Yahoo News
HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe's main opposition party on Saturday
vowed a repeat
of Kenya's recent election violence if veteran President
Robert Mugabe rigs
joint presidential and legislative polls due in
March.
"You saw and heard what happened in Kenya. It's nothing compared
to what we
will have here if Mugabe rigs the elections again," said the
Movement for
Democratic Change's secretary for information, Nelson
Chamisa.
Clashes in Kenya following last month's disputed presidential polls
have
left more than 600 people dead.
"You can't have a thief rob you
twice and let him keep his hands," Chamisa
told hundreds of party supporters
at the launch of their election programme
in a suburb of Harare.
"We
are gathered here to launch the new Zimbabwe Campaign, a campaign for
free
and fair elections and we want those elections to be free and
fair."
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, was
accused by the
MDC and Western governments of rigging the last elections in
2002.
While the MDC once posed the most serious threat to Mugabe's rule,
it has
been severely undermined by internal divisions with nearly half of
its
lawmakers no longer loyal to long-time party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Chamisa however said the MDC would mend fences and present a
united front in
the March elections whose exact date has yet to be
announced.
"We want a united front," he said. "We want the like of (rival
faction
leader Arthur) Mutambara and Daniel Shumba to play their
part."
Shumba, a former official in the ruling Zimbabwe African National
Union -
Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), launched his own party two years
ago.
MDC secretary general Tendai Biti told the crowd: "ZANU-PF is a
paper
construct, when you push it, it falls. We are going to push it and
it's
going to fall.
"ZANU-PF has done what the war failed to do and
that is to destroy the
economy."
Zimbabwe is in the throes of
economic crisis with inflation last announced
at nearly 8,000 percent in
September. Economists estimate that the real
figure is now closer to 50,000
percent.
Agencia de Informacao
de Mocambique (Maputo)
12 January 2008
Posted to the web 12 January
2008
Maputo
Electricity from the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi
began flowing to
Zimbabwe again on Saturday, after the Zimbabwean power
utility ZESA had paid
off some of its debt.
The dam operating
company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB) had demanded
payment of 10
million US dollars out of a total ZESA debt of about 19
million dollars.
When repeated promises to pay in December were not
honoured, HCB threw the
switches on 1 January, cutting off ZESA.
Juliao Pondeca, the advisor
to the HCB board on strategic and commercial
development, confirmed to AIM
that the ten million dollars has now been paid
and that electricity supplies
to ZESA resumed at zero hours on Saturday.
He added that ZESA has also
promised to pay off the remaining debt, and to
honour the monthly bills from
HCB. Pondeca was sure that these promises from
ZESA had the backing of the
Zimbabwean government.
HCB had clearly been irritated by ZESA's habit of
promising to pay
"tomorrow" - but when tomorrow arrived the only thing HCB
received from ZESA
was further promises, rather than money in its
account.
According to Pondeca, before the 10 million dollar payment,
ZESA's debt to
HCB stood at 18.7 million dollars, and a further four million
dollars would
fall due by the end of January. HCB felt obliged to act
because it did not
want the Zimbabwean debt to balloon into something
unsustainable.
Zimbabwe has traditionally relied on electricity imports
to bridge the gap
between what it generates (mostly at the Kariba south
hydropower station and
at the Hwange coal-fired station) and what it
consumes.
But Zimbabwe's chronic shortage of foreign exchange, and the
worthlessness
of its own currency, have pushed ZESA into building up
repeated debts, not
only with HCB, but also with Zambian and Congolese
suppliers. As for the
South African electricity company, Eskom, not only has
it demanded that ZESA
pay upfront, but currently power shortages in South
Africa itself prevent it
from exporting electricity to Zimbabwe.
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 4:31 PM
Subject: Nathaniel Manheru - Herald
12 January 2008 - Absolutely fascinating!
Friends,
If one
ever wanted confirmation of yesterday’s article in the Independent
this is
it. This is either one huge cunning deception or an admission that
Zanu PF is
about to tear itself apart. Either way it is damaging because it
has a full
go at people within.
