The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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Mugabe's pugnacity intact as he turns
80
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa's most
combative and enduring rulers whose 24-year reign is under increasing attack at
home and abroad, shows no sign of mellowing with age as he turns 80 today.
In the days before his birthday, Mr. Mugabe pledged to fight what he
views as the efforts of Britain and the United States to topple his regime while
battling "economic saboteurs" at home.
Mr. Mugabe's tough talk has been
accompanied by deepening state repression. Last week, he signed a presidential
decree authorizing detention without bail for up to four weeks for political and
economic offenses including corruption or money laundering.
The
opposition Movement for Democratic Change described the decree — the latest in a
growing arsenal of repressive laws — as an undeclared state of emergency.
A slight, fidgety man, Mr. Mugabe is sub-Saharan Africa's
fourth-longest-ruling president after Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema, Gabon's Omar
Bongo and Angola's Eduardo dos Santos.
Once hailed as one of the
continent's great statesmen for his attempts to reconcile blacks and whites
after more than a decade of fighting, he has since been condemned as a tyrant
for rekindling racial hatred and sacrificing his country's economy in order to
cling to power.
Mr. Mugabe led black guerrillas in the campaign against
the white-minority Rhodesian government, but sought to allay the fears of the
country's tiny white minority when he became Zimbabwe's first black leader after
independence from Britain in 1980.
Many whites, who had been told by
their leaders that Mr. Mugabe planned to rape their women and shoot their men,
decided to stay after he promised that "there is a place for you in the sun."
With the help of white-owned commercial farms, Zimbabwe prospered and
developed into a regional breadbasket. Mr. Mugabe worked to bolster the nation's
health and education systems, making them among the best in Africa.
But
the economy soured amid Zimbabwe's costly involvement in Congo's five-year war
and revelations of corruption.
After voters rejected a constitutional
referendum in 2000 that would have consolidated Mr. Mugabe's powers, ruling
party officials accused white commercial farmers of bankrolling his opponents in
the Movement for Democratic Change.
The president ordered the seizure of
thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks, touching off more
than three years of political violence that has claimed more than 200 lives and
hounded tens of thousands of mostly black-opposition supporters from their
homes.
The land seizures, coupled with erratic rains, have crippled the
country's agriculture-based economy. Zimbabwe faces record inflation and
unemployment, along with acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline and
other imports.
Mr. Mugabe has repeatedly dismissed rumors of failing
health and calls from within his own party to retire.
"The president is
as fit as none of his detractors can ever hope to be in their lifetime," his
spokesman, George Charamba, said recently.
Mr. Mugabe was narrowly
re-elected in 2002 in a vote that independent observers said was marred by
intimidation and vote-rigging. He has since stepped up a crackdown against
dissent, arresting opposition leaders and waging lengthy legal battles to shut
down the country's only independent newspaper.
In an interview on the
government-controlled television network yesterday, Mr. Mugabe suggested he
would retire as president within five years.
"In five years [I will be]
here still boxing, writing quite a lot, reading quite a lot, and still in
politics. I won't leave politics, but I will have retired, obviously," Mr.
Mugabe said.
In a bid to clean up his ZANU-PF ruling party before the
elections, Mr. Mugabe has announced a new drive to fight top-level corruption.
Two senior ruling party officials were arrested earlier this year.
Analysts, however, dismiss the move as political cunning.
"It is
all being stage-managed. He is not going to touch the really big guys but punish
only the ones he can afford to sacrifice," said John Makumbe, a political
scientist at the University of Zimbabwe.
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But we shouldn't fall into a smug "only in America" mood. Only last week,
Zimbabwe's Stella Chiweshe had two of her musicians refused visas to the UK on
the grounds they might become illegal immigrants. We need to make sure the flow
of cultural exchange is maintained. It's one of the surest ways to promoting
global understanding.
Ian Anderson
Editor
fRoots Magazine
Two journalists from South Africa's eTV were arrested in Zimbabwe on Friday
while filming on the farm of an opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
MP.
Nkepile Mabuse and cameraman Frank Kgolane, who have been in that
country for a week, were filming in the eastern highlands area of Chimanimani
when local police took them in for questioning.
Joe Thloloe, eTV's
editor-in-chief, confirmed that Mabuse and Kgolane were taken in for questioning
but said "it was nothing serious".
MDC MP Roy Bennett, who owns the farm,
said there was no rule of law in Zimbabwe, charging that security authorities
had ignored the crew's press accreditation. - Own Correspondent