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HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe is to import 300,000 tonnes of the
staple maize from
its neighbours to avert widespread food shortages
following a poor harvest,
an official said Wednesday.
"We
are in negotiations with countries in the region to import around
300,000
tonnes of maize to ensure that maize is available through out the
country,"
Samuel Muvuti, chief executive of the state-run Grain Marketing
Board told
AFP.
"We have already started receiving part of the 400,000 tonnes
sourced from
Malawi and we are happy with the progress so far. As GMB we are
fully geared
to avoid maize shortages."
Muvuti said the imports would
augment stocks from local harvests and
dismissed speculation that the
country had only a few weeks' supply of maize
left.
"Despite the
prolonged drought we have still managed to harvest to produce
the bulk of
our requirements and no one has died of hunger in the seven
years we have
had drought," Muvuti said.
The UN World Food Programme last week launched
an appeal for 118 million US
dollars (86 million euros) in expanded food aid
for Zimbabwe.
It pledged to help 3.3 million of its citizens who it said
were already
starting to run out of food.
In March, Zimbabwe,
declared the 2006/2007 farming season a year of drought
year. The country
was once known as the bread basket of the region.
President Robert Mugabe
blames the perennial shortfall on drought and
sanctions imposed on him and
his ruling party elite. The sanctions followed
the country's last
presidential polls, which the opposition parties and
western observers say
were rigged.
But critics say the shortages are a direct result of
controversial land
reforms. The government seized at least 4,000 farms from
white commercial
farmers for reallocation to landless blacks, who often
lacked the means and
skills to farm.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of a
chronic economic crisis with the world's
highest rate of inflation and four
in every five people jobless.
Some 80 percent of the population live
below the poverty threshold.
Reuters
Wed 8 Aug 2007,
15:59 GMT
By Shapi Shacinda
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe is nearing a deal with
the opposition to end a
political crisis in his country after South Africa
tried to broker an
agreement, a document obtained by Reuters on Wednesday
indicated.
A
confidential report due to be presented by South African President Thabo
Mbeki to leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) says
"progress" has been made in talks between Mugabe's ruling party and the
opposition and a deal could be close.
"It seems there are no real
substantive issues between the government and
the (opposition) MDC. There
are strong indications that the two sides are
sliding towards an agreement,"
the report says.
SADC asked Mbeki to mediate talks between Zimbabwe's
ruling ZANU-PF party
and the main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
opposition party in March.
He is due to report back on his progress at an
SADC summit in Lusaka next
week.
The request for Mbeki to mediate
followed a crackdown on MDC activists which
triggered international outrage
and renewed calls on African nations to
pressure Mugabe to agree to
political reforms. SADC stopped short of
condemning the
crackdown.
Despite a media blackout on the talks, some reports said South
African
negotiators have struggled to get ZANU-PF representatives and the
MDC to
agree on anything of substance in the past five months.
But
the South African document says various contentious issues, including
constitutional reforms, have been "worked out" by the two sides.
The
report also blames the country's former colonial power, Britain, which
has
been highly critical of Mugabe, for Zimbabwe's isolation by Western
nations.
Mugabe blames Western sanctions for hyper-inflation, food
shortages and an
economic crisis in the formerly prosperous southern African
nation. Critics
say Mugabe is at fault because of his controversial policy
of farm seizures.
"The most worrisome thing is that the UK continues to
deny its role as the
principle protagonist in the Zimbabwean issue and is
persisting with its
activities to isolate Zimbabwe," the report
said.
The report said Britain had a "death wish" on the dialogue between
ZANU-PF
and the MDC, which faces its own internal divisions.
Scrutiny
of the talks has intensified as thousands of desperate Zimbabweans
trying to
escape poverty and unemployment of 80 percent sneak over the
border into
South Africa every day.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: August 8,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Torture, assault, unlawful detention
and other violations
of human rights are increasing rapidly in Zimbabwe,
according to a new
report.
The report, by the independent Human
Rights Forum, highlighted the
government crackdown on the country's
political opposition.
Monitors said they collected evidence documenting
5,307 human rights
violations in the first six months of this year - nearly
double the number
during the same period a year ago, the report
said.
Meanwhile, the crackdown appears to be continuing. A pro-democracy
group,
Women of Zimbabwe Arise, reported Wednesday that 19 of its activists,
both
men and women, had been arrested the day before while playing netball
in the
southern town of Masvingo and were being held in police
cells.
No reason for their detention was given, the group said in a
statement. The
group is known for staging surprise political demonstrations
and regularly
having members arrested under sweeping security laws, but it
said it had
staged no recent protests in Masvingo.
In its
analysis, Human Rights Forum said the violations documented through
June 30
included two politically linked deaths, 328 cases of torture, 481
assaults
by state personnel and militants, 802 cases of unlawful arrest and
detention, 935 incidents of political victimization and intimidation and
1,937 violations of freedom of expression and movement.
Two other
opposition activists were also killed this year, in the western
Matabeleland
South district, in suspected political abductions. But evidence
regarding
their killings, which were not included in the report's total, is
still
being collected, the group said.
Forum officials said the increases this
year came primarily in
state-orchestrated rights violations.
The
total of 5,307 so far this year compares to 2,868 in the first six
months of
last year.
This March, Morgan Tsvangirai and other top opposition leaders
were
assaulted and arrested when police violently broke up a prayer meeting
that
had been declared to be an illegal political
gathering.
President Robert Mugabe later endorsed the assaults, telling
leaders at a
summit of the Southern African Development Community that
Tsvangirai had
"asked for it" and that police had the right to "bash"
opponents intent on
holding illegal violent protests.
He accused the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change of waging a
campaign of terror
with a series of gasoline bombings.
The forum's report cites the arrest
of two lawyers representing alleged
terror suspects among cases of unlawful
detention.
The lawyers, Alec Muchahdama and Andrew Makoni, had asserted
in court that
police had faked evidence against the 15 alleged gasoline
bombers. Last
month, all 15 were freed after five months in jail when the
High Court ruled
the state evidence was fabricated.
In addition to
the political clampdown, more than 7,000 business executives,
store managers
and traders have been arrested since July in a drive to
enforce a government
order to slash prices of all goods and services by
half.
The
government says the inflation rate is 4,500 percent, the highest in the
world. The mandatory price cuts have left shelves across the country bare of
corn meal, meat, bread, milk and other staples.
Most of the arrested
business representatives, who include some to the
nation's top corporate
directors, have been held for 48 hours, the maximum
allowed, in harsh police
jails in near-freezing night temperatures before
being allowed to apply for
bail.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs -
Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Date: 08 Aug
2007
HARARE, 8 August 2007
(IRIN) - The International Crisis Group (ICG), a
nongovernmental conflict
resolution organisation, believes conditions in
Zimbabwe are crystallising
and could lead to a rapid reversal of the
country's ill-fortunes, but the
scenario is based on President Robert
Mugabe's 27 year-rule
ending.
"After years of political deadlock and continued economic and
humanitarian
decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear, in the
past few
months, to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis," said ICG president Gareth
Evans in
a recent address, Zimbabwe: Waiting for Change, to the Royal
Commonwealth
Society, in London.
Zimbabwe has suffered a sharp
downward spiral since 2000, when the ZANU-PF
government embarked on its
fast-track land-reform programme, which
redistributed white-owned farmland
to landless blacks, setting off a chain
of events that has left more than a
third of all Zimbabweans facing severe
food shortages.
According to
the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry (CZI), industrial output
is at about
one-third of its pre-2000 level, resulting in a negative
economic growth
rate of -4.4 percent. Recent data from the Consumer Council
of Zimbabwe
(CCZ) puts annual inflation above 13,000 percent, a rate the
International
Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts could reach 100,000 percent by
the end of the
year.
Four out of five Zimbabweans are unemployed, basic commodities such
as
bread, sugar and maizemeal are unobtainable, and shortages of fuel,
electricity and water are a daily occurrence; social services have broken
down, with hospitals and clinics operating without adequate medical
equipment or supplies.
Evans said in his address that should Mugabe
leave office, conditions were
ripe for the introduction of a power-sharing
transitional government, the
establishment of a new constitution, and
holding free and fair elections.
Although Mugabe was recently endorsed by
ZANU-PF as its presidential
candidate for combined presidential and
parliamentary elections in March
next year, while the ZANU-PF Women's League
has proposed installing him as
president for life, influential elements in
the ruling party ranks opposed
to Mugabe's continued presidency are in
favour of a transitional period.
"Both factions of the divided Movement
for Democratic Change [MDC]
opposition, and powerful elements of the
Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front [currently ruling] party
support the concept in
outline," Evans said.
The MDC split in October
2005 after internal disagreements about whether or
not to participate in the
Senate elections, although the leaders of both
camps, Morgan Tsvangirai and
Arthur Mutambara, have publicly announced that
the factions would not
reunite.
Mugabe faces growing opposition from his party
A ZANU-PF
camp led by a retired army general, Solomon Mujuru, husband of
Joyce, one of
the country's two vice-presidents, successfully opposed moves
to amend the
constitution in December 2006 to harmonise presidential and
parliamentary
elections, but despite Mujuru's initial success in blocking
the
harmonisation of elections, the constitutional amendments were passed.
A
ruling party stalwart, Ibbo Mandaza, recently called on Mugabe to step
down
by September 2007 to prevent the economic and political crises from
worsening, and another camp within ZANU-PF is led by rural amenities
minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also seen as a possible replacement for
Mugabe.
The cracks in the ZANU-PF ediface have become more apparent:
first with the
arrest in June of several army officers alleged to have been
on the brink of
staging a coup, in which, state prosecutors allege, power
would have been
handed over to Mnangagwa.
Next, Simba Makoni, a
member of the ruling party's powerful politburo, told
delegates at a
workshop in South Africa in July that "a process of change"
was underway in
ZANU-PF. His comments drew an immediate riposte from
information minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, who labelled Makoni a "sell-out".
Evans said the
growing opposition to Mugabe's rule by ZANU-PF heavyweights
was a
consequence of the adverse affect on their businesses, after the
European
Union (EU) and the United States (US) introduced targeted sanctions
against
Mugabe and members of the ruling elite for alleged human rights
violations.
"The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of EU and US
targeted sanctions,
is pushing ZANU-PF towards change, since business
interests of key officials
are suffering," said Evans.
"The party is
split over the succession issue, but Mugabe's long-successful
divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire, as the two main [ZANU-PF]
factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying beyond the
expiration of his present term in March 2008."
He said there was
simmering discontent lower down the hierarchy among
military and security
personnel because of poor wages, while continued
protests in spite of
government suppression, were putting the country on a
knife-edge.
"Salaries of the security services and civil servants
alike are mostly below
the poverty line. Economic issues, discontent among
underpaid police and
troops, and the increasing willingness of opposition
parties and civil
society to protest in the streets, all increase the risk
of sudden major
violence.
"The desire to remove Mugabe within the
year provides a rare rallying point
that cuts across partisan affiliations
and ethnic and regional identities.
Opposition party leaders are keeping
lines of communication open with the
ZANU-PF dissidents, while preparing for
a non-violent campaign to demand
immediate constitutional reform," Evans
said.
Role of international community
He said the Southern African
Development Community (SADC), which is to meet
later this month in the
Zambian capital, Lusaka, and the international
community "can make a vital
contribution to resolving the crisis".
