Irony: Mugabe Urges End to Violence He Promoted

This racist goon obviously doesn't see the irony in urging people to stop the act of political violence which have been a cornerstone of his regime of terror.

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe made an unprecedented appeal for an end to politically and racially driven violence in Zimbabwe, as the nation marked 30 years of independence.

"The leadership of the inclusive government urges you to desist from any acts of violence that will cause harm to others and become a blight on our society," he told a ceremony in Harare marking the anniversary.

"As Zimbabweans, we need to foster an environment of tolerance and treating each other with dignity and respect irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, tribe, political or religious affiliation."

Yeah, except for all you white farmers whose land we've stolen.

It was the first time Mr Mugabe had ever issued such a call for non-violence, in a nation that has been wracked by political turmoil through much of its recent history.

I think it's a bit late for that, Bob.

Seven years ago, after he started seizing his country's white-owned farms, the former school teacher eagerly compared himself to Adolf Hitler.

Speaking at the funeral of Chenjerai Hunzvi, a thuggish Cabinet minister who led the "war veterans" group that spearheaded violent seizures of white-owned farms, Mr. Mugabe noted Mr. Hunzvi had adopted the nickname "Hitler" because he admired the Nazi dictator's use of force and despised the British.

"I am still the Hitler of the time," Mr. Mugabe boasted.

"This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources."

"If that is Hitler, then let me be Hitler tenfold," he went on. "Ten times, that is what we stand for."

In fact, after 30 years in power, Mr. Mugabe has presided over the most dramatic collapse of any country in history since Weimar Germany.

He has turned one of the most beautiful and bountiful lands in Africa into a disaster zone that mixes corruption, mismanagement, violence and human rights violations on a scale that almost ranks alongside the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur.

Nice legacy.

'This Guy's Just Showing Up to Collect His Check'

Some mighty fine company Al Gore and his merry band of Global Warmers find themselves in.

Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe turned the UN climate-change summit in Copenhagen into a farce yesterday, laughing off the travel sanctions of Western governments and throwing the harsh disapproval of his Danish hosts back in their faces.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said his government had no choice but to allow Mugabe to attend the conference, just as New York City or the United States have no choice when horrible heads of state attend UN meetings in Manhattan.

"That is the spirit of the UN -- that the world needs a place where we can meet with those we basically don't like," Rasmussen explained to reporters who had inquired about Mugabe's attendance. "And I guess that is how you can characterize the person you're asking about."

But the real reason for Mugabe's trip is that it's his only chance to go shopping in Europe while he's under an international travel ban, said Stanford Mukasa, a professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who has studied Zimbabwe and Mugabe.

"Mugabe has nothing to offer to the climate-control conference because he is one of the guilty parties by his deliberate policies at home," Mukasa said.

And even as Mugabe thumbed his nose at the world, the host country welcomed him.

"I see no problem in greeting him," Rasmussen said, but added: "Nobody can be in doubt about my attitude toward Zimbabwe and Mugabe."

Mugabe is banned by the European Union from traveling to member states, including Denmark, as part of sanctions intended to pressure him to into allowing political reforms and improving the African nation's awful human-rights record.

Mugabe's attendance had many critics saying the global environmental summit stands revealed as a farce.

"This finally exposes what this whole conference is about," said a senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill.

"Thank God Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot didn't figure out they could fund their dictatorships with this global-warming hoax," the aide said. "This guy's just showing up to collect his check."

Oh, and by the way, your helping write that check.

Change!

Say what you will about Mugabe, but he's at least in the open about his evil. The rest of the global warming hoaxers, especially Gore, instead hide behind children and scare tactics as a means of emptying your wallet.

Leftist Heroes Head to Copenhagen

Well, this crew ought to help seal the deal.

Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plan to address negotiators at international climate talks in Copenhagen next week.

The three leaders are listed in a line-up of more than 180 government officials published in a United Nations schedule of speakers. Each head of state will have up to three minutes to address roughly 700 delegates, reporter, observers and civil society groups.

