The Zimbabwe Update

Morgan Tsvangirai and his wife Susan were involved in a car crash earlier today, and Susan was killed when their car was sideswiped by a truck while they were on their way to a rally.

That comes at a time when Robert Mugabe continues pulling the strings and harassing Tsvangirai's MDC party officials.

Zimbabwean police have arrested a magistrate who tried to release a senior politician while his case was still before the country's highest court, a police spokesman said on Friday.

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Thursday granted prosecutors the right to appeal against a ruling by a High Court judge to grant bail to Roy Bennett of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is in government with President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF.

Livingstone Chipadze, a magistrate who refused to drop terrorism and banditry charges against Bennett two weeks ago, had tried to process the High Court's bail ruling before the Supreme Court had heard the state's appeal, police said.

Bennett, who had been set to become a junior minister, was arrested on Feb. 13 and charged with plotting terrorism, which carries a possible life sentence. He will remain in custody until a hearing date is set.

While South Africa may be looking to extend Zimbabwe a line of credit, the South Africans busy shuttering a clinic helping those refugees looking for relief from the cholera epidemic rampaging through Zimbabwe as a result of Mugabe's ruinous rule.

Those victims and refugees are also increasingly finding themselves victims of rape.

Light at the End of the Tunnel For Zimbabwe?

This certainly seems promising. It also marks a complete turnaround for South Africa, who had spent months shielding Robert Mugabe thuggish behavior from worldwide condemnation and action to oust him after Mugabe stole elections from the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mugabe must give up power within 18 months or face arrest and criminal prosecution for a wide array of crimes against the Zimbabwean people. It would appear that the key moment was not that Mugabe realized that the end was near, but that the screws were turned on South Africa and their leader, Mbeki, who ran interference for Mugabe along with China and Russia.

But The Sunday Times has learnt that Mugabe, who has vowed that Tsvangirai will never be in government and that “only God can remove me from power”, faces humiliation over the terms of the deal that he will be forced to sign next month.

He will remain as president in name only and all real power will be held by a 20-member cabinet under Tsvangirai as prime minister. The opposition MDC will have 11 cabinet posts to nine for Mugabe’s Zanu-PF.

All Mugabe’s senior officials in the army, police and intelligence services, who have unleashed a campaign of terror since the MDC won a disputed victory in the elections held in March, will be dismissed.

Observers caution, however, that bringing Mugabe to justice could be protracted since Zimbabwe does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. Any investigation would require a referral from the United Nations security council, which would probably be blocked by China or Russia.

The transitional government will have close ties to a group of western donor nations known as the Fishmongers Group, set up a year ago on Britain’s initiative. It includes the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, Holland, Norway, Canada and Australia. China declined an invitation to join.

The decisive showdown came last week when Mugabe realised that his power was broken. On Monday Mbeki’s emissary, Sidney Mufamadi, a South African cabinet minister, arrived in Harare to read the riot act to Zanu-PF officials.

I wonder whether the situation will end as peacefully as those terms suggest. Mugabe's hard line supporters might not be so willing to throw in the towel, and the military may not give up their power so easily either.

However, this is the most hopeful sign coming out of Zimbabwe in a long time.

A Deal To Talk

The New York Times is proclaiming that this lays the groundwork for a power sharing deal, but it is substantially less than that.

Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe have agreed on a framework on which to conduct further talks.

The ceremony brought together President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. News reports said the two men had not met for a decade, when Mr. Tsvangirai was a labor union leader before he emerged as the head of the main opposition group in 1999.

While the so-called Memorandum of Understanding was a modest step in light of Zimbabwe’s chaos and collapse, the sight of Mr. Mugabe in the same room as Mr. Tsvangirai seemed a dramatic departure from their land’s more usual images of political bloodletting, electoral rigging and economic ruin.

The ceremony in a Harare hotel was overseen by Thabo Mbeki, the president of neighboring South Africa who labored for months as a mediator, defying critics who said his efforts merely gave Mr. Mugabe time to outwit his opponents. Mr. Mbeki sat between the two men as they signed, Reuters reported from Harare.

The agreement “commits the negotiating parties to an intense program of work to try and finalize negotiations as quickly as possible,” Mr. Mbeki said, without giving details.

They've basically agreed to talk more about a possible deal.

