A delegation of South African traditional leaders is due to depart
for Zimbabwe on Tuesday to assess Zimbabwe's land resettlement policy. The
National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) which will be led by Inkosi
Mpiyezintombi Mzimela has been invited by President Robert
Mugabe.
"The NHTL feel honoured by this invitation and view this as an
indication by Zimbabwe's regime about its intentions to enhance the status
of traditional leaders and the role they can play in land resettlement and
governance," Mzimela said in a statement issued today.
Mzimela said
the aim of the visit was to also share experiences and strategies for
improved local government systems. He says their approach as South African
traditional leaders is to unite all African traditional leaders under the
banner of the Continental House of Traditional Leaders of Africa (Cotla). He
said the visit had presented the NHTL with an opportunity to realise their
vision, which would turn their past frustrations into positive energy for
renewal and growth.
"We want our people to live in harmony, to be well
educated, to feel and enjoy the fruits of liberation. These are our happy
aspirations for our people and we are dedicated to achieving these goals."
Mzimela said traditional leaders in South Africa were confident that this
visit would strengthen the recognition and struggle of traditional leaders
to the international community and will also provide an invaluable
opportunity to learn about accomplishments and challenges faced by the
traditional leadership sector in Zimbabwe. - Sapa
Mugabe declares Moyo enemy 'Number One' Mon 28 February
2005 HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has declared his former propaganda
chief, Jonathan Moyo, number one enemy and ordered his ruling ZANU PF party
to deploy whatever "resources and strategies" necessary to ensure Moyo loses
next month's election, sources told ZimOnline last night.
Moyo,
who was last week dismissed by Mugabe as information minister, is standing
as an independent candidate in his rural home Tsholotsho constituency. The
Tsholotsho seat is currently held by the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change party.
ZANU PF insiders said Mugabe described Moyo as an
"ungrateful and greedy power monger" during a meeting of the party's inner
politburo cabinet last week.
Mugabe, who resisted pressure from
the politburo to dismiss Moyo much earlier, is said to have then ordered
ZANU PF political commissar Elliot Manyika to ensure that Moyo's bid for the
Tsholotsho parliamentary seat fails.
"The President said Moyo
had transformed himself from a hard-working cadre to a top ranking enemy
whose failure should be guaranteed," said one ZANU PF official who attended
the meeting.
The official, who did not want to be named,
said Mugabe also vowed to make sure Moyo does not benefit from mileage he
got during his stint in ZANU PF and the government.
He said:
"The President was clearly agitated by Moyo. It must be because he alone
stood by Moyo when other senior party officials wanted him booted out. He
feels hard done and he did little to conceal that during the meeting. He
made it clear that Moyo should not set foot at Parliament
again."
Neither Moyo nor Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba
could be reached for comment on the matter last night.
Manyika
would not deny or confirm whether he was under special orders from Mugabe to
ensure Moyo was defeated. But the ZANU PF commissar said the party was not
only pushing to win all the 120 constituencies up for grabs on March 31, but
will also use the poll to put "Jonathan Moyo in his real
place."
"We are determined to win not only in Tsholotsho but in
all the 120 seats. Of course we will also show Jonathan Moyo his real place.
He is a nonentity and we will leave him with no illusion about that," said
Manyika.
Once one of Mugabe's closest and most powerful
lieutenants, Moyo fell out with the President after secretly attempting to
block the appointment of Joyce Mujuru as second vice-president of ZANU PF
and Zimbabwe.
Mujuru, who was eventually appointed to the
vice-presidency, was Mugabe's choice for the post seen as a key stepping
stone to the top job.
Mugabe subsequently fired Moyo from the
politburo and blocked his election into the central committee as punishment
for attempting to scuttle Mujuru's rise.
He fired him from the
government when he defied party rules to stand as an independent in
Tsholotsho.
Moyo is the author of harsh press laws that have seen
hundreds of journalists arrested and four newspapers including the country's
biggest non-government owned daily, the Daily News, shut down. - ZimOnline
Newspaper appeals to court against ban Mon 28 February
2005 BULAWAYO - Publishers of The Weekly Times, banned by the government
last Friday, will today appeal to the Administrative Court against the
paper's forced closure.
The chief executive officer of
Mthwakazi Private Limited Company, the papers' publishing company, Godfrey
Ncube, told ZimOnline: "We are taking legal action against the illegal
closure. We are taking up the matter with the Administrative Court
(today)."
The state's Media and Information Commission, which
licences papers and journalists in the country, cancelled the Weekly Times'
licence accusing the publishers of lying when they applied for registration
of the paper that it would be a "development journalism"
paper.
Commission chairman Tafataona Mahoso accuses the publishers
of producing an anti-government political publication instead of a general
and developmental news newspaper. Ncube denies Mahoso's
charges.
The Weekly Times, which was limited to Zimbabwe's second
largest city of Bulawayo and its environs, joins three other papers
including the country's biggest non-government owned daily, the Daily News,
forcibly shut down by the government in the last two years for
breaching its harsh press laws. - ZimOnline
Zimbabwe to reintroduce bicameral parliament Mon 28
February 2005 HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has said Zimbabwe will
reintroduce the Senate in the next four to six months, confirming
revelations by ZimOnline last year that the government was planning
wide-ranging constitutional changes.
Addressing ruling ZANU PF
party officials in Manicaland at the weekend, Mugabe said those who lost in
the party's primary elections will be accommodated in the soon to be
established Senate.
Mugabe said: "Although we had abolished the
Senate, which is the Upper House, we will re-introduce it in the next four
to six months. Those who did not make it during the primary elections will
be considered for this Upper House.
"The Upper House will take
a close scrutiny on the business and laws passed by Parliament before they
are enacted into law."
Late last year, ZimOnline broke the story
indicating that there were wide-ranging constitutional changes in the
pipeline.
But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa at the time denied
the government was planning to reintroduce the Senate saying ZANU PF would
not proceed with the constitutional changes as it did not have a two-thirds
majority to effect the proposal.
According to a draft
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No 17) Bill, 2004, shown to ZimOnline
last August, the government plans to set up a bicameral Parliament with a
Senate of 60 members, with 40 Senators elected indirectly by proportional
representation, four from each province, plus 10 provincial governors
appointed by the President and 10 Chiefs elected by the Council of Chiefs. -
ZimOnline
Central bank fails to allocate forex to 93 percent of
bids Mon 28 February 2005 HARARE - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
failed to allocate hard cash to 93 percent of the bids at its foreign
currency auction floors last month in yet another indication of total
failure of the forex auction system.
In the previous month, the
central bank was unable to pay 88 percent of bids on the floors. The forex
auction system was introduced by RBZ governor Gideon Gono at the beginning
of last year in a bid to attract hard cash to the official market and crush
the black market.
But economists and business leaders say the
pegging of the auction exchange rate at $5 957 to the American dollar has
rendered the auction system ineffective and irrelevant with traders and
individuals alike now returning in droves to the black-market for their
forex needs.
On the illegal parallel market, the green back fetches
at least $11 500.
According to a report by the economic
research department of local financial services firm, Finhold, the total
amount of bids rose from US$29.4 million on January 3 to US$80.8 million on
January 27 but the allotment of hard cash per auction remained fixed at
US$11 million.
"Against a fixed allotment of US$11 million per
auction, the total amount of bids on the foreign currency auction market
rose from US$29.4 million on January 3, to US$80.8 million on January 27,
2005," the report reads in part.
Gono has ignored calls by the
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce to review his auction system to bring rates at floors in line with
market realities.
Zimbabwe has grappled acute foreign currency
shortages since the International Monetary Fund cut balance-of-payments
support in 1999. The hard cash shortages have manifested themselves in
shortages of fuel, electricity, essential medical drugs and food because
there is no forex to pay foreign suppliers. - ZimOnline
Harare - A Czech high school student was crowned Miss Tourism
World at a ceremony in Harare late on Saturday, where Zimbabwe was chosen to
host the event next year as well.
Zuzara Putnarova won the title of
Tourism World 2005 before some 2 000 people at the Harare International
Conference Centre.
"It's the best birthday present ever for me,"
Putnarova, who turns 19 on Monday, told AFP after receiving the crown from
last year's winner Aleva Seligario of Hungary.
"Though I worked hard
for it I can't believe still I have won. I will try to do my best to promote
Zimbabwe as a tourist destination. I loved Harare. The people are
warm."
Putnarova beat 93 contestants from 82 countries.
Racquel
Babelcia of Spain was chosen first runner-up, reigning Miss Zimbabwe Oslie
Muringai second runner-up while Alexandra Olynick of Spain was third
runner-up.
The event was attended by Zimbabwe's first lady Grace
Mugabe.
Michael Orji, spokesperson for the Britain-based Miss Tourism
World Organisation said the pageant sought to "promote tourism across the
world especially in parts of the world in dire need of
promotion".
Zimbabwe has suffered a slump in tourist arrivals from the
West in the last four years due to the ongoing stand-off between President
Robert Mugabe's government and the United States and the European Union over
alleged rights abuses in the southern African country.
The EU and the
United States imposed a travel embargo on Mugabe and members of his inner
circle after he won the 2002 presidential election, tainted by allegations
of violence, intimidation and electoral fraud.
IMPORTANT
NOTICE ------------------------------- We need your help! Standing strong
together, as Africans, in unity, means spreading this newsletter as widely as
possible! Whether in Zimbabwe, or abroad, whether by e-mail or as a printed
copy. Don't hang onto it! Pass it on! But please remember: any-one that
wants to receive this newsletter directly from solidarity4zim@highveldmail.co.za
must subscribe through e-mail in person!! This is to avoid problems with
local and international Spam laws and regulations. (More info at the end of
this letter)
---------------------------------------------------- "An
Injury To One, Is An Injury To
All!" ----------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS ----------------- 1.
Solidarity In Practice: The Zimbabwe Solidarity Conference 2. Poem: Hey Man,
Come With Me! 3. Reporting Back: Third Zimbabwe Solidarity Conference 4.
Statement: 3rd Zimbabwean Solidarity Conference 5. News Round-Up Of The
Week 6. Voices From Within: The Youth 7. Analysis : The SADC Protocol And
The Observers: Does This Contribute To Regional Solidarity For Liberation
Ideals And Agenda? 8. Opinion And Editorial: No Signs Yet That The Elections
Will Be Legitimate 9. About this initiative 10. Agenda 11.
