The ZIMBABWE Situation
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Zimbabwean opposition activists injured
while in custody, say opposition officials
International Herald Tribune
The Associated
PressPublished: March 31, 2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Nine
opposition activists who were to be arraigned on
charges of attempted murder
and illegal weapons possession all required
medical attention for injuries
sustained since their arrests, doctors said.
One of the activists
collapsed in the courthouse, and the judge agreed to
lawyers' appeals to
adjourn Saturday's hearing and allow them to get medical
treatment,
opposition officials told reporters at the Harare magistrates'
court.
Doctors and staff at private medical facilities where the
detainees were
taken under police guard said the nine - who were detained on
Tuesday and
Wednesday - appeared to have been assaulted while in
custody.
The medical staff asked not to be identified, saying they feared
reprisals.
Attorneys for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
were seeking a
further court ruling ordering the activists' immediate
release.
The nine activists were to have been charged with attempted
murder in
alleged petrol bombings and possessing illegal weapons and
explosives, but
the hearing was adjourned before they could be
arraigned.
Lawyers believe they could face additional charges relating to
terrorism
that carry much harsher sentences of life imprisonment or the
death penalty
under the nation's sweeping security laws.
Zimbabwe's
ruling party, meanwhile, endorsed President Robert Mugabe on
Friday as its
candidate in next year's presidential elections, shrugging off
international
criticism of the clampdown on opposition activists and
papering over
internal divisions about the country's economic meltdown.
The 145-member
decision-making body also agreed to bring forward
parliamentary elections,
scheduled for 2010, by two years to coincide with
the presidential
poll.
Next year's poll would allow Mugabe to say in power until 2013,
when he is
nearly 90.
He has vowed to go ahead with the elections
even if the opposition does not
contest.
The main opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai earlier this week said his
party will boycott next year's
poll unless democratic reforms made it free
and fair, declaring the
opposition would never "go into an election that is
predetermined."
The endorsement by the central committee of the
ZANU-PF party of Mugabe -
the only leader since independence from Britain in
1980 - came after an
emergency southern African summit that gave its public
backing to the
83-year-old leader.
Thursday's summit in Tanzania
ended with the appointment of South African
President Thabo Mbeki to mediate
in Zimbabwe's crisis and a decision "to
promote dialogue of the parties in
Zimbabwe."
Mbeki has been criticized at home and abroad for his
insistence on a quiet
diplomacy approach to Zimbabwe. Previous attempts by
South Africa since 2002
to bring Mugabe and the opposition to the
negotiating table have been
short-lived and there are doubts it will be
revived after Mugabe's
endorsement Friday and new assaults on
activists.
However, Mbeki expressed his optimism that his mediation role
would succeed,
South African Broadcasting Corporation radio
reported.
"We are always optimistic," Mbeki said in an interview. "I
think everybody
in Zimbabwe recognizes the fact that there are problems,
that these problems
need to be solved and the fact that it needs a united
response of the people
of Zimbabwe.
"So the best we can do is to
encourage them to engage one another ... and
hopefully they will find one
another and produce a solution that the country
needs," he
said.
Mbeki was also forthright in rejecting attempts by either side to
set
preconditions, the radio reported.
The South African president
also brushed aside claims that the region was
not taking firm enough action
to stop a further deterioration of the
situation in
Zimbabwe.
"Whatever happens in Zimbabwe impacts immediately on all of us
in the
region," Mbeki said. "I don't know why anybody should want to assume
that we
are less concerned about Zimbabwe than somebody who is thousands of
kilometers away when we have to carry the burden of the
problem."
Tsvangirai and several other top colleagues are recuperating
from injuries
inflicted in beatings when police crushed a prayer meeting in
Harare on
March 11 that the government said was a banned
demonstration.
Mugabe acknowledged that police used violent methods
against Tsvangirai and
other opposition supporters and killed at least one
activist. Referring to
injuries suffered by at least 40 others in custody,
Mugabe warned
perpetrators of unrest they would be "bashed" again if
violence continued.
Speaking in the local Shona language, Mugabe said
Friday that Tsvangirai
"asked for it."
"Tsvangirai stop it now," he
said, in reference to government accusations
that the opposition is to blame
for a wave of unrest and petrol bomb
attacks, allegations the opposition has
repeatedly denied.
Licence to lay a a land to waste
Sunday Herald UK
African leaders may
have backed Robert Mugabe's brutal rule, but, as Fred
Bridgland reports from
Harare, Zimbabweans are paying a heavy price
AN EXULTANT Robert Mugabe
returned home this weekend from an African summit
in Tanzania that backed
his despotic rule in Zimbabwe to be greeted by an
endorsement by his party
that he run again for president next year in an
election that will ensure he
rules until he is nearly 90.
But the shock decisions by the African heads
of state in Dar es Salaam and
by the central committee of the ruling Zanu-PF
party virtually ensure that
Zimbabwe's long-running social, economic and
political crisis will now end
in extreme violence. The African leaders, in
endorsing Mugabe, called on
Western nations to end sanctions against him and
his top lieutenants.
Prior to the Dar es Salaam summit, all experts,
Zimbabwean opposition
members and key factions within Zanu-PF, said
tottering Zimbabwe could not
survive another year of Mugabe's rule. Instead,
the country faces another
six years of Mugabe-ism, because on the evidence
of all elections since the
end of the last century, the next poll - in just
12 months' time - will be
heavily rigged and marked beforehand by heavy
violence against anyone who
dares to challenge Mugabe's and Zanu-PF's
hegemony.
Mugabe was so triumphant that he openly acknowledged to his
fellow African
leaders that Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), had, on his orders, been severely
beaten by police
last month while on his way to a prayer meeting. After five
days of assaults
in detention, Tsvangirai emerged with a suspected skull
fracture, a damaged
eye and bruises all over his body. Police also shot dead
MDC supporter Gift
Tandare while on his way to the prayer meeting. Mugabe
told a rally on his
return from Dar es Salaam: "Of course he Tsvangirai was
bashed. He deserved
it. Yes, I told them the African heads of state he was
beaten, but he asked
for it. I told the police, beat him a lot.' He and his
MDC must stop their
terrorist activities."
Mugabe's triumph comes against
the background of a national economy that is
now virtually dysfunctional.
Inflation exceeds 1700% and is rising. Eight in
10 people are jobless, and a
majority of the 11 million citizens still
inside the country survive on
remittances from more than three million of
their compatriots who have fled
into exile.
The dire gap between Mugabe's stated ideals and the grim
reality are seen
starkly near the 66-year-old Nhowe Mission school and
hospital more than 100
kilometres southeast of Harare. Here, David Stevens
became the first white
farmer to die in Mugabe's controversial and
economically disastrous "land
reform" programme.
