Rastafari Speaks Interactive

Mugabe May Not, After All, Be Insane!

By Abraham Tangwe
July 09, 2008
postnewsline.com

The recent avalanche of insults and negative publicity directed towards Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe cannot leave any keen African observer indifferent.

The idea is not to exonerate him from any wrongdoing per se. This is so because he is guilty of some, but hardly enough for us to be so hard on him. It is even more pathetic and frightful when an authoritative and respected iconic figure like Mandela decides to join in this dance of the Vampires.

Our gullible natures have pushed us blindly into the waiting trap of western propaganda through the snares of their media entanglements, which is always tele-guided by their government policies.

Robert Mugabe: Victim or Villain?

By Amengeo Amengeo
July 03, 2008
The African Executive

When sharks smell blood, they go into a feeding frenzy and attack relentlessly. There is feeding frenzy about Zimbabwe that preceded the June 27 run-off elections.

Thwarted in their bid to install their man Morgan Tsvangirai in power, the forces of Western neo-colonialism continue to ratchet up media pressure. Some African leaders seem to have bought into this propaganda campaign.

Stories in the Western Press about "Government-sanctioned violence" in Zimbabwe focus on lurid details quoting one-sided and opinionated anonymous sources without much verifiable data.

Worried over Robert Mugabe vs. the Western World's Press?

By Lloyd Whitefield Butler, Jr.
Jun 22, 2008
talkzimbabwe.com

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire commenting on 18th century media spinmiesters. Abolitionist Reverend Matlack wrote: "What absurdities will not men defend! If the Gospel will tolerate slavery [apartheid and colonialism], what will it not authorize?

SHOULD you be worrying about 84 year old Robert Gabriel Mugabe, duly elected President of the Republic of Zimbabwe returning Zimbabwe land to Zimbabweans in national security mode? Should the world be worrying about a US, EU, Britain backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) run-off election to un-declare its government's Declaration of Independence and to abolish its Constitution and return illegally seized land to white farmers?

The Perils of Racial Solidarity

by Kevin Alexander Gray
June 15, 2008
blackagendareport.com

“[Obama] has to convince white folk that he’s 150 percent with them. So we should just all be quiet and let him do what he has to do.”

A lot of black people I know have hit the mute button. When Hillary brings up working class white voters, when commentators say we’re in the post-racial era, even when Barack had to kick his preacher to the curb. “Where were Obama’s friends?” The Wall Street Journal‘s Daniel Henninger asked. Quiet, quiet, quiet.

The current undertone in the black cultural cosmos reflects the old adage, “If you can’t say some good, don’t say anything at all.” The way to show racial solidarity? Shut up.

Zimbabwe: Politics and Food Aid

By Stephen Gowans
June 04, 2008

There is no evidence that the government of Zimbabwe is using food “as a political tool to intimidate voters ahead of an election” or that it is deliberately denying “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans” food aid, as Human Rights Watch and The New York Times allege.

In fact, a careful reading of what both sources claim, points to a deliberate and knowing attempt to palter with the truth, reflecting and reinforcing a narrative that holds Africa, and particularly Zimbabwe, to be marked by suffering people, corrupt and monstrous governments, and endless chaos.

The New York Times began a June 4 article on Zimbabwe by announcing that “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans — orphans and old people, the sick and the down and out – have lost access to food and other basic humanitarian assistance.”

Zimbabwe: The MDC - The Continuity of its Theoretical and Practical Weaknesses

By Dr. Sehlare Makgetlaneng
June 10, 2008

"The fight against Zimbabwe is a fight against us all. Today it is Zimbabwe, tomorrow it will be South Africa, it will be Mozambique, it will be Angola, it will be any other African country. Any government that is perceived to be strong, and to be resistant to imperialists, would be made a target and be undermined. So let us not allow any point of weakness in the solidarity of the SADC, because that weakness will also be transferred to the rest of Africa."

