The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft, Zimbabwe Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:23am GMT
24/03/2007
President Robert Mugabe's security
forces and youth militia are
inflicting unprecedented violence on Zimbabwe's
civilians.
The orgy of violence has seen attacks on opposition
activists in every
township around the capital, Harare, since the latest
crisis erupted almost
a fortnight ago.
The technique used by
the ruling Zanu-PF party's thugs and security
forces is to beat the feet and
legs of their targets until they are unable
to walk. After carrying out
brutal attacks on the opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and other senior
officials, the squads have been turning their
attention to political
organisers.
Doctors, who must operate "underground" when treating
members of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, revealed the scale
of the
beatings.
One said they had helped to treat more than
100 activists in a two-day
period last week.
advertisement
The beatings are continuing and only those victims who
can afford the
bus fare to the centre in Harare are turning up for treatment
from doctors
in a number of city clinics. "It is continuing day after day,
in all the
townships around Harare," a doctor said. "It seems as though they
are going
for the second tier of political leadership.
"We
treat them, and it is pathetic watching them hobbling off home,
probably to
a house without any food. This violence is the worst we have
ever seen in
Harare, including around the presidential elections [in 2002]."
He
said that while the intensity of the attacks had reduced slightly
towards
the end of the week, some of the injuries were serious.
"It looks
as though they want to ensure that all the lower level
activists cannot walk
for a while," he said.
Cards used by Zimbabwe activists
show Mugabe as the ace of
diamonds and his wife Grace as the queen of
hearts
Two weeks ago the police, assisted by Mr Mugabe's
crudely trained
youth militia and some military police from the Zimbabwe
National Army,
arrested and beat scores of Movement for Democratic Change
activists,
including the founding MDC president, Mr Tsvangirai.
After the worst injured were released from hospital last week, the
most
brazen of all acts of violence in Mr Mugabe's 27-year rule took place
at the
entrance to the Harare International Airport, when, in daylight and
in front
of people about to catch a flight to London, a hit squad of eight
men
attacked the opposition MP Nelson Chamisa, fracturing his skull.
Mike Davies, the chairman of Zimbabwe's largest civil rights
organisation,
the Combined Harare Residents Association, who was detained
two weeks ago,
said: "This round of violence is calculated to instil fear
among residents,
crush any signs of rebellion and keep people cowed."
Further signs of
dissent within Mr Mugabe's regime emerged yesterday with an
unconfirmed
report that his vice-president and possible successor, Joyce
Mujuru, whose
husband is an influential former army commander, had travelled
to South
Africa for talks about the future of her country.
Channel 4 News
said it was not known if Mr Mugabe knew of her decision
to attend the
meeting.
·
Intervention welcomed as breakthrough in Zimbabwe
· Archbishop issues
rallying cry against 'dictator'
Andrew Meldrum in
Johannesburg
Saturday March 24, 2007
The Guardian
South Africa
yesterday intervened directly in the Zimbabwe crisis by meeting
the
country's opposition leaders for the first time in three years and
hosting
separate talks with the vice-president, Joice Mujuru
But following a week of
international criticism over South Africa's failure
to intervene after
opposition leaders were beaten by Zimbabwean police,
there was little hope
of any immediate changes following the talks.
"It is difficult to see how
a total meltdown won't take place," said South
Africa's deputy foreign
minister, Aziz Pahad, before the talks began. He
said South Africa was
trying to avert catastrophe by using "constructive
diplomacy" to encourage
dialogue between the Zimbabwean government and the
opposition. Mr Pahad
criticised Britain and the United States for using
"megaphone
diplomacy".
Zimbabwean opposition leaders from both factions of the
Movement for
Democratic Change described the talks as "very positive, very
encouraging".
They said they got a good reception for their plans to draw up
a new
constitution and repeal repressive laws to prepare for free and fair
elections. President Robert Mugabe was informed that the South African
officials would be meeting with the Zimbawean opposition
representatives.
"This is a major breakthrough for South Africa," said a
Zimbabwean analyst,
John Makumbe, in Harare. "South Africa cannot stand by
as things get worse
and worse. It is finally taking the initiative to get
the ball rolling on
negotiations. Unfortunately the talks will collapse at
this stage because
Mugabe does not want to talk to anyone. But now that
process has started."
