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BBC: Mugabe’s Secret Purchases of grain…

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2004-05-26 Time: 13:09:21  Posted By: Jan

[Mugabe is doing what communists often do. They pretend failure is a success and engage in a tremendous deception to fool everyone. It allows them to continue along the evil path they originally set out on… by claiming that they succeeded when in fact they failed. For example, the Governments of Namibia and South Africa can build on the lie by agreeing and saying: Land Reform in Zimbabwe worked and now the country is feeding itself… so now we can do it too… and the Whites are bloody liars when they say Land Reform is a failure.

If one watches and understands these people and starts seeing how their minds work you start to appreciate just how downright bloody EVIL they are and why death is the only correct and just thing they deserve. These evil leaders should be slaughtered. Its what they rightly deserve. Jan]

After three years of hunger, the government has announced there will be a bumper harvest.

To be precise, it says that this year Zimbabwe will grow 2.4 million tons of maize – which, according to UN statistics, would be the fifth highest harvest since independence in 1980.

State-controlled television says this shows the success of the land reform programme, and “proves wrong the prophecies of doom”.

And President Robert Mugabe has told a United Nations crop assessment mission to leave the country.

He said the UN should take their aid elsewhere.

“We are not hungry,” said the president. “Why foist this food upon us?”

Different predictions

If Mr Mugabe is right, Zimbabwe has experienced an extraordinary turn-around.

Millions of Zimbabweans have been surviving on foreign food aid for years now.

Privately UN officials say they believe the country is heading for another small harvest, and that another relief operation will be necessary by the end of this year.

Mugabe says his land reforms have rid the country of “ill-educated” white farmers.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is even more dismissive, and is not afraid to rubbish the government’s predictions.

MDC agriculture spokesman Renson Gasela told the BBC: “There is no way the government’s figures can be accurate in anyway whatsoever”.

He says there was a chronic shortage of seeds and fertiliser during the last planting season, and much of Zimbabwe’s best land is simply lying fallow.

His own prediction is that Zimbabwe will grow a mere 850,000 tons of maize.

Bountiful image

Is the Zimbabwean government deliberately misleading the world, and its own people?

Mr Mugabe, in his emphatic way, says no.

He says the land reforms have successfully rid Zimbabwe of “ill-educated” white farmers, and that the new system is much more “enlightened”.

Mr Mugabe has staked his political reputation on land reform, and he now needs to convince Zimbabweans that the seizure of white-owned farms was worth it.

Mugabe’s opponents think he is trying to justify the seizure of white-owned farms

State-controlled media in Zimbabwe does its best, pumping out with monotonous regularity a jingle which celebrates the taking back of the land.

It shows happy people dancing across bountiful fields of maize, and driving tractors.

But the president’s opponents believe land reform has been a disastrous failure, and that the government is now desperately trying to cover its tracks.

“They want to show the success of their reform,” said Renson Gasela.

“And they told the UN team to leave because they knew they would not concur with their figures.”

Secret purchases?

Asking the UN to leave might be one way of obscuring the whole picture.

But there may be other ways – like secretly buying grain abroad, and then pretending it was produced at home.

Press reports in Britain have linked the Zimbabwean government with a US company, and a secret grain-for-tobacco deal.

The American company told the BBC that it is doing business in Zimbabwe, although it denies directly dealing with the government.

And Mr Mugabe says he has no intention of buying grain abroad.

But his opponents do not take him at his word.

They worry that if Mr Mugabe does buy food, he will then determine how it is distributed to hungry Zimbabweans, without the involvement of meddlesome foreign donors.

And with parliamentary elections on the horizon, this would help him tighten his grip on power.

Source: BBC

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3746927.stm/p>