Zimbabwe - Samantha Power, Time Magazine, July 2008

The entire article in the July 3, 2008 Time magazine may be found by clicking.

As I have previously offered, I am deeply enamored by Samantha Power / and or by her brilliance and her passion. Her writing style is equally engaging and thought-provoking. She could have a huge wart on her nose and chin, and it would be overlooked.

Having clarified my bias, I have to disagree with her set-up of the Zimbabwe question.

Robert Mugabe, mass murderer, killer, thug, dictator, and monster, stole an election in which the majority of people in Zimbabwe (the ones who remained alive and were able and willing to vote) voted for Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe ignored the facts and continued on his merry path as dictator, living in a palatial property (I have previously posted links to it, while his country falls into ruin.

Power informs us that there are two approaches (simply put) to the Zimbabwe issue:
- mutlilateralists, and
- moralists

The multilateralists want to solve the issue through engagement, while the moralists are consequence-blind of the intended outcome.

Power does not believe either position will work. instead, we need a third option, and she provides her thoughts on that option:

Get Kofi Annan (remember Rwanda - he handled that one very well, and will spend eternity in working off the sins of his Rwandan contributions) involved as a representative of the UN.

Get each African leader to take a position on the election and ultimately amass a significant number of African leaders to recognize Morgan Tsvangirai as president. Those countries would then refuse Mugabe and his henchmen entry into their country.

Morgan Tsvangirai would set up a government in exile and carry on like any government from some other location, ultimately resulting onto UN states lining up with Mugabe or Tsvangirai. Forcing member states to face the difficult issue would ultimately force a change. nations tend not to appreciate having confrontational issues offered up for the world to watch, and we would humiliate (this is my term, but basically this is what would be hoped for) them into changing sides and supporting Morgan Tsvangirai.

I hope I summed it up reasonably well Ms. Power.

I understand all you have done in regard to the Rwandan Genocide. From the travels, book, lectures, articles, columns, lobbying, private conversations with government officials - I recognize all of that, but.

Your approach to Mugabe does not end Mugabe's rule this week, month, or even this year. The deaths will continue, the systematic rape, and murder of the innocent will continue. Your approach is more multilateral than not. You believe that the individual member states will do the right thing because. Yet Russia arms the worlds bad guys, while Israel, France, and Germany arm anyone who isn't armed, and the US fills in the gaps to governments in need. The right thing Ms. Power. Rwanda went on for 100 days, as you know, but it had gone on for decades in greater and lesser ranges of violence, Uganda, Burundi, Congo ... and those member states you believe will act ... never did and have yet to act. Sudan. What have the member states done as yet, but offer demands to a government that does not care, and platitudes to the dying.

I do believe Ms. Power that your approach will work, eventually. Do you think Mugabe cares that he cannot land in a few countries. His country will sell goods and import regardless. So he doesn't visit other despotic leaders for life, in other countries - what does he ultimately care? I do not think he does. He prefers countries where money buys access and I assure you, whatever public face is put on it; a few dollars will buy him access to wherever he wants to go - much like Saddam's bribes to various governments, to oppose the US in the UN.

Further, you assume Mugabe is in control. Recent revelations by someone in close proximity to him (the article/news of this is located within an article I have posted and listed under the label Zimbabwe), in attendance at a meeting called by Mugabe after the election at which time he told the attendees he was about to resign, at which time the military informed Mugabe, that he would not be permitted to quit. Imagine how your plan would work out Ms Power - he resigns and the military take control and a bloodbath ensues.

Your policy would perpetuate the actions in Zimbabwe just as Kofi aided indirectly in the genocide of Rwanda. He should not be a UN representative; he should be in the dock.

As I stated above, I do think your policy would work - eventually, and to expedite it, a more aggressive approach would be useful - the moralists, if you will.

Despite the fact you believe the moralists start from flawed assumptions, including the fact that moralists want to revive the Bush Doctrine, I wish you would stay off Iraq, but it is well worth a full discussion.

Ridiculing multilateralism - much like the Bengali approach to Rwanda, or perhaps the UN approach 101 days later. I refuse to ridicule the multilateral approach - I prefer condescension to ridicule. Pathetic is one word to describe multilateral efforts. UN peacekeepers a) end up killing/raping the innocent or, b) end up killed. There is the Bengali approach - we're here for training, not fighting.

I would suggest that world super-powers (the US) has an obligation to act in cases of genocide or comparable, with or without the UN, as provided for in the Rome Statutes.

Whether it is to indict the leader or remove him, demand he leave, force him to leave using all the resources available to the US short of war, while always keeping war as the final option available should all other options fail. You argue that the stick approach (or as you deem it, the Bush Doctrine) is, without a doubt on every level, wrong - I would suggest you have forgotten your book and a theme that ran through Problem from Hell. I feel very comfortable agreeing with Bishop Tutu on this issue, and I am pleased he recognizes the right of a nation to intervene (or the UN) in a member states domestic issues in specific cases. I don't recall where he was with Iraq, but at least he arrived to the party.

