(Transcript of s statement by Bothwell Pasipamire, a Kadoma
councillor who was abducted by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)
on Saturday, December 13 at approximately 12.30 am.)
MY NAME is
Bothwell Pasipamire and I am an elected councillor on the Kadoma Town
Council [Ward 3].
The board has a total of 17 members, of which 16 are
from my party, the MDC and one represents Zanu-PF. When the MDC was formed
in 1999 I became involved with the party and am well-known in the area as an
outspoken activist. Like most of my colleagues, I have been verbally
threatened by members of Zanu-PF and accused of being a traitor to Zimbabwe,
but I just put that down to the usual nonsense of politics.
On Friday
12 December, I attended a Council meeting and returned at around 7.30 pm to
my home in the Rimuka suburb, about one kilometre south of the CBD (Central
Business District). My wife, [name withheld from transcript], prepared
supper and, being tired from a very full day's work, I went to bed
early.
Abduction
At around 12.30am, my wife and I woke to the
sound of someone trying to force open our front door. Another was at the
window. I rose and opened the door. Two men confronted me, one put a gun to
my neck and they told me to walk with them. The third, who had been at the
window, joined us and we walked to the street where a white Toyota twincab
was waiting. It had tinted windows, but I could see that a forth member of
the team sat at the wheel.
My wife had run to the vehicle, but the man
with the gun shouted, "Go back to your house now. I will kill you at gun
point." For her safety, I also told her to wait at the house. The car door
was opened and at the same time something was sprayed into my eyes. It
burned and made me sneeze, but it was not tear gas or pepper spray because I
was not choking, but I could not see. I was pushed onto the back seat with
one man either side of me. The gun was lowered and we drove on in
silence.
After a short time we pulled up at a nearby bus stop known as
the Waverley Terminus and the man who had held the gun hit me on the head
and asked," Are you Bothwell Pasipamire, the councillor?" I said I was. He
had what appeared to be photographs taken of me at the council chambers. The
gunman asked me why I was with MDC and told me that I had been very vocal in
Chambers and at party meetings, and that I was a problem to Zanu-PF in the
district.
Arrival at the base
We drove for more than two hours,
through Harare and onto the Mutare road and near Goromonzi, we left the
tarred road and, though it was dark, I think we went to a farm. There were
lots of outbuildings. At this place, I was told to get out and was led to
some kind of small storeroom with a tiny barred window, and I was locked
inside. The place went quiet and I think it must have been close to
4am.
Interrogation
By the light in the sky, I believe it was
around 6am when two men in dark clothes unlocked the door and led me to
another building. From the way they spoke, I know they were Shonas and I
would place their accent as coming from somewhere near Chinhoyi, but I can't
be sure. They were both in their mid-30s.
Inside the second building,
I was offered a seat and ordered to give my name, date of birth, ID number
and so on. These were written down. "Why did you join the MDC?" one of the
men asked. "It is the party I believe in." "What's wrong with Zanu-PF? Why
do you not support the ruling party?" I replied: "Just as a man is free to
choose his own wife, so he can choose his own party." The questioning went
on like this, with nothing of any importance being discussed. I got the
feeling that the two men were bored with their work.
I was now taken
to a larger room in the same building. I remember it well because there was
wood panelling on the walls. The same two men were with me, but we were soon
joined by another who introduced himself as Army Warrant Officer Mabhunu. He
told me that his job was to sort out people like me and that, in time, he
would "finish off all MDC members". Foolishly I thought he was joking and I
said, "MDC is like HIV. You can never finish it off completely."
He
pushed me over, I fell to the ground and he kicked me. He was very angry.
There was a steel table in the room with a hole in the middle. I was told to
take off my shoes and slip headfirst into the hole. My hands were cuffed
behind me and Mabhunu started beating the soles of my feet. "The MDC has
been blowing up trains and they tried to blow up Harare railway station," he
said. "Who was responsible for this? I want the names." I said I didn't
know. "It is Morgan Tsvangirai security people. I want their
names."
"You must ask at Harvest House (MDC HQ)," I said.
He was
now very angry and told me to climb out of the table and take off all my
clothes. I stripped to my underpants, but he shouted for me to remove them.
I was then told to lie on the table and he began playing with my private
parts. It seemed he was trying to embarrass me in front of the other two who
were still in the room. He would fondle me like a lover, and then suddenly
squeeze my testicles so that I cried out in pain. There followed some
humiliating abuse, which I do not wish to talk about except to a doctor.
Suddenly, after hurting me so badly, Mabhunu told the other men to leave the
room and he started speaking to me nicely.
"I don't want you to suffer,
but we do need your help," he said. "All I want you to do is to kill one of
the soldiers we have here at the camp." He produced a crowbar and said, "The
soldiers have already been beaten, they won't fight with you. But I need you
to hit one of them on the head with this and kill him. Can you do that for
me?"
"I have never killed anyone in my life. I can't do that."
He
said: "Okay, can you pretend to do it? "
I wasn't sure what he meant, but
at that point he told me to put on my clothes and I was escorted back to the
little barred room. It must have been close to midday and, in the afternoon,
someone brought me sadza (porridge) and a little meat and I ate. For the
rest of the day, I could hear other men being tortured nearby. It was
terrible to hear people screaming and crying. There was only one blanket in
the room and I held it around my head to keep out the sound. Late that
night, some officials opened my door, and when I came out, I saw other men
like myself standing in front of other doors and rooms where they had been
kept. A hose was turned on and we were all sprayed and then our rooms were
sprayed, including my blanket.
We were locked up again and I was glad
this was the middle of summer or I would have suffered with cold by sleeping
wet. Even so it became cold in the early hours of morning and I was afraid
of what might be coming with the new day. Late into the night, there were
still the screams of people being tortured and beaten. I cannot properly
tell you how terrible it is to be cold, wet, and unable to sleep and
surrounded by the sounds of men crying in pain. This was the worst torture
of all and it will be with me all my life.
