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It is time to end the culture of
impunity
The Guardian
Instead of embracing Robert Mugabe
as an honoured guest, Portugal should arrest him on torture
charges
Peter Tatchell
This weekend, President Robert Mugabe will stride the stage at the
EU-African Union Summit in Lisbon. He will be welcomed and feted alongside all
the other leaders of Africa and Europe.
For the people of Zimbabwe, it will be a sickening
spectacle to see their blood-soaked oppressor wined and dined by the Portuguese
president, Aníbal António Cavaco Silva.
Mugabe is not the world's only tyrant and not even
the worst. Nevertheless, he has killed more black Africans than even the
murderous apartheid regime in South Africa.
His slaughter of 20,000 civilians in Matabeleland in
the 1980s was the equivalent of a Sharpeville massacre every day for over nine
months.
According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,
Mugabe's despotic regime is guilty of detention without trial, torture, rape,
extra-judicial killings, media censorship, financial corruption, election fraud,
mass starvation and the violent suppression of strikes and protests.
Instead of embracing Mugabe as an honoured guest, the
Portuguese government should instruct its police to arrest him on charges of
torture.
It is time to end the culture of impunity, which
allows tyrannical leaders to get away with human rights abuses. Torture is a
crime under international law. Mugabe and other torture-condoning despots should
be prosecuted. Giving them state immunity is collusion with their crimes.
There is evidence from Amnesty
International and from Zimbabwean human rights groups that
Mugabe and his government have sanctioned and colluded
with acts of torture. He should
be arrested and put on trial, in the same way that President Milosevic of
Yugoslavia was tried in The Hague.
Portugal is legally obliged to enforce the UN
convention http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm
against torture
1984, which it has ratified and pledged to uphold.
The convention against torture has universal
jurisdiction. It allows any signatory state to arrest and put on trial any
person who authorises, commits or acquiesces in the infliction of torture
anywhere in the world. In other words, Mugabe can be lawfully arrested and tried
in Portugal for crimes he has aided and abetted in Zimbabwe.
Despite past legal rulings granting government
leaders exemption from prosecution, the trend in international law is towards
rejecting the right of heads of state to enjoy absolute immunity for crimes
against humanity, such as torture.
This legal evolution began with the Versailles treaty of
1919. The signatory nations accepted that high-ranking state officials who stand
accused of "offences against international morality" cannot plead that they are
above the law. Article 227 of the treaty set the precedent in international law
that heads of state are not immune from prosecution when it arraigned the German
emperor William II.
The 1946 Nuremberg tribunal reiterated this precedent
by ruling that the top Nazi leaders, including Karl Dönitz, Hitler's successor
as German leader, did not enjoy immunity for crimes against humanity.
Article seven of the charter of the international
military tribunal stipulated that: "The
official position of defendants, whether as heads of state or responsible
officials in government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them
from responsibility or mitigating punishment." Dönitz was found guilty and
sentenced to 10 years' jail.
Principle three of the Nuremberg Principles, agreed
by the nations of Europe as international law, declared: "The fact that a person who
committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as head
of state or responsible government official does not relieve him from
responsibility under international law."
For Portugal and the EU to now renege on the
Nuremberg principles is a monstrous betrayal of the millions who perished in the
Holocaust and the millions more who sacrificed their lives to end the tyranny of
the Third Reich.
The Nuremberg ruling that government leaders can be
held accountable was given further effect with the enactment of the UN
convention against torture (Uncat) 1984. Article four requires each state party,
including Portugal and other EU signatory states, to ensure that "all acts of
torture" are criminal offences under domestic law. This criminalisation applies
to an act by "any person" that "constitutes complicity or participation in
torture".
Uncat grants no exemptions to heads of state. In
other words, any state official who commits, authorises, colludes, acquiesces or
condones acts of torture anywhere in the world can be prosecuted by an Uncat
signatory state, such as Portugal.
These precedents were given further practical effect
by the international criminal tribunal when it indicted Slobodan Milosevic
on May 26 1999 while he was the serving head of state of
Yugoslavia. It was the first time a prosecution had been initiated against a
national leader while the crimes with which he was charged were still going on.
If Milosevic can be indicted, even though he was president at the time, why
can't Mugabe?
The UN Rome statute of 1998, ratified by Portugal and
other EU nations, created the international criminal
court. Article 27 explicitly declares that heads of state cannot plead immunity
against prosecution for crimes against humanity such as torture: "Official
capacity as a head of state ... shall in no case exempt a person from criminal
responsibility under this statute".
Is it acceptable for Portugal to sign up to the
principle of universal accountability for the crime of torture and then refuse
to honour it?
Continuing the trend to void immunity for heads of
state for grave human rights abuses, the Liberian leader, Charles Taylor,
was indicted on 4 June 2003. Despite
being president, he was served an arrest warrant on charges of "serious
violations of international humanitarian law". Why is there one law for Taylor
and another for Mugabe?
The double standards over head of state immunity
reached their zenith during
the Iraq war in 2003, with two US attempts - on March 20 and April 7 - to
assassinate the then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. Western governments
asserted the lawfulness of these attempts.
How can a head of state be lawfully assassinated, but
not lawfully prosecuted for crimes against humanity? Since it is apparently
acceptable to assassinate a tyrannical president, surely a tyrannical president
can be also put on trial?
In the case if the Zimbabwean president, Portugal and
the EU have already agreed that his state immunity can legitimately be
restricted. The EU travel ban on Mugabe is a punitive abrogation of his immunity
as head of state. It is directed against him in his official capacity as
president of a regime that violates human rights. This sanction is an
acknowledgement that heads of state do not enjoy absolute immunity. They should,
and can, be held to account for grave crimes against humanity.
If Mugabe's immunity can be curtailed by a travel
ban, why can't he (and other tyrants) be called to account in a court of law for
violating the internationally agreed prohibition on the use of
torture?
---------
Comments
Another excellent article Mr
Tatchell.
HerrEMott
December 7 12:48
GBR
I
don't always agree with all you write Peter, but I'll support you on this all
the way and I trust you'll be waiting for Mugabe on the airport tarmac with a
pair of cuffs and a warrant.
monstera
Comment No.
975253
December 7 12:53
GBR
Where does it end though Peter if
you go down this route?
I agree totally with the sentiment, but there are
few world leaders who would be safe from prosecution. Sure, the threat of
litigation might get them to better behave, but the real consequence would be
that the powerful nations would lock up the leaders of countries they don't
like, whilst they continue to be above the law.
Nice theory, bad in
practice.
IllegalCombatAnt
Comment No.
975255
December 7 12:54
CHE
"If Mugabe's immunity can be
curtailed by a travel ban, why can't he (and other tyrants) be called to account
in a court of law for violating the internationally agreed prohibition on the
use of torture?"
Well we know that's not going to happen because that
would logically lead to the likes of Bush and Blair in the
dock.
RichardWilson
Comment No.
975257
December 7 12:54
GBR
Well said, Peter. How much more
clear-cut a case could there be? The international double-standards over Mugabe
beggar belief.
Justabloke
Comment No.
975263
December 7 12:56
DEU
Peter, many thanks.
Sadly, too
many people prefer to rely on a completely false interpretation of the 350 year
old Treaty of Westphalia, and claim that we cannot interfere in the internal
affairs of a sovereign nation. The disaster in Iraq has given this "do nothing"
argument more strength.
Mugabe is a murderer and should be removed as soon as
possible. Anything less would be immoral. Treating him as a leader on the world
stage is nauseating in the
extreme.
Mintball
Comment No.
975264
December 7 12:56
GBR
Nail, head, hit again,
Peter.
Thank you for consistently raising this issue.
Is there any
oil in Zimbabwe, anyone?
CharlieLucky
Comment No.
975273
December 7 13:00
GBR
Yet another excellent piece, Peter
SuperOmega
Comment No. 975276
December 7
13:01
GBR
This is all very well and good in principle, but if it
suddenly becomes our duty to go around charging heads of state with war crimes,
however genuine the case, how far are we supposed to take it? Is this a
manifesto for liberal intervention?
Surely pursuing war criminals and
human rights abusers entails tracking them down and arresting them wherever they
are, rather than just when they arrive on our doorstep. Given your logic, would
anything else not be cowardly? Unfortunately, what you're suggesting, though
noble in intentions is totally impractical and makes you look a bit
silly.
So, once we arrest Mugabe, does it fall upon us to select and
install somebody to take his
place?
lascoma
Comment No. 975277
December
7 13:01
USA
Forget arresting the SOB, better solution the CIA and M16
etc to kill him and his whole entourage. Just call it a industrial accident or
some terrorist attack. One wonders, why the Bush Administration missed listing
this SOB and his gangs of thugs as the evil rouge bunch of terrorist and
responsible for murder etc.
argeebargee
Comment
No. 975288
December 7 13:07
GBR
Monstera is right though. This
diplomatic immunity stuff is there for good purpose. It's a bit like a white
flag. The bastard holding it may just have shot your best mate but you abide by
it because well one day you may need it too. Tempting to pull the trigger when
the bugger walks into your sights, but short sighted. Maybe we should plant some
oil under him! That'd work.
seejaybee
Comment No.
975312
December 7 13:15
GBR
With you all the way on this one,
Peter.
Now, where are Milne and Pilger and the rest of the old Left when
Mugabe needs them so badly to defend him? Remember, he's a "Marxist", so he
*must* be a hero ...
CheckYourMike
Comment No.
975317
December 7 13:18
GBR
Great article, Peter - the EU must
do more than take away Bob's Freedom
Pass.
iamnotwhattheywant
Comment No.
975319
December 7 13:19
GBR
seejaybee:-"Remember, he's a
"Marxist", so he *must* be a hero ..."
He's also black which always
helps.
OILthieves
Comment No.
975323
December 7 13:20
GBR
Pete you may have noticed an
article about commenters writing articles to maximise responses....
you
may also have noticed ..... you get the most number of BRIEF compliments - in
the most consistent flood.... of all the commentators on Cif.
Please review
your previous articles ... for testament.... of a coordinated fan-base. Looks
like there will not be any change left after you've bought them all a christmas
present.. or will there?
As for mugabe. Why don't you try being
proportionate Peter. Review the news & identify who has killed the most
civilians Put them in order i.e. US & Ethiopia in Somalia, US in Iraq, US
& French & Uk mercenaries in the DRC, Sudan & rebels.... it will
take you a long time to get to Mugabe. So why do you skip over all these evil
doers for an FCO inspired anti-mugabe propaganda campaign? Is this personal
Peter?
And before I forget "Brilliant" Peter or is it Landscape or
HerrEmott or CharieLucky or Mintball or RichardWilson.....? Have the analysts at
Guardian noticed the uniquely flattering comments on Peter's threads? Hmmmm I
wonder whether this strategy of self-congratulation would work in politics?
halgeel84
Comment No. 975326
December 7
13:21
CAN
--Peter Tatchell,
Since you wrote so passionately
about the western powers' need to recognize Somaliland-which is another way of
supporting the breaking up plan of Somalia by the US and neocons- I am curious
why your pen/keyboard has failed to spell the name "Meles Zinawi"! Do you think
that Mugabe is worse butcher than Zinawi? Do you know that Zinwi has been
committing mass genocide inside Ethiopia and in Somalia?
