http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tererai Karimakwenda
29 April,
2011
A High Court in Harare has granted permission to the Zimbabwe
Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) to conduct their traditional May Day
celebrations over
the weekend, over ruling an earlier ban by the
police.
The umbrella labour group had notified the police that their
members
intended to march in 4 districts around the country on Sunday, to
celebrate
workers’ day. But earlier in the week they were denied permission
to march
in the Midlands and Manicaland. Then on Friday morning, a day
before the
event, they received a police notice banning the Harare march as
well.
“We intended to march from the city to the stadium as we always
do,” the
ZCTU Secretary General Japhet Moyo, told SW Radio Africa. But the
police
banned the march citing “security reasons”.
Moyo said the
group’s lawyers decided to appeal the ban at the High Court in
Harare and a
decision granting the ZCTU permission to march in all 4
districts was handed
down late on Friday.
“We have now asked our members to gather where the
processions start on
Sunday,” a jubilant Moyo announced. But he would not
reveal the exact
locations where members are to gather, fearing that police
would disrupt the
marches before they got underway.
Moyo criticicized
the security forces for ignoring the communiqué issued by
SADC leaders after
their Summit last month, which instructed them to create
a peaceful
environment and respect the spirit of the GPA.
http://www.radiovop.com/
29/04/2011 16:43:00
Harare, April 29, 2011 - Kenyan Prime
Minister Raila Odinga says his country
is prepared to help Zimbabwe complete
its constitution making process that
has been constantly marred by
chaos.
“We in Kenya are slightly ahead of Zimbabwe and we have something
to share
with Zimbabwe particularly in the process of constitution making.
So we have
offered that we will share some of the information that we have
with
Zimbabwe so that there is no need to re-invent the wheel. They can use
whatever is useful for them here because circumstances are never the same,
they differ,” Odinga told journalists at State House Friday afternoon while
emerging from a brief meeting with President Robert Mugabe.
The
Kenyan Premier flew into Zimbabwe mid morning Friday where he went
straight
to pay a courtesy call on the Zimbabwean leader. The two emerged
from the
meeting holding arms and for almost five minutes, were chatting
while
holding arms.
Odinga, a strong critic of President Robert Mugabe, is in
Zimbabwe at the
invitation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s mainstream
MDC formation
and is set to grace the party’s on-going elective congress in
Bulawayo.
Odinga refused to comment about Zimbabwe’s coalition government
saying the
matter was for Zimbabweans.
“That is the issue for
Zimbabweans he said,” eliciting a loud giggle from
President Mugabe. “We had
a very useful meeting. I am very thankful to his
Excellency for meeting us,”
he said while commenting about his meeting with
Mugabe.
“We had a
very good meeting with his excellency, President of Zimbabwe. I
brought with
me greetings from his counterpart President Mwai Kibaki in
Kenya. We have
basically been comparing notes about developments in Zimbabwe
and in Kenya,
as you know that Zimbabwe and Kenya share a number of things
in common plus
we have the colonial legacy between us,” Odinga said.
Mugabe did not
speak to journalists but only shook his head and nodded in
agreement to what
the Kenyan premier was saying after their meeting.
Odinga arrived at the
State with his wife and entourage with Deputy Prime
Minister, Thokozani
Khupe who received him at the Harare International
Airport.
Opening
the congress on Thursday, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the
president
of the MDC said Zimbabwe will hold elections in a year's time,
contracting
Mugabe, who had said elections will be held this year.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
29 April, 2011
It has been reported that several vehicles
owned by the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) were towed away this week after
the bank failed to settle a
debt with the SeedCo company. According to the
NewsDay newspaper, vehicles
were towed away by a Deputy Sheriff on
Thursday.
The report said senior bank officials warned others who had not
yet driven
into the bank’s parking lot, to stay away, as the Sheriff was
waiting there
to take more vehicles.
The amount owed to SeedCo by the
RBZ is believed to be $4.2 million, which
reportedly went to purchase seeds
that were to be distributed to help
farmers. An additional $1.1 billion is
owed to other local companies and
civic groups whose foreign currency
accounts were raided by the bank between
2004 and 2008.
The SeedCo
debt is reported to be just one of many incurred by the Reserve
Bank over
the years as it embarked on projects that had nothing to do with
its core
mission. Legislation passed by parliament last year after the
formatin of
the unity government, forced the RBZ to refocus its efforts on
financial
activities.
The bank has since dropped some of its special projects and
downsized
others. Hundreds of employees lost their jobs in
January.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Edward Jones Friday 29 April
2011
HARARE – Personal security in Zimbabwe can no longer be
guaranteed as
lawlessness continues in the troubled southern African state,
rights group
Zimbabwe Peace Project has said, highlighting the urgent need
for political
reforms.
Opponents of President Robert Mugabe say the
87-year-old leader’s supporters
are guilty of human rights violations as
part of a wider campaign to cow
opponents and keep the octogenarian leader
in power.
The ZPP said in its latest report that police stood accused of
siding with
ZANU-PF, which is fingered for most of the rights
violations.
“The security of person is no longer guaranteed as
lawlessness is slowly
becoming the order of the day,” the rights group said.
“Zanu PF has been
viewed as the only legitimate party and as such people are
forced to join
it. Police officers have been reported to be incarcerating
victims of
political violence instead of the perpetrators.”
Zimbabwe
has a turbulent rights record since independence in 1980 but
criticism
against human rights violations have only increased over the last
decade as
Mugabe has desperately sought to fend off a threat from Prime
Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to end his
rule.
The MDC say Mugabe has used state security agents, youth
militia and
veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war to crackdown on its
followers.
The ZPP said although there had been a decline in cases of
politically
motivated human rights, the 1120 cases that were recorded
remained too high.
“Cases of harassment and intimidation have remained
very high as more people
continue to have their rights violated for either
refusing to sign the
anti-sanctions petition or refusal to attend ZANU-PF
meetings,” the ZPP
said.
Mugabe’s party has started a campaign to get
two million people to sign a
petition against sanctions imposed by the
European Union, United States,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada on Mugabe
and his ZANU-PF allies and there
have been reports that the party was
forcing villagers to sign the petition.
The leadership of
non-governmental organisations has continued to come under
attack from the
government, the ZPP said, after the continued arrest of some
heads of
NGOs.
Mugabe has previously threatened NGOs, especially those providing
food aid
in the country’s rural areas, accusing them of working with his
opponents to
unseat him from power.
But critics have accused ZANU-PF
of denying opposition supporters food aid
in the past.
“Preliminary
signs of a drought this year and the ever increasing political
tension
throughout the country, are most likely going to see an increase in
the
number of politically motivated human rights violations,” the rights
group
said.
Zimbabwe faces food shortages this year after a mid-season drought
destroyed
crops in the Matabeleland Provinces, Masvingo and Manicaland
Provinces and
will likely increase the number of vulnerable people to three
million,
according to aid agencies. -- ZimOnline
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Sydney Saize
Friday, 29 April 2011
16:08
CHIPINGE - Five MDC members in Chipinge East’s Musilizwi
village about 40km
south east of the town were allegedly abducted on
Wednesday by suspected
state security agents at midnight as violation of the
Sadc demands continue.
Chipinge East MP, Mathius Matewu Mlambo told the
Daily News that the five
women were kidnapped at their homes at midnight by
people who were driving a
Nissan Hardbody twin-cab truck.
“The women
were abducted at midnight by people who are suspected to be
linked with the
CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation). We have made a
police report on the
incident at Grassflats (police station) and we have not
yet heard anything
on the whereabouts of the five women,” said a visibly
shaken
Mlambo.
He identified the missing women as Chiedza Simango, Joyce
Penzera, Wedzerai
Bhachi, Esther Chindawande and Sarah Soto.
Mlambo
said the abduction could be linked to their husbands who had a
misunderstanding with the village headman, Abel Jenya over the payment of
goats towards a rain making ceremony and they fled the area after getting
information that Zanu PF people were after them.
“The five men
refused to pay the goats towards the ceremony arguing they had
lost their
livestock during the June 2008 presidential run-off to Zanu PF
supporters
and had not been compensated.
“This angered the village headman who then
made a report to Zanu PF
officials who ganged with suspected state security
agents to raid the homes
of the defiant individuals with a view to fix them
for undermining the
authority of the village head,” said Mlambo.
He
said when the defiant five men got wind to the plan to raid their homes
they
ran away.
Headman Jenya could not be reached for a comment
yesterday.
David Sibiya, the MDC district chair for Chipinge added that
the men could
have escaped to South Africa on hearing that the state agents
were looking
for them.
Sibiya said the villagers who lost their
livestock to Zanu PF supporters in
the June 2008 violence felt they could
not donate any of their livestock to
the headman since they lost some of
their livestock to Zanu PF supporters in
2008.
“During the 2008
violence the families lost six goats each and this made
them refuse to take
the orders of the headman. They have not been
compensated for their loss,”
he said.
Police at Grassflats police post could not be reached for a
comment as their
telephones are out of order. Manicaland province police
spokesperson
inspector Brian Makomeke said he was unaware of the incident.
http://www.voanews.com/
The Human
Rights Institute of Southern Africa said the breakdown of the rule
of law in
Zimbabwe has made it difficult for people to obtain justice or
enforce
judgments, especially those against the state
Blessing Zulu | Washington
28 April 2011
The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has
been urged to
investigate alleged torture and other human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe and
Swaziland.
In a statement to the commission, which met
in Banjul, Gambia, on Thursday,
the Human Rights Institute of Southern
Africa said the continental body
should appoint special rapporteurs to
investigate alleged human rights
abuses in the two countries.
The
organization said the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe has made
it
difficult for people to obtain justice or enforce judgments, especially
those against the state.
Though the Southern African Development
Community has urged President Robert
Mugabe to accelerate democratic
reforms, rights activists say little has
changed. The Zimbabwe Peace Project
reported that his ZANU-PF party is still
coercing people to sign a petition
against Western travel and financial
sanctions on him and
others.
ZANU-PF has been accused of using the state security apparatus to
silence
dissent.
Human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba, executive
director of the Zimbabwe
Exiles Forum in South Africa, told VOA Studio 7’s
reporter Blessing Zulu
that the call by the Human Rights Institute for the
AU commission to
investigate rights abuses is encouraging.
http://www.voanews.com
Sources
estimated that each time President Mugabe travels to Singapore for
medical
care accompanied by a large retinue aboard an Air Zimbabwe craft it
costs
the country around US$3 million
Gibbs Dube | Washington 28 April
2011
Zimbabwean economists agree with Finance Minister Tendai Biti's
complaint
that foreign junkets by government officials are unnecessarily
draining the
Treasury with a likely cost of US$50 million this year
contributing to a
projected deficit of some US$150 million.
They said
Biti’s acknowledgment in his quarterly financial review this week
that the
trips are not productive and waste precious funding should be taken
seriously by the Cabinet and the executive branch. President Robert Mugabe
is estimated to have spent millions on foreign travel including trips to the
Far East for medical care in Singapore.
Sources estimated that each
trip to Singapore with a large retinue aboard an
aircraft of state carrier
Air Zimbabwe costs the country some US$3 million.
Mr. Mugabe, who is said
to be under treatment for prostate cancer though his
office has dismissed
such reports as speculation. According to semi-official
accounts he traveled
to Singapore recently to visit his wife Grace, said to
be under care there,
then proceeding to the Rome summit of the United
Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization.
Economist Eric Bloch said the government should
divert funds set aside for
foreign trips to the benefit of poor Zimbabweans.
"These trips should be
controlled through Cabinet and any trip that is not
necessary should be
canceled so that funds saved will be channeled towards
programs for the
disadvantaged," Bloch said.
http://www.radiovop.com
29/04/2011 18:09:00
Vatican
City, April 29, 2011 — The Vatican said Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe
will attend Sunday's beatification ceremony for late pope John Paul
II,
despite being banned from travel to the European Union.
Vatican spokesman
Federico Lombardi said on Friday that Mugabe was on the
list of world
leaders who have confirmed their presence.
"Zimbabwe is a state with
which the Holy See has diplomatic relations. There
is therefore nothing to
hide," he said.
The Vatican is a sovereign state that is not part of the
European Union,
although Mugabe would have to transit through the Italian
capital of Rome.
Mugabe, a Catholic who has been widely condemned for
human rights abuses,
also attended John Paul II's funeral in 2005 despite
the 2002 travel ban --
a visit that drew controversy because Britain's
Prince Charles shook hands
with him.
Travelling under United Nations
auspices, Mugabe also came to Rome in 2008
for a summit of the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization.
Twenty-two world leaders are expected to attend
the ceremony that will put
John Paul II on the path to sainthood, the
Vatican said.
Lombardi said a total of 87 international delegations would
be attending and
the leaders would include 16 heads of state and six
government leaders.
Five royal families -- Belgium, Britain,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and
Spain -- will be represented and the heads of
state will include Poland's
Bronislaw Komorowski, Mexico's Felipe Calderon
and Italy's Giorgio
Napolitano.
The Vatican said it had given out
2,300 accreditations for the ceremony,
including 1,300 for television
stations.
There will be journalists from 101 countries around the world,
it said. AFP
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Roadwin Chirara, Business Writer
Friday, 29 April 2011
16:20
HARARE - The Grain Marketing Board (GMB)’s pension fund has
been rocked by
serious allegations of corruption and misappropriation of
funds, and company
assets by senior managers.
Although company
chief executive Taona Munzvandi defended his contentious
acquisition of a
Borrowdale house and the payment of hefty allowances as
above board, a
preliminary report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) queried a
number of
transactions by the fund’s top hierarchy.
The audit particularly singles
out extravagant expenditure and non-taxable
allowances to George
Magosvongwe’s board, where the likes of Munzvandi drew
US$12 000 in December
2010.
