Robert Mugabe And Mark Twain

No tears to be shed for the death of Robert Mugabe this week.  Since 2008 the corrupt and brutal dictator has been a topic of posts over a dozen times on Caffeinated Politics.  Looking back the best thing I ever had to say about Mugabe was calling him a bastard. I am not sure what caused my restraint from adding ‘dirty.’

What frustrates me so is that the way Mugabe started his leadership was admirable.  Uplifting.  Hopeful.  There were clearly steps that had to be taken away from colonialism.  Redress had to be made for the nation, and measures enacted to bring equality to society.  But that is not what he did.

He brought corruption, thuggery, armed forces trained by North Koreans, and deep rancor which did nothing to heal a nation long in need of breaching the divide.  It would be hard to imagine a worse example that could have stayed in power for nearly 4 decades in Zimbabwe.  The lack of any real hope, given the economic situation there now, is cause for concern about further stability.

The first post about Mugabe was from May 2008.

It was a brutal reminder that the situation in Zimbabwe is a tinderbox following the elections where President Robert Mugabe was defeated.  His attempts, however,  to hold onto power, and even drag the nation into chaos and bloodshed is not a shocker for anyone who has followed his chaotic and wretched time as leader.

The party of Mugabe is threatening the nation into supporting him in a runoff election.  Many however do not see as necessary another election, given the fraud that took place a month ago when voters cast their ballots to end the monstrous regime of Mugabe.

September 2015 finds a post where I smirk at his inability to resemble leadership.

There is only bile that comes to me when typing the name Robert Mugabe.  But there is also reason to laugh at the bastard today.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has read out the wrong speech at the opening of parliament.

He gave the same one during his state-of-the-nation address on 25 August, when he was heckled by opposition MPs.

In November 2017 I found pleasure in that day’s headlines.

I am mighty pleased.  This should have happened many years ago.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to a week of overwhelming pressure from the military that put him under house arrest, lawmakers from the ruling party and opposition who started impeachment proceedings and a population that surged into the streets to say 37 years in power was enough.

“Never should the nation be held at ransom by one person ever again, whose desire is to die in office at whatever cost to the nation,” said Mnangagwa, who has a loyal support base in the military.

The announcement of his death this week was first heard by this blogger over BBC radio.  While news presenters on the network refrain from emotion and always present objectivity there was, I suspect, a bit of a wry smile behind the microphone.  There certainly was on my lips.  And the reason should be most obvious.

To see a country strangled in slow motion is a horrible thing to witness.  But that is what the world watched happen to Zimbabwe due to the loathsome actions of Robert Mugabe.  It was awful to watch his hands over the decades around the political levers that drained the nation of vitality year after year.

Mark Twain was right.  There are some obituaries we look forward to reading.

First Post-Mugabe Election in Zimbabwe NEVER Mentioned On NBC, CBS Evening News

I am always desiring to have a citizenry informed about the news and events of not only our country, but also the world.

One of the truly important, and also inspiring stories, took place Monday in Zimbabwe as millions of people voted peacefully in the first election since the long-overdue ouster of Robert Mugabe.  The election was no small thing.  The outcome will go a long way in determining the former British colony’s future for decades.

I went to bed last night listening to BBC radio for updates, and spent the day with either newspaper accounts or media updates via the computer.

But when turning to the evening newscasts on major networks in the United States I found what can only be described as a severe lack of sound editorial direction.   Neither CBS or NBC had a single mention of the story--with CBS not even having a mention of ANY international news.   NBC decided to carry a closing story about a basketball player.

Many minutes were spent on the large and raging wildfires in California.  Yes, they are news and impact many lives.  But from a news editor perspective the stories and images of the fires have been on the nightly broadcasts for a week, and nothing appreciably different occurred Monday.

Meanwhile a very significant vote was underway in a major African nation, where for the first time since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 after a brutal guerrilla war against a white supremacist regime, Mugabe was not on the ballot.

And it deserved coverage!

Thankfully each evening in our home we record on the DVR the BBC World News.  The BBC continuously provides full coverage and insight about the world.  It is due to the shortcomings of programs, such as the network newscasts this evening, which help create a citizenry that is under-educated about international events.

