Tanzania went out of sight on Elephant and cats this year, hopefully that won't remain. they went up on plainsgame but only about a $100 per head. Buffalo hunts are still competitive and these hunts will work. Concession fees went out of sight but an injunction is in place..We still don't know how all this will pan out...We made some amends and only lost one hunter over this mess. We have our concession for next year, and have a 2008 price list. We are on track and intend to carry on.

Magabe is opening season for the indigenous of Africa in the parks is the latest and has decreed to feed the hungry of Africa on its game herds. No action is being taken on Poachers as far as I can tell. Zambia has no more 10 day buff licenses and rumors fly as to the situation in Namibia.

It makes one wonder how long the 3rd world thinking will maintain a huntable numbers of animals and where the dark continent is headed, it seems to be a bleak future as greedy men and foriegn politicians grease their palms...

Worst of all is the black man of Africa lives from day to day and with no thought to the future, it is tribal thinking and strongly inbred into each of them from survival instinct, but that just won't fly in the 21st century and that's the problem.

Where will the next revolution be, perhaps Zimbabwe, as the people approach famine..

I don't know the answers but it seems to be snowballing out of control and this is a banner year for out of control in Africa...

Africa has been my life, my bread and butter, and I hate to see her demise from greedy leaders and foriegn politicians.

Yes, it's always been my motto that the time for Africa is TODAY. That becomes more and more clear as time goes on. You can't predict what tomorrow is going to bring there. Go while you can afford it and while it is safe and possible to do so.

quote:

Magabe is opening season for the indigenous of Africa in the parks is the latest and has decreed to feed the hungry of Africa on its game herds. No action is being taken on Poachers as far as I can tell.

It does not take a crystal ball to forsee this new policy being an unmitigated disaster, especially in terms of populating the country with wounded game. That result has one hell of an effect on their disposition.

Apparently, the option to open up hunting to qualified hunters in these areas was not considered or dismissed. Seems like any plan that generates more revenue via hunting fees while putting protein into hungry mouths would be a winner.

Zimbabwe is basically an OPEN BOOK and the jury is still out as to what will happen, my personal thoughts are that Mugabe has till the end of the year or sometime mid next year latest and HE WILL BE GONE !!!

AS far as Hunting and the rest of Southern Africa is concerned this is my (crystal ball) read on the situation.

HUNTING obviously is a (multi million dollar industry) and THE REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS have finally cottened onto the fact that there is BIG MONEY to be made within the industry and they are starting to turn us (outfitters hunters and others involved) into hemafeliacs and wanting to get a MUCH BIGGER slice of the cake/pie

I personally believe in the not tooooooo distant future we will see an even bigger move towards private and maybe even government controlled ranches as a means of controlling wildlife, it is patently obvious (at least to me) that it is virtually impossible to control poaching which is rife in the existing wide open spaces and decimating game, and of course human encroachment on the animals natural habitat is a contributor as well

It comes down to MONEY MONEY MONEY and control of the wildlife resourse.

In the main Southern Africa hunting countries (whether we like it or not) Private Ranches are expanding in their hundreds if not thousands.

We (Balla-Balla Safaris) presently own five private ranches, although in SA two of the properties will ultimately be sold back to the governmrnt for their land appropriation programme, that is when they can come up with the compensation money which it seems is drying up (-:

Cheers, happy hunting

Peter

and when the compensation money in the land appropriations programs dries up- THEY WILL JUST TAKE THE LAND

it will interesting to see how the bunny huggers will manage to blame sport hunters for the decimation of wildlife when we're gone from there and unchecked poaching takes it's toll.

WHEN I get my farm back, I will still do the odd hunt but my efforts will be more around re-stocking the area as and when I can.
I find it very very hard not to comment on this subject or any subject to do with my home.
Hunt well
Keith

quote:

Originally posted by Mandebvu:
WHEN I get my farm back, I will still do the odd hunt but my efforts will be more around re-stocking the area as and when I can.
I find it very very hard not to comment on this subject or any subject to do with my home.
Hunt well
Keith

Mandebvu,

Good luck on getting your farm back. A news item from today.

-Bob F.


