I know that Tibet's spotlight is a good thing. At the very least, now the most ignorant of people are aware that something's not right over there. Now they can happily shake their fists north towards China and take out their hate on the nearest Chinese person. They don't have to look far. There's one of us at every corner! :D
Though the one bad thing is that it's taken away any chance of Zimbabwe getting prime time news feed. And quite frankly, as bad as things might be in Tibet, point for point, the poor Zimbabweans (that how you call them?) have it much worse. Go Google Zimbabwe's recent history, or even Wikipedia it. I'm sure Wiki's misfacts can't be too far from the real truth. Hell, Mugabe's record is really that bad. Case in point: their inflation is 165,000% WHAT...THE...?!?! So how do you fix it? Why, you just create a 10 million dollar note. Problem solved! Stupid Mugabe... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7351086.stm
But its this article that just makes me plain mad... Courtesy of The Age, which I think was courtesy of the Guardian newspaper in the UK. http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/mugabes-men-take-their-revenge/2008/04/16/1208025282807.html.
Mugabe's men take their revenge
Chris Mcgreal, April 17 '08
IT IS called Operation Makavhoterapapi — Shona for "Where did you put your cross?" — and it descended on 15-year-old Privilege Chikwana as she was doing her homework.
Privilege was too young to have voted in Zimbabwe's still unresolved election but her mother did, and the men at the door suspected she voted the wrong way. So they took the child back to a school in Chiwaka village, where Zanu-PF activists were holding opposition supporters prisoner, and started beating her.
"They beat her on the buttocks with wooden rods, beat her and beat her because they said she was hiding me. Men were doing this," Privilege's mother, Faustina Chikwana, said. "When I heard they had taken her to the school, I went straight there. There was a big group of Zanu-PF, about 100. They had drums. They were singing. They grabbed me and they had a list of where we voted. That's when it started."
Mrs Chikwana and her daughter are now in a Harare hospital hardly able to move because of the injuries inflicted as a wave of state-sponsored terror sweeps rural Zimbabwe.
It is punishing voters for supporting the opposition and aims to ensure that, if there is a run-off presidential election, they do not repeat their mistake.
Also in the same hospital are others who have survived the beatings and burnings. They include Mike Mavhura, whose hands are swollen, bloodied and seared after burning grass was piled on him and his arms were broken in several places.
Down the corridor is Daniel Muchuchuti, a 62-year-old retired major from the Zimbabwean army and village head, who has broken ribs.
On the floor below is Linus Mubwanda, whose brother Tapiwa, a Movement for Democratic Change district chairman, was beaten to death in front of him.
They are from diverse parts of rural Zimbabwe and they are a fraction of the many hundreds of people the opposition says have been assaulted as gangs of armed Zanu-PF supporters under military leadership move through the countryside, using polling station returns to identify villages where support for the opposition was strong.
Many hundreds more have been forced from their homes. War veterans burned the houses of 30 families in Centenary. Those who have tried to report the attacks to the police have sometimes themselves been arrested.
Mrs Chikwana, 38, says she is not an opposition activist and that her vote is her secret. But not secret enough. There were two polling stations in Chiwaka. One raised suspicions. Zanu-PF told people that they should vote there.
"When they were beating me, they wanted to know why I didn't go to their polling station. They said to me: 'If you vote in the other place, it's secret and that means you voted for the opposition.'
"They said they knew how people voted in that polling station from the figures and it wasn't for Zanu-PF," she said.
"They said we must vote for Zanu-PF. If you don't vote Zanu-PF you must go away. They said we were selling the country to the whites."
Few people have been killed in the beatings. It would appear that Zanu-PF has learned that deaths attract attention. But there has been at least one killing. Tapiwa Mubwanda was the MDC district chairman of a village in the north of the country. He was bludgeoned to death on Saturday as his brother was beaten next to him.
"They said it was to teach us how to vote," said Linus, 58. "They said: 'It's your own fault, voting for the opposition. That's why we are doing all these things to you. When we have the run-off, you will know how to vote'."