So nice to see the Warmer hoaxers in such fine company.

'It’s Shocking and Obscene'

It seems Robert Mugabe is doing his best impersonation of an American Democrat: Living large on the public dime. The only difference is he's skipping the pork and going straight for the lobster, shrimp and caviar.

What a world.

It is the 85th birthday of President Mugabe this month and the zealots of his Zanu (PF) party are determined that it should be an occasion that their great leader will never forget.

In recent days they have been out soliciting “donations” from corporate Zimbabwe and have drawn up a wish list that is scarcely credible in a land where seven million citizens survive on international food aid, 94 per cent are jobless and cholera rampages through a population debilitated by hunger.

The list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or ’61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of prawns; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates; 3,000 ducks; and much else besides. A postscript adds: “No mealie meal” — the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country’s collapse rendered even that a luxury.

Those who prefer to give in cash, not kind, are invited to send “donations” of between $45,000 and $55,000 to a US dollar bank account in the name of the 21st February Movement, a youth organisation controlled by Zanu (PF) and named after the date of the President’s birthday.

Western diplomats and aid workers were stunned when shown the list. “It’s just appalling. It’s like they are either completely oblivious to what’s happening in their country, or completely impervious and just don’t care,” said one. “It’s shocking and obscene,” said another, who noted that lobsters were unobtainable in Zimbabwe and would have to be flown in.

Grace Under Fire

Grace Mugabe that is, the wife of Zimbabwe's brutal dictator Robert Mugabe. While his country continues it's downward spiral into abject poverty and lawlessness she has managed to earn the title of First Shopper of Zimbabwe.

The picture above was taken while she was on a shopping spree in Paris.

Ever the world traveler she has now run into trouble in Hong Kong.

A Sunday Times photographer has been beaten up and punched repeatedly in the face by the wife of President Robert Mugabe.

Grace Mugabe, 43, known as the First Shopper of Zimbabwe, flew into a rage when she was spotted last week leaving the exclusive Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong. She has been staying there with her entourage while her country endures poverty, hunger and disease.

What is the exchange rate on a Zimbabwe dollar? Her checked luggage must be quite a load.

I wonder if she shares notes with Michelle Obama.

Good News: Zimbabwe Inflation Now 2.2 Million Percent

Now here are some folks who really need change. As in, do you have change for a $500,000,000 bill?

The annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe, already the highest in the world, has hit a new record level of 2.2 million percent, the central bank's governor revealed on Wednesday.

"Statistics provided by the CSO (central statistical office) indicate that it is now at 2.2 (million percent)," Gideon Gono said in a brief address in Harare ahead of a speech by veteran President Robert Mugabe.

The figure is the first from the authorities in Zimbabwe since the announcement of the rate for February, when it was put at around 165,000 percent.

The head of the CSO, Moffat Nyoni, confirmed the figure but said it was only a rough barometer as it was based on limited data.

"We can confirm that that is the figure we have given to... users, but that is not the sort of data we would normally publish with confidence because it was not based on the sort of information we would normally use," Nyoni told AFP.

"The information was based on fewer observations than we would be confident with due to scarcities.

"However, with the information we have managed to obtain, this is the rate of inflation."

Mugabe, who was controversially re-elected for a sixth term in office last month in a ballot boycotted by the opposition, said that increasing levels of production was key to efforts to tame inflation.

"As a country our declared battle against the scourge of high inflation must be accomplished," he said.

"The more goods we have, the less demand there will be.... Once demand is satisfied, then prices will begin to fall."

The 84-year-old president, who has frequently blamed the country's economic woes on a package of targeted sanctions imposed by the West, reiterated his attack on the "illegal" measures.

Yes, always someone else' fault.

Must be racist.

Shocker: Mugabe Rigged Zimbabwe Vote

The Guardian has the video evidence. When you think about it, Mugabe really has nothing on those Chicago Democrats.

