The Political Survival of Robert Mugabe

[QueEx]

Re: Zimbabwe bars team of black U.S. trade unionists

<font size="5"><center>Zimbabwe: Mugabe - Virtually Alone And Frightened</font size></center>

Financial Gazette (Harare)
COLUMN
March 21, 2007
Posted to the web March 22, 2007
By Bornwell Chakaodza
Harare, Zimbabwe

Will he get to 2008 given pressure that is mounting both internally and externally?

THE consequences may be significant. Its conduct cannot be other than counter-productive.


I am referring here not only to the exceptionally brutal if not barbaric attack on the leaders of opposition political parties and their torture while in detention eleven days ago but also to the way President Robert Mugabe shot himself in the foot on all fronts by his over-reaction to the international condemnation and indignation over the brutal assault of political activists by the Zimbabwean police.

Yes, President Mugabe's "Go Hang" speech and his reading the riot act to Western ambassadors for their alleged interference in Zimbabwe's internal affaires are indeed tell tale signs of a regime in deep trouble.

I hold no candle myself for some of these Western governments as they have in the past supported and propped up undemocratic and unsavoury regimes in Africa -- purely for their own selfish interests. But in our situation at the present moment, for the government of Zimbabwe to say what they said was, in terms of foreign relations, an extraordinarily inept and naïve thing to do, even for a government not known for its delicacy of diplomacy.

It is bravado to no purpose on the part of President Mugabe. Moreso given the desperate situation in which the majority of Zimbabweans find themselves in.

Zimbabwe is now in a state of economic collapse. The situation is spinning out of control and the international community cannot rightly stand by and watch a once proud and successful country go over the cliff

On top of all this, a humanitarian catastrophe is looming in the light of 2007 being declared a drought year by government, not only as a result of poor and erratic rains across the country but also bad policies and the unending disruptions and invasions on the farms.

There are maize shortages in both South Africa and Zambia -- our traditional suppliers. Even if maize was plentiful in these countries, where will the money to import it come from given the economic crisis that shows no signs of abetting here? A very gloomy prognosis indeed! Zimbabwe is indeed in a real bind here.

It is not only the West, which is gravely concerned about our situation here. President Mugabe's bedrock of support in Africa in general and SADC in particular is turning against him now, thanks to a recent campaign of political repression, which resulted in the injuries of MDC leaders and activists, which were truly awful.

Opinion of African leaders across the continent is now shifting away from ZANU PF and in favour of the majority of Zimbabweans. However slight, this is a welcome development, which has long been overdue.

Ghanaian President and African Union chairman John Kufuor is on record as having said last week that the situation in Zimbabwe is embarrassing to the continent. "We want accountable government", Kufuor bluntly said.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa echoed the same sentiments when he said: "Recent political developments in Zimbabwe are of great concern to us" while the South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said "South Africa urges the Zimbabwean government to ensure that the rule of law including respect for human rights for all Zimbabweans and leaders of various parties is respected".

In a rare and unusual step of censuring a fellow UN member state, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said the attacks on opposition political leaders "violate the basic democratic rights of citizens to engage in peaceful assembly ".

Taken together, positions across the world are clearly hardening.

Certainly, the language is changing as amply demonstrated by President Kufuor and others. The emperor is now being stripped of his clothes. More and more leaders worldwide are abandoning the softly-softly approach to human rights violations in Zimbabwe that we had become accustomed to.

Images and pictures of a battered Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders shown on television around the world have clearly galvanised international opinion. President Mugabe and the ruling ZANU PF may want to continually ignore international condemnations but for how long? Is killing and beating up legitimate opposition leaders sustainable?

ZANU PF is clearly losing the propaganda war. We live in a world in which issues of good governance, rule of law, freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly have become global standards by which all governments, and I mean all governments, are judged by the extent to which they adhere to these universal values. There is nothing Western or African about the universality of these attributes. It is in this regard that the Zimbabwean authorities should seriously think again on their ham-fisted clampdown.

Nothing will be achieved by police brutality. It is one thing to detain for whatever reason a legitimate opposition political leader within the framework of the law. It is quite another to mercilessly beat him up for no reason other than to want him dead -- kafira mberi in Shona. The wave of repression that was recently unleashed by the Zimbabwean authorities is choking and appalling to say the least.

Men and women of goodwill in ZANU PF must of necessity stand up and say enough is enough. The repression that is being carried out in their names is frankly unacceptable. The pictures of Nelson Chamisa bursting into tears on his hospital bed and Tsvangirai, Madhuku, Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinjeh battered, dazed and writhing in pain for merely engaging in a peaceful protest must make anyone pause and ask why they are so intent on inflicting such damage on fellow Zimbabweans.


A country grappling with a myriad of other problems does not need these kinds of brutal actions to muddy the already troubled waters.

We want all of us to live in peace. Creating solutions to our problems is what we need from ZANU PF and President Mugabe and not the language of war. The mayhem that we are seeing at the moment is practically damaging everything in this country, be it tourism or investment -- you name it and it is being destroyed.

