http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
20:53
BULAWAYO - The two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations
yesterday
temporarily set aside their differences to give the party's
co-founder
Gibson Sibanda, a hero's send-off.
Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai told hundreds of mourners at the memorial
service that he
regretted the 2005 split that saw Sibanda and other senior
leaders leaving
to form a breakaway faction.
Tsvangirai described the split as the saddest
part of his life but stopped
short of calling for a
reunification.
He said he was sorry for badmouthing the man he had
worked with since their
days at the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU).
"The political developments in this country will never be the same
again
after the formation of the MDC but the saddest thing in my life is the
split
of the MDC.
"It represents the saddest part of my relationship with
Sibanda," Tsvangirai
said.
The MDC-T leader said Sibanda whom he
had known for 25 years provided
"stability and guidance" in his personal
life and political career.
"Gibson was a unifier and no one would have played
that part (national
healing) better than him," the PM
said.
Sibanda and Welshman Ncube, who is the MDC-M's secretary
general, led the
breakaway from the MDC led by Tsvangirai following
differences over
participation in the senatorial
elections.
Sibanda and others wanted the party to contest the polls
but Tsvangirai
overruled them leading to the ugly fallout.
"What we said
after the split, I regret it. I am sorry Gibson for what we
said at that
moment, it was a moment of weakness and it was not worth it,"
said an
emotional Tsvangirai.
The service was attended by senior leaders from
the two MDC formations.
Zapu leader Dumiso Dabengwa and various influential
leaders in business and
civil society were also among the mourners at the
service held at the
Methodist Church along Main Street.
Various
speakers described Sibanda who was also one of the ministers in
charge of
the Organ on National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration as a
national
hero despite Zanu PF's refusal to accord him the status.
Sibanda will
only be given a state assisted burial. The two MDC formations
wanted him to
be declared a national hero.
"He was a perfect candidate for the national
hero status.
"His national hero status looms large.he was a man
amongst man," said former
Bulawayo town clerk Mike Ndubiwa.
Deputy Prime
Minister Arthur Mutambara added: "He was an icon of the trade
union
movement, a freedom fighter, soldier of soldiers, and a hero of
heroes.
"He was a leader, stabiliser, and unifier and never
compromised on
principles and values. He was a stabilising
force."
Nkululeko Sibanda, representing the late Sibanda's family
weighed in saying
"his legacy showed that he was a hero regardless of what
other people might
say."
Sibanda died on Tuesday morning aged 66
after a long battle with cancer.
He will be buried at his home village of
Komcondo in Insiza this morning.
Sibanda became the first
vice-president of the ZCTU in 1988 before serving
as president from
1989.
He was unanimously elected Tsvangirai's deputy at the inaugural
MDC congress
in 1999.
BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010 20:52
BULAWAYO -
Former Zanu PF politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa was yesterday
unanimously
endorsed as Zapu president for the next five years at a congress
attended by
5 000 delegates. The congress held at the Zimbabwe
International Trade Fair
grounds was the first since Zapu merged with Zanu
PF in 1987 to end
atrocities committed by the 5 Brigade in Matabeleland and
Midlands
provinces.
Zapu pulled out of the Unity Accord two years ago accusing
Zanu PF of
refusing to fully implement the agreement as its members
continued to be
sidelined when it came to senior appointments in the united
party.
The three-day congress, which ends today also adopted
amendments to Zapu's
founding constitution, which stipulates that Dabengwa
will have to
relinquish his party post if he is elected president of the
country.
"All the 14 provinces of Zapu have unanimously endorsed
Dabengwa as the
president of the party for the next five years," MethuselI
Moyo, the Zapu
spokesperson said last night.
"We are ready for
the elections and we believe we now have a candidate who
is ready to go to
State House with or without a new constitution."
Although President Robert
Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai are
pushing for fresh elections
next year, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
last week said the country was
not ready for the polls.
Moyo said the Zapu congress had abolished
the issue of dual presidency as
part of amendments to its 1960 constitution
after two days of deliberations.
Moyo said the party was against a situation
where a party president becomes
the country's president.
Dabengwa
had on Friday indicated that Zapu supporters were against the issue
of dual
presidency, saying that resulted in the vesting of "too many powers
on one
person".
The former Zipra intelligence supremo said the supporters
felt that the
elimination of the dual presidency could help separate party
issues from
government business.
Two years ago, Zapu had resolved
to deal with the issue of dual status of
the party president and also carry
out an inventory of the party's
properties that were grabbed by Mugabe's
government at the height of the
Gukurahundi
disturbances.
"Amendments to the party's constitution have been
adopted by the congress,"
Moyo said.
"Under the new constitution,
our leader will now be referred to as the
president and not chairman and
would have a five year term.
"Under the new constitution, there would
be a National Executive Council
(NEC) that deals with the day-to-day
activities of the party.
"There would also be a National People's Council
(NPC) which is the
equivalent to Zanu PF's politburo and each province would
be represented by
10 people."
The Zapu spokesperson also
indicated that delegates had agreed to the
formation of the Zimbabwe African
Women's Union (Zawu) and the Zapu Youth
Front (ZYF) - the equivalent of
Zanu-PF's Women's and Youth leagues
respectively.
The congress
was hung in balance after a faction led by Agrippa Madlela
filed a court
application seeking an interdict directing Dabengwa to
immediately stop
using Zapu's name, logo and flag.
Madlela, who claimed to be the
party's president, in his court papers
accused Dabengwa of hijacking
Zapu.
The congress was attended by several diplomats including United States
ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray and representatives of South Africa's
African National Congress (ANC).
The ANC has close ties with Zapu
that date back to the liberation struggle.
BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010 20:51
FLAMBOYANT
businessman Phillip Chiyangwa who is embroiled in a bitter
wrangle with the
Harare City Council over various pieces of land that he
allegedly acquired
in irregular deals yesterday said he planned to meet the
mayor in a bid to
mend relations with the local authority.
Chiyangwa said he planned to
enlist council's support to evict squatters in
one of the pieces of land
that he owns at an area known as Kumbudzi along
the Harare-Masvingo
highway.
Early this year a special investigations committee set up by council
recommended that Chiyangwa must be prosecuted for allegedly acquiring
council land illegally.
The former Zanu PF provincial chairman
hit back by causing the arrest of the
mayor Muchadeyi Masunda and several
councillors on criminal defamation
charges.
He is also suing
council for US$900 million after the report detailing the
alleged land scam
was leaked to the media.
But a conciliatory Chiyangwa told the annual general
meeting (AGM) of the
Zimbabwe National Council of Young Men's Christian
Association (YMCA) that
his fight with council would soon come to an
end.
"The mayor is my brother, so the fight between us will
eventually come to an
end," he said.
"Right now there are some people who
are residing illegally on one of my
premises near the Kumbudzi roundabout
and they call their enterprise
Nyarungu.
"I have court orders in
my possession to evict the illegal tenants there
because you just can't lift
up the (national) flag and declare yourself the
owner of somebody else's
property."
