Zimbabwe has $217 left in the bank

[Islandman]

Why should there be a preference? If you are a crook you are a crook! If you tek me tings me and you nuh friend!

BTW, I do not know of any thinking person who was against land reform in Zimbabwe.

Being FOR reform is simply not enough, just as our JA politicians supposedly being FOR poor people is not enough.

[HL]

Let them have the land then:

If you eventually visit, the faces that run things and stares back at you may not look [anything] like you.

[MdmeX]

I won't be going there.

The Hansons came back defeated and broken. Them dead now.

[Islandman]

Do you know why they eventually left? Just the breakdown in the society or did they change their mind about Mugabe?

From what I read online about Ben Hanson, it seems as if he was still pro-Mugabe until the mid to late 2000s, even as he accepted that ZANU-PF was a corrupt cesspool.

[Rudi]

Errr I-man they were many thinking persons. You can start from Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative English government who reneged on signed agreements. Ask yourself this questions why weren't any mines siezed in Zimbabwe. To this day white miners continue to own and invest in mines in Zimbabwe. I have met many of them. They tell a different story than the one we assume to be true.

[Islandman]

I am talking about people with no vested interest in the situation staying as it was/is. Thatcher and the British were protecting her own.

I don't know what story you assume to be true. I know I have researched the issue in some detail and read opinions from people of all political views.There comes a point where it becomes more and more difficult to see Mugabe as an honest and decent person.

That the land is still with the whites does not change this any more than Jamaican minorities controlling our economy makes our politicians worthy of great praise.

[HL]

I wish the impact that Jamaicans have/had in Zimbabwe was Agricultural and not dance-hall music and weed smokin'.

[Rudi]

Don't know about your research I thought we were talking about the land issue. Whether Mugabe is an honest and decent politician (bit of an oxymoron) depends on who you talk to. I have had business contacts with both white and black Zimbabweans they don't agree on everything but they both admit that he was right on the land issue. Also, based on the information I have received from both groups I would venture to say that the actual story and the background would not jive with the 'research'. As is the case in many things we hear about Africa.

[Islandman]

For me the land issue is real but does not change the fact that Mugabe is a crook, or that he dealt with it in a way that resulted in little being accomplished for anyone but his cronies.

[HL]

I would not condone that fact:

[Willi]

Jamaica and Zimbabwe

Lovers’ tiff

Sep 20th 2012, 10:24 by The Economist online | PORT OF SPAIN





JAMAICANS were miffed when Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, in comments on September 5th, dismissed their island as “a country of marijuana smokers where women are now taking charge since men are always sloshed”, where “the men want to sing and not go to colleges, and some are dreadlocked.” His words were “unfortunate, misguided and disrespectful”, said the prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller.
Many in Jamaica were stung because they feel emotionally close to their distant African roots; for dreadlocked Rastafarians in particular, the bonds are visceral. Zimbabwe may be more than 12,000 km (7,500 miles) away but many Jamaicans still see Mr Mugabe as the brave if flawed leader of a long and bitter struggle against white rule in the 1970s. Michael Manley, then prime minister of Jamaica, sought to play a constructive role in the London talks which led to majority government in Zimbabwe. A dreadlocked Bob Marley sang his “Zimbabwe” at the independence concert in 1980. Mr Mugabe received the Order of Jamaica on a state visit in 1996, while another dreadlocked Jamaican performer, Sizzla Kalonji, played at his presidential birthday celebrations in 2010. Indeed, recent quarrels notwithstanding, Mr Kalonji plans a “Jah put a hand on Africa” tour to Zimbabwe next month.
But was Mr Mugabe right? Jamaicans do like their rum and Red Stripe beer; two-thirds tell pollsters that they take at least an occasional tipple. But rolling drunks are rarely seen. About one in seven are prepared to say that they smoke marijuana—around the same number take tobacco. Just 1% admit to a cocaine or crack habit. Evangelical Christians easily outnumber hardcore drug users. Despite the lacklustre economy, some Jamaican men are clearly high achievers—from Usain Bolt on the athletics track to businessman Gordon “Butch” Stewart, owner of the Sandals resort chain.
Where Mr Mugabe does have a point, is that the island’s women have indeed moved forward. Examples include Mrs Simpson Miller herself; the chief justice, Zaila McCalla; and Shelley-Ann Fraser-Price, who took gold in the women’s 100 metres at the London Olympics. Three quarters of the graduates at the University of the West Indies’ Jamaica campus are women; for first-class degrees, the figure is 85%. A lesson, perhaps, for patriarchal Zimbabwe.
Mr Mugabe’s real irritation may be with a former prime minister, P.J. Patterson, who in a July interview with the Jamaica Observer was mildly critical of Zimbabwe’s government, calling for a return “even at this late hour” to “the fundamental principles of freedom … and respect for the judicial process”. As Bob Marley sang “Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny; and in this judgment there is no partiality.”

[Willi]

Dyam right Islandman.

We all know about the reneging, etc, but the DEVIL often quotes scriptures.
The slightest bit of discernment shows that poor black people got betrayed again.

[Rudi]

On this issue I really wish you guys knew what you were talking about. I might have to inform you about what's going on off-line.

[Willi]

Please do...most welcome.

[Islandman]

I am interested as well.

I will also say that i spent time today looking at some reports on Zimbabwe done in the last year or two and while they acknowledge the croneyism, corruption and general dysfunction still present in the society, some of them are also reporting that there are some signs of recovery in the agricultural sector after all the upheaval connected to the way the land reform has been done.

So maybe there is still a chance that over the longer term the economy can stabilize and get to some decent growth like we see elsewhere in Africa. I certainly hope so.