Cynthia Tucker recently wrote in her paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about the plight of the people in Zimbabwe. And she wanted to know why there was no outcry from black A-merry-cans.
Well Cynthia, here comes an outcry from yours truly.
Robert Mugabe as far as I am concerned has now joined the ranks of some of the more evil despots in Africa's history. And lord knows that poor continent has had its fair share. From Amin to Habre to Taylor to Umbanga, they have done as much harm to their respective countries as the colonialist they took power from. Consider King Msuati ,III of Swaziland, who bought a 44.6 million dollar private jet which is more than twice the amount of money that his country spends on health care every year. Mugabe is 82, which is amazing given the fact that the life expectancy for men in his country is 37 years old. Sorry ladies, it's 34 years old for you. In case you were wondering, life expectancy for the citizens of Zimbabwe is the shortest in the world. (Damn imagine that? Shorter than an Iraqi, or someone from North Philadelphia even) The European colonial masters planted the seeds, but how far should the seeds go? How far and long before we cut it off? But we should have seen this coming with Mugabe when he took in Ethiopian dictator, and butcher, Mangisu Marian, in the early nineties. What Mugabe has done to the poor people of Zimbabwe is no different than what the evil and unjust regime of Pieter Botha did to the poor black Africans in South Africa. And Tucker is right, there should be more outrage. But all you hear from us is crickets.
It's a shame too. Mugabe was a man of promise. He studied alongside men likes of Julius Nyerere and Robert Subukue so he should have known better. He could have been remembered alongside men like Nasser, Selassie, and Nkrumah, who were all revered African leaders. When he came to power in what was then Rhodesia, he brought much needed reforms in education and health care to the majority black population. B ut sadly, like so many before him, he got drunk with power, and refused to secede power to the will of the majority.
Now his ruling party has been committing one atrocious act after another. From burning alive political opponents,to kidnapping torture, rape, and starvation. "Amnesty International said yesterday that 12 bodies have been found across the the country and most have shown signs of torture." To her credit, our own Condoleeza Rice has called the violence "horrifying" and "intolerable", and is pushing to have the U.N. Security Council intervene in the upcoming elections. Good luck with that. Mugabe has been blaming the white folks in Zimbabwe for his countries troubles, but even his own people are now realizing that it's not the white folks in Zimbabwe that's causing their problems, it's Mugabe. And still the crickets from black A-merry-cans.
John Lewis (D.,Ga.) said it best: "Just because he is the black leader of an African nation doesn't mean that we can afford to be silent."
Thank you congressman Lewis. That's just one of the reasons why you are a field Negro in my book. And too bad for Robert Mugabe, because although he might have started out in the field, he is now firmly entrenched in the house.
74 comments:
Similar things were said about Chairman Mao. And look at China now.
(White folk were all concerned about starving Chinese too. Let us in your country to help you out, to save you.)
Similar things are always said about non-white leaders who don't do like white folk say.
`
There are always two sides to a story. Unfortunately when it comes to Africa, the West's propoganda machine goes into full effect.
I'm really tired of people jumping on the Zimbabwe, Dafur etc etc bandwagon!!
Yes there are problems, but the Western propoganda news media does not tell the whole story!
This whole sad story is as a result of a tussle and disagreement about land in Zimbabwe.
I'm sure most people know that the British reneged on their agreement to redistribute land and pay compensation to white farmers whose land was taken away. The white farmers had 99% of the best fertile land... which by the way they took by force( don't recall that much of an outcry by the western media when Ian Smith and his cronies were massacring the indegenous people of Zim)
Anyway, a lot of what one hears in the media is western propoganda aimed at forcing Mugabe to his knees. Why should Britain and the US fund an opposition party in Zimbabwe? Do they allow foreigners to fund political parties in the US and Britain ? Since when has the West been concerned about the plight of Africans? And if they are concerned? Why all these punishing sanctions?
The West has always demonized African leaders who refuse to tow the line.
Mugabe is not perfect ( neither is Bush), but he was a freedom fighter and he liberated Zimbabwe from the wicked hands of the British!
The land that is at the center of this brouhaha, belongs to Zimbabwe and if Britain has the interest of Zim at heart, they would have assisted Mugabe to re distribute the land, Rather they attacked him with sanctions, funding opposition parties, and using the progoganda machine to vilify him.
Being the old soldier that he is, Mugabe fought back. The Zimbabwe you see today is as a result of this fight!
As much as Mugabe is to blame, so is the West!
PS Sorry about my disjointed post but I just get angry about the double standards of the West regarding Africa
It never ceases to amaze me how completely oblivious we "African-Americans" are regarding the atrocities happening in Africa until it reaches Darfurian and Rwandian levels
There are atrocities happening in America. Don't believe everything you read.
Before the Rwanda genocide, there was hardly anything in the Western media about the problems between the Hutu and the Tutstis in Rwanda and Burundi.
Why? because that area was not of any interest.
The Rwanda Burundi problems had been simmering since the Belgians left.
Do independent research into African issues of interest to you. Only then will you get the full picyure of what is actually going on.
Ama and nsangoma,
You need to read black African blogs. See Zimbabwe from their eyes. I would hope because the bloggers use technology, you wouldn't deny their authenticity.
FN,
Unfortunately many Afrocentrist see Afrocentism defining philosophically, blackness as an intrinsic good, aka Dr. Molefi Kete Asante.
I think the silence is due to the complexity...as was mentioned in earlier posts.... but at the end of the day, people on this planet, no matter where they are, have GOT to find another way to deal with their differences without killing each other, imprisoning each other, and perpetuating injustice. I recognize that I sit here, in the relative comfort of my safe home writing that. But there are models of change that do not involve the end of a gun. It takes far more courage, creativity, patience and intelligence to go the route of nonviolence... but as Einstein said: "the first to raise their fist in anger is the first to run out of ideas."
