WHEN reading the first letter of Mr. David Lee last week, when he applauded Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, I thought it must have been written tongue in cheek; but when the second letter appeared (rather generous of the Editor I thought!) I realised Mr. Lee actually believed the nonsense he was writing.
At the last election in Zimbabwe, the Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had withdrawn his name/party before, but it suited Mugabe & Co to leave it on to make it appear like an election.
With all media controlled by the state, voters did not all know this. The Opposition appealed to its supporters not to put themselves at risk from beatings, etcetera, by the army, police and followers of Mugabe by trying to vote. Additionally, there may have been a witch hunt afterwards for anyone who abstained, shown by an ink free finger.
The only restrictions the West have imposed were directed at Mugabe and his henchman on travel, etcetera. In fact the aid being supplied by the West was cut off by Mugabe prior to the last election and used as a bribe to whom so ever he chose. Mugabe's policy of assigning large, well-run, productive white-owned farms to his supporters that have since been either abandoned or badly run, have to a large part ruined the economy of the country which was once named the bread basket of Africa.. It is now commonly called the basket case of Africa.
A quarter of the population have fled the country to become refugees in neighbouring states, and the African Union is pointless, as around 50 percent of African countries have less claim to democracy than Zimbabwe under Mugabe!
When Ian Smith, last white Prime Minister of Rhodesia as it was, was asked if he thought African countries were ready for self-black rule, he replied: Not for a thousand years. That may have been an exaggerationt time-wise, but from Amin to Mugabe, the tragedy of Africa just goes on and on.
Graham Phillips, Palma de Majorca
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