http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5661900.ece
From
The Times
February 5, 2009
(Alexaner Joe-Pfz/EPA)
[ Mengistu Haile
Mariam in a picture taken in June 1989 ]
Martin Fletcher in Harare
For 17
years Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former Ethiopian dictator who slaughtered
opponents on an industrial scale in the “Red Terror”, has lived in Zimbabwe as
the honoured guest of Robert Mugabe, dividing his time between a heavily guarded
villa in Harare, a farm near the capital and a retreat on glorious Lake
Kariba.
Last year an Ethiopian court sentenced the “Butcher of Addis” to
death after convicting him of genocide in absentia but Mr Mugabe flatly refused
to extradite the man who helped to arm Zanu (PF)’s guerrillas during Zimbabwe’s
1970s liberation war.
Suddenly, however, the future of one of Africa’s worst
tyrants looks less assured. Next week the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for
Democratic Change will enter a unity government with Zanu (PF) and Nelson
Chamisa, its chief spokesman, told The Times yesterday that Mengistu’s
extradition to Ethiopia would be “high on the agenda” of that new
administration.
“Zimbabwe should not be a safe haven or resting place for
serial human rights violators like Mr Mengistu,” he said. “We can’t shelter
purveyors of injustice.”
Few Zimbabweans would shed tears if Mengistu, 71, is
sent home to the gallows. Mr Mugabe has spent millions of dollars providing him
with a villa in a barricaded cul-de-sac in the Gun Hill suburb, with
round-the-clock protection and any number of other benefits including the
payment of substantial telephone bills, including one of $ 15,000.
In return
Mengistu has advised Mr Mugabe on security issues, and was allegedly the
mastermind of Operation Murambatsvina in 2006 in which security forces and Zanu
(PF) thugs razed the homes of 700,000 slum-dwellers regarded as MDC
supporters.
Mengistu has plenty of experience in that field. He seized power
after a military coup in 1974 that ended Emperor Haile Selassie’s 44-year rule
and ushered in one of the bloodiest regimes Africa has known.
In 1976 he
mounted the “Red Terror” campaign against opponents of his Derg regime by
standing in the centre of Addis Ababa, shouting: “Death to the
counter-revolutionaries”, and smashing bottles filled with pigs’ blood to
demonstrate the fate that awaited them.
Over the next few years more than
half a million people were thought to have been killed in what Human Rights
Watch called “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder ever witnessed in
Africa”. Relatives had to pay a tax called “the wasted bullet” to retrieve the
bodies of the dead. The victims included the former Emperor and numerous members
of the Royal Family, and Mengistu is said to have executed some of them
himself.
He turned Ethiopia into a Marxist state, backed by the Soviet Union,
earning the sobriquet the “Black Stalin”. He created giant collective farms that
had the same ruinous effect on agricultural production as Mr Mugabe’s land
seizures in Zimbabwe, and that helped to cause terrible famine.
His
Soviet-armed military sought to crush an independence war in Eritrea, and an
uprising in Tigray province, but when the Soviet Union collapsed Mengistu lost
his sponsors. In 1991 he fled to Zimbabwe as the Tigre People’s Liberation Front
and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front surrounded Addis. Washington asked Mr
Mugabe to accept him to end the bloodshed.
In 1995 Mengistu narrowly survived
an assassination attempt by two Eritreans as he took an afternoon stroll with
his wife near Garvin Close, his Harare home.
Otherwise he has maintained a
low profile. Early on he was occasionally spotted in a shopping centre or
restaurant, surrounded by guards and armed with a pistol. In 1998 he told a
reporter that he was a “political refugee” who spent his time reading, writing
and watching television.
In 1999, using a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport, he
flew to Johannesburg for medical treatment, and gave a rare interview to a South
African newspaper in which he claimed his socialist revolution had been
necessary to remove Selassie’s “backward, archaic and feudalist system”, and
that millions of peasants had benefited. More recently he has vanished from
sight.
Mengistu’s armed guards were nowhere to be seen in Garvin Close
yesterday, and The Times was able to drive right up the cul-de-sac before
soldiers appeared and ordered the intruder to leave.
As Mr Mugabe’s
popularity has plunged, Mengistu was rumoured to have made contingency plans to
move to North Korea. Now might be the time to dust them off - if he has not done
so already.
