I listened to quite a bizarre exchange on the BBC Today this morning concerning the shambles that is Zimbabwean politics. The new line being peddled is that “perhaps” Mugabe himself is not responsible for the arrest of MDC nominee Roy Bennett and indeed he may not even be responsible for the detention of dozens of MDC supporters in recent times. The suggestion is that unspecified “hard-liners” in the military are now calling the shots and Mugabe could be their victim. Remarkable! Is this the beginning of the BBC’s beatification of Marxist thug Mugabe.
Is this the beginning of the BBC’s beatification of Marxist thug Mugabe?
Not at all. It’s the BBC covering its collective arse for supporting him for so long.
I share your scepticism but I think that the basic premise is likely to be true.
It is not just vanity that prevents Comrade Bob from stepping aside. (He has, after all, salted a great deal of wealth away outside the country, and see out the rest of his days quite comfortably.)
The main ostacle to a peaceful transfer of power has been the potential plight of all Mugabe’s cronies who would be left behind.
It is highly likely that they are the ones instigating the current mischief, but I would obviously agree that Comrade Bob is the root cause.
….Mugabe’s wealth outside the country….
Perhaps he will follow the example set by former president of Zaire General Mobutu
http://tinyurl.com/6ov7g3
Remind the next pop star or politician who asks for money ” to help Africa” where the money went.
Did they mention that Mugabe has recently bought a £4 million apartment in Hong Kong ? Now, what would he need that for ?
i cannot believe that there is a “pro-mugabe” tag on B-BBC. the Beeb has been pretty steadfast in criticism of his near genocidal policies, which is why it’s banned from zim and has also been used as a stick whenever the subject of “impartiality” comes up given the obvious unpleasantness and ineptitude of his regime.
the complexities of the internal politics of zanu pf and the military are worth exploring – it’s called crediting the viewer with the intelligence to consider issues beyond a goody v baddy cartoon. how is this bias?
I think if push came to shove, the predominant BBC political view would be that black Robert Mugabe is preferable to white Ian Smith.
After all, the BBC would never call Mugabe racist, (whatever the evidence), that worst of all BBC epithets.
Mugabe, looking to his future:
“Found: Robert Mugabe’s secret bolthole in the Far East”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article5734148.ece
much as i am a fan of Morgan Tsvangeri he made the mistake recently of being part of a government with Mugabe – this gives legitimacy to Mugabe which the murderous thug doesn’t deserve .
the mdc should immediately pull out of the power sharing agreement and declare war on the zanu pf and Mugabe.
Stephen – that’s all very well on paper but people are dying.
To claim that Mugabe has not been in complete control of this entire situation is malevolent and disingenuous in extremis. Also, completely at odds with received wisdom. What an odious slur.
I think we should be aware that the rules of engagement have changed and the benefit of executing people early should be moved up the page a bit.
Cockney: Have you never read the bollocks John ‘I liberated Afghanistan personally’ Simpson has written about Mugabe?
Take a read at this pile of steamimg dog waste
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7470483.stm
Remind me, has Tony Benn ever apologised for writing these words when Mugabe came to power?
‘Robert Mugabe has won the Rhodesian elections outright. It is a fantastic victory and I can’t remember anything that has given me so much pleasure for a long time. When I think of the systematic distortion of the British press, it’s an absolute disgrace. The Tories must be furious.’
So David, you’re upset with the BBC for considering the situation to be more complex than Mugabe = bad man = source of all evil? The man could be utterly despotic insane evil incarnate, but it’s very unlikely that he has complete mind control over the military. The two are so entwined in their domination of the country it is unlikely that either can act against the wishes of the other.
Just as Hitler knew nothing about the murder of the Jews, and certainly gave no order for it, so Mugabe neither knows about nor ordered the arrest of Roy Bennett.
Martin, the loathesome Simpson’s article is pretty accurate. I’m assuming your problem is with the almost jaunty tone of it in the murderous circumstances, and if so I’d completely agree.
Cockney 11:28
I read Martin’s link and would agree with you. As so often with the BBC , it is the “tone” which betrays the bias.
The odious John Simpson makes no attempt to conceal his delight at Mugabe’s “triumph”.
Tommo:
Remind me, has Tony Benn ever apologised for writing these words when Mugabe came to power?
….etc..Tommo | 17.02.09 – 10:34 am |
good post.
Cockney – re BBC not being pro-Mugabe
The relationship of the BBC with Mugabe is that Mugabe is one of their best friends, but they have had to fall out with him because he has gone a bit too far even for them. However, they still admire him for giving a good kicking to the whites. That is the main priority for them, and if a country has to fall into total misery and ruin, well, so be it – at least the whites are not in power over the blacks – that is all that matters really.
Referring to what poster George R said above about Ian Smith – Yes, the BBC think Ian Smith was far worse than Mugabe, even though the country under him was wealthy and prosperous for blacks and whites.
