http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8137
December 1, 2008
By
Raymond Maingire
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
says it will proceed
with the strike action on Wednesday despite this week's
increase in cash
withdrawal limits announced by the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe.
The militant labour representative group announced last week it
would lead
Zimbabweans to their respective banking halls Wednesday to demand
all their
monies in protest against cash withdrawal limits.
A
procession will be made to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe where the ZCTU
leadership will deliver a petition to the governor, Gideon Gono.
The
ZCTU wants the central bank to remove the limit in daily cash
withdrawals.
Currently, individuals are not allowed to withdraw amounts
exceeding $500
000.
The ZCTU feels the cap is against the basic rights of depositors who
are
entitled to any amounts from their bank accounts. The state-controlled
Sunday Mail newspaper reported Sunday that Gono had reviewed limits upwards
while introducing weekly cash withdrawal limits.
Under the new
arrangement, individuals shall with effect from Thursday be
allowed to
withdraw $100 million from their accounts once a week while
companies would
be allowed to withdraw $150 million. ZCTU secretary-general
Wellington
Chibhebhe told The Zimbabwe Times Monday his organization would
ignore
Gono's announcement and proceed with the strike.
"We are going ahead with
the strike," said Chibhebhe, "We do not want any
cash limits at all.
Everyone must be allowed to collect their monies. Gono
has been taking
advantage of people's silence."
He warned the situation may get worse as
the central bank struggles to
release such huge amounts of money to satisfy
everyone.
"The whole thing is a ruse," said Chibhebhe, "If Gono was
sincere about
people accessing their monies, he would not have announced
Thursday as the
date when he would release the cash.
"This is a way
of trying to prevent people from congregating at their banks
on Wednesday
only to find the cash is not there as has been the case before.
We have read
through the plot to counter our strike."
Asked if depositors could access
all their money now that ordinary
Zimbabweans had quadrillions in their
accounts, Chibhebhe insisted it was
possible.
"It should definitely
be possible," he said, "We are not the ones who have
created all this mess.
The whole exercise of burning money started with the
RBZ. If the economic
situation has been able to create 'quadrillionaires',
then the monetary
situation should be able to provide such money."
Chibhebhe said his
organization had been forced to defer protests on more
than one occasion
before after the central bank increased cash withdrawal
limits on the eve of
strike actions.
"When we threatened to take similar action before, cash
withdrawal limits
were increased to $20 000 up from $1000.
"As we
organized another strike action, the limits were increased again from
$20
000 to $500 000. We have deferred our action on those occasions hoping
things were going to improve. It is now evident people's problems will not
be solved by these meaningless adjustments.
"This time we are saying
no to adjustments. The element of adjustment does
not
work."
Chibhebhe accused the government of allowing the cash situation to
deteriorate to a point where soldiers had gone on the rampage around the
streets of Harare beating up civilians and grabbing cash from
individuals.
Marauding groups of uniformed soldiers now roam the city
centre everyday
grabbing wads of bank notes from black market cash dealers
whom they accuse
of corruptly getting the cash whilst they are failing to
access even daily
cash withdrawal limits of $500 000.
"The situation
has the potential of getting completely out of hand," said
Chibhebhe.
"Government can toss civilians around but the situation
becomes tricky with
soldiers in that the moment they realize they can have
their way, they will
become totally uncontrollable."
He said although
his organization did not condone the robbery by the
soldiers, the
frustration the soldiers were expressing vindicated the ZCTU.
He also
said soldiers were free to join Wednesday's strike as the current
cash
crisis affected everyone.
"We are advising all Zimbabweans to join the
strike because the cash crisis
does not know any occupation or race," he
said.
Soldiers attack banks as
cash shortage worsens
Country close to becoming a failed state, warns
UN
Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2
2008 00.01 GMT
The Guardian, Tuesday December 2 2008
Dozens of
Zimbabwean soldiers rioted in Harare yesterday, attacking banks
after they
were unable to withdraw their near worthless pay, in a further
sign that
Robert Mugabe may be losing control over the forces that have kept
him in
power.
The unarmed soldiers also looted shops and were backed by some
civilians as
they clashed with riot police who fired teargas to break up the
protest. The
drastic cash shortages are caused by the country's 231m percent
inflation
rate, which has led the government to restrict people to
withdrawing the
equivalent of just 18p a day - not enough to buy a loaf of
bread.
The Associated Press reported that gunfire had broken out in the
city centre
but it was not clear who fired.
Though not large,
yesterday's was the second such protest in a week and
reflects a desperation
within the military that will be of concern to Mugabe
and his allies, who
have relied on the army to suppress political
opposition. Ordinary soldiers,
often hungry and unable to feed their
families, have grown disillusioned. If
significant numbers were to turn
against Mugabe, it could swiftly bring an
end to his rule. The president's
grip is in any case greatly weakened as
Zimbabwe's collapse continues
without respite.
The authorities in
Harare yesterday cut off water supplies to the city
because there are not
enough chemicals to treat the water in the midst of a
cholera
outbreak.
The health ministry yesterday said cholera has now spread to
all but one of
Zimbabwe's 10 provinces, as sanitation systems break down
across the
country. The World Health Organisation says about 425 people have
died, but
medical charities say the real figure is at least double that
among the
11,000 reported cases.
The UN estimates that 5 million
people, about half Zimbabwe's population,
will need food aid in the coming
weeks.
The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, yesterday urged foreign
governments to end the "man-made" humanitarian crisis, "as it has reached
catastrophic levels".
But there is unlikely to be any significant
foreign aid until Mugabe agrees
to implement the political deal reached in
mid-September that required him
to give up many of his powers to Tsvangirai,
who was to be appointed prime
minister.
Mugabe has so far blocked its
implementation by insisting that his Zanu-PF
party should control all the
key ministries, particularly those responsible
for the security forces and
finance.
The most senior UN official in the country has warned that
Zimbabwe could
become a failed state similar to Somalia if the power-sharing
deal fails.
Agostinho Zacarias told a delegation led by the former UN
secretary general
Kofi Annan that Mugabe was more interested in protecting
his power and
legacy than rescuing Zimbabwe from disaster.
"When
asked by Mr Annan what would be the future of Zimbabwe were no
political
agreement reached, Mr Zacarias replied that it would become a
'Somalia', a
failed state," said a report by Annan's delegation. "When asked
what
President Mugabe wants, Mr Zacarias explained that his interest is that
of
protecting his legacy and that of his political party."
Mugabe's regime
remains defiant. Yesterday it said it would not abide by a
Southern African
Development Community ruling that the seizure of white
owned farms were
illegal under international law.
"They are daydreaming because we are not
going to reverse the land reform
exercise," Didymus Mutasa, the security
minister, told the Herald newspaper.
http://www.nehandaradio.com
02 December
2008
By Staff Reporters
Zimbabwe's notorious youth militia are
thought to be behind a spate of
indiscriminate attacks on forex dealers and
vendors in Harare since last
week, rather than members of the army as
reported.
Nehanda Radio sources say the youths who were unarmed, wore
green regalia
which might have convinced people they were soldiers. Reports
that unpaid
soldiers attacked money changers and clashed with police have
been dismissed
as slightly inaccurate.
Still, with the strict control
of information in the country it remains
difficult to verify events. Some
reports had said riot police fired teargas
to disperse hundreds of
stone-throwers who chased a group of soldiers they
accused of a violent
crackdown on illegal foreign currency dealers.
While it cannot be denied
that there were running skirmishes, the Border
Gezi Training camp youths
have traditionally been used by the Reserve Bank
to mount so-called
anti-black market raids on the street dealers and it does
look like they are
behind the current clashes.
Police said they were unaware of the
incidents, and there were no reports of
injuries but Nehanda Radio
understands one man was shot on Monday during the
disturbances. Most shops
in Harare also closed down due to the clashes.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Tuesday, 02
December 2008
The NCA expresses its disapproval of the Harare regime's
failure to
govern the once might Zimbabwe. The deteriorating humanitarian
and political
crisis has seen our state security organs for the first time
in the history
of this once peaceful country taking to the streets demanding
that
government address their problems.
