International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: April 8,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Roman Catholic bishops marked Easter with
an unprecedented
message to President Robert Mugabe to end oppression and
leave office
through democratic reform or face a mass revolt.
"The
confrontation in our country has now reached a flashpoint," said the
Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference in a pastoral message pinned up Sunday
at churches throughout the country.
"As the suffering population
becomes more insistent, generating more and
more pressure through boycotts,
strikes, demonstrations and uprisings, the
state responds with ever harsher
oppression through arrests, detentions,
banning orders, beatings and
torture," the nine bishops said.
The majority of Zimbabwe's Christians -
including Mugabe - are Roman
Catholics. Several thousand worshippers who
packed the cathedral in Harare -
clustered around the notice boards to read
the message after morning Mass on
Sunday.
Although the Catholic
bishops - especially Pius Ncube, the archbishop of the
second city of
Bulawayo, have criticized the government in the past, the
tone of this
year's pastoral message was the most strident since
independence from
Britain in 1980.
In his traditional Easter address from the central
balcony of St. Peter's
Basilica in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI singled
out Zimbabwe among other
troubled countries.
"Zimbabwe is in the grip of
a grievous crisis," he said.
The letter, entitled "God Hears the Cries of
the Oppressed," likened human
and democratic rights abuses under Mugabe to
the oppression of biblical
pharaohs and Egyptian slave
masters.
"Oppression is sin and cannot be compromised with," it
said.
As in the colonial era, the current conflict in Zimbabwe pitted
those
determined to maintain their privileges of power and wealth at any
cost,
even at the cost of bloodshed, against those demanding democratic
rights, it
said.
The conflict was "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," it
continued.
"Many people in Zimbabwe are
angry, and their anger is now erupting into
open revolt in one township
after another," said the bishops.
"In order to avoid further bloodshed
and avert a mass uprising, the nation
needs a new people-driven constitution
that will guide a democratic
leadership chosen in free and fair elections,"
it said.
A similar letter in the nearby nation of Malawi pressured
longtime dictator
Hastings Kamuzu Banda into holding a referendum on reform
in 1992 and
calling democratic elections, which he lost, ending 30 years of
brutal rule.
The Zimbabwe bishops' letter was also reminiscent of the
role of Catholic
churches in the eventual ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the
Philippines.
Deeply rooted Catholicism embraced the majority of the
population in the
Philippines and churches in Malawi triggered resistance to
Banda, said
Father Oskar Wermter of the Catholic communications secretariat
in Harare.
"We cannot yet say what the response of our congregations will
be, but basic
biblical teachings apply. Oppression is not negotiable. It
must stop before
there can be any dialogue," he said.
Wermter said
the bishops wanted the contents of the letter to receive the
widest possible
distribution. The letter was delivered in the traditional
rural strongholds
of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party across the country, where
priests showed
what he called a very strong interest in it.
The bishops called for a day
of prayer and fasting for Zimbabwe April 14 and
said there would be a prayer
service for Zimbabwe every week after that.
The Anglican church has been
more muted, with its leaders generally toeing
the ruling party
line.
Police violently broke up a multi-denominational prayer meeting
March 11,
describing it as a banned demonstration. Two pro-democracy
activists died
and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition Movement
for Democratic
Change, and a dozen senior colleagues were hospitalized after
beatings.
Mugabe subsequently headed off a challenge to his leadership to
win party
support to stand for another presidential term in national
elections in
2008. There was no response from the government Sunday to the
pastoral
letter and Mugabe was out of the country.
The
once-prosperous nation is reeling under hyperinflation of more than
1,700
percent, 80-percent unemployment, shortages of food and other basic
goods
and one of the world's lowest life expectancies.
"The suffering people of
Zimbabwe are groaning in agony," said the bishops.
"A tiny minority of the
people have become very rich overnight, while the
majority are languishing
in poverty. ... Our country is in deep crisis."
But the letter said it
also wanted to convey a message of hope.
"God is on your side. he always
hears the cry of the poor and oppressed and
saves them."
From The Sunday Express (UK), 8 April
By Obert Matahwa
British mercenary Simon Mann, a
close friend of Margaret Thatcher's son Sir
Mark, is close to death in a
hell-hole prison after being tortured by the
henchmen of dictator Robert
Mugabe. Mann, a former Old Etonian and SAS
officer, was last week revealed
to be suffering multiple organ failure in
his cell in the Zimbabwe capital,
Harare. He is also said to be going blind,
and has a life-threatening
intestinal condition caused by poor diet. The
53-year-old "security
consultant", originally from Hampshire, is serving a
seven-year sentence for
his part in an attempt to oust another dictator,
Teodor Obiang Nguema, head
of Zimbabwe's neighbour, Equatorial Guinea. Last
night Amnesty International
said it was monitoring Mann's condition and
attempting to obtain further
information. Mann has admitted being involved
in the arms trade in Africa,
but always denied his alleged part in the
foiled coup. He has maintained
that weapons found in his possession at
Harare airport in 2004 were destined
for a private company guarding diamond
mines in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. The mercenary has also maintained
that any confession he made was
beaten out of him. Sir Mark, an old school
friend, was convicted in 2005 by
a court in South Africa, which ruled that
he had helped finance the coup
attempt. Thatcher also denied any
involvement, but was given a suspended
four-year prison sentence and fined
£265,000. Mugabe is believed to have
been planning to hand Mann over to
Equatorial Guinea in exchange for oil.
The tiny former Spanish colony is
Africa's third largest producer and
poverty-stricken Zimbabwe is in
desperate need of fuel.
Mann has
not been able to attend two successive court sessions after being
admitted
to hospital at the Chikurubi maximum security prison. His lawyer,
Jonathan
Samkange, said his client is awaiting major surgery because of his
deteriorating health. "We have applied to the minister of justice for the
second time to have my client treated at a private hospital but that has
been unsuccessful," he said. "Simon Mann is suffering from multiple organ
failure and he needs a major operation to recoup. His sight needs a
check-up, he has developed scabies, and his digestive system has always been
upset." Explaining Mann's deteriorating health, Mr Samkange said the
mercenary was tortured in a bid to force him to reveal his coup plan. "I
have requested the court to investigate the findings that Mann had been
tortured in the run-up to the extradition hearings to force a pre-determined
outcome to the process. I am happy the prosecution has accepted my
application," he said. Mr Samkange was part of the group of human rights
lawyers that visited the country's prisons in March. According to prison
sources, Zimbabwe police assaulted and tortured Mann during a special
interrogation in the presence of officials from Equatorial Guinea who had
requested to see him as evidence that he is still in prison. Mr Samkange
said: "My client was severely tortured by members of the military
intelligence and Central Intelligence Organisation operatives in prison. The
prison authorities have not denied that Mann was tortured during unscheduled
visits by state security agents." He added: "Simon Mann has already been
tortured here in prison and we will not have him extradited to Equatorial
Guinea for further torture. He has been tortured at the request of a country
applying to have him tried under its jurisdiction."
