http://www.telegraph.co.uk
A leading
Zimbabwean farmer working some of the country's last productive
land has had
his property invaded by allies of Robert Mugabe.
By Peta Thornycroft in
Makonde
Last Updated: 7:00PM GMT 01 Nov 2008
Doug Taylor-Freeme is
one of Africa's most respected farmers, a white
Zimbabwean chosen by his
mostly black peers to be their champion.
Elected unanimously as president
of Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers Union, Mr
Taylor-Freeme has represented the
interests of hundreds of thousands of
Southern African farmers on
international agricultural organisations and he
addressed the European
Parliament last summer.
But he faced his greatest challenge yet when his
property at Romsey, one of
Zimbabwe's last productive farms, was invaded by
allies of President Mugabe
last week despite half the country teetering on
the brink of starvation.
Romsey has the only productive fields for miles
around in the once-fertile
Makonde South district, 90 miles north of Harare.
Now it is under threat
from a local strongman, Chief Nemakonde, a strong
supporter of Mr Mugabe and
his Zanu-PF party, whose land grab is being
supported by local government
officials. He has already taken over five
formerly white-owned farms in the
district, all of which are derelict after
his efforts at planting failed.
Mr Taylor-Freeme, 43, tried to continue
his work after the demands started.
But on Thursday evening, when he was
planting a new crop of maize for the
summer season, police arrived at the
farm to enforce the wishes of Chief
Nemakonde that all work be stopped. With
five million people in Zimbabwe
currently in need of United Nations food
aid, even one of the police force
admitted to The Sunday Telegraph that he
felt the effort was "mad".
Before he forced his way on to Mr
Taylor-Freeme's land last week, Chief
Nemakonde, who is in his late 60s and
has several wives and scores of
children, sent men to torch a field of
winter wheat stalks. meaning there
will be no hay for cattle.
Mr
Taylor-Freeme, one of just a few surviving white commercial farmers of
the
4,000 whose land was targeted for seizure in 2000, said that he had been
informed by local officials that a High Court order to evict the chief would
be ignored.
"Some local police do not support this," he said. "So
they had to send men
from Harare, and even they don't like what they have to
do, to stop me
planting and prevent our community from coming on to chase
the chief's
people away again.
"So I am going back to the High Court
seeking an order of contempt but this
takes time, and meanwhile planting is
paralysed."
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe failed to pay Mr Taylor-Freeme
about £50,000
from his 2007 tobacco and wheat crop, which he was forced to
sell through
government agencies. While he has survived in part due to
European Union aid
intended to boost regional food production, he is
particularly anxious
because he has taken out loans of about £250,000 which
he has already used
to buy seed, fertiliser and fuel for his 800
acres.
Even some local Zanu-PF activists have sided with the farmer,
conscious of
how desperate the country now is for food. "He must be allowed
to plant,"
one said.
http://www.africasia.com
BULAWAYO,
Zimbabwe, Nov 1 (AFP)
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called Saturday for a
truth
commission to examine atrocities in the country dating back to the
massacres
of ethnic minorities in the 1980s.
"This country has gone
through a lot of traumatic experiences," Tsvangirai
said at the launch of a
video on the 1980s atrocities.
"What we have to accept is that in order
to heal there must be justice, and
in order to have justice there must be
truth," Tsvangirai said.
"That is the only way which can help us move
forward as a nation. Unless the
truth is told, there cannot be healing and
reconciliation," he said.
"There are those who are calling for a truth
commission. They are right, but
without justice we cannot move forward," he
added.
The video documents the Zimbabwean army's bloody campaign known as
Gukurahundi -- "the rain that washes away the chaff" -- when a North
Korean-trained brigade is believed to have killed some 20,000 people in a
counter-insurgency drive.
Tsvangirai linked the massacres of the
1980s to an operation three years ago
when President Robert Mugabe's
government bulldozed the homes of 700,000
people in what was officially
called a slum renewal project.
"The common thing is we have a leader and
a government whose main
pre-occupation is power-retention," he
added.
"We created that government and the leader, and the question is
how to deal
with such experiences because that is human terror of
unprecedented
proportions."
Tsvangirai and Mugabe, who has ruled
since independence in 1980, have been
negotiating for weeks over a
power-sharing deal following deadly electoral
violence earlier this
year.
The talks are stalled over control of the home affairs ministry,
which
oversees the police.
http://www.mg.co.za/
JASON MOYO - Nov 01 2008 06:00
President Robert
Mugabe this week revealed his fear of an internal party
rebellion at a
meeting of regional leaders meant to salvage Zimbabwe's
power-sharing
deal.
In a position paper prepared for the summit, Mugabe's Zanu-PF party
said
that ceding the ministry of home affairs to the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) would be a risk to the party's internal unity.
"Each
political party has its own internal political dynamics and it would
be
difficult to try to arrive at an outcome that reconciles the difficult
internal political dynamics of the three political parties," Zanu-PF
said.
Sharing Cabinet posts between three different parties was a
"difficult,
sensitive and complicated balancing act". All three parties,
Zanu-PF argued,
have been "pushing their individual self
interests".
At the centre of Mugabe's entrenched position on home affairs
is the 1987
unity accord with former rival Joshua Nkomo. That deal ended
years of civil
conflict by making Nkomo one of two vice-presidents and
handing his party
perpetual control of home affairs.
This week, a
small group of former Nkomo loyalists announced that they
planned to split
from the main war veterans' association, a group
traditionally loyal to
Mugabe, which combines ex-fighters from both Mugabe's
Zanla and Nkomo's
Zipra guerrilla groups.
Zanu-PF had argued that "just as they had
understood that the issue of the
two vice-presidents emanated from the unity
accord, the Tsvangirai faction
of the MDC should have understood this
historical obligation regarding the
Ministry of Home Affairs".
Mugabe
sees it as a major concession that he was prepared to agree to a
proposal to
"co-minister" home affairs with the MDC. Mugabe has already
yielded the
finance ministry to Tsvangirai.
"Co-sharing the ministry of home affairs
will also ensure that there is
continuity and that there are checks and
balances," said Zanu-PF.
However, in its own presentation to the SADC
troika, the MDC stood by its
demand that "the ministry should be allocated
to [the MDC] to strike a
balance in the security ministries. Having
considered the issue of rotation
and co-ministering as suggested, we reject
both."
As the meeting began on Monday, 50 opposition activists staged a
protest
close to the venue. Their action was useful to Tsvangirai as police
immediately moved in to beat and arrest them, giving the MDC leader the
evidence he needed to drive home the point that civil liberties continue to
be disregarded by a Mugabe-controlled police force.
