http://www.hararetribune.com/
By Trymore Magomana | Harare Tribune Correspondent
Updated: Monday, June 30, 2008 14:11
news@hararetribune.com
Zimbabwe, Harare --- In a show of the power of the citizen to hold
those
responsible for crimes against humanity in their countries, the Harare
Tribune can reveal that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is processing
a request to prosecute Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, and is
comrades for the crimes they committed from 1980 to
present.
The ICC is processing the request on behalf of Mr.
Phil Matibe,
Taskforce Commander, Anti-Tyranny Taskforce, a citizen of
Zimbabwe, on his
own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated,
pursuant to his
rights under the United Nations, African Union, European
Union,
International Criminal Court and other relevant charters and
covenants.
Mr. Matibe charged ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE in his
individual and
personal capacity with CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY (PERSECUTION,
MURDER, and
INHUMANE ACTS), GRAVE BREACHES OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, and
VIOLATIONS OF
THE LAWS OR CUSTOMS OF WAR as set forth below:
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) was established in 2002
as a
permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes
against
humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it
cannot
currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression because
agreement upon a definition and other matters of jurisdiction have not been
reached.
Though the court has over 100 members states, Robert
Mugabe, afraid of
his own freedom after leaving office, has kept Zimbabwe of
the ICC. To date,
the Court has opened investigations into four situations:
Northern Uganda,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African
Republic and
Darfur. The Court has issued public arrest warrants for twelve
people; six
of them remain free, two have died, and four are in
custody.
In a letter in response to Mr. Matibe's request for the
ICC to begin
work to prosecute Mugabe once he leaves office, Mr. David
Metcalf, Head of
Information & Evidence Unit in the ICC Office of The
Prosecutor,
acknowledged that they had received the documents charging
Mugabe with
crimes against humanity.
"We will give
consideration to this communication, as appropriate, in
accordance with the
provisions of
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,"
Mr. Metcalf
said in the response.
"As soon as a decision is
reached, we will inform you, in writing, and
provide you with reasons for
this decision."
Mr. Metcalf also indicated that although the
stumbling block to
charging Mugabe at the ICC was that Zimbabwe has not
signed up to Article 15
of the Rome Convention, the article that created the
ICC, "This was not a
disaster as the UN has the power to order the Hague to
investigate serious
breaches of international laws relating to Crimes
against humanity."
The list of those that will be charged together
with Robert include
Constantine Chiwenga, Perence Shiri, Augustine Chihuri,
Happytone Bonyongwe,
and many other influential figures in Robert Mugabe's
government since 1980.
In particular, Mr. Matibe charged Mugabe
with criminally being
responsible with the planning, and instigation in the
crimes committed.
Mugabe is charged with "the murder of 20 000 people in
Matabeleland,
Zimbabwe, during Gukurahandi massacres between 1982 and 1985,
plunder of the
DRC resources under Operation Sovereign Legitimacy from 1998
to 2000, the
death of Zimbabwe National Army officers and men in an illegal
war in the
DRC under Operation Sovereign Legitimacy, the murder of farmers
and farm
workers, theft of private property and displacement of over 600 000
farm
workers under Operation Hondo ye Minda from 2000 to 2008, the
destruction of
the homes of 700 000 people under Operation Murambatsvina in
2005, the
disappearance of numerous citizens of Zimbabwe."
On
his visit to Rome last month, there were calls to arrest him and
whisk him
to the ICC in the Hague, in the Netherlands. All told, Mugabe has
the blood
of over 50 000 Zimbabweans on his hands. It's only a matter of
time before
he is made to answer for his crimes against humanity. --- Harare
Tribune
News
magomana@hararetribune.com
Irish Times
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
JULIAN BORGER in Sharm el-Sheikh
AFRICA-WIDE
negotiations began yesterday on establishing a Zimbabwean
government of
national unity and appointing new mediators in the country's
political
crisis, as President Robert Mugabe arrived at a summit meeting in
Egypt
claiming victory in one-candidate elections.
The African Union summit
allowed the 84-year-old leader to take his seat,
despite strong criticism
from African election monitors who questioned the
legitimacy of Friday's
uncontested vote.
Public criticism of Mr Mugabe at the meeting in the Red
Sea resort of Sharm
el-Sheikh was limited, with a draft of a final
communique circulating
yesterday calling only for dialogue. The Associated
Press quoted an African
diplomat as saying that, in private session, Mr
Mugabe was "hugging
everyone, pretty much everyone he could get close
to".
