Beatings by government security
forces, arrests and jailings have driven
some stalwart members into
exile.
By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
Last update: October 06,
2007 - 4:01 PM
TEMBISA, SOUTH AFRICA - They were some of the
toughest front-liners in
Zimbabwe's opposition, people who previously had
been beaten and tortured by
state security forces and had come through it
stronger.
Now they are broken men.
Nhamo Musekiwa sits hunched like a
frail old man in a chair on a small strip
of dirt in this township outside
Johannesburg. The 34-year-old wears black
slippers and jeans that hang like
an empty sack. He had to flee his country
after security forces "full of
madness" nearly beat him to death in March,
along with opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of others.
All he talks about is going home
to his beloved Zimbabwe to continue the
struggle against President Robert
Mugabe's regime and resume his work as
Tsvangirai's bodyguard. But the truth
is, he can barely walk.
He struggles for breath as he tells his story in
a pitch so low it is often
inaudible. Forty minutes of conversation exhausts
him, and he drifts off to
sleep.
During an interview with the Los
Angeles Times in May, Musekiwa had appeared
robust and strong, although he
acknowledged having difficulty sleeping since
the beatings. By the end of
August, he had shrunk into himself. His skin
hung off his bones, the flesh
and muscle eaten away. His face was like a
skull, with deep hollows under
sharp cheekbones and a protuberant chin.
"One month ago, I could not even
stand upright," he said. "It just hurt."
For his wife, Edna, summoned to
his Johannesburg hospital bed from Zimbabwe
six weeks ago, the
transformation was shocking. At that point, he was
expected to die of
complications of a ruptured kidney, but somehow he
crawled back from the
grave.
"Any day now, I'll be rolling into Zimbabwe," he wheezed. "I have
no option.
That's my home. But I just get tired when I walk along these
days."
There are others like him, some physically destroyed, others
psychologically
shattered. This winter, which is winding down in the
Southern Hemisphere,
you would find them in a back room of a Johannesburg
church rented by a
Zimbabwean anti-torture group, a huddle of gloomy men
curled around a hot
plate that offered scant comfort against the
bone-chilling cold.
Dozens of members have fled to South Africa in recent
months, some of them
with severe injuries, leaving the opposition a shell of
itself with
elections less than seven months away. Most of them are afraid
for family
members still in Zimbabwe, but too terrified to go home
themselves. Or too
damaged.
The assaults and abductions in the
lead-up to the March elections are seen
by human rights organizations as a
deliberate strategy by the Mugabe
government to cripple democratic
opposition. The Human Rights Forum, which
unites 17 Zimbabwean
organizations, recently reported that 2007 looks to be
the worst year for
political violence and torture since 2001.
"I know a couple of people who
were beaten on March 11, and to be honest I
don't think they're quite the
same people they were before," said Andrew
Meldrum, an American who wrote a
book on his 23 years as a journalist in
Zimbabwe before his 2003 expulsion.
"They're also frightened. I have seen
many people who have left the country.
They're frightened that they could be
at home doing absolutely nothing and
that they could be taken out and beaten
again."
Negotiations between
the ruling party and opposition over electoral reforms
are still going on
and produced some symbolic compromises from the
government in September,
with a deal that saw Mugabe's term cut from six
years to five. But many saw
it as an indication of the ruling party's
supreme confidence of winning an
election, rather than a sign it is willing
to meet opposition demands for
elections to be free and fair.
Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe has endured a long
descent into economic chaos, with
hyperinflation of more than 7,000 percent
and chronic shortages of
medicines, food, fuel and other basic necessities.
Mugabe blames the West
and calls Tsvangirai a puppet of white
colonialists.
But to his supporters, Tsvangirai, the leader of the
Movement for Democratic
Change, is simply known as the president, a
reference to 2005 elections,
widely viewed in the West as a sham, that saw
Mugabe returned to power.
"They got full of madness, and they just wanted
to kill us," said Musekiwa,
describing the March beatings. He had been
beaten several times before, but
never like this. "They said, 'There's only
one president, and that's
Mugabe.' They beat me all over the body using
different weapons: iron rods,
rubber batons, sticks, wooden batons and
clenched fists and boots. They beat
us repeatedly until Morgan Tsvangirai
was unconscious."
