The guy destroyed a country, and yet the U.S. had nothing to say for so long?
"Embattled Mugabe shuns south African summit"
"by Michelle Faul, Associated Press | April 13, 2008
LUSAKA, Zambia - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe skipped a regional summit yesterday on the deepening crisis over the country's contentious presidential election, giving southern African leaders little chance to step up the pressure on him.
The summit reflected Mugabe's growing isolation, as well as cracks in the usually uniform solidarity shown toward him by the Southern African Development Community. Mugabe, who has been in power 28 years, is the region's longest-serving president.
While South African President Thabo Mbeki said "there is no crisis" in Zimbabwe, President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia urged his counterparts to "focus on helping Zimbabwe to find an answer that generally reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people."
Well, if these guys don't seem to think there is a crisis, then WTF?
In his opening speech, Mwanawasa said he had called the summit because of the failure of Zimbabwean officials to publish the results of March 29 presidential election.
Independent tallies indicate Mugabe lost, but garnered enough votes to force a runoff. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won outright and has traveled the region asking neighboring leaders to push for Mugabe to step down.
Tsvangirai was invited to address the summit, an unprecedented move that further alienated Mugabe. But there appeared little likelihood the leaders would call for Mugabe's resignation.
Officials at the conference indicated they would focus on the delayed election results and not Mugabe's rule.
US Ambassador Carmen Martinez, among more than a dozen diplomats on the sidelines of the summit, said the United States was looking for "at least one step forward."
Oh, U.S. isn't that troubled by him, either.
Mbeki, the chief mediator on Zimbabwe, urged patience after he flew to Harare to meet with Mugabe ahead of the summit. "Everybody is waiting for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the results," he said.
Yeah, what's that rigged result going to tell us?!
We gotta take it with a spoonful of shit, too, huh?
The release of Zimbabwe's election results ceased after results from legislative races held the same day as the presidential vote showed Mugabe's party lost control of parliament for the first time. The election commission has released no results from the presidential race, saying it was still verifying the votes.
Meanwhile, Mugabe has dug in his heels, banning political rallies amid opposition charges he was orchestrating a wave of violence to intimidate opponents. He sent three hard-line ministers from his outgoing Cabinet to represent him at the summit.
Yeah, how come this article is all bullshit political fooleys and NOTHING about any VIOLENCE!!!!
Tendai Biti, secretary general of Tsvangirai's party, said the military had taken control of Zimbabwe and urged the summit leaders to "speak strongly and decisively against the dictatorship."
"Our people are suffering, our people are being brutalized, our people are being traumatized," he said in Lusaka.
International pressure has grown with the United States, Britain, and the United Nations issuing daily statements demanding the results. Regional human rights and church organizations have made similar demands.
I'm thinking Sudan here.
At least Zimbabwe and Darfur get statements put out; Palestinians and Somalis must be invisible!!
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the world's patience with Zimbabwe's regime was "wearing thin."
Yeah, so your patience is wearing thin, Brown, SO WHAT?!
What are you gonna do?
You guys can't even withdraw from Iraq, and you need more troops in Afghanistan so SIT and SPIN, Gordo!!!!!!!!!
Update; You aren't doing so well yourself, Gordo!!!!
Mugabe has dismissed Brown's criticism, calling the British leader a "little tiny dot" on the world stage.
Ha-ha-ha-ha!!!! Was he referring to the poll numbers?
Mugabe's allies said yesterday's summit was part of a Western plot to overthrow him because of his land reform program, which was touted as an effort to redistribute the wide swathes of fertile land owned by the tiny white community to poor blacks."
That could be true to a certain degree; however, more than likely is the Mugabe has looted his nation.
In fact, the Zionist press makes it sure you know that:
"by Los Angeles Times | April 13, 2008
MUFAKOSE, Zimbabwe - The first to go was the English teacher. Six months later, the commerce teacher followed. The next year, 2005, the trickle turned into an exodus.
By 2007, the departures from Mufakose 3 High School were like bricks in a collapsing building: math, science, accounting and many other teachers, all leaving their careers to work as cleaners, shop assistants, and laborers in other countries.
Zimbabwe's education system, once the best in Africa, is being demolished teacher by teacher.
Some of the teachers at Mufakose 3, outside the capital, Harare, called in sick and were never seen at the school again. Others didn't bother to call and just disappeared.
"You'd come to school and someone's not there, and next thing you hear, he's gone," said Knox Sonopai, 43, a history teacher at Mufakose 3.
In 2007, about 25,000 teachers fled the country, according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe. In the first two months of this year, 8,000 more disappeared. A staggering 150,000 teaching vacancies can't be filled. The Education Ministry sends out high school graduates with no degree or experience to do the job.
In a country where the official inflation rate is 100,000 percent, teachers simply can't afford to teach.
Before last month's national elections, teachers went on strike to protest salaries of 500 million Zimbabwean dollars a month, about $10 in US currency. Their salaries went up 700 percent to end the strike - aid, perhaps not coincidentally, just before the vote - but the raise is being gobbled by hyperinflation.
"One hundred percent of teachers have resigned, mentally, even though they remain in schools," said the teachers union president, Takavafira Zhou. "They're no longer interested in teaching. They're just looking for somewhere to go.
"The education system is a vital hub of the country. It has a ripple effect. In the long term, the country will suffer very much."
It's a good thing America's schools are in such good shape, huh, readers?
Francis, a teacher at neighboring Mufakose 1 High School who declined to give his last name for fear of dismissal, said 60 of 110 teachers there left last year.
"Every holiday we lose more teachers," he said.
Last October, history teacher Sonopai and a colleague, Clever Mudadi, 33, gambled their lives crossing the crocodile-infested Limpopo River into South Africa. They tried to get work as teachers but ended up as laborers digging foundations for about $15 a week. In the end, humiliated by the work, they turned around and returned home.
"It was bad," Mudadi said. "We lost a lot of weight. We felt hurt. I can't describe it."
Teachers used to be some of the most respected people in Zimbabwean communities, but now "you are the laughingstock of the community," said primary school teacher Richard Tshuma, 35.
At rallies before the elections, which saw the ruling ZANU-PF party lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in 28 years, President Robert Mugabe made a point of giving out computers to teach children computer literacy. In most schools, computers are a dream. Textbooks are so scarce that 35 children must share one, according to the teachers union. Children sit crammed 80 to a classroom, sometimes on the floor.
With education standards plummeting, the pass rate for the high school exams called the O-levels fell from about 70 percent in the mid-1990s to 13 percent last year. The higher education system is equally troubled, starving Zimbabwe's hospitals of doctors and the mining sector of engineers.
"The technical institutions have been smashed," said Tony Hawkins, an independent economist. "We can't regenerate our own skills."Phew!
At least that will never happen to America!!!!
We'll just outsource and import foreign workers for that!
