Let Zimbabwe's Election Runoff Begin!

Cartoon from Business Day


Rumor has it that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has agreed to a run-off election. The date that I have heard bantered about is April 19th. There are text messages flying across the continent and various groups ramping up to ensure Zimbabweans get out and vote the tyrant out of the office. My message to Zimbabweans: go back to the polls and vote! This man needs a clear and swift kick out the door!

The other rumor, though unsubstantiated, is that "Bob" is busy filling bags of currency as he raids the treasury. The suggestion is that he will leave the country. This would be great for Zimbabweans in many ways. Yet if he does this, there are major concerns that he will not leave a single Zimbabwe dollar for the country's recovery. This is when the global community, that includes The International Red Cross and the United Nations, must develop a plan to help this country become stabilized.

None of this will happen without some global pressure to get Mugabe out of office. This is the time when other African leaders must take a stand to support the will of the people and not stand mute in support of their comrade. Enough. How do we teach these countries to step up to assist the people of Zimbabwe?

There is widespread fear that the election will be rigged in a run off. I don't think it is going to happen. Too many people voted the man out of office. Too many people know and talk that they must have change in this county if the people of Zimbabwe are going to survive. When I talk about survival, its not "survival" you think of here in the United States; instead, Zimabwean's survival entails avoiding starvation and/or death. How will they stop the hemorrhaging of people over the borders?

Yesterday I was told that Mugabe only truly got 46 parliament seats instead of the 97 that are listed. As we all struggle for information and if this vote will again be rigged on the 19th, I know for sure one thing: There will be violence. The people of Zimbabwe have such pent up rage on how Mugabe has treated them that many want to force him to stay in the country, to make sure that he pays for his atrocities.

If Morgan Tsengarai becomes the new President of Zimbabwe, it is his plan to keep Mugabe in the country as well. His agenda will include having Mugabe pay for his atrocities, not only for the ruthless beating of himself but also for his close allies that were tortured and killed.

We are getting a lot of messages about Simba Makoni joining forces with Morgan...and this is truly good news. With Simba Makoni getting at least 8 percent of the vote (approximately) there are people who love him and trust him. We cannot forget how his candidacy split some of the key allies in the current administration and helped create the unstoppable rift. The idea of Morgan Tsengarai and Simba Makoni joining forces as a team brings excitement. Those two men can create a new beginning for this tyrant ravaged country.

Most importantly, some of those in exile are already talking about going "home". They are excited about the inevitable change in their country and the National Unity they feel is happening. They are excited about the loss of seats to ministers that harassed NGO's and women's group. The Minister of Women's affairs, Gender and Community Development, Oppah Muchinguri, was apparently trounced in the vote. This is good news to organizations who have sought assistance from the government on human rights abuses.

We are all watching the situation in Zimbabwe closely. If the dictator is truly going to fall, there needs to be quick and prolonged action. Now the international community must come together to help eradicate the AIDS epidemic, to provide food and medicine...and get the country planting crops. Things could change again, in the time it takes me to post this blog, but I still can't help but think there will be more than seeds being planted in this country soon.

Follow Michealene Cristini Risley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@mcrisley

Comments

[jebg]

11:25 PM on 04/05/2008

Reading through the comments, are we missing the author’s point? For too long, a minority has overruled the majority with disastrous results. There is no doubt that land was stolen. But, hoisting the focus onto past tyrants seems academic. Blaming the white supremacists and Jimmy Carter isn’t going to grow mealies or pay teachers a living wage.

Isn’t Ms. Risley instead suggesting that we demand that the people’s voices, finally, be heard? There was no justice in Rhodesia and there has been no justice in Zimbabwe. But, justice is an impossibility without the loud voice of the people. And, there will continue to be silence if the people aren’t protected by laws and instead live in fear.

Whose fault is this mess? How about we instead ask, “How is Zimbabwe going to survive the next year?” If we spend our time making lynching lists, people will starve. Finger pointing will not restart an economy.

Zimbabwe needs her people to come home, needs jobs and needs a productive economy. There will need to be truth and reconciliation. But, let’s not struggle to blame the past; lets instead struggle together to ensure Zimbabwe survives and prospers.

Blaming dead tyrants won’t build progress. And, right now, muzzling the voice of the people will continue the ruin of this country.

[Michealene]

09:38 AM on 04/06/2008

I could not have said it any better, Jebg...thank you! Let's hope we can move forward productively.

