EnMasse

[Tehanu]

The misery continues in Zimbabwe, and periodically stories pop up about it. So I figure a general thread about what's going on in the country would be useful.

The latest is that Mugabe claims that he has foiled a UK coup.

From Reuters

[cco]

[Tehanu]

Not that it'll make a difference, because I figure Mugabe's going to stay in office until he either dies or is deposed, but he's considering delaying the next presidential elections from 2008 to 2010.

[InMyHouseOnMars]

This article about Peter Tatchell says it best:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tatchell

[unionist]

Hard to figure out what that article says, other than describing someone with multiple personality disorder.

[Hephaestion]

Which article and which someone? Mugabe or Tatchell?
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[InMyHouseOnMars]

From the article I had previously linked to:

Zimbabwe
Part of Tatchell's journalism in the 1970s had involved the Second Chimurenga in Rhodesia, in which he had generally supported the Zimbabwe African National Union and its military wing. However, Robert Mugabe's fierce denunciation of male homosexuality in 1995 led him to help organise a protest by Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in London. He managed to speak to Mugabe on a brief London visit in the late 1990s but was unable to get a substantive response. On October 26, 1997 a letter from Tatchell to The Guardian argued that the United Kingdom should suspend aid to Zimbabwe because of its persecution of homosexuals.

At this point, Tatchell researched Mugabe's Gukurahundi attacks in Matabeleland in the 1980s when Mugabe had sent the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe army against supporters of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union. He became convinced that Mugabe had broken international human rights law during the attack. Then in 1999, two opposition journalists (Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto) were tortured by the Zimbabwe Army. The arrest in London of Augusto Pinochet seemed to him a precedent that human rights violations could be pursued against a head of state. On October 30, 1999 Tatchell and young fellow-activist Chris Morris attempted to stop Mugabe's car in London to perform a citizen's arrest. Instead, he and Morris were arrested for a breach of the peace. Mugabe responded by describing the pair as "gay gangsters", a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters, and claimed they had been sent by the United Kingdom government.[13]

In 2001 Tatchell received a tip-off about a visit by Mugabe to Belgium. He travelled to Brussels, and in the lobby of the Brussels Hilton attempted a second citizen's arrest on March 5. This time, Mugabe's large corps of bodyguards pushed him away roughly and were seen punching him to the floor. The action drew world-wide headlines as Mugabe was by then highly unpopular in the Western world for his government's land reform policy which involved the compulsory seizure of farms owned by white people. Tatchell's actions were praised by many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him.

In late 2003 Tatchell acted as a press spokesman for the launch of the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement which claimed to be a clandestine group within Zimbabwe committed to overthrowing the government of Robert Mugabe by force.[14] The civic action support group Sokwanele urged Tatchell to check his sources with the group, speculating that it may be an invention of supporters of the Zimbabwe government in order to justify violent action against its opponents.[15] However, two Central Intelligence Organization members were spotted and turned away from the launch, as shown in the film "Peter Tatchell: Just who does he think he is?" by Max Barber

[Hephaestion]

So I'm listening to "As It Happens" on CBC Radio last night, and they were interviewing Gabriel Shumba of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum.

Mr. Shumba is currently in Canada trying to gain support for the idea of having Canada use its "Crimes Against Humanity" legislation to issue an international arrest warrant for Robert Mugabe. Harpokon MP Dr. Keith Martin apparently has a bill calling on Justice Minister Vic Toews to take steps to do just that, although, as the host of "AIH" pointed out to Shumba, this legislation has never been used before, not even against a Canadian.

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with going ahead with this, even if it doesn't succeed. I think the NDP caucus should get behind Martin's bill on this...
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Tehanu]

ZANU (PF) has agreed in principle to extend Mugabe's term by another two years in order to "harmonize" the presidential terms with the parliamentary terms. So that's up to 2010. Sigh.

Well, Mugabe's now in his 80s. I suspect at this point he might die in office ...

[bshmr]

The imperial UK and WTO/WB neoliberal day-dreamers really do have a nasty record of failing states <entendre>. So much for Rhodesia, the garden for the EU, etc.

[Tehanu]

Inflation in Zimbabwe has reached a new high.

