Mbeki the friend of fascism

South African President Thabo Mbeki has visited his ol' buddy Robert Mugabe and according to the BBC Mbeki has said that "there is no crisis" in Zimbabwe. What is that if it isn't wilful blindness to the destruction of Zimbabwe?

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Why do world leaders remain silent against this accessory to murder and fascism?

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Mugabe has done more harm to Zimbabwe's people than Ian Smith and the racist Rhodesian administration - but racism is the biggest taboo nowadays. Be a racist leader and there is, rightfully, no tolerance. Be a murdering fascist black African kleptocrat, and it's ok - at least he's not killing and starving people based on race (though he did lead murderers based on tribe).

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It's time the Western media got over the fawning lack of criticism of post-apartheid South African government. Nelson Mandela has been long gone - Thabi Mbeki is no Nelson Mandela, and Jacob Zuma even less so. The ANC is the Zanu-PF of South Africa.

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According to CNN, the Summit of African leaders is likely to call for the Zimbabwe election results to be released in full immediately. Of course, it will ignore the widespread fraud - because their old bloodthirsty buddy Robert Mugabe is beyond criticism. It's about time Mbeki and the ANC regime was not.

Pity Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe has always been an evil despicable thug - it has taken the world 20 or so years to finally realise that. He is going to claim victory. Although the opposition has already claimed it, Mugabe has a long record of being a bully. His goons will declare it has been free and fair, and the corrupt lowlife that comprise the ANC will continue to provide succour to Mugabe. You see, the South African regime only doesn't perform like Mugabe because it doesn't need to - yet.

So why is Mugabe not a surprise? Many on the left waxed lyrically about the man in the 1980s, he was a great hero - even though he is a Marxist-Leninist who has enriched himself enormously from his grip on power. What is the truth?

There are umpteen books telling this truth, but here are some of the highlights of how awful he has been, for some time:

- For starters, Mugabe is a Marxist-Leninist. Note that the 20th century includes Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Castro, Erich Honecker, Pol Pot, Nicolae Ceausescu among others who were Marxist-Leninists. That in itself should raise concern. He spoke Marxist-Leninist rhetoric repeatedly, constantly spoke in diatribes against the West and in favour of socialism. He spoke often about the state participating and regulating all sectors of the economy, and presided over an ever increasing growth in state ownership and control of the economy over the 80s and 90s.

- From as early as 1983 he was supporting the creation of a one-party state, openly asking why Zimbabwe couldn't have one? What supporter of liberal democracy and individual rights would not be concerned? His thugs murdered en masse in Matabeleland, his "war veteran" barbarians bayoneted whole families who were considered to be enemies, including infants in front of their parents.

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Mugabe was treated with kid gloves for so long because of three different motives:

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1. Enormous British "guilt" about Ian Smith's apartheid style Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Anything was better than that. Racism being a bigger sin than destroying free speech and an economy.

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2. Left wing cheerleading of Marxist African post-colonial leaders as "heroes". They couldn't do any wrong - they represented Africans ruling Africa, when many were kleptocractic authoritarians who took what they wished and would beat and kill those that got in the way.

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3. Conservative British desire to get "rid" of the problem. Rhodesia had been a weeping sore, largely because the UN wouldn't leave it alone. Unlike the mass murdering despots in Cambodia, China, North Korea, Indonesia and the like, Rhodesia was a cause celebre that had most of the world united in opposition. The issue wouldn't be left alone, but don't you dare raise gulags in Siberia at the UN - that's different.

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Mugabe has now acted as would be expected. The election was held, he did all he could to rig it, and could only rig a run off. Now he has banned political rallies. It is clear Zimbabwe is no libera democracy.

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The key to this is of course South Africa. Thabo Mbeki - an ignorant buddy of Mugabe - has disgustingly appeased his friend for far too long. Thousands have died because Mbeki wont turn off the supply of money and energy to Zimbabwe and demand Mugabe go. Why? Because in his heart of hearts Mbeki is a Marxist thug too. This ignores the quackery he believes in on HIV - which has directly contributed to the deaths of thousands of South Africans while HIV remained a lower priority for health care and far too many South Africans were complacent about it.