In Zimbabwe, however, there was no sign of a
reduction in tensions as Mr
Mugabe's government warned of a further
crackdown on the foreign press.
The information ministry warned
journalists, specifically naming the
correspondents of two British
newspapers - Jan Raath of the Times and Peta
Thornycroft of the Daily
Telegraph - that it might act against them.
The government told foreign
correspondents not to engage in "peddling false
stories" on security issues
and threatened to clamp down on reporters who
lack government permits, the
state media reported .
It said reporters should "stay away from the
security forces".
In Johannesburg, Zimbabwe's Roman Catholic Archbishop
Pius Ncube called for
non-violent street rallies, even if it threatened his
own safety, to force
Mr Mugabe to resign.
"This dictator must be
brought down right now by the people's power but not
in a violent manner,"
he said. "If we can get 30,000 people together Mugabe
will just come
down.
"I would put myself on the line. I will stand before blazing guns.
But we
must be properly organised so we respond, not with fear, but with
principled
non-violence."
In Harare, President Mugabe continued his
attacks on Britain and the US
yesterday. "Nothing frightens me, not even
little fellows like Bush and
Blair. I have seen it all, I don't fear any
suffering or a struggle of any
kind," Mr Mugabe, 83, said to cheers from
supporters at a meeting in the
capital.
zimbabwejournalists.com
23rd Mar 2007 23:52 GMT
By a Correspondent
HARARE -
Police on Friday took no action as members of Zimbabwe's ruling
Zanu PF
party marched through the streets of Harare in defiance of a police
ban on
rallies and such activities that earned opposition leaders fractured
skulls
and bones recently.
In what analysts said typified Harare's selectively
application of the law,
police who have established a heavy presence in
Harare and other cities,
watched as hundreds of Zanu PF women supporters
marched from downtown Harare
to their party headquarters.
The police
shot dead an opposition activist and severely tortured opposition
leaders
and hundreds of their supporters after they attended a prayer
meeting
described by the government as political, and therefore illegal on
March
11.
The police have said they would vigorously enforce the ban, which
runs to
May. The state-controlled media reported yesterday that the ban was
being
reviewed.
But as main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and
many of his supporters
nursed fractured skulls and bones, a result of army
beatings for defying the
ban, Zanu PF women showed yesterday only
pro-government demonstrations were
exempt from the ban and resultant
torture.
Carrying placards that denounced Mugabe's critics, the women
sang and danced
all the way to their party's headquarters, where they were
due to hold a
national assembly. Mugabe addressed the women later and urged
them to start
campaigning for next year's presidential elections. He has
indicated that he
will be standing for another term. His critics doubt that
he will stand,
however.
"Down with Tsvangirai, CNN are Liars, Mugabe
For Life," were some of the
placards that scared the usually aggressive
police away.
Police spokesman, Wayne Bvuidzijena told
Zimbabwejournalists.com that he was
unaware of the march.
"What I
know is that the Zanu PF Women's League was meeting in Harare."
How the
demonstrators skipped the attention of baton wielding and gun
totting
policemen dotted at every street corner in Harare remains a mystery,
said
political commentator John Makumbe.
"This is the clearest example that
the rule is selectively applied in this
country. We would be talking of
gunshots and loss of lives had it been
opposition activists demonstrating,"
said Makumbe.
Dear People of Zimbabwe,
I write from the United States. I write to
encourage you to stand up, turn your doorknobs, and go out into the streets. All
of you. At one time. You are in a position to not only commit powerful
non-violent protest to save what's left of beautiful Zimbabwe from the insane
hands of Mugabe and his thugs, but you stand to set an example for the rest of
us in the world who sit like frogs on a heating plate haplessly awaiting similar
fates in our own countries. We need your example.
You are the vanguard of
change we need in the world. What is happening in Zimbabwe right now is
happening in varying degrees throughout the world, and getting worse, especially
in America where TV's and the Internet anesthsize us while our civil and
economic rights are quickly robbed from underneath us. We, too, need to stand up
and say "NO. This is enough." But we lack courage. "What might happen?....We
might loose our pension?...We might get arrested...my children..."
