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Zimbabwean in bank note 'insult'

BBC
 
6 December 2007, 18:23 GMT
 
Zimbabwe dollar bills and bearer cheques
In Zimbabwe a match costs Z$3,000
A tourism promoter in Zimbabwe has been arrested for allegedly defacing bank notes to use as business cards.

Denis Paul is accused of insulting behaviour for handing out 10-cent Zimbabwean notes stamped with his business details at a tourism fair.

Officials say his actions in effect discouraged tourism to Zimbabwe.

Banks say the cost of printing the 10-cent notes by far exceed their face value. If found guilty, Mr Paul could face up to a year in prison.

It was not my intention to demonise the country and I gave them [the cards] only to people I knew
Denis Paul

Correspondent says the single-cent bank notes - or bearer cheques as they are known - released last year have become obsolete because of rampant inflation.

A single match stick costs Z$3,000, AP news agency reports.

Last month, Zimbabwe's chief statistician said it is impossible to work out the country's latest inflation rate because of the lack of goods in shops.

'Useless'

According Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper, Mr Paul gave out the bank notes at a World Tourism Market fair in London last month.

"It was not my intention to demonise the country and I gave them [the cards] only to people I knew," he told the paper.

But the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority alleges that Mr Paul discouraged tourism by insinuating that the country's currency was useless, the Herald says.

Mr Paul, a 41-year-old professional hunter and lodge owner from Bulawayo, believed the bearer cheques had expired, Reuters news agency reports.

The bearer cheques, introduced in the last few years to cope with inflation, have expiry dates which tend to be ignored.

The country has the world's highest inflation rate and at the official exchange rate $1 fetches Z$30,000.

This week, the black-market price rose from about Z$1m to Z$4m for $1, financial agency Bloomberg News reports.

September's inflation rate was put at almost 8,000%.

Other reports suggest the rate could be at near 15,000%.


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Please come, but don't bring your monsters


Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

The dictators of Sudan and Zimbabwe should not have been welcome in Lisbon

IN LISBON at the end of this week, the leaders of the European Union will
sit down with the leaders of the African Union. It will be a grand jamboree,
the first of its kind since a summit in Cairo seven years ago. But one prime
minister from the European side will not be showing up. This is not because
Gordon Brown has been having such a torrid time filling Tony Blair's boots
in Britain, though he has. He is staying away because he refuses to attend a
meeting that is also being attended by Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Behind the scenes, Britain's allies complain that this is mere
grandstanding—and Mr Brown is capable of that. But on this occasion it is he
who is right and they who are wrong.

Since Europe and Africa are connected not only by an unfortunate past but
also by a complex present of trade, aid and migration, there is naturally
plenty for the two groups of leaders to discuss. But the truth is that this
meeting is taking place for two less noble reasons. One has to do with the
rotating six-month presidency of the EU, and the deeply felt need of every
incumbent to have some big project to show for it. In this case it is
Portugal that sits as president, and the Lisbon jamboree was its big idea
(see article). When Mr Brown said he would stay away if Mr Mugabe showed up,
and the Africans threw their weight behind Mr Mugabe, the Portuguese chose
to go ahead without Mr Brown rather than spoil the party.

The second big impulse behind the meeting is a feeling on Europe's part that
it is missing out. Africa may be Europe's neighbour and Europe its biggest
trading partner, but China has lately been muscling in on the action. Over
the past five years trade between Africa and China has increased fivefold. A
year ago China organised a great get-together of African leaders in Beijing.
Worse, the Chinese are generally held in Europe to be wooing the Africans
with a horribly seductive new approach: no carping about human rights and
bad government, just straight commercial dealings without paternalism,
lectures and strings attached. America too is showing growing interest in
Africa as a new front in its “war on terror”. So on top of the Portuguese
desire for a big project has come a more general European feeling that it is
in danger of being left out.

Both of these might seem good reasons for holding a summit. But look closer.
In Lisbon, the Europeans will be sitting down politely with not one but two
leaders who are treating their respective peoples with extraordinary
brutality. Mr Mugabe has pauperised a formerly prosperous country and used
thuggery to remain perpetually in power. Also present at the great summit
will be Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, whose government has presided in
recent years in Darfur over the killing of some 300,000 people and the
displacement of several million—and who continues to obstruct the deployment
of an effective international peacekeeping force.

Selling out
We know all this, insist the hosts, but the best answer in such cases is
“constructive engagement”. That is nonsense. After Lisbon, Europe will
continue to conduct its complex affairs in Africa in the usual way, through
a network of bilateral relations. When the EU wants to make a powerful
collective point—about the depredations of a Mugabe or a Bashir—it should
certainly speak with one voice. But inviting such men to a party is hardly
the way to do it. Just ask (though no one will) the fearful, hungry people
of Zimbabwe and Darfur.


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Harare newspaper 'tones down' Barroso criticism in run-up to weekend summit

The Times
December 6, 2007

David Charter Europe Correspondent
A pro-government newspaper in Zimbabwe has toned down criticism of Robert
Mugabe's regime in an article by Europe's top diplomat in the run-up to the
EU/Africa summit this weekend.

Reference was made to the "violation of human rights and the lack of
democracy in Zimbabwe" in a piece written by Jose Manuel Barroso, the
President of the European Commission - but the word "alleged" was inserted
by The Herald newspaper.

Mr Barroso today said he was concerned at the manipulation of his article,
which was published unchanged in several other African newspapers.

In remarks seen as a dig at Gordon Brown, who is boycotting the summit in
Lisbon in protest at Mr Mugabe's presence, Mr Barroso added that leaders
often had to rub shoulders with undesirable characters for the sake of
important meetings.

While saying that he respected Mr Brown's decision not to attend, Mr Barroso
added: "If international leaders had a rule not to go to those conferences
involving countries which did not respect human rights, I am afraid we would
not be attending many global conferences at all." He cited events involving
Asian and Latin American countries where European leaders sat down alongside
the heads of nations who had violated human rights.
Mr Barroso added: "Life has taught me that if you are in international
politics, sometimes you are going to have to meet some people your mother
would not like you to meet. That is what we have to do from time to time."

Most of the 27 EU leaders have backed Mr Barroso's insistence that the
summit is more important than just relations with Zimbabwe. Only Mirek
Topolanek of the Czech Republic has joined Mr Brown's boycott out of
concerns over Mr Mugabe's presence.

The Portuguese organisers have been criticised for not making Zimbabwe or
Sudan, where there is continued concern about atrocities in Darfur,
individual agenda items. They plan instead to raise various concerns about
individual countries under a summit session tomorrow about governance and
human rights.

The Herald of Zimbabwe reported yesterday on a pre-Lisbon preparatory
summit, declaring that "European and African foreign ministers rejected
attempts to have Zimbabwe discussed at this weekend's EU-Africa Summit".

Mr Barroso yesterday said: "There has been a very negative trend in the
Zimbabwean regime and this is something that has to be broached. This is not
just a summit for Zimbabwe, this summit is about the long-term relationship
between the EU and Africa and there are other countries in Africa where we
have concerns about human rights.

"These are issues we are going to have to broach at this summit and I intend
to do that, because this summit, I hope, will not just be a symbolic meeting
but something of substance with practical issues on the agenda which will
deliver practical results."

Mr Mugabe is due to arrive in Lisbon tomorrow along with representatives
from the 27 EU countries and 58 African nations for an evening dinner and
concert, before talks on Saturday. Baroness Amos, a former Cabinet minister,
will represent Britain.


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EU chief defends inviting Mugabe to EU-Africa summit

Mail and Guardian

Brussels, Belgium

06 December 2007 05:27

      .European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday
defended inviting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to attend a European
Union-Africa summit this weekend and vowed to make human rights the first
point on the agenda.

      British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting the Lisbon
summit on Saturday and Sunday because of the presence of Mugabe, seen by
many Africans as a hero of the independence struggle but accused by Western
countries of severe human rights violations.

      "Life has taught me that if you are in international politics,
sometimes you have to meet people that your mother would not like to see you
with," Barroso told a news conference.

      "It's true that there has been a very negative trend in the
Zimbabwe regime and this is something that we will have to broach," he said,
noting that human rights would be the first topic at the summit plenary
session.

      Barroso said he had written an article for several African
newspapers saying "the violation of human rights and lack of democratic
freedoms in Zimbabwe, unacceptable as this situation may be, must not be
allowed to interfere with relations between the two continents".

      Zimbabwe's government mouthpiece newspaper, the Herald,
published the article but added the word "alleged" before human rights
violations, he said.

      Barroso said he had met Mugabe in the past and acknowledged his
stature as an independence leader, but he declared: "How can they who have
fought for the liberation of those countries now not accept the liberation
of their citizens? How can they accept the idea that freedom is just freedom
from foreign rule and not freedom for the people of their countries?"

      He said he respected Brown's reasons for staying away, but if
the EU did not hold conferences that included people who violated human
rights, it would not have many meetings outside Europe. -- Reuters


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Steaks and cricket, starvation and poverty: diary of a surreal week in Zimbabwe

December 6, 2007
This week President Mugabe will claim international legitimacy when he sits down with world leaders at the EU-Africa summit. He will probably not be talking about the chaos he has created at home
Chidren ride donkey and cart in Zimbabwe

Thursday, November 15

From the air you see thousands of acres of abandoned farmland reverting to nature. Our Air Zimbabwe flight lands in Harare at 9.30am, the only plane at a shiny new airport built in 2001 for non-existent tourists.

Foreign journalists face imprisonment if caught here. Heart thumping, I approach the visa desk with a passport full of stamps for places like Iraq and Somalia. If asked, I will claim to be an academic specialising in conflict resolution. Happily, I am waved through. This may be a brutal police state, but it is an incompetent one.

Surprisingly, you can still rent cars. Maps of Harare are unobtainable, however, as there is no paper left to print them on. I rely on memory to find the safe suburban guest house where I plan to stay, the capital's hotels being infested with government informers. I arrive to find it has no electricity and not a drop of water.

