29/11/04
WHEN, recently, Yasser Arafat died, Zimbabwean national television invited a
coterie of carefully selected academics to speak glowingly of the veteran
PLO leader and to excoriate Western powers aiding the Israeli regime which
is daily trampling on the rights of the Palestinians.
They drew the
imagined parallels between the supposed persecution of President Robert
Mugabe and the tribulations of the people of Palestine at the hands of the
Western backed Israel. Once again the poisoned rhetoric that we are the
victims of international conspiracy like the Palestinians earned precious
airspace without challenge.
Today Zimbabwe is going through what
President Robert Mugabe and his retinue want to call the "Third Chimurenga"
- the supposed final and practical correction of the economic imbalances
imposed by the racist colonial rule over a stretch of decades.
According to them this is a revolution which nobody should question unless
they are sell-outs, imperialists or crazy ignorant born-frees.
This
retinue believes that its deeds and situation are a perfect match to those
of the downtrodden people in the Middle East and elsewhere. As is
well-known, that is the mantra.
But the reality is that we are
where we are, thanks to the failure at the centre and the top rather than a
push from outside. We are simply aboard a ship under indolent
captaincy.
The so-called "Third Chimurenga" is an opportunistic and
panic measure erected by the guilty in the face of demands for
accountability and competence. Its flaws are as awash as the hair on any
head. And if there is anything democratic or moral about this revolution,
then moon is made of blue cheese!
"The so-called "Third
Chimurenga" is an opportunistic and panic measure erected by the guilty in
the face of demands for accountability and competence"
MTHULISI MATHUTHU All those opposed to it have not only become hostage
to a spectrum of threats but have been bludgeoned, kidnapped, raped or
simply "disappeared". Mugabe's revolution is dramatic rather than efficient,
characterised by the arrest of judges, business captains, journalists and
white farmers at the expense of real criminals in the glittering government
offices.
It is effectively about obfuscation - dramatising the
plight of the African people without really shaking the very foundations of
the imbalances. It has yet to do anything to the flawed political culture of
patronage characterised by official pillage and murder.
It is
mainly about vendettas driven by anger and fear than a genuine desire to
serve a constituency. That is why Solomon Mujuru leapt to his feet to almost
beat Margaret Dongo and Didymus Mutasa kicked Roy Bennet in parliament but
they were let off the hook.
But when Bennett pushed Chinamasa to
the floor in parliament, he was locked-up. Under Mugabe's revolution, colour
is an issue and it weighs more that faulty conduct. Under this fallacy, if
an elected and provoked MP pushes down a foul-mouthed un-elected MP the
pursuant measures are informed by colour rather than by the intentions and
conduct of the two.
By its very nature this supposed revolution has
vindicated those racists who saw nothing but servitude, vendetta and looting
under any black person anywhere in the world. While it claims to be erected
firmly on the genuine aspirations of the African people and the general
majority of Zimbabwe, it unfortunately reflects the character of a paranoid,
vindictive, angry and unrelenting mentor.
That is why the very
same people the "Third Chimurenga" claims to be propping-up are opting for
economic exile in Europe, New Zealand and South Africa.
The
repeated claim is that Zanu PF hopes for a society where there is equitable
distribution of resources and services and a non-racial society. The truth
is that Zanu PF will not prosper where there is no discrepancy because by
its very nature it is a quarrelsome organisation thriving on confrontation,
blood-letting and other related wrongs. Zanu PF needs "racists", corpses,
"dissidents", "imperialists", saboteurs, and colonialists to perform and
that is why it is ever on a "MaCarthyst " search for such to justify its
drama.
They are incapable of existing fairly under open societies
with peaceful competition. The beneficiaries of this "revolution" are few
and they constitute an insecure cabal tied soul, mind and body to their
paranoid captain. Some are clearly incompetent and corrupt individuals found
in areas like Zimpapers, ZBH, the President's office and in the
banks.