There are many
who stand to lose if a recognised government is finally
formed.
Mugabe will now appoint only 15 ministers, half the number in
his previous
Cabinet. Just over a month ahead of a party conference, he
knows that
leaving out heavyweight loyalists will once again expose the
divisions
within Zanu-PF.
But he would have to dismantle part of his
elaborate patronage system to
allow the deal to work.
The start of
the farming season always shows how Mugabe has used state
resources to buy
loyalty. This week, reserve bank Governor Gideon Gono was
handing out
lucrative contracts and scarce foreign currency to companies
owned by
Zanu-PF loyalists, purportedly for the import of fertiliser, seed
and other
farm inputs.
A new farming programme run by serving senior military
officers was also
launched and tasked with distributing farm equipment.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Nokuthula
Sibanda and Norest Muzvaba Friday 31 October
2008
HARARE - The United States (US) has
accused Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe of stalling an agreement to form
a power-sharing government
with the opposition to tackle his country's
deepening economic and food
crisis.
Washington said it was
concerned that Monday's mini-summit of regional
leaders could not pressure
Zimbabwe's rival political leaders to agree on
the composition of a new
unity government that many analysts say would be
best placed to halt an
unfolding hunger and humanitarian crisis in the
southern African
country.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack blamed the
deadlock over
formation of a unity government on Mugabe, saying the veteran
Zimbabwean
leader was refusing to share power genuinely and equitably as
outlined under
a September power-sharing accord signed with opposition
leaders Morgan
Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.
"The United
States regrets that the six-week impasse over
implementation of the
September 15 power-sharing agreement for Zimbabwe was
not resolved at the
October 27 Southern African Development Community
(SADC)-hosted talks,"
McCormack said in a statement made available to
ZimOnline on
Thursday.
Mugabe and his main rival Tsvangirai have failed to agree
on who
should control the most powerful ministries in the unity government -
a
deadlock that is now threatening to derail the entire power-sharing
agreement between the bitter opponents.
The SADC said it would
soon call an emergency summit to try to end the
Zimbabwe impasse after the
bloc's special security organ failed to resolve
the matter during a marathon
meeting with Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara
in Harare that lasted 13 hours
from Monday morning till Tuesday.
While laying the blame on delays
to appoint a unity government on
Mugabe, McCormack said Washington would
however continue to provide
humanitarian support to Zimbabweans, thousands
of who are said to be
surviving on one meal per day as food shortages
bite
The State Department spokesman said it shared the concerns of
UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who has expressed regret at the worsening
humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe while political leaders continue to
bicker over sharing power.
McCormack said: "We condemn the
Mugabe regime's refusal to implement a
genuine and equitable power-sharing
agreement and its continued use of
violence against peaceful
demonstrators."
"The United States shares the concern of United
Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon about the negative effect the impasse
is having on the
people of Zimbabwe, who continue to suffer
terribly.
"The United States will continue to provide food aid and
other
humanitarian assistance to assist the people of Zimbabwe.
"We urge African leaders to work with the Southern African Development
Community, the African Union, and the United Nations to address the urgent
needs of the Zimbabwean people."
Political analysts remain
pessimistic that the planned regional summit
will be able to break the
power-sharing deadlock, saying SADC lacks the
collective will to force
Mugabe to compromise with Tsvangirai.
While some regional leaders
have denounced Mugabe for ruining
Zimbabwe, the veteran leader still has
many allies in the region and
elsewhere across Africa where many people
respect him for his role in the
anti-colonial struggle and also for what
others see as his standing up to
the world's big powers.
Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal retains Mugabe as president while making
Tsvangirai prime minister and Mutambara deputy prime minister.
The bare bones agreement allots 15 Cabinet posts to Mugabe's ruling
ZANU PF
party, 13 to the Tsvangirai-led MDC and three to a faction of the
opposition
led by Mutambara.
However it is silent about who gets which
specific posts and the rival
parties have since the signing of the agreement
wrangled over who should
control the most powerful ministries such as
defence, finance and home
affairs. - ZimOnline
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6621
October 31, 2008
By
Raymond Maingire
HARARE - Sharp divisions have emerged within Zimbabwe 's
civic society
groups on how to approach the ongoing unity talks between
Zanu-PF and MDC.
A radical group within civil society appears still
bitter for having been
left out of the power- sharing talks between Zanu-PF
and the two MDC
formations. The group has now chosen to remain aloof rather
then be roped in
for solutions, saying the much-vaunted deal is headed for a
crash.
This group, sources say, still feels let down by what it sees as a
flawed
deal signed by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
On the other
hand, there is another group described as "submissive" group
that has
continued to back Tsvangirai irrespective of differences with the
MDC
leader.
This group has supported calls by the MDC for Zanu-PF to cede
more political
space to its rivals.
Former South African President
and official negotiator in the talks brokered
the power -sharing deal in
which Zanu-PF and the MDC will form an all
inclusive government for the next
five years.
The growing fissures within the civic society became evident
on Thursday
afternoon when some civic groups boycotted a feedback meeting by
Tsvangirai
at his party's headquarters in Harare .
Organisations such
as the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA),
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) and the National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA), viewed as
opinion- makers within civic society, are among
the radical groups said to
have boycotted the meeting.
A source with one of the top groups said they
felt Tsvangirai erred in
failing to advocate for the inclusion of his allies
within civic society
during the beginning of the talks.
"This group
is even bitter at that after all the trouble that people went
through to
help Tsvangirai win the March and June elections," said the
source, " he
went into secret talks with Zanu-PF and came back to accept a
mere Prime
Ministerial post that leaves him apparently dwarfed by Mugabe.
They feel
Tsvangirai must now go it alone."
Although there are strong denials from
some civic groups, events on the
ground point to the contrary.
Otto
Saki, a lawyer with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights denied any
knowledge of the divisions within civic society.
"I do not know
anything about these divisions," he said "We attended
Thursday's meeting
because there is nothing wrong with someone giving you
feedback on a process
in which you are not part of. It was just a feedback."
MISA director,
Takura Zhangazha
Takura Zhangazha, MISA director confirmed his
organization did not attend
Thursday's briefing by Tsvangirai but refused to
disclose the reasons.
"We did not attend. I won't give you the reasons,"
he said before blocking
any further discussion of the matter.
Youth
Forum co-ordinator Wellington Zindi said there was nothing wrong with
attending a feedback meeting by a politician even if one disagreed with his
decisions.
