Zimbabwe Update

I haven't posted on conditions in Zimbabwe for some time. The reason is that things keep getting worse and worse, and there is no end in sight. It's dispiriting as all get out. Mad Bobby Mugabe has turned a once thriving country into a Marxist/Maoist hell on earth.

How bad is it?

Faced with out of control inflation, Bobby did what any good leftist would -- impose radical and wide-ranging wage and price controls. The results were entirely predictable:

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, July 28 — Robert G. Mugabe has ruled over this battered nation, his every wish endorsed by Parliament and enforced by the police and soldiers, for more than 27 years. It appears, however, that not even an unchallenged autocrat can repeal the laws of supply and demand.

One month after Mr. Mugabe decreed just that, commanding merchants nationwide to counter 10,000-percent-a-year hyperinflation by slashing prices in half and more, Zimbabwe’s economy is at a halt.

Bread, sugar and cornmeal, staples of every Zimbabwean’s diet, have vanished, seized by mobs who denuded stores like locusts in wheat fields. Meat is virtually nonexistent, even for members of the middle class who have money to buy it on the black market. Gasoline is nearly unobtainable. Hospital patients are dying for lack of basic medical supplies. Power blackouts and water cutoffs are endemic.

Manufacturing has slowed to a crawl because few businesses can produce goods for less than their government-imposed sale prices. Raw materials are drying up because suppliers are being forced to sell to factories at a loss. Businesses are laying off workers or reducing their hours.

The chaos, however, seems to have done little to undermine Mr. Mugabe’s authority. To the contrary, the government is moving steadily toward a takeover of major sectors of the economy that have not already been nationalized.

Yeah, that'll help!

Read the whole thing here.

What is Wrong with Africa and the UN

From the BBC:

Zimbabwe has been elected to head the UN's commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) despite strong objections from Western diplomats.

They had said Zimbabwe was unsuitable because of its human rights record and economic problems. It is suffering food shortages and rampant inflation.

But Zimbabwe has dismissed such criticism, calling it an insult.

The country was chosen by other African nations....

That's right, Mad Bobby Mugabe and his ZANU-PF goons, who have destroyed Zimbabwe, will be heading up a commission on development. And, this monstrosity was brought about by the votes of other African states.

Sheer insanity! It is things like this that make it impossible to take seriously anything that the UN does these days.

Read about it here.

Zimbabwe in Pictures

The Guardian has published a photo-essay on conditions in Mad Bobby Mugabe's racist/Maoist hell on earth. Pictured here, scavengers at a municipal garbage dump.

Check it out here.

Zimbabwe Update -- The New Yorker Deigns to Notice

Philip Gourevitch has a piece in the latest New Yorker describing the ongoing catastrophe in Zimbabwe that marvels at Mad Bobby Mugabe's successful defiance of western pressure. What the article does not notice is that Mugabe's monstrous regime is the logical outcome of Maoist, anti-colonialist ideology. The failed state, the brutal suppression of dissenters, the demonization of the West..., all too familiar.

Read it here.

Zimbabwe Update -- Disappearances

Mad Bobby Mugabe has moved his campaign to utterly eradicate any source of dissent onto a new level. M&C News reports:

Harare/Johannesburg - The whereabouts of nine Zimbabwean opposition activists was unknown Sunday after a late-night raid on their hospital by a group of soldiers, an opposition spokesman said.

The activists were being treated at a private clinic in central Harare for beatings sustained while in police custody. They were arrested Tuesday and Wednesday during raids on their homes and on the headquarters of their Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

And so it goes..., and so it goes.

Read about it here.

Mugabe Gets a Pass

I hate to say "I told you so!" [well, actually I love to say it], but I have long held, contrary to the opinion of innumerable IR specialists, that African leaders could not be induced to take action against the genocidal regime of Mad Bobby Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

The Times [of London] reports:

Zimbabwe’s neighbours fell in behind the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe yesterday and demanded that the West lift all sanctions on his country.

With opposition growing at home and a crumbling economy, pressure was mounting on the heads of surrounding states to urge their friend and comrade to reconsider his position. But in a communiqué issued at the end of what was billed as a make-or-break summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), 14 leaders reaffirmed their solidarity with the veteran President of Zimbabwe.

Their words will come as a crushing blow to campaigners who believed the tide to be turning against his increasingly autocratic 27-year rule.

Mr Mugabe smiled as he pushed past reporters in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, and declared himself satisfied. “Excellent meeting,” he cried, clapping his hands gleefully, before climbing into a waiting limousine.

Read it here.

Zimbabwe Update -- And So It Begins

Zim Online reports:

HARARE – Zimbabwe police on Wednesday arrested main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a raid at his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party headquarters in Harare, a party spokesman told the media.

Tsvangirai was due to brief the Press on the alleged abduction of MDC activists by suspected government secret agents when heavily armed police pounced, nabbing the opposition politician and about 20 members of the administrative staff.

