From August 2008 to July 2009, over 4,200 Zimbabweans died in one of the worst recorded cholera outbreaks in Africa.
The high death toll – far beyond the worst case UN scenario – was the result of collapsed water and sanitation infrastructure and state health services rendered dysfunctional by political tension and hyperinflation.
” . . . rendered dysfunctional by political tension and hyperinflation.”
I would have imagined that “political tension” leads primarily to heart attacks and nasty rhetoric as opposed to interference in the delivery of basic public services. Taking down water sanitation stations, however, has to do with chemicals and some routine maintenance, which may be withheld or denied by removing their funding.
I recall the Zimbabwe’s 2008 cholera outbreak as tracing back to Mugabe’s efforts to sabotage the reputation of a district-level election opponent — and I can’t find the online source for that. This may do:
Before the ZANU-PF government nationalized municipal water authorities in 2006, water treatment and delivery systems worked. The Mugabe regime, however, politicized water for political gain and profit, policies that proved disastrous, and which have clearly contributed to the ongoing cholera epidemic. All Harare residents PHR interviewed reported that trash collection has effectively ceased. Throughout 3 Harare, and especially in the poor high-density areas outside the capital, PHR investigators saw detritus littering streets and clogging intersections. Steady streams of raw sewage flow through the refuse and merge with septic waste. A current Ministry of Health official reported to PHR: There is no decontamination of waste in the country.
While the consequences differ quite between New Jersey and its governor and Zimbabwe and its President for Life (so far), the manner of control — for the malignant among narcissists, “control” over others is what it’s all about — seems dreadfully similar.
In addition to sabotaging basic services to smear opposing district politicians, we know what goes on in President Mugabe’s invention of a state inside his head that, unfortunately, has been imposed on the Zimbabwean experience of reality.
President Mugabe, this with little thanks to the hated white man — and not only white men but people of color everywhere may be thankful for that — has led Zimbabwe on a lifelong tour into the dismal regions of widespread disease, hunger, poverty, and political subjugation.
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Apart from screwing up some east coast traffic royally, as may befit his self-concept, we don’t know what else Governor Christie may be pursuing or thinking about as regards his political enemies. What we do know — what New Jersey’s constituents may know or come to recognize — is a signal from leadership associated with venturing on to a bad track (first the poo bah slows down some traffic . . . ).
USA Today decided to have a little fun with the George Washington Bridge scandal this morning.
The newspaper offered 10 lessons Gov. Chris Christie can learn from fictional mob boss Tony Soprano in the wake of Wednesday’s news.
Damage control follows scandal. Christie’s conversation may well involve “credible denial”, and that’s far from Mugabe’s reflexive finger pointing at Great Britain for all of Zimbabwe’s failure, which is really the expression of his guarded inner state and his manner of responding to that turmoil.
Operating in so scathing an open democracy and with military and treasuries separate from the grasp of a governor, Christie’s political environment may have developed its share of corruption and dirt, but it’s not going to give him the excess of power that may channel into real trouble.
Whatever the trouble, Christie can still clean it up.
That’s more than one might say for “Bobby” Mugabe and a pretty good cast of well established dictators (with far greater powers and reach) worldwide.
Related on the Reestablishment of Cholera in Zimbabwe
“Any one of these men picked by Khamenei will execute his orders,” the 80-year-old said in an interview in his house near Paris, where he has been exiled since 1981.
“The Republic is erasing itself in the face of the Leader.”
The article will go on to answer the question it has posed.
It seems there are nuts and bolts issues to be tackled by an Iranian president — inflation and unemployment, at least — but power ultimately resides with Ayatollah Khamenei by divine right.
Perhaps its that “act cleverly” part that will spur some Iranians more concerned with inflation and unemployment to vote for other than Velayati.
Reporters Without Borders condemns an increase in the Iranian government’s harassment of Iranian journalists in the final days before the 14 June presidential election and the restrictions imposed on the few foreign journalists allowed into the country to cover it.
Manipulating elections neither fair nor free nor open, the Grand Peacock has perhaps exerted sufficient control over elections — by approving only a narrowed field of candidates and by managing the “Iran Curtain” to slow Internet traffic and reduce domestic and foreign media criticism and impact, which management seems to have included already the arrests of two domestic journalists (Omid Abdolvahabi and Hesamaldin Eslamlo, according to the RWB page cited) — to keep himself feeling good about himself.
Reporters Without Borders goes on to note, “Today is the second anniversary of Iran-e-Farda journalist Hoda Saber’s death in detention, 11 days after journalist and women’s rights activist Haleh Sahabi died as a result of the beating she received at her father’s funeral. No one has been arrested or tried for either of these deaths.”
In the atmosphere of such governance and unsolved political crime, one might ask Persians who intend to vote whether they mean to express preference at the polling stations or general approval of their country’s state of affairs.
But on June 7 a group of Internet activists hopes to give Iranian voters a taste of what an open election feels like by launching an alternative election featuring 20 candidates. The candidates not only include the officially approved eight, but 12 more, ranging from people who failed the official vetting process to reformist leaders and political prisoners.
Radio Free Europe features other stories on Iran’s upcoming elections, of course, but still it’s good to pass along information that indicates interest in more authentic representative government.
Iran’s official elections take place next Friday (June 14, 2013).
The protesters chanted slogans against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for the “death to the dictator.” Among other slogans, they chanted “The political prisoners must freed” and “Mousavi and Karroubi must be freed,” referring to the leaders of the reformist green movement who are under house arrest in Tehran.
Thousands of Iranians attending the funeral of a dissident ayatollah broke into chants against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for the release of political prisoners, opposition websites have reported.