"The meeting was just a feed back meeting," he said "I do
not see any sense
in boycotting a feedback meeting. It's just like
boycotting reading The
Herald because you do not like what is written in
it."
NCA spokesperson Madock Chivasa confirmed there was simmering
bitterness
with the NCA stemming from the failure to consult with them on
matters that
were clearly not for politicians.
"Indeed there are such
divisions," he said. "We feel our role now must not
be to influence what is
already happening in the talks. We feel we must wait
for these parties to
either agree or disagree."
His comments were also expressed by his boss
Lovemore Madhuku who confirmed
divisions within civic society.
"There
are some civic society groups which follow blindly what Tsvangirai
decides,"
Madhuku said at a public talk forum Thursday evening.
"They only follow
what he thinks at that moment and still want to be seen as
civic society. We
do not like that."
The outspoken NCA chairman accused the MDC of going it
alone in most of its
decisions during talks with Zanu-PF only to turn back
and start prescribing
to civic society on how to react to the
situation.
"We have nothing to do with the power sharing agreement," said
Madhuku. "We
will not monitor it. It is nothing."
He said the NCA was
prepared to use violent means to oppose Article 6 of the
power-sharing
agreement that prescribed a centralized system of drafting a
new
constitution.
"I am very quite irritated by those who authored that
document," said
Madhuku.
"The NCA is thoroughly unhappy with that
document. We agreed as NCA that we
are going to oppose that. This time we
are going to use stones to prevent
anyone who wants to impose a
constitution.
"We are not on talking terms with some of the guys in MDC.
I doubt if we
will ever talk to each other.
"We at NCA look at
issues, the principles. If Tsvangirai signs away the
writing of a
constitution by the people, we won't follow him."
Said Madhuku: "We are
unhappy because the MDC have stood their ground on
posts but have not stood
their ground on principles."
The NCA boss accused Tsvangirai of
unnecessarily subordinating himself to
Mugabe by agreeing to become Prime
Minister when civic society had invested
a lot for him to become
President.
"I was so much pained to see Tsvangirai becoming Prime
Minister," he said,
"We wanted Tsvangirai to become the President of
Zimbabwe."
He accused the MDC leader of going into "secret and countless"
meetings in
South Africa - where the early stages of talks took place - only
coming back
to tell the nation he wanted to be Mugabe's
subordinate.
"We as civic society we cannot tell Tsvangirai on what
powers he must get,"
said Madhuku.
"If we say he must become president
and he says he wants to become prime
minister, who are we to tell Tsvangirai
to become President."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6612
October 31, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Mining experts say Zimbabwe's gold mining sector,
which is losing
an average of US$54 million a month at current world gold
prices in
earnings, could collapse unless the central bank pays producers
more than
US$30 million in arrears for gold delivered, some of it going back
to
September 2006.
Failure by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
subsidiary, Fidelity Printers and
Refiners, to pay for gold deliveries, has
hampered producer efforts to find
working capital and development capital
required to sustain operations.
The Chamber of Mines, a body which
represents most mining companies, says
most underground mines have flooded
and it might take a "massive injection
of capital" to reopen them and if no
capital is secured, this may lead to
permanent closure of the
mines.
Average monthly gold production has plummeted from 2 259 kgs in
1999 to the
current figure of 267 kgs.
The dip in production
coincides with the onset of Zimbabwe's economic slide,
spurred by the
country's military intervention in the DRC in 1997 and the
often violent
farm invasions in 2000 that triggered the collapse of the
agricultural
sector, spawning foreign currency shortages.
"It is not understandable
that at a time when the country requires as much
foreign currency as
possible the gold sector which can generate foreign
currency has been
deliberately brought to its knees," the chamber says in a
statement.
"The gold industry is seriously concerned on the impact of
the situation on
employees and the welfare of their children at a time when
the country is
facing many challenges. Most gold mines are now unable to
meet the wages and
salaries of their employees, which has resulted in a
large scale exodus of
skills.
Central Bank governor, Gideon Gono, has
often berated gold miners of
undermining his turnaround policies by
understating production and allowing
'leakages" in the form of gold
smuggling.
He has blamed the sector for deliberately reducing production
in order 'to
fix the government'.
The government reacted by
stationing detectives and bank officials
permanently at mines as a
deterrent.
But the chamber has dismissed these claims, saying most mines
have subjected
their operations to international audits without adverse
reports being made
about the mines' business ethics.
Miners fear the
delays in payments by the RBZ might jeopardize business
operations when
South African suppliers close for their traditional annual
shutdown. The
suppliers do not take orders after mid November - only a
fortnight
away.
The current payment system for gold provides that the central bank
pays 75
percent of the total value in US dollars into producers' Foreign
Currency
Accounts (FCA) with the balance being paid in local
currency.
President Mugabe's government has often raided these accounts
to fund its
political projects and foreign trips by the ruling elite and
their families.
It has also raided the foreign currency accounts of
companies' to oil its
institutionalised patronage system.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6586
October 31, 2008
By Owen
Chikari
MASVINGO - President Robert Mugabe has teamed up with a
high-ranking
government official and a wealthy business magnate to form a
business
partnership that has acquired more than 60 000 hectares of land to
grow
sugar-cane in the Lowveld.
The acquired vast tracts of land
forms part of Nuanetsi Ranch in the Lowveld
and their company, Zimbabwe Bio-
Energy Company, will grow sugar cane and
produce bio-energy
products.
The company is a subsidiary of Sabot holdings a company owned
by President
Mugabe, former Rural Housing and Social Amenities Minister
Emmerson
Mnangagwa and business mogul Billy Rautenbach.
Mnangagwa,
once touted as the successor to Mugabe within Zanu-PF was for
many years the
treasurer of Zanu-PF. Ranked as one of the most corrupt of
the Zanu-PF
leaders, Mnangagwa was chairman of Zidco, the strategic holding
company of
the Zanu-PF business conglomerate. The managing director of
Zidco, Jayant
Joshi and his brother Manharlal Chunibal Joshi fled Zimbabwe
when the party
instituted investigations into the financial affairs of its
business
empire.
This week journalist were taken on a tour of the proposed project
this week.
The new company has already cleared about 90 hectares of land so
far. This
has since created an outcry among residents.
The project
will cause the displacement of over 5000 people from the
Chisase, Lundi,
Mutirikwi areas.
The government through the Ministry of Lands Land Reform
and Resettlement
and the Ministry of Agriculture has already given a nod to
the development
of the proposed multi-billion dollar
project.
Zimbabwe Bio-Energy Officials said the project would source
funds to the
tune of over 60 million Euros to finance the completion of the
giant Tokwe
Mukorsi dam so that no water problems are
encountered.
