The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft, Zimbabwe Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:52am BST
30/03/2007
Robert Mugabe was today facing a showdown
with his party as factions
squabbled over whether he should be their
presidential candidate next year
and rule Zimbabwe until 2013.
As Mr Mugabe headed back from a frosty and morale-sapping meeting with
African leaders in Tanzania, the powerful central committee of his Zanu-PF
regime was preparing for a turbulent session over who should lead the
country out of its current crisis.
The conflicting signals from
within Zimbabwe's political elite suggest
that Mr Mugabe, 83, will not have
it his own way - as he has since coming to
power in 1980.
Divisions
within his party have crystalised since his latest crackdown
on Morgan
Tsvangirai and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
"This
is an anxious moment for him and the meeting will be full of
tension," said
Eldred Masunungure, a senior political analyst at the
University of
Zimbabwe.
Last night, pressure mounted on Mr Mugabe when the
Southern African
Development Community appointed the South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, to
mediate in the crisis, a sign that they wanted
the region's most powerful
country to find a solution to Zimbabwe's
political and economic meltdown.
Whatever diplomatic language the
Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete
chose in public, it is believed that,
behind closed doors, African leaders
effectively told Mr Mugabe that they
could protect him no longer. Mr
Mugabe's mantra - that the West wants to
recolonise Zimbabwe - has now worn
thin even with his most dogged African
supporters.
They, like his countrymen are "sick and tired of the
endless drama
over Zimbabwe", said one African diplomat
yesterday.
The president has been impervious to Western criticism,
but has always
counted on Africa to support his excesses. Inside his party
are those who
are determined - almost at any cost - to stop him becoming
their candidate
in the 2008 presidential poll.
But whether they
have the courage to obstruct him today or wait for a
more "appropriate"
moment is unclear.
"The tension within Zanu-PF at present might
influence them to defer
the decision until later in the year," Mr
Masunungure said.
Mr Mugabe's former information minister, Jonathan
Moyo, said he
believed the central committee would delay the decision until
December. He
said it was traditional for Zanu-PF to make election decisions
at the
party's annual conference in December.
"Those in Zanu-PF
against Mugabe don't want an early split in the
party. They are trying to
manage a difficult situation and will try to
preserve some semblance of
unity in the hope of a miracle on the horizon
that Mugabe will decide to
go.
"However a lot depends on the outcome of the summit in Tanzania
and
early indications are that Mugabe would rather have that settled before
running with this [his candidacy] in the central committee.
"Even Mugabe's strongest public supporters know he has to go," Mr Moyo
said.
BBC
30 March 2007, 01:32 GMT 02:32 UK
By Peter Biles
BBC
southern Africa correspondent
Leaders of Zimbabwe's ruling
Zanu-PF are expected to meet on Friday to
decide whether President Robert
Mugabe should stand for re-election next
year.
Mr Mugabe has made
it clear he wants to remain in office
But he is under increasing
pressure from Zanu-PF factions to stand
down to end the political and
economic crisis.
On Thursday, southern African leaders agreed that
South African
President Thabo Mbeki should try to promote political dialogue
inside
Zimbabwe.
Behind the scenes, the issue everyone's
talking about is Robert
Mugabe's future.
The man who has led
Zimbabwe for nearly 27 years has never looked as
isolated as he is at
present.
Friday's meeting of Zanu-PF's Central Committee brings
together about
200 of the ruling party's most important
decision-makers.
In the knowledge that presidential elections are
likely a year from
now, there is intense lobbying going on within
Zanu-PF.
President Mugabe is desperate to hold on to power. But
he may only
have support from around a third of the membership of his
party's Central
Committee.
There are two opposing factions. One
is led by the former armed forces
commander, Solomon Mujuru, and his wife
Joyce, who is the country's
vice-president.
The other is headed
by Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former security minister.
Both sides would
like to see Mr Mugabe step aside, not least because
under his leadership,
Zimbabwe's economy is now out of control.
Leader
Friday March 30, 2007
The
Guardian
There was no evidence yesterday that Robert Mugabe realises
his time is up.
If anything, his actions confirmed that his last days in
office will be, as
his former right-hand man Jonathan Moyo said, nasty,
brutish and short. Just
before flying off to a two-day emergency summit of
African leaders convened
in Tanzania to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe, Mr
Mugabe dispatched his men
to pick up more than 60 opposition activists,
planted dynamite and
detonators at the home of one of them and accused them
of orchestrating a
wave of attacks. The Herald, Mr Mugabe's mouthpiece, said
the "rhodies" (the
white Rhodesians) were behind a wave of "opposition
terrorism". This was
textbook stuff from the man who still thinks he can
convince his neighbours
that the enemy is white imperialism.
To the
dismay of the opposition, leaders attending the South African
Development
Community (SADC) summit last night appointed Thabo Mbeki, South
Africa's
president and Mr Mugabe's old comrade in arms, to mediate in the
growing
crisis. They also called for international sanctions to be lifted.
