• Mugabe plots black-white rift
• 'Politics of survival' behind South Africa siding against McKinnon
• Split claims rejected
• Zimbabwe by-election to wrap up after ruling party accused of intimidation
• Get out of Commonwealth, Zimbabwe toldDecember 1, 2003
• Gagged
• One man's view

London - Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon denied on Sunday that
the issue of Zimbabwe was threatening to open up a chasm between the
so-called "white Commonwealth" and African members this week.

"I have talked with pretty well all the African leaders on this issue," he
said.

"They all are very sympathetic to what has to be done, but there is really
quite a very wide variety of views on how it should be done.

"So you can't split Africa from the rest, although some would wish to do
that. I think there's probably about four different views in Africa on the
way forward (on Zimbabwe)," the former New Zealand foreign minister told Sky
News.

President Robert Mugabe has not been invited to a Commonwealth summit this
week in Nigeria, which will play host to 52 world leaders and Britain's
Queen Elizabeth II.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth councils in March last year
following a presidential election which many outside observers said was
marred by ballot-rigging and intimidation.

Since then, leading Commonwealth members have disagreed sharply over the
issue, with Nigeria and South Africa seeking to encourage reforms by
inviting Zimbabwe back into the fold and Australia urging its full
expulsion.

Against this backdrop, the Commonwealth has been "shut out" of Zimbabwe,
said McKinnon.

"We tried to send a ministerial mission. I tried to send special envoys. But
it was pretty clear that Zimbabwe was on a course that they just didn't want
the Commonwealth to be involved at all," he said.

Asked what the Commonwealth's greatest achievement was since its last summit
two years ago, McKinnon said: "I would point to the fact that we have lifted
our game in the governance area.

"We have succeeded in probably eight or nine countries, but we haven't
succeeded in Zimbabwe.

"We've got people working in countries ... all about helping democracy, help
build democratic institutions and defend those democratic institutions. But
sometimes a big one comes along that is just beyond us to manage on our
own."

Also not on the guest list for the Abuja summit is Pakistan's General Pervez
Musharraf, who seized power in a coup and toppled prime minister Nawaz
Sharif's elected government in October 1999.

But Pakistan is expected to soon rejoin the group following elections last
year and planned constitutional reforms.

      Voting was reported to be quiet on Sunday. "It's certainly quieter
than yesterday (Saturday)," MDC candidate Charles Mpandawana told AFP by
telephone from the town, some 140 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Harare.
"It paints a better picture."

      The state-run Sunday Mail reported that by close of voting on Saturday
11,226 people out of more than 45,000 registered voters had cast their
ballots.

      The paper attributed Saturday's low turnout to people spending time
searching for water after the town ran dry in the morning.

      Zimbabweans are anxiously awaiting summer rains after two years of
poor rains contributing to severe food shortages that threaten more than
half of the southern African country's 11.6 million people.

      Mpandawana is contesting the election to fill the post left vacant by
the death in August of his father, Austin Mpandawana, also of the MDC. But
Tichafa Mutema of ZANU-PF is looking to wrest the seat away from the
opposition party.

      On Saturday, Mpandawana claimed that veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s
liberation war loyal to ZANU-PF had blocked off a polling station and fired
their weapons to scare away opposition voters.

      But Thomas Bvuma, the spokesman of the official Electoral Supervisory
Commission (ESC), denied the charge.

      "There was no violence or shooting," Bvuma told AFP by telephone from
the town on Sunday. He said the by-election, which is due to end at 7:00 pm
(1700 GMT), had been "calm and peaceful".

      The Kadoma by-election is the latest in a series of parliamentary
by-elections that have been held in Zimbabwe in recent months after seats
fell vacant mainly through the deaths, or ill-health of the incumbents.

      It comes at a crucial time for Zimbabwe, with a Commonwealth summit
due to be held from Wednesday in the Nigerian capital Abuja likely to
deliberate on Harare's readmittance to the councils of the 54-member
grouping.

      Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth councils in March last
year after some international observers said a presidential election that
returned Mugabe to power was marred by violence, intimidation and electoral
flaws.

      Mugabe, who has not been invited to the summit, said Friday it might
be time for Zimbabwe to "say goodbye" to the Commonwealth rather than bow to
pressure he says is being imposed by its white members.

      The MDC stormed onto the Zimbabwean political scene in parliamentary
elections in 2000, clinching 57 out of 120 contested seats. The ruling party
won 62, and it still holds the majority.

      Meanwhile Mugabe's ZANU-PF is gearing up for its annual conference to
be held next weekend in the southern city of Masvingo.

      The 79-year-old leader is expected to announce a new vice president
after the death of Vice President Simon Muzenda in September.

