Mugabe, you sleaze, the clock is ticking, I hope you know that

The BBQ Pit
1

Time’s about up, Bob, thank goodness. I don’t mean your 15 minutes–I doubt if you’ve even had more than about 30 seconds on America’s radar. I mean your physical time, as El Supremo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2157949.stm

Starving your constituents? Not a good move, Bob. Even the most dumbass thumb-up-his-butt dogcatcher in Boondocks US of A knows better than that. Keep the voters happy, which means FEED THEM, dammit.

Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t give a flying fuck in a Texas tornado what the voters think. It’s hard to say who exactly you do care about, besides your own self, obviously.

What was it someone once said about the “banality of evil”? This is about as banal as it gets, Bob. Sorry if that hurts your feelings. It’s just so–tawdry, so penny ante–to say, “Ooooh, I know, I’ll punish all the people who voted against me by cutting off their food supplies.” Gee, nobody ever thought of that before, Bob.

Well, have fun keeping yourself company in exile somewhere when you get booted out on your well-nourished fanny during the inevitable coup that I predict for sometime in the next six months. See, Bob, it would be one thing for everybody in Zimbabwe to be starving all together–they’d bite the bullet and tough it out. Happens all the time in Africa.

But for half the populace to have to stand by, hungry, and watch the other half of the populace eat, and the ones who are standing by, hungry, are the ones who didn’t want you in the first place–well, Bob, I know some kindergartners who could parse that out and come up with “coup d’etat”, even if they couldn’t pronounce it.

Oh, what’s that you say? “Zimbabwe can’t have a coup, we’re a democracy”? Um, no, you ain’t, Bob, not any more. You took care of that your ownself. Ramming yourself back into office the way you did kinda took the word “democracy” off your Vocabulary List.

Nope, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before we see you on CNN climbing out of a limo and onto a plane at Zimbabwe International.

So good luck with the “exile” thing. Where were you thinking of going, anyway? Saudi Arabia sounds good…

2

Murdering people did not get him on the American radar screen - I hope starving people does. How many farmers being systematically murdered equals a news story? Answer: not the hundreds in Zimbabwe.

Axis of Evil nominee: Robert Mugabe. (lifetime achievement)

3

Couldn’t agree more. I’m not willing to put money on his ouster in six months, but I do think he is running out of obsfucatory tactics and I can only hope his time is up soon.

  • Tamerlane
4

Letting loose the mobs is never a good move. If you, as a politician, let loose a bunch of yahoos who have, in effect, your permission to ignore the law, how do you get them back under control?

Sure, Mr. Mugabe, blame the white farmers for everything. (To be fair, Zimbabwe does need land reform… just not this way.) But once the white farmers are all gone, and the state of the country is no better… who will the mobs turn on then?

Hitler handled it better - once his SA headbangers had done their jobs, creating a state of civil disorder so that he could rise to power, he had them all liquidated. Unfortuntely for Zimbabwe, Mugabe has neither Hitler’s brains nor resources…

5

The little moustace is no coincidence, you know.

I think the CIA (or MI5) should re-sanction assassination. Maybe we could get a 2-for-1 deal with Saddam?

6

Even the homophobia would be plenty enough, but he has to go and do this too.

Motherfucking goatfelching assgasket cockwrench isn’t enough, but it’ll have to do, as I’m not going to spoil my vacation over this twathat.

7

He appeared to be only popular in the rural areas where they are mostly uneducated and loved his illegal and rough handling of the issue of white farmers. The educated city folk have always been trying to take him down for this and other reasons. Now that the rural areas are experiencing a famine his popularity will undoubtly shrink there.

However, the worst thing Zimbabwe needs right now is a violent coup (by a political group, faction, or armed person(s)) for a couple of reasons.

  1. A coup would reek havoc on the political stabilization of Zimbabwe (something that was already heavily thrashed by ‘Bob’).

  2. Any new government formed under the premise of violent upheaval will never leave power, not without an even bigger fight. Examples can be found throughout Africa and the third world (including Zimbabwe itself).

Hoping for a coup in the hopes that they will be ‘better’ is irresponsible and unlikely. Anyone who would take up arms and force Mugabe out of power will likely want to rule instead. However, since he had defeated Mugabe he is likely to share the same traits: violent, determined, uneducated, and political strong. However he will most likely have something that even Mugabe lacks, youth. Mugabe is an old man who is a spent force, if nothing else he will die. However, if a stronger contender forces Mugabe out then it’s a ‘whole new ball game’.

It’s like a Wolf pack, when a Wolf wants power (or more food) they have to take on the alpha Wolf. The leader either defeats the contender or the vice versa. One thing is certain, only most cunning, ruthless, and strong may survive to have the role.

I can think of no quick fixes to this problem (in Zimbabwe or Africa), except that the only thing the people need to continue is education. An educated populace will undoubtly reach a national consensus on what is good for Zimbabwe and steer the country to prosperity: social, economical, political, and judicial. This is not quick solution and takes a lot of time, but when it happens they become a fool to no one, not even their own ‘leaders’.

8

Not much use educating people if they’re all starving to death. Not much use in a long-term solution, either.

There’s a southern-African famine in the making, and Mugabe is so megalomaniacal that he’s prepared to exacerbate the situation in what used to be the most fertile country in the region, just to make political points.

He’s a very naughty man.