Times Archive, 1985: Feeding the tyrants
If we started
assessing Colonel Mengitsu as an African Pol Pot it might alert more people to
the enormity and criminality of what is going on in Ethiopia
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Times Archive, 1985: Feeding the
tyrants
If we started assessing Colonel Mengitsu as an African Pol Pot it
might alert more people to the enormity and criminality of what is going on in
Ethiopia
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How
Mengistu hammers the peasants
Crowd acclaims Ethiopia's strongman,
1977
Reign of terror
- Seized power in the aftermath of the 1974 coup
against Emperor Haile Selassie, who died the following year
- Replaced the
ancient feudal system with totalitarian rule from 1977, marked by “Red Terror”
purges in which suspected enemies were rounded up and executed
- Tens of
thousands were butchered or tortured. Thousands more civilians were caught in
the crossfire of war against northern rebels and 700,000 peasants were resettled
forcibly
- Up to one million Ethiopians starved to death in the 1984 famine,
a direct result of his Marxist policies that left the country ravaged by
economic decline
- Fled to Zimbabwe in 1991, after guerrilla forces led by
Meles Zenawi toppled his regime
- Found guilty in absentia of genocide by
Ethiopia’s supreme court last year and sentenced to death
Source: Times
archives
http://www.hararetribune.com/our-town/13-education/124-markers-of-national-examinations-on-indefinite-stay-away.html
Our
Town - Education
Written by Ivene Cheunga
Wednesday, 04 February 2009
19:54
Markers of Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations are on an
indefinite stay-away pending the “government’s” determination of the payment of
the fifty percent of their dues so far in foreign currency. The indefinite tools
down has threatened once again to derail the expectations that results would be
released early March, Harare Tribune can reveal.
The markers countrywide have
completed marking fifty percent of the work and the caretaker government of
Robert Mugabe has failed to pay for the work-in-progress and markers fear that
they might end up being slaves of the defeated ZANU PF leader if they heartily
commit themselves to the exercise.
ZANU PF had offered US1 dollar per script
despite that a donor had availed a rate of US$ 20 dollars per script amid
reports that Mugabe’s cronies diverted the difference.
There was drama three
weeks back when markers were driven to their Belvedere Teachers College’s
Command Centre for their eventual travel to their provinces of origin to ensure
that there was no connivance to influence negative scenes against the
government.
Some markers from Midlands that had gone for two solid weeks
surviving on morning teas only manhandled a driver and ordered him to go
straight to ZIMSEC offices where they demanded their dues from an education
director identified as one Ndanga.
The markers ruptured into song, dance and
vowed to sleep over, which they did to push the education ministry to meet their
demands. There was widespread anticipation that the 2009 budget presentation of
the acting finance minister Patrick Chinamasa would clarify the payout of the
markers in a fully dollarised environment by Alas! it was silent over the issue.
The disgruntlement of the markers eventually caused the leakage, like a sieve,
of classified information with confirmations that so far in the marked scripts,
Mugabe’s offspring Robert Junior has failed five subjects.
Further research
has established that Robert Junior was once sodomised by senior boys at Xavier
Kutama all-boys high School in Zvimba in 2004, a situation that led to his
transfer to Heritage elite school.
The markers expressed concern over the
corruption of ZANU PF saying that they were surprised to hear that Bona was
doing university education in Hong Kong yet she had failed most of her ordinary
level examinations. They said that according to their knowledge she never
attempted to rewrite and was just pushed forward like a log by
Mugabe.
Meanwhile the education secretary Dr Stephen Mahere has said that
leaking classified information, especially the results before they are
officially made public is a serious offence. He said that as education
authorities they would descend heavily on the errand markers that are going
public with sensitive information of the President’s child.
The markers have
confirmed that they would return to complete the works once the government has
paid them their fifty percent payout
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/chatunga7.19349.html
MASTER
MUGABE: Chatunga is helped down the steps of a plane by a bodyguard as his
father
leads
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Martin Fletcher
Posted to the web:
04/02/2009 15:54:01
EARLY every morning a chauffeur-driven car delivers
Robert Mugabe's youngest son, Bellarmine Chatunga, to Hartmann House, the prep
school for St George's College, the oldest and most expensive private boys'
school in Zimbabwe.
Master Mugabe wears a red cap and blazer, like the 350
other boys whose parents spend almost $ US1000 ($ 1500) a term - a fortune in
Zimbabwe - to attend the elite institution with its tree-lined drives and
verdant cricket fields in central Harare. Only the presence of two bodyguards
sets him apart from his peers.
Bellarmine's enrolment, and that of the sons
of two other Zanu PF ministers, does not thrill Brendan Tiernan, who has spent
28 years teaching at St George's and is now its headmaster.
"I'm surprised
their parents would be willing to preside over the awful collapse of education
in this country, given how highly they value it for their own children," he
said.
"It's problematic for me."
Tiernan's discomfort is easy to
understand. Not many years ago, Zimbabwe boasted the highest educational
standards in Africa. Its literacy rate rivalled that of the US, and 96 per cent
of its children attended school.
Much of the credit for that enviable record
belonged to Mugabe, who began his career as a teacher, earned half-a-dozen
degrees during 11 years of imprisonment by the Rhodesian authorities, and
lavished attention on Zimbabwe's schools in the early years of
independence.
Today, the education system has collapsed. Of its 130,000
teachers, roughly 60,000 have left the country, the profession or both because
hyperinflation rendered their salaries worthless. Of the rest, most are now on
strike, demanding payment in foreign currency.
The majority of the country's
6000 schools either failed to reopen when term belatedly began last week, or are
catering only for the few whose parents can scrape together US dollars to pay
the teachers.
It seems scarcely possible, but Zimbabwe's 3.5 million
schoolchildren are likely to receive even less education this year than last
when strikes, elections and violence meant they spent an average of 27 days at
school, and their examination papers went unmarked. The government now spends
just US18c a child on education, meaning Mugabe spends more on educating
Bellarmine each term than his government spends on 5000 ordinary schoolchildren
in a year.
