Aden Hashi Ayro, one of the leaders of the al-Shabab insurgency in Somalia, was killed last night in a US airstrike. Seems like a) a good time for a review of the third front in the perpetual “war on terror” and b) a discussion of just who’s in al Qaeda and who’s not.

I’ve written at length about the situation in Somalia over the past couple of years. For a quick intro to the situation, you might try “Somalia: Possibly More Complex than Nigeria”. If you’ve got lots of time to kill, you could follow some of my other posts on the topic:

December 7, 2006 - UN Peacekeepers in Somalia - Is that a good thing?
December 21, 2006 - Ken Menkhaus’s insights on Somalia
December 28, 2006 - Ethiopian Army Seizes Mogadishu
December 29, 2006 - Ethiopian Liberators greeted with cheer and flowers
January 4, 2007 - A historic opportunity for what?
January 11, 2007 - A quagmire no one wants to be stuck in
June 22, 2007 - An update on the “third front”
November 19, 2007 - The possible resumption of the world’s stupidest war
December 14, 2007 - Somalia spirals out of control. Or it’s completely peaceful. Depends on who you ask.
February 18, 2008 - Steve Bloomfield breaks new ground in Somalia reporting

Or you could accept this incomplete, biased and massively oversimplified summary:

Somalia has been without a central government since 1991 - it’s been run by somewhat functional governments in northern provinces Somaliland and Puntland, and by competing groups of warlords in the south. There have been thirteen unsuccesful attempts to create national unity governments for Somalia, all of which have failed. Attempt #14 - the Transitional Federal Government - has support of the UN, the US and has been able to occupy southern Somalia with the backing of the Ethiopian army. The TFG, backed by the Ethiopian Army, supported by US military assistance, chased out the Union of Islamic Courts, a group of warlords who managed to bring some semblance of stability to Mogadishu and its environs by introducing a form of sharia law.

Ethiopia got involved because it sees a strong Islamist Somalia as a threat - specifically, it is fighting a civil conflict in its eastern Ogaden region, which shares a border with Somalia and which some Somalis see as a part of Greater Somalia. Eritrea may have gotten involved on the side of the UIC, as a way of opposing their enemy Ethiopia… with whom they are threatening to resume fighting the world’s stupidest war. The US got involved because it feared that a UIC-controlled Mogadishu would become a haven for Al-Qaeda. Got all that?

Ethiopia invaded in late 2006, with intelligence, training and logistical support from the US, rapidly routed UIC, which dispersed, a common tactic in guerilla warfare. Since then, it’s become increasingly clear that Ethiopia is trapped in its own “Vietnam”, an unwinnable guerilla war that’s sapping its strength. The US has bombed Somali targets several times with limited success. The AU is on the ground as a peacekeeping force, but only 1600 of a promised 8,000 troops have shown up. Meanwhile, violence is increasing and spreading north into previously stable Puntland.

And, in the meantime, there’s a refugee crisis in Somalia that’s at least as serious as the situation in Darfur - at least 1.5 million Somalis are believed to have fled their homes to avoid violence between the FTG/Ethiopian forces and militias like al-Shabab. Public spaces, like markets, have become extremely dangerous for citizens, as Ethiopian forces have shown willingness to shell public spaces to target militants.

So, who was Ayro, who are these al-Shabab guys, and will this latest development make things better or worse?

After the Union of Islamic Courts was ousted from Mogadishu, the alliance that had helped stabilize the city broke up into at least three forces. My friend Abduhrahman Warsame, a Somali who works in Qatar, offers this analysis:

It’s becoming clearer that Islamic Courts were only an umbrella for diverse groups each with a different agenda. One of those groups was the clan militias, led by a warlord nicknamed “Indha Adde”, who held the biggest force within the Islamic Courts, they were used to defeat the warlords allied with the US. Another group was the Islamic Courts militia, mostly militias of the powerful businessmen in Mogadishu. Then there’s the hardcore Al-Qaeda-type group, mostly Somalis who fought overseas alongside the Taliban and elsewhere, and unlike the other groups their aim was to capture the whole of Somalia. However, the leadership of the Islamic Courts were more realistic, and that’s what kept this group in-check.

One of the “hardcore” militias Abdurahman refers to is Al-Shabab, and Ayro, who analysts believe trained in Afghanistan, was one of the leaders of the militia. There’s no doubt that Ayro was an extremely bad guy, and that techniques he and followers use are similar to techniques being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. But does it make sense to identify him as the head of al-Qaeda in Somalia?

I’m guessing this question is being asked in newsrooms around the world today. The New York Times ran a story initially titled “Qaeda Agent in Somalia Killed in U.S. Attack”. It’s now titled “Key Militant in Somalia Killed in U.S. Attack“. (At present, the link above leads to a story with the first headline in the title bar and the second headline on the webpage.) The BBC story mentions al-Qaeda, but only in references to US military assertions about the target: “The US says al-Shabab is part of the al-Qaeda network, although correspondents say it is impossible to accurately establish those links. Al-Shabab leaders say it is a purely Somali movement and they deny any involvement with al-Qaeda.”

