Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Monday, 14 July
2008
Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, sought to toughen
European Union
sanctions against the Mugabe regime yesterday after a
bruising diplomatic
failure in New York, where China and Russia vetoed
action on the Zimbabwe
crisis from the UN Security Council.
Britain
will submit 36 additional names to the list of people already
targeted by EU
sanctions because of their links to the junta in Harare, said
Mr Brown after
holding talks with European leaders in Paris.
"We should not lessen the
pressure on this regime," the Prime Minister said.
"I believe we need to
make a transition to democracy as soon as possible."
The 25-nation bloc
has already imposed travel and financial sanctions on 131
individuals
connected to Mugabe's regime, under measures drafted in 2002.
The US has
similar sanctions in place.
Fresh from his UN triumph, Mr Mugabe
signalled his intent to travel to New
York exploiting a diplomatic loophole
which allows him to attend UN
gatherings as a head of state. Asked if his
boss would be travelling to the
annual general assembly meeting in
September, Zimbabwe's UN ambassador,
Boniface Chidyausiku, said: "Yes,
definitely he will come."
The 84-year-old has proved adept at
side-stepping the measures of his
Western critics designed to isolate him,
and has rejoiced in opportunities
to confront his opponents on the
international stage. The failure of the
US-UK bid for UN sanctions was
greeted with glee by the government in Harare
and relief by South Africa's
president, Thabo Mbeki, who has been defending
the regime from international
pressure.
The UN resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on
Zimbabwe and clamped
a worldwide asset freeze and travel ban on Mr Mugabe
and 13 of his inner
circle accused of orchestrating the campaign of
political terror in the
run-up to the 27 June run-off election. The outline
of the measures was
backed unanimously by the leaders at the G8 group of
rich nations in Japan
last week, but Russia shifted its position within 48
hours of signing the
statement.
The package of measures also called
on the UN to name a special
representative to act as a mediator in Zimbabwe,
and hopes remain that this
will still go ahead. The former UN secretary
general Kofi Annan, who played
a similar role in mediating a resolution to
the crisis in Kenya, has made
clear his availability to fulfil this
task.
South Africa's Mr Mbeki strongly opposes such a move, as it would
undermine
his role as the regionally appointed mediator.
Concerns
were mounting that the failed sanctions bid would harden Mr
Mugabe's stance
of in talks with the opposition, as he now faces an
international community
clearly divided on how to move against him.
Mr Brown said it was "very
important" that talks "lead to a legitimate
outcome". Should they fail, he
said, there is a case to go back to the
United Nations.
The crisis in
Zimbabwe remains Mr Mugabe's main problem as hyperinflation
has pushed the
Zimbabwean dollar to 350 billion to the pound and the economy
has totally
collapsed.
"The defeat of the UN resolution is a pyrrhic victory for
Mugabe," said
opposition Senator David Coltart. "The ball is now firmly in
Mbeki's court
to deal with this crisis, because he was the one that argued
most
effectively against the UN resolution and he must now deliver before
the
situation deteriorates further.
http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/
14th
Jul 2008 00:41 GMT
By Mike
Nyoni
HARARE - Zimbabwe's political stalemate looks set to continue
as President
Robert Mugabe settles in for another term and Morgan Tsvangirai
of the
Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, struggles to respond to the new,
post-election environment.
Tsvangirai, who pulled out of the
presidential race five days before the
June 27 run-off, now faces a dilemma
over whether to accept Mugabe's offer
of talks or to claim the moral high
ground by refusing compromise.
The MDC leader has been bolstered by
support from traditional sympathisers
United States, Britain and Australia,
now joined by France and Italy, as
well as by Botswana's refusal to
recognise Mugabe as president.
As foreign governments continue to
question Mugabe's legitimacy and ponder
additional sanctions against
Zimbabwe, any decision they take will be
influenced by what Tsvangirai does
next.
Some observers believe that while the opposition leader's
withdrawal from
the election was motivated by principle - he argued that
taking part would
lead to more bloodshed - it was a tactical blunder
nonetheless.
They believe he was calculating that Mugabe would halt the
election process
and simply declare himself winner. That would have allowed
Tsvangirai to
urge the international community to recognise him as president
since he beat
Mugabe in the first round, held on March 29.
Since
Mugabe went ahead with the ballot anyway, the position has become much
muddier,
Analysts say any delay in the political process could now
work in Mugabe's
favour, allowing him to consolidate his hold and power and
giving his
ZANU-PF party time to consider another option - finding a
successor from
within the regime to keep international criticism at
bay.
According to Eldred Masunungure, a political sciences lecturer at
the
University of Zimbabwe, if the regime were able to engineer a seamless
change of leadership, allowing Mugabe to step aside, Zimbabwe's southern
African neighbours might be prepared to overlook the flawed
election.
"The dynamics in the region and the international community
might change and
the MDC find itself forgotten again," he said. "The region
is feeling the
contagion of the Zimbabwean crisis and will grasp at anyone
who promises a
quick end to this."
Two days before the African Union
issued its call for power-sharing in a
"government of national unity",
Mugabe used his June 29 inauguration
ceremony to make what sounded like
conciliatory noises, saying he was
prepared to negotiate with the MDC as
long as it shared his vision of the
country's future.
However, he
returned from the African Union summit in more belligerent mood,
demanding
that Tsvangirai and the MDC recognise him as president before he
would
contemplate negotiations. He also demanded that the West lift the
sanctions
imposed on him and his inner circle after his disputed election
victory in
2000.
Tsvangirai, meanwhile, declared last week that he would not
negotiate with
an "illegitimate president".
When South African
president Thabo Mbeki paid a fleeting visit to Zimbabwe
at the weekend in a
bid to revive his mediation effort between the MDC and
ZANU-PF, Tsvangirai
refused to meet him on the grounds that going to the
venue, State House,
would be tantamount to acknowledging Mugabe as head of
state.
The
Zimbabwean opposition views the South African leader's claim to
neutrality
with more than a little suspicion, suspecting him of favouring
Mugabe.
Mbeki has been acting as mediator on behalf of the Southern
African
Development Community, SADC, a grouping of regional states. The
recent
African Union summit asked the SADC to continue leading the mediating
effort
instead of taking on a more robust role itself, as some had hoped it
would.
Some observers say continued reluctance to engage in negotiations
could
prove another error on Tsvangirai's part. He may occupy the high
ground, but
he might have to make concessions in the face of demands for an
end to
Zimbabwe's profound political and economic crisis.
"Mugabe
says he wants to talk, so Tsvangirai has got to talk, otherwise
people will
see him as the stumbling block to the resolution of the crisis,"
said
Richard Chitova, a rural school teacher in Mashonaland Central
province.
"People are tired of the crisis and want it to end quickly."
Masunungure
agreed with this view, saying,"Dialogue is unavoidable and
inevitable.
Neither of the parties has a solution to the country's
structural problems
on his own.. Tsvangirai may have the legitimacy but he
doesn't have
political power. Mugabe's legitimacy may be questionable but he
has the
means to remain in power."
Should negotiations take place, Masunungure
notes that the MDC will be
forced to accept a lesser role since Mugabe is
now officially president
again.
"The trouble is that while the MDC
was preoccupied with means and legality,
Mugabe wanted to retain power by
any means necessary and that is what he has
done. He has already been
installed, though we should not confuse legality
and legitimacy," he
said.
Tsvangirai's dilemma about what his next move should be is
complicated by
the high risks associated with deploying one of his most
powerful forms of
leverage - asking the international community to impose
more sanctions on
Zimbabwe.
The United States and its allies have
proposed tougher sanctions and have
even suggested the introduction of a
peacekeeping force to stem the
bloodletting.
According to
Masunungure, an open call for sanctions could alienate
Tsvangirai both from
his voters and from other African nations.
"This is a tricky issue," said
Masunungure. "They [the MDC] cannot call for
the imposition of more
sanctions on the country when people are suffering.
This would alienate even
the support of SADC [Southern African Development
Community] neighbours.
Similarly, the MDC cannot boast of its ability to
bring foreign aid to
revive the economy without being accused of supporting
the current
sanctions. It's a double-edged sword."
So it is back to the drawing board
again, and that could spell a further
period of political violence, as well
as the apparently endless economic
meltdown.
The MDC says more than
100 of its supporters were killed by pro-Mugabe
militias before and during
the second-round election.
Masunungure argues that on its own, Mugabe's
government can do nothing
useful to save the economy.
Inflation has
reached astronomical heights, unemployment stands at 85 per
cent of the
population, and food and fuel are in short supply.
The food situation
worsened in the run-up to the presidential run-off, as
the government banned
aid groups from operating in the countryside, accusing
them of using food
distribution as a campaign tool for the MDC - a claim
these organisations
deny.
Mike Nyoni is the pseudonym of a journalist in Zimbabwe.
New York Sun
By BENNY AVNI | July
14, 2008
The Zimbabwe crisis presents an opportunity for
Secretary-General Ban to buy
the United Nations a much-needed commodity:
credibility. Mr. Ban is a fan of
quiet, effective diplomacy, but will he be
able to mediate factions within
his own administration and do the right
thing for the people of Zimbabwe?
Here is his problem: As Zimbabwe policy
increasingly pits London against
Pretoria, Mr. Ban's administration is
heavily populated by South African
officials, while British international
civil servants are fast disappearing
from Turtle Bay after decades of
controlling the U.N.'s power levers.
With the Security Council's
incompetence being highlighted in headlines
around the world - its inability
to act Friday on a crisis created by
Harare's strongman, Robert Mugabe,
being the latest - the United Nations is
being dealt a huge blow to its
prestige. The council was so tied up it could
not move, and it failed the
people of Zimbabwe spectacularly. For an
organization held in low esteem to
begin with, such public humiliation could
prove fatal.
Despite it
all, the United Nations could yet emerge as Zimbabwe's savior,
provided Mr.
Ban names a credible, high-profile mediator to stand up to
President Mbeki
of South Africa, who currently leads the Zimbabwe diplomacy.
Mr. Mbeki's
"mediation" is clearly designed to assure that his aging pal,
Mr. Mugabe,
remains president even after he lost an election and resorted to
unspeakable
violence to maintain his hold on power.
Meeting in Japan last week, the
group of the top eight economic powers
proposed that a high-profile U.N.
mediator be named, and the
American-proposed Security Council resolution
that was vetoed Friday by
China and Russia sought the same. But while some
in Mr. Ban's inner circle
see the need for reinvigorating intervention in
Zimbabwe, naming a powerful
new mediator would be a slap in Mr. Mbeki's face
- and there are too many
key U.N. decision-makers who are tied in one way or
another to the South
African president to do that.
Mr. Ban's current
mediator, Haile Menkerios, is a former U.N. ambassador of
the
communist-style regime in Eritrea who has become a mid-level U.N.
bureaucrat
at the political department's Africa desk. After he fell out with
his own
government, South Africa was kind enough to issue a passport to Mr.
Menkerios, which allows him to travel around the world. This makes him an
unlikely candidate to confront Mr. Mbeki, even if he had the stature to do
so.
Mr. Menkerios's role has faded as the Zimbabwe crisis has grown,
but Deputy
Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told reporters his efforts
were "very
much welcome" by African leaders. A former Tanzanian foreign
minister, Ms.
Migiro was warmly recommended for the U.N. job by Pretoria.
Oh, and Mr.
Ban's top political adviser is Nicholas Haysom of South Africa.
The list may
soon be augmented further if Mr. Ban names - as is expected -
an
International Criminal Court judge, Navanethem Pillay of South Africa, to
the high-profile post of human rights commissioner.
South Africa
justly carries a special moral aura. Its struggle against
apartheid is an
inspiring story representing a courageous victory for the
good guys. But the
role Pretoria plays in Zimbabwe soils the good name of
the country's freedom
fighters. It is ridiculous to claim Mr. Mbeki is an
honest broker who would
usher in the end of the horrors visited on Zimbabwe
by his old comrade Mr.
Mugabe. As the G-8's statement made clear, an African
personality of high
stature needs to take Mr. Mbeki's place.
"The U.N. still has a key role
to play in supporting African efforts to
bring an end to this crisis, and we
will continue to press for the
appointment of a U.N. envoy," the British
foreign minister, David Miliband,
said yesterday, after calling the Chinese
and Russian council veto
"incomprehensible." But after the recent departure
of the security chief,
David Veness, only one British official remains among
the United Nations's
higher echelons - and the humanitarian coordinator,
John Holmes, is outside
the political decision-making
circle.
