Zim Online
by Farisai Gonye Wednesday 16 April
2008
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s top military commander Constantine
Chiwenga has taken
personal charge of President Robert Mugabe’s re-election
bid, as reports
began to surface this week of opposition supporters murdered
in what
increasingly appears a coordinated terror campaign against
government
opponents.
Authoritative military sources said Chiwenga,
commander of the Zimbabwe
Defence Forces (ZDF) that comprises the army and
air force, met in Bulawayo
last Saturday and Sunday provincial commanders of
the army, police and
secret service police to map out a campaign plan for
Mugabe.
They said provincial joint committees manned by senior military,
police and
intelligence officers loyal to Mugabe will spearhead the campaign
that they
said will see unprecedented violence unleashed on supporters of
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Junior police officers initially seconded to Mugabe’s
campaign but whose
loyalty is questionable had been recalled at Chiwenga’s
instructions,
sources said. But they said all state security arms had been
roped in to
support the campaign, while the Air Force of Zimbabwe was
ordered to make
helicopters available to campaign teams.
"The level
of violence is going to be shocking,” said a senior army officer,
who we
cannot name to protect him. “It is going to be a wave that will keep
Tsvangirai's supporters indoors or displaced. It is meant to ensure that
only supporters of Mugabe will dare come out in large numbers to vote in the
run-off election,” the source added.
It was not possible to get a
comment from the ZDF while Defence Minister
Sydney Sekeramayi refused to
take questions on the matter, saying he was
unaware of any military
involvement in Mugabe's campaign. "I am not aware of
it. I have no such
information," he said.
Police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena said the police
were deployed to keep law
and order and not to campaign for Mugabe. "Police
are on the ground to stop
any post election violence and not to campaign for
any candidate,” he said.
No official results have been released for the
March 29 presidential
election that Tsvangirai claims he won with more than
50 percent of the
vote, enough to avoid a second round run-off against
Mugabe.
However, ruling ZANU PF party and independent election observers
say
Tsvangirai won with less than 50 percent of the vote, warranting a
re-run of
the ballot.
The MDC, which on Monday lost a court bid to
force electoral authorities to
release results of the presidential poll, has
accused the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission of withholding results in a bid to
fix the vote and force a
re-run of the poll that it says Mugabe is preparing
to use violence and
terror to win.
The MDC, whose attempt to call a
general strike to force release of poll
results flopped on Tuesday, said
earlier on Monday that ZANU PF militants
had stepped up violence against its
supporters.
MDC deputy leader Thokozani Khupe told journalists that at
least one
opposition activist from the northern Hurungwe rural district was
murdered
by suspected ZANU PF militants. She said at least 20 more MDC
supporters
were in hospital after being attacked by ZANU PF
militants.
There were also unconfirmed reports of three more people,
among them an MDC
election agent, murdered by suspected ZANU PF militants in
rural Mudzi
district, north of Harare.
Our sources said political
violence would worsen in coming days once
Chiwenga’s plot begins to take
effect on the ground.
They said the ZDF commander had directed his
charges to penetrate rural
areas, especially those constituencies that have
traditionally voted for
Mugabe but chose either Tsvangirai or former finance
minister Simba Makoni
in the last election.
“The security men are
under orders to ensure at all cost that rural areas
get back to supporting
Mugabe, come the run-off election,” said a source. –
ZimOnline.
Zim Online
by Simplicious Chirinda Wednesday 16 April
2008
HARARE – Militant supporters of President Robert have
set up torture camps
in parts of Mashonaland East province and stepped up a
terror campaign
against opposition activists in the province, a human rights
group has said.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said in a report made
available to
ZimOnline on Tuesday that war veterans and militants of
Mugabe’s ruling ZANU
PF party have in recent weeks intensified a crackdown
against the opposition
that started after last month’s
elections.
ZANU PF lost its parliamentary majority in the elections while
Mugabe is
believed to have lost the presidential ballot to opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
No official results of the presidential poll have been
released.
The MDC, which on Monday lost a court bid to force electoral
authorities to
release results of the presidential poll, has accused the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission of withholding results in a bid to fix the
vote and force a
re-run of the poll that it says Mugabe is preparing to use
violence and
terror to win.
The ZPP said war veterans and ZANU PF
militiamen have roamed parts of
Mashonaland East, beating up and torturing
MDC supporters many of whom have
fled their homes fearing for their
lives.
“War veterans have unleashed terror in Mashonaland East with the
assistance
of the ruling party, ZANU PF. War veterans, youths and war
collaborators are
beating up and torturing suspected opposition party
supporters and local
observers of the harmonised elections,” ZPP said in the
report.
ZPP, which says it gets its reports from its permanent monitors
deployed in
each of the country’s electoral constituencies, said it was
aware of torture
bases in Corner Store, Kushinga, Jari, Nyahondo and Rukanda
villages in
Mutoko district.
The group said: “About ten war veterans
using a new Mazda B1800 truck and
two Toyota trucks all armed, are moving
around Mutoko beating up people
suspected to have voted for MDC
Tsvangirai.
“They force villagers to attend meetings during the day and
in the evening
they beat up people with help from ZANU PF
youths.”
More torture bases have been set up in Mudzi, Murehwa North and
Marondera
West constituencies, according to the ZPP.
It was not
possible to get comment from ZANU PF or the Zimbabwe War Veterans
Association while police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unable to
comment on the report of the ZPP because he had not seen
it.
Politically motivated violence has resurfaced in parts of Zimbabwe
since
last month’s election.
War veterans and ZANU PF militia have
also stepped up farm invasions, with
at least 60 white farmers said to have
been evicted from the properties over
the past few weeks.
Analysts
see new farm invasions and resurgent political violence as part of
a
well-orchestrated plan by Mugabe to regain the upper hand in rural and
farming areas, where ZANU PF surprisingly lost several seats to the
MDC.
There are fears that an anticipated re-run of the presidential
election
between Mugabe and Tsvangirai could spark serious violence between
militant
supporters of the Zimbabwean leader on one side and opposition
supporters on
the other. ZimOnline
The Times
April 16, 2008
Michael Binyon
The Commonwealth would
welcome Zimbabwe’s return, provided that it was bound
by the values of the
organisation and was ready to provide vital economic
and political support,
the new Secretary-General said yesterday.
Kamalesh Sharma told The Times
that Zimbabwe’s walkout five years ago meant
that there was little the
Commonwealth could do to overcome the crisis
provoked by the
elections.
“We are hoping that this democratic process is going to be a
convincing and
credible one,” he said in his first interview since being
appointed
Secre-tary-General in November. “We will have to see what the
outcome is.”
Mr Sharma will visit Kenya today to offer the new Government
help to prevent
any fresh violence, He said that he would also meet all the
leaders of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Mauritius
this weekend,
where the subject of Zimbabwe will come
up.
Zimbabwe is a member of the SADC, but President Mugabe is not
expected to
attend the meeting. Last week SADC leaders held an emergency
meeting in
Zambia on the Zimbabwean election, but refused to back the
Opposition’s
demand that it be acknowledged as the winner.
Mr Sharma
also voiced hope that Pakistan could soon be readmitted to the
53-nation
Commonwealth. The elections were very welcome, he said. Pakistan
was
suspended at the November summit inKampala afterPresident Musharraf
declared
emergency rule.
Including Pakistan, India and Bang-ladesh, South Asia
comprises 70 per cent
of the Commonwealth’s population. Mr Sharma, until
recently the Indian High
Commissioner in London, said that if democracy
could take firm root in the
region it would give a “huge boost” to the
Commonwealth’s principles of good
governance.
