Commentaries, Analysis, And Reaction To The Coup In Zimbabwe -- November 17, 2017

David McKenzie, Jamie Tarabay and Angela Dewan, CNN: Mugabe's exit is 'a done deal' but Zimbabwe is still in limbo

Harare, Zimbabwe (CNN)Zimbabwe's best-known opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called on President Robert Mugabe to step aside as the country's military leaders continued their efforts to end the isolated strongman's decades-long rule.

Tsvangirai, who had been receiving cancer treatment abroad, returned to Harare after the military took control In Harare and placed Mugabe under house arrest on Wednesday.

The political upheaval presents Tsvangirai with the best opportunity in years to influence the country's future. A senior member of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) party told CNN that talks were underway about a transitional government that includes the opposition were underway, and that Mugabe's exit was a "done deal."

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Reaction To The Coup In Zimbabwe -- November 17, 2017

Zimbabwe takeover: Five things you should know -- BBC
Zimbabwe army takes over: key players -- AFP
Zimbabwe crisis — 6 things you need to know -- Deutsche Welle
After Mugabe’s detention, we’re hoping Zimbabwe’s democracy has been saved -- Reason Wafawarova, The Guardian
Robert Mugabe: What next for Zimbabwe's leader? -- Lebo Diseko, BBC
Zimbabwe, With Mugabe in Custody, Ventures Into Uncharted Territory -- New York Times
Zimbabwe: Here's what's going on between President Robert Mugabe and the military -- ABC Online
Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe seemed invincible but era ends -- Christopher Torchia, AP
Could Zimbabwe's ex-VP Emmerson Mnangagwa become its next president? -- Daniel Pelz, DW
The Guardian view on Zimbabwe: the Crocodile bites Mugabe -- Guardian Editorial
Zimbabwe Coup: 'Lacoste Faction' Has Defeated Rivals Backing Grace Mugabe -- Sputnik
Zimbabwe’s top brass unlikely to govern the country — analyst -- TASS
Tactical error leaves weakened Mugabe facing end of an era -- Jason Burke, The Guardian
What happened in Zimbabwe? How a political crisis became a military takeover -- The Globe and Mail
Analysis: Robert Mugabe's departure would hold no guarantees for a better life in Zimbabwe -- Mary Lloyd, ABC News Online
How obscene that even today Mugabe's many British apologists call him a 'freedom fighter' -- Stephen Cohen, Daily Mail
How the people of Zimbabwe were sidelined, yet again -- Takura Zhangazhaby, Al Jazeera
Robert Mugabe's Long Reign in Zimbabwe: A Timeline -- New York Times

Commentary, Analysis, And Reaction To The Coup In Zimbabwe

Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg: Zimbabwe's Coup Is Nothing to Celebrate

But there is a valuable lesson for other dictators looking to hold onto power.

As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.

Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, argued in a recent paper that most dictators fall for reasons proving that they are all too human: Hubris, a propensity for needless risk, liberalization impulses that lead to a slippery slope, picking the wrong successor, counterproductive violence. Mugabe, 93, is no exception; he groomed the wrong person to succeed him and relied too much on his military. When he tried to change his pick, the generals decided they'd had enough.

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Commentary, Analysis, And Reaction To The Coup In Zimbabwe