Regards,
x
------------
Call it a potpourri, a
yoking together of violent contrarieties. Much like
my late old man’s span of
draught animals. You notice I did not call it a
span of oxen, and here is
why. Some years back in colonial Rhodesia, the
Manheru family hit upon very
hard times, harder than rain-soaked,
heavy-wheel, compacted asphalt. The few
thin cows my father had inherited
from his own late father — many of them,
thanks to inbreeding, no bigger
than a widow’s goat, bonier than a village
cur — had been impounded by his
angry in-laws. We were left with no draught
power, making the thought of
yoking my mother’s cockerels quite a do-able
practical prospect. The man I
called "father" had not settled long
outstanding lobola, apparently happy
and contend to have paid the
"your-daughter-is-here charges or
"tsvakiraikuno" in Shona. It was a
remarkably paltry sum, a mere
five-and-six (equivalent of the current
25cents). Since that initial — and
as it turned out — his only payment, his
name and fame prospe
When the fateful boast got too loud
We were
all happy to pay regular visits to our mother’s people. Little did
we know
this riled her brothers who got angrier with each son their sister
littered
and delivered to the thankless Manheru family. We were too young to
notice,
too happy to care. We visited more and oftener; they got more and
more angry,
these my mother’s brutal brothers. Until one day they decided
enough was
enough. They picked the most physical, the most unreasonable of
their lot,
made straight to our home, mouths zipped, foreheads creased with
exhibited
anger. Something was terribly wrong, and no interpreter was
needed. They had
heard my father’s reckless boast, and sought to teach him
an unforgettable
lesson. They went straight to the kraal and drove out
anything that purported
to have four legs and two horns, before vanishing in
the direction which
until now, I was so wont to associate with happy
tidings, tender care of my
mother’s people. Suddenly, the direction assumed
a new significance: it
became the abyss that had swallowed my father’s
wealth. Or my inevitable
heirloom the day those who reside in the nether
would have sent for him. An
frail and ailing man for many years, I always
knew his time would soon come
and my primogeniture rights would confer on me
a sprint of a head-start in
real life. In an angry instant, all that was now
gone, and a blank prospect
stared me in the face, in our face as a family.
My mother put up a show of a
wail, most probably calculated to pre-empt a
retribution sure to come from
we-all-knew-who. After all, his brothers had
grabbed baba’s cattle, most
probably with her tacit support, if blatant
instigation. Had she not murmured
about men-who-do-not-marry, that day she
came back from Manzoto’s beer party,
after one-a-too many of the witch-brew?
Sooner than later, baba would remind
her first, before swiftly moving in to
exact quite some telling punishment on
her fine body, possibly with lasting
consequences on her dental
set-up.
Two cows and five donkeys
Except that would not decide how
the big field of the giant Mushumha tree
would be tilled. All that remained
in the kraal were big worms, big beetles,
all the time writhing and writing
their valedictions to the soon-to-dry-up
cattle pen. Fortunately, on the day
of the great tragedy, baba had loaned
one cow and its calve to a neighbour.
Three donkeys had been borrowed by
another family to ferry their grain to a
nearby grinding mill. This is how
these animals, later to become a rag-tag
span for the season, were spared
and survived the wanton grab of angry
uncles. With a very strange sense of
proportion, one only inspired by this
baffling and stupefying predicament,
my father yoked together donkeys and
cows, donkeys and calves that had
hardly dropped their umbilical, donkeys and
cockerels that had hardly
started crowing. Quite a medley, a potpourri of
breathing things only
justified by his hard-to-manage misery. The outcome
could not pull a plough,
not even a wooden one. The outcome was neither a
cattle nor a donkey span;
neither a cow nor calf span. Only Nathaniel’s
strange father’s nondescript
span, one that emitted and smelt poverty. It was
reckoned not by the medley
animals that constituted it; rather, it was called
by whose it was. Going to
the nearby primary school was a forbidding
prospect. What with girls from
infinitely less poor families, giggling and
murmuring behind torn jerseys
about a soon-to-be-yoked-with-a-donkey boy from
a nearby village. Having
been all along a bright and haughty boy who
dominated the class, the girls
and bigger boys I had repeatedly humiliated in
end-of-term results, had now
found a sure way of killing my soul, a good
angle for mortifying
retribution. Then on, I walked with the limb and doubt
of injured esteem.
Oh, those years of drought!
Calling it by its
owner
There is a simple lesson from this sad story of my clan. What you
cannot
name, whatever is nondescript, simply call it by its owner. Fullstop!
Such
is the political nonesuch we now have, exactly only a month after
Zanu-PF’s
Extraordinary Congress. Apart from yoking together the
dissimilar,
apparently without the usual conceit known to British
metaphysical poets,
the new political creature which the media has excitedly
written about,
inhabits the arcane realm of the political parallel market,
poignantly
neither bird nor animal, but flying with a loud farting flutter.
Tomboti
chiremwaremwa nhai? A-ah bodozve, lets reckon it by its owners. For
they are
many. The proposed National Front (NF) or National Patriotic Front
(NPF) —
whichever name carries the day finally — is a whore of a
political
formation. So many fathers mated its mother: the British, the
Americans, the
Germans and, above all, the Swedes. And each of its runners
incarnate each
of these semen. I leave you, gentle reader, to match each of
these power and
nationality to each of the prime runners of this piece of
political
grotesquely, starting with the easy Ibbo, right down to the Moyos
and
Maweres. That is point number one: this is not a rebellion from
within
Zanu-PF; it is an alien construct which worse than all the MDCs
put
together.