However, the GMB pension fund boss denied the existence of a report
detailing such perceived plunder, saying the allowances were “in line with a
human resources consultant recommendation”.
“I have not seen that
report, but most of the information that has been
forwarded to the auditors.
There is nothing wrong with the amount paid as it
is line with a report of
what non-executive directors and the chairman
should be paid,” Munzvandi
said.
An outgrowth of GMB, the contributory fund had over 2 500 members
and assets
worth US$2,8 million as at December last year.
Like its
parent company — GMB, which has always been dogged by allegations
of
corruption and dodgy deals — the fund is now facing a class action or
suit
from 17 ex-employees for underpaying pensions and at a time Munzvandi
and
other company bosses received hefty sums of money from December to
January
this year.
The state-run grain procurer, for instance, has been subject
to numerous
investigations over the years, with such former managers as
Martin Muchero
being arraigned before the courts for bilking the strategic
food reserve
company of millions of dollars in 2002.
Apart from
Muchero, a raft of successors and other smaller depot officials
countrywide
have also been fingered in shady dealings.
“Allowances amounting to
US$46,002 (for the CEO) and US$11 780 (for the
chairman) as well as other
allowances for the board were not taxed.
The value of the allowances is
not specified in amount, as expected, in
minutes of the board meetings,” the
audit firm said.
Crucially, the audit firm noted that some benefits paid
out in 2010 were not
submitted to Zimra for tax assessments, as is the norm
with any termination
benefits payout process and as recommended by the
fund’s actuaries.
“Actuary advice should be sought when payments are to
be made to members
that seem to qualify for such payments if the amounts
differ from the
financial valuations,” PwC said in the
report.
Discrepancies were also found in pension payouts with some
members being
overpaid, while those not recorded in the funds books made
claims.
“Members with almost nil/low balances as per the most recent
actuarial
valuation were paid amounts which differ significantly from the
ones
recommended by the actuary. Claims were accrued/paid to persons that do
not
appear on the actuarial valuation,” PwC said.
The fund chief
executive was also fingered in a ploy to alter deeds of sale
documentation
or papers for six Charlotte Brook stands, in a bid to reduce
liability
development and levies to the Goromonzi Rural District Council
(GRDC).
PwC also noted that the stipends paid, particularly cellphone
allowances,
were above normal rates and were not supported by board
resolutions for them
to be paid.
In the real estate saga, the
accountancy firm recommended that the fund
reverts back to the original
deeds arrangement to avoid reputational risks
or damages and penalties for
the action.
“Deeds of sale altered should be corrected and the
appropriate amount paid
to the Goromonzi Rural District Council (GRDC).Other
intentional actions or
fraudulent activities may be initiated by any of the
staff member if such a
culture is maintained.
“Exposure of the Fund
on such an ill note resulting in at least reputational
damage,” the audit
report said.
The GMB pension fund is also found to have had workers on
its payroll, but
who did not have any documentation to back up or support
their employment.
In the meantime, Albert Mandizha’s GMB has repeatedly
failed to pay farmers
for crop delivered in recent years.
http://af.reuters.com/
Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:00pm
GMT
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai tried to
breathe new life into his floundering
MDC party on Friday with plans for a
leadership shake-up and a rousing
speech in which he called his rivals
"oppressors."
Tsvangirai is
seeking to strengthen his party's base as he prepares for
another campaign
to unseat Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe in elections,
expected this
year or next.
"The MDC will win the next elections and we will form the
next government
and we will take Zimbabwe into a new era of peace,
prosperity, dignity and
hope," Tsvangirai said at a
congress of his
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Mugabe, forced into the unity
government with Tsvangirai after a disputed
election in 2008 marred by
violence, has called for a fresh vote this year.
MDC officials have said
a vote this year would violate terms of the unity
government, end a nascent
recovery and could lead to a bloodbath reminiscent
of the 2008
vote.
Tsvangirai, whose leadership is not being challenged, aims to use
the
two-day congress to reshuffle senior posts, heal a party hit by internal
fights and reassure supporters he is still capable of ending Mugabe's three
decades in office, MDC officials said.
"Each of us has felt the
weight of the oppressor's baton or the feel of his
fist or booted feet. We
carry the emotional scars from grieving for our
fallen comrades and the
trauma of seeing the sacrifices of our liberation
heroes desecrated on the
altar of political plunder and exploitation,"
Tsvangirai
said.
Support for MDC dropped to 38 percent last year from 55 percent in
2009,
according to a survey in Zimbabwe by U.S.-based research body Freedom
House.
Support for Mugabe's ZANU-PF's popularity rose to 17 percent in
2010 from 12
percent in 2009, the survey said.
The power-sharing
government formed in 2009 has stabilised an economy that
was crushed by
hyperinflation three years ago. But it has been hit by
squabbles over top
posts and reforms.
In an indirect attack on Mugabe, visiting Kenyan Prime
Minister Raila Odinga
told the MDC congress that although colonialism had
damaged Africa, the
continent's current problems were caused by poor
governance.
"This has led to human rights abuses, the breakdown of the
rule of law, the
over-centralisation of power, particularly as vested in
imperial
presidencies and the accompanying cultures of corruption and
impunity," he
said.
Mugabe has worried overseas investors in the
resource-rich state by pressing
ahead with plans to force foreign mining
companies to surrender 51 percent
of their local equity to local blacks in
the next six months.
Mugabe, 87, may be doing this to secure cash quickly
to help fund his
election campaign.
The West has tried to isolate
Mugabe, imposing sanctions on him for
suspected vote rigging and rights
abuses.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
29 April, 2011
A newspaper vendor selling copies of the
Daily News has reported that she
was assaulted on Wednesday by a group of
ZANU PF youths, who also robbed her
of money from the sales.
Alice
Murwisi from Kuwadzana township said she was attacked by six men who
had
warned her on Tuesday that the Daily News was an “unpatriotic” newspaper
and
they would stop her from selling it.
“They kicked me in my back and
punched me in the face and took away the
newspapers and the money from the
sales,” Murwisi was quoted as saying. She
added the youths identified
themselves as ZANU PF members.
Murwisi reported the incident at Kuwadzana
police station. It is not clear
whether any action has been taken but
experience in Zimbabwe has shown that
ZANU PF members can commit violent
acts against perceived enemies with total
impunity.
“I was beaten
heavily by them as they wanted to stop me from doing my work
of selling the
paper, but I am not going to stop since it is a legitimate
business,” a
defiant Murwisi told NewsDay newspaper.
The attack on Murwisi comes in
the same week that the NewsDay newspaper
reported that a laptop and several
hard drives containing sensitive
information had been stolen by a “suspected
thief” who broke into their
offices. The theft took place just days after a
senior reporter at the paper
was summoned by army chiefs who wanted to know
her sources for a recent
story on General Constantine Chiwenga.
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com
29/04/2011 19:21:00 Nkululeko
Ndlovu
HARARE - Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga Friday held talks
with Zimbawe’s
President Robert Mugabe before flying to Bulawayo were he was
the guest of
honour at the MDC-T Third Congress.
Speaking to
journalists after a closed door meeting with Robert Mugabe, Mr.
Odinga who
was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Thokozani Khupe told
journalists that he had a fruitful meeting with the President as they
discussed the rough and tough terrain the two countries
travelled.
He said Zimbabwe and Kenya share a common history adding that
among issues
discussed was how the two countries can assist each other in
dealing with
the current constitutional and other reforms.
Asked
about his view on the inclusive government in Zimbabwe, Mr. Odinga
said
Zimbabwe is a sovereign state which should make its own decisions not
to be
dictated to by foreigners.
Mr Odinga arrived in Harare Friday on his way
to Bulawayo, where he is to
open the third National Conference of the
Movement for Democratic Change.
The talks focused on the similarities in
the history of Kenya and Zimbabwe,
the struggle for the liberation of
Africa, the continent’s place in world
politics, reforms in the two
countries and global affairs.
Mr Odinga conveyed greetings from President
Mwai Kibaki to President Mugabe.
Reforms in politics
President
Mugabe showed strong interest in political developments in Kenya,
particularly the unveiling of the new constitution and said Zimbawe looked
up to Kenya for a model in reforming the constitution.
He said
Zimbabwe had always learnt from Kenya, from the liberation struggle
to date,
adding that he spent years studying the history of the Mau Mau war
of
independence.
President Mugabe invited Mr Odinga to stay in the country
for a longer
period.
Mr Odinga said Kenya and Zimbabwe had links
imposed by history and should
together work towards reforms in
politics.
Mr Odinga promised that Kenya would donate a book on
constitution-making to
Zimbabwe to guide the southern African nation in its
quest for
constitutional reforms.
The Prime Minister left Harare
shortly after 3pm for Bulawayo.
Zimbabwe’s state media have launched a
vicious attack against Kenyan Prime
Minister Raila Odinga after he accepted
an invitation to be a guest at a
congress for a party led by his Harare
counterpart Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mr Odinga will officially open Prime
Minister Tsvangirai’s Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party congress in
the second city of Bulawayo
Friday.
State media propaganda against
the PM’s party has gone into overdrive in
what analysts say is reflection of
widening cracks in Zimbabwe’s coalition
government.
The state owned
Herald newspaper, which usually reflects the thinking in
President Mugabe’s
Zanu-PF party, described Mr Odinga as a merchant of
violence.
“Who
then is this Raila Odinga,'' wrote George Rugare Chingarande in the
paper’s
opinion pages.
“Raila Odinga is a political schizophrenic.
“His
rhetoric oozes with refined contemporary democracy dogma, but his
actions
reveal a very violent and dictatorial streak.
“The exorbitant nature of
this obsessive preoccupation with violence is
rivalled by a few in modern
day African.
A stumbling block
“His proclivity for violence can be
traced to his student days.”
President Mugabe’s sympathisers have never
forgiven Mr Odinga for calling
for the 87-year-old leader’s ouster in a 2008
interview with BBC.
In the interview, Mr Odinga called on African leaders
to push Mugabe out of
power because he was a stumbling block to political
reform in Zimbabwe.
The MDC congress started on Thursday afternoon and
ends on Saturday.
Early this month, acerbic comments in the state-owned
Sunday Mail newspaper
precipitated a diplomatic row between Zimbabwe and
South Africa.
One of the paper’s columnists and a former Information
minister in Mugabe’s
previous government attacked South African President
Jacob Zuma saying he
was not a suitable mediator in Zimbabwe’s
crisis.
President Mugabe had to send emissaries to apologise to Zuma
following the
public fallout.
(AFP) – 2 hours
ago
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — Multi-party elections alone are not enough to
save
Africa from authoritarian rule, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said
Friday as he urged Zimbabwe to pursue deeper reforms.
"We have seen
that the mere re-introduction of multi-party politics in
Africa, after
decades of single-party and military dictatorships, has not
solved the
governance problem," Odinga told supporters of Zimbabwean Prime
Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party.
"We have seen that multi-party elections
alone will not propel us from
institutionalised authoritarian systems to
more democratic modes of
governance," he said, speaking as the guest of
honour at an MDC congress in
the second city of Bulawayo.
Both Odinga
and Tsvangirai came to government through power-sharing deals
signed in the
wake of disputed and violent elections.
The pacts have been credited with
restoring stability in both countries, but
critics say the forced marriages
have done little to resolve underlying
problems.
Odinga, who has
shared power with President Mwai Kibaki since 2008, urged
Zimbabwe to move
"quickly" toward reforms.
Zimbabwe is currently in the middle of drafting
a new constitution as part
of Tsvangirai's 2009 power-sharing deal with
long-time President Robert
Mugabe.
The process was supposed to pave
the way to new elections but has been
repeatedly delayed by outbreaks of
violence.
"Zimbabwe must move quickly to resolve its democratic
challenges, so that it
can take its rightful place as a potential centre for
economic growth in
this part of the continent," Odinga said.
"You
will have to dig deep into your reservoirs of tolerance and compromise
to
ensure that this happens, for the alternative would serve neither the MDC
nor its partner in government. It would only cripple the
nation."
Odinga earlier met with Mugabe in the capital, Harare,
describing the
encounter as "very good".
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Edward Jones Friday 29 April
2011
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s largest platinum miner Zimplats said
yesterday
politicians and business leaders were jockeying to get a slice of
its shares
under the government’s controversial indigenisation drive and
will conclude
talks on how it intends to comply with the empowerment law in
a fortnight.
Impala Platinum (Implats), the second largest producer of
the metal used in
the automotive industry, is majority owner of Zimplats and
is one of the
foreign-owned companies that is under pressure to surrender
more than 51
percent shares to blacks under President Robert Mugabe’s
indigenisation
plans.
“There is a big appetite for a stake in
Zimplats by people in business and
political office," said chief executive
Alex Mhembere. "We expect to
conclude discussions on our proposals in two
weeks," Mhembere said in
response to questions from journalists during the
company’s presentation of
third-quarter results.
Foreign investors
have been rattled by the indigenisation drive, which
critics say will likely
benefits those close to the veteran leader and that
this will see foreign
investment dry up in the country.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has
already denounced the mine
nationalisation plans as "looting and plunder" by
a greedy elite, in a sign
of sharp divisions in the unity government formed
by the coalition partners
in 2009.
Foreign mining companies in
Zimbabwe were given up the end of September to
comply with the law forcing
them to surrender at least 51 percent of their
local equity to black
investors. The miners have up to May 9 to comply with
the
regulations.
Mhembere said Zimplats would publish the list of all people
seeking a stake
in the company, in what could be viewed as part of the
company’s strategy to
name and shame those seeking to get a windfall from
the platinum miner.
