African leaders react to events in Egypt - Godfrey Mwampembwa
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Edward Jones Friday 11 February
2011
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s troubled coalition government marks its
second
anniversary today and although it is credited with mending a broken
economy,
talk of it winding down to allow elections sometime this year has
stoked
fears of a resurgence in violence that swept the last poll in
2008.
The troubled southern African country has witnessed a spate of
politically
motivated violence in suburbs in the capital Harare and
President Robert
Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s parties are
exchanging blame
for the skirmishes.
The unity government, which was
brokered by former South African president
Thabo Mbeki, was meant to heal
political wounds after a cycle of electoral
violence, which critics say
mostly targeted Mugabe’s rivals in the
opposition and civil
society.
Ordinary Zimbabweans who had seen their country return to normal
in the last
24 months, including GDP growth and an end to shortages of food,
fuel and
foreign exchange, now dread that another election will roll back
the
economic gains brought about by the coalition and return the country to
violence.
They may not be wrong, after ZANU-PF supporters attacked
their MDC opponents
in the last two weeks, which culminated in looting of a
downtown shopping
complex in Harare by youths supporting Mugabe’s
controversial empowerment
programme on Tuesday.
“All the two years of
peace we had enjoyed will go to waste if we have
another election and
already with these reports of violence in the suburbs
it doesn’t look good,”
said Tawanda Makarau, a 36-year-old who operates a
flea market stall in
downtown Harare.
At the flea market, a huge campaign poster of Mugabe
adorns the entrance and
Makarau said ZANU-PF youths had forcibly put it
there.
The unity government has hobbled along, with tensions between
Mugabe and
Tsvangirai over how to equally share executive
power.
Mugabe has rejected MDC demands to swear-in its treasurer general
Roy Bennet
and five of its members as provincial governors and has refused
to fire
central bank chief and financial adviser Gideon Gono and attorney
general
Johannes Tomana, who has publicly said he is a ZANU-PF card carrying
member.
Mugabe, on his part accuses the MDC of not doing enough to
convince Western
countries to remove a European Union travel ban and
financial freeze on his
close allies and United States sanctions and that he
would not yield to the
MDC demands until the sanctions are
removed.
Police Complicit
Critics say the unity government has
failed to end human rights abuses and
to reform the security services, whose
top brass has vowed that it will only
recognize Mugabe as
president.
The MDC accuses police of complicit in the recent spate of
violence that has
gripped the capital but the law enforcement agents have
hit back, saying the
former opposition party is responsible for the violence
but rushes to play
victim.
“Such unlawful actions (political
violence) violate the Global Political
Agreement and demonstrate that the
undermining of the rule of law has not
changed fundamentally,” the United
States embassy in Harare said in a
statement yesterday, in which it said it
was alarmed by the violence.
State-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
and other government-owned
media, which are pro-Mugabe, have said the unity
government expires today
and that Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara
(who represents a splinter
MDC faction but has been rejected by that
formation) will meet to decide
whether to extend its life.
Mugabe has
previously said he was reluctant to prolong the tenure of the
coalition and
wants elections this year even before a referendum on a new
constitution but
the process is nearly a year behind.
Under the global political
agreement, which was signed in September 2008,
the leaders of the three
political parties in the unity government will meet
after a new constitution
has been adopted to decide whether to continue or
call
elections.
Under the original timeline a referendum would have been held
last month.
"If we start talking about elections the first thing that
comes to people's
minds is the trauma they went through in 2008," said Okay
Machisa, director
of Zimbabwe Human Rights Association.
"We should
(instead) be talking about reforms in the security sector, the
media and
electoral systems," he added.
Military Deploys
Already the MDC
says hundreds of its members have fled their homes after
attacks from
ZANU-PF supporters in urban centres, the party’s stronghold and
are being
put in safe houses.
Investigations by ZimOnline have shown the military
deploying in the rural
areas in large numbers ahead of elections and last
week senior military
officers, including Air Force Vice Air Marshal Henry
Muchena, a staunch
Mugabe ally who is now heading the executive in the
ZANU-PF commissariat,
resigned from their posts, to lead Mugabe’s
re-election campaign.
Mugabe lost to Tsvangirai in the March 2008
presidential vote after his
ZANU-PF party surrendered its parliamentary
majority to the MDC for the
first time in a parallel election but the
veteran leader, who turns 87 in
two weeks, managed to cling on after a
violent campaign during a run-off,
which Tsvangirai withdrew
from.
With the economy in turmoil, marked by inflation of more than 500
billion
percent and refugees flooding into big neighbour South Africa,
Mugabe was
forced by his peers in the Southern African Development Community
into a
coalition with Tsvangirai.
Now ZANU-PF, which during the
power-sharing talks wanted the unity
government to last five years, says the
marriage cannot be allowed to
continue and elections should be held this
year.
“Any election that is held before a new constitution or security
and
electoral reforms will be just another sham and will be more violent
than
what we saw in 2008,” John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the
University of Zimbabwe said.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network
said in a report last month that
almost a third of the names appearing on
Zimbabwe's voters roll were of
people who had died.
The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission has previously said it was not ready for
an election
this year. -- ZimOnline
http://www.radiovop.com/
11/02/2011
16:23:00
Harare, February 11, 2011 - THE three Principals who signed
the Global
Political Agreement (GPA), President Robert Mugabe of Zanu (PF),
Prime
Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai from the MDC-T and Deputy Prime Minister,
Arthur
Mutambara of MDC were expected to meet on Friday to discuss, among
other
items, Zimbabwe's explosive security situation and to review the
GPA.
The GPA brought about the new unity government which was put in
place in
February 2009. However, it has not been fully implemented due to
disagreements mainly between Mugabe and Tsvangirai over appointments of
governors and ambassadors among other issues.
Meanwhile there have
been wide spread demonstrations in Harare by rowdy Zanu
(PF) youths in the
city centre. The youths, many of them who were visibly
intoxicated" came
mainly from the populous Mbare High Density suburb.
"We are meeting later
today to discuss the security situation in Zimbabwe,"
said Deputy Prime
Minister Mutambara."We will also discuss the GPA since it
is expected to
expire today (Friday). We will have to renew it."
He said international
investors were worried that property rights in
Zimbabwe were not being
adhered to or respected.
Many commercial farms have been grabed from
white commercial farms and
distributed to black farmers mainly from the
former ruling party, Zanu (PF).
This week the Minister of Indigenisation
and Employment Creation, Saviour
Kasukuwere, threatened that the government
of President Mugabe would also
grab firms belonging to whites if they
continued to destroy the economy or
engage in illegal deals.
He said
the new Indigenisation Act would deal with the white culprits.
Mutambara
said it was very important that property rights be respected by
Zimbabwe in
order for it to receive support and financial aid at a time whe
when the
economy is on its knees.
"We must negotiate better deals with our
partners," Mutambara said at a
discussion about investing on the London
Stock Exchange (LSE). "We must just
not send rough diamonds to foreign
nations but we must sell them jewellery
made here in Zimbabwe."
He
said it was unfortunate that the Chinese were taking over many Zimbabwean
firms but said they were simply helping out.
"This is the reason why
we are meeting today to discuss how we can increase
our investment levels
because the situatiion is just not good enough right
now and I am the first
person to admit it," he told the investors.
Mutambara left the discussion
early in order to attend to the "important"
meeting with the two other
principals, Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
"There might be some passengers too
who will be joining us in the
discussion," Mutambara jokingly said,
referring to his new boss, Professor
Welshman Ncube, now MDC President.
Ncube was also expected to attend the
meeting on security at Cabinet
Offices.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Ray Matikinye
Friday, 11 February
2011 17:54
HARARE - When a green file cobra flies over your
homestead, it portends a
dreadful mishap; when an owl perches near your home
in broad daylight,you
better seek the services of a traditional medicine
man. These are beliefs
that the superstitious among us live
with.
But a phenomenon more precise than scientific meteorological
forecasts and
that has guided peasants in predicting freak droughts or
bountiful seasons
merely requires checking how high the raucous weaver birds
have built their
nests above the river’s normal water level.
Peasants
can deduce the chances of the river breaching its banks from the
height of
the nest and make contingent evacuation plans.
When a weaver bird
constructs a nest at a low height, there is bound to be a
drought.
Just as the height a weaver bird’s nest is a precise
barometer, so is the
trite con-trick of parading opposition party supporters
defecting to Zanu PF
ominous of impending national polls.
These
stage-managed defections, involving people of little or dubious
political
virtue being “born again” portend an election in the offing,
particularly
when abetted by a state media blindly retailing a ruse long
past its sale-by
date.
When Zanu PF abuses the sole broadcaster to parade people that have
revised
their political preference, publicly reciting reasons cloned from a
prototype for their change of heart, “to join the only revolutionary party
that has the people at heart,” Zimbabweans have concluded, without much
persuasion that elections are round the corner.
Greater wisdom
dictates that an angler needs fresh bait to catch bigger
fish. Zimbabwe
boasts of one of the highest literacy rates in Africa,
second only to
Tunisia where the poverty-stricken and jobless citizens
recently hounded
enduring leader, Ben Ali, into exile.
The high literacy rate means the
majority of Zimbabweans can easily notice
counterfeit reports on events in
the state media.
They see and read reports that do not bear any relation
to facts, not even
the relationship which is implied in an ordinary
lie.
They also see the state media publishing untruths and eager
“political
analysts” building emotional super structures over events not
likely to
happen, although these intellectuals would want them to happen the
way they
portray them.
As polls loom on the horizon, the only
propaganda line open to Zanu PF is to
present itself as a victim of Western
imperialism which has become a perfect
scapegoat for its legendary failures.
The party sees the electorate as
biddable and unable to withstand “tushuga
netumasweets from the British” to
make rational political choices of their
own.
Post-independent Zimbabwe has witnessed defections from the late
Ndabaningi
Sithole led Zanu Ndonga; from Edgar Tekere’s Zimbabwe Unity
Movement, (Zum)
from the late Joshua Nkomo’s PF Zapu and from Margaret
Dongo’s Zimbabwe
Union for Democrats (Zud).
Currently, there are
defections from the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) although we have
yet to witness abandonments from Simba Makoni’s
Mavambo/Dawn/ Kusile (MDK)
fringe party.
Zimbabwe is yet to witness Zanu PF’s cherished pipedream of
a one party
state despite all these defections, libraries of songs
clamouring for its
establishment along with the ineffectual million men and
women marches.
One cannot help but snigger when a party cleaves to the
old-hat claims that
it is the only revolutionary party that built school,
clinics, hospitals so
on and so forth.
