Jump to navigation

Published 11th April 2008

Vol 49 No 8

Zimbabwe

The ugly endgame

President Mugabe has been wounded by his party's parliamentary defeat but his loyalists plan a final orgy of repression

War veterans, 'green bombers' and other irregular armed military units are being despatched across Zimbabwe to crush the opposition Movement for Democratic Change following its win in the parliamentary elections on 29 March. The operation is being commanded by some 200 senior military officers who have been put in charge of the irregulars sent to search and destroy the MDC's political organisation, and kill their supporters, ahead of a second round of voting in the presidential elections. Such is the level of violence already, the MDC says it will not participate in a second round without monitors from the United Nations.

The hyperinflation club

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

View site

On the fringes of an opposition rally just before the election stood a solitary figure holding a placard, his jacket pasted with Z$10 million bearer cheques. With the...

BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

The scene was set for a signing that would end the two-decade war between Uganda’s government and the Lord’s Resistance Army on 10 April. A ceremony, to be overseen by Riek Machar, chief mediator and Southern Sudan’s Vice-President, was prepared in a bush clearing at Ri-Kwangba, on the Sudan/Congo-Kinshasa border. Uganda sent its negotiator and Internal Affairs Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda. UN helicopters flew in diplomats from the region to the site. LRA fighters gradually emerged. Their leader ...
The scene was set for a signing that would end the two-decade war between Uganda’s government and the Lord’s Resistance Army on 10 April. A ceremony, to be overseen by Riek Machar, chief mediator and Southern Sudan’s Vice-President, was prepared in a bush clearing at Ri-Kwangba, on the Sudan/Congo-Kinshasa border. Uganda sent its negotiator and Internal Affairs Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda. UN helicopters flew in diplomats from the region to the site. LRA fighters gradually emerged. Their leader Joseph Kony stayed away because he was unclear about his legal status, said Riek. The accord proposed that those fighters accused of minor offences should be subject to mato-oput (Acholi traditional justice) and those accused of serious crimes should appear before a special division of Uganda’s High Court. President Yoweri Museveni has promised to ask the UN Security Council to suspend the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Kony. David Nyekorach-Matsanga, chief negotiator for the LRA and ex-publicist for Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, quit after Kony failed to appear at the signing. Diplomats are sceptical about claims by Matsanga and his colleagues to have discussed the deal in detail with Kony. We hear that Riek and Joachim Chissano, the UN’s special representative at the LRA talks, have not spoken to Kony since December 2007. Hopes for peace are back on hold.
Read more

The real dividing line

Oil, ideology and a bitter history worsen the dispute over where to draw the North-South border

Sending its own man to run the Abyei enclave means that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is clearly challenging the National Congress (NC, aka National Islamic Front). The...

Diamond power

Economic diversification is the centrepiece of President Ian Khama's strategy and its first test will be in the diamond business. Botswana, the world's biggest producer of diamonds by...

Treading on the corn

It is universally accepted that a Malawian government's legitimacy is determined by the latest maize harvest. 'Chimango ndi moyo' (Maize is life) is an expression often heard and...

Big oil, dear oil, new oil

The hundred-dollar barrel has boosted both Africa's national oil companies and ambitious resource nationalists. Algeria, Angola, Egypt and Nigeria see their national oil companies as potential instruments of diplomatic and economic power - as long as the oil and gas markets favour the sellers. Africa's oil producers want more control and money from contracts, and they want more oil to be refined locally.

Present performance varies widely in quality. Nigeria (see Box) has the biggest reserves and a poor record. Its government plans to introduce new rules stipulating that international oil...

New man, new discipline

Ian Khama calmly takes over the presidency as bigger neighbours struggle with successions and elections

Southern Africa's model democracy shamed its neighbours with the dignified inauguration of its new president on 1 April. Lieutenant General Ian Khama Seretse Khama quickly stamped his authority...

Pointers

Biya amendment

As international attention focused on Zimbabwe, Cameroon's President Paul Biya has quietly made plans for his own life presidency, largely free from foreign scrutiny. After nationwide protests by...

Cabinet crisis

The suspension on 8 April of negotiations over cabinet portfolios risks taking the country back to the turmoil of January and February. Just after Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic...

Stories by country

Footer Map