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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Nestle won’t buy more milk from Mugabe farms
13:11 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
‘Exporting food when your own people are starving… is a crime against humanity’..
This must be the shortest and most effective boycot campaign yet launched!
Friday -- October 2 2009 -- Within just one day of the Afrikaner-run AfriForum civil rights movement launching an international boycot-campaign against the multinational Nestle food-company for buying milk from the farms run by Grace Mugabe, wife of the dictator of Zimbabwe – the Swiss-based food-giant announced that it has stopped buying Grace Mugabe’s “blood-milk,’ as the campaigners call it.
AfriForum, which launched the international boycot only yesterday – gave the company until October 7 2009 to comply. Today its CEO said they welcomed the company’s decision, and said this was ‘a victory for justice’. They will now stop with the boycot against Nestle – but “will continue with their efforts to make certain that unceasing pressure is brought on the Mugabe regime to ensure that human rights violations in Zimbabwe are brought to an end…’
In a statement on its website, Nestle said today: "In light of the recent controversy surrounding our relationship with the Gushungo Dairy Estate, we believe that this announcement reflects our long-term commitment to Zimbabwe while acknowledging the specific circumstances around these events."
Nestle's decision to pull out of the deal came after a boycot of Nestle products was launched by AfriForum.The resulting international media coverage of the milk purchases put the company in a very unfavourable light.
AfriForum said on its website that
- the ‘boycot was averted’ after Nestlé gave them the undertaking that it would no longer buy milk from Mugabe AfriForum writes:
- “During a meeting in Randburg (South Africa), the Managing Director of Nestlé in Southern Africa, Sullivan O’Carrol, gave the South African civil rights initiative, AfriForum, its assurance that from 4 October 2009, Nestlé will no longer buy any milk from Grace Mugabe – wife of the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe.
“This undertaking follows after AfriForum had launched an international campaign called www.nestlebloodmilk.com. In the light of Nestlé’s undertaking, Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, undertook on behalf of AfriForum not to go ahead with the planned boycott..’
Nestle: Milk only being bought ‘temporarily’ from Grace Mugabe…
Nestle said its Zimbabwe unit had started buying the milk "on a temporary basis in February 2009 because a local privatised marketing firm which dominates the milk industry was unable to make purchases during an economic crisis."
- "This helped prevent a further deterioration in food supplies in Zimbabwe at that time," said the company of its decision to purchase milk from eight confiscated farms, including one owned by Mugabe's wife.
Mugabe's seizure of white commercial farms have drawn heavy criticism from Western countries, who say their aid won't flow to help Zimbabwe's economic recovery until the land-grabs stop and political and economic reforms are implemented. http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5187780
Crime against humanity to export food when your people are starving:
Some campaigners also pointed out in a stream of emails to Nestle’s Swiss headquarters that, with 13% of all Zimbabwean children dying before the age of five from malnutrition and half the population plunged into a chronic famine, Grace Mugabe’s exporting of this much-needed milk to a foreign company could even be legally construed as a crime against humanity.
AfriForum launched its campaign on a new website, http://www.nestlebloodmilk.com, introducing the boycot.
“Nestlé’s purchase of some 1 million litres of milk from the dairy farm which Mugabe had “obtained” under such questionable circumstances, is a denial of the basic human rights of every Zimbabwean whose blood has been spilt, and is still being spilt at the hand of Mugabe’s brutal security forces and vigilante groups. Nestlé owes the people of Zimbabwe an apology”, the campaigners write.