Nevertheless, the American undersecretary-general for political
affairs, B.
Lynn Pascoe, is well aware of the need to change course on
Zimbabwe, as are
Mr. Ban's top adviser, Kim Won-soo, and Mr. Ban himself, I
am told.
In its current formation, the United Nations is clearly
incapable of
resolving such crises as Middle Eastern wars. Anyone who
believes that
dumping North Korea or Iran on Turtle Bay's lap would remove
those threats
is living in a 1950s-inspired dreamworld. Zimbabwe, however,
is one example
where Turtle Bay can make a difference. Will it?
bavni@nysun.com
Los Angeles Times
The country, already suffering hyperinflation, is on the brink of
financial
collapse, analysts say.
From a Times Staff Writer
July 14,
2008
HARARE, ZIMBABWE -- It has come to this: Zimbabwe is about to
run out of the
paper to print money on.
Fidelity Printers &
Refiners, the state-owned company that tirelessly churns
out bank notes for
the Robert Mugabe regime, was thrown into a crisis early
this month after a
German company stopped supplying bank note paper because
of concerns over
Zimbabwe's recent violent presidential election, widely
seen as fraudulent
by international observers.
The printing operation drastically slowed.
Two-thirds of the 1,000-strong
workforce was ordered to go on leave, and two
of the three money-printing
shifts were canceled.
The result on the
streets was an immediate cash crunch.
"If you think this currency
shortage is bad, wait two weeks. By then it will
be a disaster," said a
senior Fidelity staffer, who spoke to The Times on
condition of anonymity
because he would face dismissal and possible violence
for talking to a
Western journalist. The paper will run out in two weeks, he
said.
Fidelity Printers is Mugabe's lifeline. It prints the money to
pay the
police, soldiers and intelligence organs that keep the regime in
power.
Lately, the money has been used to set up a network of command bases
around
the country staffed by liberation war veterans and youth militias,
hired
muscle to terrify the population into voting for Mugabe in the June 27
presidential runoff.
If the regime can't pay the security forces on
which it relies, it would
face economic paralysis -- and potential
collapse.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown harks back to the collapse of its
major export
industry, commercial farming, after Mugabe's controversial land
reform
program early in the decade. That left the nation starved of foreign
exchange, but government spending went on.
How did it do that? It
printed money. But printing more and more money
without an increase in
productivity fueled rampant hyperinflation.
As hyperinflation spiraled
last year, Fidelity printed million-dollar notes,
then 5-million,
10-million, 25-million, 50-million. This year, it has been
forced to print
100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid
succession, all now
practically worthless. The highest denomination is now
50 billion Zimbabwean
dollars (worth a U.S. dollar on the street).
Despite the recent currency
shortage, the Zimbabwean dollar has continued to
slide against the U.S.
dollar and shopkeepers are still increasing their
prices steeply. The price
of the state-owned Herald newspaper has leaped
from 200,000 Zimbabwean
dollars early this month to 25 billion now. Before
the crunch, a beer at a
bar in Harare, the capital, cost 15 billion
Zimbabwean dollars. At 5 p.m.
July 4, it cost 100 billion ($4 at the time)
in the same bar.
An hour
later, the price had gone up to 150 billion ($6).
Apart from the paper
crisis, the real fear inside Fidelity is that its
software license for the
European bank note design technology that it uses
could be withdrawn because
of new sanctions threatened against the Mugabe
regime, the staffer said. The
design department is crucial: It must
constantly conceive new notes as those
on the streets are rendered worthless
by hyperinflation.
"If that
happened, that would be it," the staffer said.
The internal workings of
Fidelity Printers have been one of the regime's
best-kept secrets for years.
But as the government looks increasingly
tenuous, institutions that were
once impossible to penetrate are starting to
show cracks.
Fidelity
may be the beating heart of the regime, but the staffer revealed an
institution under severe pressure.
The place pulsates with sound and
smells of ink. The printing machines are
old and frequently break down,
requiring spare parts from Germany, which
will no longer arrive. Workers are
unhappy about salaries and fear for their
jobs because of the paper
shortage.
"When the machines were operating 24 hours a day, there was so
much pressure
on the employees that they just could not take," he said. "You
couldn't take
time off. Even weekends, people had to come in.
"People
are aware that printing money is also one of the causes of the
inflation.
But you know, it's a job. You've got to do it."
Now that the production
has slowed, the pressure of working full time is
replaced with the terror of
being laid off, he said. The plant is planning
to use paper from a local
producer, but that manufacturer already has
trouble meeting its orders for
paper for checks.
As the currency shortage took hold on the streets this
month, the capital's
myriad currency dealers found it harder to make a
profit.
Here's how the currency black market works: Dealers get local
currency
illegally through the back door of the reserve bank or from tellers
who will
provide cash in return for a payoff. They sell it at a profit to
locals with
foreign currency, gotten by trading in neighboring countries or
through
remittances from Zimbabwe's huge diaspora.
On the first floor
of a building downtown, the black market currency-dealing
offices attract
some of the city's best and brightest young graduates.
One office looks
like something out of a Chicago gangster movie. The boss,
impeccably
dressed, sits behind a desk. On his right, in a white cap and
suit, sits one
of the dealers. A Mugabe election poster is plastered on the
wall. On a
cabinet is a framed $10 note -- which generates as much nostalgia
around
here as a much-loved but extinct fluffy mammal.
"That was real money,"
cracks the boss.
Everyone laughs, though the joke is not
funny.
Tendei, 34, one of the black market dealers, gave up a good job as
sales
manager of a large Western company in 2003 because the salary did not
cover
his commuting and other costs.
In recent weeks, until the
German paper supply stopped, the government had
accelerated its money
printing, with fresh notes constantly seen on the
streets.
"They were
just printing money to pay all the militias," Tendei said.
"Inflation is now
out of control. Nobody can control it."
For most Zimbabweans, the
economic crisis boils down to one thing: how to
put food on the table. It's
a difficult trick when you have no job, or if
the bus fare costs more than
your pay, and the prices in shops keep going
up.
"Everyone is
struggling to keep up with this mounting pressure, day by day,"
said John
Robertson, an independent economist here. "It's a thing that
gradually
creeps up. Some people have already succumbed. Some factories have
closed.
More are likely to succumb as prices rise."
Another independent
economist, Tony Hawkins, said Zimbabwe's economy was
imploding so fast, some
major factories were reporting that it would be a
matter of weeks before
they would be forced to shut down.
"The beer and Coke guys are saying
they have only six to eight weeks before
they will have to close," Hawkins
said. "Some of the smaller banks are
screaming. It's accelerating downhill.
It's got its own momentum now. Just
sit back and watch.
"Everything
is imploding at the same time. You just get the sense that they
can't hold
on much longer."
Everyone at Fidelity Printers knows the money printing
is propping up
Mugabe, the staffer said. Despite the threat to their jobs,
some secretly
hope for breakdowns and paper shortages, he said.
"I'm
happy about this crisis caused by the unavailability of paper," the
staffer
said. "Because maybe it might lead to a change of things in this
country."
Punch, Nigeria
By Femi Mimiko
Published:
Monday, 14 Jul 2008
No self respecting African would see the way the
Secretary-General of the
Movement for Democratic Change of Zimbabwe was
manacled and led from an
equivalent of our Black Maria into a courtroom
about a week ago on treason
charges, without feeling a groundswell of anger.
It is a shame that all of
these are happening in the context in which the
beauty of another democracy,
no matter its seeming imperfections, is coming
home most clearly to us in
the United States.
But the question is,
how did Mugabe degenerate so much, and what is the game
plan of African
states, especially Nigeria and South Africa, on this hapless
country? Should
Africa just pretend that all is well and allow the
shenanigans of an
arguably demented leader to throw another once promising
African country
into an avoidable war? Are we going to fold our arms as
Africans and allow
what I call "the Somalianization" fully play out in
Zimbabwe, only to begin
to send an ill-equipped, badly motivated
interventionist team to the hapless
country? What options do we have?
Recall that Zimbabwe was the undisputed
food basket of southern African.
Indeed, when the Southern African
Develop-ment Coordination Conference, now
Southern African Develop-ment
Commission, came up in the early 1970s, it
sought to move away from the
pattern of parallel investment in several
member-countries that was the
undoing of several integration efforts across
the Third World. What it did
was therefore very innovative.
It decided on pooling resources to ensure
that whatever grant or aid
attracted on a subject area would be invested in
one chosen country whose
facilities would then serve the entire region. In
this scheme of things,
whereas a country like Angola, because of its huge
oil reserves was made the
pivot of energy development for the region, and
Mozambique because of its
huge maritime transportation potentials was made
the hub of the regional
transportation, the nature of the development of
Zimbabwe's agriculture was
such that it had no competition whatsoever in
being penciled down as the
regional agricultural platform, an acknowledgment
of its food basket status
as it were.
What did we see after
Zimbabwe's independence in 1980? A dubious, badly
thought-out programme that
put some cramped idea of nationalism above
economic rationality was put in
place, obviously in the service of power. It
was a land reform programme
that was as suspicious in its intent as it was
shallow in conception.
Pronto, several white farmers were either killed or
chased out of their
farmlands, which were turned over to some non-descript
veterans of Mugabe's
independence war.
Not unexpectedly, the farms were quickly and completely
run down such that
today, a once thriving agricultural land has now the
indignity of surviving
on foreign food aid. Inflation in the country not
merely galloped, but has
now completely taken flight, with the Zimbabwean
currency barely serving the
central purpose of money as a legal tender. What
other forms of argument or
persuasion does one need to confirm that Mugabe
has failed woefully?
It is obvious that the man lacks good judgment --
the type that has seen
Nelson Mandela and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, move
their country slowly
away from political apartheid and slower still from
economic apartheid,
rather than disrupt the entire infrastructure of
economic production for
which South Africa had been known on the altar of
some spurious and
self-serving political nationalistic agenda.
At
least twice now, Zimbab-weans have rejected the ZANU-PF government. And
twice it has twisted the will of the people to remain in office. Now reports
indicate that leading members of the opposition are being visited with State
violence. MDC Secretary-General, Bitti remains in prison facing the death
penalty. And let no one make any mistake about it. Mugabe may just go ahead
to execute the man if he does not sense any form of intense opposition to
his shenanigans, especially from Africa.
In all of these, Mugabe and
his party have demonized 'the imperialists.'
Small wonder that they are
doing this, as Mugabe requires some theoretical
platform, some form of
alibi, and a bogeyman, to explain and indeed, justify
his gargantuan
failure. For even if the so-called imperialists promised aid
on which they
have not delivered, does that constitute a basis for running
aground your
own country? Why, in the first instance, should somebody with
an elementary
knowledge of the workings of the global economic system
predicate their
development aspirations on some promises of assistance from
some
international do-gooders who, at any event, have a choice of changing
their
mind?
Methink such a disappoint-ment should actually be the tonic to do
well
rather than run down a once promising country. It is curious that
Harare
would argue that it had to deliver its controversial land reform in
the
manner it did because 'the imperialists' demurred in their promise of
giving
funds to buy back the land from the few whites that had them for
onward
distribution to the majority of landless black Zimbabweans. I think
to all
intents and purposes, Mugabe has become, indeed, a shame to
Africa.
The question we should ask as we watch Zimbabwe slip into certain
breakdown
is, what has become of the Peer Review Mechanism of the African
Union? It
evoked so much hope when it was canvassed and made a cardinal
point in the
new AU a few years ago. Why does it seem now impossible, having
given Mugabe
so long a rope to pull for Africa to move against him? Why are
we all
watching as what has effectively become a bull gets holed up in the
proverbial china shop?
One thing is certain. It would be a disservice
to Africa if we watch
Zimbabwe completely slip off into tragedy simply
because we feel obligated
to Mugabe. We cannot allow our concern for the
sensibilities of an 84 year
old man that has had the singular privilege of
running his country for 28
years to blind us to the dangers several millions
of Africans in that
country and, indeed, region, face. It is a call to
duty.
The course that Zimbabwe is traversing cannot lead to any good. It
is simply
a disaster waiting to happen. Mugabe would claim victory in the
run-off
election, whichever way the people of Zimbabwe decide to vote.
Elements
within the opposition will take to the bush, and a war would start.
We can
stave off all of these if only South Africa and Nigeria would agree
now to
move strongly against Mugabe. Working together, these two countries
have
enough clout and capacity to so do.
Prof. Mimiko is Head, Dept.
of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife.
Daily Nation, Kenya
LETTERS
Publication Date: 7/14/2008 The unfolding events in
Zimbabwe are of concern
to everybody who respects human rights and
democracy. First Mugabe is
declared winner of an "election" which the world
regarded as a sham. And to
make matters worse, when the AU met in Sharm
El-Sheik, Mugabe had the nerve
to attend the summit.
As usual,
no African leader except Prime Minister Raila Odinga voiced
outrage in the
manner the elections were held. The other leaders only
proposed the
formation of a national unity government.
How can Morgan
Tsvangirai, the winner of the true first round poll, be
expected to serve
under the man who he convincingly trounced?
Mugabe must be forced
to respect the will of the Zimbabwe people. If
the AU cannot do anything,
then the US and the EU step in now. We must help
the people of
Zimbabwe.
CARLOS MWAKIO,
Mombasa.
The Times
July 14, 2008
The Security Council has shown itself to be the enemy of
human rights
Stephen Pollard
There is an old, perhaps apocryphal story of
a small girl who, watching the
ranting, gesticulating Randolph Churchill,
tugged at her mother's skirt and
asked: "Mummy, what is that man
for?"
The same must now be asked of the United Nations. The failure of
the
Security Council to agree a set of modest sanctions against Zimbabwe and
Robert Mugabe's henchmen - such as a freeze on financial assets and a travel
ban - speaks volumes about the reality of the UN and the fatuity of those
who place any moral store by its decisions.
There could be no clearer
case for action. No civilised nation can regard Mr
Mugabe's behaviour as
anything other than obscene. But decisions of the
Security Council have
never been based on decency or morality. They are
based on realpolitik. The
UN's very constitution as a body including some of
the most brutal
dictatorships on the planet necessitates that.
Indeed, the UN is
structurally incapable of acting in accordance with the
dictates of
civilised behaviour. Whether it is its failure to stand up to
the Burmese
regime or to deal with the threat to Israel posed by a nuclear
Iran, or its
support for Hezbollah, the UN has shown itself to be not the
promoter but
the enemy of human rights.
The most bizarre reaction to the Security
Council's rejection of sanctions
is disappointment. Could anyone seriously
expect the Chinese Government,
which locks up and tortures dissidents and
props up the Mugabe regime to
further its own economic interests, to
overturn decades of foreign policy
and act in support of democracy and human
rights? In 2005 the Chinese signed
an aid agreement with Zimbabwe and made
an explicit promise not to interfere
in its "internal affairs", saying that
it "trusts Zimbabwe's Government and
people have the ability to deal
properly with their own matters".
The idea that the UN holds some special
legitimacy and moral worth is not
merely naive - it can make a bad situation
worse. Mugabe now claims that he
has been exonerated by the UN. Had the UN
not existed, no attention would be
paid to the failure of Russia and China
to criticise him, because that is
entirely to be expected. And if, as they
should, the EU's member states were
to impose stronger sanctions, that would
not be seen as somehow in
opposition to the UN.
The UN has never had
greater moral legitimacy than any other ad hoc
assemblage of states. Far
more legitimacy would attach to a league of
democracies, as suggested by the
US presidential candidate John McCain. Its
decisions would have the moral
force of democratic backing. It is time to
say goodbye to the moral
bankruptcy of the UN.
://www.theherald.co.uk/
July 13 2008
Never mind about a week, in Russia three days is a long time in
politics. On
Tuesday, along with the rest of the G8 leaders, Russian
president Dmitry
Medvedev agreed to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe after
widespread violence
and vote-rigging reduced presidential elections to a
sham. But 72 hours
later, at the UN Security Council, Russia joined China to
veto economic
sanctions, an arms embargo and a travel ban on key members of
Robert
Mugabe's clique.
The move simultaneously handed Mr Mugabe a
propaganda victory, which he
gleefully exploited, and undermined the moral
authority that a united UN
front against him would have created. By any
standards, it was a shameful
decision. The excuse that the Security Council
is mandated only to intervene
in a country's affairs when regional stability
is threatened does not hold
water when millions of Zimbabweans have been
forced to flee from violence,
economic meltdown and starvation. The recent
attacks on refugees sheltering
in South Africa by those who fear for their
own jobs was a sharp reminder of
how easily the chaos can spread. And the
claim by Russia, China and South
Africa that sanctions could undermine talks
on a Kenyan-style power-sharing
agreement is equally absurd. Few now regard
South Africa's Thabo Mbeki as an
honest broker, capable of framing a
workable diplomatic solution.
However, British Foreign Secretary David
Miliband is naive to call the
volte-face "incomprehensible". The most
charitable explanation is that it
reflects internal disagreements within
Russia. The most telling comment came
from the Russian foreign ministry,
which opined that sanctions would have
"created a dangerous precedent",
opening the way for Security Council
interference in elections elsewhere.
(The latest Russian version was hardly
free and fair, by any impartial
measure.) Had Russia stuck to its originally
stated intentions, would China
have been prepared to go it alone? That is
debatable. A month before the
Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government is
responsive enough to western
sensibilities to remove dog from its restaurant
menus but still shows scant
regard for human rights in its determination to
exploit Africa's oil and
mineral reserves. Despite international efforts to
stop it, a shipment of
Chinese arms addressed to Robert Mugabe was duly
delivered in time for his
"war veterans" to terrorise those suspected of
supporting the
opposition.
This latest failure by the UN again raises questions about
the structure of
the Security Council and the power it hands to those who
subvert democracy
and human rights. The same two countries last year
rejected measures to curb
repression in Burma. It is now incumbent on
Britain and the US, along with
the EU, to pool their considerable global
influence to find a new way
forward. Options include extending targeted
sanctions against Mugabe and his
henchmen and supporting a genuinely neutral
figure, such as the Ghanaian
former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to
broker a lasting settlement.
Robert Mugabe may have won the latest
diplomatic skirmish but he must not be
allowed to win the war.
africasia
NAIROBI, July 13 (AFP)
Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai on Sunday urged
rival Zimbabwe parties
to move faster towards talks to end political turmoil
in the troubled
southern Africa nation.
"We must appreciate that this
business of winner-takes-all is not working,"
she told AFP in
Nairobi.
"It is therefore important that Zimbabwe leaders learn to
accomodate one
another."
The Kenyan laureate said that talks had to
take into account "justice,
inclusivity and fairness" if they were to help
Zimbabwe out of its current
political crisis.
"They should talk
faster to end the crisis in that country. People are
suffering," Maathai
said, suggesting proportional representation as the
possble way of the
crisis.
Zimbabwe's political crisis intensified when Mugabe defied
international and
regional criticism and pushed ahead with the one-man
run-off election on
June 27 that handed him a sixth term as
president.
MDC leader Tsvangirai had pulled out of the vote five days
ahead of the
poll, citing rising violence against his
supporters.
Since then, the African Union has called for talks between
the two sides.
Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her
tree-planting and
pro-democracy campaigns.
http://www.timesunion.com/
First published: Monday, July
14, 2008
The Neely Tucker commentary on Zimbabwe (7/7/08) was incomplete.
It surely
captured the present dire state of affairs. However, "just
nightmares" and
"no hope" are not an accurate portrayal of the courage,
flexibility, and
community caring that Zimbabweans are displaying.
These,
indeed, represent a huge modicum of hope for the country. They are
the
underground success stories that will become future building
blocks.
I have been working with hospice and palliative care programs
in Zimbabwe
for the last several years, first as part of our local Community
Hospice
partnership and now as part of an international agency.
Since
our area has an official hospice partnership there, it is important
that
your readers know of the tremendous resiliency and outpouring of
voluntary
support now being displayed in Zimbabwe.
All across Zimbabwe, thousands
of men and women are volunteering as
home-based helpers to take care of the
sick and elderly, much like our
hospice volunteers do here.
They are
responding to the ravages of HIV/AIDS and famine. They also take in
AIDS
orphans and help to deliver emergency food parcels. In addition to this
outpouring of volunteer service, Zimbabwe's basic infrastructure is sound,
as is its exemplary civil service. Hospice programs, for example, enjoy very
positive working relationships with the Ministry of Health.
In short,
there are many building blocks for the future of Zimbabwe when and
if a new
political reality emerges. Let's hope our local partnership, as
well as
global concern and engagement, continue to support Zimbabwe through
its
current crisis.
PHIL DI SORBO Ghent The writer is senior technical
advisor for on for
Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa. He recently returned from
Zimbabwe.
http://www.tnr.com
A first-hand account of how Zimbabwe's ruler stole an
election and the
country's hope.
Post Date Monday, July 14,
2008
Harare, Zimbabwe
Every night at around 9 p.m., in
the weeks leading up to last month's
presidential election, Simon heard the
sound of drums coming from the woods
surrounding his paprika farm. The dull
thuds percolated in a four-four beat.
"B-boom," "B-boom," "B-boom"; then
silence. A cry would go up. "Shall we
kill the whites?" came the chorus of
two-dozen "war vets"--the euphemism for
veterans of Zimbabwe's independence
struggle who now serve as a personal
militia for the country's ruler, Robert
Mugabe. "Let's ask Mugabe!" Then the
drums began again. The final round of
voting was around the corner, and
electioneering had turned
ugly.
On March 29, Mugabe had lost the first round of the
presidential
election--his first loss since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.
Upon hearing
of his defeat, a shocked Mugabe launched Operation
Mavhoterapapi ("Who did
you vote for?") in a bid to browbeat citizens into
voting for him in the
June 27 run-off with opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
"I would go at night to the edge of our maize field
and listen to them
chanting, wondering what was going to happen to us--if
they would enter the
homestead," said Simon, 25, who asked that his last
name not be used for
fear of retribution. Then one night in mid-June--as
Mugabe's chances of
winning the run-off began to look precariously low--the
vets finally plowed
onto the 100-acre farm, dragging laborers from their
huts at night and
forcing them to attend impromptu pungwes, compulsory
government-loyalty
sessions. A simple choice was laid down by the war vets'
leader: "Pledge
allegiance to Mugabe or we will burn down your
house."
Simon and his family were able to escape unscathed via a back
road as soon
as they saw the vets, many drunk off the local maize-brew
chibuku, walk up
the red-clay drive and onto the farm they'd owned for two
generations. But
many Zimbabweans had not been so lucky. At least 85 people,
mainly
supporters of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), were
killed
in the violence that ravaged southern Africa's former breadbasket in
the
run-up to the June 27 vote. Thousands more were injured as Mugabe's
notorious "Green Bomber" militia--composed of indoctrinated rural
youths--rampaged across the country's undulating north-eastern
provinces.
Election day was a mournful affair along Harare's
acacia-lined avenues. In
the capital's heaving Mbare township, the oldest in
the city, snaking lines
of voters waited patiently in the winter sun outside
the polling stations.
Turnout, despite official bombast, was dismal. One
regional observer in the
nearby Rugare constituency, standing idly next to
his Toyota 4x4, said
dozens had voted at his station. Still, despite the
widespread apathy and a
last-minute boycott by Tsvangirai--who cited
political violence as his
reason--the requisite message was imbibed by rural
and urban dwellers alike,
enough of whom showed up to propel Mugabe to
victory.
Inauguration was hasty the following Sunday. In contrast to
the month of
waiting before Zimbabwe's electoral commission released the
results of
March's election, Mugabe was sworn in by 4 p.m.--a mere 48 hours
after
winning with an improbable 85 percent of the vote. Harare stood still.
People lounged by the roadside or, if they had wages, spent it in the
country's bootleg shabeen bars. Even the country's ubiquitous money changers
melted away. The silence was only broken by the government's Chinese-made
Mig jets zig-zagging across a cloudless sky.
