Zimbabwe: A new North Korea without Nukes.

Fire of Liberty

Well, The Times has a telling article on the madness that is occurring in one of the Outposts of Tyranny. Zimbabwe is going down a similar path that tyrannies like North Korea and Cambodia have with their radical policies of controlling the land and the people who once made Zimbabwe a bread-basket of Africa. I seems that Bob Mugabe is taking his nation into Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. While he and his party hacks enjoy the wealth of their ill gotten wealth and fatten their bellies on food, the people of Zimbabwe become more impoverished and hunger for morsels of food that the government has destroyed from giving some 3,600 farms to people who let them go unplanted. Just look at how The Times presents the land of Mugabe:

"We're suffering. Things are very tight here. It used to be good, but he has chased you (whites) all away," said Charles, a painter who has not worked for almost two years. He had waited more than two hours for a lift. "Sometimes you can wait all day, but so what? We have nothing else to do these days."

Visiting Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwe is like entering a time warp — a throwback to the days of Eastern Europe before the collapse of communism. It is a country of nervous whispers, anxious backward glances and hollow declarations praising visionary leadership. Meanwhile, most of the country's 11 million people struggle to feed their families.

It pains me that someone of Mugabe's ilk is running a great nation in the ground. What makes it even worse, Mugabe has fixed the system to ensure that he will be president for life or that his party cronies will continue to hold the nation in its clutches for years to come. Just yesterday, The Times reported that the people of Zimbabwe will be denied a fair & free election because of the actions of Mugabe's all powerful regime. A real shame if I say so myself.

Also, here's a scathing but insightful column by Peter Worthington over @ The Toronto Sun on the happenings in Zimbabwe. I want you to note this passage in Mr. Worthington's column:

He has modeled his rule on Joseph Stalin, preaching one thing while practicing oppression, intimidation, elimination of opponents.

Arguably, Zimbabwe is the sorriest country in Africa.

At independence in 1980 it was virtually self-sufficient, with the best infrastructure on the continent, rivaling South Africa.

I guess Lord Acton's saying: Power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely," is coming to fruition in the African nation. Where's the UN at on this. Oh, I forgot, they don't like to take sides, just look at Rwanda.