The SADC has completed an economic
assessment of Zimbabwe and its
secretary-general, Tomaz Salomao, recently
handed over his report to the
President of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, who
heads the SADC's regional
security arm. The regional bloc has also appointed
the South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, to mediate between Zimbabwe's
ruling party and
opposition to ensure free and fair elections in March
2008.
"SADC governments, who for long have been extremely reluctant to
press
Mugabe, now privately acknowledge they want him out to pave the way
for a
moderate ZANU-PF government," Evans said. "Without applying public
pressure,
the SADC troika [Tanzania, Lesotho and Nambia] is quietly
beginning to
explore ways to negotiate a retirement package for the
president, while
persuading the West to relax its
pressures."
However, Mugabe's departure from office was the starting
point, he said, and
Zimbabwe would need "a more radical change to get back
on its feet".
Evans recommended that ZANU-PF should "abandon plans to
extend President
Mugabe's term of office beyond its expiration in March
2008, and support
SADC-led negotiations to implement an exit strategy for
him".
The ruling party should negotiate a new constitution, a two-year
political
transition period and power sharing with the MDC, and put in place
"an
emergency economic recovery plan to curb inflation, restore donor and
foreign confidence, and boost mining and agricultural production". At the
same time, it should repeal repressive laws, draw up a new voters' roll, and
demilitarise and depoliticise state institutions.
He said homeless
citizens should be provided with shelter, while those whose
homes were
destroyed during the 2005 "Operation Murambatsvina" (Drive Out
Trash) - a
three-month campaign to rid the country of slums and illegal
informal
businesses that led to about 700,000 people losing their homes and
livelihoods - should be compensated.
Evans called for "an urgent
meeting of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence
and Security Co-operation to
consider the regional consequence of the
economic meltdown in Zimbabwe" and
said the SADC should devise a joint
strategy with the EU and the US to
incentivise the resumption of aid to
Zimbabwe.
The EU and the US
should also increase pressure on Mugabe and other ZANU-PF
leaders "to begin
a transition and restore democracy". If they failed to do
so, the targeted
sanctions should be extended to family members and business
partners of
individuals already banned from travelling to the EU and US, and
have had
their foreign assets frozen; their visas and residence permits
should be
cancelled, while more funding should be given to pro-democracy
activists.
David Chimhini, chairman of the Zimbabwe Civic Education
Trust (ZIMCET),
which promotes peace initiatives in the country, said the
international
community was welcome to help solve local problems, but
Zimbabweans should
be at the forefront of such efforts.
"We have
people from the ruling party and the opposition who are capable of
bringing
back the shine to the country again, but the problem is that there
is a
culture of fear that prevents them from taking the front seat,"
Chimhini
told IRIN.
"While you cannot bog down the process of a turnaround with
stringent
timetables, evidence abounds that things will normalise one day
and we don't
need to rush the process; we still have the natural resources
and human
expertise for that to happen."
This article does not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
Reuters
Wed Aug 8, 2007
5:46AM EDT
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe's government
has warned it will
arrest white Zimbabwean farmers resisting evictions from
new land targeted
for black farmers, state media reported on
Wednesday.
Critics say Mugabe's controversial seizures of productive
commercial farms
from hundreds of whites and low output from new farmers has
plunged the
southern African state into a severe economic crisis in the last
seven
years.
Industry and union officials say about 600 of Zimbabwe's
4,500 white farmers
have kept their land after the sometimes violent grabs
by Mugabe's
supporters.
But the government handed some of them
eviction notices earlier this year or
reduced the size of their
properties.
Veterans of the 1970s war of liberation invaded white-owned
commercial farms
in 2000 with the backing of the government, which went on
to appropriate the
land.
The seizures set it at odds with the West,
and the resulting disruption to
farming has been widely blamed for
Zimbabwe's food shortages.
More than 4,000 white commercial farmers have
lost their properties under
the reforms. Last year authorities passed a
constitutional amendment barring
former owners from challenging the seizures
in court.
The official Herald newspaper said on Wednesday some farmers
who were given
notices three months ago to wind up their operations "risk
being arrested
for resisting eviction after the expiry of the 90-day notice
period".
The daily quoted Minister of State For Security Didymus Mutasa,
who is also
responsible for land reform and resettlement, as saying that the
government
would move against the farmers accused of going to court to delay
their
departure.
"We have a list of farmers resisting eviction ...
and we are going to act
accordingly to redress the situation," he told a
meeting attended by senior
government officials.
Mutasa was not
immediately available for further comment.
Zimbabwe, once a net exporter
of grain to southern Africa, has suffered food
shortages over the last seven
years as its farming sector has been hit by
drought and disruptions linked
to the land seizures.
On Wednesday, the Herald reported that the head of
the state grain marketing
agency (GMB), Samuel Muvuti, said Zimbabwe was
negotiating with several
southern African countries to import more maize to
boost national grain
reserves.
But he gave no further
details.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World
Food
Programme said last month more than four million Zimbabweans, about a
third
of the population, would need food aid this year.
Food
shortages are part of a wider economic crisis, also seen in the world's
highest inflation rate of over 4,500 percent, unemployment above 80 percent
and rising poverty.
Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, says
the seizures are designed
to correct injustices committed under British
colonialism and to
economically empower Zimbabwe's indigenous black
majority.
: 8 August 2007
The Constitutions of all SADC Member States enshrine the principles of equal opportunities and full participation of the citizens in the political process. However, the Zimbabwean government continues its flagrant violation of the SADC principles and guidelines governing democratic elections, as Zimbabwe Election Watch demonstrates.
Over the past few years, Mugabe has become increasingly reliant on the military for political survival, appointing serving as well as retired members of the armed forces to take charge of electoral bodies and institutions directly involved in the running of elections. Army and police officers have been engaged by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) for the voter registration programme, due to end on 17 August.
In view of the many challenges faced by citizens as they try to register or obtain identity cards and other documents, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network has recommended that voter registration be extended and more effectively publicised.
Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party has traditionally relied on chiefs and village headmen to promote the party's interests. The allowances for three chiefs and several headmen in the southern province of Masvingo have been withdrawn for backing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Apparently aware of efforts within his party to block his standing for next year's elections, Mugabe has deployed the political commissar, youths and women leaders on his side to intimidate the pro-change faction within Zanu PF.
Activists, including nursing mothers, who tried to hold a demonstration were rounded up at the offices of the National Constitutional Assembly and taken to Harare central police station where they were beaten relentlessly for up to five hours.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party has filed a Z$504 billion lawsuit against the police for violently crushing a court-sanctioned rally earlier this year.
A secret memo emanating from the Central Intelligence Organisation states that 25 local journalists suspected of supplying stories to foreign media will be 'eliminated'; by the end of the year. Authorities continue to employ a range of restrictive legislation - including the official Secrets Act, the AIPPA, the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), and criminal defamation laws - to harass journalists.
The Interception of Communications Act, signed into law by Mugabe, is unconstitutional and can be successfully challenged in the courts, legal experts said.
Number of breaches in sample: 59
Mugabe
ropes in soldiers for voter registration
Source Date:
30-07-2007
The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC), that runs elections in Zimbabwe, has engaged hordes
of army and police officers for the voter registration programme that ends on 17
August.
In a petition addressed to Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa,
the Public Rights Information Forum civic groups condemned what they called “the
militarisation of the voter registration exercise” and said it would “compromise
the credibility of the polls.”
The forum said it was improper to hire
individuals who had declared their loyalty and support to Mugabe to run voter
registration as the move would intimidate potential voters.
Sources
within Zimbabwe's electoral body said almost half of all voter educators
employed by the ZEC were members of the army. The rest of the voter educators
were top civil servants and former liberation war fighters, all loyal to
Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, said the source. Under Zimbabwe's electoral laws, only
the ZEC can conduct voter education.
ZEC chairman, Chiweshe, is a former
senior army officer and, before his appointment to ZEC, he headed the
Delimitation Commission that draws the country’s voting constituencies.
Zimbabwe’s attorney general Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, is also a former army
intelligence officer while the chief executive officer of the country’s Grain
Marketing Board Samuel Muvuti is a former army colonel.
Last month, the
MDC said thousands of potential voters in the party’s urban strongholds had been
denied the right to register as voters under the current registration
exercise.
The opposition party also charged that the Registrar General’s
office which is in charge of the process had opened fewer voter registration
centres in urban areas that are known opposition strongholds, in what it said
was an attempt by Zanu PF to rig the elections even before a single vote was
cast.
Source: Zim Online (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1764
SADC standards breached
Zimbabwe election monitor calls for extension of voter
registration
Source Date: 02-08-2007
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network has issued a report saying the mobile voter
registration exercise now in progress must to be extended and more effectively
publicised if all eligible voters are to have enough time to
register.
ZESN's preliminary report on the ongoing voter registration
exercise documented the challenges many citizens face as they try to register or
obtain identity cards and other documents. The organisation, which mobilized
thousands of election monitors in the 2005 general election, said there has been
some interference in the registration process by traditional rural
leaders…
ZESN National Director Rindai Chipfunde-Vava said that the
findings show the timing and logistics of the registration drive raise many
questions as the country prepares for local, general and presidential elections
in 2008.
Source: VOANews (USA)
Link to source: http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/2007-08-02-voa39.cfm
SADC standards breached
Harare
residents worried by voter registration
Source Date:
01-08-2007
Harare’s
Kuwadzana residents have expressed concern at the way the Office of the
Registrar General has set up voter registration centres in the whole
constituency, creating a fertile ground for the marginalisation of the majority
of eligible voters.
Voter registration has been running from 18 June and
will end on 17 August 2007.
Simon Phiri, the Ward 38 Coordinator told the
Combined Harare Residents' Association that residents in Kuwadzana had only two
centres to register as voters.
He said despite appeals to ZEC to increase
the number of voter registration centres, they have not been successful, and it
is feared more people have been unable to register as voters in next year’s
crucial Parliamentary and Presidential Elections under the current
exercise…
Source: Combined Harare Residents Association
Link to source: http://www.chra.co.zw/
SADC standards breached
Mugabe
withdraws allowances for chiefs backing MDC
Source Date:
26-07-2007
MASVINGO – The
Zimbabwean government has withdrawn allowances for three chiefs and several
headmen in the southern province of Masvingo for backing the main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party
has traditionally relied on chiefs and village headmen to promote the party's
interests by maintaining a tight grip on rural areas, where the party draws most
of its support.
"I was summoned by officers from the Ministry of Local
Government, Public Works and Urban Development and was advised that my
allowances had been stopped," said one of the chiefs. "They said I was not
politically correct ahead of next year's polls."
Contacted for comment,
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, said, "if there are any who did not
get their money for that reason, then it is unfortunate because we expect them
not to bite the hand that is feeding them."
Identified perpetrators: Local Government Minister,
Ignatius Chombo
Identified victims: Chief Ziki of Bikita,
Chief Masivamele and Chief Sengwe all from Chiredzi. Several headmen in Gutu,
Chiredzi, Mwenezi and parts of Bikita
Source: Zim Online (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1749
SADC standards breached
Additional comments on this event in relation to SADC
standards:
The remarks of Local Government Minister, Ignatius Chombo, in which he
refuses to condemn the unlawful actions of his officers, make him and his
government complicit with the perpetrators. It places him, and them, in direct
violation of the SADC guidelines.