Today's protest by
members of the national army is a clear testimony
that the state security is
in danger. It is a clear signal that if nothing
is done in the next few days
the country might degenerate in chaos and
hubbub The NCA reiterates that
there has to be immediate action by SADC and
the Zimbabwean political
parties in setting up a transitional authority with
the chief mandate of
averting the humanitarian catastrophe ravaging the
country.
The NCA
notes sadly that the break down in the security system comes
at a time when
the "government" is ball watching as cholera and anthrax
threatens the
existence of the nation, threatening to wipe out the whole
populace. It is
in this wake that the NCA calls for a transitional authority
to be put in
place to avert impending anarchy
The NCA noting that the grievances by
the security apparatus are
genuine however condemns in the strongest terms
the behaviour displayed by
the army and the police in beating struggling
Zimbabweans and looting from
ordinary people's shops. We call upon the
security forces to join hands with
the people rather than fight the people.
It is time for these important
institutions' to understand that they are in
it with everyone else. Let us
all join hands and fight for our future
together.
Madock Chivasa
NCA Spokesperson 0
0263912904492
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Tuesday, 02 December 2008
There is no
running water in all of Harare's high density suburbs,
posing a serious
health hazard that could compound the cholera outbreak
which has hit the
capital city and several other areas in the country. The
country is
currently in the throes of a serious cholera crisis that has hit
almost all
high density suburbs in Harare and left over 300 people dead.
To date,
all polyclinics, which are already reeling with acute
shortages of medicines
and health staff, are overcrowded with starving
people who have become
victims of the contagious disease. The current water
shortages are set to
worsen an already dire humanitarian situation in
Zimbabwe.
The MDC
believes that Zanu PF policies are responsible for the crisis
that we find
ourselves in. Two years ago, Zanu PF took an unpopular decision
to hand over
water management to the ill-equipped Zimbabwe National Water
Authority
(ZINWA), an underfunded and corrupt layer of patronage that has
dismally
failed to deliver clean water in our homes.
Last week, Zanu PF barred a
group of Elders led by former United
Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi
Annan, which would have helped mobilize
global assistance in areas of food,
medicines, and the provision of clean
water. As a nation, we are suffering
because of political mischief and
mischief on the part of Zanu PF.
The MDC feels that the issue of transition remains the only credible
answer
to the problems affecting Zimbabwe.
The MDC calls upon the friends of
the people of Zimbabwe to help
assist in dealing with this crisis that
threatens to leave the whole country
in ruins and in a catastrophic
position. Zanu PF has sacrificed the people's
lives for political expediency
by refusing international assistance and
barring eminent Elders from
assessing the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.
The water crisis is a
manifestation of the collapse of everything in
Zimbabwe. The lack of clean
water in Harare is going worsen the cholera
situation in the country,
leaving Harare as the capital of cholera.
The MDC believes that an
expedient resolution of the political impasse
will be the ultimate answer to
this crisis. Zanu PF must respect the
people's will and agree to have the
MDC as an equal partner in governance so
that a legitimate government begins
to address the people's concerns,
including the lack of clean water in our
homes.
Zanu PF must declare cholera and the acute shortage of water
national
disasters. The people of Zimbabwe want a responsible, legitimate
government
that will address the their plight.
by Nelson
Chamisa
MDC Information and Publicity
http://www.un.org
1 December 2008 - The United Nations health
agency today called for $2
million for a three-month assault on Zimbabwe's
worst cholera epidemic in
over 15 years, including emergency health
supplies, water purification
equipment, portable diagnostic kits and trained
personnel.
More than 11,700 cases have been recorded since August, 473 of
them fatal,
giving a fatality rate of 4 per cent nationally. That rate
reached 50 per
cent in some areas during the early stages of the outbreak,
compared with a
benchmark rate of below 1 per cent, the UN World Health
Organization (WHO)
reported.
"Cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe have
occurred annually since 1998, but
previous epidemics never reached today's
proportions," WHO said in its
latest update today. "The last outbreak was in
1992 with 3,000 cases
recorded."
WHO has been airlifting emergency
stocks from the UN Humanitarian Resource
Depot in Dubai and mobilizing
additional drugs and supplies through the WHO
country office in South Africa
as well as deploying a full outbreak and
investigation response team,
including logisticians, epidemiologists,
communications officers and
specialists in water and sanitation.
Cholera, an acute intestinal
infection caused by food or water contaminated
with the bacterium vibrio
cholerae, has a short incubation period from less
than one to five days and
causes copious, painless, watery diarrhoea that
can quickly lead to severe
dehydration and death if treatment is not
promptly given.
WHO is
seeking to reduce the epidemic's spread by ensuring access to safe
water and
maintaining safe isolation and infection controls in health
centres, and to
reduce mortality through early detection and improved access
to health care
and feeding support.
Just last week, UN Deputy Emergency Relief
Coordinator Catherine Bragg urged
donors to generously support an overall
$550 million appeal to respond to
the humanitarian crisis in the Southern
African country, which she warned
would get much worse without massive
international assistance.
Zimbabwe is mired in a crisis brought about by
a confluence of factors,
including three years of failed harvests, bad
governance and hyperinflation,
among others.
The Times
December 2, 2008
Jan Raath in Harare
Zimbabwe cut water supplies to residents in
Harare today as the cholera
epidemic tightened its grip and the city
witnessed its worst unrest for a
decade.
The Zimbabwe National Water
Authority turned off the pumps in the capital
after it ran out of chemicals
needed to to purify supplies. With the number
of cholera cases soaring above
11,000 across the country, David
Parirenyatwa, the Health Minister, urged
Zimbabweans to stop shaking hands
to avoid the disease
spreading.
Companies and government offices, especially those in
high-rise buildings,
were sending workers home by midday as toilets blocked
with no water to
clear them. "My office stinks and the toilet is a
disgusting site," said
Mary Sakupwene, a secretary. "I won't go back until
the water's on again."
The four-star Jameson hotel stopped taking guests,
and others less exclusive
closed. Restaurants provided buckets of water for
handwashing and flushing.
There was a sharp increase in people turning up at
the Harare sports club -
served by a series of boreholes - for their morning
ablutions after their
taps at home ran dry. It notified members that from
today they would be
charging $2 (£1.34) for a shower.
In Harare's
townships, some of which have been without water for two years,
20 litres of
water drawn from one of the thousands of backyard hand-dug
wells can cost
$1. All wells hold the danger of cholera. "What I am afraid
of is now that
the rainy season has come, the faeces lying in the bushes
will be washed
into shallow wells and contaminate the water," said Mr
Parirenyatwa.
The
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) urged President Mugabe
to
accept international humanitarian help. "The country is reaching a
catastrophic level, in terms of food, health delivery, education," said
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC. "Everything seems to be collapsing
around us."
The seething anger felt by ordinary Zimbabweans exploded
today as hundreds
of off-duty soldiers went on the rampage in the centre of
Harare.
Witnesses said that the violence broke out at a bus depot on the
edge of the
city centre where soldiers, frustrated at not being able to draw
cash from
banks, confronted illegal money changers. The dealers scattered in
panic,
and the soldiers turned on the city, followed by mobs of civilians
spurring
them on.
The mobs stoned cars and looted shops. In the
ensuing panic home-bound city
workers fled to escape the rioting, and
traffic jammed as motorists tried to
turn back from the scene.
It was
the first serious public unrest since rioting over food price
increases ten
years ago. The disturbance brought a swift and brutal response
from the
authorities who swamped the area with heavily armed paramilitary
police and
troops. At least one man was shot.
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/
Eddie Cross
02 December 2008
Eddie Cross
writes on what underpins Zanu-PF's support from neighbouring
countries
Over the past 10 years during which the MDC has sought
to achieve a change
of government via legal, political and peaceful means,
we have always
thought that the rightness of our cause would find a ready
hearing in the
other democracies of southern Africa. How wrong we
were.