Asked if he would speak
out on abuses of democracy by members, he said that
much would depend on
circumstances. Sometimes what was needed was
“constructive engagement”. At
other times he would “point out” a deviation
from Commonwealth values, but
hold the door open for talks.
He said that Gordon Brown had expressed
strong support for the revival of
the Commonwealth and outlined an ambitious
programme of initiatives in three
fields: strengthening democratic values;
offering economic assistance to
smaller member states; and instigating more
action to realise the millennium
development goals to reduce
poverty.
But, he said, the Commonwealth had a small budget and therefore
had to do
more as a facilitator – spreading best practice, arranging
business and
development partnerships and helping member states to
communicate. There was
plenty that the Commonwealth could do without
spending money, he said. For
smaller states, the Commonwealth was one of the
few world bodies where their
voice was heard. He added that India had much
to offer, especially its
experience of democracy and its rapid economic
development.
The Times
April 16, 2008
James Bone in New York and Jamie Walker in
Harare
Britain and other Western nations plan to use today’s United Nations
summit
to ambush President Mbeki of South Africa over the crisis gripping
Zimbabwe.
Gordon Brown is expected to raise the election stand-off in
Zimbabwe at a
Security Council summit chaired by Mr Mbeki, even though it is
not on the
agenda.
Diplomats say that France and the US will follow
suit, although the council
is unlikely to take any formal action to force
the release of the results of
the March 29 election.
President Bush
spoke by telephone yesterday to Ban Ki Moon, the UN
Secretary-General, to
tell him that the wait for the election results in
Zimbabwe had “gone on too
long,” the White House said.
Related Links
a.. Commonwealth leader
calls for ‘credible process’
a.. Zimbabwe ignores general strike calls
a.. Brown puts faith in Zimbabwe's neighbours
Britain told South Africa that
Mr Brown would raise Zimbabwe in the Security
Council if last weekend’s
summit of the Southern African Development
Community failed to break the
impasse, Whitehall sources say.
Mr Brown is due to hold a private meeting
with Mr Mbeki today before the
Security Council session in New York. He will
also have talks with President
Kikwete of Tanzania, the chairman of the
African Union.
South Africa organised the UN summit on African Union-UN
cooperation during
its month-long presidency of the 15-nation Security
Council as part of its
campaign for a permanent seat at the top table of
international diplomacy.
But Mr Mbeki risks being embarrassed by his support
of President Mugabe of
Zimbabwe.
Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s UN
Ambassador, repeated yesterday that
Zimbabwe was not an appropriate subject
for the Security Council “because
we, the neighbours, are doing something”.
But he said of British, French and
US plans to raise the issue: “Those are
huge countries. They can raise
whatever they want to raise.”
South
Africa’s ruling African National Congress, in its strongest criticism
so far
of President Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy, gave warning of a
dire
situation in Zimbabwe that was hurting all of southern Africa.
The
Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change has pinned its
hopes on
today’s UN session, after its call for a general strike fizzled out
yesterday. Harold, an MDC worker, told The Times from his hospital bed,
where he was recovering from a seven-hour beating and torture session by
government-backed militiamen: “I don’t understand how the foreign countries
can just stand by and watch while we are killed. If the United Nations
stands for anything, it must be to save us.”
Harare was normal
yesterday – with snaking bread and bank queues and
black-market dealers –
despite the MDC’s strike call. It was a last effort
to pressure the
Government into releasing the election results after the MDC’s
failure in
the courts.
The strike’s failure highlighted many of the strictures on
Zimbabwe’s
Opposition as it battles against a powerful leader hell-bent on
clinging to
power. With media access strictly controlled by the State,
opposition
activists, already facing a brutal campaign of state-sponsored
violence, had
to resort to handing out pamphlets. The result was that most
of the country
never heard the strike call. Those who did were in a terrible
dilemma: lose
a critical day’s wages, or work to feed their family and let
the movement
down.
One restaurant owner said of her staff: “I told
them to do what their
conscience told them. I can’t close down whatever I
think of the strike
because the Government could just tell me I can never
open again.” With 80
per cent unemployment, striking is the privilege of the
few.
Shari Eppel, a human rights activist, said: “If people here don’t
have
bread, they don’t start a bread riot, they cross the border and buy it
there. But if they were to take to the streets, they know they would simply
be shot down.”
Comment
In 1982 I saw victims of Mugabe's treatment
of the Matabele when he killed
thousands of people between Beit Bridge and
Plumtree boarder. A man with his
lips cut off, or ears cut off is a sorry
sight.
The teeth splay our and the gums become diseased.Hundreds were thrown
down
old mine shafts. When brought up years later police said this terrible
thing
had been down by Ian Smith's men. The people had not forgotten. No
they
said. One of the skeletons had ragged clothes on and in a pocket was a
Zimbabwean cent. Proof of Mugabe's rule. Britain would not believe
it.
Lesley Mary Little, Knowle, West Midlands, United Kingdom
Monsters and Critics
Apr 15, 2008, 19:52 GMT
San Francisco/New York - South
African President Thabo Mbeki, who has
already provoked controversy with
comments over the weekend that Zimbabwe
was not in crisis, faces even more
criticism Wednesday in New York - this
time of an airborne
variety.
The Internet advocacy group Avaaz.org, aiming to raise
international
pressure for democracy in Zimbabwe, plans to sail a
300-square-metre message
from the back of a plane proclaiming: 'Mbeki It's
Time To Act: Democracy For
Zimbabwe.'
The group says it has chartered
a plane to fly the message over the United
Nations building in New York as
Mbeki chairs a presidential level Security
Council meeting on
Africa.
Avaaz, which calls itself 'the world's largest international
online advocacy
network,' has so far collected 130,000 signatures on a
petition calling on
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe to respect the will of
the people.
More than two weeks after presidential elections, Zimbabwe's
electoral
commission has refused to make public the results. Yet it has
called for a
recount of the results. The opposition says it has won the
elections - an
assessment shared by independent observers and
non-governmental
organizations.
Mbeki, under pressure for years in
the international community over his
refusal to criticize the deteriorating
economic and human rights situation
in neighbouring Zimbabwe, over the
weekend said Zimbabwe was not in
'crisis'.
He made the comments as 14
African nations met trying to resolve the
standoff over the March 29
elections.
'Global public opinion is loud and clear,' Ricken Patel,
executive director
of Avaaz, said. 'Thabo Mbeki's credibility as a global
and regional leader
is on the line.'
Patel said that Mbeki was in
danger of 'betraying the principles of the
worldwide movement that helped
bring democracy to his own country.'
The petition was launched last week
and has already collected signatures
from people in 219 countries including
50 of the 54 African states, said
campaign director Ben Wikler.
'It's
very successful and there's a lot of interest from around the world,'
he
said.
Wikler acknowledged that the numbers don't come close to the 1.6
million
signatures the group collected in support of democracy in
Tibet.
'It's going viral as friends send the petition via email. But with
Tibet
there was a huge established organization and celebrities working on
the
issue for years so it was like a spark lighting a tinderbox on fire,' he
said.
South Africa chairs the UN Security Council at present, and had
not included
Zimbabwe on its agenda of talks for Wednesday, which it wanted
to focus on
the role of African Union troops in peacekeeping on the
continent.
But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Tuesday he would add
it to the
agenda.
