Tag: Zimbabwe

FAO Warns of Famine Risk in Southern Africa

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned in February that parts of southern Africa are at serious risk of famine over the next few months that could threaten as many as four million people.

The famine threat is greatest in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, of course, has seen its crop production cut in half thanks to the confiscatory and anti-democratic policies of Robert Mugabe.

Malawi has suffered from flooding the past couple years which has waterlogged crops and reduced yields. Food is available in Malawi, but the poverty levels there often make it impossible for people to obtain food.

In Zambia, too, flooding caused a 24 percent decrease in harvests in 2001 as compared to 2000.

Source:

Famine stalks Southern Africa. The BBC, February 19, 2002.

Surprise — Mugabe Wins Rigged Election

In a real shocker, Robert Mugabe won the election he rigged this week. This guy has the same sort of job security that “elected” Soviet officials had back in the day.

I’ve said more than enough about Mugabe and Zimbabwe, but noticed something very peculiar. Is it just me or is Robert Mugabe really Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav? You be the judge.


Robert Mugabe


Flavor Flav

Mugabe Can’t Even Frame His Opposition Without Enormous Gaffes

Zimbabwe has elections coming up — elections that would almost certainly result in a loss of power for Robert Mugabe if they were fair and free. Mugabe’s got a problem, and this week a solution appeared in the form of a videotape supposedly showing opposition leaders plotting to kill Mugabe.

The setup is this: opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai recently met with Ari Ben-Menashe. That meeting was surreptitiously taped, apparently by Zimbabwe secuirty forces.

Ben-Menashe used to work for Mugabe, though was apparently passing himself off now as an independent consultant. At the meeting, the two discuss a variety of issues related to the upcoming elections until Ben-Menashe proposes assassinating Mugabe, at which point Tsvangirai claims he left the room and refused to have anything more to do with Ben-Menashe.

But Mugabe is selling a different story — that Tsvangirai proposed the assassination plot and Ben-Menashe turned the opposition union leader in, saying he was shocked when Tsvangirai proposed the political murder.

So how do we know that Tsvangirai’s version is correct — and that Ben-Menashe was working with Zimbabwe’s security forces to set all of this up? Because Mugabe’s government released a videotape of that meeting. An extensively edited videotape. No, make that an idiotically edited videotape. Here’s how the BBC sums up the problems with the edited video, citing the point at which Tsvangirai appears to agree to the murder of Mugabe,

Although this sounds like damning evidence, after each question or answer, the film suddenly jumps and the figures switch their seating positions, showing that the clip has been heavily edited.

The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe has analysed the video tape and says that a version broadcast relentlessly on Zimbabwe television has a video timer on the screen, which also demonstrates “that the video had been cut and rearranged in a manner that appeared to suit the assassination conspiracy theory”.

“The timer… changed repeatedly from, 9.45am to 9.25am; and from 9.25am to 9.43am and then back to 9.27am; and from 9.52am to 9.44am,” says the MMPZ.

Mugabe’s security forces are so stupid they left the damn timecode stamp in the edited video the released to the public! Sure puts a better perspective on his mismanagement of Zimbabwe.

Source:

What lies behind Zimbabwe’s treason tape. The BBC, February 26, 2002.

The European Union Enacts Toothless Sanctions Against Zimbabwe

The European Union finally took official action against Zimbabwe‘s Robert Mugabe after Mugabe ejected a Swedish diplomat who was heading a mission to observe Zimbabwe’s upcoming election. The EU’s sanctions, however, will have no real effect on Mugabe.

Mugabe is now banned from traveling to European Union nations, any assets he has in the EU will be frozen, and Zimbabwe is barred from buying arms from the EU. As The BBC’s Paul Reynolds summed up the likely reaction by Mugabe,

The European Union has therefore played its card. But it is not a particularly strong card, since Mr. Mugabe is unlikely to be much moved by not being able to travel to Europe.

These sort of sanctions might have been a little more helpful 18-24 months ago, but the situation in Zimbabwe is way beyond being influenced but such tepid sanctions. Or as Reynolds eloquently put it,

The European Union has huffed and now it has puffed.

But it is unlikely to bring Robert Mugabe’s house down.

Source:

Analysis: EU sanctions lack teeth. Paul Reynolds, The BBC, February 18, 2002.

Zimbabwe Beginning to Experience Sharp Grain Shortage

With grain production falling from 2.04 million tons in 1999-2000 down to a mere 1.48 million tons in 2000-01, Zimbabwe is beginning to feel the effects of the grain shortage created by Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical policies.

Mugabe urged the seizure of white-owned farms despite warnings that this would create massive grain shortages. Then Mugabe pretended that there really was not going to be any grain shortage at all. As a result, Zimbabwe did not stock up on grain for the inevitable emergency.

Now, even if Zimbabwe could afford to buy grain from its neighbors — and it does not have the money to do so since Mugabe has driven the economy into the ground — most of the grain surplus in southern Africa has already been allocated.

So, Zimbabwe has now joined that exclusive group of nations to go begging for food from liberal democracies in the West to prevent it from falling into starvation thanks to the result of its illiberal policies. Robert Mugabe gets to hold on to power and the United States, Great Britain and France get to feed Zimbabwe’s hungry.

The World Food Program is asking for $60 million to feed 600,000 people in Zimbabwe’s countryside. And don’t worry, the World Food Program will almost certainly be back asking for a new round of money to prevent starvation in Zimbabwe next year.

Source:

Grain shortages bit in Zimbabwe. The BBC, January 22, 2002.

Mugabe Exploits Anthrax Attacks

Another example of someone in the developing world taking advantage of publicity over terrorism in the United States to advance his or her agenda. Somebody sent several envelopes containing a white powder to government officials in Zimbabwe. Although tests have confirmed it is not anthrax, they are still supposedly trying to find out exactly what the substance is.

Which did not stop officials in Robert Mugabe’s government — which has become an informal dictatorship — from quickly determining who was behind the letters: white people and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.

A more likely explanation is that someone in Mugabe’s party sent the letters. For example, last year somebody — probably Zimbabwe security forces — set off a bomb at an MDC headquarters, and Mugabe’s government wasted no time in blaming the act of terrorism on the MDC itself.

This week, Zimbabwe’s legislature will almost certainly pass legislation making it illegal to for opposition parties like the MDC to criticize Mugabe without getting his permission first. Great Britain is on the verge of suspending Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth and the European Union is considering sanctions targeted at Zimbabwe’s ruling elite.

And, as usual, the Americans will probably have to step forward with plenty of food aid to prevent starvation in Zimbabwe for years to come.

Source:

Zimbabwe’s anthrax ‘gimmick’. The BBC, January 10, 2002.