Those
have been your thoughts, keeping you from acting this long. Until now. The only
way you can save yourselves is to make the ultimate risk, that of your lives, by
walking out into the street and saying "You cannot further rob me of my dignity.
What is my life worth if I am left starving and cowering inside my house?"
I write as a woman who has given much of her own pension to support a
growing group of people, 9 of them children, in Harare, through my good friend
residing here. I have been very involved with your country from here, so I am
not making idle words, inflamed by some news story, watched once. I have paid
for operations, and funerals and school fees. I have waited by the phone to see
if one of the 10 year old girls I have helped would die or not due to being
raped and beaten by four of Mugabe's thugs on her way home from school. I have
held my friend while she wailed because her bright, top student son died at 15
because no one would operate on his appendix until the money got there from the
U.S. I have wept with you, Zimbabwe.
If Mugabe is allowed to continue, if
his orphaned thugs are not challenged (they will put down their guns and come
stand with you, for they are cowards and go where the power is), then you will
surely continue to die in droves as you have. Better by a bullet for freedom
than slowly starve to death out of fear.
I send you all the love I have
in my heart.
Sincerely,
Marcia McReynolds
Portland, OR
zimbabwejournalists.com
By Marrily Runoona Kuzonyei
When it comes to our rights
Mr. President, I refuse to be silenced!
Cease the reign of
terror
You were appointed to serve the nation.
Instead you caged
the nation.
Decades long you fed us stories
Buttering us like
toast.
The age of endurance is behind the times,
We are
grey with pain and fury.
Don't sit and wait to be discarded
Like a
sprat in a pickle jug.
Tread on the noble heels of
Mandela
The first ambassador of freedom
To liberate an entire
race
Caught amid a storm with zero humidity.
I had not been born
when Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain but I can
vividly remember
stories of events that marked independence celebrations in
Zimbabwe.
These were stories of jubilation, anticipation and
reconciliation. You
marked the peak of these celebrations as you Mr.
President, Prime Minister
then, stood before the entire nation to
say:
"If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, you have become a friend and
ally
with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself.
If
yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to
me
and me to you. The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and
forgotten."
To the majority of Zimbabweans, this served as a
landmark of a new era and a
new life for the independent nation of Zimbabwe.
It made me think that we
Zimbabweans are one of the most civilized races of
mankind, a people of a
magnificent culture and principles.
Today I
strongly object the civilization of some of my people especially
you. As I
write, I can foretell the rebuke of this article by you and your
faction.
However, I will not be intimidated. I write not to please but to be
heard. I
certainly know that the truth will set free not only me, but the
entire
downtrodden people of Zimbabwe.
Daily I have questions, questions,
questions and not a single answer. These
are questions directed at you Mr.
President. To begin with, where is the
"same national interest, loyalty and
rights" you promised in your Politics
of Reconciliation back in
1980?
Where is "the love" that you once said bound you to those you once
fought as
enemies? Sir, have you surely forgiven and forgotten or you are
just a
preacher fulfilling your duty to deliver?
Your brutal and
illegal seizure of land in 2000 has shown the worst case of
racism at
international level next to the Apartheid regime in South
Africa.
Considering that oral and written history has shown that not all
whites
fought against blacks during the liberation struggle and vice-versa,
what
therefore makes black Zimbabweans much more sons of the soil than those
whites who fought on their side? Is it therefore by right or race that one
can claim ownership over land in Zimbabwe today?
In April 1997 you
decided to compensate your faction of war veterans with a
cash value of
ZW$50 000. What a mockery to the real heroes of this land? I
am talking of
citizens who lost their lives. Of course, there were
foreigners too! Did you
pay them? What happened to their reward? Mr.
President, I am sure as I
speak, you can feel the wrath of the soil you are
stepping on.
From
the look of things, our forfeited independence did not bring a
considerable
change to the rights and lives of many Zimbabwean especially
women.
The majority of Zimbabweans still lack protection from the
law. They cannot
to live peacefully in their own country; hence they are
birds in flight
seeking refuge in foreign lands. Isn't this the same country
they fought to
liberate?