[Hephaestion]

I remember attending a party that was held to celebrate Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. It was organized by the International Students' Association at my university, and there were several Zimbabwean students there who gave readings, and cooked traditional Zimbabwean food. I remember me 'n some of the 'mos from the LGBT student group brought some ganja and some Bob Marley CDs -- "Mash it up in a Zimbabwe..." -- and we all had a blast! Nice memories. And such hope and promise for their country.

And that bastard Mugabe has turned it all into such a shit hole. *sigh*
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Tehanu]

Yeah, it was so hopeful in the eighties ... new primary health clinics, push for 100% adult literacy, gradual reform to reduce racial inequities. Kind of a beacon for southern Africa, particularly in terms of resisting the destabilisation efforts South Africa was doing in the region at the time. It's a tragedy on so many levels.

[unionist]

Why did this happen? It couldn't have been just one man. Any literature around explaining this betrayal of so many hopes (including mine, Heph - I remember those same kinds of celebrations)?

[Tehanu]

I'm more familiar with what was going on in the eighties and early nineties, but yeah, there are all kinds of factors. Nevertheless, a really big chunk of the problem can probably be laid at Mugabe's door.

-- Colonial history. Typical of the British Empire, not a lot of attention was paid to what ethnicity the people were, when determining land boundaries. So in the south you have the Matabele (or Ndebele), who are Zulu, and in the north the Shona, who are the majority and who are Bantu. Mugabe is Shona. During the war for independence, ZANU was Shona and ZAPU was Matabele, and after independence there continued to be a lot of tension, in fact at times a low level civil war, between them. ZANU consolidated its power under Mugabe. Now the main opposition party is the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) but I'm not sure what its makeup is, and they've been having internal problems anyway. People generally vote along tribal lines, so Mugabe's pretty much been guaranteed a majority ever since independence.

-- In the early nineties there was a really bad drought. There had been pretty slow progress on land reform; Mugabe was initially very conciliatory with the white farmers, having the example of places like Mozambique in front of him, where most of the white professionals/farmers left in a hurry. But what that also meant was that the majority of the rural population (black) was still eking out a fairly marginal existance on the poorer lands that the Rhodesian government had put them on.

-- The government was very, very dilatory in recognising that HIV/AIDS was a problem. There's a lot of homophobia in the country and it was felt it was a "gay disease." So AIDS is now a big problem and the health care system can't cope with it.

-- The army. In the eighties they were occupied in keeping a land corridor open to the Indian Ocean through Mozambique, which was being destabilised by South Africa/the MNR. Then once apartheid ended, a lot of those troops came home and wanted land they'd been promised at independence. I suspect Mugabe's biggest fear is a coup, so he instituted an aggressive land handover to former combatants, and sent a bunch of them to the Congo as well -- a very expensive endeavour. Unfortunately the former soldiers aren't farmers.

I'm sure there's a lot more that I haven't covered ...

[sparqui]

Nice overview Tehanu. Here is a bit of background (lengthy article dates back to 2000) in the collapse of Western relations with Mugabe. I think that you'll see that the dire economic situation is also related to western aid isolation -- a political move that hasn't helped matters at all. Mugabe and his party are not exactly revolutionary heroes but as recent history has shown, any move that amounts to biting the hand that feeds you and protects you from international scrutiny leads to a backlash.

[unionist]

Thanks, Tehanu and sparqui. I know much too little about the history. I remember Mugabe's name from long before 1980, so he didn't fit the bill of a Robert-come-lately post-liberation corrupt usurper. He was part of the liberation movement. So whatever happened to him, did it also happen to the liberation movement itself? Is any of that spirit of struggle and freedom left? When I hear about these "opposition" parties like MDC or Morgan (sp?) being vaunted by the British and U.S. as great democratic heroes, my skin crawls. Then I also worry about whether South Africa will end up where Zimbabwe has, because I don't think they've done much about land reform either.

Anyway, I'd better retire and bury myself in books.

[Hephaestion]

Thanks for the background, Tehanu & sparqui. And while a lot of that criticism of Anglo and American puppet-masters is likely well-justified, from my perspective Mugabe is still nothing better than a murderous thug for his treatment of queers alone. I would shed no tears at all if he was assassinated ('coz we KNOW these heads of states scum are never really brought to justice).
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Hephaestion]

Zimbabwe opposition leader arrested

[Agent86]

Less than 10 miles from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's mansion in Harare -- the largest private residence on the African continent -- Cleophus Masxigora digs for mice.

