Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:30
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki
secured the release of MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai from police detention
this week after he was arrested at a
roadblock in Lupane, Matabeleland
North, on his way to a presidential
election run-off meeting in the rural
area.
Information gathered by the Zimbabwe Independent
yesterday was that
Mbeki spoke over the phone to senior Zimbabwe government
officials appealing
for Tsvangirai's release.
Tsvangirai was
arrested alongside his deputy Thokozani Khupe and the
MDC national
chairperson Lovemore Moyo. They were detained for over 11 hours
at Lupane
Police Station.
Mbeki's spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga confirmed
yesterday that Mbeki
came to the rescue of Tsvangirai and some of the
leaders of his party.
"Discussions did take place with government
representatives in Harare
in which the president (Mbeki) appealed for Mr
Tsvangirai's release,"
Ratshitanga said.
Sadc appointed Mbeki
last year to facilitate talks between Zanu PF and
the MDC with a view to
finding a lasting solution to the country's crisis.
Police released
Tsvangirai after they impounded a bullet-proof South
African registered BMW
X5 he was using during the campaign in Matabeleland
North.
The
police alleged that the driver of the vehicle was not authorised
under the
Customs and Excise Act to drive the vehicle in Zimbabwe.
The MDC
lawyer, Job Sibanda, said the police demanded that the owner
of the vehicle
should either go to Lupane or send a written affidavit
explaining how the
vehicle was temporarily imported into Zimbabwe.
"The vehicle was
impounded by the police," Sibanda said.
Tsvangirai told the
Independent yesterday that the seizure of the
vehicle was part of a bid by
the government to instill fear in him ahead of
the run-off.
"The vehicle is bullet-proof and was meant for my security,"
Tsvangirai
said. "I intended to use it to campaign mainly in Mashonaland
provinces
where violence is rampant."
The MDC's run-off campaign in the
Mashonaland provinces begins on
Monday.
"The arrest is part of
ongoing harassment that we are undergoing but
that would not deter us and
the allegations they were raising was that I
addressed a meeting which was
not true," Tsvangirai said.
Prior to his arrest, Tsvangirai was on
Tuesday forced to abort a rally
at Manama Mission outside Gwanda after he
was warned by state security
agents along the way that he was heading for
danger.
Tsvangirai's campaign advance party heading for Manama was
told that
if he proceeded, the police could not guarantee their
security.
"I don't mind soldiers having an opinion about who they
want to vote
for, but certainly a coercive military strategy to force people
to support a
particular candidate and to be active in the campaign has very
dangerous
consequences," Tsvangirai said later.
"That must be
discouraged, they are opening up the military to being
involved in politics,
which is dangerous for our democracy."
The South African presidency
this week said it was deeply concerned
that the media had been used as tools
of disinformation in intelligence
projects to "demonise" and wreck the
Zimbabwean peace process.
Director-general in the presidency, Frank
Chikane, denied that
Tsvangirai had written a letter to Mbeki calling on him
to withdraw from the
Sadc mediation as he was biased and
ineffective.
"The logical conclusion is that there is no such
letter," Chikane
said.
The mystery of the letter deepened when
the MDC this week denied that
Tsvangirai had written to Mbeki.
"We are uncertain of the provenance of the letter," Tsvangirai's
spokesman,
George Sibotshiwe was quoted by the international press as
saying. "There
have been no recent communications between the MDC and
President Thabo
Mbeki."
Meanwhile, Tsvangirai said his party welcomed the
initiative of United
Nations (UN) secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to send
international
peacekeepers to Zimbabwe ahead of the presidential
run-off.
Ki-Moon made the offer to sent the peacekeepers to Mugabe
on the
sidelines of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)-organised
World
Food Summit in Rome this week.
The UN chief had expressed
concerns about the violence taking place in
the country and had indicated
that the organisation was prepared to assist
Zimbabwe
logistically.
"The international peacekeepers will be most welcome
because the level
of violence around the country has reached critical
levels," Tsvangirai
said. "The peacekeepers' presence is the only solution
that will restore
confidence among the electorate."
By
Constantine Chimakure
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:26
DESPITE opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai's protests at South
African President Thabo Mbeki's
mediation in the Zimbabwe crisis, Pretoria
last week convened an emergency
inter-party meeting between Zanu PF and the
MDC to tackle contentious
presidential run-off issues.
This came as the United Nations
Security Council yesterday was due to
discuss Zimbabwe and issue a statement
on the harassment of US and UK
diplomats. The diplomats were stopped and
threatened at a police roadblock
yesterday afternoon on their way back from
Bindura. Their vehicle tyres were
shredded and a driver
assaulted.
Opposition leaders and supporters, civil society
leaders, journalists
and diplomats have been the main targets of the latest
crackdown.
Informed sources said Zanu PF representatives Patrick
Chinamasa and
Nicholas Goche and MDC negotiators Welshman Ncube and Tendai
Biti - who is
temporarily resident in South Africa after threats to arrest
him for
allegedly announcing unofficial presidential election results in
March -
held talks in Pretoria which were chaired by South African Local
Government
minister Sydney Mufamadi.
They discussed the
political violence and the multi-party agreement on
the code of conduct
during the runoff.
The sources said the MDC complained about
violence which the party
says has so far claimed at least 60 lives, mainly
those of opposition
supporters.
Zanu PF is said to have
defended itself, claiming the MDC was also
acting violently, while the South
Africans promised to intervene to stop the
violence.
Mbeki
recently sent a team of retired army generals to investigate the
violence
and they unearthed shocking evidence of brutality. But their
findings were
overshadowed by violent xenophobic attacks against foreigners
in South
Africa which claimed about 60 lives.
Sources said Mbeki wants to
create a peaceful environment for a free
and fair run-off as he did before
the March elections. Mbeki's efforts
ensured the March elections were
relatively peaceful, although the talks
failed because of Zanu PF's refusal
to adopt a new constitution before the
March elections and postpone the poll
to accommodate implementation of
agreed issues.
Sources said
Mufamadi promised that South Africa would intervene
diplomatically to stop
violence and ensure peaceful campaigning. It is said
that was why Mbeki
intervened when Tsvangirai was arrested on Wednesday by
the
police.
Last week alone Mbeki sent two different envoys to Harare
to deal with
run-off issues and a possible resolution of the crisis after
the poll.
Mufamadi, Mbeki's point man on the Zimbabwe mediation, came in on
Monday to
meet Mugabe while Mbeki's Foreign Affairs Director-General Ayanda
Ntsaluba
was in the country on Thursday for further
discussions.
By Dumisani Muleya
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:23
THE Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) yesterday said Zanu PF wrongly
cited it as a respondent in
some of the 53 electoral petitions the party
lodged with the Electoral
Court.
In a preliminary hearing before Judge President
Justice Rita Makarau
yesterday, the court heard of the failure of some Zanu
PF petitioners to
serve court papers within the prescribed period and
service of papers at
wrong addresses.
The lawyer representing
ZEC, George Chikumbirike, told the Electoral
Court that it had been wrongly
cited in electoral petition cases as at law
the petitioners where supposed
to cite the chairman, George Chiweshe, as the
respondent.
Chikumbirike asked the High Court to remove the ZEC as a respondent
from the
applications as the electoral body is an impartial commission which
should
not be seen as siding with any political party.
The ZEC lawyer said
at law the electoral court was supposed to make a
report to the electoral
commission after hearing the petitions, but there
will be no need to do that
if the election body was in court.
Advocate Happious Zhou who was
representing the MDC submitted that the
petitioners failed to serve their
petitions within the 10-day limit.
According to the country's
electoral law, petitions must be served
within 10 days from the day they are
filed at the Electoral Court.
Zhou argued that some of the
electoral challenges were served after
the time limit had
expired.
The MDC lawyer said the petitioners had erred by serving
their
challenges at the party's headquarters, Harvest House, as it not the
personal or business address of the respondents.
Makarau
reserved judgment in the matter saying she needed time to
consider
submissions from all sides.
"I need time to consider submissions
from both sides and hopefully by
Wednesday I will deliver judgment," Makarau
said.
The High Court will hear at least 105 petitions filed by
losing
candidates of both Zanu PF and MDC.
Zanu PF in its
petitions is arguing that "British and American-imposed
sanctions" on
Zimbabwe created an uneven playing field that resulted in the
MDC-Tsvangirai
winning the elections.
Zanu PF candidates challenged parliamentary
results in 53
constituencies won by the MDC-Tsvangirai on the grounds of
general electoral
fraud and malpractices of a broad and significant nature
as to affect the
electoral outcome.
The MDC-Tsvangirai, which
filed 52 electoral petitions, accused ZEC of
malpractices and general
electoral fraud.
The MDC-Tsvangirai is arguing that there was open
vote-buying and
denial of access to GMB-procured maize to its perceived
members and that
traditional leaders were used to intimidate and harass
opposition supporters
and to canvass support for Zanu PF.
By
Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:20
A MUTARE magistrate Hlekani
Mwayera yesterday dismissed public
violence charges against MDC Buhera West
legislator Advocate Eric Matinenga
and released him from police
custody.
Matinenga was arrested and detained in Buhera on
Saturday for
allegedly paying and encouraging MDC youths to perpetrate
violence against
Zanu PF supporters in the constituency.
Tinoziva Bere, Matinenga's legal practitioner, told the Zimbabwe
Independent
last night that the state had applied for Matinenga's further
detention, but
the magistrate said there were no grounds for the lawyer to
remain in
custody.
On Tuesday, the Law Society of Zimbabwe complained over
the continued
detention of Matinenga for more than 48 hours after his
arrest.
The society said when Matinenga was arrested, the police
did not know
what allegations against him were.
The police, the
society added, failed to advise his lawyers of the
basis of his arrest and
detention. - Staff Reporter.
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:18
A NEW ex-combatants body has said the June
27 presidential election
run-off must be called off and President Robert
Mugabe remain in office
until a new constitution is crafted and "sanctions
by the West" lifted.
The association - Mwana Wehvu the
Revolutionary Council - was launched
in the capital on Wednesday, with
Mugabe's wife, Grace, nominated as its
patron.
Chris
Pasipamire, the chairperson of the council, said its members
were ready to
take up arms and defend "the revolution, land, and its
resources" if Mugabe
loses the run-off to MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai.
"As Mwana Wevhu the
Revolutionary Council we, hereby, demand that the
whole electoral process be
set aside and the old parliament be reconstituted
with President Robert
Gabriel Mugabe remaining the head of state and
therefore no run-off that is
being talked about for the 27th of June 2008,"
Pasipamire said.
"Currently, the Zimbabwean masses are hungry due to sanctions imposed
by the
West to effect regime change so we cannot hold fair elections as it
is. .Our
priority is to mobilise all the meagre resources and bring food to
the
masses."
The so-called council said it was also determined to fight
corruption
in Zanu PF and the government.
"We are working with
the presidium. We have raised issues with the
party leadership over the
manner in which some people are conducting party
business," Pasipamire said.
"There is a lot of corruption involving some
high-level officials of the
party and we as a body want to engage the
presidium to see to it that there
is an end to these malpractices."
He said the council would push
for the implementation of the one-man
one-farm policy by the government. At
the moment, Pasipamire said, there
were many senior government officials who
held onto a number of farms,
thereby depriving many Zimbabweans "who
suffered the same fate under the
Smith regime" of their right to land. He
castigated elements within Zanu PF
who had amassed wealth using the party
ticket, saying they were denting the
name of the party.
By
Nkululeko Sibanda
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:13
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's
campaign team this week resorted to hip-hop
lyrics in a bid to woo younger
voters to vote for the 84-year-old veteran
leader during the June 27
presidential election run-off against rival Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The campaign team, comprising radio and
television personalities
Tichafa Matambanadzo, Makhosini Hlongwane and Hugo
Ribatika, yesterday
flighted an advertisement featuring the late American
rap star Tupac Shakur.
They are working with advertising agency,
Imago.
The shift in Mugabe's media message comes after Tsvangirai
out-polled
him during the March 29 presidential election.
The
party has placed a full-page colour advertisement that sampled the
lyrics of
Shakur who was killed in a drive-by shoot in Las Vegas 12 years
go.
Zanu PF sampled Tupac's early hit Keep ya head up from his
album
Strictly for my NIGGAZ in an attempt to encourage Zimbabweans to be
resilient in the face of biting economic hardships characterised by a record
inflation rate, high unemployment and acute food shortages.
