Reuters
Mon 20 Oct 2008,
8:19 GMT
By Muchena Zigomo
MBABANE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean
opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai will
not attend a regional summit on
Zimbabwe's political crisis, a party
spokesman said, throwing the mediation
process into disarray.
"He is not going. He was denied a passport,"
Movement for Democratic Change
spokesman Nelson Chamisa told
Reuters.
The meeting of the heads of state of Angola, Swaziland and
Mozambique -- who
form the security committee of the Southern African
Development Community --
is aimed at trying to help Zimbabwe's political
rivals break a deadlock in
negotiations on forming a cabinet.
An MDC
official said Tsvangirai was given an emergency travel document on
Sunday
valid only for Swaziland and not for South Africa which he needs to
pass
through.
"There is no way you can expect him to be in Swaziland when they
are making
it difficult for him," the MDC official said.
There were
signs of failure before the summit kicked off.
The MDC said on Monday
events in the past 24 hours had made it extremely
difficult to believe in
the current mediation process to end a deadlock in
negotiations on forming a
cabinet.
"There have been developments in the past 24 hours that make it
incredibly
difficult for the MDC to have confidence in the current mediation
process.
Their faith and hope in the current mediation process and its
ability to
deliver a solution to the people of Zimbabwe is now called into
question,"
the MDC said in a statement.
Tsvangirai said on Sunday
that he believed the parties would finalise a
power-sharing deal at the
meeting.
A power-sharing agreement, mediated by former South African
president Thabo
Mbeki, may be Zimbabwe's best hope for rescuing an economy
where fuel and
food are scarce and inflation stands at 231 million
percent.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Giles Elgood)
SABC
October 20,
2008, 09:45
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to
give the SADC
Heads of State attending the meeting of the Organ Troika in
Swaziland a
progress report regarding the ongoing power sharing talks in
Zimbabwe.
Mbeki spent almost the whole of last week in Zimbabwe trying to
broker
another deal regarding the control of some key
ministries.
President Kgalema Motlanthe and his Mozambique counterpart
Armando Guebuza
are expected to be part of the meeting to be chaired by the
Chairperson of
the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation
- King Mswati
III.
Though Zimbabwean politics are expected to take
centre stage, the ongoing
violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo will
also be discussed. DRC
leader Joseph Kabila is one of the leaders expected
to attend this morning's
meeting.
Former Botswana President Sir
Ketumile Masire has arrived in the tiny
kingdom as per King Mswati III's
invitation. SADC Heads of State are
optimistic that by the end of the
meeting today, a solution will have been
found to end the costly political
talks in Zimbabwe and the violence in the
DRC.
Reuters
Mon Oct 20, 2008
5:36am BST
By Muchena Zigomo
MBABANE (Reuters) - Southern
African leaders representing the regional
grouping SADC hold a summit in
Swaziland on Monday to try to help Zimbabwe's
rival parties break a deadlock
in negotiations on forming a cabinet.
MDC opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said on Sunday that he believed the
parties would finalise a
power-sharing deal at the meeting of the heads of
state of Angola,
Mozambique and Swaziland, who form SADC's security
committee.
A
power-sharing agreement, mediated by former South African president Thabo
Mbeki, may be Zimbabwe's best hope for rescuing an economy where fuel and
food are scarce and inflation stands at 231 million
percent.
Tsvangirai seems confident of a breakthrough, telling supporters
at a rally
in the Zimbabwean town of Masvingo on Sunday that the
power-sharing pact
will be sealed at the Southern Africa Development
Community (SADC) talks in
Swaziland's capital Mbabane.
"This time we
won't fail," said the MDC leader, who threatened to pull out
of talks a week
ago after President Robert Mugabe allocated powerful
ministries such as
defence, finance and home affairs to his ruling ZANU-PF
party.
Hours
earlier, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman Nelson Chamisa
said
the parties were "miles behind" in implementing the agreement.
Mugabe,
Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, head of the smaller MDC faction,
are
expected to join the SADC troika in Swaziland.
President Kgalema
Motlanthe of economic powerhouse South Africa, the current
chair of SADC,
will lead a delegation to the meeting, the Foreign Ministry
said.
In
remarks published in a state-run newspaper on Sunday, ZANU-PF's chief
negotiator, Patrick Chinamasa, played down the issue of cabinet post
allocations.