Have you forgotten that women fought the
liberation struggle alongside men
in their various roles as mothers,
teachers, nurses, cooks, porters,
soldiers and several others? For these
uncountable contributions, don't they
also deserve recognition as freedom
fighters?
If they do, why are women of Zimbabwe to this day, landless,
defenseless,
silenced and battered with a cane in broad daylight like
children?
If both men and women fought the liberation struggle with the
equivalent
objective to reclaim their land, what entitles Zimbabwean men
today to
acquire and possess the same land that women don't
have?
Gary Magadzire, former President of the Zimbabwe Farmers Union
pointed out
in 1997 that, "There would be no agriculture without women. The
role of
women in this country is paramount and is the central pin to
agricultural
development."
I am certain if you had listened to these
wise words, no stomach would be
empty in Zimbabwe today. Frankly, your
brutal acquisition of land coupled
with its current uneven distribution has
not made you different from the
settlers you fought against.
To add
to the plight of women in this country is that regardless of input,
field
and expertise their roles are continuously regarded secondary to those
played by men. This can be clearly traced back to the liberation struggle in
which women, despite their vital role as the backbone of the liberation
struggle remained voiceless, marginalized and confined to the rear of the
armed forces.
As a result they were deprived of promotion and
presence in the liberation
army's hierarchy to this day. Are you sure all
these women fought the war to
earn you and your fellow bothers better jobs
than theirs? Your current
treatment of women in respect to their rights is a
makeup of the genuine
history of the liberation struggle.
Mr.
President, look at Zimbabwe today. You have turned the entire country
into a
field of repression and violence. The streets have become fields of
bloodshed, constant shooting and beating. Health, education and the quality
of life have deteriorated immeasurably.
Nationwide there is so much
fear and restlessness that even a cripple would
feel the urge to flee from
this new dimension of the colonization of one
native by the other. If you
and your counterparts fought the liberation
struggle with a cause, what has
become of this noble cause? Did you fight to
build or destroy Zimbabwe? What
therefore are you doing to build this
nation? Surely, it strikes me to the
bone to realize that the turmoil of my
people is your lullaby.
To the
majority of Zimbabweans, it remains a heart breaking encounter to
accept
that while our independence has been not more than a few minutes of
glory,
the brutal and illegal acquisition of land by a minority under the
guise of
the majority remains a humiliating reduction in the dignity of the
current
government.
Author and Poet, Marrily writes from Germany.
Homepage:
www.marrily.co.uk
Washington Post
By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign
Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A13
Douglas Gwatidzo, a shy
general practitioner who specializes in emergency
care at a clinic in
Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, spoke uneasily about
politics in his country.
But he expressed deep empathy for Zimbabweans
crushed by an economic free
fall and the tightening grip of President Robert
Mugabe.
Gwatidzo,
chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights,
addressed
the Congressional Human Rights Caucus yesterday about a wave of
violence in
Zimbabwe that began March 11 when a political rally was
violently broken up
by police.
When he first learned of the crackdown, Gwatidzo said, he
expected patients
to begin streaming into his clinic that day, a Sunday. But
it was not until
two days later, Tuesday afternoon, that 64 bloodied
protesters, including
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, came to the
Avenues Clinic where he
practices.
Each patient was guarded by two
armed riot police officers, Gwatidzo said,
and they insisted on entering the
cubicle where Tsvangirai was being
treated. "They were very aggressive and
threatening, and demanded to be
present during medical examination,"
Gwatidzo recalled.
But the doctor said no. "I will not examine any
patient under duress," he
told them. "If you truly believe he can disappear,
you can take me instead."
The police relented, though tensions at the
clinic remained high as more
than 133 policemen carrying batons, pistols and
shields packed an emergency
room filled with the battered
protesters.
Gwatidzo described the injuries: severe blunt-force trauma to
the abdomen,
ruptured bowel, fractures and extensive wounds from blows to
the back,
shoulders, buttocks and thighs. Twenty people were admitted to the
hospital.
