Monsters and Critics
Apr 2, 2007, 6:51 GMT
Harare/Johannesburg - Unknown
attackers in Zimbabwe threw petrol bombs at a
store belonging to a
businessman with links to the ruling ZANU-PF party,
reports said
Monday.
The attack on Gumbas Wholesalers in downtown Harare on Saturday
night
damaged office equipment worth 150 million Zimbabwe dollars (600,000
US
dollars), state radio said.
'I am surprised by such action because
Gumbas Wholesale offers reasonable
prices and valuable service to people in
spite of the political divide,'
former ZANU-PF MP Christopher Chigumba, the
owner of the store, was quoted
as telling the official Herald
newspaper.
It was the tenth petrol bomb attack in three weeks of mounting
political
tensions.
State media and President Robert Mugabe's
government blame the attacks,
which have also targeted a passenger train and
police stations, on activists
from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
The opposition party has dismissed the
accusations, blaming the attacks on
state agents bent on tarnishing the
opposition to justify a government
crackdown on its officials.
At
least eight MDC officials arrested in police raids on their homes and the
party's headquarters last week were expected to appear in court Monday.
Lawyers and doctors say the group has been severely assaulted while in
police custody.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Business Day
02 April 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENT
Thabo Mbeki is confident new mediation could help resolve Zimbabwe's
political crisis, but warned that neither that country's government or
opposition should attach conditions to the talks.
Mbeki, named last
week by the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
to promote
dialogue between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), told the SABC western calls for
tougher moves on
Zimbabwe were misplaced.
"As a region we are quite convinced that the
only way to solve the problem
is the direction we have taken," Mbeki
said.
The US said African nations "fell short" in putting pressure on
Mugabe at a
special summit in Tanzania last week, which saw the SADC call
for an end to
sanctions against Mugabe's government and a new political
dialogue.
Tensions in Zimbabwe have risen sharply in the past two weeks
after police
arrested and beat MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other
activists in a move
that spurred widespread international
condemnation.
Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party on Friday formally endorsed
the 83-year-old
leader as its candidate for presidential elections next
year, a move that
could see him extend his rule over the country into a
third decade.
Mbeki, who has tried and failed to facilitate dialogue
between Mugabe and
the MDC in the past, said he believed all sides in
Zimbabwe agreed that
political talks were the best way to address the
crisis.
"Both MDC groups - the one led by (Morgan) Tsvangirai, and the
other by
(rival MDC faction leader Arthur) Mutambara - have not complained
to us.
Mugabe and Zanu (PF) have not complained," Mbeki
said.
Tsvangirai's MDC has warned it may not participate in next year's
elections
if Mugabe is a candidate, accusing him of rigging a series of
previous
elections.
But Mbeki said such preconditions would do little
to improve the situation
in Zimbabwe, where an accelerating economic
collapse is increasing political
tensions.
"If people have issues to
raise, they should raise it in the context of
discussion," he said.
Reuters
The Star
April 02, 2007
Edition 2
Harare - A police crackdown in Zimbabwe has moved into
well-to-do
residential suburbs in the capital, where scores of teenagers
have been
detained in a raid on a popular disco.
Several had to be
treated for shock after at least 100 were taken in two
police buses to the
feared downtown central police station from the Glow
nightclub in Harare's
affluent Borrowdale district on Saturday.
Witnesses said some of the
teenagers - both blacks and whites - were hit
with riot batons and slapped
by paramilitary police who said they were
clamping down on alleged underage
drinking.
Others were allegedly not carrying identity cards required
under security
laws.
The raid came after police shut bars and beer
halls in poor townships in an
undeclared curfew during a surge in political
tension after police violently
stopped an opposition-led prayer meeting in
Harare on March 11.
Keith Murray (20), a witness at the nightclub, said about
20 paramilitary
police armed with automatic rifles and batons stormed into
the nightclub and
forced revellers to sit on the dance floors in
silence.
The raid was the first on upmarket bars and clubs patronised by
the nation's
dwindling white community.
Meanwhile, nine opposition
activists who were to be charged with attempted
murder and illegal weapons
possession all required medical attention for
injuries suffered since their
arrests, doctors and medical staff at a
private facility said. -
Sapa-AP
The Star
April 02, 2007
Edition 1
Peta Thornycroft and Peter Fabricius
The South African
correspondent for Time magazine was arrested in Zimbabwe
on Saturday and was
still in custody last night, apparently for entering the
country without
official media accreditation.
And several opposition activists who had
been injured in police custody were
abducted by state security agents from
their Harare hospital beds late on
Saturday.
Police also detained
scores of teenagers in a raid on a disco in Harare on
Saturday
night.
Zimbabwe's crackdown continued unabated at the weekend despite
last week's
Southern African Development Community summit, where President
Robert Mugabe
was told he should stop assaults on opposition politicians,
according to
South African officials.
Time journalist Alexander Perry, a
British citizen based in Cape Town, was
arrested in Zimbabwe at or near the
Beit Bridge border post, and was being
held in Gwanda, about 200km to the
north, sources said. - Independent
Foreign Service and Sapa-AP
Chris McGreal
Monday
April 2, 2007
The Guardian
Zimbabwe's forthright archbishop
grudgingly concedes that he might have gone
too far in urging people to pray
for Robert Mugabe's death. Not that Pius
Ncube wouldn't still like to see it
happen. It's just that the archbishop of
Bulawayo feels his call two years
ago "to pray that God may take him [Mr
Mugabe]" was "misinterpreted". So
these days he sticks to telling his flock
to pray for the Zimbabwean
president's downfall. "Some people say that as a
Christian pastor I have no
right to ask for someone to die. They said it is
trying to force God to do
my will. They say that is as good as murder. Some
people are narrow minded,
so now I'm asking people to pray that he falls,"
he said.
