Power to the People
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Rally for Justice for Sean Bell
Posted: April 25, 2008, 7:38 pm by blackstone
Please come out to the RALLY at the Queens District Attorney's office TODAY at 5:30pm @ 125-01 Queens Blvd. (between Hoover Ave & 82nd Ave.) E or F train to Union Turnpike.
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From:
stic.man of deadprez
Date: Apr 25, 2008 10:55 AM
50 shots!!! how is that NOT murder? fuck this system...
NEW YORK - Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.
Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the verdict in a Queens courtroom packed with spectators, including victim Sean Bell's fiancee and parents, and at least 200 people gathered outside the building.
The verdict provoked an outpouring of emotions: Bell's fiancee immediately walked out of the room. His mother cried.
Outside the courthouse, which was surrounded by scores of police officers, many in the crowd began weeping as news of the verdict said.
Others were enraged, swearing and screaming "Murderers! Murderers!" or "KKK!"
Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a seedy strip club in Queens on Nov. 25, 2006 — his wedding day — as he was leaving his bachelor party with two friends.
Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged only with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren't charged. Oliver squeezed off 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times.
The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.
The judge indicated that the police officers' version of events was more credible than the victims' version. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in firing, he said.
A conviction on manslaughter could have brought up to 25 years in prison; the penalty for reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, is a year behind bars.
The case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo — an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration.
The mood surrounding this case has been muted by comparison, although Bell's fiancee, parents and their supporters, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, have held rallies demanding that the officers — two of whom are black — be held accountable.
Still, a phalanx of police officers, some uniformed and some in the department's community affairs polo shirts, was stationed outside the courthouse Friday. The building was ringed by metal barricades. Some in the crowd wore buttons with Bell's picture or held signs saying "Justice for Sean Bell." After the verdict was read, some in the crowd approached officers but were held back; the jostling quickly died down.
After the verdict, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged that some people were disappointed with the acquittals.
"We don't anticipate violence, but we are prepared for any contingency," he said.
The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts of the night.
The defense painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy aggressors.
None of the officers took the witness stand in his own defense. Instead, Cooperman heard transcripts of the officers testifying before a grand jury, saying they believed they had good reason to use deadly force. The judge also heard testimony from Bell's two injured companions, who insisted the maelstrom erupted without warning.
Both sides were consistent on one point: The utter chaos surrounding the last moments of Bell's life.
"It happened so quick," Isnora said in his grand jury testimony. "It was like the last thing I ever wanted to do.
"
Bell's companions — Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman — also offered dramatic testimony about the episode. Benefield and Guzman were both wounded; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.
Referring to Isnora, Guzman said, "This dude is shooting like he's crazy, like he's out of his mind.
"
The victims and shooters were set on a fateful collision course by a pair of innocuous decisions: Bell's to have a last-minute bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, and the undercover detectives' to investigate reports of prostitution at the club.
As the club closed around 4 a.m., Sanchez and Isnora claimed they overheard Bell and his friends first flirt with women, then taunt a stranger who responded by putting his right hand in his pocket as if he had a gun. Guzman, they testified, said, "Yo, go get my gun" — something Bell's friends denied.
Isnora said he decided to arm himself, call for backup — "It's getting hot," he told his supervisor — and tail Bell, Guzman and Benefield as they went around the corner and got into Bell's car. He claimed that after warning the men to halt, Bell pulled away, bumped him and rammed an unmarked police van that converged on the scene with Oliver at the wheel.
The detective also alleged that Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.
"I yelled 'Gun!' and fired," he said. "In my mind, I knew (Guzman) had a gun.
"
Benefield and Guzman testified that there were no orders. Instead, Guzman said, Isnora "appeared out of nowhere" with a gun drawn and shot him in the shoulder — the first of 16 shots to enter his body.
"That's all there was — gunfire," he said. "There wasn't nothing else.
"
With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor sought cover. -
URGENT - STOP CHINESE ARMS SHIPMENT TO THE ZIMBABWEAN REGIME
Posted: April 22, 2008, 1:23 pm by blackstone
THE WORKING CLASS TAKES A STAND:
STOP CHINESE ARMS SHIPMENT TO THE ZIMBABWEAN REGIME!
by Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front
We welcome and support the decision by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union for their workers neither to unload nor transport the shipment of Chinese-made armaments destined for Zimbabwe. This is a very encouraging sign of working class solidarity and internationalism, and we hope that such actions will indeed prevent this weapons consignment from reaching its destination - the Zimbabwean Defence Force.
