Shall we start a campaign to impeach Mbeki for crimes against humanity?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/25/wzim125.xml Mbeki is willing to bail out his neighbour Telegraph 25/07/2005
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa drove home his continued support for Zimbabwe's regime yesterday by declaring that his government might pay some of President Robert Mugabe's debts.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1709828,00.html When aid is appeasement A bailout for Mugabe is the last thing Zimbabwe needs
Mr Mbeki’s vaunted “quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe, far from helping ordinary Zimbabweans by easing their tyrant out of power, is prolonging their agony by helping him. It is short-sighted appeasement, and against the spirit of everything Mr Mbeki endorsed at Gleneagles.
ZIMBABWE has the highest inflation and lowest life expectancy in the world, not to mention the highest percentage of orphans. So desperate is the shortage of food that President Robert Mugabe’s own guards have been spotted shooting squirrels in Harare’s Botanical Gardens.
However, Mugabe, 82, may be rewarded by being made president for life at his party’s annual conference this week.
If anyone out there fancies writing "Transnational Organisations for Dummies", then putting torturers in charge of Human Rights committees and now Zimbabwe in charge of a food charity post would have to figure prominently.
Zimbabwe may gain the vice-presidency of the World Food Programme (WFP) — despite the collapse of its own agricultural sector. All seven African countries presently on the WFP's 36-strong executive board are believed to support the bid of Robert Mugabe's regime.If successful, Zimbabwe will be in line to become the president of the world's largest supplier of humanitarian aid next year.
Once one of Africa's leading food exporters, Zimbabwe has needed WFP supplies since 2001. At present, almost one million of its people, mainly orphans and schoolchildren, are receiving emergency food aid. Mr Mugabe has blamed drought, but critics say the country enjoyed better than normal rains last year. They also point out that the onset of the food shortages coincided exactly with the regime's seizures of white-owned farms. In addition, Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate of 1,594 per cent, putting even basic foodstuffs beyond the reach of many families.
Ian Smith only once doubted the wisdom of his decision to declare UDI and lead Rhodesia into a 15-year civil war to protect white rule. That moment of doubt occurred in April 1980, during a meeting with Robert Mugabe, who the previous day had taken office as the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe had summoned Smith to Government House and Smith was surprised to be greeted with a warm handshake and a broad smile; after all, the country's new Marxist leader had promised his people that, come liberation, he would have Smith publicly hanged in Harare's main square. At that meeting, Mugabe told Smith he was acutely aware that he had inherited from his old adversaries, the whites, a jewel of a country, and he praised its superb infrastructure, its efficient modern economy, and promised to keep it that way.
Smith, completely disarmed, rushed home in a state of excitement, and, over lunch, told his wife, Janet, that perhaps he had been wrong about a black government being incapable of running his beloved Rhodesia. As he told me years later: "Here's this chap, and he was speaking like a sophisticated, balanced, sensible man. I thought: if he practises what he preaches, then it will be fine. And for five or six months it was fine…"
The simple, trusting banality of Ian Smith's words may, in fact, offer more clues to the catastrophe that has been Rhodesia/Zimbabwe over the past half-century than any number of political or academic tracts.
The point is Mugabe was not the sophisticated, balanced, sensible man Smith had briefly hoped for. Even as he was shaking Smith's hand, he was plotting the destruction of another group of political enemies, the Matabele, and was soon to send Korean-trained troops into Matabeleland to conduct a campaign of torture and murder that has still to be fully exposed. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians were murdered and as many again disfigured and tortured in what the Matabeles call the gukuruhundi, the washing away after the storm.
Bravo, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, whose members refuse to unload this ship. Shame on China (as usual) and Mbeki (ditto), the Mugabe supporters.
A Chinese ship carrying weapons destined for Zimbabwe left the South African harbor where it was docked Friday and was headed for Mozambique, according to an independent human rights group monitoring the vessel.
The ship left Durban harbor early Friday evening soon after a high court ordered that the controversial cargo not be moved, said Nicole Fritz, director of the Southern Africa Litigation Center, which asked the court to intervene to stop the arms from being transported on to Zimbabwe.
