Once again, Robert Mugabe and his cronies are attempting to maintain their grip on power in Zimbabwe. While disheartening, this act of political thuggery does not diminish the victory of democracy over dictatorship in a country ravaged by misrule and ignorance. Ultimately, this is a victory for the strong hearts and sturdy backs that have carried us here: a victory for all Zimbabweans.
But democracy is an orphan in Zimbabwe. Since the infamous universal declaration of independence in 1965 made by the white government of Ian Smith in what was then Rhodesia - in an effort to block the extension of suffrage to the country's black majority - the cry of democracy has been ignored.… Seguir leyendo »
If you want to understand this week's events in Zimbabwe, a little history might be helpful. For it demonstrates how the responsibility for what has happened in that country over the past two decades lies firmly with Robert Mugabe and the decisions he has made.
The past terrible few years raise questions about how President Mugabe came to power. Was the Lancaster House agreement - which brought an end to the civil war in Zimbabwe and allowed for the victory of Mugabe - a mistake? I am convinced that it was not.
When I became Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Secretary in 1979 the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe problem was near the top of my in-tray.… Seguir leyendo »
While Zimbabwe’s opposition party is claiming victory in its effort to unseat President Robert G. Mugabe, it would be a mistake to count him out. And if Mr. Mugabe prevails, it would be a mistake to continue to isolate him, as Western governments have done for the last decade.
Mr. Mugabe is bad, but he could get worse.
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“My granny was a heathen,” Mr. Mugabe muttered from behind his big wooden desk at his office in Harare, the capital. It was not the sort of comment I had expected to hear from the 84-year-old dictator, but during our 2 ½-hour interview late last year, some of my assumptions about the most enigmatic figure in modern Africa were crumbling.… Seguir leyendo »
Por más que el partido de la oposición de Zimbabue esté reivindicando la victoria en su esfuerzo por desalojar del poder al presidente Robert G. Mugabe, sería un error no contar con él. Por otra parte, si es el señor Mugabe el que se impone, sería un error empecinarse en aislarlo, como los gobiernos occidentales han hecho a lo largo de la última década.
El señor Mugabe es una mala persona, pero podría ser peor.
«Mi abuelita era una salvaje», le he oído decir al señor Mugabe entre dientes desde el otro lado de su enorme escritorio de madera de su despacho presidencial, en Harare, la capital del país.… Seguir leyendo »
Elections supposedly give voters the right to choose. But after 28 years of increasingly dictatorial rule, economic mismanagement, human rights abuses and international sanctions, the choice of what kind of future awaits Zimbabwe still rests with one man: Robert Mugabe.
The 84-year-old president's hold on power, once both legitimate and unchallengeable, has been severely weakened by his own failures, isolation and paranoia, and now by an apparently stunning electoral reverse. All the stuffed ballot boxes in the world may not drown out Saturday's cry of rage.
Yesterday's official silence concerning the presidential election results suggests even the most expert vote-riggers, their dubious skills honed in earlier stolen contests, are at a stand over how to make defeat add up to victory.… Seguir leyendo »
The first time I felt this thing was in 1991, waiting outside the polling station in the Zambian village of Mazabuka and asking wrinkled little men and women coming out if they felt better after voting. Yes, they all said. We want change. Within days, President Kaunda was gone, after 27 years of bumbling, benign dictatorship that brought nothing but poverty.
Two years later I felt it in the wet, lightless streets of Blantyre in Malawi at 4am, where queues coiled endlessly round the buildings. I asked the people waiting in silent determination what they were going to do. Change, they said.… Seguir leyendo »
On April 18 1980, the last outpost of empire in Africa died. From Rhodesia's ashes rose a country that would take its place among the free nations as Zimbabwe, the last among equals. And men and women leapt to embrace this dream called Zimbabwe.