Under Mugabe's
reforms, land was forcibly taken from white commercial
farmers and
redistributed to landless blacks in the hope that they would
begin an
agricultural and social revolution.
But today, Stevens's Arizona Farm,
once one of the country's most successful
tobacco-producing operations, is
derelict, its buildings collapsing and its
fields reduced to a vista of tall
weeds and encroaching bush.
Two journalists from one of the country's
last independent newspapers, the
weekly Zimbabwe Independent, have been
investigating what happened to the
farms of the first two white farmers to
be killed under Mugabe's reforms.
Augustine Mukaro went to Arizona Farm
to assess what has happened to it
since Stevens was beaten and tied up with
wire in a police station on April
15, 2000, by so-called war veterans, a
vigilante group personally loyal to
Mugabe. Stevens and his black foreman,
Julius Andoche, were then taken from
the police station by the war vets into
the bush where both were shot dead.
Loughty Dube went to Compensation
Farm, on the other side of Zimbabwe, some
500km southwest of Arizona Farm,
where, three days after Stevens's murder,
the owner, Martin Olds, was
battered with iron rods by the vigilantes before
being shot dead. As in the
Stevens case, police refused to go to Olds's
help.
Dube reported that
all the infrastructure on Compensation Farm, which was a
thriving safari and
wild animal conservation operation, is burned out and
abandoned. All the
animals, including a herd of rare sable antelope and
Olds's herd of 1000
pedigree cattle, have been slaughtered.
Peasant subsistence farmers
settled by the government on the land have been
unable to produce crops
because the government has failed to provide them
with irrigation equipment
and other inputs such as fertiliser, necessary for
minimal agricultural
production.
Mukaro's and Dube's discoveries on the farms only mirror what
is clear to
the naked eye in a country that until the beginning of this
century was
dubbed the breadbasket of Africa. For hundreds of kilometres, on
once-prime
farms there are no workers in the fields, no stands of ripening
maize, no
smoke coming from the flues of tobacco barns and no cattle or
sheep getting
fat on the grass that still grows tall. Indeed, there is
little sign of life
or production at all.
The United Nations recently
launched a $215 million appeal for food aid for
Zimbabwe amid grim
projections that this season's grain yields will only
represent half the
nation's annual requirements.
With severe drought exacerbating the
crisis, Lovemore Moyo, deputy chairman
of the MDC, said: "People in the
rural areas are on the brink of starvation.
The strongest may survive this -
the others won't, as long as Zanu-PF uses
food as an electioneering tool."
Mugabe and Zanu-PF have been accused of
withholding international food aid
from people who do not possess Zanu-PF
membership cards.
The initial
land invaders, mostly war veterans, were themselves pushed from
the farms so
they could be redistributed to top Zanu-PF party officials,
senior army, air
force and police officers and compliant judges and
journalists. Few of the
powerful and privileged "new farmers" are producing
crops while the rest
lack the skills to produce even on a subsistence level,
deputy agriculture
minister Sylvester Nguni recently admitted.
Visiting Stevens's Arizona
Farm, once recommended by the Commercial Farmers
Union as a model to be
replicated throughout the country, Mukaro said he
found the main working
compound burned to the ground and deserted. "The
dereliction makes any
right-minded person question whether the people who
abducted and murdered
Stevens in 2000 were driven by hunger for land or
simply inspired by greed
and racial hatred. Over and above all, did they
really desire land for
farming?
"People in the area know who killed Stevens, but the police have
never
questioned the man."
Mukaro said the wasteland that today marks
Arizona and all surrounding farms
illustrates how the new farmers were
"dumped on farmland without the
necessary equipment, knowledge or financial
backing to prepare them to take
over from the fleeing whites. The farmers
are failing to utilise the land in
the same manner as the previous owners.
Most said they had no resources,
such as draught power or
fertiliser."
Mukaro met the current occupant of Arizona Farm, Marian
Shangwe, who has
taken occupancy of the farmhouse to sell beer to teachers
from Nhowe
Mission. "All teachers come to drink from here," said Shangwe.
"Nhowe does
not allow the sale of beer from their premises, so teachers have
nowhere
else to go."
To date, no-one has been arrested or prosecuted
for the murder of Martin
Olds. The same applies to his 72-year-old mother,
Gloria, whose body,
riddled with 18 AK-47 bullets, was discovered on the
neighbouring Silver
Springs Farm two years after her son's murder.
On
Compensation Farm, devoid of wild animals, cattle and crops, Dube spoke
to
Thulani Mupande, who was moved on to the property with his family shortly
after Olds was killed. He said life was difficult because the government had
not fulfilled its promises to drill boreholes to support crops. Most of the
"new settlers", he said, had quit the farm, taking with them engines
installed by Olds to pump water for cattle.
"We are all praying that
it rains, but the skies are not opening up," said
Mupande. "We are all going
to starve again this year if it does not rain."
Chris Jarrett, former
chairman of the local farmers' association, told Dube:
"There were thousands
of sable and impala on the farm but all were hunted by
the war veterans when
they moved into Compensation. Now there is absolutely
nothing.
"The
situation is sad. Commercial farmers in Nyamandlovu where the Olds farm
is
located were supplying the whole country with butternuts, tomatoes,
beetroot, maize, tobacco, paprika, onions and cabbages. But now all you get
from these farmers is a few buckets of maize."
On the other side of
the country, Mukaro quoted an agricultural expert as
saying: "Nationally,
agricultural output has predictably declined,
relegating government efforts
to a national joke."
Madam deputy takes the fight to
Mugabe
The Sunday Times
April 1, 2007
Former bosses of army and secret police poised to act against Mugabe
as
Zimbabwe collapses
RW Johnson and Laura Thomas, Harare
Zimbabwe's
embattled president, Robert Mugabe, is facing open rebellion by
his deputy
after he denounced her and her husband on television last month
for their
untoward ambitions.
Joyce Mujuru, the vice-president, is a veteran of the
liberation war in
which her nom de guerre was Spill Blood. She flew to South
Africa last
weekend with her husband Solomon, the former head of the
army.
They conferred with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa's deputy
president,
and are understood to have referred openly to Mugabe's fears of a
military
coup. According to South African intelligence sources, they
complained about
his "paranoid delusions".
Solomon has been a power
behind the throne ever since independence and has
become one of the
country's richest men, with 16 farms and many other
business
interests.
Joyce tried to resign from the government two weeks ago but
Mugabe refused
to let her go, fearful of having her outside the fold and of
becoming
alienated from a man as powerful as Solomon, who still has the
confidence of
the military high command.
