Mugabe gets 400% pay hike

[seemslikeadream]

The government nearly quadrupled President Robert Mugabe's official salary and backdated the increase to January 1, the state Herald newspaper reported on Saturday.

Previous large pay increases for Mugabe and his ministers have been criticised as Zimbabwe faces its worst economic crisis since its 1980 independence from Britain. About 70 percent of the 12.5 million population is living in poverty.

The average per capita income in Zimbabwe is about US$400 a year.

Annual inflation is 602 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. Zimbabwe is facing acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline and other essential goods. Unemployment is estimated at over 70 percent.

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/312365.htm

Mugabe's pay soars as Zimbabwe starves

The economically-crippled Zimbabwean government has nearly quadrupled President Robert Mugabe's salary to 73.7 million Zimbabwe dollars from Z$20.2 million, the state newspaper reported. His living expenses were doubled. His new salary is equivalent to the average yearly wage of nearly 230 people in a country where 70 per cent of the population live in poverty.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1179537,00.html

[mobuto]

1. Sounds reasonable

Its not easy to murder your political opponents, set up dictatorial one-man rule, wreck the economy, and set up a xenophobic paranoid state non un-reminiscent of North Korea.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Outrage Over Court Order On Media Ban

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)

March 28, 2004
Posted to the web March 28, 2004


CIVIC organisations and lawyers have expressed outrage over an order by a Harare magistrate barring the Press from naming a top politician implicated in court of having substantially benefited from the alleged illegal gold dealings of Mark Mathew Burden, at a time the country is trying to fight endemic corruption.

The order, they said, is also a major blow to freedom of the Press, under siege from President Robert Mugabe's repressive laws.


Magistrate Virginia Sithole on Tuesday prohibited the Press from naming the politician, the alleged beneficiary of Burden's illegal gold dealings. Burden is facing 46 charges of breaching the Gold Trade Act.

'The Press is not to publish contents of paragraph 19, or anything from the deleted paragraph,' ordered Sithole.

The order gives credence to reports that Zanu PF's anti-graft crusade is an election campaign gimmick as the 2005 general polls draw near and would 'only net the small fish' and those in the private sector, analysts said.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403280031.html

[R Hickey]

4. Now he won't be so easily bribed.

I'm sure his pay raise pales in comparison to the compensation increases that CEO's have gotten in the US for outsourcing all our jobs.

I know of one planeload of 63 burley mercenaries who won't be voting for him. Maybe Robert M. will use his extra salary to buy the rope needed to hang them.

[mobuto]

5. Maybe

When you're stealing from the State, who needs bribes? Mugabe has learned well from the Ferdinand Marcos School of Governance at Mobutu Sese-Seko University.

[Zynx]

48. The rich are fairly easily bribed. They always want more.

Look at Martha Stewart. She lost her entire fortune to protect just $20,000 out of nearly a billion.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Mugabe's finance chief has more Cape properties

She said: "We felt absolutely dreadful" to discover that their home was funded by a minister from a country in rapid economic decline.

Their monthly rentals on the property, she believed, should rather go to the thousands of Zimbabwe pensioners made destitute after their benefits dried up months ago.

By Bonny Schoonakker
29/03/04
ZIMBABWE Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri, whose Llandudno mansion made headline news last week, has property investments worth millions of rands more than the home he is building in the exclusive Cape enclave.

This week a family renting his second Llandudno property spoke of their horror at discovering that their home was part of a property portfolio owned by one of President Robert Mugabe's key ministers.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/kuru3.1599.html

[Mike Daniels]

6. Would one of the Mugabe apologists tell me why this guy is so great?

Seems like a few posters will give this loser a pass just because he stuck it to the "MAN" regardless of him being a disaster in every other way imaginable.

I'm just looking for one reason anyone would support this guy and I've seen a select few who do on this site.

[R Hickey]

9. I don't give him a pass

And I don't see anyone else on this thread giving him a pass.

[demdave]

10. I agree, your previous post really nailed him to the wall

NOT!

[Mike Daniels]

12. People have defended him in other threads and they usually appear

when the subject pops up. I wasn't referring directly to anyone in this thread at the time of my post.

I don't have search rights but if you did some searching you'd find some threads that contained posters that feel that Mugabe is A.O.K.

[AP]

26. I've never seen a thread arguing that Mugabe is OK.

But I have seen many arguing that he's only the objec of scorn today because land reform is a threat to the neoliberals.

[legin]

14. One thing he did right

was to kick all those white 3rd generation colonists off the land that their grandparents had stolen. That was a good move. OK so it didn't go well in practice, but then land reforms never do. The IMF have a hand in what has happened, because Mugabe had been signaling a land reform for years and all they did was get in the way instead of doing what they should have done which was try and make it go as painlessly as possible.

[sam7]

52. OK so it didn't go well in practice..

A bit of an understatement. From being Africa's breadbasket they're now facing mass starvation. I guess when you make an omelet you have to beak some eggs, huh?

[Judi Lynn]

56. This article describes the way the land was grabbed by Europeans

This snippet starts almost halfway down the page:

It is almost 100 years since missionaries helped trick the Ndebele King Lobengula into signing away control of his land in Matabeleland, and the British came ostensibly to protect the Shona from the Ndebele but really because they thought there was gold in the granite hills. By 1893, Rhodes' British South Africa Company (BSAC) had a charter authorizing them to take possession of all the territory north of the great Limpopo River. There was not as much gold as they hoped for but there were millions of hectares of prime farmland which was ideal for settlers from Ireland and Britain.

The Shona and Ndebele fought back in 1896-97 in what is now celebrated as the First Chimurenga (Liberation war). They lost the war and also their sacred land when the BSAC allocated huge tracts to the churches and white settlers who forced the Africans into near slave labour or on to "reserves" euphemistically called Tribal Trust Lands, which are today's communal lands.

By 1930 some 11,000 white settlers had 49 million acres of prime land. The African majority got 30 million. One Methodist pastor acquired land for his church by riding his horse a day's journey in each of four directions; where he stopped at each corner marked the limit of his Christian land.

Churches established themselves, the first in 1859, with schools, hospitals and places of worship. They were agents of faith and colonization as shown by the names on the documents which "sold" the land to Rhodes.
(snip/...)

http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/assembly/feat06e.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm just starting to try to get up to speed on this country, so this is new material to me. If you've read it already, please excuse.

[seemslikeadream]

58. The story sounds a little familiar

kinda like when the Native Americans were told to find some place else to live. Around about the same time too!

[Judi Lynn]

59. Well, almost 100 years ago.....n/t

[seemslikeadream]

60. I haven't decided where I'm going when the Shawnee

want their land back. How about you?

[Judi Lynn]

62. Would you like to amplify?

Are you supporting colonialism?

[seemslikeadream]

64. In no way would I support colonialism

but to be honest with myself there doesn't seems to be much of a difference. And if I am for Zimbabwe land going back to the rightful owners I must be prepared to live my convictions.

[Judi Lynn]

65. Maybe it's possible something like this can help

although it'll take a lot more reading, no doubt. At least it's a starting place.