Further comments in relation to Zimbabwean
legislation:
Chiefs operate under the Traditional Leaders Act and it would be unlawful
for the government to withdraw a chief's allowances for solely backing an
opposition party," said MDC Masvingo spokesperson, Tongai Matutu.
One
Man, One Party, says Mugabe faction
Source Date:
02-08-2007
President
Robert Mugabe, apparently aware of the efforts within his party to block his
standing for next year's elections, has deployed the political commissar, youths
and women leaders on his side into the provinces, to send the message that the
party is intact and doesn't need any leadership change…
The pro-change
faction has confirmed this: "There is even the use of intimidation against party
members, who are being told that there are dangers facing those that will be
seen to be supporting the leadership change agenda because it originates from
enemies of the party," a source from the Mujuru faction said.
Source: Zimbabwean, The (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?linkcategoryid=3&linkid=8&id=5482
SADC standards breached
Scores
of NCA activists arrested and beaten during countrywide demonstrations
Source
Date: 25-07-2007
Scores of
activists from the pressure group National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) were
arrested during countrywide demonstrations intended to raise awareness of the
need for a new constitution.
The protestors were distributing
educational literature about the implications of the government's proposed 18th
amendment to the constitution which, inter alia, changes the entrenched
provisions of the present constitution relating to dates for the holding of
parliamentary and presidential elections.
NCA chairperson Dr. Lovemore
Madhuku described Amendment no. 18 as ‘treacherous and contemptuous’. He added,
“Zimbabwe needs a constitution that entrenches human rights and freedoms,
ensures a free and open society and an electoral system that gives citizens
power to elect leaders who are responsive to their needs.”
Identified victims: NCA field officer Bernard Dube
Source: SW Radio Africa (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=17058
SADC standards breached
Babies
abandoned as police beat mothers
Source Date: 27-07-2007
Six nursing
mothers were among 160 people, including grandmothers, who were rounded up at
the offices of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an organisation
dedicated to constitutional reform, after activists tried to hold a
demonstration.
They were taken to Harare central police station and (the
mothers were) told to leave their babies in the corner of a hall and join other
adults lying on their stomachs. For the next four or five hours, the infants
screamed as police lashed their mothers and the other adults continuously with
metre-long, heavy rubber sticks.
The beatings were the largest mass
assault yet carried out by Zimbabwean police. Violence in March, when Morgan
Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, and about 30 others were beaten for 2½ hours,
sparked international outrage.
Source: Times, The (UK)
Link to source: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2148357.ece
SADC standards breached
Lawsuit points up Zimbabwe’s breach of SADC Election
Protocols
Source Date: 01-08-2007
Zimbabwe's
main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has filed a Z$504
billion lawsuit against the police for breaching their role of protecting public
order when they violently crushed a court-sanctioned rally earlier this
year…
Hundreds of MDC supporters and senior party officials were
seriously injured in violent clashes with police who sealed the venue in the
suburb to prevent the rally…
"The police flagrantly defied a court order
and denied our clients entry into the stadium in order to hold the rally, thus
infringing our clients' right to freedom of assembly, association and
expression," the MDC lawyers said…
Identified
perpetrators: Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri
Source: Zim Online (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1783
SADC standards breached
Zimbabwe Secret Service to ‘eliminate’ journalists
Source
Date: 03-08-2007
A secret memo,
emanating from Magnet House in Bulawayo, local office of the feared Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO), … states that 25 local journalists suspected of
supplying stories to foreign media will be 'eliminated' by the end of the
year.
The three page memo, titled "25 journalists: Enemies of the State",
is written by a CIO officer called Edward Chiromo, and is addressed to CIO
director general Happyton Bonyongwe...
The memo makes clear that when it
uses the word "eliminate" it means kill. Already this year a television
cameraman, Edwared Chikomba, is believed to have been murdered by CIO operatives
for supplying video clips of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai being beaten to
foreign media.
Last week Abel Mustakane, an on-line editor and a noted
opponent of the Mugabe regime, who is now based in South Africa, was shot
outside his home in Johannesburg.
Identified perpetrators: CIO Bulawayo officer called
Edward Chiromo; CIO director general Happyton Bonyongwe
Identified
victims: Edwared Chikomba, television cameraman, Abel Mustakane, editor
of Zim Online
Source: Zimbabwe Today (blog site)
Link to source: http://www.zimbabwetoday.co.uk/2007/08/mugabe-turns-hi.html#more
SADC standards breached
New
Spying Law Unconstitutional
Source Date: 05-08-2007
The
Interception of Communications Act, signed into law by President Robert Mugabe
last week, is unconstitutional and can be successfully challenged in the courts,
legal experts said.
The law authorises the government to set up an
interception centre to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, open mail, and
intercept e-mails and faxes…
David Coltart, secretary for legal affairs
in the pro-Senate faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the
law was unconstitutional and will have serious repercussions on people's rights
and freedom of expression…
The president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe,
Beatrice Mtetwa, said the law could be challenged in the Supreme
Court…
Source: Zimbabwe Standard, The (ZW)
Link to source: http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=7064&siteid=1
SADC standards breached
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International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: August 8,
2007
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: South Africa has set up a task
team to look at ways
of coping with economic migrants from other African
countries but ruled
out - at least for now - establishing refugee camps for
Zimbabweans.
Government spokesman Themba Maseko said that department
heads from several
ministries had been told to look into a "holistic"
solution to the refugee
problem and would report back to Cabinet in the near
future.
Maseko said that there was no need for refugee camps, and it made
no sense
to enact special measures for migrants from Zimbabwe, where an
economic and
political crisis is spiraling.
He reiterated the
government view that the best way to stop the influx of
Zimbabweans was to
settle the pressing economic and political problems in
that country, but
stressed that that could only be achieved by Zimbabweans
themselves rather
than imposed from outside.
"We are becoming victims of our own success,"
Maseko said. "We are one of
the few countries on the continent experiencing
economic growth."
He said this had led to growing numbers of numbers
of economic migrants -
not just from Zimbabwe, but impoverished neighboring
countries like
Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.
"There is likely to be
an increase of economic migrants coming to South
Africa as the result of the
fact that our economy is registering such
economic growth," he told
reporters after a Cabinet meeting.
There are few reliable figures on the
number of economic migrants crossing
through South Africa's borders -
although estimates consistently refer to 3
million Zimbabweans living in
South Africa.
The opposition Democratic Alliance claims that hundreds
more Zimbabweans are
crossing into South Africa every day to escape the
misery at home.
The Department of Home Affairs has dismissed the reports
as exaggerated,
although conceding there has been an increase in the number
of people
entering illegally.
It says that between March 1 and July
31, some 351,000 Zimbabweans arrived
legally in the country through the main
Beitbridge border crossing and
292,000 Zimbabweans left the country through
the same border gate.
In the first six months of the year, nearly 2,000
people applied for asylum,
nearly half of them from Congo. Only one
Zimbabwean is recorded as having
applied for asylum, according to official
figures.
By Tichaona
Sibanda
8 August 2007
There are reports that hundreds of thousands of
Zimbabweans could have
failed to register their names with the mobile voter
registration teams,
after officials avoided certain areas associated with
opposition supporters.
MDC legislator Editor Matamisa, who first raised
the issue of the
irregularities with her party, claimed on Wednesday that
the mobile
registration teams did not bother to visit her constituency,
which has close
to 10 000 residents who want be added to the voters'
roll.
Matamisa explained that Southern African Development Community
principles
and guidelines governing democratic elections, recognise the
importance of
full participation of citizens in the political
process.
She said this is the reason why the registration period is very
important.
The Kadoma central legislator warned that widespread
inefficiencies and
fraud are already pointing to massive rigging of the poll
by Zanu (PF). She
said she was shocked to learn that many government
officials were unaware of
the current registration exercise.
'I have
been to every office that matters in Kadoma to find out what has
been
happening to the exercise and no-one knows anything. There are no
posters in
the town but what scares us is that Zanu councillors have been
bragging to
me that most of their supporters have been registered. So the
question is
where did these people register?' Asked Matamisa.
The outspoken MP said
instead of guaranteeing citizens' basic rights to
register freely, the
government and electoral officials were already
actively colluding in the
rigging of the presidential and parliamentary
polls.
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network recently said the time allocated for
the mobile
registration exercise was too short. ZESN like all pro-democracy
groups in
the country have proposed that the exercise be extended to at
least four
months and called for more public awareness on the on going
exercise.
The normal voter registration exercise, as opposed to
mobile registration,
has been taking place at the same time. But few people
seem to be aware of
this process, even MDC MP's seem to be unaware that this
is taking place.
'We have a situation where government officials in most
areas have zipped
their lips and closed their eyes to this blatant rigging
before the actual
election. Obviously these irregularities taint the entire
exercise and
defeat its very purpose,' Matamisa
said.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
08 August, 2007
The expression "feet don't fail me now"
took on a very serious meaning in
Zimbabwe on Tuesday when thousands of
commuters around the country found
themselves stranded. With many state-run
and private buses out of service
due to serious fuel shortages, the streets
were crowded with people walking
to their destinations. The state media
reported that many were waiting up to
4 days for transport home to rural
areas, ahead of the Heroes holiday next
week. The traditional trips may not
happen for many this time around.
An official is quoted as saying bus
operators were being allocated 500
litres per bus each week, which lasts
only a day and a half. Workers and
school children are being forced to walk
long distances. And many people
have resorted to sleeping in doorways and
other cold places overnight,
rather than walk home and make the same journey
back in the morning.
On Wednesday our Bulawayo contact Zenzele said he
dropped off a friend at
Renkini Bus Terminal at 5:00 am to wait for
transport to Gweru. By 2:00 pm
he was still not on a bus yet and there was
no assurance he would succeed.
Zenzele described the terminal as very
crowded. He said every morning people
waiting for transport to Harare fight
for space on only 3 or 4 buses all
morning. Minibuses have stopped operating
because they are being forced to
charge Z$25,000 for the trip to the
capital, which used to be Z$60,000.
Zenzele said fuel costs them Z$1.5
million for 5 litres on the black market,
so they would lose a lot of money
if they complied with the forced price
cuts.
Fuel pumps have dried up
more than ever before as the result of government's
ongoing price control
exercise, that began 6 weeks ago. All businesses,
including petrol stations,
were forced to cut their prices and operate at a
loss in what the
authorities claimed was an attempt to control the country's
hyperinflation.
Panic buying and massive looting by officials followed,
leaving shelves
empty and pumps dry. And the government is failing to
provide enough fuel
for transport operators as promised.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe
news
By
Violet Gonda
8 August 2007
Repression continues with no end in sight
as pro-democrats continue to be
arrested and brutalized with impunity, by
state security agents. Just this
week alone a torture victim from the
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
is missing in Mutare; another victim
of police brutality, a student leader,
has been seriously injured and is in
custody in Bulawayo and more than a
dozen members of Women/Men of Zimbabwe
Arise (WOZA/MOZA) were arrested when
they were playing sport in
Masvingo.
The NCA reports that Mannex Mawuya, the acting youth
chairperson in
Manicaland, is missing. He has been arrested three times
since July 11th.
The NCA said he has not been seen since his release on the
24th.