The An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship carrying the weapons, was anchored just outside Durban harbor after receiving permission late Wednesday to dock. Its arrival earlier this week has increased concern about tensions in Zimbabwe, where the ruling party and the opposition are locked in a dispute over presidential elections.
The terrible wounds which Robert Mugabe's Fifth Brigade inflicted on Matabeleland in the early 1980s still show. The countryside is under-populated, there is even less employment in the towns than there is in the rest of Zimbabwe, and people are scared to talk. Not all of them, though. We slipped into Matabeleland with the help of local people, and gathered evidence of some of the massacres carried out there between 1982 and 1986.
It began as an attempt by Robert Mugabe, who was then prime minister of Zimbabwe, to deal with about 500 dissidents. These were followers of his rival, Joshua Nkomo, and mostly belonged to Nkomo's militia, Zipra. Mr Mugabe ordered the Fifth Brigade, which had been trained by the North Korean army and had a number of North Korean officers serving with it, to root them out.
It soon turned into something much worse. The Fifth Brigade, like Mr Mugabe's government and administration, was mostly Shona-speaking; Matabeleland is populated mostly by Ndebeles, the descendants of Zulus who came to the area in the 1830s. Nowadays, many in Matabeleland describe the campaign of murder as genocide.
To find out how many people died, we went to the quiet precincts of the Catholic cathedral in Bulawayo to meet Joseph Buchena Nkatazo. He co-ordinated an investigation carried out some years ago by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Mr Nkatazo told us that in the areas where they had been able to investigate, they had found evidence of more than 20,000 deaths. He was sure there must have been many more elsewhere.
We drove south of Bulawayo to a place marked on the maps as Antelope - "Balakwe" in Ndebele. In the past, there was a lot of gold mining there. The Fifth Brigade set up a concentration camp in Antelope, where they systematically killed their prisoners. An eyewitness whom we interviewed had been a young girl of 11 when she was taken to the camp. She saw people being shot, beaten and burned to death. "When I remember now, my heart is so painful," she told me. The bodies of the dead were thrown down the nearby mine shafts.
We interviewed a man in late middle-age who had been one of the Fifth Brigade executioners. He confessed to his part in the killings, and said he had also helped dispose of the bodies. "We were taking them [to the mine-shafts] every day in the morning and evening," he said.
My colleagues and I drove to the Antelope mine. Our aim was to film the human remains at the foot of the mine shaft. It was difficult to get close: a militia group loyal to Robert Mugabe is camped all round the mine. Still, we managed to get there, and our cameraman lowered his camera down the shaft. But the mine was empty. It turned out that the bones had all been cleared away about three years ago, to hide any evidence of the massacre.
An old man who lived nearby watched some soldiers dig two mass graves, and throw the bones into them. He led me to the graves: just mounds of earth and stones. One day the remains will be properly exhumed. But not while Robert Mugabe is still in power. Did he give the orders for the massacres at Antelope and elsewhere?
The former Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Henri Karlen, is certain he did. Monsignor Karlen, who is Swiss by origin, confronted Mr Mugabe (who is himself a practising Catholic) and told him the murders must stop. Nowadays Henri Karlen lives in a quiet compound in Bulawayo. "Who brought the North Koreans in to train the soldiers for killing?" he said. "And the soldiers told me Mugabe had sent them to kill. So I believe it."
13 comments:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4706115.stm
UN condemns Zimbabwe slum blitz
A major UN report has called for an immediate end to Zimbabwe's slum clearance programme, declaring it to be in violation of international law.
Same story in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/23/wzim23.xml
UN condemns Mugabe for 'disastrous' demolitions
Telegraph
23/07/2005
Shall we start a campaign to impeach Mbeki for crimes against humanity?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/25/wzim125.xml
Mbeki is willing to bail out his neighbour
Telegraph
25/07/2005
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa drove home his continued support for Zimbabwe's regime yesterday by declaring that his government might pay some of President Robert Mugabe's debts.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1709828,00.html
When aid is appeasement
A bailout for Mugabe is the last thing Zimbabwe needs
Mr Mbeki’s vaunted “quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe, far from helping ordinary Zimbabweans by easing their tyrant out of power, is prolonging their agony by helping him. It is short-sighted appeasement, and against the spirit of everything Mr Mbeki endorsed at Gleneagles.