1981 — The Communal Land Act changed the Tribal Trust Lands into Communal Areas, and shifted land authority from traditional rulers to local authorities.

l 1985 — The Land Acquisition Act, though drawn in the spirit of the 1979 Lancaster House “willing seller, willing buyer” clause (which could not be changed for 10 years), the Act gave the government the first right to purchase excess land for redistribution to the landless. The Act, however, had a limited impact largely because the government did not have the money to pay compensation to landowners. In addition, white farmers mounted a vigorous opposition to the Act. Some were plainly unwilling to sell any excess land, others overpriced their land twice or thrice over. Because of the “willing seller, willing buyer” clause, the government was powerless in the face of the farmers’ resistance. As a result, between 1980 and 1990 only 71,000 families out of a target of 162,000 were resettled.

• 1992 — The Land Acquisition Act was enacted to speed up the land reform process by removing the “willing seller, willing buyer” clause. The Act empowered the government to buy land compulsorily for redistribution, and a fair compensation was to be paid for land acquired. Landowners were given the right to go to court if they did not agree to the price set by the acquiring authority. Opposition by landowners increased throughout the period 1992-1997. Britain withdrew aid to the land reform programme, accusing Mugabe of giving the land to his “cronies”. (London now claims to have contributed £44m, but Timothy Stamp, Zimbabwe’s finance minister, who is white, says £17m).

• November 1997 — As part of the implementation of the 1992 Land Acquisition Act, the government published a list of 1,471 farmlands it intended to buy compulsorily for redistribution. The list came out of a nationwide land identification exercise undertaken throughout the year. Landowners were given 30 days (as the 1992 Act demanded) to submit written objections.
(snip/...)

http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/july00/legal_history.htm

[seemslikeadream]

82. And this will take a few moments of your time

Lets start with TRAIL OF TEARS


1831-2 Trail of Tears. In two key cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Cherokee to stay on their lands. President Andrew Jackson ignored the court's opinion and sent federal troops to forcibly remove the Cherokee and other Civilized Tribes. The Cherokee were removed in 1838 during harsh winter conditions resulting in significant hardship and loss of life; the Cherokee remember this time as the "Trail of Tears."


1832 Black Hawk's War Black Hawk (1767-1838), also called Makataimeshekiakiak, was the leader of the Thunder clan of the Sauk Indians in Illinois. In an effort to halt the settlers' westward expansion, he sided with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812. When he led his tribe back to settle their disputed homeland in Illinois, two Sauks were shot by a body of Illinois volunteers. This led Black Hawk's War in 1832, a guerrilla conflict waged against the Americans. The war ended the same year in the The Battle of Bad Axe, with Sauk warriors trapped by land and water. Finally, left with only a few warriors, Black Hawk, dressed in white deerskin, turned himself in. Though a prisoner, he was immensely popular, and in 1833 was presented to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson allegedly felt so threatened by Black Hawk's popularity that he released the chief and sent back to the West.



1835-42 The Second Seminole War When Jackson became President, he set about moving the Seminoles out of Florida, leading to the second War between Seminoles and United States. When Seminoles refused to cede their land and were giving refuge to runaway slaves, slave owners and plantation farmers demanded immediate retribution. The American army committed several atrocities, including hunting Indians with bloodhounds, and the capture of the Seminole warrior Osceola while under a flag of truce. It was the most fierce and costly war in America's history up to that time.


1841 The Oregon Trail was a vital passage to the Pacific Northwest Territory. The first wagon train set out on the long trail across the plains and through the Rocky Mountains in 1841; by 1845 more than five thousand pioneers had made the journey.


1848 Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California. The subsequent "Gold Rush" and Euro-American settlement in California results in a drop in California Indian population from about 120,000 in 1850 to fewer than 20,000 by 1880. Gold miners changed the environment so much that Indians could no longer pursue their traditional means of procuring food. Indians raided mining camps for food and miners retaliated. Indians caused such problems for miners, that by 1851 the governor of California condoned a policy of extermination against California Indians.


1848 Purchases the territory which become the states of California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado from Mexico for $5,000,000.


1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie: The U.S. and several Plains tribes including the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho enter into the Treaty. The purpose of the Treaty was to force the Indians to agree to allow Euro-Americans to pass through their territory on their way to the far west, i.e., California, Washington, and Oregon. In exchange, the U.S. government agreed to respect tribal boundaries.


1851 The Navajo considered the site of Fort Defiance to be sacred and thus the fort as an invasion of their territory. A pattern of violent confrontations between the U.S. and the Navajo begins.


1851 The Minnesota Santee Sioux had their lives uprooted when they ceded their land to the U.S. government in 1851. For eleven years, they were entirely dependent on white merchants and government annuities. When the annual payment failed to arrive in 1862, the Santee rioted that August.


1854 The Brule Sioux were especially hostile to the whites who came to Wyoming, and their attacks on white settlers led to war against the U.S. Army, led by General William S. Harney. The conflict started in 1854, after a band of Brules killed an emigrant's cow.


1855 In 1855, Governor Issac Ingalls Stephens, accompanied by translator and artist Gustavus Sohon, convened a meeting with all the tribes of the Upper Columbia River in order to sign land treaties with them.


1860-1864 Tensions between the Navajo Indians and American military forces in the New Mexico Territory resulted in the Navajo War. During a final standoff at Canyon de Chelly, fears of starvation and harsh winter conditions forced the Navajo to surrender to Kit Carson and his troops in January 1864. Carson ordered the destruction of their property and organized the Long Walk of the Navajo to the Bosque Redondo, a reservation already occupied by Mescalero Apaches on the Pecos River.


1861 Civil War Begins. Many tribes including the Five Civilized Tribes (now living in Oklahoma Territory) side with the Confederacy which promises in return for Indian support to respect Indian sovereignty. After the end of the War, the U.S. government punishes the Five Civilized Tribes by forcing the Tribes to cede land.


1864 Sand Creek Massacre. Cheyenne and Arapaho were awaiting surrender terms when attacked; more than 120 people killed--mostly women and children.


1866 "The Battle of One Hundred Slain" In retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre and other atrocities, Plains tribes banded together and declared war on the United States.


1866-68 Red Cloud leads the successful fight to close off the Bozeman Trail, a pass leading to the gold mines of Montana. The trail crosses over the traditional hunting grounds of the Teton.


1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge. The largest treaty-making gathering in U.S. history, between U.S. and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations; results in the removal of the two tribes to a reservation in Indian Territory. Their reservation is created out of lands taken from the Five Civilized Tribes who had been forced to give them up because of their support for the South during the Civil War. Crow, Comanche, Kiowa, Sioux, Apache and dozens of other tribes were represented.


1868 Sioux Indians sign a treaty guaranteeing their rights to the Black Hills of Dakota. Later that year, the U.S. Army led by George Armstrong Custer slaughters an unarmed gathering of Cheyenne encamped at the Washita River--again killing mostly women and children.


The agreement offered the Union Pacific Railroad the right of way through the Green River Valley in exchange for Indian reservation land


1868 Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer fought the so-called Battle of the Washita in November 1868. This raid on Cheyenne Chief Black kettle's camp on Oklahoma was in retaliation for Cheyenne raids on Kansas settlements the previous month. It was part of a massive military campaign to contain all Indians who refused to stay within their newly assigned reservations.


