Zim Online
Wednesday 17 October 2007
Patricia
Mpofu
HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition on Tuesday demanded the
prosecution of
police officers and state security agents for allegedly
torturing its
activists arrested last March on charges of plotting to
overthrow the
government.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
party said the 34 activists were
also suing Home Affairs Minister Kembo
Mohadi and Police Commissioner
Augustine Chihuri for Z$4 trillion in
damages, vowing to end what it called
the "the culture of impunity in state
institutions."
"Apart from the $4 trillion that our members are demanding
in damages from
the state, we demand the immediate investigation of the
heinous acts of
torture against the detainees and the consequent prosecution
of individual
police officers and state security agents involved in the
same," the party
said in a statement.
Mohadi and Chihuri were not
immediately available for comment on the matter.
However, the Harare
administration has in the past rejected charges by
churches and human rights
groups that the police and other state security
agents routinely target MDC
activists for illegal arrest and torture.
The MDC activists spent up to
three months in jail facing charges that they
received training in warfare
and insurgency work in neighbouring South
Africa and planned to overthrow
President Robert Mugabe and government.
The MDC denied plotting military
insurgency, dismissing charges against its
activists as politically
motivated and trumped up, a claim upheld by the
High Court in July when it
freed the opposition party's activists, saying
the police had lied and
fabricated evidence against them.
Harare lawyer Alec Muchadehama,
representing the activists who all belong to
the larger faction of the MDC
led by Morgan Tsvangirai, said the money the
activists were claiming was for
unlawful arrest and detention without trial,
assault, torture, denial of
food and lack of medical attention while in
police custody.
"We have
served the Minister of Home Affairs, the Police Commissioner and
several
other police officers fingered in the detention and torture of our
clients,"
said Muchadehama.
The Z$4 trillion being demanded by the MDC activists
amounts to more than
US$127 million on the official foreign exchange market
but less than US$5
million on the illegal parallel market rate where the
dollar trades at 750
000 to one greenback, and where most foreign currency
is traded in Zimbabwe.
Some of the MDC activists held by the police for
up to three months are
Member of Parliament Paul Madzore, deputy organising
secretary Morgan
Komichi, director of elections Ian Makone and information
officer Luke
Tamborinyoka.
The MDC, which is in talks with ZANU PF
that are in part aimed at ensuring
free and fair elections next year,
claimed the arrest of its activists and
continuing acts of violence against
the opposition party were meant to
cripple the party ahead of the
presidential and parliamentary polls in 2008.
South Africa's President
Thabo Mbeki under the auspices of the Southern
African Development Community
brokered the talks between the ruling ZANU PF
party and the MDC.
The
talks, that are aimed at finding a permanent settlement to Zimbabwe's
eight-year political and economic crisis, saw the two political parties
agreeing last month on constitutional reforms that will see parliamentary
elections brought forward by two years to be held together with presidential
elections in 2008.
But the MDC insists political violence was
continuing in Zimbabwe and that
suppression of the freedoms of assembly and
movement had not stopped,
although the opposition party says it will not
pull out of the South
African-led talks with ZANU PF. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 17 October
2007
By Hendricks Chizhanje
HARARE - Foreign direct
investment (FDI) inflows into Zimbabwe slumped by
61.1 percent in 2006 after
peaking at US$103 million the previous year,
according to the latest World
Investment Report released by the United
Nations yesterday.
The
report - titled Transnational Corporations, Extractive Industries and
Development and released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) - showed FDI inflows into Zimbabwe plunging to US$40
million in 2006 from US$103 million in 2005.
The average FDI inflow
into Zimbabwe between 1990 and 2000 was US$88
million.
The UNCTAD
report attributed the slump in investment to Zimbabwe's economic
climate,
characterised by a government assault on property rights and the
recent
crackdown on money transfer agencies.
The Harare authorities have
compulsorily acquired farmland from former white
owners under a
controversial and often violent land reform programme that
resulted in an
unprecedented flight of foreign investors since 2000.
"In some countries,
however, governments adopted policies that were less
favourable to foreign
investment ... Swaziland closed its retail sector to
foreign investors and
Zimbabwe prohibited money transfer operations by
foreign or domestic
agencies and main banking institutions," read part of
the UNCTAD
report.
Zimbabwe's legislators recently railed through parliament a
controversial
Economic Empowerment and Indigenisation Bill that forces
foreign investors
to cede 51 percent of their shareholding to
blacks.
The government says the controversial legislation is meant to
give control
of the country's natural resources to the majority
blacks.
But the legislation has drawn criticism from economic analysts
and central
bank governor Gideon Gono who fear it would scare away foreign
investors at
a time Harare desperately needs support from the international
community.
The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, an umbrella body
representing the
interests of the country's commercial sector, has warned of
a 30 percent
slump in foreign investment if President Robert Mugabe presses
ahead with a
controversial indigenization law.
