Protest in Lisbon

Germany puts Zimbabwe in spotlight over rights abuses

Reuters

Sat Dec 8, 2007 1:57pm EST

By Angelika Stricker and Ingrid Melander

LISBON (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged European and
African leaders on Saturday to confront human rights abuses in Zimbabwe,
putting the country's president Robert Mugabe in the spotlight at an
EU-Africa summit.

Addressing the meeting in Lisbon attended by Mugabe, Merkel said the world
could not stand by while human rights were "trampled underfoot."

"Zimbabwe concerns us all, in Europe and Africa," she told more than 70
European and African leaders, who were meeting to try to forge a new
partnership between the world's largest trading bloc and its poorest
continent.

A row over the presence of Mugabe, who is accused by the West of abusing
human rights in his country and wrecking the economy, had already clouded
the start of the summit and led to a boycott of the meeting by British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown.

"I appreciate that some African states have tried to solve the crisis in
Zimbabwe but time is running out," Merkel said.

"The situation of Zimbabwe is damaging the image of the new Africa."

Merkel called on European and African leaders to stand by the people of
Zimbabwe and work to promote democracy there.

Speaking before Merkel on the issue of human rights, South African President
Thabo Mbeki did not mention Zimbabwe, where he has tried to mediate between
Mugabe and his political foes.

Mbeki said the summit should work to ensure that Africa's "masses escape
from the clutches of poverty."

"We are fully conscious of the fact that good governance and respect for
human rights are fundamental to the achievement of this objective," he
added.

Pressured by China's growing investment and influence in Africa, the
Europeans aim to agree an ambitious action plan with the continent to
revitalize trade -- but also to improve cooperation in areas like
immigration and peacekeeping.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said history had "thrown down the
gauntlet and challenged us to work together to write together a completely
new page in the relationship between Europe and Africa."

The issue of Mugabe, seen by many in Africa as an independence hero, has
underlined the difficult relationship between Africa and the former colonial
powers, some of whom gave up control only a few decades ago.

"The real significance of this summit must be to lay the foundations of a
new partnership based on mutual respect," said John Kufuor, president of
Ghana and current chairman of the African Union.

"EUROPE NEEDS AFRICA"

He said meetings like this would help to break and move away from a painful
past relationship that included slavery, colonial rule and apartheid.
"Europe needs Africa as much as Africa needs Europe," Kufuor said.

The call for a fresh start comes at a time when many African countries'
economies are growing more rapidly than in several decades, thanks to a
commodities-fuelled boom.

Massive investment by China in Africa in recent years, as Beijing secures
raw materials to feed its own booming economy, has added to confidence on
the continent and prompted concerns in Europe that it is losing out on
opportunities.

Some African states welcome Chinese economic involvement partly because it
comes without the calls for recognition of

human rights that accompany European trade and aid deals.

The last time leaders convened at this high level was in 2000 in Egypt and
host Portugal, which holds the rotating EU presidency, has said it was a
historic mistake not to have had a high-level dialogue between the EU and
Africa since then.

Human rights and aid groups are pressing leaders to talk less and do more to
help end festering conflicts like the one in Sudan's western Darfur region,
and reduce poverty across Africa.

African and European leaders are at odds over the EU's insistence that
African states sign new Economic Partnership Agreements by December 31
before the expiry of a World Trade Organization waiver of current
preferential treatment.

Some African nations have complained they will face too much competition and
are being strong-armed into signing new deals.

(Additional reporting by Ruben Bicho, Pascal Fletcher, Angelika Stricker,
Henrique Almeida; writing by Axel Bugge; Editing by Charles Dick)

Mugabe lashed by European leaders

news.com.au

Article from: AAP

By Fanuel Jongwe

December 09, 2007 12:48am

ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe received the full red carpet treatment as
he brushed shoulders with European leaders before receiving a tongue-lashing
over his human rights record.

Usually banned from the European Union for allegedly rigging his 2002
re-election, Mugabe milked the attention as a phalanx of photographers
pictured him striding into the exhibition hall in Lisbon where some 67
leaders of Africa and the European Union are meeting in a two-day summit.

While Gordon Brown, prime minister of Zimbabwe's old colonial rulers
Britain, boycotted the summit in protest at Mugabe's presence, rights groups
were on hand to express dismay over what they saw as a lack of pressure on
the 83-year-old hardliner.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was handed the task of expressing the EU's
concerns about the situation in Zimbabwe where the official annual rate of
inflation now stands at nearly 8000 per cent and attacks on opposition
figures have cast a shadow over plans for new elections next year.

While the session was behind closed-doors, Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie
Ahern said that Merkel's speech had made uncomfortable listening for Mugabe.