Then in May, the opposition headquarters in Zimbabwe's
capital, Harare, were
targeted, everyone in the building was arrested, and
22 computers as well as
documents and files were seized. Dozens of activists
were jailed for
"terrorist" bombings of gasoline tankers, until a judge
ruled in July that
police had concocted the evidence.
After the March
beatings, one government official, Nathan Shamuyarira, said
of Tsvangirai,
"If you ask for that kind of trouble, you'll get it." Mugabe
later said the
opposition had deserved the beatings and that Western critics
could "go
hang." The government routinely portrays those seeking to oust his
regime as
criminals.
Like many other opposition activists, Musekiwa got his
grounding in the
union movement in the late 1990s, when Tsvangirai, a former
miner and
secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions,
organized
anti-government strikes. In 1999, the MDC emerged from the union
movement as
the first real political challenge to Mugabe, now 83, who has
been in power
since independence in 1980.
A searing memory changed
Musekiwa forever in the late '70s, during the
liberation war in the country,
then still known as Rhodesia. He had to watch
as two dozen of the rebels
fighting the minority white regime beat his
father to death, a farmer who
supported the rebel cause but was a suspected
collaborator.
"He was
tied to a tree. He only cried when he passed out. We were just
sitting in a
half circle. We weren't crying, because they said, 'If you cry,
you'll go
with your father.' I didn't cry when I buried him. We didn't cry
until after
the struggle was over and we went and put a concrete tombstone
there."
Musekiwa said that after the killing, the rebels checked his
father's
papers, acknowledged that he had been innocent and
apologized.
"I was so angry. That is why I never supported ZANU-PF," he
said of Mugabe's
ruling party, which grew out of the rebel
movement.
Musekiwa says he has not lost hope. "My spirit is not broken.
In the
struggle, you can be injured and stay alive, or you can die. I'm
happy to be
one of those, because now you will remember me as a hero. Even
if I die, I
will not die a painful death. I mean, my spirit will at least
say I played
my part in Zimbabwe."
Tracy McVeigh, foreign
editor
Sunday October 7, 2007
The Observer
President Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe is entitled to attend a Europe-Africa
summit in December,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this weekend. Her
pronouncement puts
her at odds with Gordon Brown, who has threatened to
boycott the talks if
Mugabe goes.
During talks in Pretoria with President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa, who has
been mediating between the Zimbabwean opposition and
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF
party, Merkel expressed disquiet about the worsening
crisis in Zimbabwe.
'The situation is a very difficult one. It's a
disastrous one,' she said.
But she did not back calls for Mugabe to be
barred from the summit between
African Union and European Union leaders in
Lisbon. 'The President of the
republic of Germany wanted to invite all
African countries to that summit,
and it's up to countries themselves to
decide how they are going to be
represented at the table,' she
said.
'Obviously we will make all our assessments heard. We will also raise
all
our criticisms. We would do so in the presence of each and
everyone.'
However, her refusal to back efforts to ban Mugabe may now
mean it is Brown
instead who does not attend the summit. A Foreign Office
spokesman said the
Prime Minister's position had not changed and that he
would not attend if
Mugabe was present.
Merkel's comments brought a
harsh response from Zimbabwe. The state-owned
Herald newspaper reported
yesterday that Mbeki had staved off pressure from
the German leader. It said
Merkel had been expected to take a tougher
stance, but left the meeting with
Mbeki 'singing from a different hymn
sheet'.
The Zimbabwe government
hit out at Merkel for labelling the crisis
'disastrous' and said Germany
should not pass judgment on anyone.
'It is ironic that Germany, with a
history such as it has, has the temerity
to see a speck in Zimbabwe's eye,'
Secretary for Information and Publicity
George Charamba said.
Last
week the Zimbabwe government averted a strike by civil servants and
junior
doctors after negotiations lead to unions cancelling a walkout
planned over
salaries.
Also yesterday, Zimbabwe's police revealed that more than
23,000 people have
been arrested for flouting price controls imposed by the
government three
months ago.