One cannot fail to notice
politicians struggling to remind a seemingly
ungrateful electorate of their
benevolence and agonise over its reluctance
to appreciate all that has been
done for their benefit.
The signal for polls becomes more ticklish when
the Head of State and
Government and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed forces
offers a whooping
US$33 million in the form of agricultural inputs to rural
peasants.
http://www.voanews.com/
Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has brought on board a number of
recently retired
and serving military officers as well to take charge of its
crumbling
structures, setting the stage for what sources say seems likely to
be an
extremely violent campaign
Blessing Zulu 09 February
2011
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's campaign for re-election in a
ballot that
has yet to be called has been outsourced to the country's
military, sources
say.
Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has brought on
board a number of recently retired
and serving military officers as well to
take charge of its crumbling
structures, setting the stage for what sources
said seems likely to be an
extremely violent campaign.
The Joint
Operations Command (JOC) is said to be playing a significant role
in this
process. The JOC, comprising all the senior securocrats, was
supposed to
have been disbanded to pave the way for an all inclusive
National Security
Council at the inception of the government unity, is
apparently still
meeting clandestinely.
The JOC has deployed Air Vice Marshal Henry
Muchena to take over the
position of ZANU-PF director of the
commissariat.
Muchena, who retired Friday is deputised by another JOC
appointee former
Central Intelligence Organisation Director-Internal, Sydney
Nyanhongo, at
the party’s Harare headquarters.
Other senior officers
who retired with Muchena Friday and would join the
party ranks include Major
Generals Sibangamuzi Khumalo, Etherton Shungu,
Colonel Resten Magumise and
Group Captain Sithabile Sibanda.
Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa who
officiated at the farewell party
openly called upon other army officials to
venture into politics.
"By the way there are some ill-informed citizens
of out the country who
think that ex-military service persons should not be
in politics," said
Mnangagwa.
"To the contrary, one has retired from
active service, one can freely
participate in politics at whatever
level."
Party insiders and military initelligence sources told Studio 7
that about
300 serving army officials have been deployed through out the
country.
They will work with some war veterans and youths who are
allegedly being
trained at Inkomo army barracks and those who have passed
through the
controversial national training service.
Sources said
some senior army officials have also been deployed in all the
country’s
provinces with Brigadier General David Sigauke taking charge of
Mashonaland
West Province. Brigadier General Douglas Nyikayaramba will be in
charge in
Manicaland Province, Retired Brigadier General Victor Rungani in
Mashonaland
East while Air Vice Marshal Abu Basutu will oversee ZANU-PF
matters in
Matabeleland South Province.
Sources said Major General Engelbert Rugeje,
who was seconded to run
Masvingo province but is now going to work with the
Southern African
Development Community, will temporarily be replaced by war
veterans leader
Jabulani Sibanda.
Brigadier General Sibusio Bussie
Moyo, Retired Brigadiers Khumalo, and
Shungu will oversee matters in the
provinces of Midlands, Matebeleland North
and Mashonaland Central
respectively.
Colonel Chris Sibanda and Air Commodore Mike Tichafa
Karakadzai will be in
charge of Bulawayo and Harare.
ZANU-PF
spokesman Rugare Gumbo said Muchena has joined their ranks
officially. But
political analyst Charles Mangongera said "the move by
ZANU-PF is
chilling".
Meanwhile, ZANU-PF has also launched a Party Ideological
College at its
Harare Headquaters aimed at "raising political and
ideological consciousness
while fostering unity within its structures and
membership".
ZANU-PF chairman Simon Khaya Moyo is qouted in the state
controlled and
ZANU-PF leaning Herald newspaper as saying the college will
provide lectures
such as "Characteristics of a Revolutinary Leader" among
other annual
courses.
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com
10 February, 2011
08:45:00 MOSES MATENGA | HARARE
HARARE - The MDC-T says it will
not go for elections under the current
Lancaster House Constitution and
before agreed electoral reforms are
implemented.
Secretary-general
Tendai Biti wrote to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(Zec) chairman,
Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe, listing 18 demands his party
want met before
they could participate in any election.
President Robert Mugabe and his
Zanu PF party have said they want elections
this year with or without a new
constitution.
The President said he was unlikely to extend the life of
the inclusive
government which he said was unworkable and
unsustainable.
The Global Political Agreement which brought about
the
inclusive government does not give a specific lifespan to the GNU but
says
at the expiry of the two-year period, which is on Friday, the three
principals have to meet to chart the way forward.
Zanu PF has already
rolled out its election campaign machinery one of whose
targets is to
collect over 2 million signatures supporting its
anti-sanctions
petition.
In the letter to Zec, the MDC-T said they wanted the voters’
roll cleaned up
and have state security agents allegedly seconded to Zec
removed.
“I write to express dissatisfaction with the current state of
the voters’
roll.
“As you may be aware, the current voters’ roll
contains names of people who
are dead, some who have ceased to be citizens
of Zimbabwe and some born in
2008 and therefore do not qualify to be on the
voters’ roll because of their
age.
“Given this scenario it is our
humble request that a new voters’ roll be
compiled and that the same must be
a biometric voters’ roll,” said Biti.
MDC-T demands include the need to
put in place a legal framework to allow
for timeous announcement of election
results and the policing of the
electoral environment by Sadc six months
before, during and six months after
the elections.
The party also
demanded political parties be given the freedom to campaign,
hold peaceful
meetings and rallies and demonstrations.
They were also demanding that
security agents and members of the uniformed
forces be kept away from
political parties’ campaigning programmes.
“There is also the need to
ensure full realisation of
media freedom and to prevent Zanu PF from abusing
state resources, in
particular diamonds in Chiadzwa,” said
Biti.
Mutambanengwe was not available for comment and his office said he
would be
in next week.
MDC-T spokesperson Nelson Chamisa on Thursday
said his party was in constant
interaction with Zec “to try and deal with a
plethora of the people’s
concerns around election management”. - NewsDay
http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za
Eyewitness News | 4 Hours
Ago
Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa on Friday said the
country
could be forced to revert to the old constitution to hold elections
due
later this year.
Such a move would infuriate the opposition as it
would mean ignoring an
amendment that brought about the power-sharing
government two years ago
It is exactly two years since President Robert
Mugabe swore in Morgan
Tsvangirai as Prime Minister.
The Zimbabwe
African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) appears
anxious to hold
fresh elections as soon as possible.
Chinamasa hinted that ZANU-PF
intended to ignore changes to the constitution
brought about by the signing
of the coalition deal.
He said the ideal position would be to hold the
elections under the old
constitution if drawing up a new one takes too much
time.
In comments in Friday’s Herald, Chinamasa said people might not
like a
proposed new constitution.
Friday, 11
February 2011
There are reports of Zanu PF organised violence in
Mudzi allegedly being led by Mudzi North MP Newton Kachepa, Mudzi West MP
Acquilinah and Mudzi South MP, Eric Navaya all from Zanu PF. The three are said
to be recruiting all youth, aged between 15 and 35 in their constituencies for a
series of meetings to be held at Nyamuyaruka, Dendera, Vombozi, Chingamukayi,
Nekondo, Nyamanyoro and Chimukoko business centers in the Mashonaland East
province.
The three allegedly held a meeting today at Kotwa with Zanu PF
youth and told them to mobilise all the school children aged between 15 and 18
for tomorrow’s meetings. There has been threats of violence in Mudzi and
villagers fear this could be a beginning of the unpopular Zanu PF campaign
against the people.
--
MDC Information & Publicity
Department
http://mg.co.za/
JASON MOYO - Feb 11 2011 11:54
The large, tattered
poster of Robert Mugabe flying above one of the
country's largest markets in
Mbare, Harare's oldest suburb and an opposition
stronghold, was a sign of
yet another victory for Mugabe's local militia in
their violent bid to take
control of the city's pro-opposition townships.
In Harare's crowded
townships Zanu-PF is using a combination of violence and
extortion, barring
suspected opposition supporters from trading in the
markets and launching
attacks on their homes and businesses. The attacks,
which worsened at the
weekend, have left dozens injured and have driven many
from their
homes.
Early this week a mob rampaged through downtown Harare, targeting
businesses
owned by West African and Chinese nationals, who dominate much of
the
downtown retail businesses.
Looters hit a crowded downtown mall
known as the Gulf, where hundreds of
traders sell wares such as cheap
clothing and electronics imported from
China and Dubai. Newspaper vendors
selling the independent NewsDay daily in
the area were also attacked and had
their newspapers seized.
A Zanu-PF group called Upfumi Kuvadiki (wealth
to the youth), also launched
demonstrations against foreign businesses and
the Movement for Democratic
Change-run council for awarding a contract to a
South African company,
EasiPark, to manage the city's parking.
The
group, which said it was marching to support the country's empowerment
laws,
denies it caused the violence. With the bulk of Zimbabwe's urban
population
living off informal trade, Zanu-PF is looking to control the
city's produce
and flea markets. To secure a stall at some markets, a trader
needs a
Zanu-PF membership card. For protection, some traders display a
poster of
Mugabe or a Zanu-PF flag.
Amid the poverty in Mbare, Zanu-PF has bred a
violent militia aimed at
controlling the township constituencies it has
always lost at elections.
'The covenant'
The MDC may have won in Mbare
in the past election, but the streets are
owned by the local Zanu-PF youth
militia, a violent group known as
Chipangano (loosely translated as "the
covenant"). Chipangano is much
feared, with vendors at market stalls forced
to pay tolls to the group's
leaders so that they can trade in
peace.
When Zanu-PF needs a crowd for a demonstration, a state funeral or
a rally,
Chipangano is called in, shutting down markets and forcing traders
to
attend.
The violence has not been all one-sided. On Monday the
market stalls run by
an Mbare Zanu-PF activist were
petrol-bombed.
The three parties in the coalition have issued a joint
statement condemning
the violence. "We agreed that what is happening in
Harare is not good for
our country and is completely against the spirit of
the global political
agreement signed by our leaders. We believe it is
within our power to stop
the violence, which poses a threat to the lives of
our people," they said.
But in sharp contrast to the image of unity
projected by the statement,
opposition supporters have gone into
hiding.
After touring the homes of attacked supporters in Mbare, the
MDC's Theresa
Makone, one of the two home affairs ministers, appeared
frustrated by her
powerlessness to get the police, which her ministry
controls, to intervene.
Questioned
"Today I witnessed something I
thought I would never see in Zimbabwe. It's
just not possible to be that
evil," Makone said.
Hours after her visit, police rounded up supporters
who had sought refuge at
a church in another township. They were released at
midnight after being
questioned on who had provided them with blankets and
food, the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights said.