Monsters and Critics
Apr 15, 2008, 20:14 GMT
New York - UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he planned to raise
the situation in Zimbabwe at
the UN Security Council's African summit
because of the opportunistic
presence of African and Western leaders
attending the meeting.
The
unresolved presidential election outcome had not been placed on agenda
of
the African summit for Wednesday by council president South Africa. But
South African UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said it could be placed there if
the world's powers want to debate the issue.
'The meeting will
provide a natural opportunity to raise the situation in
Zimbabwe,' Ban told
reporters. He said he will also discuss with government
leaders ways to help
resolve the impasse threatening the democratic process
in that
country.
The African summit at UN headquarters in New York is to be
presided over by
South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose mediation in
settling the dispute
in Zimbabwe's presidential vote count has been
criticized for being biased
in favour of President Robert
Mugabe.
Kumalo said Zimbabwe was not on the council's agenda. But he said
the United
States, Britain and France, three of the five veto-wielding
permanent
members, could raise the issue during the two-day African
debate.
'Those are huge countries,' Kumalo said. 'They can raise whatever
they want
to raise and all I have said was that we don't expect Zimbabwe to
be
discussed tomorrow (Wednesday). But they can raise
anything.'
Zimbabwe's electoral commission has refused to make public
results of the
first round of presidential elections held last month and has
called for a
run-off vote. The opposition said it has won the
elections.
Mbeki and the presidents of Ivory Coast, Somalia and the
Democratic Republic
of Congo, and a number of deputy ministers and
ambassadors will attend the
council's African meeting to discuss ways to
strengthen the working
relationship between the UN and the African
Union.
OhMyNews
Mugabe
will likely never face justice for his many crimes
Isaac Hlekisani
Dziya )
Published 2008-04-16 05:12 (KST)
Zimbabwe's ruling
elite in ZANU-PF are denying Zimbabweans the verdict of
their vote in favor
of the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) for fear of
reprisals for various
human rights violations, the most serious of them
being the Five Brigade
atrocities ordered by President Mugabe in
Matabeleland.
Many who are
being dragged into this as accomplices in Mugabe's
civilian-military "coup"
have nothing to fear, unless they allow themselves
to commit further crimes
against the people of Zimbabwe by embarking on this
senseless
adventure.
The Five Brigade (Gukurahundi) atrocities have left a scar on
Matebeleland
and the Midlands in the form of orphans and relatives who have
never seen
the graves of their loved ones and never received an apology from
Mugabe or
his party.
The atrocities were committed in the city of
Bulawayo and the surrounding
rural areas in the early 1980s, with estimates
that 30,000 opposition
supporters were killed in what Mugabe called "the
rain that washes away the
chaff before the spring rains" (in Shona:
Gukurahundi).
Mugabe's holding on to power, engendering corruption in the
country and
denying the people of Zimbabwe the fruits of their Independence
since 1980
is a different crime for which Mugabe shall be judged.
But
the Gukurahundi and the denying of the opposition MDC its victory are
crimes
for which instruments to bring them to courts are available, and the
current
wave of political violence that has been unleashed will be an
aggravating
feature to any future judgments.
It is all because some of the
perpetrators are still in power and walking
freely 26 years after it
happened -- the commander, Perence Shiri, now
heading the Air Force of
Zimbabwe, and a member of the Joint Operation
Command (JOC); Solomon Mujuru
was then army commander, retired Gen. Vitalis
Zvinavashe and their Minister
of State Security Sidney Sekeramayi, were all
part of, if not the
architects.
They are all factored into the JOC, which has now taken over
operations of
government and is now denying all citizens their choice of
president.
It was the then-Prime Minister Mugabe who immediately after
independence got
support from North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung to train a
brigade for the
Zimbabwean army. Once it was in place he announced the need
for a militia to
"combat malcontents" -- his term for ZAPU elements who were
unhappy with the
unification of ZAPU and ZANU, though there was very little
civil unrest in
Zimbabwe at this time.
The integrating of the two
political formation's military forces, ZIPRA and
ZANLA into one national
army had been problematic but this had been
contained in the so-called
Entumbane uprisings where soldiers exchanged fire
and Shona soldiers,
already in the majority and further reinforced, then
went on attacking
virtually anybody who spoke Ndebele.
Over 300 people were killed in the
second uprising, which spread to
Glenville and to Connemara Barracks in the
Midlands. Then Supreme Court
Justice Enoch Dumbutshena's inquiry into the
uprisings has never been
released.
Many ZIPRA cadres left the army or
just went AWOL after Entumbane, for fear
of being victimized and reports
that some of their colleagues were
disappearing mysteriously. There was also
discrimination in promotions, with
ZANLA soldiers accelerating.
The
discovery of arms caches in February 1982 at former ZIPRA farms led to
open
accusations that ZAPU was plotting another war, leading to the arrest
of
ZAPU leaders and the treason trial of Dumiso Dabengwa, Lookout Masuku and
four others -- trials in which they were acquitted although Dabengwa and
Masuku were re-detained without trial for a further four years.
This
led to thousands more ex-ZIPRA quitting the army. Meanwhile Five
Brigade,
drawn from 3500 ex-ZANLA troops at Tongogara Assembly Point, with
only a few
former ex-ZIPRA (ZAPU), most if not all of whom had been
withdrawn before
the end of the training, was ready to enter into action as
announced by the
then-Minister of State Security Minister Sekeramayi.
There is no special
United Nations (UN) court for Zimbabwe, even though
Mugabe's misrule has led
to human rights violations with many cases at
various stages of
international criminal prosecution, and led to more deaths
than in Iraq,
Afghanistan and even Darfur, through starvation, disease that
could have
been prevented, resultant crime and corruption and political
violence.
The United Nations International Criminal Court (ICC),
launched in 2002 to
prosecute war crimes suspects who might escape
punishment in their home
countries, does not have jurisdiction because it
cannot operate
retroactively, and in any case, Zimbabwe is not a
signatory.
Mugabe is therefore safe on the intentional front, but it is
inside Zimbabwe
that he wants to ensure that he maintains leverage by
remaining at the top
until he dies. His demand for total immunity could
probably be met,
according to the Africa director of the United States-based
Human Rights
Watch, Georgette Gagnon. The negotiating environment however
has been
poisoned by Mugabe's refusal to release the results.
Morgan
Tsvangirai's published position was that negotiation should only
start after
the results are announced. Zimbabweans do not believe in hatred,
but that
the issue has to be brought to the fore so that there can be
accountability,
and forgiveness, so that there can be a healing of the
nation, cannot be
ignored.
Unfortunately anyone who attempts to have a go or a
resuscitation of this
issue becomes a target of the illegal ZANU-PF regime,
making it impossible
for these issues be put to bed to allow all the peoples
of Zimbabwe to move
on.
By hanging on to power, ZANU-PF will be
buying more time for its heirs who
will be in charge after the geriatric old
guard has moved on and who will be
saying that they had nothing to do with
Gukurahundi.
Nkayi, Kezi, SunYet Sen, Esigodini, Lupane, Tsholotsho,
Mawaweni, Antelope
Mine, Bhalagwe Camp, Gwanda, Chikwararakwara, were said
to be populated by
cockroaches that had to be exterminated by the Mugabe
government.
The abduction six tourists who were later discovered dead
formed the
backdrop for another massacre, which also saw the killing of some
Shona
people who harbored some of their Ndebele neighbors.
The Five
Brigade, which was sent to deal with the disturbances, was
different from
all other Zimbabwean army units and was particularly marked
by their
ruthlessness, literally disemboweling their foes, sending them down
mineshafts alive, setting families alight inside their huts or on piles,
torturing and beating their victims.