"We want to produce sugar as well as ethanol and other
bio-energy products
so that we can start blending it to produce petrol",
said a company
official. "On completion the project will be able to produce
enough sugar
and bio-energy products for the country".
However the
proposed project has riled residents who are earmarked for
displacement. The
residents feel that not enough consultations were
conducted and therefore
they feel cheated by the government.
"We have to been heavily compensated
because we were not consulted when this
project was mooted otherwise we will
resist eviction," said Abiot Makina of
Mutirikwi.
Although company
officials could not be drawn into revealing the share
holding structure of
the proposed company investigations by the Zimbabwe
Times have revealed that
President Mugabe, Mnangagwa and Rautenbach are the
principal
share-holders.
"Mr Rautenbach together with his business partners some of
whom are senior
government officials own the company", said an official with
the company who
requested anonymity.
The holding company, Sabot
Holdings, which owns a fleet of haulage vehicles,
is also owned by the same
people.
Mugabe and Mnangagwa could not be reached for comment yesterday
but
according to records at the registrar of companies, they own Sabot
Holdings.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6627
November 1, 2008
By Raymond
Maingire
HARARE - Former Parliamentarian, Job Sikhala, has openly
criticized MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai, suggesting that he has become
preoccupied with
wresting the Home Affairs ministry from Zanu-PF while
ordinary Zimbabweans
are starving.
He said allocation of the ministry
to the MDC would not loosen Mugabe's grip
on state security institutions
since his ascendancy to power in 1980.
An outspoken politician, Sikhala
said the fight over ministries had left
ordinary Zimbabweans, who are mainly
concerned with bread and butter issues,
disenchanted.
"I do not know
where all the fuss about the Ministry of Home Affairs is
coming from," he
said.
Sikhala was among guest speakers at a public speaking forum at a
Harare
hotel Thursday evening.
In October Sikhala, the secretary for
defence and security in the breakaway
faction of the MDC led by Arthur
Mutambara, launched a verbal attack on
President Robert Mugabe, Tsvangirai
and Mutambara, saying they were greedy
for political
power.
Describing the party leaders as 'the three musketeers' Sikhala
vowed to
denounce the leaders as "self-centred and not interested in the
welfare of
millions of Zimbabweans struggling to make ends
meet.
"They don't have the interests of people at heart, if they had
wanted to,
they would have concluded this thing (sharing of cabinet posts) a
long time
ago," Sikhala said.
Zanu-PF and MDC signed a power-sharing
agreement on September 15 which
commits them to form a unity government for
the next five years.
But a dispute over who will control the Ministry of
Home Affairs, among
other contentious issues, has delayed the implementation
of the fragile
deal, seen as the first real step by Zimbabweans to reverse
the 10-year-old
economic crisis.
SADC leaders will meet as a full
block on a date and venue yet to be
announced in a bid to unravel Zimbabwe's
political impasse.
But Sikhala, who joined the breakaway faction led by
Mutambara when the
split in 2005, said the tussle over the Home Affairs
ministry was
ill-advised.
Sikhala a former student leader was
defeated in March in the St Mary's
constituency by another student leader
Marvellous Khumalo, representing the
mainstream MDC led by
Tsvangirai.
"Those who understand the history of our nation would recall
that John Nkomo
was the first Minister of Home Affairs in 1980, during the
first coalition
government between (PF) Zapu and Zanu-PF.
"The
Ndebeles were still being brutalized in Matebeleland everyday by the
police
when one of their own was Minister of Home Affairs.
"So whether the MDC
will get the Ministry of Home Affairs or not, this will
make no difference
because the commander of the police force will remain
Chihuri (Augustine),
deputized by (Godwin) Matanga and (Innocent) Matibiri,
Mugabe's
relative."
Contrary to Sikhala's assertion, the late Joshua Nkomo,
president of
PF-Zapu, and not John Nkomo, was Zimbabwe's first Minister of
Home Affairs
in the coalition government of 1980. He was replaced in 1981 by
Richard
Hove. Hove came from the Midlands Province. For the next four years,
at the
height of the brutalization of Matabeleland, the position was held by
ministers from outside the Matabeleland region. The late Herbert Ushewokunze
held the post from 1982 to 1983 and was replaced by Simbi Mubako in
1984.
The most ruthless Home Affairs minister during the Gukurahundi era
was, in
fact from Matabeleland, Enos Nkala, who replaced Mubako in 1985 and
remained
in office until 1987.
Contrary to current perception that
there was an unwritten understanding at
the signing of the Unity Agreement
in 1987 that the Minister of Home Affairs
would always hail from
Matabeleland, the first post-unity incumbent in the
portfolio was from
outside Matabeleland. The late Morven Mahachi (1988-92)
was from
Manicaland.
Since then the Minister of Home Affairs has always been
appointed from
Matabeleland - Dumiso Dabengwa (1992 - 99), John Nkomo (2000
to 2001) and
the current incumbent Kembo Mohadi, thereafter.
Sikhala
said Chihuri would still by-pass the minister and report directly to
Mugabe
who is likely to retain the controversial police boss as Police
Commissioner-General.
"The Prime Minister will not be involved in all
this equation," said
Sikhala, "The MDC can still get the Home Affairs
ministry but the Police
Commissioner will be reporting directly to the
President. The Police Act
also allows that.
"Ministers would only be
ceremonial while the whole dirty game would be
played between Mugabe and his
trusted lieutenants. We have to understand
that we are dealing with a mafia
regime."
Sikhala said any fresh elections even under the supervision of
the United
Nations would still not be free and fair as Mugabe would still
unleash his
terror strategies to retain power.
He called for a
"neutral" person to lead an independent authority that will
take Zimbabwe to
fresh elections in two years time.
He, however, failed to suggest a
candidate to lead the so-called caretaker
authority.
"Zimbabweans at
this moment do not deserve an MDC or Zanu-PF government,"
said
Sikhala.
"What they need is a caretaker authority led by an independent
individual
that would take care of the affairs of this country over a period
of two
years.
"At the present moment Zimbabwe does not deserve Robert
Mugabe, Morgan
Tsvangirai or Arthur Mutambara. We deserve a neutral person
who has the
interests of Zimbabweans at heart."
He said his call for
a neutral authority had been proved by the stalling of
the agreement signed
on September 15. Nothing has materialized in terms of
reversing the economic
situation in Zimbabwe, he said.
