Zimbabwe: 2007 till Mugabe resigns

[carl]

I don't know Stan, I am interested in the area but I only really know a little about the DRC. So take the following with that grain of salt.

If RSA can ever get the crime under control I would go with that. Maybe the crime is overstated in my mind though. It will be interesting to see what happens when Mandela dies.

People I talked to always expressed amazement at Rwanda, especially as it sits right next to DRC. The question is I guess, what will Kagame do as he gets older and how will that affect things.

As far as the DRC goes, which one? Kinshasa area and Lubumbashi are a world apart from the rest and when I was there they seemed extremely energetic at least. At least in most of the DRC the situation is better than Zim so that is an accomplishment of some kind.

I don't know...which is why I asked.

[JMA]

The Nicaraguans aren't nearly as confused about it as you seem to be.

What you cite is the sometimes startling difference in foreign policies between US Administrations. The Nicaraguans, like most Central Americans, being neighbors and paying attention to that for over a century -- and with memory of US interventions and strange behavior of contrasting administrations in the 20s and 30s -- understand that. They may not like it but they know what it is.

The rest of the world seemingly does not, as you show...

Well put Ken.

This is exactly why (probably) half the US aid to Afghanistan is used to buy mansions in Dubai for the current government and its cronies as an insurance against the schizophrenic US foreign policy.

Afghan vice-president 'landed in Dubai with $52m in cash'

You reap what you sow.

[Ken White]

Or reap things others have sown...

This is exactly why (probably) half the US aid to Afghanistan is used to buy mansions in Dubai for the current government and its cronies as an insurance against the schizophrenic US foreign policy.

"Probably?" Good caveat, lot of wiggle room there...

For our Foreign Policy to be schizophrenic, we'd have to have one. We do not. Never have. Save one item -- to react to any threats and remove them. We do that -- one way or another...

[JMA]

Or reap things others have sown... "Probably?" Good caveat, lot of wiggle room there...

I'm dealing with the "revenge of the nitpickers" at the moment so one can't be too careful.

[J Wolfsberger]

From The Atlantic:

"... If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.

Later that day, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe dutifully reported the details of the meeting to Washington in a confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cable. And slightly less than one year later, WikiLeaks released it to the world.

The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. ..."

[davidbfpo]

Now who did these 'veterans' upset, somehow I doubt that the facilities were owned by 'whites'?

Zimbabwean police drove out scores of so-called war veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe after they declared themselves new owners of several tourist resorts, a minister and media reports said Monday...The seizures on Saturday near Lake Chivero...

Link, from AFP:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110124...csviolencefarm

[JMA]

...the Mugabe regime starts to pull bodies out of mine shafts.

I spent a lot of my time operating out of Mount Darwin in the mid 70s. The routine for insurgent KIA from every contact was to back-load the bodies by vehicle or helicopter to the police Special Branch in Mount Darwin so that the bodies could be photographed and fingerprinted. Civilians killed in the "cross-fire" were left in situ for burial in their respective villages.

As the body-count rose the logistics of disposal of these bodies became too great and there was local resistance to the burning of bodies out at the airfield (using expired/old/etc aircraft fuel) due to the smell. Anyone who has smelt bodies burning remembers that smell forever. I understand the solution was found when a local farmer suggested using the many old mine shafts in the area for the purpose.

The issue of the dignity of burial aside it is my understanding that is where the bodies were disposed of. In fact if they only found 1,000 bodies they should go look in some of the other mine shafts in the area.

Later in the war the recovery of all bodies became logistically impossible and the insurgent bodies were searched, stripped of usable military equipment and left in situ.

But the idea that Mugabe is attempting to sell here is that these were not the bodies of armed combatants but rather victims of some or other massacre. Those that want to believe this will believe it as they did during the war regardless of the facts.

... and I leave it to you to guess where the bodies found that are clearly not over 30 years old come from.


Mt Darwin mass graves contain fresh bodies: Pathologist

"Ordinarily by this time there should only be bone-remains if its true that these bodies are of people who died in the 70s," the pathologist said. "Certainly there should not be any smell at all from the remains over 30 years after those people died."

Who filled Mt Darwin mine with 1 000 human dead bodies?