On camera
By the next
morning, I decided that I must cooperate with these officials if I was to
survive, though I would not harm another person if ordered to do so. I had
not slept since being abducted 36 hours earlier and was very tired. There
was no food in the morning, but I was led from the cell to an area of open
ground between the buildings where other young men were gathered. I did not
recognise any of them, but we were a long way from Kadoma. One officer asked
whether he should bring some of the women and I believe there were female
prisoners in another block. He was told not to bring them. By this time,
human-rights worker, Jestina Mukoko had been missing for more than a week
and I was hoping to find her alive at the camp, but I never got to see the
women prisoners.
However, from the brief description given by her lawyer
about how she had been kidnapped and held, I believe she may well have been
at the same place near Goromonzi.
Mabhunu arrived and told us that we
had to pretend to beat up a soldier. There was someone with a large video
camera, the kind you see when ZTV are filming. A young soldier in camouflage
uniform was brought to stand in front of us. I remember thinking that he
looked more scared that I was and I think he had been abused or threatened,
though there were no marks on his face. We were made to pretend we were
beating a kicking him and he rolled on the ground crying.
The film
crew covered it all. Now I was again separated from the others and handed a
hand-written script with questions and answers, in English. "We need you to
answer questions as they are on the paper," Mabhunu told me. "I will give
you some time to read it and I will be back soon." When he returned with the
TV crew, there was another man in a suit who asked me the questions, just
like they do on TV and I replied with the answers I had been given. When I
made a mistake, they stopped and I had to do that one again. I was handed a
microphone and I cannot remember everything, and some of the words will be
different, but it was like this:
Q Why have you been beating and killing
soldiers of the Zimbabwe National Army?
A It is because they are
keeping Mugabe in power.
Q You have murdered at least one soldier. Is
that true?
A Yes it is true.
Q When did you kill him?
A It
was today, before being caught by the police.
Q Had the soldier committed
some offence that made you kill him?
A No. But soldiers like him are
supporting Mugabe and we have been ordered to kill them.
Q Who gave
you those orders?
A Our party president, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Q
Where were you trained for killing soldiers?
A I was trained in
Botswana.
Q Did Tsvangirai give you money?
A Yes, he gave me [US]
$1000.
Q Did he tell you where the money came from?
A He said
there was plenty of money coming to MDC through Mr Pocock the British
Ambassador and Mr Magee the US Ambassador in Harare. He said the money was
paid by the US and Britain through Ian Khama of Botswana.
Q How many were
with you in the gang that killed the soldier?
A We were 10.
Q Do
you believe that Tsvangirai will be president of Zimbabwe?
A
Yes.
Q How many people are being trained at camps in Botswana?
A
There are many thousands.
Q How many from Harare?
A I think at
least 2500.
Q Who is in charge of recruitment and where is it being
done?
A It is Tsvangirai security staff and it is all based from Harvest
House.
When it was over, we [Bothwell plus Mabhunu and ZBC team] were all
laughing at the questions and answers and they said I had done a good job.
One of the officials patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry if it
is true or not. It's what we need, nothing more." I did not reply and was
taken back to my room and given food and water.
Escape
I was
held for three days. During that time I was not allowed to meet or talk with
other prisoners. Each night we were again sprayed with water. By the third
night I was so cold and depressed I thought of hanging myself with the wet
blanket. I was convinced that these people would kill me, before they put my
interview on TV, otherwise I was sure to tell someone that it was a lie. On
the fourth day after my abduction, I was injected twice in the buttocks but
I was not told what medication I was being given. I was not given food that
day and, in the evening, I was driven to Harare. No one gave me any
information on where I was going or why, but I had a feeling that they were
planning to kill me. At this time, I cannot reveal any details of my escape
because it will be a danger to the people who helped me. There are some
inside Zanu PF and CIO who do not believe in what they are
doing.
Training camps in Botswana
I am not on the MDC national
executive and am not in a position to comment on allegations made by the
Zimbabwe government about training camps in Botswana. As a councillor, I am
often approached by residents asking why we have not taken up an armed
struggle. I do believe that if the MDC did go to war then, as happened with
Mkontho we Sizwe in South Africa, thousands of youth would join up to free
Zimbabwe. When asked, in reply I just quote the stated MDC policy that we
are not a party of violence.
However I can say that, after almost 10
years in the MDC I do know a lot of people in the party and never once have
I heard anybody talking about arms, violent tactics or training camps. And I
have not met any person who claims to have been asked to go for training in
Botswana. This convinces me in my own mind that the story is false. And if
there was any truth, why would CIO need to abduct people like myself to tell
lies on video about such camps.
My life now
It was I who told the
MDC that I wanted to put my story out to the media. After this I will not be
able to return home safely, but I do believe that change will come soon and
then things will be okay in Zimbabwe. The above is my statement and mine
alone. Every word is true and, in time, I hope to appear in court where the
CIO members who abducted me and who, with Mr Mabhunu, so humiliated me, will
be on trial. I will give the same testimony under oath in court, and my only
plea to the MDC is that those who have killed and tortured must not be
allowed to just go free.
As predicted several months ago Zanu PF and Mugabe have turned
to a compromised judiciary to try and whittle down the parliamentary
majority of the MDC led by founding President Morgan Tsvangirai.
On
Monday a Mutare magistrate convicted MDC Member of Parliament for
Chimanimani Lynette Karenyi of 'forging signatures on her nomination papers'
ahead of the harmonized elections in March 2008, which Zanu PF lost to the
MDC.
The state owned Herald newspaper ran a celebratory headline 'MDC
T MP loses seat,' and put forward the argument that in terms of the
Electoral Act Karenyi ceases to be a member of parliament.