I also need cash, but it is in desperately short supply. The Government cannot print enough to cope with inflation. Banks offer only the official rate of Z$30,000 per US dollar. A friend rescues me with a brick-sized wad of Z$20 million at the black market rate of Z$1.1 million to US$1. The official rate exists only for Mugabe's cronies, enabling them to buy US dollars at a fraction of their real value and amass enormous wealth. The friend also finds me alternative accomodation with a white professional couple in a suburb less crippled by power cuts.

Outwardly Harare appears unchanged. Handsome homes in avenues with names like Argyll Street and Bath Road are ablaze with jacaranda, bougainvillea and brilliantly-coloured flamboyant trees. Then you notice the telltale signs of economic meltdown: the paucity of cars, empty petrol stations, broken traffic lights, blank billboards, legions of hitchhikers, roadside hawkers selling pathetic piles of firewood.

You also see great snaking queues outside banks and supermarkets. Cash-starved banks restrict withdrawals to Z$5 million per person, but Zimbabweans with jobs are desperate to cash and spend their weekly salaries before they lose their value. Supermarket shelves have been almost empty since draconian price controls made it impossible for producers to cover their costs, so occasional deliveries of bread or sugar cause frenzied excitement.

Over dinner my friend has to go into the neighbouring restaurant to light his cigarette because matches are hard to find. He pockets the sugar sachets that came with coffee. Even toilet paper is scarce. He has a fine line in black humour. “What did Zimbabweans have before candles?” he asks. “Electricity!” He occasionally drives 1,400km to Botswana and back to buy a carful of provisions.

Friday, November 16

Richard Mills, the Times photographer, flies in clutching a fishing rod and posing as a tourist. I spend the day meeting contacts who will pass us on to opposition activists around the country. That is the only way foreign journalists can operate. You assume telephones are tapped; you snatch surreptitious pictures. It is dangerous for people to talk to you, even anonymously, but they do so because they want the world to know what is happening.

A contact has organised a dinner in a restaurant. One guest arrives late — he had found eggs and a chicken being sold on the black market. Another discovers the restaurant has tonic water, so snaps up a dozen bottles. “We've become a nation of scavengers,” a third observes. And of broken families. The diners have 13 children between them. Eleven have emigrated, and the last two intend to.

Money dominates the conversation, and Zimbabweans have of necessity become proficient mental mathematicians. Someone produces a Zimbabwean one cent note printed in August 2006 and calculates that it is worth 0.0000007 of a US cent — the world's most worthless banknote. The dinner costs Z$102,950,000 — US$34,000 at the official rate. I can just see it on my expenses form.

Saturday, November 17

Most whites have access to foreign currency, enabling many to buy generators, water storage tanks, and food on the black market. Most blacks do not and live on crumbs, with the conspicuous exception of the few thousand who enjoy Mugabe's patronage.

We spend the morning in Mbare, a Harare slum, with two plucky black church workers who introduce us to destitute women who are forced into prostitution knowing that Aids will kill them. They show us parentless children living alone in brutal, run-down housing projects. They trick a cemetery official into opening his voluminous register by saying we are priests. In one week there were 244 funerals, mostly of 20 and 30-year-olds.

We offer our guides lunch. They order T-bone steaks. We realise they are half-starved. They tell us they scratch a living by making 16-hour bus rides to South Africa and buying soap or cooking oil to sell on the black market at a tiny profit. Later my friend ropes us into a cricket match on the well-tended, sunlit grounds of Prince Edward's School, a colonial legacy. Surreal.

Driving home, we swing past Garvin Close, a suburban cul-de-sac guarded by armed soldiers. This is the home of Mugabe's “special guest”, Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former Ethiopian President responsible for 1.5 million deaths during a 14-year reign of terror. Do he and Mugabe ever meet for a dictators' dinner, I wonder?

Sunday, November 18

Out to the township of Mabvuku where women dredge muddy water from the bottom of deep holes because their taps have been dry for months. A local doctor says cases of diarrhoea and dysentry are soaring. He also says that of the 65 doctors he trained with 50 now work abroad, and that he no longer sends patients to government hospitals because there are no doctors or drugs to treat them.

We leave for Bulawayo, 450km away. Outside Harare we pass endless barren fields. The Government is predicting the “mother of all agricultural seasons” on every radio bulletin, but there is a woeful shortage of fertiliser, seeds and irrigation. Nowadays, snorted a farmer in Harare, a “bumper crop” is one that reaches the height of a car's bumper.

Monday, November 19

We need more fuel and cash. Our hosts direct us to a suburban bungalow where two middle-aged white men siphon petrol from a plastic container. They visit Botswana twice a week and bring back 3,000 litres a time to sell to trusted customers. We also change US$100 into a carrier bag full of notes. The unofficial rate has risen to Z$1.3 million. It jumps towards the end of the month as the central bank buys up black market dollars to pay Zimbabwe's electricity and other foreign bills.

An English friend asked me to bring out a food parcel for his sister-in-law. We find her in a rundown area of north Bulawayo, one of the last whites still living there. Her spartan bungalow is ringed by wire fencing and padlocked gates. “Hallelujah!” she cries when she opens the bag.

Her story is sad and absurd. She and her husband, a farmer, lost all their savings to hyperinflation. They have no source of foreign currency. For weeks she has lived largely off porridge. “We have no water, no power, no food. You name it, we haven't got it,” she says. They still have land outside the city, but they grow nothing on it because it would be seized the moment they did.

We are shocked by Bulawayo. Once Zimbabwe's industrial hub, its factories are mostly now silent. Its power station is shut. Four of its five reservoirs are empty. The Government has ordered shops to stay open, but they have nothing to sell. “You'd think you were in shops that sell shelves,” our hostess remarked.

There is hardly any newsprint for the local paper, or bottles for beer. Pius Ncube, the city's outspoken archbishop, has left for Rome after being caught with a woman in a government sting. A hospital doctor we knew has left in disgust after a patient died for lack of saline drips.

A cavernous supermarket offers seasonings but no meat; jams but no bread; cereal but no milk; food for pets but precious little for humans. The manager says he must stay open or lose his licence. He cannot dismiss any of his 40 staff. He doubles their pay every month, but that fails to counter inflation. On the rare occasions he gets a delivery of sugar or cooking oil he gives each employee a small allocation to sell on the black market. “Customers used to come to buy whatever they needed. Now they buy whatever they can get,” he says.

For his own needs he visits South Africa once a month, or buys black market goods outside his shop at five times the official price. He has just put up Christmas decorations: “Although there's nothing to buy at least the spirit is there.”

Tuesday, November 20

The Bulawayo mayor, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, gives us an interview. He has hung the statutory portrait of Mugabe behind his desk so he always has his back to the man.

A cleric takes us out to the bush where 500 families whose homes were destroyed by the Government live in abject poverty and rudimentary shelters unfit for animals. The children are barefoot, dressed in rags and play soccer with a ball made of rolled-up plastic bags.

Back in town, we watch policemen running from a supermarket, clutching packets of sugar, while several hundred people queue outside. They have free rein to supplement their pathetic salaries through plunder and extortion.

In the afternoon we visit a secondary school whose headmaster faces what he calls “challenges”. He has lost 6 of his 27 staff since February, and expects 5 more to leave when term ends in December. Some simply vanish overnight. They cannot survive on their US$11 monthly salary, he says. 200 of his 600 students are orphans; he reckons 100 are HIV-positive. Despite the risk, girls are selling their bodies to get food. How many of them? I ask “Almost the whole school.”

The day ends bizarrely. We dine at Nesbitt Castle — a Scottish baronial castle built by a local magnate in 1904 and now a hotel. It is full of stuffed animals, fading pictures of 1930s cricket teams, suits of armour. We eat minestrone soup, roast lamb and pear crumble in a magnificent candlelit dining room. The black staff sing happy birthday to a white guest at the only other occupied table. After dinner we drink scotch and play snooker. We could be back in Rhodesia.

Wednesday, November 21

At a rural clinic way out in the bush we find children who are literally starving. Most of the adult patients have Aids, and half are seriously malnourished. The doctor says the clinic sends the terminally ill home before they die because it is cheaper to send a live body on a bus than a dead corpse on a donkey cart.

Returning to Bulawayo we stop at a farm seized by Mugabe's henchmen a few years ago. The main house is now a roofless, windowless shell stripped of everything except the bathtub and a lavatory. Fetid black water sits in the bottom of the swimming pool.

The land around is littered with broken farm machinery, rusting silos, empty water tanks and fallen trees. Fields that once rippled with maize and wheat lie abandoned. Where the drive rejoins the road, a couple of ladies hawk a pathetic bowl of onions and tomatoes.

Back in Bulawayo we visit Ascot, the old racecourse. People cannot feed themselves now, let alone horses, and it has not been used in five years. The racetrack is overgrown, the rails broken, the stands empty and forlorn. Faded hoardings advertise the Castle $150,000 Classic and the 100,000 Guineas — prizes worth less than ten US cents each today.

On the edge of town we also find the old Formula One motor-racing course. There are no locks on the gates. The tyres that formed the crash barriers have been burnt. But the starter's podium survives, the grids are still visible on the track and the surface is fine. Nobody is around. The temptation is too great. I'll wager our Avis rental car has never moved so fast.

Thursday, November 22

Before dawn we drive 30 miles south. As the sun rises, we climb a vast dome of smooth rock. On top is a low granite tomb with a plaque inscribed: “Here Lie the Remains of Cecil John Rhodes”.

Surveying the spectacular panorama of rocky, bush-covered hills stretching away in all directions, I wonder what the 19th-century adventurer from Bishop's Stortford would make of today's Zimbabwe.

How long will it be before the European structure he imposed on this beautiful bit of Africa vanishes altogether?

“Mugabe,” Richard remarks as we leave, “is in serious danger of giving colonisers a good name.”


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Africa protects its dictators, right or wrong

Earth Times

            Posted : Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:10:05 GMT
            Author : DPA

Johannesburg/Harare - As African dictators go, President Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe has impeccable credentials. No sooner was he in power at
independence in 1980, his army massacred about 20,000 members of a minority
tribe. Hundreds of supporters of the country's pro-democracy movement have
been murdered and tens of thousands tortured.

