Pity the continent

When they read news stories about Africa (particularly the continent's misleaders), many Americans throw their hands up in despair and exclaim, "A pox on all their houses." Many wonder why the US should continue to send huge sums of money to countries that are only going to spit on them in return.

As a resolute Africaphile, I'm not prone to this kind of cynicism. And I'm informed enough to realize that foreign aid by governments is not some humane charity but a way of advancing the donor country's perceived interests. But every once in a while, it's easy to understand such isolationist rage.

The Christian Science Monitor had revealing piece on why most African leaders have bent over backwards to avoid criticizing Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

Many African heads of state are also dictators or at least have autocratic tendencies. So it's no shock when birds of a feather flock together.

But the more disturbing fact is that some of Mugabe's most ardent apologists are the democratically-elected presidents. The highly educated ones. The former 'freedom fighters.' The supposed beacons of the continent. The ones who should know better.

Mugabe has destroyed Zimbabwe by his own hand. It's not surprising that he should blame everyone but himself. It's not surprising that he blames Tony Blair, George W. Bush and John Howard for everything INCLUDING the bad weather. But it's shameful that the 'best and the brightest' of African leaders are going along with the thug's smokescreen.

As The Monitor article pointed out:

At a March 28 conference of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, South African President Thabo Mbeki called for African unity above all.

"The fight against Zimbabwe is a fight against us all. Today it is Zimbabwe; tomorrow it will be South Africa, it will be Mozambique, it will be Angola, it will be any other African country. And any government that is perceived to be strong and to be resistant to imperialists would be made a target and would be undermined. So let us not allow any point of weakness in the solidarity of SADC, because that weakness will also be transferred to the rest of Africa."

At the end of the conference, African leaders threw their unanimous support behind Zimbabwe's Mugabe and called on Mr. Mbeki (not the West) to mediate between Mugabe and the political opposition. Leaders who had been critical of Mugabe before the conference, including Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, fell silent.

This is something I would expect from Bob himself. But coming from an educated, widely-respected man like Thabo Mbeki, it leaves one speechless. Especially from someone like Mbeki who famously promised an African renaissance. If Mbeki and Mugabe embody that African renaissance, then I despair for the continent.

Zimbabwe is a place with 1700 percent yearly inflation. A place where not only the political opponents and journalists brutalized, but so are lawyers. Even bishops aren't safe.

The unpleasant fact is that a good chunk of the African 'elite' is more interested being anti-western than being pro-African. It's a sad example of egoism getting the better of both rationalism and humanity.

When Mugabe's regime razed townships in Harare creating at least 200,000 homeless, it wasn't Bush and Blair who suffered.

When Mugabe's regime seized control of international food aid for the purpose of punishing opponents, it wasn't Bush and Blair who suffered.

When Mugabe's insecurity forces torture whoever they feel like, it's not Bush and Blair who suffer.

When the ruling party's militias run rampage after attending torture training camps, it's not Bush and Blair who suffer.

That someone as educated and respected as Thabo Mbeki fails or refuses to see this is a sad commentary on the state of leadership on the continent. I'm not an Afro-pessimist but when I read comments like those from Mbeki, I wonder why I'm not. Is this the best Africa has to offer? Have all the Africans with real leadership skills fled to Europe and North America?

Via colonialism and neo-colonialism, western countries have clearly played a pernicious role in hindering the development of Africa. There can be no doubt about that. But it's about time the 'best and the brightest' realized that African leaders, even the 'good' ones, are also part of the problem.

The west is certainly the cause of some of Africa's problems, but not all of them. As long as the 'best and the brightest' on the continent continue to bury their head in the sand and refuse to accept their share of responsibility for putting their own house in order, Africa will remain a basket case.

Most ordinary Africans are industrious. In countries with virtually no social welfare programs, they have to be or else they die. If hard work were rewarded on the continent, Africa would be the most prosperous place in the world. But it's not rewarded. That's why so many Africans emigrate to the west.

Most ordinary Africans know how responsibility should be apportioned. Most ordinary Africans know that Blair and Bush are not responsible for all their problems. They are smarter than most people give them credit for. So I wonder when they will rise up against their self-delusional elites who are complicit in the continent's underdevelopment.


Update: The New York Times ran an editorial on Thursday on the same topic. Western critics claim that Mbeki's policy of quiet diplomacy needs time to bear fruit. But Mbeki has been engaging in this practice for some five years and the decline in Zimbabwe is only accelerating. It looks like Pres. Mbeki has as clearheaded a view on Zimbabwe as Pres. Bush does on Iraq.