Do you think that
western readers cannot see this plain double standard of western media silence
to the wholesale genocide against the people of Somalia in the hands of Abdulahi
Yusufe and Meles Zinawi and crocodile tears over human rights abuses by Robert
Mugabe?
stevejones123
Comment No.
975371
December 7 13:35
This is rubbish Mr. Tatchell. You want to
get rid of diplomatic immunity and open up a free-for-all. Hasn't it occurred to
you that this would negotiated peaces a thing of the
past.
Justabloke
Comment No.
975380
December 7 13:37
SuperOmega et al
So do nothing. Wring
your hands, say its for the best and go back to ignoring the
problem.
Monstera
Look at the founding of the UN. The League of Nations
collapsed at least partly on the priciple of equality; the smaller countries
with an equal vote tried to bind the larger nations to military action. When the
UN was created its founders recognised that there would be secutity providors
(the big countries) and security consumers (the rest). The security providers
were given the biggest say, via the permanent members of the security
council.The obvious disadvantage of the imbalance of power is greatly outweighed
by the fact that the bigger powers are not bound by the votes of the smaller
countries and are therefore willing to participate. This they should now do and
get rid of Mugabe.
conorfoley
Comment No.
975426
December 7 13:53
BRA
I agree with the sentiment here
Peter, but the point about diplomatic immunity is valid. Mugabe could, indeed,
by prosecuted by the ICC if the security council issued an indictment (I am
guessing that Zimbabwe has not signed), but none of your legal precedents trump
the fact that serving heads of State cannot be arrested in another country to
which they have travelled in their official capacity. I think the ICJ struck
down the attempt to prosecute Ariel Sharon in Belgium on this basis and I do not
think that this is convention of international law is going to disappear soon.
How could heads of state conduct diplomacy if they could be arrested while
travelling abroad?
The problem with a referral to the ICC by the security
council is that Russia and China have vetoes. If it could be proved that he had
committed crimes on the territory of a State that had ratified the statute and
this asked the Prosecutor to initiate an investigation, that might work, but I
do not see how else you can get him legally.
This actually shows the
limitations of the ICC and why it needs a genuinely independent prosecutor with
universal jurisdiction, including over the crime of
aggression.
globalgypsy
Comment No.
975461
December 7 14:06
MLT
And how do you feel about the
arrest of war criminals? They are responsible for many more deaths. Several
names come to mind , and not all of them still have diplomatic immunity. And
presumably, in another year or three, none of them will. (How much longer can
Blair be provided with a job which conveniently includes a diplomatic
passport?
redpaddy
Comment No.
975462
December 7 14:06
GBR
Did Mugabe bomb
Yugoslavia?
Did Mugabe invade Afghanistan?
Did Mugabe invade
Iraq?
We have plenty of war criminals in our own country from Tony Blair
upwards, but Tatchell has done nothing to bring them to justice. I wonder
why.
Justice like charity begins at
home.
halgeel84
Comment No. 975465
December
7 14:07
CAN
--conorfoley,
well, then, I would like to you know
your view the silence of of western sponsored butchers such as Zinawi and
Abdullahi Yusuf and all the cries about
Mugabe?
Accurist
Comment No.
975466
December 7 14:08
GBR
@ lascoma
"Forget arresting
the SOB, better solution the CIA and M16 etc to kill him and his whole
entourage."
Who are M16 ("M-sixteen")? I know it's a carbine (I've
carried one), but I've not ehard of it before as an
organisation?
Cantonaldo
Comment No.
975467
December 7 14:08
CAN
Truly superb article. Robert
Mugabe is, as you said, no different than Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic
in terms of his horrific crimes against humanity. It will not have escaped your
attention i'm sure though that Zimbabwe happens to be on the continent of
Africa. Thus, the issue turns out to be another one of the 'for a dollar a day'
crowd, instead of the infinitely more power 'jail him for war crimes' crowd. If
this tradgedy was unfolding before our eyes in Europe, North America or even
Asia, the world would be pursuing the issue with far more
zeal.
FreemanMoxy
Comment No.
975471
December 7 14:10
GBR
seejaybee, have you ever
considered that since "Milne and Pilger and the rest of the old Left" are
nowhere to be seen in defence of Mugabe, maybe it's your knuckle-headed
assumptions about them that should be reconsidered?
[sigh] Thought not.
Knee-jerk prejudice is waaaay more fun,
innit?
Accurist
Comment No. 975472
December
7 14:10
GBR
@ lascoma
"Forget arresting the SOB, better
solution the CIA and M16 etc to kill him and his whole entourage."
Who
are M16 ("M-sixteen")? I know it's a carbine (I've carried one), but I've not
heard of it before as an organisation? I know that you cannot have meant MI6 (Em
-eye - six (correctly, the SIS)), since they do not carry out such operations -
unless you happen to believe the lunacies of Mohammed
al-Fayed.
SuperOmega
Comment No.
975476
December 7 14:13
GBR
@Justabloke - no, not 'just do
nothing', not at all. We should be tireless in our pursuit of and exposure of
crimes against humanity. We should also be consistent.
I have the
greatest respect for Peter Tatchell and in many cases his articles are the model
of good sense. Unfortunately this particular argument is short sighted and
fatuous. The idea of arresting heads of state is totally impractical and would
lead to utter chaos. I dislike Gordon Brown intensely. He voted for and financed
the Iraq War. Am I entitled to, or should I, go and perform a citizens'
arrest?
What we need is for our governments to apply appropriate pressure
and to use all diplomatic means available to prevent such abuses. Mugabe's
continued existence relies, for example, on the acquiescence of South Africa. We
have to get serious with them. Talk of punitive sanctions should not be off the
table.
We must stop receiving cretins like Ibn Saud and issuing
hypocritical prattle about 'shared values'. NB this is not to suggest that we
should ever cut off avenues of communication. We must be even handed in our
dealings with the I/P situation.
In short, we need to lobby our
politicians to stop basing their foreign policy on narrow-minded economic
calculations and not shut up until everybody knows how corrupt and hypocritical
the whole situation is.
Yes, this is unrealistic in the short term, but
it would provide a much more sensible and sustainable model than the idealistic
short-termism PT is advocating
here.
bill40
Comment No. 975503
December 7
14:23
GBR
OILthieves
He gets the most compliments for writing
passionately about things he really cares about so while many of us do not share
all his views, we are happy to debate with him in the knowledge that he reads
his own threads and responds to posters, hence the high regard he is held on
cif.
The goodwill to help Africa is abundant in the west but time and
again our goodwill is squandered by poor governance, so these depots need to be
brought down and Mugabe as their poster boy is as good as any other place to
start.
We are far from perfect in the west but please spare me the moral
equivalence mlarky. If the EU will not enforce a travel ban on this man then by
all means nick him the minute he steps on EU soil. I also congratulate Peter for
advocating due process in a court of law rather than creating a dodgy dosier to
invade an ebtire country.
BrigadierBarking
Comment No.
975521
December 7 14:31
ESP
I say we take this MOFO out as
soon as his feet touch the
tarmac.
Bobjob21
Comment No.
975529
December 7 14:36
GBR
I understood that the Portuguese
decided to let him in because the rest of the Africans said if he doesn't come,
we don't come.
If they want to align themselves with this criminal,
simply on the racist basis that he,too, is black, then that makes them his
accomplices. Cancel the Summit. Leave Africa to the Chinese, who don't concern
themselves with such "internal" matters as murder and forced
starvation.
Landscape
Comment No.
975531
December 7 14:37
IRL
Oilthieves
Have the analysts at
Guardian noticed the uniquely flattering comments on Peter's threads?
I
hope so then we might get more articles from Peter who in my opinion and
apparently some others is the best writer on CiF by a mile. So if that makes me
a fan then I am glad to be one. I say it again keep up the good work
Peter!
uklid
Comment No. 975534
December 7
14:39
GBR
I agree that he should be arrested. What is the difference
between him and Miloseveic? What a bunch of hypocrites we have in
power!
AfroBelle
Comment No.
975553
December 7 14:44
GBR
"Mugabe and other
torture-condoning despots should be prosecuted"
So would that include
George Bush?
Oldexpat
Comment No.
975587
December 7 14:57
USA
Much as I agree with the sentiment
(and is Mugabe the only African leader to committ atrocities?), such an act
would essentially completely hand over all influence in Africa to the Chinese
with their no strings attached
relationships.
CheeseCommando
Comment No.
975599
December 7 15:01
GBR
Tatch,
you really are a
legend mate. The way you can unite old fart Tories like me and the pro-human
rights Left is impressive. Keep up the good fight.
--
Oil
Thieves
I remeber a contribution you made on another thread. Something
about the hegemony of the 'Jewish gentry'. Why don't you just come out as a nut.
You don't have to hide it amonsgst all the shrieking anti-Westernist
stuff.
halgeel84
Comment No.
975617
December 7 15:08
CAN
--Bobjob21
or perhaps
the rest of Africa can through that Blair, Bush, Zinawi and Yusuf are not facing
similar sanctions! This is what you get when you use Human Hights as strategic
commodity to be used only against enemies of the west.
Why was little cries
when the corrupt Saudi Sheik was here not long ago! we also know, until very
recently, Abdullahi Yusuf used to come to London to meet with UK officials and
see medical doctors even as he was carrying out program of genocide against the
people of Somalia. So where are the cries to bring these world criminals to
international justice?
solicitor
Comment No.
975640
December 7 15:14
USA
An interesting piece, Mr
Tatchell: I'm not sure if I agree or not. But you have, in an argument on law,
made a legal misstatement:
"during the Iraq war in 2003, with two US
attempts - on March 20 and April 7 - to assassinate the then Iraqi president,
Saddam Hussein."
On those occasions we tried to drop a bomb on him, yes:
but Saddam was the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi armed forces, with the rank of
Field Marshal- and therefore, like any uniformed soldier, was a military target.
This was not attempted 'assassination' any more than the P-38 mission which
targeted (successfully) Admiral
Yamamoto.
HerrEMott
Comment No.
975679
December 7 15:25
GBR
@ OILThieves - I don't lionise
Tatchell, and I'm not Tatchell in a cybercafe form an alternative log-in. I
actually think he's quite misguided in some areas but I'll support anyone who
shows up Mugabe for the thug he is.
chrish
Comment
No. 975715
December 7 15:42
GBR
The EU leaders have invited
Mugabe despite the travel ban because they don't want to shake the bost and risk
EU business interests in Africa losing out to China. Brown is quite right not to
turn up and I recommend he appoint Peter as the UK representative so that he can
at last succeed in carrying out his citizens arrest of the genocial
murderer.
halgeel84
Comment No.
975779
December 7 16:06
CAN
it is not Robert Mugabe, by
George W, Bush, Ban Ki-Moon and the rest powers who are supporting the mass rape
of Somali women and children in the hands of Tigre army of Meles Zinawi and
criminal regime in Somalia.
but what do they know, right!
