Mail and Guardian
Angus Shaw | Harare, Zimbabwe
20
January 2008 06:33
Nationwide power failures shut down basic
services across Zambia
and Zimbabwe for hours on Saturday and Sunday as
anger mounted in South
Africa over power cuts that have wreaked havoc in the
continent's economic
hub.
There was no immediate
explanation for Saturday night's
blackout, which hit Zambia and neighbouring
Zimbabwe almost simultaneously
in the early evening, and it was unclear
whether there was any connection.
Power was restored in
Zambia about eight hours later, but
long-suffering Zimbabweans remained
without electricity, water, telephones
and traffic signals for much of
Sunday.
Power and water failures occur daily in Zimbabwe's
crumbling
economy, but not on a national scale. Zimbabwe state radio,
running on
generators, reported the failure was caused by a major breakdown
but did not
elaborate. The state power utility gave no explanation as power
returned in
some areas on Sunday afternoon.
In one
apartment district in central Harare, cheering erupted
when the electricity
came back on, replaced by jeering and catcalling when
it went off again a
few minutes later.
The failure shut down automated teller
machines and cash
registers at stores and pharmacies, forcing some to close
their doors an
hour after opening on Sunday. Check and local credit-card
transactions could
not be processed.
Harassed officials
in Harare said a fault "tripped" the national
power grid, plunging the
entire country into darkness on Saturday night.
Unofficial
reports in Zambia -- which relies on
hydroelectricity -- said there appeared
to be turbine problems at one of the
country's dams.
Both
countries have been hit by exceptionally heavy seasonal
rains, which is
affecting equipment.
Power and water failures have worsened
in Zimbabwe dramatically
in recent weeks. The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority said earlier this
month it had no hard currency for imported spare
parts to repair equipment
dating back up to 40 years.
Zimbabwe imports about 40% of its power from regional neighbours
and is in
arrears in hard currency for most of the imports. It is suffering
chronic
shortages of hard currency, local money, food, petrol and most basic
goods.
South Africa, one of its main suppliers, is having
its own acute
problems with large parts of the country suffering power
failures often
lasting several hours. State utility company Eskom says
demand is simply too
high for it to keep up with, but there is mounting fury
that the power cuts
are unpredictable and causing unnecessary economic
losses and personal
misery.
Outraged commuters set fire
to six trains near Pretoria on
Friday evening after being delayed for two
hours due to power outages.
Eskom has now been forced to
slash power supplies to
neighbouring countries in a desperate bid to meet
local demand, Business
Report said on Sunday.
The
beleaguered utility, which generates 95% of its electricity
for local use,
exports surplus power to Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe --
countries that
will now no longer be fed from South Africa's troubled grid,
the report
said.
Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland, which are also
supplied by
the parastatal, face partial cuts in their supply as the power
company tries
to alleviate the effect on South African
consumers.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said on Sunday
that Eskom
should cancel supply contracts with its neighbours while its
domestic market
is in such turmoil.
"Regardless of our
contractual obligations, there can simply be
no reason for South Africa to
supply Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique when
there is such a desperate lack
of reserve capacity in our domestic market,"
it said.
Veteran Zimbabwean journalist Peta Thornycroft, who is now based
in South
Africa, expressed surprise that South Africans should be so upset
about
"only six power cuts in the last five or six days, and none longer
than five
hours", compared with the eight years of disruption in
Zimbabwe.
She had words of advice in the Sunday Independent
newspaper for
suffering South Africans, such as installing solar panels on
the roof
connected to a large car battery, buying paraffin fridges and
switching to
gas.
"Want to know how to cope in this time
of gloom?" she said. "Ask
a Zimbabwean." -- Sapa, Sapa-AP
Associated Press writers Clare Nullis in Cape Town, South
Africa, and Joseph
Schatz in Lusaka, Zambia, contributed to this article
Zim Standard
By Walter Marwizi and Vusumuzi
Sifile
"Freedom March for a New Zimbabwe" planned by the Morgan
Tsvangirai-led MDC will go ahead in Harare on Wednesday after the police
gave the organisers the greenlight.
The march comes shortly
after talks brokered by South African
President Thabo Mbeki collapsed in
Harare on Thursday.
The march, expected to attract thousands in one
of the party’s
strongholds, will be staged to exert pressure on the
government to agree on
a new constitution before the
elections..
President Robert Mugabe has ruled out a new
constitution before
elections are held in less than two months.
In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to save the talks, Mbeki
flew into
Harare last week to meet Mugabe and leaders of the opposition
party but
returned to South Africa "empty-handed and frustrated".
He failed
to convince Mugabe to accept a new constitution as well as
to delay the
polls.
Organisers of the "Freedom March" said yesterday there was
no way the
opposition would participate in the polls after Mugabe had
reneged on a
number of promises made during the talks.
On the
basis of the promise for a new constitution, the MDC had agreed
to support
the 18th Amendment which paved the way for the harmonised polls.
"The march is part of the pressure that has to be exerted on the
government
if we are to get a new constitution before the elections," said a
senior MDC
official yesterday.
"Talks have failed and Plan B should be these
protests."
A copy of a letter signed by Chief Superintendent I.M
Tayengwa
authorising the procession shows the march will start at Harare
Gardens
11:45 AM.
Under the old Public Order and Security Act
(POSA), the organisers
have to seek clearance from the police before holding
any marches or
processions.
The police clearance allows the
political formation to pile pressure
on the government which has rejected a
plan to allow a transitional
constitution to take effect before the
elections.
The MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai and other leaders
are expected to
lead the "Freedom March" when demonstrators march in central
Harare before
heading to the Glamis Arena where speeches will be
made.
The police have set strict conditions that have to be met for
them to
allow the proceedings to go ahead.
Meanwhile, the
faction led by Arthur Mutambara is set to meet to work
out a strategy to
respond to Mugabe’s refusal to have a new constitution
before the
elections..
Although the dates of the meeting were not immediately
available
yesterday, Welshman Ncube, the secretary general of the formation,
said
there was no way Zimbabweans could go for elections when the agreements
made
under their talks have not been implemented.
"The talks
are still at a deadlock," said Ncube. "We should be given
time to fully
implement the agreements we made in terms of the elections,
the constitution
and media laws. As a party, we are saying NO, we cannot go
to the elections
before the agreement is met. The purpose of dialogue was to
ensure that
elections are held in a conducive environment."
If the elections
are held before the implementation of the Pretoria
agreements, Ncube said
"we will have a disputed election, and the current
crisis will
continue".
Last year, the two MDC formations agreed with Zanu PF to
sign into law
the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No. 18 as an attempt to
speed up the
negotiations. It is this law that harmonises presidential,
parliamentary and
local government elections. The deal sparked an outcry
from Zimbabweans from
all corners, but Ncube said the move was necessary to
resolve the crisis.
He said it was "our attempt to find each
other". At the time, MDC
leaders expressed hope that Zanu PF would
reciprocate by co-operating on a
number of issues.
But critics
warned that the opposition were being taken for a ride by
the ruling
party.
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE AND BERTHA
SHOKO
THE Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) says new constituencies have
been demarcated in a way that
favours the ruling Zanu PF.
Commenting on the demarcation of 210
constituencies to be contested in
the harmonised polls set for March, the
MDC anti-Senate formation secretary
for elections, Ian Makone said from the
outset the whole delimitation method
was "fraudulent" because it was based
on a "flawed" process.
He said the delimitation was based on a
flawed voters’ roll, which had
thousands of ghost voters, some of them long
since deceased, while others
had moved from their original
constituencies.
"There were very glaring anomalies in the voters’
roll," said Makone,
"and we pointed that out, but they proceeded against our
sound advice. We
are therefore not confident in the constituency
boundaries."
Asked what the MDC would do about the alleged anomaly,
Makone said:
"We are still in the struggle for conditions that enable free
and fair
elections. We have a protest march next week (this week) and we are
still
negotiating. The trick is to apply a bit of pressure."