United States food
giant H J Heinz has already sold its 49 percent stake in
Olivine Holdings
for US$6.8 million to government-controlled agro-processing
company Cotton
Company of Zimbabwe. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 17 October 2007
By
Sebastian Nyamhangambiri
HARARE - Police on Tuesday severely assaulted
and injured more than 30
members of the National Constitutional Assembly
(NCA) political pressure
group for attempting to march to Parliament to
protest against
constitutional reforms agreed between President Robert
Mugabe and the
opposition last month.
Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party
and the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party agreed in
Parliament to amend Zimbabwe's
Constitution to bring forward parliamentary
elections by two years so they
will be held together with presidential
elections in 2008.
The NCA and other civic society groups have opposed
the constitutional
changes, saying any process to amend the country's
governance charter should
include all stakeholders and that what is needed
are not piecemeal changes
but wholesale constitutional reforms to produce a
new and democratic
constitution for the country.
In a statement, the
NCA said its activists were on a peaceful march to
Parliament to show their
disapproval of Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment
Bill No. 18 when the
police pounced, beating up and injuring 34 of the
marchers.
"We
wonder why the regime still believes in bloodshed. We were merely
exercising
our right to demonstrate against something we abhor," the group
said, adding
that those injured were taken to a private hospital for
treatment.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the police had
clashed with the
NCA demonstrators but denied excessive force was
used.
He said: "They were asked to disperse. Some took the orders but a
few tried
to resist the orders and some minimum force was used. It was not
anything
serious but just to make them disperse."
However a ZimOnline
reporter who was monitoring the NCA march witnessed
dozens of riot police,
some who carried guns, round up the demonstrators and
ordering them to lie
on the tarmac, not far from the offices of the
government's flagship Herald
newspaper.
Then a police officer, who was referred to as Marondera by his
colleagues
and who appeared to be their commander, ordered the police to
assault the
NCA activists.
"Give them what they deserve and let them
go," thundered Marondera, upon
which the police began beating the NCA
activists with baton sticks before
ordering them to
disperse.
Meanwhile, Women of Zimbabwe Arise official Jenni Williams said
she and
scores of other activists from the group who were arrested by the
police on
Monday afternoon for demonstrating against police brutality were
released
later in the night.
They were not charged.
"We were
released around midnight without any charge," said Williams "We
know the
tactic is to frustrate (us). It will not work. We will continue
fighting
until we get what we want."- ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 17 October 2007
By
Lizwe Sebatha
BULAWAYO - Mining companies in Zimbabwe have started
receiving direct
uninterrupted power supplies from Mozambique's Cahora Bassa
to avert total
collapse of a sector battling constant power
blackouts.
The Chamber of Mines said yesterday that mining companies
started receiving
direct uninterrupted power this month from Mozambique
after signing
individual contracts with the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (ZESA)
to pay for power supplies in foreign
currency.
ZimOnline revealed last month that the Chamber of Mines and
ZESA had signed
an agreement to allow mining companies to start paying for
power supplies to
the power utility in foreign currency after the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) authorised the move.
The arrangement is an
attempt to save the mining sector, one of the main
casualties of the
constant power outages that have hit Zimbabwe since
foreign currency
shortages started in 1999.
Chamber of Mines chief executive Douglas
Verden said mining companies that
signed individual contracts with ZESA
started receiving power supplies
direct from Mozambique this
month.
"They pay in foreign currency and receive 220 megawatts of power
per month
from Cahora Bassa to increase production output," said Verden
yesterday.
This comes as a relief to the mining companies, coming at a
time when most
of Zimbabwe's regional power suppliers have reduced supplies
to ZESA over
mounting arrears.
The Chamber of Mines has already
predicted a 23 percent decline in gold
production from 11 tonnes to six
tonnes per annum because of the country's
risk profile.
Gold
producers, in the first half of the year, only managed to produce a
total
volume of three tonnes and 612 kilogrammes of gold against the
projected
output of eight tonnes and 715 kilogrammes.
Last year Zimbabwe's mining
output dipped by 14 percent, while gold
deliveries to the central bank - the
country's sole buyer of the metal -
were down to 11 tonnes from 14 tonnes
the previous year.
Last week one of the country's largest foreign mining
investors, South
Africa's Impala Platinum (Implats), announced it had
reached a tentative
agreement with Mozambique to import power from Cahora
Bassa to cushion its
Zimbabwean operations against rolling
blackouts.
The South African-based mining giant - majority shareholders
in Zimbabwe's
largest platinum producer Zimplats Holdings - said an
agreement had been
reached in principle with Mozambique to import power
directly from
Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa.
The group, which runs
platinum mining operations at Selous, Ngezi and Mimosa
near Bulawayo, also
announced plans to build a 330-kilovolt sub-station near
Selous to power its
operations.
Mimosa is jointly owned by Implats and
Aquarius.
Zimbabwean companies have been subjected to rolling blackouts
blamed on an
eight-year economic crisis that has seen ZESA failing to keep
pace with
demand for electricity.
Zimbabwe imports more than 40
percent of her power from neighbouring
countries. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 17 October 2007
By
Simplisio Chirinda
HARARE - Miss Rural pageant founder, Sipho Mazibuko
has sensationally
claimed that a senior Zimbabwe government official was
throwing spanners
into her business plans after she turned down the
official's sexual
advances.
