"Let Them Eat Potatoes"

The More things change, the more they stay the same. Funny, didn't I hear another despot say something similar? Oh, yeah! Yeah, that went really well for her.

I guess Robert Mugabe doesn't take European History seriously. After all, he can institute the most productive reforms of a functioning agriculture industry since Mao Tze Dong's Great Leap Forward and still call Bush and Blair Hitler at World Food day in Rome. That just takes some serious guliones! Not to mention the greatest degree of stupidity a dictator can demonstrate.

‘Dust people’ starve in Zimbabwe ruins" says the Times Online

Here's why:

The International Crisis Group estimates Zimbabwe has between 4m and 5m internal refugees — more than a third of the population. They are the victims of Operation Murambatsvina, and workers kicked off commercial farms seized in five years of violent land grabs.

Yet Mugabe refuses to allow a $30m humanitarian appeal by the UN for blankets and food. He objects to the use of the word “humanitarian”.

A consignment of 6,000 blankets and 37 tons of food raised by the South African Council of Churches for the new homeless was blocked at the border by customs authorities. First they demanded duties, then they refused entry, claiming they needed proof the food was not genetically modified.

Many of those who lost their homes were dumped in rural areas, putting enormous strain on villages on the edge of starvation. But others had nowhere to go. These are the people who ended up in the dust of places such as Tsiga Grounds and Ground No 5 in the Mbare district of the capital.

Among the hundreds crouching in fly-ridden makeshift shelters is Zvikomborera, a 33-year-old woman with short cropped hair who is blind in one eye. A single mother with two daughters aged 5 and 13, she lost everything when armed police with dogs and bulldozers arrived at her small cabin.

We met in secret because Tsiga Grounds is patrolled by a vigilante gang who beat the inhabitants and try to destroy the makeshift dwellings. Gang members appeared both times I tried to enter.

“They tell us, ‘Sons of bitches, are you moles that live on the ground? Crawl back to the hole that you came from’,” Zvikomborera said.

While Mugabe was enjoying Rome, Zvikomborera explained how she is forced to live. Her children scour the rubbish dump of a supermarket for rotten potatoes and tomatoes out of which she cuts any good bits. The previous day, the two girls had shared one cup of rice. Zvikomborera had nothing.

Until two weeks ago they were getting food from a Buddhist organisation. Then the Department of Social Welfare summoned aid agencies, such as World Vision and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and banned them from distributing any more.

“They told us there is no such thing as urban displaced people in Zimbabwe and there is no hunger in Harare,” said one aid worker. “They just want these people to die.”

Like most of her fellow dust people, Zvikomborera is still astounded by what happened to her. “Before Murambatsvina we were poor but we were managing. My children were clean and went to school. I collected scrap wood from carpenters and industries and sold it for firewood.

“When the police and dogs came, we lost everything. In one hour they had smashed my home, bed, wardrobe. We have nothing left but a few clothes and pots and pans. I just cried and cried.

“Now we live here on the dust. We have no water. There is a tap at the bus station but they make us buy the water at Z$50,000 (£1.10) for 20 litres. Where can I get money now they have stopped us selling things? My children cannot go to school as I have no address and don’t know where I will be in two weeks. Everyone is sick and starving.”

Some of her neighbours have turned to prostitution and she is terrified she will soon have little option but to follow them.

Zimbabweans will only stand for these indignities for so long. Sooner or later, Mugabe will slip up with key personnel in the military. Or the IMF will sink the country. Then, his rule will last hours, not days.

Until then, He'll commit his hypocrisy while his people starve. He'll glorify himself while pretending to administer "justice" to his people. He'll continue to get a pass from the Reasonable MSM because he's the wrong skin color and political philosophy to attack for something as trivial as forced internal relocation and mass starvation. Perish the thought that a committed socialist and an African can actually Stalinize his own kind! Then again, have any noted leftists decries Stalin?

Mr. Mugabe's sins cry out to heaven for justice. May he receive that justice soon, so that the people of Zimbabwe may survive his capricious cruelty.

Hat tip to an email from the Coalition for Darfur.