On a good day, he told me, he can find 100 to 200. To capture the vermin, he burns brush to immobilize them, then kills them with several thumps of a shovel. This practice has become so widespread in Zimbabwe that, as a Zimbabwean journalist informed me, state-run television has broadcast warnings against citizens setting brush fires.

Masxigora began hunting mice to support (and feed) his wife and three children soon after Mugabe began confiscating thousands of productive, white-owned farms in 2000, a policy that has since led to mass starvation. Not long ago, Zimbabwe, the "breadbasket of Africa," exported meat and produced what was widely considered to be Africa's finest livestock. Today, Masxigora tells me that each mouse nets $30 Zim dollars, about 12 cents, which makes him a wealthy man in Zimbabwe. "This is beef to us," he told me in August.

The conditions Mugabe rendered in Zimbabwe do not merely stem from idealistic economic and social policies gone awry. He has undertaken a campaign of violence and starvation against political opponents, the fallout of which is killing tens of thousands, if not more, every year. In 2005, there were roughly 4,000 more deaths each week than births, a rate that the famine has surely increased.

This is worse than brutality. The United Nations says that "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" constitutes genocide, and that is exactly what Robert Mugabe has wrought.

The genocide in Zimbabwe is not as stark as others. There are no cattle cars and gas chambers. There are no machete-wielding gangs roaming the countryside. There are no helicopter gunships or Janjaweed. The killing in Zimbabwe is slow, oftentimes indirect, and not particularly bloody. But Mugabe's campaign of mass murder against those who oppose him has been no less deliberate than any of the other genocides in human history.

It all began with Mugabe's land seizures in 2000, in which he booted white farmers from the property they owned and replaced them with political hacks who have no interest in agriculture. The results were disastrous. Zimbabwe annually requires 1.8 million tonnes of maize. In 2006, it faced an 850,000 tonne deficit -- of which planned imports would cover just 60%.

The country also requires 400,000 tons of wheat annually, yet, last year, it produced only 218,000 tons by the government's count -- meaning the true total was likely far less.

As early as 2002, the BBC was reporting that people in Matabeleland, the southern region of the country where the minority Ndebele tribe lives, were starving. That same year, on the eve of a massive drought, the minister of Zimbabwean state security said, "We would be better off with only six million people-- with our own who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people." Today, according to the World Food Program, 38% of Zimbabweans are malnourished.

The fallout has rippled through society: Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate (1,600% annually, expected to hit 4,000% by the end of the year) and an HIV prevalence of at least 18%, and probably higher. It also has the lowest life expectancy in the world: 34 for women and 37 for men (it was 62 in 1990). Last year, 42,000 women died from childbirth; less than a decade ago, this figure was under 1,000. The weekly death rate exceeds Darfur's.

Meanwhile, Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF, is wielding the food shortage as a weapon against the opposition. The government's Grain Marketing Board frequently denies food aid to people in districts that voted against Mugabe in recent elections; only those with ZANU-PF membership cards are able to get rations. Several people I spoke with in Harare's poor township of Hatcliffe told me that the army and the police regularly interfere with food distribution from USAID, UNICEF and other international aid groups. In 2002, USAID director Andrew Natsios publicly scolded Mugabe for manipulating American food aid, a practice that has continued unabated. And a 2004 Amnesty International report warned that "[T]he government has used the food shortages for political purposes and to punish political opponents."

As if starvation weren't bad enough, Mugabe unleashed more destruction in May 2005. Operation Murambatsvina (Shona for "Drive out Filth") aimed to "reruralize" some one million Zimbabweans -- mostly poor, urban shanty dwellers from areas that voted against Mugabe in parliamentary elections just weeks earlier. Mugabe's henchmen forcibly cleared the slums. A United Nations report filed by a special representative of the secretary-general found that the operation was "carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering, and, in repeated cases, with disregard to several provisions of national and international legal frameworks." The Fourth Geneva Convention considers the "deportation or forcible transfer of population" to be a crime against humanity.