The comments followed the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s
presentation
of a report on the delimitation of constituency and ward
boundaries for the
harmonised elections to President Robert Mugabe before it
is tabled in
Parliament.
According to the delimitation report, there are now 210
House of
Assembly constituencies, 60 elective Senatorial constituencies and
1 958
local authority wards.
The party claimed the delimitation
report was being deliberately made
inaccessible so that both MPs and their
electorate remain in the dark about
the constituencies until the last
minute.
Last Friday, legislators, journalists and voters jostled to
take a
look at the only copy that officials at Parliament said they
had.
Most of them left the building frustrated after failing to
obtain a
copy which would enable them to analyse the report.
But those that did get a glimpse of the report were not very pleased
either..
The MDC said some urban areas had been attached to
rural areas or been
split in a bid to neutralise the opposition party’s
urban dominance.
They said this pattern was most pronounced in
Mutare, Harare and
Bulawayo.
Kambuzuma MDC MP Willias Madzimure
said his constituency had been
split and believed Zanu PF was trying to
"disable" the party’s support in
the area.
Madzimure said
Rugare suburb has been merged with Mbare and now formed
Southerton
constituency.
Meanwhile Kambuzuma has been extended to parts of
Mufakose and New
Marimba.
"Kambuzuma’s voting pattern has been
very strong and well-coordinated
over the years. In fact, it is one of our
strongest areas in Harare and by
splitting the constituency all they wanted
was to destabilise our
strongholds," said Madzimure.
"I just
don’t get the logic they used to merge these constituencies.
Rugare is much
closer to Kambuzuma than it is to Mbare. In fact, not many
people know that
Rugare is not in Kambuzuma."
The party’s provincial organising
secretary for Manicaland, Prosper
Mutseyami, complained that Mutare
district, the most populous district in
the province, got only one
additional constituency while the smaller Makoni
district got two
more.
Apart from that, several suburban areas of Mutare have been
attached
to nearby rural areas in a bid to "dilute" the MDC’s urban
influence.
The leafy suburbs of Murambi, Fan Valley, Yeovil and
Greenside have
now been linked to rural areas, he said.
"This
is daylight robbery by Zanu PF. They have created constituencies
to suit
their desires in order to rob us of our guaranteed victory," said
Mutseyami.
In Harare, constituencies have been heavily split
and the MDC claims
this was done deliberately to weaken the party in the
harmonised polls.
But ZEC deputy chief elections officer
(operations) Utloile Silaigwana
on Saturday dismissed the allegations as
"baseless".
"If you take a critical look, you will notice that
urban centres have
the highest number of constituencies. Harare has the
highest number of
constituencies. Why are they complaining?" said
Silaigwana.
He asked The Standard to fax questions to his office so
he could
provide a detailed response. But Silaigwana had not responded by
the time of
going to print yesterday.
The Zimbabwe Election
Support Network (Zesn), a coalition of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
formed to co-ordinate activities
pertaining to elections, said it could not
comment because it had not seen
the report.
"We went to
Parliament but there was only one copy for everyone. It is
impossible to
make an informed comment because we have not analysed the
report," said a
Zesn official.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono
faces tough
questions tomorrow when he appears before a parliamentary
committee where he
is expected to "name and shame" the cash barons he has
blamed for a cash
crisis that has condemned urban Zimbabweans to life in
bank queues.
Barring any mishaps, Gono is scheduled to appear
before the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Economic
Development at 2:00 PM tomorrow.
Zhombe MP Daniel Mackenzie
Ncube confirmed on Friday they had summoned
Gono to appear before the
committee.
"The governor said he wanted the committee to invite him
anytime," he
said, "even at midnight. But we want him to appear before us in
broad
daylight. We are meeting him with open minds. We have questions that
need to
be answered and we want to see how we can solve this
together."
In December, Gono said he was willing to name and shame
government
officials before the parliamentary committee.
But
David Butau, the then chairperson of the committee threw cold
water on his
proposal before fleeing to the United Kingdom.
Though there is
deep-seated scepticism about the existence of cash
barons, Gono’s appearance
before the committee has been eagerly awaited. All
victims of the cash
crisis are keen to know the identities of the government
officials who could
have contributed to their misery.
So far, a female "street runner"
and a scrawny-looking young
man —hardly the portrait of a baron — are the
only people arrested for the
offence.
Indications are that Gono
might get more than he bargained for when he
appears before the committee.
Although Mackenzie Ncube would not disclose
the exact thrust of their
questions, parliamentary sources said the MPs were
keen to get to the bottom
of Gono’s serious allegations, and also unearth
the central bank’s role in
the murky world of the black market.
The alleged role of the
central bank in secret dealings was exposed in
the magistrate’s court in the
past few weeks for the first time, prompting a
senior prosecutor to urge an
economic crimes court to issue an order to
compel the police and the Anti
Corruption Committee to probe the RBZ. The
trillions were given to shelf
companies contracted to source forex needed to
buy tractors under the Farm
Mechanisation programme. Investigators say the
state has so far been
prejudiced of $1 310 813 254 000.
For the Portfolio Committee, such
evidence presented in a court of
law, points to "something serious that has
to be explained by the RBZ
chief".
"We want to get to the
bottom of these secret transactions," said the
committee
chairman.
The Standard was told the committee was anxious to know
from Gono how
newly printed bearer cheques found their way onto the parallel
market.
When he launched Sunrise 11 Gono said the cash crisis would
end soon,
but last Friday, he introduced $1 million, $5 million and $10
million bearer
cheques amid signs that the crisis was far from
over.
There were "mothers of all queues" in town yesterday after
thousands
of people turned out at banks hoping they could finally get their
cash
following the introduction of higher denomination notes.
Many went home empty-handed and disappointed.
"Before and during
the festive period, people have failed to get their
cash, even now. We want
to know if Gono has any tangible plans to solve this
problem," said a
committee member.
It emerged yesterday the committee had planned to
summon the Minister
of Finance, Samuel Mumbengegwi to appear at the same
time as Gono.
"Bringing the two together would have shown the
seriousness with which
we are treating this issue. But we decided Gono would
not be free to talk to
us in the presence of the minister," he said.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
BULAWAYO — The United States yesterday said it doubted
Zimbabwe was
ready to hold successful harmonised elections in March because
most of the
"logistics" were not in place.
US ambassador to
Zimbabwe, James McGee, speaking in Bulawayo
yesterday, also spelt out the
conditions for the restoration of normal ties
between the two countries in
the post-election era.
"We are ready to re-establish full contact
with the Zimbabwe
government," he said "provided that our conditions of good
governance, a
return to the rule of law and the respect for citizens’ right
to freedom of
expression are respected."
McGee said the
"watershed polls" were a very important process that
would determine the
future of Zimbabwe.
He said in Madagascar, where he served as the
US ambassador before
being assigned to this country, the government
approached embassies and
donors nine months before their last election,
seeking US$96 billion for
their communication systems which was in a bad
state.
"They had already done their homework and although we did
not have
that kind of money, they eventually got some assistance. It takes a
long
time to get things in place because it is a very expensive thing to
run, an
election. I have not seen any request in that regard from Zimbabwe,"
he
said.
The government has set aside $208 trillion for the
elections but the
funds were likely to be eroded by rampaging inflation now
estimated at over
15 000 percent.
McGee said the government of
Zimbabwe was failing to engage him in
dialogue, two months into his
posting.
Zimbabwe has accused the US of sponsoring what it terms
"regime
change" agents. These include the opposition MDC, pirate radio
stations and
civil society. But McGee labelled the allegations "rubbish" and
urged the
government to provide proof to back up its claims. The American
"under-cover
political agents" referred to in the government press turned
out last week
to be election monitors.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
REPRESENTATIVES of Kingstons Limited staff who
staged a "sleep-in" on
the booksellers’ premises last year have been
victimised by management, the
workers have alleged.