Zimbabwe And More Press Freedoms?

One of those media stories that demands attention.

Hat Tip to James.

For 37 years, it was the official newspaper of Robert Mugabe. Then, this month, the staff of the Zimbabwe Herald got an impossible assignment: They would have to cover the downfall of their benefactor.

In the days after Mugabe was detained by the military, editors and reporters gathered in a wood-paneled newsroom in an old office building downtown, trying to figure out what to do. Should they back Mugabe or the military takeover? Did they still have to echo the party line? What was the party line, anyway?

And It Is Over In Zimbabwe

I am mighty pleased.  This should have happened many years ago.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to a week of overwhelming pressure from the military that put him under house arrest, lawmakers from the ruling party and opposition who started impeachment proceedings and a population that surged into the streets to say 37 years in power was enough.

“Never should the nation be held at ransom by one person ever again, whose desire is to die in office at whatever cost to the nation,” said Mnangagwa, who has a loyal support base in the military.

Zimbabwe’s polarizing first lady, Grace Mugabe, had been positioning herself to succeed her husband, leading a party faction that engineered Mnangagwa’s ouster. The prospect of a dynastic succession alarmed the military, which confined Mugabe to his home last week and targeted what it called “criminals” around him who allegedly were looting state resources — a reference to associates of the first lady.

Grace Mugabe has not been seen since the military stepped in.

She can just disappear, too.

Robert Mugabe About To Get Hard Kick Out Of Palace Door

Last week it was the power moves in Saudi Arabia that held my attention and interest.  This week it is the removal of one who has pained much of the thinking world for decades–Robert Mugabe.  Over the past decade on this blog I have not been reticent to state how I feel about this most putrid mass of human tissue.

Robert Mugabe is one of the most  wretched and disruptive leaders in the world today.  I place his name alongside  Sudan’s al-Bashir,  and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il  for being a major source of concern for the regions they inflict their pain upon.   That was how I felt in 2009.

Also from that year I wrote that There seems  to be no end to the destruction from Robert Mugabe on the country he leads.  For many long years we have watched and read the way Zimbabwe has suffered as a result of his ruthlessness, and desire to rape the resources of his country.

I also wrote on this blog  that To see a country strangled in slow motion is a horrible thing to witness.  However the citizens of Zimbabwe have been seeing that very thing up close as their loathsome leader, Robert Mugabe, has his hands around the political levers and drains the nation of vitality year after year.

What is at the center of this week’s move by the military to remove Mugabe’s is that his most-corrupt wife must also be banished from whatever power moves she is concocting in her scheming and manipulative mind.   It is not good enough to just remove the bigoted and corrupt Mugabe who falls asleep in public as soon as he falls back into his chair.   Also to be ushered to the the national exit door must be his wife.

This week it almost seemed that Mugabe thought he was in some position to cajole and negotiate his way to some safe place of power.  But the coup is no joke and his ouster is not in question.  The only thing left in question is that when he is thrown out of power does he land on his head or his backside.

While I am very much convinced that a principled constitutional equation would be best to remove this despot, I am also aware from following Zimbabwe’s plight that there needs to be a total and fast removal of Mugabe.  I applaud those negotiators who are poring through Zimbabwe’s laws to find a legal way out.  But even if there is not a path that is pure and clean Mugabe’s carcass must be jettisoned.

There are moves from some war veterans for independence and from the ruling party who seem more than ready to throw him away as party leader as early as tomorrow.   So the pretense that Mugabe can steer this show or have some central role to play ended when the military hardware took to the streets.

I am not sure if Zimbabwe has public executions.   But if they did Robert Mugabe would be a prime candidate for that fate.

Robert Mugabe Turning Most Literate Nation In Africa Upside Down

It is not as if this was not predicted.

Robert Mugabe is one of the most  wretched and disruptive leaders in the world today.  I place his name alongside  Sudan’s al-Bashir,  and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il  for being a major source of concern for the regions they inflict their pain on.    The latest evidence of his disregard for shaping policy, or addressing public needs comes from the classrooms in Zimbabwe.

