Mr. Mugabe's Violence
Zimbabwe's president continues to terrorize his opponents while withholding the results of the election he lost.
Washington Post Editorial Wednesday, April 30, 2008; Page A18
THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the Zimbabwean regime of Robert Mugabe is engaged in a massive, orchestrated and brutal campaign to punish and terrorize its opponents. Security forces and militia groups loyal to the 84-year-old autocrat have rampaged across the countryside for the past month, targeting opposition activists and whole villages suspected of having voted against the government in the March 29 elections. In some areas, torture camps have been established where victims are taken and beaten while their homes are looted and burned. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association said yesterday that at least 10 people have been killed and hundreds displaced; the opposition Movement for Democratic Change counts 15 dead, 3,000 refugees and 500 hospitalized. While this criminal repression goes on, Mr. Mugabe is still blocking the release of the results of the presidential vote held one month ago. Using totals posted by individual election districts, independent monitors have calculated that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mr. Mugabe by a wide margin, though it is not clear whether he obtained the 50 percent majority needed to avoid a runoff. But while the electoral commission finally confirmed Saturday that the opposition won a majority in Parliament, it has repeatedly delayed the certification of the presidential vote; yesterday it said it would not begin until Thursday. While the bureaucrats drag their feet, Mr. Mugabe's campaign of terror continues in the countryside -- and virtually ensures that if a presidential runoff is held it will not be free or fair. "What we are witnessing constitutes a form of rigging," said the chairman of the human rights association. (Read full text of editorial.) |
Zimbabwe to Hold Run-Off Election
By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 2, 2008
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential election but failed to win a majority of the vote, requiring a run-off election on a date to be determined, the Zimbabwe Electoral commission announced today. Tsvangirai, leader of the largest faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, won 47.9 percent of the vote, and Mugabe took 43.2 percent, Chief Elections Officer Lovemore Sekeramayi said. "No candidate has received a majority of votes counted," the commission said in a statement. "A second election will be held at a date to be announced." Under Zimbabwean law, a run-off should be held within 21 days of the announcement of the results. Opposition officials immediately denounced the electoral commission's tally, charging that Tsvangirai had been robbed of victory. The 56-year-old opposition leader has been traveling outside Zimbabwe in recent weeks, saying he fears for his life if he returns to his country. He has maintained that he won the presidency outright on March 29 with 50.3 percent of the vote. (Read full story.) |
U.N. council pressed to send mission to Zimbabwe
By Patrick Worsnip Tuesday, April 29, 2008
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council took up Zimbabwe's election standoff for the first time on Tuesday, and Western powers pressed for a U.N. mission or envoy to visit the crisis-stricken southern African country. (Read article.) |
After losing Zimbabwe's election, Mugabe prepares a coup d'etat
10 April 2008
Having lost control of the lower House of Parliament and through election fraud managed a draw in the Senate, Robert Mugabe is now preparing his Zanu-PF militias, "veteran's" organizations, and Shona dominated army to hang onto power after losing the Presidency outright to Movement for Democratic Change leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission refuses to release the results of the Presidential election, because Tsvangirai received 50.3 percent of the vote, as compilation of results posted publicly at each polling site reveal. Tsvangirai received the necessary outright majority to win the election.
But Mugabe and his cronies, who would lose their jobs and the fruits of corruption that go with them, are now planning a coup d'etat to nullify the results of the election. It is symptomatic of their desperation that they are calling for a "recount" and have arrested several members of the Electoral Commission even before the results are announced.
The ominous mobilization of Zanu-PF militias, police, and the army are early warning signs of a bloody coup d'etat in the making. Regional neighboring states have called a conference to but they are unlikely to pressure comrade Mugabe to step down. (Read updates) |
Zimbabwe stations ‘play hate songs’
ZWNews.com 15 April 2008
Government-controlled media in Zimbabwe have been playing songs that encourage violence, a non-government organisation said today. The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) said that over the weekend, Spot FM aired a number of "political songs" ahead of the country’s coming Independence Day celebrations. One of them, "Mr Government" by Man Soul Jah, celebrated the government’s land seizures and called for the decimation of perceived political sellouts. The song said: "We are living like squatters in the land of our heritage... give me my spear so that I can kill the many sellouts in my forefathers’ country." "The song preaches hate and violence," MMPZ said. In addition, ZTV aired the song, Tora Gidi (Take the Gun) by the Harare Mambos, which encouraged people to take up arms. "In this context, the opposition parties are the country’s perceived enemies," MMPZ said. |
Mugabe's partisans begin the witch hunt
Squads of Green Bombers have been deployed in every district across the country
Globe and Mail (Canada)
16 April 2008
Driven to desperation by an economy that has contracted faster than any in history, by inflation of more than 150,000 per cent annually and by recurring food shortages, they voted overwhelmingly for the MDC, and its presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. Now they are being made to pay for that act of electoral bravery. On April 1, Zimbabwe's electoral commission announced that this and many other constituencies had gone to the MDC, enough to give the party control of Parliament for the first time in Zimbabwe's history. Five days later, the youth militia arrived. There are about 25 of them and they have established a rough camp in the hills above the village. They wear the rough green fatigues that gave the infamous militia its nickname, the Green Bombers.
