Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
THE Morgan Tsvangirai formation of the MDC holds a
make-or-break
national council meeting today where it must decide whether or
not the party
should continue to participate in the Sadc initiated talks
with Zanu PF.
Senior party officials confirmed last night that 140
delegates will be
meeting two days after Zanu PF held their drama-filled
extraordinary
congress where President Robert Mugabe was confirmed as their
candidate in
next year’s election.
Brushing aside calls for
elections to be postponed, Mugabe said the
harmonised polls would go ahead
in March, whether or not opposition parties
were ready.
MDC
sources said yesterday Mugabe’s announcement put the MDC, which
wanted them
postponed to June, under pressure to make a decision on the
dialogue that
was supposed to yield an even playing field in the elections.
Top
of the agenda of the MDC meeting today will be the talks brokered
by SA
President Thabo Mbeki. The party has threatened to pull out of the
talks
unless the ruling party allows for a new constitution to take effect
before
the elections.
At the council meeting held in Harare yesterday, the
consensus was
that it would be pointless for the MDC to participate in the
any election if
Mugabe refused to abide by the agreements reached during the
bilateral
talks.
In return for their support for the 18th
Amendment to the
constitution, Zanu PF pledged that a new constitution would
be in place
before the polls.
Among other issues, draconian
laws such as Public Order and Security
Act (Posa) and the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act
(Aippa) would be abolished. But
this is yet to be a reality, three months
before the scheduled
polls.
The national council is also expected make a ruling on
whether the
party should participate in the harmonised polls or not.
Tsvangirai has in
the past indicated they might boycott any poll whose
outcome was
pre-determined.
The party is expected to discuss
the possibility of a united front to
take Zanu PF head-on as well as the
faction’s relationships with civic
society.
That relationship
has recently been strained by the two factions’
decision to back Zanu PF on
the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
The MDC has all along
demanded a new homegrown constitution
Among other items on the
agenda of today’s meeting will be the
leadership crisis facing the party’s
women’s assembly.
For close to two months now, the issue has
remained unresolved amid
charges that party leaders were keen to see the
matter dying a natural
death.
Lucia Matibenga, a hugely popular
trade unionist, was
unconstitutionally dismissed from her position as the
chairperson of the
women’s assembly by the MDC’s standing committee chaired
by Tsvangirai.
Controversial elections held in a Bulawayo
restaurant ushered in a new
executive led by Theresa Makone. But this did
not help matters as the MDC
now effectively has two parallel women’s
assembly structures operating on
the ground.
This has caused
deep divisions among the rank and file at a time when
the opposition party
is supposed to be preparing to launch yet another
challenge against Zanu
PF.
But it emerged at yesterday’s meeting that the election of
Makone
could be reversed today with the possibility of fresh elections being
held.
Nelson Chamisa, the party’s spokesperson yesterday would not
comment
on the issues. He said the party would issue a statement after the
mational
council meeting today.
Zim Standard
By foster
dongozi
THE Zanu PF extraordinary congress held in Harare last
week was a big
yawn, until divisions bottled up for years exploded into the
open at the
last minute.
It was over whether war veterans
chairman, Jabulani Sibanda, should be
allowed to speak.
Until
then, the only excitement was the singing of the revolutionary
songs, spiced
with raunchy kongonya dances.
Delegates endured boring solidarity
messages from regional political
parties before all hell broke
loose.
The pent-up emotions,controlled under a veneer of unity,
burst through
when war veterans vice-chairman, Joseph Chinotimba, was asked
to deliver a
solidarity message.
He said he would not do so, as
his chairman, was around.
Soon, delegates were chanting Sibanda’s
name. In response, he thrust
his fist into the air, to deafening
applause.
Zanu PF national chairman, John Nkomo, refused to let
Sibanda
speak:"We don’t allow that. We are a disciplined party. He is not on
the
programme."
Sibanda kept advancing towards the top table.
Nkomo left his seat,
remonstrating with Sibanda in a low voice. The war
veteran approached the
podium.
Vice-president Joseph Msika and
information and publicity minister,
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu rose up, threatening
to leave.
It’s assumed at this crucial point, President Robert
Mugabe realised
his meticulously prepared script of the congress was about
to be messed up.
With astonishing agility for an 83-year-old, he
sprang from his seat,
pacified Msika, before grabbing the
microphone.
Speaking like the schoolteacher he once was, Mugabe
thundered:
"Everybody sit down!"
You could have heard a pin
drop.
He said he was disappointed the incident had blighted the
session. "A
terrible ending to what had been a tremendously, absolutely
legally properly
held congress. I cannot lead a party which misbehaves like
this. We respect
our war veterans but they should be
disciplined."
He said the noisy end would hog the media
spotlight.
Mugabe said Sibanda could not address the gathering
because he still
had a disciplinary case pending. War veterans had been told
through Didymus
Mutasa they would be represented by Chinotimba because
Sibanda’s case had
not been finalised.
Mugabe said Sibanda’s
brinkmanship would jeopardise his case.
Zanu PF politburo members
from Harare and Bulawayo told The Standard
after the congress that Sibanda
had fallen out with the PF Zapu old guard
for undermining their
authority.
"Sibanda found favour in Mugabe who unilaterally
reinstated him as
head of the war veterans," said one of the old guard.
"Mugabe is grateful to
Sibanda who went around the country intimidating
those who opposed his
candidature next year. Mugabe was overwhelmed by the
Million Men and Women
March. Sibanda was earmarked for the Zanu PF political
commissar’s job, and
a ministerial post."
The congress
highlighted the new balance of power, with the Emmerson
Mnangagwa camp
appearing to have an edge over their Solomon Mujuru rivals.
The two
factions are jostling to replace Mugabe when he eventually
leaves.
Last week’s congress witnessed a dramatic reversal of
roles for the
Mujuru camp. Mnangagwa enjoyed the rare luxury of having the
old soldier
hold the microphone for him as he presented the constitutional
amendments
declaring Mugabe the party’s candidate.
Even the
sitting arrangement appeared to distance Joice and her
husband.
Solomon was seated closest to the podium, then Nkomo, Msika, Mugabe,
First
Lady Grace Mugabe, then Joice.
This ensured Mugabe, Msika and Nkomo
engaged in whispered discussions
while Joice spent a considerable amount of
time chatting with Grace or
staring into empty space.
Zanu PF
sources said most of the politburo opposed Mugabe’s continued
grip on power.
They argued this would prolong poverty for the next five
years.
"To signify their protest, quite a large number did not wear anything
with
Mugabe’s portrait on it.
"Msika wore party regalia with Mugabe’s
portrait, perhaps because he
hopes to be appointed a senator by the
president if he remains in office.
Noticeably, senior Zanu PF members wore
shirts with Mugabe’s portraits on
the second day, after he won
endorsement.
"On the first day, Solomon wore a Mugabe shirt but
with a jacket over
it. Joice wore a Mugabe skirt, with a plain black top.
Nkomo wore a national
shirt and a black suit while Dumiso Dabengwa chose a
brown suit. Mugabe
loyalists such as Webster Shamu, Sidney Sekeramayi and
Ignatius Chombo wore
Mugabe shirts throughout."
Another
politburo member said: "Desperate politburo members from
Harare and Bulawayo
who face certain defeat by the MDC tried to appease
Mugabe by wearing shirts
or dresses with his portrait. They too can rely on
being appointed to retain
their positions."
