SA ready to help Zimbabwe face economic crisis

BTTB

BTTB

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SA ready to help Zimbabwe face economic crisis

How Deputy President. How?
When everyone was telling your ANC-Led Government what a toss Mugabe is and the country is going downhill you chose to ignore the public as DA paranoia.

Now look where Zimbabwe is! They rewound 120 years of hard work in 5.

The only way and I keep saying this, is to get back to the basics of farming.
Good Old Fashioned Farming.
Government's of today don't know what farming is.
They just think that the land produces food.
Well to a certain extent yes, but in a commercial sense the land needs to be worked and worked with all your heart and soul.
You need to enjoy farming and you either need to be born into it or have it in your blood.
There is a stark difference of sitting on your derrière in a office and relent on what the Zimbabweans need or needed.

They need leadership within their own country. People that are committed to honest change from the current mess.
The Zimbabweans need to get rid of that sick President and toss all the free loaders out of Government and enable farmers to enter farmland safely without concern for their lives.
And most of all the Zimbabweans need to ask the ousted white farmers if they would spare Zimbabwe a second chance.
Mostly because it was wrong to dispossess people from land that was not paid for and secondly the people that were dispossessed were the people that actually knew how to farm.

I only see more charity coming from Government.
More free Electricity, Fuel etc.
This wont teach them anything. You give a finger they will take your arm.
One will have to treat Zimbabwe like a child. Back to the basics of give and take.
 
BTTB : You are slightly wrong. The DA wanted us to isolate (and to antagonise) Zimbabwe like the British had. That would make us feel morally superior, but would not help the situation one bit. We need Zimbabwe to not melt down (at almost any cost). Their current partial meltdown is already hurting us, but not nearly as much as it will when it escalates even further.

The only option for us was to keep dialog open and try mediate a solution to their problem. It didn't work unfortunatly, but Englands aproach most certainly did not. At least we are in a position to still try and fix it. England have burn their bridges. Which is fine, they dont have to deal with the aftermath. We do.

As for the rest of your post, that is true. Whilst agriculture falls away for emerging markets, in undeveloped countries, it is a valuable tool to lift yourself and your country up
 
Tell me Jstrike if zim was a white government, what do you think this South African regime would have done?
 
Well I'm not up for handing them freebies when there's still so much to be done right here. I don't mind us providing them with the expertise and training necessary to go about re-building their country, but certainly not our own resources. They need to be willing to put in some hard work if they truly want to accomplish what they once were, not rely on us just because we're better off economically. Our people put in the effort required to get to where we are.
 
The only thing that could happen in Zim that is possibly worse than now, is a civil war.

Getting rid of Mugabe is only part of the problem, removing his legacy is the burning issue, for it could surely spark a civil war as Zanu PF hardliners and the MDC battle to fill the leadership vacuum.

What needs to be done is to oust Mugabe in a "diplomatic" manner, get him to "retire" and appoint a temporary president ahead of nationwide polls. Part of the stipulation of "retiring" is to hold back the Zanu PF war hounds - "the green bombers" and let change happen democratically.

Lease the land back to the white farmers, with the condition that serious change in terms of worker equity and training is a fundamental part of the deal and take it from there. As I've said before for SA, a partial "socialist" farming system would be an ideal short term solution for land sharing - the Kibbutz system, or the more commercial Moshav. Basically a farmers "collective"

Sounds easy, but of course, it isn't.

The way I see it, the best hope for farming in Southern Africa is a kibbutz style system - adapted slightly to suit the culture, but by and large, a place where profits and expertise are shared. It's simply the best way to teach people how to farm.

Heck, if lazy city slicker volunteers going to Kibbutz for a working holiday can learn how to work the land (or the basics), then anyone can.

It's the perfect solution, however, it needs government backing - and serious backing - to make it work.
 
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bb_matt : Agreed

ajak : The same. The economic costs are too high for anything else. And besides, SA doesn't antagonise countries (black or white) but rather keeps the dialog going

Highflyer_GP : I agree partly. We will probably have to provide some finance (or risk loosing even more ourselves), but it will no doubt be tied to policy reform, etc to help the structural problems they have created
 
bb_matt : I think your kibbutz idea can even work in SA partly. Even though we dont need the farming, it can be a valuable tool in combating unemployment and raising many people's standard of living (as well as teaching them skills). The problem, however, is that it reminds people of the group areas and homelands. It is what torpedoed this exactly a couple of years ago
 
bb_matt's Kibbutz plan would/could work in the former homelands as one example?
Some of the best fertile land is in the Eastern Cape.

Commercial Farms are well established in South Africa.
But we need to uplift the poorer class who are flocking away from the former homelands in search of formal employment in the Cities when in all earnest the best potential is right under their noses.
Government should try and prevent mass urbanisation to the cities.
Mass Urbanisation causes slums, disease and further poverty.

In Zimbabwe's case many of the now jobless farm workers that were pushed off the land when the so called "war veterans" came to claim "their" land are now living close to the Cities in hope of some money or opportunity.
These are the ones they can help first. But then this is the people what Mugabe calls the trash with his "drive out the trash" campaign.
Clear the Filth Download.
Mugabe is truly a tyrant of the worst calibre.

Just found this website called Zimbabwe Situation.
Zimbabwe facing widespread starvation Video

And where are all the white Zimbabwean Farmers now?
Here is one place in Nigeria called the Kwara Project.
 
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if anything although mugabe is a validated idiot i feel sorry for the millions of people in zimbabwe who dont have a choice, and if my country can help thse people get back up and build a better country then that is a good thing regardless of their leader.
 
