"South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Mugabe must step down or be removed by force"
Woah! Man of Peace, is he?
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HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and the collapse of its healthcare system, and state media reported yesterday the government is seeking more international help to pay for food and drugs to combat the crisis.
Yeah, I think I made myself clear about that yesterday: Zimbabwe Ready to Dump Mugabe
The failure of the southern African nation's healthcare system is one of the most devastating effects of the country's overall economic collapse. Facing the highest inflation in the world, Zimbabweans are struggling just to eat and find clean drinking water. The United Nations says the number of suspected cholera cases in Zimbabwe since August has climbed above 12,600, with 570 deaths, because of a lack of water treatment and broken sewage pipes.
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Still, residents are getting little help from the government, which has been paralyzed since disputed March elections as President Robert Mugabe and the opposition wrangle over a power-sharing deal. "Our central hospitals are literally not functioning," Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa said Wednesday at a meeting of government and international aid officials, according to the state-run Herald newspaper.
International aid agencies and donors must step up their response, Matthew Cochrane, regional spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said yesterday. "This is about supporting the people of Zimbabwe," Cochrane said, adding that aid should include water treatment plants and more medical staff.
That's what I am ALL ABOUT.... PEOPLE!!!!!!
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, long among Mugabe's sharpest critics, agreed that Zimbabwe was facing a national emergency and nations must step in to help.
"Mugabe's failed state is no longer willing or capable of protecting its people," Brown said in a statement yesterday. "The international community's differences with Mugabe will not prevent us doing so - we are increasing our development aid, and calling on others to follow."
After they drove this crisis!! As for fat Gordo, go blow it out your pffffft!!!
Also yesterday, South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Mugabe must step down or be removed by force, Reuters reported.
"I think now that the world must say: 'You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down,' " Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner, told Dutch television.
Yeah, the Hague is the BLACK MAN'S (and poor whites) WAR CRIMINAL COURT!!
So when the indictments coming for Bush, Bliar, and Olmert?
Tutu, one of the continent's leading voices against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, said the African Union or the Southern African Development Community would have the military capacity to remove Mugabe, 84. "He has destroyed a wonderful country. A country that used to be a bread basket - it has now become a basket case," Tutu said.
I agree, he should leave.
Britain has offered $4.4 million and set aside a further $10.25 million in relief aid for Zimbabwe to provide medicine, fund basic health services, and help prevent more cholera outbreaks. The US State Department called the health situation in Zimbabwe worrisome....
That's it? "Worrisome?" How about a DIRE CATASTROPHE? If I didn't know better, I'd holler racism.
The European Commission is providing more than $12 million for drugs and clean water and the International Red Cross shipped in more supplies Wednesday to fight the cholera outbreak. The Herald said the government declared the state of emergency at Wednesday's meeting, and appealed for money to pay for food, drugs, hospital equipment, and salaries for doctors and nurses.
Makes you wonder why they slapped sanctions on in the first place, huh? Unless the intent was to cause....
Walter Mzembi, the deputy water minister, said his ministry has only enough chemicals to treat water nationally for 12 more weeks. High levels of cholera are common in the region, but Cochrane said it was hitting a population already weakened by hunger and poverty. The death toll could be much higher than the official figures, he added, because many deaths in rural areas were not being recorded at medical facilities.
The people of Zimbabawe deserve better, folks!
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