http://news.yahoo.com
HARARE (AFP) - Roselyn Moyo
no longer allows her two children to play
outside for fear they will catch
cholera as they run along Harare's streets,
lined with mountains of trash
that has sat uncollected for months.
"My kids no longer go out to play
with their friends," the housewife told
AFP.
"I am afraid they might
get cholera. Uncollected refuse is lying all over
our neighbourhood with
flies flying all over. I can't risk my children
playing outside," Moyo
said.
Cholera has killed nearly 600 people across Zimbabwe since late
August, with
more than 6,000 cases identified just in Harare.
The UN
children's agency UNICEF warned last week that the country could see
60,000
in the coming weeks, which could send the death toll up nearly
five-fold.
Zimbabwe's government has declared a national emergency
over the outbreak,
but has few resources to combat the disease after a
stunning economic
collapse that has made a pauper of the once-vibrant
country.
Hospitals lack even basic drugs and equipment to treat patients,
forcing the
government to appeal for international aid.
Health
Minister David Parirenyatwa has resorted to urging Zimbabweans to
stop
shaking hands to prevent the spread of the disease, which can be
transmitted
when human excrement mixes with food or drinking water.
Washing is
impossible for many in Harare, where water supplies are
unreliable and last
week were severed entirely across the city for more than
two
days.
Now in many neighbourhoods, the water comes on around midnight but
dries up
before dawn, forcing Zimbabweans to leave their taps open with
buckets
waiting to catch every drop.
Some working-class suburbs
haven't had running water for months because the
pumps simply don't work any
more. There people rely on well water or
cisterns to catch the
rain.
"The cholera outbreak is far from being contained. Some areas in
the capital
have been without water for months and the situation has not
changed," said
Taurai Gomo, who lives in the surburb of Glen
View.
"The situation is just bad. We are living by the mercy of God," he
told AFP.
"Water has been trickling in our taps here and there, but the
bottom line is
it's still not safe for drinking. You need to boil it, that
is if
electricity has not been cut."
The cholera epidemic has only
compounded the daily struggles of Zimbabweans.
The United Nations says
nearly half the population will need food aid next
month, with 80 percent of
the population living in poverty.
The economy has crumbled under the
world's highest inflation, last estimated
at 231 million percent in
July.
Over the last week, the central bank has printed a succession of
bank notes
in ever-larger denominations -- with a 200 million dollar bill
due out this
week. Today that's worth about 12 US dollars, but its value
erodes almost by
the hour.
Even if their money had some meaningful
value, few people can access it.
Banks only allow people to withdraw money
once a week, and then they are
allowed a single bank note.
Hopes had
soared for an end to the crisis when Zimbabwe President Robert
Mugabe and
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed a power-sharing deal
on September
15.
The deal now is floundering, dashing the hopes of Zimbabwe's
people.
"Cholera has been killing people, but this is only one of the
many problems
the country is facing," said another Harare resident, Thomas
Mudimu.
"Our political leaders must agree to form a unity government to
solve
economic and social problems the country is facing," he said.
http://www.businessday.co.za
09
December 2008
Wilson
Johwa
Political Correspondent
REGIONAL health and water
affairs ministers will convene in Johannesburg on
Thursday for an emergency
meeting to discuss strategies for combating the
spread of cholera, which has
killed nearly 600 people in Zimbabwe.
The meeting of the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) comes as a
team from the SADC
secretariat was due to leave for Zimbabwe yesterday to
assess the
humanitarian conditions.
A South African government delegation was also
in Zimbabwe on a similar
mission.
The Congress of South African
Trade Unions, along with the Open Society of
Southern Africa , was
organising a southern Africa solidarity conference to
assess the situation
since the signing of the September power-sharing
agreement. "We want even
all the banned people to go," said Bongani Masuku,
Cosatu's international
secretary.
Scheduled for February in Harare, the proposed conference will
follow the
African Union summit in Tanzania next month.
Pressure
is mounting for President Robert Mugabe to resign, with the
European Union
(EU) adding its voice for increased action on Zimbabwe.
"The moment has
arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down and
give the
opportunity once again to the people of Zimbabwe to get their lives
together," said EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana.
Kenya, Botswana, Britain and the US have all
recently urged Mugabe to step
down in the wake of a humanitarian crisis,
worsened by an outbreak of
cholera that has infected more than 10000 people
.
SA was under pressure to toughen its stand on Zimbabwe as African
National
Congress president Jacob Zuma was on a visit to Namibia intended to
build
solidarity among former liberation movements. Zuma has already met
old-time
allies in Angola.
http://news.sky.com
6:19am UK, Tuesday December 09, 2008
Emma Hurd, Africa
correspondent
Sky News has obtained new evidence of the scale of the
cholera crisis
sweeping across Zimbabwe.
Pictures
smuggled out of the country show an emergency clinic swamped by
patients and
sick people lying untreated in the rural areas.
In one small village in
the south of the country, one man said his sister's
child had already died
from the disease and two of his own children were
sick.
He said the
community did not have access to medicines to treat them.
Twenty
miles away, in the town of Beit Bridge, all of the beds are full in a
tented
cholera clinic set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without
Borders).
The small camp offers the only medical help in the area and
new patients
arrive every hour - many of them by donkey
cart.
Official figures suggest that at least 575 people have died from
cholera.
But one patient, treated at a hospital in Harare, said the true
death toll
was being concealed.
"For every 10 patients who die, they
report four deaths," the woman, who did
not want to be identified,
said.
She said the conditions in the hospital were filthy, with no
clean water and
patients lying next to buckets that were being used as
toilets.
The cholera epidemic has been caused by the collapse of the
basic
infrastructure of water and sanitation inside Zimbabwe - and
exacerbated by
crisis in the country's health service.
The two main
hospitals in Harare have closed because of a shortage of drugs
and
staff.
Many of Zimbabwe's doctors and nurses have abandoned their posts
because
their monthly salaries do not even cover the cost of their bus fares
to
work.
One male nurse who is still working said there was a
critical shortage of
basic medical supplies in the few hospitals that are
still operating and are
overflowing with cholera patients.
"The staff
cannot cope, people are dying even before they are being attended
to," he
said.
Most of the population, weak from hunger, are easy prey for what
should be
an easily preventable and treatable disease.
In the rural
areas, whole communities have been reduced to foraging for
roots and fruits
and growing numbers of children are displaying the signs of
severe
malnutrition.
Internationally, the fatality rate for cholera is usually
around 1%. In
Zimbabwe, it is expected to be many times that.
Aid
agencies fear the disease may spread to 60,000 people and result in more
than 6,000 deaths.
They say that Zimbabwe's government, which has
declared the crisis a
"national emergency", raised the alarm weeks too
late.
Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
Date: 08 Dec 2008
While addressing an international press
conference in Nairobi over the
weekend, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga
called on the African Union (AU)
to oust Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
and end the oppression the
Zimbabwean people are being subjected to. Odinga
specifically called on the
current AU chair Tanzanian President Jakaya
Kikwete to take the lead in
formulating an urgent solution to save Zimbabwe
that is faced by a the
triple crises of humanitarian catastrophes due to
food shortages and an
outbreak of cholera; a political stalemate due to the
failure to implement a
deal reached in September; and an economic meltdown
with a record inflation
rate.
Zimbabwe is going through what is
termed as a "complex emergency." According
to the United Nations agency
OCHA, a complex emergency is "a humanitarian
crisis in a country, region or
society where there is total or considerable
breakdown of authority
resulting from internal or external conflict and
which requires an
international response."
What we are witnessing in Zimbabwe can in fact
be described as a "complex
political emergency". The humanitarian and
economic crises in Zimbabwe are
linked to the disastrous politics and
erratic governance of its leader.
Mugabe's politics have led to extensive
violence and loss of life, massive
displacements of people, widespread
damages to social and economic systems,
acute food shortages, and overall
calamitous threats to the livelihoods of
the Zimbabwean people. Since
Zimbabwe is not an isolated island, the
consequences of Mugabe's reign of
error and terror are reverberating in the
Southern Africa region and the
African continent.
When the AU was launched in 2002 to replace the
ineffectual Organization of
African Unity (OAU), it was wildly acclaimed for
adopting a radical
"principle of non-indifference," as opposed to the
"principle of
non-interference" that had characterised its predecessor. The
OAU had been
generally despised for turning a blind eye to egregious human
rights
violation by despicable dictators such as Uganda's Idi Amin, Zaire's
Mobutu
Sese Seko, Central Africa Republic's Jean-Bedel Bokassa, and
Equatorial
Guinea's Marcias Nguema on pretext that it was barred by the
"principle of
non-interference" in the internal affairs of member states.
Mordantly, it
condemned President Julius Nyerere when he stood up against
Amin's
aggressive and brutal regime.
The AU was the only
organization, until September 2005, with the mandate to
intervene in
member-states where "grave circumstances" are taking place. The
AU
Constitutive Act defines "grave circumstances" as "war crimes, genocide
and
crimes against humanity." The AU can intervene on two grounds: when a
state
has collapsed and its citizens' livelihoods are gravely threatened or
when
invited by a state that is too weak to protect the livelihoods of its
people.
There are grey areas in invoking this audacious "principle of
non-indifference." Although one of the motivations that influenced the AU
founding fathers was what happened in Rwanda in 1994 and never to let it
happen again, the nascent organization seems to have been caught off guard
when the crisis in Darfur happened. Its reaction could provide us with
pointers to how it will handle Zimbabwe.
When the AU was called upon
to invoke Article 4(h) in September 2004 to stem
genocide in Darfur, it
hesitated to act on the grounds that it had yet to
carry out research to
determine that genocide was taking, or had taken,
place. This was a clever
way avoiding taking action as the AU lacked the
capability and capacity to
undertake such a highly technical process. If the
AU had undertaken research
and concluded that indeed there were "grave
circumstances" in Darfur, the
matter would have been brought before its
supreme decision-making body, the
Assembly of the Heads of State and
Government, to invoke Article 4(h) of the
Constitutive Act. Likewise, it
could have invoked Article 4(j) had Sudan
invited it to intervene. This
would have been awkward, as the AU would have
actually gone to Darfur to
boost the capacity of the Sudanese government to
undermine the livelihoods
of its civilians!
Furthermore, the AU would
also have faced a tough time to intervene in one
of the powerful member
states that adamantly insisted that as far it was
concerned it was capable
of protecting its own citizens and the AU could
only come in to support it
and on its terms. This is the argument that
Khartoum has consistently and
persistently used for the past 6 years since
the Darfur atrocities came to
the attention of the international community.
To complicate matters, the
AU not only lacked the political will to make
far-reaching decisions that
would protect the civilian population in Darfur
but also lacked the
resources, both human and financial, to implement its
feeble decisions. In
view of the stark realities facing the AU-particularly
its convoluted
decision-making process, lack of resources, and lack of
political will-it is
not likely that it will intervene to protect the
livelihoods of Zimbabweans.
To further compound the problem of lack of
resources, the capacity of the AU
is currently exhausted due to its
involvements in Darfur and Somalia. It
will be unrealistic to expect it to
add on its plate another complex
political emergency.
What are the other options for external
intervention? An intervention could
come from the SADC region, similar to
the 1998 intervene in Lesotho.
However, going by that experience, countries
of the region would not be
keen, particularly if the Zimbabwean armed forces
stand up to external
aggression and fight back to defend their privileges.
Another intervention
could be made under the UN mandate by invoking Chapter
VII and the principle
of responsibility to protect. All the criteria for
such an intervention
exists vis-à-vis Zimbabwe-it has lost its sovereignty
by failing to protect
its civilians from loss of lives and livelihoods; the
calamity is rising;
and all peaceful efforts to end the suffering of the
Zimbabwean people seem
to have been exhausted. Force will have to be used as
a last resort, as long
as it is proportional, and would lead to a
restoration of human security in
the country. Nevertheless, SADC and the AU
must legitimize such an
intervention. However, both these organizations
would be reluctant to set
such a precedent and could insist on applying the
cliché of "African
solutions to African problems." This would unnecessarily
postpone the
suffering of Zimbabwean people and would by default prolong
Mugabe's
misrule.
Alternatively, either intervention could be
pre-empted by Zimbabwean
security forces that could take matters in their
own hands and end a
disastrous situation. But there is a complication in
this solution-the AU
ban on coups d'état on the continent. At the moment the
AU is in a standoff
with the Mauritanian military that in August took over
from a democratically
elected government. The question to ask is: if the AU
allows a military
take-over in Zimbabwe, would that set a precedent and
contradict its policy
against such means of changing governments?
All
things considered, and as the international community fudges and gets
mired
in indecision paralysis, it is upon the people of Zimbabwe to take to
the
streets, and to use other means, to end the nightmare they are
experiencing.
It is only the Zimbabwean people who can liberate themselves
from their
"liberator." The best that the international community can do is
to support
and supplement their noble "second liberation struggle." Let us
hope that
when the AU Heads of State and Government meet in late January
2009, they
will take a decision to support such efforts and lead the
international
community in providing the Zimbabwean people with all the
support that they
need to free themselves.
Dr Wafula Okumu, Senior Research Fellow, African
Security Analysis
Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)
http://www.voanews.com
By David
Gollust
State Department
08 December
2008
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that only
a concerted
international effort led by Zimbabwe's neighbors can end the
political and
humanitarian crisis in that country. On Monday, Rice
reiterated her call for
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to step
down.
Rice's statement in Denmark late last week that it is "high time"
for Mr.
Mugabe to depart has set off an international groundswell, with
leaders of
Britain and France and European Union since echoing that
call.
But the Secretary says the suffering of the Zimbabwean people is
unlikely to
end soon, unless there is a broader push for change in Harare
led by the
countries of the region.
Rice spoke Monday at a State
Department ceremony at which the outspoken U.S.
ambassador to Zimbabwe,
James McGee, was given the department's 2008
"Diplomacy for Freedom" award
for his efforts to draw world attention to
human rights abuses by the Harare
government.
