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Deal With Mugabe Firmly
The Citizen (Dar es
Salaam)
EDITORIAL
14 April 2008
Posted to the web 14 April
2008
The two-week delay in announcing Zimbabwe's presidential
election results
has raised fears of violence.
That was why the
Southern African Development Community (Sadc) on Saturday
called an
emergency summit to discuss Zimbabwe's stalemate. President Mugabe
did not
attend the event.
The meeting, convened by the Sadc chairman Levy
Mwanawasa has called for the
rapid release of the results.
Sadc urged
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release them expeditiously
in
accordance with the law.
The summit also called on Mugabe to ensure that
a possible run-off against
opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader
Morgan Tsvangirai be held
in a peaceful and transparent
environment.
Sadc needs to stop Zimbabwe from denegerating into the kind
of the Kenyan
conflicts in which more than 1,000 died and thousands were
displaced.
It has been reported that the Mugabe government intends to
recount all votes
from both the parliamentary and presidential
elections.
MDC has rejected the approach and its lawyers will tomorrow go
to court to
challenge the vote recount.
The fact that authorities in
Zimbabwe are suggesting the recount even before
the actual results have been
released raises doubts as to whether Sadc's
call will be heeded.
Sadc
must ensure that its resolutions are respected and implemented. All
peace-loving people are watching and eagerly waiting for the Zimbabwean
imbroglio to be sold immediately. And Sadc must prove that it is able to
resolve the matter.
Enough is enough, Mr Mbeki
By Geoffrey Nyarota
April 14,
2008
THE constant and blatant refusal by President Mbeki of South Africa
the
SADC-appointed mediator in Zimbabwe’s ongoing calamity to acknowledge
that a
crisis prevails in the country, in the first place, has now become a
contributory factor to the worsening catastrophe.
Whether Mbeki
defines a crisis as a catastrophe, an emergency, calamity, a
predicament or
a decisive or critical moment, Zimbabwe has been in the
throes of one over
the past eight years. Millions of words have been written
and published on
that subject. The dire situation has now been aggravated by
events in the
country in the aftermath of the harmonised elections held a
fortnight
ago.
It is insulting, insensitive and disrespectful of the long-suffering
people
of Zimbabwe for the South African President to state, as he did
before the
SADC heads of state in Lusaka late on Saturday night, that, as
far as he is
concerned, there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. Mr Mbeki remains
firmly stuck in
his customary state of denial.
As far as he is
concerned any talk of a crisis in Zimbabwe is nothing but a
figment of the
collective imagination of the long-suffering people of
Zimbabwe. To him the
crisis is a creation of an opposition MDC anxious to
win the sympathy of the
international community. The fact that the results
of presidential elections
conducted two weeks ago remain a closely guarded
secret appears to be of no
consequence to the South African leader. “Let us
wait for the outcome of the
results,” he enjoined us all while in London
last week.
Mr Mbeki is
not perturbed that, instead of waiting for the controversial
results, Mr
Mugabe and his party started to prepare for a re-run of the
presidential
poll. Neither does he seem concerned that this particular
strategy now
appears to have been abandoned in favour of a ballot recount,
not only of
the presidential election, but also of the parliamentary, senate
and local
government elections in 23 of the 108 constituencies where Zanu-PF
lost to
the MDC.
Mr Mbeki’s problem is quite clear. He is totally at a loss as to
what
exactly is happening on the Zimbabwe political landscape, his handicap
being
compounded by the fact that his major source of information on the
Zimbabwe
crisis is none other than the major cause of the disaster,
President Mugabe.
The Lusaka Summit was still-born the moment President
Mbeki decided to
engage in a last round of “quiet diplomacy” in Harare
before proceeding to
attend the summit. But Mr Mbeki has effectively
squandered the last
opportunity at his disposal to salvage or redeem
whatever remained of his
much tarnished reputation and credibility vis a vis
the Zimbabwe situation.
Mr Mbeki has revealed that, like many
politicians, he is a man of double
standards. Recently he emerged with a
bruised image from the ANC congress in
Pholokwane where his party ditched
him as leader in favour of his erstwhile
deputy, Jacob Zuma, warts and
all.
Mr Mbeki was gracious and exemplary in his acceptance of defeat. He
never
challenged the outcome. Neither did he request that announcement of
results
be postponed while he secretly arranged to take on Zuma again in a
recount.
He did not demand a recount, a luxury that has been denied to the
Zimbabwean
opposition each time they have complained of blatant electoral
theft by Mr
Mugabe’s party.
The ANC had spoken and Mr Mbeki respected
the will of the people.
In a functioning democracy the vote is the
ultimate weapon in the hands of a
citizenry fighting against willful abuse
of their civil rights and against
their subjection to violence, lawlessness,
deprivation, humiliation as well
as corrupt and incompetent
governance.
Zimbabweans have over the years been accused and ridiculed
for having too
high a thresh-hold for tolerance and patience. But, being
law-abiding
citizens they patiently bided their time. On March 29 they
finally spoke.
Now Mr Mbeki tells the world that the people of Zimbabwe must
continue to
wait for “the outcome of the results”, whatever that
means.
He does not see any linkage between the ongoing drama and the
statement by
Mr Mugabe that Mr Morgan Tsvangirai would “never ever” be
President of
Zimbabwe. He is deaf to the threat by the security chiefs that
they would
never salute Tsvangirai if he won the election.
This was
no idle threat.
In fact, Mr Mbeki does not seem to understand what is
really happening in
Zimbabwe. His misunderstanding emanates from his resort
to entirely
inappropriate sources of information, foremost among them
President Mugabe
himself. Mr Mbeki would have nodded his head vigorously as
his peer reminded
him on Saturday that the MDC was a latter-day British
strategy for the
re-colonization of Zimbabwe.