I remember Mugabe attending some conference a few months ago. He was given plenty of air time to speak his anti-British views on the BBC, far more than Ian Smith ever got.
Grant:
– the £4 million pound house is probably the tip of the iceburg. Ian Smith earned his own money from farming, and writing his memoirs called ‘The Great Betrayal’
Unlike Mugabe, Ian Smith actually wanted to retire from politics, but the people would not let him and begged him to carry on leading them.
After the first round of one man one vote elections a moderate, Bishop Muzurewa, won – but ‘Conservative’ Lord Carrington declared them null and void and hence Mugabe got in and Tony Benn was over the moon.
I remember the Labour Overseas Development Minister woman saying a couple of years ago on TV that we give aid to the leaders of African countries and not directly to the people so as not to patronise them.
The BBC taking Mugabes side? Nonsense. They make hundreds of reports about his cruelt, brutality etc, and you pick the 1 report which is not as anti-mugabe as some sort of evidence of bias.
The fact you highlight ‘news’ like this just shows there isn’t any real bias out there, you have to make stuff up!
Mugabe is dead old, he probably doesn’t have a clue whats going on his country most of the time. He might bark some command about western imperialist swines, but its bound to be some lackey terrified of him who actually does all the heinous things.
Caveman 12:13
Good post.
I read “The Great Betrayal” and it was good to get Ian Smith’s side of the story.
So then I had to decide which side to believe, the British Government , backed by the BBC, or Ian Smith. No contest, really !
Yorrick: Rubbish troll. The BBC arse lick Mugabe at every opportunity.
So then I had to decide which side to believe, the British Government , backed by the BBC, or Ian Smith. No contest, really !
Grant | 17.02.09 – 2:13 pm |
Exactly
”: Rubbish troll. The BBC arse lick Mugabe at every opportunity.”
Martin, you’re not for real are you? This site has no purpose! Itdoesn’t prove a damn thing, except that people will believe the moon is made of cheese if enough people say it is, and after all theres bound to be some crackpot scientist somewhere who will testify to that fact.
The BBC arse lick mugabe? Martin, you single handedly destroyed this websites credibility the moment you wrote that. It’s gone (if it were ever there).
When it comes to the dispossessed white farmers the BBC have a history of, at best, turning a blind eye. Their ususal tone is to somehow excuse the murder and landgrabs by implying that ‘working’ black farms were ‘stolen’ by the whites.
In a similar vein I watched open mouthed as News 24 covered the trial of one of Pol Pot’s killers in Cambodia. They trotted out a Swedish communist who thirty years ago had been feted by the Khmer Rouge and who was there as an ‘observer’. This sorry excuse for a human being was allowed to trot out, unchallenged, that it really was the fault of the US. Apparently if they hadn’t bombed the Ho Chi Mhin trail the Khmer Rouge would never have come into existence.
As the fag-end days of this vile and corrupt labour government are played out the BBC seems to be losing the plot as quickly as bonkers Brown.
Yorrick 4:01
If this website has no credibility, why do you bother posting here ?
Grant | 17.02.09 – 4:36 pm
Yes, quite.
Oh hang on a minute.
Grant
Because this website is really about spreading myths, lies and conspiracy theories. And I am showing them (and the posters here) up as just that.
Would you sit around and let people spout rubbish all the time? No, you would correct them, point out where they are wrong.
You don’t have to thank me.
Alas poor Yorrick but the only thing you are showing is that there is one born every minute.
I heard Matt Frei say “the grim last eight years of the Bush Administration” and other negative modifiers, but have never heard him say anything like “the grim Mugabe regime”. All across the BBC I’ve heard lots of noise about how Mugabe is the democratically elected leader of his countries and any suggestion of a coup is shouted down, as if it’s the job of a World HYS presenter to decide acceptable foreign policy. Not only that, but international sanctions are mostly to blame for Zimbabwe’s descent from breadbasket to hell in a handbasket. If I believed what I hear out of the mouths of Beeboids about Zimbabwe, I’d think it would be a relatively stable, if not rich, place if only the West would pour aid money into it and stop pressuring Mugabe so much. The white colonial farmers only got their comeuppance, remember.
But, yeah, they occasionally mention his thuggish tactics.
MWL 4:46
Nice one ! But at least you come up with some facts, counter-evidence and links. And, curiously for a leftie-liberal , have a sense of humour, something which I suspect our new poster “Yorrick” lacks !
Yorrick:
The BBC taking Mugabes side? Nonsense. They make hundreds of reports about his cruelt, brutality etc, and you pick the 1 report which is not as anti-mugabe as some sort of evidence of bias.
Link to some of these reports then Yorrick. Let’s have both barrels of your self-righteousness in the form of linking to some of the BBC reports that snide at Mugabe.