The Secretary said that with most international journalists
barred from
Zimbabwe earlier this year, McGee organized convoys of foreign
diplomats to
the countryside to witness what Rice termed a "reign of terror"
by the
Mugabe government against the political opposition in connection with
disputed elections in March and June.
She said the forays led by
McGee helped establish truth that could not be
ignored, and helped build
world pressure for a power-sharing accord in
September that Mr. Mugabe has
refused to implement.
"Ambassador McGee, I know you have tried to work to
make the electoral
process fair and to make the power-sharing arrangements
work. But
ultimately, you are working, you are working with and for the
United States
government to make life better for the Zimbabwean people," she
said. "And we
deeply hope that will soon come. It will come only, though, if
there is a
concerted international response - especially by the countries of
the
region, to the terrible, terrible humanitarian disaster that has now
broken
out - [not only] the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe but also to the
terrible
and outrageous behavior of the Mugabe government."
The State
Department earlier urged southern African states to "step up" and
use their
leverage to end the crisis.
The European Union on Monday extended a
travel ban to 11 more Zimbabwean
officials, with both EU chief diplomat
Javier Solana and French President
Nicolas Sarkozy - whose country holds the
rotating EU presidency - joining
those urging Mr. Muagabe's departure from
power.
A spokesman for the Zimbabwean leader in Harare dismissed the
calls, saying
that Mr. Mugabe is constitutionally elected and that foreign
leaders -
regardless of how powerful they may be - have no right to call on
him top
step down.
Zimbabwean officials have also accused foreign
officials of exploiting the
country's health crisis to rally support against
Mr. Mugabe.
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday that
the United States
separates humanitarian assistance for Zimbabwe from any
political
differences it may have with the government.
The U.S.
Agency for International Development, or USAID, last week said it
was
providing an additional $600,000 to help combat the cholera outbreak in
Zimbabwe in addition to a previously-announced $4 million emergency water
and sanitation project. USAID said that overall U.S. humanitarian aid to
Zimbabwe, including food assistance, since October 2007 has been more than
$220 million.
http://www.voanews.com
By Patience
Rusere
Washington
08 December
2008
Zimbabwean government officials met Monday with World
Health Organization
Assistant Director General for Health Action in Crisis
Eric Laroche to
discuss how to halt to the cholera epidemic that had claimed
589 lives as of
Dec. 5, WHO sources said.
Nearly 14,000 cases had
been reported as of late last week, the WHO said.
South African officials
heading a delegation of officials from the Southern
African Development
Community traveled to Zimbabwe on Monday to assess the
outbreak, which has
spilled into South Africa and Botswana, with an eye to
assembling an aid
package.
The Southern African team was to consult with WHO officials in
Zimbabwe
before reporting to a meeting of SADC health ministers and water
officials
on Thursday.
World Health Organization Spokesman Paul
Garwood said Dr. Laroche made an
undertaking that the WHO would bolster its
support to the country in
response to the epidemic.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
Tuesday 09 December 2008
Public statement on
cash availability at banks by Dr. G. Gono
Governor, Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe, 4 December, 2008
1. Introduction and
background
1.1 On the 3rd and 4th of December, 2008, the
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe held very cordial and fruitful meetings with the
Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU), led by Mr. L. Matombo, the
President of ZCTU and Mr.
W. Chibhebhe, the Secretary General of ZCTU, along
with other Senior
Executives in the ZCTU.
1.2 The nature
of the ZCTU mandate and the issues they raised
during the discussions were
National in nature, representing the interests
of the generality of all
workers and users of cash in general.
1.3 With the Reserve
Bank having presented to the ZCTU the
current limitations in terms of
currency printing due to the adversity of
sanctions currently being imposed
against the country, it was agreed on the
3rd of December, 2008 that the
ZCTU prepares scenarios and suggestions on
possible remedial measures that
would meet the interests of the workers.
1.4 The ZCTU was to
also consider their proposals in the context
of factual current average
salaries and wage levels, as well as the
employment
numbers.
1.5 The Reserve Bank is pleased to report that the
ZCTU worked
swiftly to come up with proposals which enabled us to make
informed
discussions and decisions.
2. The agreed
framework
2.1 Having carefully assessed the very genuine
representations
by the ZCTU in terms of the plight of the workers, the sick
and all the
other users of cash; and this within the context of full
appreciation of the
constrained cash supply chain due to the sanctions
against Zimbabwe, the
Reserve Bank is pleased to unveil the following
jointly agreed positions
between the Reserve Bank and the ZCTU, who in their
representations
clarified that they were representing not just their
constituency, but all
the other users of cash in general.
The agreed positions
(a) That with effect from Friday, the
12th of December, 2008,
the cash withdrawal limit for individuals has been
increased from $100
million per week to $500 million per
week.
Company withdrawal limits shall remain at $50 million,
per week
given that workers' needs have been catered for.
(b) That with effect from Friday the 19th of December, 2008,
each worker can
withdraw up to $10 billion per month, against presentation
of a pay-slip
which shall be endorsed at the bank to prevent abuse of the
facility through
repeated withdrawals.
(c) That with effect from the 12th of
January, 2009, all workers
will be able to fully encash their full salaries,
without any limit upon
presentation of a bona-fide, verifiable pay-slip,
which shall be stamped at
the bank to avoid repetitive
roundtripping.
(d) That over the outlook period, the cash
supply framework will
be amicably discussed between the Reserve Bank and
Stakeholders on an
ongoing basis, so as to promote information symmetries
and full appreciation
of the realities on the ground on either
side.
Measures against abuse
2.2 The
Reserve Bank has noted with grave concern the tendency
by some banks to
allow their corporate and individual clients to violate the
cash withdrawal
frameworks, assisted by bank management and bank employees
themselves.
2.3 Accordingly, therefore, as was
fore-warned, any bank found
violating Central Bank regulations will meet
with severe and swift remedial
measures.
Indiscipline at
CFX Bank
2.4 As part of its enhanced surveillance programme,
the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe now has capacity to trail cash movements from
the Reserve
Bank right up to each bank's branch networks through an
elaborate Currency
Serial Number Monitoring System.
2.5
On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 3rd of December, 2008,
banking
institutions were issued with a total of $80 trillion to prepare
their
systems for the increased cash withdrawal limits beginning the morning
of
the 4th of December 2008, through issuance of new notes.
2.6
Among those who got cash was CFX Bank, which got a total of
$900 billion on
the 3rd of December, 2008 for issuance to their depositors
the next day, the
4th of December, 2008.
2.7 At exactly 9:30 p.m. on the 3rd of
December, 2008, the
Reserve Bank's tracking system picked up that the
serialized notes issued to
CFX Bank had mysteriously found their way into
the market, notwithstanding
the following facts:
(a) It
was illegal to have new notes issued into the market
prior to the date of
the launch.
(b) There was no way the money issued to CFX Bank
could have
gone into the market through any other channel other than the
bank's own
systems since the delivery of cash to CFX was done to meet the
needs for the
next day. No individual client nor company could have legally
made a
withdrawal of the new notes during the banking hours of 3 December,
2008.
The facts
(a) CFX Bank got new notes
in the following series:
$10 million notes: Serials;
AA0207001 to AA0217000
Amount: $100
billion
$50 million notes: Serials;AA7363001 to
AA7377000
Amount: $700 billion
$100
million notes: Serials; AA0079001 to AA0080000
Amount: $100
billion
Global issue: $900 billion (signed off by CFX on
collection
under voucher number 01408 at 1220 hours, 3 December,
2008.
(b) At 9:30 p.m. on the 3rd of December, 2008,
serialized new
notes off the CFX withdrawal from the Central Bank was
already in the
market.
The following notes are examples
of what was retrieved from the
market at 10:30 p.m. on the 3rd of December,
2008 under the Reserve Bank's
enhanced surveillance
system:
$50 million notes:
Serial;
AA7371182;
Serial; AA7371195;
Serial;
AA7371198;
Serial; AA7371199; and
Serial;
AA7371200.
(c) The protected informant who worked with the
Reserve Bank
throughout the night, has reported that a total of $260 billion
was
off-loaded by CFX in the night of 3 December, 2008, buying foreign
exchange.
It is left to fellow Zimbabweans to judge what sort of damage to
the economy
and the welfare of the people such behaviour is
causing.
(d) The Reserve Bank is in possession of the actual
notes that
were issued into the parallel market, exactly pinning down CFX
Bank as the
culprit, they have absolutely no excuse or way
out.
2.8 Accordingly, therefore, the following measures have
been
adopted:
3. Dissolution of the CFX Bank Board of
Directors and removal of
top management
3.1 With effect
from 5 December, 2008, the entire Board of
Directors of CFX Bank has been
dissolved, and none of them can serve again
on a bank
Board.
3.2 The following persons are, therefore no longer fit
and
proper to work in a bank or to sit on any banking institution's Board
for
the next 5 years beginning 5 December, 2008.
The
dissolved CFX Bank Limited Board of Directors
Mr. P. Chitando
- Chairman
Mr. J.S. Brown - Director
Mr.
E. Shadaya - Director
Mr. J.N. Dhliwayo -
Director
Mr. M. Chingwena - Director
Mr.
B.C. Hofman - Director
Mr. I. Chagonda -
Director
Mr. P. Alichindamba - Director
Mr. A. Kandlela - Director
Unfit and improper
management
3.3 The following persons in CFX Bank have been
duly declared
unfit and improper to work in any banking institution in
Zimbabwe for the
next 5 years beginning 5 December, 2008:
Mr. O. Mukumba - Managing Director
Mrs. P.T. Ndoro - Company
Secretary
Mrs. B. Kadira - Head of Retail
Mrs. W. Chidziwo - Head Treasury and Int. Banking
Mrs. P.
Mureya - Head of Finance & Administration
Mrs. C.
Dangarembga - Head, Risk Management
Mrs. C. Saungweme - Head
of Audit
3.4 The shareholders of CFX Bank are called upon to
swiftly
re-organise their institution's management and corporate governance
systems
to avoid further improper conduct.
3.5 It should
be noted also that the requisite due diligence
procedures and clearance
vetting are to be followed for all the needful
appointments.
3.6 The Reserve Bank no longer has appetite
for curatorships.
Another warning to all
banks
3.7 The entire banking sector is once again forewarned
to stop
any fraudulent activities.
3.8 Where banks
literally off-load bulk cash meant for
depositors onto the parallel market,
as what CFX Bank was caught doing, the
blame is conveniently put on the
Reserve Bank.
3.9 Others have been alleging that there is
"Gono's money bag"
doing the rounds with cash yet it is unscrupulous banking
institutions, who
instead of being the trusted custodians of the public's
funds, abuse their
status and become the agents of economic
destruction.
3.10 The banking laws of the country do not
allow this.
The holiday season
3.11 The
Central Bank has cancelled all annual leave for its
Management and Staff and
will leave no stone unturned to put a stop to any
acts of indiscipline in
the banking sector.
3.12 Each bank must fully account for all
cash withdrawn from
the Reserve Bank right up to the actual branch, by
serial numbers as
directed on 22 December, 2007 when each bank CEO was given
a specific letter
of instruction preparing for the on-going currency
tracking system on all
new notes issued.
Prices of goods
and services
3.13 The Reserve Bank also appeals to sellers of
goods and
services to please have a heart and protect the interest of
consumers.
3.14 We have noted sadly that almost every time
new currency
denominations are introduced or when workers' earnings are
introduced,
prices are increased unjustifiably.
3.15 As a
Central Bank, we condemn such practices in the
strongest of
terms.
3.16 We call upon all Producer Associations to
introspect and
self-police their membership in the interest of protecting
the welfare of
workers, the sick and other vulnerable groups in our
economy.
Thank you.
Dr. G. Gono, Governor,
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
4 December, 2008 -
ZimOnline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
9, 2008
David
Charter Brussels
International efforts to end Zimbabwe's misery by forcing
President Mugabe
out of office were blunted yesterday when a key African
leader urged further
mediation despite the power-sharing impasse in
Harare.
As President Sarkozy of France called for a swift end to the
Mugabe regime,
Jacob Zuma, the head of South Africa's ruling ANC party,
insisted that
dialogue was still the best way forward.
"President
Mugabe must go," Mr Sarkozy said in an address in Paris to The
Elders, an
independent group of statesmen and women who were recently
refused visas to
travel to Zimbabwe. His call followed similar demands from
Britain and the
US, as well as Raila Odinga, the Kenyan Prime Minister, at
the
weekend.
Mr Zuma, who is expected to be elected as South African
president next year,
recognised the urgency of the Zimbabwean crisis, but
offered a radically
different solution. "We need some swift action to deal
with the situation."
he said at the opening of talks in Windhoek with
President Pohamba of
Namibia. "We fully support Thabo Mbeki's mediation
efforts and we urge the
Zimbabwe leadership to act and ... pave the way for
a unity government."
Related Links
a.. Zimbabwe: the next step
a.. Zimbabwe accuses Brown of seeking invasion
a.. Cholera crisis brings
Zimbabwe to a halt
Mr Mugabe signed a power-sharing deal with Morgan
Tsvangirai, the opposition
leader, on September 15, but has since reneged on
the agreement, giving the
Opposition just one ministry in the so-called
unity Government. In the past,
Mr Zuma criticised Mr Mbeki for siding with
the Mugabe regime in the talks
that he mediated.
The EU stepped up
the pressure on Harare, adding 11 names to the list of
Zimbabwean figures
banned from entering Europe. The new names, described by
David Miliband, the
Foreign Secretary, as "middle-ranking members of the
regime", were added to
168 already on the personae non gratae list,
including Mr Mugabe and his
wife Grace.
Mr Miliband said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers that
Britain would
make another attempt to secure a UN Security Council
resolution but
cautioned that it could be difficult given strong opposition
from Russia and
China.
Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief,
followed suit with an appeal to
African nations to work together to remove
President Mugabe. "The moment has
arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe
to step down and give the
opportunity once again to the people of Zimbabwe
to get their life together
and begin to move the country forward," Mr Solana
said.
The rift in international efforts to ease Zimbabwe's plight came as
the
confirmed death toll from a cholera outbreak reached 575.
More
than 12,000 people have already been afflicted in the outbreak, which
was
triggered in part by the breakdown in the country's infrastructure and
healthcare system, as well as a dire shortage of fresh water.
Prices
of goods double every 24 hours, and 100 million Zimbabwean dollars -
the
maximum permitted weekly bank withdrawal - buys only three loaves of
bread.
"There is a crying need for change in Zimbabwe," Mr Miliband
said. "I think
there was unity around the table today that while cholera has
got the
headlines, the real disease at the heart of Zimbabwe is the misrule
by the
Mugabe regime."
He said that he had spoken with the presidency
of the UN Security Council,
currently held by Croatia, about a new
resolution on Zimbabwe. Asked if that
would include the possibility of
direct intervention, he said: "We were
rebuffed in July on the subject of
targeted financial and travel sanctions
on individuals at the UN, so it is a
bit premature to talk about that."
Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of
York, and Dr Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop
Emeritus of Cape Town, have also
called on Mr Mugabe to stand down, as has
Kofi Annan, the former UN
Secretary-General, and David Cameron, the Tory
leader, who called for the
international community to consider a fuel
blockade.
Zimbabwe Standard
Vusumuzi Sifile and Ndamu Sandu
8 December 2008
PRICES
of basic goods and services more than quadrupled within hours after
banks
increased cash withdrawal limits last week, further piling pressure on
already hard-pressed Zimbabweans.
On Thursday banks started allowing
depositors to withdraw $100 million a
week, up from $500 000 after the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe reviewed the
limits.
Depositors, who
were resorting to sleeping in queues to access their funds,
had called on
the RBZ to remove the withdrawal limits.
RBZ governor Gideon Gono finally
succumbed to pressure after the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions threatened
to stage protests against the central
bank.
But the rushed measures
quickly backfired before depositors could make their
first
withdrawals.
A few hours after banks opened on Thursday morning, the few
remaining shops
that sell in local currency closed their doors to adjust
prices to
capitalise on the "windfall".
A snap survey in Harare
indicated that prices in some cases had gone up four
times within hours,
creating another nightmare for ordinary consumers who
now have to wait for
another week before their next withdrawal.
Simple household items have
become out of reach for most Zimbabweans whose
salaries are still pegged in
local currency.
A loaf of bread selling at $3 million on Thursday morning
was pegged at $15
million before the end of the day.
Commuter fares
went up to $5 million, from $1 million. A 10 kg bag of
maize-meal shot up to
$100 million from $10 million. A 10kg pack of seed
maize cost $405
million.
Only a few people managed to get $100 million at any given time
as banks did
not have adequate cash.
The most affected depositor
banks were CABS, ZB, Intermarket and Beverley.
"I had to sleep at the
queue for me to withdraw $100 million," said Brian
Shoko.
"I got my
cash around 11 am and went straight to the supermarket to look for
items I
wanted to buy.
"But I couldn't believe what I saw: the money was enough
to buy just a small
bar of bath soap and a loaf of bread."
After
giving up on buying items at the shop, Shoko decided to go and buy his
groceries in outlying areas.
"I failed to go there," Shoko said. When
I got to the terminus, commuter
omnibus operators had hiked the fares to $5
million."
"When I resolved to just board the expensive omnibus, I was
told that they
had no change and I had to find somewhere to change my
money."
ZCTU had warned that the tendency by the RBZ to review cash
withdrawal
limits to match inflation was burdening ordinary people.
A
fortnight ago, ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo said haphazard increases in
withdrawal limits only served to increase the cost of living.
But
Kumbirai Katsande, the newly elected Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries
(CZI) president, said price increases were a response to the
demand and
supply position.
Before the withdrawal limits increases, Katsande said,
shops were well
stocked.
However, there was no corresponding increase
in the supply of goods after
the limits were increased, he
said.
Katsande said businesses had to consider the cost of
restocking.
The CZI boss called for coordination among stakeholders in
policy
formulation, implementation and monitoring for the RBZ interventions
to
work.
"They are very good intentions which now have some
collateral damage. They
have unintended consequences," Katsande said.The
government has tried in
vain to control prices and the National Incomes and
Pricing Commission,
which was set up for that specific task has been
rendered a toothless
bulldog.
Katsande said the business sector had
called for the disbandment of the
Goodwills Masimirembwa-led outfit because
it had no influence in the setting
of prices.
"The problem with the
institution is that it gives people false hope," he
said.
Economic
analysts said the rocketing prices were a natural consequence of
the
depreciation of the Zimbabwean dollar against major currencies. "The
dollar
is falling in value and prices have to be adjusted," said John
Robertson, an
independent economist.
But in an interview on local television, Gono said the
NIPC "should do its
job". Masimirembwa was not answering his mobile phone on
Friday.
No comment could be obtained from the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe as
executive director, Rosemary Siyachitema, was said to be in
Conakry, Guinea,
on a business trip.
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com
Local News
December 9, 2008 | By Staff
The Ministry of Defence
has reportedly issued an order that all Soldiers
must be disarmed amid
growing mistrust and frustration among low-ranking
soldiers.
Low-ranking soldiers rioted in the streets of Harare on
several recent
occasions after being unable to obtain cash from
banks.
Morale among the military is at its lowest level and some
soldiers joined
civilians in a demonstration against cash shortages a week
ago, some were
humiliated and punished when they returned to
barracks.
Scores of soldiers are in detention awaiting court martial or
are confined
to barracks, no longer allowed into the capital in
uniform.
One soldier said Major-General Martin Chedondo, chief of staff
operations at
army headquarters and the number two in the force, led the
denunciations.
"He forced soldiers returning to King George VI barracks
to lie down on
their stomachs and crawl around apologising," a source told a
British Paper.
"Then he ordered orderlies to spray them with water, accusing
them of
walking like civilians, and of being badly dressed. These guys were
hungry
and fed up and many of them were will now desert."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8540
December 8, 2008
HOT-Seat
teleconference: Journalist Violet Gonda interviews Brian Kagoro and
Wilf
Mhanda
Broadcast: 5 December 2008
Violet Gonda: My guests on the
programme Hot Seat today are liberation war
veteran Wilf Mhanda and
political analyst Brian Kagoro.
Let me start with Wilf: there's this
avalanche of crises facing Zimbabweans,
what do you say are the main issues
that need to be resolved first in the
country right now?
Wilf Mhanda:
Yes I think it will be very difficult to pinpoint and select
issues that
people can pinpoint - I think there is one central issue right
now; it is a
state of complete collapse of government that is the issue that
has to be
resolved. It is the mother of all these crises that are actually a
syndrome
of decay and collapse. Mugabe regime has failed and has to go. Full
stop
that's what I would have to say.
VG: Brian?
Brian Kagoro: Well
Wilf has captured the collapse of the administrative
structure of
government. There's also the collapse of the moral fibre of
government. Any
sense of shame, any sense of responsibility and any sense of
inadequacy that
ordinary human beings would express when they are faced with
things that are
beyond their capacity. But there is a third factor; there is
now a total
collapse of consent and consensus. Consent of the governed to be
governed by
the present administration.
You see in amongst arms of state like
soldiers who would ordinarily are
expected to be compliant even when
administrations fail, you are seeing that
within the Zimbabwean state, that
even the soldiers don't seem to be
consenting to that level.
Then you
have the collapse of consensus. Within a government, even an
authoritarian
one, it functions on the basis of its ability to marshal
consensus to exert
terror and force against its opponents. And what we are
seeing or have seen
over the last few weeks is a collapse within that
monolithic structure, or
that structure that was seen to be monolithic, that
there are many crevasses
and cleavages that have emerged within the
military, and the police and
elsewhere. The lower ranks who have not
benefited from the patronage and
corruption and rank seeking and the senior
ranks who are the major
beneficiaries of corruption. You have at this
juncture now even in the unit
that you call the military.
VG: Wilf, what are your thoughts on the
unrest in the military? This is
unprecedented in Zimbabwe. Do you think
Mugabe's power base is under threat
as the soldiers protest?
WM: It
is evidently under threat as the soldiers who are least expected to
show
disloyalty to the State to the regime actually manifested a deep
resentment
of the established order. This is a complete collapse of trust by
the
military in Robert Mugabe and in the senior commanders. So actually it
is
symptomatic of the extent of the collapse and decay. It is not
surprising.
It is just like what we have seen maybe with the collapse of the
health
system, cholera and so forth, they are all manifestations of all
this. But
now with Mugabe's trusted foot soldiers showing signs of readiness
to
challenge his authority and to challenge established order, I think I can
safely say that actually because Mugabe's authority over the military,
particularly over the rank and file soldiers has actually been severely
undermined.
VG: But Wilf there are many theories about this issue
with the soldiers,
with others saying it was merely a diversion and that it
is overly
simplistic to say that Mugabe's security ministry is shaky when it
was only
a few soldiers who participated in the riots.
WM: Talking to
people who actually witnessed these events and who actually
spoke to the
soldiers, who heard what the soldiers said, there was no doubt
that what
they were articulating exactly the same grievance as everybody
else.
Actually it would be a disservice for Robert Mugabe to engineer such a
thing
that actually undermines his authority that also depicts the military
as
being disloyal to him. I think it would be
suicidal. If it was, I think it
has been counterproductive.
VG: Now Brian, I would like to get your
thoughts on recent statements that
have been made by world leaders; we have
Raila Odinga in Kenya saying that
Mugabe must be removed by force,
Condoleezza Rice has also issued a
statement saying that Mugabe must go and
so have people like Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, Botswana's foreign minister has
also said this. What are your
thoughts on that when world leaders are
beginning to voice their concerns
like this?
BK: It's not new. I
think it has been a popularly held view that has not
been expressed in
public because there have been many who have thought that
the failures and
excesses of the regime could be sanitized, could be made
more acceptable,
then you could structure a decent exit and that decent exit
would also
present a good legacy of sorts for Mugabe. So what you are
hearing are
expressions in the public sphere of views that were held in the
private
sphere.
Zimbabweans have always, Zimbabweans who have campaigned for
change in
Zimbabwe had only one slogan, and that of course as you may recall
was not
started by the opposition. In the introduction of the debate on the
constitution in the Zimbabwean parliament in 1997, it was Dzikamayi Mavhaire
who said; 'One thing is evident, the President must go.' And that is a
slogan the opposition adopted, that Zimbabweans have kept, that the
President must go and the world leaders are just now coming to agreement
with the majority of Zimbabweans.
VG: But you know Odinga and Morgan
Tsvangirai are strong allies so what do
you make of his remarks in
particular given that Morgan Tsvangirai has said
that he is committed to the
power sharing process with Robert Mugabe?
BK: I think alliance does not
mean you necessarily agree on strategy and
tactic 100 percent. Alliance
simply means you share values and what are
those values? Those values are
that leaders must only sit in power if they
have been democratically,
transparently and accountably chosen by the
people.
What are the
tactical differences? A person in Zimbabwe or a Zimbabwean
might feel
constraints to advocate for a forceful removal of a head of state
because
that would be tantamount to treason.
Mind you, Raila Odinga's views on
what ought to happen in Zimbabwe predate
his engagement with Morgan
Tsvangirai and the MDC. So the two views are not
related. And also calling
for the forceful removal of Mugabe is something
that an external actor may
have the luxury to do, somebody working within
Zimbabwe like Morgan
Tsvangirai might be viewed as acting irresponsibly if
he did that. Even if
he held that view it is not a view to be expressed
publicly given the dire
situation the country is in. Any suggestion to
plunge it into further
conflict might be frowned upon even by his friends in
the African
Union.
VG: Wilf what do you make of the suggestion calling for the
forceful removal
of Robert Mugabe and also do you think Odinga is speaking
on behalf of
Morgan Tsvangirai who can't really say the deal with Mugabe is
dead?
WM: I would like to say as Brian is saying, Odinga is a very
outspoken
person; he speaks his mind, I don't think he is speaking on behalf
Tsvangirai; he is just speaking his mind, what he believes in. And I think
he is right to say time to focus on, power sharing I think is gone, it is
long gone. Given the events on the ground, the extent of the collapse, I
think it is a diversion to focus on power sharing which might take us
another six months still arguing on this and that.
What we need is
something that addresses the crisis on the ground. What it
means is that we
need a popular transitional authority right now to stop the
suffering of the
people in terms of the cholera, break down of health
services, and also the
looting. What is happening right now is that Robert
Mugabe and his cronies
are actually commercialising the peoples' miserable
plight.
I cannot
believe that Zimbabwe can fail to have enough money to buy
chemicals to
treat water in Harare when Gideon Gono has actually been
lavishly dishing
out largesse left right and centre. So there is enough
money. What is
happening to our diamonds? What is happening to our platinum?
What is
happening to our gold? We cannot say we don't have money. How can we
appeal
for more than five hundred million dollars to rescue us when we
actually
have more than that ourselves!?
So actually what we need is to put a stop
to this misgovernance, to this
looting, to this crisis by making sure a
proper accountable transitional
government is in place. Concentrating on
power sharing is a diversion,
people are suffering, people are dying, and we
need to get these people out.
Mugabe's grip on power has to be lifted and
they have to go!
VG: But you know many people have talked about this
transitional
arrangement, how effective is a transitional government or
transitional
authority in Zimbabwe today and would the political parties
even agree to
that?
WM: There is a major humanitarian catastrophe in
Zimbabwe and we also know
about the 'responsibility to protect' which the
Zimbabwean government has
totally failed to do. What we now need is for this
matter to be taken to the
Security Council. Once a Security Council
Resolution is in place, then they
would have to enforce it, they will have
the need to enforce it. What we
need is a Security Council resolution saying
that the situation in Zimbabwe
is out of hand. That's all we need. And then
after that the mechanics will
be sorted out and the resolution will then
stipulate what needs to be done.