Any
immediate hope that Zimbabwe's neighbours would keep the pressure up on
Mr
Mugabe appeared to recede. Mr Mugabe will arrive back today fortified for
the meeting of the central committee of his party, Zanu-PF. If the two
anti-Mugabe factions in the party combine they can block Mr Mugabe's plan to
extend his term to 2010, which is still formally on the agenda.
But Mr
Mugabe is a wily manipulator, and the central committee is large and
chaotic
in its proceedings. If Mr Mugabe presses for the alternative, a
fresh
election in 2008 at which he will be the candidate, he can only do so
as the
head of the party. The other way of unseating him is to call an
extraordinary congress, to push for the separation of the two functions,
party leader and candidate. The focus on the byzantine workings of Zanu-PF
reflects the widespread belief that Mr Mugabe is most likely to be ousted in
a palace coup. It is not to belittle the real sufferings of Zimbabweans to
say that the other place where the economic meltdown is being felt is inside
the air-conditioned Mercedes of the party leadership.
Their owners
must be thinking hard about their future. The much-touted plan
of a
coalition between the wing of the Zanu-PF under Joice Mujuru and Morgan
Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change must be tempting. But for
any of this to happen, Zanu-PF has first to deliver its leader's political
scalp. The time bomb of economic collapse is ticking away. Wait any longer
and a famine could break out in the drought-stricken south. The time to act
is now.
Globe and Mail, Canada
JOHN
SCHRAM
Special to Globe and Mail Update
Once again, the world has
been brutally reminded of Robert Mugabe's
pernicious hold over Zimbabwe. The
treatment of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, who was badly beaten
earlier this month and detained again this
week, and stories of police
attacks on human-rights workers have shown the
bitter results of a regime
that cares too much for power and too little for
its own people.
Some
believe Mr. Mugabe's career may at last be reaching an end, that the
collapsed economy and rivalries inside the octogenarian President's ZANU-PF
party will at last force him out. But others are skeptical: Mr. Mugabe has
weathered such political storms before, impervious to the welfare of
ordinary people, viciously repressing all opposition at home and cockily
dismissing criticism from abroad. Cynical Zimbabweans have learned to accept
Mr. Mugabe's conviction that he can rely on the viciousness of his security
forces, the traditional support of rural Zimbabweans and the uncritical
brotherhood of African leaders to bring him through unscathed.
Many
Zimbabweans look to former friends, such as Canada, for support. Should
Canadians be concerned? If so, what should we be doing? Certainly nothing
that we have tried yet has worked. With our international friends and
Commonwealth partners, we have cajoled, confronted, isolated and shamed Mr.
Mugabe, who says we can all "go hang." We have only made him more determined
to bluster ahead, at any cost to his own people.
It's easy for
Canadian ministers to issue thundering condemnations and call
for dramatic
action. But whatever applause these actions might bring in
Canada, they have
done nothing for the plight of real Zimbabweans. And
they've done nothing to
help restore democracy, the rule of law, respect for
human rights or a sound
economy.
Nor has it helped to rely on "quiet diplomacy" involving
President Thabo
Mbeki of neighbouring South African; there is palpable donor
disappointment
with his handling of Mr. Mugabe. But Mr. Mbeki knows that
uncertainty in
Zimbabwe affects all of southern Africa. He shares with most
Africans a mix
of pride and admiration for Mr. Mugabe and gratitude for
Zimbabwe's support
for the anti-apartheid struggle. He must be painfully
aware that Zimbabwe's
struggle over land ownership will ultimately spill
over into Namibia and
South Africa.
Issues of race, culture and sharp
economic disparities in one country are
formidable challenges for all. Long
years in exile and in the anti-apartheid
struggle have given Mr. Mbeki and
his colleagues good reason to distrust
white donor understanding and motives
- just as the bitter independence
struggle and its aftermath of solitudes in
Zimbabwe have given Mr. Mugabe
reason to question Western agendas. Mr.
Mbeki's pride, cautious good sense
and domestic political constituency
disincline him to be seen as kowtowing
to a white West.
A surprising
number of black Zimbabwean and South African business people,
professionals
and academics agree; they say they are prepared to wait Mr.
Mugabe out. No
matter how bad he seems outside Africa, they do not want to
see him
humiliated at the hands of former colonial capitals. Their advice to
the
rest of the world is to "cool it," to wait for the inevitability of
time, to
have confidence in the commitment and capacity of Zimbabweans.
That's not
much consolation to those who are suffering today. But there is
good reason
to hope. Despite the brain drain, there are still plenty of
people in
Zimbabwe who know how to run a country and an economy.
There are also
many in Zimbabwean civil society who have committed
themselves to getting it
right. Canadians are working quietly but helpfully
with non-governmental
groups dedicated to gender equity, community
development, governance and
capacity. The idea is to support those who will
bring about change and then
have to sustain it.
With this kind of considered support from Canada and
our like-minded
partners, those Zimbabweans who urge patience and dialogue
may well do more
for their fellow Zimbabweans than all our international
outrage has yet
accomplished.