The pressure group said the activist, who was first arrested after
an NCA
demonstration in Mutare, had been subjected to torture by the police
and
suspected Central Intelligence Officers (CIO).
The NCA said: "The
CIO took him to a dark room where he was made to remove
all his clothes
despite the extremely cold weather. Water was then poured on
him using a
pressure hosepipe for several hours. As if this was not enough
the water was
changed and the second time around it was porridge-like and
stinking. He was
also forced to drink a smelly substance, which upset his
stomach, resulting
in severe diarrhea."
The group said the youth chairperson was also
subjected to verbal
interrogation. It is alleged he was warned that he would
be picked up again
upon release on July 24th. Mawuya's whereabouts are still
unknown.
Members of the student movement are also under increasing
attack. The
Zimbabwe National Students Union reports that four student
leaders from the
National University of Science and Technology (NUST)
Students Union were
severely tortured in police custody in Bulawayo. Three
of the activists,
Trust Nhubu, Admire Zaya and Melusi Ndebele, were arrested
on Saturday in
connection with the whereabouts of their president Clever
Bere.
ZINASU said the three were kept in police cells until Tuesday after
the
capture of Bere who is still in custody and lawyers have been denied
access
to him. The Union said the lawyer Kucaca Phulu, managed to see Bere
during
visiting time. ZINASU said in a statement: "Clever could hardly stand
on his
own, his face was swollen and he was coughing blood. He has also been
denied
access to medical attention, despite the lawyer's request for
such."
Meanwhile, the activists from the pressure group WOZA/MOZA who
were arrested
in Masvingo on Tuesday are still in detention.
In
typical WOZA fashion, they are approaching this latest arrest with
humour.
The group said in a statement: "It has been confirmed that seven
women and
nine men spent the night in police custody in Masvingo last night
after
being arrested yesterday whilst playing mixed soccer and netball at
Macheke
Stadium. Also in custody is the soccer ball, although the netball
evaded
arrest."
It's still not known why the WOZA members were arrested but
members of the
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested them while
they were
playing netball and soccer.
SW
Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
zimbabwejournalists.com
8th Aug 2007 17:29 GMT
By Trust Matsilele
Zimbabwe 's main
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
has lashed out
at the behaviour demonstrated by the Robert Mugabe regime
when dealing with
opposition parties and other pro-democracy groups in the
country.
Speaking in Lusaka, the MDC's International Affairs Office
said Mugabe's
government had in the past years developed itself into a
violent, brutal and
ruthless government resulting in many innocent civilians
fleeing the country
in search of political and economic refugee.
"We
live in a country where the Zanu PF government is in perpetual combat
with
the citizens of Zimbabwe. It is a regime that is behaving like a
foreign
occupying force, which knows fully well that its legitimacy is
highly
justifiably contested," read part of a statement released by the MDC'
International Affairs office in Lusaka.
The MDC urged SADC to change
its approach on Zimbabwe and be more involved
in the political discourse of
the country as the crisis had spilled over to
become a regional
crisis.
"The people of Zimbabwe ask that you assist them to complete the
realization
of the goals and ideals that underpinned your support during the
struggle
against colonialism. It is only the MDC that can take the people of
Zimbabwe
to this realization," read the statement.
The MDC has again
threatened that it will not to participate in an election
with an
environment that is not equal to all contesting parties and urged
SADC to
see to it that a level playing field is in place before March 2008.
"The
elections in March 2008 can not happen in an environment of
intimidation.
The MDC will not participate in elections whose results are
predetermined.
We therefore demand a level political field. We demand that
state sanctioned
violence against the people of Zimbabwe must stop,"
lamented MDC.
The
MDC has called the region to make sure sanity returns to Zimbabwe soon
and
if not, Mugabe and cronies would be going for elections alone next
year.
"We wish to state clearly that it is only when the necessary
conditions for
free and fair elections are in place that the MDC will
participate in the
elections in March 2008," added MDC.
A number of
civil society groups from Zimbabwe are reported to be in Zambia
lobbying for
the restoration of democracy and human rights to the people of
Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe government has since the formation of the
opposition MDC in
1999 arrested, tortured and even murdered critics, said to
be over a 1000,
who exceed one thousand and condemning over four million
into refugees.
Nqobizitha Mlilo from the MDC's regional office in South
Africa says acts of
brutality which Mugabe has employed simce 2000 are not
different to those
the Ian Smith colonial government employed on defenceless
civilians before
1980.
Business Day
08 August 2007
Dumisani
Muleya
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harare
Correspondent
MARTIN Shumba fidgets in a snaking queue in central Harare,
Zimbabwe's
capital, as he waits to buy a portion of chips and pieces of
chicken from
one of the few fast-food outlets still operating.
Shumba
has been queuing for more than an hour to buy the food, which he took
for
granted only last month.
That was before President Robert Mugabe's regime
unleashed a fierce price
reduction blitz that has emptied shops and left a
quarter of Zimbabwe's
12-million population facing severe food
shortages.
Millions in Zimbabwe are now forced to scrounge for food in a
country that
used to be the bread basket of the region.
International
donor agencies say that since the crackdown on supermarkets
and shops
started, more than half of the population needs food aid to avert
an
impending crisis.
The World Food Programme appealed last week for funds
to help more than
3,3-million Zimbabweans - more than a quarter of the
population - facing
starvation.
Over the past seven years, millions
have fled the country into neighbouring
countries, particularly SA and
Botswana, to escape the economic meltdown and
grinding poverty.
Those
who cannot afford to fly or drive out, like the now absent middle
classes,
must risk a miserable crossing of the Limpopo to uncertain
opportunity and
potentially greater suffering.
The exodus accelerates every
day. Police now estimate that between 6000 and
10000 people cross into SA
every week . Thousands are deported weekly.
Since Mugabe unleashed
his gangsters to raid shops in the name of enforcing
price reductions, the
situation has gotten even worse.
Basic commodities - such as
bread, sugar, salt, maize-meal, the staples of
every Zimbabwean's diet - are
gone. Some days they are not even available on
the thriving black
market.
Fuel, in severe shortage since 1999, has all but dried up on the
official
market. With no drugs available, hospitals are now places to go and
die.
Many supermarkets in Zimbabwe today resemble those of former
eastern
European states at the height of the desperate years of the 1970s
and 1980s.
Endless queues stretch in cities and towns as ordinary
Zimbabweans battle to
survive. Sometimes queues form on a rumour or a
promise of supplies.
Day trips to neighbouring states in search of
food to buy or barter are now
the main line of
merchandise.
The price reduction blitz has left the Harare
government deeply divided
after Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono publicly
opposed the crackdown,
saying it would drive the final nail into the
economy's coffin.
Mugabe's deputy, Joyce Mujuru, has also opposed the
crackdown.
However, a defian t Mugabe said in Malaysia at the weekend
that his "price
war" would continue. He had pre-empted a plot involving
local businesses to
overthrow his regime.
Life, which was arduous
six months ago, is approaching unbearable for the
majority of
Zimbabweans.
They spend days without running water and electricity.
Public transport is a
nightmare; most workers spend hours queuing to go to
work. Most simply walk,
sometimes more than 10 km a day.
Financial Times
By
Malcolm Rifkind
Published: August 8 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 8
2007 03:00
I lived and worked in Zimbabwe in the 1960s. Then it was
Rhodesia and Ian
Smith was in charge. In those days rebellion was gentler
than it is today.
The governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, who had refused to
recognise Mr Smith's
unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), still
lived in Government
House. He declared his visitors' book open for those
wishing to show their
loyalty to the Queen.
Not to be outdone,
Clifford Dupont, Mr Smith's alternative governor, who
lived on the same
street, announced that his book would also be open for
those who supported
UDI. I drove down, in my battered Morris Minor, to find
a policeman
enquiring which book I wished to sign and pointing me in the
right
direction! What a very British way to fight against tyranny.
Today,
politics in Zimbabwe is a grimmer business. The country has gone from
being
a breadbasket to a basket case. Inflation is more than 6,000 per cent
a
year, most whites have left and Robert Mugabe's thugs beat up political
rivals while plundering the nation's assets.
There is little the rest
of the world can do to hasten Mr Mugabe's downfall.
South Africa is the only
country that has real clout but President Thabo
Mbeki, to his shame, refuses
to act. This is a real tragedy. It was South
Africa's withdrawal of support,
under P.W. Botha, that eventually forcedMr
Smith to abandon UDI.
But
Britain and Europe can still make an impact. Mr Mugabe and his henchmen
are,
currently, banned from visiting all European Union countries. But that
ban
is under threat from the proposed EU-African Union summit due to be held
in
Lisbon later this year. The Portuguese are desperate for the summit to go
ahead. They know Mr Mugabe should not attend but fear an African Union
boycott if he is excluded.
There are already signs of this becoming
an embarrassing political fudge.
José Sócrates, Portugal's prime minister,
has declared that "appropriate
diplomatic formulae will be found". An
unnamed British official has said
that "the issue of whether he is there or
not should not detract from the
substance or overshadow the
summit".
There has now been the absurd suggestion that Mr Mugabe might
remain banned
from Europe as president of Zimbabwe but be allowed to attend
the summit as
a member of the African Union delegation. Such an outcome
would be a
humiliation for the EU and should be unequivocally ruled
out.
In the UK, Gordon Brown, prime minister, has tried to give the
impression
that Africa matters to him, while David Miliband, foreign
secretary, has
declared that human rights are a priority. So far both have
been ambivalent
and ambiguous on this issue. They have said they do not wish
Mr Mugabe to
attend, but are vague as to what should happen if the
Portuguese or the
African Union disagree.
This is not good enough.
They should declare that if Mr Mugabe is allowed
into Portugal, to strut
around the proceedings, Britain will not attend.
Neither the prime minister,
nor foreign secretary nor any British diplomat
should be present. We should
do everything in our power to persuade other EU
members to take the same
line.
The issues at stake are considerable, for Europe and Africa as well
as
Zimbabwe. For Europeans there is an understandable desire for the summit
to
go ahead after a gap of seven years. The EU is nervous of the impact
China
is making in Africa and wants to remind Africans of the great
potential that
exists for trade with Europe. Southern Europeans, especially
the French,
Spanish and Italians, are worried about massive further
migration from north
Africa if poverty persists there.
But Africa
still needs Europe more than the reverse. China can offer capital
investment
and turn a blind eye to human rights abuses but its roots in
Africa are
superficial and its interests purely resource-driven. Africa and
Europe, in
comparison, are geographical neighbours with much common history,
sharing
geopolitical concerns in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the
Muslim
world.
The EU must hold its nerve. It must explain that while Zimbabwe
can be
represented, Mr Mugabe cannot attend. Diplomats should focus on
devising a
formula that will keep him away, not one that will enable him to
attend.
There is one further, not insignificant, consideration. If the EU
fudges
this we not only betray the brave people of Zimbabwe; we say goodbye
to any
prospect of a meaningful European foreign policy. That should
concentrate
minds in Brussels wonderfully.
Sir Malcolm was minister
of state for Africa 1983-86 and foreign secretary
1995-97
zimbabwejournalists.com
8th Aug 2007 17:05 GMT
By Trust
Matsilele
THE ruling Zanu PF is desperately trying to further divide
the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) factions ahead of the
2008 harmonised
elections.
