25th Apr 2008 03:07 GMT
By a Correspondent
UK Parliament
House of Lords
Thursday 24 April 2008
Baroness Northover
asked Her Majesty’s Government:
What is their response to the recent
protest action called by the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe .
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord
Malloch-Brown) : My Lords, the crisis in Zimbabwe continues. It is
understandable that opposition parties and civil society organisations should
call for peaceful protest. In a country with inflation at more than 165,000 per
cent and unemployment above 80 per cent, it is not surprising, however, that
many people who have jobs continue to go to work if they can in order to support
their families. This crisis will continue until credible presidential election
results are announced that reflect the will of the people.
Baroness Northover: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his
reply. Some members of the defeated party are already using violence to try to
hang on to power. What action can be taken through the region, the African Union
or the UN to stop additional weapons getting into Zimbabwe ? Given the quantity
of arms already in Zimbabwe, which from what we are hearing are clearly being
used, what can be done, particularly by those in the region, to try to bring
this situation to a peaceful conclusion?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the noble Baroness focuses on
the current arms shipment on a Chinese ship, which still remains on the waters
off southern Africa and has been refused entry to South Africa and Mozambique
for unloading. I met the ambassador from Angola this morning and I believe that
the ship will not be allowed to unload in Angola , either, so it will
effectively be sent home. We will see huge action by civil society and the
Governments of the region, if necessary through the UN and elsewhere, to make
sure that no more arms arrive and reach this illegitimate Government to allow
them to suppress their people.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has just awarded a seat in Parliament to Mugabe’s
party on the ground of an alleged miscount? Should we not bear in mind that the
Electoral Commission is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mugabe’s party? The
proposal that a number of people have put forward for a rerun of the election is
regrettable at this time, because the violence of Mugabe’s party to the
population is as fierce as it has been at any time in recent years. That had a
bad effect on the turnout of MDC voters before the recent election and on
previous occasions and it is likely to have a bad effect for some time ahead
unless the violence stops.
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, while it remains the position
of the Opposition to press for the immediate announcement of a presidential
election result, the news that the noble Lord brings of an election seat being
turned over and awarded to the government party, ZANU-PF, is a further
indication that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the election process
itself lack credibility. After a month of silence, we can conclude only
that.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, is my noble friend
satisfied with the actions and the words of the South African Government in
relation to this crisis?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, as I have said before in this
House, President Mbeki deserves credit for having created the conditions in
which this election took place, which has begun the process that will lead to
the departure from power of President Mugabe. The people of Zimbabwe have voted
and the putting of ballot tallies on the doors of the polling stations, a reform
for which President Mbeki pressed, means that it has been impossible to hide the
result. Obviously, we would have wished for clearer public statements since the
election from the leaders of the region that this stalemate cannot be allowed to
last. We are impressed by a number of private statements that are being made,
but the time has come for ever clearer public statements by the leaders of the
region, including President Mbeki, that this election stalemate must be ended in
favour of the people of the country.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, further to the question
asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the Minister’s comments, did he get
the impression from talking to Mr Zuma, who is now in London , that South Africa
will back an international arms embargo to prevent the coming genocide? That is
an important part of the jigsaw building up to prevent the horrors to come.
Secondly, the American authorities say that they would like to see Nigeria and,
indeed, any country that has some influence on the situation weigh in to try to
control the deteriorating situation. Does the Minister agree with that approach,
which is outside the UN? What links can we establish with the Indian authorities
and, indeed, with the Chinese authorities, as well as over the shipment issue,
in order to bring global pressure on to this situation before it turns into a
major bloodbath?
Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the American position, like
ours, is that it is important to engage the broader AU beyond the immediate
neighbouring countries of SADC and, within the AU, countries such as Nigeria
that are traditionally leaders in the region. It is clear that more
straightforward public statements about the situation in Zimbabwe can be made by
those countries not immediately adjacent to it. The initiative to press for
broader AU engagement is very welcome. Just last week I raised in Beijing the
broader issues of Zimbabwe with the Chinese authorities. I am confident that no
Government—not the Chinese or any other—believe that this situation can be
allowed to last. A month has passed without a result being announced. That is
almost unique in the annals of elections. I do not think that any serious person
anywhere can say that the status quo is sustainable. We need a result. Everybody
needs to press for that in their own way.
Zimbabweans Welcome International Pressure on
Mugabe
VOA
By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
25 April
2008
Supporters of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) party have welcomed international pressure on the
ruling party to
release the rest of the presidential results. The belated
support three
weeks after the vote comes from the chairman of South Africa’s
ruling party
Jacob Zuma and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who both
demanded the
immediate release the tally.
