Gadaffi"s Death Squads in Zimbabwe?

Original Post Date: 2001-08-21  Posted By: Jan

From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 8/21/2001 1:33:53 PM
Gadaffi"s Death Squads in Zimbabwe?

I received this from a friend on the ArmyTalk list. The original article
was written by an Australian. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the
contents and I doubt the Chinhoyi incidents were started by Gadaffi.
Nevertheless, there is a great deal of interesting stuff in here. Maybe
its too far-fetched? Maybe not?

I’m posting it in case there is some truth in here.
Jan

From: Mike Woods
To: “[email protected]”
Subject: [Armytalk] Gadaffi/Zimbabwe
Reply-to: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 11:40:03 (43)+1000

G’day All, received this today which poses major security problems for
South Africa and Australia – especially in the light of forthcoming
CHOGM. Please pass along, maybe someone in authority, somewhere, will
have the brains to see the ramifications of this alliance and the balls
to prevent a ‘fallout’ here in oz and naturally to curtail pagad
activities in SA!

This is the text of what ran front page in the ST (Lunnun) today. (19th
August 2001)

Libya’s President Muammar Gadaafi has bought up 20 houses in Zimbabwe
which seem likely to be used as safe-houses for death squads supplied
by
the Libyan dictator as part of his plan to assist the man he sees as
his
embattled comrade in arms, President Robert Mugabe.
In addition Gadaafi has bought Gracelands, the gigantic Harare mansion
belonging to Grace Mugabe, the President’s young wife. The house is now
to become the Libyan Embassy, making it by far the biggest embassy
building in Zimbabwe, dwarfing the
British and American missions. In effect Gadaafi seems to be making a
bid to save Mugabe which, if successful, would create a virtual Libyan
client state at the far end of Africa. Already there is evidence of
direct Libyan involvement in the violence which racked Zimbabwean farms
in the last ten days.

Relations between Mugabe and Gadaafi have been warm for some time but
it
is only in the last year, as Zimbabwe’s shortage of foreign exchange
has
caused repeated fuel cut-offs that Mugabe has several times flown to
Tripoli to plead with Gadaafi for deliveries on credit.
Gadaafi, who has despaired of his efforts to play a leadership role in
the Arab world, has begun to use his financial muscle to make
interventions right across black Africa but he has made Zimbabwe a
special case, first advancing Mugabe a loan of $100 million and then
making a special trip to last month’s OAU summit in Lusaka the first
such summit he had attended since 1977 – to give all-out support to
Mugabe’s land-grabbing and anti-white policies. So large was the Libyan
delegation that Gadaafi even upstaged leaders like ex-President
Mandela.
African leaders anxious to earn some of his largesse were even willing
to overlook the fact that before Gadaafi used any chair or microphone
an
African had previously used, his bodyguards would rush forward to
disinfect it. It’s amazing said one Zimbabwean farmer who did not wish
to be named, how black or Arab racism gets overlooked. Whenever we hear
racists being denounced it always means whites. But on Heroes Day we
had
to listen to (Vice President) Joe Msika telling us that whites were not
even humans.

From Lusaka Gadaafi drove down to Harare in a 150 car motorcade, his
army of amazon women bodyguards virtually taking over Harare. He
publicly embraced Mugabe’s views in an extraordinary TV appearance in
which he announced that Africa was for the Africans and that whites
must
go back to Europe and only be allowed to stay on as servants. It was
also announced that Gadaafi had promised Mugabe $586 million in fuel
supplies and had made a $900,000 election contribution to the funds of
Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party. This contribution was made in flat
contravention of a law just enacted by Mugabe forbidding foreign
donations to Zimbabwean political parties, a law which is being used to
hound the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change and prevent it from gaining support
abroad for its challenge to Mugabe in the coming presidential election.
Gadaafi, who has never tolerated an opposition party, is unlikely to
have been bothered by this contradiction.

