Murder In Harare

It was never fated to work. Robert Mugabe has been essentially a dictator for 30 years, and despite Morgan Tsvangirai's participation in the government as Prime Minister, it was clear that the power-sharing agreement would soon break down. I just didn't know that it would happen so fast or so brazenly:

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife, Susan, was killed in a car wreck, senior officials with his party told CNN Friday.

Tsvangirai was injured along with an aide and the car's driver in the head-on collision with a large truck, according to Tsvangirai's spokesman, James Maridadi.

The extent of their injuries is not clear.

"Yes I can confirm that he was involved in a car accident along Harare-Masvingo road," Maridadi said.

"He has been brought to Harare and doctors are looking at him at a hospital."

Through an aide, Tsvangirai is now claiming that the crash was deliberate.

Zimbabwe's prime minister believes the driver of the truck that struck his car, killing his wife, deliberately drove toward them, his party told CNN.

Members of his political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and former U.S. diplomat also say the crash raises suspicions of foul play.

The prime minister left a hospital Saturday, a day after his wife, Susan, was killed in the collision, officials said [...]

Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary-general, speaking during a tearful press conference, said Tsvangirai should have had better security.

"If there had been a police escort maybe what happened yesterday could have not have happened," Biti said.

"(A) police escort would have warned oncoming vehicles of a VIP arriving. I think authorities must understand the omission.

"We hope that this omission will be rectified, that the prime minister must be given the protection that ought to be accorded to a prime minister."

You take your life in your hands just driving in Africa, so it's not implausible that this was just a tragic accident. But Mugabe has disposed of rivals in this fashion before. And he certainly wouldn't have any moral reason not to engage in gangland behavior.

Watch this unravel the entire power sharing agreement. And it brings up a significant question - with the African Union impotent, the UN unable to function and the US tied down in two wars, exactly who would enforce the peace in Zimbabwe if Mugabe was exposed as a murderer and chaos reigned?

Zimbabwe Update

So the President expanded sanctions against the Zimbabwean government, at the same time that both Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders are meeting for talks on forming a unity government. So what's going on here? Richard Dowder thinks it's a trap:

It is clear what Robert Mugabe wants to see from the talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began in South Africa on Thursday. On December 27 1987 he sat down with Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) and signed a unity accord. It followed seven years of sustained violence against Nkomo's party in which some 18,000 people died. The creation of a government of national unity made Nkomo vice-president. Three Zapu leaders were given cabinet posts. They might as well have been hamsters in a cage on Mugabe's desk.

This is what Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, must remember as he sits down at the talks. Like Nkomo, his party has been battered, with many of his MPs dead, in hiding or facing charges, and more than 1,500 officials in prison. The mediator, Thabo Mbeki, and other African presidents would be happy with a deal similar to the 1987 accord. But will the MDC be able to arm-wrestle a deal that leads to Mugabe stepping down or to free and fair elections - or even a joint Mugabe/Tsvangirai control of the state and its security apparatus? The question, as Humpty Dumpty said, is: who is to be master?

Dowder argues that the talks are aimed at buying time while Mugabe can consolidate his grip on power and prepare for war. Certainly what we saw leading up to the election - tales of rape, murder, and intimidation - lead in that direction. The race might be between time and economic survival. Zimbabwe cannot currently produce enough bank note paper to keep the government solvent and paying for its thugs and supporters in the military. Really chaos is inevitable - it's a matter of how long the ruling elite can keep it at bay. So freezing the financial assets that they are taking out of the country with utmost speed is a good step.

Mugabe's Long Legacy

The traditional media and the political class are finally starting to catch up about the clown show that is Zimbabwe, where the ruling ZANU-PF party raided the oppostion headquarters and the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, has to hide out at the Dutch embassy. It was obvious for about a month or two that Robert Mugabe wouldn't relinquish power and was willing to wage war if he lost the election. The Secretary of State is finally speaking out, and the Administration managed to get a weak condemnation of Mugabe through the UN Security Council. The trade unionists in South Africa is calling for economic isolation of the Zimbabwean government, but I can't see how they would be able to isolate them any more. There are rumblings from Britain about military action, as well (not sure I agree).

Welcome to the party, everyone. Mugabe has been doing this for YEARS. The African Union has been covering for him (including Nelson Mandela) while inflation skyrocketed and everyone except for his political allies were oppressed. Thanks for allowing this to fester. The people of Zimbabwe thank you.

The World's Worst Government

What's happening right now in Zimbabwe is heartbreaking, as the world watches a dream die in slow motion. The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested twice today, which is a recurrent pattern. His party is barred from holding political rallies weeks before Tsvangirai faces ruling party leader Robert Mugabe in an election. The #2 at the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been charged with treason and could face the death penalty.

Meanwhile, American food aid in the impoverished nation is being seized by the military.

JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwean authorities confiscated a truck loaded with 20 tons of American food aid for poor schoolchildren and ordered that the wheat and pinto beans aboard be handed out to supporters of President Robert Mugabe at a political rally instead, the American ambassador said Wednesday.

“This government will stop at nothing, even starving the most defenseless people in the country — young children — to realize their political ambitions,” said the ambassador, James D. McGee, in an interview.

The government ordered all humanitarian aid groups to suspend their operations last week, charging that some of them were giving out food as bribes to win votes for the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a June 27 presidential runoff against Mr. Mugabe.

This is repugnant and I'd like to see just one American legislator speak out about this. John Kerry's wife is FROM Zimbabwe, for crying out loud. I don't know how the MDC deals with the helplessness of it all.