Mr Samkange vowed
to resist efforts outside the law that the West African
country was pursuing
to win Mann's extradition. A Harare court will resume
extradition hearings
on Friday and the prosecution has promised to bring
Mann to court this time.
He is due to be released on May 11. The Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights,
which has been on a fact-finding mission to the
prison, confirmed Mr
Samkange's claims. The organisation reported: "Simon
Mann is very sick and
is still awaiting permission to have a complicated
operation that is beyond
the capacity of Chikurubi prison hospital." Another
European implicated in
the coup attempt, a former German soldier, died in
mysterious circumstances
soon after his arrest. He too was allegedly
tortured. Neil Durkin, spokesman
for Amnesty International, said: "If it is
indeed true that he has been
tortured in detention, it would be yet another
appalling example of gross
human rights violations in President Mugabe's
Zimbabwe." Mann's wife Amanda
was last night on holiday in Spain with their
three children. A family
friend in the village of Exbury, on the edge of the
New Forest, said: "We
didn't know anything about this, but we are not
surprised, given what they
do in these places. We just hope it's not that
bad." Sir Mark Thatcher was
last night unavailable for comment at his home
in London's Belgravia.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe police said yesterday they have
opened a murder
investigation into the death of an independent journalist.
The body of
Edward Chikombo, a former cameraman for the government-run
Zimbabwe TV
station, was found on March 31, dumped in the Darwindale
district, 20 miles
north of Harare.
Zim Online
Monday 09 April
2007
PRESIDENT Mugabe . . . cracking down on the opposition
By
Sebastian Nyamhangambiri
HARARE - A Zimbabwean opposition activist was last
night reportedly in
critical condition in hospital after state security
agents shot him under as
yet unclear circumstances.
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party spokesman Nelson Chamisa told
ZimOnline that
Philip Katsande, a member of the opposition party's Harare
provincial
executive had three bullets lodged in his body and was admitted
at the
government-run Parirenyatwa hospital under police guard.
"He is still in a
critical condition and that is why we are trying to have
him released from
Parirenyatwa so we can take him to private doctors," said
Chamisa, who speaks
for the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the splintered
MDC.
Police
spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unable to take questions
from
ZimOnline because he was yet to be fully briefed on events leading
to
Katsande's shooting, which comes on the back of a fresh crackdown
by
government agents against the MDC and other dissenting voices.
The
crackdown has seen dozens of MDC activists, civic society members
and
independent journalists abducted and severely tortured by suspected
agents
of the government's feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)
secret
police.
A independent television cameraman Edward Chikomba was last
week abducted
from his home by suspected state security agents who accused
him of
supplying foreign media with footage of a bruised Morgan
Tsvangirai
following his torture in police custody last month.
Chikomba's
body was found days after his abduction dumped near Darwendale,
some 50km
west of Harare.
Tsvangirai last month accused President Robert Mugabe of
sponsoring hit
squads to eliminate political opponents, a charge the
government has
vehemently rejected.
According to sources, armed CIO agents
raided Katsande's home in Harare's
Budiriro suburb, smashing windows and
doors and demanding to see the MDC
activist, who meanwhile had sought refuge
in the ceiling of the house.
The state agents beat up Katsande's wife and
kids until they revealed that
he was hiding in the ceiling and one of the
agents fired into the ceiling
hitting the opposition activist three times on
the shoulder and body.
The severely injured Katsande was later rushed to
Parirenyatwa hospital
where he is receiving treatment under police
guard.
The shooting of Katsande is likely to stoke up temperatures in a
country
where political tensions are already at dangerous levels, fuelled by
a
debilitating economic crisis and food shortages that have seen
the
government resort to more repressive methods to try and keep
public
discontent in check. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 09 April 2007
ABSALOM Mashanda, one of the many
Zimbabweans making a living by selling
wares on Namibian streets
Own
Correspondent
WINDHOEK - Some 2 000km away from home, 27-year Cuthbert Ngoro
is busy
trying to rebuild his shattered life, selling almost anything to
survive.
At this busy street corner in Windhoek, Namibia, Ngoro is selling
cellphone
recharge vouchers, and anything else that he lays his hands on for
survival.
Ngoro, a qualified teacher, is among millions of Zimbabweans who
have been
forced to flee their country's unprecedented economic meltdown that
has seen
80 percent of the working population without jobs.
"I am better
off here than I was in Zimbabwe. I can make more than N$100 a
day (about
Z$150 000), which is way more than what I used to get in my
country as a
teacher.
"When I left Zimbabwe last year, I was earning Z$120 000 a month,"
he says
with a wide grin.
A few kilometers away, Kudzai, a gorgeous lady
in her late twenties who
refused to give her full name, says she was a
registered nurse in Zimbabwe.
She too left home and is part of a group of
Zimbabwean women selling sex
behind the famous Kalahari Sands Hotel and
Casino in the heart of Windhoek.
"It's a tough job," she says with a straight
face.
"But it is nothing compared to the suffering I went through in
Zimbabwe. At
least I can afford to send money home and look after my two
children in
Harare," she told ZimOnline.
"Sometimes the police lock us up
but they release us the next day and we
will be back on the streets.
Sometimes we have to bribe our way out of
police stations," she
says.
Ngoro and Kudzai are among thousands of mostly highly educated and
qualified
Zimbabweans who are living in the Namibian capital engaged in petty
trading
or doing menial jobs for survival.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of an
unprecedented economic crisis that has
manifested itself in rampant inflation
of nearly 2 000 percent, widespread
unemployment and poverty.
The major
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party blames the
crisis on
repression and bad policies by President Robert Mugabe, in power
since the
country's independence from Britain 27 years ago.
But Mugabe denies the
charge blaming the crisis on sabotage by Britain and
her Western allies after
he seized white farms for redistribution to
landless blacks seven years
ago.
At least three million Zimbabweans or a quarter of the country's 12
million
people live in exile after fleeing an economic crisis described by
the World
Bank as the worst in the world outside a war zone.
Also among
these exiles is Jasper Kugotsi, who has been traveling to
Windhoek over the
past two years to sell anything from catapults to
hand-made
flower-pots.
Kugotsi says he used to work on a farm in the Chinhoyi farming
district. But
the farm was seized from its white owner in 2002 under Mugabe's
violent land
reforms leaving him to look for other means for survival.
"I
had lived and worked on the farm all my life. I was born there, my
parents
used to work at the farm. It was difficult for me to find new ways
of making
a living, but I am better off here in Namibia," Kugotsi said.
The presence of
the Zimbabwean traders has not gone without notice.
The Namibia Small Traders
Association (NASTA), which represents small
traders and hawkers has expressed
concern over the increasing numbers of
Zimbabwean traders on the
streets.
Veripi Kandenge, the NASTA secretary general, described Zimbabwean
traders
as a real nuisance and a threat to Namibian craftsmen.
"We need
government protection from these Zimbabwean vendors. They are
killing our
business because they are selling their wares at give away
prices," he
said.
"The Zimbabwean crafts are sold very cheaply. These guys are accepting
very
low prices for their products. Our crafts people and even shops that
are
selling these crafts cannot compete with the Zimbabweans who are
desperate
to make money," Kandenge said.