And there’s the question. If Al-Shabab is the local chapter of a global terrorist organization, attempting to train fighters to wage jihad against US interests around the world, it makes sense for the US military to target it. But if Al-Shabab is a violent, brutal, domestic terrorist organization aimed at ousting the TFG and Ethiopian soldiers from Somalia, what the heck is the US doing in the fight? Are we simply doing favors for Ethiopia, in exchange for continued military and diplomatic support? Or do we now have a policy of bombing terrorists anywhere we’ve got the possibility of doing so without the complaints of the local government? (Easy enough to do in Somalia, where the government has been installed by the Ethiopian military with US backup.)

I’ve asserted that the US strategy in Somalia represents a new form of military strategy - a proxy war, using our special forces and airpower, but the ground troops of another nation, designed to fly under the radar of media scrutiny. While this particular strike got a good deal of coverage, articles have largely picked up the “US got a bad guy” storyline and have had little speculation on the larger security and political situation.

Two stories written prior to the strike that killed Ayro might shed some light on the larger context, and might have useful predictions for the future. Abdulkadir Khalif, writing in Kenya Today, notes that UIC and Al-Shabab militias have been reclaiming territory that had been controlled by TGF forces. Other large swaths of territory appear uncontrolled either by TFG or by UIC-related forces. Khalif notes, “For many people, this has come as a surprise since few expected the Islamists to regroup and gain ground so fast. Their defeat by the TFG forces, with the help of Ethiopian troops, over a year ago seemed so decisive that no one expected the Islamists to recover in just about a year.” It will be worth seeing whether the strike killing Ayro will slow this process - if not, it’s a pretty good sign that Al-Shabab isn’t the only powerful milita fighting TFG, or that killing a single guerilla commander isn’t as relevant in winning a war many reports are making it out to be.

Nick Wadhams, writing in Time, has a stark analysis of the situation in Somalia. Though pubished before the strike on Ayro, his words may prove prescient:

The al-Shabab used to be the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union, the group of Islamic militias that had taken over towns across the country before being ousted by the Ethiopians. Now, however, they appear to be gaining power, raising fears that moderates among the Islamic groups are being sidelined. “What has been happening is the steady deterioration in the security situation and the inability of the TFG and the Ethiopian forces to contain the insurgency and impose some sort of stability,” Andebrhan Georgis, an adviser to the Africa Program at the International Crisis Group, told TIME. “I’m afraid what we’re seeing is increasing radicalization.”

That’s been a major embarrassment to Ethiopia and, by extension, the United States, which supported Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s decision to invade, on the premise that it would quell the deepening Islamic fundamentalism that seemed to be taking hold. So far, events in Somalia suggest that it has had the opposite effect, driving moderate factions of the Islamists out of the country and shifting power to the best-armed and most hardline among them.

Why pay attention to Somalia? Because this new strategy of proxy warfare may prove more dangerous, in the long run, than fighting directly. Because evidence is mounting that toppling governments is easier than building nations. Because we’re discovering that fighting guerilla armies is different from fighting standing armies. Because US actions in the world have relevance for US citizens whether they know it or not.

As the post-election crisis lurches on in Zimbabwe, the question on everyone’s mind is “What next?” The ZANU-PF government briefly signalled an interest in a “transitional government of national unity” - headed by President Mugabe, of course, but involving opposition MDC politicians as well. The Herald - a state-owned newspaper which floated that idea of national unity - has changed course and now runs an editorial titled “Unity govt not feasible“. Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga renounced the previous statements about unity and emphasized that ZANU-PF would challenge MDC in a run-off election.

Uncertainty over the future provides great fodder for discussion. At Harvard University in Cambridge MA this evening, a group of very smart Zimbabweans and Zimbabwe-watchers got together to discuss possible scenarios. Brian Chingono, a student at Harvard, offers a frame for the discussions which will be familiar to readers of this blog:
- It’s been almost a month, and no presidential election results have been released
- Robert Mugabe, in power for 28 years, has a history of political violence, dating back to violence against the Ndebele in the 1980s
- Thousands of Zimbabweans have been displaced by post-election violence
- Parlimentary results, which showed a victory for the opposition MDC, are now being “recounted”
- Chinese arms shipments to Zimbabwe raise fears that the denoument to the current situation may be a violent one.
He shows a video report from SkyNews - who have been doing excellent video journalism from within the country - showing violence against MDC supporters, and a system of reports on paper and by SMS that the MDC argues prove that they won the presidential election.

Chaz Maviyane-Davies, an award winning activist graphic designer, is a Zimbabwean exile. In the lead up to the 2002 Presidential election, he ran a series of striking ads, aimed at Zimbabwean voters. His aim, he tells us, was to “raise consciousness about the situation”. He spent 2-3 hours a day on the pieces and distributed them globally via email. While it might have been more effective to distribute the pieces on print, cost made it impossible for Maviyane-Davies - instead, he relied on sending them globally and hoping people would distribute, print and be moved by them. A later project, Portal of Truth, offered stark graphic commentary on the stolen 2002 Zimbabwe elections. His images are a tour of some of the darker moments in Zimbabwean political history, touching on the church’s unwillingness to enter into politics, Zimbabwe’s incursions into the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government’s willingness to print money to contest elections, voter intimidation by the military and efforts to prevent election observers from monitoring elections. Many feature Zimbabwean proverbs: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a small room with a mosquito.”