"The system is in tatters ... a generation is at risk of growing
up without any education," said Rachel Pounds, Zimbabwe director of the Save the
Children group. UNICEF's spokeswoman in Harare, Tsitsi Singizi, said: "Education
is the engine that drives Zimbabwe's future and that future is now at
risk."
A quarter of the country's children are orphans, and the schools
provide protection against exploitation and abuse, she said.
The Education
Ministry seems unconcerned. It convened a meeting of international donors and
NGOs at the Sheraton hotel in Harare last week, but then failed to send a single
representative.
In the slums of southern Harare, barely 8km from the
manicured grounds of Hartmann House, ragged, barefooted children who should have
been at school played in rutted streets lined by mounds of rotting garbage this
week.
Lucia and Linda Madzise, aged 13 and 9, were looking after their
three-year-old brother Maxwell. They used to attend Chitsere primary school but
have not been since August last year, and now the only pupils who still go are
those whose parents could raise $ US10 a term.
In a primary school that once
had 1400 pupils and 40 staff, a headmaster, who asked to remain anonymous, sat
alone with his deputy in his spartan office, watched over by a portrait of
Mugabe. "Right now we don't have a single teacher," he said.
"I'm sad and
angry. We used to have very good education in Zimbabwe. We were very committed
to our work, but today you ask why you should work if you're not paid."
The
headmaster will soon have to retire at 65, but his pension will be worthless.
"I'll go home and wait to die," he said. - The Times
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18281&Itemid=103
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
• Total overhaul needed to protect national interests
•
An end to blackmail, lies and murder
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
HARARE
The MDC has drafted a National Security Bill
suggesting an overhaul of President Robert Mugabe’s spy Central Intelligence
Organisation, CIO, The Zimbabwean can report.
The MDC was tasked with
drafting the security legislation as part of concessions made by Zanu (PF) at
the power-sharing talks that led to the current efforts to form an inclusive
government.
The National Security Bill, which defines the parameters of the
security forces, was drafted by the MDC and is being reviewed by the Joint
Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) - a multi-party taskforce that
will ensure compliance of all parties with the power-sharing deal.
The MDC
wants the current publicly-funded national security agency to be reformed into a
true information-gathering and analysis organization in a looming political
dispensation where the MDC controls Parliament.
Sources familiar with the
security legislation say the MDC has noted that the CIO is institutionally and
culturally corrupt.
The MDC wants the CIO to boost its operational capacity
and sharpen its intelligence-gathering methods to effectively protect the
country's interests, instead of being preoccupied with tracking down President
Mugabe’s critics and political opponents.
There are suggestions for extensive
and true democratic oversights on the spy agency. The MDC has also reportedly
the formation of a bipartisan Parliamentary Committee to review and veto all
aspects of CIO operations upon a majority or super-majority vote, according to a
source.
Pullout ‘The CIO’s capabilities are undermined by its leaders’ zeal
to pander to presidential whims at the expense of the public interest’
The
Joint Operations Command, a security services think-tank under whose tutelage
the CIO falls, is set to be abolished and replaced by a National Security
Council, according to the terms of the power-sharing deal.
In the inclusive
government, Mugabe will still head the new National Security Council, but with
MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai as his deputy in the security thinktank. This
will also include top army generals who have previously vowed they will never
salute Tsvangirai.
As an elite ‘enforcement’ arm of the Zanu (PF) government,
the CIO has been in the forefront of Mugabe’s crusade for control of Zimbabwe,
its societies and its resources, run under the cloak of "intelligence gathering"
and brandishing the dagger of national security.
The CIO uses every trick in
the book: propaganda, stuffing ballot boxes, rigging elections, blackmail,
sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration
and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture,
intimidation, death squads and even assassination.
The CIO is accountable to
Mugabe alone and its charter allows it to "perform such other functions and
duties as the executive may from time to time direct." The CIO budget is kept
secret, is not subjected to audit by the comptroller or auditor general as other
government departments are subjected to.
MDC shadow Defence minister, Retired
Major Giles Mutsekwa, said the CIO has to be transformed into a refined national
security organisation.
"As it is, the organisation is backward in terms of
modern security philosophy and outlook," Mutsekwa said. "It was purely another
arm of Mugabe’s party designed to benefit none other than Zanu (PF) and that is
why it operates like a private army." The six major branches of the CIO are:
Internal, which has counter-intelligence or counter-subversion and serious crime
units; External with its analysis and liaison units; Security with a Close
Security Unit (CSU) and another known as GPSI - Government Protection Security
Inspectorate; Economics with policy planning and analysis; and Administration
with personnel, training, finance, resource management, transport and other
services.
There is also the Director-General’s pool, which is seen as a
dumping ground for under-performing officers. A select few divisional heads of
the 3,000-member strong CIO, report directly to Mugabe.
Immediately under the
directors are deputy-directors, assistant directors, provincial intelligence
officers, district intelligence officers, senior intelligence officers, senior
assistant intelligence officers and ordinary-level intelligence
officers.