At the same time, if the transport workers should fail, if President Robert Mugabe's friends should find a way to bypass their resistance, all who stand with the Zimbabwean people should be ready to take a stand. Should the action taken by Satawu fail to prevent the armaments from being transported across South African territory to Zimbabwe, we call on all progressive elements across the country to intervene.
On 29 March 2008, parliamentary, presidential and local elections were held in Zimbabwe. This represented the last-gasp attempt of the Movement for Democratic Change to oust the 28-year-old regime of incumbent President Robert Mugabe, after a series of contestations since 2000 had resulted in an impasse.
The results of the parliamentary election show that the MDC has a narrow majority, but the results of the presidential election have been unaccountably delayed – presumably to allow Mugabe's regime to reassert its authority over the masses of the people who have been brutalised and impoverished.
These facts are well known to the world's progressive forces and to those who struggle for economic, social and political justice and equality. Now, in the hour of Mugabe's ultimate betrayal, a new threat has arisen in the form of a shipment of Chinese armaments – including rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifle rounds and mortars – which, we fear with justification, will be used to forcibly suppress the democratic forces in Zimbabwe, and could lead directly to the murder of thousands of Zimbabwean people.
We are fully aware of the heroic resistance of the Zimbabwean people to racist domination and their successful defeat of the regime of Ian Smith in 1980. This resistance was both pluralistic via the guerrillas of both Zanla and Zipra, and multiracial – even if the majority of white "Rhodesians" chose to abandon their country after independence.
But we are equally aware of the grievous injury done to the cause of the people by Mugabe's paranoia over the years – even if this paranoia was well-founded on apartheid attempts on his own life – and the dead of Matabeleland [1] and the displaced of Operation Murambatsvina [2] cry out for social justice.
Now, with the whole world watching – and the Southern African Development Community vacillating as predicted in its usual ineffective "engagements" – Mugabe has again stolen not only a march on the opposition, but the future of his people.
Journalists are being expelled and election observers have already fled the roost, allowing blood to flow in the streets unseen and unchecked: scanty reports now emerge of torture, murder, evictions, dispossessions and beating.
And now we have caught, red-handed, a Chinese shipment of arms to this regime, a regime that by all accounts is in terminal decline, with the highest inflation rate in the world and an elite that is already displaying the most grotesque elements of social decay imaginable.
We call on all progressive groups, organisations and individuals to physically prevent, whether peacefully or with necessary force, the shipment of arms to one of the world's most despised pariah dictatorships. This call extends to the progressive world community to do whatever they can to bring this to public attention and to prevent possible massacre.
This could include:
Targeting and putting pressure on South African Port Authorities not to allow the consignment to come onto land.
Targeting South African, Chinese and Zimbabwean embassies and diplomatic missions with pickets, protests and other non-violent direct actions - against representatives of these governments - and not the ordinary citizens of these states. (We will not tolerate any actions against Chinese, Zimbabwean or South African people on the basis of their ethnicity and/ or nationality).
Gathering intelligence about the whereabouts, planned route and mode of transport for the armaments, and publicising these.
Blockading these routes in a non-violent manner with an eye to preventing the armaments from reaching their destination.
Blockading the South African border with Zimbabwe should the armaments reach it.
Supporting and sustaining the transport workers in their refusal to unload and transport the weapons
Defending the transport workers and anyone else who faces repression as a result of their efforts to stop the weapons reaching their destination.
Link this struggle directly to global opposition to China's campaign to suppress the Tibetan people and turn the 2008 Olympics into a replica of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany – where nationalist sporting events were used as a cover for gross human rights abuses.
What we know:
A Chinese ship, An Yue Jiang - owned by the parastatal Chinese Ocean Shipping Company - carrying armaments destined for Zimbabwe has anchored at Durban harbour.
The shipment contains almost three million rounds of ammunitions for small arms and AK-47s, about 3 500 mortars and mortar launchers, as well as 1 500 rockets for rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and is valued at R9,88million.