EvilTory:
"Mbeki...has
had the power to bring down Mugabe with a word for a decade."
How
exactly??
conorfoley
Comment No.
976215
December 7 19:16
BRA
Sure Peter, but the basic point is
that it can't be done - unless you want to abolish the concept of diplomatic
immunity that is.
halgeel84
Comment No.
976245
December 7 19:38
CAN
Except some of us assume the term
left to means anti-colonialists not self-appoint groups claiming to represent
something called left while happily participating colonising
practices.
GiyusandTrolls9
Comment No.
976263
December 7 19:49
BEL
'Not AN USEFUL IDIOT' said the
well spoken gentleman
'Good to see a genuine radical extolling lifelong
held principles - and not some opportunist using eclectic populist demagoguery
to profile himself for a higher office' said the cynic
PS 'IF ''WE''
arrest Mugabe.......... where would ''WE'' stop?' asked the
barrister
Opposition backs Brown on Mugabe summit boycott
Reuters
Fri Dec 7,
2007 4:40pm GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - Opposition parties backed on Friday
Prime Minister Gordon
Brown's decision to boycott a European Union-Africa
summit because
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is taking part and
attacked the EU for
inviting him.
"It is a shameful episode for Europe
that President Mugabe is to be feted in
Lisbon," the Conservatives' foreign
affairs spokesman William Hague said --
a rare show of unity with Brown,
who is under fire at home over a party
funding scandal.
Brown is
staying away from 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 multiple human
rights
violations.
Valerie Amos, a member of the upper House of Lords and a
former cabinet
minister, will represent Britain at the talks.
"Whilst
I support the prime minister's decision not to attend, now that
Mugabe is
there, it is important that Baroness Amos ... lays his crimes bare
before
all those attending," Hague said in a statement.
Critics say Mugabe has
presided over the collapse of Zimbabwe's once
thriving economy, burdened by
the world's highest inflation and chronic
shortages of foreign currency,
food and fuel.
The Liberal Democrats, said the decision to invite Mugabe
"makes a mockery
of the EU sanctions regime and will only add to his
contempt for the
international community".
Portugal had to waive an
EU visa ban so the Zimbabwean leader and his
delegation could
attend.
The summit ought to be focusing on international preparations for
a
post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, such as securing funds to repair the ravaged
economy,
the Liberal Democrats said. A spokesman said the party backed
Brown's
decision to stay away.
European Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso defended inviting Mugabe
on Thursday and vowed to make human
rights the first point on the agenda.
Most EU leaders argue it is better
to criticise Mugabe's record on human
rights and economic governance to his
face rather than boycott the summit.
Brown takes a strong interest in
developing country issues. But British
officials say that, if Brown had gone
to Lisbon, it would have turned the
summit into a "Zimbabwe
circus".
(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Europe urged to act on abuses in Africa
Reuters
Fri 7 Dec 2007, 17:54
GMT
By Sergio Goncalves and Ruben Bicho
LISBON, Dec 7
(Reuters) - Human rights groups urged European and African
leaders gathering
for their first summit in seven years on Friday to act on
Sudan's Darfur
crisis and confront Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe over rights
abuses.
Activists hoped the 73 leaders from the world's largest
trading bloc and its
poorest continent would put rights at the top of their
agenda at the summit,
which will aim to create fresh partnerships on issues
like immigration and
development.
Mugabe is seen by African leaders
as an independence hero and many said they
would not attend if he was not
invited. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
decided to boycott the summit
because Mugabe would be there.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates,
whose country has been criticized
for inviting Mugabe and holds the rotating
EU presidency, said there was no
intention of ducking difficult
issues.
"At this summit there are no taboos," Socrates told European and
African
business leaders meeting ahead of the gathering. "Everything can be
freely
discussed. Without this summit, Darfur, human rights or immigration
would
not be discussed.
"It was a historic mistake not to have had
dialogue for seven years between
the EU and Africa."
Previous
attempts to hold the summit have failed over Mugabe's attendance
but this
time the EU, mindful of growing Chinese influence in Africa,
decided to hold
the meeting and invite Mugabe, who arrived late on Thursday.
A group of
40 African and European parliamentarians was joined by 50 human
rights
groups in urging the leaders to tackle the plight of thousands of
civilians
in Sudan's Darfur region, where experts estimate 200,000 people
have died
due to conflict.
"MPs, campaigners and human rights activists are all
asking the same
question: how can our leaders ignore one of the world's
worst crises?" asked
Glenys Kinnock, a member of the European
Parliament.
Outside the summit venue, rights groups erected a bed with
actors depicting
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel
sleeping next to Mugabe and Sudan's President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir.
"CONFRONT REALITY"
Decades after most African
countries became independent, relations between
Europe and Africa remain
clouded by the colonial era issues.
Many Africans think Europe owes a
debt to former colonies and European
leaders have called for a change from
paternalism that had characterised
Europe's approach to the
continent.
Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, who arrived for his first
official visit to
Portugal, used a speech at Lisbon University to urge
former colonial powers
to pay compensation to the countries they once
ruled.
"If we don't confront reality, we must pay the price ...
terrorism,
migration, revenge," said Gaddafi, who portrays himself as a
champion of
Africa.
Trade tensions were also apparent before the
summit at a meeting of business
leaders from the two continents.
The
EU says it needs to clinch new Economic Partnership Agreements with
former
European colonies in Africa, and other regions of the world, before a
World
Trade Organization waiver of current preferential treatment expires on
Dec.
31.
Some African nations have complained they will face too much
competition and
are being strong-armed into signing new deals.
EU
countries are trying to settle their own differences over the EPAs. Free
trade supporters such as Sweden want to ensure local context rules do not
hamper textiles and other exports from poor countries. But Italy and others
are concerned about a possible rise in imports hurting their own
producers.
European and African farmers protested near the
summit.
"In Europe a cow gets two dollars per day and in Africa a human
being
doesn't get half a dollar," said Justus Lavi, treasurer at the Kenya
Small
Scale Farmers Forum.
"After signing the EPAs, products from
Europe, which are highly subsidized,
will come and how can Africa
compete?"
On Friday, Ivory Coast initialled an interim trade accord with
the EU,
making the world's largest cocoa producer the first West African
country to
sign such a bilateral deal to establish provisional trade terms
until a
broader EPA is signed.
But bigger African economies such as
South Africa and Nigeria have refused
to sign EPAs. (Additional reporting by
Axel Bugge, Ingrid Melander, Angelika
Stricker, Henrique Almeida, Sergio
Goncalves, Elisabete Tavares and Pascal
Fletcher, editing by Axel Bugge and
Mary Gabriel)
Woza Founder Members in Custody for Refusing to Pay Bail
SW Radio
Africa (London)
7 December 2007
Posted to the web 7 December
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
Twenty members from Women and Men of
Zimbabwe Arise were arrested in
Sakubva, Mutare on Thursday for attending a
meeting that was scheduled to
discuss domestic violence.
The
activists were charged under the Criminal Law Act and told to pay a fine
of
Z$40 000 each. 18 activists paid the fines and were released, but two
leading members of Woza, Magodonga Mahlangu and Clara Manjengwa, refused to
pay and are still in detention.
Shepherd Ndlovu, a member of Men
of Zimbabwe Arise, said police charged the
activists with attending an
illegal meeting in an open space in Sakubva.
Ndlovu said a group of
approximately 90 people had gathered for the meeting
before police officers
stopped them from proceeding. The police
force-marched eight men and twelve
women, three of them with babies, over a
kilometre to Sakubva Police
Station.
According to a statement from Woza, during the march to the
police station,
several of the members were handcuffed.
'At the
police station, the group was denied access to their lawyer and also
denied
food. Some members were beaten. Police informed the group that as
most were
not carrying their national identification cards, they had broken
the law
and should pay fines. Without access to legal counsel to advise that
this
was inaccurate, most members believed they had no other option than to
pay
the fines and were released at 7pm,' the statement added.
It is believed
Mahlangu and Manjengwa refused to buy their way out of police
cells,
insisting that they did not commit any crime. Ndlovu said they
believe the
police want to punish the duo for their stance by saying they
will take them
to court on Monday, forcing them to spend the weekend in
cells.
Police Violently Stop NCA Protest in Harare
SW Radio Africa
(London)
7 December 2007
Posted to the web 7 December
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
The National Constitutional Assembly
reported Friday that 300 of its
activists staged a demonstration in central
Harare, before heavily armed
riot police officers violently stopped
it.
In a statement the NCA said in an act of 'clear determination and
courage,'
their activists walked from the city's Copacabana area to the
Parliament
Building.
'They were however violently dispersed by
riot police who were heavily
armed. The police launched a severe attack on
the activists and the general
public who were in the vicinity of the area
that they were marching,' the
statement said.
The activists chanted
songs about the need for a new constitution braving
the wet weather to
march. The demonstration was against Constitutional
Amendment Number 18, as
well as the deteriorating situation in the country.
'The struggle to have
a new, democratic and people driven constitution will
continue as long as
the issue remains unaddressed. We say no to willy-nilly
amendments of the
constitution. Rather, the people of Zimbabwe should be
consulted so that
they contribute to the process of making a new
constitution,' the NCA
said.
Baroness Amos at summit 'as she is black'
The Telegraph
By Duncan
Hooper
Last Updated: 3:42pm GMT 07/12/2007
The only
justification for sending Baroness Amos to represent Britain
at the
controversial EU-Africa summit is that she is black, Clare Short
suggested,
sparking a furious row.
The Prime Minister is boycotting the
gathering in Lisbon, which begins
tonight, because of the presence of
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who is
condemned by Britain for wide-ranging human
rights abuses.
However Ms Short, a former international development
secretary,
claimed that Lady Amos's colour was the only reason she had been
sent in his
stead.
"I'm afraid that there really isn't any
other explanation," she told
BBC Radio 4's The World at One.
"I
don't see any reason to send a kind of pseudo minister and I think
that it's
not right to send her because she's black. I don't see any other
reason for
sending her."
Her comments were swiftly denounced by David
Miliband, the Foreign
Secretary, who said that Lady Amos knew the issues
involved well and would
be an effective representative.
"I
think that is a bit insulting to Baroness Amos," he told the BBC.
"She is a
former secretary of state for international development, she is a
former
leader of the House of Lords, she has got a lot of knowledge about
Africa as
a whole, not just Zimbabwe.
"I think she will be a very good
advocate for the UK and also for the
sort of relationship between the EU and
Africa that we very much want to
see."
Mr Miliband also
defended the Prime Minister's decision to stay away
in the face of an
admonishment from European Commission President Jose
Manuel
Barroso.
"If you are an international leader then you are going to
have to be
prepared to meet some people your mother would not like you to
meet. That is
what we have to do from time to time," Mr Barroso said last
night.
But the Foreign Minister countered that "it would have been
absurd for
the Prime Minister or myself to sit next to Robert Mugabe through
a
discussion of good governance and human rights and pretend that there
wasn't
absolute meltdown going on in Zimbabwe."