Zim threatens white farmers
08/08/2007 13:42 - (SA)

Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government has warned it will arrest white Zimbabwean farmers resisting evictions from the new land targeted for black farmers, say reports.

Critics said Mugabe's controversial seizures of productive commercial farms from hundreds of whites and low output from new farmers had plunged the southern African state into a severe economic crisis in the last seven years.

Industry and union officials said about 600 of Zimbabwe's 4 500 white farmers had kept their land after the sometimes violent grabs by Mugabe's supporters.

But the government handed some of them eviction notices earlier this year or reduced the size of their properties.

Veterans of the 1970s war of liberation invaded white-owned commercial farms in 2000 with the backing of the government, which went on to appropriate the land.

The seizures set it at odds with the West, and the resulting disruption to farming had been widely blamed for Zimbabwe's food shortages.

More than 4 000 white commercial farmers had lost their properties under the reforms. Last year authorities passed a constitutional amendment barring former owners from challenging the seizures in court.

The official Herald newspaper said on Wednesday that some farmers who were given notices three months ago to wind up their operations "risk being arrested for resisting eviction after the expiry of the 90-day notice period".

The daily quoted Minister of State For Security Didymus Mutasa, who was also responsible for land reform and resettlement, as saying that the government would move against the farmers accused of going to court to delay their departure.

He said: "We have a list of farmers resisting eviction ... and we are going to act accordingly to redress the situation." He was speaking at a meeting attended by senior government officials. Mutasa was not immediately available for further comment.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2161016,00.html

Thanks alot for that, I know what is going on there, most of my family are still there so I get actual up-dates on a very regular basis.
We also get letters from Zim "officials" asking us to go back and "manage our once owned farms for the new occupyers"!!!!
It may be in 1 year or 10 years or more, we will see what the situation there forces the people to decide.
In the meantime, I will continue my plans to join my brother in Mozambique and will continue to hunt from there.
Keith

The thread title would have read much better with one less "S" in it!

Mandebvu: Mozambique seems to be coming back slowly, but surely in the hunting industry. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on it. 'Very keen to check it out in the next year or two. 'Best of luck to you and your family.
Cheers.

From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe
By Anthony C. LoBaido
Published: 2007-08-20 05:00


At the inaugural ceremony, Prime Minister Mugabe’s call for reconciliation between blacks and whites came as a welcome surprise to those who had for years dismissed him as “a Marxist-terrorist trying to gain power through the barrel of a gun.†… The unexpected size of his majority gave Mugabe an unequivocal mandate.... All in all, the election and handover represented a triumph of democracy in the face of considerable external pressure.
— Andrew Young
President Carter’s Ambassador to the United Nations


The excerpted statement above by Andrew Young provides a small sampling of the outrageous commentary on Robert Mugabe’s ascension to power in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in an essay penned by Young for Foreign Affairs’ special report, “America and the World, 1980.†As President Jimmy Carter’s emissary to Africa, Young played a pivotal role — along with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and other Carter administration officials — in enthroning Mugabe’s terror regime and turning much of the Dark Continent into the nightmarish slaughterhouse of chaos and terror it has become.

Two years earlier, in 1978, Ambassador Andrew Young described Robert Mugabe in an interview with the Times of London. “Does Mr. Mugabe strike you as a violent man?†the Times reporter asked. “Not at all, he’s a very gentle man,†Young replied. “In fact, one of the ironies of the whole struggle is that I can’t imagine Joshua Nkomo, or Robert Mugabe, ever pulling the trigger on a gun to kill anyone. I doubt that they ever have.â€

Ambassador Young could barely contain his brimming admiration for the newest “liberator†of Africa’s oppressed: “I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible.â€

Andrew Young knew better. During the 1970s, as Mugabe competed with his sometime ally and former mentor Joshua Nkomo for primacy in the “liberation†movement in Rhodesia, he proudly identified himself as a Maoist and proved himself one of the most ruthless terrorist leaders. His Chinese-sponsored ZANU-PF guerrillas, operating out of the neighboring communist regimes in Mozambique, Zambia, and Angola, terrorized black villages, and tortured and killed opponents.

