VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyele
Washington
26
April 2008
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Saturday
released the results of
recounts in 18 of 23 constituencies where initial
counts were challenged,
saying no outcomes had changed, leading observers to
conclude that the
combined opposition Movement for Democratic Change would
retain the house
majority it claimed in recent elections.
Electoral
Commission Chairman George Chiweshe meanwhile told journalists
that his
panel's "recount" of presidential election results would be
completed by
Monday, but that he could not say when the final presidential
outcome would
be made public. He said numerous errors on forms filed by
electoral agents
obliged his commission to carry out extensive recounts of
presidential
ballots to complete the count.
Chiweshe's commission has drawn scathing
criticism at home and abroad for
failing to deliver the presidential outcome
nearly a month after the March
29 election, leading some to accuse it of
colluding with the government of
President Robert Mugabe to suppress the
election results to permit ballot
rigging on a massive
scale.
Chiweshe said that once his commission had finalized its
presidential
results, it would hold consultations with all political parties
concerned to
obtain their acknowledgement and acceptance of the outcome. The
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change of Morgan Tsvangirai is adamant
that he
obtained an outright majority in the poll.
Meanwhile, human
rights groups expressed concern over mounting violence
related to the
elections as rural communities which backed the opposition in
the elections
came under attack by ZANU-PF youth militia, war veterans and
in some cases
soldiers.
International watchdog Human Rights Watch accused the
Zimbabwean government
of sponsoring the violence, urging the African Union
to take action in the
crisis.
"President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF
party and state security forces have
sharply intensified a campaign of
organized terror and torture against
opposition activists and ordinary
Zimbabweans," Human Rights Watch stated.
The organization's director for
Africa, Georgette Gagnon, told reporter
Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's Studio
7 for Zimbabwe that her organization
issued the report in response to the
worsening of conditions in Zimbabwe's
rural areas.
In one of the
latest incidents of violence, 18 opposition members were
severely assaulted
in rural Hwange, Matabeleland North, by alleged ZANU-PF
sponsored war
veterans and fled to Victoria Falls to seek refuge.
Opposition member and
Hwange victim, Max Mpofu related his ordeal to
reporter Marvellous
Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe.
The mounting violence
against opposition supporters in rural areas and a
police raid on MDC
headquarters Friday in Harare has stoked international
outrage.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday urged the
international
community to denounce the "climate of fear" that he said has
enveloped
Zimbabwe.
Mr. Brown said he'll seek further discussion of
the crisis in the United
Nations Security Council next week Tuesday. United
Nations spokesman Farhan
Haq told VOA that Council members have asked the
U.N. Secretariat to brief
them on the situation.
Political science
Professor John Makumbe of the University of Zimbabwe told
reporter Ndimyake
Mwakalyelye that Mr. Brown's statement was overdue in
light of the violence
that appeared to be continuing to rise across the
country.
The Electoral Commission has not
awarded any more seats won by the
opposition to Zanu-PF
Tracy
McVeigh, foreign editor
The Observer,
Sunday April 27
2008
Robert Mugabe has been unable to win back control of Zimbabwe's
parliament
after a partial recount of the 29 March election results failed
to overturn
any of the original results that gave the opposition the
majority of seats.
It means the first defeat in 28 years for Mugabe's
ruling Zanu-PF party
after Zimbabwe's electoral commission (ZEC) yesterday
released seven more
results from the recount, changing none. It brings to 13
the number of seats
recounted, with 10 remaining to be declared - all in
strong opposition-held
areas. Zanu-PF would need to win nine to regain
control.
Results have still not been released from the parallel
presidential poll
which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
says its leader
Morgan Tsvangirai won, beating Mugabe outright. Independent
monitors
estimate that Tsvangirai won, but fell just short of the 50 per
cent
threshold to avoid a run-off. The MDC accuses Mugabe of delaying
results to
rig his victory and has rejected any run-off.
The failure
to announce the results, four weeks on from the vote, is causing
mounting
concern internationally. But late yesterday afternoon the electoral
commission said it would invite presidential candidates to verify the
results from Monday, before they are released. 'We trust that by Monday this
process will have been concluded,' said ZEC chairman George Chiweshe. 'I
can't say exactly when the results will come.'
Reporters in Zimbabwe
say the electoral commission is making the process
extremely difficult to
follow, and results are being issued in a haphazard
manner. The
announcements came after a week of escalating attacks on
opposition
supporters - Tsvangirai is staying out of the country at the
moment because
of fears about his safety.
On Friday, armed riot police raided the MDC
headquarters and detained scores
of people in the toughest measures against
the opposition since the
elections. Computers and documents were seized in
the raid.
The MDC says its activists have been attacked around the
country - with at
least 10 killed. The police claim that no one has
died.
Gordon Brown yesterday called for a United Nations mission to
inspect human
rights abuses. Brown, who is seeking an arms embargo on
Mugabe's Zanu-PF
party, said Britain would step up diplomatic efforts ahead
of this week's
Security Council meeting on the former British
colony.
'The coming days will be critical. We will intensify
international action
around a Security Council discussion on Tuesday. We
will press for a UN
mission to investigate the violence and human rights
abuses,' he said in a
statement. 'The whole international community must
speak up against the
climate of fear in Zimbabwe.'
Zimbabweans are
enduring severe shortages of basic goods and an inflation
rate of 165,000
per cent - the world's highest. The state-run Herald
newspaper called
African leaders 'myopic stooges' for joining western
criticism of Zimbabwe's
handling of the election.
Mugabe is beginning to lose regional diplomatic
support over the delay in
announcing the results and his attempts to retain
power through force. His
former allies in the Southern African Development
Community last week united
in condemning him and barred an arms shipment
from being unloaded, causing
the ship to be recalled to China. Defiant
Zanu-PF officials claimed there
was no shortage of arms already in or
reaching the country.
'I think for the first time, at a very crucial
moment, Mugabe is losing
diplomatic support in the region and without that
support his ability to
survive politically is diminished,' said Eldred
Masunungure, a professor of
political science at the University of
Zimbabwe.
The Sunday Times
April 27, 2008
Thousands flee crackdown
Christina Lamb and John
Makura in Harare
Scores of children and babies have been locked up in filthy
prison cells in
Harare as Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, sinks to new
depths in his
campaign to force the opposition into exile before an expected
run-off in
presidential elections.
Twenty-four babies and 40 children
under the age of six were among the 250
people rounded up in a raid on
Friday, according to Nelson Chamisa,
spokesman for the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC). Yesterday
they were crammed into cells in
Southerton police station in central Harare.
“This is ruthlessness of the
worst kind. How can you incarcerate children
whose mothers have fled their
homes hoping to give their children refuge?”
asked an emotional Chamisa
yesterday. “In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe even children
are not spared the terror
that befalls their parents.”
The families were rounded up from MDC
headquarters, where they had sought
refuge from violence in the
countryside.
Thought to be directed by top military officers, Operation
Where Did You Put
Your Cross? has prompted thousands to flee. They are
trying to escape the
so-called war veterans, who are attacking people and
burning down hundreds
of houses for voting “incorrectly” in last month’s
elections.
“What we’re seeing is an undeclared civil war,” said Chamisa.
“It’s
genocide. This situation is out of control, it’s now beyond the
capacity of
the MDC alone. It requires the region, the continent, the
international
community to act.”
Four weeks after the elections,
official results have still not been
released for presidential polls widely
thought to have been won by Morgan
Tsvangirai, the MDC
leader.
Simultaneous parliamentary elections saw the ruling Zanu-PF party
lose its
28-year-long majority. The election commission is engaged in the
recount of
23 constituencies after regime claims that they had been rigged
by the
opposition. None of the results has been overturned in the 14 so far
announced. Even if the remaining nine were to go to Zanu-PF it still would
not have won a majority.
While some Zimbabweans see a glimmer of hope
in this, Mugabe has remained
defiant in the face of international
condemnation. Most expect the regime to
announce that no candidate won a
majority in the presidential election and
to order a run-off next month
which Mugabe will ensure that he wins.
“The only game in town is a
run-off,” said George Sibotshiwe, Tsvangirai’s
spokesman. “The recount was
just to buy them time to smash people’s heads
in, so when they go for a
run-off nobody will even be thinking of voting.”
The regime’s strategy is
to ensure that by the time of the run-off, Mugabe
would have a clean sweep
in rural areas, where 70% of Zimbabweans live. A
police officer admitted
yesterday that he had been instructed not to
interfere with war veterans as
they carry out their campaign of terror.
At the same time the opposition
leadership has been driven into hiding or
abroad. Tsvangirai fled Zimbabwe
two weeks ago after he was charged with
treason for “conspiring with the
British to oust Mugabe”.
“I am unable to return home for fear of my
life,” he wrote in The Washington
Post last week.
On the ground the
party’s network of district officials is being decimated.
Tichanzii
Gandanga, the MDC election agent for Harare province, can barely
walk after
he was beaten and left for dead.
Four men arrived at his offices in
central Harare at about 6pm on Wednesday.
“They told me I knew my crimes and
so I had to confess,” said Gandanga.
“They blindfolded me, bundled me into a
truck, then drove for a long
distance, beating me on the head, on the back,
everywhere. They played loud
music so that no one could hear my cries. I
don’t know how I survived.”
As he was being beaten, Gandanga was
questioned about the whereabouts of
Tsvangirai. Eventually he was dumped in
the bush. He managed to crawl to a
main road where he was picked up and
taken to the head of a nearby village.
For two days Gandanga was nursed
by villagers. Eventually he got word to his
relatives who moved him to a
private hospital.
Ten people have been killed so far, according to the
MDC, including a
five-year-old boy who was burnt to death in a hut. The
first victim on April
12 was Tapiwa Mubwanda, 54, the organising secretary
for the MDC for
Hurungwe East.
According to his widow they were on
their way back to their village when
they saw a group of Zanu-PF youth
militia. While she fled into the bush with
their children, her husband and
his elder brother were beaten with rocks.
“They said, ‘You voted for the
MDC, now we want to do this in order to teach
you to vote. You wasted your
vote by voting for Tsvangirai. He will never be
the president of Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe will remain, so we want to teach
you to vote’.”
When
she crept out of hiding her husband was dead.
Another MDC activist,
Manyika Kashiri, 55, of Chigumbu village in Uzumba,
had his foot smashed by
an axe when militias stormed into his shack at
midnight on Tuesday. Kashiri
woke after a bang at his door and rocks
smashing against his windows. When
he emerged, he was hit with a log by one
of the militias and another tried
to chop off his right foot with an axe in
front of his grandchildren, one of
whom was just four.
“We’re seeing a major increase in
government-sponsored violence,” said
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at
Human Rights Watch.
“The ruling party has been sending its allies after
people it thinks voted
for the opposition. Now anyone seen as opposing
Mugabe is in danger.”
One activist, a 25-year-old fitter in hiding in
Bulawayo, told The Sunday
Times how he and two colleagues had been picked up
by intelligence officers
and forced to eat a poster of Tsvangirai. “You like
him so much, now eat
him,” they told him.
“Every day that passes,
hope is seeping away,” said an aid worker in
Zimbabwe. “This could very
easily end up being yet another stolen election.”
Zimbabwe’s churches
said yesterday that they had opened up their premises to
victims of the
violence.
Church leaders worldwide have declared today to be a day of
prayer for
Zimbabwe. “The current climate of political intimidation,
violence,
vote-rigging and delay has left the presidential election process
without
credibility,” read a statement from two senior Anglican archbishops,
Rowan
Williams and John Sentamu. “Now the people of Zimbabwe are left even
more
vulnerable to conflict heaped upon poverty and the threat of national
disintegration.”
International pressure has continued. The top US
envoy for Africa, Jendayi
Frazer, assistant secretary of state, has declared
Tsvangirai the clear
winner of the presidential vote.
Tsvangirai has
spent the past two weeks travelling round Africa trying to
drum up support
to pressure Mugabe to step down. After the weak response
from Thabo Mbeki,
the South African president, focus has shifted to the
African Union (AU).
Its chairman Jikaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania, has
privately said that
he would be willing to consider convening a summit on
Zimbabwe.