Merkel had expressed her concerns about the "deep political and humanitarian
crisis in his country," Ahern said.

Mugabe has blamed his country's economic woes on Britain, whom he accuses of
failing to honour pledges to fund land redistribution and of inciting the
opposition to exact regime change.

But Ahern said that Europe was having none of it, saying "any country which
has halved the life expectancy of its people, it speaks for itself."

Outside the summit hall, rights activists also lambasted the Zimbabwean
president who is Africa's oldest leader and who has ruled his country since
independence from Britain in 1980.

Activists handed out leaflets describing the situation in the southern
African country from where some three million citizens are believed to have
fled since the start of the decade.

"Zimbabwe leads the world: highest inflation rate, lowest life expectancy
(at 36 years), highest number of AIDS orphans, fastest shrinking economy and
highest unemployment," read the pamphlets.

Stendrick Zvorwadza, a spokesman for Restoration for Human Rights in
Zimbabwe, said it was an outrage that heads of state were prepared to sit
down with Mugabe.

"We urge world leaders to wake up. Why do they associate with a killer?" he
said.

Merkel told Mugabe that he must ensure next year's elections are "genuine,
open, free and fair", but rights activists are unconvinced that ongoing
talks between the ruling ZANU-PF party and opposition - being mediated by
South African President Thabo Mbeki - will yield results.

"We want to tell world leaders that the talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC
(Movement for Democratic Change) are just a waste of time," said Zvorwadza.

However a handful of pro-Mugabe demonstrators were also on the streets of
Lisbon, brandishing banners saying: "Mugabe is right!", and "Land to the
People!" in reference to his controversial seizure of white-owned farms.

China looms large behind EU-Africa summit

Monsters and Critics

Dec 8, 2007, 12:20 GMT

Lisbon - For a meeting between Europe and Africa, it is remarkable how often
an Asian state has been mentioned on the fringes of the EU-Africa summit in
Lisbon this weekend.

That state is China, and its presence is so widely felt that even
demonstrators protesting the attendance of Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe have drawn attention to it.

'There have been seven delays to this summit because of Mugabe since 2000.
The reason they're holding it now is that the Europeans feel like China is
putting its hands on Africa, and they want to regain their position,'
Ephraim Tapa, a senior figure in Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change,
told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The EU-Africa summit has been labelled by its organizers as a step towards a
'strategic partnership' between the continents, based on respect, solidarity
and shared goals and values.

It is only the second such summit in history. A meeting in Cairo between the
EU and the then-moribund Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 2000
produced few, if any, concrete results, while a further summit scheduled for
2003 was repeatedly postponed over the issue of human rights in Zimbabwe.

But analysts, including top EU officials, say that Africa is now an urgent
question for EU strategists - a change that has partly been prompted by
China's surge of activity in Africa.

'Africa is becoming the new 'grand chessboard' on which the world's great
powers manoeuvre,' EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel said
ahead of the summit. 'China is the most significant example.'

Chinese trade with Africa has quintupled in the last five years to 50
billion dollars in 2006, China's EXIM bank has earmarked 20 billion dollars
in investments over the next three years, and some 800 Chinese companies are
already set up in Africa, Michel said.

And while the EU remains far and away the largest donor of aid to Africa,
its largest trading partner and the source of 68 per cent of all investment
in the continent, Europe 'seems not to profit from this unique position,' he
warned.

Observers say that China's position in Africa has been based on offering
loans in return for natural resources.

One such deal, signed in Kinshasa on September 17, offers Congo a
3-billion-dollar loan to build roads, hospitals and universities in return
for 8 million tons of copper, 200 000 tons of cobalt and 372 tons of gold,
Belgian daily La Libre Belgique reported Friday.

And China's policy of attaching no requirements concerning human rights and
democracy has won it many allies, analysts say.

'China's 'no conditions' foreign policy has in short order won it friends of
all political stripes across a region long weary of being preached to by
earnest Westerners,' Dr Chris Alden of the London School of Economics,
author of a recent book entitled 'China in Africa,' observed.

EU leaders have been at pains to stress that they are not criticizing China
for its actions.

But they have been just as keen to point out that while China offers loans
with no human-rights conditions, the EU gives aid with no financial strings
attached.

'While the EU provides the essence of its aid in the form of donations,
China offers loans secured against natural resources - clearly with the
double risk of massive return to debt and dependency for the beneficiaries,'
Michel said.

On Saturday, EU and African leaders began two days of talks on a sweeping
package of cooperation deals which are expected to include EU support for
African economic integration, trade expansion, industrial development,
health care and job creation.

European leaders present the package as the birth of a 'new relationship
based on respect' between the continents.

But experts say that that new approach - which is apparently welcomed in
Africa - is not without its Chinese dimension.

'China is far less scrupulous in the way it approaches investments, so the
EU has to find other ways to get a competitive advantage,' John Kotsopoulos,
an expert on Africa at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, told dpa.

And while the summit is likely to endorse the strategy with mutual
expressions of trust, observers say that it is unlikely to dent African
appetites for China's partnership any time soon.

'It's far easier (for Africa) to deal with a China that can mobilize massive
capital with fewer conditions than a bloc of 27 countries that's still a
patchwork of members,' Kotsopoulos said.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Protesters Clash With Mugabe's Rented Supporters in Lisbon

SW Radio Africa (London)

8 December 2007
Posted to the web 8 December 2007

Tererai Karimakwenda

There was chaos in Lisbon on Saturday as a group of pro-Mugabe protestors
went head to head with Zimbabwean activists from the UK who had travelled to
the venue of the E.U./Africa Summit to protest Robert Mugabe's presence
there.

Our reporter Lance Guma who was at the scene, said the small group of Mugabe
supporters appeared to be 'rented' Black Americans and Portuguese youth.
They held placards supporting Mugabe and this upset activists, who are
mostly from the Zimbabwe Vigil - a group that has protested at the Zimbabwe
Embassy in London, every Saturday for 5 years.

Truckloads of riot police had to separate the two groups to avoid any
physical confrontation. At the scene was Adella Chiminya, whose husband
Tichaona Chiminya was a personal aide to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and
was brutally murdered by ZANU-PF thugs while campaigning in Buhera.

The emotional Mrs Chiminya said she was shocked to see people who were not
Zimbabwean, holding pro-Mugabe posters. She lashed out at the Mugabe
supporters, shouting about how her husband was murdered and her children now
have no father. Riot police had to physically move her away. Mrs.Chiminya
told Newsreel that she hoped for an opportunity to tell Mugabe to his face
about the grief he has caused her family.

Our reporter said there were journalists from all over the world covering
the unfolding saga involving Mugabe's controversial participation. E.U.
officials decided to invite Mugabe after the issue of his attendance
derailed the Summit for years, saying the event was not about Zimbabwe
alone. A travel ban imposed by the Union was lifted to allow him to travel.

Activists from the Zimbabwe Vigil had presented a theatrical performance on
Friday evening that parodied Robert Mugabe and the Sudanese President Omar
Hassan al-Bashir. Guma said the story revolved around the two dictators in
bed together, while protestors outside their bedroom screamed at them to
wake up to human rights. Guma said Mugabe has still not been sighted. More
activities are planned by activists, as the heads of state meet at this
summit in Lisbon.

Zimbabwean exiles in Lisbon demand Mugabe trial

zimbabwejournalists.com

8th Dec 2007 08:28 GMT

By a Correspondent

LISBON - Zimbabwe exiles gathered in Lisbon are to display a huge banner
today protesting against President Mugabe’s attendance
at the EU/AU Summit. The banner reads ‘Mugabe you’d be more welcome in the
Hague’ – a reference to the International Criminal Court.

The banner, measuring 100 feet X 30 feet, will be laid out in Centro
Comercial Vasco da Gama outside Gare do Oriente. It will be signed by
Zimbabwean torture victims and the public will be invited to add their names
in solidarity.

Among those taking part will be Jenni Williams, leader of WOZA (Women of
Zimbabwe Arise), who herself has been arrested and brutally treated many
times.

The demonstration marks the opening of the Summit and has been organized by
the Lisbon-based human rights group ADDHU (Associação de Defesa dos Direitos
Humanos) on behalf of the Zimbabwe Vigil, which has been protesting outside
the Zimbabwe Embassy for over five years.

Yesterday protesters from the Zimbabwe Vigil who are in Lisbon demostrated
outside the venue of the summit as Mugabe arrived to take part in the
meeting.

Mugabe is accompanied by his wife, Grace and other senior government
officials.

Mugabe wins half the battle at EU-Africa summit

From The Financial Times (UK), 8 December

By Tony Hawkins in Harare

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president walked into Saturday’s European
Union-Africa summit conscious that he had won the first part of the argument
with his bête noire, Britain, merely by being invited. The Zimbabwean
delegation has been buoyed also by the recent comments of Jose Manuel
Barroso, President of the EU Commission, who acknowledged Mr Mugabe’s
stature as a "leader" and took a swipe at Gordon Brown for boycotting the
meeting in Lisbon because of his presence. Mr Brown made it known in
September that he would not attend the summit if the Zimbabwean leader was
invited, launching a broadside against Mr Mugabe in his first policy
statement since becoming Britain’s prime minister. The summit has been
repeatedly postponed in recent years as a result of disputes over whether to
invite the Zimbabwean leader at a time his country’s political and economic
fortunes are in vertiginous decline. The EU has ended up bowing to African
leaders, many of whom threatened not to come if their Zimbabwean peer was
barred.