Under the new constitutional arrangements, Mugabe
can appoint only
five senators, if he wins.
Up to the end of
the congress, it was still not clear why Mashonaland
Central and East Zanu
PF provincial chairpersons had not turned up to
endorse Mugabe when called
up together with other provinces.
Ray Kaukonde of Mashonaland East
pitched up to make a vote of thanks,
together with MacCloud Tshawe of
Bulawayo, who had earlier spoken for his
province.
Chen
Chimutengwende, the Mashonaland Central chairman could not be
reached for
comment on why he was not available.
Said a central committee
member: "You don’t need to be a Zanu PF
insider to know why the two
provinces are the two most pro-Mujuru" Joice is
from Mash Central, her
husband from Mash East.
Zim Standard
by our
correspondent
ZIMBABWE has been named by African journalists as
one of the countries
which bring shame on Africa.
The country
was named during a conference of African unions and
associations which
represent journalists on the continent at the launch of
the Federation of
African Journalists (FAJ) in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
Other
countries named are Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Senegal,
Eritrea, Gambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Congo (Brazzaville),
Morocco, Chad,
Mali, Tunisia, Egypt, Swaziland, Niger, Cameroon and Burkina
Faso.
The newly-formed FAJ said it condemned the countries
which were making
a mockery of their commitment to media pluralism and
democracy by
prosecuting, jailing, intimidating and threatening
journalists.
They had failed to investigate violent attacks on
journalists and had
encouraged a culture of impunity against
journalists.
"We call upon the African Union and the United Nations
Human Rights
Commission to investigate, expose and take appropriate action
against
countries that are in violation of the fundamental rights of the
people of
Africa," read part of a communique endorsed by African
journalists.
In attendance were country representatives and heads
of regional
groupings of African unions and associations of
journalists.
Journalists agreed the newly-launched federation
should immediately
start compiling a comprehensive continental report on the
actions of African
governments which continued to violate the rights of
journalists.
The secretariat of the federation will be temporarily
housed at the
Nigeria Union of Journalists in Abuja while preparations for
the inaugural
congress are underway.
The Abuja Declaration,
signed following the launch of FAJ, committed
the federation to start
campaigning for trade union rights for journalists
on the continent as well
as freedom of expression and professional
independence of
journalists.
The Abuja Declaration, signed at the end of the
conference, stated:
"The federation will establish an Africa Solidarity Fund
to strengthen
unions in their trade union work and in defence of
journalists’ rights and
will ensure the voice of African journalists is
heard by immediately seeking
observer status within the African Union and
its agencies and the
recognition of the agencies of the United
Nations".
The president of the International Federation of
Journalists, Jim
Boumelha, and the IFJ secretary general, Aiden White,
attended the Abuja
conference.
Zim Standard
By Ryan Pedler
A former member of the Zimbabw Republic Police (ZRP) who admits he
beat up
President Mugabe’s political opponents has thwarted an Immigration
Department bid to throw him out of Australia for committing crimes against
humanity.
The 27-year-old man, who also admits involvement in
bulldozing the
homes of Mugabe’s opponents, has successfully claimed that
his actions
should not be held against him because he had only been
following orders he
was too scared to disobey.
The identity of
the man, a member of the ZRP from 2001 to 2005, has
been suppressed. He came
to WA on a three-month business visa in November
2005 to apply for a
position with WA Police but was not successful. He
applied for a protection
visa in February 2006 but the Immigration
Department refused that in October
2006 because there were "serious reasons
for considering he had committed
crimes against humanity".
He went to the Administrative Appeals
Tribunal and its deputy
president Stanley Hotop upheld his appeal in Perth
Wednesday.
Hotop sent the man’s visa application back to the
Immigration
Department for reconsideration and directed that it could not be
refused on
the grounds that he had committed crimes against
humanity.
The department said yesterday it had sought a legal
opinion on the
prospects of an appeal. Any appeal must be lodged within 28
days.
The department submitted at the AAT there was ample evidence
the ZRP
committed torture and inhumane acts and the man’s admissions showed
he
committed crimes against humanity and was an accessory to such crimes by
other ZRP officers.
The man told the tribunal he obeyed orders
in 2002 to disperse a rally
of 10,000 people led by Morgan Tsvangirai,
leader of the Movement for
Democratic Change. "I cannot put a number on how
many people I struck with
my baton," he said. "I only struck people on their
thighs when they were
coming towards me and I was trying to protect myself.
I did see some other
officers violently beating people."
The
man told the tribunal he also followed orders of superior ZRP
officers in
2005 to escort political opponents from their homes before they
were
bulldozed. "I was afraid that if I did not follow the instructions to
participate in the operation, I would be labelled an MDC sympathiser," he
said. "I could have been arrested, kept in prison, beaten and
tortured."
Mr Hotop said he accepted the man’s evidence and ruled
there was
insufficient evidence that the man had committed crimes against
humanity. He
said there was no evidence the man had injured anyone and found
that he "did
not share a common purpose with other officers of the ZRP to
engage in
violent conduct constituting a crime against humanity".
Zim Standard
BY GODFREY
MUTIMBA
MASVINGO — Beneficiaries of the government’s Farm
Mechanisation
Programme have sold the equipment on the black
market.
The Standard’s investigations have confirmed that farmers
who received
ox-drawn ploughs under the programme are selling them on the
black market
when they should be tilling the land.
The
beneficiaries, most of them Zanu PF supporters, received ploughs
from the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) which funded the programme for the
2007/8
rainy season, dubbed "the Mother of all farming seasons".
The
Standard established party supporters who do not own land but stay
in
Masvingo benefited from the programme.
They were among those
selling the equipment on the black market.
The city dwellers are
said to have obtained the equipment through
links with Zanu PF provincial
leaders, The Standard was told.
Alfred Chin’ono, who bought a
plough for $20 million from a relative
he refused to name,
said:
"My relative, a top official in the provincial party
hierarchy, sold
this plough to me at a give-away price because he got it for
free from the
government."
A beneficiary found selling his
plough to peasant farmers at Mucheke
bus terminus last week, told The
Standard he was selling it because he was
facing "several problems",
particularly the shortage of inputs such as maize
seed and
fertilizer.
"I got this plough distributed through the governor’s
office," said
the farmer who freely gave his name to the newspaper, "but
it’s better to
sell it to make quick money, since my farming programme has
been disturbed
by inputs shortages. I can’t just till the land when I don’t
have the
seeds."
Takavafira Zhou, a university lecturer,
commenting on the abuse of the
farm implements, said: "These programmes are
responsible for enhancing the
runaway inflation, as the government is
printing money to buy equipment for
farmers who are not serious."
Zim Standard
By Nqobani
Ndlovu
BULAWAYO — The Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA)
says the
government’s reluctance to ratify the Women’s Protocol in the
African
Charter on Human and People’s Rights has curtailed the rights of
women.
The lawyers said women were failing to enjoy their full
rights because
the government’s sluggishness in ratifying the Protocol to
the African
Charter on Human People’s Rights of Women in Africa (Women’s
Protocol).
The protocol, adopted in 2003 before coming into force
in 2005,
provides for a wide range of women’s rights.
For
instance, it provides for the elimination of harmful cultural
practices,
such as forced inheritance and arranged marriages of young women
to older
men.
The protocol ensures full women’s participation and
representation in
all areas such as governance, education, health,
employment, among others.
It also calls for an end to domestic
violence.