Amateur videos said to be from the June 4 funeral appear to confirm the reports. RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the videos.
The video appears authentic, according to The Associated Press, with the news service saying it first appeared on an Iranian website before being uploaded to YouTube.
The AP said interviews and analysis it conducted verify the video.
In 2013, the regime has already witnessed signs of discontent even before the vote. On June 4, thousands reportedly turned the funeral for Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri into an anti-government demonstration in Isfahan. Taheri had been the Friday Prayer Leader in Isfahan. He had earlier criticized the regime for corruption, eventually resigning from the post. He also called the 2009 election “invalid.”
“By blocking websites and bringing Internet access to a crawl, Iranian authorities are saying their own citizens don’t deserve information about the election,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Coordinator. “What kind of an election is it when journalists are tossed into prison and voters are denied access to the news?”
The beleaguered General Musharraf is in such dire straits these days that it is with a heavy heart indeed that one pens these lines–with heavy heart because one is a personal witness to the qualities of head and heart of the esteemed General. To witness such a man bandied about like a common criminal is a painful sight indeed.
What cannot be denied is that he certainly is the man who took over the country extra legally, held its constitution in abeyance, suspended the basic rights of its citizens, beat up and imprisoned at will an enlightened section of its society, had a sitting Chief Justice of Supreme Court manhandled by lowly cops then fired him from his job and sacked dozens of other judges who refused to play to his tunes.
These indeed are serious crimes in any civilized society ruled by the word of law. But who will cast the first stone in our country. And here is where the biggest of the ironies lies. Those baying for the blood of the General are not exactly babes in the woods.
The wolf pack jumping at the General’s throat is formed of four distinct set of actors i.e. The PML Nawaz Group, the Pakistan People’s Party, the judiciary and the religious right. While every Johnny come lately knows the reason for the religious right’s reason for going after the General, let us have a quick look at the moral credentials of the other three subsets crying for the General’s blood from a moral high ground.
The first subset of the wolf pack is led by a man who goes by the name of Nawaz Sharif and whose political mentor was another General of the yore, who was twice sacked for corruption as Prime Minister of Pakistan forcing that eminent columnist Ayaz Amir to recently call the two brothers as the ‘loan artists’, who wanted to himself become the Ameer-ul-Momineen once, who launched a physical attack on the Supreme Court of Pakistan through a goon squad, who was elected as the Leader of the Pakistan Muslim League and subsequently the IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance) by the ISI (Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency) as documented in the testimony of the then Army Chief in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, who got thrown into a lockup by General Musharraf from where he managed to slink out after accepting exile to another country in the most shameful of manners.
He today has taken up the flag of justice and is crying himself hoarse hurling threats all around with not a morsel of shame visible on his well-fed façade.
The second subset is led by a man who is also the President of Pakistan, a man who goes by the name of Asif Zardari and who was once affectionately called “Mr. Ten Percent” because of the alleged 10% extortion he forced on people during the various PPP governments, who in 1990 was arrested on charges of blackmail for attaching a bomb to a Pakistani businessman, who stands accused of taking unaccounted millions of Rupees from local Pakistani banks for forestation of Pakistan, who maintained a polo ground in the Prime Ministerial residential compound, who finally admitted owning a £4.35m estate in Surrey, England after denying its ownership for years (including a 20-room mansion and two farms on 365 acres, or 1.5 km², of land), about whom a Swiss investigating magistrate had amassed enough evidence to indict him for a proper jail term and who is alleged to have a role in the brazen murder of his brother-in-law. He has risen up today to become the very personification of virtue grinning like a Cheshire cat all the while.
That leaves the Judiciary–the Holy Cows. If one recalls correctly, in the year 2000, after the proclamation of PCO (Provisional Constitutional Oreder), an Oath of Office for Judges called Order-2000 was issued that required that judiciary to take oath of office under PCO. Four judges, including Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, answering the call of conscience, refused to take oath under the PCO. Rather than becoming a part of a PCO Supreme Court, they resigned and promptly vacated their offices. To fill the positions in the PCO Supreme Court General Musharraf appointed other judges including, among others, none other than Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the Chief Justice of Pakistan today. General Musharraf’s extra-constitutional acts were legitimized by this very PCO Supreme Court, and the Parliament elected under General Musharraf legitimized everything including the PCO Supreme Court by the Legal Framework Order, 2002.
And just to refresh the memory, here is the wording of Article 6 of Pakistan’s Constitution dealing with High Treason.
(1) Any person who abrogates or subverts or suspends or holds in abeyance, or attempts or conspires to abrogate or subvert or suspend or hold in abeyance, the Constitution by use of force or show of force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason.
(2) Any person aiding or abetting [or collaborating] the acts mentioned in clause (1) shall likewise be guilty of high treason.
(2A) An act of high treason mentioned in clause (1) or clause (2) shall not be validated by any court including the Supreme Court and a High Court.]
(3) [Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)] shall by law provide for the punishment of persons found guilty of high treason.
In scribe’s opinion the whole charade of the General’s trial should start crumbling sooner than later. For if the General is tried for any of his ‘crimes’, his abettors should not be far behind in line.
So it is not without a reason that the first thing the scribe wants to do after seeing all this hollow moralizing is reach for the sick bag.
So sit tight General. And while you do that, let us all pray;
“O lord who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, have mercy on us.”
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Canadian resident Anwaar Hussain is a former Pakistani F-16 fighter pilot and a graduate of Quaid-E-Azam University of Islamabad with a Masters in Defense and Strategic Studies.