Mugabe stole the election in March, and then used his thugs to force Tsvangirai's party to abandon the runoff election. Now, we're supposed to believe that Mugabe will assent to a power sharing deal? I don't buy it, and the media should be more critical of such a deal than it is.

Any deal that leaves Mugabe in power is bad for Zimbabwe, which has seen inflation hit 2.2 million percent, and whose currency must be lugged around in wheelbarrows because it's worthless.

South Africa's Mbeki has been running interference for Mugabe and it is all too possible that had Mbeki not helped out Mugabe, Zimbabwe would not be in the mess it is now. It should be to South Africa's everlasting shame that they supported Mugabe's thuggish and dictatorial power grab. Yet, Mbeki will be lauded over this deal to deal down the road.

Russia and China Blocks Zimbabwe Sanctions At UN

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe cheers the news that the regimes in China and Russia have blocked an attempt by the Security Council to impose sanctions.

“We are very happy with the turn of events and would like to thank those who helped defeat international racism disguised as multilateral action at the U.N.,” Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told Reuters.

“The principles of non-interference into the sovereign affairs of a U.N. member state have been upheld. What has the U.N got to do with member states’ elections?,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March 29 presidential election but failed to get enough votes to avoid a second ballot.

Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off poll held on June 27, citing attacks on his supporters by pro-Mugabe militia. His and Western powers branded Mugabe’s landslide re-election a sham.

The Movement for Democratic Change is now in preliminary talks with ZANU-PF under the auspices of South African mediators, but has refused to negotiate a power-sharing deal until the government halts the bloodshed. The opposition says 113 of its supporters have been killed.

South Africa’s government applauded the U.N. decision on Saturday, in line with an African Union resolution to encourage dialogue between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change instead.

Thugs stick together, and once again we see how Mugabe is able to hang on to power because he's managed to get other countries, including South Africa, China, and now Russia to run interference for him. These countries are claiming that sanctions - specifically targeting Mugabe and 13 top thugs along with an arms embargo would violate noninterference with the internal affairs of a country.

Considering that Zimbabwe has a refugee crisis that spills over its borders into neighboring countries, has seen people seek refuge in foreign embassies (including the South African embassy where people were turned away only to be attacked by Mugabe's thugs at the camp they were taken), this isn't an internal issue.

These countries are putting a rubber stamp on a stolen election.

And Zimbabweans will suffer more for it.

Mugabe's Deathwish

It would appear that Mugabe's end game is to die in office. He refuses to accept democratic elections, and would rather see his country burn than to give up power in a democratic election. Newsweek appears to downplay the violence and official death toll as mild in comparison to the violence seen in other countries suffering from dictatorial power grabs. Nice. Stay classy Newsweek.

Yesterday, former South African President de Klerk came out against Mugabe. So did Nelson Mandela. Mugabe returns the favor by saying that Mandela was simply bowing to Western pressure. Mugabe also complains about the loss of his knighthood and blames the British Prime Minister.

Right. 165,000% inflation, 80%+ unemployment, millions starving, and a democracy in tatters has nothing to do with the criticism.

For his part, Morgan Tsvangirai ought to hope that the world does more than shun Mugabe. Shunning hasn't gotten Mugabe to give up his iron grip on the country, and which has forced Tsvangirai to seek refuge in the Dutch embassy over the ongoing threat to Tsvangirai's life.

Zimbabwe Burns While UN Twiddles Thumbs

The UN continues to debate the issues; South Africa and China continue to be part of the problem by supporting Mugabe's odious regime and blocking any substantive action against Zimbabwe; and the opposition continues to be mugged by Mugabe's goons.'

By mugged, I mean violently assaulted, mutilated, and thrown into jail for no reason other than they oppose Mugabe's dictatorial power grab.

Zimbabweans and outside observers say militias loyal to Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) have engaged in intimidation tactics designed to deter Tsvangirai's supporters from casting ballots.

"Violence has been taking place mainly in the countryside, people having their hands chopped off, fingers broken, etc. -- the reason for that being to prevent them from voting in the runoff," said a journalist Tuesday in an e-mail from Harare.

Both the woman and journalist requested anonymity out of fear they could be targeted for talking.

It's just another day in paradise.