He would have been told
that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was
overwhelmed by the pressure of
counting; that some ZEC members succumbed to
temptation and were bribed by
the MDC. Above all, Mr Mugabe would have
driven it into his guest’s head
that what the opposition, civil society and
the international community
viewed as a crisis was nothing other than a ploy
by the MDC to gain
international recognition and sympathy.
This is the message he limply and
shamelessly regurgitated in Lusaka.
What President Mbeki fails to
appreciate is that his counterpart in Harare
has long ceased to be a free
man and a powerful head of state, acting in the
interests of the people of
Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe has effectively become a
prisoner inside State House. It
is very likely that the decision not to
attend the summit in Lusaka was
thrust upon him by the military, now
effectively the powers behind the
throne in Harare.
For it is quite clear that it is they who now run the
show in a state that
has over the years been gradually militarized. That
they would not salute
anyone who did not go to war was a provident slip of
the tongue that
Zimbabweans made the costly mistake of not taking
seriously.
It is patently clear that it is not Mugabe who is refusing to
leave office.
After all he vacated State House a long time ago and moved
into his own
private residence. The whole electoral process was travesty
conducted under
the watchful eye of the military. The top ZEC officials were
recruited from
the ranks of the military. The Joint Operations Command is a
military
institution which has usurped civilian presidential powers. It is
they who
have been manipulating the whole electoral process since March 29;
they who
conveyed the tragic news about Mugabe’s humiliation at the polls
and they
who have been manipulating him and running the show ever
since.
They swung into instant action to stage-manage what now amounts to
a
military coup with an elderly civilian face.
It is they, after all,
who stand to lose the most in the event of a change
of
government.
“The President will most likely be pardoned,” they say. “What
about us?”
While the rest of Zimbabwe misplaced its collective faith in
Mbeki, the
military stage-managed a gradual transfer of power to themselves.
This
happened once they realised that the civilian challenge to Mugabe was
ineffectual, being entirely engrossed in squabbling over power and perks and
in a public and arrogant display of their high-sounding yet mostly
irrelevant academic credentials. If it wasn’t for the greed, vanity and
total loss of focus among the ranks of the opposition, last weeks electoral
victory would not have been delivered on a plate to the military, as has now
happened. History will judge them harshly.
The least that the
opposition leaders can do to redeem themselves is
distance themselves from
the dictatorship and place nation before self for a
change.
The
military now control Mugabe and have acquired economic power through
looting
of state resources and looting of diamonds during their profitable
deployment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Now they seek
total control of political power. They have talented
strategists among them.
They realised over the course of last week that
Mugabe would lose a re-run
of the presidential election. So they embarked on
a new strategy - a recount
this week of the ballots in 23 constituencies
disputed by Zanu-PF. At the
end of the process the ZEC will declare Mr
Mugabe and Zanu-PF the winners by
an appropriately clear majority.
Meanwhile the military have deployed
strategically throughout the country to
enforce acceptance of the new
result. It is no coincidence that ruthless
violence has reared its ugly head
in the countryside again.
Very soon our educated politicians will salute
General Constantine Chiwenga,
commander of the Defence Forces of Zimbabwe.
The more opportunistic among
them will be co-opted into some
military-controlled government of national
unity. Effectively the capricious
Mrs Jocelyn Chiwenga will become the First
Lady of Zimbabwe. Many more
educated and skilled Zimbabweans will join the
exodus into the Diaspora as
they flee from a deepening economic morass,
worsening political instability
and, possibly, bloodshed – all in a bid to
safe-guard the mansions and other
filthy wealth of the Chiwengas.
President Mbeki obviously does not see
any crisis on our continent, unless
there is bloodshed. In Zimbabwe his
wishes could soon be fulfilled. Mr
Mugabe has been effectively emasculated
by the security chiefs, who will try
this week to impose on the people the
result of a manipulated recount.
Unfortunately, the long-suffering people
of Zimbabwe could easily say:
Enough is enough.
When that happens the
blood of the people of Zimbabwe will, to a
considerable extent, be on the
hands of the President of South Africa.
Nevertheless, it is clear that
brave but beleaguered Zimbabweans need and
deserve all the support they can
muster from those responsible leaders of
the SADC and AU, who clearly
recognize the urgent need for an end to the
ongoing madness. The will of the
Zimbabwe people, so clearly expressed
through the ballot box, must be
respected and fully acknowledged.
Democracy, not the military, must
emerge triumphant, however much President
Mbeki and other gullible Mugabe
apologists, especially inside Zimbabwe,
remain in a state of maddening
denial.
Yes, enough is enough. And African leaders are now rightly in the
international spotlight to see whether democracy can start its fight back
against military oppression in Zimbabwe. Indeed, Africa, not just Zimbabwe,
must now choose between a peaceful and effective solution or violent chaos.
And the growing pressure for meaningful democratic change will not be
silenced, however violent the internal military efforts to snuff it
out.
The people of Zimbabwe must march triumphantly at long last, their
march
being much deserved reward for their wonderful display of endurance
and
maturity in the face of acute provocation.
As for Mr Mugabe and
General Chiwenga, they have been adequately compensated
for their
contribution to the liberation of Zimbabwe from colonial rule. As
a further
token of their gratitude, I believe Zimbabweans are prepared to
forgive them
for their brazen measures to clandestinely augment that reward.
(Geoffrey
Nyarota is the Managing Editor of thezimbabwetimes.com and author
of Against
the Grain, Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman.)
Growing Anxiety Over Zimbabwe
The Times of Zambia
(Ndola)
EDITORIAL
14 April 2008
Posted to the web 14 April
2008
Ndola
IT is not difficult to understand the reasons behind
the calling of the
Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development
Community (SADC) Heads
of State over the weekend.