"The use that
would have been put by our presence by Robert Mugabe
would have been quite
counterproductive," he added
EU-Africa summit: Zimbabwe: Baroness Amos
interview
African Press Association
(07/12/07)
Baroness
Amos is attending the EU/Africa Summit being held in Lisbon on Saturday 8
December as the UK representative. She was interviewed by the BBC Radio 4 Today
programme on Friday 7 December about the UK’s position on
Zimbabwe.
BBC
Reporter Carolyn Quinn (CQ): Why are you going to the summit? If Gordon
Brown, the UK Government in effect, isn’t doesn’t this make his nothing more
than a gesture?
Baroness
Amos (BA): No it’s not a gesture. The relationship between the European
Union and the African continent is very important and this summit is about
forging a new partnership but at the same time the Prime Minister made it
absolutely clear that if Robert Mugabe went he would not go. The, the situation
in Zimbabwe is appalling. There are four million Zimbabweans on food aid,
another four million have fled. We the British Government are giving
humanitarian assistance to the Zimbabwean people but at the same time we’re
appalled by what the regime is doing.
CQ:
But this summit won’t be discussing the issues of Zimbabwe, indeed it
won’t be discussing Darfur or Somalia either, so what’s the
point?
BA:
The summit will be looking at five big themes including governance and
human rights and of course there will be an opportunity for meetings in the
margins of the summit on some of these very difficult and tricky issues,
including …
CQ:
But the Prime Minister won’t be there to put pressure
on.
BA:
Well the Prime Minister has a relationship, as you know, with a number
of African leaders as he’s been talking to a lot of them about the situation in
Darfur and Sudan and he and President Sarkozy, as you know, have made a
commitment to travel to Sudan if that would help to push the process forward and
the same applies on Zimbabwe. We have given …
CQ:
But that …
BA:
Can I just say this. We’ve given our commitment to supporting President
Mbeki’s efforts on the mediation which are about bringing the opposition and
Government together so that democracy can be restored in
Zimbabwe.
CQ:
All right, but back to this summit. the European Commission President
José Manuel Barroso has said statesmen should be more pragmatic in choosing who
to meet. He says, “If international leaders decided not to go to those
conferences involving countries which don’t have reasonable human rights’
records I’m afraid we would not be attending many conferences at all.” And let
me just finish the quote from him. He says to Gordon Brown, “If you are an
international leader then you’re going to have to be prepared to meet some
people your mother would not like you to meet. That’s what we have to do from
time to time.” So is Gordon Brown ducking that responsibility?
BA:
I don’t think he’s ducking that responsibility at all. I think every
leader makes his or her own decision about who they will meet and the
circumstances in which they will meet them. There’s no doubt that this summit
would become a media circus if the Prime Minister of Britain were there with
Robert Mugabe and I think that it is right that Prime Minister Brown has decided
to stand up for his principles here in relation to the situation in
Zimbabwe.
CQ:
But how then …
BA:
But it was …
CQ:
… do you respond to those officials, those people in Europe who are
saying that Gordon Brown has actually handed the Zimbabwean leader a propaganda
coup by boycotting this summit?
BA:
I don’t think that’s true. I have dealt with the situation in Zimbabwe
for many years, initially as Minister for Africa, then as Secretary of State for
International Development and more recently and I’ve seen the way in which
Robert Mugabe has sought to exploit the situation and in particular to exploit
the fact that Britain is the ex colonial power. Now this is not just about
Britain and Zimbabwe; it’s about Europe and Zimbabwe. It’s about the
international community and the human rights’ situation in Zimbabwe. We need to
recognise that and I’ve been very pleased to see the pressure mounting most
recently with press releases coming out from some of the NGOs, some of our
European Union partners making very strong statements about what is happening
there, and indeed some of the African leaders themselves coming out and saying
publicly that they’re concerned about the situation there.
CQ:
Baroness Amos thank you very
much.
Tutu urges EU to confront Mugabe
IOL
December 07
2007 at 02:26PM
Lisbon - Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu urged EU
leaders on Friday to
confront Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on his
human rights record,
saying their silence would be interpreted as condoning
violations.
Tutu told a Portuguese radio station that this
weekend's EU-Afica
summit in Lisbon should be used as an opportunity to
forge a more equal
relationship between the two continents but not at the
expense of
fundamental rights.
"I would expect that they
(European Union leaders) would criticise any
regime that violates human
rights because if you don't, you are condoning
those violations. The
violators will think you are on their side," Tutu told
Renascenca
radio.
The South African, awarded the Nobel peace prize for
his role in the
fight against apartheid, said Mugabe made Zimbabwe a
"showpiece" country in
the first years after independence from Britain in
1980 but was now
presiding over "blatant" rights violations.
"I
am deeply saddened by what has happened," said Tutu, who has
previously
described the 83-year-old Mugabe as a caricature of an African
dictator.
"Since he has been invited I would hope that the
European Union will
speak without any euphemism on human rights which are
being violated so
blatantly in Zimbabwe."
Mugabe is usually
subject to a travel ban from the European Union but
he managed to secure an
invitation to the summit on Saturday and Sunday
after fellow southern
African leaders threatened to stay away in solidarity.
His presence
has prompted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to
boycott the
summit.
The EU imposed a series of targeted sanctions on Mugabe
after
concluding that he rigged his 2002 re-election.
Assaults
by Zimbabwe security forces on opposition figures earlier
this year prompted
a new war of words between Europe and the regime in
Harare, with Mugabe
telling his critics to "go hang". - Sapa-AFP
Hague calls for Mugabe, and those who welcome him, to be
shamed in Lisbon
Conservativehome
William Hague comments on Mugabe's attendance at this weekend's EU summit in
Lisbon:
“It is a shameful episode for Europe that President
Mugabe is to be feted in Lisbon.
“Whilst I support the Prime Minister’s decision not to attend, now that
Mugabe is there, it is important that Baroness Amos, the Minister representing
Britain, lays his crimes bare before all those attending.
“The British people will want to know that these points have been made
and that every leader attending the Summit from Europe and Africa has had to
take heed. Mugabe should not go home without being made to feel deeply
uncomfortable and those who welcome him should not go home without feeling
ashamed."
Hague won
loud applause at party conference in Blackpool when he not only called for
tougher sanctions on Zimbabwe but for Mugabe to be stripped of his honorary
knighthood.
This morning's Times
leader also concluded that the summit should now be used for pointing
Mugabe's cruelty out to him, and despaired that not only have African leaders
criticised Brown's rightful boycotting of the summit but some European leaders
have questioned the need for it. If there is any doubt as to the extent that
Mugabe's presence brings the summit into disrepute, read these stats sent out by
CCHQ:
- Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted by 40% in the last decade and it is the
only country in Africa which will experience negative growth in 2007
- Four out of five of the country's twelve million people live below the
poverty line, a quarter have fled, and unemployment is at 80%
- Four million people will be dependent on food aid by Christmas due to famine
- The water and sanitation systems in Zimbabwe’s main cities have collapsed,
and thousands are at risk of life-threatening waterborne disease
- In violent attacks on the opposition between March and April 2007, the
regime arrested or abducted 600, hospitalised 300, and killed
three.
Gov't renews assault on Mugabe 'tyranny' after boycott
Yahoo News
Fri
Dec 7, 7:39 AM ET
LISBON (AFP) - The government renewed its criticism of
Robert Mugabe's
"brutal tyranny" on Friday after deciding to boycott this
weekend's
EU-Africa summit over the Zimbabwean president's presence in
Lisbon.
In an opinion piece for a Portuguese daily, Foreign Secretary
David Miliband
and Interational Development Secretary Douglas Alexander
insisted London was
committed to a new era in relations with Africa despite
the absence of any
British minister from the two-day summit beginning on
Saturday.
But they also took the opportunity to launch another broadside
against
Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence
in 1980,
for overseeing attacks on the opposition and muzzling press
critics.
"A solution for the problems of Zimbabwe needs to be found
urgently," said
the piece published in the Publico daily, describing the
regime in Harare as
a "brutal tyranny".
The ministers pledged that
Britain was "ready to help Zimbabwe rebuild its
economy and infrastructure
if freedom can be re-established".
While supporting elections which are
due to take place in March next year,
the ministers said the polls had to be
accompanied by a series of moves to
be seen as free and fair.
"The
abolition of draconian security laws, an end to violence against the
opposition, a respect for press freedom, independent observers and an
independent electoral commission" were all vital pre-requisites for the
vote, said the ministers.
Mugabe is usually subject to a travel ban
from the European Union after he
allegedly rigged his 2002 re-election. The
decision to invite him to the
summit in spite of the ban has prompted
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
not only to stay away but also not send
any minister to the gathering.
Miliband and Alexander however said they
supported the key objectives of the
summit, which they said offered an
opportunity "to strengthen our rleatons
and forge a better future for the
coming generations".
"The United Kingdom is ready to play its part to
ensure the strength,
productivity and durability of this vital
partnership."
The EU "should build a new relationship with Africa" and
the two continents
should look to work closer on key areas such as the fight
against poverty,
conflict resolution, climate change, human rights and
trade, they wrote.
Zimbabwe opposition slams Africa, EU over
Mugabe
Monster and Critics
Dec 7, 2007, 17:45 GMT
Lisbon - The African Union and
European Union have seriously damaged their
credibility by allowing
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to attend an
AU-EU summit in Lisbon,
Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists said as the
summit opened
Friday.
'We're disappointed by the blind solidarity with Mugabe shown by
African
leaders: they must realise the problems and suffering of the
Zimbabwean
people,' the exiled president of the Zimbabwe National Students'
Union,
Promise Mkwananzi, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'Most
African dictators and would-be dictators find it easier to stand in
solidarity with Mugabe than with their suffering peoples... This summit is
quite a disgrace, especially for the EU,' the chairman of the British branch
of opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Ephraim Tapa,
added.
Almost 80 African and European heads of government gathered in
Lisbon on
Friday evening to hold only the second AU-EU summit in history.
The aim of
the meeting was to create a new system of strategic cooperation
between the
continents.
But the summit risked being overshadowed by
the Mugabe affair. In September,
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said
that he would not attend if
Mugabe were invited.
A number of African
leaders retorted that they would not attend if Mugabe
were left
out.
'They regard Mugabe as the leader of the anti-colonial struggle, so
even
when he becomes tyrannical, they still support him,' the MDC's Elliot
Pfebve
explained.
As a result, EU leaders, headed by the government
of Portugal, which holds
the rotating presidency of the 27-member bloc,
decided that Mugabe should be
invited in order to maximize the presence of
African leaders, and lifted a
travel ban which they had imposed on him
following crackdowns on
pro-democracy campaigners in Zimbabwe.
That
decision was met with dismay by some Mugabe opponents.
'What shocks us is
Portugal's behaviour in inviting him. If Mugabe can twist
the EU's arm into
breaking its own sanctions, what can he do to his
powerless and
poverty-stricken people?' Tapa asked.
But not all condemned the
move.
'The EU took the correct position. Mugabe is not bigger than two
continents:
he can't be allowed to stop the summit,' Mkwananzi
said.