He insisted that the party would not bow to any pressure
from SADC, which
has become increasingly frustrated by Zimbabwe's political
turmoil.
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in a March 29 presidential election but
with too few
votes to avoid a June run-off, which was won by Mugabe
unopposed after
Tsvangirai pulled out, citing violence and intimidation
against his
supporters.
(Writing by Michael Georgy)
http://www.businessday.co.za
20
October 2008
Nicole
Fritz
ZIMBABWE's
military chiefs are reported to fear prosecution under the
power-sharing
agreement. These fears are said to have prompted Mugabe's
announcement that
Zanu (PF) would assume control of all key ministries in
the new government,
in turn prompting Morgan Tsvangirai's announcement that
the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) will play no part in such an
arrangement.
It
seems Mugabe is inclined to placate his chiefs and lose the deal.
But
he and the generals have got it wrong. Noncompliance with the agreement
through the continued retention of power, entailing continued illegitimacy
in the eyes of the world, is no way to rule out prosecutions.
By
retaining power in the same old way, military chiefs may avoid
prosecution
at home but the threat only becomes that much more magnified
outside
Zimbabwe.
A refusal to relinquish power and honour the agreement will
foreclose on the
stabilisation that power-sharing can bring, sending the
economy into further
free-fall and making travel an even greater necessity -
to obtain basic
commodities and healthcare, among other
things.
And like Gen Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator,
arrested in a
London hospital by British police for crimes committed in
Chile, Gen
Constantine Chiwenga, the head of Zimbabwe's defence force, may
find that a
routine scan at a Johannesburg clinic leads to a more extended
and
unpleasant stay than he could ever have imagined.
Under
universal jurisdiction, those responsible for the most egregious
crimes -
such as crimes against humanity - can be prosecuted and punished
wherever
they are found, even if those crimes happened far outside the
arresting
state's territory.
Although universal jurisdiction is still treated
with some circumspection in
a number of countries, that caution is likely to
be put aside when the
international community is forced to witness the
defeat of the power-sharing
agreement by the very actors who are most
responsible for the atrocities in
Zimbabwe .
Nor can prosecutions
before the International Criminal Court (ICC) be
discounted.
Although Zimbabwe is not party to the ICC, and
Zimbabwe's generals face no
immediate indictment, the ICC may yet have a
role to play - as recent
developments in Sudan make clear.
Like
Zimbabwe, Sudan is not party to the ICC, but ICC prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo now seeks an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir.
He can do this because the United Nations (UN)
Security Council, through a
resolution, referred the situation in Darfur to
the ICC.
Recently, a security council resolution sought to have
Zimbabwe declared a
"threat to international peace".
Although it
did not seek to refer the situation in Zimbabwe to the ICC, had
the
resolution passed, it would have meant the first step in that direction.
But
the resolution was ultimately defeated, primarily because negotiations
for a
power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe were continuing.
A clear
indication that those negotiations have failed, such as the negation
of the
agreement, as signalled by Zanu (PF)'s unilateral actions, can only
prompt
renewed efforts at having the security council take up this
matter.
The irony in the military chiefs' concern that the
power-sharing agreement
exposes them to prosecution is that the agreement
may be their very best
guarantee against exactly that
fate.
Tsvangirai has time and again emphasised that Zanu (PF)
officials need not
be fearful of prosecutions under a new
government.
For making these statements, Tsvangirai has incurred much
opposition, and is
likely to incur more.
Human rights advocates
will argue that international law demands
prosecutions for crimes such as
those committed in Zimbabwe - crimes against
humanity. Far more distressing
will be the arguments of those victims who
insist they're entitled to see
justice done.
And a new Zimbabwean government would be well advised
to ensure that some
form of justice is offered - at the very least in the
form of
acknowledgement of the crimes committed and compensation for those
who were
victimised.
But if Tsvangirai, MDC office bearers and
organisers - many of whom have
been among those most brutally targeted - can
collectively agree that
prosecutions are to be passed up to secure a
power-sharing arrangement, it
is difficult to imagine that the rest of the
world would not pay heed and
defer.
And if they won't defer . the
power-sharing agreement still represents the
best hope of an improved
economy, which will mean the military chiefs
probably won't need to
travel.