Mazibuko told stunned journalists at a
press conference on Monday that
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) boss
Karikoga Kaseke was blocking the
hosting of her pageant's finals after she
refused to sleep with him.
"I have called you so that you understand why
we are postponing the finals
of the Miss Rural Zimbabwe pageant.
"We
have been having problems with the ZTA which wants to take over my
pageant
and is blocking the holding of the finals because I refused to be
Kaseke's
girlfriend and to sleep with him," said Mazibuko.
Mazibuko, who was
surrounded by more than a dozen burly bodyguards, refused
to take questions
from the floor.
Kaseke is the chief executive officer of ZTA, a quasi
government body that
promotes tourism and has the power to licence the
hosting of all beauty
pageants in Zimbabwe.
The former Civil Aviation
Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) chief executive
officer is not new to
controversy. Last year, he was forced to resign from
his post after he was
accused of bedding an under-age orphaned girl, Nyasha
Sonia
Ndanga.
Contacted for comment on the latest allegations, Kaseke dismissed
Mazibuko's
allegations as the rantings of a mad woman.
"This woman is
mad, I don't know what she is talking about and I don't even
know where it's
all coming from. I am surprised that she called the press to
tell all these
lies," said an emotional Kaseke yesterday.
"This talk about the ZTA
refusing to bankroll her because she refused to
sleep with me is ridiculous.
I am actually weighing my options but I will
certainly have her arrested for
criminal defamation," he added.
The Standard weekly newspaper last
weekend accused Mazibuko of abusing young
girls after scores of this year's
finalists were paraded and exposed to
lurid scenes at night clubs in
Masvingo town.
There have also been allegations that senior government
officials were
abusing the young girls taking advantage of their
desperation. - ZimOnline
Christian Today
The Czech
Republic is considering joining Britain's Gordon Brown in
boycotting an
EU-Africa summit if Zimbabwe's controversial leader Robert
Mugabe shows up,
a deputy prime minister said.
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 21:59
(BST)
BRUSSELS - The Czech Republic is considering joining Britain's
Gordon Brown
in boycotting an EU-Africa summit if Zimbabwe's controversial
leader Robert
Mugabe shows up, a deputy prime minister said.
EU
president Portugal is planning to host the first summit of EU and African
leaders in seven years in December but Brown has said neither he nor any
senior member of the British government will attend alongside Mugabe. He had
been alone so far in announcing a boycott.
"Boycott the summit? It's
an option," Czech Deputy Prime Minister for
European Affairs Alexandr Vondra
told reporters. "We have not made a
decision yet but it's an option to
downgrade our participation," he said in
embargoed comments during a trip to
Brussels last week.
The EU and Africa have failed to organise a summit
for years because Britain
and other EU states refused to attend if Mugabe
did, and African leaders
would not attend if he was barred.
Critics
accuse Mugabe of rigging elections, human rights abuses and
presiding over
the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, now marked by the world's
highest
inflation rate of about 6,600 percent and joblessness of about 80
percent.
But, pressed by increasing competition from China in the
resource-rich
continent, the EU seems determined this time for the summit to
take place.
The 27-nation bloc is Africa's largest trading partner with
trade totalling
more than 200 billion euros ($283 billion) last year. But
China leapt into
third place in 2006 with 43 billion euros and has stepped
up investments.
Portugal has said it will invite all leaders, including
Mugabe. It has yet
to send the invitations.
Officials said EU states
backed Portugal and want the summit to take place,
though the Czech
Republic, some Nordic countries and the Netherlands take a
hard line on
Mugabe's human rights records, along with Britain.
Mugabe blames Western
powers for the economic crisis and accuses them, and
former colonial ruler
Britain in particular, of plotting with the opposition
to oust him. African
leaders see him as an independence hero.
Mugabe is subject to an EU
travel ban but the ban can be suspended to allow
him to attend the Dec. 8-9
summit Lisbon.
SW Radio
Africa (London)
16 October 2007
Posted to the web 16 October
2007
Henry Makiwa
A report by seven key organisations on
Zimbabwe's agricultural situation
says most people have resorted to barter
trading to acquire basic
commodities, as shops continue to be
empty.
Details in a paper entitled: Agricultural Coordination Working
Group -
September 2007, portray a dire picture of how millions of people in
the
countryside are trading their staple maize for casual labour and other
basic
needs such as laundry soap and sugar.
It also highlights
the plummeting levels of wheat production on farms,
underscoring the warped
land reform policies of the Robert Mugabe regime
that has seen 70% of
commercial agriculture being destroyed in the past
seven years.
Among
the organisations involved in the compilation of the report are the
Food and
Agriculture Organisation, Environment Africa, Oxfam, the Ministry
of Health
and the Department of Agricultural Research and Extension (Arex).
In the
report, the state-controlled Arex admits: "The prevalence of barter
trade is
high in all (rural) districts with a wide range of commodities
being
exchanged for grain (for example sugar, laundry soap, green vegetables
and
casual labour).
Arex adds: "An analysis of the barter trade activities
indicate that the
terms of trade are favouring basic commodities over grain.
