Is it the beginning of the end for Mugabe?

The Scotsman ^ | February 24, 2007 | MICHELLE FAUL

[MadIvan]

SIGNS are mounting that Zimbabwe is witnessing the last, desperate throes of a regime that has destroyed one of Africa's few successful economies.

As president Robert Mugabe celebrates his 83rd birthday today with champagne and cake at a £600,000 party, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are struggling to survive on bread and water.

As the country approaches 18 April, the 27th anniversary of the end of white rule and Mr Mugabe's rise to power, the years of abuse and neglect are culminating in untenable crises.

Hyperinflation that brings shortages of food, fuel, medication and electricity has the population in revolt; opposition from within Mr Mugabe's ruling party is mounting; doctors and nurses have been on strike since December and the rest of the civil service is threatening to join them.

The list of deserters on the walls of army barracks grows ever longer despite a 300 per cent pay rise in January. The police chief in the capital, Harare, has said in a confidential memo he fears his constables will riot.

"People's anger is mounting," said John Makumbe, a Zimbabwean political scientist. "They're no longer afraid to go on to the streets and I think the government is growing very afraid."

Mr Mugabe blames sanctions, drought and former colonial power Britain for the collapse of the economy.

Others blame land grabs in which Mr Mugabe encouraged blacks to force out most of the 5,000 white farmers who owned 40 per cent of agricultural land and produced 75 per cent of agricultural output. Their ejection led to the displacement of 300,000 black families who had worked on the farms.

Today, the farms, most given to Mr Mugabe's relatives, allies and cronies, lie fallow and Zimbabwe does not have the foreign currency to import food.

On Mr Mugabe's actual birthday, on Wednesday, police announced a three-month ban on protests, following weekend clashes in which they fired tear gas and water cannon.

The National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of human rights, church and grass-roots organisations, said yesterday: "It's not a crime to defend oneself from unlawful attack, and if need be [people] should protect themselves from a partisan, violent police force that aims to perpetuate dictatorship and increase suffering of the masses."

[MadIvan]

Let's hope it's the end...and Mugabe faces the same demise as Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[Lurker]

I prefer to see the people of Zim enforce some Romanian-style term limits myself.

L

[MadIvan]

Too quick. Mussolini's corpse ended up dangling in Milan, and then was trampled by his own people.

Regards, Ivan

[Dosa26]

Good riddance. I hope they lynch him and get his secret accounts before he can flee.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

He is a coward. Perhaps he will try to run off to Havana..or actually maybe Caracas.

In the end he will still have to answer for what he has done.

[Uriah_lost]

I could see a "live aid" style fund raiser by Hollywood and such luminaries as the Dixie Chix and John Cougar Mellonhead to prop him up.....good thing they don't read FR or I might give them ideas.

[libstripper]

As the country approaches 18 April, the 27th anniversary of the end of white rule and Mr Mugabe's rise to power, the years of abuse and neglect are culminating in untenable crises.

Barbra Streisand. "Abuse and neglect", and even corruption, aren't what it's about. It's communism, pure and simple. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba, and it will happen in Venezuela.

[Jimmy Valentine]

"Mugabe faces the same demise as Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci"

A great thought, but probably the forlorn hope.

I am betting on a comfy retirement with all of the money he stole in Monaco, or Saudi.

[Northern Alliance]

Of course the MSM won't report that Mugabe also blamed Pres. Bush for his problems.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1504416/posts

Also:
Mr. Mugabe accused Britain and the United States of working to unseat him because of his forcible redistribution of white-owned farms among blacks, helping plunge his country into its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Zimbabwe = Detroit.

[sphinx]

The curious thing about Mugabe is that he lacks a cheering section among Western leftists. He has all the credentials. He's a Marxist and a successful revolutionary. He's anti-imperialist, anti-Western, and anti-American. He has waged relentless war on the successful elements of his population -- and if he's run things into the ground, so did all the others of his type.

One would think there would be Institutes of Mugabe Studies springing up in the colleges, Democratic congressman making pilgrimages for a grip and grin, and Mugabe tee shirts worn proudly in the demonstrations. Heck, even Dennis Kucinich should be wearing one.

Mugabe has clearly pushed all the left buttons. What has gone wrong?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

He's 83. He can't run away from that.

[when the time is right]

This took 27 years...wonder how long Venezuela has.

[arthurus]

But what are the chances that Mugabe will be replaced by someone who is not Mugabe II, and worse because the new guy has to build his empire out of a country already almost completely depleted. He won't have any prosperity to leech from to get going.

[rbg81]

A lot longer--Venezuela has oil to fall back on. This whole scenario is right out of Atlas Shrugged.

[Spok]

History is teaching us that African independence has only two political conditions; brutal tyranny or bloody civil war, with starvation being the common denominator. Mugabe's fall will likely usher in decades of the latter.

[dinodino]

I vaguely recall that they did support him, back when he first took power.

[GAB-1955]

No, because the Zimbabwe Tigers haven't been in the pennant race recently.

[nopardons]

AMEN to that!