Bush offered Saddam 3 years worth of opportunities to leave, flee, go away - Saddam did not believe that Bush was serious due to the incoherence in the multilaterlalist Democratic congress / media, the French, the Germans, the Chinese, the Russians, and the world media.

Had he known what awaited him, that Bush was deadly serious - he would have left. We know he would, because until the last hours, he believed the US would ride in and save his life, put him back in control to stem al-Qaeda influence.

If the US spoke with commitment and determination to Mugabe - leave, take you baggage with you, go to wherever you wish, here is a suitcase of cash - go now. It is, in my opinion, more than likely that he would.

Use your approach, and the stick, and bang the bushes a bit, as you negotiate.

I want him gone as much as you do, for humanitarian reasons. I believe that your approach alone will perpetuate the death, and rape of Zimbabwe; while multilateralists will see Mugabe gone only when he dies of old age.

Samantha Power



Zimbabwe




genocide

Zimbabwe

There are some people, how many, I do not know, but I do know there are some, a percentage, a sizable minority, who believed that Robert Mugabe was working for the poor of Zimbabwe, when the government ordered white landowners off their land.

I know there are some Europeans who agreed with his policy because I talked to several people. Educated, wealthy, very European - and supportive of Mugabe's actions.

What those actions accomplished was a reversal of everything - Zimbabwe is a debtor nation that must import its food or starve. It was the breadbasket of Africa, and today, it imports all its food. There is a direct correlation between the seizing of the farms which sit barren and the end of Zimbabwe as a breadbasket for food production.

In March 2008, Mugabe lost the election he was so sure he would win, and according to the article linked below, was ready to concede on television. He was ready to concede, that is, until the apparatchik that kept him in power - terror, fear, and death, informed him otherwise. He was told he would keep power or the military would stage a coup and keep him in power.

Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, took power in 1980 after a protracted guerrilla war. The notes and interviews make clear that its military supporters, who stood to lose wealth and influence if Mugabe bowed out, were not prepared to relinquish their authority simply because voters checked Tsvangirai's name on the ballots.

"The small piece of paper cannot take the country," Solomon Mujuru, the former guerrilla commander who once headed Zimbabwe's military, told the party's ruling politburo on April 4, according to notes of the meeting and interviews with some of those who attended.


In an effort to give his thugs something in return for their assistance - the murders, threats, burnings, rapes - Mugabe began a process of property seizure. He then turned the property over to a bunch of useless thugs, who like all thugs everywhere, sat on their asses and gloated over what they had taken - lords of their piece of dirt. The farms, once bountiful, producing food for every citizen of Zimbabwe and for much of Africa, were left fallow, and never again produced food. Their Lords oversaw dirt and they were pleased, for in all their hate and jealousy, they didn't care, and Mugabe became wealthier. His home rivals the White House in grandeur and size. The palace is an eyesore, and will be, I hope, reduced to rubble when Mugabe is gone.





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It's a Landslide

Mugabe wins, again.

The African Union, holding a summit in Egypt, recognized the issues in Zimbabwe but also said the "election process fell short of accepted AU standards," but also noted that observers were encouraged that the two main parties "have shown willingness to engage in constructive dialogue as a way forward."

Ok, so I have seized power in a country, brutalized its inhabitants, destroyed the agricultural production of the country to satisfy my hard-core base, redistributed the land to idiots, to keep my hard-core base, have control of the media, military, judicial, army, police, and all other governmental and most civil organizations in the country ... in which case, it is quite likely that I would be willing to ... engage in constructive dialogue, always to take us forward.

What a sham.

This man is as bad as Saddam minus weapons of mass destruction potential. This man is as bad as the janjaweed in Sudan, minus the cloak of Islam. And the AU says they are encouraged by the dialogue.

While I am torturing my opposition, I would always offer them the chance to talk, and discuss their grievances as I lower them into a vat of boiling oil.

And this sham is supposed to make the world feel like the African Union is doing something. That the world cares enough to ...express regret.

And Senator, are these the countries you wish to apologize to? As far as I am concerned, we all need to apologize to the thousands in Zimbabwe who have been attacked, raped, tortured, and killed since you began your crusade to apologize to the world.

After so many months of these posts - I AM REALLY NOT SURE WHO THE HECK YOU THINK WE SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO SENATOR. I AM NOT SURE, BUT I AM PRETTY SURE THERE ISN'T ONE COUNTRY THAT DESERVES AN APOLOGY. But who am I to derail your delusional crusade to apologize.

Maybe you can get the AU to include the US in the 'regret' they feel.