There is growing
anxiety all round, within the Southern African region and
beyond. And these
anxieties regarding the outcome of an election are not
unfounded. The
Zimbabwe elections come hot on the heels of the troubles
witnessed after the
recent Kenyan presidential election.
Although the situations in the
two countries are not identical, there is a
troubling similarity - an
inordinate delay in announcing much anticipated
presidential election
results. In the case of Kenya, the opposition went to
the streets to protest
the delay, believing the government candidate wanted
to "steal" the
election.
The results were sad. Hundreds of people lost their lives in
post-election
violence that rocked some parts of Kenya.
It took
mediatory efforts of the African Union and former United Nations
secretary
general, Kofi Annan, to calm things down, and facilitate formation
of a
government of national unity.
The government of President Robert Mugabe
has also submitted itself to the
dictates of the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission, and have sought legal
recourse to force a
verification.
Thirdly, the role of facilitator for Zimbabwe, played by
South African
President Thabo Mbeki, has been critical.
President
Mbeki has refused to play to the international gallery, which he
could have
accomplished by issuing quick condemnations of the Zimbabwe
government.
Instead he has continued to quietly engage President Mugabe and
his
government.
In fact, when it looked like the Zimbabwe elections would be
held under a
volatile atmosphere, President Mbeki stepped in to mediate
between the
ZANU-PF government and opposition political parties.
It
is that SADC effort that is responsible for what all players testified
before the Lusaka Summit that the last Zimbabwe elections were held in a
free and fair atmosphere.
Hopefully, all sides in Zimbabwe will now
heed the resolution terms agreed
upon by the Lusaka Extraordinary Summit of
Heads of State and Zimbabwe
opposition leaders.
Peaceful, quiet
engagement is still the best way to help Zimbabwe along in
this phase of its
transformation.
Mugabe’s comedy of terrors
Zimbabwe Metro
By Peter Worthington April
12, 2008
Even back in 1982, Zimbabwe was a place to be avoided
Now
that Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party has lost the election in
Zimbabwe
–although he’s still clinging to power until a runoff election is
held —
there’s speculation whether there will be an investigation into the
brutalities waged by Mugabe over the years.
The most brutal period of
Mugabe’s reign was 1982-85 when he used his
infamous Fifth Brigade, trained
by North Koreans, to tame Matabeleland,
controlled by Joshua Nkomo, whom he
had fired from his cabinet. Nkomo’s
record as a fighter for independence was
greater than Mugabe’s. Nkomo headed
the rival ZAPU, eventually crushed by
Mugabe.
I was in the heart of Matebeleland in 1982, a witness to the
Fifth Brigade’s
treatment of civilians and tribes people.
That summer
of 1982, the big international story out of Zimbabwe was six
young tourists
— two Americans, two Brits and two Aussies — who had been
ambushed and
kidnapped near Victoria Falls, and being held by insurgents who
said the
tourists would be killed unless 200 political prisoners held by
Mugabe were
released.
The tour leader and three women were released with the ransom
demand, while
the six were taken away at gunpoint: Aussies Tony Bajzell, 25,
and Bill
Butler, 32; Americans Bruce Baldwin, 23, and Kevin Ellis, 24;
Britons Jim
Greenwell, 18, and Martyn Hodgson, 35.
Negotiations and
counter-demands went on all summer, with various sightings
of the hostages
being reported.
Mugabe unleashed his Fifth Brigade to scour Matebeleland
villages for the
tourists.
I had been travelling in the southern U.S.
when I got a call from a longtime
family friend — Lt.-Col. Tom Finan,
retired commanding officer of the Royal
Canadian Dragoons (RCD) and a tank
officer with an enviable record in war
and peace.
Finan, since
deceased, was a newsworthy personality at the time. The British
media had
discovered he’d become an international mercenary soldier and arms
dealer,
allegedly heading an abortive coup in Togo.
Finan was widely reputed to
have been the inspiration for Frederick Forsyth’s
best-selling novel, The
Dogs of War — which both Finan and Forsyth
vehemently denied, but which not
everyone believed.
Tommy Finan — known as “Colonel Tom” — was mentioned
in various media
stories involving trouble in Libya, Lebanon, Tanzania, even
Idi Amin’s
Uganda. In our conversations, Finan was guarded but adamant that
his arms
dealing and mercenary business was never against the West. He
considered
himself a “patriot” using unconventional means to advance Western
interests.
To cut to the chase, Finan had contacted families and lawyers
of the
kidnapped tourists, and had arranged for $500,000 to be paid to the
kidnappers for their release. He had no way of reaching them, and wanted me
to go to Zimbabwe and try to contact the dissidents with the offer, which
would be deposited in a Swiss bank.
He teamed me up with one Bill
Howe, an all-purpose journalistic adventurer
who had worked in far eastern
hot spots, and was said to have good contacts
among Mugabe’s people in
Zimbabwe.
The Sun financed the trip — their reward to be the stories I’d
write. I
wrote at the time that our mission was more mindful of the comedy
TV show
Get Smart than the Scarlet Pimpernel, but it had touches of Evelyn
Waugh’s
great journalistic novel, Scoop.
Our idea was to rent a car
in Bulawayo, capital of Matebeleland, and drive
into what was regarded as
the wild west — nether regions beyond the domain
of local police, where
small villages existed and where it was believed the
kidnappers held the
young tourists. Our goal was to make contact with the
kidnappers and
persuade them to take the money, which would be transferred
to a bank of
their choice. We had no substantial cash.
VISITED NKOMO
We first
visited Joshua Nkomo, whom we assumed might know who the kidnappers
were and
get word to them that we had $500,000 for the return of the
tourists.
I liked Nkomo. I found him brave and curiously honest — and
in considerable
danger from Mugabe’s vindictiveness. Nkomo eventually sent
his wife and
family to live in Canada, fearing for their safety in Zimbabwe.