The state-owned media, which had sworn it
would never cover the leader of
the smaller MDC faction, Professor Arthur
Mutambara, had began to jump on
his statements on the leadership qualities
of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader
of the vibrant and main MDC
faction.
Zanu PF has been counting its unusual blessings as Mutambara
went public to
criticise Tsvangirai. Last week the Professor went public and
denounced
Tsvangirai for failing to embrace a coalition agreement engineered
by his
party for the 2008 elections with the founding MDC leader as
presidential
candidate.
In the past Zanu PF had hinted that it would
not allow any media coverage of
Mutambara, saying he would only feature in
state media if he died or was
arrested. But the current biblical manna from
Mutambara has seen Zanu PF
jumping in to use the divisions between Mutambara
and Tsvangirai MDC's to
discredit the veteran trade unionist.
Pressed
on his comments in which he attacked Tsvangirai as a hopeless leader
and an
"intellectual midget" with the BBC's Alan Little on Hard Talk
yesterday,
Mutambara was forced to say that Tsvangirai deserved a place in
Zimbabwe's
hall of fame for liberation fighters after failing to repeat his
comments
about his erstwhile colleague.
"What we are saying is that as Zimbabweans
we must be careful. we do not
need to be another Zambia where Chiluba came
in and was worse than Kaunda or
Malawi were Muluzi came in and was worse
that Banda," said Mutambara.
"Yes, you may be brave, have guts, but what
is needed is to have a vision.
We need to change the strategy, the tactics.
Bravery is not enough, being
arrested is not enough... you need an economic
vision," he said when pressed
about his comments about
Tsvangirai.
The state-controlled media in Zimbabwe, harped on the
statements on the BBC
in which Mutambara insinuated that Tsvangirai and his
advisors were
incapable of leading Zimbabwe out of its current quagmire into
prosperity.
They did not mention that the interview with the BBC ended up
being a
campaign programme for Tsvangirai as Little continually told his
interviewee
Tsvangirai was "well known to viewers of this programme" and was
"internationally respected".
Mutambara ended up saying his party was
prepared to back Morgan Tsvangirai
since they respected him. He also
referred to him as "my brother Morgan".
Mutambara announced recently his
MDC had pulled out of efforts to confront
the 2008 polls as a unified force,
saying Tsvangirai was refusing to along
with their coalition agreement. He
said he would go it alone next year if
the opposition fails to form a
coalition.
Critics of this move say Mutambara chose to speak out fearing
Gibson Sibanda
would go back to deputise Tsvangirai in any new agreement,
pushing him out
of the limelight.
Meanwhile Tsvangirai and his
faction under the Save Zimbabwe banner are
still maintaining that only a
united front in the forthcoming elections is
essential for victory in any
elections in Zimbabwe.
The MDC's national spokesperson Nelson Chamisa has
in the past maintained
that the only enemy in Zimbabwe was Mugabe and not
Mutambara or Tsvangirai.
In the past few days a number of members of the
Mutambara MDC have crossed
the floor to rejoin the Tsvangirai camp soon
after Mutambara announced his
pullout from the Save Zimbabwe campaign.
zimbabwejournalists.com
8th Aug 2007 17:31 GMT
By Chris Chinaka
HARARE - Bank teller
Samson still takes pride in his work, one of his few
joys in a country
ravaged by crippling inflation and severe food and fuel
shortages.
But getting there has become another nightmare for him and
many other people
trying to survive an economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, once a
potent symbol of
Africa's liberation struggles and a regional
breadbasket.
A month ago, Samson used to queue for an hour to catch a bus
to work and
home. Now it's a three-hour trip because a severe fuel shortage
and a price
blitz targeting inflation has hit the transport industry,
forcing bus
drivers to quit.
"As a bank teller, I have to look smart,
but my clothes are crumpled here in
the pressure of getting or trying to get
into a bus," he said, jumping
further into the road to wave down a car for a
ride.
"It's a struggle all the way my brother, for decent wages, for
food, for
transport, for survival."
Even without the transport
trouble, inflation has meant bank tellers like
Samson have had get used to
busier work dishing out larger and larger
bundles of notes.
He and
other Zimbabweans have few options. Questioning the price freeze
ordered by
President Robert Mugabe can be risky as he cracks down on
dissent.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole ruler since the southern African
country's
independence from Britain in 1980, faces an economic crisis marked
by the
world's highest inflation rate.
But with a deeply divided
opposition and little pressure from African
countries for reforms in
Zimbabwe, he has plenty of room for manoeuvre
despite growing criticism of
his policies, such as seizing white-owned farms
to resettle landless
blacks.
Growing public anger can be dismissed as he takes new measures to
tighten
his grip on power. Mugabe has authorised security forces to monitor
phone
calls and Internet exchanges.
Zimbabweans are stranded at bus
stations, some for days. Others travel on
foot, exhausted by the end of the
day.
"I have been walking to and from work for the past month or so
because the
transport situation has become very bad," said a security guard
at a Harare
hotel, who like many others was wary of giving his
name.
"I get both to work and home much earlier than those people who are
using
the buses," he said.
Nearby, a crowd of men, women and
youngsters shove each other, hoping for a
seat on a small
truck.
Mugabe has warned that violating the price freeze will have dire
consequences.
Since June 25, police have arrested and fined more than
7,500 businesses --
including transport operators -- accused of defying the
new price controls,
which have emptied shop shelves and sparked a new wave
of panic buying.
Mugabe, who is seeking re-election in a general poll due
in March next year,
rejects criticism he has run the economy into the
ground, accusing the
opposition and Western powers of trying to oust
him.
Reuters
zimbabwejournalists.com
8th Aug 2007 01:01 GMT
By Free Zim-Youth
Heroes Day
Commemoration
World Youth Day
Solidarity with the Oppressed
Students in Zimbabwe
Stop and Condemn Apartheid, Xenophobic on
Zimbabweans in South Africa
(meet at Zimbabwe House march to South Africa
House)
Friday 10 August 2007
1- 3pm
nearest train station
Charing Cross
Free-Zim Youth Movement and National Union of Students UK
(NUS -UK) are to
jointly have a solidarity protest for the Students and
Youth in Zimbabwe
commemoration of World Youth Day (12 Aug).
The
Protest which will be lead by the Women Wings is aimed at acknowledging
the
need for the girl child to rise up and demand social justice, and voices
from the powers that be...in respect of WOZA who have showed a practical
example of bravery. Forward Feminism....
The Youth will also take the
opportunity to condemn elements of Apartheid,
Xenophobic being perpetuated
in South Africa on Zimbabweans.
10th of August will be the first opening
day of the Regional meeting SADC
which is set to update of the transitional
way forward in the question.
The Youth who have also launched a
development, economic recovery plan which
is aimed at pushing for a policy
which creates skills, gap filling sighting
the brain drain experienced for
the past 8 years under the Harare
establishment(which is enshired in the
Zimbabwe Youth Charter).
A need for a strong solidarity event,and
assistance for the evicted students
and the whole Youth movement is
vital.
You can jail,kill a revolutionary but you cannot jail, kill a
revolution
Power To the People
For More info on Free-Zim Youth
Movement and the protest, please contact
Yeukai Taruvinga
07940437496
Marceline Mutikori 07769850058
National Unions Of
Students(NUS-UK)
Women Officer : Kat Stark 07875465586
NUS
National President : Gemma Tumelty 08712218221
The First Post
August 08, 2007
Mose Moyo
in Harare
With the economy in crisis, more and more people turn to a
life of
prostitution
Five months ago, Tsitsi Ncube, a pretty
27-year-old Harare woman, would
dress smartly but conservatively, and spend
her days teaching the children
at a good primary school in a middle-class
suburb.
Today, Tsitsi has abandoned teaching. Now she wears a red
micro-skirt, a
tight-fitting top and matching sandals, and spends long
evenings as a street
prostitute.
I found her in her favourite spot,
outside Tipperary's bar on Fife Avenue,
Harare, beneath a tree opposite the
car park where she can be easily seen in
the lights of oncoming cars. It is
chilly in Zimbabwe these evenings, and
she is shivering.
But it has
been a good night for Tsitsi so far. She has had three punters,
and earned a
total of Z$5m. This, in one night, amounts to exactly double
the monthly
salary she would have received as a teacher.
"Look, I have to do this," she
told me. "I have to feed my children. There
is no other way to earn the
money."
Tsitsi - tall, well-spoken and visibly nervous - is not alone.
Hundreds of
previously respectable girls now work the streets of Harare,
joining the
more experienced sex workers. An aid worker told me she knew of
nurses,
teachers and police officers who have all turned to
prostitution.
Nurses, teachers and police officers have all become ladies
of the night
The result is too much supply, not enough demand. "We are too
many ladies
looking for too few men," Tsitsi tells me. "I have to come early
and stay
late to get any business. But I want to get one more tonight. If I
am lucky
I will get one of the big guys in town."
By 'big guys' she
means those few individuals still prospering in our
ravaged economy -
judges, government ministers, foreign currency dealers.
"Politicians are
the biggest bullies," she said. "They pay well but not
before they push you
around and give you a few slaps."
I asked Tsitsi if she was aware of the
health risks in her new profession.
"I know all about Aids," she said, "and
I insist on condoms."
However, Molly, also 27 but a veteran of five years
working the streets,
told me that most of the new arrivals were not so
rigorous.
"They are hot hot, chilli chilli, all in a rush. But they don't
last, they
die fast," she says, with morbid humour.
Tsitsi clings to
shreds of her previous respectable life. Her family do not
know what she
does. She remains a practising Catholic. Each Sunday she goes
to Mass and,
like us all, she prays for an end to the suffering and
deprivation that is
life in today's Zimbabwe.
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 7,
2007
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk?storyID=8094
The Zimbabwean
(08-08-07)
By Trust Matsilele
President Robert Mugabe is at it again
trying to win sympathy of poor
Zimbabweans through the newly launched land
reform exercise wave as the
country face the much anticipated 2008 watershed
elections.
Mugabe who has been tipped by the head of Joint Operation
Command
(comprising Zimbabwe National Army , Zimbabwe Republic Police and
Security
forces), Happyton Bonyongwe see the land reform exercise as a
remaining
alternative to influence Zimbabwean voters.
President
Robert Mugabe announced that it will take farms from remaining
commercial
farmers arguing that he wants to give land to the landless black
majority.
Past experiences has however proved otherwise after Mugabe had
given the
fertile lands to his top elite club which a ZANU PF political
consultant Dr
Ibbo Mandaza acknowledged had happened recently in
Johannesburg .
The
Zimbabwean government says it will arrest those resisting having their
land
taken for redistribution exercise. Mugabe has in the past called white
commercial farmers traitors saying they were fighting alongside western
government to effect regime change.
More than 4 000 white commercial
farmers have lost their properties under
the controversial land reform. Last
year authorities passed a constitutional
amendment barring former owners
from challenging the seizures in court.
Industry and union officials say
about 600 of Zimbabwe 's 4 500 white
farmers have kept their land after the
sometimes violent grabs by Mugabe's
supporters.
But the government
handed some of them eviction notices earlier this year or
reduced the size
of their properties.
The state controlled media reported as saying some
farmers who were given
notices three months ago to wind up their operations
"risk being arrested
for resisting eviction after the expiry of the 90-day
notice period".
