This is Genocide(Zimbabwe)

[tekisui]

Many years ago, Didymus Mutasa said that they (Zanu PF) would be quite happy if the population fell to 6 million people who would then support the Party in its ambitions. At the time the population was probably just over 12 million and most thought these were the remarks by someone who did not have any idea of just what he was talking about?


Today we are rapidly moving towards that target figure of national population. Some people say that our population is no more than 8 million. I personally am comfortable with 9 million. In 1980 when we gained our independence as a State, the population growth was about 3,4 per cent per annum and expected to double in 17 to 18 years. It should therefore have been 17 million in 1997 when the madness that has gripped the country since then was initiated by the government.

So when we talk of the population now being only 8 or 9 million we have to ask what has happened to 8 or 9 million people. At least 4 million now reside in South Africa, a further 1 million live in other parts of the world
- probably most in the UK, followed by the USA and Canada and Australia.
This leaves an unexplained gap of 3 to 4 million people. Remember that is half the population of London or Paris or Gauteng.

We need to understand this number in terms of individuals - people with families, children and parents. Real people with real relationships that have been smashed by a system that has been deliberately created to sustain the grip on power of a small elite of perhaps 2 000 individuals at best (or worst).

In the 10 years that have followed 1997, the population should have grown naturally by another 8 million had historical birth and death rates been maintained. So we are talking about unnatural deaths in the order of 12 million people. One feature of this abnormal death rate is that life expectancies have fallen by half since 1990, from 60 years to about 30 years today.

It is not difficult to establish how these millions of people have been dying - HIV/Aids kills over 100 000 a year. Malaria another 30 000, tuberculosis perhaps 60 000, malnutrition and hunger perhaps another 60 000, mainly the elderly and the young. What we do know is that whereas in the Smith era, live births exceeded deaths by a 4:1 margin. The ratio today is perhaps 4:5 - a rise of 5 times in the natural death rates pre 1980.

much more at link: http://thezimbabwean.co.uk/content/view/16671/106/

[pampango]

1. Statistically, it is a genocide, but I think we cut dictators a break if they are

of the same ethnic background as the people they slaughter. (Noninterference in their "internal affairs" and such diplomatic jargon.) If Mugabe were of a different race, ethnicity or nationality from the "disappeared" Zimbabweans, the world would jump on the "genocide" accusation bandwagon. Sad to say. :grr:

[tekisui]

2. Maybe Politicide?

Is there a term for the systematic cleansing of people based on their political opposition?

[pampango]

3. Doesn't have the right ring to it, but I can't think of anything better.

Unfortunately, calling it a "slaughter of innocent civilians and political opponents", while accurate, just isn't "catchy" enough for people to rally around.

[HamdenRice]

4. OP's point: Yeah, let's bring back apartheid. It was better for the blacks

Ian Smith was much better. He killed Black people outright with guns and germ warfare. Much better for the "natives."

While the last 8 years of Mugabe's rule have been catastrophic, it's pretty silly to call what's going on genocide.

First of all, HIV/Aids has had a catastrophic effect on population growth in not just Zimbabwe, but all the neighboring countries. It is one of the few epidemics since the European plague of the 14th century to have the effect of drastically reducing growth and even population numbers. HIV reduces population in Africa not just by killing people, but because the people that aren't dying are not having unprotected sex, and therefore aren't having as many children. Birthrates are plummeting in the parts of Africa where AIDS is prevalent.

Second, the out-migration from Zimbabwe is vast. The OP article itself accepts a figure of 4 million Zimbabweans in South Africa and 1 million elsewhere. The OP article says there were 12 million at independence and now there are 9 million, so immigration and AIDS alone explain the decline in population. But since the OP author "expected" the population to be higher, based on pre-AIDS growth rates, he somehow attributes genocide to the fact that more people weren't born.

But if you really want to understand the apartheid agenda of the OP, you need only look at this sentence: "... displaced or traumatised by this regime since 1980 are astonishing."

Yet by all econometrics, the standard of living of Black Zimbabweans improved drastically from 1980 to about 2000. The pro-apartheid writer is trying to say, essentially, that everyone was better under white rule, which they weren't -- until the long running political and economic crisis initiated by Mugabe around 2000 reduced all those gains and impoverished the country.

I have friends from both Zimbabwe and South Africa and have talked to them extensively about the crisis there, and you can't understand why the opposition took so long to garner majority support unless you understand (1) that most black Zimbabweans saw their lives improve dramatically after the revolution, from 1980 to 2000, and (2) the opposition, based originally, primarily in the labor movement, made the mother of all political miscalculations by trying to incorporate the white dead-enders and Ian Smithites into their coalition, and a huge proportion of Black Zimbabweans remained more terrified of the idea of the return of Smithites than they were of Mugabe's increasingly insane rule.

Read between the lines of the pro apartheid OP article and you can see why.