Beaf:

Shock! Horror!
The imperialistic IMF is actually sad that an African country can grow without colonial help. Shock! Horror!

MyJoe:

I can understand a Nigerian applauding Mugabe for Zimbabwe's growth. After all, when NEPA restores the light after holding on to it for two months we sing their praises. Zimbabwe, once the food basket of its region, is now a decrepit, desultory, impecunious, tiny dictatorship ruled by an autocratic, gerontocratic, megalomaniac, who, because he is old and close to his grave, has no qualms taking many young people along with him as long as he remains "His Excellency" unto death. Anyway, my sympathies are with the people of Zimbabwe.

MyJoe:

I can understand a Nigerian applauding Mugabe for Zimbabwe's growth. After all, when NEPA restores the light after holding on to it for two months we sing their praises. Zimbabwe, once the food basket of its region, is now a decrepit, desultory, impecunious, tiny dictatorship ruled by an autocratic, gerontocratic, megalomaniac, who, because he is old and close to his grave, has no qualms taking many young people along with him as long as he remains "His Excellency" unto death. Anyway, my sympathies are with the people of Zimbabwe.

MyJoe:

I can understand a Nigerian applauding Mugabe for Zimbabwe's growth. After all, when NEPA restores the light after holding on to it for two months we sing their praises. Zimbabwe, once the food basket of its region, is now a decrepit, desultory, impecunious, tiny dictatorship ruled by an autocratic, gerontocratic, megalomaniac, who, because he is old and close to his grave, has no qualms taking many young people along with him as long as he remains "His Excellency" unto death. Anyway, my sympathies are with the people of Zimbabwe.

Lwandle:

MyJoe your sympathies are definately not with the Zimbabwean people but are with the likes of IMF, WB, BBC, CNN and the defacto rulers of this world.

Lwandle:
In fact we do not need your sympathies instead keep them for your own fellow countrymen whom I believe need it much more then we do.
Nothing in this world comes easy thank goodness the worst of it is over for now but the journey is still long indeed.

Lwandle:
Zimbabweans are moving from a stage of being nothing but chattels on their own land moving from being spectators as others played football with their GOD given WEALTH to being turned into players themselves. Who ever said empowering and freeing yourself from the clutches of imperialism is a simple walk in the park lied. Noone who has been benefitting from someone elses TALENTS and LABOUR would ever want to freely let go of his ill gotten benefits.

The white man reminisces of the MUGABE of old who in the 80s' and 90s' kowtowed and served his interests whilst subdueing his own black people.
The MUGABE upon whom they conferred KNIGHTHOODS and honorary degrees for his being a good NIGGER who protected and served their interests diligently, THE MUGABE they called a STATESMAN even as he killed and subdued ruthlessly all his opponents in the 80s'lol!!!

Lwandle:
Of course they have a reason to hate this new MUGABE who has seen the error of his ways and has worked tirelssly to right the wrongs of yesteryear by working tirelessly to empower his own people the indegenes of ZIMBABWE,
Africans we need to open our eyes and minds and not be fooled anymore.

Afam:

But the people of Zimbabwe don't need your sympathies and have made that clear by choosing to stick with Mugabe and to move the economy forward in spite of all the conspiracy by the World bank and IMF to strangulate the economy even when the economic melt down messed up the economies of a lot of countries that the so called IMF and World band were assisting.

MyJoe:

And while I don't think much of the IMF, it is quite convenient to blame them for what befalls the likes of Mugabeland without offering a shred of fact that they had anything to do with Zimbabwe's problems.

MyJoe:

I can understand a Nigerian applauding Mugabe for Zimbabwe's growth. After all, when NEPA restores the light after holding on to it for two months we sing their praises. Zimbabwe, once the food basket of its region, is now a decrepit, desultory, impecunious, tiny dictatorship ruled by an autocratic, gerontocratic, megalomaniac, who, because he is old and close to his grave, has no qualms taking many young people along with him as long as he remains "His Excellency" unto death. Anyway, my sympathies are with the people of Zimbabwe.