Read it here.

Contrary to the Pollyannish maunderings of the MSM and European Dips Mad Bobby Mugabe has remained true to form. In other words, he is reacting to pressures to step down in a characteristically ruthless way. Arresting the leadership of the opposition party is just the first step of this response. A very bad season is coming.

Zimbabwe Update -- Mugabe Mobilizes His Base

As criticism mounts, Mad Bobby Mugabe is turning to his most reliable supporters.

The Scotsman reports:

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is drafting his feared war veterans into a specially created army reserve as he steps up a clampdown on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Former fighters in Zimbabwe's guerrilla war of the 1970s will be given military training and will be deployed for military duties, according to a special government gazette printed in Harare yesterday.

....

Mr Mugabe knows he can count on the loyalty of his war veterans. He used them to spearhead the violent invasions of hundreds of white-owned farms in 2000.

War veterans were also used to beat and intimidate rural voters ahead of parliamentary elections in 2000 and presidential elections in 2002.

Read the whole thing here.

If the old monster holds true to form this is all a prelude to a major wave of violence. Let us hope it can be avoided.

Zimbabwe Update -- Is This the End of Bobby?

Let us sincerely hope so!

BBC Reports:

[I]nfluential members of the ruling party and the Opposition are mapping out an end to the Mugabe era.

Opposition sources say leading members of President Robert Mugabe's own party have discussed how to sideline their longstanding leader.

Mr Mugabe's iron grip on his own party is gradually loosening. Two factions inside the party, led by former security chief Emmerson Mnangagwa and the former head of the Army, Solomon Mujuru, have held talks to try a find an exit strategy.

They have met Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was beaten by police after being arrested at an anti-Mugabe rally earlier this month.

The talks have been held in the run-up to a key meeting of the central committee of the ruling Zanu-PF party, due to be held next week, at which Mr Mugabe will confront his critics.

Read the whole thing here.

But don't get your hopes too far up. Mugabe's demise has been predicted before and the old madman is still around. Also, note that the source for this report is the opposition leadership which has never been right about anything in the past. And there is also the possibility that Mad Bobby's "critics" will either recant or fail to live long enough to attend the upcoming party meetings.

And, even if a coup is in the making, there is no real likelihood that Bobby's successor will be any improvement. Emmerson Mnangagwa has been complicit in the worst of Mugabe's crimes against humanity and heads a criminal conspiracy that has made him the richest man in Zim.

Solomon Mujuru is no better. His crimes have been so great that he and his wife have been personally singled out for sanctions by western governments.

Both men have strong institutional and tribal power bases and have long hated each other. Should Mugabe be removed, there is a strong possibility that they will square off in a bloody civil war.

So don't get your hopes up too much. Just a little.

Zimbabwe Update

I've been chronicling the ongoing disaster that is Mad Bobby Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe. Gateway Pundit has a roundup on the latest atrocities here.

Check out these stats:

Rate of Inflation: 1,740%.
Unemployment: 80%.
HIV infection rate: 33%.
Life expectancy: 34.

I blame Bush.

Mugabe Strikes Again

Mad Bobby Mugabe is up to his old tricks again.

The Times reports:

The leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party needed hospital treatment for severe head injuries after police beat him following his arrest at a prayer rally on Sunday, his party said.

Morgan Tsvangirai required surgery to his wounds at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare early yesterday, said an official from his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The MDC leader was arrested in the impoverished township of Highfields where he had gone to attend a prayer rally. Dozens of opposition officials, rights activists and churchmen were also detained.

Read about it here.

Hope for Zimbabwe? Perhaps

The International Crisis Group released a report last week suggesting that Mad Bobby Mugabe's long reign of terror in Zimbabwe may at last be coming to an end due to pressure from the US and EU.

The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of European Union (EU) and U.S. targeted sanctions, is pushing ZANU-PF [Mugabe's party] towards change, since business interests of key officials are suffering. The party is split over the succession issue but Mugabe’s long successful divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire as the two main factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying beyond the expiration of his present term in March 2008. They showed their strength by blocking his proposed constitutional amendment at the party’s annual conference in December 2006 and will seek to do so again at the central committee in March so they can explore a deal resulting in his retirement to make way for moderate leaders who could negotiate with the MDC and civil society on transitional mechanisms, seek SADC endorsement and reengage with the West and foreign investors.....

The desire to remove Mugabe within the year provides a rare rallying point that cuts across partisan affiliations, and ethnic and regional identities.

Will they get rid of the old monster? We shall see, we shall see.

But, as the report reminds us:

A deal that merely removed Mugabe while in effect maintaining the political status quo by keeping ZANU-PF in power would be no change at all.

Read it here.