Ten years down the line we now know that a network of patronage
spreads out
from Zimbabwe across the region and that because of this, many
regional
leaders are either silent on the issues that are presented to them
by the
Zimbabwe crisis or are in open support of the illegal regime of
Robert
Mugabe. The patronage links take many forms - illegal contracts that
finance
political parties, secret holdings in companies that earn hundreds
of
millions of dollars from regional enterprise and deals and are paid
directly
outside the country. Illicit dealings in gold and diamonds, copper
and
cobalt and even in just hard currency looted through the accounts of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are involved. Just the other day the Reserve Bank
sold 2 million carats of diamonds in Mumbai, India - the proceeds going to
destinations unknown.
We have evidence of many heads of Government
being involved in this
activity. The list is astonishing and those who are
involved can be
identified by their silence or complicity in the Zimbabwe
crisis. Why for
example does the South African, Zambian and Congolese
governments not
complain about a tax levied on every tonne of cargo that
transits the
Beitbridge border over the New Limpopo Bridge? Why is it only
the Botswana
government that complains about the monopoly granted to the BBR
on rail
traffic from central Africa going south to South Africa and from
South
Africa going north?
This willingness to cast principle aside in
return for small or even large
favours and perhaps hard currency transfers
to private accounts is
saddening. It also casts doubt on the ability and
willingness of many
African leaders to support the very principles they have
for so long
supported in public, only to despise in private.
The
demand by the Mugabe regime that they be left alone on the grounds of
sovereignty and independence and not called to account for the manner in
which they have abused their power and responsibilities in government, is
just another example of regional leadership using the power of language to
defend the indefensible. When he rises at international forums (as he will
do today in the Middle East) Mugabe should be greeted with derision and
laughter. He lost the election in March, then carried out a presidential
rerun election that was so fraudulent and violent that not even his closest
allies could endorse the results. He heads an illegal regime and runs a
government without a budget. Yet regional leaders call him 'President' and
allow him to sit in their forums. He enters into negotiations to resolve the
crisis in his country; signs a deal and then breaks every principle
enshrined therein.
He hosted Chogum in Harare and chaired the
sessions that produced the Harare
Declaration on basic rights and good
governance. He then promptly went on to
abuse every principle enshrined in
the Declaration and finally withdrew from
the Commonwealth when challenged.
He claims to have two degrees in economics
and a high level of basic
intelligence yet does not even understand the very
basics of how to manage a
country's financial system. He speaks out at the
UN on issues such as
poverty and human and political rights whilst at home
his regime destroys
the economy, impoverishes a whole nation and denies its
entire population
all the basic rights enshrined in the UN Declarations.
If I were an
observer from another planet watching from outer space - I
would find this
all rather bemusing. But I am not; I am just another victim
like millions of
others who have had their personal lives destroyed by a
corrupt and
incompetent government in Africa. Having listened to and
believed in the
high sounding promises of leadership seeking to rectify
injustice in
pre-independence Africa, I must say it is easy not to hold out
any credence
that African leadership can resolve the problems of Africa.
Then there is
Mr. Mbeki - famous for the 'African Peer Review' mechanism,
the 'African
Renaissance' and the Rainbow nation. Holding out such promise -
a quiet,
pipe smoking intellectual with a Marxist background. A scion of an
iconic
family in South Africa that has been synonymous with the struggle for
justice and human rights.
What a huge disappointment he has been. He
allowed corruption to flourish
under his administration, and turned out to
be a racist. He was locked into
an ideological straight jacket that was not
used to direct the State in the
direction of greater equity or the
elimination of poverty or the
rehabilitation of the South African family,
but fostered the fastest growth
in the number of new millionaires in any
country in the latter half of the
20th Century, created huge disparities in
welfare and wealth and supported
distorted views of HIV/Aids that led to the
deaths of hundreds of thousands
who might otherwise have
lived.
Appointed as the mediator or facilitator in the Zimbabwe
negotiations, he
has acted in a partial and negative manner from the very
start. MDC
negotiators have recounted that they were often confronted in the
talks by a
solid phalanx of opposing sentiment - Zanu PF and the Mutambara
group
joining the South African facilitation team in opposition to the MDC
position.
In a 37 page memorandum in 2002, Mbeki wrote about the
Zimbabwe crisis -
accurately predicting the outcome of the illegal farm
invasions and advising
Zanu PF to abandon the exercise - not on principle or
in defence of the
rights of those being abused or the legal principles that
were involved but
on the grounds that the Party of the Revolution' would run
the risk of being
dispossessed. In pages of closely reasoned argument, he
set out the case to
defend the right of the 'Party of the Revolution' to
retain power - at any
cost.
In the 6 years since that time he has
done everything in his power to
subvert the MDC and to prevent the MDC from
coming to power. He has
subverted its leadership, supported its opponents,
protected Zanu PF in
international forums and used his considerable power
and influence to deny
the MDC recognition in Africa. In the past two years -
even as he 'mediated'
the talks, he manipulated events and outcomes in a
desperate effort to
protect the Zanu PF from the very consequences he
predicted in his 2002
memo.
Since Monday this week Mr. Mbeki has
shown himself to be true to form -
still locked into a straight jacket
imposed by his past. He has tried to
bully the MDC negotiators, derided
their principals and supported a
fraudulently based version of legal
agreements designed to create an
inclusive government in
Zimbabwe.
MDC is not responsible in any way for the crisis in Zimbabwe
and will not
allow the efforts of Zanu PF to intensify the crisis as a means
to force us
into a bad deal. We are fully committed to the deal signed on
the 11th
September and want to see it implemented in full as soon as
possible. But we
no longer accept Mr. Mbeki as facilitator but will continue
to press the
other Zimbabwean participants for a reasonable
outcome.
Eddie Cross is MP for Bulawayo South and the MDC's Policy
Coordinator. This
article first appeared on his website, www.eddiecross.africanherd.com/
http://www.sowetan.co.za
02 December 2008
Frank
Maponya
Water in the Limpopo River between Zimbabwe and South Africa has
tested
positive for cholera-causing bacteria, raising fears of the spread of
the
disease in Limpopo.
"The latest development has posed
a serious threat to the lives of our
people," Limpopo health department
spokesman Phuti Seloba said yesterday.
Seloba said the
department was still waiting for the results of samples
taken from the water
drawn from the nearby Nwanedi River.
He said the department would
do everything in its power to ensure that the
disease was brought under
control in the province.
He said Limpopo had treated 399 patients
suffering from cholera since
November 15.
Late yesterday, another 101
patients were admitted to various hospitals in
the province. The majority
were from the Madimbo area.
The death toll as a result of the disease
still stands at six - two of them
were South Africans and the rest were
Zimbabweans.
http://www.ajc.com
By JIMMY CARTER
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
As president,
I worked actively with African leaders and the British to
change the
apartheid regime of Rhodesia into a democratic Zimbabwe in 1980.
Eight years
later, The Carter Center established one of our first
agriculture projects
in Zimbabwe, at that time known as a breadbasket for
the region and setting
an example in economic stability, education and
health care.
Now,
after almost three decades of governmental corruption, mismanagement
and
oppression, Zimbabwe has become a basket case and an international
embarrassment. A group of leaders known as the Elders, to which I belong,
have monitored this crisis, while realizing that its resolution must come
from within Africa. Time for action is now running out, a reality forcefully
conveyed to me on a recent five-day fact-finding trip to the
region.
There is great aversion among even the most enlightened African
leaders to
"interference" from former colonial powers and their allies,
including the
United States. However, these same leaders have been reluctant
to assume
responsibility for resolving the political stalemate and the
escalating
humanitarian catastrophe.
I joined former U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Graça Machel, women's
activist and wife of
Nelson Mandela, in South Africa on Nov. 21 with the
intention of traveling
on to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. However, when
we met with former
South African president Thabo Mbeki, the facilitator
designated by other
African leaders to mediate the political dispute in
Zimbabwe, he delivered a
message from Harare that our visas were denied and
we could not
proceed.
We had anticipated this possibility and held a series of
comprehensive
discussions in Johannesburg with delegations that came from
Zimbabwe to meet
us, including executives of international nonprofit and
governmental
agencies and a wide range of other stakeholders including
leaders of
Zimbabwe's civil society. What we learned of the situation was
even worse
than our expectations. We also met with Botswana President Ian
Khama, South
African President Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC Party President (and
prospective
South African President) Jacob Zuma, and Zimbabwe's opposition
party leaders
Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.