The
workers, recently awarded a 300 percent salary increment after the
sleep-in,
said their representatives were being victimised by management for
leading
the unusual industrial action.
Monica Makumbe and Tendai Tigere are
facing disciplinary action while
workers’ chairman, Wilfred Nyamukuwa, was
exonerated of wrongdoing at a
hearing held last Friday.
Nyamukuwa was accused of disclosing "confidential" company salary
matters to
The Standard and failing to carry out his superiors’
instructions.
But the hearing, attended by the Commercial
Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe
(CWUZ) and Kingstons management, concluded that
Nyamukuwa had not committed
any offence as he was the chairperson of
workers’ committee.
The workers slept at the company’s premises for
three weeks because
they could not afford to commute to work on their
salaries and allowances.
Following the pay hikes, the least paid
worker now earns $34 million a
month, up from about $10 million. Last week,
the workers said the salaries
were still too low.
"We cannot
survive on this and apart from that they refused to review
our transport
allowances upwards," said one worker.
Kingstons Limited general
manager, Dunmore Mazonde could not be
reached for comment.
Kingstons is a quasi-government company involved in the selling of
stationery, books and music.
Zim Standard
By Kholwani Nyathi
BULAWAYO — The council was last week contemplating "drastic" measures,
including reducing the working week for its employees and cutting back on
essential service delivery to contain a financial crisis, reportedly
spiralling out of control, confidential information at hand
reveals.
The council, considered to be one of the best performing
urban
councils in the country until a controversial government price freeze
last
year, might also fail to pay its workers at the end of this
month
According to a report presented to councillors during a joint
meeting
of the Executive and Finance committees on Thursday evening by the
city
treasurer, Middleton Nyoni, the council estimated that its bank balance
would be a mere $141,8 billion by the end of last week, against commitments
of $646,2 billion.
The financial crisis has been blamed on the
delays in the approval of
council’s supplementary budget in the middle of
last year and the
non-approval of this year’s $27,7 trillion, which is still
with the National
Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC).
"The
fact that the council cannot implement its tariffs and charges
without the
NIPC’s approval means that it is providing and billing for
whatever services
it can still provide at prices way below cost recovery,"
Nyoni said. "What
is worse is that payments are never in full. This has left
the council cash
strapped."
The wage bill for this month alone is estimated at $160
billion and a
further $163 billion is needed for the purchase of water
treatment
chemicals. Council also has to pay another $347 billion to water
treatment
chemicals’ suppliers who have already delivered the products by
the end of
this month, the report said.
Other measures proposed
by Nyoni included freezing the payment of
goods and services in advance,
suspending the issuing of requisitions, staff
loans — except for
bereavements — contracts with limited exceptions,
delaying salary payments,
conversion of December salary arrears for staff to
days-off and staggering
salary payments.
But councillors reportedly advised against
adopting any of the
proposals for the time being, saying the government had
to be made aware of
the situation first.
A delegation
comprising the Deputy Mayor, Phil Lamola and the acting
town clerk, Gilbert
Dube, as well as councilors, will now be sent to Harare
to meet the Minister
of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development
over the delayed
budget, sources said.
"In anticipation of further deterioration
resulting from the late
approval of tariff increases, measures are being put
in place in an attempt
to contain the situation," Nyoni said in the report.
"These include the
introduction of a water levy to raise funds for the
procurement of
chemicals, the suggestions to have bills collected at
district offices and
to revert to quarterly billing."
Charles
Mpofu, one of the longest serving councillors in the city,
described the
situation as "pathetic" and blamed the government for
"pursuing ruinous
policies."
"It is certainly not Bulawayo alone, which is in this
situation," he
said. "This is the outcome of an accumulation of government
policy blunders
since last year. What are we going to do about the plight of
our workers now
that we are even considering reducing the working
week?"
The council is owed $414 billion by residents in rates and
tariffs and
a further $9,3 billion by government departments.
A
number of local authorities are reportedly in the same dilemma due
to the
economic crisis characterised by inflation of well over 15 000%.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani
Ndlovu
BULAWAYO — A local pressure group says it will today
hold marches in
the city in a bid to force government to compensate
survivors of the
Gukurahundi massacres, in which an estimated 20 000
civilians in
Matabeleland and Midlands were killed by government
soldiers.
Ibhetshu Likazulu has been holding church services in
memory of the
massacre victims and survivors since 2004.
Last
week, it announced plans to take to the streets this year because
the
government was "not serious" with its earlier pledge to pay compensation
to
the victims and their surviving relatives.
"The government has
neglected families, children and survivors of the
operation," the group’s
spokesperson, Qhubekani Dube said on Friday, "and on
Sunday we will be
marching, demanding urgent compensation."
Although President Robert
Mugabe admitted at the burial of the late
Vice-President Joshua Nkomo in
1999 that the killings were a "moment of
madness", the government has not
acted on its promise of compensation.
Gukurahundi, in Shona the
storm that washes away all the chaff before
the major rains, was a
government-sanctioned campaign against so-called
former Zipra combatants who
had turned against the government.
Officially, the government
referred to them as dissidents or bandits
and unleashed the North
Korean-trained 5 Brigade against them.
But the operation was seen
as an attack on Mugabe’s political
opposition as the region had voted
overwhelmingly for Joshua Nkomo’s PF Zapu
in the 1980 poll.
On
the eve of Unity Day last year, former Home Affairs minister Dumiso
Dabengwa, jailed by Mugabe’s government on trumped up treason charges during
the disturbances, told journalists the compensation was long
overdue.
Ibhetshu Likazulu’s Dube said: "We are holding a peaceful
march to say
Mugabe is responsible for the atrocities in Matabeleland and he
should
compensate the victims. As a way of reminding people of this heinous
crime,
we will also distribute pamphlets with information on what really
took
place."
He said they had not sought police clearance to
hold the demonstration
because they knew they would not be allowed to go
ahead.
Last year, the former Information and Publicity minister,
Jonathan
Moyo said he was pushing for a Private Members’ Gukurahundi
Memorial Bill to
establish a fund to compensate the victims of the
atrocities.
But this is unlikely to happen soon as Mugabe is
expected to dissolve
Parliament soon to pave way for the harmonised
elections in March.
Zim Standard
by Sandra Mandizvidza
POLICE Commssioner Augustine Chihuri has blasted the National Incomes
and
Pricing Commission (NIPC) for failing to consider the welfare of
low-income
workers when approving price increases.
He also attacked the cash
crisis, saying it resulted in Zimbabweans
spending their "worst Christmas"
in years.
Chihuri spoke soon after the NIPC allowed private schools
to increase
school fees by 600 percent on last term’s approved
fees.
The increases will see many children from poor families
dropping out
of school.
Chihuri spoke at a send-off ceremony
for 66 officers for United
Nations missions in East Timor, Sudan and
Kosovo.
Chihuri said the prices, approved by the NIPC, were
outrageous. The
commission is chaired by Goodwills Masimirembwa, whose
suitability for the
job has been questioned by some in the legal
fraternity.
Chihuri said the prices were beyond the reach of
ordinary workers,
including those in the police force.
"Prices
are skyrocketing on a daily basis," he said. "I think we have
to do more
than just talking in the press. My hope is that the NIPC will
look seriously
at both the incomes and prices."
Chihuri said most workers earned
far below the poverty datum line
(PDL) but the NIPC had not addressed the
matter.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) estimates that
a family
of six now requires about $75 million a month to sustain
life.
Zim Standard
Comment
BY the calculations of most neutral observers,
preparations for the
harmonised elections are so behind schedule, it is
unrealistic — and
undemocratic — for them to go ahead in March
If they do, then there are likely to be so many glitches the results
may not
be a true reflection of the voters’ wishes.
Only Zanu PF could
benefit from a March election. The party can move
swiftly into action once
the electoral procedures are switched into motion.
This is because,
as the ruling party, it controls most of the levers
of the election process.
Some of the provisions may have been amended to
give them a semblance of
independence. But no-one should be under any
illusion that Zanu PF could
accept vital procedures which denied it an
upperhand.