Rather than focusing on more rant and
threat against Mr. Mugabe, or on
speculation about Zimbabwe changing for the
better on its own, Canadians and
our international friends might work harder
to encourage and support those
in Zimbabwe's business community, in
Parliament, in the judiciary and in the
professions who see that there is a
better way. We should work even harder
to encourage dialogue within Zimbabwe
by bringing together different shades
of opinion that would not otherwise
speak to each other. We have played this
role in other African countries,
and we have the credibility and clout to do
it again.
Canadians
should support Zimbabwean NGOs and civil-society groups. Against
great odds,
they are doing a remarkably courageous and effective job. The
Canadian
International Development Agency should repackage its existing
modest
funding for non-government actors into an easily identified and
flexible
"Canadian Dialogue Fund," as we did so effectively in the late
1980s in
South Africa. Our goal should be to get across a message of
dialogue, good
governance and concern for ordinary Zimbabweans.
We must continue to
speak out at the United Nations, offering action, not
just words. It is
possible for our ministers to announce positive programs
and projects, which
will do something not only for their images in Canada,
but for Zimbabweans
and our standing in Africa as well.
We will want to continue to emphasize
the New Partnership for Africa's
Development. This is an African concept
with African commitments to good
government, democracy, human rights, the
rule of law and sound economies. As
a member of the African Union, Mr.
Mugabe's government subscribes to NEPAD's
goals, at least nominally. It
misses them badly and needs to be reminded at
every turn of its failures,
but Canada has to do its part of the bargain
too, showing that good
governance does bring investment and development.
We should put our
action in Zimbabwe squarely in the midst of our Africa
agenda and strengths.
We should have a long-term Africa policy vision, well
agreed upon and
co-ordinated among departments, agencies and the Prime
Minister's Office. We
should ensure that everything we do fits into this
vision of the future, to
position Canada to be there when Zimbabwe's - and
Africa's - business,
social, professional and international potential is
realized.
Canadians will have to be patient, and realistic. We are
facilitators, not
lead actors. It will not be Canadians who will bring back
Zimbabwe's hope
and prosperity, but Zimbabweans themselves. Their country's
potential is
obvious. The rewards for persevering will be substantial, for
both Canada
and Zimbabwe.
John Schram is senior fellow with the
Queen's Centre for International
Relations in Kingston. He retired as
Canada's ambassador to Zimbabwe in
2005.
The Mercury
March 30, 2007
Edition 1
Dar Es Salaam
African leaders would rally to solve
Zimbabwe's crisis as Western countries
demanded action on President Robert
Mugabe's authoritarian rule, Tanzanian
President Jakaya Kikwete said
yesterday.
Leaders of the Southern African Development Community meeting
in Dar es
Salaam are under pressure to censure Mugabe for a police crackdown
on the
opposition that has sparked the threat of more sanctions on a country
already deep in economic crisis.
"The political and security
situation in our region at the moment requires
the attention of the summit
as a matter of urgency," Kikwete said before
closed-door discussions
began.
"There are a few hot spots that demand our attention. However
complex and
difficult they appear, none of them is impossible to solve," he
said.
The United States, joining Britain and the European Union, has said
it was
time for African leaders to get tough on Mugabe, whose police forces
briefly
detained opposition leaders for the second time in a month on
Wednesday.
"Certainly we think it's time for the African states,
specifically this
group of neighbouring states, to make clear that this kind
of behaviour from
President Mugabe is unacceptable," US State Department
spokesman Tom Casey
said.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since
independence from Britain in 1980, is
accused by critics of political abuses
and economic mismanagement. He came
under fresh attack this month after
police arrested and beat opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
activists at a Harare prayer rally.
Mugabe did not comment as he arrived at
the summit, which has also drawn
regional leaders, including President Thabo
Mbeki and Namibian President
Hifikepunye Pohamba.
Political analysts
say Zimbabwe's political crisis and rapidly shrinking
economy threaten to
destabilise the region as millions flee inflation of 1
700%, food shortages
and more than 80% unemployment.
But many analysts believe Mugabe will
escape public censure from his African
peers despite Western-led calls for
sterner action.
Though Zimbabwe was expected to dominate talks, SADC
leaders were also
likely to quiz Congolese President Joseph Kabila about
clashes between
government soldiers and forces loyal to a former rebel
leader that have
killed more than 100 people.
Congolese authorities
have issued an arrest warrant for former
vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba
who is reportedly sheltering in the South
African embassy in Kinshasa, where
he fled during last week's fierce gun and
mortar battles. - Reuters
Jamaica Gleaner
EDITORIAL
published: Friday |
March 30, 2007
Robert Mugabe, the despot of Zimbabwe, must be growing
aware that his
neighbours in southern Africa are becoming fed up with him.
They are not yet
ready to tell him openly that it is time to go, but the
writing is clearly
on the wall.