Tsvangirai is now talking of getting the UN to intervene, but where are the peacekeepers going to come from? South Africa and China are blocking UN action, and South Africa would effectively keep the African Union from acting as well. It's also important to point out that Tsvangirai has been forced to seek refuge at the Dutch Embassy out of fear for his life. He's spending most of his time at the embassy these days. The SADC is looking at taking some kind of action, but again, South Africa is the key stumbling block.

It is interesting, however, to note that the former head of South Africa, F.W. de
Klerk, says that Mugabe needs to be overthrown.

Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe had to be toppled, former South African president FW de Klerk said on Wednesday.

De Klerk, a Nobel peace laureate, told the Cape Town Press Club that those who were concerned about Zimbabwe had to ask how they could constructively support moderate forces in that country.

"I think he needs to be toppled. Mugabe needs to be toppled," he said.

He could not see Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai entering into a government of national unity.

Neither can I. There's no reason for Mugabe to give up power, and it is his goons that are responsible for the ongoing violence. De Klerk might want to focus his attention on his own nation's support for Mugabe - if South Africa ceases its support of Mugabe, he would lose a key ally that enables him to remain in power.

UPDATE:
Zimbabwe has plenty of zeros though - as inflation continues to surge there and nothing is on store shelves.

UPDATE:
Now this is an interesting question: Should McCain or Obama come out and declare and recognize Morgan Tsvangirai as the legitimate president of Zimbabwe even as the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs noted that Tsvangirai had won the elections by more than 50% and should have been recognized as winner.

It would be a departure from current US policy, and would put pressure on Mugabe to quit the scene, but it would take far more than that. It would take change in Johannesburg as well.

Crisis Continues In Zimbabwe

Even as the Chinese government and South Africa continue to block substantive action at the UN against Zimbabwe other than the usual futile statements and resolutions, the South Africans are beginning to walk back from their total support of Mugabe.

It's tiny steps, but notable nonetheless. South Africa's African National Congress party issued a statement:

"We are deeply dismayed by the actions of the government of Zimbabwe which is riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people of that country," the African National Congress said in a statement.

"As democrats, the ANC cannot be indifferent to the flagrant violation of every principle of democratic governance."

The criticism was striking in view of historical links between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the ANC, both of which fought white oppression in previous eras.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma also said "we cannot agree with ZANU-PF," according to SAPA news agency.

"We cannot agree with them on values ... We fought for the right of people to vote. We fought for democracy."

This has been a point I've been driving home for some time now. South Africa should have been taking a strong position against Mugabe and his power grab, throwing democracy by the wayside. Instead, the South Africans cozied up and provided cover for Mugabe even as he twisted the election results to force a runoff scheduled for Friday (which will now occur without Morgan Tsvangirai's presence as he's in refuge at the Dutch embassy).

At the same time the ANC released this, they also rejected any outside pressure on Zimbabwe.

The A.N.C. warned against international intervention a day after the United Nations Security Council took its first action on the electoral crisis in Zimbabwe, issuing a unanimous statement condemning the widespread campaign of violence in the country and calling on the government there to free political prisoners and allow the opposition to rally its supporters.

But South Africa, the region’s powerhouse, is widely considered to play the pivotal role in bringing about change in neighboring Zimbabwe. And while the A.N.C. came out with an unusually strong condemnation of the Zimbabwean government on Tuesday, saying it was “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights” of its people, the party also evoked Zimbabwe’s colonial history and insisted that outsiders had no role to play in ending its current anguish.

Mugabe stole power from the Zimbabweans and the South Africans did nothing except give him the time and excuse to retain power. The ANC has a short memory if it thinks that outside pressure cannot achieve goals - after all, the boycott of South African goods and services helped undermine the apartheid government in Johannesburg.

What is the UN and other countries looking to do by calling for a postponement of the runoff elections? Do they not realize that postponing the elections cements Mugabe's hold on power and makes it more difficult to deal with going forward. After all, he's not relinquishing power because the UN says so, and he has refused to accept the election results, so what would force him to accept the fact that he has no business running Zimbabwe?

It is increasingly likely that only violence will end this affair in Zimbabwe. The diplomats refuse to implement language stronger than a limp wrist slap, even as Mugabe's goons terrify the locals and murder opposition leaders while arresting and harassing many others.

