http://www.swradioafrica.com
By
Alex Bell
17 October 2012
Zimbabwe’s head of the notorious Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO),
and other key ZANU PF officials, have been
linked to years of illegal
hunting in the country’s conservancies, which is
said to have been a key
source of revenue for the party.
CIO Director
Happyton Bonyongwe was named in a confidential diplomatic
cable, created in
2008 by then US Ambassador James McGee, who warned that
hunting “has long
been a source of ill-gotten revenue for members of the
ZANU PF elite, and
given the ongoing resource grab, it is not surprising
that new hunting
schemes have developed to supply the elites with forex.”
The cable,
released by the online whistleblower WikiLeaks, claimed that the
government
was indiscriminately issuing hunting licences in the country’s
national
parks, with a devastating impact on Zimbabwe’s protected wildlife
species.
At the time the illicit parcelling out of hunting licences was
linked to
ZANU PF’s plans to secure as much of a grip on resources as
possible before
it faced the MDC in elections.
A small group of hunters and safari
operators were allegedly consistently
involved in the illegal hunting
practices. The diplomatic cable named
professional hunters like Guy Whitall,
Tim Schultz of African Dream Safaris,
Headman Sibanda and Wayne Grant of
Nyala Safaris, Evans Makanza, Alan
Shearing, Buzz Charlton and James
Macullam of Charlton Macullum Safaris,
A.J. Van Heerden of Shashe Safaris,
Barry Van Heerden of Big Game Safaris,
and Lawrence Boha.
According
to the US embassy, numerous conservationists had suggested that
the Van
Heerden brothers were involved in suspicious hunting and land deals
with the
CIO’s Bonyongwe.
McGee warned in the cable that, “this ongoing struggle
over greed,
ill-gotten forex, and natural resource management is just one
more result of
the continued political impasse in Zimbabwe.”
The
cable was a warning of things to come and illegal hunting practices have
since been ‘normalised’ through the ZANU PF led indigenisation campaign.
National Parks in August this year issued hunting permits to 25 so-called
indigenous ‘farmers’ who were given land in the wildlife-rich Save Valley
Conservancy in the Lowveld. National Parks director general Vitalis
Chadenga, said this was part of the government’s ‘wildlife based land
reform’
exercise, saying beneficiaries have been allocated 25-year land
leases in
conservancies throughout Masvingo province.
Included in the
list of beneficiaries are top ZANU PF officials and
loyalists, such as
Masvingo Governor Titus Maluleke, former Gutu South
legislator Shuvai Mahofa
and the late Higher and Tertiary Education Minister
Stan Mudenge.
The
Masvingo Governor and other key MPs have since last year been
spearheading a
ZANU PF led campaign of ‘indigenisation’ in the province,
dubbed the
‘Masvingo Initiative’, with the intention of grabbing land.
Former governor
Josiah Hungwe, former MP Enock Porusingazi, army boss
Engelbert Rugeje, and
former MP and war vet Shuvai Mahofa, were last year
also fingered by
whistleblower website WikiLeaks as being part of the
Masvingo land
grab.
The Save Valley Conservancy has called the handover of the new
hunting
licenses a ‘criminal act’ that has nothing to do with genuine
indigenisation
efforts. Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the Zimbabwe
Conservation Task Force
(ZCTF), told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that the
licences need to be
revoked.
“Actually, we believe that hunting needs
to be suspended for three years to
do a proper audit and to put some
controls in place. Otherwise, we are
heading towards doom,” Rodrigues
warned.
He added that a senior government official is believed to have
quietly
stepped in to stop the ongoing takeover of the conservancies, “so we
will
see what will happen in the next few weeks.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Two Zanu (PF) cabinet ministers, Walter Mzembi
and Francis Nhema, have
clashed over how to treat the Save Valley
conservancies, further exposing
acrimony within the party and President
Robert Mugabe’s growing
helplessness.
17.10.12
by Staff
Reporter
The allocation of conservancies have caused an uproar among
environmental
experts, former owners and foreign embassies who are concerned
that the
grabbing of the wildlife plots by Zanu (PF) members is detrimental
to the
economy and environment, in addition to being a violation of private
property rights.
The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources
Management, Francis Nhema
insists that the issuing of 25-year leases and
hunting licenses to more than
300 Zanu (PF)-linked beneficiaries was part of
the government’s
indigenisation and empowerment programme.
Bad for
tourism
However , Walter Mzembi , Minister of Tourism and Hospitality
Industry
argues grabbing the conservancies is bad for tourism. He also told
The
Zimbabwean that the list of beneficiaries is null and void as only 37
beneficiaries got leases and hunting licenses at the expense of the
community and tourist industry.
“Before 2000, these conservancies
were run by a few white individuals and
now they have been given to the
masses. This will not affect tourism at
all,” said Nhema in a recent
interview with The Zimbabwean.
Mzembi said the way the conservancies were
re-allocated was wrong.
“I am not against indigenisation and empowerment
but why can we not
distribute the conservancies using a broad-based system
and stop focusing on
a few rich individuals who have been benefiting again
and again?” said
Mzembi.
This is seen as a direct attack on the Zanu
(PF)-initiated indigenisation
drive.
Mzembi, who has already clashed
with party bigwigs in Masvingo province over
the seizure of the
conservancies, is seen as representing an independent
crop of growing Zanu
(PF) Young Turks eager to shed the old way of handling
politics.
Party divisions
According to reliable sources, the
controversy surrounding the conservancies
has sharply divided the
party.
The supreme decision-making body, the politburo, has been forced
to set up a
special committee to investigate the parcelling out of the
conservancies.
However, due to serious differences, the committee is yet
to start its work.
Nhema leads the committee, which also comprises
Mzembi, the Minister of
Local Government, Urban and Rural Development,
Ignatius Chombo and the
Minister for Lands and Rural Settlement, Herbert
Murerwa.
“The committee was formed four weeks ago and I do not think it
will convene
any meeting as Nhema and Mzembi are clashing. There are bigwigs
on Nhema’s
side who have either benefited or are planning to do so and
Mzembi is
fighting a lone war, even though he has some support in the
party,” said a
source.
The Tourism Minister questioned the
authenticity of the list of
beneficiaries of conservancies that have been
allocated so far, saying it
was being used to gain “cheap political mileage”
by party heavyweights.
He speculated that the Masvingo Governor and
Resident Minister, Titus
Maluleke, could have been the one who compiled the
list.
“The list must have been compiled by the Provincial Governor whose
territory
these conservancies fall under so that the Minister of Environment
could use
it to allocate leases and licenses. It was never approved by
Cabinet,” he
said.
Leaked docs
He denied having a conservancy
as listed on a leaked updated document The
Zimbabwean published recently. “I
never received a 25-year lease or a
hunting license as shown on the
list.
In fact there are only 37 people who actually got them,” he
said.
