(TALKZIMBABWE) Brown mishap exposes British propaganda

Brown mishap exposes British propaganda
Philip Murombedzi
Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:49:00 +0000

THE mishap by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in parliament on Wednesday when he said that Jacob Zuma was president-elect of South Africa and that the country (SA) was sending 1 000 election observers to Zimbabwe shows how much pressure the PM’s job is putting on the former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It is an insight into the general attitude of Western leaders towards African countries.

Brown, in a sense, revealed that he preferred Zuma to be the next president of South Africa, and given recent Zuma’s utterances on Zimbabwe, this is not surprising.

Westminster, generally, seems to be making these mistakes lately. The story about the 'ship of shame' is another example.

William Hague, the Tory foreign affairs spokesman, concerned about the shipment of Chinese arms which was trying to find its way to Zimbabwe, issued a press release calling on David Miliband, foreign secretary “to take urgent action with regard to the Chinese ship, currently heading to Uganda carrying arms bound for Zimbabwe”.

This was a press release, not just an impromptu statement.

How would a Chinese ship offload its weapons in a land-locked country in the heart of Africa?

We never heard from Mr Hague after this press statement — on how this ship would sail the dry lands of Africa.

Such over-reactions are triggered off by their desire to instantly paint a bad picture of Zimbabwe and look like they know exactly what is going on and thereby justify their actions.

What else have their not told the truth about?

To add insult to injury, one report on a Zimbabwean news website and many other sites said the ship was also headed for Angola. Given Hague’s statement, that would have been impossible as Angola is not near Uganda and is on a different coast.

So the ship would have had to go from Durban in South Africa, go through Madagascar and Mozambique, past the 1 424 kilometres of the Tanzanian Coastline and on to the Kenyan coastline, and the past dry land to reach landlocked Uganda?

As rumours said the ship was finally offloaded in the DR Congo, how did it go from the East Coast (Kenya) to the West Coast (DRC) when it was headed for Uganda? And we know Zambia and Botswana would not have provided safe passage.

This is the extent of the propaganda being fed to a ‘hungry and vulnerable’ Zimbabwean population.