First, the good news.
robert mugabe, Zimbabwe’s one and only head of state since becoming an independent country in 1980, apparently has been deposed.
The 93 year old mugabe, under whose tender mercies Zimbabwe went from being among the most prosperous of African nations to its answer to North Korea, is under house arrest. And the military has taken over.
At least that’s how it looks.
Here, via Peta Thornycroft, Chris Graham and Louis Emanuel’s article for London’s Daily Telegraph, is what the people are being told:
The military has taken over Zimbabwe, placing President Robert Mugabe under house arrest and detaining senior government officials in what many are expecting to be the beginning of a transition of power.
Military officials denied carrying out a coup as it took over the state TV and broadcast a message insisting the president and his wife were “secure”, adding that they were targeting a ring of government plotters following a power struggle that saw the vice-president flee the country last week.
Jacob Zuma, the South African president, said he had spoken to Mr Mugabe by phone who told him he was “confined to his home but said that he was fine”.
“It is not a military takeover of government,” an army spokesman said in a televised statement. “We wish to assure the nation that his excellency the president… and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed.
“We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice.
If Mugabe is out, the world will have been disgorged of one of its most brutal and destructive tyrants.
But, now, the bad news.
Do we know who and what will take over Zimbabwe? No we do not.
And as post-qaddafi Libya has told us, no matter how bad things are for a country there is always the potential for them to get worse.
More on this as it becomes available.
One last thing: Peta Thornycroft? No thanks, I never pet anything with thorns. Don’t you love British names?