The observed
worsening terms for trade of maize grain is the result of the
acute
shortages of basic commodities and high prices on the parallel
market."
The practice of barter trade has also extended into cities and
towns
according to journalist, Shakeman Mugari.
Mugari said:
"Everyone is feeling the pinch and we are witnessing this even
here in
Harare. People are indeed pawning their assets for basic commodities
and
formal business is collapsing.
"Its all a direct result of the
government's price blitz policy and this has
had an obvious domino effect on
the poor showing of the economy," Mugari
said.
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
16
October 2007
A spokesman for the World Food Program said
on Tuesday, World Food Day, that
its logistical pipeline of food assistance
Zimbabwe has been bringing
nutrition to the most vulnerable groups since
last month and that the agency
will continue to gear up its provision of
food aid looking to feed 4 million
people by March of 2008.
The
United Nations agency is continuing to appeal to donors for assistance
on
behalf of the country although Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told
U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September that his government had
matters
in hand.
WFP Southern African Regional Information Officer Richard Lee
said the
agency has been feeding vulnerable rural dwellers through a program
launched
in September.
Lee told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that
his agency is scaling up operations
anticipating the period of most critical
need in the first three months of
2008 when Zimbabwe will be deep into its
"hunger season."
Meanwhile,
British nongovernmental aid provider Tearfund launched its own
appeal on
Monday to raise funds for food assistance for Zimbabwe and to
support
churches in the country which are involved in advocacy work on
behalf of the
poor.
Tearfund Zimbabwe Desk Officer Nick Burn said the organization,
which has
worked in Zimbabwe before, felt compelled to help those at risk of
going
hungry.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: October 16,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Around dawn, Susan lights a fire of
wood and garbage in
the yard to boil tea. There's no sugar, and sometimes no
tea either - just
mugs of tepid water for her two boys to drink before they
head to school.
It's the start of a typically desperate day in Robert
Mugabe's Zimbabwe,
where the economy is so crippled that households across
the country often
awake without power or running water, and a soft drink can
be a luxury.
Those who suffer most appear so burdened by the effort of
living from day to
day, they have little energy left to fight for change -
and little hope for
a better future.
Susan's is a world in
slow-motion meltdown.
The first dim wash of daylight at 5 a.m. brings the
clatter of chores on
treeless Rakgajani Avenue in western Harare, in a
crowded district where
some homes are no bigger than a household garage.
Firewood comes into the
city from outside, on buses, on women's heads, or
trundled in on pushcarts
to be sold on street corners.
Susan's boys,
9-year-old Paul and Dumi, aged 7, are walking to school when
their mother
takes up her spot on the sidewalk. Here she'll spend most of
the day selling
maputi, a popcorn-like snack of roasted maize kernels, and
sometimes
vegetables and children's clothing she has foraged at the district
market.
She sits on the concrete paving outside her house, a tall
lean woman aged
32, wearing a faded cotton head scarf. The weather forecast
on state radio
says it will be 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) by
noon. She
displays just one small plastic bag of maputi in case the police
come on a
confiscation raid and accuse her of illegal vending. The rest she
hides
inside her house until customers request it.
"We have no money, but
still the police chase us," Susan said.
With food and hard currency
scarce, and inflation running at nearly 7,000
percent for this year,
Mugabe's government seems to have decided that the
vendors share the blame -
that they are price-gougers and black-marketeers
and the sources of
worsening crime.
Those were the official reasons given for a brutal slum
clearance operation
in 2005 that left tens of thousands of people homeless
and saw makeshift
markets flattened by bulldozers in urban strongholds of
the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change.
The government called
it "Operation Clear Out the Filth."
On a good day, Susan earns 300,000
Zimbabwe dollars (60 cents at black
market exchange rates). Her husband
recently lost his job as a driver at a
small engineering factory that went
broke. When he was working, he brought
home less than Susan earned as a
street vendor.
Now that the central bank has struck three zeros off the
inflated bank
notes, Susan no longer has to wrestle with armfuls of
banknotes.
But no matter what shape the money takes, it can't buy Susan's
family the
basics. She says they manage on one daily meal of sadza, or corn
meal
porridge, with scraps of boiled vegetables but no cooking oil, salt,
meat or
bread. She last drank a Coke at a relative's wedding in April and
can't
remember when her sons last had cookies or candy.
"Now we say
that's good - it rots your teeth," she said.
The young play street soccer
with a ball of plastic bags held together with
rubber bands. But they have
little will or energy left for play, said Jane,
Susan's sister. Both women
asked that their surnames be withheld, saying
they fear retaliation by
Mugabe's agents.
As power and water outages worsen, linked to shortages
of coal, spare parts
and hard currency, sales of generators and water
storage tanks in affluent
suburbs of Zimbabwe have soared. But a water tank
would cost Susan seven
years of her highest earnings as a street
vendor.
In her district, Some water is drawn from streams and drains. But
there
isn't enough for regular bathing and laundry.
By around 2 p.m.,
the boys are back from school. They immediately shed their
uniforms. To keep
them uncreased, Susan wipes them down with a damp cloth,
then covers them
with books, old magazines, her Bible, a tea tray of saucers
and cracked
china plates and an old wooden footstool. No matter how hard
life is, the
children must look neat.