I do think it is in the interest of ZANU PF to concentrate on weapons of mass salvation and not on weapons of mass destruction. Surely, the sight and sound of suffering of most people in this country must move any ZANU PF leader to precisely do this.

However, much as he dislikes it, President Mugabe must face reality that is staring him right in the face. The reality is that the President is facing an increasingly hostile world, both internally and externally. There are decided limits to his ambition of wanting to stand again in the 2008 general elections. God forbid! And these limits are again both internal (the people of Zimbabwe) and external (involving quite literally the whole of the international community, Africa included).

It is not too late to go the way of Nelson Mandela, Mr President. I mean here the passing of the torch, the passing of the baton well before 2008.

My final point to President Mugabe on this very issue is that the greatest force in life is goodwill, not a brutal police force. You had that goodwill once upon a time. Please show it again for the sake of our Zimbabwe.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200703220543.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Zimbabwe bars team of black U.S. trade unionists

<font size="5"><center>Crazy old Bob needs to go, say refugees</font size>?</center>


March 22 2007 at 04:19PM
By Zama Feni

As Zimbabwe's political repression and police brutality intensifies, Zimbabweans who have sought refuge in Cape Town say they are too scared to visit their families under the current volatile political climate.

"I won't risk my life. I will wait till the current wave of brutality calms down," said 35 year-old Simon Tendai, a Zimbabwean who trades on Greenmarket Square.

"I just miss my family, especially my eight-year-old daughter - I wish I could bring them down here.

"The turmoil in my country is a result of one very old crazy fellow. South Africa has failed to convince President Robert Mugabe that his strong-arm tactics are crazy. Other African leaders are not brave enough to convince the old man - my only hope would be to see him (Mugabe) no more.

"Mugabe, whom we once all hailed as a liberator, will go down in history as one of Africa's greatest tyrants, just like Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese-Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) - you know their story," he said.

Another Zimbabwean, who identified herself as Grace, said: "I respect President Mugabe, but he has overstayed his welcome. I respect the ruling party, Zanu-PF, (but) I wonder if there is anyone brave enough to topple him (Mugabe). Zanu-PF has some fine brains and potential leaders."

Grace, whose two teenage boys are in Zimbabwe, said: "When I visit my family, they cry every time I board a bus back to South Africa. And when I am here eating all the nice things, I always think of them."

Grace said she realised that living conditions in shacks around the city were not very good.

"But most shack dwellers and some jobless men here sleep with full stomachs, cook with electricity in a shack - a typical Zimbabwean woman in the slums outside Harare cries for bread. Electricity, a can of Coke and a bed are luxuries."

Rhys Jimanga, 31, who hails from the small town of Kwekwe, about 200km from the capital Harare, said he had arrived here in 2003.

On the banning of political rallies, Jimanga said: "I could not believe it when uniformed men and women, bestowed with restoring law and order, beat opposition supporters like that - anyway, their actions were a reflection of the stinking attitude of the head of the state, Robert Mugabe, towards opposing voices.

"You cannot not believe how much my friends and brothers want to come to South Africa - the political situation there (in Zimbabwe) is pathetic, and the casualties are the poorest people," he said.

Asked how it felt to be associated with the green, black, gold and red Zimbabwean flag which was hanging on the front of his car, he said: "I am a Zimbabwean, I love my country. This (flag) is the symbol of my identity - but I'm just fed up with the ruling elite and its terrible habits."

This article was originally published on page 14 of Cape Argus on March 22, 2007


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=84&art_id=vn20070322122712207C390084

 

[Majestic Lion]

Re: Zimbabwe bars team of black U.S. trade unionists

There's no point in taking back your land if you're don't accordingly educate and encourage your people in the virtues of owning and working it...that and no state support system to subsidize and thereby sustain that enthusiasm.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Zimbabwe bars team of black U.S. trade unionists

<font size="5"><center>In Zimbabwe, even loyalists are disloyal</font size>
<font size="4">His own party, the army and police
are all ready for Mugabe, 83, to go</font size></center>

Los Angeles Times
By Robyn Dixon, Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2007

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Everything you'd expect to find in the office of a senior official in Zimbabwe's ruling party was there: the dominating portrait of President Robert Mugabe, the yellowing photos of liberation martyrs and heroes. The only discordant note was in the words of the official himself.

"People loved Mugabe. We loved Mugabe."

Past tense.

"We need to look for someone else," the official continued, adding that many in the ruling ZANU-PF party agree with him that it's time for the Old Man to go.

Just months ago, a conversation like this, particularly with a foreign journalist, would have been unthinkable. But Mugabe, 83, is losing powerful factions in his own party and the increasingly disaffected army, police and security forces.

The only leader Zimbabwe has known since 1980, after the end of white minority rule, he has ruled with fear and patronage. Those who fell out of favor were fired, beaten or killed, and secret police kept careful watch on perceived enemies. For much of that time, however, Zimbabwe also was among the most prosperous countries in Africa.

