Zimbabwe security chiefs meet S.Africa mediators

Reuters

Thu 7 Aug 2008, 5:36 GMT

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Senior Zimbabwean security officials, seen as key to any
resolution of Zimbabwe's political crisis, have been meeting South African
mediators, South Africa's Star Newspaper reported on Thursday.

Citing unnamed sources, The Star said Zimbabwe's security chiefs, seen as
wielding wide power, "wanted to ensure that their interests are catered for
in any agreement reached" in power-sharing talks which began two-and-a-half
weeks ago.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
were due to meet in Harare on Thursday after signs that progress had been
made in the power-sharing talks.

Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC on Wednesday called on
their supporters to end political violence in the country, the most tangible
sign of forward movement in the talks since they began two weeks ago.

Members of South African President Thabo Mbeki's mediation team met
Zimbabwean security officials this week in Pretoria, The Star said. Mbeki,
who has been leading regional mediation efforts, was expected in Harare on
Thursday.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) began
power-sharing talks last month, following the veteran leader's re-election
in a widely condemned June poll boycotted by the opposition.

The two sides are under heavy international pressure, including from within
Africa, to resolve a crisis that has ruined the once prosperous economy and
flooded neighbouring states with millions of refugees.

DRAFT POLITICAL DEAL

The protracted political crisis has deepened frustrations among millions of
Zimbabweans already suffering from inflation officially estimated at 2.2
million percent a year -- the world's highest -- and chronic shortages of
basic goods.

Under a draft settlement reported in The Star on Wednesday, Tsvangirai would
run the country while Mugabe would become ceremonial president.

According to the draft, Tsvangirai would head Zimbabwe as executive prime
minister during a transitional period, appointing two deputies -- one from
ZANU-PF and the other from the MDC.

But The Star said the MDC wants a 24-30 month transitional period, while
ZANU-PF wanted it to last five years.

The opposition says only Tsvangirai can lead a new government because he won
a first-round presidential vote in March before pulling out of the June 27
run-off because of violence he says killed 122 of his supporters.

ZANU-PF has said it will not accept any deal that fails to recognise
Mugabe's re-election.

This is not the Zimbabwe we voted for

Critical moment for Zim

IOL

    August 07 2008 at 08:18AM

By Fiona Forde

Harare - Zimbabwe's crisis talks will enter a critical stage today
(Wednesday) when Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai come face-to-face to
address the more contentious issues of the proposed settlement.

However, contrary to earlier reports, President Thabo Mbeki will not
facilitate the encounter, although Arthur Mutambara, as leader of the
smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, will join the two
rivals at Rainbow Towers in central Harare for this afternoon's meeting.

Throughout this afternoon, and Friday if necessary, the three men will
aim to reach an agreement on who will take executive power during the
transition period, how many ministries will constitute that government, what
areas of constitutional reform are necessary and who will be covered by an
amnesty in the future.

According to a draft settlement, obtained by Independent Newspapers,
Mugabe will be offered the role of ceremonial president until his retirement
at the end of the transitional government, after which he will acquire a
life-long title of Founding President of Zimbabwe, complete with a blanket
amnesty.

Tsvangirai, on the other hand, is tipped to take the position of
Executive Prime Minister who will preside over a government of 22
ministries.

Critics of the draft settlement call it wishful thinking in a twilight
zone.

"How can you call this power-sharing when you have one man in a
ceremonial role and the other with full executive powers,?" asked Jonathan
Moyo, Mugabe's former information minister who is now an independent Member
of Parliament.

He strongly refutes the existence of the 50-page plus document, saying
"If the people of Zimbabwe were to give all the power to the MDC, then we
wouldn't need to have these power-sharing talks that are moving towards a
power-sharing agreement".

Yet Moyo is confident that an agreement is just a matter of days away,
and could be brokered as early as Heroes Day on Monday, which marks the
anniversary of the 1979 bush battle that claimed the lives of a number of
freedom fighters.

"If they can't respect that day and the significance of it for our
country, then they shouldn't be taking at all," he said.

"Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai have never reached out to each
other as much as they are doing now," he added.

"They have been in constant contact with one another."

In recent days Mugabe has begun to address the country on the
airwaves, courtesy of the public broadcaster ZBC, appealing to all
Zimbabweans whatever "their political affiliations" to work together towards
a better future.

The joint statement issued on Wednesday by representatives of Zanu-PF
and both MDC factions calling for an end to violence has been the talk of
the Zimbabwean capital where locals have begun to interpret it as the final
step towards an agreement being reached.

However, an MDC insider believes rushing a deal "is not in anyone's
interests, least of all the people of Zimbabwe, and just plays into the
hands of Mbeki who would like to see a deal going into the SADC summit",
which takes place in Johannesburg on August 16th when the outgoing South
African president takes on the rotating chairmanship of the 14-member bloc.

Regardless of when that settlement date might fall, it is clear now
that any future deal will be brokered in Harare and not in Pretoria, a
significant note for the historic recording of it.

As the focus shifts to the Zimbabwean capital today (Thursday) and
most likely on Friday, Independent Newspapers understands that the Pretoria
talks have been suspended until such time as the negotiators receive a
briefing from their principals on the outcome of the Harare meeting.

White farmer's ordeal in Zimbabwe

 

Zimbabwe Farmers Assn.

Mike Campbell, left, his son-in-law Ben Freeth, and Campbell's wife, Angela, recover in a Harare hospital after ruling party militiamen attacked them and held them for nine hours in June. Campbell has angered the Zimbabwe government by refusing to give up his farm.

Mike Campbell has fought efforts to seize his farm. Though shaken by a brutal attack on his family by Mugabe's militiamen, he remains undeterred.