There was a
time when the archbishop was not nearly so outspoken about Mr
Mugabe because
most of Zimbabwe's Catholic bishops thought they should not
wade into
politics. But as the repression grew in Zimbabwe, and ordinary
people were
driven deeper into poverty, Archbishop Ncube emerged as one of
the most
strident critics of Mr Mugabe, calling him evil, cruel and a
murderer. Now
the bishops have followed his lead with their uncompromising
pastoral
warning that the violent suppression of opposition politics,
rampant
corruption and economic collapse are driving the country toward an
abyss.
Mr Mugabe's response has been to describe Zimbabwe's first black
archbishop
as a "halfwit". The state press has called him a "neo-fascist
extremist
rightwinger" who is "peddling British policies". But Archbishop
Ncube is
almost as scornful of some of those who would also like to see an
end to the
regime. He has called ordinary Zimbabweans "cowards" for not
being willing
to lay down their lives to get rid of Mr Mugabe. He describes
Morgan
Tsvangirai, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader
severely
beaten by the police earlier this month, as "useless". And Thabo
Mbeki, the
South African president, who has been reluctant to criticise Mr
Mugabe, is a
"damned fool".
The archbishop is co-chair of the
Solidarity Peace Trust, which has exposed
the systematic political violence
against the regime's opponents. The
60-year-old archbishop expects there
will be more bloodshed before Mr Mugabe
is brought down. He favours peaceful
defiance of the kind led by Archbishop
Desmond Tutu against apartheid but
says he expects the government to respond
with force and that he is ready to
stand before "the blazing guns". The
problem is to mobilise others to do
likewise.
"The idea of dying for your country was something valuable in
western
countries. We haven't grasped the idea of laying down your life. The
people
are cowards. I was hoping the politicians would do it but it seems
they
don't have any convictions," he said. "We must torment and harass the
government. Zimbabweans are a bit lethargic and we find ourselves caught
with our pants down."
The archbishop emerged as a pre-eminent critic
of the government in part
because of the failures of a weak and divided
opposition. Mr Tsvangirai may
be heralded abroad as the brave face of
defiance after the severe beating he
endured by Mugabe's thugs earlier this
month. But the archbishop says the
MDC leader is part of the problem.
"Morgan has been useless," he said.
"There was hope that the MDC would
gradually lead people to a new
government. I think people have lost
confidence in Tsvangirai doing it
alone. He seems to have very little
backbone. Some people think he would be
as bad as Mugabe because he is power
hungry." But then a flicker of hope
emerges "Although Tsvangirai has many
faults he might just get rid of
Mugabe. If he becomes another Mugabe then we
will kick him out."
The archbishop's preference for facing down the
regime has left him scornful
of less confrontational tactics, particularly
the "quiet diplomacy" of Mr
Mbeki, who was last week appointed by regional
leaders to negotiate a path
to free elections in Zimbabwe. "This so-called
quiet diplomacy is hogwash.
It means people perish. If it weren't for the
western world feeding through
the World Food Programme, I think one-third of
Zimbabweans would be dead by
now," he said. "Mbeki can be so unreasonable
and illogical. You can't
persuade Mugabe to leave. He has to be forced
out."
· Senior Zimbabwean clerics call for new
constitution
· MDC members arrive at court with severe injuries
Chris
McGreal in Harare
Monday April 2, 2007
The
Guardian
Zimbabwe's influential Roman Catholic bishops have
abandoned a long-standing
reticence to criticise Robert Mugabe, damning his
government as "racist,
corrupt and lawless" and likening the struggle
against it to the country's
liberation war against white rule.
The
pastoral letter, read out in churches yesterday, denounces "overtly
corrupt"
leaders for using "ever harsher oppression through arrests,
detentions,
banning orders, beatings and torture", days after Mr Mugabe said
that his
opponents deserved to be "bashed".
The Catholic bishops' conference
letter warns that Zimbabwe is heading
towards a "flashpoint" but appeals for
"peace and restraint" in protests
ahead of a two-day general strike called
from tomorrow. The letter said
young Zimbabweans "see their leaders
habitually engaging in acts and words
which are hateful, disrespectful,
racist, corrupt, lawless, unjust, greedy,
dishonest and violent in order to
cling to the privileges of power and
wealth".
The bishops say the seizure
and redistribution of white-owned farms over
recent years, the centrepiece
of what Mr Mugabe portrays as his campaign to
liberate Zimbabwe from the
vestiges of colonialism, has enriched the elite
but done little to help the
poor. They conclude that the white settlers who
once exploited what was
Rhodesia have been supplanted by a black elite that
is just as
abusive.
"It is the same conflict between those who possess power and
wealth in
abundance, and those who do not; between those who are determined
to
maintain their privileges of power and wealth at any cost, even at the
cost
of bloodshed, and those who demand their democratic rights and a share
in
the fruits of independence; between those who continue to benefit from
the
present system of inequality and injustice, because it favours them and
enables them to maintain an exceptionally high standard of living, and those
who go to bed hungry at night and wake up in the morning to another day
without work and without income; between those who only know the language of
violence and intimidation, and those who feel they have nothing more to lose
because their constitutional rights have been abrogated and their votes
rigged," the letter says.
The bishops back calls for a new
constitution "that will guide a democratic
leadership chosen in free and
fair elections".
