Zimbabwe heading towards a Rwandan genocide

Once upon a time there was an African country that after several years of instability seemed to be moving shakily towards reform and democracy. Its ageing despotic president had signed a power-sharing deal with the opposition that created a unity government that would precipitate a new constitution and elections.
Sounds rather like Zimbabwe, doesn’t it? But [...]

Massacres, forced labour haunt Zimbabwe diamond fields

Military control over diamond mining in Zimbabwe’s eastern Marange district has resulted in a brutal mix of massacres, forced labour, beatings and rape.
This is according to a comprehensive report released last week by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based rights NGO, which interviewed over 100 people in the region in February 2009.
Mining in Marange [...]

Unity govt a farce as MDC’s Bennett imprisoned

Roy Bennett, a former farmer, and the opposition MDC’s firebrand treasurer was meant to be sworn in as deputy minister for agriculture in Zimbabwe’s new, election result-defying unity government. Instead, on landing at Charles Prince Airport, he was arrested and taken to the police station in Mutare, a town in the north-east of Zimbabwe.
According to [...]

Why Africa’s leaders can’t solve Zimbabwe crisis

Robert Mugabe, the embattled Zimabwean despot, has no intention of relinquishing power. He’s even said as much. And this is merely confirmed by the ongoing abduction, incarceration and torture of opposition activists and a bloody-minded refusal to share key ministries in the proposed unity government.
The SADC (Southern African Development Community) is only too aware of [...]

Zim unity government: Thabo’s toxic legacy

Part of Thabo Mbeki’s toxic legacy could well prove to be the disastrous unity deal he engineered between Zanu-PF and the MDC in Zimbabwe.
Democracy has been defeated in Zimbabwe, and this largely due to Mbeki’s willingness to legitimise Mugabe’s tyrannous regime through his chairing of the power-sharing negotiations. It was a marriage doomed from the [...]

Mbeki’s Zim negotiations were self-serving

This piece was written (and published on Thought Leader) before the announcement that a deal had been brokered between Zanu PF and the MDC. What remains to be seen, however, is whether or not this will truly result in Zimbabwean’s people democratic will being respected. The details that have thus far been outlined about the [...]

Mugabe’s friends: China, Russia (and SA)

“Smart” sanctions targeting Mugabe and 13 of his fascist associates have been vetoed by China and Russia in the Security Council. True to its pro-Zanu inclinations, the South African government also voted against the measure (as did Vietnam and Libya — no surprises there).
Click here to read the Telegraph’s report and here for the BBC’s.

UK to kick desperate Zim asylum-seekers out

The UK’s Home Office is forcing thousands of Zimbabwean asylum seekers home according to this article in the Mail & Guardian.
This stinks of hypocrisy — and doesn’t make sense in the light of the UK’s foreign policy which clearly acknowledges the despotic brutality of the Zanu PF dictatorship. Being prepared to send desperate asylum seekers [...]

Morgan pulls out

MDC presidential contender Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of Friday’s election, citing the wave of violence and intimidation of opposition supporters at the hands of Zanu PF-affiliated thugs. It’s disappointing, in one respect, but wholly understandable – especially considering that Mugabe has made it quite clear that whatever the result of the vote, he will [...]

The Zanu-PF Fan Club (also known as the ANC)

Robert Mugabe is one lucky dictator, being in the enviable position of having outsourced his foreign diplomacy efforts to the South African government. By preventing a discussion in the United Nations Security Council on Zimbabwe’s political situation, South Africa is doing its utmost to ensure that the international community does nothing about the tyrannous regime’s [...]