Mzembi claimed some party members were using the list to settle
disputes and
mislead people.
“Nhema is the committee’s chairman and
we are waiting for him to summon us.
For further information please get
hold of him,” he said.
Nhema’s mobile was answered by a woman who claimed
it was not his number.
http://nehandaradio.com
on October 17, 2012 at 7:01 pm
By Lance
Guma
Zimbabwe’s Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede, in charge of the
shambolic
voters roll that has helped Mugabe win countless controversial
elections,
has this week removed all doubt about his allegiance to the 88
year old
dictator.
Mudede was on Tuesday accredited to the Second
All Stakeholders
Constitutional Conference as a Zanu PF delegate. The three
day conference
(Sunday to Tuesday) will accommodate 1 100 delegates among
them 246 from
political parties, 284 MPs and 571 civil society group
representatives.
Douglas Mwonzora a spokesman for the MDC led by Prime
Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai said “We are very happy as MDC (Movement for
Democratic Change)
that Tobaiwa Mudede is coming as a Zanu PF delegate. It
buttresses what we
have always been saying that he is not
impartial.”
The 68 year-old Mudede has been in charge of all elections
held since 1985.
In March this year he told the Zanu PF controlled ZBC radio
that the country’s
voters’ roll is ‘perfect’ and ruled out any possibilities
of rigging through
double registration, saying this would be detected by a
‘computer system’.
Before presidential elections in 2002 Mudede told a
meeting at the
International School in Harare that, “he could imagine no
circumstances in
which he would declare anyone other than Mugabe the
winner.” Only after four
court orders were pressure groups able to see a
copy of the shambolic voters
roll he used.
Last year in June a report
by the South African Institute for Race Relations
said there were 42,000
people over the age of 100 on the voters roll and
that this was an
‘impossible’ number. Some appeared to be 120 years old, in
a country with a
life expectancy of 43, according to the World Health
Organisation.
The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(ZESN) also noted that
nearly a third of registered voters are dead and
described the voters roll
as a ‘shambles’ that needs to be overhauled before
fresh elections are held.
ZESN also want the voters roll in electronic form,
rather than the paper
version.
Two separate independent audits
exposed that the voters roll has thousands
of ghost voters used to inflate
figures for Zanu PF and Mugabe. Experts say
there are 2.6 million too many
names on the voters roll and this phantom
vote is more than enough to settle
the outcome of any election.
Mudede’s refusal to relinquish control of
the voters roll reinforces
suspicions that he is a central player in rigging
elections.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Fungai Kwaramba, Staff Writer
Wednesday, 17
October 2012 13:20
HARARE - Past atrocities such as Gukurahundi and
subsequent
politically-motivated violations swept under the carpet by the
coalition
government following the gazetting of the Human Rights Commission
Act should
be revisited to allow national healing, human rights lawyers have
demanded.
Speaking under the auspices of prominent rights group, Zimbabwe
Lawyers for
Human Rights (ZLHR), the lawyers said it was wrong to ignore
past atrocities
as suggested by the law used to operationalise the Zimbabwe
Human Rights
Commission (ZHRC).
ZLHR, which has more than 200-member
lawyers and law students countrywide,
expressed worry over the limited
powers of the ZHRC to effectively deal with
past atrocities.
“The
signing of the Bill into law allows the ZHRC to finally commence its
operations amid great expectations from Zimbabweans who have patiently
waited for years to realise this long overdue genesis,” the group said in a
statement.
Established in 2009 following the formation of a coalition
government
comprising of Zanu PF and the two MDC formations, ZHRC had failed
to carry
out its mandate as it did not have a legislative
foundation.
ZHRC now has an enabling law after President Robert Mugabe
signed the Human
Rights Bill into law last Friday.
But human rights
lawyers expressed concern that the “powers of the minister
of Justice and
Legal Affairs remain too wide, discretionary, and may have
the effect of
blocking key investigations and adversely affecting
transparency,
accountability and independence of the Commission”.
The human rights
commission will ignore past atrocities pre-dating 2009
after Zanu PF
prevailed over its government partners who had wanted to
include the
previous violations.
Lawyers said there was need to establish an
independent body that would look
into past human rights crimes.
“ZLHR
reiterates its call to the coalition government to urgently establish
an
independent and credible mechanism to deal with issues relating to past
human rights violations and atrocities.
“This independent mechanism
must be mandated to deal with all past human
rights violations that have
occurred in Zimbabwe, including the
pre-Independence era, as well as the
post-Independence atrocities of
Gukurahundi, Operation Murambatsvina, and
electoral-related crimes, amongst
others,” reads the ZLHR
statement.
An estimated 20 000 people died during the Gukurahundi
massacres of the
1980s by a North Korean-trained military brigade.
And
since 2000, hundreds of people have been affected by
politically-motivated
violence.
In 2005 close to a million people were left homeless after
Mugabe ordered a
clean-up of cities in order to drive out people who lived
in structures he
deemed illegal.
Not a single person has been
arrested for the crimes amid strong
condemnation from human rights groups as
well as the United Nations.
The human rights lawyers said although the
powers of the ZHRC are limited,
the timing for establishing a functional
human rights commission could not
have been better as the country limps
towards a referendum and elections
which could be held next
year.
“With a constitutional referendum and elections on the horizon, and
having
reference to historical trends, the existence of a functional
mechanism to
investigate and deal with politically-motivated rights
violations is
extremely important, especially where such violations tend to
worsen in the
run-up to, and following, such national processes.
“The
police, the prosecutorial authorities and the judiciary must at all
times
bear in mind that they have a constitutional and legal obligation to
respectively investigate and arrest, prosecute and punish convicted
perpetrators,” said ZLHR.
http://www.voazimbabwe.com
Tatenda Gumbo, Jonga
Kandemiiri
16.10.2012
Civic organizations have commended the gazetting
of the Human Rights
Commission Act saying it is a necessary step towards the
much-needed reforms
in Zimbabwe.
The Human Rights Commission Bill was
signed into law last Friday, giving it
legal mandate and powers to protect
and prosecute people suspected of
violating human rights.
The
constitutional body will now investigate alleged human rights violations
that occurred after Febuary 2009, a section of the act long disputed by
civic society and the Movement for Democratic Change.
The Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights welcomed the gazetting of the
commission, adding
that it should carry out its mandate without fear or
favor.
In a
statement, the organization encouraged the "ZHRC to immediately
commence its
operations and ensure that a strong and professional
secretariat is
established to assist in the implementation of its strategic
plan and the
fulfillment of its constitutional mandate."
It challenged the commission
to play its part in guaranteeing the
enforcement of its mandate as
Zimbabwe's democratic process is in full swing
with the constitutional
referendum and proposed elections on the horizon.