It
is a song which implores men to "be real to our women". It also
encourages
women to be strong in a patriarchal society.
"I know it seems hard
sometimes but remember one thing," read, the
advert. "Through every dark
night, there's a bright day after that. So no
matter how hard it gets, stick
your chest out, keep ya head up..."
Media Monitoring Project of
Zimbabwe head Andy Moyse said the new
campaign message was an attempt to
appeal to the urban youth.
"This is an attempt to appeal to the
urban youth," Moyse said. "It
sounds like it is from the liberation war.
However, one should ask why the
state media is not carrying advertising
material for the other presidential
candidate (Tsvangirai)."
Mugabe's critic and university lecturer John Makumbe described the
campaign
as a "desperate last attempt by an expired regime".
During the
run-up to the March 29 harmonised elections Zanu PF
campaigned using its
trademark "revolutionary" campaign messages that
portrayed Mugabe as a hero
of the 1970s liberation war.
In a related development, the
country's sole broadcaster, ZBC, this
week suspended seven senior
journalists for "misconduct" in what inside
sources have termed a crackdown
on "unpatriotic" personnel.
The seven, who were suspended on
Tuesday pending dismissal, are
television services general manager Robson
Mhandu, news editor Patrice
Makova, and producers Monica Gavhera,
Sibonginkosi Mlilo and Lawrence
Maposa.
Two reporters, Brian
Paradza and Robert Tapfumaneyi, were also
suspended.
Zimbabwe
Union of Journalists (ZUJ) president Mathew Takaona
criticised the
suspensions, which he called irrational and motivated by
political
considerations.
"The suspension is an unfair labour practice and we
suspect that it is
politically motivated," he said. "It is unfortunate that
this is being
implemented on professionals. The new management has
overreacted. It is
irrational, illogical and the move will further cripple
an already grounded
station."
ZUJ demanded an immediate
reinstatement of the journalists without
loss of benefits.
By
Bernard Mpofu
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:11
THE embattled
Zanu PF government this week awarded a 100% salary
increment to civil
servants in a bid to win their support ahead of the
presidential election
run-off on June 27.
The increment came barely a week after
government hiked civil servants'
salaries by 1 047% backdated to May
1.
Sources in the public sector told the Zimbabwe Independent that
after
the salary adjustments, the majority of civil servants would be
earning well
above $100 billion.
"We got a cirular last week
informing us of a 1 047% salary hike
backdated to May 1 and another 100%
salary increment effective June 1," one
of the sources said.
A
member of the Apex Council - a salary negotiating body of all public
service
organs - Tendai Chikowore, confirmed that civil servants were
awarded an
increment, but declined to reveal figures to the Independent.
"I
don't think it's proper for me to discuss salaries of our members
with
media," Chikowero said. "Salaries should be confidential."
The
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), a member of the
Apex Council,
confirmed the salary increment.
PTUZ national coordinator Oswald
Madziva said: "I can confirm that
civil servants were awarded a substantial
salary hike."
Madziva could not disclose specific figures, but
admitted that the
hike was reasonable.
"Civil servants got a
salary increment backdated to May 1 and another
one effective June 1," he
said. "It is a reasonable hike, but I can't give
you the
figures."
After the latest increment, teachers who last week earned
salaries
ranging from $50 billion to $60 billion, will this month earn
between $100
billion and $130 billion.
Last month nurses
reportedly got $50 billion while soldiers grossed
$65 billion. Their
salaries would be doubled this month.
Prior to the March 29
harmonised elections, government awarded hefty
salary increments to soldiers
and members of the civil service.
The government reportedly secured
the money to dole out to uniformed
forces and the civil service from the
Reserve Bank, which by March 1 had
loaned the state over $1,6 quadrillion to
meet its recurrent expenditure and
other obligations.
By
Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:09
THE Morgan Tsvangirai-led
MDC has changed its campaign strategy for
the June 27 presidential election
run-off after the police banned its
rallies. The party has now adopted
walkabouts to drum up support.
Police at the weekend banned
the MDC rallies in Victoria Falls and
Hwange, which threatens to
paralyse Tsvangirai's campaign three weeks before the crucial poll.
Tsvangirai is yet to hold a rally since his return a fortnight ago from
self-imposed exile in Botswana and South Africa.
This week
Tsvangirai took his campaign to the streets of Bulawayo and
Matabeleland
South province, but his lobbying for support in Matabeleland
North hit a
snag on Wednesday when he was detained by police for allegedly
"attracting a
large crowd of people".
He was detained for over 11 hours before
being released after he was
reportedly forced to sign a warned-and-cautioned
statement at Lupane Police
Station.
The MDC spokesperson,
Nelson Chamisa, said the arrest and detention of
Tsvangirai was part
of
Zanu PF strategy to ensure that the opposition party did not get an
opportunity to campaign ahead of the run-off.
"This is part of
a Zanu PF strategy to ensure that the MDC does not
get a chance to campaign,
but we are saying no amount of dirty tricks will
stop an MDC victory on June
27," Chamisa said.
On Monday, Tsvangirai accompanied by his
campaign team visited
townships in Bulawayo to urge people to go out and
vote.
He visited townships such as Makokoba, Nkulumane, Pelandaba,
Luveve,
Magwegwe and parts of the central business district where excited
crowds
mobbed him.
"Please just go and vote in large numbers on
June 27," he told
supporters in the CBD.
At the Nkulumane mall,
Tsvangirai was welcomed with chants of "Welcome
President, Welcome
President" by the crowd.
Tsvangirai was accompanied on the visit,
which the MDC dubbed the
"Meet the People Tour", by his deputy Thokozani
Khupe, party chairman
Lovemore Moyo and all newly-elected MDC MP and
senators for Bulawayo
province.
However, the tour also saw
residents telling Tsvangirai their views on
the prevailing crisis in the
country.
"We are hungry my son, please make sure you take us out of
this
misery," an elderly woman at Chigumira Shopping Centre in Luveve
appealed.
"Our stomachs are empty, they have nothing and we know you are our
only
salvation."
Khupe said the tour was part of the MDC
victory celebrations and said
Tsvangirai was meeting the electorate urging
them to vote out Mugabe.
"The main reason for the walkabouts is for
president Tsvangirai to
meet the people and the tours will be conducted
countrywide as we garner for
support ahead of the presidential election
run-off on June 27," Khupe said.
Yesterday, Tsvangirai's campaign
was in rural Matabeleland South.
By Loughty Dube
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:06
SERIOUS divisions have
reportedly rocked the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC
over the backing of Morgan
Tsvangirai in the June 27 presidential election
run-off against President
Robert Mugabe, with the camp's winning legislators
threatening to break away
from the party.
Sources in the Mutambara faction told the
Zimbabwe Independent this
week that the recently elected legislators were
not happy that the faction
last Friday fielded parliamentary by-election
candidates in Gwanda South,
Redcliff and Pelandaba-Mpopoma against those of
the MDC-Tsvangirai group.
The sources said the lawmakers accused
the faction's leadership of
going against a recent parliamentary pact
between the two factions by
nominating separate candidates.
The
MDC Mutambara faction fielded candidates who will contest against
Zanu-PF
and the MDC-T faction.
The MPs and senators reportedly threatened
to use their personal
resources to campaign for Tsvangirai and accused the
Mutambara leadership of
attempting to derail the former trade unionist's bid
for the presidency.
"There are a few senior individuals in the
party who are pushing a
Zanu-PF agenda and it is now clear who those are,"
one of the legislators
said. "They are doing everything in their powers to
destroy Tsvangirai. It
is not our fault that they have differences with him,
but we just want
Mugabe out of power."
The legislators said it
emerged this week that there were members of
the Mutambara executive who
were against the party's resolution to support
and campaign for Tsvangirai
against Mugabe in the run-off.
The MPs alleged that the party
leaders in Matabeleland were bitter
after losing the March 29 parliamentary
election to the MDC-Tsvangirai
candidates.
"There are some
former legislators who are still bitter and just last
weekend one of them
(name supplied) addressed a provincial assembly meeting
and said he will
cause by-elections to take place in areas where the MPs and
senators are
campaigning for Tsvangirai," another lawmaker said. "We are
saying we do not
care if he calls for the by-elections. We will campaign for
Tsvangirai
against Mugabe."
The legislators were also not happy after the
party leadership
reportedly cancelled a trip to South Africa by the
lawmakers to meet victims
of xenophobic attacks.
The leadership
is alleged to have blocked the trip after alleging that
the legislators were
going to South Africa to meet Tsvangirai who was then
still in that
country.
Last Friday, the legislators boycotted a party meeting and
instead 11
of the lawmakers travelled to Harare where Tsvangirai was
presenting a
"state of the nation" address.
"There are two or
three officials at the top who have not come to
grips that Tsvangirai is
more popular than us (Mutambara camp) countrywide
and they are fighting to
bring him down," a senator said. "We will continue
to back him as long as he
fights Mugabe."
Efforts to contact the party's secretary-general
Welshman Ncube on the
matter proved fruitless as he was not
reachable.
The party's deputy spokesperson Abednico Bhebhe said he
had no comment
on the issues raised.
"I have no comment to make
on all those issues," Bhebhe said curtly.
By Loughty Dube
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:04
THE are mixed feelings among Zimbabweans
on the proposal for the
formation of a government of national unity (GNU) as
a resolution to the
country's deepening political and economic
crisis.
There are calls from United Nations members, Sadc
and within the
country for President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF and the MDC
headed by Morgan
Tsvangirai to open negotiations on a GNU and avoid the June
27 presidential
election run-off, thus sparing the nation further
turmoil.
The GNU would be made up of all political stakeholders in
the country.
Proponents of the GNU argue that the run-off between
Mugabe and
Tsvangirai would not end the current crisis. Reports suggest Zanu
PF and the
MDC were in secret talks to hammer out a GNU or a transitional
government,
but the protagonists are deeply divided on who would run the
government;
between the ageing Mugabe and former trade unionist
Tsvangirai.
The MDC said it wants an inclusive government minus
Mugabe, while Zanu
PF insists that the run-off should go ahead and
thereafter a GNU could be
formed.
"The question of government
of national unity becomes legitimate after
the run-off so it is at that
stage that whoever wins can discuss the GNU,"
Mugabe's chief presidential
election agent Emmerson Mnangagwa said recently.
Losing independent
presidential candidate Simba Makoni has been one of
the leading voices in
Zimbabwe calling for a GNU.
"We need to establish an authority that
will take care of business up
until we are able to run an election with a
sound body that has respect from
all the political players as well as civic
society.
"That authority should be allowed to run for five years
before the
elections are held. We believe that by then things will be in
their rightful
order," Makoni told a media conference in the capital last
week.
Voters who spoke to the Zimbabwe Independent this week said
both
options - the GNU and the run-off - should be exploited in the quest to
secure a solution to the country's biting problems.
Some argued
that the run-off was the best way to deal with the crisis,
while others said
the poll would be an extra expense that will not resolve
anything.
Takura Zhangazha, a media and political analyst, said
the results of
the March 29 presidential election should be the determining
factor of who
should lead the GNU if it was to be established.
"One thing that has to be taken into consideration is that the people
of
Zimbabwe made their stance clear on March 29," Zhangazha said. "Anyone
mooting a government of national unity has to be guided by the outcome of
that election because it is representative of what the people of Zimbabwe
want."
Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe, but failed to win the legal
majority to
assume the presidency.
"There is no unity
government that can be founded now besides one
whose foundation is on the
outcome of March 29 elections," Zhangazha said.
He added that
should Zimbabwe be condemned to the run-off as announced
by the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC), there was need to put an
immediate end alleged
state-sponsored violence against opposition
supporters.
"There
is a lot of election manipulation by Zanu PF," Zhangazha said.
"Violence and
torture is being unleashed on the people with impunity. The
environment at
the moment bodes ill for a free and fair election. It cannot
produce a
result that is in line with the wishes and aspirations of the
people of
Zimbabwe," Zhangazha said.
Admire Zaya of the Build a Better Youth
Zimbabwe said that the recent
wave of political violence and intimidation of
MDC supporters made the
environment unsuitable for an election.
He said dialogue towards a GNU was the best way of dealing with the
standoff
in the country.
"The unity government is the answer as it will have
representation
from both ends of the political divide, thus having the
brains that will
come together and tackle the problems facing the country,"
Zaya said. "It is
not about individuals, but the people of Zimbabwe. The
election is a costly
exercise and I think it might not achieve the intended
results as there
would be bickering as to whether the winner did win in a
free and fair
manner, and that will drag on while the national economy
continues to
shrink."
