Send a letter or email to these contacts
before Saturday's meeting, and ask
your friends to do the same... the person
who compiled the list says "I put
together this SADC Nation contact
list.
If we flood every communication portal they have tomorrow, then maybe
they
will do something besides pick their noses on Saturday. Many of the
e-mail/physical addresses are for US Embassies,
but sometimes that was
the only contact info I was able to gather in a
short
time."
SADC Contact List (Bulk e-mail list at the
end)
Botswana
Embassy of the Republic of
Botswana
1531-3 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington DC 20036
Telephone:
(202) 244-4990
Fax: (202) 244-4164
H.E. Mr. Lapologang Caesar
Lekoa
Ambassador of the Republic of Botswana to the US
Email: llekoa@gov.bw
Ms. Sophie Heidi
Mautle
Counsellor & Deputy Head of Mission
Email: smautle@gov.bw
Other Staff from the US
Embassy (names may be found at
http://www.botswanaembassy.org/staff.html):
jtherego@gov.bw;
ekuhlmann@gov.bw; mmoleleke@gov.bw; gchebanne@gov.bw; hluke@gov.bw;
lsebogiso@gov.bw; cratsiripe@gov.bw;
Note: Judging from
the formula for the gov.bw e-mails, you should be able to
reach any official
with the first letter of the first name plus the entire
last name@gov.bw if this is true then the new
president should be
ikhama@gov.bw
Zambia:
State
House Press and Public Relations
Independence
Avenue
Woodlands
Lusaka
Zambia
1
0101
+260 1 266147/262094
+260 1
266092
P.O Box 30135
E-mail form can be sent from the
following web page:
http://www.statehouse.gov.zm/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3
The
U.S. Embassy of the Republic of Zambia
2419 Massachusetts Avenue,
NW
Washington DC 20008
Telephone: +1 (202) 265-9717
Fax: +1
(202) 265- 9718
Email: embzambia@aol.com
Tanzania
E-mail:
tnwinfo@plancom.go.tz
Tanzania
US Embassy:
2139 R Street, NW
Washington, DC
20008
Telephone: +1 (202) 939 6125/7
+1 (202) 884
1080
Fax: +1 (202) 797 7408
Email: Ubalozi@tanzaniaembassy-us.org
Malawi
E-mail:
webmaster@malawi.gov.mw
Malawi
- US Embassy
1029 Vermont Avenue, NW #1000
Washington, DC
20005
Telephone: +1 (202)
721-0274
Angola
Angola US Embassy: angola@angola.org
Mozambique:
E-mail:
webmaster@uem.mz
Mozambique
- US Embassy:
1525 New Hampshire Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC
20036
phone: +1 (202) 293-7146
fax: +1 (202)
835-0245
e-mail: embamoc@aol.com
Swaziland
US
Embassy of the Kingdom of Swaziland
International Dr.
NW.
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: +1 (202)362-6683 or
6685
FAX +1 (202)244-8059
Lesotho
THE
LESOTHO MORNACHY CONTACT DETAILS
His Majesty King Letsie III
Her
Majesty Queen'Masenate Mohato Seeiso
Senior Private Secretary : Lerotholi
Mabotse
Address: The Royal Palace Secretariat
P. 0. Box
527
Maseru
Lesotho
Phone: (+266) 22 322170 / 22
312776
Fax:
Email: sps@palace.org.ls
Namibia
Office
of the President
Hon. President: Hon. Hifikepunye Pohamba
Postal
Address: Private Bag 13339,
Windhoek
Telephone
Number: (061) 270 7111
Fax Number: (061) 245989
E-mail Address:
hpohamba@op.gov.na
Office
of the Founding President
Hon. President: Hon. Dr. Sam
Nujoma
Postal Address: Private Bag 13220,
Windhoek
Telephone Number: (061) 377700
Fax Number: (061)
253098
E-mail Address: snujoma@op.gov.na
Namibia:
Office of the Prime Minister
Hon. Prime Minister: Hon. Nahas
Angula
Hon. Deputy Prime Minister: Hon. Dr Libertina
Amathila
Permanent Secretary: Adv. Nangula Mbako
Postal Address:
Private Bag 13338,
Windhoek
Telephone Number: (061)
287 9111
Fax Number: (061) 230648
E-mail Address: nangula@opm.gov.na
lamathila@opm.gov.na
Namibia
US Embassy
1605 New Hampshire Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20009
telephone.: +1 202.986.0540
facsimile.: +1 202.986.0443
info@namibianembassyusa.org
Mauritius
Dr
The Honourable Navinchandra Ramgoolam
Prime Minister of the Republic of
Mauritius
Prime Minister's Office
New Treasury Building
Intendance
Street`
Port Louis
E-mail primeminister@mail.gov.mu
Contact
Us: Thru' Confidential Secretary Tel. No 207-9400 / 207-2576
US
Embassy of the Republic of Mauritius
4301 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite
441
Washington DC 20008, USA
Tel.: (202) 244 1491/1492
Fax : (202)
966-0983
EMAIL: MAURITIUS.EMBASSY@prodigy.net
Democratic
Republic of Congo
Permanent Mission to the United
Nations
866 United Nations Plaza
Suite 511
New
York, NY 10017
Tel.: +1 (212) 319-8061
Fax : +1 (212)
319-8232
E-mail: acpresse@gmail.com
Madagascar
U.S.
Embassy
H.E. Ambassador Jocelyn Radifera
Embassy of the Republic of
Madagascar
2374 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
USA
Tel: +1 202-265-5525
Fax: +1 202 265 3034
E-Mail: malagasy@embassy.org
UN
Diplomatic Mission
H.E. Ambassador Zina Andrianarivelo
Permanent
Representative to the United Nations
820 Second Avenue, Suite 800
New
York, NY 10017 USA
Tel: +1 212-986-9491
Fax: +1
212-599-5021
List of worldwide embassies:
http://www.madagascar-consulate.org/embassies-world.html
Government
Website (was not working when I checked):
http://www.assemblee-nationale.mg/mg/accueil.php
Seychelles
Government website: www.gov.sc
Department
of Information Communications Technology
P.O Box 737
3rd
Floor
Caravelle House
Manglier
Street
Victoria
Telephone Number: +248-286600
Telefax
Number: +248-324643
E Mail: webmaster@ict.gov.sc or fill in form at
http://www.gov.sc/GeneralInfo/Home/feedback.aspx
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website:
http://www.mfa.gov.sc/government.html
Seychelles
Consulate , United States
309th Street, Federal Way
Seattle, WA
98023
Phone:+1-253-8744-579
Fax: +1-253-8382-787
Email: churchl@tegris.com
Seychelles
Embassy , United States
Suite 400C, 4th floor, 800 Second Avenue
New York,
NY 10017
Phone: +1-212-972-1785
Fax: +1-212-972-1786
Email: seychelles@un.int
Seychelles
Consulate , United States
P.O.Box 111909
Anchorage, Alaska 99511
Phone:
+1-907-244-5375
Fax: +1-907-345-5607
Email: hwgreen@msn.com
South
Africa
US Embassy
3051 Massachusetts Ave,
NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: +1 (202) 232-4400
Fax: +1 (202)
265-1607
E-mail: info@saembassy.org
Union Buildings
(Pretoria)
Telephone: +27 (0)12 300 5200
Fax: +27 (0)12 323
8246
Tuynhuys (Cape Town)
Telephone: +27 (0)21 464 2100
Fax: +27
(0)21 462 2838
Head of Communications
Vacant
Telephone: (Union
Buildings) +27 (0)12 300 5431
Telephone: (Tuynhuys) +27 (0)21 464
2216
Fax: (Union Buildings) +27 (0)12 300 5775
E-mail: sandra@po.gov.za
Communications
Presidential
Spokesperson
Mr Mukoni Ratshitanga
Telephone: (Union Buildings) +27 (0)12
300 5436
Mobile: +27 (0)82 300 3447
Fax: (Union Buildings) +27 (0)12 323
6080
E-mail: mukoni@po.gov.za
Postal
Address: Private Bag X1000
Private Bag X1000
Postal Code:
0001
Communications
Director-General
Reverend Frank
Chikane
Telephone: (Union Buildings) 012 300 5351
Telephone: (Tuynhuys)
021 464 2110
Fax: (Union Buildings) 012 300 5755
E-mail: thandi@po.gov.za
Bulk E-Mail
List (just copy and paste)
thandi@po.gov.za; mukoni@po.gov.za; embzambia@aol.com;
tnwinfo@plancom.go.tz; Ubalozi@tanzaniaembassy-us.org;
webmaster@malawi.gov.mw; angola@angola.org; webmaster@uem.mz;
embamoc@aol.com; sps@palace.org.ls; hpohamba@op.gov.na; snujoma@op.gov.na;
nangula@opm.gov.na; lamathila@opm.gov.na; info@namibianembassyusa.org;
primeminister@mail.gov.mu; MAURITIUS.EMBASSY@prodigy.net;
acpresse@gmail.com; malagasy@embassy.org; webmaster@ict.gov.sc;
churchl@tegris.com; seychelles@un.int; hwgreen@msn.com; info@saembassy.org;
sandra@po.gov.za; mukoni@po.gov.za; thandi@po.gov.za; llekoa@gov.bw;
smautle@gov.bw; http://www.botswanaembassy.org/staff.html):
jtherego@gov.bw;
ekuhlmann@gov.bw; mmoleleke@gov.bw; gchebanne@gov.bw; hluke@gov.bw;
lsebogiso@gov.bw; cratsiripe@gov.bw; ikhama@gov.bw
Zim Online
by Hendricks
Chizhanje Friday 11 April 2008
HARARE – Police on Thursday
arrested the lawyer of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai after he asked
them to release a helicopter they impounded last
month.
