- "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated," Mahatma Gandhi
once said.
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- Given this premise, the soi-disant nation of Zimbabwe
is egregious, recidivist and morally bankrupt. The Zimbabwe Ruins no longer
refers to the remains of an edifice but to a ravaged country.
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- Zimbabwe is in the grip of a seemingly demonic rampage
of destruction.
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- In his speeches, the murderous President Robert Mugabe
refers to the farm invasions as the Third Chimurenga - the war waged in
the name of the witchdoctor Murenga. This is interesting in itself. Mugabe
presents his "Land Redistribution" program to the West as a reasonable
method of redressing the "imbalances" of colonialism. To his
own people, he speaks in Shona and calls it the Third Chimurenga, "The
War Against the White Devils."
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- Dr Peter Hammond is the founder and director of Frontline
Fellowship. His Christian missionary work has given him firsthand knowledge
of the situation in countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and
further to the north in the Sudan. In his opinion, it is Zimbabwe that
is committing national suicide.
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- By installments, it would seem.
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- As Zimbabwe plummets further and further into ruins,
the independent human-rights non-government organization the Amani Trust
documents close to a thousand assaults on white farmers and their Matabele
workers. The occupation of the farms is not spontaneous. As long ago as
2001, it was reported that the organization of the so-called "war
veterans" (some are not yet teenagers) was the work of Chenjerai "Hitler"
Hunzvi, who was flown around the country in an air force helicopter as
he coordinated the invasions. (He has since mercifully died of AIDS and
was buried in Heroes Acre).
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- What does appear spontaneous is the way many of the "landless"
peasants who are in direct contact with President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF
headquarters (via cell phone) kill or maim animals.
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- When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man
we call him a vandal. What then do we call a man who cuts the legs off
a horse . or gouges the eyes out of a cow?
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- What do we call the blood-thirsty mobs of ZANU-PF's "war
veterans" and youth militia who are shooting, snaring, spearing and
using land-mines to destroy herds of elephant, the endangered Black rhino,
cheetah, leopard, antelope and giraffe?
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- The Save Valley, one of Africa's largest conservation
areas, covers an area of 840,000 acres. This conservancy has supported
more than 1,200 elephants. It was also known to have the most successful
black rhino breeding program in Africa. Over the last four years, some
50 percent of the reserve has been occupied by Mugabe's AK-47-wielding
war veterans and youth militia. During this time, game rangers have recovered
more than 35,000 snares. Victims of these snares include elephant, wild
dog, cheetah, leopard and rhino. These cable snares entrap the animal so
that it will starve to death. In one case, a pregnant giraffe struggled
so desperately to free herself that the snares cut her throat. (Photographs
of all these atrocities can be seen on the Internet.)
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- In Bubiana alone, it is estimated that 60,000 animals
have been slaughtered in the past few months. Bubiana used to have the
largest rhino population in the world. More than 75 percent have been killed.
In Lynwood Ranch, another conservation area, seven of its 36 black rhinos
were found dead in snares.
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- In several other cases, rhinos had their horns hacked
off while they were still alive or they were simply blown up with land
mines. In the Kariba area, more than a 100 elephants have been shot.
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- A British observer commented: "It is incomprehensible
that Mugabe's government has such a blatant disregard for its own economic
assets. Zimbabwe's extraordinary wealth is being systematically and savagely
destroyed."
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- A black conservationist commented: "They (Mugabe's
Marxist thugs) are destroying everything. They are crippling the country.
It's a no-win situation. The whole thing has been motivated by a government
that intends to stay in power at all costs and destroy anyone or anything
they want to. It's a crisis situation, and game rangers need immediate
help. The longer we wait, the more animals are being killed the less likely
we will be able to survive in this country's economy. All we want to do
is preserve the little bit that's left."
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- Thirty-year-old Bigboy Musemwa is the fifth of seven
brothers. "I didn't ever think I would become an animal activist,
but I have been shocked into the animal cause by the horrific massacre
of animals in my country. Animals are being butchered by the land invaders.
Zimbabweans are in dire need of being educated in the humane treatment
of animals, be they domestic, wild or farm."
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- Musemwa has been shunned by his family as a result of
his vociferous campaigning urging the international animal-protection community
to muster support for the plight of animals and the environment.
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- Huge tracts of forest have been burned or hacked down.
The destruction of the habitat is severe. A ranger who prefers to remain
nameless says, "Fifty percent of Chiredzi's 270,000 acres have been
destroyed. These forests which have taken hundreds of years to grow have
been hacked down, opening the bush and exposing vast tracks of soil to
erosion. Whole ecosystems are being destroyed."
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- Incredibly (all stories about African countries seem
to have an "incredibly" somewhere in them), while President Robert
Mugabe has been destroying what were some of the most successful farms
and game reserves, he addressed the World Summit on Sustainable Development
meeting in Johannesburg, and his racist ramblings were enthusiastically
applauded.
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- There is only one thing more ridiculous than African
dictator: the exaggerated respect that the world accords them.
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- In a story by Dan Roodt, the Afrikaner writer, he writes,
"The game in the parks have now been cruelly trapped and decimated
by a famished populace. ."
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- A psychiatrist this writer spoke to disagrees. He believes
that hunger has less to do with it than hatred:
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- "There is a psychopathic and sociopathic cruelty
to these attacks. Cows with their eyes gouged out, animals with pangas
embedded in their rumps, their legs cut off while they are still alive,
family pets being skinned alive and horses being set alight. These actions
indicate deep, deep perversion, sadism and a desire to shock. The perpetrators
are regressive in the extreme and entirely without conscience."
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- Phil Arkow is an internationally acclaimed expert on
the link between animal cruelty and human violence.
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- "There is increasing evidence that animal abusers
go on to commit acts of violence against humans. Almost without exception,
serial murderers are found to share two common traits - viz. abuse (at
times dissection) of small animals and a compulsion to commit acts of arson.
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- "U.S. law personnel are beginning to recognize that
dogs, cats, horses and farm animals are part of the urban landscape and
powerful indicators of the well-being or dysfunction of a community."
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- What then are we to make of the zeitgeist - spirit of
the times - that exists in Zimbabwe?
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- And, more importantly, how long are the mainstream media
going to avert their gaze?
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- "Their deed are evil deeds, and acts of violence
are in their hands . they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts
are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways." Isaiah 59:
6,7.
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- _____
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- Jani Allan is a British-born journalist and talk-show
host. She spent many years in South Africa.
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