Senior researcher
Tiseke Kasambala of Human Rights Watch also commended the
gazetting of the
law but called into question the timeline for
investigations.
Kasambala said Zimbabwe needed to investigate human
rights violations that
occured in 2008, under Operation Murambatsvina and
the massacre of at least
20,000 by the Fifth
Brigade.
Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai and his
deputy Arthur Mutambara condemned Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa’s
recent statement Monday that Zanu PF will never accept a
Tsvangirai victory
in the next elections.
Chinamasa insinuated in an
interview with the British Broadcasting
Corporation last week that his party
and the army will never accept a leader
like Mr. Tsvangirai whom he said was
being used to further western interests
at the expense of ordinary
Zimbabweans.
MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora of Prime Minister
Tsvangirai’s MDC formation
told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri that the three
principals to the Global
Political Agreement were in agreement that
Chinamasa’s statements were in
bad taste.
But Zanu PF
spokesman Rugare Gumbo said Minister Chinamasa might have said
these words
in his capacity not as a party position.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
President Robert Mugabe's house in
Highfield is set to become a national
monument following plans by the
Ministry of Tourism to turn residencies of
some of Zimbabwe's nationalist
leaders in the high density suburb into
museums.
17.10.12
by
Edgar Gweshe
The Minister of Tourism Walter Mzembi made the
disclosures yesterday at a
cocktail party hosted for exhibitors for this
year's Sanganai/Hlanganani
Tourism fair.
Some of the houses set to be
developed into national monuments include that
of he late vice president
Joshua Nkomo, Hebert Chitepo, Leopold Takawira,
Josiah Chinamano, Enos
Nkala, among others in Highfield.
"Following the adoption by cabinet of
the National Tourism Policy, which
highlights Township Tourism and
enshrinement of the liberation struggle, it
is the Ministry's intention,
through the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority to raise
the status of these houses
to national monuments," said Mzembi.
Mzembi said that Highfield was the
"hotbed of nascent Zimbabwean
nationalism" adding that his Ministry saw it
necessary to develop homes
which housed early nationalists and provided
meeting venues into national
monuments.
He said:"It is really fitting
that the houses that housed the early
nationalists and provided meeting
venues during that period be enshrined and
be equipped with print and
electronic histories of that early history of our
nation for posterity's
sake."
He said in line with this, his Ministry would present a budget
proposal to
Cabinet to be included in the 2013 national
budget.
Mzembi said his Ministry was taking a leaf from South Africa
where houses
that housed early ANC leaders in Soweto have since been
upgraded into
national monuments.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
17 October 2012
The state prosecutor on Wednesday
conceded that MDC-T activist and mother of
a three-year old, Cynthia
Manjoro, should not be detained further and agreed
to have her bailed by the
High Court.
The dramatic development followed testimony by the State’s
own witness who
had clearly exonerated Manjoro, after which the judge
challenged the State
to show why she should not be bailed. Prosecutor Edmore
Nyazamba returned to
court in the afternoon and conceded that Manjoro should
not be kept in
detention.
Defense lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa expressed
great joy at the judge’s decision
to grant bail to one of the 29 MDC-T
officials and members accused in the
murder of police officer Petros
Mutedza. But she told SW Radio Africa that
many more should be bailed
because there is clearly no evidence implicating
them in the
murder.
The state witness, Cynthia’s brother Stephen Manjoro, had
testified that she
was only being held as’ bait’ for the arrest of
Darlington Madzonga, who he
claimed was using her car on the day officer
Mutedza died.
On Tuesday Mtetwa had shed tears in the High Court after
the Prosecutor
requested that they adjourn after only 26 minutes into the
session. Mtetwa
told SW Radio Africa that her emotions became intense
because Cynthia
Manjoro’s son was practically living like an
orphan.
“I think the mother in me came out and I just couldn’t take it.
Unfortunately you are not supposed to behave like that in court but emotions
are emotions and being human is being human,” Mtetwa
explained.
Mtetwa criticized the slow pace of the trial, which she claims
is deliberate
and meant to prolong the accused members’ stay in detention.
She said many
were arrested days after the murder, simply because they were
wearing MDC
t-shirts.
She added: “This trial has been going on for
months now and if you add up
the hours in court they are less than 2 weeks.
There can be no question
politics is at play. If you follow the evidence you
will have to ask
yourself why these people are in court.”
The defense
lawyer also criticized the MDC-T, saying the party could have
done more “to
really stand up and use this case to show how the judicial
system is being
used for political purposes and motives”.
Officer Petros Mutedza was
killed at a Glen View pub in May last year. The
police claim he was murdered
by MDC-T members who held a meeting there, a
charge the party strongly
denies.
A total of 29 MDC-T members were rounded up by police after the
incident,
claiming they were investigating. The accused include the Chairman
of the
National Youth Council, Solomon Madzore. Several MDC-T councillors,
National
Council members and youth leaders are also among the
detainees.
The police arrested two more youth leaders from the MDC-T’s
Glen View
structures last week, and charged them with murder in the same
case. Jackson
Mabota and Tarisai Kusotera, both from Glen View South
constituency,
appeared in court last Thursday and were remanded in custody
till October
26th.
Some of the accused members have been in jail for
over a year, with the
courts repeatedly denying them bail as flight
risks.
The trial continues Thursday at the High Court.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tichaona Sibanda
17 October
2012
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has reshuffled senior staff in his
office
and denied reports that he had fired some of them, including his
chief of
staff Ian Makone.
Several newspapers on Wednesday reported
that Tsvangirai had actually fired
Makone, Head of Protocol James Maridadi
and two other high-ranking
officials, for allegedly meddling in his marital
affairs. Speculation and
rumour has been rife for some time that Makone and
his wife Theresa have
been responsible for some of Tsvangirai’s well
publicized affairs.
The two others who were ‘reshuffled’ were policy
implementation principal
director Lazarus Muriritirwa and long serving aide,
Gandhi Mudzingwa.
There was speculation in the media that University of
Kent senior law
lecturer Dr Alex Magaisa will assume the role of Chief of
Staff. Magaisa
however denied this, telling SW Radio Africa that while it is
correct that
he is set to join the Premier’s office, he was not going to be
the chief of
staff.
Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai’s spokesperson,
released a statement Wednesday
saying no members of the Premiers’ staff had
been relieved of their duties.
‘The fact of the matter is that no one has
been fired but there have been
realignments that will enable the effective
discharge of the Prime Minister’s
constitutional duties.
‘The
realignments are intended to strengthen the Prime Minister’s
Constitutional
responsibilities in the areas of planning, policy
formulation, and
supervision of government Ministries, management of the
Government Work
Programme and implementation of approved legislation,’
Tamborinyoka
said.
Our correspondent in Harare, Simon Muchemwa, said the terse
statement
released by Tamborinyoka raises many questions as to what really
happened
within the Tsvangirai’s office.
