By Rhodé Marshall
03 April 2008
Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he hopes Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would decide to give up his 28 year reign and step down gracefully.
The Archbishop says that people should not forget the previous good work Mugabe did for Zimbabwe until recently when things spiralled down for the worst in his country.
“I hope every one of us will say, we don’t want to see that country that has suffered already so much descend to chaos and violence,” Archbishop Tutu.
He went on saying he hopes the transition period in Zimbabwe would be smooth without any violence.
“I would want people to remember that President Mugabe did a wonderful job and we mustn’t forget that and I hope he will step down with dignity,” adds Tutu.
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Yes, let's not forget Bob's murder of more than 20,000 people in Mabeleland and the fact that his people only live half as long as they used to and that the common man has no job and no bread for his family....good point!
Letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu concerning President Robert Mugabe
Lloyd Whitefield BUTLER, Jr.
www.talkzimbabwe.com
Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:45:00 +0000
DEAR Honorable Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of South Africa. As a theologian and an honorable churchman your recent comments to the news media raises serious questions.
USATODAY, Cape Town, South Africa (AP) “Archbishop Desmond Tutu lambasts African silence on Zimbabwe” and ‘We Africans should hang our heads in shame," said Tutu, who is widely regarded as South Africa's moral conscience. "How can what is happening in Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa?’
Hon. Archbishop Tutu you also stated that EU and US measures was ineffective. "Western sanctions — mainly targeting just over 200 members of the leadership with travel bans and asset freezes — have proven largely symbolic," it said.
You are fully aware Tutu that the sanctions are not limited to “200 members of the leadership”. You are fully aware that trade, business, and banking institutions are sanctioned.
Another Headline reads “Zimbabwe needs your help, Tutu tells Brown”.
Gordon Brown should put more pressure on President Robert Mugabe to improve Zimbabwe's human rights record, Desmond Tutu said last night.
The Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel peace prize winner said the "quiet diplomacy" pursued by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) had "not worked at all".
Your request for the two most notorious troublemakers on God’s earth to solve the problem of a sovereign state, Zimbabwe, is absolutely shocking. To advise the European Union, Britain in particular, and America, to remove “quiet diplomacy” and use hard diplomacy is disreputable for a theologian of your peaceful background.
To recommend hard diplomacy tactics against Zimbabwe to an historical purveyor of war is intimidating. Britain and the United States openly advocate pre-emptive strikes against anyone it perceives as a threat; they are not a solution for peace but destruction. For example: Iraq.
Can you name a single country that Britain and America settled in and left in peace?
Unable to name a single nation is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help us God.
Your recommendation for hard diplomacy case in points can only be equated with Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, US Katrina, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Colombia, South Africa, Rwanda, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bosnia for example.
After analyzing the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in conjunction with your hard diplomacy approach to Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s duly elected President; John MacArthur’s “Grace To You” ministries came to me as an omen.
Grace To You ministries promote very important moral and theological questions that can be applied to former and neo colonial aggressors (EU & US). “Answering the Hard Questions About Forgiveness - But What If There Is Reason To Think That the Offender's "Repentance" Is a Sham?
‘In normal circumstances, love obliges us to assume the best about those who profess repentance (1 Cor. 13:7). Scripture does suggest, however, that there are certain times when it is legitimate to demand fruits of repentance before assuming that someone's profession of repentance is genuine (Matt. 3:8; Luke 3:8).’
‘When Is Restitution Appropriate?’
‘Whenever an actual loss has been caused by a wrong, restitution is certainly appropriate. The granting of forgiveness for the guilt of the offense does not automatically nullify the need to make reparations, especially when the injured party's loss is quantifiable. Whether the loss was caused deliberately (as in a theft) or accidentally (through some form of negligence), restitution should be made.”
‘What Is the Difference Between True Repentance and a Mere Apology?’
‘Genuine repentance always involves a confession of wrongdoing and a willingness to make things right. An apology often takes the form of an excuse.’
‘The word apology comes from the Greek apologia, which literally means "a speech in defense of." Apologies are often nothing more than self-defense: "I'm sorry if you took offense, but . . ."
Genuine repentance is properly expressed in an admission of wrongdoing and a plea for forgiveness: "It was unthoughtful of me to say that. Will you forgive me?"
Hon. Archbishop Tutu have you concluded that your Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s goals and objectives are finished? Have you concluded that the European Union, Britain, and America have repented or merely apologized?
A more serious situation has arisen that requires your immediate attention as highlighted in the present day world media.
Overseas Security Advisory Council on South Africa
The Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) a U.S. Government inter-agency Web site managed by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State published and advertised on their website the South Africa 2008 Crime & Safety Report - 19 Mar 2008.
‘The State Department identifies Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town as “Critical” for crime. Crime in South Africa affects people from all walks of life, and is not limited by socio-economic status.’
‘Crime and the extreme levels of unnecessary violence affect all South Africans including the local and greater business community. The South African Police Service recently released their semi-annual national crime statistics for the April to September 2007 reporting period, which indicates a 29% increase of business robbery.’
‘The Institute for Security Studies recently reported that as many as fifty South Africans are murdered every day. SAPS statistics indicate South Africa averages 150 rapes a day (a number which is most likely under reported).”
“Crime’ in South Africa is now blatant terrorism” writes Sifiso Falala in The Times, March 29, 2008; ‘We are dealing with a phenomenon which requires urgent action from the authorities. It needs to be analysed more deeply than it has been. We have been naive for too long.’
