Chilling description of what took place in Zimbabwe in Washinton Post:
President Robert Mugabe summoned his top security officials to a government training center near his rural home in central Zimbabwe on the afternoon of March 30. In a voice barely audible at first, he informed the leaders of the state security apparatus that had enforced his rule for 28 years that he had lost the presidential vote held the previous day.
Then Mugabe told the gathering he planned to give up power in a televised speech to the nation the next day, according to the written notes of one participant that were corroborated by two other people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
But Zimbabwe’s military chief, Gen. Constantine Chiwenga, responded that the choice was not Mugabe’s alone to make. According to two firsthand accounts of the meeting, Chiwenga told Mugabe his military would take control of the country to keep him in office or the president could contest a runoff election, directed in the field by senior army officers supervising a military-style campaign against the opposition. Read the rest.
What is revealed in this article has a very simple name: a military coup. Only this coup was not against the ruling president or a democratically elected leader, but against the people of the country who, despite voting for a new president, were not given an opportunity to have their votes actually effect any change.
Who is Constantine Chiwenga? According to The First Post, he is…
Birthplace: Chiweshe.
Family: Wife Jocelyn, several children.
History: Joined Mugabe in Mozambique for the independence struggle, then in 1980 joined the Army, and rose swiftly through the ranks, thanks to ruthless ambition.
Chiwenga was one of the first to raise his hand when Mugabe asked “Who wants a white farm?,” repaying his boss by declaring before the 2002 Presidential election that his forces would accept no outcome other than a Mugabe victory.
Today he remains at the head of the much-politicised Army, and both he and his wife are amongst those barred from travelling to Europe and the US.
Future: Will put up a fight.
P.S. See a great resource Zimbabwe Situation for more information. Also take a look at Zimbabwe Today.
Perverse Egalitarianism 