Mugabe was once a hero? Only in the heads of the willfully blind

James Kirchick in the LA Times wrote late last year about Mugabe's past, how it was whitewashed. You see the UK felt guilty for colonialism and the racist Ian Smith regime, so it tolerated the brutality of Mugabe. Kirchick wrote:

"over several years in the early 1980s, Mugabe executed what arguably might be the worst of his many atrocities, a campaign of terror against the minority Ndebele tribe in which he unleashed a North Korean-trained army unit that killed between 10,000 and 30,000 people.

Yet, even in the midst of these various crimes, Mugabe never lost his fan base in the West. In 1986, the University of Massachusetts Amherst bestowed on Mugabe an honorary doctorate of laws just as he was completing his genocide against the Ndebele. In April of this year, as the campus debated revoking the degree it ought never have given him, African American studies professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, who had been in favor of honoring Mugabe two decades ago, told the Boston Globe: "They gave it to the Robert Mugabe of the past, who was an inspiring and hopeful figure and a humane political leader at the time." Similarly, in 1984, the University of Edinburgh gave Mugabe an honorary doctorate (revoked in July of this year), and in 1994, Mugabe was inexplicably given an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II."

Mugabe humane? Only if your red coloured glasses mean you can't see the blood he spilt from the early years on. Anthony Daniels in First Post points out it is time Africa was liberated from its so called liberators. He says that "Nelson Mandela's description of the Zimbabwean catastrophe wrought by Robert Mugabe as a failure of leadership is a failure either of intelligence or of honesty, or of both. There comes a point at which euphemism turns into untruth; and Mugabe's regime long ago passed the stage of mere human error that the term 'failure of leadership' implies."

Noting that South Africa has only been saved from the same fate by the collapse of the Soviet Union:

"If the ANC had come to power with the Soviet Union intact - which would have been impossible without a civil war - it would have made contemporary Zimbabwe seem like a garden party."

Mugabe has done only what many other post-colonial African leaders have done. A fifth of the Zimbabwean population has fled; but a third of the population of Guinea, under the leadership of another hero of African liberation, Sekou Toure, fled. It would be difficult to say who was the worst liberator: the competition is so stiff. Africa is the one continent in which, with a few honourable exceptions, there has been little advance or progress in the last forty to fifty years. What Africa desperately needs is liberation from the liberators. But who is to do it without renewing the catastrophe?

Indeed - the great truth about Africa is not that the West has let it down, which it only has done so in part - with trade policies that have hurt it - but that Africa's post colonial rulers have, in most cases, used decolonisation as a path to personal enrichment. From kleptocracies to nepotistic autocracies, Africa has been let down badly - and only Western colonial guilt (with lashings of Soviet, Chinese and other third world Marxist support) has let that be. Mugabe is simply showing the bankruptcy of African Marxist liberation politics. Nelson Mandela stepped to one side from this because F.W. de Klerk was prepared to negotiate South Africa's transition to becoming an open liberal democracy, and because the Western world would tolerate or expect nothing less, when Gorbachev had destroyed the Soviet's totalitarian empire that once philosophically armed the ANC. Mandela's hero status in moving South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid to its tenuous relative freedom is deserved, but that is all.

He has let Zimbabwe down, and most of his ANC comrades continue to do so. His unwillingness to confront Mbeki and the evil of Zanu-PF surely stands out like a sore thumb. Yes he is an old man, and he may well have had his last public appearance - but he could have called a spade a spade. After all, who more than anyone could have changed events through his own words and eloquence, and who is more untouchable against Mugabe and his thugs than Mandela?

What is it going to take to stop tolerating Mugabe?