Here is careless and painful journey which Mugabe and his
comrades are daily singing accolades to - an expensive adventure that has
cost us a name and earned us everything that nobody wants to be associated
with! Mthulisi is a Zimbabwean journalist and his weekly column written
from Zimbabwe appears here every Friday. CONTACT MTHULISI AT: thuthuma@yahoo.com
GOVERNMENT LIFTS BAN ON FOOD AID DISTRIBUTION Mon 29
November 2004 HARARE -- The Zimbabwe government has rescinded a ban on the
World Food Programme (WFP) from distributing food aid in the
country.
Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana said at
the weekend that the government will allow the WFP to distribute 60 000
tonnes of food aid, left over from its assistance programme last
year.
The decision to allow the distribution of the food aid is a
major climb-down by the government which had always insisted that the
country had produced enough to feed itself under its controversial and often
violent land reform programme.
Earlier this year, President
Robert Mugabe told food aid groups to take their assistance elsewhere as the
country expected to harvest 2.4 million tonnes of grain, enough to feed
itself.
However, a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and
Agriculture tasked to investigate the country's food situation in the wake
of conflicting reports on the issue, admitted recently that there would be a
massive grain shortfall, with an estimated 2.5 million people still
requiring food aid this year.
Grain Marketing Board chairman
Samuel Muvuti told the committee in September that the board had only
received 280 000 tonnes from farmers, three months after the end of the
harvests, which is way below the country's food needs.
Zimbabwe
needs at least 1.8 million tonnes of grain to see it through to the next
harvest.
Mangwana however insisted that the parliamentary
committee's findings were illogical as the country has enough maize to see
it through to the next harvest.
The government, which has been
accused of using food as an election bait, has also been importing food to
boost its reserves ahead of a crucial parliamentary election next March. The
government denies using food for political benefit. - ZimOnline
South Africa blocks bid to probe human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe Mon 29 November 2004 JOHANNESBURG - South Africa has blocked a
European Union (EU) motion to bring Zimbabwe's deteriorating human rights
situation before the United Nations (UN).
A draft resolution
that also noted that Zimbabwe's key general election next year would not be
free and fair because of conditions in the country, which was to be
presented to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly fell through
after South Africa last week successfully mobilised for a "no action motion"
on Zimbabwe.
Had the resolution, which was being sponsored by the
Netherlands on behalf of the EU sailed through, it would have seen the world
body getting more directly involved in resolving Zimbabwe's deepening
economic and political crisis.
South Africa has blocked several
attempts before to get the UN Human Rights Commission and other
international bodies to condemn human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe.
Pretoria insists on its "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe,
which shuns open criticism of President Robert Mugabe and his government but
has so far achieved little tangible results in resolving the crisis in its
northern neighbour.
African and some developing countries also
grouped together to block another resolution condemning Sudan over the
Darfur crisis, where thousands of innocent civilians have died at the hands
of government-backed militias. - ZimOnline.
Reserve Bank governor holds on to two farms Mon 29 November
2004 HARARE - Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono is among senior
government officials who grabbed more than one farm during the government's
chaotic land reforms against the state's one-man-one-farm policy, ZimOnline
has learnt.
Gono took up Ecosoft farm in Mashonaland East
province and Rose Common farm in Mashonaland West and the two farms visited
by our reporters last week are some of the best utilised, producing mainly
horticultural products.
"At times we can go and work at Rose Common
or workers based at Rose Common sometimes come and help us if there is need.
I can confirm that he owns the two farms," said a supervisor at Ecosoft, who
did not want to be named for fear of victimisation.
Gono could
not be reached for comment last night but he has in the past denied taking
advantage of state land reforms to grab farms.
President Robert
Mugabe has personally pleaded with senior ruling ZANU PF party and
government officials who used their privileged positions to grab several of
the best farms each to surrender the excess land to the government. Few have
heeded his pleas.
