Help the Zimbabwe Opposition Now!
If you want to challenge Robert Mugabe — who once claimed that he’d be president until 100 years of age — you’ll be lucky to come out of the experience alive.
That’s what makes opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai a true survivor. Tsvangirai’s party announced Sunday that he will pull out of his presidential runoff race against Mugabe in the midst of mounting violence and intimidation.
Tsvangirai is president of the Movement for Democratic Change — something Zimbabwe is aching for after the catastrophic rule of Mugabe — and has survived, by his count, four assassination attempts at the hands of Mugabe’s goons, including a 1997 attempt to throw him out of a 10-story window and a savage beating last year as punishment for proceeding with a banned protest march. After forcing Mugabe to a runoff in the presidential election this year — and let’s face it, the MDC probably won more than 50 percent outright, besides just edging out Mugabe as claimed — Tsvangirai’s return to Zimbabwe to campaign was delayed by word of an assassination plot that allegedly was organized by military intelligence.
Now the man who revealed the damning details of that plot — which allegedly involved 18 snipers being specially tasked with taking out Tsvangirai — will likely be killed by Mugabe.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the MDC, was hauled into a Harare court last Thursday, accused of penning documents that call Mugabe a criminal. Even though that shoe fits, the MDC claims the state’s “evidence” consists of forgeries with “not even an attempt to simulate the accused’s signature.” This opposition is classified as subversion, with capital punishment as the convenient penalty. Biti has been refused bail.
Also last week, 27-year-old Abigail Chiroto, the wife of the mayor of Harare — Emmanuel Chiroto, a member of the MDC — was abducted along with her 4-year-old son; the couple’s house was also firebombed. Abigail’s blindfolded body was discovered hours later, and the boy was released. “My son keeps on saying to me, ‘Daddy, go and get mummy from the forest, go and get her and bring her home’,” Emmanuel Chiroto told the Telegraph.
The MDC estimates that since the first round of voting on March 29, “about 70” opposition supporters have been tortured and killed by operatives of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. A Zimbabwean intelligence officer told the UK’s Channel 4 News last week that the toll is much higher and that the killing will continue through the June 27 runoff. The unidentified active-duty officer, who also confirmed that Mugabe indeed rigged the first round of the vote, said the current goal is to keep people from the polls. “Personally I say to them to use plastic, to burn plastic and put it on their backs,” he said. “What else? To put them in handcuffs. And with iron bars — to beat them the whole night. (And) to put them in water.”
Mugabe promised conflict and more bloodshed — with the assistance of his loyal “war veterans” militia — if the MDC wins in the runoff; most recently, the MDC has proposed an election boycott by the opposition. Mugabe even blocked international food aid shipments to multiple provinces, preferring that his people starve as his government contended the aid was just a front to give a hand to the opposition.
Last Monday, Mugabe vowed to arrest “in broad daylight” those who would try to get him to yield to an election defeat, and was quoted the day before in state-run media as having said, “We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot. How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?”
That certainly says it all, as does the fate that may befall Biti. And yet, the silence of the world is deafening.
“How can global leaders espouse the values of democracy, yet when they are being challenged fail to open their mouths?” Tsvangirai wrote in an April Guardian editorial.
Find someone who cares, or who will even give the maniacal Mugabe his due. Andrew Young, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Jimmy Carter, infamously told the Times of London in 1978 that he was “fascinated by (Mugabe’s) intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible.” Decades of deadly, corrupt rule didn’t seem to change his mind much, as Young incredulously compared Mugabe’s persecution to that of America’s founding fathers in an interview with allAfrica.com in 2002.
Although Condoleezza Rice is pressing the U.N. to take action on Zimbabwe, it’s doubtful that the world body will take concrete action to stem the violence. It will likely take the safer route of generally calling into doubt the fairness of the June 27 vote. But people are dying, and will continue to do so — a one-party runoff vote won’t eliminate the need, in Mugabe’s mind, to eliminate every last drop of the opposition, particularly as the MDC handed him a humiliating defeat in the first round. European Union leaders meeting in Brussels last Friday expressed “deep concern” about the carnage and warned Zimbabwe of further sanctions. But the bloodshed is beyond being solved by another classic EU working group.