The last three elections have been dismissed as rigged. When the
presence of 4,500 white farmers proved politically inconvenient, he drove
them off their farms and made 1 million farm workers homeless.

In 2005, on a whim, he smashed the homes of 700,000 urban Zimbabweans.
Under his sway, Africa's second most prosperous economy has been wrecked in
the last seven years, without the aid of a war.

One third of the population has fled the country; the rest subsist in
abject poverty while his family lives in splendour. Mugabe's wife, Grace,
has a four-poster double bed in an aircraft of the state-owned airline when
she goes shopping abroad.

But when European politicians protested his presence at the European
Union-Africa summit in Lisbon this weekend, Africa stood as one man in
defence of Mugabe's right to attend. His 14 Southern African neighbours
vowed to boycott the summit if he was barred.

Then, last week, they went further, saying they would boycott if the
summit went so far as to discuss the 83-year old's abuses.

It has not been possible to hold a repeat of the summit since its
first meeting in Egypt in 2000, largely because of Mugabe.

Portugal, determined to try and make a success of the event, could
only wish that he would not come, because crucial issues, such as
development, aid and trade, might get sidetracked by what British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown has called the likely "circus" around Mugabe.

"It's a kind of baboon solidarity," Eldred Masunungure, head of the
political science department at Zimbabwe University, said. "In baboon
society, they fight among themselves a lot, but as soon as there's a
perceived external enemy, they join together to fight it.

"I know it sounds disparaging, but ... I can't think of a better
analogy," he added.

"African governments don't examine the principle, whether it's right
or wrong. They might if it were something completely indefensible, but then
the threshold is so very, very high for them to get to the point where they
say 'enough is enough,' if it's an African state involved," Masunungure
said.

"It's wrong," he said. "It means Africa is blindly supporting all
sorts of abuses.

"It's not just Zimbabwe, it spans the continent," he said. He cited
the late former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was applauded at the 1975
summit of the then Organization of African Unity in Libreville, where he
arrived with a cowboy hat and a six-gun on each hip. He had just expelled
Uganda's entire Asian population of 40,000.

Africa's failure to condemn its dictators was "inconceivable in
civilized society," he said. "We still lag behind in terms of defending
right and wrong."

Analysts say that the solidarity is driven by a sense of unity against
the West stemming from the colonial area.

"It's old black versus white, colonized versus coloniser instinct,"
said an African diplomat, who asked not to be named. "It's astounding that
it is still so powerful nearly 50 years after decolonisation."

"It's going to take a very big effort to try to correct," Masunungure
said. "ASEAN (the Association of South-East Asian Nations) used to back
Burma (Myanmar), but they are moving away from that kind of automatic
defence."

South Africa, under former Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, began to
evolve an ethical foreign policy after the end of apartheid-rule in 1994,
but since he retired in 1999 and President Thabo Mbeki succeeded him, "there
is no longer any morality driving South African foreign policy," Masunungure
said.

There are indications, however, that what Masunungure calls the
"congenital solidarity response" to criticism of African governments is
qualified.

When the EU-Africa summit furore blew up, African Union (AU) president
Alpha Konare said that the body's support for Zimbabwe was "in principle,"
for the right of any African state to attend the Lisbon summit, but did not
imply support for Mugabe's policies.

At the weekend, a statement of less-than-fervent support for Mugabe
came from president Levy Mwanawasa of neighbouring Zambia, commenting on the
refusal of the prime minister of Britain - Zimbabwe's former colonial power
and probably Europe's most outspoken critic of its regime - to attend the
summit if Mugabe goes. He is sending a junior minister instead.

"Brown shouldn't get tired of speaking and he must continue until the
harvest of his efforts," Mwanawasa said. "I appeal to Brown and the entire
British nation that they should continue with their efforts until the
situation in Zimbabwe is resolved."


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Mugabe still a hero for many Africans

IOL

    December 06 2007 at 08:07AM

Robert Mugabe, a largely unwelcome guest of the European Union at a
summit this weekend, is a hero in the eyes of many Africans for daring to
stand up to the West and seize land from white farmers.

Given that his country's economy is in tatters and has been plagued by
political violence, many in Europe have been left scratching their heads
over how Zimbabwe's president since independence in 1980 still commands
respect.

But even at the age of 83, Africa's oldest leader retains many of the
populist instincts which have served him so well over the years - trading
blows with his former allies in the West and tapping into resentment over
land.

"He's a great showman and the confrontation with the West is grist to
his mill and builds up his persona," Patrick Smith, editor of the
London-based Africa Confidential journal, told AFP.

"Back home the economy may be on its knees but (many feel) at least
our man bestrides the world like a Colossus."

Mugabe - normally banned from Europe for allegedly rigging his
re-election in 2002 - is likely to receive a frosty reception at this
weekend's gathering of EU and African leaders in Lisbon with the host
Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado saying it would be "preferable" if he
did not attend.

Yet at his last major summit, the Southern African Development
Community's annual get-together in Lusaka in July, Mugabe received a
standing ovation from delegates at the official opening who merely applauded
other heads of state.

In the first two decades since independence, Mugabe's relations with
the West were generally warm but that changed in 2000 when he embarked on a
programme of land reforms in which thousands of farms were expropriated.

Mugabe claimed the programme was intended to redress the wrongs of the
colonial era when the indigenous black population was often forced off their
land by European settlers.

In reality however much of the land ended up in the hands of ruling
party cronies and agriculture production - once an economic mainstay -
collapsed.

But if outside observers see the expropriations as being an economic
disaster, the idea remains popular in parts of the continent such as Kenya
and South Africa where land still remains disproportionately in the hands of
the descendants of European settlers.

"Mugabe's argument is that we may have got the independence but we
didn't get the land. That enables him to avoid all the awkward questions
about what he's been doing for the last 20 years," said Smith.

According to David Monyae, a lecturer in international relations at
Johannesburg's Wits University, Mugabe had been largely successful in
portraying the land issue as a bilateral dispute between Harare and London.

Many Africans shared Mugabe's resentment about the "holier than thou"
attitude from former colonial powers such as Britain and Belgium, said
Monyae.

"Africans are saying don't define us and lecture us ... we don't
accept that it is about human rights full stop," he added.

Mugabe has been particularly adept at responding to accusations by
tapping into resentment about Western double standards.

When George Bush branded him a tyrant at this year's UN General
Assembly, Mugabe replied that the US president has "very little to lecture
us on."

"He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be
our master on human rights?"

Not everyone in Africa is convinced, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
awarded the Nobel peace prize for his role in the fight against apartheid in
South Africa, calling Mugabe the caricature of an African dictator.

And in Zimbabwe itself, analysts say his grip on power has much more
to do with his control of the state machinery rather than popularity.

"His popularity within the party and the country is very
questionable," said Harare-based commentator Takura Zhangazha.

"He is a coercive leader, intimidates opponents, uses food aid as
political weapon. Some people are given jobs because of their political
affiliation." - Sapa-AFP


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Zim: SA's silence 'criminal'

News24

06/12/2007 19:09  - (SA)

Johannesburg - About a dozen human rights and opposition groups on Thursday
decried human rights violations in Zimbabwe and called for more efforts to
get the country out of its economic and political crisis.

"It is criminal for us in South Africa to have been silent for so long over
Zimbabwe," head of South African human rights body, Tseliso Thipanyane, told
a one-day seminar on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe held in
Johannesburg.

A documentary film on human rights violations in Zimbabwe moved some members
of the audience to tears.

The seminar is held ahead of the EU-Africa weekend summit in Lisbon, which
is scheduled to discuss human rights problems in the two continents.

'Time to stop hiding'

President Robert Mugabe is expected to attend the summit, despite opposition
from former colonial power Britain.

"It is high time we stopped hiding behind our government. We will from now
on be partners in the promotion of human rights in Zimbabwe," Thipanyane
told participants also comprising representatives of the Amnesty
International.

"There is a rapid erosion of human rights under Mugabe. Rights bodies and
opposition groups should move fast to arrest the situation," said Jacob
Mafume, coordinator of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a civil rights group
which is strongly opposed to Mugabe regime.

Mafume, who has led the civil groups in reconciliation talks between the
ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition, urged the South African government,
often accused of "quiet diplomacy" to speak out openly against alleged human
rights violations in Zimbabwe.

"He (Mugabe) needs to be told in a frank manner that he cannot continue to
maltreat and infringe on the rights of his people and making them objects of
pity around the world," added Mafume.

Reine Alapini-Gansou of the Africa Commission on Human and People's Rights
said "The challenge today is for Zimbabwe to answer to allegations of human
rights violations...It is the responsibility of Zimbabwe's neighbours and
the human rights bodies to work towards the resolution of the country's
crises."

A lawyer representative of Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, Anna Moyo, said that her
organisation was presently handling 25 cases of rape against women in
Zimbabwe.


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Why Mugabe must be forced out

Comment from Business Daily (Kenya), 5 December

By Kofi Bentil

President Robert MugabeDecember 5, 2007: African Union leaders meeting their
European Union counterparts in December are supposed to represent our future
but when it comes to Robert Mugabe they are stuck in an ideological
time-warp: Mugabe is a freedom-fighter and Zimbabwe is a victim of Western
depredations, including threats to boycott the meeting. Even
democratically-elected Ghanaian President John Kufuor, chairman of the
African Union, recently observed equivocally: "When the leader of the
opposition gets beaten up, for good or ill, naturally all concerned should
be worried." At least Mugabe is honest: "Some are crying that they were
beaten. Yes you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you
move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force," he said about
trade-union activists arrested in September last year.

Paralysed by hero-worship, the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
summit in August supported Mugabe’s claims of a UK plot, our heads of State
gave Mugabe a podium and a standing ovation in Kenya in May, most of them
backed Zimbabwe’s cruelly ironic election to the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development this year and the whole AU boycotted a 2003 summit
with the EU because Mugabe was excluded. Their pretext is the sacred mantra
of non-interference and respecting sovereignty - meaning the sovereignty of
ruling cliques, not of long-suffering citizens. Our leaders have to
recognise that Mugabe is not an ideological dictator in the mould of their
heroes Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda in
Zambia or Milton Obote in Uganda, nor even like ideologues such as Hitler,
Stalin or his own hero Kim Il Sung: he is a straightforward kleptocrat
determined to hold on to power at any cost.