Even after the poll,
there were reports of pro-government supporters beating
up anyone who didn't
have their little finger dyed red or purple, the sign
of voting. A mood of
intimidation still hung in the air. One youth sporting
a pro-Mugabe t-shirt
close to Harare's dilapidated polytechnic college said
that he would be
joining in the victory celebrations "for security." Fear of
the Central
Intelligence Organization--Mugabe's Gestapo--permeates almost
every sector
of society. Even the country's indomitable band of independent
journalists
moves with caution. One friend who writes for Harare's excellent
Financial
Gazette covered his mouth while talking in a local fast-food
joint. General
shop closures meant the greasy Chicken Hut restaurant was the
only choice
for dinner the evening after the election--enjoyed with warm
Cokes and no
ketchup due to nationwide commodity shortages: "I would take
you back to my
house to eat but I don't want my neighbors asking questions
about 'who was
that murungu [white man]'?'"
With Mugabe embarking on another
five-year term, a general resignation has
set in as people return to the
Sisyphean task of trying to pay rent and buy
food amidst 9,000,000-percent
inflation. Enterprising hustlers have taken to
the street at night selling
contraband cooking oil and milk. For years,
analysts have predicted that the
economy will simply collapse--while
Zimbabweans lumber on like war-weary
soldiers. People ask, "How much
longer?"
The surge of optimism
that accompanied the MDC's March win has been
ruthlessly crushed by the
president. Mugabe looked shaky in the poll's
aftermath, refusing to give his
customary anti-Western speeches and
shrinking away from public appearances.
But the old swagger is back. His
spokesman George Charamba recently told
critics to "go hang."
Mugabe is fast losing his international cache.
For the first time ever in
Zimbabwe, the regional SADC observer group
declared Mugabe's election was
not "free and fair"--an act unthinkable but
six months ago. Neighboring
Botswana has taken the bold step of not
recognizing him as president. And
even South Africa's African National
Congress (ANC) party has successful
pressured the Old Man--as Mugabe is now
known pejoratively in Zimbabwe--to
publicly agree to talks with the MDC for
the first time.
But these international developments have yet to
trickle down to most
Zimbabweans. Earlier this month, Simon returned to his
farm to find his
livestock and equipment intact. "We were fortunate," he
says. "I hope the
worst is over, but I'm worried for the future." Two of his
neighbors were
less lucky: Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth, his son-in-law,
also had their
farms invaded. They were due to go to the regional Southern
Africa court in
mid-July in Namibia to appeal against the government's
seizure of their farm
a few years ago. As a result, the war vets abducted
them, pummeling their
bodies and dumping them on a rural dirt road. "It was
definitely political,"
Simon says. "You've got to keep a low
profile."
In the last week, a strange tranquility has returned to the
country, belying
a queasy anticipation of what may come. People are fearful
of what Mugabe
might do next, but seem more concerned with the trade
sanctions currently
being threatened by the international community. The
economy continues to
burrow underground; a new currency reissue is expected
soon to knock the
zeros off increasingly surreal banknotes. While the
outside world debates
what to do about its future, Zimbabwe is more
uncertain than ever.
Christopher Thompson is a freelance journalist
based in Paris. He was a
correspondent for Reuters in southern Africa from
2006 to 2007.
Independent, UK
Leading article:
Monday, 14 July 2008
The rejection by the United
Nations Security Council of a resolution to
impose sanctions on Robert
Mugabe's regime leaves us in the worst of all
worlds. The international
community looks divided and irresolute over the
crisis in Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe himself has been able to hail the
failed resolution as
a personal triumph and a defeat for "international
racism".
The
resolution's failure certainly overshadows the fact that several of Mr
Mugabe's neighbouring states are refusing to recognise him as president; an
unprecedented rupture of the informal rule that African governments do not
turn on their own. And it weakens the position of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change in its negotiations with Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
The thwarted resolution feels like a return to square one.
Russia and
China vetoed the resolution at the Security Council meeting in
New York,
arguing that Zimbabwe poses no threat to international security.
The US says
Russia's behaviour brings into question its reliability as a G8
partner. Our
own government, which sponsored the motion along with
Washington, says the
vetoes are "incomprehensible". Actually, the result was
only too
comprehensible. Russia and China have a long history of vetoing
resolutions
against nations that confine their abuses to their own borders.
It was a
diplomatic blunder for Britain and the US to force a vote on this
resolution
without being reasonably sure of a positive result. If its
passage could not
be guaranteed, it should never have been put forward. The
US and UK seem to
have misread Russia's acquiescence in last week's G8
summit communiqué,
which said that "steps should be taken, including
financial and other
measures against those individuals responsible for
violence" in Zimbabwe.
Britain and America thought this meant sanctions.
Russia, evidently, did
not. But while the vetoes of Russia and China might
be explained away as a
last-minute betrayal, the no vote of South Africa,
one of the non-permanent
members of the Security Council, points to a
broader failure to prepare the
ground. The British Foreign Minister for
Africa and former UN diplomat, Mark
Malloch-Brown, has described the
resolution as a "high-stakes gamble". But,
in diplomacy, gambling tends to
be unwise. And when the result affects the
lives of hundreds of thousands of
Zimbabweans, it begins to look positively
irresponsible.
Yet though the execution was appalling, the intention was
sound. South
Africa argues that sanctions would interfere with the
negotiations in
Zimbabwe and risk provoking a civil war. This is wrong. The
UN should be
unequivocally backing the MDC in these power-sharing talks
through the
threat of sanctions. An arms embargo and an international travel
ban on the
country's ruling clique would have helped to force Mr Mugabe to
meet the
MDC's demands.
What is the alternative? The "quiet
diplomacy" of the South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, over the past eight
years has failed. There is no
reason to believe it will start to bear fruit
now. As for Mr Mbeki's fear of
a civil war in South Africa's northern
neighbour, he needs to take a closer
look at how the political opposition is
being terrorised by Mr Mugabe's
thugs. The conflict is already spiralling
out of control.
Russia and China are also wrong to argue that what is
happening in Zimbabwe
should be treated as an internal matter. This is
merely an excuse for
turning a blind eye to the horror that Mr Mugabe is
inflicting on his own
people. After last week's shambles, the international
pressure for this
blood-soaked tyrant to step down needs to be redoubled,
not eased.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted July 13, 2008 | 08:06 PM
(EST)
The vetoed sanctions resolution against Zimbabwe at
the UN Security Council
on Friday has exposed the fault lines of
international tensions than divide
the West from Africa, Russia from the
West and the United States from South
Africa.
The surprise Chinese
and Russian vetoes provoked sharp words in the usually
staid Security
Council as tensions broke out into the open. U.S. Ambassador
Zalmay
Khalilzad publicly bashed South Africa as the main culprit in the
failed
Anglo-American bid to punish Robert Mugabe and his cronies with
sanctions on
travel, finances and arms.
Unprompted, he told reporters: "I want to say
a word or two about the
performance of South Africa." In diplomatic parlance
critiquing another
nation's' "performance" is fighting words.
"It was
particularly disturbing," Khalilzad said, "given the history of
South Africa
... where international sanctions played an important role in
encouraging
transformation [from apartheid] for its representative to be
protecting the
horrible regime in Zimbabwe."
He dismissed the South African argument
that sanctions would derail talks in
Pretoria between Mugabe's Zanu PF and
the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC). Khalilzad proclaimed:
"There isn't anything serious going on
in terms of the negotiations. The
South African effort, President Mbeki's
effort so far, has been a
failure."
Mugabe stole the presidential election and has refused to seat
the
parliament because MDC won a majority back in March. The MDC boycotted
the
presidential run-off after state violence killed dozens of MDC
supporters.
Khalilzad praised ANC President Jacob Zuma and retired
Archbishop Desmond
Tutu's criticism of Mugabe. That was a slap in the face
of Mbeki, whom
Khalilzad said is "out of touch with the trends inside his
own country and
that is a source of disappointment given the history of
South Africa." He
accused Mbeki of "protecting Mr. Mugabe, and ... working
hand in glove with
him at times while he, Mugabe, uses violent means to
fragment and weaken the
opposition."
Dumisani Kumalo, South African
ambassador, told the Security Council that
the African Union summit meeting
two weeks ago had decided against "any
action that may negatively impact on
the climate for dialogue." Therefore
South Africa joined Russia, China,
Vietnam and Libya in voting no, he said.
Nine countries voted in favor.
Indonesia abstained.
Marian L. Tupy, an analyst at the Cato Institute in
Washington, told me the
outburst by Khalilzad symbolized a crisis in
US-South African relations.
"It is common knowledge inside the United
States that relations with South
Africa are at their very lowest ebb," Tupy
said. "There is no love lost
between these two countries. It is not just
because of George Bush, but
because South Africa has never missed an
opportunity to contradict and
accuse the United States--which did so much to
help end apartheid--of
wishing Africa ill."
The failure of African
leaders so far to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis has
given the West an opening
to intervene, according to Emira Woods, an African
specialist at the
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
"I still think the solution
will have to come out of an African context,"
Woods told me, but it will
have to happen without the pressure of
international sanctions on
Mugabe.
Woods predicted he wouldn't walk away from the negotiating table,
even after
this victory over UN sanctions, because Mugabe is keenly aware of
the coming
international arrest warrant on Monday for President Omar
al-Bashir of Sudan
on charges of genocide. That acts as a sanctions
substitute, she said.
"Had the sanctions been put forward by anyone other
than the U.S. and the
UK" Africa may have backed them and put pressure on
Mugabe, said Woods.
But the legacy of colonialism has made it difficult
for African leaders to
recognize that their own leaders, as well as colonial
ones, can be
oppressive, Tupy said.
Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwean
envoy to the UN, blamed his country's
economic crisis on existing American
and European sanctions, which he called
"basically an expression of
imperialist conquest." Zimbabwe sees the issue
as a bilateral fight with the
UK, which tried to drag the UN into the fray.
An exultant Chidyausiku
said after the vote: "The American ambassador was
boasting about having nine
votes and he is a very disappointed man tonight.
It's the arrogance of the
Americans to think they can rule the world and
they cannot." Zimbabwe was
still winning the war of independence against
Britain, Chidyausiku
said.
Zimbabwe's information minister hailed nations that had blocked
"international racism disguised as multilateral action at the
UN."
Outside the Security Council on Friday I asked Khalilzad whether
colonialism's legacy had complicated the U.S. effort to address the Zimbabwe
crisis with targeted UN sanctions.
"Of course history has not been a
friend to the people of Africa, but you've
got to get on, make progress ...
and you can't be forever held down by
reference to the history of
colonialism," Khalilzad told me. "There almost
is a sense of deficit of
expectation from local leaders."
Khalilzad also repeated the myth that
America is an anti-colonial country
because it overthrew British imperial
rule. Since around 1898 and in the
post-WWII period the US has certainly not
been anti-colonial. Still, there
are no demonstrable US economic interests
in Zimbabwe. Britain has been
incensed since white farmers were usurped
since 1995 in a program that has
not greatly benefited the Zimbabwean
economy.
It should be possible to agree with the the U.S. and UK on
punishing the
Mugabe dictatorship, while also criticizing US and British
actions in Iraq
and elsewhere.
Tupy said Africa's concept of
victimhood and blaming the West was on trial
in Zimbabwe. "Many African
countries are run as badly, if not worse than
Zimbabwe, and these leaders
have even less legitimacy than Robert Mugabe,"
he said. "To speak out
against him would undermine their own legitimacy to
govern."
To admit
that African leaders themselves are responsible for many of the
continent's
troubles could undermine the rationale for international aid and
debt relief
to continue, Tupy said.
As a Security Council issue, Zimbabwe has
suddenly impacted bilateral
relations between the major powers far from
Africa. .
The veto by Russian incensed the Americans and British because
Russia had
agreed to a G-8 summit communiqué in Japan last week to take
"further steps,
inter alia introducing financial and other measures against
those
individuals responsible for violence."
"The U-turn in the
Russian position is particularly surprising and
disturbing," Khalilzad said
in the council chamber. "The Russian performance
here today raises questions
about its reliability as a G8 partner."
British Ambassador John Sawers
said: "Russia's action is, frankly,
inexplicable."
"There were
indications that China and Russia would not go along because of
pressure
from South Africa," Woods told me. "The signals from Mbeki and
other African
leaders during that G8 meeting did not make it clear that the
resolution
would pass."
It was a bold step for Moscow and China to take for the sake
of keeping the
Pretoria talks going, some diplomats said.
But both
countries were also acting to prevent a council precedent. The UN
Charter's
taboo on interference in a nation's internal affairs has been
eroded since
council intervention in civil wars in Rwanda, Somalia and
Bosnia last decade
and more recently in Kosovo.
This resolution would have represented the
first time the Security Council
weighed in on a matter involving elections
results of a sovereign state.
Russia may also have been reacting to the
US missile defense deal with the
Czech Republic the day before that prompted
a threat from Moscow. There are
also ongoing US-Russian and Russian-UK
tensions in energy-rich Central Asia.
With the Beijing Olympics to open
soon many diplomats believed China
wouldn't risk angering the West with a
veto. But China's growing commercial
interests in Africa have increased its
assertiveness on the continent and
its reluctance to criticize African
trading partners.
According to the BBC, China has gone so far as to
violate a UN arms embargo
on Sudan to supply the government in its genocidal
war in Darfur.
The U.S. and British vowed to bring Zimbabwe sanctions
back to the Security
Council in due course. In the meantime, Africa has
bought itself time to
show the world it can indeed put its own house in
order by solving the
Zimbabwe crisis without outside
interference.
www.politicalodyssey.com
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
July 14, 2008
By Garikai
Chimuka
THE widely-circulated and misnamed so-called," Saving Zimbabwe,
An Agenda
for Democratic Peace" presumably co-authored by the Human Sciences
Research
Council of South Africa and the Africa Policy Institute exposes a
serious
lack of critical analysis that makes a mockery of the intellectual
integrity
its authors.
So flawed are some of its conclusions
including the assertion that there is
low-intensity civil war in Zimbabwe.
Its over-reliance on Zanu-PF propaganda
mouthpieces like The Herald,
Zanu-PF-aligned political analysts like Joseph
Kurebwa and its clear bias
towards Zanu-PF including the assertion that
returning kids of the murderous
regime elements from Western universities,
is tantamount to violating their
human rights is shocking. In short, any
intellectual worth his salt is
persuaded to conclude that the garbage
packaged as a report is clearly the
work of the Zimbabwe Central
Intelligence Organization (CIO) in cahoots with
the South African President's
office.
In particular, the so-called
report raises alarm when it claims that there
is a low-intensity civil war
in Zimbabwe. It shockingly, without any
evidence other than Zanu-PF
propaganda from The Herald, concludes that the
MDC is now retaliating
against Zanu-PF through what it calls the
establishment of Democratic
Resistance Committees (DRC). However, for anyone
who is clearly aware of the
Zimbabwean reality today, this is just an
attempt to give Zanu-PF ammunition
to justify their murderous campaign
against an unarmed populace whose crime
was to vote for the MDC in March
2008.
The so-called DRC are clearly
non-existent but the imagination of the
Zanu-PF mouthpiece, The Herald and
Police Commissioner, Chihuri. The reality
is that what is happening in
Zimbabwe is a war against the people by the
security forces, Zanu-PF militia
and the CIO and the so-called war veterans.
How can the Research Council
claim that MDC is now organizing retaliations
when all its structures from
village level have been decimated? Who will
organize the non-existent DRCs
when the whole MDC leadership is on the run
or in hiding? This is what is
called low level genocide and not civil war.
It is fundamentally
embarrassing for a so called Research Council to fail to
grasp such a simple
fact.
It is Zanu-PF that has the weapons, the state machinery and the
institutional memory of violence inherited from the liberation armed
struggle. The violence in Zimbabwe is one- sided and specifically targeted
at all the areas where Zanu-PF lost in the March elections. As a Research
Council, one would have expected the authors of the dubious report to verify
their facts before making sensational allegations that have no substance.
Any self- respecting Research Council that relies on crude and raw
propaganda from such sources as The Herald without making efforts to verify
that information has clearly lost the legitimacy to claim the status of a
research council.
The so-called Human Sciences Research Council must
be careful not to
unwittingly make itself an accomplice in the horrific
genocide that is now
taking place in Zimbabwe. In its analysis, particularly
about the internal
Zimbabwean politics, it relies heavily on discredited
political analysts
like Kurebwa who is a Zanu-PF cadre and strategist. One
of the cardinal
principles of research which is even appreciated by an
average first year
university student is the need to incorporate divergent
views. To this end,
the so-called Human Sciences Research Council should
have also solicited the
views of respected political analysts like John
Makumbe who has written
widely about the Zimbabwean crisis rather than using
Kurebwa as if he is the
only one with monopoly over political analysis in
Zimbabwe.
In contemporary democratic society, civil society plays a
fundamental role
in promoting democracy and good governance as well as
promoting peace. It is
clearly laughable to realize that no views of the
civil society that is in
the trenches in Zimbabwe like the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA),
Woman of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), Zimbabwe
National Students Union (Zinasu),
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) were
ever sought. Surely any research
council that ignores civil society in
penning an agenda of democratic peace
in the 21st century clearly exposes
that it is led by people suffering from
policy kwashiorkor.
The report is also a waste of vital space which
concentrating on
trivialities .It actually reveals its Zanu-PF parentage by
campaigning for
the lifting of educational sanctions against kids of the
regime as done by
Australia. It mourns that banishing these kids from
Universities in the west
is tantamount to violating their rights. This is
clearly absurd. Instead of
articulating the rights of many Zimbabwean
students who can no longer afford
to go to school as a result of
mismanagement by Zanu-PF and violence on
teachers who have fled schools, the
report mourns the right of Zanu-PF
murderers to have their kids in
Australia.
Zanu-PF has been preaching day and night that the west is
racist; so why
should they expose their kids to racism in the West when
there are so many
universities in Africa, China and Malasyia? Is it not
because they destroyed
education in Zimbabwe and do not have confidence in
African and Chinese
Universities? Why then are they deriding Morgan
Tsvangirai for seeking
refugee at the Dutch instead of an African embassy
when they are actually
crying to have their kids remain in Europe and not in
Universities in
Africa? Is it not the Zanu-PF double standards which escape
the researchers
of the report?
Why did the researchers not
concentrate on real issues like the plight of
thousands of young woman that
are being raped and held as sex slaves at
militia bases that have been
created by the Mugabe regime? To the
researchers, these young women who are
being gang raped and infected with
AIDS are not important and have no
rights. To the researchers, the rights of
these thousands of women who are
being violated are lesser than the rights
of Zanu-PF kids to be in
Universities in the West. What rank madness has
gripped some of these
research councils?
In conclusion, it is important to say that
institutions of research must
uphold the cardinal principles of pecuniary
transparency and accountability
as well as ethics rather than shamefully
allowing themselves to be used in
advancing the agenda of a rogue regime.
Without a shadow of doubt, the
report should be entitled, "Destroying
Zimbabwe, an Agenda for Mugabe and
Mbeki"
(Garikai Agenda Chimuka
writes from the Netherlands.)
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
July 14, 2008
By Raymond
Maingire
HARARE - While a storm was still raging over his controversial
public
defense on Friday, of President Robert Mugabe's violence-ridden
re-election,
Tsholotsho North legislator Jonathan Moyo went back on the
warpath Saturday.
Moyo fired a fresh salvo, this time criticizing three
Western powers for
sponsoring the draft resolution to impose sanctions on
Mugabe and 13 of his
lieutenants.
The draft resolution, which has
since been vetoed by China and Russia, was
supported by nine members of the
15 member Council, the minimum required to
pass in the 15-member
council.
But the veto of any of the five permanent members is enough to
defeat a
resolution, and both China and Russia voted against.
The
resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and financial
and
travel restrictions on President Mugabe and 13 of his top officials.
But
Moyo just fell short of spelling out details of his ambition to be
accepted
by Mugabe again when he launched a stinging attack on the US, Great
Britain
and France for their attempt on Friday to push through the blocked
draft
resolution.
Moyo says the resolution strayed from its ostensible attempt
to punish
alleged perpetrators of Zimbabwe political violence between March
29 and
June 27.
He says the "sinister resolution" instead sought to
reverse Zimbabwe's
controversial land reform programme which peaked between
2000 and 2005.
"I am pleased that the United States, British, and French
sponsored
sanctions resolution against Zimbabwe was rejected yesterday,"
Moyo told The
Zimbabwe Times Saturday.
"It has an amazing foot-note
which tells the correct story about the real
reason for this resolution and
the real reason has to do with land.
Moyo argues, "One of the 14
individuals mentioned in the resolution is
Joseph Made and under his name it
is alleged that the offence he committed
was to destroy agriculture in
Zimbabwe.
"The scandalous inclusion of Joseph Made's name among the 14
individuals
targeted for committing violence between the 29th of March and
the 27th of
June is sinister.
"Now to suggest that Joseph Made has
destroyed agriculture in Zimbabwe in
those three months is not only
preposterous but very idiotic. One would have
to be an idiot to suggest
that."
In fact, the remark against Made's name on the Security Council
draft
resolution is: "Member of Government complicit in forming or directing
oppressive state policy."
He shared the same charge as Defence
Minister, Sidney Sekeramayi and Mugabe's
official spokesman, George
Charamba, the permanent secretary in the Ministry
of
Information.
"That is why nationalist minded Zimbabweans can never ever
be associated
with that kind of a scheme. And that's why we believe that
Britain, United
States and France failed to hoodwink the other members of
the Security
Council."
"It seeks to reverse the land reform programme
by hiding its purpose behind
the disputed presidential election so that the
British can have their own
president outside the Zimbabweans electoral
process who will correct the
alleged Joseph Made destruction of the land
reform programme in Zimbabwe,"
Moyo said in apparent reference to MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai.
"The question is on what basis and what for. The March
election never
yielded any results as far as the presidential elections are
concerned.
The result of the March 29 election presidential election was
that Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC secured 47,9 percent of the vote
with Mugabe
winning 42,3 percent. Former finance minister Simba Makoni
trailed behind
with eight percent.
There is widespread speculation
that the controversial legislator is laying
the ground-work for re-entry
into government in his former position as
minister of information and
publicity in Mugabe's impending cabinet.
Moyo's previous performance in
this portfolio, characterised by a virulent
onslaught on the independent
press and his penchant for incessant
tongue-lashing at perceived enemies,
earned him the distinction of being one
of Zimbabwe's most unpopular
politicians.
Moyo says Made was Minister of Agriculture only between 2000
and 2005 and
that it is not correct to assume agriculture in Zimbabwe has
been destroyed.
Instead, he says, there has been a radical transformation
of land tenure in
Zimbabwe.
"There is a difference between destroying
agriculture and transforming land
tenure. Land tenure has been transformed
from colonial land tenure to an
independence land tenure and agriculture
which can neither be destroyed nor
reversed.
"There are very serious
challenges over the current levels of land
utilization in Zimbabwe. The
mechanization programme is supposed to address
those problems.
"Those
problems will never be addressed and have never been addressed
anywhere else
in the world overnight. So the question of destroying
agriculture in
Zimbabwe is foolish and false.
"What has happened is the radical change
of that land ownership from the
former white farmers to the current black
majority which has annoyed the
British because among the affected people are
members of the British
aristocracy who in turn are using their position of
power in Britain to
influence their government and in turn their government
is using the
influence the American government which in turn is using
influence to
influence other members of the United Nations and the Security
Council
including the French who are making this kind of noise for the first
time."
Moyo denied claims his vitriol towards the West was a case of sour
grapes
following his inclusion on the sanctions list.
"It's not
correct to say I am bitter," he said, "I left government in 2005.
"I have
never expressed any bitterness over the fact that my name has
remained on
those European and American and Australian and Canadian
sanctions lists. I
have no business in those countries."
He said, "Those countries have a
right to dictate their politics in as much
as Zimbabweans have a right to
dictate their own politics. We do not
begrudge them because it's their
national policies. But they have no right
to transform their national
policies into international policies at the
United Nations, absolutely no
right.
"That is why I am pleased with their failure at the United
Nations. I
respect their rights to make their own laws and to the extent
that they don't
want me to visit their countries, I have no problem and I am
not going to do
anything to overturn that so that I can be allowed to visit
the United
Kingdom. I have no business in the United Kingdom."
Moyo,
a former university lecturer turned politician, was sacked from
government
and Zanu PF in 2005 after standing as an independent candidate in
that
year's general elections.
He has earned the wrath of many Zimbabweans by
constantly flip-flopping
between being a relentless critic of President
Mugabe and his fierce
defender.
A former ruthless critic of Mugabe in
the early 1990s Moyo left Zimbabwe to
live in Kenya where he worked for the
American organisation, the Ford
Foundation. He suddenly left the
organisation amid allegations of financial
impropriety. He then secured a
position at Witwatersrand University. Again
he left amid allegations that he
failed to account properly for funds.