The
Tsvangirai MDC upset the odds to win 100 parliamentary seats, Zanu-PF 99 and
the Mutambara MDC only 10 seats during the harmonized elections. The other
seat went to independent candidate Professor Jonathan Moyo from Tsholotsho;
a constituency the Tsvangirai MDC did not field a candidate.
The judges
in the country have been bribed with farms, luxury cars, plasma TV's and
other perks from the Reserve Bank. It was no surprise that magistrate
Billard Musakwa convicted Karenyi of 'forgery' and sentenced her to a wholly
suspended 20 days' imprisonment.
She was ordered to pay a $20 billion
fine and 'disqualified' from representing the people of Chimanimani West
with immediate effect. Karenyi was also suspended from contesting any
elections in Zimbabwe for the next five years although it remained unclear
whether a magistrate's court had the power to impose such
restrictions.
HARARE - Newly-appointed Attorney-General (AG) Johannes
Tomana has openly declared his support for Zanu-PF.
Tomana was
sworn-in as AG last December amid protests by the mainstream MDC that his
appointment flew in the face of the power-sharing agreement between the MDC
and Zanu-PF.
Welcoming Tomana to the Cabinet, President Robert Mugabe
called him "the right man" to confront the challenges as government' chief
law officer.
Tomana took over from Justice Bharat Patel, who was acting
AG following the suspension and eventual dismissal of Sobusa Gula-Ndebele in
May. Gula-Ndebele was fired amid unsubstantiated allegations that he was
purged for failing to adhere to a Zanu-PF agenda on prosecutions.
In
an interview with the state-controlled Herald newspaper, Tomana openly
declared his allegiance to Zanu-PF.
"I am Zanu-PF and I am proud to
be of that party," he said. "Nothing bars me from being a Zanu-PF
supporter.
"Our law protects that right and that is why in society,
public offices are occupied by people who are free to belong to their
political parties.
"I am very good at separating business from politics.
I do not appreciate the undue concern that there is a problem with my
association with Zanu-PF."
Tomana said detained human rights activist
Jestina Mukoko was a security threat.
"I do not know Mukoko at a
personal level and I am sure she does not know me as well," he said. "My
office has no reason to fix her as has been peddled in the foreign
Press.
"She was brought to me by the investigating arms of the State and
they explained her case of allegedly recruiting people for insurgency
training.
"Evidence gathered proves that she is a threat to society and
she should not be released now.
Mukoko, a former staffer with the
state controlled ZBC, was seized from her Norton home early last month by a
dozen armed men in civilian clothing who claimed to have been police
officers.
For 19 days, her whereabouts remained a mystery among relatives
and friends who were increasingly fearful for her life.
She claims
severe torture at the hands of her captors as they attempted to extract a
confession to charges of banditry.
Mukoko has been shuttling between
courts and prison in a bid to secure her release and the arrest of her
abductors.
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, another avowed supporter of
Mugabe, recently refused to hear Mukoko's case, referring it back to the
magistrates' court.'
Tomana claimed some cases - irrespective of
political personalities involved - took long to be brought for trial because
the State would be conducting intensive investigations.
He said: "The
investigations take longer and we cannot send a half-baked case to court. It
is not true that political cases take longer than other cases, but instead,
all complex cases drag on for some time.
Before his appointment, he had
served as deputy AG for 11 months.
A staunch Zanu-PF supporter who has
vigorously defended government while in private practice, Tomana has been an
unwavering supporter of the Mugabe regime.
As senior partner at law
firm, Tomana, Mandaza and Muzangaza, Tomana represented the Media and
Information Commission (MIC) and was directly responsible for the banning of
the country's popular independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, and three
other titles.
He was lawyer for the MIC for years and also represented
the then Information Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo in several cases
against independent journalists.
He is a commissioner of Zimbabwe's
largely useless Anti-Corruption Commission which has failed to secure even a
single high profile prosecution despite rampant top level corruption in
government.
He has routinely been quoted by State media as a political
analyst energetically defending some of Mugabe's more questionable
policies.
Zimbabwean demonstrators at Downing Street Hundreds of
destitute Zimbabweans who have sought sanctuary in the UK asked Gordon Brown
yesterday for permission to work, pay taxes and gain the skills to help them
rebuild Zimbabwe at a demonstration and delegation to Downing
Street.
The demonstration was organised by Citizens for Sanctuary, a
Citizen Organising Foundation campaign to implement the findings of the
Independent Asylum Commission. The action marked six months since Gordon
Brown promised to review the situation of 11,000 destitute Zimbabweans in
the UK who cannot return home, and yet are not allowed to work or access
benefits.
A larger than expected crowd of several hundred Zimbabweans and
supporters assembled outside Downing Street in a traditional colourful and
noisy Zimbabwean demonstration of songs and dancing to remind the Prime
Minister that it is six months since he promised to look "...at what we can
do to support Zimbabweans in that situation [destitute], and we will report
back to the House in due course."
A delegation of Zimbabweans and a
cross-party group of Parliamentarians including Liberal Democrat
frontbenchers Ed Davey MP, Chris Huhne MP, and Simon Hughes MP, Labour
backbenchers Kate Hoey MP, Jon Cruddas MP and Neil Gerrard MP, Conservative
Rob Wilson MP and the Earl of Sandwich (Labour) then delivered a dossier of
500 CVs from Zimbabweans who are ready and willing to work and whose skills
and experiences are going to waste because of the ban on work.
The
dossier of CVs shows that many Zimbabweans have skills and work experience
in areas listed in the government's National Shortage Occupation List - such
as teaching, social care and nursing. In a covering letter to the dossier,
the parliamentarians and the Zimbabwean delegation challenged Mr Brown to
match his rhetoric on Zimbabwe with his treatment of its people in the UK by
allowing Zimbabweans to work and pay taxes to benefit the UK economy and
provide them with skills to help rebuild Zimbabwe when it is safe to
return.