Even the democratic African leaders, including Kufuor and South Africa’s
Thabo Mbeki, like to hear Mugabe blaming the West for Zimbabwe’s and all our
ills, as he did in Nairobi at May’s Common Market for Eastern and Southern
Africa (Comesa) summit. He was applauded for complaining about commodity
prices being fixed by the West, although free markets do not fix prices in
the way that African governments fix prices and monopolise commodity sales.
SADC leaders in Lusaka even backed Mugabe’s claim that Zimbabwe is a victim
of economic sanctions although the only measures, by the EU and the USA, are
travel and financial restrictions on about 130 members of the ruling clique
(in fact, the UK is the second biggest provider of humanitarian assistance
to Zimbabwe). SADC executive secretary Dr. Tomaz Salomao said in November:
"for us they are sanctions and our approach has been to have them lifted."

Many also shared Mugabe’s economically-ignorant call for self-sufficiency.
But no developed country is self-sufficient in commodities (nor even most
manufactured products) and we Africans cannot live on a diet of cocoa beans
and tea: selling it is much more profitable. Manufacturing and adding value
are great economic aims but they do not happen successfully by government
decree - right now, Africans suffer heavy import tariffs for essential
inputs (such as fertilizer) and medicines, state control of exports, lack of
property rights, obstacles to private enterprise and a ubiquitous corrupt
bureaucracy. Yet our leaders do not accept that the key to our future is
allowing our people to create wealth: we cannot free ourselves from poverty
without economic freedoms such as property rights, the rule of law and free
markets.

But the Mugabe version remains attractive because we all like to believe
that our failures are someone else’s fault. And Mugabe remains in power
after 27 years, at the age of 83. It seems true that evil men live long but
that is because every day an evil man lives is like eternity to the
oppressed. Neither South Africa’s "quiet diplomacy" nor Western restrictions
on money-laundering can influence a man who is cocooned in delusions and
treated with deference by his neighbours. Our new crop of elected African
leaders, blithely talking of an African Renaissance, should be emboldened by
their own democratic authority to face up to people like Mugabe (and the
leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia). They should make Mugabe unwelcome
at civilized meetings like the EU-AU summit in Lisbon and put legal pressure
on him by consensus, as West African leaders did to force out Charles Taylor
in Liberia. They should heed the call of Ghanaian former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan who said recently: "Africans must guard against
a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise
up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white, but to excuse tyrannical
rulers who are black" Before embarrassing themselves again, our leaders must
come to their senses and join the huge majority of Africans who reject the
barbaric Mugabe: by embracing economic freedoms to save their own countries,
they would offer hope to Zimbabweans for the day after Mugabe.

Mr Bentil is a lecturer at Ashesi University


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Zimbabwe pushes ahead with preparations for elections

Reuters

Thu 6 Dec 2007, 17:05 GMT

HARARE, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean authorities said on Thursday they had
begun marking out constituencies for general elections due next year,
despite opposition charges the voters' roll was open to rigging by the
government.

The country's main opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), wrote a
letter to Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission (ZEC) last week saying the
national voters' register was a shambles and needed an overhaul to remove
people who had died.

ZEC chairman George Chiweshe - a former High Court judge - told a news
conference on Thursday no register could be perfect and complainants had to
provide evidence of any anomalies.

"The fact that there may be names of some dead people does not mean that the
voters' roll is not a credible register as people die every day but the
official evidence must be provided to correct that," he said.

President Robert Mugabe - who is seeking to extend his 27 years in power in
March 2008 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections -
denies opposition charges his ruling ZANU-PF party has cheated in three
major elections since 2000 to remain in office.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to boycott the polls if his
party becomes certain that Mugabe would rig them.

"If there are grey areas we ask everyone to help...," Chiweshe added, saying
the commission had started dividing the country into wards and
constituencies for the 2008 polls.

He said although the voters' roll was still open for registration, the
commission would use a total of over 5.6 million voters, who were on the
register by Tuesday to mark out the constituencies.

"All I can say is that our electoral system is as good as any in the
region...and that you will never find a perfect voters' roll anywhere,"
Chiweshe said.

MDC officials were not immediately available for comment.

Chiweshe said although the voters' roll was still open for registration, the
commission would use the more than 5.6 million voters who were on the
register by Tuesday to mark out the constituencies.

"For the purposes of delimitation, we have to use this figure but everyone
who registers will be eligible to vote," he said.

Under new constitutional changes agreed between Mugabe's government and the
MDC, the number of seats in the lower house of parliament has increased from
150 to 210 and those in the upper senate have gone up from 66 to 93.

Critics say Mugabe has used tough laws and policing to keep the opposition
in check in the face of a severe economic crisis they blame on his policies,
and his ZANU-PF party routinely deploys police riot squads to crush
anti-government rallies.

Mugabe, 83 and Zimbabwe's sole ruler since independence from Britain in
1980, blames Western pressure for the economic crisis and says he will win
next year's elections fairly. (Reporting by Cris Chinaka; editing by Ron
Derby and Philippa Fletcher)


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Machiavellian Mugabe Odds On for Re-election

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Endorsement as ZANU-PF presidential candidate means he seems almost certain
to win another term in office.

By Joseph Sithole in Harare (AR No. 146, 6-Dec-07)

Zimbabwe’s Machiavellian president Robert Mugabe has been endorsed as the
sole presidential candidate next year without raising ructions in the ruling
ZANU- PF party, but analysts warn a Mugabe victory in the March elections
spells doom for the country.

They say while it is almost certain that ZANU-PF and its leader will triumph
in the joint parliamentary and presidential poll, given the leadership
deficit and divided state of the opposition, Mugabe and his followers do not
have anything new to offer the country.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the ruling party’s secretary for legal affairs, has said
that a ZANU-PF special congress later this month would not be looking for a
new presidential candidate; the party’s constitution stated clearly that the
first secretary of the party, Mugabe, was automatically its candidate. He
made this announcement following the party’s separate central committee and
politburo meetings last week to set the agenda for the special congress.

The agenda doesn’t mention the issue of a presidential candidate.

Mnangagwa did not explain why, if the critical issue of a presidential
candidate had been sorted out in the party constitution, the party needed a
special congress just ahead of the harmonised presidential, parliamentary
and local government elections.

ZANU-PF secretary for information and publicity Nathan Shamuyarira two weeks
ago told the party mouthpiece, The Voice, that all the posts in the
presidium would be open to contest at the special congress. Vice-President
Joseph Msika supported this view, saying “no one has been endorsed” as the
presidential candidate in the party, thus suggesting there might be
vacancies for the ambitious.

But insiders said Shamuyarira could have deliberately caused confusion on
the issue as part of Mugabe’s plan to “smoke out” those who wanted to
challenge him. “In a way it goes to show you just how ill-informed this
country is,” said a ZANU-PF official who refused to be named. “The party
constitution is clear on the selection of a presidential candidate, yet
people seek to alter the rules just because they no longer want the
incumbent. Mugabe was therefore able to expose their folly and neutralise
them before they could spread confusion in the party structures.”

But analysts said although Mugabe had avoided a storm in his own party, it
was bad news for the nation.

“If anything, Mugabe has become a huge liability to both the party that has
endorsed him as its presidential candidate and the country he wishes to
lead,” said a political analyst in the capital Harare.

“Both Mugabe himself and his party no longer have a vision for leading the
nation. Leadership is all about a vision for the future, not simply
occupying the highest office in government.

“In Mugabe’s case the situation is bound to be worse if he wins next year’s
election. He not only lacks the vision but has lost the goodwill of his own
people, who have suffered for 27 years under his rule. He has alienated the
international community by his lack of respect for the law and property
rights.”

The analyst noted that the leader in any organisation provides the
“emotional anchor” upon which that organisation is judged.

“In our case Mugabe’s name evokes the worst memories of any leader. That
means with him at the helm we have no chance to reconnect with other
nations, we have no chance to normalise relations, which can only mean more
suffering for the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.

Zimbabwe has experienced a precipitous economic decline since 2000, when the
government started seizing white commercial farms. Since then, unemployment
has run riot at nearly 85 per cent, with the world’s highest inflation of
more than 8,000 per cent.

This has given rise to a vocal opposition. The Movement for Democratic
Change, MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, in 2000 narrowly lost to ZANU-PF when
it won 57 seats against the ruling party’s 63 seats in parliament.

However, the MDC suffered a major split in 2005 over whether the party
should participate in the election of members of the revived second house of
parliament, the Senate. It has lately been convulsed by further internal
strife after the party leadership dissolved the influential Women’s
Assembly, led by Lucia Matibenga, replacing her with the wife of a colleague
of Tsvangirai.

Analysts accuse the MDC of lacking strategic thinkers despite the many
failures by Mugabe and his ruling party.

Government spokesmen have denied media reports that Mugabe rejected
overtures by the Elders Group for him to step down before next year’s
watershed election. The group includes former South African president Nelson
Mandela, Britain’s billionaire businessman Richard Branson, and former UN
secretary-general Kofi Annan, among other eminent statesman.

The spokesperson said there had never been such an approach by Mandela or
anyone else because everyone is “behind the Thabo Mbeki mediation effort”.
Mbeki was in March mandated by the Southern African Development Community,
SADC, to facilitate talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC. Mandela’s spokeswoman
in Johannesburg also denied the claims, saying Mandela had retired from
active engagements in August 2004 and in any case would not be found trying
to undermine his successor.

A political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe, UZ, said Mugabe was “too
arrogant” to accept a suggestion to step down because it would suggest that
he had failed. He said Mugabe had in fact been emboldened by the current
squabbles in the MDC and would want to prove detractors wrong for saying he
was afraid to face the electorate.

The UZ academic said what happened to the country thereafter depended on the
choice of candidate parliament made in the event that Mugabe retires.
Depending on the outcome of the elections, the two main parties could settle
for a compromise candidate acceptable to the international community.