Impoverished Zimbabwe with an estimated $6 billion
GDP does not have the
money to buy majority stakes in the mining firms,
which has left many
wondering how this would be achieved. The government has
previously said it
plans to set up a sovereign wealth fund for the purpose
but analysts say
this is unworkable.
The market capitalisation of
Zimplats is around 1.2 billion Australian
dollars and purchasing the 51
percent stake would cost a sum about equal to
10 percent of
GDP.
Implats, together with number one platinum miner Anglo Platinum and
global
miner Rio Tinto are some of the foreign mining companies that have
operations in Zimbabwe and will be targeted by the local ownership
rules.
Zimplats also announced that output of its metal concentrate had
dipped to
84,000 tonnes for the quarter to March 2011, down from 92,964
tonnes the
previous quarter after maintenance work on its mine.
This
saw revenues declining to $130.5 million compared to $139.8 million the
previous quarter. -- ZimOnline
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tichaona Sibanda
29
April 2011
Co-Home Affairs Minister Theresa Makone has been re-elected
chairperson of
the MDC-T Women’s Assembly, after trouncing her rival Editor
Matimisa, the
Kadoma central MP, by 634 votes to 221.
Makone beat
Matamisa by 413 votes with six spoiled ballots, in an election
that analysts
had predicted would be tight. But in the end Matamisa was
soundly beaten in
a poll that started on Thursday evening and went right
through to Friday
morning.
In another poll held Thursday, Harare based Solomon Madzore won
the national
youth chair contest after romping to victory against Mkoba MP
Amos Chibaya,
by 432 votes to 364. Madzore takes over as the new Youth Chair
from
Thamsanga Mahlangu, who stepped down to contest for the deputy
organising
secretary’s post in elections slated for Saturday.
The
congress entered its second day on Friday with party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai appealing to members to bury their conflicts and keep faith with
the MDC, in order to clinch power in the next general election.
He
cautioned delegates that, ‘it was important for members to stop internal
wrangling to enable them to close ranks and forge a united front against
ZANU PF in the next poll.’
Tsvangirai also warned party members
against violence, following a spate of
ugly scenes that characterized
provincial elections.
‘Let me once again state that there will be no
tolerance of violence in the
MDC. There will be no sanctioning of corruption
in the MDC,’ he said, adding
‘it is these traits that our party was born to
eradicate.’
Our Bulawayo correspondent Lionel Saungweme told us guest
speaker, Raila
Odinga, the Kenyan Prime Minister, told delegates that it is
high time the
African continent embraced the culture of
constitutionalism.
Odinga was officially opening the congress at
Barbourfields stadium in
Bulawayo and he called on Africa to invest in the
building of institutions
that ‘promote and compel sound
leadership’.
Just like Tsvangirai, Odinga was forced to share power with
incumbent
President Mwai Kibaki, following a disputed 2007 election. In 2008
Tsvangirai beat Robert Mugabe in a presidential poll, but the ageing ZANU PF
leader refused to cede power and instead went on a bloody campaign of murder
and torture to cow opponents into submission.
In his keynote speech
at the MDC-T Congress Odinga said; ‘One-party rule
might have withered and
died with the introduction of political pluralism in
the 1990s but its ugly
monolithic vestiges linger. In particular, our
ballots have yet to be free
and fair. A long list of African leaders with
questionable democratic
credentials has used the pretension of promoting
state unity as an excuse
for excess, intolerance, repression, and illegal
tenure of office’.
http://www.radiovop.com
29/04/2011
11:38:00
HARARE, April 29, 2011 - SOUTH Africa's business mogul and
former African
National Congress (ANC) boss, Cyril Ramaphosa, will grace
this year's
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF).
The National
Economic Consultative Conference (NECF) told Radio VOP that it
has already
lined up five top local and international business leaders to
address its
International Business Conference which will run parallel to
ZITF
2011.
The ZITF will be held in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city in
the
Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre beginning on May 4.
A ZITF
spokesperson told Radio VOP that this year's focus was to create an
open
forum for public and private sector discussion on how to develop and
exploit
Zimbabwe's competitive advantage.
This is intended to make Zimbabwe the
"Premier Investment Destination".
She said top speakers who had already
confirmed to participate included SA
tycoon, Cyril Ramaphosa, currently
working for the Shanduka Group Limited in
South Africa, Engineer Josh
Chifamba, the new Chief Executive of struggling
parastatal, the Zimbabwe
Electricity Authority Holdings Limited (Zesa),
Douglas Mboweni Chief
Executive of telecommunications giant, Econet Wireless
Holdings Limited
(Econet), the largest mobile network operator in the
country with more than
five million customers connected, Dr Donald Kaberuka,
President of the
African Development Bank (ADB), and Richard Mbaiwa, Chief
Executive of the
Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA).
The ZIA recently opened what it said is
a One Stop Shop" in Harare to
quicked project approvals from about three
months too six days after
invoice.
Once rated as the largest and most
influential gathering of local and
international business leaders in
Zimbabwe, the annual ZITF is now very
mediocre and has been overshadowed by
other international events such as the
Harare International Festival of the
Arts (HIFA).
Many foreign exhibitors have pulled the plug on the ZITF saying
Zimbabwe is
not a good investment destination, has lopsided investment
regulations and
its government under President Robert Mugabe does not
respect property
rights, among other problems.
So far no Head of State or
Government has agreed to officially open the
week-long event.
The ZITF
Chairman is consultant, Nhlanhla Masuku, Managing Director of USK
Marketing
and Consultancy (Private) Limited.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Thelma Chikwanha, Staff
Writer
Friday, 29 April 2011 17:22
HARARE - Zimbabwe’s army, which
has a constitutional mandate of defending
the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and national security of the country
has been accused of
practising partisan militarisation, which is derailing
the political
transition of the country.
The military are accused of strategically
positioning ex-military personnel
in positions of authority within state
institutions like the Grain Marketing
Board (GMB), Air Zimbabwe, National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), and Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) among
others.
Constitutionally, the military of any democratic nation has the
powers to
provide military assistance to civil authority in times of need in
order to
maintain essential service delivery in the event of national
disasters like
floods and during civil disorders.
The heavy presence
of army personnel in several parastatals has raised
concern that Zanu PF,
which has no real support outside the security organs
was trying to
manipulate the people ahead of next year elections.
Analysts who spoke to
the Daily News said while there was nothing wrong with
soldiers playing
their role in civil life, they expressed concern regarding
the extent to
which key civic offices and economic installations had been
handed over to
serving army personnel.
Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said that ex-army
officials just like any
ordinary citizen, had the right to look for
employment at an organisation of
their choice.
He said the army did
not deploy and personnel to work at the parastatals
saying those in key
positions were qualified and had personally applied for
the
jobs.
“Are they not citizens of this country? Where they get employment
after they
leaving the army is not our business. If other people can be
heads of
parastatals, why can’t they? No one was born a head of
parastatals,”
Mnangagwa said.
Analysts canvassed by the Daily News
revealed that while it was not criminal
to employ ex-army officials to head
state institutions, there was need to
disentangle the military from Zanu PF
to ensure that the military was
totally independent from the party which
liberated the country from white
minority rule.
Civil society has
been calling for reforms in the security sector which it
says is partisan to
ensure that they revert back to their constitutional
role of protecting
Zimbabweans.
They also argued that partisan militarisation was also
derailing political
transition in the country.
In the period before
the controversial June 27, 2008 presidential run-off
between President
Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,
military personnel were
deployed in many parts of the country where they
unleashed terror on
civilians.
Tsvangirai later pulled out Mugabe participated in a one man
election which
was described by Sadc and the international community as a
sham.
A report produced by the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) on
politically
motivated rape revealed that most women were raped by either
soldiers or
police men.
Mary Pamire, a rape survivor narrated a heart
rending story of how 10
soldiers had taken turns to rape her in
Chitungwiza.
In 2002 and in 2008, there was pre-emptive coup by the
military when they
declared that they would not salute anyone without
liberation credentials in
order to protect the vote during
elections.
Human Right Researcher Pedzisai Ruhanya said the
militarisation of state
institutions responsible for governance such as the
judiciary, ZEC and the
Delimitation Commission was undemocratic.
He
said he was not against the employment of persons with military
background
as long as they managed to execute their duties in a non-partisan
manner,
which fostered development.
“We are not against the employment of former
military personnel in public
institutions, but we are vehemently opposed to
the pollutant behaviour of
some of them in those institutions particularly
their undemocratic practice
in ZEC,” said Ruhanya.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Written by Own correspondent
Thursday, 28
April 2011 06:43
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): It is a pleasure to have
this debate under your
chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and I am grateful to the
Speaker for granting
this opportunity to discuss the political situation in
Zimbabwe. The
Minister will know that for many years I have been visiting
Zimbabwe, and
have done so during the current serious political crisis. I
was there during
the dark days of Operation Drive Out Rubbish, when hundreds
of thousands of
homes and small businesses were demolished, and many people,
particularly
trade union activists, were singled out for beating and
arrest.
I visited Zimbabwe again last month, and I was pleased to be
accompanied by
two other members of the all-party group, of which I am
pleased to be the
chairman. We were there particularly to see what was
happening with the
parliamentary situation. The hon. Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport
(Oliver Colvile), who will contribute to the debate,
was returning to
Zimbabwe for the first time since 1979. His background as a
trained election
agent was valuable when we looked at political processes in
Zimbabwe.
Lord Joffe was the other member of the delegation, and has an
eminent record
in southern Africa. He was the defence lawyer for Nelson
Mandela when he
faced the death penalty at the Rivonia trial, and defended
many other
leaders in the struggle against apartheid. He also defended a
very young
Jacob Zuma, so he is no stranger to political oppression. He was
chairman of
Oxfam at one time, so he has seen development and aid close up
in many parts
of the world. The delegation was very strong.
We came away
from our visit with many anxieties, particularly about
harassment of
parliamentarians, but I also felt hopeful about Zimbabwe’s
future. Given the
high-profile events connected with Parliament in Zimbabwe
during our stay,
it was appropriate that our visit was funded by the UK
branch of the
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. That was the first of
my many visits
during the past 10 years that was funded. I am grateful for
that, and pay
tribute to the CPA, particularly Andrew Tuggey, for continuing
to engage
with Zimbabwe, even though Mugabe withdrew from the Commonwealth
in 2003. It
is very much in line with the Commonwealth principles set out in
Harare and
Millbrook in New Zealand that such engagement continues. I hope
that before
long, Zimbabwe will be able to rejoin the Commonwealth family. I
know that
many Zimbabwean members of Parliament are waiting for that to
happen.
Despite the hope, there are huge difficulties to be overcome.
When the
inclusive Government was formed, and particularly now with events
in other
parts of the world, especially in north Africa, attention was and
is being
diverted from what is happening in southern Africa, and there is a
risk that
that will continue. Mugabe and his strategists in ZANU-PF have for
decades
relied on a combination of regional intransigence and international
indifference to neutralise anyone who opposes their monopoly on power. I am
glad that the UK Government have not allowed Zimbabwe to fall off their
agenda, and I pay tribute to the tremendously hard work and commitment shown
by the Minister with responsibility for Africa, the Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk
(Mr Bellingham), who, unfortunately, cannot be here today, but we are
delighted to have the Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for
Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), here to respond to the debate. The Under-Secretary
has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in recent years.
We are
also being well served by our ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mark Canning.
He and
his team could not have done more to make our visit useful and
productive.
The Minister will understand that because we have had
conversations about
Europe, and he knows how pleased I was to see our flag
being proudly flown
not just at the embassy well above the European Union
flag, but from the
ambassador’s car as it drove through Harare. That was an
important symbol of
the United Kingdom’s continuing engagement in trying to
help that
country.
I also pay tribute to Dave Fish, head of the Department for
International
Development in Zimbabwe. He has won huge admiration in the
country for his
understanding of the context in which our UK aid programme
is delivered. It
is not an easy job, and we saw at first hand his
outstanding commitment to
getting it right.
We witnessed a real unity of
purpose binding together the courageous men and
women who are at the
forefront of the struggle to bring reform and progress
to Zimbabwe, whether
they are active in politics or in civil society. Above
all, it is a tribute
to the people of Zimbabwe and those who have led the
struggle for democracy
that the process of transition is still on track, and
that the long march of
reform is continuing. It is important to remember
that despite appalling
provocation, the Movement for Democratic Change has
remained a peaceful
political party, and has not reacted in the way that
Mugabe presumably
wanted it to react in the face of the tremendous violence
and
intimidation.
Of course, the vast majority of Zimbabweans would like the
process to move
more quickly, as would members of the all-party group. We
are impatient, and
we wish that reforms could be implemented much more
speedily. It is
frustrating to see opportunities being missed, and people’s
lives passing by
with promises unfulfilled. The process is fragile, and
there are still
powerful elements who want it to stall or be reversed. They
are from the old
political establishment, and have a vested interest in
maintaining a system
that makes them rich, and consigns the mass of the
population to disease,
destitution and dependency. It is a shameful irony
that those who shouted
loudest about independence and sovereignty and
condemned the role of the
British colonial Government have driven their
once-proud country to hunger
and handouts.
There is still massive
resistance to political and economic reform from
those in the political and
military establishments. They see their personal
position of wealth and
privilege threatened. We were all angry to see the
blatant dishonesty of
those who are intent on protecting their own power. It
was tragic to drive
through Zimbabwe and see factories lying idle, farmland
lying uncultivated,
and the people who should be working them cast aside and
unemployed.