Ironically, council has been raiding the goat traders
operating in the area
but it could not be immediately ascertained if the
blitz was linked to
Chiyangwa's claims.
Masunda who also
addressed the AGM steered clear of the council's fight with
the
businessman.
Instead he dwelt on several challenges facing the city
and urged youths to
be active in tackling them.
He also encouraged youths
to be involved in income generating projects that
can also benefit the
city.
There are reports that some MDC-T councilors who were involved
in the land
audit that also implicated several senior Zanu PF officials are
no longer
interested in pursuing the case fearing that they would be
dismissed from
their posts by the Minister of Local Government and Urban
Development
Ignatius Chombo.
Chombo has already suspended several
MDC-T councilors on allegations of
corruption but the party says suspensions
were politically motivated.
BY KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
20:03
THE man accused of being a loan shark after he allegedly seized up
to 500
stands and houses from his clients says notorious businessman
Nicholas van
Hoogstraten is his friend, mentor and advisor. But Frank
Buyanga, who
according to online reports, is wanted by the British police
maintained that
he is not a front for van Hoogstraten.
Buyanga's ability
to dispense huge sums of money through his company
Hamilton Property
Holdings had sparked speculation that he was the
controversial property
mogul's running boy.
Van Hoogstraten who is rumoured to be close to
President Robert Mugabe has
in the past been hauled before the courts for
charging his tenants in
foreign currency before dollarisation and on
pornography charges.
In 2005, he was ordered to pay the family of a
slain UK business rival six
million pounds in a civil suit after a judge
found on the balance of
probabilities that van Hoogstraten hired hit men to
murder him.
"He is not involved in the business. How can he be
involved in a mere
US$10-million to US$20-million business," Buyanga said in
a brief interview.
He produced a letter signed by an R Pedzisai, the acting
Officer in Charge
of Harare police when he was asked about allegations that
he was wanted for
mortgage fraud in the UK.
However, efforts to
unravel his shadowy character hit a brick wall as he was
reportedly told to
zip his mouth by both the Attorney General (AG)'s office
and his lawyer,
Farai Mutamangira.
On Friday, property owners who lost houses or
stands after failing to repay
monies they borrowed from Hamilton Property
Holdings reached an agreement at
the AG's office whereby the complainants
would get their properties back
once they had repaid the money.
However,
it emerged from sources close to Buyanga that Hamilton Property
Holdings
owns over 100 properties in both the medium and plush suburbs of
Harare.
The company has allegedly invested over US$10
million.
Buyanga claims that he controls a US$25-million UK fund where he
draws
resources from.
Close associates said Buyanga cut his milk
teeth in business when he was 19
learning the ropes from his parents who
were successful in their businesses.
He spread his tentacles and now has
interests in UK, Zimbabwe, Zambia and
Malawi. The operations have different
names and partners.
Across the Zambezi, his interests are being
challenged as one prominent
Zambian personality has taken the company to
court over "some sour deal".
Born in the UK on September 14 1979, Buyanga
left North London University
after graduating with a Bachelor of Science
Honours degree in Economics and
Finance.
Friends said Buyanga
belongs to the fast lane league and owns a fleet of
vehicles that includes a
Rolls Royce with registration plate No.1, an Aston
Martin, Bentley, Range
Rover, Mercedes Benz sport utility vehicle, a BMW
coupe.
He
refused to comment on his personal life. This reporter saw him cruising
in a
grey Mercedes Benz SUV along the bustling Samora Machel Avenue.
He is
a man who doesn't want to talk about his family. The Standard heard
that
Buyanga is single and lives alone in a six bed-room mansion in
Chisipite.
The security is tight at the mansion and there is close
circuit television
to monitor movements at the place in case intruders try
to enjoy the
opulence of the place.
Buyanga is said to be into
charity work as well as being a deacon with Zaoga
and is normally seen at
the CCCI church along Baines Avenue on Sundays,
according to close
friends.
A copy of an agreement seen by this paper shows that the
businessman had
bought properties and the sellers had an option to buy back
their properties
after an agreed period of time.
If they failed
to buy back, at a higher price than originally sold, Buyanga
would retain
the properties.
Every page of the agreement of sale form was signed
by both the seller and
the buyer and at the end of the form, the seller
would paste his or her
thumbprint.
BY OUR STAFF
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010 19:52
GOAT traders in
Harare say their livelihoods are under threat in the wake of
massive raids
by council, the police and animal welfare organisations that
have seen them
lose at least 188 goats and sheep inside two weeks.
Veterinarians for Animal
Welfare Zimbabwe (VAWZ), have teamed up with the
police, the city council
and the Harare chapter of the Society for
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
to carry out raids on the vendors whom they
accuse of ill-treating the
animals.
"They started the raids last week and so far, they have
confiscated a total
of 188 goats and sheep," said Tonderai Nyatsuro who
operates from the area
popularly known as Kumbudzi along the Harare-Masvingo
high way.
"We do not know what to do because this is our only source
of income, we
cannot go to steal."
The traders usually operate from open
spaces where they confine the animals
using stones and old tyres among other
material to stop them from wandering
away.
A goat costs between
$25 and $50 depending on its size while sheep cost
between $50 and
$100.
Nyatsuro said they invest a lot of time and money travelling to the
rural
areas to buy the animals for resale back in the city.
"We have
always worked well here with no complaints from anyone," another
trader
said.
"We were shocked when we woke up to the raids, with people
telling us that
we were ill-treating the animals."
The organisations are
reportedly rounding up the goats and sheep and taking
them to a farm owned
by the police where they will later be sold at a public
auction.
Traders who dare follow the trucks with their
confiscated animals are made
to pay fines of $20 per animal or are turned
away empty handed.
"Some of our colleagues who lost their animals had come
all the way from the
rural areas hoping they would make a quick sale and
return home," another
vendor said.
"They ended up selling their
shoes to get bus fare to travel back to the
village as they did not have any
extra cash on them and they also did not
have anywhere else to
go.
"Others slept here in the open without money to go back to the
village while
some who live in Harare are now sitting at home with nothing
to do to make a
living."
Nyatsuro and his colleagues said they
now hide their animals somewhere away
from where they operate from and only
go and collect an animal once a
customer has convinced them they genuinely
want to buy.
An inspector with VAWZ, Meryl Harrison said the raids
would continue.
"We discovered that there are eight places where goats were
not only sold
but also slaughtered," she said. "They round up the goats, tie
them up and
stress them, keeping them without food and water for long
hours.
"The public was also distressed to see goats being hanged in
the open and
inhumanely slaughtered by these people. We also found out that
they had no
licences for their operations," she said.
Harrison
however said the raids were costly and there was need for a lasting
solution
in form of a goat market.
BY JENNIFER DUBE
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010 19:21
CHOKING
smoke- filled air greets you as you enter a squatter settlement at
Borrowdale Race Course in Harare.
Dark burn marks are the only tell-tale
signs of the places where shacks once
stood, while the owners roam about
probably pondering what the future holds
for them. An elderly lady, too
weary to walk or show emotion, sits near a
destroyed shack occasionally
shaking her head, but not once does she say
anything.