Considering that black Americans are just as silent about the rape and murder of black women and girls right here on their own land, it's not surprising that there is nothing but the sound of "crickets" for African nations.
You can't help someone else when your own house is in MAJOR disorder. Black folks need to step their game up in every single aspect. We can't handle Barack Obama or Bill Cosby airing our dirty laundry and you want black folks pointing fingers at what is wrong in Africa?
Until black America gets it's act together, there is very little we can do for Africa.
A good start would be doing more reading about Africa. The average black person doesn't even know who Mugabe is! If fact, I'm sure that there are way too many black people who still don't know about Rwanda or Darfur, despite all the information available.
How many black folks have seen The Greatest Silence - about gang-rape as a military weapon in the Congo? Not enough I bet. I'm not exactly sure what Black Americans can do for Africa, but our ignorance about the country is criminal.
Sometimes the sound of "crickets" doesn't mean that folks don't care, but that folks heads are just empty!
Lets face it, if Mugabe were white there would have been action FAR before now. There was news coverage when Mugabe leveled Harare shantytowns because of the World Cup coming to Harare and he didnt want the world to see the plight. Plenty of coverage...no interest.
Even the comments here so far seem to minimize what Mugabe has done and somehow find a white face to point at and whine. Maybe thats just reflexive with some of us.
There will be no outcry by African Americans. We will turn our heads and pretend it isnt happenning. When it it brought up we will minimize and blame whites. We will focus instead on some d-list celeb who said a word we dont like and point to that as the source of our troubles.
It really isnt that complex. Mugabe wants power and he will do what so many have done before him to keep it. We will continue to say nothing because we wont criticize a black man in front of whites. The same old tired "airing dirty laundry" bullshit. Thats why we get so defensive when our illigitimacy rates, graduation rates, crime rates and murder rates are brought up. We seem to think if we dont talk about it that it doesnt exist.
News for all...whites know full well our dirty laundry. They know very well the condition of our neighborhoods and families. They see us going nuts when whites do bad to us and they hear our silence when we do the same to ourselves. No secrets here brothas and sisters. Why do you think whites move out so quickly when we move in?
We only care about other blacks when whites are the cause of our plight. Until we love ourselves more than we hate whites we will never be free.
I co-sign with Professor Tracey. Yes the problems with African 'dictators' are the same with those in say South America. Countries run by white people wanting to keep a status quo invade another country, get rid of opposition leadership and take all the resources. When enough people are fed up they 'retreat' but still meddle with every aspect of that nation. So here we are. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Look how bad President Hussein was after he was installed by the West but how much worse it got once they got rid of him.
NSANGOMA; that has to be the most ignorant post I have heard in my entire life.
"not doing what white folk say"..are you insane??
Since whites dont want Mugabe to oppress his people we should take Mugabes side? I am at a loss to respond to such insanity. People are dying at the hands of this monster...BLACK PEOPLE..and we should just say nothing because whites are horrified by his actions?
Would your opinion be different if Mugabe were white and oppressing the exact same people the exact same way? I bet it would.
It isnt the plight of these poor people you are concerned about. It is simply your all encompassing hatred for whites that must be fed at the cost of black lives.
SIMPLY AMAZING!
@ Hathor
I am African, living in W. Africa and I do read African blogs.
Most of the news we get in Africa comes courtesy of the West or Al Jazeera.
So the average African living outside Zim relies on this propoganda to inform.
I do not believe that many African Americans understand the issues in Zimbabwe, and that the country was once the largest exporter of food for all of South Africa. Yes, part of the problem was colonialism in the beginning, but Robert Mugabe his opportunity to continue being that exporter and now have become a starving nation. The inflation in Zimbabwe is beyond comprehension. The rate is 732,604% and 80% of the population below the poverty line. There is an inability for the government to feed its people. Mugabe's ended up owning three some of the most productive farms, and the land isn't being farmed on.
Field is right, Mugabe could have gone down as one of Africa's great presidents, and now one of the worst. He is responsible for starving his people because he drove out not only the white farmers, but black farmers who could have continued a productive farm. However, all we now excuses are from him and his cronies. Mugabe has been President since 1980 and there are barely white people living in the country, so you cannot blame them for what is happening now.
Didn't Iraqui children die at the Hands of Bush under the disguise of WMD and Demoocracy??
I don't even want to get into the numbers that have died in this foolish American Quest for Supremacy over black gold.... certainly far above Zim!
Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage at what is happening to the Palestinians?
@ anon 3.14pm
Simplistic analysis. You need to understand the history of Rhodesia to understand what is going on in Zimbabwe.
This is not a black and white issue, nor did Mugabe wake up one day and decide to create havoc.
When you gain an understanding of what led to this present situation, then you will not rely on this western fueled blame game!
You nee
Iraqi (sp)
Here in Pottsylvania you can respond to the whines of blacks with the examples of African leaders. The racists will hear your 'blame the Whitey' and then ignore you because of the lack of competent and honest black government in Africa. The Europeans have been gone for generations. KKKevin can point to the plight of urban blacks and say that it's genetic because the Africans are doing the same...baby mammas, rape, murder, robbery, drugs, etc....
Making excuses only enables.
Mold
Okay:
I have to rewrite my sentence because grammatically incorrect. Mugabe owns three of some of the most productive farms, and the land isn't be used for farming.
Mugabe has been President since 1980, and there are barely any white people living in the country.
Actually Zimbabwe was an economic success story under Mugabe and was the breadbasket of southern Africa. When Mugabe lost it and became an all out despot he has ruined the country for generations. Mao was no here either, he was a butcher. Mao damn near destroyed the Chinese education system and his "cultural revolution" brought the country to a stand still. It was Deng Xiaoping that brought China back and who deserves most of the credit, not Mao.
nsangoma: I just don't understand why yous say the things you say: if you say it because you believe or you say it just for effect. Regardless, they sound strange and uninformed.