Maviyane-Davies didn’t create images for the 2005 or 2008 elections, but he’s been working on images in the last few weeks, including one for the poster that advertised today’s event, featured above.

My friend and colleage Tawanda Mutasah, the executive director of Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, is asked to address the thorny question, “How has Mugabe managed to stay in power?” He offers two answers - domestic repression, and a pretense of African legitimation. For decades, Mutasah tells us, Mugabe has terrorized voters throughout the country, with particularly severe cases in Midlands and the southwest of the country, to rig elections. While rigging efforts this decade have received more attention, it’s really a very old strategy.

A key date for Zimbabwe was March 2001, when SADC (a regional trade body) agreed to a new set of norms and standards for elections. (Tawanda clarified by email today that the 2001 agreement was by the parliamentary forum of SADC. An agreement in August 2004 by SADC heads of state cemented these changes.) The fact that Zimbabwe signed on to these standards “makes it easier to say the elections have been stolen without people complaining about UK and US influence,” as these are African norms and standards, agreed to by Zim’s neighors.

The real problem, Mutasah explains, is the “joint operations command”, a group of six generals who are functionally in control of the government. “They’ve told Mugabe he can’t reliquish power” because they’re afraid of what will happen when they are no longer in power. They’re (understandably) afraid of being prosecuted for political murders and crimes against humanity.

Mugabe has been a master at leveraging his revolutionary credentials, but Mutasah tells us that “we’re seeing cracks in this pretense. The chink is now clear in Mugabe’s armor.” For years, he’s claimed that all of Africa supports him against the rest of the world and that he’s leading an African revolution. But now the president of Zambia has declared that any country in SADC which allows the Chinese arms shipment to be delivered will be violating SADC election codes. The president of Tanzania, who is currently heading the AU, has described the situation in Zimbabwe as “unacceptable”. President Mbeki of South Africa is looking increasingly isolated.

That said, Mutasah gives us a quick history lesson: in 1971, the Byrd Amendment overturned a ban on US trade with Rhodesia, allowing the US to import minerals despite Ian Smith’s deeply repressive regime. “Mugabe has been aware from long back that the politics of the international community has tended to be fickle, and I dare say, unprincipled.” The hope, today, is that the international community is changing and that it’s not monolithic. There needs to be a movement around global human rights solidarity that marginalizes Mugabe in terms of supporting the rights of poor people in Zimbabwe.

Andrew Meldrum, a journalist for The Guardian and The Economist who lived for years in post-independence Zimbabwe before being imprisoned and deported, sees cause for hope in the current situation. His proximate cause for hope is the international community’s refusal to allow an arms shipment from China to be delivered to Zimbabwe.

The message of this refusal, he tells us, is that Mugabe can’t win at the ballot box - he needs guns. And African leaders are starting to step up and pressure China (against a backdrop of China’s problems with Tibet and Darfur), which appears to have led to China backing down from delivering arms. In the past, Meldrum tells us he advised the US and British government not to condemn the Zimbabwean government because it ends up reinforcing Mugabe’s argument that he’s at war against colonial powers. “But at this point, things are so desperate, all possible criticism should go on.” He suggests that criticism should focus on democracy, the rule of law and human rights - “Who can be against those things?”

He notes that the government’s latest plan (which already appears to be taken off the table) for a national unity government isn’t realistic. “A government of national unity governed by Robert Mugabe is a contradiction in terms.” Mugabe doesn’t behave democratically within his own party. There’s no chance that the opposition - or the international community - will accept that solution.

Dambudzo Muzenda, a blogger and a student at the Kennedy School of Government, sees the recent election as proof positive that the national mood has turned against Mugabe. She believes that the election was “a personal vote against Mugabe and ZANU-PF, and that “people won’t accept a government with Mugabe at the top of the ticket.” Asked about the possibility of a truth and reconcilliation committee, she wonders whether this process will make it harder to oust hardliners, who will be afraid of facing persecution. “If that means trading immunity against justice… I would rather see Mugabe go scott free than see him stay in power and cause so much damage.”

Any conversation about the future of Zimbabwe has to face issues of land distribution. Meldrum unpacks the history of the 1980 Lancaster Agreement, in which the UK agreed to provide fiscal assistance to Zimbabwe to allow for land distribution. “Zimbabwe needed land reform before the seizures. And now it needs it again. No one has benefitted from these seizures.” He believes it will take 15 years, a process that might involve inviting experienced white farmers to bid on large farms and coach black farmers to the point where they’re able to productively take over these farms. Mutasah points out that the UK honored part of the Lancaster agreement, putting up £44m to compensate farmers. Unfortunately, this money rarely made it into farmer’s hands, and farms were given to cronies, not to people who could productively farm them. “Those guys in the upper echelons of the government - each of them owns at least five farms.”

