[MadIvan]

Any offer from Mugabe and his lot is a poisoned chalice. I suggest the opposition not take it, and crush Mugabe at the first opportunity - the man needs to die for what he's done.

Regards, Ivan

The flag of Rhodesia

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[toddst]

Any offer from Mugabe and his lot is a poisoned chalice. I suggest the opposition not take it, and crush Mugabe at the first opportunity - the man needs to die for what he's done.

That's a big 10-4! Let's hope the opposition has the wisdom to hire some well trained snipers, or whatever it takes to rid their country of this monster.

[Clive]

Agreed.

Shades of Joshua Nkomo and the ZAPU party.

ZAPU was a party mostly comprised of the minority Ndebele people of Matabeleland, but he was a popular figure in the early days of Zimbabwe and a threat to Mugabe's reign, much as is the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai today.

A "government of national unity" was formed and Nkomo was given a high ranking position in it.

But the result was that ZAPU got co-opted and absorbed by ZANU and Zimbabwe became a one-party state.

By the time of his death, Nkomo was widely regarded as a sell-out.

Had he not made the deal, he may never have gained power, especially with the parties being largely on tribal lines, ZANU being largely Shona and ZAPU being largely Ndebele, with the Shona greatly outnumbering the Ndebele. But he and his followers, with his enormous prestige, would have been a constant opposition-in-being, even had Nkomo been killed or driven into exile.

[xm177e2]

Mr Tsvangirai said a mediator had offered a deal under which Mr Mugabe, who was re-elected last year in elections widely condemned as rigged, would resign and be given immunity from prosecution. Senior Western diplomats said that the offer appeared to be a trap to co-opt the opposition.

Mugabe now has "evidence" that Tsvangirai is trying to carry out a "coup." This gives him what little pretense he needs to start carrying out mass arrests and executions of "treasonous coup-plotters" (everyone in the MDC).