At the MDC's
headquarters in central Harare, dozens of families seeking
refuge were
sleeping on office floors this week.
The MDC says the attacks are a
provocation to give Zanu-PF the chance to
launch a crackdown ahead of
elections that Mugabe wants later this year.
For its part, Zanu-PF blames
the MDC, presenting as evidence recent remarks
by Morgan Tsvangirai that
Egyptian-style protests were possible in Zimbabwe.
Defence Minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa, a powerful senior Mugabe ally, warned
in a speech to
army chiefs last Friday that "those who may want to emulate
what happened in
Egypt and Tunisia will regret it".
Zanu-PF chairperson Simon Khaya Moyo
argued that the clashes were a
carefully crafted ploy by the MDC to
influence the European Union, ahead of
a decision next week on whether to
keep sanctions in place on Zimbabwe.
http://af.reuters.com
Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:53pm
GMT
* China seeks strong ties with Zimbabwe
* Yang calls
for end to sanctions
* Yang arrives as political tension
rise
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, Feb 11 (Reuters) -
Zimbabwe is an important ally to China and
Beijing will seek to further
strengthen ties, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang
Jiechi said of a country
isolated by the West under President Robert
Mugabe's rule.
Mugabe has
been shunned by Western countries for decades over suspected
human rights
abuses and vote fraud. He has looked to China to shore up a
shattered
economy by showcasing rich mineral resources and the world's
second biggest
platinum reserves, which China covets to fuel its booming
economy.
"Let me be frank. We believe there should be a lifting of
sanctions," Yang
said after meeting Mugabe.
The United States and
European Union have been at loggerheads with China
over its support for
Mugabe, which Western states see as helping prop up a
leader who has
mismanaged the economy and abused his people.
Yang said China wanted to
enhance ties in sectors including infrastructure,
mining and agriculture,
with Mugabe telling reporters he wanted "cooperation
to
intensify."
"The relationship is in very good shape," Yang said.
A
government minister told Reuters last month the state-run China
Development
Bank could fund up to $10 billion in Chinese investment in
Zimbabwe's mining
and agriculture sector. [ID:nLDE70U1JG]
Such an investment would dwarf
Zimbabwe's gross domestic product, which is
expected to be about $6 billion
this year. [ID:nLDE70I24L]
But analysts say the announcement could be
aimed at trying to prod wary
Western investors into sinking more money into
Zimbabwe out of fear they
will lose ground to China.
A private weekly
reported last week that Beijing had offered Zimbabwe $3
billion for vast
platinum reserves but said the deal was likely to be
rejected by the
government over its terms.
Yang will also meet Mugabe's governing partner
and rival Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai in a visit that concludes on
Friday. Yang then departs for
other African states.
He arrives at a
time when political tension is rising in the troubled
country after a spate
of violence led to mutual accusations of blame between
Mugabe's ZANU-PF and
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.
[ID:nLDE717053]
Mugabe
and his inner circle have been subject to Western sanctions since his
ZANU-PF party won re-election in 2000 after a violent campaign and began
seizures of white-owned farms.
China, which has ties with ZANU-PF
from the 1970s, has been increasing its
investments, which however lag
behind what Beijing invests in neighbouring
Mozambique, Zambia and
Angola.
China's exports to Zimbabwe amounted to $159 million in 2010
while the
southern African country exported $57 million worth of goods,
according to
official figures.
http://news.yahoo.com
AFP
– 2 hrs 10 mins ago
HARARE
(AFP) – Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Friday urged Western
countries to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe as he paid a visit to buttress ties
with the southern African nation.
"Let me be frank, we believe there
should be lifting of sanctions by some
countries," Yang told journalists
after meeting President Robert Mugabe and
senior government officials in
Harare.
"China believes that Africa belongs to African countries and
African people.
African people are their own masters and all the others are
just guests.
"We believe all nations should respect each other's
sovereignty and
territorial integrity."
The European Union and the
United States imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his
inner circle after
presidential elections in 2002 that Western observers
charged were rigged to
hand Mugabe victory.
Yang also called for strengthened relations with
Zimbabwe, which he called a
"good brother".
"China and Zimbabwe have
traditional friendship from the days of Zimbabwe's
liberation struggle.
Since then our relationship has moved forward," he
said.
Mugabe
commended China's support for Zimbabwe in the face of isolation by
its
former trading partners in the West over charges of human rights
violations.
"Our relations have a long historical background of
cooperation which saw us
before our independence being assisted by the
Communist Party of China
invariously to build the capacity that we used to
demolish colonialism
here," Mugabe said.
"We continue to interact in
terms of development in other sectors. We still
want that co-operation to
intensify."
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai also welcomed increased
links with China,
saying both countries would benefit from sustaining their
burgeoning
economic ties.
"On the economic side, China has various
cooperation agreements with
Zimbabwe," Tsvangirai said after meeting
Yang.
"China's record in Africa is one where Africa benefits. I am here
to confirm
that there is definite benefit for Zimbabwe and
China."
Yang and Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi
signed an
agreement for a 50-million-yuan ($7.6-million, 5.6-million-euro)
grant for
Zimbabwe, a government official who attended the closed-door
meeting told
reporters.
Terms of the grant were not
released.
Yang's visit comes weeks after Zimbabwe's investment promotion
minister,
Tapiwa Mashakada, announced plans by the China Development Bank to
fund
investments worth $10 billion in Zimbabwe's mining, agriculture and
infrastructure sectors.
Zimbabwe and China have political ties dating
back to before Zimbabwe's
independence, when Beijing provided arms and
training to guerrillas fighting
British colonial rule.
China has also
been pivotal in protecting Zimbabwe at the United Nations. In
2008 China
vetoed a UN Security Council resolution seeking sanctions against
Harare.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
11 February, 2011
The global human rights group, Amnesty
International, on Friday urged the
unity government in Zimbabwe to take
immediate action to end the ongoing
human rights abuses and to urgently
reform the security and media
institutions in the country.
Amnesty
condemned the ZANU PF sponsored violence and the police refusal to
arrest
perpetrators. The group also criticized SADC and the AU for ‘missing
every
opportunity to end human rights violations in Zimbabwe’.
In a statement
released on the second anniversary of the government of
national unity,
Amnesty said they were concerned about the lack of progress
in implementing
key reforms that would address the country’s “legacy of
human rights
abuses”.
The recommendations were made by a team of Amnesty researchers
who travelled
to Zimbabwe and witnessed incidents of violence. Simeon
Mawanza who headed
the team, said he was particularly disturbed by a ZANU PF
protest that took
place at Harare’s Town Hall.
“It was sanctioned by
the police and riot police were there monitoring, yet
ZANU PF supporters
attacked workers and innocent passersby. A high school
student was assaulted
for taking a photo and a woman wearing an MDC t-shirt
was beaten and
stripped. It was not peaceful. It turned violent, but no
arrests were made,”
said Mawanza.
The researcher explained that this impunity makes the
perpetrators believe
that they are above the law and it contributes to the
escalating violence
countrywide.
Addressing the repeated occurrence
of such incidents, the Amnesty statement
said: “It is an open secret that
ZANU-PF supporters who use violence against
members of the public, or their
perceived political opponents, are beyond
the reach of the law. Police have
continued to selectively apply the law –
turning a blind eye to violations
by ZANU-PF supporters while restricting
the work of human rights
organisations and the activities of other political
parties.”
Mawanza
criticized the unity government for the lack of progress in
reforming the
media environment, saying promises were made to guarantee
freedom of
expression. But he said: “No independent broadcaster has been
issued a
license yet and newspaper vendors are still being attacked.”
Mawanza
urged the African Union and SADC “to stop entertaining the bickering
between
political parties” and focus on key issues that were agreed upon in
the
GPA.
The full Amnesty statement can be found on our website at
www.swradioafrica.com
http://www.radiovop.com/
11/02/2011 08:51:00
Harare,
February 11, 2011 - Police on Thursday quizzed another 61 Movement
for
Democratic Change supporters, mainly women, who fled political violence
from
the volatile Mbare suburb and are camped at the Roman Catholic owned
Silveira House, in Chishawasha, some few kilometers outside
Harare.
In an alert issued on Thursday, rights group, Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human
Rights (ZLHR) said two policemen who claimed to be stationed at
Mabvuku
Police Station visited Silveira House and quizzed three pastors
namely
Reverend Useni Sibanda, Reverend Wilson Mugabe and Reverend Josephat
Umali.
The police sought explanations on why the fear stricken supporters
had
sought shelter at Silveira House and whether they had come from Epworth,
one
of the volatile areas, which has been engulfed by political violence as
well.
The police recorded the names of all the people, their identity
particulars
and residential addresses.
The 61 people are part of the
more than 100 who were raided by police and
briefly detained on Monday at a
church premise in Harare's Glen Norah
suburb.
ZLHR also said in
Mabvuku, four Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)
agents and three
policemen on Thursday quizzed Tsuro Makona of the Zimbabwe
National Network
of People Living With HIV/Aids (ZNNP+) for organising a
Community Aids
Forum, which the human rights organisation jointly convened
together with
the African Regional Youth Initiative in the high density
suburb of Mabvuku.
The meeting was disbanded as the CIO agents and the
police demanded to see a
copy of the police clearance letter.
http://www.radiovop.com/
11/02/2011 12:56:00
Mutare,
Februay 11, 2011 - Three MDC-T members from Tsvingwe area in
Penhalonga are
languishing at Mutare Remand Prison from Monday after
prosecutor Fletcher
Karombe invoked section 121 of the criminal law
codification and reform act
to deny them bail.
Patrick Chikoti, Faith Mudiwa and Phillip Dowera are
MDC-T members from
Tsvingwe area were arrested on allegations of acting in a
disorderly order
which is likely to cause breach of peace. The three were
singing anti Mugabe
songs during the burial of Anna Mateya, the Ward 21 vice
chair-person.
Mutare magistrate Eniya Ndiraya had granted the three a
US$100 bail but
Karombe appealed against the granting the three activists
bail citing that
he was doing so to protect the MDC-T activists.
The
three are said to have insulted President Robert Mugabe by singing
“Muoffice
mune mboko ngatishande nesimba tiise President Tsvangirai”, a song
which
suggested that Mugabe must be removed and replaced by Tsvangirai, the
current Main MDC faction leader and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
The
three who were represented by Peggy Tavagadza of the Zimbabwe Lawyers
for
Human Rights will appear in court again on Monday when the magistrate
will
review their bail application.
http://www.radiovop.com
11/02/2011
12:55:00
Harare, February 11, 2011 - Minister of Information,
Communications and
Technology (ICTs) Nelson Chamisa has criticised the
grabbing and looting of
farms and businesses by Zanu (PF) describing it as
“dangerous and satanic”.