The presence of some corpses still with skin, hair and body fluids has raised doubts over claims white colonial-era troops committed the massacres more than 30 years ago.

[davidbfpo]

Way back in February 2010, referring to Peter Godwin's book 'The Fear' Jon C, partial quote

Please pass on a review if you have the chance to read the book.

The British-Zimbabwe Society magazine (not in e-format)has posted an anonymous review:

In mid 2008, after nearly three decades of increasingly tyrannical rule, Robert Mugabe, the 84 year old Robespierre of Zimbabwe, lost an election. But instead of conceding power, he launched a brutal campaign of terror against his own citizens. Peter Godwin, author of the brilliant memoir When a Crocodile eats the Sun, was one of the few outside observers to bear witness to the terrifying period that Zimbabweans call, simply, The Fear. At great personal risk, Godwin returns secretly to the country that was once his home. He visits the torture bases, the burning villages, the death squads, the opposition leaders in hiding, the last white farmers, the churchmen and diplomats putting their own lives on the line to stop the carnage. Threaded through with personal history, The Fear is the brave and astonishing record of a dictatorship gone mad. Accompanied by his sister Georgina, Godwin journeys through the ravaged, once-familiar landscape. They visit the grave of their sister, killed during the civil war. As they pour red “lucky bean” seeds from the coral tree in their old garden into the runnels of the letters on her gravestones, they call their mother, mow living in exile in faraway London. ‘Where would you like to be buried when you die?’ he asks her. ‘At home,’ she says. ‘In Africa. Next to your father.’

Told with a brilliant eye for detail and Godwin’s natural storytelling gifts, this is a story framed by personal loss. But most deeply, it is a moving and stunning account of a people grotesquely altered, laid waste by a raging despot. It is about the astonish courage and resilience of a people, armed with nothing but a desire to be free, who challenge a violent dictatorship. And in the spirit of Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The Emperor, Godwin takes us inside the dysfunctional court of Robert Mugabe as he battles to stay in power even at the cost of destroying his country. THE FEAR is, finally, an important, brilliant testament to humanity’s ability to transcend fear, to rise up, even in the face of astounding adversity.

[davidbfpo]

Mugabe & ZANU-PF's strategy probably needs little explanation here, but this newsletter by an opposition group provides some details not seen in the sparse external reporting:http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/6583

The depth of corruption is well shown by:

..the sheer scale of the fraud indicated ..... is staggering. More than 75 000 ghost workers, mostly unqualified Zanu-PF militias and supporters, have been unearthed in the Zimbabwean civil service.....The audit shows that there are more than 75 000 ghost workers out of a total of 188 000 employed in various ministries.

[JMA]

Peter Godwin writing in a New York Times op-ed - Making Mugabe Laugh - states:

Zimbabweans need help if their voices are to be heard. If the United States wants to prove that Mrs. Clinton’s words were more than empty rhetoric, it should begin by pressuring South Africa. Otherwise Zimbabwe’s hopes for freedom will founder, even as Ivory Coast regains its stolen democracy.

While Godwin understands the dynamics of whats happening on the ground in Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe and that Clinton made an idiot statement sadly if he is expecting any effective political effort from the US he will wait a long time.

Clinton seems to believe that the eviction of Gbagbo sent:

“a strong signal to dictators and tyrants throughout the region and around the world. They may not disregard the voice of their own people in free and fair elections, and there will be consequences for those who cling to power.”

Is this woman and the US State Department for real?

What dictators out of Africa and beyond have learned from the Ivory Coast is that if you want to stay in power you don't hold United Nations-supervised free and fair elections.

They probably sing in unison that Gbagbo got what he deserved. Watch Mugabe, no United Nations-supervised elections for him.

[jmm99]

JMA, Ms Clinton is for real.

Read her 1969 thesis,

THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT...", An Analysis of the Alinsky Model, A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree under the Special Honors Program, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts. Hillary D. Rodham, Political Science, 2 May, 1969 [© 1969 Hillary D. Rodham].

It tells you much of what you might want to know.

Note that this is copyrighted (helps to keep distribution down ); but copies are all over (e.g., jpg scans and pdfs). Google Advanced Search - "THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT" rodham - gets 35+K hits, including this Wiki.