The two
formations of the MDC are still griping about entering
elections under the
old Constitution. SA President Thabo Mbeki’s visit last
week appears to have
hit a dead-end: Zanu Pf is not interested in a new
Constutition.
That much-amended document, even with Amendment
No.18, is still more
Zanu PF-friendly than anything else
For
the opposition, a home-grown Constitution is vital for the obvious
reason
that, like other people with the experience of dealing with Zanu PF,
they
don’t trust the ruling party.
Some critics of the opposition scoff
at their threat of a boycott.
They insist the divisions in the opposition
are so deep-seated they know
they would still lose if the elections were
postponed to June, however level
the playing field may be.
Zanu
PF has always preferred to have no competition in an election, a
hangover
from the days of the one-party system of the 1980s.
For once, we
urge the party to think outside the box — the box of
self-interest,
self-glorification and self-absorption.
Let the leaders think of
their country, and not the party, first, for
a change. If the party is as
popular as they keep claiming it is, then there
should be no legitimate
reason not to accept a free and fair contest.
We say this even
bearing in mind President Mugabe’s retort to earlier
appeals for a
postponement: if anybody is not ready for a March poll, tough
luck. This is
not consistent with a party genuinely committed to democracy.
Clearly, Zanu PF is aware its political platform for these elections
is
hardly spectacular.
Inflation is the highest in the world,
unemployment is among the
highest in the world, life expectancy, at 34, is
among the lowest in the
world.
The cash crisis has brought
misery to many ordinary people. What they
must view as the government’s
uncaring attitude was the reluctance to
confront the naked truth: the
economy needs massive reform if we are to
return to the good old days of a
vibrant export-oriented currency much
admired even by some developed
countries.
The "cry-baby" syndrome, blaming almost everything on
alleged Western
sanctions, no longer impresses most citizens. They see all
around them vivid
evidence of official corruption, seen in the ostentatious
lifestyles of the
ruling elite. They know who to blame.
Most
voters would cringe at the prospect of returning to power a party
with such
a terrible record of failure and corruption. They will be anxious
to give
someone else a chance to try their policies.
Zanu PF will never
lose its status as a liberation movement.
But the party has failed
to give the people the good life it promised
them in 1980. It should allow
the voters to decide in a free and fair
election if another party/parties
can improve their lives.
Zim Standard
IN the 1980s, there were two
bloody incidents in
two countries thousands of kilometres apart, but with a
common ideology:
Marxism-Leninism.
In Zimbabwe, more than 20
000 citizens, including women and children,
were killed in a massacre now
notoriously known as Gukurahundi.
In 1989, in the People’s Republic
of China, whose communist party had
mentored Zanu in the liberatioin war, 7
000 were mowed down by soldiers and
20 000 wounded in Tiananmen Square in
Beijing.
Students and workers were demanding democratic
reforms.
In Zimbabwe, the slaughter sent shivers down the spines of
all
citizens contemplating the same challenge as that of the people whose
action
led to the bloodshed.
The violence in the two countries
had one objective: to show people
the government would not tolerate
opposition and dissension.
Today, in Zimbabwe more than in China,
citizens still thumb their
noses at the government.
By 1999,
opposition to the government had blossomed into a thriving
political party,
galvanising the workers’ and students’ union movements, and
the
intelligentsia into a cohesive group.
In China, some of the
shackles with which the Communist Party had
imprisoned free enterprise,
freedom of speech, assembly and association were
loosened.
China has mushroomed into a formidable economic powerhouse. The
prediction,
even by the United States, is that the world’s most populous
nation might
end up as its No. 1 economic power.
Not many have proclaimed with
prophetic doom "And God help us all if
that happens!" But privately fears
are being expressed of a world dominated
by an economic giant with an
equally robust appetite for world conquest
under the banner of the Communist
Party.
China is under a new leadership so unlike the mandarins
under Mao the
Great Helmsman himself must be in a permanent state of
apoplexy — wherever
he is.
Neither the people of China nor
those of Zimbabwe have given up trying
to expand the frontiers of freedom in
their countries. Even the restrictions
on the Internet may not be enough to
eliminate the champions of a new, freer
China, as dynamic economically and
politically as their old archenemy,
Japan.
In Zimbabwe, there
is now no going back: the days of the one-party
state of the period
immediately after independence are long gone, never to
return.
This is not to treat lightly Zanu PF’s determination to make the price
of
challenging the regime as deadly as it was in the 1980s. March 11 2007 in
Highfield provided massive evidence that Zanu PF and the government were not
about to let opposition elements settle comfortably into their
routine.
They would be reminded constantly and with their own blood
that the
price was going to be high — all the time.
For
that reason, there are elements in society wondering if it is at
all worth
it to keep the opposition fires burning. Zanu PF, these elements
seem
convinced, will never cede power voluntarily.
In a twisted way,
only over its dead body would the party give up
power. How this might
actually happen must be left to the imagination.
Zanu PF will, one
day, lose power — just as UNIP in Zambia and the
Malawi Congress Party did
in Malawi. Robert Mugabe will one day retire from
politics — whether in
disgrace will depend on how he prefers to make his
exit, but retire he must.
The man is mortal, contrary to what some of his
supporters seem to
believe.
If more people are of a mind to give up the campaign to
change things,
they have to be reminded that there won’t be a picnic at the
end of that.
Life could be even more horrid than it is today. None
of the solutions
implemented by the government so far have ameliorated our
economic
situation: the prospects look distinctly bleak from all
fronts.
Take the election, for a start. It is one which Zanu PF
cannot
conceivably win on its immediate past record. But some people have
already
given up, and not because of the division in the opposition, but
because
Zanu PF has rigged the polls already — a fait accompli.
What might turn out to be the catalyst could be the grassroots
reaction, not
only to how much they feel betrayed by the political parties,
but to how the
elite has trashed them. They are the worst victims of the
cash crisis. For
that trauma, they might seek an outlet for their pent-up
emotions.
You could have Kenya all over again.
l
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
CONTINUED FROM LAST
WEEK
Sunday view by Brilliant
Mhlanga
GHANA for now serves as a strong island of peace in West
Africa, as
you know that Liberia is enjoying relative peace. Cote d’Ivoire
is in a
rotational state of collapse and promise as rebels are always
threatening
President Laurent Gbagbo, day-in-day-out. We all know that the
rebels
rejected President Thabo Mbeki as a dishonest arbiter.
I
am not sure whether today Mbeki will be an honest one in the
Zimbabwe’s
Sadc-initiated talks. And also given Jacob Zuma’s challenge,
Mbeki might
emerge as a seriously bruised arbiter. The other compounding
factor now
being that he has lost the ANC presidency to Jacob Zuma. Only
time will
tell! Cote d’Ivoire, another interesting African country is a
place where
you see French soldiers roaming around the streets in their
armoured tanks.
You only get to be reminded by the black market women that
you are still in
Africa. Such is the state of shadow colonialism in most
Francophone
countries, maybe with the exception of Algeria.
Nigeria is quite
peaceful as well. But it depends on one’s
understanding of peace, as crime
rate is soaring and gangs continue to
kidnap any white face around them and
start phoning mining companies hunting
for ransom. At least, President
Yar’Adua has pledged to handle the situation
once and for all. His record
for the last eight months in office, after a
disputed election, is proving
to be impressive. With the situation in
Nigeria, a regional political
competitor to Ghana it means that the latter
is comparatively peaceful and
helping her economy as most countries are no
longer trade
routes.
Having discussed the West African situation and generally
some
situations elsewhere, I wish to conclude with a critical analysis of
one
major factor which forms a serious oversight on our African democracy.
It
seems as if in Africa as long as one political party stays in power and
there is leadership renewal that is democracy. Due to the nature of our
leaders, people end up being forced to vote for individuals being placed at
the helm of the party, instead of critically engaging political party
policies.