The daily quoted the minister of state for security,
Didymus Mutasa, as
saying that the government would move against the farmers
accused of going
to court to delay their departure.
"We have a list
of farmers resisting eviction ... and we are going to act
accordingly to
redress the situation," he told a meeting attended by senior
government
officials. Mutasa was not immediately available for further
comment.
The Zimbabwean
(08-08-07)
The NUST
Student representative council president Clever Bere is being
tortured at
Bulawayo Central police station after he was arrested by 4
uninformed state
security agents in Bulawayo on Monday around lunch
time.Bere had been
missing since Monday and we only came to know today that
he was in the hands
of the vicious and brutal police of Robert Mugabe. Some
students who brought
him food in the afternoon confirmed that the student
leader had been
assaulted as his face was swollen and he had a difficult in
breathing, he
was also coughing blood. The militant student leader had been
on the wanted
list after violent disturbances which rocked the university in
April
2007.The lawyers representing him were denied access to him despite
their
spirited efforts and were told that Bere would only be released after
the
police find another student leader Mehluli Dube who is wanted for a
similar
case. We wish to vehemently condemn and denounce the illegitimate
government
of the day for its continued suffocation of democratic space in
Zimbabwe .
The students are not deterred by such moves we are resilient and
we will
continue fighting for democracy in Zimbabwe . 'Blessed are those who
are
persecuted for righteous sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
'Matthew
5v10
The Zimbabwean
(08-08-07)
TRUST MATSILELE
The Zimbabwean government is yet again
confronted by a large impending
hunger crisis as the country failed to
import 400- 000 tonnes of maize from
Malawi .
Well placed sources
within the government confirmed that the country was
struggling to raise the
much needed foreign currency to import the
consignment deal it had signed
with Malawi .
The hunger problem will further be worsened as the country
in the past few
days registered a low wheat production in a period of seven
years when it
recorded less than 78-000 tonnes of wheat.
Meanwhile
aid agencies and other western governments are making frantic
efforts to
deliver the much needed food aid especially to the drought
stricken
Matabeland region which ZANU PF has strongly been trying to block
as it
intends on punishing inhabitants of that region as they voted for MDC
in the
past elections.
The Grain Marketing Board acting chief executive officer
Retired Colonel
Samuel Muvuti has confirmed the nature of crisis the country
is facing as
saying the country was making efforts to have maize delivered
from other
countries.
"Negotiations for more contracts with other
countries are critical as the
country intensifies efforts to improve the
reserves capacity," said Muvuti.
Without disclosing the countries
targeted, the GMB boss said negotiations
were at an advanced
stage.
Retired Col Muvuti said the country is currently relying on part
of the
maize imported early this year.
Since 2000 when President
Robert Mugabe launched his land reform exercise
viewed by many as a vote
catching gimmick the country has been facing year
on year droughts which has
resultantly led to many fleeing the country to
neighbouring South Africa,
Botswana, Mozambique or Zambia in search of
greener pastures.
An
audit supplied by Human Rights Forum has established that the land reform
which the government claimed was meant to benefit poor Zimbabweans brought
negative results as a reported 10 000 people are reported to have died after
they were dissociated from their form of livelihood.
Zimbabwe could
again fail to produce enough food during the 2007/08 season
unless adequate
measures are put in place to address projected input
shortages and clear the
air over land tenure of newly resettled farmers.
Government Ministers
have recently expressed their concern over food
shortages as the country was
failing to improve the infrastructure needed in
order to ensure required
production levels.
The three ministries responsible for land reform,
agriculture, and water and
infrastructural development, respectively say the
situation has to be
brought to normalcy or else the current drought the
country is facing might
see more hardship for Zimbabwean
population.
They were grilled by the parliamentary committee on the
continued decline
in Zimbabwe 's agricultural production at a time when a
lot of money was
being pumped by the government into the
sector.
Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made recently admitted that
Zimbabwe could
again face "serious fertilizer shortages" due to a breakdown
at one of the
country's major producers of the commodity.
Zimbabwe
has over the years experienced shortages of fertilizer and other
inputs due
to a crippling foreign currency crisis.
The opposition MDC is however
pessimistic that the current shortages the
country is facing might see
Zimbabwean government's ruling party ZANU PF
engaging like in the past in
food for votes.
In some parts of the country already the ruling party
youths are reported to
have started controlling food distribution outlets
and at extreme points
confiscating food targeted for the sick giving it to
ZANU PF supporters
which in the long run will see ZANU PF demanding a part
card if one wants to
buy food from Grain Marketing Board.
zimbabwejournalists.com
8th Aug 2007 17:14 GMT
By Dennis Rekayi
HARARE - Journalists should
exercise extreme vigilance and care during their
professional duties ahead
of the harmonised presidential and parliamentary
elections in 2008 which
could be preceded by charged political campaigns.
The call was made by
the Chairperson of MISA-Zimbabwe Loughty Dube during
the presentation of his
annual report to the organisation's annual general
meeting held in
Harare.
Dube said the year 2007 had so far been characterised by an
unprecedented
increase in the number of cases involving media violations
resulting in the
mysterious death of Edward Chikomba, a freelance
cameraperson and a former
ZBC employee, who was abducted and murdered by
unknown persons.
He was abducted by unknown assailants near his home in
Harare 's Glen View
suburb on 29 March 2007. His body was found two days
later in Darwendale,
just outside Harare.
In February this year, Bill
Saidi the editor of the privately owned Standard
newspaper received an
envelope containing a bullet and a message warning him
to "watch
out".
The worst, said Dube, was still to come on 11 March 2007 when award
winning
photo-journalist Tsvangirai Mukwazhi and his colleague, Tendai
Musiyazviriyo, a film producer, who both freelance for Associated Press,
were arrested and severely assaulted while in police custody.
"The
arrest and brutal assault of Mukwazhi was of great concern as his
whereabouts remained unknown until he appeared in court two days later, said
Dube. "This year has been tainted by increased violations, harassments,
arrests, assaults and torture of journalists as captured and recorded in our
media alerts further denting and curtailing the citizens rights to free
expression and media freedom.
"The harmonized elections due next year
are likely to bring with them more
problems for journalists and I urge
members of the media fraternity to
exercise extreme caution in the execution
of their duties during that
period."
He said it is against the
background of the increase in the number of cases
of media violations that
MISA-Zimbabwe in partnership with the Media
Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ)
organised and completed a two day workshop in
Harare on 2- 3 August 2007 on
investigative journalism and reporting in a
hostile environment to sensitise
journalists on requisite survival skills
and tools.
Turning to the
signing of the Interception of Communications Bill into law,
Dube reiterated
MISA-Zimbabwe's assertion that the spying law, used with
other repressive
media laws in the country, seriously compromised media
freedom and freedom
of expression in Zimbabwe.
On the launch of the independent
self-regulatory Media Council of Zimbabwe
on 8 June 2007, he expressed
confidence that the men and women who were
elected into the council were of
the highest integrity deserving the media's
"unstinting support" as they
embark on their mandate of instilling high
ethical standards in the
media.
The MISA-Zimbabwe National Director Rashweat Mukundu, in his
annual
narrative report for 2006-2007, highlighted the organisation's
activities as
espoused under its mission and vision by reporting on
progress on the
Community Radio Initiatives, Media Council of Zimbabwe and
cases pending at
the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the
completion of
MISA-Zimbabwe's Resource Centre.
The meeting also
tasked members of the National Governing Council to
identify individuals who
would be accorded honorary membership to the
organisation because of their
commitment in advancing MISA-Zimbabwe's vision
and mission of a Zimbabwe in
which the media environment enjoys freedom of
expression, independence from
political, economic and commercial interests,
pluralism of views and
opinions.
The
Herald (Harare) Published by the government of Zimbabwe
8 August
2007
Posted to the web 8 August 2007
Jeffrey Gogo And Enacy
Mapakame
Harare
ZESA Holdings Limited has taken partial blame for
bungling the winter wheat
crop by failing to adequately supply electricity
to farmers, the Herald
Business can reveal.
Zesa chief executive
Engineer Ben Rafemoyo yesterday admitted regular power
outages had caused
some anxiety among farmers. This was despite earlier
assurances the power
utility would prioritise power supply to farmers by
constantly switching off
households. In fact, homes have gone for up to 20
hours without electricity
in some instances.
Eng Rafemoyo said Zesa promises to wheat farmers
were premised on the
understanding that electricity imports from the region
would remain stable.
But this had not happened, he said, because Zesa had
failed to service debts
owed to South Africa and Mozambique. Supplies from
the Democratic Republic
of Congo were also disrupted by vandalism of
electricity infrastructure in
Zambia.
"When we promised farmers that
we would spare them from power cuts, our
assumption was that we would be
able to maintain power imports from the DRC,
Mozambique and South Africa,"
Eng Rafemoyo explained.
"We also thought our thermal power stations would
be able to generate at
least 300 megawatts but due to erratic coal supplies
from Hwange Colliery
Company, this also crippled
everything."
Disgruntled farmers this week heaped blame on Zesa power
cuts for the
expected low crop yield. Due to power shortages and other
factors such as
input and financial limitations, Zimbabwe now targets a
yield of almost half
the 2006 output of 78 000 tonnes.
At least 45
000 hectares were put under the winter crop, 41 percent less
than the
projected 76 000 hectares. Eng. Rafemoyo said Zesa was not spared
from the
challenges affecting the economy, chief among them foreign currency
shortages that have curtailed power imports.
Coupled with low
capacity to generate electricity, the currency situation
has virtually
paralysed the country's power supply situation. Eng. Rafemoyo
added that at
peak periods Zesa could only supply at least 50 percent of the
country's
electricity requirements.
He said: "We had to share that little among all
the country's productive
sectors as well as for domestic consumption and
this resulted in more power
cuts being experienced. "We are planning to meet
with farmers and maybe come
up with timetables and enable those with
electricity to irrigate their
crop."
Agriculture analysts have
described the 2007 winter wheat crop as the worst
in recent years with
production predicted to decline sharply as the
condition of the crop is
generally poor.
They argued that while farmers got some inputs on time,
irregular power
supplies had strangled wheat production. Some farmers have
suffered heavy
losses, including damage to electric motors and irrigation
equipment due to
disruptions in electricity supplies.
OpinionJournal.com
Postapartheid Pretoria has
become the free world's leading coddler of
dictators.
BY JAMES
KIRCHICK
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Last September, not
long after the Israeli-Hezbollah war, South Africa's
minister of
intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, praised the Islamist group
committed to
Israel's destruction. The Iran News Agency, albeit prone to
exaggeration,
reported that Mr. Kasrils "lauded [the] great victories of the
Lebanese
Hezbollah against the Zionist forces" and "stressed that the
successful
Lebanese resistance proved the vulnerability of the Israeli
army." The
comment received no attention in the South African media; nor,
for that
matter, did the international press seem particularly interested.
And yet,
the scandalous comment occurred immediately after the South African
government had warmly received the visiting Iranian foreign minister and
expressed support for Iran's campaign for uranium enrichment--in spite of
the passing of a United Nations Security Council deadline that same week
regarding the suspension of Iran's nuclear program.
This stance
toward Iran is cause for concern on its own. Unfortunately, it
is also
illustrative of a much broader and more chilling trend in South
Africa's
postapartheid foreign policy: one that cozies up to tyrants, and is
increasingly orientated against the West--even at the cost of its
self-proclaimed principles of human rights and political
freedom.