This was all well known not only to Andrew Young but to other pillars in the American foreign policy establishment who were promoting Mugabe as the “gentle,†“incorruptible†savior of Rhodesia. Foreign Affairs, from whence came Mr. Young’s quote at the beginning of this article, is, of course, the house journal of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), arguably the most influential “brain trust†in the world. The council, of which Young was a prominent member, had promoted Mugabe in its literature and had hosted him as an honored speaker during his long terror campaign to take control of Rhodesia. David Rockefeller, chairman of the CFR during that period, called Mugabe a “very reasonable and charming person.†Likewise, the New York Times, Washington Post, and virtually all the rest of the major print and broadcast media choir had persistently sung his praises, ignoring his well-documented record of atrocities against civilian men, women, and children — black and white.

But in the past few years, Mugabe’s erstwhile supporters have been forced to acknowledge that he is the brutal communist dictator that his critics had exposed him as more than 30 years ago. He has bathed Zimbabwe in blood, turned it into a police state, and ruined what was previously one of the most prosperous economies in Africa. Finally, the former darling of the Liberal Establishment has been repudiated by virtually all except Communist China and his fellow African Marxist despots.

A Beacon Extinguished
How could Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, a thriving, vibrant, multi-cultural example of Western-style civilization, once a shining beacon for Africa, have turned into hell on Earth?

Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Great Britain came in 1965, only a few short decades after England’s 1923 annexation of Southern Rhodesia from the South Africa Company. Under the UDI, Rhodesia pulled away from the Mother Crown rather than negotiate with Mugabe’s terrorists, as it was being pressured to do by White Hall and the powerbrokers in London. Rhodesians were all too familiar with the chaos and tyranny that had befallen neighboring countries that had capitulated to such pressure. Rhodesian leader Ian Smith, a fighter pilot who was shot down over Italy during World War II while fighting for the Allies, stood up to the Maoist, Marxist, and Communist penetration in the region all by himself. This while the rest of the Western world, wounded from Vietnam and menaced by the old Soviet Union, sat idly by — or worse yet, helped the communist-backed terrorists.

Smith traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask for help. He wasn’t asking for foreign aid; he merely hoped to persuade President Carter to call off the economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure being applied by the U.S. State Department, the UN, and Britain in an attempt to force Rhodesia to accept rule by the Mugabe/Nkomo terrorist forces. Carter flatly refused to see Smith.

Henry Kissinger, meanwhile, did meet with Smith in Geneva. But if Smith thought that he would receive kinder treatment from the former secretary of state and adviser to Republican presidents, he was in for a rude awakening. Precisely what threats or pressures were brought against him is not known, but Smith, who had previously pledged not to surrender to the terrorists “in ten thousand years,†was a changed man after the meeting. He is said to have aged 10 years in that one week in Geneva. It has been suggested by African observers that Smith was threatened with a military invasion of Rhodesia backed by the UN, the United States, and the U.K. That is entirely plausible, as such talk was in the air and detailed plans for a military invasion of South Africa had been drawn up and published by policy wonks at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

Smith asked Kissinger about things like history, culture, civilization, and loyalty. After all, Rhodesia had fought for the West in the great battles of the 20th century, including World War II and the Korean War. Kissinger firmly told Smith something truly sad and even frightening, “I am afraid those things have no place in the modern world.â€

Kissinger added that “white regimes would not survive in Southern Africa.†Ironically, it is a fact that at that time the black peoples of Southern Africa were voting with their feet and fleeing from the communist-Marxist regimes run by black revolutionary clients of Washington, Moscow, and Beijing to the “white regimes†of Rhodesia and South Africa. The New World Order and seeds of today’s African mayhem were being firmly planted by the globalists at the Council on Foreign Relations and Britain’s Royal Institute for International Affairs.

Under intense pressure from the Washington-Moscow-Beijing axis, South Africa, which had long fought for Rhodesia, cut off aid to Ian Smith’s government, hoping their own apartheid system would be spared by the West for doing so. The sellout was on. Many Rhodesians, including legendary soldiers like Willem Ratte, Bert Sachse, and Luther Eeben Barlow, who would become the backbone of South Africa’s elite special forces in the war in Angola against Cuba and the Soviet Union, fled to South Africa. The power vacuum created by that exodus would be filled by some of the most blood-thirsty savages Africa has ever seen.