He warned us
of the Fifth Brigade, which was hated by all who had
encountered them.
Looking back, until it was disbanded around 1984, the
Fifth Brigade ran
rough in Matebeleland, killing and beating, and burying
their crimes in mass
graves — some 20,000 to 40,000 victims.
The
Fifth Brigade were not regular soldiers. They were Mugabe’s personal
army,
answerable only to him and his appointees. Often they operated in
civilian
clothes, to infiltrate and intimidate, and were a law unto
themselves in the
bush.
After our meeting with Nkomo, Howe and I waited a day or so for him
to pass
the word that we were here to deal (assuming he knew how to reach
the
kidnappers).
INTO THE UNKNOWN
Then we headed into the
unknown. We checked with police posts as we
encountered them, wanting to
leave a record that we’d been there. We were
regarded as nuts. We didn’t
tell the police what our mission was, since that
might alert authorities
who’d take a dim view of the project.
We veered off the road to visit
villages — some comprising a few dozen
people, others maybe 100 or more
inhabitants. Questions about the tourists
caused considerable alarm. No one
had seen anything.
But we got tales of horror about how the Fifth Brigade
operated. In general,
when Fifth Brigade troops moved in, villagers were
questioned and then
individually were beaten until they confessed to
whatever was being asked.
After everyone in the village had been beaten,
confessions and statements
were compared, and the majority opinion or
answers was regarded as the
truth.
It was a brutal albeit efficient
way to get answers, but a sorry way to
establish either truth or
justice.
The fear and hate generated was palpable, and both Howe and I
worried at
what would happen if these villagers were ever questioned about
us — or us
if we were questioned by the Fifth Brigade.
A rough
alternative plan, had we found the tourists and paid the ransom, was
to dash
for the relatively close Botswana border where, by previous
arrangement, a
South African helicopter would lift us out.
We hoped it wouldn’t come to
that and had let the Zimbabwe CIO (Central
Intelligence Organization) know
what we were trying to do. They already
knew, of course, because we had
likely been bugged, or others had told. We
were not being foolishly
secretive.
At the time, my contact with Finan (persona non grata in
African countries)
was through Barbara Amiel, at the time deputy editor at
the Sun and my
eventual successor. We had a series of code words and phrases
with double
meanings: “Danielle is well … mother is sick … weather looks
threatening …
how’s your health?” That sort of thing.
‘SPY’
TALK
I couldn’t resist the occasional quip: “Send 200 Rembrandts, size 12
x 22 x
6 … code blue … the swallows fly at midnight.” Spy novel talk. Amiel
would
disintegrate into giggles.
Anyway, the venture turned to
naught. We found no tourists — or kidnappers.
It later turned out that the
tourists had all died soon after capture — by
infections and
disease.
I returned to Canada with a relatively positive series on
Zimbabwe — years
ahead of most other black countries, if Mugabe remained
reasonable.
Mugabe, of course, got worse, not better. After initially
thanking Ian Smith
for making what used to be Rhodesia into an economically
self-sufficient
country, Mugabe became more paranoid, corrupt and brutal. He
blamed
colonialism for the ills he forced on what could have been Africa’s
most
contented and racially harmonious country.
For that, he cannot
and should not be forgiven.
Reproduced with permission from Toronto Sun
Mon, April 7, 2008
Mugabe's
Zimbabwe: "Liberation" Ideology in Practice
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5158
by Edward Cline (April 14,
2008)
Scant news coverage has been devoted to the continuing chaos
and brutality
in Zimbabwe, once the “breadbasket” of Africa when it was
known as Rhodesia
(and for a few years after its “liberation” from white
rule). It is now a
destitute, starving nation whose citizens choose flight
to neighboring
states in search of food and employment. Nearly a third of
the country’s 12
million population has fled.
The life expectancy of
males has dropped from 60 years to 37, and for women,
to 34 years.
Unemployment stands at over 80 percent. In 2005, the government
decided to
embark on a program of “urban renewal,” and demolished the
shantytowns and
black markets that had sprung up around Harare (formerly
Salisbury) and
other towns and cities as a consequence of the systematic
impoverishment of
farm workers and city dwellers by the government. New
housing was promised
but never built.
Private schools were marked for extinction through the
regulation of
tuition, and government-run schools, when they are open, are
worse than even
the worst American public schools. Over more than a
generation, since
Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, adult literacy has fallen
from 90 percent
to about 40 percent.
Occasionally one will see brief
reports on the morning or evening news of
the arrest and beatings of
opposition leaders, of journalists, of long
queues of people waiting to buy
scarce commodities from the bare shelves of
stores. Inflation is currently
measured at 150,000 percent and climbing
(after the issue of new paper
currency, it is a “mere” 1,700 percent, but
that does not disguise the true
inflation rate); it takes a wheelbarrow of
paper money to buy a small bag of
flour, when it is available.
President Robert Mugabe’s Marxist government
has banned foreign journalists,
and the few who have ventured into the
country have broadcast their reports
with hidden cellphones. BBC News, Sky
News, and CNN have been banned from
the country. Independent newspapers were
bombed and not permitted to reopen.
The government controls the television
and radio stations and its remaining
newspaper is state-run.
It is
interesting to note that Mugabe’s party, Zanu-PF, originated decades
ago as
a solely Marxist rival to other “black power” guerilla factions.
After a
short flirtation with “free trade” when it came to power, the party
returned
to its founding ideology, one of whose goals was to redistribute
white-owned
farmland to the black poor. This campaign began in violent
earnest in 2000,
when mobs of squatters and “war veterans” (who purportedly
fought in the
guerilla war against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia) invaded white-owned
farms. Whites
were murdered, raped, beaten, driven from their homes.
