South Africa: Now with EXTRA Neo-Lib® ‘Poverty Boost‘™

Morgan Tsvangirai: The Great White Hope?
Whoda' thunk it?

Most black South Africans were BETTER OFF (!?) under the racist Apartheid regime.

A report published by the South African Institute of Race Relations demonstrated that the living conditions for millions of South Africans have worsened since the ending of apartheid 13 years ago. Official unemployment currently stands at 26 percent, but the real figure is 41 percent—double what it was 10 years ago. Millions of workers earn less than US$150 a month, and 4 million people are living in conditions of extreme poverty, defined as less than US$1 a day.

Anglo Platinum (a subsidiary of Anglo American PLC) produces most of the platinum in SA.

So maybe the ANC should consider a name change to:

Anglo American PLC . . . National Congress

Zimbabwe has the world's number 2 reserves of Platinum.

the MDC supports neo-liberal, i.e. Bush/IMF type economic policies. SO, here I am trying (with some help from Wikipedia) to make a little sense of a country that’s had a very rough time. Remember Ian Smith and a country called Rhodesia? That was Zimbabwe before it gained independence as Zimbabwe in 1980. It was the Patriotic Front (PF) — an alliance of two movements that was formed in 1976 that overthrew Smith’s white minority regime. By the way, Zimbabwe is a landlocked country with rich mineral resources — the world’s 2nd largest platinum deposits, high-quality chrome, gold (50% of Zimbabwe’s mineral exports), and some other metals. The British have mined a lot of the gold. Uranium has also been found. Perhaps there are diamonds, too.

As mentioned earlier:
Right Wing British War Mongerers for Democratic Change?

The Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons include former Tory Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe has been accused of using the organisation as a cover for promoting the interests of Western multi-nationals in the troubled region.

So maybe Morgan and his MDC-posse should be called:
Anglo American PLC . . . for Democratic Change?

Right Wing British War Mongerers for Democratic Change?

So, who provides the money to that wonderfully independent and fantastically democratic political party MDC (Millions of Dead curly-haired-people) and it’s inspirational leader Mr Morgan (Can you kill Mugabe for me?) Tsvangirai?

Well, some of the people involved in the Rape of Yugoslavia, that’s who.

RightWing British cash behind bid to combat Mugabe

Top Tories backing pro-democracy trust are accused of promoting their own interests,

The Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons include former Tory Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe has been accused of using the organisation as a cover for promoting the interests of Western multi-nationals in the troubled region.

Douglas Hurd and Yugoslavia

Can this be the same Douglas Hurd who, as Conservative foreign secretary, was largely responsible for the European Union’s disastrous policy on Yugoslavia, including an arms embargo which prevented the Bosnians from defending themselves against Serbian genocide and ethnic cleansing?

The same Douglas Hurd who warned against armed intervention to halt the dictator Slobodan Milosevic, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo? The same Douglas Hurd who was told at the time by his former boss Margaret Thatcher: “Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger”?

The same Douglas Hurd who, within a year of retirement, returned to Belgrade in 1996 on behalf of the bank that now employed him, NatWest Markets, to negotiate with Milosevic about the privatization of Serbian utilities?

Not only was Mr. (now Lord) Hurd eager to profit from the Serbian Dictator’s desire to sell state assets in order to generate cash to preserve his brutal tyranny—he even tried to justify it by claiming that his motive was the altruistic one of “liberalizing” Serbia, and that Milosevic “could have been rehabilitated.”

So, Morgan’s one of the good-guys,. . . right??