Distribution and Contact information
SOLIDARITY IN PRACTICE - THE
ZIMBABWE
SOLIDARITY CONFERENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ It
wasn't always easy for the many speakers to address the plenary session of
the solidarity conference on the 24th and 25th of February. The atmosphere at
the conference facility in the South African capital was fiery, and laden
with activist energy. Chanting and singing filled the conference hall on
several occasions and came to a climax when Morgan Tsvangirai approached the
hall. The many Amandla!'s and much spontaneous singing resulted in speeches
lasting longer than planned as well as a very sweaty organizing committee.
Jeremy Cronin had to wait at least ten minutes before the singing crowd,
happy to see him stand before them, allowed him to read out and explain the
collectively drafted statement.
The bulk of the chanting and
singing came from a big presence of South African youth organizations such as
Cosas and Sasco. Thy cheered up the atmosphere with their activist energy as
well a provided the necessary insightfulness with critical questions to the
keynote speakers. But delegates were not only of South African origin. Civics
from the SADC region at large were well represented, and delegates from as
far away as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Angola were
present, alongside with brothers and sisters from Mozambique, Lesotho,
Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Zambia.
Another show of solidarity
came from the chair of the conference, Bishop Rubin Phillip of Kwazulu-Natal,
when he asked for moments of silence and moments of prayer. These allowed
delegates a chance to commemorate the many Zimbabweans who have given their
lives for freedom. This sombre reflections allowed participants to pay
respect to the many who, over the last few years, have been killed, tortured,
raped or have been made homeless as a consequence of their continued struggle
for freedom. But with the Inter-denominational Women's Prayer League from
Mamelodi to back the prayers up many found their moment of silence with
Zimbabwean friends and family on their minds and in their hearts.
The conference ended in several strong commitments to concrete acts
of solidarity, as can be witnessed by the conference statement (further
on in the newsletter) and the ensuing agenda. The conference agreed
that the focus should not only be on the March 2005 elections, but
also long-term. It was further noted that these problems not only exist
in Zimbabwe but elsewhere in the region but that we have to join forces
to tackle the Zimbabwe crisis first. Delegates emphasised that we have
to repay Zimbabwe for the respect and support it showed us during
the anti-apartheid struggle as much as we would expect their help
and assistance again if ever we in South Africa are faced with the
ordeals Zimbabwe is now faced with.
Bishop Rubin closed the
conference with a poem by Freedom Nyamubaya, who had joined Mugabe's ZANLA
army at the age of 15 where her first sexual experience with men was to be
raped in the camp - an all-too-common experience for many women recruits in
the ZANLA forces during the liberation war. And sadly today this experience
is no different for the many young women in the youth militia camps.
POEM HEY MAN, COME WITH
ME! ------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I
get lonely While the world is full of life. I see happy faces torn with
joy, loving girl-friends and loving husbands. I sit and wonder what is
wrong for I stand with thousands and I only count as one.
Mother
is so far. Maybe she is dead. This world gets so frantic - I really
miss home. Oh! Forget about home, It's another blood pool. But I love
my people This, I cannot hide . . .
Hey man, come with me! let us
fight this fight together. Yes, I store love for you, but I will always
love my people. If we have a family, let Fighters be our name; we need no
ring, no ceremony - Let victory be our ring.
Courtesy of Freedom
T.V. Nyamubuya, from on the road again,
Freedom Publishers
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- "All
Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!" - the Freedom Charter Congress of the
People, Kliptown, South Africa, 1955
------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------
REPORTING
BACK - THIRD ZIMBABWE SOLIDARITY
CONFERENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------ The
Third Zimbabwe Solidarity Conference was held in Pretoria, South Africa on
the 24th and 25th of February. Attendees at the Conference included
representatives from civil society organizations across the SADC region who
had come together to discuss a program of action in solidarity with
Zimbabweans in the run up to the March 31st parliamentary elections in
Zimbabwe, and beyond.
The Conference began with a keynote address by
COSATU secretary general, Zwelenzima Vavi. Vavi noted the historic ties
between South Africa and Zimbabwe, including between the two nation's labour
movements before describing the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. Assessing the
upcoming March 31st elections in Zimbabwe, Vavi said, "it will take a miracle
to save the credibility of these elections." Obstacles to a free and
fair election, Vavi said, included draconian legislation such as the
Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information
and Protection Act (AIPPA), as well as the "chaotic voters roll," which
Vavi said "is in a complete shambles."
Two veterans of Zimbabwe's
liberation struggle, Wilfred Mhanda and Freedom Nyamubaya also spoke at the
conference. Mhanda emphasised that the liberation struggle had been a
struggle of the Zimbabwean people, saying, "Mugabe on his own could not have
liberated Zimbabwe." Addressing the upcoming elections, Mhanda argued that
election conditions that would be unacceptable in South Africa should also
be unacceptable in Zimbabwe.
The President of the Young Communists'
League, David Masondo, addressed the conference. Masondo criticized the ZANU
(PF) regime, saying that the history of oppression had been appropriated by
Mugabe. Masondo also identified the role played by repressive legislation and
violence, asking, "How can Zimbabweans resolve their own problems when
the necessary conditions are not there?" "We are very critical of
that stance of our government," he added.
Chris Landsberg, Director of
the Centre for Policy Studies, described the possibility of SADC intervening
in the Zimbabwean crisis as very unlikely, suggesting that SADC countries
were hesitant to criticize Mugabe for fear of being seen as "sellouts."
Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) addressed the Conference at the opening of the second
day. Tsvangirai said that ZANU (PF) had betrayed the ideal of "one man,
one vote" espoused by the liberation struggle. Focusing on the
March election, Tsvangirai noted the poor condition of the voters roll,
saying that the MDC estimated that there were between 800,000 and 1
million dead voters on the roll. "The election will not be free and fair
no matter what the result," said Tsvangirai, citing Zimbabwe's
continuing non-compliance with the SADC Norms and Guidelines governing
democratic elections. Tsvangirai stressed that there was consensus on the
issue of land redistribution in Zimbabwe, but that the MDC disagreed with
the ruling party over the methodology, saying land should go to
ordinary people not politicians.
The President of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Lovemore Matombo, likened the workers of
Zimbabwe to "the grass that suffers when two bull elephants
fight."
Through extensive discussions, the Conference produced a
programme of action targeted at drawing greater attention to the suffering
of Zimbabweans and promoting action from all stakeholders in the
region. The Conference identified the resolution of the "persisting
political blockage" as the necessary condition for addressing the social,
economic and moral crises in Zimbabwe. The Conference also stated that the
March 31st elections "will not be remotely compliant with [the
SADC] guidelines" and stated its support for a more "hands-on role" by SADC
in the elections. A statement drafted by the plenary session of
the conference is included in this newsletter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- "There
Shall be Work and Security!" - the Freedom Charter Congress of the People,
Kliptown, South Africa, 1955
------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------
STATEMENT
3RD ZIMBABWEAN SOLIDARITY
CONFERENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- 24th-25th
February, South Africa the Zimbabwe Solidarity and Consultation
Forum
The Zimbabwe Solidarity and Consultation forum is a network
of progressive South African civil society organizations, including
youth, women, labour, faith-based, human rights and student formations.
Over the past months our network has grown rapidly in size and influence,
and we say confidently that we have contributed to a much
greater understanding of the crisis and challenges in Zimbabwe within
our organizations and within the broader South African debate. We
convened our 3rd Zimbabwe Solidarity Conference on the 24-25th February
in Tshwane to assess progress in our work and to discuss a programme
of action going forward.
All dimensions of the crisis in Zimbabwe
require urgent attention. However, it is the persisting political blockage
that makes it difficult to address the social, economic and moral crises in
any sustainable way. Our solidarity efforts need to be directed at the
political crisis in Zimbabwe as a priority but not to the exclusion of the
other dimensions of the crisis.
We commend efforts made by the South
African government and by SADC to foster talks between the major political
forces in Zimbabwe to arrive at a negotiated road-map for a democratic
transition. These endeavours have not succeeded for the moment. There has
been a lack of seriousness from the side of the ZANU-PF government. The
unilateral declaration of a March 31 election date by the Zimbabwean
government is in complete breach of the spirit and intent of that
process.
As we move towards March 31, we need to bear in mind that the
Zimbabwean elections of 2000 and 2002 deepened the political crisis, rather
than contributing to a progressive resolution. Since 2002 democratic
space has been further eroded. What Zimbabwe needs now is not another
gravely flawed election but a SADC-facilitated negotiated transition
towards democracy.
Comparing 2005 with the elections of 2000 and 2002
there is one crucially important difference now. We have in place the SADC
Principles and Guidelines. All SADC governments have solemnly signed
these Principles, which commit them (in terms of clause 7.1) to a
scrupulous implementation. As South African and Southern African citizens we
are proud of these very important and thoroughly progressive Principles
and Guidelines. The fundamental requirements of a legitimate election are
no longer a matter of vagueness, they are clearly benchmarked.
It is
already clear that the forthcoming March 31 elections will not be remotely
compliant with these Principles and Guidelines. We believe that the majority
of SADC governments should appreciate very clearly that any pragmatic
compromise on the SADC Principles and Guidelines, in the vain hope that this
compromise will establish some kind of stability in Zimbabwe will, in
fact: . Perpetuate the Zimbabwean political crisis; . Undermine the
standing of our regional governments in the eyes of their citizens and the
international community at large. They will also appreciate that this is a
litmus test for other elections in our region.
We support President
Mbeki's views that SADC must have a much more hands on role in the run up to
the March 31 elections. We believe that this must apply with even greater
vigour after the end of March. SADC must actively fulfil its responsibilities
in Zimbabwe to open up democratic space that remains open beyond the election
itself. We are disappointed that SADC, for whatever reason, has in the past
weeks been slow to take up its role in Zimbabwe.
In the coming days
and weeks, we, the participating formations within the Zimbabwe Solidarity
and Consultation Forum will be intensifying our activities within South
Africa and throughout our region, in support of our vision and in solidarity
with the people of Zimbabwe. We call on all South and Southern Africans to
join us in these activities. Our solidarity efforts will need to extend way
beyond the election itself.