How Zimbabwe's Mugabe clung to power for almost 40 years -- Washington Post
Balance of Power: Curtain Draws on Mugabe Era With Zimbabwe in Ruins -- Karl Maier, Bloomberg
Zimbabwe crisis: Why is the military taking over, is it a coup and what next for Robert and Grace Mugabe? -- The Independent
The downfall of the world's oldest dictator: From a young Catholic Marxist, to a political prisoner turned violent guerrilla leader who became a brutal despot -- Daily Mail
Will Mugabe's hated wife be the tyrant's downfall? IAN BIRRELL explains how power in Zimbabwe could be swinging in favour of former vice-president dubbed 'The Crocodile' -- Daily Mail
The Mugabe era is over, the old regime is not -- Claus Stäcker, DW
How Mugabe Lost His Grip on Power -- Michael Cohen, Bloomberg
What just happened in Zimbabwe? How a political crisis became a military takeover -- The Globe and Mail
Who are the key players in the Zimbabwe crisis? -- Al Jazeera
Who's in charge in Zimbabwe? Here are the leading players -- CTV News
Robert Mugabe - revolutionary hero or the man who wrecked Zimbabwe? -- Joseph Winter, BBC
How Mugabe's reign over Zimbabwe became a byword for misrule -- Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
Zimbabwe takeover: Difficulties of navigating the media jungle -- Sella Oneko, DW
In Harare, uncertainty and optimism after army takeover -- Enock Muchinjo, Al Jazeera
'Like a dream': Harare wakes up to new era after a very low-key coup -- The Guardian
Grace Mugabe: the rags to riches rise and fall of 'Gucci Grace' -- Simon Allison, The Guardian
Grace Mugabe: Who is Zimbabwe's first lady? -- BBC
How Mugabe's reign over Zimbabwe became a byword for misrule -- Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
Zimbabwe: From VP sacking to Mugabe house arrest -- AFP
Zimbabwe's Military Says There's Nothing to See Here -- Foreign Policy
Mugabe: Liberation hero turned despot -- AFP
After 37 years, rule of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe appears to be over -- AP
Robert Mugabe's most famous quotes -- Aljazeera
Zimbabweans in London: 'Today a comma not a full stop' -- George Mann and Joice Etutu, BBC
Zimbabweans elated but cautious as Mugabe flounders -- AFP
Zimbabweans in South Africa hope for change at home as army seizes power -- Reuters

Zimbabwe Braces for Turmoil

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe addresses a speech, on April 18, 2008 during celebrations for the country's independence. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP

New York Times: Seeing President Mugabe’s Frailty, Zimbabwe Braces for Turmoil

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The independence festivities took place just as they have for decades: led by President Robert Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has ever had.

But as Mr. Mugabe, 92, inspected a military parade during the celebrations last month, he did something unusual. When his vehicle stopped in front of a framed picture of the president, Mr. Mugabe bowed before his own portrait. Zimbabweans were stunned. Had their president grown so feeble, they wondered, that he could no longer recognize the person in front of him?

Mr. Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, said this year that he would preside over Zimbabwe “until God says, ‘Come.’ ” His increasingly powerful wife, Grace, vowed that her husband would rule from a special wheelchair until he was 100.

But the end of an era looms over this capital. As Mr. Mugabe has grown visibly weaker in the past year, talk of his death dominates the private conversations of the governing class, leading to some cutthroat maneuvering for the endgame.

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WNU Editor: When tyrants leave (naturally or not) the outcome is usually harsh. In the case of Zimbabwe it is easy to predict what will happen after Mugabe has died .... a power struggle that will be eventually decided by who controls the guns and security apparatus. And as for Robert Mugabe's legacy .... another revolutionary leader whose claim to fame will be the methods that he used to impose harm and brutality among many of his citizens.

Zimbabwe Is Dying -- A Commentary

Children line up for a meal at a CARE supplementary feeding program in Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. (© CARE 2002/A. John Watson)

From The New York Times:

If you want to see hell on earth, go to Zimbabwe where the madman Robert Mugabe has brought the country to such a state of ruin that medical care for most of the inhabitants has all but ceased to exist.

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is now the lowest in the world: 37 years for men and 34 for women. A cholera epidemic is raging. People have become ill with anthrax after eating the decaying flesh of animals that had died from the disease. Power was lost to the morgue in the capital city of Harare, leaving the corpses to rot.

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Time To Forcefully Oust Mugabe -- A Commentary

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Washington - In the past decade, working as a US diplomat and then as a human rights advocate, I've had the perversely unique opportunity to meet on occasion with one of the longest-serving dictators in the world, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

These three- or four-hour marathon meetings were right out of central casting, with an out-of-touch octogenarian autocrat spouting vitriol against the British, democracy, and American corporate interests while sipping tea and speaking in an English accent even Queen Elizabeth would envy.