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the
information minister, described talk of a resignation
threat as "a complete
falsehood which was the work of Zimbabwe's political
enemies who dream for
such a development to happen", but he convinced no
one. Unconfirmed reports
continue to suggest that Solomon has met Morgan
Tsvangirai, the leader of
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), to discuss a government
of national unity in the postMugabe era.
At last week's meeting of the
Zanu-PF politburo, Solomon, who has been
assiduously wooing western
embassies, waited until Mugabe had left before
holding forth passionately
about the need for Zimbabwe to reengage with the
international community -
now seen as his backers.
Meanwhile Mugabe, who feels threatened by the
Mujurus' dissidence, has
increased the pressure on Solomon by attempting to
nationalise the Marange
diamond mine in which Solomon has a large interest.
The army occupies the
diamond diggings and shoots any trespassers on sight.
But no mining is going
on and it is not clear whether the army obeys Mugabe
or Mujuru.
For Mugabe the Mujurus make a dangerous and formidable
political couple.
Solomon and his wife live in separate houses, but it seems
that Solomon
still calls the shots. He is reputed to have fathered
illegitimate children
by a number of younger women. Joyce, a keen Salvation
Army member, has found
herself having to support some of these younger women
and their offspring.
Last Friday Mugabe, 83, secured the agreement of
Zanu-PF's central
committee - which he handpicked - to nominate him as its
candidate in next
year's presidential election. Should he succeed he could
rule Zimbabwe until
he is 89.
The central committee's decision still
has to be confirmed by the party
congress in July. However, Mugabe treats it
as a foregone conclusion.
"I have 83 years of struggle, experience and
resilience and I cannot be
pushed over," he told supporters. Sources in
Harare believe that it will now
be for the two key faction leaders - Solomon
Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa,
the former head of the secret police - to
strike before July or risk losing
everything as the country plunges ever
deeper into economic chaos.
Both men have substantial business interests
at stake and with party
institutions failing to deal with the crisis, the
question is whether they
will feel forced to take action.
"The
situation is too desperate and Mnangagwa and Mujuru are being badly
squeezed
both by Mugabe and the financial crisis. The only thing holding
them back is
lack of agreement between themselves," a businessman close to
Zanu-PF said
last week.
Mugabe also intends to change the rules so that if he dies or
resigns in
office, there will be no general election. Instead parliament,
heavily
dominated by Zanu-PF, will choose his successor.
Harare's
police are still fully deployed in the townships, which have been
under
curfew for a month now, with all political meetings banned.
However, the
popular anger and desperation caused by political repression
and the
economic problems - with inflation running at more than 1,700% -
make for a
febrile mix.
There is little cash to be had since Gideon Gono, governor
of the Reserve
Bank, forced through a law requiring garages to sell petrol
at the official
rather than the black market price. Most garages have
responded by simply
refusing to trade. They are no longer providing fuel nor
pouring Zimbabwean
dollars into the hands of black market currency
dealers.
"No economic crisis like this can go on for long without
something
happening," said one Harare-based businessman. "With no fuel,
little cash
and food unaffordable, life is damn near impossible even for
those of us who
are comfortably off. Can you imagine what people in
Chitungwiza [Harare's
biggest township] feel like?"
Last month's
crackdown on opposition activists, with hundreds arrested,
beaten and
tortured, is seen as a preemptive strike by a regime grown
fearful of its
own people.
Both the army and the police are conscious that they alone
now keep Mugabe
in power and both are becoming nervous. Off-duty army
officers are willing
to say over a drink that if faced by thousands of
protesters on the street
they would be unwilling to shoot them down, even if
ordered to do so. The
regime, knowing this, does all it can to prevent such
crowds from forming or
getting into town. It is the police who are on the
front line, particularly
the elite Police Support Unit
(PSU).
Recruited from the toughest slums and given hard training, the PSU
is still
a formidable and extremely loyal force. It has new Chinese and
Israeli
antiriot equipment and is used for special operations. It was PSU
members
who beat up Tsvangirai and MDC leaders last month.
Even the
PSU has to worry these days, however. Because the regime is
desperately
short of foreign exchange, the unit, like the rest of the
police, has been
rationed to just five bullets for each officer.
Moreover, the police as a
whole are nervous about finding themselves on the
wrong side if the army
should go against Mugabe. They have no appetite at
all for a confrontation
with the far better armed military - and the army
has plenty of ammunition
for its AK47s.
Already some army officers have begun to make it known to
the PSU that they,
too, have families in the townships, that some of their
relatives have been
victims of "police atrocities" and that they have a fair
idea of who was
responsible. One source close to the PSU described its mood
as "very
apprehensive".
"Mugabe is cornered by the collapsing
economy, foreign pressure and by his
party rivals," said the businessman
close to Zanu-PF. "His priority seems to
be to smash the MDC to make sure
Tsvangirai can never succeed him. But he's
also desperate to grab enough
foreign exchange to pay for electricity, to
keep Air Zimbabwe going and to
keep the regime alive."
He added that if Mnangagwa and Mujuru try to
instigate a coup against Mugabe
they will be taking a huge risk, "but they,
too, are cornered and the
question soon is going to be whether they can
afford not to".
Getting worse
Average wage: Z$200,000 (£11) a
month
Carton of milk: Z$48,000 (£2.50)
Price of litre of petrol:
Z$19,000 (£1.05) but almost unobtainable
Price of bread: up 375% last
month to $7,000 (38p), virtually unobtainable
Price of bus tickets: up
350% last month
Teachers' union threatens strike after last month's 535%
pay rise almost
wiped out
Mugabe rivals hope for Mbeki intervention
The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft, Zimbabwe Correspondent
Last Updated: 11:26pm BST
31/03/2007
Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party rivals are pinning
their hopes on South
Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, to salvage their
political future, after
they were comprehensively outflanked by the wily
Zimbabwean leader last
week.
President Mugabe's internal
critics had suggested they might be ready
to take him on when Zanu-PF's
145-member central committee met on Friday.
Instead they found themselves
outmanoeuvred and outnumbered.
The committee not only endorsed him
as its candidate for next year's
presidential poll, but also agreed to bring
forward parliamentary elections
which had been scheduled for
2010.
These will now run alongside the presidential ballot and the
party's
chances will be enhanced by its decision to increase the number of
seats in
parliament and the upper house, the senate - paving the way for
possible
constituency gerrymandering.
Behind the closed doors
of the party meeting, it was a classic Mr
Mugabe performance. There was no
chance for debate or opposition in an
auditorium stuffed with Mr Mugabe's
supporters and those of another Zanu-PF
faction leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa,
who dutifully supported the president.
More than 80 buses had been
hired to bring people to the party
headquarters. Inside, it was pure
extravaganza as liberation war songs from
long ago got the crowd going.
