It's not Gaddafi alone

Yesterday some headlines screamed, "Gaddafi legacy still haunts Libya". It was the fourth anniversary of his brutal murder by militias with the help of the French airforce. While Gaddafi's rule cannot be divorced from happenings in Libya it is overly simplistic, and frankly speaking unintelligent to blame all of Libya's current problems on him.

We cannot separate the present chaos from the history. That history includes destabilising external interference. The West is responsible for planting military instability in Libya. They armed the militias who are holding the country to ransom, not Gadhafi.

By the way even in perfectly democratic states military instability can be planted by external powers. Look at Ukraine. Maybe you use the double standard that blames Russia for supplying weapons to rebels, but does not blame the West for doing the same in other parts of the world.

If we want to stay closer to the Libyan context, look at Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and even Egypt. They are all dictatorships of which Saudi Arabia is way worse than Gaddafi.

Saudi Arabia is the closest thing to the kind of caliphate that the Islamic State is trying to establish. This year alone they have already executed nearly 100 people by beheading. Believe me if somebody airdrops several hundred tons of weapons in the Saudi desert we will have a conflagration worse than Libya.

Like most post colonial Africa, Libya is a patchwork of tribes placed inside one border by colonial expediency. Gaddafi is not responsible for that. He stifled but did not eradicate those tribal divisions.

But then which country in Africa is free of such tribal divisions. If you want to check what I mean just get the United States to airdrop heavy weapons in KZN, Free State, the North West, Eastern Cape and Limpopo and then watch what happens.

Would you blame Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma for the violence that is bound to follow?

Mind you in North Africa countries like Tunisia and Egypt went through similar situations but they remained stable because no one supplied weapons to militia groups.

In short blaming everything on Gaddafi is a rather simplistic view, which does not take into account all the geopolitics at play. Like Ukraine, Libya's instability has far, far more to do with interference by big foreign powers than prior bad leadership.

Met Department my foot!!!

Recently a cabinet minister accused the Department of Meteorology of lying about the water levels in Lake Kariba. According to him government asked the Met department whether it was going to rain and when they were told yes, they came to the conclusion that Lake Kariba would be full.

Zimbabwe is run by people who are so desperately ignorant that it is frightening.

Firstly most of the rain that falls in Zimbabwe does not go into Kariba. Half of the rain flows eastwards into the Save, Limpopo and Pungwe river systems. Most other river systems like Hunyani and Mazowe feed into the Zambezi below the Kariba Dam.

Only Zivagwe, Munyati and Shangani rivers feed into Kariba. But their catchment areas are the drier regions of the country. In short more than three quarters of the rain that falls in Zimbabwe has no chance of ending up in Lake Kariba. Consequently you cannot use rainfall predictions in Zimbabwe to extrapolate the big lake's water levels.

Therefore accusing the meteorological department of Zimbabwe of 'lying' over those water levels is rather negatively revealing about the minister's own knowledge.

The main catchment area of the Zambezi is in Angola and Zambia. Last time I checked the Zimbabwe Met Department did not have weather stations in that area. Maybe Undenge is more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, but I doubt.

To blame the Met Department for the water levels in Kariba does not only show ignorance, it also shows that the issue of energy shortage is being handled lackadaisically and negligently. No serious minister would not know the complex hydrological (not meteorological) considerations that go into management of a water reservoirs.

The best place to start would be the hydrology unit or department of the ministry of water. I deliberately use the words 'best place to start'. That is because if you expect to get all your answers in that one unit, you are a very lazy person. There are many other factors that affect rainfall run-off. Among them ground permeability and percolation.

The type of underlying rock in a region will affect how much water will actually end up in run-off dependent reservoirs. There is an entire scientific field called hydro-geology that deals with that. Ground topology and human activity such as presence of a large paved urban area also affect run-off.

Besides, in order to be able to understand all the factors, years of diligently gathering data are needed. You can't just wake up one morning, rush to the Met Department and ask, "Is it going to rain?"

If they answer "Yes sir!" you then expect Kariba to be full the next morning. What about evaporation patterns? What about past rainfall patterns. If previous seasons were dry the ground will absorb more water before you start getting significant run-off.

Undenge also seems quite misinformed about the kind of authority the Zimbabwe government has over the Kariba dam sluice gates. The dam is managed by the Zambezi River Authority. This is organisation is jointly owned by Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In addition all countries that are materially affected by the Zambezi, among them, Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique have a say in the management of the river through the SADC Protocol On Shared Watersources.

Moreover, as minister of energy, Undenge is supposed to be a member of the four person ministerial committee that heads the ZRA.

In short Undenge has got absolutely nothing to blame the Met Department for. They are not responsible for doing a job the he should be doing. He didn't ask the right series of questions from all the relevant departments. His perceptions about the level of water in the Kariba is what is called a thumb-suck.

Undenge's scepticism about the Met Department is entirely unfounded. However it would be well grounded to have scepticism about his capabilities.

His pointing of fingers is what is called blame-shifting or passing the buck. He is passing it to the wrong people. This is a buck that stops with government. They are ultimately responsible for the incorrect allocation of resources that has led to the energy crisis.

France's Silence Over Kunduz Massacre is Disgusting

It is now almost a week since a French organisation, Medecins Sans Frontiers, had its 100 bed hospital deliberately flattened by Afghan and American forces. I say deliberately because the Afghan government has clearly stated that the hospital was targeted because they thought there were 15 Taliban inside. The Afghan government even proudly claimed success in killing these Taliban. You do not claim success over a mistake.

The one thing I find absolutely disgusting is the total silence of the French government over the massacre of nurses and patients. Not even the mistress of a junior official has been reported to have said anything. I wonder how the French have lost their voice given that were engaged in all sorts of shrill theatrics over Syria the week prior.

I would love for Mr Hollande to personally answer this question. Is the bombardment of a French run hospital something not worth talking about? Maybe the lives lost there are worthless to him because they are Afghan not French.

Medecins Sans Frontiers won a Nobel prize in 1999. Was that not a good thing for France? Did the all the non-French people who work for MSF in the field not contribute to that success? If a Nobel prize was worthy, why are the non-French who work for MSF so worthless that Mr Hollande doesn't even bat an eyelid upon their death?

Not one single word condolences, or any sort of sympathy expression, has been reported as coming from the French government. The callousness is unbelievable.