Postapartheid South Africa's easy relationship with
dictatorships, it should
be noted, is not a new development. Until very
recently, however, it has
largely been overlooked by the media. This
oversight is likely due to the
fact that, much like its out-of-control crime
rate, any bad news about South
Africa is viewed as a blemish on the popular
and self-comforting narrative
surrounding the country's emergence from
apartheid. Indeed, that a country
scarred by so many years of violent racial
segregation could transform
itself into a fully functioning democracy with a
robust economy while
simultaneously avoiding the wide-scale racial bloodbath
feared by many is
nothing short of miraculous. But judging by its
international relations,
South Africa--by far the most politically stable,
economically productive
and militarily powerful country in sub-Saharan
Africa--appears to be moving
into the camp of the anti-Western powers, a
loose but increasingly worrisome
consortium not unlike the Cold War-era
Non-Aligned Movement. Drawing heavily
upon its history as a liberation
movement, the African National Congress
cloaks itself in a shroud of moral
absolutism that not so subtly implicates
its critics as racists, Western
stooges, or apologists for apartheid.
In a 1993 article written for
Foreign Affairs on the eve of his country's
transfer of power, Nelson
Mandela declared that "South Africa's future
foreign relations will be based
on our belief that human rights should be
the core of international
relations." Mr. Mandela had good reason to attempt
an improvement of his
country's international image: South Africa's
apartheid government was the
cause of much instability in the region,
involved as it was in international
terrorism against antiapartheid leaders
and cross-border raids in a number
of black "frontline states."
With the transition of power, then, many
hoped that South Africa would prove
to be a beacon of good governance and
responsible leadership for the rest of
Africa. Unfortunately, not long after
he was released from prison, Mr.
Mandela himself began cavorting with the
likes of Fidel Castro ("Long live
Comrade Fidel Castro!" he said at a 1991
rally in Havana), Moammar Gadhafi
(whom he visited in 1997 in defiance of
American objections, greeting the
Libyan dictator as "my brother leader")
and Yasser Arafat ("a comrade in
arms"). Mr. Mandela felt affection toward
these men because they supported
the ANC in exile. But he seemed unperturbed
by the fact that Cuba, Libya and
the PLO all employed terrorist tactics and
treated their critics much as the
apartheid state had.
That Mr.
Mandela has comported himself so comfortably with dictators is more
than
hypocritical--it is a betrayal of the principles for which he
languished
twenty-seven years in prison. Yet while Mr. Mandela's
grandstanding with
tyrants is regrettable, it has been far less serious than
his ANC
successors' strategic and systematic support for a broadly
anti-Western
agenda.
Perhaps the best example of the ANC's betrayal of the
cause of human rights
is in its dealings with its immediate neighbor to the
north, Zimbabwe. Since
he initiated a policy of violent confiscation of
white-owned farms in 2000,
President Robert Mugabe has presided over what
might arguably be the most
abysmal degeneration of a modern nation-state.
Once the "jewel of Africa," a
relatively affluent country that boasted high
life expectancies, abundant
food exports and the continent's highest
literacy rates, Zimbabwe may now
lay claim to one of the lowest life
expectancy rates in the world, mass
starvation and a politically oppressed
citizenry.
Four years ago, as the country entered free fall, President Bush
referred to
South African President Thabo Mbeki as his "point man" on
Zimbabwe. And in
March of this year, the African Union once again reaffirmed
its support for
Mr. Mbeki as a peacebroker. But the ANC government has
failed to deliver on
the responsibility with which the world has entrusted
it. Primarily because
Mugabe was a liberation hero who fought against white
colonialism, the ANC
has been reluctant to take any action that might
alleviate the brutality of
his rule, never mind dislodge the tyrant from
power. Indeed, South Africa is
worse than inactive on Zimbabwe: It props up
Mugabe via a formal military
alliance, and does its diplomatic best to keep
Zimbabwe off the
international agenda.
In March, Tony Leon, then the
leader of South Africa's Democratic Alliance
(the country's leading
opposition party), invoked the repression of the
apartheid years to make
clear just how aberrant his country's policy on
Zimbabwe has become. He went
so far as to call South Africa's relationship
with Zimbabwe "an insult to
the Sharpeville victims," the 69 black civilians
who were killed by the
state's security forces at an antiapartheid rally in
1960, an act that
sparked the ANC's armed campaign against white rule.
Considering the
conditions in Mugabe's Zimbabwe (where democracy activists
are imprisoned,
tortured and killed, opposition rallies are banned, and the
free media are
largely silenced), the comparison to apartheid-era South
Africa is hardly
hyperbolic.
South Africa's newfound presence on the U.N. Security Council
(it took up a
two-year, nonpermanent seat in January) has placed its
troublesome foreign
policy in stark relief. One of the strongest proponents
of Security Council
reform via an expanded number of veto powers, South
Africa assumed its seat
with the hope of stirring things up and providing a
voice for both the
underdeveloped and developing world. With its proximity
to and influence
over Zimbabwe, South Africa might have seized the
opportunity its position
on the Security Council offered to earn
international respect by drawing
attention to its neighbor's ill-doings.
Indeed, Mugabe could not have
offered a more convenient reason for South
Africa's condemnation: In March,
he cracked down on his opponents by
violently suppressing a public prayer
meeting, and government agents cracked
the skull of the country's opposition
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Yet
South Africa's ambassador to the U.N. repeatedly stated his government's
belief that Zimbabwe is a local problem best left for Mugabe and his
opposition to deal with among themselves. So, too, did South Africa oppose
attempts to bring the issue before the United Nations, choosing to go the
route of "silent diplomacy" instead. Yet this policy, partly inspired by
South African President Mbeki's genuine fear of Mugabe, a man with far
stronger anticolonial liberation credentials than he, has been an
unqualified failure from the beginning.
South Africa has balked at
the chance to champion human rights at the U.N.
in other instances, as well,
lest it be seen as siding with Western forces.
For instance, the first
significant vote placed before the Security Council
this year dealt with a
nonbinding resolution regarding the military junta in
Burma. The resolution
called for the release of all political prisoners, a
process of national
reconciliation (one, it should be noted, not unlike
South Africa's) and an
end to human-rights abuses. South Africa, along with
Russia and its crucial
trading partner, China (whose neoimperialism in
Africa has been extensively
documented), voted against the resolution's
acceptance--which, ironically,
called for far less stringent measures than
what the ANC itself demanded the
world invoke against the apartheid regime.
Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu
admitted that the Burma vote was "a betrayal of
our own noble past." Yet
South Africa was content to recommend that Burma be
referred to the Human
Rights Council, a kangaroo court at which the world's
villains pass judgment
on Western democracies, and where such a resolution
would garner little
attention.
The ANC has also made important entrées with the Arab and
Muslim bloc by
striking a defiantly anti-American pose. The ANC government
opposed
sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, for example, and even questioned
the
legality of the American- and British-enforced no-fly zones, which
protected
the Kurds and Marsh Arabs from certain genocide. In the run-up to
the Iraq
war, South African Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad
(who
earlier this year claimed that the United States was responsible for a
"volatile, dangerous and unpredictable environment" in world affairs) met
with Saddam in Baghdad to deliver a letter from President Mbeki that
"expressed [Mr. Mbeki's] solidarity with Iraq."
Other ranking members
of the ANC have expressed similarly bizarre,
anti-Western views. Just before
the war began, the secretary general of the
ANC told antiwar protesters that
"because we are endowed with several rich
minerals, if we don't stop this
unilateral action against Iraq today,
tomorrow they will come for us." A
year prior, the Guardian quoted the
country's health minister (who has
suggested that AIDS sufferers eat
beetroot and garlic to treat themselves)
as saying that South Africa cannot
afford drugs to fight HIV/AIDS partly
because it needs submarines to deter
attacks from nations such as the United
States (she later denied ever making
the statement).
The ANC (due to
South Africa's appalling lack of political finance
regulations) has accepted
millions of dollars in donations from foreign
governments and officials
including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
former Indonesian
strongman Suharto and the viciously anti-Semitic Prime
Minister Mahathir
Mohamed of Malaysia. Perhaps wary of how such an act would
be received by
its steadily increasing Muslim population, South Africa also
decided not to
co-sponsor the U.N. General Assembly resolution on Holocaust
denial in
January, and has joined in the chorus of those nations calling for
the
United States and the European Union to lift their sanctions on the
Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Though South Africa's Muslim
community is small (just 1.5% of the
population), it has become increasingly
radicalized, and the ANC has done
everything to appease it. In June of 2003,
Mr. Pahad met with
representatives of Hezbollah and legitimized the group by
stating that
"clear distinctions" ought be made "between terrorism and
legitimate
struggle for liberation." The ANC often lends credence to
terrorism against
Israel by likening the struggle of the Arabs to that of
South Africa's
nonwhites. Three years ago, Pakistani police captured three
South Africans
who stand accused of plotting to blow up the Johannesburg
Stock Exchange and
government buildings in Pretoria. Another South African
has been arrested in
connection to the July 7, 2005, London transit
bombings, and earlier this
year, the U.S. Treasury named two South African
cousins as substantial
financial contributors to al Qaeda. While the
American government blocked
them from making financial transactions in the
U.S., South Africa's foreign
minister attempted to use his country's new
seat on the Security Council to
block the terrorist-sponsoring designation
from taking effect. And to top
this all off, the ANC called for South
Africans to "turn out in their
thousands" the week of June 4 "in solidarity
with the Palestinian people."
Ultimately, however, what ought
to matter most to the international
community is South Africa's increasingly
outspoken role in legitimizing
Iranian nuclear ambitions. And the U.S. has
indeed shown concern: In
response to the Iranian foreign minister's visit to
South Africa last August
(when South Africa again declared that Iran has an
"inalienable right" to a
peaceful nuclear energy program) the United States
sent its permanent
representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency
to Pretoria in
hopes of convincing South Africa to take a harder
line.
Given the complicated nature of South African-American relations due to
the
latter's inaction (and, at times, obstruction) in bringing down
apartheid,
it was understandable that Ambassador Gregory Schulte would
attempt to win
the South Africans over with flattery: "South Africa's
example and
leadership position you to help Iran's leaders to think hard
about Iran's
future and to consider two different models: The first, North
Korea--nuclear-armed, but impoverished, isolated, insignificant; the second,
South Africa--nuclear weapons-free, but secure, dynamic, and a respected
player in your region and the world. The choice should be clear. You can
help Iran's leaders make the right one." Nevertheless, South Africa has
remained credulous of Iranian protestations about the supposedly civilian
purpose of its nuclear program. Indeed, its representative to the U.N.
recently told South Africa's Sunday Times that "We will . . . defend the
right of countries to have nuclear technology for peaceful uses. For
instance, Iran."
South Africa's friendliness toward Iran has
apparently increased in
proportion to its emergence as a considerable player
on the world stage. In
March, serving in its temporary role as Security
Council president, South
Africa attempted to halt the imposition of a new
round of sanctions on Iran
for its defiance of IAEA mandates. The sanctions,
proposed by the unusual
alliance of the United States, China, Russia,
France, Britain and Germany,
instituted an arms embargo and asset
freeze--both of which South Africa
fought to remove from the resolution,
and, barring that, to postpone until
after a 90-day "time out" period.
