Is the US openly trying to remove Mugabe of Zimbabwe?

[Renew Deal]

I didn't know it was public policy. Is it? Dean just said that.

[kalian]

1. Check this out....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1229975

Notice what I found in the article... :tinfoilhat:

[Guaranteed]

2. I think that Dean said that we SHOULD be doing that

which I guess implies that we aren't.

[boobooday]

3. Zimbabwe

Every man got a right to decide his own destiny
And in this judgement there is no partiality
So arm in arm, with arms, we fight this little struggle
Cause that's the only way we can
Overcome a little trouble

Zimbabwe, by Bob Marley


Written when Mugabe was inaugurated, or installed, or whatever. Whenever I listen I think of us too, and George Bush as the "little trouble"

Mash it uppa.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[Virginian]

4. I'm glad

Someone has finally recognised what a horrible dictator President Mugabe is -- in what is supposed to be a democratic nation.

[kalian]

5. Oh....so....

we're to start toppling everybody, eh? The Bush doctrine gets your
approval? :eyes:

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Not everybody, but Mugabe is certainly a good idea

I hope it IS true.

[Brian_Expat]

8. Mugabe is a nasty, brutal dictator

Far worse than Saddam Hussein is.

Dean's point was, I think, if Bush is going to wage war against "evil," he should be going for Mugabe as well.

[AP]

17. The battle in Zimbabwe is over neoliberalism, just as it is in Haiti and

Venezuela.

Mugabe is the bad boy of the group, but he's still fighting the same battle. If he loses, democracy doesn't win. Neoliberalism wins.

[dpibel]

22. A Fact or Two Would be Cool Here

Edited for typo

In all of the hyperbolizing about Mugabe, this is the first I've heard this one.

You would be measuring "far worse" by just what standard? Mugabe has done what that makes him far worse than Saddam Hussein was?

Please point me to your sources. Please don't point me to the Amnesty International reports, because I've read them, and they in no way support the proposition that Mugabe is even remotely in the same league as Saddam Hussein.

[AP]

23. And Amnesty said that they thought their reports on Iraq did NOT justify

invasion and removal of Sadaam by force.

[Virginian]

13. This is the first I've heard Zim reconized for its bad leader.

I'm glad to hear that Mugabe has not been flying under the radar. I couldn't understand why Saddam was ousted and this guy remained in power. Could it be because Dubya couldn't pronounce Zimbabwe or Mugabe? Or could it be because they are oil field challenged?

I think serious sanctions should be put on the Mugabe government.

[arewethereyet]

6. I certainly hope so

and I believe we do not support his past "election"

[beanball]

9. President Mugabe of Zimbabwe

was elected by a majority of his country men and women,its not that his presidency is legitimate or not the uproar is because he had the nerves to remove those white settlers whose fore fathers stole that land years before.The English and Americans can't stand for blacks removing whites no matter how legitimate their act maybe,its pure racism.

[arewethereyet]

10. apparantly you didn't read much about the "election"

and the crimes agains his country run well beyond the land siezures.

[noiretextatique]

12. what abour our Selection?

for the life of me...i will never understand the dissonance surrouding this issue. who are we to judge what elections in any country given the coup the took place broad daylight right here at home?

[Character Assassin]

14. Not everyone believes that.

who are we to judge what elections in any country given the coup the took place broad daylight right here at home?

Fine. You go ahead and refrain from judging him. I'll go right ahead and and condemn him for the murderous thug that he is.

[AP]

19. Compare Zimbabwe's last election to Nigeria's. Zimbabwe's looked like

a third grade class president election compared to Nigeria.

Why don't we give a shit about Nigeria's election? Because the neoliberals got the government they wanted in Nigeria, and they didn't in Zimbabwe.

Folks, it's time to get a clue.

[arewethereyet]

27. so two wrongs make a right ?

[AP]

36. No. Neoliberalism is ABSOLUTELY evil and it's never right.

It's not right in Nigeria, and it's not right in Zimbabwe, even through some backdoor hypocritical argument about Democracy being denied.

They want Mugabe out so that they can not only deny democracy, but so that they can channel profits to big companies HQ'd in London and NY and Amsterdam.