Many of the questions focused on what diaspora Zimbabweans might do to effectively help change. Muzenda points out that roughly a quarter of the nation’s population lives in South Africa. They’re afraid to come out into the streets and protest, as many are in South Africa illegally. But South Africa could negotiate an agreement to allow disaporans to vote, either in an official or an unofficial way. And some activists are organizing protests, like attempts to jam phone lines at ZANU-PF headquarters and at certain ministries and embassies. In a later question, Muzenda is less hopeful, noting that protests within Zimbabwe will likely lead to declaration of martial law. She ends with the hope that Mugabe’s age may become a factor, or that a Jacob Zuma presidency of South Africa would be less forgiving and flexible with Mugabe. Mutasah wonders whether a public statement from Nelson Mandela would help further undercut Mugabe’s anti-colonialist cred and suggests people contact Mandela’s foundation.

An audience member wonders how Mugabe and ZANU-PF managed to allow election results to be published at polling places, which appears to be the key factor in preventing the election from being rigged. Mutasah quotes section and verse: “Section 64-1E is the key provision.” It was added to Zimbabwe election law under pressure from opposition parties. That pressure resulted from international condemnation of violence on March 11, 2007, where government forces broke up a peaceful prayer meeting. The outrage over that violence forced dialog between the government and opposition, and it allowed for a key change in election law.

I asked the panelists how they felt about the issue of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Zimbabwe has an amazing history of forgiveness - Ian Smith, who led the apartheid government, was allowed to live out his days peacefully under the Mugabe government that fought for his ouster. How much forgiveness were panelists willing to offer in exchange for a change of government?

Chingono suggested that Zimbabweans were so desperate for basic human rights and food that they’d be willing to forgive many of the people involved with the government. Mutasah was far more cautious, warning of the dangers of “premature forgiveness”. “We are ready to go beyond the current impasse, but we see deep-seated anger,” connected to the massacre in Matabeleland, the 2000 killed between 2000 and 2002. The important lessons from the South Africa TRC, he tells us, is the importance of forcing people to confess their crimes in a serious, open, contrite way before being granted amnesty. He believes Zimbabwe will need a TRC, perhaps one in which lower-ranking functionaries are prosecuted while leaders are given amnesty, or perhaps vice versa. “In our experience with transitional justice, we’ve discovered that when anger is bottled up, it doesn’t always come up in a civilized way.” The challenge is not just to oust Mugabe - it’s to build a prosperous and stable country after the fact, which involves facing and moving through decades of frustration and anger.

Two bonus readings:

- An amazing post from an anonymous documentary filmmaker in Zimbabwe, unpacking the economics of Zimbabwe under hyperinflation and the people who are benefitting from it.

- Chinese resentment over the China/Zimbabwe arms deal and international press attention to China’s role in Zimbabwe, translated by John Kennedy for Global Voices.

Wonder why the Zimbabwe government suddenly finds itself needing 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition?

The health minister needs to reload.

Chris McGreal, reporting for the Guardian, begins his story with this paragraph:

ZIMBABWE’S Health Minister armed himself with a Kalashnikov and threatened to kill opposition supporters forced to attend a political meeting unless they voted for Robert Mugabe in a second round of the presidential election, witnesses say.

And I thought campaigning in Pennsylvania had gotten rough.

McGreal’s story, titled “It’s Mugabe or death, voters told” focuses on a climate of rising rural violence, designed to intimidate MDC supporters in a second round of voting. Many of these attacks have occurred in Mashonaland East province, a traditional ZANU-PF stronghold, and the home of the armed and dangerous minister, David Parirenyatwa.

There’s a growing body of photographic evidence to support reports that opposition supporters are being detained and beaten. Sokwanele, a Zimbabwean activist group based in Bulawayo, is maintaining one of the world’s most disturbing photo albums, a collection of photos of citizens hospitalized for injuries they received in beatings. The most recent photos are of a 38-year old man, beaten with chains and fan belts to punish him for driving citizens to MDC rallies before the election. (The previous two links lead to graphic and disturbing images.)

This is useful context for understanding the saga of the An Yue Jiang, a Chinese vessel carrying 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, rocket propelled grenades and mortar rounds for delivery to the Zimbabwean government. The ship attempted to dock at Durban, a South African port, but a strike by South African transport workers and a court decision banning transit of the weapons through South Africa forced the vessel to find another port.

It was reported to be headed for Maputo, Mozambique, but pressure from international trade unions evidently helped the Mozambique government refuse to allow the vessel to dock. It appears that Angola may be a destination for the ship, though the port authorites in Luanda say that the ship hasn’t requested permission to dock.

The ship reportedly turned off its transponder after leaving port in Durban, making it much harder to track. There was speculation that the ship had run our of fuel enroute to Luanda, as it briefly appeared on the Lloyd’s List casualty register - according to blogger “Word Wright”, the vessel was removed from the register this morning, suggesting that it was either refueled at sea or intercepted by the South African navy.

