Mugabe's Mouthpiece

Guest

Barry wrote:: Poll results: UK’s hidden hand

By Caesar Zvayi

THE British government and its prime minister, Gordon Brown, have now come out in the open as the real power behind the MDC Tsvangirai faction, demanding the release of the results of Zimbabwe’s elections that show an opposition victory.

Almost the entire British state machinery -- from the BBC to its House of Commons -- was almost going hysterical over the delay in announcing the election results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Britain’s three main political parties united in urging Brown to approach South African President Thabo Mbeki to press him ‘‘to deal with the crisis in Zimbabwe’’.

It was these three British parties that set up the so-called Westminster Fund for Democracy that bankrolled the launch of the MDC from a ZCTU platform in September 1999 after the Government announced it would compulsorily acquire white-held farms for redistribution to landless black families.

Brown told the BBC that the "eyes of the world" are on Zimbabwe, saying the election results should be published without delay.

Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg urged Brown to increase pressure for a "swift and transparent" declaration of results, even though ZEC has been hailed by observer missions for the manner in which it conducted the election and managed the release of the results.

"Gordon Brown must seek urgent discussions with Thabo Mbeki and other leaders of the Southern African Development Community to ensure that maximum pressure is applied to ensure a swift and transparent declaration of results," Clegg said.

Brown’s office said the British premier had discussed ‘‘the situation’’ with President Mbeki on Monday, but would not give details of the talks.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain called on Africa and the rest of the world to express their support for the MDC.

Miliband told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: "It is long overdue for the rest of the world to stand shoulder to shoulder with the spirit of democracy which has expressed itself in Zimbabwe and which is now about to be traduced by President Mugabe and his ruling clique."

At a meeting in Paris, foreign ministers from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain issued a joint statement, along with Milliband, saying: "We call on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to swiftly announce all the election results, especially the results of the presidential election. The future of the Zimbabwean people depends on the credibility and transparency of the electoral process."

The BBC said Brown’s spokesman had hinted at possible increases in aid for Zimbabwe in the event Tsvangirai wins.

Zimbabwe’s election results have become a top story on all international media networks, drawing far more attention than Kenya was accorded when over 1 500 people were hacked or speared to death while 600 000 others were displaced following the disputed re-election of incumbent president Mwai Kibaki on December 27 last year.

Given the intimate relationship between the global media structures, Western politics and the quest for world domination, analysts say this vindicates the view that what is at stake in Zimbabwe is far bigger than what the contestants, with the notable exception of those in Zanu-PF, realise.

A view vindicated by the conspicuous flow of many white former commercial farmers who trooped back into Zimbabwe once the MDC prematurely claimed victory. Some of them have headed to the farms where they threatened to evict newly resettled farmers particularly around Chegutu and Kariba, as many are coming through Chirundu Border Post.

Zimbabwe, the analysts say, represents the last frontier of resistance between the black nationalist struggle and Western neo-colonial encroachment under the guise of globalisation and the parochial discourse of democratisation

Following the Government’s decision to bar all news networks hostile to Zimbabwe from covering the elections, many of them are encamped right round the borders with flushed correspondents giving feverish coverage to all sorts of conspiracy theories and utterances by the opposition and its allies.

The BBC, the public face of British foreign policy, yesterday devoted the entire day to non-stop coverage of Zimbabwe before splashing hourly updates to claims of electoral victory by the MDC. The BBC, in fact, dispatched its main news anchor to report from Johannesburg.

Yesterday all major news networks ran hourly updates on Zimbabwe eclipsing even US President George W. Bush’s visit to Europe for a Nato conference that is supposed to resolve some contentious issues between the world’s major military powers.

What has raised eyebrows is the fact that the Western leaders are basing their premature pronouncements on results compiled by the MDC and its civil society compatriots, yet ZEC — the only organisation legally and constitutionally mandated to issue the results — has not declared a winner, let alone the winner of the presidential contest.

What makes the pronouncements from the West even more glaring is that African leaders, many of whom have a lot to gain or lose from the political dynamics in Zimbabwe, have not spoken, obviously waiting to issue their statements once the full outcome is in the public domain.

Guest

Thanks very much for that. I am feeling sad about Zimbabwe. I think there is a thread of truth in the above ( which I guess you have put up there for the laugh or horror factor). I am not well informed on what has happened in Zimbabwe in the last 20 years and I have never been to Africa beyond the north coast.

I do remember Mugabe in London for independence negotiations with his hotel and meeting suites wired every which way by the British IS and I remember the liberation struggle against the ghastly white regime that most people seem to have forgotten.

I can see an echo of the post colonial difficulties we had in Ireland when I look at countries like Cuba and Zimbabwe that are trying to go it alone pretty well in isolation, and with massive pressures to capitulate to become client states of the US or wherever. We had civil war, murders of landowners and severe economic difficulties. The saving of Ireland may well have been that land redistribution was well advanced by the time of independence so that there was less to deal with all at the one time. Otherwise, would we have had "regime change" forced on us?

Perhaps Gaddafi's suggestion of a United States of Africa would give African states a chance of finding their own road to development without losing their independenc. I wish whatever government is formed well, and that they manage to find a good way forward.

Subject: Re: Mugabe's Mouthpiece Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:54 pm

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Guest

Did anyone hear Heidi Holland on Drivetime this evening?

A thought-provoking analysis of the man, I thought. I'll be rooting for her book Dinner With Mugabe in the library in the morning.

Guest

Didnt hear it: just read on another thread on P.ie that Mugage has tried to keep Monsanto and its non-reusable seed out of Zimbabwe. I would like to know more about the whole story. Not wanting to apologise for the poverty and repression we hear about, just would like to know more and don't trust the press.

Guest

Heidi Holland was fascinating. She is (I think) the only journalist to have been granted an audience with him - 3 1/2 hours.

Her view is that he's 'deluded.' She spoke of how he didn't seem to have any real grasp of the economic crisis - or any willingness to accept its existence. She also described him as a very passive person - until she disagreed with him; at which point sparks would fly in his eyes. She got the impression that he was intimidated by the press.

News from there is getting less and less like what we might want to hear....

Guest

cactus flower wrote:: Didnt hear it: just read on another thread on P.ie that Mugage has tried to keep Monsanto and its non-reusable seed out of Zimbabwe. I would like to know more about the whole story. Not wanting to apologise for the poverty and repression we hear about, just would like to know more and don't trust the press.

It's like science fiction or dystopian futurism or something - corporation wars and corporate power influencing states ..

groundless stories at the moment though - mugabe sounds simply incompetent from the reports - he's the incompetent head of a nation in disarray just like Saddam Hussein was once upon a time recently before the cruise missiles started landing in his back yard.

How close to war is that country now?