The structure, it
was later learned, was once a church where the squatters
gathered every
Sunday to offer their devotions to God.
Nearby, a man is reconstructing his
shack and the material of choice is
thatch grass.
He says he
slept in the open for three nights and his young family can no
longer take
it.
A young man watches and does not look interested in rebuilding his own
"house" although his bedding is in the open.
He seems to have left his
future to an unknown destiny.
This group and probably a hundred more
are part of a group of squatters who
reside at the racecourse and were
victims of a brutal early morning police
raid.
Armed police, clad
in riot gear, estimated to be about 50, descended on the
camp in the early
hours of Wednesday, razing to the ground all the
structures in the
vicinity.
"They came at 1.30am and without warning they ordered us
out of the area,
while at the same time burning our houses," said Shingai
Nota, an illegal
settler. He complained that they were harassed by the
police, who did not
bother to explain what they were doing.
"We lost
everything; our food, bedding and clothes," Nota added. "We were
not even
given a chance to salvage the little property we had."
He said they were
fortunate that there were no casualties in the numerous
infernos lit up by
the rampaging police, but feared there could be disease
outbreaks.
During the raid, Tendai Marazva another settler
claimed that police kept
shouting that they should return to their rural
homes as they were making
Harare dirty.
Marazva said he had been
living in the area for more than a year and this
was his first brush with
law enforcement agencies.
About 100 metres away another group gathered and a
pastor led them in
prayer. The squatters were restless but obviously
excited.
A group of priests had just finished distributing blankets,
soap and some
food rations. "We gave an average of two blankets to each
family, but
obviously that is not enough," one pastor said.
As he
was speaking his colleague pulled him by the jacket sleeve ordering
him not
to say anything further.
"Just call us a group of pastors. You want to get us
arrested. No, we will
not tell you our names," he said, as he dragged his
colleague away.
As the pastors move away, a quarrel erupts over stolen
blankets. A man,
probably in his 30s, claims that his blankets have been
stolen.
He runs after the pastors hoping to be given extras, but he finds no
joy and
he returns fuming.
"I know you stole my blankets because
you want my wife. I have seen the way
you look at her," the man shouts, but
seemingly to no one in particular.
The fracas soon dissolves but not before
he screams expletives, threatening
that he will bewitch whoever stole his
bedding.
The women on the other hand seem disinterested and most are
tending to
fires. Most have babies on their backs, while others roam about
aimlessly.
Police spokesperson, Oliver Mandipaka professed ignorance on the
issue. "I
didn't hear anything of that sort," he said.
Despite the raid,
the illegal settlers maintained that the area was their
home and they would
not budge.
About 55 squatters were reportedly arrested during the
raid and they spent
more than 15 hours at the Harare Central police
station.
The raid brought fresh memories of the brutal slum clearance
known as
Operation Murambatsvina, which left more than 700 000 people
homeless.
The operation also affected thousands of informal business people
who had
their structures destroyed.
BY NQABA MATSHAZI
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
19:21
MOVEMENT for Democratic Change (MDC) founding father Gibson Sibanda
was
described by all parties in the inclusive government as an outstanding
politician before and after Zimbabwe's independence. But the recognition he
was given after his death last week does not come anywhere close to that
accorded to President Robert Mugabe's two relatives who died during the same
month.
Sibanda who succumbed to cancer on Monday aged 66 will be
given a
state-assisted funeral at his rural Filabusi home today after the
Zanu PF
politburo refused to entertain any calls for him to be declared a
national
hero.
In sharp contrast, Reward Marufu, a brother to
Grace Mugabe who died on
Wednesday at his farm in Bindura a few days later
was quickly declared a
provincial hero.
A few weeks ago,
President Mugabe buried his sister, Sabina at the National
Heroes Acre after
she was unilaterally declared a heroine by the Zanu PF
politburo shortly
after her death.
Sabina's status sparked debate with the two MDC
formations arguing that the
new political dispensation required that a
non-partisan body be constituted
to decide on the conferment of the hero
status.
Last week Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa
told the state
media that Zanu PF had the sole right to decide on who gets
buried at the
shrine because its government built the Heroes
Acre.
Although the argument by Mutasa sounded daft, analysts said it
came as no
surprise that Sibanda was denied the hero status because of Zanu
PF's known
track record of intolerance.
Jack Zaba, a Harare-based
political analyst said the treatment of Marufu who
will be best remembered
for claiming huge sums of money from the War
Veterans Compensation Fund
after claiming 95% disability and Sibanda whose
heroism was undisputed
exposed the flaws in the process of selecting
national
heroes.
"It is clear that Sibanda befits being a hero in many senses
but it came as
no surprise to me that Zanu PF could not see the heroism in
him," Zaba said.
"The juxtaposition of Gibson Sibanda's denial and Reward
Marufu's conferment
as a hero is greatly instructive in many senses as it
succinctly exposes
Zanu PF's conception of heroes, much as it shows its
reluctance to embrace
political competitors as befitting citizens of this
great nation."
He said the issue of heroism had a false start at
independence because it
was informed by Zanu PF's failed ambition of
creating a one party state.
"To them a hero is one whose history and
lifestyle dovetails along the
shadow of the party and its supreme leader
President Mugabe.
"Any deviation from the party and the leader automatically
disqualifies one
from being a hero."
Sibanda who was a prominent
trade union leader before independence and was
arrested several times by the
Rhodesian government for his activities joins
a long list of illustrious
Zimbabweans who were denied hero status because
they disagreed with
Mugabe.
The list includes Zanu PF founder Ndabaningi Sithole, James
Chikerema,
Patrick Kombayi and Henry Hamadziripi.
Several Zipra
commanders were given the status posthumously after the
signing of the Unity
Accord between PF Zapu and Zanu PF in 1987.
Trevor Maisiri, the director of
the Africa Reform Institute said by denying
Sibanda the hero status, Mugabe
and Zanu PF had missed a golden opportunity
to allay fears that the national
shrine had been personalised.
The snub also raised fresh questions
about the unity of purpose in the unity
government and on who really calls
the shots.
"For Zanu PF to solely deny Sibanda some form of recognition as a
hero
really depicts some negation of the nation-building fundamentals and
reconciliatory aspects that are supposed to have come with the institution
of the government of national unity," Maisiri said.
"This action
shows the non-committal perspective of Zanu PF to sharing
nationhood with
other Zimbabweans who have the same birthright and accord
but may however
belong to different political persuasions."
Maisiri said there was a
"rare strand of heroism that comes with Sibanda's
life"
He said
Sibanda was the best example of what a hero must be as he had a
multiplicity
of exploits of heroism.
Firstly he was involved in the pre-independence era
in the liberation
movement with PF Zapu.
He was also part of the
cog of the worker rights movement in Zimbabwe and
was also pivotal in the
pro-democracy movement after independence.
"It is rare to get a person who
has a mould of such diverse involvement in
the generality of the advancement
of socio-economic and political
development of the nation," Maisiri
said.
Sibanda, a former employee of the National Railways of Zimbabwe
helped form
the MDC in 1999 while still the president of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade
Unions.