UPDATE:
It's nice to see that Sen. Barack Obama found the time to talk with Morgan Tsvangirai and reiterate the Bush Administration position on Zimbabwe and Mugabe's power grab.

Zimbabwe in Crisis

A day after Morgan Tsvangirai has quit the runoff election scheduled for Friday, word has come that sanctions might be imposed against Robert Mugabe's government. Too little, too late.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said his government would pursue "very strongly" a round of sanctions at the U.N. Security Council. "I think that is important. It's also important that African leaders continue to make clear that a government which violates the constitution in Zimbabwe ... cannot be held as the legitimate representative of the Zimbabwean people," he told Sky News.

I'm not going to hold my breath that the UN will impose sanctions in a timely manner since the time to impose the sanctions was several months ago - to warn Mugabe not to attempt the thuggist takeover of the reins of power, not after he made it a fait accomplis.

Imposing sanctions after the fact only shows just how much of a failure the UN has been in dealing with Mugabe's thuggishness. Mugabe's goons (aka the police) have continued raiding opposition offices, claiming that they are cracking down on "lawless elements."

The only group engaging in lawless activities and violence are the people aligned with Mugabe, who seek to keep him in power at all costs. Zimbabwe suffers because of him.

UPDATE:
Tsvangirai has sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy in Harare.

Dutch television reported that Tsvangirai entered the embassy shortly after a police raid Monday on his party's headquarters.

UPDATE:
Hot Air notes that Tsvangirai has finally quit playing his role of lending an air of legitimacy to Mugabe's brutality. Without Tsvangirai to stick around as his foil, Mugabe remains nothing but a brutal dictator who has made elections all but an empty promise of hope and change.

UPDATE:
The UN Security Council has voted to condemn Zimbabwe's thug in charge. Oh, I'm sure Mugabe is quaking in his boots. Mugabe is busy raiding opposition party offices again, which was one of the reasons that Tsvangirai had to seek refuge in the Dutch embassy.

China and South Africa are both standing in the way of greater action against Mugabe's thugs.

Zimbabwe Loses

Robert Mugabe got what he wanted. He got to remain in power for as long as he wants because his thugs have created such inhospitable conditions that the opposition leaders are simply too fearful for their own lives to conduct an electoral campaign.

Morgan Tsvangirai threw in the towel today, citing all the violence.

The opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, the standard bearer of the Movement for Democratic Change, said at a news conference in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, that his party was facing a war rather than an election, “and we will not be part of that war.”

A governing party militia blocked his supporters from attending a major rally in Harare on Sunday, the head of an election observer team said. The opposition said rowdy youths, armed with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr. Tsvangirai.

It was the latest incident in a tumultuous campaign season in which Mr. Tsvangirai has been repeatedly detained, his party’s chief strategist jailed on treason charges that many people consider bogus, and rampant state-sponsored violence has left at least 85 opposition supporters dead and thousands injured, according to tallies by doctors treating the victims.

Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision to quit the race seems intended to force Zimbabwe’s neighbors to take a stand. There are growing cracks in the solidarity that African heads of state have shown for Mr. Mugabe, an 84-year-old liberation hero whose defiant anti-Western rhetoric has long struck a resonant chord in a region with a bitter colonial history.

The South African government has backed Mugabe despite the violence perpetrated against the opposition. The other neighboring countries have been reluctant to pressure Mugabe to accept the results of the elections, which Tsvangirai won, but Mugabe managed to massage the results to require the runoff election that would have been scheduled for this Friday.

Now, Zimbabwe has nothing to look forward to except more of the same destructive policies that have ruined the country's economy and devastated the nation. The rest of the world looks on and no one will lift a finger to save this nation from this brutal thug and his goons.

Mugabe has all but ensured that he will win this election, if it is held through the sheer brutality of crushing the spirit of freedom and opposition to his regime.

UPDATE:
Tsvangirai put his faith in the UN to protect him and to guarantee free and fair elections. Once again, the UN has failed.

So has the African Union, which cannot manage the affairs on the continent with any effect either.