From Business Day (SA), 6 October
One of Zimbabwe's last remaining white commercial farmers has,
in a last
desperate bid to stop Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe giving
his farm to
Zanu PF cronies, taken his case to the Southern African
Development
Community (SADC) Tribunal in Windhoek. Central to Michael
Campbell's
application to the tribunal is the contention that the land
acquisition
process is racist and illegal under a host of international
legal
instruments, not the least being the SADC treaty and the African Union
Charter. The action will be a major test for the SADC and the tribunal,
which is established through a protocol attached to the SADC treaty. It
empowers the tribunal to adjudicate disputes between member states, and
individuals and member states. It is apparently the first such dispute to be
taken to the tribunal since it was established in 2000. Zimbabwe is a
signatory to both the treaty and the tribunal. In papers, Campbell contends
that the tribunal has jurisdiction because the treaty and other instruments
outlaw arbitrary government action based on race. The papers, which will be
lodged with the tribunal on Monday, contain a litany of abuse by Zimbabwe's
security forces, invasions of the Chegutu farm and the comprehensive failure
of the supreme court of Zimbabwe to rule on an application by Campbell to
have the acquisition declared unlawful. The case is to be argued before the
tribunal by top South African advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC. Also in the
papers is a shocking list of "chefs" who have taken over the arbitrarily
confiscated farms in the Chegutu district. Campbell's farm is earmarked for
N Shamuyarira, a Zanu PF spokesman and minister.
The number of
white commercial farmers has shrunk from 6000 to about 500.
White farmers
are also being steadily driven off their farms in a process
that has
accelerated in recent weeks. Those who fail to leave are arrested
and some
imprisoned. So far about 500 000 farmworkers and their families
have been
forced into limbo and they survive in either rural or urban slums
in dire
conditions. The outcome of the action is vital to the future of
remaining
farmers and those workers who remain on the farms. The papers say
that while
hundreds of thousands of workers have been forced off the land,
"the land
reform programme has benefited only the elite - security force
officers,
Politburo members, their family members and (most regrettably)
judges". At
the heart of the case is the amendment to the Zimbabwean
constitution,
rammed through parliament by Zanu PF MPs, which allows
arbitrary acquisition
of land and companies. This, the papers claim,
"undermines the fundamental
structure and violates the essential or core
values of the constitution,
which previously recognised and provided
protection to these human rights
through an assertion of those rights
through due process". The point is that
Zimbabwe's parliament was not
authorised by the constitution to change the
constitution in this way. The
application seeks an order from the tribunal
declaring that the changes to
the constitution violate the human rights
protections of the SADC treaty.
They also seek a "declarator" that the
treaty has been violated, because
article six says that "member states shall
not discriminate against any
person on the grounds of gender, religion,
political views, race, ethnic
origin, culture, ill-health or disability or
such other grounds".
A restraint or interdict is also sought to stop
the Zimbabwean government
from arbitrarily acquiring the Campbell farm.
Ironically, the farm was
purchased in 1999 and the Zimbabwean government
declared at the time that it
had no interest in the property. Mugabe's land
grabs began a year later in
2000. The farm was first hit by summary unlawful
invasions in 2001 and since
then there have been threats of violence against
which the law enforcement
authorities have failed to act. The entire
process, which has seen multiple
applications to the courts in Zimbabwe, has
not been without pain and
tragedy. The papers record that malaria brought
onto the farm by invaders
was responsible for the deaths of a
daughter-in-law and her twin children.
"Personal suffering of the farm's
employees, their families and my family
has been acute," Campbell says in
papers. A Supreme Court action mounted in
March this year had judgment
reserved. Since then, the court has not
responded to inquiries about the
case, meaning that the court had declined
to exercise its jurisdiction. "The
applicants have clearly exhausted their
remedies under Zimbabwe municipal
law and . must seek, before this
honourable tribunal, to enforce compliance
by the president of Zimbabwe,
representing this government, with the
international law obligations he
himself accepted for Zimbabwe when he
personally signed the SADC Treaty on
Zimbabwe's behalf," the papers
claim.