Mugabe 'wins' one-man runoff; re-inaugurated with unprecedented speed

Bob Mugabe will soon be inaugurated for another term as dictator of Zimbabwe... this despite the fact that official election results from Friday's sham poll haven't yet been published.

Re-Liberation leader Morgan Tsvangarai won a clear majority in March's first round before massive theft by the Mugabe regime. Tsvangarai's win was so crushing that even after weeks of the regime rigging his tally down to 48 percent, he still beat Mugabe in the "official" results.

Tsvangarai withdrew from the runoff because a massive pro-Mugabe campaign of violence and murder against opposition supporters and neutrals. Mugabe promised to crush the Re-Liberation struggle by all means necessary... and has tried to keep that promise. Zimbabwean women have even been raped for opposing Mugabe.

In the first round, it took nearly a month of government thieving before results could be published. Yet, Mugabe will be inaugurated a mere day and a half after the end of the second round.

The reason for the haste to enshrine Mugabe's theft into pseudo-legality is not simply to snub the international community but to allow the tyrant to travel to Egypt for tomorrow's opening of the annual African Union summit in Cairo.

This process will certainly please Mugabe's chief apologist, South African president Thabo Mbeki. The UN Security Council condemned the polls in Zimbabwe, saying that it would be "impossible for a free and fair election to take place."

14 of the 15 Security Council members had wanted to properly condemn the election as "illegitimate." But this was blocked by South Africa.

But Mbeki's appeasement of warlord Mugabe has met with sharp criticism, not only internationally but within southern Africa as well.

Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia have harshly condemned the repeated detention of Zimbabwean opposition leaders during the campaign, as well as the violence against opposition supporters.

Even within South Africa itself, there are many voices of opposition to Mbeki and Mugabe. Including from Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Jacob Zuma, president of Mbeki's ANC party, has called for intervention from the United Nations and the regional Southern African Development Community. The influential trade union COSATU, a key pillar of ANC support, has demanded international isolation of Mugabe.

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.

So much for 'solidarity' with the workers

One of the commonly misunderstood or misrepresented realities about authoritarianism is this: left-wing dictatorships are dictatorships first and left-wing second. Regimes will quickly shed any pretense to left-wing ideals in order to preserve their hold on absolute political power.

Since the late 70s, China has opened itself up to foreign investment and many aspects of capitalism in a way that would surely have Mao rolling in his grave. But one thing remains: absolute control by the Chinese Communist Party over the country's political space.

During the 1980s, the main opposition to Poland's communist government was the Solidarity. trade union During the liberation struggle against white minority rule, guerrilla leader Robert Mugabe was a strong proponent of Marxist rhetoric, something which he jettisonned for a while but re-adopted with a fervor a few years ago. The main opposition to Mugabe's regime comes from the Movement for Democratic Change led by former labor leader Morgan Tsvangarai. Zimbabwean trade unions are also strong opponents of the regime. How is it that the main opposition to these 'workers' paradises' can come from... the workers?

The answer is very simple: left-wing dictatorships are dictatorships first and left-wing second. The reason the regimes in Soviet Poland and Mugabe's Zimbabwe were so opposed to workers' trade unions is because they represented something far more dangerous to an authoritarian regime than even right-wing 'counterrevolutionaries.' They represented an alternative power structure.

While most of the world has been strongly critical of Robert Mugabe's dictatorship, prominent African leaders (with the notable exception of Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade) have been largely concerned with appeasing Mugabe.

The African point man on the Zimbabwe crisis has been South African president Thabo Mbeki of the African National Congress (ANC) party. Mbeki has been reticent to criticize Mugabe for two main reasons. First, the ANC and Mugabe's ZANU-PF party (just ZANU until 1987) are ideological cousins as they are both left-wing movements that fought against white minority rule. As a result, Mugabe was a big supporter of the ANC during the latter's struggle against apartheid. It is also a fact that Mugabe's paranoid, anti-imperialist rantings have some sympathy in Africa and just enough of the occasional shred of truth to maintain that sympathy.

Though ZANU-PF and the ANC are both left-wing movements that fought against white minority rule, South Africa became a democracy and Zimbabwe did not. The ANC was a movement that was able to transcend its charismatic icon (Nelson Mandela) while ZANU-PF didn't. Though the South African poiltical system is imperfect and has some problems which I'll address in the near future, it's clear that South Africa respects the basic principles of democracy and rule of law while Zimbabwe does not.

The ANC, the South African Communist Party and COSATU, the main South African trade union grouping that is closely allied to the ANC, have jointly announced that conditions in Zimbabwe are not "conducive" to holding "free and fair elections." Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 31 March.