Mugabe started seizing land from white commercial farmers in 2000, and much of it ended up in the hands of political cronies. The move paralyzed Zimbabwe's most successful economic sector and biggest employer.

Now his country has an official inflation rate of 1,730%, the world's highest, and life expectancy is 36 years, according to World Health Organization estimates.

Unemployment is about 80%. Grass grows high along potholed highways; few people can afford a bus fare, let alone gas. They gather in large groups, waiting for a lift. When a truck stops, they swarm it.

The political opposition is once more trying to mount a challenge. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and other opposition leaders were arrested Wednesday, a little more than two weeks after Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten.

Support fades

Even as Mugabe cracks down on the opposition, his support among core backers has evaporated as hyperinflation eats into the business interests of ruling party heavyweights and gobbles police and army wages, causing mass desertions.

"The internal problems we have got are much larger than the problems created by the MDC," said the party official. "I don't think that even the president worries about the MDC. He's much more worried about what is happening in his own party."

The official's willingness to talk, even anonymously for fear of political reprisal, is a sign of the divisions in ZANU-PF and the difficulties Mugabe faces in overcoming party opposition to his plans to run for president again next year. Internal party opposition has already forced him to abandon a bid to extend his term to 2010.

African leaders, normally mute about Zimbabwe's human rights abuses and economic collapse, also have grown more alarmed since Tsvangirai and dozens of other activists were arrested and beaten in the capital, Harare, on March 11. About 100 activists have been hospitalized since then. Many were abducted from their homes and severely beaten, often with iron bars.

On Wednesday, at least nine other opposition leaders were arrested overnight, said opposition spokesman Eliphas Mukonoweshuro. Tsvangirai was released unharmed several hours later.

The opposition is demanding a new constitution leading to free and fair elections next year and is reportedly willing to offer Mugabe immunity from prosecution. Without reform, it has threatened to boycott next year's election.

Leaders of the Southern African Development Community, a regional group, will hold an emergency meeting in Tanzania today at which they are expected to press Mugabe to spell out plans to retire and ensure an orderly transition.

The small ruling party clique that still supports Mugabe argues that ZANU-PF will collapse in chaos if he goes.

'He's just greedy'

The high-ranking party official said there also was another way of viewing the situation.

"The other school of thought could be: 'No, he's just greedy. He wants to die in power. Or possibly he's married to a young girl who's very ambitious and needs that protection up to the last breath of the husband.' " Mugabe's second wife, Grace, is 42 years his junior.

Jonathan Moyo, a former information minister sacked for disloyalty in 2004, said Mugabe was facing open rebellion from two important party factions representing Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former parliament speaker, and Vice President Joyce Mujuru, who is married to the powerful former army chief Solomon Mujuru.

South Africa, the regional power, has been talking to the opposition and ruling party figures including Joyce Mujuru in an effort to ease tensions that it sees as a growing threat to all of southern Africa.

But Moyo predicted in a telephone interview that Mugabe would stage a desperate last stand to hold on to power until his death.

"The likelihood of him wanting to fight to the bitter end is very high. But there's growing fear within ZANU-PF that if he stands for election, the ruling party will lose big time. We joke that even a baboon could beat him now," Moyo said. "But he's very stubborn. He somehow believes that he's still very popular."

Many citizens remain too afraid to speak out. Simuwe Mwenzi, a 64-year-old widow who lives in a poor neighborhood of Bulawayo, said she was losing the battle to stay ahead of inflation and feed three grandchildren. Yet she won't say whom she blames for her hardships. She trusts no one, including the woman she has taken in as a boarder.

"She's a spy," Mwenzi hissed. "They could come and arrest me.

"There is a lot inside me, but I can't say anything because I'm afraid."

'Morale is down'

But fear is starting to lose its hold over security forces.

There is anger in the police and army over low salaries and the fast-track promotions of ZANU-PF loyalists and veterans of the guerrilla war to end white rule, according to seven current and former members of Zimbabwe's police and army interviewed by The Times in Harare, Bulawayo and Johannesburg, South Africa.

"Morale is down. Everyone's frustrated over the conditions," said a Bulawayo detective sergeant whose salary of 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars was worth about $10 a month at last week's black market rate and was sliding to about $6 by the middle of this week. His entire salary equals the cost of bus fare to work.

"There are a lot of people who support the opposition. Everyone just wants something to happen. They just want things to change.

"I think the major thing people are angry about is the president himself. They say he is past his prime and he should leave."

A 31-year-old sergeant who resigned from the force in Bulawayo late last month said the number of cases in which police were defying commanders had increased.

Neither man was willing to be identified for fear of reprisal.

Police have no cars or uniforms and even have to buy their own pens and photocopy forms at their own expense.

"I'm making no money," said the detective sergeant. But with most of the population unemployed, "a lot of us have no other options."

"The fear is still there [in the police force] but now people are gaining courage, especially the young guys. They're speaking out. They don't care," said the sergeant.

"People were afraid for their lives. Second, they were afraid of losing their jobs. But now the job is nothing so there's nothing to safeguard."