Paramilitary patrols
of whites attempted to protect lives and property
rights and to ensure the
safety of the farms. But a Marxist government
determined to impose racial
“justice” (or any kind of collectivist
“justice”) is inherently lawless and
renders such efforts hopelessly doomed
to fail.
The production and
export of the chief crops of tobacco, soya, and maize
plummeted dramatically
after the farms were expropriated by
government-supported squatters and
cronies of Mugabe’s.
The economy followed suit. Once second only to South
Africa as the most
prosperous economy in Africa, Mugabe has reduced Zimbabwe
to a condition
only a slightly better than the Darfur region of the
Sudan.
A presidential election was held on March 29, and in spite of the
best
efforts of Mugabe’s party to rig another “unanimous reelection,” all
indications are that he lost it, just as he did in 2000. Several Western
newspapers prematurely wondered how he would make his exit after this
defeat, where he would settle, and how much he would take with him. The
Zimbabwean court, doubtless under pressure from Mugabe, has postponed
revealing the election results.
Several election officials were
arrested and charged, reported the Daily
Telegraph of April 8, with
“under-counting votes cast for Mr. Mugabe.” An
election run-off is scheduled
for April 19. Whether or not it will occur is
a matter of speculation.
Voters suspected of casting ballots for Mugabe’s
political opponents – whose
solutions for turning the country around are not
much better than the
policies that are destroying it – have been accosted by
soldiers and youth
gangs and beaten up, or have been threatened with death
if they vote against
Mugabe in the run-off.
To distract attention from his apparent loss,
Mugabe, reports the Daily
Telegraph, in an attempt to extend his 28-year
rule, has dispatched new
gangs to invade and expropriate the country’s
remaining 200 white-owned
farms. Once there were 1,500 of them. He also
blames “British imperialism”
(Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are imperialists?
British imperialism is dead,
and Britain itself is under siege by the
European Union), United Nations
sanctions, foreign bankers and other
external factors for the country’s
state.
The original plan was to
buy the farms with foreign aid under a “willing
buyer-willing seller” land
reform program, the “willing buyer” being the
government. But when the money
never materialized to buy the farms, or when
farmers were not willing to
sell, Mugabe’s solution was simply to resort to
force.
Recall the
government’s staged riot to justify the “nationalization” of
Readen Steel in
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, or its expropriation of Ellis
Wyatt’s oil
property in Colorado. It is as though Mugabe and his government
were
following a playbook of the novel with the express purpose of
destroying the
country. That, however, would be giving Mugabe and his
cronies too much
credit. In the face of the destruction of the country with
policies that do
not “work,” they still “believe” in the efficacy and
justice of
collectivism.
So do the Western critics of Mugabe, who believe that the
idea is noble and
feasible, but that he was the wrong man to apply the idea.
This is the same
rationalization that many Western communist and socialist
intellectuals made
when they saw the consequences and horrors of
collectivism in Soviet Russia,
Red China, and other communist
regimes.
Western and African politicians have little to say about what is
happening
in Zimbabwe. “Zimbabwe situation ‘embarrassing’ – AU [African
Union] chief,”
reads a Reuters headline from March 14. They are more or less
mute. What is
“embarrassing” is that their collectivist dreams are being
exposed for what
they are: prescriptions for destruction, collapse, death
and near civil war.
However, it is not as though Mugabe were looking for
answers to why the
country is in a state of economic, political and social
free-fall. He is a
psychopathic tyrant; reality is his enemy, and his answer
to it is force.
"Liberation," in any political sense, is basically theft, by
legerdemain or
by naked force.
The chief subject here is the racist
nature of this brand of collectivism.
Before being “colonized” by mostly
British whites (under the aegis of Cecil
Rhodes in the 19th century), the
region was just another African backwater
populated by people who had no
drive, reason or imagination to exploit the
region’s potential. Their
cultural glory, such as it was, lay centuries in
the past. It is not as
though blacks there were inherently unable to
generate Western ideas and
reason and profit by them. The historical fact is
that those values
originated and thrived in the West. Conversely, whites are
not inherently
susceptible to those values; Nazi Germany and other
disastrous and costly
European collectivist movements explode that myth, as
well. Reason and
rational, pro-life values are a matter of choice, of
volition. Race is not a
determinant of anyone's character or the contents of
one's
mind.
Mugabe’s own “liberation” ideology is fundamentally the same as
that of
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s spiritual guide and
mentor,
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which is to make whites “pay” for
“exploiting”
blacks. It is surprising that Wright has not made a pilgrimage
to Zimbabwe
to see his malicious ideology in action. He might observe that
it is chiefly
blacks who are suffering, starving, and dying under Mugabe's
regime. Perhaps
if he did travel there, his mind would be shaken and he
would emulate
Eldridge Cleaver, who, as a fugitive, lived in a few “third
world”
countries, but returned to America a changed man.
But, having
watched Wright’s performance as a rabble-rousing, emotionalist
preacher, I
doubt that his fundamental malignancy could undergo an epiphany.
I believe
his mind is so poisonously venomous that he is beyond correction.
He
consciously appeals to looters, thugs, and killers. He appeals to a
desire
for the unearned. He appeals to racism.
Kyle-Anne Shiver, in an article
in American Thinker, “Obama’s Politics of
Collective Redemption” on February
11, observed that
“Little has been made in the mainstream press of
the brand of black
liberation theology preached by Obama’s pastor and
spiritual mentor, Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who holds a master’s degree on
world religions with a
focus on Islam, and who has traveled to Middle East
countries in the company
of Louis Farrakhan. Rev. Wright created and
presides over the Center for
African Biblical Studies, whose mission is
African-centered Bible studies:
“We are an African people, and we remain
true to our native land, the mother
continent, the cradle of
civilization.”
