Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Zimbabwe

I just cannot understand what I am seeing here.

In an odd change in pace, the roles between the anti-imperialists and pro-imperialists have switched. Typically, 122 people dieing is mentioned once or twice by the Western media, especially if those 122 people were Muslims or leftists, but when those 122 people are pro-West it's a downright travesty and someone needs to be punished. It is so frustrating to look at how unbalanced this world is, when the lives of the right is so much more important than the lives of the left. Do we even have a chance in a world ruled by NATO and the UN?

Robert Mugabe has been president of Zimbabwe since the 1980s when he overthrew the oppressive white-minority dictatorship left over from British colonialism. To the people in Zimbabwe and around Africa, he's a symbol of independence and a hero to many. To the people in the West and anyone allied with them, he's a dictator who needs to be overthrown and replaced with a more Western friendly leader.

In the 1990s, many of the youths and veterans of the war of independence began to demand that the white-owned land should be redistributed to the Zimbabweans. Their demands were violent and they clashed with Mugabe, who was their leader during the independence. At the time, the land was slowly being redistributed via the "willing buyer, willing seller" program in which the UK helped pay the white landowners for their land at a price they were willing to accept, while Zimbabwe covers the rest. In 1999, the entire situation changed, Tony Blaire's government claimed that they were a "new government" and they no longer had colonial interests in Zimbabwe and therefore they were discontinuing the "willing buyer, willing seller" program.

As a result, land was being redistributed even slower than it had been throughout the 1990s. With tensions mounting, Mugabe drafted a new constitution which allowed for the government to seize land without compensation or permission. However the new constitution was defeated 55% to 45% in a referendum due to the opposition, the MDC, ability to mobilize their voters in urban areas.

Days later, the war veterans who were earlier fighting against Mugabe began to occupy the large corporate farms, taking the land by force. It was at this point that the Western funded and supported candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, began his campaign to unseat Mugabe as president. In the 2002 elections, Mugabe defeated Tsvangirai which was deemed free and fair by African observers. The West, however, was holding to their guns that he was still a dictator. After the election, he began to put into action the land redistribution, which had been a major issue during the 2002 elections. By 2005, the Zimbabwe parliament passed an amendment to the constitution allowing for the nationalization of white-owned corporate farmland.

In response to the threat of the nationalization of white-owned corporate farms, the United States passed the "Zimbabwe Democracy Act" in 2001, which despite the name had nothing to do with democracy. What it the act did do was make it impossible for Zimbabwe to obtain any loans from the IMF or World Bank in addition to heavy sanctions placed on the country. The West likes to claim these sanctions only hurt Mugabe, however in reality they made it impossible for small farmers to obtain fuel, seeds and fertilizer. United States former democrat, Cynthia McKinney had this to say with regards to the Zimbabwe Demockracy Act as it was being passed:

On the day the House of Representatives passed the bill (Tuesday, 4 December 2001), a fuming Cynthia McKinney, one of the few African-American politicians in Congress at the time to speak against the bill, stood on the floor of the House, and told the assembled gentlemen and women:

“Mr Speaker,” she said, “at the International Relations Committee meeting on 28 November 2001, which considered the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act 2001, I asked a question of my colleagues who were vociferously supporting this misdirected piece of legislation: ‘Can anyone explain how the people in question who now have the land in question in Zimbabwe got title to the land?’

“My query was met with a deafening silence. Those who knew did not want to admit the truth and those who didn’t know should have known – that the land was stolen from the indigenous peoples through the British South Africa Company and any ‘titles’ to it were illegal and invalid.

“Whatever the reason for their silence, the answer to this question is the unspoken but real reason for why the United States Congress is now concentrating its time and resources on squeezing an economically-devastated African state under the hypocritical guise of providing a ‘transition to democracy’. Zimbabwe is Africa’s second-longest stable democracy. It is multi-party. It had elections last year [2000] where the opposition, Movement for Democratic Change, won over 50 seats in the parliament. It has an opposition press which vigorously criticizes the government and governing party. It has an independent judiciary which issues decisions contrary to the wishes of the governing party. Zimbabwe is not without troubles, but neither is the United States. I have not heard anyone proposing a United States Democracy Act following last year’s [2000] presidential electoral debacle. And if a foreign country were to pass legislation calling for a United States democracy Act which provided funding for United States opposition parties under the figleaf of ‘voter education’, this body [Congress] and this country would not stand for it.

“There are many de jure and de facto one-party states in the world which are the recipients of support of the United States government. They are not the subject of congressional legislative sanctions.

“To any honest observer, Zimbabwe’s sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong, whose resolution has been too long overdue – to return its land to its people. The Zimbabwean government has said that a situation where 2% of the population owns 85% of the best land is untenable. Those who presently own more than one farm will no longer be able to do so.

“When we get right down to it, this legislation is nothing more than a formal declaration of United States complicity in a programme to maintain white-skin privilege. We can call it an “incentives” bill, but that does not change its essential ‘sanctions’ nature.