VG: Brian what do you make of this call
for a transitional government and
who would head it and also doesn't it
depend on the major political parties
actually agreeing? Do you see this
happening?
BK: There's the tactical question of the intransigence of the
political
actors and their fear of loss of control. But I think what Wilf
has put on
the table - if you recall my views a couple of months ago the
call for a
transitional authority where parties seem to be in substantial
control of
both the political terrain there was form of de facto control
seemed an
improbable suggestion.
The dramatic alteration of the
situation, with the humanitarian crisis
worsening, and the State for once
conceding that it neither has the capacity
nor resources to resolve this
issue - an acceptance that Zimbabwean health
and other crises are becoming
regionalised in the sense that Zimbabweans are
now going to Malawi, to
Mozambique, to South Africa for treatment whether
legally or illegally and
that the cholera outbreak or epidemic is now
spreading to the region -
suggests that perhaps what you now need is a
system, an authority with a
capacity to arrest the decay and the
humanitarian crisis.
There will
be resistance but that resistance I think is much weaker than it
was eight
weeks ago or even six months ago. Partly because there is no
military
solution to cholera, there's no military solution to hunger, you
need
effective policy and you need international a reengagement.
The sort of
support we have seen from the international community is but
band-aid to a
haemorrhaging economy, a haemorrhaging society, and that
band-aid will not
resolve the problem. I think that Wilfred has
characterised the problem in
its appropriate proportions. It is a
humanitarian tsunami and I don't think
we have the luxury to play politics
with lives.
VG: Now Wilf has said
that the Security Council needs to intervene in this
matter urgently but who
would enforce that? How do you get the issue to the
Security Council and
also what about Morgan Tsvangirai's role in all this?
He has travelled to
Europe to ask for humanitarian help but as far as we
have seen it appears he
has not asked the United Nations for help. Shouldn't
that have been his
priority since the UN is the mother of all donor
agencies?
BK: No,
the Security Council, getting a matter onto the Security Council
agenda is a
long tedious complicated process. The triggers and also the sort
of
reluctance by China and others to have the matter discussed, even if it
has
been placed on the agenda, it is a remote possibility. So I think that
if
one were thinking from the MDC strategy unit, they most probably felt
that
it is a moment to appear not just magnanimous but state-like and part
of
that appearing state-like is saying that although there are human beings
that are suffering, there is help required, they will appeal to their
friends far and wide for that help to be given to the people of Zimbabwe.
This is in the hope that the people of Zimbabwe do themselves appreciate
that Stately behaviour.
But as Wilf has said this does not resolve
the problem. You are tinkering on
the edges. You are fiddling while the
nation burns. You need a much more
permanent solution and I think his call
that you need - the AU has not
intervened, SADC still thinks the situation
can be saved by playing hardball
with the opposition, insisting to the two
sides that they must co-share,
co-chair the ministry of Home Affairs and
such, I think, such ill-advised
political arrangements.
In the
absence of any meaningful intervention from SADC and also taking into
account that many of us are reluctant to hand over the fate of our country
to the Europeans and the Americans we'd rather entrust the country to a
multi-lateral system, the UN seems to be the last place of resort.
So
it does not mean that we are not mindful of the complications. We are
mindful also that it is difficult to get anything from the UN Charter. It
takes a long time but worth attempting as a pressure point. The South
Africans are likely to respond in the Security Council that they have the
situation under control, that there is an African solution that is being
structured.
VG: South Africa has already said that it wants to talk
to the international
aid agencies and formulate an international response.
Now is this Mugabe's
attempt to reach out to the international community
through South Africa?
BK: It's reducing a structural practical governance
crisis into a
humanitarian crisis. We are in a humanitarian crisis because
of the collapse
of the governance crisis. I don't know what Wilf
thinks?
WM: What I would say is that what South Africa is doing by
appealing for
this humanitarian aid - how will it be managed, how will it be
channelled
when Mugabe is still in control? That is where the problem is.
Everything
will have to be channelled through them and you know how they
operate. We
all know we have seen it before so it is a
non-starter.
What I'm saying is I don't think the South Africans cannot
afford to be
indifferent to what is happening here after they've seen the
cholera
incidents. And much more will happen, they've seen what the soldiers
have
done, much more is going to happen. I don't think even the Russians and
the
Chinese will simply say we will stop this when the rest of Africa is
actually crying. Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa will be
directly affected.
At the end of the day the African Union has also
got a voice. We should not
limit ourselves to South Africa and SADC. The
African Union must pick up
this matter as well, it is a major, major
security in practical terms and
also in health terms it is a security risk
to the region. What we need is to
address the issue of who controls the
State machinery in Zimbabwe. That is
the key issue. Everything else, people
are still dying in their hundreds
from cholera because Mugabe is there and
he is taking his time.
Right now he is appealing for hundreds of millions
of dollars. How do we
know how it is going to be disbursed? The aid will not
get to the people who
need it. That's what I'm saying. We need to address
this, because this is
the core of the problem.
VG: But on the other
hand, critics say there is a general failure of
leadership and actually
blame all three political leaders saying that they
are holding Zimbabwe
hostage. Should Morgan Tsvangirai just enter into this
government of
National Unity to prevent a national tragedy?
BK: In order to end
cholera? As though Morgan Tsvangirai's entering into
the government ends
cholera and the conditions and misgovernance and
mismanagement that has
resulted in this catastrophe.
Listen, the South Africans and anyone for
that matter can formulate any view
they please about what is good for
Zimbabwe, those of us who are Zimbabwean
know that that deal is a poisoned
chalice, that Morgan Tsvangirai might as
well go and drink a bucket full
load of cholera-infested water than enter
that arrangement. It is neither
in the interests of Zimbabwe, it is to save
the egos of those regional
powers that have fiddled whilst they are being
told by Zimbabweans that all
was not well. They denied there was a crisis in
Zimbabwe and this is a
face-saving gesture from them. They cannot bring
themselves to accept that
they were wrong in their judgement of the
Zimbabwean situation and in its
characterisation. That they must eat humble
pie and accept that they have
been as responsible as Robert Mugabe in
allowing the country to degenerate
to the level that it has.
If Morgan Tsvangirai has any good sense left in
him he should stay away from
that. There is one difference, he can show his
responsibility as a leader by
assuring that there's aid or help that is
targeted to the victims of the
humanitarian crisis. That doesn't necessarily
mean he must enter a
governmental arrangement that will not transform how
governance and politics
is done in our country.
VG: How would you
answer people who say that we know of Mugabe's failures
but what about the
MDC? Now from what you have seen, what is their
resolution beyond rhetoric
to stop the spread of cholera and starvation for
example?
BK: They
are not in government. We cannot place on people who are not in
government
the obligations that are expected by people of its elected
government. That
is irresponsible talk. We don't sit around when there is
crime in South
Africa and say what has the DA done to end crime? We look at
the governments
in power. It is neither intelligent nor a sign of honesty
for anybody to say
an opposition political party can end only that which an
elected government
which has full charge of the arms of state is obligated
to deal
with.
VG: Wilf, what are your thoughts on that? Because people are saying
Zimbabweans are suffering and that the time for campaigning has gone and
that it's time for governance. Do you see the political leaders having what
it takes to govern - all political leaders involved in this power sharing
agreement?
WM: Like Brian has been saying, I think the responsibility
lies with those
who hold the reins of power. These are totally untested and
how can they
show what they are capable of when they are not even anywhere
near the
levers of power. What I would expect of Morgan Tsvangirai and the
MDC is
actually to lead the people in demanding that these issues be
addressed
because they don't hold the key to the solution. What he can do is
to
mobilise the people to demand that services be restored.
That we
get a transitional government - that is what we need. He should just
move
out of that power sharing agreement which I think is a diversion.
People are
dying and suffering. We have no time to think about that. What we
want to
talk about are the practicalities of addressing this crisis, outside
the
framework of that defunct arrangement, that power sharing arrangement!
What
we need now is leadership to mobilise the people to demand a
transitional
authority to address these issues.
This has been doing genocide all along
for the past 28 years. This is real
when you consider the rate which people
have been dying in the last 10 to 15
years from AIDS, of all preventable
diseases, hospitals have been closed,
people can't access their funds to buy
medicine - this is all genocide.
There is no actual reason why Gono should
restrict people to paltry amounts
of money that cannot afford them food that
would make them survive, that
would make them afford the medication that
would make them survive - so this
is genocide left right and
centre.
VG: Brian the regime argues that the sanctions have caused this
crisis. Is
the ruling elite merely denying any responsibility here or there
is an
element of truth?
BK: What the sanctions have also caused them
to steal money from the
diamonds and platinum so they have absolutely no
cents to invest in
chemicals that they can even buy from Zambia? It's
absolutely ridiculous!
They are totally irresponsible; they are totally
callous and reckless!
I think that they need, even when there were
sanctions, we lived under
sanctions before, under the illegal regime of Ian
Smith, the racist regime;
how many times did our people die of cholera when
there were sanctions? How
many times were our people reduced into the
laughing stock of this region?
How many times were Zimbabweans reduced into
famine, into not just the
laughing stock, into the lowest of the wretched of
the earth? How many
times? We have lived under sanctions before; it is an
alibi by an
irresponsible, reckless regime! Of people who have looted and
shamelessly
continue to loot! Even in Somalia, they are not dying of
cholera. There is a
war in Somalia. Liberia which was at war for a long
time, they did not get
reduced to this state.
VG: In a final word
briefly both of you, let me start with Brian and I'll
end with Wilf, what do
you want to see happen, realistically what should
happen?
BK: I think
there is a need for an urgent system of intervention by the
African Union
and SADC and not tinkering on the edges, not massaging Robert
Mugabe's ego
and intervention must be total. It must have a political
dimension and Wilf
has talked about a transitional arrangement - I've
previously insisted that
the only way the country will return to normalcy is
to buy time where we
normalise going into an election and select leadership.
I abide by that
view, that we will not negotiate our way out of the present
moral and
political bankruptcy that we witness, number one.
Number two, there is
need for a comprehensive turnaround strategy that is
fashioned by all
Zimbabwean actors, Zimbabweans of different political
shades of opinion and
you need a peoples, if you like, a stakeholders, not
just forum but platform
constituted into different commissions to handle
various aspects of the
crisis. It will not be the business of a few wise
men, you need an entire
marshalling of resources and the international
community should lend support
to that effort of reconstruction without
imposing policy conditions that
will be harmful to our ability to turn
around.
And we must stop the
resource outflow. Wilf has alluded to platinum, gold,
diamonds and other
resources that are being pillaged in this moment whilst
the country is
pleading for international help. I think there needs to be
something done
immediately to stop the plunder of the very precious
resources of the
country.
VG: And Wilf?
WM: What I would say finally Violet the
people are suffering and people
might say they have no access to food, no
access to healthcare, no access to
their cash but most importantly they no
longer have any access to their
life, they have no access to life. It is as
bad as that, people no longer
have access to life. And we must address this
issue by mobilising all
democratic forces in Zimbabwe. Civil society
together with the political
parties to demand, to apply sufficient pressure,
not only to Robert Mugabe -
Robert Mugabe is not that powerful, he is very
vulnerable. He had his
one-man election on the 27th of June and he had
himself sworn in and
everybody said 'to hell with that' and he didn't argue
with that. He didn't
challenge.
What we need is a principled stand
by everybody - SADC, African Union and us
Zimbabweans taking the lead. That
way we mobilise Africa, we take the issue
to the United Nations because this
is too serious, it's about the lives of
people. We have no time, no luxury
to tinker around this power sharing
agreement, this minute when people are
dying. We are long gone past that.
VG: Wilf Mhanda and Brian Kagoro,
thank you very much.
WM: Thank you.
BK: You are welcome
Violet.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8530
December 8, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
BULAWAYO - Zanu-PF political commissar Elliot Manyika died
while receiving
treatment six hours after he was admitted to the
Catholic-run Mater Dei
Hospital in Bulawayo after his vehicle rolled several
times.
Information obtained by The Zimbabwe Times suggests that he did
not die soon
after admission as reported in the state media. Doctors had, in
fact,
battled for six hours to save his life when died after 7pm. He was
admitted
to the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital as initially reported
by The
Zimbabwe Times before the police told the official media a different
story.
Police spokesperson Andrew Phiri told the state-run Sunday Mail
and the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) that Manyika was admitted at
7pm on
Saturday and died soon afterwards.
However, The Zimbabwe Times
has established that the former Minister without
Portfolio and Zanu-PF
political commissar and election manager was admitted
to Mater Dei just
before 1pm, and not at 7pm.
Sources said Manyika was in a critical
condition after he involved in the
accident about 145 kilometres from
Mbalabala. He was on his way to Gwanda,
the Matabeleland South capital when
the accident occurred just before 11am.
A tyre on Manyika's Mercedes
official Mercedes Benz is said to have burst.
The distance from the scene
of the accident to Bulawayo is about 1 hour 30
minutes, but Phiri said it
took over six hours to drive the injured Manyika
to the Bulawayo
hospital.
A doctor at Mater Dei said: "Manyika was admitted in the
Intensive Care Unit
of the hospital just before the lunch hour. His
condition was critical. He
only passed away at 7.30pm from the wounds
sustained at the accident.
Doctors failed to save him."
Another
doctor added: "His condition was bad. He could not talk, efforts
over six
hour to save him failed."
Phiri could not be reached for
comment.
State media reports on Monday said police had launched an
investigation into
the accident.
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF's politburo
decided Monday to inter Manyika's remains at
the National Heroes' Acre on
Thursday.
Zanu-PF deputy spokesperson Cde Ephraim Masawi made the
announcement
following an extraordinary meeting at the party's
headquarters.
"The Politburo unanimously agreed that Cde Manyika should
be accorded
national hero status," he said.