The latter would be very good news, as South Africa’s image as a fair broker in the region has taken some serious hits based on Thabo Mbeki’s insistence that “quiet diplomacy” instead of condemnation was the appropriate way to handle the situation. His insistence that the situation did not constitute a crisis has led to some humorous responses, including a recent strip of Madam and Eve, a popular South African cartoon. (Tip of the hat to Muhammed Karim, writing on Global Voices.)

As the situation spirals into an uglier and uglier configuration, perhaps humor is the best solution. The “recount” appears to be litte more than naked election rigging, as independent observers report that every recounted ballot box has been tampered with. As violence increases and the threat of arms delivery raises the stakes for anyone brave enough to vote MDC, the notion of a fair runoff election becomes harder and harder to take seriously.

So, with that in mind, some jokes from Alex Magaisa with Kubatana (with my annotations for those who don’t closely follow Zim politics:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC presidential candidate): Because it wanted a taste of life on the other side of the road. It was exercising its right.

Patrick Chinamasa (ZANU-PF minister of justice): No. The chicken did not cross the road. In fact we need to verify whether in fact it was a chicken. As far as we know, the chicken is still there. It could have been an eagle. We have to wait until verification is done.

Didymus Mutasa (ZANU-PF Minister of State): I do not think it crossed the road. If it crossed the road it’s because the white farmer dragged it. But we cannot allow that to happen. It will have to come back.

Joseph Chinotimba (noted war veteran, credited with leading invasions of white-owned farms): The kichen, no, chicken is a sell-out against the revolution. The ‘O’ vets will have to eat it!

Robert Mugabe (perpetual president of Zimbabwe): The chicken will never be allowed to cross the road. Not in my life time! Let those that run away to Bush and Brown do so. Not my chicken! My chicken will never cross the road. It will never be colonised again!

Thabo Mbeki (president of South Africa): Er … uhm … I don’t see any chicken at the moment … Er … I think it is right for us to wait and see. Let things take the natural course. If if it did cross the road we will be told officially. If it wants to cross the road we will see it when it crosses. There is nothing to talk about at the moment … Er … I don’t see any problem right now.

The people of Zimbabwe have been waiting patiently - perhaps too patiently - to hear the outcome of elections that are now almost three weeks old. Since yesterday, they’ve been waiting to see what happens to the cargo of the An Yue Jiang.

According to the Times of London, the ship left China in late March, at roughly the time of the March 29th election. (This is London reports that the arms deal was finalized on April 1st, three days after the elections, late enough for the ZANU-PF government to know they were facing a lost or closely contested election.)

The ship carries mining cargo for Botswana, and a 77 tons of small arms destined for Zimbabwe - AK-47 rounds, rocket propelled grenades, mortar shells. There is understandable fear that this materiel could be transferred from the Zimbabwe government to pro-government militias, or simply used against by the military in attacks on citizens who demand that MDC presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangarai be allowed to take power. As “Hope” writing on “This is Zimbabwe” puts it, “We call them guns; Mugabe calls them ‘campaign materials’”.

South African President Thabo Mbeki faced international pressure to block the shipment - he and his staff argued that this was a legitimate transaction between governments, and pointed out that Zimbabwe doesn’t currently face an arms embargo. Fortunately, many South Africans disagreed with that position.

The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, an organization that represents 300,000 South African workers, refused to unload the ship, citing concerns about arming a government that does not appear to be respecting election results. (It was briefly reported that a state-owned company, Armscor, might be asked to unload the ship over the objections of SATAWU.) And Anglican bishop Rubin Phillips, backed up by the South African Litigation Center, petitioned the Durban High Court to block the shipment. The court ordered that the ship could be offloaded, but that the cargo could not be transmitted across the South Africa/Zimbabwe border. Reuters reports that the ship has subsequently left Durban, evidently without offloading the arms.

So what now? Now we watch other Southern African ports to see whether the ship will be allowed to dock and offload elsewhere. Keep a close eye on Beira, a port city in Mozambique that’s an easy drive to Harare. It will be interesting to see whether civil society in Mozambique is capable of mobilizing as effectively as South African organizations did. Don’t bet on it.

Heh. Or maybe they’re in more of a hurry. According to a NYTimes story, “the last radio transmission the authorities heard from the ship was this: ‘Next port, Maputo,’ referring to the capital of Mozambique.” Interesting. The main roads from Maputo to Zimbabwe pass through South Africa. I still think Beira is a better bet, as it’s a straight shot from Mozambique to Zimbabwe.

It’ not very often that I find myself siding with Condoleeaza Rice. But she’s right - it’s embarrasing that the African continent’s leaders haven’t put more pressure on Robert Mugabe to step down… or at least to release election results.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, in particular, no longer looks like a fair broker in this process - continued delay looks to strengthen Mugabe’s hand and weaken Tsvangarai’s. As MDC faction leader Arthur Mutambara argued in his letter issued to celebrate Zimbabwe’s independence, “What does Mugabe need to execute his evil strategy? Just a one word answer would do: Time.” As long as Mbeki continues to insist that there’s no crisis in Zimbabwe, there’s less pressure on Mugabe, and ZANU-PF gets the time to challenge parliamentary seats, to attempt a more effective rigging of run-off elections, to portray the first round of elections as incomplete and incompetently run.