Britain is hoping to get the United Nations involved and
has managed to put
Zimbabwe on the agenda of the UN security council this
week. Proposals
include an arms embargo and sending a UN envoy to Harare
“with a tough
message”.
At the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in
Bulawayo on Friday, Mugabe was
defiant. “When the West, led by the British,
shamelessly continue to
denounce our country, what is our crime?” he asked.
“We are simply defending
our hard-won national sovereignty.”
The Sunday Times
April 27, 2008
Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent
The boycott of a
Chinese ship laden with weapons for Zimbabwe has cast new
light on the
connections between the African country’s president, Robert
Mugabe, and a
secretive Chinese arms-trading firm with a controversial track
record from
the Congo to Darfur.
The ship steamed towards China last week after dock
workers in Durban
refused to unload it and a South African court blocked the
transit of its
cargo of mortar and small arms ammunition.
The
15,000-tonne An Yue Jiang is registered in the southern city of
Guangzhou
and has been operated for about 20 years by Cosco, a state-owned
cargo
line.
When Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, called on every
country in the
region to reject it, the ship became an embarrassment to
Beijing, which has
made a huge political and financial investment in
Africa.
Company documents show that Poly Technologies, the
manufacturer of the
weapons on board the ship, is ultimately controlled by a
clique from China’s
preeminent military clans with close ties to the
Communist party leadership
and army.
Major General He Ping, the company’s
chairman, is the son-in-law of Deng
Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader; its
president, Wang Jun, is the son of
a vice-president and a Deng ally. Its
upper ranks are stuffed with military
veterans and their offspring, who have
greatly enriched themselves with arms
sales to some of Africa’s bloodiest
trouble spots.
Diplomatic sources say Mugabe forged links with the Poly
Technologies
management on state visits to China. Since Zimbabwe is all but
bankrupt, the
arms are paid for by barters of agricultural products and raw
materials.
On paper, Poly Technologies is a subsidiary of the China
International Trust
and Investment Corporation. Analysts of Chinese
financial affairs say,
however, that Poly is actually a front for an elite
within the country’s
military-industrial complex and that it reports to the
general staff
department of the People’s Liberation Army.
“People
call it the supreme headquarters of the China princeling party,”
commented
one analyst. “It’s a power centre beyond civilian control.”
Although Poly
discloses almost no financial details, its customers for small
arms and
ammunition include Sudan and Burma. Chinese AK-47 assault rifles
made by
Poly have turned up in the war-torn eastern Congo, among other
African
battlefields. Its other sales include short-range and medium-range
ballistic
missiles to Iran and Pakistan.
In 1996 Poly was named by prosecutors in
connection with an attempt to
smuggle 2,000 AK47s into the United
States.
“China has done nothing wrong with regard to weapons exports to
Zimbabwe,”
said Guo Xiaobing, a researcher quoted by the Guangzhou Daily, in
the ship’s
home port.
“This is only a topic for the western media to
use to put pressure on China.
There is no United Nations embargo on arms to
Zimbabwe, so China’s business
is legal.”
New York Times
By GRAHAM
BOWLEY
Published: April 27, 2008
ZIMBABWE’S political crisis lurched
on last week as President Robert Mugabe,
the strongman who has ruled the
California-size country in southern Africa
for the past 28 years, refused to
release the results of the March 29
elections. In old-fashioned autocratic
style, the government’s police began
to round up opposition
supporters.
The world is losing patience, but Mr. Mugabe is only the
latest example of
dictators in Africa and elsewhere — some more bloodthirsty
than others — who
have overstayed their welcome, and whom the West have
tried to winkle out of
power.
What lessons can be learned from past
attempts to oust seemingly immovable
oppressors? Do the lessons apply in the
case of Zimbabwe? What are the
options for dealing with Mr.
Mugabe?
PAY OFF AND EXILE
This strategy has worked, sort of,
before.
In 1997, President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now Congo, the very
model of
an African dictator dirty with corruption as his country collapsed
around
him, was promised safe passage by his former ally, the United States,
and
flew to Morocco. (He died of prostate cancer in exile soon
after.)
In July 2003, leaders of the African Union bribed Charles Taylor
— a
murderous warlord with folllowers who would hack off the hands or feet
of
civilians — to leave Liberia for an early retirement in Nigeria. In
similar
fashion, the United States got Ferdinand Marcos to quit the
Philippines by
allowing him refuge in a Hawaiian villa.
Gov. Bill
Richardson of New Mexico, who as ambassador to the United Nations
under
President Bill Clinton helped ease Mr. Mobuto from Zaire, said he
believed
the same strategy could be used with Mr. Mugabe.
“Maybe if he is offered
safe passage we will rid ourselves of this despot,”
he said.
Yet
Congo and Liberia are hardly good examples. Congo has tipped further
into
chaos since Mr. Mobuto left. And, despite promises, Nigeria returned
Mr.
Taylor to Liberia, which handed him over to an international tribunal to
face charges of war crimes in Sierra Leone. That sequence of events may make
autocrats like Mr. Mugabe think twice before they head for the
airport.
SANCTIONS AND ISOLATION
A popular response to noxious
regimes (think Castro or early Saddam). But
they only work if the sanctions
hurt.
“The greater the ties to the West, the greater the degree to which
the elite
is educated in the West and has career prospects in the West, then
the
greater the likelihood the coalition behind a regime will crack,” said
Steven Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard University, who has
studied conditions under which autocracies crumble. (Another condition is a
weak internal security apparatus with little stomach for a long fight
against its people — hardly a description of Mr. Mugabe’s battle-hardened
forces, which came of age in a guerrilla liberation
war.)
Unfortunately, it’s not clear what extra pain sanctions could exact
on
Zimbabwe, where 8 out of 10 people are unemployed and the annual
inflation
rate is more than 100,000 percent.
MILITARY
INTERVENTION
In 1979, armies from Tanzania invaded Uganda and chased
out Mr. Amin, a
tyrant said to have sanctioned the murder of close to
300,000.
Yet regime change is perilous, as the United States discovered
following its
toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
In Uganda, the man
who replaced Idi Amin — Milton Obote — was arguably
worse. Mr. Obote may
have murdered more Ugandans even than his predecessor.
“Intervention is
always very difficult in Africa,” said Michael Holman,
former Africa editor
of The Financial Times. “If you don’t have a
well-drilled army and decent
civil service to fill the gap that threw up the
problem in the first place
then you are going to have a disaster on your
hands.”
POPULAR
UPRISING
In 1998, President Suharto of Indonesia was forced to end his
brutal and
corrupt tenure after an economic meltdown, nationwide rioting and
the
withdrawal of government and military support. (He went into internal
exile
in a modest house in Jakarta, the capital, until his death earlier
this
year.)
One hope among Zimbabwe watchers is that the moderates in
Mr. Mugabe’s
ZANU-PF party turn against him, dissent breaks out in the
military, or
ordinary Zimbabweans finally take to the street.
Earlier
this year, in the election crisis in Kenya, opposition supporters
streamed
from Nairobi’s slums to challenge President Mwai Kibaki’s
declaration of
victory in a flawed vote, until he was finally persuaded to
share power with
the opposition leader Raila Odinga.
But that may be too much to expect
from embattled Zimbabweans. “In Zimbabwe,
extreme poverty has bred utter
lethargy,” said Michela Wrong, author of “In
the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz,”
about Congo, and who is writing a book about
the Kenyan
crisis.
Indeed, a nationwide strike called by Zimbabwe’s chief opposition
party
earlier this month fizzled quickly as people went about their normal
routines, and the party’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, isn’t even in the
country, suggesting he may not be prepared to fight or be imprisoned
again.
TALK TO HIM
Wary of intervening in a continent where some
Africans still perceive Mr.
Mugabe as a liberation hero in the struggle
against colonialism, the United
States and the West have largely left the
job of negotiating with him to
South Africa, Zimbabwe’s big neighbor and
regional power.
Some critics think South Africa has not been sufficiently
muscular with Mr.
Mugabe but President Thabo Mbeki says that his “quiet
diplomacy” has won
results: the elections went ahead in the first place, and
the government
agreed to post the outcome of each count on the outside of
local ballot
stations, though the government has withheld the overall
results.
Mark Ashurst, director of the Africa Research Institute in
London, said that
South Africa also subtly promoted an alternative
candidate, Simba Makoni, a
breakaway member of Mr. Mugabe’s party, but that
this effort failed after
Mr. Makoni won too few votes.
Gugulethu Moyo, a
Zimbabwean lawyer who works for the International Bar
Association in London,
said it was time for the outside world to go beyond
hand-wringing and
critical statements. Instead, she said, the United Nations
should be sent to
scrutinize the actions of the security forces and monitor
any future
elections.
One idea is for Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of
the United
Nations, to be dispatched to broker an agreement just as he
negotiated the
Kenyan deal.
Maybe he could persuade Mr. Mugabe to
stay for now but to agree to step down
in two years and hold new elections —
a sort of “government of national
unity” trial balloon that was floated by
Zimbabwe’s state-run newspaper, The
Herald, this week.
But will Mr.
Mugabe take Mr. Annan’s call? Some think not.
Heidi Holland, author of
“Dinner With Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom
Fighter Who Became a
Tyrant,” argues that the only power he will speak to
now is Britain,
Zimbabwe’s former colonial master under whose rule he spent
half his
life.
Ms. Holland, who first met Mr. Mugabe in 1975 and interviewed him
again last
year, said he was a remote, emotionally immature, dogged, bookish
man who is
obsessed with Britain as a kind of parental figure. She said he
felt
humiliated because, in his view, Britain reneged on financial
commitments he
believed were made at the time of independence in
1980.
For her, the way out of this mess may be more
psychological.
“Revenge is a key word for Mugabe,” she says. “He says, I
don’t have a
quarrel with the United States, or the United Nations. He wants
Britain to
come to him and say: ‘O.K. We will now talk.’ All he wants is
recognition.”
Zimbabwe Metro
By Eddie Cross ⋅ April 26,
2008
When I was just a small boy I heard a huge commotion in the chicken
run at
home. I ran out and went in to find that a wild cat had got in and
was in
the process of killing chickens. To this day I still have the bite
marks on
my hand - but I dealt with the animal and we only lost a couple of
birds. I
remember that spitting, snarling bundle of fury very
clearly!
From my perspective that is Zanu PF today. Cornered, spitting
and snarling
and no match for the forces ranged against them in the chicken
run. Lets
just review a few of the major developments in the past 10
days.
First was the arms shipment from China. This was uncovered a week
after the
election and when we raised the balloon - and what a story of Gods
intervention that was - a huge outcry ensued. Our friends rushed to the
chicken run and when the hullabaloo was over the cargo was on its way back
to China. What was so significant about this incident was that all our
neighbors came to the rescue - the entire region, including Mozambique,
Namibia and Angola, denied the ship right of entry to their ports. All
former allies of the Zanu PF regime, a clear signal that it was time to
resolve the crisis. It was also a useful message for China
itself.
This was quickly followed by the ANC taking over the lead on the
Zimbabwe
crisis. Jacob Zuma began to speak out on the issue and the ANC
issued a
strongly worded communiqué to the effect that the situation was
‘dire’ and
required urgent attention. The MDC heightened the pressure by
coming out and
saying that Mbeki was no longer acceptable as a mediator. We
had received
further evidence of his active support and defence of the
regime in Harare
and felt that in the light of this new information we could
no longer work
through him or his office. These two developments caused a
sharp shift in
the stance taken by South Africa and we saw a marked change
in the tone and
content of SABC reporting.
Then the regime - cornered
and scared, began spitting and snarling at all in
the run. They deployed
their brown shirts in a mixture of uniforms, with
weapons, whips and batons
and orders to beat and intimidate the opposition.
In 10 days we were dealing
with a full-blown crisis - a dozen deaths, some
5000 hapless refugees in the
urban areas with many others where their homes
were burned out and lives
destroyed. We have had over 500 people admitted to
hospital and many arrests
- difficult to know how many at this stage as our
staff are either in
detention or on the run and in hiding.