The Namibian connexion
Let me throw a little more
light. Recall Hidipo Hamutenya, the Namibian
ex-SWAPO leader who hoped to
step into the shoes of Nujoma, but failed? He
ended up creating a new party
opposed to SWAPO late last year. That party
was supposed to draw heavily from
disgruntled SWAPO people, thereby
transferring to itself all the
signification of the Namibian struggle. The
whole party was a Swedish
thought, funded by Swedish money and indeed, when
Hamutenya was smuggled to
Zimbabwe, to Africa University in Mutare last
year, ostensibly to give a
public lecture, Raylander domiciled him. In the
context of that visit, a
local academic who is part of this whore party, was
in place to connect, to
share and to be inspired into generating Zimbabwe’s
own equivalent, under
exactly the same political and funding circumstances.
As with its Namibian
counterpart, the new proposed party draws heavily from
the disgruntled,
indeed a coalition of the bitter and disgruntled. Gentle
reader, you may
recall that a few months back in 2007, I referred to
Raylander’s expectation
of a momentous development before end of that year.
This was part of it. It
is now official: Sweden has become a willing
destabiliser of liberation
movements in Southern Africa, principally the
ANC, Zanu-PF and SWAPO. In
part, this explains South Africa’s Lekota remarks
about infiltration of the
region by foreign forces of regime change, and the
need to share intelligence
among sitting governments. The difference between
Zimbabwe and Namibia is
that in her calculation against Zimbabwe, Sweden is
only a minor, with
bigger, greater anger of the British and Americans
playing a leading
role.
Such an impressive, powerless throng
All decoys imaginable,
all Trojan Horses available, have been employed in
this equation: bitter
independent MPs, Liberators’ Platform and its Mhanda,
ex-Ministers including
one who ran away from his job for America, who has
been moving in and out of
the country, carrying Anglo-American booty for the
new party without knowing
the authorities have been tracking, tracking;
business guys: one related to
this ex-minister maritally, another in the
banking sector, yet another
heading a well-known former parastatal, a
leading former legal officer of
Government, a contingent of ex-servicemen to
give the experiment a patina of
liberation respectability, high officers of
the ruling party including some
controlling provinces and with business
interests. I could go on and on to
enumerate this powerless throng. The
point is that it is not their thing, and
unlike Kenya’s Rainbow Coalition,
it will not survive a day into the fight,
let alone the aftermath. In fact,
the bicker has started, with a handful of
defections already registered:
some from embitterment, from unmet
expectations; others from sheer fear
inspired by the daunting prospect of
Zanu-PF’s reaction. Remember some do
hold positions both in the Party and
Government, and sooner or later their
present thin ambiguity will be harder
to sustain. And where no firm position
promises have been made, they have
been trying to weigh their chances with
an even hand. To secure their future
in Zanu-PF’ inevitable victory, they
have started to inform on their
colleagues. Which is why intelligence has
been so effortlessly
easy.
So many angles, so many dimensions
I have so many angles I
could give, including the fact that this proposed
whore party has sought to
play on imagined bitterness of marginalisation of
Zimbabwe’s eminent persons
and main tribes: rebels of the liberation
struggle, ex-ministers,
ex-governors, ex-officers, ex-this, ex-that,
Karangas, Manyikas, Ndebeles,
all against perceived Zezuru dominance. I
could write about that, write about
who approached who in Government and
Zanu-PF, including yours truly, and on
which day, and with what swaying
argument. I could carry the various
responses from those approached. I could
connect all this to certain
enervating developments in the economy,
including in the parallel market,
dwell on TOYOTA VIGAs which have not
rested a minute since then, all the time
delivering billions to provincial
structures which will soon be dissolved,
rendering effete all that which has
been invested and put in place. Poor
guys. Their rich reapings in the
parallel market are soon going to be in
vain. The little boys who are
running media errands for these disparate
forces. Yes, I could dwell on why
there was so much relief when Butau made
good his escape; why he felt so
confident to say he could destroy this Party
and Government from England,
indeed why he was so important that the British
Lords only this week found
him so worthy a subject for debate. I could refer
to Politburo members who
convene unilateral meetings in provinces, who seek
to stymie any political
activity to give themselves unimpeded latitude to
hold consultative meetings
at which ambiguous messages are given on the
ruling Party’s presidential
candidate, at which moneys shower from above with
no blessings. I could make
reference to meetings between the new American
ambassador and some senior
Party and Government officials, all held outside
the aegis of Foreign
Affairs, all facilitated by a senior UN official. Talk
about overtures to
Tsvangirai, including a pact to ensure MDC does not field
candidates in this
one province to my East. Many things I could talk about,
including the
seemingly puzzling phenomenon where persons who were sworn
enemies and
haunted each other out of Government during their Zanu-PF days,
are now
sworn friends and allies, for now that is. I could write about
attempts to
create will-of-wisps through the media, hoping to put people off
scent. Many
things, I say.