Choreographed by his generals and his former
mistress, Zanu-PF women's
league chairman, Oppah Muchinguri, they sang, beat
their breasts and
ululated in ecstasy.
Lurex sparkled on ample bosoms and traditional
ladies wore wraparounds
with the face of a younger Robert Mugabe bobbing on
their backsides. Mr
Mugabe, grinning broadly, raised his fist, and strutted
out of the
auditorium in victory.
Supporters of party heavyweight
Solomon Mujuru, the man on whom Mr
Mugabe's opponents had been pinning their
hopes, said they had no chance,
thanks to the singing and
dancing.
But Mr Mugabe and his supporters had already done the
groundwork. The
statement of "solidarity" from the Southern African
Development Community,
SADC, in Tanzania, which had met in Dar es Salaam the
previous day, was an
essential prop for Mr Mugabe's carefully choreographed
production.
The result was that there was no debate about Mr
Mugabe's candidacy
and his position was further boosted by the decision to
increase the number
of MPs, giving Zanu-PF more leeway to gerrymander
constituencies and ensure
that the 30 non-constituency MPs currently
appointed by Mr Mugabe will in
future be able to claim to have been
popularly elected.
The state Herald newspaper said the Zanu-PF
leaders felt the nation's
voters were under-represented in the legislature
and needed more
constituency seats.
The meeting did vote to cut
the presidential term from six years to
five which would allow Mr Mugabe to
say in power until 2013, when he would
be nearly 90.
His
opponents can clutch at two straws. One is that the economic
situation
remains catastrophic, with the inflation rate in March expected to
top 2000
per cent, and that is undermining support for the president even
among some
of his most loyal followers.
The other hope is Mr Mbeki, who was
appointed by his peers at the SADC
meeting in Tanzania to mediate the crisis
in Zimbabwe.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposing Movement for
Democratic
Change party, said Mr Mbeki must take bold steps to outline an
unambiguous
timetable for dialogue. The only hope for the country was a new
constitution, an overhaul of unjust electoral laws and free and fair
elections.
"The proposed dialogue might offer Zimbabwe one last
chance," he said.
"Zimbabwe is at the crossroads and cannot slide further
into chaos and the
abyss. Quite clearly, a decisive end must be found to the
Zimbabwean crisis.
"Such dialogue is as necessary as it is long
overdue, but such
dialogue cannot take place under such conditions of
thuggery and violence
against the opposition."
But Mr Mbeki's
early record in Zimbabwe is one of failure and
duplicity. He has repeatedly
been accused of sticking to his softly-softly
diplomatic approach while his
northern neighbour continues in crisis.
Mr Mugabe has run circles
around him and other African leaders who
have approached him in the past. He
revels in confrontation, plotting and
conniving and is the ultimate master
of political puppetry.
Yesterday afternoon Paul Madzore, an
opposition member of parliament
who was arrested by police on Wednesday,
collapsed outside the courthouse in
Harare.
Mr Madzore, MP for
the Glen View area of Harare, and his wife Melody
Kuzvinetsa, were picked up
in an early raid on their home.
After Friday's five-hour meeting,
Mr Mugabe accused Western
governments - especially Britain and America - of
funding his opponents.
Mugabe's opponents strive for united front
Independent, UK
As
Zimbabweans face six more years of despotic rule, the sparks of an
uprising
glimmer. By Daniel Howden
Published: 01 April 2007
A lone policeman
with an assault rifle stands under a sign painted with
jaunty blue letters.
It reads: "Machipisa station welcomes you, Feel free!"
The 10ft wire fence
tells you that this black joke is lost on the
inhabitants of Highfields, one
of the Zimbabwean capital's largest and
poorest townships.
It was
inside these walls that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was held
down on
the floor in front of his arrested supporters and beaten so savagely
on 11
March that doctors thought his skull had been fractured.
Robert Mugabe,
who on Friday swept aside his critics to pave the way for
another six years
as president, said last week that the police had every
right to "bash" Mr
Tsvangirai. It is illegal to protest, he argued, and
those that do so are
"terrorists" and will be "bashed".
This kind of double-speak is as much a
part of everyday life in this country
as fuel queues, power cuts, price
rises and hunger. Every morning The Herald
newspaper will condemn the latest
"terrorist act" by the opposition, the
Movement for Democratic Change, and
editorials will call for a tightening of
security at the airport to protect
passengers from "thugs". The paper is, of
course, state-owned and government
run, as is every surviving media outlet
in the country.
The "thugs"
in question were members of Mr Mugabe's own militia who gathered
at Harare
international airport a fortnight ago to prevent the opposition
spokesman,
Nelson Chamisa, from travelling to Brussels. They beat him to the
floor,
then fractured his eye socket with iron bars.
The "terrorist acts" that
the President briefed his fellow African leaders
about last week in Tanzania
have so far consisted of isolated reprisals
against police stations and
minor acts of sabotage against railway lines.
But there are no street
protests, no demonstrations of opposition.
Sitting in the shade of a tree
in his garden at home in Harare, Mr
Tsvangirai still carries the marks from
his brutal encounter with the
police. A baseball cap pulled over his scarred
scalp and large black rings
circling his eyes, he is in the mood for
realism. "It's not realistic to
expect mass protests," he says. "The way the
cities were designed makes it
impossible."
The country's two main
cities, Bulawayo and Harare, were built by British
colonists and based on a
defensive blueprint, concentrating the commercial
areas in the centre, while
the bulk of the black population was housed
outside the city in
townships.
"Here, the people are excluded from the city, it was a
deliberate colonial
design," says the MDC leader. "People have to be bussed
into the centre,
making it easy for police to seal it off." So the
opposition will content
itself with boycotting school fees, work "stayaways"
and withholding taxes,
and wait for the regime to implode. Something, it
argues, has to give.
Zimbabwe has become a nation haunted by
extraordinary statistics: the
highest inflation in the world, nearly 1,800
per cent; the largest
population loss to migration in peacetime, 25 per
cent; the lowest life
expectancy in the world for women, 34.
The
quiet fury at this crisis finds its most eloquent voice in the Catholic
Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube. Sitting in a safe house on the outskirts
of the second city, Mr Mugabe's most fearless and relentless critic speaks
quietly and deliberately, with his eyes almost closed and fingers folded in
prayer.
"Zimbabweans are very timid," he says. "We are not willing to
be self
sacrificing. We don't seem to get the idea of dying for your
country. I was
hoping the politicians would do it, but it seems they have no
appetite."
Two years ago, when a staggering nationwide campaign of slum
clearances and
looting of street markets, dubbed Murumbatsvina, or "drive
out rubbish",
displaced half a million people and destroyed the livelihoods
of millions
more, the opposition could not mobilise a mass response. "Morgan
has been
useless," says the archbishop. "Murumbatsvina was the best time [to
mobilise], people were angry."