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 7, 2008

CHEGUTU, ZIMBABWE -- The ancient chestnut horse, Ginger, stands on the veranda near the farmhouse door, waiting for a treat. But the old farmer and his wife do not come.

The farm dogs leap like dancers, extravagantly pleased to have visitors. The cats bask in the sun. Four red hens peck busily in the flower beds. The garden is alive with bird chatter. But the house stands silent and empty.

No one has lived here since late June, when Mike Campbell, 74, and his wife, Angela, were attacked by militants associated with Zimbabwe's ruling party, which targeted white farmers as well as opposition supporters in the recent election violence.

The beating was so brutal that Campbell's friends didn't recognize photographs taken of him after the nine-hour ordeal. Angela, 67, says her faith sustained her when the men wanted to cut off her fingers because her rings had gotten stuck.

Campbell, one of the few white farmers left in Zimbabwe, had got plenty of government warnings to vacate his spread, which he had named Mount Carmel. He ignored all of them.

He was a feisty, gruff fellow with the determined vigor of someone convinced that he was right and with a hide as tough as a rhino's. If he had a soft side, he kept it well-hidden.

He approached life like a warrior, battling thieves who tried to steal mangoes and the government minister, Nathan Shamuyayira, who wanted to seize the farm where he and Angela had lived for nearly 35 years.

But even tough men can get broken. In early July, he was lying on a bed with four ribs, a collarbone and a foot broken, a dislocated finger and bruises all over his body, including a huge purple one covering the side of his head.

His voice quavered. Occasionally he lost a phrase or an idea and had to pause, racking his brain. Answering questions exhausted him.

He had survived. But suddenly, he seemed like an old man.

"Tough. Jeepers, he's tough," said Campbell's son, Bruce, 42, who farms with him. Remembering the night of the attack, he says, "I can't believe he survived. I thought my old man was going to die when I picked him up."

The ruling ZANU-PF, shocked by its poor result in the March elections, has accused the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of planning to return land to white farmers, reversing "the fruits of the liberation struggle" against the white regime of Ian Smith in the 1970s.

In the subsequent campaign for the presidential runoff, war veterans and ZANU-PF militias invaded farms, beat or evicted white families and their black workers and looted houses. The ruling party set up hundreds of militia bases from which to attack opposition activists and supporters.

Campbell believed the militias might burn down his house. But if he was afraid, he certainly wouldn't show it. He packed up his silver and china and a beloved antique military chest and sent them away.

He and Angela stayed put.

"Where do you go?" he said in Harare, the capital, where he was recuperating. "The best thing is just to stay. I don't think we would ever have given up."

On June 28, the last Sunday of the month, the day Robert Mugabe had himself inaugurated to another term as president after a one-man presidential runoff, the couple went to church and a family lunch in Chegutu. It was eerily quiet in town.

When they returned home at midafternoon, the two-way radio inside crackled urgently. Bruce had news that ZANU-PF militias had badly beaten an old man on a neighboring farm. The radio sputtered and died before he could warn them that the gang had declared it was on its way to Mount Carmel.

Less than 10 minutes later, Angela heard a shrieking yelp from one of her pointers as it was clubbed. Dozens of men had driven into the yard. They were young, in their teens and early 20s, and carrying shotguns and rifles stolen from a nearby farm. They leapt from a pickup also taken from the farm. Others poured from the back of a white minibus -- about 30 in all.

"They even had spears and sticks," she says. "Spears. Can you believe it?"

The men swarmed around them. Campbell was knocked unconscious almost immediately, beaten on the head. A tall, thin gunman smashed Angela's arm, shattering the bone above her elbow. The two were trussed up tightly.

When the radio died, Bruce had frantically phoned Ben Freeth, the Campbells' son-in-law, who lives in the homestead next to Mount Carmel. Freeth raced to the Campbells' house, where he was captured and beaten on the head with a rifle butt, causing a 5-inch fracture in his skull.

Bruce, 10 minutes away, realized there was little point in going to the police. He knew they had been ordered to stay out of election violence. So he was on his own. He had a pistol, against a mob he knew was heavily armed.

He had one goal -- to save his parents. But how?

Mike Campbell is an irritant to the Mugabe regime. He has challenged the government's efforts to seize his farm in the region's highest court, the Southern African Development Community Tribunal, which hears legal appeals from its 14 member countries. Seventy-seven other white farmers have joined him in fighting a 2005 constitutional amendment that denied them the right to appeal eviction orders.

Zimbabwe's land conflict is complex. Britain had funded the redistribution of land from white farmers to blacks in its former colony, but stopped in 1997, concerned that Mugabe's cronies were mainly the ones benefiting from the reform. Mugabe, angry that many white farmers supported the political opposition, ordered war veterans to take over their farms in 2000, triggering the collapse of agriculture, the country's main export business.

Once a regional powerhouse, the country no longer could feed its population. Related industries slumped. The government, starved of foreign currency, printed more and more money to pay its workers, triggering rampant hyperinflation.

In the last year, the highway running 60 miles southwest from Harare to Chegutu has crumbled into a honeycomb of potholes. The town looks tired and threadbare.

The roadsides are speckled with hitchhikers. But the poorest just walk. Some men wear shirts reduced to a lace of holes or plod along in shoes that flap open. People of all ages cart firewood from the bush, some balancing entire branches on their heads, others pushing handcarts. Even the rubber scattered on the roads from tire blowouts is reverently saved.

Days after the attack at Mount Carmel, people are selling tomatoes, sweet potatoes or oranges along the road. Bruce Campbell nods darkly at a gaggle of orange vendors.

"All those oranges are stolen," he says. "They're coming off my friend's place over there."

On the day of the attack, Bruce rushed to his parents' farm as soon as the radio died. He crept up on the house. He could hear shouting and thudding inside and people running around in the bedroom and living room. He heard his parents' car started up and driven off.

