WOZA update

from their website: The WOZA demonstrators were released according to an April 20 news release

Sorry for the lack of posts

between the heat and the brownouts, I am not spending a lot of time on line.

I apologize.

One note: I do check comments, and will block any I don't understand.

So post only in English, German, Mashona, Spanish or Tagalog...whoever is posting in Chinese is out of luck, because I don't read Chinese.

Africa's forever wars

from foreign policy magazine:

summary: The wars start with rebellions and grievences but quickly deteriorate into gangs who rape steal and kill just because they can.
and no one stops them.

Mugabe section:

Even Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's dictator, was once a guerrilla with a plan. After transforming minority white-run Rhodesia into majority black-run Zimbabwe, he turned his country into one of the fastest-growing and most diversified economies south of the Sahara -- for the first decade and a half of his rule. His status as a true war hero, and the aid he lent other African liberation movements in the 1980s, account for many African leaders' reluctance to criticize him today, even as he has led Zimbabwe down a path straight to hell.

These men are living relics of a past that has been essentially obliterated. Put the well-educated Garang and the old Mugabe in a room with today's visionless rebel leaders, and they would have just about nothing in common. What changed in one generation was in part the world itself. The Cold War's end bred state collapse and chaos. Where meddling great powers once found dominoes that needed to be kept from falling, they suddenly saw no national interest at all. (The exceptions, of course, were natural resources, which could be bought just as easily -- and often at a nice discount -- from various armed groups.) Suddenly, all you needed to be powerful was a gun, and as it turned out, there were plenty to go around. AK-47s and cheap ammunition bled out of the collapsed Eastern Bloc and into the farthest corners of Africa. It was the perfect opportunity for the charismatic and morally challenged....

When Monsters meet killers

from the UKTelegraph, describes the monster who stuffed the ballot boxes and terrorized those who protested, and who plans to Nuke Israel and take over the gulf, meets Mugabe, who only plans to kill those who keep him from looting the country.

WOZA arrested again

from the AP:

WOZA activists Jenni Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Clara Manjengwa and Celina Madukani were arrested Thursday

They held a protest against brownouts and high fees for electricity.

"...Nearly 60 women were briefly arrested under sweeping security laws banning unauthorized protests. The group says the four remain in jail and refuse to admit wrongdoing..."

Real War Veterans suffer

from IC Publications:

A few years later, Mugabe launched the Gukurahundi campaign. Its name means "the wind that sweeps away the rubbish", and Mugabe's rubbish was the Ndebele minority.

Between 1984 and 1987, around 20,000 people were killed in massacres by security forces, when Nkomo agreed to a Unity Accord that folded his followers into Mugabe's party, which became the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Within the cooperative, one faction joined ZANU-PF, but Makwelo still speaks cautiously about the Gukurahundi.

"There were disturbances," he said. "We were not very much affected."

The decision to back Mugabe did bring rewards: new money to build a hospital, staffed with government medics and drugs.

They prospered until 2000, when Mugabe launched a violent campaign of land reforms and his supporters staged deadly electoral attacks that turned Zimbabwe into an international pariah.

The violence was spearheaded by self-styled "war veterans", many of them far too young to have seen combat. Their actions tarred the reputation of these real war vets, and donations dried up.

Meanwhile, the farm sector collapsed and dragged the rest of the economy down with it.
...

CIO agent who denounced Mugabe found dead

from nehanda radio

Several weeks ago Innocent Makamure opened up to the media and confessed to how he and other CIO agents felt used by the regime to torture, harass and kill members of the MDC party led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Makamure had even expressed his wish to apologize to the chief in the area for his part in the abuses. Immediately after his confession he went missing. But on Monday this week his dead body was found floating in the Mwerahari River, after family members intensified their searches.

Zim bus crash

from the WashingtonPost:

HARARE (Reuters) - At least 25 people were burned to death and two dozen others injured when a bus collided with a truck laden with fertilizer on a highway in northwestern Zimbabwe, state radio reported on Wednesday.

The accident occurred on Tuesday night, and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said many of the casualties were believed to be Zambians traveling to South Africa.

There were no further details on the accident, near Karoi...

NBA owner involved in Zim

via AmericanThinker:

While the NBA, with the assistance of the mainstream media, has aimed to brandish the 44 year-old Russian billionaire as the latest shining example of the league's globalization efforts, it appears Congress has done some homework on Prokhorov.

The New York Post reports:

A New Jersey congressman says he will demand a government inquiry into Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire poised to buy the New Jersey Nets, for his extensive business dealings in Zimbabwe -- a bombshell that could blow up the $200 million team deal and threaten the future of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, The Post has learned.

Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, wants to know if companies controlled by Prokhorov in Zimbabwe violate federal rules that forbid American citizens and companies, and subsidiaries set up in the United States, from doing business with brutal strongman Robert Mugabe, his regime or associates.

ZANU PF "warlord" arrested

from swradioafrica




Nathaniel Punish Mhiripiri, a ZANU PF ‘enforcer’ and an aspiring MP who shocked MDC activists in January by declaring he had ‘authority and an open licence’ to eliminate them, is now behind bars facing charges of bank robbery and murder.

Mhiripiri was last Thursday arrested by the homicide squad on allegations of supplying a firearm that was used by a gang to rob the Nyanga ZB Bank. The gang was led by Mhiripiri’s close friend, John Teramayi, alias John Cena.

Bishop Muzarewa dies

from the BBC:

Bishop Muzorewa entered politics in the 1970s when nationalist politicians were either imprisoned or in exile.

He opposed the armed struggle that was ultimately to lead to independence.

For a brief period in 1979, as white rule ended, he was the prime minister of an interim government when his country became known as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

But the administration was short-lived.

