Mugabe Query

[Angela Woodford]

Has there ever been any other Prime Minister/President who records the vote of the individual, then takes vengeance on an individual who hasn't voted for him?

I haven't expressed that very well. I feel incoherent when I think of that man.

[Great Plum]

Amazing how the international community (well the US) haven't invaded to overthrow a dictator... but there's not much oil in Zim!

[Mid A 15]

Mugabe is a cult figure of the left hence the reluctance of our socialist government to be too critical of him. I once heard George Galloway on his Talksport show actually praising Mugabe's seizing of properties from white farmers as he said that's what the English (note English not British!) did in the first place.

Having said that how can Britain or the EU for that matter lecture Mugabe on democracy?

Brown reneged on the promise to grant us a referendum and the EU is wriggling like a fish on a hook to try to ignore the Irish referendum result.

Not much different to Mr EUgabe and his joke election in my view!

[Mid A 15]

Quite an interesting article in my opinion...

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?id=409

[Ajarn Philip]

Yes, quite an eye-opener.

[J.R.]

Mugabe is a murdering dictator who will, I'm sure earn his just rewards.

Remember Romania....

Remember Iraq....

I still think Nelson Mandela holds the possible solution though.

[sejintenej]

An interesting speech at the United Nations when Britain was urged / ordered to invade Zimbabwe (militarily) on the grounds that the government was not treating the "oppressed" fairly.

Of course JFK and the USA were not prepared to put their soldiers where their mouth was then - and still are not. But of course the USA invades places like Grenada when it suits them

When does a country have a right to invade another? Even the invasion and overthrow of Saddam was never authorised - and he used poison gas on his enemies and was a threat to his neighbours. By comparision Mugabe is a pussy cat.

[Angela Woodford]

Thank you gentlemen!

An interesting link Andy. Well, the whole thing, horrifying and complicated beyond words, difficult for one of my brainpower to fathom. But I watch the News, I listen to the World Service when I wake in the night and your comments have clarified a few things for me...

[Katharine]

How horrifying that Andy's link is to an article dated March 2001. Since than how many more have been killed?

[Ajarn Philip]

I'm sorry, but my original post was supposed to be ironic. The link is to an article with a blatant agenda, and I find some aspects of it quite worrying.

I don't want to start an argument on this most peaceful of forums (who are the mods, anyway?), and I certainly don't want to offer any support for Mugabe, but nor would I like anyone to think that I believed in a return to the days of apartheid and Smith's defense of the 5% white majority. If he'd had a bit more vision and common humanity and come to some form of agreement years earlier, who knows what would have happened? One thing's for sure - Mugabe wouldn't have been the 'freedom fighter hero' that he was in the eyes of many, including the West, until comparatively recently. The fact that he's a hypocrite and, effectively, a dictator, doesn't mean that what went before was right.

Just to balance things a little, here's another link from a slightly different point of view. The author may have an agenda of his own, and I don't agree with everything he writes, but it's worth remembering that things are rarely black and white.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/13/zimbabwe

[J.R.]

I'm sorry, but my original post was supposed to be ironic. The link is to an article with a blatant agenda, and I find some aspects of it quite worrying.

I don't want to start an argument on this most peaceful of forums (who are the mods, anyway?), and I certainly don't want to offer any support for Mugabe, but nor would I like anyone to think that I believed in a return to the days of apartheid and Smith's defense of the 5% white majority. If he'd had a bit more vision and common humanity and come to some form of agreement years earlier, who knows what would have happened? One thing's for sure - Mugabe wouldn't have been the 'freedom fighter hero' that he was in the eyes of many, including the West, until comparatively recently. The fact that he's a hypocrite and, effectively, a dictator, doesn't mean that what went before was right.

Just to balance things a little, here's another link from a slightly different point of view. The author may have an agenda of his own, and I don't agree with everything he writes, but it's worth remembering that things are rarely black and white.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/13/zimbabwe

I think Mr Mugabe would tend to disagree 1

[jtaylor]

Why is the term "racist" never used when a black majority are attacking a white minority? i.e. the white farmers?

[J.R.]

Why is the term "racist" never used when a black majority are attacking a white minority? i.e. the white farmers?

Because that would be termed "racist" ?

[matthew]

Why is the term "racist" never used when a black majority are attacking a white minority? i.e. the white farmers?

It is. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6997168.stm

It's not been that prominent in recent coverage, simply because racism is way down Mugabe's list of sins. The bigger problems are what he's done to the economy, and his recent attempts to remain in power. It's not like he's given his black opponents an easy time.

[Angela Woodford]

Tonight on the News, filmed evidence of Mugabe's hit-men controlling the voting of the individual, right in the polling booth. It sickens me.