Coup seen as unlikely

Small-scale mutinies have been reported, but despite Mugabe's precarious support in the army and police, many say a military coup or widespread revolt is unlikely.

Moyo said factional splits over the succession in ZANU-PF were duplicated in the security forces, opening the possibility of a palace coup by those in the party determined to stop Mugabe from running next year.

Mugabe, a master of divide-and-rule tactics, recently set up a reserve force of guerrilla war veterans. He has rewarded them over the years with privileges, including generous payouts and land. They have been his most reliable supporters, known for violently dispossessing the white commercial farmers.

Without a clear successor, ZANU-PF could shatter after Mugabe's departure, Moyo said. Its biggest problem is the short lead time to force Mugabe to quit and to agree on a successor.

"Everything has been left till late. It's very unlikely ZANU-PF will survive his departure. If he is to retire, there are indications that there will be blood on the floor and ZANU-PF will split."

The high-ranking party official said the economy collapsed because Mugabe failed to curb corruption. But there was no clear candidate to replace him, he said.

"I look at everyone and I see damn fools, including the opposition. Our future is blank, and that's a very sad situation."

<u>Fact/Infobox</u>

Under President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk faster than any in peacetime since World War II. The inflation rate is 1,730%, and life expectancy is the world's lowest: 37 years for men, 34 for women.

Formerly the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, the country was facing international sanctions and a guerrilla uprising when white minority leader Ian Smith declared unilateral independence in 1965. Mugabe, now 83, first gained prominence in the guerrilla movement against white rule. After free elections in 1979, he took power the following year and has ruled since.

Mugabe's policy, starting in 2000, of confiscating white-owned farms triggered the collapse of commercial farming, the country's biggest employer and exporter, leading to sharp economic decline, spiraling unemployment, hard-currency shortages and hyperinflation. Once seen as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe now relies on international food aid to feed its 12 million residents.

In 1999, Mugabe faced powerful political dissent for the first time with the emergence of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai has twice been arrested and charged with treason. He was acquitted the first time, and the charges were ruled unconstitutional the second.

*

Source: Los Angeles Times​

------------------------
robyn.dixon@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/printed...7721.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-frontpage

 

[QueEx]

Re: Zimbabwe bars team of black U.S. trade unionists

<font size="5"><center>Mugabe defiant as condemnation grows</font size></center>

Staff and agencies
Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Robert Mugabe was today set to shrug off growing criticism of his authoritarian regime at a regional summit.
The Zimbabwean president's spokesman said his message to opponents - "go hang" - remained unchanged.

Mr Mugabe, 83, was joining talks at a summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Tanzania.

The summit was called to discuss the unravelling political and humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, which has seen a series of neighbouring nations criticise his administration.

Yesterday, the Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was one of dozens of political activists arrested.
His detention came just over a fortnight after he was severely beaten in police custody - an incident that caused an international outcry.

Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change said he had been released to see a doctor after several hours in detention because he still was suffering dizzy spells caused by the earlier incident.

Other activists were beaten and kicked by police yesterday, but Mr Tsvangirai was not harmed, a spokesman for the MDC told reporters.

A police spokesman said officers had recovered dynamite, detonators and weapons from the homes of MDC officials, but the MDC spokesman denied the group possessed any armaments.

The crisis has seen even usually supportive South Africa describe its neighbour as being in "meltdown".

Speaking prior to the talks today, the Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, said the situation required "urgent" attention.

However, Mr Mugabe's spokesman said the president was at the summit for two reasons - "to explain the situation on the ground and to get solidarity from SADC in his fight against the British".

"He will continue to tell the west to go hang as long as those concerns undermine the sovereignty of the country," George Charamba added, echoing words Mr Mugabe had used earlier this month.

Mr Mugabe - who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 - blames the opposition for the violence and Britain and the US for the deepening economic crisis.

He is reportedly facing increasing opposition within his ruling Zanu-PF party to his intention to stand for president yet again.

Before he left Zimbabwe yesterday, he reportedly met leading Zanu-PF officials to discuss whether elections would be held next year or delayed until 2010 and whether he would be the candidate.

According to the Zimbabwean, a newspaper opposed to Mr Mugabe's rule and published in London, the country's vice-president, Joice Mujuru, handed in her resignation two weeks ago but had it refused by Mr Mugabe.

Citing unnamed Zanu-PF sources, the newspaper said she was already campaigning to be made the party's next presidential candidate. Her husband, Solomon Mujuru, a former army chief, is seen as the leader of a dissident faction within Zanu-PF.

According to Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary general, the opposition has been holding informal talks with this faction over the possibility of a power-sharing transitional government to replace Mr Mugabe's regime.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,,2045490,00.html

 

[Fuckallyall]

Mugabe Cheered at African Summit

From Townhall.com


Mugabe Cheered at African Summit
By JOSEPH J. SCHATZ
Thursday, August 16, 2007

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe received the loudest cheers Thursday at the start of a southern African summit where his country's economic and political turmoil top the agenda.