He sprinted into the house, but his parents were gone. He gave chase and the militants peppered his car with bullets; he fired back with a pistol.

The militiamen had thrown his father and brother-in-law into the back of the Campbells' SUV. As the cars played cat and mouse at terrifying speed, Angela was sandwiched in the back seat between the men shooting at Bruce. She could hear the broken bone in her upper arm grinding against itself. She was terrified that her husband was dying.

Darkness fell and Bruce lost sight of the militants. He sat in his car on the side of the highway, not knowing where his parents and brother-in-law were, whether they were alive or how to rescue them.

They had been taken to a nearby militia base, with dozens of young men wearing ruling party T-shirts and bandannas emblazoned with the slogan "100 percent empowerment." The militants drenched the captives with cold water.

"It was a very cold night. We were bitterly cold," says Angela. "I've never shaken so much from the cold for so long. The ordeal lasted nine hours from beginning to end."

They tried to take off her rings, but some stuck, so they discussed cutting off her fingers.

"I said, 'Look, there's a better way. Get some soap and water and I'll get them off for you.'" She removed the rings, but then the beatings started.

Freeth was whipped for hours on his back and the soles of his feet.

"They picked up this burning stick and just shoved it in my mouth and burned my lips," Angela says. The men forced her to sign a document pledging to withdraw the court case. Hoping to stop the beatings, she signed. But the document has no legal force.

The militants kept talking about killing them. At one point, Angela felt despair wash over her. She looked up at the stars strewn across the blackness. They gave her hope.

She prayed. Freeth, deeply religious, remembered a biblical phrase he had always struggled with: Bless your tormentors. So he reached out to the militants who were beating his feet, crying out blessings. He says he felt no hate.

About midnight, they were taken out and dumped beside the highway. By the time Mike Campbell got to the hospital, his breathing was labored and his veins had collapsed.

"Never once did terror take hold," Angela says. "All through this there was calmness, almost like a serenity that I cannot account for except that it was God that kept me from terror. I never once panicked. I kept my cool even when they were tugging the rings and some guy said, 'Let's cut off her fingers.' "

As she relates the story late one afternoon in July, her husband lies quietly in bed, adding a comment here or there, but saying little.

The Mike Campbell of old seems suspended like a ghost in the golden evening light: the man who relished a controversial debate; who couldn't help dominating the conversation; who reminisced nostalgically about fighting on the side of the white Rhodesian government against the black liberation fighters and thumbed his nose at political correctness.

That Mike Campbell told The Times last year: "Make no mistake -- a very large part of what has been going on is, the person who is on the land owns it. The moment you move off, you're finished."

He'd come from a family of "pretty resolute people." He seemed strong then, despite losses cascading like a complicated domino structure, nudged too early, before it was finished.

Campbell had achieved his life's dream, a successful tourist game farm, only to see the game killed off by poachers and the safari lodge burned to the ground.

The government had seized Bruce's farm. Campbell also had built a successful fruit export business, which the government was determined to seize. Grimly, he kept on going.

But after the attack, he seems whittled down, diminished.

Still, if Campbell's attackers hoped the farmer would be cowed into withdrawing his case, they would be disappointed.

"We never, ever had any idea of dropping the court case," Campbell says as he reclines in his hospital bed. "No matter what."

In a July hearing, his lawyers called on the tribunal to rule that the Zimbabwean government was in contempt for breaching an order that the 78 farmers should not be harassed or evicted before its judgment. In response, Mugabe's lawyers walked out of the tribunal. The case continues.

On the farm, Ginger neighs hopefully when visitors come. The staff is taking care of him and the other animals, but he misses Angela; he likes to follow her around the garden like a loyal, oversized dog.

When Angela speaks about returning to her home, she is a little vague. "Our future is really very blank," she says. "We have no idea of the future of Zimbabwe."

But put the same question to Mike Campbell, and he snaps back into his lifetime habit of grim determination. He shrugs off his shrunken self like a coat he's outgrown.

"We'll go back to the farm as soon as we can, as soon as our health allows us to," he says. "If you can give an attribute to the African person, one of the things he respects is not giving up."

After the attack, the Campbells spent just over five weeks in Harare, recovering. Today, they are going back home, to Ginger and their dogs and cats, their flower-filled garden and their farm.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Last year, Dixon wrote about the Campbells and the fight for their farm. To read that article, go to latimes.com/world.

Call for peace as violence persists

DA warns against blanket amnesty for Mugabe

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3507



      by Own Correspondent Thursday 07 August 2008

JOHANNESBURG - Any political settlement to the Zimbabwean crisis should not
include a blanket amnesty for President Robert Mugabe and his supporters
implicated in violence and gross human rights abuses in the run-up to the
June 29 presidential run-off election, a South African opposition party
warned on Wednesday.

"While the Democratic Alliance (DA) supports any initiative to restore
democracy and the observance of the rule of law in Harare, we warn of the
danger of settling for an amnesty process without full disclosure," party
foreign affairs spokesperson Tony Leon said in a statement.

Political violence that followed Zimbabwean opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)'s shock victory in presidential and parliamentary
elections last March is said to have killed at least 120 opposition
supporters and displaced 200 000 others.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who defeated Mugabe in the March 29 election
but failed to secure the margin to take power, withdrew from a June 27
run-off poll saying widespread violence against his supporters made a free
and fair vote impossible.

Ruling ZANU PF party militia and some members of the army have been accused
of committing most of the violence against MDC supporters. But Mugabe, who
went ahead with the presidential run-off election despite Tsvangirai's
withdrawal, has accused the opposition of carrying out violence and blaming
it on ZANU PF.