Mugabe has said that the allegations of mass human-rights abuses in
his
country, and the collapse of its once-flourishing economy, are part of a
plot against him by Britain and the US.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche
Presse-Agentur
Mugabe 'new
era' claims dismissed
BBC
7 December 2007, 16:05 GMT
Zimbabwe's main opposition group has dismissed
President Robert
Mugabe's statement that political talks were heralding the
"dawn of a new
era".
Morgan Tsvangirai's faction of the Movement
for Democratic Change says
Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF is using violence and denying
food aid to MDC
supporters.
Talks between Zanu-PF and the
Movement MDC are intended to prepare for
free and fair elections next
year.
Mr Tsvangirai said Zanu-PF was not sincere or committed to
dialogue.
He called the last talks on Sunday "paper discussions",
saying they
had achieved nothing.
His faction of the divided
MDC says violence is continuing unabated in
Zimbabwe and that state-owned
media were conducting a media blackout against
the opposition.
Boycott threat
The two factions of the MDC have united for the
purpose of the South
Africa-mediated talks.
Details of the
talks have been kept secret.
Mr Tsvangirai has threatened to
boycott presidential, parliamentary
and local elections in March 2008 if his
party believes Zanu-PF will rig
them.
The MDC has criticised
preparations for the elections as a shambles,
saying the national voters'
registration must be overhauled to remove the
names of dead
people.
But Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairman George Chiweshe
said on
Thursday that work had start on drawing up constituency
boundaries.
"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.
The party MDC constitutional changes agreed with Mr
Mugabe's
government enacted and political violence against opposition
supporters
curbed before next year's elections.
On Tuesday, Mr
Mugabe said in his state of the nation address that the
two parties'
dialogue represented constructive engagement across the
political divide and
a narrowing of differences.
He said the talks represented the "dawn
of a new era".
Lisbon summit - Arrest Mugabe, don't embrace him
EU-AU conference betrays
the people of Zimbabwe
Portugal should honour its human rights commitments by
arresting Mugabe
Mugabe does not have immunity from prosecution for
crimes such as torture
London – 7 December 2007
"The Portuguese
government should instruct its police to arrest President
Mugabe on charges
of torture when he arrives in Lisbon this weekend for the
EU-African Union
summit," urged human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
"To allow Mugabe
to attend the summit unimpeded would be a tragic betrayal
of the long
suffering people of Zimbabwe. Torture is a crime under
international law and
President Mugabe should be prosecuted
"Mugabe has massacred more black
Africans than even the murderous apartheid
regime in South Africa. His
tyrannical government is guilty of detention
without trial, torture, rape,
extra-judicial killings, media censorship,
financial corruption, election
fraud, mass starvation and the violent
suppression of strikes and
protests.
"Portugal has a duty to enforce the UN Convention Against
Torture 1984,
which it has ratified and pledged to uphold.
"The
Convention Against Torture has universal jurisdiction. It allows any
signatory state to arrest and put on trial any person who authorises,
commits or acquiesces in the infliction of torture anywhere in the
world.
"There is strong evidence from Amnesty International and other
human rights
groups that President Mugabe has sanctioned and colluded with
acts of
torture, contrary to international law.
"He should be
arrested and put on trial, in the same way that President
Milosevic of
Yugoslavia was tried in The Hague.
"Contrary to diplomatic convention and
some controversial, disputed legal
rulings, Mugabe does not have absolute
immunity from prosecution as a
serving Head of State.
"International
human rights law and legal precedents have established that
Presidents can
be indicted for gave crimes against humanity, such as
torture," added Mr
Tatchell.
See the article and detailed documentation below.
More
information: Peter Tatchell 020 7403 1790
Note: Peter Tatchell will not
be going to Lisbon for the EU-AU Summit.
Why Mugabe does not have
immunity from prosecution for torture
By Peter
Tatchell
International law increasingly no longer accepts the right of
Heads of State
to enjoy absolute immunity for grave human rights abuses,
such as torture.
This legal evolution began with the Versailles Treaty of
1919. The signatory
nations accepted that Heads of State cannot plead they
are above the law
when they stand accused of "offences against international
morality".
Article 227 of the Treaty set the precedent in international law
that Heads
of State are not immune from prosecution, when it arraigned the
German
Emperor, William II.
The 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal reiterated
this precedent by ruling the top Nazi
leaders, including Karl Doenitz,
Hitler's successor as German leader, did
not enjoy immunity for crimes
against humanity. Doenitz was found guilty and
sentenced to 10 years
jail.
Principle Three of the Nuremberg Principles declared: "The fact
that a
person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under
international
law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official
does not
relieve him from responsibility under international
law".
For any country to renege on the Nuremberg Principles would be a
monstrous
betrayal of the millions who perished in the Holocaust and the
millions more
who sacrificed their lives to end the tyranny of the Third
Reich.
The Nuremberg ruling that government leaders can be held
accountable was
reconfirmed with the enactment of the UN Convention Against
Torture (UNCAT)
1984. Article 4 requires each state party to ensure that
"all acts of
torture" are criminal offences under domestic law.
This
criminalisation must apply to an act by "any person" that "constitutes
complicity or participation in torture". UNCAT grants no exemptions to Heads
of State.
These precedents were given further practical effect by the
International
Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia when it indicted
Slobodan
Milosevic on 26 May 1999, while he was the serving Head of State of
Yugoslavia. If Milosevic can be indicted, even though he was President at
the time, why can't Mugabe?
The UN Rome Statute of 1998, ratified by
the EU member states, created the
International Criminal Court. Article 27
explicitly declares that Heads of
States cannot plead immunity for crimes
against humanity, such as torture:
"Official capacity as a Head of
State…shall in no case exempt a person from
criminal responsibility under
this Statute".
Is it acceptable for EU members to sign up the principle
of universal
accountability and then refuse to honour it?
Continuing
the trend to void immunity for Heads of State for grave human
rights abuses,
the Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, was indicted on 4 June
2003. Despite
being President, he was served an arrest warrant on charges of
"serious
violations of international humanitarian law".
Why is there one law for
President Taylor and another for President Mugabe?
The double standards
over Head of State immunity reached their zenith during
the 2003 Iraq war,
with two US attempts - on 20 March and 7 April - to
assassinate the then
Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.
Western governments asserted the lawfulness
of these attempts.
How can a Head of State be lawfully assassinated, but
not lawfully
prosecuted for crimes against humanity? If it is legitimate to
assassinate a
President, then surely a President can be put on
trial?
In Mugabe's case, the EU has already agreed that his state
immunity can be
legitimately restricted. The EU travel ban on Mugabe is a
punitive
abrogation of his immunity as Head of State. It is directed against
him in
his official capacity as President of a regime that violates human
rights on
a massive scale. This sanction is an acknowledgement that Heads of
State do
not enjoy absolute immunity.
They should, and can, be held to
account for grave crimes.
If Mugabe's immunity can be curtailed by a
travel ban, why can't he be
called to account in a court of law for
violating the internationally agreed
prohibition on the use of
torture?
Ends
.................
Title: Behind the mask of
remittances
Author: Firoze Manji
Category: Africa General
Date:
12/6/2007
Source: Pambazuka News 331
Source Website: www.pambazuka.org
Summary &
Comment: The author looks at remittances and suggests there are
grounds to
question their overall value as a vehicle for development or
social
progress.
DN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Behind
the mask of remittances
How often do we hear the phrase "remittances to
Africa are a key source of
development funding"? The volume of funds being
remitted to Africa are
certainly impressive. In 2005, we are told, "they
totalled $188
billion-twice the amount of official assistance developing
countries
received. Moreover, there is evidence that such flows are
underreported.
Indeed, remittances through informal channels could add at
least 50 percent
to global recorded flows. Most of the reported flows go to
regions other
than sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but SSA has still been part of
the overall
rising global trend. Between 2000 and 2005, remittances to the
region
increased by more than 55 percent, to nearly $7 billion, whereas they
increased for developing countries as a group by 81 percent." (Gupta et al
2007).
Can such remittances be equated with 'development funding'?
What is the
evidence that this contributes significantly to the elimination
of poverty?
And if remittances of funds from workers in the North to their
families in
the South be considered as part of the infrastructure of
'development', then
should not remittances of funds from the South to the
North be also be
considered as part of the equation?
The overwhelming
majority of studies demonstrate that remittances are
primarily used by
households and families to help them survive the
inadequate incomes that
they already have. In times of crises, such
supplementary income is used to
"smooth household consumption and welfare".
For the most part, these funds
are used for consumption and payments for
education, healthcare needs and
food for subsistence. In other words,
remittances are primarily used to
supplement income because wages or income
from agricultural production,
petty-commodity production or 'jua kali'
trade, or whatever activity people
are engaged in to 'make a living' is
inadequate. Remittances are not
primarily used to create employment or
develop new initiatives.
The
reality is that the majority of rural families in Africa have long been
dependent on the ability of members of their families who have jobs in urban
centres to be able to remit a portion of their wages to help their families
cope with impoverishment. This lies at the very heart of the system of
underdevelopment that is characteristic of neo-colonial / post-apartheid
economies as it was in the colonial and apartheid economies.
There is
a close association between remittances and the maintenance of
prevalence of
low wages in Africa. One of the crucial determinants of low
wages is the
social cost of the reproduction of labour: from the employers
point of view,
the less it costs to enable the wage earner to survive and
reproduce, the
lower the wage needs to be. And the more people there are
that are
unemployed - the larger the 'reserve army of labour' - the harder
it is for
the worker to demand better wages, especially if they are unable
to organise
to put pressure on employers. If the families of workers are
eking out an
existence on marginalised land, a few pennies in the form of
remittances
from the employed worker makes all the difference.
When migrant workers
(either transiently away from home or with more
permanent residency in
countries where wages are better) are able to
supplement the cost of
maintaining their families through remittances, then
what they are doing is
not only helping their families survive: they are
also ensuring the
maintenance of their families at no additional cost to
their employer or the
state. For the recipient, of course, these remittances
are a lifeline since
they have no other means of surviving - especially in
the lean
times.
But is this development? Surely not. Surely it is subsistence,
barely
enabling people keeping their head above the water. It is
'development' only
if we were to consider that development is not about
social progress but
about providing charitable support to the poor.
Remittances are essentially
an individualised social support mechanism
without which there would be even
greater misery.
Now supposing the
same funds were used, instead, to support people to
organise for better
living wages, for better social services, for better
housing and healthcare.
Such a use of remittances would certainly contribute
to social progress, to
real development. So long as remittances play only
the role of providing
charitable support, they perform the role of shoring
up an existing unjust
system that keeps people poor. Worse still, there is a
potential for
disabling Africa's people from becoming organised actors who
can determine
their own future.
As Paulo Freire (1970) put it: ". charity constrains
the fearful and
subdued, the 'rejects of life', to extend their trembling
hands. True
generosity lies in striving so these hands - whether of
individuals or
entire people - need be extended less and less in
supplication, so that more
and more they become human hands which work and,
working, transform the
world." Do remittances really help human hands
transform the world?