Examples include countries like Botswana; whose
ruling party to this
day, Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) was first elected
in 1965, and has
continued being elected at five-yearly intervals. Then
Tanzania forms
another interesting case of TANU which got into power in
1961, then merged
with Zanzibar’s ruling party, Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) in
1964, to form
Chama-cha-Mapinduzi (CCM). Since then they have stayed put and
that is
considered a great mark of democracy. What a shame to
democracy!
In Mozambique and South Africa, there are similar cases
of liberation
winning political parties in power, Frelimo and ANC,
respectively. These
parties undergo constant leadership renewal only at the
apex with all the
structures remaining unchanged.
Zimbabwe also
has Zanu PF, another case of a liberation winning party.
They claim to be
civilian here and there, but are quick to engage their
liberation mode when
seriously challenged. This also forms a major feature
of most of these
liberation winning political parties in Africa. Be that as
it may, an array
of questions arises: what has gone wrong with the African
leaders? Are we
supposed to blame the leaders or the opposition political
parties in Africa
that seem to fail to understand the same power game and
political tactics
used now and again? Where is Africa going? Mad men are at
the helm of the AU
and driving it wild.
Sadly, the recent developments in Kenya, a
once promising democracy
are a serious cause for concern. The government has
gone all out in full
military force and massacred innocent civilians who are
complaining about a
stolen vote. Indeed, the vote has been stolen in the
same African ludicrous
fashion, with the government showing no tinge of
shame. Their only
response — instead of saving life — is to accuse Odinga of
causing a
genocide. Most African scholars and social actionists have blamed
Africa’s
problems on her colonial legacy. Much as this narrative is
plausible what of
the actions of the third generational leaders like Mwai
Kibaki of Kenya? Can
we also blame it on the fact Mwai Kibaki has in the
past years been rubbing
shoulders with the old tired first generation
leaders in the African Union
gallery? If it is that contagious then shame be
on the future of Africa.
Following these observations one can glean
that Africa’s cause for
leadership and political change hangs in the
balance. The most saddening
thing is that very few lessons are there for the
aspiring leaders to learn
from. One can even speculate that following the
actions of our leaders even
the young and promising have nothing to build
on; as a result the likelihood
is that people’s rights will be trampled on
even more. At least our prayers
now are that the African ancestors save the
almost imminent crisis in South
Africa.
The angling and framing
of my contribution might be accused by some
overzealous Pan Africanists as
some form of Afro-pessimism. It is not. In
fact, it is informed by the fact
that too many mistakes continue to be made
wantonly by our leaders, as a
result this has tended to far out weigh their
contributions to our lives.
This forms the basis of my contribution and will
continue for as long as
Africa’s leaders continue to hold the masses at
ransom. Otherwise failure to
do that is tantamount to dressing oneself on
borrowed robes. Africa can not
afford sweet talking anymore. All odds are
against us. Seemingly, the
African ancestors are angry as well.
Kunonga's fall from grace was inevitable
ALLOW me space in your widely read paper to give a brief synopsis of
the
fall of Kunonga. Thank you for covering Kunonga’s saga in last week’s
paper.
The "Zanu PF" Bishop is trying to confuse and mislead
the world to
think that he is still in control of the Anglican Church Harare
Diocese.
Below are the reasons why Kunonga is no longer the Bishop
of Harare:
Bishop Kunonga withdrew himself from the Diocese of Harare and
from the
Church Province of Central Africa (CPCA).
This means
that the bishop is the one who withdrew from the province
and not the Harare
Diocese. The properties belong to the CPCA and in this
case, all the
churches showed their allegiance to CPCA by holding their
vestry meetings
and voted to remain in the CPCA province.
But this implies that
Bishop Kunonga should leave Church property
since he has no congregation in
Harare Diocese, save for the hooligans whom
he hires to go and disrupt the
church services around the diocese.
Believe me, visit any Anglican
church and ask where they belong, and
they will tell you — the CPCA, unlike
the lies that gobbles up huge space in
The Herald. After the bishop
unilaterally withdrew from the province, all
the Bishops from the province
accepted his resignation but concurred that
Harare Diocese remains in the
Province. Likewise, the property belongs to
the province and the Diocese is
the beneficiary, as agreed at Canterbury
(head office of Anglicans
worldwide).
His licence was revoked, according to canon 16.2. The
bishop failed to
get any one parish to vote for him in the entire Harare
Diocese. Even in
those Churches with Priests who sympathise with him he
failed to secure a
win.
The dictator bishop now turns to Zanu
PF tactics in order to garner
support, which he is not going to get. In
realising his imminent fall from
Anglican Community, it is alleged he
mobilized hooligans to move from church
to church, beating up people and
reports were made to the police. When he
realised that the strategy failed,
he is now using the tyranny of the
police, who by Sunday two weeks ago, were
moving from church to church,
barring people from holding services as they
accused them of not supporting
Kunonga. St James’ Warren Park is one of the
churches.
In Highlands, Borrowdale, Greendale and other suburbs in
that
neighbourhood, when the police arrived the services were over. What
pains
him most is the fact that even churches in Zanu PF areas disowned him.
What
I know for sure is this fascist bishop might have the support of the
CIO,
Zanu PF, and the police, as he is taking advantage of people’s
ignorance
about the real issue and manipulating them. Kunonga should have
asked why
all the bishops and priests in the world condemned him, including
all the
bishops in Zimbabwe. He and The Herald are correct? For the record,
the CPCA
does not condone homosexuals but prays for them to turn away from
the
"unbiblical" behaviour, just like any other sinner.
The
greatest supporter of Kunonga, Zanu PF, initiated his downfall by
rejecting
him although he is found at every Zanu PF rally. Tsvangirai must
be the
happiest person because when you see these things, you must know that
the
end of the dictator is near.
The March elections belong to MDC,
when one considers the mess in Zanu
PF.
Patriotic
Zimbabwean
Harare
------------
Sibanda's
'million-man march' exposes Zanu PF double standards
THE Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has in the past called
for a stayaway in
order to protest against the deterioration of workers’
living conditions.
This has always been opposed by Zanu PF, the government
and State
agents.
People were urged to ignore the ZCTU calls for a stayaway.
They were
assured of police protection.
However, Jabulani
Sibanda’s so-called "Million- man march" was a big
stayaway in disguise
because Zanu PF thugs closed down shops and markets in
the city through the
use of force.
As far as Zanu PF and the police are concerned this
was very legal and
legitimate. But ZCTU’s calls for a stayaway are labelled
illegal and are
always suppressed by the police.
What double
standards and one-sided application of the law in this
country by this
government!
P J Madondo
Mutare.
----------------
Gono's bank rate blunder
DR
Gideon Gono, the "artificial" bank rate you use serves to protect
no one.
Take a look around: everybody is charging a very high premium for
all
imported goods.
Not only do we have to pay this substantially
higher price but the
country suffers through smuggling and other informal
sector deals for which
the government gets "nothing".
Why don’t
we make more efforts to liberalise the ZWD and boost our
exports?
Our products are preferred all across the SADC region,
we have vast
mineral resources and an industry with much fortitude. No-one
wants to
export for a pittance of the true value of their exports. Please,
let’s
liberalise the ZWD, as we are short-changing
ourselves.
Cml,
Harare
---------------
Why they run to the West
IT’S interesting
to note that all those who stand
with The Great Uncle in castigating the
West — strange enough — are the very
first to run to the West to seek
refuge, when they have a fallout with The
Great Party.
That
smells of hypocrisy. That is, the reason why they don’t want him
to
relinguish his post, so that they can hide behind his back, doing their
evil
deeds that kill our economy, while blaming it on the west.