Last week the government sent in armed police to
evict Local Government Minister, Ignatius Chombo, and Deputy Speaker of
Parliament, Edna Madzongwe from four farms they seized during the land
reforms.
It is still unclear whether the eviction of Chombo and
Madzongwe will be followed by similar action against other ruling party and
government officials some of whom have grabbed up to six farms each. -
ZimOnline
MP's imprisonment racially motivated, say churches Mon 29
November 2004 MUTARE - Churches from Zimbabwe's Manicaland province have
condemned the imprisonment of white opposition parliamentarian, Roy Bennet,
as racially motivated.
In a statement at the weekend, Churches
in Manicaland, a grouping of the main Christian denominations in the
province led by outspoken Catholic Bishop Patrick Mutume, said it did not
condone Bennet's violent shoving of Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
during debate in Parliament which earned him a 15-month jail
sentence.
But the group said Bennet, who is the main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party's Member of Parliament for Manicaland's
Chimanimani constituency, was more sinned against than a
sinner.
It said the jailing of Bennet was an "evil act upon a man
who has undergone relentless persecution in recent years. A number of court
orders were defied in the violent process of acquiring his Chimanimani
Estate, his workers harassed, beaten, raped and killed without justice or
punishment being imposed on the perpetrators; the mandate of those who
elected him into office has been defied."
The group said the
legislator, the first Zimbabwean to be jailed outside the court process, had
been unjustly treated because "by an act of God, he happens to be white." -
ZimOnline
Zim journalists face 20 years in jail under new
law November 29, 2004
By Peta Thornycroft
Journalists in Zimbabwe, including foreign correspondents, face up to 20
years in prison if they fall foul of a new law due to be signed off by
parliament next month.
The law, which also applies to members
of the public, either inside or outside Zimbabwe, is the harshest since
Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 and during minority white rule of Rhodesian
Prime Minister Ian Smith.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) legal secretary David Coltart said yesterday: "The section relating to
crimes against the state in this bill embodies the most fascist legislation
this country has ever known, far worse than the most draconian laws passed
by the Smith regime.
"The sentence of up to 20 years amounts to a
death sentence in Zimbabwe's prisons."
Zimbabwe's Standard
Newspaper yesterday drew attention to the new law, which got lost in a
swathe of new legislation being rammed through parliament in at least two
all-night sittings before it is dissolved ahead of the March general
election.
The Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill went
through its second reading in parliament last week despite an adverse report
from the multiparty legal committee, which described chunks of it as
"unconstitutional".
It is in addition to harsh security laws,
and media legislation like the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act, which was toughened up earlier this month to provide a jail
sentence of up to two years for journalists found practising without
accreditation.
The latest law, which comes among a rush of new
bills ahead of elections, makes it an offence to publish or "communicate to
any other person a statement which is wholly or materially false with the
intention or realising that there is a real risk of ... inciting public
disorder ... adversely affecting the economic interests of Zimbabwe,
undermining the security forces ...".
"The question of what
is a falsehood will depend on which judge hears the case," said human rights
lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa yesterday.
"If they can send Roy Bennett
(MDC MP) to jail for a year for pushing someone over in parliament, then
they can do anything."
Late last month Roy Bennett was sentenced to
a year in prison with hard labour by a ruling Zanu PF-dominated committee
after he shoved Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to the floor during a
heated debate in parliament in May. Last week he was secretly moved from
Harare Central Prison to one in northern Zimbabwe.
Coltart said
the MDC had been deluged with a rush of new legislation, including one bill
which will ban all non-governmental human rights and governance
organisations.
He said one of the clauses in the Criminal Law
(Codification and Reform) Bill, also makes it an offence for any citizen to
make an "abusive, indecent or obscene statement" about President Robert
Mugabe, "even if it is true".
One of the most outspoken critics
of Zimbabwe's political and humanitarian crisis, Archbishop Pius Ncube, head
of the Catholic Church in second city Bulawayo said: "The truth must be told
about the evil things they do, we cannot be quiet."