During our visit last month we went to Chegutu, and I pay
special tribute to
two people from that area who have helped to show the
world not just what
has gone wrong in Zimbabwe, but what can be done to make
things better. I am
sure that many hon. Members saw the striking film
“Mugabe and the White
African”. The all-party Zimbabwe group arranged a
screening at Westminster
when the film was launched nearly two years ago. It
features Ben Freeth and
his father-in-law, Mike Campbell, and their attempts
to keep farming at
Mount Carmel in Chegutu. ZANU-PF bigwigs with their armed
thugs were
determined to take control of the farm, and to drive Ben and Mike
off the
land, even though it had been purchased legally in the relatively
recent
past, and with no expression of interest from the Zimbabwe
Government.
Mike Campbell decided to challenge the seizure of his farm
through the
courts not only in Zimbabwe, but going right up to those of the
region, and
to the South African Development Community tribunal. Bringing a
court case
in Zimbabwe requires courage, and Mike Campbell, his wife Angela,
and
son-in-law Ben all suffered dreadful beatings and violence for daring to
challenge ZANU-PF. Their farmhouse was ransacked and burned, and the police
failed to take any action against the perpetrators. The SADC tribunal ruled
that the actions of the Government of Zimbabwe were illegal. At that point
the lawyers representing the Zimbabwe Government promptly walked out and
declared that they did not recognise the tribunal, although for weeks they
had appeared before it, argued their case and delayed the process by asking
for adjournments.
The response to the SADC tribunal ruling showed up
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF
colleagues and demonstrated that their fight is not
only with reformers in
Zimbabwe, not only with the British Government, and
not only with the
Commonwealth and the EU, but with anyone who dares to
stand up to their
violent and destructive policies. ZANU-PF’s intransigent
and dishonest
response to the tribunal helped leaders of SADC Governments to
recognise the
true nature of what they are up against with the old guard in
Zimbabwe.
Sadly, Mike Campbell paid a high price for his battle, and just
three weeks
ago he died. He never really recovered from the beatings he
suffered at the
hands of Mugabe’s thugs, but I hope that his death will not
be in vain.
We were also able to visit the constituency of Chegutu West, and
its member
of Parliament, Prince Matibe. He is the second person from that
area to whom
I want to pay tribute, and he is an example of a promising
young generation
of Zimbabweans who are determined to play their full part
in restoring
Zimbabwe and making the country work again. They want a
Zimbabwe that can
stand proudly on its feet, feed its people and provide
them with jobs. It
was uplifting to travel around that constituency with the
young MP, and hear
not only what he wanted to achieve for the people of his
home town, but to
see some scenes of hope. Despite having slender resources,
and in the face
of constant harassment and violence, Prince Matibe and his
colleagues in the
MDC have worked on projects that are making a real
difference to the people
of Chegutu. We visited a newly built primary school
for which funds have
been raised, and we met the headmaster and some of the
children. We also met
the local councillor, a member of ZANU-PF who praised
the project and, I am
glad to say, was fully engaged with it. We visited a
new market established
by the MDC so that local people can buy and sell
local produce. It was a
small but confident beginning towards reviving a
town where the biggest
local employer, a cotton ginnery that a few years ago
employed 5,000 people,
now stands empty and derelict.
We had a full
morning’s meeting with many Zimbabwean MPs, and we were struck
by the fact
that they described themselves as “engines for development” in
their
constituencies. As Lord Joffe pointed out, there are not many
countries
where MPs would describe themselves in that way. One thing that
came to
light during our discussions with MPs, particularly those from the
MDC, was
that they did not feel sufficiently engaged with or consulted by
the
implementing agencies of aid programmes that are funded by donor
Governments, including the UK. Those responsible for aid programmes are of
course anxious for their work not to be seen as interfering in any way with
the internal politics of the places in which they operate. However, there
can be dangers if local circumstances are not acknowledged.
Normally, aid
agencies will consult local officials who are seen as being
professional
rather than political, but that is not the case in Zimbabwe. A
deliberate
ploy of ZANU-PF has been to politicise every level of life and
government in
Zimbabwe, meaning that district officers and officials in
health care and
education are all likely to represent the views of ZANU-PF.
To counter that,
it is important that elected MPs and councillors who have a
mandate from the
people be consulted. Otherwise, there is always the risk
that the views of
ZANU-PF are fed into the consultation by the officials,
and the alternative
MDC view is excluded because it is regarded as
political. That happens at
the openings of new aid projects, for example,
when the elected MPs would
not be invited because they are seen as
political. Those present are the
officials, who are seen as not political,
despite actually being even more
political than the MPs but without a
mandate. I know that Dave Fish took
that on board as a result of some of our
discussions with MPs.
The
different experience of MDC MPs and ZANU-PF MPs was brought home to us
very
starkly. Although ZANU-PF representatives seem to be above the law, MDC
MPs
are frequently arrested and detained in custody. One of those was
Shepherd
Mushonga, who is an MDC MP for the Mazowe Central constituency and
chair of
the parliamentary legal committee. We met him just after his
release on bail
and he is a lovely, cheerful man. The charge against him was
that he had
stolen $700-worth of excess quarry stones donated for building a
nurses home
in his constituency, and used them to build a primary school.
There is a
widely held perception that the rise in arrests of MPs was part
of the plan
to change the voting strength of the parties in the House of
Assembly and
facilitate the election of a ZANU-PF Speaker.
The Zimbabwean Speaker
currently holds the chairmanship of the Southern
African Development
Community Parliamentary Forum. ZANU-PF does not like the
fact that the MDC
Speaker chairs that body because it plays a crucial role
on behalf of the
SADC in planning, deploying and reporting on election
monitoring programmes
for the whole region.
We arrived in Zimbabwe on 13 March. Three days earlier,
the Supreme Court
had ruled by a majority of three to two that the election
of the MDC
chairman, Lovemore Moyo, as Speaker of the House of Assembly in
2008—he has
been Speaker since then—was null and void. That ruling
overturned an earlier
High Court decision that declared the election valid.
The Supreme Court
decided that, of the 208 MPs voting, six had displayed
their marked papers
before depositing them in the ballot box, and that the
secrecy of the ballot
had been compromised. That seems a peculiar decision.
On that basis, a few
voters in one of our general elections could display
their marked voting
papers before depositing them in the ballot box, and
render the entire
election null and void. The ballot box is secret to
protect voters. If
people choose to disclose how they are voting, that is
their business.
The good news, however, is that after a period of having no
Speaker and no
Parliament, Lovemore Moyo was reinstated as Speaker of the
House of
Assembly— many hon. Members will have met him when he visited this
country.
The voting figures showed that he had been backed not only by
colleagues in
the mainstream MDC and the tiny breakaway faction, but by some
MPs from
ZANU-PF. That shows that the longing for reform and for a country
that works
is spreading to the ranks of Mugabe’s own party, and we came
across that
attitude in some ZANU-PF MPs whom we met. Although they were
less robust in
their support for democratic processes than their MDC
counterparts, we
gained the clear impression that they too are weary of
living in a country
that is paralysed by failed policies and an intransigent
leadership. Whether
he really believed it or whether he said it simply as
part of the diktat
that is continually put forward, it was depressing to
hear one ZANU-PF MP
state clearly that Zimbabwe is in such a mess because of
sanctions, which
are stopping even medical supplies from entering the
country. That is
complete and utter nonsense, but that MP believed it with a
fervour that
could have come only from total indoctrination.
Another MDC
MP under arrest while we were in Harare—again, someone known to
many hon.
Members—was Elton Mangoma. He is the Minister responsible for
energy and
power development and the co-negotiator with Tendai Biti in the
talks on the
implementation of the global political agreement, facilitated
by President
Zuma of South Africa under the auspices of the SADC. His arrest
and
detention in custody not only had a serious impact on the working of the
inclusive Government, but exacerbated the already protracted delays in
making progress with Zuma’s facilitation team on a road map towards the full
implementation of the GPA. While we were in Harare, Elton was granted bail,
but he was then rearrested on another charge. When he was granted bail, the
state prosecutors invoked section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence
Act, which suspends bail orders for seven days, thus allowing him to be kept
in detention. He was subsequently rearrested on a further charge, but that
time the attempts of the state prosecutor to deny him bail were dismissed by
the High Court.
There is an attempt by ZANU-PF and the establishment to
smear MDC MPs, and
it is continually suggested that they lack the capacity
to be Ministers or
form a Government. That line is less strong now, but over
the years it has
unfortunately been picked up and repeated far too easily by
some of the
eminent academics involved in commentary on Africa. That is
dangerous. There
are many capable and talented men and women in the MDC, and
if we look at
what ZANU-PF has done to the country over the past 31 years,
it is
ridiculous to say that the MDC could not do better. The economic
progress
that has been made since Tendai Biti became Minister of Finance is
encouraging, and it was such a change from my previous visits to see
well-stocked shops. However, until there is the rule of law, an end to
violence and intimidation and free and fair elections under a new
constitution, investment will be scarce.
It is amazing what can be
achieved with scarce resources. Paul Madzore,
another energetic and
impressive MDC MP, showed us around his constituency
of Glen View South,
which is a high-density suburb on the south-eastern
outskirts of Harare. We
were warmly welcomed by the staff and pupils of Glen
View high school, which
has brilliant O-level and A-level results—the hon.
Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport suggested that perhaps one of our
Education Ministers
might like to visit that school. Despite having hundreds
of children and
very few resources, that school’s results are fantastic, and
I am sure we
could learn something from it.
Unfortunately, the new textbooks paid for by
taxpayers in the UK and donated
to Zimbabwean schools via the Education
Ministry had not yet arrived at
either of the two schools that we visited.
However, the good manners and
smart uniforms were, despite all the poverty,
a delight to see. What a shame
that for many pupils, their hard work and
dedication will not be rewarded by
jobs when they finish their
education.
I could list all the MPs who have been arrested, but I will not go
into all
the details. I will simply say that just a month before our visit,
another
MDC MP, Douglas Mwonzora, who is co-chairman of the constitutional
parliamentary committee, or COPAC, was arrested outside Parliament. He went
to the police to make a formal complaint after a meeting that he held in his
constituency was disrupted by a gang sent by a ZANU-PF MP, but ended up
being charged himself. His arrest clearly had a serious impact on the
timetable for the COPAC consultation programme for a new constitution. That
consultation is vital under the GPA and must be completed before new
parliamentary or presidential elections can be held.
That was strongly
reinforced shortly before our visit, following the claim
by President Mugabe
that he would call for elections whether or not a new
constitution was
ready. He was contradicted by Marius Fransman, South Africa’s
Deputy
Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, who said that
“any
calls for elections without the finalisation of the constitution-making
process are in breach of the GPA as well as the constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment number 19, which gives legitimacy to the inclusive
government.”
A number of people were arrested, including Munyaradzi Gwisai
and 45 other
social and human rights activists, who had simply brought
people together to
watch some of the videos coming in about the uprising in
Egypt and revolts
in Tunisia. They were arrested because watching those
videos was apparently
a move to subvert a constitutionally elected
Government. We can therefore
see the difficulties that people have when they
want to organise.
The fighting talk that we have heard from ZANU-PF about
clamping down
mercilessly on plotters of any revolts is entrenched in the
thinking of the
ZANU-PF old guard. Just this week, Stan Mudenge, who is a
member of the
ZANU-PF politburo and the Minister of Higher and Tertiary
Education, vowed
to search out all the people who vote against ZANU-PF and
mete out
retribution. Addressing Mugabe directly, he said:
“President, I
want to tell you that some people in my constituency have
rebelled and they
voted against you in 2008. They are now supporting the
puppet party MDC but
I want to say that we will fish them out and deal with
them until they come
back to us and do things our way.”
He went on to threaten:
“We have a very
forceful and vigorous youth wing and our members of the
armed forces who
will make sure that no one loses direction again like what
happened three
years ago.”
There is clearly a severe attempt to intimidate and frighten
people in the
lead-up to what eventually will be, we hope, free and fair
elections.
That sort of talk and those threats show how important it is for
international monitors to be in place well in advance of the next election.
It underlines the fact that they should be widely deployed during polling
and that they should remain on the ground afterwards to observe the
aftermath and to deter any attempts at retribution.
It is good to see
that South Africa also recognises that. Deputy President
Motlanthe recently
said:
“The conception is that these elections would be a watershed like the
1980
elections that happened when the old Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. There
would
be a need for an international presence of the same scale, to ensure a
bridge with the past”.
He went on to say:
“The next elections are
viewed by all parties as watershed elections, and
therefore they have to
prepare for them thoroughly to ensure that there will
not be any more
violence or intimidation during the course of the election
campaign.”
I
know that monitors and observers cannot simply be imposed on a country,
but
as British taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for much of the
electoral
infrastructure, I hope that the Minister will agree that, working
with the
SADC, we should surely be setting some conditions now in the
framing of the
electoral road map. Can he tell us what exactly the current
state of affairs
is as far as election monitors from donor nations are
concerned? UK
taxpayers have very gladly given substantial amounts of money
to provide
ever increasing aid to Zimbabwe, but they cannot be expected to
do that
without some freedom of access to see how these important affairs
inside the
country are being run, so we do need to put conditions on some of
our
aid.
I am reassured that a new consensus is developing in the SADC that the
crisis in Zimbabwe is dragging down the region and compromising social
stability and economic progress. As many hon. Members know, I was a great
critic of the previous President of South Africa, Mbeki, because of how
little he seemed to do or how little he seemed to care, but President Zuma
has adopted a robust approach and the recent SADC troika meeting in Zambia
seems to have made it clear to Mugabe finally that he can no longer get away
with his old tricks of duplicity and reneging on undertakings. Indeed,
Mugabe was very angry about what he was told. I hope that the Minister will
give us his assessment of current attitudes in Governments throughout the
SADC region and more widely in the African Union.