That means that Mugabe the dictator remains in power until such time he is deposed or dies. Let me be clear here. The democracy known as Zimbabwe is no more - Mugabe has total control now, and while I wish someone (the US, UK, or the AU) would pull off a Grenada or Panama operation to depose the dictator Mugabe, one has to wonder if any of the Africans will stand up for the freedoms that were hard won there and around the region. South Africa has stood alongside the dictator - and there's no other word to describe what Mugabe is - he's effectively destroyed the democratic machinery in Zimbabwe.

The other nations of Africa have yet to deal with these issues, and hoping that the old colonialists come in and take on the responsibilities of the Africans themselves is troubling.

Mugabe's Defiance Is Zimbabwe's Woe

Mugabe is busy saying that the opposition is lying about the violence perpetrated against it and that the opposition is the one behind whatever violence is going on. This, from the thug who has said that nothing but god will remove him from power.

Mugabe, who has refused to accept the results of the presidential election and demanded a runoff, thinks the opposition is making things up:

Mugabe said the Movement for Democratic Change was compiling names of alleged victims and falsely claiming that their supporters were being beaten up. He faces opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the June 27 runoff. Tsvangirai won the first round but not by an outright majority.

"They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie," the state Herald newspaper quoted him as saying at a campaign rally in the western city of Bulawayo.

That's right folks, the fact that opposition leaders and their wives were brutally murdered is just not true.

Mugabe's arrest of opposition leaders continues.

Thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting and Mugabe's goons are busy intimidating the population into silence.

In one bit of good news, a Zimbabwean court has ruled that Tsvangirai's opposition party can hold a pre-election rally. It remains to be seen if that decision will hold, as numerous other rallies have been banned, to say nothing of multiple arrests with trumped up charges.

Some of Zimbabwe's neighbors are finally speaking up about the violence, but South Africa remains mum to its great shame.

I have no doubt that Mugabe will attempt to rig the June 27 runoff election, to accomplish what he was unable to do in the original election despite such attempts. Mugabe's ruinous dominion over Zimbabwe has led to famine, economic collapse, and a racist economic policy that forcibly removed whites from their lands. He's on the record as saying that Tsvangirai's party isn't sufficiently black enough, and the overt racism is astounding.

Zimbabwean journalists have called on Mugabe to stop his war of terror against the opposition.

Responding to Mugabe's recent threats to go to war if he loses to opposition rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, the journalists said: "Evidently, the war has already begun in the form of horrendous beatings and murder of both known and perceived opposition supporters in the entire country.

"Daily news reports emanating from Zimbabwe point to the fact that Zimbabwe is a country at war and findings by both local and foreign observers as well as family and community accounts overwhelmingly point at Zanu PF as the sponsor of the terror that has paralysed Zimbabwe."

UPDATE:
South Africa's actions in defending the indefensible Mugabe is stunning.

Mugabe Running Headlong Towards Dictatorship

As I've been reporting for some time now, Robert Mugabe has been running headlong towards turning Zimbabwe into his personal dictatorship. He's destroyed the economy, threatened and murdered opposition leaders and their relatives, and has outright stated that he will not abide by the results of the June 27 runoff elections with Morgan Tsvangirai should the opposition win.

Some countries are trying to get Zimbabwe's neighbors to pressure Mugabe into accepting the results of the runoff elections should Mugabe lose, but that's going to be tough given that South Africa is running interference for Mugabe and is providing him with sufficient support so as to make it impossible for anyone to accept that the elections will be held fairly and openly.

The US and British governments want Mugabe to allow international monitors to oversee the elections, but that's not likely to go anywhere despite what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had to say:

"In recent weeks, under Robert Mugabe's increasingly desperate and criminal regime, Zimbabwe has seen 53 killings, 2000 beatings, the displacement of 30,000 people, the arrest and detention of opposition leaders including Morgan Tsvangirai," Brown told a joint news conference after talks with U.S. President George W. Bush.

"This is wholly unacceptable. Mugabe must not be allowed to steal the election."

"That is why we call for Zimbabwe to accept a United Nations human rights envoy to visit Zimbabwe now and to accept international monitors from all parts of the world who are available to ensure that this is a free and fair election," Brown said.

Mugabe is also quite busy pulling a page from the Burmese junta - claiming that aid groups operating in Zimbabwe to provide humanitarian aid including food and basic services that his government cannot and will not provide are conspiring against him.