UNTIL 2000, ZIMBABWE WAS the breadbasket of Africa, exporting [size=13pt]wheat, tobacco, and corn to the rest of the continent and beyond[/size]. Zimbabwe contains the most fertile farmland on the continent, and until recently was a tourist Mecca, home of Victoria Falls, one the seven natural wonders of the world, and numerous game reserves, now nearly emptied by poachers and starving peasants. The newly independent country had yet more advantages, including excellent transportation and banking systems for its agricultural, mining, and tourism industries.

Kobojunkie:


UNTIL 2000, ZIMBABWE WAS the breadbasket of Africa, exporting wheat, tobacco, and corn to the rest of the continent and beyond. Zimbabwe contains the most fertile farmland on the continent, and until recently was a tourist Mecca, home of Victoria Falls, one the seven natural wonders of the world, and numerous game reserves, now nearly emptied by poachers and starving peasants. The newly independent country had yet more advantages, including excellent transportation and banking systems for its agricultural, mining, and tourism industries.

http://spectator.org/archives/2005/04/13/from-breadbasket-to-dustbowl

In the early 1990s, drought severely affected the output of every crop except tobacco. Corn, wheat, cotton, oilseed, coffee, and sugar outputs all declined by at least 75%. Tobacco production in 2001 was 172,111 tons. Corn production in 1999 totaled only 1,520,000 tons, down from 2,609,200 tons in 1996. In years with adequate rainfall, Zimbabwe is one of Africa's largest corn exporters.

Quantities of cotton both for export and to supply domestic textile manufacture sharply expanded before the most recent drought. In 1999, cotton production totaled 103,000 tons. Marketed production figures of other crops in 1999 were wheat, 320,000; sorghum, 88,000; soybeans, 107,000; peanuts, 113,000; coffee, 10,000; and sunflower seeds, 30,000. Rice, potatoes, tea, and pyrethrum are also grown.

Read more: Agriculture - Zimbabwe - export, area, crops http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Zimbabwe-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz0pMTVzfBa

GDP (2009 IMF est.): U.S. $3.6 billion.
Real GDP growth rate (2009 IMF est.): 3.7%.
GDP per capita (2009 IMF est., U.S. dollars, current prices): $303.
Avg. inflation rate (2009 IMF estimate): 9%.
Natural resources: Deposits of more than 40 minerals including ferrochrome, gold, silver, platinum, copper, asbestos; 19 million hectares of forest (2000).
Agriculture (19% of GDP): Types of crops and livestock--corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, tea, sugarcane, peanuts, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs.
[size=14pt]Industry (24% of GDP): Manufacturing, public administration, commerce, mining, transport and communication.[/size]
Trade (2009): U.S. exports--U.S. $85.5 million. U.S. imports--U.S. $22.1 million. Partners (2008 est.)--South Africa 32%, Democratic Republic of the Congo 10%, Botswana 9%, China 6%, Zambia 5%, U.S. 4%. Total imports (2009)--U.S. $2.03 billion: most of these imports were food, machinery, fertilizers, and general manufactured products. Major suppliers--South Africa 60%, China 4%, Botswana 4%.

Beaf:

Doesn't the bolded sound funny to you? "Breadbasket of Africa"?!
Has the beans that iya akara uses to concoct her recipe ever come from Zim? Or is yam for dundu or cassava for usi from Zim? Is the corn in guguru from Nsukka or Zim? The above already rules out 25% of Africa's population (Nigeria).

Your post does not state your position, so one could assume the sensible option that you are mocking the hollowness of the article you quoted. "Breadbasket of Africa!" Indeed! What would we call neighbouring agro heavyweight countries like Mauritius, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa (produces 9 times more corn than Zim )?

The quote below gives actual figures to Zimbabwes food production up till the early 2000's (even though its another biased article);
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Zimbabwe-AGRICULTURE.html

This is the encouraging picture of Zimbabwe's growing economy as painted by the US State Dept.;
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5479.htm

Afam:

Tell me the quote above was a mistake?

Lwandle:

No he is not a BRAND new MUGABE MyJoe he is a man who realised in good time that he was just a pawn being played 10-0.

He was in fact caught between a rock(war veterans) and a hard place (read west) he made his choice and decided to do right by it. The consequences have been dire for the whole country but at least it was done before the powers that be got their puppet party in government.