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You simply have to look at how South African democracy has slowly been getting eroded since the end of apartheid. The ANC calls the opposition "racist" whenever issues of corruption are raised. The state owned television gives the leading opposition party - the Democratic Alliance - hardly any coverage and is highly sympathetic to the ANC. The truth is that if the ANC couldn't win elections on its own right, it would be highly tempted to play the Zanu-PF game.

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Mbeki like Mugabe plays the race card against critics at every chance, he called Archbishop Desmond Tutu an "icon of white elites". It is the card of blame, and to remove responsibility. It's about time Mbeki was shamed for the useless man he is.

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If Mugabe effectively overrides liberal democracy in Zimbabwe, it should feel the force of full international sanctions - and South Africa should be shamed if it fails to follow. Apartheid is gone in South Africa, the ANC does win free and relatively fair elections - get over colonialism and start policing the murderous thugs of post colonialism. Whatever good Mugabe could have ever have said to have done has been more than undone by halving the life expectancy of a once rich country. Some of us aren't surprised, it's about time Britain - who is responsible for putting this Marxist-Leninist bully in power, took the lead and called for global sanctions - meanwhile it would save the lives and pain and suffering of thousands if someone could swiftly deliver a bullet to his head.

Chance for Muslims to stand up for human dignity

but I wont expect to see Sudanese flags burnt in the street or thousands swarming onto the streets outraged that a peaceful English woman has been arrested in Sudan for blasphemy and faces 40 lashes and 6 months in prison. I also don't expect the so called "peace movement" to campaign for her either, after all she should respect the laws of the free decolonised country she chose to move to, and be grateful the evil US imperialists haven't destroyed the beautiful culture and traditions of the place.

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Her crime, she allegedly let a class of children choose to name their teddy bear Mohammed. Yes I know, this is worse than a girl being raped.

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Several parents complained about this to the authorities, and like the jackbooted faith based fascists that they are, they arrested her.

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According to the Daily Telegraph:

"She asked one of the female pupils to bring in a teddy bear and asked the students to name it. "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Mohammed," said the school’s director, Robert Boulos. Twenty of the 23 children opted for Mohammed and the toy was taken home by a different pupil each weekend to record a diary of the bear’s "activities"."

She clearly is the devil incarnate for starting a new life being a teacher in an impoverished country.

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It speaks volumes of priorities in a country which ranks 141st out of 177 in development, that letting children name a teddy bear Mohammed is a reason to inflict violence upon someone. In fact, it probably reflects one of the reasons why it has such low development.

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UPDATE: Substantial efforts are being made by the British government to get her released, and some statements from British Muslim representatives have indicated that this appears to be a misunderstanding and they are calling for her to be released. Apparently the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Sudan is "unhappy with the unlawful way in which she has been treated". She hasn't even been charged and she is being held in a police cell! The Daily Telegraph also reports the boy who suggested Mohammed's name did so because - it is his OWN name.

Africa's number one problem - corruption

Listening to Bob Geldof you might be excused of thinking that the reason so many Africans are poor are because you've been too self-centred and not given money to charities, or that evil nasty Western governments haven't wiped debts of those well intended poor African governments. In fact anyone who has had much to do with African governments will know that this is far from the truth. In my dealings with representatives from Africa they were always better paid than their Western counterparts, stayed in the best hotels, had chauffeured limos to drive them around, flew first class everywhere - and then pleaded poverty and how life was for their countryfolk.

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Sure there are some issues the West can help with, primarily removing barriers to trade and abolishing subsidies for agriculture and other industries - something that can be aimed clearly at Brussels, Washington and Tokyo for being the biggest offenders. However, this wont achieve much unless Africa governs itself well - and it doesn't. The bigger issue is that too many fear offence by declaring the truth - many African governments are corrupt ridden, unaccountable and are simply international recognised racketeering gangs.

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So the Channel 4 documentary this week - Dispatches - How to Get Ahead in Africa - tells all. Set in Kenya, it shows how people must bribe receptionists to get hospital appointments, bribe all sorts of strongmen to get "permits" to build a shack on public land, bribe neighbours to not appeal it to higher up corrupt officials, bribe policemen to allow taxis to travel, bribe to get a job interview. Furthermore, it showed how easy it was to bribe a licence to be a charity, that had no accountable but could claim a share of foreign aid funds. Charities with vague addresses - that don't exist - get funding through the government, from foreign aid. It's fraud on a grand scale, and it keeps Africa back. Sierra Leone was visited also, where aid to supply electricity to a town was effectively siphoned off to officials requiring bribes before allowing homes to be connected. More disturbingly, school children were required to bribe teachers for lessons - given excuses such as payment for copying papers and the like. Corruption agencies were themselves little more than show ponies, which dealt with a handful of high profile low level cases, but did nothing.

