There’s a great picture associated with this story, but I won’t use it because it originates with the AP. However, this story is from the Washington Post’s own Foreign Service news desk, so it’s probably okay to quote more than 5 words.
Context. It’s everything.
By the way, the photo on the WP story shows Mugabe as out of focus, washed out, and nearly in greyscale, and military strongman Gen. Constantine Chiwenga is in sharp focus, wearing brightly colored medals and sash, looking very vibrant and strong. It’s probably just a trick of the light, but it really highlights who’s really running things in Zimbabwe.
Inside Mugabe’s Violent Crackdown – washingtonpost.com
Then Mugabe told the gathering he planned to give up power in a televised speech to the nation the next day, according to the written notes of one participant that were corroborated by two other people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
But Zimbabwe’s military chief, Gen. Constantine Chiwenga, responded that the choice was not Mugabe’s alone to make. According to two firsthand accounts of the meeting, Chiwenga told Mugabe his military would take control of the country to keep him in office or the president could contest a runoff election, directed in the field by senior army officers supervising a military-style campaign against the opposition.
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