JStrike said:
ajak : The same. The economic costs are too high for anything else. And besides, SA doesn't antagonise countries (black or white) but rather keeps the dialog going
Click to expand...


That's the problem, i'm not saying we should attack other countries left and right, but with the current situation in zim we could have been more harsh.
Dialog has got us nowhere, we tried flexing our economic muscle, even that didn't work!


Think about it, what would have happened if the brits and the americans didn't attack nazi germany in the 2nd WW? If they just stood across the ocean and phoned hitler every day or so saying: "Adolf, will you please stop killing people, we won't do anything about it, but will you please stop anyways?" I acknowledge it's not on the same level and not of the same severity, but it's wrong to stand by watching your fellow man get abused and
stripped of human rights!

I'm not saying the goverment is utterly wrong, i also don't want to fight with my brothers, but if the other means are depleated, then over to action it is!
 
sludge : Whilst I do understand your sentiments on a certain level, we cannot attack a country without a UN approval. The US might be big enough to get away with it, but we are not

BTTB : Yep
 
sludge said:
That's the problem, i'm not saying we should attack other countries left and right, but with the current situation in zim we could have been more harsh.
Dialog has got us nowhere, we tried flexing our economic muscle, even that didn't work!


Think about it, what would have happened if the brits and the americans didn't attack nazi germany in the 2nd WW? If they just stood across the ocean and phoned hitler every day or so saying: "Adolf, will you please stop killing people, we won't do anything about it, but will you please stop anyways?" I acknowledge it's not on the same level and not of the same severity, but it's wrong to stand by watching your fellow man get abused and
stripped of human rights!

I'm not saying the goverment is utterly wrong, i also don't want to fight with my brothers, but if the other means are depleated, then over to action it is!
Click to expand...
You have a point.
Mugabe has crossed to line and he did so some time ago already and sits back and laughs at us.
I watched this video and it is a real eye opener. The situation is quite dire.
The economist they interviewed in 2005 predicted an inflation rate of 1000% by 2006 and possibly 2000% if things carry on. He wasn't wrong at all.
What is to come next. When Mugabe falls from grace or dies there may be civil war.
The situation is very serious and the United Nations may be Zimbabwe's only diplomatic solution?
We will of course still have to feed them and supply electricity if Eskom has spare capacity. Fuel may be another issue?

Jeepers the more you see and read the more hopeless their situation has become. Woe is Zimbabwe.

In Europe, only once the Allies had entered Germany did they discover the atrocities. Only here there are no Allies coming to rescue the Zimbabweans.
Perhaps all that money Blair and the UK spent in Iraq may have been better served trying to sort out the Zimbabwean stuff-up?
 
True JStrike, very true.
Please note, my comment wasn't aimed at you, just at the general thought of not acting more directly.

There are however other means of action. Why are we not criticising mugabe in the media? Why don't we take a motion to the security counsel? Why are we not pissing and moaning to every agency of the UN about their malpractise of power? Why are we not sweeping his people up against him?

One more thought, their economic despair is not only leading to the suffering of their people, but it also leads to instability in the region, thins out trade volumes in our region etc. Their current situation leads to lower levels of economic development throughout the SADEC region.
It would help the whole region if they were more stable and also achieved some sort of economic growth.
 
BTTB : Yep, for a fraction of the price, they could have lobied the UN (The UN might actually have listened to them) and prevented a country that was succesfull from destroying itself. Instead they spent hundreds of billions of dollars helping a country that was already a mess.
 
sludge : Well, as for "sweeping his people up against him?" we did do something. Remember the whole NIA effort. Unfortunatly our agent was captured when trying to swing a high level official and it all amounted to nothing (Other than one of our agents spending a lot of time in a Zim jail)
 
sludge said:
There are however other means of action. Why are we not criticising mugabe in the media? Why don't we take a motion to the security counsel? Why are we not pissing and moaning to every agency of the UN about their malpractise of power? Why are we not sweeping his people up against him?

.
Click to expand...


Mugabe is seen as a hero by a lot of south africans and other idiots in zimbabwe afterall he was one of the first to stand up against the colonials and free them from the "struggle" . So if mbeki or our government tried something like you mentioned there would be a lot of pissed off south africans at mbeki and every1 supporting him.
 
DS, you have a valid point.
Still, if that is the case I am no longer proud to be an South African!
I'm not saying it is not the case,it may very well be.
I sincerely hope it is not the case though! How sad will it be if people that fought for democracy for so long, supports an dictator just like that! :(


JStrike, we should have kept on trying! Do you for one second think that the US and Russia stopped their intelligence activity's after such a event?




EDIT: Massive typo :)
 
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DigitalSoldier : That is true. But he has started becoming an ever bigger embarrasment in recent years. As for the NIA agent, it is true

sludge : I doubt it has :-)
 
JStrike said:
BTTB :. It didn't work unfortunatly, but Englands aproach most certainly did not. At least we are in a position to still try and fix it. England have burn their bridges. Which is fine, they dont have to deal with the aftermath. We do.
Click to expand...
The Africa song, someone else is to blame, England burned their bridges? Not Mugabe burned Rhodesia, called it Zimbabwe and now its broke fcucked and useless, stripped from all feasible production, broken, corrupted, bankrupt (All money in Swiss bank under?) now the are beggars. If the GVT do not passop we will also be there in less than 10 years, then still blame apartheid, Blair and Bush for it! We are beggars already!
 
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