Both Masawi and Manyika
were both accused on spearheading violence in the
Mashonaland central
Province of the presidential election re-run in June,
2008.
Manyika
died at a time when he was under growing criticism from disgruntled
Zanu-PF
members who allegedly were barred by him from contesting the party's
provincial executive elections.
The elections are part of the Zanu-PF
restructuring exercise ahead of the
party's annual conference next week
http://www.nehandaradio.com
08 December 2008
By
Fortune Tazvida
Elson Manyika the brother of Elliot Manyika- the Zanu PF
political commissar
killed in a car crash this past Saturday has apparently
requested a meeting
with President Robert Mugabe in the next few days to
clarify circumstances
surrounding the death of his brother.
Nehanda
Radio understands there was drama at Manyika's Linabos Farm outside
Bindura
when members of Zanu PF's politburo led by Vice President Joice
Mujuru went
to visit the Manyika family. Elson is said to have fired a
volley of
accusations that his brother had been assassinated the same way
Border Gezi
another Minister was killed several years ago.
Manyika died in a horrific
car accident on Saturday morning while on his way
to a meeting in Gwanda. He
was due to preside over elections for a new
executive in Matabeleland South
province. His official Mercedes-Benz vehicle
burst a tyre on the
Zvishavane-Mbalabala road, resulting in the driver
losing
control.
The car over-turned and uprooted some trees. He was trapped for
a time in
the vehicle, together with the driver, before they were both
whisked to
Bulawayo's Mater Dei hospital by a doctor who happened to be
passing by.
Manyika later died from his injuries, but his driver is expected
to make a
full recovery.
At the centre of the new drama is how a
government doctor happened to be in
the vicinity of the crash. Coincidence,
or planned in advance, the family is
posing this question in light of
reports that Manyika was still talking soon
after the crash but died later
after being taken to the hospital.
The family is also questioning whether
the doctor single handedly rescued
Manyika from the wreckage. Their theory
might be far-fetched but the level
of suspicion highlights the disharmony
within Zanu PF and how Manyika's
death is not going down lightly with the
family.
Meanwhile Manyika's body arrived in Harare Sunday evening. It was
received
at Manyame Airbase by Ministers Nicholas Goche, Sydney Sekeramayi,
Edward
Raradza and Army General General Constantine Chiwenga.
Manyika
is survived by his wife Madeline and five children - Ronald,
Belinda, Joan,
Linda and Maureen.
http://www.nehandaradio.com
08 December 2008
By
Fortune Tazvida
Former US President Jimmy Carter has taken the issue of
Jestina Mukoko's
abduction by state agents in Zimbabwe to the United
Nations. Carter made the
disclosure in an interview with VOA journalist
Blessing Zulu this week.
Carter who is part of the respected Elders Group
condemned the abduction.
Only last month a visit by Carter, Former UN Chief
Kofi Annan and former
Mozambican first lady Graca Machel was blocked by
Zimbabwean authorities who
claimed 'the unemployed busy bodies were up to no
good.'
Instead the group travelled to neighbouring South Africa where
they assessed
the situation from across the border speaking to various
groups and exiles
in the country. They later released a scathing
condemnation of the situation
in Zimbabwe. The latest abductions have
higlighted just how desperate the
regime has become.
On Monday two of
Mukoko's work mates were also kidnapped at their offices by
six men in
unmarked cars. One of the targeted workers managed to escape and
has gone
into hiding. Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Zimbabwe National
Students Union,
and the National Association of Non-Governmental
Organizations confirmed the
kidnappings.
Meanwhile NANGO has released a statement on the abductions
saying it now
worries for her life.
'It is also day five since the
arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention of
thirty three Civil Society
Activists in Gweru. Hundreds of other prisoners
of conscience remain
incarcerated in various centers around Zimbabwe. These
prisoners are the
victims of the State's implementation of a host of
repressive pieces of
legislation that threaten not only democracy but the
enjoyment of
fundamental freedoms in Zimbabwe.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 9, 2008; Page
A19
What I would like to do -- not that you've asked -- is have a
Predator drone
circle over Robert Mugabe's luxurious villa until this
monster of a dictator
who has brought such misery to Zimbabwe runs screaming
from his home and
into the arms of his own people. What happens after that
is none of my
business.
I do not mean to sound harsh or cruel, but
when I say that what happens to
Mugabe is none of my business, it is because
it already appears to be almost
no one's business. The United States, along
with much of the world,
disapproves of him and has levied sanctions on his
regime -- but nothing
more than that. None of this has stopped him from
killing, beating and
jailing his opponents, ruining this once-verdant
country so that people
starve, medicines are rare and a cholera epidemic
rages.
Zimbabwe has almost literally come apart. Mugabe, the onetime
freedom
fighter, expropriated the white-owned farms that were his country's
breadbasket and awarded them to his cronies. He had something of an argument
for doing so, since the farms themselves were the fruits of colonialism.
Still, some time had passed, and appropriate compensation would have been
nice.
It is Zimbabwe's misfortune that Mugabe's cronies are lousy
farmers. Over
the past eight years, agricultural production has fallen by
four-fifths, and
just about every economic catastrophe known to man has
taken hold.
Unemployment is so high (85 percent) that there is almost no
such thing as
employment, and the inflation rate, while a state secret, is
estimated at
beyond estimation -- in the billions of percent. In case you're
not good
with figures, that's high.
These calamities are certainly
the work of one man. If Mugabe were gone,
chances are the situation would
improve -- although I am aware that removing
Saddam Hussein initially made
things worse in Iraq. I am aware, too, that
deposing foreign leaders breaks
all sorts of international understandings.
Still, the man's a thug, and
thugs should be dealt with.
I went back to John F. Kennedy's inaugural
address for inspiration. This is
the speech that is so often emulated, the
one with all those ringing
phrases. One of them -- the one that starts with
the familiar "Let the word
go forth" -- ends with a pledge to not "permit
the slow undoing of those
human rights to which this nation has always been
committed, and to which we
are committed today at home and around the
world." In other words, we were
not going to put up with the likes of a
Mugabe.
Kennedy's words were stirring, but they arguably led to our
involvement in
the Vietnam War and much else that was bad. The war in Iraq
has taught the
virtues of "realism" in foreign policy -- a term that often
conceals cold
indifference, or the asinine belief that knowing better is a
form of
colonialism.
Mugabe is no fool. He knows the fight has gone
out of us. He has killed his
opponents in broad daylight. He has tortured
children. Last June, he went to
Rome to attend a conference on famine, of
all things, staying at the
five-star Ambasciatori Palace Hotel. It was
obscene, a finger to the world.
The world tsk-tsked, and South Africa, the
one state in the region with any
muscle, has been vigorously ineffective. It
preaches noninterference, which,
lucky for it, was not what apartheid's
international foes once preached.
In Zimbabwe, doctors and nurses
protested the appalling conditions in the
hospitals, and the police
responded by beating some of them. The country is
going backward at an
astonishing rate. It has one of the world's lowest life
expectancies (44 for
men and 43 for women), and the number of women dying in
childbirth has
doubled in recent years. Now comes cholera -- preventable,
curable but
killing all the same. It is a disease, certainly, but also an
indictment of
a man who has led his country to ruin.
Condi Rice routinely condemns
Mugabe. Much of the rest of the world does,
too. Yet he persists, using his
security forces and the wise dispersion of
graft to remain in power. The
example of Iraq forbids the United States to
act. We are all realists now.
Our grand cause is to have none at all. Still,
a single Predator could do
wonders. At the very least, it would lift the
shame.
cohenr@washpost.com
http://www.mg.co.za
NIC DAWES: COMMENT - Dec 09 2008 06:00
We've been saying it for
so long that it has lost its meaning: "Zimbabwe is
on the verge of
collapse." We must now acknowledge that the country is no
longer on the
brink -- it has tipped into the abyss, even as we watch in a
kind of stunned
quiescence.
Zimbabwe has been dysfunctional for a long time now, its
democracy starved
of oxygen, its economy driven into ruin and its people
preyed upon by a
corrupt elite of politicians and their cronies. Since 2001
citizens have had
to cope with a gradual ratcheting up of oppression and of
material
privation, learning to cope as their salaries shrank along with
their
freedom, or fleeing to South Africa, the United Kingdom or
Botswana.
All the while Robert Mugabe's inner circle, the military and
the racketeers
who are their enablers, grew rich off the shadow
economy.
Opposition, led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for
Democratic Change,
has been incoherent and grossly incapable of managing the
urgency of the
situation.
It has been convenient for those not
wishing to intervene, or to openly
denounce the Mugabe government, to refer
to the country's "imminent"
collapse -- convenient because it has allowed
endless prattle about finding
local solutions to local problems.
None
of that is good enough anymore. The evidence is clear: a line was
crossed
some time ago and Zimbabwe no longer has the rudiments of a
functioning
state.
The three most obvious signals are the cholera outbreak, rioting
by angry
soldiers and the total dysfunction of the monetary system. All of
these
matters are the final outcomes of slow but tolerable decline, which
has now
tipped over into disaster.
The 12 545 cases of cholera that
the United Nations says have been recorded
since August are a direct
consequence of decaying municipal infrastructure
and a health system that
can no longer offer basic services. This week NGO
officials warned of the
worst outbreak of anthrax in three decades, the
result of desperate people
eating the meat of infected animals.
Water reticulation and sewerage have
long been in trouble, with many
Zimbabweans, even in affluent areas, making
do with bucket bathing and
rudimentary drinking-water arrangements. The
capital has now been almost
entirely without water since
Sunday.
Meanwhile, major hospitals such as Harare General are closed for
lack of
doctors and drugs. On Wednesday health workers protesting against
the
government's handling of the crisis were baton-charged by
police.
The epidemic is not a random misfortune -- it is a product of
state failure.
Similarly, the cash shortage that prevents Zimbabweans
from drawing enough
from their bank accounts to live on -- even if they have
it -- and
meaninglessly high inflation is the logical endpoint of chronic
economic
mismanagement. Only foreign exchange will buy you anything of value
now, and
not even the state airline or the customs service will accept
payment in
Zimbabwean dollars.
Last week, for the first time, cracks
in military discipline, the bulwark of
the Mugabe regime, began to show as
discontent by soldiers about the cash
shortage turned into a wave of
looting. It is now rumoured that some of them
have been executed.
It
might have been a limited show of dissent, but it was surely a sign of
what
must come. Soldiers are now suffering the same hardships as civilians,
and
confining them to the barracks, where reports say there are serious food
shortages, will hardly soothe their tempers.
The rest of the state
system is not doing much better. Blackouts now last
for days rather than
hours. The education system -- one of Zimbabwe's
proudest achievementsand
the source of its extraordinary human capital --
operates at a fraction of
its capacity. School holidays have begun, but many
schools have long been
closed already.
Teachers' salaries are not enough to pay for their
transport to work and
parents cannot pay for lunches or bus fare.
The
political solution that could have forestalled all this in the immediate
wake of the March election now seems impossibly far off. Former president
Thabo Mbeki's power-sharing deal is dead.
President Kgalema Motlanthe
and some of his SADC colleagues are a little
more critical than Mbeki was
prepared to be, but they carry nothing
resembling a stick. Tsvangirai seems
at a loss for ways to lead his people,
squabbling over travel documents and
protocol instead of organising
effective resistance.
South Africans
watch in horror, as if their neighbours were in extremis on
the remote shore
of some unbridgeable gulf, but do little. The African Union
stands by and
does nothing, while the rest of the international community
protests loudly
to mask its powerlessness.
Let us start by admitting that the emergency
has come, and with it the time
for emergency measures. That does not mean
invasion, but it does mean
large-scale humanitarian intervention, led by UN
agencies, against the will
of the government if necessary, and certainly not
under its control. And for
the MDC it should mean a new and much more
vigorous phase of opposition.
http://www.investors.com
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted
12/8/2008
Africa: Another humanitarian crisis has hit Zimbabwe, where
hundreds, maybe
thousands, are dying from cholera. Will its Marxist
president ever be held
responsible?
Though it can be deadly, cholera
is not a rare, untreatable disease. Clean
water, and in severe cases,
intravenous rehydration and antibiotics, all
available in today's world,
will cure individual cases and shut down
epidemics. It is easily prevented
through proper sanitation practices.
Yet at least 575 of the 12,700 who
have been infected since Zimbabwe's
epidemic began in August have died, the
United Nations says. The true count,
however, could be more than twice that.
Aid groups say deaths at home are
often not officially recorded, and they
reckon as many as 10% of those
infected could have perished.
Robert
Mugabe, once hailed as a hero who helped the country gain
independence, has
destroyed his nation. It is the anteroom to Hades.
Before he took power
in 1980, Zimbabwe was a wealthy, breadbasket nation, a
net exporter that now
has to rely on food aid.
A land redistribution policy in 2000 that
authorized the seizure of farms
from productive owners pushed the country
into the abyss. It led to plunging
agricultural exports - as well as chaos
and violence - which has had a
profoundly negative effect on the
economy.
But land redistribution was just one of a number of crushing
policies. The
country's unemployment is roughly 80%. Food and fuel shortages
are now part
of daily life for most.
Inflation has made currency
virtually worthless. The Zimbabwe dollar lost
half of its value every five
to 10 minutes on Friday with new issues of
money by the nation's reserve
bank. Prices of goods reportedly double every
24 hours. The inflation rate
is an unfathomable 231 million percent.
Besides inflicting economic,
nutritional and health miseries on his people,
Mugabe has cracked down
politically, stealing elections and jailing - if not
killing - opponents,
destroying their homes and businesses.
On Sunday, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice reiterated U.S. calls for the
release of Zimbabwean
opposition leaders arrested and beaten in a protest
near the capital of
Harare. Rice said the incident shows the "ruthless and
repressive" nature of
the Mugabe regime.
Desmond Tutu, the South African cleric and peace
activist, told Dutch
current affairs show Nova last week that African
nations should use military
force to remove Mugabe from power if he refuses
to give up power.