Fritz is a visiting associate professor at Fordham
Law School's Leitner
Centre.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6087
October 19, 2008
By Sibangani
Sibanda
MBEKI, the mediator is back in town. The parties, having signed
an unclear
agreement, are failing to agree on the allocation of cabinet
posts. Perhaps,
with hindsight, the opposition parties will see that they
played right into
the trap set by Zanu-PF and manage to salvage a fully
inclusive government
in this latest round of Mbeki mediated talks.
I
am not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, the country continues on its
downward slide and Gideon Gono
continues to impose his "economic policies"
on a helpless Zimbabwean public.
The "real cash" that he introduced in
August has run out and he has reverted
to printing money, in higher and
higher denominations. The coins, that so
many scoured rubbish tips for, not
so long ago have reverted to their
worthless status and gone out of
circulation in less than two months! There
has to be a record in there
somewhere.
Then came the news that our rate of inflation was, in July
2008, 231 million
per cent! Given that prices have escalated at an even
faster rate since the
removal of the thirteen zeroes in August, the current
rate must be into a
billion per cent! At 231 000 000, mathematicians tell us
that we are looking
at more than 7 percent per second!
In other
countries, people have rioted for an annual inflation rate of 7
percent. In
Zimbabwe, we shrug our shoulders, hurl a few silent expletives
at our
government, then look for ways to survive. We truly took to heart the
encouragement in song from Zanu-PF. The song, "Rambai Makashinga" (Remain
strong, whatever happens) was played so often on our airwaves that we must
have, subliminally, internalized it and made it our personal
motto.
It struck me that I may owe our Reserve Bank Governor an apology.
When he
keeps doing the same thing - printing money until the zeroes are too
much to
handle, then lopping some off, then printing more money until the
zeroes are
too much to handle... - he is not mad as I suggested earlier. He
does not
expect different results. He expects exactly the results that he
gets, but
is not worried because he can do it and there are no
repercussions!
And as an added bonus, he gets extremely wealthy because
he controls many of
the government's hair-brained schemes that are supposed
to bring the economy
back on track. That the schemes show no signs of
turning the economy seems
not to matter to Gono and his bosses. He must keep
on keeping on, as the
expression goes.
It is the rest of us who are
mad. We do the same thing over and over again.
We just watch. We watch our
politicians repeat policies that have failed
abysmally elsewhere, we watch
them as they erode our livelihood with crazily
high taxes, we watched as
corruption destroyed our health and education
sectors. We watched everything
that could go wrong in our country do so.
Each time, we expected the results
to be different!
This year, our country faces food shortages that are
unprecedented in living
memory. In many parts of the country, people are
living on a fruit that I
still find difficult to eat (although this may
change soon). It is a fruit
that is normally consumed largely by donkeys,
baboons and monkeys. Yet, in
many parts of the country, people are getting
up at dawn to gather this
fruit in. Latecomers get nothing and have to wait
for the next morning. Its
skin and its flesh are consumed, then its stone is
cracked open to reveal a
nut, which is also consumed. There has even been an
innovation where it is
used in the baking of "Bread" as sugar - there is a
faint hint of sweetness
in it.
The hacha (in Shona) or umkhuna (in
Sindebele) may save a few lives this
year, while it lasts.
But those
who work on the farm of a certain senior army officer's wife in
Domboshava,
just North of Harare have no such luck. The said army officer's
wife, well
known for confronting opposition politicians in wholesale outlets
in Harare,
apparently prevents her workers collecting the life-saving fruit
because
there will be nothing left for her monkeys and baboons to eat! So
serious is
she in protecting her primates that she threatens to shoot anyone
who does
not comply - these reports have not been independently confirmed,
but they
make good and not-so-implausible reading.
The rainy season is almost upon
us. It normally gives fresh hope that, if
the rains are good, there will be
a good harvest and famine will end. This
year, there is no such hope. There
is no seed, no fertilizer and very little
diesel fuel, which the government
is selling to farmers at twenty Zimbabwe
dollars (Z$ 20.00) per litre - a
loaf of bread costs thirty thousand! Who
knows when the hunger that we face
will end?
The Mbeki circus, in the meantime, goes on at The Rainbow
Towers. Many
Zimbabweans are more worried about their next meal than what
presidential
spokesman George Charamba has to say about the talks. It is
above most
people's heads and I must admit that at this stage, it is above
my head.
http://www.gulfnews.com
Editorial
Gulf
News
Published: October 20, 2008, 00:12
With the handshakes over
and promises being made and broken, it is business
as usual for Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe: sucking the nation dry of
resources and
pride.