‘One problem they have
created for themselves is playing second fiddle to
the media. Since the
story broke they’ve been reacting to what the media
reported. They should
have instead taken the initiative to release a
statement as soon as it was
plausible to do and not wait for the media to
catch them off
guard.
‘The statement does not even explain much. If they are
realignments what
does that mean, have the officials been promoted or
demoted? It is vague and
leaves people with questions than answers,’
Muchemwa said.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
17 October 2012
Police in the town of Gwanda are reported
to be assaulting people in their
own homes in what they believe to be
revenge attacks, following the murder
of a police officer on Monday
afternoon.
According to Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), police fired
teargas before
“assaulting and seriously injuring” 12 residents in Garikai.
The victims
included the wife of the murder suspect, who was hospitalized
with serious
injuries.
The ZPP said other victims were denied medical
treatment by staff at Gwanda
hospital, who “demanded clearance letters from
the police”.
The armed Riot police then invaded bars and nightclubs and
assaulted patrons
in Pakama, Garikai, Ultra and Spitzkop on Monday and
Tuesday night, injuring
more residents.
SW Radio Africa correspondent
Lionel Saungweme received information from
angry Gwanda residents who said
an unofficial curfew had been declared by
the police and they feared more
attacks would follow. The residents
described the officers committing the
assaults as “police in anti-riot gear”.
Saungweme said the attacks began
on Monday after a police officer, known
only as Mamilimili, was fatally
stabbed at a local pub called Cry
Mantengwana Bar. The patrons tried to
apprehend the suspect, but he fled
before police arrived.
“Instead of
hunting down the person suspected to have stabbed the police
officer, who is
a well known patron in local bars, the police went on to
attack everybody.
They went into pubs and nightclubs in several areas,”
Saungweme
said.
Our correspondent said the area was still tense as of Wednesday and
people
were staying indoors, fearing more revenge attacks by the police.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
17
October 2012
Funding shortfalls and a lack of proper planning are being
blamed for the
suspension of critical treatment for at least 1,000 cancer
patients, with
the government stopping radiotherapy while it secures new
machinery.
The radiotherapy program at the state Parirenyatwa hospital
was suspended
earlier this month, meaning patients have no other option but
to seek
treatment outside the country. Parirenyatwa and Mpilo hospitals were
the
only facilities offering radiotherapy in the entire country. But the
equipment at Mpilo broke down in August and patients there had been referred
on.
According to Dr. Rutendo Bonde, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe
Association
of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), this lack of planning “is
so
disappointing,” She warned that the risks for patients who cannot access
outside care are “high,” and the situation has left hundreds of people
“stranded.”
“People with resources can seek treatment in other
countries. But what about
regular Zimbabweans? Like civil servants? They
rely on the state health
system. This is why this is a human rights issue,”
Dr. Bonde said.
She said the lack of planning was further impaired by the
critical lack of
funding into cancer in Zimbabwe, where she warned that only
a small fraction
of people are being diagnosed early.
“We should be
focusing on prevention first and there should be a widespread
population
screening that currently is not there. Cancer rates are rising
and people
invariably need greater national investment in their care,” Dr.
Bonde
warned.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tichaona
Sibanda
17 October 2012
COPAC has assured delegates from the Civil
Society Organizations (CSO’s)
that they will be encouraged to participate in
the 2nd All-Stakeholders
conference without aligning themselves to political
parties.
The conference kicks off in Harare on Sunday and delegates to
the gathering
started their accreditation on Tuesday throughout the
country.
Following a meeting between leaders of the CSO’s and the three
co-chairmen
of COPAC in Harare on Wednesday, an undertaking was made that
the groups
will be treated as independents.
Macdonald Lewanika, the
director of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, told
SW Radio Africa there
were perceptions that various CSO’s were aligned to
political
parties.
‘This is the fallacy that we are trying to do away with given
the polarized
nature of politics in Zimbabwe. We reassured them that while
polarization
may be there, the best way to deal with it is not to promote
it, like trying
to invite CSO’s under political parties,’ Lewanika
said.
He added: ‘They should allow civics to participate at the 2nd All
Stakeholders Conference in their own right.’
Lewanika said the CSO’s
had submitted a provisional list of 408 delegates to
COPAC to allow them to
compare and see whether all sectors are covered.
‘We have tried to come
up with a comprehensive list that includes groups
from across the country,
including groups that we know are partisan to ZANU
PF, like Upfumi
Kuvadiki.
‘Over and above that we have been objective in terms of gender,
race,
religion and the disabled. We have every group covered,’ Lewanika
added.
Upfumi Kuvadiki, is a so-called youth empowerment group that
campaigns for
ZANU PF’s indigenization drive.
The COPAC gathering on
the draft governance charter is to be attended by at
least 1,101 delegates,
among them 246 political party representatives, 284
MPs and 571 civil
society groups representatives.
Members from the CSO’s, local and foreign
observers, including journalists,
will be accredited on Friday. Every
diplomatic embassy in Harare has also
been invited to send officials to
observe the proceedings.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
17 October 2012
Heavily armed men, believed to be state
security agents, abducted two MDC-T
officials in Bulawayo last week
Wednesday, torturing and interrogating them.
They were released the next
day.
According to a statement from the party, Emanuel Kambarami and
Andrew Vera
were abducted from their homes in Mpopoma by five agents last
Wednesday
night. Kambarami is the chairperson for Mpopoma, ward 9
constituency and
Vera chairs the ward’s Youth Assembly.
The two
reported that they were taken to Magnet House, a building known to
be owned
by ZANU PF Politburo member Obert Mpofu and which serves as the
Central
Intelligence Organisation’s provincial head office. The assaults and
interrogation allegedly took place at this location.
The MDC-T
members said the agents wanted to know who had written a slogan
that read,
“MDC Kwese Kwese” (MDC everywhere) at the Mpopoma home of
Sikanyiso Ndlovu,
another ZANU PF Politburo member.
Kambarami and Vera said they were then
photographed and warned not to report
the incident to the press, or they
would be abducted again and made to
disappear for good. But apparently the
abduction made the duo more resilient
as they claim they won’t be
intimidated by “politicians facing defeat in the
next elections”.
The
two are currently receiving treatment for injuries sustained during the
assault and say they have received anonymous phone calls and visits from
people driving unmarked vehicles.
http://www.radiovop.com
Harare, October 17, 2012 - Strained political relations
between Zimbabwe and
the United States are compromising the chase for
Rwandan genocide fugitive,
Potrais Mpiranya, believed to be holed up in the
southern African country.
Last month Zimbabwean police said they were looking
for Mpiranya, a former
commander of the elite Presidential Guard during the
genocide in 1994.
He is accused of playing a key role in the slaughter of
800,000 ethnic
Tutsis and moderate Hutus during 100 days of bloodletting.
