I don't know what the ambassador is smoking but it isn't even the tobacco that used to be grown in Zimbabwe

Sent by Henry Beitz | 3:23 PM ET | 07-12-2007

Has the U.N. been involved in any way?

Sent by tim | 3:23 PM ET | 07-12-2007

I recorded this video clip in April 1994, and actually found solace in Mugabe's reassurance of white South Africans, a week before the first all-race elections in South Africa. History produces great ironies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR6mwzPjDfs

Sent by Brian Tristam Williams | 3:27 PM ET | 07-12-2007

As an African professional who used to visit Zimbabwe on business in its glory days, I am stunned at the massive impoverishment of Zimbabwe under Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

President Thabo Mbeki refuses to take President Mugabe to task because they are cut from the same authoritarian cloth. I predict that South Africa will go the way of Zimbabwe in the next 10-20 years!

Sent by Leo Eko | 3:32 PM ET | 07-12-2007

I agree with the ambassador about the legitimacy of Mugabe's regime. I saw the reports on the BBC and other news outlets of opposition thugs viciously attacking helpless police clubs with their faces.

Sent by Robert Benjamin | 3:32 PM ET | 07-12-2007

Wow. I work in politics and I rarely hear someone who tells lies as smoothly as that ambassador. I spent time in Zimbabwe a decade ago, right as the country began to fall. Mugabe had a chance then to shift land to black farmers without simply booting the white farmers off their farms precipitously, which would have preserved that country's ability to feed itself and kept its chronic inflation rate down. But Mugabe chose to pander instead. Very sad.

Sent by Hank Shaw | 3:38 PM ET | 07-12-2007

Unreal how the ambassador can tell blatant lies like he did...
Very Sad

Sent by David | 4:07 PM ET | 07-12-2007

I am a black Zimbabwean by birth and nationality and came to the US for college. I came from a financial stable family but then the situation has begun to seem daunting and bleek, even for those who seemed to be well off. I lost my mother to cancer last year and due to the complicated circumstances that have transpired in Zimbabwe and their volatile international record I was advised not to go by my university and family back for fear of never being able to return to school. Till this day I have not been able to visit my moms grave and pay my respects. I feel the Zimbabwe government used a just argue to effect unjust agendas; in essence, the Zimbabwe leadership has become the very manifestation of what they swore to protect us against; Zimbabwe's conflict is complex and although I do not support the regime's governing, I do have to be wary of the sincerity and agenda of the international community, especially England.

Sent by Kwapi V. | 4:54 PM ET | 07-12-2007

It makes me sad when the Zimbabwe Ambassador to the US goes on air to
misinform the people of the United State. We are tired of these
sanctions and land redistribution rhetoric when in reality, the
present government has failed dismally. They are just hiding behind
sanctions, but the truth is there is gross mis-management, corruption
and untold repression of the people. This Zimbabwe government is
intolerant to different views, and will do anything to stay in power.
My people are suffering and the world appear unaware of the gravity of
the situation.

We have a large community of Zimbabweans in the US waiting to go back
home as soon as the environment is changes. The Movement for
Democratic Change (www.mdczw.org) is represented here in the US and
would appreciate a chance to tell the world about Zimbabwe.

Sent by Rod | 4:55 PM ET | 07-12-2007

Zimbabwe ambassador Mativenga Mapuranga has unashamedly engaged in blatant lies. He says Britain reneged on promises to fund the reform program. The fact is there was never any land reform of any significance during the time British money was flowing in. Mugabe refused to account how he was using the money.
Another fact is, in the seizure of commercial farms from the "whites" --6,000 of them, Mugabe ended up displacing over 1,000,000 BLACK farm workers many of whom were unceremoniously dumped by the road side by Mugabe's police. The 40,000 recipients of seized farms Mapuranga mentions are supporters of ZANUPF ???the militia thugs, top police and army officers as well as Mugabe???s relatives. Even the government audit of the farm ownership revealed that the top ZANUPF officials and ministers had seized multiple farms. That report was suppressed!
Just last year Zimbabwe had a favorable balance of trade with the US.. what kind of sanctions is he talking about? What exists now are targeted sanctions that involve banning Mugabe and his cronies from visiting the EU and USA. Mugabe has in fact imposed sanctions on this country. What sane investor would invest in Zimbabwe where Mugabe is manipulating the economy like a madman!
Mapuranga is a mischievous manipulator of the truth when he says OAU delegates found the elections free and fair. SADC Parliamentary delegation reached a different conclusion. OAU delegates never got to monitor each polling station. Mugabe refused to allow representatives from civil society to monitor the polling stations during the counting of votes. There were limited polling stations in heavily populated areas like Harare where the opposition movement was the strongest. Polling stations were opened very late and closed even when long lines were still waiting to vote. People were bullwhipped by the police who tried to disperse the voters. Even after the high Court had ordered the polls to reopen Mugabe dragged his feet because he did not want more people to vote against him.
Over 40 percent of the polling stations were not monitored by representatives of opposoito0n parties because they were chases away by Mugabe???s thugs. This means only ZANUPF counted votes in nearly half the counting centers in the country. The election results were announced only after they had been reviewed a committee made up of army and police chiefs.

Sent by abrahamu kakhowa | 10:19 PM ET | 07-12-2007

Two of my best friends in South Africa are Zimbabweans by birth, and I have travelled back to Harare with them to visit their families in 2006 and again in June of 2007. My friends are a married couple, working in a South African university to support their families back home. The elderly granny of the family lives in a middle-class suburb of Harare. She showed me her bedroom, where she sleeps surrounded by huge sacks of parched corn. "I grew these," she says, smiling. "I will not starve." The corn is from her plot in the rural areas. That image of an old lady surrounded by dried corn really haunts me...

Zimbabwe doesn't need a handout or Western intervention (indeed, that might make things worse)...what they do need is a new goverment that responds to the needs of the people. I agree with Kwapi V that one shoudl be wary of the "sincerity and agenda of the international community," lest Zimbabwe become "just another" impoverished African nation trapped in an inescapable cycle of debt and dependency.

Sent by Tshilidzi T | 7:49 AM ET | 07-13-2007

The behavior of Mugabe proves that Ian Smith's Rhodesia was a better country.

Sent by jon | 8:39 PM ET | 07-13-2007

One thing that concerns about the MDC is the split the two factions; it doesnt really help the people feel confident that they will be any different from the previous regime when they seem to be unable to keep their own house in order. I am not pro-ZANU or anti-MDC and I feel this is dilemma many Zimbabweans face; being forced to pick between two questionable options.

As part of the born free generation I feel that the generation before us and in power let us down and we now set Zimbabwe's hopes and future in our own hands; the only hope is that there is a Zimbabwe left for us to resurrect.

One thing I know is that 2008 will be a pivotal year in terms of what Zimbabwe will become.

Sent by Kwapi V | 9:35 PM ET | 07-13-2007