Richard Mashave, a businessman in central
Harare, said a run-off would
enable Zimbabweans to elect a leader of their
choice as compared to the
"boardroom pacts" which were being
proposed.
"If the run-off is held in a free, fair, and transparent
manner, it
has the potential of enabling Zimbabweans the chance to choose a
leader who
will be able to deal with the current economic problems," Mashave
said.
"That leader whom people will choose on June 27 has the potential to
lead us
to the normalisation of the situation if those that have been
defeated
accept it and support him."
Lameck Magura, a general
hand at a Harare shop, said there was no need
for a run-off at the moment,
but said there was need for Mugabe to accept
defeat at the hands of
Tsvangirai and leave office.
"When people lose in an election, they
have to accept that they lost
and the nation moves forward," Magura said.
"His party does not lose
anything given that they will also be in
parliament."
Phillip Makwevera predicted there could be problems on
who will lead
the GNU if the run-off was to be avoided.
"Both
Zanu PF and the MDC want to lead the government of national
unity,"
Makwevera said. "They will not give in easily to the demands of the
other.
The best way to deal with this standoff is to go through an election
to
prove who of the two candidates is more popular and has the potential of
helping Zimbabwe out of the doldrums."
A Mbare resident, George
Chibamu, was also of the view that there was
need for a GNU.
"The people of Zimbabwe are starving at the moment as Zanu PF and the
MDC
continue with bickering as to who should lead or who won the elections,"
he
said. "In order to cut down on the same problem after the run-off, I
believe
it is better to have a government of national unity that will take
on board
all the players because they will all be working for the betterment
of
Zimbabwe."
By Nkululeko Sibanda
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 05 June 2008 22:02
ELLEN Makusha* is no better
than the average Zimbabwean. She is poor,
downtrodden, depressed and
underpaid.
She is also very bitter. Makusha, a teacher,
does not remember the
last time she bought a new dress for herself. What she
does remember is
buying a pair of school socks two months ago for her
14-year-old son,
Brian - a student at Alan Wilson High School in
Harare.
"I don't recall the last time my salary was ever enough to
buy
anything after bus fare," Makusha said in her classroom at a school in
central Harare. "I struggled to buy Brian's pair of socks early this year
and those socks almost exhausted my entire salary. Clothes are not our
priority at the moment."
Makusha said she felt rage every time
teachers got a salary increment
and the prices of commodities and services
skyrocketed.
"It hurts so much that every time we get a pay
increase, everything
goes up. It is almost as if no one wants teachers to
survive," she said. "I
eat meat on average once a month."
Makusha's fate is tied to that of another 90 000 teachers currently in
Zimbabwe. But then teachers are not the only ones getting a raw deal in an
economy where goods are hardly found in shops and where inflation is the
highest in the world.
Zimbabweans are now reeling from the
effects of very high inflation
which government has failed to rein in over
the years.
Even more depressing for most has been President Robert
Mugabe
attempting to be re-elected when he takes on MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai
in the
presidential run-off election to be held in three weeks.
"What can he do for us that he failed to do over the past 28 years?"
an
emotional Makusha asked, as rage quickly filled her up at the mention of
the
84 year-old leader. "Is it fair for us to suffer because of his ego? Is
it
too much to ask for a better life?"
Mugabe lost the first round of
polls to Tsvangirai who however failed
to clinch the majority needed to make
him president. Tsvangirai garnered
47,9% of the vote while Mugabe secured
43,2%.
Before the elections, the majority of Zimbabweans were in
agreement
that it was impossible for Mugabe to emerge victorious in the
elections
given the record inflation that existed at the time. Inflation for
March
stood at 355 000%.
"Nowhere in the world has a government
won elections on the back of
hyperinflation," said one industrialist just
before the elections.
Mugabe hung on by a thread after Tsvangirai
fell short by just 2,1
percentage points of the vote to become
president.
Mugabe launched his presidential campaign a fortnight
ago but it was
empty of pragmatic solutions to deal with the economic crisis
which has put
Zimbabwe in the economic history books. The theme is "100%
Empowerment,
Total Independence."
The speech concentrated on
the usual rhetoric of sanctions and Western
interference in Zimbabwe's
affairs. Mugabe regurgitated the same message
that Zimbabwe would never be a
colony again and told supporters that
reactionary elements had been waiting
in the wings to reverse the gains of
Independence.
His silence
on the economy was deafening.
University of Zimbabwe political
analyst Brian Ngwenya said
Zimbabweans could not help but noticing how
ineffectual Mugabe and Zanu PF
had become.
"The effectiveness
of their ideology is tantamount to sweeping back
water with a broom," said
Ngwenya. "People don't eat ideology and they are
realising that Zanu PF is
not about bread and butter issues."
Ngwenya said Mugabe had lost in
traditional Zanu PF strongholds
because of inflation.
"It is
not an understatement to say the economy has become his
greatest enemy,"
Ngwenya said. "What is even worse is how Mugabe and his
party deliberately
and conveniently choose to ignore the fact. The March 29
elections, however,
showed us that even rural people are feeling the pinch
of the economic
crisis."
MDC deputy secretary-general Tapiwa Mashakada said it had
become
obvious that both Mugabe and Zanu PF had no tangible solutions to
deal with
inflation.
"He has never campaigned on issues and
inflation has been a major
setback," Mashakada said. "As the MDC, we have
lost count on how fast we are
surpassing world records on inflation. Zanu PF
is now left with propaganda,
which the people have long come to realise is
worthless talk."
The crisis gripping Zimbabwe for the past 10 years
has intensified of
late. Production across all sectors - manufacturing,
mining and
agriculture - is at an all-time low.
A defiant
parallel market has outsmarted Mugabe's administration
despite liberal
measures introduced six weeks ago to eliminate it. The
Zimbabwean dollar has
fared badly against all major currencies since the
Reserve Bank floated the
exchange rate.
Amid all this chaos, inflation has inflicted the
most damage on an
already battered economy.
Even spirited
efforts by central bank governor Gideon Gono to fight
inflation have borne
no fruit.
Instead, Gono has found himself under attack for his
interventions
geared at saving the economy. Such interventions which have
seen a huge
increase in money supply growth have been labelled
inflationary.
In a bid to save face, government has been stifling
inflation figures
since January. The last official inflation figures were
100 540%.
Figures for February inflation were 165 000%, while for
March they
were 355 000%. Inflation rose again in April to 732 604% and then
1 694 000%
in May. The Central Statistical Office has however not confirmed
March to
May figures.
"Inflation now poses the greatest threat
to Mugabe's stay in power,"
economist John Robertson said. "We are in a very
serious decline right now
and over the next 23 days, things will get much
worse. This, together with
the violent campaign, will only strengthen the
resolve of people to boot him
out."
The consumer basket
recently shot up to $25 billion a month according
to the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe. But most employees in the country are
currently earning below $20
billion a month.
Those with school-going children like Makusha face
an even more
difficult situation. Levies for most public schools have gone
up with
surveys carried out around Harare
showing that schools were
demanding
between $30 billion to $135 billion for the second
term.
"It means most employees in the country can't afford to send
their
children to school," Robertson said. "Most have two or three children
and it
means forfeiting six months to a year's salary just to pay for
levies. What
of other expenses?"
Robertson said the biggest
impediment to foreign currency inflows had
not been sanctions but the
failure by Mugabe's government to pay its debts.
"Worldwide, it is
good banking practice not to lend money to someone
who does not pay you
back," Robertson said. "If you borrow, you should pay
back. Banks don't lend
to defaulters."
Despite such conditions, Mugabe's defeat at the
elections is not
guaranteed amidst fears the elections will not be free and
fair. For
Makusha, it is not a question of imperialism or Zimbabwe being a
colony
again.
"I just want to reclaim my respect. I just want
to feed my family and
not worry about rising prices," she said.
*Not her real name.
By Kuda Chikwanda
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:59
THE fragile Zimbabwe dollar this week
crashed to a record $1 billion
against the US dollar as it become apparent
that the new foreign currency
liberalisation regime had failed to stabilise
the local currency.
Six weeks have passed since the Reserve
Bank floated the exchange rate
under the willing buyer, willing seller
twinning arrangement.
This week all four foreign exchange markets
were trading at above $1
billion dollars for one US dollar, as demand far
outstripped supply in the
foreign exchange-starved market.
The
four markets are the Old Mutual Implied Rate (OMIR), the official
interbank,
the cash parallel market and Real Time Gross Settlement System
(RTGS).
The OMIR rate closed Tuesday at $1 746 899 809 after
having opened
trading at Monday's rate of $967 480 942.
The
OMIR rate is used by some companies to do business transactions
and track
the true value of the Zimbabwean dollar.
The rate surged even
further on Wednesday when it rose to an
unprecedented high of $3,9 billion
before registering a slight decline to
close at $3 047 030 834 last night.
It is expected to surge next week.
The official interbank rate
surpassed a billion dollars yesterday with
most banks trading slightly above
the mark. ABC Bank was trading at $1,1
billion for the US dollar while ZABG
and Standard Chartered were just over
$1 billion.
A handful of
banks were trading at slightly below the $1 billion mark
by midday yesterday
but were poised to exceed the barrier by close of day.
Kingdom Bank
was buying the greenback at $995 million and selling at
$1 099 000 000 while
Stanbic was buying at $990 million and selling at $992
million.
The two thriving parallel markets could not be matched by the
interbank
system and still held its lead throughout the week.
On the cash
parallel market, dealers were buying the US dollar at
rates between $1,1
billion and $1,2 billion yesterday.
Parallel market dealers on the
RTGS market were buying the US dollar
at $1,8 billion
yesterday.
The RTGS rate for Tuesday was $1,2 billion before rising
to Wednesday's
rate of $1,6 billion.
Analysts and economists
warned that the spectacular crash of the
dollar would be an acid test for
Governor Gideon Gono who is likely to face
a backlash from fiscal
authorities ahead of the presidential runoff election
pitting President
Robert Mugabe against the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mugabe,
desperately seeking to win after tasting defeat on March 29,
has been
attacking businesses for rising prices. He has accused companies of
running
a regime change agenda. Mugabe has promised to unleash a second
price blitz
akin to the one which left most companies tottering on the brink
of collapse
in July last year.
Most companies are yet to recover from the
impact of that blitz which
left most shops empty.
For their
part companies have complained that they are unable to
access foreign
currency from banks.
They insisted that despite the liberalisation
the market is still
facing a serious shortage of foreign
currency.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president
Callisto Jokonya
told businessdigest three weeks ago that companies were
failing to access
foreign currency from banks.
Banks are not
selling their foreign currency. Even in cases that they
sell it is difficult
for most companies to get a share of the foreign
currency.
On
the other hand, the National Incomes and Pricing Commission
believes
industry has been receiving foreign currency from the banking
system but is
still hiking prices. NIPC chairman, Godwills Masimirembwa, is
on record
accusing industry of "betrayal".
This has raised questions in
government and industry circles as to
where the foreign currency traded in
the interbank system is going.
Furthermore, some senior government officials
are keen to understand why the
rate has been
rising rapidly when
companies are failing to access the currency.
Three weeks ago five
cabinet ministers met and discussed the impact
the interbank rate was having
on rising prices. They resolved that the
floating of the local currency was
inflationary.
"The problem is that you sell foreign currency to a
bank and they don't
allow you to buy it when you need it," University of
Zimbabwe business
lecturer Professor Tony Hawkins said.
Hawkins
said the failure to sell foreign currency to companies by the
banks would
worsen the situation. The shortages will become worse, Hawkins
said. "It is
more like running on the spot," Hawkins said.
"It is pointless.
There has to be some flexibility in the system and
this has to be augmented
by Gono stopping the printing of money. As long as
he prints money, demand
for scarce foreign currency will be high."
Meanwhile analysts have
warned that the issuance of agro-cheques which
are now dispensed at most
banks could increase liquidity on the
cash-oriented parallel market
resulting in a further downward spiral of the
dollar.
The RBZ
this week reviewed the "special cash withdrawal limit" for
farmers to $200
billion from $100 billion.
While the move is ideally prudent under
the hyperinflationary
environment, the central bank's policies have often
been used feed illegal
transactions in the underworld.
