A Taste of Zimbabwe in Albany

I received information about a fundraiser in Albany, NY to support girls in Zimbabwe made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. It is sponsored by the Dangwa Initiative and the Rotary Club of the Empire Plaza.

A Taste of Zimbabwe will be held on Friday November 20 from 7:00 pm until midnight at The Linda (WAMC Performing Arts Studio).

It will feature living Zimbabwean music by Fafi 3 Percent, the sale of Shona sculptures and Zimbabwean cuisine.

Donation is $25 for adults, $20 for students ($35 at the door).

For reservations, please call (518) 459-2914 or email: info @ dangwa.org

You can pay online at: wamcarts.org/artsched.html

Or you can mail checks (payable to: FCNY/Dangwa Initiative) to:

Dangwa Initiative
PO Box 5125
Albany, NY 12205

For further information, you can call Teresa at (518) 221-9423

Zim power "sharing" government sworn in

The long-awaited national unity government in Zimbabwe was sworn in last week. Morgan Tsvangirai, who should have been inaugurated as president based on last year's vote, was instead sworn in as prime minister by the long-time dictator Robert Mugabe. Several other members of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were also sworn in to the cabinet.

But it remains to be seen whether Tsvangirai and MDC cabinet members will have any real power, as Mugabe and his cronies will surely be loathe to relinquish their perks.

As the UK Independent notes: The first litmus test will be the sacking of Gideon Gono, the man who has bankrolled the Mugabe regime from his post as head of the central bank. "Clearly he's got to go," said the source. "Otherwise there will be no coherence on the economy and the international community won't give us the time of day."

If Prime Minister Tsvangirai is unable to wrest any real power away from the Mugabe cabal, then nothing will happen and the 'national unity' government will collapse.

I am reminded of the power sharing agreement in Guinea that ended the 2007 general strike. Then-head of state Lansana Conté accepted the union's pick for prime minister Lansana Kouyaté and some cabinet positions. But Conté and his cabal obstructed Kouyaté and the technocrat ministers, nothing got done and Kouyaté was eventually sacked by Conté replaced by another crony. Conté deftly diffused the momentum toward contestation without solving any of the underlying problems.

There is a serious risk that the same will happen in Zimbabwe. Ultimately, it's impossible to see Zimbabwe's implosion halting while Mugabe and his thieves are still in power. Just today, it was reported that Mugabe bought a $5.7 million house* in Hong Kong while his people are starving and dying of cholera.

(*-Of course, that's $5.7 million in US dollars. That amount in Zimbabwean dollars wouldn't even buy a quarter of a loaf of bread)

As if to illustrate the criminals' desperation, the MDC deputy agriculture minister-designate was arrested by the regime on trumped up terrorism charges.

When will Zim's unemployment rate reach 80 pct plus one?

An estimated 80 percent of Zimbabweans don't have jobs in what used to be called the bread basket of southern Africa. It makes you wonder when 'President' Mugabe and his cronies will cease having theirs. Especially since the unemployment rate is far from the worst statistic one could've cited for this country ruined by the unimaginable greed and egos of a tiny elite.

Who supports Mugabe and who opposes him

The reaction of African leaders to the Mugabe-made crisis in Zimbabwe is revealing. In most cases, the reaction is predictable based on the personal history of the leaders in question.

Bob Mugabe's election 'victory' has been denounced by leaders like Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga.

Sirleaf was cheated victory in 1997 in an election under very similar circumstances; one that was rigged and tarred by massive violence by thugs loyal to the 'winner' warlord (and later indicted war criminal) Charles Taylor.

Odinga was named prime minister of a national unity government following elections that he claims was rigged by the incumbent in which saw serious ethnic violence in which some 1500 people were killed.

Mugabe's 'win' was also rejected by neighboring Botswana, the only country in Africa that has been a democracy non-stop since independence.

Mugabe's betrayal was also criticized by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African president and political prisoner Nelson Mandela, two men who know more than a little about living under an undemocratic regime that commits massive human rights abuses and practices state terror.

While Mugabe and his apologists often invoke scapegoats like the British and American leaders, their smokescreen conveniently ignores the avalanche of criticism and disrespect he's receiving from Africans themselves.

By contrast, the African heads of state who endorsed Mugabe's state terror and fraud of an election tended to be those who engaged in such activities themselves.