First good sign? At least the South African money comes with strings attached...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1726827,00.html
Times
August 09, 2005
Zimbabwe dismisses Mbeki's call for talks
Doesn't get much coverage, but truly tragic.
Mugabe feted as nation fails
The Sunday Times
December 10, 2006
ZIMBABWE has the highest inflation and lowest life expectancy in the world, not to mention the highest percentage of orphans. So desperate is the shortage of food that President Robert Mugabe’s own guards have been spotted shooting squirrels in Harare’s Botanical Gardens.
However, Mugabe, 82, may be rewarded by being made president for life at his party’s annual conference this week.
If anyone out there fancies writing "Transnational Organisations for Dummies", then putting torturers in charge of Human Rights committees and now Zimbabwe in charge of a food charity post would have to figure prominently.
Zimbabwe may win food charity post
Telegraph
20/02/2007
Zimbabwe may gain the vice-presidency of the World Food Programme (WFP) — despite the collapse of its own agricultural sector. All seven African countries presently on the WFP's 36-strong executive board are believed to support the bid of Robert Mugabe's regime.If successful, Zimbabwe will be in line to become the president of the world's largest supplier of humanitarian aid next year.
Once one of Africa's leading food exporters, Zimbabwe has needed WFP supplies since 2001. At present, almost one million of its people, mainly orphans and schoolchildren, are receiving emergency food aid. Mr Mugabe has blamed drought, but critics say the country enjoyed better than normal rains last year. They also point out that the onset of the food shortages coincided exactly with the regime's seizures of white-owned farms. In addition, Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate of 1,594 per cent, putting even basic foodstuffs beyond the reach of many families.
WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN: A Memoir by Peter Godwin
Review by RW Johnson
The Sunday Times
February 25, 2007
extract
Ian Smith has sadly been proved right
Telegraph Comment
By Graham Boynton
22/11/2007
Ian Smith only once doubted the wisdom of his decision to declare UDI and lead Rhodesia into a 15-year civil war to protect white rule. That moment of doubt occurred in April 1980, during a meeting with Robert Mugabe, who the previous day had taken office as the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe had summoned Smith to Government House and Smith was surprised to be greeted with a warm handshake and a broad smile; after all, the country's new Marxist leader had promised his people that, come liberation, he would have Smith publicly hanged in Harare's main square. At that meeting, Mugabe told Smith he was acutely aware that he had inherited from his old adversaries, the whites, a jewel of a country, and he praised its superb infrastructure, its efficient modern economy, and promised to keep it that way.
Smith, completely disarmed, rushed home in a state of excitement, and, over lunch, told his wife, Janet, that perhaps he had been wrong about a black government being incapable of running his beloved Rhodesia. As he told me years later: "Here's this chap, and he was speaking like a sophisticated, balanced, sensible man. I thought: if he practises what he preaches, then it will be fine. And for five or six months it was fine…"
The simple, trusting banality of Ian Smith's words may, in fact, offer more clues to the catastrophe that has been Rhodesia/Zimbabwe over the past half-century than any number of political or academic tracts.
The point is Mugabe was not the sophisticated, balanced, sensible man Smith had briefly hoped for. Even as he was shaking Smith's hand, he was plotting the destruction of another group of political enemies, the Matabele, and was soon to send Korean-trained troops into Matabeleland to conduct a campaign of torture and murder that has still to be fully exposed. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians were murdered and as many again disfigured and tortured in what the Matabeles call the gukuruhundi, the washing away after the storm.
more...
Bravo, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, whose members refuse to unload this ship.
Shame on China (as usual) and Mbeki (ditto), the Mugabe supporters.