In short, Wright contends that blacks are born with certain
uncorrectable
attitudes and dispositions and should remain loyal to them.
Blacks who
reject racism, who wish to act as individuals and to be treated
as
individuals, are the equivalent of Muslim apostates, to be despised,
reviled
and ostracized. Note how prominent pro-reason, “conservative” black
intellectuals, thinkers, teachers and columnists are shut out of any kind of
‘discourse’ about race, how they are treated as non-persons by the
liberal/left black establishment. Reason, rationality and self-respect as
individuals in blacks are deemed corrupting instruments of “black
exploitation” in a “white” culture.
Do Obama’s undefined notions of
“change” and “hope” and “bitterness” differ
in essence from any from
Hitler’s notions of them? Hitler’s chief siren song
was how the “pride” of
Germans and Germany was injured by the Versailles
Treaty, how Germans, as a
race, were “victimized” by a conspiracy of
international bankers and
financiers, all controlled by the Jews, to keep
Germany poor and
dependent.
Wright, for his part, is as much a racist as was Hitler. The
hysterical
shrillness of his speaking style is reminiscent of the Fuhrer’s.
Obama, as a
member of Wright’s church, must have witnessed this vociferous
brand of
religious/political demagoguery countless times, and read the
racist
propaganda that appeared in the church publication.
Barack
Obama is a much more soft-spoken and articulate public speaker. His
smooth
sophistry has charmed and inspired the unwary and the unthinking; it
is no
less calculated than is Wright’s to appeal to emotions, not minds. If
he
wins the White House in November, soon after his swearing in – but not
before that -- we should expect to hear again calls for “black reparations.”
Never mind the fact that the blacks who lived in slavery are long dead, as
well as their enslavers; never mind the fact that no American black has
lived in slavery for generations, and that, logically, living blacks today
cannot be “owed” anything by any living white (nor by Americans of Asian,
Latinos, or European descent). Reason is not his oracle, not his guide, not
on the issue of racism nor on any of his other policy
positions.
Fact-based logic is the enemy of racial or collectivist
“logic.” As the sins
of white ancestors are “inherited” by living whites,
regardless of whether
or not they are descendents of slave owners, the
suffering and injustices
endured by black ancestors are likewise
inexplicably transmitted to or
“inherited” by living blacks, regardless of
whether or not they are
descendents of slaves. Ergo, they must be
“compensated.” That is a form of
Hitler’s demand for lebensraum, that is a
yearning for liberation from
reality.
For this reason alone – aside
from whatever other irrationality he is the
symbol of – because Obama has
not publicly and without qualification
repudiated that brand of ideology,
but merely papered it over with
sentimental, excuse-laden apologies, he
cannot be absolved of complicity in
its advocacy by the likes of Jeremiah
Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton,
Louis Farrakhan – and Robert
Mugabe.
Views expressed are the author's and may not represent the views
of
Capitalism Magazine.
SA technicians acquitted in Zimbabwe
The Times, SA
Sapa Published:Apr 14,
2008
Two
South African technicians arrested under Zimbabwe’s media and defeating
the
course of justice laws a fortnight ago have been acquitted and freed
today,
a colleague said.
"We heard a few minutes ago - they were
acquitted on all charges," said
Abdulhak Gardee, financial director of their
employer GlobeCast Africa.
"Finally they are coming
home."
After their acquittal Sipho Maseko and Abdulla Gaibee were
rushed to the
South African embassy in Harare so that they would not be
re-arrested, as
happened on their first acquittal.
"They are also
quite relieved but they will be more relieved as soon as they
are out of the
country," said Gardee.
"We are just waiting for the passports. We
will get their passports and get
them out of the country as soon as
possible."
The two, a satellite engineer and a cameraman, were
arrested on March 27
under the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA), which
governs the terms of media work in the
country.
They were arrested after facilitating a link-up for CNN
ahead of the March
29 elections, because they did not have their media
accreditation card,
although they had a letter of authority to enable them
to work legally.
The defeating the course of justice charge related
to them allegedly
colluding with a magistrate who acquitted them after their
initial court
appearances. After this they were arrested again by police who
did not
accept the magistrate’s ruling.
Credibility gaps extend violations
The Times, SA
Raenette Taljaard:
Another Take
Published:Apr 15,
2008
Images
of Mbeki holding hands with Mugabe were beamed all over the world
The
Zimbabwe election’s woeful aftermath has created a number of gargantuan
credibility gaps for South African foreign policy. While we already had a
woeful UN Security Council record, we added to it a week ago by ensuring no
discussions about Zimbabwe reached the Security Council chamber under our
tenure as its chair.
With the South African Development
Community already causing its own
credibility gaps by sending an observer
mission that prejudged the elections
before any votes were counted or
results released, the SADC summit again all
but buried its head in the
sand.
The only successful dimension of the summit was that Zimbabwean
President
Robert Mugabe was not there.
For all other purposes its
communique fell short of what it ought to have
called for in stronger terms
— an immediate release of all results and
crucially, the presidential
polling results.
The summit still called on the Zimbabwean Electoral
Commission to find a way
out of the malaise — despite it being cracked down
on by Mugabe in recent
days.
Worst of all, and despite the fact that
SADC extended his mandate, the
credibility gap of Mbeki’s mediation has
grown ever wider with images of him
and Mugabe hand in hand in Zimbabwe
being beamed across the globe .
For the first time post-Polokwane, it
is ironic that the two centres of
power in South Africa — party and state —
became a useful device with
respect to Zimbabwe. As the commission failed to
release results and the
days ticked by without any credible formal response
from Mbeki, the ANC’s
president Jacob Zuma and the party stepped into the
breach and met MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai before he secured a meeting with
Mbeki.
