Mugabe "intends to stay in power until death."

Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, "intends to stay in power until death." Honestly this is not the best news I've heard all day. Nothing makes my blood boil more than a "democratically" elected leader who has abused Marxist principles and black nationalism, and in turn robbed his people of their infrastructure, property, education, and livelihood.

Where did Mugabe go wrong? How has it gotten to this point?

Is in entirely Mugabe’s fault?

The answer to the last question is simply, no. Though what Mugabe has done to his people has been terrible, the problem lies with the Western sanctions imposed against the country in response to Mugabe’s decision to expel the mainly white, British citizens from their farmland. Zimbabwe, which many once deemed the “breadbasket of Africa,” has almost completely lost its agricultural economy. Because of Zimbabwe's chaotic fast-track land reform program launched in 2000, agricultural land that was then leased around 4,000 previously white-owned commercial farms was nationalized and leased to landless blacks for 99 years. The program was condemned by Western governments for its forced evictions of the white citizens. Trade sanctions were imposed by these same Western governments which slashed the country's foreign exchange earnings and helped trigger the current economic crisis. It is important to remember that these sanctions are what truly sent Zimbabwe into the crisis it is now. Mugabe is responsible in part for what has happened, but if he was to leave office tomorrow things would be the same. Amends must be made in the country for other things…social and economic. I’m convinced that such moves will be taken while Mugabe is in power. I would like to see someone else win the elections in the upcoming week, but I am not optimistic. There is far too much corruption going for the people of Zimbabwe to take full advantage of their democracy. After all, look at what happened during the last elections. Thousands of forged ballots entered into the system. Six hundred thousand ballots were requested for soldiers and police, often the “insiders” of political parties, when in reality that force only adds up to about 50,000. Millions of extra ballots were printed in the country—about 9 million for a nation of 5.7 million registered voters. Suspicious? I am.

At this point, I don’t pretend to know the state of Zimbabwe’s future. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope and pray that democracy will be allowed to take its course in this impoverished country—new leadership isn’t enough. More needs to be done. But what? Black nationalism. Marxism. Socialism. Pan-Africanism…isms, isms, isms. Revolutions. Countless ideas swim around in my head but I cannot see an answer clearly.

People are suffering and dying daily in Zimbabwe…who is listening?

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Mugabe critics predict fraud in Zimbabwe elections

Story Highlights

* Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, 84, seeks re-election in Saturday vote

* Mugabe faces three challengers -- two of whom have good chance of winning

* Critics predict vote-rigging, say thousands of extra ballots printed

* Nation in financial crisis with 80 percent unemployment, 100,000 percent inflation

(CNN) -- President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for nearly three decades, faces his toughest challenge yet in this weekend's general elections.

Voters go to the polls Saturday in simultaneous presidential, parliamentary, senate and council elections. Mugabe, 84, is seeking a sixth consecutive term as president of the southern African nation.

Mugabe faces three opposition candidates, two of whom have a good chance of winning. Mugabe's regime may be on shaky ground amid allegations of corruption and a failing economy.

Zimbabweans are the poorest they have ever been since the nation became a democracy. Unemployment is estimated at around 80 percent, inflation is more than 100,000 percent, and hundreds of thousands are fleeing the country to earn more elsewhere than they would back home.

Mugabe has been in office since the country, then called Rhodesia, gained independence from Britain in 1980. VideoWatch Mugabe on the campaign trail »

He was once respected as a liberation hero, but observers now criticize him for repressive tactics and corruption, and blame him for the country's dire economic state.

The Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, is the main opposition to Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. But a split in 2006 severely weakened the MDC, and the party's two factions back different candidates.

One faction supports MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai, who led hotly contested challenges against Mugabe in 2000, 2002 and 2005.

This week, Tsvangirai had to cancel campaign rallies after the Zimbabwean government impounded a helicopter that was to carry him around the country, according to the owner of the copter charter company.

The other MDC faction backs Simba Makoni, Mugabe's former finance minister, who was expelled from the Zanu-PF after announcing his bid to unseat the president.

In what critics labeled a vote-buying exercise, Mugabe recently increased the salaries of the police, army and teachers and also handed out machinery to black farmers. Zimbabwean officials deny the moves had anything to do with the election.

Opposition: Millions of extra ballots printed

The MDC said Sunday it had discovered evidence that Mugabe intends to rig the elections in his favor. VideoWatch evidence of dead voters still on the rolls »

Tendai Biti, the MDC's secretary-general, said that leaked correspondence from Zimbabwe's electoral commission showed it had asked the company printing paper ballots to print 9 million. The country has an electorate of 5.7 million registered voters, Biti said.

Also, Biti said, the commission requested 600,000 postal paper ballots for soldiers and police officers. The number of soldiers and police in Zimbabwe adds up to no more than 50,000, he said.

"Remember, when they stole this election away from us the last time, they stole it with 350,000 votes," Biti said. "Six-hundred thousand is double insurance."