There is historic and legal precedent to warrant calling these policies genocide. In 1996, UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared that Rwandan Hutu refugees living in Zaire might be potential victims of "genocide by starvation." In December, 2006, the former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam (also known as the "African Pol Pot") was found guilty of genocide by a court in his own country after a 12-year trial. His government was convicted of having "conspired to destroy a political group and kill people with impunity" --not only through actual murder, but by creating and prolonging the 1984 Tigray famine, in which some 1.5 million people died. In 1991, Mariam escaped from Ethiopia, finding asylum in, of all places, Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

Incidentally, the starvation and transfer of Mugabe's opponents isn't the first time he has unleashed a genocidal campaign against his own people. Not long after taking power, in the mid-'80s, Mugabe's North Korean-trained ZANU-PF army killed an estimated 25,000 Ndebeles tribespeople in an operation known as the Gukurahundi (Shona for "the early rain which washes away the chaff "). The Matabeleland massacre ended, once and for all, any Ndebele challenge to Mugabe's power.

People are finally beginning to call it like they see it in Zimbabwe. R.W. Johnson, an Oxford-trained academic and for many years the London Sunday Times' southern

Africa correspondent, declared in a recent dispatch that, "A vast human cull is under way in Zimbabwe and the great majority of deaths are a direct result of deliberate government policies. Ignored by the United Nations, it is a genocide perhaps 10 times greater than Darfur's and more than twice as large as Rwanda's." (Johnson reported the widely published number of three million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa and one million who have fled elsewhere, leaving a population of 14 million in Zimbabwe. But the government itself publishes an official figure of 12 million citizens, leaving two million people "missing.") And Arnold Tsunga, chairman of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (an NGO devoted to democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe), called Mugabe's policies "smart genocide," because they have taken place unnoticed by governments, aid organizations, and the international press.

Will anything come of it? This month, South Africa took over the rotating UN Security Council presidency. Although it's a perfect opportunity to publicize Mugabe's crimes, South Africa, the regional power, has emboldened Mugabe by endorsing every instance of his election-theft (flying in the face of international observer teams), supplying him with economic aid and strengthening the countries' military alliance. So it's likely nothing will happen.

Last month, Mugabe and 10,000 of his supporters gathered in a soccer stadium to celebrate his 83rd birthday -- gorging on giant cakes, tons of corn meal and 38 cattle slaughtered specifically for the event. "We are terribly disappointed," one man -- who brought his wife and children to the event but was not allowed in -- told the Guardian. "This was an opportunity for us to get a proper meal." So, while Mugabe feasts, men like Cleophus Masxigora continue to scour for mice.

james.kirchick@gmail.com - James Kirchick is assistant to the editor-in-chief of The New Republic.

[Tehanu]

Agent86, please don't post complete articles, rather, select a couple of key paragraphs and provide a link. Otherwise it's a copyright violation. Thanks!

Further Zimbabwe news, Morgan Tsvangurai is in hospital with a head wound and other injuries, presumably sustained during his arrest or incarceration.

[Fidel]

Stephen Lewis in Zimbabwe:The lack of resources to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic is "mass murder by complacency"
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Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - George Washington

[Tehanu]

Zimbabwean women opposing Robert Mugabe face particularly brutal consequences. Plus, the life expectancy for women is only 34 years (37 for men). Incredibly low.

[Tehanu]

A general strike called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions didn't get very far, but on the plus side, talks seem to be progressing between ZANU-PF and the MDC on constitutional changes.

[Tehanu]

Desmond Tutu has compared human rights abuses in Zimbabwe to experiences under apartheid.

[Tehanu]

Mugabe is running again, as internal party challenges have softly and silently vanished away.

[TS.]

The Movement for Democratic Change is accusing the government of printing nine million ballot papers when the country has only 5.9 million voters. If it's true, that would seem to be proof of vote-rigging to me.

[Doug]

You certainly know you've won when you receive 150% of the vote!

[Tehanu]

The MDC is claiming victory in the Zimbabwe election based on unofficial vote totals, although there's a delay in releasing the official vote tally.

[Tehanu]

Early parliamentary results are showing tied numbers of seats between the MDC and ZANU-PF. And the MDC is still claiming victory in the presidential balloting.

Well, this should be interesting ... if in fact Mugabe has lost the election and control over parliament, what will happen? Will the army allow a transition? Will he relinquish power?

[TS.]

This may be a sign that no matter how rigged the vote was the people voted so overwhelmingly for the opposition that the extra three million ballot papers weren't enough.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Tehanu]

Rumour has it that there is a deal in the works for Mugabe to step down. I would imagine that would include amnesty. If that is the case, colour me surprised, it was seeming like he would be likely to die in office. If he does leave voluntarily, that's a grand democratic achievement for Zimbabwe.