Although the Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, has
been outspoken in his
criticism of Mr Mugabe, Zimbabwe's Catholic bishops
have largely remained
silent until now. Some supported Mr Mugabe, others
believed that the church
should not involve itself in politics. But they
have been under growing
pressure from their congregations to speak
out.
Government hit squads have abducted and beaten hundreds of
opposition
activists over recent days. The police have also apparently been
involved in
assaults. Nine members of the Movement for Democratic Change
arrived at a
Harare court on Saturday with severe injuries after four days
in police
custody. Two were taken to hospital on life support on the orders
of a
magistrate, over police objections, but were later returned to prison.
Officials accuse the activists of petrol bombings of police stations, a
supermarket and a train in a "terror campaign" that the opposition says is
perpetrated by government forces to provide a justification for arresting Mr
Mugabe's opponents.
Zimbabwe's president not only justified the
assaults on his opponents -
including the severe beating of the MDC leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai - he also
warned there would be more violence. "Of course
he [Tsvangirai] was bashed.
He deserved it.... I told the police: 'beat him
a lot.' He and his MDC must
stop their terrorist activities," he said.
UPI
HARARE, April 1 (UPI) -- Zimbabwe
President Robert Mugabe is maneuvering to
fend off the open political
opposition of his deputy and her husband.
Mugabe denounced Vice President
Joyce Mujuru and her husband Solomon
Mujuru -- the former head of the army
and one of the nation's richest
people -- on television last month after
they let their ambitions be openly
known, the Times of London reported
Sunday.
The couple reportedly had complained of Mugabe's "paranoid
delusions" about
a military coup when they met with South African Deputy
President Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka.
There have been unconfirmed reports
that Solomon Mujuru has met the leader
of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change to discuss a national unity
government in a post-Mugabe
era -- and has talked with the Zanu-PF politburo
about the need for Zimbabwe
to re-enter the international community, the
newspaper said.
Mugabe
has gotten the Zanu-PF's central committee to nominate him for
president in
next year's election. He also has countered the Mujurus by
trying to
nationalize the Marange diamond mine in which Solomon is a major
investor.
"I have 83 years of struggle, experience and resilience and
I cannot be
pushed over," Mugabe said.
The Star
April 02, 2007 Edition
1
Politics, it is often said, is the art of the possible. Last week's
SADC
extraordinary summit perhaps illustrates the art of the seemingly
impossible - to find some way to persuade President Robert Mugabe that he
must go.
It has been clear for several years now that Mugabe's rule
has grown
increasingly authoritarian and dictatorial. His continued tenure
as
president of Zimbabwe now verges on the downright dangerous. The economy
has
collapsed, the rule of law is a charade, freedom of speech and political
activity are virtually non-existent.
The vast majority of Zimbabwe's
people are desperate for jobs, for change,
for hope. For the first time
since the end of the liberation war there is
evidence that people are being
driven to violence.
No matter how Zanu-PF tries to downplay these
incidents and to publicly
criminalise the MDC, the fact remains that these
are the first signs of an
incipient civil war. It is against this background
that the recent SADC
summit must be viewed.
Hopes were perhaps too
high for some meaningful change in direction to take
place, but on the face
of it nothing seems to have changed. A clearly
jubilant Mugabe clapped his
hands in the air as he left the Kilimanjaro
Hotel declaring it "an excellent
meeting". If anything, he seems to have
been strengthened by this summit
rather than chastened.
The meeting was, however, significant. The SADC
finally admitted there is a
crisis in Zimbabwe . which it has up to now been
reluctant to do. There was,
according to some observers, some tough
behind-the-scenes talking. It is
clear that Mugabe had to be prevailed upon
strongly to even allow mediation
between himself and the
MDC.
Zimbabwe is now clearly President Mbeki's problem. As the most
powerful
leader in the region, the SADC has tasked him to led this
mediation. The
SADC also sent a strong message to the West that Africans
would solve their
own problems. Now, led by President Mbeki, they must
act.
The New Yorker
by Philip Gourevitch April 9, 2007
One
Sunday afternoon last month, members of Zimbabwe's opposition party,
Movement for Democratic Change, were gathering-for a prayer meeting, they
said-when President Robert Mugabe's security forces descended on them,
firing tear gas, water cannons, and bullets. One person was killed, and at
least fifty others were injured after being taken into custody. When the
M.D.C. leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade-union activist, arrived at
the police station, Mugabe's men repeatedly bashed his head against a wall,
then detained him, too. Mugabe has always been rough with the M.D.C., a
party formed eight years ago to challenge his dictatorial powers, and
Tsvangirai has been arrested and knocked around many times before, but this
time he was badly disfigured and his skull severely lacerated. These are
actions that most dictators would cover up, but several days later Mugabe
held a public rally to commend the police for their use of force, and to
warn Tsvangirai and his followers that they could expect more violence. True
to his word, Mugabe unleashed his goons on a nationwide rampage that
resulted in hundreds of his opponents and critics being dragged from their
homes and offices and beaten.
The shamelessness of Mugabe's
brutality-and his gloating pride in it-aroused
the attention of the
international press and diplomatic corps. But the story
of Zimbabwe's
violent misrule and national degradation is not a new one.
Mugabe, who is
eighty-three, came to power in 1980 as a leader of the long
and bloody
liberation struggle against the white-supremacist regime of Ian
Smith's
Rhodesia, and he has always used his hero's mantle as cover for
terrorizing
his opponents, real and perceived. He has murdered thousands of
his people
and deprived the rest of meaningful freedom. In the process, he
has
transformed one of Africa's most prosperous and promising countries into
one
of the poorest and weakest on earth.