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Victims of Zimbabwe’s cruel dictatorship
Facts regarding human rights violations by the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe:
- 18 Activists, as well as 2 journalists, have recently been arrested – in 2009 -- because of political reasons by the security forces of Mugabe;
- Since 2001, approximately 3,000 cases were formally recorded by NGOs of people being tortured by Mugabe’s security forces;
- During Mugabe’s clearing out of people’s homes, Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, a total of 700,000 people were left homeless;
- Since 1998, the average life-expectancy in Zimbabwe has decreased from 55 years to a mere 35 years;
- 50% of Zimbabweans wage a constant battle against malnutrition and a shortage of food;
- Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is estimated to be between 80% and 85%;
- 13% of Zimbabwean children die before they reach the age of 5 years and in more than 50% of the cases, their deaths could have been prevented;
- There is no respect for property rights in Zimbabwe; and
- Mugabe is merely a dictator, not an elected official: he clings to power despite the fact that he had lost the previous election. (Source: THE ZIMBABWE PAPERS, click here ).
Grace Mugabe reportedly took over six of the country’s most valuable white-owned farms in 2002 and had a contract to sell about a million litres of milk a year to Nestle.
She and her husband, and other members of his administration, are the subject of European Union and United States sanctions as a result of their controversial 29-year rule over once-prosperous Zimbabwe. Nestle, the multinational food company which is the largest customer of the dairy farm, is not obliged to comply with those sanctions as its headquarters are in Switzerland. Switzerland has its own set of measures, but “Nestle insists it has not broken Swiss law”.
- Perhaps this company hadn’t broken any Swiss laws -- but it was breaking one of the most important humanitarian laws of all, the one which views all those people and organisations which are openly aiding and abetting criminals who withhold food from starving children, as participating in a crime against humanity themselves… http://www.news24.com/Content/Africa/Zimbabwe/966/8f6b57edb8164adf9534dc18869e1a2b/01-10-2009-10-55/Boycott_Nestle_products
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Oct 1 2009 - From webmaster@nestle.com
“Dear Adriana, Please find below a copy of the email you sent us on 01/10/2009. We will do our best to answer as soon as possible. Best regards, Nestlé S.A. Vevey, Switzerland
Date: 01/10/2009
First name: Adriana
Family name: Stuijt
Email address: a.j.stuijt@knid.nl
Country: Netherlands
Your message: Stop buying milk from dictator's wife Grace Mugabe - who is exporting much-need food for her own profit -- when more than half of her people are literally starving to death. Exporting food while your own people are dying of hunger, could even be construed legally as a crime against humanity - does Nestle really want to be a part of that?
Labels:
Police reports Oct 1 2009
Mozambiquan knifeman goes berserk: cuts housekeeper’s throat, stabs, attacks 4 Afrikaans women, Koornfontein Colliery village
2009-10-02 MIDDELBURG (Mpumalanga) – Beeld journalist Alletta Otto reports that a Mozambiquan man named “Nando’ is sought by police after going berserk in the working-class mining village of Koornfontein – attacking a group of women from two Afrikaner families – and cutting a housekeeper’s throat .
The Koornfontein Colliery village has about 800 residents.
Picture: Middelburg/Koornfontein knifeman victims Mrs Maria Terblanche, left and her daughter Rika Pretorius – whose daughter Kimberley was stabbed in the neck. Beeld photograph.
Killed by the berserker before he ran away was housekeeper Mrs Maria Sibeko (48) – who had worked for the Smit family for 25 years and whose throat was cut while she was doing the ironing. Her neck arteries were completely severed in a 4-cm long cut, probably sliced into her neck with a bread-knife, says police inspector Johan van Vuuren of the Blinkpan police station.
Also injured, very likely with the same knife, were a teenaged girl, Evette van Rensburg (17) daughter of Steve and Corrie Smit -- and attacked and injured were her neighbours, three female members of the same family: Mrs Rika Pretorius (39), her 15-year-old daughter Kimberley Pearce (who required surgery) and her mother Mrs Maria Terblanche (65). Mrs Pretorius sustained a non-threatening knife-wound in the back – she was stabbed between the shoulder-blades while the unarmed woman was struggling with the young Mozambiquan man, known only as “Nando’ by the two families who had employed him as a casual construction worker.
Inspector Van Vuuren of the Blinkpan police station said they have launched a manhunt for the Mozambiquan migrant -- who was tiling an outroom near the Pretorius’ home. He had earlier also done construction work for the Smit family next door and the two mineworkers’ families had clearly trusted him.