The lawyer,
Innocent Chagonda, was still being detained in police cells at
Rhodesville
in Harare by late evening yesterday.
Chagonda was arrested at around
0900hrs after he threatened to sue the
police if they did not let go of the
chopper that was being used by
Tsvangirai to fly to political rallies in the
run-up to the elections on
March 29.
“The police are saying he
insulted and threatened them, and was interfering
with their work when he
demanded the release of the aircraft,” said Chris
Mhike, a lawyer and friend
of Chagonda who was present when he was arrested.
Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena was not immediately available for comment
on the
matter.
Police impounded the helicopter at Charles Prince airport juts
outside
Harare. The helicopter pilot, Brent Smyth, who reportedly has dual
British
and South African citizenship, was arrested but latter freed by the
courts. – ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Prince Nyathi Friday 11 April
2008
HARARE – The Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC)
said on Thursday that
it had information that Zimbabwe’s army and ruling
party youth militia were
planning attacks on civilians in rural areas ahead
of an anticipated
presidential election run-off.
A run-off is
expected between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai after the two rivals failed to garner enough votes to
assume
power in a March 29 presidential election.
The run-off was however,
thrown into doubt after Tsvangirai’s Movement for
Democratic Change party
said it would not participate because it strongly
believes that it won the
first round with more than 50 percent of the vote
to avoid a second
ballot.
The SALC said in statement: “We’ve received information, some of
it from
sources inside Zimbabwe’s security establishment, indicating that
youth
militias, central Intelligence operatives and war veterans are being
deployed, under the command of approximately 200 senior army officials,
throughout the rural areas.
“The intention seems to be to use
violence to intimidate voters prior to any
run-off or rerun of the
elections.”
The group, which recently handed a dossier to South Africa’s
prosecution
authorities containing names of Zimbabwe officials it said
should be
apprehended if they visit South Africa and be tried for committing
human
rights abuses, said senior security officials who authorise violence
against
villagers could charged under international law.
The group
also urged the southern African community to act to prevent large
scale and
state sponsored violence against innocent civilians in Zimbabwe.
“In the
face of reports of such impending attack, the international and
regional
community have a heightened responsibility,” it said.
Meanwhile,
suspected ruling ZANU PF party activists burnt down several
houses belonging
to MDC supporters in rural Muzarabani and Centenary
districts as punishment
for supporting the opposition party.
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said
the party’s supporters were under
attack especially in remote rural areas,
away from the spotlight of the
press and human rights defenders.
"We
have been saying this all along and this time they stepped up their
violent
campaign in the rural areas," said Chamisa.
Politically motivated
violence has resurfaced in parts of Zimbabwe since
elections two weeks ago
while war veterans have also stepped up farm
invasions with at least 60
white farmers said to have been evicted from the
properties over the past
few days.
Analysts see new farm invasions and resurgent political
violence as part of
a well-orchestrated plan by Mugabe to regain the upper
hand in rural and
farming areas, where ZANU PF surprisingly lost several
seats to the MDC.
ZimOnline.
Reuters
Thu 10
Apr 2008, 20:22 GMT
HARARE, April 10 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's electoral
commission on Thursday
indicated that it would not release results of the
March 29 presidential
election as long as the matter was before a court in
Harare.
"The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission advises members of the public
that the
issue of presidential election results is now a subject of the High
Court,"
state radio reported late on Thursday.
The opposition
Movement for Democratic Change has filed an application with
the High Court
to compell election officials to release the results of the
poll, which the
MDC said it had won. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe;
Editing by Ibon
Villelabeitia)
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
10 April
2008
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has
accused President Robert
Mugabe of mounting a "de facto military coup" in
the wake of elections whose
results have not been fully disclosed, citing
the deployment of troop into
rural areas ahead of a presidential runoff
election the ruling party appears
determined to stage.
Tsvangirai,
whose branch of the Movement for Democratic Change says he won
the
presidential ballot with at least 50.3% of the vote, was in South Africa
Thursday for the second time in several days pursuing a regional diplomatic
offensive in the crisis.
Sources said Tsvangirai was set to meet late
Thursday with President Thabo
Mbeki, but it was unclear whether that meeting
came about. Mr. Mbeki was
said to be on his way to Mozambique on Friday to
meet with President Armando
Guebuza ahead of a summit Saturday of the
Southern African Development
Community.
Harare has confirmed
President Mugabe will attend the summit. Tsvangirai
said he expects to be in
Lusaka, Zambia, to present his side of the
situation.
Earlier,
Tsvangirai expanded on his comments to Time magazine saying that
President
Mugabe had mounted a "de facto coup" following the March 29
elections.
"You have for instance generals in charge of provinces,
and various levels
of officers responsible for constituencies, and an
execution plan which is
intimidating, harassing and beating up of people
taking place," Tsvangirai
said in an interview with VOA. "That cannot be a
normal civilian operation.
This is a military operation.
Meanwhile,
international pressure continues to mount on the government.
Reports said
U.S. President George Bush in a telephone conversation with
Tanzanian
President Jakaya Kikwete repeated American calls for the ballot
results to
be issued by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as as possible,
saying they
reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people. Kikwete is the
current chairman
of the African Union.
The Catholic church in Southern Africa has called
for the appointment of a
mediator such as former United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan to
resolve the crisis. But Zimbabwean Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa said
there was no need for such international intervention
in the country's
post-election crisis.
South African Deputy Foreign
Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said Pretoria will
work with other countries in
the region to ensure the will of the Zimbabwean
people is reflected in the
election follow-up. Pahad said ZEC must quickly
release the
results.