This is criticism Mugabe could easily write off if it came from the UN or George W. Bush or his favorite scapegoat Tony Blair, the British prime minister. But coming from folks Mugabe thought were his allies has to be a bitter pill for the bitter old man to swallow.

It will be interesting to see if how great the rift is between President Mbeki and his party and how they will try to paper over it.

But as always, Mugabe didn't take this snub lying down. A COSATU fact finding mission was refused entry to Zimbabwe. Typically, the regime accused the mission of backing the main opposition MDC (which itself was founded by trade unionists).

"If it is really levelling the playing field and conforming to SADC [Southern African regional grouping] norms, how can they feel threatened by people carrying pens and notebooks," said the general secretary of COSATU.

Authoritarian regimes often feel threatened by people carrying pens and notebooks.

The Zimbabwean goverment obfuscated by claiming the delegation needed to apply for a permit through the South African labour minister.

"[The delegation was] charged with (Section) 18A of the Immigration Act which relates to prohibited immigrants. They are being put on the next plane back to South Africa," explained the general secretary of the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, which organized the visit.

Not only has "Marxist" Mugabe oppressed his own country's trade unions, but now he's attacking South Africa's. So much for 'solidarity' with the workers.

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.

Mbeki: 'quiet diplomacy' has failed

I don't like this blog to be obsessed with one country or person but South African president Thabo Mbeki keeps sticking his foot in his mouth over Zimbabwe.

For several years, Mbeki has been engaging in 'quiet diplomacy,' as he calls it, with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. Mbeki has bragged about this fact and derided the approach called for by critics as 'megaphone diplomacy.' Obviously, 'quiet diplomacy' has accomplished nothing. In fact, it's made things worse by allowing Mugabe and this thugs to buy more time. But Mbeki seems unable (or more likely unwilling) to put two and two together and realize he's being played by a violin by Mugabe.

In a speech before parliament, Mbeki said that his country will just "have to live with" a flood of exiles from the nightmare in Zimbabwe. As many as 3 million Zimbabweans are already believed to be living in South Africa, a number which continues to rise.

This is a clear admission of complete impotence of the disgraced 'quiet diplomacy' policy.

Zimbabwe may be the most high profile diplomatic disgrace for the Mbeki government but as this editorial in the South Africa Daily Mail and Guardian points out, it's not the only one.

The editorial blasted the South African government its meek first five months on the UN Security Council. It voted against a resolution for the UN to scrutinize the human rights' record of the junta in Burma, one of the only countries in the world that's more repressive than Zimbabwe. South Africa also opposed increased sovereignty for the Sebrian province of Kosovo, where a Serb-led genocide raged less than a decade ago.

What a sad record for an administration comprised primarily of men and women who'd dedicated much of their pre-government lives fighting AGAINST one of the world's most infamous human rights abusing regimes.

A bear is most dangerous when it's dying

I'm presently reading a book about the attitudes of white southerners in the US in the years leading up to and during the civil rights' movement. This was a period of tremendous violence against blacks, predominantly because whites felt their privileged position threatened. Perversely, the privileged class felt that they, the whites, were the real victims. They felt that the civil rights' movement was driven by outside agitators who wanted to disturb the peaceful order of the elites and the submissive.

The dynamic was much the same in the dying days of white rule in South Africa. It was a little different, in that the ruling class was a numerical minority. But the fundamental dynamic remained the same: as the ruling class' hold on their elite status in society slipped away, their desperation turned to mindless violence to preserve the last vestiges of grandeur. When blacks gained equal rights, many formerly dominant whites whined (and continue to do so) about blacks gaining "special rights." Special rights like being treated as full-fledged citizens, as civilized human beings

I thought of these two cases as Bob Mugabe and his corrupt cronies desperately cling to power. While Mugabe's despotism is not based on skin color (though blacks are the main victims of his savagery), the oppression inflicted by his regime is just as criminal as apartheid's and segregation's.

The fact that Mugabe was one of the key player in supporting anti-apartheid forces in South Africa would be ironic, if his misrule weren't so destructive.

But just as in the southern US and in South Africa, Mugabe and his cronies are cranking up the violence in a desperate attempt to maintain their power.

While his assassination attempt on the main opposition leaders is hardly the first act of brutality against the regime's opponents, it is probably the most audacious. In the past, harassment against key opposition figures has been couched in pseudo-legal kangaroo trials. That the regime has gotten so brazen is a sign that it seems its thieving opulence threatened.

The crisis has been met by meek acquisence by both the African Union and by regional power South Africa.

The AU called for a 'constructive dialogue' and assured the world that it was watching events in Zimbabwe with 'great concern.'

