Zimbabwe - time to ACT

Geoff Hill, will be signing copies of his latest book, now out in paperback, “What happens after Mugabe?” Geoff , winner of the 2000 Commonwealth Short Story Award for Africa. will be speaking about his book at the Africa Book Centre, 38 King Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8JT on Friday, 7th October from 6.30 pm.

Schools and hospitals have collapsed, a third of the population lives in exile and 3,000 people are said to die of AIDS every week. Once Africa’s second-biggest exporter of food, 70 per cent of the country lives under conditions of famine in the wake of violent land reform.
What will it take to rebuild Zimbabwe? Geoff discusses many relevant issues and asks serious questions, including:

• Will 4 million exiles go home to a country with 80 per cent unemployment?
• Should there be war-crimes trials?
• Can the economy be revived?
• Where will the billions of dollars come from that are needed to put things right?

Saturday 7th October is Week 156 of the Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 the Strand, London, which takes place every Saturday from 12.00 to 18.00* to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.

There is an excellent piece at Canned Revolution about the role of China in propping up Mugabe and their rape of African raw materials . Link

“In a Channel 4 special report on China’s involvement in Africa, Sierra Leone Human Rights politician Zainab Bangura expressed a fear that the Chinese ‘no strings attached’ aid policy will be a more appealing prospect to African dictatorships than the development model promulgated by the World Bank; leading the West to lower their high human rights benchmark.
“If anyone starts trying to change the constitution or imprisoning journalists or breaching procurement rules and regulations, they’ll (the US and UK) pretend not to understand because they’re afraid they’ll go over to China.”

In the Darfur region of Sudan, where civil war led to a humanitarian catastrophe, the CCP’s arms sale and foreign investment ran counter to the international attempt to restore peace.”

Go and read it.... NOW ... also excellent Zimpundit blog also look at this.

Recent blogs on same topic here