Yesterday, in the Tanzanian capital
of Dar es Salaam, the 14 leaders of the
Southern African Development
Community (SADC), including Mugabe, met in an
emergency session to discuss
what they euphemistically termed the
"prevailing political and security
situation" in the region. Read that to
mean Mugabe's crackdown on his
political opponents, particularly the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
Indeed, the day before the summit, Tsvangirai
was detained and 10 officials
of the MDC arrested, allegedly on suspicion of
involvement in bombings in
Zimbabwe. Significantly, the detention happened
just before Tsvangirai
addressed a press conference at the MDC's
headquarters in Harare. Earlier in
the month, the MDC leader was badly
beaten by police, and had to be
hospitalised, while leading a demonstration
in the Zimbabwe capital.
All this is deepening evidence that at 83,
Mugabe, formerly a hero at home
and to Africans in the diaspora, has grown
old and increasingly unhinged. In
the process, his despotism grows worse.
And in the cruellest of ironies, he
has grown into a grotesque caricature of
those he overthrew. Napoleon and
Snowball and the rest of the gang from
Animal Farm would easily recognise
themselves in Robert Mugabe.
The
shame is that we all had high hopes for Robert Mugabe, the hero of
Zimbabwe's independence war, that defeated Ian Smith's racist,
white-minority government. He was, after all, kith and kin; in his victory
we assumed in part our own liberation. But Mugabe has betrayed us. But more
important, he has betrayed through avarice, greed and a lust for power, the
people of Zimbabwe, whom he has brought to ruin. Not only the democracy for
which they fought is in ruin, but also the country's ramshackle
economy.
Mugabe sought to hide his failures behind racist sentiments,
blaming the
country's white commercial farmers and supposedly external
forces for the
plight of the Zimbabwe's black majority. Over two decades he
did not deliver
on land reform, but caused disaster by the expropriation of
white-owned
farms, taken over illegally by war veterans, so-called. Britain
had failed
to deliver on a promise to fund land reform, he
ranted.
Now, he has become a fully fledged embarrassment to all of us,
and has been
so for quite a long time. Unfortunately, his closest and most
important
neighbour, South Africa, to which over two million undocumented
Zimbabweans
have fled, tiptoed around the issue, preferring quiet diplomacy
to telling
the Zimbabwe leader that he was an emperor who had become
unclothed, even if
he was unaware of that fact.
We would have
preferred if the SADC leader had bluntly told Mugabe that it
was time to go,
making it clear that he should begin a transition ahead of
next year's
presidential election. Instead, they have appointed South
Africa's Thabo
Mbeki to facilitate a dialogue between Mugabe and his
opponents.
But
the message seems clear enough, and the good thing is that Mugabe can't
claim that those who delivered it have pink
noses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect
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Responses should be no longer than
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published.
Business Day
30 March 2007
Foreign
Staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAR
ES SALAAM - African leaders sought to hammer out a fresh approach to
Zimbabwe's crisis yesterday as President Robert Mugabe's government was hit
with new charges of widespread human rights abuses.
Last night, after
a closed emergency meeting, African leaders attending an
extraordinary
summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
appointed
President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition
in a bid
to end the crisis in Zimbabwe.
The leaders said they hoped "to
promote dialogue of the parties in Zimbabwe".
Mugabe attended the SADC
meeting but left immediately after without comment.
Tanzanian
President Jakaya Kikwete, the summit's host, said he was confident
Zimbabwe's neighbours could resolve an impasse that had spurred western
demands for action.
Mugabe spokesman George Charamba struck a defiant
note, saying the veteran
leader would tell the west to "go hang" as long as
it tried to interfere in
Zimbabwe's affairs.
Adding to a lengthening
list of accusations against Mugabe's government, the
US-based Human Rights
Watch said police were targeting ordinary Zimbabweans
suspected of backing
the opposition, doling out savage beatings to keep the
83-year-old leader's
opponents at bay.
The SADC summit comes amid pressure for a stronger
African response to
Zimbabwe's crackdown, which has raised the threat of
more western sanctions
on a country already deep in economic
crisis.
Kikwete said the situation in Zimbabwe was among those requiring
"urgent"
attention, but was not insoluble.
"However complex and
difficult they appear, none of them is impossible to
solve," he said before
the closed-door talks.
The US, with Britain and the European Union,
condemned Zimbabwean police for
detaining opposition leaders on Wednesday
for the second time in a month.
"Certainly we think it's time for the
African states, specifically this
group of neighbouring states, to make
clear that this kind of behaviour from
President Mugabe is unacceptable,"
said US state department spokesman Tom
Casey.
But Charamba
brushed aside the criticism and said Mugabe - still revered by
many as a
hero of Africa's liberation struggle - would be looking for
regional support
in the face of western pressure.
"The president is here for two basic
things - to explain the situation on
the ground and to get solidarity from
SADC in his fight against the
British," Charamba told reporters.
"He
will continue to tell the west to go hang as long as those (western)
concerns undermine the sovereignty of the country," he said, referring to
economic sanctions.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence
from Britain in 1980, is
accused by critics of political abuses and economic
mismanagement.
He came under fresh attack this month after police
arrested and allegedly
beat opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
activists at a Harare
prayer rally.
In Harare, MDC secretary-general
Tendai Biti appealed for support from SADC
leaders.