Mpiranya’s head
carries a $ 5 million bounty pledged by the US
government.
Security sources said what was complicating the matter was
the involvement
of the US government because Harare was not willing to
cooperate with
Washington.
Besides, the sources said, if Mpiranya was
to be apprehended by Zimbabwean
police, there was no guarantee that the US
government will give the $5
million reward to the Zimbabwe Republic
Police.
“The problem with this operation is that our political relations
with the US
are so strained to the extent that no one really believes that
if we
apprehend this Rwandan we will get the promised money,” said one
security
source.
“It’s better to just ignore everything than for us
to be used to assist the
Americans get their way.”
Last month the
police showed what appeared to be vigour in searching for the
fugitive,
believed to be wealthy and running several businesses in Zimbabwe,
Zambia,
the DRC and in Europe.
"We want him dead or alive. We are looking for
information to arrest him; we
don't know how long he has been in the
country," chief superintendent Peter
Magwenzi of the police homicide section
told the AFP news agency.
But the verve has died down. Sources said they
appear to be no political
will on the part of Harare to
cooperate.
Relations between President Robert Mugabe are bad. The US
administration
accuses President Mugabe of stifling democracy in
Zimbabwe.
On the other side, the veteran Zimbabwean ruler accuses
Washington of
seeking to remove him and his party, Zanu (PF) from power and
installing a
puppet regime in Harare.
The US government has slapped
Mugabe and his lieutenants with an assortment
of punitive measures including
travel bans.
(AFP) – 4 hours ago
HARARE —
Zimbabwe has lowered its projected $600 million earnings from
diamond sales
after miners cut production in response to a decline in
diamond prices on
the international market, the mines minister said
Wednesday.
"The $600
million target has now been affected," Obert Mpofu told
journalists.
Mpofu said that over the "past three to four months the
diamond prices have
actually gone down".
"When the prices go down,
producers also reduce their production capacity.
They cannot produce at a
loss."
Mpofu did not give the new target for diamond sales.
In July,
Finance Minister Tendai Biti complained about the low revenue
trickle from
diamond sales saying by mid-year only $46 million had been
realised against
the year's anticipated $600 million.
That forced him to slash the 2012 budget
spending target by 10 percent to
$3.6 billion.
He said earnings from key
minerals such as gold and diamonds were not making
it into state
coffers.
Natural resource extraction watchdogs have accused President Robert
Mugabe's
ruling party of funneling profits from Marange diamonds to senior
military
officers and party leaders.
Diamond watchdog Kimberley Process
has given the country the green light to
sell its gems despite opposition
from rights groups and Western nations.
Next month, Zimbabwe hosts a
conference expected to attract hundreds of
traders, diamond experts and
non-governmental organisations.
Mpofu said the conference would seek to
manage world perception of the
Zimbabwean diamond industry and attract
foreign investors.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Chinese investors have shown interest in building
houses for low income
earners, which could reduce the city’s 45,000 housing
waiting list by 45 per
cent.
17.10.12
by Tony
Saxon
The deal was initiated by the Acting Mayor, George Jerrison who
was in
Beijing last month on a week-long workshop. He told The Zimbabwean:
“I met
several investors in China who are interested in building houses for
home-seekers in Mutare. One of them will visit Mutare at the end of October
to assess the land that we have available.”
Jerrison added that the
investor, who is involved in a similar project in
South Africa, had
indicated that they would 20,000 units with two to three
bedrooms.
Meanwhile, a Chinese delegation from Xinyu city visited
Mutare last week and
signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the City Council
aimed at promoting
economic, cultural and educational relations.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
17/10/2012 00:00:00
by Staff
Reporter
BULAWAYO police have launched investigations after a
batch of November 2012
Ordinary Level examination papers meant for a Bubi
secondary school
disappeared over the weekend.
The question papers,
which were for the English, Commerce, Geography,
Integrated Science and
Mathematics examinations, were destined for Sijahugwe
Secondary School in
the Siganda area of Bubi District.
The school’s acting head, Panganai
Zimhuno, collected them from the Zimbabwe
Schools Examination Council
(Zimsec) offices in Bulawayo on Friday and spent
the night in the city
intending to travel back to the school the following
day.
In the
morning he reportedly loaded a box containing the papers onto the
trailer of
a commuter bus bound for Bubi.
But some 20 kilometres into the journey,
Zimhuno stopped the bus to check
whether the papers were secure only to
discover they had vanished.
Matabeleland North provincial education
director Boithatelo Mnguni confirmed
the development saying: “I received a
report that the acting headmaster of a
school in Bubi District lost
examination papers when he was travelling from
Bulawayo to his
school.
“I am yet to get the full details of what exactly transpired
(but) a report
has since been made to the police and they are searching for
the examination
papers. I hope that they are still intact and in a safe
place.”
Bulawayo provincial police spokesman Mandlenkosi Moyo added: “The
papers
were stolen between Renkini (bus station) and the 30km peg along the
Bulawayo-Nkayi Road and the theft was reported at the Mzilikazi Police
Station in Bulawayo.
“I would like to appeal to members of the public
who might have information
about the whereabouts of the examination papers
to contact the nearest
police station.”
Meanwhile, Mguni urged schools to
find secure ways of transporting
examination papers.
“While school
authorities are allowed to use public transport when carrying
examination
papers, they are advised to ask for assistance from their
district offices
if they cannot manage to do so on their own,” she said.
“The school in
question is small with a few candidates and I would like to
believe that the
acting headmaster thought he would manage to carry them on
his own. It is,
however, unfortunate that he lost the papers.”
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
President Robert Mugabe is unwittingly
being used by people close to him to
settle scores with their enemies, The
Zimbabwean has been told.
17.10.12
by Staff
Reporter
This emerged amid renewed controversy regarding
Shabanie-Mashava Mines, a
Midlands-based asbestos mining company owned by
business mogul Mutumwa
Mawere and placed under curatorship by the government
in 2004 over claims
that it was heavily indebted and needed
reconstruction.
Allegations emerged this week of selfish manoeuvring by
senior Zanu (PF)
officials who deliberately misinformed Mugabe as a way of
getting at Mawere
for not giving them kickbacks after they enabled him to
acquire the
British-owned mine.
Observers say this is in line with
normal Zanu (PF) practise whereby anyone
assisted by them to get ahead in
business has to be generous in greasing the
palms of the top officials
involved.
Mawere, speaking in a telephone interview from South Africa,
described
Mugabe as an ill-advised person. “Individuals with their own
agendas chose
to give Mugabe the wrong advice and he is being confused in
the process. He
should be properly informed in order to make balanced
decisions. Mugabe is
watching with his eyes wide open as the constitution
and other laws of the
country are being murdered,” said Mawere.
He
reiterated the argument he had put forward in court that the role of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, headed by Gideon Gono, was
questionable.