That Zimbabwe hasn’t seen violence or widespread protest gives Mugabe time as well. Had Zimbabweans responded to failure to call the election by taking to the streets, that might have strengthened MDC’s hand - the failed strike of earlier this week sends a message that the population is (understandably) tired and scared, and may not be willing to rise up should election results not be honored.

An editorial in the Christian Science Monitor asks, “Can’t he see it? Can’t Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s strongman, see that the jig is up – if not today, then in the not-too-distant future?” That strikes me as seriously naïve - at this point, the holdup is likely more about senior ZANU-PF officials and less about Mugabe himself. Even if Mugabe accepted Tsvangarai’s assurances that he’d be allowed to remain in Zimbabwe, unprosecuted, for the remainder of his life, it’s likely that many of his senior officials understand that a new government means the end of perks, salaries and protections from prosecution. Media often overfocuses on charismatic leaders, and ignores the more complex story - I suspect that’s the case with speculation about Mugabe’s personal ego and pride in relation to this situation.

With this in mind, it was particularly interesting to hear Patrick Chinamasa - former Justice minister, who lost his seat in the recent poll - accuse Morgan Tsvangarai of treason for attempting to “overthrow” the government with British collusion. Treason is a capital crime in Zimbabwe - should Chinamasa attempt to prosecute Tsvangarai for the “crime” of standing against Mugabe in an election, it could create a scenario where Tsvangarai wouldn’t be willing to return to the country.

These accusations, in turn, shackle the UK from calling more strenuously for intervention. As a former colonial power, any possible threats of interference get spun into accusations of a return to colonialism. It would have been difficult for the UK or the US to put pressure on South Africa to block a controversial shipment of arms to the government without inviting more critique of Anglo-American meddling… and, as the South African government has pointed out, there’s no trade embargo against Zimbabwe preventing the shipment from going through.

It’s hard for Britain to criticize Mugabe without being dismissed… but Mbeki, as a fellow leader who’s fought for black rule of the African continent, would carry much more weight with a critique. Let’s hope that Mbeki - who finally decided today to urge the release of election results - will show some spine.

You might have missed it, because I buried it at the bottom of the last (long) post. What follows below is a very funny radio segment from a South African morning comedy show:

(I believe this is from Darren “Whackhead” Simpson, who has a segment on a morning show on 94.7 FM in Jo’burg. Here’s a slightly different version of the segment on YouTube.)

About two thirds of the way through, you’ll hear the (fictional) Zimbabwe Embassy phone service offer an option for voters who aren’t sure if they want to vote for Mugabe or for “that colonial lapdog traitor Makoni or for the British organ-grinder monkey Tsvangarai”:

If you are not sure who you want to vote for, in other words, if you are undecided rural voter, wait for the tone and leave your physical address where one of our representative can help you make up your mind very quickly.

Unfortunately, it’s funny because it’s close to the truth. As the folks at Sokwanele have documented, there’s been widespread voter intimidation designed to “persuade” rural voters that it would be in their best interests to support ZANU-PF.

Almost three weeks after the elections, the results of the presidential race haven’t been announced, which strongly suggests that attempts to rig the election weren’t successful. (That’s suggested as well by plans to recount votes in 23 constituencies, the vast majority of which were won by MDC, giving them control of Parliament.) The logical next step would be to release results which show a close race between Tsvangarai and Mugabe, forcing a run-off election.

And there’s evidence that the run-off may be more thoroughly rigged than the first round. Chris McGreal is in Zimbabwe for the Guardian and reports on “Operation Makavhoterapapi” - a systemic effort to punish voters who voted against ZANU-PF through physical violence. The term “Makavhoterapapi” is a Shona term meaning “where did you put your cross?” McGreal reports that many voters chose polling places they believed would not be monitored by ZANU-PF to cast their votes, knowing that they’d be in danger voting for MDC at those centers.

According to McGreal, some ZANU-PF sympathisers are evidently using voting rolls to identify people who went to the “wrong” - i.e., unrigged - polling places and beating them and their families. He notes, “One feature of the beatings is that very few people are killed. It would appear that Zanu-PF has learned that deaths attract attention.”

Another report that’s attracting attention focuse on a ship that was held for some hours today before being allowed to dock in Durban. The ship is of Chinese registry and is supposed to contain arms for delivery to Zimbabwe. It’s widely speculated that the arms are for government troops and supporters, as China has continued to be a steady ally to Mugabe despite international criticism. It seems unlikely that South Africa will prevent the arms transfer, as Thabo Mbeki has continued to insist that there is “no crisis” in Zimbabwe, despite strong international pressure to twist Mugabe’s arm.

Two weeks ago, I was nervous but happy, believing we were on the verge of real change in Zimbabwe. More or less all my optimism has evaporated, a trait that I suspect is common to Zim watchers. Knox Chitiyo has a nuanced, well-informed and extremely dark prediction for the future of Zimbabwean politics in the wake of this election - a strengthened state and military which will refuse to accept the posibility of a President Tsvangarai, even if this means out and out political warfare, and abandonment of the last shreds of functional government in Zimbabwe. Let’s hope he’s wrong.