He became Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai's deputy until 2005 after the
party split into
two.
The veteran trade unionist was elected Deputy Prime Minister
Arthur
Mutambara's deputy in the smaller MDC formation.
At the
time of his death he was one of the three ministers responsible for
National
Healing, Reconciliation and Integration.
BY KHOLWANI NYATHI
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
16:29
THE revived Zimbabwe African People’s Union’s (Zapu) congress
enters its
last day today with prospects of the party drawing mixed
responses from
analysts.
Questions have been raised about Dumiso
Dabengwa, the main brains behind the
revival and whether he has the capacity
to lead the former liberation
movement.
A certain yoke around his
neck is that he will be viewed and compared with
the party’s founding
leader, the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo.
Analysts who spoke to The
Standard last week were sceptical on whether the
revived party would have an
impact on the political scene, already dominated
by Zanu PF and the
MDC-T.
Dabengwa’s links with Zanu PF and his flirtation with Simba
Makoni’s
Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn project were also scrutinised, raising
questions on how
Zapu would fare under his leadership.
A public
policy analyst, Qhubani Moyo welcomed the revival of the party,
saying it
was important for democracy in the country.
He, however, questioned
whether the party had what it takes to make an
impact on the country’s
political scene.
“Zapu, as it is, is a party of nostalgia and history.
Its revival is based
on that but so far we have not been told what it holds
for the future,” he
said.
Moyo stated that what was detrimental to
the growth of Zapu was its
“deep-rooted alliance” with Zanu
PF.
Further, he claimed that the new party might be aligned with a
faction led
by Solomon Mujuru within Zanu PF.
“There is speculation
that the formation of this party is part of the wider
Zanu PF succession
game plan and Dabengwa is viewed as too close to Mujuru,”
Moyo
added.
He described Dabengwa as a hopeless politician who was trying to
revive his
political life with the re-formation of Zapu.
“They are
playing old politics in an environment of new politics, their
ideology is
unclear and I do not think they are adding any value, either
today or in
future,” Moyo said.
Political analyst and University of Zimbabwe
lecturer, Eldred Masunungure
was also doubtful on the fortunes of the new
party under Dabengwa’s
leadership.
“I do not think it’s a major
dynamic in the politics of the country, the
revival will not be a major
variable,” he said.
Masunungure said the revival of Zapu could have been
motivated by either
personal or community frustrations.
“The revival
may only upset certain individuals in Zanu PF given the Unity
Accord but I
do not see anything beyond that,” the political analyst said.
Zanu and
Zapu signed the Unity Accord in 1987 following a pogrom that killed
an
estimated 20 000 people, mainly Zapu supporters.
Masunungure concurred
with Moyo that Zapu had to exorcise a ghost that
linked it with Zanu PF, but
so far the revived party had not been able to do
that.
He questioned
Dabengwa’s leadership credentials and whether he had the
stature to lead the
party.
The university lecturer dismissed any links between Zapu and the Zanu
PF
succession issue, describing it as far-fetched.
Another analyst,
Effie Ncube said since efforts to revive Zapu started, the
party had been in
a shell and little was known about it.
“May be after the congress they
will be more visible, so far they have been
in a shell and little is known
about either the party or its leader,” he
said.
Ncube said the
revived party would not have any dramatic impact on the
political landscape,
saying the party needed a good politician and an
orator, neither of which
Dabengwa is.
“I believe he has good intentions, but he has never been a
good speaker or a
good politician,” he said. “These are attributes that are
needed for Zapu to
make an impact.”
Ncube said contrary to the belief
that Dabengwa is a political dinosaur, he
regarded him as a new player on
the political scene.
“Dabengwa has never won any hotly contested position
and little is known
about him as a politician,” he said.
“The only
election he won was when he was in Zanu PF and the party was a
dominant
force.”
Ncube said in that regard Dabengwa is a new player on the scene, who
is yet
to make a political impact.
Media scholar, Brilliant Mhlanga said
Zapu had the advantage of history as
it was a party that gave birth to all
revolutionary movements in the
country, namely Zanu PF and the two MDC
formations.
“This gives them strong grounding as a party and is an
advantage; this fact
alone gives them a stronger potential as a party that
they can re-awaken,
especially their old liberation credentials,” he
said.
“Further, it means the tag ‘puppets of the West’ or ‘Imperialists’
cannot
hold.”
Mhlanga warned, however, that liberation credentials do
not make a party, as
Zapu had to be more visible on the ground.
He
said most members of the revived party had to shake of the Zanu PF tag
for
them to gain any credence.
In addition, Mhlanga said Dabengwa continued
to have his leadership mantle
shaped and washed by the people he is to work
with and the entire membership
of the party.
“As a result, it would,
therefore, be greatly unfair to Zapu, let alone to
Dabengwa the person, for
us to seek to single him out of the party
structures and judge his
leadership style by pretending he fell from some
Msasa tree,” he
said.
Mhlanga said the argument that Dabengwa was a dinosaur could at
best be
described as the argument of the inept.
“It has no logic
whatsoever and is based on some weak foundation, and is
probably a product
of characters with a lobotomised way of thinking,” he
charged.
Zapu
spokesman, Methuseli Moyo described Dabengwa as the party’s trump card
rubbishing any links of his leader to a dinosaur.
“He is 20 years
younger than the current president and has exhibited
political maturity and
leadership experience,” he said.
Moyo said Dabengwa was an asset because
of his regional links, as he trained
most leaders in southern Africa on
military tactics.
“Umkhonto Wesizwe (Military wing of the South Africa’s
African National
Congress) was here yesterday (Friday) and that speaks
volumes on the man’s
influence on the region,” he said.
The spokesman
said in the past few years, Zimbabwe’s politics had been
militarised and
Dabengwa’s background made him the best person for the job.
He said the
congress had shown that the party was going to have a huge
impact on the
political scene as it had pulled people from across the
country.
“We
have people from all over the country and if there is anyone doubting us
then that person is a fool,” he declared emphatically.
Dabengwa, with
a group of disgruntled former Zanu PF members pulled out of
the party in
2008 to lead the revival of Zapu.
A substantive leadership is expected to
be put in place at the congress,
with Dabengwa set to take the top
post.
BY NQABA MATSHAZI
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
15:33
UZUMBA-Maramba-Pfungwe (UMP) - Every day 39-year-old Fadzai
Nyawasha from
Nyamara ward starts her day at 5am.
She first cleans
her kitchen before setting a small tin of water on the
stove to boil water
to bath her two young children and prepare breakfast.
After that she
sweeps the yard and makes two trips to the borehole, about
2km away, to
fetch water.
By 7am after completing her numerous household chores and a
quick breakfast
of the previous night's leftovers Nyawasha straps her bag on
her back, gets
on her bicycle and heads out for work.
Nyawasha is a
volunteer village health worker and her routine includes
travelling to at
least three villages to check on the health of pregnant
women, newborn
babies and mothers who have just given birth.
"Where I find a pregnant woman
I teach the family the benefits of attending
antenatal classes and
delivering at a health facility in the presence of a
trained midwife," she
said last week.
