Just like Gaddafi's Libya, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is

home to some of the world's most exploitative economic terrorists

Personally, I consider it nonsense that some people have defended the slain butcher of Libya with arguments like his sovereignty was intruded; he deserved better as he was the founder of the United States of Africa; and so on and so on. All these may be true but I am not carrying a bag of sympathy for a guy who murdered and wanted to murder thousands of Libyans, enjoying himself while doing it, even calling them rats. Lest we forget, Gaddafi was brutal and extremely corrupt, with an estimated personal fortune of $200 billion. He made all this money during his 42 years of looting the country, ignoring the welfare pleas of his fellow countrymen who had become zombies in the oil rich country. This is not just corruption – it is extremism beyond redemption and in other terms, what we can call economic terrorism. Much of the time Gaddafi was out of touch, holding on to reckless dreams that will never materialise like the United States of Africa and the crazily named shared currency the "Afro"! Relief is now he is gone and we can carry on with our business…

Zimbabwe's economic terrorists

One of Zimbabwe's biggest terrorists is the Minister of Defence, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Known before as the architect of Zimbabwe's genocide of the 80s, he has become a sleek economic terrorist who is busy siphoning off the country's wealth beyond imaginable levels. I find it shocking that when the country's social services are in chaos, Emmerson has been busy getting naughty, raping the country's finances by becoming a middleman in the notorious illegal trafficking and diamond selling deals. He found his role by taking advantage of the KP process which had banned Zimbabwe from selling its precious stones as there were suspicions of them being blood diamonds. During my visit to Zimbabwe, I spoke to high level mining sources who told me of huge discrepancies in the profits made by Mbada Diamonds Company which is in a 50/50 partnership with the Government of Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa is known to work on these illegal diamond transactions and a recent transaction made him personally a fee of over $4 million USD, with a much larger portion going back to Mbada. These figures were significantly less than the actual value of the diamonds, which were devalued because the underhand nature of diamond trading in Zimbabwe means that buyers will not come forward. After finding out about this transaction, I wonder how many of these transactions are taking place without the knowledge of the public, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the profits made in companies like Mbada. If one individual can make $4 million in one transaction, how many hospitals could get better equipment? How many clean water facilities could be made available in rural areas? How much of that resource could be used to avoid regular power cuts?

Economic terrorism, syndicates and all…staying in the deep end

One would have thought that the coalition government of Zimbabwe would be a better alternative for efforts towards economic stability and eradication of corruption. If you were mistaken and disappointed like me, you have to look closer and see what shadowy individuals who pull the strings behind the scenes are doing to ensure Zimbabwe stays in the deep end despite the best efforts to resist of brave figures in government. One of such is a dangerous institution in form of a bank called the Time Bank. Recently, this bank proposed to give government of Zimbabwe a syndicate loan of over $4 billion USD to enable it to pay Zimbabwe Dollar depositors and increase civil service salaries. This proposal is known amongst senior government officials who are pressuring Minister of Finance Tendai Biti to accept the loan. Time bank is not foreign to syndicates and money laundering scandals. In the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's report of Failed Banking Institutions, the Time Bank directors were accused of fraud involving a Z$ 440 billion (US$4.5m) in which two former Zanu PF Ministers, Francis Nhema and Munacho Mutezo were also implicated. Other related activities involving the bank are instances of rapidly constructed institutions used to siphon depositors' funds for money laundering with profits channelled to their companies as loans.

Changes can be very fast, fast indeed

From friend to madman was the Chinese government chameleon change after learning of Gaddafi's death. Newspaper headlines were allowed to change from the straightjacket controlled reporting to a more liberal press approach with some reading "The death of Gaddafi concludes the Middle East's era of madmen," people.com.cn said, while xinhuanet.com wrote simply "The Middle Eastern madman Gaddafi". I wonder what they will read when the *……..* of Zimbabwe dies?