Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Last Waltz of Robert Mugabe


First the good news.  Robert Mugabe is almost certainly on his final term as president of Zimbabwe.   If he manages to serve his full, five-year stretch, he'll be 94.

Now the bad news, at least for the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe.  Waiting in the wings to replace president Bob are two real characters, one known as "the Crocodile", and his rival, "Comrade Spill Blood."

VP Joice Mujuru took the name Spill Blood as a teen when she was a freedom fighter.   Former spymaster, Emmerson "Crocodile" Mnangagwa got his nickname when, as a teen, he led a sabotage unit against the Rhodesian government.

The Crocodile has the muscle, backed by the leadership of his country's military, police and security agencies.   Comrade Spill Blood is supported by the financial sector and much of the international community.  In Zimbabwe, however, muscle tends to talk louder than money and, since the military controls large parts of the country's diamond mining region and hasn't accounted to the government for much of its production, the guys with the guns have a big stake in Mugabe's succession.  Among those guys are General Chiwenga (right) who openly supports the Croc.

Three years ago, The Telegraph printed a picture of a secret airstrip built in a diamond field illegally seized by the Zimbabwean military.



Mugabe chose Comrade Spill Blood over the Crocodile to serve as his vice president.  Chiwenga and Co. are backing the Croc.  Chances are the generals aren't looking forward to answering questions about just what they've been flying out of their airstrip.

Anyone care for a delicious cup of coup?
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:03 PM, August 13, 2013

    Mug-a-by

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  2. Purple library guy11:06 AM, August 14, 2013

    Well, Mugabe has done plenty of bad things, but let's not forget that that isn't why he's demonized in the press. He's demonized in the press for clumsy but effective land reform; he had the nerve to make a bid to renew his fading popularity and shore up his power by (gasp) taking land from rich white people and giving it to hundreds of thousands of blacks!
    That was his sin. Nobody cared that he was a moderately oppressive ruler; practically every boss in Africa is a moderately oppressive ruler or worse.

    And bad as he and his cronies may be (although I've seen some dissenting views on that), it's very likely the main alternatives on offer are in many ways worse. The likes of Tsvangirai are basically backed by international capital, NED boys being groomed to create "colour revolutions" so they can impose proper IMF-style neoliberal market discipline. And, not incidentally, take all that land away from those undeserving little people with dark skins and, well, probably not give it back to the old school wealthy white big landowners, but rather to multinational corporations as is proper. Much the way things are happening currently in the US' African darling, Ethiopia, where locals are simply being herded off their land into strategic hamlets with no compensation and much violence. Funny, unlike the dispossession of a relatively small number of rich whites in Zimbabwe, that dispossession hasn't hit the news. Wonder why that could be?

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