Tom,
Harare
Just what happened
this past week? If you read the media (always dangerous)
you get reports that
say diametrically opposite things - a "Deal" is done
says the Gazette, the
"Talks a Failure" says the Independent and other South
African papers. As for
the local State controlled press - well that is just
a sick joke. You are as
likely to get the truth out of them as you are from
a used car salesman.But
for all of that we have to try and sort out what
really went on from
all
the nonsense being written and spoken. What we do know is the following:
the
South African mediators met with the negotiating teams this past weekend,
a
set of options were put before these decision makers, the MDC team
accepted
two of the three options with slight variations whilst the Zanu PF
team was
unable to come to any conclusion in the absence of Mr. Mugabe who
was on
holiday in the Far East.Mr. Mugabe was visiting Hong Kong, Thailand
and
Singapore with his entourage
and chief shopping aide, Grace Mugabe.
We know that Mr. Mugabe was sent for,
dropped everything and hurriedly
returned to Harare to take charge. After a
couple of days of consultations
President Mbeki arrived with his team and
went straight into discussions with
the Zanu PF leadership. After several
hours of discussion Mr. Mbeki saw the
MDC leadership and then returned to
the discussions with the Zanu PF team
before leaving the country to return
home.The only public part of this
process was a brief meeting with the media
where the South African President
said that the talks were continuing and
that progress had been made. Neither
the MDC nor Zanu PF made any public
statement and the MDC leadership left the
country for South Africa the
following day.The rest of us were just left in
the dark with no clear
statement on what
had transpired.I slept on the
issue and decided to come down on the side of
the view that
despite all
the leaks - a deal was done. There is simply no way that the
President of
South Africa, who has so much at stake in the process and for
whom, for the
first time in 7 years, has all his ducks in a row on this
issue, would allow
the talks to collapse and flounder. The question is
therefore what sort of
deal?The rest of this note is conjecture - so you can
take it or leave it,
as it
may not be accurate. My own view has been for some time that we are
stuck
with a March election. My guess is that nomination day is the 7th of
March
with the elections taking place 21 days later on the 28th of March.
The
elections will be in one day and some 2000 seats are up for election.
Urban
voters in the main centers may have 5 ballots to complete, in the
other
areas, 4 ballots. At issue is nothing more or less than the future
of
Zimbabwe as a State.The devil always lies with the detail. I would agree
with a senior diplomat
who said to me some weeks ago "there is no chance
of holding a free and fair
election in Zimbabwe today, however we will watch
the process carefully and
if the outcome is one that we feel represents the
views of the majority, we
will accept it and move on from there". A sort of
resigned acceptance that
SA has not achieved enough in the mediated talks but
we have no choice but
to work with the outcome.Frankly I think the same thing
applies to the MDC -
we have little choice
but to work with the gains
made in nearly 8 months of tortuous and
painstaking negotiations with a
group, who from the very beginning were in
no way sincere or committed to
genuine change in the way our elections are
run.Change there has been - not
enough to ensure a free and fair election,
but
is it enough to allow a
free expression of the will of the people? Can we
prevent the sort of fraud
that has characterised the elections in Zimbabwe
for many years and in Kenya
just recently? Most would say no, but in my view
the changes negotiated and
now being implemented must not be discounted.
They are significant in many
ways.The questions that remain are many - can
we persuade eligible
Zimbabweans
voters to come out on the 28th and vote? Can we then protect
their voice and
make sure it is reported accurately and without manipulation
to the national
tally and then finally, will our society and administration
accept the
outcome? Those are big questions that only time will answer.But
for me I
have always viewed this process as a struggle. It will remain
a
struggle right through to the end. My main fear in the past 18 months
has
been that we would not have an election. That the regime would simply
back
into its shell and with the support of the armed forces and corrupt
business
interests, administer the country via a military/Zanu Junta.
Effectively a
coup in all but name. That has not happened and one of the main
reasons has
been the continued belief that Zanu PF has done enough to win the
election.The other factor is simply pride. Mr. Mugabe wants to defeat
Morgan
Tsvangirai in a straight electoral battle - make no mistake this is
the
modern equivalent of a 16th Century Jousting competition. He wants to
hold
an election that meets the minimum conditions that he can get away with
and
then manage his own semi dignified exit from the stage before things
get
completely out of hand.Just look at the constraints on Morgan in this
contest - he has been beaten
physically, denied funding for normal
political activity, restricted in all
forms of normal political activity, the
bookies are all Zanu PF lackeys and
the crowd in the stadium is loaded with
Zanu PF supporters. Traditional
leaders who have been intimidated and bribed
control the field, Morgan's
horse is denied food and water and his equipment
is tampered with.No wonder
Mr. Mugabe is confident! But remember, this is
still a contest to
be won and lost. At least we are going to get our chance
on the field. It is
a risk, but one worth taking if this is all we have got.
So my view is that
we are in for an election and it is up to every one of us
to get off our
butts and make sure that this time, the real result is
captured and
reported. We sure can live with the result; I am not sure Zanu
PF can.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 19th January 2008
The Zimbabwean
Sunday, 20 January 2008 11:19
HARARE – South Africa President Thabo Mbeki on Friday sought the
intervention of the SADC troika on Politics, Defence and Security after his
round of shuttle diplomacy was rebuffed by President Robert Mugabe
Thursday.
The SADC troika, chaired by Angolan President Eduardo dos
Santos, was said
to be frantically moving to call an extra-ordinary congress
to deal
specifically with Mugabe’s intransigence.
President Mugabe
remained defiant after a visit by Mbeki to opposition calls
for a change in
the election timetable and the introduction of a new
constitution before the
election.
By refusing to accede to opposition demands, Mugabe effectively
slammed the
door on any prospect of a talks breakthrough between the ruling
party and
the opposition.
Mbeki had come to Harare hoping to persuade
Mugabe to sit down with the
opposition leaders and compromise on the
electoral dates and constitutional
logjam. But Mugabe said the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) would have
to recognize his clumsily stolen 2002
re-election and then call off targeted
sanctions against him and his cronies
before he would speak with opposition
leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur
Mutambara.
Mbeki met with Mugabe at State House for almost four hours, then
later with
Tsvangirai and Mutambara at the residence of South African
ambassador to
Zimbabwe, Mlungisi Makhalima. Mbeki was accompanied by his top
aides, South
African Local Government minister Sydney Mufamadi,
Director-General in the
Presidency Reverend Frank Chikane, and his legal
advisor Mujanku Gumbi.
The Zimbabwean heard that Zanu (PF) negotiators
Patrick Chinamasa and
Nicholas Goche, were with Mugabe when he met Mbeki
while the MDC delegates
to the talks, Prof Welshman Ncube and his opposite
number Tendai Biti were
also at Makhalima’s residence although they were not
allowed into meetings
held between Mbeki, Mutambara and Tsvangirai.
Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Lovemore Moyo, both deputy
secretary-generals of
the two MDC wings were also present.
Mbeki told
reporters after the meetings that he was optimistic.
“We came to give a
report to President Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai as well as
Arthur Mutambara on
how far we have gone (with the talks). We have listened
to the leaders. We
are going back to continue that process. It’s work in
progress and very good
progress.”
Mbeki said he did not doubt the “commitment on the part of the
Zimbabwe
government to solve problems the country is facing.”
But
analysts were skeptical and said the talks had now effectively
collapsed.
“It’s the end of the road,” political analyst John Makumbe
said. “The master
of deception, Zanu (PF), is leading the MDC up the garden
path. It stands to
reason that all the MDC and Zanu (PF) have agreed upon
through the mediation
talks is little more than efforts to hoodwink
SADC.”
Tsvangirai’s MDC said the meetings were still deadlocked over Mugabe’s
refusal to postpone the election to June from March and introducing a new
constitution before the poll. Mugabe favours keeping the vote on schedule,
with a promise to implement the new constitution soon afterward. The
opposition is demanding that the constitution, with its new freedoms, be
implemented before any national vote.
“Having an election would just be a
farce if they happen in March,” said
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the wing
of the opposition party led by
Tsvangirai.
Mutambara also expressed the
same position, issuing a statement saying his
MDC was ready for a roundtable
with Mugabe without conditions.