In Zimbabwe, neither Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party nor the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) expect the summit to have any impact on
conditions in the country. But the MDC is dismayed at the EU’s decision to
break its ban on Mr Mugabe traveling to the EU and fears that the wily
Zimbabwe leader will win other propaganda victories at the summit. In the
words of one MDC leader, Mr Barroso’s stance "could hardly have been
weaker". Party leaders are concerned that criticisms by more outspoken EU
leaders might prompt African delegations to swing behind Mr Mugabe with
support, boosting his domestic political fortunes only six months away from
scheduled elections. And at least one senior Zanu PF politician also fears a
summit backlash. "If for any reason", he said "our president is publicly
criticized by other African leaders or is even seen to be isolated, that
could be very damaging." For most of the ruling party, he said, an
EU-African stand-off over Zimbabwe would be vastly preferable to any display
of disunity within African ranks. The consensus amongst opposition
politicians, NGOs and business professionals is that Mr Mugabe will
nevertheless emerge in better shape, and with little prospect of a challenge
to his bid at the ruling Zanu PF party conference later this month to win
nomination to contest next April’s presidential elections.

Mugabe using torture to suppress opposition, says report

Zim Online

by Own Correspondent  Saturday 08 December 2007

JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabwe's government is using torture and violence to
suppress opposition, raising doubts elections next year will be free and
fair, according to a new report on the human rights situation in the
country.

The report - the first on Zimbabwe based on investigations by international
health professionals with expertise in the evaluation, documentation and
treatment of torture victims - said state agents had since March 2007
targeted both ordinary opposition activists and prominent leaders for abuse
and torture.

Zimbabwe next year chooses a new president, House of Assembly and Senate in
elections expected to be a three-horse race between Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF
party and the two factions of the main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
party.

"This state-sanctioned violence targets low-level political organizers and
ordinary citizens, in addition to the prominent members of the political
opposition," said the report which called on South African President Thabo
Mbeki to take a more robust stance against politically motivated violence
and torture in his northern neighbour.

"President Mbeki must use his role as a democratic leader in the Southern
African community to uphold international standards for opposition of
torture and political violence and promotion of free and fair elections and
basic human rights including a fair and impartial judiciary and rights of
detainees in Zimbabwe," said the report.

Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders last March appointed
Mbeki to lead efforts to end Zimbabwe's long running political and economic
crisis by facilitating dialogue between ZANU PF and the MDC.

Mbeki three weeks ago told journalists in Harare he was happy with progress
in his mediation effort in Zimbabwe but the main faction of the MDC led by
Morgan Tsvangirai has criticised the talks, saying they have failed to stop
political violence and human rights abuses.

The report released by The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
(OSISA), The Open Society Institute and The Bellevue/NYU Program for
Survivors of Torture comes as African and European Union (EU) leaders
gathered in Portugal for a summit that will, among other key issues, discuss
human rights and governance.

British Premier Gordon Brown is boycotting the summit saying he cannot share
the same table with Mugabe because of the Zimbabwean leader's controversial
human rights record while several human rights groups have criticized
African and EU leaders for not placing Zimbabwe and Sudan's Darfur region
high up on the agenda.

The report called on SADC, the United Nations Security Council, and the
United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights to hold the Harare
administration "accountable for its obligations under international law
regarding prohibition of torture and political violence."

It urged African leaders - who in the main have refused to criticise
Mugabe - to change tack and speak out against torture and human rights
violations in Zimbabwe.

The report is the result of investigations and research by a group of
foreign doctors and researchers who secretly traveled to Zimbabwe to probe
torture and human rights violations in the southern African nation.

It is based on the detailed testimony and medical examination of 24
individuals who were subjected to torture or political violence during March
and April 2007.

Additionally, interviews were conducted with more than 30 health
professionals, human rights advocates and representatives of
non-governmental organizations in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

"The victims of torture and political violence whom we spoke with and
examined in Zimbabwe were not only prominent members of the political
opposition but also low-level political organizers and ordinary citizens"
noted Dr Allen Keller, Director of the Bellevue NYU Program for Survivors of
Torture and co-author of the report.

"They were targeted and brutalised because of their political affiliations
or activities. All of the individuals we examined had clear physical and
psychological evidence of torture," he added.

Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamsa was not immediately available for
comment on the findings of the report. However, Harare has in the past
dismissed reports criticising its human rights record as lies and propaganda
sponsored by its Western enemies and meant to tarnish its image. - ZimOnline
___________________ The full report is available here

Pressure Mugabe to allow election observers, says rights activist

Zim Online

by Ntando Ncube Saturday 08 December 2007

JOHANNESBURG - A top African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR)
official has urged Zimbabweans to lobby the European Union (EU) and other
key international organisations to pressure President Robert Mugabe to allow
independent election observers next year.