“Zanu (PF) behaves like somebody who sees a
pregnant woman and wants to
court her and then leaves for another one," said
Chamisa at a public debate
on the need for politicians holding office to
declare their wealth organised
by Transparence International Zimbabwe (TIZ)
on Thursday evening. "This
culture is unhealthy and as the MDC, we strongly
condemn such kind of
behavior as it stalls development. People must not be
addicted to ripping
where they did not sow,” he said.
He revealed that 44
Members of Parliament from his Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) party
had already declared their assets to parliament. He also
said there was need
for the country to come out with a people driven
constitution that provides
for the compulsory declaration of assets by
public officials.
“As a
people’s party of excellence, we want to advocate for the creation of
a
genuine Anti-Corruption Commission that monitors public officials. In the
MDC everyone who is caught in the wrong side of the law faces the gallows
regardless of political stature,” he said.
The MP for Glen View,
Willas Madzimure, who was also part of the meeting
urged members of the
public not to fear their leaders whom they elect into
office.
“This
tendency of fearing your own leaders has to stop since you are the
ones who
elected them into office. People must have the power to ask those
in high
offices how they accumulated their wealth in a short period of time.
I’m not
afraid of being investigated since I’m clean,” he said in reference
to
Minister of Local Government and National
Housing, Ignatius Chombo’s vast
wealth that came to light following a bitter
divorce wrangle at the
courts.
Goodson Nguni who was representing Zanu (PF) stunned members at
the meeting
when he openly defended the Chombo’s wealth claiming that he was
not
corrupt.
“Minister Chombo did not own most of the assets that her
wife demanded at
the courts, actually some of the cars belong to the state,”
he said much to
the amazement of the members of the public.
Some
filthy rich Zanu (PF) legislators have been alleged to be lobbying
their
colleagues in the party to desist from declaring their assets to
parliament
fearing that poverty-stricken Zimbabweans would question how they
acquired
their vast wealth.
The only senior and notable Zanu PF official who has
declared his assets
since the beginning of the campaign late last year is
Mwenezi East MP
Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, who is in the party’s
politburo.
TIZ is a Non Governmental Organization that seeks to promote
democracy and
openness in society and it has been operational in Zimbabwe
since 1996.
Nguni also stunned the audience at the public debate meeting
when he
suggested that there be an investigation of who owned safe houses
used by
political violence victims belonging to MDC.
“We want to know
who is paying the rates at the safe houses. As Zanu(PF) we
say that
political parties should not be financed by the west. The safe
houses were
bought by the Americans and the British and are in certain
individuals’
names,” he said.
Hundreds of MDC-T supporters have fled their homes in
Mbare, Budiriro and
Epworth suburbs among other areas after political
violence broke out.
On Monday night police raided church premises in
Harare's Glen Norah suburb
where more than 100 MDC supporters aligned to
Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai had sought refuge while on Wednesday police
questioned
authorities at Silveira House in Chiwasha situated on the
outskirts of
Harare for housing political violence victims that had also
fled their
homes.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Tobias Manyuchi Friday 11 February
2011
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe has refused to fire Deputy
Prime Minister
Arthur Mutambara to pave way for Welshman Ncube, the new
leader of the
breakaway MDC faction to take up the post.
Priscilla
Misihairambwi-Mushonga, secretary general of the splinter group
that pulled
out of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s main MDC in 2005, told
reporters
in Harare that Mugabe categorically refused to appoint Ncube as
deputy
premier in place of Mutambara.
“We understand the position of President
Mugabe to mean that it is not going
to happen that our (party) president
(Ncube) is not going to be the Deputy
Prime Minister,”
Misihairambwi-Mushonga said.
“President Mugabe has once again violated
the GPA and he will continue to
violate the GPA. We understand that
therefore there is not to be the
swearing in of president Ncube as Deputy
Prime Minister."
The leaders of the three parties that form Zimbabwe’s
unity are its top
leaders who often meet to discuss and resolve the most
sensitive of its many
disputes and with Ncube excluded this could complicate
matters in the
troubled coalition.
Mutambara was deposed as party
president by Ncube at a congress last month
and a subsequent top-level
meeting of the MDC faction recalled the deputy
prime minister and redeployed
him to a lesser ministerial post.
But Mutambara – headhunted by Ncube to
lead the MDC faction -- on Monday
vowed not to relinquish his position in
government, arguing that there was
no law providing for a principal in the
unity government to be recalled by
his party.
Mutambara’s position
appears to have been bolstered by a splinter group in
the MDC faction that
is challenging in court Ncube’s election as party
leader.
The fight
between Ncube and Mutambara is not expected to alter the balance
of power
between Mugabe’s ZANU PF and Tsvangirai’s MDC-T but is likely to
further
weaken the smaller MDC faction ahead of elections that could take
place
later this year or in early 2011.
The MDC splinter group managed 10 seats
in the 2008 parliamentary
elections. -- ZimOnline
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Lance Guma
11
February 2011
The smaller faction of the MDC has given up on its attempts
to have new
party leader Welshman Ncube sworn in as the Deputy Prime
Minister, to
replace Arthur Mutambara who lost his position as party leader
at their
congress last month.
After appearing to have stepped down
gracefully Mutambara made a u-turn on
Monday, issuing a statement saying he
did not recognize Ncube’s leadership
of the party. He vowed to remain as
Deputy Prime Minister until the High
Court rules on an application
challenging the validity of the congress that
elected Ncube.
On
Wednesday Mutambara claimed to have fired Ncube from the party, using the
letter head of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to write his
statement. Ncube’s camp retaliated by holding an emergency meeting of their
National Council on Thursday, later holding a press conference to announce
they had fired Mutambara from the party.
MDC-N Secretary General,
Priscilla Misihairabwi, said Ncube met Mugabe for a
second time this week,
on Wednesday, and the ZANU PF leader made it clear
Mutambara was going
nowhere. She revealed that Mugabe told Ncube
sarcastically; “You can tell
your national council that mina (me) as Robert
Mugabe angifuni (I don’t
want).” She also conceded that what Mugabe says,
carries the day.
“We are
now saying, given Mugabe’s stance they (ZANU PF) can have that
position that
was allocated to us, so that Mutambara becomes their Deputy
Prime Minister.
We have effectively donated the DPM post and Mutambara to
Zanu PF,” she
said.
"We want to give Arthur the position that he so desperately wants
and
hopefully we will have less public fights than we are having, because we
know it’s driven by him wanting to be Deputy Prime Minister. He said it to
me personally," Mishairabwi said.
She added that the refusal to swear
in Ncube as DPM was a violation of the
GPA and that Mugabe had done this
before. “He promised that if Roy Bennett
was acquitted he would be sworn in
as the Deputy Minister. We know that has
not happened,” she said. The MDC-N
now wants the GPA to be amended to
reflect the new
developments.
Developments this week mean there are now four factions of
the MDC. The
MDC-T led by Tsvangirai, MDC-N (Ncube), MDC-M (Mutambara) and
the MDC 99 led
by Job Sikhala. Some observers have noted that the common
denominator in all
the splits is Welshman Ncube, who was Secretary General
in the run up to
each split.
http://www.radiovop.com
11/02/2011 08:52:00
Harare,
February 11, 2011 - Education, Art, Sports and culture Minister
David
Coltart has condemned Zanu (PF)’s violent activities which have spread
to
the education sector where rowdy youths are demanding President Robert
Mugabe’s birth day gifts from teachers and school children.
“I
have said consistently that schools should not be political battle
grounds,
in any form or fashion that is why I put bans on any political
party using
schools for political rallies," Coltart told Radio VOP on
Thursday.
He said it was wrong to coerce teachers, headmasters and
worse still school
children to provide money for any political party
activities. "I have always
said this contradicts our fundamental educational
policy," he said.
“In a nutshell what I can say is that all political
parties please stay away
from schools, please stop intimidating teachers,
and stop disturbing
innocent school children, because you are spoiling their
future," he said.
Zanu (PF) youths have been going to schools in Harare
asking innocent school
children to donate US$1 each for President Robert
Mugabe's 87th birthday
bash.
Minister Coltart admitted that the
recent Harare political violence had
affected the education
sector.
“Yes I have received reports of sporadic disturbances caused by
violence,
incidences of teachers being forced to donate some cash, and it’s
unacceptable."
Coltart said continued disturbances in the country’s
education sector would
reverse the gains the country had achieved over the
past three decades.
Zimbabwe has one of the best literacy rate records in
Africa but analysts
are worried that this impressive record could soon be
thrown out of the
window if the youths are allowed to continue terrorising
teachers and
headmasters.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
11
February 2011
A South African court has strongly criticised the Home
Affairs Department’s
practice of arresting and detaining asylum seekers,
without verifying their
status or allowing them access to the refugee
system.
The North Gauteng High court handed down its judgement on Friday
in a case
brought forward by the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF), ruling that
Home Affairs’
treatment of asylum seekers was unconstitutional. The court
said that “it is
simply untenable in a constitutional democracy that someone
should have to
give up their liberty on account of administrative
difficulties or
inefficiencies on the part of an organ of State.”
The
case dates back to 2008, when a group of ZEF members was arrested
outside
the Chinese embassy in South Africa, during a protest against a
shipment of
arms through South African territory to Zimbabwe. The majority
of the 208
Zim nationals that were arrested at the protest had applied for
asylum in
South Africa. But all those without documents proving their
asylum-seeking
status were subsequently detained at the notorious Lindela
repatriation and
detention facility for several months, before a court
ordered their
release.
The situation shone a spotlight on the chaos in South Africa’s
refugee and
asylum systems, where administrative problems and a massive
backlog of
applications have left the systems in disarray. South African
Home Affairs
officials have said they do not have the capacity to deal with
the numbers
of people approaching them for asylum, leaving thousands of Zim
nationals
and other foreigners at risk of prolonged detention and
deportation.
As a result, the ZEF has continued its fight in court
against the Home
Affairs Department’s unlawful policies and practices in
detaining asylum
seekers. The court ruling on Friday confirmed this view and
said that the
Department’s practices were not only unconstitutional, but
also unlawful and
inconsistent with national and international refugee
laws.
This includes the arrest and detention of asylum seekers who are
still
waiting for permits, and the prolonged detention of asylum seekers in
immigration detention pending the outcome of permit applications. The court
also ruled that the practice of keeping such asylum seekers in immigration
detention, pending the appeal of unsuccessful permit applications, was also
unlawful and inconsistent with the Constitution. The practice of
re-arresting detainees upon their release after the mandatory 30 detention
period was also deemed unlawful.
