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July 09, 2003

100 for Zimbabwe

One hundred demonstrators in supoort of the MDC opposition party in Zimbabwe called upon GWBush to support their causes against the Zanu-PF of Robert Mugabe. This protest was in Pretoria, Bush's second stop on his African whirlwind.

Yesterday, however, I bothered to watch the video news and saw footage of hundreds of children among dozens of rebel militia mobbing American military advisors in Liberia with chants of support. That was truly spectacular.

Soon, Bush will be meeting with Thabo Mbeki as the latter will no doubt be asking the American president to solidify his committment to the Millenium fund for AIDS assistance. The irony of that conversation is staggering, given Mbeki's previous superstitiously dismissive comments on the disease, and Bush the Elder's legendary intransigence.

At this point I should be referring to Randall Robinson's TransAfrica webpage for some background and policy recommendations. Unfortunately, I read his last book and have discovered him to be one of the most incoherent writers I have ever come across. What to do, what to do?

Well, in Zimbabwe we need to ignore the 'white farmers' issue because it will be impossible for Bush to convey any nuance of those disputes through the racial fog of American media. Instead he should simply stress that Mugabe is a garden variety tyrant. The question is whether or not those MDC actually have support in southern Africa. Since they are a genuinely democratic opposition movement, somebody on the American backchannel should be hooking them up for the future. That means, of course, that we are going to have to deal with the thousands of political tentacles Mugabe has used to ensnarl southern African businesses in his tyranny.

We're teasing Liberians with jarheads in camo. The Liberians think we're on the ground as peacekeepers. Let's continue scouting out the place so we can set up camp soon.

Posted by mbowen at July 9, 2003 08:50 AM

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Comments

Posted by: Liz at July 9, 2003 04:27 PM