The South African government, in line with its discredited 'quiet diplomacy' sham, got on its knees and pleaded with Bob to 'ensure that the rule of law including respect for rights of all Zimbabweans and opposition leaders is respected.'

(This column in South Africa's Daily Mail and Guardian has a good analysis of the Mbeki government's impotent, servile relationship with Mugabe)

I'm sure these two declarations are making Bob tremble in his jackboots. In fact, he responded by telling his critics to 'go hang.'

Traditionally, most African leaders have been loathe to criticize Bob because of his role in the anti-colonial struggles in both Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and South Africa. Apparently that gives him carte blanche to replace white-led oppression with black-led oppression. But not all prominent Africans are quite so cowed by bully Bob.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner in his own right, denounced this complacency by saying that African leaders should "hang [their] heads in shame."

The Nobel Peace laureate asked, "How can what is happening... elicit hardly a word of concern let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa?"

Adding, "What more has to happen before we who are leaders, religious and political, of our mother Africa are moved to cry out 'Enough is enough'? Do we really care about human rights, do we care that people of flesh and blood, fellow Africans are being treated like rubbish, almost worse than they were ever treated by rabid racists?"

Even the head of the main South African trade union alliance, a close ally of the ruling African National Congress, bemoaned the obvious failure of Mbeki's 'silent diplomacy.'

Ghana's president John Kufuor bemoaned the current state of affairs as “tragedy for the people of Zimbabwe.”

Zambia's president Levy Mwanawasa compared Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic." He should know. Zambia is Zimbabwe's northern neighbor and thus a likely destination of many fleeing the disastrous political and economic in Mugabeland.

Mwanaswasa admitted that while Zambia had also tried quiet diplomacy, "the twist of events in the troubled country necessitates the adoption of a new approach."

"Quiet diplomacy has failed to help solve the political chaos and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe," he added.

He is the first leader in southern Africa to speak candidly on the crisis.

Some argue that Mbeki has no influence on Mugabe; that he can advise the despot, but not pressure. This piece belies such suggestions.

The Daily Mail and Guardian reports that Under apparent pressure from South Africa, President Robert Mugabe will submit himself to a popular presidential election in 2008 rather than extend his term for another two years.

Mbeki didn't want controversial elections in Zimbabwe to embarass him during South Africa's 2010 hosting of the world's most popular sporting event, the soccer World Cup.

Though that same article interestingly reported that Insiders say Mugabe no longer has a firm grip on power and that securocrats are running the show. Last week’s brutal beating and torture of opposition MDC activists has further exposed growing fissures within government and the party, with key dissenters blocking further unconstitutional action.


Update: Further evidence of how desperate the brutal regime is. They have imported some 2500 mercenaries(paramilitary police) from Angola to back their own apparently divided insecurity forces.

'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.]

Have you no sense of decency, President Mbeki, at long last?

I've written several essays (such as here) criticizing South African president Thabo Mbeki for his appeasement of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. In the past, Mbeki's sycophancy has been mostly limited to serving as Mugabe's willing enabler and perpetuating the lie that Mugabe's political repression and economic destruction is dandy because it's all Tony Blair's fault.

But now, Mbeki's boot licking of Zimbabwe's thug-in-chief threatens to reach an entirely different level. Mbeki has suggested that South Africa may repay some of Zimbabwe's foreign debts.

Speaking in Pretoria, Mr Mbeki said his country could help pay off Zimbabwe's near $300m (£172m) loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In doing so, the South African president would become an active accomplice by underwriting the horrors of Mugabe's regime rather than simply a passive apologist for the Zimbabwean bully. And this unconscionable act would be subsidized by the South African taxpayers.

AU: we have no time for 200,000 (400,000?) IDPs

You really have to wonder what sort of incriminating photos Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has of South Africa's otherwise respectable president Thabo Mbeki. How else to explain Mbeki's disgraceful sycophancy to the dinosaur who's destroying South Africa's neighbor?

Earlier this month, I deplored the Mugabe regime's mass razing of poor townships in the capital Harare (not coincidentally, an opposition stronghold).

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice called on the African Union and other African leaders to speak out against the atrocity. After all, denouncing such idiocies as this is precisely what was supposed to separate the AU what its predecessor, the Organization for African Unity (often derided as a social club for dictators).

Well, the AU rejected the call by Rice and a similiar one by British Foreign Minister Jack Straw. An AU spokesman said the organization had more important things to consider. Apparently it couldn't even spend a few minutes to speak out against this disaster which has left 200,000 homeless and two young children dead.

That's 200,000 homeless in the city of Harare alone. By contrast, the entire country of Liberia, which recently ended its second devastating civil war in the last 15 years has only 150,000 internally displaced people, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

A spokesman for President Mbeki, whose failed 'quiet diplomacy' in the Zimbabwe crisis has earned much criticism, bristled at Rice's and Straw's calls.