I write this post with rage, rage against Mugabe, the Zanu-PF murderous savages, rage against Thabo Mbeki the cheering lying handmaiden of Mugabe, rage against many of the fellow African "leaders" who care more for the wealth, privilege, status and power of their corrupt regimes than Africans, rage against the liberal left who fawned over Robert Mugabe, ignoring how his great heroes treated civilians in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. You see Mugabe's evil is far from new, but the spineless guilt over British racist colonialism from past generations infected the intelligentsia and the body politic with a wilful blindness at the time. Sadly Margaret Thatcher inherited a process that had gone too far to resist without inciting further civil war, and so Mugabe was handed Zimbabwe on a plate - for him and his savage comrades to slice up and swallow piece by piece.

So why am I angry? Look at the photo of Blessing Mabhena - he is 11 months old. This photo of him is on the front page of the Sunday Times. This is part of the account of what happened:

"There was a tremendous hammering on the door of her home. Realising that President Robert Mugabe’s thugs were hunting for her, Agnes Mabhena, the wife of an opposition councillor, quickly hid under the bed. It was too late for her to grab Blessing, her 11-month-old baby, who was crying on top of it.

“She’s gone out. Let’s kill the baby,” she heard a member of the gang say. The next thing she saw from under the bed was Blessing’s tiny body hitting the concrete floor with a force that shattered his tiny legs."

When all was quiet, she slipped out of the house with the baby to seek help in Harare. The 12-mile walk to Harvest House, the headquarters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), took most of the night. The building was awash with fleeing victims of the terror. But in the chaos there was nobody to get her to hospital. With a relative’s help, she eventually reached the Parirenyatwa hospital, where Blessing, so named because she and her husband thought he was a gift from God, was x-rayed.

These are the types of people Thabo Mbeki shakes the hands of, the people that the South African government tries to stop the UN Security Council from condemning, the people Nelson Mandela only says "are a tragic failure of leadership", the people that Barclays Bank provides offshore banking services for.

So what would it take to bring Mugabe down? It's quite simple. South Africa could turn off the fuel and electricity, it could impose sanctions on the Zanu-PF leadership and Mugabe's Cabinet and their relatives. It could lead a call that it will not recognise Mugabe's leadership and boycott attendance at the African Union summit if he goes. It could render him persona non grata and demand that a free and fair election be held, with peacekeeping forces sent in to ensure political rallies and voting is not subject to violence. It wouldn't take much.

Or it could do a Tanzania and simply invade, overthrow Zanu PF and hold elections itself, and hand power over. Zimbabwe's military would collapse if any serious effort was made to confront it. You see the ANC was far from opposed to foreign military involvement in the affairs of African countries when it was getting generous Soviet help. However, let's face it, if it is hard enough to get South Africa to condemn a murderous dictatorship, it wont confront it militarily.

The Sunday Times reports how in 2000 Mbeki openly said that Anglo-American imperialism was trying to overthrow Mugabe. That says a lot, a lot about what a Marxist thug Mbeki really is. He lied about "quiet diplomacy" which was really about him meeting his old mate Mugabe and then meeting the Tsvangarai to just say it will all be ok - it's like having your abuser's best friend mediate in your relationship. However, he isn't the only one. Namibia's foreign Minister reportedly said reports of violence in Zimbabwe during the elections are "unverified rumours".

However Botswanan President Ian Khama has reportedly reprimanded the Zimbabwean Ambassador (Botswana is one of the best governed countries in Africa), Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has criticised Mbeki's attempts at mediation and condemned the violence. Mugabe needs to be further isolated if there is to be any hope.

So as Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission claims Mugabe has an unassailable lead in the election, Deutsche Welle reports Bush calling for an arms embargo and travel ban on officials, whilst China's official Xinhua news agency reports the result as if it were normal, constitutional and legitimate, ending the report with the statement that there were hundreds of election monitors.

Nice one China, yep the Olympics are being held by a regime with great moral credentials.

So what's the bet that Mugabe will go to Sharm el Shaikh for the African Union summit, the same organisation that whitewashes what goes on in Zimbabwe. VOA has reported the G8 may not consider the regime legitimate.