“Major powers here, such as South Africa, the US and Britain, must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe’s suicidal reign and oblige him and his minions to retire,” Tsvangirai wrote in the Guardian.
And the MDC leader — whose party’s initials could just as well stand for Marked for Death Constantly — has definitely earned the right to demand real international help.
The Left admires Mugabe – he has dark skin, and is opposed to the USA. Therefore, he is one of the oppressed fighting the man. Everything bad he does is our fault.
The Right has its hands full trying to win Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, it has taken a long time to achieve success there.
Too late. Tsvangirai hs withdrawn from the election.
Tsvangirai’s pullout can only be read one way: We didn’t do enough to make him believe that if he won he could actually take and hold on to power. We’d better start getting a clue pretty quick or Mugabe and his ilk all around the world are going to be walking all over us.
The situation will only worse considerably if Barack “Barry” Obama becomes our next elected national leader. He instinctively believes that America is an imperialist nation guilty of crapping on the black victims of the Third World. Our enemies sense that Obama is an appeaser—and will take full advantage.
How can liberals accuse Bush of being an evil totalitarian when they read this? Do they not realize how blessed we are to live in this country where they can spout their mouths off? Will they treat conservatives as well as they have been treated under Bush? I think they will be more like Mugabe than Bush.
We should have started sending guns instead of food a long, long time ago.
But what white western leader wants to risk being called a racist for taking on a black tyrant? White men seem to be willing to allow any sort of evil these days, as long as no one calls us racist.
How sad that in the 21st century an entire nation is ground to dust while the ‘world community’ dithers. It is high time to withdraw from the UN and for free nations to execute tyrants and dictators.
Too f***ng late.
By about 5 years.
What can we do to get rid of Mugabe? Answer -nothing! If a ruler chooses not to give up ruling the only way to get him to do so is by force of arms.
Mugabe has disarmed the populace so they can only uses sticks and stones. Plus they have no military leaders to organize arm revolt.
If arms had been smuggled they would have to go to group already formed that was capable of using them. There are no such groups.
The people have chosen the ruler by their failure to revolt. Unless people want to go to war, this is not our problem.
As much as I feel sorry for the people who are just trying to get on with their lives in Zimbabwe, this is not our responsibility. As I have said before, the people of Zimbabwe have got to fix their own government. It doesn’t matter how many people must suffer in order for that to happen. If they don’t pay the price, they’ll never have any chance of learning why they need freedom and the rule of law.
If we were to do their work for them by arresting Mugabe, it wouldn’t do anything to their political culture or those who support Mugabe. What needs to happen now is the opposition needs to arm itself, assassinate Mugabe, and kill all of his staunch supporters. Mugabe and his ilk are a cancer, and it’s up to the people of Zimbabwe to cut it out by any means necessary.
The fact that this man is still breathing almost makes me doubt God’s existence. I raise my eyes to the heavens and ask the Lord, “Isn’t there a spare heart attack or brain aneurysm you could send Mugabe’s way?”
Mike T at 5:04am is right, though: Zimbabweans must be the ones to change Zimbabwe. But it’s heartbreaking to see that they’re being beaten into submission like this.
It sounds pretty friggin arrogant for people to say, “they need to take care of the problem themselves”. The American revolution didn’t happen in a vacuum. If the free people of the world are willing to stand by and watch evil happen and do nothing about it, then evil will rule the world.
Is it off topic to point out that Robert Mugabe is yet another mess left over from the Jimmy Carter administration? The Ian Smith white government of Rhodesia had allowed an election and there had been a peaceful transition to a majority government headed by Abel Muzorewa but that was not good enough for Jimmy Carter.
Thanks to Carter’s meddling and pressure, Robert Mugabe took power and then proceeded to murder his political opponents and run that country into the ground.
Wow!
Does one not understand that dictators always remove opposition by using violence, arrest, starvation, murder, and torture? This is why they have police forces, militaries, militias, and secret police, far out of proportion to the population. Not to keep out invaders, but to control the populace.
