Elders forced to cancel Zimbabwe visit

Jimmy Carter was US Prez when Bishop Muzorewa was elected president of Zimbabwe.
He refused to recognise him.
Instead he demanded new elections and subsequent to ZANU-PF intimidation Mugabe won hands down.
Carter praised Mugabe as the saviour of Zimbabwe.
And up to now has yet to say one word of criticism against his genocidal buddy!!!

Oops. With the outside world, Mugabe has gone a step too far. With the dithering mediator Mbeki,the lame duck president Motlanthe and the rest of the SADC leaders -less the corageous Botswana leader-, it is business as usual. Anyone who thinks that a power sharing deal in Zimbabwe will work, is crazy.

@ Dennis Hoines

Why should Carter have recognised Muzurewa - he was as much of a leader of a nation as Mangope, Matanzima, Sebe were, convenient puppet rulers to white masters.

That said, the fact that Mugabe wont permit the Elders from enterning Zim on a humanitarian mission yells to the world that this lunatic needs to be removed from power as a matter of urgency - before his entire country dies of cholera.

Africa blames the west for all it's ills. They critcise everyone for failed solutions to problems in the past. They now want African solutions to African problems.

Zimbabwe is the first shining example of a working African Solution. Why spoil it with elders?

Tom Vorster wrote "Why should Carter have recognised Muzurewa - he was as much of a leader of a nation as Mangope, Matanzima, Sebe were, convenient puppet rulers to white masters."

Your facts are completely incorrect - Muzorewa was voted in fairly and squarely under international supervision - unlike the puppets put in place by your namesake.
Goody-two-shoes Carter thought he knew better!

@Dennis Hoines on November 22, 2008, 10:51 am
You wrote:
"Jimmy Carter was US Prez when Bishop Muzorewa was elected president of Zimbabwe.
He refused to recognise him."

As one who lived through the era of the 'Rhodesian' wars, I recall a bit about the Bishop Muzorewa issue. The US refused to recognize the election of ANYONE in an election that did not include all opposition parties. Sevrral opposition candidates including Mugabe had been kept off the ballot so the US had to adhere to policy and withhold recognition until a full field of candidates were able to participate.

Carter opposed white-only rule everywhere in Africa, not only Rhodesia and South Africa. Thr Robert Mugabe the world saw in 1978-79 bore little to no resemblance to the Mugabe of the past ten years. I doubt anyone could have predicted that he would be the brutal and conscienceless dictator that he later became. Mr. Carter's sincerity in wanting to provide humanitarian assistance to the starving people of Zim is obvious.

Anyone who thought that a power-sharing deal with Mugabe was ever a viable option was living in dreamland. Mugabe cannot even be described as a rationally self-interested dictator - his lunacy will bring about the total destruction of Zimbabwe and its people. Shame on Mbeki and the other SADC leaders who have treated this tyrant with kid gloves.

EREWHON

This could be a serious miscalculation by Mugabe. Carter and Annan are high profile people and this could be the start of a movement towards charging Mugabe in the International Court for the genocide in Matabeleland

The facts of the matter are that The UN passed a resolution that independence would only be granted if there was black majority rule.
NIBMAR.
At a meeting with Kissinger and Vorster this was made very clear to Smith.
Negotiations took place with Muzorewa and in 1979 Muzorewa's government was elected with 67% of the vote in a 64% poll which was about 40% of the total voting population.
This clearly satisfied all the NIBMAR requirements and demonstrated that the majority of Rhodesians/Zimbabweans had made their choice.
The spontaneous celebrations nationwide were evidence enough.
Despite repeated warnings about Mugabe, which were in a few short years to prove true, Carter foolishly and pig-headedly insisted on another election, this time with ZANU-PF on the ballot.
There followed an influx of ZANU-PF thugs and intimidation on a vast scale as later admitted by British troops and observers.
Mugabe won by a landslide just over a year later.
Even the most starry eyed liberal would have to question this complete reversal in voting.
Within months, the mass slaughter/genocide of the Matabele took place.
Despite ample evidence, Carter ignored the tribal carnage committed by Mugabe.
Even today, he has uttered not one word of condemnation, yet as a failed president he still seeks the publicity that starving children and poverty can bring to him.
The racist attacks by Mugabe's murderers on white farmers, many of whom bought farms long after independence has not been condemned by Carter either.
The man professes to be a born again Christian.
But I suspect he has more in common with Judas than Jesus.

Is Mugabe of 1978 and Mugabe of 2008 the same person? Who started Operation Mugabe anyway? It seems a bit facile to shift the blame on the Carter Administration and such shift is in contradiction to current events.