"To suggest that the injustices of Robert Mugabe's eight year plunder of
Zimbabwe - including the gross violation of human rights, the use of
political violence against opponents and crippling the country's economy -
should be swept under the carpet is to ignore the intolerable pain inflicted
by his repressive regime on the people of Zimbabwe.

"Any solution to Zimbabwe's political impasse must also offer justice to the
people of Zimbabwe," the statement said.

The DA urged South African President Thabo Mbeki, the chief mediator in the
Zimbabwean crisis, to take a leaf from the shortcomings of his own country's
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which showed that an amnesty
process could end up dividing a nation if not managed carefully.

"South Africa will recall from some of the imperfections of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that an amnesty process which is not based
on the principle of 'knowledge and acknowledgement' can divide a nation
further," Leon said, adding that any solution to the Zimbabwe crisis must
take into account the damage Mugabe and his acolytes have done to the
country so as to achieve national healing.

After the demise of Apartheid in 1994 the Nelson Mandela-led South African
government instituted a court-like body known as the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission to uncover the truth about past abuse, using
amnesty as a mechanism to forgive and forget, rather than to punish past
crimes.

Seen by many as a crucial component of the transition to full and free
democracy in South Africa, most analysts felt the TRC had failed to achieve
reconciliation between the black and white communities arguing that justice
was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and
that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse. -
ZimOnline

Zim fuel deal collapses over pricing

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3510



      by Cuthbert Nzou Thursday 07 August 2008

HARARE - Negotiations between the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM)
and two international petroleum companies to supply fuel to the country have
collapsed over pricing, sources told ZimOnline.

Sources in the oil industry said NOCZIM was about to clinch a fuel deal with
Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait and BP Shell of South Africa, but it
fell through after NOCZIM insisted that the landing rate be US$0,60 a litre.

"Negotiations collapsed. The two international companies were adamant that
the cost of landing must be between US$0,70 and US$0,90 a litre if they were
to make profit, but government was adamant that it should be US$0,60" said a
sources, who declined to be named.

As a result, the source added, the two companies opted out of the deal
forcing NOCZIM to look for other alternative sources of fuel, including
Equatorial Guinea.

Last year, a high-powered government delegation went to Equatorial Guinea to
hunt for fuel. The team was headed by Energy and Power Development minister
Mike Nyambuya, and included Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono.

Government has been on the hunt for fuel in Equatorial Guinea and Libya in
recent months.

In the past, President Robert Mugabe's government obtained but failed to pay
for fuel from Kuwait, Libya and other countries resulting in supplies being
stopped. Efforts to secure fuel from Iran, Sudan, and Angola also failed
because of Harare's poor payment record.

The country has been without adequate fuel since 1999 due to lack of foreign
currency and the severing of lines of credit by foreign banks and
international money-lenders.

Zimbabwe cannot get lines of credit due to its poor credit rating and high
political risk.

Zimbabwe consumes 3,5 million litres of diesel, three million litres of
petrol and five million litres of Jet A1 daily. The country needs about
US$130 million a month to import fuel.

In March, government came up with a plan to use diamonds illicitly mined
from Marange in Manicaland province in exchange for fuel from Equatorial
Guinea.

The two countries developed strong diplomatic and trade relations after the
arrest in 2004 in Harare of alleged mercenaries led by Simon Mann who were
purportedly en route to Equatorial Guinea to overthrow that country's
government.

Zimbabwe received fuel worth US$24 million from Equatorial Guinea which it
was unable to pay for, resulting in the government coming up with three
options to settle the debt.

The options were: sourcing the fuel through the purchase and sale of
diamonds; NOCZIM supporting the Minerals and Marketing Corporation of
Zimbabwe with financial resources to mop up diamonds for resale; and the
state-run oil procurement company going into diamond mining.

While the energy ministry was in support of the first option, the central
bank opposed it saying the process was flawed.

In turn, the RBZ said it could come up with a debt settlement agreement with
the West African nation "rather than be part of an illegal process".

It was reported recently that government was negotiating with a Libyan bank
for a fuel line of credit, but the deal was said to be far from being sealed
after the financial institution demanded guarantees for loan repayments.

The National Economic Recovery Council reportedly recommended the use of
diamonds, beef or tobacco to back up the line of credit.

Efforts to get a comment from NOCZIM chief executive officer Zvinechimwe
Churu were in vain yesterday as he was reportedly out of his office. -
ZimOnline

MDC protests appointment of councillors

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=2198

August 7, 2008

By Owen Chikari

MASVINGO- Ignatius Chombo, the minister of local government, has provoked
anger among the ranks of MDC after he appointed three councillors into the
Masvingo City Council whom the opposition consider to be Zanu-PF supporters.

According to the amended Urban Councils Act, the minister has to appoint not
more than a third of the elected councillors into councils to represent
special interest groups.

Masvingo City Council has ten elected councillors. Yesterday, Chombo added
three more to make a total of 13 councillors.

Former Masvingo town clerk Tsunga Mhangami bounced back as an unelected
councillor while former councillor Fabian Mabaya was also brought back.

Chombo also appointed as councillor the losing Zanu-PF candidate for Ward 8,
Namatirai Elgy.

The MDC, which dominates the council, yesterday criticised the appointments
saying the three appointed councillors represented Zanu-PF, not special
interest groups.

Noel Mutisi, an MDC official, said Chombo should have waited for the outcome
of the SADC- mediated talks before appointing the councillors.

Said Mutisi: "Firstly, it has to be recognised that legally we do not have a
cabinet because all ministers ceased to be ministers following the
presidential election.

"For Chombo to appoint anyone this time means that Zanu-PF is not
negotiating in good faith (in Pretoria). We also want to know which interest
groups the three represent because to us Chombo only appointed Zanu-PF
sympathisers and not deserving people".