Zimbabwe's inflation rate is already
more than seventeen hundred per cent,
the highest in the world, and the
International Monetary Fund warns that it
could exceed five thousand per
cent by year's end. Unemployment is around
eighty per cent, and the average
income is less than a dollar a day. With
chronic food shortages and no
medical system left to speak of, life
expectancy has plunged from sixty
years, in 1990, to less than thirty-seven
years (the shortest anywhere),
while the infant-mortality rate has increased
by more than fifty per cent.
Not surprisingly, as many as three million
Zimbabweans-a quarter of the
population-have fled the country. Yet last week
Mugabe's information
minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, declared, "There is no
crisis whatsoever in
Zimbabwe."
Mugabe has sworn that he will not relinquish power before his
hundredth
birthday. He is obsessed with the fiction that he is Zimbabwe's
legitimate
leader, and his assault on his nation-an attempt to control his
people by
squeezing the life out of them-has steadily intensified since the
emergence
of the M.D.C. He seems to be punishing Zimbabweans just for
considering that
he could be replaced. But Mugabe, who is as clever as he is
crude and
perverse, blames his opponents for the unrest. According to his
rhetoric,
they are terrorists and agents of white imperialism, and whatever
hardship
the country may be enduring is the price of its ongoing fight for
freedom.
"The opposition is always calling for change, change, change,"
Mugabe said
at his mid-March rally. "I am not pink. I don't want a pink
nose. I can't
change. I don't want to be European. I want to be African."
Tsvangirai, at
the funeral for his murdered colleague, said of Mugabe, "I
think he needs
psychiatric help."
Since 2002, Mugabe has faced
censure and sanctions from the United States
and Europe, but he treats these
rebukes as badges of honor. (One consequence
of America's diminished
authority since the invasion of Iraq has been that
bullies around the world
feel emboldened to scorn the West; Mugabe likes to
tell his critics to "go
hang.") He has also been able to take comfort in the
fact that African
leaders have supported him, even as he insults them by
insisting that his
thuggery and his many failings are the expression of his
African
authenticity. South Africa, the regional power, has for years touted
a
policy of "quiet diplomacy" toward Zimbabwe-a euphemism for silently
indulging Mugabe's crimes and giving him a stamp of legitimacy when he has
stolen elections. Why South Africa should provide this service is a matter
of speculation. No doubt, President Thabo Mbeki and, to a degree, his
predecessor, Nelson Mandela, don't want to dishonor a fellow liberation
leader. Yet they have dishonored themselves by failing to stand up to an
oppressor who is as contemptuous of his people as Ian Smith was.
Still,
last week, when Mugabe was summoned to account for Zimbabwe's plight
at a
meeting of the region's heads of state in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, it
was
widely reported that he had exhausted his neighbors' indulgence. Given
the
gratuitousness and the extremity of Mugabe's latest fits of violence,
coupled with the fact that thousands of refugees were braving the
crocodile-infested Limpopo River to enter South Africa illegally, the
prevailing story in the press and among diplomats was that the dictator was
finally approaching his endgame. Even if that were true, there is no obvious
way to prepare a democratic succession of power. The resilience of the
M.D.C. is impressive, but it is a weak party, inexperienced and internally
divided, and the only alternatives are rival factions within Mugabe's
Zanu-PF Party, which are controlled by his old enforcers-former leaders of
the Army and the security forces-who have grown immensely rich in the course
of the country's impoverishment.
Mugabe, meanwhile, remains defiant.
He has begun campaigning for another
term as President, and as he left for
Dar es Salaam his police surrounded
M.D.C. headquarters and again detained
Tsvangirai and other members of the
Party's leadership. Mugabe said that he
was looking forward to the
solidarity of his fellow African leaders, and he
flew home boasting, "We got
full backing." They did ask him about
Tsvangirai, and Mugabe reported, "I
told them he was beaten but he asked for
it." The meeting concluded with the
leaders appointing Thabo Mbeki to
encourage dialogue between Mugabe's
government and the opposition, and
issuing a call for Western governments to
lift their sanctions, while
demanding nothing in exchange. "He will continue
to tell the West to go
hang," Mugabe's spokesman explained, but it was
obvious that it was Zimbabwe
that was being left to the gallows. ?
catholic.org
4/2/2007 - 6:12 AM
PST
Church Calls for Good Governance
By Father John
Flynn
ROME, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit) - Church concern over the political and
economic
situation in Zimbabwe is growing. After the government increased
violence
against political opponents, Archbishop Pius Ncube called on
Zimbabweans to
protest the state's actions, the Associated Press reported
March 22.
"We have to stand up against this oppression," the archbishop
of Bulawayo
said at a meeting of clerics, activists and diplomats.
In
early March, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition
party, was hospitalized after being beaten by police after his arrest at a
rally, the London-based Times newspaper reported March 13. The leader of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was arrested along with dozens of
opposition officials, rights activists and clerics.
In addition to
political troubles, the economy is in jeopardy. Recently, the
governor of
the nation's reserve bank, Gideon Gono, admitted that he had run
out of
funds, reported the Guardian newspaper March 1.
In testimony before the
parliamentary committee on defense and home affairs,
Gono said there was no
money to buy vehicles for the police or to print
passports. Electricity
supplies and transport are also at risk, he said,
with little currency
available to finance the operations.