In the long war against the settler regime that preceded independence, the guerrillas kept up their morale by evoking this dream in song. Smith - just hit him on the head until he sees sense, dzamara taitonga Zimbabwe / until we rule a country called Zimbabwe. The struggle for Zimbabwe lit up the imagination of people around the world.… Seguir leyendo »
Tema: Zimbabwe es uno de los Estados fallidos de África debido a la violencia y el monopolio del poder ejercido por el régimen de Mugabe.
Resumen: Zimbabwe es un Estado fallido a punto de explotar. Robert Mugabe y su partido –el Zimbabwe African National Unity Front - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)– llevan en el poder desde la independencia a principios de los ochenta y lo detentan abusando de los resortes del Estado, empleando la violencia y perpetuándose mediante el fraude electoral. Si a esto se añade que la economía del país y la situación humanitaria se deterioran día a día, la situación se convierte en una bomba de relojería, que podría estallar en cualquier momento en forma de guerra civil para la que sólo falta un detonante.… Seguir leyendo »
One of the most reckless and cruel acts of government is the destruction of a currency.
During the hyperinflation of Germany's Weimar Republic, the number of marks in circulation went from 29 billion in 1918 to 497 quintillion in 1923. Workers were paid twice a day and given breaks to spend their money, carted in wheelbarrows, before it became worthless. Most Germans lost their life savings, leaving many prepared to blame others for their impoverishment. The Nazis blamed the Jews.
This kind of hyperinflation is rare in history, but we are seeing it once again, in Zimbabwe. Government officials claim an inflation rate of 66,212 percent (most months they refuse to release inflation figures at all).… Seguir leyendo »
Dan Van der Vat gave a good account of the history and personality of Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia (Obituary, November 21). For Zimbabweans of all races, Smith's death brought back to mind the horrors of the war of liberation against white minority rule.No one can say that any side - guerrilla or Rhodesian - was blameless with regard to the atrocities inflicted on civilians in the rural areas; however, the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children by Rhodesian forces in the refugee camps in Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana from 1975 to 1979 will always linger. And, as Van der Vat points out, Smith "expressed not a word of remorse or regret for his actions"
Black Zimbabweans remember the Smith years as a period when we were not allowed to vote in any meaningful way, we could not eat in "white" restaurants, or swim in community pools, or start school until the age of seven (two years later than white children).… Seguir leyendo »
Talk of a "palace coup" against Robert Mugabe is growing as Zimbabweans seek a way out of the crisis threatening to crush their country.
But increasing numbers cannot afford to wait. Up to one third of the 12.5 million population is already in exile, and an additional 100,000 people flee each month. On these trends, President Mugabe could end up as King of Nowhere.
Speculation about a putsch within the ruling Zanu-PF party centres on Solomon Mujuru, a former army chief, and his wife, Joyce Mujuru, Zimbabwe's vice-president.
General Mujuru's meeting with the British and US ambassadors earlier this year aroused Mr Mugabe's ire.… Seguir leyendo »
South African president Thabo Mbeki's attempt to blame Britain for Zimbabwe's problems may convince fellow leaders at the Southern African Development Community's summit in Lusaka this week. But it is unlikely to bring a peaceful resolution of the country's crisis any closer - and is certain to deepen misgivings about perceived anti-western tendencies in South Africa's international outlook.
The SADC asked Mr Mbeki to mediate between Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change after a brutal crackdown on government critics, including the beating of the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, caused international repulsion earlier this year.… Seguir leyendo »
So, Edinburgh University has finally stripped Robert Mugabe of the honorary degree it awarded him in 1984. It is the first time in the university’s 425-year history that it has revoked an honorary degree - and Mugabe will be afforded a right of appeal.
The university’s sanction came about after a sustained anti-Mugabe campaign by its student body and alumni, local newspapers and MPs. In order to carry it out, the university’s senate first had to alter its rules and then empanelled three professors to examine whether there were grounds to penalise Mugabe.
On June 6, the senate duly announced that there were such grounds.… Seguir leyendo »
When I talked this week with David Coltart, a Zimbabwean member of parliament and human rights lawyer, his office in Bulawayo had been without power for five hours. The central business district of Zimbabwe's second-largest city, he said, was "a ghost town," with "hardly anyone on the streets" and "signs everywhere of total economic collapse."
