Despite recent reports that leaders throughout the world were beginning to speak out against Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s human-rights abuses, members of the Southern Africa Development Commission appear to have come to the dictator’s defense, having discovered an “improved” Zimbabwe on a recent trip there.
Six foreign ministers from the Southern Africa Development Commission, or SADC, traveled to Zimbabwe on a fact-finding tour last week. The tour was aimed at examining the fallout from Mugabe’s campaign to drive the nation’s white farmers off their land through violence and murder, and the resulting famine that threatens the nation.
What did the SADC leaders uncover? Nothing too encouraging for those who oppose Mugabe’s rule, according to Cathy Buckle, a white Zimbabwean farmer, author and activist.
“After two days in an Harare hotel, the SADC members said they ‘welcomed the improved atmosphere of calm and stability’ and were ‘gratified to learn that violence on farms had reduced significantly,'” Buckle told WND.
“Their spokeswoman was Malawian Foreign Minister Lilian Patel,” explained Buckle, “and although she spoke with apparent conviction, her words make no sense at all in view of recent statements condemning events in Zimbabwe from her own president and others in the region. Our regional neighbors are already suffering because of the crisis in Zimbabwe, and the time for groveling, appeasement and the ‘old boys club’ is long past.”
“With an estimated 300,000 Malawian farm workers in Zimbabwe about to be unemployed and destitute, I think Ms. Patel and her fellow delegates should be ashamed. The facts … do not describe an ‘improved atmosphere of calm and stability.'”
Mugabe’s reign of terror and anarchy has shown no signs of improvement in recent weeks, Buckle said.
“For example, 29-year-old Augustus Chacha was kidnapped from Gonye Village in Gokwe in front of his wife and five children last weekend. Augustus was the MDC (the Mugabe opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change) youth organizer in the area. His body was found floating in Gonye Dam two days later,” she said.
“In another incident of ‘improved calm,’ the newly elected MDC mayor of Chegutu, Francis Dhlakama, was forced out of his office on his first day at work. About 50 war veterans, chanting and singing pro-government songs, ordered him out. Police were present but did nothing to assist the mayor-elect, who left to avoid violence.”
Buckle mentioned the November report on political violence just released by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum.
“It certainly does not describe ‘improved calm and stability,’ either,” Buckle said.
The report details the horrors of the past month inside Zimbabwe. In examining the report, WorldNetDaily found details of six deaths/executions in November, eight kidnappings, 81 cases of property damage and 115 cases of torture and rape.
The Forum defines “torture” as: “Severe pain and suffering, intentionally inflicted, with a purpose, by a state official or another acting with the acquiescence of the state.”
The 25-page report tells of people having their heads forced into ant bear holes, having their mouths filled with sand, being beaten by gangs armed with chains, sticks and rubber hoses. It also tells of highly irritant plant powders known as “huriri” or “uriri” (Buffalo Bean) being soaked into peoples’ clothes, stuffed into their anuses and smeared under the penile foreskin.
Buckle told WorldNetDaily that Mugabe’s “electioneering” has started in earnest and that he launched his ruling Zanu-PF campaign at his party’s annual congress last week with the theme: “Land for Economic Empowerment.” The presidential election is set for March.
“A massive [tent], seating the 7,618 delegates, has been pitched on the Elephant Hills Golf Course in Victoria Falls, and the rhetoric is beyond belief,” said Buckle.
“The president said, ‘The Rhodesians have been organizing themselves’ and described the opposition MDC as ‘agents of the white settlers.’ Talking about the hundreds of companies forced into liquidation in the last 21 months, about 80 percent inflation and 60 percent unemployment, President Mugabe said these are ‘obviously trends that were meant to achieve a political purpose.’ He also told the delegates that they ‘must prepare for a physical fight. We must maintain a high sense of caution and security because we have seen the enemies’ capacity for evil and murder. Our youths should rally behind us in defense of our independence.'”
Speaking of the UK, Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler, Mugabe told the delegates, “The British were brought up as a violent people, liars, scoundrels and crooks, and I am told that [Prime Minister Tony] Blair was a troublesome little boy at school. So we cannot have reasonable dialogue with such people.”
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International community turns on Mugabe
Land-grab policy causes Zimbabwe famine
Tales of Mugabe’s rural cleansing
21 years of Marxist corruption
Surviving Mugabe’s communist reign