He said at every street corner
where one used to see two Namibian vendors,
at least 10 vendors now occupy
the spot, the majority of them being
Zimbabweans.
Namibia's National
Society for Human Rights (NSHR) which last month
organised protests over
Mugabe's presence in the country, said the influx of
Zimbabweans in the
country was a serious indictment on Mugabe's policies.
"It is pathetic.
People who are now fleeing Zimbabwe are not just the
professionals but
ordinary people as well. It is like people are running
away from fire," said
Phil ya Nangoloh, the NSHR executive director.
Nangoloh said the mass exodus
of Zimbabweans from their country was a
telling sign that Mugabe had dismally
failed to run what was once one of
Africa's prospects for success at
independence in 1980.
"The suffering in Zimbabwe is unprecedented. The crisis
has reached boiling
point and Mugabe must just go," said Ya Nangoloh. -
ZimOnline
Zim online
Monday 09
April 2007
By Tsungirirayi Murandu
HARARE - Zimbabwean opposition
leader Arthur Mutambara had his passport
briefly detained at Harare
International Airport on Good Friday as the
police continued with a crackdown
against government opponents.
Sources said a member of Zimbabwe's feared spy
agency took Mutambara's
passport soon after the opposition leader arrived
from Johannesburg, South
Africa.
"He had to wait for some time while the
CIO (Central Intelligence
Organisation) operatives at the airport went
through his passport," a source
said.
The source said the CIO move could
have been prompted by the fact that the
spy agency suspected that Mutambara
was coming from the United States. US
ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher
Dell was on the same flight from
Johannesburg.
"They eventually returned
Mutambara's travel document after establishing
that he had not gone to the
US," said the source.
Zimbabwe accuses the US and other Western governments
of complicity in a
plot to topple President Robert Mugabe's
government.
Dell and other Western ambassadors were in March threatened with
expulsion
from Zimbabwe for involving themselves in the country's internal
affairs.
Mutambara would have become the latest victim of a crackdown in
which the
CIO has confiscated passports of opponents.
The spy agency had
previously confiscated passports of media mogul, Trevor
Ncube, and trade
unionist Raymond Majongwe.
The crackdown is meant to silence government
critics.
Mutambara heads the smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic
Change
(MDC) which poses the greatest challenge to Mugabe's 27-year-old
rule.
The Harare authorities have since February targeted members of the MDC
and
other pro-democracy groups in a crackdown that saw several
opposition
leaders - including Morgan Tsvangirai who heads the other MDC
faction -being
brutally assaulted by the police. - ZimOnline
Monsters and Critics
Apr 8, 2007, 7:07 GMT
Harare/Johannesburg - The
US ambassador to Zimbabwe has dismissed
accusations by President Robert
Mugabe's government that Western diplomats
were interfering in the country's
internal affairs, reports said Sunday.
Instead, he accused Harare of
breaching obligations under the Vienna
Convention.
Christopher Dell
was reacting to accusations in state media that Western
diplomats were
meddling in Zimbabwe's internal political affairs in breach
of the Vienna
Convention governing diplomatic conduct.
This was after they attended a
press conference on Monday called by
opposition leader Arthur
Mutambara.
'We have reached a new height of ludicrousness this week in
seeing the
government, the official media claiming that diplomats attending a
press
briefing by an opposition figure is an unwarranted interference
in
Zimbabwe's affairs,' Dell said in an interview with the private
Standard
newspaper.
'I can't think of any country in the world, with
the exception of North
Korea, which would have the effrontery to define
meeting with political
figures in that country as a violation of the Vienna
Conventions,' he said.
Mugabe has threatened to expel Western diplomats
for what he says is their
meddling in local politics by showing concern for
opposition activists
arrested and beaten in police custody since the start of
a crackdown on the
opposition that began on March 11.
The US envoy
instead accused the government of failing to abide by the
Vienna Convention
by ensuring the safety of diplomats following threats in
the state media made
against British embassy spokeswoman, Gillian Dare.
A columnist for the
state-controlled Herald newspaper this week accused Dare
of being sympathetic
to the opposition party and warned she could get caught
in the crossfire of
the state's crackdown on the party and be returned to
London in a body
bag.
'The threats we have seen in the State media dealing with open
threats of
physical harm, culminating in attacks on Gillian Dare of the
British Embassy
are a clear abrogation of its obligations under the Vienna
Convention,' Dell
said.
The ambassador, who is probably the most
outspoken of all the Western envoys
accredited to Harare, shrugged off
threats to expel him.
'Sending me away now would provide me an
opportunity to speak out more
directly, not only in the US but throughout the
region,' he said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Register Guard
By Michael
Wines
The New York Times
Published: Sunday, April 8, 2007
HARARE,
Zimbabwe - There is nothing subtle about the reaction of President
Robert
Mugabe's government to the latest surge of political unrest in
Zimbabwe.
By the scores - by the hundreds, some opposition figures
say - people
critical of Mugabe's rule are being cornered on sidewalks,
hauled to jails
or simply abducted from their homes in early morning raids,
and then
savagely beaten.
The main faction of the leading opposition
group, the Movement for
Democratic Change, says that at least 500 of its
members have been attacked
in the past month. The number of attacks on civic
advocates and other
opposition figures is less clear but appears
substantial.
Mugabe's government appears to have responded to recent
opposition with a
crackdown that strikes some here as an act of paranoia, if
not desperation.
Mugabe was widely quoted last month as saying that ''the
police have a right
to bash'' protesters who resist them, and added that the
main leader of the
Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai,
deserved the beating he
received March 11 - leaving him hospitalized with a
head wound and possible
skull fracture.
An international furor
erupted this week after The Herald, a
government-controlled newspaper that
frequently speaks for officials in
power, suggested that one British
diplomat that it accused of aiding
opposition figures might return to London
''in a body bag, like some of her
colleagues from Iraq and
Afghanistan.''
''This is not a regime that is ensconced in the affections
of the people,''
Iden Wetherell, an editor of the weekly Zimbabwe
Independent, said in his
downtown offices this week. ''There's a real fear
of popular mobilization.''
Civic advocates, opposition figures and
human-rights advocates call this a
low-intensity war on Mugabe's critics
that represents a new chapter in the
government's years-long effort to
stifle dissent.
Precisely who is behind the attacks is often unclear.
Some have been
attacked by uniformed police officers, and frequently have
been imprisoned
as well. At least 25 victims of attacks have faced charges
in Harare courts
in the past week alone, Tafadzwa Mugabe, a lawyer for
Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights, said in an interview.
Some
opposition figures and civic advocates say they believe that the
government's tactics will backfire, drawing more international condemnation
and leaching away the support from neighboring governments that is seen as
critical to Mugabe's government. And in fact, Mugabe's threat to ''bash''
dissidents drew a mild rebuke this week from South Africa's president, Thabo
Mbeki, who told The Financial Times that African leaders were dismayed by
photographs of bloodied and beaten protesters. For the present, however, the
effect of the attacks has been to terrorize the government's critics, some
of whom have gone into hiding, changed their mobile telephone numbers or
simply fallen silent.