However, the Sunday Times has learnt, Gadaafi’s aid went some way
beyond
this. The purchase of Gracelands was in itself a financial coup for
Mugabe. The house was built for his wife Grace illicitly using Z$6
million from the Pay For Your House scheme set up to provide low cost
housing for junior civil servants. Harare’s courageous independent
press
discovered the scam most junior civil servants has received no benefit
from the contributions they had made to the scheme and Grace,
embarrassed by the scandal, never used the house after it was finished
in 1997. Thereafter the house was repeatedly offered at sale for Z$25m.
but Mugabe could find no takers until Gadaafi handsomely paid Z$35m.
for
it.

More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into
conclave
Harare’s small
community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist
Mugabe’s
plans by
declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not
do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men
from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links.
There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad,
a fundamentalist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and
murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises
such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but
this
is the first open confirmation of the fact.

The bulk of Harare’s Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants
and
professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a
jihad a failure
which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim
shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days. For heaven’s sake, said
one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We
rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe’s doing. It’s
obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim
shops
were meant to be punishing us for not complying.

However, Gadaafi – like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of
personal security – had also left behind two extra bodyguards for
Mugabe
and four specialist co-ordinators. These men are believed to have
experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have,
in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as
safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only
four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or center of
any size. The plan calls for the targeted assassination of MDC
politicians, troublesome journalists and the like. Because many of the
Pagad hitmen it is intended to employ have criminal records which could
cause difficulties in entering the country, special instructions have
been given to immigration officers at Beit Bridge to let them through.
You can see what a problem Mugabe has with the MDC and the press, said
one source. What he needs is contract jobs done by real pros. No
botched jobs and nothing traceable back to him.

It seems clear that Gadaafi’s ambitious plan has already had some
impact. There are
persistent reports that the apparent assassination attempt mounted
against the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, when his car was ambushed
during the recent Bindura by-election, was led by one of the Libyans
left behind by Gadaafi. Tsvangirai himself alluded this week to reports
the MDC was receiving of Libyan-Pagad death squads being set up. And it
is now being pointed out that when Mugabe’s huge motorcade made its way
to Harare last month the Libyan leader stopped in Chinhoyi to give an
incendiary speech calling on locals to throw out the whites. There is
no
doubt that Gadaafi’s four co-ordinators would have taken this as a
direct instruction and the fact that Chinhoyi has since been the scene
of extensive looting and violence, with its whole white population
fleeing as refugees, is unlikely to be accidental.

It is difficult to know how far the ripples of Gadaafi’s intervention
will spread.
Zimbabwean cricket enthusiasts have been startled to find, since the
Gadaafi visit, an
attempted black power take-over of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union being led
by an Asian Muslim, Judge Ahmed Ibrahim. Cricket is a matter of keen
interest to Mugabe who is the patron of the ZCU and enjoys spending
time
at the Harare ground supporting the national team but neither he nor
Judge Ibrahim (who has been a member of the ZCU’s ruling board for 20
years) have previously shown much interest in the promotion of black
players. In the last few weeks, however, Judge Ibrahim, with the
support
of the President’s office, has led an all-out and successful campaign
to
abandon normal elective procedures and hand all power within the ZCU to
five wise men (including Ibrahim) with a black majority and a mandate
to
pick more blacks for the national team.

What is not in doubt is that Mugabe is now sufficiently hard pressed to
be willing to make alliances even with frankly terrorist forces. His
foreign supporters have now dwindled to China (which last month
extended
a further $3.6 m. loan to him), Libya, North Korea, Iraq and a
scattering of mainly impoverished African states. Recent months,
however, have also seen the sudden warming in relations with another
state frequently linked with terrorism, Sudan, and Zimbabwe has
confirmed that it is negotiating to obtain oil from Sudan. The US
vehemently objects to any oil deals involving the Sudan, claiming that
the proceeds are often used for nefarious purposes, and this is likely
to bring a further collision between Washington and
Harare. But the Sudanese, like Gadaafi, are cock a-hoop at finding a
friend in need. Confirming that negotiations are under way, Sudan’s
deputy ambassador to Zimbabwe, Osama Ahmed Abdelbari, declared that ‘We
have very good relations with Zimbabwe. And we want to help’

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