Senior Researcher Chris Maroleng of South Africa's Institute for
Security
Studies said from Pretoria that Harare's claim the situation is
normal is
manifestly false, adding that the danger is increasing that
popular
frustration will boil over into violence.
Business Day, Nigeria
10 April, 2008
12:00:00 Obi Iwuagwu
Seven days from today, infact on April 18, it
would have been 28 years since
84 year old Robert Mugabe, became leader of
Zimbabwe.
Of course, this is more than enough time for any focused person
to transform
the fortunes of his/her society. But this is not so with Robert
Mugabe and
Zimbabwe. Rather, under his leadership that country has
practically been
ravaged and left desolate. Within these years, Zimbabwe’s
economy has
transited from one of the strongest and fastest growing in
Africa especially
in the 1980s, to perhaps, the weakest in the world today.
Unemployment rate
is presently put at 85 percent, while inflation rate at
100, 000 percent,
has surpassed that of all other nations. As at now,
Zimbabwe has the lowest
GDP real growth rate in the world with life
expectancy put at barely 37
years. But this is only a tip of the
iceberg.
With escalating economic conditions, President Mugabe’s effort to
change the
laws of economics through his anti-inflationary order (Operation
Slash
Prices) of 25th June, 2007, which tried to force merchants to cut
prices by
50 percent, ended up achieving the opposite. Thus, bread, sugar
and
cornmeal, staples of the people’s diet have vanished or become
frequently
seized by mobs that denude stores like locusts in wheat fields.
Similarly,
meat has become non-existent, even for the middleclass who have
the money to
buy it, at least from ‘black markets’. Also hit are gasoline,
which also
became unobtainable, hospital patients died daily on account of
lack of
basic medical supplies; while power blackouts and water cuts are
endemic.
Against this background, manufacturing slowed to a crawl because
only few
businesses could produce goods for less than the government imposed
sale
prices even as raw materials have dried up because suppliers are being
forced to sell to factories at a loss. Given this situation, businesses have
either laid off workers or reduced their working hours.
Of course, it
could not have been different.
What currently rules the world are freedom and
capitalism, not statism and
socialism. Not even the strongest unchallenged
autocrat (including Robert
Mugabe himself) can repeal the natural laws of
demand and supply. Between
2000 and 2007, Zimbabwe’s economy under Robert
Mugabe contracted by as much
as 40 percent; inflation jumped to over 66, 000
percent and there were
persistent shortages of foreign exchange, local
currency, fuel, medicine and
food. Also, GDP per capita dropped by 40
percent, agricultural output by 51
percent and industrial production by 47
percent. Similarly, foreign direct
investment (fdi) almost evaporated.
Whereas in 1998, fdi accounted for
US$400 million, by 2007 it had fallen to
just US$40 million.
In the same vein, the official Zimbabwean dollar exchange
rate was frozen at
Z$101, 196 per US dollar from the beginning of 2006, but
by July of that
year, the parallel (black market) rate had reached Z$550,
000 per US dollar.
By comparison, ten years earlier, the rate of exchange
was only Z$9.13 to
the US dollar.
Expectedly, unemployment, poverty and
malnutrition have taken centre stage,
driven by a shrinking economy and
hyperinflation in a country that has high
reserves of metallurgical-grade
chromites and other commercial mineral
deposits including coal, asbestos,
copper, nickel, gold, platinum and iron
ore, which had fueled its high GDP
growth rate (4.5 percent) between 1980
and 1990.
Nevertheless, reasons
for Zimbabwe’s economic woes under President Robert
Mugabe are diverse. Many
easily point to his obnoxious land policies, which
alienated land from white
farmers; endemic corruption; involvement in the
war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC); absence of rule of law; as
well as other ill
conceived economic policies. Others point to high level
political
intolerance, electoral fraud and gross human rights abuses that
characterized Mugabe’s administration. Yet others insist that Zimbabwe’s
economic woes are the direct result of a concerted and systematic campaign
to affect regime change by the west through an economic implosion. For these
people, all other factors would amount to child’s play when compared with
the direct impact of economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the U.S, EU
and Australia, resulting from Mugabe’s forceful expropriation of farmland
owned by the country’s white farmers.
Thus, under the Zimbabwean
Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)
introduced in 2001, the U.S
government was empowered to use its voting
rights and influence (as the main
donor) in multilateral lending
institutions, such as IMF, World Bank and
African Development Bank to veto
any applications by Zimbabwe for finance,
credit facilities, loan
rescheduling and international debt cancellation;
citing the country’s poor
human rights record, political intolerance and
absence of rule of law as
major reasons. By implication, once the IMF and
World Bank stopped doing
business with Zimbabwe, it had an immediate and
adverse impact on the
country’s credit and investment rating. And with the
drop in its investment
rating went the dream of low cost capital on the
international markets.
This is the economic yoke that Robert Mugabe has
forced on his people.
However, no matter how long Zimbabweans would still
have to suffer under
this evil, brutal and oppressive dictator; one thing is
certain; Mugabe has
boldly written his name on the wrong side of Africa’s
history. Only very few
of his people will eventually miss him when he exits
power, which will come
much sooner than expected. Above all, he is no longer
a candidate for the Mo
Ibrahim Foundation Prize for Achievement in African
Leadership; recently set
up to celebrate the best of Africa’s leadership.
These, for me, are enough
consolation.
The Times
April 11, 2008
Letters
Zimbabwe's problems are its own
Sir, Daniel Emlyn-Jones’s absurdly
unbalanced description of our colonial
rule as a “history of humiliation,
exploitation and degradation of native
peoples” as in some way explaining
the chaos in Zimbabwe (letters, April 8)
can be refuted by literally
millions of documented actions to the contrary.
The 1922 White Paper on
the colonies, for instance, set the tone for all the
remaining colonial
territories by roundly declaring in respect of Kenya,
where there was
substantial European immigration, that the interests of the
native
population were “paramount”.
To describe Robert Mugabe (born 1923) as
“our monster” is likewise absurd.
Mugabe was educated in a Catholic mission
school in what was then Southern
Rhodesia, which enjoyed complete internal
self-government over which the
Colonial Office had no control
whatsoever.
If anything created the monster in Mugabe it was his
proclaimed belief in
Marxism, which really is responsible for untold misery,
death and
degradation all over the world.
Professor Stephen
Bush
Thurston, Suffolk
Sir, Lord Carrington is right when he states
that Mugabe’s victory in the
1980 election reflected the majority opinion in
Rhodesia. His and Margaret
Thatcher’s intervention via the Lancaster House
initiative was timely and
courageous and cut short a war that the whites
could not have won.
What Mr Hendry (letter, April 9) says is incorrect. I
was a British election
supervisor and never heard in the district where I
was based nor anywhere
else of any Patriotic Front “warriors” checking
ballot papers. Neither the
Rhodesian election directorate nor the British
Election Commission would
have put up with this. It is my opinion that the
electorate voted the way it
did because it saw a vote for Smith and Muzorewa
as risking a perpetuation
of a war that everyone wanted to see come to an
end.
If only the votes of Zimbabweans in the recent elections could
reflect their
opinion of a President who has grossly betrayed their
trust.
Dr Jonathan Lawley
London SW12
Sir, Anybody wondering
about the outcome of Zimbabwe’s recent presidential
election would do well
to remember that as a Nanking military academy
student Mr Mugabe is likely
to have encountered Joseph Stalin’s observation
that “the people who cast
the votes do not decide an election, the people
who count the votes
do”.
Luke Glass
London W4
Time
Thursday, Apr.