Again we put up a signal for help
and this time the Church and the
humanitarian community came running to the
chicken run. It has taken them a
bit of time to get organised but I think
they are now nearly on top of the
situation and getting help to all the
victims. Although the regime has
deployed their thugs to every district in
the country, the resulting
violence and intimidation is patchy. This can
only be ascribed to unwilling
leadership, reluctance on the part of the
actual brown shirts themselves and
fear of local retribution. In fact there
has been a fair amount of the
latter and a number of Zanu PF leaders have
paid a price for their action.
The Police seem to be taking a much more
neutral stance - very welcome and
long overdue. However they are still
reluctant to take the wild cats in the
chicken run into detention - perhaps
afraid they might bite them!
The noise coming from the chicken run
following this development has
attracted others - long time friends in the
international community have
intensified their efforts on our behalf. The
British Prime Minister traveled
to the UN where under the baleful glare of
Thabo Mbeki he made a strong and
unequivocal statement on Zimbabwe. ‘The
election had been rigged and the
international community cannot stand by and
allow the peoples wishes to be
denied’. He was followed by a string of other
leaders including Tanzania and
Botswana and the USA, even Croatia revealed
they knew where the chicken run
was and that what was happening in there was
unacceptable.
Since then the pressure has grown significantly. Yesterday
the American
Under Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa was in
South Africa
and stated very clearly that the MDC had won the election and
won it
outright and no amount of fudging would change that situation. 4
senior
clerics in South Africa climbed in and said that Mugabe should step
down and
allow a democratic transition. Alan Boesak came out swinging and
said that
the situation was unacceptable and resembled the old apartheid
days in South
Africa - about the strongest language a South African leader
can use.
Under this pressure the regime here seems to have buckled. The
strident
confident calls for a recount and a runoff are receding. The
recount is
achieving nothing - so far they have simply confirmed the results
of the
March 29th election. The schools were going to be kept closed until
the
re-run took place - now they are reopening on schedule next week. The
Herald
and the Chronicle are shifting their position to talks about a unity
government. They need not waste the paper - the MDC is never going to do a
power sharing deal with the devil.
Clearly the recount exercise now
has only one objective and that is to give
the regime in Harare more time.
What they are doing with the extra time
before they depart the stage is
anyone’s guess. I would think they are still
looting and sanitizing their
offices and perhaps looking for somewhere to go
where they can be safe and
keep their ill-gotten gains. I would think that
if you watched Mengistu in
Harare you would see that such moves are afoot.
Today the former
President of Zimbabwe is in my hometown opening the
International Trade
Fair. It will be his swan song and just for that reason
it should be
interesting. What will he say in a City that voted 90.3 per
cent against
him! How he can dare to even come to Bulawayo in a region where
he is guilty
of thousands of deaths and enormous suffering is just another
example of the
phrase the ‘cheek of the devil’. I hope he notes that this
year anyway -
that the word ‘international’ should be taken out of the name
of the Fair.
‘Village flea market’ might be more appropriate. Next year will
be
better!
Eddie Cross is MDC Member of Assembly for Bulawayo South,and the
MDC Policy
Coordinator he writes in his personal capacity.
BBC
01:59 GMT, Sunday, 27 April 2008 02:59 UK
The Archbishop of York is leading
a day of fasting and prayer in
support of the people of
Zimbabwe.
Dr John Sentamu, one of the highest members of the
Anglican church, is
calling on people to join him in the action in York
Minster.
There has been a month of deadlock in Zimbabwe following
disputed
elections.
In December Dr Sentamu cut up his clerical
collar on television and
said he would not replace it until President Robert
Mugabe was out of
office.
Dr Sentamu said: "I want as many
people as possible to join me at the
Minster to pray for the situation in
Zimbabwe and light a candle as a public
demonstration of support for the
people there.
"As a Christian community we must all stand together
with our brothers
and sisters living under the tyranny of Mugabe and pray
that they will find
deliverance."
On Thursday he released a
joint statement with the Archbishop of
Canterbury calling for international
action to prevent "horrific" violence
in Zimbabwe.
In the
African country, the party of Mr Mugabe has failed to regain
its
parliamentary majority after a partial recount of votes from polls last
month.
The opposition MDC says it also won presidential polls,
although those
results remain unreleased.
The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) said the presidential results
could be announced
after the completion of the recounts, expected by Monday.
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 21:00
“I AM dying, can I have some water, even just a drop?” cried the
woman,
pounding on a heavy metal door, last Friday.
In vain, she tried to
attract the attention of people waiting to have
their luggage cleared, at
the Beitbridge border post.
Desperately, she repeatedly called out
for help, but before anyone
offered to assist, the truck moved away from the
people she might have
expected to be sympathetic to her plight.
About 15 minutes later, another desperate woman made a similar plea as
she
knocked on the metal door of another grey truck that stopped abruptly at
the
same spot.
“Please, open the door for us!” she shouted. “We want
fresh air! We
are suffocating in here!” She was shouting to the driver of
the truck, who
was disembarking, clutching official-looking papers,
evidently to be used to
clear his “cargo”.
Like the first
woman, she and more than 20 others were packed like
sardines in the Tata
truck, labelled Polokwane. She did not get any joy. The
driver of the truck
would leave five minutes later.
The desperate women were among
hundreds of Zimbabweans packed in
trucks transporting illegal immigrants
deported from South Africa last week.
The SA government has scaled
up the deportation of Zimbabweans in that
country, hardly a month after
President Thabo Mbeki declared there was no
crisis in Zimbabwe.
Emerging from a meeting in Harare with President Robert Mugabe two
weeks
ago, a smiling Mbeki said he did not think there was a problem in
Zimbabwe,
referring to the failure by the authorities to officially release
the
results of the presidential elections.
He called for patience,
saying electoral officials should be given
time to finish their
work.
A visit to Beitbridge border post last week revealed that
contrary to
Mbeki’s claims that all was well in Zimbabwe, his government had
toughened
its stance against Zimbabweans fleeing the crisis back
home.
Information provided by Zimbabweans deported from across the
Limpopo
suggests strongly the SA Department of Home Affairs had set up crack
teams
that have intensified patrols, rounding up Zimbabweans found loitering
on SA
city streets.
Others were picked up during raids at
informal settlements where they
lived.
Those caught were not
taken to the notorious Lindela detention centre
outside Krugersdorp, west of
Johannesburg, as is normally the case. This
time they were quickly loaded
into trucks, to be dumped across the Limpopo.
On Independence Day,
18 April, this reporter counted 15 Tata trucks
arriving at the border,
packed with Zimbabweans.
The drivers appeared to be in a hurry as
they spent less than five
minutes at the border post.
They left
their “cargo” at the offices of the International
Organisation for Migration
(IOM) in Beitbridge.
Zimbabwe immigration officials reported the
trucks had become a common
feature at the border post.
“They
used to deport in the past but this looks like a massive
operation,” said
one official. “It’s not just the trucks, but they bring
buses as well, full
of Zimbabweans. There is no doubt they want Zimbabweans
to return home and
sort out the mess in their country.”
He said the Zimbabwean
officials were confronted with scenes of
desperation each time the Tata
trucks reached the Zimbabwean border.
Hoping they could meet
someone they knew who could assist them, the
Zimbabweans in the trucks
knocked hard on the doors of the trucks, pleading
for help.
They asked for among, other things, water, food and just fresh air.
“From Polokwane (more than 100km away) this truck has not been opened.
We
can hardly breathe in here,” one man told this reporter.
“It’s bad
in SA. They (SA police) are picking up anyone they suspect
to be Zimbabwean.
They told us: go back to your country and rise against
Mugabe.”
Another said: “They are quick to say: You Zimbabweans have a problem.
You
run to SA instead of staying in your country and dealing with Mugabe.
You
have to go back for the run-off (election).”
The Standard
discovered it was not just Zimbabweans caught up in SA
who found the people
unwelcoming.
Genuine travellers intending to cross into SA legally
spent long hours
in queues at the border post as they waited to have their
passports stamped.
One family joined the queue at around 10AM in
the morning but only
managed to cross into SA at 4PM.
They had
gone to buy groceries at Musina and hoped they would be back
in Zimbabwe by
lunch time.
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Johannes
Magara, who was
accompanied by his wife, Grace, and their two-year-old
daughter, Natasha.
“The SA immigration officers work as if they have
instructions to delay the
entry of Zimbabweans as much as possible.
Honestly, how can they serve only
three people in an hour?
“We
have been to SA on several shopping errands but we have never
stayed this
long in a queue.”
Officials at the SA embassy could not be reached
for comment. IOM
officials were also not immediately available for
comment.
By Walter Marwizi
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26
April 2008 20:57
POLICE on Friday raided the offices of the Zimbabwe
Elections Support
Network (ZESN), looking for “subversive material”, sources
have told The
Standard.
The Standard understands the police,
reportedly armed with search
warrants, were looking for the chairperson,
Noel Kututwa, and ZESN’s
director, Rindai Chipfunde-Vava.
The
source said: “They had search warrants and are looking for
subversive
material that is likely to cause the overthrow of a
constitutionally elected
government.”
The officers, led by Chief Superintendent Makedenge,
were armed with
search warrants which entitled them to search for
“subversive” materials
including desktop computers and laptop computers
containing such materials.
The offences are believed to relate
to a violation of section 22(2)(b)
of Zimbabwe’s Criminal Law (Codification
and Reform) Act. These provisions
criminalise supporting or assisting any
group to overthrow or attempt to
overthrow the government by
unconstitutional means or usurp the functions of
government or to coerce or
attempt to coerce the government.
The police were keen to interview
Chipfunde-Vava, Kututwa and Irene
Petras, Executive Director ZLHR, sources
said. But ZLHR described the police
actions as “harassment and attacks” on
legitimate human rights defenders
under the guise of enforcing law and
order.
The Standard understands that Kututwa and Chipfunde-Vava
could have
gone into hiding as they are unreachable. However, police seized
documents
and computers from the ZESN offices and asked a programme officer,
Tsungai
Kokerai, to accompany them to Harare Central Police Station, where
he was
quizzed for six hours. Police want the ZESN board members to report
to
Harare Central Police Station’s Law and Order Section.
By
Davison Maruziva
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:53
BULAWAYO — The Ministry of
Information and Publicity and some
government departments did not
participate at the just ended 49th edition of
the Zimbabwe International
Trade Fair in what observers saw as confusion in
President Robert Mugabe’s
reconstituted Cabinet.
Cabinet was dissolved just before the 29
March elections, with Mugabe
controversially reconstituting it after Zanu PF
lost its parliamentary
majority to the MDC.
The move described
by the MDC as “unlawful” has seen several
government departments failing to
operate efficiently as ministers are
reportedly finding it difficult to
authorise decisions.
The chaos was evident at the ZITF which ran
between Tuesday and
yesterday.
Some traditional side events
organised by government departments that
have become synonymous with the
trade showcase were cancelled, while some
had to be arranged at the last
minute.
On Wednesday — the second day of the fair — Local
Government, Public
Works and Urban Development Minister, Ignatious Chombo,
recalled mayors
whose term of office expired in March so they could take
part in a
traditional procession at the fair’s official
opening.
Sources said the government was desperate to present a
semblance of
normalcy where Mugabe faced a hostile crowd.
The
mayors will resume work until new councils are installed
throughout the
country.
But the decision was taken too late to allow Japhet
Ndabeni-Ncube, the
former mayor of the city, who lost a bid to represent
Bulawayo Central in
Parliament on an MDC (Mutambara) ticket, to host a
traditional reception for
exhibitors on the eve of the fair.
But it was the no-show by the Ministry of Information and Publicity,
which
since its creation under former minister, Jonathan Moyo, tried to use
the
fair to repair the government’s soiled image that sent tongues
wagging.
Sources said its non-participation was as a result of a
rift between
the minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, and his secretary George
Charamba, which
allegedly deteriorated further after Zanu PF’s electoral
defeat.
Charamba is reportedly blaming Zanu PF’s defeat on the
State media,
which he accuses of giving the MDC too much publicity in the
run-up to the
polls and wants managers at Zimpapers and ZBC
replaced.
On the other hand, Ndlovu is said to be backing the
status quo.
