Tag: zimbabwe
Trump’s ‘Rigged Election’ Remarks Are ‘A Gift To Dictators,’ Say Africans

Trump’s ‘Rigged Election’ Remarks Are ‘A Gift To Dictators,’ Say Africans

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – If Donald Trump is interested in rigged elections, Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti says he could teach him a thing or two. Biti was arrested for treason and detained for a month after daring to suggest his party had defeated President Robert Mugabe in a vote in 2008.

“They denied me food. They beat me up. They put me in leg irons. They beat me in the private parts,” Biti, a lawyer who later served as finance minister in an eventual unity government, told Reuters. “That’s real election rigging.”

To opposition figures in Africa, and in other parts of the world that lack the 240-year U.S. history of peaceful transitions of power, Trump’s assertion that November’s U.S. presidential election will be “rigged”, and his declaration that he may not accept the outcome, are dangerous words.

“Donald Trump is a gift to all tin-pot dictators on the African continent. He is giving currency and legitimacy to rigging because if it can exist in America, it can exist anywhere,” Biti said.

“He has no idea what he’s talking about, absolutely no idea,” said Biti, who speaks from the experience of three election defeats to Mugabe, a 92-year-old ex-guerrilla who has run Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. “It makes us cross because in Africa there’s real election rigging.”

Long-serving rulers who have faced U.S. criticism in the past are already using Trump’s remarks to counter Washington’s pro-democracy message.

When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 30 years, won re-election to his seventh term in February, U.S. officials accused his government of arresting opposition figures, harassing their supporters and intimidating the media.

Trump’s comments, said Museveni’s spokesman Don Wanyama, “should be an eye-opener to them. As they sit down to lecture other countries, they should realize that it’s not easy.”

“Democracy is a process and it really takes time.”

Trump refused during a debate on Wednesday to say whether he would respect the result of the Nov. 8 poll. That sent a chill down the spine of Musikari Kombo, a former local government minister in Kenya, where 1,500 people were killed in a wave of ethnic bloodletting unleashed by disputes over the result of a 2007 election.

“I was shocked. I was horrified,” Kombo said. “People in Africa who have always challenged elections will say: ‘You see, we are vindicated. Even in the Mother of all Democracies, the presidential candidate is not willing to accept because there is rigging.'”

U.S. officials, including state governors from Trump’s own Republican Party, say there is no serious vote fraud problem in the United States and the election will be clean.

Nevertheless, Trump and some allies have alleged anomalies in the voter roll in cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago that could allow the votes of dead people to be counted on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

It is hard to think what they would have made of this year’s election in Gabon, where opposition leader Jean Ping cried foul after narrowly losing to President Ali Bongo, whose family have ruled the oil-producing former French colony for half a century.

The focus of Ping’s concern was the province of Haut-Ogooue, where results showed 95.46 percent of voters backed Bongo on a turnout of 99.9 percent, more than double anywhere else.

Gabon’s constitutional court – led by the long-time mistress of Bongo’s father, Omar – upheld the result.

“I would say to Mr. Trump ‘Come to Gabon to see what a fake democracy looks like, to see what a stolen election looks like,'” said Alexandre Barro Chambrier, a senior Ping adviser. “There is no democracy here. There is the rule of one family and one man imposing a dictatorial regime,” he added. “Mr Trump is not serious.”

(Additional reporting by Edward McAllister, Edmund Blair and Elias Biryabarem; Editing by Peter Graff)

Zimbabwe Calls For Extradition Of Cecil The Lion’s Killer

Zimbabwe Calls For Extradition Of Cecil The Lion’s Killer

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) — The American dentist who killed Cecil the lion was a “foreign poacher” who paid for an illegal hunt and he should be extradited to Zimbabwe to face justice, environment minister Oppah Muchinguri said on Friday.

In Harare’s first official comments since Cecil’s killing grabbed world headlines this week, Muchinguri said the Prosecutor General had already started the process to have 55-year-old Walter Palmer extradited from the United States.

Muchinguri, a senior member of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, described Cecil — a black-maned lion well-known to foreign tourists in the Hwange National Park — as an “iconic attraction.”

“The illegal killing was deliberate,” she told a news conference. “We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he can be held accountable for his illegal actions.”

Palmer has admitted killing the 13-year-old predator, who was fitted with a GPS collar as part of an Oxford University study, but said in a statement he had hired professional guides and believed all the necessary hunting permits were in order.