"To date, some African countries have ratified the
Women’s Protocol,"
said ZWLA in a statement to mark the International Human
Rights Day. "Sadly,
though, Zimbabwe is not one of those
countries."
No comment could be obtained from David Mangota, the
permanent
secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary
Affairs
Ministry.
Patrick Chinamasa, the minister, was at the
Zanu PF congress last week
and could not be reached either.
But
the women lawyers said, as a way of pushing the government to
adhere to the
Women’s Protocol, it wants the 16 Days of Activism Against
Gender-based
Violence to be spread over the whole year.
"The government of
Zimbabwe must be urged to become state party
(ratifying the protocol) to
Women’s Protocol and thereafter ensure
domestication of all the relevant
provisions of the Women’s Protocol," they
said.
The 16 days of
activism against gender violence are marked annually
from 25 November to 10
December.
Over 400 Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) activists on 25
November took
to the streets of Bulawayo to mark the beginning of the
campaign.
The government has already signed into law the Domestic
Violence Act
which seeks to widen the scope of domestic violence to include
physical,
sexual, emotional, psychological and economic abuse as well as
stalking and
harassment, among other issues.
The bill sparked
fierce debate after it was first gazetted last year.
There were protests
against remarks by Mabvuku MP Timothy Mubhawu, who said
then that the Bill
was dangerous as it granted women equality with men.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani
Ndlovu
BULAWAYO — The producer of Gukurahundi, a documentary on
the 1980s
attrocities, has gone into hiding after receiving threats from
state
security agents.
Zenzele Ndebele, who produced the
25-minute Gukurahundi: A Moment of
Madness, said last week he feared for his
safety after he received several
threatening calls.
He told The
Standard state security agents were accusing him of making
the documentary
with the aim of inciting people to rise against President
Robert Mugabe who
seeks re-election next March.
The documentary was launched on 10
November in South Africa, the
brainchild of Radio Dialogue, a Bulawayo
community radio station, and Grace
to Heal Ministries, a church
group.
The documentary touches on the controversial 1980s military
operation
in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces by the 5 Brigade,
code-named
Gukurahundi.
According to a report of the Catholic
Commission for Peace and
Justice, the crackdown resulted in the death of
about 20 000 people,
including women and children.
Ndebele said
following the launch of the documentary, he had not known
peace.
"I no longer stay at home but at a place in another
location in
Bulawayo where I feel safe," he said Ndebele in a telephone
interview on
Thursday.
"I have received threats. They want to
arrest and force me to reveal
the reasons behind documentary and its
sponsors."
Effie Ncube, who was interviewed in the documentary,
confirmed she too
had received threatening calls. "They call me at anytime
and then they play
the part where I was speaking and it’s really
traumatizing. We are not safe.
We do not know their
intentions."
Mugabe has said the crackdown was a "moment of
madness" but has
refused to claim responsibility or offer apologies. He
refused compensation
for the victims of the operation.
Ndebele
says the documentary is part of a lobby to bring to account
the perpetrators
of the Gukurahundi atrocities.
Zimbabwean civic groups want those
who ordered the crackdown to be
dragged to international courts to face
justice.
Zim Standard
By our
correspondent
A number of Zimbabwean traditional healers have
set up base in the
United Kingdom and have reported brisk
business.
In Bexleyheath, South East London, Sekuru Mutero (49),
has set up his
office and confirms that more and more Zimbabweans living in
London are
turning to him in search of good fortune. I visited him at his
two-bedroom
rented house last week to ask how it all started.
Clad in an expensive grey tracksuit and Adidas sports shoes, I asked
him why
he was not wearing the traditional black robes associated with
traditional
healers back home.
"The opportunity to help my compatriots was too
attractive to ignore,"
he said. "Getting into traditional healing was a
calling. It all started one
Saturday night when I received healing powers in
my dreams."
His most intriguing experiences include helping couples
trying to
conceive and those trying to win back their loved
ones.
He said Zimbabweans whose asylum cases were pending often
approached
him for help. He was coy about the details, but said some asylum
seekers had
won their cases.
Sekuru Mutero said people
experiencing social pressures looked to
traditional healers for solutions to
their problems. "We’ve got insight and
they don’t," he said.
He
acknowledged sometimes he made mistakes and could not provide
solutions to
all the dilemmas he was asked to probe. "If you get it wrong,
you lose your
customers, and if you get it right you hook them for a long
time," he
says.
He said he obtains his medicinal concoctions from Zimbabwe
but refused
to say how.
Back home, he was a primary school
teacher in Mberengwa.
Zim Standard
THE former Archbishop of Cape
Town, Desmond
Tutu, has urged South Africa’s governing African National
Congress not to
choose Jacob Zuma as its new leader.
He said
most people would be ashamed to have Zuma as leader and that
South Africa
deserved someone better.
Zuma, ex-vice president of South Africa,
said Church leaders should
pray for people and not condemn
them.
Acquitted of rape last year, Zuma is vying for the ANC
leadership with
South African President Thabo Mbeki.
One of the
two ANC veterans will prevail during a five-day congress
that starts on
Sunday in Polokwane, Limpopo.
If he wins, Zuma would be in line to
become ANC candidate for
president of South Africa in 2009
elections.
But Archbishop Tutu, one of South Africa’s most powerful
moral voices,
urged the ANC to reject Zuma, saying: "They should please not
choose someone
of whom most of us would be ashamed. Our country deserves
better."
But Zuma dismissed the appeal, saying: "The business of
the leaders of
the Church, in terms of what God has said, they must pray for
people, not
condemn them."
Once close allies, Zuma and Mbeki
publicly fell out in 2005 when Zuma
was sacked as deputy president over
corruption allegations.
The case against Zuma was thrown out by a
judge last year but he could
still face charges in connection with a
multi-million dollar arms deal.
He stood trial last year accused of
raping a HIV-positive family
friend, but was cleared.
Mbeki has
already served two terms and cannot lead the country again
but
correspondents say if he were to remain ANC leader he would be well
placed
to decide who succeeds him as national leader. — BBC News
Zim Standard
By Vusumuzi
Sifile
MEMBERS of the Zimbabwe National Pastors Conference
(ZNPC) have vowed
to march to Munhumutapa Building to protest against the
continued
deterioration of the political and economic situation in the
country.
Munhumutapa Building houses President Robert Mugabe’s
offices and
those of other key government leaders, including the two
vice-presidents.
The pastors say the march would be part of what
they call "non-violent
prophetic action", consisting of a series of marches
and prayer meetings
around the country from the beginning of next
year.
Last week, the Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, cut
up his
dog collar in protest over the situation in Zimbabwe. Sentamu pledged
not to
wear a collar until Mugabe goes.
On Thursday in Harare,
over 50 members of the ZNPC met to pray "in
solidarity with the suffering
masses". Most of them felt there was need for
local pastors to do a
"Sentamu" for the authorities to appreciate the
seriousness of the
crisis.
At the meeting, the pastors were unanimous that the
political crisis
in the country was now a spiritual problem which could not
be solved by a
change of government.
They said they were
prepared to die for the transformation of the
Zimbabwe
situation.
The ZNPC coordinator, Bishop Ancelimo Magaya, said there
was no way
the police could stop them from marching when they allowed the
"million-men
march" in Harare on 30 November.
"Two weeks ago,
we saw for ourselves that it is possible to march,"
said Magaya. "We are
going to pray and engage in non-violent prophetic
action until things change
for the better in our country. Things are not
well in our country. We will
march."