And in terms of command
structure, they were directly subordinated to the
prime minister's office,
and not integrated to the normal army command
structures.
"Their
codes, uniforms, radios and equipment were not compatible with other
army
units. Their most distinguishing feature in the field was their red
berets,
although many reports note that on occasions Five Brigade soldiers
would
operate in civilian clothes," according to some reports.
They seemed to
be a law unto themselves once in the field. Most of their
operations were
targeted at defenseless civilians, who Mugabe referred to as
supporters of
dissidents. Within weeks, the Five Brigade (Gukurahundi) had
murdered more
than two thousand civilians, beaten thousands more, and
destroyed hundreds
of homesteads.
Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often
after being forced to
dig their own graves in front of family and fellow
villagers. The largest
number of dead in a single killing involved the
deliberate shooting of 62
young men and women on the banks of the Cewale
River, Lupane, on March 5,
1983. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the
other 55 died.
They would routinely round up dozens, or even hundreds, of
civilians and
marched them at gunpoint to a central place, like a school or
borehole,
force them to sing Shona songs praising ZANU-PF, then execute
them.
When then-Prime Minister Mugabe was directly asked if he knew what
was going
on in Matebeleland by British investigative journalist Jeremy
Paxman of
"Panorama" he vehemently denied it, and called it antique western
sabotage
tactics.
Up to 30,000 innocent Ndebele people were killed at
the hands of the Five
Brigade (Gukurahundi). The scars on the Ndebele people
have never healed;
they still expect justice and have never voted for
ZANU-PF since.
The army has since found itself on the wrong side of the
people, not as
their friends in whom they have entrusted their security and
faith. The
people now fear their own military and are intimidated by their
soldiers'
presence. This is because they are being used for something more
sinister
that defending their country.
Mugabe never showed any
compunction about using violence against his
opponents. When he faced
general strikes in Zimbabwe a decade ago, it was
entirely natural for him to
appear on state television and warn, "I have
many degrees in violence," and
then beat up and imprison Morgan Tsvangirai,
who was then a trade
unionist.
Mugabe's culpability for the reign of terror is clear. In order
to be guilty
of crimes against humanity, the law specifies that an
individual must hold
"command responsibility" for the forces carrying out
atrocities.
Five Brigade was placed outside the army's formal command
structure and its
soldiers answered directly to Mugabe. The late Vice
President Nkomo publicly
described this unit as Mugabe's "private army." The
unit's commander,
Perence Shiri, was a former guerrilla fighter chosen for
his personal
loyalty to Mugabe.
The death toll in the Matabeleland
massacres has never been established.
"Breaking the Silence" records 3,750
murders but states that the true figure
was probably twice as high. Tens of
thousands more suffered torture,
abduction, rape or assault.
But
there is virtually no chance of Mugabe ever facing justice for his many
crimes because there is simply no court in which he could be tried. It is
possible that Mugabe will almost certainly die without having spent any time
in the dock.
But his fear of the known, the uncertainty, has caused
him to hold a whole
nation to ransom. Zimbabweans people have already seen
through the
machinations, and quietly tried to use their votes to remove the
government,
only to discover that the fangs of the vampire are now out and
not about to
retract.
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
15 April
2008
Zimbabwe's main opposition formation said Tuesday that
at least four of its
members have been slain in a post-election offensive
mounted by the ruling
ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe, which
suffered setbacks in March
29 balloting.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of
the Movement for Democratic Change formation led
by Morgan Tsvangirai, a
presidential candidate in the elections, told VOA
that the four dead include
Themba Muronde of Mudzi, Mashonaland East, and
Tapiwa Mubwanda of Hurungwe,
Mashonaland West, both longtime ruling party
strongholds. Chamisa said the
MDC formation was still trying to confirm the
names of the other
two.
Police sources said an autopsy was carried out on Mubwanda Tuesday
in
Chinhoyi, also in Mashonaland West Province, and that members of the
Central
Intelligence Organization have told his family to bury him or the
CIO will
do it.
The Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights issued a
statement Tuesday saying that
it is concerned with the upsurge in organized
violence and torture since the
elections. The organization said its members
had seen and treated 157 injury
cases resulting from organized violence and
torture between March 29,
election day, and Monday.
The report says
such violence has been concentrated in the provinces of
Manicaland,
Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and Masvingo.
MDC supporters seeking
refuge in Harare said even children, pregnant women
and animals have been
targeted. They reported that women have been abducted,
stripped and raped by
marauding war veterans and ZANU-PF youth militia.
They said animals are
being burned alive and villages razed to the ground.
Some 300 MDC supporters
were being treated in hospitals as of Tuesday,
sources
said.
Mashonaland East MDC Organizing Secretary Kubvoruno Choga told
reporter
Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that he fled Mudzi to
a safe
house in Harare after he received word he was marked for death by
ZANU-PF
militants.
Sokwanele
The first bit of news I received this morning had nothing to
do with the
general strike called by the opposition. It was a call from a
friend: “I
hope you’ve got news for me!” I said loudly, before he could say
hullo.
“I do” he said.
I thought it would be strike related news.
Instead he said a contact of his
had phoned him and told him that people in
the Musana Communal Lands, in the
Bindura / Shamva area (Mashonaland
Central), have had their hands cut off.
That the pattern of beatings and
burnings had taken a dramatic turn for the
worse.
The open hand is
the symbol of the winning opposition.
Despite the fact he trusts his
contact, he said he needed to do what he
could to verify the information. He
asked me to blog it anyway, but to
stress we are trying to find out more -
to verify and confirm. It’s hard
getting info out of the darkest areas in
Zimbabwe. So right now we don’t
know if it’s true, and if it is how many
people are affected.
I know it could be possible. The Gukuruhundi, for
example, is littered with
torture and violence designed to psychologically
damage as well as hurt. I
also remember, many years ago, going through a
particular area in Zimbabwe
and seeing a women with a mutilated face. I was
told that her lips had been
cut off during the liberation war because
Mugabe’s fighters believed she had
‘talked’ to the Smith regime. Symbolic
violence is potent and doesn’t shout
a message to the community, it screams
it.
I don’t know if its because news of the hands violence is so
grotesque that
my mind is struggling to accommodate it as a truth. I need it
confirmed,
even as I don’t doubt the capability of Mugabe’s crowd to be so
grotesque. I
think its denial at what it means for our future.
If
this level of torture is endorsed at higher levels - a kind that doesn’t
heal externally and get covered over by clothes - then it suggests the
military big wigs have thrown all caution to the wind and are going for
broke.
You can’t draw back from this. It’s one thing for politicians
to have a
discussion about immunity for crimes committed in 1982; but quite
another to
talk about immunity for what happened yesterday and
today.
How do I move from that to news about the strike….?
Awkwardly:
Strike news: an sms colleague from a friend in Harare has
said: “There is
talk of soldiers chasing people on the streets of
Glen
Norah in Harare early this morning”
An email to us this morning
said: “This is a very good idea but the majority
of Zimbabwe is not aware of
this call. Even myself was not aware until this
morning when I was already
at work, just to see this e-mail now.”
So, I’m not sure yet what is or
isn’t happening. I was trying to find out
but the news about the hands that
came instead has left me winded.
Update: I called my colleague in Harare.
He said … there is a report of a
Kombi bus having been burnt in Warren Park,
a township in Harare, and
soldiers chasing people in the streets of Glen
Norah, another township in
Harare. Companies in the industrial sites of
Harare are reporting less than
50% turnout by staff.
