http://www.apanews.net
APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The
African Union Commission on Saturday
expressed the need for the swift
lifting of the sanctions imposed on
Zimbabwe.
The call by the AU came
following the agreement reached by the Zimbabwean
government and the main
opposition leaders for a power sharing government.
This underlines the
need for the swift lifting of the sanctions imposed on
Zimbabwe," said Jean
Ping, chairperson of the AU Commission.
Ping also welcomed the agreement
reached by the Zimbabwean parties on the
implementation of the Global Peace
Agreement (GPA), following the
extraordinary summit of the Southern African
Development Community (SADC)
held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 26 January
2009.
The Chairperson commended the parties for the spirit of compromise
and
mutual accommodation they have shown. He also expressed his appreciation
to
SADC and its facilitator, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, for
their tireless efforts, which made this progress possible.
"It is the
chairperson's expectation that the parties will now move swiftly
to
establish the government of national unity according to the timelines
that
have been agreed upon, in order to address the many challenges facing
Zimbabwe," said the AU statement.
Ping called on the AU member states
that are in a position to do so and the
international community as a whole,
to provide the much-needed assistance to
Zimbabwe to alleviate the suffering
of its people and help the
socio-economic recovery of the
country.
The Chairperson further reiterated the AU's determination to
continue
supporting the efforts of the Zimbabwean parties, in particular the
implementation of the GPA, of which it is a Guarantor.
DT/daj/APA
2009-02-01
Source: Government of Zimbabwe; World Health Organization (WHO) Date: 31 Jan 2009 ** Daily information on new deaths should not imply that these deaths
occurred in cases reported that day. Therefore daily CFRs >100% may
occasionally result A. Highlights of the day: - 555 cases and 3 deaths added today (in comparison 451 cases and 17 deaths
yesterday) - 32.8% of the districts affected have reported today (19 out of 58 affected
districts) - 88.7 % of districts reported to be affected (55 districts/62) - Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands provinces did not report - Cumulative Institutional Case Fatality Rate 2.1% - Daily Institutional Case Fatality Rate 0.5%
* Please note that
daily information collection is a challenge due to communication and staff
constraints. On-going data cleaning may result in an increase or decrease in the
numbers. Any change will then be explained.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=10774
January 31, 2009
By Our
Correspondent
THE secretary general of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement
for Democratic
Change, Tendai Biti has slapped the Zimbabwe Newspapers group
with a US$ 500
000 defamation lawsuit based on a series of articles
published in The
Herald.
The Herald alleged that Biti was the leader
of a group within the MDC that
sought to topple party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
In law defamation is the publication or communication of a
statement that
makes a false claim about the aggrieved person or that has
the potential to
tarnish their reputation or image in the eyes of the
public.
In papers filed at the High Court last week and delivered to
Herald House,
the Zimpapers headquarters, Biti has demanded a front-page
retraction of the
articles in question on top of the half a million
dollars.
The MDC secretary general confirmed having filed the lawsuit
documents of
which the Zimbabwe Times had sight of. Sources in the Herald
newsroom
revealed that features and political editor Mabasa Sasa and
reporter Sydney
Kawadza, the authors of the articles in question, had held
meetings with the
Zimpapers legal affairs manager Josephine
Tomana.
Tomana is the wife of controversial attorney general Johannes
Tomana. Tomana
is a close friend of Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Tsholotsho
North
legislator who, as minister of information wielded total control at
Zimbabwe
Newspapers. Johannes Tomana who was recently appointed Attorney
General in
controversial circumstances was Moyo's lawyer.
"The
lawsuit has shaken everyone here because it is apparent that the
company
will lose this battle as the stories were manufactured in the office
of
George Charamba," said a Herald senior staffer who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Charamba is the permanent secretary of information,
official spokesman of
President Robert Mugabe and de facto editor-in-chief
of The Herald and The
Sunday Mail as well as other Zimbabwe Newspapers
titles. As Herald columnist
Nathaniel Manheru Charamba himself has been
accused of defaming many with
total impunity. Charamba inherited the column
from Moyo, the original
Nathaniel Manheru.
"Sasa and Kawadza have
held meetings with Tomana on the issue and they both
indicated having been
ordered to write the stories by Charamba."
To minimise damage, the
sources revealed, The Herald last Saturday made a
major climb down and came
close to admitting that the stories alleging that
Biti was leading an MDC
rebellion against Tsvangirai were fictitious.
"MDC-T secretary general
Tendai Biti has denied that he is plotting to oust
Morgan Tsvangirai as
party president and has dismissed two Herald stories as
false," reads a
brief tucked on Page 2 of the main government mouthpiece
last
Saturday.
"In a letter from his lawyers to The Herald, he says the
stories suggesting
that he is trying to delay the inclusive government until
the MDC-T has new
leadership are totally false.
"One of the stories
published on January 13, said that Mr Biti orchestrated
an internal
leadership revolt and wanted to elect new leaders who would take
office in
the inclusive government with himself becoming deputy prime
minister,"
continued the article.