A film that graphically shows how Robert Mugabe's supporters rigged Zimbabwe's election has been smuggled out of the country by a prison officer. It is believed to be the first footage of actual ballot-rigging and comes as Zimbabwe's president faces growing international pressure.

Shepherd Yuda, 36, fled the country this week with his wife and children. He said that he hoped the film, which was made for the Guardian, would help draw further attention to the violence and corruption in Zimbabwe.

Much of the footage was shot inside the country's notorious jail system. Yuda, who has worked in the prison service for 13 years, was motivated by the intensifying violence directed towards the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the murder, two months ago, of his uncle, a MDC activist.

Initially he intended to chronicle secretly what life was like inside Zimbabwe's jails but he found himself present when a war veteran and Mugabe supporter organised the vote-rigging by getting prison officers to fill in their postal ballots in his presence.

Using a hidden camera, Yuda filmed for six days prior to last Friday's run-off election in which Mugabe claimed victory with 90% of the vote. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, had earlier said his party would not be participating in the run-off because of intimidation.

"I had never seen that kind of violence before," said Yuda, of the run-up to the election. "How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?"

Mugabe Wins!

Apparently it helps if you murder opposition supporters before a run-off.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off election against President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, saying a free and fair poll was impossible in the current climate of violence.

Speaking only hours after his opposition Movement for Democratic Change reported its rally had been broken up by pro-Mugabe youth militia, Tsvangirai called on the United Nations and the African Union to intervene to stop "genocide" in the former British colony.

"We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process," he told reporters in Harare.

The MDC and Tsvangirai, who beat Mugabe in a March 29 vote but failed to win the absolute majority needed to avoid a second ballot, have repeatedly accused government security forces and militia of intimidation and strong-arm tactics to ensure a Mugabe victory in the June 27 poll.

Tsvangirai repeated this on Sunday, saying there was a state-sponsored plot to keep the 84-year-old Mugabe in power.

"We in the MDC cannot ask them (the voters) to cast their vote on June 27, when that vote could cost them their lives," he said.

International poll monitor James Earl Carter was unavailable for comment.

Seriously, this is an abomination. The world sits idly by while Mugabe's goons rape and murder opponents, all while Zimbabwe is in virtual economic collapse. What once was the breadbasket of Africa is now the basket-case of the world.

Leftist economic policies and brutal Communist thuggery in action.

Mugabe's Runoff Strategy: Murder All The Opposition

The world stands idly by as Communist goon Robert Mugabe unleashes his thugs against the opposition, with the latest report noting four activists have been found murdered.

FOUR Zimbabwe opposition activists have been found dead near Harare ahead of next week's presidential election, the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change said, blaming the deaths on the ruling party.

The four MDC youth members were abducted on Tuesday and their bodies were discovered in various locations in Chitungwiza, southeast of Harare, party spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.

Mr Chamisa said the MDC suspected they had been beaten after being attacked at a local councillor's residence by ZANU-PF youth supporters armed with clubs and whips.

"Now it's about 70 we've lost," Mr Chamisa said, referring to the number of opposition supporters they say have been killed since the first round of the election on March 29.

"The situation in the country is getting worse. A free and fair election is impossible."

President Robert Mugabe has blamed the MDC for mounting violence ahead of the June 27 run-off election and threatened to arrest opposition leaders over it.

Previously.

Mugabe Goons ‘Chopped up Wife' of Opponent

Lovely. The silence you hear are the world's leftists, American Democrats and the UN.

They don't care. If they do, they sure have a funny way of showing it.

Campaigners in Zimbabwe have spoken of the 'horrendous' violence used against them by supporters of the Robert Mugabe regime.

One report claimed the wife of an opposition leader had been 'chopped up' and buried after fighting the 84-year-old president's rule.

Election observers from across Africa are investigating reports of beatings and intimidation in the run-up to the 27 June election.

Marwick Khumalo, head of a 64-member Pan-African Parliament observer mission, said: 'We have heard so many horrendous stories. Now violence is at the top of the agenda of this electoral process, and that is regrettable.'

