hello Mr Steele
Ive seen your article attacking president Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Just a few comments:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/28/zimbabwe.serbia?showCommentBox=true

1. 'While Zimbabwe's obscene charade of a runoff election played itself out yesterday, foreign reaction still seemed stuck in two grooves'

In fact its Zimbabwean law, where no candiate has a clear win, to have a run off. So its not a charade. It may be inconvenient if you are praying a western backed patsy gets into power in Zimbabwe.

2.'either Mugabe-bashing or hand-wringing. The former is well justified, after everything the Zimbabwean president has done over the past few months'

exactly what has the president done over the past few months? If you are refering to violence in Zimbabwe, then you may be interested in the following, it may be news to you:

back in 2000, when the BBC was still even handed: 'The Movement for Democratic Change leader told 20,000 supprters at a rally on Saturday that if Mr Mugabe did not want to step down before the next elections scheduled for 2002 "we will remove you violently".
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/952796.stm

and sure enough, since then the MDC has engaged in provocative violence, often disguised as civil disobedience and even prayer rallies.

MDC has split into two factions, the reason they split according to David Coltart of the MDC-M is due to Tsvangarais violence. Heres a case:

 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5391/is_200705/ai_n21288052?tag=artBody;col1

3.'The only route that will avoid yet more bloodshed is a negotiated transition of power in which legal immunity and guarantees of safety are given to the very men who have been responsible for the violence of the past few months. I am not referring primarily to Mugabe. It is the security and police chiefs around him who hold the key.'

and
'Its top men can call off the so-called liberation war veterans and other jobless youth who have been terrorising the opposition Movement for Democratic Change since the first round of elections in March'

Whats wrong with this? Well, it ignores the jobless youths attacking the ZANU-PF...it also ignores the Tsvangirais MDC-T use of 'jobless youths to attack the MDC-M

as we saw with the article telling of MDC Trudy Stevensons experience.

' asked: "Shall we talk to them?", but the youth said: "No, we should move away from this place." Then I saw the advancing crowd start running. Mushonga said: "Give me the keys. I will drive!", but I knew he would not be able to for two reasons, so I said: "No, I will have to drive, let's go!", and I unlocked the passenger door, slid over to the driver's seat, and Mushonga got in the passenger seat.
They were calling my name, "Trudy! Trudy! You've gone against Tsvangirai!" That's when I realised it was me they were after.

I tried to release the anti-theft immobiliser, but I couldn't manage before the rocks - and I think bricks - started hitting the bonnet. I kept shouting: "It's not my car! It's not my car! Please don't damage the car!"

By now, they were all around and rocks were coming through the windscreen and the door windows. Mushonga was no longer in the passenger seat. They shouted: "Trudy, get out of the car! Trudy, get out of the car!", and then I knew that I must stay in the car to stay alive.

(ditto)



SO why doent your article mention any of this?



4. Your use of the Milosevic analogy is ironic, and shows you are not at all well informed. Milosevic was also victim of a campaign of demonisation. Stephen Goawns has invoked this comparison:



'Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment

By STEPHEN GOWANS

Arthur Mutambara, the leader of one faction of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the MDC, and one of the principals in the Save Zimbabwe Campaign that's at the centre of a storm of controversy over the Mugabe government's crackdown on opposition, boasted a year ago that he was "going to remove Robert Mugabe, I promise you, with every tool at my disposal." (1)

Educated at Oxford, the former management consultant with McKinsey & Co. was asked in early 2006 whether "his plans might include a Ukrainian-style mass mobilization of opponents of Mugabe's regime." (2)

"We're going to use every tool we can get to dislodge this regime," he replied. "We're not going to rule out or in anything the sky's the limit." (3)

Last year Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of an opposing MDC faction, and eight of his colleagues, were thrown out of Zambia after attending a meeting arranged by the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, with representatives of Freedom House, a US ruling class organization that promotes regime change in countries that aren't sufficiently committed to free markets, free trade and free enterprise. (4)

....



'

Headed by Wall St. investment banker Peter Ackerman, who produced a 2002 documentary, Bringing Down a Dictator, a follow-up to A Force More Powerful, which celebrates the ouster of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Freedom House features a rogues' gallery of US ruling class activists on its board of directors: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Otto Reich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Steve Forbes, among others.

The campaign to replace Mugabe with the neo-liberal standard bearers of the MDC is rotten with connections to the overthrow of Milosevic. Dell, the US ambassador, prides himself on being one of the architects of Milosevic's ouster. (5) He held a senior diplomatic post in Kosovo when Milosevic was driven out of office in a US-UK engineered uprising.'

etc

 http://www.counterpunch.org/gowans03232007.html



So, it was not so much that president Milosevic was a 'hard man', but that he was an obstacle to NATO reshaping of the Balkans after the end of communism. The new age involved demonising a person or counrty to justify 'humanitarian intervention' a phrase that sounds as innocuous as a rain of flowers, but usually ends up with a rain of bombs./



5. 'So if the EU puts sanctions on these men, they need to be conditional. Make it clear they will be lifted as soon as Zanu-PF's hardliners accept an MDC-led government and tell Mugabe to go into retirement, elsewhere in Africa or preferably to a villa in China. Better still, hold the sanctions with the understanding they start only if the MDC negotiations, backed by SADC mediators, fail.

It will be painful to let killers go free, but this is a case where justice should give way to pragmatism. The liberty of a few dozen thugs is the necessary price for millions of Zimbabweans to have a chance of life.'



This is probably your most risible comment. It shows you endorsing the Tsvangirai threat, and opting for antidemocratic 'regime change' while pretending to be both a 'democracy promoter' and concerned for the well being of africans. This is all part of the NewSpeak the post communist era has saddled us with. Its a verty white mand burden' kind of dishonesty.

Note, the sanctions on Zimbabwe have always been conditional. Their purpose is to make the economy scream, so the people will vote 'for the right candidate'. Im sure you are aware of this, but like the western media, youd prefer to conceal this information from the public.

And as for 'letting the killers go free', you are letting killers go free: The MDC killers., and have thrown your support behind two govts UK an US who between them have killed more than a million people in the middle east. Thats not the best company to keep.


regards

Brian