← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hamilton
Thread ID: 20361 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-09-23
2005-09-23 16:24 | User Profile
From "Mozambique," the CIA World Factbook, 2005:
"Large-scale emigration by whites, economic dependence on South Africa, a severe drought, and a prolonged civil war hindered the country's development."
[url]http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mz.html[/url]
Interesting. The CIA is clearly saying that whites were good for Mozambique. As the whites have left, with the country becoming more purely black, every standard has suffered. You know, it's not too big a leap from whites are good for Mozambique to whites are good for America and Europe. Maybe, as in the past, we should tailor our immigration policies accordingly?
Mozambique's flags:
[img]http://www.flagfocus.info/worldflags-large/flag-Mozambique-lg.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.flagfocus.info/worldflags-large/flag-Mozambique-detail-lg.gif[/img]
2005-09-23 16:49 | User Profile
The 19 year civil war that ended in the mid 1990's pretty much undid anything the Portuguese tried to do for Mozambique. Then again, as colonial a power Portugal was pretty pathetic no matter how you slice it.
So, the place went anarchic.
One of the great UN basket case nations, though blessed with great natural resources. (And by all reports, fine beaches. Never been there myself.)
AE
2005-09-23 17:30 | User Profile
My wife and a small crew went to Mozambique few years back for a UN project there about developing collective farms. The place is scary and she wouldn't leave the hotel without armed UN escorts. What's interesting now is that the Mozambique government is offering 100 year land-leases to re-patriate Portuguese farmers. At least that's better than what Zimbabwe offers White farmers.
2005-09-23 17:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton] "Large-scale emigration by whites, economic dependence on South Africa, a severe drought, and a prolonged civil war hindered the country's development."
Interesting. The CIA is clearly saying that whites were good for Mozambique.
You know whites are good for Mozambique. But, what the CIA would claim to mean, and what every liberal would understand them to mean, by "emigration of whites" is "white flight". "White flight" is the term used to mean whites, motivated by racism, leaving black areas and taking the wealth with them. It's ot that whites are good fo rMozambique, it's that whites are bad, they make the blacks poor through oppression then the flee and take the wealth.
2005-09-24 00:17 | User Profile
Mozambique has actually been one of those African countries that has tried to recruit those White Zimbabwean farmers that Mugabe drove out:
[url]http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?newslett=1&click_id=68&art_id=iol1044345547672M216&set_id=1[/url]
[FONT=Arial] [SIZE=5]Mozambique opens doors to Zim's white farmers [/SIZE] February 04 2003 at 09:59AM
By Stephane Barbier
[B]Chimolo - Mozambique is counting on white farmers who have lost land in Zimbabwe to settle within its borders and help develop the agricultural industry. But officials have also taken precautions to prevent the farm conflict plaguing Robert Mugabe's country from happening in Mozambique.[/B]
Cremildo Rundo, deputy head of agriculture and rural development in Manica province, where about 50 landowners are beginning a new life, said: "We see the Zimbabwean farmers as investors, not as refugees."
But in exchange, those who lost their farms to the resettlement programme in Zimbabwe have to follow strict regulations, many of them embodied in Mozambique's new land law of 1997.
This stipulates that no individual owns the land, which belongs to the state.
Zimbabweans wanting to start afresh across the border are entitled to rent up to 1 000ha of land for renewable 50-year periods.
"You couldn't have a better life," said Peter Bowen, a 42-year-old farmer who arrived with his wife Vicky in August 2001.
From their isolated homestead at the end of a narrow track in the beautiful highlands about 30km from the small town of Catandica, they can see their homeland.
But they would not go back to Zimbabwe for anything.
"We were harassed by people occupying the land every day," said Bowen, who used to grow tobacco and coffee in northern Zimbabwe, recalling innumerable tortuous discussions with liberation war veterans reclaiming the country's prime land from the white minority.
"We knew we would definitely get killed," he added, going on to describe his new neighbours as "incredibly good people", notwithstanding Mozambique's accursed bureaucracy.
Regulations were such that "it's impossible to work without breaking rules", he grimaced. He has renounced cash crops to grow potatoes and other products he can sell on local markets.
New arrivals have to create a commercial venture with a minimum capital of US$50 000 (about R424 000) and get initial tenancies of three years in which they must prove their real readiness to farm and make an economic contribution.
Few Zimbabwean farmers have any trouble with Shona, since most of them are fluent in the main language spoken in western Mozambique and in their former homeland, but local officials are also keen to see them learn Portuguese.
"The entire country has to benefit from their presence," said Rundo, but he readily acknowledged that "we know that they know their job.
"Anyone is free to come to Mozambique and receives strong support from the government."
The new farmers are drawn into close contact with the local population, with the authorities insisting on respect for traditional beliefs about sacred forests and secret places of ceremony. Failing to respect these is seen as a serious offence.
Once settlers have visited the land that suits them, paid what they should to the state, and filled in a mass of forms, they are taken by officials to visit the chief of the district where they plan to settle.
Discussions usually lead to the ceremonial sealing of an agreement on friendly co-existence.
The new arrivals must also get used to Mozambican views on fences, which are almost non-existent in the countryside.
People who want to build enclosures are not allowed to do so wherever they want.
Two years ago, Zimbabwean farmers asked Manica authorities whether they could have a single 440 000ha patch of land in the province to share out and tend to.
But the request was turned down by the government, said Rundo, because nobody wanted to see Zimbabweans setting up "ghettos" in Mozambique.
The farmers must also employ local people, not workers "from outside", and guarantee a minimum wage of 800 000 meticals (almost R300). - Sapa-AFP[/FONT]
Petr
2005-09-24 12:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]You know whites are good for Mozambique. But, what the CIA would claim to mean, and what every liberal would understand them to mean, by "emigration of whites" is "white flight". "White flight" is the term used to mean whites, motivated by racism, leaving black areas and taking the wealth with them. It's ot that whites are good fo rMozambique, it's that whites are bad, they make the blacks poor through oppression then the flee and take the wealth.[/QUOTE] I'm sure many in the CIA know the score on blacks. In some ways, their rank and file tends to be pretty conservative. For example, their material on Pinochet that I've read is pretty positive. They also make no bones about how African countries are deeply backward and benefit from the presence of whites. It's no wonder why the CIA gets bashed so often in the liberal media, especially in Hollywood movies. I guess, all those dangerous missions in the war-ravaged Third World are a reality check.
However, I could see many liberals and leftists "interpreting" their report that way.