Whys and wherefores
But I choose to
focus on the owner of the span, identifying him, laying bare
his intentions,
hopes and calculations. Eunuchs looked after the queen and
the royal
courtyard; however seemingly powerful, however refulgent, they
were not the
monarch. Zvitambapanashe! Let us get down. I have already
identified the
owners of the rag-tag span. What is the goal? Angry
westerners reason that
what happened between 1998 and 2005 owe to one man,
and is sustained by this
one man: Robert Mugabe. Maybe true in part. I know
many moments when many
within the ruling party would have succumbed, indeed
were inclined to deploy
the police and army against the war veterans who had
occupied our land then
under white control. They were many battles behind
the scenes. I know many
who once they had got their own pieces of land and
had been well ensconced,
would have called "halt!" to land reforms. They
preferred an augmenting and
multiracialising of land ownership in Zimbabwe.
Not the empowerment of the
vast majority. It is the I-am-in-so-close-the
door syndrome so typical of
most failed revolutions. Yet others would want
to dispossess peasants and war
veterans who staked claims on
rich-well-watered and well-infrastructured
pieces, using the flimsy
arguments of land utilisation and specialisation.
Indeed some of the guys
who are holding this foreign thing they now call a
party, were a vocal part
of this counterrevolutionary argument, an had to
leave government. Still
others staked land claims across provinces: from
Mashonaland right through
to the conservancies of Matabeleland. They have
since grown fat, grown round
and portly, grown too confident. Or bitter where
such claims have been
challenged and reversed. Focus and determination owed
to Robert Mugabe,
which is probably why one understands the West’s
overbearing emphasis on him
as the sole carrier of Zimbabwe’s land
reforms.
Insurgents-in waiting
But after the first sweet harvest,
the situation changed. Presently the land
revolution’s defences do not rest
on any one man, much as it may still need
this one man for continued
principled leadership. Everyone who is on the
land is a land
insurgent-in-waiting, which is why the President has resisted
writing into
the constitution a clause guaranteeing the irreversibility of
land reforms.
Any fool could un-write such a clause the same way the present
visionaries
would have. To that extent, R.G.’s legacy is indeed well
secured, and with
it, our heritage. This whore political formation is
intended to oust this one
man for the edification of the bitter British.
Indeed, the poor manifestos
printed as news in both the Financial Gazette
and The Independent, pretty
bring this out quite clearly. The whore
creature’s policies belong to RG’s
Zanu-PF. So does its attempted name,
which is why one part of this made-up
miscellany foolishly wants to fight
the forthcoming elections under the name
Zanu-PF. It is as if they are
unaware of the electoral law’s copyright
clauses which put a limit to naming
and symbols conventions. Or arrogate to
the genuine Zanu-PF a tolerance
level for copy-cats which is so hard to
fathom. But it’s their folly and let
us grant it to them. Their only point of
departure is their rejection of the
person of the President, who must not be
Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Major Mbudzi
calls such a rejection a revolution,
showing he was not given that surname
for nothing. Maybe it is a genuine
limitation of vocabulary.
Hating on behalf of Anglo-Americans
This
is an attempted putsch, bereft of any recognisable principles, founded
on a
recognisable persona hate, done on behalf of some foreign powers. When
Mhanda
and his team accost former Governor Hungwe to deliver the Karanga
Vote in
both Masvingo and Midlands, or when elements from Manicaland urge
their
counterparts in Masvingo to support Dr. Makoni for Presidency, pulling
the
argument that it is now their turn after Masvingo ate in an immediate
lower
capacity in the Presidium for the past 23 years, the idea is to use
false
entitlement claims founded on tribe to alienate Mugabe’s rural vote.
Or to
divide it so a circumstantial rainbow emerges. The British, the
Americans,
the Swedes, are playing the tribal card in this game and we need
to be very,
very careful. The Kenyan mayhem beckons.They have invested
heavily in this
type of politics in Matabeleland; they think they have now
found a formulae
in Mashonaland, one dignified by so many faces of some
retired war veterans.
From the standpoint of these politics, the Zezuru are
cast as Zimbabwe’s
Gikuyus who have eaten, eaten and eaten, since 1980. And
yet this whore
formation has visible Zezurus within its hidden leadership.
