Zim Online
by Farisai Gonye Thursday 14 February
2008
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s police chief Augustine Chihuri this
week told senior
officers to back President Robert Mugabe reminding them the
veteran leader
had given them farms, resources and other perks,
authoritative sources told
ZimOnline.
Chihuri on Tuesday met
provincial and departmental police commanders at
police general headquarters
in Harare where he handed them new luxury
vehicles for their personal use
and told the officers that more perks were
on the way if Mugabe and his
ruling ZANU PF party won next month’s
elections, said
sources.
Officers of the rank of senior assistant commissioner attended
the meeting
that took place in the force’s Room 50 conference room. Ten of
the senior
assistant commissioners are in charge of police in the country's
eight
administrative provinces and in the two biggest cities of Harare and
Bulawayo.
"He (Chihuri) told us that the President is counting on us
and that we have
to be vigilant in our provinces to ensure that the
opposition and other
reactionary forces did not infiltrate ZANU-PF
structures,” said one of the
officers who received a Toyota Vigo truck from
Chihuri.
The officer, who we cannot name to protect him, said: “Chihuri
pointed out
that all commanders have farms and have generously received
resources from
the government . . . he reminded us that we were able to
afford luxury
lifestyles despite meager salaries because of President
Mugabe's
generosity."
According to our sources one officer, Nonkosi
Ncube, who is in charge of
police in Mashonaland East province, turned down
a white truck she had been
allocated insisting she preferred the truck
black.
She was assured she would receive a car with the “right colour”
next week
when middle-ranking police commanders would receive their
vehicles.
Police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka confirmed the meeting took
place. But he
denied Chihuri had asked officers to support Mugabe and
instead claimed the
purpose of the meeting was to brief senior officers on
the upcoming
elections.
Mandipaka said: "It was a meeting to acquaint
senior officers with electoral
laws and issues related to our operations
during this election period. We
are non-partisan and the
commissioner-general put that position very clearly
to the
meeting."
Mugabe, in office since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from
Britain, has kept
top army and police commanders well fed, allocating them
with lucrative
farms seized from whites, vehicles, government contracts and
other benefits.
The security commanders in turn have not let him down,
always ready to use
brutal tactics to keep public discontent in check in the
face of an economic
crisis that has spawned hyperinflation and shortages of
food, fuel,
essential medicines, hard cash and just about every basic
survival
commodity.
Mugabe and ZANU PF are expected to win
presidential, parliamentary and local
government elections on March 29.
However, analysts say popular former
finance minister Simba Makoni’s
rebellion to challenge the veteran leader
for the job of president has made
the contest less than predictable. –
ZimOnline
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 13 February
2008 12:41
HARARE
South African President Thabo Mbeki is
supportive of Simba Makoni's
bid for the presidency of Zimbabwe, and there
are indications that this is
the outcome of the Third Force project on which
the SA leader has been
working for some time.
Impeccable sources
told The Zimbabwean this week that Mbeki had
identified Makoni as the ideal
candidate to pull Zimbabwe out of the current
political and economic
crisis.
He had initially hoped to strike a deal between "reformists"
from Zanu
(PF) led by Makoni and the opposition MDC factions that would see
the
establishment of a transitional government of national unity pending
elections under a new constitution.
Sources say there was hope by
Mbeki and other African and western
leaders that there would be a successful
rebellion in Zanu (PF) at the
party's special congress in December to oust
Mugabe and replace him with
Makoni, who had already pledged his commitment
to the transitional
government arrangement and said he had no problems
working with the MDC.
When the plan to oust Mugabe flopped, it put the
whole game plan into
disarray and Mugabe became more paranoid and
contemptuous of the
negotiations, which eventually collapsed.
"Makoni then told Mbeki he was ready and capable of contesting the
presidency," said a source who was involved. "They agreed that Makoni didn't
have to leave Zanu (PF) because it needed to be reformed - it remains an
obstacle to political change as long as it is still under Mugabe."
Mbeki made a surprise statement last week that had been success in the
negotiations between Zanu (PF) and MDC. Senior sources in the MDC say the
SA leader is making concerted efforts to try and forge an alliance between
Makoni and the two MDC factions to present a united front against Mugabe,
and consider the government of national unity proposal.
"The plan
really is that Makoni must remain Zanu (PF) and there is
belief that he had
backing of many members in the party meaning in the event
of any defeat of
Mugabe, there can indeed by a reformed Zanu (PF) to work
with," the source
said.