South Africa says it won't move Zimbabwe arms
MSNBC
April 18, 2008
A Chinese ship carrying weapons destined for Zimbabwe left the South African harbor where it was docked Friday and was headed for Mozambique, according to an independent human rights group monitoring the vessel.
The ship left Durban harbor early Friday evening soon after a high court ordered that the controversial cargo not be moved, said Nicole Fritz, director of the Southern Africa Litigation Center, which asked the court to intervene to stop the arms from being transported on to Zimbabwe.
The An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship carrying the weapons, was anchored just outside Durban harbor after receiving permission late Wednesday to dock. Its arrival earlier this week has increased concern about tensions in Zimbabwe, where the ruling party and the opposition are locked in a dispute over presidential elections.
Wonder if anyone's asked Mbeki if he'd be in favour of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Zim.
Tracking down a massacre
BBC News
By John Simpson
7 May 2008
The terrible wounds which Robert Mugabe's Fifth Brigade inflicted on Matabeleland in the early 1980s still show. The countryside is under-populated, there is even less employment in the towns than there is in the rest of Zimbabwe, and people are scared to talk. Not all of them, though. We slipped into Matabeleland with the help of local people, and gathered evidence of some of the massacres carried out there between 1982 and 1986.
It began as an attempt by Robert Mugabe, who was then prime minister of Zimbabwe, to deal with about 500 dissidents. These were followers of his rival, Joshua Nkomo, and mostly belonged to Nkomo's militia, Zipra. Mr Mugabe ordered the Fifth Brigade, which had been trained by the North Korean army and had a number of North Korean officers serving with it, to root them out.
It soon turned into something much worse. The Fifth Brigade, like Mr Mugabe's government and administration, was mostly Shona-speaking; Matabeleland is populated mostly by Ndebeles, the descendants of Zulus who came to the area in the 1830s. Nowadays, many in Matabeleland describe the campaign of murder as genocide.
To find out how many people died, we went to the quiet precincts of the Catholic cathedral in Bulawayo to meet Joseph Buchena Nkatazo. He co-ordinated an investigation carried out some years ago by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Mr Nkatazo told us that in the areas where they had been able to investigate, they had found evidence of more than 20,000 deaths. He was sure there must have been many more elsewhere.
We drove south of Bulawayo to a place marked on the maps as Antelope - "Balakwe" in Ndebele. In the past, there was a lot of gold mining there. The Fifth Brigade set up a concentration camp in Antelope, where they systematically killed their prisoners. An eyewitness whom we interviewed had been a young girl of 11 when she was taken to the camp. She saw people being shot, beaten and burned to death. "When I remember now, my heart is so painful," she told me. The bodies of the dead were thrown down the nearby mine shafts.
We interviewed a man in late middle-age who had been one of the Fifth Brigade executioners. He confessed to his part in the killings, and said he had also helped dispose of the bodies. "We were taking them [to the mine-shafts] every day in the morning and evening," he said.
My colleagues and I drove to the Antelope mine. Our aim was to film the human remains at the foot of the mine shaft. It was difficult to get close: a militia group loyal to Robert Mugabe is camped all round the mine. Still, we managed to get there, and our cameraman lowered his camera down the shaft. But the mine was empty. It turned out that the bones had all been cleared away about three years ago, to hide any evidence of the massacre.
An old man who lived nearby watched some soldiers dig two mass graves, and throw the bones into them. He led me to the graves: just mounds of earth and stones. One day the remains will be properly exhumed. But not while Robert Mugabe is still in power. Did he give the orders for the massacres at Antelope and elsewhere?
The former Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Henri Karlen, is certain he did. Monsignor Karlen, who is Swiss by origin, confronted Mr Mugabe (who is himself a practising Catholic) and told him the murders must stop. Nowadays Henri Karlen lives in a quiet compound in Bulawayo. "Who brought the North Koreans in to train the soldiers for killing?" he said. "And the soldiers told me Mugabe had sent them to kill. So I believe it."
Personally, I blame the colonialist oppressors.
Eyewitness: Raped for opposing Mugabe
BBC News
20 June 2008
Mugabe's palace
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