The Masvingo City Council has nine MDC councillors while Zanu-PF now has
four, including the appointed ones.

Meanwhile, the newly-elected Masvingo MDC mayor Femias Chakabuda was
yesterday officially installed as mayor.

However, Chakabuda faces a disciplinary hearing within the his party, the
MDC, following complaints by party supporters that he defected to the ruling
party during the run-up to the June 27 presidential election, which MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted.

Refusing to relinquish power: Losing ZANU-PF councilors in Zaka District

Richard Harrison 06 August, 2008 08:08:00

Flashback: Zaka District, at Jerera Growth Point, is where a number of MDC supporters fwere burnt to death in June

Losing ZANU-PF councilors in Zaka District, the same councilors who have joined ZANU-PF militia in violence, are refusing to give up power

Zaka--A report has come in from Zaka in the south East of the country that the violence continues there. On top of this all MDC supporters were ordered to the ZANU PF "terror bases" to be told that all the losing MP's and councillors from ZANU PF would still remain in charge of council affairs. This is despite the fact that the newly elected councils which are dominated by MDC have already been sworn in.

Throughout the country 73% of the councillors who were elected in the March 29th elections were MDC.

SW Radio Africa Interview

Dabengwa says be wary of Moyo

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=2188

August 7, 2008

By Our Correspondent

BULAWAYO - Dumiso Dabengwa, a former top Zanu-PF official and Minister of
Home Affairs has warned Zimbabweans to be wary of former Information
Minister, Jonathan Moyo in a new political dispensation.

Dabengwa one of Matabeleland's most seasoned and respected politicians and a
former Zanu-PF politburo member, said Moyo, now the independent Member of
Parliament for Tsholotsho North, was the kind of individual who could change
overnight for money.

"Moyo has proved to be a political chameleon," Dabengwa said.

It was recently reported in the Zimbabwe Times that Moyo, who worked close
to President Robert Mugabe as his spin-doctor from 2000 to 2005, had played
a central role in engineering Mugabe's violent re-election campaign in the
controversial single-candidate presidential election on June 27. Although
Moyo has denied the allegation, Dabengwa reiterated in an address at the
Bulawayo Press Club that Moyo had engineered Mugabe's campaign.

"Moyo cannot be trusted in a new political dispensation as he has, since
independence, shown that he has the political colours of a chameleon and
cannot be trusted in a new political dispensation," Dabengwa said. "He
crafted Mugabe's violent campaign for the June 27 elections.

"Moyo is such a usable person who can change overnight and can do anything
for money. He was with the MDC before the March 29 elections but later
dumped the party to craft a violent re-election for Mugabe."

In the run-up to the March 31 Moyo had appeared to be aligned to MDC leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC therefore gave Moyo a free kick in the Tsholotsho
North parliamentary election by no nominating a candidate to challenge Moyo.
In the presidential election on the same day, Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe but
not by a large enough margin to be able to form the next government. An
election re-run was therefore declared. Tsvangirai withdrew his candidature
in the face of an orgy of violence, leaving Mugabe to win the election by
what Zanu-PF called a landslide.

Many in and out of Zimbabwe dismissed the election as a sham.

Dabengwa was a Zanu-PF politburo member until he joined former finance
minister Simba Makoni, also a member of the party's politburo, who quit the
party to launch his presidential bid a few weeks before the elections.

Makoni came a distant third in the March 29 presidential election.
Thereafter Dabengwa realigned himself behind the mainstream MDC led by
Tsvangirai.

Dabengwa revealed that before the elections, Moyo had approached him with a
proposal that he challenge Mugabe in the presidential polls. He said he had
dismissed his proposal.

"Moyo was a government critic before 2000 but was lured with money and he
joined Zanu-PF during the constitutional referendum period," said Dabengwa.
While the government- sponsored constitution was rejected in a referendum,
Mugabe still rewarded Moyo with the post of information minister.

A professor of political science, Moyo was sacked from Zanu-PF and the
government after he stood as independent in the 2005 general elections. He
won the seat in Tsholotsho, which he regained this year after the MDC
decided not to challenge him in the constituency.

Last month, Moyo told journalists at the Quill Club in Harare that he did
not rule out the prospect of rejoining Zanu-PF, arguing that it was his
democratic right to join any political grouping of his choice. He also said
that Mugabe was the ideal candidate to lead a government of national unity.

His statement appeared to lend credence to claims that he was angling for a
return into a Zanu-PF government as a sequel to the crucial role he
allegedly played in Mugabe's controversial re-election.

During his tenure as information minister, Moyo influenced the
implementation of draconian legislation while the independent newspapers,
including The Daily News, became targets of his campaign against a free
press.

Dabengwa disclosed that while he had not formally left Zanu-PF; he was no
longer attending the party's politburo and central committees meetings
because he did not agree with some of the issues discussed there, such as
the use of violence to win elections, he said.

"There is no statement which was issued to say that I have been fired from
Zanu-PF," said Dabengwa. "I just don't attend Zanu-F politburo and central
committee meetings because of the trivial agenda of these meetings, like
inciting violence to win elections."

The former Home Affairs Minister also said he advised Tsvangirai to agree to
proposals for the formation of a government of national unity with Mugabe as
the MDC leader did not have much political experience.

AIDS victims pay price of Zimbabwe turmoil

AFP

HARARE (AFP) - HIV-positive widow Lilian Butau sits on a rickety stool on
the veranda of her home in Harare's Mbare township, chewing on a small piece
of calcium-rich rock, the only thing she has had to eat all day.

While many are going hungry in crisis-wracked Zimbabwe, Butau's case is more
disturbing in that she is both struggling to get food and has also been
unable to take life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for the last four
months.