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 13
February 2008 17:12
….as Mugabe panics
BY ITAI
DZAMARA
HARARE
Retired army general, Solomon Mujuru, is
believed to be under house
arrest after the CIO handed over a dossier to the
fraud squad accusing him
of numerous cases of corruption in his vast
business empire.
Impeccable sources from Mujuru's family as well as in
the army and
police told The Zimbabwean that the influential former army
leader has been
under virtual house arrest since late last year when media
speculation grew
linking Mujuru to rumours that former finance minister
Simba Makoni was
planning to from a new party.
Makoni has since
announced that he will stand against Mugabe in next
month's presidential
election, and has been officials expelled from Zanu
(PF).
Zanu (PF)
insiders say Mugabe instructed the CIO to place Makoni,
Mujuru as well as
other top officials linked to the plans under strict
surveillance.
"He has been under house arrest since November and has been called in
by
police and army on several occasions," a source close to the Mujuru
family
said. "He is under 24-hour surveillance by the military
intelligence."
Sources at the Fraud Squad in Harare confirmed that
Mujuru had been
called in for questioning on several occasions in relation
to the dossier.
"He has been threatened with arrest and humiliation and
that must have
been meant to intimidate him," said a senior police officer
on condition
anonymity. "The corruption charges are enough to bring him
down, whether
they are true or not. It is clearly a political
game."
Repeated efforts to obtain comment from Mujuru or his wife
failed but
one of their daughters said, "They have been harassing my father
and we
actually fear for his life. He has been stripped of his
liberties."
Mujuru has long been a thorn in the flesh for Mugabe, with
incessant
reports suggesting he is the Kingmaker in Zanu (PF) and probably
the only
one capable of facing up to Mugabe's dictatorial tendencies.
However, Mujuru
was made to appear comical in December when he appeared on
national
television and in newspapers holding the microphone for Rural
Housing
minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, leader of another faction in the
party.
"He was already under house arrest then and attended the
congress
under duress with Mugabe making sure it came out openly the retired
army
general was still under his armpits," a senior Zanu (PF) official
said.
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 12:41
BY CHIEF REPORTER
HARARE
Unproductive war veterans have angrily dismissed a government
decree
ordering the repossession of 1,400 idle farms seized from white
farmers and
handed to the ex-freedom fighters during the violent land
grab.
In an interview with The Zimbabwean, the veterans' leader, Joseph
Chinotimba said whoever had made that directive could go to hell, adding
they would not give up the land without a fight.
"The comrades will
not accept that at all," he said. "We fought for
this land and they cannot
just take it away."
The government announced last week that it was
moving to repossess
1,449 farms grabbed from white farmers and planned to
hand them over to
farmers with better success records.
Land Reform
minister Didymus Mutasa insisted this week his ministry
was repossessing,
"all vacant and underutilized A2 farms," and would "not go
back on this
exercise."
Saize Manyatera is one of the youthful war veterans who
overran a
white-owned farm in 2003. He has, for the past five years, failed
to even
put an acre under any crop but this week refused to accept that
Mugabe had
bowed to pressure and ordered an eviction of unproductive
resettled farmers.
The 35-year-old "veteran" of a war that ended by
1979, brandishing a
rusty hoe and a bag of seed he had hastily bought in
town, looked
crestfallen when he realised that he may not now be able to
continue
"farming" on his stolen land.
"We have heard nothing," he
insisted. "We will remain here. We have
been given this land. We have been
struggling for fertilizer and maize seed
for years.
"These are the
fruits of our independence and they can't just take the
farms away. We took
away this land from people, white people who colonised
us."
Now the
aspirations that have been unleashed among the impoverished
and ill-equipped
new farmers will have to be reined in, which many hope will
trigger a round
of infighting among the leadership of the ruling Zanu (PF)
party, boosting
the opposition's prospects for victory in the forthcoming
March general
elections.
The fact that he has failed to produce any meaningful crop
on this
property for the past five years to feed the nation, cuts little ice
with
Manyatera.
"It doesn't matter that I am not producing
anything. But the land is
my birthright," he said. Despite claims that the
war veterans association
has 50,000 members, the real figure is thought to
be between 3,000 and
4,000.
Manyatera was transported here at the
height of the land grab, in a
municipal vehicle, and will not see his newly
acquired land discarded
lightly.