The former legislator said even if the
full SADC summit eventually clinched
a deal acceptable to both Zanu-PF and
MDC, the power-sharing government
would still collapse along the way because
of the level of mistrust among
the rival parties.
"I do not see this
agreement going anyway," said Sikhala. "It is bound to
collapse within three
to four months of its implementation."
http://www.zimbabwegazette.com
By Tawanda Kadungure, on November 01 2008
17:32
Several weeks after the outbreak of Cholera in Chitungwiza and the
authorities promising that the situation was to be rectified as soon as
possible, raw sewage is still flowing almost everywhere in the dormitory
town of Harare.
There are places that are known to be notorious
with sewage flows such as St
Mary's and Unit D but this time the effluent is
flowing almost everywhere.
Some days after the Ministry of Health and Child
Welfare headed by Dr David
Parirenyatwa came to Chitungwiza after several
people had died of Cholera,
some places had the flow of sewage stopped.
However this did not last as
some days later, there was a high resurgence of
the flow. This reporter
toured Zengeza 3 and 5, St Mary's, Unit D, K, C, J
and F where the situation
is on the rise. In Unit D which is in Seke
Chitungwiza sewage is flowing
from almost every house into the streets where
young children will be
ignorantly playing. Such is the case in parts of
Zengeza 3, a suburb which
was never dreamed of ever having such a
problem.
What comes to heart are the young children who can be seen
innocently
playing around and in the sewage. The kids throw stones in the
dirty water
which in turn splashes back at them. People are eating with raw
sewage
flowing at their front doors. An alternative would have been to give
these
people temporary places to live whilst the authorities rectify this
health
hazard. In Unit O where water is not easily available, people rely on
self
dug wells. The water in the sewage is sinks into the ground till it
reaches
the waterbed and mixes with the water in the wells. This in turn has
generated a rise in people suffering from Cholera and other water borne
diseases like Dysentery.
Asked to comment on the situation,
some women in Unit D said that they
cannot possibly tie their children in
the houses simply because there is
sewage in the roads.
"Mukwasha
vana vachiri vadiki ava vanoda kutamba saka hatingambovarambidze.
Iyo ZINWA
yacho ngaione zvekuita," (these children are still young and want
to play so
we cannot reprimand them. ZINWA should in turn do something about
the
situation) said one of the women who was very outspoken. Mrs Zvidya in
Zengeza 3 reiterated that she was so disappointed by ZINWA since they are
responsible for water provision to households as well as
sewerage.
"ZINWA is not doing anything to help us. We have been having
problems since
March and up to now nothing much is being done to help us,"
she said.
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) in turn is blaming
lack of foreign
currency as well as fuel to be the major factors withholding
their work. An
employee with the company who refused acknowledgement said
they were
suffering heavily because of the current economic situation hence
the shoddy
service provision. ZINWA is also failing to spray the places
where sewage
will have been flowing after they rectify the situation.
http://www.africasia.com/
BULAWAYO,
Zimbabwe, Nov 1 (AFP)
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Saturday that he
will
attend a regional summit aimed at saving his nation's power-sharing
deal,
even if he does not receive his passport.
The chief negotiator
for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), Tendai Biti, had
told reporters on Tuesday that Tsvangirai would not
travel to the summit
unless he received his passport.
But Tsvangirai dropped the demand,
saying that he would attend the summit
even if the government refused to
grant him a passport.
"With or without a passport, I will attend," he
told AFP in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second city, where he attended the launch
of a video about 1980s
human rights abuses.
Tsvangirai has not had a
passport for months, and must seek an emergency
travel document valid for a
single trip each time he leaves the country.
Biti had called the
government's failure to grant him a normal passport "the
crudest form of
lack of sincerity" by President Robert Mugabe.
Leaders from the 15-nation
Southern African Development Community (SADC) are
expected to hold an
emergency summit aimed at pressing Tsvangirai and Mugabe
to resolve their
differences on forming a unity government.
The rivals agreed to a
power-sharing deal on September 15, but talks have
stalled over how to
divide control of powerful cabinet posts.
Regional leaders met twice last
month in a bid to press them into a deal,
but they remain deadlocked over
control of the home affairs ministry, which
oversees the police.
The
date and location of the summit have not yet been announced.
http://www.apanews.net
APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Libya has donated
agricultural equipment to Zimbabwe
under a programme codenamed "The Green
Programme" and aimed at assisting the
southern African country improve food
security, state media reported here on
Saturday.
The state-owned
Herald daily said Libya donated eight tractors and fuel to
Zimbabwe as part
of "The Green Programme" launched in the Zimbabwean capital
Harare on
Friday.
The programme is funded by the Libya Fund for Aid and Development
in Africa,
which will be responsible for all operations, maintenance and
storage of the
tractors and equipment.
The newspaper quoted the
Charge d'Affaires at the Libyan embassy in Harare,
Ali Elbatel, as saying
similar projects were being implemented in other
African countries under the
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Al Fatah
Revolution.
Zimbabwe
is in the process of trying to revive its agricultural sector,
battered by
eight years of economic sanctions and the forcible removal of
former white
farmers from their properties.
Agricultural output has slumped by more
than 50 percent since the government
chased more than 4,000 farmers from
their land and embarked on the land
reform programme in 2000.
JN/ad/APA 2008-11-01
http://www.hararetribune.com
Friday, 31 October
2008 18:35
Chaos and confusion marred the Grade Seven exams which ended
Thursday -
under the invigilation of the police.
The
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) said some students failed
to
sit for the exams, while other schools failed to get the exam
papers.
At some schools like Mvundusi, Mazorodze and Dombo primary
school in Chivi
district, there was a low student turnout for the exams,
while the police
outnumbered the teachers, Chauke said.
"It is a
disaster, more than 20 students did not turn up for exams at
Mvundisi
primary school, while at Mwenezi district's Chingano primary
school, the
Shona paper two was delayed as they had not received the exams,"
said
Chauke.
He added that the exams were only written later as they had
to get the paper
from another school where students had already sat for the
exams.
"They had to borrow the exam from another satellite school,
Mateke, after
the pupils there had already written the exams. The
explanation given was
that the exams had not been collected from ZIMSEC,
which only delivered the
exams a day before the commencement of the exams
last Sunday
Meanwhile, teachers who spoke to Radio VOP said they had
not gone back to
work to conduct the exams despite the pledge by Reserve
Bank governor Gideon
Gono to give them allowances amounting to $1 million a
day for invigilating.
Another amount was also promised to be deposited in
the teachers' accounts
at pay day.
"Gono is trying to treat the
symptoms, instead of the cause of the disease.
The teachers are disgruntled,
their salaries fall below the poverty datum
line, and to promise us the
allowances without an assurance would be a lie.
We have been fooled before,"
said a teacher RadioVOP caught up with at a
bank queue in the
city.
No comment could be obtained from ZIMSEC, or the Minister of
Education,
Sports and Culture, by the time of going to print.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Tendai Hungwe
Saturday 01 November 2008
JOHANNESBURG - A health expert this
week called on South Africa to provide
free anti-retroviral (ARV) and
tuberculosis (TB) drugs to Zimbabwean asylum
seekers and other refugees who
are often unable to access these at public
hospitals.
Speaking at a
meeting of the AIDS Consortium in Johannesburg, Celine Gounder
said South
Africa had one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the
world and the
large numbers of immigrants - some of who were infected -
flocking into the
country daily complicated efforts to fight the scourge.
The AIDS
Consortium is a group of organisations and individuals involved in
HIV/AIDS
work.
"What is making it more challenging and difficult to give treatment
to
infected people is the fact that there are a lot of mobile people as they
move with diseases with them especially these airborne diseases and it is
also difficult to give descent services as you cannot track them all,''
Gounder told the Consortium.
Zimbabweans fleeing their home country
because of political turmoil and
hunger make a huge percentage of immigrants
living in South Africa. But a
huge majority of the Zimbabweans leave in
South Africa illegally and cannot
visit public hospitals for medication when
sick.
Gounder, an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist at
America's
John Hopkins University, said: "Undocumented Zimbabweans,
estimated in their
millions should be another great challenge, but this can
however be
addressed when the relevant authorities issue them with rightful
papers as
well as allowing them access medication at our
hospitals."
Once a model African economy, Zimbabwe is in the grip of an
unprecedented
economic recession seen in hyperinflation, shortages of food,
rising
unemployment and poverty and that has forced nearly a quarter of the
country's
12 million population to flee abroad in search of better living
conditions.
Western governments and the opposition MDC party blame
President Robert
Mugabe - in power since 1980 - for ruining the economy
through repression
and wrong policies.
Mugabe denies ruining the
economy and instead says his country's problems
are because of sanctions and
sabotage by Britain and its Western allies
opposed to his land reforms. -
ZimOnline
http://www.cathybuckle.com
1st November 2008
Dear Family and
Friends,
Watching the tragic events in the Congo over the last few days and
seeing
diplomats flying in from all over the world to try and help, makes me
feel
ashamed to be a Zimbabwean. When all of Africa's attention should be
focused
on the DRC, here were are messing around in Zimbabwe still calling
on SADC
to convene special meetings which may, or (more likely) may not,
force the
winner of Zimbabwe's March elections to share power with the
loser.
Another week has brought another stalemate for Zimbabwe - no
relief for
ordinary people, no political progress, no change. The SADC
Troika learnt,
and apparently admitted, that the power sharing agreement of
September 15th
had been tampered with and was different from the one
initially signed on
September 11. Why its taken six weeks for this
information to be exposed and
confirmed by SADC is a mystery but it does not
bode well for Zimbabwe. Then,
instead of throwing out the whole process and
demanding that the people's
voice of March 29th be respected, the SADC
Troika told us that a full SADC
meeting is to be held to talk about what to
do next. It's all become so
absurd that its embarrassing to have to keep
writing about it.
Everything about life in Zimbabwe has been reduced to
the most absurd
levels. Imagine having to queue for up to 5 hours to
withdraw your own money
out of the bank. Imagine arriving at the bank queue,
as in my home town this
week, to find that there are two queues, one for
Police, Army and Youth
Militia, and one for everyone else. Imagine having to
queue for two days to
draw out enough money to buy just one single loaf of
bread. Imagine a young,
single mother being unable to get enough of her own
money out of the bank to
buy milk and eggs for her sick baby who desperately
needs high protein food.
Imagine people in rural villages being forced to
eat beetles and leaves -
not by choice but to stay alive. Imagine having
just days left in which to
get a life saving crop planted in the ground but
still they talk and don't
act. These are all the tragic, absurd realities of
everyday life in Zimbabwe
but there are a couple of beautiful ones
too.
Imagine a 46 cm high Purple Crested Lourie with magnificent crimson
wings
bathing in 5 cm of water in a hot Zimbabwe birdbath. Imagine an insect
being
called a Sausage Fly! It's that time of year when these big headed,
fat
bodied, shiny brown ants fly in clumsy, dizzying circles to the lights
at
night. The story goes that when you see a Sausage Fly the rain is three
days
away. It's not coming true this year as still the rain hasn't come and
the
sun burns down upon us. One day this week it was 32 degrees Centigrade
in
the house at midday and 56 in the sun outside - almost too absurd to be
true.
One last absurd thought comes to mind this week. You have to
wonder what
would happen if Barack Obama and John McCain were told they had
to share
power? Until next week, thanks for reading and thanks to my
webmaster for
taking over the burden of sending out of this letter.
With
love, cathy.
In the past two weeks the Zimbabwe economy has
seen two really significant
developments. The first is the total collapse of
the Zimbabwe dollar and the
second is the sharp deterioration in basic food
supplies.
On Tuesday a local banker told me that the cost of money
transactions in
Zimbabwe dollars now exceeded the value of their
transactions. Simply put
that means if you are trading or shifting money in
the form of the Zimbabwe
domestic currency, you will be losing money even if
you are charging
interest and other charges related to the transactions that
are involved.
So business here is now only possible if you work in a hard
currency the
Rand or the US Dollar. This creates two other problems how
to obtain the
hard currency in the first place and then, once you have the
money, to use
it without breaking the law which still prohibits such
transactions.
For a small fortune you can secure a licence to operate in
hard currency but
even then the operating conditions are nearly impossible.
So the reality is
that most businesses have closed their doors or are now
operating on a care
and maintenance basis until better days whenever that
will be.
In the rural areas the position is even worse and people are now
operating a
barter economy or relying on the small remittances that come in
from
relatives in the Diaspora. If you cannot use either system, you are
facing
starvation.
On the food front the situation has deteriorated
sharply in the past month.
Humanitarian agencies have full warehouses but
cannot get the food to the
people who need it. The reasons are that the
agencies cannot access cash for
their operations hard currency transactions
are still illegal and the cash
withdrawal limits and other restrictions
imposed by the Reserve Bank are
making local payments impossible they
cannot pay for hotels or staff
salaries and cannot pay transporters to take
the food to where it is needed.
