The Time Is Long Overdue for the World to Recognize the Fact That Zimbabwe's Rogue President, After 28 Years in Power, Is Not Just Another Thug Dictator: He's Also a Racist Who Hates White People and Anyone Else -- Even Fellow Africans -- He Thinks Acts as Their 'Puppets'
(Updated 3:00 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 1, 2008)
By Skeeter Sanders
Zimbabwe's rogue president, Robert Mugabe, has finally exposed himself as being what many in the West and even in the rest of Africa have feared the worst about him. Not only is he a power-hungry dictator determined to stay in power at any cost, but he's also a blatant racist -- every bit as contemptuous of white people as the former apartheid regime in South Africa was of blacks.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, came out of the dictator's closet on Sunday when -- true to his vow that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would never govern in his lifetime -- he was sworn in for a sixth term as president, two days after a one-man runoff election denounced by African observers and much of the world as a sham caused by violence and intimidation by his ruling party against his opponents.
The rapidly-convened ceremony was staged barely an hour after the country's electoral commission declared he won a total of 2,150,269 votes against 233,000 for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who boycotted the runoff but whose name still appeared on ballot papers.
Turnout was announced at 42.37 percent -- a steep plunge from the more than 78 percent turnout in the March 29 general election that saw Tsvangirai's MDC take control of the Zimbawean parliament from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai coming out on top in the presidential vote over Mugabe, but failing to avoid a runoff.
More than 131,400 ballot papers were rejected in the highly controversial runoff, giving Mugabe more than 85 percent of the votes cast.
Calls By African Union for Unity Government Fall on Deaf Ears
The results were flatly rejected as illegitimate by observers from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), who, in an uncharacteristically sharp rebuke, said the election "did not represent the will of the people."
"The pre-election phase was characterized by politically-motivated violence, intimidation and displacements," Angolan Sports Minister Jose Marcos Barrica, the head of the 400-strong team of observers, said in a statement.
It is indeed noteworthy that not a single African head of state attended Mugabe's swearing-in ceremony, in sharp contrast to his previous election victories. Mugabe -- who later flew to Egypt to attend an African Union summit in the Red Sea port of Sharm al-Sheik -- could for the first time face a cool, if not hostile, reception from other African leaders.
At the end of their two-day summit -- which saw strong criticism of Mugabe by Botswana -- African Union leaders late Tuesday passed a resolution calling for a government of national unity and encouraged both sides to live up to pledges to start dialogue to promote stability.
But the resolution was immediately rejected by both the Mugabe regime and the opposition MDC.
Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, said Zimbabwe would not follow Kenya's example and create a unity government. "We have our own history of evolving dialogue and resolving political impasses the Zimbabwean way. The Zimbabwean way, not the Kenyan way," he told reporters.
Meanwhile the MDC said Friday's one-man election had killed off any prospect of a negotiated settlement. Tendai Biti, the MDC's secretary-general who faces treason charges in Zimbabwe, said in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, that the country's "sham election" last week "totally and completely exterminated any prospect of a negotiated settlement."
I'm a native of New York City who's called the Green Mountain state of Vermont home since the summer of 1994. A former freelance journalist, I'm a fiercely independent freethinker who's highly skeptical of authority figures -- especially when they're on the wrong side of the issues I care about. But I'm not afraid to also call into question those with whom I would usually be "on the same page" if and when they, too, are on the wrong side of the issues I care about.
White people are still mad at Mugabe for reversing imperialism in Rhodesia and throwing white people out of his country after dispossessing them of illegally occupied land. Mugabe knows how this country works and that we would stage or fund a coup to get him removed from power just like we have so many times in the past and just like we are trying to do with Castro and Chavez. America wants oil at any cost and the elite want Third World depopulation. Why should Mugabe not hate warmongering, imperialistic whites? Zimbabwe is the only instance in recent history of blacks taking power back from whites and for that Mugabe is a hero of mine. He should do any and everything he can to maintain power and keep western sympathizers like Tsvingarai in check because they will sell out the country for a buck.
by
Nfamous (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 40 comments)
on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 9:59:54 AM
Spare me your liberationist rhetoric about Mugabe. The man has been in power for 28 years. That's over a generation. He has turned from a freedom-fighter into a dictator and to deny that he is as racist toward whites as Ian Smith was toward blacks when he was in power in what was then Rhodesia is to be in complete denial of reality.
When even Nelson Mandela says publicly that there's been a "total failure of leadership in Zimbabwe," he was being polite.
Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mugabe's past as a freedom fighter is worthless now. Nearly three decades in power has corrupted him. Take off your blinders and face reality.
Mugabe is a dictator and a racist who has betrayed the very cause he championed. He must go, for the sake of the Zimbabwean people and for the sake of the future of Africa. .
by
Skeeter Sanders (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments)
on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 12:09:03 PM
Skeeter losing 'free thinker' credentials siding with Bush,
OpEdNews is by an large a place where one can read something corrective of the deception and self-righteous propaganda accomplished by repeating some obvious half truth with factual explanation blacked out in the financial interests of vested and invested interests.
Have watched BBC and CNN for months now without hearing even one single time of the of the two decade slow crucifixion of the Zimbabwe economy by UK, US and EU giants.