Zim Online
by Nqobizitha Khumalo Thursday 14 February
2008
BULAWAYO - Civic groups say they will campaign for any
new government that
assumes power next month not to pay for debts that were
incurred by
President Robert Mugabe to sustain repression against
Zimbabweans.
The civic groups said while the people of Zimbabwe had an
obligation to pay
for debts accrued for infrastructural developments such as
roads and
hospitals, they should not pay for debts accrued to sustain
dictators.
Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA)
pressure group, said yesterday that civic groups were
unanimous that debts
incurred to sustain Mugabe's brutal regime would not be
honoured.
"Civic society agreed that any debts accrued to build
infrastructure should
be paid back . . . but we will not pay for debts for
the supply of weapons
and tear gas that is continuously being used against
the masses," said
Madhuku.
Madhuku, a strong critic of Mugabe's
government, cited loans given to Harare
by the Chinese and Libyans to buy
military hardware among those that he said
were likely to be ignored by any
new government.
Mugabe has over the past eight years secured loans from
Libya, China and
Malaysia as well as from Equatorial Guinea in West Africa
raising fears that
the Zimbabwean leader was mortgaging the country to
foreigners.
At least 50 non-governmental organizations met for their
National People's
Convention in Harare last weekend to decide which
political party to support
in next March's parliamentary and presidential
elections.
The meeting however ended in disarray after civic groups
clashed over which
candidate to back in the election that is likely to be a
three-horse race
pitting Mugabe against his former finance minister Simba
Makoni and Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The civic groups also expressed their dissatisfaction with
plans for the
elections saying any elections that would be held in Zimbabwe
under the
present "defective" constitution would remain
illegitimate.
"We hold that all elections in Zimbabwe remain illegitimate
without the
ushering into existence of a new democratic and people-driven
constitution.
This means that all elections held hereafter remain without
national
legitimacy and merit if not undertaken under a new people-driven
constitutional dispensation," said the groups.
The civic
organisations said the political environment in the country has
remained
characterised by a lack of respect for the rule of law, political
violence,
a lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of
expression
and information.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of an acute economic crisis
critics blame on
repression and bad policies by Mugabe. The veteran
Zimbabwean leader says he
is ready and raring to go for the 29 March
election. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Prince Nyathi Thursday 14 February
2008
HARARE - Zimbabwean teachers, who have been on a
two-week strike to press
for more pay, say they will not return to work
until the government
increases their salaries to Z$1.7 billion a
month.
Oswald Madziva, the national co-ordinator of the Progressive
Teachers' Union
of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), said although the government had awarded
salary hikes
last month, the salaries were still way below their
expectations.
Madziva said the strike by teachers had plunged the entire
education system
into chaos after hundreds of teachers failed to report for
duty at the
beginning of the term last January in protest over poor
salaries.
"This week teachers got back-pay for January ranging between
$220 million to
$260 million. This puts a teacher's salary and allowances at
$551 million a
month but we are saying this is still too little," said
Madziva.
The president of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Union (ZIMTA), Tendai
Chikowore,
could not be reached for comment on the matter.
Teachers
who spoke to ZimOnline yesterday said even some of their colleagues
affiliated to ZIMTA, largely seen as pro-government, had also downed tools
to press for a further salary adjustment.
"Now it's every teacher
because these hardships know no affiliation," said a
teacher at a Harare
school who refused to be named.
A survey by ZimOnline yesterday showed
that there was virtually no learning
taking place at most schools in Harare
with school children spending the
greater part of the day loitering in
school grounds.
"The situation is the same across the country. It is not
Harare alone. Even
in rural areas, teachers have also downed tools," said
Madziva.
Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere could not be reached for
comment on the
matter yesterday.
Zimbabwe's education system, once
revered as one of the best in Africa, is a
shadow of its former self because
of a severe economic crisis ravaging the
country that has seen government
fail to pay realistic salaries to teachers.
The PTUZ says at least 25 000
teachers quit their jobs in disgust over poor
pay and working conditions
last year alone with most of the teachers fleeing
to Zimbabwe's prosperous
neighbour, South Africa. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Sithandekile Mhlanga
Washington
13
February 2008
Organizers of the activist group Women of
Zimbabwe Arise said 11 of their
members were severely beaten by police in
Harare Wednesday afternoon after
they staged a demonstration in the city
center to urge better care for the
nation's children.
A WOZA
statement said about 250 members of the organization gathered in the
city
center to demonstrate and were "set upon by a truckload of riot police
who
threw tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd. Several members were
badly
beaten with baton sticks by riot and uniformed police officers after
they
regrouped."