He added that independent observers had been taken to see the grave of a woman who was cut up, apparently by Mugabe supporters.

'Certain elements are indicating that there will be war,' he said. 'Beating the drums of war is not acceptable in any situation.'

Zimbabwe is going to the polls for a second time after the March presidential-election results were contested.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, claimed it had won more than 50 per cent of the vote against Mugabe's 43.8 per cent. But the regime authorities said that was not enough to secure a majority and called for the run-off.

Wife of Mugabe Opponent Brutally Murdered

Maybe the UN will issue a strongly worded letter after reading about this. Though I doubt such an atrocity will wake them from their permanent slumber. Besides, they have more pressing issues they're concerned with, like investigating bogus allegations of "racism" here in the United States.

Anyway, if you haven't eaten breakfast yet, be forewarned.

The wife of a Zimbabwean opposition party member has been brutally murdered in what is being labelled as one the most grotesque atrocities yet committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Dadirai Chipiro, wife of Patson Chipiro who heads the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district, had a hand cut off as well as both of her feet before a petrol bomb was thrown through her window.

The three men who pulled up outside her house were looking for her husband, who was in Harare, and left before coming back an hour later to kill her.

Her body was so badly burnt that she was not able to be properly placed in a coffin as her arm was burnt rigid.

Last Friday's killing was carried out as violence worsens in the run-off presidential elections in two weeks time.

It also follows the chilling brutality methods of Sirrra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

According to The Times, Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive by Zanu (PF) militiamen.

Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare was killed in a similar attack, which also claimed the life of the councillor six-year-old son.

Meanwhile local MDC supporters gathered around Mr Chipiro’s in a bid to protect him.

Mr Chipiro, 51, arrived back from Harare to find his three brick huts on fire.

“I was trying to put the fire out,” he said. “I thought my wife was hiding in the bushes.”

The Times said his four-year-old nephew, Admire, heard him calling her. “He ran to me. He said, ‘Auntie has been beaten and they threw her in the fire’.”

Just sickening.

Where are the alleged black leaders around the world to condemn this?

Al Sharpton? Silent.

Jesse Jackson? Silent.

Nelson Mandela? Silent.

Kofi Annan? Silent.

Barack Obama? Uhhh, um, silent.

Meanwhile, the Mugabe goon-squad today arrested the MDC secretary general.

Will Jimmy Carter be monitoring the sham run-off election June 27?

No Hope For Change in Zimbabwe

Perhaps Barack 'Icarus' Obama can have some dialogue with his fellow traveler and ask him why he's arresting political opponents. After all, it's the candidate of change who's been arrested.

And isn't it all about change?

ZIMBABWE'S opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been detained by police at a roadblock while campaigning in a run-off presidential vote, according to his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

"We are currently held up. They are saying there's a commanding officer whom we should wait for," Mr Tsvangirai's spokesman, George Sibotshiwe, said.

"They are not saying why they are holding us up. It's not an arrest but illegal detention. It appears they want to disrupt our campaign program."

Mr Tsvangirai was detained at 1000 GMT (2000 AEST). Police searched all vehicles and inspected documents.

The MDC says 50 people have been killed by President Robert Mugabe's supporters since the first round vote. Today, it said soldiers and ZANU-PF activists had beaten and threatened to shoot Zimbabweans who wanted to meet and support Mr Tsvangirai.

More from Ed Morrissey.

With Inflation at 355,000%, Ghoulish Mugabe Attends Food Summit

I'm not the only one who finds this obscene. A man who has presided over the systematic starvation of his people attends a food summit?

Hey, why not just hold the meeting in North Korea?

IT is obscene for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to be attending a food crisis summit in Rome, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

Mr Mugabe has flown to Rome for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation food security summit starting this week.

It is the first time the 84-year-old has left Zimbabwe, which was once regarded as the bread basket of Africa, since losing the first round of a presidential election in March.

He is banned from all travel to the European Union, except for UN forums.

Mr Smith said it was not right for Mr Mugabe to be at the summit.