1873-74 The "Buffalo War" A last desperate attempt by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa to save the few remaining buffalo herds from destruction by Euro-American hunters in Oklahoma and Texas.


1874 expedition led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer discovers gold in the Black Hills, sending a rush of prospectors to the area. The Sioux revolt.


1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn On June 25, Custer attacks a large hunting camp of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Little Big Horn River in Montana. Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse, and several Cheyenne leaders defeat Custer and the 7th Cavalry. General Custer and 250 soldiers are killed.


1877 After an impressive flight of more than 1,000 miles from their homeland in Oregon, the Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph finally surrender. The U.S. relocates the Nez Perce to Indian Territory, breaking its promise to allow them to return to their homeland.


1881 Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor published, detailing the plight of Native Americans and criticizing U.S. treatment of Indians.


1886 After more than two decades of armed conflict with the U.S. government, Geronimo and his band (including women and children) are sent by train to Florida and imprisoned at St. Augustine.


1887 During the 1880s, Euro-American reformers grew concerned that Indians were not improving themselves and becoming self-sufficient but were sinking into poverty and despair. The purpose of the Act was to force individual Indians to live on small family farms. Every Indian would receive 160 acres of land. Any land left over was sold. One goal of allotment was to destroy Indian "communalism," i.e., the practice of many families living together and sharing property. Tribes affected by allotment were those located in states where land was most sought after for farming by Euro-American settlers: North and South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota and Wyoming. Within the first ten years of allotment, more than 80 million acres of Indian land were opened for Euro-American settlement.


1889 An act by the U.S. Congress in March 1889 splits the Great Sioux Reservation into six smaller reservations. Some of the tribes begin performing the Ghost Dance, a religious ceremony thoughtto extinguish the whites, return the buffalo, and the former way of life. South Dakota is admitted to the union in November.


1890 Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, defined a new religion combining Christian and Native elements. This religion was dubbed the "Ghost Dance" religion because its followers believed that practicing ritual dance would bring back dead loved ones (both human and animal) and restore the land to Native peoples. The Ghost Dance religion swept through the Great Plains quickly gaining a huge following from peoples devastated by disease, warfare, and Euro-American encroachment. Ghost dancers believed that clothing worn in the dance would make them invulnerable to bullets or other forms of attack. The U.S. government became increasingly anxious about the spread of the Ghost Dance religion because of the large number of Indians who came together to participate in the ceremony.


1890, December 29

Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek The Lakota Sioux held a ghost dance on the Pine Ridge Reservation. When an Indian Agent learned of the dance he requested that federal troops be sent to stop it. Armed troops opened fire on a band of Big Foot's band of Lakota people killing 200-250 men, women and children. The event is often described as the last major conflict between the U.S. Army and the Great Sioux Nation.


1894 U.S. Army imprisons hostile Hopi leaders on Alcatraz Island.


1890s U.S. government began an aggressive campaign to "civilize" Indian people by rounding up Indian children and sending them away to boarding schools. The first step in "civilizing" the children was to cut their hair and burn their clothes and replace them with "civilian" or Euro-American style of dress. The children were forbidden to speak their Native language subject to severe punishment if they violated this rule. These boarding schools were a breeding ground for disease, and many Indian children died while at the schools.


1904 Geronimo exhibited along with other Native peoples at the St. Louis World's Fair


1910 After the suppression of the Ghost Dance religion, a number of Plains tribes began to revive the traditional Sun Dance.


1924 Citizenship Act Passed. Declared all Native American U.S. citizens, entitling Native people to the right to vote in national elections. Out of concern over conditions in Indian country, John Collier persuaded John D. Rockefeller to finance a team of social scientists headed by John Meriam to investigate. Their more than 800 page report stated that Indians were living in deplorable conditions of stark poverty, ill-health, and malnourishment. The report criticized allotment policy and recommended that Congress increase funding to improve Indian health and education and encourage the development of Native American art.


1934 Indian Reorganization Act encourages Native Americans to "recover" their cultural heritage. It allows the teaching of art in government Indian schools and ends allotment policy. In order to take advantage of funding under the IRA, tribes are required to adopt a U.S. style constitution. While many tribes do adopt a constitution, many other tribes including the Navajo refuse to do so.


1930s BIA began allowing Indian children to attend day schools closer to home. In addition, the BIA began to allocate funding to reservation day schools for the teaching of tribal languages.


1950s "Termination Policy" involved settling all federal obligations to a tribe, withdrawing federal support (e.g., health services, education) and closing the reservation. Frequently, tribal members were then relocated to urban areas. Eventually, Congress would terminate services to over 60 tribes including Klamaths, Paiutes, Menominees, Poncas and Catawbas. By 1990, more than 50% of Indians lived in urban areas.


1961 American Indian Chicago Conference to promote tribal sovereignty and survival. Later that year, a more militant organization called the National Indian Youth Council is formed. Many other Indian organizations are formed throughout the 1960s, and they all sought an end to termination and relocation policies and demanded self-determination for Indian peoples.


1969 A small group of militant Native Americans calling themselves the "Indians of All Tribes" occupy the (abandoned) island to protest conditions in contemporary Indian America. The occupation lasted for two years and brought national attention to problems in Indian country.


1970 President Richard Nixon formally ended the Termination policy.


1970 The Blue Lake, sacred to the Pueblo, had been declared a national forest in 1904. Taos Pueblo people were not allowed to travel to the lake without a permit from the U.S. government. For the next sixty years, the Pueblo formally protested the government's treatment of Blue Lake. They finally succeeded in regaining possession of the Lake and 48,000 acres around the lake in 1970.


1970 Dee Brown, Bury my Heart At Wounded Knee, published.


1972 "The Trail of Broken Treaties" AIM members and other Indian leaders organize Washington, D.C. protest to demand that the U.S. government recognize tribal rights to self-determination. While in Washington, Indians occupy BIA headquarters.


1973 AIM members and Lakota Sioux occupy the trading post at Wounded Knee Village to draw attention to problems on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.


1975 In response to the storm of Indian protests, "the Congress hereby recognizes the obligation of the United States to respond to the strong expression of the Indian people for self-determination by assuring maximum Indian participation in the direction of educational as well as other Federal services to Indian communities so as to render such services more responsive to the needs and desires of those communities."


1975 Two FBI agents are killed at Pine Ridge. Leonard Peltier, an AIM member, is later convicted of the killings and sent to federal prison.


1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Requiring federal agencies to analyze the impact of federal development on Native American sacred sites.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:HL1tSnldoOkJ:www.intervarsitynw.org/US%2520Native%2520American%2520Timeline.doc+native+american+land+acquisition+us+1850&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Are you ready to live up to your convictions?

[AP]

25. I don't support the guy, but I definitely support Z's anti-neoimperialism

And I should note that a story saying that a guy's salary increases from US$17 550 to US$4800 (a 400% increase in an economy suffering from 600% inflation) isn't exactly evidence of being a bad guy.

And if you want to hear Mugabe talk for himself about neoimperilism, here's a good place to start:

http://www.swans.com/library/art9/ankomah7.html

[BigBigBear]

7. Mugabe is a parasite

But until they find oil in Zimbabwe, I'd say the poeple are stuck with him.