Insiders say the rigid CIO structure entrenches an unreconstructed
bureaucracy largely staffed with presidential toadies. Critics say the CIO’s
capabilities are undermined by its leaders’ zeal to pander to presidential whims
at the expense of the public interest. - BY CHIEF REPORTER
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18230&Itemid=104
Tuesday,
03 February 2009
IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) aims to double
the amount of money it has available to lend to governments to $ 500 billion to
strengthen international confidence amidst the current financial crisis.
IMF
First Deputy Managing Director, John Lipsky, said the Fund needed to raise its
lending capacity and boost confidence amongst members, in case more countries
are forced to turn to the institution to borrow.
"Right now the IMF has
adequate resources to respond to the demands that we see in front of us
immediately," said Mr Lipsky said during a panel discussion at the World
Economic Forum in Davos at the weekend.
"However, we think it is prudent at
this time, to add contingent facilities that would double the resources
available to us. We have, through quotas and existing borrowing agreements, $
250 billion in total. We thought it prudent to add another $ 250 billion at this
time," he said, adding that the IMF Executive Board is expected to consider a
number of suggestions for boosting the IMF's resources shortly.
Mr Lipsky
also said that with adequate policy response by governments, including fiscal
stimulus in advanced economies and some emerging markets, the world could see a
revival of economic growth toward the end of 2009 "and a return over the next
year to trend growth. But decisive action will be needed."
In its latest
assessment published on January 28, the IMF states that world growth is forecast
to fall to its lowest level since World War II, with financial markets remaining
under stress and the global economy taking a sharp turn for the worse, sending
both global output and trade plummeting.
The IMF has so far committed $ 47.9
billion in lending to a number of economies affected by the crisis, while
negotiation have also started with other troubled states.
Speaking of the
availability of additional resources, Mr Lipsky said Japan had already offered
to lend the IMF $ 100 billion and that the body would to raise an additional $
150 billion. "I want to make clear that this is contingent facilities to give
confidence that we have the resources to respond if needed," he said, without
giving further details where the additional resources would come from.
The
IMF strategy has however also received some scorns from other economic sectors,
feeling the Fund's proposal was very modest.
Speaking during the same panel
discussion at Davos, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman of India's
Planning Commission and a former head of the IMF's watchdog known as
the
Independent Evaluation Office, said an extra $ 250 billion was a "very
modest" proposal given the amount of resources being deployed in some advanced
economies to counter the crisis.
He suggested two alternatives to tapping a
few countries for the $ 250 billion in extra funding, which could include a
tripling of the IMF's quotas and a generalised issue of the IMF's
Special
Drawing Rights (SDRs), which supplement the existing official reserves of member
countries.
Other critics have also pointed at the need for the IMF to also
embrace reforms while the world is trying to adjust to current shocks.
afrol
News
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18277&Itemid=107
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
We agree with Botswana’s president, Ian Khama, who said in a
rare interview this week that allowing leaders to keep power through negotiated
deals after fraud-ridden elections, as in Kenya last year and now in Zimbabwe,
has set a terrible precedent for Africa.
The GNU deal is wrong. It favours
Mugabe and he lost the elections. But the MDC has decided to go ahead with it.
We will reserve judgement. We want to see results. Only then can we decide
whether or not to support it.
Under the terms of the deal, the winner of the
March general and presidential elections, Morgan Tsvangirai, faces the almost
impossible task of trying to share control of a corrupt and partisan police
force and reviving Zimbabwe’s moribund economy and rescuing an increasingly
famished, sick and impoverished population.
Robert Mugabe’s track record
regarding integrity and sharing power is not impressive. Even as the
power-sharing talks were taking place, his thugs were busy abducting abducted
dozens more opposition supporters, many of whom are still in custody, despite
having been tortured and being in desperate need of proper medical
attention.
For this reason we urge the international community not to relax
its pressure on the Harare regime for one instant, until we see real progress
towards real power sharing and real democracy.
The list of required reforms
is endless. Needless to say the removal of draconian anti-press freedom
legislation and the punitive 70% duty on The Zimbabwean and The Zimbabwean on
Sunday is top of our list.
But no less important are the following:
* * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
- the release of all political prisoners;
- the
systematic removal of all un-just laws and decrees;
- the end of partisan
policing;
- a return to an independent judiciary and the rule of law
- the
end to hate speech and state propaganda in the mass media;
- the opening up
of the airwaves to independent operators;
- an end to state-sanctioned
looting of national resources and parastatals.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That is just for starters.
Until meaningful action towards the meeting of
these basic requirements can be seen to begin, the targeted measures against
Mugabe and his hierarchy must remain firmly in place.
In addition, the
international community must make every effort to ensure that any assistance
given to Zimbabwe to ease the humanitarian crisis must be carefully channelled
so as not to end up in the pockets of Zanu (PF) fat cats. The gravy train stops
now.
Syndicated Crime Continues to Challenge Southern
Africa
http://www.issafrica.org/index.php?link_id=5&slink_id=7243&link_type=12&slink_type=12&tmpl_id=3
5
February 2009:
Last year a number of crime analysts predicted that the key
challenges that would persist in Southern Africa during 2009 would
include:
Illegal human migration across borders;
trafficking of
narcotics;
cigarette smuggling;
corruption in procurement
projects.