The current
political and humanitarian crisis originated with a fraudulent
presidential
election in March 2008, with Tsvangirai probably winning an
actual majority
against President Robert Mugabe. Orchestrated violence and
brutal
persecution of Tsvangirai and his supporters forced him to withdraw
from the
forced runoff and leave the country. Mugabe then declared himself
president.
African political leaders largely ignored reports of fraud by
their own
election observers, and eventually negotiated a power-sharing
agreement that
Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed on Sept. 15. Unfortunately,
Mugabe has not
ceded any real power to his opponent and the trend toward a
national tragedy
has accelerated.
The official inflation rate is now 231 million percent,
and actually 2,000
times greater. Thousands of people stand in line daily to
receive a tiny
allowance from their own bank accounts - approximately 2
cents - an amount
that is insufficient to buy even half a loaf of bread.
Meanwhile, top
government officials and other privileged people can exchange
Zimbabwe money
at a favorable rate and profit greatly from these
transactions. They shop in
special stores.
Schoolteachers receive
only one U.S. dollar a month, and cannot afford
transportation to work.
Attendance has dropped from 85 to 20 percent, with
attending students mostly
wanting to obtain a morsel of food. All
universities are closed.
A
planting shortage of seed and fertilizer will result in a failed harvest,
and the World Food Program estimates that 50 percent of the population will
need food assistance before April 2009. Relief agencies report that
available food supplies are channeled to ruling party loyalists,
deliberately starving opposition party leaders.
All major hospitals
and most emergency clinics no longer operate, and police
have clashed with
doctors and nurses who insist on treating their patients.
Uncontrolled
sewage and lack of clean water has resulted in cholera
outbreaks in all 10
provinces.
Zimbabwe is battling a nationwide cholera epidemic that has
killed 425
people since late August and infected more than 11,000, according
to
government statistics.
As many as 4 million people have left
Zimbabwe, seeking food, medical care
and freedom from abuse, and the cholera
outbreak has made neighboring
nations increasingly wary of accepting
immigrants. There are courageous
people in Johannesburg who with limited
means are helping alleviate the
immense suffering. We visited Central
Methodist church, where Bishop Paul
Verryn feeds and houses 2,000 refugees
in the church's rooms and corridors
each night.
Without a political
solution, the economic and social fabric of society will
continue its
free-fall. When Mugabe cannot pay his army and enormous civil
service, the
result may be a resort to internecine violence and a failed
state, similar
to Somalia.
African leaders, especially in the neighboring Southern
African Development
Community, must confront Mugabe and force him to comply
with negotiated
political agreements and share real governing authority with
Tsvangirai and
the opposition party. If action by these leaders continues to
be
ineffective, the African Union and the United Nations must take action. A
first step, short of intercession, could be to send independent fact-finding
teams to Zimbabwe to obtain information directly from major donors,
international relief agencies, medical doctors, teachers, farmers and other
citizens who have described their experiences to us.
In the meantime,
there is a desperate need for food, medicine and cash
contributions to
established humanitarian agencies including CARE, World
Vision and Save the
Children - or to Bishop Verryn. It is counterproductive
to contribute money
that can be confiscated by the Zimbabwe government.
*Jimmy Carter, the
39th president of the United States, leads The Carter
Center.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8122
December 1, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Zimbabwe's cholera disaster is horrifyingly
evident in the morgue
at the Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases
Hospital.
It is packed with dozens of bodies of the latest victims of
cholera.
The morgue, designed to hold 10 corpses, held nearly twice that
number on
Monday, with 19 cholera victims in body bags when a high-powered
delegation
from the MDC visited the hospital on a tour to assess the
humanitarian
crisis.
Trays in the morgue held more than one adult
body, along with the tiny
corpses of infants. Others, shrouded in canvas and
cotton sheets, lay in
gurneys or on the floors of the refrigerated
corridors.
All the bodies were tightly sealed in plastic body bags
provided by
humanitarian agencies battling to contain the outbreak of the
deadly
disease. Some of the bodies were those of cholera victims who sought
medical
attention too late.
Some bags contained the bodies of health
workers killed after contracting
the disease while trying to help patients,
operating in a fragile health
care delivery system literally collapsing at
the height of Zimbabwe's worst
political and economic crisis since
independence in 1980.
According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, almost 10 000 cases and over 400
deaths due to cholera have now
been reported in Zimbabwe since the current
outbreak of the disease in
August.
A doctor told The Zimbabwe Times
that one in every ten victims was
succumbing to the disease among those who
sought medical attention.
"Many others die at home," he
said.
Nearly 500 new cases and 23 additional deaths have been reported
since
yesterday, with the largest increase in cases found in
Budiriro.
MDC vice-president Thokozani Khupe, who is also Zimbabwe's
deputy Prime
Minister-designate under the terms of a power-sharing agreement
with
President Robert Mugabe, expressed shock at the crisis.
Khupe,
who broke down at Budiriro Polyclinic, demanded that government
immediately
declare a state of emergency to get immediate help from the
international
community.
Health minister David Parirenyatwa claims there is no need to
declare a
state of emergency, saying government is "on top of the
situation".
Khupe, who was accompanied by Nelson Chamisa, the MDC
national spokesperson,
deputy national treasurer Elton Mangoma, Senator
Henry Madzorera, MDC
secretary for health; and several MDC MPs and Senators,
said the cholera
outbreak had reached unprecedented levels.
She
accused Zanu-PF of being locked in denial about the desperate
humanitarian
situation.
"People should stop politicking about this situation as it has
reached
unprecedented levels," Khupe told reporters at the Beatrice
Infectious
Hospital.
"Zanu-PF should get out of its denial mode and
admit that they have no
capacity so that those that can help can come in as
a matter of urgency."
Earlier, the MDC delegation had visited Budiriro
Polyclinic where UNICEF has
set up a cholera treatment and control
centre.
Budiriro is the worst-hit high density suburb in Harare, and
patients lay on
specially designed hospital beds with holes on the
mattresses to enable the
patients to relieve themselves in a bucket located
directly under the bed.
Patients were being regularly fumigated with
chlorine from a knapsack.
Dozens of sick people lay helpless and
emaciated; with some saying they were
ready to accept their fate.
The
MDC embarked on the fact-finding mission as the whole of Harare went dry
for
the second day in a row, running out of water completely. Doctors said
they
had recorded more admissions mainly of people suffering from diarrhoea
or
cholera since Sunday.
"As a result of the crisis, there are rising
mortality rates," said one
doctor.
The hospital has ordered all the
cholera victims' bodies to be thoroughly
disinfected before they were taken
for burial. Even the coffins are being
fumigated at the morgue.
In a
nation plagued by a hunger crisis and an estimated 2500 AIDS-related
deaths
a week, funeral homes hired to bury the dead are also overwhelmed.
At the
same time, city authorities have run out of money and fuel,
paralyzing
ambulance, garbage collection and other services.
Zimbabwe is suffering
massive inflation and unemployment. A hard currency
shortage has led to
shortages of food, medicines and fuel, which has
crippled industry.
A
routine burial - including cemetery and grave fees, a casket and
transportation - costs at least US$120.
That's a top line ripple for
an average Zimbabwean's annual income and is
well out of reach of the 80
percent of people here living in poverty.
The Harare City Council,
controlled by the MDC, has offered free graves and
coffins to cholera
victims. Lesley Gwindi, spokesman for the Harare city
council, said the
decision was taken during a full council meeting last
week.
"Council
resolved that graves be allocated to the (cholera) victims," Gwindi
said.
"It has also been suggested that as mitigation measures those who die
of
cholera be also allocated coffins."
Meanwhile the Harare municipal
cemeteries are filling up with cholera
victims.
The MDC shadow Home
Affairs minister Dr Henry Madzorera said: "What we
observed is an extreme
disaster. The epidemic has reached disaster
proportions. This has been
under-reported. There are far more deaths than we
have been told."