This
entry was written by Hope on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Media Institute of
Southern Africa (Windhoek)
PRESS RELEASE
15 April 2008
Posted to
the web 15 April 2008
A 60-year old Bulawayo woman, Margaret Ann
Kriel, was arrested in the city
on 10 April 2008 on allegations of
practicing journalism without
accreditation in violation of the repressive
Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), as amended in
2007. She was not formally
charged and released until 22 April on Z$100
million (approx. US$3,300)
bail.
She is to reside at her given
address until the end of her case and was
ordered to surrender her travel
documents to the Clerk of the Criminal
Court.
According to
reports from Bulawayo, the court heard that between 14 February
and 10
April, Kriel, in the company of Robin Lee Kriel and an unidentified
person,
carried out interviews at various places in the city and surrounding
areas.
Robin Lee Kriel and the unidentified person are still at
large, the court
heard.
The state alleges that they interviewed Mr
David Coltart of MDC-Mutambara
and Ms Thokozani Khupe of
MDC-Tsvangirai.
They allegedly also interviewed members of the public
about the outcome of
the elections, who they voted for and how they felt
about the situation.
The state will seek to prove that they carried out
these activities
pretending to be accredited journalists when they were
not.
In a case involving two South Africans who were acquitted on similar
charges
on 14 April, the court ruled that the two had no case to answer
under the
newly amended AIPPA as practicing without accreditation is no
longer an
offence because journalists can only be prosecuted on the
recommendation of
a statutory Media Council, which has not yet been
established.
Media Institute of Southern Africa (Windhoek)
PRESS
RELEASE
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
On 15
April 2008, freelance journalist Frank Chikowore was arrested in
Harare in
unclear circumstances.
According to his wife, Chikowore left their home
in Harare's suburb of
Warren Park early in the morning on his way to work,
only to return later in
the company of seven policemen, four of whom were in
riot gear and three in
plainclothes. The police then reportedly searched the
house and confiscated
a laptop, recorder and
camera.
MISA-Zimbabwe could not immediately ascertain at which police
station he was
being held and, through its Media Defence Fund, has engaged
Harare lawyer
Harrison Nkomo to look into the matter. Nkomo has visited
Harare Central
Police Station three times to determine where Chikowore was
being held but
without any success.
What makes Chikowore's situation
even more worrying is that he has been
arrested despite being a duly
accredited journalist with the Media and
Information Commission (MIC), as
required by the repressive Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy
Act (AIPPA), and is also accredited by
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to
cover the elections held on 29 March.
The chain of recent arrests under
the AIPPA Act confirms that journalists in
Zimbabwe have come under heavy
scrutiny during and after the elections.
MISA-Zimbabwe is greatly
concerned about this turn of events and demands
that the police make
Chikowore's whereabouts known and disclose the
circumstances leading to his
arrest.
Zim Online
by Tendai
Maronga and Nokhutula Sibanda Wednesday 16 April 2008
HARARE
– State security and immigration agents on Tuesday detained the
director of
Zimbabwe’s biggest elections monitoring group and questioned her
about her
group’s links to some United States-based organisations.
Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (ZESN) director Rindai Chipfunde was
detained at
Harare International airport as she arrived in the country from
neighbouring
South Africa.
“I am told the police wanted her to clarify some
information related to the
National Democratic Institute (NDI) mission that
was in the country to
observe the elections but she has been released. I am
meeting her this
afternoon,” ZESN chairman Noel Kututwa told
ZimOnline.
The security agents are understood to have indicated to
Chipfunde that they
might summon her for further questioning.
ZESN
has come under the public spotlight over the past three weeks, after it
projected that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert
Mugabe in last month’s presidential election.
The election monitoring
group however indicated that the opposition leader
had failed to carry more
than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a second round
run-off against
Mugabe.
No official results have been released for the March 29
presidential
election, leaving Zimbabwe in a tense stalemate that
Tsvangirai’s Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) party has warned could
lead to violence and
bloodshed.
The MDC, which on Monday lost a court
bid to force electoral authorities to
release results of the presidential
poll, has accused the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission of withholding results
in a bid to fix the vote in favour of
Mugabe. – ZimOnline
Zim Online
by
Wayne Mafaro Wednesday 16 April 2008
HARARE – High Court
judge Antonia Guvava postponed to Wednesday hearing an
opposition
application to block a recount of votes in 23 constituencies,
saying she
first wanted to study an earlier ruling by another judge which
allowed
election authorities to carry out recounts.
Opposition Movemnt for
Democratic Change (MDC) lawyer Selby Hwacha said
Guvava requested time to
peruse Justice Tendai Uchena's Monday judgment in
which he dismissed the MDC
application to force the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) to release
results for the presidential election.
In his judgment Uchena said the
commission was allowed to proceed with
recounts.
"The judge said she
wanted time to peruse Justice Uchena's judgment in
respect of recounts of
votes so we are going back to court tomorrow
(Wednesday)," said
Hwacha.
He said that the judge had not given the actual time the matter
will be
heard but said she would call the lawyers when ready.
The MDC
wants the ZEC stopped from recounting votes until it has released
the result
for the presidential election held more than two weeks ago.
A general
strike called by the MDC to force the release of election results
flopped on
Tuesday as workers turned up for duty while most businesses were
open.
Armed police maintained a heavy presence on Harare’s streets
but there was
little else to suggest there was a strike supposed to take
place. –
ZimOnline.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Tichaona
Sibanda
Professor Elphas Mukonoweshuro, a top aide of MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai,
on Tuesday launched a powerful attack on Thabo Mbeki and
questioned if the
South African president was sober when he claimed there
was no crisis in
Zimbabwe.
In a stinging rebuke of Mbeki's widely
criticized 'quiet diplomacy' towards
Robert Mugabe, Mukonoweshuro said his
statement that all was well in the
country bore the 'hallmarks of a
drunkard'.
Mbeki met Mugabe in Harare on Saturday on his way to the
regional summit in
Lusaka, Zambia to discuss the post-election situation. He
surprised the
world when he said 'There is no crisis in Zimbabwe' - urging
people to wait
for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the
results.
'The question everyone should be asking now is--was Mbeki sober
when he made
that statement? The man has literally spent his presidential
term trying to
resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe and all of a sudden he says
there is no
crisis. To me that sounds like a man who was heavily
intoxicated,'
Mukonoweshuro said.
The newly elected MDC MP for Gutu
South, who is also the party's secretary
for International Affairs, said
Mbeki consistently fails to deal with the
crisis.
TransAfrica Forum (Washington,
DC)
PRESS RELEASE
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April
2008
On March 29 the people of Zimbabwe cast their votes for
President,
Parliament, and local representatives. To date, the results of
the
Presidential election have not been announced, leading to widespread
accusations of vote manipulation. Charges of intimidation and the threat
of violence grow daily, while the population suffers from spiraling
inflation, commodity shortages, and joblessness. Ultimately, the people of
Zimbabwe will determine their leaders, but as concerned citizens we can send
a message to the Government of Zimbabwe, the African Union and to the
nations of Southern Africa that we stand in solidarity with the people of
Zimbabwe and that we support their struggle for human rights and
justice.
The following Message of Solidarity includes the points outlined
in such
popular documents as The Zimbabwe We Want, the People’s Convention
(February
2008), as well as the platforms of human rights and justice groups
in
Zimbabwe. We invite you to add your name to the following
message.