The marriage of power-sharing between President Robert Mugabe and
opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai could be a short but eventful union. Or
perhaps it
is just eyewash and not an alliance at all. With inflation
hitting a record
231 million per cent Mugabe has continued to stall and even
renege on
certain elements of the power-sharing deal.
One would
assume that perhaps the president's intentions are not honest to
begin with.
By awarding himself the key posts in the government, including
the military
and police force (the perpetrators of human rights abuse), the
path is clear
for Mugabe to drain his nation. The time has come for
Tsvangirai to walk
away from the man who deliberately wrecked the country he
once fought to
create.
http://www.nytimes.com
By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published:
October 19, 2008
JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, and the
opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai are to meet in Swaziland on Monday with
other
southern African leaders seeking to break a deadlock over
power-sharing in a
jointly run government.
Mr. Mugabe has
unilaterally claimed almost all the most powerful ministries
in the
government, a move that Mr. Tsvangirai rejected as a power grab.
Thabo
Mbeki, the former president of South Africa and the regional mediator
in the
Zimbabwe crisis, spent four days last week overseeing negotiations in
Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. He had brokered the power-sharing deal, but
failed to end the impasse.
At rallies over the weekend, Mr.
Tsvangirai told his supporters that Mr.
Mugabe was unbending, and described
the talks as a "dialogue of the dead,"
Reuters reported. Mr. Tsvangirai and
his party, the Movement for Democratic
Change, asked for the intervention of
the Southern African Development
Community, a 14-nation bloc. Leaders from
the group are to meet with him and
Mr. Mugabe on Monday.
But one of
Mr. Mugabe's negotiators, Patrick Chinamasa, sought to play down
how much
influence the regional group had on the process. "They can't impose
anything
on us, especially on such a small matter as the allocation of
ministries,"
he was quoted as saying in a state-owned newspaper, The Sunday
Mail.
An editorial in the paper acknowledged that the government was
in a state of
paralysis, with health and educational services in severe
decline as "most
civil servants are now loitering like sheep without
shepherds."
Zimbabwe's economy is in a shambles, with annual inflation at
a staggering
231 million percent.
This Day, Nigeria
.Beleaguered
country to boost tourism, says VP Mujuru
From Nseobong Okon-Ekong in
Zimbabwe, 10.20.2008
As parties in the Zimbabwean power sharing deal
reconvene for another round
of talks in Swaziland today, long and winding
queues of helpless Zimbabweans
trying to draw cash from the banks is one of
the apparent and undeniable
evidence of the depth that the country's economy
has fallen.
Thousands of Zimbabweans can be seen waiting for long hours at
the banks in
the country's major cities of Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria
Falls, often
going home disappointed, for monies they can't get.
Last
week, the government issued a new 50,000 Zimbabwean dollar bill as the
highest denomination. However, the currency is only a statement of
independence, as the country's Reserve Bank last month unwittingly stated
that the currency might not be worth more than a piece of paper, by
authorising use of foreign currencies as legal tender.
Shop owners and
other suppliers of goods and services openly reject the
Zimbabwean dollar in
preference for the US dollar, the Euro, the British
pound and the South
African rand along with currencies from the neighbouring
countries of
Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi.
At the unofficial black market exchange rate,
which many Zimbabweans and
foreigners find accessible, one US dollar is
exchanged for various sums
ranging between 18,000 and 21,000 Zimbabwean
dollars.
An average journalist in Zimbabwe earns a monthly salary of 60,000
Zimbabwean dollars, the equivalent of about US$3.
Speaking when she
opened the first edition of the country's
Sanganai/Hanganani World Travel
and Tourism Africa Fair in Bulawayo at the
weekend, Vice-President (Mrs.)
Joice Mujuru said Zimbabwe would now depend
on the tourism industry to
reverse some of her economic set-back.
She said the image marketing
strategies underpinned and anchored by the
perception management programme
were working well for the country.
Her optimism and invitation to foreigners
may be challenged by the lingering
political problem, which has impacted
negatively on the economy and by
extension the tourism industry. Many
countries in the West have issued
travel advisory against Zimbabwe.