At a conference in Maryland - where I’m dropping in for a 24 hour visit - I met Charlie Stross, geek and sci-fi writer extraordinare, who’s responsible for the very excellent (and Hugo-nominated) “Halting State”. I’m a big fan on “near futures” science fiction, books like “Pattern Recognition“, which seize themes in contemporary life and spin them out to logical conclusions, rather than violating the laws of physics to ask interesting conceptual questions.

“Halting State” is a police procedural, the story of Scottish cops and private investigators seeking the truth behind an unusual bank heist, the robbery of a bank charged with regulating the economies of a set of massively multiplayer online games. The story turns into a complex tale about virtual worlds, augmented reality, massively multiplayer games and confusion over motivations. It’s a very good read. The book ends with an email that may or may not be a 419 scam, and I was thrilled to hear Stross talking about the possibility of writing a book focused on online advance fee fraud.

My regular readers may know that I’m somewhat obsessed with 419 - I think 419 is the perfect example of an internet-mediated encounter where both sides misunderstand and attempt to take advantage of the other party. The traditional 419 only works when you assume a nation is so corrupt that millions of dollars in oil profits are sitting around, waiting to be transfered into you account, and where you’re willing to do something illegal to get your share of the gains. (Obviously, other versions of the scheme have emerged which prey less on the recipient’s greed.) I’ve lately been buying the books written by “scambaiters”, those enterprising souls who’ve decided to string along scammers in the hopes of “wasting their time” - unfortunately, there’s very little reflection on the morality of scambaiting in those books, which is really what I’d been hoping for - just lots of accounts of emails flying back and forth.

I mentioned to Stross a new scam I’d become aware of: fraudulent dog sales from Cameroon. Buyers are offered a chance to buy a pedigree’d pooch from an “AKC-certified” breeder in Cameroon - when the sale goes through, the buyer will be asked for additional fees, including travel insurance and vaccination fees. Needless to say, the dog never arrives. Message board posts on this topic make it clear that this is an increasingly common scam, and that lots of people fall for it.

I heard about this scam not because I was dog-shopping, but because my friend Njei Moses Timah has made fighting these scams a personal quest. A proud Cameroonian, he’s upset that Cameroon’s online reputation may be compromised in the same way that Nigeria’s has been. So he’s posting the details of these frauds in the hopes that buyers will read them and beware.

I’m always interested in the ways people try to use blogs and other participatory media to brand their nations and cultures - I see bridgeblogging as the process of trying to change the brand image of your nation, culture, religion or people online. But it’s rare to see someone like Njei Moses engaging in this battle in realtime, trying to take down the cybercrooks who are sullying Cameroon’s reputation.

One of the highlights for me for attending Al Jazeera’s annual journalism conference in Qatar in March of last year was meeting Dave Marash. Marash is a veteran journalist who shocked many in the US journalism community by becoming the anchor - and defacto spokesman in America - for Al Jazeera English.

Now Marash has surprised journalism-watchers around the world with his decision to leave AJE. Columbia Journalism Review talks with him about his decision. It’s worth reading the entire interview, because it’s far too easy just to take away the (true, but incomplete) conclusion that Marash is leaving the network because he feels they cover the US poorly. What’s happened is a bit more complex.

When founded, the idea behind AJE was that there would be four independent bureaus - Doha, London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur. Each would have a great deal of editorial independence and would decide what to cover and how. In the past few months, news direction for the network has come more from Doha, and coverage of the US has suffered, Marash argues - he points to a piece of particularly weak reporting on poverty in the US that was conducted solely by a Doha team, with no US cooperation, which was an exposé of the remarkable fact that there are poor people in the US.

Marash theorizes that shift in reporting may be a reflection of larger geopolitical realities. He points to a rapporachment between the Qataris and the Saudis, caused by Dick Cheney’s visit to the region to drum up support for possible war against Iran. In typical Bush administration fashion, the visit managed instead to produce more solidarity between Arab nations and help them transcend traditional tensions, coming together to resist US pressure to reject Hamas and isolate Iran. This shift helped change Al Jazeera English, Marash argues:

I’m suggesting that around that time, a decision was made at the highest levels of [Al Jazeera] that simply following the American political leadership and the American political ideal of global, universalist values carried out in an absolutely pure, multipolar, First Amendment global conversation, was no longer the safest or smartest course, and that it was time, in fact, to get right with the region. And I think part of getting right with the region was slightly changing the editorial ambition of Al Jazeera English, and I think it has subsequently become a more narrowly focused, more univocal channel than was originally conceived.