A report published March 5 by the
International Crisis Group, a
nongovernmental organization, provided a grim
overview of the country's
situation. The political environment is in a state
of flux. President Robert
Mugabe's current term of office is scheduled to
end next March. Mugabe, 83,
has governed Zimbabwe since 1980. He has not
made an official commitment to
retire.
Turmoil
In fact, Mugabe
has expressed a desire to extend his time in office until
2010 by means of a
constitutional amendment, supposedly in order to
harmonize the dates of
presidential and legislative elections. This proposal
is being resisted both
by the opposition MDC party and by elements within
the president's own
ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF).
His prospects could, however, suffer due to the country's
economic woes. The
International Monetary Fund predicts that inflation could
pass 4,000% by the
end of this year. Salaries of most public officials are
below the poverty
line, and a new round of home and business demolitions is
being planned,
according to the International Crisis Group's report. A
similar demolition
program in 2005 displaced around 700,000
people.
The report explained that Zimbabwe's economy shrunk by 40%
between 1998 and
2006. The country's gross domestic product is expected to
shrink a further
4.7% this year. Unemployment is now at the 80%
level.
By mid-2005, income per capita fell to 1953 levels, a fall greater
than that
experienced during recent conflicts in countries such as Ivory
Coast and
Congo.
According to government data, 80% of the population
in Zimbabwe was already
below the poverty line in 2002.
Life
expectancy is one of the lowest in the world, at 36.6 years. According
to
2005 statistics, 20.1% of the population 15-49 is affected by HIV/AIDS.
This
is among the highest infection rates in the world.
Call to
dialogue
The news agency Fides published a joint statement March 22 by
the leaders of
Zimbabwe's Christian Churches. The declaration was signed by
the Zimbabwe
Catholic bishops conference on March 17. The statement spoke of
a situation
in the country of "extreme danger and difficulty."
"Yet,
it can also be turned into a moment of grace and of a new beginning,
if
those on all sides who are responsible for causing the crisis repent and
heed the cry of the people," the bishops added.
The declaration
confirmed support for legitimate political authority, but at
the same time
stipulated that this power must not be abused through recourse
to violence,
oppression and intimidation.
"We call on those who are responsible for
the current crisis in our country
to repent and listen to the cry of their
citizens," the bishops stated. At
the same time, they asked the people of
Zimbabwe for "peace and restraint
when expressing their justified grievances
and demonstrating for their human
rights." The declaration concluded with a
call to dialogue to resolve the
crisis and build a democracy that respects
the rights of every citizen.
Shortly before, on March 13, the South
African Council of Churches (SACC)
published a statement calling attention
to the grave situation in Zimbabwe.
The SACC is composed of 26 member
churches and associated para-church
organizations, and represents the
majority of Christians in South Africa.
The SACC drew attention to the
human rights violations in Zimbabwe and the
fact that church leaders are
being harassed by the police.
Eddie Makue, the secretary-general of the
SACC, also accused authorities of
attempting to cause and exploit divisions
within the churches in an attempt
to "divide and rule," and to stifle
opposition.
"The inhuman actions of the Zimbabwe security forces are
rapidly closing the
options open to the people of Zimbabwe in finding
amicable resolutions for
the many challenges confronting this troubled
nation," warned the SACC.
Regional impact
The statement also
commented that the chaos was causing a massive migration
of Zimbabweans to
other countries in the region, overwhelming the capacity
of relief services
operated by the churches.
As a result, the situation in Zimbabwe is
threatening to destabilize the
entire region.
Regarding the action of
other countries in the region, Archbishop Ncube
recently criticized the
South African government for failing to put
sufficient pressure on
Zimbabwe.
According to a report published March 20 by the Voice of
America radio
service, the archbishop said South Africa is in a good
position to put
pressure on Zimbabwe. But, he said, the South African
government is merely
watching.
A March 22 report by the London-based
Financial Times newspaper observed
that southern African governments have
traditionally favored a policy of
"quiet diplomacy" regarding Zimbabwe.
Recently, however, Zambian President
Levy Mwanawasa called for a new
approach.
"Quiet diplomacy has failed to solve the political and economic
meltdown in
Zimbabwe," he said. Mwanawasa likened the situation in Zimbabwe
to "a
sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out to save their lives,"
in
reference to the millions of citizens who have fled the
country.
Nevertheless, a meeting held Thursday by the 14-nation Southern
African
Development Community (SADC) regional bloc opted to continue a
low-profile
approach. The summit, held in Tanzania to discuss the situation
in Zimbabwe,
merely agreed that South African President Thabo Mbeki should
try to mediate
in the political crisis in Zimbabwe, the BBC reported
Thursday. Mbeki will
try to arrange talks between Mugabe and the
opposition.
It remains to be seen if Zimbabwe's president will listen to
his neighbors.
Just prior to the meeting, police surrounded the party
headquarters of the
Movement for Democratic Change in the country's capital,
Harare, Reuters
reported Wednesday. The police briefly detained MDC leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai, along with other party officials.
Also on
Thursday, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and
Madagascar
(SECAM) published a statement on Zimbabwe. The declaration
followed a
meeting of the standing committee of SECAM, held in Accra, Ghana.
"The
situation in Zimbabwe is not the result of a natural catastrophe or
only of
adverse international conditions," the statement noted. "It is
largely
self-inflicted. It is a crisis of moral leadership and of bad
governance."
