Mugabeast

"It is not only that the nation being betrayed but the party is being misled. The entire leadership must go. Mugabe must go. They have lost the confidence of the people."

Mr Mugabe's crumbling support within his traditional power base is a bigger threat to his regime than the divided and disorganised opposition.

With the economy collapsing and another food crisis looming, some Zanu-PF groupings are pressing for Mr Mugabe to retire at the next presidential election due in a year, seeing it as the only way to rescue the party. Others, who fear his departure would herald the collapse of Zanu-PF rule, pressed for the presidential ballot to be delayed until parliamentary elections in 2010. Mr Mugabe backed that option but has been unable to force it on the party and has suggested he could instead run for election again next year.

Zimbabwe Opposition Members Re-Arrested

The Associated Press
Saturday, March 17, 2007

Three Zimbabwean opposition activists were arrested as they tried to leave the country Saturday, including two who were allegedly beaten by police and were going to South Africa to seek medical treatment, a party official said. [..]

Arthur Mutambara, head of a faction of the Zimbabwean opposition group Movement for Democratic Change, was arrested at Harare International Airport as he was trying to leave for South Africa, said Roy Bennett, the movement's exiled treasurer-general.

Also arrested in a separate incident were Grace Kwinje and Sekai Holland, who were to attempting to go to South Africa for medical treatment, he said.

"We are not sure why they were arrested. Tensions are very high," Bennett said.

Tawanda Mutasah, director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, said the two women, among the most severely injured when Zimbabwean police broke up a protest gathering last Sunday, were trying to travel to Johannesburg to receive specialized post-traumatic care.

He said the ambulance carrying the women from a clinic in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, to the airport, where they were to leave in a medical rescue aircraft, was stopped on the tarmac by officers from Zimbabwe's security forces.

The women's passports were taken and they were told they needed a clearance certificate from the Department of Health. They were then instructed to go to Harare's central police station but were later allowed to return to the clinic under police guard.

"That the Zimbabwean government now resorts to arresting people in ambulances in clear need of specialist care, is an indication of the repressive lengths they're prepared to go," said Mutasah, adding lawyers for the women were trying to get a court order to allow them to receive treatment.

Zimbabwean police used tear gas, water cannon and live ammunition to crush the March 11 protest gathering, and beat activists, including the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, according to opposition members.

Tsvangirai left the hospital Friday battered but defiant, pledging to "soldier on until Zimbabwe is free." His supporters vowed to drive Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe from office with a campaign of civil disobedience.

Mugabe on Friday warned his opponents against inciting unrest.

"If they do it again, we will bash them again," he said in an address to his party's youth wing, state radio reported.

The latest violence has drawn new attention to a deteriorating situation in the southern African country, where the increasingly autocratic Mugabe is blamed by opponents for repression, corruption, acute food shortages and inflation of 1,600 percent _ the highest in the world. [..]

Zambia: Zimbabwe 'sinking Titanic'

CNN
March 21, 2007

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• Zambian president urges southern Africa to take new approach to Zimbabwe
  
• Growing number in Zimbabwe fleeing economic and political turmoil
  
• West vows sanctions on Mugabe government over crackdown on opposition
  
• Inflation is 1,700 percent, food and fuel shortages and 80 percent jobless rate

The president of Zambia has called for other southern African countries to take a different approach to Zimbabwe, which he described as a "sinking Titanic" as growing numbers of refugees flee economic and political turmoil.

Levy Mwanawasa's comments on Wednesday were reported by Reuters to be the one of the strongest African comments on the mounting crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe.

Mwanawasa said the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had achieved little in negotiations with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

"Quiet diplomacy has failed to help solve the political chaos and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe," Mwanawasa said late on Monday in neighboring Namibia.

"As I speak right now, one SADC country has sunk into such economic difficulties that it may be likened to a sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out in a bid to save their lives."

Zambian government newspapers reported that Mwanawasa had suggested the SADC "would soon take a stand" on Zimbabwe.

Read on..

The forces of change mount against Mugabe

The Daily Telegraph
19/03/2007

Robert Mugabe is facing humiliation at the hands of his rattled political supporters, who appear set on shattering his dream of a fresh term as president of Zimbabwe.

The 83-year-old must face a meeting of the central committee of his Zanu-PF party on March 29 knowing that his internal opponents are confident of blocking his bid to stand again when his term of office runs out next year.

In an attempt to save his political skin, the "old man" has hit on a complicated formula that he hopes will force his opponents to back him. He wants his term extended by two years, to 2010, so that presidential and full parliamentary election cycles become synchronised. Otherwise, he has threatened, he will call an early parliamentary election next year, forcing his -party's MPs to campaign alongside him.

But those alternatives have horrified many in the party. With the economy out of control and inflation on course to hit 4,000 per cent this year, the last thing his MPs want is to appear on the same ballot as Mr Mugabe.

"If a dog were to stand against him, the dog would win," one insider observed last week.

Nor, because of the rapidly collapsing economy, are they prepared to allow him to hang on until 2010. One Zanu-PF insider said: "We're all against him now. He will struggle to get our support for him to be the candidate in any election."

The central committee meeting is crucial because, in December, Mr Mugabe failed to gain the unanimous endorsement of the party's annual conference to extend his presidency for two years. Instead, it delegated the decision to the central committee.

After being written off more times than he has had opposition rallies broken up, Mr Mugabe's time may finally be running out. [..]

The president is not going to leave office because of a few skirmishes in a minority of townships around Harare last week, but there is one opponent he cannot face down: the economy.

In the past 10 days the exchange rate for US dollars has doubled. Fuel prices are rising by about 20 per cent every two days. "No one will travel next week, because they can't afford the fares. I can't pay this price for fuel," said one angry driver. Commuter fares went up about 30 per cent last week. The talk in the streets is of money, the cost of food, soap and bus fares, and where to get the lowest prices.

When the price of milk jumped on Wednesday to about Z$17,000 for a two-litre bottle, from Z$10,000 on Tuesday, a woman at a supermarket check-out till in Harare let out a wail. At the official rate of exchange, that two litres of milk would have cost about £36.