Mugabe
Muddying the Zimbabwe issue
[Cross-posted at Z Word.] It’s a good thing that Jimmy Carter is pressing the case for help to the Zimbabwean population. But following the Mugabe regime’s politicized denial of a visa to Carter and his group, the former president’s statements have a weirdly passive ring — in stark contrast, one might point out, to his unequivocal denunciations of the Israeli
Zimbabwe’s nightmare continues
In this week’s New Yorker, Jon Lee Anderson makes the important point that Robert Mugabe, supposed anti-colonial liberator, is by now indistinguishable from a colonial emperor. The piece makes for painful, infuriating reading: In 2005, Mugabe and his wife moved into a new twenty-five-bedroom mansion in Borrowdale Brook, a Harare suburb, which cost a reported ten million U.S. dollars to build.
Quote for the day
We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly. This is their last chance. — A member of Zimbabwe’s ruling party politburo, on the upcoming runoff “election” [Via.]
South Africa: tide turning?
Since last I noted the disgrace of Thabo Mbeki continuing to shill for Robert Mugabe — and let’s face it, “quiet diplomacy” is a sham when your sole function is to take diplomatic pressure off your thuggish neighbor to the north — it seems the tide may have turned in South Africa. ANC officials are taking a different line from
Mbeki: “No crisis” in Zimbabwe
South African president Thabo Mbeki worsened his country’s AIDS crisis by clinging to scientifically discredited denialist theories; now he’s worsening Zimbabwe’s political crisis by engaging in denialism again. Robert Mugabe’s refusal to disclose the recent election results — and let’s call this by its proper name, electoral fraud — has been compounded by yet more state terrorism against the MDC
Last kings
[Edited] The other day I watched “The Last King of Scotland,” Kevin MacDonald’s 2006 biopic of Idi Amin, for which Forest Whitaker won an Oscar. It was alright. But I made the mistake of also watching the 30-minute short “Capturing Idi Amin,” a behind-the-scenes bonus feature. I’ve been putting off this post, but it’s time, now that Robert Mugabe might
“Comrade Mengistu”
Since we’re on the topic of bloody dictators, an Ethiopian court has found the Stalinist mass murderer Mengistu Haile Mariam guilty (in absentia) of genocide. Where is Mengistu? In Zimbabwe, being sheltered by Robert Mugabe. A member of Mugabe’s government ruled out extraditing Mengistu to face justice. Paul Mangwana, Zimbabwe’s acting information minister, told AFP: “Comrade Mengistu asked for asylum