Mugabe’s Long Record
Contrary to Andrew Young’s claims, Mugabe’s record proves that he was (and is) indeed “a Marxist-terrorist trying to gain power through the barrel of a gun.†And, contrary to popular misconceptions caused by decades of media disinformation, it was not Mugabe’s thugs who ended white rule in Rhodesia. Ian Smith and the legitimate black leaders of Rhodesia accomplished that in 1979 in multi-racial elections that brought a black majority government to power under a former Nkomo/Mugabe comrade, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who had renounced violence to work for peaceful change.

Mugabe and Nkomo tried to stop the elections with threats, intimidation, and terror. Mugabe issued a “death list†of the black leaders who were cooperating for a peaceful transition to black rule, calling them “traitors,†“opportunistic running-dogs,†and “capitalist vultures.†Nevertheless, 64 percent of Rhodesia’s black population defied the threats and turned out to vote. And an overwhelming two-thirds of them voted for Abel Muzorewa, making him Rhodesia/Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister. They were very much aware of the disasters brought about by communist-backed black dictatorships in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia, Ghana, and Namibia. They did not want “one man, one vote, one time,†which had become the rule in Africa.

The 1979 election that elected Muzorewa and a new black majority parliament had met all the conditions demanded by the United States and Britain and was certified to be free and fair by outside observers. But the U.S. and British governments then reneged and demanded new elections that not only included Mugabe and Nkomo, but allowed their ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) and ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union) guerrillas back into the country as well. Believing it had no choice, Rhodesia capitulated to these outrageous demands. Following a campaign of intimidation and terror, Mugabe was “elected†in 1980, proving the African dictum that the man with the most guns and the most ruthless thugs wins.

As anti-communists had predicted, soon after coming to power Mugabe turned on his former terrorist comrade, Joshua Nkomo, who was of the minority Matabele tribe. To accomplish this, Mugabe brought in several hundred advisers from communist North Korea to train his infamous Fifth Brigade. Then he began his great Matabele Massacre. Mugabe’s Mashona tribe (or “Shona†for short) had been long-standing rivals of the Matabele, but the two tribal groups had managed to coexist peacefully in white-ruled Rhodesia. Mugabe called his ethnic cleansing operation against Nkomo and the Matabele Gukurahundi, the Shona term for “the first rain that washes away the chaff of the last harvest before the advent of spring rains proper.â€

Bitter Harvest
Official figures vary, but it can be roughly estimated that around 30,000 Matabele were slaughtered in Mugabe’s “liberation†of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. It was an ominous prelude to what would become a fascist, archetype Maoist revolution in Rhodesia, a country roughly the size of Montana. Mugabe, with the help of his own de facto Hitler Nazi Youth corps called the “Green Bombers,†would go on to slaughter Zimbabwe’s white farmers, take away their land, and plunge the nation into a hell hole of debt, hunger, hyperinflation, murder, HIV/Aids, and hopelessness.

Once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was (and remains) home to one of the world’s grandest sights, Victoria Falls. Called “the mist that thunders†by the locals, this natural wonder has (thus far) defied Mugabe’s ability to ruin, corrupt, and destroy, but where abundant game and wildlife once brought tourists from the four corners of the planet, now conservationists worldwide have expressed alarm that Mugabe’s policies have decimated the country’s wildlife treasure, with many exotic species (including elephants and rhinos) facing extinction.

Apartheid never existed in Rhodesia and in general the races got along. The race wars were launched by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Nkomo’s ZAPU. All the while the American media cheered this sickening and deadly debacle. Even the farm invasions were lionized by the late Peter Jennings of ABC News, who in a nationally televised report made the ZANU-PF terrorists who were murdering, torturing, and raping the ethno-European farmers out to be “war veterans†and heroes.