In his report to the
summit, President Zuma said that it was time for the
SADC to “speak with one
voice” in impressing on all the parties concerned
the fact that the
situation can no longer be tolerated. He said:
“The focus that Zimbabwean
parties have placed on elections without creating
the necessary climate for
those elections is an unfortunate sidetrack.”
He referred to delays in reform
of the mass media, saying that there was a
“lack of political will” to
implement reform.
I hope that Zuma and his SADC colleagues will pay equal
attention to the
need for security sector reform. I hope that the Minister
will be able to
tell us what we in the UK are doing to support the SADC in
that important
area, because historically we played an important role in the
integration of
the Zimbabwean army after independence and I am sure that at
more junior
levels there is still a desire for the police and military to
resume a
professional rather than a political role.
The Joint Operations
Command is composed of the high command of the
military, the police and the
Central Intelligence Organisation. Many regard
it as a de facto ruling junta
with the ability to overrule and countermand
any decisions of Ministers that
run counter to the vested political and
business interests of the ZANU-PF
political and military oligarchy.
During our visit, we were honoured to meet
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai
shortly before he left on a tour to meet
Heads of Government in the SADC
region, including President Banda of Zambia,
who chairs the SADC troika on
politics, defence and security, as well as
leaders of Botswana, Swaziland
and Mozambique. On his return, Prime Minister
Tsvangirai said:
“While I was away in the last four days, it appears the
civilian authority
is no longer in charge and dark and sinister forces have
engaged in a
hostile takeover of running the affairs of the country, with or
without the
blessing of some leaders of the civilian authority.”
That
underlines the fragility of the situation and the real threat to
progress,
particularly in the light of the threats made just this week by
ZANU-PF
Ministers such as Mudenge. It shows why President Zuma is anxious
about the
threat of serious upheavals in the region following the trend that
we have
seen in north Africa.
We in the UK have close ties with Zimbabwe. There are
social, political and
diplomatic links. Despite all the talk of Africa’s new
connections with
China, India, Russia and other parts of the world, it is to
the UK that
Zimbabweans come for asylum. It is in the UK that Zimbabweans
feel most at
home if they need to live or work away from southern Africa.
The diaspora
have a crucial role to play in the new Zimbabwe, and I hope
that we are
giving the diaspora in the UK as much help and support as we
gave those in
exile from South Africa under apartheid.
I am very proud of
the role that successive Administrations in the UK have
played as advocates
for change in Zimbabwe. The international response would
have been far more
feeble without resolute leadership from successive Prime
Ministers and
Foreign Secretaries. I think that the EU continued with its
sanctions partly
because the UK Government played a very important role in
those discussions.
I am glad that in this Parliament we have been able to
play a part in
keeping Zimbabwe in the spotlight and in giving a voice to
the oppressed
people of Zimbabwe. Many of those who lead the struggle for
democracy and
freedom there have given me their heartfelt thanks for the way
in which
their plight has been kept on the agenda in the House over recent
years. I
look forward to hearing from the Minister about our current
engagement with
our counterparts in the region
North Africa and the middle east may be in the
headlines, but the UK has a
particular responsibility for Zimbabwe and our
job as parliamentarians is to
ensure that the Government continue to give
support and help wherever they
can to bring about a clear timetable and a
road map towards democracy,
freedom and prosperity for the people of
Zimbabwe and of southern Africa as
a whole.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport) (Con): May I begin by
thanking you, Mr Robertson, for
calling me in the debate and giving me the
opportunity to serve under your
chairmanship? May I also congratulate and
thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall
(Kate Hoey) for securing this debate on
Zimbabwe, a part of the world with
which I have had a long association since
I was 19? I lived in southern
Africa for several months in 1979, and I was
there when, following the
Lusaka Commonwealth conference, this country’s
Conservative Government
announced the setting up of the Lancaster House
conference. In 1994, I spent
nearly a month in neighbouring Malawi with my
hon. Friend the Member for
Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) observing the campaign
that saw Hastings Banda lose
the first presidential election he had ever
contested. That experience
taught me that fighting elections in Africa is
very different from fighting
elections in the United Kingdom, because the
roles of the chief and the
village leaders, as well as access to balanced
radio, are vital if the
Opposition are to triumph.
Having spent 13 years as a Conservative party
agent in south London, I found
the trip with the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association to strengthen
parliamentary links most stimulating and
rewarding, but it was also deeply
worrying. Last month, while the eyes of
the world were focused on Libya and
the middle east, I, the hon. Member for
Vauxhall and Lord Joffe, who was
Nelson Mandela’s and Jacob Zuma’s lawyer
during the apartheid years, spent
three days in meetings with the Prime
Minister, MDC and ZANU-PF MPs, human
rights lawyers and members of
Zimbabwe’s civil society. I should say that at
one stage during a dinner
with some of the human rights lawyers I asked what
they would do for a
living should the whole situation be cleared up, and
they did not have too
much of a response. The trip also gave me an
opportunity to have a refresher
course in Zimbabwe’s politics, and I am
grateful to the hon. Lady, Lord
Joffe and David Banks, who is the all-party
group’s convenor, for all their
briefing and advice.
As many Members might be aware, the Chinese are
investing heavily in Africa,
particularly in Zimbabwe. They are financing
the building of the Robert
Mugabe national school of intelligence, a
military academy just outside
Harare, which is likely to contain
communications equipment similar to that
which one might find at
GCHQ.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP): The hon. Gentleman raises a most
interesting point about Chinese investment in Africa. Does he agree that our
Government should do all they can to ensure that any Chinese investment
overseas is used for good, not for bad?
Oliver Colvile: I thoroughly
agree, and I will come to one or two points
about that in the next few
moments.
There is a real danger that Zimbabwe, sitting on South African
borders,
could become a Chinese-compliant nation. It should be noted that
the Chinese
are now South Africa’s largest trading partners. Unless we are
careful, the
Chinese could easily have access to the submarine base in
Simon’s Town and
therefore have an opportunity to control the all-important
cape routes,
which we need to send our trade to the far east. That is why
what happens in
Zimbabwe matters, and why it is important that there are
free and fair
elections.
Fairly soon after my colleagues and I arrived,
we grasped the fact that two
campaigns were going on in Zimbabwe: the air
war to place pressure on SADC
and President Zuma to encourage peaceful, free
and fair elections; and a
ground war to ensure that the MDC and other
Opposition parties can campaign
on a level playing field in the general
election expected this autumn. The
first process, which is intended to
encourage SADC and the African Union to
support the efforts of President
Zuma and his facilitation team to plan and
implement a road map towards
credible and internationally recognised
elections, will be much easier said
than done.
It is part of African culture always to be deferential to leaders,
who are
seen as heroes and warriors. Whatever else we might feel and think,
I am
afraid that President Mugabe is seen as one such warrior and as someone
who
successfully fought for Zimbabwe’s independence after years of colonial
rule. During his recent visit to a South African football stadium, he gained
a standing ovation from the general public. Jacob Zuma’s desire to find ways
of returning the 2 million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa is being
hindered by the fact that he faces local council elections in the summer and
is likely to suffer some fairly heavy defeats, especially in some of the
urban conurbations.
If we are serious about creating an environment for
fair and peaceful
elections, we must provide Mugabe and his supporters with
a face-saving
solution. Mugabe’s disappearance as President will not be the
end of the
matter, as too many people around him, especially those in the
army,
including senior army officials, have too much invested in his
presidency.
ZANU-PF sees him as its greatest asset in the forthcoming
election. Whatever
happens, the role of the army and the high command will
be important,
because they will be keen to hold on to their investment,
especially their
farms and other assets. They want to use Mugabe to secure
their future for a
few more years.
Within minutes of arriving in Harare,
my colleagues and I were astonished to
learn that 26 MDC MPs had been
arrested, that the Speaker, Lovemore Moyo,
was being forced to face
re-election, and that beatings had started again in
rural communities in the
run-up to the general election expected later this
year. Hon. Members can
imagine what the outcry in this country would be if
27% of MPs from one
political party were arrested, placed in prison and
forced to raise funds to
pay their bail. That would be the equivalent of 83
Conservative MPs or
nearly 60 Labour MPs being arrested. I have no doubt
that there would be an
absolute outcry about that in this country and
throughout the world—and
rightly so.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op): It would
depend on which
MPs were arrested.
Oliver Colvile: I recognise that some
in the Chamber might wish a number of
those 83 Conservative MPs to be
arrested, and that some of my hon. Friends
might want some of those 60
Labour MPs to be arrested.
Little international attention is being paid to
the plight of those
Zimbabwean MPs, to the beatings or to how the proceeds
from the Marange
diamond fields, which are said to be the largest in the
world, are being
managed. Some 97% of those diamond fields are under the
military’s direct
control, and it is thought—I say it no more strongly than
that—that the
proceeds are being used to fund ZANU-PF’s political
activities.
On preparing for the elections, many of those whom my colleagues
and I met
during our brief stay made it clear that there is a real need to
allow
outside observers into the country to follow the registration process
at an
early stage. The need for a new list of electors was underlined by the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which reckons that 27% of the names on the
existing list are those of dead people.
Overseeing the elections will
cost money, and the EU and the UK will be
asked to make a significant
contribution. I quite understand that the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
feels that it cannot observe the elections
unless it has received an
invitation. However, the Mugabe Government have
been keen to drive a wedge
between themselves and the MDC so that the MDC
will walk out and the
Government can say, “There we go. They couldn’t
stomach it.” We need to
encourage SADC and President Zuma to place pressure
on President Mugabe and
ZANU-PF to begin registration soon and to allow our
observers in. Observers
must be allowed into the country at the start of the
process, not in the
last few weeks of the campaign. If European and British
observers are
allowed in only at the end of the election campaign, the
damage and
intimidation will already have taken place.
There are, however, other
practical things that we in Britain can do through
our established political
parties or the highly respected Westminster
Foundation for Democracy, which
is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for
South West Devon (Mr Streeter).
During our visit, my colleagues and I talked
to a number of MDC MPs and
looked at the equipment in their constituency
offices and at what they can
spend on campaigning. We also met moderate
ZANU-PF MPs, who may well be
needed in a future MDC-led Government. When
visiting Paul Madzore’s Glen
View South constituency on the outskirts of
Harare, we were struck by the
lack of duplicators to produce leaflets and by
the lack of access to
broadband. During a visit to one of the markets,
however, I was fortunate to
be able to liberate one or two of the ZANU-PF
leaflets lying around.
We
need to impress on SADC that if it is serious about credible elections,
something must be done to make sure that, during the campaign, ZANU-PF is
not allowed to deploy state resources, as well as the proceeds of illegal
diamond sales and illegally seized commercial assets, while the MDC is
under-resourced and unable to produce leaflets and to inform the electorate
of a country in which 97% of children can read and write. Is not that
statistic a fantastic result? It is certainly something about which there
should be great pride, and perhaps we can learn some lessons from it.
We
need to ensure that there is balance in the electronic media and that the
non-ZANU-PF Opposition have the opportunity to broadcast their message via
radio. Although there has been some freedom in parts of the written press,
there is no freedom on television or radio. Perhaps the Department for
International Development could consider funding a transmitter in a
neighbouring state, such as Botswana or Mozambique, to provide balance.
I
hope that our useful debate has done much to raise the profile of some of
the issues that face a country that was once the breadbasket of Africa. I
urge the Minister to consider further ways to encourage SADC to bring about
fair and free elections, and to ensure that there is a level playing field
for all the political parties.
Several hon. Members rose —
John
Robertson (in the Chair): Order. We should be able to fit in all
colleagues
wishing to speak, but I intend to call the Front-Bench spokesmen
no later
than 10.40 am, so will Back Benchers please use the time as best
they
can?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): I congratulate the hon. Member for
Vauxhall
(Kate Hoey) on bringing this topic to the Chamber today. I also
congratulate
the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver
Colvile) on his
speech. I shall make only a couple of quick points because I
am conscious
that other hon. Members wish to speak. My interest in
Zimbabwe—or Rhodesia,
which probably puts me an older age bracket—comes from
my constituency and
from those who left Rhodesia, as it was called when they
were residents, due
to persecution, discrimination and because they wanted a
different life for
their children and families.
Previous speakers have
commented on the need for elections, about which I
have some concerns. Will
they be fair? Will they be called too soon? Worry
has been expressed about
holding the elections this year, because they could
be construed as unfair
because of the nature of the electoral list. I make
that comment because
perhaps a third of the 5.5 million people in Zimbabwe
who are registered to
vote are not even in the land of the living, which
makes predicting how an
election will go very interesting. If a third of
those 5.5 million people
have passed on to the next world but can reach from
the grave to cast their
vote, there must be suspicions about whether the
elections will be fair and
give the result that they should.
Some figures indicate that if someone wants
a long life, they should live in
Zimbabwe, because some people on the voting
list are between 111 and 120
years old. In one area of Zimbabwe alone, 503
people on the voting list have
passed on. Will the elections be fair? Will
the Minister indicate how he,
through his Department and his contacts with
Zimbabwe, will ensure that fair
elections take place? Only when there is a
credible electoral list can we be
sure that the elections will be fair and
will give the result that they
should.
I wish to comment on the views
expressed about ZANU-PF and its treatment of
the MDC. I am concerned about
the trumped up charges and the spurious
allegations, which undermine the
democratic process that is being taken
forward in Zimbabwe. I hope that the
Minister will indicate how he sees
change being brought about to secure the
democratic process and ensure that
the electorate in Zimbabwe has the chance
to speak.
I commend MDC members for their contribution in their ministerial
posts.
They have been able to change a bankrupt economy into one that is
showing
growth. That is good news, and it shows what can happen in what was
once the
breadbasket of southern Africa, as the hon. Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and
Devonport said.
I have the same concerns as the hon. Gentleman
about Chinese imperialism—I
use that term honestly and factually, because
that is exactly what it is.