AMA: I realize there are many sides to issues and problems, but, like field and John Lewis say, the man is murdering people from the parties of his opponents, coming for them at night. And they're disappearing. And I think it's hypocritical for us involved in the media in any kind of way to be silent.
I wrote about Mugabe and got no response from folks whatsoever. I think many African Americans are ignorant about African issues; and many others, like me, are distrustful of what the white press says about any Africans, anywhere. But that's where people like bloggers come in. We have the power to inform in a way the white corporate media can't or won't.
field, thanks for the knowledge. Blessings.
~
I think that some African nations will have to do as some of the Asian countries did, China, Vietnam, et alia; get white folkes out of their shyt and then let the chips fall as they may.
May the strong survive.
coal, chromium ore, asbestos, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin, platinum group metals
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/zi.html
Hmmm, tectonics, the Karoo rift's hydrocarbon potential??
Now, is it starving Zimbabwean African Negroes or oil that has the west's attention about Zimbabwe?
Gotta get in there before China does.
`
~
It was Deng Xiaoping that brought China back and who deserves most of the credit, not Mao.
classical one 4:05 PM
Deng, kept the white boi out of China too.
`
Anonymous @ 3:33
I am speaking of Africans living in Africa.
After I left this sight, I went over to McClatchy Newswire to read "Inside Iraq" a blog of Iraqi journalists in Iraq. I thought todays entry was relavent to this thread....
Here is the link and here is the story. Maybe we could all take a moment and contact our elected officials and stop it, this time.
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/
June 21, 2008
Status of Forces Agreement at American Elections' Time
What ingenuity! The timing is brilliant!
The American people are almost completely taken up with the presidential elections and the race to the White House.
The Iraqi people are so overwrought a lot of them don't even know what's going on – some just don't care any more, they are too taken up with the basic affair of staying alive, providing minimal sustenance for their families and too much grief.
And yet, at this "delicate" time everything is boiling down to the core of the objectives for which this war was waged – American long term interests in Iraq.
At this "delicate" time no-bid contracts are to be signed between the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the self same companies that constituted the old Iraqi petroleum company that had a monopoly over Iraqi oil before nationalization in the early seventies, 1971 - 1972 -What a come back!
Now all is crystal clear – the two objectives that brought hundreds of thousands of troops half across the globe have become crystal clear. Oil - and the power to control it.
And while our "sovereign democracy" shamelessly seeks to hide these facts from the people to present them with a fait accompli, it seems that the American "democracy" is also shamelessly seeking to sneak the agreement through the least visible route so as to willfully disregard the will of the American people and cement its interests here – no matter the cost to human lives – no matter the cost in funds – no matter the loss of face because non of these matter to them as much. The contracts are to be signed soon, before the Iraqi parliament even passes an Oil Law - and that will be that.
What remains to be seen is whether America is willing to sacrifice its men, women and money for these companies' interests to be "properly" looked after.
The Status of Forces Agreement.
And it remains to be seen whether Iraq has any say in this at all.
mugabe should be removed. he is clearly unhinged and the world is looking at zimbabwe but not doing anything. this man believes he is there by gods grace alone. only god can remove him..
his militia are killing opponents daily..
i am not taking the west's side in this.. i am taking a moral side..
what he is doing is clearly immoral.
why is the world tip toe-ing around mugabe? what are they waiting for?
nsangoma: You're wrong about China. If there was no Mao, there wouldn't be a Chinese state and state-led economy like today.
It was Mao who went through China's country side, got rid of the big landlords, defeated Chiang Kaishek's ass and homie's ass and drove him to a small island. Remember: through Kaishek, the West, especially the U.S. controlled China.
When Mao took over, he threw Catholics and made western teachers get "re-education" by working on pig farms. It was foul shit, but it made the point: the country was going to be Chinese.
Overtime, a synthesis developed between a Maoist-type state and a semi-western styled capitalist market which is still being experimented today. But it was Mao who held that whatever changes China makes will come from a Chinese-led political state.
Mao created the present political state and some of his people continue to be led by his ideas, which continue to be anti-west despite a market economy.
Mugable stuff is different. He's pretending to hold democratic elections while killing opponents before people go to vote. They don't compare.
Brother Field ...think that Mugabe really have control when he holds not the power of the finances and raw materials of the country? As far as Black people speaking up, the Black Bloggers will have to do. A/A can't even control their own LOCAL..so the global, they may can idle talk..thats it. This is not kind to say .. but its so funny to think that a people that have not been able to function in a first world country could have an impact on a fourth world situation. As an African, my self esteem would be too low to even think to go against Mugabe. When someone GIVE you your freedom.. you never feel a sense of pride. An example of this is the American Black race.
Mao made communism very effective " if you don't like communism, will kill you, or send you to the gulag." It's a good way to control people but the problem was his economic system didn't work, the country pretty much collapsed. Deng and the leaders that followed had to introduce market reforms and relax the Stalinist style political system. Mao united the country and won the civil war but he was ultimately a nut like Stalin or Kim Ill Sung.
I see in the current Zimbabwe situation all of the contradictions inherent to nationalism, indentity politics, and US lesser evil politics. Black people are already making excuses for some of the right wing things OBama is telling us he is going to do.
I also am reading here, comments about China and Mao, and I think communist history is best told by communists themselves http://www.plp.org/pl_magazine/rr3.html
Capitalists never had a problem with China or Cuba or 'Rhodesia' when European capitalist forces were raping the place, so naturally their criticisms will be empty and one-sided. I suspect the same is true with regards to Mugabe, but nationalism that is capitalist in nature has never yielded anything progressive throughout history (think about South Africa under Mandela), so I suspect Mugabe is the same, although I admittedly don't know much about that situation and find MSM reports difficult to trust.
Oh, btw, Field, thanks for feeling my blog!