The Zimbabwean tyrant was endorsed by one of his own: Gambia's Yayah Jammeh, a great patron of human rights. Of course, Jammeh's policy on AIDS has been about as effective as Mugabe's.

Even Senegal, once seen as a beacon of democracy in Africa, is towing the pro-Mugabe line. Not surprising since President Abdoulaye Wade's administration has been under heavy criticism domestically for its increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

Senegal's foreign minister imploed that the West should "leave us [Africans] alone and [that] we be left to decide our own destinies."

I'm sure the Africans in Zimbabwe would be thrilled for the privilege of being allowed to decide their own destinies, in much the same way the Senegalese did in 2000.

The main exception to this trend is, of course, the shameless appeasement of South Africa's Thabo Mbeki.

Something like 22 of the over 50 African Union heads of state came to power via un-democratic paths, so it's hardly surprising that Mugabe was greeted so warmly at the recent AU summit in Egypt (a country that's been under de facto martial law for 27 years).

Death knell to Zim's Re-Liberation Struggle?

The leader of Zimbabwe’s Re-Liberation Struggle has sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare in fears for his safety.

The move occured only hours after Morgan Tsvangarai, who'd won the first round of presidential voting a few months ago but saw results rigged to deny him the majority he'd earned, pulled out of the upcoming runoff after dozens of opposition supporters were murdered in a well-organized series of pogroms by thugs loyal to megalomaniac Bob Mugabe.

The tyrant, who some speculate is suffering from dementia, invoked Divine Right to rule the nation he considers his personal fiefdom. He claimed that God chose him to rule Zimbabwe and that 'only God' could remove him.

Mugabe's mother lived over a century.

The implication of the withdraw on Zimbabwe's Re-Liberation Struggle is unclear. Tsvangarai surely hopes the withdrawal will cause the international community to pressure the Mugabe mafia

The UN has already called for a poll delay, the Bush administration has condemned Mugabe-inspired violence against the opposition and the effete South African President Thabo Mbeki has made a 41,024th weak-kneed plea to Mugabe to not be quite so ill-tempered... pretty please with sugar on top.

But Mugabe has thumbed his nose at international pressure for years, even used to his own defiant advantage. So it begs belief that anything will change this time.

Ostriches realize how far in the sand their heads were buried

The miserable failure South African president Thabo Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' appeasement vis-a-vis Zimbabwean dictator Bob Mugabe has been evident for years. While a noble endeavor in the beginning, Mbeki should've realized years ago that the policy had failed and that a new approach was required. Mbeki continues deluding himself into believing that his approach was actually bearing fruit, despite the meltdown of the Zimbabwean economy, despite the massive influx of refugees from the country into South Africa, despite the all out war against the opposition, despite Mugabe's poll theft from President-elect Morgan Tsvangirai and most of all, despite Mugabe's all out war against Zimbabwean citizens.

But apparently he's not the only South African who's been deluding himself. This piece from South Africa's Business Day (via allafrica.com) reports: RETIRED South African army generals investigating post-election violence in Zimbabwe have uncovered "shocking levels" of state-sponsored terror, sources close to them say.
The continued violence makes any chance of a peaceful runoff election "almost impossible", they say.

That they were shocked by the level of state-sponsored terror, something that's hardly new in Zimbabwe, is testament to the clueleness (willful ignorance?) of the South African intelligence apparatus. Something that's fairly astonishing considering all the information made available by local and international human rights groups.

Though unlike Mbeki, at least the South African generals have recognized and trying to rectify their ignorance.

'Neutral' Chinese prop up Mugabe's terror

It's now more than three weeks that Bob Mugabe and his lemmings have been trying to steal the clear victory of President-elect Morgan Tsvangarai in Zimbabwe's elections.

Apparently, Tsvangarai's victory was so convincing that Mugabe's cronies can't simply rig it with a straight face. For a regime that cares so little about international opinion, this shows how overwhelming the opposition leader's victory really was.

But the assault by Mugabe's ZANU-PF cult is more than just theft. It's an all out war against Zimbabweans.

The one-time 'liberation movement' is setting up torture camps in order to beat, torture, and intimidate opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans, according to victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch.