Financial instruments such as the Western
Union Money Transfer, Travellers'
cheque employed in the tourism industry do
not work in Zimbabwe and
indigenes leaving the country cannot go out with
more than
US$100.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Hendricks Chizhanje
Monday 20 October 2008
HARARE - A Zimbabwean lawyers'
organisation has won this year's John
Humphrey Freedom Award for its
courageous efforts and commitment to the
strengthening and promotion of
human rights and democratic development in
Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR), which was nominated for the award
by the Canadian
Embassy in Harare, came first in an impressive field of 97
candidates to
claim the award sponsored by the International Centre for
Human Rights and
Democratic Development, commonly known as Rights &
Democracy.
The
Canadian-based Rights & Democracy heaped praise on ZLHR for playing a
leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights across Zimbabwe
since its founding 12 years ago.
"Guided by a professional commitment
to the rule of law and Zimbabwe's
international human rights obligations,
ZLHR provides essential services
ranging from legal support for victims of
state-endorsed persecution to
public education and human rights training for
activists and civil society
organisations working at the community level,"
Rights & Democracy said in a
statement.
"Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights provides a vital democratic lifeline for
those who would
otherwise have no recourse against state-sponsored abuses
and persecution,"
said Janice Stein, chairperson of Rights & Democracy's
Board of
Directors
"Its determined, non-violent struggle against impunity and
repression
reminds us that, in the end, tyranny is no match for human
dignity and the
rule of law," she added.
ZLHR executive director
Irene Petras paid tribute to the tenacity of the
project's lawyers and
underscored that charges brought against most human
rights defenders had
been dropped in most cases.
"Prosecution is used as a tool of
persecution," said Petras.
For over 10 years ZLHR has worked tirelessly
and fearlessly to advance
democratic principles, taking up the dangerous
task of providing legal
representation to persecuted human rights and
democracy defenders.
The annual award, established in 1992 to honour an
organisation or
individual for exceptional commitment to the promotion of
international
human rights and democratic development, is named in honour of
John Peters
Humphrey, the McGill University law professor who prepared the
first draft
of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The winner
receives a US$30 000 grant and a speaking tour of Canadian cities
to help
increase awareness of the recipient's human rights work.
The award
ceremony is held every year on December 10, coinciding with the
anniversary
date of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. -
ZimOnline
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6122
October 20, 2008
By Geoffrey
Nyarota
THE secret is out at last - President Robert Mugabe's press
secretary,
George Charamba is definitely the not-so mysterious Herald
columnist,
Nathaniel Manheru.
Manheru has over the years incurred the
wrath of many as he has lashed out,
at and occasionally defamed, those he
perceives to be opponents of Zanu-PF
and the Mugabe regime.
As he
finally emerged from hiding behind a false name, Charamba wandered
from his
well-beaten path of self-ingratiation. He broke ranks with many in
the
Zanu-PF leadership, accusing them, to the astonishment of many used to
his
worship of them, of being responsible virtually for having caused all of
Zimbabwe's many ills.
Meanwhile he congratulated himself for penning
a column that "is so
diligently read in many circles, Zanu-PF
included.
"Some want me lynched; others want me roasted from the temple
downwards; all
are united and unanimous that my sharp and in their view,
poisoned pen
certainly invites and deserves deep grief which, sooner, must
visit my
little person as a matter of retributive justice and
expiation."
With those words the secret was revealed. Charamba has for
long been linked
to the spineless Manheru, whose poisoned pen has attacked
all and sundry
with the Charamba conveniently hiding behind a false name.
Many of Manheru's
victims have, indeed, expressed the wish that Charamba be
lynched. Manheru's
strange utterances in Saturday's column can only be
deliberate or unwitting
confirmation that Charamba is, indeed,
Manheru.
Charamba first provided an official clue to his link with
Manheru when he
furiously lambasted valiant SW Radio Africa journalist
Violet Gonda live on
radio as well as an Australian journalist not long
afterwards in a tone and
using terminology that left few Charamba watchers
in any doubt that he and
Manheru were, in fact, one and the same
person.
"I also must confess that in my other moments of reckless pride,
this
reflection gives me quite a handful of pleasure," Charamba
intones.
It is amazing Charamba finds it difficult to understand that so
many read
his abhorrent outbursts. There is hardly much else to read in
Zimbabwe after
Charamba and his previous boss, Jonathan Moyo - the original
Nathaniel
Manheru - ingeniously halted publication of the rival Daily News,
leaving
The Herald and The Chronicle, two sides of the same coin, free to
publish
without challenge or competition.