Noone is perfect we all bleep up from time to time but when you see your so called friends funding and sponsoring a new party whose sole aim is to unseat you and privatise the whole country by means of destroying our currency and economy through sanctions then its important to fight and frustrae them a every turn no matter what.

MyJoe:

All this fixation with the phrase “food basket” which has little to with the discussion? If I understand you correctly, what you saying is that a country that produces enough food to feed itself and to export does not qualify as a “food basket” in its region, or that you have to be ahead of the likes of South Africa to qualify. Ok.

In 1994 Mugabe was appointed an honorary Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II

Beaf:

If you don't know the meaning of the phrase "food basket", you should really withhold commenting on it.

MyJoe:

I think you are eminently misguided in your apprehension of the phrase as used in that context. But I see this sort of hair splitting is food around here. Have fun.

Beaf:

Hair splitting? Shame, its the overlooked detail that sells the soul.
Zimbabwe has never been a food basket or bread basket in her region and that is plain fact. Being self sufficient (as you tried to twist it) is very far from being a basket your neighbours rely on, but hey! Western hype and a bare faced lies against fellow Africans are in order.

MyJoe:

Nobody said their neighbours relied on them. They were behind South Africa in food production but well ahead of the likes of Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and other countries in the region, some of which still EXPORT food today. If you are not aware that Zimbabwe [size=14pt]used to EXPORT food[/size] then you missed an important fact. How, in any case, do you compare the situation that obtains today to being self-sufficient (as YOU twist it)? Anyway, I will leave you to continue your pursuit of this very crucial but overlooked detail now. I have already addressed the important issues on this thread in my response to Lwandle.

MyJoe:

All this fixation with the phrase “food basket” which has little to with the discussion? If I understand you correctly, what you saying is that a country that produces enough food to feed itself and to export does not qualify as a “food basket” in its region, or that you have to be ahead of the likes of South Africa to qualify. Ok.
This must be a novel method of refuting points. But, perhaps, you are still up to the task of giving particulars of how the IMF and the World Bank conspired against Zimbabwe and the roles they played in plunging Zimbabwe into its crisis? And, er. . . this is not a mistake.
You are saying that the war veterans woke up from sleep after nearly twenty years and put pressure on Mugabe? This is untrue. Perhaps you have forgotten and I need to remind you. It was Mugabe who ordered the veterans into the farms when he realised he was about to lose an election. I recall the words of the late Chenjerai “Hitler” Hunzi, then leader of the veterans, when confronted on why he was disobeying court orders to leave the farms: “I cannot disobey my president.”

I don't know about funding and sponsorship but I do know dictators often label opposition parties in order to harass them. I am not convinced Mugabe and the other primitive accumulators in Zanu-PF or their enforcers in the Army love Zimbabwe more than former labour leader Tsvangirai, or the cerebral and fearless student union leader-turned-politician Tendai Biti, or the irrepressible student union leader turned-brilliant scientist-turned-politician Arthur Mutambara. If Mugabe has any love for Zimbabweans he has not demonstrated it. He comes across as a cynical, calculating dictator driven by an unbridled lust for power. In the early days he preached reconciliation with the whites – so far so good. The West praised him. But then he let the white farmers be - a betrayal considering the fact that it was land that Zimbabweans fought bravely for. During the negotiations at Lancaster House the issue of land was discussed extensively and settled. Land was to be redistributed to the landless black majority and Britain was to help pay compensation to the white farmers. When the British selfishly reneged on this agreement what did Mugabe do to try to seek redress? Nothing. He did not not seriously pursue the matter, drag Downing Street to the UN or anything. He did nothing. If he had stood up then and insisted on an orderly land redistribution many would have supported him. If he had called Britain names then he would have found many allies right across the world. But he was happy to let his people suffer deprivation just so long as that guaranteed him the status he just acquired as the Great African Statesman with regular invitations to London and other European capitals.

Then one day he realises he is about to lose an election and cynically starts talking about land. He orders his friends into the farms to beat up, kill, burn and loot. A few white farmers and their Zimbabwean workers are murdered. People become jobless. Seized farms are given to government cronies with little or preparation for the project and most become unproductive. The economy collapses overnight. Elections become “do-or-die” as war veterans and Zanu-PF youths maim and kill opposition supporters. This is what our people are applauding. “A great black leader is taking back land from whites.” I do not buy it.