However, Biti insists that the Page 2 brief fell
short of his demand; hence
he is forging ahead with his lawsuit. The stories
that he challenged
appeared on the front page of The Herald. Once Zimbabwe's
largest
circulating newspapers with a circulation of more than 150 000
copies sold
per day the newspaper is now a shadow of its former
glory.
In defending the newspaper in a case of defamation Zimbabwe
Newspapers'
lawyers could argue that The Herald does not enjoy widespread
circulation in
Zimbabwe. The paper is reported to currently print only 14
000 copies per
day with a 15 percent return factor. The circulation of a
newspaper is a
factor in determining the quantum of damages in a case of
defamation.
In terms of the laws of defamation the withdrawal of a
defamatory story as
well as the tendered apology should be published as
prominently as the story
complained about.
If the defamatory story
appeared on Page 1 the withdrawal should also appear
on Page 1, as Biti,
himself a lawyer, now demands. It is then up to the
aggrieved person or
plaintiff to withdraw charges. If found guilty the
publication can, however,
cite the withdrawal and apology in mitigation when
pleading for a reduction
for damages.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Friday, 30 January
2009
HARARE - Harare City Council, another organisation grappling with
dollarisation of the economy, has sold part of its 5000 herd of cattle to
the Democratic Republic of Congo in return for US dollars.
Hearing of the sale the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe quickly moved in and
took
10 percent of the profit in foreign currency, claiming the transaction
was
illegal.
When asked why the bank hadn't taken all the money if it was
illegal,
Harare mayor and lawyer Muchadeyi Masunda said: "They realised they
could
also make some money out of the deal."
He added, however,
that Town House was in the process of regulating
how goods and services
belonging to the city are paid for in foreign
currency, in order to prevent
a recurrence.
The sale money, which Masunda confirmed ran into
thousands of US
dollars, is to be used to fund the city council's
cash-strapped operations,
which have virtually ground to a halt because of
its incapacity to bankroll
its costs. The city has as yet not been given the
go ahead by central bank
governor Gideon Gono to collect revenue in hard
currency.
The council's move to sell a portion of its herd comes at a
time when
staff have stopped going to work because they cannot afford
transport costs.
Commuter omnibuses are charging US$1 a trip when workers
are earning the
equivalent of just US$3 a month in worthless Zimbabwean
dollars.
Nor do these people have access to their money at banks due to
a
shortage of notes. Thanks to Mugabe's attacks on Europe and the West,
Germany has refused to supply the paper needed to print money.
Many
Harare residents believe widespread civil disturbance could
result if Mugabe
does not act soon.
Local Charles Mudzi said: "If Mugabe continues on
this path, it could
prove disastrous for him. People are getting restless
because it is now
impossible to survive in Zimbabwe. Everything has been
dollarised and where
does he (Mugabe) think we will get the money from?
People are tired of his
arrogance."
BY SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Friday, 30 January 2009
BY
John Makumbe
'Regime change has to result in most of our present
oppressors fleeing
from Zimbabwe in fear for their
lives'
It is now almost a year since the majority
of the voters in Zimbabwe
rejected Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF) as their
rulers in March 2008. In the
past eleven odd months, Mugabe and his
beleaguered political party have
tried every trick in the book to thwart the
people's choice of a national
leadership, but none of their tricks has
worked. Zimbabwe is still sliding
downhill in practically all aspects of
nationhood.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) must be
commended for firmly
resisting both the dictator and the toothless Southern
African Development
Community (SADC) in their efforts to keep Mugabe and
Zanu (PF) in power.
Both Mugabe and his devastated political party know very
well that their
rejection by the people of Zimbabwe means that even the
international
community has also rejected them as leaders of this nation.
They can try all
they want to remain in power but regime change is well and
truly on the way.
They may succeed in delaying it, but they will not be able
to stop it.
Robert Mugabe has made so many enemies for himself that
it does not
require that Tsvangirai should seek to discredit him any further
both within
and outside Zimbabwe. It was utter folly on Mugabe's part to
falsely accuse
Botswana of training MDC supporters in banditry so that they
could overthrow
him from power. These accusations were not laughed at only
by Sadc leaders,
but also by many people in the international community as
well as in
Zimbabwe.
The reeling authoritarian regime went on
to kidnap several MDC
supporters and forcibly made them "confess" to having
been trained in
Botswana in banditry tactics. The futility of the whole
exercise is
highlighted by the Sadc's refusal to question Botswana on these
allegations.
A sensible government would have been embarrassed by this
attitude of the
Sadc, but not our very own tyrannical regime. A regime that
goes as far as
kidnapping its own citizens in order to force them to admit
having committed
crimes has clearly become satanic and evil. To date some of
the kidnapped
activists are still missing. Whether he likes it or not,
Mugabe will one day
have a lot to answer for.
Indeed, when
regime change finally occurs there will be many in Zanu
(PF) and the Mugabe
government who will have to face the wrath of the law
for their actions
against the people of this country. Fortunately the names
of most of these
criminals are currently being recorded as evidence that can
be used against
them in courts of law. It is obvious that the kidnapping of
Jestina Mukoko
and two of her Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) colleagues was
aimed at getting
at some of this evidence by state hoodlums. What they did
not realize is
that all such evidence is carefully duplicated and backed up
in case of such
raids as they committed against the ZPP.
Some of these people will
be shocked to find out when regime change
takes place, that there will be
mountains of evidence against them coming in
from all over the world. There
will be no place to hide. The spurious
accusations against innocent Botswana
mean that these thieves and murderers
will not be able to seek refuge in
that peaceful country when the chips
fall. Perhaps South Africa and Namibia
will take them in and grand them
refugee status. Mugabe and his family will
most likely flee to Malaysia
where, it is rumoured, he owns a spacious house
and possibly even a farm.
Regime change has to result in most of our present
oppressors fleeing from
Zimbabwe in fear for their lives.
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/
The decision by the MDC to take part in a unity government
has blown a
breath of clean air into our sick and stagnant
country.
Cathy Buckle
01 February 2009 05:45
Early in the
morning on the last day of January 2009 I witnessed the start
of a new day
over Zimbabwe and wondered if this was The Day, the one that
would be
remembered as our new beginning. A heavy bank of purple clouds lay
on the
horizon broken by a few wisps of startling white. A slight breeze
stirred in
the trees and the air was busy with early birds: fork-tailed
drongoes,
bulbuls and shrikes. A ruckus in the Mulberry tree in my garden
meant the
weaver birds were awake. Four pairs of birds are breeding in the
tree, they
stripped the leaves from many branches before they were satisfied
with their
nests but now their little colony is well established.
I couldn't resist
walking barefoot in the dew laden grass and getting a
close up view of two
mushrooms that had shot up overnight. Thin stems,
delicate creamy caps
topped with a smudge of caramel, they had come from
nowhere, grown two
inches in a single night and then, as the sun got hotter
they shrivelled up
and were gone.
In amongst the snapshots of beauty like this, Zimbabwe is
surrounded by
sickness, hunger and extreme poverty. Thousands have died of
cholera in the
last few months and the epidemic continues to rage. It's
often hard to
believe that such horror can be happening in such a beautiful
place and hard
to see how we can ever get back to being a normal,
productive, healthy, free
people.
The decision by the MDC to take
part in a unity government has blown a
breath of clean air into our sick and
stagnant country. It has given us hope
again, a chance to test the trust
that we put into the men and women we
chose to lead our country when we
elected them nearly a year ago. Despite
all the negatives involved in this
unity government, this is a chance for
change for Zimbabwe. We are
sceptical, suspicious and even doubtful that
unity can be forged between
perpetrators and victims, doubtful that this can
work. It is not the clean
sweep that we hoped for but it is at least
somewhere to start.
©
Copyright cathy buckle 31st January 2009.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Friday, 30 January 2009
HARARE - MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said the success of the
all-inclusive
government that his party's National Council unanimously
agreed to join on
Friday was dependent on the goodwill of all the three main
political parties
to the power-sharing deal.
"The success of this inclusive
government is dependent on many factors
including the goodwill of the
parties involved, the support of the people
of Zimbabwe and the continued
engagement and vigilance of SADC and AU and
the broader international
community in ensuring that all parties are bound
by the letter and spirit of
the GPA (global political agreement) and the
commitments made at the last
SADC summit," said Tsvangirai.
The MDC leader spoke just a few
hours after the establishment of a
multi-party special taskforce, the Joint
Monitoring and Implementation
Committee (JOMIC), which is mandated with
monitoring and ensuring compliance
of all parties with the letter and spirit
of the power-sharing deal.
The crucial taskforce comprises four
members from the main MDC, four
from the breakaway MDC faction and four from
Zanu (PF).
Representatives from the main MDC are Elton Mangoma,
Elias Mudzuri,
Tabitha Khumalo and Innocent Chagonda, and from Zanu (PF)
Patrick Chinamasa,
Nicholas Goche, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Oppah Muchinguri.
The breakaway MDC
faction will be represented in the JOMIC by Welshaman
Ncube, Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Edward Mukosi and Frank
Chamunorwa.
Goche, Ncube and Mangoma will co-chair the JOMIC. They
were elected at
the first meeting of JOMIC held under the facilitation of
Thabo Mbeki's
facilitators Sydney Mufumadi and Frank Chikane.
Tsvangirai told reporters that concessions had been made by Zanu (PF)
on
four out of the five outstanding issues.
Tsvangirai said Zanu (PF)
had agreed to reverse its grab of all the
ten provincial governors. SADC
endorsed Tsvangirai's formula that the party
that got the majority of seats
on a province-by-province basis in the March
29 House of Assembly elections
should have the governorship of that
province.
Under the new
arrangement, the MDC will take control of five
provincial governorships,
Zanu (PF) four and the breakaway MDC faction led
by Arthur Mutambara gets
one.
The Zimbabwean on Sunday understands JOMIC discussed the draft
bill
written by the main MDC during their Friday meeting at the South
African
embassy in Harare.