China has armed Zimbabwe with planes, weapons,
artillery and everything that
a modern army needs. It has ensured that
Zimbabwe has modern communications
equipment, as he indicated. China clearly
has a path and strategy on
Zimbabwe. Given our close relationship with
Zimbabwe, I hope that we will
use our political and diplomatic channels to
ensure that we bring about
change. Such change can happen only with the
support of Zimbabwe’s
neighbours, which I hope they will give.
I conclude
with a comment made by Ian Smith when he was the Prime Minister
of Rhodesia,
as it was then, at a time of change. Looking back now, the
change that he
was looking at was never the change that we all would like.
The change we
need today is the same as the change that we needed in Ian
Smith’s time. His
statement was taken from Winston Churchill, who was a real
hero of mine as a
schoolboy:
“this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But
it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
We hope that Zimbabwe will
reach that stage from which it can move forward.
I look forward to the
Minister’s response, and I hope that we can make the
changes necessary in
Zimbabwe.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I congratulate the hon. Member
for
Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and all the members of the all-party group,
including
the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver
Colvile), on
securing the debate and on keeping the issue high up the
political agenda.
The hon. Lady is right when she says that there is a risk
of indifference at
times, especially as more exciting political events on
the international
stage seem to take people’s attention, but it is important
that Zimbabwe
remains on the agenda.
We may take different views on which
reforms we want and when we want them,
but whatever our coalition’s
disagreements over constitutional reform and
its progress, at least my right
hon. Friend the Secretary of State for
Energy and Climate Change has not
ended up in chains in court, and at least
my hon. Friend the Minister for
Equalities has not had to go into hiding,
which is what their opposite
numbers in the Zimbabwean Government have had
to endure. Elton Mangoma and
Theresa Makone deserve enormous credit for the
courage with which they have
faced appalling abuses not only of public
freedom, but of parliamentary,
political and even governmental and
ministerial freedom. It is
extraordinary, but they are of course only the
tip of the iceberg. The hon.
Member for Vauxhall and many others pointed out
the level of abuse in
Zimbabwe, which unfortunately seems to be increasing
again as the elections
draw closer after it had seemed to subside.
The situation in north Africa,
particularly Libya, holds lessons for various
people, but sadly the lesson
for some dictators might be that if they treat
rebellion and dissent with
sufficient violence and determination, they might
have a chance of surviving
and succeeding. That is obviously a lesson that
we do not want ZANU-PF to be
able to draw, so there is an interest in this
for the international
community, and the same lesson could be drawn from the
situations in Yemen
and Syria as we speak. We need to make it clear to the
international
community that that must not be the lesson drawn, and it must
act with
resolution in all those situations.
Luckily or unluckily, any thought of
military intervention in Zimbabwe,
despite what some constituents might
occasionally call for, is absolutely
out of the question, as I am sure the
Minister will confirm. The important
thing is that we should work not only
with the international community but
with regional organisations. Others
have referred to the lead role of the
Southern African Development
Community, but the African Union is a
co-guarantor of the global political
agreement. I would be interested to
hear from the Minister the latest
intelligence from the African Union and
others, and what position they are
taking to guarantee that the
constitutional process is going forward.
Of
course, one country has an absolutely key role: South Africa is the
leading
political and economic force in the region. It is interesting that
President
Zuma has taken a robust line on the constitutional process. In
gratitude, he
is coming under attack from the state media in Zimbabwe, which
recently
described him as a “dishonest broker”. The language is becoming
quite
fierce, but in a funny sort of way that is an encouraging development.
It is
a sign that the southern African political community as a whole is
becoming
more realistic in its treatment of Robert Mugabe’s regime, and that
it is
prepared to make enemies within the ZANU-PF movement. South Africa’s
historic position in the region is inevitably one of moral and political
leadership. We should give President Zuma all possible support in that role,
and I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on his latest
contacts with the president.
With the onset of elections in Zimbabwe, we
are in a sense putting the cart
before the horse. The constitutional reform
process was supposed, ideally,
to precede the next round of elections, but
that now seems to be in doubt. I
would be interested to hear the Minister’s
latest take on that aspect.
We are in a difficult situation with all
countries where violent and
dictatorial forces are in play. In many
countries around the world—I look at
East Timor, the former Yugoslavia and,
I hope, Côte d'Ivoire—these
dictatorial and violent forces have ultimately
been defeated. We see clear
defeat there, rather than compromise, yet our
urge to avoid confrontation
obviously leads us to suggest political
solutions, with compromises and
deals. Indeed, that was the source of the
global political agreement in
Zimbabwe, but it has not served the purposes
that we hoped. Perhaps we
should encourage the regional community to take a
more robust political
approach in Zimbabwe.
The hon. Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport was right to mention
China. It is clearly investing a
great deal of money in Africa. It is not
generally clear where that money is
going, but some of it is certainly going
in less than helpful directions,
such as armaments and intelligence and
communications capacity. China’s hand
is being seen in some of the least
savoury regimes around the world—we can
add Sudan and North Korea and
various other countries to the list—and that
has the potential to do China’s
international reputation a great deal of
harm. Commercial logic alone should
show the Chinese that investing in
regimes that are inherently unstable
because they rely on violence and
coercion will not be a good long-term
strategy for China.
Oliver Colvile:
One reason that the Chinese are interested in Africa is that
it is wealthy
in mineral rights and such things. If the Chinese can have
some control over
that, they will be very happy. They are not particularly
interested, as I
understand it, in what takes place in the country; they
tend to bring in
their own workers, who do everything that they have to do
and then leave.
That is a big problem. Some may say that they are acting in
an imperious
manner—they most certainly are, and in a very big way—and we in
the UK have
to be most concerned about that as it could be another sparking
point. We
may have trouble at the moment in the middle east, but it could be
significantly worse elsewhere.
John Robertson (in the Chair): Order.
Interventions should be short.
Martin Horwood: The hon. Gentleman makes a
good point. The risk is that the
Chinese will not leave once the resources
have been exploited but that its
interests will continue in many of these
countries. It is imperialism on the
model of the East India Company, I
suppose.
Imperialism is a strong word to use, but there is certainly a risk
of
Chinese political and commercial dominance in some of these countries,
and
exploitation of the political vulnerability of these unsavoury and
undemocratic regimes. That, of course, raises uncomfortable political
questions for China itself, but the democratic international community needs
to make a stand on that question. There certainly seems to be potential for
an alliance between the UK, the European Union and the democratic west and
the democratic nations of southern Africa.
I turn briefly to Mozambique.
It is a democracy and a member of the
Commonwealth. However, the
exploitation of the Marange diamond fields is
allowing diamonds to be
smuggled or illegally exported to avoid Zimbabwean
taxation. Revenue clearly
passes back to the military and the coffers of
ZANU-PF. It seems to me that
the Government could make representations to
the Mozambique Government to
take a stronger attitude to controlling the
Zimbabwean border, as it is a
vital financial link in the chain that
supports the regime.
I shall be
encouraged if the Minister has good news for us, but I realise
that it is a
difficult situation. However, I believe that our instinct to
take a robust
line on human rights and democracy and to seek internationally
based
co-operation as a solution to problems of dictatorship and violence
will
serve us well.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): I thank the hon.
Member for
Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) for securing this debate, and I thank my
hon. Friend
the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)
and others
for their contributions. I believe that Zimbabwe has a place in
all our
hearts. I am a former farmer. I visited Zimbabwe as an election
observer for
the European Union in 2000 and fell in love with the country.
Its politics
are a disaster. It is not about race or creed; it is about
politics—and the
man, basically a madman, who is destroying the country. I
find it amazing
that over the years the people of Zimbabwe have been able to
stand the
pressure, yet there is still some semblance of what is right and
wrong, of
what is law, despite all that ZANU-PF and Mugabe have done.
I
emphasise the need for election observers to be in Zimbabwe quite early in
the process. I was in Zimbabwe in 2000, when MDC first came to the fore; it
would have won the election, no two ways about it, had it not been for the
fear and intimidation. We should not forget the re-education camps out in
the countryside; basically, they get hold of a population and re-educate
them to ensure that they vote for ZANU-PF. They dig trenches and put coffins
in them, and then make the people walk across them saying, “If you don’t
vote for ZANU-PF, that’s where you’ll land up—in that coffin.” The guys that
have been doing all this beating up and intimidation are then found sitting
in the polling stations on election day, watching people come in to vote. I
cannot believe what the people of Zimbabwe have to go through.
I remember
that one of the returning officers in Harare in 2000 was a school
headmistress. She went along to the polling station and hoiked out all the
ZANU-PF polling agents. In those days she would have had the power and
audacity to do that, but ever since, of course, it is being broken down.
That is why we have to get election observers in there, and we have to get
them in reasonably early so that we can see what is going on.
The
electoral roll will be completely manipulated, as it was back in 2000.
Then
it had been worked out that most of those who would vote for the MDC
were
more educated and moved around Zimbabwe a lot, so no one was allowed to
re-register. In that way, they managed to exclude an awful lot of the
population. Not only were 25% or 30% unable to vote, but they found reasons
to exclude anyone that they thought would vote for the MDC.
We are
rightly giving aid to Zimbabwe, but we must put some conditions on
that aid.
There must be some form of governance. We in the UK are in a
coalition, are
we not; but how on earth would a coalition work in Zimbabwe?
We in the
Conservative party might think, “Right, we don’t like what the
Liberal
Democrats are doing, so we’ll arrest them all and put them in jail,
especially if there’s a vote and we think we’re likely to lose it in
Parliament. Let’s lock ‘em all up. It’s a very good form of democracy, isn’t
it? You make sure you win the vote by arresting the opposition.” It is not
any form of coalition or democratic Government as we know it. That is where
things are going horribly wrong in Zimbabwe.
Then there are all the farms
in Zimbabwe that are being given to the
so-called “war veterans”. Some of
them look remarkably young if they are war
veterans from the 1970s. Most of
them are probably in their 30s or 40s—there
is no way that they are war
veterans. I will be quite blunt: they are a
bunch of thugs, basically, hired
by Mugabe to go round and destroy these
farms. Of course, once they get the
farms, there is another problem. They
drive off not only the farmers
themselves but the farm workers, and we
should not forget that these farms
are homesteads that include a school and
a medical centre. These farms are
communities in themselves and everyone is
driven off them, leaving nobody to
farm them. The machinery is destroyed and
the cattle are killed, and the
whole process just brings about a degradation
of agriculture. Instead of
Zimbabwe being the bread basket of Africa, it is
now receiving food aid.
That is just impossible to believe.
I know the Minister will say how
difficult the situation is, and it is very
difficult. I am fairly hawkish
about these matters. Let me be blunt: if we
had enough armed forces I would
be quite happy to see some of them sent to
Zimbabwe, but that is not going
to happen and I am a realist in that
respect. Nevertheless, we must face up
to the fact that the Chinese are
going into Zimbabwe with their own work
force. If they want to take out
minerals, they take away the hill that the
minerals are in and it just
disappears from Zimbabwe and goes back to China.
That is what the Chinese
are about. They are not investing in Zimbabwe for
the right reasons and we
must be clear about that, because what we need is
investment—good
international investment—in Zimbabwe. However, who will
provide that
investment while the farms are being repossessed? In fact, the
thugs are now
fed up because there is not enough wealth to find on the
farms, so they go
into the cities, such as Harare and Bulawayo, and that is
the problem. They
are destroying the businesses that people should be
investing in.
I say to the Minister with all sincerity that, however
difficult it is to do
so, when we give support to Zimbabwe let us actually
try to bring about a
democratic change, because when we can get some form of
reasonable
governance in Zimbabwe the people of Zimbabwe will be more than
ready for
it. They will work together. That country, which is a highly
educated
country, will prosper. Perhaps in some way, that is where Mugabe
went wrong:
he educated people in Zimbabwe, and they could then find out
that there was
a better way to run and rule their country. I urge the
Minister to bring
about genuine change in Zimbabwe, and we will give him all
the help we can.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op): Thank you
very much, Mr
Robertson, for calling me to speak. I join other hon. Members
in
congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on
securing this important and timely debate. I pay tribute to her tenacity and
long-standing involvement in this cause, in her role as chairman of the
all-party group on Zimbabwe. She and other Members have spoken eloquently
today about the tragedy of what has happened in recent years in Zimbabwe,
and about the courage of those in the country who have stood up to Mugabe.
She mentioned the Movement for Democratic Change, the trade union movement
in Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean civil society.
Debates such as this are an
important opportunity for Parliament to
demonstrate on a cross-party basis
our commitment to and solidarity with the
people of Zimbabwe in these
difficult times. On 10 March there was a debate
in the other place, secured
by Lord Avebury, in which a number of important
contributions were made,
again on a cross-party basis. One was from Lord
Chidgey, who placed great
emphasis on the importance of security sector
reform in Zimbabwe, an issue
raised by my hon. Friend the Member for
Vauxhall this morning. In that
debate, Baroness Kinnock, a former Minister
with responsibility for Africa,
placed great emphasis on the important role
that the European Union can
play, a point echoed in a number of this morning’s
speeches.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Vauxhall referred to the tendency of ZANU-PF
to smear
the MDC and other critics and opponents. In February, I had the
opportunity
to meet Zimbabwe’s Deputy Prime Minister, Thokozani Khupe, and
the Minister
of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Jameson Timba, here in
London. Both
are members of the MDC and, like my hon. Friend, I was very
impressed by
their dedication and professionalism, which give the lie to the
smears
against them that she described.
I also want to put on the record my
appreciation for the work of a number of
organisations in and around
Zimbabwe, such as the Open Society Foundation.
