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Gold/Mining/Energy : Precious and Base Metal Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dave rose who wrote (866)	12/13/2001 10:56:17 AM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 39344

Dave, this land grab is happening in Zimbabwe, not SA. and the SA government stresses that it will never allow a similar outrage to occur in SA. is that believable? i think it is. Zimbabwe's "comrade" Mugabe is a cold war left-over, a Stalinist despot. the SA government is MILES away from this guy, in every respect. however, even SA's white farmers have big problems. the main problem is sharply rising rural crime, which involves roving heavily armed gangs that descend on farms in lone spots and rob and murder the farmers. this is in fact a HUGE and intractable problem, as so far the SA government has been unable to deal with it effectively. so if you're a white farmer in SA, you probably don't think that things are getting better, i'll definitely give you that. however, as the country overall begins to successfully tackle many of its economic and social problems, it can be expected that the crime rate will eventually fall as well. this is not yet the case, and much needs to be done. one thing the government IS doing to tackle the crime rate is that it has begun to raise the up until now dismal salaries of policemen and has begun to enlarge the police force. this is of course merely tackling the symptoms, not the root of the problem. one of the reasons that violent crime is so widespread in SA is the political past - when the apartheid National Party still ruled, the ANC attempted to make large swathes of the country "ungovernable". that meant that an entire generation of young black men grew up in the townships confronted with violence on a daily basis. many of the former Umkhonto guerrilleros are nowadays unemployed (some have been integrated into the SA defense force) and the only tool they know how to wield is unfortunately the AK 47. so it can be expected that it will take time for the crime problem to be surmounted, and it is one of the biggest challenges the country faces.