Zimbabwe's Army

Yesterday I posted some bloglinks. One of them included a long discussion, and one of the commenters noted that Zimbabwe's army was tough and had experience in the Congo, and that their backing of Mugabe was one reason the untrained locals would rise up in rebellion, and a reason South African would hesitate to invade that country.

Indeed, the army has been called out to keep the peace

I don't know if any of this is true. So I googled for information.

LINK
The London Telegraph describes how people were terrified by police and army bulldozing their homes

LINK
says the strike has failed because opposition leaders want to play it safe...

LINK
Is a BBC report from 2002 about the "loyalty" of the ZimArmy, at least among the higher officers.

LINK
describes Zim's army in the Congo and how diamonds paid their way..

LINK
reports 200 ZimArmy are going to Botswana for a peacekeeping exercize with other SA nations...(HMMM WONDER WHERE THEY ARE KEEPING THE PEACE).

Ways to change governments include 1 elections (Mugabe won)
2. general peaceful uprising (sounds like it is a dud)
3. outside intervention from other powers (not as long as SAfrica backs Mugabe)
4. Mercenaries (hmm...but I don't know if multinationals would bother)
5. Army coup.

However, I was in Liberia when Sargent Doe took over in 1980...alas, he was incompetent (Rolling stone had an article about his government called "Liberia Kaput") and there now has been 20 years of civil war, and probably 600 000 deaths...hardly noticed by outsiders.

So I am not hopeful for a military answer to this problem.