"South Africa refuses to accept the notion that because suddenly we're going to a G8 summit, we must be reminded that we must look good and appease the G8 leaders," the spokesman said.

Ah yes, the old 'blame the westerners and the opposition (the "westernized")' card that Mugabe himself has so perfected. After all, it's been clearly demonstrated that when bad things happen in Africa, the key point according to some is not the skin color of the victim, but the skin color of the perpetrator.

Consider the regime's of apartheid South Africa, Iain Smith's racist Rhodesia and Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The primary victims of all three regimes were black. Two earned widespread condemnation from the continent's leaders, while one provokes avid defenders.

I wonder how Mbeki and his spokesman would explain the condemnation as 'inhuman' of Mugabe's destruction by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Harare. The archbishop is black, since it apparently matters.



Update: The UK Independent puts the number of homeless at 400,000. And as though the creation of possibly 400,000 homeless wasn't enough, Mugabe's regime is ignoring a famine, according to The Independent. Unofficial estimates obtained by [the paper] suggest the death rate is already outstripping the birth rate nationwide by 4,000 a week. 4000 a week times 52 weeks... I can't even bear to do the math.

'NO PECULIARLY AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS'
I read an interesting article in South Africa's Daily Mail and Guardian concerning the Zimbabwe situation* entitled Tutu 'baffled' at Zimbabwe debacle. In it, Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu didn't think the decision to continue Zimbabwe's exclusion from the Commonwealth was unjustified (a point now academic, due to Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the organization).

He disagrees with his country's president, Thabo Mbeki, who claimed that Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was treated badly. President Mbeki even reportedly suggested that Mugabe's seizure of white owned farms was "perhaps inevitable" (even though this is perhaps the least direct of his many crimes). The South African leader also suggested the Commonwealth's decision was designed to protect "white, settler, colonial kith and kin" thus deflecting attention from the miserable failure of his so-called 'softly softly' policy for gently persuading Mugabe to become a warm and fuzzy teddy bear. You'd think President Mbeki would be leading the charge to pressure Mugabe since Zimbabwe's collapse has a direct effect on South Africa's economy; further, Mbeki's spirited defense of a thug like Mugabe is at odds with the South African leader's vision of an 'African renaissance.'

Archbishop Tutu, for his part, noted, We have great expectations of the peer-review system of the African Union but it will be a futile exercise if we are not ready to condemn human rights violations unequivocally without fear or favour whatever the struggle credentials of the perpetrator. Human rights are human rights and they are of universal validity or they are nothing. There are no peculiarly African human rights. What has been reported as happening in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable and reprehensible and we ought to say so regretting that it should have been necessary to condemn erstwhile comrades.



*-For more on the domestic situation in Zimbabwe, see Mugabe to cede favorite scapegoat? Unlikely..

THE WAR AGAINST FREE THOUGHT IN ZIMBABWE
Last week, the Zimbabwean government shut down the country's only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, a move roundly condemned by southern Africa's nascent independent press. Today, the dictatorship arrested the entire editorial staff of the newspaper for working illegally, according to the BBC, which is banned in the country.

A judge had previously ruled that police should allow the journalists to work, but the authorities ignored the judiciary, as they've so often done in the past. The newspaper's ownership group "had failed to meet the requirements of the law," according to the country's media and information commission, calling for respecting the law without the slightest hint of irony.

The shutting down of The Daily News is only the most recent episode in the rampaging mis-rule of its dictator Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. Although media harassment and eviction of white owners of large farms have gained greater attention in the American and British press, ordinary peasants and workers have suffered most from the regime's viciousness, incompetence and outright contempt for humanity. A recent documentary by Radio Netherlands, also banned in the country, detailed the horrors of Zimbabwe's so-called National Youth Service Training program.

Supposedly created to instill patriotism and provide job skills, the camps have turned into "re-education" centers where young people are trained to be militiamen loyal to Mugabe and where they are [o]ften drugged or intoxicated, noted the doucmentary. The camps are "brainwashing [young people] into Mugabe's party ideology so that these young people become like robots," observed the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city and in the heart of opposition-dominated Matabeleland.

Earlier this year, the regime was accused of manipulating distribution of international food aid in Matabeleland to punish political opponents. While Mugabe's cronies are brainwashing people and trying to extinguish free thought from the country, nearly 4 million Zimbabweans need food aid to survive.