In reality, the powerful or
important people, whose ire Charamba
congratulates himself for regularly
raising over the past five years, have
nothing else to read on a daily
basis, including on Saturday when his column
appears. This arrangement also
cunningly ensures that Charamba can defame or
upset, as he prefers to call
it, without challenge.
There is no other forum on a daily basis where his
victims can seek recourse
as they seek to respond to or challenge him. So
Charamba is well protected
from challenge. The other newspapers in existence
in Zimbabwe, have
different circulation patterns, are expensive and have
much smaller print
runs than The Herald. To make matters worse, they are
published only once a
week. In any case, their editors remain ever mindful
of the fate of
newspapers that dared to lock horns with Charamba and
Jonathan Moyo to their
utter undoing.
Of course, if The Herald had
real competition, its editor would refuse to
Charamba's his long-winded
articles for simple reasons of survival.
Getting carried away on
Saturday, Charamba made mockery of his bosses, the
Zanu-PF
politicians.
"You meet some politician from the ruling party," Charamba
intimated, "and
the question you can expect is: 'So what's happening?' Or
its variant: 'So
where are we?' Frankly, the question is as obscene as two
dogs behaving
badly where there are people."
Rather obscene imagery
for one to invoke in reference to one's own
paymasters. Let us hold our
collective breath.
But perhaps Charamba forgets that it is Zanu-PF that
insisted that the
negotiations over the future of Zimbabwe in secret. Little
did Mugabe
realise that his own cohorts would be denied access to vital
information
about the negotiations.
It is more than likely that
Charamba himself did not receive regular
briefings from Patrick Chinamasa or
Nicholas Goche from Pretoria. I never
saw a picture of him standing among
negotiators at the Rainbow Towers.
It is hitting below the belt in those
circumstances to accuse Zanu-PF
politicians of "being unable to understand
the agenda and line of the day".
"The question suggests perplexity, real
deep befuddlement quite unseemly of
gods," Charamba
pronounces.
Charamba is clearly now attempting to distance himself from
the gods he has
served with fawning loyalty over the years in order to
ingratiate himself
with the MDC. Even he must realise there is change in the
air, despite his
dismissive attitude towards the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai,
in paticular.
"The so-called political negotiations for an inclusive
Government have
sanctified the AWOL (Away Without Official Leave) of ruling
party members,"
Charamba postulates. "Except for President Mugabe,
Mnangagwa, Goche,
Chinamasa and one or two others, everyone else in the
ruling party feels
excused from history, even feeling righteous about
it."
"Where you had men and women who would have found ample space in 31
cabinet
posts, you now have a multitude jostling for a mere 15
posts.
"Or simply abandoning all hope for any useful role outside of a
ministerial
one."
Charamba has this uncanny ability to hit the nail
right on the head while
trying cynically to make a point to the contrary.
For example, he suggests
of Zanu-PF ministers that perhaps they see no role
for themselves to play in
Zimbabwe outside ministerial office. This is true.
The late Enos Chikowore
provides posthumous testimony to how Zanu-PF
ministers have no role to play
once outside their powerful offices. May his
soul rest in peace.
To help him understand this phenomenon Charamba
should read the latest
contribution by writer Chenjerai Hove to the
Zimbabwean political debate as
posted on this website today.
What
role, for example, can Didymus Mutasa play outside the office of
minister?
How about Emmerson Mnangagwa and Patrick Chinamasa today, even if
they are
qualified lawyers? What self-sustaining role can Sidney Sekeramayi
play in
Harare today? Does David Parirenyatwa still possess the potential to
fill a
doctor's surgery with ailing patients? What useful role can Kembo
Mohadi and
Nicholas Goche play outside the office of a minister? What useful
role has
Simba Makoni play since he was ejected from ministerial office that
many
years ago? Today he desperately clings to politics when politics
rejects
him? What role did Edgar Tekere play outside a ministerial one
almost three
decades ago? What role would Joseph Msika, the late Simon
Muzenda, Joice
Mujuru play outside the office of Vice President?
Former Nigerian Finance
and Foreign Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is now the
World Bank's managing
director after leaving her country. Not much can be
said about former
Zimbabwean ministers apart from a few.
Once he fell out with Zanu-PF
after the Willowgate Scandal former Education
Minister, Dzingai Mutumbuka,
did not hang around to grovel. He left the
country and is doing well also
with the World Bank in Washington. Nkosana
Moyo, likewise, quickly became
disenchanted with the Mugabe regime and left
the country. He is taking good
care of himself with a private equity
investor in emerging markets which is
based in London. Former Information
Deputy Minister, Naomi Nhiwatiwa, is one
of the very few who survived after
parting ways with Mugabe.