Uniforms are obligatory, and Susan would have to
sell 400 packets of maputi
to afford a new school blazer for
Dumi.
When children weaken and get sick, "we can't afford to go to the
clinic,"
said Jane, the sister. "We use plants taught to us by the old
people and the
n'angas" - herbalist healers.
Many trace the economic
collapse to the program Mugabe launched in 2000 to
seize white-owned farms
and hand them over to blacks to right the wrongs of
the murungu, the whites
who founded this corner of the British empire and
ruled it until it won
independence in 1980.
The chaotic and often violent seizures of thousands
of white-owned farms
disrupted the agriculture-based economy of what used to
be a regional
breadbasket.
The government has cracked down hard on
Mugabe's critics, arresting and
beating opposition leaders. Mugabe himself
has declared his "police have a
right to bash" dissidents.
Susan,
Jane and their neighbors say they are too busy trying to survive to
engage
in politics - and they know the risks. Jane tells of a woman who
participated in a demonstration, was assaulted and spent a month in the
Harare Central hospital.
"You know what happens, so you just draw
away," she said.
Still clinging to the remnants of the democracy it
inherited from the
whites, when the black majority had no vote, Zimbabwe is
holding
presidential and parliament elections in March. Past elections have
been
marred by violence, intimidation and allegations of
rigging.
Mugabe, 83, the only ruler since independence, is to run again
next year. If
he wins "we will die of hunger," Jane said. "If anyone else
wins, we will be
beaten. It will be war."
By 6 p.m., dusk is falling
over Susan's brick home of three small rooms. The
acrid smell of cooking
fires and burning garbage settles over the street.
The wood Susan has bought
won't last long enough to cook cornmeal porridge.
She adds paper cartons to
the flame and then the stuffing from a piece of
mattress she found in long
grass past the church.
The darkening shroud of night is broken by the
sweep of the headlamps of the
occasional passing car or taxi, lit on bright
to avoid the deepening
potholes. The vibrant nightlife of Rakgajani Avenue
has died. Candles
flickers behind some of the broken window panes in a
hostel where families
live.
Kerosene lamps are useless. There has
been no kerosene in five years of
chronic gasoline shortages.
Paul
and Dumi go to sleep behind a curtain. A cousin visiting from Susan's
home
village in rural Mutoko, 90 miles (145 kilometers) away, rolls out a
blanket
on the kitchen floor. She says she was afraid to bring corn from the
village
harvest lest it be confiscated when the bus was searched at police
checkpoints.
The family turns in by 9 p.m. Susan is already fretting
about tomorrow.
"What are the kids going to eat?"
The TV set is
covered with a hand-crocheted white cotton doily and family
photos in
plastic frames. The sole channel is a government mouthpiece. The
set is
switched off. There is still no power.
"We don't miss it," Susan said.
"All they want us to see is they are strong,
we are free from the British
murungu, and things are getting to be OK."
17 October 2007
By
Grace Kwinjeh
The Standing Committee of Zimbabwe's Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
has just suspended its women's league leadership in
a top-down coup. This
makes me step back and consider two views of women's
liberation.
'The emancipation of women is not an act of charity, the
result of a
humanitarian or compassionate attitude. The liberation of women
is a
fundamental necessity for the revolution, the guarantee of its
continuity
and the precondition for its victory', said Samora Machel, the
founder of
liberated Mozambique.
For Machel, 'to destroy the system
of exploitation and build a new society
which releases the potential of
human beings. is the context within which
women's emancipation
arises.'
Here is another context and quotation: 'Feminism is the radical
notion that
women own their vaginas', according to an anonymous sister, with
vagina
meaning an expression of feminism, womanhood, strength, resilience,
struggle, as well as our body and reproductive capacity.
The female
body is a site of struggle which is why in war situations,
opposing parties
take pride in raping women. A Congolese feminist, Christine
Schuler
Deschryver , estimates that in the conflict-ridden eastern DRC,
'more than
200,000 women, children and babies are being raped every day, and
right now,
thousands of women and children are being taken into forests as
sex
slaves."
In Zimbabwe, where I was jailed and tortured for peacefully
participating in
a protest last March, patriarchy has resulted in some
democracy activists
temporarily losing the value system that helped us to
stand against Robert
Mugabe's tyranny in the first place. We are seeing
regular instances of
sexism and misogyny, sadly perpetrated by would-be
liberators whose
leadership is now marked by moral decadence.
Sexism
is immoral and should be treated as such.
We would have short changed
ourselves as women if we agree to yet another
reproduction of the
debauchery, unfairness and inequality that we inherited
at independence, and
that soon reared its head in Mugabe's ruling party he
authorised mass
arrests of women for being on the street alone at night in
1982.
That
which united democrats in civil society and the MDC when we went to
battle
against Mugabe's regime was a common understanding of what we want to
achieve in a new Zimbabwe. That included a clear vision of the positioning
and placing of women, who have endured decades of patriarchal oppression
passed on like a baton stick from one system to another, from the settler
colonialists to the nationalists - and now sadly to the present-day
liberators.
