Zimbabwe: 2007 till Mugabe resigns

[davidbfpo]

A week ago I asked:

When will the regime not be able to pay the police and soldiers?

According to this report:

Zimbabwe has failed to pay the army on time for the second straight month, military sources said on Friday

Link:http://nehandaradio.com/2016/07/16/z...rmy-2nd-month/

They appear to be a Zimbabwe based radio station.

[davidbfpo]

I missed the reporting last week that the veterans of the liberation struggle, who were used to often violently evict 'commercial' or white farmers a few years ago, had issued a statement against President Mugabe:

We note, with concern, shock and dismay, the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the president and his cohorts, which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle...We are dismayed by the president's tendency to indulge, in his usual vitriol against perceived enemies, including peaceful protesters, as well as war veterans, when the economy is on its knees," the veterans' association's statement said. "He has a lot to answer for the serious plight of the national economy.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36860159

Yesterday President Mugabe made his reaction clear:

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has threatened to punish those war veterans who last week said they were withdrawing their backing for him.
At a rally of his Zanu-PF party supporters and veterans who remain loyal to him, Mr Mugabe also urged the veterans to choose new leaders.
He blamed the West for splits in the veterans' association. 'Once we find out who wrote that statement, the party will punish them. "During the war we had rebels who we punished... some by detaining them underground, feeding them there'.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36906732

Today the BBC reports

Zimbabwe’s war veterans’ spokesman, Douglas Mahiya, has been arrested. He was taken into custody on Wednesday, the day President Robert Mugabe threatened to punish those war veterans who last week said they were withdrawing their backing for him. Mr Mahiya, along with about 150 others, attended the meeting of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association which came up with the communique accusing Mr Mugabe of being dictatorial and egotistical.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-36685940

[davidbfpo]

In Post 365 I cited Professor Stephen Chan and today's email contained a link to a very pessimistic Q&A with him:https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles...e-from-zanu-pf

[davidbfpo]

Hello and welcome to the program Hot Seat, my name is Violet Gonda. In our 2nd episode of this new series we talk to Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association spokesman Douglas Mahiya, who was arrested last week following the release of a damning communiqu which described President Robert Mugabe as a genocidal dictator and urged the 92 year old leader to leave office.

There is a podcast and a transcript:http://www.violetgonda.com/hot-seat/...ouglas-mahiya/

[davidbfpo]

An interesting commentary on two issues: the situation in Zimbabwe and the potential for social media to educate and mobilize the "masses".

A stinging sentence on the regime:

..a political regime which has decayed and only exists to profiteer on people’s taxes, literally — if you doubt this profiteering, witness a first lady who spends US$1,35 million on a ring which is the equivalent of paying for close to 200 nurses’ salaries for a whole year.

Here is a SM passage:

Let us be real here: the teenager is likely to read H-Metro, watch YouTube videos, spend time on Facebook, or follow Twitter debates and know more about “Stunner and Olinda“ or “Andy and Bev”. This is the generation that will vote, it has no time for rallies, for polemic political essays, newspapers and research papers; it is the selfie-obsessed narcissistic generation and they consume news in sound-bites not rumbling speeches done by old pot-bellied men.

Link:https://www.theindependent.co.zw/201...er-narratives/

[davidbfpo]

This thread in the Historian arena sadly explains much of what has happened in Zimbabwe:Mugabe-style COIN: Gukurahundi

From the author, Stuart Doran of a book on that theme cited there:

And yet Mugabe and Zanu-PF have clung tenaciously to the fantasy of perpetual, total domination. It is for this reason, more than any other, that Zimbabwe remains trapped in a sterile cycle of conflict and subjugation.