10, 2008 By ALEX PERRY/CAPE TOWN
Morgan Tsvangirai has been this close
before. In 2002 he was widely thought
to have won Zimbabwe's presidential
election, beating the country's
tyrannical leader, Robert Mugabe. But
according to most independent
observers, Mugabe had the results fixed,
extending his tenure as Zimbabwe's
only ruler since independence in 1980.
Now Tsvangirai is trying to avoid
being robbed again. Results of the March
29 general election have not yet
been announced, but the Zimbabwe Election
Commission indicates that his
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has
seized the parliamentary majority
from Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Tsvangirai is sure
he's won the presidential vote.
But Mugabe, 84, is demanding a recount and a
runoff for the presidency,
fueling fears of another vote fix. His supporters
have launched a campaign
of violence across the country. Tsvangirai calls it
"a de facto military
coup."
Tsvangirai is trying to fight Mugabe in
the courts and persuade other
African countries to pressure one of the
continent's last Big Men--powerful
figures who, like Mugabe, led their
nations to independence from colonial
rule but then turned into despots--to
go quietly into the night. Zimbabwe's
turn, says Tsvangirai, is long
overdue. Speaking to TIME by phone from an
undisclosed location in Zimbabwe,
he said, "We need to shift from focusing
on our independence and start
focusing on our prosperity and freedom."
It will be a long battle. Decades of
misrule have turned Zimbabwe into an
economic basket case. Inflation is
100,000%, unemployment 80%, and up to 1
million people (out of a population
of 12 million) have fled to neighboring
South Africa. "We are very conscious
that it's very difficult to fight
dictatorship with democratic means,"
Tsvangirai says. "We're taking on the
whole edifice, a dictatorship that has
been institutionalized into all the
organs of state. It's a very big
mountain we have to climb." If replacing
Mugabe isn't hard enough, ruling
the country he leaves behind will be a
herculean task.
Tsvangirai,
56, became accustomed to responsibility at an early age. The son
of a
carpenter and bricklayer from Gutu, south of the capital, Harare, and
the
eldest of nine, he quit school early to work the nickel mines of
Mashonaland
in northern Zimbabwe. In 10 years, he rose from plant operator
to general
foreman. Under the white government of the time, there was more
than one way
for a political aspirant to agitate for change. Mugabe fought
for freedom;
Tsvangirai chose the mine-workers union. In 1980, Mugabe, then
56,
inaugurated a free Zimbabwe. Eight years later, Tsvangirai became
secretary-general of the Zimbabwean trade-union movement. Outraged by
Mugabe's growing tyranny, Tsvangirai's unions broke with the
state.
The move earned him admirers and enemies. In 1997 a group of men
thought to
be from Mugabe's secret service, the Central Intelligence
Organization,
burst into Tsvangirai's 10th-floor offices in Harare and tried
to hurl him
through a window, but Tsvangirai fought off his attackers. He
formed the
opposition MDC in 1999. Despite at least three other attempts on
his life
and, according to the MDC, four arrests, he has fought Mugabe in
every
election since.
The physical contrast between Tsvangirai and
Mugabe emphasizes the gulf
between them. Tsvangirai is ebullient and casual,
wears cowboy hats and has
the burly figure of a man fond of food.Mugabe
sports a tiny Hitler mustache
and favors tailored suits but sometimes wears
shirts and baseball caps
bearing images of his own face. The two men appeal
to different sections of
Zimbabwean society--Mugabe to rural villagers and
liberation stalwarts,
Tsvangirai to the young and the
urban.
Tsvangirai is short on specifics of how he would improve on
Mugabe. The
emphasis is on doing what the 84-year-old has not done. The
opposition's
manifesto promises "a sound economy, agriculture and
livelihoods, a new
constitution and good governance"; leadership on
HIV/AIDS, which has
infected 2.3 million people; and empowering the youth.
In a softening of
Mugabe's policy, white-owned farms would not be handed
back to their former
owners. Rather, the government would curb "corrupt and
self-serving" land
seizures while remaining committed to "systematic land
reform that benefits
the black people of Zimbabwe." On the question of
whether to hold the Mugabe
regime accountable for its crimes, Tsvangirai has
offered to be flexible in
order to secure its departure.
Tsvangirai's
record as Zimbabwe's main opposition leader has some blemishes.
In 2005 the
MDC split in two after a breakaway faction questioned what it
perceived as
Tsvangirai's autocratic tendencies. The division led to doubts
about his
leadership skills. "There are some real concerns about him and his
ability,"
says Alex Vines, head of the Africa Program at Chatham House in
London.
Tsvangirai's reponse: "Every leader has his faults. I am not a
perfect human
being." After 28 years of Mugabe, Zimbabweans may be happy to
settle for
less than perfect.
With reporting by With Reporting by William Lee
Adams/London
The Times
April 11, 2008
Catherine Philp in Harare
It was midnight on Sunday
and Sylvia was fast asleep when the white pick-up
truck pulled up outside
her house. Barging their way in, ten men dragged
her, her sister and aunt
from their beds and into the back of the vehicle.
“Your man did not win this
election,” one shouted at her. “Next time you
must get it right or you will
die.”
Sylvia, a youth volunteer for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC), noticed that there were no numberplates on the
vehicle — typical of
those used by the Central Intelligence Office,
President Mugabe's secret
police. As they bounced along the road, the men
set about tying the women's
wrists and ankles. The truck stopped outside
town and the women were pulled
out on to the street and their bound hands
tied to the tow bar.
Then the truck sped off again, dragging the women
behind them, their flesh
scraping on the tarmac. Sylvia remembers only the
searing pain in her
shoulder and breast before she passed out. “This is a
war,” she heard them
shouting. “We will keep fighting until we win.” She was
dumped on a roadside
and it was three days before she received hospital
treatment for her wounds,
which had become infected.
Sylvia's story
is only one of scores emerging from the terrorised Zimbabwean
countryside,
where joy at the opposition election victory has turned to fear
and
violence. Unwilling to allow Mr Mugabe to slope off to retirement and
immunity, the military has taken the reins, unleashing an orchestrated
campaign of terror against opposition activists, election observers and
ordinary voters in an attempt to secure Mr Mugabe victory in a second-round
poll. The results lists posted outside polling stations that made massive
rigging impossible are now being used to target those areas that voted “the
wrong way”.
Areas across Matabeleland, Masvingo and Manicaland, which
swung away from
the ruling Zanu (PF) party for the first time, have found
themselves at the
forefront of the brutality.
White-owned farms were the
first targets of the Zanu (PF) youth militias and
so-called war veterans but
from there the militias have moved on to party
activists and even
independent election observers. Insiders say that the
campaign is being
co-ordinated by 200 handpicked military and intelligence
officers, each of
whom is responsible for regional militia cells.
On Tuesday in
Matabeleland South, to the east of Bulawayo, youth militia
armed with AK47s
stopped traffic and ordered people off buses, rounding them
up and forcing
them at gunpoint to chant slogans in praise of the ruling
party. If they
could not, they were beaten. “There will be a rerun for the
presidential
election and if you try and vote for the MDC again we will go
to war,” the
militiamen said. “We are not asking you to vote Zanu, we are
ordering you -
or else you will be killed.”
In Nyamuya Zoka, militiamen rounded up
people from a market and marched them
to a rally at which they were forced
to pledge that they would vote for Mr
Mugabe — “or you will die”. In the
past two days the violence has become
more targeted, aimed at party polling
agents and observers from the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network, an
independent monitoring group.
On Wednesday in Seke Chintungwiza, a
township south of Harare, 180 people
went from house to house with a list of
MDC polling agents, demanding that
they be handed over. In Nyansa, in the
east of the country, youth militia
set upon a group of observers, beating
them and warning them not to return
for the second round.