Regards

Mike

[JMA]

JMA, Ms Clinton is for real.

Read her 1969 thesis,

It tells you much of what you might want to know.

Note that this is copyrighted (helps to keep distribution down ); but copies are all over (e.g., jpg scans and pdfs). Google Advanced Search - "THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT" rodham - gets 35+K hits, including this Wiki.

Regards

Mike

92 pages of Rodham from her university days is too much. I am having enough trouble keeping up with the amount of stuff Ken is churning out.

My view that her and the State Department's understanding of the message re Gbagbo's ouster is dead wrong stands. And considering that the US had a very limited role in the ouster of Gbagbo maybe she and the US government should say less about it all... much less.

[jmm99]

and I've added two words to your sentence (and changed one) to make it mine:

I am having enough trouble keeping up with the amount of stuff Ken and JMA are churning out.

Keep having fun, guys - at least, you all are not sheep.

BLUF (my view of thesis): Ms Rodham rejects Alinsky's methodolgies - and also a job offer from him.

Mr. Alinsky and I met twice during October in Boston and during January at Wellesley. Both times he was generous with ideas and interest. His offer of a place in the new Institute was tempting but after spending a year trying to make sense out of his inconsistency, I need three years of legal rigor.

Viewed from a national level, his methods are too slow and not likely to succeed. What is needed is a substantial change in governance, with large government programs to reach the desired end goals. In essence, a tidal wave vs a "bubble up" from the base.

As I perceive it, Ms Rodham-Clinton has expanded her 1969 construct to an international arena.

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

I am having enough trouble keeping up with the amount of stuff Ken is churning out.

quite...

My view that her and the State Department's understanding of the message re Gbagbo's ouster is dead wrong stands.

That's impressive...

And considering that the US had a very limited role in the ouster of Gbagbo maybe she and the US government should say less about it all... much less.

Should've done and said less to begin with, none of our concern.

[JMA]

Viewed from a national level, his methods are too slow and not likely to succeed. What is needed is a substantial change in governance, with large government programs to reach the desired end goals. In essence, a tidal wave vs a "bubble up" from the base.

As I perceive it, Ms Rodham-Clinton has expanded her 1969 construct to an international arena.

And she has achieved what at national and/or international levels?

[JMA]

On the subject of Gbagbo...

Should've done and said less to begin with, none of our concern.

Excuse me Ken, there has been a UN presence there since the civil war. They were the vehicle for action and failed. The French were lurking around and were, like in Libya, the prime movers to get the show on the road even if it was pathetically belated.

[Ken White]

...there has been a UN presence there since the civil war. They were the vehicle for action and failed. The French were lurking around and were, like in Libya, the prime movers to get the show on the road even if it was pathetically belated.

It was, as I said, no concern of the US...

[jmm99]

a "constitutional majority" in the Legislative - for the first two years of the Obama administration, the Democrats did manage to enact a type of governance change along the lines that I see as Ms Rodham-Clinton's construct.

A friend of mine noted that the Democrats in the first 8 months passed the first 8 years of what they wanted. That's the way I see it from the sidelines - and I am not addressing the merits of our domestic politics here at SWC (my restraint; not a constraint).

Internationally ? My mom used to say that if you can't say anything good about a person, shut up.

_________________________


Regards

Mike

[Stan]

My mom used to say that if you can't say anything good about a person, shut up.

Regards

Mike

hyvää iltaa Virosta !

You have a wise mother (don't we all ) !!!

Regarding her thesis or interpretation of Saul...

Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing

Hmmm, Blew that one

But there is this:

The end is what you want, the means is how you get it... The real arena is corrupt and bloody

Regards, Stan

[tequila]

I'm enjoying how Ms. Clinton's senior thesis explains the Obama Administration's foreign policy. Who knew that they were both signed on members of the Comintern even then?

Or perhaps Bill Ayers wrote her thesis as well?

Perhaps our cowardly refusal to kill Laurent Gbagbo with Tomahawk missiles or extremely violent ex-Sandline types is really an example of Alinskyite radicalism in action (or in-action?) Communists, oh so cunning!