“The harmonised elections will work well for Mugabe because aspiring MPs are
also forced to campaign for him,” said the analyst. “Once his party wins, he
can opt to retire as a victor, and scoff at those who believed he was no
longer popular.

“Mugabe is too arrogant to take anything which suggests that he was enticed
into retirement. His impact on the economy is something else. Once he has
triumphed over his enemies in the party and outside he can then retire as a
hero.”

Joseph Sithole is the pseudonym of an IWPR journalist in Zimbabwe.


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Mugabe will lose free and fair poll, says Moyo

New Zimbabwe

By Albert Makoni
Last updated: 12/06/2007 23:43:32
FORMER cabinet minister and government spin doctor Professor Jonathan Moyo
has scoffed at the recently held pro-Mugabe solidarity march calling it a
“million man farewell march” for President Robert Mugabe.

Moyo, now an independent Member of Parliament for Tsholotsho, said the
ironic meaning of the march was lost on the elderly Mugabe who has been
“deluded” to think that he still enjoys the support of Zanu PF members and
ordinary Zimbabweans.

“It’s clearly not a solidarity march, it is in fact a farewell march for
President Robert Mugabe is certain to lose any free and fair election
against a united opposition,” said Moyo.

Moyo was speaking at a public forum organised by Dr Ibbo Mandaza’s Southern
African Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust in Harare on Tuesday.

Recently, war veterans have marched across the country to show solidarity
with Mugabe who is fghting to thwart rebellious party members who want him
to step down.

Zanu PF insiders say the pro-Mugabe marches are an attempt to silence
factions in the ruling party who are pushing for a new leader at the party’s
extra-ordinary congress in December.

Moyo, a political scientist, was the last to speak at the colloquium which
also had Zanu PF politburo member Simba Makoni, National Constitutional
Assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku, Media and Information Commission
chairman Tafataona Mahoso, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)’s Elias
Mudzuri and Renson Gasela, war veteran Dzinashe Machingura and Professor
Heneri Dzinotyiweyi as speakers.

The Tsholotsho MP gave three scenarios that Zimbabweans were likely to face
during synchronised parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

Moyo said the first scenario was the unlikely situation where Mugabe would
face a divided opposition and win the harmonised elections, riding on the
divided opposition vote.

The second scenario, Moyo said, was a situation were all progressive
opposition forces in Zimbabwe would form a coalition to boycott elections in
March if the Zanu PF government failed to put in place minimum conditions
for a free and fair elections.

“That would result in all progressive opposition forces boycotting elections
with the attendant ramifications of a low voter turn-out if Zanu PF
proceeded with the election. The ultimate culmination of that process will
be an illegitimate election,” he said.

Moyo said the third and most likely scenario was a situation were the
opposition forces forged a united front which would field a single candidate
for the presidential election as well as the council, parliamentary and
senatorial elections.

“There is no way that Zanu PF can win free and fair elections against a
united front of the opposition forces. It is practically impossible,” said
Moyo.

Speaking at the colloquium, former finance minister Simba Makoni expressed
grave concern at the worsening political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe.

Makoni who is the deputy secretary for finance in the Zanu PF politburo
called for a new Zimbabwe which guarantees equal treatment of citizens
regardless of their political affiliation.

“I stand for a Zimbabwe that guarantees the equality of all citizens, I
stand for a Zimbabwe that will be at the service of all citizens regardless
of political affiliation,” said Makoni.

Responding to a question from the audience soliciting his views on the
country’s land reform programme, Makoni criticised the manner in which the
programme had been carried out by the Zanu PF government.

“There is unanimity that land reform had to be carried out in Zimbabwe.
There is total unanimity about that. The question is not the what but the
how? I strongly believe that as a government we could have done it better,”
said Makoni.

Makoni also said while he was a member of Zanu PF, he did not necessarily
agree with everything that was being done in the name of the party.

“Like in every organisation we have a few common denominators that bind us
together in Zanu PF. But you will find that we do not necessarily agree on
everything, even in the politburo and even the central committee of the
party,” he added.

Makoni drew parallels between the “current Zimbabwe” and the envisaged “new
Zimbabwe”.

He accused President Robert Mugabe of turning a blind eye to corruption and
doing nothing to curb the rampant practice within government.

“I remember very well in the 80s when the Willogate scandal first broke out.
When President Mugabe was told that his ministers were involved in the
scandal, he was on TV asking why people should be worried about mere cars
being resold when there were worse things happening elsewhere,” he said.

Makoni who has been touted as a possible successor to President Mugabe was
equivocal when asked to clarify his position in the Zanu PF succession
battle.

When asked if it was true that he was planning to contest next year’s
presidential elections, Makoni was elusive claiming that the colloquium was
not meant discuss individuals but to discuss important national issues.

The colloquium, called to celebrate the 20th anniversary of SAPES Trust, was
held under the theme: “Post liberation Southern Africa: reviewing the past,
examining the present and looking into the future.”

MDC’s Mudzuri implored the ruling party to accept the existence of the
official opposition in Zimbabwe and to shun organised violence.

Gasela said Zimbabwe’s agrarian reform could have been carried out smoothly
without shedding the innocent blood of white farmers who were killed in the
wake of often violent farm seizures.

Responding to a question by Zanu PF Masvingo provincial secretary for
information and publicity retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi who wanted to know
what an MDC government would have done in the face of farm invasions by war
veterans, Gasela said an MDC government would have avoided the violent farm
invasions by embarking on land reform soon after Independence.

The public meeting was the first time that an independent organisation has
managed to bring together notable representatives of the ruling party and
opposition groups as well as civic society organisations to openly discuss
the future of Zimbabwe since 1980.

SAPES said the colloquium had met its objective of bringing together actors
from across the political divide to openly and objectively discuss critical
national issues.


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Human rights groups seek more efforts on Zimbabwe

africasia

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 6 (AFP)

About a dozen human rights and opposition groups on Thursday decried human
rights violations in Zimbabwe and called for more efforts to get Zimbabwe
out of its economic and political crisis.

"It is criminal for us in South Africa to have been silent for so long over
Zimbabwe," head of South African human rights body, Tseliso Thipanyane, told
a one-day seminar on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe held in
Johannesburg.

The seminar is held ahead of the EU-Africa weekend summit in Lisbon, which
is scheduled to discuss human rights problems in the two continents.

President Robert Mugabe is expected to attend the summit, despite opposition
from former colonial power Britain.

"It is high time we stopped hiding behind our government. We will from now
on be partners in the promotion of human rights in Zimbabwe," Thipanyane
told participants also comprising representatives of the Amnesty
International.

"There is a rapid erosion of human rights under Mugabe. Rights bodies and
opposition groups should move fast to arrest the situation," said Jacob
Mafume, coordinator of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a civil rights group
which is strongly opposed to Mugabe regime.

Mafume, who has led the civil groups in reconciliation talks between the
ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition, urged the South African government,
often accused of "quiet diplomacy" to speak out openly against alleged human
rights violations in Zimbabwe.

"He (Mugabe) needs to be told in a frank manner that he cannot continue to
maltreat and infringe on the rights of his people and making them objects of
pity around the world," added Mafume.

"The challenge today is for Zimbabwe to answer to allegations of human
rights violations...It is the responsibility of Zimbabwe's neighbours and
the human rights bodies to work towards the resolution of the country's
crises," Reine Alapini-Gansou of the Africa Commission on Human and People's
Rights said.

A lawyer representative of Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, Anna Moyo, said that her
organisation was presently handling 25 cases of rape against women in
Zimbabwe.

A documentary film on human rights violations in Zimbabwe moved some members
of the audience to tears.


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Zimbabwe water crisis on eve of EU-Africa Summit: a healthtime bomb about to go off


Media Release: Embargoed until 16:00 GMT Thursday 6th December

Zimbabwe's water problem has escalated into a full-blown crisis in Bulawayo
(the country's second largest city) threatening a serious public health
crisis. Water shortages have reached desperate levels as the city is now
rationed to a quarter of its routine consumption.

In desperation, suburban residents have resorted to digging for water along
roadsides to try to access ground water, and are taking time off work and
school to queue clinics and schools for delivery of water by council trucks.
Industry is grinding to a halt.

The crisis has been prompted by the decommissioning of another dam supplying
the suburbs.

"As President Mugabe prepares to leave for the EU-Africa Summit where he
will say that he is committed to the development of Zimbabwe, our footage
and testimony shows the scale of the humanitarian crisis the country is
facing," said Zim Watch coordinator Pascal Richard.
"Development for Zimbabwe exists only in government speeches, not their
actions."

Five dams normally supply Bulawayo's water. Water levels have run very low
in the face of a serious drought - and for more than 6 months, the city's
residents have had to cope with ever-dwindling and intermittent water
supply. In recent months three of the dams have run dry - and the City
Council has now announced the decommissioning of a fourth dam, the
Invankuni. The only dam left, the Insiza, is now 37 per cent full.

There is now only 40 000 m3 of water available per day while demand is at
least 150 000 m3. Officially, Bulawayo's population is 750 000, but
estimates are that the real figure is between 1,5 and 2 million.

The Bulawayo City Council has now been forced to cut piped water supply to
residential areas to half a day once a week. Industrial areas will receive
piped water twice weekly.

The city has made efforts to rehabilitate old boreholes in areas where the
water table has not dropped too far, but with the decommissioning of the
Invankuni, their impact will be lost.

Heavy rains will be needed to ease the water shortage. But as they have been
unable to flush their toilets, suburban residents have for months been
resorted to defecating in open fields. With rain, faeces risks being swept
into ground water sources.

The number of diarrhoeal cases reported in Bulawayo is already growing
weekly, as residents resort to drinking untreated water. A total of 3600
reported cases between August and November is unprecedented in the context
of an already-collapsing health system. The urgent priority is now to head
off a looming cholera outbreak.

Meanwhile, in rural areas, where drought has devastated many rural families
reliant on their own maize crops for food, at least a quarter of all
communal rural water supply facilities are no longer functional.

