Archivo etiqueta «Zimbabwe»
By Ben Freeth (THE TIMES, 02/12/08):
All around, the effects of the Zimbabwean land programme are affecting our everyday life. How can people eat when those trying to produce food on the land are still being forcibly removed? How can a country go forward when there is no money being generated from production to allow it to do so?
I spoke to a friend of mine, Deon Theron, who is vice-president of the Commercial Farmers Union. A senior reserve-bank official wanted his farm and so Deon was prosecuted by the police this year. He was found to be a criminal… Seguir leyendo
Por Brian Raftopoulos, director de investigaciones del Solidarity Peace Trust, Sudáfrica (REAL INSTITUTO ELCANO, 26/11/08):
Tema: La mezcla de esperanza y desesperación que siguió a las elecciones de marzo de 2008 en Zimbabue y la violencia que se desató tras éstas dieron paso posteriormente a las nuevas posibilidades ofrecidas por el acuerdo político firmado el 11 de septiembre de 2008 por la Unión Nacional Africana de Zimbabue-Frente Patriótico (ZANU-PF) y las dos facciones del Movimiento para el Cambio Democrático (MDC) lideradas por Tsvangirai y Mutambara, respectivamente.
Resumen: Los múltiples aspectos de la crisis en que se ha visto envuelta la… Seguir leyendo
By Michael Holman, a former Africa editor of the Financial Times, grew up in Zimbabwe. His latest novel is Fatboy and the Dancing Ladies (Abacus) (THE TIMES, 27/10/08):
Most crises blow over. A few blow up. But one or two live in our memories, scars on the conscience of a world that had knowledge of tragedy, the capacity to intervene, yet failed to act.
Zimbabwe is no Rwanda. Not yet. But after enduring years of Robert Mugabe’s thuggery, it has another cross to bear. The country is weeks away from what could become a catastrophe. Already more than two million… Seguir leyendo
By Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa programme at the Royal United Services Institute, London, and a former co-director of the Centre for Defence Studies at the University of Zimbabwe (THE GUARDIAN, 18/09/08):
The events of this week mark a milestone in Zimbabwe’s history. The Harare agreement is a breakthrough that represents the country’s last, best chance of averting apocalypse. Sceptics insist that the deal cannot work; but for millions of suffering Zimbabweans, it is a sweet tea. And the risk is now that the international community might inadvertently undermine this source of hope.
It will not be easy to… Seguir leyendo
By Martin Jacques, a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre (THE GUARDIAN, 30/07/08):
We are but halfway through 2008 yet it has already born witness to a sizeable shift in global power. The default western mindset remains that the western writ rules. That is hardly surprising; it has been true for so long there has been little reason for anyone to question it, least of all the west. The assumption is that might and right are invariably on its side, that it always knows best and that if necessary it will enforce its political… Seguir leyendo
By Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society. His book: Africa Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published in September (THE GUARDIAN, 26/07/08):
It is clear what Robert Mugabe wants to see from the talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began in South Africa on Thursday. On December 27 1987 he sat down with Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) and signed a unity accord. It followed seven years of sustained violence against Nkomo’s party in which some 18,000 people died. The creation of a government of national unity made Nkomo vice-president.… Seguir leyendo
By Peter Preston (THE GUARDIAN, 14/07/08):
It is a matter of principle, surely. Here’s an ageing dictator using every means to hang on in power. His people are starving. Hundreds of thousands flee to a safe haven in the democratic country to the south. Elections are a malign joke. And what does the west do about it? Why, pile in with food aid, trade deals and sweet promises. Prop up the dictatorship for all its worth. Because for the moment we’re talking North Korea, not Zimbabwe: and Pyongyang has (or perhaps had) a little bomb that turned idealism on its… Seguir leyendo
Por Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, escritor y periodista guineano (EL PAÍS, 03/07/08):
Robert Mugabe, el octogenario presidente y principal artífice de la independencia de Zimbabue, se ha vuelto un déspota. Consiguió lo que quería: la presidencia vitalicia. Con la oposición en el exilio, en las cárceles o muerta, puede seguir “hasta que Dios le eche”, según dice. Pero, aunque hace décadas que sus compatriotas padecen su tiranía, los occidentales sólo descubrieron el verdadero rostro de Mugabe en 2001, cuando, para camuflar su incapacidad de resolver los agudos problemas del país, azuzó a sus “veteranos” de la guerrilla a ocupar las tierras de… Seguir leyendo
Por Priti Patel, abogado en el Centro de Litigios de Sudáfrica en Johannesburgo (LA VANGUARDIA, 03/07/08):
Hace unas semanas, el Tribunal Supremo de EE. UU. dictaminó que los detenidos en Bahía de Guantánamo tienen derecho a un hábeas corpus – el derecho a recusar la base fáctica y legal de su detención en un tribunal de justicia-. La decisión me regocijó, después de cuatro años de haber trabajado para asegurar el régimen de derecho en la política de detención e interrogatorio de Estados Unidos, incluida la supervisión de los juicios de comisiones militares en Bahía de Guantánamo. Pero mi felicidad… Seguir leyendo
By Mark Y. Rosenberg, the southern Africa analyst for Freedom House (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 02/07/08):
Now that President Robert Mugabe has been sworn into a sixth term after an election widely viewed as illegitimate, what is the rest of the world going to do about it?
