Zim heads for more violence

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by VUSIMUZI BHEBHE AND JOHN CHIMUNHU
Saturday, 07 August 2010 13:14

HARARE - Zimbabwe's political situation is fast deteriorating amid warnings
by analysts that any fresh elections under current conditions could plunge
the country into unprecedented violence worse than the deadly clashes that
left more than 500 opposition supporters dead two years ago. Cases of
politically motivated violence and intimidation are escalating as the
country slowly marches towards a new "people-driven" constitution - or
possibly new elections next year under a new constitution or the existing
one. The MDC-T led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said assaults on its
officials and supporters have intensified across the country in the past two
months.
The party accused President Robert Mugabe's Zanu (PF) of activating the same
machinery used during past elections to intimidate opposition officials and
supporters. The machinery includes soldiers, Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO) operatives, the police, traditional chiefs, the youth
militia and local thugs who are paid for each assignment. Reports of
assaults, displacements, arrests and harassments are being received daily
from around the country.
Two MDC-T officials from Manicaland's Chipinge area allegedly sustained
broken limbs and vehicles belonging to the party were attacked and
vandalized by youth militia and CIO agents in separate incidents last week.

No-go areas
The party's provincial spokesperson for Manicaland, Pishayi Muchauraya, told
the media last week that Zanu (PF) had quarantined most parts of the
province as part of an elaborate scheme to deny ordinary Zimbabweans the
chance to participate in an ongoing exercise to gather public views on the
proposed constitution. "We as MDC are partly worried that it is not working
as Zanu (PF) alone. It has militarised the war vets. It has militarised the
militia. It has militarised some headman. It has militarised village chiefs,
to make sure that everyone within their circles is viciously attacking MDC
supporters.
Our concern is that this state sponsored violence cannot go ahead alongside
the constitution making exercise," Muchauraya told SW Radio Africa. In
another incident, Zanu (PF) militia led by the district chairperson John
Kanindiriri are reported to be assaulting people who fail to attend forced
meetings in the Chendambuya area of Headlands, Manicaland province.
Villagers in the area are being forced to attend daily Zanu (PF) meetings
ahead of the official outreach meetings scheduled for this month.
Soldiers in Mugabe's Zvimba rural home allegedly tried to evict a local
businessman and MDC-T official James Jonga from his business premises at
Murombedzi growth point last Tuesday after he defied the soldiers'
instructions and contributed during a constitutional outreach meeting.

Massive abuses
Only selected people are allowed to speak during public meetings to gather
views on the new constitution. Prominent human rights defender and Zimbabwe
Peace Project Director Jestina Mukoko said massive human rights abuses are
taking place and warned that the forthcoming elections could again provide
an opportunity for Zanu (PF) to unleash more violence against perceived
critics.
"There are widespread human rights abuses," Mukoko said. Speaking during a
meeting at the US embassy on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, Mukoko
said her organisation was compiling statistics on numerous attacks that had
already happened. She said villagers were being forced to attend Zanu (PF)
meetings even though they do not support the party.
"Political violence worries us, especially when we get to special events,
that is, elections. We know a lot of people are already afraid," said
Mukoko, herself a victim of Zanu (PF) abuses following her incarceration in
2008 on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow Mugabe.

The Zimbabwean
She said the Zanu (PF) intimidation machinery also included attacks on the
freedom of expression and right to information.
"People are afraid in some areas to bring out papers like The Zimbabwean
because they're already targeted. People are afraid to put on party regalia
but these are rights that are supposed to be guaranteed," said Mukoko.
Zimbabwe's constitution-making process was part of a power-sharing agreement
signed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai in September 2008 following six months of
violence that followed the country's disputed presidential election.
The consultation process is designed to garner feedback on the constitution
through a series of outreach meetings with local communities. Following a
long delay due to squabbling within the unity government, the consultation
finally began on June 16 but activists monitoring the process have been
targeted. Zanu (PF) has been accused of deploying CIO spies to speak on
behalf of ordinary participants in rural Zimbabwe during the outreach
meetings. In a move meant to cow the general public, Zanu (PF) is allegedly
using intelligence officers to articulate the party's position paper during
the outreach programme.

Chaos and threats
The outreach programme has been rocked by administrative chaos and threats
against officials and participants by the army and Zanu (PF) supporters - or
possibly new elections next year under a new constitutiuon or teexisting
one. Zanu (PF) supporters and so-called war veterans have allegedly been
visiting various constituencies to disrupt proceedings during public debates
on the new constitution.
Mugabe's party is pushing for the adoption of a draft constitution agreed by
negotiators from the three main political parties in the resort town of
Kariba in September 2007. Zanu (PF) and the two MDC formations secretly
authored the Kariba
draft in 2007 but critics say the document should be discarded because it
leaves untouched the immense presidential powers that analysts say Mugabe
has used to stifle opposition to his rule for the past three decades.
Zanu (PF) supporters and soldiers have been campaigning for the adoption of
the controversial Kariba draft constitution as the basis of the proposed new
charter.

 

No Zim poll violence report: Mbeki

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by VUSIMUZI BHEBHE
Saturday, 07 August 2010 23:39

HARARE - Former South African president Thabo Mbeki has denied the existence
of a report on Zimbabwe's 2002 disputed presidential elections as Pretoria
prepared to appeal against last month's court order to make the document
public. (Pictured: Former South African President Thabo Mbeki)

In what was widely hailed as a victory in the struggle for state
transparency in South Africa, Acting Judge Stanley Sapire on June 7 granted
an application by newspaper group Mail & Guardian to make the contents of
the report public. He ordered the government to hand over the report within
10 days.

The M&G contended that the report was of public interest, given the
widespread view that the 2002 Zimbabwe election, culminating in a victory
for President Robert Mugabe, was marred by vote-rigging, intimidation,
violence and fraud.

But Mbeki, who commissioned Judge Sisi Khampepe and Deputy Chief Justice
Dikgang Moseneke to visit Zimbabwe and report back on the state of the
election, insisted there was no such report.

"The Presidency has replied to this request, stating that this document does
not exist. This is correct," Mbeki said in an affidavit filed with the South
African High Court.

The 10-day deadline ran out on June 23, with the South African Presidency
announcing it was applying for leave to appeal the court's decision.

The report was handed over to Mbeki but never made public, although the
former president insisted the electoral process in Zimbabwe was completely
democratic.

South Africa's observer team to Zimbabwe endorsed the election result as a
fair reflection of the will of voters.