MESSAGE OF SOLIDARITY
HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE FOR
ZIMBABWE
The people of Zimbabwe have been betrayed, both by the
government that
represents them and by Western governments that claim to
support their
desires for economic development and democracy. Internally,
corruption,
government mis-management, military excesses, and poor economic
decisions
have deepened the country’s multiple social and economic crises.
At the
same time, the post-independence promises made by the international
community were not kept and the imposition of World Bank/IMF economic
structural adjustment policies further entrenched inequality and reversed
the initial gains made by the country. We, the undersigned, support the
people of Zimbabwe in their calls for a peaceful resolution to the current
crisis.
We urge the Government of Zimbabwe to work
towards:
1. A new constitution, a people-driven document that ensures
that any
elected government runs the country to benefit its people, not the
elite.
2. Economic justice, specifically:
a.. An audit of
Zimbabwe’s 4.2 billion dollar debt.
b.. Repatriation of stolen assets,
particularly funds diverted from public
coffers to individual accounts in
international banks.
c.. National investments in social development, job
creation, and regional
economic integration efforts.
3. A national
“Truth and Reconciliation” process to begin the healing
process.
We
urge the international community to:
a.. End the “undeclared
economic sanctions.”
b.. Cancel the colonial debt, including
apartheid-related debt, along with
debts related to failed structural
adjustment policies, following an audit
of the country’s national debt.
c.. Work with the Zimbabwean people to identify and repatriate public
funds
that have been diverted to private accounts in international banks.
Click
here [ JusticeforZimbabwe@transafricaforum.org
] to add your name.
For more information visit us on the web:
www.transafricaforum.org
SABC
April 15, 2008,
17:45
President Thabo Mbeki must remain optimistic if mediation in
Zimbabwe is to
succeed. Experts say Mbeki is in a sensitive position and
cannot be seen to
be taking sides.
"Due to constraints placed on
Mbeki as a mediator, he is highly unlikely to
make comments that will
compromise his attempts to bring about change in
Zimbabwe," says Institute
for Security Studies spokesperson, Chris Maroleng.
Mbeki faces ongoing
criticism for failing to pronounce the situation in
Zimbabwe as a crisis. In
an about turn, the ANC has given Mbeki's neutral
approach the thumbs
up.
The mediation team in Zimbabwe believes there is no need to panic as
yet. It
says aggrieved parties have several legal instruments at their
disposal.
Mugabe legally president
For now there is no leadership
vacuum - the Constitution legitimises Robert
Mugabe's interim
presidency.
While South Africa believes there is no crisis, it
understands the
heightened anxiety. "The anxiety about the delay is
certainly legitimate and
it is a shared anxiety," says South Africa's
Provincial and Local Government
Minister Sydney Mufamadi.
Mufamadi
says that the Southern African Development Community is monitoring
the
situation closely, and the regional body will get involved in the event
of a
re-run.
IOL
Boyd
Webb
April 15 2008 at 02:20PM
President Thabo Mbeki
has been ridiculed and castigated by emotional
leaders of Zimbabwe's civil
society on Monday for his view that there is no
crisis in their
country.
They have also rejected talk of any government of national
unity,
which is understood to be among the compromise options favoured by
Pretoria.
Wellington Chibebe, the secretary-general of the
Zimbabwean Congress
of Trade Unions, said Mbeki was in any event thoroughly
compromised, "given
the background of the liberation struggle and the
relationship between
Zanu-PF and the ANC".
He was speaking at a
conference in Pretoria organised by the Institute
for a Democratic
Alternative for Zimbabwe (Idazim). His words follow similar
expressions of
outrage from South African political parties who feared
Mbeki's statements
at the weekend have made South Africa the world's
laughing
stock.
Chibebe said it was "the joke of the
year" that SADC had again
mandated Mbeki to continue mediation efforts
between the ruling Zanu-PF and
the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change.
"From our point of view we now begin to view SADC as some
kind of an
old boys association rather than a regional body which is there
to resolve
regional issues," he said.
Irene Petras, of
Zimbabwe's Lawyers for Human Rights, also rubbished
Mbeki's
view.
"I think any reasonable person would see there is a crisis
and it
needs to be addressed in an honest manner and it needs to be
addressed
urgently."
Elinor Sisulu from the Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition asked why Mbeki
had found the situation in Zimbabwe to be
acceptable, when there was no way
he would accept a similar situation in his
own country.
"What happened in Zimbabwe, South Africans would never
ever accept.
Nobody in South Africa would accept this and I think it's
unfair to accept
double standards and to say South Africans are entitled to
this level of
rights and Zimbabweans are not."
Arguing that
Mbeki first had to admit there was a crisis before it
could be fixed, Sisulu
said it was "callous and insensitive" of the
president to say there was no
crisis.
Mbeki's softly-softly approach to Zimbabwe also came under
fire with
civil organisations arguing that his "quiet diplomacy" was
actually "silent
diplomacy".
Zimbabwe's civil society, which on
Monday included representatives
from media, religious and lawyer groups,
said there was no doubt that MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won the March
29 polls by a considerable
margin, and that President Robert Mugabe was now
only playing for time and
hoping to incite a violent revolution which he
"would be forced to quell by
force".
Idazim chairperson Arnold
Tsunga said Zimbabwe was now a "defacto
military state" in which the
military was propping up Mugabe's
unconstitutional rule.
Mugabe
is widely believed to have lost the presidential election and
is accused of
delaying the results in order to "massage" the vote count.
It was
alleged that a number of senior positions within the Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission (ZEC) were occupied by former military personnel within
the
Zimbabwe National Army, some of whom had profited from the land grab
orchestrated by Mugabe.
"This peculiar situation, which has
developed in SADC, where you have
an unelected government supported by the
military and the intelligence
running processes against the will of the
electorate, really amounts to a
coup," Tsunga said.
On a
proposed government of national unity, participants in the
conference
rejected this out of hand, saying there was no need for one,
given that MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won.
Idazim said Zimbabwe police had
apparently arrested 11 ZEC agents so
far for allegedly undercounting Zanu-PF
votes.
The Zimbabwean High Court on Monday ruled against an MDC
application
to force the ZEC to release the presidential
results.
This article was originally published on page
2 of Pretoria News on
April 15, 2008
Article 19 (London)
PRESS RELEASE
15 April
2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
It's been more than two weeks
since Zimbabweans went to the polls to elect a
legislature and President.
But instead of the outcome of the elections,
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party
led by President Robert Mugabe has delivered
harsh crackdowns and
stonewalling to the electorate.
Defeat can be hard to accept, "but at the
very least, the people of Zimbabwe
have the right to know the result of
their vote," says the Executive
Director of ARTICLE19, Dr. Agnes Callamard.
The government of Zimbabwe is
obligated under International law "to conduct
an election and to let the
people know those they've chosen to lead
them."
ARTICLE 19 urges Zimbabwe's government to heed the calls of
Zimbabweans, the
2008 first extra-ordinary SADC summit of Heads of State and
Government, and
the international community "to comply with the rule of law
and SADC
Principles and Guidelines governing democratic
elections."
It is in the interest of Zimbabwe and the southern African
region that
President Mugabe adheres to electoral procedures as set out in
Zimbabwe's
electoral law and release the result of the election immediately.
"In the
event that a run-off is needed, that must also be conducted
according to
accepted norms and standards." ARTICLE 19 strongly urges
Zimbabwean
authorities to back away from chaos and violence and move towards
reason and
the rule of law in settling the outcome of this
election.
ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that
works globally
to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It
takes its name
from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which
guarantees free speech.