Of course the best outcome would be to take Mugabe's own advice. He says only God can remove him from office, it is long overdue to try to at least accelerate the chance of a direct encounter - whoever can accomplish this will be one remarkable hero.

North Korea still in the Axis of Evil

Numerous reports this week said that North Korea is no longer in the "axis of evil" because of it being apparently compliant on destroying its nuclear programme - in fact the US Administration never said this at all. It was removed from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, notwithstanding that there is not the slightest evidence that it has stopped doing so.

Of course what to do about North Korea has never been easy. A state already isolated by its own choice is difficult to isolate further with sanctions, especially when China is its lifeline and has no interest in encouraging the regime to fall and the country to collapse completely. Military action was never an option, with North Korea's 1 million strong army, aged but ample cruise and ballistic missile defences, biological and chemical weapons arsenal all able to inflict mass death and destruction on South Korea, as well as Japan. North Korea is not Iraq, although the ability of North Korea to sustain a war for more than a few months is questionable, there is little doubt that within days it could slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in South Korea with impunity.

The great Clinton administration, admired and loved by the liberal left, did a deal with North Korea to subsidise a light water reactor and energy supplies if North Korea gave up uranium enrichment. North Korea lied (it's used to this, it does this daily to its entire population on virtually everything) and developed nuclear weapons anyway - almost laughing at the naivete of its enemies. New Zealand taxpayers were part of that dupe, paying NZ$500,000 for heavy fuel oil for North Korea- while it lied about its nuclear weapons programme. It was hardly a surprise, as there was never any incentive for North Korea to give up nuclear weapons development. Why should an evil totalitarian dictatorship surrender this enormous power potential to the rest of the world? After all, it brings attention and most importantly gives a bargaining chip second to none.

So Bush, far from saying it isn't a member of the Axis of Evil, did say according to CNN:

The United States has no illusions about the regime in Pyongyang," he said. "We remain deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses, uranium enrichment activities, nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile programs and the threat it continues to pose to South Korea and its neighbors.

Meanwhile according to the Sunday Times, China has ramped up its treatment of North Korean refugees to shooting them on sight. The Beijing regime is concerned that Koreans fleeing persecution may embarrass China during the Olympics so is stepping up efforts against them:

"The police are doing house-to-house checks for North Koreans in the villages and checking household registration papers much more thoroughly in the border towns... But the most effective new measure is a cash reward, which people believe can be £150 for informing on a North Korean in hiding"

They are sent back to North Korea if found, and placed in gulags to be beaten, used as slave labour or executed. This of course is far more brutal that Tibet, but you don't see many protests for North Koreans do you?

The Sunday Times also has an interesting article about the lack of clothing options available in North Korea's capital Pyongyang, derived from a Chinese report in the Chinese National Defence Journal. Central planners might admire North Korea's commitment to travel demand management, with forced spreading of working hours:

"Office starting hours are staggered between 7am and 9am to avoid the impression of a rush hour on the excellent public transport system. All employees must report half an hour before the official start of work to pledge allegiance to Kim Jong-il, the “dear leader”, and his late father, the “great leader”, Kim Il-sung. "

Sue Kedgley might admire the almost non-existence of private cars and...

"There is no advertising and the few taxis charge huge fares beyond the means of most North Koreans – twice as much as a taxi in Shanghai, for instance.... Only four colours of clothes are permitted: black, green, blue and white. The government distributes clothing fabric by rank, with an ordinary official receiving enough to tailor one new jacket a year. However, they may buy their own shoes."

The absence of capitalism, consumerism, the absence of waste - the lack of energy use. Think how gloriously environmentally friendly they are!

What about Obama's other spiritual mentors?

Much was made a few months ago about Barack Obama's connections with the preacher Jeremiah Wright - who had once said that 9/11 was the US reaping what it had sowed and that HIV may have been a conspiracy created by the US government. After first saying he disagreed with him, but that disowning him would be like disowning his grandmother, he then disowned him. Yet this isn't the whole story.