At this week's conference we have agreed
upon a wide range of practical activities aimed at raising awareness and
conscientising people about the crisis in Zimbabwe which include: . Mass
actions aimed at popularizing our vision and mobilizing and organizing people
behind our solidarity efforts. These actions include support for the COSATU
programme and a range of other localized and national efforts on campuses,
within places of worship and in communities. . Our solidarity front also
welcomes COSATU's efforts with allied formations in SATUCC. Many of our
participating formations will also be working closely with their regional
counterparts. . We will also be supporting a range of efforts to ensure that
South African civil society formations are represented in election
monitoring initiatives. . Engaging the media to ensure adequate and
impartial coverage of the situation in Zimbabwe and using our networks to
increase access to information. . A consolidation of the growing level of
participation of mass based youth and student structures in our solidarity
efforts and recognition of the importance of this involvement.
During
the coming days further details of the specific activities will be released
as action plans are further
developed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- "The
Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!" - the Freedom Charter
Congress of the People, Kliptown, South Africa, 1955
------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------
NEWS
ROUND-UP OF THE WEEK ------------------------------------------ Media
Under Renewed Attack: Paper Closed, Three Journalists Flee, Fourth In
Hiding ------------------------------------ Three reporters for
international news agencies have left Zimbabwe after their office was
repeatedly searched and they were threatened with arrest for espionage and
slandering the state. The three journalists, Jan Raath of the Times of
London, Brian Latham of the Bloomberg news service and Angus Shaw of the
Associated Press, left Zimbabwe separately at the end of the week of the 18th
of February. Their departures followed an announcement by the Central
Intelligence Organization that it had begun a manhunt for Cornelius Nduna, a
freelance journalist. According to Nduna's lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, the
government accuses Nduna of possessing two videotapes shot at a youth militia
training camp. The government claims that the videotapes contain information
that is potentially damaging to state interests. Andrew Moyse of the Media
Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, an organization that promotes freedom of the
press, called the accusations against the four journalists were "absolute
rubbish." (from New York Times, 21 Feb)
In the mean time the recently
established independent newspaper the Weekly Times has been officially shut
down on Saturday the 26th of February in Harare. It is alleged the paper
violated Zimbabwe's repressive media-laws. According to the owner of the
Weekly Times, Godfrey Ncube, the government's media watchdog, the Media
and Information Commission, suspended their license for one year.
(M&G, 27-2-05)
SADC finally invited to oversee
elections ---------------------------------------------------- The
Southern African Development Community has finally, 58 days too
late according to their own guidelines, been invited to monitor the March
31 elections in Zimbabwe. This belated invitation in itself shows
ZANU-PF's blatant disrespect for SADC and its 13 members and it's
unwillingness to abide by the SADC principles and guidelines for free and
fair elections, according to analysts. As a consequence it will become
increasingly difficult for SADC to describe the elections as "credible", as
it did in 2002, because it had failed to monitor the run-up to the elections
Anne Hamerstad, an expert on SADC at South Africa's Institute for
Security Studies said. Sehlare Makgetlaneng of the Africa Institute of
South Africa went further to say, "It is already too late to send an
observer mission now. SADC should have been more
pro-active."
Invitations have been extended to some 32 countries,
including 23 from Africa and five from Asia. Several organisations have also
been invited, including the African Union, the Common Market for Eastern
and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Non-Aligned Movement and the
United Nations. (IRIN, 21 Feb)
MDC Launches Election
Campaign -------------------------------------------- The main Zimbabwean
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), launched its
parliamentary election campaign at a rally on the 21st of February. The
rally, held in Masvingo, was attended by thousands of supporters. Leader of
the party, Morgan Tsvangirai said, "We are determined to see a new beginning
and a new Zimbabwe. The time has come for us to declare that we cannot take
any more battering."
The party, launched in February 1999, currently
holds 52 of the 120 elected seats in parliament, and plans to field
candidates in all 120 constituencies. Tsvangirai made several specific
pledges, including the repeal of the repressive Public Order and Security Act
(POSA) and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and
the revival of agricultural production.
Although the Zimbabwean regime
has promised equal access to the media, the MDC campaign launch was not
broadcast live on television as the ZANU (PF) campaign launch had been 9 days
earlier. The MDC launch was reported on in the news bulletin on the state
radio. (AFP, 21 February)
SACP Warns "Democracy at
Risk" ------------------------------------------- Following a weekend
meeting of its central committee, the South African Communist Party (SACP)
has issued a statement warning that democracy in the region will be at risk
if regional leaders "dilly-dally" on the issue of a free and fair poll in
Zimbabwe. Discussing the proposed SADC observer mission, the SACP said "a
bland and less-than-honest assessment" of the elections would "send a message
to our own mass base (and the global community) that our commitment to
democratic principles is negotiable."
The party also said that mild
criticism or approval of the poll would "encourage Zanu PF to think that it
can steal future elections" and "make a nonsense of the seriousness with
which SADC takes its own guidelines and principles." The SACP statement came
as SADC confirmed that it would not be sending a team of legal experts to the
country to assess compliance with SADC electoral norms and standards.
(Business Day, 21 February)
COSATU defies SA government in order to
protest misrule
Zimbabwe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------- In
defiance of barely veiled threats by South African minister of Foreign
Affairs, Dlamini-Zuma, that COSATU would face the rule of the law if it were
to proceed with demonstrations at the Beitbridge border crossing, COSATU has
come out the pro-democratic and labour rights activist it really is. It not
only disagrees with the current Zimbabwe policy of the South African
government, it will make its concerns clear by organising several
demonstrations in the run-up to the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe. For
starters they will be picketing outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in
Pretoria on March 9. On March 16 COSATU will march to BeitBridge border
crossing, and on the night of March 30 and 31 they will hold a candlelight
vigil. (Cape Times, 25-2-05)
VOICES FROM WITHIN - THE
YOUTH ----------------------------------------------- Analysis Neither
free nor fair- Zimbabwean elections Robert Mugabe continues to attack the
national sovereignty of the people of Zimbabwe. Free and fair elections
remain the key to open the dictator's doors, and free the people of Zimbabwe.
However, despite the presence of the SADC principles for democratic
elections, the ruling Zanu PF has already rigged the election. Many methods,
including violence and intimidation, abuse of state institutions and
the disenfranchisement of voters form the dictator's tools for rigging.
This piece seeks to display how Mugabe used the army to win elections for
his ruling Zanu PF party. Military personnel have variously been deployed
at the centre of state institutions that are responsible for election
administration such as the judiciary, Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC),
Delimitation Commission and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). In
September 2004, Mugabe appointed a four-member Delimitation Commission
chaired by High Court Judge George Chiweshe who joined the bench in 2001
following the sacking of experienced and competent judges largely for
political reasons. Judge Chiweshe is a former judge advocate responsible for
military tribunals in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) and a veteran of the
liberation struggle. Another member of the Delimitation Commission, Job
Whabira is a former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence who in
1998 was accused of disregarding High Court rulings to release Standard
newspaper journalists who had illegally been arrested and tortured by the
military for writing a story about an alleged coup attempt. This same
trend of appointing persons with a military background has also previously
been reflected in other institutions such as the Electoral Supervisory
Commission (ESC). For instance, Sobuza Gula- Ndebele, a lawyer and former
colonel in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) was the Chairman of the ESC
charged with the running of elections. Gula- Ndebele has since been appointed
the country's Attorney General and the regime's chief lawyer. During
Gula-Ndebele's tenure, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the ESC was
Brigadier General Douglas Nyikayaramba who at the time of his appointment to
the ESC was a serving soldier. The General has since left the ESC and has
been appointed by Mugabe to head 2 Brigade. It is generally undesirable to
politicize the military, as it is militarise politics. The apparatus
aforementioned have created - something justifiably so - the impression that
the Zimbabwean military is political party partisan and therefore
unprofessional. This impression is unfair to many professional military
officers whose sole desire is to serve their country as opposed to parochial
party interests. Another facet of the obscurity in Zimbabwean elections is
the presence of many electoral bodies whose terms of reference are not clear.
The Registrar General's office, the Electoral Supervisory Commission and
the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission are responsible for the holding
of elections in Zimbabwe. Save for the ZEC, and despite the history of
its chairperson, the ESC and the Registrar Generals office have been
accused of rigging elections and their continued presence here is a
serious matter of fact. Another relational fallacy is that the accused
ESC, which is all appointed by Mugabe, is said to monitor the should-
be independent ZEC. This affects the independence and integrity of
the Electoral Commissions. This exposure is not a baby cry. It is an
inspirational note to all people who cherish democracy. Lastly, it has become
a stanza in our liberation song that "the people's wish will never surrender
to terror". A luta
continua.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ "There
Shall be Peace and Friendship!" - the Freedom Charter Congress of the People,
Kliptown, South Africa, 1955
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------
ANALYSIS
- THE SADC PROTOCOL AND THE OBSERVERS: DOES THIS CONTRIBUTE TO REGIONAL
SOLIDARITY FOR LIBERATION IDEALS AND
AGENDA? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------- Much
hope has been placed on the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing
Democratic Elections. Clearly the hope has been that Zimbabwe's voluntary
acceptance of African standards would lead to a situation in which Zimbabwe
would create the internal conditions for a poll that could be accepted by its
regional allies.
However, SADC now finds itself in a serious dilemma.
Ever since the disputed election in 2000, SADC has been fighting a series of
rear-guard actions to maintain its credibility over Zimbabwe. At the UN
Human Rights Commission, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit,
the EU-ACP Parliamentary Forum, and in other international fora, SADC
member states have fought to prevent Zimbabwe's further isolation, and, in so
doing, have tried to portray the Zimbabwe crisis as minimal. This has meant
that the more odious features of the crisis - the gross human rights
violations, the burgeoning food shortages, and the general economic collapse
- have all had to be down-played in an effort to ensure that Zimbabwe's
problems are managed continentally. In the final analysis, the problems of
Zimbabwe will have to be managed regionally.
So SADC has set itself up
to be the final arbiter of the forthcoming poll, and would seem to have
walked neatly into yet another trap set by Robert Mugabe. In essence, the
trap is very simple: you can only judge on what you see. So the Zimbabwe
Government plays the SADC Principles and Guidelines with a very fine sense of
judgement, leaving SADC reeling in its wake.
On the one hand, the
Government states baldly that these are only guidelines and principles, and
not a legally binding instrument: every sovereign state will apply the
principles and guidelines within the context of its own constitution and
political situation. Hence observers must judge not in some absolute manner,
but relatively according to these constraints. For example, Zimbabwe has
constituencies and a first-past-the-post model, not proportional
representation, and thus postal votes are very difficult to incorporate in
this model.