Fear of
having to stand on their own feet is the very reason why our
politicians
strive to hang onto office, even after they have been defeated
at the
polls.
Charamba pretends to be surprised that the Zanu-PF politicians
have all gone
silent, with the notable exception of a few.
But this
is not the first time they have gone underground, as it were. Back
in 2000,
in between the referendum and the June 25 parliamentary elections,
they all
fell silent, including Mnangagwa, Goche and Chinamasa. Mugabe was
totally
isolated as his cohorts read the writing that was clearly written on
the
wall. They did not want to make wrong pronouncements as the moves as the
Zanu-PF edifice was collapsing around them.
It is into the vacuum
created by the ominous silence of the Zanu-PF
leadership that Jonathan Moyo
strode with majestic arrogance, Charamba on
leash like a vicious Rotweiller.
Charamba has behaved like Mugabe's rabid
dog since then.
Charamba
accuses the politicians of falling silent. He fails to appreciate
that it is
he who lulls them into a false sense of security through his
endless
assurances of Zanu-PF's total invincibility.
He devoted he rest of
Saturday's column to the usual gross misinformation
that has transformed
both the original and the current Nathaniel Manheru
into some of the most
despised Zimbabweans living.
Charamba accuses the MDC of the very traits
that have lost Zanu-PF so much
support from the people of Zimbabwe that the
party knows it cannot win a
free and fair election.
Charamba totally
ignores the fact that out of a total of 5 934 768
registered voters only 2
514 750 or 42.37 cast their vote on June 27. Apart
from that, while Charamba
may celebrate the so-called landslide victory that
he helped the President
to secure unchallenged it should be food for though
that 233 000 voters
defied Zanu-PF's elaborate machinery to cast their
ballot for Tsvangirai who
had withdrawn from the race.
If Charamba kept his finger on the pulse of
national political sentiment he
would know that a variation of this very
question has now become a
pre-occupation of national discourse since
July.
"Why, if President Robert Mugabe won a landslide victory on June
27, does he
waste time negotiating with politicians who withdrew from the
presidential
election, in the case of Morgan Tsvangirai, or never
participated in the
presidential election, in the first place, as is the
case with Arthur
Mutambara."
They wonder why the President of
Zimbabwe does not simply go ahead and
establish a government without
Tsvangirai.
As for Charamba's cynical "Hande kuminda" mantra, he needs to
know that more
is required to cultivate a fine crop of maize than "the skies
(that) have
grown darker, rumbling with the pregnancy of eager rains, and
thus the
tantalising promise of plenty to this our very hungry
nation."
His gods may indeed be powerful but they have no control,
whatsoever, over
the amount of rain that we are blessed with in any season.
They are totally
responsible, however, for the quantity of maize seed or
fertilizer available
to peasant and other farmers for the
season.
Zanu-PF has failed dismally in that department over the
years.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=6097
October 19, 2008
By Masiiwa
Ragies Gunda
As a politically conscious Zimbabwean I have been following
the political
situation in Zimbabwe with keen interest.
I should
begin by thanking all the Zimbabweans who went out in their
millions to cast
their vote in the March 29 election, which saw the former
opposition party,
Movement for Democratic Change transformed into the
majority party in the
House of Assembly.
For once, I almost thought Zimbabwe had matured into a
democracy but it did
not take long before the ugly side of politics was
unleashed on the people
leading to the locally and internationally condemned
"sham election" of June
27. The violence that was unleashed certainly may
not be compared to what
Ndebeles suffered during the Gukurahundi era but
then, it is wrong to
compare the two. As human beings, one life should be
too much to be
terminated for political gain. In that regard, the violence
was rightly
cited as the major reason for Tsvangirai's decision to pull out
of that June
27 election. This piece seeks to highlight some lessons that I
have taken
from George Charamba, the spokesperson of Robert Mugabe on the
situation in
Zimbabwe before and after June 27.
Charamba and Patrick
Chinamasa, the (former) Minister of Justice and
Parliamentary Affairs, who
was made Zanu-PF's Chairman of the Committee on
media etc in the run -up to
the June 27 fiasco led the onslaught in painting
the MDC led by Tsvangirai
as the major sponsors of political violence. Their
words were supported by
the number of dockets that the police opened against
MDC members and
supporters pertaining to the violence that had gripped the
country.