News24
15/04/2008 21:29 - (SA)
Evan
Pickworth
Johannesburg - Brait economist Colen Garrow said on Tuesday
that it now
seems irreversible that a solution needs to be found in
Zimbabwe, as the
country has reached "tipping point".
"It
progressively moves more in favour of things coming right," he says.
He
says one of the key things underpinning this was that results had been
posted in the wards.
"I would like to believe the Southern African
Development Community (SADC)
played a role and this is why Mugabe is
contesting the wards," he notes.
"This is why Tsvangirai can say he 'saw
the result'.
"At least the world and the MDC knows they have passed the
tipping point,"
he says.
Garrow adds that he was surprised things had
been so peaceful, but had
subsequently heard that civilians aren't allowed
to own a gun in Zimbabwe.
"It is now about bread and butter issues,
things that affect people's
ability to survive," he adds, saying that any
food shortage needs to be
alleviated as a starving population would equal
"big civil unrest".
"Seeds need to be planted before summer comes again,"
he says.
Garrow says that it is important Zimbabwe concentrate on two
things -
getting mines into production, and farms up and
running.
"They need to get people back and train them to run the farms,"
he says.
Added to that would be dismantling the major security apparatus
in the
country.
Election results in Zimbabwe are still not available
17 days since the poll
was held.
I-Net Bridge
The Guardian
Thabo Mbeki appealed for
international support when he fought apartheid, but
he now refuses to back
the struggle for freedom in Zimbabwe
Peter Tatchell
April 15,
2008 9:30 PM
The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, is a hypocrite. When
he was
campaigning to end the evil apartheid regime, he pleaded with the
world to
support the freedom struggle of the African National Congress
(ANC). Much of
the world heeded his call, mobilising an international
anti-apartheid
movement, which the ANC has since credited with aiding the
overthrow of
white minority rule in South Africa.
Two decades later,
Mbeki is comfortably ensconced in the presidential state
house in Pretoria.
His past internationalism has been dumped. Nowadays,
solidarity seems to
stop at South Africa's border. Fellow Africans in
Zimbabwe can go to
hell.
Mbeki wanted international solidarity when he and the ANC needed
it, but he
is denying solidarity to Zimbabweans when they need it. This is
rank
hypocrisy.
For me, it is a big personal disappointment. I
liaised with Thabo Mbeki in
the struggle against apartheid during the 1980s.
He even sent me a telegram
thanking me for my (rather modest) campaigning
against the white racist
regime. I saw him as a man of vision, compassion
and sincerity. Power, it
seems, has since corrupted him, like so many
others. His principles and
idealism have faded fast.
Mbeki is in
denial. He has his head buried in the sand. He does not see, or
pretends not
to see, gross injustices just across the border. Almost
everyone in the
world, except Mbeki, acknowledges that the people of
Zimbabwe have suffered
a decade of terror by at the hands of Robert Mugabe's
thugs, including
detention without trial, torture, rape, extra-judicial
killings and the
violent suppression of peaceful student, trade union,
women's and church
protests. Hundreds of thousands of people have been
evicted and their homes
demolished. Millions are being starved into
submission by the withholding of
food aid. Two million refugees have fled to
South Africa. A succession of
parliamentary and presidential votes have been
rigged to keep Mugabe and his
ruling party, Zanu-PF, in power.
Despite all this evidence of gross
inhumanity, Mbeki insists there is "no
crisis" in Zimbabwe. Everyone should,
he says, show patience and calmly
await the publication of the results of
the recent presidential election.
Why should Zimbabweans be expected to
exhibit forbearance and keep waiting?
The voting results were known and
posted at local polling stations over two
weeks ago. One can only assume
that the reason they have not been published
is because they record a defeat
for Mugabe. There is no other rational,
reasonable explanation. If Mugabe
had won, his propagandists would have
immediately boasted of victory. The
general consensus is that Mugabe lost
the ballot and that Zanu-PF is
delaying the poll result announcement to give
its ballot-stuffers time to
fix the figures in favour of the outgoing
president, who clearly does not
want to relinquish power.
President Mbeki has point-blank refused to
condemn the election rigging.
Indeed, he has never spoken out against the
tyranny in Zimbabwe and has
repeatedly blocked any serious initiatives to
press the Mugabe regime to
respect democracy and human
rights.
Instead, Mbeki has promoted a strategy of "quiet diplomacy" to
resolve what,
he says, is a non-crisis in Zimbabwe. This strategy of quiet
diplomacy has
been an abject failure. It has not produced a single positive
outcome in six
years. Far from improving the regime's observance of human
rights, quiet
diplomacy has coincided with an alarming intensification of
repression and
abuses.
Quiet diplomacy looks increasingly like
connivance and complicity. Mbeki
seems to be acting in ways designed to
protect Mugabe and sustain his
misrule.
His downplaying of the
current crisis in Zimbabwe is nothing new. In the
past he has been quite
blatant, claiming that previous rigged Zimbabwean
elections were free and
fair. This calls into question his honesty and
integrity, as well as his
politics and political judgment. It is a sad
indictment of a great man who
was a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle. His
lack of compassion and
solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe brings shame
to the liberation
movement and to the party of government that he has led,
the
ANC.
Mbeki cannot feign ignorance. Mugabe's human rights abuses stretch
back many
years. The writing was already on the wall in the mid-1980s, when
Mugabe's
men slaughtered 20,000 civilians in Matabeleland. This is the
equivalent of
a Sharpeville massacre every day for over nine months. Yet
Thabo Mbeki and
most other top ANC leaders said nothing about this bloodfest
- and nothing
about the many subsequent murders by Zanu-PF.
This is,
perhaps, symptomatic of the rot that has consumed several top ANC
leaders.
Some have become complacent and corrupt, suddenly accumulating vast
personal
wealth. They have spent billions on arms deals, amid allegations of
kickbacks, while complaining there is not enough money to combat HIV, fund
land reform and treat Zimbabwean refugees humanely.
Mugabe is worse
than the white supremacist leader, Ian Smith, who he
overthrew. He has
murdered more black Africans than the apartheid villains
Hendrik Verwoerd,
John Forster and P W Botha. Yet we never hear a squeak of
protest against
Mugabe from Mbeki. He and his fellow ANC leaders sit on
their hands and look
the other way while Zimbabwe burns.
Mbeki has nothing to say about the
terrible abuses being inflicted on his
fellow Africans. His silence is a
shameful betrayal of the ANC's once proud
tradition of pan-African
solidarity and support for liberation movements
against
dictatorships.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the South African trade union
federation,
Cosatu, have spoken out against Mugabe's despotism, so why
hasn't Mbeki?
At the very least, he should publicly urge Robert Mugabe to
stand down, and
condemn the recent election fraud and the withholding of
poll results.
The people of Zimbabwe deserve a democratic, representative
government that
ensures equality and justice for all its citizens. These
were the goals of
the African liberation movements of the last 60 years.
They are still worthy
goals today.
A spokesperson for the Free Zim
youth organisation, Alois Mbawara, said:
"We Zimbabweans feel betrayed
by President Mbeki's fruitless pursuit of
quiet diplomacy as we suffer at
the hands of Mugabe's regime. The world has
witnessed how the Zimbabwe
congress of trade unions, MPs and civic leaders
have been brutalised while
peacefully demonstrating for fair wages and basic
human rights. South Africa
has blocked calls for the UN to probe human
rights abuses in Zimbabwe and it
has endorsed Zimbabwe's elections, even
though they were conducted in an
atmosphere of violent intimidation by
Mugabe's henchmen.