Butau -- who is blind, unemployed and has four children to look after -- is
entitled to free ARVs under a government-sponsored scheme, but when she last
went for new supplies, she was told the hospital had run out.

"I am taking this as a vitamin supplement. It's all I can afford," says
Butau, showing an AFP reporter a piece of rock believed to be rich in
calcium and widely licked by pregnant women in Zimbabwe.

The 45-year-old is just one of the many silent victims of Zimbabwe's
political and economic turmoil which has devastated the health sector.

She had been a beneficiary of food aid from a Harare-based aid agency until
last month when NGOs were ordered to suspend their operations after being
accused by government of meddling in politics ahead of an election.

Although the government says it has since issued an exemption for those
involved in HIV/AIDS and supplementary feeding schemes, the word does not
seem to have filtered through to those on the ground.

"Yes there was initially a directive that all NGOs must stop operating, but
we stepped in and said all those involved in HIV/AIDS should not be stoppped
because of the delicate nature of their work," David Parirenyatwa,
Zimbabwe's health minister, told AFP.

Parirenyatwa admitted the directive had had an adverse impact, but said
authorities were working to rectify it.

"It has had a ripple effect which we need to correct urgently.

"I am hoping that the disruption was not long. We fear not only relapses,
but also an emergence of resistance."

Despite the minister's comments, Fambai Ngirande, spokesman for the National
Association of Non-governmental Organisations, says field workers still face
obstacles.

"Some (NGOs) have tried going back to the field, but workers have not been
free to move with truckloads of food and get stopped at roadblocks and asked
for a clearance letter, which they would not possess," said Ngirande.

Douglas Muzanenhamo, who works with Butau as a counsellor for HIV sufferers,
struggled to suppress his anger at the impact of the original order.

"They have killed people," said Muzanenhamo who was until recently
coordinating a feeding scheme for orphans of AIDS victims.

"One of the children in my (feeding) programme died recently. It's
heartbreaking."

Despite the economic turmoil which has enveloped Zimbabwe since the turn of
the decade, the government's record on combating AIDS has won plaudits.

Officials representing Zimbabwe at the world AIDS conference in Mexico City
will be able to point to an HIV prevalency rate which now stands at 15.6
percent of the adult population, having dropped from 31 percent in 2000.

Some 110,000 patients are recipients of free ARVs under a programme which
began in 2004 and which ultimately aims to cater for 300,000.

"We want very well that those on ARVs should continue. We will not allow to
stock in some areas and not in others," said Parirenyatwa.

Parirenyatwa also denied there were any ARVs supply problems.

"All of our people on ARVs are able to access them for the next three
months".

Infected 23 years ago, Butau's greatest concern is that while she has lived
this long with the virus, the stress of the past few months could accelerate
her demise.

"I get so stressed the moment I start thinking about my status that I lose
sleep," she said, her lips white from the stone she has been chewing.

"If we are going to die, it is going to be from hunger and stress."

Child Health Days reach Zimbabwe's children and mothers at a critical time

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_45100.html

UNICEF calls for the immediate lifting of the NGO ban

HARARE, 6 August 2008- Zimbabwe's national biannual Child Health Days kicked
off on Monday, with the aims of providing the country's two million children
(under-five) with essential Vitamin A supplementation and  catch-up
immunization,  and of providing communities with life-saving information on
nutrition and breastfeeding practices.

 "The nationwide campaigns are important life-saving, low-cost and
high-impact support towards reducing child illnesses and deaths in
 Zimbabwe," said UNICEF's Acting Country Representative in Zimbabwe, Roeland
Monasch. "The days are an essential boost to a health system under great
stress and children made vulnerable by declining social services."

The Child Health Days (CHDs) are led by the Ministry of Health and Child
Welfare in partnership with UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and
Helen Keller International. Past child health drives have demonstrated that
this campaign method is highly successful. During the campaigns, UNICEF
adequately funds social mobilization and provides health staff and
volunteers with allowances and additional transport is provided for outreach
activities.

The week-long US$ 1million campaign is supported by essential funding from
the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), Canada's
International Development Agency (CIDA) and UNICEF's National Committee of
the Netherlands.

During the campaign health workers and volunteers conduct outreach
activities to schools, community centres and mobile clinics across the
country. Children, even those in hard to reach areas, are immunised against
tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B,
haemophilus influenza and polio.

UNICEF's Regional Director Per Engebak, who was in Zimbabwe last week,
reaffirmed that Child Health Days are pivotal for the well-being of
Zimbabwean children. The agency, however, expressed serious concerns about
the impact on children of the current ban prohibiting non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) from operating in communities. The ban, imposed on the
4th of June, has now been in effect for over two months.

"We applaud and are committed to efforts such as the Child Health Campaign,
but we cannot forget that a growing number of children are suffering daily
because of the NGO ban," said Mr. Engebak. "Every day that such an important
lifeline of humanitarian aid for children remains cut off, puts the children
of this country at ever greater risk."

Recent child health campaigns have boosted vitamin A coverage from less than
10 per cent in 2005 to over 80 per cent today. Overall immunization
coverage, which had dropped by almost 50 per cent, has once again reached 70
per cent. The campaign in November 2007 reached 81per cent of the country's
children with polio vaccination and 80 per cent with Vitamin A
supplementation.

The child health days are part of the country's ongoing efforts to eliminate
vaccine preventable diseases, maintain high vitamin A coverage and improve
child survival across the country.

UNICEF continues to provide support to the Zimbabwe Expanded programme on
Immunisation (ZEPI) in the procurement of vaccines for immunisation, cold
chain equipment for vaccine storage and technical support to the health
workers.