Mugabe reportedly told Mbeki: “Do they
recognize me? If they do, well, it
means they have to start acting like
it.”
Zimbabwe is in the grip of political and economic chaos, caused in large
part by Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic rule and by his indigenisation
policies.
The Zimbabwean
Sunday, 20 January 2008 11:47
BULAWAYO—THE US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, has said
Zimbabwe’s
land distribution programme is a monumental failure that has led
to
starvation of immense proportions nationwide. Ambassador McGee,
addressing a
Press conference in Bulawayo yesterday (Saturday 19 Jan 2008),
said the
infamous land redistribution programme had brought the Zimbabwean
economy to
its knees.
He said the newly resettled farmers, hand-picked by
Government on party
(Zanu PF) affiliation lines, were failing to produce
enough food for the
country’s exports, let alone its domestic
consumption.
The American ambassador gravely noted that because of the biased
land
redistribution programme, Zimbabwe had quickly slumped from being a net
food
exporter to a net food importer within a short space of time.
“The
most complex issue we have in the country now is how do we get to where
the
system was before?” Ambassador McGee said before an army of local
journalists at a city club.
“The old system did not work and what is on
the table is not working. It is
making life more difficult for every
Zimbabwean.”
He said Zimbabwe’s food security needs drastic improvements
urgently.
He nevertheless said the way colonialists took land from indigenous
Zimbabweans was also bad.
“But two wrongs make no right…we understand the
emotion on land but what I
am more concerned with is that Zimbabwe was a net
exporter of food. The
World Food programme bought food from Zimbabwe to
distribute in other
countries…Zimbabwe provided grain to feed other
countries.
“In 2006 things changed. Zimbabwe is now a net importer of grain,”
Ambassador McGee said.
He reiterated that the country’s food security
systems needed to improve but
again wondered how that could be done.
The
ambassador said Zimbabwe could never go back to the old system—before
the
land redistribution programme where it produced food in abundance.
He said
this was especially made more difficult by the fact that the land
redistribution programme was irreversible.
“Just how do we get back to
that?” he mused.
The ambassador denied it that it was sanctions imposed by
his government and
other western countries that had brought the country’s
economy to its knees.
“Sanctions? That is the most foolish thing I have ever
heard. The US has no
sanctions against Zimbabwe. What we have are targeted
sanctions, sanctions
against individuals, not Zimbabwe and its people,” he
said.
Ambassador McGee said many American citizens visited Zimbabwe as
tourists.
He said that would not be happening if the US had slapped
sanctions on
Zimbabwe.
On the oncoming elections, the ambassador said the
US government had no role
it could play in the elections but merely wanted
the election results to
reflect the true opinions of Zimbabweans.
“Our
position on Zimbabwe is very clear, we want good governance, human
rights
and a return to the rule of law. Once we see these things being
addressed,
we will be ready to reengage Zimbabwe,” he said.
He ruled out a repeat of the
Kenyan carnage over election results saying
Zimbabweans were mature people
who would not kill their relatives over
elections.
“We do not have much
of a role in the oncoming elections. We are just out to
promote the
democratic process…I do not think there will be a repeat of the
Kenyan
situation in Zimbabwe. Here we have thoughtful people who would not
want to
kill their brothers because of the elections.
“We hope the true reflections
of the majority of the people will be the
result of the elections,” he
said.
Ambassador McGee, recently posted to Harare by Washington, was on a
three-day familiarisation tour of US government-funded projects in Bulawayo
and to listen to the people’s concerns in the city.
IOL
January 20 2008 at 09:38AM
Peta Thornycroft, our Zimbabwe
correspondent, reports from
Johannesburg on how to deal with power
cuts...
What an incredible fuss you South Africans make about a few
power
cuts.
I happened to lie down next to my battery-operated
satellite radio for
a nap this week after the season's only two hours of
summer whacked me out.
I heard the likeable David O'Sullivan
sounding unlikeable. Okay. He
was in a rage, so angry he sounded as though
he might burst an artery, or
the membrane holding his brain in place. About
Eskom.
I couldn't believe my ears. As far as I can remember, in
this past
week there were only about six cuts, and none longer than five
hours.
Same thing at the pharmacy: moan, moan, moan. Then it struck
me - for
the first time in my life I had really useful
knowledge.
I do know about electricity cuts
and what to do about them.
I know about boilers, paraffin fridges,
wicks and lighting the lamps
by pumping them hard at 5.30pm.
Please, South African householders, unless you live on more than an
acre,
don't get a generator.
There will be murder in the streets of
Parkhurst, the Berea in Durban
and Obs in Cape Town if home owners on tiny
bits of land all have generators
farting rhythmically through long days and
dark nights.
Even small generators use 1 litre of diesel per hour.
And they get
stolen easily unless cemented in and you need monster ones to
do fridges and
stoves.
Leave generators to Raymond Ackerman and
his ilk.
First rule for survival: get a solar panel on the roof,
which is
connected to an especially large car battery in your house, which
is then
attached to an inverter, which in turn has a switch that lights up
the
world.
This system keeps a TV, DSTV encoder, DVD player,
mobile and laptop
chargers going. And it costs nothing to run. The bigger
the battery, the
more lights. (Ditch desktop computers today.) It doesn't do
fridges (more
about fridges later) and it doesn't do electric
stoves.
Go for gas. Mozambique has 300 years of gas, and the ANC
government -
even though it chose to do the arms deal instead of electricity
- did put in
a pipeline for gas from Mozambique.
If you live in
the older suburbs of Johannesburg phone up the angels
(seriously) at eGoli
Gas and they will look on the map to see if you have a
gas pipe in your
street.
If you have, then get connected. Gas geysers also work at a
fraction
of the cost of electricity if you don't go for solar-heated
water.
Refrigerators are another thing altogether.
If
you keep the doors shut, a tall one will keep food from going off
during a
power cut of about 30 hours. A deep freeze lasts about 2,5 days if
you don't
open it. Longer than that and the food goes off.
After all, you can
shop daily in South Africa. Raymond Ackerman is
going to keep the generators
running.
Most Zimbabwe-owned supermarkets shut down during power
cuts. Only
foreign-connected ones such as Spar have generators, or those
owned by
Zanu-PF chefs (political elite), as they get cheap
fuel.
You must conserve power. You have a chance to do this because
you
still do have commerce and industry. We lost our industry over the past
few
years, so that sector can't really help much.
We have more
or less given up mining. Except, except, and think about
this: your mining
houses can buy power with foreign currency directly from
Cahora Bassa and
pay in US dollars, as they are doing in Zimbabwe now. It is
a bit more
expensive than Eskom, but it keeps the platinum pouring out.
We
also don't have any robots left in our streets, and little traffic,
so we
don't have the kind of traffic jams I saw along Jan Smuts Avenue in
Jo'burg
on Thursday during a power cut.
We don't kill each other in fuel
queues, and we don't have road rage
as our roads are mostly gone. Nor do we
kill each other in banks, even when
there is no money there, or in
supermarkets. Well, only very, very
occasionally, and only once, over sugar
and that was in Bulawayo, which is
very far from town.
So bear
up, improvise and go get the solar, inverter, battery
alternatives, and gas.
And you will all survive until you have enough new
power sources within
eight years, so I hear, and you are not going to be
nearly as short of
foreign currency as Zim, so can import some power.
But Zimbabwe
will recover sooner than South Africa, because our
population is in
Hillbrow.
This article was originally published on page 1 of
Sunday Independent
on January 20, 2008
Mmegi, Botswana
Friday, 18 January 2008
*TANONOKA JOSEPH WHANDE
When nothing is happening
it is quite interesting, isn't it? How long has
Thabo Mbeki been 'mediating'
between Robert Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF, and the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change in Zimbabwe?
I can't say how much Mandela's
mediation achieved in Burundi but I still
remain adamant that South Africans
are the worst mediators in the world.
Mbeki and Desmond Tutu are my
witnesses because, on this issue, their
failures speak volumes.