Comment from The Sunday Times (SA), 8 April
Mondli Makhanya
There's
this old saying about how the one thing we learn from history is how
we
learn nothing from history. It always comes back to me when I think of
the
events of Good Friday, 2000. Dozens of us journos had gathered at the
Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls to cover a make-or-break summit that
would stop Zimbabwe's slide into the abyss. The government-backed land
invasions were in full force; opposition members campaigning ahead of that
year's June parliamentary elections were being beaten and tortured by police
and Zanu PF militias; the media and the judiciary were being strangled; the
Zimbabwean dollar was heading south in a most dramatic fashion; fuel
shortages were rife and the general economy was in free fall. So South
Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, Mozambique's Joachim Chissano and Namibia's
Sam Nujoma descended on Victoria Falls with a view of talking nicely to
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe .
They came out of the
marathon meeting brimming with optimism. They told us
that Mugabe had agreed
to a series of measures to restore normality to a
country that had been one
of post-colonial Africa's shining stars. Among the
measures were that war
veterans would be removed from the farms within 30
days; the rule of law
would be restored and conditions for free political
activity would be
created. On the economic front, an orderly land-reform
programme would be
agreed on and negotiations on funding it would be entered
into with Britain
and donor agencies. When queried about why they were so
confident that
Mugabe would meet his end of the bargain, the three
presidents expressed
irritation that such a question could even be asked.
"He is a head of state
making a commitment to fellow heads of state and that
is good enough. Why
would you want to question his integrity?" was the basic
response.
The following week, Mugabe and his lieutenants were
traversing the
countryside, repudiating everything that had been said at
Victoria Falls.
The message to the masses: there is no way we will order
Zimbabweans off the
land they have reclaimed from the colonialists; there is
no way we will set
comrade against comrade by getting security forces to
evict war veterans
from occupied farms; there is no way we will allow the
stooges of
colonialists (the Movement for Democratic Change) to campaign to
give the
country back to the British. Point by point they rubbished the Good
Friday
agreement, the very commitment that man of integrity had made to
fellow
heads of state. I am writing this column on Good Friday 2007 (yes,
some of
us poor sods had to get up this morning to produce the newspaper you
are
holding in your hands) a week after the South African Development
Community
heads of state gathered in Tanzania, where Mugabe's colleagues
received a
commitment from him on restoring political stability to his
country.
In terms of the Dar es Salaam minute, Mugabe agreed to a
process to enter
into dialogue with his rivals and other sections of
Zimbabwean society. By
all accounts, the SADC leaders were quite tough on
Mugabe behind closed
doors. And they walked away believing that the man of
integrity would help
them to help himself. But a day after the summit,
Mugabe was back on the
podiums, proclaiming that his brother leaders had in
fact backed his errant
ways because they believed his version that the
imperialists were behind the
opposition. Over the same weekend, his goons
beat up more opposition leaders
and jailed more activists. And Mugabe was
endorsed as a candidate for yet
another term of office - all as if nothing
had happened in Dar es Salaam.
The point is that if South Africa and its
neighbours had been willing to
learn from history, they would have known by
now that Mugabe is a liar who
has no respect for them or the offices they
occupy.
A question that is asked of those who are critical of the
so-called quiet
diplomacy approach is: "What were we expected to do?" The
answer should
always start with what they should not have done. They should
not have
legitimised him by endorsing three stolen elections and by
repeatedly
denying - in the face of incontrovertible evidence - that there
was erosion
of human rights and democratic practice. At various
international forums our
representatives should not have acted as Mugabe's
bodyguards. Here at home
the government and the ANC should not have given
Zanu PF revolutionary
credentials when it was clear there was nothing left
in the party that said
"liberation movement". So what could we have done and
what can we still do?
The first step for the South African government is to
treat Robert Mugabe
with a great degree of distrust. The next step would be
to get the rest of
Zimbabwean society, mainly the civil society activists
who we have betrayed,
to trust our honest-broker bona fides. And then we
need to speak loudly
about the principles of the African Union charter and
the SADC treaty and
protocols - documents that the Mugabe government has
endorsed. These are not
imperialists' impositions, but minimum standards
that we on the continent
have agreed to. They are a legitimate platform for
intervention.
Mail and Guardian
Susan Njanji | Harare,
08 April 2007
10:29
South African President Thabo Mbeki's mission to
resolve the
crisis across the border in Zimbabwe faces slim prospects of
success due to
deep-rooted suspicion between the protagonists, analysts
say.
Mbeki was entrusted with the task by fellow Southern
African
leaders at a summit last month to broker talks between the
opposition and
President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF.
Sources close to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) said
Mbeki had already begun paving the way by setting up a
five-strong team to
draft the ground rules for the negotiations.
In an interview
last week, Mbeki acknowledged that there was
ultimately little he could do
if neither side wanted the mediation to work.
"The only way
to deal with these problems and the only way to
achieve results is if we
encourage the Zimbabwean political parties to
engage with one another ...
Whether we succeed or not is up to the
Zimbabwean leadership," he told the
Financial Times. "None of us in the
region has any power to force the
Zimbabweans to agree."
Scepticism
Both Mugabe
and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai have given their
approval to Mbeki's
intervention, but Zimbabwe commentators have voiced deep
scepticism about
him getting results given the mistrust and issues to be
tackled.
"The prospects are a mixed bag; the outcome is
likely to be
half-baked," said University of Zimbabwe political scientist
John Makumbe.
Political scientist Eldred Masunungure said the
enmity between
the MDC and Zanu-PF could be an insurmountable hurdle,
especially in the
wake of a recent crackdown on the opposition that saw
Tsvangirai arrested
and assaulted.
The latest violence
"deepened the mistrust and suspicion and
that is a major stumbling block",
said Masunungure.
While the onus would be on Mbeki to craft
confidence-building
measures, analysts believe the South African president
may not himself be
widely trusted by the opposition given his reluctance to
criticise Mugabe.
"Mbeki himself is a source of suspicion by
the MDC," said
Masunungure. "Previously they did not see him as an honest
and impartial
broker and he may be seen as part of the problem by the
MDC."
Makumbe agreed that "the other hurdle is
Mbeki".
"He has not yet said he has abandoned his
quiet-diplomacy policy
and that will be a major drawback," said
Makumbe.
Most of the three million Zimbabweans to have fled
their country
in the wake of an economic meltdown, which has seen inflation
climb to 1
730% and unemployment at 80%, have crossed over to South
Africa.
Kid gloves
While Levy Mwanawasa,
president of Zimbabwe's northern neighbour
Zambia, has said the "quiet
diplomacy" policy has not delivered, Mbeki is
sticking to his
guns.
"Mbeki can't afford to handle the parties with kid
gloves any
more while the economy continues to break down and human rights
violations
escalate," said Makumbe.
Experts say issues
that need to be addressed include opposition
demands for a new democratic
constitution and a credible electoral body to
oversee presidential and
parliamentary elections next year. Mugabe, Africa's
oldest leader at 83, was
recently chosen as Zanu-PF's candidate.