[leesa]

8. Sounds like an American CEO!

[mobuto]

13. Actually, no

Americana CEOs receive absolutely obscene pay packages, totally out of proportion to their contribution to the company, but they have no job security whatsoever. If they don't produce 90-day returns for investors, the Board of Directors votes them out. Zimbabwe has no Board of Directors. The only man who can vote Robert Mugabe out is Robert Mugabe.

[D-Notice]

11. Reminds me of a quote

As they say on whatreallyhappened.com

"The last act of any regime is to loot the nation"

[gottaB]

15. perspective

Inflation is over 600%, but the Pres gives himself a 400% raise. In Harare maybe that's called a raise, in Washington, DC, they call that a pay cut.

Mugabe's compensation is more or less 230x the average Zimbabwean. Hmm. Or about $92,125. (Just Checked that here.)

Dick Cheney's cumulative annual compensation is like in the millions US (and most of it untaxed, btw). Should I feel better that only a portion of those funds are officially coming as a result of Cheney's official duties? Well I don't. I'm outraged, and I'm doubly outraged by the lack of transparency in the office of the VP, and quadrupally outraged by that quack of a Supreme Court Justice who flaunts their corruption and thumbs his noses at the citizens.

So why should I give two shillings for this story about Mr. Mugabe, who earns less than a US Senator?

:think:

[mobuto]

16. If President Bush earned 230x the average income

of an American family, he'd make nearly $9 million a year.

Moreover, US Presidential compensation is approved by a democratically elected legislature. Mugabe enjoys the arbitrary perks of one-man rule.

[Pert_UK]

18. Are you telling me that Bush isn't pulling in more than that....

through under-the-table dealings etc.?

Even if he isn't NOW, I'm prepared to bet that his friends in big business will see him amply remunerated for war-contracts and oil.....

P.

[mobuto]

19. Yes

Bush will have ample opportunities after January 20 to make real money. I'd be seriously surprised if he were on the take right now. He doesn't need money, he can wait. The last President I know of who was actually receiving bribes was Dwight Eisenhower - who received his ranch in Gettysburg, at zero cost, before he left office.

[AP]

27. He is on the take.

Look what he did with Korea. He stoked up the fear. Companies valuations dropped dramatically. Carlyle opened an office in Seol and started buying up undervalued properties. When things settle down in a year or two, Calrlyle will sell off those properties at a FAT profit. GWHB will die. And his share of those profits will pass to GWB as untaxed inheritance (thanks to a piece of legislation GWB signed into law).

If that isn't being on the take, then I don't know what is.

[gottaB]

23. abc

a. I believe Cheney has taken in close to 8 figures, but at the moment I can substantiate only about 5 million. Maybe we should talk net worth too.

b. No moreover. I'm angry that Cheney uses his office for private gain. That's not democracy. That's a shell game. In more virtuous times, his head would be in a basket along with Antonin Scalia's.

c. Zimbabwe's election, while not completely free and fair, were arguably fairer than what happened in Florida. This is not a rhetorical bluff. I do not believe that Bush/Cheney were fairly and freely elected. That said, I see the value in orderly transitions of government, I recognize that the courts weighed in, and that Democratic nominee stood down, that the Democrats in the Senate remained mute, and I therefore have a modicum of respect for the legitimacy of the Bush regime. Likewise, although I am far less acquainted with the facts in the case of Zimbabwe, I do believe that Mr. Mugabe and the ZANUPF are not completely out of favor with the people of Zimbabwe, and cannot be ousted without causing great social upheaval and suffering. For the time being, therefore, and for no special reason, I recognize his goverment as legitimate.

His $92,000 salary hardly seems imperious on the face of it, and by any standard it's not necessarily a sign of corruption.

On Edit: replaced "honest" with "virtuous"

[seemslikeadream]

28. Zimbabwe's Presidential Election March 2002

In Harare, huge numbers of voters rose early and queued in the darkness before dawn, some wrapped in blankets against the early morning chill. Some had been there through the night. As the day wore on, they waited patiently under grey skies, saying they were determined to vote, come what may.




Waiting to vote at a polling station in St Mary’s Community Hall in Chitungwiza constituency of the capital, Mazwachidi Kunashora, 25, an unemployed and articulate high school graduate, told allAfrica.com that he had been looking for a job since 1995 and would be voting for Tsvangirai. "Just look at me, I’m living from hand to mouth, wearing donated clothes. I am just reduced to begging, to being a destitute, a squatter who sleeps and feeds from the dustbin. And yet I’m called a son of Zimbabwe," said Kunashora. "Our present government is doing us rubbish, especially that man who says he is the president of this country ," Kunashora added with passion. "He is just a stupid man, you know, a monster. I will never vote for a monster to be my president, because he has killed my life, he has killed my mother’s life and my father’s life."



Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia and architect of UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence). He says 'the country' is 'in a bit of a mess' as he votes in the presidential election and says Mugabe must go so that Zimbabwe is no longer despised around the world. Says in his day, Rhodesia was the breadbasket of central and southern Africa (producing more than even South Africa) and that the farmers were the backbone of the economy.



By late on day two, voters lining up at Harare polling stations were tired but still determined to vote after many hours of waiting. Visiting polling stations around Harare, Tsvangirai concluded that the government, and Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, were deliberately using delaying tactics to limit the opposition vote. "Zanu-PF is now engaged in a last-ditch effort to stop people from voting it out of power, by ensuring that the voting process in MDC strongholds is slowed down," he told reporters.



For the opposition, and independent newspapers like the Financial Gazette, which had repeatedly accused the authorities of rigging the vote and intimidating the voters, the defeat of Morgan Tsvangirai provoked anger and disappointment.

http://allafrica.com/photoessay/2002_zim_elections/photo1.html

[gottaB]

46. that's a good photo essay

The selections you chose would seem to bolster an argument against the point I was making, but the collection as a whole gives a different impression because it includes photos of ZANUPF supporters.

[AP]

49. Yeah, it's always nice to see a picture of Ian Smith enjoying retirement..

...in Zimbabwe where he lives on a huge farm, thanks to Mugabe treating the guy like a human being.

It's funny to see a photo essay on the problems in Zimbabwe which includes a picture of Ian Smith walking free and looking healthy, and voicing his opinion on political matters.

[Judi Lynn]

50. Short Guardian article on Smith

....But at Oxford last week, in the civilised ambience of a Union debate, Smith found himself on trial for having failed to learn the lessons of history. Smith said he refused to apologise for atrocities committed while he held office. He said he had no regrets about the estimated 30,000 Zimbabweans killed during his rule. 'The more we killed, the happier we were. We were fighting terrorists.'

Smith brushed off last week's threat by Mugabe to put him on trial for 'genocide and atrocities' committed durning the war of liberation in the Seventies. He told The Observer: 'I'm happy about it. I'd come to him, because I've got nothing to apologise for. He's the only one who should be concerned about violations of human rights.'

Smith, who ruled Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, for 15 years, and once ran on a ticket for a 'whiter, brighter Rhodesia', proposed the motion: 'African leaders put power before their people.'

A skeletal 81-year-old, he used his slot on the debating floor to deliver a lecture criticised as having less to do with the debate than being a 'history lesson' - denouncing Mugabe as a dictator while looking back on his regime with rose-tinted glasses.
(snip/...)