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Zimbabwe

According to a Reuters article, Bishop Desmond Tutu said that the international community has a right to override the sovereignty of Zimbabwe and intervene in the internal domestic affairs of the country.


Hmmm.

Tutu, what side were you on in Iraq?

The UN had resolutions demanding Saddam comply, he refused, he was killing his people, slaughtering them, forcing them to vote, with him as the only candidate, defying the world body ... and he had a desire/interest and ability to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam was, in 100 ways, worse than Mugabe ... yet you call for the international body to intervene in Zimbabwe ...

Hmmm.


World has right to intervene in Zimbabwe: Tutu

Friday, June 28, 2008

LONDON (Reuters) - The world has the right to override Zimbabwe's sovereignty to intervene in its crisis and should consider banning flights as a step to bring pressure, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Friday.


The South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate spoke in an interview broadcast after President Robert Mugabe defied world opinion to hold an election in which he was the only candidate. The opposition withdrew over attacks on its supporters.


Tutu told Britain's Channel 4 television that the "international community has the right now to override the sovereignty argument of the country.


"A government has the obligation to protect its citizens. If it will not protect them then or it is unable to do so then the international community knows now that it has an instrument to intervene to ensure that a situation does not deteriorate further," he said.


Tutu has said he favours the deployment of international peacekeepers to Zimbabwe, suffering economic collapse after 28 years of Mugabe's rule as well as the political crisis.







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Zimbabwe - 3 articles

Rice says U.S. to put Zimbabwe on U.N. agenda

Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:48pm EDT


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Violence and intimidation threaten Zimbabwe's run-off presidential election and the United States intends to bring the matter before the U.N. Security Council next week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a radio interview on Saturday.

"This is a very serious matter and the United States does intend to put it on the agenda of the Security Council next week," Rice told National Public Radio's Weekend Edition.

The southern African country will hold a run-off presidential election on June 27 between veteran President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Official results showed Tsvangirai won a first round in March, but did not secure enough votes for an outright victory.

The opposition party, Western nations and human rights groups accuse Mugabe's supporters of waging a campaign of intimidation ahead of the vote. Mugabe rejects the allegation.

Echoing comments she made at the United Nations on Thursday, Rice said the elections would not be unbiased.

"When you have the president of Zimbabwe saying that he'll never accept an outcome in which the other side wins, or when you have the so-called war veterans intimidating people and accusing opposition leaders of treason, it's kind of hard to see how that's going to be a free and fair election," Rice said.

The United States, which is this month's president of the Security Council, has accused Mugabe of turning Zimbabwe into a failed state that threatens its residents and the stability of southern Africa.

When asked whether she thought the United Nations was prepared to go beyond passing a resolution on Zimbabwe, Rice said, "We believe that unless the Security Council acts, it stands to lose credibility."

******************

NY Times

Assassins in Zimbabwe Aim at the Grass Roots

JOHANNESBURG — Tonderai Ndira was a shrewd choice for assassination: young, courageous and admired. Kill him and fear would pulse through a thousand spines. He was an up-and-comer in Zimbabwe’s opposition party, a charismatic figure with a strong following in the Harare slums where he lived.

There were rumors his name was on a hit list. For weeks he prudently hid out, but his wife, Plaxedess, desperately pleaded with him to come home for a night. He slipped back to his family on May 12.

The five killers pushed through the door soon after dawn, as Mr. Ndira, 30, slept and his wife made porridge for their two children. He was wrenched from his bed, roughed up and stuffed into the back seat of a double-cab Toyota pickup. “They’re going to kill me,” he cried, Plaxedess said. As the children watched from the door, two men sat on his back, a gag was shoved in his mouth and his head was yanked upward, a technique of asphyxiation later presumed in a physician’s post mortem to be the cause of death.

[...]

There have been dozens of killings, thousands of beatings and tens of thousands of people displaced, civic groups, doctors and relief agencies say. Though roadblocks seal off rural areas where most of the abuse is taking place, there are so many surviving victims and witnesses that human rights workers and journalists have been able to catalog much of the brutality. Pain is often inflicted through hours-long pummeling of the soles of the feet and the flesh of the buttocks.

“When Mugabe declares himself the winner, the world must know what he has done,” said the opposition’s director of elections, Ian Makone, who has gone underground and travels only at night. Two of his chief aides have been killed; several others have scattered into exile.

Mr. Mugabe, on the other hand, is campaigning boldly. A vigorous octogenarian, his life span is already more than double the national average in this destitute country, where inflation has gone so berserk that a loaf of bread now costs $30 billion Zimbabwean dollars.

Mr. Mugabe openly portrays the election in the terminology of warfare, a battle to preserve sovereignty against puppets put up by the British, the nation’s onetime colonial masters who in his view want to reclaim the land for white domination. Either he will win, he insists, or he will keep power by force.

“We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot,” he said in a speech last week. “How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?”

[...]