Tutu's been wrong a few times in the last two decades.
But he's right on
this one, as he was on apartheid. Forget the excuse that
Zimbabwe is a
sovereign state that should be free of outsider meddling.
Reversing the
chronic humanitarian crisis in the country requires unusual
measures.
European leaders, too long unwilling to lead by taking
politically incorrect
positions, have read the winds and finally gathered
the courage to say what
should have been said years ago.
Among them
is France's Nicolas Sarkozy. His predecessor, Jacques Chirac,
once welcomed
Mugabe at a Franco-African human rights summit as an honored
guest. But as
European foreign ministers met in Brussels this week to
discuss the Zimbabwe
problem, President Sarkozy said Mugabe has taken his
people hostage and
"must go."
"Enough is enough," added British Prime Minister Gordon Brown,
while
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana says "the moment has
arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down."
That
pressure should come from Mugabe's African neighbors backed by
unmistakable
support from the West. It will come late for the many who have
already died.
But it can't come too soon to save millions more.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
December
9, 2008
South Africa must start co-ordinating
international intervention
A team of South African officials arrived in
Zimbabwe yesterday to assess
the humanitarian catastrophe and see what aid
should be sent to halt the
cholera outbreak threatening to engulf southern
Africa. They will not need
to look far. All around they will see the
evidence of the mismanagement,
corruption and repression that have brought
Zimbabwe to the edge of ruin:
children with kwashiorkor, farms reverting to
scrub, hospitals and schools
closed, sewage running down the streets and the
most horrific indicator of
social and economic breakdown - the bodies of
cholera victims being
collected for burial.
The South Africans will
report back to President Motlanthe so that the
Cabinet can consider an aid
package tomorrow. They already know, however,
that the need is bottomless.
It is not just for water treatment plants to
stem a disease that has killed
eight victims within South Africa and could
spread fast as infected refugees
cross the border; it is for the
rehabilitation of a ruined economy and
infrastructure.
Above all, the need is the immediate removal of the
perpetrator of this
evil, President Mugabe. The calls coming from Africa for
his overthrow were
yesterday echoed and amplified. David Cameron called on
him to "go now".
President Sarkozy, speaking for the European Union, said
that Zimbabwe had
suffered enough. But angry repetitions of earlier calls
will have little
effect - although they must be repeated, day in, day out,
until all of
Africa understands the enormity of what is happening in
Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe
is impervious to foreign pressure. The military elite is
too implicated in
his crimes and Zimbabweans too cowed and desperate to rise
up against him.
The world instead must look for leverage.
It should
start with South Africa. Years have been wasted by the former
President
Mbeki's pusillanimous diplomacy and refusal to condemn the tyrant
across the
border. Mr Motlanthe has already signalled a tougher line. Two
weeks ago the
Cabinet announced that it was witholding aid for Zimbabwe's
collapsing
agriculture until Mr Mugabe agreed to share power. A more
effective step
would be to cut off oil and electricity. An immediate halt to
remaining
power supplies would hurt even the Mugabe inner circle and
military
commanders. This means halting private sales of fuel, ensuring that
the
promised ban on electricity exports is upheld and persuading Mozambique
to
bar the continuing import of oil from China and the Middle East through
Maputo.
There is something shameful in the contrast between Kenya's
calls for Mr
Mugabe's overthrow and South Africa's reluctance still to turn
its back on
the old dictator. South Africa needs to end the chaos across its
border not
only to justify its claims to be a leading African power and
contender for a
UN Security Council seat, but to protect its own stability
and security -
from a fresh wave of refugees and now from a cholera
epidemic. It has the
means, logistics and military back-up to lead any
international intervention
force. It should now be co-ordinating the
proposed moves by the African
Union and responding to the calls, from
refugees and many South Africans, to
rid the continent of this
tyrant.
Mr Mugabe has always played for time. He believes that the world
will again
weary of his intransigence and turn its attention elsewhere. This
time it
will not do.
Editorial
The Guardian, Tuesday December 9
2008
Robert Mugabe, even at this late and disastrous stage in his
political
career, is filled with a dreadful self-belief. He has for years
now been not
so much running his country as running it into the ground. Yet
he holds his
party and government in a grip which it has so far proved
impossible to
break. It has been obvious for a long time that the best hope
for change in
Zimbabwe is to separate him and his close associates from the
rest of his
establishment. Surely, when those in the middle ranks of the
party, army,
police, and business community study their interests, they must
know that
their prospects of surviving into a new era with some of their
assets and
privileges intact will be much greater if they help force the old
man out.
Fear of Mugabe, fear of an opposition which might not deliver on
its
promises of immunity, and fear of an angry people who might tear them
apart,
have so far held them back. But even this cowed and corrupted
constituency
must have a breaking point. We may finally be approaching it,
as Zimbabwe
struggles with an outbreak of cholera that has again brought it
to world
attention, as ordinary soldiers riot, and as the Central Bank
reportedly
contemplates selling off the country's diamond fields to
Russia.
But it has to be added that Mugabe's last days have been often
foretold. The
rhetoric of John Sentamu or Desmond Tutu, however passionate,
will not move
him from power, nor will the condemnations of western
politicians like
Gordon Brown. Indicting Mugabe in the international
criminal court may be
justified but it might postpone rather than hasten the
end. Threats of
military intervention are empty, since western countries
have never
seriously contemplated it, still less African states, who in any
case lack
the means. South Africa could certainly make things worse in
Zimbabwe, by
cutting off or reducing fuel supplies or by closing the border,
perhaps on
the basis that it must guard against the spread of cholera. But
what if that
did not bring about a swift collapse of the regime but only an
intensification of the sufferings of ordinary
Zimbabweans?
Negotiation remains the best hope. It is true that talks
between the
parties, with the help of outside mediators, led only to a
power-sharing
agreement that Mugabe manipulated, amended, and finally
discarded. But the
negotiations which matter most are those behind the
scenes, aiming to peel
off those supporters of the regime who are not too
compromised, who fear for
their own future, and who can be brought to a
point of rebellion or at least
of neutrality. This week's Zanu-PF
conference, which many believe will
reveal a demoralised and depressed
party, may give us some idea of how close
we are to the tipping
point.
----
Comments
heavyrail
Dec 09 08,
1:16am (about 5 hours ago)
A good start would be to remind him that
he's replicated all the worst
features of the British Empire he so
hates!
Auric
Dec 09 08, 4:44am (about 2 hours
ago)
Heavyrail
Yes, that will be very effective. I`m sure
he`ll resign right away if you
tell him that. Why not just e-mail him now to
save delay?
goldengate
Dec 09 08, 5:44am (59 minutes
ago)
Just a freaking megalomaniac, compulsive-obsessive, sociopath that
the
west has allowed to fester too long and his own kind African Leaders
have
pandered and done nothing to stop. All these calls for the SOB to step
down
fall on deaf years. The menace should have removed by force or an
accident
arranged when ever he was away from his hamlet.
It is
reasonable to assume that he not the only one, but has an entourage,
cohorts
and cronies, who all need to hanged.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by
Tafadzwa Mutasa Tuesday 09 December 2008
HARARE - Growing
calls by the West for President Robert Mugabe to step down
will increase
pressure on the Zimbabwean leader but he is likely to dig in
and analysts
said only diplomatic intervention from African peers could
force him to
change direction and share genuine power with the opposition.
The
European Union and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday added
their
voice to a growing chorus of world leaders and eminent persons calling
on
Mugabe to resign over an economic meltdown and humanitarian catastrophe
that
has left about 600 people dead from a cholera outbreak and thousands
more
infected.
"I think the moment has arrived to put all the pressure for
Mugabe to step
down. Everything that can be done has been done. The
important thing is the
political pressure now," EU foreign policy head
Javier Solana said.
French President Sarkozy was more critical, adding;
"I say today that
President Mugabe must go. Zimbabwe has suffered
enough."
But analysts said this would only cause irritation to Mugabe,
whose southern
African state has been isolated by the West for nearly a
decade over
accusations of rigging elections, human rights abuses and a
disastrous land
seizure drive that forced thousands of white-owned farmers
off the land in
favour of blacks.
Mugabe, 84 and ever defiant after
winning a bloody one-man presidential
run-off election in June that was not
recognised by even his African
colleagues, accuses Britain of rallying other
Western nations to topple him
from power as punishment for seizing land from
whites.
Analysts said Mugabe would ride the criticism but that a
worsening
humanitarian crisis and growing economic woes marked by daily
price hikes, a
worthless currency that have seen inflation spike to a modern
day record of
231 million, could in the end drive him from power.
"I
do not see Mugabe shifting ground or changing any of his ways or even
conceding ground to the MDC (opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai),"
John Makumbe, a University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer and Mugabe
critic said.
"We need to hear more voices from African countries,
from the SADC members,
that is the only way he can change his evil ways,"
said Makumbe.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Sunday chided African
leaders for
failing to take action against Mugabe, and urged them to hold an
emergency
summit to pass a resolution to send troops into Zimbabwe to deal
with the
escalating crisis.
Last week US secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice said Mugabe's time was up
and British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown branded the Harare government a
"blood-stained regime".
Phandu
Skelemani, the Foreign Minister of Botswana, which does not recognise
Mugabe's re-election in June and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a
Nobel laureate, have all called for Mugabe's ouster.
Mugabe's
information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said the West had no right
to call on
the veteran leader to step down.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
said in a statement issued by the
Elders, a group of prominent figures that
includes ex-US President Jimmy
Carter and Tutu that there was "bitter
disappointment in the current
leadership".
"Zimbabwe is a sovereign
state, with a president elected in accordance with
the constitution of
Zimbabwe. No foreign leader, regardless of how powerful
they are, has the
right to call on him to step down on their whim," Ndlovu
told the
media.
The international community has for long agonised over how to
effectively
deal with Mugabe who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from
Britain in
1980 and is locked in a dispute with MDC chief Morgan Tsvangirai
over how to
share cabinet seats in a power-sharing deal. - ZimOnline
http://www.journal-online.co.uk
With the country already in virtual meltdown, Zimbabwe
now faces a cholera
epidemic - and an effective response will not come
cheap
Charles Abani
Tuesday 09 December 2008, The Journal Issue
15
Zimbabwe's people, already seriously weakened by lack of food, are in
grave
danger as a cholera epidemic sweeps the country. To date there have
been
almost 13,000 cholera cases reported, but with poor communications,
particularly in rural areas, we fear the real numbers are much
higher.
The epidemic is spreading fast, and although Oxfam and other aid
agencies
are doing all we can to contain the disease, the unfortunate
reality is that
things are likely to get a lot worse before they get better.
We are now at
the beginning of the rainy season in southern Africa. As
cholera is a
water-borne disease, rain will aid the spread of cholera much
faster, and
further. Already, we are seeing cases being reported in
neighbouring South
Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia. With the onset
of the rains and the
continuing deterioration of water and sanitation
infrastructure, there is a
real fear that the epidemic could engulf the
country.
In Oxfam's view it took too long for the Zimbabwean government to
acknowledge the scale and extent of the problem, but we welcome their recent
admission of a national health emergency, and calls for assistance.
At
this point, international donors need to respond much more urgently to
humanitarian needs in Zimbabwe. All options to halt the spread of cholera
need to be addressed quickly, including the provision of good medical care,
raising awareness on cholera prevention, as well as ensuring that at-risk
populations have access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene materials
such as soap and jerry cans.
Our staff in Zimbabwe report that many
people are eating just one meal every
few days, and this has been the case
for months. With inflation running
rampant, even the small minority who a
lucky enough to be employed aren't
able to access food - crops have failed,
and shops are empty. They are
hungry, weak, and vulnerable to infection. The
World Food Programme and its
partners were forced to cut the food rations
being distributed during
November due to the lack of resources being
committed by donors. Indications
are that close to half the population will
urgently need food aid by
January.
The global average cholera Case
Fatality Rate is 1 per cent - 1 per cent of
people infected with cholera
die. However in Zimbabwe we are now seeing
fatality rates of between 8 and
10 per cent. The tragedy of this situation
is that cholera is ordinarily
easily treated. All it takes is a rehydration
salts and some clean water.
But for people who don't have food, who in many
cases are living with HIV
and AIDS, and who don't have access to medical
care, contracting cholera can
be a deadly blow.
Oxfam's cholera response is focusing on three worst hit
areas: Beitbridge on
the South African border; Budiriro, a suburb of Harare;
and Mudzi, an area
bordering Mozambique. We also plan to start moving into
areas where cholera
has not hit, to proactively prevent the spread of the
disease. In addition,
working with the WFP, we are distributing 12,000
metric tones of maize meal,
vegetable oil and pulses.
Oxfam is targeting
500,000 people in our cholera response, and reaching
250,000 vulnerable
people through our food aid programme. We are working
with Zimbabwean
partners and coordinating our response with other aid
agencies.
However,
unless the international community steps up to provide money for
not only
the cholera crisis, but the food crisis, the already dire situation
will get
much worse. No-one should wait for a political solution in Zimbabwe
before
pledging to help - let's not leave it too late for millions of
vulnerable
Zimbabweans.
Charles Abani is the regional director for Oxfam in southern
Africa
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Mutumwa Mawere Tuesday 09
December 2008
OPINION: In times of trouble, the role of
leadership cannot be overstated
and yet informed and enlightened leadership
is causally and directly linked
to the participation of the
followers.
A leader whose source of legitimacy is the people can only be
as good as the
people who create him. The more organised the citizens are
the more they can
take ownership of their future.
I have often
observed that the only power that people who do not have real
power have is
the power to organise and it can be said that organised people
have a better
capacity to supervise their leaders.
Zimbabwe has been in trouble not
only politically but also economically for
the longest period and yet each
day brings its own surprises and nightmares.
With a future uncertain, the
role of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) in
promoting or undermining the
economic security of the country will continue
to be a subject of future
conversations.