[seemslikeadream]

54. Atrocities to the left of me atrocities to the right - stuck in the middle

Nkala challenges Mugabe over 5 Brigade atrocities
The Daily News
December 13, 2000

BACK to Archive
Bulawayo – Former Defence Minister Enos Nkala has again called for an inquiry into the atrocities committed by government forces in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in the early 1980s. He also repeated his call that civilians killed and maimed between 1982 and 1985, when the 5 Brigade, commonly referred to as Gukurahundi, was sent into the region to crush mainly ex-Zipra dissidents, the military wing of Zapu during the liberation war, be compensated.
The government has since admitted that its forces committed atrocities during the anti-dissident campaign with President Mugabe, while speaking at the burial of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo in July, admitting the atrocities were "an act of madness". Speaking at a National Development Assembly (NDA) meeting in Bulawayo, Nkala urged the government to set up a commission, along the lines of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, to probe the atrocities. The NDA meeting had been called to discuss economic development in Matabeleland. At its conclusion, Mutumwa Mawere, the NDA chairman, said the meeting had failed to come up with a clear-cut position after a lot of bickering.

Nkala said he wanted a platform where he, Mugabe, the Minister of State Security during the Matabeleland uprising, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and Sydney Sekeramayi, a later Minister of State Security, would testify as to who directed the 5 Brigade operations against dissidents in Matabeleland and the Midlands. Over 30 000 people were killed in the operations. Nkala, who has called for an inquiry into the atrocities and challenged Mugabe, Mnangagwa and Sekeramayi to a public debate on the issue several times before, was repeatedly booed during his presentation. "If I am found guilty, I should be sent to prison or have my head cut off, and the same should apply to Mugabe, Mnangagwa and Sekeramayi," Nkala said.

http://www.mdczimbabwe.org/archivemat/other/gukurah/dnews001213txt.htm

Panorama reveals what British Government knew about Mugabe’s worst crimes
Panorama - Mugabe: The Price of Silence (BBC ONE, 10.15pm, Sunday 10 March) reveals that nearly 20 years ago Britain knew about crimes against humanity committed by Robert Mugabe but failed to act decisively to try and stop them.



In 1983 and 1984 a campaign by Mugabe’s government to crush political opposition in Matabeleland led to the slaughter of thousands of civilians with thousands more beaten and tortured.



Despite a continuing and significant interest in Zimbabwe after independence in 1980, Britain did not confront Mr Mugabe for these crimes, and continued to do business with his most ruthless associate, Perence Shiri, the military commander behind the atrocities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/03_march/10/panoramamugabe.shtml

Human Rights
Mugabe's party held liable for atrocities in US court

A United States Federal Court in Manhattan, New York City has held that the ruling party of Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF, is liable for human rights abuses including beatings, torture, intimidation and extra judicial killings in the run-up to the country's June 2000 parliamentary election.

This case offers a unique and potentially precedent-setting finding of liability against a foreign political party for human rights violations.
According to one of the American lawyers working on the case: 'Based on prior judgments, we believe that very substantial damages, in the tens of millions of US dollars, are warranted.' The amount of the award, however sits with the magistrate judge who will decide on the basis of the written submissions of the plaintiffs and live, eye-witness testimony which will be presented on Thursday, April 25, 2002. Several plaintiffs will be present in the U.S. District Courthouse to give first-hand testimony about the human rights abuses they have suffered and witnessed.
The plaintiffs testifying on April 25 include family members of individuals who were attacked, beaten, tortured and killed by ZANU-PF.
The witnesses include Adella Chiminya, whose husband, as an opposition party activist, was doused with fuel and burned in the run-up to the parliamentary election in June 2000; Elliot Pfebve, executive committee member of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) who stood as a candidate opposing ZANU PF in the same election and whose brother, in a case of mistaken identity, was assassinated by ZANU PF supporters; and Sanderson Makombe, an eyewitness to murder. The witnesses will describe their personal experiences and the organized campaign of terror designed to intimidate all of ZANU-PF's political opposition through harassment, physical attacks, and the assassination of targeted
individuals.
http://www.legalbrief.co.za/view_1.php?artnum=5274

Mugabe's friends siphon off nine tenths of EU aid to Zimbabwe's poor
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 29/02/2004)


Some of Robert Mugabe's closest allies have creamed off more than £100 million in British and European Union aid which was intended to tackle AIDS and poverty in Zimbabwe.






Internal EU documents seen by The Telegraph show that 89 per cent of all its aid to Zimbabwe disappears into the coffers of aides of President Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF Party. Only 11 per cent is spent on the humanitarian purposes for which it is intended.

The disclosure has prompted Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, to launch an official investigation into the alleged theft. Despite the imposition of sanctions in 2001, the EU has provided €30 million in aid to Zimbabwe since then. Britain has paid a further £62 million on top of the EU figure, distributed via the EU, while other European countries have also handed over additional amounts, taking the total received via the EU to about £115 million.

This money is provided for humanitarian purposes and, under EU sanctions, cannot be used directly by the Zimbabwean government or for political purposes. An EU audit has found, however, that the majority of it has been channelled through charities, government-linked agencies and businesses owned by members of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. The audit report, which assesses the use of the aid budget for 2002, states that Zimbabwean organisations "reduced the value of the EU resources by 89 per cent, to the detriment of the people".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/29/wzim29.xml

[AP]

68. I don't think many people are surprised that there was...

...a civil war in Zimbabwe after Ian Smith was defeated. The same think happened in India, and Rwanda and elsewhere. It's all part of the way postcolonialism works.

As for the lawsuit -- it was undefeneded, iirc. It was a default judgment. Zanu-PF didn't even make an appearance. No matter what the plaintiff argued, the judge would have found for them if there was no response filed by the defendant.

My opinion of the Telegraph article is below.

[Judi Lynn]

55. Small oversight!

Forgot the link to the article on Ian Smith:
Ian Smith: 'The more we killed, the happier we were'


http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,389486,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm including the following:

26 IAN SMITH
Prime Minister of Rhodesia
Ian Smith promised the whites who elected him Prime Minister of Rhodesia in 1962: "If in my lifetime we have an African nationalist government in power ... then we have failed in the policy I believe in." Smith planned to keep his promise. To choke out bands of black guerrilla fighters, Smith rationed food for Africans, whom he believed were feeding the guerrillas. This cruel measure only served to starve the already undernourished black population. Studies found that over 90% of Rhodesia's black children were malnourished and nutritional deficiencies were the major cause of infant death. Smith rounded up blacks into concentration camps he called "protective villages." Believing that ignorant people were less likely to revolt, he cut funding for black education, spending $5.00 on each black child compared to $80.00 on each white child. His all white Parliament passed a law protecting officials who took actions for the suppression of "terrorism," enabling the police and military to commit atrocities to "suppress terrorism".

An international trade boycott against Rhodesia arose, but while the U.S. publicly condemned the government, it continued to do business there. In 1971, President Nixon lifted the chrome embargo against Rhodesia at a time when there was a surplus of chrome in the U.S. Blacks were eventually given the right to vote for some officials, but the opposition to Smith's government grew so strong that he was ultimately forced to renege on his campaign promise. In 1979, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, a country primarily ruled by blacks.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Africa.html

[AP]

67. And he walks free and people think his opinion on Zimbawean

politics is worth repeating in a photo essay!