The opposition party’s
claim of winning the presidential vote also received
a significant boost
from an official of the US government, who reportedly
said that opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the winner of the March 29
vote. But partisans
of the ruling ZANU-PF party describe US backing of the
opposition as yet
another attempt to re-colonize the country. From Harare,
University of
Zimbabwe political science professor John Makumbe tells
reporter Peter
Clottey that Zimbabweans want an end to the economic and
political
crisis.
“They are liking this because for the first time there seems to
be
meaningful response from the international community and even from the
SADC
(Southern African Development Community) region and from the continent
of
Africa in favor of the people of Zimbabwe, rather than in favor of Robert
Mugabe,” Makumbe noted.
He said the international community seems to
have come to the realization
that the opposition MDC can play a significant
role in resolving the
Zimbabwe crisis.
“Yes, I think there is a real
recognition for the MDC here. But what’s
important really is that the
various groups seeming to be running onto the
side of MDC are really shocked
by a situation where elections are run
reasonably free and fair and the
ruling party or the president of Zimbabwe
refuses to release the results. It
is unprecedented, except in very awkward
situations where results have been
delayed unduly,” he said.
Makumbe described as unfortunate the refusal of
the electoral commission to
release the presidential results three weeks
after the general elections.
“In this case they are even likely not to
want to disclose the results at
all and this is really shocking this region
and shocking other political
parties that Mugabe can think so low and
ZANU-PF can really be so desperate
to stay in power to the extent of
refusing to release the results. And so
everybody is now seeing the many
stories that the MDC has been telling about
what is going on in Zimbabwe,
that is actually a dictatorship,” Makumbe
pointed out.
He said
pressure by the international community would have an impact on
President
Mugabe and his hard-line supporters.
“I think so, I think it is really an
embarrassment to them, but above all it
is really getting them really
threatened because one of the consequences of
all this international
pressure is that it has now gone up to the United
Nations Security Council.
And there are a lot of voices at the UN Security
Council asking that
Zimbabwe be placed on the agenda of the UN Security
Council and that
possibly observers be sent into Zimbabwe if there is a
run-off of the
presidential election,” he said
Makumbe said civil and non-governmental
organizations are demanding that the
government respect human
rights.
“We are also a civil society pushing for a United Nations human
rights
repertoire to be sent to Zimbabwe because there is lots of violence
going
on,” Makumbe said.
No miracle solutions for Zimbabwe
Mail and Guardian
Hany Besada
25 April 2008 07:38
As
Zimbabwe marked 28 years of independence from minority rule
last Friday, a
feeling of despair and great anxiety loomed in all corners of
this
impoverished and increasingly turbulent Southern African
state.
Once regarded as the region’s bread basket, blessed
with an
abundance of mineral deposits and the most skilled and educated
workforce on
the continent, as well as a thriving agricultural sector, it
has become a
political liability and an economic and social basket case of
unprecedented
proportions over the past eight years or
so.
With the world’s highest inflation rate of 165 000%,
unserviceable debts of more than $4,7-billion; a life expectancy of 36
years; poverty rates of more than 80%; an unemployment rate of 85%; and more
than 1,8-million Zimbabweans receiving food aid last year, a deepening
crisis of disproportional levels is unfolding -- even by regional
standards.
This year’s independence festivities, punctuated
with military
and police displays, soccer matches, live music performances
and the grand,
yet rhetorical, speech made by the country’s autocratic and
increasingly
desperate President, Robert Mugabe, couldn’t mask the
uncertainties and
deep-seated fears of ordinary Zimbabweans that things
could get even worse
for them in the coming weeks.
Although Zanu-PF lost its majority in Parliament for the first
time since
independence in 1980 (97 seats to 110 for the opposition), it has
since been
able to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to
administer a
recount in 23 constituencies where it claims its candidates had
been
cheated, due to voting irregularities and counting errors.
Meanwhile, the results of the hotly contested presidential
election are yet
to be released -- more than three weeks after the ballot,
fuelling
international concerns that the recount is simply a ploy to buy
time and
coerce voters to vote for Mugabe in a run-off poll, thereby
subverting the
will of the electorate.
Independent and ruling-party
projections indicate that Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai got most of the votes,
although he is just shy of the required
50% plus one to avoid a second-round
run-off. Meanwhile, an ongoing recount
of ballots from the March polls
continues amid fears on the side of the
opposition, led by the MDC, that
Zanu-PF’s strategy is to retain power by a
combination of a show of force
and violence towards opposition supporters
designed to frustrate the
opposition and drain their
resources.
The election saga has, without doubt, brought the
nation to the
brink of civil unrest and potential conflict. According to
human rights
groups, post-election violence has left 10 people dead, 500
injured and more
than 3 000 displaced.
Meanwhile, reports
of rape, the burning of properties and
torture aimed directly at opposition
supporters and white farmers by
so-called war veterans have increased
sharply, increasingly pointing to the
government’s resolve to stifle
political opposition to its rule. However,
this comes as no surprise to a
number of analysts on the continent who have
long predicted that Mugabe’s
exit from political office would be anything
but graceful and
smooth.