Yahoo News
by Emmanuel Goujon Sat Oct 6, 7:02 AM ET
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) -
African diplomats presented a united front Saturday to
support Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe's presence at an upcoming
EU-Africa summit despite
strong European reservations.
"The African Union wants all African
countries to take part" in the summit
in Lisbon in December, an official
from the pan-African body's headquarters
in Addis Ababa told AFP.
The
official, who requested to remain anonymous, contradicted comments by
French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who claimed the African Union had
offered
to talk Mugabe out of travelling to Portugal.
The 83-year-old firebrand
Zimbabwean leader has come under a barrage of
international criticism for
violating political and human rights in his
country and plunging it into a
disastrous economic crisis.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made
it clear Mugabe was not welcome
at the summit but Mugabe has brushed away
criticism from his country's
former colonial power and shown no sign of
backing down.
"Zimbabwe, in spite of the crisis, is an African country
and we are
defending principles here. We have asked Mugabe to talk to his
opposition
but the AU respects the principle of non-interference," said one
official
from the African Union's Peace and Security Committee.
"We
resort to interference only in extreme cases of violence or
genocide."
"It is not the only country not to respect democracy, look at
Togo, Niger...
Zimbabwe's problem is mainly with London, it's a bilateral
issue and is none
of our business. If the Europeans really insist on this
point, the summit
risks falling through," the official
added.
Originally planned to take place in April 2003, the summit was
repeatedly
postponed due to the adamant refusal of several European
countries to host
Mugabe over his rights record.
Britain and other
European powerhouses have urged the African Union to use
its leverage and
convince Mugabe to let his country be represented at the
summit by another
official, so far in vain.
"On this file, the AU's position is clear and
resolute: all member countries
should take part in the Lisbon summit. As
Zimbabwe head of state, Robert
Mugabe should take part," another
high-ranking AU official told AFP on
condition of anonymity.
On
Thursday, AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare and the current
president of the organisation, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, had
reaffirmed their position to visiting German Chancellor Angela
Merkel.
"We want the next EU-Africa summit to be a success and herald a
new
partnership. All Africans should be invited, this is the basis of this
new
partnership," Konare said.
Merkel, who is now in South Africa,
where she was expected to urge President
Thabo Mbeki to use his influence on
Mugabe, lamented the plight of
Zimbabweans but stopped short of backing
Brown's tough line.
"The situation is a very difficult one. It's a
disastrous one, which I very
clearly stated in our conversation," she said
Friday.
She said African countries themselves should be left to decide
who attends
the talks in Portugal.
Business Report
October 6,
2007
Maputo - Radio Mozambique said in a report that the decision to
reduce the
amount of energy to the economic and politically beleaguered
country was
decided by the Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric dam administration at
a recent
meeting.
Manuel Tome -- one of the administrators of the
hydroelectric dam which is
situated on The Zambezi River -- said Zimbabwe
had failed to pay the power
utility for a lengthy period.
He
said measures to reduce the amount of power that country received would
be
taken at the end of October.
Electrical energy from the dam, which is one
of the largest in southern
Africa, is also sold to Malawi, South Africa and
locally.
Recently, ownership of the dam was transferred from the
Portuguese
government to the Mozambican government. - Sapa
cathybuckle.com
Saturday 6th October 2007
Dear
Family and Friends,
There are fruit flies in my fridge! Stupidly I keep
putting things there to
keep them cool in Zimbabwe's searing October heat
but at last the reality is
sinking in. After the second week of having
electricity for just five of
every twenty four hours, fridges and deep
freezes have finally given up. In
my area the electricity has only been on
for 25 of the last 120 hours and
then only in the middle of the night. Now
we have no choice but to live from
hand to mouth. Planning and preparation
have gone out the window and short
term thinking has taken over - just like
our government.
Sitting in the dark one evening this week listening to
the first gentle rain
of the season washing the dust off the roof, I knew
that this sound of life
and renewal wasn't going to help Zimbabwe this year.
We have yet again
arrived at the main growing season without any clarity
over who can farm and
who can't and with no guarantees for black or white,
old or new farmers.