It was almost comical how formal state structures tried to
scramble to keep
up with the party and Zuma’s pronouncements and call on the
electoral
commission to make the results available forthwith.
Deputy
Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad’s press conference had the script
all
but dictated by the manner in which the president of the ANC made the
right
noises on matters of principle, long before the president of the
country had
anything to say beyond calling for patience. Mbeki’s excuses
that he had to
protect his role as mediator by not making pronouncements
lacked credibility
.
South Africa’s speaker of parliament also spoke out bravely about
the
electoral atrocities in Zimbabwe — providing another echo of how far
Mbeki
seems to be drifting from the new ANC leadership’s growing concerns
about
Zimbabwe.
And despite the initially sound party
pronouncements of last week, there are
also ghosts that haunt South Africa’s
ruling party that must not be allowed
to upstage principled action. It is
encouraging to see that Cosatu continues
to speak out on the manner of
democracy’s violation in Zimbabwe.
Unless South Africans, and our
leaders, irrespective of whether they are in
state or party office, heed the
call of ordinary Zimbabweans that they have
had enough of the stalemate, we
will have the violations of their civil,
political and human rights on our
collective hands.
This explains a great deal...
Zimbabwe Times
Zimbabwe’s military slowly taking over the
government
By Geoffrey Nyarota
(The Financial Gazette, October 19,
2006)
AT THE rate at which retired soldiers are taking over various
facets of the
administration of state affairs, Zimbabwe could soon become a
fully-fledged
military state.
Meanwhile, independent Zimbabwe’s first
defence forces commander has
phenomenally entrenched himself as undisputed
king-maker.
The military has, over the past few years grown in both
stature and
influence to become a dominant factor in the balance of
political power
within President Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF - and beyond. In
the run-up to the
presidential election in 2002, General Vitalis Zvinavashe,
the then
commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, shocked both the
electorate and
observers when he publicly declared that the armed forces
would not
recognize any new President, unless he fought in the war to
liberate
Zimbabwe from colonial oppression.
There was genuine concern
at the time that should Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai win the election, as he was heavily
tipped to, he was bound to
encounter fierce resistance from a partisan army
leadership and a likely
military coup. The man behind the growing influence
and clout of the
military is Retired General Solomon Tapfumaneyi Mujuru,
first commander of
the Zimbabwe National Army.
Mujuru is a humble and unassuming man. His
demeanour, however, belies a
dogged determination and a relentless pursuit
of political power through
behind-the-scenes manipulation and skillful
networking.
He is far from an eloquent or commanding speaker, even in his
native Shona
language. Mujuru’s speech is blighted by a pronounced stammer.
He seems,
however, to overcome his handicap to communicate and exert his
influence in
the highest offices of government. A man of limited academic
credentials,
Mujuru entered the world of African nationalist politics during
Ian Smith’s
Rhodesia, curtailing his educational career at a young
age.
His future military role in Rhodesia’s guerilla war and in the army
of the
new republic of Zimbabwe was, defined in Lusaka, Zambia, when he
enrolled
for military training. When the former Zanla supremo, Josiah Magama
Tongogara perished in a car accident in the dying moments of the armed
struggle, as he prepared to lead his guerilla army triumphantly back to
Rhodesia and independence, Mujuru emerged in 1980 as the new commander of
Zanu-PF’s military wing.
Mujuru’s most significant contribution to
the armed struggle and in
determining the future destiny of both Zanu-PF and
Zimbabwe was his role in
laying the groundwork for the ascendancy of Mugabe,
then recently arrived in
Mozambique, to the leadership of the party that
would form the first
government of an independent Zimbabwe four years later.
Those closely linked
to the party say Mugabe has not forgotten his
benefactor and Mujuru now
reaps the benefits of this early association
between the two men in
Mozambique.
When Mugabe became Prime Minister
in 1980 he appointed Mujuru to head the
newly created Zimbabwe National
Army. The former guerilla leader became a
man of immense power and political
influence. Zanla had spearheaded the
final stage of the armed struggle. By
the time of his retirement from the
army Mujuru had become immensely
wealthy. The most persuasive evidence of
Mujuru’s mounting clout was the
victory in 2004 of his own spouse, Joice,
over powerful and much-feared
politician, Emmerson Mngangwa, for long touted
as the hot favourite to
succeed Mugabe as President. Joice Mujuru subdued
the challenge posed by
Mnangagwa and is now Vice-President. Her husband has
emerged as a decisive
player in the so-called succession battle in
preparation for Mugabe’s
controversial retirement.
Mujuru hails from a bastion of political power,
the Chikomba District of
Mashonaland East Province. Chikomba has spawned
influential players on
Zimbabwe’s political landscape. Charles Utete, who
served as Principal
Secretary to the President and the Cabinet, became
extremely powerful,
functioning virtually as Prime Minister, once Mugabe
abolished that post
with his ascendancy to the presidency in
1987.
The First Lady of Zimbabwe, Grace Mugabe, is perhaps the most
famous
daughter of Chikomba. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, who has been close to
the
Mugabe family, reputedly as their purse-keeper, going back many years,
also
hails from Chikomba. Air Force of Zimbabwe commander Air Marshall
Perrence
Shiri is perhaps the most detested son of Chikomba. Other notables
include
recently deceased Information Minister, Tichaona Jokonya, former
Political
Affairs Minister, Ernest Kadungure, now late, and the mercurial
former
chairman of the Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association, Chenjerai
Hunzvi, now also late.
Hunzvi spearheaded a campaign of terror and
mayhem at the height of the
violent farm invasions in 2000. Kadungure is
said to have organized the
training of Zanu-PF youths to wreak violence on
the ranks of political
opposition parties. MDC Member of Parliament Gabriel
Chaibva disclosed in
the House of Assembly details of the training, which he
claims he underwent.