"We are fighting
against inflation, against homelessness. We hope that they
will be strong
against Mugabe and tell him he has had 27 years of
uninterrupted, peaceful
rule in Zimbabwe and should go now," he said.
The Human Rights Watch said
Zimbabwe police were victimising ordinary
citizens.
"The police have
been going door-to-door beating people up - the crackdown
has
spread.
"It is not just targeted at the opposition but also at ordinary
Zimbabweans," Human Rights Watch researcher Tiseke Kasambala told a news
conference in Johannesburg.
Mugabe, who is thought to be running into
opposition within his Zanu (PF)
party over plans to extend his rule, says
the MDC are western "stooges" and
police have accused party activists of a
terror campaign aimed at removing
him from office.
The MDC has denied
the charges. With Reuters, Sapa-AP
zimbabwejournalists.com
30th Mar 2007 00:49 GMT
By Sheila Ochi
HARARE -
The United States has accused the government of stage managing
violent
attacks on state institutions to divert world attention from the
recent
police torture of opposition leaders and supporters.
In a statement, the
US government said President Robert Mugabe appeared
determined to use
violence to retain his loosening grip on power.
This followed the
re-arresting of opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and
several of his
office staff on Wednesday by the police.
The government says recent
petrol bombings and attacks on police stations
and other institutions are
the work of opposition Movement for Democratic
Change activists.
"The
regime is attempting to blame the violence on the opposition itself.
The
international community rejects this patently false effort to blame the
victims. Robert Mugabe must stop brutalizing his people, and must allow
Zimbabweans free exercise of their democratic rights," read a statement
signed by Tom Casey, the US government deputy spokesman.
Mugabe has
been under increasing pressure after state security agents
tortured
opposition leaders following an aborted prayer meeting on March 11.
A
spate of violence has erupted since, with the opposition reporting several
abductions of senior party officials.
Several police stations have
been petrol bombed and the government blames
the opposition, accusing it of
destabilizing the country. The US called on
African leaders to pressure
Mugabe to respect basic rights and freedoms.
"It is time for Africans to
publicly call Mugabe to account for his
misrule."
Mugabe was meeting
SADC leaders in Tanzania yesterday, as concern mounted
with regional leaders
that the security situation here compromised regional
peace.
"We hold
President Mugabe responsible for the safety of these Zimbabwean
citizens and
we call on Zimbabwean authorities to investigate these attacks
and punish
those responsible. Events in Zimbabwe over the past several weeks
make clear
that the Mugabe regime is determined to preserve its power,
regardless of
the cost of its brutal tactics to the nation and people of
Zimbabwe, and
must allow Zimbabweans free exercise of their democratic
rights," read the
statement.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated
PressPublished: March 29, 2007
WASHINGTON: The U.S. State
Department said Thursday that international
pressure was the best way to
persuade Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to
end his "misguided
policies."
The statement by spokesman Sean McCormack was delivered before
word had
reached Washington that African leaders meeting in Tanzania had
decided to
appoint South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate the crisis
in
Zimbabwe.
McCormack said the United States was looking to the
Southern African
Development Community leaders for a "clear indication that
the behavior in
Zimbabwe is unacceptable."
He said the United States
was unwilling to offer suggestions as to what the
leaders should
do.
McCormack acknowledged that the choices facing SADC were difficult
"because
you certainly don't want to do anything that increases the
suffering of the
Zimbabwean people, as they are sadly the victims of the
behavior of this
regime."
The United States has charged that
Mugabe has engaged in an "all-out
campaign" to intimidate his political
opponents. Mugabe's government
maintains that the opposition is waging a
campaign of terror.
New Zimbabwe
By Jonathan Moyo
MP
Last updated: 03/30/2007 10:32:13
THE saying that when you are 40, half
of you belongs to the past, and when
you are 80 virtually all of you is past
material, best describes the
stubborn reality facing the 83-year old
President Robert Mugabe whose dream
to remain in power for life is turning
into a terrible nightmare as he finds
himself trapped between the
frustration of his rejected 2010 plan and his
hopeless 2008 re-election bid
which would leave him and Zanu PF sitting
ducks at polls should presidential
and parliamentary elections be held
together early next year.
Anyone
who listened to Mugabe's addresses at the hurriedly organised
national
assembly meetings of the Zanu PF youth and women's leagues in
Harare on
March 16 and 23 would have noticed how Mugabe came across as an
incoherent,
disoriented, rambling and tired old man who wants to remain
president for
life without any compelling national reason. Throughout his
addresses, he
was prone to incomprehensible fits of anger and outbursts.
While Mugabe's
irrational desire to remain in office for life by hook or by
crook is
unfortunate but understandable, it is utterly shocking to see that
there are
securocrats in his office who are desperate to force his
re-election bid
through foul means including using at least 14 government
ministries that
are now doing commissariat work for Mugabe. The coordination
work of these
ministries is being done by military personnel who have been
deployed in all
of the country's 59 districts and 120 constituencies to do
political work
for Mugabe as they did in 2002 as "the boys on leave" from
the
army.
