person:robert mugabe

Percy Zvomuya pays homage to historian #Terence_Ranger
▻http://africasacountry.com/percy-zvomuya-pays-homage-to-historian-terence-ranger

In 2004, after Terence Ranger had delivered a paper at the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (Wiser), I went up to him to greet him, make a few.....

#AFRICA_IS_A_COUNTRY #historiography #history #nationalism #Rhodesia #Robert_Mugabe #Zimbabwe

Political #THEATER: ‘Breakfast with Mugabe’
▻http://africasacountry.com/political-theater-breakfast-with-mugabe

“Breakfast with Mugabe,” on extended run #Off-Broadway in New York City, is set in Zimbabwe in 2001, on the eve of national elections. Based on newspaper reports of the time that alleged that #Robert_Mugabe had turned to a white Zimbabwean psychiatrist to help him cope with recurrent visitations by the ngozi, or malevolent spirit, of one of his former comrades, the play delves into the psychological motivations behind Mugabe’s highly controversial land redistribution policies.

#Breakfast_with_Mugabe #Franz_Fanon #Michael_Rogers #psychoanalysis #Third_Chimurenga

#Robert_Mugabe comes to #Off-Broadway
▻http://africasacountry.com/robert-mugabe-comes-to-off-broadway

“Breakfast with Mugabe,” on extended run Off-Broadway in New York City, is set in Zimbabwe in 2001, on the eve of national elections. Based on newspaper reports of the time that alleged that Robert Mugabe had turned to a white Zimbabwean psychiatrist to help him cope with recurrent visitations by the ngozi, or malevolent spirit, of one of his former comrades, the play delves into the psychological motivations behind Mugabe’s highly controversial land redistribution policies.

#THEATER #Breakfast_with_Mugabe #Franz_Fanon #Michael_Rogers #psychoanalysis #Third_Chimurenga

Beefing with Mugabe
▻http://africasacountry.com/beefing-with-mugabe

To test the patients of #Zimbabwe’s Life President #Robert_Mugabe, Russian artist Petro Wodkins built a meter high gold statue hoping he could offer it to the man in question. It’s not because he wants to start a beef with the man he calls a dictator, but because “Robert like GOLD.” Wodkins, not his real name, is a provocative artist who does not take no for an answer. He got himself invited to an exhibition in Harare, but when the organizers saw the work he was proposing and his request to hand over his gift in person, they disinvited him. when his request to hand over his gift in person was denied he still decided to travel down to Harare, equipped with hidden cameras to shoot a video to a song that mocks Mugabe and of course the golden (...)

#MEDIA #ART #Pedro_Watkins #satire

Starting a beef with Mugabe
▻http://africasacountry.com/starting-a-beef-with-mugabe

To test the patients of #Zimbabwe’s Life President #Robert_Mugabe, Russian artist Petro Wodkins built a meter high gold statue hoping he could offer it to the man in question. It’s not because he wants to start a beef with the man he calls a dictator, but because “Robert like GOLD.” Wodkins, not his real name, is a provocative artist who does not take no for an answer. He got himself invited to an exhibition in Harare, but when the organizers saw the work he was proposing and his request to hand over his gift in person, they disinvited him. when his request to hand over his gift in person was denied he still decided to travel down to Harare, equipped with hidden cameras to shoot a video to a song that mocks Mugabe and of course the golden (...)

#MEDIA #ART #Pedro_Watkins #satire

Doris Lessing, prix Nobel de littérature en 2007, militante féministe, anti-colonialiste et anti-apartheid, est morte ce dimanche. En août 2003, elle dressait dans nos colonnes un portrait cinglant de Robert Mugabe, président du Zimbabwe, un pays qu’elle connaissait intimement depuis l’enfance.