[stell]

12:52 PM on 04/05/2008

What's worse, to inject one with syphillis (which didn't actually occur in the Tuskegee experiment), or sit back with the vaccine and watch as it festers and ravages black males?

[Michealene]

02:36 PM on 04/05/2008

Listen, I don't claim to or defend Pennsylvania Avenue. I think it is pathetic that we can spend 3 trillion dollars on a war in Iraq to get at the oil, and not care about poverty and human rights issues. Everywhere in the world-including the US.

I also think that your frustration and anger might be coloring your perception a bit, as I am all about justice, but can't seem to get many focused on it in Washington. Ya know, when I first went to Washington, about Zimbabwe, there were African Americans who could care less about what was going in Zimbabwe. This includes Senator Obama. I visited his office three times and called his representatives and never got a return call or follow up.

So there are those who are just as passionate about justice as you, and it has nothing to do with the color of our skin.

[stell]

04:04 PM on 04/05/2008

Ok, so we know what happened when you talked to black people, what happened when you talked to white people in Washington, they are the ones who are in a better position (really the only position) to do something about it. Mr. Obama has a hard enough time getting the nomination of his own party, I think largely because of his race but that's just my opinion.
I would spend my time talking to white people in Washington, I wouldn't waste my time talking to black people about it.

Note about Obama: Talking extensively about Zimbabwe also feeds into existing perceptions that "he'd help the blacks too much."

[Michealene]

02:39 PM on 04/05/2008

I also think you need to put yourself in other's people's shoes to understand both sides of the story. The white farmers had worked those fields generation after generation, can you imagine how they felt when there lands were taken, their lives uprooted? Do you really think that these people would want to provide training and tools to those taking their farms on top of the situation that was forced on them. People are human, they are not saints.

[stell]

03:53 PM on 04/05/2008

I'm trying but I can't put myself in the shoes of a beneficiary of a colonial land grab, essentially ill-gotten gain, with no sense of humanity for their fellow "countrymen", hoarding all of the arable land; and food as a result. Where is the sense of national unity? Sounds like a White Nation that no matter how hard I try I cannot empathize with. Typical white types sympathize with the colonizer who has amassed wealth in your words "generation after generation." But once again, this is ill-gotten gain. It's not a matter of being a saint, it's about being humane.

[stell]

12:49 PM on 04/05/2008

Scruffyandspunky, or even Ms. Risley for that matter, with all due respect, what is your plan/suggestion for having an equitable redistribution of wealth following the end of colonization? I'm interested in the production of justice. Again you haven't answered the question of why white farmers who own 4/5ths of the land would sit on their hands for all that time, to then have to be forcibly removed so that the black majority can eat. Why didn't these white farmers at least give them some equipment to till the fields seeing how admittedly the white farmers have been the backbone of the economy.
Scruffyandspunky, frankly as a black/non-white person, you don't have to make excuses for 1600 Pennsylvania, or 10 Downing or any other place where the White Supremacists reside. You should know as a victim of racism about the more than 600 years of deceit and violence that make up their racist history. You don't need to make excuses for them, they have plenty of their own. It's time to replace White Supremacy with justice; which is making sure that no one is mistreated, and that the people who need help the most get it. Clearly that is not what is happening now. Either White Supremacy exists in Zimbabwe or it doesn't. Perhaps if Zimbabwe had vast oil reserves as I have said, the full force of military action would have already have been visited upon Mugabe. They could get him if they really wanted him.

[scruffyandspunky]

05:20 PM on 04/05/2008

I'm not making excuses for anyone. My only question is, why are you making excuses for Mugabe? Do you really believe that he has not done immense harm to his own people? Do you think that all crimes and harms done to black people BY black people are really the fault of white people? That's such an irresponsible viewpoint. There are plenty of white AND black people trying to help the people of Zimbabwe - and many other parts of Africa - but to say that the African people simply cannot help themselves (and are also excused from their own culpable acts) is both unacceptable defeatism and irrational victimization. The white farmers have been chased out of Zimbabwe for a while now - if Mugabe can give his supporters luxury cars and try to bribe the farmers with expensive equipment, the idea that his government couldn't have supported the requisitioning of whatever resources were necessary to get the agricultural economy of what USED to be "the breadbasket of South Africa" back up and running is ludicrous. IF he had acted like a true leader and lover of his people, he would have had the developed world running to assist him.

[stell]

05:41 PM on 04/05/2008

But what is your plan/suggestion for having an equitable redistribution of wealth following the end of colonization?