WOZA said the demonstration was organized "to encourage
Zimbabweans to stand
up for their children in these times of extreme
hardship" with elections on
hand.
Some of the demonstrators were
discharged after being treated at Avenues
Clinic and others were still
receiving medical care, the organization said.
WOZA Coordinator Jenni
Williams told reporter Sithandekile Mhlanga of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that police launched tear gas at women demonstrating
peacefully.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
13 February
2008
Voter registration and inspection of voter rolls
ended Wednesday amid
complaints by voters who had previously registered that
they were unable to
find their names on the list of those registered, while
others said they
received no receipt upon registering.
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network said it was looking into the charges,
adding that
has received many complaints that people have not found their
names on
rolls.
Voters reached in Masvingo and Manicaland provinces said officials
of the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said that if their names were not
listed in
their constituencies or if they could not produce voter slips,
they would
not be allowed to vote in March.
The electoral commission
recently completed a massive redistricting exercise
in which 90 new elective
constituencies were added to the lower house of
parliament, bringing the
total to 201. However, the delimitation was carried
out in relative secrecy,
and the final report with its maps has not been
made widely available even
to lawmakers.
Twenty-seven senate seats have been added for a total of 93
under the terms
of a constitutional amendment that was passed with ruling
party and
opposition support at a time when the ZANU-PF party of President
Robert
Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition
party,
were in crisis resolution talks.
But those talks deadlocked
over the issues of the timing of the elections
Mr. Mugabe set for March 29
over opposition objections, and demands by both
factions of the divided MDC
that a new constitution be introduced before the
next
elections.
Resident Thomas Gono of the Harare district of Kuwadzana told
reporter
Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that he faced a
number of
difficulties when he tried to verify his registration and found
that he had
to re-register.
The Zimbabwean
SW Radio Africa (London)
13 February
2008
Posted to the web 13 February 2008
Tichaona
Sibanda
The full list of all MDC candidates for next month's
presidential,
parliamentary, senatorial and urban council elections will be
released on
Thursday, a day before the nomination court.
Party leader
Morgan Tsvangirai has already been endorsed as the presidential
candidate
and is expected to launch their election manifesto on the 23rd
February.
A number of primaries are taking place countrywide
Wednesday, following
delays over the initial choice of candidates in some of
the constituencies.
A provisional list of candidates shows that the
party's two well-known
spokesmen, William Bango and Pishai Muchauraya, are
contesting the
parliamentary poll in Chikomba and Makoni South. Veteran
journalist Bango is
a former spokesman for Tsvangirai. This would be his
first time contesting
in any election in independent
Zimbabwe.
Muchauraya, the fearless Manicaland spokesman, is standing
against his old
Zanu PF rival Shadreck Chipanga, the man who narrowly beat
him by less than
240 votes in the 2005 elections, when both men stood for
the Makoni East
seat.
Marondera farmer Ian Kay is standing again in
Marondera central, another
seat which the MDC narrowly lost in 2005.
Contesting against Defence
Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, a Zanu-PF
heavyweight, Kay lost that contest by
a mere 86 votes.
'We didn't
lose those elections. The results were manipulated by the
election officials
to ensure that the cabinet ministers retained their seats
through hook and
crook,' Muchauraya said.
The party's director of elections Ian Makone is
a candidate for Goromonzi
West while his wife Theresa, the Women's Assembly
chairperson, is contesting
the Harare North seat currently held by Trudy
Stevenson from the Mutambara
faction. Sekai Holland, the secretary for
research and policy, is a
senatorial candidate for Hwata in Mbare. She has
been recovering in
Australia from serious injuries sustained during last
March's crackdown on
the opposition, that left some activists dead and
hundreds more injured.
The MDC's chief representative in London, Hebson
Makuvise, said they are
confident of snatching back other seats lost to Zanu
PF in the last
parliamentary elections. Like Muchauraya, Makuvise strongly
believes Zanu-PF
won more seats than the MDC as a result of rigging and
intimidation.
'If you look closely at the results, some were
controversially declared in
favour of Zanu-PF candidates, after two or three
recounts that still showed
MDC candidates as the winners,' Makuvise
said.
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 13
February 2008 12:42
BY CHIEF REPORTER
HARARE
In its
first 100 days in office, the MDC (Tsvangirai) says it will
reduce the
number of ministers to 15, and eliminate unnecessary expenditure,
such as
that spent on deputy ministers and provincial governors.