By all accounts, over 400,000 agricultural jobs have been lost. The Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers Union has issued numerous reports about the violence, law-breaking, and devastating effects of Mugabe’s white land grab. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s inflation is the world’s highest; the government’s own statistics put it at 4,500 percent annually, while some economists put it at double that. GNP, GDP, unemployment, real growth, household income, and other major economic indicators are collapsing by the day, as they have been for most of the past 10 years. As a result, all Zimbabweans no matter what their race, tribe, or culture are suffering.

Tobacco had accounted for 30 percent of exports with gold second at 11 percent. These days, heroin, mandrax, methamphetamines, and other drugs are emerging in a narco-economy. Basic services are all but unobtainable. Shelves are empty. The very best Zimbabweans have fled for the UK and beyond. Zimbabwe’s infrastructure is decaying. Government corruption is endemic. The military has turned its back on all acceptable standards of humanity and soldiering.

It is estimated that only 100,000 Zimbabweans use the Internet in a country of about 12 million. Those who write the truth about what’s going on in the country and use the Internet to reach the outside world are often hounded, harassed, and threatened by the government. Mugabe’s main black opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is feeling his wrath. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa recently said over 200 MDC members were arrested by Mugabe’s forces. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has replaced Ian Smith, the white farmers, and the Matabele as the ZANU-PF’s boogeyman du jour.

Cathy Buckle, author of Africa Tears and Beyond Tears, had her farm taken away by Mugabe during his land grab. She told this writer, “At first I supported change. But now just look at our country.†In her latest report from inside Zimbabwe, Buckle offered hope by pointing out that overweight ZANU-PF leaders are having problems convincing their bone-thin followers that all is well in Zimbabwe. As in Ethiopia and most other African famines, the food shortages are man-made by communist, collectivist policies that are outright genocide.

What can the United States, the world’s “sole, indispensable superpower,†do? Apparently not very much. Secretary of State Condi Rice has noted “outposts of tyranny†from Burma to Venezuela to North Korea to Zimbabwe to Iran. (Outposts of course must have a main garrison home, and those homes are Russia and Mainland China.) President Bush, Jr. signed an Executive Order against Zimbabwe, citing it as an enemy of the United States. A travel ban on Zimbabwean officials has been enacted. But our good “trading partner,†China, continues to shower aid on Mugabe’s regime.

Clearly Zimbabwe can work. Rhodesia proved that. It was a model for a post-colonial, still-developing Africa. There should be an agricultural bounty, beyond tobacco. There’s also coal, chromium ore, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin, and platinum ready to be mined.

As for the future, Mugabe is 83. It is rumored he has throat cancer. He is shunned by most on planet Earth, even the BBC, save for allies like Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il, and the Chinese Politburo. Mugabe continues to practice yoga and still vacillates between his Spartan upbringing and new-found tastes for the good life. He has been known to use the state airline to assist his wife on her legendary if not ebulliently lavish shopping jaunts. Mugabe showed up at Thabo Mbeki’s last South African presidential inauguration and was greeted as though he were a rock star. Zimbabwe’s constitution allows for Mugabe to stay in power till he is 90 years of age, but Africa watchers from across the political spectrum are speculating that his tottering regime could implode before the year’s end.

Will the truth about Zimbabwe ever become fully known and acted upon by all decent people in Africa, the West, and the rest of the world?

As noted by actress Nicole Kidman in the film The Interpreter, which many believed to have been made as a psycho-social operation against Mugabe, “Even the faintest whisper can be heard above the sound of armies … when it speaks the truth.†Perhaps this article will serve as the faintest of whispers.

Anthony C. LoBaido, a journalist and filmmaker, has worked and traveled extensively in Africa over the last two decades.

quote:

Originally posted by Mandebvu:
Thanks alot for that, I know what is going on there, most of my family are still there so I get actual up-dates on a very regular basis.
We also get letters from Zim "officials" asking us to go back and "manage our once owned farms for the new occupyers"!!!!
It may be in 1 year or 10 years or more, we will see what the situation there forces the people to decide.
In the meantime, I will continue my plans to join my brother in Mozambique and will continue to hunt from there.
Keith

Damn right! Might well happen. It SHOULD happen and there are some in Zim who understand that the only people who can run the farms are the farmers who have the experience doing it. They also understand that indigenous people will learn HOW to farm from these former farmers who were successful. Zim was a bread basket to the region. What they're doing now is tantamount to shitting where they eat. "They" are moderate progressives who want Bob out and a future for their kids, their country and they know that Euro-Africans are vital to the process.

