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regiments of soldiers would march bare foot. As the column of rising dust traced their path
across the Lebombo plain, a deafening crescendo increased from the stamping of their legs,
wrapped in skins and dried nuts, banging of spears against their shields, and singing of war
songs. Shaka has been estimated by some to have killed two and half million people during the
Mfecane; a number dwarfed by the millions who have died on this plain from numerous causes
including malaria, sleeping sickness, typhoid, small pox, influenza, measles, meningitis, polio,
bilharzias, tuberculosis, and more recently the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and
cholera. On a local and global basis many of these old diseases and new ones still kill
millions and will potentially affect all mankind. Malaria, TB, and AIDS, collectively kill
globally 5 million annually. AIDS has caused 25 million deaths and 1.8 million still die
annually and 55,000 are still infected annually in the USA. There are 225 million malaria
cases a year and one million to 1.2 million deaths. One-third of humans have latent TB, 10%
progress, and 1.2 to 1.7 million die annually. In comparison about a million people die in the
USA annually from cardiovascular disease, although falling, but cardiovascular disease
accounts for 30% of worldwide deaths and is increasing in developing countries. In 2010,
34.5 million people died from cardiovascular disease around the world out of 52.8 million
deaths (GBD 2010). 5.1 million (9.6%) died from trauma and injuries, 1.3 million from motor
vehicle accidents (slightly less than 100,000 in India, just over 100,000 in China), a 46%
increase compared to 20 years ago. A million die annually worldwide from lung cancer, and
one million get prostate cancers of which one quarter die. A total of 7.6 million died in 2008
from cancer, many related to various infections (according to WHO in 2008, seven infectious
agents and nine behavioral and environmental risk factors account for 45% of cancer deaths).
Yet vaccines for protection against malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, and HIV have had limited
success despite many years of trying.
A different type of demise awaited the Zulu Ngoni tribe. After fleeing Shaka below
Kamhlabane they eventually travelled as far as South Eastern Tanzania only to be part of the
Maji Maji war against the German colonialists and ending up on the menu of the most
voracious man eating lion pride, the Njombe pride, known for killing some 1500 to 2000
victims. On the foothills of Kamhlabane at Jeppes Reef the world's largest recorded wild lion
was shot, a man-eater, with an empty stomach, weighing 690 pounds. Today, the Bushveld still
has man-eaters, and some estimate 60 to 100 illegal Mozambiqueans are eaten annually trying
to cross the Kruger Park.
From Kamhlabane (25 degrees 43' south, 31 degrees 25' east, 827m), looking eastward
across the Lebombo Plains, is a ridge on the Lebombo range called Mbuzini (“place of
goats”). At the corner of South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique, it is the site of one of
Southern Africa's political thorny escapades. In 1986, a group of socialist Russian-leaning,
anti-South Africa country leaders met in Zambia to plan how to fight South Africa's apartheid
regime. The African National Congress was to be given more access to their countries to
create bases for attacks. A plan was allegedly hatched to overthrow the President of Malawi
who supported South Africa by hosting the pro-west guerrilla and anti-communist group,
RENAMO and providing labor for the Johannesburg goldmines. RENAMO was waging a civil
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