Playing Hooky

Sorry, I jetted up to San Francisco for the day, kind of unexpectedly. So I was away from blog for a significant amount of time. My apologies. Here's what I'm reading:

• Obama got 80,000 people to a rally in Portland. Wow. I've never heard of such a number for a political rally. I think he'll win Oregon by plenty, lose Kentucky by plenty, and clinch a majority of pledged delegates (which he won't spin as a total victory), and if he keeps racking up superdelegates, he'll have the nomination in hand by June 4. As for the general, poblano has some good stuff.

• The trap was laid to assassinate Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe's chief rival ahead of a Presidential runoff election, but Morgan Tsvangirai was tipped off and escaped. That's just one missed effort, though. You can be assured there will be more.

• McCain lobbyists are dropping like flies. Also check out McCainpedia from the DNC, some really good bits from McCain's past in the files there. And there's a new Real McCain video.

• What is it with conservatives thinking that Americans need the wake-up call of a terrorist attack to get them focused again? And not only random whack jobs on the Internets, but powerful conservatives like Don Rumsfeld? This is pretty much akin to wishing for the deaths of your fellow citizens.

• The Olbermann-O'Reilly feud escalates. I don't think there's a lot of overlap in their audiences, so I'm not sure it matters. Mutually assured non-destruction.

Zimbabwe Update

The election commission has finally released the results of the Presidential election, and they say it shows a win for the opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, but not by enough to avoid a runoff:

Mr. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, won 47.9 percent of the vote to Mr. Mugabe’s 43.2 percent, the election officials said. The third major candidate, Simba Makoni, who broke away from the governing party, ZANU-PF, to run as an independent, took 8.3 percent of the vote.

Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the opposition, immediately denounced election officials for short-circuiting the vote verification process and “arrogantly” releasing the final tallies before the opposition had a chance to protest them. But he was noncommittal on the crucial question of whether Mr. Tsvangirai would participate in a runoff. No date has been announced for one.

“They did not verify the results,” Mr. Chamisa said. “They did not give us an opportunity to contest the results. They are waylaying the people’s will. Clearly, this is scandalous.”

The opposition maintains that it won the election outright with 50.3 percent of the vote, while ministers in Mr. Mugabe’s cabinet have for weeks said a runoff would be necessary.

Given past history here, it's hard not to believe that Robert Mugabe's thumb was on the Election Commission's scale. The question is what the opposition is prepared to do about it. If they enter the runoff they will be acceding to what they believe to be fraud, and they will find the odds for eventual election stacked against them; if they do not Mugabe will likely be appointed by default. And if they try to mass popular protest they will likely be slaughtered in the streets. It's a nearly impossible position for them.

The Mess In Zimbabwe

The opposition party Movement for Democratic Change is now vowing to boycott a runoff vote:

The 50 members of the opposition's National Executive Committee voted unanimously that they believed their presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the March 29 vote by the clear majority needed for a first-round victory, said party spokesman Nelson Chamisa. A second round of voting, he said, would only encourage Mugabe to redouble efforts to rig the results and intimidate opposition supporters.

"We have resolved that we will not participate," Chamisa said. "There won't be any runoff. We have won."

Chamisa declined to say how Tsvangirai intended to assume the presidency in a country with no history of peaceful transfers of power.

There's going to be a civil war in Zimbabwe. I think that's perfectly clear. The ruling party led by Robert Mugabe has already begun the crackdown, banning political rallies and arresting MDC Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's lawyer, along with about 1,000 of his supporters. The State Department is making vague calls for a peaceable solution, but they are not beginning from the assumption that a brutal war is inevitable, and Mugabe's forces are perfectly willing to disappear or kill every rival.

Right now there aren't many places, not even Iraq, more needing of the world's attention than Zimbabwe.

Uh-Oh

I think Robert Mugabe is gearing up to take the country by force.

President Robert Mugabe's government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.

Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot police also surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists, and took away several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.

"Mugabe has started a crackdown," Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. "It is quite clear he has unleashed a war."

Zimbabwe really is a horrible place and it was clear that Mugabe wouldn't go quietly and give up his position as head of state without a fight. There's going to be a runoff in a few weeks and Mugabe will use all of the power of the state to win it. There probably shouldn't even be a runoff, as the MDC Party probably got the votes they needed to win outright. In case you're tuning in late, there's a primer on Mugabe at the end of this article:

Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.

He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.

Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.

I was a little hopeful for a time, but only increased international attention will resolve this amicably. I fear the worst.

Daylight In Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe's rule, in Parliament at least, is over.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe's long-ruling party lost its parliamentary majority Wednesday, bolstering opposition claims that impoverished Zimbabweans voted for change in this struggling southern African nation.

The opposition also claimed victory for leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Saturday's presidential vote, but the state-controlled newspaper predicted a runoff — the first official admission that Mugabe, the nation's autocratic leader of 28 years, had not won re-election.

The Movement for Democratic Change expressed confidence Tsvangirai could win a runoff with an even larger margin, but there were fears an embattled Mugabe would roll out every weapon in his considerable political and government arsenal to stay in power.

They ought to be afraid of that. Tsvangirai probably won handily in the first round, and would be President right now if it weren't for intimidation tactics like withholding food aid unless citizens vote for Mugabe. Tsvangirai has to move very delicately on this one. He's putting a lot of pressure on Mugabe to concede but I don't think a guy who basically ran the country as a dictator for three decades is likely to do that.

But the fact of a non-ZANU Parliament alone is pretty remarkable, and it's mainly due to electoral reforms demanded by the international community. Maybe the horrors of Zimbabwe are nearing the end.