9

However, with most of these dictators their plan is to keep the people dumb, divided, and destracted. Thus rule forever.

The Italians when ruling Eritrea declared no (Black) Eritrean to rise above fouth grade. Dumb people make good workers, and all workers need in return was food and shelter to be happy. Thus to keep ruling Eritrea the Italians strived: ‘to keep bellies full and heads empty’, or in other words ‘dumb and destracted’.

All dictatorships do this, education is the only way out. It is not a quick fix, but it is a fix. Food means little in a long term of cruel dictatorship.

10

Where’s Ian Smith when you need him? :slight_smile:

11

Where’s Ian Smith when you need him? :slight_smile:

12

Talk about unanswerable questions. When did anyone ever need Ian Smith?

13

Well, you’d need him if you wanted “the happiest blacks in the world”.

14

Ah, yes, Zimbabwe, where locals refer to the National Bank as “Bob’s Takeaway”.

While I recognize and abhor the injustices going on there, I need to respond to Beagle’s statement:

The situation has been and remains heavily covered in the UK press, despite numerous repressive actions taken against the foreign press by the Mugabe government. OTOH, while the AP news wire routinely carries stories of repression in Zimbabwe, local news outlets in the USA rarely pick them up.

Also, I know of no statistics that claim “hundreds of farmers” have been killed in the violence associated with the “war veteran” squatters of the past two years. Certainly dozens of white farmers and many hundreds of their employees have been attacked and intimidated, but so far fatalities have been remarkably few, especially when compared to the possible tens of thousands who died in the still underreported atrocities that occurred there in the early '80s. Amnesty International reported a total of “more than 30” politically motivated murders for the year 2001, mostly having to do with attacks by ZANU-PF on MDC supporters.

Obviously, however, the risk of mass starvation is great, and becoming greater as the turmoil continues.

Oh, and Neidhart, even the most rabid right-wingers in Zimbabwe (well, most of them anyway) recognize that wheeling Ian Smith back out onto the stage is no solution. He’s quite old and not so very popular with the majority population, you see.

15

I’ve been following this in the news in the US for over a year now.

Although I think his only chances of loosing power would be when the traditional redhot poker in inserted 1.75 feet into his rectum.

16

I would be happy enough if Bob would keep his goldbricking, rapine ass out of Congo.

17

Sorry El Kabong, somehow in the wee hours the phrase “U.S. media” became just a “media” issue. Obviously the BBC covers the story or I would not know about it.

In my defense I did say “American radar screen” thus excusing the rest of the world from my claims of ignorance.

As for the “hundreds” of farmers killed - I have heard of two personally (as in friends of friends of friends) and read about dozens. He is well on his way if not there. By the way, if a farmer is murdered in the night by an armed mob and they do not leave a “war veterans” calling card I am not fooled.

I wonder how El Kabong would feel about the murders if Mugabe was labeled a “right wing” dictator instead of a “left wing” dictator? Oh, and reverse the races.

18

Well, I’ll be happy to explain: I’d feel precisely the same way I do now. I’m not sure what your point is here.

My contention is only that the number of deaths you stated may be high, based on what stats I can find.

In considerable searching while formulating my previous response, I was unfortunately unable to find any recent figures on the number of farmers and farm employees murdered since the “war veterans” began their occupations in 2000. Perhaps another poster could assist.

AI’s 2001 figures for political murders do not make clear whether these include farmers murdered by squatters. To the best of my recollection, the number of white farmers killed is in the 10-20 range, with several dozen employees killed or badly injured (usually for being suspected of supporting the MDC). If someone has precise figures that differ significantly, I’ll withdraw this assertion.

Meanwhile, since the issue of press coverage has entered the debate, I’ll pose a question to all: how might greater press coverage in the USA help to bring down Mugabe?

My contention is that it is likely to do little or nothing. Great Britain has far stronger political ties to Zim than the US does, and GB has pretty much exhausted all political options short of invasion, without significant effect.

The USA, meanwhile, has little or no economic or political leverage that might put pressure on Mugabe. Hell, just a few years ago, Zimbabwe turned down a US offer to donate two free C-130’s for their air force (though they were going to charge Zim for mandatory spares, which Zim said it could not afford).
In any event, my read is that press coverage, even in the USA, has been at least adequate to make the public aware of the scale of the problem. The lack of interest in the US is down more to public apathy than lack of coverage, IMO.

19

Problem here is Mugabe will ensure the power brokers will eat.

The “land reforms” are just one way of giving assets to his supporters, mostly in his own tribe and mostly in the army.

The majority of the so-called ‘war vets’ were not even born when the struggle from white rule was ended.

When Ian Smith was replaced there was much rejoicing and a hope that this would spread to the then apartheid regime of SA.

It was not popular at the time to hold a view that Mugabe was nothing but a mobster, but it has turned out to be true, folk were blinded by optimism.

I truly cannot see any way for this to end peacefully, Zimbabwe will end up with a civil war with neighboring states supporting their favourite faction to suit their own agenda.

We’ve seen this tribalism erupt in the most horrific way possible in other African states, but the causes in many of those cases were partly a legacy of old colonial masters playing one group off against another.

Mugabe can be proud that he has achieved this all by himself.

He will probable flee to a neighboring state and live in exile and luxury, its happened so many times in the past, can’t see any reason why it should be differant this time.

20

Ahem, Fujimori, ahem.