Here in the UK there is
Action for Southern Africa, which arose out of the
former Anti-Apartheid
Movement, and the British Trades Union Congress. I
also echo the thanks and
appreciation that my hon. Friend expressed to the
Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association, and I support her in saying that we
look forward to the
eventual return of Zimbabwe to the Commonwealth.
I know that the
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, the hon.
Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), who is the
Minister with
responsibility for Africa, is in Africa today, and I welcome
the Minister
for Europe to his place in Westminster Hall to respond to the
debate. Last
month, I tabled a question to the Under-Secretary asking him
what recent
discussions he has had on the role of the Southern African
Development
Community in monitoring progress towards the 24 goals in the
global
political agreement. I want to take this opportunity to thank him for
his
response and to put on the record on the Opposition’s behalf that we
absolutely share the Government’s concerns about the situation in Zimbabwe,
and that we appreciate the strong and real personal commitment to Africa
that he has demonstrated since he took office almost a year ago.
I also
want to put on the record that we welcome the statement in February
by the
Foreign Secretary supporting the European Union’s rolling over of
restrictive measures—travel restrictions and asset freezes—for those who
have perpetuated human rights abuses and political oppression in Zimbabwe,
and of course the continuation of the arms embargo on Zimbabwe. These
measures from the EU offer an important bargaining tool with which we can
apply pressure on Mugabe’s regime. As a number of hon. Members have said
during the debate, we cannot and must not leave unchallenged ZANU-PF’s
claims that the EU’s targeted measures are in any way undermining the
humanitarian aid that is needed to assist the people of Zimbabwe. As the
hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) said, those
measures are only needed because of the policies of Mugabe.
As the hon.
Gentleman also said, Zimbabwe was formerly the bread basket of
Africa, but
in recent years we have seen a very significant increase in the
UK’s
bilateral aid to Zimbabwe. I am pleased that the previous Labour
Government
increased that aid to £67 million in the last financial
year—2009-10—and I
very much welcome the fact that this Government have
decided to maintain
that bilateral aid. However, I agree with hon. Members,
from all parties,
who have said that that aid should be an opportunity for
us to exert more
leverage on Zimbabwe in this crucial period. My hon. Friend
the Member for
Vauxhall made the very important point that, in the case of
Zimbabwe,
consulting officials rather than elected politicians is perhaps
not the best
route, and certainly should not be the only route in terms of
the
implementation of aid; and that we should also consider consulting
elected
members of Parliament and councillors in Zimbabwe on a cross-party
basis.
Martin Horwood: We need to treat the conditionality of aid very
cautiously.
The hon. Gentleman’s Government—the last Labour Government—were
right to
grant aid to Zimbabwe through the UN and NGOs exclusively, rather
than
giving aid from Government to Government, and we have been right to
follow
that policy. It is important to understand that point.
Stephen
Twigg: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. What I sought to do
was to
echo an important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for
Vauxhall about
the specific circumstances right now in Zimbabwe. An approach
that relies on
officials, which may well make sense in the vast majority of
countries, does
not make sense in the case of Zimbabwe, for the reasons my
hon. Friend set
out earlier.
I echo what a number of hon. Members have said about the robust
approach of
President Zuma, which, as my hon. Friend has said, stands in
stark contrast
to the lamentable record of his predecessor. I also agree
with the hon.
Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. I happened to be in
South Africa
in 2003 when Walter Sisulu had just died, and I saw the
pictures of Mugabe
at Sisulu’s funeral. Mugabe got exactly the sort of
response then that the
hon. Gentleman described in his speech today, and we
need to remember that
public opinion in Africa, particularly southern
Africa, is a challenge, and
that we should give whatever support we can to
President Zuma and to other
Governments in the region who are now prepared
to stand up to Mugabe’s
thuggery.
We have seen some progress in recent
years towards economic improvements in
Zimbabwe—my hon. Friend the Member
for Vauxhall referred to visiting shops
that were full of produce—but
clearly, as this debate has demonstrated,
political developments have fallen
well short of what we would expect.
Targeted measures remain an essential
lever at our disposal, but we also
need to press a number of issues that
require immediate and intensive
political and diplomatic pressure.
First,
there is the need for a new constitution that is endorsed by the
people of
Zimbabwe, and I press the Minister to respond to the points made
by almost
all this morning’s speakers about the vital importance of getting
election
monitors on the ground as soon as possible. Secondly, there is the
importance of opening space for a free media to publish. The hon. Member for
Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport spoke about access to balanced radio and the
possibility of securing Department for International Development funding for
that. Thirdly, there is the crucial importance of an independently verified
electoral register. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about
people who are on the register but are no longer with us, and about fairness
in the electoral register being important in there being a free and fair
election. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) spoke about
the experience of manipulation of the register in Zimbabwean elections.
Fourthly, there is the crucial role that we can play in securing the
root-and-branch reform of the security sector.
Progress, as this debate
has demonstrated, has been painfully slow. I
welcome the establishment of
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Human Rights
Commission and Media
Commission, but it is demonstrable that those bodies do
not have sufficient
resources to operate effectively, and there is a real
danger that what
should be independent bodies might serve no purpose other
than the
objectives of Mugabe and his supporters. Any election that is held
ahead of
an agreement to a new constitution, the opening of space for free
media, an
independently verified electoral register and security sector
reforms, will
not be acceptable, and it is vital to restate that throughout
this
debate.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) spoke about the
escalation
of abuse in the run-up to elections, and I want to highlight the
very
concerning recent escalation of violence in Zimbabwe, and to refer to
an
excellent but disturbing report from Human Rights Watch, “Perpetual Fear:
Impunity and Cycles of Violence in Zimbabwe”, which documents the context of
impunity within which ZANU-PF activists have perpetrated systematic violence
against other Zimbabweans, whose only aspirations are for a free and
democratic Zimbabwe. Human Rights Watch has observed the active and passive
forms of impunity that are fostered by the democratic deficit in Zimbabwe,
and as long as fear and intimidation are either encouraged or ignored by the
state apparatus, democratic developments will not be achieved.
As my hon.
Friend the Member for Vauxhall said, SADC has an increasingly
important role
to play. She said that there are reasons to be hopeful, but
the situation is
fragile. What today’s debate has demonstrated once again is
the very real
cross-party agreement in this House in standing up for the
people of
Zimbabwe. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport
talked about
the important role that the Westminster Foundation for
Democracy could play,
and I echo those words.
A number of hon. Members have referred to events
elsewhere in Africa and the
middle east, and there is clearly a danger that
the world, and the UK in
particular, will take its eye off the ball. We have
a unique influence and
we need to use it, as has been said, both directly
with South Africa and
with the other SADC countries, the wider African
Union, which has its own
responsibilities, and our European Union partners.
I am keen to hear the
Minister’s current assessment, as the Minister for
Europe, of the
perspective at a European level, and also at an African
level, with the role
that SADC and the African Union have to play.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall paid tribute to Mike Campbell, and
said
that we must hope that his death was not in vain. Too many lives have
been
lost in Zimbabwe; too many people have suffered through the tyranny and
thuggishness of the Mugabe regime. We must not take our eye off the ball. I
again congratulate my hon. Friend and the other members of the all-party
group, and I look forward to the Minister’s response, which I am sure will
demonstrate that the Government maintain their absolute commitment to the
people of Zimbabwe, and the absolute commitment of the British people to
securing a democratic future for the country.
The Minister for Europe (Mr
David Lidington): I thank the hon. Member for
Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) for
initiating the debate and for giving the House the
opportunity to express
views upon Zimbabwe this morning, and I also thank
all those who have taken
part: the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby
(Stephen Twigg), my hon.
Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and
Devonport (Oliver Colvile), for
Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and for
Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), and
the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim
Shannon). All of their contributions
spoke from a mixture of heart and head.
What came through to me was the
profound commitment, and love—I do not think
that too strong a word—on the
part of those Members for Zimbabwe and its
people, coupled with an
appreciation of the complexity and difficulty of the
challenges that the
country faces, and of the efforts by successive United
Kingdom Governments
to do what is best to try to make it possible for the
people of Zimbabwe to
decide upon the destiny of their own country. I thank
the hon. Lady also for
her kind words about the Minister for Africa, my hon.
Friend the Member for
North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), and about our
ambassador to Zimbabwe and
the head of the DFID team in that country.
In discussing Zimbabwe, it is
right to focus on not only the deep-rooted and
abiding problems that afflict
the country, but, as the hon. Lady did in her
opening speech, on the
progress that has been made in the face of difficult
odds, since the
formation of the inclusive Government in 2008. There has
been a marked
economic recovery, illustrated by a robust 8% growth rate in
2010, although
it is also fair to remind ourselves, as has been said, that
some sectors,
most notably agriculture, are failing to perform at anything
like their full
potential because of the disastrous economic policies
pursued by Zimbabwean
leaders.
Reports of human rights abuses since the formation of the inclusive
Government have fallen well below the peak, but there has been a worrying
trend in the early months of this year of a reverse in those promising
signals. There has been greater freedom for the print media, and the
constitutional review process, despite its frailties, has helped to open up
democratic space. The important point to note is that those achievements,
both economic and political, are a tribute to the courage, dedication and
persistence of reformers of all stripes in Zimbabwe. I pay tribute to all
the reformist politicians, civil society groups, free trade unionists,
churches and others in Zimbabwe who express their hopes for and work their
utmost towards a better future for their country. Those people and
organisations are not the creatures of any foreign power; they are the
authentic expressions and voices of the people of Zimbabwe.
However,
those efforts by many in Zimbabwe risk being undermined by a few
who wish to
sacrifice their own country’s prosperity and political
development in order
to hang on to power and the opportunity for plunder.
Resisting those efforts
and reinforcing Zimbabwe’s progress with a process
for free, fair and
credible elections will demand still greater courage and
commitment from
reformers in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s neighbours in the region
and those members
of the wider international community in Africa and
elsewhere, including the
United Kingdom, that support Zimbabwe’s transition
to full democratic
freedom.
Rightly, much of this debate has focused on the great concerns about
the
increase in reports of politically motivated violence since the new
year.
The Government share that concern. The high-profile arrests and
threatened
arrests of senior members of the inclusive Government in March
and April
signalled a stepping up of the partisan politicisation of the
legal process.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham was right to pay
tribute to the
courage and endurance of leading democratic politicians in
Zimbabwe in the
face of such treatment. We remain equally concerned by
ongoing reports of
rising intimidation targeting civil society groups and
political activists.
Several hon. Members asked about the Government’s view
of the regional
approach to the political challenges facing Zimbabwe. South
Africa and the
Southern African Development Community more generally act as
the
facilitators and guarantors of the global political agreement and play
the
lead role in brokering an agreement on a road map to free and fair
elections. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham pointed out, it is
somewhat ironic that the global political agreement should have been fully
implemented by now, yet Zimbabweans and the SADC are trying to agree on a
path to the next round of elections before the GPA has been implemented
anywhere near fully.
President Zuma of South Africa has shown in the
creation of the elections
road map that he is prepared to demonstrate strong
and active leadership in
the region. We hope that that critical document
will address the many
individual points raised by hon. Members during this
debate, including the
quality of the electoral register, the reform of the
electoral commission,
access to media and provision for the presence of
international observers at
the elections. The United Kingdom is certainly
ready to support
international observers in any way possible, yet it remains
the case that we
can send observers only in response to an invitation from
the Government of
Zimbabwe.
On the points made about this country’s
programme of bilateral aid,
following the bilateral aid review, our
programme of aid to Zimbabwe has
been increased further to £80 million for
2011-12, the largest amount yet.
That is crucial. Our aid provides vital
support, in particular for primary
education and basic health treatment
inside Zimbabwe. For example, last year
we provided essential medicines to
1,300 primary care clinics and rural
hospitals. The nature of that aid and
the fact that it is distributed via
the United Nations and non-governmental
organisations rather than through
the Zimbabwean Government means that I am
cautious, to put it lightly, about
calls for greater conditionality in the
provision of aid, although I
guarantee to the hon. Member for Vauxhall and
my hon. Friend the Member for
Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport that I will
report to my right hon. Friend
the Secretary of State for International
Development on the points they made
about conditionality.
Kate Hoey: I
thank the Minister. I think we are all conscious of the issues
involved in
aid. Our point is that it is not necessarily the Department for
International Development but the agencies themselves—the big charities
working in countries such as Zimbabwe—that need to be much more aware. They
try so hard not to be political that they end up being political in how they
operate on the ground.
Mr Lidington: The hon. Lady has made her point
well. I will ensure that my
right hon. Friend is made fully aware of the
case that she makes.
The EU targeted measures on Zimbabwe remain in force.
This Government remain
committed to them, and the European Union has made
clear its commitment to
the continuation of those measures. We remain
willing to revisit them within
the year, but only if further concrete
developments take place on the
ground. We will not be shifted by coerced
signatures on a partisan petition.
On behalf of the Government, I make it
clear again that we need to lay to
rest the delusional nonsense that the EU
targeted measures, which apply to
163 individuals and 31 entities in
Zimbabwe, are somehow responsible for the
widespread deprivation and
suffering endured by the people of Zimbabwe. The
right way to help with the
economic plight of the people in Zimbabwe is for
Zimbabwe’s leaders to
pursue the kinds of economic policy and give the
commitments to good
governance that will attract investment and add to
Zimbabwe’s trade
relationships with the region and the rest of the world.
Given the time, I
will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport
about the Kimberley diamond process and Marange, and I
will copy the letter
to other Members who have taken part in this debate. As
my hon. Friend the
Minister with responsibility for Africa has made clear on
numerous
occasions, we continue to take a firm line within the EU, which
acts on our
behalf in the Kimberley process, insisting that Zimbabwe should
comply fully
with the rules laid down in the process before diamond exports
are
permitted.