[Virginian]

15. His last election was a farce

There were voters who stood in line at the polls for three days to vote against him and never got to cast their ballots. He has imprisoned his opponent from that election and plans to put him to death.

Zimbabwe is not a racial problem. If it were and the US was supporting the white side, the US would have done something back in the 1970's. This is a Human Rights issue.

The imprisonment of journalists and the suppression of free speach is much more of an issue than the few white farmers who are still there. Zimbabwe has a brutal dictator and the people there are suffering.

[AP]

20. That's not true. They kept the polls open for an extra day in the cities,

which was the MDC's best demographic, and BBC went around and reported no lines and no intimidation. I heard the reports live.

[Virginian]

24. You heard the Mugabe sanctioned version.

[AP]

25. I heard BBC report live from polling stations.

Show me your sources, and we can compare.

[arewethereyet]

38. none of the international monitoring people agree with you

and did any of those BBC guys go round the corner to see if anything was influencing voting/no voting and who for and for what reason ?

no, I don't think so.

[AP]

39. SA said the elections were fair. BBC changed its argument about fairness.

And it wasn't based on long lines and people being denied the right to vote.

If you have statements by I.M.People, let's see the links and we can discuss them.

[Nihil]

53. Don't think so ...

> "I heard BBC report live from polling stations."

Not directly you didn't.

The BBC is banned from broadcasting from Zimbabwe.

Every news report that comes from that area always carries a tag-line
of the form "This report is being broadcast from (Jo'berg or wherever)
as the BBC is not allowed to broadcast from Zimbabwe."

The ban was in place long before the last election.

[AP]

54. Directly, I did. During the elections, they reported live from polling...

...stations. At the time, it was one of their regular Africa reportes whose voice I'm familiar with -- a woman.

I noticed that NPR has a new Zimbabwe reporter. I heard her voice for the first time. I believe she's the BBC correspondent.

I believe the law in Zimbabwe is that you have to live in Zimbabwe if you want to report from Zimbabwe. I presume they enforce it by not giving visas to reporters to come in a report, and the gov't won't grant interviews to reporters not in the country (that's my guess). But if you're a reporter living in Zimbabwe, they don't stop you from being a stringer for anyone, I presume, since I heard a British-accented reporter reporting on the mercenaries just last week from Harare.

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. But as I pointed out to you before

they expel reporters for other reasons too - the Mail and Guardian reporter and BBC reporter both had to get their families out of the country.

[AP]

60. This is a policy that Zimbabwe has had for years. That book I keep citing,

hearts of dearkness, writes about how racist the NYT reporter stationed in SA was in the 80s. Zimbabwe passed a law that you have to be stationed in Zimbabwe to get access to the government. The NYT complained. The editor in chief (I believe) wrote a letter pleading for access for their SA reporter.

Zimbabwe wrote back a letter saying that they would prefer not to change their policy because they took very seriously the fact that reporters, like that NYT reporter, were providing such incredibly biased covereage (and I challenge people to read that book and challenge the conclusion that the neoliberal NYT's coverage of Africa hasn't been totally biased).

I love the press. But I can see their lies on behalf of neoliberalism. I really don't have a problem with what Zimbabwe did to the Times, and the reason they did it.

The Times lies about American politics in the furtherance of their neoliberal goals. I wish I had the powerthat Zimbabwe has in Africa to punish them for doing so in the US!

And the bottom line is that a BBC reporter did in fact report life from polling stations and reported that therer were no lines and no signs of troubles. For the limted purposes of this debate, I presented that as evidence challenging the claim above that people were denied to right to vote (and I reiterate, the government kept the polls open a second day in the cities at the request of the MDC).

I provided my evidence, via the BBC. I have yet to see in this thread reputable evidence contradicting the BBC's own live radio reports on the day of the election.

[muriel_volestrangler]

66. BBC report from the time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1865829.stm
Riot police had only a few hours before ordered hundreds of voters to leave polling stations in the capital, Harare, after Mr Mudede's order.

The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt said that some voters still in the queue at 7pm local time had been allowed to cast their vote, but there were angry scenes at other stations.