HRW spokeswoman Georgette Gagnon also slammed the southern African regional grouping SADC and its mediator, South African president Thabo Mbeki. “The SADC and President Mbeki have completely failed Zimbabweans, and are allowing ZANU-PF to commit horrific abuses,” she said. “The African Union should assume responsibility for protecting civilians from rising violence, and ending the political impasse before Zimbabwe sinks deeper into disaster.”

This is the same Mbeki who's not only Mugabe's chief regional apologist, but whose government allowed an arms shipment from China into Zimbabwe to help facilitate Mugabe's war against Zimbabweans.

The ZANU-PF criminals are targetting humanitarian operations in perceived opposition strongholds.

But China's involvement* in Zimbabwe is not limited to arming Mugabe's death squads.

According to reports, Chinese soldiers have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe.

This would not be the first time that Mugabe turned to the military of an Asian dictatorship to commit politicide.


[*-Note: Yes, this is the same China that regularly brags about its non-interference in African domestic politics.]

SA allows arm shipment for Mugabe's campaign of terror

Two and a half weeks after Morgan Tsvangarai was elected president in Zimbabwe, the Mugabe-appointed electoral commission has refused to release even preliminary results.

As much as two weeks ago, President-elect Tsvangarai warned that outgoing strongman Bob Mugabe and his cronies would attack their fellow Zimbabweans. Tsvangarai predicted that the so-called war veterans, which are nothing more than otherwise unemployed criminal gangs of youths, were being prepared to wage "a war on the people".

Now evidence has been revealed to show that to the surprise of no one, President-elect Tsvangarai was probably right. A large arms shipment from China destined for Zimbabwe (a country at war with any of its neighbors) was unloaded in South Africa. China, as you may recall, has also been accused of arming the genociders in Sudan.

The government of South African President Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe's chief regional apologist, has vowed that it wouldn't 'interfere' with the shipment.

Majority rule for Zimbabwe!

It's been over two weeks since opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai was elected president of Zimbabwe. In that time, the ruling ZANU-PF mafia have been trying to rig results so preserve their rule and that of dictator Bob Mugabe. But what was expected to be a simple rigging process, undertaken many times in Zimbabwe's history, has become complicated by a number of factors.

Among them:

-International pressure on Zimbabwe's regional allies who in turn put pressure on the Mugabe regime;

-The unexpectedly well-organized opposition;

-The announcement by Zimbabwean officials that the opposition had gained control of the parliament.

The last two events are the most surprising. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change had been divided and disorganized following an internal power struggle. But the party seems to have been well-prepared for this election, despite the pre-election violence in the country that made campaigning (for the opposition) nearly impossible.

International pressure on other southern African countries have borne surprising results. South African president Thabo Mbeki remains Mugabe's chief regional apologist. But the leader of Mbeki's party has hit out at Mugabe, calling him to concede defeat. This is all the more surprising since ANC party president Jacob Zuma has been accused in the past of being just like Mugabe.

While Zuma surely didn't mind poking the eye of his bitter rival Mbeki, this is a far more rational position for his country than Mbeki's clearly failed appeasement approach. Zimbabwe's economic and social meltdown has dramatic implications for neighboring South Africa, where thousands of economic and political refugees have already fled.

The Zimbabwean ambassador to the UN deceitfully compared his country's elections with the controversial US elections of 2000. He pointed out that no one attributed malice to the 6-week process between Election Day and the Supreme Court's annointing of George W. Bush. But he conveniently omits a few important facts. The initial results were made public rather quickly. This allowed the process that followed to be transparent, if messy. The fact that the regime refuses to release initial election results, in stark contrast to Florida 2000, combined with the regime's long history of theft (both of public money and elections) is what makes suspicions so strong.

Regional talks on the Zimbabwe crisis bizarrely center around Simba Makoni. The former ZANU-PF finance minister who is believed (and we don't know for sure because of the secrecy) to have gotten only 6 percent or so of the vote is seen by some as a compromise choice to allow the ZANU-PF to save face without having to concede to President-elect Tsvangarai. But I fail to see the logic of installing a man who received 6 percent of the vote ahead of a man who received 54 percent, nor do I see how the Zimbabweans who want majority rule would accept this.