"Where there is a child in the home I check to see if the
child is growing
well, check on body weight.
"I advise the family on
issues of hygiene and the benefits of exclusive
breastfeeding to help the
child grow well.
"Where I see problems I immediately recommend that the
mother or child goes
to a hospital for further care."
On Thursday
Nyawasha was among 300 village health workers trained under the
community-
and home-based care programme for mothers and newborns by
government and the
Community Working Group on Health (CWGH).
The programme is funded by the
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).
Caroline Mubaira, the CWGH
programmes manager said the graduates were
trained specifically on neonatal
and maternal health issues to help reduce
the high maternal and child
mortality rates in the country.
"As the CWGH we value the hardwork and
dedication of these volunteers who
are not paid anything but still have the
heart to work for the betterment of
their communities," Mubaira told guests
at the ceremony held at Mutawatawa
growth point.
"Some of these
people have families and other responsibilities in their
homes but they
still find time to help others.
Mubaira said a similar programme had been
launched in Chikomba district
where another 300 village health workers were
trained to help mobilise
communities on the importance of maternal and child
health.
She said the programme would be rolled out to other districts if
it was
successful in Chikomba and UMP.
Provincial medical director
Simukai Zizhou said the district recorded at
least 11 maternal deaths, seven
of them occurring at homes inside a month.
"The loss of a mother due to
pregnancy or childbirth is a tragedy for the
family and the community as a
whole," Zizhou said.
"To all male partners, I say support your woman
during pregnancy.
"A woman who is supported by her husband or partner during
pregnancy and
childbirth usually has a better pregnancy
outcome."
Ensuring male involvement in maternal and child health issues
are some of
the challenges that Nyawasha and many other village health
workers meet
every day.
Over the years, the CWGH - established in
1998 - has positioned itself as a
voice in the health sector and built
community power, organising involvement
of communities in health actions
within their communities and around primary
healthcare.
BY BERTHA
SHOKO
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
15:25
AT least 115 million kg of tobacco had been auctioned by last week
representing the highest output in seven years, figures released ahead of
the end of the selling season on Friday show.
Figures from the
Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) show that 116
904 898 kg had
gone under the hammer at the country’s two auction floors on
Wednesday.
The selling season opened on February 16.
In the
process US$341 010 216 was realised from the auction up from the
US$174 457
761 farmers got during the same period last year.
The last target set by
TIMB was 114 million kg after production had
surpassed previous targets of
77 million kg and 93 million kg.
The output is the highest since 2003
when 165 842 000 kg were auctioned.
From there output went on a decline
and reached 48 million kg in 2008, the
lowest output since 1980.
However,
there are projections that next year’s output would increase by 50%
basing
on the tobacco seed sold so far, according to Andrew Matibiri, the
TIMB
chief executive officer.
“So far more than 600 kg of tobacco seed has
been sold and this will cover
over 100 000 hectares.
“Last year we
planted 67 000 hectares,” Matibiri said.
According to TIMB figures output
as of Wednesday was nearly double the
tobacco auctioned during the same
period last year when 58 570 652 kg were
sold.
Matibiri said tobacco
has proved to be a crop of choice for farmers and this
has led to an
increase in production.
The prices have also been good luring farmers to
grow the golden leaf.
Average price per kg peaked at US$3,47 on March 26
and was US$2,90 on
Wednesday.
During the same period last year the
average price was US$1,90.
TIMB said final delivery of flue-cured tobacco
to the auction floors is
Thursday this week.
All growers are advised to
complete their grading and baling operations well
before the final sales
day.
Contract sales will continue until further notice.
The flue-cured
tobacco clean up sale for the 2010 marketing season will be
held on
September 28, TIMB said.
“Depending on the volume of deliveries the
clean-up sale may be continued
for more than one day, until all delivered
tobacco has been sold,” TIMB said
in a notice to
stakeholders.
Tobacco is one of the country’s largest foreign currency
earners and
contributed 26% of the national gross domestic product last year
up from 12%
in 2008.
Zimbabwe and other tobacco producing countries
have to stave off measures
from the World Health Organisation’s Framework
Convention for Tobacco
Control (FCTC) proposed guidelines that would have a
bearing on the crop.
Article 9 of the FCTC proposes measures for testing
and measuring the
contents and emissions of tobacco products and for the
regulation of these
contents and emissions under Article 9.
Articles
17 & 18 of the convention advocate support to farmers to grow
alternative crops and the protection of the environment and health of
persons respectively.
BY OUR STAFF
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
16:48
VOICES are beginning to get louder calling for Southern African
Development
Community-supervised elections in Zimbabwe next year as the only
way to
break the political logjam.
The voices argue that only
Sadc-supervised elections can ensure a result
that would be internationally
accepted. This would be all very well if Sadc
itself still had a semblance
of credibility.
In the past decade Sadc’s weakness has been displayed for
all to see not
only regarding the political crisis in Zimbabwe but in its
partisan
interventions in other outposts of tyranny such as
Swaziland.
Sadc’s major weakness seems to be its policy of appeasement
towards leaders
who have blighted the region. This is particularly so under
the direction of
executive secretary Tomaz Salomao.
Over the past 10
years Zimbabwe has held several presidential and general
elections which
have been marred by violence. Invariably Sadc has observed
these elections
and has seen documented evidence of electoral intimidation
and fraud but it
has chosen to sweep these under the carpet adjudging the
elections
“generally free and fair.”
President Robert Mugabe is the longest serving
leader in the regional
grouping, which like his reign is 30 years old. This
is an intimidating
factor to the younger generation of leaders who have to
contend with his
often wayward doings.
Many countries in the region
literally owe their sovereignty to him. Had it
not been of him the
Mozambican story would have turned out differently. The
ruling Frelimo party
was losing its war against Renamo which was backed by
South Africa’s
apartheid regime when Mugabe intervened and saved the day.
Mugabe
supported the liberation struggles of both Namibia and South Africa.
The
Namibian leadership feels indebted to him. The two presidents who have
ruled
Namibia, Sam Nujoma and Hifikepunye Pohamba, have been his unwavering
allies.
Mugabe also supported South Africa’s liberation
movements.
His intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998 is
seen as the
highest point in his pan-African interventions.
Many
leaders in the region and indeed on the whole continent see him as
Africa’s
elder statesman. This is what has made him go almost beyond
censure.
Therefore, to think that Sadc can disinterestedly supervise
an election in
which he is a candidate is to expect too much from these
“mere babes”
leading the sub-continent.
The African Union, another “old
boys club”, is just a macrocosm of Sadc.
The harmonised elections held in
March 2008 were about the freest and
fairest ever held in Zimbabwe. The
beauty of those elections was that
ballots were counted at the polling
stations and the results verified there
and then and placed on a notice
board at the station. The collation of the
results was easy to
manage.
What this means is that Zimbabwe has a blueprint of how to manage
a free and
fair election. If the system that was used in March 2008 is used
and the
whole electoral process observed by the international community
Zimbabwe
could deliver a credible election.