The
interbank rate has drawn criticism from some government quarters
for causing
the rise in prices. Some government officials are understood to
be
clamouring for a command type of economy characterised by a fixed
exchange
rate mechanism and price controls.
"The liberalisation of the new
foreign exchange regime could soon be
compromised because of this surge,"
said one analyst.
"Gono might face criticism from his authorities
because of the ripple
inflationary effects of the weakening
dollar."
By Kuda Chikwanda/Bernard Mpofu
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:55
"IT'S too late to stop
the parallel market," said Naison Chikara as he
struggled to stuff a bundle
of Zimbabwean dollars into his pocket.
Chikara's statement
might sound too optimistic but it reflects the
attitude among those that
trade foreign currency on the black market on the
streets of
Harare.
These traders have every reason to believe that their
"industry" is
here to stay even though the monetary authorities thought they
had fixed the
black market by liberalising the foreign currency exchange
three months ago.
"We will continue to push the rate until they
(central bank) realise
that it's unsustainable," Chikara said.
As the rate continues to gallop there is now a belief in the market
that
this liberalisation might not last after all.
An analysis of the
operations of the central bank since 2003 lends
credence to this belief that
the market is far from stabilising.
So many foreign exchange
policies have been tried but all of them have
failed. Some have been
withdrawn before they could be implemented. To track
this policy changes one
has to look a governor Gideon Gono's tenure in
office since December
2003.
His tenure at the central bank has been characterised by
uncertainty
on the foreign currency market.
With each monetary
policy, the market has come to expect a raft of new
foreign currency
policies.
Gono set up semi-weekly RBZ-controlled auctions soon
after assuming
office.
These auctions, he said, would
determine
the official exchange rate which had been pegged at $824 to
the US
dollar in February 2003.
The rate quickly moved to $4
196 to the greenback on January 12 to end
the year at $5 730 to the US
dollar through the auctions, slightly trailing
the parallel market which
ended the year at $6 000 for the US dollar.
The year 2005 was to be
an entirely different year as the Zimbabwe
dollar would tumble heavily
against major currencies. The rate moved to $6
200 in March and then $9 000
for the US dollar in May. The parallel market
surged to $14 000 and then to
$20 000 against the US dollar in respective
periods. In the same year, Gono
devalued the dollar to $10 800 to the
greenback on July 18.
He
then changed it to $17 600 on July 25, before pushing it down to
$24 500 on
August 25. The dollar was to be devalued three more times in
2005, starting
in September when it moved to $26 003, to $60 000 in November
and finally to
$84 588 in December.
That did not seem to work as the parallel
market continued to race
ahead. On July 18 it was $25 000, then $45 000 on
August 25, $75 000 in
September, $90 000 in November and closing the year at
$96 000 in December.
Gono then discontinued the RBZ currency
auctions in November 2005 and
announced that market factors would determine
the exchange rate.
Gono at that time said there were some players
who were abusing and
tinkering with the auction floor systems. But even he
had to accept that the
auctions had been quite successful, despite removing
them.
The foreign currency generated in the first quarter of 2004
using the
auction system surpassed the total inflows registered in 2003.
Over US$192,9
million was raised through the first quarter
auctions.
On January 3, 2006, the dollar was again devalued to $85
158: US$1. It
moved to $99 201,58 on January 24 and then to $101 195,54 on
April 28 where
it was to stay until July 31.
The parallel
market continued to gallop to reach $550 000 on July 27.
After the
revaluation exercise on August 1, 2006, in which three zeros were
lopped off
the dollar, the exchange rate was moved to $250 to the US dollar
where it
was to stay until August 2007.
However, a special rate of $15 000
was applied for miners, farmers,
NGOs, embassies and Zimbabweans living
abroad. Meanwhile the parallel market
continued to race further ahead of the
official market.
It rose from $550 to the US dollar on August 1,
2006 to $1 500 on
October 12. It then shot up to $3 200 on January 11, 2007
and on April 1, it
stood at $30 000. But it was not until June 2007 that the
real madness began
on the parallel market, coinciding with government's
price blitz. On June 3
US$1 was worth $55 000. Twenty days later, it took
$400 000 to buy the
greenback.
The dollar was devalued again in
September 2007 to $30 000 against the
US dollar. On April 30 Gono decided to
do what the market had been advising
him for four years and let the dollar
float. Thrilled at the prospect of
eliminating the parallel market, Gono's
optimism was unfettered.
"Given the centrality of foreign exchange
in the economy," Gono said,
"its pricing has to take into account the need
to incentivise all its
generators to remain viable, whilst at the same time
minimizing the intended
adverse consequences on the vulnerable segments of
society."
He introduced the Priority Focused Foreign Currency
Twinning
Arrangement, which allowed the exchange rate to float at market
forces.
The interbank rate started on a high, eclipsing the
parallel market in
the first week as it paid between $165 million and $185
million against
parallel market dealer rates of $120 million for the US
dollar.
For the first time since Gono removed the auction system,
it appeared
the public's confidence in the official system was slowly
returning. Then
the tables started turning. The parallel market is back on
top. There are
now fears that Gono might change policies again. Gono did not
mention a time
frame for how long the current situation would prevail. He
simply said the
pricing framework would respond to "contemporary
developments" in the
economy. Six weeks later, the interbank rate is now $1
billion while the
parallel market was paying $1,1 billion for the US
dollar.
There are no signs of the rate stabilising and economists
contend that
the rate could very well be above $2 billion by June 27. Now
the question on
everyone's mind is whether Gono's move to liberalise the
exchange rate wasn't
"too little, too late".
University of
Zimbabwe business lecturer, Professor Anthony Hawkins,
said Gono had failed
to respond to the crisis in time. "He took too long to
address the crisis,"
Hawkins said.
"The crisis has reached unmanageable levels now.
While giving him
credit for making the move to liberalise the exchange rate
since it was a
move towards rationality, his decision should have been made
a long time
ago."
Another Harare economist, John Robertson said
the crisis was now
frightening and that at the present rate of devaluation,
the Zimbabwean
dollar would trade with the US dollar above $2 billion by the
end of the
month.
The new interbank rate has resulted in rising
prices across the board;
some have even called it a legalisation of the
parallel market.
The rising prices have attracted the anger of
Mugabe who said it was a
regime change agenda. Five cabinet ministers met a
month ago and blasted the
interbank rate for resulting in huge surges in
prices and inflation.
Hawkins said all this, coupled with the huge
increases in money supply
growth, would never result in a stabilisation of
the Zimbabwean dollar.
"Unless he stops printing money, we will not
get anywhere," Hawkins
said.
"Whether he will remove the
interbank rate, I can't say. Only time
will tell."
Gono is
still insisting that the interbank market is there to stay. In
an interview
last week Gono said he was not planning any policy changes
anytime
soon.
"There is no going back on the new policy. Its there to stay.
We are
however aware that there are some people who are trying to manipulate
the
system. We will deal with that soon," said Gono.
By Bernard
Mpofu/Kuda Chikwanda
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:52
THE movement of the
exchange rate on the black market and its ability
to withstand pressure from
the banks clearly shows that it could be a long
time before this market
dies.
Over the past two months the black market has become
more adaptable
and stronger. The parallel market has in fact set the rate at
which banks
are buying the foreign currency.
But what really
makes market strong?
Perhaps the answer to this is found in the
origin of this problem:
shortages. The country is not producing much foreign
currency because the
key sectors like agriculture and mining have been
destroyed by government
policies.
The black market is driven by
the shortages of foreign currency in the
formal market. These shortages have
not disappeared because the foreign
currency exchange policies have been
liberalised.
Analysts said the black market will continue to exist
for as long as
there is a shortage in the market.
A visit to
most of the parallel market trading places in the city
indicates a sudden
increase in business despite the fact that the foreign
currency trading was
liberalised.
The sellers are drawn to this market by the need to
make a living and
the higher returns that the business offers. The buyers
are drawn to this
market by the need to sustain their businesses which are
not considered to
be on the priority list of the central bank.
There is also the issue of convenience.
Whereas banks are only
allowed to buy US$150 from an individual per
day the parallel market dealers
don't have a limit.
Nelia Rugare who normally receives money from
her brother in the
United Kingdom said she stopped changing her foreign
currency with banks
after she was told she could only get her Zimdollars
through transfer.
"Banks offer lower rates and there is no room for
negotiation. After
standing in a queue for hours they will offer to transfer
the money in your
account," said Rugare.
Her dealings with the
parallel market are simple.
"All I have to do is phone them and
they will come. Besides when the
days are bad I can negotiate a good
rate."
John Robertson, an independent economic analyst, said as
inflation
continues to rise people become desperate to lay their hands on
more stable
currencies.
"A lot of people are facing
difficulties, only a few people have and
are being allocated the foreign
currency. People in desperate need of
foreign currency are black in the
parallel market," said Robertson.
"The parallel market is doing
quite well; it is still functioning and
is as active as it was before the
changes. It's a function of supply and
demand. The market is still
short."
Even those that are on the priority list are failing to get
the
foreign currency because there just isn't enough to go round, said
Robertson.
He said some retailers who deal with strategic goods
are not included
in the priority list such that they do not have a choice
but to go to the
parallel market.
"Black market dealers are
agents of companies which fail to get
foreign currency through the banking
system probably because their reasons
do not warrant them to be on the
priority list."
"These guys operate from everywhere, offices,
streets or even use
their cars as offices. It is now a form of employment
for some people,
especially for those who have access to foreign currency.
They are not only
trading in foreign currency but are involved in all sorts
of dealings
including fuel."
The other advantage is that anyone
who has the courage and ability can
be a parallel market dealer as long as
one can handle the arithmetic that
needs to be done.
The
biggest problem at the moment is that the banks are buying but
they are not
selling to the market. This means that this is a one way
market. They are
buying the foreign currency to keep instead of selling.
The result
is an upsurge in the parallel market which has been left to
fill the gaps
left by the banks.
"Complete eradication of the parallel market
will not come in easily
because of a number of factors that are attached to
the formal system. The
market is a one way market and is characterised by
declining confidence and
lack of trust," Chinyama said.
Already
confidence in the interbank market is beginning to wane.
"People
are not comfortable being asked questions, the long queues and
timing are
not providing a good environment to do their transactions,"
Chinyama
said.
The corruption includes some bank officials who beat the
banking
system to supply the dealers with trillions of dollars to trade on
the
parallel market.
"Dealers are fed by individuals because
they offer convenience," said
the analyst.
"One does not have
to leave his office or home to change his money.
Companies and NGOs even
sell their hard currency through the black market
because it offers
more."
Brains Muchemwa, an analyst with Genesis Investment Bank,
said the
depreciation of the exchange rate reflects the excess liquidity in
the
economy as well as increasing demand for foreign currency as some
previously
suppressed sectors of the economy can afford to justify economic
pricing of
goods and services.
"The exchange rate is probably
always in equilibrium everyday, and it
is important to understand that it's
a moving equilibrium emanating from the
behavioral equilibrium exchange rate
approach reflecting supply and demand
dynamics in the economy," Muchemwa
said.
By Jeslyn Dendere
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:49
SINCE the floatation of
exchange rate by the Reserve Bank four weeks
ago, the Zimbabwe dollar has
experienced its highest level of volatility
yet. The Zimbabwean dollar is
now trading at a rate of a billion dollars to
the
greenback.
The fragile dollar has been sliding by almost
20% daily.
Analysts are predicting that the is will be worth at
least $2,5
billion:US$1 well before the presidential election run-off set
for June 27.
The significant acceleration of exchange rates beyond
the
psychological $1 billion mark has been viewed as symptomatic of an
imploding
economy, which has resulted in widespread shortages of basic
commodities and
galloping inflation.
As at Tuesday June 3,
Money Transfer traders were trading at £1:$2,25
billion for UK money
transfers as MTAs stepped up the pressure of an
interbank market which seems
to be losing steam to a resurgent parallel
market.
The
floatation of the exchange rate by the central bank has received
mixed
reviews.
Based on the rapid and unstable movement of exchange rate
on the
parallel market and the interbank market, economic pressures may
result in
the floatation policy being reviewed.
It does not
look like the parallel market will disappear anytime soon.
Events over the
past two months have clearly shown that the black market
might be here to
stay. At least that is what the rate movement is showing.
Against
all odds, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) is trading on an
unprecedented
high. The stock market has been on a sustained bull run for
the last couple
of weeks.
The highly inflationary nature of election monetary
expansion has been
responsible for the sustained movement of share prices on
the local bourse.
The huge leap in the inflation figures has also been a
factor.
The latest inflation figure 1 694 000% revealed in last
week's edition
of this paper clearly shows that inflation is galloping at an
unprecedented
level.
The rise in the inflation figures has been
attributed to increased
money supply by the central bank's injection of huge
and unsustainable
amounts of local currency in circulation to fund patronage
activities ahead
of the June 27 presidential run-off.
With the
inflation rate almost incalculable and available only on the
'black market',
the challenge is to determine whether the gains on the ZSE
are worth
anything in real terms.
The fundamentals have not changed. The ZSE
besides reflecting an
inflationary asset bubble has been driven by negative
rate of returns in
other asset classes.
The bull-run has been
sustained and sometimes ferocious. Both the
industrial and the mining index
are in record territory. On Tuesday, the
industrial index was up 23,4% to
close at a record breaking 310 300 211
311,57 points, whilst the mining
index was up 17,9% to 348 748 098 866,06
points.
At the current
levels, the indexing of both indices has become as
meaningless as the value
of the Zimbabwe dollar against major trading
currencies. Regardless, with a
daily turnover of $3 170 067,21 billion, the
ZSE is undeniably the current
epicenter of economic activity in Harare.
Making sense out of a
chaotic market is not an easy task. On a basic
level however, the current
rally on the Zimbabwean stock market reflects
excessive liquidity on the
money market, depressed interest rates and
hyperinflation. All these have
historically favoured the equities market.
This has resulted in a
mania market in which prices are rising as fast
as in a fundamentally sound
and coherent bull market. The greater difficulty
is separating good counters
from the 'dogs' and employing stock valuation
methods which reflect the net
value of a portfolio beyond the inflation
bubble. There is however a couple
of cherries left for the picking.
In a chaotic market, the
temptation to invest in counters trading
higher inspite of weak fundamentals
is high. Although this strategy can be
profitable for speculative investors,
it is hardly appropriate for long-term
positions.
An economic
turnaround will benefit investors brave enough to take
strategic long-term
positions (at present, any position beyond 30 days is
considered long term).
The recommendation is for investors to go short on
speculative counters
whilst going long on counters with strong fundamentals.
Here are some of our
top five long-term picks and why?
Innscor has been one of the best
performers on the ZSE in the last
couple of years. Last year, the company
declared a healthy dividend whenever
it made a profit. The company is
considered a cash-cow based on its strong
retail network.
Innscor is well diversified in terms of product range and branch
network.
The company has regional operations in a number of African
countries earning
significant sums of foreign currency. The company's
crocodile division is
also a major foreign currency earner. Innscor's
balance sheet strength will
allow the company to continue with its
acquisitive growth. The earnings
potential of Innscor is phenomenal. For
those reasons Innscor is a long
-term BUY.
Old Mutual is one of the traditional defensive stocks
and currency
hedges. It is considered the bedrock of any portfolio
construction. At $2,2
billion a share, our 'mutual friend' does not come
cheap. For diaspora
investors interested in a firewall against the
depreciation of the
Zimbabwean Dollar, Old Mutual shares are the choice
pick. Old Mutual is a
fungible counter that can move up if there is an
exchange rate movement
allowing it to trade at parity levels with regional
and international share
prices. The counter leads the top 10 counters by
Annual Value traded.
It is one of the most underrated counters on
the ZSE. It earned the
reputation of a diversified conglomerate well before
the establishment of
KMAL. TA is a fully-fledged investment company with a
wide selection of
well-managed business activities both locally and
regionally. TA is rated
10th on the ZSE in terms of capitalisation and has
continued to deliver
shareholder value.
This is a star
performer on the mining index, currently ranked 11th on
the ZSE in terms of
capitalisation. The mining concern's diamond project
should generate
significant foreign currency inflows for the company. The
company will
benefit from a continued devaluation of the local currency
against major
currencies. Mining and other export counters are set to be the
major
beneficiaries of the floatation of exchange rates by the central bank.
Despite previous operational challenges and the shortage of spare parts, Rio
Zim is expected to emerge as one of the top 10 performers in this
year.
The diversified conglomerate KMAL is the current king of the
pack in
terms of performance to date. The company born out of a merger of
Kingdom
Financial Holdings, Meikles Africa, Tanganda and Cotton Printers is
perhaps
a successful commercial experiment in maximising value from odds and
ends.
It brings in together a Bank, a tea company and a hotel
chain.
Under the leadership of entrepreneur, Nigel Chanakira, KMAL
is driven
by a young and ambitious management team. The KMAL share price has
so far
delivered huge returns to investors. It is expected that the company
will
close the year as the top performer on the ZSE.
lLance
Mambondiani is an Investment Executive at Coronation Financial
Plc, an
International Financial Advisory company registered in the UK
trading in
Southern Africa and the United Kingdom. He can be contacted at
coronation.uk@btinternet.comThis
e-mail address is being protected from
spambots, you need JavaScript enabled
to view it .
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:28
THE comments made by
First Lady Grace Mugabe in Shamva and reproduced
in last week's Independent
(May 30-June 5) are a disgrace.
Whenever Grace speaks at
rallies, she makes an effort to insult
voters.
We hope her
comments that Mugabe will never leave State House are just
part of bedroom
talk between herself and "baba" that should not have been
made
public.
Does Grace know the purpose of elections? No, first what
does she know
about politics?
If Grace is interested in
politics she should have found a
constituency, campaigned there and we would
have seen how she would have
fared. Grace could learn a thing or two from
politicians such as Joice
Mujuru.
Grace must not try and
determine the results of the elections before
we have cast our ballots less
she is accused of trying to rig the poll in
favour of "baba".
Being in State House is not a lifetime award. It is a priviledge
bestowed by
the electorate on the candidate they want. This is something
that Grace
appears not to have grasped from the few years that she has been
in State
House courtesy of the President.
Grace is doing a bad job already
as First Lady. Look at the number of
children living on the streets. What
became of that Iron Mask project of
hers for orphans? We hope the orphans
were not an excuse to chase off the
white owners. As if that is not enough,
she has a handful of her own teenage
children in need of motherly love. Not
a loose cannon making a fool of
herself. Mugabe must be embarrassed by this.
No wonder ZBC edited out her
remarks from the newsclip.
Please
amai, your petticoat is showing!
By Taona Donzvo who writes from
Harare.
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:04
THE odds look stacked
against MDC's presidential candidate Morgan
Tsvangirai. All the resources of
the state are mounted against him.
Losing the presidential
run-off to President Robert Mugabe would
probably rule out any chance of him
occupying the highest office in the near
future.
Victory will
prove elusive unless he does more to galvanise his
campaign than he has done
to date.
The police have played their part by refusing to authorise
rallies
despite the assurances made in the inter-party talks and the
subsequent
amendment of Posa.
Mugabe garnered 43,2% of the vote
compared to 47,9% won by Tsvangirai
in the first round ballot on March
29.
But last week's shrill declaration by Mugabe's wife, Grace,
confirmed
the fears that every Zimbabwean now holds.
"Even if
people vote for the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai will never step
foot inside State
House," she declared in Shamva last week.
"He will only get to hear
about what it looks like inside State House
from people who have been there.
Even if Baba (Mugabe) loses, he will only
leave State House to make way for
someone from Zanu PF."
There have been conflicting statements from
Mugabe's government over
whether he would willingly give up power in the
event of defeat next month.
Addressing journalists in Kwekwe last
month, Mnangagwa said Mugabe
would respect the will of voters if they end
his 28-year rule in the
run-off.
"If the president loses, he
will be the first one to go on national
television to acknowledge the result
to the people," Mnangagwa said,
although he added that the 84-year-old
leader and Zanu PF were confident
they would win the second round of
voting.
"We are very, very confident we will win this election,"
Mnangagwa
said.
"We have lost before. In February 2000, we lost
and accepted defeat.
If the President loses, we will be the first to accept
the verdict of the
people. He is a very principled hero."
Mnangagwa added: "You can see how mature we are. Once ZEC (Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission) announces the result and the President has lost, I am
the chief election agent, I will go to him and say, 'Mr President you have
lost', straight. We brought democracy. We must defend it."
Besides Grace's pronouncement, Army Chief of Staff Major General
Martin
Chedondo at the weekend called on soldiers to rally behind Mugabe
during the
run-off.
"The constitution says the country should be protected by
voting and
in the June 27 presidential election run-off pitting our defence
chief
Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T, we should,
therefore,
stand behind our commander-in-chief.
"Soldiers are
not apolitical. Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have
signed and agreed
to fight and protect the ruling party's principles of
defending the
revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove
that
uniform."
Chedondo said the run-off presented Zimbabweans with a
chance to
either protect the country's revolution and heritage or sell out
to the
British and the American imperialists by voting for
Tsvangirai.
Political analysts said Grace and Chedondo's statements
were testimony
that Mugabe would not accept defeat and the army may use
extra-judicial
means to guarantee the octogenarian leader's continued stay
in power.
The analysts said the failure by Mugabe and his cabinet
to censure
service chiefs who have vowed that they would not salute
Tsvangirai if he
wins indicated that the Zanu PF leader and his government
supported their
stance.
Zimbabwe Defence Forces chief General
Constantine Chiwenga, Police
Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, Prisons
Commissioner retired
Major-General Paradzayi Zimondi, Chedondo and
Brigadier-General David
Sigauke have said they would not accept Tsvangirai
if he wins.
Under the Police Act, Defence Act and the Prisons Act,
police
officers, soldiers and wardens must be apolitical, but the government
is yet
to take disciplinary measures against the service chiefs who have
made
public their allegiance to Mugabe and Zanu PF.
That the
army should be apolitical was confirmed to the Zimbabwe
Independent last
month by Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) spokesperson Major
Alphios
Makotore.
Makotore said: "As clearly spelt out in the Defence Act,
the ZNA is an
apolitical army which should never be used to further
political aspirations
of any individual political party."
National Constitutional Assembly chairperson Lovemore Madhuku said
Mugabe
would not accept defeat and was likely to hold on to the results or
force
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to do so.
Madhuku argued
that such a declaration would be followed by a hastily
arranged
inauguration, enabling Mugabe to crack down on the opposition and
other
dissenting voices.
"It is very unlikely that he will accept
defeat," Madhuku said
recently at an event to mark Africa Day. "June 27
might actually be the
beginning of a long struggle, it will be difficult for
the regime to accept
defeat."
Political scientist Michael Mhike
said Grace's utterances revealed
that Mugabe could cling to power even if he
loses heavily to Tsvangirai.
"I don't see how Mugabe will leave
office if you go by Grace's
pronouncement," Mhike said. "Grace simply said
her husband will remain in
power by hook or by crook. How Mugabe will do it
is up to the hardliners in
Zanu PF and the government."
Last
month, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said
there were
fears of a coup in Zimbabwe because senior military commanders
have been
instrumental in preventing a democratic transition following the
March 29
elections.
"There is growing risk of a coup either before a run-off
(in a
pre-emptive move to deny Tsvangirai victory) or after a Tsvangirai
win," the
ICG said.
"Indeed, this is one reason why priority
should be given to a
negotiated settlement ahead of a run-off. The mediation
must accordingly
address the loyalty of the security services as a priority,
including the
handover of military power in a transitional government
arrangement."
Bulawayo Agenda executive director Gordon Moyo said
Mugabe and Zanu PF
were now addicted to power and would hold on despite the
outcome of the
run-off.
"I am very cautious about whether they
will let it go and hand over
power," Moyo said. "They will not allow the
process of democracy to go
through . . . there is a team of people at the
top that has benefited from
the system and cannot give up."
The
coup theory gathered momentum in Zimbabwe after it was reported
that the
army was running the government soon after the March 29 elections,
but the
government dismissed it.
Information and Publicity minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said the army
would not fight against Zimbabweans because
it was established to protect
them".
"I believe everyone in the
country is aware that there is no military
junta. The soldiers are in the
barracks where they belong because the
country does not fully require their
services in such a peaceful
environment," Ndlovu said.
By
Constantine Chimakure
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 05 June 2008 20:21
WHEN Joram Nyathi (Candid
Comment, Zimbabwe Independent, May 23)
suggested that it was pointless to
vote in the June 27 presidential election
run-off I thought he was suffering
from the same syndrome that has afflicted
many "learned" Zimbabweans -
analysing issues too much instead of just
getting on with it and
concentrating on the bigger picture.
In his hard-hitting
commentary, Nyathi urged Zimbabweans to boycott an
election he thought was
only aimed at fulfilling the "hollow pleasures of
only two
men".
Nyathi argues that if Robert Mugabe had heeded calls for
reforms
within his own Zanu PF party by standing down and letting others
take over
Zanu PF and its presidential candidate would have won the March 29
election
comfortably.
Similarly, if the MDC had gone into this
election as a united front
with a clear agenda they would also have beaten
Mugabe and Zanu PF hands
down.
As it turns out, it is the poor
Zimbabwean who is now paying the price
in this unnecessary and expensive
runoff.
While Nyathi's argument is convincing, the more pragmatic
among us
thought this was not the time for political point
scoring.
With the way the standards of living have fallen in
Zimbabwe, with
inflation over 1 000 000% and falling, surely the last thing
anyone is
looking for is perfection in our political parties.
The MDC had done very well to win the House of Assembly, and with
Tsvangirai
commanding a very comfortable lead in the first round, the second
round
would simply remove all vestiges of Zanu PF's legacy of
maladministration
and incompetence.
The realisation that Mugabe wasn't invincible
after all was further
strengthened when the two formations of the MDC
announced that they would
back Tsvangirai in the runoff and would also vote
together in parliament.
Whatever problems we might have had with
the squabbling factions of
the MDC, we thought it was more important to show
Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe
the exit door and soon after begin the process of
rebuilding Zimbabwe.
Calls for boycotting the elections were
therefore misplaced and would
not solve anything, but help to further
condemn Zimbabweans to more
suffering.
But everything came
crumbling down with the announcement that the two
formations of the MDC had
decided to field separate candidates in the three
by-elections to be held at
the same time as the presidential run-off.
The MDC-T grouping even
fielded two candidates in one constituency.
Everyone knows that the
reason why the MDC did not win more seats in
parliament and also why
Tsvangirai failed to get the required majority was
because of the split
votes.
Most of the over 8% of the votes attributed to the other
presidential
aspirant Simba Makoni were actually disgruntled potential MDC
voters who
were fed up with the squabbling and apparent lack of direction
within the
opposition.
At the very least, one would have
expected that they had learnt their
lesson and, given another chance, they
would do things differently.
It is interesting to note that while
the MDC candidates were filing
their papers, Morgan Tsvangirai was
addressing an MDC parliamentary caucus
meeting where he laid out an
impressive recovery agenda for the country.
But when viewed against
the latest developments, Tsvangirai's speech
appears hollow and does nothing
to inspire a sizeable number of people who
have continued to question his
leadership abilities.
For sure Zanu PF belongs to the dustbin of
Zimbabwean history, but if
the MDC cannot agree on the allocation of a few
parliamentary seats what
hope do we have that they would be different from
Zanu PF?
The results of the first round showed that people no
longer buy the
warped, skewed and nauseating Zanu PF anti-Western
propaganda.
But the MDC should begin to earn their own respect from
people,
instead of just relying on the anti-Zanu PF sentiment currently
prevailing.
Unless changes are made in the run-up to the run-off, I
believe it is
testing people's patience too much to continue asking them to
vote for the
MDC without questioning some of the decisions.
Under the circumstances, one is forced to accept Nyathi's view that
this
run-off is unnecessary and would not change anything, whatever the
outcome.
The only people who will profit from it are
politicians who think of
their careers and political profiles ahead of the
lives of the people they
purport to care about.
*Taivo writes
from the UK.
Zim Independent
Comment
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:24
IT is
becoming increasingly clear the looming presidential election
run-off will
be a monumental charade. By every measure at the moment it is
as plain as a
pikestaff that the election will be a farce.
It will
probably be the biggest sham poll since Independence in 1980.
There
has been a rapid dramatic change in the objective conditions on
the ground
since the controversial March elections which shocked President
Robert
Mugabe and his now vanquished Zanu PF. The situation remains in a
state of
flux three weeks before the run-off and it can only get worse.
In
his do-or-die battle for political survival, Mugabe is lashing out
in every
direction. All the state instruments of coercion at his command
have been
mobilised and deployed to prevent his looming Waterloo. There is a
covert
but brutal military campaign for him going on.
Thus political
repression is fast rising. Opposition leaders and
supporters, civil society
activists, diplomats, journalists and ordinary
dissenters have been arrested
on a massive scale. This entrenched pattern of
repression is aimed at
creating a climate of fear before the critical
run-off.
On
Wednesday, repression intensified after opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested in Lupane on
his campaign
trail in the south-western region. Prior to that he had been
blocked on
Tuesday from holding rallies in the same region that has become
the main
opposition stronghold.
Any opposition leader who currently wants to
win an election has to
carry with him the region where Mugabe is always a
write-off before every
poll. Mugabe only manages to pick up votes in
Matabeleland due to the lack
of strategy and division in the opposition
ranks, otherwise he would be a
spectacular disaster all the time.
Tsvangirai's rallies are being
systematically blocked to prevent him from
campaigning. Mugabe is laying the
ground to grab victory by fair means or
foul. This is one election which
Tsvangirai can only win through sacrifice,
although it is his to win or
lose.
It is self-evident what
Mugabe and his diehard military backers are
planning. If Tsvangirai and his
advisors - some of whom are clearly
misleading him for narrow political and
economic interests - can't see this,
then we have another big problem,
besides the Mugabe tragedy.
The trouble with the Tsvangirai
campaign this time round - as opposed
to the period before the March
elections - is that it has been totally
hijacked by a retinue of ghostly
manipulators, including money-grubbers
holed up in the posh suburbs of
Johannesburg, while alienating his main
pillars of support and eroding the
local support base. This has weakened his
rally to victory - hitherto
clearly within reach in view of his historic
advantage in this first
poll.
Can anyone explain convincingly why there is no united front
or a
broad-based opposition movement behind Tsvangirai's current campaign
when it
is obvious this would be his best insurance against violence and
fraud?
However, this is not the real problem, although it might
turn out be
in the end. Mugabe might eventually storm back to power through
a
smash-and-grab approach unwittingly aided and abetted by the opposition's
acts of commission or omission. If Tsvangirai and his allies join forces in
a serious way, Mugabe would simply be unable to win even through his warlike
strategy. The military-style tactics cannot overwhelm people's irresistible
power. Coordinated popular opinion and action is more powerful than the
military.
Tsvangirai shouldn't fail to capitalise on the
economic meltdown and
all the opposition forces and tools at his disposal.
So far he is not using
these tools to his advantage. The other opposition
groups and leaders are
compounding the problem. There is everywhere in the
opposition camp an
evident absence of strategy.
The only
redeeming advantage though is that there is a sea change of
popular opinion
against Mugabe because of his disastrous failures which he
can't change.
Tsvangirai on that account remains firmly on course, but needs
to win
because of himself, not despite himself. That requires a winning
formula.
The situation is exacerbated by the poisoned electoral
environment.
Political violence and systematic attempts to manipulate the
run-off outcome
will ensure the poll becomes an elaborate smokescreen of
smuggling Mugabe
back into power through the backdoor.
We would
all readily agree this is not an election at all by any
stretch of the
imagination if we knew what was going on. How can you have an
election in
which one of the candidates is not just using state resources,
but a whole
military machinery to campaign and blocking the opposition from
holding
rallies or appearing on television? Massive economic, social, and
security
resources have been marshalled and channelled to support Mugabe's
bid which
could be doomed to fail if he is left to campaign by himself.
Mugabe has done this before, especially in 1985, but the scale of this
campaign is extraordinary and frightening.
If no blood was
being spilt and the future of the country not at
stake, this would be a
compelling circus, not an election.
For Tsvangirai to win the
run-off and take over, he will definitely
need Churchillian courage and
determination. Nothing short of this will
suffice.
Zim Independent
Comment
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:21
THE move by the two
factions of the MDC to field separate candidates
in three parliamentary
by-elections to be held concurrently with the June 27
presidential election
run-off between President Robert Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai has dampened
hopes that the camps would forge a strong front
against Zanu
PF.
With about three weeks before the run-off, the two
factions failed to
demonstrate to the electorate their unity of purpose to
dump Mugabe to the
dustbin of political history by nominating different
candidates for Gwanda
South, Redcliff and Mpopoma-Pelandaba
constituencies.
This is despite the fact the two factions signed a
parliamentary pact
soon after the March 29 elections that clearly spelt out
that they would
form a coalition in the House and would work as a united
front to enhance
the oversight role of parliament.
They also
agreed that they would have a single parliamentary caucus
and chief whip to
goad the two camps' legislators into pursuing the
interests of the parties
and that of the electorate at large.
The pact came about after the
two factions together won 109 seats in
the House of Assembly against Zanu
PF's 97 - ending the ruling party's 28
years control of parliament. The deal
was also spurred by the realisation
that the factions' failure to unite
before the March 29 elections had cost
Tsvangirai an outright presidential
victory against Mugabe.
The Arthur Mutambara-led faction backed
independent presidential
hopeful Simba Makoni who won 8,3% of the
presidential votes cast. If Makoni's
votes had gone to Tsvangirai, the
opposition leader would have garnered
56,2% votes - more than the legal
requirement to assume the presidency.
Last Friday, at the close of
nomination courts, the two formations of
the MDC once again chose to
advertise to the electorate their differences
and not their unity of purpose
to confront the Zanu PF colossus
While the electorate hoped that
the two factions would field a single
candidate in each of the three
constituencies, Mpopoma-Pelandaba, Gwanda
South and Redcliff, the camps
decided to go their separate ways and
nominated different candidates. The
fielding of different candidates has
very little to do with the quest for
democratisation. It is generally
instructed by irreconcilable disagreements
between certain leaders in the
two formations, which has nothing to do with
the expectations of the
electorate.
The nomination of different
candidates put into question the level of
cooperation between the two
factions and gave weight to assertions that
Mutambara and Tsvangirai signed
the parliamentary pact in South Africa
without having consulted their party
structures.
The pact seems to have no blessings from party organs
and had little
effect on the level of cooperation between the factions on
elections. This
was confirmed by Mutambara camp's secretary-general Welshman
Ncube.
Ncube at the weekend ruled out the possibility of the
factions
fielding single candidates in the near future arguing that the
factions were
separate and would remain separate entities. He said there was
"never an
agreement on parliamentary candidates".
The failure
by the factions to field single candidates may prove
costly to them in the
by-elections. It is crystal clear that this decision
would result in vote
splitting between the two MDC factions - a move that
may benefit Zanu PF,
which desperately needs to win the three seats at
stake.
On the
other hand, the combined MDC may lose the opportunity to
increase its
numbers in the House of Assembly. Politics is a game of numbers
and the
factions should have taken that into serious consideration before
the
nomination courts sat last Friday. It remains unclear how the factions
would
coordinate and run Tsvangirai's run-off campaign having failed to come
to an
understanding on a simple issue of parliamentary candidates.
A
presidential election, especially against a crafty politician like
Mugabe,
needs a united opposition that pulls in one direction, but it seems
the two
MDC factions are still buried in mediaeval politics of bickering.
This does
not inspire any confidence that the two formations can co-operate
meaningfully in parliament. The three by-elections presented a good
opportunity for the two formations to test-run their co-operation and
cohesion. This opportunity has been sacrificed on the altar of selfish
political brinksmanship.
To add to the embarrassing state of
our opposition, Simba Makoni of
the Mavambo project is still undecided about
whether to support Tsvangirai
or not in the run-off. What is he waiting for?
This is the nature of our
opposition; fragmentation and procrastination
while the backyard is burning.
Zim Independent
Comment
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:08
INCERITY
and sanctimony are familiar tunes played by the United
Nations. This week
some 40 heads of state and government gathered in Rome
for a three-day
conference to discuss the worsening global food crisis.
The
core business of the summit -to find ways to produce more food for
the ever
growing number of mouths to feed - was superseded by rude irony.
It
came in the form of President Mugabe whose land reform programme is
credited
with the current food shortages in the country. Zimbabwe, once
self-sufficient in food production is now donor-dependent.
While the European Union has banned Mugabe, the UN has not. Therefore
Mugabe
this week had his place in the sun - deep in enemy territory, albeit
to
fight a battle he can't win.
From the day Mugabe arrived on
Tuesday, European leaders and even
Third World diplomats regarded him
ominously, declaring that they would not
shake his hand or talk to him.