Observers have said this is a clear sign that the contents of the report
show that the 2002 Zimbabwean elections were neither free nor fair as was
stated by South Africa's leaders.

Critics have said that the report will show that South Africa is essentially
implicated in allowing the ZANU PF regime to cling to power through vote
rigging, violence and intimidation.

The Mail & Guardian has been trying to have the report released since 2008,
amid widespread speculation about its true contents.

The South African government has argued that the report was "confidential"
and contained information "supplied in confidence by or on behalf of another
state, for the purpose of assessing or formulating a policy."

Pretoria has also argued that the report would lead to a deterioration of
relations between the two countries, as South Africa is the facilitator in
Zimbabwe's ongoing political crisis.

Anti-Immigrant Tensions Rise Again In South Africa

by Kyle G. Brown

August 8, 2010

 

 

Jerome Delay/AP

South African soldiers check the documents of residents of the Diepsloot township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 9. Police and army had deployed due to growing rumors of attacks on foreigners.

Jerome Delay/AP

South African soldiers check the documents of residents of the Diepsloot township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 9. Police and army had deployed due to growing rumors of attacks on foreigners.

 

August 8, 2010

Anti-foreigner violence is grabbing the headlines again in South Africa after what seemed to be a break during the World Cup.

Immigrants have fled their homes and have left the country, just as they did during the anti-immigrant violence of 2008, which left more than 60 people dead.

At the Methodist Mission in central Johannesburg, Bishop Paul Verryn welcomes a Zimbabwean woman and her baby, two of the many African immigrants who are seeking help.

"Well, people have said that South Africans have told them they must go back to where they come from, they don't belong here," Verryn says. "Some have been threatened, some assaulted. But the general feeling is they must get out of here."

During the deadly wave of xenophobic attacks in South Africa two years ago, the church became a refuge for hundreds of immigrants, mostly from Zimbabwe. Verryn says it's happening again, though on a smaller scale.

Just weeks ago, South Africans were cheering Ghana as the continent's last hope during the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Now that the games are over, the euphoria has cooled, and some of the resentment against foreigners has turned violent.

"They came to us in the night. ... Eight guys came to our place. They know we're Zimbabweans," says Tinashay Negomo, who fled to South Africa five years ago to escape economic turmoil and violence.

She says she was asleep at her home in Soweto when the locals came, warning the house would be burnt down if she didn't come out. Then, she says, one man grabbed hold of her.

"The other one beat me with wooden plank. He hit me on the back; another one on the head," she says.

Even after the attack, Negomo didn't go to the police.

"I was scared," she says. "I was scared."

Negomo and her housemates are among many foreigners who have been threatened or attacked in recent weeks.

The South African government's response has been ambiguous. It recently re-established the interministerial committee on xenophobia. But its head, and minister of police, Nathi Mthethwa, describes the latest violence as criminal, and not based on race or ethnicity.

It's natural -- not necessarily forgivable -- it's natural for people to look for scapegoats, to look for people who are from outside, who you can blame for the failings of government.

- Loren Landau, University of the Witwatersrand

"There's crime in South Africa and we are dealing with crime," Mthethwa says. "There's nothing systematic, which has been, as xenophobia.

"Even those incidents we are talking about - people have been looting shops and police are arresting them. They will continue arresting them and we will smoke them."

Loren Landau, who is with the Forced Migration Studies Program at University of the Witwatersrand, says more must be done to address the root causes of the widespread resentment against immigrants from the rest of Africa.

"I think what you're seeing is extraordinary fear," he says. "Hundreds if not thousands have left their homes and the country."

Unemployment rates of more than 25 percent and the unmet post-apartheid promises of better housing and services are wearing down the patience of the poor.

"It's natural - not necessarily forgivable - it's natural for people to look for scapegoats, to look for people who are from outside, who you can blame for the failings of government," Landau says.

In Alexandra, a sprawling township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, a group of men is playing a board game outside in the cold South African winter air.

It was here in 2008 that the wave of anti-immigrant violence began, eventually taking the lives of more than 60 people and displacing thousands. Questions about African immigrants, even now, fracture the friendly mood.

"The people from the outside of this country, we don't need them because they're taking our jobs," says Victor Mbatha, who, like everyone else around the table, is unemployed.

The others nod in agreement.

"We want them to go back to their countries ... because this is our country," Mbatha says.

But not everyone agrees.

Mbali Gamede and Nolwazi Mabaso are washing the dishes and preparing dinner. The teenage girls are dismayed by the anti-foreign sentiment of their neighbors.

Under apartheid, South Africans sought refuge in neighboring states. Nolwazi says they should offer the same hospitality to those now in need.

Zuma pushes harder

http://www.timeslive.co.za

He needs progress for SADC summit
Aug 7, 2010 5:59 PM | By Zoli Mangena

South African president Jacob Zuma is piling pressure on Zimbabwe's
political rivals to revolve their lingering disputes ahead of the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) summit in Windhoek, Namibia, from
August 15 - 17.

The latest push comes as SADC is preparing to send a team to Harare to
review the operations of the inclusive government before the summit.

A review of Zimbabwe's inclusive government was not done at the last SADC
summit in September last year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
after President Robert Mugabe blocked the issue.

Mugabe has also been trying to remove Zimbabwe from the SADC agenda in
Windhoek, but regional leaders have resisted this and the issue will be
discussed.

Senior SADC secretariat officials, who spoke to the Sunday Times from their
headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana, said Zuma wanted to go to Windhoek with
a major breakthrough to announce.

"Zuma is pushing hard before the SADC summit because he wants to score a
major breakthrough and announce it at the summit.

"So he wants Zimbabwe's political leaders to reach an agreement ahead of the
meeting and make it public before he officially reports back to the SADC," a
senior SADC diplomat told the Sunday Times.

"That is why Zuma recently deployed a special envoy to Zimbabwe to work on
the issue almost on a full-time basis."

Since last week Zuma's special envoy Mac Maharaj has been shuttling between
Pretoria and Harare in a bid to secure a breakthrough in Zimbabwe's
protracted political stalemate.

Maharaj is one of Zuma's facilitators. Others are the presidential political
and international relations advisors, Charles Nqakula and Lindiwe Zulu,
respectively.

Maharaj was in Harare between Monday and Thursday for meetings with the
political principals of the inclusive government.

He met Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister
Arthur Mutambara.

Insiders said Maharaj strongly urged the three leaders to implement the
outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

Maharaj was also in Harare last week for meetings.

Insiders said Maharaj has been persistently demanding "full implementation
of the GPA and resolution of the outstanding issues" before the SADC summit
next week.