So far, the response has been slow or ineffective; the United Nations Security Council has managed to pass only watered-down condemnations of Mr. Mugabe’s electoral terror because of resistance from South Africa, China and Russia. And Tuesday, the African Union urged Mr. Mugabe to join in a power-sharing agreement — a government of… Seguir leyendo
By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 30/06/08):
Robert Mugabe’s disregard for democracy and human rights is shared to varying degrees by many of the leaders who have been urged to condemn him today at the African Union summit in Egypt. Publicly defenestrating Zimbabwe’s self-declared president might create an uncomfortable precedent for them – and for this reason among others, is thus unlikely to happen.
Hosni Mubarak, veteran host of the meeting of the 53 AU countries, may be said to have set the standard to which others have fallen. He has been repeatedly returned as president with over 90% of the… Seguir leyendo
By Martin Ivens (THE TIMES, 29/06/08):
How Bill Clinton brightens a room. Last week he dropped into town to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday. One minute he was hobnobbing with Elton John and Robert De Niro at a charity dinner – corporate tables a snip at £100,000 – the next he was seen leaving No 10 in what the fashion writer of The Times gushingly described as “a dazzling pistachio shirt, an eye-popping striped tie and a raffish summer jacket in dove grey, the season’s most fashionable shade”.
The only raincloud on our man of mode’s sunny horizon was Mandela’s… Seguir leyendo
By Jonathan Steele (THE GUARDIAN, 28/06/08):
While Zimbabwe’s obscene charade of a runoff election played itself out yesterday, foreign reaction still seemed stuck in two grooves: either Mugabe-bashing or hand-wringing. The former is well justified, after everything the Zimbabwean president has done over the past few months. But, however muscular the rhetoric, it will be no more effective in producing regime change than passive despair.
There is a third way. It goes beyond denunciation and punishment, though it involves bitter medicine. The only route that will avoid yet more bloodshed is a negotiated transition of power in which legal immunity… Seguir leyendo
By Matthew Parris (THE TIMES, 28/06/08):
In politics as in our personal lives, just six words comprise one of the commonest falsehoods around. Those six words are: “It can’t go on like this.” But it can. I’ve come to the melancholy conclusion that in Zimbabwe it must.
This weekend there will be voices in our Prime Minister’s ear suggesting how in one bound he might cast off his dithering reputation. To help to broker the toppling of Robert Mugabe (they will whisper) might be just the sort of history-making that rescued Margaret Thatcher from doldrums at home, before Galtieri invaded… Seguir leyendo
Por Simon Jenkins, columnista habitual del diario The Guardian y un gran experto en Historia militar (EL MUNDO / THE GUARDIAN, 27/06/08):
Robert Mugabe está dejando en ridículo el intervencionismo de corte progresista. Se ha convertido en un regalo de los dioses para caricaturistas, políticos y comentaristas. Las elecciones de hoy en Zimbabue son un buen ejemplo de ello. En occidente lo retratan blandiendo palos chorreantes de sangre. Lo sacan de pie, en actitud de triunfo, sobre un montón de calaveras. Es un Bokassa copiado de un Idi Amin copiado de un Charles Taylor. Es uno de esos tipos que… Seguir leyendo