Tsvangirai, 55, had a long gash in his scalp and was delirious
from loss of
blood, Gwatidzo said.
Another activist, Grace Kwinje,
33, had deep lacerations and a torn right
earlobe. Sekai Holland, 64,
suffered multiple fractures from the beatings.
The two opposition party
members were later detained briefly at Harare
airport, though bandaged and
on stretchers, as they attempted to leave for
treatment in South
Africa.
The crisis had started in Highfield, a poor township near Harare
where
Mugabe's ruling party was founded in 1963 as an anti-colonial
liberation
movement. Police had cordoned off the area where residents,
street traders
and produce peddlers had come to gather.
As people
arrived in the area for the political rally, they were rounded up
and
dragged off to police stations. When Tsvangirai, president of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, followed them to inquire about
the condition
of his supporters, he was hurled to the floor and beaten.
Truncheons, rubber
batons and booted feet were the weapons of choice,
Gwatidzo said.
The
beatings have brought international criticism. But Mugabe has vowed to
fight
any Western attempt to force him out of office.
In today's Zimbabwe,
unemployment has soared past 80 percent, the average
salary has dipped below
the poverty line and the annual rate of inflation is
1,730 percent. Millions
of people are suffering from severe shortages of
water and food. Deaths from
malnutrition, maternal mortality, HIV-AIDS,
cholera, dysentery and other
diseases are on the rise. Jails are crowded.
A decision to hand over
white-owned commercial farms to black peasants in
2000 has further hurt the
country. "What we saw was an ad hoc decision which
threw everything out of
balance. Suddenly there was no food," Gwatidzo said.
An International
Crisis Group report this month said the economic meltdown
and the bite of
targeted sanctions by the European Union and the United
States were hurting
the business interests of key officials and pushing the
ruling party, the
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, to split
over the idea of
allowing Mugabe to extend his term beyond 2008.
"Targeted sanctions by
the world community are not supposed to hurt
everyone, but a handful of
people. What you see implies that a few
individuals are controlling the
whole economy. Either way, you cannot blame
the West," Gwatidzo
said.
He described 2000 to 2003 as the most chaotic and violent period.
"I am not
sure whether this is the beginning of a similar cycle. If what
happened on
March 11 is a sign of the times, then we expect more brutality
to come," he
said.
But a fresh desire to limit Mugabe's rule after 27
years has galvanized
Zimbabweans across party lines and ethnic
divisions.
"People think this is a defining year," Gwatidzo said,
describing a spirit
of defiance fueled by despair.
Asked whether he
feared retribution upon his return to Harare on Tuesday,
Gwatidzo replied:
"Harassment is a possibility. When you have decided to do
human rights work,
you have to live with fear, and I guess I have to face
it."
If he is
interrogated, his response is ready: "I want the Zimbabwean
population to
fare better. Either we come out of this and recover, or we
continue on a
downward slope."
Financial Times
By Alec Russell at Beit Bridge
Published: March 24 2007 02:00 |
Last updated: March 24 2007 02:00
Tariro Mbudzi spent his last night in
Harare penning a farewell note to his
father. The two are not close. The son
is a supporter of the embattled
opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
His father is a former army major
and a diehard member of the ruling
Zanu-PF.
But still it was not an easy letter to write. Barely 17, Tariro
was
expecting his school leaving exam results any day. His family assumed he
would be there to receive and hopefully celebrate them. Instead, he had
decided to leave his home and join the flood of fellow-countrymen fleeing
the economic shambles of Zimbabwe for the region's powerhouse, South
Africa.
"I took three hours writing it," he recalled. "I ended by saying:
'If God
loves me I'm going to help you take care of the little ones [his
younger
brothers and sisters]. And please make sure they go to school.'
"
The following morning before dawn he caught a bus south. Just 24 hours
later, in daylight and in view of the Financial Times, he was clambering
over the barbed wire fence at the frontier, his attaché case with a spare
set of clothes flapping in his wake. Behind him his friend Obey Sithole
grunted as his T-shirt snagged.
Then suddenly they were both over and
across the dusty road that snakes
along the frontier, all the while looking
out for the South African military
patrols that face the impossible task of
stemming the exodus from their
northern neighbour.