Human
rights groups believe that these cases represent the tip of the
iceberg,
with many victims too afraid to report assaults, especially to
police who
may be involved. In Masvingo, where four polling agents were
beaten
severely, a doctor refused to treat the victims for fear that he,
too, could
be attacked. “What we are seeing is escalating. It can only get
worse,” one
human rights worker said.
Next week Zimbabwe celebrates Independence Day,
a reminder of the liberation
war fought against white rule and a key date
for the military and for war
veterans, who appear to have taken control of
the country in what the
Opposition is now calling a de facto coup. “The
military hardliners are
furious that they didn't use violence and
intimidation before like they did
in the last two elections,” an informed
source said. “Now it's a case of
better late than never.”
The MDC
declared yesterday that it was no longer willing to take part in a
second
election and called on Southern African leaders, meeting in Zambia
this
weekend, to force Mr Mugabe to step down before the violence worsened.
“The
lives of all pro-democracy actors are not safe,” Tendai Biti, the MDC
secretary-general, said.
Yahoo News
By CELEAN JACOBSON,
Associated Press Writer
BEITBRIDGE, South Africa -
The mother of six from Zimbabwe doesn't want to
have to cross the border to
South Africa for essentials like soap and
cooking oil, so she voted for
change in last month's elections.
What she got was a death
threat.
Priscah Godzamutsipa sits next to a few sacks of nuts she it
trying to sell
at this busy border post linking South Africa to its troubled
neighbor. She
says she worries about going home, where militants loyal to
President Robert
Mugabe are intimidating villagers who voted against the
longtime leader.
"They say: 'We are going to kill you,'" said
Godzamutsipa, 55. "We are
worried about them. They say: 'Why did you vote
for Tsvangirai?'"
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change,
says he won Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential
elections; no official results
have been released. His party has accused
Mugabe of unleashing a campaign of
violence against opposition supporters,
especially in former rural
strongholds of the ruling ZANU-PF
party.
Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu called the
claims lies,
saying the country is peaceful, with "no violence
whatsoever."
Godzamutsipa lives in Masvingo, a cattle-ranching area where
ruling party
militants began invading white-owned farms last weekend. By
Wednesday,
dozens of white farmers had been driven off their
land.
Across Zimbabwe, only a few hundred remain of the 4,500 white
farmers who
once grew enough food to feed the nation and export to
neighbors.
Godzamutsipa farms 10 acres of family land with her husband
and was once a
staunch supporter of Mugabe, who led a seven-year bush war
that helped end
white rule and bring independence to Zimbabwe.
But
now she "wants change," the refrain of many Zimbabweans.
"Before Mugabe
was very good. I could pay school fees. There was food in the
supermarkets,"
she said. "Now the shops are empty. You can have a billion
dollars, but you
can't buy anything."
A lack of rain and fertilizer and only two oxen for
tilling mean
Godzamutsipa can barely produce enough food for her six
children as well as
the six nieces and nephews she looks after.
So,
every month she makes the two-day bus journey to South Africa, hoping to
sell enough nuts to pay school fees and buy essentials such as cooking oil
and soap.
The Beitbridge border post, set in a dusty, scrubby
landscape marked by
giant Baobab trees, has become a hive of trade and
activity.
A stream of cars and small trucks laden with goods head north
from South
Africa, destined for Zimbabwe's black market. At the gas station,
a mass of
plastic drums lie waiting to be filled with fuel — a scarce
commodity across
the border.
In the market, women sell tomatoes and
sodas in the hot sun, while men with
minibuses do a roaring business
ferrying day-trippers and shoppers. In a
darkened hut, a money changer
counts out wads of U.S. dollars and South
African rands.
As
Zimbabwe's economic and political woes have intensified, an increasing
number of Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa and other neighboring
countries.
There are few reliable figures, but estimates consistently
put the number of
Zimbabweans in South Africa at 3 million — nearly a
quarter of Zimbabwe's
total population.
The International
Organization for Migration office in Zimbabwe says people
are crossing into
South Africa at a rate of more than 1,000 a day.
Some cross legally but
then let their visas expire; others get truck drivers
to smuggle them
in.
"Most of the truck drivers do it now," said Tom Karonga, 34, who has
been
waiting on the Zimbabwean side of the border for a week while his cargo
of
luxury cars is being cleared, crossing daily into South Africa on foot
for
supplies.
"We know they are doing it for the better of their
families or themselves,"
he said, adding that he had been approached by
Zimbabweans on both sides of
the border desperate for a lift to
"anywhere."
Some Zimbabweans choose to brave the crocodiles of the
Limpopo River, often
paying exorbitant fees to guides.
The poorly
patrolled border stretches for miles, with barbed wire marking
out a rocky
patch of no man's land a few feet wide. Holes cut into the
bottom of the
fence are large enough for adults to crawl through. In some
areas, there is
no fence at all.
Once through, "border jumpers" make a dash across a
narrow strip of tarmac,
duck through some more ripped fencing and disappear
into the bush, leaving
behind an odd shoe or cap.
In the warm glow of
the late afternoon sun, a man in a khaki shirt rushed
from the fence back
into shadow on the Zimbabwean side. Disturbed by the
cars on the South
African side, he made one more attempt to reach the fence
before retreating
to wait for another, safer time to cross.
International Herald Tribune
By Daniel Magnowski ReutersPublished: April 10,
2008
LONDON: The world's resource companies could be lining
up to rebuild
Zimbabwe's once mighty gold mines and metal refineries if
President Robert
Mugabe's government falls.
"It is often painted as a
treasure trove for miners, and with solid reason,"
said Anne Fruehauf,
analyst for southern and east Africa at a consulting
company, Control Risks.
The southern Africa country, once a big producer of
minerals, is hardly
undiscovered ground for the world's miners.
Rio Tinto digs for diamonds
there, while the country's platinum reserves,
among the largest on the
planet, have attracted Anglo Platinum and Impala
Platinum, which are the two
largest miners of the metal.
The company that later became BHP Billiton
was active in the precious metal
until the end of the 1990s, while
Zimbabwean rock also contains chromite,
coal, cobalt, copper, iron ore,
nickel, palladium and tin - a rich spectrum
of mineral wealth.
By far
the main event in Zimbabwean mining is gold, and with prices on world
markets close to all-time highs, miners are looking forward to start digging
again.
"At its peak, Zimbabwe produced about 25 tons a year of gold,"
said Magnus
Ericsson, senior partner at Raw Materials Group, a research firm
based in
Stockholm.
Using current prices, 25 tons of gold would be worth
nearly $750 million, no
small prize for miners willing to take a risk on the
country.
"Not all the problems in Zimbabwe are just political," Ericsson
said. "The
majority of mines were small scale, run in an industrial way by
entrepreneurs."
First movers are likely to be small and medium-size
companies rather than
multinational giants, which generally require huge
deposits to justify
investments.
"The likelihood of finding an
elephant in Zimbabwe is not that high because
of the geology there,"
Ericsson said about finding a huge deposit of metal.
After establishing that
there is metal to be drawn from the ground, the
biggest concern for
commercial miners is the legal framework which governs
where and for what
they can dig, how they sell it and how much revenue the
government will
claim.
"Potential investors would want to see a good mining law, with
security of
tenure and a right to export metal," said George Rogers, head of
commodities
and resource finance at Investec. "They would also want a stable
tax
environment."
Under Mugabe, stability has been rare.
"A
general concern with much legislation is, it has been used by the
government
as an extortion tool," Fruehauf said. "It leaves the government
with a lot
of room for maneuver, and confronts miners with a lot of
seemingly arbitrary
and capricious decisions."
