Zimbabwe parties discuss Mugabe resignation

[ribbit]

wtf - first is castro, now mugabe ?!

maybe he planning an april fool's?

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Zimbabwe parties discuss Mugabe resignation: U.S.

By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC are believed to be discussing whether President Robert Mugabe should resign after last Saturday's election, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

A State Department official said the talks followed projections showing Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai would beat Mugabe in the election but fall short of the 51 percent voted needed to avoid a runoff.

"I know that there are supposedly at various levels ... discussions between representatives of the opposition and representatives of the government," the State Department official said.

"I know there were discussions that were going on but we will see what happens and when it happens," he added.

But MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti strongly denied persistent media reports, some citing MDC sources, saying the opposition was in talks on a Mugabe exit.

"I have answered that question a hundred times. I am sick and tired of answering that question. It's rubbish, absolute rubbish," he said.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 but faced an unprecedented challenge in the elections because of a two-pronged opposition attack and the economic collapse of his once prosperous country, which has reduced much of the population to misery.

A senior Western diplomat in Harare told Reuters the international community was discussing ideas to try to persuade Mugabe to step down. "But I don't think there is anything firm on the table."

TALKS "EXPLORATORY"

The diplomat said the aim was to persuade Mugabe to concede defeat and avoid a runoff in three weeks.

"A lot about what is being said is very speculative, based on conjecture. What I know is that there are a number of ideas being floated around in the international community to try to persuade Mugabe to go," he said.

"At the most, if there is anything going on right now, it would be very exploratory, people probing for opportunities."

Two ZANU-PF party sources said on Tuesday its projections showed Tsvangirai getting 48.3 percent, against Mugabe's 43 percent, with former finance minister Simba Makoni taking eight percent.

Independent election monitors projected a similar outcome.

The New York Times Website earlier reported Mugabe's advisers were negotiating his resignation with the MDC because Mugabe considered the prospect of a runoff demeaning.

The opposition and international observers said Mugabe rigged the last presidential election in 2002. But some analysts say the groundswell of discontent over an economy in freefall is too great for him to fix the result this time without risking major unrest.

Zimbabweans are suffering the world's highest inflation of more than 100,000 percent, food and fuel shortages, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.

No official results have yet emerged on Saturday's presidential poll. The opposition charges that the delay veils attempts by Mugabe to hang on to power by rigging the vote.

(Additional reporting by Nelson Banya, MacDonald Dzirutwe, Stella Mapenzauswa and Muchena Zigomo; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

[Trini _2026]

Mugabe: A life of power in Zimbabwe By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 1, 4:59 PM ET
 


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Robert Gabriel Mugabe once assured Zimbabwe's fleeing whites that "there is a place for you in the sun." Now his own place in the country he has ruled for 28 years is uncertain.

 
Mugabe was born in 1924, the son of a village carpenter in Zvimba, 40 miles west of Zimbabwe's capital Harare. As a child, he tended his grandfather's cattle, fished for bream in muddy water holes, played football and "boxed a lot," as he recalled later.

Few blacks at the time learned to write their names. But Mugabe went to school, where he was taught by Jesuit priests. Classmates described him as shy and bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful of his absent father, according to Heidi Holland, author of "Dinner with Mugabe."

Mugabe later became a primary school teacher himself, and taught at mission schools until he won a scholarship to all-black Fort Hare University in neighboring South Africa.

There he underwent a political baptism of sorts. He avidly studied Karl Marx. Gripped by the "passive resistance" movement of Mahatma Gandhi in India, he vowed to play a similar role in helping his own country to end British rule.

In 1951, he earned a bachelor of arts degree. It was the first of seven degrees, including one in law.

Back in Zimbabwe — then known as Rhodesia — Mugabe quickly became disenchanted with the white government. In 1958 he flew to Ghana, a newly independent former British colony, to teach. There he married his Ghanaian-born first wife, Sally Hayfron.

He was known as austere, a non-smoking, non-drinking Roman Catholic. Mrs. Mugabe said of her husband: "He's very warm and gentle at home. He is very fair. He will go to any limits to see that justice is done. He has never been violent for the sake of violence, though we have both struggled for our freedom."

Upon his return to Zimbabwe, Mugabe became a political activist and was jailed for 10 years by the white minority regime of Ian Smith. While in jail, his son died from malaria, and his appeal for parole to attend the funeral was denied.

When he was released, he fled into exile in neighboring Mozambique. There he became the head of a liberation movement and guerrilla army and dreamed of a one-party Marxist state.

He came to power in 1980 after a seven-year bush war for black rule, serving first as prime minister and then as president. At independence, he was hailed for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions. Zimbabwe's economy thrived, and Mugabe appealed to whites to stay in the country.

Twenty years later, many wished they hadn't.

Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizure of white-owned farms on behalf of a landless black majority. But instead, he gave the farms to black relatives, friends and cronies.

Mugabe also lost no time in establishing his absolute power. He quickly crushed political opponents, and sent North Korean-trained troops into Matabeleland to hunt down armed anti-government rebels in the 1980s. Thousands of people, mainly civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe, were killed.

Using the same draconian regulations used to keep him in jail for a decade, he put scores of political opponents in detention without trial. Zimbabwe's economy gradually fell apart, and a third of the country fled.

In 1992, Mugabe's first wife died of kidney failure. He married Grace Marufu, his former secretary, 40 years his junior. He had three children with Marufu, and was 73 when she gave birth to their third child.

Mugabe is now 84 years old. During his rule, the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans has fallen from 60 to 35 years.