But, on the other hand, the Zimbabwe Government applies the
Principles and Guidelines very legalistically over the matter of
observers. According to these principles, a government shall invite observers
if it sees fit, and such observers need only be present 2 weeks before
the poll. It is desirable that they be present 90 days before the poll,
but the minimum requirement is 2 weeks, and the Zimbabwe Government
looks like making this minimum stick.
So it seems that SADC will be
forced into giving this poll the thumbs up, if only because they will not be
present in the country long enough to satisfactorily observe the pre-election
process. Furthermore, since they have studiously refrained from commenting on
all the many adverse aspects of Zimbabwean political life in the past, they
will be unable to draw on their own previous knowledge if they want to
maintain face. SADC will be unable to comment on the effects of sustained
political violence on an electorate if it has not previously admitted their
existence. Indeed, the President of Tanzania has already denied that violence
has been a problem, and this notwithstanding the report of the
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights now adopted by the
AU.
As the introduction to the SADC Principles and Guidelines puts it:
the SADC region has made significant strides in the consolidation of
the citizens' participation in the decision-making processes
and consolidation of democratic practice and institutions. It was
the denial of citizen participation that led to the many struggles
in Southern Africa, and to the liberation of all Southern African
countries from colonial and racist regimes. Zimbabwe now provides an
important test of the commitment expressed above, and all are watching to
see whether SADC will expand this commitment to ensure full participation
of Zimbabweans in their choice of government. Or will SADC founder on
the rock of narrow interpretations of national sovereignty, and
another bright new African start be dulled by misplaced solidarity with an
elite out of step with its people?
OPINION AND EDITORIAL - NO
SIGNS YET THAT THE ELECTIONS WILL
BE LEGITIMATE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- Serious
question marks remain over whether the outcome of the parliamentary elections
will be legitimate. For the elections to be considered legitimate the entire
campaign period, and not just polling day, needs to be conducted as closely
as possible in accordance with the guidelines and principles agreed to by all
SADC leaders at their summit in Mauritius on 17 August 2004. This is not
happening at the moment.
The hostile electoral conditions currently
preclude citizens from freely electing leaders of their choice - the litmus
test of any legitimate poll. Last week MDC Director of Elections, Ian Makone,
was arrested by police for 'illegally' hosting a training seminar for the
party's 120 election candidates.
The new Electoral Commission is yet
to prove its independence. State controlled newspapers still refuse to carry
adverts from opposition parties yet provide acres of free space to the ruling
party to push out its election message. The launch last Sunday of the MDC's
election campaign was not carried live by The Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation (ZBC). Instead it gave the event four minutes coverage later
that evening. This was followed by a two hour live interview with
President Mugabe on Zanu PF's manifesto pledges. This does not equate
with Government claims that it has allowed opposition parties
'reasonable' access to the state controlled electronic media.
Disturbingly, incidents of political violence appear to be
increasing. Three MDC candidates were assaulted by a group of armed soldiers
as they returned home from the MDC's campaign launch rally in Masvingo
last Sunday. On 21 February MDC activists were abducted in Hurungwe East
and taken to Zanu PF offices where they were severely beaten.
President Mugabe, in his recent speeches, has repeatedly called
for peaceful elections. The problem however, is that even if he and
his government are genuinely committed to peaceful elections they may not
be able to control rogue elements amongst the war veterans and the
security forces from engaging in spontaneous acts of political violence.
The culture of political violence that has been allowed to go
largely unchecked for the past five years cannot be brought to heal
overnight.
The Government can however send out a strong message of
deterrent by ensuring those guilty of perpetrating violent acts are swiftly
brought to justice. Rhetorical commitments to peaceful elections need to
be backed by tangible action on the ground.
Despite the electoral
playing field being tilted in favour of the ruling party, the MDC, which has
entered the elections under protest, appears to be cautiously optimistic
about its prospects. The party has fielded candidates in all 120
constituencies. It claims that its activists are galvanized for the campaign.
And it believes that its policy programmes for job creation, food security
and economic recovery resonate with the basic aspirations of the electorate.
High turn out amongst its core supporters is critical for the
MDC, however fears remain that many will be unable to vote due to
the discriminatory manner in which the voter registration exercise
was conducted and the inaccuracy of the voters' roll.
Whatever
happens, these elections will not resolve Zimbabwe's protracted crisis.
However, a good showing by the MDC will increase pressure for meaningful
inter-party dialogue to find a peaceful and democratic solution to the
crisis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ "All
Shall be Equal Before the Law!" - the Freedom Charter Congress of the People,
Kliptown, South Africa, 1955
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------
ABOUT
THIS NEWSLETTER ---------------------------------------- Over the past
decades numerous South African progressive civil society organizations have
emerged that work on issues that form an integral part of the current crisis
in Zimbabwe. These range from humanitarian issues such as food relief, to
issues such as human rights and civil liberties, from democracy to trade
union work. But ever since the intensification of the Zimbabwe crisis in
2000, Zimbabweans have rightly been complaining that their fellow Africans,
and first and foremost their South African neighbors, have hardly done enough
to aid the plight of the people of Zimbabwe. However, over the past year
several South African civil society organizations of all walks of life have
committed themselves to working together in order to maximize their out-pout
with regards to the crisis, as well as show solidarity in practical sense
as well as on a moral level. COSATU's courageous attempted
fact-finding missions to Zimbabwe are only one example of practical
solidarity for the people of that country. The Zimbabwe Solidarity and
Consultation forum is a network of progressive South African civil society
organizations, including youth, women, labour, faith-based, human rights and
student formations. Over the past months our network has grown rapidly in
size and influence, and we say confidently that we have contributed to a much
greater understanding of the crisis and challenges in Zimbabwe within
our organizations and within the broader South African
debate.
DISTRIBUTION DETAILS AND CONTACT
INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------
This
Newsletter is the plain text version of the email Zimbabwe Solidarity
Newsletter. The main idea behind the Newsletter is that it can be distributed
in Zimbabwe so that people without internet access may receive it as well.
Therefor we also provide a print-easy foramt of this Newsletter. The
print-easy Newsletter can be printed out onto three pages A4, front to back.
Please help us distribute the print-friendly copy in Zimbabwe! The more
access to information and solidarity the better! The print-friendly copy can
be requested by sending an e-mail with subject 'request print-friendly'
to solidarity4zim@highveldmail.co.za
The print-friendly Newsletter is distributed via e-mail as an Adobe Reader
(PDF) document.
The below applies for the email Newsletter: To
subscribe or unsubscribe one can contact solidarity4zim@highveldmail.co.za
with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' as subject. Please note that you
must subscribe in person (that is; you must e-mail from the address you wish
to receive the newsletter on). The default format of this Newsletter is Rich
Text (HTML), a more graphic layout but also a larger file. A Plain
Text format can be requested by sending us an e-mail to solidarity4zim@highveldmail.co.za
with 'request plain text' as subject.
Letters, reactions or opinions can
be sent to solidarity4zim@highveldmail.co.za
with the words 'Newsletter reaction' in the subject.
IMPORTANT
ANNOUNCEMENT ----------------------------------------------- We are still
in the process of establishing a team of translators in order to provide you
with the option to receive a Shona and/or Ndebele version of this newsletter.
We hope to have this ready asap. Last weeks issue can be requested by
sending us an e-mail with 'request issue 1' in the subject.
February 28,
2005 MARONDERA, Zimbabwe: Long-serving Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has
celebrated his 81st birthday vowing to crush the main opposition party in
next month's elections and accusing British Prime Minister Tony Blair of
seeking to recolonise the country.
Mr Mugabe said the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change was a front for Mr Blair.
"Only 33
days are left for us to demonstrate that we are united," Mr Mugabe told
about 30,000 people gathered in Marondera, 74km east of Harare, on
Saturday.
"That vote should also kill once and for all the
machinations of that man in Number 10 Downing Street who for some reason
thinks he has the divine power to rule Zimbabwe and Britain."
Mr
Mugabe said he would return to haunt his opponents if his ruling party lost
the March 31 parliamentary elections, which the party has termed "the
anti-Blair election".
Waving a miniature Zimbabwe flag at cheering
supporters, Mr Mugabe said: "Mr Blair can never lower this flag again . . .
never ever. On March 31 we must dig a grave not just six feet but 12 feet
and bury Mr Blair and the Union Jack and write on top 'Here lies the
latter-day British imperialist and the Union Jack, never again to
arise'."
Zimbabwe's parliamentary election will be closely watched as a
test of the country's adherence to the principles of the 14-nation Southern
African Development Community on democratic elections.
Mr Mugabe's
81st birthday was last Monday but the celebrations were moved to Saturday to
allow the participation of school children.
The reputation of Mr Mugabe -
who has been at the helm of the southern African country for nearly a
quarter of a century, since independence from Britain in 1980 - started
fading in recent years after the country slid into economic decline as land
reforms were jump-started with the violent occupation of white-owned
farms.
He was re-elected in March 2002 in presidential polls that were
disputed by the MDC as fraudulent and marked with violence.
Following
the disputed polls the US and EU imposed travel bans on Mr Mugabe and
members of his inner circle.
Zimbabwe to look at former rebels Zimbabwe captain
Tatenda Taibu says Heath Streak and Andy Blignaut will be considered for the
Test series in South Africa starting on 4 March. The two all-rounders
recently ended their dispute with Zimbawe Cricket and are badly needed by
their country.
Taibu, whose team are struggling in a one-day
international series in South Africa, said: "It's very good news for
Zimbabwe cricket that they are back.
"Assuming they are fit and
ready they will be looked at for the Test series."
Former
captain Streak, 30, was sacked in April 2004 after criticising Zimbabwe
Cricket's selection policies.
Following Streak's dismissal, 14
players resigned in protest but Gavin Ewing, and Barney Rogers have returned
to the fold.
Blignaut and Streak are now poised to do
likewise.
When Streak announced he had put aside his differences
with ZC on Friday, the board's managing director Ozias Bvute announced:
"Heath is immediately available for selection."
JOHANNESBURG - (KRT) - African leaders appear
increasingly unwilling to stand for undemocratic seizures of power on the
continent, but they remain reluctant to act against established regimes that
commit atrocities or flout democratic principles, analysts say.
That seems to be the case in Togo, Sudan and Zimbabwe this month, as the
continent's leaders work to show their commitment to good government and
democracy, but react differently to crises across the continent, the
analysts say.
