The Orwellian disaster of Zimbabwe

Mugabe, once seen by many as Zimbabwe's liberator, has become the source of it's demise. This dictator, comrade of "Freedom Fighters" such as Mbeki and the well-known Nelson Mandela, has single-handedly transformed Zimbabwe from a productive country, to a country plagued by famine.

To those who are familiar with George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, the resemblance between Mugabe and one of the main characters of the book, Snowball, is striking. The book Animal Farm, in short, metaphorically discusses how so-called political liberators can easily turn into the most wretched dictatorial opressors. Ironically, the book ends with the starving animals revolting against its previous "liberators": a revolt that is ignited when the common farm animals are dying of hunger, while their leaders are blissfully and defyingly living like kings.

Currently, Zimbabwe is facing its biggest famine to date, which is reportedly also it's first famine ever. There are a plethora of reports, even video footage and testimonials of how Mugabe intentionally decline food to the supporters of the official opposition, the MDC. In some areas food are so scarce that people have now resorted to eating treas! And even that is becoming scarce! The cause of this is clearly not drought, since Zimbabwe faced longer periods with less rain in the past, and still it produced more than enough food. Mugabe has engineered this famine, starting when his notorious landgrabs came into action. Mugabe can't even feed his own 'supporters' (support of course that he gained through giving them the ultimatum of giving him their votes or starving) properly, yet so-called election-monitors from South Africa claimed that the elections were free and fair.

It seems that Zimbabwe's inhabitants have one of two choices: revolt or starve. Yet, it is doubtfull that they have enough energy left to wage a revolution. Who will come to their rescue? "South Africa? Nelson Mandela?", one might ask. And the simple answer would be "No". South Africa has long been silent on the issue of Zimbabwe. It is well known that the ANC and Mandela are friends and comrades of Mugabe. "What about some other African country then?", one might ask. Again, the answer would be shortly: "No". The AU (African Union) was one of the ANC's initiatives (Mandela,MBeki etc). Zimbabwe is also part of the AU. This thus prevents any other African country from intervening.

It would seem that non-African countries, or groups inside Africa that operate independantly from their governments, might be the only candidates to save Zimbabwe's 6 Million starving inhabitants.