The militias created by Mr. Mugabe four years ago have now been deployed around the country to take measures to ensure that none of the constituencies that voted for the MDC would do it again in a run-off election.
At the opening of the meeting, the crowd was ordered to join in singing liberation war-era songs urging people to take their guns and fight for their country: "sell-outs must be killed," the lyrics go. Then there were speeches, denunciations from militia members who appeared to be high on drugs of "traitors," "rabid dogs of the west" and "puppets." After midnight, the demonstrations of the cost of voting MDC began, with the whipping of Ms. Gomba. When she had been carried, bloodied, from the room, the youth dragged up Naison Ngwerume, an MDC activist from the area; the youth told the crowd that they found posters in his bedroom showing Mr. Tsvangirai. "These are the rotten apples in this district," said the youth leader, a short, hardened man with a bald head. "We shall not allow them to contaminate the whole lot of you."
The pungwe meetings continue to be held every night.
Squads of Green Bombers like those in Chiduku, and other groups of paramilitaries including "war veterans," have been deployed in every district across the country, using similar tactics. In Mutoko, 160 kilometres to the north of Harare, 20 houses were burned last weekend. Five were torched in Murehwa, 80 kilometres north, on Sunday night. (Read more.) |
Military Leaders Making the Decisions in Zimbabwe
By Craig Timburg and Shakeman Mugari Washington Post Foreign Service
April 16, 2008
Zimbabwe's military has taken day-to-day control of key elements of the national government, limiting the authority of President Robert Mugabe as he struggles to maintain power after 28 years, according to senior government sources, Western diplomats and analysts. Mugabe's clout has diminished as military forces deploy widely across Zimbabwe's countryside and in government agencies. Among those agencies is the electoral commission, which has refused to release results from the March 29 election and would manage a runoff vote, if one is eventually scheduled. National decision-making increasingly has been consolidated within the Joint Operations Command, a shadowy group consisting of the leaders of the army, air force, police, intelligence agency and prison service -- a group Zimbabweans call the "securocrats." (Read more.) |
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| Copyright 2008 Amnesty International |
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Genocide Watch calls for a full spectator and sponsor boycott of Beijing's Genocide Olympics.
Genocide Watch has concluded that calls by some human rights groups and heads of state for a boycott of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Genocide Olympics do not go nearly far enough to shame the Chinese dictatorship for its continuing financial and arms support for the genocidal regimes in Sudan and Burma, and Chinese oppression of Tibetans and Muslim Uighers in Xinjiang.
Genocide Watch calls on all persons, especially world leaders, planning to attend the Olympics to cancel their reservations and boycott the Olympic Games. Genocide Watch also calls for cancellation of corporate sponsorship by McDonald's, Coca Cola, General Electric, Samsung, and other companies that have invested in the Beijing Olympics, whether or not they can recover their investments. If they refuse to withdraw their sponsorship, Genocide Watch calls for a boycott of the products of the companies that are Olympic sponsors.
Genocide Watch does not call for athletes to boycott the Beijing Olympics, because they have only one chance every four years to compete, and should not be punished for the misguided choice of Beijing by the International Olympic Committee. (Read full text of statement.) |
Memo to Bush on Darfur
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
April 10, 2008
President Bush seems genuinely troubled by the slaughter in Darfur and has periodically suggested to Condoleezza Rice: Why can’t we just send troops in and take care of it? Each time, Ms. Rice patiently explains: You can’t invade a third Muslim country, especially one with oil. And so Mr. Bush backs off and does nothing.
But this week marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide — the last time we said “never again.” And while Ms. Rice is right that we can’t send in American ground troops, there are concrete steps that President Bush can take if he wants to end his shameful passivity:
1. Work with France to end the proxy war between Sudan and Chad and to keep Sudan from invading Chad and toppling its government. Stopping the Darfur virus from infecting the surrounding countries must be a top priority. And even if the West lacks the gumption to do much within Sudan, it should at least try to block the spread of genocide to the entire region.
France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is leading the way in providing a European force to stabilize Chad and Central African Republic, and we should back him strongly. If Sudan dispatches additional proxy troops, France and the U.S. should use aircraft to strafe the invaders. But we should also push Chad’s repressive president to accommodate his domestic opponents rather than imprison them.
2. Broaden the focus from “save Darfur” to “save Sudan.” There is a growing risk that the war between North and South Sudan will resume in the coming months and that Sudan will shatter into pieces. The U.S. should try to shore up the fraying north-south peace agreement and urgently help South Sudan with an anti-aircraft capability, to deter Khartoum from striking the South. (Read more.) |
Southern Sudan: A Genocide Foretold
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF The New York Times February 28, 2008
The Sudanese government started the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur, and now it seems to be preparing to start the second here among the thatch-roof huts of southern Sudan.
