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Did Whites Commit Genocide Against Blacks in South Africa?, Microsoft Word format
Did Whites Commit Genocide Against Blacks in South Africa?, Rich Text format

(Readers are urged to read our previous article on Zimbabwe, entitled The Zimbabwe Ruins, to have a fuller picture of the utter devastation in Zimbabwe today, and the horror of living there)

The 2005 election in Zimbabwe came and went, with the expected result: the return of the ruling Marxist party, ZANU-PF, and the president, Robert Mugabe, after a massively rigged election. There was widespread intimidation of opposition candidates and voters. There was no equal access to the State-owned media. The press was, and is, almost completely shackled, and foreign journalists were not permitted into the country to properly cover the election. The main opposition newspaper was closed. Independent radio stations were jammed. All Zimbabweans outside the country were barred from voting. The army, devoted to Mugabe because of the perks and salaries he pays the troops, was in charge of the election, for the army and police were the only appointed electoral officers; and the army stated that even if the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the ballot, it would not be allowed to take over the country. The voters’ roll was a shambles: of the country’s 5.6 million registered voters, the voters’ roll indicated that 800 000 were dead, 300 000 were listed more than once, and over 900 000 did not live at their recorded addresses. Ruling party loyalists were thus able to vote in the names of all those dead and missing voters, and 300 000 of them could do so more than once! Over 133000 living voters were turned away from the polls because of this defective voters’ roll.

U.S. secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, estimated that over 10% of would-be voters were turned away from polling stations due to irregularities with voter registration rolls. “The independent press was muzzled, freedom of assembly was constrained, food was used as a weapon to sway hungry voters and millions of Zimbabweans who have been forced by the nation’s economic collapse to emigrate were disenfranchised,” she said. Even Britain’s liberal, leftist Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the election “seriously flawed” (The Sunday Tribune, April 3, 2005). “There was a period of between 7 and 10 hours between the end of the election and the publication of the results. This was the time when the major manipulation, ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging was accomplished” (Zimbabwe’s Stolen Election, Rhodesia Christian Group Occasional Newsletter, May 2005).

Ruling party candidates in rural constituencies got 104% of the total votes cast. There were massive discrepancies between the number of people recorded to have cast ballots and the final vote tallies in many districts, according to the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which deployed thousands of observers across the country.

And, just as in South Africa’s rigged election in 1994 which brought the ANC to power, the supposedly “indelible ink” on voters’ fingers to prevent them from voting twice proved not to be indelible at all, as it could be removed with Vaseline or Jik (bleach) in minutes.

Furthermore, voters were being bought with food. Opposition supporters were required to present ZANU-PF membership cards in order to receive food aid. In a country facing starvation, many were more than willing to join the ruling party just to procure desperately-needed food.

Yet, predictably, the South African government’s observer mission to Zimbabwe reported that “the 2005 parliamentary elections reflect the will of the people”(The Sunday Tribune, April 3, 2005). The shape of things to come in South Africa? No - the ANC is already an expert at rigging elections, and has done so since the 1994 election which brought it to power. So in this respect, Zimbabwe’s election was not the shape of things to come in SA; rather, SA already knows all about the tactics used in Zimbabwe, having used them to very good effect for years!

As correctly pointed out by South African journalist Allister Sparks, himself a liberal but a man who has seen the truth about Zimbabwe: “If one is to accept, as our Southern African observer teams apparently do, that the result of the Zimbabwe election ‘reflected the will of the people of Zimbabwe’, then one should also accept its corollary, which is that the people of Zimbabwe enjoy economic collapse, unemployment and starvation and so turned out in record numbers to vote for more of the same” (The Witness, April 6, 2005).

And since the election, things have spiralled downward. This is a country being systematically destroyed. It is difficult for people in Europe or North America to fully appreciate the magnitude of this destruction. What follows is a very inadequate picture, for words cannot do justice to the devastation.