Although everyone else can see that Mugabe's time has gone with the
winds,
his securocrats want to have the world to believe otherwise. They are
busy
inventing imperialist enemies for Mugabe while giving the impression
that he
remains an irreplaceable liberator and visionary whose commanding
presence
and future promise have no contemporary match.
Guided by
this dangerous view, Mugabe's securocrats were particularly keen
to use
today's Zanu PF central committee meeting to steamroll his
controversial bid
to seek re-election in March 2008. The securocrats were
hoping to whip up
political emotions at today's central committee meeting in
support of
Mugabe's ill-fated re-election bid on the back of what they are
now
dangerously labelling as "domestic terrorism" arising from the political
violence apparently instigated by the same securocrats after they bashed and
broke the limbs of some opposition politicians in police custody two weeks
ago.
The patently unlawful assaults, which were publicly supported by
Mugabe with
shocking ramifications, have unleashed a bloody chain of violent
incidents
whose origin and control has remained a mystery. However, there
are growing
indications with lots of probable causes pointing to the
securocrats in the
president's department, otherwise known as the Central
Intelligence
Organisation (CIO) that was formed by Ian Smith in Rhodesia, as
the source
of what is now being dubbed as "domestic terrorism". The
objective is to
benefit Mugabe politically through a campaign of violence
reminiscent of the
blood-letting of the land invasions in 2000 and the
dreadful Operation
Murambatsvina in 2005.
What Mugabe's securocrats
are now peddling as "domestic terrorism" with the
incompetent assistance of
poorly briefed government propagandists includes
deplorable incidents of
petrol bombings of some police stations, a passenger
train and private
residences. While government propagandists have been quick
to conclude that
these wicked incidents are perpetrated by MDC factions,
there is enough
evidence to worry any rational and objective mind about
dirty tricks through
the infiltration of opposition groups in the brutal
track record of the CIO
as a Rhodesian creation.
In order to locate the source of the so-called
"domestic terrorism" about
which a lot of nonsense has been said by Mugabe
and his propagandists since
he declared his re-election interest and in the
run-up to the Sadc
extraordinary summit in Dar es Salaam, it should be
recalled that prior to
the sporadic outbreak of the violence in question,
Mugabe had been cornered
with his political back against the wall. This was
following the rejection
by his own party of his ploy to extend his rule by
two years without facing
the electorate under his 2010 plan and also after
the fallout from his
astonishing public attacks on Vice-President Joice
Mujuru. Throughout this
episode Mugabe's mantra was that his position as
president is not vacant and
that therefore nobody else in his party should
seek it in the hope of
succeeding him.
As the political challenges
against him from his own party begun gaining
momentum following the
Goromonzi Zanu PF conference last December, and as
the national consensus
started building up with the chorus that he must
retire now, Mugabe had to
find a desperate way out. For obvious reasons, he
had to look to the
CIO.
A convenient fiction of foreign-sponsored "domestic terrorism" came
in handy
because it is the sort of stuff lifted from the arcane methods of
organisations like the CIO steeped in dirty and brutal Rhodesian roots
without any public accountability whatsoever. Many Zimbabweans still
remember only too well how the same CIO in Rhodesia used to infiltrate the
liberation movement and how it impersonated freedom fighters and abused
their guises to unleash violence worse than the current fiction of "domestic
terrorism". That Rhodesian book of dirty tricks is still there.
The
latest security ploy to win Mugabe undeserved political support has two
key
aspects which are principally designed to restore some semblance of
unity
within Zanu PF after the fiasco in Goromonzi and, more significantly
for the
intended purpose, to divert national and international attention
away from
very serious divisions rocking the ruling party to the opposition
MDC
factions and their alleged backers when at the material time and in
point of
fact neither these factions nor their alleged backers were doing
anything
that would worry even a fly.
One aspect of this ploy was to get Mugabe to
unilaterally abandon the
consultation process by the Zanu PF provincial
structures on the 2010
project as sanctioned by the party's annual
conference in Goromonzi. That
conference decided to refer the 2010 proposals
for debate and discussion by
the party's provinces after which the central
committee meeting today was
expected to take a decision on the
matter.
But all that is now water under the bridge because, in what has
become
typical of his unacceptable leadership style, Mugabe has subverted
the
provincial discussion and debates on the 2010 plan and usurped the
powers of
his party's central committee by making the decision alone with
his
securocrats and propagandists during his recent visit to Namibia where
he
dropped the 2010 plan in favour of seeking re-election in
2008.
The other aspect of the security tactic which was deployed two
weeks ago has
been to use the spoils of the now well-established
infiltration of
opposition groups to invent "domestic terrorism" out of the
blues and to
link it with the feuding MDC factions, particularly the one led
by Morgan
Tsvangirai who was yet again arrested on Wednesday under a heavy
show of
police force in what was a brazen rebuke to Sadc
leaders as they
arrived in Dar es Salaam for the landmark session on
Zimbabwe.