Most mining houses have delayed expansion
decisions because they need
stability to make long-term investment
worthwhile.
Those who have been able to operate have done so in the face
of adversity
that would scarcely be imaginable in "safe" mining countries
like Canada,
Australia or Chile.
"Under Mugabe, firms have operated
under the threat of nationalization, gold
has had to be sold at artificial
prices through the central bank, and spares
and diesel have been difficult
to import," said Rogers from Investec.
Though damaged, infrastructure has
not been completely ruined, and
investment would probably go a longer way
than in a war-scarred economy like
Mozambique's, Fruehauf said. He noted
that Zimbabwe also has a more skilled
work force than nearby
countries.
"Despite significant brain drain, the foundation of human
capital is still
solid, compared with the rest of the Southern African
region," she said.
There are other sub-Saharan success stories to hearten
investors.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, once viewed as untouchably
dangerous,
recast its mining code with the help of the World Bank, recently
completed a
review of previously agreed contracts with mining firms, and is
now firmly
on the radar for majors like Anglo American, BHP and
FreeportMcMoRan.
"If countries like the DRC can attract investors, so can
Zimbabwe," Rogers
said.
Robert Mugabe, the losing Zanu (PF) presidential candidate
for March 29
harmonised elections has decided to impose himself on the
people of
Zimbabwe. He has done this by creating ground for unleashing a
reign of
terror with special emphasis in the rural areas. This decision has
been
passed at an 8 hour adhoc meeting held at state house from 9am-2pm
yesterday
(Wednesday 9 April 2008). It has been agreed that war veterans are
going to
be deployed to lead all rural police stations with immediate
effect;
furthermore they have been promised handsome packages which are to
be
disclosed next week. It has also been resolved that police and soldiers
should be on high alert to crush any possible uprising. This meeting
according to a member of the Central Intelligence Officer who preferred
anonymity for the fear of victimisation, who attended the meeting said the
cabinet which was dissolved before elections was retained. Skanyiso Ndlovu,
the outgoing minister of information and publicity, was instructed to issue
a statement to the effect that the cabinet is still functional till the run
off is over. The date for the runoff was however not disclosed, there was
only emphasis on strategising how to win the runoff election and the need to
deal with civil servants who were supporting the opposition.
With
such a scenario, the rural areas are obviously going to once again
become
opposition party no go areas and the electorate in those
constituencies is
going to be in for a high jump as there is going to be a
witch-hunt for
those who ‘dinned with the enemy’ in the recent harmonised
elections. This
is going to intimidate the electorate ahead of this stage
managed runoff
election whose date is yet to be announced. Despite the
physical and
psychological torture associated with this premeditated move to
intimidate
the electorate the voters are obviously going to be
disenfranchised as they
flee for their dear lives from war tone zones as
designed by Robert
Mugabe.This also creates an uphill task for organisations
like Youth Forum
whose target group is mainly in the rural areas since such
areas will be
inaccessible to non-ZANU PF players.
This is worrisome to any concerned
Zimbabwean citizen, human rights
defenders and activists at large. Youth
Forum regards this as a defacto
state of emergency which is very unhealthy
for the development of any
nation; however Youth Forum is going to continue
doing its work despite this
bumpy environment. This situation has further
been aggravated by the
inciting headlines by the state media which promote
violence by the defence
forces and war veterans as well as some senior
government officials. For
example allegations that the opposition is
planning to fire all service
chiefs and senior government officials as well
as redistributing land to the
white commercial farmers. Some war veterans
have already started occupying
farms for the white commercial farmers,
Masvingo is one area where they have
done it and the state has kept queit
about it. On the other hand, the high
court is keeping on postponing the
ruling on the urgent high court
application by the opposition MDC demanding
the quick release of
presidential election results and this shows how
partisan they are.
In a separate incident a Masvingo magistrate, Timor
Makunde has further
remanded the Youth Forum Board Chairperson for the 6th
time to June 10 and
no reasons have been given to justify this move. Youth
Forum takes this as a
deliberate move to frustrate a vibrant youth activist
and stop him from
fighting for the democratization of this country. He is
accused of labeling
the police as Mugabe’s dogs after they arrested him for
addressing a public
meeting hosted by Youth Forum late last year. Despite
this persistent
harassment of activists, Youth Forum encourages Zimbabweans
to remain
steadfast in the face of such an evil regime. The road is
obviously going to
be very thorn but Youth Forum encourages all Zimbabweans
particularly the
youths to fight till we reach our final destiny, a
democratic and people
driven nation.
Youth Forum Information And
Publicity
+263 23 353 291, +263 913 022 368
www.youthforum.org.zw
zimbabwejournalists.com
10th Apr 2008 09:35 GMT
By Chenjerai Chitsaru
THERE have been comparisons,
which some people might call malicious, between
what Zanu PF is trying cook
up with the election results, with trying to get
us to eat very badly-cooked
sadza/isitshwala, mbodza.
But I have extremist friends who go further: to
them, what President
Robert Mugabe’s defeated party is trying to do is to
lace our food with
arsenic.
In other words they could be trying to
commit homicide, albeit political
homicide. If they succeed in implementing
their devilish plan to somehow
invalidate the results, particularly of the
presidential election, they will
have eliminated an opportunity for anyone
other than President Robert Mugabe
to become president of the
republic.
The legal shenanigans which they have resorted to are being taken
in a
tandem with an all too-loud campaign of scare-mongering, using the
threat of
the war veterans to complement other psychological weapons in heir
arsenal.
Their major instrument of terror is that Morgan Tsvangirai, who
says he won
the presidential election and has not had any substantial
challenge to that
statement, intends to restore to white farmers the
ownership of the farms
taken from them in 2000.
This could be in
preparation for the run-off, for which they appear to
be ready to get
involved in. Their hope is that the voters, having learnt
that Tsvangirai
is quietly trying to reverse the “gains of the land reform”
programme, will
be rejected in the run-off.
But their logic has something inherently awry
in it. Before 29 March,
they preached this doctrine that the MDC wanted to
hand back the country to
the British. In spite of that propaganda, the
voters were not swayed – in
any case, not to the extent of voting
overwhelmingly for Zanu PF.
The voters were not even swayed by the threat
from the leaders of the
unformed forces: that they would not salute a new
president who had no
liberation war credentials.
The voters dared the
armed forces chiefs: if you won’t salute Tsvangirai
then you won’t salute
Mugabe either, because he has just lost.
The threat of violence hangs in
the air today. Ordinary people, so used to
the violence of which Zanu PF is
capable, seem ready to confront it, not
perhaps with arms or other such
weapons, but with a steely determination not
to be denied what they believe
to be rightfully theirs – the chance for real
change, from the predictably
false promises to something fresh…even if
Tsvangirai has not been tried and
tested at this elevated level of power.
But compared with the performance
of Robert Mugabe, with which they have
become so sickeningly familiar in 28
years of mostly bashing and
deprivation, not only of their dignity, but of
food, shelter, schools and
health care, they can’t imagine Tsvangirai being
worse.
Mugabe should really step down, if he has the welfare of this
country
at heart.
Even he must be aware that his potential to
contribute anything
meaningful to the development – economic, social or
political – to this
country is zilch.
It is acknowledged, even by his
fiercest critics, that he has an
honoured place among the nationalists of
this country: Joshua Nkomo, James
Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Herbert
Chitepo, Charles Mzingeli, Josiah
Chinamano, Jason Moyo, Masotsha Ndhlovu
and Reuben Jamela – among others.
But none of these people constituted a
threat to the freedom of the
people in exactly the same way that Mugabe,
towards the end of his reign,
became.