The United States this week warned of a possible unfair election, citing inaccurate voter rolls, the extra ballots for soldiers and police, intimidation of the opposition and the absence of independent observers.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has warned the elections were likely to be "deeply flawed." It said the electoral commission is partisan toward Zanu-PF and lacks both expertise and resources to run the elections properly.

A Zimbabwean official criticized the report, saying the elections can't be judged beforehand.

The Zimbabwean government this week denied CNN permission to cover the elections. It gave no reason for the decision.

Journalist: Mugabe intends to stay in power till death

The government also has handpicked election observers perceived as sympathetic to the ruling party.

After winning the last elections in 2005, Mugabe said he wanted to stay in power until he was 100 years old. The comment was interpreted as a joke, but many Zimbabweans didn't find it funny.

"What Mugabe says is normally what he intends to do," said Martin Meredith, who spent years covering Africa for British newspapers and has written biographies about Mugabe. "OK, he might not remain alive until 100, but he intends to remain in power until he dies."

Mugabe has been in power for so long that many young Zimbabweans have known no other leader.

After fighting in the civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe was part of the independence negotiations. He became Zimbabwe's first black prime minister and was lauded as a liberation hero -- someone of fierce intellect who presided over an African success story.

But nearly three decades later, Mugabe has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life.

Soon after Mugabe came to power, his government launched a campaign to crush opposition in an area called Matabeleland. The massacre and beatings of thousands of civilians was little reported at the time and is still barely condemned.

Farms seized; slums razed

In 2000, Mugabe ordered the controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms. He gave the land to black Zimbabweans who, he said, were cheated under colonialist rule.

White farmers who defied their eviction notices were jailed.

Five years later, Mugabe launched Operation Clean Out the Trash in which he razed slum areas.

Mugabe's land redistribution policies caused food production and agricultural exports to drop drastically and sent Zimbabwe into an economic freefall. In a country once viewed as southern Africa's breadbasket, it is now difficult to get basic food supplies.

"People are having to go to neighboring countries like South Africa and Botswana to buy flour, sugar,and cooking oil," said journalist Brian Hungwe.

Empty supermarket shelves are a common sight. People dig holes in the ground for filthy, contaminated water and turn to the black market for fuel.

Among the many who have fled Zimbabwe are professionals reduced to a life of odd jobs.

"As long as I'm getting money," said Blessing Tembo, a Zimbabwean engineer who takes whatever work he can find, whether it's cleaning someone's yard or carrying goods.

Tembo spoke from Francistown, Botswana, a border town that has absorbed thousands of Zimbabwean refugees looking for jobs, food and health care.

Nurses in Francistown say so many pregnant Zimbabweans are flooding Botswana that they're delivering more Zimbabwean babies than local ones.

"There are few doctors," Lydia Chishike, a pregnant Zimbabwean, said in Francistown. "Sometimes you go for a checkup, and there will be no doctors. Things are not in good condition there."

Economic solution includes $10 million bill

Zimbabwe has introduced measures to try to stem the country's decline, including the printing of more money in higher denominations. The latest is a $10 million bill.

Strict price controls punish businesses that price goods above levels set by the government, and a new bill forces foreign-owned businesses to give controlling interests in their operations to black Zimbabweans.

Once revered for offering its citizens some of the best education and health care in Africa, Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world and education is becoming a luxury.

Mugabe denies mismanagement and instead blames economic woes on the West.

"They have even interfered with international organizations of which we are a member -- the World Bank and IMF [International Monetary Fund] -- which cannot extend any facility to Zimbabwe unless America and Britain say so," Mugabe has said.

In a CNN interview in 2000, Mugabe offered insight into his thinking on elections and power.

"When you go to elections it is not necessarily that of including every party in your Cabinet," he said. "You go into elections competing with each and every other group in order to win. Win and govern."

Article can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/03/27/zimbabwe.election/

Putting a human face on AIDS statistics in Africa

It is easy to take the statistics, even one of an epidemic,
and never fully understand them as anything else other than numbers. No emotion
goes into reading numbers, no humanity is necessary to analyze graphs, charts,
or percentages. But there is some emotional baggage that comes with hearing the
stories of those individual people who are affected by something like HIV AIDS.
There is something deafening, something biting, something ultimately
frustrating and scary that comes with choosing to take a walk on the human side
of a figure like: "Some 15 million children under age 18 have lost one or
both parents to AIDS," or "...new projections that expanded access to
prevention could avert approximately 30 million of the 60 million HIV
infections expected to occur by 2015" (statistics can be found at
UNAIDS.org). What does 15, or even 30 million people look like? How many tears
shed, how many hearts breaking, how many homes lost, how many and lives
destroyed does that amount to? How do you measure the social stigma-the
loneliness, feelings of despair and helplessness-or the excruciating pain that
comes with those vast numbers of people affected by the HIV AIDS virus?