They also say the
electoral roll needs to be revamped, with
hundreds of thousands of potential
voters absent from the list.
Such demands are likely to be
met with resistance by Zanu-PF,
which analysts say has used the present
system to ensure victory. "I don't
think that Zanu-PF will like to dig their
own grave by accepting" conditions
for free and fair polls, according to
Masunungure.
Takavafira Zhou, a lecturer at southern
Zimbabwe's Masvingo
University, doubted Mbeki would ever be prepared to get
tough with the
notoriously stubborn Mugabe.
"I don't
think that he will succeed, because African leaders see
President Mugabe as
a champion of pan-Africanism and not as a crocodile
liberator and an
autocrat," said Zhou. -- Sapa-AFP
The Age, Australia
April 9,
2007 - 2:24PM
Australia must cancel the scheduled cricket tour of
Zimbabwe because it is
one measure its brutal dictator Robert Mugabe would
notice, a pro-democracy
rally has been told.
Addressing a
demonstration outside the Zimbabwe embassy in Canberra,
Zimbabwe Information
Centre president Meredith Burgmann said President
Mugabe was a cricket
tragic just like Prime Minister John Howard.
"It would mean a huge amount
if Australia didn't travel to Zimbabwe," she
said.
Mr Howard, who is
considering stepping up sanctions against Zimbabwe because
of its brutal
repression of opposition activists, was also urged to aim
sanctions at the
children of Zimbabwe regime officials studying at
Australian
universities.
Dr Burgmann, the former Labor president of the NSW
Legislative Council said
Mr Mugabe, patron of Zimbabwe cricket and president
of the Harare Cricket
Club, played a key role in selecting the Zimbabwe
side, excluding those
opposed to his regime.
"My understanding is
that the contract that the Australian Cricket Board has
with international
cricket is they have to forfeit, I think it is $5
million, unless the
government tells them they must not go.
"That is what we are calling the
government to do. It is really important
for the Australian government to
step up."
In the protest, some two dozen demonstrators chanted slogans
and waved
placards calling the Zimbabwe president a brutal dictator who had
to go.
Canberra has imposed so-called smart sanctions on Zimbabwe,
including
freezing Australian assets of top officials and barring their
travel here.
Protest organiser Peter Murphy said it was time for those
sanctions to get
even smarter and target the dozen or so children of top
regime officials
studying at Australian universities.
"We believe
they are mainly in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth," he said.
Mr Murphy
said the current sanctions did not specifically bar them studying
in
Australia.
"However it does say all financial transactions of these
people are banned.
So sending money here must be banned," he
said.
"Children are getting money from their parents. They (the
Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade) could be tougher. I believe they
can do this."
Catholic Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn Pat Power said the
world could not
stand by and watch as had occurred with the Rwandan
genocide.
"I compare it to abuse and violence in a family," he
said.
"You can't just stand by and say that's the business of this
family. When
vulnerable people are involved, people such as ourselves have
got to stand
up and say enough is enough."
© 2007 AAP
The Cornell Daily Sun, New York
Brutal Honesty
By
Jeff Purcell
Apr 9 2007
The crisis in Zimbabwe might be reaching
its climax. Dozens of stories have
appeared in the most prominent
publications describing the freefall in the
country. If only our eyes were
wider sooner.
Zimbabwe's 13 million people have the lowest life
expectancy on earth -
women can expect death at 34 and men by 37. Inflation
is over 1000 percent
and for some time currency has been used as toilet
paper in many places,
including the capital, Harare. Because trade stopped
and shelves were empty,
the money retained but one use. In May, a roll of
toilet paper cost over
140,000 Zim dollars.
In July I was in Durban,
South Africa, and I met people from Zimbabwe. Some
were refugees, selling
tomatoes and wooden souvenirs on the side of the
road. Malcolm had come from
Zim the prior year, and worked near my
apartment. Every week or so, on my
walk to work, we talked for a few
minutes. When news surfaced that the
country's President, Robert Mugabe, had
recently completed a new 26-bedroom
palace - while the rest of his country
was starving - Malcolm said, "We
suffer for his riches." Tom, another Zim
man I met, gave me a 100,000
Zimbabwean dollar note. It had an expiration
date printed six months from
then - a signal of the currency's
near-collapse.
Mugabe has done much
to destroy local health clinics and to ban media into
his country. The BBC
is barred, for instance, and most reports we get from
Zim are filed from
Johannesburg, 600 miles away. We already viewed Zimbabwe
from a distance,
but for the past six years our field of vision shrank
further. Credible
estimates, however, indicate that about 33 percent of the
population carries
HIV. Without a health infrastructure (nurses, clinics,
doctors, pharmacies)
and funding for adequate care, the virus rapidly
becomes AIDS, and soon
infections and ailments that can be cured
inexpensively elsewhere kill
Zimbabweans early.
Last May, Zim's National Pharmaceutical Company ran
out of money. The
anti-retroviral drugs that keep HIV from multiplying were
administered to
about 20,000 people in the country, out of an infected total
of around 1/3
of the adult population, so roughly 3 million people. Zimbabwe
is ravaged by
HIV: more than one in 10 newborns are expected to die of an
AIDS-related
illness by five and 25 percent of the labor market will die by
2025. There
are more orphans per capita there than anywhere else in the
world. The
amount of money needed to buy the next batch of drugs was $7.4
million
American dollars, and the company only had
$106,000.
Consequently, the few patients receiving the medicines stopped
treatment. As
a result, they cannot take ARVs again because their HIV will
become
resistant. As the virus replicates, it will prevent them from
resisting
minor infections and routine viruses. These people go from
statistic to
statistic. And all the time they're just data
points.
Today, all this adds up, quickly, to millions of people dying
early and
painfully. Zimbabwe didn't collapse overnight; on the sidelines
we've
watched its people decline for decades. Three decades ago, Mugabe led
the
Zimbabwe African National Union to victory over what remained of
colonial
Rhodesia. Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company drove out
everyone who
lived there and divided the assets of land, minerals and
people. The
settlers were particularly opposed to ending their racist
control over the
land and government - after decades of settler rule, they
declared
independence from Britain in 1965, basing the declaration on
America's. The
world took notice and put sanctions on Ian Smith's Rhodesia,
but mostly the
history played out without much interest from abroad after
that.
It wasn't until almost 1980 that the war between black African
revolutionaries and white settlers finally ended. The Rhodesians conscripted
every white man to fight in the most brutal ways - anthrax was spread on
food stocks, and cholera and rat poison were dumped in rivers. When it all
ended, Mugabe became president, and it was time to rebuild. But in terms of
land reform, there was no success. The government could return land, but
only if the whites who owned most of it agreed to sell, the "willing
buyer-willing seller" model. Their refusal meant that most Zimbabweans
stayed poor and landless. Though the farms were productive and Zimbabwe
could feed itself, the black majority population never touched a profit, and
continued to live as they had before their country became independent. As
the population grew after independence and productive requirements on the
soil increased, more and more citizens demanded land reform. Mugabe's rule
was challenged, and he silenced and killed thousands of opponents, yet kept
winning reelection. Though recent elections were clear frauds, his
supporters are still many. One group of opponents, the Movement for
Democratic Change, has spearheaded a campaign for free and fair elections, a
return to media and political freedom and an end to the policies that have
starved their country. In the past year, Mugabe has become increasingly
violent against urban supporters of the MDC, and has razed thousands of
shack settlements, like the one Malcolm grew up in.