      - AFP

Gagged

Their mouths gagged with white cloths, Zimbabweans gathered outside their
country's High Commission in London on Saturday in a silent, symbolic
protest against the banning of their country's only independent daily
newspaper, The Daily News. Protestors carried news bills with the masthead
of the Daily News, and its slogan "Telling it like it is". The rest was
blank. "I know how scared people are to express any criticism of the
government," said Zimbabwe-born Diana Morant, a member of Amnesty
International UK who organised the protest. "Journalists are targeted by the
police and security services in order to prevent exposure of horrific human
rights violations including torture of government critics." The Daily News
and The Daily News on Sunday, robust critics of Robert Mugabe's regime, were
shut down in September under draconian laws aimed at muzzling press freedom
and increasing the stranglehold of the regime's mouthpieces, state-run
newspapers and the state-controlled television and radio. A judge last month
ordered a state-appointed commission to give the papers' publishers, the
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, an operating licence. The commission has
appealed this ruling. Meanwhile, the judge due to hear an appeal by the
Daily News against the shutdown stepped down Nov. 25 after the state-run
Herald newspaper accused him of bias.

The London protest came as Mugabe railed against a decision to exclude him
from the two-yearly meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Abuja, Nigeria Dec.
5-8. Mugabe had hoped to wangle an invitation with the support of African
nations. But his southern African neighbours, including South Africa which
has supported Mugabe despite violent land grabs and elections widely
regarded as rigged, last week simply appealed to the Commonwealth not to
isolate Mugabe, and stopped short of demanding he be invited. Zimbabwe was
suspended from the Commonwealth councils last year on grounds of
vote-rigging and violence in Mugabe's re-election campaign. The
demonstrators on Saturday ranged from veteran protestors to some recent
victims of state-sponsored violence who have fled Zimbabwe. Rose Benton, who
has lived in Britain for many years, and her husband Denis are part of a
regular Saturday protest outside the Zimbabwe High Commission on The Strand
in central London. "This is my 60th week here," said Mrs. Benton as, in
drizzling rain, she set up a stall draped with banners in the colours of the
Zimbabwe flag, and bearing protests against violence, rape and starvation.
Another demonstrator, who asked to be identified only as Chipo, arrived in
Britain a few months ago. She is still traumatized. Mugabe's Green Bomber
militia broke into her house in Chitungwiza on the outskirts of Harare. They
gagged and blindfolded Chipo and her husband, beat them, and one then
declared, "We are not finished. You are going to see what we do with people
who don't support Zanu PF." "Then two men raped me," said Chipo. She has not
seen her husband since the attack. "I just hope they don't kill my husband,"
said Chipo.

One man's view

Book review

The Battle for Zimbabwe: The Final Countdown - Geoff Hill

"People get the government they deserve", goes the old adage. Its author was
being cynical, but was nevertheless wrong. It is impossible to imagine what
heinous misdemeanours could have been committed by the ordinary people of
the land between the Limpopo and the Zambezi, that could justify the
governments that have held successive - though ultimately temporary - sway,
for almost 150 years. And it is important to view the current Zimbabwe
crisis from the longer perspective, for it then becomes clear that it is not
the people, but the elite, who have got the government they desire. Recent
books on Zimbabwe have tended to concentrate on the events of the last four
years, and, in particular, on the central personality - Mugabe - who
dominates whatever view one takes of Zimbabwe's woes. These other books -
one thinks of David Blair's Degrees in Violence, Martin Meredith's Mugabe,
and Cathy Buckle's two volumes of personal reportage - are no less valuable
for their emphasis on relatively recent events, and on Mugabe himself. Blair
and Buckle in particular give the immediacy and detail that comes from
personal experience - an attribute sometimes lost amid the day-to-day
chronology of power politics and economic collapse that has so fascinated
the world since February 2000.

Geoff Hill, Africa correspondent for the Washington Times, has just
published an account which takes the longer view, but which is also
interspersed with personal experience. Brought up in southern Africa, and a
reporter from there for much of the last twenty years, he puts the current
struggle for power in Zimbabwe into the historical context; from the Shona
empire of the middle ages, through Zulu politics under Shaka in the mid 19th
century, to the present day, and in a speculative last chapter, beyond. For
those who wish more detailed analysis of the various eras of Zimbabwean
history, there are other sources. But as a one-volume package, Hill's book
serves admirably. It is well written, and the combination of the historical
view with personal reporting proves a compelling mix. Journalism may be the
first draft of history, but the final draft, of course, is never settled.
Hill's account is essentially personal. There have been, and will be, other
personal accounts, and the deep divide of opinion over cause and effect in
contemporary Zimbabwean politics will provide fertile ground for many a
doctoral dissertation over coming decades. His final chapter, on the
implications of Zimbabwe for South Africa, is one man's view. But despite
the horrific subject matter, Hill has written a cautiously optimistic book.
Nothing is ever inevitable, but his thesis could be summed up as being: The
world has changed, and the days of the African autocracy are numbered. One
can only hope his sub-title - The Final Countdown - is accurate