Posted on 11/07/2001 10:41:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Harare: Zimbabwe- Libya's President Muammar Gadaafi has bought up 20 houses in Zimbabwe which seem likely to be used as safe-houses for death squads supplied by the Libyan dictator as part of his plan to assist the man he sees as his embattled comrade in arms, President Robert Mugabe. In addition Gadaafi has bought Gracelands, the gigantic Harare mansion belonging to Grace Mugabe, the President's young wife. The house is now to become the Libyan Embassy, making it by far the biggest embassy building in Zimbabwe, dwarfing the British and American missions.
In effect Gadaafi seems to be making a bid to save Mugabe which, if successful, would create a virtual Libyan client state at the far end of Africa. Already there is evidence of direct Libyan involvement in the violence which racked Zimbabwean farms in the last ten days.
Relations between Mugabe and Gadaafi have been warm for some time but it is only in the last year, as Zimbabwe's shortage of foreign exchange has caused repeated fuel cut-offs that Mugabe has several times flown to Tripoli to plead with Gadaafi for deliveries on credit. Gadaafi, who has despaired of his efforts to play a leadership role in the Arab world, has begun to use his financial muscle to make interventions right across black Africa where he has made Zimbabwe a special case, advancing Mugabe a loan of $100 million.
He then made a special trip to last month's OAU summit in Lusaka - the first such summit he had attended since 1977 - to give all-out support to Mugabe's land-grabbing and anti-white policies. So large was the Libyan delegation that Gadaafi even upstaged leaders like ex-President Mandela. African leaders anxious to earn some of his largesse were even willing to overlook the fact that before Gadaafi used any chair or microphone an African had previously used, his bodyguards would rush forward to disinfect it.
"It's amazing", said one Zimbabwean farmer who did not wish to be named, "how black or Arab racism gets overlooked. Whenever we hear racists being denounced it always means whites. But on Heroes Day we had to listen to (Vice President) Joe Msika telling us that whites were not even humans."
From Lusaka Gadaafi drove down to Harare in a 150 car motorcade, his army of amazon women bodyguards virtually taking over Harare. He publicly embraced Mugabe's views in an extraordinary TV appearance in which he announced that Africa was for the Africans and that whites must go back to Europe and only be allowed to stay on as servants. It was also announced that Gadaafi had promised Mugabe $586 million in fuel supplies and had made a $900,000 election contribution to the funds of Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
This contribution was made in flat contravention of a law just enacted by Mugabe forbidding foreign donations to Zimbabwean political parties, a law which is being used to hound the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and prevent it from gaining support abroad for its challenge to Mugabe in the coming presidential election. Gadaafi, who has never tolerated an opposition party, is unlikely to have been bothered by this contradiction.
However, the Sunday Times has learnt, Gadaafi's aid went some way beyond this. The purchase of Gracelands was in itself a financial coup for Mugabe. He was built the house for his wife Grace withe Z$6 million he stole from the Pay-For-Your-House scheme set up to provide low cost housing for junior civil servants. Harare's courageous independent press discovered the scam. Most junior civil servants have received no benefit from the contributions they were forced to make to the scheme, and Grace, embarrassed by the scandal, never used the house after it was finished in 1997. Thereafter the house was repeatedly offered at sale for Z$25 million, but Mugabe could find no takers until Gadaafi handsomely paid him Z$35 million for it.
More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into conclave Harare's small community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist Mugabe's plans by declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links. There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad, an extremist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but this is the first open confirmation of the fact.
The bulk of Harare's Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants and professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a jihad ,a failure which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days. For heaven's sake, said one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe's doing. It's obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim shops were meant to be punishing us for not complying.
However, Gadaafi - like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of personal security - had also left behind two extra bodyguards for Mugabe and four specialist coordinators. These men are believed to have experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have, in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or centre of any size.