Over 20 civil society institutions from across the UK showed the
British people's support for Zimbabweans by pledging strategic internships
in universities, schools, hospitals, churches, charities, the media and
Parliament, to provide the skills and experience that will help rebuild
Zimbabwe. Citizens for Sanctuary will issue an appeal for other
organisations to pledge strategic internships, starting with a call to the
Prime Minister to offer them within government departments, including at 10
Downing Street, to help rebuild democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe in
the future.
Chipo, an accountant from Zimbabwe who has been destitute
in the UK for 7 years, said: "It was so difficult for me to leave the
country, the job, and the young children I loved because I opposed Mugabe. I
came to Britain for sanctuary, but instead find myself in a terrible limbo.
I can't go home but I have no way of supporting myself here. We are a proud
people - we just want to be able to work, pay taxes, and develop the skills
that will help us piece together the shattered remains of our homeland when
it is safe to return."
Jonathan Cox, Lead Organiser of the CITIZENS
for Sanctuary campaign, said: "We have had an amazing turnout and they are
representative of many thousands of others who could not come because they
did not have the means. That is a real indication of how keen Zimbabweans
are to find out what the Prime Minister can do for Zimbabweans. We are
waiting for him to keep his word. Our government has been a world leader in
criticising Mugabe while leaving many of those who escaped that horrific
regime to languish here without hope. We must prepare Zimbabweans who came
to Britain in search of sanctuary with the skills and experience that they
will need to forge a brighter future for their country once democracy and
stability are restored."
* Please note that
daily information collection is a challenge due to communication and staff
constraints. On-going data cleaning may result in an increase or decrease in the
numbers. Any change will then be explained.
** Daily information on new deaths should not imply that these deaths
occurred in cases reported that day. Therefore daily CFRs >100% may
occasionally result
1- Highlights of the day:
- 1642 cases and 81 deaths added today (in comparison 1472 cases and 117
deaths yesterday)
- 36.84% of the districts affected have reported today (21 out of 57 affected
districts)
- 87.1 % of districts reported to be affected (54 districts/62)
Over 2,000 Lives Now Lost to Worst Ever Cholera Outbreak,
UN Reports
UN News Service
13 January 2009
The death toll in Zimbabwe's worst ever
cholera outbreak has now topped 2,000, with more than 100 deaths - and
nearly 1,500 new cases - added just today, the United Nations World Health
Organization (WHO) reported.
In all, there have been close to 40,000
cholera cases reported in Zimbabwe so far, according to WHO, which adds that
virtually no part of the country has been spared in the epidemic, made worse
by a near collapse of the health system and deteriorating humanitarian
conditions.
The disease, which is caused by contaminated food or water,
has affected all ten of Zimbabwe's provinces, and nearly 90 per cent of the
country's 62 local districts. Half the cases are in the capital, Harare, and
only a handful of professionals are staffing clinics where several dozen are
needed.
WHO and sister agencies, such the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF), have been scaling up their efforts to respond to the outbreak,
including through the delivery of vital medical supplies.
Boniface
Nzara, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist with UNICEF Zimbabwe,
painted a grim picture of what he found during a recent visit to a rural
clinic in Chinrundu, a small community in the country's northwest region.
The clinic, which only has the capacity to treat eight patients, was
overwhelmed on the day of his visit, with 185 cases and 16
deaths.
"When we arrived at the clinic we were met by a frightening
sight. People with cholera were just lying outside the clinic with very
little assistance," said Mr. Nzara. "The hygiene situation inside was
literally a cholera breeding ground."
UNICEF was able to assist the
clinic by providing a "cholera kit," which includes two treatment tents
large enough to house 50 patients, beds and pit latrine equipment, as well
as IV fluids and oral rehydration salts.
The agency also supplied a
5,000-litre water tank and 500,000 water-purification tablets to secure safe
drinking water in the short term.
The cholera epidemic is just the latest
crisis to hit Zimbabwe, which has been faced with a worsening humanitarian
situation owing to years of failed harvests, bad governance and
hyperinflation, as well as months of political tensions after disputed
presidential elections in March involving the incumbent Robert Mugabe and
the opposition figure Morgan Tsvangirai.
Although a power-sharing deal on
the formation of a new government was reached in September with the help of
regional leaders, outstanding issues remain, jeopardizing the deal's
implementation.
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights (ZLHR) on Tuesday said it would seek audience with Judge
President Rita Makarau over her allegations that some lawyers had shown
disrespect and contempt of the judiciary in interviews with foreign
media.
ZLHR, a grouping of the country's leading human rights lawyers
that offers said it had taken note of the charges made by Makarau in a
speech on Monday marking the opening of the first term of the High Court
this year
"As a membership-based organisation of human rights lawyers in
Zimbabwe, ZLHR wishes to make an effort to understand her concerns and work
together with her to address them in a productive manner," the human rights
lawyers said in a statement.
"ZLHR will therefore shortly be engaging
with Mrs Justice Makarau in this regard. Further developments will be
advised as and when they arise."
Human right lawyers have often
criticised the bench - purged of independent judges by President Robert
Mugabe - of lacking courage to defend the rights of citizens against a
government that has increasingly relied on brutal force to keep dissension
in check in the face of a worsening economic and humanitarian
crisis.
Makarau, appointed to the High Court in 2000 when Mugabe began
re-moulding the bench, said lawyers, like all citizens, had right to
complain against maladministration by the courts. But she said some lawyers
she did not name had been unfair to and disrespectful of the bench in
utterances made to foreign media.
Makarau threatened unspecified
action against such lawyers in the future. - ZimOnline.