“It seems someone wanted to show the minister that he
was in charge
because Charamba is one of the people who were in favour of
the fair being
postponed,” said the source.
“On Wednesday
Ndlovu even called State media journalists for a press
conference at the
stand because he was not informed that the ministry would
not be taking
part.
“He had to cancel the conference altogether and he was very
embarrassed.”
Contacted for comment, Ndlovu denied that there
was confusion in his
ministry, claiming that people who were supposed to
oversee the stand had
been deployed to monitor the ongoing election
recounts.
He said the government never considered postponing the
fair, adding it
had been successful. Charamba could not be reached for
comment.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Patrick
Chinamasa,
said the cabinet was still able to make decisions on behalf of
the
government.
Mugabe officially opened the fair on Friday for
the second year
running at a low key ceremony after the government failed to
invite a
foreign guest of honour.
Traditionally, the Ministry
of Industry and International Trade
invites foreign leaders for the official
opening.
By Kholwani Nyathi
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:50
AN MDC activist was shot dead and seven
others were injured on Friday
in Manicaland after soldiers and war veterans
opened fired on them as they
demanded the release of their colleagues, whom
the soldiers had allegedly
abducted and tortured.
Yesterday the
MDC said Tabith Marume was shot in the stomach and died
before admission at
Mutare General Hospital while the other victims were
treated at a private
clinic in the town.
The shooting occurred in Makoni West
constituency.
A doctor, who asked not to be named, confirmed the
shooting and the
death.
MDC Manicaland provincial spokesperson,
Pishai Muchauraya, confirming
the death, said Marume’s body was taken to
Mutare General Hospital.
Muchauraya, the House of Assembly Member
for Makoni South, said the
MDC supporters confronted war veterans and
soldiers at Manonga School, to
demand that they release other opposition
supporters they had allegedly
abducted two days earlier.
Muchauraya said the school had been turned into a “base” by war
veterans,
youth militia and the army, where they tortured opposition
supporters for
voting against President Robert Mugabe in last month’s
election.
“There was information the abducted supporters were
being tortured. So
their colleagues went there to rescue them, but as soon
as they arrived they
were showered with bullets,” Muchauraya
said.
The MDC said they were treating Marume’s death as murder and
the
culprits must be brought to book.
“We treat it as part of
the on-going genocide by Zanu PF. We hope
justice will take it course very
soon.”
He said what Mugabe was doing to the people of Zimbabwe were
“gasps of
a dying dictator”.
Police chief spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena said he was still to verify
the incident. “Call me after two
hours I will have checked for you,” he
said.
But his mobile
phone went unanswered when contacted later.
By Caiphas
Chimhete
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:45
THE United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has sounded alarm bells
on the unfolding
humanitarian crisis caused by the delay in announcing the
results of the
Presidential election.
James Elder, the agency’s chief
communications officer, said last week
UNICEF’s regular programmes were
currently being negatively affected by the
political impasse.
He said: “UNICEF recently contacted 27 NGOs who help implement
programmes
for children, and found almost half had virtually suspended such
activities.
Most chose to do so out of ‘current uncertainties’.”
In its
response, UNICEF says it is increasing visits by its programme
staff to
projects and encouraging partners to quickly reactivate all
programmes for
children.
“We cannot let children suffer because of the political
crisis.
They need us more than ever. We expect to reach more than
150 000
orphans in April and May with packages of health, nutrition and
education
support,” said Elder.
“In addition, this month we
will continue to provide populations
suffering severe water shortages with
emergency water treatment chemicals,
new boreholes and water purification
tablets, in areas from Bulawayo to
Harare.”
Gender programme
co-ordinator for ActionAid Zimbabwe, Virginia
Muwaningwa, said the impasse
will further burden women as they struggle to
put food on the table for
their families.
Muwaningwa said the displacement of families was
worrying because it
would affect HIV treatment programmes of patients on
Antiretrovirals.
“We have a serious humanitarian crisis on our
hands.
If someone flees to Harare from Muzarabani and they had been
collecting their ARVs at a hospital or clinic near them, where will they get
the drugs when they come here? This crisis is going to scuttle a lot of HIV
and Aids programmes.”
The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCOZ)
says it is disturbed by the
unfolding post-election violence caused by the
delay in announcing the
election results.
This is the first
time that the WCOZ has spoken out openly about the
political impasse,
alleged by the MDC to have led to the death of at least
13 of their
supporters.
Speaking at the end of two-day post-election meeting on
Wednesday last
week, national co-ordinator of the WCOZ, Netsai Mushonga,
said the
deteriorating human rights situation was a cause for
concern.
Mushonga said the coalition was particularly concerned by
the heavy
presence of armed forces within communities, and statements being
made by
politicians.
These were “fanning violence” and delays
in concluding electoral
matters brought before the courts, she
said.
“We reiterate the long-standing position of civil society
organizations that the failure by duty-bearers to respect the rights of all
citizens is the greatest threat to peace, democracy and development in
Zimbabwe,” she said.
By Bertha Shoko
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:41
THE ailing health sector
suffered yet another blow last Monday when
junior doctors at public
hospitals went on strike, demanding delivery of the
cars they were promised
by the Reserve Bank and Zanu PF in the run-up to
last month’s
elections.
Two days before the 29 March elections, Zanu PF and the
central bank
joined in what they grandly called Phase 1 of the Medical
Sector Revival and
Skills Retention Programme.
Under the
programme, hospitals received ambulances, buses, TV sets and
generators to
light up hospitals and clinics.
Senior and middle-level doctors,
senior nursing staff and other health
professionals were promised 450 new
vehicles as part of plans to retain
their services.
The
vehicles were paraded at a lavish function held before the
elections at
Harare Hospital, where President Robert Mugabe was the guest of
honour.
Amon Siveregi, the president of Hospital Doctors
Association confirmed
to The Standard last week junior doctors from four
major government
hospitals had not received the cars.
He said
they would be on strike until they were given the cars.
The
doctors’ strike last week resulted in patients being turned away
at
Parirenyatwa and Harare Hospitals.
Mpilo and United Bulawayo
Hospitals in Bulawayo are also affected by
the strike.
“The
strike started last week and we are not going back to work until
we are
given the cars we were promised,” Siveregi said.
He criticised
Health and Child Welfare Minister, David Parirenyatwa
and his permanent
secretary, Edward Mabhiza over the non-delivery of the
promised
vehicles.
“We reached an agreement we would be given those cars,
but
surprisingly they were given to senior doctors only.
They
already have cars. Is that fair? These two men, Parirenyatwa and
Mabhiza,
should learn to fulfill their promises,” Siveregi said.
Parirenyatwa and Mabhiza could not be reached for comment by the time
of
going to press.
Most government ministers and officials were in
Bulawayo for the
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, which was officially
opened on Friday
afternoon by Mugabe.
Siveregi said what
angered them most was that senior doctors who
received the cars came to the
hospitals only to do consultancy work, as the
junior doctors did most of the
work.
“Right now, no one is being treated because there are no
doctors. It
is really a pathetic situation, but there is nothing we can do.
We want
those cars,” he said.
Doctors and nurses have staged a
series of strikes over the past years
as their salaries are continually
being eroded by the world’s highest
inflation rate, now surging towards the
200 000% mark.
Many have left and thousands more continue to flee
the country in
search of better-paid jobs in South Africa and in Western
countries.
The government has barred health workers, and others
manning essential
services, from striking but doctors and nurses have often
defied the
directive.
By Sandra Mandizvidza
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:37
A two-week investigation
by The Standard has shown that while Pastor
Elias Musakwa, who contested the
Bikita West House of Assembly constituency
on 29 March under the banner of
Zanu PF, has supported communities in
Bikita, this support has not been
withdrawn or threatened.
On 13 April, The Standard in an article by
its Masvingo-based
reporter, Godfrey Mutimba, wrote that Musakwa had
allegedly repossessed
goods he had given to communities in Bikita West,
after losing during the 29
March election.
A subsequent
investigation, following complaints by Musakwa, shows
that among the schools
that benefited from his support are Ngondyore Primary
and Gumunyu Primary
schools, and not Ngonzvore and Gwindingwi secondary
schools, as reported by
The Standard.
The subsequent investigation shows that at no point
did Musakwa demand
the support he had rendered to communities or
institutions in Bikita West
and that no one could independently verify the
report by our reporter.
The Standard is happy to acknowledge that
Pastor Musakwa has
consistently supported various schools and institutions
in Bikita West over
the past decade and a half in the form of computers and
that these gestures
were not motivated by any electoral
considerations.
We regret the anguish caused to Pastor Musakwa by
our report of 13
April and therefore render our sincere apologies. —
Editor.
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:23
THE international community should
challenge the government to allow
an international fact-finding commission
to investigate widespread reports
of human rights violations, The Standard
has been told.
On Monday the Minister of Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs,
Patrick Chinamasa and the police challenged anyone
with information proving
State-sponsored violence to provide evidence to the
police, while the law
enforcement agency dismissed reports that 10 people
were killed in
post-election violence.
On Friday, the
International Bar Association (IBA) said the Southern
African Development
Community (Sadc), the African Union and the United
Nations should urgently
deploy human rights monitors to independently
observe and report on the
escalating political violence in Zimbabwe.
Violence following the
29 March elections has reportedly left at least
10 people dead, hundreds
seriously injured and thousands at grave risk of
displacement.
In a statement, the IBA said the current violence follows a
long-standing
pattern of human rights violations carried out by the
government. Abuses are
systematic, widespread and egregious, it said.
“It is time for the
international community to take effective action
to halt Robert Mugabe’s
campaign of violence against those who oppose him,”
said Mark Ellis,
executive director of the IBA.
“To date, the international
community’s response to the crisis in
Zimbabwe has been feeble, and its
condemnation ineffective and
disheartening.”
Ellis said an
international presence on the ground would help to
protect people “at the
mercy of a volatile and dangerous regime”, and would
send a clear message
that those responsible for human rights violations
would be held
accountable.
Analysts told The Standard yesterday that if the
government was
sincere in its challenge for people to produce evidence of
human rights
abuses, it would not object to an international fact-finding
mission,
possibly led by Sadc.
The IBA statement came amid
reports of renewed violence, with the
Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights
(ZADHR) documenting 62 cases of victims of
organised violence and torture
during a three-day period from Tuesday to
Thursday last week.
“The numbers quoted under-report the true total as full documentation
such
as confirmation of suspected fractures by X-ray of a number of cases
has not
yet been completed,” said ZADHR.
“Sixty two cases were assessed
and treated, including nine women, one
of whom is 84 years old and sustained
serious facial injuries when she was
struck in the face with stones on
opening her door to unknown assailants.”
ZADHR said.
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:20
BULAWAYO — The recount of
votes in the Bulilima East constituency in
Matabeleland South was suspended
temporarily last week after losing Zanu PF
candidates held an alleged secret
meeting with the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC).
ZEC
officials were forced to apologise profusely to the opposition MDC
as
temperatures reached boiling point over the meeting held outside the
counting centre at Plumtree High School.
MDC (Mutambara)
candidates who won the Bulilima East and Bulilima
parliamentary and
senatorial seats respectively accused Zanu PF of trying to
manipulate the
process, saying the meeting showed the commission was not
independent.
Bulilima was among 23 constituencies where
recounts were ordered by
the ZEC following Zanu PF claims that its
candidates were prejudiced by
deliberate miscounts blamed on polling
officers.
The MDC had accused Zanu PF of trying to use the recounts
to
manipulate the election outcome so that it can reclaim its parliamentary
majority.
At Plumtree High School the recounts almost turned
chaotic after Zanu
PF politburo member, Eunice Sandi-Moyo, who lost to Lutho
Tapela of the
MDC-Mutambara led protests against the process.
On Saturday last week she told ZEC officials she would ask for another
recount after accusing them of failing to communicate to her key issues
affecting the process.
Matters came to a head on Sunday when
Sandi-Moyo, the Zanu PF losing
candidate for Bulilima East, Mathias Ndlovu
and several other Zanu PF
supporters held the meeting with the provincial
elections officer, Jotham
Nyathi.