In
Zimbabwe, dictator Robert Mugabe is not giving away anything due to
Mbeki's
partiality, with negotiations even currently having been put on hold
because
Mugabe's chief negotiator is on leave. Is this an important and
urgent issue
or is it an important and urgent issue?
Mbeki, Mugabe's chief apologist,
offers nothing of substance to Zimbabweans.
He disguises his failure and
ineptitude as 'quiet' or 'silent diplomacy.'
How long has it been since
SADC tasked Mbeki with this mediation that came
on top of his barren,
long-running quiet diplomacy?
It is such quiet diplomacy that the
sufferers and intended beneficiaries are
still being killed, beaten up and
arrested. And we are all expected to
remain quiet lest we mess up 'the
progress' being made by the 'silent
diplomacy.'
Elections are still
being rigged and thousands of Zimbabweans continue to
flee to South Africa,
Botswana and other neighbouring countries and beyond.
Sshh...quiet diplomacy
is at work!
Zimbabwe, a country that, apparently, SADC exempted from
adhering to the
adopted SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic
Elections, is
scheduled to hold yet another edition of meaningless elections
in March this
year.
We Zimbabweans are not looking forward to it;
thanks to both Thabo Mbeki,
SADC's impotence, both complemented by the
opposition.
Zimbabwe has never before met the stipulated SADC
requirements since their
adoption at the SADC Summit in Mauritius way back
in 2004 and now we are
faced with yet another election with nobody saying
anything about the
disadvantage that both democracy and free and fair
elections face in
Zimbabwe. Not to mention the corpses, muggings and
state-sponsored violence.
Where is Mbeki? We have only a few weeks to go
to another fake election.
Perhaps Mbeki is busy congratulating Mwai Kibaki
of Kenya, I presume. What
am I to say if African leaders give us a moronic
stare-off as if Zimbabwe is
not part of their problems?
And my
embarrassment knew no depths as I watched former presidents
pathetically and
shamelessly stepping over each other to reach Kenya before
the
other.
Ketumile Masire of Botswana, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Joachim
Chissano
of Mozambique, three of the four former presidents whose countries
proximately surround Zimbabwe, conveniently forgot their geography and flew
to Kenya to mediate between an election thief and a cheated opposition...the
very issue consuming Zimbabwe and its neighbours today.
Why should
Kibaki listen to these three who have left their own houses on
fire to
extinguish his? Why seek peace in foreign lands when your own border
is
under siege?
This is the kind of mentality and behaviour that does not
help Africa or the
sub region in any way. Kibaki should tell those former
presidents to go back
home and deal with the devil in their midst before
venturing far afield.
And poor Kofi Annan, scheduled to arrive in Kenya a
couple of days ago, has
been suddenly taken ill and won't make it. We all
know that he is not
welcome in Kenya.
Is he avoiding the magnitude of
the task since he is not a renowned
negotiator or peacemaker? Nobel Peace
Prize, my foot! Is he avoiding the
embarrassing presence of the former
presidents who, we are told, were 'asked
to mediate'?
They were all
'asked' to mediate but we are not told by whom. The people
they are supposed
to meet don't care not to see them.
Meanwhile, the world should also
forgive us Zimbabweans. We have no
meaningful representatives in or outside
Zimbabwe. The so-called opposition
is no opposition at all.
For
example, why do they continue to show up at the useless talks with Thabo
Mbeki's representatives? Since these silly talks started last year, what can
they tell people about what they achieved? Any little
achievement.
Instead, what we got was a sell-out 'compromise' that said
something about
Mugabe getting 'authorization' to anoint his own
successor.
The MDC is reported to be holding rallies now; do they have
access to public
media? What safeguards do they have as far as monitoring
the ballots is
concerned because that is where it's all at?
A
brilliant white boy called David Coltart, a lawyer and parliamentarian of
the breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara, wrote a nauseating piece
explaining what this nonsense was all about. He attempted to tell us what it
meant, urging us to accept it. He did not tell us what the Zimbabwean people
got out of this silly capitulation.
Perhaps Coltart should understand
where his loyalties lie and who he is
representing in spite of the shredded
political fall-out we are witnessing
today.
I have been in Botswana
for more than three years now and at all the times
Morgan Tsvangirai came to
this country, he did not meet with 'ordinary
people' legally resident here,
choosing, instead, to meet a select few at
isolated private clubs.
It
happened twice. A number of us were turned away at the exclusive
Phakalane
Golf Estates 25 kilometers outside Gaborone and told that we had
to be in a
car to enter the premises and talk to Tsvangirai.
I dare him to explain
this behavior, especially after I had personally
gotten in touch with his
spokesperson, William Bango, in Harare and gave
notice of our intention to
meet with him.
Although I was instructed and given the number to contact
a Professor
Mukonoweshuro, Tsvangirai's advisor accompanying him on that
trip, we were
no match for the elite club where they were holed up and only
for less than
two hours.
I persisted and was informed that he was
holding yet another audience with
'people' at the Gaborone Sun, 10 minutes
from my residence. I said 'to hell
with it.'
Tsvangirai was here
again in late November and met with his chosen few in
Gaborone, which is
fine. Some of us, ordinary as we are, have important
questions to ask him,
especially now that he is exceedingly becoming
irrelevant and a liability.
He is betraying the trust that people put in him
and has forgotten that
people died and continue to be murdered in his and
the party's
name.
He may continue to hide and, like Mugabe, surround himself with
people who
need no explanations but, clearly, his leadership inabilities are
slowly
being exposed. And he is doing himself a big disfavour.
I am,
however, sorry to have wasted my time. SADC put Mbeki in charge of the
Zimbabwean problem in spite of his previous failures over the same
stand-off. He has, once again, failed and elections are looming.
For
goodness sake, where is SADC? Does SADC accept its fellow member to
continuously violate or fail to meet SADC recommendations on elections? Of
course, some morons will tell us that 'they are only recommendations', not
requirements, and are not binding.
SADC should just disband.
It is
a useless organization that protects and hides the excesses of
presidents of
its member countries.
There is absolutely no reason why SADC should not
have emphatically dealt
with problems in Lesotho, the DRC, Zimbabwe,
Botswana, Swaziland, etc. If
they agree to 'non interference' when a member
state violates SADC
membership rules and guidelines, what more can they say
to us and the world?
They are cowards who even failed to capitalize on
Zambia's Levy Mwanawasa's
accurate outbursts. Mwanawasa had to withdraw into
a shell after none of the
SADC leaders supported him.
How much is
SADC involved in the DRC problem? I still have to hear a
statement and see
meaningful SADC efforts towards the deadly floods in
Mozambique, Zambia and,
yes, Zimbabwe.
SADC is a charlatan organization fronting for people who
appear not to be
serious about solving the region's problems.
Or,
maybe, they may just want to itemize for us their successes and
achievements
over the years vis-a-vis their expenses and annual budgets.
*Tanonoka
Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean journalist.
Extract from the London Sunday Times Culture Section 20.1.2008
Review of
a book " SMALL WARS PERMITTING,Dispatches from Foreign Lands" by
Christina
Lamb Harper Press £8.99 pp390. Review by Patrick French.
The central
focus of Small Wars Permitting is inevitably Iraq,Pakistan and
Afghanistan
and the individuals who might help explain these countries.Yet
the shade of
9/11 is not the saddest thing here.As Lamb writes,"Zimbabwe is
the most
heartbreaking story I have ever covered" We meet activists who
have been
tortured or raped,children whose parents have disappeared,and
people whose
homes have been bulldozed.It is a disaster that has arisen not
out of war or
atavistic social conflict,but from the whim of Robert
Mugabe."Zimbabwe once
had the best-educated population in Africa," Lamb
observes."I remember on my
first visit being impressed by all those neat
buildings and lines of
children with freshly washed uniforms and rucksacks
of books."Now all that
has gone.
Available at the Books First price of £8.54 (inc.p&p)
on 0870 165 8585 and
timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst