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Eddie Adams / AP
Take a look at the country's tumultuous path since independence.
Zimbabwean officials on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was critically ill in Singapore, saying he was well and on vacation there with his family, and was expected to return home this week.
Mugabe is one of Africa's longest serving leaders and has ruled the former British colony in southern Africa since 1980. He is sharing power with political rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in a fragile coalition formed three years ago.
The 88-year-old president has been the subject of several health scares in recent years, with some reports saying he has prostate cancer, but in February interviews with state media he laughed off suggestions that he was seriously ill.
Media reports in Britain and elsewhere on Tuesday suggested Mugabe was ‘fighting for his life’.
However, two senior officials from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party angrily denied the reports. "The president is well and away on a private holiday to help his daughter prepare for post-graduate studies, but we are expecting him home this week," said one of the two officials, who declined to be named.
"But some sick and malicious people are spreading false stories about him being seriously ill while others are saying he is dead or dying out there," he added.
Asked whether the president had also used his 10-day visit to Singapore for a medical check-up, one of the officials said: "We are not going to be engaged over rumours, speculation and wishful thinking."
A Twitter account in the name of ZANU-PF appeared to defend Mugabe by saying the leader had merely gone shopping with his wife, although the account it is widely assumed to be a spoof.
Mugabe has made frequent visits to Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
A terse Zimbabwean government statement saying a weekly cabinet meeting set for Tuesday had been postponed to Thursday had fed the rash of media speculation about the president's health. Mugabe usually chairs cabinet meetings.
Mugabe, who celebrated his 88th birthday on Feb. 21, was endorsed by his party as its presidential candidate for a general election he wants to be held before the end of this year despite opposition from his major political rivals.
Analysts say Mugabe will face a tough challenge convincing voters to extend his 32-year rule after a devastating economic crisis many blame on ZANU-PF.
Although ZANU-PF officials rally behind Mugabe in public, in private many want him to retire and pass the baton to a younger heir due to fears his advanced age may cost the party victory in the upcoming election.
This sentiment within ZANU-PF has intensified since reports, based on a June 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, that Mugabe is suffering from prostate cancer.
Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.
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Zimbabwe, a nation Obama wants to model the US after.
I don't think i have heard anything so stupid as your comment.
OH WAIT I SEE ONE
I am an Indian who used to live in Africa. Obama's thinking is similar to Mugabe: Mugabe tried wealth redistribution with disastrous results. Farms were ceased from white farmers and given to the natives. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is starving and they used to be the bread basket of Africa.
No reason for you to live the US then, you just need to go back to where you came from.
That's not really wealth redistribution... Not that I'm defending the socialist practice, but socialist policy requires that the producer KEEPS the means of production with which to feed the social programs. Otherwise (as Zimbabwe is finding out), the means of production stops producing.
mazking-4105207: What a moron you are. You piece of s*^t: I make more money than you and pay more taxes so don't bring you low class stupidity to me.
Anony Mous1 "I am an Indian who used to live in Africa. Obama's thinking is similar to Mugabe: Mugabe tried wealth redistribution with disastrous results. Farms were ceased from white farmers and given to the natives. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is starving and they used to be the bread basket of Africa."
That is the inevitable result when the government 'confiscates' property from the productive and redistributes it to the non-productive'.
When 'industriousness' is penalized and 'sloth' is rewarded, you get less industry and more sloth. That's the reason that Socialist leaning societies typically have slow economic growth and high unemployment (the two are closely related).
SF accountant "That's not really wealth redistribution... Not that I'm defending the socialist practice, but socialist policy requires that the producer KEEPS the means of production with which to feed the social programs."
Yes, and no. Pure Socialism requires that the government owns the means of production, but that would require confiscating 'wealth' and redistributing the 'income' to everyone. The problem with Socialism can be summed up in an old Russian joke under the Socialist USSR;
"The government pretends to pay us and we pretend to work".
I thought the story was about Obama....
I don't think i have heard anything so stupid as your comment.
OH WAIT I SEE ONE
Too bad Mugabe can't do his people a favor and just check out.
Zimbabwe will continue to lag and lag with this pathetic monster at the helm. He has already done more to put his country into the Dark Ages than any of the colonial powers have ever managed to do. Truth be told, citizens probably had it better when the country was still the colony of Rhodesia. Now, they have this mess, which will take generations to straighten out, if ever.
Too bad
MugabeObama can't do his people a favor and just check out.ZimbabweAmerica will continue to lag and lag with this pathetic monster at the helm. He has already done more to put his country into the Dark Ages than any of the colonial powers have ever managed to do. Truth be told, citizens probably had it better when the country was still thecolony of Rhodesia13 colonies. Now, they have this mess, which will take generations to straighten out, if ever.A...Obama is nothing like Mugabe.
B...If your going to post something, at least make an effort to be original.
Just saying
Ah, the Stalin of Africa is finally checking out. The man who managed to drag one of the most prosperous nations in Africa down to the level of a welfare case. A net exporter of food to an importer. Who created inflation so astronomical, they had to abandon the currency.
I am an Indian who used to live in Africa. Obama's thinking is similar to Mugabe: Mugabe tried wealth redistribution with disastrous results. Farms were ceased from white farmers and given to the natives. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is starving and they used to be the bread basket of Africa.