One victim of the brutality of the re-education camps testified, "They started assaulting me, accusing me of selling them out to the MDC [the main opposition party who Mugabe and his thugs accuse of being stooges of Britain]. They beat me. And then they hit me with an axe. They were aiming for the back of my skull, but I turned, so they hit my eye. I lost my eye, but I think it's God who did that for me. It's better to lose an eye than your life."

I used to think Robert Mugabe was merely a garden-variety dictator. Loud-mouthed, corrupt, occassionally harassing political opponents; unquestionably greedy, certainly power hungry and egomanical, bad but not evil. And perhaps he was. But he has clearly evolved into something much worse. His small group of fanatical, and well-armed supporters, truly believe that Mugabe is the country's Savior (capital S). In the eyes of his zealons, that Mugabe overthrew the racist Rhodesian regime gives him license to commit crimes against humanity that even Ian Smith would never have dreamed of. And the South African government's policy of pandering to Mugabe should make its president Thabo Mbeki ashamed to look himself in the mirror. While the South Africa leader's "constructive engagement" may have had merits in the short-term, it's clear that the policy has been a miserable failure in stopping the rampant state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe. If things are getting worse, not better, then the policy clearly isn't working. How much more suffering do Zimbabweans have to endure before President Mbeki realizes this?

The leopard can't change his spots, but can an appeaser?

South African President Thabo Mbeki has further discredited himself on the Zimbabwe situation by stating that this month's parliamentary elections in the country would be free and fair.

"Things like the independent electoral commission, things like access to the public media, things like the absence of violence and intimidation, those matters have been addressed," Mr Mbeki said on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the main opposition MDC party was "stunned" to hear of Mbeki's comments. "He [Mbeki] probably knows things that those of us who are on the ground do not know," he tartly commented.

The spokesman noted that although state media were running paid MDC ads, state media news coverage was given exclusively to the ruling ZANU-PF party. He added that those who attacked MDC activists usually went unpunished, while opposition rallies were rarely authorised and Zanu-PF was allowed to campaign freely.

Given the long history of thuggery (when not outright massacres, like in the early 1980s) as state policy of the Mugabe regime and given Mugabe's open contempt for international, even African, standards of basic decency, it's very hard to believe that Bob and his mafia have suddenly bought into the

Unlike most other African leaders, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has rejected the ostrich approach with regard to the crisis created by Mugabe. Though I'm sure he'd be derided as a stooge of Tony Blair by Bob and his apologists.

Had Mbeki not had a long history of appeasing the Mugabe regime, then perhaps his conclusions of "progress" in Zimbabwe might be taken seriously.

WHY ZIMBABWE?
In a previous posting, a reader asked why I seemed to have an obsession with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. There are probably groups who do worse things than Mugabe's ZANU-PF cult, but they tend to be rebel groups. Mugabe and his cohorts have the benefits of diplomatic niceities, ambassadorships and invitations to official conferences, to say nothing of unlimited access to the state treasury. He also has the high profile, public backing of otherwise respectable and democratic leaders like Olesegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki, the presidents of Nigeria and South Africa respectively. Although other thugs may be a bit worse, none of them are considered an 'emminence grise' or grand old man of their region, let alone a would-be spokesman for developing countries (a misnomer when applied to Zimbabwe).

Perhaps the most galling thing is that Mugabe and his thugs probably couldn't destroy the country any faster if it was their conscious plan to do so. When acceeding to independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had great infrastructure, good schools and roads and a solid economy. Although Mugabe imposed some pretty horrific repression in the south of the country (opposition territory) in the early 80s, eventually he co-opted them. They also built decent educational and health systems. There was some corruption and harassment but basically the social situation was fairly decent when Mugabe and ZANU-PF were unchallenged masters of the land.

But in the late 90s, people started getting sick of economic stagnation and political asphyxiation. Mugabe tried to ram through a constitution that would legally give him near dictatorial powers but the opposition united and amazingly, the constitution was rejected. I say amazingly because usually even an actual No vote would normally be transformed into a Yes result by, um, creative vote counting. But they expected to win so handily that they didn't bother to rig the results beforehand.

The defeat infuriated Mugabe and he's been on the rampage ever since. Mugabe's critics called him a Marxist, but really his tactics are more Stalinist. Sheer terror. Little to do with economics and everything to do with maintaining power at any cost. Although his seizure of white owned farms has gained the most publicity in the west, this only scratches the surface of the nightmare that is Zimbabwe.

They have indoctrination camps set up to brainwash young people. The regime stands accused ofmanipulating international food to punish political opponents. This along with more "garden variety" crimes like torture, intimidation and surveillance of nearly every independent political and social organization and a war against what little remains of the local free press. They effectively banished all international media from the country, since they obviously want no foreign witnesses to the nightmare. Despite this, the BBC managed to make a documentary about the regime's torture training camps.

