Dateline: Luanda, 2 June 2004 Some of you will know that President Aristide from Haiti is arriving in South Africa soon for an extended holiday. You may also know that 70 so-called mercenaries are being held in Zimbabwe on all sorts of trumped-up charges. The main charge is that they were on their way to Equatorial Guinea (A Pariah state without a Shoprite store), to instigate a coup de tat. Our dear President Aristide will have all the comforts of home while our “mercenaries” will be ...
Dateline: Luanda, June 7 2004 “We’ll beat ‘em up, boy. Show ‘em our way.” I normally comment on the trials and tribulations of Africa. I digress this week because I have been shaken and disturbed by two coincidental “sightings” on TV. Each one relates to Abu Ghraib prison. Two weeks ago I watched a Ruby Wax program about the Hill-Billy people in Appalachia. The program showed the Appalachians in their homes, their stores, their church. These people did not seem normal (ask Ruby)...
(As published in the NY times Readers Forum June 8 2004) I live 5000 miles away in Southern Africa. I am not an American, but I have admired Ronald Reagan for most of my life. I admired him because of his extraordinary charisma, his joie de vivre , his immense capability, his faith in himself, and, most of all, because he had faith in others. This amazing person was able to charm the likes of my Queen, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhael Gorbachev. It is said that he called the Queen “Liz” an...
Michael Howard said it all. I quote, roughly, " We can only provide privileges to those in Britain, we cannot provide welfare for the world." How on earth can any country expect to provide refuge for every Tom, Dick and Harry from Africa, Europe and Asia. Britain is not a lucky packet or a charity? I agree entirely with any move by the Conservatives or Labour to clamp down on illegal immigration and asylum grabbers. For goodness sake, some people try to send young children into Britain to ...
Auschwitz today bowed its solemn head and was the scene of recrimination, sorrow and forgiveness. As the fires and candles burned overhead, an amazing scene was played out in the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Former prisoners re-lived their experiences behind the cold barbed wire fences---fences guarding secrets so horrible that it beggars belief. The barrack buildings,the towering chimneys of death, the horror and the deprivation----it must have shocked the newcomer and, worse, brought bac...
The British media is full of the Queen's visit to Germany. The papers (like the Daily Express), have headlines blaring: " The Germans say you should apologise for the war Your Majesty! I hope that Bild Zeitung and the British papers have it all wrong---in fact, I hope this is just cheap publicity to sell newspapers. No way is my Queen going to apologise for the destruction of Dresden when Adolf and his chums screwed Poland and killed 3 or so Million Jews. No way! My father fought for King ...
I have written about the "mercenaries" incarcerated in Zimbabwe before. This groupof 70 mercenaries was arrested in Harare about 6 months ago as they landed to pick up some arms they had ordered. They have been accused of planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea, an oil rich country with a ruthless, corrupt and backward government. We do not know all the facts but the following emerged/did not emerge, after the arrest: * Said group alleged that they were heading to the Congo to protect diam...
I'm stunned that an application has been made for sanctions to be instituted against the Sudan. Is this how the world is going to solve the problem? We know that the government of Sudan is partly responsible for the genocide and starvation in the Darfour region. We know this because: * The Janjaweed (Arab militia) is govt. backed. *The Janjaweed is slowly "cleansing" the non-Arab Darfour region with Govt. help. * The Janjaweed has no truck with human rights. They are on a cleansing mi...
The USA is due to hand over Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi authorities any day now. Little information has been given out by authorities as to Saddam’s whereabouts at present, but we are led to believe that he is secure in Iraq. If he is, the forces in Iraq deserve a medal. That country is in turmoil and close to blast-off. How they could have concealed him in the country and kept it ultra-secret is a puzzle to me. However, we are never sure of anything so he could have been at Guantanamo...
Google News and AlJazeera reported this morning that several Al Quaeda terrorists were killed in last Friday's raid on the Afghan/ Pakistan border. Unfortunately there are no bodies to confirm this. Apparently the insurgents made off with the bodies of those killed. Now, who is fooling who when there is no evidence to back up claims that senior Al Quaeda members were killed in the raid? Where are the totally identified bodies of the Egyptian explosives expert and his cohorts? Personall...
How the Reverend Pat Robertson manages to have such a large following evades my simple brain. His comments on Ariel Sharon (His illness is "divine intervention" for treating the Palestinians so badly), are an embarrassment to the US government and the American people. In fact, I believe this man who "thinks" he sits at God's right hand, has made embarrassing statements before. I cannot understand how he is revered by the thousands who hang on to his every word. My handbook on Psychology ad...
The press in recent weeks has reported, adnauseam, on the jibes and irresponsible statements President Ahmadinejad of Iran has made on Israel. On January 6th this "leader" stated that he hoped Sharon would die and that he should take the Israeli leadership with him. Now we hear that the Iranians refuse to co-operate with the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency and stood up Mohammed El Baradei , head of the IAEA, when talks were arranged in Vienna. These talks were to be aimed at seek...
I write in complete ignorance as I have not been to Iraq. I know the following facts: * Suicide bombers will do anything to get to their targets. They are becoming more sophisticated as I speak. * Suicide bombers form the second arm of the insurgent attack to disrupt Iraq and prevent it from becoming a democratic, peaceful country. * Suicide bombers use explosives strapped to their bodies or hidden in vehicles. Now, and bear in mind that I have not been on the ground in Iraq, I ask, why...
Just two miles away from my home in Cairo an international incident happened three days ago.(plenty of coverage on TV all over the world). A group of Sudanese refugees was "cleared" from their camp next to the UNHCR offices. Over 20 were killed by a brutal Egyptian police assault on their camp. I have seen the camp: Over 2000 people lived on a garden site no bigger than a tennis court. It appears, and I have no inside information, that the UNHCR itself called in the authorities to disperse th...
have said before that Saddam Hussein should not be tried in Iraq. I say it again. The trial is fast becoming a farce as Saddam continues to insist that he has been tortured---as have some of the other accused. We are now subjected to shows of "tennis elbow", minor scratches and a singular lack of evidence that anyone could have abused the men behind the barrier. How we wish that their victims had only suffered "tennis elbow". (I allude of course to one of the accused exposing his elbow on TV ...