The mother and daughter, Pretorius and Terblanche – were having a cup of coffee in their home at around 2 pm, when Nando called out to them to ‘come and look at something’. When Mrs Pretorius went outside, believing he just wanted to show her the tiling work, he grabbed her, threw her on the floor of the outroom he was tiling, pushed her down with a knee and stabbed the struggling, unarmed Afrikaner woman in the back. Her mother rushed to her aid when she heard her screams – and Nando allegedly grabbed the old woman by the chest – but she got lose and ran to the backdoor, where her 15-year-old granddaughter Kimberley stood watching. The two females fled into the kitchen and the man stormed in. The quick-thinking teenager opened the refrigerator door just as he came rushing in – and it crashed against him, which made him run out again – straight to the Smit house next door.
There, he cornered 17-year-old Evette Van Rensburg in her bedroom and stabbed her in the neck while she was busy phoning her boyfriend for help – who just happened to be nearby and probably saved her life.
- “The knife fell from my neck wound as I collapsed,’ she told Beeld from her hospital bed after emergency surgery to repair her knife-wounds. “The knifeman fled. I then grabbed my cellphone and ran out of the front door, shouting ‘help me’ while I’m trying to phone my boy friend’…
Her boyfriend Mark du Preez, 21, arrived very quickly and rushed with her to the clinic at Koornfontein.
Meanwhile the berserker ran to the outer-room of the family’s house -- where their long-time housekeeper Mrs Maria Sibeko was doing the ironing – and sliced the poor woman’s throat, killing her.
“I keep smelling him… dagga and alcohol’
Evette underwent surgery and is expected to be released from the Life Health Cosmos Hospital in Witbank some time today, she told Beeld. “I keep smelling the man, a mixture of dagga (marijuana) and alcohol,’ she commented.
Her parents Steve and Corrie Smit are devastated by the attack and cannot understand it.
“My poor child. And my poor housekeeper, why did he kill her, and so cruelly? She has worked for me for 25 years. My heart is so very sore today,’ she said. http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/8bf94737106e4e17a01ae53bfeae42db/02-10-2009-01-11/Man_gesoek_wat_1_vrou_keelaf_sny,_4_erg_aanrand
30 murders/homicides – in a population of 800…
In this small mining community of 800 residents, Blinkpan police station recorded 30 murders+homicides; 3 attempted murders; 8 armed robberies of homes+businesses; 7 carjackings; 497 thefts; 93 unarmed burglaries at businesses/homes; 49 outdoor armed robberies; 153 grievous/common assaults and 26 ‘sexual crimes’. These crimes were recorded between March 2008 and March 2009. the latest statistics are not available. http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2009/provinces/mpumalanga/pdf/blinkpan.pdf
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Kidnap victimJohannót Ross: don’t stop for anyone at night…
2009-10-02 – PRETORIA. Beeld journalist Hilda Fourie reports that an 
Afrikaans kidnap vctim -- hijacked in her own VW Golf GTiand then dropped unharmed in Mamelodi township – has found back her car: it was featured in yesterday’s Beeld newspaper as a ruined wreck.
Mrs Johannót Ross, 29, of Moreleta Park said she was in Hazyview, taking a vacation to recover from her kidnapping ordeal on 18 September, when her insurance company phoned with news that her hijacked car had been spotted in the Beeld article, describing a crime scene on the Bronkhorstspruit-road.
This article reported that two armed black men had gone on a destructive robbery spree in her hijacked car, had wrecked it in an accident with another car, and then had hijacked two more cars before they escaped.
Mrs Ross said she is ‘heartsore that her car was damaged, but she doesn’t want it back. It doesn’t hold wonderful memories for me…’
Flashing blue lights
Traumatic memories more likely: Mrs Ross, a BCom-Financial Studies student, was pulled over by three black men in a car with flashing blue lights on 18 September, just a day after her 29th birthday , and while she was enroute from the University of Pretoria at 20:00. She’d stopped, believing they were police. They ordered her to pull over, forced her into the backseat of her car, told her to lie down and chased off with her at breakneck speed.