And excellent article detailing the horrors of Mugabe can be founding by clicking here. It's an interview with Samantha Power, the excellent author of the must-read book A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.

So the reason Mugabe infuriates me is because, more than nearly any other basket case in the world, Zimbabwe could be so much better. Even if its rulers were merely negligent.

By all accounts, most Zimbabweans are so good-natured and resilient that they deserve 1000 times better. Living in Africa is how I learned that patience is not always a virtue. One of the reasons many African countries are in such bad shape is because Africans tend to be (and I know this is a huge generalization) very good at adapting to whatever situation arises. In one sense, this is an ability without which they wouldn't survive or would at least go crazy. However, the fact that they rarely reach the boiling point means that they put up with too much. They, the ones not doing anything wrong, who adapt rather than the thieving thugs who call themselves rulers. The people rarely get so pissed off that they just throw the bums out. To a certain extent, there's something to be said for good old fashioned Western impatience.

MUGABE TO CEDE FAVORITE SCAPEGOAT? UNLIKELY
Zimbabwe's ruling thug Robert Mugabe has been excluded from the upcoming meeting of the Commonwealth (basically former British colonies). This has caused a serious split in the rather anachronistic organization. To put it bluntly, western countries want Mugabe punished for his terrible human rights' violations, repression of the opposition and elimination of the rule of law. African countries object.

Some African leaders feel that punishing Mugabe would be neo-colonialism because of his policy of seizing white-owned farms and re-distributing them (to his cronies, of course). Apparently, these heads of state don't care that the overwhelming majority of the victims of his regime's repression are black. Since Mugabe's cabal arrests people for sending emails, attacks protest marches, assaults what little remains of a free press, runs 're-education' camps and uses food aid to punish political opponents, the land "reform" program is the least of the regime's evils.

Other African leaders feel that a diplomatic solution is preferable. Thabo Mbeki, president of regional power South Africa, is the foremost proponent of the "softly softly" approach. They feel that provoking a thug (or "freedom fighter" as some call him, in reference to the distant past) would be counter-productive and would cause a backlash... which only proves how this maniac needs to be stopped. While perhaps a noble attempt from a well-intentioned leader, "softly softly" has miserably failed to moderate Mugabe's brutality or even cause the slightest injection of oxygen into the political process that has been so deftly suffocated by the regime.

Now, Mugabe has said Zimbabwe will leave the Commonwealth if he is not treated as an equal. Since Mugabe has blamed Tony Blair for all of the country's problems, one is skeptical of Mugabe's bluff. Withdrawal might deprive him of his principal scapegoat.

Zimbabweans already hate Mugabe. Whatever brownie points he accumulated in the 1970s independence struggle, he's surely lost (and then some) but the way he's destroyed the country's economy and political system. Evoking 1979 doesn't do much for people who have no food, fuel (petrol) or medicine. One can only hope the military and police's loyalty to Mugabe falters in some way. Only then is there a possibility of success for a Serbia or Ivory Coast-style popular uprising.

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).

Zim opposition leader kidnapped

Bob Mugabe's dictatorship in Zimbabwe is clearly near its end. But as I explained earlier, despotisms are often at their most oppressive at the end. A few weeks ago, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other key opposition figures were nakedly brutalized by Mugabe's thugs and yet another wave of violence against perceived opposition supporters saturated the country.

Even African leaders started to break their long silence about Mugabe's terror. The deputy foreign minister of South Africa, a government who'd been Bob's most sycophantic ally, said Zimbabwe was on the verge of meltdown. He warned that it was now difficult to see how the country could avoid a complete collapse.

Faced with the despots intransigence, Tsvangirai hinted that his Movement for Democratic Change were working with members of the ruling ZANU-PF to orchestrate an exit strategy for Mugabe.

"I'm sure that there is national convergence on such a roadmap being worked out between some of the ruling party members and the MDC," he said.

Western diplomats say that Zanu-PF power-brokers Emmerson Mnangagwa and Solomon Mujuru are both keen to replace Mr Mugabe as the party's candidate next year.

The surprising, if timid, about-face by Mbeki is seen as a sign by many that Pretoria does not want the embarassment of chaos in Zimbabwe in 2010 (to when Mugabe wants to postpone presidential elections), the year in which South Africa will host the prestigious soccer World Cup.

Interestingly, this piece in Foreign Policy magazine's blog cites a report by the International Crisis Group on Zimbabwe. It concludes that European and American sanctions on top officials in the regime (not the whole country) are working. ZANU-PF leaders cite their personal financial situations as motivation for wanting Mugabe out. “We have businesses which we worked hard over years to set up which are collapsing. It is about time we change course”, said a senior politburo member.