Indications to date are that such predictions were accurate.
Firstly, it is evident that cross-border human smuggling and human
trafficking, which have manifested themselves since the late 90s in the region,
have continued unabated.
South Africa continues to be a central destination
for illegal migrants and victims of trafficking. Anecdotal cases have recently
emerged of criminal groups operating from major cities such as Johannesburg,
Pretoria and Port Elizabeth that are engaged in smuggling young men and women
into South Africa to seek work or in transit to other countries such as the
United Kingdom.
Zimbabwe is a regular source of migrants.
It is well
known that the economic implosion has resulted in a massive exodus from
Zimbabwe. In many cases, while adults have been able to migrate from there, they
have not been able to do so with their children.
Exploiting the difficulties
that migrant parents encounter in seeking to re-unite with their children,
criminals have set themselves up in the business of facilitating such
re-unions.
The most common cases involve parents that have moved to the
United Kingdom.
Against the payment of a fee, which ranges from R10 000 to
R25 000, criminals smuggle children into South Africa or Botswana.
The plan
is to move them on to the United Kingdom as soon as an opportunity arises,
ostensibly to seek political asylum, but in fact to be re-united with their
parents. The schemes utilise false travel documents obtained from the host
countries. Occasionally, it takes long for the migrant children to be moved from
South Africa and Botswana. Botswana passports are particularly popular with
human smugglers transferring persons to the United Kingdom, because holders do
not require entry visas. The smugglers include the costs of securing the
passports of convenience in the fee charged.
It has come to light that in the
intervening period, some have been subjected to various kinds of abuse,
including sexual abuse. In some cases, the criminal syndicates fail to arrange
the onward migration beyond the host country, resulting in much suffering. In
relatively fewer instances, migrant children end up being held in virtual
bondage.
There is also evidence of continuing migration from Somalia into
South Africa, through Zambia and Mozambique. It is not clear whether any of the
migrants are victims of human trafficking. Passage through the transit countries
is largely secured through corrupt means. Collaboration between the human
smugglers and some officers within immigration departments has been observed in
some studies.
As a further challenge, cigarette smuggling continues to be a
problem in the region. South Africa is a major market, as has been observed by
the tobacco industry. Routes lead into the country through Botswana, Namibia and
Swaziland. From the various interceptions by customs authorities, the cigarettes
appear to originate from China and Zimbabwe. For various reasons, detection of
cigarette smuggling tends to be low, and this activity is set to continue in
2009.
Along with it, the trafficking of narcotics into and from South Africa
is a continuing challenge. Recent large interceptions in London (of drugs
emanating from South Africa) and the southern coast (of a ship travelling from
Argentina) highlight the enormity of the task of detecting trafficking. The
London seizure revealed some of the current methods used to get drugs out of the
country into Europe on board passenger flights, using airline crew. The trial of
the suspects arrested to date should be interesting.
Finally, there are
various imminent large-scale civil construction and rehabilitation projects in
the region. As has tended to be the case, such projects attract grand schemes of
corruption. There are disturbing indications that projects to develop southern
Mozambique (Ponta du Ouro) and to enhance electricity generation at Cabora Bassa
might be afflicted by corruption. The authorities mandated to combat corruption
in that country will need to be vigilant.
Charles Goredema, Head: Organised
Crime and Money Laundering Programme, ISS Cape Town
AU leaders wound up a summit here yesterday with the continent beset by conflict
and divided over new
chairman
http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=2225
AU Ends
Summit Divided Over Future
by Nampa/AFP
ADDIS ABABA
African Union (AU)
leaders wound up a summit here yesterday with the continent beset by conflict
and divided over new chairman Moammar Gadhafi’s plans for unifying its 53 member
states.
The Libyan leader’s election as the rotating chairman of the
pan-African body sparked a debate that led to an extension of the summit, which
had been due to close on Tuesday.
The veteran leader’s vision for a more
aggressive integration of the continent into what he calls the “United States of
Africa” was met by deep reservations from some key nations.
Yesterday’s
closing speeches came after late night drama at the AU’s Addis Ababa
headquarters, when the maverick Libyan leader walked out on discussions over the
future of the organisation.
“He understood that he lost, that’s why he left
like that,” one African diplomat said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
Publicly, African leaders tried to put a positive spin on
it.
“He didn’t walk out, he just got tired,” Liberian President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf said.
“We had very important things to discuss. A very rich
debate,” Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said.
The summit had already
agreed to expand the mandate of the AU Commission and change its name to the AU
Authority, but the details of that change appear to have been the focus of the
dispute.
South African President, Kgalema Motlanthe, said in a joint
interview with AFP and his nation’s SABC television that proposals for
strengthening the AU would be considered only over the next three
months.
“The aim is to strengthen and expand a bit on the functions and
responsibilities of the authority,” he said.
During the summit, the tensions
with Gadhafi were palpable.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni proposed
turning the AU leadership into a troika, which would mitigate Gadhafi’s
influence in a role that already has little real power.