Zulu confirmed Zuma was pushing for a resolution of outstanding issues
before the SADC summit.

"Maharaj was in Harare last week and is currently engaging with the process
because President Zuma has to engage with the principals before he goes to
the SADC summit," Zulu said.

Since the negotiators of Zanu-PF and the two MDC factions submitted a report
in April, Zuma has been trying to break the political impasse.

Zimbabwean leaders met on June 8 to discuss the report of their negotiators
and they agreed on all but three issues - the swearing-in of Roy Bennett and
the appointments of Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General
Johannes Tomana - leaving them closer to a settlement.

Insiders said after their meeting on June 8, Mugabe, Tsvangirai and
Mutambara wrote to Zuma on June 10, outlining areas of agreement and
disagreement. While the parties initially claimed the principals made no
progress in their discussion of the negotiators' report, it has now emerged
that the leaders actually took dramatic steps forward by agreeing on a raft
of unresolved issues.

Maharaj has refused to talk to journalists about his visits to Harare,
saying he had no interest in engaging "fishermen" who only wanted to "fish
out" information from him.
 

NGO wants rights violators punished

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by MARCUS TAWONA
Saturday, 07 August 2010 14:23

MUTARE - Perpetrators of political violence and human rights abuses must
face justice if Zimbabwe is to achieve true national healing and
reconciliation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) has said. (Pictured:
War veterans committed gross human rights abuses including torture and
murder as they led President Robert Mugabe's drive to evict white commercial
farmers from the their properties)

The Public Information Rights Forum (PIRF) urged the government's National
Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation to set up village-based
reconciliation committees and special courts to try perpetrators of rights
abuses, a move it said would help quicken the national reconciliation
programme.

PIRF is a grouping of activists drawn from labour unions, local communities,
traditional leaders and the student movement campaigning for basic rights
such as such as the freedoms of expression and association that remain under
threat in Zimbabwe despite formation of a unity government last year.

Speaking at a reconciliation workshop in Mutare last week, PIRF chairman for
Manicaland province David Mutambirwa said the national healing organ must:
"Establish village based reconciliation committees and special courts to try
cases of human rights violation."

Mutambirwa also called on the organ to draw up a compensation plan for
victims of the 1980s Gukurahundi atrocities and the political violence of
the past decade.

The healing organ tasked to promote national healing and reconciliation
after years of political strife and violence has achieved little since its
establishment more than 12 months ago.
Zimbabwe witnessed some of its worst political violence in 2008 after a
parliamentary election that was won by the MDC while then opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert Mugabe in a parallel
presidential poll but with fewer votes to avoid a second run-off ballot.
In a bid to ensure Mugabe regained the upper hand in the second round vote,
Zanu (PF) militia, war veterans and state security agents unleashed an orgy
of violence and terror across the country, especially in rural areas many of
which virtually became no-go areas for the opposition.
Tsvangirai later withdrew from the June 27 run-off election because of
violence that he says killed about 200 of his supporters and displaced
thousands of others.
Mugabe won the vote uncontested in a ballot that African observers denounced
as a shame and Western governments refused to recognize forcing the veteran
leader to agree to form a power-sharing government with Tsvangirai and
Mutambara
While the political violence of the past decade has caught the attention of
the world more, Zimbabwe's darkest period remains the 1980s Gukurahundi
period when more than 20 000 innocent civilians from the Ndebele ethnic
minority were reportedly killed during a bloody counter-insurgency drive by
the army in the southern Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.
Mugabe - who some say personally ordered deployment of the army's North
Korean-trained 5th Brigade in Matabeleland and Midlands ostensibly to stop
an armed insurrection against his rule - has called the killings an "act of
madness".
But the 86-year-old leader has never personally accepted responsibility for
the civilian murders or formally apologised. He has not yielded to calls by
human rights activists for his government to compensate victims of the
brutal army operation.

Election preparations on course: Tsvangirai

http://www.newzimbabwe.com

08/08/2010 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says preparations for new elections are on
course adding he was confident his MDC-T party would win the ballot and form
the next substantive government.

Tsvangirai told party supporters during a rally at Old Lwendulo Grounds in
Hwange that the coalition government was not working adding his party could
only deliver on its pledges if it had the "full authority" to govern.

"The process of transition is an irreversible process to a free and fair
election, because we can not continue to have this mule powered government
as it is not doing much," Tsvangirai said.

The MDC-T leader said only a new "free and fair" general election would
solve what he described as a "governance crisis" in the country.

"This coalition is just a temporary arrangement. We want a permanent
solution to the crisis of governance in this country," he said

Parties to the coalition government appear resigned to holding fresh
elections, possibly next year, after failing to reach agreement on a number
of so-called outstanding issues in the implementation of the Global
Political Agreement (GPA).

Tsvangirai however, insisted that the ongoing constitutional reform process
should be completed to ensure the election outcome is not disputed.

However Dr Simba Makoni, leader of Mavambo Kusile Dawn (MKD) said the
country does not need a new constitution to hold elections.

He dismissed the ongoing reform programme as an "entirely unnecessary,
wasteful and unproductive exercise".

"It was not the constitution that defeated the people in June 2008, it was
the administration. Mugabe and Zanu (PF) deliberately went out to subvert
the will of the people in March and June 2008.

"So our focus should be on what are the minimum requirements needed to have
a free and fair election," Makoni said.

The MKD leader said the draft charter was likely to represent ZANU PF views
claiming people were not being given the chance to freely express their
views.

"We are likely to end up with a Zanu (PF) constitution which will be cheated
on the country because of the manipulation of the outreach programme.

"The only solution is to have a new election and we don't need a new
constitution to have an election," Makoni said.