The Zimbabwean leader was looking for allies. The brutal election
campaign
that forced his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, to withdraw has been
condemned
by the UN Security Council, which may consider new
sanctions.
In Sharm el-Sheikh the strongest words in open session came
from the UN. Its
deputy secretary general, Asha-Rose Migiro, put pressure on
African rulers
to intervene directly to broker a political settlement. "This
is a moment of
truth for regional leaders," Ms Migiro said.
In London
British prime minister Gordon Brown called on the summit to "make
it
absolutely clear that there has got to be change" in Zimbabwe. "I think
the
message that is coming from the whole world is that the so-called
elections
will not be recognised," he said.
The Kenyan prime minister, Raila
Odinga, offered advice from Nairobi
informed by his experience in
opposition. "They should suspend him and send
peace forces to Zimbabwe to
ensure free and fair elections," he said.
However, inside the conference
centre the language, at least in public, was
considerably more circumspect.
The host, president Hosni Mubarak, who has
jailed many of his opponents and
has been in power for 27 years, one less
than Mr Mugabe, stressed peace,
stability and development rather than
democracy.
Jakaya Kikwete, the
Tanzanian president chairing the summit, even referred
to the Zimbabwean
elections as "historic".
One of Mr Mugabe's toughest critics, the Zambian
president, Levy Mwanawasa,
was taken to hospital with a suspected stroke
before the leaders gathered.
According to diplomats in Sharm el-Sheikh there
were pointed exchanges in
closed session.
There was debate over
whether to appoint an African Union mediator to work
with South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, who has been designated broker by
the Southern
African Development Community. "Mbeki is trying very hard to
stop it," said
one diplomat.
VOA
By Peter Clottey
Washington,
D.C.
01 July 2008
Some Zimbabweans have
reportedly welcomed as a step in the right direction
calls by the
international community for a negotiated settlement between
President Robert
Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC). They
however, warned that a negotiated settlement that would lead to
a government
of national unity would not work since they claim President
Mugabe had on
previous occasions disbanded all such inclusive governments.
This comes
after over 30 African heads of state and government meeting in
the Egyptian
resort town of Sharm El Sheikh unanimously called for peace
negotiations
between the opposition and the government to resolve Zimbabwe's
internal
problems. Gordon Moyo is the executive director of the Bulawayo
project, a
non-governmental organization in Zimbabwe's commercial capital.
He tells
reporter Peter Clottey the call for possible negotiation should
focus on
addressing the concerns of ordinary Zimbabweans.
"The issue of a
negotiated settlement is quite welcome, but the question is
what kind of a
negotiated settlement? The people of Zimbabwe would not
welcome a government
of national unity as signified by the overtures that
are being made by
various heads of state. Zimbabwe would not want to have
the solution that
was brokered in Kenya imposed on them. The people of
Zimbabwe would want a
kind of situation whereby there is a transitional
mechanism that is going to
prepare for the election," Moyo noted.
He said Zimbabweans would want to
participate in a vote that would be
credible and internationally
accepted.
"Zimbabweans would want to vote; they didn't participate in the
elections
over the past two days. So, any negotiation that is going to allow
for an
electoral process that was began in March to be continued would be
welcomed,
but anything less than that would be tantamount to dismissing the
people's
will," he said.
Moyo said a possible negotiation between the
government and the opposition
would need a credible and an unbiased
mediator.
"There is no substitute for a negotiated settlement now.
Negotiations are
just important, but they are significant and essential in
Zimbabwe now, but
what would be needed is a mediator who is credible. The
mediation led by the
SADC (Southern African Development Community) through
the president of South
Africa was a suspect and it lacked the credibility
because the president of
South Africa seems to be politically blind to the
plight and calamities of
the people of Zimbabwe," Moyo pointed
out.
He said Zimbabweans would welcome a mediator that would be backed by
the
international community among others.
"What we need now is a
mediation that is supported by the African Union. The
mediation that has a
number of leaders and evidenced from outside even SADC,
that is what we need
in Zimbabwe," he said.
Moyo said the possible negotiated settlement by
the two opposing parties
should lead to a pragmatic constitutional
reform.