Ngonyama unleashes invective on vavi November 29, 2004
By
Moshoeshoe Monare
Tensions in the tripartite alliance have
intensified and turned personal, with the ANC labelling Cosatu General
Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as reckless, impetuous, a "young child" and
"heedless".
After a brief chat with President Thabo Mbeki at the
funeral of the former chairman of the National Council of Provinces, Joyce
Kgoali, ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama unleashed a personal invective on Vavi
yesterday.
The vitriolic exchange between the ANC and Cosatu
followed the labour federation's statement last week that the ruling party
was treating it with disdain. This was triggered by the ANC's and its Youth
League's criticism of Cosatu's fact-finding mission to
Zimbabwe.
The climax came this weekend when Vavi supported
Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Nelson Mandela Lecture about the "culture of
sycophancy in the ANC".
Ngonyama fired the salvo on
Vavi.
"As the ANC we take serious exception to that kind of
statement and we regard it as a statement that is coming from a leader that
is highly reckless, highly impetuous, and Vavi has demonstrated over and
over again that he is reckless," he said at the Lenasia
Cemetery.
Vavi hit back, saying he was proud to be criticised by
businessmen, a sarcastic reference to Ngonyama's involvement in a company
that is bidding to buy part of Telkom.
"In 2002, we were called
ultra-left, suddenly ... we are now a tool in the hands of the colonialists
and imperialists. I am not surprised by such attacks," Vavi
said.
Ngonyama questioned Vavi's leadership, saying he could not
purport to be representing the dignity of the working class with such "toxic
statements".
The ANC sounded impatient and threatening when it
warned Cosatu to stop its statements.
"We hope that this will
come to an end. And we hope that the leadership in general of the alliance
will take note of this because it has not gone unnoticed to the
ANC.
"General lack of respect for the leadership that has been
elected by the people of South Africa, general personal attacks to the
leadership of the ANC in particular has not gone unnoticed.
"This has happened quite continuously without any provocation. We'd like to
make that statement quite strongly," Ngonyama said.
Without
mentioning Tutu by name, Ngonyama "gave a lecture" on the inner workings of
the ANC and said it was not sycophancy for people to defend the
organisation.
"Any member, any person who joins the ANC, would
continue to defend the movement. There is nothing sycophant about
that.
(They) will continue to defend the very leadership, because
it is the leadership that we have elected ourselves," he said.
Asked what effect this tiff would have on the future of the fragile
alliance, Ngonyama said: "The alliance will remain tenacious. It has nothing
to do with Vavi - he is a very, very young child in the
alliance."
Vavi blamed the stand-off on individuals within the ANC
whom he described as wanting to see the alliance break.
"Every
time there is a disagreement, it just falls into their own belief and they
use that opportunity such as the one that was used ... They can't (publicly
call for the breaking away of the alliance) because the ANC members who are
mainly Cosatu members will never say that there is no more a need of the
tripartite alliance ...
"(So these people) will rather frustrate
Cosatu through non-confrontation and these insults ... and hope that Cosatu
will eventually on its own walk ... we are not going to do that, not now,
not in future," said Vavi.
Zim ups power with new law 29/11/2004 09:04 -
(SA)
Kodzevu Sithole Media24 Africa desk
Harare - Business and
legal experts in Zimbabwe are concerned over a planned new law that will
make it easier for the state to take over companies and at the same time
limit the legal mechanisms that are available to the business
community.
Parliament is currently taking a decision on an act that
deals with the rebuilding of insolvent companies that owe government money
and this law is expected to be passed before the end of the
year.
Among other things, the new act allows government to take over
control of a company "if it does not have the ability, or probably will not
have the ability to repay state money before the due date".
Legal
experts believe that companies that do not pay taxes will be targeted by the
new law.