Unlike the current global economic downturn, the
Zimbabwean economic crisis
has its own dimension and it would be wrong to
attribute the crisis purely
to the targeted sanctions imposed by the
West.
My own personal journey as a leader in business did not originate
from any
elections but was a result of a transaction negotiated on a
willing-buyer
willing-seller basis.
I knew then that the power that
was conferred on me as a result of the
transaction was perpetual and yet
without a proper understanding of my
obligations this could easily have
confused me.
What was also clear to me was that it was important to put
the whole
experience into perspective. Immediately after the acquisition, I
knew many
of the people who now wanted to know me had their own agendas and
only
needed me to pursue their own ends.
Even the people I had the
privilege to work with who knew the true nature of
the transaction and my
obligations to the seller still could not be honest
to share the
information.
When I entered mainstream business in 1996, I had no one to
guide me or to
look up as I took the leadership of Shabanie and Mashaba
Mines (Private)
Limited (SMM).
I had no friends or family who had
occupied the same position of being a
controlling shareholder of a major
asset that had about 9 000 employees
depending on the decisions I had to
make.
I knew then as I still do that there is difference between
acquiring a going
concern than setting up a new enterprise.
The need
for a support system cannot be overstated and yet it is difficult
to locate
honest friends and colleagues who can guide you at the top when
the same
people often need to benefit from your ignorance.
I had the privilege of
presiding over a company with a long heritage and all
that I needed to do
was to raise the bar while not attempting to undermine
the core of the
business model.
I had the choice of packing SMM with my relatives and
friends but chose to
populate the company with professionals in the
expectation that such
professionals would stand their own ground in the
promotion and protection
of the company and not in trying to please
me.
However, human beings want generally to be close to those in power
and when
things go wrong the same people who benefit from such power are the
ones to
blame the leader.
Having gone through the experience, I have
of late heard from people who
have been silent over the last four years and
when they heard that I had won
the case in the United Kingdom, I was not
surprised to receive
congratulatory messages.
Some of the calls are
genuine while others are in anticipation of jobs,
contracts, and other
similar engagements in the event that control of SMM is
restored to
me.
I also had the choice of becoming an executive of the company and
lead from
the front but I chose to appoint other people to take the lead.
Notwithstanding, it was difficult for many to appreciate that the control of
the companies was in the hands of the executives in charge and it was not
unusual for people to contact me directly for decisions that could and
should have been made by executives.
The leader's time is often
unfairly occupied dealing with issues that can be
dealt with by other
people. People generally want to deal with the leader
and not the followers
to the extent that most African leaders' time is not
productively
deployed.
Prior to the acquisition of SMM, I spent time trying to
understand the
company's business model and what I needed to do to advance
the company's
interests. I knew then that the only people that mattered were
the company's
stakeholders with the customers at the top of the
list.
I was not confused about what I needed to do. While at the World
Bank, I had
often observed that many of the leaders of nations often become
lonely in
office because they have no one to talk to about the challenges
and
opportunities facing their countries.
Many of Africa's leaders
find themselves lonely not least because the
institution of government is a
foreign construction but when they do make
mistakes none of the
contemporaries can counsel them.
There is no support system for African
leaders and this deficiency makes it
impossible for citizens to get the
government they deserve.
My own experience in the private sector has also
exposed the challenges of
institution building, especially when people
generally have no appetite to
tell someone they perceive to be powerful when
they go wrong.
The propensity to blame the leader is higher in developing
countries.
However, most of the leaders can only be as good as the
followers. In any
event, no leader has more time in a day than his followers
and can only do
so much.
Successful organisations are only a result
of the efforts of the people that
work in such
organisations.
Although times have changed, President Robert Mugabe
continues to be at the
helm. The skills and experience to run Zimbabwe in
these troubling times may
not be resident in him but the country has no
choice but to continue to
endure more pain.
Mugabe, like I, had no
preparation for the kind of responsibilities that he
assumed in 1980. He had
no one to look up to since he already did not hold
his predecessors in high
esteem. His comrades were not prepared as well to
support him.
To
build a successful and enduring democratic system requires interested
people
to underpin it.
Regrettably, in the case of Zimbabwe, citizens expected
too much from their
leaders who were less prepared to lead an organised
state bureaucracy.
My journey into the corporate world has taught me a
lot of lessons about
human behavior. The very people who want you to make
decisions in their
favour are the first one to blame you for making such
decisions.
Can a president who does not know what he has to do be trusted
to build a
team that can deliver value?
Mugabe, for example, was
never a minister in any government when he first
became prime minister and
yet he was expected to supervise his ministers and
other government
functionaries.
Many who have seen Gideon Gono assume more powers than his
predecessors
often wonder why this is the case. Some have speculated that he
is closer to
Mugabe, having been his personal banker.
However, it
would be more accurate to say that Gono unlike Mugabe had the
benefit of
having two living former governors to look up to and yet it is
obvious that
no attempt has been made to benefit from their experience.
When Gono was
appointed, he proceeded to behave like Mugabe when he assumed
the role of
prime minister. He became the jack-of-all-trades to the extent
that he has
transformed the RBZ into a super state.
It is obvious that Gono like
Mugabe has no one to counsel him.
Gono's behaviour since appointment
confirms his limited understanding of the
role of a governor of a
functioning state institution. The RBZ is a people's
project and should be
managed in a manner that promotes and protects its
integrity.
It is
evident that Mugabe has abdicated all his responsibilities as head of
state
not because he wants it this way but he does not know how to supervise
a
person like Gono who also does not understand his responsibilities.
If
Mugabe understood the proper role of the state and its direct dependency
on
citizens then he would be a good servant. However, people have made
Mugabe
believe that he has all the answers when he also does not fully
comprehend
what he has to do.
The change agenda in Zimbabwe has focused on one man.
But even if Mugabe
were to leave office today, the next leader will most
certainly fall victim
to the same disease. People generally only want to
tell their leaders what
they think they want to hear.
For change to
be sustainable it must be holistic and must come from the
individual then to
family and then to community and the nation at large.
We generally expect
other people to lead the change agenda and yet it should
start with
ourselves. We often blame leaders for doing the very things that
we
encourage them to do for self-interest.
Zimbabwe's prospects will not
change solely because of leadership changes
but will materially change when
people invest in the change they want to
see. Leaders can never make people
do things they do now want to do but can
inspire them to do
more.
Citizenship has its own obligations and leadership can never
absolve
citizens from investing in the kind of changes they want to see. -
ZimOnline
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com
(Nigeria)
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
As Zimbabwe struggles to cope with the outbreak of cholera, time may
be
running out for President Robert Mugabe as world leaders have been
clamouring for a decisive action to be taken against him.
By Nike
Sotade, with agency reports
Zimbabwe is on the brink of collapse,
battered by economic chaos and
weakened by disease, world leaders have
warned.
South Africa's president Kgalema Motlanthe said the situation
"may implode
and collapse" and announced a new round of talks to help
resolve the crisis.
And former US president Jimmy Carter announced the
situation there was "much
worse than anything we ever imagined".
The
warnings came as a cholera epidemic caused by Zimbabawe's political and
economic collapse killed hundreds of Zimbabweans and spilled across the
border into South Africa.
Mr Motlanthe and the leader of the
country's ruling party, Jacob Zuma,
expressed grave concern at Zimbabwe's
deepening humanitarian crisis.
"Unless this root cause of the political
absence of a legitimate government
is solved, the situation will get worse
and may implode and collapse," Mr
Motlanthe said.
Zimbabwe has been
enmeshed in a political deadlock since opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai
won majority votes in the March presidential election but
not enough to
avoid a run-off. Long-standing president Robert Mugabe claimed
victory in
the June run-off after Mr Tsvangirai dropped out over violence
aimed at his
supporters.
The two agreed in September to share power but the talks have
stalled over
the allocation of Cabinet posts, with the opposition accusing
Mugabe of
trying to hold on to key positions. Mediation led by former South
African
president Thabo Mbeki would soon resume and centre on a
constitutional
amendment to allow a power-sharing government.
Mr
Zuma, the African National Congress leader who is likely to be the
country's
next president, said that a team would be sent "soon" to Zimbabwe.
South
Africa's harder stance against Mugabe, was welcomed by Mr Carter,
former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and children's advocate Graca Machel.
The three
are part of a group called The Elders that was formed by former
South
African president Nelson Mandela to help foster peace.
They had planned
to visit Zimbabwe penultimate weekend on a humanitarian
mission but Mugabe's
government refused to give them visas, saying the trip
had not been
coordinated with the government beforehand.
Instead, they met with
charities and civil leaders from Zimbabwe in
neighbouring South Africa. Mr
Carter said the stories they heard on the
collapse of education, health and
agriculture "are all indications that the
crisis in Zimbabwe is much worse
than anything we ever imagined".
He added: "The leadership in Harare
don't want to admit there is a crisis."
Adding to the implied criticism
of regional leaders, he said: "I get the
feeling that even the leaders of
SADC (the Southern African Development
Community) do not know what is going
on" in Zimbabwe.
He called for the southern Africans as well as the
African Union and the
United Nations to send assessment teams to
Zimbabwe.
Mr Annan said they also met Zimbabwe opposition leaders and
stressed to them
that "the most important thing is the people's
lives."
Meanwhile the cholera break-out in Zimbabwe has killed hundreds,
and
increased the flow of people fleeing to neighbouring South Africa. There
has
also been a riot breakout as the country faces the cholera epidemic and
hyperinflation.
Doctors, teachers and union members clashed with riot
police in the streets
of Zimbabwe's capital of Harare as they protested the
country's deepening
economic meltdown and a cholera epidemic that has been
blamed on poor
infrastructure.
The central bank announced plans to
issue bank notes in higher denominations
and increase the availability of
money. Still, long lines formed outside
banks as residents rushed to
withdraw money. Police tried to break up the
lines and prevent union members
from marching to the central bank.
The new notes will be in $10 million,
$50 million and $100 million
denominations and will go into circulation on
Thursday, the state-run Herald
newspaper reported. The bank also increased
the cash withdrawal limit for
individuals from $500,000 to $100
million.
Zimbabwe suffers from the world's highest inflation rate which
stood
officially at 231 million percent in October, drastically up from 11.2
million percent in July, the United Nations reported.
A loaf of bread
in the country costs about $2 million, equal to about $1 in
the United
States, according to CNN.
The health workers protested outside the health
ministry demanding better
pay and conditions as they try to fight the
cholera crisis. The United
Nations put the death toll at 565 while the
ministry of health reported 484
since August.
Cholera spreads through
contaminated water and food. A World Health
Organization report said that,
"recent interruptions to the water supplies,
together with overcrowding, are
aggravating factors in this epidemic."
Zimbabwe's residents face daily
food shortages and many hospitals lack the
drugs and medicine to remain in
operation.
The Zimbabwe National Water Authority has said it will work to
correct the
nation's crumbling infrastructure. Water was turned off for
three days after
authorities ran out of purifying chemicals but was restored
to some parts of
Harare on Wednesday, the Associated Press
reported.
The European Commission and the International Red Cross are
providing aid to
combat the epidemic and the government is cooperating with
international
organizations.
A day after Deputy Health Minister Edwin
Muguti claimed the cholera epidemic
was under control, he made an apparent
u-turn in telling journalists last
Thursday that the outbreak will worsen,
'with the onset of the rainy
season.'
Zimbabwe later declared a
national emergency over the cholera epidemic and
the collapse of its health
system caused by the country's economic crisis.
"Our central hospitals
are literally not functioning," Minister of Health
David Parirenyatwa was
quoted as saying by the state-run Herald newspaper on
Thursday.
The
Herald said Parirenyatwa declared the state of emergency at a meeting
Wednesday of government and international aid officials in the capital,
Harare. He appealed for money to pay doctors and nurses, as well as for
drugs, food and equipment for Zimbabwe's hospitals.
"Our staff is
demotivated, and we need your support to ensure that they
start coming to
work and our health system is revived," he was quoted as
saying.
The
United Nations puts deaths from the cholera epidemic at more than 500.
The
outbreak is blamed on lack of water treatment and broken sewage pipes in
a
country that once had a sophisticated infrastructure.
The country has
already experienced significant rainfall in November and
because of open
sewage in the different suburbs, cholera germs were
spreading
easily.
Meanwhile, the disease is also beginning to affect neighbouring
South
Africa. Penultimate Thursday Durban's RK Khan Hospital confirmed it
admitted
two Zimbabwean brothers. They are currently conducting tests to
detect the
disease. The two have been living and working in Durban but had
visited
Zimbabwe from the November 7 to 21. Many Zimbabweans have also been
traveling to South Africa seeking treatment for the disease. Several border
towns in South Africa have reported a total of 187 cholera cases and three
deaths. Even truck drivers from Zambia and Mozambique have been affected.
Other South African provinces affected include Gauteng, Kwa Zulu Natal,
Mpumalanga and Western Cape.
Humanitarian organization Doctors
Without Borders said Tuesday that 1.4
million people are at risk of the
disease in Harare alone, and cases of
cholera have been detected as far away
as South Africa's southern coast.
Military doctors are also being sent to
South Africa's border with Zimbabwe
to treat cholera victims fleeing the
country.
On Monday, groups of unarmed soldiers in military gear stole
cash from
vendors and illegal currency traders in Harare as they fought with
riot
police after they were unable to withdraw money from the bank. The
government reacted strongly, calling them "rogue soldiers" and warning them
in The Herald that those found guilty would be brought to justice.
A
senior army official quoted by IRIN dismissed the dissent among the
soldiers
saying they were among the "lowest ranks" in the military.
"The junior
soldiers are angry that very senior officers are stealing money
meant to pay
the salaries for the soldiers. The economic hardships felt by
the soldiers
has made many of them very desperate, to the point of robbing
civilians,"
the official said.