Independent observers and opposition groups have
called on the
international community, the African Union and the Southern
African
Development Community (SADC) to intervene in Zimbabwe to ensure that
the
rule of law is upheld and the elections results announced without
further
delay.
However, the international response thus
far has been dismal at
best. SADC election observers came out in praise of
Mugabe for conducting
elections in a “free and fair” environment, while
South African President
Thabo Mbeki’s so-called policy of “quiet diplomacy”,
aimed at engaging
Mugabe in a dialogue of reconciliation with the country’s
opposition, has
been widely discredited for having resulted in an
impasse.
Failure at the emergency SADC summit two weekends
ago to
criticise Mugabe for the delay further discredited SADC leaders and
the
organisation as a whole -- one that has tried to forge ahead in recent
months on economic integration, democracy and peer reviews as regional
principles.
SADC’s failure to make pronouncements on the
rising violence, as
well as the inclination of African leaders to stop short
of criticising
Mugabe, has only exacerbated an already tense political
atmosphere.
While the current crisis in Zimbabwe rests upon
the assumption
that African leaders are completely resistant to the idea of
military
intervention in Zimbabwe, Mugabe is slowly taking his country to
the brink
of complete collapse, as it has already been ostracised by the
global
political economy. This has become a domestic political issue that is
turning into a destabilising force in a region, which is in the process of
slowly shedding its turbulent past of wars, coups and minority apartheid
rule.
A key to the resolution of the political crisis --
and,
ultimately, economic recovery -- will be the resolution of the
drawn-out
struggle to oust Mugabe by means of a negotiated power-sharing
agreement.
The final outcome could be determined less by the electoral
process in
Zimbabwe and more by applied pressure from African statesmen and
their
Western counterparts to force Mugabe to negotiate a compromise with
the MDC
to avoid a similar tale to that which recently unfolded in
Kenya.
In the meantime, Zimbabweans anxiously awaits the
election
results, with great trepidation over what Mugabe and Zanu-PF may
have in
store for their country.
Hany Besada is senior
researcher working on weak and fragile
states at the Centre for
International Governance Innovation in Waterloo,
Canada
Refer Zimbabwe crisis ‘to UN’
Business Day
25 April 2008
Hopewell
Radebe
Diplomatic
Editor
THE US called yesterday for the Zimbabwe crisis to be brought to
the United
Nations (UN) Security Council, saying the country would soon face
a grave
humanitarian situation because of violence against rural
communities.
Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer told
reporters in Pretoria the
council would then debate the arms embargo on
Zimbabwe proposed by British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “We certainly
support the prime minister’s
initiative.”
She commended SA’s
civil society and trade unions for “courageously”
blocking the offloading of
arms destined for Zimbabwe from a Chinese ship in
Durban.
She said the UN should go to Zimbabwe to
investigate, and report to the
council. A debate in the security council
would discourage other countries
from selling Zimbabwe weapons, and she
believed China would act responsibly
by no longer supplying
arms.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu has called for an
arms embargo on
Zimbabwe to avert the escalation of
violence.
Frazer said there was no doubt that opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai had
achieved “a clear victory” over President Robert
Mugabe in last month’s
disputed elections.
Given the delay in
releasing the results, the US would greet any results
coming out of Harare
with great scepticism. She ruled out the possibility of
military
intervention. With Sapa-AFP
US Southern Africa Tour Focuses on Finding Zimbabwe
Solution
VOA
By Howard Lesser
Washington, DC
25 April
2008
The top US diplomat for Africa has started off a visit
to Southern African
countries declaring that Zimbabwe opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai won a
clear-cut victory over incumbent Robert Mugabe on
March 29. Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer
made the comments to
reporters in South Africa at the start of consultations
on Zimbabwe with
neighboring countries of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC).
Zimbabwe-born Ken Mufuka, a history professor at South
Carolina’s Lander
University, also writes for Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette
newspaper. He says
that Secretary Frazer and the United States are making
the right call in
boosting Mr. Tsvangirai and bringing international
pressure to resolve
Zimbabwe’s post-election presidential
crisis.
“It is their role to do that because the SADC countries are not
going to
solve that problem without external pressures from the United
States and
from Britain. Even if there was a political solution in
Zimbabwe, economic
help is very much needed, and only the United States and
Great Britain have
the capacity to do those things,” he noted.
US
resident Mufuka, who claims affiliation with Zimbabwe’s main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) confirms Frazer’s contention that
Morgan Tsvangirai won an outright victory with something like 58 percent of
the votes on March 29.
“Under the new SADC rules, all the voting
lists are posted outside the
stations. I’m a member of the MDC, and I’ve
been sent lots of information.