ACPHR special rapporteur on freedom of expression in Africa, Pansy Tlakula,
said Zimbabwean civic groups could use the EU-Africa summit that begins in
Portugal today to bring pressure on Mugabe who is attending the summit.

Dozens of Zimbabwean human rights and pro-democracy activists are in Lisbon
to highlight human rights violations by Mugabe's government and pressure
European and African leaders to confront the Zimbabwean leader over rights
abuses and his failure to uphold democracy.

Tlakula said: "I call on the people and civic organisations in Zimbabwe to
start lobbying the EU considering that he (Mugabe) was invited to the
EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. This will be a good platform to push and lobby
for him to change his mind."

Mugabe earlier this week warned that Zimbabwe would not brook any
interference in the running of next year's watershed elections and insisted
that only friendly nations would be invited to observe the polls.

Zimbabweans go to polls in March 2008 in elections expected to be a
three-horse race between Mugabe's ZANU PF party and the divided Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).

Mugabe, 83 and the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence from
Britain 27 years ago, has in past elections disputed the reports of Western
poll observers whom he accuses of bias.

In their reports, the Western observers have cited cases of political
violence against Mugabe's opponents and widespread rigging of poll results.

The ACHPR is among groups expected to send observers to Zimbabwe's election
but Tlakula said delays by the Harare government to announce dates for the
vote would make it difficult to for international organisations to send
observers.

Zimbabwe is in the grip of a debilitating economic crisis that is
highlighted by the world's highest inflation rate of nearly 8 000 percent, a
rapidly contracting GDP, the fastest for a country not at war according to
the World Bank and shortages of foreign currency, food and fuel.

Analysts believe truly democratic polls next year are a key requirement to
any initiative to pluck Zimbabwe out of an ever-worsening political and
economic crisis. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe’s rights abuses will escape censure by Britain

The Times
December 8, 2007

David Charter in Lisbon
Britain plans to avoid a confrontation with Robert Mugabe today at the
EU/Africa summit by staying silent during the main debate on human rights.

Baroness Amos, the former Cabinet minister standing in for Gordon Brown,
believes that any attack from her will lead to the kind of media circus that
the Prime Minister wanted to avoid by boycotting the meeting in Lisbon over
Mr Mugabe’s presence.

The decision to leave it to other EU leaders to criticise President Mugabe
is likely to create a storm of protest in Britain, not least from William
Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, who called on Lady Amos to “lay his
crimes bare before all those attending”.

But Lady Amos, whose authority was challenged yesterday in a stinging attack
by Clare Short, wants instead to talk about trade issues at a summit
designed to revive EU influence in Africa — which many countries feel is at
risk from China’s no-strings-attached approach and huge economic resources.

Ms Short, who preceded Lady Amos as International Development Secretary,
claimed that Lady Amos was only chosen for the summit because she is black.
The attack will hurt because Lady Amos, who was born in Guyana, has taken a
longstanding interest in African issues — and because Ms Short is well known
and well regarded in many African countries. Ms Short said: “I am afraid
that there really is not any other explanation. I don’t see any reason to
send a kind of pseudo-minister and I think that it is not right to send her
because she is black. I do not see any other reason for sending her.”
Her comments were denounced as insulting by David Miliband, the Foreign
Secretary. He said: “She is a former Secretary of State for International
Development, she is a former Leader of the House of Lords, she has got a lot
of knowledge about Africa as a whole, not just Zimbabwe.”

The summit, the first meeting between the 27 EU countries and 53 African
countries since 2000, has been organised by the Portuguese presidency of the
EU to improve trade and economic links, and to discuss migration.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, will make the keynote speech at the
opening session on governance and human rights, followed by President
Mwanawasa of Zambia.

Any other leader will be free to intervene and Jan Peter Balkenende of the
Netherlands has been asked by his parliament to attack President Mugabe’s
record in Zimbabwe. But Britain plans not to. A spokeswoman for Lady Amos
said: “She will be making an intervention on the trade item of the agenda.

“We want a successful, productive summit for both Europe and Africa and
there are several issues of increasing importance, from migration in the
sense of illegal migration and the brain drain from Africa, climate change,
peacekeeping and postconflict issues.

“We want these issues to take centre stage, not to have some kind of circus
around Robert Mugabe.”