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The solution to Africa's governance problems is complex, it is partially cultural, but clearly any aid to governments is likely to risk being siphoned off to corrupt officials. Africans are poorly served by post-colonial governments, but the best way to deal with them is for private aid to be provided to private efforts on the ground. This means that education should be provided by agencies that have the money, and take the power to avoid corruption - which means using force to defend themselves. It means being somewhat colonial, and Africans want it - they vote in governments on anti-corruption tickets, only to be bitterly disappointed.

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As one man on the show said, the best way to "make poverty history" in Africa is not aid, indeed he dismissed Bob Geldof's efforts entirely, but to help end corruption. So I say to Oxfam, indeed all those who try to place guilt in our hands for African poverty - start spreading a new philosophy to Africa - not one of "give me money for nothing" of socialism, but earn money and be accountable if you don't perform.

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Accountability for government, and prison for those who are corrupt - which means having rather efficient effective small governments that do the bare necessities - police, law and order and defending personal and property rights. You see, as a libertarian I DO believe government is essential. The rule of law and transparent, accountable and corruption free enforcement of law, defence of individual freedoms, property rights and enforceability of contracts - Africa's governments do all this very badly - it's about time they shed everything else they try to do, and be taught to be small good governments - not corrupt tinpot rusting hulks of post colonial Marxist fantasies.

Mugabe should be no surprise

With the exception of South Africa's chief of corruption, scientific fraud and accessory to murder, Thabo Mbeki (or rather the ANC), and most other African kleptocrats political leaders, and some other gangsters (and Jacque Chirac), few disagree that Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe is a regime characterised by murder, political violence, use of starvation and theft as political tools, and must go. Few can fail to be moved by the despair of most Zimbabweans, of every colour (though many closed their eyes when only white Zimbabweans were victims of theft, assault, rape and even murder), especially now that Bulawayo now has people drinking sewer water, as Mugabe refuses to fix the water supply or assist that town - dominated by supporters of the opposition.

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Even China has been withdrawing support (if only it would do the same for Burma then it might win respect, after all a new Burmese government is not going to want to turn its back on Chinese investment).

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Setting aside the need to hold the disgraceful South African government to account (which is something the Western media and certainly few governments internationally are willing to do, as if Mbeki somehow basks in the glow of post-apartheid South Africa under Nelson Mandela) or indeed the legions of African regimes which, by and large, let their people down (not all, but many), it is worth noting that many noted right from the start that Mugabe was bad news. After all, Zimbabwe has been every bit the one-party authoritarian state since it was founded, New Zealand opened an embassy there under the Lange government, and sent the (allegedly very lazy) Chris Laidlaw to be High Commissioner. Every time I have heard him speaking about Mugabe it is as if things went wrong in the last few years, that there was so much hope - in the days when he banned political opposition and locked up and tortured opponents.

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Now before the usual childish political trick of saying that criticising one government automatically means you support the previous one, it should be clear that Ian Smith's regime had to go - disenfranchising the majority of the population and operating a "benign" version of apartheid doesn't make it right. However, my case is that Mugabe has been worse and it was clear from the very start.

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Mugabe is a Marxist-Leninist, and Marxist-Leninists have spilt the blood of over 100 million people in the last century. Mao and Stalin being by far the worst, but Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung and Mengistu did their best as well. Of course Mugabe is friends with North Korea, and Mengistu - the man responsible for converting Ethiopia from a food exporter in the 1970s to a famine ridden hell hole in the 1980s (not that you'd have learnt that from Bob Geldof) - is now one of Mugabe's chief advisors.