ZANU-PF had its origins as an anti-colonial Maoist revolutionary group, but under Mugabe's leadership has degenerated into a gang of thugs. It is very unlikely that they will relinquish any of their power or privileges willingly. At this point the most likely outcome of Mugabe's removal will be a power struggle that could easily turn into civil war.

We shall see, we shall see.

Zimbabwe -- The "Other Genocide"

Over the past few years I have written often about the horrific atrocities perpetrated by Mad Bobby Mugabe and his ZANU-PF gang of thugs in Zimbabwe. There has been little attention paid to these matters in the MSM.

Well-meaning transnationalists in the EU and elsewhere have from time to time hoped that some external agency, the "weight of international opinion", the ANU, South Africa, or NATO, might bring an end to Mugabe's atrocities. Other romantics have hoped for an indigenous revolt. But these have been hopeful fantasies, doomed to failure in the face of Mugabe's ruthless suppression of opposition. In fact, Mugabe's witches' brew of racism, Maoism, and post-colonial resentments, has threatened to spread into South Africa and other regional states.

At long last there are some signs that the MSM are beginning to waken to the horrors being perpetrated in what used to be one of the most prosperous lands in Africa. The New Republic has just published a piece calling Mugabe's policies what they are, barely concealed genocide.

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.

Read it here. It serves as a good introduction to this ongoing tragedy.

It is far too much to hope for decisive action from the West. Britain and the EU are overly sensitive to charges of racism and imperialism that Mugabe and his cronies regularly issue against them. The US has started to take notice because Mugabe has been trying to strike a deal with China which is expanding its presence in Africa, but has more important interests elsewhere. Other African states are loath to intervene, in part because Mugabe is still viewed by many throughout sub-Saharan Africa as a heroic figure of the anti-colonial struggle, but also because many of them have been guilty of similar, if lesser, atrocities in their own countries.

So Mugabe's victims have only the forlorn hope that the old monster will finally die -- he's 83. But that is not likely to bring relief. Many of Mugabe's cronies are at least as bad as he is, and a power struggle within ZANU-PF is likely to unleash even worse horrors on the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Heats Up

The collapse of Zimbabwe's economy has at long last spurred significant protest against Bobby Mugabe's insane regime. The Telegraph reports:

President Robert Mugabe's regime tried to suppress rising discontent across Zimbabwe yesterday by banning all opposition political gatherings.

Heavily armed riot police enforced this edict by preventing one rally from taking place in the capital, Harare, and breaking up another in Bulawayo on Saturday.

Although the law had previously forced the opposition to seek police permission for any gathering, an outright ban has never been imposed before.

Kembo Mohadi, the home affairs minister, verbally informed an opposition politician that the cabinet had decided to proscribe all rallies last week.

What is more the proscription was enforced brutally:

They prevented Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of one faction of the divided Movement for Democratic Change, from telling his supporters that he would contest the next presidential elections, supposedly due in March 2008 but likely to be postponed.

Riot police assaulted several people and arrested others when they tried to gather for the meeting.

Police set up roadblocks and fired Israeli-made water canons at the crowd. In Bulawayo, another faction of the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara defied a police ban and marched through the city. Scores of people were arrested and assaulted.

Read about it here.

In the past Mad Bobby has been able to respond quickly, efficiently, and brutally to any emerging protest, but this time, as his personal support within ZANU-PF [his political faction] disintegrates, things might be different.

Zimbabwe Update -- Is This the End of Bobby?

Bobby Mugabe's malignantly insane witches brew of racism, Maoism, and anti-colonialism has damaged Zimbabwe to the point where even ZANU-PF is starting to disobey the old monster.

Michael Wines in the NYT reports:

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 6 — For close to seven years Zimbabwe’s economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, people there say, with one notable difference: the pace is no longer so slow.

Indeed, Zimbabwe’s economic descent has picked up so much speed that President Robert G. Mugabe. the nation’s leader for 27 years, is starting to lose support from parts of his own party.

In recent weeks, the national power authority has warned of a collapse of electrical service. A breakdown in water treatment has set off a new outbreak of cholera in the capital, Harare. All public services were cut off in Marondera, a regional capital of 50,000 in eastern Zimbabwe, after the city ran out of money to fix broken equipment. In Chitungwiza, just south of Harare, electricity is supplied only four days a week.

The government awarded all civil servants a 300 percent raise two weeks ago. But the increase is only a fraction of the inflation rate, so the nation’s 110,000 teachers are staging a work slowdown for more money. Measured by the black-market value of Zimbabwe’s ragtag currency, even their new salaries total less than 60 American dollars a month.

Doctors and nurses have been on strike for five weeks, seeking a pay increase of nearly 9,000 percent, and health care is all but nonexistent. Harare’s police chief warned in a recently leaked memo that if rank-and-file officers did not get a substantial raise, they might riot.

Read it here.

The situation is actually much worse than the Times reports. See here, here, here, here, here, oh Hell, just search my blog for "Zimbabwe" -- there are dozens of posts.