SA funds Mugabe campaign

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by VUSIMUZI BHEBHE
Saturday, 07 August 2010 13:02

HARARE - The South African government has been accused of funding "rogue
states", including donations to President Robert Mugabe at a time the
Zimbabwean strongman was waging a war against his political opponents.
(Pictured: SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan)
A report presented to the South African Parliament by the New Partnership
for Africa's Development (Nepad) last week showed that Pretoria gave a total
of R600 million (about US$82.7 million) to the Zimbabwean government under
the auspices of its African Renaissance Fund (ARF) in the course of the last
three years.
According to the report presented by Nepad's international relations and
cooperation director Harvey, only half of the money dolled out to Mugabe was
given after the formation of Harare's coalition government. The rest was
given between 2007 and 2008 at a time when Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party was
waging a war of attrition against the opposition. South Africa's opposition
Democratic Alliance said last week it was "dismayed" by the government's
actions, particularly given that there was no evidence that Pretoria did not
follow up on the use of the funds.
"Parliament has seen no evidence that any of this money was spent on those
programmes to which it had been  designated," said DA's shadow foreign
minister Kenneth Mubu. The purpose of the fund and its stated guiding
principles were described to include the promotion of democracy and good
governance, socio-economic development and integration, and the prevention
and resolution of conflict.
The report raises fears that South Africa may have bankrolled the activities
of Zanu (PF) militias who were behind a violence campaign that left more
than 500 opposition supporters dead during disputed June 2008 presidential
elections. The South African government was also accused of funding the
activities of Guinea's military junta that came to power through a coup in
2008

Villagers face hunger -- once again

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by Rebecca Moyo
Friday, 06 August 2010 14:11

BINGA -- AT 63 years old, Elvis Mutani should be slowing down on the manual
chores, like the countless trips he makes to the well to draw water for the
garden. (Pictured:  Elvis Mutani planting an avocado fruit tree at his
homestead as some of his grandchildren play nearby. (Pic: Rebecca Moyo)

Yet, in Zimbabwe 's food-deficient Binga area where Mutani lives, fate
prescribes no rest for Mutani who in addition to creeping old age also has
to contend with a severe asthma condition.

It is a fate forged by three things: drought, hunger and HIV/AIDS.

Farmers in this rocky, remote north-western corner of Zimbabwe have for
years struggled to grow sufficient food because of the hostile climatic
conditions and unfertile soils.

And with the cash-strapped government in faraway Harare unable - some of the
villagers will say unwilling -- to provide adequate food aid Mutani and his
fellow villagers here are left to fend for themselves or in some of the
cases get help for international food relief agencies.

"The government has forgotten about us, if the situation stays like this we
are going to die," said Mutani.

"I do not remember the last time I had a decent meal, all I know is that
whenever that it was, it was not this year. My body and asthma does not
allow me to do laborious work but who can do it for me," he said, a ring of
desperation in his voice too obvious to miss.

A widower, who has too look after his two orphaned grandchildren, Mutani,
like nearly everybody else here, often has to rely on wild fruits and roots
for survival.

"For now, I just need food, otherwise my grandchildren may die," he said.

For example, another villager, James Mutinhe, say for the past couple of
days he has had to feed his family on wild fruits because he has no money to
buy food.

Tip of the iceberg
But the two Binga villagers' stories only give a glimpse of the tip of
iceberg of hunger that, according to the United Nations, more than a million
villagers across Zimbabwe's countryside face after yet another poor harvest
this year.
According to the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) Zimbabwe need to import
nearly 1.4 million of cereals tonnes -- with 100 000 tonnnes of that
required urgently - to avert starvation.

Even Joseph Made, the agriculture minister who in the past refused to
acknowledge poor harvests, has admitted that this year's harvest is not
sufficient.

"It's not looking rosy," he told the state media. ?Maize is being imported
at a price of between US$160 and US$180 per tonne, which means Zimbabwe will
need about US$136 million for maize alone - cash the Harare authorities do
not have.

"The deficit is huge in rural area and those that did not have good rains,"
CFU president Dean Theron said.

The national maize consumption requirement stands at two million tonnes per
annum but CFU says only 1,3 million tones will be realised from the
2009/2010 season to leave a deficit of about 800 000 tonnes. ?

Farm invasions
Wheat is Zimbabwe 's second staple grain, after maize but President Robert
Mugabe's chaotic and often violent land reforms that saw experienced white
growers expelled from the land and replaced by poorly funded and untrained
black peasants have seen wheat put tumble down.

For example out of a national target to put 60 000 hectares under winter
wheat, farmers managed to plant only 11 000 hectares and Zimbabwe will have
to raise nearly US$130 million to import the bulk of the 350 000 tonnes of
wheat the country consumes per year.

"We ( Zimbabwe ) will have to import the wheat at an import price of US$380
per tonne and this translates to US$128 820 000, given our shortfall," the
CFU said last week?.

In an indictment against Mugabe's controversial land reforms, Zimbabwe will
this year have to once again import maize from Zambia and Malawi, countries
that a few years regarded Zimbabwe as a breadbasket.

The veteran leader insists he was right to seize land from whites and give
it over to blacks in order to correct a colonial land ownership system that
reserved the best arable land for whites and banished blacks to poor soils
in he most arid regions.

Colonial injustice
But critics say a desire to smash then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's
growing support base among commercial farm workers -- and not the need to
correct a colonial injustice -- was the driving motive behind Mugabe's land
reforms.

In addition, they say Mugabe's cronies - and not ordinary peasants -
benefited the most from farm seizures with some of them ending up with as
many as six farms each against the government's stated one-man-one-farm
policy.

But whatever the motives of Mugabe's land reforms, Mutani and his fellow
villagers here wish they could rewind the clock back to in the old days when
poor yields from Binga stingy soils did not mean having to survive on wild
fruits like animals.

Because then, they government was always quick to sent trucks from the Grain
Marketing Board laden with maize, beans and other food for the villagers.
Not any more, not after many of the best producers were chased off the land!

Society neglects the disabled

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Written by Jane Makoni
Saturday, 07 August 2010 13:58

DHIRIHORI - While Zimbabwe enjoys the highest literacy rate on the
continent, a 17-year-old rural and disabled girl, Nyasha Gwena, of Gwenha
village in Chief Svosve area, has never been to school and can neither read
nor write.
Nyasha is an orphan under the guardianship of her grandmother Norah Munemwa,
1.

"I wish I could go to school and train as a teacher or nurse. I would like
to assist educate and care for the sick. How can I be assisted with
education?" asked the helpless girl living with deformed legs.
Her grandmother assured her that publicizing her plight to the caring
international community would attract sympathy and aid.
Despite living 1km from Dhirihori Primary and Secondary Schools, Nyasha
lives in a literacy wilderness.
"How soon would the world hear of my desperate situation? Who will inform me
someone somewhere has shown interest in assisting me attend school?" Nyasha
enquired.
Selfish villagers barred her from accessing monthly US$28 food and grocery
vouchers issued by an unidentified NGO. The vouchers benefit underprivileged
members of the community.
"It is disturbing to note able bodied people and well to do families
benefiting from the voucher scheme at the expense of the physically
challenged like Nyasha. God help selfish people have a soft spot in their
hearts for the physically handicapped and under privileged," said Jorum
Mahwema at Dhirihori Shopping Centre.
Gwena's family lives on subsistence farming. Their farm land no longer
yields enough food for the family. While other children attend school,
Nyasha helps the family with household chores.