“You don’t understand where the RBZ came from in this
absurdity (placing of
SMM under curatorship). What was Gono’s interest in
it? If at all I owed
anyone money, was the RBZ part of that? There are
things that just don’t
make sense,” said Mawere.
A source privy to
the process leading to the takeover of SMM named two top
government
officials as having influenced Gono to present a case against
Mawere’s
continued hold on the company to dovetail with a plot that started
in 2003
and had gone a step further with the gazetting of legislation
specifically
meant to ruin Mawere.
He said one of them, who has a vast business empire
and has been named in
the looting of diamonds from the Democratic Republic
of Congo in the late
1990s when Zimbabwe militarily intervened to prop up
Laurent Kabila, was
angered by the fact that Mawere was not giving him
kickbacks from the mining
proceeds.
He further alleged that Gono
“cooked up figures” that he showed to Mugabe to
demonstrate that SMM was
compromised by a heavy debt and therefore needed to
be placed under
curatorship.
This reportedly followed the promulgation of the
Presidential Powers
(Temporary Measures) Reconstruction of State Indebted
Insolvent Companies
Act in 2004.
Speaking about the law, Mawere has
reiterated his position that it was
enacted to fix him. “How can you create
a law to deal with one individual?
Since it was used on me, have you heard
of any other individual or company
that has been dragged to court using the
law? Yet how many companies are
severely in debt. In any case, who is
reconstructing SMM and how far have
they gone?” said Mawere.
Mawere
also queried the role of the government in the SMM court saga, saying
it did
not make sense for the government to impose itself as the creditor
and
curator, insisting also that the case of debts should have simply been
handed over to the courts to deal with at a civil level.
Documents at
hand suggest that the State broke the law when it placed SMM
under
curatorship as it violated the in duplum law that provides that no
loan
should acquire interest in excess of the capital borrowed.
According to a
management report originated by a reputable auditing firm for
the year ended
31 December 2006, a loan acquired by SMM from government
accrued interest
more than four times the sum borrowed.
The auditors recommended that, “in
the absence of a structured agreement to
the contrary, interest accrued
should not exceed the capital amount granted”.
SMM was also accused of
externalising foreign currency by selling asbestos
outside the country and
failing to remit the money back to Zimbabwe.
Gono had not responded to
e-mail questions sent to him. His Senior Personal
Assistant, Denise Naicker
told The Zimbabwean that Gono had had sight of the
questions.
The RBZ
governor at one time indicated that he supported moves to have SMM
returned
to Mawere.
A South African High Court judge ruled recently that Mawere,
now living in
self-exile in that country, should pay R18 million to SMM. The
judged
concluded that Mawere had used two South African-based companies to
deprive
SMM, a Zimbabwean company, of the money due to it from the sale of
asbestos.
The case has been dragging on in the courts since 2006 and
Mawere has since
launched an application to challenge the verdict, accusing
the judge of
racial bias and failing to adequately consider submissions made
by his
defence team.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Jeffreyson Chitando, a member of the Parliamentary
Committee on Sport, has
urged national team coaches to consider players who
left the country at a
young age.
16.10.12
by Michael
Kariati
He bemoaned the fact that many talented Zimbabwean
footballers play for top
European clubs and are not being considered for
national duty.
“I have talked to some of these players, who think they
are not being
considered because the coaches know nothing about them,” said
Chitando.
“Some believe the coaches are too scared to call them because they
fled
hardships here.”
Bradley Pritchard, who plays for English
Championship side, Charlton
Athletic, was called in by Warriors coach,
Rahman Gumbo, for the Africa Cup
of Nations qualifier against Burundi.
However, he did not play, as he holds
a British passport. He can only play
for The Warriors after acquiring a
Zimbabwean passport.
Chitando, who
believed that Pritchard could have easily fitted into the
national team,
also said there were more exiled quality players waiting on
the wings,
including the Sheffield Wednesday duo, Cecil Nyoni and Ingo
Madinda Ndlovu
Juniour, Galway United’s Oscar Sibanda, Mikaeel White of
Barnet, and Farai
Hallam of Stevenage as some of those stars.
There is also the
Poland-based duo of Ndabenkulu Ncube and Peter Nzerumbaye
of Klub
Sportowy.
“These players are all 23-years-old and below and can play for
our junior
and senior national teams, but they are not being considered. The
coaches
need to spread their wings,” said Chitando.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Zimbabwe has received over $8
million from the UK over the past three year
to improve access to clean
water countrywide.
17.10.12
by Ashly Sibanda
The
funding, managed by UNICEF, has been coming from Britain’s Department
for
International and Development.
UNICEF Zimbabwe Representative, Gianni
Murzi said the agency is concerned
with reports that most Zimbabweans, 30
percent of them in rural areas, do
not have access to clean
water.
Murzi said the statistics “make a compelling case to increase
investment to
improve water and sanitation services.”
“Since 2009,
DFID has channelled more than $8million through UNICEF to
improve the supply
of clean water and adequate sanitation facilities for all
Zimbabweans.
“I wish to highlight that poor sanitation has a negative
bearing on the
country’s Millennium Development Goal priorities, including
poverty
alleviation,” Murzi said.
Murzi’s remarks were made on his
behalf in a speech presented by UNICEF
Chief of Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene Section, Kikwe Sebunya, during a
Ministry of Water Resources
Organised WASH sensitisation meeting held in
Bulawayo at a local hotel on
Wednesday.
“In Zimbabwe, we have seen how poor access to WASH services
combined with a
deteriorated health care system resulted in the 2008/09
cholera crisis
resulting in more than 98 000 cumulative cases and 4300
deaths,” he added.
The WASH programme was launched recently to support
the rehabilitation of
existing water and sanitation
infrastructure.
The country experienced a severe cholera outbreak in 2008
that left at least
over 4000 dead by 2010, according to the World Health
Organisation (WHO).
The cholera outbreak was blamed on poor hygiene, lack
of access to clean
water and shortages of the precious liquid in some
cities.
http://www.kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=10079
Some excellent suggestions from
Combined Harare Residents Association
(CHRA):
1. The government of
Zimbabwe should take the responsibility and acknowledge
the incapacitation
inspired by the underfunding of local authorities and
declare the water
issue as a national crisis. This will definitely bring on
board
international partners who will assist the government of Zimbabwe to
mobilize funds for water infrastructure, rehabilitation and provision. The
government of Zimbabwe released only 18 million for the rehabilitation of
water pipes in Harare but the figures coming in from council shows us that
the local authority is in need of more than USD 200 million to deal with
water alone.
2. Collaboration with residents Associations in forming
community water
groups responsible for water conservation initiatives and
education will go
a long way in saving the water we have in its small
quantities.
3. Construction and funding of the Kunzvi Dam water project
(the Zambezi
river water project for Matabeleland) will go a long way in
easing pressure
on the current water sources we have.
