GINA COBB

Mugabe Now Even Loses On The Recount

By DemocracyRules

Violent attacks on the opposition continue, and even after efforts at retroactive ballot-box stuffing the recount shows Mugabe and his party still lost.  The government still refuses to release the full results of the election, one month after it happened.    This seems to have paralyzed the MSM into a "wait and see" attitude.  Wait for what, global warming?  That won't happen until after the next ice age.

Zimbabwe's best hope at this point is Dr. Jendayi Frazer. She is the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, and she speaks plain English that anyone can understand. She just met with the Zimbabwe opposition.

Frazer said, "We are certain that Morgan Tsvangirai won based on the reporting of the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network and other independent monitors... I think [Mugabe] is -- with this great delay in announcement -- trying to steal the election. He is intimidating population and election officials as well. [We've] also heard reports of the police stuffing ballots."

 

Mugabe Defeated in Zimbabwe?

Robert Mugabe's party has lost control of parliament, and Mugabe himself has either lost outright or will have to participate in a run-off, the opposition party is claiming. 

HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe's long-ruling party lost its parliamentary majority Wednesday, bolstering opposition claims that impoverished Zimbabweans voted for change in this struggling southern African nation.

The opposition also claimed victory for leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Saturday's presidential vote, but the state-controlled newspaper predicted a runoff — the first official admission that Mugabe, the nation's autocratic leader of 28 years, had not won re-election.

The Movement for Democratic Change expressed confidence Tsvangirai could win a runoff with an even larger margin, but there were fears an embattled Mugabe would roll out every weapon in his considerable political and government arsenal to stay in power.

Election observer Imani Countess of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum told The Associated Press that the most frightening conversation she has had in Zimbabwe was with a senior official of the ruling ZANU-PF party discussing a runoff.

"He was very calm and jovial but made it very, very clear that if there was a runoff, that ZANU would use all the state organs at its disposal to ensure victory, and that is very, very worrisome," she said.

Will Mugabe go quietly?  Even in the best case scenario, there is much pain and hard work ahead for Zimbabwe.

Tension in Zimbabwe As Election Results Are Delayed

Delays in announcing election results in Zimbabwe are causing concern on the part of observers and opponents to Robert Mugabe's regime:

HARARE (Reuters) - Regional observers endorsed Zimbabwe's elections as credible and fair on Sunday but long delays in issuing results stoked concerns that President Robert Mugabe was trying to cling to power by rigging the result.

The election is the most important since independence, with Zimbabwe's economic collapse and a two-pronged opposition attack facing Mugabe with his most formidable challenge.

. . . . Mugabe, in power for 28 years, is being challenged by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and ruling ZANU-PF party defector Simba Makoni, who both accuse the former guerrilla leader of wrecking a once prosperous economy and reducing the population to misery.

Although the odds seem stacked against Mugabe, 84, analysts believe his iron grip on the country and backing from the armed forces will enable him to declare victory. The MDC accused him of widespread vote-rigging.

Elections in Zimbabwe: Once a Breadbasket, Now a Basket Case

They're lining up for hours to vote in Zimbabwe today. The question is whether the votes will count. There have already been widespread irregularities.

Zimbabwe has become a textbook example of how to destroy an economy through heavy-handed governmental intervention in the free market, including forced redistribution of wealth (farms were taken from white farmers to give to blacks) and foolish stopgap measures such as price controls (which not only failed to stop raging inflation but, predictably, created shortages and black markets). Most of Zimbabwe's current troubles can be laid at the feet of one man: Robert Mugabe.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabweans lined up for hours Saturday to vote in elections that present President Robert Mugabe with his toughest political challenge in 28 years in power.

Voting was generally reported as peaceful but were some complaints of irregularities and minor violence.

The opposition accuses Mugabe of plotting to steal the election. Mugabe told reporters he would accept whatever results emerged and rejected the charges that he had already orchestrated his own victory.

"We don't rig elections," he said.

The economic collapse of Zimbabwe, once the region's breadbasket, has dominated the campaign. The opposition accuses Mugabe of misrule and dictatorship. Mugabe, appealing to national pride, blames the West — and charges his opponents as being stooges for former colonial ruler Britain.

In southern Bulawayo, an opposition stronghold, 78-year-old Moffat Simon Mabhena was among many who lined up to vote hours before the scheduled 7 a.m. poll opening.

"The message is very clear: We want to see change in this country," Mabhena said. "I have been here since 2:30 a.m. and it's because I want to see Robert Mugabe out."

Last July, the government of Zimbabwe was imposing price controls in an effort to stop galloping inflation. It was a predicatble failure. As I wrote at the time:

Things are going just swimmingly in Zimbabwe, where the very government responsible for runaway inflation is attempting to override the laws of supply and demand by mandating that all prices be slashed.

Yeah, that'll work. Let's check in and see how it's going so far, shall we?

Plain-clothes police sought to enforce Zimbabwe's new price controls by raiding shops yesterday as President Robert Mugabe's regime waged a desperate struggle against soaring inflation.