Quand la révolution mange ses enfants
Pleure, ô Zimbabwe bien-aimé, par Doris Lessing (août 2003)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2003/08/LESSING/10306

Traductions disponibles :
– persan : ▻http://ir.mondediplo.com/article152.html
– portugais du Brésil : ▻http://diplo.org.br/2003-08,a709

Zimbabwe and North Korea: Uranium, elephants, and a massacre | NK News – North Korea News

▻http://www.nknews.org/2013/10/zimbabwe-and-north-korea-uranium-elephants-and-a-massacre

Zimbabwe, under the rule of despot Robert Mugabe, has long been a friend of the Kim family and recently aided the North Korean nuclear weapons program. After four years of deliberations, an “arms for uranium” pact was signed between the two in 2013.

http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/mugabe-kim-il-sung2.jpg

In exchange for arms and ammunition of unspecified quantities, the North Koreans were granted access to Zimbabwe’s Kanyemba district, one of the world’s largest uranium reserves, for the elusive yellowcake used in making nuclear weapons. News of this deal went unknown in the West but Nehanda Radio in Zimbabwe reported on the pact.

#corée_du_nord

La curieuse « Bible » de Robert Mugabe - Making-of
▻http://blogs.afp.com/makingof/?post/2013/08/27/La-curieuse-«-Bible-»-de-Mugabe

#Mugabe est en train de prêter serment sur la « Maxwell Leadership Bible », qui n’est pas une Bible à proprement parler, mais plutôt un recueil de textes bibliques annotés avec des conseils pour améliorer ses qualités de dirigeant. Elle a été écrite par John Maxwell, un prédicateur évangéliste américain et gourou du développement personnel très populaire parmi les chefs d’entreprise aux Etats-Unis. Maxwell, également connu pour son livre « Les 21 lois irréfutables du leadership », s’est bâti un réseau mondial d’inconditionnels. Ses ouvrages se sont vendus à des millions d’exemplaires.

Achille Mbembé : « les pays de l’Afrique australe choisissent la stabilité au détriment de la probité électorale » - Entretien - RFI
▻http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130820-achille-mbembe-sadc-malawi-mugabe-organisation-sous-regionale-afrique-a

La Communauté de développement d’Afrique australe (SADC) vient de clore son sommet au Malawi ce week-end du 17 et 18 août. Un sommet au cours duquel « le camarade Robert Mugabe » a été félicité, et même nommé au poste de président suppléant. Pourquoi ce soutien au président du Zimbabwe ? Pourquoi la SADC n’a toujours pas réussi depuis 2009 à résoudre la crise politique malgache ? Quel bilan peut-on faire de l’action de la SADC ? Achille Mbembé, intellectuel camerounais et professeur d’histoire et de sciences politiques à l’université Witwatersrand de Johannesburg est l’invité de RFI.

#SADC #Afrique_australe #Zimbabwe

Why a Robert #Mugabe victory would be good for #Zimbabwe:
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/02/robert-mugabe-zimbabwe-victory-good

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/8/2/1375443550160/Robert-Mugabe-010.jpg

I’ll refrain from shooting the article’s horrendous sycophancy down in flames - it is too pathetic. But underneath the layer of crap, the article does have a point : land reform is the key.

While I highly doubt that what passes for land reform under Mugabe is anything but an exercise in cronyist corruption, the need for land reform itself is a persisting sore point that provides an anchor for discontent ever since the independence.

Foreign agrarian exploiters and their supporters may not like it but, even if Mugabe goes down, the need for land redistribution won’t go away and if Mugabe’s successor does not seriously tackle it, it will provide great fuel for its opponent who will then have popular sympathy on its side.

Baba Jukwa, ’#Zimbabwe's own Julian Assange’ - Voices of Africa
▻http://voicesofafrica.co.za/baba-jukwa-zimbabwes-own-julian-assange

His name is whispered in buses, bars and on street corners by Zimbabweans eager for the inside scoop on President Robert #Mugabe’s ruling party. One avid follower even climbs a tree in a rural village for a signal to call a friend for the latest tidbits from the mysterious yet stupendously popular character.