He is equally scathing about South
Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, who last
week refused to criticise Mr Mugabe
in public. "He is a damn fool. When Bush
came, he said, 'I will make you my
point man,' and Mbeki said, 'I will sort
it out.' He hasn't sorted anything
out. All we need is a bit of leadership
and we can get [Mugabe] out.
"
The real simmering anger is beginning to show in the dangerous,
night-time
world of Harare's townships, whose names, Highfields, Glenview
and Hatfield,
recall the country's colonial past. Gangs of youths have begun
a nightly
ritual of burning tyres and barricades that echoes the unrest
during the
apartheid era of South African townships such as
Soweto.
There is growing concern among opposition figures that the
closure of all
democratic space for protest - all political rallies and
gatherings have
been banned for three months - will force a bloody showdown
. As one student
leader put it at the memorial service for a Harare activist
murdered by
police: "If they make peaceful revolution impossible, they make
violent
revolution inevitable."
That is a possibility that Arthur
Mutambara, the younger leader of one of
the two divided factions of the MDC,
refuses to rule out. "What we face is a
dilemma. It is freedom or death. Our
people have been traumatised by this
dictator, but our people can rise up.
They drove [Ian] Smith out of town.
Surely they can do so again against this
tyrant, Robert Mugabe."
Get ready to sprint-shop where the
living ain't easy
Japan Times
Sunday, April 1, 2007
A ROUGH GUIDE TO ZIMBOBWE
Very recently, I had the opportunity to
see the 83-year-old head of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. The contemptible
cranium was traveling at high speed in a convoy of shiny black Mercs, souped-up
and overcrowded army trucks, police cars and motorcycle outriders.
|
Your columnist considers what to do with thousands
of grounded Zimbabwe dollars: Light a fire or save for sanitary purposes? PHOTOS
(c) PAXTON IMAGES |
|
A mere 20,000 Zimbabwe dollars (lately devalued to
Z$ 20) will buy a fabulous little red fruit like this. Only plutocrats can
afford a tomato sandwich. |
I, and very likely every other poor chump
of a motorist delayed by the hastily thrown-up police cordon, watched "the Big
Man" zoom through the Namibian capital of Windhoek with a mixture of frustration
and impatience. And in my case revulsion. All the passengers on the Air Namibia
flight that had been ordered to maintain a holding pattern for 30 minutes until
Mugabe's plane turned up (late as usual) no doubt also sympathized.
Bread basket to basket case
Mugabe! What can I say? When he inherited
Zimbabwe (formerly the British colony of Rhodesia) from white rule in 1980, he
had in his hands the grain basket of southern Africa. By the standards of
sub-Saharan Africa, the country was an economic giant. It was blessed with
fertile soil, magnificent national parks, a functioning infrastructure and a
vigorous export market.
He then turned it into a basket case of
global proportions.
Unemployment currently stands at more
than 70 percent. The inflation rate is the world's highest (1,500 percent
annually). A third of the population has fled into exile; another third live
well below poverty levels that would shame an Ethiopian famine. Hundreds of
thousands are homeless thanks to Mugabe's vicious "Remove Filth" campaign to
bulldoze informal settlements and shanty towns. Agriculture has collapsed. The
government has just publicly acknowledged that its treasury is bankrupt.
Human-rights violations are routine. All protests in the capital are banned. And
once-prosperous white-owned farms are now rotting and neglected.
A fellow journalist took a photograph of
a team of malnourished cows pulling a tractor that was pulling a plow. The
tractor had run out of juice.
Nice job, Bob!
Mugabe: Economic adviser
The interesting thing about "the head
with the Hitler mustache" that sailed past me on that hot, car-clogged afternoon
was that I knew later in the day it would be addressing a collection of fawning
African dignitaries on the subject of economic development.
That deranged head would -- get this! --
be recommending strategies! Offering advice!
I watched the convoy recede. And a
thought occurred. Alright, I'd read the stats, I'd seen the pictures of riot
police in action and young drunken rent-a-thugs seizing white-owned farms and
beating the owners and staff, I'd talked to many black Zim refugees (some of
whom had been forced to personally dismantle their shops, houses and business
premises because they'd neglected to join Zanu-PF, the ruling party) -- but I'd
not been to Zim recently. Not seen things first hand.
I decided that it was time to go
shopping!
A fistful of dollars
First things first. Money. I'd obviously
need that. I approached a Zimbabwean exile named Blessing. I asked him if he had
any. He asked me why I wanted Zim dollars.
|
A cartoon rendition by Paxtonian pal Dudley Viall of
Zimbabwe's "Big Man" in command of his failed but formerly fabulous ship of
state. |
I told him that I intended to go on a bit
of a spree in the Zim capital, Harare, and, you know, I needed some. Three days
later he delivered an envelope. Attached was a breakdown of what the notes (and
there were a lot of them) could buy.
There was also an explanatory letter.
"With soaring inflation, the people of Zimbabwe have been finding it difficult
to wield their large wads of cash," he had written. ATMs had become overwhelmed
and shop tills simply didn't have the space to store the incoming bills, he
explained. The government-controlled central bank eventually rose to the
challenge last August. It erased three zeros from all the notes.
Z$ 1,000 became Z$ 1.
Z$ 10,000,000 became Z$ 10,000. And so
on.
I have a 3-year-old daughter and she has
some coins and dollar bills issued by the Bank of Toyland (Taiwan). The new Zim
dollars looked slightly less convincing.
An Executive Summary of my newfound
purchasing power went thus:
For Z$ 1, Blessing assured me, I could
buy "absolutely nothing." For Z$ 5 "absolutely nothing." Same deal with the new
Z$ 10 note. (Why waste money printing the things? They weren't even sufficiently
large to serve as toilet paper! I couldn't help wondering. Blessing said he
couldn't help wondering, too).
For a few dollars more
Serious shopping action began with the Z$
20 bill. I was now in the "one small sweet" league. Hey!
Things brightened further.
Should I cough up 20 bucks (formerly
20,000 bucks) I could, with luck, locate myself a "nice, good-looking tomato."
If I wanted to put my nice, good-looking tomato into a sandwich , I'd need to up
the stakes slightly. Z$ 1,000 (formerly Z$ 100,000) for a loaf of bread. Then
I'd have to cough up Z$ 5,000 for sufficient butter and condiments.
After that, a cheap bottle of Scotch to
round off my breakfast, perchance? Z$ 25,000. Maybe Z$ 50,000.