Electricity for pumping water, running cold rooms or
drying crops is neither
regular nor guaranteed. Fuel for ploughing,
cultivating and transporting
crops is not freely available or guaranteed.
Vital inputs of fertilizers and
chemicals are scarce or unavailable.
Stockfeed for all types of livestock is
virtually unobtainable and even
securing enough food for farm workers is
nearly impossible.
The few
remaining farmers on the land who hold Title Deeds to their
properties
continue to face each day with apprehension and insecurity. Court
orders are
ignored or disobeyed and people with political clout still have
the ability
to evict at will and seize at leisure. For the people who don't
hold Title
to the farms they are on, the insecurity is just as great. Just
as politics
put them there, so too politics can take them away. These
farmers must
surely be wondering if the March elections are finally going to
make them
answerable for their actions and hold them accountable for what
they have
done.
The insecurity and uncertainty of everything is all encompassing
and none
are spared - from farmers to businessmen and miners to civil
servants. We
don't say things like the government "can't do that," "won't
get away with
that," or "it's against the law" anymore. After 7 years of
first hand
experience, we all know that they can and will take private
property, change
laws to suit themselves, turn a blind eye as assets are
stripped,
infrastructure falls apart and human rights are disregarded. But,
as absurd
as it sounds, there is hope because our memories are long and
elections draw
ever closer.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love
cathy.
The Zimbabwean
STATEMENT BY DOUGLAS GIBSON MP
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE SPOKESPERSON ON
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Zimbabwe:
While it is encouraging that President Mbeki
and Deputy President
Mlambo-Ngcuka have both been in contact with Zimbabwean
President Robert
Mugabe and Vice President Joyce Mujuru, it would be far
more reassuring if
our country was advised what our representatives told
their Zimbabwean
counterparts.
Zimbabwe is fast approaching meltdown
point; millions of Zimbabweans have
already sought refuge in neighbouring
countries. Millions more are expected
if this crisis is allowed to continue.
Zimbabwe has reached a point where
millions do not have enough to eat and
yet while this goes on, our
government continues treating Robert Mugabe as
an honoured elder statesman
instead of the disastrous leader that he
is.
President Mbeki should consider South African public opinion. It is not
only
the two million DA supporters who are appalled at conditions in
Zimbabwe;
millions of people within that country and in other African
countries share
the feeling that action is necessary to bring Robert
Mugabe's government
face to face with the political realities.
In the
final event, it is only the Zimbabweans who can solve their problems.
Such a
solution is not helped while SA and many other countries pursue quiet
diplomacy which Robert Mugabe regards as silent acquiesce.
The Zimbabwean
STATEMENT BY
TONY LEON MP
LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE
South Africa's decision to
block a request for a United Nations Security
Council briefing on the
economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe is another
example of South Africa
bending over backwards to defend Robert Mugabe's
increasingly tyrannical
rule.
Britain's ambassador to the UN, Emyr Jones Parry last week requested a
"humanitarian briefing" for the UNSC following the attack on Zimbabwean
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, as well as the deepening economic and
political crisis in the country. South Africa is the current rotating
President of the UNSC - Dumisani Khumalo, South Africa's ambassador to the
UN, blocked the request.
In a repeat of South Africa's indefensible
blocking of a UN resolution on
the human rights crisis in Burma, Khumalo
argued that the turmoil in
Zimbabwe does not affect international peace and
security and therefore does
not belong on the UNSC's agenda.
Apart from
the extraordinary irony that this reasoning was often the excuse
used to
block UNSC debates on Apartheid South Africa, it is also a
fundamental
misreading of the extent of the crisis in Zimbabwe. As the
situation
continues to get worse on a daily basis, there is a distinct
possibility
that the southern African region will be negatively affected by
the fallout
from Zimbabwe's implosion. This fallout could in all likelihood
constitute a
threat to international peace and security.
South Africa, as the leading
nation in the region, has a moral
responsibility to tell Harare that its
brutal intolerance of legitimate
opposition will no longer be accepted. By
shielding President Mugabe from
international scrutiny, Pretoria has become
complicit in suppression of
democratic freedoms in Zimbabwe.