"The racists will hear your 'blame the Whitey' and then ignore you because of the lack of competent and honest black government in Africa. The Europeans have been gone for generations. KKKevin can point to the plight of urban blacks and say that it's genetic because the Africans are doing the same...baby mammas, rape, murder, robbery, drugs, etc...."
And what is this racist's source of information about Africa? Let me guess, Western Media! You have to be real smart enganging such a person in any discussion.
Zimbabwe is too complex. People talk of an economic collapse. But did such a collapse ever happen before the white settlers came?
I now believe that every African country has to go through a period of severe distress as an after effect of colonialism and then rise from shambles. Rwanda is a perfect example. They are rebuilding so fast, its a miracle. Uganda is the same way. People know where they have been and don't want to go back there. There is a conscious effort to build democratic systems. They are all struggling but they know better. I wasn't surprised by the events in Kenya because they never experienced that colonial after effect and I still don't think they are safe. Tanzania is simply a miracle, we may atribute this to Nyerere. The mainland has been conflict free.
Africa is a work in progress. Its like these conflicts have to happen to define the nations. The biggest mistake people can do it take the Western Media too seriously.
Field,
Obama is not a Flipper as par the side bar. Watch the full detail of this so called Flip Flop.
Obama Flip Flop?
Those of you who don’t trust the white man’s media... hey, you’re on the Internet. You can read independent Zimbabwean journalists reporting for their own people.
For example:
Zimbabwe Independent
Zimbabwe Standard
Financial Gazette
The Zimbabwean (U.K.)
Zimbabwe Times (U.S.)
You can even read pro-Mugabe propaganda from the government-owned Herald
All this is at your fingertips.
Great post, Field.
classical: You're saying Mao had to be ruthless to maintain power. And you're right. But he had to be. It was a big country, and people were trying to get rid of him. He had to be. Some of us are quite sympathetic with America, or some other western nation, being ruthless to develop or maintain power but look down on other countries do it. Mao had to be ruthless to keep out America and the Soviet Union under Stalin. At first, like Cuba, he made overtures to America, but America didn't want to help China unless it became a surrogate country, like the Cuban regime before Castro. Then he went to Stalin, tried to implement some of Stalin's policies but they didn't work. He ended up parting company with Stalin and his economy. Gradually (by China's standards), Mao began making overtures to the U.S. again around 1968. As I recall, this was done through Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State.
Classical: Sorry to take so long, but I'm trying to make a point: One reason black people don't talk about Africa, including Mugabe, is that they've learned over the years that a lot of stuff they're told is either misinformation or just propaganda thrown to them by U.S. and former colonialist that want African resources. China is just another example of the same type of propaganda. This includes the notion that Mao was just into a Stalinist economy and it took some of the more recent leaders to intervene and bring a market economy. The real deal is that this was being discussed by Maoist at least as far back as the mid-sixties. The problem was how this could be done within a state-run economy. But when we begin to look Africa more closely, we'll be able to figure out.
~
nsangoma: You're wrong about China. If there was no Mao, there wouldn't be a Chinese state and state-led economy like today.
macdaddy 5:45 PM
It was Deng Xiaoping that brought China back and who deserves most of the credit, not Mao.
classical one 4:01 PM (not 4:05 PM)
macdaddy, I believe you've cornfused me with classical one.
`
It's about the fact that the people of Zimbabwe are suffering, and Mugabe's supporters are telling him to leave office. Mugabe allowed the cash cow to dry up. No one argues that he was the fighter at first, but he became drunk with power. I find that unfortunate he could have had a great legacy behind, but he did not do the right thing. People are leaving the country because there are jobs and no food.
Mugabe could have kept his word by redistributing the land to the native people and keep in place successful farming techniques of the former white landowners. The problem is that the land did not get redistributed among the people, and now 60% of the wildlife in the country is gone. 60% of the labor force is agriculture and it has greatly diminished. Drought is one of the factors, but there was also foreign exchange that contribute to Zimbabwe's economic problems. However, it's poor management of economy, political turmoil, and the land reform program is a terrible blow to the country.
I knew a girl who lived in Zimbabwe, and told me it's a beautiful place but dying because of Mugabe's policies, and said it was unfortunate because he could have been known as one Africa's great president if he had rule with great judgement and not drunk with power.
Why are the Chinese now being classifed as "black" in South Africa?
~
Why are the Chinese now being classifed as "black" in South Africa?
anonymous 8:20 PM
Because they (Chinese-South Africans) were discriminated against under Apartheid; they were classified as coloured/mixed-race under Apartheid.
Reclassifying Chinese-South Africans as Black, allows them to take advantage of South African Affirmative Action.
For the purpose of business and trade, Japanese Nationals were classified as White under Apartheid.
`
totally astounding. Mugabe's thugs are going to KILL the opposition (literally, not figuratively), and they WILL be defended by folks above. beyond belief
Nice
First of all, dont lump South America in with the chaos and savagery that is Africa. Im first generation from Mexico and there is nothing in the hispanic race that is close to the savagery and ignorance that is so prevalent in sub-saharan Africa.
What is seen in Africa is exactly what is seen here in black neighborhoods. People acting like the savages they are. Killing, raping, robbing. AIDS, TB, hell I bet leprosy is still big in Africa. AIDS is more widespread in blacks than in gay men! Just Africans being africans. Doesnt matter if its Mogadishu or New Orleans or the slums of Paris. Wherever blacks are, chaos is sure to be there.
Im sure all you activist types (read;whiners) will no doubt have plenty to say about my "racism". Doesnt bother me a bit. You may get whites to cower when you whine but that shit dont walk with hispanics. NOT A BIT! We came here with the clothes on our back and worked hard to make it, and we did. No whining. No begging for scraps. Simply honest hard work. Ive worked construction for ten years and have never met a black who could stay with me or any hispanic on the site. They quit or get fired within a week. We know blacks. Your fooling nobody on this blog. Every place where blacks live with other races, they are at the bottom. Not by accident.