This
entry was posted on October 17th, 2012 at 3:25 pm by Bev Clark
http://en.rsf.org/
PUBLISHED ON WEDNESDAY 17 OCTOBER 2012.
Reporters
Without Borders is alarmed by a recent wave of arrests of
journalists in
Zimbabwe and urges the authorities to stop trying to
intimidate independent
privately-owned media and to take measures against
those responsible for
physical attacks on reporters.
"This sudden wave of lawsuits and
incidents involving the police does not
bode well for the coming months,"
Reporters Without Borders said.
"Journalists must be guaranteed the freedom
to cover political stories
without fear of abusive criminal prosecutions. We
are very worried about the
judicial harassment of independent journalists
and media in the past few
weeks."
The latest incident was on 13
October when two reporters for the
privately-owned Daily News on Sunday,
Tendai Kamhungira and Bethule Nkiwane,
were threatened and attacked by the
bodyguards of visiting South African
politician Julius Malema, the former
head of the ruling ANC’s youth wing,
when they tried to interview
him.
The bodyguards forced them to delete the photos they had taken to
illustrate
their report and then seized their camera’s memory card. A
complaint has
been filed with the police.
Five days before that, on 8
October, Daily News editor Stanley Gama and
deputy editor Chris Goko were
briefly arrested in connection with a report
claiming that parliamentarian
Munyaradzi Kereke may have faked his family’s
abduction for political
purposes.
The arrests followed a series of threats by Kereke in recent
weeks against
the two journalists, who are now facing criminal libel charges
and a demand
for the absurd sum of 25 million dollars in
damages.
Another journalist, Kudakwashe Matura, was arrested on a libel
charge on 8
September in connection with a report in the Kariba News
newsletter and is
due to appear before a criminal court on 19
October.
The police raided the premises of African Open Media Initiative
(Afromedia),
a Harare-based video news production company, on 26 September,
detaining at
least 10 journalists and seizing computers and video editing
equipment on
the grounds that they were not properly licensed.
The
journalists were released the next day without being charged, but
Afromedia’s editor, Sifelani Tsiko, and two of its other journalists have
been forced to report regularly to a police station ever since. The
equipment still has not been recovered.
The raid could be seen as a
warning to Afromedia, which has not been
registered by the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ). The BAZ tends
not to recognize or issue
licences to media that do not support President
Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF
party.
http://www.defpro.com
16:05 GMT, October 16,
2012
The Zimbabwean government is spending too much on defence and the
military
at the expense of other development sectors such as education, says
a senior
official in the splinter Movement Democratic Change (MDC), lead by
Professor
Welshman Ncube. Earlier this month Zimbabwe opened its $98 million
National
Defence College.
Zimbabwe is currently being run by a joint
administration, bringing together
the three major political parties in the
country – Ncube’s MDC, Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T and
President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF
party.
Tsvangirai has criticised
African leaders for “investing in arms and the
military”. David Coltart,
Zimbabwe’s Education Minister, has castigated
Zimbabwe’s excessive spending
on the military and defence for a country that
is not at war. He said
Zimbabwe’s "defence has been allocated $35 million"
in the first half of the
current year while education has received only $5
million, about 6% of the
money budgeted for education.
"We are spending so much on defence and
only a pitiful amount on education.
If we don't address these issues then
the education of an entire generation
will be lost."
However, the
views of Tsvangirai and Coltart are in sharp contrast with
those of Mugabe,
whose ZANU-PF party has seconded army personnel to senior
positions in state
parastatals and other government organisations. Retired
Major-General Mike
Nyambuya was appointed to head the National
Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment Board two weeks ago in the latest
move to militarise key
institutions. Key parastatals and strategic public
institutions in which
ex-military personnel are heavily involved include the
National Railways of
Zimbabwe, Grain Marketing Board, Minerals Marketing
Corporation of Zimbabwe,
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe and
Zimpapers.
Last month, Mugabe officially opened the National Defence
College just
outside Harare which was built with assistance from China, with
whom
Zimbabwe is said to enjoy stronger military ties. In his address, he
said
there was need to enhance the security systems and intelligence systems
of
Zimbabwe.
He said China and Pakistan would avail expert military
training for
Zimbabwean army personnel at the defence college. Those to be
trained there
include military personnel from the ranks of colonel and
others ranked above
the colonels.
The defence college, built on a
total area of 40,000 square meters, was
constructed at a cost of $98 million
(loaned by China) and took two years to
complete.
China is Zimbabwe’s
leading arms supplier, providing at least $66 million
worth of small arms
during Zimbabwe’s involvement in the civil war in the
DRC (1998-2002). Since
2004 China has sold to Zimbabwe 139 military vehicles
and 24 combat
aircraft. Last year it was reported that Zimbabwe had taken
delivery of 20
000 AK-47 assault rifles from China, together with other
military and civil
security equipment.
However, Zimbabwe sometimes struggles to take
delivery of weapons due to
sanctions. In 2008 South Africa prevented
delivery of six containers of
small arms and equipment when they stopped the
China Ocean Shipping Company’s
vessel An Yue Jiang from unloading in Durban.
The weapons on board were
shipped by Poly Technologies Incorporated of
China.
According to the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), a
Belgian
research hub, in August 2008, 53 tons of ammunition were allegedly
flown
from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Harare. The ammunition was
flown by
Enterprise World Airways, aboard a Boeing 707-3B4C aircraft
registered as
9Q-CRM.
The first shipment on August 21 contained 32
tons of 7.62mmx54 cartridges.
Two days later a second shipment arrived,
containing 20 tons of 7.62mmx39
cartridges, which are used in AK-47s. The
ammunition arrived in Zimbabwe
four months after the arms shipment was
turned away at Durban, only to be
flown into the country later from Angola,
the report claimed.
Despite denials from Luanda and Beijing, an employee
of the state-owned
Zimbabwe Defence Industry (ZDI) in Harare told IPIS that
the shipment, which
contained mortar bombs, rockets and ammunition, had
arrived in the country.
“The most prominent supplier of arms to Zimbabwe
has been China, which
supplied more than one-third of the volume of
Zimbabwe’s major weapons
between 1980 and 2009,” the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI) has said.
The Institute said that
China supplied 100 Dongfeng military vehicles to
Zimbabwe via the Mozambican
port of Beira in early 2005.
David Maynier, the Democratic Alliance’s
defence spokesman said South Africa
“should not be exporting conventional
arms to a repressive regime such as
Zimbabwe" after it emerged that South
Africa had sold military equipment
worth R2.2 million to
Zimbabwe.
"The fact is there has been a de facto arms embargo on
exporting
conventional arms to Zimbabwe for nearly a decade,” he
said.