He
said health care givers were saying they did not have the capacity to
deal
with the problem.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by
Nokuthula Sibanda Tuesday 02 December 2008
HARARE - A deadly
outbreak of anthrax has killed two children and one adult
and could wipe out
at least 60 000 livestock in Zimbabwe's northern Zambezi
valley region, Save
the Children said on Monday.
An emergency assessment by the United
Kingdom-based Save the Children and
the Ministry of Health found 32 cases of
human anthrax in Binga district.
Anthrax infections have also killed 160
livestock, as well as 2 elephants,
70 hippo and 50 buffalo.
The
anthrax outbreak comes on top of increasing cholera infections which the
government says have killed 425 people but which independent health experts
estimate may have killed close to 1 000 people.
In addition to
disease outbreaks, hunger is worsening in Zimbabwe, which is
also suffering
a severe economic crisis that critics blame on wrong policies
by President
Robert Mugabe in power since the country's 1980 independence
from
Britain.
Relief agencies say as many as two million Zimbabweans require
immediate
food aid and estimate this figure could shoot up to 5.1 million
people by
January, representing about 45 percent of the country's total
population.
A Save the Children official, Rachel Pounds, described the
anthrax outbreak
as probably the worst in about three decades and said the
food crisis was
compounding the problem because hungry villagers were eating
meat from
infected animals instead of burning it.
"This may be the
biggest anthrax outbreak since the 1979-80 civil war. Many
families in the
Zambezi region are so hungry that they are taking meat from
their dead
animals and feeding it to their children. If the animal has been
poisoned by
anthrax, those children could die," Pounds said in statement.
She added:
"Quarantines may be in place but Zimbabwe's systems have
collapsed and the
restrictions will be difficult to maintain with such scant
resources.
Families no longer have a choice here. Even if they know they
shouldn't sell
their livestock on to traders, it's often their only lifeline
of making
money to feed themselves.
"The crisis in Zimbabwe has gone into freefall
and world leaders and donors
must respond urgently with money and food to
stop the decline. We can save
lives by helping to contain the anthrax and
cholera outbreaks that are
crippling the country. But we need the resources
to do it."
Anthrax can kill when infected meat is touched or eaten or
when one inhales
the anthrax spores.
Pounds said her organisation had
launched a global appeal for financial and
other aid to combat the anthrax
in Zimbabwe. With increased resources, Save
the Children's emergency team
will help vaccinate cattle, provide food,
training health workers and
educating communities about the dangers of
anthrax. - ZimOnline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
2, 2008
People die from
eating anthrax-infected cattle ... thieving child gangs roam
freely...
cholera spreads...The latest report from a Zimbabwean farmer
Ben
Freeth
All around, the effects of the Zimbabwean land programme are affecting
our
everyday life. How can people eat when those trying to produce food on
the
land are still being forcibly removed? How can a country go forward when
there is no money being generated from production to allow it to do
so?
I spoke to a friend of mine, Deon Theron, who is vice-president of
the
Commercial Farmers Union. A senior reserve-bank official wanted his farm
and
so Deon was prosecuted by the police this year. He was found to be a
criminal for still farming and was given 30 days to move off.
Rather
than go to jail he decided to move off; but he had nowhere to graze
his
cattle. The cattle are starving to death. He has lost more than 80 in
the
past couple of months. It is nearly half the herd.
In the drought years
there was nothing more devastating to me than watching
a crop slowly die.
The leaves start to shrivel and curl up. Their colour is
slowly bleached out
until what was green and lush and pliable becomes white
and brittle. It is
then dead. Nothing can revive a crop after that.
To watch a whole cattle
herd starve to death for no reason is something
different, though. On Deon's
own farm, the one that he was moved off, the
grass sings and bends as the
breeze passes through it. There is something
macabre about that when just a
little way away cattle are dying because if
their owner allows them to eat
that grass he will be defying the law.
You can spend up to two years in
prison for still being in your home in
Zimbabwe if the Government has
acquired it. Acquisition is simple. All it
has to do is put a notice in the
government gazette. You are not allowed to
appeal against it in a court and
after 90 days you are a criminal if you are
still there.
Martha,
Deon's wife, couldn't take it any longer. Seeing cattle dying every
day
preyed upon her mind. She had to go away. She wanted to shoot their
cattle.
You cannot allow animals to suffer like that. When there is no food
to feed
the cattle the choices become as starkly defined as the bones on the
rib
cages of the cows.
We were shot at and beaten up with rifle butts and
sticks and sjamkoks on
the day that Robert Mugabe was last "sworn in" for
another term on June 29.
We were taking to court this evil law that is
creating the humanitarian
crisis now unfolding - a law that allows land to
be confiscated with no
compensation. We were abducted from the farm and
while my father-in-law and
I were unconscious with severe head injuries, my
mother-in-law, whose arm
they had badly broken and who had had a stick from
the fire thrust into her
mouth for refusing to sing their pro-Mugabe songs,
was made to sign a bit of
paper with a gun to her head. The bit of paper
said that we would withdraw
from the court.
We didn't withdraw. The
court is no ordinary court. It is an international
court with international
jurisdiction. It is the first time that the SADC
(Southern African
Development Community) tribunal has heard a case. And on
Friday we heard
that the court in Windhoek had ruled in our favour. Even
now, we accept it
is unlikely that the Zimbabwean Government will pay any
attention. But
without farmers people don't eat. It's a simple equation.
Britain recognised
that in the Second World War. The North Atlantic convoys
had to run the
gauntlet to stop starvation.
In Zimbabwe starvation is already in the
air. After we were beaten and put
in hospital, we were away from the farm
for some weeks and our entire
sorghum crop was reaped for us and stolen. The
entire sunflower crop went
the same way. People are hungry and there are no
jobs.
At a roadblock the other day, as I was bringing the children back
from
school, the police were looking thin. The women officer there said to
me: "I
am hungry. Have you got some food on the farm you can bring me?" An
assistant inspector phoned another friend of mine the same day asking for
food too. The voice of hunger echoes through the land.
Among the few
of us still battling it out on the farms the talk is: "How can
we make a
plan to feed our workers?" Food crops just get stolen and the
shops are
empty. A few of us have clubbed together and are bringing in 30
tonnes of
rice from South Africa; but it has been stuck at the border for
almost two
weeks now. The paperwork and permits required beggar belief. The
ruling
party has always wanted to achieve a total monopoly on food. When
people are
hungry they can be controlled with food. It's like training dogs.
Dog
trainers use food to get their dogs to do what they want. Stalin and Mao
used food as well.
I heard the other day of cattle dying on the other
side of our local town of
Chegutu. It was an outbreak of anthrax; but some
of the people were so
desperate that they ate the meat and have also
died.
Cholera is rife now too. The sewers are open and there is no
running water
in most towns or at the hospitals any longer. There is no
electricity most
of the time to run the pumps. Many people are dying from
cholera and it's
spreading all over the country. It is as though the whole
place is now
breaking up.
No one who is not close to the elite can
get their money out of the banks
now. No one will accept cheques. So every
bank has had a queue snaking out
of its door for months. People have been
desperately trying to draw out
their money, which is limited to the
equivalent of less than the price of a
loaf of bread a day. Before the end
of the day if you are lucky enough to
get your allocation of cash the prices
have doubled and you can only get
half of what you wanted to buy in the
first place.
The inner circle can get foreign currency at the official
rate, though.
Someone worked out recently that for the price of a water
melon they can buy
a car. There is no shortage of new top-of-the-range cars
belonging to the
elite in Harare.
It is a malaise that appears
unstoppable. While Rome burns the pig trough
appears to know no limit. We
had a literacy rate that was as high as any
Western nation until recently.
Most of the children from our area haven't
been taught at school for nearly
a year now. Instead they are being taught
to steal. The police don't do
anything when children are caught stealing, so
their parents send them in to
steal in gangs.
On the farm we are putting up razor wire around all the
mango orchards. If
we don't, the entire crop will be stolen by gangs with a
commercial network
for transporting and marketing the stolen produce. In a
country that used to
be a land of plenty, that only a few years ago used to
be a consistent net
exporter of food, it is sad that everything has now
degenerated into such
chaos.