Zimbabwe Vigil Diary – 7th August 2010

‘Zuma Save Zimbabwe’ was the theme of the Vigil as SADC prepares to hold a summit meeting in Namibia.  Our banners urging South African intervention have so far failed to bear fruit but we were pleased that Mugabe’s attempt to keep Zimbabwe off the agenda seems to have failed.

As the recent AU Summit in Uganda showed, African leaders are all too willing to sweep Zimbabwe under the carpet on the basis that SADC has been handed the responsibility. Vigil supporters believe that, after eighteen months of Zanu-PF arrogance in refusing to implement the GPA, South Africa and SADC must now force Mugabe’s hand.

Zimbabweans in exile – with our children now going into secondary school in our host countries – believe that MDC should not stand for Manipulated, Deluded and Confused and should call Zanu PF’s bluff.  They cannot pretend to be part of government when their input is ignored and they are treated with contempt by the security forces and the civil service.

The Vigil agrees with Simba Makoni’s comment that a new constitution is not necessary for elections. We have always believed that the constitutional outreach programme is a recipe for disaster (a view supported by SW Radio article: http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/copac040810.htm.)

The Vigil urges SADC to address the real issue: how to ensure that elections are free and fair. After all, it is not to the region’s advantage that the present situation continues or that there is a repeat of the 2008 election violence and a fraudulent outcome that will not be accepted by the outside world.

This week we were sent an email asking us to join in an international prayer day ‘LoveZim’ on 26^th September.  We certainly hope people will pray on this day for Zimbabwe as we do every Saturday. Our supporters spend long hours traveling to join us – such as a new supporter from Leeds who caught the bus at 7 am today – and we regard this as a sacrifice for Zimbabwe. We had extra prayers today when two white Christians spotted supporter Marian Rondora tying a Zimbabwean flag to one of our maple trees. They said that at their church they had been shown an image of a flag and a tree and felt this was a sign they should stop and pray for the Vigil.  They spent some time praying with Marian.

We have earlier mentioned our supporter who had such a harrowing time on his recent trip to Zimbabwe and we now been given permission to report a little more fully on what happened. This is his story:

‘A ROHR and Vigil activist visited Zimbabwe recently wanting to witness the much heralded changes for himself. He was held unduly long at Harare airport. Officials spent time doing checks, asking what he did in the UK. They said “you have been away for too long, you are working against Zimbabwe”, etc. An uncle who works for Air Zimbabwe at the airport eventually came to his rescue.

Visited Mashonaland East (maternal home connection), where he saw a homestead which had been razed by Zanu PF functionaries at the behest of a powerful  ZANU PF official (women's league and well connected to Tobaiwa Mudede, a Mugabe close relative). The homestead belonged to suspected opposition supporters who are ordered out of the Chief's area. The activist and colleagues confront the Zanu PF people arguing that it amounted to an abuse of power and a human rights violation. The next thing the case is before the Chief who orders the arrest of the activists by police. Held at police station for couple of days after they realised his Vigil and ROHR connection. In police cells the activists are beaten, tortured and accused of being puppets/sellouts, want to return the country to the whites - the usual ZANU PF rhetoric. Lawyer intervenes and our activist is granted bail and ordered to report twice a week at police station. Kept under surveillance by CIO. Passport seized. Twice in court and skipped bail once he could buy the passport back with a bribe. Thankful for Vigil help as, without it, he could still be in Zimbabwe and who knows what could have happened next? Still fears for co-defendants and firmly believes that nothing has changed.’

For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/. For the latest ZimVigil TV programme check the link at the top of the home page of our website.  For earlier ZimVigil TV programmes check: http://www.zbnnews.com/home/firingline.

FOR THE RECORD:  153 signed the register.

EVENTS AND NOTICES:

·       The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organisation based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organisation on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe.

·       Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and Central London Zimbabwe Forum. Monday 9^th August from 7.30 – 9.30 pm. Venue: Development House, 56-64 St Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. Human rights lawyer Dewa Mavhinga who has recently been appointed the Regional Co-ordinator of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition’s Regional Office in South Africa will address the human rights abuses around Zimbabwe's diamond fields and the current situation regarding Zimbabwe’s constitution-making process. For more information: http://www.hrforumzim.com/dewa-mahinga.pdf

·       ROHR London South-East Branch general meeting. Saturday 14^th August at 1 pm. Venue: 16 Sydenham Road, London SE26 5QW. Contact: Wellington Rupere 07799702750, Priscilla Chitsinde 07804696328, Courage Chiromo 07894586005 or P Mapfumo 07915926323 / 07932216070. 

·       Ministering to the Diaspora: a case study of Zimbabweans in Britain. Wednesday 15^th September from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm. Venue: Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, SS Philip & James Church, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HR. A conference to help identify unique needs, the services Christian organizations are offering and can offer (but are not), identifying what more needs to be done and how this might be achieved, and drawing up a co-ordinated action plan. For more information, contact: Clayton Peel, capeel@ocms.ac.uk or phone 01865 882 421

·       ROHR Liverpool Vigil. Saturday 21^st August from 2 – 5 pm. Venue: Church Street (Outside Primark), Liverpool City Centre. For details please contact: Anywhere Mungoyo 07939913688, Trywell Migeri 07956083758, Panyika Karimanzira 07551062161. Future demonstration: 4^th September. Same time and venue.

·       Vigil Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8157345519&ref=ts

·       Vigil Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/zimbabwevigil

Vigil Co-ordinators

The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe: http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.

Fabulous wealth in Marange diamonds

http://www.timeslive.co.za

Aug 8, 2010 12:00 AM | By VLADIMIR MZACA and ZOLI MANGENA

The value of the diamond deposits in Zimbabwe's Marange area in Manicaland
could be worth up to US$800- billion and could be mined for the next 80
years or more.

"From what has been done in research, the fields hold at least three billion
carats. The companies that have been working there are only declaring medium
grade stones whose value stands at about $50 or $100 per carat. There are
stones of a higher quality there too," a top level source told The Sunday
Times.

"If operations at Marange are well managed, Zimbabwe can make anywhere in
the region of $75-billion to $200-billion in the next 50 years and that
could reach $800-billion in 80 years," he said.