Togo's longtime dictator, Gnassingbe Eyadema,
died unexpectedly early this month, and the army quickly put his son Faure
in power, violating the country's constitution, which called for the head of
the National Assembly to take the top job.
African leaders,
particularly Togo's neighbors in West Africa, called the hastily arranged
succession a coup and swiftly demanded that the younger Eyadema call
elections and step down. Under heavy pressure and faced with rapidly imposed
economic sanctions and an arms embargo, the old dictator's son finally
backed down, promising presidential elections within 60 days in the tiny
nation.
The much more powerful and well-connected government of
Sudan, however, has faced no such pressure over its ongoing abuse of
civilians by government-backed militias and government troops in its western
Darfur region.
Numerous rounds of African Union-mediated peace
talks have achieved little beyond widely violated cease-fires. African
nations have deployed 1,400 troops to Darfur, but only to monitor the
situation, not to protect civilians. Despite the African Union's
ineffectiveness, African leaders earlier this month pointedly warned the
international community against taking action of its own against Sudan, from
deploying troops to imposing sanctions.
Leaders of Sudan, Chad,
Gabon and the Republic of Congo called for the international community to
"continue to give its support to African efforts already under way," though
those efforts, two years into the conflict, have achieved
little.
"When African leaders really want to lean on somebody, they
do. The peer pressure is enormous," said John Prendergast, an Africa analyst
with the International Crisis Group in Washington. "There's a consensus
that's developed that any kind of non-democratic transition of power, or
military coup, will be vociferously imposed and overturned."
But the same leaders "bristle at anyone who tries to tell a government in
Africa how to govern," Prendergast said, and that means that the African
Union has hesitated to take any action on Darfur without the Sudanese
government's approval.
In Sudan, the African Union has staged
"an impotent, irrelevant intervention that doesn't have an impact on
people's lives on the ground," even as the World Heath Organization reports
10,000 people a month dying in Darfur and a growing threat of famine,
Prendergast said. That inaction, he said, threatens to compromise the
African Union's standing as a body capable of dealing with Africa's
problems.
The union faces a similar situation in Zimbabwe, where
longtime President Robert Mugabe has overturned many of the country's
democratic freedoms and destroyed its once-strong economy in an effort to
cling to power in the face of growing popular discontent.
In
part because Mugabe, 81, was a staunch ally of South Africa's anti-apartheid
fighters, South African President Thabo Mbeki remains reluctant to take
action against him, even as Mugabe's regime jails political opponents in
advance of parliamentary elections set for next month. Because Mbeki is a
driving force behind the African Union - and because the union remains
reluctant to interfere in the affairs of member leaders - Mugabe faces
little pressure to change his ways, despite the United States recently
listing Zimbabwe as an "outpost of tyranny" alongside North Korea, Iran and
Myanmar.
Mbeki has bristled at that comparison, calling it an
"exaggeration," even as Zimbabwe continues to reject election observer
missions, break up opposition campaign meetings and arrest opposition
officials.
John Stremlau, head of international relations at
Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, says African governments - like
governments in most parts of the world - find it hard to balance validly
intervening in a troubled neighbor's affairs and unfairly violating that
country's sovereignty.
Stremlau said he has been encouraged
that the African Union has sent peacekeeping troops to such places as
Burundi and Congo, and that Mbeki recently touched on the affairs of nearly
a dozen other African countries in a South African national address,
something that would not have happened a decade ago.
Still, if
pushed far enough by a renegade regime, African leaders - particularly in
West Africa - have shown a willingness to intervene. Liberia's notorious
President Charles Taylor eventually was forced into exile after fomenting a
brutal civil war there. But such interventions remain rare, and they usually
come about as a result of sustained pressure from abroad as
well.
Analysts insist that is the key to bringing about change in
Sudan's Darfur region. As the U.S. Congress puts growing pressure on the
Bush administration to take stronger action in Darfur, the United States may
soon "start twisting arms in the (U.N.) Security Council," Prendergast said.
"Then you'll see something start happening."
Specifically, he
believes growing U.S. pressure and a new threat of some type of Security
Council-mandated international troop intervention in Darfur could push
Sudan's government to at least accept a larger contingent of African Union
troops in Darfur, one with a mission to protect civilians.
"For the
government of Sudan to be influenced sufficiently to accept a mandate that
is much more interventionist, it has to see the larger international
community, particularly countries like the U.S., pushing for that stronger
mandate," Prendergast said.
If the U.N. Security Council fails to
threaten strong action against Sudan, he said, "Sudan gets the message loud
and clear that there is no cost" to continuing its campaign of what has been
called ethnic cleansing against African peasants living in a region that has
spawned a rebel uprising against Khartoum.
U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan earlier this month called the government-backed campaign
of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur "little short of hell on Earth" and
urged stronger peacekeeping efforts in the region. At least 70,000 have died
in Darfur and 2 million been displaced from their homes, the United Nations
estimates.
More and more organisations are joining the Congress of SA Trade
Unions' (Cosatu's) blockade to Zimbabwe which starts on March 9 and will
continue until the Zimbabwean election on March 31.
The latest to
join Cosatu's blockade campaign is The Young Communist League (YCL), the
youth wing of the South African Communist Party. The YCL follows hot on the
heels of trade union Solidarity which announced last week that they too will
join the protests. There is also support from the SA Council of
Churches.
Buti Manamela, the national secretary of the YCL, says they are
concerned that freedom of speech and rights relating to the electoral
process have been suppressed. Manamela says as young communists they should
act because they enjoy these particular rights in South Africa and therefore
cannot allow others to be refused such rights on the continent.
By Lydia Polgreen
The New York Times Monday, February 28,
2005
DAKAR, Senegal When Togo's military installed the son of
the country's longtime strongman as president this month, ignoring the
Togolese Constitution, the action seemed taken from a very old playbook, a
throwback to an era in African history when coups and tyrannical governments
were the rule rather than the exception, and African leaders were reluctant
to criticize one another, lest their own foibles come to light. . But
the African response to the Togolese military's actions was taken out of a
new playbook, one in which the old insistence on "African solutions to
African problems," is no longer what it once seemed: a euphemism for African
leaders' looking the other way while despots and corrupt governments
rampaged. . . Faure Gnassingbé stepped down Friday as interim
president after three weeks of intense pressure from Togo's neighbors to
move the country back to constitutional rule. Gnassingbé is the 38-year-old
son of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who died on Feb. 5. He had ruled Togo with an
authoritarian hand since 1967, four years after he helped lead Africa's
first post-colonial coup. . Gnassingbé's departure has been hailed as
a huge success for African diplomacy. "We have demonstrated a capacity to
solve our own problems," Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the
Economic Community of West African States, or Ecowas, the regional trade
group that led the effort to restore the Constitution in Togo, said in a
telephone interview Saturday. . The swift reversal was the result of a new
phenomenon: African leaders and institutions showing resolve and unity,
Chambas said. Ecowas and the African Union were quick in their condemnation,
and worked from the first day of Gnassingbé's rule to push him from
power. . "We have spoken with one voice, we have been clear about the
principle and we have insisted that there is a minimum bar for governance,
and when it is not met we will not tolerate it," Chambas
said. . Western nations played a role, but it was small. The United
States, the United Nations and European countries issued strongly worded
statements condemning the change of power and later insisted that Gnassingbé
step down. But the diplomatic effort to force the Togolese government back
to constitutional rule was almost entirely an African
affair. . "Africans took the lead on this, which is precisely what we want
them to do," said a senior Western diplomat in Lomé, the Togolese capital.
"This is exactly how it is supposed to work." . But it often does not
work that way. . Chris Landsberg, an analyst at the Center for Policy
studies, a private, nonpartisan research institution in Johannesburg, said
that the tough words on Togo were a good sign, but that Africa had plenty of
tougher problems that called for action. "If only they could insist on
democratic norms, irrespective of the size of country, the historic legacy
of country," Landsberg said, adding, "If only they can find a way to remind
themselves that we must start to be tough with the Zimbabwes as
well." . Zimbabwe has been ruled by Robert Mugabe for more than two
decades and has slipped deeper into ruin as he has become increasingly
despotic. But Mugabe is still widely seen as an icon of African resistance
to colonial rule. African leaders, notably South Africa's influential
president, Thabo Mbeki, have advocated a policy of quiet diplomacy to nudge,
not shove, Mugabe into retirement. . African - and Western - leaders
have also been reluctant to criticize other African leaders who were at
first heralded as hopes for a new era of democratic rule but who have since
shown signs of leaning toward autocracy, like Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and
Paul Kagame of Rwanda. . "As much as you have a body of 25 countries
showing eagerness and enthusiasm to break from the past, we can't remind
ourselves enough that we have another 25 or more outside of that club,"
Landsberg said. "It is as though you have a contradictory, two-speed Africa:
those that are serious about the future and those that aren't." .
The African Union's heavy hand By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published
February 27, 2005
WASHINGTON -- It is unclear just why the African
Union decided to put Togo in its sanctioning sights, or by what authority it
has done so. The undemocratic succession in Togo has certainly been
unfortunate, but the union has its share of autocratic regimes, which
apparently feel they have the right to sanction Togo for the same
undemocratic conditions that prevail in their own countries.
The
African Union's 15-member Peace and Security Council recommended Friday that
the union impose sanctions on Togo and suspend the country from the union.
The recommendation comes in wake of the military's installation of Faure
Gnassingbe to replace his father as president. Gnassingbe Eyadema, died Feb.
5 after 38 years in power. Mr. Gnassingbe has claimed he would hold
presidential elections in 60 days, but under Togo's constitution the head of
the national assembly was supposed to serve as interim president until
elections are held.
Togo is itself a member of the AU council, but
was not represented at the meeting. The Togolese ambassador to the African
Union, Koffi Esaw, said he had been asked to leave the chamber.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has already imposed
diplomatic, travel sanctions and an arms embargo on Togo. The AU council
said it supported and endorsed the ECOWAS sanctions and called on the U.N.
Security Council to give its backing to AU sanctions.
The African
Union's concern over Togo does demonstrate a willingness to exert greater
continental responsibility, which is positive. But the African Union should
be focusing on the countries where armed conflict is raging, where genocide
is taking place or where repressive regimes have brought economic ruin to
their countries. Sudan, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo come
to mind. There are also some continental issues that the union should be
addressing more energetically, such as working together to halt arms and
narcotics trafficking. Given Africa's other conflicts (some which the
union is failing to address adequately) and the presence of other
authoritarian leaders in the union itself, the AU actions on Togo smack of
overreach.
JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb.com) --Few
informed people in Africa dispute the thesis that their continent has an
image problem amongst many outsiders. It is not hard for those with a
superficial view to believe that the slaughter in Sudan's Darfur region is
common to other countries, including South Africa whose modern economic
sector is the equal of those of many of the world's developed
countries.
But if Africa, as the ill-informed might believe, is a
continent wracked by unredeemed corruption, violence or tyranny, why are so
many mining companies investing and prospecting in so many sub-Saharan
nations? Why are they sinking hard currency investments into prospects and
mining ventures in countries as diverse as Mozambique, Mali, Angola or the
Democratic Republic of Congo? They are all states, that until, recently were
torn by unrest or civil wars.
And why are they apparently less
attracted to, South Africa, the continent's most advanced economy and a
country with sophisticated legal, financial and corporate
structures?
The recent experiences of Anglo American and its group
companies might go some way towards explaining the apparent
paradox.
AngloGold Ashanti, the Anglo group's 51%-owned subsidiary, is
particularly peeved at the South African government's apparent determination
to shift the goalposts of black economic empowerment (BEE). Early on, when
it was clear that a greater part of the country's mining sector should be
transferred to black hands, AngloGold transferred substantial gold mining
assets in the Free State to Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Minerals
(ARM). It was part of the foundation for Motsepe's vast corporate and
personal fortune and, according to AngloGold, represented a transfer of 21.8
percent of its mining assets to a BEE company. And that, it is argued, went
a long way to satisfying one subsequently-codified condition of the Minerals
Bill that 25 percent of the industry should be in black hands by the year
2014.
Progress towards this transfer is necessary if mining companies are
to have their "old-order" mineral rights converted to "new-order". In other
words if they are to retain title to the mineral resources they mine - to
retain security of tenure.
Not so fast, has been the response of
minerals minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka who remains concerned at what she
sees as AngloGold's slow progress towards BEE compliance. According to
Johannesburg's weekly Financial Mail this concern is holding up AngloGold's
rights conversion process. And the minister seems unrepentant - the asset
transfer to ARM was then, before the new rules were put into effect. More is
needed and, the minister said, mining legislation has been left deliberately
vague so that any "stupid mistakes" can be subsequently rectified if
necessary. The goal posts, it seems, can and will be shifted as it suits a
government whose agenda includes the transfer of economic power to
previously- disadvantaged black South Africans.
This is not the only
reason that AngloGold is not investing in new mines in South Africa and is
focusing its expansion on other countries in Africa or Latin
America.
The strength of the South African rand has left many of the
country's gold mines struggling with financial losses - better be invested
where costs are largely denominated in currently-weak dollars.
Anglo
Platinum, the 75%-owned subsidiary does not have AngloGold's choice. It has
to operate where the platinum reserves are - in South Africa. But it has
been cutting back its earlier ambitious expansion plans, in part because of
the effect of the rand's strength on investment returns, while emphasizing
mine-sharing developments that help it comply with the BEE rules.
De
Beers, which is 45-percent owned by Anglo, has warned of closures and
cut-backs at five loss-making South African mines. In the meantime, De Beers
is going hell for leather in extracting gems at its two profitable
operations. But it also faces a BEE dilemma. Will the transfer of shares in
the currently-unprofitable operations be acceptable to
government?
Solving the economic conundrum of the strong rand could well
be possible by the removal or, at least, a serious relaxation of stringent
exchange controls that lock the savings of South African residents
(corporate and individual) into the country. But finance minister Trevor
Manuel was tellingly silent on the issue when he presented his budget last
week. Removing exchange controls is probably more of a political issue than
an economic one.
Anglo chief executive Tony Trahar is walking on
eggs. His group's latest results indicated that its comparatively heavier
reliance on South Africa led to it under-performing against BHP Billiton
whose interests are geographically more diverse. Last year when he made what
was, perhaps, an injudicious mention of the risks of investing in South
Africa, he incurred the ire of South African president Thabo Mbeki. In fact,
Trahar had said that while there were risks as there are in most countries,
they were reducing in South Africa. Mbeki chose to ignore the qualification
and went on a vitriolic public rave about Anglo.
Now Trahar is now
facing the prospect of another spat with the Mbeki government - this time
over iron-ore miner Kumba. Anglo has managed to build a two-thirds stake in
Kumba. It is a diversification that is absolutely necessary for the group. A
couple of years back South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation
raised objections over Anglo's intentions of increasing its stake in Kumba.
And this has now translated into a call by Sandile Nogxina, director general
of the department of minerals and energy, that an earlier "agreement" lead
to an eventual reduction in Anglo's stake to less than half of Kumba's
equity.
Another shifting of the goal posts? ". we have no legal
undertaking to bring the stake below 50 percent" says Trahar. The idea,
encompassing BEE objectives, was discussed under a different set of
circumstances. Trahar has apparently decided that there is no point in
pussyfooting with the Mbeki government. As some cynics point out, there is
little point in being soft with a government that might change the goal
posts.
All of this might, conceivably, lead to a dressing down from Mbeki
when he writes his weekly column in the ANC's on-line newspaper. That was
where he attacked Trahar. And it is where his party acolytes have attacked
the likes of Nobel laureate bishop Desmond Tutu for daring to question the
ANC's performance in the decade since South Africa achieved majority
rule.
South Africa's transition from minority to majority rule was, on
the whole, relatively peaceful. The white-supremacist National Party had a
change of heart under the presidency of FW de Klerk and negotiated the 1994
transition to majority rule that resulted in a resounding popular victory
for an ANC party led by Nelson Mandela.
Since then the ANC's
popularity at the polls has increased, to the extent that the 2004 election
gave the party a majority of more than two thirds --- enough, in theory at
any rate, to change the constitution.
Since succeeding Mandela in 1999,
Mbeki has been commendably active in seeking to settle African wars and to
bringing some semblance of unity and democracy to the continent's
more-benighted countries. There is, though, a glaring
discrepancy.
His much-criticised strategy of "quiet diplomacy" with
Zimbabwe contrasts starkly with the vigorous moves of the Ecowas (Economic
Community of West African States) countries led by Nigerian president
Olusegun Obasanjo that reversed the Togolese army's undemocratic attempt to
foist a new president on Togo. Togo's people will now have the chance to
vote for a president of their choice to succeed the deceased former dictator
Gnassingbé Eyadéma.
At the tip of the continent, Mbeki has publicly
endorsed Zimbabwe's fraudulent 2000 parliamentary election that robbed the
popular Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of victory and kept president
Robert Mugabe's once-popular but increasingly unpopular Zanu-PF party in
power. Then in 2002, Mugabe was re-elected president in a rigged poll and an
election characterized by fraud, violence against the Mugabe regime's
opponents and downright dishonesty.
This year's parliamentary
election, too, will be rigged by Mugabe's strong-arm tactics and by
downright electoral fraud. Mbeki is the one person who could pressure Mugabe
into allowing free and fair elections. But he has yet to criticize
unequivocally the undemocratic progression into collapse being overseen by a
dictator just north of South Africa's own border. In Zimbabwe democratic
transfer of power is simply unacceptable to a president whose party ruled
without real opposition in the years since independence. His unexpressed but
apparent view is that non-interference in neighour's internal affairs is
unacceptable, no matter how revolting those affairs might be.
You
never know when you might need to call up future favours.
Sure, Africa is
not an easy continent in which to do business. But it is not an homogenous
whole. In west Africa there are attempts to consolidate the escape from
years of dictatorship and a realization that escape can only be under-pinned
by economic policies that encourage development of countries' minerals
wealth. Elsewhere, post-democracy complacency carries its own risks.
SA and US head for showdown over
Zim? Mabasa Sasa Political Editor
SOUTH African Premier Thabo Mbeki's
tongue lashing directed at the United States government in general and
secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice in particular over the
Zimbabwe 'crisis' has heightened speculation that the two countries could be
headed for a showdown over how to handle the impasse between the ruling Zanu
PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change precipitated by the
governance of the country.
Early last week, President Mbeki blasted
Rice's labelling of Zimbabwe as one of "six outposts of tyranny" along with
Cuba, Iran, Belarus, Burma and North Korea asking "to put all these
countries together and say Zimbabwe is one of those outposts of tyranny, how
do you justify that?" Speaking to the Financial Times, President Mbeki said,
"It's an exaggeration and whatever the (United States) government wants to
do with that list of six countries, or however many, it's really somewhat
discredited." President Mbeki inferred that Rice's statements went against
Washington's efforts to promote democracy worldwide and did nothing to help
a politically divided Zimbabwe.
Surprisingly, the American state
department responded almost immediately in an attempt to play down
differences with South Africa over how best to proceed in the Zimbabwe
'crisis'. Regardless, Washington did not backtrack on the secretary of
state's utterances and even tried to justify the naming of Zimbabwe as an
"outpost of tyranny".
State department spokesperson Mark Boucher told the
media that the United States and South Africa had worked closely over the
past few years in trying to restore 'democracy' in Zimbabwe.
"In
general terms, I'd say we've had positive discussions with South Africa on
the question of Zimbabwe. We've welcomed their engagement in Zimbabwe. I
think President Mbeki said in that interview that he could assist Zimbabwe
in holding free and fair elections, and that's certainly a goal we share
with South Africa.
"So, our governments have often pursued different
ways of working on the problems of Zimbabwe. But I think, to a great extent
South Africa is trying to work to correct some of the same problems that we
are focused on." Local, regional and international observers have also
questioned Rice's assessment of democracy in Zimbabwe pointing out that
countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were run by undemocratic regimes
yet nothing was said about them because they were bosom buddies of the
United States.
A Zimbabwean political observer with the University of
Zimbabwe questioned the United States' sincerity as well as that of all the
Western states, organisations and groupings in the country in the global
democracy and human rights discourse.
She said, "It is patently clear
that the US-organised elections in Iraq were a disaster regardless of the
fact that the outcome was probably the best possible one for the Iraqi
people. They were not free and fair. Not by a long shot. The violence was
widespread and the apathy was terrible."There are many other cases. What the
US is doing right now is no different from what it allowed Colonel Oliver
North to do during the Iran-Contra Affair in his 'Project Democracy' scam."
However, President Mbeki has time and again stated that the role of the
international community was to assist Zimbabwe rather than to dictate to it,
particularly when it comes to the holding of free and fair
elections.