Zimbabwe has become like a good car that
has suddenly had its engine taken
out of it. In an instant the car called
Zimbabwe is now unable to go forward
any longer by itself. The international
community, through the aid people,
are trying to push the car along the
road; but what the car really needs is
a new engine.
On the farm,
instead of us putting money into razor wire we should be
putting money into
planting more fruit trees and crops. Instead of the
agencies putting most of
their money into treating the symptoms by giving
food aid, they should also
be doing everything possible to treat the causes
and ensure that property
rights and the rule of law are respected. If that
is done Zimbabweans will
be able to feed themselves once again and generate
the money in surpluses to
deliver health and education and a proper justice
system that the country so
desperately needs.
The problem is that it might mean doing something
bold. When dealing with
tyrants who do not respect international agreements
or international law,
international peacekeeping forces and international
prosecutors from the
International Criminal Court are required to ensure
that justice and
democracy are delivered. Without such bold steps the people
of Zimbabwe will
continue to suffer at the hands of one man and his little
circle of cronies.
http://www.voanews.com
By
Ntungamili Nkomo
Washington
01 December
2008
Publication in Zimbabwe's official gazette of a
constitutional amendment
needed to launch the proposed unity government that
has been in the works
since Sept. 15 looms as the next hurdle in what has
become a tortuous
process, political sources said Monday.
Though a
draft of the amendment has been approved by negotiators for the
long-ruling
ZANU-PF party of President Mugabe and both formations of the
Movement for
Democratic Change, the dominant MDC wing of prime
minister-designate Morgan
Tsvangirai says all power-sharing issues must be
resolved before the measure
is gazetted.
Such issues include the composition of the cabinet of the
proposed unity
government, and the distribution of ambassadorial posts and
provincial
governorships. One sticking point has been who will control the
Home Affairs
Ministry, from which the police depend.
Constitutional
Amendment No. 19, as it is called, would establish the
offices of prime
minister and deputy prime minister, the latter to be held
by rival MDC chief
Arthur Mutambara.
A ZANU-PF official speaking on condition he not be
named told VOA that the
party's legal and parliamentary affairs department
intended gazette the
measure next week.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of
the Tsvangirai MDC formation said the various
parties to the power-sharing
process are consulting on the amendment. He
said his party's national
council is to meet late this week before
power-sharing negotiators reconvene
next week.
Chamisa told reporter Ntungamili Nkomo of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
negotiators agreed to meet next week to address any issues
which arise
during ratification of the draft by the principals and party
leasders, so
any gazetting of the constitutional amendment before his
party's points are
considered would breach the spirit of
power-sharing.
National Constitutional Assembly Chairman Lovemore Madhuku
said the MDC's
insistence on having its demands met before the amendment is
gazetted could
deal a major blow to efforts to put a national unity
government into place
as soon as possible.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Date: 01 Dec
2008
MUSINA, South Africa, December 1 (UNHCR) - Thousands
of young women like
Breyen and Emily flee persecution and poverty in their
native Zimbabwe in
the hope of finding safety, shelter and employment in
neighbouring South
Africa. The reality for many is more a case of out of the
frying pan and
into the fire.
For help in crossing the border into
north-eastern South Africa, the
22-year-old cousins turned to smugglers they
saw as good samaritans, but who
turned out be criminals preying on young
women seeking a better life outside
Zimbabwe. The girls only admitted to
losing their money and suffering from
trauma; others, including married
mothers, have been beaten, robbed, raped
and even killed by their escorts or
the magumaguma, scavenger gangs on the
South African side.
Breyen and
Emily had hoped to go to Johannesburg and, once across the porous
border,
they were left at a taxi rank in the town of Musina, where the UN
refugee
agency provides support to South Africa's Department of Home Affairs
at a
Refugee Reception Office opened in July to process asylum requests.
But
the girls had no money left to get them to the metropolis and nowhere to
stay in Musina, which lies some 15 kilometres from the Beit Bridge border
crossing point between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Their luck was in
when a sympathetic petrol station attendant directed them
to the Matsaung
Shelter for Women, which is run by the Uniting Reformed
Church of South
Africa and receives financial support from the UN refugee
agency. Here,
women receive shelter, food and medical care until they are
given an asylum
seeker permit from the Musina Refugee Reception Office.
The shelter,
which opened on September 1, can accommodate about 100 women
and 25 infants
at any one time. Priority is given to victims of sexual and
gender-based
violence (SGBV) and they stay anywhere from five days to a
fortnight while
awaiting the permit, which allows them to stay in South
Africa as well as
work and study while their application for refugee status
is being
determined.
Eugenia Matsaung, who runs the shelter with her pastor
husband, said they
decided to set up the facility when Zimbabwe's dire
political and economic
situation further deteriorated after national
elections in March this year.
"The number of young women and children we
encountered on the streets and in
seedy corners of Musina concerned us
greatly," recalled Eugenia. "As
[representatives of] the Uniting Reformed
Church, we were burdened with what
to do to help them."
For UNHCR,
the Matsaung centre plays a vital shelter and protection role.
"The lack of
proper shelter to accommodate asylum seekers [in Musina] is a
serious
concern," said Monique Ekoko, UNHCR's senior regional protection
officer.
"For the most part, women and children must bed down in bushes and
other
high-risk places."
The refugee agency helped find premises for the
shelter and paid for
renovation costs. It now provides funding for food and
for electricity and
water. It also arranges counselling for those who need
it. A visit to the
shelter shows that many are traumatized; they respond to
questions in
monosyllables, or not at all.
UNHCR's Ekoko helped
explain why they are in such bad shape. "For the most
part, women taking
refuge at the shelter are victims of sexual and
gender-based violence," she
said. "Our preference is to take in women who've
suffered that indignity
[SGBV]," added Matsaung.
The UN refugee agency is firmly committed to the
struggle against SGBV,
UNHCR offices around the world are supporting the
annual 16 Days of Activism
to Eliminate Violence Against Women, which began
on Tuesday and ends on
International Human Rights Day (December
10).
But the Matsaung Women's Shelter is not enough at a time when a
growing
number of foreigners, mostly Zimbabweans but also Africans from the
rest of
the continent, are turning up in Musina and applying for the asylum
seeker
permits which will allow them to continue their journey to places
like
Johannesburg.
Clearly more needs to be done and UNHCR is
considering a proposal to support
the building of another shelter, according
to Ekoko. "A decision on this
will be taken shortly," she
said.
Meanwhile, Breyen and Emily have received their permits and are
planning
their next move. "We will look for short-term employment to make
money to
buy train tickets to Cape Town, where a relative is waiting for
us," said
Breyen. "This time we will be careful whom we ask for help and
pray that our
journey will be less traumatic than it was when we arrived in
Musina."
By Pumla Rulashe
in Musina, South Africa
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8131
December 1, 2008
By Mxolisi
Ncube
JOHANNESBURG - Former senior PF-Zapu officials have set December 13
and 14
for a national convention that will lead to a national congress to
pave way
for the revival of the party.
PF-Zapu officials vowed that
they would not give in to President Robert
Mugabe's attempts to keep them
within his Zanu-PF party.
The top politicians, who a few weeks ago
announced that they were pulling
out of Mugabe's party are also said to have
chosen Macdonald Hall in the
poor suburb of Makokoba, as the venue for their
national convention.
The decision to end the marriage with Zanu-PF has
dealt a heavy blow to the
celebrated 1987 Unity Accord signed between Robert
Mugabe and PF Zapu's
former leader, Joshua Nkomo, now late.
A senior
former Zanu-PF official, who is among those spearheading the
revival of
PF-Zapu, said the party enjoyed overwhelming grassroots support.
He said:
"There is an indication that people are ready to go back to their
roots
after more than 20 years of a hopeless marriage to Zanu-PF.
"There is no
going back on the revival of PF-Zapu and there is nothing that
Mugabe and
his fellow Zanu-PF officials can do to stop this.
"Those (former PF-Zapu)
officials who want to remain in Zanu-PF are free to
do so, but they must
know that they do not hold the name PF-Zapu just
because they occupied a
certain position before the so-called Unity Accord."
