So, there's been international reaction to 2008 Zimbabwean presidential election, where voting took place on March 29th and June 27th. The incumbent president, Robert Mugabe, has been the head of the state ever since the country gained its independence in 1980. On March 29th, Morgan Tsvangirai won the popular vote over Mugabe. However, you must win a certain majority of votes in the first vote to bypass the second and claim victory. Tsvangirai didn't have enough votes and election was extended. In the following months, members of Tsvangirai's political party began to be targeted by the violent and powerful allies of Mugabe. The mayor of Zimbabwean's capital (who was also in Tsvangirai's party) had his wife kidnapped, stoned to death, and then mutilated about a week before the second round of voting. One of the CNN articles estimated the deaths as a result of the election to be in the tens of thousands. Tsvangirai was forced to concede and withdraw from the race in fear of his own life and those who had aided him. On the day of election, police officers forced people to vote (a red ink is rubbed on your hand after you do). Of course, Mugabe steals the elections with a ridiculous majority of the votes and has already been sworn in for his next term.

And all of this is known worldwide, with the heads of our countries denouncing the entire election, but not much can be done. Mugabe's people basically own Zimbabwean. Even though the country has bee in an economic freefall since it gained its independence, they are extremely rich. Invading the country be lead to a very long war that would leave the country dirt poor.

So, what do you think should be done about this? We can't just stand around and complain about it. Mugabe is a person who honestly doesn't care if everyone hates him, as long as him and his allies remain rich and in power.

Links to a bunch of articles:
http://topics.cnn.com/topics/zimbabwe

Gordon Brown was talking about how they are going to Boycott Zimbabwe and hopefully force him to reconsider, but to me Mugabe is totally out of his mind. Not only is it clear that he has been killing people who wanted to vote against him, but he still claims to be a democrat and calls the British government 'demons who need to be exorcised'.

I have no idea how this is gonna pan out. I smell a war though

Am I a horrible person for thinking "wow that's very sad but it's not really our problem"? I mean not OH HEYN DEAD PEOPLE WAHTEVER but more that I don't necessarily think other countries should get involved... unless it begins to spill over to other countries.

At this point it's over, right? Sure evil shit went down but the election crap is over an d even though the bad guy won they're done killing people. If anybody gets involved it's only going to get worse.

i have been following the zimbabwe ordeal since the first round of elections so while i am pretty ignorant of the history of the country and what can be done, i know the story. i've got some thoughts:

mugabe is a total lunatic. aside from his sheer refusal to relieve any power, i saw footage of him giggling along as he put in his vote last week, and i saw him say that anyone who wants him out of power can "go hang". he's a nutter. he's nuts. the country is in an awful state because - i can only imagine - he and his friends have been taking all the money for themselves and are corrupt beyond recognition. someone throw some facts at me on this. he has killed many people in the name of his presidency. the story about the MDC Mayor's wife is really upsetting and terrifying in particular. he has taken what at the beginning seemed like it could actually be a democratic election into a brutal farce. i hate the guy, i would murder him right now if i could so he couldn't do any more damage - and he seems like one of those rare people who don't have the capacity to do anything else.

but that's all just my emotional reactions. as far as what needs to be done, i don't know, i am ignorant and it's dicey stuff. boycotting zimbabwe can only have a negative affect on already traumatised, poor and starving people and i doubt that mugabe is going to admit defeat here. any sort of military action i expect will be greeted with anger from the west and zimbawe, but this isn't iraq, it isn't about white colonialism and mugabe is absolutely not a democratically elected president. he's a psycho-killer dictator.

the only countries which could really strangle him financially are rich african countries zimbabwe relies on like south africa, right? maybe that's the same thing as this UK boycott, but at least south africa might mean something to mugabe.

i wonder how easy it is for zimbaweans to get out of there. probably not very easy! i think i read something about neighbouring countries discriminating against refugees, too, which sucks.

and from what my mother told me this isn't the first time this has happened with mugabe, there was a similar situation before and he has stuck around so what, do we just wait until he dies which will hopefully be tommorrow?

Am I a horrible person for thinking "wow that's very sad but it's not really our problem"? I mean not OH HEYN DEAD PEOPLE WAHTEVER but more that I don't necessarily think other countries should get involved... unless it begins to spill over to other countries.

At this point it's over, right? Sure evil shit went down but the election crap is over an d even though the bad guy won they're done killing people. If anybody gets involved it's only going to get worse.

by no means is the worst over because the election is. why would it be? their power isn't going to be unchallenged from here on out and they aren't suddenly going to start playing softball with people they don't like. what incentive is there to change their ways when it has kept them in power so far? plus mugabe is a total dickhead so

your "not our problem unless it gets worse" argument is also pretty bad and does not make much sense. this is a battle of zimbabwean leadership: it's doesn't affect other countries in any hugely direct way and there isn't really much concern over that right now. but why would it be worse if it spilled out? would that suddenly make the killing worse? if you want to live in a bubble where you don't care about the problems of other people in the world just because they are far away then okay but yeah that is a really awful way to be.