What is the problem
however is the whole question of the transfer of power
if it becomes
necessary, as it was in March 2008. Sadc watched with a
chilling aloofness
as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission withheld the results
for a full five
weeks as Zanu PF sought ways to manage its loss. The result
of the
presidential election was disputed leading to the bloody runoff of
June the
same year.
Although Sadc intervened after this resulting in the
negotiated settlement
that created the government of national unity, the
intervention was too
late. The correct time to intervene would have been in
the five weeks in
which the election results were being withheld.
So,
unless Sadc changes its old-boys-club mindset and ditches the policy of
appeasement it won’t be able to superintend the Zimbabwean elections and the
transfer of power when and if that becomes necessary.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
16:46
THE recent Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Summit
held in
Windhoek appears to be yet another damp squib.
There was much
talk but little action to address southern Africa's multiple
crises. For
instance, expectations that Sadc would decisively deal with the
perennial
political crisis in Zimbabwe were dashed. President Jacob Zuma
presented an
overly positive report on progress in Zimbabwe which the
leaders swiftly
swept under the carpet.
Sadc leaders, in reality an "old boys club"
failed to come up with a clear
roadmap towards fresh elections in Zimbabwe.
Elections that, for once, would
not see citizens pay for their democratic
choice with an arm and a leg.
Zimbabwe civil society groups including
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition have
called for Sadc leaders to be the midwife
for a democratic election in the
country. Far from heeding this call, the
"old boys club" appears to have
shown the middle finger to democracy and
justice when they moved swiftly to
silence the Sadc Tribunal which had ruled
against the Zimbabwean government
in a number of land reform
cases.
It appears Sadc's modus operandi in addressing serious regional
problems of
the democracy deficit in countries like Zimbabwe and Swaziland
is to ignore
the problems. It is a classical case of the ostrich burying its
head in the
sand. Sadly, ignoring problems will not solve or make them go
away. Sadc
must act, and act quickly to avert a repeat of chaos and violence
that
characterised Zimbabwe's 2008 elections.
Talk of 2011 elections
in Zimbabwe should be matched with adequate
preparations to ensure that the
army remains in the barracks and does not in
away interfere with electoral
processes. Three decades of Zanu PF conflating
the party and the state in
the quest for a de-facto one-party-state has
eroded the independence and
impartiality of Zimbabwe's key institutions.
Owing to superficial reforms,
these institutions remain too weak and
compromised to prevent
state-sponsored violence or to deliver a democratic
election.
To
prevent another stillbirth for democracy in Zimbabwe, Sadc leaders should
guarantee the democratic transfer of power to an ultimate winner after a
free, nonviolent poll. This of course means Sadc leaders should face
Zimbabwe's security chiefs who have in the past vowed to "go back to the
bush if Zanu PF loses." All indications are that it was the security chiefs
who in 2008 defied the winds of change and carried out a coup by
stealth.
Like anyone else, security chiefs are driven by self-interest.
Unfortunately, their twin interests - amnesty for horrific human rights
abuses and security of ill-gotten wealth - cannot be guaranteed. To do that
would be to spit in the faces of thousands of victims who have a right to
justice. The only way to decisively deal with them would be for Sadc to
remove its protective arm around Mugabe and his inner circle and tell them
in no uncertain terms that they are on their own.
It may be necessary
for Sadc to deploy a peace-keeping force in Zimbabwe
well ahead of and after
an election.
The constitutional reform exercise currently underway in
Zimbabwe, which
Sadc is paying scant attention to, reveals a lot about what
has and what has
not changed in the power-politics matrix. The chaos,
violence and
intimidation authored predominantly by president Robert
Mugabe's Zanu PF
party around the constitutional outreach program clearly
indicates that
instruments of repression remain active and that they are
likely to be used
again in future elections. It would be wrong to believe
that the delays to
the constitutional reform process are merely due to
administrative or
bureaucratic bungling; they are due to a deliberate
strategy to derail the
process and ensure that few people present their
views.
Sadc leaders should deploy monitors in Zimbabwe to closely assess
the
ongoing constitution-making process and to investigate reports of
widespread
violence, intimidation and the setting up of militia bases across
the
country. The constitution-making process is a litmus test that shows
just
how committed Zimbabwe's political leaders are to democracy. All the
signs
are there that any election in Zimbabwe without external assistance
such as
supervision by Sadcwould be a repeat of the 2008 sham
election.
The only lasting solution to the continuing political crisis in
Zimbabwe is
a fresh election that is supervised by Sadc and monitored by the
international community to prevent violence and other
electoral
malpractices.
To call for elections without putting in place
adequate measures to prevent
violence would be to unnecessarily put the
lives on Zimbabweans in danger.
Democracy remains dangerous business in
Zimbabwe.
*Dewa Mavhinga is Regional Coordinator for Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition,
South Africa Office.
By Dewa Mavhinga
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28
August 2010 16:40
IT is said that the dead do not write their epitaph but
their actions do.
Gibson Jama Sibanda, throughout his life, through his
actions wrote his
epitaph. Our task is merely to place in written record
those actions.
But how does one, with all the limitations of language,
the frailties of
human nature and its proneness to failure and error,
accurately record a
life which was so rich and full and yet so complex in
its actions and
thoughts?
Gibson Jama Sibanda's over four decades of
service to the people of Zimbabwe
distinguishes him as an extraordinary man,
a fighter and advocate for the
common man and woman.
In times of
darkness he always chose to light a candle rather than curse the
darkness.
His life was the embodiment of the triumph of humility over
arrogance, the
conquest of pride by humbleness, the trumping of fear by
courage,
graciousness in failure and defeat, the celebration of human
diversity,
steadfastness and resilience in adversity and the personification
of
empathetic servant leadership.
He was always slow to judge and never one
to condemn. He was firm but
even-handed and fair. Slow to anger and never to
abuse. Always careful and
measured in his choice of words and in his
pronouncements. Never easily
offended. Forgiveness came naturally to him. He
typified the best of
humanity.
Those of us who had the privilege and
honour to have worked with him have
permanently etched in our memories the
dignity with which he stood up to
adversity and abuse. To this day, tears
never fail to swell in one's eyes
when remembering the day he walked into
court at Tredgold Building in
Bulawayo in leg irons and handcuffs, like a
dangerous common criminal,
something he was certainly not, dressed in an
appalling prison garb, the
shirt of which was so small and short that it
left his entire stomach
exposed.
The whole charade was calculated to
humiliate, demean and dehumise and yet
Gibson stood in the dock in that
comical depiction with poise and dignity
projecting graceful defiance
against his tormentors. The irony was not lost
on some of us that here was a
man, who had been imprisoned by the Smith
regime for the "crime" of seeking
the freedom of his people, now standing in
mocking silence against our
erstwhile liberators who had turned what was a
glorious, triumphant national
liberation struggle into a brutal, petty,
mean, angry, vindictive, vengeful
and repressive nightmare. Now he stood in
the same court accused of the
"crime" of organising people to demand the
fruits of the liberation struggle
from a post-independence government, which
had transformed itself into a
caricature epitomising the total negation of
just about everything that the
liberation struggle had been about.