“This judgment is consistent with
the repeated findings of our courts that
the excessive use of immigration
detention by Home Affairs in unlawful,
unconstitutional and a violation of
our international obligations,” said
Jacob van Garderen, the National
Director of Lawyers for Human Rights.
Van Garderen told SW Radio Africa
that the judgement must be carefully and
seriously considered by the
Department of Home Affairs, adding that it
should immediately release all
asylum seekers who are presently being
detained. He said that Department
also needs to revisit its policies on
immigration detention.
“We call
on the Minister to carefully peruse the judgment and consider the
practices
of immigration officials in terms of South Africa’s international
obligations and the Constitution,” van Garderen said.
The ruling
comes as thousands of Zimbabwean nationals wait to hear if their
applications for legal South African permits are successful, with thousands
more set to face deportation in August. The authorities have extended their
moratorium on deportations until August, to allow more time for the Home
Affairs Department to adjudicate on the estimated 270 000 permit
applications it received last year. It is estimated that more than three
million Zim nationals live in South Africa, meaning a large portion of
Zimbabweans in South Africa could be deemed illegal in the coming
months.
Migration experts meanwhile have asked the Department of Home
Affairs to
clarify what will happen to Zimbabwe asylum seekers when the
deportation
moratorium is lifted. Many asylum seekers gave up their asylum
applications
to apply for permits instead. But the department has not yet
confirmed if
unsuccessful applications can then reapply for asylum. The
African Centre
for Migration and Society has warned that “if the
applications are rejected,
they will be left undocumented and subject to
refoulement, in violation of
international and domestic law.”
“Home
Affairs has not stated whether those individuals who were forced to
give up
their asylum seeker status to apply for these permits will be
permitted to
re-enter the asylum system, or will be subject to deportation
in violation
of the non-refoulement principle in international law,” the
group’s Roni
Amit said.
The group last month released a report about the Zimbabwe
Documentation
Process, and identified several shortcomings affecting the
overall
administrative fairness of the process. They report said that “the
deficiencies could affect the fate tens of thousands and they set a poor
precedent for future permitting processes.”
STATEMENT BY THE CIVIL
SOCIETY ORGINISATIONS THAT ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE GOVERNMENT LED CONSULTATIONS
ON THE UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW MECHANISM IN NYANGA 8 – 12 FEBRUARY
2011
09 February
2011-We, the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) represented at this
Government-led consultation on the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism (UPR),
being conducted in preparation for the review of Zimbabwe in October 2011,
remain greatly apprehensive by the following pertinent issues that have occurred
and are occurring with the potential of affecting our full undivided
participation at this forum.
We have since
been alerted of four cases in which CSOs have been subjected to different
attacks by state actors. It is worrying to note that although these incidents
are not isolated cases but there seems to be growing pattern/ trend of incessant
attacks on CSOs despite the fact that the work and the role of CSOs as Human
Rights Defenders (HRDs) is recognised within the United Nations human rights
system which gives the United Nations Development Project (UNDP) the mandate to
operate and facilitate these consultations.
Although CSOs
are genuinely willing to engage with the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) in a
transparent process on issues to do with human rights, some of the GoZ delegates
who are present here have decided to utter insulting disparaging words against
CSOs in general from the onset of this process thereby offending the CSOs who
are present at this forum. This has been done despite the fact that the CSOs
here present have been willing to engage with the GoZ in this Zimbabwe UPR
foundational process and are here at the specific instance and invitation of
GoZ.
We, the CSOs
present at Troutbeck Inn, Nyanga on this 9th day of February 2011,
are of the considered view that since this is a UN human rights sponsored event
and all the organisations participating here are well established in the
communities that we serve, we remain deeply committed to fostering a culture of
human rights in our country, Zimbabwe, despite the persistent unwarranted
attacks by some state actors.
We, the CSOs present at this forum unequivocally remain committed to
interact with the GoZ to produce a credible and factual report on the UPR of
Zimbabwe. We therefore urge and encourage the GoZ to be sincere in this process
and respect, promote and protect the norms and standards that are enunciated in
the United Nations Declaration on the
Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote
and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
(General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ 53/144) which categorically amongst
other things stipulates that;
ˇ States must
protect, promote and implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms by
adopting such steps as may be necessary to create all conditions necessary in
the social, economic, political and other fields, as well as the legal
guarantees required to ensure that all persons under its jurisdiction,
individually and in association with others, are able to enjoy all those rights
and freedoms in practice.
ˇ Everyone has
the right, individually and in association with others, to participate in
peaceful activities against violations of human rights and fundamental
freedoms.
ˇ The State
shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent
authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against
any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse
discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his
or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the
Declaration.
ˇ In this
connection, everyone is entitled, individually and in association with others,
to be protected effectively under national law in reacting against or
opposing, through peaceful means, activities and acts, including those by
omission, attributable to States that result in violations of human rights and
fundamental freedoms, as well as acts of violence perpetrated by groups or
individuals that affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental
freedoms.
SIGNED THIS
9th DAY OF FEBRUARY 2011 AT TROUTBECK INN, NYANGA, ZIMBABWE
NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF NONE GOVERNMENTAL ORGINISATIONS
(NANGO)
MEDIA
INSTITUTE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (MISA)
MEDIA
MONITORING PROJECT ZIMBABWE (MMPZ)
LAW SOCIETY OF
ZIMBABWE (LSZ)
LEGAL
RESOURCES FOUNDATION ZIMBABWE (LRF)
ZIMBABWE
ASSOCIATION FOR CRIME PREVENTION AND REHABILITATION OF THE OFFENDERS
(ZACRO)
ZIMBABWE
CONGRESS OF TRADE UNIONS (ZCTU)
ZIMBABWE HUMAN
RIGHTS NGO FORUM (NGO FORUM)
ZIMBABWE
LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (ZLHR)
WOMEN’S
COALITION OF ZIMBABWE
ZIMBABWE WOMEN
LAWYERS ASSOCIATION (ZWLA)
ENDS
http://www.ituc-csi.org
11 February 2011: The ITUC General Council meeting in
Brussels last week
unanimously elected Zimbabwean trade union leader
Wellington Chibebe to the
position of Deputy General Secretary of the global
trade union body.
Chibebe, 47, will complete his current term as General
Secretary of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and will join ITUC
General
Secretary Sharan Burrow and Deputy General Secretary Jaap Wienen as
a
full-time elected official after the ZCTU Congress later this
year.
“Wellington Chibebe has an outstanding record as a leader in
Zimbabwe,
defending workers rights and campaigning for democracy, and is a
highly-respected trade unionist both in Africa and around the world. We look
forward to his talent, energy and commitment being deployed as a key part of
our international team,” said Burrow.
The General Council also
admitted five new organisations into ITUC
membership: the Confédération des
Syndicats Autonomes of Cameroon (CSAC);
Confédération Nationale des
Travailleurs of the Central African Republic
(CNTC); the Unión Nacional de
Trabajadores of Chile (UNT); the Confédération
Nationale des Travailleurs of
Mauritania (CNTM) and the Trade Union Congress
of Tanzania
(TUCTA).
Other major items on the Council agenda included a decision to
launch a
global campaign to press telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom
to fully
respect fundamental workers’ rights in all its operations around
the globe,
and special resolutions on climate change, sustainable economic
recovery
migration and precarious and informal work . Resolutions on Egypt,
where the
ITUC announced a global trade union day of action on 8 February
and Tunisia,
were also passed, along with a “Workers’ Pact for Peace and
Justice in
Palestine and Israel” which sets out steps for achieving a
two-state
solution and for building the Palestinian economy in line with the
Resolution on Democracy, Peace, Security and the Role of the United Nations
adopted at the ITUC Vancouver Congress last June.
Detailed work-plans
to implement the decisions of the Vancouver Congress
were also adopted,
along with new guidelines for trade union development
cooperation work,
campaign action to support employment and trade union
rights for young
workers, and an international organising programme for
young women.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
11/02/2011 00:00:00
by Methuseli
Moyo
THERE is a growing trend that whenever Zapu holds a successful
meeting or
makes a move, the media suddenly publishes attacks on our party
under the
guise of critiques.
Zapu held a very successful meeting at
Nkulumane Hall on Sunday last week.
Hell broke loose, literally, the moment
we did a news release about our
meeting.
NewsDay suddenly carried a
very curious letter to the editor by someone who
questioned both the timing
of the revival of Zapu, and Dr Dumiso Dabengwa’s
suitability to lead
Zapu.
Last week’s issue of the Zimbabwe Independent carried an analysis
by my
colleague Dumisani Nkomo, the CEO of Habakkuk Trust, who raised what
he
thought were factors militating against Zapu in the contemporary
political
scheme.
Nkomo’s article was to some extent balanced, though
it lacked slant. As for
the NewsDay letter, it sounded as if it was written
by a frustrated MDC-T
fan who fears that Zapu’s revival means trouble for
his/her party and Zanu
PF, who want to limit political competition between
themselves. Maybe the
two analysts’ views, anxieties, fears and advice is
justified and needs
answers.
Why Zapu? Why now? Why Dabengwa? These
questions seem to still linger in the
minds of some among us and need to be
answered. The pleasing fact though is
that very few still ask these
questions anymore.
For starters, Zapu is the founder and authentic
liberation movement of
Zimbabwe, and therefore has a legitimate right to be
a political player in
this country, just like Zanu, the MDCs, Mavambo, and
many other parties that
exist. The reason why we have revived Zapu now is
simply because the
environment is ripe and full of all
possibilities.
In the first place why did Zapu join Zanu-PF? We all know
that Zapu was
force-marched by Zanu PF through Gukurahundi to surrender
itself to a
splinter movement, literally at gunpoint. Such a scenario was
bound to
collapse the moment it is not possible to repeat Gukurahundi. And
we believe
it is not possible to repeat Gukurahundi now.
Secondly,
Zanu PF is at its weakest since 1980. In fact the pullout of Zapu
has
further weakened Zanu PF. Instead of begrudging Zapu, one thinks the
analysts would recognise this and congratulate us for having done major
structural damage to Zanu PF.
Thirdly, Zapu and Zanu’s ideologies
have always been different. Even within
present day Zanu PF itself, it is
clear for instance that the mentality of
John Nkomo, Simon Khaya, and Kembo
Mohadi for example, is different from
that of the original Zanu characters
such as Robert Mugabe, Webster Shamu
and crew. As a result, the majority of
Zapu supporters or people who would
normally be expected to be Zapu
supporters never supported the unity accord.