"It is clear therefore that these two
issues (governors and security
legislation) are subject to negotiation and
therefore constitute work in
progress," Tsvangirai said. "It is hoped that
the work in progress will be
concluded to the satisfaction of all the
parties as soon as possible."
The third issue that Zanu (PF) had
climbed down on related to
Constitution Amendment No. 19 Bill, set to be
tabled in Parliament on
February 5, according to the timeline set by SADC
heads of State at the
emergency summit at the Presidential Guest House in
Pretoria on Monday.
"The MDC has insisted that Constitution
Amendment No. 19 (Bill) is
enacted by Parliament and signed into law prior
to the swearing in of the
Prime Minister and this has now been agreed to by
all the parties as
reflected in the SADC communique," Tsvangirai
said.
The appointment of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana, a
vociferous
supporter of Zanu (PF) will be reviewed, including the renewal of
the
mandate of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono, who has
presided over the world's highest inflation rate.
Many
observers doubt the unity government will last or work, given the
mistrust and deep-seated animosity between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
Others
suggest Tsvangirai may have put his illustrious political career
dangerously
on the line by agreeing to partner Mugabe, who is known for not
keeping his
word in similar deals in the past.
In addition,
while South Africa and other countries in the region may
support the
unity government, they lack the financial muscle required
topluck
Zimbabwe out of a crisis seen in a collapsed currency,
hyperinflation,
record unemployment and a cholera epidemic that has
killed more than 3 000
people since last August.
http://www.independent.co.uk
A unity government will at last be
formed, but can it rescue the country
from starvation and
collapse?
By Raymond Whitaker
Sunday, 1 February
2009
An African Union summit opening in Addis Ababa today is
expected to endorse
the unity government that will now be formed in
Zimbabwe. But many,
including some of the country's main aid donors,
question whether the forced
partnership of President Robert Mugabe and his
main opponent, Morgan
Tsvangirai, can ease the plight of millions of
Zimbabweans facing starvation
and disease.
After a political
stalemate lasting nearly five months - during which a
cholera outbreak has
claimed over 3,000 lives and the number of people
dependent on food aid more
than doubled to seven million - Mr Tsvangirai,
leader of Zimbabwe's Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), will be sworn in
as Prime Minister on 11
February. Regional mediators, led by South Africa,
pushed him into agreeing
to serve under Mr Mugabe, even though a dispute
over cabinet posts remains
unresolved.
A power-sharing agreement signed on 15 September has remained
in abeyance,
mainly because the MDC accused the ruling Zanu-PF party of
reneging on a
deal that the opposition should run the Home Ministry, which
controls the
police. Mr Tsvangirai rejected a proposal by mediators that the
two parties
should hold the ministry alternately, but has now agreed to take
office
before the dispute is settled. There was jubilation as he announced
his
decision on Friday to a large crowd in the centre of Harare, but the MDC
leader has to overcome visceral suspicion of Mr Mugabe within his own party
as well as abroad.
A US State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, said
after the deal was
announced that Washington remained "a bit sceptical",
adding: "These types
of things have been announced before. The key is always
implementation. The
jury is still out."
Zimbabweans remember that
Zanu, the only other party to mount significant
opposition to Mr Mugabe
during his 28 years in power, was forcibly merged
into Zanu-PF after 20,000
of its supporters were massacred in the early
1980s. The present deal
follows months of turmoil after the MDC unexpectedly
won elections last
March. Mr Tsvangirai was ahead in the first round of the
presidential
election, but following a wave of violence in which 200 people
were killed,
he pulled out of the second round to spare his supporters
further
intimidation.
The relief shown on the streets of Harare is a measure of
the desperation
felt by Zimbabweans at the lack of any effective government
for almost a
year, and some critics believe the MDC leader deserves a share
of the blame.
"I believe going into the inclusive government deal is the
only solution,
and has been the only solution for a long time," said one,
adding that Mr
Tsvangirai "should have got his foot in the door immediately
after 15
September, and then used his muscle to start changing things from
inside.
Had he done so, he would have avoided 30 people being abducted and
tortured,
the cholera epidemic taking hold and the economic situation
deteriorating so
dramatically. What has he achieved by delaying this
decision?"
Even if the government begins functioning and aid starts to
flow again, the
plight of millions of Zimbabweans is likely to worsen in the
short term.
February and March are traditionally the hungriest months,
because the maize
crop does not ripen until April and food stocks from the
previous harvest
are beginning to run out. But drought, economic collapse
and administrative
chaos meant large areas of the country had nothing to eat
even before last
year's planting season began. Flooding during the annual
rains is also
likely to worsen the cholera epidemic, which has already
infected at least
60,000 people.
A quarter of Zimbabwe's population
of about 12 million has left, mainly for
South Africa, in search of food and
work, and 94 per cent of those left
behind are unemployed. Last week the UN
World Food Programme said more than
seven million people needed emergency
food aid, but it did not have enough
to go round. An adult is estimated to
need 12kg of grain a month to survive,
but the WFP, which had already cut
the monthly ration to 10kg, is being
forced to halve it to 5kg in February.