He then suddenly returned to
Zimbabwe, where he was appointed as official
spokesman for the
constitutional reform programme that culminated in the
Constitutional
Referendum of February 2000. The electorate rejected the
proposed
constitution in what became Mugabe's first taste of electoral
defeat. Mugabe
offered Moyo the post of Minister of Information in a new
government formed
following the controversial and violence-ridden 2000
parliamentary
elections.
A ruthlessly ambitious politician, Moyo served Mugabe with
loyalty and
dedication until they parted ways in acrimony in December 2004.
He stood for
Parliament in 2005 as an independent and won the seat for
Tsholotsho
constituency.
He immediately reverted to his former role
as harsh critic of the Mugabe
regime. That was until he publicly embraced
Mugabe again last Friday, while
denouncing the MDC leader, Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai facilitated Moyo's
electoral victory by agreeing not to nominate
an MDC candidate to challenge
him in the election.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
July 14, 2008
By Geoffrey
Nyarota
ON Election Day in March 2005, an online newspaper published an
interview
conducted by the website with Zimbabwe's mercurial and exceedingly
egocentric politician, Professor Jonathan Nathaniel Moyo.
He was one
of the candidates standing for election that day, having secured
nomination
for the constituency of Tsholotsho North.
The highlight of the highly
partisan interview on the NewZimbabwe.com
website was the revelation by Prof
Moyo that he was working on the
manuscript of a tell-all book that was
guaranteed to bring President Robert
Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party down to
their knees at long last.
My own severely damaged faith in Moyo was
somewhat restored.
Coming from the acerbic pen of Prof Moyo it was fairly
likely that the book
would indeed be a best-seller, as suggested by Moyo's
interviewer. The
fortunes of the book would, of course, depend on how much
Moyo was prepared
to disclose of the highlights of his association with one
of the world's
longest reigning dictators. Another crucial factor would be
whether the book
eventually appeared in the book shops before or after the
death of its major
target - Mugabe.
That being so, it was still
presumptuous that the so-called publishing
industry experts who were quoted
in the article, assuming any were ever
consulted, would declare a book a
best-seller before they had even seen the
manuscript.
In a related
matter it is to be assumed that the long silence of once fiery
politician,
Enos Nkala, is an indication that he is burning the midnight oil
while
working on the manuscript of his own long-promised book. Nkala has
disappointed many by stipulating that his book will be published after he
dies. He is 75 years old and this condition could entail a long
wait.
As I write today I feel cheated, as well as both dismayed and
disappointed,
and I believe I speak on behalf of thousands of my much
maligned
compatriots. Far from launching the best-seller with potential to
demolish
the long-standing tormentors of the people of Zimbabwe - Mugabe and
Zanu-PF - Moyo last Friday held journalists spell-bound in the esoteric
ambiance of Harare's Quill Club. Far from doing anything even remotely
resembling a quest to demolish Mugabe, Moyo not only extolled the virtues of
the President; he also threatened to rejoin Zanu-PF any time now.
But
I believe it would be right and proper to remind Moyo that before he
resumes
his seat on the Zanu-PF gravy-train, assuming that is indeed his
plan and
that they will accept him, he still has a major task to accomplish
in the
national interest - that is to deliver the long promised best-seller.
A mere
update on the progress of the manuscript would allay the anxiety of
many.
Excerpts from the interview with Moyo that appeared on the
NewZimbabwe.com
website are worth capturing in full:
"Professor
Jonathan Moyo, the mercurial former propaganda chief for
President Robert
Mugabe is putting pen to paper to write his memoirs about
life as the
81-year-old despot's spokesman", NewZimbabwe.com can reveal.
"In an
exclusive interview with NewZimbabwe.com, Moyo also reveals he will
never
rejoin Zanu-PF. He warns the ruling party is headed for disintegration
within the next 36 months.
He blasted:
"The seeds of
disintegration were sown for Zanu-PF during congress in
November last year.
They will be germinated in the parliamentary elections
and harvested at the
presidential elections."
Moyo spoke with uncanny premonition. Even though
he did not know at the time
that the parliamentary election would be brought
forward by two years
through Constitutional Amendment N0 18, both Mugabe and
Zanu-PF were
virtually annihilated exactly 36 months later on March 29,
2008.
Paradoxically, the man whose party was largely instrumental in the
disintegration of Mugabe and Zanu-PF was the same Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC
leader, whom Moyo excoriated on Friday for ineptitude and total loss of
political direction. So effectively did Tsvangirai derail Mugabe's
presidency that the later had to resort to subterfuge, intimidation and
violence to recover lost political ground. He withheld announcement of the
presidential election result while allegedly manipulating the poll result
for five weeks. He unleashed an orgy of violence totally unprecedented
before, except in Matabeleland during the Gukurahundi campaign. He subjected
his rival to a campaign of harassment, including five arrests. He banned his
election campaign rallies. Tsvangirai was forced to withdraw from the
election.
It was only after he rendered it impossible to lose an
election in which he
was the solitary candidate that Mugabe finally managed
to secure, on June
27, the "landslide" victory for which Moyo gratuitously
hailed him last
Friday.
Back in March 2005 Moyo said he was confident
he would finish writing his
memoirs "within the next six months" and that he
would highlight his five
years as Mugabe's image maker. The manuscript would
have gone to the
printers around September or October of 2005.
"My
experiences in government certainly do require something like that
(memoirs)," he told NewZimbabwe.com editor Mduduzi Mathuthu. "There are so
many questions, so many things that people want answers to, and to just quit
and do nothing would be unfair."
Judging from his obsequious
utterances last Friday, it would appear Moyo has
chosen to be "unfair" after
all. Back then Mathuthu asked Moyo if he was not
concerned about the
prospect of arrest by a fearful regime eager to guard
its innermost
secrets.
Moyo immediately retorted: "If I am jailed, I will write the
book from
behind bars."
Powerful statement that, and Zimbabwe has
held its collective breath since
then. That was until Moyo's sudden
equivocation last Friday. He obviously
believes or hopes we have all
forgotten.
In an article he subsequently penned, Moyo explained the
circumstances
surrounding his departure from Zanu-PF.
He
wrote:
"I did what I did in pursuit of a principle that I saw being
compromised by
Robert Mugabe and his old guard cronies on November 18, 2004
when a
boardroom coup, instigated by a tribal clique, took place in the
party to
impose Joyce Mujuru to the vice presidency.
"I am writing a
book about this and other issues, and George Charamba,
Robert Mugabe's
irresponsible and reckless wordsmith, who regularly violates
his civil
servant oath and obligations by writing the Nathaniel Manheru
column in the
Herald, can go to hell if he thinks I am concerned about his
threat that the
book I am writing will send me to Chikurubi. Nothing will
stop me from
telling the truth as I know and experienced it."
Not only did Charamba
inherit the pen-name Nathaniel Manheru from Jonathan
Moyo, he proved beyond
reasonable doubt in Egypt recently that he was a
dedicated student of Moyo
as well. He told the Western world to go "and hang
a thousand
times".
But to go back to Moyo's article, he wrote:
"Those who
have expressed foolish wonder as to why I am now attacking
Zanu-PF, Mugabe
and government either missed the election campaign or they
are just being
plain silly because they are quickly forgetting that Mugabe
and Zanu-PF were
my electoral opponents during the election campaign and I
defeated them.
Only a fool would now expect me not to criticize Mugabe and
his Zanu-PF
government when they make mistakes of the kind they are making.
My moral
authority to criticize Zanu PF, Mugabe and his government comes
from the
electorate.
"The fact that I was in Zanu-PF and its government between
July 2000 and
February 2005 is now history as I am no longer with them and
there is no
chance whatsoever of going back to them, not least because
Zanu-PF is a now
a shelf party desperately trying to survive
sunset."
In Prof Moyo's world of erudition everybody who is not himself
is either
silly or a fool - or both. His pen was not only poisonous that
eventful
year; it was also prolific, and - judging by his reliance on it -
no doubt
perceived by Moyo himself to be mightier than the sword or the
bullet. Now
this supposed paragon of democratic principles declares with
reckless
abandon that the bullet is mightier than the ballot.
He
waxed lyrical in another article:
"Perennial wisdom from divine
revelation and human experience dictates that
all earthly things great or
small, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, sad or
happy, foolish or wise must
finally come to an end. It is from this sobering
reality that the end of
executive rule has finally come for Robert Mugabe
who has had his better
days after a quarter of a century in power.
"That Mugabe must now go is
thus no longer a dismissible opposition slogan
but a strategic necessity
that desperately needs urgent legal and
constitutional action by Mugabe
himself well ahead of the presidential
election scheduled for March 2008 in
order to safeguard Zimbabwe's national
interest, security and
sovereignty.
"One does not need to be a malcontent to see that, after 25
years of
controversial rule and with the economy melting down as a direct
result of
that rule, Mugabe's continued stay in office has become such an
excessive
burden to the welfare of the state and such a fatal danger to the
public
interest of Zimbabweans at home and in the Diaspora that each day
that goes
by with him in office leaves the nation's survival at great risk
while
seriously compromising national sovereignty."
Phew!
That
was three years ago. The presidential election of March 2008 has since
come
and gone with dramatic, if not catastrophic, results. Mugabe lost the
election and soon afterwards, riding over the bodies of more than 100
innocent Zimbabweans, he ruthlessly but effectively reversed the result and
achieved a "landslide" victory over his cowed but courageous rival,
Tsvangirai.
Mugabe prompted Moyo to declare with pride last Friday
that where those who
campaigned for the liberation of former colonial
territories were concerned,
the bullet was mightier than the ballot. Mugabe
and Moyo thus caused
thousands of their compatriots to shake their puzzled
heads in total
disbelief, while wondering what evil spirit had seized these
former fighters
for freedom and justice.
Back in 2005 Moyo declared
in yet another interview:
"I am standing as an independent candidate in
Tsholotsho as a statement
against tribalism, against the politics of
patronage, against the
personalization of national unity by an increasingly
selfish, arrogant and
unaccountable old guard and for sovereignty, democracy
and development at
local, provincial and national levels."
Moyo
carefully refrained last Friday from explaining what had since changed.
Moyo
is himself not averse to personalization of national issues when it
suits
him. Before his unceremonious departure from Zanu-PF, Moyo updated his
11-page CV and submitted it to the Zanu-PF National Election Directorate,
which at the time was vetting candidates ahead of the 2005
elections.
"My father is late," lamented Moyo in the document. "He was
killed in 1983
in Tsholotsho in a tragic encounter with elements of the
Zimbabwe National
Army who took his life during Zimbabwe's post-independence
dark period
generally referred to as the Gukurahundi Era."
This
intimation, however, fell short of swaying the said directorate to
approve
his candidature, notwithstanding his claim of credit for Mugabe's
controversial and much challenged 2002 victory over
Tsvangirai.
Mugabe's critics attributed that particular victory and the
electoral
success of Zanu-PF in 2000 to outright poll rigging, wholesale
intimidation
and brutal violence against opposition supporters as well as to
denying the
MDC access to the public media. That manipulation of the media
is, of
course, directly attributable to Moyo.
"I grew up in and
within Zanu-PF politics," Moyo declared in the
much-embellished CV. "I have
not known any other politics and, as a matter
of fact, I have never been
part of or associated with any opposition party
in post-independence
Zimbabwe."
If his latest strategy to hoodwink the geriatric leadership of
Zanu-PF
succeeds they will soon be shrugging their shoulders and sighing
together
over the return of their prodigal son.
But then Moyo must
first contend with the veritable challenge of one Bright
Matonga, the deputy
Minister of Information, who seems to have gone to
amazing lengths,
including conjugal, to secure the same cabinet post.
Nehanda Radio
13
July 2008
By Makusha Mugabe
What has been described by The
Zimbabwetimes as a political bombshell -
Professor Jonathan Moyo's return to
Zanu (PF) and criticising of Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) President
Morgan Tsvangirai, is no bombshell at
all - only the ranting of a desperate
political prostitute looking for
another trick.
Jonathan Moyo knows
that he has no future in MDC because its members do not
forgive him for the
irreparable damage he did through his intellectual
justification for
creating an environment in which democratic opposition was
not
tolerated.