“It is racist and against the interests of the masses of Zimbabweans. In the long run, the Zimbabwe Democracy Act will work against the United States having a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa.”


The inflation caused by a lack of foreign currency in the country, due to the sanctions, has reached the millions of percentage to the point where it just becomes irrelevant. The EU followed suit with additional sanctions ranging from banning Mugabe ranging from visiting Europe to disallowing the sale of the paper used to print their currency, making it even more difficult for the Zimbabwe economy to stay afloat because they were rapidly printing currency in order to keep up with the inflation so the people could still buy food.

The plan was to create an environment where everyone would blame Mugabe for the failed economy leading to a regime change to the man the West wants in power: Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai supports the sanctions and the West has declared that they'd only remove the sanctions if he was in power. Tsvangirai also supports returning the nationalized farmland to the white minority.

During the 2008 elections, Western media launched a devastating propaganda campaign against Mugabe blaming everything on him and him alone. His policies effected the Zimbabwe economy, but the West played a large role in destroying the Zimbabwe economy, which up until 2000 was one of the best in Africa ever since Mugabe came to power.

The 2008 election was marred by violence in rural areas. The war veterans, fearful of losing the land they just obtained, began to attack Tsvangirai's party, the MDC and their supporters. As a result 122 MDC supporters died along with an undisclosed amount of Mugabe supporters. These murders were not state condoned and after the election, their bases were destroyed and many of them, arrested. However this didn't stop the West from, once again, placing all the blame on Mugabe who's government is bankrupt and country is in chaos.

In the first round of election, Tsvangirai was leading Mugabe, but he didn't obtain 50% of the vote, which according to the constitution is needed in order to become president. As a result, a run-off election was held. Tsvangirai played the event off as if he had won "outright" and traveled around Africa on a victory trip. At first he didn't want to return to Zimbabwe because he thought Mugabe was going to assassinate him. Tsvangirai returned and he wasn't assassinated.

Between the elections, Tsvangirai and the MDC insisted on breaking Zimbabwe laws to cause disorder and make an attempt to appear "oppressed." Days before the election, Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off claiming the violence was too much and he was "protecting" his supporters. So he ran to the Dutch embassy and hid there. According to the Zimbabwe constitution, a candidate cannot withdraw from a run-off election and so Tsvangirai was still on the ballot come election day.

Those who supported Tsvangirai and those who didn't deemed him a coward after his supporters took the brunt of the violence while he hid in South Africa and foreign embassies, all for nothing. As a result, Mugabe won the election easily and is now, according to the constitution, the president in an election most deemed unfair. Although after everything that had gone down in the past eight years, a fair election was already jeopardized.

Post-election, Mugabe offered his hand out in a power-sharing deal with Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai was offered the position of Prime Minister as well as cabinet positions for his party. However, Tsvangirai had more ambitious goals in mind. He insisted that Mugabe relinquish all power to him and just accept the role as a ceremonial president, otherwise known as a normal citizen with a title.

In consequence, a power-sharing deal, mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, was only signed by Mugabe and still lacks Tsvangirai's signature. Tsvangirai's only leverage is that he has the West on his side and the only way the West will agree to lift the sanctions would be for Tsvangirai to have absolute power, as if his party's majority in Parliament wasn't enough. Until then, the people of Zimbabwe remain starving, unemployed and lacking any vision of a future.

The West and the MDC has yet to make one compromise since the first election and has maintained their stubbornness in the face of a human catastrophe, it is the Cuban embargo all over again...

Monday, August 25, 2008

Illegal Immigrant Laws

Why don't we just make it a severe crime to pay any illegal worker significantly less than legal workers and only a misdemeanor for paying them equivalent wages? The 13th Amendment already makes slavery illegal, we can extend this to wage-slavery where one is only given enough to survive. On top of the ending of the exploitation of foreign workers, this would also allow for a level playing field for both American and Mexican workers competing for the same jobs. The person most fit for a job would then obtain it... and to be honest, it's hard for someone to work better if they don't even speak our language, so Americans would still have an advantage.

This would likely increase the immigration to the United States, but there are only so many jobs here and if both groups are payed the same, there's no advantage to hiring illegal immigrants. If both are equally employable, then immigrants will only continue to come if there are jobs to be filled. Without a large workforce, this country is nothing and if we Americans cannot fill every needed job... then why not a Mexican?

We should also make an illegal immigrant's income taxable without background checks.

I don't normally talk about sports, however this Taekwondo Bronze Medal Olympic match was, to say the least, humorous. The Cuban fighter, Matos, was winning before he was disqualified for taking more than one minute during his timeout. The referee claimed he was "too injured" to fight, so Matos kicked the ref in the face with his broken toe to show the ref he could still go on. Of course, that didn't solve the problem and might get the Cuban and his coach banned from Taekwondo entirely.