There is an ongoing genocide in Darfur. But what is to be done about it?

We all have seen the utter impotence of the “International elite” in the UN and EU. They utter pious platitudes, hold “Darfur awareness” days, but achieve nothing of any value. As in Rwanda, the killing carries on regardless and the mass graves are dug. And even as the Sudanese government delegates are wined and dined  by the EU at the risible summit in Lisbon this weekend, back home the wicked Sudanese government via its thugs in the Janjaweed get on with the pressing business of massacre.

So again I ask, what is to be done? Do we invade, overthrow the Sudanese government, and then set us a massive peace-keeping operation. I don’t think so. Do we arm the opposition to the Sudanese? I wonder how children can defend themselves using machine guns. Do we use sanctions? I fail to see how they would stop the slaughter.

SO, In the final analysis, what is happening in Darfur is the primary concern of African nations. And it is they who do NOTHING. It is a vivid demonstration of the useless and morally bankrupt so-called African Union. The failure of African politicians to embrace democracy leads inexorably to the savagery seen in Darfur, and the West should feel no guilt over it whatsoever. We should feel for those poor innocents being murdered and maimed but until we stop feeding the thirst for financial aid that keeps the African tyrants in power, things will never get better.

I may not agree with much that UK PM Gordon Brown does but I do welcome his decision NOT to attend the EU-African Union summit in Lisbon because the cowardly EU has decided to allow in the Zimbabwean tyrant Mugabe, even against its own rules.

Typically the other African nations threatened that they would not attend this summit if Mugabe was denied access. In Africa, all good thugs stick together and when we witness this uniting to support Mugabe – a man who starves and terrorises his own people, black and white, it makes me feel that we should cease providing ANY aid to this region until it learns that tyranny must be isolated and punished, rather than welcomed and rewarded. As for Barroso and the Euro-elite that yearn "to dialogue" with any thug they can find, I think they stand indicted as moral bankrupts and political cowards.

As I have argued here before, the brutal truth is that rather than being seen as a pariah, too many African leaders view Mugabe as a role model. His determination to suppress political opposition, to wipe out any law that gets in his way, is admired across Africa. The poverty that afflicts the dark continent will never be eased whilst tyrants prosper.

"Some stories horrific as they are need to be read by everyone"

"Darfur is nothing compared to what’s going on in the Congo," says Schuler Deschryver, who despite constant death threats, continues to raise the plight of Congolese women. "My father was the founder of the National Park in Rwanda, which is home to rare silver back gorillas. During the war here, just one silver back was killed. And when it happened, within 48 hours millions in funding was sent to ensure the rest of the gorilla population was protected. Why isn’t the same done with our women? I’ll tell you why, because in the eyes of the international community animals have more value than humans in this part of the world."

Schuler Deschryver’s anger is also felt a few kilometres away, on the outskirts of Bukavu, where Dr Denis Mukwege, an obstetrician for more than 20 years, tries to deal with the aftermath of sexual violence. He runs Panzi Hospital, set up in 1999 in response to the emergency crisis after the so-called African war; it houses more than 350 patients. Each day, 10 new cases are admitted, some as young as nine, so badly damaged that reconstructive surgery is often required. The victims sit on benches, lining urine-soaked corridors, alone and frightened. On eye contact, there is nothing. No expression, no acknowledgement, no smiles – just a fleeting confirmation that behind their eyes, a pained suffering lies deep.

Here’s a quick tutorial in how a government can sort out the pesky problem of inflation.

Zimbabwe can no longer calculate the rate of inflation because there are not enough goods left in the shops to allow price comparisons, the Central Statistical Office claimed yesterday.

Moffat Nyoni, the Director of the CSO, said that it had been impossible to compile reliable data for the past month because of “the unavailability of required information such as prices of goods, due to their shortage on the formal market”.  According to leaked figures, the annual inflation rate in October stood at 14,840 per cent — almost double the 8,000 per cent in the previous month. The CSO usually publishes its statistics in the middle of the month, and its failure to do so this month led to allegations that they had been deliberately suppressed.

Each passing month’s figures openly contradict the Government’s constantly trumpeted claim that it is beating inflation. But Moffat Nyoni, the director of the CSO, said inflation in Zimbabwe could no longer be measured, because there were not enough goods in the shops.

So sad to see a once proud country that was enviously called the bread basket of Africa turned into a basket case under the Marxist rule of Mugabe. But no other African nations seem that concerned about this and Mugabe is feted as being the strong leader that many others aspire to be. So a little matter of having no food in the shops is but a minor irritation.

It was with sadness that I read of the death of Ian Smith, a R.A.F.fighter pilot during the grim days of the Second world war, a farmer in his beloved Southern Rhodesia, a politician who lead his country into a stern Independence, who led his country through an armed insurgency and only made peace because his one-time friends in South Africa were preparing to stab him in the back.

 A mild, decent, educated man, who took up the reins of power not because he wanted to, but because he was asked to do so. The betrayal of the Rhodesians at the Lancaster House conference have been written about many times, by those more informed than I, but I can tell of one small discussion which took place when I was working at the National Gallery. My informants were ex-members of the old Public Services Administration, and we were talking about the shambles which was the security equipment which was supposed to protect the Gallery and it’s priceless collections. One said wryly, "We sometimes get it right! We bugged all the hotel rooms of the Rhodesian delegation, and all the meeting rooms which the Ian Smith lot used at Lancaster House. The opposition black groups were told of every ploy the whites had, and thus were fore-warned and ready to respond. We sold them down the river, because the Foreign Office wanted Mugabe to win, and win big!

Ian Smith was too big a man to be bullied, as Harold Wilson found when he tried to bluster and threaten him during the meetings on H.M.S. Tiger, but he was ultimately stabbed by, of all people, Lord Carrington who swayed the Lancaster House meetings in order to rid the British Government of a noisy bunch of rebels.