Sternford Moyo, a senior partner in a Zimbabwean law firm, says
the act in essence replaces the legal process with ministerial powers to
place a company under liquidation.
"If there are any problems with a
company, they can be handled quite effectively under the existing banking
law and company act and there is no need for a separate act."
Arnold
Tsunga, another legal expert, says it is concerning that government has
tried to push through a number of laws recently that are based exclusively
on the powers of central government.
"Land has been confiscated by using
this ploy. Now banks and companies are in the firing line."
Mon November 29, 2004 11:47 PM GMT+05:30 BRUSSELS (Reuters) -
Zimbabwe's opposition leader attacked English cricketers on Monday for their
decision to tour the southern African country despite international
sanctions over its human rights record.
Morgan Tsvangirai, in
Brussels to rally international support for his demands that Zimbabwe reform
its voting system before elections due next March, said the tour was a
political gift to incumbent President Robert Mugabe.
"We have
from the very beginning condemned anything that will give legitimacy to
Mugabe, including the English cricket tour," Tsvangirai, the main challenger
to Mugabe's 24-year-old rule, told a news conference at the European
Parliament.
"We appealed...to the cricketers to realise Mugabe is
the patron of cricket in Zimbabwe. How would they feel when the Mugabe
regime commits acts of murder, brutality against the people of Zimbabwe and
you can shake hands with such a man?"
Mugabe, in power since
independence from Britain in 1980, rejects such allegations. He has accused
London of leading the international community in isolating
Zimbabwe.
The English cricketers decided to go ahead with a tour
last week after Zimbabwe lifted a ban on 13 British journalists who had been
denied accreditation. Critics of the tour say Britain should have insisted
it be called off.
"They (the British government) could easily
have taken robust political action, but they failed to do so," Geoffrey Van
Orden, vice chairman of the parliament's foreign affairs committee and a
member of Britain's opposition Conservatives.
English captain
Michael Vaughan has said he has been assured his players will not be
expected to shake hands with Zimbabwean government officials during the
four-match tour, which began with English victory in a one-day international
on Sunday.
The EU renewed sanctions against Mugabe and his inner
circle in February, referring to "continued instances of political
intimidation and violence" and targeting legislation they said infringed
rights to freedom of association and assembly.
Tsvangirai said
he would not support harsher EU economic sanctions against Zimbabwe because
they would hurt victims of the government rather than the authorities
themselves.
November 26, 2004 Posted to the web November 29,
2004
Harare
A POSTAL company, usually plagued by consistent
industrial unrest - Zimpost - was at it again this week.
Unperturbed,
and perhaps grossly ignorant of its persistent flawed service delivery,
Zimpost indicated that its tariffs would be increased for a record third
time this year alone.
It might be fallible to think that one of
Zimbabwe's once cheapest medium of communication is becoming prohibitive,
but this is exactly what's happening-odds will concede!
Effective
December 1, 2004, it will cost $7 000 to post a letter of weight equal or
less than 20 grammes within Zimbabwe, signifying a massive 1 280 percentage
rise on $500 charged for letters of similar weight less than five months
ago.
Just in September, Zimpost hiked its tariffs by an unexplained
average 400 percent to $4 600, in what could be an unthinkable attempt by
the quasi-government institution of competing its increases with a shoddy
service.
What a competition!
Still it appears Zimpost will
continue on this trend in the foreseeable future.
The institution is
seeking to trade profitably in line with its commercialisation hence it
wants to charge viable rates.
But if commercialisation means decisions to
increase rates are being reached at tea break or over lunch, then such
motions revolt against all logic.
Workers at Zimpost have continuously
been pressing for wage increases, and the best manner in which the
institution has resolved such matters is by sacking all the striking
employees and replacing them by a bunch of novices.
Really, there hasn't
been much achieved by Zimpost in reaching an amicable resolution in
addressing the workers' concerns - which could be overstated
anyway.
