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Thread: Zimbabwe: 2007 till Mugabe resigns

  1. #241
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default A New Day?

    I am sure the West is lining up. Who wants to be first to get fleeced?

    Mugabe Wants New Start to Relations With Western Nations

    HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe called Tuesday for a new start to relations with those Western countries he has spent years insulting for their criticism of his leadership.

    "Our country remains in a positive stance to enter into fresh, friendly and cooperative relations with all those countries that have been hostile to us in the past," he said.

    Mugabe spoke to legislators at the first sitting of parliament since a unity government was formed with the former opposition in February.

  2. #242
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Uncle Bob changes? Hell, no.

    The "new" coalition government has a few problems:

    Riot police shot and seriously injured three mine workers at Zvishavane who were part of a strike action towards the end of September. Rather than holding the police accountable the victims were charged with public violence and had to appear in court in wheelchairs.
    The public perception that the Zanu PF party is not at all serious about addressing human rights violations or re-establishing non-partisan law and order in Zimbabwe is most heavily highlighted by the news that members of the disbanded Joint Operations Command - now the National Security Council - are said to be holding secret meetings with Robert Mugabe, excluding Morgan Tsvangirai who, under the GPA, is a member of the National Security Council. Analysts have reportedly said that these secretive meetings constitute the worst violation of the Global Political Agreement by the Zanu PF party.
    The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Mashwiringwani, denied Louis Fick access to 4,000 pigs on Fick's Friedewil Farm. Mr Mashwiringani's tactics were a calculated attempt to use animal cruelty to force the farmer to give up more livestock pens. Farm employees working on Friedewil Farm were also beaten by thugs loyal to the Deputy Governor.
    I've left other episodes aside. The combination of police, military and central bankers is quite an indictment (JMM maybe wrong word) of the baron state Zimbabwe is.

    From: http://www.sokwanele.com/
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 10-07-2009 at 10:17 PM.

  3. #243
    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    The public perception that the Zanu PF party is not at all serious about addressing human rights violations or re-establishing non-partisan law and order in Zimbabwe is most heavily highlighted by the news that members of the disbanded Joint Operations Command - now the National Security Council - are said to be holding secret meetings with Robert Mugabe, excluding Morgan Tsvangirai who, under the GPA, is a member of the National Security Council. Analysts have reportedly said that these secretive meetings constitute the worst violation of the Global Political Agreement by the Zanu PF party.
    Since 2000, Bob has had a paralell administration ran by ex-liberation fighters. Even before the elections, observers in Zimbabwe were sceptical on the capacities of Tsangirai to be capable to run the state if he won. The administration in place is not the one rulling (and probably never was) the place. We should not be surprised. It is part of Mugabe strategy to keep power: apparently sharing power with opposition but if they do not comply with him, keeping a personal hand on the security apparatus. What Tsangirai is experimenting is what happened to ZAPU.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 10-08-2009 at 01:31 PM. Reason: Add quote marks, spellinga nd PM to author to explain.

  4. #244
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default

    So the opposition steps back from partnering with Mugabe after their Minister of Agriculture is charged with high treason.

    Maybe we just merge the DRC and Zimbabwe and call it Chaos...

    Opposition official's trial on hold in ZimbabweHARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- A Zimbabwean court postponed the trial of key opposition figure Roy Bennett on Saturday to allow his lawyers time to prepare their case.

    It is unclear when coffee farmer Roy Bennett will go to trial on weapons charges.

    Bennett, the Movement for Democratic Change's nominee for the deputy agriculture minister post, faces charges of possessing weapons for sabotage, banditry and terrorism.

    His trial had been scheduled to begin Monday at a high court in Mutare, but his defense team asked the judge for more time to prepare their case.

  5. #245
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Uity -v- disunity

    Tom and others,

    In response to this legal persecution the MDC has 'disengaged' from the joint government: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8310629.stm

    Clearly this is not departure or resignation, so I cannot see how this can be effective. What will the "robber barons" i.e. ZANU-PF and Mugabe do? Yes, continue to rule as before minus the MDC camouflage of unity IMHO.

    The country to be called 'Chaos' nice one Tom. Somehow after the Zimbabwean intervention in DRC, military-led commerce in effect, I doubt they will want to return, but then as Zimbabwe slides is there any profit to be made?

    davidbfpo

  6. #246
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Chaos it is !
    Much like Uncle Mo however, Mugabe has yet to learn what's coming and in what form. At his age, humiliation and exile are not good alternatives.