So what does Tsvangirai think of these ongoing developments? Well, he's got a fatalist streak tempered with a misplaced hope that the international community will come to his nation's aid, that's for sure. It's hard not to, considering that his fellow opposition leaders are being hounded incessantly and the population is being cowed by Mugabe's thugs who are relentlessly engaging in violence against those who are standing in the way of Mugabe retaining power indefinitely. So, while you get the President Bush and PM Brown calling on the international community to take a stronger stand, nothing gets done and Mugabe continues to tighten his grip on the country.

UPDATE:
This sums up how Mugabe and his thugs view elections:

"We shed a lot of blood for this country. We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot. How can a ball point pen fight with a gun?" the Herald, a government mouthpiece, quoted Mugabe as saying.

Mugabe's Ominous Threat

Nothing stands between Robert Mugabe and his tight grip on the nation of Zimbabwe. He's doing everything imaginable to hold on to power, despite evidence showing that he lost elections earlier this year to the opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mugabe's thugs have murdered those in the opposition, including the wife of one of Tsvangirai's deputies. They've attacked US and British diplomats.

They threaten the opposition on a daily basis claiming that the opposition is engaging in treason.

Now, Mugabe is getting a boost from his military, by sweeping across the country and the intimidation is sure to cast yet more doubt on the outcome of elections scheduled for June 27.

STATE security forces reportedly deployed countrywide on a military-style campaign to rescue beleaguered President Robert Mugabe ahead of the critical presidential election run-off have taken an increasingly active role in a bid to block opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from succeeding as the next president of Zimbabwe.

This has poisoned the campaign environment and dramatically tilted the playing field ahead of the run-off in two weeks' time. There is now a pervasive climate of fear surrounding the poll as the wave of terror rippling through the rural areas rises.

He's also on the record saying that the opposition will never rule Zimbabwe. That should be a tipoff to anyone interested in human rights, election fraud, and democracy in Africa that Mugabe is engaging in nothing less than a dictatorship. Let's be absolutely clear, what Mugabe is doing is nothing less than declaring a war to keep the opposition from power despite holding elections that showed him and his political party losing.

He's arrested Tsvangirai for the third time this week.

Zimbabwe's neighbors haven't exactly been helpful in prodding Mugabe to give up - South Africa continues to stand behind Mugabe despite all the evidence showing that Mugabe is up to no good.

While Mugabe claims that the opposition is engaging in treason, the real criminal here is Mugabe, who is intent on holding a coup to retain power indefinitely.

It is to South Africa's eternal shame that their leadership supports this dictator instead of stopping this crisis in its tracks by pushing for Mugabe to exit peacefully. Instead, the likelihood of violence only increases with each passing day.

Fuzzy Math Strikes Zimbabwe

Fresh off resisting calls to release the election results, we're now getting heavily massaged election results courtesy of Robert Mugabe's intimidation tactics.

They work. He's gained ground as compared to earlier results released, though the recount was one called for by the opposition:

Election officials began recounting ballots in 23 districts over the weekend, most of them won by the opposition. The recount could prove pivotal for the ruling party, which lost control of parliament by a handful of seats for the first time ever.

The state-run Herald newspaper also suggested Wednesday that a government of national unity led by Mugabe could end Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis — a departure from its regular stance of accusing the opposition of manipulating the vote.

The proposal in a newspaper considered a government mouthpiece comes as the United States' top diplomat for Africa heads to southern Africa for talks with regional leaders on Zimbabwe's postelection crisis.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer headed to South Africa on Wednesday and also is to visit Angola and Zambia for talks on Zimbabwe.

No presidential results have been released from the March 29 election, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's party insists it won outright. The Movement for Democratic Change has called the government's refusal to release the results part of a ploy to steal the vote.

For the first time in Mugabe's 28-year rule, the opposition defeated his ruling ZANU-PF party in the first count of last month's parliamentary vote. But electoral officials began recounting ballots Saturday for the 23 legislative seats, most won by opposition candidates. The ZANU-PF party needs just nine seats to reclaim a majority.

The recount in Goromonzi concluded Tuesday with just a one-vote difference from the original count from the poll, giving the seat to Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, the Herald said. Officials found no errors in the vote for the upper house, or Senate.

Mugabe has thoroughly ruined Zimbabwe, and you've got China meddling as well. The British government is pushing for a wider arms embargo against Zimbabwe, but the UN wont act on it (namely because China would stand in its way).

A Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe was turned away from South Africa last week after workers refused to unload the weapons because of concerns that Mugabe's government might use them against his opponents.

China said on Tuesday the shipment might return home after two other southern African countries denied it access to their ports.

"Because of what has happened in South Africa ... we will promote proposals for an embargo on all arms to Zimbabwe," Brown said, giving no further details.

The European Union already has an arms embargo against Zimbabwe, part of sanctions in place since 2002. The embargo bars the 27 EU states from supplying arms or equipment intended for military operations.

Washington has also imposed sanctions on Harare.

So far, the most courageous and righteous stand has been taken not by the diplomats, but by the South African dock workers who refused to unload the weapons from the Chinese boat.

So, what can we discern from the possibility that Mugabe is willing to entertain some kind of power sharing deal? Self preservation is finally starting to kick in? Or that he simply needs more time to crank out the votes to give him a margin of victory?

The fact is that it's apparent that he lost the general election outright, and every day that he hangs on in power is another day lost for millions of Zimbabweans. A power sharing deal enables him to stick around well past his shelf life.

Zimbabwean Opposition Optimistic?

CNN reports that Robert Mugabe is pulling out of a meeting with regional leaders scheduled for this weekend in neighboring Zambia. Mugabe's spokes-flack said that there was essentially no reason for him to attend the meeting.

That pretty much sums things up, doesn't it. Mugabe has run Zimbabwe into the ground - it suffers from hyperinflation above 150,000%, 80-90% unemployment rates, and starvation and misery abound. He's taken to rigging elections and/or intimidating opposition groups and those responsible for counting the ballots to stay in power.

This intervention by Zimbabwe's neighbors is to let Mugabe off the hook gently - to let him get out of town gracefully and with his very life. The same likely can't be said if he continues to stay in power. The tipping point may be close at hand.

Despite this, according to the Times Online, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has been flying around Africa shoring up support against the thuggish Robert Mugabe, appears to be cautiously optimistic about the outcome of a meeting he had with South African President Mbeki. Still, there are tremendous hurdles to be overcome, including the fact that the Zimbabwean military still supports Mugabe:

An MDC spokesman said today that the meeting with Mr Mbeki had “gone well” and that they were “cautiously optimistic” about the outcome. Mr Tsvangirai would be a full participant in tomorrow's summit, he added, reiterating that the opposition leader’s election win made him a “head of state”.

In Harare, the High Court is due to rule today on whether the election results must be made public.

According to his spokesman, Mr Mugabe “was eagerly waiting for the [election commission] to complete its ballot votes verification freely without any interference and without pressure not to release the results.”

“It is not true that the president nor Government is holding the Zimbabwe election results,” he said.

Bright Matonga, the deputy information commissioner for Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party, told CNN that he believed opposition politicians would be “cowards; if they did not contest a runoff”.

Unwilling to allow Mr Mugabe to slope off into retirement, those supporting him – including the military – have taken the reigns, unleashing an orchestrated campaign of terror against opposition activists, election observes an ordinary voters in an attempt to secure Mr Mugabe victory in a second-round poll.

White-owned farms were the first targets of the violence that insiders say is being co-ordinated by 200 handpicked military and intelligence officers loyal to the President.

Police have also arrested Mr Tsvangirai’s lawyer. Innocent Chagonda, who successfully defended Mr Tsvangirai from treason charges in 2004, was seized on charges related to a helicopter hired for the MDC.

He had apparently demanded that police release the aircraft, which had been confiscated, when he was arrested for “interfering with police work”, the opposition said.

The MDC said the arrest yesterday was part of a wider campaign to clamp down on the Opposition in the wake of the elections. “As a party we feel this is a sustained effort on the part of the authorities against people who assist the MDC,” it said.

UPDATE:
This Is Zimbabwe has more, including a spot-on cartoon of Mugabe furiously scribbling away at ballots.

UPDATE:
Now, there are reports that Mugabe's police force is banning all political rallies from taking place.

Zimbabwean police announced Friday that all political rallies were canceled, according to state radio. No explanation for the ban was given. The opposition has accused security forces and ruling party militants of engaging in a wave of violence against perceived opponents since the vote and of clamping down on the opposition.