"We strongly appeal to the government of Zimbabwe, in
the name of Jesus, to
immediately stop the violence," declared SECAM. The
statement also called
upon the country's political leaders "to be fair, just
and compassionate in
governing their people." An appeal that, many hope,
will not fall on deaf
ears.
zimbabwejournalists.com
2nd Apr 2007 01:59 GMT
By a
Correspondent
HARARE - Police in Zimbabwe have arrested Gift Phiri,
the Chief Reporter for
the London-based The Zimbabwean newspaper as the
country's security forces
continue with their crackdown on the opposition
and independent journalists.
Phiri was arrested Sunday afternoon by four
police officers just outside his
Sunningdale home. His lawyer, Alec
Muchadehama was frantically trying to
locate him last night.
Wilf
Mbanga, the Editor of The Zimbabwean said the police had confiscated
Phiri's
computer and cell phone.
"He is currently being held by the Law and Order
Maintenance section at
Harare Central," said Mbanga. "We fear greatly for
Gift's safety."
It is not yet clear why the police have arrested Phiri
but many assume it is
for the stories he writes for the Zimbabwean and other
media publications
that are based outside the country. This is not the first
time that Phiri
has been arrested by the police.
This is the second
time he is being arrested for his journalism work.
The Association of
Zimbabwe Journalists in the UK (AZJ-UK) condemned Phiri's
arrest and called
on the Zimbabwe government to allow his lawyer free access
to his
client.
"It is sad that the situation in our country continues to
deteriorate with
journalists being harassed and arrested for merely doing
their job," a
statement from the association said. "We believe such arrests
are meant as
warnings to other independent scribes that this is what can
happen to them
if they continue to be critical. Ultimately journalists also
end up being
weighed down upon by court processes resulting in many starting
to censor
themselves for their own safety."
Police in Zimbabwe have
in the past few weeks been abducting, beating up and
allegedly torturing
opposition activists with the information ministry going
out of its way to
threaten journalists to steer clear of the armed forces
story and writing
"negative" stories about the situation in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe
government recently issued a warning to journalists writing for
the
international media from here saying the government may be forced to act
against them if they continued to "peddle lies" about the situation in the
country.
Riled by piling international pressure following the March
11 arrests and
severe assaults of opposition activists, including MDC
president, Morgan
Tsvangirai and the killing of an activist by the police,
the government,
castigated journalists writing for UK-based publication, in
particular Peta
Thornycroft and Jan Raath.
The Media and Information
Commission threatened to deal with the journalists
whom it said were being
used by the West to pursue the US "regime change"
agenda by portraying
Zimbabwe as a country on fire.
A statement from the ministry of
information said the Zimbabwe government
"therefore, advises these
reporters, who include Peta Thornycroft and Jan
Raath, to stay clear of the
security forces, indeed to shun an opposition
politician who has been
deep-throating them. Should this not stop,
Government may be forced to act
against them and the politician".
Earlier in the year, Bill Saidi, an
award-winning editor who with the weekly
Standard newspaper, received a
bullet in the post after publishing a cartoon
depicting soldiers comparing
their paltry salaries.
Zimbabwe is one of the 10 worst places in the
world in which one could work
as a journalist. Tough media laws have seen
many a journalist leaving the
country and the industry to safeguard their
lives.
Meanwhile South Africa's President, Thabo Mbeki is reported to
have
expressed optimism that he would succeed in mediating in Zimbabwe's
political crisis following last week's SADC meeting in Tanzania to discuss
the ongoing crisis.
Mbeki said: "We are always optimistic. I think
everybody in Zimbabwe
recognises the fact that there are problems, that
these problems need to be
solved and the fact that it needs a united
response of the people of
Zimbabwe."
The South African leader has
been criticised for his softly softly approach
towards the Zanu PF
government. Many believe Mbeki can play an important
role in helping bring
back democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
zimbabwejournalists.com
2nd Apr 2007 01:24 GMT
By a Correspondent
Zimbabwe's cricketers,
home after their early exit from the World Cup, have
been told that they
will not get paid until June. The match fees were
US$2000 (£1000) per game
plus US$500 for a half-century.
It will also be June before the players
start getting their salaries in
foreign currency. The players are paid in
Zimbabwe dollars, and with the
currency losing value daily, the salaries
have been effectively reduced to
nothing.
What makes it particularly
hard for the players is that their contracts
contain a clause stating that
they will be available for all matches
organized by Zimbabwe
Cricket.
This effectively means that they cannot play club cricket in
England this
season. If any of the players joins an English club, ZC will
almost
certainly withhold the money for breach of contract.
ZC
managing director Ozias Bvute knew that some players would join clubs in
England after the World Cup and were likely not to return.
The
inter-provincial four-day Logan Cup is due to start in April, and a
number
of A-team tours have been planned as the country prepares for a
return to
Test cricket in November.
"We have been told that we cannot join clubs in
England," said a player who
would only speak anonymously, "but at the same
time we will only get our
money from the World Cup in June. This means we
will be stuck here until
June, and if we join clubs in England we will lose
all our money as we would
have breached our contracts."
Zimbabwe
Cricket are believed to be in the red, already operating on an
overdraft
with a large amount of the World Cup money having been spent
before it has
even been received.
. Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq has hit back at
local media and rejected
match-fixing claims after his team's shock World
Cup exit and the murder of
coach Bob Woolmer.
Inzamam, in his first
press conference since the traumatic events, said it
was "unfair" to talk
about match-fixing. "The team had been playing and
winning matches. There
were no such comments. Now they are spreading such
rumours," he said,
referring to comments by former players.
Pakistan lost their opening
match to the West Indies by 54 runs before a
humiliating three-wicket defeat
at the hands of Ireland on Mar 17.