HARARE - Judge President Rita Makarau displayed anger on
Monday over criticism about the High Court bench's recent handling of a
legal case involving a leading human rights campaigner and 15 other
activists who are in remand prison over framed charges of plotting to topple
President Robert Mugabe.
Makarau, who started her term of office last
year with a fiery speech during the opening of the 2008 legal year slamming
the appalling administration of justice and the collapsing judiciary in
Zimbabwe, made a volte face Monday during the official opening of the 2009
legal year. She tore into lawyers who have said the rule of law has
completely broken down in Zimbabwe.
Their observation followed the
refusal by the High Court to investigate the kidnapping of human rights
activist Jestina Mukoko and her co-accused by state agents. The High Court
bench has also refused the political detainees the right to medical
treatment.
Mukoko was abducted by state agents from her home in Norton,
40 kilometers west of Harare, at dawn on December 3. She was missing until
December 24, when she was brought to court.
At first, the police
denied the state had anything to do with the abduction and suggested they
were treating the matter as a kidnapping. In court, Mukoko was charged with
recruiting people for banditry - a crime that carries the death
penalty.
Her lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa had asked the High Court to squash
the criminal proceedings against her until the kidnappers had been brought
to court.
The lawyer had also argued that the information police were
using against her client was sought while Mukoko was
kidnapped.
Makarau and members of the High Court bench have over the past
year been lavished by President Mugabe with 42-inch plasma TV sets,
satellite dishes, generators, Mercedes Benz E280 sedans and four-wheel drive
vehicles. On Tuesday she slammed lawyers for publicly attacking and
criticising the appalling court judgements in the foreign
media.
"Lack of respect and utter contempt manifesting in the utterances
by some lawyers to the foreign media is sometimes dumbfounding and after
reading some of the reports one would be forgiven for believing that such
legal practitioners will never again seek recourse to the courts for
anything as they have no faith in the system," Makarau said.
"The
truth is they happen to be among the busiest lawyers in town. They have
obtained more orders than most from a judiciary that is beneath contempt and
in a country where the rule of law has completely broken down.
"I
wonder what value they place on the orders issued in favour of their
clients. Should such orders even be enforced?"
Makarau said enough
was enough, adding, "We have turned the biblical cheek several times
already."
Makarau said everyone, including lawyers, was allowed to
complain against maladministration by the courts, but ethics required
lawyers to use "temperate language".
Makarau spoke as the
International Bar Association slammed the "breakdown in the rule of law" in
Zimbabwe, repeating criticism by Mtetwa that the rule of law had been
subverted in Zimbabwe.
Mtetwa said: "The law has absolutely broken down
in Zimbabwe. If a High Court can refuse to investigate an admitted
kidnapping, refuses a patient the right to medical treatment - to a place
she can get treatment - what else can we say?"
The International Bar
Association, the world's leading organisation of international legal
practitioners, bar associations and law societies, has appealed to the SADC
to intervene and ensure the courts in Zimbabwe are free from political
interference in its appalling handling of the political detainees'
cases.
"SADC has an obligation to act on the crimes of Robert Mugabe's
government," said Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar
Association in a statement issued Monday. "To date SADC has blocked outside
initiatives to hold Mugabe's regime accountable for its abuses and has been
silent while international law is violated with impunity."
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
government is frantically mobilising teachers to mark last year's public
examinations, amid fears schools may fail to reopen for the new term on
January 27, plunging education deeper into chaos.
Zimbabwe's once admired
public education sector is in crisis, weighed down by incessant strikes for
more pay by teachers that disrupted learning for most of last year and a
severe brain drain that has seen thousands of the best qualified teachers
leave for better paying jobs abroad.
The government last week postponed
the beginning of the new school year from January 13 to January 27 to allow
time for completion of marking of last year's public
examinations.
But it has emerged very little marking, if any at all, has
been taking place because teachers will not mark the examinations until they
are paid more allowances.
In a circular on Monday, the director of
the Zimbabwe School Examination Council (ZIMSEC), Happy Ndanga, said the
council was urgently looking for 'O' and 'A' level examination
markers.
He said the government had improved marking rates and those
recruited would be paid travelling and subsistence allowances.
The
circular, due to be published in national newspapers starting today
(Wednesday), said ZIMSEC wanted to recruit more Grade 7 examiners and
primary school teachers were required for transcription of the grades and
marks to scanner sheets.
"Interested teachers should report to
regional managers as quickly as possible," the circular read.
Sources
in education said some examination transcripts were yet to be transported
from schools across the country to marking centres, adding that it could
take at least a month to mark the tests and release the results.
Last
week Ndanga had claimed that the examinations were marked and results would
be due out soon.
The delay to open the new academic year, sources in the
education system said, was meant to facilitate the marking and also to give
government time to consider requests by schools to charge fees in foreign
currency. President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet was due to deliberate on the
matter yesterday (Tuesday).
Teachers went on strike several times
last year over pay, as Zimbabwe's stunning hyperinflation reduced their
salaries to a pittance.
The teachers are threatening not to report for
duty when the new school term begins unless the government agrees to pay
them in foreign currency to cushion them against runaway
inflation.
Teachers want an average salary of US$2 300 per month, money
President Robert Mugabe's government does not have.
"The position is
that if there are no salaries in US dollars, it will be a problem or
difficult for teachers to return to work," said Oswald Madziva, the national
co-coordinator of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe
(PTUZ).
"Postponing the school calendar shows that government has
admitted that things are not in order," said Madziva, whose militant PTUZ
has led previous strikes by teachers.
Inflation was last estimated in
July at 231 million percent, but outside economists say it is now likely to
be in the trillions.
The central bank prints ever-larger banknotes,
sometimes several times a month, but still cannot keep pace with soaring
prices. Many shops now demand foreign currency for their goods, effectively
shutting out ordinary Zimbabweans.