Magaya said the current decadence in the political and
economic
situation was a result of the "demonic force" manifesting itself
through
"some" leaders.
"There is some demonic force
manifesting itself through our leaders
and unless that demonic force is
dealt with spiritually, no change of
governance will transform the current
situation. We need to arrest the
problem through prayer," said
Magaya.
The facilitator of the meeting, Lawrence Berejena, said if
the pastors
remained silent, they would perish together with all
Zimbabweans.
"God has chosen us to be the voice of the voiceless,"
said Berejena.
"If we, as the church, remain silent, we will all perish. As
pastors we need
to identify the problem in our country and pray about
it."
Among the people who addressed the meeting was a Faith
Ministries
elder, John Makumbe.
"We need to organise all those
with collars to march to Munhumutapa
Building and remove their collars, like
the Archbishop of York, who removed
his collar and said he would not put it
on until the crisis is resolved,"
said the elder, who was carrying a big
green bible titled The Promise.
"All this devastation will come to
pass. It is time we pinned our hope
on God, not man. If you see a country
running out of its own money, things
are really bad," he said.
Makumbe, known as a fierce critic of the government, said he was also
an
elder at the Mbare Faith Ministries congregation. A lecturer at the
University of Zimbabwe, he comments widely on politics.
Zim Standard
BY SUE
LLOYD-ROBERTS
WITH the Zimbabwean economy in ruins, it is the
people leaving the
country who are helping those who have remained to
survive.
For a country which is in a state of economic collapse,
there is a
surprising amount of movement in Zimbabwe today.
Drive through the darkened streets of Harare at night — for there is
no
electricity — and you see hundreds of people walking purposefully at two
and
three o’clock in the morning.
They are the few who need to get to
work — only one in five of the
adult population still has a
job.
They take up their positions on street corners waiting for a
passing
car or pick-up truck.
There is no petrol, and regular
bus services are already a distant
memory.
"I sometimes wait
four or five hours to get to work," said one office
worker.
"But even the bosses don’t complain."
Everyone in Zimbabwe
understands life is difficult.
A couple of hours later, as dawn
breaks over the capital, many
people — the mothers and unemployed — start
forming long, silent queues that
wind around entire blocks of the
city.
There is a rumour that bread could be arriving in the area
today.
Five hours later, people are still waiting.
Policemen arrive, apparently helpfully supervising the queue and
giving a
surreal air of normality to the city scene.
"They just pretend,"
said one man in the queue with five children at
home to feed.
"They get the first news if a lorry is on its way with bread, sugar,
or
maize-meal and they jump to the top of the queue and loot the
food."
Once one of the richest countries in Africa, Zimbabwe has
become a
barrow, bucket, and bag economy.
You see people
walking for miles, wheeling barrows, buckets on their
heads, and plastic
bags in hand.
Like the "bag ladies" in the former Soviet Union,
they are always on
the ready just in case something turns up.
But it seldom does.
People are starving. The evidence is in the
hospitals where tiny,
wizened babies lie dying in their cots while their
mothers look on
helplessly.
One mother cradles a child who is
losing her hair and her skin, a sign
of the most advanced form of
Kwashiorkor or vitamin deficiency.
It is certainly the first time I
have seen this condition in 20 years
of reporting on the developing
world.
"Zimbabwe once offered the most comprehensive medical
service in
Africa," a doctor explains.
"It is now becoming a
textbook case of medical horror."
Many children arrive with
grandmothers.
Grandmother or child-headed families are a growing
social phenomenon
in Zimbabwe today, often the result of the Aids
epidemic.
In other cases — if parents still have the energy and the
means — they
flee abroad to look for food and to send back
money.
Buses loaded with people and luggage wait for days around
the petrol
stations on the roads leading out of the country.
When fuel eventually arrives, they lurch off, swaying precariously
under the
weight of so many passengers, on the five-hour journey to the
border with
South Africa.
Zimbabwean immigration officials do not bother them
and, on the South
African side, they can be paid off with
bribes.
For those who do not have the money and who have to duck
through the
bush, there is a greater risk.
Gangs wait on either
side of the river for the groups of desperate
refugees.
"They
had guns and knives," one girl tells me. "There were 15 boys and
five girls
in our group.
"They killed one boy when he refused to give them his
shoes. They
raped all the girls."
Still, they arrive in South
Africa at the rate of thousands a week.
The many victims of
political persecution will never go back while
Robert Mugabe is
alive.
Others just come for a few weeks to make enough money to
take home.
I met two teachers. Liliana told me she worked as a
domestic cleaner
while Patience told me she worked as a
prostitute.
"What else can I do?" she said.
"My
husband is dead and I have three children back home to feed."
It is
a situation that suits the governments on both sides.
Among the
refugees, there are doctors, engineers, agricultural
experts, just the kind
of people who are needed by South Africa’s growing
economy.
Zimbabweans have long since given up hope that the South African
leader—
Thabo Mbeki — will put pressure on his old friend, Robert Mugabe, to
reform.
And as for Robert Mugabe, an opposition politician in
Harare says:
"This makes him a very, very happy dictator.
"He
gets rid of his opponents and they in turn send back money to
their families
in Zimbabwe and that keeps things ticking over."
Anyone expecting a
swift conclusion to Zimbabwe’s agony will be
disappointed.
Thanks to the ingenuity and tolerance of people still in the country
and the
remittances sent back by those who have left, Zimbabwe’s death
throes could
last a long time yet. — BBC News.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani
Ndlovu
BULAWAYO — Zanu-PF politburo member, Dumiso Dabengwa has
become the
first senior party official to speak against Zanu-PF
slogans.
He said, apart from promoting violence, the slogans were
derogatory
and retrogressive.
A former intelligence supremo of
Zipra, Dabengwa is not known to
publicly speak against the ruling party. But
he said last week Zanu-PF
slogans were retrogressive and closed avenues for
talks with any opposition
parties.
Dabengwa’s comments appeared
well-timed for the Zanu PF extraordinary
congress which ended on Friday. At
the congress, delegates took turns to
chant slogans denigrating the
MDC.
The ruling party is engaged in talks with the MDC, sponsored
by the
Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and spearheaded by
South
African president, Thabo Mbeki.
Dabengwa was addressing
members of the Zanu-PF youth league at the
official opening of their
leadership induction workshop at Davies Hall,
Bulawayo Zanu-PF
offices.
He said the youths, the vanguard of the Zanu-PF election
machinery,
should "do away" with the slogans and formulate new ones which
were not as
retrogressive as the current ones.
"I am against
slogans which phansi lozibani (down with so and so). You
should not do that.
The slogans are retrogressive and promote violence. You
should revisit the
slogans and formulate progressive ones which leave room
to interact with
other people," he said.
Analysts have hit out at the Zanu-PF
slogans, saying they promote
violence and are against the spirit of dialogue
between the party and the
two factions of the MDC.
Dabengwa, in
a statement likely to cause consternation in ruling party
circles, added:
"There is nothing wrong with interacting with a person from
the MDC. But if
you say phansi laye (down with him/her), you have closed the
room for
discussion. We should look for new party slogans which make us
progressive."
John Makumbe, a political analyst, said Zanu-PF
should shun slogans of
"yesterday" and the liberation struggle.