People cannot revolt under such circumstances.
Unlike in Eastern Europe in the late 80′s and early 90′s when the Communists no longer had the stomach to machine gun all of the protestors. They had done so many times before under the Nazi occupation and under Stalin there were no successful revolts, they were all put done by machine gun, see Tibet today if you do not beleive this is still being done.
Burma shows how it was or is still done in such countries. Zimbabwe citizens cannot revolt since they are under constant surveillance and constant threat of violence to themselves and their families.
So calling for them to revolt, when that is patently impossible, is just a hypocritical or lack of will defense of why you cannot go help them.
The Rambo movie shows exactly what happens when the people revolting have no weapons or are outgunned by the government. So “without weapons there will be no change” to quote the movie.
Regime change is the only option. The only options are guerillas supported from wihtout, or by internal military overthrow, or by elimination of the dictator themselves by foreign intervention.
Zimbabwe has none of these options. Non-intervention seems to be a method for allowing the dictators to kill off the excess population that disagrees with them. That “excess” disagreeing population becomes larger every day so more have to be killed every year to keep the dictator in power.
Smarty said:
“But what white western leader wants to risk being called a racist for taking on a black tyrant? ”
You found it… the true cost of reverse racism. When we fail to act simply because we don’t want to risk being seen as a racist, or because of the color of the tyrant’s skin (and regardless of whether we should or should not intervene) we learn how toxic the topic of race has become.
When the opposition in Zimbabwe wins a battle as significant as the Battle of Saratoga, things may change. The opposition hasn’t even formed a guerrilla army yet, let alone fought any battles against government forces.
I do not think that anyone among the liberals feels anything except revulsion for Mugabe at this point.
The problem here, as with the criminal neglect of their own people by the ruling junta in Burma, is that it’s hard to see a clear way to march into the situation. In both of these cases, it would amount to the UN (or NATO, or whomever) essentially declaring war on the government in control. In the past, that has been done on very rare occasions: an example that kind of worked was Iraq (the FIRST Gulf War); and an example that kind of didn’t was also Iraq (the SECOND Gulf War). Especially given the mess made of Iraq in the Second Gulf War, it’s hard to generate the courage to go back for more.
There has been worldwide denunciation, including by the U.S. and the U.K. One voice that has been sadly lacking is that of Mbeki, the President of South Africa: possibly the one voice that would actually make a difference, given the economic ties between South Africa and Zimbabwe. Yet one more reason that Mbeki will go down in history as a colossal failure, as a leader and a human being. (The other is his insane level of inaction on AIDS in his own country.)
The most useful thing that the U.S. could do at this point is deliver a Hellfire missle from a Reaper. Unfortunately, I don’t think that anyone here has the balls to do it. Mugabe should be snuffed out like the vermin that he is.
Name one thing that the Bush administration has done to curtail Mugabe’s oppression.
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Mark in Texas – it is appropriate to bring up the fact that Jimmy Carter, along with his UN Ambassador Andrew Young, are respnsible for Mugabe’s succession as President of Zimbabwe.
In fact, Andrew Young still clains the Govt. of Zimbabwe as a client of his consulting firm in Atlanta (Google for info if you so wish).
Black Liberation Theology’s end result is Robert Mugabe – a Marxist thug who murdered his way into power, inherited Rhodesia (a jewel of a country) and her boisterous economy, played the game until he was losing power, then slammed the Marxist door down hard in 2000.
What Mugabe is doing now is tame to what he did to his own people during the Rhodesian bush war of 67 – 80. I was there.
“Name one thing that the Bush administration has done to curtail Mugabe’s oppression.”
Name one thing the Bush administration could have done that wouldn’t have set those of your ilk to screaming “Bushhitler unilateralism”!!!
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I grew up in Zimbabwe, and left shortly after ‘independence’ in 1980, and although South African born, I still consider myself a Zimbabwean.
