RIP Ian Smith

[Troll]

Any country can do well as long as the western countries don't try to spread their influence and try to impose how things should be done.

You mean like imposing the rule of law, accountability of leaders, education, human rights,modern health service, democracy, sanitation, water infrastructure roads,industrial infrastructure, modern agricultural practices?

So as long as we leave them to run themselves along tribal lines where the chief and cronies treat the country as their personal piggy bank, everything is OK?

[Troll]

PS I was born in Africa. I know of what I speak. Troll, you have no fliping idea.

fled from the utopia eh?

[Churchill]

I take it you won't be posting RIP Mandela?

Yup, some time soon I hope!

[Troll]

Interesting ..

As the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Mr. Ian Smith, declared: “We were never beaten by our enemies, we were betrayed by our friends.”

In the First and the Second World Wars, and in the Malayan Conflict, Rhodesia had provided more men, percentage to their population, than any other part of the British Empire and Commonwealth to fight for the West.

[Troll]

That's not very nice is it?

However, when Rhodesia was targeted by Soviet and Red Chinese trained and supported revolutionaries, their British, Canadian, Australian and American allies not only placed economic sanctions on Rhodesia, but even channeled funds towards the very terrorists who were murdering their people.

It is often forgotten that Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF revolutionaries received United Nations (UN) funding despite its terrorist record of murdering missionaries, bayonneting babies, burning to death congregations of Christians in their church buildings, ambushing Red Cross ambulances,
exploding bombs in public streets, placing landmines in farm roads, and the cold-blooded murder of thousands of unarmed civilians. In fact, the World Council of Churches (WCC) also channeled church funds to these Marxists who were murdering missionaries and burning churches.

[Troll]

Sadly true...

Now, the results of US State Department and British Foreign Office policy in the 1970’s continues to wreck havoc on the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe. We need to remember that initially Robert Mugabe was held in very high regard by the West. He was knighted by the Queen of England, given official visits to the United States and Britain, and many lifted him up as an ideal example of a wise and moderate African leader. Some even hailed Mugabe as “a modern day messiah.”

When Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Marxist revolutionaries were handed power in Zimbabwe / Rhodesia, Bishop Tutu, of the South African Council of Churches, declared that this was: “The arrival of the Kingdom of God in Zimbabwe!” (Ecunews Bulletin, 11/1980).

After the war came to an end and a peaceful settlement was enforced by Britain, optimism was high for Zimbabwe. Foreign aid from Britain, America and the European Union flooded the country. Today, a quarter of a century later, that once prosperous and productive nation has been impoverished and devastated.

[Troll]

How sad...

In the light of the extraordinary international economic and military campaign to bring down Rhodesia and replace it with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe it is most enlightening to read the recent speech by the American Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell (delivered 2 November, 2005 at Africa University in Mutare):

“…The growing collapse of the Zimbabwean economy. Not too long ago, Zimbabwe had a vibrant and diversified economy. It was a land of great hope and optimism in Africa…A symbol for the rest of the world of what Africa could become. Today, as you know, it is a country in deep crisis. I know of no other example in the world of an economy that, in times of peace, has contracted so precipitously in the course of six years…Real GDP fell by 30% from 1997 to 2003…inflation is…triple digits and clearly on the rise. If the government continues to print money to meet its obligations it could well drive inflation into quadruple digits by years end.

[Troll]

Still... it's their mess, let them sort it out

“Manufacturing has shrunk by 51% since 1997 and exports have fallen by half in the last four years…Foreign direct investment has evaporated from UD$444 million in 1998 to UD$9 million in 2004. Agricultural production – the mainstay of the economy – has collapsed under the violent implementation of…badly thought through land reform. The government…have continued to expropriate farms without compensation and to distribute these farms in a non-transparent manner to ruling party insiders…not only commercial farm owners have been affected. This mis-guided and ill-fated land grab also displaced over a million farm workers and their family members

[xoggoth]

In favour of letting people evolve their own cultures in principle but (and this is one of the few sensible things Blair ever said) I am not sure that in today's world we can afford to just ignore failing states because we cannot insulate ourselves from the failures. Refugees, illegal migrants, demands by charities and cynical manipulation of the conflicts by other powers and creeds all effect us.

If we are obliged to help, we also have a right to interfere and say how any aid we supply is used. Rights and duties.

[TheFaQQer]

You mean like imposing the rule of law, accountability of leaders, education, human rights,modern health service, democracy, sanitation, water infrastructure roads,industrial infrastructure, modern agricultural practices?

But what have the Romans ever done for us?