He launched what is now
recognised as a terror campaign against the
people’s free will to choose
their own leaders. What some outsiders seem to
believe is that Mugabe,
himself a very educated man
schooled in world history and the consequences of
despotic tendencies among
leaders, was always willing to concede defeat and
step down. It is people
named as his hangers-on who want him to hang on, for
their own selfish
reasons, it is assumed.
Where does this stem from?
Certainly not from any demonstration by the man
himself that he is willing
to be gracious in defeat.
After he had lost the referendum in 2000, he did
concede defeat “to
the voice of the people”, but did he show his graciousness
by conceding to
the people’s desire for a constitution which did not
entrench his indefinite
hold on power?
No. His response was to teach
“these ingrates a lesson”. He unleashed the
war veterans on the former
white farms, where they killed and pillaged
almost at will as the police
were told not to interfere until they had
finished their work.
In
that “work” lay the origin of the country’s rapid economic decline.
Anybody
clinging to the myth that it was only the sanctions of the
Western bloc which
unleashed the hemorrhage of the economy is deliberately
pandering to the
propaganda of Zanu PF.
It is not untrue that, among many Westerners, the
grabbing of the white
farms was extremely offensive, both to their psyche as
the former colonizers
and to their dignity as nations with the obvious
advantage of advanced
technology and weapons of war.
Governments
resisted the temptation to wage an “armed struggle” for the
recovery of the
farms which previously belonged to their kit and kin.
Some, it must be
accepted, used whatever sanctions they implemented to show
Mugabe that he
could not do what he did and expect not to pay a price,
however symbolic it
might be.
But Mugabe is a very proud man, politically as well as, perhaps,
an
individual. He could not make any concessions for his blunders,
Gukurahundi
and the farm invasions, which were “moments of madness” as
terrible and
illogical as those of the massacre of 20 000 mostly unarmed
civilians in the
early 1980s.
The attempt to blame Mugabe’s excesses
on his colleagues suits his
purposes very well. Yet if the man had really
plucked up enough courage to
leave the scene when it suited, not his own
individual purposes, but those
of his party and his country, he would have
kept his promise not to stand
for re-election in 2008 – come what
might.
But he didn’t and the reason given – that he feared that might
be
the end of his beloved Zanu PF – doesn’t really wash. Other parties which
held responsibility for leading their countries into independence survive in
spite of the absence of their founding leaders – Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania,
Mozambique and Angola, are examples.
True, they may not be ruling
parties in all instances, but they still
exist and still have a chance to
return to power. Mugabe’s excuse that
without him Zanu PF would perish
cannot be anchored on
any other sentiment except his own estimate of his own
importance in the
scheme of things.
There is always the argument that
if Mugabe left the political scene
completely, he would need to be guaranteed
safety from prosecution.
Paul Biya in Cameroon is apparently seeking the same
privilege as he
campaigns for an umpteenth term of office, as Mugabe
did.
This is the man who wanted to speak to Mugabe on the telephone – in
French –
and was put on hold as Mugabe looked frantically for someone who
could
translate for him.
The two men obviously share a love for
power. They are of a breed quite
familiar in Africa today. Another such
leader is Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal,
a visitor to Zimbabwe a few months ago
and a man who warmed immediately to
Mugabe, ending up as one of his
defenders at the African Union meeting with
the European Union.
There
are many such leaders in Africa and it is the curse of the
continent that not
many of them are wiling to pluck a leaf out of the system
entrenched by
Botswana’s ruling party.
The succession pattern may not be entirely
democratic, but the manner in
which Festus Mogae finished his ten-year reign
and the way Seretse Ian Khama
succeeded him was so devoid of tension, it
must put to shame other
countries – like Zimbabwe – which cling to the
archaic method in which power
becomes a pursuit for its own sake – and not
something from which leaders
can serve and save
the people.
In
Zimbabwe, the least we can struggle to do is to prevent Mugabe and Zanu
PF
from forcing mbodza down our throats.
“Government and the party leadership
gradually became alienated from the
ordinary working people; they formed
elites that ignored the opinions and
needs of ordinary people. From the side
of the leadership came propaganda of
success, notions of everything going
according to plan, while on the other
side of the working people there was
passivity and disbelief in the slogans
being proclaimed… the leadership
organized pompous campaigns and the
celebration of numerous anniversaries.
Political life became a move from one
anniversary celebration to another.” –
Mikhail Gorbachev (Cited by Gumede W.
M; 2007)
Zimbabwe has entered
its 12th day after holding the harmonized elections on
the 29th of March
2008. To this day, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)
is still
withholding results of the presidential elections after taking more
than a
week to release the parliamentary and senatorial elections results.
At
the core of the withholding of results is the Zanu PF interference with
the
ZEC operations which is supposed to be highly impartial, transparent and
objective in the discharging its role. This is evidenced by how state
operatives shut down the ZEC National Command Center at the Rainbow Towers
Hotel which was supposed to announce the presidential outcomes, the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) forced the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation
(ZBC) from the command center on the 6th of April 2008, giving ample
evidence that the state operatives have taken over the activities of
ZEC.
As if the interference was not enough, the ruling party is on a
crusade of
accusations against ZEC officials of fraudulent and clandestine
activities,
which the ruling party is flimsily maintaining were masterminded
by the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in cahoots with ZEC officials as
a ploy
to ouster the Zanu PF government. This has since triggered a wave of
arrests
of supposed ZEC officials, clearly showing that the police officers
are
working under the instructions of the ruling party elites whose motive
is
found on maintaining power through extra-legal undertakings. It is
however
shocking when the ruling party starts claiming the results being
‘wrong’
when firstly the results are not made public and secondly when the
whole
process of counting and verification was done in the presence of both
Zanu
PF and MDC polling agents who signed confirmation of what they
witnessed.
The interference by the ruling party in ZEC’s activities were
also confirmed
in the High Court yesterday in the Case of the MDC versus ZEC
where the
former is calling upon the courts to order the latter to release
the
election results. The ZEC lawyer Mr. Chikumbirike argued that an order,
demanding ZEC to release the results will lead to dangerous consequences,
giving an innuendo that ZEC was highly likely to defy the
order.
Chikumbirike’s utterances point to the travesty of the concept of
democracy.
It latently points that the ruling party was thumped in the
democratic
process, hence the cooption of the rogue militant agents such as
the war
veterans, service chiefs and other para-military arms to contain the
growing
mood of tension which is looming in the country. Begging the
question: If
Zanu PF had won the elections, why would they require virtually
two weeks
announcing their victory?
That Zanu PF lost in this
election is no longer a matter of contest but a
given reality which explains
why the party administrator Didymus Mutasa was
quoted on the South African
Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC) as saying, “ …
why do you want us to release
‘wrong’ results? ZEC is still going through
the verification
process!”
The process of going through an election in any democracy is
founded on the
basic fundamentals that an election acts as a democratic
thermometer which
gauges the temperatures of dissenting views and how the
people’s choices on
who gets into the public office and those existing
accept the people’s
wishes. Failure to salute such voices is a recipe for
creating a
totalitarian establishment.
The lack of accountability is
noted by how the losing government extended
the term of cabinet office and
that of the president through the use to the
nefarious Presidential Power
Act Temporary Measures to feel in the vacuum
left by the failure of the very
same regime to announce the results of the
country’s top job. Zanu PF must
be reminded that the reason they
participated in this election was to get
the people’s mandate. ZEC displayed
results on the polling stations on the
29th of March 2008, which were
interpolated by the MDC and other independent
groups showing that, the
ruling party lost. It must respect the wishes and
aspirations of the people
of Zimbabwe who expressed their disapproval of the
governance and legitimacy
crisis which besieged the country since
2000.
