DEM START PAN ZIMBABWE

Mugabe death wish, as Canada cuts crucial aid to Zimbabwe
By A Correspondent

As Canada withdrew vital aid to Zimbabwe and announced it this week, a top journalist wrote to claim that aid or no aid will mean nothing to Zimbabwe; that visible political change recognised by the North American region will materialise after Robert Mugabe’s departure from the world of the living.

The below is the senior journo’s editorial for the Toronto Sun in which the scribe claimed that there will be no hope for the Southern African country as long as Robert Mugabe is alive:

“It is distinctly laughable that critics of the Harper government’s cuts to the Canadian International Development Agency are now saying it will likely derail democracy coming to Zimbabwe in next year’s scheduled election.

It is also ludicrous.

There is only one reason Zimbabwe and democracy are twains that have never met, and that reason is its autocratic dictator Robert Mugabe who, during his 32 years of totalitarian power, has turned the former bread basket of Rhodesia into yet another African basket case.

But it is certainly not the lack of aid money.

Mugabe may be 88, and he may be in failing health, but he also wants one more rigged victory to ensure he goes to Hell without the human rights and constitutional reforms he drudgingly promised in 2009 in order to quell civil violence.

Such concessions are not in his game plan.

Never were, and never will be.

After the violent and bloody election of 2008, hope of an historic democratic breakthrough in Zimbabwe next year is a pipe dream of the left when the reality will likely be the continuance of a nightmare.

Last time, the eyes of the world did not see Mugabe’s promised voter freedom and fairness, not when the voters’ list included 40,000 people allegedly over the age of 100, and 132,000 purportedly over the age of 90, all when the average life expectancy in that country had plummeted to age 45 because of poverty, malnutrition and AIDS.

For years now, Canadian taxpayers – via CIDA – have been pumping millions into programs to support democratic elections in Zimbabwe, to train officials, to monitor vote casting, and to push for constitutional reform.

All has been for naught, despite a fragile coalition between Mugabe and the main opposition party.

Those who think tossing more good money after bad in hopes of a seismic democratic change ignore the fact that Mugabe still holds the tyrannical reins of power, and that past behaviour in his world is the guarantee that his future behaviour will be unchanged.

What Zimbabwe needs more than anything else is the imminent death of Robert Mugabe, not more money from CIDA.

Only then will democracy stand a chance.”