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Only A Military Invasion Can Save Zimbabwe -- A Commentary

From Times Online:

After Iraq the West will blanch at the prospect, but it must find the political will for action to help this dying nation.

Long after you leave Zimbabwe images linger in the mind, harrowing and ineradicable. An emaciated old woman making “soup” from weeds for her orphaned grandchildren; desperate parents foraging in the bush for a handful of desiccated berries; young men defying crocodiles to catch a handful of tiny fish in the Zambezi; the corpses of cholera victims trussed up in black plastic sheeting; the ubiquitous and debilitated Aids victims; perfunctory funerals in Harare's cemetery while, all around, fresh graves are dug.

The pathetic attempts to grow vegetables on scraps of common land; the queues desperate to withdraw a few pennies from banks before their money loses all its value; the listlessness and despair of a crushed and broken people, the anguish of priests, doctors and aid workers overwhelmed by this tsunami of suffering...

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A Port in Zimbabwe's Storm -- A Commentary

From The Washington Post:

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe -- There is a perfect humanitarian storm in my country. The threats of AIDS, poverty, hyperinflation and malnutrition, and now cholera, combined with a regime that has given up on its people, add up to an all-but-untenable state of affairs. It is difficult to know where to turn, but it is clear that under such a barrage, a haven must be found. At the moment, that haven -- perhaps the only port in this storm -- is the transitional agreement inked in September by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

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Zimbabwe: Dragging Out The End -- An Editorial

Zimbabwean police assault members of the National Constitutional Assembly demonstrating in Harare, July, 2007. [© AP Images]

From The Guardian:

Zimbabwe's nightmare will not end any time soon. The foreign office minister Mark Malloch-Brown was only stating yesterday what had been evident for some time - that efforts to form a power-sharing government were deadlocked and that Robert Mugabe had become the chief obstacle to forming one. On Sunday Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, said the US would not support a power-sharing agreement with Mr Mugabe remaining as president.

The target of both statements was not Mr Mugabe, who continues to mouth inanities like "Zimbabwe is mine", but his Southern African neighbours. They too were the subjects of Mr Mugabe's wrath when he dared them to invade his country. He told Zanu-PF's central committee on Friday that he did not know of any African country brave enough to do that. In other words: come and get me.

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Zimbabwe: As Bad As It Gets, Until It Gets Worse -- A Commentary

From Newsweek:

When you hear the brutal details about Zimbabwe, it's hard to imagine how it can get any worse without the government collapsing, or Robert Mugabe resigning. The hyperinflation, the millions going hungry, the canceled anti-AIDS programs, the 3 million (out of a total 11 million) who have fled the country. Then you go there, as I did in June, and the most striking thing is the normalcy amid all that hardship. There's the group of nine high-school graduates meeting with the American ambassador before they head to the United States for college; at night they hide from marauding enforcers looking for opposition voters. Young men with clubs chant as they trot along a road after dark, looking for victims, but a white woman pushing a child in a stroller crosses just in front of them, unmolested. Mugabe is an Anglophile, and so are many Zimbabweans. Everyone's talking about the forthcoming elections—which Mugabe was clearly going to steal (and did)—and the vanishing or murdered opposition politicians, but they also crowd around TVs to watch Britain's Andy Murray advance to the semifinals at Wimbledon, and debate loudly whether he's too obnoxious to deserve victory.

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Zimbabwe's Nightmare Worsens -- Editorial

From Japan Times:

In the last few years, Zimbabwe has suffered through an economic crisis that has impoverished the entire nation, the destruction of its agriculture sector, and the theft of elections that its citizens had hoped would end the country's mismanagement. Incredibly, however, the situation continues to deteriorate. An internationally mediated power-sharing proposal appears to be unraveling and a cholera epidemic is sweeping the country.

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Commentaries And Opinions On Zimbabwe

Forced Action for Zimbabwe? - Washington Times editorial

Rescue Zimbabwe - Washington Post editorial

Remove Mugabe to Save African Lives - Daily Telegraph editorial

In the Land of Cholera - Wall Street Journal editorial

It Really is Time to End Zimbabwe's Misery - The Times editorial