----
By Tawanda Karombo/defenceWeb
http://www.zimeye.org
By Alex Magaisa
Published:
October 16, 2012
Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa last
week declared in an
interview with the BBC’s Andrew Harding that MDC-T
leader and current Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is “asking for trouble”
if he wins the
Presidential election scheduled for next year.
When
asked whether ZANU PF was prepared to accept a Tsvangirai victory
Chinamasa
responded: “He [Tsvangirai] cannot win”. And later, he is quoted
as saying
that “I know he [Tsvangirai] is the front of (sic) the countries
that impose
sanctions. And if those countries impose for him to win, that
result will
not be acceptable. We will not accept it. We will just not
accept it. Isn’t
that clear?”
This comes at a time when President Mugabe is declaring that
the country is
ready to hold free and fair elections and that those who do
not want to
contest will not be forced to do so. The statements attributed
to Chinamasa
are certainly out of sync with this message but confirm what
has long been
feared about elections in Zimbabwe: that in ZANU PF’s
world-view, the only
election that is acceptable is an election that
delivers a positive result
for itself. Anything else would be
unacceptable.
Chinamasa is the Minister responsible for Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary
affairs in Zimbabwe and that portfolio gives him the role
of administering
the Electoral Act, among other laws that deal with
elections. As Justice
Minister he will have a role in the next electoral
processes, including the
accreditation of election observers. Yet already,
long before the election
dates have been declared, Chinamasa is not only
defining the goalposts, but
declaring that one of the prospective
contestants cannot score or let alone
win the contest.
What Chinamasa
has said is, of course nothing new. In the past, military
commanders have
issued statements to the same effect, indicating clear
hostility to the man
and his leadership aspirations. There is a long list of
such threats of
subverting the people’s will and Chinamasa’s is just the
latest in the
catalogue. On this occasion, Chinamasa also invoked the threat
of ZANU PF’s
military might:
“And this is where the military comes in …” he said
suggesting that the
military step in to prevent a Morgan Tsvangirai victory
and subvert the will
of the people and therefore, the
Constitution.
So in Chinamasa’s opinion, the people of Zimbabwe are so
immature that they
are unable to make their own political decisions and
instead they have to
rely on the wisdom of ZANU PF and its allies in the
military. Should they
vote for Tsvangirai, that decision will be deemed
incorrect and will be
subverted by ZANU PF, the military and war
veterans.
This then begs the question regarding the hullaballoo over the
elections; of
why ZANU PF is so intent on having an election whose result is
already
pre-determined. Why are they so keen on going ahead with an election
when
they are not prepared to accept the results of that contest, should the
result not be in their favour? Why not simply come out in the open and
declare that Tsvangirai and the MDC-T are prohibited from contesting the
election? Why go through the charade of an election when an unfavourable
result will not be accepted?
The fact is these are the types of
reckless stunts that do Zimbabwe no
favours at all. Even those who may have
been prepared to take ZANU PF more
seriously in recent years surely have to
despair when a senior official
utters such remarks which essentially rubbish
the entire election process
which they would otherwise wish to present as
credible and legitimate to the
rest of the world.
Such statements
also debunk the myth that ZANU PF banks on its policies to
win elections;
the one that has gained currency in recent years that in
indigenisation and
land reform ZANU PF has cogent policies as points around
which to rally
support to beat rivals in an election. Chinamasa’s statements
and threats
suggest that the party does not have confidence in a
policy-based approach
and instead can and will only rely on the power that
it draws from the
security structures.
In this regard, Chinamasa’s statements only serve to
confirm what has long
been known: that ZANU PF’s main source of power lies
in the national
security structure. The other traditional structures of
power, namely
finance, production and knowledge play their part but none
more so than the
security structure.
However, coming as they have
done well in advance of the elections, by the
law of unintended
consequences, Chinamasa’s statements are in a strange sort
of way quite
welcome. They are welcome because they demonstrate the reality
of attitudes
and positions on the Zimbabwean political landscape: that
nothing has
changed to make the next election free and fair. People who have
doubted the
sincerity of the tolerance and peaceful tune that President
Mugabe has been
singing in recent months will feel vindicated by Chinamasa’s
declarations.
President Mugabe’s backers might say Chinamasa was not
representing the
President or his party position or indeed the military.
Well, if that is the
case, the one way to prove it would be correct the
representations that have
been given so publicly on the world stage by
Chinamasa or to publicly
censure him for his remarks. After all, they
represent a threat to disregard
and disrespect the Constitution which is the
supreme law of the land. As
Justice Minister, a lawyer and member of the Law
Society of Zimbabwe,
Chinamasa knows that only too well and both his oaths
as a minister and as a
lawyer oblige him to respect and uphold the laws of
the land.
Chinamasa says Tsvangirai and the MDC-T seek to reverse the
land reform
programme, which is a gross misrepresentation. As one of ZANU
PF’s
negotiators in the constitutional reform process, he knows that the
agreed
clauses on agricultural land do not such thing. This is why even in
ZANU PF’s
own set of amendments, the Copac draft’s clauses on agricultural
land have
not been seriously amended, reflecting the accommodation that has
been
reached between the parties. The reason for continuously raising the
spectre
of the MDC-T reversing the land reform programme is simply to
perpetuate a
tired line that the MDC-T is anti-land
reform.
Coincidentally, ZANU PF removed all provisions in Chapter 16 of
the Copac
draft Constitution relating to the establishment of the Land
Commission
whose main functions include carrying out a land audit and
ensuring
adherence to the “one person-one farm” principle. The effect of
this would
be to ensure transparency and prevent multiple farm ownership.
Only those
who are multiple farm owners can be afraid of the existence of a
body like
the Land Commission. Far from reversing the land reform process,
the agreed
aim is to regularise the process, to ensure security of tenure
and to set
out a basis for productive agriculture.
More importantly,
however, the statements are welcome in that they remind
SADC as the
facilitator and guarantor of the GPA, the AU as the other
guarantor, the
United Nations and the rest of the world regarding the
challenge that
continues to encumber Zimbabwe. Far from signalling any
confidence in the
prospect of a free and fair election, Chinamasa’s
statements signal a repeat
of the 2008 charade. For a man of his stature,
the statements were
remarkable for their reckless and plain disregard for
the law and the will
of the people.
As the old saying goes, however long it stays in the
river, a log will never
transform into a crocodile.
Note: Chinamasa
lost to the MDC-T’s John Nyamande in the 2008 parliamentary
elections. He
was later appointed to Parliament by President Mugabe as a
Senator.
Dr Alex Magaisa is a Lawyer and Senior Lecturer
based at Kent Law
School.This article was originally published at
http://newzimbabweconstitution.wordpress.com
Amkelwa Mbekeni for Africa is a Country, part of the Guardian Africa Network
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 October 2012 15.46 BST
Synik: 'There is a joke here, you may have freedom of expression but no one guarantees you freedom after expression.'