That was his spokesman I believe! *insert "all blacks look the same" joke here*

yeah his spokesman said it a while ago but i saw a clip on sky news where he said it, too. it's a pretty weird phrasing!

I wonder if some sort of rogue-undercover assassination attempt on president Mugabe is in progress (simular to the conspiracy involving Simon Mann at the moment)

Actually yeah

get Simon Mann on the case.

call it community service or something.

by no means is the worst over because the election is. why would it be?

oh i was just going off finality's post (i havent really been following this or anything and this is the first i heard of it) so i didn't realize he's done this thing in the past. it's a pretty shitty thing for their country yeah but i still don't get what anybody can really do to get involved without having things just escalate

yeah his spokesman said it a while ago but i saw a clip on sky news where he said it, too. it's a pretty weird phrasing!

the spokesman said it very recently apparently. mugabe said it back in march. i guess the specifics don't matter the point is he doesn't care what international opinion is.

"the british government can go and hang a thousand times"
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/01/zimbabwe.hang/index.html

oh i was just going off finality's post (i havent really been following this or anything and this is the first i heard of it) so i didn't realize he's done this thing in the past. it's a pretty shitty thing for their country yeah but i still don't get what anybody can really do to get involved without having things just escalate

okay well this is a different argument than it's not our problem. if we intervene, will we simply make things worse? i'm not totally letting your off the hook though cos you didn't address most of what i said and you would probably use that argument again in a different situation so still think on the whole why should i give a shit issue.

The reason a lot countries are taking offense to this is because Zimbabwe claims to be democratic, sadly. And at the same time, because they are democratic, we (as fellow democratic countries) have to use diplomacy. Like mentioned before, involvement wouldn't be of any benefit to us, so war's just a huge bill that would ruin the country. Sure Mugabe's out, but now the country's worth nothing. So, we'll need to spend even more in relief funds. And I think Mugabe's the kind of guy who'll resort to genocide in war. Diplomacy has to be the option at this point cause it's not worth a country getting involved.

The reason a lot countries are taking offense to this is because Zimbabwe claims to be democratic, sadly. And at the same time, because they are democratic, we (as fellow democratic countries) have to use diplomacy.

whether zimbabwe is claiming to be democratic or not doesn't change the fact of what mugabe is doing. right now, zimbabwe isn't a democratic country because of what is happening right now. so treating zimbabwe - that is, the state of zimbabwe - as a democratically determined nation is wrong.

Like mentioned before, involvement wouldn't be of any benefit to us, so war's just a huge bill that would ruin the country. Sure Mugabe's out, but now the country's worth nothing. So, we'll need to spend even more in relief funds. And I think Mugabe's the kind of guy who'll resort to genocide in war. Diplomacy has to be the option at this point cause it's not worth a country getting involved.

i don't know what everyone's opinion is on interventionism, but i think when things like this happen in the world,  other countries who are reasonably able have a moral responsibility to respond. we are all people - and this sounds preachy i guess - but we are, and when people are being beaten, murdered and oppressed i think the best of humanity should collectively make an attempt to stop that happening. this might mean some sacrifice or increase in troubles in the short term but allowing it to go on because we weren't prepared to do something which we knew we ought to is bad for us all.

diplomacy at this point (as far as i know) hasn't been tried because it hasn't been possible. whether it can become possible with the right kind of pressure or discussion is something which should be ascertained i guess by countries like south africa doing more than saying they disapprove of mugabe's methods. perhaps south africa could convince mugabe to at least talk to tsvangirai or change a couple of his policies - MAYBE - i mean i think he is a psycho and he might not even respond to what is in his own interest if it means losing. then there is discussion between zimbabwe and other countries. mugabe has made some subtle indications that he is uninterested in this, so it might be a total loss too, but it is something which could be built on top of discussion between the MDC and Zanu-PF. again this sees extremely unlikely but it diplomacy hasn't been played out completely yet.

I just wish a lot more countries would be strident in their criticism of Mugabe. With all the vicious deterioration of life quality going on there, some serious action is going to need to happen. As for Mbeki, I'm disappointed by the way he had been silent about the whole ordeal for so long. I mainly just followed the beginning of the fiasco, and during that I think he should have instantly became aggressive at first occurrence of political intimidation (which he did not, and this frustrated many Zimbabweans). I think what's happening now was easily predictable when it was decided that they would go ahead with the runoff election. Tsvangirai should have won, easily.

As for Mugabe himself, I think it's such a mystery how people like him can go from being the liberator of his own country to the one who ends up destroying it.

A south african teacher at my school maintains that during his time in the SAS he blew up a building where Mugabe was meant to be but missed him by 5 minutes.

But he also insists he invented gasohol, so god knows.

Anyway, the whole thing's pretty fucked up and I don't know how it can be resolved. I cant see a war happening and we can pressure them by limiting their resources and things but Mugabe's such a nutter that i think he'd carry on and all it would do would be ruin the place for the citizens of Zimbabwe.
It's tricky to predict and i don't know whats round the corner.

I'll be following it closely.

Surely there's got to be someone with a steady arm and a sniper rifle SOMEWHERE in Zimbabwe.