In the Harare suburb of Glen Norah police wielding batons fired tear gas to disperse 600 people waiting to vote.

When ordered to go home, they began chanting "Change, change, we want to vote!" the Associated Press news agency reported.

There were lines all over the place - but that's not a problem if the people in them do get to vote. It seems some of them didn't.

[AP]

67. That's why they opened the polls a second day in the city.

As this report notes, the gov't did open the polls a second day in the cities even though the courts didn't order it. That fact is way deemphasized, while they play up the unfavorable court order. The people in the city got to vote the next day.

There were no lines in the countryside, and World Service reported live that there were no long lines. That's probably why they didn't open the polls in the countryside a second day.

I posted the report at DU when I heard it back in 2002, but the archives aren't turning anything up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

68. The courts did order the extension of voting

Zimbabwe's High Court has ruled that the bitterly fought presidential election should continue for a third day.
...
There has been no immediate reaction from the government, but state television said Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa would appeal to the Supreme Court to strike down the ruling.
...
The opposition has alleged that the government has been deliberately slowing the pace of voting in its urban strongholds to boost the chances of Mr Mugabe being re-elected.
...
Correspondents say last-minute changes to the election laws, changes to the voter register and a reduction in the number of polling stations in urban areas, have slowed the process dramatically.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1865227.stm

Note that there were 2 days (Sat and Sun) originally scheduled; the courts ordered the polls to open on Monday as well (some opened several hours late); the opposition wanted them opened on Tuesday as well, because people were still queuing, and the courts denied this.

We're not saying there were long lines everywhere; the allegation was that it happened in areas more likely to vote against Mugabe.

[Yupster]

16. What if the white farm family

didn't steal the farm from anyone, but rather bought it from another family say 30 years ago. Are they still thieves based on their skin color?

This seems like an awful wierd argument to read on a place like DU.

If you have a certain skin color, you need your land taken away because someone in your family lineage once stole it whether they did or not. And it doesn't matter if the people who take your land ever had any ownership rights to it. If they have black skin and support Mugabe, they get it, and if you have white skin you don't.

[AP]

21. The white farmers agreed 20 years ago to give up the farms. There's no

real debate on this issue. They murdered people to get them, and knew they didn't have clear chain of title.

They put off fulfilling their end of the bargain for a couple decades, but nobody REALLY disputes that the land had to go back to Zimbabweans.

[Yupster]

26. Questions

1. Who agreed to give the farms back 20 years ago? Each white family who owned a farm? That's hard for me to believe.

2.All the white farmers murdered people to get their land? The families currently on the farms? Wow.

3. When you say Zimbabweans, are the white farm-owners not Zimbabweans? Are Zimbabweans only of one race? What does that make a white person born and raised in Zimbabwe? If a white person in Zimbabwe supports the president is he a Zimbabwean? Is being a Zimbabwean based on your color, or your political beliefs?

[AP]

34. Yes, the white farmers all agreed to give the land back according to a...

...plan, and they reneged.

Anyone who bought land from one of these farmers bought the house knowing their was a defect in the title.

They all gambled, and they lost almost 20 years later. But you know what? They made a lot of money off of very cheap land and labor, so it was clearly a business risk they were willing to accept and probably paid off for most of them.

Yes, to 2. Every white farmer owned land bought with blood, or bought it from someone who got title to it that way. You wouldn't buy a house from someone who murdered to get it in the US, or the UK, or anywhere else in the world (other than a colony or former colony). Why is there a different rule for colonies? There shouldn't be, and that's why the white farmers agreed in about '83 to give all the land back.

3. When you take land from someone with compensation, you create an underclass which will never have money to buy land, and you create an overclass who will always be on top until the crime is addressed. You've socialized costs and privatized profit.

This is about nationality, yes. But it's also about, in economic terms, redressing that imbalance. It's about taking the land that was stolen (and in which there has never been good title) from the people who benefited it for distribution among the society that was robbed and, therefore, economically destroyed. It just happens that there's almost a precise overlap in nationality for these two groups -- europeans (british, mostly) in the former group, and landless, impoverished Zimbabweans in the later group.