President
Mbeki knows that the Zimbabwean government violates African
Union principles
on democracy and human rights. By remaining silent, they
tacitly endorse
these violations.
If Mbeki spoke out against Mugabe and threatened
South African sanctions
against his regime, Mugabe's control would soon
start to unravel. South
African inaction is helping to keep him in
power."
Wellington Chibanguza, another organiser of the Free Zim
Youth movement
stated:
"We salute Cosatu and Archbishop Desmond
Tutu. They have spoken out
against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. They
stand in solidarity with
ordinary Zimbabweans. Mbeki and the ANC see
nothing, hear nothing and do
nothing. The Zimbabwean people supported South
Africans in the fight against
apartheid. Now it is time for South Africa to
support Zimbabweans in the
fight against Mugabe's dictatorship."
Reports have been received of varying
degrees of disturbance on over 100
farms since elections. These have taken
place all over the country.
Seventeen confirmed evictions have taken place
mostly in Centenary which is
now a 'no go' area. Beatings have been
confirmed on one farm and also in
the surrounding resettlement areas. In
Guruve the CIO have clamped down and
whilst farmers are continuing to work,
they are not permitted to receive
visitors or move freely around the area.
In Karoi 6 of remaining 9 farmers
have experienced problems including one
eviction. Dairy farmers in more
than one district have experienced
disruptions to milking. There have been
barricading and 'jambanja' in Doma
and police have reacted in varying
degrees. Farmers in Manicaland are also
experiencing threats and an elderly
farmer in Chipinge was abducted for some
hours by war-vets. He was later
released by police. There have been reports
of a general crackdown in areas
perceived to be in MDC support and workers
and other population have been
harassed and beaten in retribution. It is
clear that the threat of losing
land under MDC is being used to motivate much
of this activity. Anyone
considering travelling into farming areas is
strongly cautioned against it
at this time. Over the weekend there have been
new evictions in Chipinge.
Some Centenary farmers have returned. The
situation remains very
tense
everywhere.
----------
2.
ZNSPCA HELP OFFERED
ZNSPCA Inspectors are available to assist farmers
throughout the Country
with any problems related to their animals' welfare.
If a farmer is
experiencing trouble at his/her farm and is in need of our
assistance with
regards to his/her animals, please do not hesitate to contact
us.
Currently, we have Inspectors based in the following areas in order to
cut
down on reaction time to any calls:
Chiredzi area (covering Masvingo)
/ Gweru area (Covering Midlands and
Matabeleland) / Manicaland area/
Mashonaland area.
Please contact us on the following numbers and we can
organise a National
Inspector to react to your call: 04 497574 Head
Office
011 630 403 Chief Inspector
0912 696 309 Inspector Chareka
BULAWAYO, 15 April 2008 (IRIN) -
Marauding elephants that escaped from the
Hwange National Park, an animal
sanctuary in rural southwestern Zimbabwe,
are destroying any hopes among
peasant farmers of a moderately successful
harvest.
Arid climatic
conditions are expected to blight agricultural production in
the southwest
this year, according to a recent forecast by the UN's Food and
Agricultural
Organisation (FAO), while Zimbabwe's political and economic
turmoil is also
affecting both food production and food security.
Elephants from the
14,600 square kilometre nature reserve, which lies about
150km south of
Victoria Falls on the main road to Zimbabwe's second city,
Bulawayo, are
straying from the park in search of food, wreaking havoc on
the meagre crops
villagers were expecting to harvest after the summer rains
ended
prematurely.
Erica Hlongwane, 46, spends most of her time protecting the
remnants of her
wilting maize crop from further destruction by elephants, at
the expense of
her household chores.
"Life has become unbearable
because of these elephants which destroy our
crops," said Hlongwane, who
lives with a teenage daughter and a younger son
in the rural Tsholotsho
district, about 100km northwest of Bulawayo, in
Matabeleland North Province,
while her husband works in neighbouring South
Africa.
"On one hand we
worry about the prospect of hunger because of crop failure,
while on the
other we count the losses stray elephants are causing daily,"
she told IRIN,
displaying a few maize cobs she had managed to salvage after
a herd of
elephants rampaged through her small field the previous night.
"We also
fear the elephants might demolish our pole-and-mud huts," she said.
Despite
attempts by the villagers to scare away the elephants, using drums
and
hand-made cymbals, she said bull elephants would sometimes charge the
villagers, who are no match for an elephant.
"The authorities should
save us from this ordeal," Hlongwane said, referring
to the National Parks
and Wildlife Management Authority (NPWMA), which is
responsible for managing
problem animals.
Another peasant farmer in the district told IRIN he had
lost nearly a fifth
of his sorghum crop to browsing elephants and blamed the
NPWMA for ignoring
the villagers' appeals for assistance.
"We heeded
advice from agricultural experts to grow small grains as a hedge
against
possible erratic rains, as this is a semi-dry area, but our hopes
have been
shattered by elephant herds that roam this area," said Timothy
Dakamela,
another small-scale farmer.
Fears of food shortages
Dakamela said
the ZANU-PF government should provide food aid to avert
serious food
shortages in the district's villages. About one-third of
Zimbabwe's around
12 million population are receiving emergency food aid.
"Unless something
is done to stop the elephant menace we will solicit for
food again, although
we had anticipated we would be able to fend for our
families for the better
part of the year from the hectarage we had put under
crop," he
said.
A joint crop assessment report, released in March by Zimbabwe's
Ministry of
Agriculture and the FAO, indicated that a shortage of
agricultural inputs,
such as seed and fertilisers, meant Zimbabwe could face
another grain
shortfall this year.
FAO said in a statement on 10
April that extremely dry weather in several
provinces of Zimbabwe "is likely
to cause serious damage to the main 2008
maize harvest. This could aggravate
an already precarious food security
situation in the
country."
Hlongwane and Dakamela, who have yet to receive agricultural
inputs from the
state, said the destruction wrought by stray elephants was
their major
concern.
Dakamela said elephants had roamed their
districts in the past, but an
electric fence had controlled the movement of
wildlife and deterred
elephants from encroaching on villagers' homesteads
and crops. The fence has
been vandalised and has fallen into disrepair,
while power outages are
commonplace.
The presence of elephants used
to be a boon to the villagers, but three
years ago the Communal Areas
Management and Programme of Indigenous
Resources (Campfire), collapsed as a
result of donor fatigue, depriving the
surrounding communities of the
benefit of wildlife management and its
proceeds.
The Campfire system
had enabled communities to establish income-generating
businesses, such as
tourist lodges, build clinics and schools, and maintain
social structures,
quite apart from the protection of their crops afforded
by the electric
fences.
Cash-strapped local district councils assumed management of
Campfire, but
are grappling to make it sustainable amid an eight-year
economic recession
that has brought Zimbabwe the world's highest annual
inflation rate of more
than 100,000 percent and a sharp drop in
international tourism.
Zeb Mutoki, head of Matabeleland North's National
Parks and Wildlife
Authority, said local district council officials were
mandated to deal with
problem animals in their areas, and were permitted to
enlist professional
hunters to cull problem animals, such as elephants. The
proceeds of the cull
were used to compensate villagers who had suffered crop
losses.
"Only when the problem is too serious for them to manage and
control on
their own do they seek our assistance," Mutoki said. At the
moment district
council officials in that area have not sent us an
SOS."
[ENDS]
[This report does not necessarily reflect the
views of the United Nations]