READING Donette Read Kruger’s take on things Zimbabwean or South African has left me saddened at how patronising some opinions can be. I am not sure if the message being conveyed here is every Zimbabwean in South Africa invaded farms then dumped them and then went across South Africa to invade their farms too.
If that's the insinuation I take offence to that as a hard working Zimbabwean to have my country termed a country of 12 million potential land grabbers which takes us back to the times we were called ‘kaffirs’, ‘niggers’, ‘bobjaans’, ‘monkeys’ or ‘savages’.
The process of land redistribution may have been flawed, but the fact remains that it had to be redistributed.
As hard as it might be to accept, Africa indeed got poisoned chalice in the form of token independence, but no economic emancipation. What we now have is Dollar/Monetary empires which can be controlled from a distance—because when you think about it—centralisation really means control of masses by a chosen few anywhere in the world.
For example, world monetary/interest rate policies are determined by The Federal Reserve Bank, an institution that controls public finance, yet its a private corporation.
The European Union is a Franco-Germany domain even football in Africa is dominated by North and West Africa through their vehicle called CAF.
So, in light of the above, I am of the opinion that yes we did get to change the names of the countries and cities, but an intelligent form of colonialism was set up in the 1940s with the advent of the Bretton Woods Institutions; viz the IMF/WB which are now the tools and long arm of imperialism aided by the dollar domination and the Euro is now peeking over the dollar’s shoulders to take advantage of a floundering of the dollar.
It is also rumoured that a North American union of USA Canada and Mexico will come up with their answer to the Euro in the form of a new currency called The Amero. If in doubt of this theory, research the British Empire and you will note the world domination of the Pound Sterling declined with the demise of its vast colonies. It has now been surpassed by the US Dollar Euro (Germany/Deutsche Mark before 2002) and the Japanese Yen.
So Zimbabweans and Third World countries, in general, are left to squabble over matters deemed fit for them can control while the West dominates wealth generation (after all Africans were called savages as late as the 1970s).
To support this, it will be important to point out that Sovereign funds from the Asian economies that bailed out the likes of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch were viewed by some senators as a threat to ‘American Independence’ because foreign Government owned sovereign funds had acquired large stakes in vital businesses.
As for Protectionism, no foreigner can own more than 25% of US airlines but contrast this to the outcry over the gazetting of The Zimbabwean Government bid to localise 51% of local mining companies.
ESAP compelled our Government to stop farm subsidies yet French, UK and US farmers are heavily subsidised. Without subsidy most would lose competitiveness which is what happened to us, hence our agricultural sector was already in a steady decline with the large farmers externalising forex they earned from Zimbabwe farming being stashed in European Banks and not being reinvested for Zimbabwe’s benefit.
The interesting bit about sanctions is that the banks happily take in deposits from so called despots and see nothing wrong with this practice, but the moment they are ousted as dictators, their moral responsibility kicks in and they hold on to this ill-gotten money.
What most people don't realise is that sanctions are more like capital raising schemes for western banks because they lend out this money without having to pay interest or pay back on demand, making this free capital for them.
I would like to see them refuse to open bank accounts and accept money from despots after credit and character checks which they should obviously fail.
It’s interesting they can easily spot these stashed funds when it comes to paying back, but fail to spot the corruption on taking the money in.
South Africans ought to know they have been the biggest producer of gold for the last 100 years yet they have got the 15th biggest reserves in the world according to IMF Gold reserve holding statistics. Free to cast a political vote we may be, but Zimbabwe is really run from boardrooms such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto, who inherited British South Africa Company (BSAP) assets and control our resources.
Without control of our resources, how can we ever pay back our debts?
So yes indeed the West is watching, but not because people are dying, but to step in to protect Western citizens such as the likes of Rio Tinto, De Beers and Anglo-American.
Decay, Mexico • na Subject: THEN CAN U EXPLAIN WHY... Thu, 22 May 2008 15:38:16 • You state South Africans ought to know they have been the biggest producer of gold for the last 100 years yet they have got the 15th biggest reserves in the world according to IMF Gold reserve holding statistics...
this is a tragic example of wealth not being shared amongst the people who own the land, and who actually does anything about it?
the poverty in SA is atrocious for a country that has diamonds and gold and platinum in such vast quantities.
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