I hope my mouth is big enough to accomodate my size 13 but I feel strongly about this. I want Africa to be there for ALL Africans, for me to hunt, for my children to see. First food production then birth control.

Thanks Kathi for posting the LoBaido article.

Maybe Magabe will finally give all for Mother Country and become Biltong himself.

I have said it before on this forum, those of us old enough to know what really happened to Rhodesia should spread the word every chance we get. I blame that SOB Kissinger for the final fall of Rhodesia, in other words US. Once again the liberal press of this country turn their back when they know their F.....U. ideas went south. Can you imagine the story FOX News could put out if they could get a camera reporter into Zim. I gotta go cool off before I blow a gasket.....

quote:

Originally posted by Cazador humilde:
Mandebvu: Mozambique seems to be coming back slowly, but surely in the hunting industry. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on it. 'Very keen to check it out in the next year or two. 'Best of luck to you and your family.
Cheers.

Thank you very very much, my late brothers wife and kids are stuck there as they have no passports, she is an orphan so finding birth certificates and variouse other neccessary documents has so far in 7 years been impossible.
I come from a long line of traditional family hunters and have hunted African game ever since I can remember. We had our Farm just outside Karoi, just short of Kariba, the Zambezi and the likes are truely my home.
Mozambique is very fast and up-comming, restocked with fantastic specimens from the "over-flowing" Kruger. Kahorabassa is the location of our latest camp and had ESPN and World Renouned Fly Fisherman fishing with us for 3 weeks at the beggining of the year. I do believe the episode was broadcast internationally but i did not get to see it. It reminds me alot of home as it is very similar to what I grew up with.
Investment is good too in the country as a whole, especially German business firms.
Alas there are the usual tourist spots already which are simply commercial business's , that have no interest other than money.
I shall sign off this topic now as its too close to heart and plays in one's mind far too much.
If you want to read about what is going on in Zim , do a search for Cathy Buckle, she is one of the few who writes regularly on Zim news on the internet and she writes from in Zim.
God bless you all , and shoot safe.
Keith

For the life of me, I can't imagine why Kissinger would support a movement away from a stable government, a democratic one at that, to one the he MUST have known would fail? Was is simply to placate the UK by punishing the Rhodesian government from forming a republic and to maybe give them (the UK) are better stake in the goods that Rhodesia offered? A case of "a weaker government is easier to control and more profitable in the end" than a stable country with emerging power and resources?

Was it simply a failed social bid to "get the white man"? It can't be that simple, to me. How could have the U.S., a former UK colony turned republic, which rules over its own indigenous people, turn its back on Rhodesia?

I'd like to hear from you former Rhodesians on your opinion. I also understand that Kissinger supported the uprising in Mozambique, which turned that place into a sh!t hole as well.

This is lost on me, a bit before my time. Must have been money business involved.

The answer's simple: WE are not allowed to tell the truth about what is really going on in africa after decolinization, a process that we (US) shoved down Europe's throat after WWII as an idealistic and UNREALSISTIC concept that "all men are created equal."

The Rhodesia fiasco was excacerbated by that greatest of all idiots Jimmy Carter and now we are paying the price and will for a long time to come.

We thought that if we could eschew colonial rule, so could the rest of the world, without taking into account that for the most part, these people are stuck in the 5th century and have no concept of the Rule Of Law. We are making the same mistake in Iraq.

While I have no problems with the war itself, President Bush and his staff are DELUSIONAL if they think those people posess the intellectual acumen to turn Iraq into another Switzerland. Same goes for africa. So ALL africans of all colors are paying the price of geopolitical incompetence and rosie colored idealism. jorge

jorge nailed it.

Jorge

I believe you have African figured out exactly right, although England, France and Portugal also deserve a swift kick besides us here.