They roughed up shop owners and staff and arrested 20 businessmen. Shoppers swarmed over supermarket shelves in the capital, Harare, intent on grabbing "bargains".

Ministers claim that the inflation rate of 4,500 per cent - the highest in the world - is solely caused by greedy shopkeepers raising their prices for no good reason. Propaganda tries to portray businessmen as the true authors of the economic collapse - deflecting blame from Mr Mugabe.

But economists say that the prime cause of inflation is the government's huge budget deficit, which it deals with by printing more money. This immense borrowing requirement is, in turn, the result of the wider economic failure caused mainly by the seizure of white-owned farms.

Instead of dealing with the deficit, the regime has imposed draconian price controls. Last week, the authorities ordered shops to cut basic food prices by 50 per cent after retail prices had risen by 300 per cent in only seven days.

. . . . Shelves in supermarkets across Harare are swiftly emptying and police in full riot gear linger outside.

The new controls force supermarkets to sell food at below its cost from wholesalers. Unless the regime relents, there will be food shortages, empty shelves and, eventually, the closure of all shops.

"We won't be restocking. If need be, we might have to close shop rather than stick to government prices," said the manager of one store.

Doesn't anybody understand basic economics in Zimbabwe?

In October, after having imposed the price controls, Zimbabwe ran out of bread:

Zimbabwe's bakeries have shut and supermarkets have warned there will be no bread for the foreseeable future as the government admitted that wheat production had collapsed following the seizure of white-owned farms.

The agricultural ministry announcement that the wheat harvest is only about a third of what is required, and that imports are held up by lack of hard currency, came as a deadline passed today for the last white farmers to leave their land or face prosecution for trespass.

The maize harvest is expected to be equally dire and price controls to contain hyperinflation have emptied the stores of most other foodstuffs. The World Food Programme says at least 3 million people - one in four of the population - will need food aid in the coming months. It describes hunger in some parts of the country, which used to be a food exporter, as "acutely serious".

Around the world, too many on the left still believe that unequal distribution of wealth is the primary explanation for intractable problems of hunger and poverty. They support policies such as heavily taxing the rich and redistributing some of that wealth to the poor. They do not realize that poverty is a symptom of deeper troubles, not the cause. A nation's poverty is a usually a symptom of bad governmental and economic policies, including laws that interfere with the free market and destroy incentives to produce. Corruption, violence, and lack of basic human freedom don't help either.

“This is what Robert Mugabe has done to us, turned us into a nation of peddlers and beggars,” she said flatly, allowing her thoughts to then wander off into the future. “If he remains, we will just die.”

Zimbabwe started out as a prosperous breakbasket. Now, thanks to its forcible redistribution of wealth, it has turned itself into an economic basket case. A nation that once helped feed the world has no bread to feed its own people.

There is no surer way to make everyone poor than to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Misery in Zimbabwe Continues With No Clear Exit

“This is what Robert Mugabe has done to us, turned us into a nation of peddlers and beggars,” she said flatly, allowing her thoughts to then wander off into the future. “If he remains, we will just die.”

Liberian Ex- Rebel Leader "Gen. Butt Naked" Confesses to Murdering 20,000

A story so horrific and bizarre that it almost defies belief:  'Gen. Butt Naked,' Liberian Ex-Rebel Leader, Confesses to Murdering Thousands.

Murdering 20,000, to be precise.  From Fox News:

MONROVIA, Liberia —  One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked, has returned to confess his role in terrorizing the nation, saying he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.

Joshua Milton Blahyi, who now lives in Ghana, returned this week to face his homeland's truth and reconciliation commission, this time wearing a suit and tie. His nom de guerre is derived from his platoon's practice of charging naked into battle, a technique meant to terrify the enemy.

Other warlords, though, have refused to ask forgiveness, dismissing a commission many in Liberia see as toothless. Blahyi is urging other former killers to come forward as the country founded by freed American slaves in 1847 struggles to recover from past horrors.

"I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged. I could be given any other punishment," the 37-year-old Blahyi said in a weekend interview following his truth commission appearance last week. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go.

"I have been looking for an opportunity to tell the true story about my life — and every time I tell people my story, I feel relieved."

The civil war, which killed an estimated 250,000 people in this nation of 3 million, was characterized by the eating of human hearts and soccer matches played with human skulls. Drugged fighters waltzed into battle wearing women's wigs, flowing gowns and carrying dainty purses stolen from civilians.

Before he led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil.

The sacrifice was typically "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart which was divided into pieces for us to eat," he told The Associated Press on Saturday. He appeared before the commission Jan. 15.

Between the time he made a pact with the devil circa 1980 and began his rampage and the time he stopped fighting in 1996, he said "more than 20,000 people fell victim (to me and my men). They were killed."

Some say Blahyi's confession is proof Liberia needs a war crimes court, not a commission.

