Posted on 03/26/2006 6:04:03 AM PST by vikingd00d
President Mugabe, under heavy local and international pressure to step down, has called for a constitutional amendment that will allow an interim President to be appointed by his Zanu PF party and pave the way for fresh elections for a new government. Official sources said this was the message that had been communicated to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who is seen as a key player in delicate manoeuvres towards a transition from a dictatorship to democratic rule in Zimbabwe.
It is understood that Mugabe wants his hand picked successor Joice Mujuru, to be the interim President, although this could not be confirmed. Mbeki, who recently met UN secretary general Kofi Annan over the issue, is scheduled to lead a three-member, high-powered team to Harare within the next two months to iron out Mugabe's proposed exit plan, according to the sources. Zimdaily heard that Annan told Mbeki to keep the momentum going following Mugabe's positive signals in a birthday interview on ZTV last month.
In the interview, Mugabe hinted that he was considering stepping down as land redistribution that he had so much wanted to see implemented had been addressed. Mbeki is expected to work out a safe exit plan for Mugabe that will make him immune from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during his 26-year rule. Mugabe is particularly worried about the Matabeleland and Midlands massacres of the mid-1980s after he unleashed the Korean-trained 5 Brigade, led by the now Air Force of Zimbabwe boss, Perence Shiri, on the people of those provinces in suppressing an armed dissident uprising.
Thousands of innocent civilians died in what is now referred to as the Gukurahundi atrocities. Mugabe has not apologised officially to the people of Matabeleland and Midlands for the atrocities, although he expressed regret for "the madness" at Vice-President Joshua Nkomo's burial in 1999. Official sources told Zimdaily that Mugabe is concerned about "the future of his family and property, his party's simmering succession problems, a possible power vacuum after his departure and subsequent infighting within Zanu PF".
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, a key player in any power transition, is on record as saying that Mugabe's security after he steps down will only be guaranteed in the context of a negotiated settlement of the current Zimbabwe crisis. Mugabe has stated that he is prepared to talk to the opposition leader if he drops his election results court challenge and recognises him as the legitimate President of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai has flatly refused to agree to those conditions. Mugabe won the presidential election in 2002 in controversial circumstances. The poll was condemned internationally as being fraught with irregularities and glaring rigging.
Very interesting Ping
Mugabe can enter the U.S. via the Mexican U.S. border with the other illegals and get his drivers license.
I understand your point, but will you be equally pissed when the new guy does the same thing?..with the blessing of Cafe Annan?
Of course.. repeat the cycle as necessary until the bastages realize that actions have consequences.
Mugabe is an African leader. He therefore gets a pass on HIS genocide and robbery. We treat them with kid gloves....not like we treat Arabs and Europeans. THEY have to take the conequences for THEIR actions (Milosevic, Hussein, etc.) but NOT African leaders.
If it weren't already too late and the damage absolutely unimaginable, a fitting end would be to restore Cecil Rhodes name to the country and install a democratically elected government. But it is, in fact, too late. I cannot imagine how this can ever be made right in the next two centuries. The people who were able to make the country work by employing and feeding the people have had their property stolen and their means of income along with it. It's absolutely disgusting.
Hmmm, wondering if there have been a few accidents around El Presidente.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Things must be going from very bad, to worse shortly.
Safe exit to the graveyard
"Mugabe can enter the U.S. via the Mexican U.S. border with the other illegals and get his drivers license."
Then he can drive a cab in NYC. At least that would be an honest living.
or not.
Mugabe, Hero of the Worldwide Left, stepping down?
They will be very upset to learn this.
Fanatic Liberals are working night and day to get the US to put Africa at the top of the to-do list. Top priority for the US to fix all of Africa and pay for it, too. Boots on the ground, if necessary. C-Span ran a video of a recent African interest/seminar...can't remember the name of the group. About twelve people in the audience. The panel was drooling at the thought of all the money/top paying jobs that would open up...for them. (African experts.)
We can do nothing for Africa.
The only way for Africa to do something for herself is to implement a system of free markets (Capitalism) and rule of law.
Until that happens, every penny spent there is down a rat-hole.
How nice, Mugabe wants to be the puppeteer.
"THEY have to take the conequences for THEIR actions (Milosevic, Hussein, etc.) but NOT African leaders."
- Common, don't you know that blacks are mentally inferior to whites and therefore cannot be held accountable for their actions? </sarc>
No accountability of leadership and massive foreign aid in the forms of food & medicine in Africa is the biggest soft bigotry experiment on earth. Second biggest is the welfare program and the war on poverty here in America...and you all know how successful that was/is. </sarc>
THANK YOU!
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