It was part of the Zapu
leadership that joined Zanu PF. So why continue with
something that our
supporters do not like?
Fourthly, Zapu believes this is the right time to
come out and stand alone
because the country is at crossroads and at the
verge of a major political
development to take us to a post-Mugabe era.
Mugabe turns 87 this month. He
has clearly lost energy. Even by his own
admission, his absence from office
is now ritually associated with his death
or ill health. Those with eyes and
ears see and hear what is happening and
are mobilising themselves for any
eventuality.
Anyone intelligent
enough can see and hear that one way or the other, Mugabe
is going to go
sooner or later through any of the following – electoral
defeat, incapacity
or death, whichever occurs first. We at Zapu don’t want
to be found wanting
when the inevitable happens. We have learnt from our 21
years of the accord
with Zanu PF that trusting somebody else with your
destiny may be dangerous.
We do not want to repeat the same mistake again
with anyone, Morgan
Tsvangirai and his MDC-T included.
Fifth, and most importantly, when
everything else (ZUM, Forum, Zapu 2000,
Zapu FP, MDC, MDC-T and Mavambo) has
failed, it is perhaps wise to go back
to the original thing – Zapu. After
all, Zapu has got all the necessary
institutional memory, capacity,
experience and real connection with the
masses to be able to confront the
monster called Zanu PF. We have ex-freedom
fighters, ex-army officers,
ex-cabinet ministers, and ex-Zanu-PF politburo
and central committee members
who know exactly what Zanu PF is and how it
operates and are able to counter
act.
Zapu’s Zipra shared trenches with the ANC’s Umkhonto Wesizwe, and
Dabengwa
knows and is known by all the veterans in the ANC government,
including
Msholozi himself, and indeed has friends all over Africa. Dabengwa
is Zapu’s
key to SADC, AU and indeed the rest of the world. Parence Shiri,
Phillip
Valerio Sibanda, Constantine Chiwenga, Happyton Boyongwe, Paradzai
Zimondi,
just to mention a few, have saluted Dabengwa before and cannot turn
around
and say they will never salute him. Put simply, Dabengwa is the right
man
for the job at hand.
Dabengwa was one of the first Zimbabweans to
undergo military training and
hold a gun for fight for independence. He is
the only “Black Russian” in the
world. He was one of the pillars around
which Zipra – that mighty outfit –
was built. He is a man who has always
spoken – at times quietly – against
injustice everywhere. This is the man
who refused to be made a Major General
in the army at integration because
Solomon Mujuru and Lookout Masuku, who
were made Lieutenant Generals to
General Peter Walls, were his juniors whom
he trained.
Zapu
supporters believe God has spared Dabengwa’s life up to this point for
a
purpose. For 17 years he was the most wanted person by the Rhodesian
regime,
was imprisoned by Mugabe on false charges for almost five years, and
survived all this. The man has been literally through the needle’s eye
several times. He is a gift to Zapu and a phenomenon to those who follow
struggles around the world.
The argument that Dabengwa was in Zanu PF
and was Home Affairs Minister up
to year 2000 is pretentious and
inconsistent. How come people who set up and
managed the Fifth Brigade which
killed more than 20,000 people were called
heroes until recently? How about
those who were active and known Zanu PF
youth wing members during
Gukurahundi like Tsvangirai?
Someone once told me that Tsvangirai was
part of Zanu youths who stoned Zapu
president Joshua Nkomo’s motorcade
during the 1985 election campaign in
Bindura. My informer swore that he was
very serious because they were
together with Tsvangirai in Zanu PF at that
time. I am bringing this up to
remind us that when you are pointing a finger
at someone (in this case
Dabengwa), the other four fingers are pointing at
you.
If it was good for Tsvangirai to be a member of Zanu PF during
Guklurahundi,
it was also good for Dabengwa to be a member of Zanu PF in
2000. We need to
be consistent. There is a sickening tendency in Zimbabwe to
blame
individuals, usually from Matabeleland, for collective actions of
government. Gukurahundi was blamed on Enos Nkala when we know that he was
just an individual who did not do as much as Mugabe, Shiri, Emmerson
Mnangagwa and other Zanu leaders from the other side did.
Jonathan
Moyo is the only one to blame for AIPPA. Dabengwa is the one to
blame for
Patrick Nabanyama’s disappearance.
Obert Mpofu is to blame for all the
corruption in Zimbabwe. Joshua Malinga
is to blame for all the tribalism in
Zimbabwe.
Who is to blame now for the violence that is rocking Harare and
Chitungwiza?
Suddenly it is not the co-ministers of Home Affairs because
there is Theresa
Makone. There have been several ministers of information
after Moyo but at
times one gets the impression that people deliberately
ignore all these
facts when they talk about AIPPA.
If Makone is not
to blame for the murders, kidnappings and torture being
perpetrated
currently, Dabengwa would not be the one to blame for things
that happened
in the run-up to the 2000 elections. We salute Dabengwa’s
decision to leave
government in 2000. Otherwise he would still be blamed for
everything else
that happened afterwards.
Then there is the silly theory that Dabengwa
and Makoni “prevented”
Tsvangirai and his MDC-T from winning the 2008
harmonised elections. The sad
reality is that Tsvangirai’s Mugabe-like
winner-take-all mentality, and not
Dabengwa, cost him. Tsvangirai, like
Mugabe, wanted to use his big brother
mentality to bulldoze the other MDC
and indeed Mavambo to unite with him at
his own terms and this was
refused.
It is not Dabengwa’s problem that Tsvangirai was not intelligent
enough to
realise that he needed the so-called smaller parties more than
they needed
him. Even then, Tsvangirai had the opportunity to contest Mugabe
alone in
the run-off and he developed jelly knees and fled to Botswana. We
need an
indoda sibili to deal with Mugabe. There was no Dabengwa or Makoni
in the
run-off and Tsvangirai was cowed by Zanu-PF’s violence.
The
situation is even more complex for Tsvangirai now. He needs all of us if
he
and his party are to live after the next polls. I always fear Tsvangirai
would have continued from where Mugabe left if he had managed to be
president and Zapu supporters would have continued to see fire under the new
Mugabe. Zimbabwe does not need another one-party government. When Mugabe
goes, we all must go in as equals.
Then there is the nonsense that
Zapu will “disturb” MDC-T. To me, it is like
someone saying he wants to kill
a buffalo alone because he has a dozen
knobkerries, and does not want
someone with a machine gun to shoot the
buffalo, simply because he has been
chasing after the buffalo the whole day
and it is now tired. Everyone,
whether armed with a knobkerrie or gun, must
be allowed to kill the buffalo.
There will be plenty meat for all of us when
the buffalo has been killed. We
need every hand to deal with Zanu PF, from
all fronts.
If for
instance MDC retains its 100 or so seats, and Zapu eats into Zanu PF’s
share
of seats and takes away 30, would that not be the end of Zanu PF? MDC
in my
view must view Zapu as an ally and not a foe.
For those saying Zapu must
“wait”, our answer is that we are tired of
waiting. Zapu prosecuted the
struggle only to wait for 30 years to get into
power, and is now expected to
wait for another 30 years for another party to
rule, to make it six decades
of waiting. No ways. This time around
tirikupinda tese/singena kanye kanye
(we are entering into power together).
In any case, you don’t need to be a
rocket scientist to see that the time
for an all-powerful “national” party
has ended. It is now each one for
himself.
I could not help laughing
reading Nkomo’s article when he implied Mugabe and
Tsvangirai were
“charismatic”, and Zapu did not have a charismatic leader,
in apparent
reference to Dr Dabengwa. Tsvangirai and Mugabe are nowhere near
being
charismatic. Mugabe is forceful, manipulative and Machiavellian. As
for
Tsvangirai, I will not say much except to say that short, chubby and not
so
lookable people can never be charismatic, worse if they do no sound
intelligent. That is precisely the reason why the chap is not and will not
be president of this country. His personal shortcomings are the reason why a
once popular outfit like the MDC has for a decade failed to dislodge a
dejected, tired, compromised and discredited party from
power.
Admittedly, Dabengwa is not charismatic. Soldiers are not supposed
to be
charismatic. Our Black Russian is polite, humble, brave, patient,
tactful,
thoughtful, experienced, talks when necessary, respectable,
respects, and
dignified. It is these qualities that make us believe he is
the right man to
lead Zapu in the current circumstances. With his guidance,
the next
generation of Zapu leadership will certainly be able to takeover at
our next
congress.
As for Tsvangirai, he owes his progress thus far
to our hatred for Mugabe
and Zanu PF, and the massive international support
he received from powerful
nations. Give 10 percent of the resources that
have been availed to MDC to
Zapu and Mugabe will be history. The MDC-T’s
main barrier to power has not
only been Zanu PF’s tactics, but also the
MDC’s own lack of tactics and
solid leadership. Even if Zapu and other
forces were to close shop and let
MDC-T face Zanu PF alone, that would not
help because Zanu will simply
refuse to go like they did in March 2008. And
there is nothing in the MDC to
scare Zanu PF.
However, if Zanu PF
found itself without a majority in the legislature and
Zapu was part of the
parties which constitute the majority, that would pose
problems for the
former ruling party. We are tired of giving the MDC
victories that do not
translate to power.
Some of the issues raised by Nkomo’s article referred
to above, such as his
allegation that there is perception that Zapu is a
Zanu PF project, have
been proven by the short time since the revival of
Zapu that our party is a
thorn in the wrong place for Zanu-PF, and both MDCs
of-course. No one in
Zanu PF, including the trigger-happy Mugabe himself,
has the guts to treat
Zapu with the same contempt they do the MDCs. And that
is not our problem.
We have earned the respect of our opponents because of
our history, conduct
and profile. That is why it is unimaginable that a
police officer would take
his baton stick and whip Dabengwa until his face
gets deformed the way they
did to Tsvangirai in 2007. Let someone try that,
and we see what happens
next.
There are some people who think that
the fact Zanu PF has for now not acted
in any major violent way towards Zapu
means that Zapu and Zanu are friends.
We are not. It is a case of both sides
being cautious and reserving their
energies for harder times. You don’t
start a war unnecessarily with a
formidable enemy when you can avoid it.
Zanu PF has been clever in that
regard. That is why they have ordered the
government-owned media they
control never to write about Zapu. We have not
complained because that gives
us the chance to do our things away from
unnecessary media interference.
That is why people get surprised when they
hear that Nkulumane Hall was full
to the brim with Zapu members attending an
inter-branch meeting.
Then there is the funny theory that Zapu is a
regional or tribal party. If
Zapu is a Ndebele party because it is led by a
Ndebele person, then MDC-T is
a Karanga party and Zanu PF is a Zezuru party.
