[This is toooo funny. Several months ago… our President was in Burundi… and a whole huge propaganda event was made of this enormous “success”. The SA Govt had “brought peace” to Burundi… There they were… our President and Vice President… singing… yes… SINGING… as “peace broke out…” This was the SUCCESS of their mediation. Ah… such sweet success for the ANC.

Since then… SEVERAL news stories have come out… (not only from Burundi) showing what a SHAM and TOTAL FAILURE this much publicised exercise was… TOTAL FAILURE… as one black Government… Africa’s “Super Power”… cannot even broker peace among other blacks… Blacks are fighting blacks… in wars which… seem to go on FOREVER… and nobody… not even other blacks… can stop it.

What a huge DISASTER!!!

But you know what… I look at this and I smile… with a big grin from ear to ear… because when WHITE PEOPLE… ruled this continent… there were DECADES of PEACE and DEVELOPMENT. There were no wars, no civil wars – not even tribal wars – because whites nipped them in the bud and stopped them. Yeah… They said we whites were “harsh”, were “cruel”… but you know what… Maybe we knew more about bringing peace… Because when we ruled… completely… there was PEACE, and DEVELOPMENT. And since Decolonisation… Africa has not had a day of either. In fact, Africa must hold the record for the most number of longest running civil wars in the history of our planet… and all of them occured AFTER Decolonisation…

President Mbeki is running around the continent playing “peace broker”… and wherever he goes… they make a huge propaganda issue out of each “success”… yet… time and again… the peace process then breaks down a few months later… and they have to start all over again. I find it ridiculous that blacks can’t make peace among themselves, but it gives me solace to know that whites were able to achieve what blacks still have not been able to. Too bad, nobody gives whites credit for the amazing things they did on this, the most hopeless continent on the planet. Jan]

Bujumbura – Deputy President Jacob Zuma, a key mediator in attempts to end Burundi’s 11-year civil war, arrived here on Tuesday to discuss the president’s attempts to amend a provisional constitution to allow him to run in elections later this year.

“I am here to convey a message from the region,” Zuma told reporters upon his arrival in Bujumbura. He declined to elaborate.

President Domitien Ndayizeye is seeking amendments that would allow him to run in a presidential vote due in April. He also wants the post decided by popular vote, rather than by members of a new parliament that is to be elected in March.

Nearly 20 political parties – including Ndayizeye’s own Front for Democracy in Burundi – have rejected the proposals, citing an August 2002 peace accord barring him and former president Pierre Buyoyo from serving again for at least five years.

Zuma, acting at the request of regional leaders, was planning to meet Ndayizeye and other participants in the peace process.

Also under discussion will be preparations for a February 28 referendum to approve the provisional constitution.

The referendum and elections would be Burundi’s first democratic polls since the civil war between the army dominated by minority Tutsis and rebels from the Hutu majority.

The conflict broke out in October 1993 after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country’s first democratically elected leader, a Hutu. More than 260 000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.

This article was originally published on page 8 of The Mercury on January 26, 2005

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>