 Ave atque vale; sleep soundly, Prime Minister Smith. you were proved right long before the farms were pillaged and burnt, long before the starvation which even now ripples through the homes of what was once the most prosperous country in Africa.

 

I was reading that "Ireland’s historic experience of famine has inspired the country to help tackle global poverty" according to U2 frontman Bono.  The "rock legend" is part of the Government’s Hunger Task Force, which was set up last year and met for the second time this afternoon in University College Cork (UCC). It was established to examine how Ireland can help combat world hunger, particularly in Africa. (A trifle ambitious, perhaps?)

Anyway Bono reckons that Irish people around the world understood the need to eradicate hunger and poverty because of the country’s famine experience. "All the Irish around the world know and feel the poetry in this idea, with Irish history rhyming to eradicate hunger," he said. "Ireland deserves real credit for setting course for 0.7 (of Gross National Product (GDP) for Overseas Development Aid), and can leverage this moral leadership to spearhead global efforts on areas of deep concern for us as a nation."

Sorry Bono – but you are profoundly wrong. Like many others on the political left who like to drag their ever-so-refined consciences through the media, he fails to appreciate that the only way for Africa and other parts of the world afflicted by poverty can crawl out of the mire is for democracy to be established, property rights secured and capitalism unleashed. Naturally the thugs that dominate in many of these African nations will happily take the money Bono pushes their way whilst ensuring that there is no progress of any kind. Ireland would do better to keep its’ 0.7% of GDP and stop indulging liberal fantasies.

Over the time I have been blogging, on my own site as well as ATW and others, I have been called many things, including ‘a miserable old git’ and other splendid titles which I tend to wear with pride, but I have never been accused of being untruthful. So will you wander down a meandering path with me as we visit once again what was one of the most beautiful, productive and happy countries this earth has ever seen. I talk of course of Rhodesia; that place which once held the title of the breadbasket of Africa, and that was in a time when Black rule was seen as just and as a new beginning. The name was changed to Zimbabwe, but the work continued, the fields still flourished and the people earned solid cash, fed themselves and, amazing fact, exported large quantities of basic foodstuffs to other African countries.

Take a leap forwards, past the time when the voters sang and chanted for their one-Party state, where their beloved leader could, if he so desired, alter the constitution so as to firm up his party’s hold on power. His land-grab policies, far from distributing the land to those who knew how to farm, gave the most productive land in Africa to a bunch of crooks, butchers and villains, because they all voted for the same party.

 The voices which used to sound out in protest are being silenced one by one, the latest Government Act makes criminals of those white farmers who have the temerity to protest against their property being stolen, and the world stands by mute and ashamed. Inflation now stands at an incredible 7,982.1%  per month!

Yep; they deserved the vote; it’s a great pity they didn’t know how to use it!

Did you see that the South African music legend Lucky Dube, an icon across the continent, was shot dead  in an apparent botched car hijacking? Lucky’s luck ran out yesterday when he  dropped off his son at friend’s home in the southern Johannesburg suburb of Rosentville. Mr Dube was driving a blue Volkswagen Polo when he was approached by an armed gang. His son ran indoors and when he came out again found his father’s bullet-riddled body in the car. The killing, which follows a vicious murder and rape in Pretoria earlier this week, is certain to push the crisis over South Africa’s out of control crime back into the headlines and risks overshadowing Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final against England which has dominated the headlines all week.

The vicious criminality that characterises large swathes of South Africa doesn’t get much of a play in the media. The big idea is that Mandela’s Rainbow Nation is setting new standards of hope since the fall of the wicked apartheid regime and headlines about staggeringly high rates of murder and lawlessness don’t exactly help perpetuate this image. 

We were discussing clowns the other day following the death of Marcel Marceau and naturally the name of Jimmy Carter came up. I see Carter is back in the news today  following his confrontation with Sudanese security services on a visit to Darfur Wednesday, shouting "You don’t have the power to stop me!" at some who blocked him from meeting refugees of the conflict. Naturally, they did stop him!

Carter, along with billionaire businessman Richard Branson and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, is one of "The Elders" a group  headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates Carter and Desmond Tutu. Their  mission appears to be to travel around the world and…attack President Bush and generally blame the US for the world’s ills. Carter sticks to this agenda by claiming that progress in solving the Darfar genocide has been hindered by the US invasion of Iraq, and — oh yes — it’s not a genocide anyway. According to Carter the slaugher carried out by the Janjaweed is  a crime against humanity, but done on a micro scale. A dozen janjaweed attacking here and there," he said, noting many refugees have survived the violence. Phew – bet that MAKES the next of kin of those tens of thousands killed in Darfur feel a LOT better.

Did you read that the Zimbabwean parliament has passed a bill to move majority control of foreign-owned companies operating in the country to black Zimbabweans? The goal is to ensure at least a 51% shareholding by indigenous black people in the majority of businesses. The bill completes a process that began with the controversial seizure of white-owned farms starting in 1999. Zimbabwe is currently experiencing the world’s highest inflation and shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency. The bill still has to go to the upper house – the Senate – for final approval. It already has the support of President Robert Mugabe’s government.

This is blatant RACISM, just as the seizure of farms owned by white people was RACISM. And yet we hear very muted criticism of it. The BBC describes the move as "controversial", being very careful not to pass any judgement on it. And so it is that Mugabe can instigate blatant RACIST policies and the liberal western media keeps quiet about it. And what about South Africa – that so-called "Rainbow Nation" which borders Zimbabwe – has Mbeki anything to say about this? Nope. All forms of racism are to deplored and nowhere more obviously than in Zimbabwe.