[Yupster]

41. I'm having trouble believing that "the white farmers all agreed"

to give the land back.

That just seems impossible to believe. You can't get "all" of anybody to agree to anything. Especially try getting farmers to move off their family farms. Nope, that is impossible for me to believe that "all" the white farm families in Zimbabwe agreed to leave what they considered their land.

Just as an aside, what was the evidence that the new owners used to show that they deserved title to the land? From what I've read, the new owners are often rich families with political connections like Mugabe's wife, and groups of "war veterans" who just moved onto the land after chasing the owners away. What makes their claims any more legitimate than the families they chased off?

[AP]

42. Then do some research. They were given a clock that was counting down,

but the Europeans kept resetting it.

It was called the Lancaster Agreement, iirc. Look it up.

Four months into the program, 30,000 people took title to land (again, iirc). So Mugabe must have lots of friends.

Furthermore, if you haven't heard anything concrete, and you're only hearing rumors, it means the program is probably working.

If there were concrete examples of abuse, the media would be all over them.

[Yupster]

43. This article says that

30 % of all the farms taken over have been given to friends and associates of Mr Mugabe. Another 40 % have eventually ended up in the same hands. What makes them any more legitimate owners than the people who have lived on it for 30 years or more? What gives Mrs Mugabe the right to pick any farm in Zimbabwe, as long as it's owned by a white family and tell the family to scram so she can take their land.

There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of good here to me. It just seems like another tyrant, with a good deal of racism mixed in.

http://www.rense.com/general28/grab.htm

This next article paints a picture of Mugabe as a thoroughly corrupt SOB. The more I'm reading, the more I'm wondering why anyone on DU would support a thug like this. He's reportedly stolen $ 5 to $ 10 billion from his people, and taken much of the richest farmland in his nation and given it to his friends and relatives. How can this possibly be supported?

http://www.star.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=140443

[AP]

44. That's a reprint of an article from the Washington Times. It's probably

lies.

The second article just says he's rich. It doesn't allege corruption at all.

Furthermore, if you think someone who stole land at the point of a gun has more right to it that ANY Zimbabwean, you don't get it.

Stop romaticizing the theft of land. The people who stole the land aren't romanticizing it. Why should we?

[Yupster]

57. "Stop romanticizing the theft of land."

Mr Pot meet Mr Kettle.

The President's wife kindly tells an elderly couple who's lived on a farm for 25 years that they need to move because the farm belongs to the First Lady now. And you're really okay with that? And you say I'm romanticizing the theft of land. ROFLMAO.

And perhaps Mr Mugabe earned his $ 5 to $ 10 billion Malaysian bank accounts doing roofing work in his spare time. You're right. Maybe the billions didn't come from corruption at all. Lots of people go from poor revolutionaries to billionaires. This one just happens to have been a president at the time. What a coincidence.

[AP]

64. Don't you have to warn people when you cite the Washington Times?

Do you REALLY trust that characterization of events?

[AP]

45. By the way, this Washington Times article alleges that in August 02

190 farms went to insiders. Although I would NEVER trust the word of the Wash Times, it's important to note that by Aug 02, iirc, there were 30,000 Zimbabweans who had taken title to property (which, formerly, had be owned by maybe 500 people -- most of them large, corporate farm owners).

Furthermore, the article referst a "landmark" legal ruling saying the evictions were unconstitutional. IIRC, again, that ruling had to do with how notice was served and allowed a procedure for remedying the notice which ultimately did not invalidate the seizures. It's important to remember that these last farms were very last holdouts to the Lancaster Agreement, and they had known for years that they were going to be held to the agreement to which their land was subject.

It's kind of a joke that they challenged in court the way they were notified in 2001 and 2002. It's not like they didn't know for 20 years.

PS, isn't there a rule against posting to right wing media without stating that it's RW??????

[Virginian]

30. AP, You just don't get it. Farmers don't murder, Soldiers do.

The British soldiers and mercenaries took the land and the British government sold it to the whites to create commercial farms from fallow land. Sort of like what happened to the native population of this country.