What
makes the claims of "domestic terrorism" too much to be believed is not
only
because the whole saga appeared heavily choreographed by the
traditional CIO
hand of classical dirty tricks perfected in Rhodesia, but
also because thus
far, not a single person has been charged with "domestic
terrorism" in a
court of law. Indeed, if there is any "domestic terrorism",
then the best
guess on its perpetrators would be the securocrats who believe
that violence
is the best platform upon which to breathe life into Mugabe's
failing
political career.
What emerges from this is that while the ranks of the
CIO do indeed have
patriotic and professional Zimbabweans who include some
well-meaning former
veterans of the liberation war committed to the
protection of the national
interest, the undeniable fact that needs urgent
attention is that the CIO
has largely remained Rhodesian and therefore
brutal in structure and
purpose.
In Rhodesia, the CIO was not
accountable to parliament, the courts or even
cabinet as it was directly and
exclusively only accountable to Prime
Minister Ian Smith. Because it has not
been restructured or reformed to meet
the constitutional demands of
independent Zimbabwe today, the only change
that the CIO has undergone is
that it now directly and exclusively reports
to Mugabe.
That is why
it is called the President's Department. Over the years since
1980, this
name has had literal consequences in terms of how the CIO has
done its work
entirely and always in the service of Mugabe's political
interests in a
personal way.
Never before since Independence have Mugabe's political and
personal
interests of remaining in power for life been as challenged from
his own
party and everyone else in and outside Zimbabwe as they are today.
The one
political weapon that Mugabe is using in his fight against everyone
else is
his CIO. The nation faces an unprecedented risk of economic and
political
disaster if this opprobrium is allowed to
continue.
Professor Moyo is independent MP for Tsholotsho. This
article was originally
published in the Zimbabwe Independent. He can be
contacted on:
moyoz@mweb.co.zw
ABC Radio, Australia
This is a transcript from AM. The program is
broadcast around Australia at
08:00 on ABC Local Radio.
AM - Friday, 30 March , 2007
08:16:00
Reporter: Andrew Geoghegan
TONY EASTLEY: Zimbabwe's Opposition
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai looks to be
headed on a collision course with
Robert Mugabe and his security forces.
Mr Tsvangirai who was detained
earlier this week and then released after
riot police raided his party's
headquarters, says he will continue his
political activities despite threats
of further beatings.
He's been speaking to the ABC's Africa Correspondent
Andrew Geoghegan.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: My staff ... our staff is going to
... they went back
again to the police station at which they were brutalised
and a number of
them have been brutalised.
One of our senior members,
Ian Makone, could not even be brought before the
court today because I think
he was suffering severe bruising. But about 70,
about 75 people were
arrested last night.
ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Have they been charged with
anything?
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: No, they've never been charged. I don't
think that you
can charge anybody for being in the office. And there's no
basis for any
charge because there was nothing they found enough ... of
course, they were
trying to pretend that they found explosives and all those
kinds of things
which is a lie.
ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Well, yes Robert
Mugabe's security forces are saying that
the Opposition is waging a campaign
of terror against the government.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: No, no, no. We have
never embarked, planned or supported
any act of violence against the
government.
It is a government which has embarked on a serious campaign
of violence
against the Opposition and do you know that for the last
seven-and-a-half
years, this Government has been embarking every time or
preceding an
election on a series of attacks against MDC (Movement for
Democratic Change)
leaders.
And this is a pattern we see as a way of
intimidating people before the
election next year.
ANDREW GEOGHEGAN:
Morgan Tsvangirai, southern African leaders along with
Robert Mugabe have
been meeting in Tanzania to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis.
Do you hold any
hope of a breakthrough?
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: Well, I think the timing is
opportune. This is an
extraordinary meeting to deal with an extraordinary
situation in Zimbabwe. I
hope they are able to put a firm position on Mugabe
to realise that he
cannot continue the way he is going and that enough is
enough, and I hope
that they will be able to read the riot act to
him.
ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: And what's your strategy from here on? What's your
next
move against Robert Mugabe?
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: Well, our plans
have always been that we'll continue to
apply pressure on this regime until
there is a resolution of the national
crisis.
In our view, it doesn't
matter how many times, how many people he beats or
assaults, as long as
people have no food, they have no jobs, and as long as
people cannot afford
basic commodities and they're suffering, I don't think
that he'll be able to
suppress people forever.
TONY EASTLEY: Zimbabwe's Opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai speaking there
with our Correspondent, Andrew Geoghegan.
The Star
Letter
March 30,
2007 Edition 1
I have been trying to make sense out of Deputy Foreign
Minister Aziz Pahad's
defence of South Africa's "quiet diplomacy" on
Zimbabwe - some call it "no
diplomacy" - but, frankly, it appears more like
nonsense.
I lived in Harare in better times, but well after the infamous
Fifth
Brigade, trained by the North Koreans, went into southern Zimbabwe and
massacred 20 000 Ndebele civilians.
I was there in 1998 when a dozen
Zanu thugs "visited" Morgan Tsvangirai,
then secretary-general of the Zim
Congress of Trade Unions, in his 10th
floor city office with the object of
chucking him out of the window, but his
secretary gave the alarm and saved
his life.