[Pert_UK]

17. Performance related pay........

Well, 400% more instability, starvation, repression, murder etc. etc. etc.

Mugabe is one of the most evil leaders in the world today, yet seems to be largely getting away with by shouting "Colonial oppression" at every criticism, sending people running afraid of being called racists.

I don't care what colour or race he is - he's a c*nt.

[seemslikeadream]

20. Double Standards on Human Rights?

Observations on the Commonwealth Summit
By Carina Tertsakian

Published in New Statesman

8 December 2003

The Queen, Tony Blair and 50 other prime ministers and presidents are flying into the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for the Commonwealth summit. There will be no place for Robert Mugabe at the summit table. Zimbabwe, suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002, was not invited. So before they start their meetings, perhaps the Commonwealth leaders should look around their host country, which, among other things, shelters Liberia's ex-president Charles Taylor, indicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.



When people demonstrated against increased fuel prices, a senior police official ordered that they be shot on sight if they did not disperse within half an hour. Police went on to kill at least a dozen people. They beat a photographer, telling him: 'This is for the pictures you people take!'


So what's the difference between Nigeria and Zimbabwe? The former produces large amounts of oil and, with more than 50 million Muslims, counts as a valuable ally in the 'war against terrorism'.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/08/nigeri7282.htm

Zimbabwe: Food Used as Political Weapon

Government, Donors Must Halt Discrimination

(New York, October 24, 2003) - Zimbabwean authorities discriminate against perceived political opponents by denying them access to food programs, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Some international relief agencies in Zimbabwe fail to ensure that access to food is based on need alone and is not biased by domestic or international political concerns.

"Select groups of people are being denied access to food. This is a human rights violation as serious as arbitrary imprisonment or torture."
Peter Takirambudde
Executive Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch


The 51-page report, "Not Eligible: The Politicization of Food in Zimbabwe," documents how food is denied to suspected supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party and to residents of former commercial farms resettled under the country's "fast-track" land reform program. The report examines the widespread politicization of the government's subsidized grain program, managed by the Grain Marketing Board, as well as the far less extensive manipulation of international food aid.

According to the report, government authorities and party officials of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) manipulate the supply and distribution of government-subsidized grain and the registration of recipients for international food aid. Though international aid agencies, including the World Food Programme, have gone to great lengths to prevent interference, this kind of manipulation remains a problem. International aid agencies must devote greater resources and attention to preventing the manipulation of recipient lists. The report also examines international community's tacit complicity in preventing food from reaching former commercial farm areas resettled under land reform.

"Select groups of people are being denied access to food," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "This is a human rights violation as serious as arbitrary imprisonment or torture."

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/10/zimbabwe102403.htm

Not Eligible:

The Politicization of Food in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean authorities discriminate against perceived political opponents by denying them access to food programs. International relief agencies in Zimbabwe fail to ensure that access to food is based on need alone and is not biased by domestic or international political concerns. This 51-page report documents how food is denied to suspected supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party and to residents of former commercial farms resettled under the country's "fast-track" land reform program. The report examines the widespread politicization of the government's subsidized grain program, managed by the Grain Marketing Board, as well as the far less extensive manipulation of international food aid. According to the report, government authorities and party officials of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) manipulate the supply and distribution of government-subsidized grain and the registration of recipients for international food aid. International aid agencies must devote greater resources and attention to preventing the manipulation of recipient lists. The report also examines international community's tacit complicity in preventing food from reaching former commercial farm areas resettled under land reform.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/zimbabwe1003/


Rights Conditions Decline in Zimbabwe

(New York, June 9, 2003) Human rights conditions have deteriorated markedly in Zimbabwe over the last few months, Human Rights Watch said in a new briefing paper published today.



The briefing paper, "Under a Shadow: Civil and Political Rights in Zimbabwe," details the government's policy of repression and the harassment of opposition party members by state institutions and supporters of the ruling party. The direct involvement of ranking government officials and state security forces marks a new and worrisome trend in Zimbabwe's ongoing political crisis.
"Not only have the army and police personnel failed to protect people from human rights abuses, but they are now carrying out abuses themselves," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. "In addition, recent legislation has drastically curtailed citizens' rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association."

http://hrw.org/press/2003/06/zimbabwe060903.htm

Under a Shadow: Civil and Political Rights in Zimbabwe
This background briefing, based on over three weeks of research by Human Rights Watch, finds that Zimbabwe has suffered a serious breakdown in law and order, resulting in major violations of human rights. This environment has been created largely by actions of the ranking government officials and state security forces. State-sponsored violence and repression have expanded their scope both geographically and in terms of targets over the past year. The political violence endemic in the rural areas since 2000 has now become common in urban centers, and those targeted now include non-political actors, including civic organizations and church leaders.

http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/zimbabwe060603.htm



Conical Tower, Great Zimbabwe
Take a close look at the backside cover of Bob Marley's album "Survival". You will find a picture of the conical tower, in the Great Enclosure section of Great Zimbabwe, the only difference being that the trees were shorter then and that Dumi and I weren't on that picture.
The Great Enclosure probably was the palace of a king. The function of the conical tower is as yet unknown. There are no doors or windows in it and its contents is unknown. Joe Wein

[mobuto]

21. Interesting piece

Nigeria is a crazy corrupt country with a great many problems, and its long been one of the world's best examples of misrule. But it does now, finally, have a nascent democracy. Zimbabwe doesn't. That's a crucial distinction.

[seemslikeadream]

24. Police Raid Community Radio Station, Civic Organisation, Arrests And Quest

Police Raid Community Radio Station, Civic Organisation, Arrests And Questions Workers


March 29, 2004
Posted to the web March 30, 2004


On March 25 and 26 2004, Police in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, raided the offices of Radio Dialogue - a community radio station that is based in the city - and arrested several staff members.

Sharon Sithole the human resources officer at the station told the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Zimbabwe that five police officers came to the station in the morning and asked for Father Nigel Johnson, the station manager who was away in South Africa on business. The officers then produced a search warrant which, according to Sithole, stated that police had reason to believe that Father Johnson was in possession of subversive material. The warrant was to search the Radio Dialogue offices and Father Johnson's private home. The officers proceeded to search the eight offices and two studios and took away some documents. They also recorded the details of the station's 17 employees.


Sithole confirmed that the officers questioned her about the link between Radio Dialogue and Bulawayo Agenda, a local initiative that organises public meetings where Bulawayo residents discuss topical issues of concern in the city. In the afternoon, the officers went to Bulawayo Agenda offices where they also took away some documents and the secretary/bookkeeper for questioning.

That same evening they contacted Sithole on her mobile phone and told her to report for questioning at the Central Police Station. They went to pick her up from her home in Barham Green and took her to the Central Police Station where she was questioned for nearly two hours before being released.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200403300010.html

[AP]

29. Here's something to think about:

The CIA has said that they will be spending millions to organize the opposition in Zimbabwe.

The CIA's number one expenditure is on 'journalism.'

