa is bleeding towards anaemia. Can we stop the sadza from bleeding, with convicted murderers like Fon Doh who are allowed to sit amongst legislators in parliament? A parliament of honourable convicted crooks and murderers. Peace!
This stupid racist bastard is willing to sacrifice all in Zimbabwe just to give the finger to whitey. Notice, however, that his fat ass shall not want for luxury. He is merely a typical stupid thug killing all who oppose him, a mere caricuture of a real leader. Under white rule, Zim was a model of effiency, exporting food all over Africa and elsewhere. Thanks to his racist murder of the white farmers, his subjects are starving, those who oppose him are murdered. Mugabee has singlehandedly destroyed Zim, setting it back 30 years. He will probably have to give the country to China soon.