But how best can one explain a scenario whereby the seemingly
best solution by Zimpost in resolving its industrial relations is dismissing
all experienced workers. In another development, consumers might as well
have to brace themselves for another increase in tariffs, this time by
another not-so-well performing telecommunications provider,
TelOne.
Officials from the fixed telephone service indicated during the
third quarter of 2004 that current tariffs are way belong regional
standards, and as such there was need to catch up with rates charged in the
region.
Given this background, rates would be staggered on a quarterly
basis until such a time when local rates match regional rates.
Since
the beginning of this year, TelOne has increased its charges twice, but more
increases are coming.
Service delivery has remained static, however, in
face of service just inches away from Zimpost's, perhaps they are in the
same category but hope would be that both TelOne and Zimpost alike perform
to standards commensurate with their level of rate increases.
[ This report does not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 29
Nov 2004 (IRIN) - An international NGO involved in a school feeding
programme has had to leave Zimbabwe because the authorities refused to renew
its registration and work permits for expatriate staff.
International aid
agencies and NGOs must register with the government and have their
activities vetted and approved.
The NGO Medair, which has its
headquarters in Switzerland, told IRIN on Monday that it was "disappointed"
at having to leave Zimbabwe last week "at such a critical
time".
Medair communications officer Severine Flores noted that, as a
World Food Programme (WFP) implementing partner, Medair provided up to
90,000 children in 150 schools with at least one daily meal.
"Very
often it was the only meal they would get that day," added Flores.
She
said they had received no explanation from the authorities - "we were just
not desired to be there, regrettably".
The NGO had applied for the
renewal of work permits for its expatriate staff six months ago, Flores told
IRIN, but the applications were refused. The school feeding programme was
suspended in August after its registration was not renewed.
Medair's
desk officer for Zimbabwe, Mark Screeton, said in a statement that the
organisation had hoped it would be able to continue the school feeding
programme.
"But instead, we found ourselves prevented from
distributing, and so the food has sat deteriorating in the warehouses since
August. It's been so frustrating - not being free to work - and now we
leave, knowing the increasing food insecurity that faces those primary
school children and their families," Screeton added.
Medair has
operated in Zimbabwe for two years and its pull-out followed months "in
which we had seen our temporary registration to continue our school feeding
programmes in Gokwe North [in Midlands province] and Mudzi [in Mashonoland
East province] ... expire and not be renewed, despite our best efforts", the
organisation said. It noted that "the timing of this decision is all the
more significant because of the deteriorating economic and humanitarian
situation within the country".
Earlier this month the Famine Early
Warning System Network "reasserted their prediction that 2.2 million rural
households would require food aid before the end of the year". Medair noted
reports of "falling school attendances in Mudzi district as parents took
their children out of school to work in the fields or find food".
A
WFP spokesman told IRIN that "unfortunately, the school feeding programme
for some 90,000 children is suspended while we look for another implementing
partner. We have some food at a number of the schools to last until the end
of term, but since there is no implementing partner there are delays at
various schools - there's no monitoring going on and no follow-ups. These
delays are affecting the children".
"Many of these children ... live
in traditionally food-deficit areas, as highlighted by the ZimVAC [Zimbabwe
Vulnerability Assessment Committee] report released by the government in
October. For many of them this is the only meal that they have," the
spokesman added.
WFP was "very concerned that this has happened, when we
are now in the traditionally lean season [the between-harvest period when
food stocks start to run out], when there is less food available for
vulnerable households".
Despite this, "we are grateful that we are
currently reaching 360,000 school children in Zimbabwe", the WFP spokesman
said. The aid agency aims to reach some 500,000 school children in January
2005.
Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is
visiting the European Parliament today at a time of increasing political and
economic oppression in Zimbabwe.
A criminal law, being rushed
through the Zimbabwean Parliament, will make it virtually impossible to
criticise the Mugabe regime in any meaningful way.
This is at a
time when 7 million Zimbabweans continue to suffer near starvation as a
consequence of Mugabe's appalling land policies.