Zanu-PF was painted by these two and their cronies as the
victim of this
violence and Robert Mugabe including Grace also joined this
band-wagon and
threatened to deal with Tsvangirai as the chief sponsor of
the violence.
This was in disregard of the information that was coming from
many of the
violence ridden areas where the victims talked of being
brutalised by known
Zanu-PF activists and army personnel sometimes in the
presence of police
details who went on to arrest the victims of the
violence.
There has been a lot of information posted on the internet
pertaining to the
identities of these people who brutalised Zimbabweans for
exercising their
democratic right to choose leaders who should govern them.
The state media,
chiefly The Herald and The Sunday Mail played a starring
role in demonising
the MDC and in particular Morgan Tsvangirai while
declaring Mugabe and
Zanu-PF the saints of Zimbabwean politics. However, in
doing this Charamba
has been an interesting figure and I would want to draw
the attention of
fellow Zimbabweans to some of the points that have made
Charamba an
interesting figure.
First, Charamba in his column soon
after the March 29 election argued that
some people were pushing the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) "to publish
the wrong results". This was
in connection with the presidential election.
Interestingly, Zanu-PF and the
government had told people that nobody had
heard the results and everybody
including Mugabe was waiting patiently for
ZEC to announce the results. The
question, therefore, to Charamba is, what
wrong results was ZEC being forced
to release? A follow-up question is who
declared these results to be wrong?
On the basis of Charamba's wise words, I
am of the opinion that Morgan
Tsvangirai won the absolute majority needed to
transfer power from Mugabe
and this is the result that Charamba called
wrong.
It therefore took
ZANU-PF five weeks to correct this wrong result. I find it
disturbing that
most media outlets have continued to report that Tsvangirai
did not win the
necessary majority, which is against the wise words of
Charamba. What is
clear is that the first tallies of the election results
showed that
Tsvangirai had won outright and this should have been
communicated to Mugabe
and Charamba got wind of it and as erratic as he is,
could not keep the
secret. We just did not listen carefully to what Charamba
was
saying.
Second, Charamba recently wrote again in his column and an
article which was
widely circulated among internet sites that "the MDC was
demanding
ministries which betray a retributive agenda". This is an
interesting
statement coming from a man who has spent the last four or so
months,
painting Zanu-PF as an angel. For starters, "retribution" is
equivalent to
revenge. Why would Zanu-PF be so worried of revenge when as
they have always
said, they are clean and innocent from the violence that
engulfed Zimbabwe
post-March election?
Once again Charamba seems to
be confirming what most Zimbabweans already
know, that the violence that was
visited upon the people was sanctioned by
Zanu-PF and if the MDC is going to
control the Home Affairs (police) and
Justice ministries, some very senior
members of the previous government who
orchestrated the violence would be
arrested and tried for crimes against
humanity and the willful destruction
of property that characterised the
post-March election. In that regard, it
makes sense for Charamba the chief
propagandist of that era to be
worried.
It appears, therefore, that Charamba is calling on Mugabe to
refuse to cede
control of these ministries because that may mean the end of
most of the top
people in his party who led the violent campaign. According
to Charamba
therefore, Zanu-PF is guilty of mass murder of opposition
members and
activists and most (if not all) of the violence that was
witnessed in
Zimbabwe.
These are just two lessons drawn from the wise
words of Charamba. It pays to
listen to his vitriol because in it he is
shedding light on the real issues
that as Zimbabweans we would want to see
revisited with justice
administered. The bottom line is that Charamba
admitted that Morgan
Tsvangirai won the March 29 election and the result was
wrong according to
Zanu-PF, hence it took five weeks to correct the result.
Further, Charamba
makes it clear that Zanu-PF was responsible for the
violence and is actually
afraid that MDC would want to see justice done to
that unwarranted suffering
that was visited upon the people.
That is
the sole reason why Zanu-PF, according to Charamba, should retain
control of
security ministries and the justice ministry. For Charamba to
then try and
say, what ministry each party controls is non-essential is to
contradict
himself, hence my conclusion that he is an erratic individual.
Most
importantly however, if one reads between the lines, Charamba is the
best
source of the truth about the goings on in Zimbabwe.
He has been spilling
the beans and we are listening and will certainly make
use of his wise
words.