A collapsed currency is the most
visible sign of Zimbabwe's deepening economic and humanitarian crisis that
is also seen in acute shortages of food and basic commodities, amid a
cholera epidemic that the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday has
killed nearly 2 000 people since last August.
A September
power-sharing agreement between Mugabe and the two opposition MDC formations
had sparked hope that Zimbabwe could finally emerge from its
crisis.
But the deal has failed to take off because Mugabe and main
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai cannot agree over who should control key
ministries in a unity government outlined in the agreement. - ZimOnline
REPORTS by South African immigration and police sources say
there has of late been an upsurge in the number of Zimbabweans streaming
into the country legally and illegally.
Ever increasing material
deprivation and a loss of faith in the future are driving thousands to seek
a new uncertain life in South Africa and other neighbouring
states.
The political leadership in Zimbabwe owes it to the people to put
an end to this mass suffering. People are desperate to know if there is any
glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It is unrealistic to expect
Robert Mugabe and his cronies to put the interests of the country and its
people before their own selfish ends.
In their calculations no cost
is too high for their continued rule. No amount of suffering will move them
as long as their pockets are lined and their hands are firmly on the levers
of state power. They are confident that given Zimbabwe's mineral resources
there will always be sufficient money to fund their lifestyles and pay for
the state's repressive machinery. In addition to dispensing largesse to the
ruling elite Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono's other major task is to
mortgage the country's mineral wealth to interested foreigners.
The
regime has no qualms about resorting to all manner of shady deals to sustain
its rule. The pretence that it is there for the people has long been
discarded. Pleas for Mugabe to restore political and economic sanity will
continue to fall on deaf ears.
Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC meets on
Sunday 18 January to decide whether to join the proposed inclusive
government. It is imperative for the MDC to arrive at a clear decision that
leaves no room for uncertainty or ambiguity. It is now four months since the
Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed on 15 September 2008. A lot has
transpired in that time. The MDC should be in a position to make a firm
decision based on concrete facts and not unrealistic hopes.
This is
no time to dilly-dally. The party is either joining the government or opting
out. There are no more SADC summits that will help the situation. All
parties including SADC have made their positions crystal clear. It is
decision time for the MDC.
A coalition or unity government only works
if parties in it have a common purpose. In Zimbabwe this is clearly not the
case. Mugabe sees the inclusive government as a tactical ploy to ultimately
outmaneuvre the MDC. He does not see it as a vehicle through which the
political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe can be genuinely tackled. His main
objective is not to bring prosperity to the people of Zimbabwe but to rule
them until he drops dead. He only signed the agreement to secure legitimacy
for his presidency which he could not obtain through the ballot box. He
detests the idea of having the MDC in government even as junior
partners.
He has no intention of allowing the inclusive government to
serve a full five - year term. His intention is to call for an early
election when he believes the MDC is sufficiently weakened. Mugabe is shrewd
enough to know that the MDC's presence as junior partners in a largely
ineffectual government will have serious political consequences for it. With
no improvement in the lives of Zimbabweans the MDC's political fortunes will
rapidly nosedive. At the same time the MDC's foot soldiers - the backbone of
the party - will continue to be killed, arrested, tortured and displaced.
With its organizers battered and demoralized and its structures crippled,
the MDC will be ripe for easy pickings in an early snap
election.
That is Mugabe's calculation.
This is why it is so
important for Mugabe not to make the compromises sought by the MDC in
relation to the balance of power within the unity government. He wants the
MDC to be mere spectators in a government in which, as he told his party's
Central Committee, Zanu-PF will be in the driver's seat. A clear indication
of this is Patrick Chinamasa's recent statement that no meeting between
Tsvangirai and Mugabe as requested by the MDC will take place.
He shot
down the demand by the MDC for such a meeting to be chaired by South
Africa's President Kgalema Motlanthe. Chinamasa made it clear they would
only accept Thabo Mbeki, their staunch supporter, as mediator pouring scorn
on the MDC's call for his removal. Mugabe wants the MDC to make a choice
between joining the unity government under the present terms or opting out.
He is in no mood to entertain the MDC's concerns.
As far as he is
concerned what is on the table is not negotiable. If the MDC opt out he will
argue that they went against a SADC resolution calling for the immediate
formation of an inclusive government and seek the regional body's nod to
proceed without Tsvangirai. If they join the government on his conditions
they will be on a slippery slope to political self- destruction.
The
argument is often presented by some analysts that the MDC will be cast into
the political wilderness if it declines to join the inclusive government.
This is a false argument bereft of any merit. The MDC's raison d'etre is to
seek democratic change in Zimbabwe. That is supposed to be its mission. It
is not to seek political accommodation with a regime hell bent on preserving
its own tyrannical rule.
It is a mission which soon became difficult and
protracted due to the intransigence of an entrenched regime with no scruples
about using all means at its disposal to prevent change. It is not a mission
that must be abandoned because it is a difficult one. The MDC cannot secure
its political future through unprincipled compromises that at best bring
short-lived material benefits to a few leaders. It can only secure its
political future if it remains true to the aspirations of ordinary
Zimbabweans. Those aspirations demand that a new order brings with it
freedoms enjoyed elsewhere in the world and an environment conducive to
economic growth.
When the MDC leadership meets this coming weekend it
must take hard decisions. There is no use pretending that Mugabe will make
any concessions on their demands. He will not undergo a miraculous
metamorphosis and do what is right for Zimbabwe. There is also no use
pretending that SADC or the AU will find an answer. They will not lift a
finger to get Mugabe to accept the principle of equity in power-sharing.
What is on the table now is what they should base their decision on. It is
either they accept the terms offered and come on board or they opt out. The
decision will then determine how they vote when the Constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment 19 is tabled in Parliament next week. This is the time for bold
decisive leadership.