He's blamed the
British and Americans for supporting his rivals, but he's
wrong. The British
stopped funding land reform when Mugabe started stealing
farms for his
cronies. And the U.S. has barely made a sound. South Africa,
too, has been
silent, unwilling to disturb Mugabe for the sake of the
millions he makes
"suffer for his riches."
Zimbabwe is a complicated country with a deep
history. It is exceptional in
so many ways. But so often we imagine
countries like Zimbabwe to be only a
place of hungry victims. In America,
we're used to treating Africa as one
large village, or one tiny nuisance.
But neither of those things is true.
Africa is huge, heterogeneous and
complex. There are some who are simply
good and bad, and rich and poor, but
there are millions more who are driven
by many factors, and not simply any
one thing.
A snapshot of Zimbabwe is an attempt to complicate its
situation, not reduce
it to a children's story. As Mugabe's rule comes
toward its end, the MDC's
Morgan Tsvangirai is recovering from brutal
attacks. Last month Mugabe's
police nearly beat him to death. But he fights
to regain his strength, and
not become another number. He fights, and the
next day comes nearer to his
56th birthday. Zim is worth our efforts and our
interest, and not just when
it freefalls. It's not a world away from us -
there's one world for us all.
Jeff Purcell is a graduate student in
Africana Studies. He can be reached at
jlp56@cornell.edu. Brutal Honesty appears
Mondays.
news.com.au
From correspondents
in Lusaka
April 08, 2007 07:40pm
Article from: Agence
France-Presse
ZAMBIA'S founding president Kennneth Kaunda today urged his
long-time ally
Robert Mugabe to open talks with Zimbabwe's opposition in
order to end the
political crisis in the southern African nation.
Mr
Kaunda, in his weekly newspaper diary, said all parties in Zimbabwe
should
come together and embrace South African President Thabo Mbeki who has
been
mandated by regional leaders to help resolve the crisis.
"I hope and pray
that Mugabe will ... talk to Morgan Tsvangirai and they
will sit together to
find answers to the problems Zimbabwe is facing today
regardless of who
brought these problems," he said.
He said the appointment of Mbeki as
mediator by the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) regional bloc
was bringing hope to Zimbabwe.
"It is therefore a very hopeful situation
developing in Zimbabwe. With the
outstanding ability of SADC, who can have
doubt that we are getting ready
for a new start in Zimbabwe," the
82-year-old former president said.
Mr Kaunda insisted that there was no
need to "demonise" Mugabe over the
problems in his country saying the crisis
had been caused by a historic
blunder of Zimbabwe's former colonial master,
Britain.
Mr Kaunda's support for 83-year-old Mugabe is in contrast to
that of
Zambia's current President Levy Mwanawasa who has compared the
situation in
Zimbabwe to the sinking of the Titanic.
Zimbabwe has
currently has the world highest rate of inflation at 1730 per
cent while
four out of five people are unemployed. Mugabe has also attracted
Western
criticism after recent assaults on opposition leaders.
The Vigil started ahead of time -
people are so keyed up by developments in
Zimbabwe. For the third week in a
row Vincent arrived well ahead of
everyone else. It helps to have barriers
outside the Embassy. It means we
can get our banners up very quickly. In
the past the police have only
provided barriers for big demonstrations but
there is so much happening at
the moment that they now leave them
permanently. Our start up today took a
different pattern - we sang the
national anthem followed by an impassioned
prayer for those suffering at
home by Vigil Co-ordinator, Evelyn.
As you will know, Zimbabwean churches
have called for prayers for Zimbabwe.
They have asked for our support. On
Wednesday 4th April the Vigil wrote to
the Archbishop of York, the
Ugandan-born John Sentamu, asking him to join us
at our Vigil on 21st April,
when we are having a special focus on prayer for
Zimbabwe. Here is the text
of the letter we sent:
"Dear Archbishop Sentamu
Request for you to
be a guest speaker at the Zimbabwe Vigil on 21st April
2007
Mulimutiya Baba
We hope this finds you well, and we wish
to apologise for the late notice of
this letter.
We are having a
special Vigil on the 21st April to pray for Zimbabwe. The
date is
significant because it will be the first Vigil after 18th April
2007, the
27th Anniversary of Zimbabwe's Independence. We seek to
acknowledge that
only a God-centred solution will bring peace to our land,
and an end to the
turmoil that has engulfed our beloved homeland.
The Zimbabwe Vigil,
outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes
place every Saturday
from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations
of human rights by
the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started
in October 2002 will
continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held
in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
We have
thought and prayed long and hard about who we would like to speak at
this
event, and decided that you would be the best person. We believe you to
be a
powerful prayer-warrior and someone who speaks without reserve when it
comes
to saying what needs to be said. It would be less easy for Mr Mugabe
to
brush you aside as an agent of the imperial masters as you are a fellow
African. Also, as you are someone who has faced persecution for standing
against the whims and fancies of an African dictator, we feel that your
voice will be the quiet voice of reason that cannot be drowned out by the
cacophony of political gerrymandering that so often swamps the Zimbabwe
debate.
We hope and pray that you will be able to come. God bless
you.
The Zimbabwe Vigil Team"
The letter concludes "PS Christians
in Zimbabwe are hoping that a "Prayer
Call" can be scheduled for church
services across the country and hopefully
the world on 15th April to focus
on the governance of the country, the
respect for the rule of law, basic
human rights, the hyper inflation that is
decimating all salaries and
savings and last, but not least, the HIV / AIDS
pandemic and other
infections, diseases and ailments that often go untreated
due to lack of
staff, drugs and money."
Because our request was so late and the
Archbishop is such a busy man, we
will be lucky if he is free. But we
wanted to register with him our country's
great need. Several churches have
been invited to join us and we have also
asked churches in the UK to join
churches across Zimbabwe in prayers for the
country on Sunday, 15th April.
We are sorry that our good friend the
Reverend Dr. Martine Stemerick is
unable to come. She has to be at a synod
on 21st April but is speaking
about the situation in Zimbabwe on the Rob
Frost show on Premier Radio
(Christian Radio) on 22nd April.
On Wednesday, 32 Vigil supporters joined
Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA)
and the Trades Union Congress (TUC)
outside the Zimbabwe Embassy in support
of a general strike by the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions. A senior
Labour MP, Michael Meacher, was with us
together with the human rights
campaigner, Peter Tatchell, and many trade
union leaders. We were proud that
our supporters, with their singing and
dancing, gave the demonstration such
a true touch of Zimbabwe. We are
pleased to have the strong support of our
British trade union friends and
ACTSA, the successor to the Anti-Apartheid
Movement, which is campaigning
hard against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
Today we launched our new
petition and took pains to explain the background
(see Press Release - diary
item 3rd April 2007). The petiton reads "We
record our dismay at the failure
of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) to help the desperate
people of Zimbabwe at their time of
trial. We urge the UK government, and
the European Union in general, to
suspend government to government aid to
all 14 SADC countries until they
abide by their joint commitment to uphold
human rights in the region." The
petition may be controversial but many
passers-by were happy to sign it.