Say that this is a radio station financed by the CIA to encourage hostility to the government. How would you feel about this if that's what the subject matter of this warrant revealed?

Does the government have a legitimate interest in seizing material which might prove that CIA funding is behind the station operations?

[seemslikeadream]

30. Our government is always on two sides of the issue

depending on what day it is.

Saddam - not Saddam

Noreiga - not Noreiga

Aristide - not Aristide

I could go on

Somehow I don't think Father Johnson is CIA. I could be wrong.

[AP]

31. But on what are you basing your conclusion?

It's very possible that Father Johnson is being funded by the CIA.

Furthermore, I'm not sure when the US has been on the side of an anti-neoliberal.

[mobuto]

32. Its very possible that everybody's being funded by the CIA

What you're doing is excusing the destruction of all political opposition to Mr. Mugabe, simply because its "possible" that the CIA may be involved.

Its also possible that Father Johnson is a Bukharanite or a Menshevik or a Trotskyite or a Kulak or a wrecker. We've heard all this crap before.

[AP]

34. I'm not making an argument that it's CIA funded.

I'm asking people how'd they feel about it if it were.

Do you think a country has a right to investigate this sort of thing if, SAY, they had a good reason to believe that it was a CIA front operation.

It's a HYPOTHETICAL question.

[seemslikeadream]

33. I said I could be wrong

I meant it. I don't know from anti-neoliberal. My main thoughts are the children who are played like fleas on a dog. Anti-liberal or no anti-liberal!





IOM's Dr. Ernest Taylor registers a slave master who exploits nine slave children.
c5c4.jpg

[AP]

35. Those kids are going to be saved faster...

...if these countries exit post-colonialism and beat back neoliberalism.

It's probably worth the effort to figure out what neoliberalims does to these economices and societies if you care about the children.

[seemslikeadream]

36. Those children will never be saved

they will die first.

[AP]

37. Then why care at all?

[seemslikeadream]

38. A person must testify to what he knows to be true

Maria, a mother of three, lost her arm defending her children in Nizi, Eastern Congo. She says soldiers ate flesh from the arm after they had amputated it.



Immaculate, 32, in Drodro hospital. She was attacked by Lendu forces and now waits for treatment from locals who have no medical supplies. Bandages were recovered from the ground after looting and are being rewashed to be reused.

[AP]

39. Then what you need to know the truth about is the politics and economics

of Africa, because that's what creates societies in which things like this happen.

[seemslikeadream]

40. There is little truth in politics

Gravediggers at work in Kinshasa's largest cemetery, where there are more than 50 burials per day. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 2 million people have died since 1996 as a result of violence, starvation, and lack of access to basic health care.

[AP]

41. If you don't know it, maybe you shouldn't be testifying to it?

If you think politics and neocolonialism and neoliberalism has anything to do with those pictures, then I don't know what you're trying to do.

[seemslikeadream]

42. Don't put words in my mouth

All I said was there was little truth in politics

[AP]

43. So it was a meaningless platitude? Politics has everything to do with

what those picutures are reflecting.

[seemslikeadream]

44. And no matter what side your on

the rape of Africa will continue. You can intellectualize all you want.

G - gold
o - oil
d - drugs or diamonds




last two pictures are from Iraq

[AP]

45. Um, not really.

A little democracy, and spreading wealth down an out rather than up and to NYC, Antwerp, London, and Houston, will stop the BS. And ending neoliberalism in Africa is the way to get there. (Why do you think Africans aren't capable of having this?)

[AP]

22. This is still a pay cut. The ZWD has lost about 6/7th of its value --

-- which the article states (the inflaction statistic).

[Judi Lynn]

47. AP, there's just no substitute for reading.

I'm ALWAYS sure you've DONE your homework on subjects you discuss.

There's no way a photo can explain to you what the event is, how it happened, why it happened, what has happened previously, and what is likely to happen in the future.

You need bow to no one in doing your homework, and bringing a clear view to a conversation.

As noted, others will bring charges of "apologists," "appeasers," "lovers," and always apply them in the very ways the 1950's charges of "commie," and "commie sympathizer" (commie lite?) were hurled at others by people who live through slogan level, cartoon explanations of the world.

Real investment of time and intelligence long enough to understand anything requires a maturity and discipline we don't see a lot! Most people can't focus accurately, maybe being raised with tv versions of human events exclusively, and in some cases, predisposed to favor a more selfish, less enlightened point of view.

[bullimiami]

51. perspective

i checked the exchange rate. From what I see the Z dollar is worth 4014 usd.
So Mugabes salary is like 18,000 USD/yr.

At that rate I think he will be buying interest into Carlyle any day.

The black population of Zimbabwe is poor as dirt so the average salary doesnt say much.

Bush's salary in Zimbabwe would be 1,605,600,000
Thats billion. He would own the whole country.

Its all relative.

[Judi Lynn]

53. bullimiami, now that's INTERESTING!

Details matter, don't they?

Welcome to DU! :hi: :hi: :hi:

[seemslikeadream]

57. Everybody makes a little money on the side also

Mugabe's friends siphon off nine tenths of EU aid to Zimbabwe's poor
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 29/02/2004)


Some of Robert Mugabe's closest allies have creamed off more than £100 million in British and European Union aid which was intended to tackle AIDS and poverty in Zimbabwe.

Internal EU documents seen by The Telegraph show that 89 per cent of all its aid to Zimbabwe disappears into the coffers of aides of President Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF Party. Only 11 per cent is spent on the humanitarian purposes for which it is intended.

The disclosure has prompted Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, to launch an official investigation into the alleged theft. Despite the imposition of sanctions in 2001, the EU has provided €30 million in aid to Zimbabwe since then. Britain has paid a further £62 million on top of the EU figure, distributed via the EU, while other European countries have also handed over additional amounts, taking the total received via the EU to about £115 million.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/29/wzim29.xml

[AP]

66. This report is based on secret documents, it doesn't name the corps

involved, it quotes a Tory for its zinger line, and it's published in the Telegraph, which means it's suspect from top to bottom.

[Judi Lynn]

69. I checked one of the photos and got an "allAfrica.com" address

At the allAfrica.com address, I saw their "executive team" has two people of their six members who are with the "Council of Foreign Relations." I've seen a few journalists, one with "U.S.News & World Report," I had strange reservations about after reading some of their articles which seemed to truly be pitching a political point over, around and through the newsstory, and found they were with this group, too.


Here's an interesting quip:

"The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press, for the press rules the mind of the people." -- Cecil Rhodes, 1877
(snip)

Journalists and the Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations has been the most powerful private organization in U.S. foreign policy since it began in 1921. While priding itself on non-partisanship and on recent efforts to recruit minorities, women, and youth (under 35), CFR's 3200 members mainly reflect the resources needed by the ruling class to maintain their power. Don't call them if you want to join; they call you. And don't wait for a call unless you have big money, national security expertise, CIA experience, a political constituency, or clout with the media. CFR publishes the prestigious journal "Foreign Affairs" as well as a number of books and reports. Another major activity is to organize closed meetings for their members with assorted world leaders. Everyone feels free to share views and information about current world events, primarily because CFR has strict confidentiality rules and keeps its records locked up for 25 years.

