“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Martin Luther King, Jr

Monday, December 29, 2008

Death By Cholera. Really?

I have not updated this site because of a war going on in my head. A war that, on the one hand feel I we should do anything to help the poor of Zimbabwe and on the other hand rage at the injustice of a politically crazed despot, who cares more about how many people are in his cabinet than trying to repair the country he is fighting for.
Robert Mugabe, president of Africa rigged the voting to have himself elected and has since pushed this once proud nation into a death trap with inflation the highest in the world at over 10000%. Cholera is running rampant and refugees are pushing into the borders of other cities carrying the deadly disease with them. Sewers are broken all over the cities and fresh water is harder and harder to find. Garbage is not being picked up and street vendors sell their wares amidst the rotting sewage in the streets.

The US and other nations are calling for Mugabe to step down. Amid the grumbling of the outside world, human activists calling for peace in Zimbabwe were arrested including a two-year-old child. There are reports of torture being used against the leader, Jestina Mukoko and nine others to force a confession out of them. She was taken from a health clinic where she was treated for injuries reportedly from her torture, directly to court where she and others may face the death penalty. She was ordered released, but was has not been, instead now being held in an undisclosed location.

Zimbabwe's people are suffering from Mugabe's appalling economic mismanagement, corruption and brutal repression.  How do we as civilized people continue to pour money, food and medical supplies into a country with a violent leader who cares not for all Africans but only a select few? Those who do not agree with his views are subsequently beaten, raped and killed with no thought of it at all. Do we keep pouring sand down a rat hole, as this powerful despot rules the country with fists of iron?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The UN is not blameless they allowed
the regime of Robert Mugabe take a cut of all aid money it raised, until the last days of November of this year, converted at a government-imposed rate at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.


A large part of the problem is their humongous inflation rate
which has made it so many people their couldn't afford food , electricity, water bills, or even eat.

Unknown said...

I totally agree on the UN being a big problem in the middle of a bigger problem. I really question how much we can do with the enormous problem at hand?

Yummy Biscuits said...

Yes, we must do what we can for the people of Zimbabwe. And it looks like Regime change is again the answer. Or at least a step in the right direction. But it is the same old problem: how do you cut the aid when all it does is hurt the people? Cutting aid is not the answer. The hapless corrupt UN is not the answer: no more debates and resolutions are needed, here or in Darfur. The answer, sadly, is to go take Mugabe by the ear and drag him out of power. Why is this not obvious to others?

Unknown said...

YB, I am in total agreement! Who the hell has the balls to do so? Sanctions and all are not going to do it. Talk is not going to do it. The poor of Zimbabwe and Darfur need our help now more than ever, but who and how is it stopped. That is the million dollar question.

Niar said...

dear Ettarose,
deseases is really a great threat. I means not only wars, or weapons like nuclear that becomes a something that tthread the security of human, but more important is our environment, which one of that is the spread of deseases. AIDs, malaria, Tuberculosis, and cholera is the biggest thread because it is easy to contaminated other people, and sometimes hard to be recovery...
I hope there always a awareness and new innovations to reduce its effect

Unknown said...

Niar, I agree. To be able to stop disease there must be education. Learning how disease is spread and how to prevent the spread. Clean water is a big deterrent for many diseases. Being able to have clean water for washing and cooking.

A. said...

I have heard it said that the only way to get help to people living under a corrupt regime is to pour in aid, practical aid rather than money, so much so that those who hoard it eventually have too much. It then does trickle down to people who genuinely are in need. Whether this actually works I don't know. It's a hugely complicated problem.

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