I recall seeing Robert Mugabe one night on TV conceding defeat
in a national
referendum, when he tried to change the Constitution, and he
really sounded
like a good democrat.
The next morning, he was back to
fire and brimstone and the raving lunatic
he has been ever since.
In
1999, I was in Chitungwiza, a township near Harare, when Tsvangirai and
his
then sidekick, Welshman Ncube, created their opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), and within eight months, the party managed to
secure no less than 57 seats in the 2000 parliamentary elections to
Zanu-PF's 62 seats. Not bad for someone who, at times, is criticised for
"lack of leadership".
A successful opposition newspaper, the Daily
News, which overtook the
regime's mouthpiece Herald in circulation, had its
printing presses bombed,
but the paper appeared as usual the following
morning and continued until it
was finally banned together with other
opposition newspapers. There was no
police investigation into that
bombing.
For years, state radio and TV have been nothing but what we have
come to
expect from a Stalinist/fascist propaganda machine.
Mugabe
has claimed he has a "degree in violence" and his skill in that
department
was confirmed by his thugs thumping Tsvangarai and MDC
spokesperson Nelson
Chamisa as he was about to board a plane at Harare
Airport for
Brussels.
This disgusting barbarity represents a watershed in the tragic
Zimbabwe
story, and things will never be the same.
One positive
result has been a welcome flood of media coverage with
Oscar-worthy cartoons
by Zapiro and others.
Pahad tries to play down the story and persists with
his version of SA
"working to facilitate contact between Mugabe's government
and opposition
activists to keep the dialogue open".
Yet, that
"dialogue" was never opened in the first place, and for most of
the time
Zimbabwe has remained in limbo.
Being just up the road, Zimbabwe is
perhaps too near and familiar and
lacking the status of far-away
international conflicts. SA is now a member
of the UN Security Council;
perhaps we shouldn't worry unduly about a nearby
problem of opposition
leaders and supporters getting bashed on the head in
police
cells.
Perhaps Nepad and reviewing African countries "for good governance
and
decent human rights" doesn't apply to neighbouring
Zimbabwe.
Readers will probably be surprised to learn how another Mugabe
- Uganda's
Idi Amin, who never really made it to Scotland's throne! - was
finally got
rid of after slaughtering half-a-million Ugandans and
threatening his
neighbours Tanzania and Kenya.
Tanzania's moderate,
intellectual president Julius Nyerere - who became my
hero when he
translated Julius Caesar and the Merchant of Venice into
Swahili - beloved
as "Mwalimu", the Teacher, sent his army across his border
into Uganda and
in one week flushed out Amin and his entourage.
Nyerere sent a military
expedition to deal with the problem and rendered a
fine service to Africa by
ridding the continent of that crazy tyrant, and no
one has ever described
Nyerere's move as "stupid", Mr Pahad.
Ivor Davis
Sandton
United Nations News Service
Date: 29 Mar 2007
A United
Nations humanitarian official today appealed to the Security
Council for
increased funds to allow Zimbabwe to meet the challenges posed
by a "triple
threat," a combination of food insecurity, the high incidence
of HIV/AIDS
and declining social services.
Rashid Khalikov, New York Director of the
UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), briefed the
Security Council on the current and
"alarming" situation of the most
vulnerable people in Zimbabwe, he told
reporters following the closed-door
meeting.
OCHA estimates that 1.8 million metric tones of maize are needed
to feed the
people of Zimbabwe, yet this year's harvest will only provide
300,000 metric
tons.
Although the country's authorities have
announced that it will distribute an
additional 400,000 metric tons of
maize, "the current economic situation and
the level of currency reserves
gives us some cause for concern as to the
ability of the Government to bring
this food in and distribute it in a
timely manner," Mr. Khalikov
said.
This in a country where 18 per cent of the population, or 1.8
million
people, have HIV/AIDS, but only 50,000 of them have access to
antiretroviral
therapy treatment when at least 350,000 must be treated to
contain the
disease, he pointed out. The Government has committed to
increasing the
number of people treated, yet "there is a lot of concern of
the capacity of
the Government and the health services are in quite poor
shape," he said.
Mr. Khalikov said that he told the 15-member Council
that of the $240
million needed to meet humanitarian needs in Zimbabwe, only
13 per cent of
that has been contributed, most of which has been channelled
to the food
sector.
As a result, "education, water and sanitation and
health have not been
properly covered," he said. "Therefore, the United
Nations is not in a
position to provide assistance to the population of
Zimbabwe in a
comprehensive way."
He added that the Government's
urban eviction campaign and land reform
programmes have "exacerbated the
situation on the ground and makes the
position of those who are most
vulnerable even more difficult."
The Government of Zimbabwe has requested
that a joint assessment by the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the UN World Food Programme
(WFP) be undertaken to determine the exact
food needs of the country and
then to fashion a response to the
problem.
Mr. Khalikov said that this assessment will most likely be
carried out in
April and May.