“Africans are polite,
but deserve respect,” Museveni told him, according to one participant in the
talks.
Yesterday leaders held separate consultations over the now divisive
issue first evoked in the 1960s as countries gained independence.
Kadhafi has
long looked at the AU as a way to boost Africa’s international profile, but also
to increase his own standing and leaders like Museveni are reluctant to see
Gadhafi become the face of Africa in the international arena.
Gadhafi seized
power in a coup 40 years ago, and his autocratic rule has drawn fierce criticism
from rights groups.
He recently had a group of traditional leaders name him
the “king of kings” of Africa, and brought an entourage of seven local monarchs
dripping in gold jewellery with him to the summit.
Yet, differences remain
over how the new system would be implemented.
Countries such as Libya
advocate immediate unification, a position Gadhafi says is the only way forward
for the war-ravaged and drought-stricken continent.
On the other hand
Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya seek gradual integration - and seem to
have the upper hand at the moment.
Motlanthe said it was too soon to tell how
Gadhafi’s leadership would affect the AU. “It’s early days and early hours, so
it’s hard to say. We’ll have to see as the year progresses.”
In his closing
speech, Gadhafi joined the continent’s chorus of praise for US President Barack
Obama, the first black man to accede to the White House.
“The black people’s
struggle has vanquished racism. It was God who created colour. Today Obama, a
son of Kenya, a son of Africa, has made it in the United States of America,” he
said.
“We hope he will be well protected and want him to be undaunted.
America doesn’t belong to the whites alone. I hope he will be able to accomplish
the change he carries in him,” Kadhafi added.
http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=8121
February 4,
2009
African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last night failed to
reach a consensus on modalities for the transformation of the African Union
Commission, AUC, to the African Union Authority, AUA, as a first step towards
the establishment of a Union Government.
On the last day of their 12th
summit, African leaders met until the early hours of Wednesday to work out the
final details of the Union Government, but could not agree on modalities for
transforming the AUC into an Authority.
At an earlier sitting, the African
leaders had agreed to create the African Union Authority to coordinate African
efforts towards the emergence of a United States of Africa. The deal was struck
after a day-long meeting on Sunday.
The African Union Authority, which was to
be established, would have a President, a Vice President and Commissioners, who
would e secretaries while other organs of the AUC among Assembly of the Union,
Executive Council and Permanent Representative Committees would have remained
unaltered.
But the seeming breakthrough was reversed at the full official
sitting on Tuesday, which lasted until early Wednesday, leading to the
postponement of the summit’s closing ceremony.
Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi,
who has been in the forefront of those pushing for the formation of a Union
Government, stormed out of the meeting minutes before it ended.
Zambia is a
prominent voice among those calling for a gradual approach in the formation of
the Union Government.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who chaired the
special session on the Union Government on Sunday, said the breakthrough on the
creation of the Authority was reached to guide the steps towards a United States
of Africa.
AUC President Jean Ping confirmed the hitch, saying that the
African leaders agreed on the creation of the AU Authorities but could not agree
on the modalities of transforming the AUC into an authority.
“We agreed on
the creation of the African Union Authority, but we faced difficulties on the
modalities of creating the Authority,” said Mr.
Ping.
ZANIS/ENDS/SJK/MKM
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=932420
The Editor,
The Times Newspaper
Published: Feb 05,
2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First
step in restoring confidence in Zim is restoration of political
stability
EDITORIAL:
YESTERDAY we published news of Zimbabwe’s
astronomical inflation rate. Actually, the term astronomical is not, strictly
speaking, correct because there are fewer than 5sextillion planets, stars and
asteroids in the universe.
But we should not make light of this
statistic.
The awful truth is that the Zimbabwean economy is entering its end
days. It has, for some time, ceased to serve the needs of the majority of
Zimbabweans, who are living from hand to mouth in a barter economy.
It has
failed as an investment destination because the risks have outweighed the
potential returns.
Robert Mugabe and his somewhat deluded central bank
governor, Gideon Gono, have been putting it out that sanctions are to blame for
the Zimbabwean economy’s parlous state.
But this is dissembling. Sanctions
have been imposed on Mugabe and his henchmen, not on foreign investors.
The
truth is that Zimbabwe has ceased to offer the opportunities and the
infrastructure needed to inspire investors.
An inflation rate of
5sextillionpercent and a currency that has lost 22 zeros over the last year do
not inspire confidence.
What is needed now is a sense of urgency about
rebuilding Zimbabwe’s economy, firstly by ensuring political stability.
The
swearing-in of the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister would greatly
assist in this quest.
But it would have to be followed by a series of
far-reaching and rapid policy changes that will inspire confidence.
These
would have to include the end of state interference in corporate ownership, the
removal of restrictions on the repatriation of capital by investors and an end
to restrictions on capital flows.
And South Africa must move quickly to help
its neighbour rebuild its economy.
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/1490.html
05 February,
2009 10:51:00 sapa
Font size:
MDC Information and Publicity Supremo Nelson
Chamisa
Johannesburg
Zimbabwe's opposition on Thursday reported progress
in negotiations with President Robert Mugabe's party on forming a unity
government after the two sides held talks in South Africa.