Africa is a stinkhole because of africans. Black neighborhoods are stinkholes because its full of blacks.
Keep blaming whites for your troubles. The murders, the dropouts, the drugs, the rapes, the garbage.
HA! Im laughing my ass off!
Please forgive me Filed because I'm going to bait this guy and hit him with some pretty nasty stuff. Here it goes: Hey Speedy Gonzalez, I prosecuted more smelly, head-shaved gangmembers, their tattoed, constantly pregnant hoes and their La Eme masters than black folks when I was at USDOJ by an order of magnitude of 10...
Now of course I don't believe you're a Mexican; only rich white Cuban exiles spout stuff hat racist and crazy, but hey--you know best. Maybe if you all weren't so chickenshit the rednecks wouldn't have stolen Texas from you in 1836 and then all of the southwest in the Mexican War in 1846. Ha! Thanks!
Look, I don't even think you're Latino. Yet another tool from a white wingnut blog, looking for sexual release.
But know what--you're right. Structurally racism, colonialism, imperialism sucked Africa dry. But yeah, what perpetuates the misery are black dictators who murder and loot at will. Time to clean house.
But still--they had to learn it from somebody, and most of them got direct training from the white world, no lie. Doesn't negate the need to wipe this scum out, from the guerillas and popular fronts to Mugabe, but I thought you needed to know.
So pick up your greencard, stop impregnating 15 year olds before their Quincinera or whatever that barbarous crap's called, and come over to my blog and start some shit. I'll wiggle my toes in your fundament. Again--I don't think you're a Latino. Likely a clownish whiteboy with nothing left to do...
Ok... I have spent the better part of today reading about Zimbabwe and
this latest article from the New York Times just did it for me... THIS IS INDEFENSIBLE!
Assassins in Zimbabwe Aim at the Grass Roots
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press
By BARRY BEARAK and CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: June 22, 2008
JOHANNESBURG — Tonderai Ndira was a shrewd choice for assassination: young, courageous and admired. Kill him and fear would pulse through a thousand spines. He was an up-and-comer in Zimbabwe’s opposition party, a charismatic figure with a strong following in the Harare slums where he lived.
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Times Topics: Zimbabwe
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Desmond Kwande/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in suit, attended the burial of a supporter in Murehwa.
There were rumors his name was on a hit list. For weeks he prudently hid out, but his wife, Plaxedess, desperately pleaded with him to come home for a night. He slipped back to his family on May 12.
The five killers pushed through the door soon after dawn, as Mr. Ndira, 30, slept and his wife made porridge for their two children. He was wrenched from his bed, roughed up and stuffed into the back seat of a double-cab Toyota pickup. “They’re going to kill me,” he cried, Plaxedess said. As the children watched from the door, two men sat on his back, a gag was shoved in his mouth and his head was yanked upward, a technique of asphyxiation later presumed in a physician’s post mortem to be the cause of death.
Zimbabwe will have a presidential runoff election on Friday, an epochal choice between Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old liberation hero who has run the nation for nearly three decades, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But in the morbid and sinister weeks recently passed, the balloting has been preceded by a calculated campaign of bloodletting meant to intimidate the opposition and strip it of some of its most valuable foot soldiers.
Even as hundreds of election observers from neighboring countries were deployed across Zimbabwe in the past few days, the gruesome killings and beatings of opposition figures have continued.
The body of the wife of Harare’s newly chosen mayor was found Wednesday, her face so badly bashed in that even her own brother only recognized her by her brown corduroy skirt and plaited hair. On Thursday, the bodies of four more opposition activists turned up after they had been abducted by men shouting ruling party slogans.
The strategic killing of activists and their families has deprived the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, not only of its dead stalwarts but also of hundreds of other essential workers who have fled while reasonably supposing they will be next.
At least 85 activists and supporters of the party have been killed, according to civic group tallies, including several operatives who, while little known outside Zimbabwe, were mainstays within it. They were thorns in the side of the government, frequently in and out of jail, bold enough to campaign in the no-go areas where Mr. Mugabe’s party previously faced little competition.
“They’re targeting people who are unknown because cynically they know they can get away with it,” said David Coltart, an opposition senator.
One such target was Better Chokururama, a 31-year-old activist with an appetite for bravado and fisticuffs, nicknamed “Texas” for both the cowboy hats he favored and the moniker of a torture camp from which he once escaped. He was abducted on April 19, and his legs crushed by his captors with boulders.
He said in an interview afterward, as he lay with both legs in casts, that he had told his captors “that beating people would not change anything because the opposition had beaten the governing party, ZANU-PF, in the elections.”
“They laughed loudly,” he said, “then threw me out of the moving vehicle.” Weeks later, he was snatched again, with two other opposition activists; the three bodies were discovered separately and identified by family members.
But the violence has been aimed not only at campaigners but at voters as well. So-called pungwe sessions, the Shona word for all-night vigils, have become common in areas where people once loyal to President Mugabe dared vote against him in the first round of voting on March 29. Villagers are rousted from their homes and herded together. Suspected opposition supporters are then called forward to be thrashed.
In Chaona, a village in Mashonaland Central Province, a man named Fredrick said he was among 10 suspected opposition supporters tortured for five hours under a tree. One man was caught while trying to escape. “They tied his genitals with an elastic band and beat him until he passed out and died,” said Fredrick, who asked that his last name not be used in order to protect himself. He said a second man was killed after his tormentors dripped bubbles of burning plastic on his naked body.
Prosper Mutema, 34, from Mtoko in Mashonaland East, said he was among dozens captured on June 4, taken to a torture camp and beaten all night with sticks and clubs called knobkerries. In the morning, he was ordered to hand over a cow as a “repentance fee.” Lacking so costly an animal, he pleaded for a more modest penitence, eventually winning his freedom with a bucket of maize meal and a chicken.