President Mugabe relies heavily on the army's defense
forces for support and
the fact that soldiers are resorting to robbery shows
signs of how deeply
the economic crisis is affecting the country, said
Steven Friedman, a
political analyst at the University of
Johannesburg.
"I think they've got every cause to be worried completely
... if they can't
take the troops with them, they are really in trouble. And
if this is a
start of some kind of a rebellion by the troops then we could
see change in
Zimbabwe a lot quicker than it seemed likely a while ago,"
said Friedman, as
quoted by Reuters.
Meanwhile, with the power
deadlock and current cholera epidemic spreading in
Zimbabwe, world leaders
are now being forced to take a hard stance on the
government of Robert
Mugabe.
South Africa said Thursday it will withhold aid for Zimbabwe
until a
representative government is in place amid reports of a growing
public
health crisis and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's objections to
a visit
by former world leaders.
In what appears to be the first
punitive measure by an African country to
enforce a power-sharing agreement,
the South African government said it was
"extremely concerned" about
Zimbabwe's political impasse, which has deepened
a humanitarian crisis, and
called for "mature leadership" to resolve
outstanding issues, Reuters
reported.
"No amount of political disagreement can ever justify the
suffering that
ordinary Zimbabweans are being subjected to at the moment,"
the South
African cabinet's statement said.
The statements from South
Africa came as President Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF
and the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change prepared to hold another
round of talks in South
Africa next week to seek a breakthrough while
political tensions are
rising.
"We're going to make sure that everything is done to force the
parties to go
back to the negotiating table," said South African cabinet
spokesman Themba
Maseko, according to Reuters.
Tsvangirai insisted
that under the power-sharing deal, his party should be
given ministries
related to security, such as police, in any unity
government. Only the
finance ministry has been offered to the opposition.
Mugabe, in power
since independence from Britain in 1980, is trying to push
through a
constitutional amendment allowing him to name a cabinet.
Former United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged Southern
African leaders to
play a more active role in bringing about a transition to
an inclusive
government in Zimbabwe.
President Robert Mugabe's government "has not
demonstrated the ability to
lead the country out of its current crisis,"
Annan said in a statement
issued in Paris Sunday. "There is bitter
disappointment in the current
leadership."
Another "Elder" former
Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi said that a
liberation movement
and its leaders "lose their legitimacy when they not
only ignore the
suffering of their people but actually act in a manner that
increases their
suffering dramatically."
Meantime, Zimbabwe's government has denied a
report that it was blocking a
visit from former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, former U.S. President
Jimmy Carter, and human rights activist and
Nelson Mandela's wife Graca
Machel. They will visit the country
Friday.
"The purpose of our visit is to meet those working on the ground
to better
assess the extent of the crisis and how assistance can be
improved," Annan
said.
The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has
also called on world leaders to
tell Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that
enough is enough. Western
nations have accused him of ruining the once
prosperous country and exposing
his people to famine and
disease.
There are calls for him to be removed from power and to be
brought before
the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The
former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu said it is time for Robert
Mugabe to face up to his actions. "African nations should come together to
use military force if Mr Mugabe refused to go. Mr Mugabe had committed
"gross violations" against Zimbabwe's people and ruined "a wonderful
country", said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Kenya's Prime Minister
Raila Odinga said he has to go. Odinga said, "African
governments should
oust Zimbabwe's leader."
The leader of South Africa's ruling party Jacob
Zuma says a solution to the
crisis in Zimbabwe is urgently needed. The
situation was beyond "wait and
see", Mr Zuma said in Johannesburg. "We have
got to act and act now."
US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said it
was "well past time" for
him to leave office.
Liberal Democrat leader
Nick Clegg said it was time for the UN to support
the "justified" use of
military force as a means for the international
community to protect
Zimbabweans.
"The world has sat idly by whilst Robert Mugabe has
brutalised his own
people for too long. Economic recession in the West has
led the world to
avert its gaze from the sufferings in Zimbabwe. The UN must
urgently declare
that Mugabe will be indicted in the International Criminal
Court," he said.
He said it would be "inexcusable" if no further action
was taken soon.
Clegg called on China to stop blocking international
action through its veto
on the Security Council, and South Africa to take a
"tougher" stance with
its neighbour.
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
subject line.
To subscribe/unsubscribe to the JAG mailing list, please
email: jag@mango.zw
with subject line
"subscribe" or
"unsubscribe".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Cathy Buckle - In breach
Dear JAG,
A few days ago I had no choice
but to travel past the farm my husband and I
legally bought in 1990 but which
was grabbed from us by a mob of government
supporters 10 years later in 2000.
In the eight years since then I've never
had any official written
communication from the government of Zimbabwe about
the farm - not even a
letter informing me of the state acquisition of the
property. I've never been
offered or received any compensation for the
assets seized. I am not talking
about the land itself but about the
improvements on it including workers'
houses, farm buildings, a dairy, spray
race, tobacco barns, trading store,
dams, borehole, water pumps and pipes,
an electricity transformer and scores
of kilometres of fencing. Nor has the
government of Zimbabwe given any
compensation for our home on the farm or
for all the fixtures and fittings
that were in place in our fully functional
house. Nothing has been given to
any of the men and women who worked for us
on the farm either - not land,
money, homes, jobs or pensions.
Believe it or not, this lack of official
paperwork concerning the seizure of
the farm and then the non payment of any
compensation at all, is something
that the vast majority of Zimbabweans are
not aware of. Mostly we just don't
talk about the farms anymore, it's become
a topic of shame, embarrassment,
disgust, contempt.
What I saw this
week as I drove past the farm to which I hold the Title
Deeds, filled me with
deep sadness at the widespread destruction. All the
fencing has gone - many
kilometres of it. Thousands of trees planted for
poles and timber have been
chopped down. All the contours which protected
the land from erosion have
gone. The roofing on the dairy has gone. The
workers houses - made of brick
and cement - have all been smashed down into
piles of rubble. The tin roof
sheets have gone. The metal door and window
frames have gone. The borehole
pump, motor and pipes have gone. The roofing
on the tobacco barns has gone.
The farm store which used to sell groceries,
fresh produce and milk has been
turned into a beer hall. The state of the
farm dams and the main farmhouse is
unknown, this is a no-go area. The local
people call it The Jambanja Place
and they speak scornfully of the people on
the farm as the Jambanja People.
(The word Jambanja has many connotations
but mostly it means a violent
struggle)
It's been eight years since Zanu PF put us into a perpetual
state of
jambanja and now Zimbabwe is completely stricken. A lethal cocktail
of
hunger, disease, super hyper inflation, infrastructural collapse,
brain
drain and emigration is decimating our population and crippling our
country.
This week a ruling was made by SADC in the test case of 78 white
Zimbabwean
farmers trying to keep their land. Judge Louis Mondlane, President
of the
SADC Tribunal said that the Zimbabwe government "is in breach of the
SADC
treaty with regards to discrimination." We wait to see if these are
just
words and if SADC hold any sway when it comes to dealing with one of
their
own breaking 15 nation treaties. While we wait ever more Zimbabweans
have no
choice this Christmas but to flood into neighbouring countries in
search of
food, medicines, and work.
I will be taking a break for a
while but wish all Zimbabweans, wherever you
are in the world, a blessed,
peaceful, healthy Christmas. 2009 will be
better! Until next year, thanks for
reading,
love
cathy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Eddie Cross - The Beginning
Dear JAG,
Watching the media in recent
days has convinced me that the press does not
appreciate just what has
happened over the past week. Unheralded, there has
been a sea change in the
approach by South Africa to the Zimbabwe crisis. It
has been coming for some
time, delayed by the Mbeki influence, but once that
was swept away by the
ANC, it has gathered momentum.
You can see it in the way the SABC is
reporting the Zimbabwe situation, the
comments in public by senior figures
and the growing chorus of African
leaders who are calling for Mugabe to step
down. Most international media
are concluding that the Global Political
Agreement is a dead letter and that
it simply could not work.
In fact
events are slowly pushing Zanu PF towards acceptance of a deal that
will
effectively end their monopoly of power in Zimbabwe. The GPA is by no
means
perfect - but it is based on a reasonable democratic process and gives
the
winners of that process (the MDC) control of the main levers
of
government.
Zanu PF only appreciated this after they had signed the
deal on the 15th of
September. How much trouble they are in, only became
apparent when MDC
discovered that Chinamasa and others in the negotiation
process had
surreptitiously altered the final version of the GPA that had
been agreed at
the meeting on the 11th of September.
Since then they
have been desperately fighting a rearguard action to try and
limit the damage
and claw back some of the power and authority they in fact
surrendered on the
11th September. For the military Junta that has run the
country for the past
decade and remains substantively in control, they are
fighting the deal with
every weapon in their armory.
MDC, for its part has simply stuck to its
game plan. In March 2006, at the
second Congress of the Party in Harare,
nearly 20 000 delegates agreed to
adopt what they called a "road map" to a
new Zimbabwe. This was a peaceful,
legal programme of democratic resistance
to the regime leading to
negotiations. The negotiations leading us to a
transitional government and
the transitional government producing a new
"people driven" constitution.
Once this was enacted, new elections -
perhaps the first really free and
fair elections with all qualified citizens
voting and that would then give
rise to a new government - perhaps the first
MDC government.
It's now two years and 3 months since that Congress - not
a long time when
you think about it, and the MDC is close to securing its
first goal - a
transitional government brought about by negotiations. What we
have also
done since the negotiations were concluded on the 11th September is
to
insist, against all pressures from all sides, that the deal stands as it
is
and is implemented in full.
The significance of the events in South
Africa last Thursday is that the two
parties agreed to a draft legal
expression of the September 11th agreement.
The MDC being satisfied that
the draft reflected the content and meaning of
the GPA. We wanted to go on
and wrap up all outstanding issues but Zanu PF
asked for some time out to
consult their principals in Harare. This request
was granted - but on the
proviso that they get on with the task of preparing
the draft legislation for
publication in the Government Gazette.
It is Saturday today - they failed
to publish the draft last night in the
Gazette as would normally be the
practice and I think we can assume that
Zanu PF did not want this document in
the public domain in advance of their
annual Conference which starts of
Tuesday. Once this is over - by next
Friday, I would expect the draft to
emerge into the public domain and for
the statutory 30 days period required
by the present Constitution to start.
This means of course that the
changes to the Constitution will only come to
Parliament next year - in mid
January.
We are totally distrustful of the present regime and want to see
the changes
to the constitution effected before a new government is formed.
But the one
thing that we should all recognise - is that once the draft is
published in
the Gazette - the clock is ticking for this regime and all its
cohorts. It
is the formal and legal start of the transition to a Transitional
Government
in which Morgan Tsvangirai will be the new Prime Minister and head
of the
new, powerful and democratically elected Council of Ministers who
will
assume full control of the affairs of government in late January
2009.
The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers will be responsible
for
government policy and for execution of all government decisions. The
Prime
Minister will also have what is effectively a veto on all
senior
appointments by the President. In any normal democracy MDC would
have
assumed unfettered control of the State in the first week of April 2008.
But
this is not a normal democracy - it is in fact an autocratic regime,
headed
by an unelected President and controlled by a civilian/military
Junta.
In other countries the overthrow of this regime would have
required physical
violence in one form or another. The remarkable thing about
this particular
transfer of power is that it has been achieved without
violence, by the
oppressed. The State has employed violence against its
opponents and
continues to do so - on a huge scale, but this has not evoked a
violent
response even though that is exactly what the regime intended. It
only
understands that "power comes through the barrel of a gun" - in their
case
that is how they have tried to protect the power that was already in
their
hands as a result of the civil war in the 70's.
Just as in
America where Obama is managing the transition into government
and where Bush
is accepted as a lame duck, Morgan Tsvangirai is the new
Prime Minister and
next Friday could be the start of his formal and legal
transition into
government. Just like Obama, Tsvangirai will face
unprecedented challenges -
rampant inflation and a collapsed economy. A
dispirited and tired people
suffering from food shortages and widespread
epidemics and an administration
that is really at the end of their tether.
No money in the Bank - only debts,
courtesy of Gono, the Gundwane.
Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 6th December
2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Stu Taylor
Dear JAG,
The EU has asked Mugabe to honour a
power-sharing deal; what naivety!! This
is Africa and there has never been,
and will never be, room for two leaders
- Mugabe would be my choice of the
one to go, as he is way past his sell-by
date. Also, he's not my idea of a
nice person!!
We are losing time for him to be eligible for the Hague, as he
turns of age
in April next year, as to not be answerable to an international
court - his
playing for time will probably pay off - so we'd better jump
around or else
he will just wander off into the sunset with impunity for all
the suffering
he has caused over the years. I hope the international
community is
reviewing their treatment of this country before "independence"
- they're
basically treating it the same, having bent over backwards to
impose Mugabe
on us. I'd like to ask those who have experienced this country
at the hands
of the "tyrant" Ian Smith and whatever you'd like to refer to
Mugabe as,
"which was a better place to live - today's Zimbabwe, or the
country of
yesteryear?" Bye - Stu
Taylor
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Celia Dugger
Dear JAG,
I'd appreciate it if you could include this
note in your newsletter:
To: Farmers whose land was taken and given to
Mugabe, members of his family
or his inner circle
From: Celia Dugger,
Johannesburg correspondent, The New York Times
Date: Dec. 2, 2008
I
would like to communicate with farmers who land was seized and given to
Grace
or Sabina or Robert Mugabe, or other relations of members of his inner
circle
(Mnangagwa, Gono, Chinamasa, Goche, Chiwenga, Chihuri, Sibanda, the
Mujurus,
top generals, etc).
I am particularly looking for guidance on how to
reach: Ian Webster, Lisa
Nizlev, CJ Jordaan, Tad Gordon, Joe Kennedy, the
owners of the Iron Mask
farm and relatives of Terry Ford.
My email
address is dugger@nytimes.com.
The SADC
tribunal ruling has suddenly made these issues especially
newsworthy
again.
I'll be very grateful for any help you can
offer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------