Mr Mugabe, who received a visa from Portugal after the lifting of his EU
travel ban, arrived with his entourage at an evening reception last night.
He was greeted with a handshake by Joao Gomes Cravinho, the Portuguese
Deputy Foreign Minister. Mr Mugabe and his wife Grace are staying at a ¤600
(£430)-a-night five-star hotel 18 miles (30km) north of the city centre,
overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

An editorial in the Zimbabwean government mouthpiece Herald newspaper
portrayed Mr Mugabe’s presence as a diplomatic slap in the face for Britain.
“Many countries in Europe have come to the realisation that Britain is
suffering from an apparently incurable colonial master hangover,” it said.
“This realisation has left Britain in the cold, harping about
unsubstantiated human rights abuses.”

Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, said that it was vital that
EU leaders spoke up, as silence would be interpreted as condoning Mr Mugabe’s
regime.

“Since he has been invited I would hope that the European Union will speak
without any euphemism on human rights which are being violated so blatantly
in Zimbabwe,” he told Portuguese radio. But human rights groups are
concerned that the intense focus on Mr Mugabe will distract the summit from
other pressing issues such as atrocities in Darfur and a worsening security
situation in Somalia.

Nobel laureate Lessing criticises Mugabe

Yahoo

December 8, 11:07 AM

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Nobel prize-winning author Doris Lessing accused
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday of depriving people of the
chance to buy books or write them because of his "reign of terror".
In her Nobel laureate lecture, Lessing said rampant inflation in Zimbabwe,
now the world's highest at nearly 8,000 percent, meant an English paperback
cost several years' wages, putting books out of reach for readers.

"It is said that a people gets the government it deserves, but I do not
think it is true of Zimbabwe," she said in a speech read out at the Swedish
Academy by her British publisher Nicholas Pearson.

"Our organisation got books from where we could, but remember that a good
paperback from England cost a month's wages: that was before Mugabe's reign
of terror. Now with inflation, it would cost several years' wages," she
said.

Several years ago Lessing helped distribute books from abroad in Zimbabwe.

The 88-year-old novelist, who was raised in what was then Southern Rhodesia
and is now Zimbabwe, was unable to deliver the traditional address in person
and will not attend the prize ceremony due to poor health.

"Writers are not made in Zimbabwe. Not easily, not under Mugabe," the
British author said in the pre-written speech.

Mugabe accuses his Western foes of sabotaging the country's economy in
retaliation for his seizure of white-owned commercial farms for blacks.

He is in Lisbon this weekend to attend the Africa-EU leaders' summit and his
attendance has drawn criticism. Prime Minister Gordon Brown boycotted the
meeting to protest the Zimbabwean president's rule and human rights record.

The EU asked Mugabe to join summit after many African leaders said they
would not attend unless he was invited.

The lectures by each laureate are a centrepiece of the Nobel Week
celebrations which culminate with formal award ceremonies in Stockholm and
Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish dynamite
millionaire Alfred Nobel.

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Question of the week: What can the world do about Robert Mugabe?

Flame Lilies and Quadrillions

www.cathybuckle.com

Saturday 8th December 2007

Dear Family and Friends,
It was a rare occasion this week when the electricity happened to come back
on at the same time as the main 8 pm evening news on ZBC TV. Normally at
this time of the evening the power still hasn't come back on and we are
grinding into the 15th or 16th hour of the day without electricity. The
headline story and accompanying film clip on the local news was of President
Mugabe and his wife at Harare airport preparing to depart for the EU Africa
Summit in Portugal. Ministers, security personnel and VIP's were lined up on
the tarmac and formed a corridor of smiles and hand shakes and inaudible
little comments.

In the same week as our leader and his wife and the official delegation were
heading for Europe, Air Zimbabwe announced that one return air fare from
Harare to London had increased to 804 million Zimbabwe dollars. To put that
price into context is the recently publicised information by the Teachers
Union saying that government school teachers presently earn an average
salary of just 17 million Zimbabwe dollars a month.

The same week that our President flew to Lisbon, a couple of South African
visitors invited me to tea at a local restaurant. I queued at my local bank
but was again limited to how much of my own money I could withdraw and was
allowed to take just five million dollars. Immediately I spent three million
dollars buying one light bulb and one jar of peanut butter and so with just
two million dollars left, I hoped I wasn't paying for tea. At the restaurant
three cups of tea, one waffle and one toasted sandwich were ordered. The
bill came to 7.2 million dollars.

Back in Portugal President Mugabe and his wife didn't have any waiting
around when they landed. They were ringed by security men and hurried out of
sight to their hotel. Meanwhile at home in Zimbabwe at least three hundred
people stood patiently in a winding line to buy milk from a bulk tanker.
Outside the banks the queues went into multiple hundreds and outside a
virtually empty supermarket an enormous crowd, uncountable in size, pushed
and jostled for a chance to buy a bag of maize meal. The day before a
similar desperate queue had resulted in riot police, baton sticks to control
the crowd and injuries.