Harare, the capital, is reaching a state of complete collapse. In Mabvuku/Tafara township, a suburb of Harare and home to 100 000 people, there has been no water or fuel for weeks, there have been power blackouts often lasting half a day, and sewerage pipes that burst have not been repaired for weeks. Residents are surviving on water from boreholes and streams which are considered a health hazard. The water supply was interrupted in six other residential areas in and around Harare. “The city’s crumbling,” said Mark Davies, chairman of the Harare Residents and Ratepayers Association. “Water and power cuts are widespread; the people who have run the city for the past 25 years have failed us.” He said several suburbs had been without water for two months (The Mail and Guardian, 29 April 2005. Source: www.ZwNews.com).

Harare used to be known as Salisbury, when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia. I was born in Salisbury. It was a modern, clean, efficient, beautiful city, that arose out of the African wilderness by the ingenuity and expertise of white settlers. Today it is just like almost any other African city, only worse. My parents and grandparents, who worked so hard to make Rhodesia what it was, would doubtless not recognise it today. Perhaps it is good that the city and the country were renamed. At least then those who built Rhodesia can know that it is not truly Salisbury, or Rhodesia, that has collapsed. It is another country.

The Zimbabwe dollar is worthless, with rampant inflation. The prescribed wage for a domestic worker is a million dollars a month; but as one Zimbabwean said, “I earn a lot of money, but this is a country of poor millionaires” (The Witness, April 20, 2005). A retired person who gets a pension of $8000 is unable to use it to buy more than a single Coca-Cola!

The country faces widespread starvation, the result of Mugabe’s insane destruction of the agricultural sector by violently throwing all but a handful of the over 4000 white farmers off their land. White farmers and their black workers were murdered, agriculture collapsed, land was seized and occupied by black squatters. Yet Mugabe assured his people that the land seizures were necessary, and that millions of people would benefit! Yet now, even in his own home province, Mugabe castigated the new black landowners for not making use of over half of the land. Vast tracts of prime farmland are lying idle, the new occupiers both unable and unwilling to make productive use of it. They cannot raise bank loans because their illegally occupied properties are formally owned by the government, and they have no individual title deeds (Marxism at work!). And so, without the needed loans, they are unable to buy seed, fertilizer or equipment. Mugabe has finally admitted that millions of acres of prime agricultural land have not been used since the white farmers were driven off. It is an admission that his violent, illegal and racist land grab policy has been an utter failure.

In 1999, the last year before the land grab began, Zimbabwe grew 1.5 million tonnes of maize, the staple food. This had dropped to 850 000 tonnes last year, which is insufficient to meet domestic needs.

There is simply no food - at least, not for the average citizen. Basic food commodities have run out in Harare. Bread, maize meal, sugar, salt, and cooking oil - staples for poor Zimbabweans - can no longer be found on supermarket shelves, nor is there much of anything else. The shelves are empty. And not just in Harare, but in shops throughout the country. Yet Mugabe and his government lied to the nation, saying last year that the country had produced a bumper maize harvest.

Such food as is produced, or imported, is being used by the regime as a political weapon. It is distributed - but only to ZANU-PF supporters, not to supporters of the opposition.

The new, illegal black “farmers” have no idea what to do, and are rapidly destroying the little that is left of Zimbabwe’s farms. According to Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank Governor, on resettled farms the people who are now supposed to be the new farmers are chopping down productive orchards to sell the wood as firewood. They are chopping down mature coffee plantations in order to plant a little maize. They are stripping assets, destroying infrastructure, and selling whatever they can sell. “He spoke of massive environmental degradation and a rape of the land so widespread that there would soon be nothing left for Zimbabwean children to inherit.” “The people who have the power to stop it, the Ministers, politicians and government officials continue to do absolutely nothing. They do nothing about… widespread felling of decades old indigenous trees. The rape of the environment has become so widespread that it is now a huge treat to see anything whatsoever in our world famous African bush - even a guinea fowl is a huge treat” (Looting of the land, by Cathy Buckle, 21 May 2005. http://africantears.netfirms.com).

When Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, it was the breadbasket of the region. Now it is the basket-case. It was a massive exporter of food. Now it has to rely on food grants from international charities - most of which is used as a political weapon anyway, being distributed only to ZANU-PF supporters.

And as the population starves to death, what does Mugabe do? In an utterly insane and hideous move, he directs the county’s national parks officials to kill the wildlife in the world-renowned conservation areas, in order to provide meat for the four million starving rural Zimbabweans! When the farm invasions occurred, wildlife was slaughtered all over the country, and the parks were devastated, as party militants poured into game parks and wreaked havoc; now the lunacy will continue, and what’s left of Zimbabwe’s world-famous wildlife will be decimated.

And of course, in true African style, the country’s resources are viewed as being there solely for the entertainment and usage of those in power: recently, ten elephants were slaughtered for barbecue meat at festivities to mark Zimbabwe’s 25 years of independence!

National Parks officials are very opposed to Mugabe’s latest plan to kill wildlife to feed the poor; but they well know there is nothing they can do about it. “The politicians think we have enough animals to feed people without wiping out different species,” said one National Parks official. “We as professionals don’t think so.”

And South Africa would be naive to think that this destruction of the wildlife will not affect wildlife in South Africa as well: a few years ago a transfrontier park was established between South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, allowing animals to move freely between all three. SA’s world-famous Kruger National Park is directly involved. The repercussions of this insanity in our neighbouring country will be felt here; of that there can be no doubt. How long before SA’s beautiful game parks suffer the same fate?

What Zimbabwe will lose, and what SA could lose, will never be regained. This is the final step in the utter destruction of this most beautiful of African countries. And when all the animals are gone and once again the bellies of the people are empty - what then? What will they eat then? Not only will there be no food, but there will be no desperately needed income from tourists, who come from all over the world to see Zimbabwe’s beautiful game parks. It will all be gone… and the people will still be starving.

Roy Bennett was elected a Member of Parliament in the 2000 parliamentary elections, a member of the opposition MDC. A white farmer, he was and still is immensely popular among his constituents, who are mostly black. After his election, his coffee farm suffered 89 illegal invasions. He was arrested illegally twice and assaulted three times. His pregnant wife was abused and held hostage, causing her to lose the baby. Three of his female employees were raped, and a male employee was murdered. Over 800 of his employees and their families were chased from their homes on his farm, 700 head of cattle were stolen, and others were axed and stoned to death. The proceeds of 150 tonnes of coffee were stolen. The Bennett family home was looted and trashed.

In May 2004, in parliament, the black attorney general, the government’s chief legal advisor, taunted Bennett that his white ancestors were thieves and murderers. This, coming after years of harassment and suffering at the hands of that very government, was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and Bennett pushed the attorney general to the ground. Parliament set up a committee to investigate the incident, and despite an unconditional apology from Bennett, he was imprisoned with hard labour for 15 months, three of them suspended. This was a sentence of unprecedented severity for such a relatively minor offence.

Roy Bennett has lost 27 kilograms in weight since being in various filthy, disease-ridden Zimbabwean prisons, where the food is hardly fit for human consumption.

Such is “justice” in Zimbabwe today. And once again, prior to the election, Mugabe stirred up hatred against the remaining whites in Zimbabwe. They are repeatedly told that they only survive at all on the sufferance of the blacks. For white Zimbabweans, life has become dangerous and extremely uncertain.