Even some of the most desperate cases
will get nothing.
An aid worker
reported that, at one community food distribution, three old
men were so
close to death from hunger that a nursing mother had to give
them breast
milk "to survive for the next few hours". It is not known
whether they are
still alive.
The Independent on Sunday Christmas Appeal
The
Independent on Sunday Christmas Appeal for the work of Save the Children
in
Zimbabwe raised a total of £61,100, and we thank readers for their
generosity. The appeal is closed, but donations to Save the Children can
still be made at www.savethechildren.org.uk/secure/51_6630.htm
http://www.sundayherald.com
Scotland
February 01, 2009
Fred Bridgland
in Johannesburg reports on the desperation of Zimbabwe
HAVING WATCHED his
fellow Zimbabweans being murdered, tortured, starved and
condemned to death
from disease by Robert Mugabe, while millions of others
fled the country,
Morgan Tsvangirai has taken the biggest gamble of his life
and entered
coalition government with the man accused of subjecting
Zimbabweans to slow
genocide.
"If you walk into a lion's den and meet a lion, you should not
complain that
you met a lion," Tendai Dumbutshena, former editor of the
now-defunct
Zimbabwe Times, warned Tsvangirai. He added that, once they are
inside the
unity government: "Mugabe will shoot Tsvangirai and the MDC from
short
range."
Dumbutshena is the son of Enoch Dumbutshena, Zimbabwe's
former chief
justice, who until his retirement in 1990 ruled fearlessly
against the
Mugabe government. He was recalling the fate of the last Mugabe
opponent to
enter coalition with the head of
state.
advertisement
Opponents of the current deal within the MDC
fear that the power-sharing
arrangement resembles another Zimbabwe Unity
Accord in 1987. Then Mugabe
sent his North Korea-trained 5th Brigade, who
were answerable only to him,
into the heartland of opponent Joshua Nkomo's
territory.
Under Air Marshal "Black Jesus" Perence Shiri, born in the
same village as
Mugabe, the 5th Brigade slaughtered between 20,000 and
30,000 people, most
of them peasant villagers. Mugabe dubbed the massacres
and burnings of
peasant huts the "Gukurahundi", which translates as "The
early rain that
washes away the chaff before the spring rains."
A
report on the Gukurahundi, based on a five-year investigation by
Zimbabwe's
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, said: "Most of the
dead were
killed in public executions involving between one and 12 people at
a time,
often being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and
fellow
villagers." Human rights organisations demanded that "Black Jesus" be
tried
for crimes against humanity, but he is now a member of Mugabe's Joint
Operations Command, the supreme military junta that has effectively governed
for the past few years, and is one of the richest and most powerful men in
the land.
After the massacres Nkomo was forced to merge his party -
the Zimbabwe
African People's Union - with Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
Nkomo's
organisation was then swallowed whole by Mugabe. Nkomo was given
farms,
houses and fleets of cars, but he was destroyed politically and died
with
his reputation for integrity in shreds.
Tsvangirai has been
softened up in a similar manner by Mugabe. Ten months
ago he and the MDC
defeated Mugabe and Zanu-PF in presidential and
parliamentary elections. A
run-off presidential vote was required in June
because Tsvangirai narrowly
failed to win the 50% plus one vote necessary to
become head of state. But
Mugabe then launched a terror campaign by police,
soldiers and Zanu-PF
militias against MDC supporters in which more than 100
people were killed
and thousands were tortured and maimed. Tsvangirai
withdrew from the June
vote to save his supporters further suffering, and
last week the 15 heads of
state of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) forced Tsvangirai
into a government of national unity with
his archenemy, Mugabe, who remains
state president.
Tsvangirai this week becomes prime minister after the
parliament in the
Zimbabwe capital Harare created the new post
specially.
It is anyone's guess how the arrangement will work or whether
it will
improve the dreadful lot of the people of Zimbabwe. While many in
the
opposition see the arrangement as unworkable, with further disaster
waiting
to happen, Tsvangirai believes the alternative - Mugabe forming his
own
government with the support of SADC leaders - would be infinitely
worse.
Tsvangirai realised how cavalier, craven and irresponsible the
SADC leaders
were while he was at last week's summit in South Africa to
induce the birth
of the unity government. The members ignored his plea for
the MDC to be
given control of the home ministry. It runs the police, who
are Mugabe's
main tool of repression. Instead, the SADC went with Mugabe's
own unworkable
"solution" - Zanu-PF and the MDC will take turns to run the
ministry six
months at a time. Tsvangirai asked the Reverend Frank Chikane,
a top civil
servant in the South African presidency and the mediator of the
deal, which
party should control the police first. Chikane replied: "Just
toss a coin."
And it is a toss-up whether Tsvangirai can wrench
improvements in the lives
of Zimbabweans from a deal littered with potential
pitfalls.
Quite apart from having to fathom out how to work with Mugabe
and his
murderous comrades, Tsvangirai has to tackle myriad problems on the
ground
that would daunt a collective of all the world's geniuses.
