Mad Bob and his sycophant Thabo

In his speech to world food summit, June 3 2008, the Zimbabwean president said :-

My country's primary agriculture policy objective remains that of ensuring national and household food security through our own production. In this regard, Zimbabwe has recognised the importance and centrality of land in agricultural production and food security. Thus, over the past decade, Zimbabwe has democratized the land ownership patterns in the country, with over 300 000 previously landless families now proud landowners.

Previously, this land was owned by a mere 4,000 farmers, mainly of British stock. While this land reform programme has been warmly welcomed by the vast majority of our people, it has however, and regrettably so, elicited wrath from our former colonial masters. In retaliation for the measures we took to empower the black majority, the United Kingdom has mobilized her friends and allies in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand to impose illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe. They have cut off all development assistance, disabled lines of credit, prevented the Bretton Woods institutions from providing financial assistance and ordered private companies in the United States not to do business with Zimbabwe. All this has been done to cripple Zimbabwe's economy and thereby effect illegal regime change in our country.

In a statement released by the White House, President GW Bush had the following comment about Zimbabwe:-

While Robert Mugabe makes political statements in Rome, his people continue to face empty markets at home. The United States currently feeds more than 1 million Zimbabweans and spent more than $170 million on food assistance in Zimbabwe last year. We will continue these efforts to prevent government-induced starvation in Zimbabwe.

In late April the South African President, the purveyor of 'quiet diplomacy', Thabo Mbeki , addressed a four-page letter to President Bush. Rather than coordinating strategy to end Zimbabwe's nightmare, Mbeki criticized the United States, in a text packed with exclamation points, for taking sides against President Mugabe's government and disrespecting the views of the Zimbabwean people. "He said it was not our business," recalls one American official, and "to butt out, that Africa belongs to him."

The 'New South Africa' has also actively blocked United Nations discussions about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe - and in Belarus, Cuba, North Korea and Uzbekistan.

South Africa was also the only 'democracy' to vote against a resolution demanding that the Burmese junta stop ethnic cleansing and free jailed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.

When Iranian nuclear proliferation was debated in the Security Council, South Africa dragged out discussions and demanded watered-down language in the resolution.

In the General Assembly, South Africa fought against a resolution condemning the use of rape as a weapon of war because the resolution was not sufficiently anti-American, and opposed a resolution condemning rape and attacks on civilians in Darfur - and then rolled out the red carpet for a visit from Sudan's genocidal leader.

When confronted by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch about their apparent indifference to all rights but their own, South African officials have responded by attacking the groups themselves which, they conspiratorially (and falsely) claim, are funded by "major Western powers."

South Africa clearly is also attempting to league itself with China and Brazil in a new nonaligned movement to redress an "imbalance of global power," meaning an excess of American power.

Longtime observers of Mbeki believe that racial issues may also play a role as he lashes out whenever he believes that Westerners are telling Africans how to conduct their lives, or who their leaders should be.

There is a common theme developing here and surely this spells out the future of South Africa - the only truely functional economy in sub Saharan Africa, but one wonders for how much longer.