ninme

Poor Zimbabwe. Stuck between an insane octegenarian (and what does he have to lose?) and a West that can only summon enough bravery to merely suggest the possibility of broaching the subject of some day potentially sending in an ill-equipped, badly-organized group of would-be soldiers with a tendency towards sexual exploitation of the 12-year-old female population and an even worse success record.

The Telegraph (6.15) - Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe’s allies can bring him down

The West continues to watch helplessly as Mugabe destroys the last vestiges of democracy in Zimbabwe. Sanctions against the country are already in force, but show no sign of persuading Mugabe to step down.

The next option would be for the West to take direct military action against him, but that seems highly unlikely, and not only because it would resurrect his legitimacy as an “anti-colonialist warrior”.

Yeah, that would be awful. I mean, lives are at stake, but so is his street cred.

So what can be done? The UN must put heavy pressure on South Africa and China, Mugabe’s remaining supporters, to drop him. Once that happens, members of his own party should force him to relinquish power.

Oh, the UN!

Elections could then be held, perhaps supervised by the African Union.

Uh huh:

The Times - Mugabe thugs killed and mutilated MDC youth activists

The bodies of Archford Chipiyo, 28, the son of Philemon Chipiyo, the district chairman of the MDC in Chitungwiza, Yona Genti and the unidentified young man, were found in tall grass at the side of the main southbound road out of Harare about midday on Wednesday. The body of the fourth, Nyoni Light, was dumped near a shopping centre on the outskirts of Chitungwiza.

The township, with a population of more than a million, has been the scene of numerous petrol bombings, abductions and assaults in the past week as Zanu (PF) mobs drag mostly young people out of their homes and force them to join them, marching and sloganeering through the night. …

[A Chitungwiza alderman] sent one of his sons, Alban, to Harare central hospital mortuary to identify the bodies found next to the road. “Alban said Archford’s lips were gone and his eyes were pulled out,” he said. Austin Chipiyo, another son, went to Chitungwiza hospital to identify the body of Ngoni Light. “His head was also broken,” he said. “His genitals had been taken off. They were in his trousers. I saw it myself.”

A day after the attack on the Chipiyos, three opposition councillors in Chitungwiza were forced to flee with their families when their homes were set alight by petrol bombs. They escaped unhurt.

Torture and the mutilation of bodies appears to be a new tactic employed by Mr Mugabe’s mobs. Amnesty International reported that 12 bodies had been found in Zimbabwe yesterday. Most had been tortured to death, it said.

Two weeks ago Dadirai Chipiro, the wife of an MDC official in Mhondoro communal area 100 miles south of Harare, had her hands and feet chopped off by Zanu (PF) attackers who then threw her into her hut and firebombed it. She was incinerated.

On Monday this week the body of Abigail Chiroto, 27, was found dumped on a farm with her head so severely smashed that she was unrecognisable. Mrs Chirot, the wife of the opposition mayor-elect of Harare, and her four-year-old son Ashley had been seized from their house in the suburb of Hatcliffe.

The boy, who was left at a nearby police station, told family members that he saw his mother being blindfolded and taken into the bush. When her body was found, she was still wearing a blindfold. …

“Chitungwiza is terrible,” said a young nurse, her eyes wide with fear. “Last week they dragged my sister out of her house in the middle of the night and marched her with many people, who they also pulled out of their houses, to Zanu (PF) headquarters” — a distance of 20 miles. “They had to sing and chant slogans and salute all the way.

“When they were there, they were told that on election day, your name will be taken at the gate of the polling station, and when you come out you have to give them the number of your voting paper so we know how you voted.” Ballot papers in Zimbabwe’s electoral system each have a unique number that is torn off a matching counterfoil, a system designed to ensure the validity of ballot papers.

Sounds like just the sort of thing to be successfully tackled by the African Union! Or the UN! (I think both groups would rather be in the arms of their under-aged victim-sex workers.)