There have been dozens of killings, thousands of beatings and tens of thousands of people displaced, civic groups, doctors and relief agencies say. Though roadblocks seal off rural areas where most of the abuse is taking place, there are so many surviving victims and witnesses that human rights workers and journalists have been able to catalog much of the brutality. Pain is often inflicted through hours-long pummeling of the soles of the feet and the flesh of the buttocks.
“When Mugabe declares himself the winner, the world must know what he has done,” said the opposition’s director of elections, Ian Makone, who has gone underground and travels only at night. Two of his chief aides have been killed; several others have scattered into exile.
Mr. Mugabe, on the other hand, is campaigning boldly. A vigorous octogenarian, his life span is already more than double the national average in this destitute country, where inflation has gone so berserk that a loaf of bread now costs $30 billion Zimbabwean dollars.
Mr. Mugabe openly portrays the election in the terminology of warfare, a battle to preserve sovereignty against puppets put up by the British, the nation’s onetime colonial masters who in his view want to reclaim the land for white domination. Either he will win, he insists, or he will keep power by force.
“We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot,” he said in a speech last week. “How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?”
The opposition claims that Mr. Tsvangirai won a majority in the earlier round of voting, and that the government manipulated the count to force a runoff and ready its violent response.
Whatever the actual count, hard-liners in the governing party agreed on a “war-like/military style strategy” to recapture votes that had drifted astray and win a second ballot, according to the minutes of one of their meetings obtained from a ZANU-PF official.
“This is not going to be an election,” said one senior ZANU-PF official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the plans are secret. “The election happened in March. This is going to be a war. We are going all out to win this, using all state resources at our disposal.”
Army officers were sent to every province to direct the strategy, which eventually employed soldiers, intelligence agents, policemen and paramilitary groups known as war veterans and youth brigades called the green bombers, the senior official said. Ward by ward voting results dictated the campaign’s geography. In the Zaka district of Masvingo, once a reliable ZANU-PF stronghold, Mr. Tsvangirai won in March, and the opposition party also took three of four seats in Parliament and the Senate seat. Reprisals began within weeks.
Names of the opposition’s poll workers had been published in the newspaper as required by law, and these workers seem to have been systematically identified for nighttime beatings. Hundreds of them have since fled, leaving their polling stations vulnerable to ballot stuffing on Friday, said the constituency’s senator-elect, Misheck Marava. He said his wife and children were savagely beaten with chains and whips.
Then, on June 4 at 4:15 a.m., 13 men led by soldiers attacked the local opposition office at Jerera Growth Point, where some of those displaced by violence had sought a haven. At least two men were killed. The office was set afire with gasoline.
As one of survivor of the blaze, Isaac Mbanje, lay with maddening pain in a Harare hospital, skin peeling from his raw wounds and fluids seeping through the bandages on his charred hands, he described his ordeal.
One of the assailants ordered him: “Lie down! Keep quiet!” Then shots were fired from an AK-47. “One of the guys who was shot fell on my body,” Mr. Mbanje said. Then the attackers set both the dead and living alight.
Tichanzi Gandanga, the opposition’s director of elections in Harare, said he was abducted April 23 by men who blindfolded and gagged him and then thrust him into a truck. As the vehicle raced into the countryside, he was badly beaten and stripped before being dumped onto the road, where he was beaten and kicked and then, as he hovered near unconsciousness, run over.
The men attacking him were armed and could have shot him, Mr. Gandanga said. He is not sure why they left him alive, or even if they meant to.
“We had an election machinery with some important foot soldiers,” Mr. Gandanga said. “These soldiers were identified and eliminated.”
Opposition leaders assumed the carnage would stop once election observers arrived to monitor the vote. But that has hardly proved true.
Emmanuel Chiroto, 41, was elected to represent his ward in Harare. Fearful of attacks on his family, he sent his wife, Abigail, 27, and son, Ashley, 4, to stay with her mother outside the city. But on Sunday, fellow city councilors chose him as Harare’s mayor, and his proud wife came home the next day to celebrate, he said.
Soon after she arrived, he was called away because a ward chairman had been beaten up. While Mr. Chiroto was away, two truckloads of men firebombed his home and abducted his wife and child. Opposition party officials hurriedly contacted Tanki Mothae, a Lesotho native who is a key manager of the election monitors from the Southern African Development Community.
“The house was completely destroyed inside,” Mr. Mothae said in an interview. “The furniture, everything, was burned to ashes.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Chiroto’s little boy was dropped off at a police station. Wednesday, his wife’s battered body was found in a Harare morgue.
Mr. Chiroto still has not had the heart to tell Ashley that his mother is dead, he said. The boy told his father he had sat on his blindfolded mother’s lap as she was held captive and then he was left behind as soldiers took her away.
“We need to go get Mommy,” the 4-year-old has told his father over and over. “We have to go! She’s in the bush. Let’s go to Mommy!”
Four journalists contributed reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe.
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Mr Chambers, if you think your lightweight ghetto thug-poser shit bothers me one bit you are as stupid as I think you are. I just love all this "its somebody elses fault" crybaby shit. It plays right into the stereotype we all have of blacks. Cant take responsibility for any of your shortcomings. Thanks for that.
The fact is we wont lay down for you the way whites do. We wont run and hide like whites do. We will meet you on any level of society from colleges and schools to the workplace to the streets of any city and we will beat you. Do you REALLY want to go down the "impregnating 15 yr old" road? I doubt you do.
Call me any racist name you want, you simply make me laugh like a good clown always does.
Say, does affirmative action include circuses? If so, you are one negrito that will ALWAYS have a job
anonymous@10:25,
In the first place you could have used a pseudonym, actually that goes for all anonymous', so that we could keep track of who's what. Secondly bloggers only allow your comments to stay at their discretion.
Education. We teach African-American history now butI doubt if African history is done much better than it was when I was in public school.
News: We have nothing like the BBC, which reports global news on both TV & website. On the website one can in a matter of minutes read important short news digests from around the world.