"I am glad to say
that yesterday (Wednesday) when they finally met in South Africa, there seems to
be some progress," Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), told South African public broadcaster SA FM.
He
declined to give further details.
Chamisa said negotiators from the MDC and
Mugabe's Zanu-PF discussed the allocation of key ministries, one of the main
stumbling blocks toward implementing a power-sharing accord reached last
year.
Other issues included legislation defining the functions of the
security services. Mugabe has been accused of using the security services to
intimidate the opposition.
Zimbabwe's parliament is expected on Thursday to
take up constitutional amendments which would pave the way for the formation of
a unity government, party officials said.
The changes would include the
creation of the post of prime minister, which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is
expected to fill.
Debate on the amendments had been postponed Wednesday to
allow negotiators more time to discuss outstanding issues.
The Southern
African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc last month set a February 5
deadline for parliament to pass the necessary constitutional amendments to allow
for the unity government.
They also set a February 11 deadline for the
swearing in of Tsvangirai as prime minister.
Ministers and deputy ministers
are scheduled to be sworn in on February 13 to conclude the formation of the
unity government. - AFP
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/mbeki301.19353.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•
By Lebo Nkatazo
Posted to the
web: 04/02/2009 03:22:12
ZIMBABWE’S parliament is set to pass a
constitutional amendment on Thursday, considered the first in a series of steps
outlined by regional leaders towards the formation of a unity
government.
Debate on the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment 19 Bill was
postponed on Wednesday, sparking fears that a solution to a decade-long
political and economic crisis could be held up by new disagreements between
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party and two opposition MDC
factions.
Negotiators from Zanu PF and the MDC groups who were meeting in
Johannesburg to go through outstanding issues were reported to have reached a
quick agreement on most of the items up for discussion under intense
encouragement from South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and former
President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating.
The constitutional amendment creates
the post of Prime Minister, which is earmarked for opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai. Leaders of the regional trade bloc SADC who met in South Africa last
week set the Zimbabwe parties a timetable for implementing the power sharing
agreement.
Under their timeline, supported by both Mugabe and his opposition
rivals Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the constitutional amendment should be
passed on Thursday, to be followed by Tsvangirai’s swearing in on February 11.
Ministers should be sworn in by on February 13 “which will conclude the process
of the formation of the inclusive government”.
The constitutional amendment
is expected to be rushed through the House of Assembly, then the Senate before
getting the rapid assent of President Mugabe.
Arriving from an African Union
summit where he pledged his commitment to sharing power after 29 years at the
helm, Mugabe recalled the Senate - which was not expected to sit on Thursday -
to pass the amendment, Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda told
reporters.
House of Assembly Speaker Lovemore Moyo called on all MPs to
attend parliament on Thursday for a history-making debate.
Professor Jonathan
Moyo, the only independent MP in the 210-member House of Assembly, said Zanu PF
and the two MDC factions could erode public confidence in the unity government
if they veered off the SADC timetable.
“Confidence in this process is the
most important currency right now,” Moyo said. “If you erode it, you are
creating problems… the dual currency of this whole thing is confidence: public
confidence, regional confidence and international confidence. If you dent that
confidence or erode that confidence, you end up adding kerosene to a fire that
was dying out.”
Moyo said failure to stick to the SADC timeline would
“promote cynicism”. Zanu PF and the two MDC factions needed each other, he
said.
“Here are people in a very deep hole; they must stop digging and get
out. This deal is a rope for the three parties to use to get out of that hole.”
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1948&Itemid=2
Written
by CZ Editor
Thursday, 05 February 2009
Further evidence of Robert
Mugabe's attempt to force the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into a raw
deal or his insincerity in the unity bid is provided by the fact that MDC
secretary general Tendai Biti is still facing two charges of seeking to oust him
unconstitutionally.
Biti appeared again in court today and his trial date has
been set for May 4 - a clear message to to the lawyer to "play ball or else". If
Mugabe had been sincere one would have expected him to instruct his very
politicised judiciary to drop the case, as he always does with cases important
to him.
Biti is an MP and the chief MDC-T negotiator in the talks that have
given rise to the ongoing unity - for which Parliament is today passing a law
creating the office of Prime Minister.
Treason charges arose out of the
disputed presidential election in March where Biti was expressing the
opposition's frustration with Mugabe's politicised Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
which took five weeks to release results of the 27 March election.
The other
charge arises from a document which has been proved to be a forgery, purporting
to implicate Biti in an effort to overthrow Mugabe unconstitutionally.
AFP
quoted a prosecutor saying: "We have to prioritize this case in the second term
of the High Court."
Biti's lawyers opposed further remand, arguing that the
state had failed to serve indictment papers since the case began last year and
thereby delayed setting the trial date.
"We believe the breach of this
undertaking is deliberate," defense lawyer Lewis Uriri told the court. "It has
nothing to do with matters of law."
Magistrate Olivia Mariga is expected to
rule Friday whether to keep Biti on remand.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 05
February 2009 )
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/rights21.19351.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*
Posted to the web: 04/02/2009 16:36:12
A HIGH Court judge dismissed a
bail application by human rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko on
Wednesday.