Baba Jukwa, or Jukwa’s father in the local Shona language, is a Zanu-PF party “mole” who says on his popular #Facebook page that he is disheartened by the “corrupt and evil machinations” of Mugabe’s fractious party.

http://voicesofafrica.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/jukwa.jpg

#whistleblower

South Africa steps in over alleged #Zimbabwe mass rapes | FAIR
▻http://fairreporters.net/2013/02/26/south-africa-steps-in-over-alleged-zimbabwe-mass-rapes

South African prosecutors will investigate President Robert Mugabe’s political party for crimes against humanity for an alleged campaign of mass rapes in Zimbabwe’s last election.

#afrique_du_sud #viols

The global struggle for queer freedom

By Peter Tatchell

London - 8 November 2012 - Global magazine
►http://bit.ly/YOXdZV


Homophobic persecution and discrimination is rife in large parts of the world, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are still not recognised or protected by international law. Nonetheless, progress towards equality is being made thanks to the defiance and bravery of activists.


Over the last two decades, the impoverished South Asian nation of Nepal has made an extraordinary transition from monarchical tyranny to a secular democratic republic. This progress has included significant advances for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Thanks to the campaigns of the LGBT or­ganisation, the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), there is cross-party consensus on LGBT equality in parliament, and the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled in 2007 that the government must repeal all laws that discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As a consequence, citizenship and ID documents now include the option of ‘third gender’ to address the demands of people who do not identify themselves as either male or female; Nepal has opened South Asia’s first LGBT community centre; MPs are considering the legalisation of same-sex marriage; and the openly gay leader of the BDS, Sunil Pant, was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 2008 and now hosts one of Nepal’s most popular TV talk shows. Progress indeed.

However, in large parts of the world, homophobic and transphobic oppression remains rife. It is estimated that the global LGBT population is somewhere between 250 million and 500 million people (5-10 percent of the world population aged over 16). Most of these people – hundreds of millions of them – are forced to hide their sexuality, fearing ostracism, harassment, discrimination, imprisonment, torture and even murder.

Some of this violence is perpetrated by vigilantes, including right-wing death squads in certain regions of countries like Mexico and Brazil. They justify the killing of queers as ‘social cleansing’. Other homophobic persecution is officially encouraged and enforced by governments, police, courts, media and religious leaders. MPs in Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania, some Moldovan cities and several Russian regions have proposed or passed laws banning so-called homosexual propaganda and promotion.

In Russia, religious leaders have united to denounce the LGBT community. The Orthodox Church has called homosexuality a “sin which destroys human beings and condemns them to a spiritual death”. The Supreme Mufti of Russia’s Muslims, Talgat Tajuddin, says gay campaigners “should be bashed…Sexual minorities have no rights, because they have crossed the line. Alternative sexuality is a crime against God.” Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Berel Lazar, has condemned Gay Pride parades as “a blow for morality”, adding that there is no right to “sexual perversions”. Successive Moscow mayors have repeatedly banned Gay Pride marches. This violates Russia’s constitution and law, which guarantee freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest. LGBT people who have attempted to march have been beaten and arrested.

Meanwhile, the total criminalisation of homosexuality continues in nearly 80 countries – including most of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East – with penalties ranging from a one-year jail sentence to life imprisonment. Half of these countries are former British colonies and current members of the Commonwealth – an association of nations that is supposedly committed to uphold democracy and human rights. The anti-gay laws in these Commonwealth nations were originally legislated by the British government in the 19th century during the period of colonial rule. They were never repealed when these nations won their independence from Britain.

As well as homophobic laws, British imperialism imposed homophobic prejudice by means of the fire-and-brimstone Christian fundamentalist missionaries who sought to ‘civilise’ the so-called ‘heathen’ peoples of the colonies. They instilled in these countries an intolerance of homosexuality that continues to this day. As a result, in part at least, homophobia is rampant in much of Africa.

In the last year, more than 20 men have been arrested in Cameroon on suspicion of homosexuality, often without any clear evi­dence that they had same-sex relations. Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé has spent a year in prison for sending an SMS text message to an­other man: “I’m very much in love w/u.” He is facing another two years behind bars in a filthy, insanitary prison where he suffers daily abuse from guards and inmates. In Nigeria, in 2005, six teenage lesbians, one only 12 years old, were ordered to be punished with an agonising 90 lashes for consensual same-sex relations. More recently, a Nigerian gay pastor from the House of Rainbow church and another Christian gay activist were forced to flee the country after receiving death threats. They were given no police protection. Government ministers in Namibia, echoing the hatred of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, have denounced lesbians and gays as “un-African”, as traitors and as spreaders of HIV/AIDS.

However, homophobic oppression is most extreme in the Islamist states that impose the death penalty for same-sex relations, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen. In some regions of other countries – such as Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia – shariah law is enforced and LGBT people can be stoned to death. The Iranian persecution of LGBTs continues unabated. Twenty-two-year-old Amir was entrapped via a gay dating website. The person he arranged to meet turned out to be a member of the morality police. Amir was jailed, tortured and sentenced to 100 lashes, which caused him to lose consciousness and left his whole back covered in huge bloody welts. He is just one of many Iranian LGBTs who have been subjected to lashings, torture and imprisonment – and who are at risk of execution. In early 2006, Iran’s Gulf neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, imposed a six-year jail sentence on 11 gay men arrested at a private party. They were not imprisoned for sexual acts, but merely for being gay and attending a gay social gathering.

Iraq is an example of extreme persecution – LGBT Iraqis suffer even more today than they did under the dictator Saddam Hussein. A BBC investigation in 2012 revealed that the police have colluded with the targeted murder of up to 1,000 LGBT people by Islamist militias and death squads who seek the total extermination of ‘sexual deviants’. Gang rape, torture and detention without trial are also commonplace. The Iraqi government is denying or ignoring this homophobic terror campaign. Francesco Motta, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Iraq, says the Iraqi government is in violation of international law and its failure to take action against the killings makes the state an accomplice to the crime.

Amid this gloom, in 2008 something truly remarkable and historic happened: 66 countries signed a UN statement calling for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality and condemning homophobic discrimination and violence. Although the statement fell short of majority support and is not binding on UN member states, this was the first time the UN General Assembly had addressed the issue of LGBT human rights. Previous attempts had been blocked by an unholy alliance of the Vatican and Islamist states.

In March 2011, a new version of the statement was signed by 85 countries. Three months later, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning anti-LGBT discrimination and hate crimes, urging a UN report on the issue. The report, authored by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, was published in December 2011, and noted with concern: “Homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in all regions. Such violence may be physical (including murder, beatings, kidnappings, rape and sexual assault) or psychological (including threats, coercion and arbitrary deprivations of liberty).”

Despite these breakthroughs, even today no international hu­man rights convention specifically acknowledges love and sexual rights as human rights. None explicitly guarantees equality and non-discrimination to LGBT people. The right to love a person of one’s choice is absent from global humanitarian statutes. Relationships between partners of the same sex are not officially recognised in any international law. There is nothing in the many UN conventions that specifically upholds LGBT equality and prohibits homophobic discrimination. Some UN members and bodies have merely chosen to interpret the general commitments to equal rights and non-discrimination in the existing conventions as applying to LGBT people.

Likewise with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It is only in the last decade or so that the ECHR’s equality and privacy clauses have been interpreted to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. In the late 1990s, British LGBT citizens filed appeals at the European Court of Human Rights against the UK’s then discriminatory, homophobic laws. They cited the ECHR’s right to privacy and anti-discrimination clauses to successfully challenge anti-gay UK legislation dating back centuries. These victories in Strasbourg forced the British government to repeal the unequal age of consent for gay men, discriminatory sexual offences laws and the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the armed forces. ECHR judgements also successfully pressured other countries, such as Romania and Cyprus, to decriminalise homosexuality. The convention has thus played an important role in challenging and overturning homophobic legislation.

Of the 193 member states of the UN, only a handful have repealed nearly all major legal inequalities against LGBT people: the Netherlands, South Africa, Belgium, Spain, France, Brazil, Germany, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Canada, New Zealand and, more recently, the UK.

Britain’s record was not always so positive. Until 1999, when legislative reform began, the UK had the largest number of homophobic laws of any country on earth – some of them dating back centuries. Thanks to an astute 20-year twin-track campaign of direct action protest and parliamentary lobbying, today the UK is one of the world’s most progressive countries on LGBT rights.

Some supposedly liberal democracies have been slow to grant LGBT equality. The USA maintains a federal ban on same-sex marriage and not all states have full anti-discrimination protection. The Australian parliament recently voted down a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry, even though such legislation has overwhelming public support. Most of the emergent post-communist Central and Eastern European democracies maintain varying degrees of legal discrimination – and harbour public attitudes that are extremely homophobic.

Despite this discrimination, LGBT people have made huge strides forward in many parts of the world. A mere four decades ago, ‘queers’ were almost universally seen as mad, bad and sad. Same-sex relations were deemed a sin, a crime and a sickness. It was only in the early 1990s that the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality as an illness, and that Amnesty International agreed to campaign for LGBT human rights and to adopt jailed LGBTs as prisoners of conscience.

Nowadays, the global tide is shifting in favour of LGBT emancipation. In 1999, in New Zealand, Georgina Beyer became the world’s first openly transgender MP. Uruguay, once a military dictatorship, has lifted its prohibition on gay servicemen and women. History has been made in Lebanon – the first Arab Middle East nation to allow the open, legal establishment of an LGBT welfare and human rights group, Helem.

While fundamentalist religion is still a major threat to LGBT equality, campaigners also have allies in many faiths. The anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu has compared homophobia to racism, and described the battle for LGBT freedom as the moral equivalent of the fight against apartheid. Eight countries now outlaw sexual orientation discrimination in their constitutions: South Africa (1996), Ecuador (1998), Switzerland (2000), Sweden (2003), Portugal (2004), the British Virgin Islands (2007), Kosovo (2008) and Bolivia (2009).

In almost every country on earth, there are LGBT freedom movements – some open, others clandestine. For the first time ever, countries like the Philippines, Estonia, Columbia, Russia, Sri Lanka and China are hosting LGBT conferences and Gay Pride celebrations. Via the internet and pop culture, LGBT people in small towns in Ghana, Peru, Uzbekistan, Kuwait, Vietnam, St Lucia, Palestine, Fiji and Kenya are connecting with the worldwide LGBT community. The struggle for LGBT liberation has gone global. We’ve begun to roll back the homophobia of centuries. Bravo!

More info: www.PeterTatchellFoundation.org

About the author:

Peter Tatchell has campaigned for human rights and LGBT freedom since 1967. In 1999, he made a citizen’s arrest of the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, for human rights abuses.

Desmond Tutu appelle à déférer Tony Blair et Georges Bush devant la Cour pénale internationale :
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/02/desmond-tutu-tony-blair-iraq

On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers’ circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush’s chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

#Zimbabwe: Moyo loses sleep over #Wikileaks - Newsday
►http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2011-09-14-moyo-loses-sleep-over-wikileaks

Zanu PF politiburo member Jonathan Moyo has presented the party with a “golden opportunity” to discuss the emotive succession issue and those quoted in the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables should stick to their guns and tell President Robert Mugabe to go, analysts said yesterday.

#cablegate

Now, doesn’t that make me feel better. There’s an irony in this, though.

BBC News - Mugabe in Rome for beatification of Pope John Paul II
►http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13248101

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has arrived in Rome for the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II.

An EU travel ban forbids him from visiting member states but the Vatican, where the ceremony will take place, is a sovereign state and not in the EU.

Mr Mugabe, a Roman Catholic, has been allowed to transit through Italy.

Zimbabwe First Lady to sue newspaper for printing WikiLeaked cable | WikiLeaked
►http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/16/zimbabwe_first_lady_threatens_to_sue_newspaper_for_printing

Là c’est vrai, on n’apprend rien.

On Dec. 12, The Standard newspaper in #Zimbabwe printed a WikiLeaked cable calling out Grace #Mugabe, wife of Robert Mugabe, for being wrapped up in a messy and largely illegal #diamond trade. Mrs. Mugabe (...) announced today that she is suing the newspaper for $15 million for defamation.