‘Terrorism must not be stereotyped — we have our own brand of it in South Africa and it kills more people a day than what could be regarded as conventional terrorism.” Falala is chief executive officer of Plus94, a research institute in South Africa.
Can we assume that the rise in crime in South Africa stems from the outcome of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s consequences in which no one paid for their crimes if they confessed?
Was the policy of non-payment forgiveness a social signal that “Crime Pays”? Did black South Africans say to themselves: the Afrikaners conquered, colonized, robbed, enslaved, and got filthy rich and did not pay for their crimes?
Do black South Africans say to themselves the Whites took theirs I got to get mine by any means? If the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s no-jail-time forgiveness worked for the white Afrikaner it should work for the black African who is presently involved in crime.
Archbishop Tutu, another headline that raises questions in my mind is “A Cry for Zimbabwe” — ‘A Moment to End the Repression -- Unless the World Retreats Into Silence’ by Desmond Tutu and Madeleine Albright. Thursday, March 29, 2007.
Co-authoring an article with Madeleine Albright former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Rwanda Massacre of 800,000 Christian Africans in 1994 is unpleasant in my opinion.
Mrs. Albright was not bright enough to answer her phone calls from Rwanda during the massacre; and you see fit to align yourself with her as a representative of good will. Can you Archbishop Tutu locate a text where former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright apologized, repented, or offered restitution to Rwanda? Google cannot find it.
The two of you (Albright and Tutu) fail in your article to mention the illegality of economic sanctions against an entire nation and the effects on the economy and social infrastructure.
The two of you state: ‘Although anti-government feelings are prompted by the regime's lack of respect for human and political rights, Mugabe's poor management of the economy is also to blame. The inflation rate, more than 1,700 percent, is the world's highest, while an estimated four out of five people are unemployed.’
You state that not commenting on the internal affairs of a sovereign state is not a good principle. You than state that this “principle is exceptionally convenient for dictators and for people who do not wish to be bothered about the well-being of others. It is a principle that paved the way for the rise of Hitler and Stalin and for the murders ordered by Idi Amin.”
You, Archbishop Tutu and Madeline Albright, have the un-mitigating gall to compare the duly elected head of state President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to the madmen of Germany and Russia.
800,000 Africans massacred in Rwanda under the controlling-watch of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and she gets no reprimand? On what grounds are you comparing Robert Mugabe to the two European madmen?
America and Europe needs Tutu
Archbishop Tutu, please take note of an article published April 7, 2008 titled: “Boom to bust?” by Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International, concerning the West, they need your help. The death and destruction tolls are not mentioned below.
‘Borrowing $2 billion to $3 billion a day from other countries to maintain the world's highest standard of living, based on conspicuous consumption, in an age of growing world shortages, while fighting two wars whose costs will soon ring up a $1 trillion tab, is tantamount to living on borrowed time.’
‘Valium and Tylenol sales are up, Viagra down, in the banking world. So far, the subprime tsunami has wiped out half a trillion dollars from the books of major financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe.’
‘At first, the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), one of the world's three most prestigious, figured it had lost $19 billion. That's when Singapore's pension fund kicked in $11 billion, figuring UBS was still a sound investment over the long haul. UBS then revised its loss estimate to $40 billion — for one bank!’
‘The magnitude of the $500 trillion derivatives bubble is brought home by America's largest dollar figures: for GDP ($15 trillion); Federal budget ($3 trillion); U.S. government's maximum legal debt ($9 trillion). Also by the GDP for all nations ($50 trillion); total value of the world's stock and bond markets (more than $100 trillion). By way of reassurance, BIS' 2007 annual report also says the $11 trillion "gross market value provides a more accurate measure of the scale of financial risk transfer taking place in derivatives markets" every day.’
‘A snapshot of what is actually happening is unfettered free market capitalism — and government spending. A blistering Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found 95 major defense weapons systems have far exceeded their original budgets by a total of almost $300 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion.”
It appears to me that Zimbabwe is better prepared to manage hard times than the hard times about to befall America and Europe. Secondly, this is exactly why Zimbabwe is on the Most Wanted List of Resource Rich Nations.
Is the One Person One Vote Divisive?
The two most powerful militarized countries in the world are America and Great Britain. Both war-makers promote and forcefully feed nations the “One Man One Vote” theoretical concept of electing a Head of State. Neither US nor UK utilized the “One Person One Vote” system to elect their Head of State.
Great Britain is a modernized medieval constitutional monarchy. Elizabeth II is the Queen regnant of sixteen independent states and their overseas territories and dependencies.
The Queen has ruled 56 years and Mugabe of Zimbabwe 27 years. The Queen rules Britain by Royal Prerogative not a One Person One Vote system.
The United States Electoral College is a term used to describe the 538 Presidential electors who meet every four years to cast the official votes for President and Vice President of the United States.
The President of United States of America is elected by the Electoral College not through a One Person One Vote system.
Why then do US and UK insist that other countries adopt the mob rule principle of One Person One Vote to elect their Head of State? Answer: it creates chaos.
Historical governments and kingdoms in Africa were governed by a Council of Elders or Chiefs when electing their head of state.
Archbishop Tutu, please reconsider past statements involving nations imposing their wills on others to solve problems when their past records speak to the contrary.
When Archbishop Tutu are you going to commend the people of Zimbabwe for their civilized example in maintaining peace, harmony, and respect for one another during difficult and trying times?
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