How A Professor Turns Into A Greenbomber
Zanu (PF) had
given him a lifeline following his fall-out with the Ford
Foundation and he
threw himself headlong into building its propaganda
machinery - abandoning
all his criticism of Zanu (PF) in order to join
Mugabe's government as
Minister of Information.
But when he became too ambitious, failed to
carry out his Tsholotsho
mission, was exposed, and thrown out of Zanu (PF),
he reverted back to being
an a critic of Mugabe in the hope of gaining
acceptance in the opposition
ranks.
The MDC saw through his designs
and denied him the chance, but tactically
did not put up a candidate to
challenge him in his his Tsholotsho seat.
Now Zanu PF is desperate again
for an ideology as international consensus is
building up against it at the
UN and in Africa, he has cut another deal with
the devil to destroy the
people's President by re-running the "Morgan
Tsvangirai lacks leadership
qualities lines" that have previously failed to
diminish his
stature.
And to show his ever-changing colours, maybe his true colours,
Moyo is now
fiercely defending the legitimacy of Robert Mugabe's victory in
a one-man
election that came after he had battered the opposition into
withdrawing.
The intellectual in Professor Moyo seems to have fled as he
seeks to justify
that, since more people had died in the 1985 election,
Morgan Tsvangirai
should have allowed his supporters, polling agents and
candidates to go to
polling stations and be killed by soldiers and militia
deployed throughout
the country by Mugabe.
Besides the rumours that
he has been offered his old job back in Mugabe's
government, Moyo must have
been offered something even much bigger to cause
him to lose his senses so
much as to suggest that decision-making in the MDC
is now with fund raisers,
Strive Masiyiwa and Roy Bennett, without offering
a shred of
evidence.
Which decisions were made by Masiyiwa and
Bennett?
Readers will be aware that at the time that the decision to pull
out was
made, the MDC was divided on the issue. Roy Bennett actually issued
a
statement saying that the MDC was not pulling out.
He was only
convinced when the MDC Council met and received reports from the
field about
how extensively the military had been deployed, which would have
made it
impossible for election officials to be deployed.
Roy Benett lost his
farm and is unlikely to fund the MDC, except through
funds raised by members
as he is the treasurer general. It is a well-known
fact that the MDC has
extensive structures in the diapora which raise funds
for it. If Masiwa also
donates, it is his right as a citizen.
Just as Moyo is free to rejoin
Zanu-PF, and within his hypocritical right to
do so, but he should not
harbour such delusions as to believe that
Zimbabweans will just believe
anything he says.
Now he says the West is displaying "too much
fascination with Zimbabwe's
internal politics" as if he had a gun held to
his head. His brief obviously
has to do with whipping up African nationalism
and pit Africa against the
Western critics of Mugabe in an attempt to ward
off the sanctions .
He even suggests that the MDC should not talk about
the people who are being
killed, as if it was quite normal for people to be
killed in elections in
Zimbabwe.
But he really shows how loony he has
gone by suggesting that, like Joshua
Nkomo, Tsvangirai must just "bury the
hatchet" and go into a government of
national unity with Zanu-PF.
In
fact the interview published by the Zimbabwetimes.com reads like the
usual
cheap attempts by the CIO to pretend to know what is going on in the
MDC
while at the same time suggesting that that Mugabe is legal and
legitimate
and that he is the ideal candidate to lead a Government of
National Unity
(GNU) between Zanu-PF and MDC.
"The question of the legal legitimacy of
the President is a done deal and
also the need for a GNU is necessary.
President Mugabe has the legal
legitimacy as Head of State," he
said.
He also "startled" the Zimbabwetimes editors when he suggested that
Mugabe's
legitimacy arouse from the fact that Tsvangirai entered the run-off
race and
no one won the presidency outright on the 29th of March.
In
fact Moyo was sounding more like a greenbomber than a professor when he
said
it was important to make the pen permanent, but "when the pen risks
reversing the gains of the liberation struggle at a time when those who
fought for that liberation are still alive, you risk conflict.
"The
gun was held by people who are still in charge of this country. It
makes
logical sense the gun is more important than a pen. It's very
important to
note that we are operating in a country whose background is
still dominated
by people who liberated it.
"Britain is trying to use the pen to stake
its political interests in our
country. If a former colonial power tries to
take advantage of the pen it
certainly invites the gun. Where does Britain
get the audacity to make
Zimbabwe its business.
"We can't have the EU
saying we won't recognize a government led by so and
so but we will
recognize a government led by so and so; on what basis?
"Each time the
Americans and the British make noise about our politics, they
definitely
annoy nationalist Zimbabweans," said Moyo who is a magnet for
journalists -
journalists who we hope this time they will realise that they
are being led
up the mind of a Professor who has turned himself into a
greenbomber - maybe
for the same reason that greenbombers are killing
people.
To cap it
off Moyo said that he was "really impressed" by South African
President
Thabo Mbeki's mediation, which he said helped avert a higher risk
of an
all-out conflict in Zimbabwe.
"The person who helped calm down these
emotions is Thabo Mbeki," Moyo said.
"He is playing a crucial role," he
said, referring to the SA President who
allowed Mugabe to ride rough-shod
over the opposition, abandon negotiations,
rig an election using violence,
and now wants his Presidency to be
legitimised through a power-sharing
agreement.- Change Zimbabwe.com.
|
Harare Tribune News July 7, 2008 15:34 news@hararetribune.com |
Zimbabwe, Harare--She has to call the young men her "comrades." She cooks food for the comrades and serves them. She sweeps the comrades' floor and cleans up after them. And whenever any of the comrades want sex, she is raped. Asiatu, 21, is a prisoner of the comrades at a command base of the ruling ZANU-PF party, one of 900 such camps set up by the party to terrorize Zimbabweans into voting for Robert Mugabe in the one-man presidential runoff late last month and extending his 28-year rule. The election is over, but the terror isn't. "I'm still at the base. I'm being raped by four or five men daily," she whispers, bursting into tears. "Any time they want, night or day. "To me, a comrade is a murderer, someone who's cruel." She has been at the base for about 10 weeks, ever since she was abducted in the middle of the night because her mother is a supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. She has to stay most of each day and night at the base, a sex slave of the thuggish youth militias unleashed by the government. The Times interviewed her during one of the several short daily periods she is allowed to leave the ZANU-PF base. When asked why she doesn't escape during that time, Asiatu gives a chilling explanation: "They promised me if I run away, my mother will be killed." A slight, pretty figure, about 5 feet tall, Asiatu wears a flowing black dress with splashes of red. Her braids are tied back by an extravagant puff of red tulle. Her eyes are sad and fearful. And she rarely smiles. She says she looked forward to the June 27 runoff and the result, assuming that she would be freed. But with the election over and no sign of her imprisonment ending, she has lost hope. She is fearful she may be pregnant, and terrified she may have HIV/AIDS. She is the sole breadwinner in her family, earning some money selling vegetables, but has not been able to because she spends most of her time at the base. "I pray to God most of the time. I pray, 'You are the one who knows my future. Help me. Stop this happening to me.' " A base commander who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity said that Mugabe had said the bases would continue to operate. Some in the ruling party say new operations are being planned. But the commander said that there was no government money to feed the youth militias at the bases and that supporting them had become difficult. That could be a problem for ZANU-PF: For most of the young shock troops, their main motivation is the hope of a quick dollar to feed their families, with food scarce and opportunities to get ahead almost nonexistent. The camps were set up after ZANU-PF's defeat in the March 29 parliamentary and presidential elections. They provided a base from which to target the opposition and intimidate voters -- burning houses, displacing people and beating, maiming or killing activists. Kindergartens, schools and houses were commandeered for the bases. Some outposts, deep in the bush and modeled on the bases of Zimbabwe's liberation war, consist of nothing more than a piece of land with a tent, a desk and a chair for the commander, with several hundred militia fighters standing guard. In most of the bases across the country, young women have been forced to cook for the youth militias, serve them and be their sex slaves, according to young women and men forced to attend the camps daily. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 runoff vote because of the violence. But Mugabe, who finished second to Tsvangirai in March, pushed ahead with the runoff despite international condemnation. He was declared the winner soon afterward and hastily inaugurated. The MDC reports many cases of unwanted pregnancies among victims of rape. Written testimonies by victims show that many times women were raped because they or their close relatives were MDC activists. However, the party does not have a tally of how many rapes have been reported in the political violence. Asiatu's ordeal began one afternoon when 35 ZANU-PF militia members came to her house because her mother is an MDC member. "I was eating and they kicked my food," she says. "They started beating me, saying I was an MDC member. They said I should be killed." Three days later they came at night and forced her to go to the base. "I was just crying. I thought they wanted to kill me," she says. To protect her, The Times is not disclosing the location of the base. She does not go by the name Asiatu in her community. On her first day at the base, she says, she was severely beaten on her back, buttocks and the soles of her feet with wooden poles. "They said they should leave me to faint in order to satisfy their bosses. They said they were 'treating' me to make me a ZANU-PF member." After a week, the daily beatings stopped, but the rapes began.
Wiping tears from her eyes, she describes the first time: "Someone came and gave me a plate of sadza [the staple cornmeal porridge] and said, 'Go in that room with this plate of sadza.' And there was a man sleeping in bed and he raped me." There are three women at the base, she says. The number of militia members there has dropped to 11 from 50 before the election. There are political meetings at the base, with songs and slogans. "I just go to save my life. But I will never be ZANU-PF," Asiatu says. She has hated ZANU-PF since her mother's younger sister was kidnapped and slain in political violence after 2000. Before the election, she says, she saw hundreds of people beaten at the base, about 10 to 50 people a day. She says she saw two MDC activists stoned to death. Militia members pelted the two with bricks and rocks, taking about three hours to kill the men. "They said, 'They are activists of the MDC, so they should be killed in order to kill the MDC.' " Elizabeth, 30, an MDC activist and vegetable seller, says she was raped at the same base before the election. She says some militia members wore sacks or cardboard boxes on their heads to hide their faces. (Elizabeth also is not known by that name in her community.) As she was raped, militia members and other young women at the base sang songs taunting the opposition, such as, "Dig a hole and bury yourself, because your time has come." "It made it more terrifying. I didn't think I was going to survive," she says. Unlike Asiatu, she was not kept at the base as a sex slave, but raped as a punishment for her MDC loyalties. She later reported the names of her assailants to the police, who arrested two men. But they were released two days later without charges. "Right now I fear they will come again," says Elizabeth, who has decided to drop out as an MDC activist. "I just want to live a quiet life. I'm just scared. But I'll still support the MDC." Despite everything, she still believes that, somehow, change is coming. She stares into midair, a slight smile curling her lips. She speaks in a dreamy voice, almost as if she can see it materializing in front of her. "I think it will come," she says. "I don't know when, but I know it will come one day." Asiatu has given up believing in the possibility of her own freedom, yet she has not lost her belief that the country will somehow be transformed. "If the situation continues like this, the country will remain ashes," she says. But when she expresses her hopes, the fear seems to lift for a moment. Her voice is firm and clear: "There's going to be a change. I feel change coming." Then it is time to return to the base. -- Harare Tribune News |
Business Report
July 14,
2008
By Donwald Pressly
Cape Town - Retail companies in Zimbabwe
with links to South Africa are
maintaining a business-as-usual approach as
the political and economic
crisis in that country deepens, but the strategy
of survival appears to be
to source products - including food items -
locally.
Nando's group marketing director Paul Appleton said the business
was
suffering "great difficulty" in Zimbabwe with all supply
lines.
Speaking from London, he said supplies were sourced locally
despite the
disruption of the agricultural sector.
Appleton said
there needed to be "some degree" of political stability and
some indication
where the country was heading politically. There also needed
to be monetary
and fiscal control and measures put in place to fight
inflation.
Without divulging figures, Appleton said Nando's business
had been good in
recent months, despite the downturn in the economic
fortunes of Zimbabwe.
"People like to treat themselves in these times," he
said. Nando's, which
operated 17 restaurants in the country, was hoping for
a positive outcome to
current efforts at resolving the crisis - "like any
business", he said.
President Thabo Mbeki was involved in discussions at
the weekend to try to
get Zimbabwe to form a national unity government
between Zanu-PF, which has
been in power since 1980, and the Movement for
Democratic Change's two
factions, which are led by Morgan Tsvangirai and
Arthur Mutambara.