Press reports from Rome said Mugabe's name
was missing from the list of
heads of state who were invited to a dinner
hosted by the Italian government
and United Nations secretary- general Ban
Ki-moon.
Mugabe
exercised his right to address the summit and produced his
usual soporific
monologue crafted to situate himself as a victim of Western
conspiracies
designed to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. Even the current
food
shortages in Zimbabwe have their roots in the grand plan by Britain and
the
United States to remove the Zanu PF government, according to
Mugabe.
He has become a parody of himself. But he still wants to be
regarded
as a hero in Western capitals because he has been there before. In
the 1980s
they celebrated him as a liberator, a thinker and a champion of
social
progress. In 1988 Mugabe was named as winner of a prize given to
African
leaders who had worked to increase food production and end hunger.
The prize
was awarded by the Hunger Project, a New York-based international
philanthropic organisation committed to fighting world hunger.
Then Mugabe basked in the international limelight. The citation read
on the
day he was awarded the prize described Zimbabwe as "the agricultural
success
story'' of Africa. In praise of Zimbabwe's self-sufficiency in food
production, the citation said Mugabe's agricultural programmes ''pointed the
way not only for Zimbabwe but for the entire African
continent''.
The Hunger Project said the prize was intended to call
attention to
the largely unnoticed efforts of Africans who are making a
contribution to
the fight against hunger. At a banquet held in his honour at
the New York
Hilton Hotel, Mugabe credited his country's agricultural
successes to the
resettlement programme which his government had embarked on
after
Independence in 1980.
''The struggle against hunger and
malnutrition is also a function of
democracy,'' Mugabe said. "Under majority
rule, Zimbabwe had reversed a
situation where deprivation and hunger existed
side by side with affluence
and opulence."
He said the rural
resettlement programme had succeeded by bringing ''the
peasant and the small
landholder into the cash economy on terms and
conditions favourably
comparable to those of the large-scale commercial
farmer''.
Ideally Mugabe should have gone to Rome this week as senior statesman
who
had walked the path of success in food security. His word on food
security
would have been law as a leader who had led Zimbabwe to be a great
African
success in producing food. Twenty years ago, the world listened when
Mugabe
spoke on food security.
The country had full silos, abundant and
affordable food in
supermarkets and we exported grain to the region. But
Mugabe today has to
fight for recognition. His resettlement programme is
universally regarded as
a disaster. Yet he still expects to get the kudos
even without food on the
shelves and the country surviving on imports from
Malawi and Zambia and
handouts from donor states.
When our dear
leader spoke in Rome this week his was a diatribe
ringing with bitterness
and exhibiting stunning disengagement with the
situation on the ground.
Mugabe still believes that the failed policy on
farming can still return
this country to the prosperity of 20 years ago.
In Rome he
presented the inventory of goodies his government has
dished out to farmers
in the hope of spurring productivity. There are more
goodies in the pipeline
for the farmers and predictably more pressure on the
fiscus to import maize
and wheat.
Last week in Victoria Falls at the Chamber of Mines AGM,
one speaker,
Ray Gowera, drove home the point through choice punch lines
like "purposeful
social systems are capable of recreating their future. They
do so by
redesigning themselves".
He added: "Designers seek to
choose rather than predict the future."
To this end he surmised: "A bumper
harvest is not predicted, it is planned.
A country which wants to achieve a
bumper harvest must find a way to control
water and not rely on rain." well
said
Zim Independent
Comment
Thursday, 05 June 2008 20:17
IT is untenable that more
that four-fifths of Zimbabwe's employable
population is without formal
sector employment, that a third of its adult
Zimbabweans live beyond
Zimbabwe's borders in order to generate a livelihood
for themselves, their
families and other dependants, and that less than 1%
of the population is
possessed of any ownership of businesses or other
economic enterprises, in
whole or in part, exclusive of informal sector
operations.
This unsatisfactory circumstance is
exacerbated by the fact that
Zimbabwe has very immense potential wealth. Its
land was proven, over more
than a century, to be extraordinarily fertile, if
properly cared for and
effectively worked.
So great was that
fertility that Zimbabwe sustained not only its own
people, but was also the
breadbasket for the region. Zimbabwe was the world's
second largest producer
of quality tobacco, a major exporter of prime beef,
renowned for its citrus
exports, a substantive supplier of diverse
horticultural products to the
European Union in general, and to the United
Kingdom in
particular.
All these were but a few of the vast array of the
top-of-the-market
agricultural products that Zimbabwe's lands yielded for
many decades.
But agriculture is but one of the remarkable sources
of potential
Zimbabwean wealth. Beneath its outstandingly fertile soils lies
a plethora
of very great mineral wealth, but Zimbabwe has barely resorted to
exploiting
that wealth reservoir. Zimbabwe could rapidly become the world's
greatest
producer of quality platinum, with ore reserves markedly greater
than those
remaining in South Africa.
It could meet the
entirety of Southern Africa's energy needs for many,
many years by viable
exploitation of vast methane gas fields. It could be
amongst the world's
major producers of gold, gemstone diamonds, nickel, and
of many other
precious, semi-precious, and base minerals and metals.
Zimbabwe has
a remarkable tourism resource, ranging from the unique
magnificence and
splendour of Victoria Falls, the thrills and excitements of
Hwange,
Matusadona, Ghonerazou and other wildlife national parks, the mystic
of
Great Zimbabwe, the sombre and spellbinding beauty of Matopos, the scenic
radiance of Lake Kariba, Nyanga, Vumba and Chimanimani, and much, much else.
But the extent of exploitation of this tourism richness is minimal, as
compared to the potential.
Despite the distressed economic
circumstances of Zimbabwe since
nevertheless Zimbabwe still has the
secondmost developed industrial
infrastructure in the region, albeit fast
ageing, and weakened by the
magnitude of the brain drain and, therefore, of
the loss of the skills
necessary to operate that industrialised
infrastructure to best advantage,
and also weakened by the rapidly
collapsing state-controlled energy, water,
and allied
resources.
And, if all Zimbabwe's agricultural, mining, tourism and
manufacturing
resources were exploited to maximum advantage, by the economic
empowerment
of the very many with the latent skills and abilities, then
other economic
sectors, including the distributive, financial and services
sectors, would
also develop and grow very considerably, yielding yet further
many
opportunities of economic empowerment for Zimbabwe's
populace.
With these circumstances, none can credibly challenge
government's
espoused intent to ensure economic empowerment for the
Zimbabwean people.
That intent has been declared by government
recurrently since
Independence in April 1980, but for much of that period
not only did
government do nothing to turn its declared intent into reality,
but
government also so destroyed and undermined the economy and its
potential
that instead of an economic empowerment enabling environment being
created,
naught but obstacles and hurdles to that empowerment were
created.
Finally, in 2000, government made first moves towards
indigenous
economic empowerment, but did so in a devastatingly disastrous,
counterproductive and damaging manner. It embarked upon an unjust,
foolhardy, self-edifying and self-enriching land reform
programme.
It brought to near total destruction the near-totality
of agriculture,
which was the very foundation of the economy, but
effectively empowered very
few.
In theory, Zimbabwe now has
about 300 000 indigenous farmers, but over
20 million hectares of fertile
lands are not worked, most of those new
farmers are non-producers, and in
the process Zimbabwe has not only lost its
wealth of skilled
agriculturalists, but it has also demonstrated to the
world its disregard
for property rights, and thereby demotivated potential
investment into
Zimbabwe, and provoked the withholding of loans and lines of
credit.
It also irrefutably evidenced to the world its
inability to honour its
own commitments, for many of the lands that it
expropriated were lands which
had been purchased by farmers since
Independence under governmental
Certificates of No Interest.
Having failed dismally to achieve successful indigenous agricultural
economic empowerment, government turned its attention to the other economic
sectors.
It bulldozed through parliament and the senate, in
September/October
2007, the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act,
although almost five
months then elapsed before it received presidential
assent. Then, presumably
in anticipation of the forthcoming presidential
run-off election, the
effective date of the Act was
promulgated.
All of this was accompanied by great rhetoric from the
President, many
of his ministers, and other Zanu PF hierarchy, that the
economically
unempowered would soon benefit by wealth transferral to them
from those
presently economically empowered in general, and from foreigners
in
particular.
The result has been to bring to a near total end
both Foreign Direct
Investment, and domestic investment, concurrently with
intensified
withholding of international lines of credit and
loans.
None should challenge endeavours to achieve indigenous
economic
empowerment, provided it occurs justly and equitably, without
national
economic prejudice, by government and others achieving this by
facilitation
and enablement, but not by expropriation and economic
oppression and
deprivation.
Constructive indigenisation is
meritorious and nationally
advantageous; expropriative and enforced
indigenisation will be a further
nail in Zimbabwe's economic coffin, already
substantially nailed by the
destruction of agriculture, the disregard for
human rights, contempt for law
and order, lip-service but non-adherence to
fundamental principles of
democracy, and alienation of most of the
international community.
Government must belatedly see the light,
and place national needs
ahead of its own.
Zim Independent
Comment
Thursday, 05 June 2008 20:08
IT'S
not often these days that Zimbabwe's First Couple get to travel
to a
European capital, so the invitation from the FAO to attend its world
summit
on food security must have come like manna from heaven.
Rome in
early summer is bliss, especially for the faithful. But
anybody who attacks
the Western media as often and as virulently as
President Mugabe must expect
some scrutiny from the same media when basking
in the comfort of the
five-star Ambasciatore Hotel. The BBC reported as
follows:
"While Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has tried to keep a low profile thus
far, he
and his entourage have finally emerged into the spotlight from the
five-star
Ambasciatore, one of Rome's finest hotels. The restaurant
reputedly serves
up the very best of Italian cuisine and the wine-cellar is
stocked to meet
the requirements of the most discerning palates. But
whatever Mr Mugabe and
his hand-picked delegation are enjoying, there is no
doubt that for the next
few days they will be living the sort of life the
average Zimbabwean can
only dream of.
"His companions are acutely aware of how this looks.
One member of
staff at the hotel, who did not want to be named, claims the
delegation have
even brought their own food and chef. He claimed a row had
broken out over
the cost of a cup of tea though neither the hotel nor the
delegation would
confirm the staff member's comments.
"The
European Union has a longstanding travel ban on the veteran
leader but he is
allowed to attend UN summits. The Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the
United Nations that is hosting the summit said all
member countries were
invited and that it is at the discretion of each
member state who they
decide to send. In an interview with the BBC, FAO
director-general Jacque
Diouf refused to be drawn on whether Mr Mugabe's
presence here might be
unhelpful. But Britain's International Development
secretary Douglas
Alexander did not pull his punches. He labelled Mr Mugabe's
presence 'highly
inappropriate'. 'This is a UN meeting taking place on UN
premises', Mr
Alexander said.
"'But I think we must state unequivocally that we
don't see Mugabe as
gaining any legitimacy from attending this meeting when
four million of his
people require food aid as a direct consequence of his
profound misrule of
the country'."
Then there was the
matter of the dinner party that Zimbabwe's leader
was not invited
to.
Reuters reported as follows: "The Italian and UN hosts of a UN
crisis
summit on rising food prices on Monday left the presidents of
Zimbabwe and
Iran off the guest list of a ceremonial dinner for the leaders
attending the
meeting.
"And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his first
visit to Western Europe as
Iranian president, made sure of a frosty welcome
by offending Israel on the
eve of his departure.
"Neither was
named on the list of guests for the official dinner being
given on Tuesday
by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and UN
Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon for the heads of state attending the June 3-5
summit, Italian media
reported.
"Western ministers said Mugabe was responsible for the
food shortages
faced by millions in Zimbabwe's shattered economy. 'We will
not allow the
millions of people who can no longer afford a normal meal to
be held hostage
by Mugabe', said Dutch Development Minister Bert
Koenders.
"Alexander said four million Zimbabweans had to rely on
food aid
because of Mugabe's policies. 'This is not a man with any
credibility or any
contribution to a discussion on international food', he
said."
Perhaps Mugabe will bring some Italian food back with him.
Muckraker
would be happy with a packet of crisps.
Necessity
is the mother of invention, it is said, and the state media
is certainly
full of inventions these days. On Sunday the Sunday Mail
carried a story
claiming that senior MDC officials had been recruiting young
Zimbabweans in
South Africa who are being deployed to cause terror in
Zimbabwe.