Party
primaries strategy
Where courage to openly challenge President Mugabe
fails, the strategy is to
use the avenue of Party primaries to get in as many
of their candidates as
will ensure dominant western influence in post-March
Parliament. This big
vote would then be used to block, to frustrate, to
reverse, and eventually
to impeach, to pass a vote of no-confidence in the
President in order to
oust him. This is then sold as democracy at work. Hence
the huge monies
which are being dished in provinces. A new formation with
visible members of
the ruling Party on the eve of the March poll, is a very
good psychological
game against the ruling Party. It will confuse and
dispirit its membership,
so they reason, these westerners. Beyond that, it
will motivate the MDC
which begins to believe Zanu-PF has an equivalent and
parallel weakness to
its own. What a strange way of "levelling the playing
field"! But the
foreign powers will want more time to ensure the economy gets
bad, worse and
worst, to strengthen rejection of Zanu-PF which is thought to
be the same as
greater love for the whore formation. And you notice pleas for
postponement
of polls to June are shared between the British, the MDC and
elements of
this so-called reformist arm .
British June
It was
the substance of Brown’s accosting of Mbeki, Museveni and Rupiya
Banda in
Kampala, during the Commonwealth. It has yielded humorous
summersaults: MDC
which agitated for immediate polls soon after the
Goromonzi indication of a
poll delay to 2010 (any day longer with Mugabe in
power, Tsvangirai told us,
was "more" death to poor Zimbabwe), now find
March too soon. The British who
did not want Lancaster House Constitution
changed for a whole seven to ten
years, now want it thrown into and washed
away by dirty Mukuvisi. They are so
unhappy with their constitutional
donation to the newly independent colony of
Zimbabwe! What generous
revisionism! The whore formation’s runners think they
have skilfully
deployed a plausible argument: what do we say to the people
when things are
so bad? Why not postpone elections to June, they opine. The
British June! So
what will have happened to the economy in the next four
months, dear
turncoats? It is a very silly argument, and one always prefers a
resourceful
puppet.
Closing shop, spurning Bacossi
In the
meantime, things are being done to the economy: around prices, around
supply
of essentials. I was intrigued by a Financial Gazette report which
claimed a
number of companies would not re-open next week after the
holidays, largely
in the first show of the damage done to the economy by the
Zanu-PF
Government! The attribution of agent is unmistakable, although the
political
plan is not disclosed. This is an old plan, long agreed to by
corporates
sympathetic to these politics, everything underwritten by the
owners of the
span.
Bacossi was the response, which is what has removed the fig leaf.
If you are
given free working capital by a non-shareholder at no cost to you
to
produce, except for political reasons why would you not produce? And
the
dizzying prices from cheap working capital? And the gratuitous attacks
on
RBZ and the person of the Governor? It is all coming together, is it
not?
Meanwhile the sponsored coalition of the bitter is hard at work,
always
operating in a bleak political parallel market, the power
brokering
correlative to the real parallel market. They are quite angry with
me,
little son of Manheru. I made a loud fart that startled the quarry.
The
hunter is hungry. And angry with me. I don’t care a hoot. Icho!
nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
The Zimbabwean
Saturday, 12 January 2008 05:48
HARARE- ZIMBABWE'S main
opposition political party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
factions have resolved to end their rivalry before
coming up with the sole
candidate ahead of March general election, CAJ News
can reveal.Internal
consultations between the two warring MDC factions have
begun and informal
discussions are said to be at an advanced stage.
Both MDC factions'
secretary-generals confirmed to CAJ News in separate
interviews that the two
formations had indeed begun consultations on
there-unification process whose
delay, according to analysts, would only
enhance Zanu PF's chances of
remaining in power. Prof. Welshman Ncube and
his counterpart at the main
faction of the MDC Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti,
confirmed the positive
developments of the talks. The consultations come
amid reports that sitting
MPs from either formations are agitating for
automatic retention, arguing
that they would not have finished their terms
of office. They are also
reportedly proposing that new aspiring legislators
contest in the newly
established constituencies instead of standing against
them in party
primaries. It has also emerged that former MPs Evelyn Masaiti,
Hilda Mafudze
and fellow perty members Theresa Makone and Solomon Madzore
are seeking new
constituencies in urban centres where they intend to contest
against
incumbent MP's in Dzivarasekwa, Chitungwiza and Kambuzuma and Harare
North
respectively where they expect to unseat incumbent fellow MDC
legislators. "
We had already started choosing candidates for the
legislative polls in our
formation, but after being approached by our
counterparts on the need to
have a single presidential candidate, we are now
consulting our members. "
We should come up with a date for the formal
meeting as well as the
delegates who will attend the meeting," he said.Biti
also confirmed that the
same process was taking place in his formation."
