Zimbabwe Update -- The Case for Mugabe

AP presents the arguments for those who support Mad Bobby Mugabe's ruralization policy.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Hundreds of homes have been built in Zimbabwe's capital to replace some of the thousands destroyed in a widely criticized official "cleanup" campaign, the government said Saturday ahead of a planned visit by a United Nations envoy.
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State radio in Zimbabwe reported Saturday that the first 500 of 5,600 new homes were ready for occupation in the capital, Harare, and 250,000 plots of land had been made available immediately countrywide.
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Mugabe also pledged $325 million to provide 1.2 million houses and plots of land by 2008.

He urged Zimbabweans faced by widespread international condemnation of the campaign "to remain focused and disregard the machinations of the West trying to demonize the country," according to ZBC.

The 81-year-old president, who has ruled the southern African country since independence in 1980, said the mass bulldozing of houses and businesses was to curb "lawlessness, illicit foreign currency dealings, black marketeering, rampant thefts, prostitution and other social ills so detrimental to social morality and decency." He claimed that the program had been "well-received by the majority of our people."

Police say the blitz - in which 42,000 people have been arrested, fined, or had their goods confiscated - has resulted in a 20 percent drop in crimes, including murder, house robberies and car theft.

Read the whole thing here.

Of course, this is little consolation for the hundreds of thousands who are freezing and starving tonight, and where is the food and money going to come from for these programs? The Zimbabwean economy has collapsed. Maybe these promises will satisfy other African states and UN investigators, but they must be seen objectively as simple attempts to paper over an ongoing disaster.

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Another outrage! It seems that Britain's immigration officials are sending Zimbabwean refugees back into Mad Bobby's clutches.

The Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius A Ncube, said those deported would be persecuted by the Mugabe regime as "traitors". "People who were asylum seekers in Britain and are returned have been detained by police in Zimbabwe, some being tortured and forced to confess that they were in anti-government activities."

Read it here.