Zimbabwe

I was listening to the radio yesterday and I heard an interview with a government spokesman for Zimbabwe. For those who don't know it is a proper African dictatorship, and has been for many years. Recently the president, Robert Mugabe (called among those who know 'goat'), has instigated a huge campaign of repression against his own people. In the last few weeks this has taken the form of removing many of the townships that form the backbone of Africa. With many casualties and arrests along the way.
Gradually word is getting out of what is going on out there and the repression is being slowly condemned by governments around the world. In this interview on the radio yesterday this spokesman lied 62 times in the 4 minute interview. Saying things like Zim is a really peaceful country, Mugabe is universally popular, there is no famine, all of the game parks are teeming with animals and so on. And it's not just me who thinks he's lying, but a news channel (the BBC) went over the interview today and pointed out which parts were lies. I wonder if this is a record for number of lies in a short interview?

When I was younger I spent a year teaching in the bush in Zimbabwe, and grew very attached to the country and it's people. In 1993/1994 when I was there, there were still issues and it wasn't the most liberal country, but the people all had food and were generally OK. Certainly in the rural areas people tended to just get on with things. And as long as you kept your head down the powers that be ignored you. It was/is a typical dictatorship though, with the president being one of the richest men in the world!

In the last 5 years Mugabe has started being more and more oppressive and made some typical nonsensical decisions. Which has resulted in widespread crop failures and famines. There has also been a noticeable increase in violence. Tourism used to be a huge earner, and Zim was widely seen as one of the safer countries to visit. But no more unfortunately. People are being denied tourist visas, the populace have eaten many of the game park animals, there is not much left of the already previously crumbling infrastructure, and there are regular demonstrations and much violence.

This post was just going to be a laugh about some goverment spokesman who lies even more than our ones. But there you go!