“We know Zanu PF called for
these recounts so that it could try to win
back its parliamentary majority,”
said Norman Mpofu, the MDC (Mutambara)
victor in Bulilima East.
“They are now confirming our fears. We had no problems when it came to
council seats because their major preoccupation is winning parliamentary
seats.”
The recounting was suspended for a few hours until Zanu
PF, MDC and
ZEC agreed the complaints should be put in writing.
Nyathi denied Zanu PF was trying to influence the process, insisting
they
were not discussing anything related to the elections.
Sandi-Moyo
walked out of the counting centre after the dispute,
lashing out at the MDC
members: “After all, it was us who called for these
recounts and we have the
right to seek clarifications when necessary.”
The Zanu PF officials
caused more delays when they asked for each and
every voters’ roll used in
the constituency to be cross- checked because
they claimed they had evidence
some MDC supporters voted twice.
After the rigorous exercise the
results remained unchanged.
The recounts have so far confirmed the
results released after the
elections — Zanu PF losing its parliamentary
majority to the opposition for
the first time since
independence.
By Kholwani Nyathi
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:16
IN a week that the State
media admitted giving currency to faked
documents, the British Embassy in
Harare said the alleged letter from the
British Prime Minister to MDC
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and printed in The
Herald on 17 April, was a
forgery.
“No such letter, or wider correspondence, exists,” said an
embassy
statement.
“It reflects this regime’s desperation that
Zanu PF and
State-controlled media have resorted to faking documents for
crude
propaganda purposes, and not for the first time.”
The
statement said The Herald continued to peddle the lie that the
economic and
social meltdown in Zimbabwe were caused by external factors.
Zimbabweans were experiencing ever greater hardship as a direct result
of
the policies being pursued by the Zimbabwean government, the statement
said.
European Union-targeted measures imposed a visa ban and
asset freeze
on President (Robert) Mugabe and 130 named
individuals.
On Thursday two weeks ago, The Herald published what
it claimed was a
letter from Gordon Brown, offering Morgan Tsvangirai
assistance in effecting
“regime change”.
The paper suggested
Sadc leaders’ recent summit in Lusaka had been
held at the behest of the
British.
Brown told the UN in New York recently Zimbabweans sent a
strong
message of their commitment to democracy four weeks ago.
“No one believes, having seen the results at polling stations, that
President (Robert) Mugabe has won this election,” Brown said. “A stolen
election would not be a democratic election at all.
“The United
Kingdom stands solidly behind democracy and human rights
for Zimbabwe and is
ready to help Zimbabweans build a better future.
We are
increasingly concerned at reports of beatings and violence
being unleashed
against electoral officials and opposition supporters.
The EU and
G8 are also united in their condemnation of violence and in
their calls for
the results of the presidential election to be released.”
Ten days
ago The Herald owned up to knowingly publishing forged
documents purporting
to be written by MDC-Morgan Tsvangirai
Secretary-general, Tendai
Biti.
Its defence was they were being widely circulated on the
Internet.
The Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (Zinef) said the
so-called Biti
Memorandum was in the same class as some of history’s most
notorious
forgeries such as the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion.
“If newspapers could knowingly publish a false document of
this sort
and pass it off as true, that would reflect a shocking abuse of
the public
media,” it said.
Last week Nelson Chamisa, the MDC
spokesperson, complained the
government was resorting to crude propaganda
being distributed on the
streets of Harare and Bulawayo by Zanu PF and their
agents and calling for
violence against the regime and its
supporters.
”A pamphlet is being distributed today (Thursday)
purporting to come
from the Movement for Democratic Change and advocating
violence against
members of Zanu PF and the destruction of their property
and businesses,”
Chamisa said.
“The MDC has never advocated
violence in any form. We disassociate
ourselves from the content and purpose
of these pamphlets and call on our
members and supporters to continue to
observe our peaceful non-violent means
of democratic resistance to the
illegal regime led by Robert Mugabe.”
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:13
BULAWAYO — Renewed
invasion of commercial farms by Zanu PF militia and
war veterans took a
sinister twist last week when a former police officer
reportedly led touts
in invading peri-urban plots.
Matabeleland North, like most
provinces, has been in the grip of
political violence blamed on Zanu PF
supporters angered by President Robert
Mugabe’s dramatic rejection in the 29
March polls.
But the violence had been confined to rural areas and
commercial farms
where war veterans, helped by soldiers, have reportedly
beaten up perceived
opposition supporters.
It emerged last week
that several plot holders in the Trenance area on
the outskirts of Bulawayo
have been caught up in the violence.
One plot-holder, Moses Sivalo
Moyo, who lost a bid for the Bubi-Umguza
Senatorial candidate for the
MDC-Morgan Tsvangirai, was on Wednesday left
for dead by so-called war
veterans.
Moyo narrated his ordeal at his plot in Umguza, as he
nursed a broken
rib and multiple lacerations.
He said he was
lucky to be alive after a gang of five touts and the
former police officer
pounced on him.
“I have been farming in this area for a very long
time and I
co-existed with my white neighbours,” he said.
“When
they were forced out at the height of the land reform programme,
we agreed
that I would graze my cattle in their paddocks.
“There are people
who tried to invade the paddocks and my plot in
2002, but they left without
doing any damage.
“Last week, people claiming to be war veterans,
led by an
ex-policeman, came here saying they had come to take over the plot
and I
told them to go away because I am also a war veteran.”
Moyo, an ex-ZIPRA combatant, said he was furious when, on Wednesday,
he
found them vandalising paddock fences.
“They said I was a front for
the white farmers, before they ordered me
to remove my cattle,” he said. “I
refused and that is when five of them
started beating me all over the body
with their fists.”
A request for medical attention for Moyo at a
local clinic from
Sauerstown police indicated he sustained severe
injuries.
He spent a day at the clinic and now walks with
difficulty.
“The only police officers who came here are those we
went to collect
from the police station,” Moyo said.
“Despite
the fact that they said they know the former policeman as
their former
colleague they have not made any arrests.
“He is always loitering
at York House in the city centre and some of
those people are known
touts.”
The so-called war veterans had left the farm by Friday but
Moyo said
his family was living in fear that they would return.
The former policeman could not be reached for comment.
Police
spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena was also not available for comment
as his mobile
phone was unreachable.
By Kholwani Nyathi
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:08
ZIMBABWE Union of Journalists (ZUJ)
president Matthew Takaona was
recently severely assaulted by soldiers in
Chitungwiza and was treated and
discharged at the Avenues clinic for
injuries sustained during the attack.
Takaona, his brother Hector
and dozens of other patrons at Chikwanha
hotel were assaulted after nine
armed soldiers descended on them.
Takaona said he and his brother
arrived at the hotel and were startled
to see patrons scurrying out but
before they realised what was going on two
soldiers ordered them to lie
down.
Takaona said: “We tried to talk to them but they threatened
to shoot
us if we resisted. First, they beat my brother with
sjamboks.
They kicked and punched him, accusing him of being a
sell-out.
“Then they came to me and beat me, accusing me of being
an MDC
supporter going around town boasting of having defeated Zanu
PF.”
As Takaona and his brother were being assaulted, seven other
soldiers
had trapped and imprisoned other patrons and were beating them
up.
After the attack Takaona said they were both asked to get up
and empty
their pockets and surrender all their cash.
Takaona
said he was appalled by the violent conduct of the army and
all other
incidents of violence all over the country
“The fact that these
soldiers violated us and many other patrons is
infuriating,” Takaona said.
“Mugabe and his government must end these human
rights
violations.
“This madness and retribution must stop. If these
attacks are
happening in towns and cities, I shudder to think of the
situation in the
rural areas. We, as ZUJ, condemn these human rights
violations.”
By Bertha Shoko
Zim Standard
Local
Saturday, 26 April 2008 20:04
WHEN
55-year-old Manyika Kashiri retired to bed last Tuesday he did
not suspect
anything unpleasant would happen to him that night.
He thought it
would be another night without incident, anticipating
restful slumber with
no nightmares.
But at midnight Kashiri was awakened by a loud bang
at the door and
the shattering of window panes as stones rained on his
house.
Peeping through the broken windows, Kashiri said his heart
sank as the
whole homestead was surrounded by machete-wielding
invaders.
Some wielded stones, iron-bars, knobkerries and
logs.
There were 50 war veterans and Zanu PF youth militia loyal to
President Robert Mugabe, demanding to know why he had voted for the MDC in
the 29 March elections.
“They demanded I come out or they would
destroy the whole house. I
remained in the house for a while.
But as I feared the stones might hit my terrified grandchildren, I
gave up,”
said Kashiri of Chigumbu Village in Uzumba, in Mashonaland East
province.
He decided to go out to confront the enemy and was
immediately struck
on the forehead with a log as he stepped out of the
house.
“As I staggered from the impact, one of the attackers hacked
my leg
and I fell down.
They started beating me all over the
body.
One of them picked a rock and tried to crush my head with it,
but I
moved a bit and it hit me on the shoulder.”
As he
recounted his ordeal last Wednesday afternoon, blood was still
oozing from
fresh machete and axe cuts on his legs, arms and the bruises all
over the
body. He could barely walk.
Kashiri said as the “Zanu PF thugs”
were attacking him, his four
terrified grandchildren, two of them aged four,
were crying, as they watched
in horror.
He said he had no doubt
the sight would haunt them for the rest of
their lives.
The
attackers only left after Kashiri passed out. He believed they
thought he
was dead.
Before leaving the scene, they took his cellphone and a
licensed
shotgun secured in a cabinet in the house.
Kashiri
regained consciousness in the early hours on Wednesday and was
carried by
his wife, Colleta, to Katiyo business centre, 12km away.
“I walked
but when I was in pain she would carry me on her back.
It was a
painful experience for both of us,” he said. He is being
treated at a
private clinic in Harare.
Kashiri said he would not return to
Chigumbu village in Chief Nyajinha’s
area in the immediate future, as he
still fears for his life.
After being discharged from the clinic he
said he would stay with his
children in Harare until “someone knocks sense
into Mugabe’s head”.
Kashiri reflected briefly on the attack on him
and other opposition
supporters. “If Mugabe didn’t want opposition he should
have declared the
country a one-party state. I don’t see the logic of
holding elections under
these circumstances.”
Kashiri said he
had not reported the attack to the police because “it
is no use”. He claimed
the police often arrested the victim of such attacks
instead.
In three days last week, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human
Rights (ZADHR) treated more than 80 victims of organised violence and
torture in Harare alone.
MDC claims 10 of its supporters have
been killed, 3 000 internally
displaced while over 800 homes have been
torched since the elections.
The doctors said most of the cases go
unreported. “Some of the
reported physical and psychological wounds will
take a long time to heal and
will require much care and attention,” ZADHR
said in a statement on
Wednesday.
By Caiphas Chimhete
Zim Standard
Business
Saturday, 26 April 2008 19:59
PLAYERS in the
hospitality industry are seeking approval from the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) to pay their professionals in foreign
currency as the sector battles
to retain critical staff ahead of the 2010
World Cup in South
Africa.
Standardbusiness heard last week that the industry had
lost key staff
to neighbouring countries such as South Africa and Botswana
which offer
attractive packages.
Reports of an exodus of staff
in the food and beverages sectors were
confirmed by industry insiders last
week. Most workers were not lasting for
a year in their jobs, it was
reported.
Cornelius Nyahunda, Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe
president
confirmed at least six corporations in the industry had sought
approval from
the central bank.
“A couple of players have made
application to the Reserve Bank to pay
part of the salaries in foreign
currency,” he said.
The identities of the players could not be
ascertained last week as
members in the sector kept a tight lid on their
operations.
But there were reliable reports while the members had
sought the green
light from the RBZ there was one sticking point: how would
the employees pay
tax?
The move by the hospitality industry to
pay salaries in foreign
currency is prevalent across all sectors of the
economy in a bid to stem the
brain drain of key professionals.
The national airline, Air Zimbabwe has started paying some of its
professionals in foreign currency.
South Africa and Botswana
have accommodated Zimbabwean professionals
fleeing the economic
meltdown.
An inflation rate of 165 000% and a shortage of basic
goods have made
living in Zimbabwe a perennial struggle.