The ship's cargo documentation was allegedly finalised just 3 days after the Zimbabwean elections.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union has refused to unload or transport the arms consignment, although this does not mean someone else won't.
About 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols have been seen with Zimbabwean military officials in Harare.
THIS SHIPMENT WILL BE STOPPED BY THE DIRECT ACTION OF THE PEOPLE!
MUGABE WILL FALL!
BUT WE, THE AFRICAN PEOPLE, WILL STAND IN HIS STEAD!
For further information contact Michael Schmidt, ZACF International Secretary on 082 334-6665 or Jonathan Payn, ZACF Regional Secretary on 084 946-4240
Footnotes:
[1] The Matabeleland Massacre, between 1982 - 1983 was an attempt by ZANU-PF on the ethnic cleansing of people of the Ndebele ethno-political group living in the Matabeleland region. An estimated 20 000 people were murdered.
[2] Known in English as Operation Drive Out Trash, Operation Murambastvina was a large scale government campaign to forcibly clear out slum areas, effectively displacing an estimated 2.4 million people.
See http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Operation_Murambatsvina
Postet Suite 47, Private Bag X1, Fordsburg, 2033, South Africa
zacf@zabalaza.net
www. zabalaza. net -
ZACF Statement on the Murder of Pudemo Deputy President Dr. Gabriel Thandokuhle Mkhumane
Posted: April 9, 2008, 6:25 pm by blackstone
The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front was saddened and concerned to learn of the murder of Pudemo Deputy President Dr. Gabriel Thandokuhle Mkhumane.
Although the truth behind his murder seems unclear, with some mainstream newspapers in Swaziland reporting that C'de Mkhumane was victim of a violent robbery, and although township life is by definition far from safe from random criminality; the murder took place close to Swaziland, in an area where many Swazis live and in which their intelligence and undercover cops operate, so we feel the likelihood is great that this was a politically-motivated assassination.
It appears to indicate the murderous nature of the Mswati regime, and the degree to which the regime will go to protect its interests, and though it creates a martyr for Pudemo, the hit (if it is such) must be seen as a blow against the very idea of popular democracy in Swaziland, a blow directed at the people as a whole by targeting a figure representative (in the state's mind at least) of that people.
Our sympathies go out to all those who have lost a friend, comrade or family member. We urge Swazi revolutionaries and freedom fighters not to be disheartened or deterred from their revolutionary duties, and we hope that anyone who is in a position to delve deeper and get to the truth behind C'de Mkhumane's murder does so.
It is true that many a freedom fighter, both in Swaziland and exiled around the world, have lost a friend and a comrade, but the struggle continues. Let us all be inspired by the life of a comrade dedicated to the overthrow of the Tinkhundla system, as well as being incensed by his murder; resolving to do all that we can, in our own way, to strengthen, advance and support the Swazi people in their struggle for freedom.
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front
April, 2008 -
Egyptian Forces Face Tough Internet Activists
Posted: April 8, 2008, 1:08 pm by blackstone
Interesting article on how technology in Egypt has been fanning the flames for democracy and better working conditions. Blogging, Facebook and SMS text messages have become powerful tools in the Egyptian activists arsenal, informing Egyptians of planned actions and providing up to date reports of ongoing situations such as strikes, protests, rallies,etc .
In the old days when you wanted to suppress a general strike you just sent in the troops to crack some heads. Nowadays, Egypt's security forces are facing an army of Internet-savvy activists using Twitter, Facebook, text messaging and blogging as their weapons. By JOHN EHAB in Cairo and ALEXANDRA SANDELS in Beirut
In order to better squelch street protests Egyptian authorities have taken to preemptive arrests of activist bloggers. © Jano Charbel
BEIRUT/CAIRO, April 7, 2008 (MENASSAT) – It's Monday morning, the day after a general strike in Egypt was partly thwarted by a preemptive crackdown by the country's security forces. In his Cairo apartment, award-winning blogger Wael Abbas is frantically typing away on his blog, Egyptian Awareness, and uploading photos from the street rallies. The Egyptian news is blaring in the background and Abbas' mobile phone is constantly beeping from incoming text messages.