"Some of the youths are recruited from universities
in South Africa
while others are Zimbabwe National Army deserters and former
policemen," the
paper told us without attributing the story to anybody in
particular.
Have these desertions been confirmed by the ZNA? Apart
from the
"terror campaign", the youths had been deployed to hold
demonstrations
outside the Zimbabwe embassy in Pretoria and to attack
Zimbabweans in South
Africa in the hope of forcing them to come back to
Zimbabwe and vote in the
June 27 presidential run-off, the paper claimed
without explaining how they
would be able to do that if they were not
registered voters.
Some are quartered at a farm outside Pretoria
while a second group was
based on a farm near Pietermaritzburg where they
are being trained by former
Rhodesian Selous Scouts, the Sunday Mail
said.
A "government source" said the xenophobic attacks being
carried out in
South Africa against Zimbabweans were designed to put
pressure on President
Thabo Mbeki to take "a tough stance against
Zimbabwe".
We are not told who the government source was
disseminating such
pernicious disinformation but further down in the story
we have George
Charamba "confirming" that government had received reports on
the existence
of the underground structures which were being
investigated.
"Unfortunately for them (MDC)," Charamba declared,
"the whole
operation misfired, degrading it into indiscriminate and
gratuitous violence
against all and sundry including South Africans.Our
security structures are
working hand-in-glove (sic) with their counterparts
in South Africa and we
are expecting results very soon," Charamba told the
Sunday Mail.
Does anybody recall the story last March about MDC
youths being
trained on South African farms that fell apart in court because
the state
had no evidence to support it?
This looks
suspiciously like a warmed-up version of that story. But
will the South
Africans want to be implicated in Zanu PF's dubious
inventions, especially
now that every self-respecting politician down there
has dismissed the
"Third Force" claims?
Irrespective of the absence of evidence,
fables continue to be
manufactured by the ruling party's propaganda machine.
And the facts are not
allowed to get in the way of a good
story.
For instance on Sunday Tafataona Mahoso wrote about a US
ambassador
coming to consult with James McGee.
"The Herald
newspaper did well on May 28 when it alerted the nation to
the meetings
being held in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, meetings
being convened
by two US ambassadors (James McGee and Patrick Kelly Diskin)
and the UK
ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Andrew Pocock."
The Herald had written a
story about Diskin, who it said was US
ambassador to South Africa, "sneaking
into Zimbabwe" via the Plumtree border
post to hold talks with McGee. The
British ambassador was also implicated.
In fact Diskin turned out
to be a senior USAid official coming to
consult on food
requirements.
So Mahoso, who claims to preside over ethical conduct
in the media,
congratulated the Herald on a false story! He then proceeded
to ignore the
US embassy statement that Diskin was not ambassador to South
Africa, carried
in the Herald the following day, and wrote his entire
African Focus ramble
on the basis of this error.
It is now
quite self-evidently government policy to refuse to correct
mistakes. For
instance on Monday the Herald slipped into its anchor story on
President
Mwanawasa a paragraph saying: "In a letter dated April 3 2008,
written to
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, (British prime minister Gordon)
Brown
revealed that he was lobbying Sadc to pressure the government and have
the
Security Council impose sanctions on Zimbabwe vindicating the view that
Mr
Mwanawasa had been compromised."
Only if the story was true in the
first place. But as we now know the
Herald published a letter from the
British Embassy on April 18 pointing out
that the so-called letter from
Brown was a clumsy forgery. And by the way,
it was purported to have been
written on April 9, not April 3.
Still, the Herald wasn't going to
let the facts get in the way of its
role as a suborned mouthpiece of
President Mugabe's election campaign.
As Mugabe's predicament
becomes more precarious with each passing day,
so the stories become more
deceitful. Please can the Media Monitoring
Project keep a record of these
fabrications so we can one day hold those
responsible for such brazen
breaches of media ethics accountable. Does
anybody remember reports of the
bombing of tall buildings and anthrax?
Meanwhile, ZEC is asleep on
the job. Clause 12 of the amended
Electoral Act empowers the Commission to
regulate the conduct of the news
media in relation to elections. Public
broadcasters are obliged to afford
parties and candidates free access to
their services. The media should be
"reasonably fair, impartial and
restrained in their reporting of elections",
the Act says.
Is
that the situation at present? Is the official media fair and
impartial?
Muckraker is having difficulty fathoming the
thinking of a party whose
armed thugs beat up 86-year-old women and set
livestock alight. Are these
losers or what?
We now have senior
security officers competing to see who can most
loudly betray their
constitutional obligations and professionalism. Why are
they so unsure of
the political loyalties of their subordinates that they
have to make crude
threats against them? Can't they be trusted to vote
wisely?
It's as if a wave of insecurity is engulfing Mugabe's closest
associates -
those who want him to stay even though he has nothing to offer.
Can you
imagine asking voters to endorse more inflation, more shortages,
more
hardship, and more poverty? Because that's what's coming in the event
of
another term.
The ruling party's organ, The Voice, says Morgan
Tsvangirai's address
to MDC supporters last weekend was "badly written and
riddled with
astonishing grammatical errors".
If that was the
case it needs to be exposed. But is this the same
newspaper that brought us
"Who will win road race in his owner?" - referring
to an event to "honour"
the memory of Simon Muzenda.
Then there was "ambassadors are
expected to act in accordance with
certain principals" (sic) which appeared
on the front page of the May 25
edition.
We can't imagine the
president would want his remarks about principles
misrepresented by his own
party's paper!
This week's award for the most preposterous
statement comes from Zanu
PF Bulawayo provincial chairman McLeod Tshawe who
supplied this gem at the
launch in Bulawayo of Mugabe's run-off campaign and
Zanu PF's
Pelandaba-Mpopoma by-election campaign: "Before 2000 there was no
hunger,
but when we took our land our former oppressors started sabotaging
us,"
Tshawe said. "The truth is that even with seven years of sanctions our
economy is still faring better than most countries in the Third
World."
Thanks for that McLeod. We all had a good chuckle. Do you
think for
one minute that the people of Bulawayo will swallow this
nonsense?
A strong contender for the award this week was
Information minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu who said: "I assure you that when
parliament opens I will
be taking my place in
the august House to
defend Zimbabwe together with President Mugabe."
He said MP meant
Man of the People. Let's see what the people really
think. It will also be
interesting to see what difference those seven
computers handed out to local
schools made in the campaign. Also the
distribution of mealie-meal "ward by
ward".
By the way what was Dr Sylvester Maunganidze, a director in
the
Ministry of Information, doing
at a party political event of
this sort?
And congratulations to the MDC - both wings - for
prejudicing the
democratic hopes of the nation and being of material
assistance to Zanu PF
by failing to field agreed candidates in the three
by-elections to be held
on June 27.
You have once again risen
to the occasion!
Zim Independent
Letters
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:13
WHO says the Herald does not report Zanu
PF failures? It does. The
only difference is that they celebrate them as
successes! How else can you
explain the following report from the Herald
issue of May 29?
"Stakeholders in the agricultural sector,
among them farmers and
Agritex officials, have welcomed Zesa Holdings' move
to introduce a
load-shedding schedule which they say would enhance
productivity during this
year's winter wheat farming season."
So farmers are over the moon because Zesa is failing to deliver? What
an
insult! To make it even sweeter, the Herald says the unavailability of
electricity will do what the "war-vets" failed to do: increase agricultural
production.
Bhekimpilo Calvin Sibanda,
bhekimpilocalvin@yahoo.co.uk
Zim Independent
Letters
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:15
"GOVERNMENT remains
committed to empowering women and enhancing the
family unit because they are
critical in the development of the country,"
Women Affairs, Gender and
Community Development Minister, Oppah Muchinguri
has
said."
Incredible! Where does one start to critique this
speech excerpt? It
seems that government has not realised its role in
destroying the family
unit over the past 10 to 15 years?
Not by
any stretch of the imagination could government's fiscal and
monetary
interventions and their dire impact upon the economy be described
as
friendly to families. Instead the blame for the wholesale disintegration
of
families during this period can be laid at government's door.
Never
in this nation's history have such a variety of pressures been
applied to
the family unit, from parents to children, and the extended
family, across
all generations. Never have families had to bear such
unmitigated financial
and economic disenfranchisement as during the past
decade. Never have
parents had so little to offer their children by way of
education, health,
food and general quality of life. Never have children had
so little to offer
their aging rural-based parents by way of sustenance and
basic medical
attention, when it is most needed.
Government must take full
responsibility for the exodus of its
nationals for the Diaspora. In fact
Zimbabweans are now to be found on all
continents and most countries of the
globe. Why have they been so scattered?
They are in search of a better
quality of life for their families. And
sadly, Zimbabwe can no longer offer
that.
The result is an unprecedented rupture of families as one or
both
parents leave children in the custody of one parent or relatives, in
pursuit
of employment or a better income. The plan is always for the
remaining
family members to follow as soon as is practicable, but often a
reunion
never takes place. The reunion becomes a moving target as the small
single
foreign currency income is required to stretch so far that the family
reunion slips down the list of priorities.
But what happens in
the meantime is that relationships suffer from
distance and time apart and
soon are reduced to notional links, and
eventually only a financial bond
remains. Reunion, when it comes, is
delayed, strained and often results in
permanent estrangement, owing to the
lapse of time and experiences
encountered along the road to providing for
the family unit.
In
cases where both parents succeed in leaving for greener pastures,
children
are left with relatives in whose long term care they had not been
prepared
for.
The attendant psychological impact is best described by school
teachers who have had to assume a new role to assist children cope with
absentee parents and relatives who are doing their best to make the
adjustment bearable for these "Diaspora orphans".
The emotional
impact of being away from home regularly and for long
stretches of time,
renders one incapable of fully integrating into family
life for the time
that one is home. Family members feel protective of the
nuclear unit which
exists in the traveller's absence, and are resentful of
the traveller's
intrusion upon their return. The only reason they are
re-admitted is that
they have economic clout, and bring back with them basic
groceries in the
form of sugar, cooking oil, soap, salt, etc. Family values
swept aside by
the laws of demand and supply - victims of government's
management
failure!
Muchinguri also said the family constitutes the basic unit
of society
and they should be accorded the widest possible protection and
assistance.
The question is how has government travailed in pursuit of the
protection
and assistance of the family? By methodically dismantling the
very
foundations of the economy thereby removing the ability of families to
provide for themselves, as a unit? The right to raise their families in a
country that offered the best quality of life in the world has been removed;
dignity replaced with grovelling, pride with rummaging in rubbish heaps for
filthy scraps.
In fact politicians have gone a step further and
triggered the violent
attacks on families within our
borders.
FM,
Harare.
Zim Independent
Letters
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:17
IT is with a mixture of
mirth and horror that I viewed this
"damage-control" poster which the Zanu
PF propaganda machinery has vomited
up, as published in the latest Zimind
(May 30-June 5).
This follows that most virulent election
campaign poster "Behind the
Fist" that was plastered all over the country.
What a horribly violent
election manifesto which clearly shows the Mugabe
and Zanu PF mindset!
The efforts have reached farcical proportions
in an effort to justify,
or to put the "correct" perspective onto this
violent poster.
The admonitions by President Mugabe that "Such
violence is needless
and must stop forthwith" are immediately counteracted
by "Our fist is
against white imperialism". What racism and willful
promotion of the very
violence he appears to eschew!
"It is a
fist for the people of Zimbabwe". Presumably meaning the fist
that continues
its unabated assault on the poor rural folk, the most
vulnerable of people
economically and socially. By now all of us in the
urban areas will have
heard the stories of the violence visited on these
poor folk.
"Never a fist against them". In Mugabe's mind-set it definitely is
them and
us!
"Support comes from persuasion not from pugilism." Words spoken
by the
most pugnacious of men, who delights in speaking of his "Degrees in
Violence". We should also comprehend this cruel man's definition of
"persuasion". How Murambatsvina "persuaded" the people to abandon their
homes and livelihoods for instance. And how the people today are being
"persuaded" as to who they should vote for.
Every tenet of this
man's ethos lies against that of humanitarian
dignity. His only claim is
that of violence and inhumanity towards all
Zimbabweans but especially the
less priveleged in our society. Has he ever
spoken in public about
nation-building, love, togetherness,
good-neighbourliness? He is a bitter
old man and a sore loser!
Every action he and his cronies make,
everywhere they tread, every
word they speak or write casts a pall of gloom
over our nation.
Umbrage,
Harare.