But not surprisingly, as Mugabe sees more and more writing on the wall, he ratchets up the violence to preserve his own selfish ownership of the country. Earlier today, his insecurity forces kidnapped opposition leader Tsvangirai, just before he'd been scheduled to give a news conference on the government's increasing war against its own people to the few journalists who are actually able to work in the country.

"Tsvangirai and a number of others we have not been able to identify have been taken by police in a bus. We don't know their whereabouts. We don't know if they have been charged," said an aide to the MDC chief.

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.

Mugabe's thugs try to assassinate opposition leaders; Mbeki shrugs

Whenever I write about Bob Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, I always have to consult a thesaurus. My lexicon of words I commonly used does not contain enough synonyms for 'savage' for me to write a complete essay on Mugabe. Even the use of the word 'thugs' in the title seems grossly understated.

Zimbabwean insecurity forces savagely attacked a protest prayer meeting yesterday. An alliance of opposition, civic, church leaders and student and anti-government groups had gathered in prayer but the criminal police force brutalized them. After being arrested, main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and five other prominent opposition figures were reportedly beaten and tortured in custody by Mugabe's forces of disorder. The opposition claim that the depravity amounted to attempted murder. Tsvangirai is hospitalized and is in serious condition.

"This is not consistent with the normal police brutality we have witnessed. The injuries were deliberate and an attempt to assassinate him," said Eliphas Mukonoweshure, another top opposition official.

The mere fact that there is something called 'normal police brutality' demonstrates how deviant and venal the Zimbabwean thugocracy has become.

Opponents of President Robert Mugabe blame him for acute food shortages, record inflation of about 1 600 percent -- the highest in the world -- and repression and corruption.

The servile government in neighboring South Africa continued its sickening acquiesence to Mugabe's barbarity by meekly asking them to respect the rule of law and human rights. This is approximately the 2894th time they've made such an obseqious plea.

No word on if the phrases "pretty please" and "with sugar on top" were used by the South Africans.

(A grotesque picture of what Tsvangirai looks act like being beaten by Mugabe's degenerates can be found here. Warning: it isn't pretty)

The AU's priorities

The big news in Africa this week, aside frmo the death of Sudanese Vice-President John Garang, has been the military coup in the Sahara desert country of Mauritania. The regime of colonels, as some are calling it, overthrew the country's strongman Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya. The colonels' pretext for seizing power was to put a definitive end to the oppressive activities of the defunct authority, which [the Mauritanian] people have suffered from during the past years. Ould Taya himself came to power in a military coup in 1984.

As expected, the African Union suspended Mauritania from the organization until the return of "constitutional order."

Unlike its pointless predecessor Organization for African Unity, the AU actually takes a strong stand against military coups. Those who perpetrate them are not welcome in continental bodies... unless they legitimize their coup via nominally democratic elections. Of course, this anti-coup rule was grandfathered in or else the AU would only have about a dozen members.

It's good that the AU deals strongly with coups. It's right and proper that you shouldn't seize power just because you have guns; and if you did, it's right and proper that the international community do what they can to punish you for it.

However, the AU needs to expand on this. Military coups are not the only violation of "constitutional order" that can happen. Constitutions (not only in Africa) are violated all the time. Judicial decisions are ignored. Active military men serve as president, even when it's constitutionally forbidden. People are thrown into re-education camps because they support the opposition. Elections are rigged. People's homes are destroyed under the pretext of "cleanup." Rarely are such monstrosities condemned by the AU. Even when those crimes create hundreds of thousands of homeless, the AU can't be bothered.

To wit, South African President Thabo Mbeki was reported to be furious at the Mauritania coup. Mbeki said that there is a lot of anger in Africa about the use of unconstitutional means to change governments, according to the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Yet Mbeki is the chief apologist for Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe. Mugabe crimes are too numerous to mention here (though I detailed some of them here and here), but they all seem more serious than a group of military men jettisoning another group of military men.

And Mugabe's only the most pompous example. What about Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo's tolerence and perhaps use of xenophobic militia/criminal gangs acting in his name? What about Rwandan leader Paul Kagame's assiduous efforts to muzzle all opposition? What about the "state of emergency" that's been in place in Egypt for the last quarter century? What about Eritrean leader Isiais Afewarki's war on the press? What about alleged slavery in Niger? What has the AU said about these things? Do they not represent an assault on the "constitutional order"?

They still have slavery in Mauritania but what gets the AU hot and bothered is when the country replaces one autocratic regime with a slightly less autocratic regime. Sorry if I'm underwhelmed.