China Key Arms Supplier to Human Rights Abusers

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43471

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 (IPS) - As China tries to boost its international
image, playing host to a summer Olympic games, the government in Beijing is
being singled out as a key arms supplier to some of the world's worst human
rights abusers, according to a new study released here.

Although China controls only 2 percent of the global arms market, Beijing's
impact "is measured less by the value of its sales than by the character of
its clients," says William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security
Initiative at the New America Foundation. A brief by the Washington-based
non-profit public policy institute, released Wednesday, points out that
China is currently "an arms supplier of last resort for dictators and human
rights abusers", including Sudan, Zimbabwe and Myanmar (Burma).

"China's domestic policies have come under much-deserved scrutiny in the
run-up to the Olympics," noted Hartung, author of the study, who says
Beijing's clients include politically repressive regimes.

"We shouldn't forget that the Chinese government's most egregious act has
been its role as an enabler of mass murder in Darfur," he said.

Without Chinese support, he argued, the ability of the Sudanese government
and its allies to kill, maim, and intimidate the people of Darfur would be
greatly diminished.

Asked whether Western nations are equally guilty in their arms sales
policies, Hartung told IPS that major suppliers like the United States,
Britain and France all supply dictatorships and human rights abusers.

But he pointed out that China's markets include the few repressive regimes
that these major exporters have chosen not to supply.

For example, in the case of the U.S., 17 of its 25 largest recipients of
weapons in the developing world in 2007 were designated as major human
rights abusers or undemocratic regimes by its own State Department.

"Under various laws and political commitments [not formal treaties], major
suppliers are committed to limiting sales to regions of conflict and major
human rights abusers," according to Hartung.

But in practice, he said, these rules are violated more often than they are
observed, generally on grounds of "national interest", which could mean
anything from exporting to major oil producing countries to supporting
nations in "strategic locations".

In order to address the hypocrisy of current arms export rules, such as they
are, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and scores of other groups are promoting
the concept of a global Arms Trade Treaty that would make these loose
promises to avoid arming dictators and human rights abusers into formal
legal commitments, he added.

In a statement released Wednesday, Human Rights First and the Save Darfur
Coalition said the International Criminal Court's (ICC) recent efforts to
charge Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir with genocide puts the world's
governments on notice that war crimes may well be occurring in Darfur.

Countries such as China and Russia are bound by the Genocide Convention to
take all possible action -- including immediately suspending arms sales to
Sudan -- the two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said.

At a meeting of the Security Council last week, Chinese Ambassador Wang
Guangya spoke against the recent ICC indictment of Al-Bashir on charges of
genocide in Darfur. "China supports the reasonable request by the African
Union and other organisations for the Security Council to take early action
to suspend the indictment of the Sudanese leader by the ICC, in accordance
with the relevant provisions" of the Rome Statute that created the ICC.

Under Article 16 of the Rome Statute, the 15-member Security Council has the
power to suspend any indictment of Al-Bashir -- under a "deferral of
investigation and prosecution" clause.

Hartung said that China has been the most egregious violator of the global
arms embargo on Sudan, providing everything from guns and ammunition to arms
manufacturing facilities.

Since 2004, the vast majority of Sudan's small arms and light weapons have
come from China -- and many of them have found their way into the hands of
the notorious Janjaweed militias in Darfur.

The arming of Sudan is "just the most damning example of a Chinese policy
that has resulted in major weapons exports to repressive regimes in Zimbabwe
and Myanmar, as well as sales of missile technology to Iran and Pakistan,"
Hartung said.

China is essentially "bartering arms and political support for access to
Sudan's oil resources," Hartung explains.

China has also sold combat aircraft to Myanmar, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, as well
as air--to-air missiles to Sudan.

Asked to detail some of the Chinese weapons sales, Hartung told IPS that
shipments to Myanmar include 12 F-7 fighter aircraft; 40 PLA-2A short- range
air-to-air missiles; 40 PLA-2B short-range air-to-air missiles; and 12 K-8
aircraft, which can be used for training or for combat.

The arms shipments to Sudan include 3 A-5C Fantan fighter/ground attack
aircraft and 12 K-8 trainer/combat aircraft, along with 10 Type-85 IIAP
tanks and 10 WZ-551 armoured personnel carriers.

The sales to Zimbabwe include 12 K-8 trainer/combat aircraft, plus small
arms and ammunition.

Zuma's long, dangerous walk to state house

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3508

 

by Mutumwa Mawere Thursday 07 August 2008

OPINION: "Long Walk to Freedom" is an autobiographical work written by
South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995. It is
a story of the audacity of hope that describes his early life, coming of
age, education, 27 years in prison, his political ascension, and his belief
that the struggle against poverty and political inclusivity continues in the
post-apartheid order.

The road to freedom was closed to persons of colour during the
colonial/apartheid eras and yet for many would be candidates for political
office in post-colonial Africa, the road remains closed with the state
increasingly being manipulated to be the biggest and most lethal enemy of
democracy.

In trying to better understand the construction of post-colonial
Africa, one is often reminded that the values, principles and beliefs that
informed the creation of an exclusive colonial race-based constitutional
democratic order are no different from those that drive the post-colonial
system.

The state house in post-colonial Africa ought to be a house of the
people. The resident of the peoples' house must necessarily be an agent of
the people if democracy has to have a meaning.

The role of the state cannot, therefore, be more than the
administration of the people's agenda.

Who should qualify to be the first citizen in a democratic order? How
should the incumbent be selected? Whose agenda should he/she be pursuing?
What should be the role of the state?

In a constitutional democracy, any citizen as defined in the
constitution should be eligible to qualify for the office of president. Such
a citizen must come from the people through a credible and transparent
system.

The state itself as an institution is a foreign construct in many
developing countries. Its foundation has to be located in the colonial
system that had as its cornerstone the values and worldview of a settler
community that had originated from so-called civilised societies.