These were things I tried desperately to grapple with as I
began to study the history and current consequences of AIDS. What I found is
that the issue is much greater than I had ever thought. AIDS is not just a
disease that coincidentally happens to affect mainly poor, southern Africans,
the majority of which are women and children. There are real systematic,
institutional, social, and economic factors that add up to the highest rates of
HIV AIDS infection rates being concentrated among poor, southern Africans.
These factors together are what Dr. Paul Farmer has termed "structural
violence." Structural violence is "historically given" and often
"economically driven" factors that conspire through "routine,
ritual...[and] the hard surfaces" to constrain the lives, well being, and
mobility of people. Examples can include but are not limited to racism, sexism,
political violence, and poverty (Patholgies of Power, Farmer, 2005). The
majority of structural violence is aimed toward the poorer peoples of their
earth, as they are easy to exploit due to their lack of socio-economic voice. I
plan on posting more with specific examples of these structural problems in a
few days, as I am researching this further for a paper, so don't kill me for
leaving off here for now!

Now that I better understand what's going on...what do I
plan to do about it? The last thing I want to do is sit around and do nothing,
theorize and criticize the situation without getting my hands dirty and trying
to fix it. So this summer, I'm forsaking the beach, the movies, the vacations,
TV, internet, shopping, and whatever else people do for fun in the summer to
have what I'm sure will be the experience of a lifetime. I'm going to Africa.

During the upcoming summer, it is my intention to take my
newfound AIDS prevention knowledge and put it into practice. I will complete an
internship at the VumundzukuBya-Vana Youth
Center in Zonkizizwe, South Africa.
Zonki, as they call it, is an extremely isolated village south of Johannesburg. I'll be
there anywhere between 10-14 weeks, depending on the cost of travel and
obligations back in the States. This youth center's purpose is to provide
physical, emotional, and social support for children and youth made susceptible
by HIV AIDS. Many of the children living in the area have lost a family member
or friend to the virus, and some may be infected themselves. Some of the
children live in youth headed households, or are being raised by someone other
than their natural parents. As an intern at the Youth Center,
I would be responsible for planning after school activities for the children
living in Zonkizizwe. These activities include providing health and nutritional
education, promoting academic progress, self expression, social responsibility,
and communication as well as problem solving skills. Educational programming
would specifically focus on addressing high risk behaviors in the environment
that many children in South
Africa experience daily: teen pregnancy,
unprotected sex, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, illiteracy, and poverty. I
would not be leading these activities by myself, however, as I would have the
pleasure of working with and helping the existing native staff at the facility
to undertake these responsibilities.

Getting to know the staff and experiencing life in
Zonkizizwe like they do is one of the things I am most looking forward to. I
also absolutely cannot wait to interact with the children! I realize that many
of them are not proficient in English, but that's OK. I know about two words of
Zulu, the language primarily spoken in the area, so we'll be even. Finding ways
of communicating with each other should be very interesting, and I'm up for the
challenge. Plus, the older kids will be able help me out. My primary reason for
this trip has always been then children...they are the ones that suffer the
most with no voice.

I have chosen this internship because as a Social Relations
and Policy student with a Black American and Diasporic Studies (BADS)
specialization at Michigan
State University,
I am interested in how policies affect the social development of people. I am
especially interested in learning about educational policies and how they
affect the physical, emotional, and social development of Black children across
the globe. I have participated in a mentoring program called My Brother's
Keeper (a program through Malcolm X Academy in Detroit) to understand how post-
Brown v. Board of Education educational policies have affected children of
color in the United States, and now I wish to experience these affects in the
greater African Diaspora. I would like experience first hand how post-Apartheid
educational policies are affecting black children in South Africa. It is my wish to
compare and contrast the experiences of Black children in the educational
system across the Diaspora, and potentially expand my study into a dissertation
topic on my road to earning a PhD in African American and African Studies. If I
don't decide to go into academia, and go in the direction my heart truly lies--
non-profit work-then I'll have some great experiences under my belt to get me
ready for the rest of my life. I know that if I truly wanted, I could do both.
There is nothing stopping me other than financial burden, but even then I know
that where the will's strong enough to do something, there will be ways to make
it happen. I have that will, that drive, and that passion to help others. I
recognize as an outsider my role is not to come in and play the savior to any
group of people, but to listen to their concerns, needs, and cares. From there
I will work with them, to meet the needs in the best way possible, for that is
all I can really do as a human being. I will fill in the blanks and teach
others what I know for the sake of progress, but otherwise I am happy to be a
servant.

I know throughout the course of the summer, my heart will
break and the tears will flow, but I will move on. We cannot stop and grieve
for the sorry state of the poor in this world. There is a time for sadness, frustration,
and anger, but it must lead us to action rather than to apathy. If you have
time to be angry about something, if you have time to cry, then you have time
to love and time to labor toward bettering it. This is what I plan to do for
the rest of my life, no matter how much it hurts.