Yes, we are consulting our
members on the issue before we meet formally," he
said, without elaborating
much on the issue.Ncube said it was every member's
democratic right to
contest as long as they were chosen through party
structures in terms of the
constitution of the party. " The respective
district assemblies, comprising
the youth, women's and main wing of the
party must sit together and choose
candidates through secret ballot. The
winning candidates must get two thirds
majority. That's the rule. That is
what is in our constitution and we must
abide by it," he said. The
re-unification of the two formations has hit
snags in the past following
differences on how candidates would be chosen
and this has continued to
weaken the opposition. With only two moths before
the March elections,
concerned party members say the continued split will
only ensure work in
favour of Zanu PF. " The MDC has never been the same
after the split over
the Senate reintroduction issue. Our party was strong
and we are confused
about what is happening within the party leadership. "
There is need for the
party leaders to resolve this crisis once and for
all," said a grassroots
member, who said he was not on either side of the
formations- CAJ News.
www.cathybuckle.com
Saturday 12th January 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
This week
electoral authorities in Zimbabwe again stated that combined
Presidential,
Parliamentary and council elections will not be deferred and
are to be held
on the 9th March 2008. It is hard to believe that Zimbabwe
will be ready for
an election in just 56 days time. The logistics of an
election are enormous
under normal circumstances but mammoth in a country
which has all but
collapsed.
There is no fuel at filling stations, no food in the shops,
extremely
limited supplies of bank notes, electricity only in the middle of
the night
and water off or dirty most of the time. Telephone communications
are in a
shocking state with new cell phone lines only available on the
black market.
Roads are falling apart, postal deliveries increasingly
erratic and in some
areas - including mine - house deliveries have not been
made for three
months. In rural areas there are reports of roads and bridges
washed away
due to heavy rains and flooding - and so the list goes on and
on. Every
aspect of an election from the campaigning to the advertising,
voting,
monitoring and counting is swamped with problems - not the least of
which is
that so far there is only one candidate and one party to vote
for.
Looking for sanity, even inspiration, in such bizarre times, I
turned to a
book of poetry sent to me by an ex Zimbabwean. Every day of the
year has a
poem and that prescribed for the 9th of March is by an unknown
author.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not
sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on
snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's
rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting
rush
of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the stars that shine at
night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not
die.
We are a country dying but not dead - we still have hope. Surely
this poem
for the 9th of March holds some prophetic meaning.
Until next
time, thanks for reading, love cathy.
www.cathybuckle.com
12th January 2008
Dear Friends.
For Zimbabweans
at home and in the diaspora watching the tragedy unfolding
in Kenya is
rather like seeing past, present and future in one blinding
flash. We are
forcibly reminded of our own recent past with its rigged
elections and we
see what may well be our immediate future; the past and the
future are
blended into the present reality of Kenya's cataclysmic upheaval.
Are
there lessons to be learnt from Kenya's experience, Zimbabwe's political
analysts ask. The major difference between the two countries as I see it is
that superficially Kenya appeared to be a peaceful prosperous democracy with
a free press and a flourishing economy. Zimbabwe, on the other hand exhibits
all the signs of imminent collapse. No one expected Kenya to burst into
flames, that's what made the present upheaval so shocking, whereas most
observers are astonished at how Zimbabwe manages to stagger on.
For
students of African politics, Kenya and Zimbabwe have always been
considered
roughly comparable, sharing as they do a similar colonial
experience with
settler occupation of huge areas of land and a bitter
struggle to gain
independence. What unites the two countries now is the
shared experience of
stolen elections and the ensuing sense of injustice and
unfairness felt by
the mass of the population. When that happens, it is very
easy for
politicians to tap into those deeply-held grievances and persuade a
suffering and impoverished people that it is all the fault of some other
ethnic group. It is the 'blame someone else' syndrome that we are so
familiar with in Robert Mugabe's rhetoric.
What we have not seen in
the Zimbabwean situation, even after patently
rigged elections, is the rush
of international big names eager to add their
voices to the so-called
negotiations to bring about a peaceful solution.
This last week has seen
Jendayi Fraser the US Assistant Secretary for
African Affairs, Desmond Tutu,
Joachim Chissano, the former President of
Mozambique, and Ghana's John
Kufor, the President of the AU, among others,
all rushing in to broker peace
talks. President Kufor has now left Kenya
having failed to bring the warring
sides to the negotiating table and his
role has been handed over to Kofi
Annan, the former UN Secretary General. It
is hard not to conclude that the
only reason all these big names are in
Kenya is the outbreak of violence
following the rigged election. The
violence that these prominent people have
all condemned is the very reason
they are there in Kenya; violence on the
streets certainly concentrated
their minds. An estimated death toll of
between five and six hundred people
and a quarter of a million made homeless
is, one could argue, a strong
enough reason for international intervention.
Zimbabweans, however, will
remember with some bitterness that Operation
Murambatsvina made seven
hundred thousand people homeless, destroying their
livelihoods and homes in
one fell swoop and causing countless numbers of
deaths.
The world's response was a strongly worded Report to the UN - and
that was
it.