He told the Financial Times that the Southern African
Development Community (Sadc) observer mission headed for Zimbabwe to cover
the March 31 Parliamentary elections was not coming to point out
shortcomings but rather to help the government here facilitate the staging
of free0 and fair polls.
The media and the international community have
viewed President Mbeki as one of the few non-Zimbabweans best placed to
intervene in the country's affairs though the West and the neo-liberal media
have tended to ridicule him for his brand of 'quiet diplomacy'.
For
his part, he has maintained that Zimbabweans alone are the ones who are
capable of identifying their problems and solving them or calling a mediator
should one be required.
Coincidentally, the SA-USA fallout came when
the European Union (EU) was extending so-called targeted sanctions and
travel bans on President Robert Mugabe and 96 senior Zanu PF officials until
February 20, 2006.
The EU has said the restrictions will remain in place
until they are pleased that the ruling party has put an end to politically
motivated violence and what has been described as the illegal resettlement
of people on farms is put to a halt.
Interestingly, many observers
have noted that political violence is not the problem it was between 2000
and 2002 and both Zanu PF and MDC officials have come out saying they would
not tolerate deviants. Furthermore, progress has been made towards the
implementation of the Sadc electoral guidelines though anti-government
groupings have been raising concerns about the ruling party's commitment to
the holding of free and fair elections.
MIC denies threatening Zimbabwe
Independent By Staff Writer
PRESS watchdog, the Media and Information
Commission (MIC) has denied that it threatened the Zimbabwe Independent with
withdrawal of its license as well as revoking the paper's staffers'
accreditation after it emerged that some of the staffers were moonlighting
for foreign media houses, a practise which is at variance with existing
Zimbabwean media laws.
The MIC, through its Executive Chairman, Dr
Tafatona Mahoso, pointed out that what was sent to the Zimbabwe Independent
was, in fact, "a routine communication in the daily operations of the MIC."
"The routine communication" was actually send on 28 January 2005 and not
"last week" as The Sunday Mirror of 20 February 2005 suggested. The letter,
referenced as "Accreditation of Stringers and Correspondents for Foreign
Mass Media Services," reads in part: "As a rule, journalists are directly
linked to their employers. This is especially true of full time journalists,
since they cannot be accredited unless they have an employer who certifies
their applications. Another link is through the code of ethics and code of
conduct which the employer submits with its application for
registration.
"Even freelance journalists are required to supply the
names of mass media services they usually string for, as part of the
accreditation process.
"The prevailing arrangement between your mass
media service and the Mail and Guardian with regard to correspondents is not
consistent with regulations." The letter goes on to highlight the options
open to the Zimbabwe Independent "for regularising the situation." These
include the opening up of an office in Zimbabwe by the foreign mass media
service that wishes to retain and use the services of Zimbabwe Independent
correspondents. The office, once opened, would then accredit all its
journalists in Zimbabwe. The MIC pointed out that this was not the case with
the South African owned Mail and Gurdian which is published by M and G Media
Limited.
The other option highlighted by the MIC was for the foreign mass
media to apply to the MIC, with the permission of the Zimbabwe Indpendent to
get the journalists accredited as foreign correspondents while the third
option would to have the Zimbabwean organization approach "the Commission
with a request to gather and export news to another mass media service
abroad, and identify for special accreditation those journalist doing the
gathering and exporting of news." In the light of the presentation of the
letter quoted above, The Sunday Mirror deputy editor, Ruzvidzo Mupfudza
said, "It is unfortunate that this vital document was not brought to the
attention of our reporter at the time when he was making enquiries into the
matter for it would have shed a whole new light on the whole affair at the
time. The interpretation, semantics and tone in the story would have been
altered significantly had this been done. However we sincerely regret the
subsequent errors in fact and intepretation that might have appeared in our
story as a result of this omission, particularly concerning the timeframe
when this communication was supposed to have happened. Indeed, we apologize
for inaccurately stating that the communication between MIC and ZimInd
publishers over the issue of accreditation took place two weeks ago, instead
the correct date is 28 January 2005." He also reiterated that where sources
showed a preference for remaining anonymous it was the publication's duty to
protect their confidentiality and was in no way part of a clandestine
conspiracy theory.
The Sunday Mirror deputy editor added that, "We
would like to make it abundantly clear that our publication abides by and in
no way seeks to stray from its mandate of serving nationalist and Pan
African values and would in no way be party to agendas and scheming that
would run contrary to those values or jeopardize the future of this nation."
When the reporter was pursing the story, he had given the MIC the right to
respond but was rebuffed, with Dr Mahoso saying, "Talk to the people at the
Independent. What are they saying? Even if something like that happened, we
wouldn't discuss it with the press."
Govt hesitates on NGO bill Kuda Chikwanda
Chief Writer
GOVERNMENT seems hesitant to enact into law the
controversial Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Bill, almost three months
after the bill was passed by parliament after fast-track debate - with the
National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango) saying it is
still awaiting response on presentations against the bill it made to
President Robert Mugabe.
"We are yet to get a response from the
President, but I must add, we did our level best to antagonise its enactment
into law. We sincerely hope that the President will take into consideration
our presentations and not sign the bill in the state it is right now," said
Nango executive director, Jonah Mudehwe.
Asked to comment on the
delay in promulgation into law of the bill, Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs confirmed knowledge of the
presentations made to President Mugabe who is supposed to assent to the bill
becoming law.
"I am aware that certain representations were made by
stakeholders who are against the bill to the President. When the President
will sign the NGO bill into law, I cannot say. Only the President knows
whether he will sign the bill into law or not, after taking into account
those considerations made by stakeholders," said Chinamasa.
The NGO
bill seeks to ban foreign NGOs concerned principally with "issues of
governance". NGOs primarily concerned with the promotion and protection of
human rights, and receiving foreign funding for achievement of such mandate,
are classified as dealing in issues of governance, and subsequently are
denied registration under provisions in the bill, once it becomes
legislation.
The bill which has been criticised for numerous factors
- amongst them the economic impact of its enactment into law - was noted for
the hurried fashion in which it was debated in parliament.
The delay
in signing the NGO has baffled players in the non-governmental sector who
had expected to see the bill becoming law around the same time that
Electoral Act Amendments Act bill and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC) bill were signed into law - considering that fast track debate of the
three bills had occurred at the same time. On how the funding had been
affected, Mudehwe said the delay in signing had created an atmosphere of
confusion, not only within the local NGO community, but also in the foreign
donor community.
"It has been quite confusing. To some extent some
NGO's have found new survival strategies from the time the bill was
gazetted. However, some NGOs have already been affected by decline in
funding while some foreign donors have temporarily with held funds because
of such uncertainty on the status of the bill," said
Mudehwe.
Humanitarian groups have continued to denounce definitions of
the terms "political governance" and "issues of governance" in the bill,
saying they were too wide; and could possibly impact on the operations of a
host of organisations involved in charity work such as animal welfare and
environmental work.
Other civic bodies have expressed concern that
the work of NGOs often overlapped with human rights issues.
NGOs
argue that if enacted into law, the bill will have an adverse effect on the
economy, particularly unemployment, as thousands employed in the NGO sector
are likely to lose their jobs.
The bill will also allow for the setting
up of a regulatory council that will decide whether a particular NGO will be
registered or not.
While some sectors alleged last year that the bill had
been aimed at NGOs deemed to be providing funding for the opposition MDC,
speculation was also rife that the proposed legislation would target
organisations long viewed as a thorn in the side of government such as the
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Amani Trust, Crisis Coalition in
Zimbabwe, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)
The spectre of ethnicism- friend or
foe? Analyses Ruzvidzo Mupfudza Deputy Editor
"YOU are now free, dangerously free.
I hope you can discipline your
minds and say if it is time to work you must work. Don't disgrace us please.
You are the fortunate ones and having been the fortunate ones, please carry
your fortunes with you and don't turn them into misfortunes," so said
President Mugabe on the occasion of sending off students awarded
presidential scholarships at Fort Hare in South Africa, on March 4, 2004.
But it is a speech he could have directed to incoming Members of Parliament
at the end of the highly polarized parliamentary elections of
2000.
Those were elections that were characterised by a lot of
mayhem. In that year, father literally turned against son, mother against
daughter, brother against brother and sister against sister. In Guruve a
family gathering was ostensibly called during the height of the election
campaign. The two surviving heads- "fathers" of the clan had been heavily
involved in assisting the vakomana- liberation fighters- during the armed
struggle. They were staunch Zanu PF supporters. But among their disgruntled
younger kith and kin, pro- MDC elements had emerged. This development and
the eventual polarisation that emerged within the clan had little to do with
a clash of ideologies and policies. It had a lot more to do with long- set
allegiances being brought against the cruel reality of rampant unemployment,
stagnant hopes and the sudden appearance of "salaries." Those involved on
both sides of the campaign, especially in putting up posters and carrying
out "terror campaigns" got a little something from either side- usually
large doses of the "scud." The meeting was called to ostensibly castigate
sell- outs. The "sell- outs" were defiant. Rifts in the family emerged along
political party lines. Today one of the sons who was rabidly pro- MDC is
selling miscellaneous objects at Mbare Musika and is dirt poor. He served
his purpose in 2000 and was discarded like an over- used rag into the
dustbin of political expediency. At least he still alive. Some lost their
lives. The fortunate ones, the ones who were fighting for power, got what
they wanted. But at what cost? Don't disgrace us, would have been apt call
during the election campaign back then. It would have been even more apt
during the parliamentary life- span up to until now. And as the Ides of
March loom on the horizon, that call has even more resonance. The allure of
power is difficult to resist. Particularly when it comes with perks and
kickbacks that result in more power and influence. And when two politically
ambitious elephants fight, it is always the people at the grassroots who
suffer.
Lately, the ethnic card has become the potential trump card
of some highly ambitious individuals. The smoke and mirrors of perceived
Zezuru hegemony has been transformed to a bowl of sour grapes which many are
ravenously feeding off. In essence, the infamous Tsholotsho Declaration
mobilized around this perception, feeding off it voraciously and almost
succeeding in pulling of its sleight of hand trick with the truth. But in
politics, it is not the truth that matters. Rather it is the appearance of
truth that has more clout. There are people in Midlands, Masvingo,
Manicaland, Matebeland and all over the country with roots in these regions
who feel that the rod of power belongs to them by divine right this time
around.
