Gurdur

uh, wrong.
Cannabalism was certainly seen as very wrong at that time.
Where leaders have indulged in it, it was muchly out of the feeling of ritualized contempt for "common" ethics, that is, the ritual breaking of a taboo to indicate one's power over the common herd.
BTW, Amin liked to make a big deal out of his supposed Sudanese descent through his natural father, so he could look down in racial terms with contempt on the "African" Ugandans.

And personally I think there is enough by far to condemn Amin forever without bringing cannabalism into it.
Obote is also to be condemned completely, too.

Farren

[QUOTE]Originally posted by conkermaniac

Aha, now it all makes sense. I was outraged when I heard Mwanawasa's rejection of food aid from the United States for his drought-starved people because they were genetically modified. While I respect his concern for the future of the nation's farming exports, his total disregard of his starving people of today just shocks me, especially when there is a simple solution.


In perpective: The GMO's offered weren't given the green light for US or European markets. In other words, it was another test run on the beggars who can't be choosers. This is what decided the Zambian government.

Considering the possibly that AIDS may have originated from Pharm companies doing vaccine tests on other third world citizens in the DRC (I'm not sure how contemporary this theory is), I think africans have cause for concern.

Of course, my own feelings about GMO's is that the potential threats are blown way out of proportion and often founded on mindnumbing ignorance, but I feel suspicion of food and pharma aid the west isn't prepared to let its own citizens consume is warranted.

Yeah, I've always wondered what happened to Mugabe. Could someone shed some light on this?

He's still clinging to power, even though insiders in his own party have started to make noises about him stepping down for the greater good. The leader of the opposition is in the dock for trumped up treason charges and the courts have just dismissed similar charges against his deputies.

$500 Zim is worth $1 USA and there are petrol shortages, food shortages, power outages. The banks are locking max withdrawals because there's a shortage of actual paper money and the central bank doesn't have the money to print more! Even some of Mugabe's senior cronies aren't getting their paychecks.

When you couple this last fact with the broad restrictions imposed by Canada, the US, Europe and Australia on allowing travel by any senior Zim dignitaries (many of their children have even been sent home from private schools in Europe), I think the end is nigh for Bob. He's unable to continue dispensing the favours that keep his cronies loyal.

What's heartening is that the MDC won 49.9 percent of the vote in massively crooked elections and the likely figure is closer to 60 %

Unlike ZANU PF, the MDC advocates nonracism and is actively supporting the cause of white farmers who've had their land summarily siezed.

From my Zim friends I know that in fact a lot of white Zim farmers were clinging to colonial privilege (although the racism is of a more civil form than the rabid racism of white nationalists under apartheid), so there was some real need for land and other reform.

What Mugabe did for an entire decade however was spend all the foreign cash provided for land restitution on enriching his cronies and himself then made an ill informed, anarchic rush on white farms when it looked like he was going to get voted out of power. This in turn created the levels of violence, fear, intimidation and general lawlessness that characterized the last election.

Ironically, his massive past success in education has created the greatest threat to his administration. Zimbabwes mean educational levels are the highest in the region, and there are a mass of angry, educated and worldly wise young people who are not easily swayed by populist politics in the cities.

The urban centres are all massively biased in favour of the MDC. It is only in the rural areas that Mugabe still has significant support. Urbanisation in Zim has been estimated at 50-60%

conkermaniac

That's not what I heard from PBS. They said that the Zambian government felt that many Zambians would then go ahead and farm these genetically-modified crops, hurting their ability to export their agricultural goods (as organic seems to be the preference among most people).

In that same news report, it said that Americans have been eating the genetically-modified corn for many years without knowing it. I have an audio file of the news report, if you are interested.

You're talking about Morgan Tsvangirai, right? I remember hearing that he was released from prison a couple of weeks ago.

Haha...49.9%, just enough to prevent a victory or a tie for the MDC. It's definitely much more than that, I agree.

Land reform is definitely necessary, especially in a country with 70% unemployment/underemployment, but I think that Mugabe was a bit extreme to seize all the land from the white farmers and give them to the black farmers. Instead, there should be a more equitable plan, with blacks and whites sharing the land that once belonged solely to the whites.

Yep, this is why King George II refuses to spend more money on American education...all in the hopes of keeping the average American ignorant of politics and world affairs.

Farren

Conker, you appear to be right about the maize - partially at least. My information was from a single source but I've done some checking.

The decision was not purely commercial in the sense of wanting to protect export markets for cash alone. Apparently the issue is with sustainable agriculture.

Prior to the food shortage, Zambia exported maize to Europe. If they were to allow GMO's entry into their agriculture Europe would stop buying. This would disincentivise small farmers and ultimately mean Zambia's food produciton capacity would drop in the long term.

This appears to be the thrust of the argument. Apparently the authorities are seriously worried that a short term solution would create a long term problem.

matthias j.

"Aha, now it all makes sense. I was outraged when I heard Mwanawasa's rejection of food aid from the United States for his drought-starved people because they were genetically modified. While I respect his concern for the future of the nation's farming exports, his total disregard of his starving people of today just shocks me, especially when there is a simple solution."

I know it looks like a cruel decission, but there's more reason to it than you might think. Getting free or incredibly cheap imported grain kills the local economy even more. Local farmers are forced to sell their farms (most of the times to Western companies) and flee to the city, because there's no way for them to compete with the ridiculous prices of the imported grain. There's no way the country can come self-reliant like that. By giving grain to poor countries, the US (and the EU often too) make whole nations completely dependant of their goodwill.

conkermaniac

I don't quite understand what you were saying there. While I do understand that Europe would stop buying Zambian crops if some are known to be genetically-modified, isn't that essentially protecting the export markets for cash?

I don't think you quite understand, matthias j. The US and Europe were only temporarily supplying grain to the people of southern Africa because there just happened to be a drought there. The food aid was being given to the people who were once farmers and were starving because of the severe drought that had lasted almost 2 years. I don't believe that the local farmers who actually had good soil, sun, and rain (very few of them, in fact) were significantly affected by this. The group of people to whom the aid is directed would not have bought the crops of other Zambian farmers anyway because of their lack of money (which can be again because of the drought).

Farren

Conkermaniac,

If you assume the small scale farmers actively choose their crops your argument holds water. But the fear is that not that they choose to grow GMO crops, but that the crops are contaminated with GMO lines.

This in turn would lead to Europe not buying their excess and lower yields, with the ultimate result of less overhead. IOW greater risk of future shortage.

The fact that less cash income is also implied doesn't necessarily make this the primary concern. Correlation, as the pro gun lobby is fond of pointing out, is not causation.

conkermaniac

Oh, I apologize if I wasn't making myself clear. That's actually what I meant. The Zambian farmers will unknowingly plant these genetically-modified crops, and Europe will not purchase Zambian crops when there is no guarantee that there will not be any genetically-modified crops.