Health Features
"Dead people are better off": Zimbabweans on their fate (News Feature)
By Clare Byrne Dec 9, 2008, 14:54 GMT
Johannesburg - 'Dead people are better off. They don't need water or sadza (maize porridge). They're just lying there nicely in their graves.'
Sitting on the stone floor of her bare home in Harare, a Zimbabwean woman poignantly expresses the desperation of millions of Zimbabweans stalked by starvation and disease.
Dinner for this woman, whose name is not given in the 15-minute film on Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis screened by Solidarity Peace Trust non-governmental organization in Johannesburg Tuesday, is a sachet of juice.
In another scene, a mother holds aloft a wailing baby, its eyes swollen shut, the skin peeling off its stubby legs. The baby is severely malnourished.
The images in the film entitled Death of a Nation, which record the slow strangulation of a population by a government hell-bent on retaining power, were taken between September and November this year.
They show a failed state where women in rural areas pick through withered trees for berries to keep their families alive because they can no longer afford a bag of maize meal.
And families telling of how they spent the day holding up a drip in an overcrowded clinic for a relative infected with cholera only to watch them die for lack of medication.
Over half Zimbabwe's population of 12 million cannot adequately feed itself, stratospheric inflation means a tub of margarine costs 9.65 US dollars and hundreds are dying of cholera, an easily preventable disease.
'The biggest threat to the lives of Zimbabweans is now the state itself,' Brian Raftopoulos, director of research and advocacy for Solidarity Peace Trust, told reporters at the screening.
Instead of trying to protect its citizens, the government of President Robert Mugabe is focused on maintaining its capacity 'to arrest, harass and kill,' Raftopoulos charged.
Several MDC members and civil society activists have disappeared in recent weeks, either after being detained without charge by police or abducted by unidentified armed agents.
The only short-term solution to the crisis, according to Raftopoulos, is the implementation of the unity government to which Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed in principle in September.
The deal has become bogged down in bickering, with the MDC accusing Mugabe of trying to force it into the role of junior partner.
'The only place where the parties are engaged is around that mediation,' said Raftopoulos. 'There are no realistic alternatives to that,' he added, dismissing calls by the West, Kenya and Botswana for Mugabe to step down as wishful thinking.
While the recent rioting by a group of soldiers in Harare has fuelled speculation that Mugabe could also face a military coup, Raftopoulos warned against wishing for such an outcome.
'It (a coup) will take us into an even worse position than we have currently.'
But another prominent Zimbabwean activist, Elinor Sisulu of the Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe, warned the MDC against buckling to pressure from Zimbabwe's neighbours to 'play the game' and sign up to Mugabe's terms for sharing power.
One of the sticking points in the negotiations has been which party would own the home affairs ministry, which controls the police. The MDC is demanding it, in return for letting Zanu-PF retain the army. Zanu-PF is pushing for shared control.
'If (Tsvangirai) doesn't control home affairs, and people still get hammered (by police) then he will quickly lose his legitimacy and popularity,' Sisulu warned.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Here is, on display, a naked representation of a despot retaining his power at all costs.
Here is a world bent on non-intervention as opposed to interventionist- humanitarian regime change as soon as possible.
It is reasonable to assume that, until we reach some kind of threshold, we condone the mass deaths of these people(s) by doing nothing.
Most notable is the waxing on of the talkers in the US Congress about millions foe preventing atrocities, yet are silent about the calculus required to remedy what is a relatively small mees, by African, or world, standards.
I am wondering about the message from our new leader on this and if there will be one?
OK! Lets intervene. Here is the plan:
Setting up the channels for the internal supply chain: Kill 50,000 people clearing the way.
Reorganizing the internal government and society to accept the new authority: Kill 25,000 people from the old system.
Digging in for the long term: Kill 50,000 people who refuse to cooperate and choose the 'other side'.
Five years trying to stabilize the situation: Kill 100,000 prematurely while you try to get it right.
TOTAL: 225,000 people to kill for intervention.
Sounds about right, similar to past 'intervention' (Iraq) so it is in line with your experience.
Good luck in your quest to be better than your opponent. I hope you don't end up killing even more people then you save.
And that doesn't even get into the trillion dollars that you consume which could be used to feed people at home.
Another Bush-want-to-be world-domination idiot. They are a dime a dozen and they never learn from history.
just think of how many people you would of saved had the world followed your convoluted logic against Hitler, lance. intervention is sometimes needed, but the follow through is the problem(Iraq case in point).the statement of any intervention will cause more misery then not, how low can it go? Zimbabwe is pretty well as low as it can go aside from the entire population dying off(well except for the couple hundred families in charge).
Zimbabwe is one giant slaved population serving the needs of a few.
Lance, you will ultimately be proven wrong. The U.S. has more of a heart than some of those cruel dictator regimes. In fact, different nations do. Singling out the U.S., which has helped African nations a lot, is just a dogged determination on your part to claim that it can do no good. Well, you can just be on a mission to do nothing, or you can add something more constructive to the dialog. Would you condemn every good faith effort we would make to help Zimbabwe's people to rid itself of the tyrant of human suffering, or would you just put the U.S. down with every opportunity you get? Such negative input helps no one.
Jesus, please don't bomb Lance.
page: 1
lanceDec 9th, 2008 - 15:08:40
Unfortunately this is representative of humans:
Like a plague they devour everything in sight and then starve and die. There is no regulation circuit in the human brain.
An exact similar thing is happening in the United States. Give people access to money and they borrow like the addicts they are. And then when they borrow too much, they borrow even more. The thirst is never quenched. The only thing that stops the process is lack of availability. When money becomes unavailable the addicts make trillions more out of thin air. Sooner or later people can't borrow anymore and go bust.
It is the nature of humans, not just in Africa and impoverished nations, but also in well to do nations that call themselves enlightened, but are not.
Now the U.S. has a president that is calling for vast new binges of money-holic spending. The cycle will not be broken until all other possibilities are exhausted and then comes massive recession/depression and associated impoverished circumstances.
So, Africa and the U.S. here is your message: You reap what you sow, and you are doing exactly what you have been born to do. Consume and then die without a second thought to any other method.
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