But even if we were to accept that remittances may
be legitimately
considered as 'development funding' or as part of the
infrastructure of
development, then surely movements of funds in the
opposite direction - from
South to the North - should also be taken into
account. It is surprising
this aspect is systematically ignored by those
obsessed with promoting the
apparent benefits of remittances. When Africans
send funds from the North to
the South, this is called remittances. When
multinationals remit profits to
the North, or when countries in the South
are made to remit a part of their
gross domestic product to the banks in the
North, somehow this is not
considered as (negative) remittances. If
movements of funds in one direction
are to be taken into account in the
process of development, then surely
movements in the opposite direction also
need to be taken into account.
Surely, what is sauce for the goose is good
for the gander?
Third World repayments of $340 billion each year flow
northwards to service
a $2.2 trillion debt, more than five times the G8's
development aid budget
(Dembele 2006). At more than $10 billion/year since
the early 1970s,
collectively, the citizens of Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, the
DRC, Angola and
Zambia have been especially vulnerable to the overseas drain
of their
national wealth. As Brussels-based debt campaigner Eric Toussaint
concludes,
'Since 1980, over 50 Marshall Plans worth over $4.6 trillion have
been sent
by the peoples of the Periphery to their creditors in the Centre'
(quoted by
Patrick Bond 2005).
Research by the Tax Justice Network
estimates that a staggering $11.5
trillion has been siphoned 'offshore' by
wealthy individuals, held in tax
havens where they are shielded from
contributing to government revenues.
"Around 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP
is moved offshore", writes John
Christensen (2006) of TJN, "As several
studies have suggested, this rate of
capital flight means that Africa - a
continent we are continually told is
irrevocably indebted - may actually be
a net creditor to the rest of the
world."
In comparison, then, to the
the wealth that is sucked out of Africa - which
far exceeds the total amount
of aid that comes from the North into Africa -
the net value of
'remittances' (movements in both direction) is negative.
There are
grounds, therefore, for questioning the overall value of
remittances in
development. That is not to say that sending money home
doesn't help our
families survive. Remittances remain essential for enabling
the impoverished
to cope with an unjust world that keeps them poor. But as a
vehicle for
social development and progress? I have my doubts.
*Firoze Manji is
co-editor of Pambazuka News and executive director of
Fahamu.
*
Please send comments to:
editor@pambazuka.org or
comment online
at:
http://www.pambazuka.org
References
Patrick
Bond (2005): Dispossessing Africa's Wealth. Pambazuka News:
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/30074
John
Christensen (2006). Tax Justice for Africa: A new development struggle:
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/31903
Demba
Moussa Dembele (2005), Aid dependence and the MDGs, Pambazuka News:
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/29376
Paulo
Freire (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Sanjeev Gupta, Catherine
Pattillo,
and Smita Wagh (2007): Making Remittances Work for Africa. Finance
and
Development 44 (2) 2007:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2007/06/gupta.htm
Gerrymandering a slap
in the face of dialogue as Zanu PF begins rigging process
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 07 December 2007 14:04
The
MDC distances itself from Zanu PF shenanigans and attempts to rig the
election next year. The party will only accept processes that are a result
of collectively agreed positions in the context of the on-going
dialogue.
The announcement by the Zanu PF's Electoral Commission (ZEC) that
it has
proceeded to delimit constituencies despite the on-going
SADC-brokered talks
is a major scandal that has shocked all Zimbabweans who
are determined to
have a free and fair poll next year. Zanu PF's latest
antics come in the
wake of a national executive meeting on Wednesday which
demanded that the
regime makes tangible deliverables to show their sincerity
in the dialogue
process. The party resolved that as part of the
deliverables, ZEC should be
reconstituted to institute a fresh voter
registration process and delimit
constituencies thereafter. ZEC's
composition is a scandal. It is staffed
with former military personnel, Zanu
PF functionaries and individuals whose
identities are suspect. Zanu PF doled
out 143 constituencies to rural areas
which are susceptible to intimidation
and manipulation. The remainder are
urban and peri-urban constituencies. The
MDC believes that the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission, as currently
constituted, has become a weapon to
puncture people's confidence in
electoral processes. Delimitation as a
process to enhance a free and fair
poll has been hijacked to suit Zanu PF's
interest against the spirit of the
dialogue process. Under Amendment No 18,
only a reconstituted ZEC should
engage in a fresh exercise of voter
registration and delimitation. It is
ironic that before the conclusion of
the talks, Zanu PF is nicodemously and
nocturnally imposing its will and
antics in an attempt to evade the obvious
people's harsh verdict in 2008.
The MDC calls on the region (SADC) and the
African Union (AU) in particular
and the international community at large to
put pressure on the regime to
stick to the spirit of dialogue and to respect
the will of the people. They
want independent electoral institutions and
electoral management bodies that
guarantee the safety of their vote. They
are not demanding the moon. They
simply want the regime to adhere to the
SADC guidelines on the conduct of
free and fair elections which demand that
a truly independent body must run
and manage elections. The people are
determined to have an election which
will change their lives, not just a
ritual of an election which yet again
produces a predetermined outcome. A
new Zimbabwe is only possible through
free and fair elections. A new
Zimbabwe, a new beginning. Now is the time!!!
Nelson Chamisa,
MP
Secretary for Information and Publicity
Specialists to investigate gun smuggling into SA
SABC
December 07,
2007, 16:45
Police have assembled a team of specialists to investigate
gun smuggling
into the country from Zimbabwe.
Yesterday police seized
50 firearms at OR Tambo International Airport. The
arms cache was found on
an international airliner that flew from Zimbabwe to
South Africa.
Spokesperson Dennis Adriao says investigations are continuing.
Meanwhile,
police announced yesterday that house robbery, business robbery
and truck
hijackings had increased in the six months from April to
September. Murder,
rape, attempted murder, assault with the intent to do
grievous bodily harm,
common assault, aggravated robbery and common robbery
were
down.
President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday acknowledged that the issue of
crime
needs urgent attention. He said he has taken a hard look at the entire
criminal justice system, but says communities have to come together in a
strong campaign against crime.
Zanu PF, MDC in showdown
Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
TALKS between the ruling Zanu PF and the main opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) entered a critical stage this week with
the two
parties resuming negotiations in Pretoria, South Africa, as they
race
against time to meet a new deadline in a week’s time.
Sources close to the talks said the two parties are now engaged in a
make-or-break phase of the talks, with discussions revolving around the
contentious final agenda item, the political climate, which has proved to be
a difficult issue for the negotiators. An inside source described the latest
developments as tantamount to "war".
"There is war at the
negotiating table now," a source close to the
talks said. "They have been
meeting every day in Harare before they went to
Pretoria, but things are
extremely difficult now. The jury is still out, but
this is the crunch time
and anything can happen."
The parties are battling over the
demilitarisation of state
institutions, the use of militias, abuse of state
food aid and traditional
chiefs, sanctions, land and hostile political
rhetoric. These issues have
polarised the negotiations again.
The full agenda includes the constitution, electoral laws, security
legislation, media laws and political climate.
The parties have
agreed on a draft constitution, electoral laws,
security and media laws,
although they would go back to put final touches on
these issues after
clearing the last item.
The comprehensive package would be taken to
parliament for
ratification and be implemented in terms of the agreed
transitional
mechanisms and dates.
Implementation of the
envisaged agreement is one of the sticking
points. For instance, Zanu PF may
accept a new constitution after the
elections, but the MDC wants it before
the polls.
The MDC also wants elections delayed until June next
year, but Zanu PF
wants them in March at all costs.
Reforming
the repressive laws has been convoluted. At least 11 drafts
were done on the
Public Order and Security Act as part of attempts to amend
the
law.
After intense debate, it was agreed that the Access to
Information and
Protection of Privacy Act would be amended to ensure that
the
government-controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC) would no
longer
have the discretion to deny journalists accreditation, sources
said.
Any journalist who applies will be automatically accredited,
although
those without accreditation would not have access to events like
government
press conferences or official functions where MIC cards would be
needed, it
was said.
Unaccredited journalists will be free to
work, but the need to access
press conferences and other things would compel
them to get registered. The
Broadcasting Act would now be amended to ensure
prospective private
broadcasters are not blocked through technicalities, it
was said. So far
even if the state broadcasting monopoly was stuck off by
the courts a few
years ago, government is still refusing to issue licences
to alternative
broadcasters.
Zanu PF is demanding that foreign
radio stations on shortwave be
restricted out of Zimbabwe. This includes
radio stations like VOA’s Studio 7
which broadcasts from Washington and SW
Radio Africa from London. The MDC
has no jurisdiction over these stations,
which complicates the talks.
The parties are also grappling with
other addendum issues on the
agenda like transitional mechanisms and the
date of elections – which will
come right at the end of the talks. This
controversial issue is likely to be
the most decisive part of dialogue
because while the negotiators are
generally agreed that polls may need to be
postponed to June or another
date, President Mugabe is insisting on the
March date, sources said.
Mugabe apparently thinks he stands a
better chance of winning in March
because the MDC is divided and does not
want to give it time to recover by
postponing elections.
Sources said Zanu PF negotiators have been told following reports that
they
are amenable to postponement of elections that there is no compromise
on
this issue.
Meanwhile, MDC representatives have taken the position
that if there
is no compromise on the date of elections, they would simply
walk out of the
talks, informed sources said. This is because the MDC
strongly feels there
is no adequate time to prepare for free and fair
elections between now and
March.
Preparations for elections
have been slow largely because of lack of
enough funding and logistical
problems. The MDC also wants six months from
the date of agreement to the
polls to ensure enough time to implement the
accord.
Evidence
that the MDC — at least the Morgan Tsvangirai faction — was
now geared for a
showdown over the talks emerged on Wednesday after the
group held an
extraordinary National Executive meeting and resolved to put
what amounts to
benchmarks on what the talks should achieve for them to be
considered
successful.
The MDC said it wants an immediate end to political
violence and use
of food a political weapon, a new voters’ roll, transparent
delimitation of
the constituencies, the need to reconstitute the Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission and monitoring of the elections by the international
community at
large.
The MDC is demanding Zimbabweans abroad
should be allowed to vote, an
issue Zanu PF wants to avoid at all costs.
Zanu PF has been arguing it would
not allow this because it is unable to
travel overseas to Europe, the United
States, Australia and New Zealand to
campaign due to travel bans. It has
been saying if the MDC wants those
abroad to vote it must first get the
sanctions removed to ensure that its
leaders are free to go and campaign.
The MDC also wants a new
constitution before the elections after it
backed Zanu PF’s constitutional
amendment to introduce political reforms
widely seen as part of Mugabe’s
survival plan.
However, as the Zimbabwe Independent has always
pointed out, Mugabe
and the Zanu PF politburo on September 5 took a position
that they would not
accept a new constitution before elections. This is
another issue which
might break the talks as well. Mugabe, evidently afraid
of the use of secret
ballot in his own party, fears if he fights polls under
a new constitution,
he could easily be defeated.
The strategy
for Zanu PF, sources said, is to make as little
concessions as possible to
ensure that the final agreement does not rock the
edifice. So far Zanu PF
has stuck to its game plan, while the MDC has made
concessions, like backing
Constitutional Amendment Number 18, without
reciprocation.