How
to start explaining his problems? Well, take inflation, which last July
was
put officially by Mugabe's government at a dizzying 231 million percent
before it abandoned any further attempts to calculate the rate. It's
difficult to absorb the realities of inflation of such catastrophic
magnitude. But Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Baltimore's
John Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the libertarian public policy
Cato Institute think-tank, set to work with a team to calculate Zimbabwe's
true inflation rate.
Hanke and his co-workers came up with a
month-on-month inflation figure for
last November of 79.6 billion percent.
But, utterly frighteningly, the Hanke
team worked out Zimbabwe's annual
inflation rate at approximately 6.5
quindecillion novemdecillion percent.
That is 65 followed by 107 zeros,
meaning that the cost of living more than
doubles each day.
To keep up, Zimbabwe's central bank issued a new
high-denomination banknote
for 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. But last
week finance minister Patrick
Chinamasa gave up altogether and formally
abandoned the national currency,
saying that from now onwards transactions
will take place in US dollars,
euros, South African rands, Botswana pulas
and British pounds. The immense
problem now for the majority of Zimbabweans
is that they have no way of
accessing foreign currency unless it is sent to
them by relatives working
abroad.
The question is: how are
Zimbabweans surviving amidst such ruination? And
the answer is: they
aren't.
They are dying in their thousands each day from starvation, Aids,
cholera
and a host of other "ordinary" diseases which elsewhere in the world
are
containable. The Zimbabwean health-care and water and sewerage systems
have
completely collapsed. The country has by far the lowest life expectancy
in
the world: assuming she survives the early traumas, a baby girl born
today
can expect to live for less than 34 years.
Cholera, which in
the modern world is not a mass killer, is out of control
in Zimbabwe. The
World Health Organisation puts the official death toll at
3161, but these
are only deaths recorded among those who reach the collapsed
clinic system:
thousands more are dying unrecorded in rural areas where
there are no longer
any services. WHO estimates more than 60,000 other
people are
infected.
"It's a very, very dire situation," said Elizabeth Byrs,
spokeswoman for the
United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
She said that, with
the collapse of the hospital, water and sewerage
infrastructure, "it will
take time to put the health system back on
track".
And then, elsewhere in the stack of scarcely believable
statistics about the
Zimbabwe Mugabe has created, new figures published last
week by UNOCHA show
that Zimbabwe's unemployment rate has reached 94%. It
means that only
480,000 people have formal jobs, down from 3.6 million in
2003.
Amidst all this, the Zimbabwe population is simply disappearing.
Demographers estimated that the country, if it had followed a "normal"
development path, should by now be inhabited by 18 million people. Many
estimates put the present population at just nine million. More than three
million people, including most professionals such as doctors, nurses,
engineers and IT experts, have fled the country. The rest have simply been
killed or have died unnecessarily because of misgovernment and official
brutality.
Absurdly, Zimbabwe was until a decade ago the breadbasket
of Africa,
producing crops in abundance and a surplus for export that made
it rich and
financed what were once the finest schools and hospitals in
Africa. But
instead of reforming the agricultural system, so that black
farmers were
trained up alongside some 5000 highly efficient but mostly
reactionary white
commercial farmers, Mugabe - fired by xenophobia and
memories of racist
denigration when Zimbabwe was white-ruled Rhodesia -
launched violent land
invasions to expel the white farmers.
The
result was a collapse of the agricultural system, which in turn
triggered
total economic decay. Some 600,000 farm workers and their families
became
destitute and elongated the queues for international food relief.
The
farmland was never reallocated to competent peasant agriculturalists, as
promised by Mugabe. Instead, huge farms were given to his top party members,
military generals, pliant judges and senior policemen. These once-productive
farms now lie fallow and overgrown, used mainly by the corrupt urban elite
for weekend barbecues. The World Food Programme estimates it will have to
provide emergency food to more than seven million Zimbabweans this year,
compared with five million in 2008.
Tsvangirai can only begin to turn
things around with aid from a West
burdened with the credit crunch, which
has said it will provide no help
while Mugabe remains in political
power.
Somehow the West will have to compromise if it is sincere in
wanting to help
the legitimate MDC wing of the government to erode the power
of the
illegitimate Zanu-PF wing.
Donald Steinberg is the deputy
president of the International Crisis Group
and was the special assistant
for African affairs to Bill Clinton when he
was president. He said that
although the Zimbabwe deal remains "dangerously
vague" the West should
immediately begin extensive humanitarian aid while
the delivery of
large-scale development assistance should be tied to
transparent projects
and credible management.
"Programmes to rebuild civil society should be
launched to reverse Mugabe's
divide-and-rule strategies that have destroyed
the nation," said Steinberg.
"Programmes will be necessary to resurrect
Zimbabwe's once-proud legal
institutions and legislature, neutered under
Mugabe's pernicious abuse of
executive power."
