UPDATED: Zimbabwe’s spiral into chaos
Zimbabwe is a country that should be rich. In Zimbabwe’s case wealth should begin with its fertile land. It possesses (in comparison to much of sub-Saharan Africa) an educated population base. South Africa gives it a major trading partner right next door.
But Zimbabwe is a basket case, and the basket maker is its dictator, Robert Mugabe.
Since 2000, StrategyPage has followed Zimbabwe’s decline– here’s the most recent StrategyPage post. (March 14). This one from January 2007 is also useful.
I’ve written several columns — this one is representative. (From February 2002.)
This morning’s Times OnLine has a Ben Macintyre essay that wonders if Mugabe’s close to a tipping point.
Key graf:
For Mugabe, the symbolic image that marks the end may be the photograph of Tsvangirai, emerging from police captivity, head gashed and face swollen, and his wrist broken. Violent suppression of dissent is routine in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. What makes this incident special is the sheer incompetence with which it was inflicted. This was meant to be another obvious warning to Mugabe’s enemies; instead, it has surely emboldened them.
Macintyre is refering to the brutal beating of Morgan Tsvangirai, a leader in Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Changes (MDC — the main opposition group).
Macintyre also adds specifics that echo a couple of general points made in the StrategyPage post of March 14:
Yet demographic and economic disaster alone will not remove Mugabe. Indeed, the 83-year-old crocodile is manoeuvring to extend his rule to 2010 and beyond. No amount of condemnation from the international community will budge him, particularly while South Africa, disgracefully, declines to exert its full influence on this repellent regime.
Mugabe will only go if he hears, for himself, the whisper of rebellion, as Ceausescu heard it on the balcony in Bucharest, that indefinable sound promising that tomorrow will be different from today. The signs are building: Mugabe’s sometime allies are jockeying for position, anger is spreading among underpaid police and troops and, as hunger bites, the protests are growing more violent…
This StrategyPage post from 2006 provides economic background –rather ismal economic background. It discusses Zimbabwe’s currency exchange program.
UPDATE: See Tsvangirai’s appeal for international help (in the London Telegraph).
The lede:
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader today appealed to the international community for help against Robert Mugabe’s brutal regime.
Speaking from his hospital bed, in his first interview since being badly beaten by Mr Mugabe’s thugs, Morgan Tsvangirai vowed to fight on to win democracy for the former British colony.
He insisted that change was “within sight” for the country, but insisted that opposition leaders needed help from foreign powers.
Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said:”Yes, they brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free.
“Democratic change in Zimbabwe is within sight. Far from killing my spirit, the scars they brutally inflicted on me have re-energised me.
“Of course we need the support of the world, and please do support us in achieving democratic change in Zimbabwe.”
Bloomberg news service discusses tougher US and international sanctions:
The U.S. is working closely with the European Union to “change the behavior” of President Robert Mugabe’s regime and will try to ensure that any further sanctions don’t hurt the Zimbabwean people, the State Department said.
“We want to try to do what’s effective” without worsening the humanitarian crisis in the African nation, department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Mugabe’s government is already subject to travel bans and asset freezes for stifling political dissent in Zimbabwe. The U.S. said it is considering other steps after main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other activists were arrested and beaten by police after a March 11 rally in the capital, Harare.
Western governments can “go hang,” Agence France-Presse cited Mugabe, 83, as saying yesterday as he rejected criticism of his government and the treatment of opposition supporters.
Stay tuned.