Anony Mous1 : There's a big difference between Obama's plans and what Mugabe did. When Mugabe took control of Zimbabwe, he took the land from the whites who were making a go of the farms, and gave it to his cronies who didn't know how to farm (and didn't want to know). Then he took the same whites and either kicked them out of Zimbabwe or took their passports so they couldn't leave - and at the same time couldn't work because they didn't have papers. it was done as a revenge tactic and to repay those people who supported him. He also had concentration camps set up where 20K were murdered and 10K+ were tortured. In the case of at least one family I know that had been in Zimbabwe for generations, there was a grandparent who had died fighting for Zimbabwe who was cremated and buried in a national cemetery. When his wife died, and his family went to inter her with her husband, they discovered that because he was white, his ashes had been thrown out, so that there was no place for the ashes of his widow, and his family didn't have the ashes of the grandfather either to re-inter in another cemetery. Mugabe's cronies beat anyone who says anything that could be considered negative, sometimes to death. Mugabe also just keeps printing money when he doesn't have enough - which is why Zimbabwean money is worthless. People working in Zimbabwe would rather take Rands (South Africa) than Zimbabwean dollars. My information comes from ex-pats who are in contact with their family that still lives there.
obamanomics. Just appeal to an uneducated ignorant populace that you wil give them everything they want and when the bottom falls out go on "vacation."
When is obama going to have Bernake start printing $10,000,000 bills with his picture on it?
Just appeal to an uneducated ignorant populace that you wil give them everything they want and when the bottom falls out go on "vacation."
Isn't that the GOP platform?
no it is not the GOP platform it is all politicians my friend, or have you not heard in government accounting class 101, 1-1 now equals 100. It is the new math kids democrat republican it does not really seem to matter when it comes to debt it just keeps getting bigger.
@navyvet98 "When is Obama going to have Bernanke start printing $10,000,000 bills with his face on it?"
Sooner than you think!
@navyvet98 "When is Obama going to have Bernanke start printing $10,000,000 bills with his picture on it?
Sooner than you think!
Its even funnier now that you've said. Oh, wait ...
Maybe he was just dying to go on vacation. I know I am.
hhahah...perhaps. Mugabe is hung up on power...trying to hold on to it instead of realizing that He has done more damage than good. Learn from history ... power hungry leaders = sad people + sad state of affairs , the story of some African countries and others...
Mugabe on holiday , really now! .....the funniest cover up to date . Mugabe's goons , don't insult our intelligence
:-p
I don't think the problem is that he doesn't realize he's done more "damage than good". He's a tyrant who's managed to get a hold of power and doesn't want to give it up. Doing good isn't part of the calculation. Him and his party already lost an election by a landslide, but he refused to leave and tried to fiddle the results in his favor, because that would mean an end to government money and jobs for his friends. Africa is the world's worst region as far as patronage politics.
"General Francisco Franco is still dead."
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.
At least they didn't turn him into t newt, even if he did get better! :-)
I am an Indian who used to live in Africa. Obama's thinking is similar to Mugabe: Mugabe tried wealth redistribution with disastrous results. Farms were ceased from white farmers and given to the natives. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is starving and they used to be the bread basket of Africa.
The headline to this article reminds me of Monty Python's Parrot Sketch where the bird is lying on it's back at the bottm of the cage and the owner insists..."it's not dead, it's only sleeping!"
I hope Mugabe lives forever in the Africa he has created. Zombie is the perfect example of nation building by a nationalistic fool. He reduced a once rich country to a beggar nation living on handouts. I wonder if there are any left that remember Rhodesia. Probably not.
Rats. Zimbabwe would be of so much better off if the report were true.
You people comparing Mugabe to Obama need to go spend a month in Zimbabwe and see exactly what Mugabe has done. I guarantee you will come out of there and agree that Obama is NOTHING like Mugabe.
He's probably off beating up Jesus like he bragged about a couple months ago. Jesus rises from the dead, Mugabe is there with his thugs to beat him up.
So hell is going to have to wait just a little while longer for Mugabe. Long Live Rhodesia.
Ex- Rhodie here. Canadian citizen before & after, married white Rhodesian girl & moved to Rhodesia & applied for citizenship. Spent two & a half years there. Left her & our baby daughter buried there. Spent two years in the Rhodesian army. Mugabe was the worst thing to happen to Rhodesia. Took breadbasket of Africa & turned it into a hellhole. Forced most white farmers off their land & said it was given to freedom fighter veterans. Most farms were given to his cronies who didn't know a damn thing about farming & didn't care. Not all farms were given to his cronies, some were given to the veterans. Problem here was the only way they could have been veterans of the war were if they had been in the diaper brigade. And I never once found terrs in diapers. Just a ploy on Mugabe's behalf to punish the whites. The best thing that could ever happen to Zimbabwe now, would be if he dropped dead & another war started to kick all his cronies out & to start a new Zimbabwe without him & his cronies. Will take a long time to bring the country back to its former glory. But will happen without Mugabe.
Met a man whose family had a very prosperous farm but the family was kicked out of the country with nothing but the clothes on their backs. A neighbor was prohibited from leaving and took pictures of the farm 2 years later; nothing but weeds and decaying equipment. The neighbor and his family were murdered and their farm suffered the same fate. Our racist-in-charge is following the same socialist methods, only slower (for now).
To bad