It is the responsibility of the Zimbabwean government to protect and assist
vulnerable Zimbabweans. We look now to African leaders to show leadership at
the Lisbon summit in finding solutions to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

P. Richard
Coordinator Zimbabwe Watch


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Netherlands Not to Open EU-Africa Summit

NIS news, Netherlands

THE HAGUE, 07/12/07 - Premier Jan Peter Balkenende is not to provide the
introduction to the theme of human rights at the EU-Africa summit. He will
bring up the situation in Zimbabwe in his normal speaking slot.
The Netherlands wanted to give the introduction on behalf of the EU at the
summit in Lisbon this weekend, but this will be done by German Chancellor
Angela Merkel. Balkenende will now use his own speaking slot, which every
government leader has, to bring up large-scale human rights violations in
Zimbabwe. This was an emphatic wish of the Lower House.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe will likely attend the summit. The
Netherlands finds his participation undesirable but is not boycotting the
summit because otherwise no dialogue at all is possible, according to the
cabinet. The UK will however boycott it if Mugabe comes.


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Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization curbs nation's progress

The Phoenix, published every Thursday by students of Swarthmore College,PA

December 6, 2007

BY CHENGE MAHOMVA | WAWONA
What happens when Zimbabwean state institutions can no longer manipulate and
restrain civil society to the whims of the dictator? The Zimbabwean
government has to find another weapon to use and the weapon of choice is
Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization.

The CIO, the official intelligence agency, can be simply described as the
corrupt and ugly distant cousin to the United States’ CIA. The CIO was
created by colonialists in the early 1960s in order to keep an eye out on
Southern African revolutionaries (or terrorists). When Zimbabwe received
independence in 1980, it would have been intuitive to disband the CIO.
However, the CIO was kept and, in an ironic turn of events, the CIO now
terrorizes and harms Zimbabweans in a manner that is similar to the colonial
CIO. The only difference is that Zimbabweans now suffer at the hands of
their fellow countrymen. The CIO’s presence makes a solution to the
“Zimbabwean Crisis,” the undemocratic state and the searing economic
meltdown more complicated as it has made the tenacity of Zimbabwean
mentalities insipid.

The CIO’s greatest strength is that is has had the ability to dilute the
influence of opposition parties. One party, the Movement for Democratic
Change, is presently Zimbabwe’s most feasible and influential opposition
party. The party appeals to the Shona ethnic majority, the Ndebele ethnic
minority, small and large business and landowners and even the small
Zimbabwean white community. The MDC unites everyone because most people
share the goal of overthrowing President Robert Mugabe. The power of the MDC
was shown by their slight electoral success in 2000, where the party won 57
electoral seats even under electoral conditions that where generally
declared undemocratic.

Sensing that the MDC was threatening the power of Mugabe’s party, Zimbabwe
African National Union – Patriotic Front, the CIO unleashed a plan that
swiftly split the MDC through infighting. The bonds between the different
groups within the MDC are fragile as their interests vary; the only common
interest is for economic reform and the removal of Mugabe. The CIO was very
aware of this and used the media to put pressure on the already brittle
bonds between the interest groups within the MDC.

The CIO has a firm hold on Zimbabwean media; the World Press reports that
The Financial Gazette, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mirror on Sunday,
three of the most popular and once independent newspapers, have now been
infiltrated by the CIO. Eddie Cross, a leader within the MDC, wrote earlier
this year, “This past week the MDC has been headlines every day — all
negative stories designed to show that the MDC is divided, its leadership
weak and indecisive and that we are incapable of really effecting change.”
With only two independent newspapers left, it was difficult for the MDC to
oppose these claims and at present the MDC’s political power has been
diluted as the party has split into two factions.

The CIO is relentless and at times creative with the undemocratic and
unlawful tactics that it uses to discredit opposition leaders. In the run-up
to the 2002 presidential elections, the CIO put MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
on trial for treason. The evidence was an alleged grey and spotted filming
of a conversation between Canadian-based political consultant Ben-Menashe
and Tsvangira. The BBC reports that, “it was obvious that the tape had been
heavily edited in an amateurish attempt to put incriminating words into Mr.
Tsvangirai’s mouth. The clock in the corner of the CCTV [closed-circuit
television] footage kept on flicking backwards and forwards.”

The CIO also has the ability to make the constitution and the laws that
govern Zimbabwe malleable. In the late 1990s, the CIO started suspending and
confiscating the passports of human rights activists and journalists who the
CIO felt would discredit the president. When the CIO began its
confiscations, it was both illegal and unconstitutional. In order to prevent
people from appealing, the constitution has recently been amended. The CIO’s
actions have made finding a solution to the “Zimbabwean Crisis” more
complicated as these actions have shifted Zimbabwean mentalities. Through
fear, the CIO has managed to move Zimbabweans away from striving for change
regardless of the cost. The CIO has different divisions and some of the most
feared units are those who recruit inconspicuous civilian youth under a
flirtatiously innocent name: The Zimbabwe National Youth Service. The common
nicknames for this group, however, such as “the Green Bombers” and even “the
Taliban”, give insight into the torture and pain they inflict on citizens
suspected of supporting the MDC.

To illustrate the CIO’s ability to hamper a solution, one only has to look
at Operation Murambatsvina, a.k.a. “Operation Drive Out the Trash”. This
operation was cloaked under the pretense that its aim was to reduce the
spread of infectious disease through eradicating squalor. The operation
attacked and demolished the homes and small businesses of the urban poor.
The UN reported that 700,000 Zimbabweans lost both their homes and there
income because of Operation Murambatsvina. It is no coincidence that the
urban poor were targeted. The MDC’s core support comes from Zimbabweans
living in urban areas.

This situation makes a solution to the Zimbabwean crisis complex, so that
neither an Iraq-style military invasion nor the current fruitless
negotiations between the MDC and ZANU-PF can change the new Zimbabwean
mentality: To hell with collective action … my survival comes first!

Chenge is a first-year.


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Mugabe saga may overwhelm diplomatic efforts

IOL

       Peter Fabricius
    December 06 2007 at 04:58AM

African leaders will be unable to stop European leaders criticising
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at the European Union-Africa summit in
Lisbon this weekend, a senior South African official has conceded.

African leaders do not want Zimbabwe to be on the agenda of the
summit, the first between the two continents in seven years, and some have
threatened to withdraw if it is.

Differences over the attendance of Mugabe have prevented the summit
from being held until now, but the European Union recently agreed to lift
its travel ban on Mugabe so he can attend the talks.

However, the price the union wants him to pay for attending the summit
is to hear at first hand the criticism of European leaders about the way he
is persecuting his political opponents and mismanaging his country's
economy.

On Wednesday Gert Grobler, Acting Deputy Director-General for Europe
in the Department of Foreign Affairs, said Zimbabwe was not explicitly on
the summit's agenda.

He said South Africa and Africa wanted the summit to focus on its
agenda and on expanding the strategic partnership between the two
continents.

Grobler also noted that one of the themes of the summit was governance
and human rights.

He said that, apart from good government and human rights, the other
agreed agenda items were peace and security; migration; energy and climate
change and trade, infrastructure and development.

He said the two continents had not met at head-of-state and government
level since their first summit in Cairo in 2000. Since then much had
changed, so there was a need need to launch a new and stronger relationship.

The summit would aim to adopt a joint strategy document setting out a
strategic partnership between Europe and Africa with concrete actions and a
way of monitoring and measuring them.

"The key objective for Africa is that this new partnership between
Africa and Europe should make a tangible impact towards the reduction and
the eventual eradication of poverty in Africa," he added.

This article was originally published on page 2 of The Mercury on
December 06, 2007


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Britain urges international community to unite against Mugabe

zimbabwejournalists.com

5th Dec 2007 23:58 GMT

By Sandra Nyaira

LONDON – The British government says it wishes to see a genuinely united
international effort against the actions of President Robert Mugabe’s
government, especially for southern African countries to take a leading role
in putting pressure on the Zanu PF government to ensure next year’s
elections are free and fair.

Responding to questions in the House of Commons yesterday on the
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, the Secretary of State for International
Development, Douglas Alexander said the situation in the country was getting
worse by the day raising the need for a united international effort but more
so from South Africa and the Southern African Development Community.

“It is vital that we continue to work with others to find a way forward,” he
said, dismissing President Mugabe’s position that the British government has
been at the forefront of stoking up problems for his party as they seek
“regime change” as punishment for his controversial land reforms that saw
thousands of white commercial farmers losing their land.

Alexander said Prime Minister Gordon Brown had discussed the Zimbabwe crisis
with President Thabo Mbeki at the just-ended Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Uganda and officials from the British
government continued to talk with other partners such as the United Nations
to ensure something is done to end the political and economic crisis in
Zimbabwe.

“There is now a regional dimension to the national crisis that Mugabe has
inflicted on his own country. Not only do we see refugee camps being
established and people being absorbed into neighbouring countries such as
South Africa, but we have seen a draining of much of the best talent in
Zimbabwean society, whether teachers, doctors or health workers, who could
assist the development needs of that community,” he said.

“This is a matter that we continue to discuss not just with the partner
organisations with which we are providing humanitarian assistance—£40
million this year—but with neighbouring countries, not least South Africa,
including at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference, where our
Prime Minister had discussions with President Mbeki.”

Legislators were incensed that Zimbabwe is not on the agenda at the weekend’s
E.U.-Africa Summit. Brown will boycott the summit and will instead be
represented by Baroness Valerie Amos. The British Prime Minister says
President Mugabe should have stayed home because of his bad human rights
record.

He blames Mugabe for destroying the once vibrant economy while Mugabe in
turn blames the country’s former colonial master for brewing all the
problems for Zimbabwe in a bid to ensure a “puppet” government takes over
and reverses his land reforms.

Brown says Mugabe’s presence at the summit would be a distraction from the
vital work that the summit needs to take forward. Not many EU countries have
supported Brown’s stance in trying to stop Mugabe from attending the summit.
The Zimbabwean leader is expected to attend the summit.

The House applauded the United States for imposing more sanctions on the
Zanu PF government and those close to Mugabe, including children studying in
the US.