The following day, Woolmer was found
strangled in his hotel room. Woolmer's
death has sparked one of the most
complex murder investigations in Jamaican
history. It also triggered
speculation about possible links to match-fixing
and illegal
betting.
The Pakistan team was finger-printed and provided DNA samples,
with Inzamam
among three members of the entourage questioned twice.
A
downbeat Inzamam lauded Woolmer's services, calling him "a great man and a
very sincere and dedicated coach". "The media did not provide the support
and encouragement the players needed," he said. "I was blamed for everything
as if I was running the cricket board and dictating the selection
committee."
Meanwhile Pakistan Cricket Board chief Nasim Ashraf said
that two senior
police officers would leave for Jamaica tomorrow to join
investigations into
Woolmer's murder. "I have no doubt that our players are
innocent," he added.
He also revealed that the existing contracts system
will be replaced by
performance-based deals. He said the move was designed
to reduce the
influence of the players and to hand power back to the
management.
"A new contract system will be put in place within the next
90 days," he
said.
Ashraf also revealed that a three-man review
committee would be set up to
examine Pakistan's performance in the World
Cup.
The Telegraph
Monday, 2 April 2007,
11:16 am
Press Release: US State Department
Daily Press
Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 30,
2007
Excerpt:
QUESTION: What can you tell us about
Zimbabwe and the latest that's happened
there? Anything?
MR.
MCCORMACK: Well, they did have -- the SADC did have this meeting and
they
issued a statement out of it. I think it's safe to say that we would
have
wished for something a bit stronger out of the SADC and taking a little
bit
more firm stance vis-Ã -vis what's going on in Zimbabwe. We can take
heart,
however, from the fact that they actually did have this summit
meeting and
they did get together to at least discuss the issue of Zimbabwe,
if they
didn't necessarily take the actions that one might have hoped that
they
would take.
QUESTION: Do you think that President Mugabe has been
emboldened by the sort
of fairly mild response? For example, his ruling
party today adopted a
motion to hold elections in 2008 and endorsed Mugabe
as their candidate. So
that -- you know, I'm not saying it's directly
(inaudible) or anything else,
but it appears that it's not really having any
impact at all -- this
international pressure that you're putting
on.
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, you know, I can't speak to what their
calculations are.
Clearly he has become very intransigent in the face of a
lot of
international pressure. That doesn't mean that you let up on the
international pressure. I think that it makes it all the more important we
continue to focus the spotlight on the kind of behavior that is being
demonstrated by President Mugabe as well as his government. It's sad, it's
outrageous, and certainly we hope better for the Zimbabwean people. And we
already have sanctions in place, so it's really a matter of looking at what
else we might do with the international community, and part of that effort
is to work with states in the region to get them to increase the pressure
because some -- the situation obviously in Zimbabwe can't continue as it is.
This is an economy that is in complete ruin and there's real suffering
that's ongoing as a result of the decrease in the level of human rights as
well as democratic rights in that state.
QUESTION: Are you reaching
out to South Africa to ask them to do a lot more?
On the flip side, they of
course fear that if they're too strong in their
response that they'll have a
flood of refugees. I mean, that's one of their
problems. But are you
reaching out to them and asking them to do more or --
MR. MCCORMACK:
Well, we've encouraged them to do everything that they
possible can. There's
always a delicate balance between applying the
international pressure and
the concern for the humanitarian situation of the
people that might possibly
be affected by it, in this case the Zimbabwean
people. So key to whatever
solution is arrived at in Zimbabwe is going to be
the efforts of South
Africa as well as others of Zimbabwe's neighbors.
QUESTION: You said
yesterday and perhaps the day before that you wanted SADC
to make clear to
Mugabe that his behavior was unacceptable.
MR. MCCORMACK:
Right.
QUESTION: Did they fall short, fall short?
MR. MCCORMACK:
Well, they fell short.
QUESTION: Fell short?
MR. MCCORMACK: Fell
short.
Silence
Chihuri
President Robert Mugabe may have yet again gotten the
all-important
endorsement of his party as flag-bearer in the impending
presidential
election, but the octogenarian statesman is fully aware that he
is far from
being embraced by the generality of Zimbabweans. There is
obviously no doubt
that Mugabe will seek to depend on all the unorthodox
means at his disposal
to keep his waning political fortunes afloat. The
stakes are just too high
for Mugabe to take any chances even though this is
an outright lose-lose
situation for him.
ZANU PF as a party
has the democratic right to choose and agree on the
presidential candidate
to represent them in the elections and on the same
token, the people of
Zimbabwe also have the inalienable democratic right to
chose a leader of
their choice without coercion or the threat to their
lives. But history has
it that Mugabe will be employing maximum use of force
and dirty so as ensure
that he scraps through and the following are some of
the examples of how he
may seek to go about it. Immediately he may start by
another internal purge
from within his ranks because events of the past few
weeks demonstrated a
rebellious atmosphere in the ruling party and Mugabe
would normally seek to
calm the storm from within first.
A purge is definitely looming
and even thought Joyce Mujuru may be largely
left alone, Mugabe will torture
her by putting right at the forefront of his
campaign bandwagon. Mujuru will
be made to campaign for Mugabe in the
forthcoming elections and if she is
really made of that steel then that is
when she will have to show he mettle.
The service chiefs will also be
summoned to swear a new oath of allegiance
should none of them get the chop
because there may have been sown a few
seeds of mistrust due to the recent
events. From within Mugabe will then
expand his consolidation of power and
set up the course for the election
campaign that in no doubt will be his
last but most difficult. It will be
very difficult for Mugabe this time
because he is not carrying his entire
party in the manner that he has done
before and the outlook nationally is as
gloomy as never before. It is a real
political mountain to climb for the
"young old man."