Many in the West blame Mugabe's policies for the severe inflation and acute shortages that have crippled his country, once a regional breadbasket. But the dignitaries' reaction as Mugabe was introduced appeared to reflect the opinion that the longtime ruler has been unfairly targeted _ or at least a hesitation to criticize a fellow leader many revere as an anti-colonialist hero.

South African President Thabo Mbeki is leading a regional effort to mediate a truce between Mugabe and his political opposition and was expected to report Thursday on his efforts.

As the summit opened, Zambian President Mwanawasa, who is taking over the rotating chairmanship of the 14-member Southern African Development Community, praised elder statesmen who helped liberate countries in the region from colonial rule.

Mwanawasa also urged Zimbabweans to "maintain peace and stability at all costs, because the opposite will just push your beautiful country even further backwards."

Among southern African leaders who oversaw the liberation of their countries, Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe for 27 years, is the only one still in power.

Officials with the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's lead opposition party, who are in Lusaka this week lobbying regional leaders, said Mbeki's mediation efforts were taking too long.

"We need for SADC to act quickly and decisively to avert complete catastrophe," Thokozani Khupe, the party's vice president, told The Associated Press.

While Mugabe's neighbors have long been reluctant to openly criticize one of their own, Mwanawasa once likened Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic." However, ahead of the summit, Zambia appeared to be toeing a more cautious line, despite Western appeals to regional nations to do more.

"Zambia cannot impose its will on Zimbabwe, just as Zimbabwe cannot impose its will on Zambia. But we can quietly whisper to each other our concerns," Mike Mulongoti, Zambia's minister of information and broadcasting, told The Associated Press.

Zimbabwe is in its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980. Official inflation is given as 4,500 percent, the highest in the world, but independent estimates put it closer to 9,000 percent.

A government order slashing prices of all goods and services by about half in June has led to acute shortages of basic commodities. The economic crisis is largely blamed on the seizures of white-owned commercial farms that began in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy.

Hordes of shoppers desperate to buy sugar amid severe shortages stampeded at a shopping complex in Zimbabwe's second-largest city, killing a 15-year-old boy and a security guard, state media reported Thursday.

Government opponents say they have been subjected to police beatings and raids, and the U.S. and European Union have slapped asset freezes and a travel ban on Mugabe and his top associates.

Many in the region are also concerned about the destabilizing effects of Mugabe's policies, which have sent thousands of refugees into neighboring countries.

Sakwiba Sikota, an opposition member of Zambia's parliament who represents the town of Livingstone, says that Zambia's president "has a big responsibility" to pressure Mugabe.

Livingstone lies next to the famed Victoria Falls, just across the river from Zimbabwe, and has struggled to cope with a recent surge in Zimbabweans.

"All this talk of, 'We shouldn't interfere in neighboring countries' policies' is a concept that should be thrown out the window," Sikota said.



Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

[MASTERBAKER]

Arch Bishop Of York Cuts His Collar Into Pieces On TV Interview

[FLASH]http://cdn-83.liveleak.com/liveleak/15/media15/2007/Dec/9/LiveLeak-dot-com-128732-Movie.wmv[/FLASH]Archbishop of York John Sentamu has cut up his collar in protest at Robert Mugabe's continued rule in Zimbabwe.

 

[Zimbabwean]

Re: Arch Bishop Of York Cuts His Collar Into Pieces On TV Interview

Old African Saying:

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers..

 

[QueEx]

Re: Arch Bishop Of York Cuts His Collar Into Pieces On TV Interview

<IFRAME SRC="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7406172.stm" WIDTH=780 HEIGHT=1500>
<A HREF="V">link</A>

</IFRAME>

 

[QueEx]

Re: Arch Bishop Of York Cuts His Collar Into Pieces On TV Interview

The Saturday Profile

<font size="5"><center>Zimbabwe Rival Is a Flawed but Enduring Leader </font size></center>

Joao Silva for The New York Times
"No one must be killed fighting for me. We all are in the line of danger fighting for our country." MORGAN TSVANGIRAI


New York Times
By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: May 24, 2008

MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, the chief rival of Zimbabwe’s authoritarian president, Robert Mugabe, drove up to a Harare police station last year to check on dozens of his supporters inside on their bellies, being kicked, clobbered and stomped.

The policemen quickly stopped and grabbed the moon-faced opposition leader. Witnesses said the station reverberated with the sickening thwack of blows to his buttocks, back and head. “They were fighting with each other to beat him,” said Tendai Biti, his deputy in the opposition party.

Mr. Tsvangirai, whose thrashing made him an international symbol of resistance to Mr. Mugabe’s repressive rule, returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday for a showdown with his nemesis in a June 27 runoff after six weeks of self-imposed exile. He bested Mr. Mugabe in a March 29 election, then fled the country in the middle of the night on April 8 after his staff said it got word of a plot to kill him.

Mr. Tsvangirai is a flawed leader who has sometimes been naïve and too conciliatory, according to critics and allies alike. And yet, many of them say, he has endured.