Asked by MP Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford) what further arguments
could be deployed to try to persuade the South African Government to take a
more robust line on Zimbabwe, Alexander said:

“My hon. Friend is right to acknowledge the key role that South Africa has
to play, although of course the whole of SADC has a responsibility. When I
met President Kikwete in Tanzania last week, I took the opportunity to
emphasise to him the importance of SADC setting out the democratic norms and
standards expected of the election prior to its taking place. It would be a
tragedy were the SADC process seen in retrospect as somehow having
legitimised an election that was not deemed free and fair. We are therefore
strongly urging South Africa, Tanzania and other members of the SADC process
to be very clear in advance about the standards and norms expected of a free
and fair election.”

Asked whether it was not yet time for the EU and the US to act in concert in
tightening the noose around the Zanu PF government to “provide a long-term,
lasting solution to alleviate some of the worst suffering in the world, the
secretary of state said;

“…Europe has led on this issue, but if further action can be taken at the
European level, we should give urgent consideration to that task. I do not
think, however, that this is the sole responsibility of either the European
Union or the United States. That is why we have encouraged Ban Ki-moon, the
UN Secretary-General, to look at the prospect of sending a UN special envoy
to Zimbabwe; why we are keen for the Security Council to take a more active
role in respect of the Zimbabwe situation; and why we continue to urge South
Africa and its SADC partners to take a lead on this issue. Frankly, there
are severe problems in Zimbabwe, as the hon. Gentleman rightly describes,
but there is a role for a whole range of multilateral bodies.”


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Mugabe hails talks between Zanu-PF and MDC

SABC

December 06, 2007, 07:15

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has hailed the ongoing talks between the
ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change which are
facilitated by President Thabo Mbeki.

Mugabe was speaking during his 20th state-of-the-nation address in
parliament. He has also hailed the EU and African states, and the Portuguese
government in particular, for what he terms correctly reading and rejecting
attempts by Britain to bar Zimbabwe from attending the EU-Africa Summit.

The summit will take place this weekend in Lisbon, Portugal. Shadrack Ghutto
of the Centre of African Renaissance Studies at UNISA says the summit is
important for Africa.

Ghutto says both Africa and Europe want to forge good relations on new value
systems and programmes that Africa develop.


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Zimbabwe: House of Commons Debate

zimbabwejournalists.com

6th Dec 2007 00:03 GMT

By a Correspondent

UK Parliament

House of Commons

Wednesday, 5 December

Oral Answers to Questions

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Zimbabwe

Mr. David Amess (Southend, West) (Con): If he will make a statement on the
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe.
Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con): If he will make a statement on the
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe.

The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Douglas
Alexander): The humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate.
We are playing a major role with others in the international community in
helping to try to protect the Zimbabwean people from some of the worst
effects of President Mugabe’s reckless mismanagement.

Mr. Amess: In spite of what the Secretary of State has just told the House,
he is aware that the terrible humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe has forced
thousands of people to flee to neighbouring countries. Will he tell us
precisely what his Department is doing to help protect and support those
people?

Mr. Alexander: The hon. Gentleman is right to acknowledge that there is now
a regional dimension to the national crisis that Mugabe has inflicted on his
own country. Not only do we see refugee camps being established and people
being absorbed into neighbouring countries such as South Africa, but we have
seen a draining of much of the best talent in Zimbabwean society, whether
teachers, doctors or health workers, who could assist the development needs
of that community.

This is a matter that we continue to discuss not just with the partner
organisations with which we are providing humanitarian assistance—£40
million this year—but with neighbouring countries, not least South Africa,
including at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference, where our
Prime Minister had discussions with President Mbeki.

Mr. Mackay: The Secretary of State is surely right to say that the
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe is deteriorating, owing to the outrageous
behaviour of the Mugabe regime, so will he condemn with me the fact that
Zimbabwe will not be on the agenda of the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon this
month? Does the Secretary of State agree that we will resolve the problems
in Zimbabwe, particularly the humanitarian situation, only with the help of
Zimbabwe’s neighbours?

Mr. Alexander: I think that there is common accord between us in recognising
the need for political reform; otherwise the need for humanitarian
assistance will continue. The Government’s position in relation to the
African Union-EU summit in Lisbon has been made clear. Our Prime Minister
has recognised that Mugabe’s attendance will be a distraction from the vital
work that the summit needs to take forward. One of the conditions of the
travel visa that Mugabe has secured to attend the summit is that the issue
of human rights will be discussed, which I hope is at least some consolation
to the right hon. Gentleman.

The right hon. Gentleman is also right to recognise that there is a regional
dimension. We continue to look to the Southern African Development Community
process, to President Mbeki and to other members of SADC—I myself spoke with
President Kikwete of Tanzania about the issue last week—to recognise that
the regional players, alongside Zimbabwe, have a key role to play in
ensuring the kind of political changes that I am sure all of us in the House
wish to see.

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): The Secretary of State is aware that all the aid
that we give—it is very welcome indeed—will tackle only the symptoms of what
is happening in Zimbabwe. Does he share my frustration that the European
Union has gone ahead with this weekend’s conference, where Mugabe will be
strutting the stage despite being responsible for all the suffering in
Zimbabwe? Will my right hon. Friend also look at how we can get South Africa
to adopt a much stronger position? Should we also not be looking at stopping
aid to—

Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Alexander: I agree with my hon. Friend to the extent that we all wish to
see a summit taking place without the distraction of Mugabe’s attendance. We
have made that position clear. Technically, the invitation to Robert Mugabe
was extended by the African Union, which is in charge of who attends the
summit. In relation to South Africa, President Mbeki held cordial and
constructive discussions with our Prime Minister in Kampala at the
Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Our bilateral relations continue
to be strong: I spoke last week to Trevor Manuel, the Finance Minister. I
assure my hon. Friend that South Africa is very clear about the position
being adopted by the British Government.

All that being said, I am keen to avoid offering from this Dispatch Box any
comfort or opportunity for Mugabe to distort what I wish to see—a genuinely
united international effort against the actions of his regime—and to
caricature and characterise it as simply the concerns of the United Kingdom.
It is vital that we continue to work with others to find a way forward.

Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Lab): The Prime Minister is to
be congratulated on declining to take part in any meeting with President
Mugabe. As the Secretary of State acknowledges, South Africa is the key to
this. What further arguments can be deployed to try to persuade the South
African Government to take a more robust line on Zimbabwe?

Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend is right to acknowledge the key role that
South Africa has to play, although of course the whole of SADC has a
responsibility. When I met President Kikwete in Tanzania last week, I took
the opportunity to emphasise to him the importance of SADC setting out the
democratic norms and standards expected of the election prior to its taking
place. It would be a tragedy were the SADC process seen in retrospect as
somehow having legitimised an election that was not deemed free and fair. We
are therefore strongly urging South Africa, Tanzania and other members of
the SADC process to be very clear in advance about the standards and norms
expected of a free and fair election.

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con): The Secretary of State will
know that starvation and brutal oppression get worse day by day in Mr.
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings take place—they
come and go—as do those with our European partners. When will the Government
and the world take action to deal with the brutality and horrors in
Zimbabwe, for which we are in part responsible?

Mr. Alexander: I recognise and commend the hon. Gentleman’s long-standing
interest in Zimbabwe and concern for the humanitarian crisis in that
country. There is common accord between us in recognising the scale of that
crisis today. The economy has halved in size in less than 10 years. As he
describes, 4 million people—a third of the population—are now reliant on
food aid. I part company with him, however, in that I recognise we are
taking urgent action on the humanitarian issue: we committed £40 million
this year to the humanitarian effort. Through the good offices of the
President of South Africa and other African leaders, along with our work in
the European Union, we are one of the leading countries in urging
international action against the Zimbabwean regime.

Mr. Bill Olner (Nuneaton) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend assure me that
the aid being given is getting to the people who deserve and need it, and is
not being diverted by Mugabe to feed his troops who keep the ordinary people
down?

Mr. Alexander: Obviously I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, and that is why
we ensure that aid is provided not to the Government of Zimbabwe but through
humanitarian providers. As for the recent publicity on food aid, we have
ensured that the issue does not apply to the processes put in place for the
United Kingdom. [Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I appeal to the House to calm down and for fewer
conversations to take place?

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): Although it is highly
regrettable that President Mugabe has chosen to attend the EU-AU summit,
when combined with toughened US sanctions will it not provide an opportunity
for the world to focus on a country that has the lowest life expectancy on
the planet, and far too high a level of Government torture? Is it not high
time that the EU followed the United States example, in order to provide the
best prospects of the international community acting in concert, with
neighbouring states, to provide a long-term, lasting solution to alleviate
some of the worst suffering in the world?

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Alexander: I do not sense that there is disagreement across the House on
that matter. Of course I welcome the recent steps taken by the American
Administration. In many ways, Europe has led on this issue, but if further
action can be taken at the European level, we should give urgent
consideration to that task. I do not think, however, that this is the sole
responsibility of either the European Union or the United States. That is
why we have encouraged Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, to look at the
prospect of sending a UN special envoy to Zimbabwe; why we are keen for the
Security Council to take a more active role in respect of the Zimbabwe
situation; and why we continue to urge South Africa and its SADC partners to
take a lead on this issue. Frankly, there are severe problems in Zimbabwe,
as the hon. Gentleman rightly describes, but there is a role for a whole
range of multilateral bodies.

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab): I am sure my right hon. Friend is well
aware that women and children living on the streets of Zimbabwe are being
abused and raped and that there is no help or support going to people
suffering from HIV. The time has come when only the Church is providing the
last bastion of support for the Zimbabwean people, but the Church is now
under threat from Mugabe’s thugs. What can we do to support the people
there?

Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend identifies one of the many challenges
afflicting that troubled land at the moment. One in five Zimbabweans now has
HIV, and AIDS is killing more than 2,500 people a week in that country. That
is why part of the money we provide is being channelled towards HIV
treatment; we are providing HIV assistance to 30,000 people this year. At
the same time as we are dealing with the symptoms of the problem, we also
need to support international efforts to deal with its cause, which is the
chronic misrule of Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe and his team.