"Such slogans are meant for the liberation struggle and war and I
support
Dabengwa on that. That is a slogan based on hate politics and should
be
discouraged, stopped or abolished," said Makumbe.
"It is
unfortunate that the major proponent of that slogan is Mugabe
himself and
that does not help anyone. Zanu-PF has to revamp itself, renew
itself and
move with the times. It has to get a new language, because the
language it
has is yesterday’s language."
Max Mnkandla, the president of the
Zimbabwe Liberators Peace
Initiative (ZLPI) concurred: "We are approaching
elections and these are not
statements the country needs at this point and
time if we are to avoid
violent clashes between the MDC and Zanu-PF
supporters. But the president
understands the language of
violence."
Mugabe has boasted that he has "several degrees in
violence".
Zanu-PF spokesperson, Nathan Shamuyarira and John Nkomo,
the chairman
could not be reached for comment. They were attending a Zanu PF
congress
where inflammatory slogans were being chanted.
Dabengwa was likely to court more controversy in the party after the
publication of his autobiography.
He told The Standard early
this year that he was writing a book that
would focus on the time he spent
in prison when he was incarcerated for
allegedly attempting to overthrow
Mugabe, and the Gukurahundi massacres,
among other controversial
issues.
Dabengwa said the history of the liberation struggle was
"full of
distortions and misrepresentations" which have to be corrected, as
it omits
the contributions made by PF Zapu and Zipra.
Zim Standard
MUROWA Diamonds last
week donated $11
billion to Gweru’s Blue Hills Probation and Remand Home and
Hwedza Secondary
School in Zvishavane as part of its social responsibility
initiative.
The amount is part of the $22 billion the company has
committed to
charity this year.
The company last week donated
the other $11 billion to the Aids
Counselling Trust.
"Today’s
donation is meant to sow the seed of sustainable development
within our
business home province, Midlands," Murowa managing director
Cameron McRae
said on Thursday.
The money was split in half between the two
institutions.
While the money for Hwedza is meant for buying
roofing material for
three classrooms, the one for Blue Hills will go
towards resuscitation of
sustainable skills training programmes to empower
the institution’s inmates.
McRae said as part of Murowa’s
commitment to sustainable development
of communities, the company will next
year continue working with the
beneficiaries.
Murowa is
involved in various other sustainable development programmes
anchored on
education, livelihoods, community health and HIV and Aids and
partnerships.
The company has in the past scooped awards in
recognition of these
projects.
Zim Standard
BY NDAMU SANDU
SHE sits
cross-legged on the pavement, hoping that this time around
Lady Luck would
smile on her.
She had been to the bank on three consecutive days
but has failed to
achieve her mission of simply withdrawing some
money.
The six-month-old baby strapped on her back is enjoying her
sleep,
probably in Wonderland. Samukeliso Munda knows too well that she has
to get
the money at all costs as the landlord is baying for her
blood.
"I haven’t finished paying rent and the landlord said I have
to pay it
as soon as possible or else I will have to look for accommodation
elsewhere," she said.
"I have told him that I am failing to
withdraw money at the bank but
he doesn’t want to hear any
excuses."
Samukeliso’s husband is in Mozambique after his
construction company
won a tender two months ago.
Samukeliso’s
predicament is experienced by most Zimbabweans who have
to endure endless
queues to withdraw their money as banks have run out of
cash. Automated
teller machines have now been configured to give a maximum
cash withdrawal
of $5 million, not enough to buy a 2-litre bottle of cooking
oil. In most
cases tellers have to wait for depositors to make transactions
before they
can accept withdrawals. Such is the crisis in banks that most
tellers were
attending to inquiries and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)
transactions at
banks visited by Standardbusiness Friday.
With no solution in
sight, as the central bank offers no solution, the
situation presents a
bleak Christmas for hard-pressed Zimbabweans who have
been reduced to
professional queuers.
Central bank governor Gideon Gono said on
Friday that of the $67
trillion in circulation only $2 trillion could be
accounted for.
"If the banks do not have that money, the people do
not have that
money, it is the cash barons who have got that money," Gono
told an
extraordinary congress of Zanu PF.
Gono said the move
to slash three zeros last year had not yielded the
desired
results.
He said: "I removed three zeros, but they came back. So,
how many
zeores should I remove?"
Analysts say the central bank
has to discard its ambush approach and
give Zimbabweans time to change their
money in the event of currency
reforms.
Ghana gave its people
more than six months when it lopped off four
zeros.
In August,
Nigeria announced it would embark on currency reforms,
beginning on 1 August
2008, giving the people a year to prepare for the
change.
But
Nigeria suspended the reforms as the government wants to put the
necessary
legal statutes in place before the change.
Gono has in the past
hinted that currency reforms under Sunrise 2
would be swift, giving people
24 hours as a change-over period.
"That kind of conduct is
unacceptable," said John Robertson, an
independent economist. "It’s an
injustice that will be resented by the
entire population for years to
come."
Robertson says any currency reforms have to give the
population at
least three months to adjust.
He says the
government policies have put banks on the edge of the
economy.
"Banks do not offer attractive interest rates that would encourage
people to
put their money in banks," he said.
Savings have also been eroded
by high inflation which at 14 000
percent is the highest in the
world.
"More inflation means further theft on the people’s savings
and
incomes,"
Tendai Biti MDC secretary general wrote in his
analysis of the 2008
National Budget.
Analysts say due to the
cash crisis, Zimbabwe has broken new grounds
as a country where money is no
longer a medium of exchange but a commodity
sold around the dark corners by
dealers.
"The fact that RTGS is better than cash, has made cash a
commodity.
That alone is creating new boundaries of currency mismanagement,"
said
Daniel Ndlela head of an economic consultancy firm, Zimconsult. Ndlela
dismissed as "economic illiteracy" talk of currency reforms as the country
has no reserves.
He said: "There is no reason under the sun to
issue a currency that in
30 days will be worthless."
Samukeliso
is worried that even if the cash were to be available, the
money would not
buy anything as prices of the basic goods have galloped over
the past
weeks.
"I would have bought a 2-litre cooking oil at $5 million at
the
beginning of the month. The same cooking oil is being sold for $10
million,
which means I have to look for more money," she said.
Zim Standard
IT has been alleged by many of its critics that
Zanu PF has
survived for so long in power by ignoring reality.
Others have predicted that this fatal flaw in the party’s collective
psyche
is its Achilles Heel which could lead to its final undoing.
Recently, the party has celebrated two events which it loudly
characterised
as victories: President Robert Mugabe’s controversial presence
at the
EU-Africa summit in Lisbon and its truly extraordinary
"extraordinary"
congress in Harare.
The congress’s primary purpose was to endorse
Mugabe’s presidential
candidature in the harmonised 2008 elections. As
predicted, the delegates
duly endorsed him, although there were discernible
signs that not everyone
was as enthusiastic as they ought to have
been.
There was a palpable undercurrent of discontent which may yet
manifest
itself in the election. Given the back-stabbing that characterised
the
run-up to the congress, this was almost inevitable.
In the
first event, the EU-Africa summit, Zanu PF decided, against
reality, that
Mugabe had scored a victory for his country by just being in
Lisbon, among
the European and African leaders.
The reality was that the man
stood out like a sore thumb. He cut a
lonely figure as a pariah. The media
paid him special attention, not because
he had triumphed over the British
prime minister, Gordon Brown, who was not
at the summit, but because of what
he had done to his country.