Kenya, it seems, is another matter; Jendayi Fraser
remarked that there were
faults on both sides. She was talking about the
highly suspect election
statistics but she must surely know that it was the
Kenyan President and his
government, not the opposition leader Raila Odinga,
who appointed the
Electoral Commission, organised the election and counted
the votes? Joseph
Stalin is reported to have once said ' It's not who votes
that counts – but
who counts the votes.' The fact is that without an
absolutely impartial
election machine, democracy cannot begin to
flourish.
It's hard to see how Kofi Annan or any other eminent person can
bring a
successful conclusion to negotiations in Kenya unless there is an
acceptance
that the count was rigged and the only way forward is a fresh
election under
international supervision. Odinga has promised to keep up the
pressure,
calling for mass rallies. 'Just provoking the government' say some
commentators but what other way does the opposition have of expressing the
people's profound dissatisfaction with the stolen election?
Meanwhile
in Zimbabwe, our own negotiations between Zanu PF and the MDC
appear to have
ground to a halt. Talks cannot resume, we are told, because
Mr Chinamassa,
the Zanu representative, is having an extended Christmas
break. This, while
ordinary Zimbabweans experience the unspeakable misery of
endless queues in
the pouring rain for cash, for non-existent food and
non-existent transport.
Worst of all are the unprecedented floods not only
in remote rural areas but
in the urban high-density suburbs where house
walls collapse and flimsy
shelters are swept away in swirling muddy water
and raw sewerage. But Mr
Chinamassa is away on holiday and the crucial talks
that will determine the
country's future are put on hold – again.
Chinamassa's boss, too, is away on
his annual vacation, somewhere in
Malaysia we are told. Was it not Robert
Mugabe who said two months ago, '
Their welfare is my welfare, their
suffering is my suffering.' Ordinary
Zimbabweans are surely entitled to ask
whether their leaders actually give a
damn about them. It's hard to believe
that anyone in their right mind would
willingly vote for a party that has
caused such desperate suffering and
shows such callous disregard for the
people's welfare.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network issued a report
this week on voter
education and registration. The report revealed that Zanu
PF is handing out
free ploughs to the people but there's a catch. The
recipient must be a
paid–up member of the ruling party, able to produce a
party card and chant
three party slogans. Furthermore, some villagers are
being told that the
ploughs are free but only on condition the party wins in
that area. No win,
no plough.
If Robert Mugabe gets his way the
elections in Zimbabwe are less than three
months away. Can anyone seriously
believe that the elections will be free
and fair? If there is a lesson to be
learned from Kenya it must be that
Zimbabweans themselves have the power to
bring about change but we should
never forget that it comes at a high
price.
Yours in the struggle. PH
OhMyNews
Move likely
to benefit Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party
Ambrose
Musiyiwa
Published 2008-01-13 01:22 (KST)
I've been informed
that Zimbabwean opposition political party activist Maud
Lennard is no
longer in the U.K.
In an e-mail, John O. of the National Coalition of
Anti-Deportation
Campaigns said, "Maud has now left the U.K.; she was
removed from the U.K.
on the eighth attempt on Friday 28th December. Maud
says that she wasn't
given a deportation notice, just told to pack her
belongings up and then she
was taken to the airport, not knowing where she
was going."
The way the British government is treating anti-Mugabe
activists like Maud
Lennard is tragic. It shouldn't be happening in a
civilized society and it
sends mixed signals about repressive regimes, civil
and political activists
and the right to seek asylum.
Maud Lennard's
case and the cases of other Zimbabwean opposition political
party activists
-- some of whom are currently being held in detention in
places like Yarl's
Wood Immigration Removal Centre and who the Home Office
is planning to
deport to countries like Malawi -- are disconcerting, immoral
and
unjust.
The Home Office maintains that because some anti-Mugabe activists
procured
and used passports from countries like Malawi and South Africa when
they
fled Zimbabwe, they are not Zimbabwean nationals but are Malawians or
South
Africans, depending on the passport they entered the U.K. on. This is
in
spite of clear and irrefutable evidence that the activists are Zimbabwean
nationals who, other than being in possession of Malawian or South African
passports, have no real links with either Malawi or South Africa.
The
Home Office is then subsequently deporting the activists to the
countries on
whose passports they entered the U.K. In the process, it is
exposing the
activists to the possibility of arrest, interrogation,
imprisonment and
further deportation to Zimbabwe because, in a lot of cases,
the activists
would have acquired the passports fraudulently.
Last year, the British
government deported three Zimbabwean activists to
Malawi. I'm told that the
three -- Maud Lennard, Rose Phekani and Amos
Chifamba -- were all active
members of the Movement for Democratic Change
and that, when they fled
Zimbabwe, they just barely managed to escape with
their lives.