Take your time troll. You seem to have enough of it. Gap year is it?
The liberator of Kabul states “It has been done with great brutality, but Robert Mugabe has achieved an extraordinary turnaround here.” How admiring. It’s just like Chairman Mao all over again, eh? What’s a few hundred thousand dead here, a few hundred thousand dead there? As long as our hero comes out on top.
Ratass Shagged: I don’t think he’s bright enough to be a student or perhaps he is and just enrolled on a politics course and has his Liebour party membership.
Another spotty 18 year old that is going to put the world right. Well before his next Woodbine and can of Cider anyway.
The BBC love tyrants – Chevez, Castro and Gaddafi
“If you want to see a BBC journalist fawning before an ageing dictator, then watch this astonishingly sycophantic episode of “Have Your Say” on BBC World at 1400 GMT on Sunday.
In his opening question, Eades describes the programme as an “opportunity, then, to hear and to speak to one of the political figures with the greatest experience in the world today, and indeed the longest-standing leader of the Arab world. I’m talking, of course, about Brother Leader Muammar Gaddafi. And I’m delighted to say that, via satellite from Tripoli, Mr Gaddafi is with us now. A very warm welcome to you – and as we can note, in extremely good health, despite earlier reports. Thank you also for agreeing to take questions, not just from the chamber here in Oxford, but also from BBC viewers and listeners around the world.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/david_blair/blog/2007/05/21/the_bbcs_gaddafi_lovein
The only mistake Mugabe did was ban the BBC from Zimbabwe – he really is off his rocker – if the BBC reported from Zimbabwe – we would never find out what was going on.
Especially stuff like this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/2230414/Zimbabwe-Battered-white-farmers-vow-to-battle-on-against-Robert-Mugabe.html
Yorrik – print out your several contributions to this blog (which you cannot help coming back to), send them to the BBC, and you will certainly get a place in the audience on Question Time. They are always looking for people like you.
I will lookout for you on the next programme; someone matching Martin’s description above.
Please be reminded of certain facts.
The BBC is now and had long since been a mouthpiece for establishment agendas.
The BBC was set up and managed by The British Establishment.
The BBC is funded almost completely by a TV tax where non payment is punishable by a criminal record and sometimes imprisonment.
The British establishment installed Mugabe into power, and has done absolutely nothing to help get rid of him ever since.
The British establishment still has vast investments in Zimbabwe, in spite of what we are told by our establishment controlled media.
Many Zimbabweans still work for limited pay for British, European and US corporations. As do many other Zimbabweans who work for Chinese corporations, who are in turn owned and or controlled indirectly by the same British, European and US corporations. Which are all financed by the international banking system, that also controls the UN.
Thousands of poor Africans are dieing of starvation, AIDS and lack of basic medical care every week in Zimbabwe.
The British establishment along with the British government recently invaded a sovereign nation, namely Iraq. This at the cost of thousands of innocent lives, its international credibility, 150 odd young loyal British troops and many billions of tax payers cash. In the name of saving lives, not in the name of controlling oil reserves and production. However ridiculous this excuse now seems to virtually everyone.
Could it be that we are simply being fed a load of utter bullshit from not only Mugabe and the BBC, but also the British and world establishment?
Could it be that collectively we actually know as good as FA about what is really happening in Zimbabwe, and more especially the real reason why?
Surly by now we can all see that we can not trust anything that we perceive to be true, concerning virtually ANYTHING that the BBC or the MSM has mind controlled us into believing. Also that this is often, if not ALWAYS the case when large amounts of highly valuable natural resources are concerned and large amounts of people are dieing or getting murdered?
The real currency in Zimbabwe is The US $. No one IMPORTANT gets payed in Zimbabwe’s currency, unless they are in desperate need of bad quality toilet paper. Where does Mugabe get all that US currency from, if the country is really bankrupt, or effectively not producing anything for export?
May I suggest that the real truth about Mugabe and Zimbabwe is just about as evil as evil gets, but very little to do with what we are being told it is?
If the British/World establishment headed up by The UN really wanted to get shot of Mugabe. THEN SURLY THEY WOULD HAVE DONE SO A VERY LONG TIME AGO.
IMO Africans are dieing in there millions all over the continent, basically because the people who REALLY control The UN, very much wants them to carry on doing so.
IMO the above is SELF APPARENTLY SO.
‘Mail’ (Nov 2007)
“Badly flawed, yes,but Ian Smith’s sins pale beside Mugabe’s”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-495502/Badly-flawed-yes-Ian-Smiths-sins-pale-Mugabes.html
‘African executive’:
“Ian Smith was better than Mugabe”
(by Rejoice Ngwenya)
http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=2710
‘Telegraph’ blog:
“What should President Mugabe’s birthday wish be?” (Kate Allen)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/kate_allen/blog/2009/02/17/what_should_president_mugabes_birthday_wish_be_