A blue-ribbon panel of the Council on Foreign Relations suggested in 1996 that the CIA be freed from some policy constraints on covert operations, such as the use of journalists and clergy as cover. Normally this would be laughable, because almost every journalist who's ever been abroad knows how dangerous this can be if he's trying to develop sources. But no one was laughing, because CFR "suggestions" since 1921 have usually become official policy within a few years.
(snip)

http://radiobergen.org/powergame/cfr.html

Really is depressing, isn't it? Yikes.

[seemslikeadream]

70. Why did you have to check the photo?

I posted the link

[AP]

72. If I could venture a guess: becuase as soon as you see someone promoting

Ian Smith's version of the world, it's probably a good idea to look into who's behind disseminating that information.

[seemslikeadream]

74. I wasn't speaking to you but this is what I asked

Why did you have to check the photo?

I posted the link

There was no need to go to the photo to find where it came from I posted the link.

[Judi Lynn]

76. I was looking for a way to find out more about the photo

which had a caption claiming the man in the photo was a slaver who controlled nine child slaves.

I wondered how it was this was known to be true about that man and those children.

If you'll note, it's in a "grouping" of two photos, with NO link.

We've been around enough to know we can be had without looking for sources.

[Judi Lynn]

75. You've got THAT right.

So much gets passed over on us since most of us haven't been to these places, and will swallow anything, and support god knows what mayhem against them, should they decide upon a little "regime change," unless we start finding out what we're being fed.

Our only salvation is education, awareness, consciousness. It should feel like a need, actually, and we should be far less like sitting ducks.

The hardest thing in the world to do is move some people to start thinking, but if they don't, they're going to live believing actual nonsense a group of people sat together and created, rather than the true story. They can learn what the true story if they invest time, and effort.

It's like "don't take my word for it, get busy and start reading, yourself," right?

[AP]

80. Not only that, but people tend to have a paradigm for understanding

these issues which have been formed by ignorance and racism.

So, when we see something superficial, we try to fit it within the paradigm we already have -- eg, everything that happens in Africa is "tribal" and "Black-on-Black" violence means they're not capable of governing themselves.

It takes a little effort to figure out if those old paradigms are even founded on reality. They aren't.

[AP]

71. The pictures from the photo-essay including the picture of Ian Smith...

...are from allAfrica.com.

If Seemslikeadream is reading this, I'm curious: How'd you find those pictures? Did they come up in a google search?

[Judi Lynn]

73. Look at this odd article being carried in allAfrica.com

Tell me, don't you think it's a bit odd for an article like THIS to be printed in just any publication?

I am a strong proponent of MEPI and MCA as new ways to deal with longstanding challenges, but I want to take this opportunity to give my strongest endorsement to yet another Presidential initiative to advance human rights, and that is the proposed doubling of the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Where human rights and democracy have been advanced, the NED has been involved. From Nicaragua to Poland to Serbia to Georgia, the Endowment and its family members -- of which I was once a proud part -- have been cited repeatedly by victorious democrats as making the difference. Adding to NED's capabilities would be money well spent.

Within the State Department, other efforts to remedy problems outlined in the Country Reports have intensified. Thanks to strong Congressional and State Department support, the Human Rights and Democracy Fund (HRDF) within my own bureau has tripled in size over the past 2 years. When our attitudes on democracy in the Middle East changed immediately after September 11th, HRDF, designed to be flexible and innovative, enabled us to put our money where our mouth was. As our troops arrived in Central Asia on their way to Afghanistan in late 2001, HRDF ensured that they were accompanied by American values and we mounted an unprecedented effort to support the development of representative political parties, human rights organizations and independent media. And HRDF has allowed us to begin, for the first time, a substantial U.S. government assistance program in China to advance human rights awareness and support legal and electoral reform.

Through HRDF and other mechanisms, we have also worked more actively to contribute to the promotion of freedom in places like Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Belarus. These efforts to advance freedom have often been strengthened by partnerships we have nurtured with other members of the Community of Democracies, a growing organization composed mainly of nations that over the past quarter century have made the transition from dictatorship to democracy.
(snip/...)

http://allafrica.com/stories/200403160004.html

What kind of site are they running, anyway? Don't answer that!

[AP]

81. I'll ask the question again:

Seemslikeadream, how DID you find this website?!?!?!

[Judi Lynn]

77. Published by the same man who believes Richard Perle is a great author

who should write articles everyone should read.

Can you imagine? Good grief.

As "law and order" as arch-conservative Telegraph owner Conrad Black is, he wasn't too proud to pilfer funds from his Hollinger fund, using it as one giant piggy bank, and getting in very deep trouble.

[zebrathirtythree]

61. Was it the Chavez endorsment that boosted him?

Can I get Hugo to call my boss and get me a raise too?

[w4rma]

63. George W. Bush gave himself a raise, also: from $200K to $400K. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

78. You left out the third paragraph from the iafrica.com story

(snip)
ZIMBABWE
Mugabe gets 400% pay hike
Posted Sun, 28 Mar 2004

The government nearly quadrupled President Robert Mugabe's official salary and backdated the increase to January 1, the state Herald newspaper reported on Saturday.

Mugabe's general allowances for housing and living expenses were doubled, according to an official government notice issued in The Herald.

The notice said Mugabe's annual salary was increased to Z$73.7-million (US$17 550), from Z$20.2-million (US$4800).

Previous large pay increases for Mugabe and his ministers have been criticised as Zimbabwe faces its worst economic crisis since its 1980 independence from Britain. About 70 percent of the 12.5 million population is living in poverty.
(snip)

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/312365.htm

American DU readers need to know what kind of dollars we're talking about here.

How would you compare the salary of any U.S. President to the salary of those in the U.S. living in poverty?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is an article which says:

MUGABE TREBLES HIS PAY Mar 28 2004

DICTATOR Robert Mugabe's pay has more than trebled his own pay - as millions of Zimbabweans face record unemployment and sky-high food prices.

The 80-year-old president's annual salary rose 265 per cent to £50,500, it was revealed yesterday. At the same time his allowances for living expenses doubled to £1,925.

The huge increase comes in the wake of a series of strikes by state workers who say pay rises offered by Mugabe's government have not matched soaring living costs.
(snip)

Mugabe's wife Grace, 40, is known for a lavish lifestyle with regular shopping trips overseas. She spent £75,000 in two hours in Paris when her husband attended a summit.
(snip/)

http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?x138586977&">~~~~ link ~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So one article has him receiving 400% of his salary, another sees it as "trebling" his former salary.

Notice the use of perception-molding wording, rather than actually reporting straight news.

Quite a bit of effort expended to tell people what to think.

On edit:

I, like someone who pointed it out earlier, have not claimed any affection for Mugabe, either. I simply don't like getting emotionally charged material thrown at me without FULL, trustworthy sources revealed.

We've had more than enough half-truths, and one/sixteenth truths from certain people who have pushed propaganda from our State Department, like Otto Reich, or from any of the organizations which are funded behind our backs, using our tax dollars, to create the same propaganda which is then handed to us, in lieu of the truth we expect to find.

[JohnLocke]

79. Kick (nt).

[Undemcided]

83. Way to go comrade Mugabe!

We'll show those imperialists how to run things.
</sarcasm>