The plan calls for the targeted assassination of MDC politicians, troublesome journalists and the like. Because many of the Pagad hitmen it is intended to employ have criminal records which could cause difficulties in entering the country, special instructions have been given to immigration officers at Beit Bridge to let them through. "You can see what a problem Mugabe has with the MDC and the press", said one source. "What he needs is contract jobs done by real pros. No botched jobs and nothing traceable back to him."
It seems clear that Gadaafi's ambitious plan has already had some impact. There are persistent reports that the apparent assassination attempt mounted against the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, when his car was ambushed during the recent Bindura by-election, was led by one of the Libyans left behind by Gadaafi. Tsvangirai himself alluded last week to reports the MDC was one of the targets of Gadaafi-Pagad death squads that were being set up.
And it is now being pointed out that when Mugabe's huge motorcade made its way to Harare last month the Libyan leader stopped in Chinhoyi to give an incendiary speech calling on locals to throw out the whites. There is no doubt that Gadaafi's four co-ordinators would have taken this as a direct instruction and the fact that Chinhoyi has since been the scene of extensive looting and violence, with its whole white population fleeing as refugees, is unlikely to be accidental. It is difficult to know how far the ripples of Gadaafi's intervention will spread.
What is not in doubt is that Mugabe is now sufficiently hard pressed to be willing to make alliances even with frankly terrorist forces. His foreign supporters have now dwindled to China (which last month extended a further $3.6 m. loan to him), Libya, North Korea, Iraq and a scattering of mainly impoverished African states. Recent months, however, have also seen the sudden warming in relations with another state frequently linked with terrorism, the slavery-supporting Sudan, and Zimbabwe has confirmed that it is negotiating to obtain oil from Sudan.
The US vehemently objects to any oil deals involving the Sudan, claiming that the proceeds are often used for nefarious purposes, and this is likely to bring a further collision between Washington and Harare. But the Sudanese, like Gadaafi, are cock a-hoop at finding a friend in need. Confirming that negotiations are under way, Sudan's deputy ambassador to Zimbabwe, Osama Ahmed Abdelbari, declared that "We have very good relations with Zimbabwe. And we want to help".
A CRACK unit of Libyan intelligence officers is in the country to beef up President Robert Mugabe's security and intelligence system as the nation lurches towards the 2002 presidential election, now only five months away, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt.
Intelligence sources told the Independent this week that over 20 Libyan nationals were booked at a local hotel and could be seen driving around in government vehicles. They are understood to be re-training intelligence personnel and President Mugabe's close security unit.
(November 5, 2001) Terror Militias set up for election
Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Victory
Libya Reinforces Troops to Guard President Ange-Felix Patasse Nairobi - Libyan reinforcements arrived in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, on Monday to help President Ange-Felix Patasse put down a revolt by dissident troops loyal to the sacked army chief, Gen. Francois Bozize, news organisations reported.
Radio France International announced that some 80 heavily armed Libyan troops arrived to join another 100 of their colleagues guarding the president. There were reports of city residents fleeing sporadic fighting - which continued overnight in the city of some 524,000 people - but no casualties were announced.
The Libyans were to be issued with Zimbabwean passports by the Registrar-General's office to help Mugabe's presidential election campaign, the paper said.
Other press reports from South Africa suggest that Pagad, a Libyan-funded vigilante group which campaigns against drug lords on the Cape Flats, would be unleashed on the white commercial farmers in a terror campaign.
The development takes place at a time when the country has mortgaged itself to Libyans after it sought a US$340 million loan to purchase fuel.
The Independent reported recently that the Libyans were going to acquire major stakes in the country's two financial institutions and a major hotel group in addition to receiving 8 000ha of land for industrial and farming purposes.
For example; One Indian family I know of was robbed in Harare. Usual scenario, dogs poisoned, razor wire cut, 2 guards killed, son beaten, daughter beaten and nearly raped. Within a week they were in the U.S. on a "K" visa, with guarantees of renewal. Someone turned the spigot on.
The most important thing here is what you don't see. I sense G.W. is working under the surface. Its his style. I think Mugabe will be out by the end of the year and Gadaffi will be sent packing (minus his $700 million+-)
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