Although the Security Council's five veto
powers overruled South Africa's
attempts at watering down the resolution,
France's U.N. ambassador told the
Associated Press that South Africa's
diplomatic maneuvering had nonetheless
"weakened a lot of the resolution."
That South Africa would support Iran
is partly a matter of oil politics:
Iran supplies almost half the oil South
Africa uses. Two years ago, the
Iranians claimed that they had entered into
talks with South Africa about
the latter's supplying them with unprocessed
uranium for enrichment
purposes, a claim the South African government later
denied. But South
African sympathy for Iran clearly goes deeper than mere
trade links. For
instance, South Africa has recently found itself in a
situation similar to
Iran's as it debates whether or not to proceed once
again with a uranium
enrichment program for "peaceful purposes." Perhaps,
then, the South
Africans believe they will be labeled hypocrites for
demanding greater
scrutiny of Iranian activity while simultaneously
sponsoring an enrichment
program of their own.
Yet the issue with
Iran, at least, has never been uranium enrichment per se.
Rather, it has
been transparency and intent. No one seriously believes that
South Africa's
motives in potential uranium enrichment would be nefarious,
and that South
Africa--for the most part a good international citizen--would
hinder any
sort of outside inspection effort of its facilities. The same can
hardly be
said of Iran. As the Johannesburg Star recently advised the South
African
government, "Sometimes you have to get off the fence and take
sides." When
it comes to Iran, a democratic country like South Africa ought
to know which
side to take.
Increasingly an influential force behind South
Africa's power plays in the
world arena is Ronnie Kasrils, the country's
minister of intelligence and
possibly the highest-ranking Jewish official in
any government outside of
Israel. A veteran of the antiapartheid struggle,
Mr. Kasrils fled the
country at the cusp of 25 and spent the next 27 years
in exile as a leader
of the ANC's military wing. Though the vast majority of
South African
Jews--safely ensconced within that country's privileged white
community--did
little to fight apartheid, Mr. Kasrils was one of the Jews
who, in
disproportionate numbers, took an active role in opposing the racist
system
(in addition to being one of the Jews who, also in disproportionate
numbers,
joined the Communist Party). Mr. Kasrils is also a vocal
anti-Zionist and
Israel's most outspoken critic in South Africa. He, like
other high-ranking
ANC figures, appears to believe that Iranian intentions
are ultimately
benign, and that Israel is in fact the major source of
aggression and
instability in the region. The prism of Mr. Kasrils's views
on the Middle
East provides the necessary context for understanding the ANC
leadership's
views on international affairs.
In early September of this
year, Mr. Kasrils wrote of Israel in the weekly
Mail & Guardian that "we
must call baby killers 'baby killers,' and declare
that those using methods
reminiscent of the Nazis be told that they are
behaving like Nazis." This
article was published mere days before Mr.
Kasrils ventured to Tehran to
glorify Hezbollah. A few months prior, Mr.
Kasrils joined some 70 South
African Jews in a statement published in
several of the country's newspapers
declaring that, "Jewish support for
Israel aggression kills humanity." Not
surprisingly, Mr. Kasrils supports
boycotting the Jewish state, endorses a
"one-state solution" that would
spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state,
and frequently lends credence to
the "Israel is an apartheid state"
meme.
Mr. Kasrils's stance on Israel has become so egregious that Helen
Suzman, a
prominent secular Jew who served 36 years in Parliament as an
opponent--sometimes the only one--of apartheid, has written that "it is not
only religious Jews who object to Kasrils's allegations. The issue is the
anti-Semitism fostered by Kasrils's pronouncements." In May of this year,
Mr. Kasrils invited Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader and prime minister of
the Palestinian National Authority, to South Africa. Of the invitation, the
South African Board of Jewish Deputies released a statement reading:
"Expressing support for an organization whose very founding charter
describes the Jewish people as evil enemies of humanity and calls for its
total annihilation, fundamentally contradicts the ideals both of South
Africa and of the ruling ANC itself."
Joel Pollak, currently a
student at Harvard Law School and a former
speechwriter for the opposition
Democratic Alliance, is a knowledgeable
observer of Mr. Kasrils, having
written a master's thesis on his relations
with South Africa's Jewish
community, which currently numbers between 70,000
and 80,000. It is not, Mr.
Pollak maintains, Mr. Kasrils's extreme views
that most upset South African
Jews, but rather the way in which Mr. Kasrils
advances them. "Kasrils,
unlike Tony Judt, has political power," he told me.
He went on to explain
that Mr. Kasrils's attacks on Israel--and South
African Jews, as well, for
their alleged complicity in Israeli "war
crimes"--echo the not so subtle
warnings issued to Jews in the early 1960s
by Prime Minister Hendrik
Verwoerd, who cautioned that Jewish support for
the antiapartheid
Progressive Party might inspire a wave of
government-sanctioned
anti-Semitism.
Though Mr. Pollak says there is no doubt that Mr. Kasrils
believes the
things he says about Israel (his unwavering communism, for
instance, helps
account for much of his anti-Zionist ideology), he has
cynically used his
Jewishness--a trait he rarely ever acknowledges, except
when criticizing
Israel--to curry favor within the ranks of the ANC, where
anti-imperialism
is still in vogue, however outdated. Mr. Kasrils "knows
that because he's a
white minister in an intensely racially nationalistic
cabinet, he's very
vulnerable," Mr. Pollak concludes. Thus, by so publicly
going after his own
relatively miniscule minority community of Jews, Mr.
Kasrils proves his
leftist, Third Worldist bona fides to the ANC elite. And
if his rise in
prominence within the party is any indication, the ANC
certainly approves of
Mr. Kasrils's frequent Israel-bashing: In 2004, he was
appointed
intelligence minister from his former post as minister of water
affairs and
forestry.
Mr. Kasrils, characteristic of the South
African communists who were
catapulted into power while their ideological
fatherland crumbled, is
unrepentant about the Cold War. In his
self-congratulatory memoir, "Armed
and Dangerous," he writes, "Whatever the
drawbacks and failures I am
convinced that in years to come humanity will
look back to Soviet
achievements as a source of profound inspiration." He
blames the defeat of
the Soviet system on those in power who were affected
by a "fatal loss of
confidence and will" and he writes admiringly of Che
Guevara and "other
communist heroes."
Many people might prefer to
wave Mr. Kasrils off as a harmless crank from a
bygone generation. But as
minister of intelligence, Mr. Kasrils is
instrumental in shaping South
Africa's approach to dealing with the Iranian
nuclear threat. As Mr. Pollak
observes, "South Africa is now the only state
in the democratic world aside
from Venezuela, maybe, that is standing behind
Iran on everything." So, too,
is Mr. Kasrils integral to South Africa's
treatment of the Zimbabwe problem:
In the spring of 2005, not long after
Mugabe uprooted 700,000 of the
country's poorest citizens from their homes
in a move reminiscent of
apartheid governments' forced relocations of poor
blacks to "independent
homelands" in the barren countryside, Mr. Kasrils
signed a military
agreement with Zimbabwe, declaring that "the liberation
struggles of
Southern Africa and the resultant shedding of blood for a
common cause . . .
cemented our cooperation on the way forward in the
development of our
respective countries."
The source of the ANC's kid-gloves
treatment of totalitarians is undoubtedly
its historic skepticism, even
downright hostility, toward the West. This
viewpoint solidified during the
apartheid years, when it was the Soviet
Union that supplied the ANC with
weapons and issued diplomatic broadsides
against the United States and
Britain for their cozy relations with the
apartheid regime. Today, the ANC
rules South Africa not by itself, but as
part of the fabled "tripartite
alliance" that it legally formed with the
Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) and the South African
Communist Party (SACP) in the early
1990s after these opposition movements
were legalized by the apartheid
government. Herein lies much of the problem.
To its credit, the ANC's left
wing has been its most insistent internal
critic on Zimbabwe (largely
because Mugabe has crushed his country's
independent trade unions).
Nonetheless, anachronistic "anti-imperialist"
ideology still fills the heads
of those in the highest echelons of the
party. Only compounding matters,
both the COSATU and the SACP are "rabidly
anti-Israel," as a South African
Jewish community leader told me, viewing
Israel as America's mouthpiece in
the region. Moreover, while the ANC has
supported liberal macroeconomic
policies (to the delight of both domestic
and international business), this
is due to economic necessity rather than
an ideological commitment to free
markets. Indeed, the ANC has long been
suspicious of Western intentions, to
the point of paranoia, and nowhere has
this been more apparent than in the
attitudes of many high-ranking ANC
figures on the supposed "Western"
approaches to HIV (such as the belief that
it actually causes AIDS) and
Zimbabwe.
The ANC has always featured communists in its ranks, and while
some members
were fervently opposed to left-wing totalitarianism, they never
reached
anything approaching critical mass. Indeed, those liberal
antiapartheid
movements and activists who were just as outspoken in their
opposition to
communism as they were to racial discrimination--such as the
novelist Alan
Paton, leader of the short-lived Liberal Party; Helen Suzman
of the
Progressive Party; and the English-language press--have notoriously
been
maligned by ANC apparatchiks as handmaidens to apartheid. Consequently,
a
history of antitotalitarianism--a strong, bipartisan current in American
politics, shaped by the Cold War experience--simply does not exist in South
Africa. Instead, fuzzy leftover notions of "anti-imperialism" dominate the
political discourse of influential ANC leaders.
South Africa's
coddling of Iran, then, must be seen as of a piece with its
deferral of
responsibility as concerns Zimbabwe, its following of the
Chinese cue on
Burma, and its siding with the Palestinians. All of these
decisions are
undergirded by a long-established and deeply rooted
uncertainty, if not
downright antagonism, toward the West.
Of course, this bleak
picture just painted should not obscure the many
admirable developments on
the continent in which South Africa has played a
leading role. It oversaw,
for instance, the transformation of the
Organization for African Unity, for
too long a group that legitimized the
kleptocratic tendencies of its member
states, into the African Union, which,
however weak, has at least deployed
several thousand peacekeepers to Darfur.
And with the largest and most
professional military on the continent, South
Africa has also deployed
peacekeeping troops in Congo, Ivory Coast and
Burundi. Despite his faults
(and they are many), Mr. Mbeki is a dedicated
internationalist who envisions
his country playing a robust, leading role on
a continent that could learn
much from South Africa's democratic liberalism,
political stability and
economic vitality.
But creeping anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments seem
to have bubbled
up from under the surface of South African political
discourse. Indeed, they
have now become an ideological underpinning of South
Africa's foreign
policy. The American political and media establishment
looks askance at this
development as, at least on its face, it pales in
comparison to the actual
human misery that is so widespread on the
continent. Moreover, there is
little that America or its allies can do to
"punish" South Africa for its
waywardness; on the contrary, the United
States relies heavily on South
Africa to be the continental, never mind
regional, hegemon, and isolating
Pretoria might imperil America's many other
initiatives in Africa.
For decades, the international community rightly
considered South Africa a
pariah state. With the fall of apartheid, South
Africa earned the unique
right to be a clarion voice for freedom and human
rights around the world.
What a shame, then, that the ANC pursues policies
hearkening back to its
country's discredited past.
Mr. Kirchick is
assistant to the editor in chief of The New Republic.