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by Katie Fretland
The United States is urging the U.N. Security Council to consider sanctions that would freeze the financial assets of Zimbabwe's president who won a disputed election marked by political violence.
Robert Mugabe won last week's widely-condemned election for his sixth term as president. Foreign observers reported that the few voters who cast ballots voted out of fear, amid violence in which opposition supporters were killed.
According to the text of a draft resolution, Washington proposes to also freeze the assets of 11 Mugabe officials and ban them from traveling outside the country, The Associated Press reports. The United States is also pushing for Mugabe to negotiate with the opposition party to form a unity government.
Earlier this week in Cairo, Mugabe rejected the idea to share power with the opposition, the Los Angeles Times reports. Mugabe spokesman George Charamba told reporters that the West "can go hang a thousand times. They have no basis, they have no claim on Zimbabwe politics at all."
The election was a final blow to hopes of democracy and diplomats predict the fleeing of up to a million refugees, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"On the death list are some who won't get that chance," correspondent Paul Salopek writes.
"In the end, many experts believe it will be hunger and economic devastation that bring a defiant Mugabe to the negotiating table--not pressure from the West, the UN, or the African Union.
"Zimbabwe's shelves are bare. With inflation now orbiting almost meaninglessly at over 2 million percent, the country has become a surreal land of 16-billion-Zimbabwe-dollar chicken legs. Whole chickens aren't available. And Mugabe exhausted his meager treasury by handing out a last few mini-buses and farming tools to sway his cowed and slat-ribbed electorate."
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Comments
Hold on to your wallets and your young ones, America, here comes President Bush's, Shock and Awe, Part II !!!!!! What an abysmal disgrace this person has turned out to be, at anything !! This is what money can buy, concerning an education, Yale, and Harvard ??!! Wake up, America, we have eight more years of this, if the Republicans are voted into Office !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | July 3, 2008 8:36 AM
"The election was a blow to hopes of democracy, the Chicago Tribune reports."
Except for clueless Tribune reporters, who has any hopes for "democracy" in Zimbabwe? Sadly, the best we can hope for is that the awful dictator Mugabe is replaced by a more benevolent dictator.
Posted by: Bruce | July 3, 2008 10:01 AM
Why can't we hope for Democracy in Zimbabwe Bruce. Why must it be a dictatorship Is ther something that you believe makes the people of Zimbabwe particularly incapable of supporting a Democracy? Come on, share with us your deep analysis and understanding of the deep flaws in the people of Zimbabwe which make democracy impossible Bruce. I
Posted by: JT | July 3, 2008 10:39 AM
JT, I'm sure Bruce can speak for himself, but I do not think he was dissing democracy for Zimbabwe. I believe his point is that he was making fun of the Trib reporter for believing that there would be any hope of Democracy developing while Mugabe is in charge.
And, Mr. Fitzgerald, again you show an absolute inability to grasp reality. In no way has the Bush administration shown an inclination to invade Zimbabwe. However, that doesn't change the fact that what is taking place there is a major crime on humanity and is a situation in which the woeful UN should be doing something to rectify.
Why is it that Left seems so content to let dictators in Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iran. Iraq, North Korea or anywhere else continue to do their thing? There was a time when the Left believed those dictators should be taken care of. Now you folks only seek to embolden them, Why is that?
Posted by: Green Trees | July 3, 2008 1:35 PM
"JT", can you point to any year in its history when the country now called Zimbabwe was a democracy? Perhaps you can explain why this is. Explain why Zimbabwe is ranked last among the 40 sub-Saharan African nations in economic freedom (see http://www.ask.com/web?q=freedom+index+zimbabwe&search=search&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir)
or why Zimbabwe gets the lowest possible rating in press freedom?
"JT", if you had read what I wrote (judging by your spelling and grammar errors, reading isn't your strong suit), it saddens me to have to point these truths out. But truths they are.
Posted by: Bruce | July 3, 2008 4:21 PM
So Bruce, no country that hasn't been a democracy for can ever become one? I guess that whole Democracy in Iraq thing is a lie then, right?
Which is beside the point since you are just plain wrong. Mugabe initial won free elections in 1980 and remained a relatively functional democracy until the 90s. Didn't you know that Bruce? Are you ignorant of history? Or is it that you just believe the people of Africa are incapable of self-rule and democracy?
You have no truths, just lies and arrogance.
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Zimbabwe-HISTORY.html
Posted by: JT | July 3, 2008 10:50 PM