President Motlanthe who currently chairs SADC has
repeatedly said outstanding issues raised by the MDC can be sorted out after
the formation of the government. Mbeki made similar promises to pressure the
MDC to sign the GPA. None of the concerns they raised then were addressed.
One has to be an absolute fool to believe that Mugabe will even entertain
discussing these issues after the MDC has taken the plunge.
Once they
are in government issues they have raised will be off the table. They must
not mislead people that SADC and AU have guaranteed that these issues will
be addressed afterwards. There should be no pie in the sky stuff. The
decision made this weekend must be based only on what is on offer.
By Dan Nixon Rotary International News -- 13 January
2009
Cecilia Nedziwe, of the Centre for Peace
Initiatives and a former Rotary World Peace Fellow, visits the Rotary water
project's pump well at Mupamombe school in Zimbabwe. Photo courtesy of Stein
Nørve
Amid famine, water scarcity, disease outbreaks, and rampant inflation in
Zimbabwe, six Rotary clubs in as many countries are bringing hope to people
there.
The project is establishing water wells and vegetable and tree gardens at
seven schools in the country. A US$6,650 Rotary Foundation Matching Grant,
combined with sponsor contributions, has provided a total of $16,950 in funding
for the effort.
The project began in 2007, sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Grenaa and
Grenaa-Djurs, Denmark; Tûri, Estonia; Grossefehn/Wiesmoor, Germany; Drøbak,
Norway; and Hunyani, Zimbabwe. Recent support has also come from the Rotary Club
of Åmål, Sweden.
Pump Aid, a nongovernmental organization, is managing installation and
maintenance of the wells. Environment Africa, another NGO, oversees creation of
the gardens, designed to help feed area residents and provide some with a
livelihood. The organization is headed by Charlene Hewat, of the Hunyani club.
"The technology is simple and efficient and requires no special technical
skills," says Stein Nørve, a member of the Drøbak club. "The pumps may be
operated manually by anyone."
In 2008, Cecilia Nedziwe assessed the project's progress in the course of her
work as manager of operations for the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa. At
the Mupamombe school, she found the water pump functioning efficiently and
workers planting seeds in the garden.
"There was life and happiness around, and I was delighted to see everyone
smiling and extending their gratefulness to Rotary for supporting the well
project," said Nedziwe, who is based in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, and is a
former Rotary World Peace Fellow (Zimbabwe to Australia, 06-08).
She found the situation similar at three of the other four schools. Only at
the school in Kwayedza was the well for the pump yet to be completed. Two wells
are also scheduled for installation at other schools.
Nedziwe said that the project is vital, "given the level of humanitarian
crisis in the country. The project is making a difference and saving many
lives."
The cholera racing
through almost every province in South Africa threatens us with a crisis
that our health officials continue to ignore at our
peril.
More than 70 new cases have been reported in three
provinces this week. Yesterday the Limpopo government found a local river
from which thousands draw their water contaminated by the highly infectious
disease.
Cholera is easily treated if diagnosed early, but that means
nothing to the people of Zimbabwe, where the health system has broken down
along with all other government services.
There, 2000 people have
succumbed as even water reticulation and sewerage systems
collapse.
And it was always inevitable that as more of our desperate
neighbours fled to South Africa to ensure their survival they would bring
the disease with them.
But that hasn't troubled our
authorities.
Though more cholera cases are reported daily, no one has yet
declared a national alert, a coordinated government effort or a public
awareness campaign to sensitise the public to the threat.
Health
officials must stand up now and ignore political considerations to declare
the cholera epidemic ravaging Limpopo a national emergency or we risk a
fallout similar to what is happening across our northern border.
Buddie cards are top-up cards for 'pay as you go' cell
phone airtime, for one service provider (Econet). These are usually sold by
vendors on street corners and at traffic lights, as well as various outlets.
I purchased mine from vendors, as I think most people did. Selling Buddy
cards became a very important source of income for thousands of informal
traders. Vendors would go into the service provider, and buy their cards at
a 'wholesale' price, and they then sold the cards to the customer at the
retail price printed on the card, resulting in commission for
them.
Just before Christmas the Buddie cards stopped being printed. I
believe that other service providers also stopped printing their top-up
cards around the same time. This meant that thousands of vendors suddenly
found themselves in a situation, just before Christmas, unable to buy cards
to sell to their customers. They were effectively left
unemployed.
Rumours abounded that the system would be switching to
forex.
I bought top-up cards this weekend for the first time. The new
cards have a US dollar value printed on them and the card I bought was for
US$5. The vendor charged me US$6 which obviously prompted question over why
I was being charged a figure over the retail price. He told me that he was
now buying the cards over the counter at the face value, so was forced to
add his commission on top. That vendor made US$1 on that deal, but if
vendors are setting their own commission then it is possible that the price
paid will vary from vendor to vendor. I won't know until I buy my next
cards.
The second problem we had at the traffic light that day was change
- not political change but the money change! Not many people have small
change in forex and US$6 is one of those figures that usually requires US$4
returned out of a US$10 note. I waited at the robots while two other
vehicles purchased their cards from my vendor, with him doing his best to
get small change from them, but each of those customers paid the full price.
Eventually we negotiated that change issue by converting the US$ he wanted
into Rands, and me scrabbling around for money kept over from my last trip
to South Africa.
My friend in the car with me had kept quiet through
the transaction and dryly joked as we pulled away from the pavement, "I
wonder if that guy bought himself a forex licence?" There is simply no way a
vendor would have been able to buy themselves a licence. My friend's point
raises a range of potential problems for the vendors. For a start, they run
the risk of arrest for illegally trading, they also run the risk of the
Reserve Bank forex police simply stopping alongside them and seizing their
hard-earned cash from them, or they may find themselves being asked to pay
bribes to keep the Reserve Bank off their backs. These are all the same
dilemmas and stresses that formal traders have to deal with.
