Eddie, yes Zimbabwe is a must to visit and the safety concern for tourists bears no relation to what the media would like us to believe. Zimbabwe is a truely beautiful country.
But I cannot, in good conscience or for the sake of our sanity, agree with Eddie's assesment of the political situation.The white people comprise an ethnic minority in Zimbabwe in much the same way as, for example, Asians and Blacks are an ethnic minority in many Western Countries. One expertise that white people brought to Zimbabwe is commercial farming, in much the same way as Asians owns a large section of the food industry in Britain because of their expertise. White Zimbabweans were wealthy in relation to the general population, in much the same way as Jews, with their expertise in commerce, were wealthy (and dominant out of relation to their numbers) in pre-WW2 Germany.
Now, in much the same way that it would be unthinkable for a democratic government to give whites a larger share in the curry-industry, or to force the expulsion of black players because they are over represented in American basketball, and in much the same way that it was wrong to disown Jewish enterprises in Germany on the grounds of their race in the 1930's, in much the same way it is very, very wrong, to disown a white person in Africa, whose parents and grand parents were Zimbabwean, of his lifelyhood, without compensation, purely on the grounds of his race.
Condoning, no, not opposing such acts sets for a very dangerous president in our world. Some of these farmers inhereted the land from their grandparents, and some of them bought it legally, with permission, sometimes even request, of the Mugabe's government only a few years back!! If we are not racist and consistent, we should grant ordinary Africans the same rights as ordinary Westerners enjoy. If it is unthinkable that John Howard, Tony Blair, George W Bush or Gerald Schroeder could illegally fire judges who make unfavourable rulings, use criminal gangs to intimidate racial minorities, rigg elections and order killings of their political opponents, then surely it should also be unacceptable for black Africans to live under such circumstances.
I wonder if Eddie, who claims to be non racist, took the trouble to actually speak to black Zimbabweans. Speak to them about how this "land reform" (believe me, it belongs in quotes) has affected them. South Africa has been swamped recently by tens of thousands of black Zimbabwean refugees, and all of them have voiced very vocal and visible protests against their "leader".
Wait, I lack the space to even summarise all of Mugabe's evils. But we must join the clergy, Zimbabwean civil rights groups , and ordinary Zimbabweans to stand up against that.
Wim Kotze