    Mugabe is the Mobutu of our time

    ... Like Mobutu, Mugabe came to power promising a new dawn for a nation that had just emerged from under a white minority rule. Like Mobutu, Mugabe will leave or be forced out of power amid political repression and economic collapse.
    If you want to blend in, take the bus

  7. #247
    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    Chaos it is !
    Much like Uncle Mo however, Mugabe has yet to learn what's coming and in what form. At his age, humiliation and exile are not good alternatives.
    From reuters 29/10/09

    Invited by prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the special envoy of UN on torture has been arrested and sent back to South Africa on the very day of his arrival in Harare.

    Humiliating and sending to exile others seems to be his solution.

  8. #248
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Maybe we just merge the DRC and Zimbabwe and call it Chaos...
    I think you calumnize the DRC.

    I have a question. The white farmers are going to lose all. The opposition will be bought off, jailed, driven out, cowed into submission or killed. Nothing much will change while Bob is alive.

    What will happen when Bob dies? You guys are qualified to speculate and I am interested in what you think not only in Zim but the region. Also as it relates to Zim, what will happen when Mandela dies?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  9. #249
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
    I think you calumnize the DRC.
    By that you mean this?

    calumny
    A false statement maliciously made to injure another's reputation. 2. The utterance of maliciously false statements; slander. ...
    If so, I will just say that I believe I have earned my opinions on the DRC through long study, extensive writing, and living through some of its chaos. Since I refer to Kinshasa in my memoirs as an old whore as I saw her in 1994, malice perhaps. False statements, nope, not when compared to what she looked like in 1984. A Belge-American who brought his parents over for the first time since they unassed in 1960 said they simply broke down and started crying at the state of the Congo. Stan has years longer on the ground than I and he is tougher on the place than I am. Give him a few beers and he will really tell you what he thinks. As for injuring the reputation, it is hard to find a worse reputation; you pretty much have to start with Somalia and then the DRC comes next in the ladder of chaos.

    I would say that Zimbabwe is not far behind. The real issue is no longer Bob--it is Bob's thugs, several generations of them. They will not go gently into the night when Bob does the place a favor by dying, whatever the cause.

    Tom

  10. #250
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Tom:

    hold on. don't hit me. the comment was meant as an ironic joke, an attempt to illustrate how bad things have become in Zim. unfortunately, the only thing the comment accomplished was showing how good I am at typifying the truism
    that if you have to explain a joke, it was a really lousy one.

    What do you think those thugs will do when Bob dies?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  11. #251
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Futurology

    Carl asked:
    What will happen when Bob dies? You guys are qualified to speculate and I am interested in what you think not only in Zim but the region. Also as it relates to Zim, what will happen when Mandela dies? (Added in last post). What do you think those thugs will do when Bob dies?
    When President Mugabe dies, let us for the purpose of answering say it is tomorrow. The situation will be tense, ZANU-PF and the "barons" will retain power. If required with ruthlessness, which is now traditional and firmly embedded in Zimbabwe. More people will flee or attempt to do so (mainly to South Africa). Faced with the prospect of 'Chaos Country' heading south President Zuma has to decide: remain loyal to a dead man's legacy or apply pressure on the "barons". Others in the region will wait to see what happens. Today few of Zimbabwe's neighbours depend on it for resources, except Zambia for Kariba Dam hydro-electricity. Closing their borders is impractical.

    The death of Nelson Mandela will be very different, "spin" aside many will miss him, at home and abroad. Will it affect Zimbabwe? I am sceptical, although it may help Zuma make a decision.

    Stretching imagination and hope. The "barons" fail to retain regime loyalty and ZANU-PF collapses. Not exactly GDR or an 'Orange' Revolution - I that the Zimbabwean public will take to the streets in protest. A leader in exile returns and in the chaos takes control.

    Ah, the dream is over and 'Bob' is alive.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 10-29-2009 at 11:03 PM.