This week as our President and his wife dine with 80 other world leaders in
Portugal there are still no staple foods to buy in Zimbabwe's shops. Our
schools have just broken up for the Christmas holidays and the search for
food and lines to withdraw pathetically small amounts of our own money from
the banks are getting longer and more desperate by the day. Roadside vendors
are selling pockets of potatoes for 11 million dollars; if you can afford
them, it means a gruelling three days of queuing at the bank just to put
potatoes on the dinner plate. If you are a government school teacher, they
will cost three quarters of your entire monthly salary.

To put these figures into perspective, or perhaps not, this week the
Minister of Finance presented a 7,8 quadrillion dollar budget for the coming
year. None of us have worked out how many zeroes this is yet and calculators
can't help either.

Zimbabweans are facing an extremely hard Christmas this year but as always
we look for hope. Many events are drawing closer and all hold the
opportunity to bring relief to a battered and beaten country. The summit in
Portugal will be followed soon after by the Zanu PF Annual Congress, then
the result of talks in South Africa, then the MDC Annual Congress and then,
in March next year, Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

I will be taking a short break to draw strength and calculate the
quadrillions but wish all Zimbabweans, friends and supporters of the country
a peaceful and Happy Christmas. I saw the first crimson Flame Lily of the
season in the grass on the roadside this week and it heralds the end of
another year and the start of what must surely be a better time for us all.
Until my next letter in the New Year, with love, cathy.

A letter from the diaspora

www.cathybuckle.com

      8th December 2007
      Dear Friends,
      I don't think I was the only Zimbabwean in the diaspora to be jumping
up and down this week; why I was positively toyi-toying round my little
rented house when I heard that Hugo Chavez had narrowly lost his referendum.
Of course, he says he won't give up on his '21st century socialism'. In a
clever move he had sweetened the pill for the masses by offering a shorter
working week and other incentives to vote Yes but it seemed the crunch point
for the electorate was the prospect of Chavez holding onto power
indefinitely.
      There were so many parallels with the Zimbabwe situation that it was
almost uncanny. Chavez' implied threat before the vote was strangely
reminiscent of the sort of thing our own Dear Leader says. A vote against
reform is a vote against Chavez , thundered the Venezuelan leader, and
anyone who voted against him was a traitor. And yet, just like Mugabe after
the Referendum in February 2000, Chavez appeared to accept his defeat with
humility. Can anyone forget how Mugabe appeared on ZTV back in 2000 and
stunned us all by the apparent grace and humility of his acceptance of
defeat? Just a few days later he had launched his revenge with the violent
land invasions that have destroyed the economy and left his own people
starving.

      The so-called 'million man march' this week was presumably intended to
show the world that Mugabe has the total support of the masses. Like
everything Mugabe does there was a hidden agenda; he is about to attend the
AU/ EU Summit in Lisbon and evidence of his people's devotion to him would
convince the assembled leaders that Mugabe was people's choice for leader.
That was the plan but it didn't quite work out that way; the 'million' had
several noughts cancelled and just a few thousand impoverished rural folk
fell for the ruse. I loved the comment of one man who said he'd only got on
the bus because it was a free fare into Harare where he hoped he might find
groceries he couldn't find in the shops back in the rurals! A bystander, a
resident of Harare commented that she'd never seen the police escorting an
opposition demo and wondered if the M.M.M. had asked permission for their
gathering. ( You really can't fool all the people all the time! When will
Zanu PF learn that? ) The papers here gave Mugabe's nonsensical speech to
the 'millions' some coverage but it was the usual verbiage from a leader who
seems to have nothing more to offer long-suffering Zimbabweans than
anti-British insults including the comment that the UK parliament and people
had lost all rationality so much so that they debate Zimbabwe every week.
The occupants of No 10 Downing Street, said the President of Zimbabwe, were
no better than street kids. Seems to me that tells us more about the
Zimbabwean Presidents's attitude towards his own people than it does about
British Prime Ministers.
      Robert Mugabe may think he has scored a huge victory in getting an
invitation to Lisbon to attend the Summit but Zimbabweans from the diaspora
will be there too. A large group of Vigil people have moved from their usual
place on the Strand in London for this one week and will be there in Lisbon
with their placards and their drums, singing their songs of freedom to
remind Mugabe and all the other African leaders that the voice of the people
cannot be silenced. The Vigil group have been given permission by the
Portuguese police to demonstrate outside the Summit venue on condition they
remain 100 metres away. That shouldn't be a problem for the Vigil folk;
anyone passing along the Strand on a Saturday afternoon will tell you that
you can hear those guys drumming and singing from the top of a London bus!
The Vigil people will be joined by many other civic organizations in Lisbon.
Crisis Action released a very powerful Letter condemning European and
African leaders for their political cowardice in failing to put Dafur and
Zimbabwe on the Summit agenda. Signatories to the letter included such
notable writers as the South Africans, Nadine Gordimer and J.M.Coetze, Wole
Soyinka and the former Czeck president, Vaclav Havel, a playwright.
      The Times, as always has given huge coverage to the unfolding crisis
in Zimbabwe including a truly heart-breaking piece on the Aids tragedy and
its effect on children. It's the state of the economy and the value or do I
mean non-value of the Zim dollar that has become the butt of comedian's
jokes here. If that sounds callous I don't think it's meant that way; simply
that Brits just can't get their heads round inflation of %16000 and an
exchange rate of 7 million Zim dollars to one pound sterling. Commenting on
a British politician's miserable face the other day one newspaper columnist
commented that ' the man looks as if he's inherited 8 million from an
uncle.only to discover it was in Zimbabwe dollars'! In short, Zim's economy
has become a laughing stock. The guy who fixed my computer the other week,
knowing that I am a Zimbabwean, said that he didn't care how I paid .as long
as it wasn't with Zim dollars!
      Yours in the struggle. PH.