Mugabe does not miss an opportunity to thank the regional facilitator
of
talks South African President Thabo Mbeki for how the negotiations have
thus
far progressed. He repeated his gratitude to Mbeki during his state of
the
nation address on Tuesday. In September Mugabe told the UN General
Assembly
Mbeki had done a good job, leaving many wondering what really was
going on
behind-the-scenes.
At the September 5 Zanu PF politburo, Mugabe and
his deputy Joseph
Msika praised the ruling party negotiators for holding the
line in the
talks.
Mbeki was recently in the country to put
pressure of Mugabe and the
MDC to speed up talks which he wants finished
before his party conference
which starts on December 16 to 20.
Mbeki is facing imminent eviction from the ANC leadership by Jacob
Zuma and
negotiators fear this might affect talks unless they are completed
before
the ANC gathering.
The new deadline for talks in December 15, the
day when the Zanu PF
congress would be closing its congress, which means the
agreement, if
reached, would not be endorsed by the party’s highest
decision-making body
which would have approved the 18th constitutional
amendment.
Tsvangirai’s camp will meet on December 16 to review
progress on the
talks and the group might reject the agreement unless
negotiators wring
serious concessions from Zanu PF. Tsvangirai has of late
been publicly
expressing doubts about the talks. Insiders say the other
danger is the
agreement might be rejected by the parties or their
principals.
Sources said Zanu PF, sources said, does not mind
making concessions
on electoral law reforms, Posa, Aippa, as well as the
Broadcasting Act as
long as this would not affect its grip on
power.
Sources said although Zanu PF and the MDC have covered a lot
of ground
so far — having completed a new draft constitution and agreed on
all but one
item on the agenda — there have been serious hurdles along the
way which
have pushed the talks deadline from September to next
week.
Zim, DRC in power for security deal
Zim Independent
Kuda
Chikwanda
ZIMBABWE will receive free electricity until March
next year from the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in return for
increased military support
to prop up security around President Joseph
Kabila, the Independent has
learnt.
Under the arrangement, Zesa
Holdings will continue to receive 80
Megawatts (MW) from DRC’s power utility
SNEL but will not be required to pay
for the imports under the
arrangement.
Instead Zimbabwe will be required to send in more
military personnel
to the DRC to assist Kabila’s security team and this will
be taken as
payment. Zimbabwe has maintained its presence in the DRC,
through a small
team that has helped guard Kabila since the death of his
father, Laurent
Desire Kabila who was assassinated by his bodyguards in
1999.
Sources close to the developments said the deal was discussed
some
weeks back when a high level delegation from the DRC visited Zimbabwe.
The
delegation is expected back in the country soon. The delegation
reportedly
met with Energy and Power Development minister Mike Nyambuya,
Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono and the Joint Operations
Command
(JOC) and held discussions on a wide range of matters, including
power
supplies.
According to the sources, two defence chiefs in
JOC put the matter on
the table for discussion with the DRC delegations and
discussed the matter
in-depth.
"Talks are now at an advanced
stage but in principle there was an
agreement. I do not see anything that
should stop the deal as both sides
were of mutual consent to the proposal,"
said one of the sources.
According to the sources, Snel would have
supplied Zimbabwe with more
power had it not been for technical constraints
in the generation of power
in the DRC and its wheeling to
Zimbabwe.
"As a result of the limitations, the current deal is for
between 80 to
100 MW of power. But engagements are ongoing and new deals
could be struck
soon," he said.
A government spokesperson,
Deputy Minister of Information and
Publicity, Bright Matonga refused to shed
light on the matter.
"Those are issues of national security and
national interest," Matonga
said.
He poured scorn over
suggestions that Zimbabwe would prop up Kabila’s
protection.
"The DRC troops are capable of protecting their own president. We have
very
good relations with the DRC. Remember we gave them the freedom and
independence they enjoy today. Still the matter remains a very private
issue," Matonga said.
Zesa Holdings chief executive Ben
Rafemoyo would not be drawn into
commenting on the matter.
"On
those discussions — if ever they took place — I have to refer you
to
government and the minister (Nyambuya) specifically," he said.
But
Nyambuya denied that he had met with the DRC delegation.
"I did not
meet with any DRC delegation," he said before hanging up.
Questions
sent to the army had not been responded to at the time of
going to press
despite assurances from one Mushakavanhu from the Zimbabwe
Defence Forces
(ZDF) that a military spokesperson would do so by end of day
yesterday.
Gono was said to be out of the country with his
personal assistant
saying he would only be able to respond to the questions
on his return.
Rafemoyo said he was not aware if any such deal had been
reached as Zesa was
not responsible for all payments for power made to
suppliers such as Snel.
He said Zesa had been making partial
payments for its supplies from
foreign currency paying clients and that the
balance was being paid by the
central bank.
"Some of the money
we pay from revenue generated by foreign currency
paying customers, the rest
is paid for by RBZ," he said.
RBZ has played a central role in
Zesa’s affairs, sourcing the foreign
currency to pay for importation of
power from neighbouring countries.
Four months back, it was
revealed that the central bank had paid over
US$100 million for Zesa and
troubled state airline Air Zimbabwe to pay for
the debts.
Rafemoyo revealed that DRC would soon be increasing its output to
Zimbabwe
from the current 80 MW to 100 MW in the medium term before
increasing 300 MW
once work being carried out on the Inga project is
complete.
Zimbabwe requires between 1800 MW and 1850 MW of electricity daily.
Electricity generation falls far short forcing Zesa to import an
average of
between 500 MW and 600 MW of power daily to meet demand.
MDC factions in talks discord
Zim Independent
Constantine
Chimakure
SHARP differences have emerged between the two MDC
formations over the
on-going Sadc-initiated talks between the opposition and
Zanu PF, with the
Morgan Tsvangirai-led camp this week making seven demands
the government
should meet before the dialogue can produce an
agreement.
Sources said it was apparent that the Tsvangirai faction
was edging
closer to pulling out of the talks facilitated by South Africa
President
Thabo Mbeki alleging that the ruling party was negotiating in bad
faith.
The sources said on the other hand, the Arthur Mutambara
faction was
satisfied with the progress of the dialogue and wanted to
soldier on hoping
that a concrete agreement would be reached by December 15
— the talks’
deadline.
"There are differences between the two
factions on the approach to the
talks," one of the sources said. "The
Tsvangirai group believes in megaphone
negotiations. You cannot have a
successful dialogue that way."
Mutambara faction secretary-general
Welshman Ncube and his Tsvangirai
camp counterpart Tendai Biti left Harare
for Pretoria, South Africa, on
Wednesday for the continuation of the
talks.
The Mutambara faction this week publicly accused Tsvangirai
of trying
to negotiate through the media and rallies despite the fact that
when the
dialogue commenced, the MDC and Zanu PF agreed to a confidentiality
clause.
Ncube told the media that the parties to the talks should
not
"negotiate through the media or at rallies". The Mutambara camp says
talks
are progressing very well.
Tsvangirai’s 46-member
national executive met in the capital on
Wednesday and resolved that the
government should introduce a new
constitution before next year’s harmonised
presidential, legislative and
council elections.
The executive
demanded that the government should reconstitute the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission that would compile a new voters roll and that
delimitation of
constituencies be done according to what was agreed during
the
talks.
It resolved that Zanu PF must cease acts of hostility,
violence and
publicly denounce violence, and sanction the resumption of
operations of
closed independent newspapers and guarantee freedom of
journalists.
The party also demanded that the Public Order and
Security Act, the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the
Broadcasting Act
and Electoral Laws should be amended to level the political
playing field.
Nelson Chamisa, the party spokesperson, said the
executive also
resolved that "the international community must be allowed to
operate
unimpeded" in monitoring of elections and that all Zimbabweans,
including
those in the diaspora, must be allowed to exercise their
democratic right to
vote in the upcoming elections.
"The
national executive resolved that neither an agreement nor a free
and fair
election would be possible unless there is delivery on the
tangibles listed
above," Chamisa said. "The executive also urged the party
leadership to
remain engaged and continue consulting with civic partners in
the quest for
national solution to the current crisis."
Chamisa said the
executive, while acknowledging the ongoing talks in
Pretoria, said "the
tangible imperatives and deliverables must be met
pending the meeting of the
national council of the party on the 16th of
December
2007" to
review the whole progress of the dialogue.
Tsvangirai has over the
past three weeks being complaining that the
talks were progressing at a slow
pace with nothing on offer for the
opposition because Zanu PF was being
insincere.
He went to Kampala, Uganda, on November 21 where he
addressed a
Commonwealth People’s Forum and appealed to African leaders and
the
international community to pressure the Zimbabwe government to ensure
free
and fair presidential, parliamentary and local government elections
next
year.
Tsvangirai alleged that Zanu PF sponsored violence
against opposition
forces was escalating in the country.
A day
later, he met Mbeki in Harare and repeated the allegations. At
the weekend,
the former firebrand trade unionist told a rally in Glen Norah
that that the
Sadc initiated talks were mere "paper discussions."
Tsvangirai
reportedly said: "We thought we were negotiating for free
and fair elections
and a new constitution. Yet they (Zanu PF) don’t want a
new constitution.
The question that confronts us today is: ‘What is in the
talks for
us’?"
Sources in the party said there was pressure on Tsvangirai to
abandon
the talks on allegations that Zanu PF was unleashing violence on
opposition
and civic leaders and activists, and that the ruling party was
unfairly
distributing food relief.
However, Biti this week said
his party would not pull out of the talks
despite the MDC’s
concerns.
"We are not pulling out of the talks. Why should we? He
(Tsvangirai)
was just telling people certain things that we expect from the
talks," Biti
was quoted saying.
Msika strips Mutasa of land offer powers
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
VICE-PRESIDENT Joseph Msika has stripped
Lands, Land Reform and
Resettlement minister Didymus Mutasa of powers to
issue offer letters to
prospective beneficiaries as the row over continued
land invasions
intensifies.
Highly placed sources said Msika,
known for his stance against the
continued invasion of productive
white-owned commercial farms convinced his
fellow members of the presidium
to withdraw the powers on the basis of
complaints of gross irregularities
lodged by a number of provinces.
Minister of State for Special
Affairs Responsible for the Land and
Resettlement Programme Flora Buka is
now responsible for issuing offer
letters but only to those beneficiaries
with recommendations from the
district and provincial land
committees.
Policy Implementation minister Webster Shamu was
mandated to implement
recommendations of the Mashonaland West provincial
leadership to nullify
Mutasa’s recent land offer letters and evict all the
new beneficiaries
allocated farms unprocedurally.
Mashonaland
West, Mashonaland East and Manicaland have been leading
the campaign to stop
the continued evictions arguing that they were
counterproductive to both
government objectives of mass production and Zanu
PF goals of winning next
year’s joint presidential and parliamentary
elections.
Sources
said Shamu on Wednesday took his first step to implement the
recommendations
when he met Mutasa to agree on how to deal with the issue.
"Mutasa
only acknowledged that he was stopped from issuing any further
offer letters
but this did not nullify those he had already send out," the
source
said.
Contacted for comment Shamu switched off his mobile phone
after this
reporter introduced himself. His mobile went unanswered
thereafter.