Zimbabwe is soon expected to reap a US$2-billion windfall from the sale of
its controversial diamonds amid growing concerns in government and public
circles of possible siphoning of the proceeds after the recent disappearance
of US$30-million realised from the shady trade of the gems.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) monitor for Zimbabwe,
Abbey Chikane, who is also chairman of the South African Diamond Board, was
expected in Harare yesterday to certify the sale of more than four million
carats of diamonds stocked by government and its mining partners.

Chikane was expected to endorse the resumption of the sale of diamonds
following a resolution of the World Diamond Council in Russia last month and
the KPCS's endorsement allowing Zimbabwe to sell its controversial gems
widely described by human rights groups as "blood diamonds" due to human
rights abuses at the diamond fields.

However, there are growing fears that the money could be siphoned by
President Robert Mugabe's cronies who have been selling diamonds, but
failing to account for the proceeds.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti announced on July 14, during his mid-year
fiscal policy review statement in Parliament, that $30-million from diamond
sales was missing.

"According to the KPCS monitor, Zimbabwe recently sold at least $30- million
worth of diamonds from Marange which Treasury and Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority) have no record or knowledge of," Biti said.

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu denied that the money had vanished and dismissed
Biti's statement as "hot air", but failed to produce evidence of where the
money was.

Mpofu said a forensic audit of diamonds mined in Marange was under way and
would prove Biti wrong.

After the mandate established by the Seventh Annual Plenary of the KPCS,
which met in November in Swakopmund, Namibia, the chairman of the Working
Group on Monitoring, Stéphane Chardon, invited Chikane to Zimbabwe to
evaluate and report on all aspects of the Joint Work Plan.

Chikane visited Zimbabwe twice and compiled a report saying the country had
complied with KPCS processes.

Operations at the diamond fields have been chaotic with political
heavyweights maintaining a tight presence in the area.

There is a heavy presence of Chinese mining companies in one of the
diamond-rich areas in the Eastern Highlands.

"The army has been assisting Chinese miners to operate at the junction of
Odzi and Save Rivers," the source said.

A Manicaland official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one Chinese
company called Anjin China-Zimbabwe had set up shop in the area two months
ago, under the watchful eye of the Zimbabwean army.

"The army is there for security measures as well as accountability. The
company is owned by Chinese military men in conjunction with some top
officials from the Zimbabwean army. This has not gone down well with locals
because the Chinese are not hiring them," said the source.
 

Inside the battle for Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds

http://www.heraldscotland.com

Fred Bridgland

8 Aug 2010

However arrogant the conduct of British supermodel Naomi Campbell last week
at the war crimes trial of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor – and
however it showed the media to be mesmerised repugnantly by sensation and
the cult of celebrity – she unconsciously focused attention back on the
murky underworld of the trade in “blood diamonds”.

Ten years after a coalition of civil society, government and industry forces
gathered in Kimberley, South Africa, to reform the anarchic, poisonous and
deadly international diamond industry, greed and cruelty still guarantee
that many of the sparkling gems are infused with human blood. The ugly
problem – recently dramatised in the Hollywood film Blood Diamond, set in
Sierra Leone and starring Leonardo DiCaprio – has yet to be confined to the
dustbin of history.

The most controversial diamonds today come from a 46 square mile patch of
Zimbabwe where hundreds of impoverished Zimbabweans have been slaughtered by
forces loyal to President Robert Mugabe in a fight over an unpredicted gem
bonanza.

Commenting on these diamonds, from Marange in eastern Zimbabwe, Ian Smillie,
the Canadian architect of the so-called Kimberley Process certification
scheme, said: “They are blood diamonds. They have blood all over them.”

Smillie, who was the first witness at Taylor’s trial in The Hague – Taylor
faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in
Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 civil war – resigned from the Kimberley Process
scheme two months ago, arguing that the tottering system is no longer
credible. Mugabe has shot it full of holes, but Smillie said other
countries, notably the Ivory Coast and Venezuela, are also emasculating the
process.

    we ran into a group of soldiers who marched us at gunpoint back to the
fields and ordered us to collect the bodies of dead miners whom they had
shot.

villager

Marange lies in an area of shallow river silt deposits; until 2006 the
concessions were owned by the London and Johannesburg-based De Beers Group,
the world’s leading diamond company, which was founded by Cecil Rhodes. But
then, worried by Zimbabwe’s worsening political crisis, the firm let its
concession lapse.

The Marange deposits were bought by a British company, African Consolidated
Resources, which never began operations. Peasants in the desperately poor
country, where the unemployment rate tops 80%, then moved into the area and,
with picks and shovels and hard labour, proved that De Beers had let go of a
bonanza worth up to US$1.7 billion a year.

“It’s a bigger and more important find than most people anticipated,”
confessed De Beers’ international relations director, Andrew Bone. “We
perhaps didn’t do as much surveying as we could have done.”

A roughly estimated 10,000 to 30,000 peasant diamond miners traded their
Marange gems through Lebanese, Israeli, Chinese, Indian and Belgian
middlemen who based themselves in the nearby mountain town of Mutare. They
smuggled the stones out to Johannesburg and Maputo, the Mozambique capital,
from where they were laundered into the world’s major processing centres and
sold as non-Zimbabwe-sourced diamonds.

The Mugabe government confiscated the African Consolidated Resources
concession in 2006 and began moving soldiers and police in to Marange to
clear out the peasant miners. In a particularly bitter and cynical irony,
the Marange operation has been commanded by Air Marshal Perence Shiri,
Zimbabwe’s air force chief. In the 1980s, as a ruthless young officer known
to his men as “Black Jesus”, he supervised the massacres of 25,000 Ndebele
villagers in western Zimbabwe. Shiri led Mugabe’s elite North Korean-trained
5th Brigade against the Ndebele, and at the end of 2008 he unleashed one of
the 5th Brigade’s commando units against the Marange miners.

In a report entitled Diamonds In The Rough, published last year, pressure
group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said: “The first three weeks of the operation
were particularly brutal. The army killed at least 214 miners [in that
period]. The army has also been engaged fully and openly in the smuggling of
diamonds, thereby perpetuating the very crime it was deployed to prevent.”

A villager told HRW: “I ran to the hills [when Shiri’s commandoes attacked].
Unfortunately, we ran into a group of soldiers who marched us at gunpoint
back to the fields and ordered us to collect the bodies of dead miners whom
they had shot.

“We gathered 37 bodies and piled them in an army truck and took them to the
edge of Nyazila village. There we found two more army trucks offloading 35
bodies. The soldiers then ordered us to dig a grave and bury the bodies. We
buried 72 bodies in that grave.”

