Morgan Tsvangirai of the Zimbabwean opposition party Movement for Democratic Change defeated President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's presidential election March 29 but failed to win an outright majority, forcing a runoff. Since then, Mugabe has been accused of deploying police and party militants in brutal attacks on supporters of the opposition in order to ensure his victory in the June 27 runoff. In the wake of the violence, Tsvangirai has withdrawn from the race and taken refuge at the Dutch embassy. Several UCLA faculty members are experts on Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean politics.
Edmond Keller is a professor of political science, director of UCLA's Globalization Research Center–Africa and former director of the James S. Coleman Center for African Studies at UCLA. He specializes in comparative politics, with an emphasis on Africa, and his current research focuses on political transition in Africa, cultural pluralism and nationalism, and conflict and conflict management. Keller has written two books — "Education, Manpower and Development: The Impact of Educational Policy in Kenya" (1980) and "Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic" (1988) — and more than 50 articles on African and African American politics.
Phone: 310-825-2566
E-mail: ekeller@ucla.edu
Katrina Daly Thompson, professor-in-residence in the UCLA Department of Linguistics, is the African languages coordinator for the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA and chair of the university's interdepartmental program in African studies. Thompson also runs UCLA's Swahili program, teaching Swahili and cultural studies. She is an expert in the Shona language, the first language of 80 percent of Zimbabweans, and on verbal arts and popular culture in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Phone: 310-794-1972
E-mail: kdthompson@humnet.ucla.edu