Currently the highest denomination note
available is Z$ 20,000, and that is the only bill ATMs bother with. In a country
where a modest monthly grocery bill for a single young professional man (who has
to boil his breakfast porridge on firewood cut from decorative street trees
because of power cuts) costs Z$ 500,000, Mugabeland is still printing Z$ 1
bills!
I decided that I needed a bigger wallet.
Wacky Races
The blessed Blessing has been out of
Zimbabwe for some time (nearly two months), and I soon learned that his advisory
-- while no doubt accurate at time of delivery -- was seriously obsolete.
Supermarkets in Harare are currently in
Wacky Races mode.
Employees race around like hares from
shelf to shelf changing product prices. They have to move fast. The shoppers
move faster. The latter have become sprint-shoppers because they want to get
their hands on items at the old prices (yesterday's prices) before the shops'
employees can get there to rocket them up to current rates.
The electronic tills frequently have no
idea what is going on. And neither do staff or shoppers. Arguments break out.
"The price tag says this banana is Z$ 60.
You are charging me Z$ 70!"
"Our people can't change all the price
tags in time! It was Z$ 60. But now it is Z$ 70."
Getting to the supermarket is a chore.
Harare's city buses, purchased by Mugabe's government from China, frequently
fail to work, arrive, depart or do anything one might reasonably expect a bus to
do. That's due to malfunctions, fuel shortages and spare-parts
shortages.
Pirate taxis fill the void, but nobody
knows what the fares should be. In fact, nobody knows what their money is
actually worth.
I ask a young man where he gets his
potatoes. I can't find any.
"Musina. South Africa," he says.
Take note, all you dear Japan Times
shoppers: Skip Mugabeland (aka ZimBobwe). The craft goods are first rate but
they are all being sold in other countries. By exiles.
Take note economists: Don't invite
Mugabe.
Assassins! Snipers! That head shot could
have been a cinch! Where are you people when a nation needs you?
Rectors add voices to Mugabe row
The Scotsman
MURDO MACLEOD POLITICAL
CORRESPONDENT (mmacleod@scotlandonsunday.com)
EDINBURGH
University is under increasing pressure to strip Robert Mugabe of
his
honorary degree after past and present rectors demanded action against
the
Zimbabwean dictator.
Current rector Mark Ballard said it was "untenable"
for the university not
to remove Mugabe's honorary doctorate and said he was
mobilising support for
him to be stripped of the award at a meeting next
month.
Former rector Lord Steel, once a friend of Mugabe - and who sat
next to him
at the award ceremony - also said the doctorate should be
revoked.
Scotland on Sunday revealed last week that Edinburgh had taken
the first
steps towards withdrawing the honour but critics of Mugabe
questioned the
university for taking so long and failing to clearly state
its position.
Last week, Mugabe defied the predictions of pundits who
believed his time
was up amid mounting dissent and Zimbabwe's economic
collapse. A summit of
African leaders backed him, while a rebellion within
his party petered out.
Yesterday his ZANU-PF party endorsed him as their
presidential candidate for
the next elections in 2008.
Ballard said:
"I think that the university must strip Mugabe of his degree
and I think the
university is in an untenable position by not doing so.
"I fully support
the students' campaign on this matter and it is clear, from
meetings of the
General Council - which involves graduates - that university
alumni feel
very strongly about this. They don't approve of the link between
the
university and this tyrant and they, and I, want this to be acted on as
soon
as possible."
Ballard said that he would be mobilising support for the
removal of the
award in advance of the next meeting of the University Court,
the supreme
authority at Edinburgh, at the end of May. It is understood the
court will
discuss the Mugabe issue.
Steel, who was close to Mugabe
when he was the opposition leader in exile in
the UK during the 1970s, sat
beside the African leader at the awards
ceremony in Edinburgh in 1984. The
then Liberal leader attended the
graduation in his official capacity as
university rector.
He said: "I think the degree should be rescinded. He
should be stripped of
it. The university should make an exception in his
case and remove the
award."
Steel added: "Unfortunately, I don't
think it will make him think and
reflect, I just wish I thought it would. I
think he changed quite
dramatically after the death of his first wife Sally.
But every step that's
taken to show the world's disapproval is a
help."
The former European Court judge Professor Sir David Edward added
his voice
to those calling for the degree to be revoked.
Edward, an
Edinburgh graduate, as well as a professor of law at the
university, said:
"The university has to be very careful in dealing with
cases like this
otherwise you run the risk of being seen to be open to
pressure, but I think
this is a special case and I think he should have the
degree
removed."
While both Steel and Edward stressed that such a process would
take time,
critics of the Zimbabwe regime called for the university to move
more
urgently.
Some campaigners have challenged Edinburgh simply to
issue a declaration of
intent that the degree will be revoked and then work
out the mechanics of
the rule book later.
Euan Wilmshurst, the
Director of Action for Southern Africa, the successor
to the Anti-Apartheid
Movement in the UK, said: "I think it ridiculous that
the university can be
dragging its heals on this, when the daily brutality
of this man, especially
against women and trade unionists, is clear for all
to see. It should
announce immediately that the degree has been withdrawn."
He added: "If
the 25 disparate governments of the European Union can get
together and
agree resolutions and sanctions against Mugabe, then it surely
cannot be
beyond Edinburgh University to agree what to do. Their core role
is after
all not the propping up of African dictators. Such a step by the
university
would be seen as a nail in his coffin."
A second university is preparing
to strip the tyrant of an honorary degree.
The University of
Massachusetts said their ruling body was looking into how
they might revoke
the Law doctorate he received in 1986. The award has been
brought into focus
by the fact that Massachusetts awarded an honorary degree
to US presidential
candidate Barack Obama last year, prompting comparisons
between a black
Democrat and a black dictator.
A spokesman said: "The university is
reviewing the matter right now and
seeing what we can do and how we might go
about it, with a view to removing
the award. Right now, we don't have a
procedure for removing an honorary
degree, and so anything like this might
require a meeting of the trustees of
the university. That is still to be
decided, but we are working on it."
A spokesman for Edinburgh University
said: "We are actively reviewing the
matter."
Cup pay held back from Zimbabwe
The Telegraph
By a special
correspondent in Harare, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:39pm BST
31/03/2007
Zimbabwe's cricketers, home after their early exit
from the World Cup, have
been told that they will not get paid until June.
The match fees were
US$2000 (£1000) per game plus US$500 for a
half-century.
It will also be June before the players start getting their
salaries in
foreign currency. The players are paid in Zimbabwe dollars, and
with the
currency losing value daily, the salaries have been effectively
reduced to
nothing.
What makes it particularly hard for the players
is that their contracts
contain a clause stating that they will be available
for all matches
organized by Zimbabwe Cricket.