Now, is it starving Zimbabwean African Negroes or oil that has the west's attention about Zimbabwe?
Gotta get in there before China does.
`
Exactly right, but they're courting right now. The African leaders work out deals good for themselves. China is in desperate need of more resources. They will colonize with the aid of the African leaders and a middle class will never appear in this situation. There's a large NGO here in AR that sends agricultural trainers to Africa at no cost to Africa. Wonder how they feel about this?
Mugabe demise won't be mourned by most Zimbabweans, I think.
His secret police, 12,000% inflation and one of the highest murder rates for any African nation, doesn't exactly equal hardcore supporters.
Mugabe will probably wind up in France, or even New York City. Which is a shame, really.
He belongs before the Hague and charged with crimes against humanity.
To the people who commented above about the complexity of colonialism and its effects on Zimbabwe, I get that. I know firs hand what colonialism can do to a country. But that does not excuse Mugabe's actions over the past few years against his own people. Come on folks, white press or not, what Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe is indefensible.
And macdaddy is right; I can't believe that nsangoma believes half of the stuff he says. I think he just writes sh** to get a rise out of us.
jody, thanks for the background,undercoverblackman, thanks for yours as well. You are right, it's there in black and white if we want to read it.
kai, you are welcome. You, like so many other people who comment here, have a very nice blog.
Christopher Chambers, WTF? Did I miss an e-fight somewhere? LOL!
And folks, when you have a typo in your comments, pppplease do not worry about it. This is not the librarian site. (Just look at all of my typos) No one cares about misspelled words and s**t like that, unless we just totally cannot understand the word you were trying to write.
Misspelled wrds is nt an issue fr me. :)
BTW, grata,thanks for the link on the "O" man. It's close, but I do think he flip flopped on the campaign finance reform issue. And just so we don't get it twisted, Mr. Morton is no better.
I saw that thing with Prof. Chambers--I think he was just giving whomever this was a taste of his own medicine and being sarcastic. I frankly cannot see how this mystery person could be Hispanic. I have NEVER such nonsense from any of my fiercely proud friends--and a sister in law-- who have families originating from the D.R., El Salvador, Mexico and Ecuador.
It is Friday night and midnight on the East Coast so any misspellings were probably wine induced, FN!!
Well, I see Christopher gets around quite a few places. And interesting that Cynthia is being read in Pistolvania. Greetings from Hot-freaking-lanta.
Mugabee seems to have jumped the shark and morphed into a megalomaniacal despot. While tossing foreign landowners seemed a plus for the citizenry, the resulting land grabs - not so much. People are starving, no education or jobs, foul water, yet Robert lives like a King. I suppose the Brits taught him one thing well, the tale of King William, II.
Botswana is an interesting contradiction to it's neighbor, Zimbabwe. Border affairs reminds of the Mexican/US dilemma - and the same dynamics.
A sorry state of affairs in this allegedly modern age.
`
field, baby sis, did you misread the comments, sir? macdaddy and I are actually in agreement.
`
Im curious, many here seem to blame colonialism, to some effect, for the behavior in Africa.
If Im not mistaken, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Vietnam, New Zealand, Canada and America were colonies and they didnt fall into despotic chaos like most of Africa has.
Hmmmmm.
Sorry nsangoma, I will have to read that again. Like cindym said, it's late.
BTW, cindym,one glass too many perhaps? I thought it was Saturday night. :)
Anon. 12:39AM, Hmmmm indeed. I know where you are going, but we can't go there together. There is a post on that for me somewhere down the road.
~
anonymous 9:21 PM, can yall do this?
Toute la musique que j'aime
`
there are a lot of restrictions of press freedom in Zimbabwe but a bunch of Zimbabweans are indeed writing online. i'd recommend anyone wanting to understand what's going on to start at
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/
a great panafricanist website, which also has weekly reports on the african blog scene.
lastly, if you followed the news over the last few days you would have seen that Tanzanian, Angolans and Swazi election observers who are *in* Zimbabwe have condemned what is going on in the harshest terms:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7463687.stm
Tanzania supported Mugabe for a very long time. Tanzania is one of the countries that made the strongest commitment to ending white hegemony in Africa at great costs to its own people. So the Tanzanian foreign minister speaking on Zimbabwe in those terms should tell you all...
Professor Tracey hit the nail on the head.
Mugabe was in Rome for a the conference on the world wide food problem and it was very controversial. There have major issues with food/hunger on his watch and he rolled up to Rome like everything is okay.
This is about power. He has it, doesn't want to give it up. The man needs to go.
Anonymous 9:21
Heck, your own Hispanic police are so crooked and corrupt until they don’t even trust each other. Unbelievable, your country is so civilized, until people want to escape it 24/7. I don’t see no one trying to escape from Africa and smuggle themselves into the USA on a daily basis, 24/7. Furthermore, when you sneak over our borders, you must have forgotten to bring your college degrees with you, because you’ve given slave wages a new meaning.
Do you ever pick up a paper or are you just trying to play goodie two shoes role today? Crime is one of the main reasons the American government wanted to send Hispanics back to Mexico. Gangbanging, mainly rapes, killings, robbery are on the list of Hispanic crimes committed, and not to mention the black tar heroin and brown heroin that is smuggled in by Hispanics. You rape minor children—you’re known for sexual perversions, which can be easily read about in some local newspaper. Oh, some of you like to play your music extremely loud to drown out the cock fights you hold in your homes. How do I know that? I’ve had more than one Hispanic neighbor before, but they weren’t an asshole like you.
to be continued
Anonymous 9:21 (continued)
I’ve seen the slums of Mexico, and I’ve lived in the Barrios before as well where Hispanics have vandalized public buildings with graffiti, and violence takes place. Heck a person can just walk up the street a few blocks if they’re ever in El Paso, TX, and get an eye full. For someone claiming to be the holier than thou race that has no flaws in their neighborhoods, or excuse me slums, I’ve noticed you guys are very creative in finding ways to smuggle your poor behinds over borders to escape civilization where the drinking water is pure, and healthiest living and medical conditions exist in this whole wide world. Nope, we can’t say that old Mexico is not in chaos, now can we? Then why did you leave it?