Such commitments will
be full of risk for the West, since Mugabe will do
everything possible to
pervert and distort the power-sharing agreement. But
it will be a necessary
risk, since the leap in the dark being taken by
Tsvangirai is greater and
more perilous by far.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Editorial
Comment
Friday, 30 January 2009
The chaos that marked the beginning of
the new school term in the past
week, as children were sent back home
because teachers were on strike,
illustrates the tragedy that once proud
Zimbabwe has become under the charge
of a totally incompetent and
shamelessly corrupt ruling elite.
Having destroyed all that was
good about Zimbabwe - a good
manufacturing sector, a sound public health
system that was a shining
example on the continent, a world class farming
sector that they ruined
through some absurd and racist agrarian reform
programme - now President
Robert Mugabe and his cohorts are determined to
turn our children into a
generation of uneducated imbeciles.
No
serious learning took place at public schools in 2008 because
teachers spent
the better part of the year striking for more pay or sitting
at home because
they could not afford the bus fare to work on their meagre
salaries.
The new school year will go to waste again because
teachers will not
report for duty unless the government agrees to pay them
in hard cash. We do
not blame them. Who, if they had a choice, would accept
the Zimbabwe dollar?
That teachers, doctors, nurses or anybody else
will not accept the
near worthless dollar speaks of a worse crisis that has
seen thousands of
jobs lost, while poverty has risen to frightening levels
in the entire
nation - except the ruling class of course.
The
crisis that continues to get worse by the day could have been
eased months
ago and on the way to a permanent resolution. If only Mugabe
had put the
interests of Zimbabwe first by agreeing to share power equitably
with the
MDC, instead of trying to cheat the opposition into joining
government as a
powerless junior partner.
Likewise, the 3 000 people that have died
needlessly because of
cholera could have been saved had Mugabe and Zanu (PF)
cared.
But this is too much to ask of the selfish buccaneers in
charge of the
ship of state. They abandoned the noble ideals of the
liberation struggle
many years ago.
They are too busy stealing
taxpayers' money or fighting over which
last commercial farm to loot to be
able to see the anguish of parents
agonising over whether to send their
children to school where they may
contract cholera or keep them at home and
damage their future.
Sheer greed and an obscene desire to keep
power at all costs is what
has motivated Zanu (PF). It is the only motive
driving them into this unity
government with Morgan Tsvangirai and the
MDC.
We have said it before and in the name of our children who are
being
denied an education by this incompetent lot, we say it again: this
unity
government cannot work, not when there is no paradigm shift on the
part of
Zanu (PF), not when Mugabe continues to see it as a means to
outflank the
opposition.
http://www.punchontheweb.com
Nigeria
By Minabere
Ibelema
Published: Sunday, 1 Feb 2009
WHEN African politicians tiptoe
around Zimbabwe's nightmare, Robert Mugabe,
it is understandable. Many of
them are practitioners of Mugabe's cynical
politics or have benefited from
such.
When academics vent for Mugabe, that is a different matter. It is
reason for
concern. Alas, there has been a lot of that from some of Africa's
brightest
minds.
Africa's intellectual class is usually the most
unsparing critics of African
politicians. But the two groups tend to find
common grounds when the issue
is Western imperialism.
There was a
time in some intellectual circles when African leaders literally
got away
with murder if they could link their countries' travails to
colonialism or
neo-colonialism. That trend reached its peak during the Cold
War, when the
rivalry between the capitalist and communist blocs wreaked
havoc on African
soils.
Accordingly, opportunistic African leaders - civilian and military
- readily
mobilised their people to fight the external evil.
The end
of the Cold War in the early 1990s took away the cover for
repression and
inept leadership. Pro-Western African regimes could no longer
repress their
people with the excuse that they were guarding against
communism. And
pro-Soviet regimes could no longer perpetuate totalitarianism
in the guise
of anti-imperialism.
In country after country, the people began to focus
their attention on the
internal political process and the quality of their
leadership. They
recognised that the imperial presidency was not consistent
with people's
political and economic aspirations.
For academics, the
fervour for related treatise on imperialism began to wane
correspondingly.
Rather than blame imperialists, they increasingly
acknowledged that the
quality of life of African people depended more on
internal forces than
external machinations.
For some African intellectuals, it seems that this
realisation has been
jettisoned with regard to Mugabe. They have fervently
revived the
colonialist/neo-colonialist thesis to explain Africa's greatest
political
tragedy at this time (with all due consideration for Darfur and
eastern
Congo).
Actually, some of Mugabe's defenders are only being
consistent with their
scholarly identity.
The essential argument in
defence of Mugabe is that Zimbabwe's economy has
crumbled because of Western
economic sanctions. And the sanctions were
imposed because of Mugabe's
redress of colonial injustice.
Both parts of the argument are only
half-truths. They do not justify support
for Mugabe's morbid clinging to
power.
Sure, Mugabe inherited a vexing inequity. Whites controlled about
70 per
cent of Zimbabwe's most arable lands, though they constitute a small
percentage of Zimbabwean farmers and population.
Mugabe's solution
was to allow activists to yank farmlands from whites
without due
compensation and without ensuring the expertise necessary to
keep those
farms as productive.