South Sudan is rich in oil, but its people are among the poorest in the world, far poorer than those in Darfur. Only 1 percent of girls here finish elementary school, meaning that a young woman is more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than to become literate. Leprosy and Ebola linger here. South Sudan is the size of Texas, yet it has only 10 miles of paved road and almost no electricity; just about the only running water here is the Nile River.
The poverty is mostly the result of the civil war between North and South Sudan that raged across the southern part of the country for two decades and cost 2 million lives. For many impoverished villagers, their only exposure to modern technology has been to endure bombings by the Sudanese Air Force. The war finally ended, thanks in part to strong American pressure, in 2005 with a landmark peace agreement — but that peace is now fraying.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is backing away from the peace agreement, and prodding Arab militias to revive the war with the South Sudan military forces. Small-scale armed clashes have broken out since late last year, and it looks increasingly likely that Darfur will become simply the prologue to a far bloodier conflict that engulfs all Sudan. (Read article.) |
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Make Sudan an Offer It Can’t Refuse
By MARK HELPRIN Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times March 25, 2008
Which would the regime in Sudan prefer? To be annihilated, or to discontinue its campaign of mass murder in Darfur? Given Sudan’s record, very few nations would be willing to come to its aid with other than a pro forma whimper, and given the geography and the air and naval balance, no nation could. Though many a repressive dictatorship would protest, and Sudan’s patron, China, might determine to speed up the formation of the blue-water navy it is already building, little else would change except for the better.
This is especially so because only in the worst case would a military strike actually be necessary. One of the chief attractions of such an initiative is that, if properly directed, it could, one way or another, military strike or not, accomplish its aims. These are, first, to stop the mass killings and dislocations; and, second, to pressure Sudan into negotiating settlements in good faith (which it need not do as long as it retains its habitual option of simply murdering the populations it finds troublesome). (Read more.) |
Genocide Warning: Chad
Genocide Watch declared a Genocide Warning for Chad in November 2005, renewed in April 2006 and January 2008. Sudanese government backed Janjaweed militias have crossed the Chad border from Sudan, where they have raided dozens of black African Chadian villages, murdering, pillaging, and displacing civilians, just as they have done in Darfur, Sudan. Sudanese supported "rebels" have made three attempts to overthrow the Chadian government by force, including two invasions of the Chadian capital, Njamena. Sudan's government denies its support for the Janjaweed and for the rebel forces, but Sudanese government bombers and helicopter gunships have bombed villages in both Darfur and Chad and the "rebels" are armed and based in Sudan. Although the Deby government in Chad was "re-elected" in 2006 in a vote boycotted by all opposition parties, and is deeply corrupt, having broken its agreement with the World Bank to spend revenues from Chadian oil on education and health, a takeover by Sudanese backed rebels would be far worse. It would expose refugees from Darfur to the murderous Janjaweed, would prevent deployment of European Union troops to protect them, and would help Sudan finish its genocide against black African peoples in Darfur and Eastern Chad. (Read news updates.) |
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| Copyright2008LynseyAddarioforTheNewYorkTimes |
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Rebels’ Border War Prolongs Darfur’s Misery
By LYDIA POLGREEN The New York Times April 13, 2008
AT THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — The rebels call it a base, but it is really nothing more than a dry riverbed, punctuated by the occasional knot of pickup trucks with gun mounts parked in the soft sand. This borderline has so little relevance that the fighters camped out here, some of them just boys, cannot say for sure which country they are in. And yet they sit on a deadly tinderbox, foot soldiers in a proxy war involving two of Africa’s most divided and unstable nations, with more than two million of the world’s most vulnerable people caught in between.
As the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan has raged for five years, it has also engulfed Chad. About 200,000 refugees have fled into the borderlands, chased by Arab militias and government troops and setting off ethnic battles that echo those in Darfur. The crisis continues to draw closer to outright confrontation between Chad and Sudan. Political analysts, diplomats and even the combatants acknowledge that both sides are supporting and arming rebellions on each other’s soil. (Read more.) |
In Gaza, Hamas' Insults To Jews Complicate Peace
by Steven Erlanger, The New York Times
1 April 2008
Incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.
Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.
Intended to indoctrinate the young to its brand of radical Islam, which combines politics, social work and military resistance, including acts of terrorism, the programs of Al Aksa television and radio, including crucial Friday sermons, are an indication of how far from reconciliation Israelis and many Palestinians are.
Hamas’s grip on Gaza matters, but what may matter more in the long run is its control over propaganda and education there, breeding longer-term problems for Israel, and for peace. No matter what Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree upon, there is concern here that the attitudes being instilled will make a sustainable peace extremely difficult. (Read more.) |
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