Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has asked the United Nations to intervene in Zimbabwe.


HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai announced Sunday that he will not participate in this week's election because "a free and fair election is impossible."

He was to face longtime Zimbabwe ruler, President Robert Mugabe, in a presidential runoff on Friday after neither candidate won an outright majority in the March 29 election.

"We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate ... sham of an election process," Tsvangirai said at a news conference following a closed door meeting of his Movement for Democratic Change.

The meeting was to determine whether Tsvangirai would participate in the runoff against Mugabe.

"We will not play the game of Mugabe," Tsvangirai said.

The opposition candidate announced a list of reasons why he would not participate, including violent attacks, election rigging and arrests targeting his opposition party.

Tsvangirai asked the United Nations "to intervene to restore the rule of law, peace, and the conditions of a free and fair election."

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told CNN after the announcement that the opposition decision handed Mugabe victory and that the presidential run-off will not now be held on Friday.

"The candidate who remains in the race is formally declared the president," Chinamasa said, citing Zimbabwean law.

Chinamasa rejected claims by Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change party that Mugabe and his supporters were behind pre-election violence, and preventing a free and fair election.

"What is true is that ... Morgan Tsvangirai realizes that he's going to face a humiliating defeat on the 27th (of) June and he's trying to avoid that humiliating defeat," Chinamasa said.

He said Tsvangirai must formally submit his withdrawal from the race to Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission.

well thats that.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa...rss_topstories

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And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale


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BREAKING NEWS: Dutch say Zimbabwe opposition leader has sought refuge at Dutch Embassy Zimbabwe opposition leader seeks refuge

Tsvangirai flees to Dutch Embassy after raid on party headquarters

BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC News Services
updated 2 minutes ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The Dutch Foreign Ministry said that Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare.

Dutch television reported that Tsvangirai entered the embassy shortly after a police raid Monday on his party's headquarters.

Another spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, told the Associated Press that about 60 people were arrested in the raid on the headquarters earlier on Monday and that most of the people taken away were women and children who had fled state-sponsored political violence. He did not immediately have further details

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25325254

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And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale


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Zimbabwe is lost.

Those who flee will find themselves victims of incredibly brutal abuse in South Africa, a country whose government seems to have drawn its inspiration from Winnie Mandela rather than from Nelson.

I don't consider it a point in Thabo Mbeki's favor that he has generally been dismissive of international criticism of Mugabe. While it appears that the South African government has thus far honored Nelson Mandela's vision enough to avoid following most of its neighbors down the path of brutal (or otherwise) strongman rule, I still worry about that country's future and hope that most of Mbeki's followers are smarter than that.

Did anyone else find it interesting that the leaders of Kenya, itself recently rocked by election-related violence, are among the few African heads of state or government (next-door neighbor Botswana being the other) who have spoken out against Mugabe's thuggery?

Regardless of your opinion of Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker, I think you can agree with me that she gets it exactly right when she chastises her fellow African-Americans for their silence on Mugabe.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

In the American and international Left's taxonomy of injustice, Mugabe's victims aren't suffering from injustices that rate outrage. I suppose we'll never know whether the people being burned alive by Mugabe's thugs agreed with that subtle moral calculus.

It has been done with great brutality, but Robert Mugabe has achieved an extraordinary turnaround here.

Back in March, when the first round of voting took place, he was humiliated by being beaten into second place in the presidential race, and by losing the parliamentary election outright.

Now he's the sole effective candidate in Friday's presidential run-off, and he cannot fail to win with an overwhelming majority.


The moral is clear: "never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power."


His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been completely outmanoeuvred. The outside world, which mostly sympathises with him, can do nothing whatever to help him.

The suburban street outside the Dutch embassy where he's taken refuge in Harare is empty, except for a few security policemen on the look-out.

Even his choice of embassy has been turned against him by his political enemies. It might well have been better for him politically if he had chosen an African rather than a European country to ask for help.

As it is, MDC supporters are gloomy and resentful. They are also cowed.

The streets of Harare are quiet because there is no longer any need for the groups of violent political activists in Zanu-PF T-shirts who have been roaming them, looking for people to beat up.

The Thugs Won. Whats Next Civil War?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7470483.stm

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And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale


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Unfortunately true of some on the left, but in Zimbabwe the British and the former Smith government set the standard for injustice and Mugabe for people living in he is probably not so outrageous in comparison.

Regarding why the neighbors of Zimbabwe don't speak out, they don't want more refugees coming into their countries. So they will not make trouble for Mugabe not because they like him but out of fear that instability will lead to people pouring over the boarders.

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*Apathy rules

*unless apathy doesn't rule

The self-inflicted genocide/civil-war of Zimbabweans is going to come now.

SA thinks it has an immigration problem now. Just wait.

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Buh-bye.

Wouldn't that last statement apply to Botswana too, which shares a border with Zimbabwe? Its government has not hesitated to condemn Mugabe's actions.

What do they know that their other neighbors don't?

As for the first paragraph, well, if ever there were a more dramatic illustration of why two wrongs don't make a right, I can't think of it. (And to address an objection once raised by Mary J. Blige, it doesn't even make it even here.)


SwiftLyons: A most eloquent post. There are two things the outside world could do, though.

One of them, unfortunately, would play right into Mugabe's own propaganda.

The other would not, however, and even though it took decades, it eventually worked in South Africa.

The problem with the second action, though, is that it appears that Mugabe has no regard at all for the opinions of mankind, including those of his fellow Zimbabweans. Besides, since he has wrecked the economy all by himself without help from outside, isolating his country would not produce enough extra deprivation to give anyone more leverage against Mugabe.

This might be one of those occasions where armed insurrection is not only justified but necessary -- but it has to come from within.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

Mugabe is creating the instability with the support of countries like South Africa. Their silence isn't a damper on the instability; their silence -- and acquiescence to having weapons transshipped through their territory -- is fueling the instability.