You make it sound like a bunch of British farmers went down to Rhodesia and murdered black farmers and took over their farms for white profit.

You are hell bent to punish the White farmer of Zimbabwe by depriving him of his home, his possessions and his livelihood. There is no one who could possibly still be farming who bought land in those early colonial days, but you still want to punish their grandchildren.
You are in favor of returning the farms to the decedents of the original inhabitants in Zimbabwe, but you don't seem to think that the same rules should hold true in the US. You don't think YOU should have to return YOUR property to the Native Americans from whom it was stolen. The cruelty was much worse in the US than in Zimbabwe. Don't you want to return to the Native American what is rightfully his, or are blacks the only people who count?

You keep saying they agreed to give it back. But they agreed to give it back for a price. You neglect to mention that now there will be no compensation for the farms and you still expect the ownership conversion. Rather one sided expectations.

You also seem to expect ALL farms to be turned over for redistribution. That wasn't part of the original plan. Some farms were going to remain white farms.

Does anyone know if any whites still hold land in India from the time of British Colonial rule?

[AP]

32. Nobody deserved compensation. They stole land, made lots of money off

of it, and the entire time they knew they didn't have good chain of title. If this happened in the US, you wouldn't get compensated if you bought a house from someone who murdered to get it. You could sue that person (the British, in this case). But, you're not going to get a handout from anyone because you didn't look into the title, or because you ignored an obvious defect.

As it so happens, I believe that the British did compensate many of the farmers, and that it was only the last 500 holdouts who didn't get any compensation. Try to make an argument that they deserved compensation. They were just hoping someone would murder Mugabe and make the deal they made moot. They rolled the dice and lost.

[Yupster]

33. I don't get it?

These 500 farm families ... did they aree to a deal or were they holding out agreeing to the deal? Certainly they can't be both can they?

If there are compensation negotiations going on, should the holdouts be chased off their land and get nothing? What kind of negotiations are those?

This seems like something a KKK guy would say. "We offered them n....s some money and a ride out of town. It's their own fault they didn't know what was good for them. Stupid f....s rolled the dice and lost."

[AP]

35. They bought the land KNOWING about the agreement, and they knew that

it was subject to a defect in title.

They made two calculations: (1) a coup would void the agreement, and/or (2) they could make so much money off the land before they would have to give it back that they'd still make a profit (which was made more likely by the cheap laber and the fact that the land was discounted because of the potential title defect).

They rolled the dice. Some won big. Some lost.

These were business choices. I know it's fun to think about it terms of race, and unfairness, and reverse racism.

But it's all about money.

[AP]

18. South Africa has said his election was legitmate, and that the US should

stay the fuck out.

South Africa has more moral authority on the issue of neocolonialism and neoliberalism than anyone.

[Character Assassin]

28. Are you kidding? SA is somehow a 'moral authority'?

Righto.

[AP]

31. On the issue of neoliberalism and neocolonialism, yes.

[arewethereyet]

29. another fine example of incompetance and cronyism

what would you expect them to say ?

[AP]

37. You might want to familiarize yourself with the debates over this issue

in the commonwealth. ALL the non-white countries were willing to call this for what it was: neocolonialism and neoliberalism.

[Matilda]

47. The black Commonwealth nations stood by Zimbabwe

until they could no longer do so with any credibility. Zimbabwe
has now been suspended from the Commonwealth.

On the issue of the fairness of redistribution of farm lands in
Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch has this report:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/zimbabwe/ZimLand0302-03.htm#P455_110102

And on the politicisation of food distribution, this report:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/zimbabwe1003/


Mugabe initially was elected fairly, but like many politicians, he
passed his use-by date, but has refused to relinquish power. The
last election was not considered to be fairly won, although as
Mugabe threw out international monitors before the event, it has
been pretty difficult to prove. But people who hold opposing views
have a habit of disappearing, or of being charged with offences
and thrown into jail, with little hope of a fair trial. There would
be few judges who would dare to bring down a verdict that didn't
please Mugabe.

