Zimbabwe: after Mugabe resigns

[davidbfpo]

In my last post I commented:

The Army maintains it did not fire except in the air and the footage shown contradicts that. Whether the 'international commission' will provide any answer is a very moot point.

Thanks to a Zimbabwe email I discovered the commission has reported:

the police and army were found responsible for the deaths and injuries sustained from the clashes between citizens and members of the security forces. “The death of these six people and injuries sustained by the 35-others, rose from the actions of the military and the police,” President Mnangagwa said, quoting the report.
(On the Army) “The use of live ammunition directed at people, especially when they were fleeing was clearly unjustified, and disproportionate,” the report noted. “The use of sharp shambokos, baton sticks and rifle butts to assault members of the public, indiscriminately was also disproportionate.”

Link:https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/commis...e/4706411.html

For those who want to read the entire report (128 pgs.) it is here:http://manicapost.co.zw/wp-content/u...of-Inquiry.pdf

[davidbfpo]

Two articles id'd by a "lurker" familiar with Zimbabwe and both written in Zimbabwe.

The first is by a journalist who had hope in the new President and his team. He starts with:

Robert Mugabe was really bad because he didn’t listen to anyone unless under personal duress, and because of that terrible trait in him, it led to his spectacular and embarrassing undoing with the culmination of a military coup that was supported by the citizens and the rest of the world sealing his ungraceful demise.

Link:http://https://nehandaradio.com/2019...ream-deferred/

The second is by an economist and reveals the key divide is between the rural and urban population. Needless to say it is urban disorder that has been "cracked down" upon. Here is a key passage:

This year tobacco production was the highest it has ever been and some rural areas are booming. This is not the case in town, and urban youth, many of whom have no longer any connection to rural areas, have no access to land, having missed the opportunities of land reform in 2000.

Link:https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2...e-the-problem/

The BBC did have a report recently and the chart showing the price rises is a great help, if only for the cities (The BBC has not reported as per the previous quote).
Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-46986151

[davidbfpo]

A once familiar Zimbawean author and BBC reporter Peter Godwin has this short commentary (it maybe behind a paywall). Here is a his final passage:

In the meantime, Zimbabwe will continue to skitter along the bottom, except for the tiny, ruling elite who are buoyed by their looting. And its most talented sons and daughters will continue haemorrhaging into the diaspora. The size of a country’s tragedy should be measured against its potential. Zimbabwe, by rights one of the wealthiest and most educated countries in Africa, is cementing its record as a tragedy of great proportion.

Link:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/...ast-very-long/

[davidbfpo]

Professor Stephen Chan, is an academic expert on Zimbabwe and was there recently during the disorder. A couple of passages:

With former defence chief General Constantine Chiwenga in charge as acting president, the protesters were met with a furious militarised response.

And so Zimbabwe is held back by three key things: a quarrel at the top that means government is too preoccupied and divided to focus on proper planning and economic management, lashing out at its own people instead; a disastrous inability to feel the popular pulse, with the ruling oligarchs now living in a hermetically sealed world of their own; and the ongoing economic naivety of those who should be managing the nation’s finances.

Link:https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-three-reasons-why-its-all-going-so-wrong-for-mnangagwa-111443?

[davidbfpo]

A blog to follow on Zimbabwe, the main author is Ian Scoones, who is an academic in development studies @ Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex and a frequent visitor to Zimbabwe.
Link:https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/