This effectively means
that they cannot play club cricket in England this
season. If any of the
players joins an English club, ZC will almost
certainly withhold the money
for breach of contract.
ZC managing director Ozias Bvute knew that some
players would join clubs in
England after the World Cup and were likely not
to return.
The inter-provincial four-day Logan Cup is due to start in April,
and a
number of A-team tours have been planned as the country prepares for a
return to Test cricket in November.
"We have been told that we cannot
join clubs in England," said a player who
would only speak anonymously, "but
at the same time we will only get our
money from the World Cup in June. This
means we will be stuck here until
June, and if we join clubs in England we
will lose all our money as we would
have breached our
contracts."
Zimbabwe Cricket are believed to be in the red, already
operating on an
overdraft with a large amount of the World Cup money having
been spent
before it has even been received.
. Pakistan captain
Inzamam-ul-Haq has hit back at local media and rejected
match-fixing claims
after his team's shock World Cup exit and the murder of
coach Bob
Woolmer.
Inzamam, in his first press conference since the traumatic
events, said it
was "unfair" to talk about match-fixing. "The team had been
playing and
winning matches. There were no such comments. Now they are
spreading such
rumours," he said, referring to comments by former
players.
Pakistan lost their opening match to the West Indies by 54 runs
before a
humiliating three-wicket defeat at the hands of Ireland on Mar
17.
The following day, Woolmer was found strangled in his hotel room.
Woolmer's
death has sparked one of the most complex murder investigations in
Jamaican
history. It also triggered speculation about possible links to
match-fixing
and illegal betting.
The Pakistan team was
finger-printed and provided DNA samples, with Inzamam
among three members of
the entourage questioned twice.
A downbeat Inzamam lauded Woolmer's
services, calling him "a great man and a
very sincere and dedicated coach".
"The media did not provide the support
and encouragement the players
needed," he said. "I was blamed for everything
as if I was running the
cricket board and dictating the selection
committee."
Meanwhile
Pakistan Cricket Board chief Nasim Ashraf said that two senior
police
officers would leave for Jamaica tomorrow to join investigations into
Woolmer's murder. "I have no doubt that our players are innocent," he
added.
He also revealed that the existing contracts system will be
replaced by
performance-based deals. He said the move was designed to reduce
the
influence of the players and to hand power back to the
management.
"A new contract system will be put in place within the next
90 days," he
said.
Ashraf also revealed that a three-man review
committee would be set up to
examine Pakistan's performance in the World
Cup.
Teenage victim of asylum scandal faces deportation
Jamie Doward, home
affairs editor
Sunday April 1, 2007
The Observer
The home
office is seeking to deport the Zimbabwean teenager who exposed a
major
sex-for-asylum scandal in the Immigration Service, The Observer has
learnt.
The move comes as the government prepares to deport hundreds of
Zimbabweans
in anticipation of winning a crucial test case next month that
would allow
it to resume deportations. The government is also sending
letters to
hundreds of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers telling them they should
consider
returning home - despite the near collapse of the country's
economic and
political stability and increasing state-sponsored
violence.
The 19-year-old, known only as 'Tanya', found out last month
that her claim
for asylum has been rejected. She says she 'would rather die'
than return to
her home country, which has been plagued by violence as the
Zimbabwean
President, Robert Mugabe, battles to exert his authority and see
off rival
political factions.
Last year Tanya was at the centre of the
Observer investigation that
resulted in the Home Office minister, Tony
McNulty, being moved from his
post. The exposé revealed allegations that
officials in the Immigration
Service were offering to help asylum seekers
with their applications to
remain in the UK in return for sex. One official
was sacked from his job and
is now the subject of a criminal investigation.
Other examples of serious
malpractice came to light following the
scandal.
The move to deport Tanya was condemned by MPs last night. Her
supporters
fear for her safety because she claims to have been raped by a
senior ally
of the Mugabe regime. In addition she was married to a member of
the
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
'I'm
ashamed by the callous attitude of the Home Office,' said Kate Hoey,
who
chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Zimbabwe. 'What message does
this send to vulnerable women around the world, let alone in Zimbabwe, about
attitudes to victims of sexual abuse in the UK?'
Hoey accused the
government of operating a blanket policy by seeking to
return all Zimbabwean
asylum seekers. 'The Home Office should be trying to
do what is morally
right, not just ticking boxes to meet bean counters'
targets so ministers
can reel off statistics,' Hoey said. 'Can they tell me
how many teenage
girls' lives have been wrecked by their failure to act?'
Conservative MP
Richard Benyon said he was concerned there had been an
attempt to sweep the
scandal exposed by The Observer under the carpet. He
added that the
government were guilty of double standards by allowing the
families of
senior Mugabe Zanu-PF officials to visit Britain. 'It's a
grotesque
situation,' Benyon said. 'The person who decided to send Tanya
back does not
understand the political situation in Zimbabwe.'
Last night Tanya told
The Observer of her fears for the future. 'Going back
to Zimbabwe is not an
option,' she said. 'Even death is better. My husband
was shot in Zimbabwe.
The situation is getting worse and I'm really scared.'
The Home Office is
also seeking to deport the son of MDC activist Lucia
Matibenga, who was
beaten by Zanu-PF supporters last autumn. 'The Home
Office dispute who my
mother is,' said Joel Matibenga, 25. 'It's not safe
for me or my family to
go back.'
In recent weeks, the government has taken a series of adverts
in the
Zimbabwean expatriate press in Britain urging asylum seekers to
return to
their home country. The Zimbabwean Association, one of the
organisations
that represents asylum seekers in the UK, fears the move will
increase the
number of Zimbabweans going into hiding in a bid to escape
deportation.
The government is prevented from returning Zimbabweans after
the Court of
Appeal blocked the move. However, it is using a test case to
appeal against
that ruling and intends to start returns if it wins. A ruling
is expected
within the next couple of months.
Tanya is to lodge an
appeal against her deportation ruling later this month.
But the Home Office
remains unconvinced of the merits of her case. The
department says it sends
failed asylum seekers back to their native
countries only if their lives are
not at risk and judges each case on its
merits.
Disaster
looming
7days, United Arab Emirates
Published
on: Sunday, 1st April, 2007
Zimbabwe's political and economic crises are
set to deepen further following
a decision to have octogenarian leader
Robert Mugabe, already in power for
27 years, seek a new term in elections
next year, analysts said yesterday.
The ruling Zimbabwe African National
Union Patriotic-Front (ZANU-PF)'s top
decision makers decided in Harare that
despite growing domestic opposition,
Mugabe would stand again for elections
next year.
Commentators say the decision spells disaster for the southern
African
country whose economy is already on its knees and could see a rise
in
political unrest.