So we are all tribal parties.
So where is the problem? If half-a-loaf is
better than nothing, then an inch
of a country is better than everything.
Zapu has nothing in terms of
territory for now. Capture of any part of
Zimbabwe, whether a district,
province or region would be a huge bonus. We
will not lose any sleep over
remarks that ours is a regional or tribal
party.
Dumisani Nkomo also said his perception was that Zapu criticised
MDCs more
than we did with Zanu PF. Yes. While we believe Zanu PF is beyond
redemption
and we do not expect them to ever change, we are worried that the
MDCs,
especially the one with Tsvangirai’s surname, has since 2005 become a
new
Zanu PF in outlook and character. Also, the MDCs occupy what was
traditionally Zapu’s territory. We have to get that territory from the party
that is occupying it, the MDCs, and not Zanu PF.
Again, the MDCs are
trying hard to counter Zapu in those areas, while Zanu
PF has given up. It
is also important to remember that the MDC is now in
government and
therefore a ruling party that must be criticised just like
Zanu PF. The
problem with the MDCs is that they put themselves in a
situation where they
are not able to define if they are ruling or opposition
parties under the
high-sounding but very loose GPA.
It clear to all and sundry that Zapu,
even at this point, is an effective
political party which Zimbabwe badly
needs to counter Zanu PF’s bully-boy
tendencies. Members of the white
community in some areas have come forward
to work with the party because
they realise that Zapu may be a small but
vicious dog. We have been able in
many instances, especially in the
Matabeleland region, to stop people from
elsewhere being bussed by Zanu PF
to invade the few remaining commercial
farms.
Despite all the support the white people gave to MDC, the party
could do
nothing when Zanu PF disposed them of the land, and now wants to
dispossess
them of their firms in the cities. Zapu is clearly a strong and
effective
opposition party, even at its infancy.
Finally, we need
Zapu to recover all the properties that our party and our
Zipra veterans
bought but were forcibly taken by Zanu PF and given to
government or Zanu PF
activists. We have realised that none but ourselves
can push our agenda. No
one from the two MDCs has ever opened their mouth to
say Zipra and Zapu must
be given back their properties
Contrast that to the matter of Mutumwa
Mawere, an individual who lost his
assets to Zanu PF, and the MDC-T has gone
out of its way to support his
fight to repossess the companies. We have
revived Zapu because we need
Magnet House in Bulawayo, and Snake Park in
Harare, with all our snakes,
back to Zapu. We are as aggrieved as
Mawere.
Zapu invested in its future and has assets and a culture that
perpetuates
itself, and will therefore never die. Dumisani Nkomo is
therefore obviously
wrong to ask if Zapu is not a party for the past. We are
a party for the
past, present and future. Zapu will outlive most of the
parties, because
most of them were never founded on any tangible ideological
background.
Let me take this opportunity to remind all Zimbabweans that
Zapu was formed
on December 17, 1961, and this year is our Golden Jubilee.
Fifty years is no
joke. Expect to hear more about this as we move towards
December 17, 2011.
How we wish the elections could be held during the year
of our Golden
Jubilee.
Methuseli Moyo is Zapu's director of marketing
and communications
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
11/02/2011 00:00:00
by Dinizulu Mbikokayise
Macaphulana
“No matter how well the hen dances,” says a Ugandan
proverb, “the fox will
never admire her” because for fox, the hen is just a
meal whose talents must
never go beyond filling his tummy.
This
proverbial predicament of the talented hen whose gifts are ignored
while her
value as the fox’s delicious meal is upheld compares interestingly
to the
political and historical predicament that confronts Welshman Ncube in
Zimbabwe today.
He is being told in all manner of words and signs
that in spite of being
mandated to assume the leadership of his party and
the position of political
principal and that of deputy prime minister, he
cannot do so. All sorts of
legal and political confabulations are being
erected to block his
ascendancy, for no other good reason except that he is
Welshman, surnamed
Ncube.
A loose translation of Lovemore
Majaivanna’s classic song “Isono Sami”
bespeaks as much as the above Ugandan
Ocholi proverb. “No matter how well I
dance, even if I go across oceans,
whatever it is that I do well,” sings
Majaivana, “they won’t publish my
story because my one and only sin is being
Zwangendaba.”
It is this
historical, cultural and political sin of being “Zwangendaba”
that pursues
Ncube like the Biblical curse of the sin of the fathers that is
punished
upon their grandchildren. It is very easy to look at this as Ncube’s
problem
or even to see him as the author of his own demise, but a close
Socratic
scrutiny of the matter shows that the sin of being “Zwangendaba”
dogs all
personalities of Ndebele bearing in Zanu PF, MDC-T, and even
outside the
perimeters of politics -- in schools, universities, companies
and sporting
organisations.
It is not a joke. It is a serious historical, cultural,
spiritual and
political question that begs an urgent answer. It is a problem
that will not
commit suicide but must be confronted and killed once and for
all. It is an
invitation to deep thought and emergency corrective action
that cannot be
postponed. It must not be called by any other name, nickname
or euphemism
but its correct and honest description of anti-Ndebele
tribalism that
punctuates the politics of Zanu PF and MDC-T in
Zimbabwe.
I will, at this juncture, digress a little for illustrative
purposes, after
all, the curse of the sin of the fathers is not unique to
the Ndebele
people, but it is uniform to all feared, hated, and marginalised
minorities
in the world.
Sometime ago in imperial America which did
not only enslave but cemented the
bricks of her civilisation with the blood
of black people rose Marcus Mosiah
Gurvey. He built a giant ship called the
black star liner in preparation to
“ship out” the blacks back to Africa,
since America was refusing to “shape
up” to the needs of the African
Americans. In fear, anger and hatred, the
system infiltrated Gurvey’s group,
manufactured fraud charges against him,
damned, jailed and finished
him.
Later on, there rose Martin Luther King Junior, a hair-raising
Christian
orator who shook the world with his “dream” of togetherness
between blacks
and whites in America. His teachings amounted to Christian
“turn the other
cheek” strategy. Angered by his compelling truths, growing
popularity and
spectacular talents, the system did not only record his
various bedroom
operations (remember Pius Ncube) but his life ended with a
bullet to the
head.
Then came Malcolm X, a fiery Islamic speaker of
the militant category. X
preached “an eye for an eye” and argued that it was
impossible to confront
the “extreme” violence of American racism with
“moderation”. He urged blacks
to shoot back to the Ku Klux Klan. Malcolm X
also died under a hail of
bullets.
Earlier on, as a student of agile
intellect, X had disclosed to his teacher
that he wished to be a lawyer by
profession. The white teacher was taken
aback. He advised X to try
bricklaying or other professions that were equal
to his station of race and
class, not law, a preserve of the white and
privileged.
There you
have it, patient reader. The blacks were the Zwangendabas of the
American
system. They were not supposed to aspire above what was cut out for
them.
They were to be labourers and not leaders. They were what legendary
British
investigative journalist John Pilger calls “the unpeople” who always
must be
underlings and ladders upon which the masters of destiny must climb
and that
is it, they are residents of the peripheries of mainstream
political and
historical happenings whose talents can be enjoyed without
their
benefit.
Let us return, dear reader, to the Zimbabwean political and
historical
theatre of the macabre, where the “Zwangendabas” and “unpeople”
of Ndebele
label are playing out their own encounters with the self
appointed first
borns of historical and political destiny who occupy the
high echelons of
Zanu PF and MDC-T leadership.
The late Joshua Nkomo,
perhaps the greatest paragon of the Zimbabwean
struggle against colonialism,
died a broken and finished man. Nkomo was told
that he is “father Zimbabwe”
which title I still insist was a cruel nickname
given to him by his enemies
who wanted him to cling to nationalism while
they resorted to opportunistic
tribalism.
For rightfully aspiring to lead Zimbabwe, Nkomo invited hell
for himself and
all the Ndebele people. “Father Zimbabwe” left the country
through a rabbit
exit as Mugabe’s Gukurahundi hounds came for his life and
many lives of his
disarmed followers. The “chibwe chitedza” and “father of
the nation” had to
scamper for dear life as “the father of the dissidents”
that Mugabe called
him in parliament.
And who were the dissidents?
This writer attended a school in Bubi, where
the “dissidents” came wearing
deliberately torn and dirty clothes and raped
our teachers. These
“dissidents” spoke English with a now familiar accent.
The following day,
the same dissidents came, wearing new army fatigues, in
hot pursuit of
yesterday’s dissidents. We were toddlers at primary school,
but we were not
fooled. The dissidents were soldiers and soldiers were
dissidents, with a
sole mission to stop the “Zwangendabas” and the
“unpeople” from ascending
to the leadership of Zimbabwe.
There is also good Gorden Moyo. He worked
so hard for the victory of the
MDC-T in Bulawayo, to the extent of creating
an entire Progressive Residents’
Association to campaign for Tsvangirai and
unseat MDC. Gorden Moyo even
uttered vows that certain politicians were not
to see parliament as long as
he lived. He even attended the all important
“Botswana meeting” where some
MDC parliamentarians were “persuaded” to rebel
and to break the MDC for all
time.
Recently, when Gorden announced
his wishes to be elected into some top
office within MDC-T, he was reminded
that he is not MDC-T enough to go that
far. They enjoyed his efforts in
manufacturing their victory and rewarded
him with a ministerial post and now
they cannot endure his wish to rise to
influential ranks. He is a
“Zwangendaba” and also very “unpeople” in the
eyes of the system that is now
using the same people that Gorden campaigned
for to remind him to keep his
political station.
Thokozani Khupe is the vice-president to Morgan
Tsvangirai in the MDC-T and
she is the deputy prime minister. In the party
and in government, she
deputises Tsvangirai but she has to live with the
interesting reality that
Tendai Biti is called MDC-T “number two”. If Biti
is Tsvangirai “second in
command”, what is Thokozani Khupe? She is a shadow
-- a ceremonial and
symbolic place holder like a decimal in arithmetic. She
too is “unpeople”
and a “Zwangendaba”.
These realities show the
difference between Zanu PF and MDC-T to be similar
to that of Castle Lager
from Castle Lite -- different levels of fermentation
and alcoholic
concentration, but the same ingredients and flavor.
Professor Jonathan
Moyo, the man from Tsholotsho, cannot escape mention in
this article. Mugabe
is happy to have him back in Zanu PF because of his
many “talents”. His
“talents” are well understood to mean his industry at
political strategy and
his ability to command words as if he created them.