Prosecutor forms political party

zimbabwejournalists.com

8th Dec 2007 09:37 GMT

By David Baxter

HARARE - A new political party that has promised to use radical means to
stop President Mugabe from serving another term, has been formed in
Zimbabwe.

Levison Chikafu, the former Area Public Prosecutor for Mutare, leads the
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

The new political party intends to contest next year’s harmonized elections.
Chikafu, the LDP’s interim chairman, caused an uproar after he ordered that
Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, be dragged before the courts to
answer charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice.

During the sensational trial Chikafu also sought to bring to book Didymus
Mutasa, the feared security minister before the courts for interfering with
witnesses during Chinamasa’s trial.

Chikafu told the court during the trial that Mutasa’s wings needed to be
clipped “to the greatest extend”.

Chinamasa was dragged to court at Chikafu’s insistence after he allegedly
interfered with witnesses during the trial of Mutasa’s supporters who were
accused of unleashing an orgy of violence on fellow ruling party members who
were opposed to the security minister’s candidature in Makoni East.

Chikafu’s bravery resulted in drummed up theft and corruption charges being
leveled against him. He was arrested and thrown into solitary confinement
for one week. Lawyers saved him. Chikafu, who was widely seen as a blue-eyed
boy of Gula Ndebele, Attorney General, blamed his problems on both Mutasa
and Chinamasa.

After a protracted court trial Chikafu, 37, who also vainly tried have
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative, Joseph Mwale, prosecuted
for his alleged role in the gruesome murder of two Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) activists Talent Mabika
and Tichaona Chiminya during 2000, was acquitted.

Weeks after the court victory Chikafu has announced the formation of a new
political party that he says will use radical means to block President
Mugabe from serving another term in office.

“The country can not afford to have Mugabe in office again,” Chikafu vowed.
“We have to stop this man from continuing to destroy our country."

Mugabe, 84, and in office since independence in 1980, is largely accused
both abroad and at home of destroying a once vibrant country into serious
economic and political problems because of skewed policies.

Mugabe and his lieutenants deny this and instead blame the malaise on former
colonial power, Britain and its allies whom they say are bent on effecting
regime change in Harare as a way of reversing the land “reform”programme.

Chikafu said finer details such as other individuals involved in the
formation of the new political party; its policies and other strategies
would be discussed at a latter stage.

However, he said the LDP would engage Zanu PF with gloves off because “that
is the best way to confront Mugabe and his party”. The constitution of the
new party is in our possession.

The formation of the new party appears to be an indication that political
activists and civil society organizations have lost hope in the ability of
the country’s main opposition party, the MDC to wrest power from Zanu PF.

Analysts have pointed out in recent weeks that the MDC appears not to be
ready to effectively challenge Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF party in the
2008 elections.

The opposition party has lately been dogged by in-fighting which threatens
to destabilize its supporters.

Correction by Zim Online

  Matter of fact

                 Saturday 08 December 2007

      JOHANNESBURG - In a story published on 29 November 2007, headlined,
"Conservation body says poaching on the rise in Zimbabwe", ZimOnline
reported that at least 900 carcasses of assorted animals had been found in
Sinamatella, Hwange National Park over the past few months.

      This statement was attributed to Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force
chairman, Johnny Rodgrigues.

      It has since been brought to our attention that the carcasses were not
in found in Sinamatella but were allegedly found in Chisarira.

      We wish to apologise, as we hereby do, to Mr Rodrigues over the
mix-up. - Editor