Nyahunda said refurbishment at most hotels was well on course.
The
hospitality industry employs over 40 000 and is positioning itself
to reap
the benefits of the 2010 World Cup soccer showcase in South
Africa.
MATCH, FIFA’s accommodation company, requires 55 000 rooms
for the
2010 World Cup.
South Africa has said it would provide
35 000, leaving a deficit of 20
000 to be shared by other countries in the
region.
By Ndamu Sandu
Zim Standard
Business
Saturday, 26 April 2008 19:55
ORDINARY Zimbabweans
are reeling under the effects of the current
political crisis which has
forced the prices of basic commodities to soar
beyond their
reach.
Since last month’s elections, consumers have woken up,
daily, to new
prices. In some cases, the prices go up twice a
day.
Production of basic commodities is slowly grinding to a halt
as
industry, crippled by the political crisis, lacks enough foreign
currency
to buy the vital raw materials.
Average income-earners
told Standardbusiness last week their pay
could no longer cope with daily
price hikes, forcing them to do without
basic everyday needs.
“These days, I cannot afford to buy bread for my family,” said
Misheck
Mashoko, an accounts clerk. “We eat vegetables without cooking oil
every
day.”
A loaf of bread now costs $100m, up from $4m in February, a
2kg packet
of sugar costs $500m while a 10kg packet of maize-meal is going
for $300m.
A bar of wash soap sells for $200m while a medium size tube of
toothpaste
goes for $250m.
The workers’ average salary is $1.4m
a month which means that most
Zimbabweans today cannot afford to buy the
five basic commodities on their
basic monthly earnings alone.
Praise Gwaze of Kuwadzana in Harare called on Zimbabweans to stage a
“Haiti
scenario” on President Robert Mugabe, to force him out because he had
failed
the nation.
“But my fear is that Mugabe would rather kill the
rioters than
resign,” said Gwaze. “He would order soldiers to shoot to
kill. What do you
expect from a person who refuses to release the results of
an election after
discovering he has been walloped?”
Haiti
Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis was forced out office by
the Caribbean
island’s lawmakers after a week of riots over soaring food
prices.
The prices had shot up 40% in the last year because of
the global rise
in the price of fuel for crop planting, tending, harvesting
and
transportation.
Most of Haiti’s 8.5 million citizens live
on less than US$2 a day and
are dependent on imports and humanitarian aid
for rice and other staples.
The Zimbabwean situation is more
depressing. It is estimated that over
three quarters of the 12.5 million
people live on less than a US$1 a day.
Moreover, unemployment is at over 80
percent.
Independent economic analyst John Robertson said the
prices of basic
commodities had risen by more than 1 500 percent in the past
year.
With inflation at over 165 000% — the highest outside a war
situation — the prospects for price stability remain a pipe
dream.
Robertson said the price hikes were a manifestation of the
collapse of
the manufacturing industry, resulting from poor government
policies.
He said the forced price slash of last June and the raids
on foreign
currency accounts by the government had virtually halted
production by most
companies.
“Manufacturers can’t produce
because they cannot import what they need
to produce goods. So the few goods
available are in high demand,” said
Robertson.
Cross border
traders, now the major suppliers of basic commodities to
supermarkets, buy
foreign currency on the black market to be able to import
the
items.
“So when the exchange rate changes, the prices change too.
If they
didn’t do that, then they wouldn’t be able to import
again.”
Zimbabwe — once the breadbasket of the southern African
region — has
endured an economic meltdown since the chaotic land reform
programme of
2000, spearheaded by war veterans and Mugabe’s youth
militia.
By Caiphas Chimhete
Zim Standard
Business
Saturday, 26 April 2008 19:46
FALCON GOLD, one of the
country’s leading gold miners, says it has
diverted capital meant for
exploration and development programmes to sustain
operations due to
non-payment of money earned from gold delivered to
Fidelity
Refineries.
Greg Hunter, the board chairman, said in a statement
accompanying the
15 months ending 31 December 2007 audited results, the move
had limited the
development programme to expand mining
operations.
“The anticipated exploration and development programme
to expand
mining operations has been limited, as most of the capital
earmarked for
expansion and exploration has been diverted to sustain
operations, due to
the part non-payment of US$ earned from gold lodged with
Fidelity
Refineries,” he said.
In the 15 months ending 31
December 2007, Falgold produced 419 kgs of
gold, down from 511 kgs in the
previous year.
Falgold’s predicament — getting their money for the
sale of gold —
confronts most players in the mining industry whose
operations have been
affected by inadequate funds.
This has
resulted in low production at the mines.
Gold production has been
plummeting over the years as the four major
gold producers — Falgold,
Metallon, RioZim and Mwana Africa — face a myriad
of problems.
From a peak of 27 tonnes in 1997, gold production fell to an all-time
low of
6.8 tonnes last year.
The decline in gold production has raised
fears Zimbabwe might fail to
maintain its membership to the London Bullion
Market Association (LBMA).
A loss of LBMA membership would deprive
the country of exclusive
privileges to sell bullion directly to the
international market.
LBMA licences gold refineries globally to
trade on the world market.
Hunter said although the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) had
periodically reviewed the gold support price during the
period under review,
the review lagged behind average international price
which peaked to US$830
an ounce by the end of the year.
He said
the received revenue continued to be adversely affected by
unrealistic
exchange rates applied to the US$ based revenue and low support
price.
“The RBZ pegged the US$/Z$ exchange rate at 30 000 for
most of the
year whilst the Old Mutual Implied Rate was 5 034 117 by the end
of
December.” he said.
On gold support price, Hunter said the
RBZ was on average paying a
support price of $10 billion per kilogramme by
the end of 2007.
“The average effective gold price received for the
year equated to
$1.2 billion per kilogramme,” he said.
Hunter
said the continued operations of the mine was dependent on the
ability to
secure timely receipt of revenues outstanding from the RBZ and a
regular
review of the support price of gold.
Falgold is 85 percent owned by
Central African Gold, which has
interests in Ghana, Botswana and
Mali.
RBZ had not responded to questions sent to their office by
Friday.
Zim Standard
Opinion
Saturday, 26 April 2008 18:06
A couple
of weeks ago it was the 40th anniversary of the assassination
of Martin
Luther king Junior.
He remains relevant even for generations that
never knew him largely
because the great injustices and
oppression
of his days which he confronted with nothing more than
exemplary moral
courage to take a stand against unjust power.
Those injustices
still continue to mutate not only in the US but
across the
world.
That’s why the words and example of martin Luther King
Junior continue
to echo as a source of inspiration to all those who speak
truth to power.
One of his many quotable quotes that I like is:
“evil triumphs because
good men refuse to speak up”. Good
people
must speak up in the face of injustice no matter the
consequences .Their
obligation is not just to speak up it must extend to
taking whatever action
one is able to.
Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe is a situation
we cannot in all
good conscience continue to pussyfoot about
anymore.
It is indefensible that one man, no matter his
contribution to the
country, should be holding the
people to
ransom.
I know that a tree does not make forest.
I am
quite aware too that Mugabe alone is not responsible for the
situation.
There are many interests hiding behind
him.
It is even conceivable that in spite all the rhetoric and
masochistic
belligerence that the old man has become an executive
prisoner trapped
in a power system he pioneered which now has him cornered
without escape
route.
This kind of structu- ral analysis is
important but it risks
underestimating human agency and individual
responsibility.
Its primitive determinism may even be used to
justify any situation
rendering intervention impossible.
If
individuals are not important why do we have heroes and heroines?
Why do we have leaders?
We are neither zombies nor automatons who
behave in a predetermined
way.
Choices are made and unmade by
human beings therefore accountability
is first and
foremost
individual.
Mugabe is no longer part of the problem of Zimbabwe: he
is now the
problem.
The choice that he makes or not make can
either help resolve the
crisis or accentuate it.
If he decides
to step down there will be nobody who will force him to
remain in
office.
The fact that he has not taken that option is a deliberate
personal
choice just as his one-man contest for candidacy of the party has
always
been his choice.
It is simply wrong and unacceptable
that nearly a month after the 29
March election the result of the
Presidential contest is yet to be declared.
Meanwhile there is a
recount of the declared Parliamentary results!
Even those who were willing
to overstretch their good will to Mugabe must be
finding it ridiculous or
running out of excuses.
Some of them continue to beg the issues
further by forcing parallels
with other botched elections.
They
point out that it took six weeks and the Supreme Court to declare
George W
Bush President of the USA in 2001.
Why should an avowed
Pan-Africanist leader vomiting all kinds of
anti-imperialist attacks be
defended by Washington’s non-standard?
They also point at the two
months it took before the final results of
the 2005 controversial elections
in Ethiopia could be released.
I am surprised they are not even
saying that Mugabe is better than
Meles Zenawi who jailed those who defeated
his party! Why should Africans al
ways judge themselves by looking down
instead of looking up to higher
standards?
Other people’s bad
manners and the hypocrisies of others should not
justify the mischief making
by Mugabe and his hirelings.
They have now shot themselves not just
on the foot but all over the
body by this syndicated circus.
Whatever the outcome now they are losers because most reasonable
people
haveconcluded that they have tampered with and are still tampering
with the
result.
Even if they declare the MDC as winners people will still
say it is
because of delayed shame or fear of
consequences.
It is sad that Mugabe who is probably one of the
better (if not the
best) prepared leader for the job should end like
this.
He has seven degrees (not honorary) for goodness
sake!
Zim Standard
Opinion
Saturday, 26 April 2008 17:56
IT
has often been said that even if he maintains his iron grip on
Zimbabwe,
Robert Mugabe’s greatest challenge is the economy which he can
never turn
around.
But whilst the shattered economy has devastated the country
and its
people, it hardly affects Mugabe and his acolytes
directly.
If there is one thing that worries him though, it is the
lack of
legitimacy that he now faces.
The Mugabe regime has an
ambivalent approach toward the law.
For a man who holds two law
degrees and is surrounded by lawyers
Mugabe finds it hard to ignore the
power of the law.
He knows it provides the basis for challenge
against his authority and
has tended to overlook or stretch it when it
matters.
But he also craves legitimacy and therefore tries hard to
create a
veneer of legality over his actions. In so doing, he hopes formal
legality
will confer legitimacy to his actions.
The recent
election provides a stark illustration of the regime’s
catastrophic approach
toward the law.
On the one hand, the government is prepared to use
the law and legal
institutions such as the judiciary and the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission in
order to maintain power.
On the other
hand, it is prepared to disregard and manipulate the law
when it does not
suit its interests.
That the regime has continued to resort to the
law when it might as
well dispense with it and rule by force shows a desire
to place the cloak of
legality over its actions in the hope that this will
confer legitimacy.
Direct force outside the legal structures would
totally erase that
veneer of legality and legitimacy.
For
example, the self-serving interpretation of the Constitution by
the
government that the Cabinet which Mugabe dissolved prior to the 29 March
election, nevertheless, continues to have constitutional authority is an
attempt to create a cloak of constitutional legality.
This, in
turn, is designed to serve as justification for continuing to
exercise
power. It does not matter to them that the claims to legality are
without
foundation.
What then explains Mugabe and Zanu PF’s approach toward
the law?
History is replete with instances of oppressive regimes
seeking to
clothe their actions with the apparel of legality in order to
claim
legitimacy to exercise State power.
For example, both
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were notorious for
the “show trials”
conducted in the 1930s and 1940s. Although the “show
trials” were
politically motivated, they did claim the aura of judicial
legitimacy
because they were conducted in open courts and were carried out
under the
law.
Of course, this judicial legitimacy was a sham because the
system was
severely compromised.
Central to their approach,
however, was a narrow understanding of
legality leading to a very limited
interpretation of legitimacy.
For them to claim legality of their
actions, it was enough that the
laws were passed by a recognised
authority.
It did not matter that the judges were compromised, that
the lawyers
were persecuted and that laws were unfair and devoid of key
values
underpinning a normal constitutional order.
This, in
many ways, is no different from the approach taken by the
Mugabe
regime.
Although keen to claim legality, the interest is not in the
substance
or values but simply the form and structure of the
laws.