The relationship between the settlers and the colonial state was
understood as was the role of the state. The alienation of the majority of
the citizens was justified on the grounds that natives could conceivably
have no interest in a constitutional democratic order.

The struggle for independence was, therefore, informed by the
interests of political elites to connect them to the state so as to
influence their affairs.

The charge against the colonial state was ably led by intellectuals
seeking to assert their civil rights. Intellectuals played and continue to
play an inspirational and leadership role in Africa.

It has been generally accepted although not written in any
constitution that a political leader must have some knowledge about how to
advance the interests of the citizens in a democratic order.

The transition from the colonial to a post-colonial order saw African
agitators assume positions in the state that they had been fighting hard to
destroy and undermine. When they took office, some of the intellectuals had
no clue about how to organise a successful and vibrant post-colonial state.

To a large extent it was always understood that the control of the
state would assist in alleviating poverty. It is evident that no serious
attention was paid to understanding the complex interplay between the
colonial state and the market system.

The colonial state was as successful as the settlers wanted it to be
rather than as a benign consequence of the whims of the imperial power. It
cannot be denied that the colonial settlers were good at building
institutions to serve their interests.

After 52 years of uhuru, Africa's youngest child, South Africa, at 14
years of age is already exhibiting classic symptoms of the African political
and succession disease. The transition from the apartheid state to the
Mandela regime was seamless and inclusive.

The transformation of the atmosphere of fear that characterised the
transition to a hopeful one was instrumental in building confidence that has
allowed whites to continue to earn income, a portion of which has been used
to help in the alleviation of poverty through taxes.

Thabo Mbeki, an intellectual, took over from Mandela having been his
deputy and it was widely hoped that the baton of power would also be
seamlessly passed on. His deputy, Jacob Zuma, occupied the number two spot
in both the government and the party until things went fundamentally wrong
in 2005.

What was expected to be a smooth and pleasant walk to state house has
been a tortuous and dangerous one.

Zuma has navigated carefully and purposefully through the landmines of
corruption and rape charges since his dismissal as deputy to Mbeki in the
state. Against all odds, he was elected in December 2007 as president of the
African National Congress (ANC) party and the next in line to be the state
president.

Who would have thought that while Mandela is still alive, the ANC
would be found wanting on the leadership, values and principles debate?

Zuma genuinely believes that he has been unfairly treated by a state
whose legitimacy derives from the party that he now leads and yet he finds
himself helpless. Instead of relying on the state to advance the interests
of the party as is customary in post-colonial Africa, Zuma finds himself at
the receiving end of a system that emerged from the womb of oppression.

If Mandela by describing his journey from apartheid/colonialism to
post-apartheid as a freedom journey then he obviously had no idea that a
party that has given him a home is capable of doing worse things than
apartheid to those like Zuma who have the audacity to seek residency in the
statehouse.

The ANC under Zuma's leadership has been reduced to resorting to mass
action rather than using the organs of state to correct what they feel to be
abuses of state power by their own product, Mbeki.

Since June 2005, Zuma through his lawyers has thrown everything into
ensuring he does not stand trial or that, if he does, the amount of evidence
against him is limited. He has been put on the defensive while claiming to
be a victim of conspiracy.

Rightly or wrongly he has claimed all manner of dirty tricks on the
part of the state - from political persecution to seizing privileged
documents to obtain an inside track into his defence - while failing to
expose the "conspiracy" against him.

As expected, last week, the Constitutional Court (CC) rejected his
appeal against the Supreme Court of Appeal's decision to allow the state to
use 93 000 documents it had seized in the August 2005 raids on his homes and
offices and those of his lawyer, Michael Hulley.

The CC also rejected his appeal against the SCA's ratification of a
Durban High Court decision to allow the state to secure evidence against him
from Mauritius, including the encrypted fax allegedly soliciting a bribe of
R1 million for him from co-accused Thint.

What the CC has managed to do is to put pressure on Zuma to use the
courts to challenge the corruption allegations rather than giving the
impression that he has something to hide. By carefully managing Zuma, Mbeki
may achieve what he could not at Polokwane to ensure that Zuma will never
call the state house his home.

Mbeki's opinion on Zuma's presidency is already known and yet the
party that gives both of them legitimacy is of the opinion that Zuma should
be the next resident of the state house.

While Mbeki's view may have legal substance, an absurd outcome seems
to be emerging where the general consensus in the party and possibly in the
country if ANC were to be returned to power as expected is that
notwithstanding the corruption allegations, Zuma must be the head of state.

The manner in which Zuma has been treated by the state raises key
constitutional and legal questions that will continue to haunt the Republic.

The role of the courts particularly the CC in the contestation for
power will continue to be a subject of debate in years to come but what is
significant is that the ultimate jury and fountain of political power, the
people, hold different views from their servants in the state.

The ruling by the CC opens the way for the state to present nearly all
the evidence it has amassed against Zuma in an unprecedented five years of
investigation which has split the ruling party and led to the country's
biggest political crisis since the end of apartheid in 1994.

The ANC has already voted to disband the police unit that headed the
investigation.

The mixed message from Zuma that he wants his day in court while using
all instruments within the law to ensure that the day will never arrive
while Mbeki is at the helm of the state may serve to undermine the position
of the party regarding his innocence.

Zuma's walk to state house is pregnant with lessons that much more
work needs to be done to realise the objectives of the liberation struggle.

Mbeki and Zuma have succeeded in exposing how fragile and perishable
the constitutional democratic order is.

A better understanding of the role of the state and the responsibility
of citizens to invest in the kind of society they want to see is critically
important in driving the transformation and nation building agendas. -
ZimOnline