South Africa
is rapidly developing a reputation as a defender of the world's
pariahs; our
tenure at the head of the UNSC is characterised by an
indifference to human
rights and temporising with tyranny. We have now all
but lost much of the
moral high ground we once had under President Mandela.
As South Africa
prepares to commemorate Human Rights Day on Wednesday, we
must urgently
reassess our position and make sure that Zimbabwe is placed
back on the
UNSC's agenda.
Our window of opportunity is fast closing, as Britain will
next month assume
the UNSC chairpersonship. If they put Zimbabwe on the
agenda when we refused
to do so, our moral high ground will be lost
completely.
The Zimbabwean
STATEMENT BY MARK LOWE MP
DA
SPOKESPERSON ON HOME AFFAIRS
The Democratic Alliance stands by its
contention that an average of 6000
people per day came through the Beit
Bridge border post during the period
1-15 July 2007. The Department of Home
Affairs has disputed this number,
claiming that it is far too
high.
This is blatant and unfortunately commonplace government denial, in
the same
vein that government has been denying the Zimbabwean crisis since
the land
invasions began seven years ago.
However, the DA has proof
of the numbers, which were presented to the DA
delegation and a reporter
from Jacaranda FM who visited the border post
earlier this week. I was
personally told by a border post official, whose
name is known to us, who
did not want to be named, that over 6000 people a
day were coming through
the post. These are just the people entering
legally.
In
addition:
Farmers near the border estimate about 4000 Zimbabweans are
illegally
crossing into South Africa every night;
They also claim that
the local police and military privately acknowledge
that between 3000 and
4000 Zimbabweans are jumping the border every day;
Both the SABC and Limpopo
police recently reported that 6000 Zimbabwean
refugees were deported every
week from Musina and these are just the people
caught. The actual number is
much higher. The police are no longer allowed
to release figures on
deportations in Limpopo; and
This July, the National Assembly safety and
security committee chairperson
Maggie Sotyu and other MPs visited several
border posts. They found that no
could give them exact figures of illegal
immigrants crossing the border each
day, but one border official said the
number could be between 2000 and 3000.
Either all these sources are
involved in an elaborate conspiracy against the
Minister of Home Affairs, or
there is a massive problem that the Minister is
denying. Perhaps the
Minister should visit some of the Home Affairs offices
where she will see
thousands of people lining up every day trying to apply
for refugee
status.
Whether the number is 1000 a day or 10 000 a day, there is still
a huge
number of people streaming into the country as a result of the total
meltdown in Zimbabwe. The Department of Home Affairs is legally and
constitutionally bound to make provision for these people. But before they
do that they have to admit there is a problem.
The Minister's denial
has now reached the stage where it is tragic, wilfully
ignorant and quite
frankly, malicious.
The Zimbabwean
STATEMENT BY JOE SEREMANE MP
DA SPOKESPERSON FOR
AFRICA
Zambian Foreign Affairs Minister Mundia Sikatana should be commended
and
supported in his drive to get his country's counterparts in the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) to stop pretending that "all is well in
Zimbabwe".
Minister Sikatana's acknowledgement of the problems in
Zimbabwe is one of
the frankest, most upfront so far by any political leader
in southern Africa
since Zimbabwean President Mugabe first began his
despotic ways in 1999.
President Mbeki, now more than ever, needs to break
his curious silence on
the deteriorating political and economic situation in
Zimbabwe or face
further ridicule in this regard.
The Democratic Alliance
wholeheartedly agrees with the following key
assessments by Minister
Sikatana reported in the media:
. that the issue of the confiscation of
white-owned farms was key in
averting greater catastrophe in Zimbabwe,
exacerbated by flooding and
droughts; and,
. that SADC states had a
responsibility to make Zimbabwean President
Mugabe realise that he needs to
enter into dialogue.
Indications from Lusaka diplomats confirm the DA's long
held suspicion that
the government's of our neighbouring countries look to
the South African
government for leadership in dealing with the Zimbabwean
crisis and, in
particular, with President Mugabe's hostility towards the
political
opposition and the press in his country.