Mukoko and dozens of other activists were charged with recruiting
or attempting to recruit people to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s
government. They deny the charges.
Harrison Nkomo, representing Mukoko, said
he was puzzled by a judgment handed down by Justice Alfias Chitakunye
instructing Mukoko to go back to the magistrates court and have charges against
her properly read out.
"I was puzzled by the decision but it has left me with
no choice but to seek leave of appeal directly to the Supreme Court," said
Nkomo.
Lawyers for Mukoko, a former news reader for state television, say she
and the other activists are in need of urgent medical care. Despite repeated
orders by judges for authorities to allow doctors access, the lawyers say these
orders are largely being defied.
Mukoko and the other suspects testified in
court that they were tortured into making admissions of plotting to overthrow
Mugabe’s government through recruiting bandits who would be trained in Botswana
before being redeployed to lead an insurrection. Full details of the alleged
plot will not be known until the matter goes to full trial.
[ Follow up - ‘Grace Mugabe in
Perfect Mental Health’
]
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Careers/Article.aspx?id=928645
[ re Grace
Mugabe - in Perfect Mental Health ] at
http://bentrovato.book.co.za/blog/2009/02/04/grace-mugabe-in-perfect-mental-health/
Published:
Feb 01,
2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
Professor Benjamin Trovato
Sent: 30 January 2009 07:56 PM
To: His
Excellency President Robert Mugabe
Dear Mr President,
As per your request,
I examined your wife, Grace, upon her recent return from China and may I say
what a lovely woman she is. You are a very lucky man.
Having said that,
however, I would be failing in my duty if I did not admit to having detected one
or two interesting anomalies in her psychiatric make-up.
While Grace admits
to having attacked a man upon leaving a Hong Kong shopping mall, she maintains
that she was stricken by an episode of snow blindness and mistook the
photographer for a Ninja assassin working for British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown.
I find her version of events entirely plausible. History has shown us
that the Chinese cannot be trusted. You only have to ask the Japanese. Or place
an order at my local takeaway. You ask for stir-fried shrimp and they give you
chicken that smells like fish. But I digress.
During our session, Grace used
her lipstick to draw several organograms on my office wall, proving that the
triads are controlled by the House of Lords. This makes perfect sense given that
Britain ruled Hong Kong with an iron fist for 150 years.
Grace told me her
primary concern was that Hong Kong, her preferred shopping destination, would
now be closed to her.
I assured her that these fears were unfounded. All it
would take is a call from you to President Hu Jintao threatening to cut off
their rhino horn and close down the shoe shops.
I am, therefore, pleased to
inform you that Grace is a healthy, normal woman.
Well, she will be once the
trans-gender operation has been performed. If you are interested, I can put you
in touch with a good man in Pyongyang.
In the meantime, I would like to
suggest that you keep her indoors, preferably away from the windows, for the
next 12 months.
As far as medication goes, not that she needs it, you may
wish to consider slipping 1500mg of lithium into her Beluga caviar each
morning.
And if there is any buspirone, propranolol or clonidine lying around
State House, you could always stir it into her raw rabbit spleen and Fish Eagle
foie gras.
It is up to you.
Yours eternally,
Professor Benjamin Trovato
(Dipso.M.Aniac Chimanimani Univ.)
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18267&Itemid=104
Wednesday,
04 February 2009
HARARE
Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe boss has
again been fingered in an embarrassing financial scandal. It has emerged that he
gave the Foreign Exchange Licenced Warehouses and Shops (FOLIWARS) licenses for
free to Zanu (PF) members, friends and relatives.
The licenses are pegged at
US$ 20 000 but to date not one of the traders has paid such an
amount.
"Nobody has paid for the RBZ licences because most of those trading
in forex are related to or friends with Gono. We are angry about the development
because we are being denied an opportunity to trade in hard currency when the
economy has been dollarised," said a source at the RBZ headquaters.
According
to the source Gono was empowering his Zanu (PF) cronies as part of a looting
strategy. Businesspeople linked to opposition politics are said to have been
sidelined in getting licences to sell wares in US dollars and Rands.
"If you
a Zanu (PF) member, you will be granted a licence quickly without going through
and hassle. That's an instruction we received from the Governor
(Gono)."
"There is a lot of partisan, nepotism and favouritism in the
allocation of forex licences," said a top RBZ official who refused to be named
for fear of victimisation.
The corruption at the RBZ has riled the business
community, which has since petitioned Gono to scrap the licences and allow
people to trade in foreign currency freely. The Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce (ZNCC) has handed over a petition to Gono asking him to suspend the
FOLIWARS and free the market to control itself.
In the document, the ZNCC
said businesses are deeply concerned about the favouritism surrounding granting
of licences. The ZNCC complained that the US$ 20 000 required by the RBZ was
beyond the reach of many.
"We don't have the money and we ask to pay later
after we get licences because we are aware a lot of businesses are trading with
licences they didn't pay for," read the petition. The ZNCC vice-president Alfred
Dube confirmed the petition to the central bank chief. - afrik.com