"Frankly I regard that as obscene," he told reporters in perth.

"This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people.

"This is the person who has used food aid in a politically motivated way.

"So Robert Mugabe turning up to a conference dealing with food security or food issues is in my view, frankly obscene."

Meanwhile, inflation in the devastated Zimbabwe is now at 355,000%. That is not a typo.

Zimbabwe is battling the world's highest inflation rate, currently at 355,000 percent. The high inflation rate has ravaged the value of any new notes within just a few weeks, a trend that has caused frequent cash shortages. The Zimbabwean dollar is currently trading at Z$650 million to the $1 USD; barely two weeks ago, it was at Z$250 million to $1 USD.

The new Z$500 million note can hardly buy a meal at the cheapest food outlet as prices start at Z$700 million and yet a farmer can buy a second-hand refrigerator with a Z$50 billion Agro Cheque.

Mugabe Goons Set Up Torture Camps

Doesn't seem like the left is too outraged over this news.

I guess as long as Robert Mugabe's opposition isn't being waterboarded, why would they bother to criticize a fellow traveler?

SUPPORTERS of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party have set up a network of torture camps where they have been assaulting opposition activists, a leading rights group says.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said suspected supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were being rounded up and then beaten for several hours at a time with wooden sticks and batons in the wake of last month's disputed elections.

"Torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe," Human Rights Watch's Africa director Georgette Gagnon said in a new report.

"ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month's elections."

The organisation said it had conducted interviews with more than 30 people who had sustained serious injuries, including broken limbs, as a result of the beatings in the camps.

The aim of the beatings was to punish people for voting for the opposition in the March 29 polls and coerce them into supporting Mugabe in a possible second round run-off, HRW added.

I suppose if they get around to putting panties on someone's head, maybe the leftwingers in this country will notice. Until then, they can barely stifle the yawns.

Update: Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

Connecting the Zimbabwe Dots

Zimbabwe's economy is imploding and the socialists running the BBC are finally allowing as how there might be some minor difficulties encountered in repairing the damage done by the communist leadership there. But they still don't quit connect the dots.
The BBC starts out bemoaning the election confusion, then gets to the point:

Meanwhile Africa's worst basket-case economy continues to flounder, without a leader to take stock of what needs to be done.

In terms of statistics, Zimbabwe's plight is pretty much immeasurable.

Figures such as a rate of inflation of more than 100,000% and an unemployment rate said to be in excess of 80% are startling, but also largely meaningless.

Meaningless?

To socialists maybe, but to those who understand economics, they are very important statistics. Then the article continues:

After 28 years under Robert Mugabe, emotive terminology such as utter despair and desperate destitution describe the situation in Zimbabwe better than any maths and statistics can ever do.

This is certainly the case for the 700,000 people who have been robbed of everything, even their homes in urban slums that were razed by Mr Mugabe who had deemed them an embarrassment.

The cause, as well as the solution to all this is actually quite simple. The foundation of any prospering, growing economy is the fundamental right to hold, own and protect private property. The takeover and confiscation by the communist Mugabe to enrich his political friends destroyed any incentive by the productive people in his country to take a risk and produce anything.

Imagine for a minute that I impose a 100% income tax on you today (I can just feel Hillary and Obama supporters drooling at the very thought). I instead confiscate all your assets, income and production and dole it out to my buddies as I see fit. What possible motivation would you have to get up the next day and go to work? Of course, there is no such motivation. In fact, you have every motivation to either leave the country or just sit back and hold your hand out for your share of the largesse like everyone else. Since everybody does this, nobody is producing, and then the government has to just print money to pay for all the handouts. Foreign capital leaves the country to avoid being confiscated. And presto-chango! You have destroyed your economy.

The solution is to reinstitute the right to own private property. Then you can have a free market system and capitalism, with the resulting growth and prosperity.

Even with all this damage to the Zimbabwe economy, the editors at the BBC just can't quite let go of their love for communism/socialism. Get a load of this knee slapper buried in the end of the article:

Yet the underlying fundamentals of Zimbabwe's economy, resource base and even parts of the corporate sector remain reasonably robust.