Four days previously the price for a liter of gasoline had been 55,000 Zimbabwean dollars; that morning, gas stations were advertising $85,000. Inflation, by conservative estimates, gallops at an annual rate of 3,700 percent. Perhaps 3 1/2 million people -- about one-fourth of the population -- have left the country in a massive drain of youth and ambition.… Seguir leyendo »
When the heads of state of the Southern African Development Community convened last week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to discuss the political situation in Zimbabwe, hopes among the Zimbabwean people ran high. President Robert Mugabe had recently extended his brutal efforts to crush dissent from his political opponents to include ordinary Zimbabweans. His ruling party left a trail of fractured bodies and two dead in its most recent crackdown.
With the economy in shreds and the tense political situation posing a security threat not only to Zimbabwe but potentially to its neighbors, too, there was an expectation that African leaders would finally act.… Seguir leyendo »
Ever since Zimbabwe began imploding in 2000, the conventional punditry about its president, Robert Mugabe, has largely been of the good-leader-turns-bad variety. Now, as the country’s economy enters its death throes — hyperinflation at 1,700 percent and expected to exceed 5,000 percent by year’s end; unemployment at 80 percent; the average person’s purchasing power at 1953 levels; life expectancy the lowest in the world; an exodus of Africa’s most educated population — it would seem a good time to re-examine that orthodoxy and decide what the West can do to ease the dictator’s departure.
In fact, Mr. Mugabe has been a completely consistent leader.… Seguir leyendo »
Zimbabwe, long plagued by the repressive leadership of President Robert Mugabe, has reached the point of crisis. Leaders of the democratic opposition were arrested and beaten, and one was killed, while attempting to hold a peaceful prayer meeting on March 11. Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, emerged from detention with a swollen eye and a fractured skull. Several days later, Nelson Chamisa, the movement's spokesman, was stopped en route to a meeting with European officials and beaten with iron bars. Other activists have been prevented from leaving the country to seek medical treatment for wounds inflicted by police.… Seguir leyendo »
In another life I used to go on “delegations”. One of my first was to Lisbon in 1976, to represent the National Union of Students at a grand meeting of antiapartheid movements from all over the world. We were a jolly bunch on the British team: Commies, Liberals, Labour people, as well as London-based exiles from South Africa. There was the fabulously brave South African lawyer, Albie Sachs, later terribly injured by a South African car bomb in Mozambique, and I think Aziz Pahad attended too.
I liked Aziz. A pale-skinned Indian South African, wiry and short-bearded, with a chalky, high voice, he had left South Africa after the Rivonia trial, in which Nelson Mandela was condemned to prison, and came to London to work for the African National Congress.… Seguir leyendo »
The latest spasm of violent repression in Zimbabwe has sparked speculation that the era of Robert Mugabe may finally be drawing to a close. But the country's self-styled founding father and president since 1980 shows no sign of leaving voluntarily - and it remains unclear who or what can force him out.
Rather than loosening Mr Mugabe's grip on power, factional rivalries within the once monolithic ruling Zanu-PF party have enabled him, so far at least, to divide and neutralise his critics. Disaffection within the army and police over the impact of inflation on wages and prices - a national affliction - has encouraged absenteeism and desertion but as yet no overt mutiny.… Seguir leyendo »
If Tony Blair had wanted to sponsor a military adventure that would have played brilliantly with the British middle class, instead of sending the army to Afghanistan and Iraq he would have dispatched it to Zimbabwe. In Hartlepool and Hemel Hempstead, there was never much spleen against the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. A great many people, however, hate Robert Mugabe.This is, of course, the fruit of his persecution of the shrinking band of white farmers in his country - our own kith and kin, to use a phrase that became familiar during the 14 years of Ian Smith's illegal white regime in Rhodesia.… Seguir leyendo »
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