Vigil supporters remain very angry at the
lack of public condemnation of
human rights abuses in Zimbabwe by the
governments of the SADC countries.
We were grateful to have Patson down
with three carloads from Leicester. He
was also down on Wednesday and last
Saturday.We are inspired by his
dedication. It was also great to have
Ancilla back complete with baby,
Prosper. Unusually we were joined by 2
Muslim ladies, who signed our
petitions. One of the ladies was from Somalia
and said she knew what we
were going through.
The Vigil ended with a
whipround for the family of the murdered news
cameraman, Edward Chikomba -
we raised nearly £100. Talking about raising
money for the suffering back
home, Roy Bennett, Treasurer of the MDC, is
appealing for funds for medical
expenses: www.zimfund.com.
For this
week's Vigil pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 62 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
- Monday,
9th April, there will be no Central London Zimbabwe Forum
because it is a
public holiday.
- Wednesday, 18th April, 2 - 5 pm - the second
Belfast Vigil (to
mark Zimbabwean Independence Day). Venue to be
advised.
- Saturday, 21st April, 2 - 6 pm outside Zimbabwe House -
special
Vigil to pray for Zimbabwe (but with the usual singing and
dancing!)
- Saturday, 28th April, 11 am - 3 pm. The Bristol Vigil
meets under
the covered way, just near the Watershed, Canon's Road,
Harbourside.
Vigil co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe
Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00
to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in
Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
Cricinfo
staff
April 7, 2007
Phil Simmons: 'Where's all
the money gone?' © Getty Images
Former Zimbabwe coach Phil Simmons
has spoken out about the state of cricket
in country and called on the ICC to
take action to investigate allegations
of mismanagement.
Simmons, who
takes charge of Ireland after the World Cup, told
cricket365.com that there
were many things that needed looking into, with
the most pressing being the
unanswered questions about the whereabouts of
the millions of dollars poured
into the board in the last few years.
"Where's all the money gone?
Because there's no new infrastructure, no new
grounds have been built. Where
has the money gone?
And he warned things were only likely to get worse.
"If things aren't run
properly, it's the players that you lose. They've lost
so many players over
the years and they're going to lose a lot after this
World Cup. A lot of
these youngsters are disillusioned with what's happening
and they're going
to lose a lot of them straight after this World Cup because
they're fed up
with all sorts of things.
"I think that the ICC should
get a full independent audit team to go in and
go through all the books and
find out where all this money went before they
decide to pay the millions
they're meant to pay them now. Because all that's
going to happen is that
those funds are going to disappear too. They should
also make sure that
everyone who they owe money is paid before any money is
given to the
organisation."
Simmons is owed more than US$100,000 by the board
following his dismissal as
coach in 2005, and several other players,
including Heath Streak and Andy
Blignaut, are believed to be claiming more
than US$200,000. It is the manner
of his removal that grates as much as the
money. "Even before they told me
that they were re-assigning me, Kevin Curran
[the current coach] was down
there to take over so it must have meant that
they had spoken to him before
they decided to re-assign me. They seemed
pretty eager to get rid of me
because players were still coming to me for
advice.
"They even tried to ship me out to Kenya, saying that Kenya
wanted someone
to run their academy. If you look now a lot of players are
still coming to
me and asking for advice."
Referring to reports that
shortly after his dismissal almost all the
Zimbabwe players had signed a
petition asking for his recall and saying they
did not want Curran, Simmons
told cricket365.com: "Well, if you sign a
petition saying that you don't want
someone as your coach it means you don't
have any confidence in him. And as
far as I've heard from the players
nothing has changed since then."
©
Cricinfo
Cape Times
April 09, 2007 Edition 2
Angus Shaw
THE
economic chaos engulfing Zimbabwe has turned even a mundane task such as
renting a car into an unachievable dream for the average law-abiding
citizen.
A car rental company on Saturday quoted a day rate of Z$690
000 to hire a
basic model, plus a deposit of Z$25 million. This is the
equivalent of a
staggering US$2 760 per day - plus a deposit of US$100 000 -
at the official
exchange rate, but only US$35 and US$1 250 respectively on
the black market.
The figures provide an insight into the growth of the
black market economy
in this once-prosperous nation, which is now reeling
under hyperinflation of
over 1 700% and suffering from shortages of most
basic goods.
Most analysts predict inflation will soar even further this
year.
The number of Zimbabwe dollars that bought a three-bedroom house
with a
swimming pool and tennis court in 1990 today - at official exchange
rates -
would buy a single brick.
The independent Consumer Council
estimates regular supermarket goods
increased in price by between 50 and
200% last month alone.
President Robert Mugabe blames sanctions, drought
and former colonial power
Britain for the collapse of an economy based on
exports of agricultural and
mineral products.
Others blame land
grabs, in which Mugabe encouraged blacks to force out most
of the 5 000
white commercial farmers who owned 40% of all agricultural land
and produced
75% of agricultural output.
Zimbabwe's main foreign currency earnings
comes from an estimated 3.5
million of its nationals living abroad,
replacing tobacco exports, tourism
and mining revenues slashed in six years
of political turmoil.
Zimbabweans abroad routinely send hard currency
home to their families, much
of it ending up on the black market - and
giving even impoverished villagers
the benefit of black market deals, making
most of the population
lawbreakers, analysts say.
Currency violations
carry the penalty of a fine or imprisonment in laws,
which are invoked often
but mainly by political and business rivals seeking
to settle
grudges.
Many Zimbabweans are prepared to run the risk, saying they have
no choice as
the official rate is Z$250 to the US dollar, and the black
market rate is
Z$20 000 to the US dollar.
For instance, a pack of six
wax candles, traditionally used by the rural
poor but now essential in urban
homes during frequent power outages, sold
for Z$47 000, which was US$188 by
the official rate, or US$2.35 at the
unofficial one.
A can of soda
water on Saturday cost Z$10 000, or US$40 at the official
rate, and 50 US
cents at the black market rate. The shop price of a bottle
of imported
Scotch whisky was about Z$500 000, or US$2 000 officially and
US$25 on the
black market.
A Zimbabwean motorist wanting to rent a car on Saturday was
told that the
Z$25 million deposit on a Volkswagen Chico was payable in cash
- bundles of
it - or a bank certified cheque on a day banks were closed for
Easter.
Automatic teller machines dispense a government-fixed maximum of
Z$500 000 a
day, or US$2 000 officially and US$25 on the black market, to
each account
holder.
"When we accept cash, it's obviously coming from
the black market.
"We don't ask questions or we'd be out of business,"
said an official of the
rental company. - Sapa-AP
Pretoria News
April 09, 2007 Edition
1
America's ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell is being singled
out by
President Robert Mugabe's government as public enemy number one
because of
his increasingly frank and public criticism of the
government.