He accused Mugabe of
promising too much but delivering very little since the
unity accord was
signed more than 20 years ago.
"We have realized that Mugabe is not a man
to be trusted when it comes to
signing treaties and now is the time for us
to pull out of any association
with him completely," he said. "We have the
people's support in this and we
are not going back."
The official
also revealed that last Saturday, the PF-Zapu members held a
meeting in
Bulawayo, which was attended by representatives from all of the
country's
provinces, leading to the selection of both the dates and venue
for the
national convention.
Smile Dube, a member of PF-Zapu's information and
protocol department, also
confirmed that the meeting had taken place in the
city, adding that the
meeting established sub-committees for the new
party.
"Judging from what we have seen so far, we expect good attendance
at the
convention on those dates," said Dube. "We also created
sub-committees for
security, logistics, transport and administration, among
others."
Dube said that the party, to be called ZAPU, was not pulling
away from
Zanu-PF as such, but going back to its roots. He blamed Mugabe for
the first
split in the original ZAPU party that was banned by the Ian Smith
regime.
"The good news is that people want to go back to where they came
from," he
said.
"As you might be aware, when ZAPU was banned by the
UDI Government of Ian
Smith our leaders, with the mandate of the people of
Zimbabwe, agreed not to
form any other political party after having so many
parties banned by the
Smith Government.
"However, Mugabe, as greedy
as he was and still is today, went on to form
ZANU with his group.
Therefore, it is a question of people coming back home
where they belong. We
cannot continue to be associated with a violent
party."
Stung by the
looming secession of PF-Zapu, Mugabe sent Zanu-PF national
chairman, John
Nkomo to persuade the disgruntled members to shelve plans.
But a seven-hour
meeting at the Zanu-PF headquarters failed cajole the
members rescind their
plans.
The 1987 Unity Accord ended years of ethnic cleansing which saw an
estimated
20 000 civilians being brutally killed by Mugabe's North
Korean-trained Five
Brigade army in the Matabeleland and Midlands
provinces.
The break-away threats, if carried out, will be yet another
blow to Mugabe's
party, which has already lost most of its support in
Matabeleland to the
Movement for Democratic (MDC) since 2000.
Mugabe
has previously evoked the Unity Accord and the name of the late Nkomo
to woo
voters in the southern parts of the country.
Dumiso Dabengwa, a former
Home Affairs Minister and Zanu-PF politburo
member, Welshman Mabhena, an
outspoken former provincial governor for
Matabeleland North and Cyril
Ndebele, a former Speaker of Parliament, are
said to be behind the revival
of ZAPU.
Other senior Zanu-PF politicians behind the revival are former
war veterans'
leader Andrew Ndlovu, former government minister Thenjiwe
Lesabe, Effort
Nkomo and Tryphine Nhliziyo.
Nkomo and Nhliziyo are
presently Zanu-PF Bulawayo province spokesperson and
secretary for
administration, respectively.
Other former PF-Zapu heavyweights, whose
allegiance to the proposed revival
of the old party stands in doubt, are
Vice President Joseph Msika, Zanu-PF
chairman John Nkomo and outgoing
information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, one
of the most ardent supporters of
Mugabe.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
Tuesday 02
December 2008
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday 28
November won a pro-democracy
award at Moroccan political-economic forum in
the Mediterranean, known as
MEDays.
"The 2008 MEDays prize for
political dialogue has been awarded to the head
of Zimbabwe's opposition for
his efforts to promote democracy in his
country," said the vice-president of
the Moroccan think-tank that organised
the forum.
Bellow is President
Morgan Tsvangirai's acceptance speech upon receiving the
award:
I am
humbled by the honour you have bestowed on me through this award. I
want to
dedicate this award to the people of Zimbabwe and therefore wish to
say that
I am receiving this award on their behalf.
As I speak, our country is
consumed by a man-made humanitarian crisis with a
recent outbreak of cholera
so far having claimed more than five hundred
lives. The food situation is
our country is deplorable; more than 5.5
million people in our country will
need food aid, which is more than half
the people still residing in the
country.
The international community has tried to help through the World
Food
Programme but have not been able to access all the people -
particularly
those that are in the rural areas - due to political
interference by Robert
Mugabe and ZANU PF.
Mr Chairman may I use this
platform to appeal to the rest of the world to
move with speed to assist us
address the humanitarian situation in the
country as it has reached
catastrophic levels.
Following our victory at the polls on the 29th of
March 2008, and the
aborted runoff of June 27th 2008, the African Union at a
summit in Sharm el
Sheik, Egypt, made a resolution calling for Robert Mugabe
and me to form a
unity government. We have been engaged in these
negotiations since then and
signed a global political agreement on the 15th
of September 2008.
However, owing to the lack of sincerity on the part of
ZANU PF we are still
in negotiations to conclude four key issues:
1
Amendment number 19 to our constitution which is designed to bring the
global agreement into legal effect.
2. The issue of provincial
governors.
3. Senior appointments in government.
4. Portfolio
allocation.
We in the party the MDC will do everything in our power to
ensure that this
agreement is implemented consistent with the wishes of the
people as
expressed on March 29th 2008. We have been on this path of
peaceful
democratic resistance for the past ten years; a path we do not
intend to
abandon.
Our vision as a party is to set a precedent on our
continent: a precedent of
fighting dictatorships through democratic means.
This I believe will make
Africa a better place and indeed set it on a path
of development.
Mr Chairman, I want to thank you and your organisation
for recognising us,
the people of Zimbabwe, through this prestigious
award.
I thank you. - ZimOnline
Email: jag@mango.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
jag@mango.zw with "For Open Letter Forum" in the
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1.
Liliane White
Dear JAG,
Zimbabwe is like a soccer team**.and life
in this country has become like a
soccer match I really do not wish to watch
any longer. I feel like leaving
the stadium*.
In 1980 the captain was
given a brand new soccer ball and he formed his
team.
For the first few
matches they played, they were OK. They played reasonably
well. They included
players who had good previous experience; they
introduced new players who
trained well.
At some point in time the captain started to get a bit
ball-mad. He kept the
ball to himself, he wouldn't pass to other players and
when he tried to
score a goal, he made a complete idiot of himself, much to
the crowd's
frustration. Some left the stadium. Some chose to watch other
sports, most
started talking about how poorly their national team was
performing.
The captain then stopped introducing new players, choosing
rather to
continue playing with the same team members who were tiring,
slacking,
losing interest. All the captain did was shift them from one
position to the
next, and the game deteriorated rapidly as no one single
player really knew
what position he was in from one week to the
next.
After a while, the captain started changing the rules of the game.
Without
telling anyone, least of all the any international game governing
body, he
simply was starting to play his own game.
He would pick up
the ball, kick his team members and opponents in the teeth,
and run with the
ball behind his back, up his jersey, down his
pants**.anywhere out of sight,
towards his own goal and place the ball in
the goal and hold his hands up
above his head, grinning and cheering at his
own achievement*.it was becoming
ridiculous, a farce.
Sometimes he would dribble the ball down the field,
on his own, passing to
no-one, mostly in the wrong direction, the crowd
jeering and laughing. But
on he pressed, sometimes stumbling and tripping
over the ball, but he was
not going to give up neither his game, nor the
ball*..
The crowds were flabbergasted, week after week. They were
disappointed. They
were disillusioned. Their team, their captain, all they
looked forward to in
the past was just letting them down week after
week**..he appointed players
who had never even SEEN a soccer ball, let alone
even played the game
according to the rules***he didn't mind, as long as they
did exactly as he
told them, played his game. He even had people arrested for
not supporting
his matches*..some carried out of the stadium for supporting
the opposing
teams**
Eventually he and his team were thrown out of all
international matches and
were penalized. Nothing put him off. He had all the
country's soccer
enthusiasts rounded up and forced into the stadiums to watch
his games,
which were, in fact, fast becoming antics to be laughed at,
scorned, and
ridiculed. He played against local home teams who had been
training well,
who had good team members, but they still could not beat the
so called
`national' team and their captain. He was changing the rules every
week, he
encouraged his own team to play `dirty' and nothing would get them
to
concede a match, even against the best opposition in the
country.