The entire catastrophe that is the current day Zimbabwe was entirely predictable; ZANU (now ZANU PF) used the same tactics they use today to win the 1980 election. Lord Soames the representative of Margaret Thatcher was so busy trying to appease the leaders of the “liberation movements’ that he almost singlehandedly condemned Zimbabweans to their current day fate.
Mugabe, shortly after independence, showed his real nature, by ordering the Gukurahundi Massacre of members of the Ndebele tribe; the supporters of his main opposition in Parliament, Joshua Nkomo,leader of ZAPU. Part of Mugabe’s army, specifically the 5th Brigade with the support North Korean soldiers murdered between 10 and 20000 Ndebele civilians. They operated and received orders directly from Mugabe’s Office (so there will never be any doubt on whose orders the ensuing massacre wascarried out)! Exact figures of those killed will never be known. The 5th Brigade was lead by Perence Shiri, who today is the head of the Zimbabwean Airforce.
This is the same Mugabe who was feted by Western Leaders, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, received honourary degrees from British and American Universities. All this plus a state visit to UK as well.
The failure of the West and others to do anything constructive about the crisis is in my opinion a reaction to the post colonial guilty conscience suffered by the west.
Far better that countless innocent civilians be massacred, than Britian (or the USA) should suffer any finger-pointing by a black African politician.
There was a similar response to the genocide in Rwanda – Britain and the USA knew full well what was about to transpire, but decided it was better to ignore it, in case they offended a black politician.
For similar reasons they pander to Mbeki who, is quite the most duplicitous and reprehensible politician in power today.
But at least let it be said that Thatcher, Major, Blair & Brown didn’t offend a Commonwealth head of state.
I also feel that black Zimbabweans are partly to blame; they have known the truth about Mugabe for almost 30 years. If ever there was a case of “be careful what you wish for” this is it. Yet they did nothing to curtail the power of Mugabe for the best part of 22 years.
Mugabe and his cohorts are savages, nothing more. They will eventually get their day in court, facing a war crimes tribunal. A pity it is ~20 000 deaths too late. This is also a factor in why they refuse to give up power.
Part of the reason Ian Smith in Rhodesia and Botha in South Africa gave up power was because they were ostracized by the larger white community in the world. Perhaps if blacks here and elsewhere protested Mugabe’s rule with some of the same brio that they protested apartheid, Mugabe’s grip would be weakened. Kennedy said that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. Why is that only true of right wing dictators with ties to the US?
Before we can do anything effective against thugs like Mugabe, we must withdraw from the U.N. and work for its dissolution. Then we must organize a coalition of nations willing to commit arms and troops to defeating regimes like that in Zimbabwe and Sudan.
Until there is a real fear in the minds of such men of being overthrown, captured, tried and punished in military tribunals like those in Nuremberg, they will be the rule in the Third World rather than the exception.
We are ashamed to endorse our own principles to the world, if the hatred of George W. Bush is any indicator. So wringing our hands over Mugabe’s bloody atrocities is as pointless as holding a protest demonstration against him in some free country.
Dan Tana: “Name one thing the Bush administration could have done that wouldn’t have set those of your ilk to screaming “Bushhitler unilateralism”!!!”
So, let me get this straight, you’re saying the Bush administration could have done something about Mugabe, but didn’t because it was trying to placate my “ilk”?
Yes, Floridan. You folks on the left are so nasty, so bitchy, so in control of the media message that gutless Republicans are afraid to keep taking the hits to do the right thing. Treasonous, murderous focus for the socialist cause has made your “ilk” willing to sacrifice anything and everything else. Heck, if Bush went in, how many of your brothers in arms would be pushing EUro-weenie governments for war crimes charges?
Personally, I think the solution is to go Pinochet on you leftists, so that we can do the real work that needs doing. But I guess we aren’t ready for that yet.
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
I was in Zimbabwe for a few months in 2000. Beautiful country, but you could see it coming. Since then it has been like a slow-motion train wreck. The White Zimbabweans, some of who’s families had been there for 150 years were in denial.