And the MDC took pictures of these postings.
So it was quite clear early on
that the MDC had taken in that much support,”
he said.
Although Mufuka says it’s essential for Washington to weigh in
heavily on
Harare during Secretary Frazer’s current swing through the
region, he admits
there are some downsides.
“That is problematic,
because in 2002, there is a secret protocol among the
SADC countries to
their idea that ‘we don’t want American interference in
Southern African
affairs,’ something like the Monroe Doctrine (an 1823 US
expression of
disfavor with foreign intervention). At that time, Mr. Mugabe
started
kicking away the white farmers. So this will further inflame those
who
think that the opposition movement is being financed by foreign powers,”
he
said.
Reacting to yesterday’s call for a Zimbabwe economic boycott by
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu and African National Congress President Jacob Zuma’s
appeal for
Zimbawe’s election commission to release results of the vote,
Mufuka says
that Secretary Frazer’s role in the region will make a
difference.
“Not with the government of Zimbabwe. But it may make a
difference with the
government of South Africa and the SADC countries if
they withdraw their
support. This is why the United States must keep on
pressuring those
countries around,” he explains.
Citing the delay of
more than three weeks that the Mugabe government has
failed to issue
election results, Ken Mufuka says it is hard to predict the
fallout when
Zimbabwe’s electoral commission announces the results of the
vote recount it
is undertaking in several Zimbabwe precincts. But he notes
it is most
likely that the long delay indicates that the government intends
to cheat on
the final tabulations.
Saving a
nation and averting genocide
l'express. Mauritius
Vendredi 25 avril 2008 - No. 16501
By Roukaya
Kasenally,
University of Mauritius
In January 2006 in
an article entitled The hopeful continent, The
Economist referred to a
Gallup International Poll that indicated that
Africans are the world’s
staunchest optimists. Indeed post colonial African
politics has undergone
positive developments, which saw in certain parts of
Africa a significant
shift from single to multi party systems, the presence
of opposition
parties, the demise of political parties founded by military
leaders as well
as the introduction of a two-term presidential limit.
However these
gains /advancements can easily be reversed, sending the
continent and its
people into the darkest of ages. In fact, the unfolding
human tragedy in
Zimbabwe and the recent traumatic post-election violence in
Kenya bear
witness to this.
It will be nearly four weeks that the people of
Zimbabwe have gone to
the polls with a strong expectation to change their
destiny and that of
their country. Instead the country has entered into deep
political limbo
which has seen a series of absurd / bizarre events ranging
from the non
release of the presidential results by the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission
(ZEC), the High Court’s outright rejection of the MDC’s petition
to force
ZEC to release the presidential election results and the decision
of ZEC to
accede to the demand of ZANU-PF to conduct a recount of the
presidential,
parliamentary, and local council votes from 23
constituencies!
Regular news feeds coming from Zimbabwe point to a
country that is
dangerously entering a point of no-return and, if allowed to
go unchecked,
may cause the genocide of a nation. The latest commando
operation approved
by Mugabe and his political cronies called
Makavhoterapapi, a Shona word for
‘where did you put your cross?’ is
profiling innocent Zimbabwean citizens
who are being brutally mutilated and
massacred. News of an ammunition cargo
heading for Zimbabwe has accentuated
the world’s concern and fear that
Mugabe is gathering a war arsenal against
his people.
This year marks 28 years that Mugabe ‘ruled’ Zimbabwe
during which he
took the country from glorious independence to absolute
economic meltdown.
Once known as the bread basket of Africa, Zimbabwe
currently runs a whopping
inflation rate of 165,000 percent (up from the
100,000 pre election rate),
has 80 percent of its people unemployed, has one
of the lowest life
expectancy in the world – 37 years and has some 3 million
of its people
living in exile.
A decade of trauma and
misery
One would expect that these are rather exaggerated figures
popularized
by western media in an attempt to vilify the Mugabe regime. Alas
there is
nothing more real than the daily brunt of the average Zimbabwean
citizen who
has to develop extraordinary survival techniques just to exist.
Supermarkets
and shops remain constantly empty and if ever one is able to
get one’s hands
on ordinary bread the price is too high for most Zimbabwean
citizens to
afford.
I was recently talking to a colleague who
is a senior academic at the
University of Zimbabwe and was shocked to hear
that his monthly salary is
just enough to fill half the tank of his car with
gasoline and that is if
you are lucky enough to get it. To deal with
inflation the central bank has
resorted to the printing of a 50 million Zim
note and even contemplating of
releasing a 100 million note in the near
future!