It is sufficient for them to claim legality on the basis that
the ZEC
is a constitutional body that is exercising its powers under the
law; that
matters are brought before the courts and that legislative
provisions are
invoked to justify the delays to the electoral
process.
Why do such regimes insist on legality?
Why
do they worry about legitimacy?
It is because even a thief
eventually craves to be recognised as the
legal and legitimate owner of the
property that he has stolen.
He will do everything to create a
veneer of legality and legitimacy
over the property.
Ultimately, he wants people to believe and recognise him as the owner
of the
property, notwithstanding the defective circumstances appertaining to
its
acquisition.
History shows that the basis of legitimacy of a
government has evolved
over the centuries.
In ancient times,
the basis of legitimacy was underpinned by belief in
the existence of divine
will.
In some cases legitimacy was based on some rational or moral
basis
deriving from Natural Law.
In those cases, legality and
legitimacy were derived from the
government’s conformity with Natural
Law.
In modern times, the legality and legitimacy of government’s
exercise
of power primarily derives from the Constitution.
That
is why it is regarded as the supreme law to which all laws and
actions of
the government must conform.
There is an inherent “social contract”
between the government and the
citizens that the former will conform to the
Constitution in order to
exercise government power.
And where
the government fails to meet its part of the bargain, its
legitimacy is
severely eroded.
This is the context in which it can be said that
Mugabe’s government
is facing a crisis of legitimacy.
It is
because it has failed to meet its part of the “social contract”
as contained
in the Constitution and its underlying values.
The legitimacy of
exercising governmental power derives from winning a
popular
election.
The elections were held on 29 March but results have been
inordinately
delayed and indications are that the incumbent is unwilling to
give up
power.
Its current legitimacy is therefore highly
questionable.
But the government also knows that in the modern
world, the sources of
legitimacy go beyond the national
boundaries.
There are a number of international safeguards of
legality and
legitimacy at international law which derive from international
agreements
and conventions created under the authority of bodies such as the
United
Nations (UN), African Union (AU), Southern African Development
Community
(SADC), etc.
It is important to conform to these
rules and values to gain
acceptance and recognition as a legitimate
government within the community
of nations.
A clear example of
the influence of such bodies on legitimacy of a
government was shown in Togo
in 2005 when the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) led
efforts that resulted in the withdrawal of Faure
Gnassingbe who had been
illegitimately installed as leader by the military
after the death of his
father Gnassingbe Eyadema.
Not even attempts to change the
Constitution to provide a veil of
legality could confer legitimacy to his
installation.
SADC leaders can learn a lot from this
episode.
Mugabe craves acceptance and recognition on the
international stage.
His ability over the years to participate
freely at the UN, AU and
SADC has been vital to his claims of
legitimacy.
At present he cannot do that and isolation is
growing.
Instead, it is his bitter rival, Morgan Tsvangirai who is
leading the
line on the diplomatic front.
There are
increasingly indications that Mugabe’s cosy relationship
with African
leaders is becoming more uncomfortable.
It is for this reason that
the diplomatic offensive by Tsvangirai and
MDC on the international scene
has been a very important and effective
tactic.
I have written
in these pages before that the MDC needed to learn the
language of African
politics and it is notable that it is now fluent in this
language.
Until now, Mugabe and Zanu PF have hoodwinked most of
Africa by using
the cloak of legality in order to claim
legitimacy.
Unfortunately, some, like President Thabo Mbeki of SA
are still being
hoodwinked by this cloak of legality.
But it
does appear now, that besides the shambled economy, the other
great
challenge for Mugabe and Zanu PF is the crisis of legitimacy which
they
cannot ignore for long. Unlike the economy, this one hits them directly
and
it must be painful to live with for no amount of wealth can buy
legitimacy.
That is why they are now calling for a Government
of National Unity —
it is an attempt to re-purchase that legitimacy through
the MDC.
Dr Magaisa is based at The University of Kent Law School
and can be
contacted at wamagaisa@yahoo.co.ukThis e-mail
address is being protected
from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to
view it or
a.t.magaisa@kent.co.uk
Zim Standard
Opinion
Saturday, 26 April 2008 17:52
IN the 51 years that Africa conquered
colonialism, not all its leaders
can be said to have performed with
exceptional, distinguished, scintillating
or Nobel Prize-winning
heroics.
Only four have won the Nobel Prize for Peace — Albert
Luthuli, Anwar
Sadat, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan, when he was
Secretary-General of the
United Nations.
The Nobel Peace Prize
was inaugurated in 1901.
Sadat, mowed down in an assassination in
Cairo in 1981, joined a
number of his peers, consigned to untimely
rendezvous with The Maker, by
their own countrymen.
Others died
of natural causes, although to say Nigeria’s obnoxious
Sani Abacha passed on
in that fashion would probably draw howls of protest
from Mother Nature
herself.
Still others died in exile, driven out of their countries
for almost
the same reason: a diabolical disregard for human life when it
concerned
their desire to hang on to power until they dropped
dead.
It’s probably unfair to single out our race for this infamy.
After
all, Julius Caesar wasn’t an African.
My argument has
always been that, after achieving independence,
tackling poverty should have
been every African leader’s priority: not
ensuring nobody else ever took
over from them — or launching their own
programme for personal
enrichment.
Still, among world leaders with fatal flaws have been
many Africans.
So, we don’t have a monopoly.
For many of us,
alive at the glorious moment when the Gold Coast
became Ghana, most of the
hopes of an Africa flowing with milk and honey,
its people enjoying
unbridled freedom from want and oppression, recede, ever
so slightly, every
time an African leader displays naked contempt for
ordinary
people.
President Robert Mugabe is seen by his worshippers as the
all-time
champion of all their rights — to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. To others, he is the antithesis of that image.
His
rejection by the people on 29 March was eloquent testimony to his
having
outlived his welcome.
Today, it is fair to say that, among many of
his peers, he has come
very close to forfeiting whatever respect and regard
they had for him, after
he plunged his once much-admired country into
penury.
After 28 years of running his country into the ground,
largely through
an arrogant disregard for even the most elementary tenets of
democracy, he
finally got his comeuppance — a stunning defeat at the polls
on 29 March.
On the one side are African leaders and ordinary
people who still
revere him as the freedom fighter. On the other, are those,
both leaders and
ordinary folk, who see him as the typical African
despot.
After an election in which the majority told him loudly
that he had
run out of time, he, with customary arrogance, told them they
had another
think coming . .they hadn’t seen the last of him.
Today, almost a month after the elections in which he could be said to
have
bitten the dust, he remains president and his party is still the
ruling,
ruining machinery that it has been for the last 28 years.
What will
it take to dislodge him?
A political tsunami from the gutsier
element of the Southern Africa
Development Community (Sadc), or a sudden
awakening among the lily-livered
element of that same Sadc, of the extent to
which he has pulled the wool
over their eyes?
Both elements
could conspire, in a benevolent way, to make Mugabe an
offer he can’t
refuse.
It could be to ask him to step down graciously and let the
real winner
of the presidential stakes reap his just reward.
It
could also be to let him propose a peaceable end to the crisis, as
long as
it allowed for a firm, final exit for him.
It would be unthinkable
for anyone to propose a solution in which he
could play any crucial role
whatsoever.
He had 28 years in which to apply his supposedly vast
intellect to
solve our seemingly intractable problems, among them poverty
and a rickety
health delivery system.
If he couldn’t do it
then, what miracle cure could he provide now,
when the country is virtually
penniless, with its status as a pariah, giving
off such a stench of decay
only those without a sense of smell dare go near
it?
Why is
Julius Nyerere not cited often as a leader who, once he saw his
mistake,
decided to save his country and his legacy by stepping down?
It’s
not intolerant to say the last person this country needs at its
helm today
is Mugabe.
The man is a jinx we don’t need.
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
Opinion
Saturday, 26 April 2008 17:46
THE
MDC-Morgan Tsvangirai should refuse to entertain suggestions of a
run-off
because initial poll returns showed that their candidate had more
votes than
Zanu PF’s, which explains the inordinate delay in announcing
results of the
presidential election.
But the MDC-MT should also reject the
idea because to agree to a
run-off would lend legitimacy to Zanu PF’s
charade.
It should refuse because they were winners — that’s what
the results
posted outside the polling stations said.
The
outcomes of the recounts appear to confirm no significant
departure from the
original tallies.
Above all, the MDC-MT should spurn the idea of a
run-off because
scores of people have been tortured, displaced, lost their
life-time
possessions and others killed in anticipation of a
run-off.
There can no longer be justification for an election
run-off in the
face of continued loss of lives, destruction of property and
widespread
internal displacement of people.
Conditions for
holding a free and fair election given such a volatile
environment no longer
exist.
The MDC-MT can help end further bloodshed by unequivocally
stating its
boycott of Zanu PF’s proposed run-off.
Zanu PF
wants to behave as if it is still the critical player in
Zimbabwean
politics. On 29 March voters passed a verdict and it wasn’t Zanu
PF and its
candidate who were entrusted with the mandate to lead this
country.
Zanu PF also claims that no one has died as a result
of politically
motivated violence on the scale of 2000.
That is
a startling admission for a party that has been in denial
since the days of
Edgar Tekere’s Zimbabwe Unity Movement.
But if there are no people
who have died and there is no violence
against MDC supporters, why doesn’t
Zanu PF allow a fact-finding mission by
an international commission,
preferably led by SADC to come and establish
whether murders, abductions,
torture and widespread destruction being
spearheaded by military officers
supported by Zanu PF militias and officers
from the Central Intelligence
Organisation are a figment of the MDC’s
imagination?
In the
face of persistent denials by Zanu PF, the MDC should begin
compiling the
names of the people spearheading the current wave of
politically motivated
violence and the areas where these atrocities are
being committed with a
view to bringing the perpetrators to justice.
These tormentors need
to know that while they may enjoy immunity from
prosecution under Zanu PF,
in the future they will be held accountable.
It is one of the most
potent of weapons innocent people brutalised by
Zanu PF’s supporters have in
their possession.
There is a pattern of violence that has preceded
or followed every
election held in this country and those responsible should
not be allowed to
get away with their murderous activities.
They must begin to appreciate that there is a cost involved and that
they
will pay it, sooner or later.
Documenting evidence of the current
political violence is essential
because memories and the scars will
fade.
The MDC-MT initiated something along these lines but the
exercise must
continue, whether or not the details are published soon after
the crimes are
committed.
Breaking the Silence, the report on
the Gukurahundi atrocities is a
vital document on the perpetrators of the
1980s massacres of villagers in
the two Matabeleland provinces and the
Midlands.
A similar exercise on the ongoing violence would be
critical in the
quest for justice by victims and survivors of the
atrocities.
The contempt for ordinary people by Zanu PF continues
to plunge to new
depths. This is evidenced by the creation of torture bases
in the provinces.
However, the will of the people cannot be broken
that easily. Justice
will triumph.
Facts Don't Lie
Letters
Saturday, 26 April 2008
18:33
THERE is a well known swing song that has the lines: “It ain’t
what
you do,/ It’s the way that you do it,/ That’s what gets
results.”
Cde Bright subscribes to this approach, but with the
modification that
what gets results is the way that you spin
it.
He hastens to add, however, that facts are facts and facts
can’t lie
about themselves, even if they wanted to do so.
On
the other hand, he concedes that sometimes facts are stranger than
fiction.
The Fiddler is now in a position to reveal exactly all
the deplorable
details of the great election plot, code “Paid to
Win”.
Much of this information is gleaned from a top secret
document penned
by the Secretary General of the Movement for Dogged
Colonialism who cleverly
forged his own signature in a clumsy fashion so as
to throw people off the
track.
Particularly for slow learners,
it is necessary to recite all the
sordid details of this dastardly
conspiracy to undermine our sovereignty and
recolonise the
country.
It all started with an intensive course in table manners
and
appropriate etiquette conducted at Buckingham Palace.
This
was attended by the leader of the opposition and his family.
The
objective of the course was to groom the family on how to conduct
themselves
when a malevolent force, commonly known as Brits, had installed
the leader
as the lackey head of government.
The next stage involved duping
the ruling party into holding an
election.