Ever since gold
was found in the rocky reef that skirts Johannesburg 120
years ago, Africans
have poured into South Africa from the north in search
of money in the
continent's El Dorado. Even at the height of apartheid when
an electric
border fence was often switched to lethal mode, the northern
frontier saw a
steady flow of people across the Limpopo river marking the
border.
However, in the past few years as the Zimbabwean economy,
under President
Robert Mugabe's increasingly dictatorial rule, has headed
into freefall, the
dynamic has dramatically changed. Rather than migrating
back and forth, most
Zimbabweans are staying. They are also more desperate.
This year even more
than before the flood appears to be gathering
pace.
"The situation is escalating," said Colonel Johan Herbst, of the
Limpopo
border command. "In the past Zimbabweans came for jobs. Their
families
stayed behind. They came over neatly dressed, and with a food
parcel.
"That has changed. Their condition has deteriorated. They are
shabbier, some
haven't eaten for days, and we find women and children in
bigger numbers."
Although thirsty after 24 hours on the road, Tariro and
Obey are not as
desperate as many of the Zimbabweans who sneak across the
frontier. But they
have no intention of returning home. "I will stay for as
long as it takes to
change my life," said Tariro. "Maybe I can be a garden
boy. It's too tough
in Zimbabwe. My teachers earn just 800,000 Zimbabwe
dollars (about $45, £23)
a month. How can people survive like
that?"
Tariro says he spent many an hour with his fellow pupils at
Harare's Mazoe
High School plotting their escape. As it happened, his was
not an entirely
smooth run. Just before they raced for the wire, he and Obey
had to hand
over many of their possessions to the "guides" who had helped
them to bribe
the Zimbabwean guards.
"They took my baseball cap and
my smart shoes. I brought them in case I had
a good job."
In other
respects, Tariro and his friend were fortunate. Many refugees
remain for
weeks stranded in the border region before being picked up and
sent back by
the South African authorities. But within days the pair had
travelled by
road and melted into the mass of Johannesburg's townships 340
miles to the
south.
Official estimates suggest that up to 3m Zimbabweans live in South
Africa.
That sounds high given that Zimbabwe's population is fewer than
15m.
But it does not surprise Johannesburg residents who have become used
to
highly qualified Zimbabweans working as gardeners and waiters. Nor does
it
surprise residents of Diepsloot, an informal settlement outside the city,
with a high density of Zimbabweans. "It used to be just men, now it is women
too," said Dorah Mafifi, a South African resident. "There are too many of
them. What can we do?"
That is a question that is vexing the South
African authorities amid public
concern that the incursion has fuelled crime
and xenophobia. Tariro offers
no comfort: the flood, he says, has barely
begun. "To tell you the truth
almost everyone in Zimbabwe sees South Africa
as their saviour and wants to
come here to start again."
Houston Chronicle
March 23, 2007, 9:11PM
ANOTHER VOICE
The
Washington Post
In recent years it
seemed no outrage by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe
was enough to inspire
a rebellion by his political cronies or effective
intervention by outsiders.
The 83-year-old president destroyed the country's
once relatively prosperous
economy, stole multiple elections and cruelly
drove hundreds of thousands of
slum dwellers from their homes. Still his
once proud ZANU-PF party, which
led Zimbabwe to independence, stayed with
him, while fellow African leaders
shrank from confronting him.
Now Mr. Mugabe is once again testing - or
shaming - those who have chosen to
endure him for so long, at such cost to
Zimbabwe. Last week, newspapers
published an interview in which the
president suggested that next year he
would seek another six-year extension
of his term. Then his police brutally
attacked an opposition prayer meeting,
beating and arresting 50 leaders.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the head of the
Movement for Democratic Change, was
hospitalized with a suspected skull
fracture. Released last Friday, he said
he had suffered "an orgy of heavy
beatings" while in custody. Other
activists had their arms broken; one was
carried out of jail on a stretcher.
Over the weekend the violence continued,
as the regime forcibly prevented
opposition leaders from leaving the
country. One, Nelson Chamisa, was
stopped on his way to the airport and
beaten with iron bars.