The world has kept a close and constant eye on the Zimbabwe
crisis and
the question that has been on everyone’s lips is – how do we put
a stop to
the human carnage and free the Zimbabwean people? The West and
especially
Britain has been reprimanded for interfering into African matters
and that
it is up to Africa to find solutions to its problems. This no doubt
is a
fair argument which I strongly adhere to. Unfortunately no solution has
yet
been delivered except a quiet diplomacy approach of letting the
electoral
process follow its course!
Two summits (Lusaka and
SADC Poverty & Development) have been missed
opportunities to deal with
the Zimbabwean crisis in a direct and firm
manner. For those of us who were
there, Zimbabwe’s state of anarchy and
crisis was mentioned only by civil
society, the Prime minister of Norway and
the European Union Commissioner!
In fact, it is quite mind-boggling to deal
with the thematic of poverty and
development in the SADC region and
‘diplomatically’ avoid referring to the
Zimbabwean case. It is imperative
that SADC as a region bloc / community (if
it wants to maintain its
credibility as a relevant platform for people /
countries of the region)
takes an urgent stand on the Zimbabwe crisis. As
Kofi Annan mentioned a
couple of days ago “Where are the Africans? Where are
the leaders and the
countries in the region? What are they doing? It's a
crisis that will impact
beyond Zimbabwe and we have a responsibility to find
viable solution.”
Many observers believe that Mugabe has been
tolerated for too long by
his peers who have turned a lenient or at times a
blind eye to his excessive
and abusive behaviour. This can be partly
explained by the prevailing
African political culture where status,
hierarchy and liberation solidarity
forged during the battle for
independence rank high and there is no doubt
that Mugabe scores full marks
in that register. Mugabe’s anti colonialism
ranting against Britain has
occasionally won him sympathy among other
African leaders who found in him a
convenient stick to use against the West.
However, patience and
solidarity is wearing thin as the quiet
diplomacy favoured by the region’s
appointed mediator – President Mbeki is
not really delivering concrete
results. Mbeki’s political autism on the
Zimbabwe crisis has been contrasted
by the outright position taken by ANC’s
leader - Jacob Zuma. However there
seems to be a glimmer of hope with the
stepping up of international pressure
through the harsh condemnation of UN’s
secretary general and other foreign
leaders. This saw the African Union this
week add its voice to the chorus of
disapproval; its current chairman, the
president of Tanzania, is pressing
within the AU and the SADC for action.
The last decade has seen
Zimbabwe and the majority of its people slip
into a hell hole. At the moment
all energies and efforts are concentrated on
getting rid of someone who
prides on calling himself the black Hitler,
however it is imperative to
reflect on the needs / requirements of a
post-Mugabe era. A decade of
trauma, misery and absolute dispossession
should give way to prosperity,
stability and dignity. The IMF has put aside
a US $ 1 billion currency and
stabilization fund and there are proposals
around important infrastructure
projects. Rebuilding and restructuring will
also have to review the thorny
issue of land reform and ensure that the
people of Zimbabwe get their
due.
Zimbabwe is a nation in peril and time is of the essence as on
a daily
basis we hear of horror stories where our brothers and sisters are
being
savagely exterminated. As Africans we have the moral responsibility to
intervene to avoid the genocide of a nation otherwise we shall be held
account for the killing of our own people!
An Yue Jiang unloads in Angola
Zimbabwe Metro
By Raymond Mhaka ⋅ April
24, 2008
Despite reports that the chinese ship An Yue Jiang has been recalled
to
China, emerging evidence suggests otherwise. The ship loaded with weapons
for Zimbabwe, is expected to dock in Lobito, Angola at midday on
Friday.
International Transport Workers Federation’s spokesperson Sam
Dawson said on
Wednesday that they were “extremely confident” that the
Chinese container
ship was on its way to Lobito. Preparations would be made
to prevent its
cargo from being off-loaded by dock workers there.
The
Chinese ship had been spotted off the western coast of Africa, he said,
but
declined identify the ITFs sources, since they would be in danger of
being
exposed. He said the ship was sailing at 11 knots and would, by ITF
calculations, be outside Lobito on Friday.
Union preparations were
continuing to block attempts to unload and transport
the cargo “and any
attempt to do so will be met by the strongest possible
trade union
response”.
The ITF has two affiliates in Angola.
Last week the An
Yue Jiang lifted anchor in Durban harbour as it was about
to receive a court
interdict impounding its arsenal of weapons and
ammunition.
The
interdict was obtained by legal and church activists.
Cape Town
Archbishop Thomas Makgoba has said the Anglican Church will be in
touch with
religious bodies in Namibia and Angola to explore “ecumenical
action” to
prevent the cargo from being off-loaded.
A western diplomatic source in
Luanda said Angolan President Jose Eduardo
dos Santos had sent a letter on
Sunday to his Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert
Mugabe. The content of the
letter was not officially disclosed.
But an Angolan external relations
ministry official, who requested
anonymity, said this week that the Angolan
government would not issue
authorisation for the ship to dock in any of the
country’s ports.