These
three shouldn't have been deported. They and the other anti-Mugabe
activists
who are being held in immigration removal centers in the U.K.
should have
been allowed to settle.
Presidential and parliamentary elections in
Zimbabwe are going to be held in
March of this year.
By deporting
these activists, the British government is giving President
Robert Mugabe's
regime more ammunition for its ongoing and relentless
assault on the
long-suffering people of Zimbabwe.
In the past, Mugabe has accused
Britain of trying to topple him and of
supporting and sponsoring the MDC. He
has also accused the British
government of sending "agents of regime change"
into Zimbabwe under the
guise of returning failed asylum
seekers.
Mugabe is certain to pick up on these deportations and is likely
to claim
that the deportations mean Britain has realized that the MDC is
insignificant and inconsequential as an opposition political party. He is
certain to pick up on the deportations and use them to bolster support for
his own re-election and for his party, the Zanu-PF.
News24
12/01/2008 19:31 -
(SA)
Harare - Birthday celebrations for Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe, who
turns 84 next month, are to be held in Beitbridge town on the
border with
neighbouring South Africa, reports said on Saturday.
The
celebrations, organised by the 21st February Movement, are held every
year
in a different town or city.
Thousands of schoolchildren, youths and
ruling party supporters are likely
to attend the event, which takes place in
the depths of Zimbabwe's
worst-ever economic crisis.
"All youths will
get an opportunity to learn from President Mugabe's
exemplary character,"
Absolom Sikhosana, the ruling Zanu-PFs secretary for
youth was quoted as
saying in the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Mugabe, who has been in
power since 1980, will seek another five- year term
in office in
presidential elections due in March. - Sapa-dpa
Reuters
Sat 12 Jan
2008, 15:12 GMT
KARACHI (Reuters) - The Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU)
wants the International
Cricket Council (ICC) to ensure member countries
fulfil their commitments to
play the team under the Future Tours
Program.
ZCU chairman Peter Chingoka told reporters on Saturday in
Pakistan, where
Zimbabwe will play five one-day internationals, that the ICC
had to make
sure the FTP remained sacrosanct.
"Zimbabwe is looking to
play more against other member nations as opposed to
excuses not to play
against each other," he said .
British media reports have suggested
Zimbabwe's tour of England in 2009 may
not go ahead as planned in protest at
the policies of President Robert
Mugabe.
The ICC has indicated that
any directive from the British government to
scrap Zimbabwe's visit may
force it to move the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup from
England.
Chingoka
said it was important all ICC member nations looked after each
other so that
cricket grew bigger and stronger.
"If this does not happen than cricket
is not moving towards true
globalisation," he said.
England pulled
out of a World Cup one-day match in 2003 in Zimbabwe citing
security
concerns. The Australian government ordered the national team to
cancel
their tour of the African country in 2007.
Zimbabwe, who have had their
test status suspended, play Pakistan in the
first one-day international on
January 21 in Karachi.
Daily Mail, UK
By BILL DAY - Last
updated at 20:23pm on 12th January 2008
Former Zimbabwe Test bowler
Henry Olonga last night called on the British
Government to cancel
Zimbabwe's planned tour to England next year.
The ECB have been
dogged by the issue of playing against Zimbabwe since the
World Cup in South
Africa in 2003 and yesterday the African country's board
chairman, Peter
Chingoka, demanded that the other Test nations be forced to
fulfil their
fixture commitments.
But Olonga, who has been exiled in England
since leading a black armband
protest with Andy Flower 'mourning the death
of democracy' at the 2003 World
Cup, is urging Prime Minister Gordon Brown
to pull the plug on a tour
scheduled to precede the Ashes series.
The
tour is set to include two Tests and three one-day internationals,
although
Zimbabwe are currently suspended from the five-day game.
Speaking just
days after Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it would
'send the
wrong message' to allow Zimbabwe to tour England next year, Olonga
said:
"Robert Mugabe has turned what was once a paradise homeland for us all
into
a desolate wasteland.
"I'm delighted that Gordon Brown is prepared to
take a more involved role
concerning Zimbabwe. Previously, Tony Blair sat on
the fence, advising the
ECB not to send England teams to Zimbabwe without
giving them any protection
from the draconian sanctions they'd face from the
ICC for taking such
action.
"Banning tours brought South Africa's
dreadful apartheid regime into the
public consciousness around the world. It
was the right thing to do then,
and it is as valid now in
Zimbabwe.
"I would rather inconvenience a small group of Zimbabwe
cricketers for the
greater good of millions who could ultimately
benefit."
Olonga believes the ECB, whose chairman Giles Clarke met
Chingoka at the end
of last year to try to solve the problem of the 2009
tour, should be
prepared to risk the loss of the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup,
scheduled to be
held in England, for the benefits of a 'bigger picture'.