Lets remember facts please first and foremost. Kofi Annan was a Secretary General for UN from 1997 to 2007. That is ten years. Now he is concerned about Zimbabwe. When sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe, when DRC was attacked, the wars in Angola and Mozambique, Koif Annan was in office. His agenda was to play master, but without using his office to control issues affecting the world. Iraq was attacked using concocted information.The group had hoped to assess the deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe and its effects on the population."One of the three - Kofi Annan - specifically" was up to "mischief".He is trying to ride on the back of a well-meaning lady [Graca Machel] who is the first lady of two presidents of the region, let it be known.Carter is "an impeccable standing in Zimbabwe because he helped Zimbabwe get independence, and was the first western leader to recognise land as the key issue in the Zimbabwe conflict as far back as 1979 and 1980.Kofi Annan, as secretary-general of the UN, never did anything to help Zimbabwe's cause. He was involved in a conspiracy ... which legitimised sanctions on Zimbabwe which were patently illegal and imposed unilaterally by western countries. Just check all of Kofi Annan's African visits to Southern Africa and see how he avoided Zimbabwe on all his trips, why is he fighting to help Zimbabweans now?

Once you have done all the things which Mugabe, his cronies and veterans have done, you just can't afford to loose your grip on power. The problem in politics is seldom who to appoint, in Africa the bigger problem is getting rid of them when they know they cannot afford to step down. There are some salient lessons in this for South Africa; I do trust everyone here is actually learning them! "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!" The only way to get rid of Mugabe is to make the pain of staying much greater than the pain of leaving. He and his cronies believe that if they stay they can not only hold on to their benefits they can avoid the dire consequences of the people of Zimbabwe coming after them. Zimbabwe was once a country which was a bread-basket of Africa, now it is becoming worse than a pitiful basket-case! Dear people of Zimbabwe, you have brought this calamity upon yourselves and I regret you are going to have to be the ones to fix it!

So, Zimbabwe is in this desperate hole, socio-economic, political, medical.... you name it! And now Mr Mugabe true to form is behaving as though it is the only country in the world and that he can run his own personal fiefdom! A serious sign of real disintegration of any human institution is when it believes that it is right and the rest of the world is totally wrong. This is a Jamestown or Waco Texas situation and its leader/s have become lunatic. If this situation is allowed to continue it will just prolong the suffering and bring the nation of Zimbabwe to suicide or the brink of it! When ever you join an institution and find that it thinks it has a “special corner on the truth” take it from me… run… run…. Run…

Elders should Change Couse
I think Elders should travel to US, EU and UK to try and plead for aid. One must recall media is the one that has made Mugabe so popular and he enjoys it when he talks and the world writes. If you want to see how see how popular Mugabe has become, do a survey, the same with Jacob Zuma. Who says the world loves good boys. I appeal to those concerned to stop over publicising Mugabe. The ripple effect about this is that you create fans in the process who will be worse than Mugabe because they know it works.As for the elders, DRC ,Guantanamo Bay, Afganistan, Iraqi, Sudan, Xenophobia and police bruitality by SAPS on Zimbabweans, Rape and touture on poor Zimbabwean women are issues they have to deal with.

To Dennis Hoines. The West have tired this divide and rule thing for too long, it wont work in Zimbabwe. That is why it was defeated. Mugabe's mother was a ndebele, and so are half of his family. Let the truth come out. The same scenerio is playing itself in DRC now, when Nkunda is saying he is fighting to protect his Tutsi tribe against the Hutu. All of whom should be in Rwanda, so why are they mining in Eastern DRC and the UN Peacekeeping Forces are in that region, instead of being in Rwanda?

THE United Nations appealed for $390.05 million in humanitarian assistance for Kenya, according to a report given to reporters in the capital, Nairobi, yesterday.

The bulk of the money, $172.75 million, will be used for food aid, with $127.76 million to be spent on refugees, according to the document, titled `2009 Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan.'

The projects contained in the document have been developed with the participation of over 50 organizations, including the government of Kenya, local and international non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Kenya Red Cross Society, the UN said.

More than 300,000 people fled their homes during violence that followed Kenya's disputed presidential election in December. Human Rights Watch on May 23 accused the Kenyan government of forcing those displaced to return to their homes, often without protection or enough food, water and shelter.

A total of $259.8 million has been received in commitments and contributions for Kenya for this year, according to the report. This is the highest level of funding since 2000 when contributions to the east African nation were first recorded, the UN said.

How come the Elders didnt go to Kenya to secure the humanitarian assistance there, and with all the funds and Aid given to Kenya why are they starving. Odinga is a joke, which should remain as such

I am a Zimbabwean and one thing I know is Robert Mugabe has no respect for anyone he thinks does not share the same view with him. How can he shut a door on people who want to come and help the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe? Now people are dying because of the cholera outbreak. Its simple there is no clean water for domestic use in Zimbabwe, people want to come and help Robert Mugabe closes the door on them. Robert Mugabe has borehole water so he is ok, what about the population of Zimbabwe that gave you “85%” votes, you have already turned away from them Mr. President? Is it because deep down in your heart, you know that if not more than “85%” will not vote for you in a free and fair environment? Please Mr. President swallow your pride, forget politics and help the ordinary man on the streets of Zimbabwe. I beg you Mr. President may you do something right out of love.
Moses Mafusire