In seven years he had presided over the
rapid transformation of a
country with the potential to be the jewel of
Africa into an economic and
political basket case.
The media
wanted to record his presence for posterity: who was this
man who could
achieve this feat of destruction in such a short period?
His
country has the highest inflation rate in the world. Life
expectancy has
dropped from nearly 60 years to just 34: the health delivery
system has
nearly collapsed. Just who was this blot upon the African
landscape?
For Zanu PF, though, Mugabe had triumphed over
Gordon Brown and the
entire EU. Yet not only had Zimbabwe been discussed at
the summit, a number
of leaders had singled out Mugabe for rebuke over human
rights violations
and the suppression of freedom of expression in his
country.
If he did not leave the summit feeling thoroughly
chastised, then it
could only be because, like the party he has led since
1975, reality can be
suspended and life lived as a beautiful
dream.
Zanu PF has refused to accept the reality of the disaster it
inflicted
on the country with the land reform fiasco. It clings to the myth
that "the
people have got their land back".
What has been done
with that land is not dwelt on in depth. The
pathetic decline in
agricultural productivity is glossed over with such lame
excuses as
"successive droughts". Yet Gideon Gono, speaking at the congress,
like a
typical fish out of water, narrated the ugly story of Zanu PF’s
refusal to
confront realiaty: beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation
programme have
sold the implements for cash.
Some of them were given ploughs,
tractors and combine harvesters,
although they had no farms or even a small
patch of land on which to use
them.
The corruption involved in
such acts of dishonesty is unimaginable.
Yet Zanu PF has for long evaded
that truth about itself: this is a very,
very corrupt party, which has
contributed immensely to the decline of the
economy.
To vote
for Zanu PF or for Mugabe in 2008 is to prolong a vicious
cvcle of national
looting.
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by Bill
Saidi
SHE fled the banking hall, snuffling loudly, as if pursued by
a bunch
of sex-crazed savages.
I imagined them shouting
obscenities at her as she made for the
escalator.
The
accusation against her? She had jumped the queue. Among her
accusers were
other women, joining in a chorus which I imagined made her
feel unclean, a
soiled piece of humanity deserving only the rubbish dump.
There was
no solid evidence that, in a court of law, she could be
convicted of
queue-jumping — if such a crime exists.
One big, burly, tall, loud
man had certainly jumped the queue, but
people found it easier to victimise
the woman. For age-old cultural reasons,
or out of the obnoxious motive that
she posed no physical threat to them?
For me, this epitomised the
semblance of a hell on earth, not for that
woman alone, for us
all.
This was the climax of a day in hell. It was a day at the bank
like no
other I had ever endured, even the one during which, years ago, the
bank
manager had me twiddling my thumbs for an hour or so, in his office —
before
turning down my loan application.
This was a bank in
21st century Zimbabwe, a Zimbabwe so denuded of
almost any semblance of
civilised conduct you expected to see the spectacle
of cannibalism being
committed before your eyes.
In this banking hall, normally, sober,
well-suited, well-coiffured and
well-behaved men and women stand quietly,
with the patience of Job, in a
queue.
This queue, of men and
women left in the bank after its official
closing time of 3pm, looked
desperate enough to tear, from limb to limb,
anyone suggesting "there is no
more money" for them — from their own
accounts.
My suspicion
was the bank staff, particularly the security guards,
were conscious of the
potential for homicide among the depositors.
We, styled senior
citizens, had been made to queue separately, outside
the bank, along with a
dozen other younger depositors, on the opposite side.
We had been there,
hungry and thirsty, from past 12 to past three.
A bank official had
explained it thus: One day, an elderly woman, in a
queue with younger
people, felt so humiliated she tore off her clothes,
screaming blue murder,
threatening mayhem if she wasn’t given her money.
The sight of
her half-naked body convinced them there would be
punishment for them from
Someone Above if they didn’t give the senior
citizens the respect they
deserved.
Irrelevantly, I didn’t think of Gideon Gono then, and how
he would
react if a dozen women, stark naked, burst into his office,
demanding their
money.
I thought, instead, of Julia
Chikamoneka. She and her group went
starkers at Lusaka airport during a
visit to Northern Rhodesia by Iain
McLeod, Britain’s colonial
secretary.
It is said McLeod took one look at the sight and decided
the former
colonial territory had to be granted independence
forthwith.
In the bank, at one counter, a man had brought a sackful
of bearer
cheques of all denominations. A teller was counting them. A senior
official
went over to him, whispered to him like a co-conspirator and
suddenly we
were told that was the money we would be given.
It
wouldn’t be enough: if you wanted $20 million, you would get $10
million and
so on.
I shall always remember that woman, though, fleeing the
banking hall,
as if from a banshee. It was as if a crowd had threatened to
stone her to
death for adultery, or riding in a car with a man who wasn’t
her relative.
In many ways, that experience confirmed Zanu PF’s
relentless campaign
to turn us all into a breed with hearts of stone, with
consciences that
would not flinch or squirm from inflicting pain and
suffering on others, if
this served the party’s purpose.
In
other words, it is a campaign to turn us all into Zanu PF zealots,
if not
through forcing us to carry their cards, then most certainly to feel
and act
as their members do — to act only in the interests of the party,
never mind
who gets hurt in the process.
To turn a banking hall into a hell,
with one helpless woman fleeing,
as if from baton-wielding, dope-crazed
Green Bombers.
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
Sundayview by
Judith Todd
TRYING to find out what happened to land bought by
government for
resettlement with donor funds that had come mainly from
Britain, Chief
Minister Joshua Nkomo travelled the country in August and
September 1988.
It was said that, of the funds provided, Zimbabwe
had spent 47 million
pounds by 1985, with which well over three million
hectares had been
purchased, and that three million pounds that had not been
spent had been
returned by a largely disinterested Zimbabwe government to
Britain.
President Mugabe and colleagues had other matters on their
minds and
weren’t wasting much time or thought on the ownership or use of
land by
their fellow citizens. I knew this at first hand. My father’s
Hokonui Ranch,
well watered and bordering crowded communal lands, had been
offered twice to
government for acquisition, but no one was
interested.
Before Nkomo left Harare, he assembled information on
farms acquired.
Just before he arrived in Matabeleland South, Governor Mark
Dube and the
head of the provincial police force based in Gwanda went on
unscheduled
leave. That was a dramatic illustration of how little they
respected the
status of the chief minister in the president’s office and
with what
contempt they viewed the unity accord. In their absence, Nkomo was
attended
to by the provincial administrator.
When they met in
Gwanda, Nkomo asked the provincial administrator how
many farms government
had acquired in Matabeleland South. The PA was
obviously ill at ease and
flustered, but said he thought there were fifteen.
"Really," said Nkomo,
taking a list of farms from his pocket. "This is very
interesting, because
the people in Harare think there are sixty-four. So let’s
just visit all the
names on this list and see what the true situation is."
On the
second day of touring, the PA begged to be excused from
accompanying Nkomo
as, he said, he was beginning to feel very sick. Flu or
something. Nkomo
assured him that he would undoubtedly start feeling better
as the day wore
on and did not excuse him. The PA had already admitted that
he had been
instructed by Governor Mark Dube to tell Nkomo that the
government had
bought only 15 farms in the province.
As they travelled from farm
to farm, the workers assembled, so happy
to meet Nkomo, who chatted easily
to them, admiring the beautiful cattle and
the wonderful farm. So when he
asked to whom it belonged, they freely said,
"Governor Dube," or whoever the
chef in possession of the land was.