Six months into Zimbabwe’s unity government, this classroom on the outskirts of the capital is typical of schools in a country that once boasted one of Africa’s best education systems.

Without supplies, schools are having to improvise to keep their classes running, after thousands of teachers fled due to economic hardship and the political violence of the last year.

“If you look at textbooks for example, ideally each pupil should have their own textbook or share at a ratio of one textbook for three pupils,” Madosi said.

“But we have a situation where seven and in some cases 12 pupils share one book. In the worst cases, some textbooks are just not available — or only the teacher has a personal copy.

“In the end the teacher spends most of his time doing clerical work, that is, copying exercises and writing on the board.”

The crisis in Zimbabwe‘s state-run schools threatens the country’s status as one of the most literate societies on the continent. It is one of the biggest challenges facing the six-month-old unity government.

Robert Mugabe Violently Taking Over Diamond Fields

There seems  to be no end to the destruction from Robert Mugabe on the country he leads.  For many long years we have watched and read the way Zimbabwe has suffered as a result of his ruthlessness, and desire to rape the resources of his country.  The latest read from the Sunday paper is not so shocking given what we already know about this tyrant, but instead a further confirmation that Mugabe is running his country, through violence, ever further into the ground.

Zimbabwe’s military, controlled by President Robert Mugabe’s political party, violently took over diamond fields in Zimbabwe last year and has used the illicit revenues to buy the loyalty of restive soldiers and enrich party leaders, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released Friday.

The party, ZANU-PF, has used the money from diamonds — smuggled out of the country or illegally sold through the Reserve Bank — to reinforce its hold over the security forces, which seemed to be slipping last year as the value of soldiers’ pay collapsed with soaring inflation, Human Rights Watch researchers said.

On Friday, Zimbabwe’s government roundly denied the charges in the report, which cited visits by its researcher to the diamond fields in February and interviews with soldiers, miners and other witnesses.

The information minister, Webster Shamu, of ZANU-PF, said in a telephone interview that the report’s aim was to tarnish the country’s image, block the sale of its diamonds internationally and, “in so doing, deny Zimbabwe much needed foreign currency.”

“The whole report is just not true,” he said.

Last year Zimbabwe’s state media depicted the military blitz, code-named Operation No Return, in the Marange district as a push to restore order in the midst of a lawless diamond rush in the area.

But the Human Rights Watch report charged that the military killed more than 200 miners and used the push to seize the Marange fields.

Some miners died when soldiers opened fire from helicopters with automatic rifles mounted on them, the group said. Many of the dead were taken to the morgue at Mutare General Hospital, or buried in mass graves, the report says.

Army brigades are being rotated into the diamond fields, discovered in 2006, so more soldiers can profit from the illegal trade, the report says.

Villagers from the area, some of them children, are being forced to work in mines controlled by military syndicates and have complained of being harassed, beaten and arrested, the report says.

“It’s a big cash cow for the military and the police, especially since Zimbabwe is virtually bankrupt,” Dewa Mavhinga, the Zimbabwean lawyer who was the main researcher for the report, said in an interview.

Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled for 29 years, is now governing with his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, who spent the past three weeks in Western capitals seeking assistance for Zimbabwe’s devastated economy.

President Obama and European heads of state have generally declined to aid Zimbabwe’s government directly, in part because of concerns that it continues to flout the rule of law.

The Human Rights Watch report is the latest sign of growing international concern about charges of killings and human rights abuses in the diamond fields southwest of the city of Mutare.

Coincidence? Grandson Of Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Drowns

I think President Mugabe is a treacherous man that will stop at nothing to retain full and complete power in Zimbabwe.  I do not doubt for a minute that Mugabe is behind each of these deaths.

The 2-year-old grandson of Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai drowned in a swimming pool, barely a month after Tsvangirai’s wife died in a car crash, according to his spokesman.

The child, Sean Tsvangirai, was at Tsvangirai’s house in Harare when he was found drowned in a swimming pool Saturday afternoon.

“He had wandered off and was found later in the pool of the house,” said Tsvangirai spokesman James Maridadi.

Sean will be buried Monday in Tsvangirai’s home village of Buhera, where Tsvangirai’s wife Susan was buried last month after dying in an automobile crash March 6.