Of course the white colonialists committed great wrongs against the
native people, as they have done everywhere (and still do today),
but further wrongs are being committed not just against whites, but
against any blacks who oppose Mugabe in any way at all. That he was
once a champion of his people does not excuse or justify Mugabe's
current abuses of a large proportion of Zimbabwean people.

[AP]

48. That HRW land reform criticism is from March 2002. Have anything more...

...recent? Only in the last two years (and really, the last year) has there been a big push for land reform, in earnest. The data coming in now and over the next two to four years will be the information that tells us if Stiglitz is right -- if land reform is the only way to create functioning economies which deliver wealth broadly to the middle classes.

Incidentally, I heard a fascinating story on CBC raido, I believe, of how compromised NGOs are. They depend on the munficence of large corporations, and end up becoming major, un-democratic players in many countries, and end up driving policy that actually benefits capital and not the oppressed.

HRW is a fine organization. Yet I find it interesting that they pushed this report out BEFORE land reform really got under way, and that it's critical of land reform without really stating Stiglitz's side of the argument.

I should note that HRW's must recent report on Zimbabwe from last December criticizes the UK for being hypocritical in never crticizing the pro-neoliberal governments in Africa (including Nigeria) while criticizing Mugabe. Perhaps they feel a little guilty about these two year old reports on land reform?

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. What is Stiglitz's view on Zimbabwe?

You refer to it, but have never given us a link, or an explanation. Not an explanation on land reform in general, but specifically on how Mugabe is now trying to do it.

[AP]

51. Pallast writes about it & it's in JS's books. It's not Zimbabwe-specific.

it's about land reform. He says it's the only way to bring people in the third world out of poverty.

It's basically an argument that stealing land permanently impoverishes people in a way that you can't undo until there is land reform.

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. So it's not very relevant here

since the argument is about whether Mugabe is doing the right thing (assigning the land to the right people, giving fair compensation, ensuring the land will continue to be productive), not whether land reform as a concept is good.

[AP]

62. It's totally relevant if you believe that this is all about land reform.

By the way, if you bought land from someone who murdered to get title to the land, who would you ask for compensation? Would you ask the government? Would you sue the murderer? Or would you blame yourself for ignoring obvious defects in title?

What would you do? Honestly.

And what's more productive in your mind, if you're a starving Zimbabwean? A farm which grown millions of dollars of tobacco that goes to European markets, that produces very little revenue that doesn't end up in a swiss bank account, and where labor rates are set by the fact that there's a nation impoverished by the irrational economics of neocolonialism?

Or a farm which produces a hundred dollars in maize which satisfies your needs for a whole year, and which, over time, you develop, and then take a loan out on, which allows you to build a house, and then you start a small farming business, and then if you compete well, you buy your neighbor's farm for a fair value, and your neighbor moves to the city where he starts an accounting firm, which does work for your farm...?

Play out the narrative.

In which situation is the land more productive? When it's creating wealth within a rational economy for Zimbabweans? Or when irrationally low land and labor costs create huge profits which disappear into Swiss bank accounts?

And who are the right people? I seriously remember the stat being that 30,000 people took title to land within the first four or six months after the round of land transfers that happened last year.

[Matilda]

56. The current phase of the Land Reforms began in late 2000

so even in 2002, the last fully documented report online, it was
at least 18 months down the track. Of course, the land should be
returned to the native population, but Mugabe's "fast track"
reform was a populist political stunt to shore up his sliding
popularity. Reform needed to be gradual, with natives trained in
management of the land before final handover, and compensation paid
to white farmers (albeit not the kind of figures the whites would
be thinking of).

There are news articles available later than 2002, but I'm wary of
these, even if they support what I want to say, and the HRW papers
are very well set out and go into great depth, but it takes ages
for these reports to come online.

Also, other issues, most particularly the famine and the ongoing
blitz on journalists, both indigenous and foreign, are currently
of major concern to human rights groups. Press crackdowns are
always a big worry, and a sign that all is far from well in any
country, and Zimbabwe is now one of the world's worst offenders.