If the Mashonaland West province recommendations are
implemented, more
than 70 white farmers could be spared continued harassment
and invasions of
their properties. The development would imply that a number
of white
farmers, facing litigation following their failure to vacate the
land after
eviction notices expired at the end of September, might not be
taken to
court.
Mashonaland West province last month
recommended that the remaining
white farmers be allowed to continue farming
on the small pieces of land
still in their possession because they worked
and supported the people in
the local community.
They
recommended the reversion of Rydings School to the community
including the
amount of $800 million which was misappropriated when the
school was taken
over by Gerald Mlotshwa. The leadership also sought the
removal of those
members of the Zimbabwe National Army, the police, and
senior civil servants
who illegally occupied farms in Mashonaland West
province.
They
called for the nullification of the offer letters issued to Noma
Mliswa for
Summerhill Farm, Rotina Mavhunga (the diesel n’anga) for Baguta
Extension,
Brigadier General Dube for Grand Parade and Brigadier Mtisi for
Folliot farm
and their eviction from the said farms.
2008 budget bereft
Zim Independent
By Best
Doroh
THE 2008 national budget, whose thrust is "geared towards
stabilising
the economy, increasing productivity and lowering inflation",
was crafted
under very difficult conditions, emanating from rising
inflation, shortages
of foreign currency and energy and continued economic
decline.
Despite acknowledging the gravity of these challenges, the
Minister of
Finance surprisingly predicted that the economy will recover
from an
estimated decline of 5,7% in 2007 to register a positive growth rate
of 4%
in 2008.
However, the International Monetary Fund, in its
October 2007 World
Economic Outlook, predicted that the Zimbabwean economy
will decline by 3,6%
in real terms in 2008. Economic growth in sub-Saharan
Africa (excluding
Zimbabwe) is expected to increase from 6,1% in 2007 to
6,8% in 2008
underpinned by economic stability, solid capital injections and
strong
international demand for primary resources from Africa, particularly
commodities.
Global economic growth, on the other hand, is
expected to decline from
5,2% in 2007 to 4,8% in 2008 as a result of ongoing
financial and credit
crisis in the US and high oil prices.
The
Finance minister’s economic growth projections for 2008 are
premised on an
anticipated, but unspecified, growth in the SMEs sector as
well as a
recovery in the agricultural sector, driven by the government’s
ongoing Farm
Mechanisation Programme and continued funding support under
Aspef.
In fact, the minister seems to have based the 2008
projections on a
continued recovery in tobacco, groundnuts, soyabeans,
sunflower and
horticulture sub-sectors, whose output is estimated to
increase by 39%, 51%,
46%, 24% and 3%, respectively, in 2007.
However, given that activity in the other real sectors, particularly
mining,
manufacturing and services is anticipated to remain depressed in the
short
to medium term, and considering that the agricultural sector
contributes
only 15%-20% of national output, the minister’s overall economic
growth
projections are rather optimistic.
In fact, the mining sector
continues to be adversely affected by
shortages of skills,
undercapitalisation and smuggling of minerals, with
gold, nickel, asbestos
and chrome output reported by the Chamber of Mines to
have remained
depressed during the first 9 months of 2007. The minister
appears to believe
that the RBZ-initiated small-scale miners
recapitalisation programme and the
budget allocation of $6,3 trillion
(US$1,9 million using the Old Mutual
Implied Exchange rate) to the Mining
Industry Loan Fund will resuscitate
capacity utilisation in the capital
intensive sector.
The
US$1.9 million seems too little to effectively cater for the
country’s many
small scale miners, considering that large entities like
Murowa have
earmarked funds amounting to US$250 million for expansion of
only one
mine.
In addition, in spite of the negative inflationary impact of
previous
production sector support facilities such as PSF and Aspef, the
minister
hopes that the Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention (Bacossi)
fund
will successfully rejuvenate activity in the manufacturing sector and
result
in improved production levels and economic growth for the
sector.
However, although data on the manufacturing sector
continues to lag
behind, with latest RBZ figures indicating that the sector
declined by 7% in
2005, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries noted
earlier in the year
that the sector was operating at 30% capacity. Thus,
given the adverse
effects of the foregoing foreign currency shortages and
price controls, the
manufacturing sector is expected to continue
underperforming in the short to
medium term. In addition, distortions in the
manufacturing sector are
expected to adversely affect activity in sectors
such as distribution, hotel
and leisure, among others.
Despite
the 26% increase in tourist arrivals from 1,5 million during
the first nine
months of 2006 to two million during the corresponding period
of 2007, the
number of tourists from major foreign currency generating
markets like
Europe and America remains depressed. In fact, mainland Africa
accounted for
92% of total arrivals in 2007, up from 91% in 2006. The
continued decline in
tourist arrivals from European and American markets is,
however, no longer
entirely due to negative international publicity, but it
is also caused by
the overvalued exchange rate
Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes advocates the
prison of Robert Mugabe
European Union-Africa Summit
The same political socialist defended also that
many of the African leaders
that are going to be present in the summit
EU-AFRICA, of Saturday and
Sunday, "should be arrested" for the
"mismanagement and for the repression
that they represent in their
countries".
Lisbon (Mozambique Channel / TSF) - Many African leaders
should be arrested,
said yesterday in Lisbon, the socialist representative
to the European
parliament, Ana Gomes. She actually cited Robert Mugabe,
president of
Zimbabwe, and the leader of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi. She
mentioned Cape
Verde as an exception within the PALOP (African Countries of
Portuguese
Official Language).
Ana Gomes the Portugueses ambassador
in Indonesia during the perturbed
period in which that country occupied
neighboring East Timor. She was one
of the main mediators in the
negotiations that resulted in the liberation of
Alexandre Kay Rala "Xanana"
Gusmăo one of the main activists for the
independence of his country, then
in the hands of the dictatorship of
Suharto, and that it would come become
the first president of the Republic
of East Timor you Read or Timor Lorosai
and is at present the prime
minister.
In statements to the respected
Portuguese radio TSF, the MEP Ana Gomes
considers that many of the African
leaders that are going to participate in
the Summit EU-AFRICA, being held on
Saturday and Sunday, should be behind
bars.
The European MP cited the
case of Cape Verde as an exception amongst the
PALOP (African Countries of
Portuguese Official Language). Everyone of the
others defended the presence
of Robert Mugabe in Lisbon despite Mozambique
having opted for a discrete
diplomacy although without signs of
disagreement.
"Some are good
examples that try and one of them that isticks out obviously
in the
lusophone world is clearly the representation of Cape Verde that is
an
exemplary country", she said.
Ana Gomes explained still the importance of
the conference about Human
Rights organized by the Amnesty International in
which she took part
yesterday together with "defenders of human
rights".
"The are persons that in their countries, in very difficult
conditions, risk
their lives and prison for the defence of human rights and
ti fight for open
government that is acountable", remembered.
The
president of Zimbabwe arrived late last night in Portuguese capital.
Diasporans Remit Us$361 Million
The Herald (Harare) Published by
the government of Zimbabwe
7 December 2007
Posted to the web 7
December 2007
Harare
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora sent home US$361
million last year excluding
hand-in-hand transfers, representing 7,2 percent
of the country's 2006 GDP,
according to data compiled by the International
Fund for Agricultural
Development.
IFAD is a specialised United
Nations agency whose goal is to empower poor
rural women and men in
developing countries to achieve higher incomes and
improve food security. It
was borne out of the 1974 World Food Conference,
and began full-scale
operations three years later.
Of the 30 million sub-Saharan Africans
in the Diaspora, Zimbabwe has an
estimated 3,5 million people. The fluid
migration within West Africa, for
instance, is partly due to the region's
status as a geopolitical and
economic unit, but also by a common history,
culture and ethnicity among
many groupings. There is also significant
international migration to former
European colonial powers, such as France,
England, the Netherlands and
Italy, among other
countries.
Remittances in Africa as a whole totalled US$40 billion with
Southern Africa
making up about 11 percent or US$4,4 billion. South Africa
had the highest
flow in the region with US$1,4 billion or 0,6 percent of
that country's GDP,
Zambians sent around US$201 million, representing 1,8
percent of that
country's GDP, more than what the Zambian government
collects from mineral
royalties. North Africa had the highest with
remittances just over US$17
billion IFAD said that the importance of
remittances to poverty alleviation
is obvious, but the potential multiplier
effect on economic growth and
investment is also significant. The driving
force behind this phenomenon is
an estimated 150 million migrants worldwide
who sent more than US$300
billion to their families in developing countries
during 2006, typically
US$100, US$200 or US$300 at a time, through more than
1,5 billion separate
financial transactions.
These funds are used
primarily to meet immediate family needs (consumption)
but a significant
portion is also available for savings, credit mobilisation
and other forms
of investment. IFAD, however, said that the money transfers
face two main
challenges: high rates of informality particularly within the
continent, and
a regulatory environment that foments monopolies. In turn,
transfer costs
are higher and remittance senders obtain less value for their
money.
These high rates of informality have led to the growth of the
parallel
market where higher premiums are obtained as compared to the
official
market. Remittances, the portion of migrant workers' earnings sent
back home
to their families, have been a critical means of financial support
for
generations. But, for the most part, these flows have historically been
"hidden in plain view", often uncounted and even ignored.
Cricket-West Indies sweep to series win over Zimbabwe
Reuters
Fri 7 Dec
2007, 15:49 GMT
HARARE, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Half-centuries by
Runako Morton and Marlon Samuels
guided West Indies to a one-day series win
over Zimbabwe at Bulawayo on
Friday.
West Indies won the fourth match
by five wickets to take an unbeatable 3-1
lead in the five-match
series.
Zimbabwe scored 232-9 after being put in to bat, and West Indies
replied
with 234-5 to win with three overs to spare.
Morton scored 79
while Samuels made 62, and they shared 105 runs for the
third
wicket.
Vusi Sibanda and Hamilton Masakadza put on 167, Zimbabwe's
biggest opening
stand in one-day matches.
The previous record of 161
was set by the Flower brothers, Grant and Andy,
against Bangladesh in
1997.
West Indies had an opportunity to end the partnership at 15 in the
seventh
over when Sibanda, on eight, was dropped by Dwayne Bravo at first
slip off
fast bowler Daren Powell.
Instead, Sibanda and Masakadza
kept the runs flowing until the 37th over,
when leg-spinner Rawl Lewis had
Masakadza stumped by wicketkeeper Denesh
Ramdin for 80.
Bravo
eventually made amends in the 43rd over, when his throw from cover to
the
non-striker's end ran out Sibanda for 96.
Brendan Taylor's 26 not out was
the home side's only other score in double
figures as nine wickets fell for
65 runs in 13 overs.
Fast bowler Jerome Taylor profitted handsomely from
Zimbabwe's inept batting
by taking 5-48.
West Indies slipped to 62-2
in the 14th over of their reply, but Morton and
Samuels steadied the innings
with their century stand.
Bravo hastened the end of the match by scoring
an unbeaten 41 off as many
balls.
The last match of the series will
be played in Bulawayo on Sunday.
(Reporting by Telford Vice in Durban,
editing by Trevor Huggins in London)