SW Radio Africa (London)
Tichaona Sibanda
18 July 2008
Businesses that are helping to prop up Robert Mugabe's regime will be included in a new sanctions list being drawn by the European Union, according to reports from Brussels.
The majority of business people who back Mugabe's regime have control over high profile companies in the country. A number of them enjoy monopolies in industries like agriculture, construction, mining, textiles, manufacturing, retail and banking.
Hebson Makuvise, the MDC chief representative in the UK, said the same people denounce Western countries and their leaders during the day, 'but hop onto a plane by night to visit the same countries.'
Makuvise said during his brief visit to the EU in Brussels recently, all talk was about the sham elections and how the regime has overseen the destruction of the country, through greed.
He said when he left Brussels, the EU were still working on the list, based on information supplied by their embassies in Harare. The EU currently targets more than 130 individuals with visa bans and an asset freeze. The EU intends to add around 40 people to that list, some from the security apparatus of the regime, identified as being involved in the election crackdown, plus the business figures helping prop it up.
There are reports that five companies could also be hit and it would be the first time that business people and companies in the country had been targeted by EU visa bans and asset freeze.
Meanwhile reports from Maputo, Mozambique say authorities in that country are considering setting up temporary refugee screening centres for thousands of Zimbabweans who have fled across into its territory.
Goncalves Sengo, the head of the national refugee assistance institution, said transit centres would be set up for screening purposes. Details of the asylum seekers would be taken to see if their claims fit with international refugee statutes, said Sengo. The number of Zimbabweans who have fled into Mozambique is not officially documented, but there has been a steady rise of immigrants fleeing political persecution.
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Nice try, but you only missed the bullseye by a few hundred miles there:
Agreed that most of the businesses that are propping ZANU and Zimbabwe up at the moment are foreign concerns, and yes, they are in touch with the realities in Zimbabwe ..... but what they are doing by propping Mugabe up is throwing in with a murderous dictator for the sake of money.
He loves his country so much that he wants it all for himself, and by the looks of it his plans for that include wiping out anyone who even dares to voice disagreement with him. He loves it enough to vapourise the economy with his short sighted and ill-thought out policies on land and industry in the late 80's and 90's.
He's working so hard to make people work together regardless of skin colour that he ejects the white farmers from productive land (good idea in theory, but doing it through violence? and on a economically suicidal timescale?) and puts his own cronies on it without thought for the impact, which subsequently turns that land barren ..... real equality policy there isn't it?
This is 2008, you need to get yourself up to date and out of the 1970s ..... and think for yourself for a change instead of regurgitating the same old Mugabe propaganda almost word for word.
If Mugabe is really not a racist like you claim, why is he so quick to blame the US/UK/EU etc for his own mistakes, why can't he take responsibility for his own actions ..... and if he were really the victimised man of peace that you hint at, why does he insist on allowing the murders and intimidation to carry on? Answer: Because he isn't what you claim, you've just listened to too much of his propaganda.
The article is the biggest load of rubbish I have read in really long while.
Businesses will not be targetted for sanctions because there is no reason nor justification for sanctions. This is a load of hot air.
The day Zimbabwe's detractors dictate to the global giants like Barclays Bank, Anglo-American Corp and British-American Tobacco is the day the world will stand still.
You are so PATRONISING, to use litotes. Were you ever an african in rhodesia??? l dont think so !!! You cant imagine the abuse and crudity you imposed on us africans. Clearly you are a rhodie ....you want us to forget the 100 years of abuse and racism but you do remember a few years when your UNFAIR system is being reversed. The so called decamped in 1980 or earlier. How did these settlers thought that they could have their cake and keep it ??? Of course, the ruling class in Great Zimbabwe is dishing land to like minded people, thats natural and logical. In 1066, William the conquerer did that and some of the recepients still hold on to the land, eg the Marquess of Salisbury, (the Gascoines). Would you ask the Jews to stop hacking back to the NAZIs??
akafunboy, you still havent answered my question. How can you condone and support someone that is happily murdering, beating and torturing his own people to keep power?
You are so PATRONISING, to use litotes. Were you ever an african in rhodesia??? l dont think so !!! You cant imagine the abuse and crudity you imposed on us africans. Clearly you are a rhodie ....you want us to forget the 100 years of abuse and racism but you do remember a few years when your UNFAIR system is being reversed. The so called decamped in 1980 or earlier. How did these settlers thought that they could have their cake and keep it ??? Of course, the ruling class in Great Zimbabwe is dishing land to like minded people, thats natural and logical. In 1066, William the conquerer did that and some of the recepients still hold on to the land, eg the Marquess of Salisbury, (the Gascoines). Would you ask the Jews to stop hacking back to the NAZIs??
and I'm thinking you should probably use a dictionary to find out what litotes are too! haha. Get yourself an education boy!
You are so PATRONISING, to use litotes. Were you ever an african in rhodesia??? l dont think so !!! You cant imagine the abuse and crudity you imposed on us africans. Clearly you are a rhodie ....you want us to forget the 100 years of abuse and racism but you do remember a few years when your UNFAIR system is being reversed. The so called decamped in 1980 or earlier. How did these settlers thought that they could have their cake and keep it ??? Of course, the ruling class in Great Zimbabwe is dishing land to like minded people, thats natural and logical. In 1066, William the conquerer did that and some of the recepients still hold on to the land, eg the Marquess of Salisbury, (the Gascoines). Would you ask the Jews to stop hacking back to the NAZIs??
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The businesses backing Mugabe are, in most cases, owned by Europeans or Americans who are in tune with the facts and reality in Zimbabwe. BY throwing their support on Mugabe, these western business owners are showing the world that they believe not only that Mugabe is not criminally rasist as US, Britain and some members of the EU are trying to potray him but that he genuinly loves his country and he is doing the best to make the citizens of Zimbabwe work and live together as brothers and sisters irrespective of the colour of skin or religion as opposed to the attempt by the US and Britain that would like to create polarization of black and white citizens of Zimbabwe with the whites made the masters and the blacks forced to stay as servants. The attempt by the EU to extend sanctions to these businesses shows the world that the EU is being used as a vehicle by US and Britain to push their already established overt agenda of progressively crippling other nations of the world in order to CONTROL AND PLUNDER THEIR NATURAL RESOURCES.