Here is the latest report on Zimbabwe from Amnesty:

http://www.amnesty.ca/amnestynews/view.php?load=arcview&article=185&c=news

It's very sad that most African nations have not survived the
transition to native rule, and this is in part because their former
colonial masters made no attempt to educate and train black Africans
to take over the reins of government, believing no doubt that they
would remain colonies forever. It also seems to be an unfortunate
truth that most African rulers have been tempted to copy the very
worst excesses of the West rather than their best management
abilities. Many African countries now exist in a state of near-
anarcy, with dictators propped up by the military, and I can't really
see Zimbabwe faring any better in the near future.

I'm going to leave this thread now, because it's after 1.0 a.m here,
and I need to get some sleep. I'll check back tomorrow and see if
this thread is still moving.

[AP]

63. The last 500 farms were the biggest and most productive farms.

Everything transferred before that was crap land.

(Did I read that those last 500 farms covered 28% of the total land mass of Zimbabwe???)

They were holding out with those farms because they were the ones that were really going to make a difference for the economy. They weren't transferred until summer 2003.

Productivity is definitely going to take a hit during the rough transition period as they go from large corporate tobacco farms to smaller subsistence maize farms, which will give the neoliberals some fodder for complaining.

However, it's post 2003 analysis, and analysis over the next couple years which will really tell the story about land reform.

[dpibel]

40. Would you grace me with a bit of clarification?

For starters, those wishing to label others incompetent in a public forum would do well to learn to spell the word.

But won't you tell me what you really mean? It's not hard for me to read your terse comment as indicating that you believe that...ahem...those people...ahem...can't be trusted to look after their affairs. Best to have a bit of an assist from...harumph...outside.

Something about like that? Or did I mistake your meaning? If I did, won't you please tell me who's a crony, and who's incompetent.

Since the subject at hand is the certification of the election by South Africa, I can only believe you mean that South Africa is an incompetent crony.

Then I have to ask you: What sort of crony would, as a member of a three-country panel, vote to suspend its crony from the Commonwealth?

Didja know that South Africa did that vis a vis Zimbabwe?

If you did, then what are you talking about?

If you didn't. Hmmm. Thought so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. There were 2 SADC observing delegations

one - ministerial - said the 2002 election was fair. the other - parliamentary - said it wasn't. The African Union team said the election was OK; the Commonwealth one said it wasn't. The Norwegian team said it wasn't (members of the EU team were forbidden from entering Zimbabwe by Mugabe, so the EU didn't observe the election). The Namibian one said it was OK.

http://www.dawn.com/2002/03/28/int14.htm

There's a fairly comprehensive analysis of the history from Human Rights Watch.

[AP]

49. Compare Zimbabwe to Nigeria. I don't think Nigeria election fraud is

even a close call. However, Dawn calls the question of determing whether there was fraud in Zimbabwe as 'vexing' because there are arguments to be made on both sides, and because, presumably, the evidence of problems seems to be anecdotal (and isn't mentioned or quantified at all in this article).

Dawn notes the argument of those who believe the elections were fair:

"The Zimbabwean experience shows that some African observers believe the democratic norms espoused by the West are a trick to re-colonize Africa and that their responsibility is to close ranks and validate each other's elections - no matter how flawed. "

And it's interesting that the SADC group which criticized the elections had this composition:

" Former Nigerian president, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, led the group which included observers from around 30 Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean and North America."

I'd like to know more about this former General's politics. The former government of Nigeria is no paradigm of virtue or of anti-neoliberalism.

Dawn notes, in defense fo the other side, that, " the African Union team saw no violence, heard no stories of torture or abduction and issued a report wholeheartedly endorsing the electoral process, while the Namibian delegation said it was "free and fair and a normal robust African electoral experience".

I think it's also worth noting that, whereas the article says that the South African elections resulted in 1000 deaths, and I believe that there was well documented evidence of wide-spread death in the last Nigerian elections (which the neoliberals won), the concrete evidence of problems in Zimbabwe's last election isn't presented in this article.

I'm not saying there's none. I'm just saying, here's the time to talk about it, and it's not in the article.