[Senor Magoo]

[Tehanu]

But you may decide that one last visit to the office supplies closet is a small price to pay to avoid a major screaming match in the front lobby.

[Senor Magoo]

My workplace has security, for just such an occassion. If you want your last walk out of the building to be with your jacket over your head, we can arrange that.

What would we say if Dubya wanted a few months of "transition time" at the end of his terms, in order to save face?

I think we'd say shoot him, if he won't leave peacefully.
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ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,

[Tehanu]

You joke about it, but I have on a bad day wondered what would happen if there were a "surprise" terrorist attack in November. Yeah, yeah, very conspiracist.

[bshmr]

[A_J]

[TS.]

If the unofficial number of 49.4% for Tsvangirai is accurate, he only needs a tiny number of Makoni's voters to choose him in order to win. If Makoni got 8% of the vote, Tsvangirai only needs 7.5% of Makoni's voters to put him over the top. If (in the absence of actual turnout numbers) we assume a turnout of a very generous 80% of eligible voters (of whom there are 5.9 million) then Tsvangarai only needs about 28 000 votes to switch to him out of Makoni's approx. 378 000 votes.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[A_J]

Of course, since the government's numbers show a narrower spread of roughly 48-43, they might have a better chance rigging it next time around and plausibly claiming that Tsvangirai simply didn't pick up enough of Makoni's supporters. Under the ZANU-PF figures, the Movement for Democratic Change needs about 1/5 of Makoni's votes.

Tsvangirai, finally, ought to have this one in the bag. Just matter of how much trouble Mugabe is going to cause for everyone before his ass gets dumped out on the curb.

[Hephaestion]

If the army and police re-install Mugabe, then we can finally be rid of this fiction that Zimbabwe is a "democracy", and South Africa and other neighbours can start by explaining why they are propping up a vicious military dictatorship.

Also, the way will be cleared for NATO to go in and start bombing, thus bringing "democracy" to Zimbabwe and allowing all the little girls to go to school...
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Tehanu]

And if Mugabe does hand over power, then perhaps we can start (again) calling Zimbabwe a democracy.

I have a personal connection to Zimbabwe and am at the edge of my seat with all of this. I was startled by the election results and am both elated and apprehensive about some of the changes that might be coming up.

I have been appalled for a long time about many of Mugabe's actions, but I also don't forget his role in liberating the country, or the sheer optimism in the 1980s when the country was a role model for post-colonial development. There were many, many factors contributing to the slide away from that. Mugabe certainly bears a very large chunk of responsibility for it, but not all.

I am also not convinced that Tsvangirai will be much of a saviour. There are enormous problems and the temptation to accept something along the lines of "structural readjustment" with tied foreign aid will be huge. Social programs? Education? Health care?

And then there's the question of what will happen with the army.

Desmond Tutu has suggested that a peacekeeping force might be in order:

[TS.]

The Zimbabwe Election Commission has announced that Zanu-PF has lost the parliamentary elections. According to the ZEC, Zanu-PF won only 94 seats as compared to 105 for the opposition and 1 independent.

The MDC has also announced their unofficial numbers in the presidential race. According to their numbers, Tsvangirai has 50.3% of the vote, compared to 43.8% for Mugabe, leaving 5.9% for Makoni and giving Tsvangirai an outright first round win.

BBC
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Hephaestion]

*pregnant pause*
_________________
"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Rufus Polson]

I keep having this feeling that the point of the exercise is to replace a jerkoff who *doesn't* favour international capital with some other jerkoff who *does*.

[bshmr]

I certain someone entertains resurrecting Zimbabwe as England's vegetable producing colony for the EU.

[TS.]

At this point, Mugabe's policies aren't doing any good for the people either and he isn't exactly a friend of the poor either (e.g. slum clearing). What would be great would be to see a democratic socialist leader take the reigns.
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[unionist]

[Tehanu]

Reports that police have raided a hotel used by the opposition and another by foreign reporters. Crackdown? Let's hope not. In the meantime there are rumours that Mugabe has privately conceded defeat, but those are of course just that, rumours.

[Tehanu]

The Guardian has just broken the news that Mugabe's aides have approached the MDC with a proposed deal for Mugabe to cede power in exchange for immunity ... and threatening to call a state of emergency if they don't agree.