Geoffrey Van Orden
MEP, Conservative Spokesman on Human Rights and Vice-Chairman of the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, said:
"Morgan
Tsvangirai has personally suffered at the hands of the Mugabe regime and has
become a symbol of Zimbabwe's struggle. The international community has been
singularly ineffective in bringing about change for the better in
Zimbabwe.
There is a disgraceful lack of political will. Mugabe
supporters continue to travel to European countries in spite of an EU travel
ban.
England's cricketers are performing in Harare because the
British Government failed to give instructions to the contrary to the
England and Wales Cricket Board. Zimbabwe's neighbours - South Africa in
particular - have failed to take the moral high ground and turn the screws
on the Mugabe regime.
We hope that Morgan Tsvangirai's visit
today will once more galvanise the international community to action."
There is but one ethical position to support
in Cosatu's face-off with government over the labour congress's venture into
Zimbabwe. Cosatu is right. The significance of its stance does more than
highlight Robert Mugabe's abuse of the rights of ordinary Zimbabweans; the
critical outcry against it also says a great deal about the state of health
of our own democracy. After all, the gravest threat to any democracy is
frequently not government action; it is, rather, inaction by other players
in a nation state, from civil society to business to labour. Our government,
with many others, suffers from the illusion that its policies are inherently
correct, equitable and justified - so it must govern unchallenged until the
next election. The only defence against this encroachment is open, direct
and sometimes confrontational engagement. This necessitates critics having
the courage to raise their heads above the parapet. Cosatu and the Treatment
Action Campaign are among the few that have fought for their democratic
space. The biggest disappointment has been business. Thus far, SA business
has acted with no clear or coherent strategy. In 1996, Prof Peter Berger,
director of Boston's Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, noted:
"Business has often failed to understand its changing relationship with the
forces unleashed by and within a democratising social order. It has been
slow to define its social and political interests and is defensive, reactive
and inept in promoting them." Business's failure to speak out is symptomatic
of a fear of calling government to account. This must change, for which
Berger argued that a clear perception of common business interests is
essential; and for that, particularly if business wants to influence the
architecture of government policy, it must organise collectively and act
strategically. It should consider Cosatu's vigorous position, get its act
together, and play its role in our free-market democracy. Anything else is
cowardice.
Zimbabwe threatened by splits over Mugabe successor
November
29, 2004, 14:45
President Robert Mugabe has already secured his
leadership of Zimbabwe's ruling party for another five years, but a fierce
battle over his eventual successor is threatening to split its ranks,
analysts say.
As widely expected, ZANU-PF provincial executives have
endorsed Mugabe to retain his party presidency at a crucial ZANU-PF congress
which opens on Wednesday, a post he has occupied for nearly 30 years. But
party elections for a second vice presidency - seen as a stepping stone to
the top job have left ZANU-PF divided ahead of parliamentary elections
scheduled for March.
Mugabe bowed to pressure from some lieutenants to
give the post to a woman, sidelining Emmerson Mnangagwa, the parliamentary
speaker, a man often touted as his preferred successor. Political analysts
say Mugabe's warning that he would punish top ZANU-PF officials who "defied
the party" by trying to block the rise of Joyce Mujuru and campaigning for
Mnangagwa would split the governing party.
"There is simmering
discontent in ZANU-PF over how this whole issue has been handled," said
Eldred Masunungure, the chairperson of the University of Zimbabwe's
political science department. "Although the official line is that the party
is united and will emerge out of this stronger, the truth is that ZANU-PF is
looking weak and divided but probably not weak enough for the opposition to
take out," he said.
John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the
University of Zimbabwe and frequent Mugabe critic, said the Zimbabwean
leader might use "intimidation and terror" to keep ZANU-PF united in the
face of a whispering campaign that a political faction bent on consolidating
power around Zimbabwe's northern Mashonaland region has hijacked the party.
- Reuters