Even before the MDC was formed eight years ago,
Zimbabwean women made great
strides in fighting for their emancipation. We
took on Mugabe before the
boys even woke up to their own oppression. The
women's struggle was led by
women like Everjoice Win, Shereen Essof,
Priscilla Misihairabwi, Nancy
Kachingwe, Yvonne Mahlunge, Isabella
Matambanadzo, Thoko Matshe, Janah
Ncube, Lydia Zigomo, Rudo Kwaramba, and
Sekai Holland, fellow torture
survivor and head of the Association of
Women's Clubs.
Our first fight was for recognition as equal human beings
to our male
counterparts. The Legal Age of Majority Act now recognises us as
adults, we
can vote, open bank accounts and even marry should we choose to -
none of
which were possible without the consent of a male connection, be it
brother
father or uncle. We were perpetual minors.
The Matrimonial
Causes Act now recognises our right to own property
independently of our
husbands or fathers. After we challenged physical
abuse, parliament passed
the Domestic Violence Act. This background made
some of us suitable
candidates for leadership in the MDC.
At what point, then, did we women
become minors once again, answerable to
male authority, becoming subjects of
agendas that have nothing to do with
our empowerment or liberation for that
matter? With the MDC's attack on its
women's league, we are relegated once
again to second class citizen
position.
The first contact women like
Lucia Matibenga (former head of the MDC women's
league), Sekai Holland and
myself have with our bodies each morning after we
wake up and take a bath,
is the scarring inflicted by Mugabe's police.
These scars are deep,
physical and psychological, but their political
significance is that they
can be the source of our liberation. They are our
badges of honour, marking
us as comrades who have been on the frontline
facing the enemy head
on.
Zanu PF has a military history and what Mugabe calls 'degrees in
violence'
that we all know of. However, we have been too slow to address
other forms
of violence perpetrated against us by our brothers in the
democratic
movement.
We are told by MDC men, 'It is taboo, it causes
unnecessary confusion,
divisions, we have one enemy'. If we keep believing
this, it means that like
our sisters in Zanu Pf we may find ourselves on the
eve of independence in
the same position they were in at Lancaster
House.
Their leading woman in the state, Joyce Mujuru, was suddenly
elevated to
Vice President but served merely as a place holder, for as the
succession
battle rages it is clear she is not Mugabe's natural successor.
She has not
pushed any women's agenda beyond party politics and
sloganeering.
Everjoice Win, gender officer at ActionAid, insists that we
will not unite
with Mujuru for the sake of biology. Having a vagina does not
necessarily
mean we are the same.
Says Win, 'Whatever "deal" is
worked out to resolve Zimbabwe's crisis, women
and their rights should be at
the centre of it. We want feminists-women who
care about the rights of other
women and who are prepared to rock the
patriarchal boat-to be in leadership
positions and to be there when the deal
is made'.
But of the top six
dealmakers from two MDC factions and the government, only
one is a
woman.
For a long time, women have been bashed into silence: 'If you
speak out he
will beat you up more'. Yet whether we speak or not we still
take a beating.
Now, at what may become a time of renewed patriarchy under
the mantle of the
democratic opposition, it is a historical obligation for
any woman to stand
up against the kind of bigotry that is being forced on
us, even by our own
brothers in the new liberation movement, a movement
still not mature enough
to treat us with respect.
Grace Kwinjeh is an
MDC official and writes this article as a Visiting
Scholar with the Center
for Civil Society.
Nehanda Radio
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
16 October
2007
Facing an incipient rebellion by the women in its
ranks over the dissolution
earlier this month of a women's assembly, the
leadership of the faction of
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change led by Morgan
Tsvangirai has called a special congress of the women's
assembly on October
28, party sources said.
The dissolution of the
assembly by a steering committee of the faction was
interpreted by many as a
roundabout means of ousting its head, Lucia
Matibenga. The language used to
announce the decision was also unfortunate,
as officials referred to an
"audit" of the assembly, which some took as
suggesting financial
improprieties. However, the term "audit" was used to
describe a general
review of the assembly's effectiveness.
Faction Secretary General Tendai
Biti, who is said to have signed the letter
dissolving the women's assembly,
confirmed Tuesday that the party will hold
the extraordinary congress at the
end of the month - but refused to disclose
further details.
National
Chairman Lovemore Moyo was said to have signed the letter calling
for the
extraordinary summit - the next ordinary summit was not due until
2011.
Some members of the MDC faction's national executive said the
standing
committee headed by party President Morgan Tsvangirai failed to
follow the
proper procedure in dissolving the assembly. Sources said the
national
executive has scheduled an emergency meeting one day before the
women's
congress opens.
Political analyst John Makumbe, a senior
lecturer at the University of
Zimbabwe, told reporter Carole Gombakomba of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that the faction needs to call a special meeting
if there are disagreements
within a party organ, but added that current
problems in the faction go well
beyond the Women's Assembly.
The
state-controlled Herald newspaper reported that Theresa Makone, wife of
faction elections director Ian Makone, was the top contender to become
national chairwoman of the women's assembly. VOA could not reach Makone for
comment.
