The Gray Monk

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October 01, 2007

Expensive night out ...

In Zimbabwe, if you can afford to eat, it can be expensive to eat out. The picture here was sent to me by a friend in SA and the restuarant manager is simply collecting the money for a meal for four. Nor was it an extravagant meal, a starter, a main course, desert, coffee and some beers. The price? Z$6 million. Way beyond the ordinary man in the street's pocket, and even expensive for those who have slightly better incomes. No problem for Robert and his cronies of course, who have stripped the countries treasury and built nice nest eggs for themselves in Swiss Banks. And definitely no problem for Robert who considers that, as President for Life, he can have everything he wants in any shop, restuarant or hotel for nothing. Oh, and that goes for his entourage as well ... Any suggestion that he might like to pay is dealt with by his Goon Squad.

Paying the bill for an evening out, Zimbabwe style. This Z$6 million in Z$1000 notes.

Considering that three quarters of the Zimbabwean population are starving in a country that was, until Mugabe started his seizure of farmland - which, far from being "redistributed" has been handed out to his cronies - was a net exporter of food, the world, and those who put Mugabe into power, should be ashamed. Those of us who remember Blair, Hain, Brown and the rest providing support and funding for this murderous psychopath should now demand an explanation for their rank disregard for the advice of almost everyone who had taken the trouble to look beyond the "struggle" and had taken account of Mugabe's known intention to exclude anyone who might have opposed him. In particular those in Whitehall and Westminster who put him in power should now be apologising to the families of those farmers who have been murdered so that their assets could be seized by Mugabe's Goons. They should be compelled to pay compensation to those who have been dispossessed out of their own assets - not the taxpayers money - and to make public apologies to those who tried to warn them of this man's psychpathic nature.

A pity they can't apologise to the forty thousand Ndebele men Mugabe's 5th Brigade slaughtered and hid down disused mineshafts within weeks of coming to power. That never got any media attention then, and they sure as hell won't give it any now. Forty thousand men from Zimbabwe's second largest tribe - Mugabe is a Shona - and all of them aged between 16 and 60, simply vanished in a well planned and executed bit of Genocide which the West condoned by its silence. Mugabe is a monster, surrounded by monsters. And the real reason the currency has collapsed is simple, Mugabe's policies have destroyed their agriculture, the treasury has been stripped of assets to pay for his luxuries and anyone who protests is simply visited by his Goon Squad and killed or jailed - and that in itself is as good as being killed, it just takes a bit longer.

Zimbabwe is a tragedy unfolding before our very eyes, but it is largely ignored and shunned by the media for the same reasons that Whitehall try not to talk about it - they too lauded this murderer and his cronies as "liberators" and "freedom fighters". Well now the result of their ignorance and stupidity is plain.

Z$6 million for an ordinary meal in a restuarant. For the same meal and number of people in this country I would have change from £60 in an equivalent restuarant. And in Zimbabwe there are people who cannot afford a half loaf of bread, never mind a night out.

Posted by The Gray Monk at October 1, 2007 03:49 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Shawn at October 1, 2007 06:28 PM