But it goes beyond this, at the start of
the year it was estimated that we
needed 1,8 million tonnes of maize. Of this
total the humanitarian agencies
said they would try to supply 400 000 tonnes.
The Zimbabwe government
estimated maize production at 600 000 tonnes and that
left a shortfall of
800 000 tonnes for importation.
So far all we can
find evidence of are contracts for a total of 175 000
tonnes and even this
meagre import programme seems to have spluttered to a
halt. That leaves a
total shortfall of 625 000 tonnes possibly 800 000
tonnes because it is
most unlikely that local production was 600 000
tonnes most commentators
say 425 000 tonnes.
This means that the shortfall is still probably 50
per cent of consumption
and we still have 5 months to go to the end of the
forecast supply period
(April 2008 to March 2009). In October the donors fed
2 million people at
the level of 15 kilograms of cereals a month per capita.
In November they
expect to go to 3,5 million people at a reduced rate of 10
kilos of cereals
per capita. They plan to go to 5,5 million in January 2009
but at present
they do not have the money or the supplies for that
programme.
Remember that this is just the donor community completing what
they
committed themselves to at the start of the year and does not in any
way
alleviate the shortage in commercial supplies from the GMB. Therefore we
can
deduct from this in the absence of any information from official
sources
that food supplies are now down to critical levels.
If this is
not addressed and soon, widespread starvation and deaths are
now
inevitable.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this is that the State has
not admitted there is
a problem and that they need help. No appeal has been
made for help and no
response is forthcoming from the authorities who have
been approached to
help rectify the problems with payments and the need to
appeal for resources
to help meet the needs in early 2009.
But the
crisis goes beyond these basic problems there is growing evidence
that the
Reserve Bank has used its power to loot the hard currency accounts
in the
banking system for its own purposes. This includes the accounts of
the UN
system and has led to a suspension of future transfers that will
affect the
tens of thousands of people with HIV/Aids who are on UN
funded
ARV¹s.
If that was not bad enough, the Junta is running a
programme called
³Champion Farmers². These are all those individuals in Zanu
PF who have
access to farming property, to draw on State funded inputs (fuel,
seed,
fertilizer and chemicals as well as farm equipment) to grow crops
this
summer. In a rush to take advantage of these offers (partially funded by
a
grant of R300 million from the South African government) Zanu PF thugs
are
harassing remaining commercial farmers and driving them off the
land.
This whole programme is illegal and has been the subject of a
lengthy appeal
to the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek. The Tribunal has already
ruled in favour
of the farmers and is expected to knock the whole land reform
exercise down
at the end of November. That does not make any impression on
these thugs and
criminals.
This exercise includes a deputy Governor of
the Reserve Bank and the
Commissioner of Police. They are taking over farms
where the commercial
farmers have prepared land and secured some inputs and
the new occupiers are
then simply picking up where they left off and planting
crops on land that
does not belong to them using equipment looted from their
owners.
All stocks of seed and fertilizer and all agricultural fuel is
going to this
programme leaving small scale farmers and 700 000 peasant
farmers without
these essential supplies. The result, tobacco plantings are
down 50 per cent
and cereal production is likely to fall below the level
achieved last year.
So the suffering of the majority continues ordinary
men and women,
children and the elderly without food and opportunity (95 per
cent of
teachers are not at work) and more particularly, without hope. The
region
has not even announced the date of the SADC/AU summit due in less than
10
days.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 1st November
2008
http://www.cathybuckle.com
1 November 2008
Dear Friends.
Africa is
once again in the news this week. Our television screens and
newspapers have
been filled with horrific images of thousands of people in
the DRC fleeing
from the rebel advances towards the provincial capital of
Goma hoping to
find sanctuary there. Literally thousands of men and women
are trudging
through the bush with their belongings piled on their backs, on
bicycles or
motor scooters. The picture of one small child stays in my mind.
A little
boy, not more than four years old carrying a plastic container
almost as big
as himself; his innocent face staring out at the world with
huge eyes, a
reminder to all of us of the guilt we adults share for the
disruption to his
young life. Many of these refugees have been displaced
more than once from
their villages, the only life they know is on the road,
fleeing from one
army or the other, trying desperately to find safety. It
seems no one can
protect them: not the Congolese army, nor the UN
Peacekeepers as they pour
out of their villages in search of safety.
Yesterday Goma itself was under
attack by the rebels and later from
retreating government troops, looting
and raping as they abandoned the city.
An estimated 250.000 people are on
the move and this Friday morning the
International Red Cross is describing
the situation as 'a humanitarian
catastrophe' Most of the NGO's are pulling
out of this crisis-torn country
and desperate villagers hide out in the
forests, making it even more
difficult for any remaining aid agencies to get
help to them. As always, it
is innocent civilians who suffer and where there
are tribal or ethnic
differences the suffering is exacerbated. It is not the
root cause of the
Congo's repeated wars, however; it is greed for diamonds
or gold or any of
the country's vast mineral wealth that has led to the
repeated conflicts.
The west - and China - have indirectly sponsored these
wars too in their
desperation to get their hands on Congo's precious natural
resources.
Anyone in Zimbabwe who is wondering what any of this has to do
with them
would do well to remember Mugabe's intervention in the Congo back
in 1997 in
support of his friend Laurent Kabila. Many experts claim that
this marked
the beginning of Zimbabwe's economic collapse. It was a deeply
unpopular war
with the Zimbabwean people and the cost in human terms has
never been fully
revealed by Mugabe's government. What was clear at the time
was that the war
provided unlimited opportunities for top military personnel
and business
people to become millionaires overnight thanks to Congo's
diamonds. Business
opportunities for Zimbabwe we were told but the
Zimbabwean people saw none
of the benefits. The ones who profited, army
generals, top policemen and
business magnates are the very same people who
are now making sure that
Mugabe's so-called Agreement with the MDC never
becomes a reality. They have
too much to lose but while the intervention in
the DRC may have been the
source of their wealth it may yet lead indirectly
to their downfall. Their
names are still there in a UN Report on the people
who had exploited the
Congo's natural resources during that
conflict.
Meanwhile, reports coming out of Zimbabwe indicate that there
are rising
numbers of soldiers and policemen deserting because of poor pay
and
conditions. As hunger stalks the land and the economic crisis worsens by
the
day with the Zim currency becoming virtually useless, these deserting
soldiers, who did not enjoy the same money-making opportunities in the Congo
as their superior officers, may yet decide Zvakwana - Enough is Enough. It
is a not impossible scenario that Zimbabwe too will be caught in the grip of
civil unrest and what we are seeing today in the DRC is a pre-echo of what
could happen in Zimbabwe. With our mighty South African neighbour about to
enter a very troubled period as the ANC heads for a possible split, it is
not too difficult to see why minds are not fully focussed on settling the
Zimbabwe problem. Mugabe's allies have too many problems of their own. No
doubt, the decision to involve SADC will be delayed as long as possible but
in the end an agreement will have to be reached ; not because Mugabe cares
about the people's suffering but because his own survival may depend on it.