There are still two very good reasons to watch this channel, Marash argues. One is that the channel continues to provide unparalleled coverage of events in the developing world, especially in Africa and Latin America. (Indeed, AJE’s Africa coverage is a must-read. And if Mugabe had been hoping that having an AJE bureau in Harare meant hands-off coverage, he made a mistake.) The second is that it’s important to see an Arab perspective on American events, even when that perspective is unfair, biased and distasteful:

We need to know, for example, in America, how angry the rest of the world is at Americans. Our own news media tend to shelter us from this very unpleasant news. So if you watched and every piece seemed tendentious and pissed you off, and I don’t think that would be the case, but even if worst case the channel turned shrill and shallow, you would still want to watch them on the principle that millions—tens of millions—of people watch them every day and you need to know what’s going on in their brains.

Marash gets a lot of points in my book both for recognizing what’s wrong with the coverage and praising what’s right. I wish he could have stayed and helped fix matters, but he deserves a great deal of credit for being open and honest about his read on the situation and his emotions.

Since Saturday night, I’ve been giving the reload button on my web browser a workout. Like many people around the world, most people in Africa and all people in Zimbabwe, I’m desperate to know how the election turned out. And more than four days after polling closed, it’s still not clear precisely what happened, or precisely what will transpire.

The initial narrative - that MDC won in a landslide and that the election commission was taking time to rig the results in Mugabe’s favor - now looks more complicated. Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a group of NGOs who cooperated to monitor the election, reported that Tsvangarai had the largest plurality of votes, but was likely to be just below the 50% threshhold needed to avoid a run-off. (There are numerous explanations for the disparity between the early and later count. Some argue that it reflects Mugabe’s support in rural areas, where results were reported later. Others, understandably paranoid, point out that the 2002 election was rigged by having a close election, which later swung dramatically for Mugabe. And the truly paranoid believe the Mossad is rigging the election in Mugabe’s favor.)

In the past couple of hours, it’s become clear that ZANU-PF has lost control of Parliament. While this is a dramatic development, it doesn’t shed that much light on the Presidential poll. There appears to be an increasing, rough agreement that Tsvangarai/MDC recieved either just over or just under 50% of votes, while Mugabe/ZANU-PF received somewhere between 41-43%, and the remainder went to Simba Makoni, a former ZANU-PF insider who split with the party.

(Here’s the official projections from ZESN, published on their site on March 31 as a word document:

Presidential Poll Projections – 29 March 2008 Harmonized Elections
Makoni 8.2% 1.1% 7.1 to 9.3
Mugabe 41.8% 2.6% 39.2 to 44.4
Towungana 0.6% 0.1% 0.5 to 0.7
Tsvangirai 49.4% 2.4% 47.0 to 51.8

The first number is the projected share of votes; the second is the margin of error; the third is the 95% confidence interval.)

The storyline yesterday was that Mugabe would step down rather than face potential embarrasment in a second round of polls. This now looks less likely, and there’s been speculation today that, instead, Mugabe will contest the next round, and that the second round may be rigged in his favor.

For some perspectives from the ground, Ndesanjo Macha has a roundup of Zimbabwean blogs titled, “What more must Zimbabweans do?”, quoting from a blog post from activist Bev Clark. The quotes from blogs run through a range of frustrated emotions, suggestions to call the electoral commission and complain, to prepare to take to the streets, to bunker down if the military attempts to enforce continued rule by Mugabe, to flee the the country.

Zimbabwe’s blogs tend to be overwhelmingly anti ZANU-PF. It’s useful to hear some constrasting views, though they require some work to find online. Dumisani Nyoni, an activist working on rural development near Bulawayo, and an occasional blogger, writes from a very different perspective, one more sympathetic to ZANU-PF - his account of the election and the uncertainty around the vote count is worth reading.

It’s likely going to take many more reloads to get a sense of what happened, and what will happen in Zimbabwe. The Election Commission is telling the UN that there might not be a final count until April 11, blaming fuel shortages, paper shortages and the economy for the delays.

At ETech, a few weeks back, I had the pleasure of doing a video interview with Xeni Jardin. Xeni’s one of my very favorite journalists, in part because she’s passionate about both technology and the developing world - she’s travelled and reported extensively in Latin America and West Africa, and frequently brings topics up on BoingBoing that might not otherwise be included on a tech/pop culture/intellectual property/DIY blog.

Xeni wanted to feature some of the topics I talked about in my Cute Cats talk, but realized that it’s hard to summarize the entire talk in a short videocast. So we chose a small segment of the talk, about Tunisian video activism, and sat down in the hall of the conference hotel for a chat about propoganda, video activism, censorship and human rights.

And now it’s online. And pretty good, if I do say so myself. Feel free to go onto BoingBoing and tell Xeni you like it. Or whatever you really think about it.

I tend to feel like BoingBoing - along with Metafilter, and a couple of other sites - serve as a daily newspaper that’s read by both my activist friends and my tech geek friends. I can’t always be sure that my geekier friends are aware of the latest YouTube blockage in Pakistan or imprisoned blogger… just as I can’t be sure that my activist friends are up on the latest in giant squid news. But if it’s on BoingBoing, it’s in the popular imagination. As such, I’m grateful for Xeni’s pieces on subjects like Tunisian blogging, Zimbabwe election monitoring and other key topics. Oh, and for the occasional unicorn chaser.