June 26, 2005
WHAT'S A FEW DEAD AFRICANS AMONG FRIENDS:
Revealed: secret talks to oust Mugabe (TREVOR GRUNDY AND BRIAN BRADY, 6/25/05, Scotland on Sunday)
BRITISH government diplomats have held secret talks in Zimbabwe aimed at persuading Robert Mugabe to hand over power and return his devastated nation to the Commonwealth, it was claimed last night.Senior sources in London and Zimbabwe told Scotland on Sunday that the dictator's closest allies have been pressing the British government to relax its stance against Mugabe in advance of an attempted breakthrough in the stalemate at the G8 summit in Scotland this week.
And they claimed that Foreign Office diplomats have already travelled to Zimbabwe to begin clandestine negotiations with representatives of the hated dictator's regime, with a view to returning the nation to the Commonwealth, three years after it was suspended.
But the proposed 'peace plan' for Zimbabwe would require Mugabe to resign from the presidency and withdraw from the public eye - although he could retain an over-arching role as the 'Father of the Nation'.
Ah, Europe, where they want to send Augusto Pinochet to prison but let Robert Mugabe continue in power. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 26, 2005 8:37 AM
Everybody in Zimbabwe knows that if Mugabe was named "Father of the Nation" by the Europeans that he really would be Zimbabwe's deadbeat dad.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at June 26, 2005 8:52 AMMugabe's expropriation of white-owned farmland was extremely popular in Africa. It made him a demi-god in Namibia and South Africa, where the Black population is demanding that their respective governments do the same to their White farmowners. One Boer, one bullet is a common rallying cry.
The notion that Britain can negotiate his departure is a hilarious commentary on the obtuseness and egomania of an decrepit former empire whose time has come and gone.
South Africa wants Mugabe to stay, so he stays. It's just that simple. And there's nothing any of the toe-dancing metrosexual girlymen of the British Foreign Office can do about it.
Posted by: bart at June 26, 2005 9:51 AM