He has not been sighted since his identity was revealed this week by Zimbabwean conservationists.

Muchinguri also said Palmer’s use of a bow and arrow to kill the lion, who is said to have been lured out of the national park with bait before being shot, was in contravention of Zimbabwean hunting regulations.

Palmer, a life-long big game hunter, returned to the United States before the authorities were aware of the controversy.

“It was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher because he had already absconded to his country of origin,” Muchinguri said.

Social media in the United States and Europe have exploded in outrage and vitriol against Palmer, and the White House said on Thursday it would review a public petition of more than 100,000 signatures to have him extradited.

Under a 1998 treaty between the two countries — which have not enjoyed cordial relations in the latter stages of Mugabe’s 36 years in charge — a person can be extradited if they are accused of an offense that carries more than a year in prison.

In Zimbabwe, the illegal killing of a lion is punishable by a mandatory fine of $20,000 and up to 10 years in prison.

LEGAL, POLITICAL HURDLES

Lawyer Alec Muchadehama said no American had been extradited to Zimbabwe since the treaty was signed, adding that Harare would face legal and political hurdles with Palmer.

First, it has to apply to U.S. courts and satisfy them Palmer committed an offense and that he would be jailed for more than a year if convicted. Courts in Zimbabwe consider a fine first for lion poachers before imposing a jail term, he said.

“They (U.S. courts) may actually doubt the competence of the judiciary here to try him in an objective manner particularly given these prejudicial pronouncements that the politicians are already making,” said Muchadehama.

As with many African countries, Zimbabwe issues annual hunting permits for big game such as elephant, buffalo and lion, arguing that the revenues generated can be used for wider wildlife conservation.

Last year, the southern African nation which is still recovering from billion-percent hyperinflation a decade ago, earned $45 million from hunting, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority head Edison Chadziya told reporters.

Zimbabwe had an estimated 2,000 lions on private and government-owned reserves and issued hunting quotas of 50-70 lions every year, he added.

However, permitted trophy hunting is far from universal in Africa, and the government in neighboring Botswana — where it is illegal — said the Cecil case showed the risks.

“It is our stern belief that safari hunting of threatened species such as lions has the potential to undermine our regional anti-poaching efforts as it encourages illegal trade which in turn promotes poaching,” it said in a statement.

The shooting is also being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see if it was part of a conspiracy to violate U.S. laws against illegal wildlife trading, a source close to the case told Reuters on Thursday.

Despite the global media coverage of Cecil’s killing, the big cat’s untimely demise has gone largely unnoticed in Zimbabwe, where average annual income is just over $1,000 and unemployment is higher than 80 percent.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)

Photo: Piper Hoppe, 10, from Minnetonka, Minnesota, holds a sign at the doorway of River Bluff Dental clinic in protest against the killing of a famous lion in Zimbabwe, in Bloomington, Minnesota July 29, 2015. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)

‘I Love And Practice Responsibly’ The Killing Of Lions, Says Minnesota Dentist

‘I Love And Practice Responsibly’ The Killing Of Lions, Says Minnesota Dentist

Dr. Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who has sparked global fury after he hunted and killed the famous Cecil the Lion on a trip to Zimbabwe, is trying out a public relations tack: one half-apology for killing Cecil and one full-condemnation of the media and environmentalists for making a big stink of it.

In a statement given Wednesday to the local Fox station in the Twin Cities, Palmer says, in part:

I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion. That was never my intention. The media interest in this matter – along with a substantial number of comments and calls from people who are angered by this situation and by the practice of hunting in general – has disrupted our business and our ability to see our patients. For that disruption, I apologize profoundly for this inconvenience and promise you that we will do our best to resume normal operations as soon as possible. We are working to have patients with immediate needs referred to other dentists and will keep you informed of any additional developments. On behalf of all of us at River Bluff Dental, thank you for your support.

Palmer allegedly paid $50,000 to a pair of guides in Zimbabwe to help him lure Cecil out of the wildlife preserve before then killing the beloved animal. (And as a fun side note, it has also been reported that Palmer was a maxed-out donor to Mitt Romney in 2012.)

The people of Zimbabwe are understandably not very happy that a white man flew to their country for the purpose of killing an animal that had become the national mascot. But even in America, his actions have sparked a hearty round of public outrage, including protest signs and stuffed animal dolls being placed at his office.