In desperation, the other teams withdrew from the sport; there
was no point
in trying to win against such a poor player, when they
themselves were in
fact dedicated to the game, the original rules and to
pleasing the crowds**.
They appealed to the world governing body, they lodged
complaints and
eventually nobody was even interested in watching the national
team playing.
The only consolation is that even soccer team players start
ageing, get
injured and eventually have to retire from the sport
altogether*..
The sports stadiums will begin to fill again and the crowds
will begin to
chant and sing again to support the best team*..
Liliane
White
PS They shoot horses don't
they?
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2.
Eddie Cross - Amendment Number 19
Dear JAG,
The actual events of
this past week are still shrouded in secrecy. The
negotiation teams are sworn
to silence and the press has had to subsist on
rumor and the odd leaks, none
of which are that accurate. If you are
watching the media as we are -
skimming the daily press from across the
globe for anything on Zimbabwe, you
can however get a picture of what
possibly transpired last week.
It
started of course with the visit of the Elders, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan
and
Graca Machel. They had planned their visit some weeks before and
although the
American Embassy tried to keep a low profile on the visit, when
an American
Secret Service detail arrived in Harare to prepare for the visit
(Carter gets
protection for life) the game was on. They were coming to
assess the
humanitarian crisis, they stated - did not have anything to do
with the talks
on the future or the political crisis.
Terrified of their own shadows,
Zanu PF reacted in a panic by denying them
entry visas and what would
otherwise have been a low profile visit by three
elder statesmen turned into
a political circus. It was the best thing that
could have happened as far as
Zimbabwe was concerned. The media gathered and
the human rights fraternity in
Zimbabwe traveled south. In South Africa the
powerful human rights movement -
honed by years of opposition to apartheid,
swung into action.
As a
consequence the visit not only achieved all they had set out to do but
also
focused attention on the tyrannical regime in Harare and the linkages
between
the political crisis and the humanitarian crisis, the very fact that
the one
has created the other. Another aspect that I only appreciated later,
was that
having three such experienced leaders on tap, meant that they very
quickly
grasped the core issues and were able to elucidate these in later
interviews
and opinion pieces. Jimmy Carter in particular, was very clear.
It helped
of course that the credentials of the trio could not be
challenged. Zanu PF
would have been better advised to have welcomed the team
and afforded them
every facility - except the presence of the pesky media
who then get into the
dark corners where an official delegation cannot go on
their guided
tours.
Then the US slapped further personal sanctions on four individuals
who have
had extensive dealings with the Mugabe regime. Two were local and
two were
Asian. The most important aspect of this action was the message it
sent to
all those who are doing deals with the regime - I can think of a few,
who
must have shivered in their shoes at the thought that they might be next!
I
especially appreciated Carters clear statement on this issue on television
-
Zimbabwe faced no sanctions of any kind, he stated, the sanctions were
all
personal and aimed at those responsible for the economic and
political
crisis.
The impact of this flood of media attention and the
new information gathered
and released on the South African mediated talks are
not known, but it must
have been significant. Perhaps this explains why the
South Africans threw
such a blanket of silence and secrecy around the
talks.
The two teams arrived on Monday evening and exchanged documents.
On Tuesday
they made no progress and on Wednesday, Morgan Tsvangirai issued a
statement
that the talks were going nowhere and he felt that the MDC should
leave the
process until a new mediator was appointed.
This threat
seems to have brought in the South African government who up to
then had been
preoccupied with the ongoing political struggles taking place
in South Africa
ahead of the 2009 elections. There was a brief flurry of
statements from the
leadership on the talks and Miranda Strydom - often a
spokesperson for the
ANC on SABC 3, made several disclosures. What annoys me
about her
interventions are her persistent remarks to the effect that MDC is
holding up
progress by "squabbling" over power. As if that is what this is
all
about.
Then came the astonishing news - not made public by the
participants or the
mediator that agreement had been reached on the wording
of Amendment number
19. The news just slipped out, first a whisper and then
more open
disclosure. Nothing more. MDC had clearly stated in advance that
this was
not the whole subject of these discussions - we wanted to settle the
many
other issues still outstanding.
But it was not to be - Zanu PF
was not mandated to talk about such matters,
was the argument behind closed
doors - the mediator simply gave in and
closed the session and the teams
returned home. What next?
Mugabe in the meantime went off to the Middle
East where he attended a UN
sponsored meeting on development finance - The UN
trying to maintain focus
on the Millennium Development Goals that have been
much neglected of late in
the middle of the global financial meltdown and the
American elections.
There he trundled out his old mantra - the melt down in
my country is due to
the fact that I can no longer shop at Harrods or send my
children to fancy
schools and Universities in the West. That explains 10
years of negative
growth and the total collapse of the country's social
system.
He did not say it quite like that - but what he did say meant
just that.
In the struggle to establish a transitional government that
might just work,
under near impossible conditions, the next step should be
for the two
parties to agree on an official version of Amendment number 19
and to then
publish this in the Government Gazette - possibly next Friday.
Then the
people of Zimbabwe have a month to study this and to analyse
its
implications and content.
In the second week of January,
Parliament will convene to debate the
amendment and agree on its contents and
pass it into law. On paper then, at
least, the Global Political Agreement
signed by the parties on the 11th
September will be law. In Zimbabwe that may
not be very much as the law is
seldom observed or upheld where politics is
concerned. But still, it will
become the law of the land.
On paper
this will mean that now we can form a new government - Mr. Mugabe
can be
sworn in as President, Mr Tsvangirai as Prime Minister. But
most
significantly, the Junta that has run Zimbabwe into the ground in the
past
decade, will be replaced by a democratically elected Council of
Ministers,
who will have responsibility for government. This new government
will run
the country until a new constitution is agreed and adopted and
fresh
elections held under free and fair conditions - perhaps in mid 2011.
That is
what is possible - on paper. Turning it into reality is another
thing
altogether!
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 1st December
2008
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3.
Musangone - Opposition is not MDC it is Zanu PF
Dear JAG
We wonder
why the journalists of today write screeds of meaningless words
about the
Opposition and Morgan being the Leader of the Opposition.
He won the
Presidential election AND the majority of seats in the so called
Parliament
and even though the voting was rigged year after year and
everybody knows
that, so why not call him the legitimate leader and the
governing MDC
Party.
The future of Zimbabwe now lies in the hands of the MDC. All Zanu
is doing
is milking every available dollar out of it. They do not care about
the
future of it`s peoples. They think of themselves, chete.
International
financial help will never come as long as any Zanu are
involved. They STEAL
everything
Morgan. Lead our beloved country back
to good governance and prosperous
stability.
Signed
Musagone
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4.
Ommoder
Dear JAG,
There is an old story often retold in Germany
about a dead horse. The
farming couple used the horse for working in the
fields but had the idea to
spare its food. That went on for some time but
finally the horse collapsed
in its stable. The couple where very shocked and
hurried to put food right
before the mouth of the starved animal in order to
prevent neighbours from
saying: "It is because of the starving that the horse
is dead."
I was reminded of that story when I heard, that Mr. Samuel
Mumbengegwi said
that the Elders should not visit Zimbabwe, because " We
take strong
exception to any suggestions that there are those out there who
care more
about the welfare of our people than we do."
Similar is the
fact that worried relatives are turned away by watch guards
from the hospital
with understaffed and underequipped cholera wards in order
to not in quieting
them that there could be insufficient cholera treating.
This is why
police officers go around to catch shop keepers who show empty
shelves to the
public and make the shelves be stored away in the back, so
that the public
might not think, there would be any empty shelves in
town.
Ommoder
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5.
Willy Oostindien
Dear JAG,
Willy, Karin, Bert, Rob, Evert and all of
Porky Du Preez's family would like
to thank all those that assisted with and
attended his memorial service on
Friday 21 November.
Thanks also to
those that have called or sent condolences.
We greatly appreciate all the
support and kindness we have received.
Many thanks and God Bless from all
of
us.
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letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions of
the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
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