Excuse me!? Zimbabwe's economy is the extract of a heroin addict's nightmare, including 100,000% inflation, 80% unemployment (and they can't even blame Bush for it), life expectancy of 37 years, and the BBC editors think the underlying fundamentals of their economy is robust. But yet they think the U.S. economy is crumbling.

The BBC, documenting their worship of socialism and communism every day.

WHAT CRISIS?

You can always rely on some African political leaders to call it wrong. South African leader Thabo Mbeki has said there is "no crisis" in Zimbabwe and patience should be exercised over the election outcome. Watch the video. Mbeke is a first grade clown, and his apparent fondness for the tyrant Mugabe is profoundly disturbing. Of COURSE there is a crisis in Zimbabwe for make no mistake Mugabe intends to retain power - even against the will of the Zimbabwean people. Perhaps that is what makes him such a heroic figure for fellow African leaders? Democracy as we understand it and Africa make strange bed fellows.

Cross posted on A Tangled Web

When All Else Fails, Mugabe Goes After the White People

Considering how well the seizure of white landowner's property went the first time around, I'm surprised this monster hasn't completelty confiscated all their land already.

Militant supporters of Robert Mugabe descended on some of Zimbabwe’s last white-owned farms yesterday in an orchestrated campaign of intimidation designed to keep him in power.

The invasions, which sparked memories of the farm seizures that ultimately brought the economy to its knees, got under way as the ruling party and the Opposition both launched legal battles over the release of election results.

Lawyers for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) appeared in court to press for the immediate release of presidential poll results, more than a week after the election. Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF), meanwhile, hit back with a demand that results be withheld and a recount taken.

MDC leaders reacted with disbelief at the Zanu (PF) petition, questioning how the party could dispute results yet to be released. Zanu (PF) has already demanded a recount of 16 seats it lost in the parliamentary contest — enough to overturn the majority won by the Opposition in its shock victory.

The MDC believes its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidential contest outright with more than 50 per cent, but on Friday Zanu (PF) paved the way for a second round run-off, when it endorsed Mr Mugabe for the fight. Fears that Mr Mugabe would launch a “dirty war” of violence and intimidation ahead of the vote materialised in southern Masvingo province on Saturday when drunken war veterans invaded six white-owned farms, ordering the farmers to leave.

A thousand veterans marched through Harare on Saturday in a show of force for Mr Mugabe, vowing to defend the country against a new “white invasion”. State media last week began a campaign claiming that ousted white farmers were returning in droves after Mr Mugabe’s apparent defeat. The feared mob of former bush guerrillas and young armed militia led the bloody takeover of white-owned farms beginning in 2000.

In Masvingo, state-run television filmed as livestock and farm machinery were looted and ranchers forced off the land. Attackers also forced owners and staff to flee Paynanda Lodge, a game lodge. Police later intervened, however, and persuaded them to leave, a sign that rank-and-file security forces may not be prepared to carry out Mr Mugabe’s will.

Senior security officials, many of whom are now the owners of confiscated farms, have backed Mr Mugabe’s bid to cling to power, fearful of their own future should the regime fall. But ordinary police and soldiers have seen their real incomes plummet as hyperinflation, now at an unofficial 250,000 per cent, takes grip, and may be less willing to shore up the regime.

In the northern town of Centenary, veterans were reportedly still laying siege to two white-owned farms. Hendrik Olivier, the head of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, said: “I’ve got one farmer and his wife with two children and people banging on windows, ululating and telling them to vacate.”

Civil-rights activists across the globe were unavailable for comment.

Mugabe Negotiating Exit?

Let's hope this report is true. I have other things in mind for this monster, but as long as the suffering people of Zimbabwe no longer have to be subjected to him, then it's a start.

Advisers to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe are in talks with the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, amid signs that Mr. Mugabe may be preparing to resign, a Western diplomatic source and a prominent Zimbabwe political analyst said Tuesday. The negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mr. Mugabe come after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be demeaning, a diplomat said.