The loyalty that some
SADC members, including South Africa, might still feel
towards their
erstwhile comrade-in-arms, President Mugabe, is completely
misplaced when
more than a quarter of Zimbabweans have had to flee their
country to escape
the oppressive regime and economic situation in their
country. This goes
against the "African Renaissance" vision.
The DA looks forward to Zambia's
reign as chairing member-country for the 12
month period, beginning in
August of this year. If Minister Sikatana's
comments are anything to go by,
then the SADC may at long last be tackling
the bull by the horns when it
comes to Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean
STATEMENT BY JOE SEREMANE MP
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE SPOKESPERSON
ON AFRICA
Once again South Africa and the SADC have been taken hostage
by President
Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
Instead of taking action on
the massive human rights violations in Zimbabwe,
the SADC leaders decided to
call for a lowering of sanctions in what could
possibly be interpreted as
open support of the Mugabe regime.
The leaders at the summit should have
called for smart sanctions against
President Mugabe, his wife and members of
his government, such as a travel
ban within the SADC, and the freezing of
all their externally held assets.
This call should have been led by
President Mbeki, as an acknowledgment of
the vicious poverty, deprivation
and human rights abuses that the people of
Zimbabwe are suffering as a
direct result of the actions of President Mugabe
and his government's
policies.
Calling on President Mbeki to be the mediator between Zanu-PF
and the MDC is
pointless. President Mbeki has already been called upon to be
the point-man
in negotiations in Zimbabwe, and he has achieved nothing. This
is because
President Mbeki's policy choices with regard to Zimbabwe are
fundamentally
flawed. If they were not flawed the situation there would have
improved. It
has not.
The problem is the process, not the individuals
running it.
The policy of quiet diplomacy has failed, and it will
continue to fail in
the future. Only real action, such as condemning the
attacks on the MDC,
smart sanctions and a tough government and SADC line on
President Mugabe's
actions in his country, will work.
Furthermore, no
mention was made of the attacks on the democratically
elected opposition
party members, who were assaulted by government forces.
The fact that this
was not addressed at all is a further indictment of the
SADC
meeting.
Instead of condemning the human rights abuses and the shameful
state of
democracy in Zimbabwe, the leaders of the SADC put out a statement
stressing
that "the extraordinary summit reaffirms their solidarity with the
government and the people of Zimbabwe".
This sentence is highly
revealing because the people of Zimbabwe are
effectively at war with their
government; they are not one and the same.
This suggests that the Zimbabwean
government and its president behaved in a
legitimate manner. This is totally
unacceptable. It is a reminder of the
lack of political backbone in both our
country's President and the leaders
in the SADC.
History will
severely judge all the leaders who show solidarity with
President Mugabe and
Zanu-PF at the expense of the basic human rights of
ordinary Zimbabweans.
Those who deny rights to others should face the full
consequences of their
actions. It is an indictment of the Zimbabwean
leadership that those who
were meant to protect democracy turned out to be
the ones who damaged
democracy the most.
The Zimbabwean
SOUTH AFRICA
TODAY
A WEEKLY LETTER BY THE LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE
[This
week's letter is written by the acting leader of the Democratic
Alliance,
Joe Seremane MP. DA leader Helen Zille is away.]
Today, President Thabo
Mbeki is scheduled to report on the progress of his
mediation with Harare to
the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
This presents South
Africa with an excellent opportunity to intervene
decisively and positively
in the affairs of that unhappy country.
If the President is honest, he
will have to admit that the talks he has
brokered have gone nowhere, for the
selfsame reason that his interventions
have failed in the past. President
Robert Mugabe has - as usual - refused to
show any sign that he is committed
to resolving the crisis in his country.
It is time to change
gears.
Mbeki must tell his fellow SADC leaders that the ZANU-PF
delegation - who,
like the opposition MDC faction, are being hosted at our
expense in
Pretoria - have often not even bothered to arrive for the
scheduled round of
talks. Moreover, our president must alert his fellow
regional leaders to the
fact that Mugabe has unilaterally proposed
constitutional amendments that
are the very subject of the
mediation.