When there is crime it is logical to look for a motive. Yet we are made to rend our hearts over Mugabe single handedly making his people suffer and given to understand that UK, US, EU have no motive other than to see the Zimbabwe people prosperous and happy, ergo the crippling economic sanctions. What is 84 year old Mugabe's motive to have "destroyed the economy" as we hear over and over without explanation.
Honestly, what does Skeeter's article do but repeat what Bush has said about Mugabe years ago when he openly said he was going fund the opposition to his government.
In the early 80s when Mugabe was the darling of the white Western not-so-neo colonial capitalists, Mugabe let racist brutal dictator Ian Smith keep his large farm and white farmers came immigrating from South Africa when the going go sticky there, because in Zimbabwe Mugabe was 'willing to wait' patiently for the day when blacks could get the land back stolen from them that they fought and died for - Nikki Oppenheimer's farm was nearly the size of Belgium. Mugabe protected the whites. One can look all this up.
When Britain reneged on the funds to white farmers for compensation that was part of the Lancaster Agreements by which Mugabe and Nkomo agreed to end rebellion and to sundry other condition favorable to the whites, Mugabe was caught in-between the demands of his compatriots for land justice and the demands of the British to keep the status quo.
Couldn't Skeeter have included the broader picture and recent history? We are not going to get that from conglomerate owned commercial media serving the economic interests of the big investors and the white owners.
Who wouldn't be shocked by the photos of beatings and news of arrests? We see that on the tube. Bush is doing a better job of emphasizing this without an OpEdNews article to drive it home.
For years Mugabe and most of his fellow African leaders have been denouncing the economic war and punishment of Zimbabweans by their former masters. Did media inform us of that?
Nixon's memo to Kissinger on Allende's Chile comes to mind, "I want you to make the economy scream!"
From an anti-capitalist perspective, it would seem that Mugabe could have done away with an election with an opposition backed by the outside before the fact.
In the US even the tiniest foreign funding is a high crime. This historian has no option but to take the photos at face value, whether or not there be mitigating circumstances, but not being sufficiently knowledgeable, one can look to Africans and listen to their estimation of what is and what might be forthcoming.
Yours truly has however a good memory of corporate media justifying wars, like those of Vietnam and Iraq for instance. One gets to the point of being able to smell that something is being left out on purpose.
For those who have the time and interest, three articles below:
Americans had little interest in elections when Eisenhower had the CIA put out a contract on Congo President Patrice Lumumba and backed dictator General Mobutu over the years at a cost of millions of lives; and overthrew President Arbenz in Guatemala also leading to years of mass homicide; when US backed Savimbi in Angola; when it and media is mum about cancelled election results in Egypt and Algeria.
Have no doubt Skeeter and the rest of us OpEdNews contributors are pained for the people in Zimbabwe and at the very least disappointed in its present government, but please, please don't tell us that the butchers of Baghdad and their bought media entertainment/news anchors are interested in Zimbabwe's welfare except to make it an opportunity for their own use.
by
Jay Janson (70 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 86 comments)
on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 10:58:26 PM
The deep denial by those on the farthest left of the political spectrum regarding the despotism and racism of Robert Mugabe is astounding. Jay Janson's comments are a clear example of such denial. Accusing me of repeating what Bush said about Mugabe is laughable.
He clearly cannot fathom the fact that racism is a two-way street, buying into the old notion that black people are incapable of being racist toward whites. What rubbish! That notion is itself racist.
ANYONE can become a bigot, especially when corrupted by power. And 28 years of holding extraordinary power in Zimbabwe has turned Robert Mugabe from a freedom fighter into a despotic tyrant and anti-white bigot.
Janson's comments brings back the old debate during the Cold War about which is the worse evil: communism or racism? I said then and I still say now that racism is the worse evil.
The Sino-Soviet feud of the 1960s and 1970s -- that saw the two communist giants nearly go to war against each other in 1969 -- was clearly grounded on old ethnic and racial hatreds that years of communist ideology failed to totally suppress. The collapse of the Soviet Union re-opened old ethnic hatreds across the Balkans and inside Russia itself.
So I say again: Spare me your far-left rhetoric about Mugabe -- some of which, such as the claim that Mugabe "was the darling of the white Western not-so-neo colonial capitalists" is total bullshit. Take off your leftist blinders and face reality. Mugabe WAS a freedom fighter when he fought the Ian Smith regime. He's not a freedom fighter now; he's as corrupt, despotic and racist now as Smith was when he was in power.
by
Skeeter Sanders (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments)
on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 12:40:24 AM
Skeeter Rants. Did HeRead The Three Articles by Africans?
Cry Left, cry Leftist. Quite meaningless jargon of the past century. There is no substitue for honest study of all the facts and compassionate evaluation.
Mr. Sanders seeks to dismiss a fellow OpEdNews writer's polite submission of pertinent material by labeling him a Leftist - acrimoniously with emotion. One supposes that if Left is to decried so out of hand, that Right be considered the better of the two lateral designations. OpEdNews is, however not promoted as a Rightist site.
There is no point in a dialog with someone who insults a fellow writer rather than speak to the large amount of documentation submitted, which one assumes Mr. Sanders saw fit not to read.
But perhaps readers of Mr. Skeeter's article might be interested to read the enclosed articles about Zimbabwe's history, and that makes yours truly's effort worth while.
Your servant, jay janson
by
Jay Janson (70 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 86 comments)
on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 12:18:55 PM