Over the years, both sides say, he has credulously fallen into traps laid by Mr. Mugabe, too often avoided aggressively confronting the country’s strongman and lacked the finesse to heal a bitter rift in his own party before the March election.

In recent weeks, he has come under increasing criticism for staying out of the country while his supporters have been attacked, tortured and even killed in a sweeping state-sponsored campaign to intimidate all who dare challenge Mr. Mugabe’s re-election. William McGee, the American ambassador in Harare, said there was evidence that an assassination plot was threatened, but he said he believed that it was disinformation meant to keep Mr. Tsvangirai from returning home.

Still, Mr. Tsvangirai’s allies and many of his detractors credit him with withstanding excruciating physical and psychic pressure from ZANU-PF, the governing party, and persisting stoically over years of arrests, beatings, assassination attempts, a treason trial, fraud-ridden elections and his own tactical blunders.

In the election itself, he vanquished a breakaway faction of his own party and an independent candidate, earning his own scarred claim to leadership.

“He’s been imprisoned, humiliated and accused of being a puppet of the West,” said George Bizos, a South African lawyer who represented Nelson Mandela in the apartheid era and was Mr. Tsvangirai’s advocate during his treason trial in 2004. “But I believe he is a Zimbabwean patriot in touch with the vast majority of his people. He has shown he has stamina.”

The son of a bricklayer and the eldest of nine children, Mr. Tsvangirai, 56, never went to college and labored in the nickel mines before rising through the ranks of the union movement. He faces a very different opponent in Mr. Mugabe, 84, a university-educated teacher who became the hero of his country’s liberation from white rule and its first and only president since independence in 1980.

Mr. Mugabe contemptuously mocks Mr. Tsvangirai for not having joined the guerrilla struggle in his youth, and the state-owned newspaper — a mouthpiece for the governing party — recently belittled him as a coward and Western stooge with “a big black nose” and “chubby and pimply cheeks.”

BUT Mr. Tsvangirai (pronounced CHANG-guh-rye) can rightfully claim to be the first politician to win more votes than Mr. Mugabe at the polls — and have it officially recognized. On Thursday, he toured refugee camps here in southern Africa’s economic capital where his countrymen — some of the millions who have fled their nation’s imploding economy — have been subjected to xenophobic attacks in impoverished townships.

“We have to finish off this work, and the only way to finish is for us to go back and vote the man out,” Mr. Tsvangirai told a cheering crowd through a bullhorn, encouraging listeners to go home and exercise their franchise.

Mr. Tsvangirai was born into what he called “a very humble peasant family” that survived on his father’s earnings as a bricklayer and what they grew on their small farm. He quit school before college and went to work in a textile factory and later in the mines to help pay school fees for his eight siblings. As young men were joining the armed resistance in the 1970s, Mr. Tsvangirai stayed on the job “to look after that brood of Tsvangirai kids,” he said.

He rose through the ranks of the mine workers union and in 1988 became secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Stephen Chan, a professor of international relations at the University of London, describes in his book, “Citizen of Africa: Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai” (Fingerprint Cooperative, 2005), how Mr. Tsvangirai, a pragmatic social democrat, turned the congress into voice for workers at a time when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were pushing “structural adjustment programs” that required African governments to keep a lid on spending, including wages.

Mr. Tsvangirai’s record, Mr. Chan wrote, was “nothing short of remarkable.”

In 1999, Mr. Tsvangirai helped organize and found the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, which attracted support from trade unionists, students, intellectuals and white commercial farmers. A year later, the party handed Mr. Mugabe his first electoral defeat when it persuaded voters to reject a referendum that would have expanded his presidential powers.

The opposition posed the first serious challenge to Mr. Mugabe, but the wily, ruthless president was not ready to go. In 2002, Mr. Tsvangirai ran for president, and many believe victory was stolen from him through fraud, intimidation and violence.

But Mr. Tsvangirai and his party had already made a costly misstep. Just two weeks before the 2002 election, he was charged with treason in an alleged plot to assassinate Mr. Mugabe. It turned out that the opposition party had unwittingly hired a lobbying firm led by an accused swindler and a former Israeli intelligence agent. Defense lawyers said later in court that the firm had been hired by Zimbabwe’s intelligence service and paid more than $600,000 to discredit and frame Mr. Tsvangirai.

Ultimately, in 2004, Mr. Tsvangirai was cleared, but for nearly two years the task of combating the capital charges consumed much of his time and kept him under virtual house arrest. Mr. Bizos said Mr. Tsvangirai had been too trusting, giving Mr. Mugabe “an opportunity to spring a trap.”

In 2005, the party — already damaged by internal discord — fractured, with some accusing Mr. Tsvangirai of having authoritarian tendencies and tolerating violence against those who challenged him, allegations that he strongly denies.

But the opposition was divided, and at a critical time. Zimbabwe’s economy spiraled downward and Mr. Mugabe’s government carried out a brutal strategy to damage the opposition’s political base in 2005, destroying the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor people in urban settlements.