China has an important role in the growth and development of
Africa, and
considerable progress has been made in areas such as
infrastructure as a
result of Chinese financing. Like China, we see trade as
vital to helping
African economies to grow and escape poverty, but one
lesson of the
developing world is that as countries grow and develop, they
require not
just physical infrastructure but skills, improved health
services and,
critically, better governance, better public institutions and
a clear
commitment to the rule of law rather than arbitrary government. We
believe
that it is vital that donors, including China, be open about their
investments and make clear what they are spending and what results they
achieve. That enables people to hold Governments to account and ensure that
donors co-ordinate their work effectively.
Interestingly, some of China’s
recent experience, for example in Zambia or
Libya, might give pause for
thought to those who have assumed that China can
maintain an economic
relationship with African nations without regard to
issues of governance and
the rule of law. Where those prove lacking,
investment and the safety of
expatriate workers can sometimes turn out to be
at considerable risk.
I
express once again my gratitude to all those who have taken part in this
debate. The Government remain determined to pursue the course on which we
are set, and we hope to see Zimbabwe reach a more prosperous and democratic
future.
Friday 29 April, 2011
Members of the National Standing
Committee
Members of the National Executive and Council
Representatives of
the Trade Unions and Civil Society
Members of the Diplomatic Corp,
Invited
Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and Friends,
It is with
great pleasure that I stand before you today at this historic Congress. This is
our Party’s final congress before the next watershed elections. Those elections
will represent the culmination of the hard work, sacrifice and dedication to
democracy exhibited by millions of Zimbabweans over the past 11
years.
For, the MDC will win the next elections, we will form the next
Government and we will take Zimbabwe into a new era of peace, prosperity,
dignity and hope. We will achieve this because we are together, united winning
and ready for real change.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends,
everyone one of us gathered here today carries the scars from the struggle that
begun with the formation of the MDC in 1999. Each of us have felt the weight of
the oppressor’s baton or the feel of his fist or booted feet. We carry the
emotional scars from grieving for our fallen comrades and the trauma of seeing
the sacrifices of our liberation heroes desecrated on the altar of political
plunder and exploitation.
Since our last congress we have lost leaders
and we have lost warriors for peace and democracy. Let us remember those men,
women and youths who have paid the ultimate price to deliver real change to the
people of Zimbabwe.
Our founding Vice President and a dear colleague in
the struggle, Gibson Sibanda, is no more. Our founding national chairman, Isaac
Matongo died a year after our historic Congress of 2006 and I would like to
thank all of you for the support you gave me and family during our most trying
moment following the death of my beloved wife, Susan, on 6 March 2009.
I
also wish to thank fellow Standing Committee members with whom I have led this
party for the past five years. We did our best and led this party to victory in
March 2008. We confounded our critics and we have become the largest political
party in the country in the last five years.
At this historic congress
let us honour their sacrifice. Let us treasure their memory and let us ensure
that their legacy is a New Zimbabwe that is truly free, democratic and
prosperous. This is what they stood for and this is what they were fighting for.
We owe it to them to carry on the struggle courageously, peacefully and
relentlessly.
In light of this, I wish to repeat what I said at the
Women’s Congress and the Youth Congress by addressing the allegations of
factionalism, conflict and corruption that have preceded this Congress. We are
aware that Zanu PF is a stakeholder in this Congress. They want a certain
outcome but we have survived infiltration before and we will overcome
forever.
But let me once again state that there will be no tolerance of
violence in the MDC. There will be no sanctioning of corruption in the MDC; And
there will be no reward for patronage in the MDC. It is these traits that our
party was born to eradicate. It is these traits that condemned an entire
generation to poverty and repression and there can be no room for them in the
New Zimbabwe.
The MDC I am proud to lead has got character and culture.
It is a pro-poor, people-centred social democratic, non-racial and non-sexist
movement.
It is inclusive, tolerant and against any forms of
discrimination, it supports the emancipation of women and considers democracy as
a core value. It is against all forms of factionalism, fronticism, rumour
mongering, slander and character assassination.
This is the character
that has made our brand such an appealing one in the last decade. It is the
brand that will define our elections tomorrow and the national elections
whenever they are held. Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, it has been
a long five years since our last congress.
That Congress was held in the
aftermath of a vicious and bitter split that we deeply regret. However we
soldiered on and rebuilt this party. Through the most vicious of all forms of
violence and the most aggravated form of dictatorship on the African continent
at the moment, we survived and won an election.
From those sad ruins of
the party at its Congress in 2006, I stand here before you not only as President
of a proud movement but also as Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
I stand here as leader of a ruling party with majority seats in
Parliament and with a Speaker of the House of Assembly.
A party that has
mayors in all the urban areas and controls the majority of local authorities
throughout the country.
A party that has had a positive impact in this
transitional arrangement and has given every Zimbabwean the reason to hope once
again.
It is at this Congress that we must develop the roadmap to take
this party and our nation forward, to complete the change that our people demand
and deserve. Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, although we have much
to be proud of, we must also acknowledge that there is much we must learn from
the last five years and much work still to do.
Our time in Government has
shown us that securing real transfer of power will be no easy task. Any failure
on our part to adhere to our principles, to drive forward our peaceful,
democratic revolution will be seized upon by the enemies of progress in an
attempt to reverse the gains our nation has made. We must remain vigilant as
these enemies attempt to distract us with ill-gotten trinkets, false promises of
empowerment and continued threats of violence.
It is lack of respect for
our national security institutions that has led to this sad state of affairs;
the police, the army and the intelligence service must be empowered to act
professionally, impartially and abide by the Constitution of Zimbabwe. This will
be achieved under our new Government.
National institutions serve the
people and not certain political parties and once the people lose confidence in
the security sector, the onus befalls on those institutions to prove that they
are worthy of the people’s trust.
We must stay true to our principles of
ensuring that our nation’s riches enrich the many and not the few. That we are
the masters of our own destiny and do not allow Zimbabwe to be recolonised by
any nation, whether it hails from the West, the East, North or
South.
This Congress must set the tone for the next lap of the people’s
struggle. We have fought a good fight but we need to complete this journey for
the benefit of all Zimbabweans.
We are heartened by the brave stance of our
colleagues in the region and by the facilitator, President Jacob Zuma.
The region has given us reason to believe that SADC and the AU are ready
to prevent the circus of 2008 that began in Kenya, was perfected in Zimbabwe but
backfired with disastrous consequences in the Ivory Coast.
This is the
circus where losers of national elections are accommodated through power sharing
arrangements. We applaud the position of SADC in ensuring that the process
towards a free and fair election in Zimbabwe is fully supported, enhanced and
consolidated.
The AU and SADC, as the guarantors to the GPA, have shown
that they are ready to nurse this process and to ensure that a credible
government is put in place through a free and fair election. Thus, the next
months are going to be critical in ensuring that we put in place the necessary
mechanisms and building blocks to guarantee and protect the people’s vote and
the people’s will.
We are in the last mile of our democratic struggle to
create a New Zimbabwe but we all know that the last kicks of a dying horse are
vicious. Let us therefore work together in unity of purpose guarding against
violence and coordinated attacks by those who have been rejected by the
people.
We face in the next phase of our development as a nation not only
a political transition but also a generational transition. The liberation
generation has taken this country over the past 30 years from a vibrant economy
to its knees where the currency was worthless, savings wiped out and general
sustenance became a daily struggle for survival.
It is our
responsibility as a new generation taking this country forward for the next 30
years to move this country from a Third world country to First world status.
Yes, it can be done with the human and natural endowments that we possess. With
political stability and confidence of our people in a credible and legitimate
government, it is possible to lay the foundation for a New Zimbabwe.
The
outcome of this congress must deal therefore with the transformation that is
necessary in our party and in our nation.
We must have a clear five year
programme as a party that will deal with massive unemployment and poverty that
we currently face, a clear programme underpinned by political reforms, a
commitment to the rule of law, defense of property rights and reward of
individual effort. This programme must set out clear economic plans, focus on
infrastructure rehabilitation, resuscitation of our manufacturing potential and
increasing our mining and agricultural productivity.
This New Zimbabwe
beckons to every citizen.
I can see that new Zimbabwe.
From the Zimbabwe
Vigil
Swazis in UK to picket
King’s reception
MEDIA
NOTICE – 29th April 2011
The Swaziland Vigil
will picket the Four Seasons Hotel in London on Saturday when King Mswati III
holds a reception at the end of his visit to attend the Royal Wedding.
The King’s attendance
drew much critical comment in the British media because of his human rights
abuses. He was grouped in Westminster Abbey along with guests such as the
Zimbabwean ambassador Gabriel Machinga in what the Times newspaper called ‘the
pew of evil’. The British government cited protocol for not cancelling their
invitations as demanded by the Swaziland Vigil and the Zimbabwe Vigil, which
stage regular human rights demonstrations in London.
After the Saturday
Vigil outside the Zimbabwe Embassy (30th April), Zimbabweans will
join the Swazi protest outside the Four Seasons Hotel from 6.30 – 8.30
pm.
Swaziland Vigil
co-ordinator Thobile Gwebu said ‘we want to show the British people and the
world that Mswati does not represent the people of
Swaziland’.
Date: Saturday,
30th April 2011 from 6.30 – 8.30 pm.
Venue:
Four Seasons Hotel, Hamilton Place, Park
Lane W1J 7DR. The
protest will be located outside the Royal Aeronautical Society, 4 Hamilton Place
W1J 7BQ across the road from the hotel. (The police ask that we do not obstruct
the public footway or enter on to property owned by the Four Seasons
Hotel.)
Tube:
Hyde Park Corner.
Contact:
Thobile Gwebu / Fungayi Mabhunu 07746 552 597
Zimbabwe Vigil
Co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside
the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00
to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights in Zimbabwe. The
Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, 29/04/11
The publication of the ‘Draft roadmap
for Zimbabwe’ by the Newsday on
Thursday 28th April 2011 confirms our worst
fears about the so-called
‘agreement reached by the GPA negotiators’. There
is nothing on the Diaspora
vote or monitoring by the UN, EU or AU. While
SADC is mentioned, Zanu-pf has
other ideas on international
observers.
How a document with certain parts in ‘bold and shaded areas
representing
deadlock’ can be described as ‘a breakthrough’ and an
‘agreement’ defies
logic. To me the whole draft roadmap for Zimbabwe is a
big joke, to put it
mildly. There was no need to bury the bad news for cheap
news headlines.
A complete analysis of the document is constrained by the
difficulty in
demarcating the agreed areas from the deadlocked ones because
the published
copy does not show the ‘bold and shaded areas’ at least
according to the one
on the Newsday website which is the only one available
online since the
so-called agreement was reached.
A curious inclusion
in the ‘agreed road map’ is where ‘it calls upon the
governments that are
hosting and/or funding external radio stations
broadcasting into Zimbabwe to
cease such hosting and funding’. That is
unbelievable. This is hypocrisy in
its worst form. All the parties in
Zimbabwe use these external stations for
interviews and leaked news items.
On sanctions the negotiators say a
re-engagement committee and SADC should
lobby for the removal of sanctions.
Now they are no longer referred to as
targeted sanctions against Robert
Mugabe and his inner circle for human
rights abuses which are continuing to
the preset day.
Strangely MDC-T negotiators ‘agreed’ to that when on
their party’s website
there are shocking pictures of victims of political
violence, the
perpetrators of whom have not been brought to book up to now.
SADC needs
some self respect on this matter, after failing to get the
targeted
sanctions lifted before, what has changed since then?
On the
rule of law, that is not an agreement obviously. Although the
suggestion of
enacting an Act of Parliament to regulate the operations of
the CIO makes
sense, we have been urging in vain all along for MPs to keep
their eyes on
the ball. The chances of such a piece of law being assented to
by Zanu-pf
President Robert Mugabe are 1 in a trillion in view of the fact
that the
President’s Office budget is ring fenced.
No outsiders will ever know
what the money voted every year is used for
unlike in other countries where
the basic structures and operations of
intelligence services are not black
boxes but are conducted within the rule
of law.
It’s amazing that
there are still people who have faith in POSA even as
amended and hope for
free and fair elections under that law’s jurisdiction.
It is hard to
understand why the negotiators ‘agreed’ to leave out the
Diaspora Vote from
their so-called roadmap altogether. At least if they had
become deadlocked
on that issue, that would make them credible.
The main provisions for the
Diaspora or Expatriate Vote are well captured by
Zimbabwe Democracy Now in
their paper on The Minimum Requirements for a
Free, Peaceful, and Credible
Election in Zimbabwe’ available online. In
short:
• Citizens
residing outside Zimbabwe should be able to cast their vote by
postal
ballot.
• A new expatriate voting system with fraud-proof mechanisms
must be set
up;
• Temporary balloting stations to be set-up in
every country hosting a
significant number of Zimbabwean
citizens;
• Criteria to be determined urgently beforehand via the
Diaspora civic
networks;
• Expatriate voters to use their Zimbabwe
ID or Passport for
identification purposes;
• Diaspora vote count
to be verified (in the same way as for inland
votes) on site with results
posted on the outside of each voting station at
the close of balloting for
public inspection; the document to be
photographed by an official monitor,
the image and results MMS’d and/or
radioed to a central monitoring post for
immediate public broadcast from a
national tabulation centre
•
Diaspora vote count to be verified and results faxed directly to the
central
counting facility in Zimbabwe as well as to the independent central
tabulation centre
Other foreign nationals have used the same methods
to vote in their
countries’ national elections while abroad.
That is
the input we are expecting in the roadmap for elections in Zimbabwe.
Short
of that, we will cross the river when we get there.
Clifford Chitupa
Mashiri, Political Analyst, London,
zimanlysis2009@gmail.com