National Director Ernest Mudzengi of the National
Constitutional Assembly
noted in an interview with reporter Patience Rusere
that the dissolution of
the women's assembly was closely followed by that of
the faction's United
Kingdom executive, reflecting a fundamental unease with
MDC compromises in
crisis talks with ZANU-PF.
livingchurch.org
10/16/2007
The Rt. Rev. Norbert Kunonga must go, leaders of
the Anglican Province of
Central Africa said, calling upon the controversial
Bishop of Harare to
relinquish control of diocesan assets by Oct. 16 or face
a civil lawsuit.
"There is no justification for your continued conduct of
episcopal duties as
diocesan Bishop" of Harare, lawyers acting on behalf of
the province told
Bishop Kunonga last week.
In a letter to Archbishop
Bernard Malango dated Sept. 21, Bishop Kunonga
said that Harare had quit the
province over the issue of homosexuality,
citing the Aug. 4 passage by the
diocese of Pastoral Motion 8c which he said
authorized
secession.
However Harare diocesan chancellor Robert Stumbles told The
Living Church no
such resolution was adopted. Bishop Kunonga's purported
secession resolution
"appeared after synod" and had "not been on the
agenda." At no time did the
Harare synod give Bishop Kunonga "absolute
authority to drag the diocese out
of the province," he said.
Bishop
Kunonga's actions were "tantamount to a schism," Bishop Trevor Mwamba
of
Botswana told TLC on Sept. 22.
"The next logical step is for the Bishop
of Harare to resign," he said. "The
See of the Diocese of Harare will then
be declared vacant and a new bishop
elected to replace Bishop Kunonga. The
schismatic group should not be under
any illusion in thinking that they have
title to the properties and various
trusts legally vested in the Diocese of
Harare."
The letter to Archbishop Malango by Bishop Kunonga followed a
controversy-plagued provincial synod on Sept. 10. The province consists of
15 dioceses in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In their letter
to Bishop Kunonga, the province's solicitors, Gill,
Godlonton & Gerrans
of Harare wrote "that despite your withdrawal from our
client [the Church of
the Province of Central Africa] you continue to
conduct episcopal duties in
the diocese of Harare and administrative
business at our client's premises
at Paget House."
He was asked to surrender the diocese's automobiles,
bank accounts, books of
account and real estate which were "held in trust by
the diocesan trust for
the benefit of the Diocese of Harare but remain the
property of our client,
Church of the Province of Central
Africa."
Should Bishop Kunonga fail to comply with the province's
request, the letter
said the province would pursue civil legal
remedies.
(The Rev.) George Conger
New Zimbabwe
By Staff
Reporter
Last updated: 10/17/2007 07:18:55
THE deposed opposition MDC UK
executive has vowed to defy the party's
national chairman, Lovemore Moyo,
who dissolved the structure over the
weekend citing ceaseless
in-fighting.
Moyo is the national chairman of the MDC faction led by
Morgan Tsvangirai.
Moyo was accused of "nepotism" and abuse of the MDC
constitution by Ephraim
Tapa, the chairman of the deposed
executive.
Tapa blasted: "We are talking here of a chairman who came to
save the
political lives of his acquaintances. We are not accepting that and
the
manner in which it was done was unconstitutional.
"This whole
thing was a cooked up thing and that is why the membership of
the MDC in the
UK is saying 'No'."
Tapa claimed a revolt was imminent among the MDC
membership in the UK, even
suggesting that some were calling for the
formation of a new party.
But Moyo, in an interview with AfrosoundsFM's
Zimbabwe Today programme, said
he had the constitutional authority to make
the changes.
He said: "I didn't just come to dissolve the UK structure. I
met the youth
executive first to find out their views and also their
concerns. I also met
the women's executive and also they expressed their
concerns, and also had
their own point of view about problems here in the
UK. I then met what I
would say are the owners of the party, that is the
branches themselves,
where again I engaged them in a consultative
meeting.
"At the end of the day, together with the branches, we chatted
the way
forward. It was never a Lovemore Moyo decision, but it was a
decision that
came from the contributions and concerns made by the branches
themselves.
"Out of the 42 branches that we have here in the UK, 37
debated on the issue
whether to dissolve the executive or to reform the
executive and out of the
37 who deliberated, 33 favoured dissolution citing
their reasons and only
four favoured a reformation, that's where we
rehabilitate them.
"So it was a clear indication that the former
executive had lost the mandate
and trust of the membership here, I never
came here with a specific mind
because this is my first encounter with this
structure. I don't have a
friend; I don't have anyone whom I know. For
anyone to say I came to
dissolve is not true. I came to understand their
problems and to give them
solutions."
But a furious Tapa told the
same programme that Moyo had been invited to the
UK by five former members
of his executive who quit two weeks ago, led by
Matthew Nyashanu, the
organising secretary.
In damaging claims, Tapa said after the dissolution
of the UK executive,
Moyo had been see in a pub in the company of Nyashanu
"congratulating each
other".
Tapa said: "Up to now a lot of us don't
understand what has happened. We are
at a loss really, but I am aware that
two weeks ago, five members of the
executive broke away and formed what they
called a new province of MDC UK.