"The people of Zimbabwe are looking at what I will call the
principles of
engagement. When the MDC and ZANU-PF are engaging, there must
be certain
fundamentals that should be respected. One of them is they must
agree on
making sure that the priority in their discussion is a
constitutional
reform. Number two the people of Zimbabwe would want to vote,
so they are
expecting to go back to the polling stations as soon as
possible. That is
very critical to all Zimbabweans. Thirdly, the people of
Zimbabwe are tired
of the hostilities that are going on in the country, the
structures of
cohesion, the structures of manipulation, the structures of
violence should
be dismantled, and the people of Zimbabwe are looking
towards that. And the
people of Zimbabwe are hungry they are starving they
are looking forward to
the government allowing the international agencies
that have been
distributing food in Zimbabwe to continue their work," Moyo
pointed out.
Mugabe is restrained by Egyptian security when he advancies to physically attack Julian Mayon a reporter and calls Britain ?Bloody idiots!?
http://zimbabwemetro.com
By Staff ⋅ © zimbabwemetro.com ⋅ June
30, 2008 ⋅
Deadly political violence against members of the Movement for
Democratic
Change had continued following the run-off election Friday in
which
President Robert Mugabe claimed victory and was inaugurated on
Sunday.
Sources said a woman was murdered Sunday in Buhera South
constituency of
Manicaland province torture at a ruling party militia camp
at Mutiusinazita.
In the community of Headlands, Manicaland, MDC sources
said militia murdered
four members last week.
In Mazowe, Mashonaland
Central, parliamentarian-elect Shepherd Mushonga said
opposition members
have been unable to bury three members killed last week
as militia are
controlling movement in the area. He said two of those
murdered were forced
to drink poison as their families looked on.
In Mashonaland Central,
sources said Bindura lawyer Ernest Jena, who
represented detained opposition
activists, was abducted from his offices
last Tuesday and was still
missing.
Additional reporting by VOA Studio 7
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/
July 1, 2008
MDC President, Morgan
Tsvangirai
By Donna Bryson,
JOHANNESBURG, (Associated Press) - The
two paths of Robert Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai are telling: Mugabe, newly
sworn in as Zimbabwe's president
again, is at a summit of African leaders
while the opposition leader holes
up in a Western embassy in Zimbabwe's
capital.
Tsvangirai is hemmed in by Mugabe's policemen, soldiers and
ruling party
thugs as well as the president's cozy relationship with fellow
African
leaders.
The round-faced, ever-affable Tsvangirai insists he
is hopeful - "As far as
we are concerned we are nearer a resolution than we
have ever been," he
says - but his options appear few.
He wants
African leaders to guide negotiations on forming a coalition
government to
oversee a transition to democracy in Zimbabwe. While some
leaders have
publicly endorsed that idea, it is unclear how hard they will
or can push
Mugabe, who has ruled since independence in 1980.
Tsvangirai wants the
African Union to send in peacekeepers. That, too, is
unlikely, given the
difficulties the body already is having with its stalled
mission in Sudan's
Darfur region, undertaken jointly with the United
Nations. AU peacekeepers
also are struggling in Somalia.
Tsvangirai, a 56-year-old former trade
union leader, is on sensitive ground
when he proposes outside help, as shown
by his repeated clarifications that
peacekeepers would not be tantamount to
a military intervention. He risks
being labeled a traitor at home, and
leaders elsewhere in Africa might
bristle at his perceived lack of
sufficient nationalist sentiment.
While under pressure from Western
governments and human rights activists to
take a hard line, African leaders
have long had close ties with the
84-year-old Mugabe, renowned as a
campaigner against white rule and
colonialism. Even those who can claim to
be champions of democracy are
reluctant to be seen as backing the West
against a fellow African.
In an example of the lack of consensus,
election observers sent by the main
regional bloc, the Southern African
Development Community, could not agree
on how strongly to word their
assessment of Friday's presidential runoff.
Tsvangirai, who led a
four-candidate field in the opening ballot three
months ago, withdrew from
the runoff June 22 because of vicious killings of
supporters, leaving Mugabe
to claim victory.
The bloc's statement said only that the latest vote was
"not a true
reflection of the will of the Zimbabwean people." Lawmakers who
observed the
vote under the auspices of the Pan-African Parliament, however,
had no
trouble declaring it not free, fair or legitimate.
Tsvangirai
has called on the African Union to take over mediation that the
southern
bloc placed in the hands of South African President Thabo Mbeki
more than a
year ago. Tsvangirai says Mbeki's refusal to publicly criticize
Mugabe
betrays bias in Mugabe's favor.
While some African leaders have called
for a change from Mbeki's "quiet
diplomacy," it is unlikely that the African
Union will show Mbeki disrespect
by stripping him or the southern bloc of
the mediation role.