Moyo does hammer and
chisel words into such a shape that delivers old ideas
as if they were novel
discoveries of today. Words obey him, and he is a
champion of politispeak.
Any political party will be happy to have him.
For all his talents and
service to Zanu PF, Moyo did not create Zanu PF, nor
has he been in there
for very long, yet all the sins of Zanu PF have been
heaped upon him. He is
said to have single handedly sat down in his closet,
drafted and enacted
AIPPA and POSA. There are senior Zanu PF politicians who
have commanded
genocidal brigades and overseen the slaughter of many
innocents, but these
are tolerated.
For being a spokesperson of the regime for that period,
all the sins of Zanu
PF rest on Moyo’s political shoulders. Yet there are
many who have served
Zanu PF bigger, bolder and longer than Moyo including
the now political
“angels” like Pachedu Roy Bennett who fundraised and
rallied for the
genocidal Zanu PF government for years but are now
delivering lectures in
Paris on the evils of the same party.
I have
been confronted by angry Tsvangirai supporters who charge that I
unnecessarily bundle Tsvangirai together with Mugabe and criticise him
without observing that he is far better than Mugabe. I refuse that
suggestion. Ronald Roberts Suresh in No Cold Kitchen, an unauthorised
biography of anti-apartheid Nobel Prize winning novelist Nadine Gordimer,
accuses her of being “weirdly positioned as one wanting to undo racial
distance while remaining a beneficiary of that distance.”
It is the
same with Tsvangirai, while he is happy to win awards presenting
himself as
Mugabe’s formidable opponent; he is not showing himself willing
to abandon
the benefits of the genocidal system that Mugabe and Zanu PF have
established in Zimbabwe. He carries himself more like a Zanu PF reformist or
faction leader than one who wishes to overthrow the system. Angry Tsvangirai
and Mugabe’s supporters should also know that I do not write to make friends
but to expose what I see as truths.
The political spectacle that is
ensuing around Welshman Ncube is not an
accident but an incident
deliberately and conspiratorially occasioned by the
anti-Ndebele system of
tribalism in Zimbabwean politics. Notice how two
weeks ago, Mugabe’s parrot
and poet Nathaniel Manheru was accusing Ncube of
having been “a negotiator
without a principal” and for the first time
praising Mutambara as “his own
man”.
Tsvangirai was also lionised by Manheru as a political “big boy”
which was
also a first. This was a deliberate effort by the system to
fertilise the
political landscape in Zimbabwe for resistance to Ncube’s
ascendancy. Just
notice Mugabe’s response “only if Mutambara resigns”
otherwise “we cannot
remove him.” It is now clearer than before that
Priscilla Misihairabwi’s
argument that there is an enduring fear of Ndebele
leadership in Zimbabwe is
a valid conclusion.
Joubert Mudzumwe and
others were sponsored and encouraged to mount that
legal challenge to give
the system an excuse to block Ncube’s rise. No doubt
Ncube is a formidable
politician of robust intellectual stamina and agile
emotional intelligence
who is equal to this challenge.
The political lesson that can be gleaned
from this unfortunate attempt by
tribalists in Zimbabwe to block the
political ascendancy of a deserving and
capable politician is that the
separatists and divisionists in Zimbabwe are
not as commonly alleged in
Matabeleland but they are in Harare and in
government. What Mthwakazi
Lliberation Front and others are doing is to
react to the separatism and
divisionism.
There is no doubt any more that what is happening around
Welshman Ncube in
Zimbabwe is a bold attempt to fulfill the dictates of the
infamous 14 paged
1979 nine tribal manifesto that clearly spells out how the
Ndebele people
must be undermined in all spheres of Zimbabwean
life.
Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana is a Zimbabwean journalist who is
studying
in Lesotho, he is contactable on e-mail: dinizulumacaphulana@yahoo.com
In her obituary of Yvonne Vera, Ranka Primorac wrote: “The most courageous among them [her other books] is The Stone Virgins, the first work of fiction that openly exposes and condemns the government sponsored violence [Gukurahundi] against civilians in Independent Zimbabwe.” Primorac goes on to praise its “stylistic mastery and political bravery.” Yet The Stone Virgins has never been banned; Vera (who, curiously, received the Tucholsky Award of the Swedish PEN for a writer in exile or undergoing persecution) never went into exile, was never persecuted, never even harassed. The novel was published in 2002 when the government’s policy of re-crafting and subverting the law to support its ideology of “patriotism” was in Operation [upper case deliberate]. How come they left her alone? I can think of two reasons: first, that Primorac is wrong about Vera’s political courage; second, The Stone Virgins is a novel written in turgid English, and was never likely to influence the restless povo, for most of whom books are unaffordable, and English is very much a second or third language.
By blurring distinctions between dissidents, pseudo-dissidents, and soldiers; between war and massacre; by the timing of the atrocities described in the novel, Vera creates self-protecting ambiguities. For example, the brutal murder of the shop owner, Mahlatini takes place in 1982, before the Fifth Brigade was officially mobilised. His killers are called “soldiers”. Just before he dies, the author puts a suggestive thought in his mind: “He did not want to see who was killing him, just in case he recalled something about the eyes, the forehead, the gait of this man.” Just in case his killer was a local?
The saintly man, Cephas, associated with the mazhanje (umhobohobo) fruit of the eastern highlands, is Shona (his tagged on surname, Dube, notwithstanding); the diabolical man, Sibaso, associated with the marula fruit of Matabeleland, is Ndebele. Dissidents and pseudo-dissidents did commit atrocities, some hundreds, mainly against whites and so-called sell-outs; but the Fifth Brigade, targeting innocent rural folk, killed, raped, and maimed tens of thousands. Vera’s choice of perpetrator in this context seems somewhat skewed. No wonder she wouldn’t allow copies of Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace, to be displayed in the Art Gallery shop when she was the Director – the same art gallery where Owen Maseko’s exhibition remains sealed off to the public. So, Ranka Primorac is wrong – there is nothing in The Stone Virgins that” openly” condemns and exposes Gukurahundi. On the contrary, it is full of lyrical self-censorship.
The second reason why the authorities might have left Yvonne Vera alone recalls the words of the writer, Stanley Nyamfukudza: “One of the best ways to hide information in Zimbabwe is to publish it in a book.” The Board of Censors tends to overlook the written word because the vast majority of people in this country have little access to books, especially fictional books. The visual arts, township drama, and performance poetry are another story! The Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiongo was imprisoned not for his novels in English but for his plays in Kikuyu. The authorities don’t want the masses to get too excited.
So, why Owen Maseko? Again, I can think of two reasons: first, his exhibition is courageous to the point of recklessness in its exposure of what has now been officially classified as genocide; second, as a visual artist his work is immediately accessible to the restless povo. It speaks a universal language.
This post written by John Eppel was first published on Kubatana.
Further reading on the charges facing Owen Maseko
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by The Zimbabwean
Friday, 11 February
2011 15:24
Thanks to Cathy Buckle’s Family and Friends letter last week I
now know how
the ZTV is covering – or rather, not covering – events in
Egypt. In this age
of mass communications it is despicable that a public
broadcaster can
abandon all objectivity and actually conceal real news from
the public
because it is not in the interests of the ruling party to hear
about popular
unrest on the African continent. The Herald, too, in its
craven support of
Mugabe and his Zanu PF resorts to downright lies in their
efforts to
besmirch Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC claiming that the
opposition is about
to unleash a Cairo style mass demonstration against the
government. This
week Harare was rocked by looting of foreign-owned
businesses by known Zanu
PF supporters escorted by the police who once again
demonstrated their
abject failure to uphold law and order. We are told that
the looted
businesses were owned by people from Nigeria, Ghana and the DRC.
Interesting
that Chinese-owned businesses were not included in the looting
spree; no
doubt the revelation that the Chinese government is about to
inject $US 10
billion into the Zimbabwean economy in exchange for a platinum
deal had
something to do with that! Speaking in Marondera, Saviour
Kasukuwere added
his familiar racist spin, saying, “The indigenization
programme should
benefit people with black skin only.”
All over the
country, violence against the opposition has been stepped up
in an attempt
to prove that the MDC is about to mount a mass protest against
the 86 year
old dictator in Harare. VOA reported a senior ZRP officer
telling the ZBC,
“The situation in Egypt will never be tolerated anywhere in
Zimbabwe. We
want to assure the nation that we are fully prepared for such
violent
activities and our officers are already on the ground to ensure
peace and
tranquillity prevails in the country.” Civic society too has been
under
attack this week. On Wednesday the Executive Director of the Human
Rights
Forum, Abel Chikomo, was detained along with two other officials and
held
for six hours of interrogation about the objectives of the Human Rights
Forum. The purpose behind these daily assaults on civil liberties in
Zimbabwe is very clear: to engender paralysing fear in every sector of
society; newspaper vendors beaten up for selling independent papers and
ordinary MDC members detained for no reason other than to deter them from
legitimate civic action. It is a pattern Zimbabweans are very familiar with
in the run-up to elections. Through it all, Robert Mugabe remains silent and
his silence surely denotes consent while his thugs on the ground attempt to
silence all dissent.
Yet it does not take very much intelligence to see
that what is happening in
Cairo is precisely the result of such oppression.
Like Zimbabwe, Egypt has
suffered for three decades under a ruler who has
become increasingly
autocratic. Like Mugabe, Hosni Mubarak was once the
people’s hero but, as
his speech last night showed he has completely lost
touch with the grass
roots. Even for a non-Arabic speaker, what was very
clear from his address
was the patronising tone he adopted toward the
thousands gathered in Tahrir
Square and in towns and cities all over Egypt.
As their protest entered its
seventeenth day his only words were, in
essence, that he knew what was best
for Egypt and he would not leave until
he was ready to go. I was struck by
the comment of one observer that the
median age of the demonstrators was 24
and the roar of anger that went up
from the crowd showed how they reacted to
the ‘father’ or should it be
‘grandfather’ of the nation, an 82 year old
man, telling them that he knew
what was best for them and that they should
all just go home as if they were
naughty children. With that speech, I
believe, Mubarak has brought about his
own demise. As with all
dictatorships, the role of the army is crucial but
by today, Friday
lunchtime, there are as yet no signs that the military are
prepared to fire
on the protesters. What makes the protest in Egypt so
remarkable is that it
has been entirely peaceful. Armed with nothing more
than their voices and
placards the thousands of demonstrators from all walks
of life have proved,
in the words of the old anti-apartheid slogan, that ‘A
people united can
never be divided’
Yours in the (continuing) struggle
PH. author of Sami’s Story, an account of
Murambatsvina as seen through the
eyes of a young boy, available on
Lulu.com.