[AP]

52. HRW (12/03): Double Standards on Human Rights?

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/08/nigeri7282.htm

Observations on the Commonwealth Summit
By Carina Tertsakian
Published in New Statesman

The Queen, Tony Blair and 50 other prime ministers and presidents are flying into the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for the Commonwealth summit. There will be no place for Robert Mugabe at the summit table. Zimbabwe, suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002, was not invited. So before they start their meetings, perhaps the Commonwealth leaders should look around their host country, which, among other things, shelters Liberia's ex-president Charles Taylor, indicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

December 8, 2003

[muriel_volestrangler]

55. Well, since you bring it up

could you do the comparison for us, please? That is, government fraud and violence in each of the 2 countries.

The ex-Nigerian president led the Commonwealth observers (North America will mean Canada, that being the only North American Commonwealth country). The SADC is the Southern African Development Community - Nigeria is not a member.

Here's an encyclopedia entry about Nigeria and Abubakar. He was a general who took the country back to elections, although flawed.

Abubakar's Transition to Civilian Rule
Abacha, widely expected to succeed himself as a civilian president on October 1, 1998, died suddenly of heart failure on June 8 of that year. He was replaced by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who had been third in command until the arrest of Diya. The PRC, under new head of state Abubakar, commuted the sentences of those accused in the alleged 1997 coup in July 1998. In March 1999, Diya and 54 others accused or convicted of participation in coups in 1990, 1995, and 1997 were released. Following the death of former head of state Abacha in June, Nigeria released almost all known civilian political detainees, including the Ogoni 19. M.K.O. Abiola, who still claimed his right to the presidency, also died in August of the year, just before he was to be released from prison.

During both the Abacha and Abubakar eras, Nigeria's main decisionmaking organ was the exclusively military Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) which governed by decree. The PRC oversaw the 32-member federal executive council composed of civilians and military officers. Pending the promulgation of the constitution written by the constitutional conference in 1995, the government observed some provisions of the 1979 and 1989 constitutions. Neither Abacha nor Abubakar lifted the decree suspending the 1979 constitution, and the 1989 constitution was not implemented. The judiciary's authority and independence was significantly impaired during the Abacha era by the military regime's arrogation of judicial power and prohibition of court review of its action. The court system continued to be hampered by corruption and lack of resources after Abacha's death. In an attempt to alleviate such problems, Abubakar's government implemented a civil service pay raise and other reforms.

In August 1998, the Abubakar government appointed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct elections for local government councils, state legislatures and governors, the national assembly, and president. NEC successfully held these elections on December 5, 1998, January 9, 1999, February 20, and February 27, 1999, respectively. For the local elections, a total of nine parties were granted provisional registration, with three fulfilling the requirements to contest the following elections. These parties were the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the All Peoples Party (APP), and the predominantly Yoruba Alliance for Democracy (AD). Former military head of state Olusegun Obasanjo, freed from prison by Abubakar, ran as a civilian candidate and won the presidential election. Irregularities marred the vote, and the defeated candidate, Chief Olu Falae, challenged the electoral results and Obasanjo's victory in court.

The PRC promulgated a new constitution based largely on the suspended 1979 constitution, before the May 29, 1999 inauguration of the new civilian president. The constitution includes provisions for a bicameral legislature, the National Assembly, consisting of a 360-member House of Representatives and a 109-member Senate. The executive branch and the office of president will retain strong federal powers. The legislature and judiciary, having suffered years of neglect, must be rebuilt as institutions.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/History-of-Nigeria

[AP]

61. Do you remember the news coverage of the recent Nigerian elections?

It was mayhem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

70. And so were Zimbabwe's elections

though the fraud and violence seemed more one-sided in Zimbabwe (ie committed by the government). But as I say, give us your comparison.

[AP]

65. Abacha ran Nigeria for the benefit of Shell Oil.

Interesting that this guy was one of his generals.

That would make him a Pinkerton for the oil industry.

[muriel_volestrangler]

69. And Abubakar cleared things up

which would seem to make him the de Klerk of Nigeria.

[AP]

71. Nigeria's still a mess, and a Pinkerton for Shell probably isn't they guy

you want cleaning things up.

[noiretextatique]

11. regime change begins at home

until we americans deal with our own unelected thug and brutal dictator, we have ZERO authority when it comes to any other country.