A resignation by Mr. Mugabe, one of Africa’s longest serving leaders, would be a stunning turnabout in a country where Mr. Mugabe has been accused of consistently manipulating election results to maintain his lock on power.

There is no guarantee the negotiations will succeed and the situation could still unravel. But a Western diplomat and a political analyst said the opposition was negotiating with Zimbabwe’s military, central intelligence organization and the country’s prisons chief..

“The chiefs of staff are talking to Morgan and are trying to put into place transitional structures,” said John Makumbe, a political analyst and insider in local politics who has spoken in the past in favor of the opposition.

A spokesman for Mr. Tsvangirai, George Sibotshiwe, said “I don’t know anything about such meetings.”

Mr. Tsvangirai scheduled a news conference for 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time).

The diplomats said the joint chiefs had urged the negotiations after becoming convinced that there was no palatable alternative to a transfer of power and that a run-off would lead to defeat for Mr. Mugabe. One Western diplomat said the heads of the armed forces advised Mr. Mugabe on Monday to engineer a second round run-off in the presidential race but Mr. Mugabe responded that a run-off would be a humiliation to him.

More than three days after the vote, the government had still not released any results of the presidential balloting. Under Zimbabwe’s election rules, a runoff would be required if no candidate got more than 50 percent. However, Reuters quoted unidentifed sources in Mugabe’s party as saying it had projected Mr. Tsvangirai got 48 percent of the vote, vs. 43 percent for Mr. Mugabe.

His party has conceded losses already.

He's got to go.

'Barring a Miracle, Mugabe Can't Win'

A torn poster of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence in 1980 and is running for a sixth term in office. John Moore/Getty

If early results are any indication, there is hope the vile Robert Mugabe is on his way out in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has lost elections, the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party said, citing early results posted at polling stations. The official outcome hasn't been announced.

The party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, garnered 67 percent of the 30 percent of votes so far counted, Secretary General Tendai Biti said in an interview today from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. The MDC leads in Mashonaland Central province and won a majority in the province of Masvingo, both strongholds of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, he said.

``This is just an example of what we're getting from every province,'' Biti said. ``Barring a miracle, Mugabe can't win.''

Vote counting began last night as Mugabe, 84, seeks to extend his rule of the southern African nation, which he has led since ousting the white-minority government of the country then known as Rhodesia in 1980. A program started in 2000 of seizing white-owned farms, which bolstered Mugabe's rural support, sparking a decade of recession and the world's highest inflation rate of 100,580 percent.

Tsvangirai, 56, and Simba Makoni, a 58-year-old former finance minister, were Mugabe's main challengers. Final results may only be known later this week.

``It would be a massive, massive development for Zimbabwe and the region'' if Mugabe lost, said Anne Fruehauf, an analyst at Control Risks in London. ``The next few days will be very crucial in terms of whether a crisis momentum will build.''

More from Time.

Overview of counting.

Condi Rice calls Mugabe a disgrace.

Delays in results cause concern.

White Farmer Jailed in Zimbabwe

Looks like Robert Mugabe is embracing hope and change as he strives to unite his country on the eve of elections.

White farmer jailed for growing food

HARARE: A white farmer was to become overnight the first member of his community to be jailed for challenging President Robert Mugabe about the right to continue producing food in a country stricken by shortages.

Deon Theron, 53, has reached the end of an extraordinary trial in which, his lawyers say, he has been denied basic justice by court officials desperate to score political points before the most important elections for Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

On Tuesday, after what little evidence in the trial had been presented, the Harare magistrate refused to allow Mr Theron's lawyer to deliver a closing submission and answer accusations that her client had occupied his farm illegally after it was declared state property. Instead, he summarily found Mr Theron guilty, stating that he had "blatantly" defied the law.

Guilty white liberals were unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, security forces are on high alert in the bedraggled nation. A look at possible scenarios in Saturday's election.