“There was this training camp called Robert Gabriel
Mugabe in Marondera,”
Chaibva said. “When we went there, we were taught by
the late Ernest
Kadungure how to deal with ZAPU and to kill opponents to
Zanu-PF’s rule
during those days in the 1980s.”
Mujuru’s amassing of
power has been largely devoid of the crude violence
preached by Kadungure
and Hunzvi.
With the growth in political stature of Mujuru, a large
number of former
army brigadiers and colonels, most of them bearing
allegiance to him, have
moved in unobtrusively to occupy positions of
influence in government and in
parastatal organizations, as well as within
the diplomatic corps.
The Attorney General Sobuza Gula Ndebele, was
previously an intelligence
officer in the army. He is alleged to be aligned
to Mujuru in the ongoing
succession battle. The Mujuru camp is alleged to
have attempted to use Gula
Ndebele as a weapon of mass distraction (WMD)
when he unsuccessfully
prosecuted his own boss, Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa, recently on
charges of corruption. Chinamasa is known to be
aligned to the rival
Mnangagwa faction.
Zimbabwe is not a
fully-fledged military dictatorship in-so-far-as the
political power resides
with an elected civilian president. Amid escalating
authoritarian rule, the
military, however wield an inordinate amount of
power and influence outside
the ranks of the army. This is facilitated by a
network of former
high-ranking officers who hold positions of power in
government and are
largely loyal to their former commander, Mujuru. While
living in prosperous
retirement, the former army commander has now emerged
as, perhaps, the most
politically dominant single individual in present-day
Zimbabwe, wielding
more power than the ageing President.
Fawning articles in the government
media call Mujuru the “kingmaker”. The
title occasionally appears in the
independent press as well. Senior army
officers, both serving and retired
have benefited as a result.
Three retired army officers serve government
in the capacity of cabinet
minister or deputy.
The man who heads the
Ministry of Energy and Power Development is Retired
Lieutenant-General
Michael Reuben Nyambuya, while Retired Brigadier-General
Ambrose Mutinhiri
is his counterpart at the Ministry of Youth Development
and Employment
Creation. Meanwhile, Retired Lt.-Colonel Hubert Magadzire
Nyanhongo is the
Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications.
Justice George Chiweshe,
who is a High Court Judge as well as chairman of
the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission is a former advocate-general in the
Zimbabwe National Army and is
still responsible for court-martials.
Another ex-military man, Retired
Colonel Christian Katsande heads the
Ministry of Industry and International
Trade as permanent secretary. Justin
Mupamhanga, the permanent secretary for
Energy and Power Development does
not have a military background, strictly
speaking, but his credentials are
close enough. He is formerly a senior
officer of the Central Intelligence
Organisation.
By some coincidence
the transport sector has become a preserve of retired
army personnel. While
Nyanhongo is Deputy Minister, retired Air-Commodore
Mike Karakadzai presides
over what remains of the National Railways of
Zimbabwe (NRZ) in his capacity
as general manager. The chairman of the NRZ
board is – you guessed right –
another military man. Brigadier-General
Douglas Nyikayaramba is still
serving, however.
For some unfathomable reason the administration of
sport has become the
exclusive preserve of soldiers, both serving and
retired. The chairman of
the Sport and Recreation Commission is
Brigadier-General Gibson Mashingaidze
(still serving), while the
director-general of the same commission is
Retired Lt. Colonel Charles
Nhemachena. One of the commissioners is
Brigadier-General Justin Mujaji, who
is also still serving.
Not to be outdone, the parastatals have their own
sprinkling of senior
executives who were appointed after they retired from
the armed forces.
Retired Colonel Samuel Muvuti is the acting chief
executive officer of the
perennially loss-making Grain Marketing Board.
Muvuti was suspended from
employment in August, two days after his arrest on
allegations of defrauding
the parastatal of close to $1
million.
Agriculture Minister, the thespian Joseph Made, vetoed the
suspension. It
boggles the mind that the said retired colonel was embroiled
in allegedly
fraudulent conduct while he was still acting. But let me not
digress.
The military have spread their wings into the banking sector as
well,
Retired Colonel Godfrey Nhemachena is general manager of CBZ Nominees
(Pvt)
Limited. Government is a major shareholder of CBZ, the bank where
Reserve
Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, cut his banking teeth.
Retired
Brigadier Elisha Muzonzini, who became director of the Central
Intelligence
Oranisation was appointed Zimbabwe’s High Commissioner to Kenya
in
2002.
On his recent visit to Cuba, where he attended last month’s summit
of the
Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, President Mugabe was welcomed at Jose
Marti
International Airport by another retired soldier. Zimbabwe’s
Ambassador to
Cuba is Retired Major General Jevan Maseko. The line-up of
dignitaries who
saw him off at Harare International Airport would have
included a large
number of both serving and retired soldiers.
One
would expect Mugabe, as an ex-school teacher himself, to be partial to
the
appointment of members of his former profession to the structures that
keep
the wheels of his government well oiled. Instead, it is the military
personnel who have become favoured citizens in Zimbabwe. When soldiers,
whatever their rank, succumb to illness, whether long or short, their
departure is routinely announced on the front page of The Herald. This
privelege is not extended to members of the teaching fraternity, university
professors, doctors, accountants, bank managers, nurses or anyone else,
unless they die in a horrific car accident.
Some men are obviously
more equal than others.
A question that goes begging for an answer,
however, is why so many
supposedly talented, enterprising and still active
officers retired from
active service with the army, in the first
place.
The disbursement of favours and other resources of patronage to a
network of
supporters in government, the military and the police, which is
so prevalent
in Zimbabwe is a symptom of deep-rooted corruption.
The
Zimbabwean electorate is disappointed that nothing substantial came out of the
SADC summit. For many it is back to drawing board