Tsvangirai's faction, the largest party in the country,
described the talks
as being "talks about talks".
Clothing retailer
Edcon Holdings' deputy chief executive, Mark Bower, said
through his
spokesperson, Jennifer Cohen, that Edcon's financial investment
in Zimbabwe
stores had been written off in 2003.
"Edcon donated 27 percent of its
shareholding to an empowerment trust for
the benefit of the staff of Edgars
Zimbabwe, leaving a 40 percent stake for
Edcon in the listed entity," Cohen
said. "While there are no longer any
financial consequences for Edcon in
this investment, we obviously have
significant concern for the wellbeing of
our employees, our customers and
our good name."
Like all stores in
Zimbabwe, the Edcon outlets were operating with very
limited stock, said
Cohen. Clothing was made from local fabric.
Kevin Hedderwick, the chief
operating officer of Famous Brands, said its
outlets in Zimbabwe were run by
Inscor, a company listed there.
Raw material was sourced locally and
the business "is quite
self-sufficient", though it had access to
confidential recipes from South
Africa.
"In Zimbabwe one cannot even
dream that the quality on offer is going to
mirror what you are offered in
South Africa," said Hedderwick.
Famous Brands had a total of eight stores
in the capital, Harare, and
Bulawayo.
A plan to take Debonairs Pizza
into the country was on hold, he said.
Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra
Veley noted that 25 percent of TM Supermarkets
in Zimbabwe was owned by Pick
n Pay, the retail supermarket chain. The other
75 percent was owned by
Kingdom Meikles Africa. "There are currently no
plans to change operations
in Zimbabwe," she said.
"TM continues to trade under exceptionally
difficult conditions. We continue
to support our colleagues and hope for
political and economic stability in
the near future."
Pick n Pay had
not received a dividend in close to four years. Last year,
Pick n Pay had
written down the carrying value of its investment in TM by
R64 million to
R9.1 million, reflecting the shortage of foreign exchange,
the low
possibility of receiving dividends and the depreciating currency.
"In the
current year we impaired our remaining investment in TM of R9.1
million,"
Veley said.
Engen chief executive Rashid Yusof said his business was
expanding from
holding just three retail sites and an interest in a Zimbabwe
company,
Noczim, which blended lubricants. Yusof said Engen had taken "a
long view"
on Zimbabwe, considering its economic problems.
Engen -
owned by the giant Malaysian state oil company Petronas and black
empowerment group World Wide Africa Investment Holdings - has announced that
it will have a 50 percent share, with BP, of about 200 retail outlets that
will be disposed of by Shell.
Reuters reports that a spokesperson for
Royal Dutch Shell in Amsterdam said
on Friday that the decision to sell its
Zimbabwe interests was made after a
study last year of the profitability of
all downstream activities and was
not related to the country's political
situation.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
July 14, 2008
Deputy Minister
Bright Matonga
By Our Correspondent
HARARE - One question has been
doing the rounds of the Harare political
establishment of late while keeping
journalists gripped in a frenzy of
speculation.Why has deputy Information
Minister, Bright Matonga, suddenly
become such an avowed defender of
President Robert Mugabe, while at the same
launching a virulent onslaught on
western nations, especially the United
Kingdom.
The secret is now
out. Matonga's behaviour is linked to very personal
issues, pertaining to
affairs of the heart.
Zimbabwe's acerbic junior Information minister has
effectively ditched Anne
Pout, his British-born wife of 11 years, and
married a rich businesswoman
said to be the niece of the
President.
The Zimbabwe Times can exclusively reveal that Matonga has
officially moved
out of the Matonga matrimonial home on a farm they seized
from a commercial
farmer and has since moved in with Sharon Mugabe, an
immensely wealthy
businesswoman. The 36-year-old widow who has stolen the
heart of the
capricious Matonga who stands a good chance of being named as
new Minister
of Information any time now, runs a marketing communications
firm, Imago
Y&R.
Matonga, who has become the darling of the
British media as he routinely
lambasts the Gordon Brown government at the
slightest opportunity, while
defending Mugabe, yesterday refused to take
questions on his relationship
with Sharon Mugabe.
Sharon's exact
relationship to the President could not be established last
night amid
suggestions that she is Mugabe's niece, daughter of Albert
Mugabe, the
President's late brother, the trade unionist who died in a
swimming pool
drowning back in the 1980s.
Imago Y&R, formerly Michel Hogg Young
& Rubicam, was sold to Sharon Mugabe
by Zimbabwe's marketing guru
Michael Hogg in 2005 after a failed bid by
rival Gary Thompson's agency,
Gary Thompson & Associates. The take-over
marked one of the biggest
empowerment transactions in the sector. Mugabe
acquired the controlling
stake in the leading advertising, marketing and
communications firm. She
renamed it Imago Y&R.
The agency won the contract to run Mugabe's
sleek election campaign ahead of
the June 27 presidential election run off,
and is believed to have racked in
colossal profits from the glitzy but
controversial campaign. The Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe underwrote the cost of
Mugabe's re-election campaign, while
Matonga became increasingly vociferous
in support of Mugabe.
It is now being alleged that Imago Y&R secured
the lucrative Zanu-PF
contract through its chief executive's personal
relationship with the junior
Information minister. Matonga was responsible
for vetting companies that
submitted tenders for the Mugabe election
campaign.
In June, Bernard Barnett, a Y&R corporate vice-president in
London, told the
Sunday Times that, following a tip-off, Sharon Mugabe had
been asked whether
her company was the professional media outfit called in
by Mugabe's advisers
after the last elections.
"We asked the managing
director if it was true - that they had been working
for Zanu-PF - and she
said she personally was one of the president's
communications advisers,"
said Barnett. "It was a very unpleasant surprise.
Neither she nor the agency
should be working for a regime like that, and
especially not campaigning for
them."
Barnet said at the time Y & R would sell its 25 percent stake
in Imago. "We're
just anxious to end any possible connection between
ourselves and that
disgraceful regime," he said.
Mugabe, whose
husband died two years ago, now officially lives with Matonga
in her mansion
in Borrowdale Brooke. She has been spotted on several
occasions in the
company of Matonga at one or the other of her many business
enterprises,
including a designer fashion boutique in the Eastgate Shopping
Mall.
The couple is reported to have a young baby. Matonga has moved
out of his
matrimonial home, abandoning his wife, Anne, whom he brought back
with him
to Zimbabwe in 2001 from the UK.
Matonga married Anne, a
former municipal information- technology manager in
1997, and moved into her
home in Billericay, a small commuter town in Essex,
England, according to
family sources.
Matonga is said to have met Anne while he was still at a
college in
Southend-on-Sea, a resort town east of London, where he studied
media
production and technology at South East Essex College.
Halfway
through the four-year program, immigration officials tried to deport
him
after a change in rules for foreign students made him ineligible to
stay.
Anne is said to have intervened and averted her then boyfriend's
deportation.
After his graduation, Matonga worked as a delivery
driver and a freelance
journalist and was literally living off Anne, our
sources say.
Family sources described Anne as the marriage's "driving
force who smartened
him up no end".
"This is how he pays her after
all that she has done for him, abandoning a
woman who made him what he is
today because of this other woman?" fumed a
very close family source. "He is
an ungrateful bastard. So he is trying to
curry favour with the President by
marrying his niece?"
The family source described how Anne looked after
her husband while they
lived in Basildon before Matonga's return home in
November 2001 to head the
state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation's
television division.
Anne and their son flew to Harare six months later,
our source added.
In September 2002, the couple became part of a state-
backed campaign to
seize white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to
black families that
mainly grew food for themselves. The programme resulted
in a drop in food
production, caused food shortages and a decline in
exports, as well as
triggering off the current economic
recession.
The Matongas took over a farm in the rich Banket area,
northwest of Harare.
Anne was subsequently quoted in the media while
defending the land reform
programme and Mugabe's government
policies.
Matonga, a former chef executive of the state-owned bus
company, ZUPCO,
narrowly escaped incarceration following allegations that he
benefited
corruptly from bribes during the acquisition of new buses by the
company.
Matonga's co-accused, Charles Nherera, then ZUPCO chairman is
currently
languishing in jail after he was convicted on the corruption
charges.
Matonga is alleged to have been rescued through extra-judicial
intervention
as he had been appointed deputy minister in 2005.
Sharon
Mugabe studied and worked in the US until 2000. She was a financial
analyst,
first with First Albany Brokerage Firm and later for New England
Consulting
Group.
She returned to Zimbabwe in 2000, and joined the African Banking
Corporation
as head of communications.
Our sources say she is the
principal cause of the breakdown in the Matonga's
once happy
marriage.
Efforts to obtain comment from Sharon Mugabe were futile. Anne
declined to
comment, while Matonga screamed: "Go to hell," before switching
off his
phone.
For all Gordon Brown's fine diplomatic froth, he is a
peripheral figure in
the future of Zimbabwe
Peter Preston
The
Guardian,
Monday July 14, 2008
It is a matter of principle, surely.
Here's an ageing dictator using every
means to hang on in power. His people
are starving. Hundreds of thousands
flee to a safe haven in the democratic
country to the south. Elections are a
malign joke. And what does the west do
about it? Why, pile in with food aid,
trade deals and sweet promises. Prop
up the dictatorship for all its worth.
Because for the moment we're talking
North Korea, not Zimbabwe: and
Pyongyang has (or perhaps had) a little bomb
that turned idealism on its
head.
Of course it was galling to see
Robert Mugabe's spokesmen hailing a "great
victory" this weekend. Of course
there's reason for Gordon Brown to grind
his teeth as his Anglo-American
package of mini-sanctions comes unstuck at
the security council, blocked by
China and Russia (among others), and to
talk of unleashing "Plan B". Of
course it would be deeply cheery to see
Mugabe dumped. But let's not get
carried away by too much froth about
"impotence against tyranny". Diplomatic
life, alas, includes more than a
Sunday Telegraph leader column.
The
sanctions themselves, mild pursuit and hindrance of Zimbabwe's president
and
immediate chums, were never likely to achieve very much - except,
perhaps,
to make those chums feel more beleaguered. An arms embargo makes no
effective difference: Mugabe's army has quite enough guns for oppressive
purposes. And as for shoving Thabo Mbeki from the mediation stage and
putting in some UN representative, how brilliant was that? South Africa's
president hasn't had much success at the conciliation business, to be sure:
but the (lost) UN resolution specifically sidelined him, and thus
automatically the most influential player in the region. No wonder South
Africa itself took the Chinese and Russian side.
We may scoff and
rail as much as we like over Beijing's cynicism or Moscow's
duplicity, yet
their arguments are more than mere self-interested
manoeuvring. Is Zimbabwe
a "threat to international peace and security"? It
has produced a refugee
crisis causing grave internal strains in South
Africa. But such strains,
again, didn't influence Mbeki's vote, or change
his mind on what can be
done. And nor, significantly, did it change other
African minds,
either.
Take Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania and the African Union,
laying out
the regional line. "No party can govern alone in Zimbabwe ...
therefore the
parties have to work together." Therefore there has to be a
negotiated
settlement. Is that just one more excuse for more inaction? Not
in an Africa
where the fault lines of tribalism still run deep. Remember
how, and why,
Kenya fell to its knees a few months ago. Look carefully as
Mbeki strives to
keep the Zulus sweet. Never forget that Zimbabwe has tribes
as well as
parties.
It suits us, in full preaching mode, to believe
that democracy comes easy.
It doesn't in many parts of the globe where
tribal and religious loyalties
tear up the textbooks. Yet our own grim
lesson in Afghanistan and Iraq never
seems to stretch our thinking. We learn
painfully that freedom can't arrive
with a visiting army, yet we don't
transfer that wisdom to others (partly
because, as pat assumption, Africa
should just do what we say).
Mugabe is a wrecker and an affront. But
meaningless gestures won't bring him
down. There will be an African solution
here, or there will be no solution
at all. London and Washington aren't
central to the outcome.
Rather than get cast as a kind of transition
figure between Bush and John
McCain's touted alliance of democracies, Brown
would be far better sticking
closer to the reality of UN charter (and
practical) life. Pyongyang has its
own lectures to deliver on principle.
Needs must when the nuclear devil
drives. The sad truth of the matter, in
Harare and beyond, is that often
there is no Plan B.
p.preston@guardian.co.uk