Mr. Tsvangirai needed then to unite the opposition to counter the raw power of the state, but “he didn’t find the statesmanlike leadership required at the time,” said Brian Raftopoulos, research director for Solidarity Peace Trust, a nongovernmental organization.

Had the breach in the opposition been mended before the March election, it might have managed a decisive victory. Since then, leaders of the faction that broke away have rallied behind Mr. Tsvangirai, improving his odds of prevailing in a fair runoff, though one is unlikely under the current conditions.

NOW, Mr. Tsvangirai says he is heading back to Zimbabwe with a sense of foreboding about his own safety and the prospects for democracy. Some analysts believe that a military coup would be likely if he won. Mr. Tsvangirai warned that if Mr. Mugabe’s government shut down dissent “some of us who are advocates of a nonviolent democracy will become irrelevant.”

As this pivotal moment approaches for Zimbabwe, a country reduced from the days when it was one of Africa’s most literate and successful, much will depend on whether Mr. Tsvangirai can inspire people to go to the polls. His wife of 30 years, Susan, and the youngest of their six children, the 13-year-old twins, Millicent and Vincent, are living in Johannesburg, safe from the dangers he will soon be facing.

On Thursday, Mr. Tsvangirai, dressed nattily in a pinstripe suit, hardly seemed like a man in the mood to rouse his people as he sped from township to township in a silver Mercedes Benz, distractedly answering questions and glancing at his talking points. He yawned in exhaustion and remarked nervously, “What’s happening?” when his driver got turned around in the narrow lanes of Alexandra, hemmed in by shanties, where the anti-foreigner riots started.

But when he mounted rickety chairs and tables to address woebegone Zimbabwean refugees, some of them shoeless and carrying squalling babies, his fatigue seemed to fall away. He spoke to them in Shona, and in a call-and-response like that of a preacher and his congregation, they answered him.

They told him about seeing their houses destroyed in Zimbabwe, only to come to South Africa for sanctuary and meet the same fate.

“We’ve been fighting for you,” said one man. “Should we go back now and be killed?”

“No one must be killed fighting for me,” Mr. Tsvangirai replied. “We all are in the line of danger fighting for our country.” But he reminded the murmuring crowd, “This is the opportunity to go and vote Mugabe out.”

As he climbed into the Mercedes to leave his final stop, refugees pressed in on the car, chanting “Morgan Tsvangirai is No. 1, ZANU is rotten.” They swayed in time to the chant, their arms waving over their heads and their fingers splayed in the open-handed symbol of the opposition party, a wordless reply to the ruling party’s closed fist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/w...em&ex=1211774400&en=7524a23ab73451ec&ei=5087

 

[QueEx]

Re: White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses

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[Makkonnen]

Re: White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses

Bob is undoing all he accomplished. Lust for power and greed is a muthafucka.

 

[QueEx]

Re: White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses

<font size="5"><center>
Kofi Annan and other 'elder statesmen'
cancel Zimbabwe visit after Robert
Mugabe refuses visas</font size><font size="4">

Three of the 'Elders', a group of distinguished global statesmen,
have cancelled a humanitarian visit to Zimbabwe after they
were refused visas by Robert Mugabe's government. </font size></center>

Mr Annan, a Ghanaian, is one of the most prominent Africans in world
diplomacy Photo: AFP/Getty


Telegraph (London)
By Sebastien Berger In Johannesburg
Saturday, November 22, 2008


Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, Jimmy Carter, the American ex-president, and Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, announced their decision at a hotel in Johannesburg.

"We need no red carpet treatment from the government of Zimbabwe," said Mr Annan. "We seek no permission other than permission to help the poor and the desperate.

"However the refusal of the Zimbabwean government to facilitate our visit in any way has made it impossible for us to travel at this time." The decision is a huge snub by Harare, not least because Mr Annan, a Ghanaian, is one of the most prominent Africans in world diplomacy.

The decision was a graphic demonstration of the impotence of the international community in the face of Mr Mugabe's intransigence and unwillingness to make concessions.

With Zimbabwe's power-sharing process deadlocked, despite the signature of an agreement with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in September, the Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, had condemned the group as "partisan".

The three, who are members of a group set up to tackle the world's most troublesome problems, stressed that their journey had no political purpose. But Mr Carter said he had applied for a visa at the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington, to be told he could not be given one. Although Zimbabwe operates a visa-on-arrival system, hours before they set off the group were told via the South African presidency that they would not be eligible.

"We were informed by a very high official that the arrangement would not be permissible and we assume that that information came directly from the head of state," said Mr Carter.

"It's never happened to me before. I don't think it indicates a positive concern about the people's well-being." Their trip, he said, had no purpose "other than to assist in the plight of the people who are now beginning to starve, thousands of them, clinics and hospitals are being closed down and teachers are not going to school.

"I am partisan. I make no apology for that. I supported Zimbabwe's liberation struggle and I oppose suffering and misery.

"It seems obvious to me that the leaders of the government are very immune to reaching out for help for their own people." Mrs Machel – who had been due to head a women's delegation to the country in July, which was also refused entry - said she was "extremely disappointed".

