Zimbabwaay out of hand

I’ve been following BBC reports on the current sociopolitical crisis in Zimbabwe, well aware that the BBC is British, and that they can’t help but exhibit a certain degree of both bias and hypocrisy in their descriptions of Mugabe’s iron rule and system of voter intimidation.

After all, Mugabe was one of the key people who defeated British colonial rule, and for a time, he seemed like a leader who might be able to deliver the people of Zimbabwe from that sordid, bloody past. However, in the here and now, BBC drama aside, Mugabe is no longer a fair, just, or competent ruler.

No amount of “strongly-worded statements” will dissuade him from continuing his comprehensive system of terror and voter intimidation in order to win the upcoming runoff election versus Morgan Tsvangirai. I’ll admit I don’t know much about Tsvangirai, but I do know he won the first election, only not by enough to eschew the runoff.

I do know that Mugabe is 84 years old, and will eventually die of natural causes if no one kills him (I certainly hope he isn’t immortal,) and if he dies in office, all hell will truly break loose. Zimbabwe has everything to lose, but Mugabe obviously has absolutely nothing to lose, save the runoff election, and it’s clear he won’t let that happen, even if he has to slaughter half of his people to win.

I have no idea what Mugabe is thinking when he has the nerve to run in an election after what he has done to his country, its land, and its people. Everything has turned to shit under his extended regime, but the worst is yet to come if he doesn’t lose or step aside.

A power vacuum following his demise will most likely result in civil war, in which there’ll be more killing and raping of innocent civilians in the name of the rich generals and politicians who want to grab power of the pathetic little ruin that was once a country.

And I imagine after our feeble efforts in Somalia and Darfur, the leaders of the developed world will simply let it all happen, watch it unfold, and issue more strongly-worded statements condemning it, but do nothing.

After all, whatever the US and EU think should happen, Russia and China will protest and want the opposite. What a clusterf***.