Page 17 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

Re-Education

process was secure, law and order enforcement that works. It’s not his army into Mozambique to pro-
was bolstered. For this purpose, incompetent, corrupt and untrans- tect Zimbabwe’s strategic assets and
Mugabe transformed the colonial formed as the South African system, Mozambican citizens from MNR
law enforcement and judiciary to in which judges are bought, crime rebels who were financed by the
ensure that they represented the dockets sold, breeding impunity for apartheid and US governments to
people. racism; crimes like rape, murder, destabilize Mozambique.
culpable homicide, drug wars, taxi By 1992 Zimbabwean soldiers had
Unlike what is punted by white me- wars and other such in which senior significantly neutralized the threat
dia as Africa’s model for rule of law businesspeople, police officers and of MNR to force a ceasefire and
(South Africa), Zimbabwe doesn’t politicians are often peace in Mozambique.
see a woman raped every 4 minutes, implicated. • In 1998 he galvanized the
54 murders per day, taxi violence, • In
drug wars or foreigners being mur- Mugabe’s
dered and burnt in the streets with- Zimbabwe,
out a response from government. we hardly
The country has effective law en- heard of
forcement, hence criminals (irre- prom-
spective of them being foreign or inent
local) know well not to perpetrate business
criminal activities in the republic, people
because the long arm of the law is or active
uncompromising with criminals. politi-
This is why Zimbabwean criminals cians
and those from further north, sadly being
crossover into South Africa, to assas-
commit crimes they would never sinated
attempt north of South Africa’s bor- in office, even though
der, despite the fact that businesses Zimbabwean opposition politicians Namib-
and people in Zimbabwe regularly and activists go to the extent of call- ians, Angolans, Libyans, Sudanese
carry, hold and openly trade millions ing for sanctions upon the country. and Chadians to join him sending
of US dollars, diamonds and gold However, in “Africa’s greatest de- troops into Congo during the Sec-
without armed guards or firearms mocracy”, in the last 3 years alone, ond Congo war ( the biggest war
for protection. more than 90 politicians have been after WW2) to curb the human car-
Even though Zimbabwe is a transit assassinated in Kwa Zulu Natal only, nage that was fast hitting 6 million
hub bridging SADC, poachers, drug while prominent business men and deaths by 1996, as a result of Rwan-
and human traffickers tend to avoid lawyers blowing the whistle on lead- dan and Ugandan western backed
the country to go through the Her- ing business mafia and politicians rebels destabilizing Congo to kill
oin Coast, because Zimbabwean law die mysteriously and in most cases Kabila and make way for the UN to
enforcement is a hindrance to their the perpetrators are never found. divide Congo into five separate easy
enterprise. to loot states.
8. Military
7. Traffic Enforcement • As part of Mugabe’s illustrious 9. Sun City Accord
• The country’s road death toll is contribution to Pan African defense Zimbabwe’s participation in that
one of the lowest in Africa at 13 and security. The Zimbabwean army war forced the Sun City Accord,
deaths/100,000 people, very close has been one of the most effective preserving Kabila, bringing an
to European standards, because of outfits at combating imperial in- end to large scale human slaughter
reasonable roads and traffic enforce- spired insurgency on the continent, in Congo and keeping the nation
ment. South Africa, as an African hence SADC does not suffer from in one piece. Only for the war to
benchmark is almost three times terrorism, banditry and the presence resume a few years after Zimbabwe
higher at 34 deaths/100,000 people. of the biggest sponsor of terrorism and her allies were replaced by the
• The reason Mugabe left a country (AFRICOM). SANDF and UN forces who were
with low crime and road deaths is • As part of the Frontline States more committed to protecting
because he built a judiciary and law mutual defense pact, Mugabe sent the interests of the same western

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