Notwithstanding all the abuse and
torment which Gibson had suffered at the
hands of the post-independence
government, when he was called upon to work
in the President's Office as
part of the trio of ministers running the Organ
on National Healing,
Reconciliation and Integration, there was never a trace
of bitterness or
anger.
When we moved around the country addressing rallies after the
inception of
the inclusive government he was invariably met with a torrent
of questions
when he preached peace, tolerance and forgiveness. He often
quoted his
colleague, at the Organ, Sekai Holland, chastisising those who
demanded an
eye for an eye by telling his audience, that if an eye for an
eye would be
our motto, Zimbabwe would be a nation of the
blind.
I had first met Sibanda in the mid-1980s when he was part of
the leadership
of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
The
late Kempton Makamure, Shadreck Gutto, the late Shepherd Nzombe, Justice
Ben
Hlatshwayo and I being colleagues at the Faculty of Law, were often
invited
to be resource persons at various workshops of the labour movement.
It was
then that I had first met Sibanda.
Then I knew him from a distance. It
was not until the early days of the
process of the formation of the MDC that
I really got to know Gibson very
well. He had nominated me to the Interim
National Executive Committee of the
MDC in which I sat as one of a very few
representatives of the non-trade
union elements of civil society.
One
late Friday afternoon in 1999 when Isaac Maphosa then the national
coordinator of the National Constitution Assembly (NCA) and myself, at that
time being the national spokesperson of the NCA, we received a telephone
call from Sibanda asking us to assist them as they had had a breakdown at
Mvuma on their way to Harare from Bulawayo to attend weekend meetings of
the MDC. Isaac and I quickly drove to Mvuma, getting there just as it was
getting dark. There was Sibanda, Fletcher Dulini Ncube and Esaph Mdlongwa,
sleeves rolled up and using a torch trying to repair Gibson's old and
battered blue Peugeot 504.
We joined them. Soon they gave up and we
left the vehicle parked at the
shopping centre and they got into our car and
we drove to Harare. It was
during that drive that I began to know Sibanda up
close. Up until then, he
was, to me, this distant, very important figure,
the president of the
formidable ZCTU.
During that two hour drive,
here I was, sitting in this car with the Who is
Who of Zimbabwe, Gibson Jama
Sibanda, President of the ZCTU; Fletcher Dulini
Ncube a veteran of the
liberation struggle and a former Zapu stalwart who
had spent years and years
in detention in Gonakudzingwa; and Esaph Mdlongwa,
a veteran trade unionist
and member of the ZCTU National Council.
I could not have felt more
insignificant and awe-striken and yet within a
few minutes I was relaxed and
listening to the various narratives of the
different experiences of these
veterans of Zimbabwe's struggles. It was then
that I experienced firsthand
and close up the humility, the humbleness, the
courage, the commitment, the
kindness and the love of these men for their
country and their people.
Gibson was the quieter, the more deliberate, and
the more considerate of
them. He talked of his time in Smith's Marondera
prison and the torment of
being away from his beloved wife and children.
He spoke of the struggles
in the trade union movement, the scandals, the
fights and his peacemaking
interventions.
Months later, just a few weeks before the MDC inaugural
congress a few of us
gathered at Evon Mahlunge's flat in Avondale. There was
Sibanda, Fletcher
Dulini Ncube, Sekai Holland, Esaph Mdlongwa, Grace
Kwinjeh, Tendai Biti,
Learnmore Jongwe, Isaac Maposa, Evon Mahlunge,
Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Paul Themba Nyathi and myself. The subject
of
discussion was what leadership we wanted to emerge from
congress.
Everyone at the meeting except for Holland, was of the view
that having
regard to the election we would have to fight against Zanu PF,
it made more
strategic sense to support Morgan Tsvangirai for president even
though
Sibanda was the interim president of the MDC and was eminently suited
to be
president. Holland argued passionately but fruitlessly that Sibanda
was the
better candidate for president and that we should support
him.
She argued that Tsvangirai should be the secretary-general and that
if we
elevated him to be the president we would be live to regret
it.
There were no takers for her argument. Eventually, the debate came to
an end
when Sibanda, in his typical selfless manner, implored Holland that
he had
heard her arguments, but the preponderance of the collective opinion
was
that he should stand aside and allow Tsvangirai to be elected unopposed
and
that he should accept the position of vice-president.
Without any
touch of disappointment and with wholesome respect for all those
of us who
had urged him to let Tsvangirai be president, Gibson closed the
discussion
and thanked us for our honest appraisal of the nature of Zimbabwe's
politics
which dictated that even though he was the better candidate for
president of
the party we perceived that he could not lead us to victory in
the
elections.
Even though I and Fletcher Dulini Ncube had strongly supported
the view that
Gibson should stand aside for Tsvangirai to be president, I
was surprised at
the meeting when he proposed that I should be supported to
be the
secretary-general and Fletcher Dulini Ncube to be the
treasurer-general of
the party.
He undertook that he would discuss
these matters with Tsvangirai so that we
could have a frictionless and
tension-free as well as cohesive and
celebratory congress which would be
dominated by discussions on the tasks
ahead rather than contestations for
positions. Such was the graciousness,
vision, kindness and humility of the
man. At the subsequent congress, he
kept his commitments in every respect.
Others did not.
Being the gentleman he was Gibson never cried foul. He
continued to focus on
the bigger picture and the daunting challenges ahead.
He was one never to
hold a grudge, never vindictive and perpetually prepared
to accept the
frailties of the human spirit in others but always holding
himself to the
highest standards.
Before that, mostly with the late
Milton Gwetu, another veteran trade
unionist, surviving on sugar beans and
the occasional Coca-Cola he had
crisscrossed the width and breadth of the
Matabeleland provinces and the
Midlands organising the formation of the MDC
structures among the rural
communities. Literally brick by brick they had
constructed what became the
formidable MDC.
Little wonder that he was
deeply hurt and disappointed when a few years
later his construction,
achieved with his sweat broke up. Not one to dwell
on idealised abstractions
he took it with graceful resignation, always
teaching us that it was better
to have nothing than to betray one's
conscience. Let them have the earth
and the heavens and let us keep our
humanity, values and principles he would
implore us.
During the heady days of the conflicts and processes leading
to the split of
the MDC and thereafter even when abuse after abuse was
hurled at him, and at
all of us generally he remained firm in his conviction
that we had to hold
and maintain the moral high ground on the issues. Many a
time we were
tempted to dive into the sewer of gutter politics and slug it
out with those
who had taken to that type of politics, but Gibson repeatedly
counselled us
against it. He cautioned that the day we did we would have
lost the struggle
for a different, more humane, democratic, respectful,
tolerant and dignified
society. He held onto this conviction to his last day
on earth.
When Fletcher Dulini Ncube, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and
I went to
visit him at his house on Sunday August 22 2010 the day before he
passed
away, we were ushered to his bedroom where he sat on the edge of the
bed
looking, drained and frail but still dignified and focused as
ever.
