The Debatable Land

Global Crisis Deepens

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister recognises that these are perilous times. Women wearing mini-skirts, he says, are a danger to public safety, responsible for all manner of traffic accidents.

What's wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally." He continued arguing that, "if you find a naked person you begin to concentrate on the make-up of that person and yet you are driving."

According to Foreign Policy:

The BBC notes that [Mr] Buturo is seeking to rid Uganda of its many vices, and inappropriate dress is just one of the many indecent items that appear on the minister's list. Among others are theft and embezzlement of public funds, sub-standard service delivery, greed, infidelity, prostitution, and homosexuality. But I guess miniskirts were the low-hanging fruit.

Good to have Ugandan Affairs back in the news.

Appeasement Watch: Harare Edition

Michael Ledeen despairs over Condi Rice's condemnation of Robert Mugabe:

This is Darfur all over again. And Iran all over again.  And Syria all over again.  Stern language, with the threat of even sterner language if the recipient doesn't behave better.It's an embarrassment.

Once upon a time, we had leaders who supported freedom and did everything possible to bring down tyrants.  But not today. Today we give feel-good speeches full of politically correct slogans, wrapped in the mantle of multiculturalism and multilateralism. [Emphasis added].

When did the United States enjoy these leaders? This seems a questionable assertion to say the least, certainly in the post-WW2 era. And, of course, Ledeen doesn't actually suggest what the US (or anyone else, for that matter) should actually do vis a vis Zimbabwe. It would be nice if South Africa took a different attitude, but I don't quite see how Washington or London is in any great position to actually achieve this. Better by far to pine for the joyous simplicity of non-existent good ol' days instead...

Zimbabwe's Dr Benito Speaks!

Many thanks to Isaac Chotiner for pointing out the latest example of what he rightly considers to be Scoop-turned-fact. One the one hand, Zimbabwe's opposition leaders are being detained, on the other there's the confiscation of American food-aid which, rather than reach its intended target, was requisitioned to feed ZANU-PF supporters. When the Americans complained about their convoy being hijacked...

Wayne Bvudzijena, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s national police, did not respond to the substance of Mr. McGee’s charge when contacted on his cellphone on Wednesday, but instead contended that there was no place named Bambazonke in Zimbabwe.

“If you can go back to the honorable ambassador and verify your facts, madam,” Mr. Bvudzijena said, then hung up.

In an interview, Mr. Kagurabadza, the former mayor of nearby Mutare, confirmed that Bambazonke did exist. It also appears on a recent report of parliamentary constituencies by election monitors. But when the American ambassador, Mr. McGee, and Karen Freeman, the Usaid mission director in Zimbabwe, met Tuesday with a senior official at the Foreign Ministry, they were presented with a similar denial.

Mr. McGee said the official told them, “I’ve never head of this place Bambazonke. Are you certain this even happened?”

The ambassador added, “At the end of the argument, he promised he would look into the situation and get back to us.”

Now clearly, this is pretty reprehensible, ugly stuff and lord knows poor Zimbabwe has suffered enough at the hands of Mugabe and his goons, but, by god, when officials start carrying on in this fashion one gets the feeling, somehow, that it can't actually last much longer. Can it? Then again, maybe the Americans were really dashing off to find  - and deliver aid to - the city of Laku.

Previous Scoop-related material here and, with regard to Bill Deedes, here.

Department of Pretty Words

The Boston Globe:

"Candidates Unite Against Darfur Genocide"

Isn't it a bit late for that?

"Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us," the three candidates say. "We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end and that the CPA be fully implemented. Even as we campaign for the presidency, we will use our standing as Senators to press for the steps needed to ensure that the United States honors, in practice and in deed, its commitment to the cause of peace and protection of Darfur's innocent citizenry. We will continue to keep a close watch on events in Sudan and speak out for its marginalized peoples. It would be a huge mistake for the Khartoum regime to think that it will benefit by running out the clock on the Bush Administration. If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve."

Does anyone actually believe this?

Hillary of Harare

In one sense there's little point in writing about Hillary Clinton anymore. She's lost. Still, if there is any truth to the notion, much-favoured by Washington reporters, that you can gain a sense of character and, indeed, governing style from the way in which a candidate campaigns then, by gum, we should be glad that Hillary Clinton is not going to be the next President of the United States.

Her caterwauling about the perceived injustice of not counting the Florida and Michigan primary results on account of their determination to break DNC rules, has conquered many peaks of absurdity lately. Norm draws my attention to this one:

People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe - tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote.

Good grief. This isn't just absurd, it's grotesque.

Clinton agreed to "disenfranchise" Florida and Michigan.  As Jon Chait says "This gambit by Clinton is simply an attempt to steal the nomination."

And so, in her desire to win-by-any-means and her willlingness to rewrite the rules after the contest has been held, it's hard to avoid the thought that Hillary Clinton is ill-advised to start talking about Zimbabwe - as if her "plight" and that of Africa really had anything in common - lest folk draw the conclusion that, if the comparison must be made, she's the brutish Robert Mugabe figure who's been rejected by a public that (clearly) just doesn't know what's good for them but that, nonetheless, has determined that "change" is more important than "experience". Like Mr Mugabe, she seems to take the view that it's not the voting that matters, it's the counting...

Corker, Shumble, Whelper and Pigge would be proud...

Congratulations to Joe Bavier, a Reuters correspondent in the Congo. You could work years in this trade and never get to tap out an intro like this:

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

[Via, Passport, Foreign Policy's excellent blog.]

Hillary and Rwanda: A Study in Cynicism

Annoyed though I am by Hillary's claim to have solved the Irish Question, it's nothing compared to her - how to put it? - revisionist claims about the Rwandan genocide. These are revolting. Hilzoy lays it all out here in a post* that's as enraging as it is sickening. The conclusion:

I think it's a lot more likely that she either didn't advocate action on Rwanda at all, or did so only in passing. If so, this would have to be the definitive example of her attempt to claim responsibility for everything good that happened during her husband's presidency, while disavowing all responsibility for his mistakes. This was, in my opinion, the most shameful moment of the Clinton administration. It ought, by rights, to have a place in Hillary Clinton's "thirty five years of experience working for change." Or perhaps she might claim that she wasn't that interested in foreign policy at the time, or that for whatever reason she just didn't pick up on the genocide in Rwanda until it was too late to act. That would at least be honest.

But if, in fact, Clinton missed the chance to urge her husband to help stop the Rwandan genocide, then she should not pretend that she was, in fact, right there on the side of the angels all along. That's just grotesque.

*Hilzoy quotes Samantha Power extensively. But remember that her book was written long before she joined the Obama campaign. Hilzoy also consulted eight books on the Rwandan genocide: Hillary isn't mentioned in any of them.

UPDATE: Links fixed, I hope. Thanks.

Today's shocking news

Comes from poor Zimbabwe:

Zimbabwe's governing party has endorsed Robert Mugabe as its candidate for next year's presidential elections.

The vote by delegates at the Zanu-PF conference in the capital, Harare, allows the 83-year-old president to seek a sixth term in office in March....

Mr Mugabe's selection was by open acclamation and all 10 of Zanu-PF's provincial bodies backed him.

"I did not hear any dissenting voices," John Nkomo, the Zanu-PF chairman said, according to the French news agency.

"It means this congress has fully and unreservedly declared Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe as the presidential candidate for next year's presidential elections."

Killer quote (literally):

"Every one of them matters to me. Can I let them down?" AP news agency quotes Mr Mugabe as saying during his keynote address to delegates before his endorsement.

"No. Their welfare is my welfare. Their suffering is my suffering. I dare not abandon them," he said.