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As Judith Todd has said in her forthcoming book "Through the Darkness: A Life in Zimbabwe" "Torture, corruption and disregard for the rule of law were the norm right away". As the Sunday Times reports:

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"Mugabe broke all the rules – his guerrillas roamed the villages when they should have been at assembly camps, there was widespread intimidation and open violence against many opposition candidates: one such candidate was last seen pinned to the ground having red hot coals rammed down his throat. What fooled many people was that once Mugabe had forcibly incorporated Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu into his ruling Zanu-PF the country was so close to a one-party state that Mugabe simply didn’t need to show the iron fist, but it was always there. “As I try to show, there were a few people, like the guerrilla veteran, Aaron Mutiti, who understood Mugabe from the start. Aaron said in 1980, ‘Family life, religious life and economic life as we know it will progressively disappear if Mugabe gets to power’. "

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Judith Todd's father was PM of Southern Rhodesia, but would be stateless if the NZ government hadn't granted her citizenship (certainly a bouquet for the Clark government for granting this, perhaps helping to make up for the fawning the previous Labour government issued to Mugabe's dictatorship).

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What particularly grates is the likes of John Minto, who blames what Mugabe is doing on the West for "forcing" him to not implement Marxist economic policies at the time which has (get this) created the impoverishment of black Zimbabweans which is what he is responding to. However, Minto, as all members of the new left, are economic illiterates - they think Zimbabwe's economic disaster has something to do with holding onto capitalism, when the Mugabe regime has done progressively the opposite for years. Minto's Marxist credentials are well summarised by Trevor Loudon (and no, opposing apartheid is not a socialist position, it is a position of supporting individual freedom).

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Of course the Maori Party did refuse to condemn Zimbabwe two years ago, refusing to back a Parliamentary resolution damning the regime - a position it has expunged Orwellian style from its website - and which tells you a lot about the racism that lies at the heart of those who founded the Maori Party. Solidarity with a despotic, kleptocratic murderer because he is African is vile, I hope Pita Sharples flies to Zimbabwe to go tell the starving, AIDS ridden, desperate Zimbabweans that it is a "bit of rough and tumble".

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As Phil Goff has said "Zimbabwe has been independent now for 25 years, and was the richest country in Southern Africa. It has been destroyed by incompetence, greed, corruption and authoritarianism to the extent that life expectancy has dropped from 61 to 33 years."

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The only point I'd add is why should we be surprised - and watch South Africa, it could very well be next.

The real cause of African poverty

The Ayn Rand Institute has an excellent press release describing the true moral status of the claims of those who want the G8 to bail out Africa's poverty. Africa is not poor because we made it so.

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It says:

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"Africa is poor because it is rife with bloody tribalism and superstition--ideas that in the Dark Ages kept the Western world as poor, if not poorer, than today's Africa. If aid advocates were genuinely concerned with helping Africans, they would campaign for political and economic freedom, for individualism, reason and capitalism, for the ideas necessary to achieve prosperity."

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Indeed, but what happens when Tony Blair meets Thabo Mbeke, a practitioner of superstition and backer (by deed if not word) of the murdering destructive Robert Mugabe? He says very little. South Africa is slowly but surely sliding down the path that destroyed Zimbabwe and did little for the rest of Africa. Talk of promoting property rights, individual freedom and rights is seen as "culturally inappropriate", when it is fundamental to human development, growth and prosperity.

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Reason will save Africa, superstition, ethnic squabbling and corrupt kleptocracies will continue to milk Western aid for the benefit of few, whilst the majority scratch out a living.

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Similarly, removing barriers to free trade to and from Africa (which means the West opening up and Africa opening up) will greatly reduce costs of doing business in Africa and open markets to African goods and services.

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Most of those who say they care for Africa only demand money, money and more money, ignoring the families of African politicians who jet into Heathrow to go shopping at Harrods, staying in 5 star hotels. Wiping debt, only for new debt to be borrowed. Why not? It will be wiped again. As the Ayn Rand Institute points out:

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"advocates barrage wealthy nations with reproaches and accusations of stinginess. Such abuse is necessary to induce the unearned guilt which impels Western leaders to do penance by sacrificing billions more in aid."

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There is nothing wrong with private aid, donations through voluntary agencies who do genuine benevolent good work in such things as disease prevention, installing wells, education programmes and the like - directly helping those in need. However, the agenda that should be pursued should be primarily:

- Liberalise trade. The West can open up markets and stop subsiding exports into other markets that African countries cannot compete with;

- Isolate brutal regimes. Don't supply intergovernmental aid to those that do not reform, treat them with contempt and starve them of aid, debt and arms, so they can no longer persecute their people or live the high life off of them;

- Promote friendly relations with those who do work towards less corruption, transparent and independent judicial systems, enforcement of property rights and the advancement of reason.