You didn’t seem to be complaining about our whining as you put it when you came behind us reaping some of the benefits of our whining as you put it achieved. Did you forget that you’re considered a minority too? It’s because of our whining that you’re able to get a job through equal opportunity. Hispanics have always been guest workers when the economy is bad. After the economy got back on track, the government rounded up Hispanics like a herd of cattle and shipped them back to Mexico. If you think I’m making this up, pick up a history book, or do some research on what happened during the Zoot Suit era. You mean your padre didn’t tell you about that?
Whites cowering please don’t make me laugh. You really don’t know whites well, and that’s obvious by your ignorant statement.
Oh, please spare me. Yes, and the only reason you got that job working construction was because you offered to work for wages that were so low, until it’s even an embarrassment to slave wages. If the normal pay scale is fifteen an hour, you’ll offer to work for $2.50 an hour. Then you stab other employees in the back and tell the boss that you have other friends willing to work for less making it hard for other races to get another job. While sucking the life out of the economy, because of low wages you’re also major food stamp and welfare recipients. When you make supervisor, you discriminate against all races, because you’ll only hire your own. In addition, you do inferior work and when you’re called on it, all of a sudden you no speak English. Yup, you’ve worked hard alright at contributing to soliciting to prostitutes.
Oh, I get it now. You’re one of the Hispanics that thinks you’re white, because you want to be white so bad. Because you have this little fantasy that if you kiss behind enough that you’ll be able to replace us savages and get to stay in America legally.
Bob:
They teach African history in some community colleges, usually by African American instructors, but it's usually in colleges with a black majority.
I post on anonymous because it is about the only way for me to avoid the hassle of Google Account. I do, however, sign with my nom de plume.
Mold
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/21/cal-thomas-says-america-only-sees-angry-black-women-on-tv/
African nations are going through stages of development. Despite that,Senegal and a few others are doing very well.
Many have forgotten that roughly ninety years after the United States was born, it had a bloody Civil War.
Some countries were never able to make unity a national mandate.Colombia is one I can mention. There are many more nations undergoing that grave problem, including some African, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Asian nations.
Mugabe has lost his way.He must step down.Zimbabweans need to develop a strategy to get Mugabe to leave office with the dignity and respect he thinks he deserves.
Anonymous is not really a Mexican.
He could be a Conservative Black, a racist White, a Cuban or a South American.
Cordiales Saludos,
Ana.
absolutely nothing excuses mugabe's actions--and no amount of pointing the finger at colonialism can make up for the atrocities zimbabweans have suffered at the hands of one of their own and his cronies!
this goes to show that there's nothing inherently noble about oppressed people. power corrupts and absolute power...
Field--I had just came back from a party with my sorors so yes I apologize! Saturday. not friday!
It's unfortunate that a couple people took Anon's bait and had to get just as racist.
It would be easier to point out that Mexico has been in chaos for decades. There's been terrorist/revotionary activity in the southern portion of Mexico for 20 years. The Mexican economy is terrible which is why there is a steady exodus from there to here. The environment has been destroyed and the Mexican government doesn't care. Mexico City has the worst air quality of any city in the world including urban areas of China.
Honorable mention goes to the savagery of the drug cartels in Colombia, the slaughter of Mexican police officers by drug dealers, the butchery of homeless children by the police in Rio, the desaparecidos of Argentina, etc. Pinochet dropped dead before he could be sent to prison.
Native Americans are in far worse shape than blacks and yes, they "whine" about it but no one listens. At least when blacks "whine" we effect major change in public policy that benefits everyone. They used to lynch Mexicans, too.
Playing the racist game is a zero sum game. There isn't much Mexicans or Mexican Americans do that black folks don't. They have cock fights, blacks (including filthy rich ones) hold dog fights. Get over that shite.
Just heard that the opposition has pulled out of the elections. Looks like God is the only one who will remove this reptile from power.
A sad day.
This is Zimbabwe
African blog with details.
West Coast:
No race on this earth is perfect, none are without flaws. I come from a multiracial family, and I've seen all sides of the coin so to speak. Blacks are not savages.
The same trash in blacks neighborhood is other races neighborhoods as well. Blacks have been the scapegoat long enough. And blacks are not solely what's wrong with America or any other country. The problems each country faces are bigger than blacks or any other race if we want to keep it real.
"Anonymous is not really a Mexican.
He could be a Conservative Black, a racist White, a Cuban or a South American."
Ana.
Thanks you for that information. Blacks and Hispanics have for the most part always lived together in harmony. I've lived around and have a few Hispanics in my family, and friends that are like familia to me. I've, also, have met a few that really act like Anonymous before, whom I have no respect for, because they're ungrateful in my opinion. However, the majority of Hispanics I know are good people.
It just pissed me off when Anonymous used the word "savages" to describe blacks and said he was Hispanic. I don't like it when people use derogatory names to refer to other human beings. Especially, when blacks have taken the brunt of the blows to get policies changed that benefitted other minorities as well.
iono what to say... hearing about the plight of Africans is getting really old to me. no one(with significant influence)over there or over here is doing anything about it... sigh*
I consider this poat to be your most realistic, many people have supported Mugabe just because he is Black.
But we have know for some time his real character, after all he is trained and educated by Jesuits.
Mugabe has always been a power monger even though he has hidden it well.
People do not talk about the role of the Vatican but where did he go last month? Rome.
He was there at the popes funeral and they put him next to Prince Charles which upset the British.
But Zimbabwe like Rwanda is considered Catholic and Mugabe and they will not give it up without a fight.
"Mengistu", not "Mangisu", for the Ethiopian leader.
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