“Given the ongoing volatile political situation in
Zimbabwe, we believe we
need to approach this issue very carefully,” he
said.
The official refused to confirm whether the vessel or the Chinese
authorities had asked for permission, noting Angola was still following the
issue in the international media.
Dawson confirmed that the ITF had
been in touch with the An Yue Jiang’s
owner, Cosco, on Wednesday and had
suggested to them that the proper course
to take would be to return to
China. Cosco replied that the request “would
be going through our
channels”.
This contradicts statements by Chinese authorities that the
ship had been
recalled. Cosco, like most Chinese companies, is part-owned by
the Chinese
government, but China’s foreign ministry has said it will not
interfere in
what it called a normal commercial transaction.
Sources
said they expected an announcement on a recall would be made by
Cosco
itself, rather than the Chinese government, even though the order
might be
given by the latter.
On Wednesday at 6pm, Steve Olley of the Maritime
Intelligence Unit of
Lloyds, which runs a 24-hour tracking operation, said
it had been in the
dark over the ship’s whereabouts since 5pm on Tuesday,
when it was 25
nautical miles off Cape Town.
Either the ship had
switched off its transponder, or it had sailed so close
to the shore that
the signal might have been blocked, he said.
Angola sent 2500 ‘ninjas’ to
Zimbabwe
In March last year Angola sent 2500 of its feared paramilitary
police to
Zimbabwe, raising concerns of an escalation in violence against
President
Robert Mugabe’s opponents.
Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister
Kembo Mohadi confirmed the imminent arrival
of the Angolans
then.
Angola is regarded as the most powerful military nation in Africa,
after
South Africa.
Racist mass murder in Zimbabwe
Politicsweb
Paul Trewhela
25 April
2008
Elinor Sisulu on the 1983 to 1987 Gukurahandi in
Matabeleland.
Racist mass-murder of isiNdebele-speakers by the regime
of President Robert
Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party took place in Zimbabwe
between 1983 and 1987.
This is the subject of a factual investigative
report, Gukurahundi in
Zimbabwe (Hurst and Co., London, 2007), first
published by the Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and
the Legal Resources
Foundation in 1997 as Breaking the Silence: A Report on
the Disturbances in
Matabeleland and the Midlands. We print below passages
from the Introduction
to the 2007 edition, written by Elinor
Sisulu.
Part of the silence was that of leaders of the African National
Congress,
then fighting the apartheid regime of South Africa with an army
based mainly
in Angola. At the same time as the Mugabe regime was carrying
out its
Gukurahundi (or "washing away of the chaff") in Zimbabwe, the ANC
exercised
a repressive regime over its own members, a large number of whom
were
imprisoned and brutalised at Quatro detention camp in northern Angola.
This
took place especially after the mutiny in Angola in February and May
1984 of
over 90 percent of the ANC's trained troops. (For a first-hand
report, see
here).
The mutineers had been protesting against the lack
of a democratic
conference and the repressive character of the ANC Security
Department,
which they regarded as infiltrated by the security forces of the
apartheid
regime. Major General Andrew Masondo, who died on 20 April this
year -
former lecturer at the University College of Fort Hare, long-term
prisoner
on Robben Island, National Commissar of the ANC in exile and
subsequent head
of the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (Somafco) at Mazimbu
in Tanzania
(where he was later accused of having carried out sexual abuse
of young
women students) - was one of the architects of that repressive
regime.
Quatro in Angola found a still more terrible parallel in Gukurahundi
in
Zimbabwe .
The Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Thabo
Makgoba, has stated
that leaders of the government of South Africa
"currently appear to many
beyond our borders as heartless and unmoved by the
suffering of
Zimbabweans." (For full statement, see here). The Archbishop is
too kind, to
the South African government.
The crime of Gukurahundi
took place a quarter of a century ago. Based as
they were in Lusaka in
Zambia, immediately to the north of Zimbabwe, it is
impossible that leaders
of the ANC in exile at that time such as President
Thabo Mbeki and Arts and
Culture Minister Pallo Jordan did not know. The
Zimbabwean nationalist
party, Zapu, led by Joshua Nkomo, had been one of
their most intimate
allies. The two organisations had together fought as
allies in Zimbabwe. Had
a white government conducted mass murder of black
people in Rhodesia on even
a fraction of the same scale, the ANC would have
organised a tidal wave of
protest across the globe.
Instead, Mbeki and Jordan (re-elected last
December as a member of the
National Executive Committee of the ANC) have
preserved a diplomatic silence
for a quarter of a century on this great
crime of southern Africa: a
"Sharpeville massacre" replicated many times
over. This might have been
excused as pragmatic while the ANC was in exile,
fighting a military and
diplomatic struggle against the apartheid regime in
Pretoria . Since
publication of the report of the Catholic Commission for
Justice and Peace
in 1997, it is open and unforgivable collusion with the
murderers. The
discrepancy between Minister Jordan's current outrage at the
writings of a
white columnist in South Africa (see here) and his silence
over the regime
of Gukurahundi is bare-faced hypocrisy.