They drove with the white woman to the black township of Mamelodi, where they forced her from the car and one man then took her into the veldt. She told Beeld that she believed her last moments had arrived at that point.
“I thought that this was where they were going to kill me, ‘ she said.
Her kidnapper apologised, asked her to forgive him…and let her go:
However the man instead spoke to her most earnestly, telling her ’ that he was hijacking her car because he was poor, and asked her to forgive him’.
She replied that ‘she would forgive him only if he didn’t harm her’.
After sitting in the veldt for about half an hour, they gave back her handbag and her bags with books -- and told her to just start walking.
Mrs Ross then came across two women along the road and asked them to help her. She was taken to a telephone where she phoned her mother.
She said: “I just want warn people not to stop anywhere when it’s dark. It doesn’t matter who wants to pull you over. Drive to the nearest police station instead – but do not ever stop.’
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source Koornfontein colliery: Household Survey: http://www.nrf.ac.za/sada/CodebookPDF/S0076.pdf
Koornfontein Colliery Tel: +27 13 295-5287 Fax: +27 13 295-5288 Blinkpan 2250 Mpumalanga
Hennops River smallholders get security warning
Surge in ‘petty crimes’ could mean new gangs carrying out surveillance, testing security systems:
ERASMIA, PRETORIA -- At a recent community policing forum (CPF) meeting of the smallholders at the Gerhardsville/Hennopsriver/Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy, (pop. 5,000) it was revealed that residents were not reporting what they saw as ‘minor’ crimes to the local police station, but that there was a sudden surge of petty crimes in the area. Map of Erasmia
Crime-fighters and the Erasmia police in this area -- which borders the Cradle of Humankind -- all warn that ‘residents often neglect to report minor incidents because ‘it is so time-consuming to drive the distance to the police station and wait for the statement to be written up.”
However, crime-experts warn that a sudden surge in petty crimes could be ‘gangs testing the security systems: ’ Police experts always warn that a sudden increase in ‘petty crimes’ such as minor thefts from properties, suddenly broken fences, strange bits of rubbish in various colours left lying around on people’s properties, dogs being poisoned -- all indicate that gangs are carrying out surveillances of the area and testing residents’ security measures with petty crimes such as stealing small items from people’s properties, vehicles, or poisoning pets and wildlife.
Hennops River wedding lodge attacked in 2008 by feral murder-gang:
The area is very popular with mountain-bikers and has long, winding nature-trails where Pretoria families often go to educate their children about the teeming wildlife in this “grassy veldt” area. It was here where the owner of a luxury Hennops River lodge (picture) popular as a wedding venue, Riaan Malenze, 35 and their security guard Joseph Antionio, were critically injured after a large gang of armed attackers dug a tunnel beneath their electrified fence, invaded the lodge and tied up the owner, the guard and the owner's wife. Police said afterwards that these feral gangsters had apparently shot the two men ‘just for the fun of it’. (I could find no online reports indicating that this vicious black male gang was ever arrested- please let me know if anyone knows more details: a.j.stuijt@knid.nl)
There also were the April 2008 attacks targetting the Hennops River homestead of Chris and Rachelle Lubbe. They were attacked by an equally ferocious, large gang: Rachelle Lubbe was tortured with a hot iron after being tied up and assaulted in April 2008 while Chris (picture far right) was burnt repeatedly on his back. Only two weeks later, the couple and their family, including their 5-year-old daughter Savannah, left for Australia. Resident Sharon Bernhardt, herself a victim of three robberies, said after the 2008 attack that ‘crime was happening more often: the attacks happen on such a regular basis that residents are becoming used to them. We have a lot of robberies, especially violent ones,’ she told the news media at the time. Erasmia police station commissioner Superintendent Faan Steynberg said at the time that these farm attackers were clearly very familiar with the layout of the place: ‘They knew exactly what they were doing. Some went straight to the owner while the others overpowered the guard. This is a particularly nasty crime. It appears as though the owner and the guard were deliberately shot. It looks as though they shot them for the fun of it," said Steynberg at the time: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20081020054740340C310376
Erasmia: 148 murders+homicides… 432 family homes burgled; 117 armed violent robberies of homes+businesses…
And the entire Erasmia area also is not exactly a ‘safe’ area to ignore any crime in: with 148 murders+homicides* ; 110 attempted murders; 4 kidnappings; 697 armed+common robberies; 432 family homes burgled; 47 carjackings; 117 armed robberies of businesses/families; and hundreds of various categories of thefts.