In effect, he gambled with the country's economy. If
agricultural production
collapsed, the economy would collapse. And sure
enough both did.
This fact is conveniently sidestepped in the imperialist
arguments - that
sanctions are to blame for Zimbabwe's economic collapse.
Yes, sanctions
hurt, but only to a degree.
Many countries with
well-managed economies have survived sanctions. For
years, for instance,
apartheid South Africa thumbed its nose at the world
despite United Nations
sanctions.
Sure, many Western countries violated the sanctions. But then
sanctions are
always violated by countries that have something to gain in
doing so. The
sanctions against Zimbabwe are no exception. Even arms are
being shipped in
there.
Significantly, Namibia and South Africa faced
similar inequity in economic
power when the black majority took over in both
countries. In neither
country did the leaders resort to rash policies that
would have constituted
cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
In
Namibia, President Sam Nujoma and Prime Minister Hage Geingob were both
SWAPO Marxists. But once in office they had the political wisdom to adopt
pragmatic policies in both racial and ideological matters.
With a
mixture of negotiations and cajoling they succeeded in steering the
country
to relative racial equity without unsettling the economy. The
successive
presidency of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki did the same in
South
Africa.
Even if Mugabe's government was justified in its approach to
redressing the
farmland inequity, the consequence has been disastrous and
the people have a
democratic right to hold him accountable. He cannot hide
behind ostensible
nationalism and racialist rhetoric.
In the most
recently contested elections, the people decided they had had
enough, but
Mugabe and his allies would not let the verdict stand. They
turned the
opposition's evident victory into results that supposedly
warranted a
run-off. Then they let loose the police and military on the
opposition,
abducting, imprisoning and clobbering them.
Even if Zimbabwe's downfall
was engineered by the West, Mugabe has to be
answerable to his people, the
electorate. What he is doing, instead, is
thumbing his nose not so much at
the West but at Zimbabweans. Their
suffering does not even seem to perturb
him.
At points in Zimbabwe's history, Mugabe was an asset. Now he and his
cronies
are a tragic liability.
Democracies have been known to let go
their most revered leaders when a
different kind of leadership is called
for. After World War II, for
instance, the British voted out Winston
Churchill, the prime minister whose
inspired leadership saw them through the
perilous years.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela stepped down of his own
accord. He would
still be president today if he had wanted to. But wisdom
and love of his
country dictated otherwise.
Apologists for Mugabe
have dubbed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai a
stooge for the West. The
same appellation was used to discredit opponents of
Africa's
post-independence totalitarians. And one thought we had gone beyond
that.
In the words of Shakespeare, "There is a tide in the affairs of
men, which
taken at the flood leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage
of their
life is bound in shallows and in miseries."
The tide for
Mugabe's departure came long time ago, but he did not take it.
Now
Zimbabweans are paying a steep price for his egomania. He should
go.
http://www.scoop.co.nz
Sunday, 1 February 2009, 5:25 pm
Press
Release: New Zealand Labour Party
Statement on Zimbabwe
Rt Hon
Helen Clark, Labour Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs said today hopes
would
be high that the power sharing agreement announced in Zimbabwe would
offer a
fresh start for the traumatised nation.
The agreement, announced in
Zimbabwe in recent hours would see Morgan
Tsvangirai, Leader of the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), sworn in as
Prime Minister in eleven days time.
Reports suggest that the MDC would take
the finance portfolio; share the
important Home Affairs portfolio which has
responsibility for the police;
and take a range of other portfolios.
Helen Clark said that the
international community stood poised to offer
major support to the
rebuilding of Zimbabwe, should this be a serious power
sharing
agreement.
"The previous power sharing accord, signed in Zimbabwe last
September,
failed to take effect. For the sake of Zimbabweans, it has to be
hoped that
this one fares better.
"In recent weeks a cholera epidemic
has spread in Zimbabwe, infecting more
than 60,000 people and killing more
than 3,000. This misery has been added
to the HIV-AIDS epidemic, 94 per cent
unemployment, and an inflation rate
now estimated at a staggering 231
million per cent.
"Political violence causing death, disability, and
terror has been
perpetrated against Zanu-PF's opponents. The new agreement
commits to free
political activity without the fear of harassment and
intimidation.
All eyes will be on Zimbabwe to see if this critical part
of the new
agreement is abided by. Without adherence to that, Zimbabwe
cannot get the
fresh start it so desperately needs.
" The leaders of
Southern Africa have worked hard to get this second power
sharing agreement
in place, fully conscious of the tragedy which has
unfolded in Zimbabwe. For
the sake of Zimbabwe and the region, it has to be
hoped that it works. A
nation once in the vanguard of development on the
continent has been reduced
to unimaginable tragedy by its rulers.
"The new agreement implies
reasonably rapid progress on the development of a
new constitution which
would be submitted to a referendum. The world will be
watching to see that
this process proceeds unhindered by those responsible
for reducing Zimbabwe
to its present desperate state", Helen Clark said.