Everyone even slightly close to Mugabe is looking for an out, while Mugabe is clinging to anything and everything to remain in power. The long and short of it is that if some solution isn’t found to remove him, say something similar to the Exile of Idi Amin, the entire country is going to burn and the loss of life could possibly be in the hundreds of thousands (at the extreme end of things).
The unfortunate thing is that the “Southern African Leaders” have previously praised Mugabe and publicly refused to cricisize him, saying that such things aren’t helpful. In other words, they’re worthless and less than useless.
Saw the article on BBC.com, saw the pictures of the ship.
I just thought “wow, a single 5 inch shell from a passing US warship…”
But that would cause an international incident. So a better solution would be the US Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams and a couple of small shaped charges.
Even if it hadn’t – how easy would it be to get the weapons from any seacoast of Southern Africa to landlocked Zimbabwe, now that everybody’s watching for them?
Increasingly difficult. They need to find a port and a country willing to offload and transport. Mozambique and Tanzania have refused assistance, and at this stage it seems they are heading towards Luanda in Angola, which means going all the way around South Africa and up the west coast. This is good news, because there are suggestions that they might not have enough fuel to get to Luanda, so they will probably need to dock elsewhere. Which means more hassles and more delays, much to Mugabe’s dismay, no doubt.
Further good news is that there is a South African court order against the shipment being transported across our territory, so even Mbeki is stymied (for the time being anyway). Apparantly pressure is already being brought to bear on the Angolan government to also refuse docking.
The ZAPU and Mugabe gave a lot of help to the ANC during apartheid,giving them bases in Zimbabwe, weapons, and financial support. ZAPU and the ANC also engaged in joint guerrilla operations when ZAPU was fighting against the Rhodesian government. So, there’s an old alliance there.
As **Captain Amazing ** has pointed out, loyalty to old alliances seems to be the prevailing view. However, Mbeki is increasingly at odds with his own party on this score, so much so that, as per the Mail and Guardian:
I’m of the opinion that Mbeki’s allegiance is a personal one, as it is clearly not one shared by the ANC as a whole. Why it is personal I really don’t know.
There is talk that Graze Mugabe and Zanele Mbeki are cousins. In African culture, Mugabe is the older “brother” and is senior in status to Mbeki. I can’t seem to confirm this however.
Been in Joeys since '86.