Zimbabwe has
two vice-presidents, and more than 48 ministers, deputies
and governors, all
with hefty allowances, chauffeur-driven government
vehicles and an
aide.
"The MDC government would eliminate all government activities
that are
not concerned with immediate domestic priorities. This would
involve
reviewing the external missions abroad, and the cancellation of all
outstanding contracts for military hardware," said the party's economic
policy chief, Eddie Cross.
A National Revenue Authority Board and
an independent board which
includes the private sector experts on taxes
would be set up to improve tax
collection and increase government
revenue.
"The objective would be to privatise all parastatals within a
period
of two years. Special attention would be given to the Zimbabwe
Electricity
Supply Authority the National Railways of Zimbabwe, ZimPost,
Net*One and
Tel*One," said Cross.
He said there would be a new
management system to control government
expenditure with strict reporting
and controlling systems to limit over-runs
by ministries.
Cross
said contrary to the focus by the discredited Zanu (PF)
government on
peripheral issues such as land, the role of white business and
farming
community, the MDC would focus on high priority areas first.
The real
issues are rapidly increasing prices, stagnant incomes and
deteriorating
social services," he said. "MDC recognises the need for
equitable
distribution of land, but it has set its main immediate goals in
the
economic arena. It is determined to restore the confidence by both the
international and local business communities."
The MDC economic
plans include upgrading private sector housing
policies, modernising the
crumbling education and health systems and a
commitment to a free regional
trade system.
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
13
February 2008
A Zimbabwean nongovernmental organization
has warned that political violence
is on the rise with national elections
less than seven weeks off on March
29.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project
issued a report saying its violence early warning
system pointed to
Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands provinces as likely
hotspots.
Peace
Project National Director Jestina Mukoko said that since November the
group
has recorded 1,775 incidents of political violence compared with about
1,000
in the comparable period in 2004-2005, in the run-up to the 2005
general
elections.
Mukoko told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
most of the violence is perpetrated by ruling party
supporters, and that the
increasingly tense political violence is affecting
the distribution of food
assistance.
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 13:04
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) was
not appointed in terms
of the law and should be disbanded and a new committee
set up to run polls
next month, the Zimbabwe Catholic Church's human rights
arm said on Tuesday.
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP)
said preparations for
the March 29 elections were hurried, while there was
inadequate education of
voters, a situation it said has led to confusion and
reduced prospects of
truly democratic polls."The appointment and composition
of the electoral
body, the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission, is illegal
after the amendment. We strongly recommend
that the old ZEC be dissolved with
immediate effect and a new one be
appointed in terms of the new law," the
CCJP said in a statement.The main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party and human
rights groups say a constitutional amendment last
September provides for the
creation of a new and independent ZEC to oversee
registration of voters,
demarcation of voting constituencies and overall
management of elections.The
government has rejected opposition requests to
appoint a new commission
to run polls and merely tasked the old commission to
carry out the new
functions stipulated under Constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment Act Number
18.Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede, an ally of
President Robert Mugabe who
is
accused of manipulating the voters' roll
to ensure victory for the
government, has also continued registering voters
despite the new
constitutional provision.The CCJP said there was confusion
among voters over
voting procedures during
the presidential,
parliamentary and local government elections that are
being held at the same
time for the first time since Zimbabwe's 1980
independence from Britain."We
note with grave concern that there had been
inadequate preparation
and
voter education on the electoral process in the new harmonised
elections
such that confusion continues to exist today as to the manner in
which such
elections will be conducted," the CCJP said.The group lamented the
fact that
barely seven weeks before voting, the
public remained in the
dark over new boundaries for parliamentary
constituencies and council wards.
It also remained hazy which political
parties would contest the elections or
who the candidates would be.The CCJP
also raised concern over the fact that
an estimated three million
Zimbabweans living and working abroad and all
eligible to vote would be
excluded from voting because the government did not
provide facilities for
exiled Zimbabweans to participate in the polls.ZEC
spokesman Utoile
Silaigwana was not immediately available for comment
on
the matter.Zimbabwe is in the grip of a debilitating economic crisis
critics
blame on
misrule by Mugabe and that is seen in the world's
highest inflation rate of
more than 26 000 percent, a rapidly contracting
GDP, the fastest for a
country not at war according to the World Bank and
shortages of foreign
currency, food and fuel.
Analysts say truly
democratic polls are a key requirement to any plan to
pluck Zimbabwe out of a
deepening crisis
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