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‘Zimbabwe is like a flipped coin in the air’

The Spectator

Christopher Thompson
Wednesday, 5th December 2007

Those who suffer under Mugabe see no cause for optimism

It’s summer and the purple flowers on the jacaranda trees have begun to
bloom, but they’re little comfort to Zimbabweans in the middle of a dire
economic crisis. You can tell it’s bad here because even the death of Ian
Smith last month did not arouse much hostile comment. The domestic consensus
is that Mugabe has managed both to follow in Smith’s tyrannical footsteps
and to wreck the formal economy at the same time.

This is Africa’s breadbasket turned basket-case and though the first
EU-Africa summit in seven years starts this week and there are presidential
elections in March next year, no one sees much prospect for change. It’s
true that Gordon Brown has done some macho posturing over Zimbabwe —
chest-thumping over human rights abuses — but that has achieved precisely
nothing for ordinary Zimbabweans and provided Mugabe with a treasure trove
of propaganda material with which to lambast Britain and its ‘colonial’
ambitions — much like Smithy before him.

Many have banked on economic collapse as the surest way of bringing reform,
but even that most depressing solution has been curiously elusive. Though
the country has the fastest contracting economy in the world, down 12 per
cent each year, and the highest inflation rate — 7,600 per cent — and though
many commentators predicted long ago that the economy would simply collapse
and take the country with it, Zimbabwean businesses have proved robust
almost beyond belief, lumbering on like war-weary soldiers.

Recently, times have been especially hard. In a desperate attempt to contain
runaway inflation in June, the government imposed price controls on all
goods. Shops were ordered to halve their prices — which led to businesses
being forced to sell at a loss. And of course because of the relative
cheapness, commodities most Zimbabweans once took for granted — eggs, milk,
bread, vegetable oil, sugar, soap and the national staple, maize — quickly
moved out of the supermarket shelves and on to the streets where, once the
supermarkets had run out, they could be sold illegally for many times their
‘official’ price.

Today, the merest rumour of a bread delivery is enough to make people join
long queues for their two-loaf quota. But as Alfred, a labourer in Harare’s
suburbs, told me: ‘Often people who go to the market don’t eat what they
buy. They keep it and sell it later for more money.’ Well, with scarcity
comes business opportunities — essential for the 80 per cent of the
population without formal jobs. One supermarket attendant said that bread
could be sold for over Z$100,000 (about £1.50) on the black market, a huge
mark-up on its original Z$30,000 (about 50p) price in the store. ‘It’s
risky, if you get caught you will almost certainly face jail,’ she said.
‘Still, that’s how people are surviving.’

Since the price freeze came in, the government has imprisoned thousands
under the Orwellian-sounding charge of ‘non-compliance’, and it’s not just
workers being banged up, but the managing directors of big companies as
well. They’re being caught by the police, of course, but also by Mugabe’s
notorious ‘Green Bombers’, a paramilitary organisation answerable only to
the presidency whose young members are mostly drawn from rural areas where
they are screened for their loyalty to Mugabe. So the price freeze has been
a fiasco and, if anything, has led to more food shortages. And this combined
with the decline of industrial agriculture since the 2000 farm invasions,
and several consecutive years of bad rains, has meant that much of what the
country now eats comes from abroad.

Abroad is also where Zimbabweans themselves are fleeing as they seek to
escape what one industry worker described as the country’s ‘hand-to-mouth’
economy. South Africa, Zimbabwe’s booming southerly neighbour, is the
principal destination, and is now home to between 1.5 and three million
Zimbabwean expats. ‘With our situation, everybody who can will go down
south. It’s just a waste of skills otherwise,’ said Didymus, a 32-year-old
part-time teacher who is hoping to leave himself as soon as he has finished
a business degree.


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A desperate suitor


Dec 6th 2007 | LISBON
From The Economist print edition

After China and America, it is Europe's turn to woo Africa

IT IS a coincidence, but an appropriate one nonetheless, that Europe should
try to relaunch its relations with Africa in Lisbon. It was from here, in
1415, that Portuguese ships first set out to begin the European exploration
and conquest of the dark continent; and it will be here on December 8th that
politicians from 53 African and 27 European countries will gather at a
summit to bury the old colonial relationships in favour of something more
modern and “equal”, as the Europeans like to put it.

The get-together is the idea of the Portuguese, who currently hold the EU
presidency; they see this first EU-Africa summit since 2000 as the capstone
of their six-month tenure. They accept that the summit carries a “political
price”: the one-man-against-the-rest EU split caused by the refusal of
Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, to attend, in protest against the
presence of Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe. But, the Portuguese say,
they had little option. China, and others, have forced their hand.

For the Europeans are increasingly worried that they are losing both trade
and clout on a continent that they used to regard as their own backyard.
Over the past five years Europe has watched with a mixture of shock and awe
as resource-hungry China has swept across a grateful continent, taking oil
and minerals in exchange for anything the Africans want, be it money now,
money later, ports or roads. African-Chinese trade has increased five-fold
over that time to more than $50 billion last year. Europe's long-standing
links mean that it is still Africa's biggest trading partner, but the
Chinese are catching up fast. As a stark example of China's new muscle, in
October the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China paid $5.6 billion for a
20% stake in Standard Bank of South Africa—the biggest single investment
ever made on the continent.

And the Chinese are not the only newcomers. India has been buying up oil and
mineral concessions in countries such as Sudan and Nigeria. America has
revived its interest in Africa: it wants to take 25% of its oil supply from
there to decrease its dependence on the Middle East. America has also been
recruiting new allies, such as Mali and Ethiopia, in its fight against
Islamist terrorism on the continent.

All this has left Africa's leaders in the novel position of being able to
pick their friends rather than being dictated to by others, be they white
development economists or the IMF. And they are enjoying every minute of it.
As Shamsudeen Usman, Nigeria's minister of finance, says: “Nigeria is
becoming a beautiful bride. What is happening is the Chinese, the Koreans,
everyone is coming around, and if European companies do not wake up, they
will see that most of the best businesses are taken. For us, really, whoever
gives the best terms, the best conditions, and is willing to come and
invest, those are the ones that we'll do business with.”

Europe, used to privileged access to African markets and politics, has been
left floundering by the new competition. Europeans complain that China
damages Africa by not linking its loans and investments to improvements in
government and human rights, as the worthy Europeans do. But Africans are
dismissive: as one official says, “Europe is jealous. They say we have
gotten a new colonial master, but our old one wasn't so good.”

Getting hung up on democracy
The Lisbon summit will thus be an explicit counterpoint to the China-Africa
summit of November 2006, when China cemented its new relationship with a
promise of yet more money. Now the Europeans will try to woo the beautiful
bride and her dowry of hydrocarbons back from Beijing. Europe's goodies will
be a mix of concessions and inducements.

The main concession, a nod to the Chinese, is to be less critical of African
regimes that are a bit light-fingered, or disdainful of human-rights. João
Cravinho, the Portuguese minister responsible for the summit, contends that
the Europeans have been “excessively simplistic” in insisting on European
models of government for Africa. Instead, Europe will in future “focus on
the essence of government, rather than the forms, [and be] less hung-up on
particular forms of decision-making.”

Getting into the spirit, Europe overturned its own travel ban on Mr Mugabe,
a complete stranger to decent behaviour, to allow him to attend the summit,
even at the expense of losing the British government. Mr Mugabe will be
lectured on his sins—and is then free to join in the cuddly group
photographs. This is the “political price” that Europe feels it has to pay
for warding off the Chinese. Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, will also be
at the summit, but there are no plans to nag him about his army's brutality
in Darfur.

Of the new inducements, trade deals called Economic Partnership Agreements
are the ones Europe thinks will help Africa most. The EU argues that these
are good for development, offering African countries full access to the
European market while allowing them to keep about 20% of their own markets
closed to protect fragile domestic industries. But some African countries,
such as South Africa and Nigeria, argue that they are being bullied and
threatened into making agreements before they are ready; the EU insists all
must be wrapped up by the end of the year. The Europeans argue that the
deals are designed to encourage regional integration in Africa. The Africans
retort that by making separate deals with different countries they are doing
exactly the opposite.

Europe's new insouciance about human rights will worry many, especially
those suffering atrocities in Zimbabwe and Darfur, while the inducements
hardly look tempting. Europe needs to do much better than this if it is to
win the bride.


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Tsvangirai calls for help

Mmegi, Botswana
 Thursday, 6 December 2007

TUMELO SETSHOGO
CORRESPONDENT

MOCHUDI: Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai has pleaded with
the workers of Botswana to help resolve the deepening socio-economic and
political crisis in his country.

"We have a house on fire and our African culture requires you, as
neighbours, to help us put out that fire," pleaded Tsvangirai at the ongoing
conference of Botswana Land Boards and Local Authority Workers Union (BLLWU)
in Mochudi on Tuesday.

He told the delegates that workers' solidarity and protection is a myth
unless the politics is right. "Every voice has a value in this struggle for
social democracy," said the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader. He
added that everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong in Zimbabwe.
He said the workers have suffered most directly as individuals, as unions
and collectively through their political alternative, the MDC. He said one
of the MDC's priorities is the strengthening of public institutions to
support democracy. "A two-tier system remains weak, as long as the link
between the public and government on governance matters does not exist,"
charged the MDC leader.

"Our vision is very clear. We see a Zimbabwe in which the people shall soon
exercise a universal right to decide the future," he said. He stated that
the MDC is concerned that the insincerity of President Robert Mugabe and his
ZANU-PF in their dialogue with opposition is causing immense anxiety.

He told BLLWU delegates that while the dialogue is underway, there has been
a wave of state-sponsored violence against the opposition. "This undermines
trust and dampens public confidence in the electoral process," he asserted.

The MDC leader and veteran trade unionist said that for participants in a
political conversation to derive benefits from their interactions, there is
a need for an environment of tolerance in diversity, the rule of law, a
solid human culture, respect for private property rights and general
obedience to universal norms and standards of behaviour. "None of that
obtains in the Zimbabwe we live in today," lamented Tsvangirai. He said
Zimbabweans continue to stick to their national project to transform their
society and provide the necessary democratic space to talk to each other and
decide their future.

"Against this background, we support the current SADC initiative to bring
together major political players in Zimbabwe in order to soft-land the
national crisis," said Tsvangirai who returned to Zimbabwe yesterday.

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