"The government's attitude to our visit is deeply regrettable," she said.

The trio will now stay in South Africa and will be briefed by NGOs and Zimbabwean organisations on the situation in the country.

"We are not going to be stopped from helping the people," said Mr Annan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/350...-visit-after-Robert-Mugabe-refuses-visas.html

 

[Cruise]

Re: White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses

I don't know if Robert Mugabe is insightful, but his actions seem to indicate an understanding of the way honkeys use Africans and non-whites to colonize and control non-white populations.

Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, and Barack Obama...

the unholy triumvirate for domination of non-whites for the benefit of honkey interests and the harm of all others.

 

[Greed]

Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai rules out joining another unity government with Mugabe

Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai rules out joining another unity government with Mugabe
By Orla Ryan | Financial Times,
Published: April 9

LONDON — Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has ruled out another unity government with President Robert Mugabe and is optimistic that he will win an election due to be held later this year, ending more than 30 years of Mugabe rule in the southern African state.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) formed a unity government after violent and disputed elections in 2008. But although the economy has since stabilized, relations between the parties have remained fraught, and this year’s general election is expected to be hotly contested.

The arrest of a human rights lawyer and MDC officials clouded a recent referendum on a new constitution, and activist groups such as Human Rights Watch say they fear tensions may rise before the election.

The European Union last month suspended sanctions against scores of Zimbabweans after the new constitution was approved. Sanctions will, however, remain in place for 10 people, including Mugabe, and two companies, including the state-run diamond-mining company Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp., whose assets will remain frozen.

Despite criticism from some MDC supporters that the party has not used its position effectively in coalition with Mugabe’s party, Tsvangirai remains optimistic that he will secure enough votes to win this year’s presidential poll.

“I won the last one. The only difference is that I did not win power. But I won an election. I have always said: What makes people think that I will not win another one? So I am very confident that the support of the people is unwavering,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.

And if he wins, he said, he will manage the transition from joint rule. “I don’t think it would be helpful for the country to go into another unity government,” he said. “A unity government just creates paralysis,” he added, citing the slow pace of reform as a particular frustration.

Asked whether Mugabe, who still dominates the political scene, would step down if Tsvangirai wins, he said: “Mugabe is [almost] 90 years. The thing is that I am sure for him the most important motivating factor is legacy.”

The once acrimonious relations between the two parties have improved over the course of the past four years, he said.

Asked what would happen if Mugabe refused to leave power in the event of an MDC victory, he said: “I don’t see that playing out . . . that is a chaos scenario. The country will go back to what it was in 2008, and . . . no one wants that.”

Parliament’s current term expires at the end of June, and a general election must be held by the end of October. A poll immediately after parliament’s term ends is unlikely, Tsvangirai said, because the new constitution needs to be signed into law and voter registration must take place. He dismissed suggestions that Mugabe’s allies want an earlier poll because of the president’s age.

“He is a frail man, he is an old man, but I don’t think he is in that state of health where you would think that he would collapse tomorrow,” he said. A graceful acceptance of defeat would allow Mugabe to enjoy the status of a retired founding father, he said.

Questions remain about whether attempts at reform, including the new constitution, will guarantee free and fair elections, especially as the security forces are deemed to be loyal to Zanu-PF. Arrests after the recent referendum were “totally unacceptable,” Tsvangirai said.

But while he acknowledged there might be “skirmishes” by local activists, Tsvangirai said he doubted the state-sponsored violence of 2008 would be seen this year. He said the government would create an environment for “free and fair elections” with the help of the Southern African Development Community and the African Union.

Financing the election remains an issue for the cash-strapped government. Authorities asked some telecommunications companies to submit license payments in advance to help cover the costs of the referendum, Tsvangirai confirmed. He said the election will be financed by internal resources with some external help.

The controversial Zanu-PF indigenization policy — which requires foreign-owned companies, including mines and banks, to transfer 51 percent stakes to black Zimbabwean entities — chased away much-needed investment, he said.

“We [the MDC] believe in broad-based empowerment policy, not indigenization,” he said. “We need to attract people to the country rather than try to chase people away.”

Tsvangirai admitted there was a lack of transparency in the diamond sector, one that the ministers of finance and mines had been asked to tackle. Global Witness has alleged that diamond revenue provides off-budget financing to security forces controlled by Zanu-PF.

“There is no accountability,” he said. “Eventually Zanu-PF may be siphoning some of the diamond money, but we are not aware of it.” Still, he added, in the context of continued reform, sanctions no longer served a useful purpose.

If Mugabe ever did bow out, he would be able to live out his days in peace, Tsvangirai said. “One would say let sleeping dogs lie. . . . what is important is to ensure that there is stability, because stability is the basis for future progress.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...d5be-a12f-11e2-be47-b44febada3a8_story_1.html

 

[QueEx]

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[QueEx]

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[GhostofMarcus]

Why They Hate Robert Mugabe



Fuck them CACs.

 

[QueEx]

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[QueEx]

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