Police officers, under Superintendent OC Govo, have also played a role in
the Marange massacres. One officer told HRW that Govo had ordered his men to
“shoot on sight” any peasants found in the diamond fields.

He went on: “Superintendent Govo said we were all too lenient … He then said
he was going to show us how to deal decisively with local miners. That night
he led us into a well-known camp of local miners. First, he pointed a
searchlight into the air and then he began to shoot randomly at the sleeping
miners. I saw him shoot and kill three miners. Many others ran into the
night. He told us to leave the bodies, saying the other miners would return
to bury their dead.”

Theoretically, the army and police were “restoring order” on Mugabe’s
orders. Again theoretically, the Marange diamond concessions were taken over
by the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation. In practice the
operations are controlled by top officials of Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF
party – including the president’s wife, Grace Mugabe (known as “The First
Shopper” for her extravagant spending habits), and Zimbabwe’s vice-president
Joyce Mujuru, who adopted the war name “Spill Blood” when she was a young
guerrilla fighting Zimbabwe’s former white minority government.

Grace Mugabe was named as a shareholder in Mbada Diamonds, one of two
little-known companies registered last week by Mines Minister Obert Mpofu to
operate in the nominally state-owned Marange fields.

Many of the peasants driven from their diggings by Shiri and Govo now endure
a form of slavery, working the Marange deposits for Mujuru, Grace Mugabe and
the military. Dozens die when poorly built mining trenches collapse and bury
the diggers alive, and in occasional security force assaults.

HRW has now issued a new report, Deliberate Chaos: Ongoing Human Rights
Abuses In The Marange Diamond Fields Of Zimbabwe. This states that police
and military still perpetuate abuses in Marange – including forced labour,
torture, beatings and harassment – which go uninvestigated or prosecuted by
authorities.

Also, more than 4000 Marange villages are being forcibly resettled to make
way for diamond operations, contravening international standards on forced
relocation.

HRW, Smillie and other activists have also raised the alarm about the role
of Abbey Chikane, a South African businessman appointed by the Kimberley
Process certification board to devise a “joint work plan” to bring Zimbabwe
into compliance with the Kimberley rules. Chikane is expected this week to
sanction and certify the legal export by Zimbabwe of two consignments of
Marange diamonds.

Calling for an independent inquiry into just who Chikane is and how he
became the special envoy of the Kimberley Process, the new HRW report said:
“Failure by the Kimberley Process to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership or
continue to ban the certification of Marange diamonds for export would
destroy the body’s legitimacy and credibility. The diamonds continue to
benefit a few senior people in the government and their accomplices rather
than the people of Zimbabwe as a whole.”

The report added: “Marange diamonds are a cash cow for a few … The
prevailing confusion, lawlessness and chaos enables a few individuals to
benefit at the expense of the nation.”

HRW said Chikane was recently briefed in the Holiday Inn in Mutare by Farai
Maguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development, one of the few
local Zimbabwean organisations daring to investigate the Marange situation
and continuing human rights abuses by the military.

Maguwu’s family was beaten up by police and has gone into hiding, while he
has been charged with giving Chikane state secrets. Chikane has not spoken
up to defend Maguwu.

Zimbabwean human rights workers believe that the Kimberley Process envoy is
implicated in Maguwu’s arrest, having “shopped” him to the police after the
pair met to discuss the Marange abuses.

Independent weekly newspaper The Zimbabwean reported this week that Maguwu’s
recent release on bail is widely believed to be the result of a trade off
between the government and Kimberley authorities, who set Maguwu’s release
as a precondition for the approval of the impending Zimbabwe diamond sales.

With Chikane and his team expected to arrive in Zimbabwe today, The
Zimbabwean said a massive clean-up by police is going on of forced labourers
working in Marange for the elite.

“People are in the mountains. They were chased by soldiers and the police,”
said Admire Tumburwa, a villager at a Marange village called Hotsprings.
“They were chased away. It was a serious operation.”

Smillie said Mugabe and his Zimbabwean elite are about to get from Chikane
exactly what they wanted – the legal right to export diamonds. But he added:
“A number of governments won’t play this game much longer. Either the
Kimberley Process has to shape up or it will collapse. It’s letting all
manner of crooks off the hook.”

Next to Zimbabwe, Smillie says it is Venezuela that poses one of the most
significant threats to the process. President Hugo Chavez’s government
stopped issuing Kimberley Process certificates in 2005 for its diamonds and
in 2008, amidst increasing criticism, decided to pre-empt expulsion and
suspended itself from the monitoring scheme. All Venezuela’s diamonds, mined
in questionable circumstances, are now smuggled out through neighbouring
Guyana and Brazil where they are given false Kimberley Process certificates
and sold on the open international market.

One of the many problems with the Kimberley Process is it was negotiated in
order to stem the trade in diamonds that was fuelling civil wars in Sierra
Leone, Liberia and Angola. It defined blood diamonds as gems “used by rebel
movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining
legitimate governments”. That classification does not apply in Zimbabwe,
where human rights groups and others are concerned not about civil war
against a government, but about a government’s war on its own people.

HRW investigator Arvind Ganesan said: “The problem is that Kimberley has not
evolved to deal with the problems of the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, Hollywood star Mia Farrow will give evidence tomorrow against
Charles Taylor, continuing the saga at The Hague. Amid allegations that
South Africa may have supplied weapons that were channelled to Sierra
Leonean rebels in exchange for Taylor diamonds, Farrow is set to confirm
that in 1997 Taylor gave blood diamonds as a present to Naomi Campbell, who
handed them on to Jeremy Ratcliffe, the director of Nelson Mandela’s
Children’s Fund.

Ratcliffe last week admitted receiving the diamonds and then handing three
of them to the South African police. One of innumerable questions yet to be
answered is why it took Ratcliffe 13 years to admit receiving the blood
diamonds. With many twists and turns yet to come, this is a story that will
run and run.
 

Looting legitimised

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/

Written by The Editor
Sunday, 08 August 2010 13:40

The Kimberley Process' Zimbabwe monitor will this week certify diamonds from
Marange 'clean' for export to the world market. It is hardly cause for
celebration.
Not to the villagers in Marange to whom the discovery of diamonds at
Chiadzwa has been, to put it lightly, virtually like a curse from God. How
can the villagers rejoice when fields and pasturelands have been dug up and
trampled by men seeking the glittering stones? When drunk young men with
pockets full of US dollars earned from selling diamonds to Lebanese
smugglers and other international crooks have corrupted all the village
girls.
Like wise, diamond certification can never be cause for celebration to the
ordinary Zimbabwean who knows from past experience that little, if any, of
the about US$1.7 billion expected to be raised from the 4.5 million carats
of stockpiled diamonds will ever find its way into the public purse. The
only ones celebrating will be the same vultures in the military and Zanu
(PF) who have been looting the Marange deposits.
And why shouldn't they, when now they will be able to plunder the diamond
fields, conscript villagers to work for them in the mines and smuggle more
gemstones without easy detection because of the thick cloak of legitimacy
offered by Chikane's certificate. We have said it before and we repeat: it
was wrong for the KP to lift the ban on Marange diamond exports in the
absence of evidence that state-sponsored brutality in the diamond fields has
stopped or that the widespread smuggling of diamonds from Marange into
neighbouring countries has been curbed.
It was reckless and disingenuous for the KP to permit exports in the absence
of a mechanism to ensure that proceeds from diamond sales will go to funding
provision of healthcare, education, food and other social requirements. One
needs not be the proverbial rocket scientist to know that money from diamond
sales or most of it will disappear as soon as Chikane boards the plane back
to Johannesburg.
To certify the Marange diamonds is nothing but to legitimise the looting of
a vital national resource by the same greed and powerful elite that has
brought Zimbabwe to this sorry state. And for this Chikane and his KP should
surely be ashamed of themselves

Has MDC-T responded sufficiently to Zanu-pf jingles?

http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com

 8th Aug 2010 16:50 GMT

By Clifford Mashiri

MDC could be missing a rare opportunity to present its own case to the
people in response to Zanu-pf jingles especially after the ZBC Chief
Executive Happison Muchechetere is said to have declared that the state
radio and television network will not stop playing the songs and "invited
the MDC to provide its own music for similar airing", (VOA News.com accessed
05.08.10). Zanu-PF is already in electioneering mode.

A quick online search of the power of jingles came up with 2,060,000
findings in 20 seconds. One entry claimed that jingles have been around for
as long as radio and advertising have existed.

Another one said: "a well crafted jingle can lock a song in (the) listener's
mind for life". I could not resist the one which described "the commercial
jingle effect" as having "the power to break through mental barriers ".
Indeed, it is common knowledge that you may find yourself nodding to a
jingle which you dislike simply because of the power of the music on your
mind.

The use of propaganda against a real or perceived enemy is traceable to the
conquests of Genghis Khan, the Second World War and indeed Zimbabwe's
liberation war. Ian Smith's Rhodesian regime used very irritating jingles
about "Mabhinya" (freedom fighters) on what he dubbed Radio Truth.
Similarly, Zanu before uniting with PF-Zapu also used jingles via the
external services of Radio Maputo and Radio Dar-es-Salaam. It would be very
naïve for the MDC to shrug off the opportunities offered by going on the air
with your own brand!

While Jonathan Moyo said those who object to the songs do not share the
history of Zimbabwe, it remains to be seen if he would not cry foul to
alternative jingles which deplored corruption, cronyism, electoral violence
and rigging, abduction, torture, murder, impunity, arrogance and so on.

Some analysts have argued that, although once a vocal leader of the
opposition before getting involved in the coalition government, Tsvangirai
has, of late retreated
into "stately silence"(The Financial Gazette, 30/07/10. However, that may
not be correct in view of the recent successful convening of a rally by
Tsvangirai in Hwange despite a police ban. In the same spirit of defiance,
Morgan Tsvangirai should not idly stand there like what Dumisani Ndlela saw
as the character portrayed in Scorpions, "who despite odds heavily stacked
against him, still finds the strength to smile", (Ibid).

Professor John Makumbe has reportedly said the MDC-T should create its own
jingles and compel the State broadcaster to play them. For some of us
observing from outside, the MDC-T has not responded sufficiently to Zanu-pf's
jingles other than do the usual thing, report to Jacob Zuma hoping he can
prevail on Robert Mugabe.

Which brings us to what could be the theoretical basis of MDC-T's or any
other party's jingles? There are several contemporary issues relevant to the
Zimbabwean State including rampant corruption, cronyism, electoral violence
and intimidation, Operation Vhara Muromo and the disenfranchisement of an
estimated 4-million voters now dispersed in 80 countries due to bad
governance, the violation of human rights, looting of private businesses
including those owned by Zimbabweans, disregard for the rule of law,
Operation Murambatsvina, the murder of 200 opposition supporters in the 2008
presidential election, AIPAA and so on.  Professor John Makumbe was quoted
as saying "It should be mud for mud," (Ibid).

Following is a starter pack that I have drafted deploring the intransigence
to implement the so-called GPA and share power fairly, admonishing
corruption and violence, forcing millions into exile, the obsession with
bashing the West, and the need to let people exercise their democratic right
to speak for themselves not via the CIO, soldiers, the militia or some
violent senators as happening in the constitutional outreach now suspended
in Manicaland.

The translation of my jingles from Shona into English only approximate and
not professionally done, but it's said a journey of a thousand miles begins
with one step!

Mbimbindoga akasiya jira mumasese! (The stubborn or intransigent one later
regretted his mistakes!)

Kutonga, ingoma yemusiiranwa, haufirepo.(You  should not die in power
without giving others a chance). Kuraramai kwehuwori nehumhondi? (How can
your party survive on corruption and violence?)

Munowana hope here neGukurahundi naMurambatsvina?  (Do you have good sleep
in view of Gukurahundi and Murambatsvina? Zvamunovatuka munochemerei kuenda
kumusha kwavo? (So why do you plead to visit their countries if you so hate
them?)

Muchasarudzwa naani, zvamakadzinga vana vese mumusha? (Who is going to vote
for you as you forced 4 million people into exile in 80 countries)?
Zvogokupei kuita vanhu zvimumumu? (What did you achieve from Operation
VaraMuromo?)

Regai vanhu vataure nhuna dzavo.(Let the people exercise their democratic
right to speak for themselves). Handizvo zvatakarwira here?  (Is that not
what we fought for in the liberation struggle?)

In the event of the jingles being rejected by ZBC as is most likely to
happen, nothing should stop any political party from buying airtime on
sympathetic foreign radio stations, burning CDs and cassettes for free
distribution to Combi drivers or dropping the leaflets from a hot air
balloon!

Natan Sharansky wrote: "The power of a fear society is never based solely on
an army and a secret police. As important is a regime's ability to control
what is read, said, heard, and above all, thought," (The case for Democracy,
2004:56).

Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, Political Analyst, London UK
(zimanalysis2009@gmail.com).