Mugabe looking for exit plan

Dawn ^ | August 18 2003 | Andrew Meldrum/The Guardian

[knighthawk]

LONDON: Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is secretly negotiating immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during his 23-year rule.

According to sources close to both his Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), he has been forced to manoeuvre for a peaceful exit from power by the country's deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions and intensifying international pressure.

Mugabe, 79, cannot come up with solutions to the hunger and poverty gripping Zimbabwe, and his regime's network of repression is stretched to breaking point - as even his militia cannot get adequate food for their families.

Mugabe is looking for an exit plan that will allow him to step down with dignity and keep him from standing trial for a variety of charges, including the Matabeleland massacres of the mid-1980s and the more recent torture and killings of MDC supporters, says the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper.

Mugabe is now talking to church leaders and other intermediaries about constitutional reform that would grant him immunity and allow a transition to free and fair elections.

If talks make progress in the coming months, Mugabe would retire as chairman of Zanu-PF at the party's annual congress in December. Zanu-PF and the MDC would then negotiate a new constitution, which would be ratified by parliament and pave the way for parliamentary and presidential elections by June.

The summer deadline for elections emerged after US President George W. Bush met South African President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria last month. Bush put Mbeki in charge of finding a resolution to the Zimbabwean crisis, and it is understood that he gave the South African leader a year to achieve positive results.

Zimbabwean civic leaders believe Mugabe's efforts to extricate himself from responsibility are so advanced that they issued an call for all perpetrators of human rights abuses to be held accountable.

The leaders of Zimbabwean women's groups, churches, teachers' unions, lawyers' and doctors' organizations and other professional bodies demanded that the Mugabe government put 'an immediate end to political violence and intimidation' when they met in South Africa last month.

The UN was urged to send a special rapporteur to Zimbabwe to assess the human rights environment. The African Commission on Human and People's Rights was asked to release the report on its mission to Zimbabwe last year.

Brian Kagoro, co-ordinator of the Crisis in Zimbabwe coalition, said the pressure for change came externally 'from South Africa and Nigeria because they must prove there is concrete progress to keep Zimbabwe from being expelled from the Commonwealth when it holds its heads of government meeting in December. But the most potent pressure is the growing poverty, hunger and starvation on the ground in Zimbabwe.'

The pressure on Mugabe from continuing hunger was highlighted by new estimates from the UN World Food Programme that 3.3 million Zimbabweans are currently in urgent need of food aid. WFP expects the number to increase to 5.5 million by January. "People are so desperate for food that, at some distribution sites, beneficiaries have been seen opening and eating uncooked rations on the spot," said WFP country director Kevin Farrell. "Some reportedly lack the strength to even carry their food home."

Farrell welcomed a euros 25 million donation from the European Commission, which he said would enable WFP to continue the urgent distribution of food.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[FeliciaCat]

I dont get why these murdering thugs get to just "walk away" after they have destroyed a country....Idi Amin and Pol Pot both got sweet deals when they finally slithered off. I wonder what country he wants to go to.

[OldFriend]

Paris? Riyadh?

[cricket]

An exit plan?

I hear Iraq has some shredders they are no longer using.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Where's he going ? Saudi ?

[RetiredArmy]

A self-inflicted wound. He ran all the white farmers who raised food for that country for centuries off the land so his stupid wife could have the best properties in the country and now he seeks this. Put his butt against a wall with a firing squad.

[45Auto]

The end of Rhodesia was to be the Marxist's perfect little experiment to show the world just how well Ultra-Socialism could work. If ever there was demonstration to the opposite, the imminent collapse of Zimbabwe is it.

[cake_crumb]

Maybe he can go to Saudi and live large off the royal family, while being proclaimed a victim of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

And those productive farmers are not coming back--ever.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[cricket]

"Where's he going ? Saudi ?"

Don't know; but do think if Justice were prevailing here; it would be 'south' and head first. . .

[1066AD]

Where's he going ?
He's pretty tight with Gadaffi but whether Gadaffi would want him just when he's trying to show good face with the Lockerbie admission of guilt and settlement is another matter.

[PatrioticCowboy]

Rhodesia was the most efficient nation on Earth in the 1960's and 70's.

That nation was forced to capitulate to Marxist terrorists, due to intense pressure from the UN.

I own old copies of Soldier Of Fortune that reported the news from Rhodesia.

I cry when I read them, for I know that Rhodesia is no more.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

If he tries to hang on much longer, it'll be machete time for him.

[PatrioticCowboy]

The National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches, as well as many big-time Christian "ministries" here in America and worldwide demonized Rhodesia in the eyes of the world, even though ZANU-PF terrorists loved to kill Christian missionaries.

[PatrioticCowboy]

Let's not forget how South Africa and Namibia were forced to capitulate to International Communism.

Those nations are now in bad shape as well

[tet68]

Zanu-pf must go, the party is as guilty as Mugabe.

[PatrioticCowboy]

The friends of ZANU-PF worldwide need to be exposed and tried for their crimes.

Back in the 1970's, many Christian "minstries" and main-line denominations carried on psy-ops propaganda on behalf of ZANU-PF

[spodefly]

Mugabe looking for exit plan

"Exit Plan .223" sounds right for this piece of trash. Here's wishing him luck.