"It's a very serious decision which signals a sure
direction towards the
continuation of economic collapse and will deepen the
political crisis,"
said constitutional reform activist Lovemore
Madhuku.
Eldred Masunungure, a university of Zimbabwe political scientist,
said
everything depended on the policy decision the leadership adopts, "but
if it
is business as usual, clearly it will be disastrous. it means the
country
will slide irrevocably down the drain".
There will be "a total
collapse which will see popular unrest in the
country", said
Madhuku.
"The fear is that there will be so much unrest that the country will
break
down. to the levels we have seen in some west African countries where
they
have had civil wars," he added.
"Disaster is in the making. It will
accelerate the economic meltdown," said
Wellington Chibebe, the secretary
general of the Zimbabwe Congres of Trade
Unions.
Opposition within
Zimbabwe has soared in recent months with inflation now
the highest in the
world at 1,730 per cent and forecast by the International
Monetary Fund to
climb up to 4,000 per cent by year end.
Four out of five people are out of
work and live in abject poverty.
Mugabe's parting gift to the MDC. But is he away for real?
Silence
Chihuri
Confirmation by the ruling ZANU PF party's Central Committee
that President
Robert Mugabe will be the party's candidate for the umpteenth
time in the
forthcoming presidential elections could be a priceless parting
gift to the
people of Zimbabwe. That will of course be conditional upon the
only
credible contender, the MDC, putting its act together and claiming an
overdue victory because the same means to rig elections and to ruthlessly
suppress opponents would still at Mugabe's disposal.
To all
Zimbabweans who understand the state of politics in our motherland
today, it
is an open secret that President Mugabe is at his weakest ever
since his
political career. The ruling ZANU PF party is at its most
dysfunctional
state and is rocked by divisions that have never been
witnessed before in
its forty-year plus history. However, Mugabe is still as
canny as ever and
the old man has shown yet again, that regardless of his
brutal pursuits, he
is the same erstwhile politician we have known for all
this time. Mugabe
knows how to rally his ZANU PF charges around himself and
the hardly
surprising outcome of the Central Committee is the best latest
example.
Mugabe knows the art of putting his critics in their
places and consigning
ambitious peers into the dustbins of his party. Joyce
Mujuru has been shown
by Mugabe that he is the man in charge and that he is
not going anywhere.
The ringing endorsement of Mugabe by his colleagues in
the impotent SADC
group of nations that were rounded off at home with the
Central Committee
vote will be a real source of a sore head for Mujuru.
Maybe that will give
her an opportunity and motivation to show exactly what
she has up her sleeve
because the alternative will be an abrupt halt to a
political career that
had become something of a roller coaster of late. If
Mujuru or her husband
for that matter, has the ability to stop Mugabe then
this is the time for
the general to retire from retirement and spring to
action because the young
old man is here to stay.
The next
few weeks will be crucial for Mugabe to consolidate his grip on his
restive
party and he is not going to employ and new tactics that we have not
seen
before. He will be simply following the same user guide and that is
setting
up a team of experts in propaganda machinations as well ensuring the
ruthlessness of the ZANU PF repressive machinery is heightened. With the
silence of the African leaders in the face of the brutal attacks of
opponents, Mugabe will be descending heavily on the MDC especially, and any
other political contenders to come by his way. The militias, the police, the
army, the dreaded CIO, will be all out in full force to ensure the
impossible happen and that is Mugabe wins. This pattern of violence will be
perpetrated throughout the election campaigns and right into the polling
stations and will then be topped up by the actual rigging of the
elections.
Equally for the MDC, the party should sense real
victory here and seek to
reclaim once again that short-lived dominant
position in Zimbabwean
politics, because this is the chance to seize the
moment. All those prayers
that people have been directed to the heavens and
all the pleas for
salvation have now been answered through Mugabe
over-stretching his luck and
survival instincts too far. I can now picture
the same scenario in which
Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya did the same thing in
2004 by underestimating his
unpopularity and ignored the advise to step down
rather than facing the
humiliation of a historic defeat at the hands of the
then unstoppable NARC
Rainbow Coalition. History will definitely repeat
itself because no one can
ever envisage a situation whereby Mugabe will ever
capitulate because the
man knows his tracks and they are not ones that can
be covered at this
juncture because they are now just too deep for
concealment. The only cover
Mugabe sees for his tracks is to die in office
but neither that is now
guaranteed as well because Mugabe and his ZANU PF
bunch face real death at
the polls.
But that would be
incumbent upon the MDC Party reorganising itself in more
or less the same
style as Kenyan NARC, an putting up a united front against
ZANU PF and
winning the elections for the people of Zimbabwe. The ball has
been put
firmly in the MDC court and there will be no scapegoating that
could have
any credence should the party enter the election in the current
scattered
format and lose again. Not even the common rigging anecdote will
be
admissible to the ears of Zimbabweans. The Zimbabwean people will be
looking
for nothing short of victory from the MDC this time and no excuse
will
substitute that victory. There could never any more urgency for unity
of
purpose and restoration of the people's confidence in the party that had
instantly become their preferred political organisation and source of
hope.
There will be substantial support for a united MDC than for
a splintered
party and there will be multiple benefits in maximum
utilisation and
synchronisation of resources. There will be no rewards to be
reaped from the
unwise and treacherous splitting of scarce votes through
dual candidacies
and the fight will be and should be, a straight two horse
race between ZANU
PF and the MDC because there is no other political entity
worthy any notice
in Zimbabwe at the moment. This is a moment when all the
desperate poring
into the ramshackle ZANU PF party searching for the
so-called reformed and
progressive forces would have to be abruptly called
off. That was an
extremely desperate and dangerous measure that would have
seen the country
simply being turned upside down through an alternating hand
of the same
devil.
There is now greater urgency for the MDC
party between now and the polls to
conduct business in manner that would
seriously depict a real potential
government in waiting because between now
and then, this will be the last
but most important stroll towards
governance. But such big moments do not
come cheap and there will be need to
sacrifice little egos and dismount from
the little summits of pride and
execute business in the national interest.
The opportunity is now here and
the occasioning could never be more timely
and tempting for the principled
and the reasonable. Victory could never be
more certain for a party that has
suffered so much at the hands of a brutal
regime. Salvation could never more
beckoning to a people that have seen so
much misery and unwarranted deaths
among their lot.
Should the MDC fail to unite and motivate the
people of Zimbabwe to come out
in full force and vote this evil regime out
of power and out of their lives,
then the culpability of the supposed
messenger of salvation will be just as
severe as that of the messenger of
death that ZANU PF has been to us for
years now.
Silence
Chihuri writes from Scotland. He can be contacted on
silencechihuri@hotmail.com