It is from such an end that the United Nations Secretary General,
Ban
Ki-moon called upon the Harare administration to release the results
urgently, to avert looming chances of a conflict. As noted by the UN
Secretary General the Crisis Coalition can not agree any further. It is
increasingly becoming difficult to expect the nation to keep on waiting for
the results which the ruling party is sitting on. Such behavior breeds a
very fertile ground for nurturing conflict as people will be acting on
speculative information due to the information vacuum deliberately crafted
by the ruling party.
The Coalition welcomes the decision by the
Zambian President, Levy
Mwanawasa, the current chair of the 14-nation
Southern African Development
Community (SADC) of convening an extraordinary
summit on Saturday 12 April
2008 to discuss the way forward given the
behaviour by the region’s problem
child.
However, the Coalition calls
upon SADC to make a lasting intervention with
benchmarks of deliverables.
This is specifically important given how the
ruling party has become an
oasis of defiance on the recommendations of the
region and other
international bodies such as the United Nations and other
regional blocks. A
chance has therefore been presented to SADC to make a
lasting positive
legacy on the Zimbabwean issue; the onus is on the region
to enter in the
global memory bank as having played a fundamental role when
its decision was
needed most or propping up an errant regime, which will
turn them into
villains.
We therefore wish to bring to the SADC attention as they meet
on Saturday
that the government of Zimbabwe is presided over a civilian coup
where the
vanquished are acting as the victors. A coup where the functions
of ZEC are
taken over by the Central Intelligence Organization; where the
president
dissolves and extends cabinet in the same month without the
mandate of the
electorate!
We therefore call upon the region to send
a strong message that they will
not entertain such an electoral fraud before
it denigrates into a conflict
which will prove to be costly to resolve to
both Zimbabwe and the region
than making a strong decision when it is
timeous, which will save its
integrity and thousands of lives in
Zimbabwe.
- Ends -
Issued by
McDonald
Lewanika
Spokesperson
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
Manchester Evening News
Exclusive guest blog - Petina Gappah on
Zimbabwe
There is one good thing about the present political
impasse in Zimbabwe. The
many African countries and African people who
supported Robert Mugabe
finally get to see the brutish thuggishness that is
a daily reality for
Zimbabweans.
The polls were conducted on 29 March
2008, more than ten days ago. Results
from the bi-cameral parliament were
announced after a tortuous wait. Of the
local elections, there has been no
news. The opposition MDC party which
claims to have won the presidential
poll has filed a High Court action to
compel the electoral commission to
act.
The electoral commission for its part has hidden behind the need to
verify
and collate all the results. These results were posted outside each
of the
country's 9,000 polling stations and before they were posted, were
verified
by the polling agents of each of the contesting parties, who signed
to
confirm the results. It is these results that the commission is now
verifying and collating: it apparently takes more than a week to collate and
verify votes amounting to less than 3 million.
This would be quite
comic if it were not so serious.
In the meantime, the ruling Zanu PF
party's politburo held a five hour
meeting to discuss a possible run-off if
none of the candidates get the
required majority. The Herald, the government
paper, has worked itself into
a frenzy, with letters calling on Zimbabweans
to be steadfast in the event
of a run-off, editorials predicting Mugabe
prevailing in a run-off, reports
of electoral commission officials who have
been arrested for
"under-counting" President Mugabe's votes and news
articles in which
anonymous reporters quote anonymous sources stating that
MDC President
Morgan Tsvangirai is so terrified of a run-off that he has
begged to be made
a deputy to Mugabe.
More gravely, the government
has deployed war veterans to invade farms,
evoking the memories of the
violence that accompanied the last presidential
election in 2002: land has
been brought again to the front and centre of the
ruling party's agenda. A
pity, then, that so much of the land has already
been divvied up by Mugabe's
cronies, judges and army chiefs, so that there
are a paltry 200 white farms
left to invade. The winning solution may be for
the ruling party to resettle
the former white farmers so that the war
veterans can invade the farms all
over again, because at this rate, there
will be nothing to invade if there
is a run-off.
And so Zimbabwe waits while Zanu PF prepares for a run-off
only they know
about. There are also menacing signs that we may be looking
not at a
run-off, but at a situation where the presidential election result
is not
announced at all, but is said to be "unsafe". Under this scenario,
Mugabe
would call for a re-run of the presidential poll, until, presumably,
Zimbabweans produce the result that he wants. Zanu PF wants nothing short of
a victory, however it may be achieved.
The question that they have
not answered is what exactly they will do to
restore the economy's health if
they do win. The statistics are well known
by now: inflation is at more than
100 000 per cent, only 20 per cent of the
working population in formal
employment and thus able to contribute to the
fiscus, a cup of coffee costs
50 million dollars in a country where a
teacher earns maybe five times that
amount. There was nothing in the Zanu PF
election manifesto to suggest that
a Zanu PF president and government have
any ideas on how to address the
economic crisis. This is, after all, a
government that blamed monkeys for
power failures, that saw no irony in
asking dancehall Jamaican musician
Luciano to go out in the world as an
unofficial an ambassador for Zimbabwe,
and that consulted a medium to solve
the country's fuel problems. This last
incident is particularly revealing.
A thirty-five-year old medium, Rotina
Mavhunga, approached the government
and claimed that, with the spirit upon
her, she could make refined diesel
sprout from a rock. The whole thing was
later exposed as a scam of the
crudest kind; the Zambia-bought fuel was
piped to the rocks from where it
sprouted quite magnificently. And yet
government ministers fell for it; the
Central Mechanical Equipment
Department passed the diesel as "pure", half
the cabinet was pictured
kneeling and crouching before her, shoes off as
they waited for the spirit
to reveal more of this precious fluid. 5 billion
dollars (she also received
a farm, according to some reports) and a much
embarrassed government later,
Rotina Mavhunga is now answering questions
before a magistrate's court. Her
defence is particularly novel; it was not
her who is responsible for conning
an entire cabinet, but Changamire Dombo,
the leader of the 17th century
Rozvi Empire whose influence is apparently
strong enough to reach into this
century.
The ruling party has largely followed a foreign policy of
isolating the
country from those countries that disagree with its policies.
No amount of
Changamire Dombo-inspired pan-Africanism can hide the fact that
Zimbabwe's
crisis needs the active engagement of the international
community, including
the IMF and the World Bank. Mugabe refuses to look
west, but his much
vaunted Look East policy has largely failed; the African
countries that have
successfully looked east have sufficient resources to
sate the rapacious oil
and raw material hunger of the Chinese.
It is
particularly galling to Zimbabweans that those Africans who cheer
Mugabe on
for slamming George Bush's policies on Iraq in his infrequent
speeches to
the General Assembly are happy to put out the welcome mat for
him when he
visits their countries. They may cheer Mugabe on the sidelines,
but are
involved in signing economic partnership agreements with the EU, are
keen to
expand their tariff preferences under AGOA, are pushing, as they
should, for
an equitable relationship with the west while enjoying good
diplomatic
relations with its countries. Only Zimbabwe apparently, is to go
it
alone.
The ruling party and the MDC represent two futures for Zimbabwe,
one in
which children go to rural hospitals in ox-drawn scotch-carts and
government
policy is dictated by long-gone emperors, or another in which
Zimbabwe takes
its place along with Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana,
Ghana, Egypt,
Zambia and many other African countries that have embraced the
reality of
our globalised world, and are making efforts to harness its
benefits for the
betterment of their peoples.
In the recent
elections, Zimbabweans made clear which future they want. The
world must
help them achieve it.
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean lawyer and author,
based in Geneva
Posted by David Ottewell on April 10, 2008 09:12
AM