"How many cattle on this
farm?"
"One thousand," or however many there were.
"And to whom do they belong?"
"Governor Dube," or whoever the chef
was.
But there were not only cattle on these farms. There were
government
tractors, trucks from the District Development Fund, and where
did all these
cattle come from?
One of the farms turned out to
"belong" to the indisposed provincial
administrator.
When Nkomo
reported his findings on Matabeleland South, President
Mugabe gave the
impression of being stunned. Only one word could describe
what had been
going on, and that word was looting. Now we could begin to
understand why
people like Governor Dube were at all stages trying to
sabotage the return
of the dissidents to society. Their disruptive presence
in the bush was a
wonderful cover for the grabbing of land, animals and
equipment and an
excuse not to resettle the landless people for whom it was
claimed the farms
had been acquired.
Despite Nyagumbo and others who hated Nkomo, the
integration of PF
Zapu and Zanu PF seemed to be going quite well. One of the
people being
particularly friendly post-unity was Deputy Minister Amina
Hughes.
Just before the 70th birthday in July of Senator Joe
Culverwell, the
Deputy Minister for Education, she told me that she had got
hold of some
fake rhino horn powder as his birthday present. Rhino horn is
reputedly a
powerful aphrodisiac, hence the plight of the
rhinos.
I went to a small American embassy party in honour of the
new head of
the US Information Services, who was originally a Palestinian .
. . Senator
Culverwell was a fellow guest at the party, and we were on the
balcony
watching the most glorious sunset. It was the sort of evening that,
depending on your circumstances, could inspire thoughts of rhino
horn.
So Joe told me of this wonderful gift that Amina had
given him. He
said: "So many people want it! Comrade Marere (a fellow deputy
minister) has
offered me Z$10 for just a little pinch!" Of course, I didn’t
tell him that
I knew about it and that it was fake. I just said I wondered
how Amina could
have got hold of it. Could it have been from Mrs Victoria
Chitepo, Minister
for Tourism and Natural Resources? Joe looked
horrified?
Two prominent members of the former PF Zapu were named
as envoys, more
fruits of unity. Isaac Nyathi, who was detained with Masuku
and Dabengwa
after Nitram was banned, became the new high commissioner to
Nigeria and
Ghana. Arthur Chadzingwa was the ambassador to Algeria. Arthur
was someone
loved by people in all groups. He was a candidate for PF Zapu in
the 1980
elections, but was prevented from campaigning in his home area of
Manicaland
by members of Zanla. At least they said: "Sorry, Arthur" and
didn’t visit
violence upon him.
During the time of the Pearce
Commission, when thousands of people
were locked up by the Smith regime,
Arthur was for some time held in a cell
with Charlton C Ngcebetsha. He
helped the time pass by teaching Arthur
cricket in a cell with no ball and
no bat. Arthur said he got pretty good at
shouting HOWZAT! Arthur also told
me that Ngcebetsha had lamented the fact
that most great men like Winston
Churchill and Garfield Todd had
disappointing children.
Charlton Cezani Ngcebetsha was born in the Transkei in 1909, and moved
north
to Ntabazinduna, outside Bulawayo, as a missionary for the
Presbyterian
Church. He became heavily involved in education, business,
politics and the
press, and was close to Joshua Nkomo. He founded the
African Home News in
1953, which was closed in 1965 when he was detained in
Gonakudzingwa.
Charlton Ngcebetsha was quite irrepressible, and somehow,
within a short
time of his detention, the first edition of Gonakudzingwa
Home News hit the
streets of Bulawayo . . .
Shadreck B Gutto, the Kenyan academic,
was "requested" to leave
Zimbabwe, where he had been teaching at the
university. He was given 48
hours to clear out and went to Norway. Paul
Themba Nyathi, our director,
returned from leave in Zambia, where he had
bumped into some representatives
of a group of 300 exiles who were still too
scared to return to Zimbabwe.
Eleven of their number had gone home
the previous September and
promised to write to their comrades to tell them
what life was like. As the
people in Zambia hadn’t heard a word from them,
they assumed they were
either locked up in Stops Camp, or dead. So the safe
return of these 300
would probably be a task for us in the New Year. We
hadn’t yet finished
coping with the former dissidents. Forty-three of them
were doing very well
in the new co-operative in the Nkayi area, but the rest
still had to
establish themselves.
Excerpt from Judith
Todd’s latest book, Through the Darkness; A Life
in Zimbabwe, available from
www.zebrapress.co.za.
Zim Standard
sundayview by
Brilliant Mhlanga
AS a person from Matabeleland, I wish to respond
to the statement
posted by the Spanish Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Santiago
Martinez-Caro.
His statements are part of the dismissive discourse
which seems not to
be addressing the core issues of the people of that
region. The Ambassador
wishes to encourage us to forget about the horrors
committed on us and the
loss of our loved ones; an act which was done in the
fashion of Hitler’s
Holocaust.
A critical mind gleans a
summative amount of unsaid issues from the
Ambassador’s statement alone. One
is puzzled therefore to note that the
Ambassador tacitly embraces the
notions of the one who commented carelessly,
as if seeking to dismiss what
Gorden Moyo said, about the talks, the history
of negotiations and Unity
Accord, Matabeleland and the unfortunate dark
patches in our history as a
nation.
It would appear, the Ambassador does not have deeper
knowledge of what
happened to the people of Matabeleland, during the
Gukurahundi period. This
probably explains his wish for us to follow the
Spanish model. I respect his
wish, but it might not work in an environment
where the political nuances
and contexts are different. I believe this is
why certain models have not
worked in Africa.
If Moyo, said it
and the Ambassador has issues with it, I then wish to
request that we do not
blame Moyo, but the people of Matabeleland for having
been killed and
continuously labouring in their toil to try and talk about
their
ill-treatment and calling for a just cause. We should then agree to
blame
them on history, because their actions are a total summation of an
unjust
historical act on them. One would have expected them to talk about
it.
However, I wish to emphatically stress to the Ambassador
that the
Gukurahundi genocide did take place. Maybe he was simply not aware
of it. A
lot has been written and said about it lately. I will not delve
into the
details of it now. I will be happy if he could approach the crisis
of the
down-trodden masses — our crisis, with an open mind seeking to
strategically
engage us in mapping out a constructive way forward, than
showing us a
dismissive attitude.
I say so because from his
statement the words, "retribution for past
activities, on a regional and
ethnic basis" seem not to be a positive
gesture of nudging positive
solutions for Zimbabwe as a whole. If anything,
those words criminalize and
trivialize an otherwise open, honest and candid
expression, seeking to show
the deeper meaning of the politics of Zimbabwe.
These statements tend to
soil various civil society initiatives to forge for
a forum to openly
discuss the crisis of the people of Matabeleland,
particularly the genocide.
And so it tends to impede any positive move aimed
at addressing the
political crisis in Zimbabwe. I therefore submit that it
is a sign that we
cannot easily ignore and relegate it to a historical
non-event. It happened
and we must find a common solution to it as
Zimbabweans.
I
would surely be among those who are happy to acknowledge that what
Moyo did
was the best given the circumstances. The effort alone must be
commended,
given, that very rare occasion where an entourage of ambassadors
visited
that part of the country; a seemingly God-forsaken region in all
respects.
The problems of Matabeleland are quite dissimilar to those of
Harare where
he is stationed. Venturing into most marginalised regions with
that in mind
tends to help in the avoidance of what might end up being
perceived by the
indigenous people as some kind of "deliberate vagueness".
Such
actions and statements can even be more divisive if
inappropriately put
across. In this case I humbly submit that the statements
by the ambassador
of Spain are surely divisive and uncalled for. They seek
to trivialize the
crises the people of Matabeleland have gone through since
1980. Indeed, the
people of Matabeleland have an unresolved problem: they
have seen very
little of development.
I can confirm this by reminding the
ambassador what the Minister of
Health, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said when he
visited hospitals in Bulawayo.
He openly lamented Matabeleland’s
marginalisation and regretted that this
had been going on for a long time.
This was widely covered in the media in
Zimbabwe, even by the state
media.
I wish to submit to the Ambassador that some of these
unresolved
issues seem not to be part of the broader arrangement of the SADC
initiated
talks. As a result, the approach to the talks is a blanket
mindset, hinged
on a general assumption that the crisis is truncated within
the locus of the
so-called "national agenda", and that what happened to
other sections must
be swiftly swept under the carpet.
I am not
sure whether the ambassador is aware that this is likely to
cause more
problems in future. In my view Zimbabwe’s problems are bigger
than that
approach by a group of the selected "wise ones".
There is need
therefore for an all-embracive approach which
encompasses a wide section of
Zimbabwe’s troubled groups. I wish to further
pose the following questions:
Is it not a paradox that the nexus of the
talks discusses Mugabe’s exit
package, yet it ignores one of the major
causes for his unrelenting grip on
power, the Gukurahundi genocide? If it is
so trivial, then why is it not
being openly discussed in Zimbabwe to this
day? Do we therefore have to
blame the people of Matabeleland and concerned
Zimbabweans for raising this
historical fact?
I promise to talk about it until it is embraced,
particularly by
members of the diplomatic community, including Ambassador
Martinez-Caro.
Maybe the ambassador might also want to know from
his advisors what
happened to Thabo Mbeki (current President of South
Africa) in the early
1980s when he was in Zimbabwe as an ANC emissary. I
hope the brief, will
include that he, Mbeki, was arrested together with the
political prisoners
from Matabeleland and thrown into Maximum prison in
Zimbabwe. Some of the
political prisoners never came out alive; Mbeki knows
that.
Is it not an elaborate surprise then that this issue is now
expected
to be swept under the carpet and not even raised during the talks?
I will
not delve deeper into the nuances of the SADC initiated talks as they
remain
shrouded in mystery, but I wish to comment and urge everyone to
remain
alert. Otherwise these wild leaps into darkness might turn into
serious own
goals for the opposition.
Lastly, I agree with the
ambassador’s first two major points on the
talks and differ with the rest.
The points are:
1. The current negotiations taking place between
Zanu PF and the
Opposition have to be held with a certain discretion if they
are to have any
chance of succeeding. I therefore cannot agree with those
who continuously
demand publicity and enlargement of the talks.
2. The outcome of those negotiations cannot be, because of time
constraints
and level of representation, a final and definitive solution to
Zimbabwe’s
problems. On the contrary, I believe and hope they will be the
beginning of
a political transition which may last for quite some time and
which will end
in a national framework which all Zimbabweans will be able to
accept.
Mugabe must account for the 'jewel' he has ruined
WHEN Robert Mugabe came
into power in 1980 he voluntarily proclaimed that Zimbabwe was a jewel
loaned to him and his government by the future generations who were supposed
to get it back from them in an improved state.
Addressing a
rally in 1980 Mugabe said: "Zimbabwe is a jewel being
loaned to us
(government) by the future generations who should hold us
accountable if we
fail to pass it over to them in an improved state."
Far from the
word improved is where Zimbabwe finds itself today under
the continued
misgovernance by the regime of the day characterised by
dictatorship,
looting and killing.
The academic genocide which the government
unleashed on 8 February
2006 continues to haunt the students at all tertiary
institutions in
Zimbabwe. This was the day when the government of the day
reneged on its
promise of "Education for all by the year 2000". This was a
clear denial of
education to those of a peasant family background and the
poor ingeneral.
The particular day remains a black day in the
history of higher and
tertiary education. This is the day when Mugabe’s
government decided to
commodify education, thereby making it a preserve for
the elite. Several
students have dropped out of school since then whilst
those who soldiered on
find themselves between a hard rock and a hard place
because of the
socio-economic and political meltdown currently obtaining in
Zimbabwe.
The government, through vice-chancellors and principals,
has always
reacted ruthlessly against student leaders and activists who
advocate for
the restoration of normalcy in the education system in
Zimbabwe. Suspensions
and expulsions have become the order of the day as the
regime tries in vain
to stop the students’ revolution in
Zimbabwe.
The recent victimisation of student activists at Great
Zimbabwe
University, National University of Science and Technology and the
University
of Zimbabwe goes a long way to show how the regime is prepared to
sacrifice
the voice of the voiceless for its selfish and corrupt
interests.
One thing they seem not to know is that they can kill
the
revolutionaries but they will never kill the revolution. Students now
find
themselves concentrating more on means of survival than their core
business.
They now find themselves thinking of where they will get their
next meal and
bus fare to and from college, where they will put up for the
next night and
how they will fund-raise for typing of projects and
assignments.
More painful is the state of lecturers the students
throughout the
country have been receiving due to the massive exodus of
qualified lecturers
and yet the regime hibernating along Samora Machel
Avenue has done nothing
to address this anomaly. Half-baked graduates, unfit
for the industry, have
been produced and they are expected to help in
improving the economic,
social and political crisis of this country is
confronting.
My word to Mugabe’s government is that they should be
aware that they
will not go unjudged and unpunished for the crimes they have
committed
against the people of Zimbabwe. We will definitely hold
them accountable for failing to preserve the jewel they took over in
1980.
Zwelitini Viki
Former Information and
Publicity Secretary
UZ, SRC, Harare
--------------------
Zanu PF has become the skunk of the
world
LAST week's EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon, Portugal,
obviously
excited Zanu PF without measure. This gave them the opportunity to
sneer at
the British and use the attendance as proof that it is with that
country
alone that they have differences.
During the
struggle that we had hoped would bring freedom in
this country, Portugal was
one of the few countries that openly supported
Ian Douglas Smith’s racist
regime. The other country was France, which kept
the Rhodesian Air Force
supplied with vital spare parts.
During World War II, the
Portuguese pretended to be neutral
when, in fact, they were passing vital
information about the Allied Forces
to the Germans. Therefore, the
Portuguese simply did what they know best —
that is siding with
tyranny.
As for Africa, the less said the better. Mugabe’s
generation of
nationalists is the same crowd that gave Idi Amin standing
ovations at the
Organisation of African Unity gatherings in the 1970s, at a
time Amin was
busy murdering his fellow Ugandans. He also dispossessed
Asians in his
country of their property because of nothing else but their
race.
The truth is that Zanu PF has become a skunk and, will
seek
friendship even with the most despicable of
governments.
S M Moyo
Bulawayo.
-------------------------
Sold fake
bulbs
I recently bought two 100w light bulbs from OK in
Mabelreign. The
first one expired the very night I installed it, and I
replaced it with the
second one which did not last two days. The OK bulbs
are obviously
Zhing-zhongs and anyone buying them is wasting their
money.
DK
Harare