This weekend he said that Zimbabwe had entered a new phase of
brutality
since the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had failed
to rein
Mugabe in after its recent summit in Tanzania.
"The mask is
now off and we can see the beast for what it is," he said.
Much hope is
now being pinned on the SADC summit's appointment of President
Mbeki to
facilitate dialogue between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) opposition towards a new political dispensation to
enable free
and fair elections next year.
However, in an interview with Independent
newspapers, Dell expressed great
scepticism about the SADC initiative,
warning Mbeki and the SADC not to be
hoodwinked by Mugabe as they had been
several times before.
Dell also said that there was little chance of real
change in Zimbabwe with
Mugabe at the helm. This kind of frankness is, of
course, really annoying
Mugabe and also, to a degree, other countries in the
region, including our
own, which has been rejecting calls for what it calls
"regime change".
Talking about regime change is presumably intended to
evoke subliminal
images of the US launching cruise missiles to take out
Mugabe's government
and install a pro-Western MDC "puppet
regime".
This is of course nonsensical. America and the West are simply
calling for
the political playing field to be levelled to give the
opposition a fair
shot at power. In fact, Dell made it clear that he
believed the MDC should
contest next year's elections - even if the
political playing field had not
been levelled by then.
Democrats
fight elections he said, however unfair those elections might be
and he
warned the MDC that if it vacillated about its participation in the
expected
March 2008 elections as it did about its participation in previous
elections, it would do itself and the cause of democracy further
harm.
These were not exactly the words of a hawkish neocon calling for
the violent
toppling of Robert Mugabe. This was a democrat calling on the
government to
allow truly democratic elections and on the opposition to
oppose Mugabe by
peaceful, democratic means.
Dell's suggestion that
Mugabe might have to go before any real change
happened was not so radical
either.
Even the ANC sent a delegation to Zanu-PF in December 2001 to try
to
persuade it not to nominate Mugabe as a candidate for the March 2005
presidential elections.
But in the end, is Dell's increasingly
critical stance helpful to the cause
of democracy?
It can be argued
that he is playing into Mugabe's portrayal of the MDC as
mere stooges of the
West.
Mugabe's propaganda got an apparent shot in the arm last week when
the US
State Department issued a report in which it acknowledged that "to
further
strengthen pro-democracy elements, the US government continues to
support
the efforts of the political opposition, the media and civil society
. "
The MDC rapidly distanced itself from the report which did indeed
look like
another example of one arm of the State Department's vast
bureaucracy not
knowing what the other was doing.
The report was
written by the State Department to demonstrate to the US
Congress that it
was fulfilling its congressional mandate to promote
democracy around the
world.
Such blapses aside, though, one senses Dell is becoming
increasingly vocal
out of growing frustration that all the SADC has done is
yet again retreat
behind the facade of quiet diplomacy to leave Mugabe to
beat the hell out of
his opponents with impunity.
The Canberra Times
09 April 2007
Cameron Ross
ZIMBABWEAN President
Robert Mugabe's extraordinary instinct for
survival has been underestimated
before, but recent events suggest his
27-year grip on power could be in the
initial stages of disintegration.
The national strike called for last
week proved to be a damp squib,
with many Zimbabweans too poor to be able to
afford to stay away from work.
Mugabe's candidacy for the 2008 presidential
elections has been endorsed by
the ruling Zanu-PF party, but elsewhere
pressure is building on the
President to step down.
The United
States has admitted it is supporting opposition figures in
the country, and
sponsoring events aimed at "discrediting" statements made
by Mugabe's
Government. America (like Britain) does not support regime
change, but a
State Department report issued last Thursday committed the US
to sponsoring
"public events" that presented economic and social analyses
discrediting the
Government's excuse for its failed policies. Speaking at
the launch of the
report, a State Department official said the US had a duty
to speak out so
Zimbabweans knew they had support.
Mugabe has long made effective
propaganda out of perceptions of
western interference in Zimbabwe's affairs,
and this State Department report
is likely to be further grist for the mill.
As distasteful and embarrassing
as his regime is, Mugabe knows he can count
on the support of his neighbours
whenever Zimbabwe is criticised by a
"colonial" power.
There are a signs however, Mugabe has become an
embarrassment to two
of his greatest supporters South Africa and his own
Zanu-PF party. South
Africa's benign view of Mugabe's behaviour, rooted in
notions of black
solidarity and the shared struggle to overthrow white
supremacist colonial
regimes, has been the biggest outside influence on its
hold on power. Were
it not for South African aid, Zimbabwe would have
collapsed long ago.
But so blatant has Mugabe's behaviour become
(especially last month's
attack on senior Zimbabwean opposition figures)
that South African President
Thabo M'beki has been forced to back off in his
support of the Zimbabwean
President. It has been reported that South African
Government officials have
even had talks (described as "very positive") with
senior members of the
Movement for Democratic Change, the best known of
Zimbabwe's opposition
parties. Whether this was indicator of progress or a
matter of international
window dressing is hard to divine. The African
National Congress (the ruling
party in South Africa) has a barely disguised
hostility toward the Movement
for Democratic Change. That antipathy is
ideological and practical: the
congress sees the Movement for Democratic
Change as a movement intent on
usurping the power of a government of
national liberation. And it fears that
legitimising it could lead to the
formation of a mass opposition in South
Africa.
Many
commentators hoped South Africa might take a more proactive role
at the
March 28 meeting of the Southern African Development Community in
bringing
Mugabe and the movement to the negotiating table. However the 14
regional
leaders, charmed perhaps by Mugabe's assurances to respect human
rights and
a commitment to freedom of expression, simply issued a
communique{aac}
replete with boiler-plate expressions reaffirming their
"solidarity with the
Government and people of Zimbabwe", and mandating Mbeki
to "continue to
facilitate dialogue between the opposition and the
Government".
If Mugabe's fellow leaders are reluctant to take the matter further,
those
within Zanu-PF are less inclined to see him continue in power
indefinitely.
Although Mugabe recently secured the party's nomination for
the presidency,
the desire for change has intensified. Those seen as
potential successors
include a former parliamentary speaker Emmerson
Mnangagwa, former minister
Simba Makoni, retired general and businessman
Solomon Jujure, and the
current Vice-President Joice Muure. None is free of
the taint of corruption,
brutality and incompetence that is synonymous with
Zanu-PF rule, which is
bad news for millions of Zimbabweans, probably more
concerned with economic
salvation than greater political freedoms. Whether
the opposition is capable
of resurrecting what was once one of southern
Africa's most prosperous
economies is questionable opposition parties have
demonstrated little
capacity for anything other than disunity and
squabbling. Tragically for
Zimbabweans, the politics of race has ensured few
in the international
community are prepared to devote the attention to this
situation that it
warrants. Mugabe needs to be persuaded to stand down
(preferably by his
fellow Africans) so a unity government can be installed
and free elections
arranged. The moves by the US to shore up the country's
opposition suggest
this process is underway, but few ordinary Zimbabweans
have reason to count
their blessings just yet.