"I called for a council (sic) which was
attended by over 45 branches and
they endorsed my leadership and the
executive unanimously. They also voted
to fill in the gaps that were left by
the departed.
"When those people who left discovered that their positions
were going to be
filled up, they then hastily arranged for the chairman to
come over and
dissolve the executive, that's the only explanation I can
give."
While Moyo said the UK MDC had 42 branches, Tapa insisted they
were 55,
adding that most were not represented as members were involved in a
demonstration at the Zimbabwe embassy in London.
Moyo, also the MP
for Matobo, said the MDC leadership in Zimbabwe had "grown
tired" of
constant factional fights in the UK executive.
He said: "We are faced
with a dictatorship back home and we can't afford to
waste time and have a
scenario where people spend 90 percent of their time
harassing and insulting
each other on the internet. We are not going to
accept that.
"It is
unfortunate if people see these positions as a way of uplifting
themselves
individually, to us these are challenges and also when you are a
position
holder we expect you to do the will of the majority and implement
the party
programme.
"I am saying if you have a difference with your national
leadership and if
you are a disciplined cadre and you have a respect of the
leadership,
obviously there are channels to express your dissatisfaction,
but certainly
media is not the appropriate channel to attack your
leadership.
"To me, it's serious indiscipline, and there is no MDC cadre
who can attack
and insult the leadership in public. Once you do so, to me
you are Zanu PF,
you are part of the dictatorship we are
fighting."
Moyo said John Nyamande would lead a coordinating committee
for the next six
months "until the dust settles".
"I hope that at
that time, we will be ready for an extra-ordinary congress
here in the UK
and people again would be able to choose their leadership.
Those who have
also been asked to step down are also free to campaign as
long as they
remain behaved and adhere to the constitution of the party."
Boston Herald
Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi
tackles tough issues with jubilant beats
By Bob Young
Tuesday, October 16,
2007 - Updated 6h ago
As a national hero in a nation wracked by
drought, violence and runaway
inflation, Oliver Mtukudzi has a choice. He
can act like everything is fine
in his native Zimbabwe, roar disapproval
through his music, or find a middle
road.
"I have to sing about
things that give hope to people," said the Afropop
star, who performs Friday
with his Black Spirits band at the Somerville
Theatre. "I don't sing about
what's bad. (People) already know all about
that."
As is his fashion,
Mtukudzi (pronounced em-too-kud-zee) overstates his
aversion to tackling
difficult issues, which is why he has been called an
artist with an iron
fist in a velvet glove. Or as Bonnie Raitt, who covered
one of Mtukudzi's
songs on her "Silver Lining" album, described it to a
reporter, "The
juxtaposition of what Mtukudzi sings about and his raw,
imploring, vocal
reminds me of Otis Redding, Toots Hibbert and some of my
favorite reggae, an
odd pairing of agonizing, thorny lyrics over basically
lighthearted
music."
That's the approach he takes on his new CD, "Tsimba Itsoka" ("No
Foot, No
Footprint"), in which he views the issues in Zimbabwe through a
broader,
global lens.
Which isn't easy, particularly in a country
where recently inflation topped
a whopping 7,000 percent. Earlier this week,
most bakeries were closed
because flour was in such short supply. Bread,
meat and other staples are
nowhere to be found on most Zimbabwean store
shelves.
"The economy of the country is bad," said the performer, known
affectionately to his countrymen as Tuku, from a tour stop in the Midwest.
"How much a loaf of bread costs changes almost every day. You can't
plan."
Nor can you turn on electricity for extended periods or buy milk
some days
except on the black market.
But rather than dwell on the
negatives of daily life and invite the ire of a
repressive government,
Mtukudzi makes his points on the new album in
reflective songs that aim to
enlighten, not preach.
"When I write my music, I don't write it with
Zimbabwe in mind," he said. "I
write with people in mind."
In a
gently swaying style called tsava that recalls the bright rhythms of
Paul
Simon's "Graceland," Mtukudzi uses his sand-and-honey voice to
celebrate the
virtues of self-discipline and hard work while demonizing
pedophilia,
gambling and self-deception.
Mtukudzi started learning these lessons at
an early age. After his father
died when he was an adolescent, he left
school to look after his mother and
six younger siblings, whom he learned to
entertain with song.
He eventually joined a band called the Wagon Wheels
with the fearlessly
political Zimbabwean star Thomas Mapfumo. After several
years he left with
some band mates to create the Black Spirits. Now, more
than two decades and
45 albums later, Mtukudzi is an international success,
but his troubled
homeland is never out of mind, even if his live shows are
festive affairs.
"I translate our experiences in Zimbabwe so that other
people will hopefully
learn from our mistakes," he said. "Zimbabweans are
very welcoming, happy
people who love life, and I represent my people. So
the music's tempos are
strong enough to get people up off their feet. People
should bring their
dancing shoes."
Oliver Mtukudzi and Black Spirits,
at the Somerville Theatre, Friday at 8.
Tickets: $28; 617-876-4275.
-
robertcyoung@comcast.net