—Thabo Mbekii(1)

The Movement for Democratic Change is characterised by unique and frightening theoretical and practical weaknesses. It is as if it is not an opposition political party in the former settler colonial society in the region which was the victim of settler colonial rule. It has no position on imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, globalisation and north-south relations. Despite acute problems confronted by the masses of the Zimbabwean people on a daily basis, its strategy and tactics have been failing to meet their demands and needs. The consequence has been that they do not recognise them as expressions of their own experience. Its remaining alternative to defeat the Zimbabwean African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) to be in power in Zimbabwe is the ballot box. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the MDC's profound theoretical and practical weaknesses have continued increasing. In its achievement in the March 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, the MDC have exposed the continuity of its theoretical and practical weaknesses. It is as if it does not have serious organic intellectuals capable of articulating appropriate strategy and tactics, nationally, regionally, continentally and internationally. Who are its leading intellectuals and strategists?

Zimbabwe: How soon we forget

By Stella Orakwue
June 10, 2008
The Herald

IT is a pity that the people who voted against President Robert Mugabe have no ability to remember the servitude they existed in prior to the last 28 years.

They did it for the money. What is the price of the loyalty? It is a heavy price to pay when "your" people are prepared to buy and sell you for Western money. Western money could not, and cannot, buy President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. But clearly, as the number of people who voted against him in the presidential election show, people of Zimbabwe, in Zimbabwe, are prepared to sell him to the West in return for money.

Land, property, money, buying and selling. The ownership of land, the ownership of property. Property and the European. Robert Mugabe knew, and knows, about what property means.

Mbeki Responds to Media Misrepresentations

Statement of the Presidency: Media reports on Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai's supposed letter to President Thabo Mbeki

June 04, 2008

FULL TEXT: Statement from South Africa's Presidency

The Presidency has noted ongoing media reports of a letter supposedly sent to President Thabo Mbeki by Zimbabwean Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on May 13 2008.

Regarding these reports, the Presidency reiterates that President Thabo Mbeki has not received any such letter from Mr Tsvangarai. Nor has any official in the Presidency or the South African government received any such letter from any member of the MDC.

America Brings Hell to Somalia

by Margaret Kimberley
May 26, 2008
blackagendareport.com

"The Muslim religion is used as a convenient scapegoat to further the aims of war."

What does the word "Islamist" mean? The millions of people around the globe who practice Islam are called Muslims, but this new term has crept into the language without question or investigation. It seems to apply to Muslims who fight against the occupation of Iraq, or Somalians who don't take kindly to the U.S.-backed Ethiopian government invading their country and killing their countrymen and women. In short, an Islamist seems to be any Muslim who has the nerve to act in opposition to the American government. Like anyone else deemed an enemy, a new word has to be invented in order to dehumanize. If Somalian resistance fighters were called just that, then Americans might question their government's decision to keep killing them.

America's intervention gave Ethiopia license to invade Somalia and begin a horrific cycle of violence. According to Amnesty International, more than 600,000 Somalis have fled from their homes, at least 6,000 are dead and 90,000 children in refugee camps are in danger of death from starvation and lack of hygiene and medical care.

Zimbabwe's political opposition deploys its own WMD claim

By Stephen Gowans
May 22, 2008
gowans.wordpress.com

ZIMBABWE'S political opposition and its Western-sponsored civil society allies are concocting stories of an impending genocide to call for Western intervention to oust the economic nationalist Zanu-PF government of Robert Mugabe.

Yet they themselves have used threats of violence to destabilize the country to pursue an agenda shaped by and conducive to the interests of Western corporations and investors and the white settler community.

The opposition had planned to use the March 29 elections to follow the color revolution script written in Washington to springboard to power. That script called on the opposition to declare victory in elections before the first vote was cast, and then to denounce any outcome other than a clear opposition victory as evidence of electoral fraud. If the opposition failed to prevail at the polls, its supporters were to be mobilized to take to the streets to bring down the government, in a repeat of previous Western-engineered color revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine.