Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 84 posts

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#71

Post by Gustomaximus »

igitur wrote: post #3
badminton1 wrote: post #2

Robert Mugabe has been president of Zimbabwe since 1987. That is, 30 years.

And initially he was a very good leader. But lately, if you listen to his speeches, he is downright senile. And he can hardly walk on his own. That's why the general convention of serving a maximum of 2 or 3 terms is so important.

I've seen a few comments from 'initially he was a very good leader' followed by some criticism. I didnt know the answer so google wiki and while a lite verison of events it might help people understand things better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe#Prime_Minister_o...

Largely to me it seems he started with genuinely 'good intentions' that didn't work out, vs being a 'good leader'. Good to me includes both vision and execution.

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#72

Post by gaius »

tasssko wrote: post #24
lb1lf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to (whoever controls...) the official Zanu-PF twitter account, Robert Mugabe and his wife has been detained. The former vice president, Mnangagwa (who was sacked by Mugabe last week, so that his wife Grace could take the #2 spot) is acting president, according to an army statement. Also, reports of gun and artillery fire from northern Harare - the district where Mugabe and his cronies live. Also, predictabl…

I know people that live in northern Harare and they haven't heard any gun and artillery fire. They live within a 3-5km radius of RM and his cronies also they haven't seen any tanks - yet. All very curious, but something is up.

According to Wikipedia, Zimbabwe's army has no serviceable tanks.

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#73

Post by igitur »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #71
igitur wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And initially he was a very good leader. But lately, if you listen to his speeches, he is downright senile. And he can hardly walk on his own. That's why the general convention of serving a maximum of 2 or 3 terms is so important.

I've seen a few comments from 'initially he was a very good leader' followed by some criticism. I didnt know the answer so google wiki and while a lite verison of events it might help people understand things better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe#Prime_Minister_o... Largely to me it seems he started with genuinely 'good intentions' that didn't work out, vs being a 'good leader'. Good to me includes both…

It's probably wrong to reduce a person's success to one measure. He obviously had his failures, but his contributions to Zimbabwe's healthcare and education systems are what I remember and is why I called him a good leader early on.

Even today, here in neighbouring South Africa, there is a big gap in the average literacy rate of Zimbabwean and a South African.

Mugabe totally stuffed up the country later. But credit where credit is due.

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#74

Post by NaliSauce »

camus2 wrote: post #41
NaliSauce wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose that's one of the UNs weakness in that they lack the ability to enforce a lot of conventions.

And to put whom in power instead of him? It doesn't work.

It's been done before by the UN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodia#Vietnamese_occupation...

TL;DR: Regime in cambodia genocides about 1/4 of its population between 1975-79, is removed from power by Vietnam. UN helps recovery from destruction of society by previous govt & transition to new govt which after some initial chaos stabilizes. It's still not a proper democracy, but at least it isn't genocidal.

Considering the extremely difficult circumstances (a genocide so bad that it destabilized society & vietnam being an authoritarian regime), I am actually impressed by what the UN managed to pull off.

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#75

Post by anon989 »

zimzim wrote: post #36
anon989 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to leave his office" That was never confirmed

Its not the kind of things you can get confirmation. He was called a traitor in official letter yesterday.

He was called a traitor after issuing a statement that was a veiled threat against Mugabe. You are spreading inaccurate information

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#76

Post by anon989 »

norswap wrote: post #53
zimzim wrote: post #21

background: President is old and have succession problems. In recent years his wife trying to grab more and more power to be the next president but not everyone in the ruling party like that. last week she (from the mouth of the president) fired "number 2" in the country. since then everyone who was "friend" with number 2 was fired too. when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to…

That was my interpretation too, until the end of the article when they said the military men who seized national TV actually spoke harshly of the general close to number 2. Those were the same military men who said that the military had custody of Mugabe, so it's somewhat confusing.

The military is behind Chiwenga (friend of number 2), they only spoke harshly of, 'the criminal elements within ZanuPF. By 'criminal elements' they are referring to the G40 (anti- number 2 camp who got number 2 fired). The military has detained a lot of these 'criminal elements' and apparently Mugabe is also under 'house arrest'

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#77

Post by Flenser »

erikb wrote: post #52
zimzim wrote: post #21

background: President is old and have succession problems. In recent years his wife trying to grab more and more power to be the next president but not everyone in the ruling party like that. last week she (from the mouth of the president) fired "number 2" in the country. since then everyone who was "friend" with number 2 was fired too. when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to…

Really interested to read more about this. This is really the most critical point of the succession question: Who can get the military to follow him. Both the highest general and the government leader have strong claims for military leadership and there is no pure logical answer if highest general and government leader don't agree. All depends on what happens between the different parties.

There's a good summary here: https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/standoff-zimbabwe-strug...

From today: listen to this from around 8:10 (it starts at 6am, so skip to 2:10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09drjhz

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#78

Post by KGIII »

Lazare wrote: post #58
KGIII wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd not be so sure. It can almost always get worse.

Sure, there could be a dictatorship, awe-inspiring corruption, brutal repression of political opposition, genocide, hyper-inflation, a famine, and stunning mismanagement of every aspect of the country. ...wait, those are all things that occurred under Mugabe. How much worse can things get? (Mind you, I have no particular reason to think the coup will make things better , inasmuch as it seems to have been conducted by…

Well, they still have people living. They could address that next.

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#79

Post by badosu »

lgbr wrote: post #68
badosu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the US often acts reprehensibly, such as in the case of Chile, Iraq, and so on, the overwhelming majority of the international influence the US exerts is positive. (Citation Needed) Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

I cited examples right after where you cut off the quote.

To say that something is majority, you need to compare with the minority, minority was not provided.

Although I recognize a HN post can't possibly be able to enumerate and compare the magnitude of all possible ways the US influenced the world and tell objectively if it added more benefit than harm.

How did the US improve the stability of Middle East on the 1953 Coup d'Etat of Iran? Supporting Taliban in the 80s?

How helping overthrow (lots) of elected governments in South and Central America help them?

How is it that the US is a democracy champion but is more than happy to support cruel and corrupt military or religious dictatorships for it's own benefit? How does that help the world?

Are you really taking into account the implications of these actions and how they helped shape the current stage on your benefit-harm balance?

Re: Zimbabwe's Military in Apparent Takeover, Says It Has Custody of President

#80

Post by forapurpose »

relyio wrote: post #22
forapurpose wrote: post #14

There have been several coups or other undemocratic assumptions of power recently: Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, China (Xi seems to have made himself dictator-for-life), Turkey, and to a degree in Japan, in at least one Eastern European country, and even in France (which AFAIK now has an indefinite state of emergency curtailing rights of citizens). I wonder how much and in what way they are related to the U.S. changing its…

France has lifted its state of emergency two weeks ago after a new anti-terror law was passed by the government. While I wasn't fond of it, I am not sure it is fair to call it "undemocratic". It was hard to get out of that state of emergency precisely because it was 1/ popular 2/ politically dangerous (what happens if a major scale attack happens right after it is being lifted?).

Thanks for the update.

> I am not sure it is fair to call it "undemocratic".

> It was hard to get out of that state of emergency precisely because it was 1/ popular 2/ politically dangerous (what happens if a major scale attack happens right after it is being lifted?).

If we define 'democratic' in the literal sense, majority rule, then I agree. But that's mob rule and not what people mean when they talk about democracy. Civil rights - protection of the minority from the majority - are assumed to be essential, and the state of emergency (if I understood correctly) suspended those rights to a degree. Civil rights exist specifically for situations like this one.

The way I remember it is the saying: 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner'.

Post reply on HN