You may be right on Iraq, I do not know, but there is a difference that may or may not make a difference. Muslim culture was once well beyond Christian/European. It was the Muslims who preserved and advanced Greek/Roman learning including mathematics, engineering, the arts, and if you can believe it, religious tolerance during the dark ages. They have certainly gone down hill, but they had it in them at one time.

quote:

Originally posted by jorge:
The answer's simple: WE are not allowed to tell the truth about what is really going on in africa after decolinization, a process that we (US) shoved down Europe's throat after WWII as an idealistic and UNREALSISTIC concept that "all men are created equal."

Breaking up European empires and colonies also weakened European trading blocs and increased the international economic interests of the USA.

olds: I don't nessesarily agree. I was US who pressured the Brits & the French. We did not support them during the Suez Canal crisis in 56 and truth be told, had they held on to that area and kept that part of the world under their hegemony, we would not be having the MESS we have with the Israeli-Palestine issue, another MESS in itself.

Same goes for Iran. in 54 when Mussadiq (sp?) started making noise about nationalizing BP & Shell assets, the Brits sent in the Royal Navy and once again we pressured them into the "self-determination" of people's ideal. Same goes for the Portuguese. We could have helped them to fight that war and maybe driven it more to a pro-western way of thinking, but instead the Russians and Cubans came in. Now the French are a different story of sorts. DeGAulle made that decision on his own, but we still hosed France on the Suez issue.

As to the region's hegemony before the Middle ages, all true, but if you look at my original post, I said they were stuck in the 5th Century and that's just about right. Far as I know, there were no representavive republics anywhere back then. jorge

What jorge said !!!

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:
The thread title would have read much better with one less "S" in it!

Took me a minute, but I agree. Maybe one less "s" and a hyphen after the proper noun.

jorge

I agree the USA is primarily responsible, I simply will not give the others a pass. You bend to anothers will by choice. They chose to go along and get along.

As for the "we could have done", We certainly could have and should have, but in the last 50 years the history of American intestinal fortitude has all to often been brief moments of outstanding bravery and sacrifice of the highest order, spread out between large periods of the "runs".

As to muslim culture, I was just pointing out that they had one at one time as oppose to the sub saharan africans. So if I had to bet and it wouldn't be much, I would bet on them before the africans. Time will tell, but you and I will not live long enough to see it. SG

I gotta throw another .02 cents into the pot. The Jimmy Carter era was the time of "making up to the blacks", Andrew Young, etc. Supporting a "white" govt. in Rhodesia was not politically correct in this country, thus it was his way of showing he wasn't a racist. Maybe a little over simplified but that's the way I see it.
It simply breaks my heart to see the Rhodesians that were run out of their country and ended up over here. You can see it in their eyes the pain they have endured and how out of place they are over here. As one former Rhodesian told me, "I just wish I could sit on the back porch of my old farm and hear a turtle dove cooing once again". I wish like hell I sitting there with him......

Yes, I agree. I met a fairly young white woman here in the States last year on my way to the airport who was a bus driver for the long term parking lot, and we had enough time on the bus for her to tell me her story of her young family and husband losing everything, going to South Africa and then coming to the States. She told me that, more than anything, she, her husband and their young family wanted to someday go back home. I understand the feeling sevenmagltd is talking about.

My Zim PH and the apprentice PH both had been removed from their long-time family farms that went back at least 3 generations. Those once productive farms that employed many locals are now lying empty and barren.

Interesting read. Copies can be found here: http://www.abebooks.com/

-Bob F.

Thanks Bob F. for bringing that book up. Anyone who has every hunted Rhodesia(hate calling it Zim) needs to read that book. It gives real insight into what really happened over there. If you just read one book this year, read this book!!! Beware, the last couple of chapters are tough.

would somebody please explain to me why our country consistently turns it's back on the people that would be our allies and helps the people that will consistently work for the down fall of our country and culture? I really have never been able to understand that.

els,

The problem is that many Americans believe that everybody in the world is like them or aspires to be like them...

Picking up what jorge said...there was almost this notion that colonial Africa was somehow like colonial America and that in principle the African must therefore be liberated. In fact I think the US passed a law that required them to side/support with any country trying to gain independence from the UK...