  12. #252
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Carl asked:

    When President Mugabe dies, let us for the purpose of answering say it is tomorrow. The situation will be tense, ZANU-PF and the "barons" will retain power. If required with ruthlessness, which is now traditional and firmly embedded in Zimbabwe. More people will flee or attempt to do so (mainly to South Africa). Faced with the prospect of 'Chaos Country' heading south President Zuma has to decide: remain loyal to a dead man's legacy or apply pressure on the "barons". Others in the region will wait to see what happens. Today few of Zimbabwe's neighbours depend on it for resources, except Zambia for Kariba Dam hydro-electricity. Closing their borders is impractical.

    The death of Nelson Mandela will be very different, "spin" aside many will miss him, at home and abroad. Will it affect Zimbabwe? I am sceptical, although it may help Zuma make a decision.

    Stretching imagination and hope. The "barons" fail to retain regime loyalty and ZANU-PF collapses. Not exactly GDR or an 'Orange' Revolution - I that the Zimbabwean public will take to the streets in protest. A leader in exile returns and in the chaos takes control.

    Ah, the dream is over and 'Bob' is alive.
    No(t) a bad scenario--the risk is of course that the leader is another Bob (or soon becomes one). But as to taking to the streets, a Romania-style event would be useful--as long as the right folks get stretched

    Unfortunately I believe the barons will have long planned for this transition--choice one being to stay in power and choice two exile in style but only if forced.


    Carl, no worries. I had to look up calumny.

    Tom
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 10-30-2009 at 09:06 AM. Reason: Was 'No a bad scenario', surely Not a bad scenario?

  13. #253
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Farmers out

    Grim reading as ZANU-PF continues to eject white farmers:
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/al...zimbabwe.thtml

    Little sign that the coalition with MDC is having any impact in this policy area.
    davidbfpo

  14. #254
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Mugabe signals new elections

    The arrogance of corrupt power knows no limits...

    Mugabe says Zimbabwe power-sharing has 'short life,' signals new elections

    Harare, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says the fragile power-sharing government in his country "was given a short life" and he intends to reclaim control through new elections.

    "Elections are not far off," Mugabe told his Zanu-PF party Saturday. "The inclusive government was given a short life. The remaining part of it is short. In fact it has lived more than half its life."

  15. #255
    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    The arrogance of corrupt power knows no limits...
    Which is code for "I stuffed up with the election violence last time, this time I will get it (the violence) right.."

    God help the poor folk of SW Zimbabwe

  16. #256
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Understanding Mugabe

    This sort of book review arrived on a Zimbabwe email list I am on:

    A Roman Catholic human rights activist who denounced the atrocities of white minority rule in the country then called Rhodesia, has charted what he describes as the "descent to tyranny" of Zimbabwe's post-independence ruler Robert Mugabe.

    For more than 20 years until 1999, Mike Auret worked for Zimbabwe's Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, set up by the country's Catholic bishops. In his new book, "From Liberator to Dictator: An Insider's Account of Robert Mugabe's Descent into Tyranny", Auret records how he met Mugabe several times and was captivated by the man's intelligence and apparent sincerity.

    "My admiration for him grew with each contact and in the months ahead I found myself putting him on a pedestal - a position from which I found it most difficult to displace him in the years that followed, despite everything that happened," said Auret.

    But Auret was shattered when he discovered what happened in the Matabeleland and Midlands regions of Zimbabwe between 1983 and 1987. More than 20 000 men, women and children accused of being "dissidents" were killed to wipe out the power base of Mugabe's main rival in the liberation struggle, Joshua Nkomo. Almost all of those killed were Ndebeles, members of Nkomo's ethic group. They were killed by a North Korean trained branch of the military called the Fifth Brigade. Its members were Shona, who belonged to Mugabe's ethnic group. Zimbabwe's 11.4 million population is divided roughly into two main "tribal" groups, the Shonas (80 percent) and the Ndebeles (nearly 18 percent).

    "Part of the reason for writing this book was for me to try to gain some understanding of how so many of us so gravely misconstrued the situation in Zimbabwe once independence had been achieved," writes Auret. "How was it possible that so serious an error of judgement could have been made by so many people, in the world, not only in Zimbabwe?"

    The son of white settlers, Auret had a career in Africa that spanned the heyday of white rule in the 1950s to Zimbabwe's political and economic chaos at the beginning of the 21st century. He joined the army in 1956 but resigned after Ian Smith declared Southern Rhodesia's illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in November 1965. Auret joined the CCJP in the 1970s and was active in investigating atrocities committed by the Rhodesian army, an offshoot of the force in which he was once an officer. He left the country in 1979 to avoid being conscripted, and went to Britain with his wife Diana only to return home after independence in 1980, when Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe.