Abbas has been at it for hours; providing fellow activists, the media, and random Internet users with the latest updates on the uprisings that are currently sweeping through his country. Photos on his blog show protesters shouting slogans in Cairo's main square, Midan Tahrir, before a field of security troops and plainclothes officers. On Abbas' blog is a link to his Twitter account where one can find out precisely who has been arrested, released, and re-arrested over the past two days.
It is a picture of Egypt that the authorities do not want the outside world to see. And while the state-run mainstream media routinely oblige the government by ignoring the protests, Egypt's bloggers are not so easily shut up.
Which goes a long way to explain why among yesterday's detainees were not only demonstrators and political activists but also a number of bloggers.
"Malik, Sharkawy and several independent bloggers as well as some web activists from the labor party were detained," Abbas told MENASSAT over the phone.
The strike in Cairo and in the industrial city of Mahalla el-Kubra was directed against rising prices, stagnating wages and the increasing gap between rich and poor in Egypt.
'Pyjamahedeen'
To be sure, last weekend's protest was not quite the national uprising against the regime of president Hosni Mubarak it was billed to be – thousands of riot police made sure of that.
Nearly 300 demonstrators were reportedly arrested. At least two schools were burned to the ground and security troops were met by stone-throwing crowds around the factories of Mahalla el-Kubra, the nucleus of the nation's textile industry.
In downtown Cairo, the streets were mostly empty as demonstrators were confronted by hundreds of trucks filled with anti-riot troops. One security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told MENASSAT that the security forces had been given the green light to use "tough methods" in order to retain control of the streets.
Egypt’s outspoken bloggers constitute one of the most active blogging communities in the Arab world and their online activism has become a constant pain for the authorities. Waging war on the regime from their bedrooms, they sometimes proudly refer to themselves as the "pyjamahedeen."
In a country where rights groups cite a deteriorating press environment and severe crackdowns on free speech, the web activists are often the first to break stories on sensitive issues, such as police abuse and torture. Moreover, their activities often play a key role in the organizing of demonstrations and anti-governmental rallies.
"The role of the bloggers in Egypt is really important. People depend on us to receive news and to know what’s happening in the country," blogger Wa7damasrya (Egyptian girl) told MENASSAT.
A journalist in Cairo said, "One must read the blogs these days in order to find out what’s really happening in Egypt."
But the authorities are catching on, and web activism in Egypt comes with a price tag these days. Many bloggers claim to have been subjected to arrest, harassment, detainment, and even imprisonment - an indication to that the regime is becoming increasingly aware of the power of web activism.
Last weekend's protests were no exception. Egyptian activists started campaigning online a few weeks ago, urging their fellow citizens to participate in a nation-wide protest.
Preemptive arrests of bloggers
The crowds soon mobilized in large numbers on the blogs and through the popular social networking site Facebook and mobile phone text messaging. The Facebook group that was created for the event has almost 2,000 members.
"I first heard about the strike through an email and then I joined the Facebook group," said Dahlia, a public relations employee at a private firm in Cairo.
Emails and text messages urged people to not leave their homes on Sunday. "Don't go to work, don't go to school," became the adopted slogan.
On Sunday afternoon, the virtual protest moved into the real world when a thousand protestors gathered in downtown Cairo shouting anti-government slogans such as "Down down with Mubarak" - and were met by a huge force of very real members of the security forces.
Wa7damasreya, who attended the rally, referred to the event as a clear illustration of the "terrorism of the state," saying she came close to being arrested herself.
"State security tried to confiscate my camera. Several students from the American University were taken away. It was completely chaotic," she told MENASSAT.
Wa7damasreya shortly thereafter gave an eyewitness account of the Cairo tumult to the sattelite TV channel Al-Hurra.
Further proof of the importance of web activism is that the authorities have taken to preemptive arrests of bloggers ahead of street protests. On Saturday night, Egyptian police reportedly paid an unannounced visit to the apartment of blogger Mohammed el-Sharkawy in Cairo and arrested him. Another prominent web activist known as ‘Malik’ was also arrested before Sunday’s big showdown.
Mohamed Abdel Kuddous, a journalist and a member of the opposition movement Kefaya (‘enough’ in Arabic), says he was detained by plainclothes police when leaving his house in the early morning hours to attend the protest.