Again as jorge has already said, the more pragmatic American's in this post WW2 era also noted that dismantling Britain's and other European empire's would bolster America both military and economically.

In the UK at the time, the Socialist's in government felt it was morally right to dismantle the empire and urged the process with indecent haste. I think it was Wilson who wanted the RAF to bomb Ian Smiths Rhodesia when he declared UDI and it was only the higher ups in the RAF who quietly said "No" which thwarted this...

Regards,

Pete

Pete I think you are completely right. If I were king for a day I would mandate that in order to vote in any Western Democracy you would have to live in a 3rd world country on the native economy for at least 6 months. That way you could see how life is like if you do not have western culture to work with.

I recently read a report that stated 92% of the game on game farms had been killed for the bush market and 62% of all Zimbabwes game had been poached. I don't know but I wouldn't be very surprised if that is a correct report. I know the great concession I hunted for years where you could see over a 100 sable and Kudu on about any given day is now without game.

It begs the question, how on EARTH do they know that with that degree of accuracy? why not 63% or 94%. In a country whose leadership that can't do ANYTHING right, I doubt very much those idiots running that place can come up with that kind of precision. jorge

I read these posts with a great sadess. I invested several years of my life in Africa, and seeing Rhodesia/Zimbabwe go the way of Sudan, Somalia, and the Congo grieves me deeply.

It seems that black African leaders are proficient at one thing and one thing only: shooting themselves in their collective feet.

When I was working in Papua New Guinea, we had a guy hanging around the company bar that we referred to as "The Mad Rhodesian." He had lost everything to Jimmy Carter's and Henry Kissinger's pathetic arrogance and stupidity, and his grief was omnipresent and difficult to observe. We treated him kindly and bought him a lot of South Pacific Export Lagers. I never learned how he made his way to such an obscure place, but his sadness and loss were palpable. I shall never forget him, and I shall never forget the American politicians who turned their backs on one of the few going concerns in Africa. I wish Mugabe a lingering and painful death.

I have shied away from reading this thread. Until this morning! Now I'm glad, and sad, for having read it all again.

Glad, as at the time of "The Great Betrayal" I was mostly a student: Interested in girls and passing chemistry and biochemistry exams. Not much time or interest in politics in those days. Still not really interested in politics, was too often disappointed with western powers' apparent inability to "see" what is going to happen as a result of their actions. But reading the postings brought back the same feeling of hopelessness and inability to do anything to make the likes of Kissinger realize what a big mistake they are making. Sad, as despite big differences between Rhodesia and South Africa, IMHO we here are heading the same direction as the former. Just look at the softness and tolerance with which Mbeki is treating his ally! We hear bad noises about land reform, and affirmative action, and many more. The words "Cry beloved country!†comes to mind.

Also very glad for reading the postings, as I now know quite a few more AR posters whose insight in this matter leads to the conclusion that their opinions on other matters can be respected much more than before. Thanks also to the trolls for not yet jumping on this one!

Don’t know with any certainty what could or should be done to get Rhodesia back on the map as a place to want to live in. But I do know that supporting the hunting operators who continue to offer ethical and legal hunting will contribute in at least a small way towards a better outcome. So, along with others posters I urge you: NOW is the time to go hunt in Africa. If possible choose either Rhodesia or South Africa. [Sorry Tanzania, Mozambique & Namibia HO's] Your foreign currency is urgently needed in these parts of the world. I would like to add a word of caution: Be very careful in selecting a Hunting Outfitter, particularly if you want to go to Rhodesia, least you add fuel to the regime by supporting a Mugabe crony! [It suddenly seems so much easier to refer to Rhodesia – the land of Ian Smith and the breadbasket of Africa, than to refer to Zimbabwe – the disasterous result of Kissinger and Co’s betrayal.] With apology to the honest new operaters: In general it would be best to stick to the Old School operators, but some of them may also have suckered up to Mugabe cronies. Be careful in selecting a Hunting Outfitter!

Let your choices and actions as hunters be made such that you will help Mandebvu and other former Rhodesians get their farms back!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLren

Maybe it is just African culture.

Wrong head, although it looks fairly close.