We escaped to South Africa, where we did extensive travel, and saw the same mentality. Even then South Africans were saying “We’re just 10 years behind them.” South Africa is now where Zimbabwe was in 2000. At least they don’t have Nukes anymore (I hope).
There is a ring of truth to the “white guilt” theory. The African culture is tribal. The Headman gets everything and doles it out to his favorites, starving his enemies. Democracy is an anathema to tribal cultures: witness the Middle East. This culture dominates Africa: Rwanda, Uganda, Cote de Ivore, Sudan, etc. Civilization can’t change it except through force. Force the West is unwilling to exert.
Write it off.
Neither ‘side’ of anglosphere left-right politics has any wish to spend lives or cash fixing Mugabe’s government. True, the feeling in the liberal West was ‘OKI, fixed that!’ when Mugabe took power, and none of our governments wanted to know when he committed the massacres in Matabeleland.
It is very hard to see why any particular government should take the lead. Rhodesia was created by individual entrepreneurship from South Africa, and the link to Britain was a post-hoc symbolic alliance for that project. Britain would be a great choice to lead if they wanted but they have thrown aid that way for decades and seen it go down the toilet. They have no real reason to want it.
I think the more time one spends in Africa the less one believes in easy redemptive political solutions. The paternalism of well-intentioned Western ideas is nice when directly applied, but doesn’t work by shaming aggressive killers into being nice. It needs bayonets and bullets to make a rule of law where the strong pillage the weak.
Hey they wanted a “chocolate city”…They got it. Lets just see what happens in ours…PS right on Smarty
For what it is worth I called the South African Embassy’s department of Economic and Commercial Affairs and expressed my dipleasure with its’ position on Zimbabwe. I relayed my heartfelt interest in visiting South Africa but also how that interest has been shaken of late. If SA fears tourist dollars drying up I bet they will find newfound interest in taking a harder line with the ruling party of Zimbabwe.
“What can we do to get rid of Mugabe? Answer -nothing!”
How about a JDAM strike at 3AM. Turn him, his bedroom, and his palace into a smoking crater.
Make it a matter of state policy to kill tyrants and despots. All we need is a President with some large Brass Cajones.
Bush talked the talk, but he didn’t walk the walk.
As they say in Texas; ‘All hat, no cattle.’
If President Bush had backed up some of his bellicose rants, his job approval rating would be in the 60′s instead of the 30′s.
Not sure which moroon was blowing in his ear, but the program of going soft to try and win over the left was a fools mission from the get go. The Left was never going to support President Bush no matter what he did. And his reaching out to the Left cost him his support on the right.
That plan sounds like something Scott M. would have come up with.
Mike T.
Why the Battle of Saratoga?
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/MilSci/Resources/saratoga.html
That battle was not very important, despite what some historians (ones that live nearby?) say. It was a win, but if it had been lost, it would have not made a difference in the outcome of the war.
As far as Mug the thug goes, there is no chance of guerrillas succeeding today without outside support. None. The campaign in Iraq went on as long as it did only because of support for the Iraqi guerrillas from Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. It is winding down only because Syria and Saudi Arabia have stopped sending money and fighters. Iran has cut way back and once they stop, it will be over.
Afghanistan is still ‘hot’ because Pakistan is supporting the guerrillas there. The Diplomats have done a good job of getting Syria and the KSA to stop mucking about in Iraq, the Iraqi government is working on Iran, with some success it appears. Now the Diplos need to get the message thru to Pakistan.
The main reason the US revolution succeeded was because France sent their fleet over to help out.
Yorktown was THE decisive battle of the revolutionary war. America loses at Yorktown and we are still a colony.
Criteria for a decisive battle is changing the outcome changes history. Saratoga DOES NOT meet that standard. America loses at Saratoga and we fight another battle somewhere else.
http://www.lbdb.com/decisivebattles.cfm
Only Sir Edward lists Saratoga. His reasoning is weak. First win is never enough. If it was, first loss would be also.
Ahh, what one 500lb laser guided bomb could do for an entire nation.
It would seem like the world is witnessing genocide and is not giving the proper reaction here. They promised to act but fail because their house is built on sand.