The crackdown has drawn condemnations from the
United States and the
European Union, which long ago sanctioned Zimbabwe.
More important, it
prompted at least a modest reaction from the African
leaders who until now
have given Mr. Mugabe a pass. African Union Chairman
John Kufuor of Ghana
said that A.U. governments found the situation "very
uncomfortable" and
"embarrassing."
South Africa, which has stubbornly
stuck to a failed policy of "quiet
diplomacy," this week warned Mr. Mugabe
against declaring a state of
emergency and said its "primary worry" was
"abuse of human rights."
Mr. Mugabe has responded by threatening more
violence. "They will get
arrested and get bashed by the police," he said of
the opposition. The West,
he said, could "get hanged"; its ambassadors have
been threatened with
expulsion. Such words ought to force both his
countrymen and his neighbors
to realize they can no longer afford to allow
Mr. Mugabe to go on destroying
his own country.
As Mr. Tsvangirai put
it in an interview with The Post's Craig Timberg,
"Unless they are prepared
to stand up to Mugabe, this man is prepared to
burn down the building."
The Telegraph
By Simon Heffer
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 24/03/2007
It is possible we might have
reached a tipping point in the horror and
suffering of the people of
Zimbabwe. The call by a Catholic prelate for
Zimbabweans to stop being timid
in the face of "Butcher Bob" Mugabe's
tyranny, and take to the streets and
rise up against him, is sure to add to
the momentum needed to displace this
monster and his odious regime.
In an ideal world, we would be in a film
starring Roger Moore, Sean Connery
and quite probably Oliver Reed, who would
parachute into Harare and displace
Mugabe moments before their fellow Brit
Simon Mann is ordered by a
Zimbabwean court to be sent to trial, and certain
death, in Equatorial
Guinea.
Sadly, we live in a world where the
Seventh Cavalry - or 2 Para - do not
drop in at the first sign of trouble.
If Mugabe is removed - and I fervently
hope he is, and soon - then nothing
will wipe away the stain of shame that
our Government has caused by its
inaction and feebleness over the past few
years.
It has made me
ashamed to be British.
New York Times
By MICHAEL
WINES
Published: March 24, 2007
JOHANNESBURG, March 23 - Modern South
Africa came about, historians agree,
in part because of the United Nations'
unrelenting stance against apartheid.
The United Nations affirmed that South
African racism was not merely an
internal political problem, but a threat to
southern Africa. It banned arms
shipments to South Africa. It demanded fair
treatment of black dissidents.
It worked. This month a democratic South
Africa sits as president of the
United Nations Security Council. It was a
remarkable, even poignant
affirmation of the power of morality in global
diplomacy.
Or so it might seem. After just three months as one of the
Security Council's
nonpermanent members, South Africa is mired in
controversy over what could
be its great strength: the moral weight it can
bring to diplomatic
deliberations.
In January, South Africa surprised
many, and outraged some, when it voted
against allowing the Security Council
to consider a relatively mild
resolution on human rights issues in Myanmar,
whose government is widely
seen as one of the most repressive on
earth.
Last week the government again angered human rights advocates when
it said
it would oppose a request to brief the Security Council on the
deteriorating
situation in Zimbabwe, where the government is pursuing a
violent crackdown
on its only political opposition. South Africa later
changed its stance, but
only after dismissing the briefing as a minor event
that did not belong on
the Council's agenda.
This week South Africa
endangered a delicate compromise among nations often
at odds - the United
States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany - to
rein in Iran's
nuclear program.
The major powers agreed on an arms embargo, freezing of
assets and other
sanctions against Iran, but South Africa proposed dropping
the arms and
financial sanctions and placing a 90-day "timeout" on other
punishments,
which critics said would have rendered the sanctions
toothless.
"I'm not gutting the resolution," Dumisani S. Kumalo, South
Africa's
ambassador to the United Nations, told news agency reporters this
week. "I'm
improving it."
Granted, none of these positions by
themselves have been fatal to the
efforts at hand. The Myanmar resolution
was dead on arrival anyway,
condemned by vetoes from China, which backs that
nation's dictatorship, and
Russia. Nor could South Africa have
single-handedly blocked a Zimbabwe
briefing.