Elinor Sisulu
is the daughter-in-law of the late Walter Sisulu and Albertina
Sisulu, two
of the most respected leaders of the ANC in South Africa over
half a
century. She is one of the first people from the ANC tradition in
South
Africa to break that terrible silence. As mentor and comrade to Nelson
Mandela, her father-in-law served a life sentence on Robben Island, where
Jacob Zuma - now president of the ANC - was a fellow prisoner. Elinor Sisulu
herself has provided an inspirational lead to the ANC, the Congress of South
African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party - and not least
to the aged Mandela himself - in their moral responsibility towards the
terrorist regime in their neighbour to the north. All the crimes of the
Mugabe regime follow from its Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s. "Breaking
the silence" must start with the government of South Africa. Ms Sisulu
speaks to that government, and to former President Mandela
himself.
Elinor Sisulu, Introduction to the 2007 edition, Gukurahundi in
Zimbabwe,
(Hurst and Co, London, 2007)
The Shona expression
"Gukurahundi", meaning "the first rain that washes away
the chaff of the
last harvest before the spring rains", used to have
pleasant connotations.
...In the 1980s the term Gukurahundi assumed an
entirely new meaning when
the North Korean-trained 5 Brigade murdered
thousands of people in the
Zimbabwean province of Matabeleland and parts of
Midlands. Both the 5
Brigade and the period of mayhem and murder they caused
were called
Gukurahundi, which is why, since then, the word Gukurahundi
invokes nothing
but negative emotions among Zimbabweans, ranging from
indifference, shame,
denial, terror, bitter anger and deep trauma, depending
on whether one is a
victim, perpetrator or one of the millions of citizens
who remained silent.
...
...Yolande Mukagasana [is] a Rwandan woman whose husband and three
children
were murdered in the 1994 genocide. ...The title of one of her
books, Les
Blessures du Silence (The Wounds of Silence), comes to mind
whenever I
grapple with the capacity of human societies to ignore gross
human rights
violations even if these happen right in their midst. Nelson
Mandela
commented on this tendency with reference to Rwanda: "The louder and
more
piercing the cries of despair - even when that despair results in
half-a-million dead in Rwanda - the more these cries seem to encourage an
instinctive reaction to raise our hands so as to close our eyes and
ears".
...The report [by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace]
points out
that one of the most painful aspects of the Gukurahundi massacres
was that
the plight of the victims and survivors was and continues to be
unacknowledged. They are still suffering from the wounds of silence. And who
is responsible for inflicting these wounds? The perpetrators obviously have
a vested interest in maintaining this silence. But what about the rest of us
who lived through those years and continued our lives as if nothing was
happening? Are we not equally responsible for the wounds of silence, both
while the horrific events of Gukurahundi were unfolding, and in their
aftermath? Even today many of us continue to be silent.
As I read
this report I felt a deep sense of shame about my own silence.
...[Those] of
us who had family in Matabeleland had no excuse. Right from
the start of the
5 Brigade campaign, news filtered out through family and
community networks
that there was something horrendous going on. ...
...The 5 Brigade did
not fall within the army chain of command but was
directly answerable to the
highest office in the land. With hindsight we
know without a doubt that
President Robert Mugabe was fully aware and part
of the campaign of mass
murder in the Matabeleland hinterland. At the time
many of us were too
enamoured of our great liberation hero to allow
ourselves to confront all
the evidence of his direct complicity. ...The eyes
and ears of the
international community were also closed. In contrast to the
propaganda
image of the radical Marxist leader, Robert Mugabe was moderation
itself
during his first few years in office. ...The cries of the Ndebele
people
fell on deaf ears.
...The stories of physical and psychological torture,
rape and other forms
of sexual abuse, starvation of the population, burning
of homes and
granaries, disappearances, bodies thrown down mineshafts and
murders are all
familiar and consistent with what I heard described by
relatives. However, I
was taken aback by the account of the mass shooting of
62 young men and
women on the banks of the Cewale River in Lupane on 5 March
1983. The
silence that greeted this massacre is in direct contrast to the
1960
Sharpeville Massacre, news of which reverberated around the
world.