This election was
duly held but the outcome was most unacceptable.
Not only had the
opposition won a majority of the parliamentary seats,
but it also seemed it
had won the presidential election, but this was not
certain as there was an
understandable reluctance to reveal the results of
this
election.
However, everyone now knows that the clenched fist party
would have
won a landslide victory had it not been for the machinations of
Brits.
Brits had played some extremely dirty mind games with
voters.
They told them that the Queen of England would provide them
with
riches beyond their wildest dreams, riches even above the current rate
of
inflation, if they voted for the opposition.
Little did
these people know that the ultimate objective of this plot
was to hand back
every scrap of land to pale skinned individuals in order to
allow them to
engage in the highly subversive activity of agricultural
production.
All the dispossessed whites had been mobilised and
given artificial
arms so that they could invade the farms and drive off all
the settlers.
Thus were otherwise patriotic Zimbabweans corrupted
into spoiling the
party by voting for the wrong party.
But that
was not all.
Brits gave the opposition huge amounts of money to
bribe presiding
officers so that they would miscount the votes to ensure
that the opposition
won.
The election agents and observers who
witnessed and verified the count
were also bribed to turn a blind eye to
this process of miscounting.
The clenched fist party thus had
unassailable grounds for refusing to
accept the result of an election that
had been so shamelessly rigged.
It was not at all a matter of being
a sore loser; surely a reputable
party would concede defeat in these
circumstances.
Instead it would do what the clenched fist party did
— it would demand
that votes be recounted for as long as it took to arrive
at the right
result.
In the meantime, as the popularly elected
government, it would get on
with the vitally important task of governing to
ensure that the country
would continue to experience the incredible growth
and progress that it had
experienced under its wise leadership.
But the clenched fist party had to contend with a concerted campaign
of
destabilisation by the party that should have lost the elections had it
not
been for the malign influence of their backers.
They would stop at
nothing to undermine the legitimate government.
The party that
should have lost constantly committed treason by
wrongly claiming to have
won the election.
Even worse, members of this party went around
attacking and injuring
one another so that they could falsely claim that
peace loving cadres of the
only legitimate party were perpetrating this
violence.
Faced with such subversive activities, it was forced to
apply not only
the rule of law but the full force of the law.
To combat this threat to peace and order, and an imminent invasion
threat
from Brits, it reluctantly procured lots of Chinese weaponry.
The
Fiddler can happily report that the vicious plot has now been
foiled and we
can all sleep peacefully at night.
What this demonstrates is that
when we fail to speak out loudly
against what is happening in our country,
we all become collaborators of the
evil deeds that are being
perpetrated.
But by raising our voices against such evil deeds, we
can prevent them
from happening.
-------------
Mugabe Is
The Problem
Letters
Saturday, 26 April 2008 18:31
I
find it incredible that Zanu PF, as a political organisation, does
not
realise that Robert Mugabe is now a huge liability to the party.
Its loss of popularity is because no one wants Mugabe anymore.
DK
Harare
-------------
Let's Boycott Chinese
Goods
Letters
Saturday, 26 April 2008 18:29
CHINA has
not lifted a finger to signal its displeasure at the
escalating violence
since the 29 March elections.
There is a wave of internally
displaced people, fleeing the rural
areas because they dared to vote
differently.
If China is happy to send arms of war to a regime
intent on waging a
war against its own citizens, I suggest we encourage
people power to have
the last word.
Consumer groups and the
non-governmental organisations must mobilise
their members to boycott
Chinese goods and products.
Let the ordinary people, the victims of
the regime have nothing to do
with a country aiding and abetting their
brutalisation.
For the first time, Zimbabweans can begin to
understand why the
conflict in Sudan continues to escalate.
China is fuelling the suffering of fellow Africans, while pretending
that
supplying weapons of war to rogue regimes is “normal trade”.
Tapera
Kufa
Harare
----------
'The Four Horsemen Of The
Apocalypse'
Letters
Saturday, 26 April 2008 18:26
THE
horrible events presently happening in Zimbabwe suggest that the
four
horsemen of the Apocalypse have taken up permanent residence in that
beleaguered country.
The Zimbabwe government’s total disregard
of criticism, displays an
arrogance and audacity beyond belief.
Indeed, it seems Zimbabwe’s military junta and ruling party are
determined
to stretch international and regional tolerance levels to
unprecedented and
unimaginable lengths.
The question everyone is asking both inside
and outside of Zimbabwe is
for how much longer can this rogue regime
continue its murderous, violent,
corrupt and destructive behaviour without
meaningful censure?
It is common knowledge that the quiet diplomacy
being shamelessly and
slavishly practised by African leaders is nothing but
a diplomatic posture
for inactivity and procrastination, bordering on tacit
support for the
status quo.
History recalls Africa and the
world watching the systematic murder
of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda, and
unbelievably Africa and the world watch
again as a similar and monstrous
sequel of events unfolds in Zimbabwe and
Darfur, Sudan.
Out of
Zimbabwe has come a clear and concise warning by the leaders of
all church
denominations, of a deliberate campaign by the ruling Zanu PF
party that
could reach “genocidal” proportions.
Zimbabwe’s respected church
leaders have spoken out, and Africa and
the world must stop watching, and
wake up and act now to stop the madness.
Mike Rook
Guildford, Surrey, UK
------------
Don't Let Mugabe Hold
Zimbabwe Hostage
Letters
Saturday, 26 April 2008
18:21
I am greatly pained by what is happening in my country. I am
worried
that the promise of change is in danger of suffering a
stillbirth.
It is a great irony that Zimbabwe celebrated its
“independence”
anniversary on 18 April.
The advent of
independence in 1980 was supposed to herald the
beginning of a new era — an
era of tolerance, democracy, hope, freedom,
justice, and equality, among
other things.
Mugabe’s rule for the last three decades has
tragically illustrated
that the revolution that ushered him into power was a
false revolution.
Zimbabwe is anything but free.
The
“liberator” has turned into a ruthless and uncompromising tyrant.
Zimbabwe’s recently held elections have turned into a farce, with
Mugabe
exerting undue pressure on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)
not to
release the results.
Rural areas are filled with the so-called war
veterans, the “green
bombers”, the military and other party and security
functionaries engaged in
a systematic terror campaign to exact “revenge” on
the rural population for
“having voted the wrong way”.
Mugabe’s
peers in the region convened an emergency meeting in Lusaka,
Zambia under
the auspices of the Southern African Development Community
(SADC).
The Communiqué released afterwards came out with
nothing new.
It is interesting to note that a beaming President
Thabo Mbeki walked
hand in hand with a Mugabe soon after his arrival at
Harare Airport — hardly
the demeanour of a neutral and honest
broker.
From the above, it is clear that Zimbabwe is in the throes
of a huge
political crisis.
Mugabe and his party are openly
trying to subvert the will of the
people.
It is hoped that the
deployment of Zanu PF militias, war veterans and
the military, and the
ongoing terror campaign plus additional rigging will
then result in a
“convincing victory” for Mugabe.
I believe that there is a lot of
merit in Tsvangirai’s claim that he
won the election outright, which
explains why the result was not released in
the first place, otherwise I do
not see the reason why Mugabe would delay
the release of Presidential
elections in which he gets a second chance in a
run-off.
The
world must speak with one voice.
They should tell Mugabe that they
do not believe his tired mantra of
the crisis in Zimbabwe being about a
bilateral dispute with Britain stemming
from the land issue.
They have told Mugabe that they do not believe his diatribe and
invective
directed towards Britain and the opposition MDC.
They do not
believe that the MDC is a puppet, and they do not believe
that voting for it
will result in Zimbabwe being a British colony again.
In fact, they
think that Mugabe insults their intelligence greatly.
Even rural folks saw
his lies for what they are.
There is a lot of irony about the fact
that he speaks about
colonization by the British yet he has now given
virtually everything to the
Chinese.
The man is out of touch
with reality.
African leaders have to step up and join the world
and speak with one
voice consistently.
They have to show that
African lives do matter, that Africans also
value human rights and dignity,
and equate a value to these norms that is at
par with the rest of the
world.
Africa and its leaders cannot fold their arms about Zimbabwe
and only
speak in situations of perceived injustices against the
West.
They should tell Mugabe that they are aware that he is
interfering
with ZEC, and they will not recognize his charade.
If this does not happen it is clear that Zimbabwe is destined for an
implosion.
The ray of hope is that Mugabe has nothing to offer,
and things can
only get worse.
Ultimately, every politician has
their own Waterloo if they fail to
heed the winds of change.
Ian Smith and his ruthless regime, armed to the teeth, fell. Apartheid
was
finally dismantled in South Africa, Hitler’s regime fell, Idi Amin
finally
ran away.
There can be no doubt that it is now end game for
Mugabe.
Brighton Mutebuka
UK
----------------
Recounting The Counted
Letters
Saturday, 19 April 2008 19:59
A fair selection system
will naturally include a process of recounting
your chickens before they
hatch.
No one in their right mind could possibly object to this
process.
Regrettably, however, there are people around who have entered into
an
advanced state of mental incompetence, either by over-indulgence in
fomented
vegetable matter or by prolonged exposure to Western
neo-colonialism.
Such delusional persons will, without hesitation,
rush to court to
raise captious objections to this process.
They will waste valuable court time that could be far better spent on
farming activities by making ridiculous submissions such as that you should
only be permitted to recount your unhatched poultry if you have not only
counted them first, but have also announced how many unborn chicks you have
counted.
Equally fatuous will be their claim that the result of
the first count
must be announced as quickly as possible, rather than
treating the count as
a closely guarded state secret.
The judge
will, of course, laugh out of court such baseless
contentions and rule that
the official body in charge of this process must
have an absolute discretion
to do what it likes, when it likes, whether
others like what it is doing and
the pace at which it is doing it.
Now that we have demonstrated the
undoubted need for a recount, it is
important to provide careful instruction
on the method that should be used
when carrying out the
recount.
This is necessary because the counters messed up so badly
the first
time around. The same mistakes must not be made during the
recount.
One basic error was to treat the count as requiring a
simple
arithmetical process of adding up the agreed figures to arrive at a
total.
The mathematical principles that apply to a recount are
substantially
different from those applicable to a count.
With
a recount, the basic formula that should be used is Z=X+E+M. Here
Z is the
party that must win; X is votes actually received; E is extra
ballots
erroneously omitted; M is even more extra ballots kept in reserve in
case
they are needed to tip the balance.
The extra and even more extra
ballots can be derived from a variety of
sources, such as dead people and
people who are entitled to vote more than
once.
A second
formula should also be used to make sure that the process is
completely
above board.
This is as follows: L=X-D-M. Here L is the party
pre-destined to lose;
X is the number of votes actually received; D is the
number of its votes
that have mysteriously gone missing, using a
prestidigitation technique
known as Now you see them and now you don’t; M
is the number of further
votes that may have to be disappeared should this
be necessary.
At the conclusion of this process there is an
obligation to inform the
party who is claiming to have far more hatched
chickens than the winner that
it is sadly misguided and should accept that
it is a perennial loser, and
should not compound matters by being a sore
loser.
Its imperialist backers should also be told to keep their
filthy
mouths shut, instead of trying to invent a crisis when Thabo has told
everyone that there is none.Â
So, let no one make false
allegations there was industrial strength
rigging. The legal protections are
foolproof and absolutely guarantee that
the whole process will be squeaky
clean and fantastically fair.
The problem lies not in the process
but in unrealistic expectations by
anyone that they can harvest more
chickens than jongwe. Surely everyone
knows by now that only the party which
is able to extract refined diesel
from a stone can have a legitimate right
and duty to rule the roost forever.
The detractors must be
re-educated as soon as possible and it is
reassuring that re-educators have
been dispatched to every part of the
country to engage in gentle persuasion
which often results in self-inflicted
injuries.
The best way to
reform misguided persons who have false hopes and
dreams is to subject them
to the same sort of treatment that was meted out
to King Tantulus who was
surrounded by water and fruit that was just out of
his reach.
This may prove somewhat difficult, however, as both these commodities
are in
short supply, and even if they are available they are unaffordable.