uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070908/tuk-eu-po...itain-a7ad41d_1.html

What craven cowards the Portuguese are. "It is not up to Portugal to invite some people rather than others," said their deputy foreign minister. The African leaders hang together as that last farce of an African Summit showed but NO exceptions should be made to the ban on Zimbawe's murderous leadership coming to Europe. Unfortunately Mugabe shows no sign of serious illness yet One can but hope that something that's excruciatingly painful and lingeringly terminal will strike soon.

How's this for a proposal:
Write to the Whitehouse and tell them Zimbabwe is oil-rich. Mugabe will suddenly become the best friend of Osama Bin Laden and will be out on his ar$e quicker than you can say WMD.

Well, it worked before....

So why aren't we supporting the opposition? Why aren't we up to our usual dirty tricks?

Bet if he was Muslim or Communist we'd have more to say.

More bloody hypocrisy masquerading as ethical foreign policy. Bunch of moral cowards. We either believe in our "Western Values" and are prepared to live by them or we don't and it appears we dont.

I realise "gun-boat" politics are long gone but shouldn't someone have addressed the problem of Mugabe long ago? Is there some unwritten rule that states "only interfere if it's to your advantage and morals be damned"?
Either you follow the path of self-righteousness across the board and jump in where you see any injustice, or you keep your own counsel unless you are directly (and truthfully) threatened.

You can't cherry-pick with principles.

Hear hear.

Bananaman wrote:
So why aren't we supporting the opposition? Why aren't we up to our usual dirty tricks?

Exactly what I was thinking. Why aren't we supporting Morgan Changerai like we did the opposition leaders in South Africa during apartheid? Or Archbishop Pius Ncube who has been hung out to dry by the Vatican? The UK government feted Mandela last week and all the hangers on of the anti apartheid movement like Peter Hain were there shedding crocodile tears. Where are these giants of outraged social conscience now when Mugabe is ravaging Zimbabwe, mudering thousands of its people and stuffing his Swiss bank account with Chinese bribes? The South African government is of course even worse. Thabo Mbeki is a bosom buddy of Mugabe as was demonstrated at the recent meeting of criminals and murderers that was advertised as a summit of Southern African Development Community. Mugabe received a loud round of applause from his fellow dictators before they went on to discuss advanced rape and pillage techniques.

All true but you neglect to mention the complicity of Western companies in the creation and continued rule of these dictators.

It suits western capital to deal with "one-man shows" rather than elected representatives because one man and his mates are easier to bribe and elected representatives might decide to tax your profits as their electorate expects.

We in the West need to accept at least a portion of the blame. After all whose banks do they keep their money in and whose companies avail of these funds?

Look at the BAe scandal and how rapidly that was rammed under the carpet.
Look at how often our aid is given with strings about buying fighters, riot control gear, etc.

To paraphrase the bard there's something rotten in the states of Europe. Corruption is endemic here too but we call it different names.

Bananaman wrote:
All true but you neglect to mention the complicity of Western companies in the creation and continued rule of these dictators.

It suits western capital to deal with "one-man shows" rather than elected representatives because one man and his mates are easier to bribe and elected representatives might decide to tax your profits as their electorate expects.

We in the West need to accept at least a portion of the blame. After all whose banks do they keep their money in and whose companies avail of these funds?

Look at the BAe scandal and how rapidly that was rammed under the carpet.
Look at how often our aid is given with strings about buying fighters, riot control gear, etc.

To paraphrase the bard there's something rotten in the states of Europe. Corruption is endemic here too but we call it different names.

I agree with you about corruption in Europe and I strongly believe that we should take draconian measures to root it out. However most African countries have been independent for decades so I don't accept that colonialism has much to do with their dire state now. Their problems are caused by their endemic tribalism and racism. I see little prospect of any change in Africa for decades to come. Most of them don't even have the wit to realise that the failsafe and free way to stop the AIDS epidemic in its tracks is to keep their trousers zipped up. The £Bs being squandered on AIDS and HIV research would be far better spent on classes about how to run a country. Ian Smith knew how to run Zimbabwe successfully, Mugabe in addition to being a pervert, hasn't a clue.

Brown throws down extraordinary challenge over Mugabe


I don't think much of the man's politics but fair play to him for having the bottle to make a stand. It was on BBC news this morning that the Portugese have claimed no invitation has been extended to Mugabe. I wonder what the truth of the matter is?

dws wrote:
Brown throws down extraordinary challenge over Mugabe


I don't think much of the man's politics but fair play to him for having the bottle to make a stand. It was on BBC news this morning that the Portugese have claimed no invitation has been extended to Mugabe. I wonder what the truth of the matter is?

A Portuguese guy was on the Today programme this morning trying to justify Mugabe's presence by claiming that other African leaders won't turn up if Mugabe isn't allowed to attend. Well so what? If they don't want to bother that's OK - just cancel the junket. It seems it was fashionable to campaign against apartheid in South Africa twenty years ago but when a black guy runs a regime now that's much worse in every respect, nobody wants to know. Why are the left and their fellow travellers afraid of upsetting the black criminals who are visiting rape and pillage on Africa's people?

Levenax wrote:
Why are the left and their fellow travellers afraid of upsetting the black criminals who are visiting rape and pillage on Africa's people?[/quote]

I don't think they are, Levenax. There's just not enough profit in it for them.