Blame for Zimbabwe's suffering
Are other African leaders doing enough to confront Robert Mugabe?
President Mugabe: A bully?
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
"President Robert Mugabe is responsible for much of Zimbabwe's terrible suffering," said The New York Times in an editorial. But other African leaders have failed to push the strongman into sharing power with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. As long as Mugabe's neighbors let him "bully them into silence—with phony claims of anti-colonialism and national sovereignty—they are fully complicit."
Maybe, but power-sharing isn't the answer, either, said Rich Mkhondo in The Star, a South African daily. Mugabe lost the election, so insisting on some kind of unity government "is making a mockery" of democracy. Letting Mugabe continue to call the shots only shows "how a single twerp can cause instability around an entire region and get away with it."
It's ridiculous to pin all of Zimbabwe's problems on one man, said Zimbabwe's government newspaper, The Herald, in an editorial. Take Harare's cholera outbreak. The Ministry of Health has issued several alerts, but the city's elected leaders have done nothing to protect the people. "What has happened to all the glittering election promises?
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3 Comments
Posted by Kam, Friday, October 31, 2008, 8:16 pm And why does this surprise us? Africa = dictators + death
Posted by Alisdair Budd, Friday, October 31, 2008, 8:31 pm The Minister of Health (In the illigitame, unelected LAST zanu govt, since the Unity govt hasnt dedided ministers yet) was also the person who used to go around during the election waving a machine gun and threatening to kill those who didnit "vote correctly". (Deaths threats from the Minister of Health, there's Zimbabwe for you.) The City of Harare's "elected council" had their powers stripped from them and replaced by a "Commission" in 2002 by the Zanu govt because the MDC gained a majority, a commission that was declared illegal by the Higjh Court biut was never dismissed, has been operating illegally and consists of Zanu govt appointees. The Zimbabwe Water Authority, another unelected Zanu appointee commission took over water management and took it away from the local councils several years ago, and has been stripping the assests to pay for the commissioners holidays abroad, which is one of the reasons for the Cholera outbreaks all over the country. The MDC councils are being ignored by the old Zanu govt and parastatals, to the extent that losing Zanu councillors have stolen the seals for the councils and are running parallel administrations with forged documents. And the Unelected Zanu minister for Local Govt has been appointing unelected "Special interest councilors" to MDC controlled councils, all of whom so far are losing Zanu candidates in order to reverse the MDC majority on those councils.
Posted by Brett, Monday, November 3, 2008, 8:59 am The Zimbabwean military is most of the reason for the suffering in that nation. Mugabe was going to concede the election but they would not let him. Their military has violated its fiduciary responsibility to the people of that nation for their own selfishness, and their descendants will all suffer terribly for their short-sighted behavior.
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