The Gukurahundi operations came to an end with the 1987 Unity
Accord between
Zapu and Zanu. At the end of the Liberation War in 1980, all
those guilty of
violations were covered by a general amnesty. The report
notes the important
fact that once more in Zimbabwe's history, those
responsible for the most
heinous acts against unarmed civilians were not
held accountable for their
actions, thus strengthening the culture of
impunity that prevails in
Zimbabwe. The human rights violations since 2000
are a product of this
culture of impunity. The same tools of intimidation,
physical and
psychological torture and murder have been used, albeit on a
lesser scale,
in the recent violations. The difference is that they are
targeted not on a
particular ethnic group but at opposition leaders
throughout the country.
Far from being a closed chapter, Gukurahundi has
left a festering wound in
the psyche of the Zimbabwean nation. ...The
silence needs to be broken.
Hopefully, one day the leaders of this region
who have not cried out as
loudly as they should have against the enormous
and heinous crimes against
the people of Zimbabwe that were committed in the
past 23 years, will see
fit to apologise to the people of
Zimbabwe.
Elinor Sisulu, December 2006
Election impasse spurs emigration
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Date: 24 Apr
2008
Zimbabweans have been
voting with their feet amidst mounting political
uncertainty.
By
Yamikani Mwando in Bulawayo (ZCR No. 143, 24-Apr-08)
A few weeks before
the March 29 elections in Zimbabwe, Timothy Mthombeni
decided he was not
going to wait long enough to cast his ballot.
The 40-year-old father of
four had a job but decided to leave for South
Africa and send for his family
once he had settled there.
He was sure life would get worse after the
elections, not just as the
economic crisis deepened and food shortages
became greater, but also because
he foresaw an outbreak of violence if the
outcome was disputed.
He packed his bags and left to join a growing
exodus from Zimbabwe.
This week, almost a month after the elections,
50-year-old Tabeth Zvirevo, a
former domestic worker in a Bulawayo suburb –
where she said wages were not
too bad – also crossed the border to South
Africa to look for work, blaming
continued economic hardship.
"Maybe
I would have stayed if [opposition leader Morgan] Tsvangirai had
won," she
said.
Zvirevo has children to care for, and having worked all her life,
was not
about to sit around after her employers left the country leaving her
without
no source of income.
“I don’t know what to do, but I am not
staying here. There are no signs
things will improve any time soon,” Zvirevo
told IWPR.
She was speaking as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission began
controversial
vote recounts in areas where the ruling ZANU-PF party says it
was cheated of
victory.
The threat of violence has become real for
many in this troubled nation as
they flee to neighbouring South
Africa.
Zimbabwean human rights groups say there has been a dramatic
increase in
politically motivated violence since the election, which Mugabe
is widely
believed to have lost.
With the presidential election
result still not announced, local private
newspapers have been running
adverts placed by human rights and faith-based
groups showing images of the
victims of political violence. The photographs
show cracked heads, burnt
buttocks, burnt feet and swollen mouths.
Mugabe’s supporters are accused
of orchestrating a countrywide crackdown
against the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, MDC.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa alleges that 10
supporters have so far been
killed by ZANU-PF activists, but Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamasa has
accused the MDC of peddling falsehoods. The
MDC’s claims however have been
documented by groups including Zimbabwe
Doctors for Human Rights, Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights, the Zimbabwe
Peace Project and Amnesty
International, among others.
Early this
month, the Christian Alliance, an ecumenical grouping of local
churches,
demanded that “the state media, war veterans and other militias
stop fanning
the flames of conflict”, after state media showed images of
pro-Mugabe war
veterans threatening white commercial farmers with violence
if they refused
to vacate their farms.
The remnants of the 1970s war of liberation have
been prominent among the
forces propping up Mugabe, and have been accused of
unleashing a reign of
terror across the country soon after the March 29
elections.
Many observers say post-election violence has displaced
civilians within
Zimbabwe and prompted others to leave the
country.
“It is not surprising that many people do not see any reason why
they should
stay here when there are continuing fears of an outbreak of wide
scale
violence,” a teacher who resigned last year told IWPR. “The people of
Zimbabwe are being pushed to the edge.”
Last month, MDC
secretary-general Tendai Biti warned that the international
community would
only be impelled to take action on the Zimbabwe crisis after
bodies began
filling the streets.
It appears these fears are shared by many
Zimbabweans.
The Southern African Migration Project has reported an
upsurge in the number
of people seeking to cross into South Africa, impelled
by the uncertainty
created by the post-election situation.
“No one
wants to stay here any more,” said a young woman who had just
obtained a
travel visa to South Africa for herself and her two-month-old
baby. “I am
not coming back.”
Despite the numbers of people arriving in his country,
South African
president Thabo Mbeki shocked the international community by
claiming there
was no crisis in Zimbabwe when he met Mugabe
recently.
In the past, organisations like the International Organisation
for Migration
have attempted to discourage the young, in particular, from
leaving
Zimbabwe. But for people of all generations, such pleas appear to
have
fallen on deaf ears.
Yamikani Mwando is the pseudonym of a
journalist in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe festival diary
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