Emmanuel Chiroto, 41, was elected to represent his ward in Harare. Fearful of attacks on his family, he sent his wife, Abigail, 27, and son, Ashley, 4, to stay with her mother outside the city. But on Sunday, fellow city councilors chose him as Harare’s mayor, and his proud wife came home the next day to celebrate, he said.

Soon after she arrived, he was called away because a ward chairman had been beaten up. While Mr. Chiroto was away, two truckloads of men firebombed his home and abducted his wife and child. Opposition party officials hurriedly contacted Tanki Mothae, a Lesotho native who is a key manager of the election monitors from the Southern African Development Community.

“The house was completely destroyed inside,” Mr. Mothae said in an interview. “The furniture, everything, was burned to ashes.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Chiroto’s little boy was dropped off at a police station. Wednesday, his wife’s battered body was found in a Harare morgue.

Mr. Chiroto still has not had the heart to tell Ashley that his mother is dead, he said. The boy told his father he had sat on his blindfolded mother’s lap as she was held captive and then he was left behind as soldiers took her away.

“We need to go get Mommy,” the 4-year-old has told his father over and over. “We have to go! She’s in the bush. Let’s go to Mommy!”


**********************


22 Jun 2008
Sunday Times of Johannesburg


‘Only God will remove me!’

But, ever-immune to criticism, the ageing dictator continued with his hardline rhetoric this week.

Addressing local business people in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, on Friday, Mugabe insisted he would not step aside for the Movement for Democratic Change, which beat his Zanu-PF party in the parliamentary and first-round presidential poll on March 29.

“The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country — never ever,” he declared.

“Only God, who appointed me, will remove me — not the MDC, not the British. Only God will remove me!” [He forgets that he allows elections in which he wins]


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Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa. It's people healthy, educated, well-fed, and able to feed many of Africa's hungriest nations. Today, Zimbabwe imports food. It is the largest, or nearly so, importer. It's once fertile lands stand barren, destroyed by Mugabe when he seized lands / farms that belonged to whites.

He is ruthless, brutal, and a destroyer of nations - and that is just what he does at home. The wealth his nation once had is not lost on him, for his home resembles the White House and Palace at Versailles. Talk about let them eat cake.


He has stated he will never accept the results of an election in which he loses.

WHY is it that the US MUST introduce something into the Security Council?

Why hasn't ANY OTHER NATION done something FIRST? besides yap a good yap?

Why didn't the US do anything about this man in the 1990s, why?

He did not suddenly become a killer. Opposition figures have been routinely attacked, killed, tortured.

Why have we never done anything, why hasn't the UN?

Why?

Why? because the UN - specifically the Security Council is and has been demonstrated to be useless and beyond repair. It serves no purpose but to perpetuate hate and death in the name of stability.

Useless Nations of the World - criticize nations like the US or Australia or UK or Canada or Israel, and get away with it, because we do not act like Mugabe or Amidinejad or Assad or Mubarek or ...

It is disgraceful that none of those civilized countries of Europe that hold the US in such contempt for our actions, that none of them, nor Canada, none - have brought action before (other than to yap a good yap - and to be honest that is all this is, BUT the US has now moved it up a notch).

Disgraceful.


And senator, you wish to apologize to the nations of the world? What bloody planet do you find your morals on Senator because here on earth, none deserve an apology - they need to be making apologies.







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Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe - once an exporter of food to Africa and the world. Zimbabwe - once an advanced and modern state, moving toward greater opportunity for its people. Zimbabwe - a nation of poor, but fed and relatively safe people for any African country. We have to face it, Africa as a continent is not the most stable of lands - almost every attempted genocide in our history has occurred on that continent and given the facts, Zimbabwe was a paradise compared to the hell of so many others.

The farmers produced more than enough food for all the people of Zimbabwe and the exports made Zimbabwe wealthy.

Today, the country is one of the largest importers of food. Its population is starving. Its wealth, gone. Robert Mugabe's reign of terror may be coming to an end.

MAY be coming to an end.

More than five years ago Mugabe seized the land belonging to white farmers. He expelled them. Their land confiscated by the government now sits fallow. His reign of terror MAY be coming to an end.

Why? An election was held and APPARENTLY he lost. Now, in Africa, losing usually means you have to kill a few thousand people and you suddenly win, so it is too early to celebrate, but the opposition has claimed victory and gone in to hiding.
The Independent, April 1, 2008, Opposition Leaders go into hiding

This man WILL, if God is just, end up arrested and tried for crimes against the people of Zimbabwe and imprisoned and or given a pass to hell. He deserves it.

Image from BBC

UPDATE: At 84, he needs to just go away - he has lost. He is trying to weazel a way to escape justice. His purge needs to be purged.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader and a government minister have denied reports that a deal has been reached for President Robert Mugabe to step down. April 1, 2008, BBC.