I think the mistake you and many others make is in failing to realise that oppression has no colour. It does not matter whether an enslaver is named Leopold, Cecil Rhodes, Verwoerd, Babangida, Abacha, Margaret Thatcher, Ian Smith or Robert Mugabe.  Mugabe has got the same mindset that drove Ian Smith and the other snooty white rulers of Rhodesia. This is what we disagree on. It is not whether or not the British like us or not. When people come here talking about how the British do not like Zimbabwe I take it they have nothing better to do with their time since no one is under the illusion that the British government was elected to put our interest before theirs.

Afam:

At a time I thought you were just reading a document sent to you from No 10 Downing Street.

Unfortunately, you have gone way too far in swallowing the propaganda and lies that trying to correct them would not make any sense.

So, feel free to believe the lies and propaganda you just re-read. Enjoy.

MyJoe:

Obviously desperate to create the impression you know way too much to bother to substantiate the claims you thoughtlessly throw around, right? Truth is, you find yourself lathered in the froth spewed from your own inward parts in your abortive labour to argue a subject you know nothing about. And so you skim through a write-up and seeing a few things you disagree with conclude it must have be written and emailed by the British Prime Minister. Rather than bring points to the table like you do on this forum in matters you are versed in, you attack the substance and the individual with more froth by throwing around more gibberish. Suits you, Mr Afam.

Afam:

It seems you misunderstood me.

I have more than enough facts to challenge some of the positions you stated but based on the extent you have gone by repeating some of the popular lies and propaganda it will be an uphill task making you see anything objectively hence my position on this thread.

I respect facts, logic and common sense and I would not waste my time challenging the same lies over and over again because there will not be any end in sight.

Sorry about this as I cannot oblige you. Get rid of the obvious lies and we can debate this.

MyJoe:

This is the Pavlovian response mode.

It does not avail you in your current situation. You talk of "obvious lies" without even stating what those lies are. It is not everyone that argues to win trophies on this forum, so you show me my errors and see if I won't be the first to acknowledge my them. But you would have since done that if you had anything. So you dance round, scream "mistake" without stating its particulars, and have now resorted to this dishonesty in a search for a convenient way out.

Bottom line is: you do not have any facts to back up your claim that the IMF and the World Bank conspired against Zimbabwe and are responsible for the country's current crisis, or to refute any of the FACTS I stated in my response to Lwandle. Facts, Mr Afam, are different from opinions. Facts are either true or false. They can only be refuted with facts.

Afam:

My dear, so if you state here now that OBJ is a woman you expect me to provide facts to challenge that? No sir, I will not do so.

Afam:
For the simple fact that you cannot even admit the role of IMF and World bank in the economy of Zimbabwe is enough reason for me not to debate that with you.

Afam:

But the people of Zimbabwe don't need your sympathies and have made that clear by choosing to stick with Mugabe and to move the economy forward in spite of all the conspiracy by the World bank and IMF to strangulate the economy even when the economic melt down messed up the economies of a lot of countries that the so called IMF and World band were assisting.

Afam:
There should be a minimum level of agreement on basic issues before engaging people in debates without which the debate will be meaningless.

Beaf:

@MyJoe
What do you call the fact that Zimbabwe has had all its lines of credit cut by Western sanctions and the IMF? How can any nation survive conventionally if it cannot trade?

Beaf:
It seems you are deliberately refusing to think, because your arguments are more like name dropping. I recall refuting your bread basket theories, and unsurprisingly, you have fallen silent on the matter. How about I remind you (just for the hell of it) that Zimbabwe is still exporting food contrary to your unfounded claims?

MyJoe:

You will have to show how preventing Mugabe and his cronies from travelling to European capitals to smile at cameras or even having "all its lines of credit cut" equals inability to trade. At what point was Zimbabwe not able to trade? Is not loaning money to Zimbabwe using the same criteria used for other countries what your pal calls conspiring to strangulate Zimbabwe's economy?

MyJoe:

You refuted nothing. And you did not show how the fact Zimbabwe has now started exporting food (a makeshift coalition government is in place and things have started picking up, which is the subject of your thread) refutes my point that being "self-sufficient" (your words) and exporting food qualifies you as a food basket.

Got to leave here for today.