Mugabe and his thieving cronies have spent the last decade destroying Zimbabwe to line their own pockets Whenever they've felt their power threatened, they've picked fights with white people. But ultimately the whites are not the ones who've suffered most from Mugabe's destruction. The primary victims are the blacks who can't afford to flee this dystopia.

So despite the state campaign of terror and intimidation, it's no surprise that most Zimbabweans voted against the ruling mafia. The regime has become yet another African movement to betray its ideals and run its country into the ground just to hold to power for a privileged elite.

Mugabe's ZANU movement spent most of the 1970s fighting on behalf majority rule.

Now they are spending much of 2008 fighting against majority rule.


Update: This article explains why so many of Mugabe's cronies are so desperate to cling to power. And if I'd been murdering opposition supporters, I'd probably be nervous too.

Source: Army pressuring Mugabe to leave

I received this information on Sunday but just got permission to use it today...

According to one of my sources: "Senior army people have spoken to Mugabe and told him to accept the vote and go. South Africa's ANC have also made contact and given him the same message."

I'll still believe it when I see it. I've always believed Mugabe was one of those megalomaniacs who would only ever leave power either at the barrel of a gun or in a coffin. But if the army and the police turns against him, he may be toast.

I suppose soldiers and cops have to eat too.

Don't let them eat cake

It wouldn't be a February without Zimbabwe's crook-in-chief throwing a lavish $300,000 birthday party while his countrymen starve.

Another thing that remains unchanged: South African president Thabo Mbeki's delusions that 'quiet diplomacy' with Mugabe might actually work.

Schizophrenia in southern Africa

Former South African police minister Adriaan Vok plead guilty to plotting in 1989 to assassinate anti-apartheid activist Rev. Frank Chikane.

Last year, Vok made a public act of contrition by washing the feet of Rev. Chikane. Though he did appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission during its activities, Vok did not testify about this particular crime and was thus not eligible for amnesty.

Because he cooperated with authorities, Vok received a 10-year suspended sentence.

Vok was prosecuted for attempting to kill a single individual. At the same time, one of the continent's most egregious criminals, responsible for destroying millions of lives, not just one, received received a hero's welcome at the SADC summit in Zambia. But far from being angry when it comes to Robert Mugabe, South African officials bent over backwards to suck up to the tyrant.

A penny a day for farmworkers in Paradise Zimbabwe

The ZANU-PF land redistribution program was necessary to give the land back to the people and put Zimbabwe back on the path to self-sufficiency! Only privileged white farmers and meddlesome Tony Blair are upset about this. That's why Blair manipulated the weather to punish Zimbabwe. Ordinary Zimbabweans now live in near paradise thanks to Comrade Mugabe's vision!


One of the most obnoxious arguments made by apologists for the country's dictator Robert Mugabe is the way they've made the land seizures into a racial issue. Too many Africans and Africanists has bought into this line of propaganda. Much western media coverage has also bought into this line.

The indisputable fact of the matter is that the worst victims of the man-made calamity called Zimbabwe are black.

I wish Africa's self-styled intelligentsia would talk more about this. I wish people who should know better would stop acting like Mugabe's willful destruction of his country is some kind of noble martyresque stand against western imperialism. Tony Blair hasn't suffered one $(*&$@#! iota from Mugabe's policies. Neither has George W. Bush. White farmers have fled the country but they're probably not starving. Ordinary black Zimbabweans, the ones Mugabe and his apologists claim to care about, are the real victims of Mugabe's megalomania.

The UN's IRIN news service reports that things are so bad in the country's second city Bulawayo that even the trash scavengers are noticing. "Good garbage is hard to come by these days, unlike in the past, when we could get quality throwaways," one noted.

You know things are desperate when people complain about the low quality of refuse and bemoan the fact that garbage collection is erractic from the weathier suburbs.

According to a report issued by human rights' lawyers in Zimbabwe, Slave wages and the deaths of about 10,000 Zimbabwean farmworkers [are] a consequence of the government's land-redistribution policy.

While US$1 per day is the generally accepted marker for absolute poverty, Zimbabwean farm laborers are supposed to be paid a little over $1 per MONTH... this after a nearly three-fold pay rise.

Many laborers are still being paid under the old wage structure because of employer defiance and are thus receiving $0.36 a month... or barely more than $0.01 per day.

The report opined that 'a plausible case can be made for crimes against humanity having being committed during these displacements.'