Zimbabwe finance minister admits: 'We've only got $217 in the bank'

reply to post by ANOK


Mugabe and ZANLA ARE communists. His regime was handed a first world country and infrastructure and he destroyed it in less than a decade...and if you haven't noticed he is black. I can tell you're not a fan of facts.

Originally posted by shai hulud
Mugabe and ZANLA ARE communists. His regime was handed a first world country and infrastructure and he destroyed it in less than a decade...and if you haven't noticed he is black. I can tell you're not a fan of facts.

Well I never said they weren't, but I don't agree that they are. For one he was the president, a government official. Communism is an economic system, and Africa has never had a communist economy, so it makes no difference what the president calls himself, it is nothing but a label if communism isn't actually the economic system. Communism is an economic system whereby the workers own the means of production. Many people have twisted the definition of communism in order to gain power.

Zimbabwe is a republic now, and was a republic under Mugabe, and he was VOTED into power. Not saying he's great leader or anything, just presenting the facts.

He was just demonised because he ended white control and independence of Zimbabwe. I can't believe you all fall for the propaganda so easily. Do you forget your own fight for independence? Or is that only for "white people"?

What has him being Black got anything to do with my point? Why do you all keep trying to make this racial? Are you just assuming that I am? Because I'm not.

Once again what is happening now is a result of the colonization.

If Africa had not been colonised it would have continued developing, as it was before it was colonised, so all the mistakes now being made by Africans wouldn't exist. If they did then the continent would never have been developing in the first place.

You can't just blame the natives for what is going on now, because the present is a result of the past.

Africa underwent a precipitous and largely disastrous decolonization, the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) possibly the worst of all. It has been conventional to ascribe this to postcolonial exploitation by the ex-colonial powers; the failure of the European colonists to prepare the colonies for independence; and the Cold War, which ignited wars between African political groups or regimes backed by the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union or China. Today China is extremely active in buying rights to African raw materials, more often than not from corrupt African authorities. Democracy has scarcely figured at all in the government and the transition of rulers in the new Africa, which is afflicted by militia armies, child soldiers, European mercenaries and ruthless battles for control, or theft, of such resources as diamonds and strategic minerals.

Colonialism Still at Heart of Africa’s Problems

Although Western countries had been in contact with Africa since the 16th century, it was not until the late second half of the 19th century that explorers opened its interior. And it was only in the last quarter of that century that land-hungry Western European powers divided among themselves, Africa south of the Sahara. At an international conference in Berlin in 1884-1885, representatives of the colonial powers Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Germany and Spain convened to iron out their territorial claims. An agreement was reached on boundaries which sowed the seeds for many bitter tribal conflicts which continue to this day. Ancient tribal territories were parcelled up in such a way that one tribe was in the domain of one colonial power and the other tribes were under the jurisdiction of another.

The Legacy of Colonialism

What are the causes of extensive human rights abuses in Africa? A recent OAU report attributed Africa's poor human rights record mainly to racism, post-colonialism, poverty, ignorance, disease, religious intolerance, internal conflicts, debt, bad management, corruption, the monopoly of power, the lack of judicial and press autonomy, and border conflicts (8).

- undeveloped economies, with limited resource bases and insufficient employment/income opportunities for large segments of the population resulting in wide-spread povert

COLONIALISM AND THE AFRICAN STATE

Because state creation in Africa differed so markedly from the European experience, the Western liberal conception of individual-state relationships does not easily apply to Africa. European imperialists imposed the state structure on collections of ethno-political communities that historically lacked intercommunal coherence. The imperialists forced communities that lived independently of each other to live together in the newly-created colonial state. Most of these new citizens lacked any nationalistic bond to the colonial state. Today, only a few African states bear any territorial resemblance to the political communities that existed prior to European colonialism. The resulting disconnection between Africans and the modern African state has created a crisis of cultural, social, and political identity.

Achieving Human Rights in Africa: The Challenge for the New Millennium

Originally posted by ANOK
If Africa had not been colonised it would have continued developing, as it was before it was colonised, so all the mistakes now being made by Africans wouldn't exist.

Most of sub-Sahara Africa had developed to the level of mud huts and not much else before the white man arrived.

That $217 isn't even worth anything. None of these central banks have legitimate collateral on their balance sheets to back to the paper. What a Ponzi scheme.

maybe we can get a loan from them, we have what, - 14,000,000,000,000 ?