{"id":193371,"date":"2008-12-19T18:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/19\/zimbabwe-update-16\/"},"modified":"2008-12-19T18:56:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-19T23:56:00","slug":"zimbabwe-update-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/12\/19\/zimbabwe-update-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the theory that if it bleeds, it leads, the lead story here is the shooting of the commander of the Zimbabwe Air Force<\/a> known to be a close ally of Mugabe, in an apparent assassination attempt.<\/p>\n

I would be unsurprised if there were more of this.<\/p>\n

I am also unsurprised at the African Union’s decision to ratchet up measures against Mugabe and the ZANU-PF<\/a>. There is a lot of, “There but for the grace of God, go I,” in what has been going on there.<\/p>\n

In any case, some things stay the same, like Thabo Mbeki still working for power sharing<\/a>, and never once laying an ounce of blame on either Mugabe or the ZANU-PF.<\/p>\n

I have no clue why anyone in their right mind would treat him with anything but contempt.<\/p>\n

Mugabe is attempting to put forward his false “unity government”, by publishing a the government law<\/a> (it’s a parliamentary thing), though the MDC majority in parliament has no intention<\/span> of ever taking taking it to the floor.<\/p>\n

The same can be said for Mugabe’s “asking” Tsvangirai to allow himself to be sworn in as PM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the current power sharing arrangement, both mean nothing.<\/p>\n

In any case Mugabe is now suggesting that there be new elections<\/a>, which would be even heavier on the violence than the prior ones no doubt.<\/p>\n

Anyone who thinks that he will negotiate in good faith, need only look at the speech that he gave to the ZANU-PF annual conference, where he said, “Zimbabwe is mine<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The only way we will see reform from him is if the sanctions against him are severe enough to coerce his agreement.<\/p>\n

One sign that Mugabe is looking to step up the violence is that he is now claiming that the opposition is sponsoring a guerrilla war against him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea of the state security forces of Zimbabwe being unleashed with the fig leaf of a counter-insurgency campaign is appalling.<\/p>\n

It is thus no surprise that the MDC is threatening to leave unity talks<\/a>, which I think is an attempt to get Mugabe to stop disappearing opposition leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, it appears that the cholera epidemic is getting worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the theory that if it bleeds, it leads, the lead story here is the shooting of the commander of the Zimbabwe Air Force known to be a close ally of Mugabe, in an apparent assassination attempt. I would be unsurprised if there were more of this. I am also unsurprised at the African Union’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1095,971,1032],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-civil-rights","category-crimes-against-humanity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}