We
wondered if the forex licence issue might explain why the vendors could no
longer sell on commission. If the service provider holds the forex licence,
it is only they who can sell this product in foreign currency (which they
need to be able to do to ensure the service continues). So they 'legally'
sell the cards to the vendors, and thousands of decent people who previously
scrapped together completely legally, now have to do it
'illegally'.
That's only the start of their problems. Forex is
hard to come by and for Zimbabweans who protect every last bit they have,
buying from the vendors is no longer simply a convenient obvious thing to
do. It's still convenient and obvious, but it also comes at a cost. Why
would someone short of cash buy from a vendor, if they can go to a service
provider outlet and pay the face value? The only reason I did on that day
was because I decided the extra US$1 was worth paying to avoid the queue at
the outlet. But the length of the queue also indicated to me that a lot of
trade had drifted from the vendors to the service provider outlet. So
business to the vendors will be down.
Consider too that most of the
vendors were unable to sell cards around Christmas time - an expensive time
of year for most people - because the cards were not being printed. Those
guys probably used the money they would have held back for stock to cover
their cost of living. This means that most vendors probably found themselves
in an impossible situation when the next cards came out, because to buy
stock on foreign currency, they'd need to spend a LOT of Zimbabwe dollars
(very hard to come by) on the black market to raise the foreign cash they
needed to re-stock.
I feel very sorry for the many vendors who have
probably lost a way to keep surviving in this economy. But I also feel sorry
for the customer. Lengths of queues aside, the cost of sending an sms, in
forex, is scarey. One message now costs about 22c to send locally, and 47c
(US, not Zim) to send an sms outside the country. I have no idea what it
costs in other parts of the world, but my gut feeling is that we are
probably paying a lot more, in a currency we have to go to the black market
to get.
Everyone I spoke to is saying that cell phones will now only be
held for emergencies only because sms's are simply too expensive to use
socially anymore. But we have to be careful. The moment you scratch a Buddie
card and add the money to your phone, you have one month to use it. If you
don't use it within the month, then your line will be cut off and you will
have to go into the service provider office and pay a reconnection fee to be
able to use your phone. To avoid this, customers buy more airtime and add it
to their phones before the previous card expires, to ensure they always have
'active time' on their phones. It has always been a bitter pill to swallow,
but much harder when the pills come at such a high price.
If this is
how complicated it is just to buy and sell airtime, imagine what it must be
like trying to manage a massive company in Zimbabwe.
This entry
was written by Hope on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Please find below a reminder for the Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) Fellowships:
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Applications from female scholars and under-represented groups are strongly
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*Fellowships are awarded for visiting academic positions
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*Fellowships are disbursed
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In most cases, host campuses are asked to match the SRF fellowship award
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*Unfortunately SRF is not in a position to
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MORE claims of blacklisting at
the SABC have been placed before a committee of the Independent
Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) in support of a complaint brought
against the public broadcaster.
This will reopen debate on an
issue that remains unresolved more than two years after an inquiry found
certain commentators had been banned from appearing on the SABC, adding to
pressure on the already beleaguered institution.
Aubrey Matshiqi,
Moeletsi Mbeki, Elinor Sisulu and Business Day political editor Karima Brown
had been banned from the SABC by the public broadcaster's head of news and
current affairs, Snuki Zikalala.
The Freedom of Expression Institute
(FXI) filed a complaint last year arguing that despite the findings of the
Sisulu commission in 2006, which found that blacklisting did indeed occur,
the SABC has failed to implement the commission's
recommendations.
These included that the role of group executive for
news and current affairs be restricted to general policy and strategy, and
that the group CE's role as editor-in-chief be reinforced. It said the board
should take note of concerns regarding Zikalala's management
style.
Finally, there should be no attempt to exclude commentators,
that this should be incorporated into the SABC's editorial policies, and
that regular audits on the use of commentators should be
conducted.
"It is our view that upon becoming aware of the
commission's recommendations, the SABC board should have taken corrective
action immediately, and publicly announced what these steps were to be," FXI
director Jane Duncan wrote in her affidavit to Icasa.
Duncan also
complained that the SABC has contradicted itself, having indicated last year
to the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications that it was in
the process of implementing the commission's recommendations and that
Zikalala had been given a verbal warning.
But in responding to the
FXI's complaint to Icasa, the SABC had denied wrongdoing on Zikalala's part,
she said.
The complaint was filed in February last year with Icasa's
complaints and compliance committee. But the committee ordered the FXI to
provide supplementary evidence for its complaint, ruling that it could not
rely on the Sisulu Commission's report.
This evidence has now
been provided by respected former SABC staffers Pippa Green and John
Perlman, who have filed affidavits in support of the FXI's complaint against
the SABC.
A report by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and the Media
Institute of Southern Africa detailing substandard coverage of the 2005
Zimbabwean parliamentary elections by the SABC English TV news team has also
been handed in as evidence.
There have
been plenty of protests outside Downing Street down the years but few as
surreal as yesterday's. The protesters were not calling for Britain to
withdraw its support from some foreign regime. Nor were they demanding money
from the Government. The opposite in fact: the plea of the scores of
Zimbabwean refugees who gathered in Whitehall was that they be allowed to
pay taxes in Britain.
Some 11,000 Zimbabweans find themselves in a
bizarre limbo. They have been denied political asylum in Britain, but cannot
be deported as long as Robert Mugabe is crushing their homeland. Furthermore
these individuals are not allowed to work here in Britain. Their choice is
to survive on charity or take their chances in the black economy. For the
Government to deny these refugees the right to work is cruel. But to prevent
them from paying taxes, especially with the public finances in their present
state, must surely come into the category of stupid.