And very recently, under orders from Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s police have swept across the country, destroying and burning the stalls of thousands and thousands of street vendors in cities and towns, in what they have called “Operation Drive Out Trash.” Smoke continually fills the skies from this massive destruction. The poverty-stricken people, trying desperately to make a few dollars just by selling vegetables, curios, and other goods at makeshift stalls, have had even this feeble means of livelihood taken away from them. Not only street stalls, but hundreds of houses have been bulldozed to the ground, the police saying they are “illegal.” Many of these houses are not squatter shacks, they are solid brick houses. In Bulawayo, utter chaos reigned on 5^th Avenue: the stalls trashed, the produce destroyed, rats running everywhere. The stall operators were not illegal, they had licences to run their businesses and pay rent for the sites. “The police are cutting a swathe of destruction across the towns and cities of Zimbabwe…. towns as far apart as Victoria Falls and Mutare were still reeling under the effects of a virtual blitzkrieg orchestrated and directed from ZANU PF central command.” In Harare there was “a trail of destruction and burning”, with residents of one suburb milling around afterwards, “stunned by the speed and ferocity of the attack”. And, “At Victoria Falls the police burnt a 10 km long line of curio stalls that have been there for as long as anyone can remember”(Out of Sight is Not Out of Mind, by Cathy Buckle, 28 May 2005, and So Few Are Left, by Cathy Buckle, 4 June 2004. http://africantears.netfirms.com. Also Sokwanele Newsletter, 2 June and 4 June 2005. www.sokwanele.com).

The United Nations estimates that over 200 000 people have been left homeless in the middle of Zimbabwe’s winter, and 30 000 street vendors were arrested, according to police. And the purpose of this madness? According to the opposition MDC, it is designed to drive MDC supporters - the urban poor - back to the rural areas, where ZANU forces can more easily control them by denying them access to food supplies.

Meanwhile, Mugabe has initiated what he calls his “Look East” policy. Shunned by the West, he has turned his greedy eyes towards the East: towards Communist Red China, specifically. His words were, “We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our back to the West, where the sun sets.” And Red China, always looking to expand its influence in Africa, was not slow to grasp the opportunity which presented itself. At the independence celebrations, held in the Chinese-built national sports stadium, Chinese-made fighter jets flew past, acquired recently by Zimbabwe.

Rhodesians in the 1960s and 1970s fought long and hard to prevent the very tragedy that has now engulfed Zimbabwe, by warring against the Marxist terrorist onslaught led, in large measure, by Robert Mugabe himself. They knew that Mugabe and his terrorist organisation were Marxists who would bring ruin to Rhodesia if they ever came to power. This tiny, happy country, a beacon of decency and true civilization in the Dark Continent, fought valiantly to defeat the terrorists. But they were sold out by Britain and by the United States. The duplicity of successive British governments brought about a Marxist victory in the end . And today, the suffering, struggling whites of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, thrown to the wolves by Britain, are forced to come like beggars to Britain’s door, hoping to be let in where they try to start life over again.

Let our readers understand well: Zimbabwe’s nightmare will be South Africa’s nightmare, unless the Lord intervenes. It is naive in the extreme, and dangerously foolhardy, to think that “it will never happen here.” It already is, and it will get worse, and still worse. South Africa, despite being far more populous than Zimbabwe, despite being far more advanced, despite having a far larger white population, is still, for all that, very much a part of Communist black Africa now. It is under a tyrannical, power-hungry Marxist-dominated regime that came to power in precisely the same way that ZANU did in Zimbabwe - through decades of terrorism leading up to a massively rigged election. It is as committed to continuing along that Marxist path as ZANU is. It is as intolerant of any and all opposition, as racist, as brutal, as the thugs that run Zimbabwe. South Africa is collapsing faster than Zimbabwe did after so-called “independence.” Let there be no doubt about this whatsoever: South Africans, and in particular South African Christians, are in real, deep trouble. For the poor suffering people of Zimbabwe, South Africa may still look like an earthly paradise. But not for long.

South Africa is Zimbabwe in the making.

13 June 2005

Further sources:

The Witness, March 23, 2005; April 6, 2005; April 13, 2005; April 19, 2005.

The Daily Telegraph [UK], 3 March 2005.

The Mail and Guardian, 29 April 2005. Source: www.ZwNews.com.

Rhodesia Christian Group Occasional Newsletter, dated “Easter 2005″.

The Pretoria News, 27 April 2005. Source: www.ZwNews.com.

Sokwanele Newsletter, 25 May 2005. www.sokwanele.com.

www.swissinfo.org.

Source: Daily Mail and Guardian, www.mg.co.za, 8 June 2005.

Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel, who lives in South Africa. He runs Bible Based Ministries.

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