EDITOR’S NOTE: Mugabe is just another blood thirsty vampire like Meles. At the same time, the U.S. Administration has no moral authority to criticize Mugabe while completely ignoring the atrocities of its puppet, the Meles regime, in Ethiopia and Somalia, including throat slashing, rape, indiscriminate firing at civilians, and other types of crimes against humanity as reported by Amnesty International and other international organizations. The hypocrisy and double standard of the U.S. Administration in regards to Mugabe and Meles shameful.
Zimbabwe attacks ‘out of control’
(BBC) — The US ambassador to Zimbabwe warned post-election violence is “spinning out of control”, as the government set a date for a second-round run-off.
James McGee told the BBC he had found evidence of “politically-inspired” violence against hundreds of people.
The diplomat warned the situation made it impossible for the second vote, set for 27 June, to be fair.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round, but not by enough to avoid a run-off with President Robert Mugabe.
The US ambassador said he had uncovered “firm evidence” of state-sponsored political bloodshed against supporters of Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the aftermath of the elections on 29 March.
He told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “Violence is spinning out of control.
“Too many people have been killed, too many people have been maimed, too many people have been dislocated from their homes.”
He said the attacks involved “mainly beatings to the back and buttocks, we’ve seen quite a few broken limbs, we’ve seen cuts to the head”.
He also said he had met an elderly woman who had been struck with a hatchet.
“Her two grand-sons were activists with the MDC party,” said Mr McGee.
“They were beaten up and then the people who beat them up found their grandmother and hit this 80-year-old woman in the head with an axe.”
‘Unadulterated violence’
Mr McGee said he had met the victims on a fact-finding trip with British, Japanese, EU, Dutch and Tanzanian diplomats, during which he said they were harassed by police.
Along with so-called war veterans, he said they had evidence “police and military are involved in these attacks”.
It was “pure unadulterated violence designed to intimidate people from voting in the next election”, he said.
But the state-owned Herald newspaper poured scorn on the US ambassador’s claims in an editorial, accusing the US of trying to demonise Zimbabwe.
And Zanu-PF spokesman Bright Matonga told the BBC: “Let me make it very clear that the Zimbabwe government does not support any violence – whether by MDC or Zanu-PF.”
Mr Mugabe told a Zanu-PF meeting on Friday the party should have been more prepared for the election.
‘Disastrous’
“Although the presidential result did not yield an outright winner, it was indeed disastrous,” he said.
Mr Tsvangirai told the BBC’s Orla Guerin Zanu-PF had made “overtures” to the MDC about the possibility of a national unity government.
He has said he will contest the second-round vote, after originally threatening to boycott it.
Mr Tsvangirai has also accused Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party of a campaign of violence and torture against opposition activists, as well as vote-rigging.
The opposition leader has been out of Zimbabwe since the first-round vote because of alleged threats to his life.
But the MDC says he will return to address a rally in Bulawayo on Sunday.
3 thoughts on “Zimbabwe attacks ‘out of control’ – and the U.S. hypocrisy”
Ato Elias,
It is the same old double standard the US arrogantly uses. It is not new. Every US administration since America became a superpower has been doing it with the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko, China’s Chiang Kai Shek, Philippine’s Ferdinand Marcos, Shah Pahlavi of Iran, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and of course our own Haileselassie. It is not that they continue to do it, what bothers me. It is when they told the whole world that they are doing it in the name of democracy and good governance! Now, that is sickening.
we should all send mail or post the absurdities and contradictions and hypocarcy of the west on utobe and and other boards at the same time a letter to all congress members and senate to assist hr 2003 – we should also send the state department and white house that they have lost respect of the world simple becuase of immoral behavior
A dose of reality for my Ethiopian friends, “western nations have no permanent friend or enemies, they only have permanent interest”, that is their mantra and their guiding principle towards Africans, Woyanne is their puppet, they encourage them to kill and maim Ethiopians, help them steal elections in broad day light, cover for them when they openly beat up and imprison duly elected representatives, intimidate the opposition leaders while they are in prison and eventually sow discord among them by bribing some of them. That is what they do for their puppet because Woyanne do their bidding in Ethiopia and the region at large.
On the other hand they will cry foul when Mugabe does what they don’t want him to do, mainly hit where it hurts, their economic interests, when the whites owned all the land and other economic means they didn’t call Mugabe a dictator, on the contrary he was a statesman, he even got an honorary doctorate from a University in Massachausettes, now they want to take it back. The problem with Mugabe is not that he is a “dictator” but he did not obey their orders and they will do everything they can to take him down.
Without going too far you can look at Eritrea, the GOE is only answerable to its people and works for the people of Eritrea, they don’t bow down to the dictates of the super power or its minions, because of that they have been doing everything they could, used every trick in the book since 1998 to destroy Eritrea but unlike other African countries Eritreans learned in their bitter struggle for independence that first and foremost you rely on yourself and no matter how much they mess with Eritrea they will never defeat the Eritrean people. As I write repeatedly in this forum, Ethiopians can learn a lesson for today and tomorrow from Eritrea, all Ethiopians should unite and fight for their freedom by uniting the Ethiopian people under one goal and foster real patriotism among the people and they can defeat the tyranny that is gripping Ethiopia now and be free forever.