"They blindfolded me and took me to a police camp on the outskirts of Cairo. This is evidence that this is a weak dictatorship, a military regime which is based on repression," Kuddous told MENASSAT.
Meanwhile, in the state-run media...
The bloggers were quick to respond, setting up several 'web hotlines,' among them http://6april08.blogspot.com, where activists could find up-to-date information and useful phone numbers. Abbas' own hotline served as "one of the most important outlets for activists," said Wa7damasreya.
Predictably, the government-controlled mass media provided a somewhat different picture of Sunday than that of the blogs and the independent media.
State-owned TV stations and newspapers broadcast a statement from the Ministry of Interior warning people against participating in the "illegitimate strikes." During Sunday's protests, the same TV stations showed students on their way to school in an aim to prove ‘the failure of the strike’.
Egypt's most prominent state-run daily, Al-Ahram, ran a first page article entitled "Work went on as usual across Egypt," while the Rosalusef newspaper featured titles such as "The failure of the chaos campaigners."
The country's opposition press did not quite agree with the official reports and instead described the strikes as ‘successful’.
El Dostour featured photos showing the main squares throughout Egypt jam-packed with security police while the independent daily al-Masry el-Youm emphasized the mass detentions of demonstrators. "Security aborts demonstrations - Citizens stay home in fear of violence," read one of the headlines.
"The state media want to convey that everything is OK and that nothing took place while in reality the strikes illustrated a deep political and economic crisis," commented journalist Yehia Kallash.
Source
[www.menassat.com]
More here:
[mangalorean.com]
[afp.google.com] -
Chicago 10 Animated Feature Film
Posted: April 7, 2008, 2:40 pm by blackstone
Chicago 10 is a 2007 partly animated film written and directed by Brett Morgen and tells the story of the Chicago Seven. The film features the voices of Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Roy Scheider, Liev Schreiber, and Jeffrey Wright in an animated reenactment of the trial based on transcripts and rediscovered audio recordings. It also contains archive footage of David Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, William Kunstler, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Leonard Weinglass, and of the protest and riot itself. The title is drawn from a quote by Rubin, who said, "Anyone who calls us the Chicago Seven is a racist. Because you're discrediting Bobby Seale. You can call us the Chicago Eight, but really we're the Chicago Ten, because our two lawyers went down with us." [1]
It premiered January 18, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It later premiered at Silverdocs, the AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in Downtown Silver Spring. The film opened in limited release in the United States on February 29, 2008.
This film is a must see and i have been following it's development for a while now. You can find more clips on youtube by typing in Chicago 10. I encourage all to see this film and support this filmmaker!
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Remembering Africa's Fela Kuti
Posted: April 6, 2008, 2:22 am by blackstone
Fela Anikulapo Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, October 15, 1938 - August 2, 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.
He was ranked at number 46 in a list of the top 100 most influential musicians compiled by HMV.
The man who ex-Beatle Paule McCartney referred to as "the best band i've ever seen live...When Fela and his band eventually began to play, after a long crazy buildup, I just couldn't stop weeping for joy". McCartney wanted to use African musicians for the album he was working on but was denounced by Fela as "stealing Black Man's music".
A typical early swipe at the ruling elite was contained in the 1973 album GENTLEMAN, in which Kuti lampooned the black middle-class fetish for wearing western clothing in a tropical climate: ‘him put him socks him put him shoes, him put him pants him put him singlet, him put him trouser him put him shirt, him put him tie him put him coat, him come cover all with him hat; him be gentleman; him go sweat all over, him go faint right down, him go smell like shit’. Not surprisingly, the Nigerian establishment did not enjoy hearing songs like these—nor did they approve of Kuti's high-profile propaganda on behalf of igbo (Nigerian marijuana).
Listen to the man who shook up Nigeria during it's most brutal years. We miss you Fela Kuti.
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Mugabe Plot to Steal Zimbabwe Election
Posted: April 1, 2008, 2:28 pm by blackstone
What follows below is a very interesting article about a plot by current Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to steal the rig the elections. The article claims that ZANU-PF were shocked to find MDC overwhelmingly being supported by the Zimbabwe populace. Instead of backing out and beginning a government transition, they either opted to enforce military rule or assert martial law. It was then decided to trickle down votes to show MDC in lead, but as time wore on have ZANU-PF and Mugabe suddenly win the election.
