Mbeki's shame (with updates)

Whenever South African president Thabo Mbeki's offers a pronouncement on Zimbabwe, no intelligent person takes him seriously anymore. His 'quiet diplomacy' has been a joke but he refuses to admit it.

Consider this recent analysis of the situation in Mugabeland (a better description of the country since it's become the personal fiefdom of the despot and his cronies) made by the discredited Mbeki.

He told The Financial Times that he believed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would peacefully renounce power at some point.

At some point.

What the heck does that mean?

More meaningless nonsense from Mbeki.

"You see, President Mugabe and the leadership of [the ruling] Zanu-PF believe they are running a democratic country," he said. "That's why you have an elected opposition, that's why it's possible for the opposition to run municipal government [in Harare and Bulawayo]."

Riiiiiiiight.

That's why opposition members and leaders are regularly brutalized by Mugabe's thugs and criminals.

The reality is that there are only two ways that Mugabe will ever leave power. Either death by natural causes or a mass popular uprising that loses him the support of the military and his insecurity forces who push him out. Given the militias that are loyally to him personally, I can't imagine the second scenario would play out without bloodshed.

Mbeki is helpless and clueless when it comes to Zimbabwe. That may not be his fault but since it's the case, he'd be better off keeping his mouth shut rather than being a fool and a joke before the world.


Update: More news from 'democratic' Mugabeland that would make Mbeki blush if he had any shame. A columnist in Mugabe's Herald newspaper made veiled death threats against Gillian Dare, political and media officer for the UK embassy in Zimbabwe.

GILLIAN DARE, the purse holder and financier of the violence being perpetrated by the MDC, should be aware that by throwing all diplomatic etiquette into the dustbin and putting on her combat gear she has become a prime target for deportation.

Not only that, there is also a real possibility that the political officer, labelled in some sections of the media as a British spy, could one day be caught in cross fire as she plays night nurse to arrested MDC hooligans.

It will be a pity for her family to welcome her at Heathrow Airport in a body bag just like some of her colleagues from Iraq and Afghanistan.

They tried to murder Tsvangirai and other opposition members, so why not Dare?

Ah yes. Such is paradise, President Mbeki.


Further update: Ms. Dare should view these as no empty threat. Mugabe's thugs murdered a cameraman (from the state television station, mind you) who ran TV pictures of the brutally beaten opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. These images went around the world and caused even more pressure to be placed upon the Mugabe dictatorship.