- (NOTE: I combine the ‘murder’ and ‘homicide’ statistics, kept under seperate categories by the SAPS; in the case of tiny Erasmia, population 5,000, there were 106 murders+ 42 culpible homicides = 148 violent-crime-related deaths during the March 2008 to March 2009 reporting period. The ‘culpible homicides’ stats can be found under the ‘other crime categories’ heading and are located on the fourth line from the very bottom of the list…) http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2009/provinces/gauteng/pdf/erasmia.pdf
Creates false impression that there is no crime… “However,” warns Francis Gomes, CPF area chair, ‘this (failure to report minor crimes) creates a very false impression that there is no crime. This means no or few resources are allocated to the area.
- Get a case number, take photos of crime scene:
- “Minor incidents can be reported via email to Inspector Bea Kuhn: bea@tiscali.co.za or Inspector Nico Venter, who also gives the following valuable advice: “when you report an incident insist on a case number. This makes the case much stronger and is recorded in the crime stats.”
Inspector Venter also advises residents that ‘to save time residents can also write up their own statements and take it to the police. Another option is to fax through a statement to (012) 370-4128. “ However – he also warns:
- “Serious incidents MUST be lodged at the Erasmia Police Station in order to get a case number for your reference and for insurance claims. Photos of the crime scene are also very valuable.” Contact Francis on tgomes@tiscali.co.za
October 7 2009 -- security meeting at Doornrandjie 79, 6pm:
Tom Klaasen and Nick Foster of the Gerhardsville/Hennopsriver/Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy also warned that there are nightly burglaries there now, and that it has become very apparent of late that “we have all let our Plot Watch duties slip and our communications exchange has also fallen down badly.”
“I do not believe that it is entirely unrelated that we now seem to be experiencing at least one incident of theft from property every other night across the local area! To help re-invigorate our efforts to, as a minimum, be seen as a community that is prepared to get out there and be visibly active in our own defence against this onslaught, we will be having a meeting next week:
- Wednesday October 7 2009, Portion 79, Doornrandjie. RSVP: Please make the effort to attend, or let me know of your 'comitment to the cause' if you really can't get there at that time. Apathy will cost YOU dearly, sooner or later.”
Do not hide crime:
Francis Gomes (of Doornrandje) of the local Community Policing Forum also warned in their newsletter to ‘not hide crime..’
- teaching veldt-craft to children: http://veldtalk.za.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:veldforum&catid=49:july-2009&Itemid=1
- teaching veldt-craft to children: http://veldtalk.za.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=194:two-dozen-very-happy-kids&catid=51:september-2009&Itemid=58
- Summary of attacks targetting Afrikaans rurual families: http://afrikaner-genocide-achives.blogspot.com/2009/09/farmer-arrested-although-victim-of.html
- Two political parties alarmed about hate-crimes targetting whites http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265201
“We would appreciate it if all incidents in Ward 5 (Hennopsriver, Gerhardtsville, Laezonia, Doornrandjes, Hills and Dales, Roodekrans, Knoppieslaagte, etc), are reported, however minor. This will assist us in our crime prevention initiatives. Also please encourage all your neighbours and other members of our community to participate on the Facebook Group "Gerhardsville/Hennopsriver" or "Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy"
sources:
Hennopsrivier Facebook: http:..www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1046395695476&mid=12f2fd7G3d35e136Gdfacf8G0
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