Already, the announcement that parliamentary
seats will be raised from 150
to 210 (House of Assembly) and 66 to 84
(Senate) is the clearest indication
that the con machinery at the heart of
ZANU PF electoral survival is already
at work. Obviously what they intend to
do is to sub-divide all the rural
constituents into smaller and winnable
fiefdoms because the ruling party
still commands support in the communal
areas. The urban areas will be
largely unaffected by this latest demographic
nonsense because there the
ruling party is fully aware that the MDC
continues with its significant
hold. It is the rural constituencies that
will be decimated so as to
capitalise on the concentrated support there. It
is called hook and crook.
Everyone can see that there is neither
logic nor agency for the redrawing of
the constituent boundaries and
increasing the number of parliamentarians
most of whom have only effected
marginal improvements to the present
constituencies is not going to better
the lives of Zimbabweans in any way.
The obvious and undesired result out of
all this will surely be an
exacerbation of the burden on an already
overstretched fiscal being of the
nation. We have not even seen the gains
brought about by the newly
established senate that was also controversially
bulldozed through against
all common sense, yet the clueless government is
already mooting the idea of
expanding the legislative arrangements. But
those who can put one and one
together can see through the veneer of the
ZANU PF hogwash because it is all
political nonsense at best and at worst,
it is the dangerous survival
instincts of a dying
dictatorship.
The next phase will be the stepping up of violence
and intimidation of
political opponents. The idea of increasing the players
in the field is also
another ploy by Mugabe to make sure that there will be
an increased number
of those who will be towing the party line. This means
that consequently,
more people will be seeking to ensure that he in-turn,
wins the presidential
elections. The meaning of this is that overall, there
will be heightened
tension and the amount of residual violence through
clashes of supporters
will be increased. Mugabe has nothing to lose here
although common sense
would point to a man who also has nothing in it for
himself because he will
be damned if he loses and even more so if he wins by
stealth. Mugabe should
surely be coming to terms with an actual scenario of
"dying in power"
because one way or another he is going to die, politically
that is, because
even if he may not meet his natural death as a result of
these coming
elections, his political demise is much more certain than ever
before.
Mugabe will ensure that the campaign efforts of his
opponents are
systematically frustrated through bureaucratic stifling as
well as the heavy
handedness of the marauding so-called law enforcement
agents. The usually
denial of access to venues of campaign rallies and the
uneven access to the
state media apparatus will never be rationalised. The
national television,
radio, and newspaper services will continue to be
abused by the government
for their undeserved benefit at the expense of
fellow politicians from the
opposition. There will be so many odds against
the opposition forces but
their greatest weapon is the mass anger that only
waiting to be tapped and
applied against the establishment. The opposition
will simply need to be
united and then rally the nation behind them because
the people are
evidently tired.
Also up in the sleeve of the
regime would be rigging of the elections. By
deploying his charges right
there at the ballot centres where Mugabe would
be seeking to steal victory
through the usual systematic manipulation of the
electoral process. This
time there has to be more vigilance and the
slightest thwarting of the
polling agents especially those representing
opponents from the unhindered
execution of their duties should be actively
protested against. Mugabe's
rigging establishment will be out in full force
to try and see how they can
gift him with an undue victory because there is
something in it for these
people as well. These are the same people who have
been eating off the
system and they owe it to that disgraceful system to
preserve it, and they
will seek to preserve it even from an imminent
downfall.
The
calls for a new constitution may not necessarily benefit opposition
forces
in this coming election because the process is complicated and as it
is now,
quite bereft of time. The regime will ensure that the constitutional
process
if ever kick-started, would be prolonged, protracted and could
potentially
last for the entire duration of the election campaign and that
would ensure
minimum benefit to the opposition forces. This is a regime that
is so
dependant on foul play to frustrate fair play and this time will be no
different. One way to circumvent such potential manipulation of the
constitutional process would be to make only key amendments especially to
those significantly sticking points to the current
constitution.
There may be need to look at the electoral
provisions especially how the
current constitution favours the ruling party
through extortionate
allocation of parliamentary seats vis a vis appointed
versus elected
members. This obviously gives the ruling party an unfair
advantage and
defeats the whole essence of electing people to parliament.
The issue of the
repressive media laws such as POSA and AIPPA, and the
undemocratic
regulations pertaining to holding of political meetings and
rallies, all
these could simply be repealed in a targetted as opposed to a
wholesale
manner. The elections could also be held on the premise that who
ever wins
them and forms the next government would undertake the
constitutional
process from wherever it would be left. This is because a
constitutional
process is not a simple process and it is one that should
never be rushed
because it will revisit the country in a nasty
way.
People may say that a new draft constitution is already
complete but not
everyone has seen it and most people don't even know what
it looks like or
what it contains, or what it does not contain. IF the
document were truly
ready then this is the time to make it available to the
people of Zimbabwe
for a preview because such advance insight will do no
harm at all to process
that in any case, would be supposed to be done in the
open. People would
need to acquaint themselves with the new document and
study it so as to make
an informed decision when they endorse or reject it
in a referendum.
It is one thing to call for a new constitution
before the next polls, but
the fact that we are now talking of months rather
than years to go to the
elections would even make it all time sensitive.
People should never
overlook the time factor in such a complicated national
process.
Silence Chihuri writes from Scotland. He can be
contacted on
silencechihuri@hotmail.com