Dictators can never be entirely sure who their true friends are. His friend
Laurent Kabila'death inside his own palace is a case in point. His death has
never been properly explained. Zimbabweans will remember the two-day silence
while the world waited for the official announcement from the DRC. We all
knew that Kabila's body was already on the tarmac at Manyame airbase where
it had been flown by a Zimbabwe Airforce plane sent by Robert Mugabe to
collect his friend's body. Was it a member of his own presidential guard who
had killed him or was it someone who was afraid Kabila was about to blow the
whistle on Zimbabwe's involvement in the Congo? We shall probably never know
but the link between present events in the DRC and Zimbabwe's past
involvement in that country should not be forgotten.
What goes around
comes around!
Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH
http://www.morningmirror.africanherd.com
Between 7 and 9pm on
Wednesday 29th October, Jenni Williams, Magodonga
Mahlangu,
inmates at
Mlondolozi Prison and WOZA members across the country held a
prayer
vigil.
Their prayers were for a speedy resolution to the crisis in Zimbabwe
and for
change for
the better in the justice system in Zimbabwe, within
both the courts and the
prisons.
Please join them in their continued
prayers and spread this invitation to
any and all that
may be
interested.
An urgent application has been filed with the High Court in
Bulawayo
appealing against
the denial of bail for Jenni and
Magodonga.
In the meantime, Jenni and Magodonga remain strong in spirit
although the
effects of the
harsh conditions at Mlondolozi are beginning
to take a toll on their
physical health.
+++++++
* Stand firm
Zimbabwe
* Close ranks
* Unite
We are traversing uncharted waters
like no other country in history.
We are made of good stuff and we will
win!!
We will gain worldwide acclaim and recognition for our steadfastness,
our
strength and determination.
We are a proud nation and will not be
defeated.
We can do it and we will !!!!
http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com
November
2, 2008, 12:37 am
By Jonathan
Power
The non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther
King are pushing
at an open door. Even the Pentagon has begun to look at
their value in
situations of conflict and political impasse.
Today's
news is covering the essentially non-violent struggle of the
opposition in
Zimbabwe to push aside the dictatorial regime of Robert
Mugabe. Despite the
provocations of the police and the army, the opposition
has turned the other
cheek (unlike in Kenya) and in doing so won over almost
100 percent of
foreign opinion.
In another example, exiled Iranian opposition activists
are studying and
training in techniques of non-violent conflict, emulating
the success of the
recent movements for change in the Ukraine and
Serbia.
One shouldn't be surprised by this turn of events. The 20th
century is
rightly described as the bloodiest century of mankind. But it was
also the
most creative in terms of alternatives to violence - not only
Martin Luther
King and Gandhi (with the anti-British Pathans in South Asia
joining his
movement, a historical development somehow overlooked today by
the NATO
armies in Afghanistan), but also the work of Chief Albert Lithuli
and
Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Archbishop Helder Camara in
Brazil
and Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta in East
Timor.
Then there were the 1950s marches against nuclear weapons that
helped
persuade President John Kennedy to push for the Test Ban Treaty. And
later
the massive protests against the Vietnam War.
There is no way
one can put a precise finger on it. But there has been a sea
change in
Western society's attitude to war. Despite the headlines, there
are fewer
wars now than ever before in history. The number of wars conducted
between
democracies since the end of World War II is zero.
The industrialised,
richer, democratic nations have mostly abandoned armed
conflict as a way of
conducting their relations with other countries. The
wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan are the only exceptions. There is only a small
constituency in
the West that supports a strike against Iran.
Even in poorer countries
where warfare is rife, war is waged by a remarkably
small group - mainly
criminals, bullies and warlords, often easily defeated
by UN-type military
intervention, perhaps combined with outside political
pressure, except in
rare cases like Afghanistan where the Pathans have a
deep and almost unique
culture of resistance.
In only the United States and Russia is military
intervention a constant
topic of conversation and serious ongoing
preparedness.
Take a close look at Holland, Sweden and Switzerland if one
doubts how
war-making cultures can change. At the end of the 18th century,
Holland and
Sweden each had armies larger than those of Britain or Austria
and far
larger than Prussia. Holland was one of the great seafaring,
imperialistic
countries of the world. But for the last two and a half
centuries Holland
has been far from warlike.
From 1415 to 1809,
Scandinavian countries were almost permanently at war.
But since Sweden's
defeat by Russia in 1809 they have more or less withdrawn
from violent
conflict, as has Switzerland, which in 1500 was a feared
warrior
nation.
If the militaristic atmosphere of past ages is beginning to
change one
shouldn't be surprised at the greater role that non-violent
campaigns have
played over the last 60 years. And they tend to be
successful, too.
A recent study by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth,
reported in Harvard's
quarterly journal International Security, finds that
large-scale non-violent
campaigns of civilian resistance have achieved
success 53 percent of the
time. In contrast, terrorist campaigns achieved
their objectives only 7
percent of the time.
Success comes from many
factors, not least of all persistence. But it also
comes from an enhanced
domestic and international legitimacy of such
movements and alienation of
the regimes, as happened in the Ukraine three
years ago. Second, public
opinion at home - repulsed by violence - finds a
non-violent movement
increasingly appealing. Repression by heavily armed
police and army helps
turn public opinion against the regime.
This happened in the Philippines
where violent opposition had failed. When
two million people rallied
peacefully to oust dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the
Reagan administration
pushed for him to step down.
One can point to numerous situations where
non-violence could be made to
work today. But no situation is riper for it
than the Israel-Palestine
dispute. If the Palestinians could drop their guns
and stones and organise
an effective non-violent movement, they might find a
million Israelis
supporting them.
John Mueller, professor of
political science at Ohio State University has
written that warfare was once
regarded as "natural, inevitable, honourable,
thrilling, manly,
invigorating, necessary, glorious, progressive and
desirable." It could well
be that this era is approaching its close and
non-violent resistance is
becoming the main tool of radical, even
revolutionary,
change.
###
* Jonathan Power is a columnist,
filmmaker and writer. This article is
distributed by the Common Ground News
Service (CGNews) with permission from
Khaleej Times.