And when inclusive elections were held in 1980 after the Lancaster House Agreement, which led to independence, it was Robert Mugabe who swept to power.

Bishop Muzorewa's party only managed to win three of the 100 seats in parliament.

His moment in the political limelight was over.

Rwanda: using genocide accusations to destroy political enemies

from the African Executive:

...

The ICTR has not prosecuted any suspects of the RPA/F, no matter the evidence of crimes, including: the assassinations of the presidents of Rwanda (Juvenal Habyarimana) and Burundi (Cyprien Ntaryamira), their chiefs of staff, several aides, and the French pilots of the Dassault Falcon 50 aircraft (a gift from French President Mitterand) on April 6, 1994, the pivotal event which sparked the 1994 genocide;³⁰ or the massive crimes described in the indictments issued by the judiciaries of France and Spain.³¹

In December 2008, the Trial Chamber-1 at the ICTR acquitted the four highest-ranking senior military officers of the former government army, the ex-Forces Armee Rwandaise (ex-FAR), including General Theoneste Bagosora (the supposed 'genocide mastermind'), of conspiracy to commit genocide.³²

In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo, brother-in-law of President Juvenal Habyarimana, of all charges of 'genocide planning', following seven years of trial at the ICTR, where the court found that the Prosecutor's evidence was explained by normal military planning in the course of the four year Rwandan civil war (1990-1994).

In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted, and ordered the immediate release of, Hormistas Nsengimana, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda in 1994.

The above ICTR judgments destroy the 'conspiracy to commit genocide' conspiracy universally charged to the former Hutu government and responsible for the total dehumanization of Hutu people everywhere. ...

(but they do go after the innocent and manipulate the press to convict them in public opinion...four cases are detailed in the article)....

there is a lot of stories about the international courts going after pastors etc. and there are stories of witnesses changing their minds or saying they lied.

In other words, don't expect justice in the international courts, which can be manipulated by politics.

measles epidemic in Zim

from NPR (USA):

The epidemic, which began in September 2009, has been abetted by Christian religious sects that shun vaccination and a badly degraded health system that has fallen down on once-exemplary immunization efforts.

Measles has spread to all 10 Zimbabwean provinces, with 90 percent of districts affected. The official count is 2,000 cases and about 200 deaths, "but this is likely to represent a gross underestimate," says Dr. Peter Salama, chief of the UNICEF mission in Zimbabwe....

He said an exodus of doctors and nurses has crippled immunization programs. Last year Zimbabwe, a nation of about 12 million, had a raging cholera epidemic, with 100,000 cases and thousands of deaths. A decade of political strife and astronomical inflation rates have eroded all government programs.

Zimbabwe's immunization programs were once among the best in Africa, but now, he says, "estimated coverage for measles is well below 70 percent, so there's no herd immunity...

Dreams in a time of war

podcast link


A novelist and a theorist of post-colonial literature at the University of California, Irvine, Ngugi wa Thiong'o is one of Kenya's most prominent public intellectuals. In 1977, following the publication of his novel Petals of Blood he was arrested and imprisoned without charge. Now, living in exile for more than 20 years, Thiong'o still writes for the oppressed Kenyan working class. His novels include A Grain of Wheat, Matigari, and the highly praised Wizard of the Crow. In his new memoir, Dreams in a Time of War, Thiong'o recalls growing up under British colonialist rule and his survival during the war for independence in Kenya.

SA Youth leader praises Mugabe's policies

via the Irish Times:

SOUTH AFRICA’S African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema has told a Zanu-PF rally in Zimbabwe that he is intent on copying the policies of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and nationalising South Africa’s mines and white-owned farms.

Addressing a rally of about 2,000 Zanu-PF youths on Saturday in Harare, Mr Malema, who only months ago called for Mr Mugabe (85) to step down as the party’s leader, heaped praise on Zimbabwe’s president, calling him a hero because he was “not afraid of imperialists”.

“In South Africa we are just starting. Here in Zimbabwe you are already very far. The land question has been addressed. We are happy that today you can account for more than 300,000 new farmers, against the 4,000 who used to dominate agriculture,” he said...

Mugabe names Rights, election appointments

from Reuters via the Washington Post

,,,Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe Wednesday swore-in members of a Human Rights and an Electoral Commission, expected to steer reforms toward free and fair elections. ...

The MDC was formed in 1999 and has come closest to ending Mugabe's grip on power, but the party says Mugabe's ZANU-PF has rigged elections and used violence against its supporters.

An official list seen by Reuters showed the Electoral Commission would be headed by Simpson Mutambanengwe, a former Zimbabwean Supreme Court judge who was serving as acting Chief Justice in the Namibian Supreme Court.

Mugabe also swore-in members of the Human Rights Commission, the first body tasked with investigating cases of rights abuses.

Reg Austin, a law professor and former Commonwealth secretariat's head of legal and constitutional affairs division, will chair the rights body.

Villagers fleeing violence

from SWRadioAfrica:

The Restoration of Human Rights organisation (ROHR) says seven families have fled after being threatened by known ZANU PF supporters at a prayer meeting held at Zhanda village in the Chishapa area, Shamva.

Quoting their partner organisation, the Victims Action Committee, ROHR said among the displaced group are seven men, seven women, ten children under the age of twelve and two teenagers. The families faced a similar fate during the election violence in March 2008 and are now living in the bush with no access to food, water and shelter.

This report came just a day after ROHR and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition both issued statements on the arson attacks that took place in Muzarabani’s Charunda Village Ward 17, resulting in 55 people fleeing the area.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said ZANU PF burnt down an Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) church and a house belonging to Wirimayi Gono, an MDC councillor, vowing to block attempts by MDC supporters to participate in the constitution making process. ...