South Africa's wrench in
the Iran sanctions effort has complicated things,
but mostly because the
great powers would like Iran's defiance to be met
with unanimous
disapproval.
Rather, what has left some of South Africa's admirers
slack-jawed is the
apparent incongruity of its positions. It is not merely
that South Africa's
current leaders are withholding the same sorts of
international
condemnations that sustained them when they were battling
oppression.
When apartheid's evils came to the fore in the Security
Council in the early
1980s, it was newly independent Zimbabwe that occupied
one of the Council's
nonpermanent seats and voted to condemn South African
racism. Myanmar, then
known as Burma, joined in denouncing apartheid from
its seat in the General
Assembly.
Moreover, South Africa may now
oppose sanctions against Iran's nuclear
program, but the white apartheid
government voluntarily renounced its own
atomic bomb in the early 1990s, and
the democratic government that followed
has ardently continued along that
same path. In fact, South Africa remains
the only nation in history to have
given up its nuclear program of its own
accord.
Given that backdrop,
a columnist in The Johannesburg Star fretted last week
over what he called a
"fundamental misunderstanding" of the role of human
rights in a nation's
development.
The nation's second-largest political party, the Democratic
Alliance, was
more brutal: "Instead of furthering an agenda based on the
protection and
promotion of human rights," the party stated, "we are more
concerned with
using bureaucratic excuses to shield tyrants and despots from
international
scrutiny."
South African officials have responded with
wounded indignation. On Friday,
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said that
the government was committed to
resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe through
dialogue, but added that "it is not
our intention to make militant
statements to make us feel good, or to
satisfy governments outside the
African continent," Reuters reported.
Apartheid, the South African
government contends, was a crime against
humanity. In contrast, it argues
that human rights abuses in Myanmar do not
fall within the mandate of the
Security Council. Indeed, the South African
government says, the Council's
encroachment on issues better left to lesser
agencies like the Human Rights
Council undermines the organization's global
nature.
Seasoned
scholars may and do differ, but to many analysts here the real
question is
why, given its standing as a beacon of human rights, South
Africa has taken
such positions at all. Perhaps nobody outside Pretoria
knows, but there are
plenty of theories.
One, advanced by a committed advocate of Burmese
freedom, is that South
Africa is feathering its strategic relationship with
China, which largely
controls Myanmar, supports Zimbabwe's authoritarian
government and has
assiduously courted President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa. China has big
investments, a decent-size immigrant population and
great ambitions in South
Africa. South Africa has a similarly close
relationship with Iran, an oil
supplier.
But even during its struggle
for liberation, the African National Congress,
or A.N.C., now the governing
party, maintained ties to supporters with
questionable human rights records,
like the Soviet Union, China and Libya.
Another explanation is that South
Africa is playing the role of bad boy on
the Security Council to underscore
its demand that the Council be overhauled
to reflect new global
realities.
South Africa and many other developing nations deeply resent
the great
powers' veto over major United Nations actions, often against
developing
countries like Zimbabwe and North Korea. They want the emerging
Southern
Hemisphere to have more sway in the body's policies and
actions.
"South Africa wants reform of the Security Council, come hell or
high
water," said Thomas Wheeler, a longtime diplomat for South Africa who
now
is chief executive at the South Africa Institute of International
Affairs, a
research group. "And they're using practically any means to do
it. They've
got almost a bee in their bonnet - that this is the way to go,
to force the
issue in this way."
A third theory, a hybrid of those
two, is that South Africa's leaders have
yet to decide whether they are
democrats or the revolutionaries of two
decades ago, railing against
seemingly immovable establishments on behalf of
seemingly lost causes. The
powers in those days were the United States and
Britain, powers inimical to
the Communists who were the financiers of black
liberation movements in the
1980s.
"What you have here is the continuing, ongoing tussle over whether
the
A.N.C. is still a protest movement or the governing party of a
responsible
member of the international community," said a retired American
diplomat
with decades of Africa experience. "They're reflexively against
anything we're
for - we in the States, we and the British, we in the North.
It's more
Chinese than the Chinese."