The commission, modeled on post-apartheid South Africa's commission, has been taking testimony from victims as well as former rebels for the last two years, urging a full accounting of wartime atrocities. While the truth commission cannot charge killers with a crime, it can recommend charges be brought.

Meanwhile, several notorious killers have refashioned themselves as influential politicians in Liberia.

"If you have an individual admitting that he and his group killed over 20,000 people, certainly there should be a mechanism put in place for such people to face justice," Mulbah Morlue, who heads the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court in Liberia, said in response to Blahyi's confession.

Yet there are also those that praise Blahyi.

"You can't have true reconciliation without knowing the truth," said Johnny Lamine, a Monrovia resident. "Blahyi's story is alarming, but ... let's know who did what in Liberia during the war."

Others in a country where some feel everyone is tainted said they would rather not dig up the past. Because the violence was so widespread it's not uncommon to find Liberian families that have both victim and perpetrator under the same roof — a daughter that was raped and a son that took up a gun and went on to rape the daughters of other families.

"Liberians have tried to forget these stories," Mary Kollie said as she went home from church service Sunday.

In his interview, Blahyi told The Associated Press: "Some people see me and congratulate me. Others see me and say I should not be walking down the streets of Monrovia posing proud. But I continue to tell such people I am not proud, I am ashamed."

In 1996, while charging naked into a battle, Blahyi said God appeared and told him he was a slave to Satan, not the hero he considered himself to be, according to an earlier interview with The Associated Press.

He became a born-again Christian and for a while, traversed the war-wracked streets of Monrovia selling cassettes of his sermons.

Liberia's violence began in 1979 when security forces killed dozens of people during massive riots. The following year, President William Tolbert was ousted in a coup by Samuel K. Doe, an illiterate master sergeant, who ordered Tolbert's Cabinet members tied to poles on a beach and executed.

Rebels led by ex-rebel Charles Taylor invaded in 1989, plunging the country into another civil war. The war went into a momentary lull after 1997 when Taylor was elected president and again surged, ending only when Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria in 2003. He is now facing charges of crimes against humanity at a tribunal in the Hague for atrocities committed by a rebel movement he allegedly supported in neighboring Sierra Leone.

While Taylor faces trial for crimes committed in another country, one of his former rivals in Liberia, Prince Johnson, is now a senator who last year accompanied a group of U.S. politicians as they toured the country. Johnson videotaped his men torturing and then killing Doe. That videotape is still widely available in street side stalls here.

The only bright spot from my point of view is "Gen. Butt Naked's" (Joshua Milton Blahyi's) story of conversion to Christianity, which I hope is sincere and lasting, and his corresponding realization of the depth of evil of his previous acts.  In this world in which too many persist in evil acts until the day they die (Islamic terrorists come to mind), it is a breath of hope that at least a few find a way to realize the depth of their wrongs and, one would hope, to put such horrific atrocities behind them forever.

It is a separate question what should happen to Joshua Milton Blahyi.  Christian forgiveness does not often mean exemption from human systems of justice. 

Blahyl did not have to appear before the Liberian commission, since he now lives in Ghana.  He also knows that he may be put to death as a result of his confession.  In that respect, I believe he is due some degree of respect for the choices he is making today.

Zimbabwe Dying Before Our Eyes

The news from Zimbabwe couldn't be worse.  The country is circling the drain. 

Austin Bay lays out the depressing details at Strategy Page.

Earlier:  Zimbabwe's Death Spiral Continues

Life Under Sharia

It's not exactly one big teddy bear picnic:

A British teacher is facing 40 lashes in a Sudanese jail if convicted of insulting Islam's prophet by letting children name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Locked up: Gillian Gibbons

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested on suspicion of blasphemy on Sunday.

Ms Gibbons allowed her class of seven-year-olds at the Unity High School in Khartoum to name a teddy bear Mohammed as part of a lesson about animals' habitats.

Mohammed is sacred to Islamic philosophy and the penalty for blasphemy is 40 lashes, a large fine or a jail term. The British Embassy in Khartoum confirmed the arrest.

Ms Gibbons was a deputy headteacher at Liverpool's Dovecot Primary School from 2002 to this July when she left for Sudan.

Her MP, Louise Ellman, told Sky News: "This is very worrying. I understand Ms Gibbons is a very respected person, she is held in the highest regard and is seen as a person of the highest integrity.

"I'm in touch with the Foreign Office and it's right that they should be working hard to bring about a positive end."

What's sad is that Ms. Gibbons probably thought she was helping make the world a better place by giving up her deputy headteacher position in Liverpool to move to Sudan.  She also undoubtedly believed that allowing the students to name the teddy bear after Mohammed was culturally sensitive.  But sharia is apparently unforgiving of such inadvertent slights. 

Let's hope Sudan comes to its senses and refrains from meting out the harsh punishment of Islamic law.  If it continues down this path, Sudan will lose the most in the long run.

____________________________

Linked at Memeorandum, where you'll find links to more web commentary on this story.