Posted on 10/27/2003 6:11:00 PM PST by blam
Mugabe 'flown to South Africa after collapse'
By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg
(Filed: 28/10/2003)
President Robert Mugabe collapsed yesterday and was flown to South Africa for emergency medical treatment, sources in Zimbabwe said last night.
President Mugabe
Supporters of Mr Mugabe, 79, were setting up barricades in the capital, Harare, manned by well-armed riot police.
It was reported that senior members of the "Green Bombers", the notorious youth brigades created by Mr Mugabe and responsible for rape, murder and political thuggery, were being flown to the city.
Any transition of power in Zimbabwe would probably be violent as Mr Mugabe's successors in the ruling Zanu-PF party would clash with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Sources in Zimbabwe said Mr Mugabe was taken ill late on Sunday and vomited throughout the night, then collapsed yesterday.
He was flown by military aircraft to the Waterkloof air base, a South African military airport near Pretoria, and driven to a clinic for treatment, they said.
If he been treated in Zimbabwe, news would have leaked out quickly, prompting popular unrest. By moving him to South Africa the situation can be better managed by his supporters until the extent of his health problems can be assessed.
Mr Mugabe's illness is expected to intensify jockeying in the Zanu-PF for the succession. The death last month of Vice-President, Simon Muzenda, 81, a staunch Mugabe supporter, has already sparked attempts by various factions in the party to secure the vice-presidency.
Supporters of the regime sought to play down the seriousness of Mr Mugabe's medical problems, saying he would be in Harare today for photographs with the state-run media.
Rumours of ill-health, strokes and death have been part of Mugabe's regime in recent years. After 23 years in power, he has appeared increasingly frail in recent months, although he has also shown remarkable stamina.
The presidential election last year was so flawed that the United States describes the regime as "democratically illegitimate" and Zimbabwe has been suspended from the Commonwealth. Targeted sanctions have been imposed on Mr Mugabe and his inner circle by the European Union and America.
Zimbabwe police yesterday charged the publisher and three other directors of the Daily News, an independent newspaper critical of Mugabe's government, with publishing without a licence, said its legal adviser. The Daily News returned to the newsstands at the weekend, six weeks after it was shut down by the authorities, after a court order for it to be given a licence by the end of next month. But police later closed the paper's offices, briefly detained 18 staff and on Sunday arrested Washington Sansole, a director.
Old Patriot
Old Patriot
Maybe we should just call them, "The Mugabe Jugend".
Comrade Bob is a third. The dai I hear the happy news he's gone, I'll be pertying, and I don't think I'll be alone by a long shot.
-archy-/-
You get your wish. Kaposi's Carcoma and pneumosystis pneumonia is a slow death by degrees, with rasping, halting breaths that finally just don't get the job done.
It is a misirable death I would wish on very few people, but Mugabe is indeed one of those exceptions.
-archy-/-
Good.
I learned a few years ago the lesson behind the saying,"Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord" as I watched an old man who was known to have a taste for children spend his last two years on earth in a nursing home trying to escape from the demons he saw behind every corner, with his only peace coming from a needle full of sedative.
Things have a way of working themselves out.
But a day later he made another public appearance.
He claims Mugabe is in good health.
I am waiting for more reports of activity around State House.
He claims Mugabe is in good health.
I am waiting for more reports of activity around State House.
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