    In his book, Auret recalls how he was among those who were moved by Mugabe's statements of the need for "reconciliation" after seven years of war from 1972 to 1979 which had led to 30 000 deaths. "Everything he said impressed me tremendously. As he spoke I experienced a growing respect for him, for his intellect and his humanity . I was impressed by his sincerity and by what he seemed to be an obvious respect for the Church," Auret writes. However, "In the second decade, disillusionment began and the drive for development became a drive for democracy and the protection of human rights . I remembered the reasonable man and wondered if he had changed or if indeed he had always been so evil, but simply more adept at hiding it."

    Auret resigned as the justice group's director in 1999, when the Catholic Church refused to publish a report drawn up by the commission and the Legal Resources Foundation, a human rights group, into the atrocities committed by the Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland. He was then elected as a member of parliament from Harare for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, but left Zimbabwe after he resigned his seat in 2003.

    Auret presently lives in Ireland but maintains close contact with Zimbabwean exiles.
    Michael Auret: "From Liberator to Dictator: An Insider's Account of Robert Mugabe's Descent into Tyranny", David Philip, Publishers, ISBN-13: 978-0864867315

    I shall look out for it in the specialist bookshops and report again in 2010.
    davidbfpo

  17. #257
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default One of ZANU founders speaks out

    http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/hotseat211209.htm

    SW RADIO AFRICA TRANSCRIPT BROADCAST: 18 DECEMBER 2009 HOT SEAT INTERVIEW: Violet Gonda's guest is Enos Nkala,one of the founders of the Zimbabwe African National Union, with his thoughts on the current political situation. Controversy also surrounds his role in the Gukurahundi massacres that led to the death of 20,000 people in Matabeleland and Midlands in the 1980's, but in this interview the veteran nationalist denies carrying out instructions that led to the killings. He lays the blame squarely on Zanu-PF's president Robert Mugabe and current Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was Ministerof State Security from 1982 to 1988.
    It is a quite long interview and only partly read so far.
    davidbfpo

  18. #258
    Council Member Rhodesian's Avatar
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    Any additional comment from self would be somewhat needless:

    Since the fast track land seizures commenced in 2000, it has been easy for ZANU (PF) to portray the land invasions as a spontaneous demonstration by landless peasants who needed to take back land originally taken away from them by colonial settlers. It is now apparent and clear that the so-called land reform program has been nothing but a political gimmick that has been used to reward ZANU (PF) supporters and punish anyone perceived as an enemy.
    http://www.zimtelegraph.com/?p=5075

    I.R.

  19. #259
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default New constitution in 2010?

    I'd missed this news that the 'Kariba Draft constitution' was to have a round of public consultation and a vote until an email arrived from a Zimbabwean e-list. For further details see: www.sokwanele.com/zimbabweconstitution

    Which cites:
    Zimbabweans will be asked to vote on a new draft constitution when it is finally ready. The public outreach programme, intended to gather the views of the people, is scheduled to start early in the new year.
    Missing is any date for the vote. Just a reminder a new constitution drafted by ZANU-PF under President Mugabe was rejected in a vote a few years ago, much to his surprise and anger.

    No-one I expect in Zimbabwe is under any illusions how the 'public consultation' will go, let alone any future vote.
    davidbfpo

  20. #260
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Zuma is 'even handed'

    In a UK House of Commons Q&A session for the Foreign Secretary:
    Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): Does the Foreign Secretary share my concern that President Zuma of South Africa has not challenged Mugabe and the MDC fully to carry out the terms of the global political agreement? He seems continually to be urging compromise on the MDC.

    David Miliband: President Zuma is playing a careful hand, and he is playing it rather skilfully. The Prime Minister was able to discuss Zimbabwe, among other things, with him at the Commonwealth conference in November. President Zuma will be making a state visit to the UK in early March, and I have had discussions with my South African opposite number. The position of the South Africans has certainly been to urge adherence to the global political agreement, which requires compromise on all sides, and I do not think that they have been less than even-handed in the way in which they have done that.
    From Hansard 19th January 2010, via a Zimbabwe emailing.

    Well that is a relief then - 'even handed'. Ah, diplomacy is wonderful.
    davidbfpo

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