But maybe Palmer really has an opportunity here to cultivate a political fanbase — among conservatives still nostalgic for colonialism and the Great White Hunter.

Photo via Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford.

Zimbabwean Duo In Court Over Killing Of Cecil The Lion

Zimbabwean Duo In Court Over Killing Of Cecil The Lion

By Philimon Bulawayo and Mike Saburi

HWANGE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) – Two Zimbabweans who were paid $50,000 by an American hunter who killed ‘Cecil’, the southern African country’s best-known lion, arrived in court on Wednesday to face poaching charges, in a case that has triggered widespread revulsion at trophy hunting.

Walter James Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, has also been accused by wildlife officials of killing the animal without a permit on July 1. Palmer, who has left Zimbabwe, says he killed the lion but believed it was a legal hunt.

Local hunter Theo Bronkhorst and private game park owner Honest Ndlovu, who assisted Palmer, were escorted into the courthouse in Hwange, 800 km (500 miles) west of Harare, by plain-clothes detectives.

They did not speak to reporters.

Since it emerged this week that he killed Cecil with a bow and arrow, Palmer has been pilloried on the Internet, with many people wishing him dead.

“This is disgusting. I hope you get thrown in a cage with hungry lions,” Julie Lu wrote on the Facebook page of his dental practice.

Palmer said on Tuesday he had hired professional guides who secured hunting permits and deeply regretted taking the lion. He added that he had not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States and would assist in any inquiries.

The Zimbabwe police and government have not commented.

If found guilty, the two Zimbabweans could be fined $20,000 and possibly jailed for up to 10 years.

CUB INFANTICIDE

Cecil was fitted with a GPS collar for a research project by scientists from Oxford University and was one of the oldest and most famous in Zimbabwe.

The university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit said it had been tracking Cecil since 2008 and was “deeply saddened” by his death.

“Insofar as this happened illegally we consider it deeply reprehensible,” it said in a statement. It was working closely with Zimbabwe’s National Parks authorities to support their “meticulous work” in prosecuting the case.

The unit also said Cecil’s death would be likely to trigger a power struggle in the pride, resulting in the death of other male lions as well as Cecil’s offspring.

“When a male lion is killed, because of the way their society works, a likely consequence is the overthrow and death of other adult male members of his weakened coalition, and the subsequent infanticide of his cubs,” it said.

Palmer’s hunting has attracted scrutiny in the past. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to lying to a U.S. wildlife agent about a black bear he killed in Wisconsin two years before.

He was accused of killing it 40 miles outside a permitted zone, hauling the carcass back into the approved area and certifying falsely that it was killed there. He was

sentenced to one year probation and fined $2,938.

In the Hwange case, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chairman Johnny Rodrigues said Cecil was lured out of the park with bait before being shot.

The incident has triggered fierce debate over the commercial ‘trophy’ hunting of African big game.

Like many countries, Zimbabwe issues annual permits that allow foreign hunters to kill wildlife such as elephant, buffalo and lion legally, arguing that the funds raised allow the government to fund conservation efforts.

“Sustainable trophy hunting is part of well-managed wildlife conservation. It creates incentives for people to look after wildlife,” said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa.

“It’s easy to fall into the trap of emotions and not focus on facts.”

However, Edward Bourke, chairman of the Australia-based Saving The Lion Foundation, said Cecil’s death showed the dangers of legal hunting.

“There is enough global pressure to push for change. There is an opportunity to offer alternatives, including international aid for establishing safe haven environments like national parks or eco-tourism zones,” he said.

One of the few countries to avoid Cecil hysteria was Zimbabwe, where most people are more preoccupied with putting food on the table and finding work in an economy suffering 80 percent unemployment.

To the state-run Herald newspaper, the most remarkable aspect of the case was the lion’s name, which it linked to British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, after whom the former Rhodesia named.

“How someone thought it such a good idea to christen a lion after the infamous plunderer and murderer who roamed dangerously across Africa can only be a matter of conjecture,” it said in an editorial.

(Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Additional reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)

Photo: Stuffed animals left by protesters block the doorway of River Bluff Dental clinic after the killing of a famous lion in Zimbabwe, in Bloomington, Minnesota July 28, 2015. REUTERS/David Bailey