This is an issue that is not peculiar to Zimbabwe, but as we seen earlier, to Kenya and Congo and other African nations. It comes from a lack of an institutionalized state and civil society. In industrialized states such as America and UK, win officials lose Presidential elections, there is not civil wars. The losing candidate continues to be Senator, Congressmen, etc or will run again following term. In Africa, it is not the case. Due to patronism or clientism, positions are granted due to loyalty to factions. This is very dangerous when certain factions instrumentalize violence or have a monopoly of it. Things can get quickly out of hand as we seen in Kenya and Congo. A more indepth analysis of African nation-states will be posted this weekend.
-blackstone
A crisis meeting of Robert Mugabe's security cabinet decided to block the opposition
from taking power after what appears to have been a comprehensive victory in Zimbabwe's elections but was divided between using a military takeover to annul the vote and falsifying the results.
Diplomatic and Zimbabwean sources who heard first-hand accounts of the Joint Operations Command meeting of senior military and intelligence officers and top party officials on Sunday night said Mugabe favoured immediately declaring himself president again but was persuaded to use the country's electoral commission to keep the opposition from power.
The commission began releasing a trickle of results yesterday, more than 36 hours after the polls closed, but the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said it believed the count was being manipulated.
Nonetheless, the first results, for 52 seats in the lower house of parliament, cost Mugabe one of his closest allies with the defeat of the justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, whom the MDC has accused of abusing the law to persecute the ruling Zanu-PF party's opponents. Other cabinet ministers are also believed to have lost their seats.
However, the few parliamentary results offered no guide to the outcome of the presidential race. Independent monitors collating the count from polling booth returns say the MDC presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won about 55% of the vote and Mugabe 38%. The MDC also gained control of both houses of parliament, according to the monitors.
The MDC said the slow pace of releasing vote tallies - likely to take days at the present rate - was further reason to suspect they were being tampered with.
Sources with knowledge of the JOC meeting said the Zanu-PF leadership was "in shock" after it was informed of the scale of the victory of the MDC's presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.
A senior diplomatic source who received accounts from two people privy to the JOC meeting said it discussed shutting down the count and Mugabe declaring himself re-elected or the army stepping in to declare martial law on the pretext of defending the country from instability caused by the opposition claiming victory.
"In the JOC meeting there were two options for Mugabe: to declare victory on Sunday or declare martial law," said the diplomat. "They did not consider conceding. We understand Mugabe nearly decided to declare victory. Cooler heads prevailed. It was decided to use the [election commission] process of drip, drip where you release results over a long period, giving the opposition gains at first but as time wears on Zanu-PF pulls ahead."
Another source said that some JOC members favoured a less hardline approach by reaching out to the opposition but were overruled.
If the government does attempt to fix the result it will not go unchallenged. The election commission will have to substantially alter a large number of polling booth returns in order to overturn Tsvangirai's significant lead. But the MDC has photographed results declarations pinned to the doors of more than 8,000 polling stations. If the numbers announced by the election commission are different, the party says it will have indisputable evidence of fraud.
"Unlike previous elections no one can privatise the result as it is posted outside the stations," said the MDC's secretary general, Tendai Biti. "This country stands on a precipice. We still express our great misgivings about [the election commission's] failure to announce the results. It raises tension among the people that is fertilising an atmosphere of suspicion."
The opposition is attempting to reach out to the military. A senior MDC source said Tsvangirai has approached the former army chief, Solomon Mujuru, to reassure the military that it has nothing to fear from a transition of power and to ask what its concerns are so they can be addressed.
Mujuru is widely respected in the military but is treated with suspicion by Mugabe and other Zanu-PF hardliners after being tied to the presidential campaign of Simba Makoni, the Zanu-PF dissident who has done poorly in the election. Mujuru has yet to respond to Tsvangirai.
International pressure on Mugabe to respect the result is growing. Britain has little influence over Zimbabwe but the foreign secretary, David Miliband, said he and Gordon Brown will be speaking to other African leaders about the situation. They can be expected to urge South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, in particular to pressure Mugabe to recognise defeat.
Source
[www.guardian.co.uk]
Blah blah blah
Fish cakes
Alas a fish cake.
Yet more fish cakes
Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.
The end of the fish cakes