He barely allowed us to dwell on his health before asking us to
brief him on
the outcomes of the Sadc Summit in Namibia and the goings on at
Copac . He
was worried that there were so many discordant voices on what had
really
happened at the summit, but he was even more worried about the
problems he
had heard were being encountered on the constitutional outreach
programme.
Particularly worrisome to him were reports that people were being
bussed to
Copac meetings and that in many areas there had been thoroughly
coached on
what to say.
He wondered if the exercise was not one in
futility if it was true that
political parties were frog-marching people to
Copac meetings and demanding
that they merely echo the party views. He was
worried about the violence
reported in Mashonaland West and other
areas.
Regrettably, we could only confirm his worries over these matters.
We
confirmed to him that indeed it was true that bussing was taking place;
that
party supporters were being extensively coached on what to say; that in
some
areas dissenting voices were often booed and heckled. He asked if
anything
could be done to redeem the situation. Again, regrettably we told
him that
it was too late to reverse the situation and that in our view it
was
perhaps inevitable that things would turn out his way having regard to
the
fact that we were trying to craft a national constitution in a highly
polarised, pervasively intolerant society. We thought that history would
record that when people are appropriated in their entirety by this or that
or other political party they are incapable of acting as independent
free-thinking and self-determining citizens. They become but mere agents and
vehicles of political party gladiators.
As we left his house we
reflected on the fact that here was Gibson Sibanda,
in considerable pain,
and yet he did not appear worried about his health. He
was still worried
about the fate of his country and yet as he sat on that
bed he seemed so
lonely, so alone and yet he had devoted his entire life to
the service of
the ordinary working people. His wife had passed away in 2003
and he never
remarried. It seemed to us that at this very moment he needed
the loving,
considerate and kind care of his loving dear wife more than
ever. But she
was long gone.
The following day, Fletcher Dulini Ncube asked the Party
Secretary for
Health Stella Allberry to go to Gibson's house and see what we
could do to
provide closer care and observation to him. She did. The result
was his
admission at Mater Dei that afternoon. By 12:30am he had been taken
away
from us.
We salute him, we honour him, and we cherish his
memory. He left us when we
needed him most. He taught us by example what
empathetic servant leadership
is. We will forever honour his memory. He is
our hero.
Our leader who fought the good fight. For four decades he
served the people
as a messenger of peace, the bearer of kindness. Let his
legacy be a memento
for the triumph of humility, of graciousness, of
kindness, of honesty, of
tolerance and of fairness and justice. While he
cannot today write his
epitaph, we do so for him with humility and sadness.
We pledge that his
fight will be our fight, his pain our pain; his dreams
our dreams. We will
not betray his memory.
May the Almighty, the God
of the Heavens and the Earth let his soul rest in
peace.
*Welshman
Ncube is MDC-M secretary general
BY WELSHMAN NCUBE
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 28 August 2010
16:40
IN 1999 Nelson Mandela said, “…the day should not be far off when
we shall
have a people’s shrine, a Freedom Park, where we shall honour with
all the
dignity they deserve those who endured pain so we should experience
the joy
of freedom.”
The earlier Zimbabweans disabused themselves of
the notion that the monument
standing in Warren Hills —with the misnomer
National Heroes’ Acre — is a
national shrine the earlier they can stop
agonising over who should be
interred there.
The Heroes Acre is a
Zanu PF shrine and there is probably nothing wrong with
that. We all know
that history is the propaganda of the victor. Zanu PF won
the independence
elections in 1980 and has ruled Zimbabwe ever since, so
they deem themselves
the victors and have for the past 30 years been
rewriting the story of
Zimbabwe through their own eyes.
According to the history they are
writing, they alone fought against the
settler regime of Rhodesia. Even
Zapu, whose armed wing Zipra, they fought
alongside has to be scratched from
the history books.
The Heroes Acre was not built as a national project, it
was constructed by
Zanu PF’s allies, the North Koreans. Another monument
which is decidedly
Zanu PF is its headquarters in Rotten Row. It was built
with money raised
from its members and also its allies in the Eastern
bloc.
That the highest office in the “shake-shake” building is occupied
by a
former Zapu official — Zanu PF national chairman Simon Khaya Moyo — is
purely political expediency as is the fact that there is a sprinkling of
former Zapu/Zipra individuals buried at the Heroes Acre.
For Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara to take
the
declaration of national heroes as an outstanding issue in the global
political agreement is to display a marked lack of political
literacy.
Media in Zimbabwe have also joined the debate that seems to vex
the minds of
political commentators. The truth of the matter is that
Zimbabwe does not
have a national monument that commemorates the people’s
collective struggle
against colonialism!
Gibson Sibanda died last
week. He was the deputy president of the smaller
faction of the Movement for
Democratic Change; he was also the founding
deputy president of the MDC
formed in 1999.
The MDC has shaken Zanu PF to its core; having believed
in the politics of
one-party-statism, Zanu PF has seen itself suffering the
ignominy of sharing
power with a party whose history is not steeped in the
liberation war of the
1970s.
Sibanda is therefore seen as a traitor
to Zanu PF hegemony; this despite his
illustrious contribution to the
struggle culminating in the three years he
spent in detention for fighting
the Rhodesian regime. For anyone to have
imagined that he would be interred
at the Heroes Acre or that he would be
declared even a lesser hero such as
liberation war hero as was bestowed on
President Robert Mugabe’s
brother-in-law Reward Marufu, only a few hours
later, was an act of pure
wishful thinking.
Zimbabweans must now begin to think of building a
“Freedom Park” such as the
one envisioned by Mandela which is being built in
South Africa.
Mandela was aware, in his vision, that the people who
“endured pain” to
liberate South Africa were not in the ANC
alone.
According to its website, “Freedom Park stands as a monument to
democracy,
which was founded on the values of human dignity, rights and
freedom. It
serves as a symbol of the tortuous journey to and the sacrifices
made for
freedom.”
The Park has become the place where South African
citizens and international
tourists alike have found a haven to reflect on
South Africa’s past, but
more importantly, also found a beacon for the
future.
“A first of its kind internationally, Freedom Park is is a reflection
of the
sacrificial achievements the nation has made. It tells the story of
South
Africa’s reconciliation process and the advancement of human rights
entrenched in the Constitution. Freedom Park — an embodiment of where we
come from as a nation — tells a tale of South Africa’s diverse heritage in a
visual and interactive way.
“Freedom Park weaves the story of where
South Africans come from and the
historical and cultural events that shaped
what South Africa is today. In
the mind’s eye, the structure brings back to
life ancient warriors that
roamed the plains of Southern Africa — it recalls
to memory the thousands of
men and women bearing the yoke of slavery and of
a people and a culture so
nearly destroyed by genocide.
“Above all, it
showcases a nation that does not shrink from even the
greatest sacrifice to
achieve the extraordinary. It is the heartbeat of all
that is South African;
its history, culture, spirituality and heritage — the
hub through which to
know this land of promise.”
So, instead of Zimbabweans whining about a
Zanu PF monument, they should put
their heads together and begin to think
about constructing a truly national
monument to our struggle not only
against colonialism but also against
post-colonial mendacity.
BY
NEVANJI MADANHIRE