[scruffyandspunky]

09:23 AM on 04/05/2008

As an African-American woman with a dear friend from Zimbabwe (who no longer lives in the country but whose family all still live there), I have watched the decline of this once-prosperous and proud country with growing dismay and anger. It is absolutely ridiculous to place the blame for most of what has happened within the past 15-20 years on anyone but Mugabe and members of his administration. HE is responsible for taking the farmlands away from the white farmers and then giving them to friends and cronies who had no intention or capacity to produce the agricultural commodities the country needed. I am in no way against having an equitable redistribution of wealth following the end of colonization, but the fact is that Mugabe was not trying to help the country and its citizens, he was only acting to enrich himself and his friends. He is also responsible for the devaluation of the currency and the ridiculous rate of inflation. HE razed the homes of poor citizens; HE ordered his military and thugs loyal to him to detain and beat members of the opposition; HE has consistently rigged elections in order to stay in power. If he cares about his country and its people, why won't he just allow fair elections? If he has been so good for the country, he shouldn't fear democracy. To rant about "White Supremacists" in the context of this sad history is worse than ignorant.

[Michealene]

11:09 AM on 04/05/2008

Thank you, Scruffyandspunky. I'm with you. I am praying that this will all change. There is room for everyone to fare well in this beautiful country. Fingers crossed.

[stell]

02:21 AM on 04/05/2008

In The U.S., just as in Africa, non-white people have had to take justice by force in the case of the Civil Rights movement or the Arkansas National Guard having to escort 9 black school girls to class, not by some benevolent racists. And don't blame a powerless black politician like Mugabe for this. Calling Mugabe a dictator absolves propagandist from any guilt in what they know is evil. But then again it would take a lot more time researching Cecil Rhodes and the legacy of White Supremacy , the easy way out is to blame the victim(s).

[jasjohn128]

12:31 AM on 04/06/2008

You're losing your audience here, stell, in my opinion.

[stell]

02:21 AM on 04/05/2008

The Zimbabweans you refer to have colonized minds. They are brainwashed black Christians who don't understand White Supremacy, so they will remain confused. However they are not responsible, the White Supremacists are and they are hiding in plain sight. If this is so serious, why doesn't the U.S. intervene? The reason is that the international aid organizations are run by White Supremacists. I'll cede the point that many people may be to blame for the problems in Zimbabwe (Mugabe included), even Obama admits that he won't be a perfect president, but the people who are MOST to blame are ALL White Supremacists, this I am absolutely sure of. You fail to mention that when the white farmers fled they took their farm equipment with them. If you are a rational person, surely you don't believe that farmers with 80 (that's eight zero) percent of the arable land bare some responsibility for sitting on their hands while their fellow countrymen starve. This land was inherited from their colonialist forefathers. It is ill-gotten gain.

[stell]

12:21 AM on 04/05/2008

Ms. Risley, a few questions: What happened to the white farmers who owned 80% of the arable land?
How did they retaliate against Mugabe? Is colonialism really over if the people are starving and in addition to having only 1/5 of the arable land in addition to increasingly detrimental environmental pressures having to fight international sanctions in addition to large sums of aid promised by President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Tony Blair as part of the Lancaster Agreement that has fallen through. Clearly this has lead to the devaluation of the Zimbabwean currency, not to mention the meddling that has been done to intercept Zimbabwean oil imports. I know it's customary in the tradition of global White Supremacy to beat up on an 84 year old freedom fighter and ex-guerilla like Mugabe, in the fight against British rule and subsquent so-called independence in 1980 followed by broken treaties. Perhaps if Zimbabwe had vast oil reserves the White Supremacists may find it necessary to intervene and "liberate them from a tyrannical dictator." The people are too smart for this propaganda.

[Michealene]

01:11 AM on 04/05/2008

I don't know where you have been Stell, but not one of my posts talk about the hunger and oppression of Zimbabwe being a white or black issue. The hunger I saw had to do with oppression not the color of your skin. Talk to most Zimbabweans and they want Mugabe out of office.

What did happen to the white farmers-most of them left, after there land was taken without compensation. I don't think you are being honest when you talk about the devaluation of the currency from the Lancaster agreement. There are so many components to the issues facing the country but you seem to be out of touch with what the Zimbabwean people want and feel about their President.

I don't feel sorry for a 84 year old man who long ago left freedom fighting to feed his greed and oppression. Customary for white supremacist to beat up old men? The people of Zimbabwe are too smart for your propoganda.