Ethnicity, like nationalism, is a social construct. And
when nationalism is frayed not just at the edges, but has cracked at the
centre, ethnicity thrives. It rises to the fore like a ferocious serpent
threatening to devour the very notion of nationalism itself. Factions galore
arise. The truth of the matter is that both Zanu PF and MDC cannot run away
from this fact. Last Sunday the MDC chose to launch its election campaign
manifesto in Masvingo. Ironically, only recently, at the Masvingo Civic
Centre, MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai had been met with placard- waving
supporters accusing him of being a dictator. But if there had not been
people in the MDC's echelons, would the launch have been set in Masvingo?
For Zanu PF, Masvingo has always been a political verbal and physical
bloodbath- always the hovering nemesis of the party's hegemony. There was
the kingpin of Masvingo necarpet politics, the late veteran nationalist, Dr
Eddison Zvobgo. He was forever wary of perceived Zezuru hegemony and Rozvi
ascendancy. He was however known to joke that during his political career he
had been Ndau and/ or Rozvi whenever the occasion called for an appropriate
socially constructed hat to don. A large part of the ethnic social construct
hinges on colonial expediency and the divide and rule tactic that it
employed. According to Aeneas Chigwedere colonial missionaries and later the
Native Commission used these constructs in order to further their own
agendas. Historically, many of the contemporary ethnic groups did not exist
as we know them today. The word Shona did not even exist and might have come
from two corrupted Ndebele concepts.
The "Shona" had a habit of
disappearing into mountain strongholds, abandoning their homesteads at the
sight of an amaNdebele- madzviti raid- (kutshona). It might also be a
corruption of the derogatory amasvina.
".as education expanded in
the thirties and forties, colonial divisionism set in and we were sundered
and fragmented and set against each other. On the one hand, missionaries
carved out their own territories and spread their venom in the regions under
their control- venom garbed as history and which we were not slow to imbibe
and in turn spread to the unfortunate 'students' under our control,"
confesses Chigwedere bitterly in his neglected book, The Karanga
Empire.
One of the most successful attributes of colonial Rhodesian
hegemony is that many people, today, remain under the control of this
divisionism. It is quite clear, for example, that the battle for Tsholotsho,
in which the political showman of them all, former minister of Information
and Publicity in the Office of the President, Jonathan Moyo is blood-
thirstily involved, has resorted to using an ethnic base as a launchpad.
Interesting, Zanu PF used Harare while the MDC used Masvingo. Ethnicity, or
more crudely, tribal politics thrives on perception and not facts. For
example, an overlooked fact is that the Rozvi did not constitute members of
the Moyo totem alone but was, rather, a confederacy of various peoples with
different totems. These people got together and ganged up on their
neighbours taking their land and destroying their chieftainships, imposing
their own status quo in the process. "Vamwe vedu vari kuti rozva, complained
the victims of these conquests, and the name Rozvi was born. Back then,
people referred to their language and way of life as chikaranga chedu.
Today, the concept of Rozvi and Karanga have been reduced to "tribal"
politics and Zimbabwe, dangerously free, is set for some puerile but
interesting politics.
He's down, but Mugabe's former information
minister isn't out - he may even have found someone to foot all his
bills
The question on every political speculator's lips right now is;
who is backing Jonathan Moyo's lifestyle? Who is his controller? Last week,
Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe sacked his once ultra-powerful
information minister for daring to announce his candidacy as an independent
for the March 31 parliamentary elections. That was after Mugabe had ensured
the ruling Zanu PF party did not nominate him as a candidate. His abrupt
departure from cabinet deprived Moyo at one stroke of a free government
house, cellphone, car, fuel, DStv subscription, air travel between Harare
and Bulawayo, and access to limitless funds from the president's office. Yet
there has been no noticeable decline in his extravagant lifestyle. The
ministry of information falls within Mugabe's office which apparently has a
"black hole" of a budget as the feared Central Intelligence Organisation is
also funded from this vast, and largely unaudited
allocation.
Political pundits here suspect that outgoing Speaker of
Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa is Moyo's financial and political backer.
After all Moyo's fall from Mugabe's grace began late last year when he
called a meeting of Zanu PF bigwigs to oppose Mugabe's appointment of Joyce
Majuru - rather than Mnangagwa - as vice-president and therefore, very
likely, his anointed successor. Mnangagwa's cellphone was switched on but
went unanswered most of Friday. He is on the campaign trail trying to win
back the parliamentary seat he lost to the Movement for Democratic Change in
2000, which forced Mugabe to rescue him from political oblivion by
appointing him Speaker. Although Moyo has departed as Zimbabwe's most
unpopular member of the cabinet, his former ministry carries on with its
devilish work, as the authoritarian law he created, the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act, is still being used against the
media. His minions at the Media and Information Commission are still
hounding journalists.
In Moyo's office, George Charamba, permanent
secretary to the information ministry has been flexing his muscles. He and
Moyo fell out a couple of years ago, and insiders speculate he is very busy
doing an audit on expenditure within the information ministry over the past
five years of Moyo's tenure. He is said to be examining especially closely
the local and foreign currency costs of setting up and launching Moyo's
local band, Pax Afro, at the Victoria Falls at a glittering function, last
year. Then there were the costs of staging and running live satellite links
for Moyo's "solidarity" concerts in Mozambique. And the many dinners at the
attractive and expensive restaurant in Harare's northern suburbs where Moyo
hosted a wide variety of local dignitaries and foreign visitors. Trans Media
is a company conceived of by Moyo, shortly after he became information
minister. It is wholly owned by the president's office and generates about
R10 million a year from commissions from DStv Africa, and satellite uplinks
from Harare. It paid for the aircraft Moyo hired last November for the
fateful meeting he arranged in Tsholotsho - the Matabeleland constituency he
will contest on March 31 - where he is accused of plotting with six
provincial chairmen, and others, to back Mnangagwa to fill the empty
vice-president's post.
Though Moyo had directly opposed his boss,
Mugabe appeared reluctant at first to punish his wayward information
minister. He liked Moyo. He knew that in his largely inept and moribund
cabinet, Moyo was the most hard working. He had sold a propaganda message to
Mugabe's supporters - inside the country and in Africa and abroad - blaming
British and other "neo-colonial" forces for Zimbabwe's economic ills. Tony
Blair and Co had turned on Zimbabwe not because of its destruction of the
rule of law, but because it was reversing British colonialism by taking back
the farmland "stolen" from Zimbabweans by white British settlers, Moyo
proclaimed over and over again. As late as the Zanu PF congress last
December, even after the fateful Tsholotsho meeting, Mugabe acknowledged
indirectly that Moyo had done a good job. But the pressure from within Zanu
PF - where Moyo had made many enemies - was too heavy, and these enemies
forced Moyo's expulsion from the politburo. He therefore lost his seat on
the Central Committee and was no longer eligible to stand for the party in
next month's general election.
"Jonathan is too American. He is not
one of us. He has no background in the party, because he is too American,"
is the refrain from many members of Zanu PF's inner circle. Moyo was indeed
the outsider. No veteran of the liberation struggle he; until Mugabe drafted
him into government, Moyo was an academic who had led a privileged life,
compared to most Zimbabweans. His tertiary education had been paid for in
the United States. He was among the creme de la creme of upcoming African
academics, even if his performance at the University of Zimbabwe, before he
left for Kenya to join the Ford Foundation nearly 10 years ago, was patchy
and caused the same sort of tensions among his professional colleagues as
his political behaviour did in the cabinet. He then worked briefly at the
University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
It is a well-entrenched
- but true - part of the Moyo legend that as an academic he was among the
sharpest critics of Mugabe's policies, including Mugabe's persistent efforts
to establish a de-facto one party state. His abrupt metamorphosis into
Mugabe's most strident mouthpiece widely branded him as a brazen
opportunist. The swiftness of the transformation surprised almost everyone
who knew him. In 1999, from Wits, he was appointed spokesman for the
Constitutional Commission which Mugabe had set up to try to channel and
divert the demands of civil society for a more democratic constitution. Moyo
had actually been brought in to provide some balance to the largely
pro-Mugabe commissioners, according to inside sources. But upon arrival, he
immediately unfurled his new colours. As a result Mugabe drafted him into
the cabinet in 2000. Now he is back where he was in 1999, as a Mugabe
critic, boasting that if it were not for his efforts, Mugabe's government
would have imploded long ago. He still embraces Zanu PF thinking though -
that Zimbabwe's "sovereignty" (whatever that may be) is under threat from
journalists, Cosatu, non-government organisations, Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Americans, the British, Scandinavians etc.
And he will no doubt
persuade many voters of Tsholotsho that he is a better defender of Zimbabwe
against these enemies than Zanu PF is. Despite his spectacular flip-flop, he
is popular in Tsholotsho, and can draw a crowd even in Bulawayo, and not
just because he has been smart in pumping government money into the
constituency - almost as if he knew that he might one day have to come back
here as a candidate on his own and try to rebuild his career from the
grassroots up. Moyo can and certainly will deploy his considerable
propaganda skills to take credit for the new government grain silo, a
stretch of wider public road - and other improvements to the wretchedly poor
Tsholotsho village. He handed over blankets in winter and computers to
schools in summer in an area from which more people have fled to South
Africa to escape economic misery than any other part of Zimbabwe. Apart from
the patronage, he is also now seen as a hero by many ordinary people in
Matabeleland - who evidently lack a sense of irony - because he showed Zanu
PF two fingers. Jonathan Moyo could very well win the Tsholotsho seat,
according to many real and would-be political analysts, even though the MDC
insists that he will split the Zanu PF vote and help the MDC retain the seat
in won in 2000.
Yet observers say the sitting MP, Mtoliki Sibanda is
not one of the MDC's brighter lights. He has hardly said a word in
parliament and has done little for his constituency, either materially or in
the hand-shaking department. He won the primary election again this year
mostly because he had no coherent opposition. The Zanu PF candidate, Musa
Ncube, is neither an orator nor popular and her education level is low. Moyo
on the other hand - like him or loathe him - has a presence, is fluent and
quick-witted. If only for entertainment value, the Tsholotsho election
should be one of the ones to watch on the way to March 31. If he wins
Tsholotsho, many people speculate Mugabe will bring him back into the
cabinet as his choices are sorely limited by the poor quality of candidates
in Zanu PF. And if not - especially if it is true that Mnangagwa is his
godfather - he may bide his time, plotting to come back in from the cold
after the 81-year-old Mugabe has shuffled off. It's a little too early to
pronounce the great survivor politically dead.