In light of the failure of his brief, Mr Mbeki must now use
the meeting as
an opportunity to persuade regional leaders that the time has
come for SADC
to impose limited sanctions against Harare. These would
include travel bans
and the freezing of assets of senior ZANU-PF officials
in the SADC region.
On the flip side: SADC leaders must also propose a
series of steps to be
taken if the Mugabe government does agree to the
necessary constitutional
reforms and the holding of properly monitored
elections. Such measures would
include the provision of aid and debt relief,
as well as agreeing to lobby
the international community to provide
financial and other assistance.
Lest anyone at SADC be in any doubt, our
President must drive the point
home. The need for punitive measures has
arisen because the Mugabe regime
simply does not respond to polite pressure.
It is only when Zimbabwe's
president feels that he can no longer act with
impunity that he is likely to
agree to the kind of reforms that are so
desperately required.
In light of the economic and political collapse in
Zimbabwe, it is clearly
in the self interest of all SADC members to take
firm steps against Harare.
In the past, SADC leaders have justified their
inaction on the pretext that
they wanted to maintain stability in Zimbabwe
and therefore avoid a surge in
refugees coming into their
countries.
Now, it is no longer merely South Africa who is bearing the
brunt. Given the
current dispersal as well as the rate of those fleeing
Zimbabwe, it is clear
that this excuse wore thin a long time ago.
The
situation is so dire that even our Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad -
normally the chief apologist for the Mugabe government - has expressed alarm
at the number of Zimbabweans coming into our country. He is on record as
saying that South Africa and neighbouring countries will not be able to
sustain the levels of incomers.
The whiff of realism in his words is
so rare as to bear quoting in full. He
said: "We must do more to deal with
the large influx of refugees. If we do
not begin to assist Zimbabweans to
solve their problems, the flow into South
Africa and other neighbours will
increase. It is in our interest, nationally
and morally, to see what we can
do to facilitate."
Indeed, both South Africa and Zambia are currently
experiencing a flood of
Zimbabweans across their borders. If not checked,
this will ultimately place
an intolerable burden on the local
infrastructure. Border authorities in
Livingstone have said that the number
of Zimbabweans crossing daily into
Zambia has risen from 60 to
1000.
Failure by government to take proper action and to acknowledge the
extent of
the refugee problem is forcing local farmers on the South
Africa/Zimbabwe
border to deal as best they can with an extremely difficult
situation. In a
security vacuum, they are obliged to patrol their property
against the
possible depredations of trespassers.
In contrast to the
sense of urgency expressed by Pahad, our border
authorities in Limpopo are
trying to downplay the numbers of refugees. Yet
it is clear from unbiased
reports (including the DA's own investigations in
the area) that there are
at least 3000 people a day crossing the frontier.
That living conditions
in Zimbabwe are dire is hardly in dispute: 80% of the
populace currently
live below the poverty line. People are so desperate in
that country that a
man was recently beaten to death in a battle over a loaf
of
bread.
The UN World Programme has announced that it is planning a tenfold
increase
in the number of beneficiaries of food aid in order to try and
avert the
looming hunger crisis.
The situation is only likely to get
worse - if such a thing is credible. The
IMF has predicted that Zimbabwe's
inflation rate could increase from the
current 4500% to 100 000% by year's
end. This prospect is so devastating as
to be almost impossible to
imagine.
The result will be obvious. Even more Zimbabweans, those that
still have
power in their legs, will flood into neighbouring SADC
states.
To conclude: Zimbabwe has now been in crisis for seven long, lean
years. The
steady erosion, not only of the features of a free society, but
of the
elements that sustain life itself - food, water, housing, power - has
been
all too plain for her neighbours to see.
It is frankly a
disgrace that President Mbeki and his fellow SADC leaders
have allowed the
situation to deteriorate this far. If this regional
organisation and our
government in particular, is serious about avoiding a
human catastrophe,
they must act at once, and with resolution.
It is not merely that South
Africans are tired of the tragedy that is
playing itself out to our north;
we are all exhausted by the effort of
trying to get our government to face
the facts. The time for talk - both
between the delegates from Zimbabwe, and
between SADC leaders about
Zimbabwe - has passed. The time for deeds is long
overdue.