More recently, Obama had been criticised by the lunatic religious right for asking which parts of the bible should people look to for morality, specifically quoting Leviticus. Of course this is a legitimate question to ask, and plays well to secularists and atheists. It shows Obama as being thoughtful. However, Obama is not without spiritual mentors even though he has passed on Jeremiah Wright.

Another controversial figure is Father Michael Pfleger, a Catholic, who said Hilary Clinton had faked crying and felt entitled to be President because she was white - Obama condemned those remarks, but he and Father Pfleger have been friends for 20 years. Pfleger has long had radical associations.

However, Illinois State Senator James Meeks has been a more disconcerting mentor for Obama. A Baptist Minister, he has been a State Senator since 2003. According to the Chicago Sun Times:

"Another person Obama says he seeks out for spiritual counsel is state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. The day after Obama won the primary in March, he stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study. "

He allegedly said that Brokeback Mountain was brought to us by Hollywood Jews, (and that wasn't a good thing). Two pieces of bigotry for the price of one. According to GayWired:

"A spring 2007 newsletter from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) named Meeks one of the "10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement". The newsletter cites him as both “a key member of Chicago's ‘Gatekeepers’ network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state” and “a stalwart anti-gay activist… [who]… has used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a major state-level ‘family values’ pressure group that lauded him last year for leading African Americans in ‘clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.'” "

Furthermore:

"According to a 2006 Chicago Sun Times article, his church sponsored a "Halloween fright night" which "consigned to the flames of hell two mincing young men wearing body glitter who were supposed to be homosexuals." "

Charming. If it were John McCain with such links, you can be sure that the liberal left wouldn't leave him alone - but it is Obama. It remains odd that a man whose public statements are so liberal seeks guidance from bigots. The real question is, who is the real Barack Obama? Is he stupid and naive? Is he liberal, but gains something from a collection of bigots? Does he share the bigotry? Or is his strongly leftwing past (something many of his policies represent) simply shared by his spiritual friends (all of whom are strongly leftwing on the role of the state)?

Perhaps US voters should ask.

UK Labour gets 3.07%!

Henley is a rather nice village to the west of London, not far from Windsor. It is Tory heartland country. The Henley by-election was to replace Boris Johnson as MP, and so was always going to be a Conservative shoo-in, but Labour did not come second in Henley, or even third behind the Liberal Democrats (who did come second). No, the Greens, which have no representation in the House of Commons beat Labour. On top of the that, the fascist British National Party beat Labour.

That isn't a great reflection on the Greens or the BNP, Henley isn't some environmentalist fascist stronghold, they got 3.8% and 3.54% of the vote respectively. Labour only got 3.07%. Yes not 30.7%, the decimal point is right at 3.07%. More fascists felt there was a point to vote than supporters of the government.

Now Labour was never going to win in Henley, realistically a good third place would have been the expectation. By elections are a chance to vent. However fifth is utterly devastating. The gap between second and third is enormous - 27.85% for the Lib Dems being second and 3.8% for the Greens in third. Imagine being a member of Labour in Henley - you might ask why bother (you should!).

It is a slap in the face of the overspending, big government arrogance of the Gordon Brown administration. A government that signs the Lisbon Treaty, though it promised a referendum on an EU constitution, a government that continues to ratchet up fuel tax for general revenue, whilst expecting people to save and conserve.

What it says is that the government inspires so few, interests so few and its cloying behemoth of regulation, taxes, subsidies and nanny statism is contemptuous to so many. Now I'm not pretending the Tories are a great advancement, but Gordon Brown must surely be worried. A hat trick of failures - the local elections, the Nantwich and Crewe by-election defeat and now Labour fifth beaten by fascist white nationalists, where it should be third only beaten by the two other main parties. Labour lost its deposit in this by-election, perhaps Labour after Blair is rudderless and devoid of inspiration and philosophy - if so fine, but let's remove it from power.