Mugabe has said he is open to talks, and referred
glowingly to Mbeki's
efforts. Mugabe could be hoping any progress will be
stalled in talks about
how to hold talks.
Looking West doesn't bode
much better for Tsvangirai.
President Bush wants the U.N. Security
Council to impose an arms embargo on
Zimbabwe and ban travel by Zimbabwe
government officials, but building
consensus could be
difficult.
Diplomats do not expect the Security Council to go much
further than last
week's nonbinding resolution condemning violence against
Zimbabwe's
political opposition. South Africa, China and Russia oppose
taking any
further action.
The U.S., European nations and Australia
have imposed limited sanctions on
Zimbabwe, and they may strengthen them,
though there are concerns tougher
measures could hurt ordinary Zimbabweans
already struggling with economic
collapse. There is little sign of broader
economic boycotts or the
grass-roots campaigns that pressured apartheid-era
South Africa.
Still, in a weekend interview, Tsvangirai argued it is
Mugabe who is against
the wall, saying the longtime leader's only choice
amid international
condemnation and Zimbabwe's dire economic woes is to
negotiate a
power-sharing deal.
"Where does he go from here?"
Tsvangirai said. "He cannot solve the economic
problem. He cannot solve 8
million percent inflation by continuing to be in
this intransigent
mood."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/
July 1, 2008
Geoffrey
Nyarota
WHENEVER the Zimbabwe crisis takes a turn for the worse as
happened over the
weekend or whenever the political leadership of Africa
gathers for yet
another palaver on a crisis that has so far defied
resolution there is a
predictable cascade of exhortations from the Western
world.
Once the Western powers, the non-governmental organisations and
the human
rights groups get to know about an imminent summit they always
rush to
proffer advice to the African heads of government; to prescribe the
most
appropriate course of action for the Africans to adopt. As the African
Union
leaders flew to Sharma El Sheik in Egypt over the weekend there was a
gush
of the usual pronouncements.
For instance, Human Rights Watch,
which has offices in South Africa, called
on the AU to suspend Zimbabwe from
its ranks and to press for the deployment
of peacekeepers to stop the
violence.
The soundness of the admonition of Human Rights Watch and the
western
leaders is, of course, beyond reproach; their good intentions
unquestionable. Paradoxically, despite the sound advice, each conference
degenerates into another talk-shop where no binding resolutions are adopted.
Predictably President Robert Mugabe emerges from each summit smiling, having
strengthened his image in the eyes of his African peers and having secured
another stay of execution and bought more time both for himself and for his
unpopular regime.
Inevitably the sense of frustration in opposition
circles deepens. This has
become the pattern, the cycle of events where the
Zimbabwe crisis is
concerned. That this particular strategy of the West has
been as much of a
failure as has been the performance of South African
President Thabo Mbeki
does not seem to occur to anyone.
Back in 2005
I crafted a contribution on the Zimbabwe crisis which appeared
on the pages
of the Zimbabwe Standard on January 16. Even then Mbeki's
"quiet diplomacy"
was, in my humble opinion already a failure and I sought
to explain why
Mbeki's intervention in Zimbabwe might not have met with
success.
The
last two paragraphs of the article read: "Mbeki's cautious approach and
his
failure to display more decisiveness and exert more force in putting
pressure to bear on Mugabe, a failure which has had the effect of casting a
shadow on his presidency, has in all probability, been influenced by a fear
of being perceived to be prescribing a Western-sponsored solution to an
African problem."
"Meanwhile, Zimbabweans could very well discover
that they may have placed
too much faith in Mr Mbeki's ability to resolve
their country's political
crisis."
While Mbeki's policy of "quiet
diplomacy" has gradually been phased out of
the political lexicon of
southern Africa, with the South African President
now fighting a losing
battle to maintain his largely battered and tattered
credibility, I believe
the West also needs to engage in a process of
intensive introspection with
regard to its approach to the problem that has
bedeviled us, Zimbabweans for
a decade now.
I have long lost faith in the ability of many of Africa's
politicians to
champion the interests or the welfare of the majority of the
continent's
people. With regard o their dealings with their Zimbabwean
counterpart some
of them are incredible gullible.
Whatever the known
weaknesses of the African leaders, it appears they resent
any suggestion
that they can be led by the nose in moments of crisis. It
appears the West
could be unwittingly undermining the prospects of progress
in Zimbabwe by
creating such imagery. They are always keen to rush, with
almost indecent
haste, to prescribe courses of action for the Africans to
follow. Once the
West adopts the frontline role that they seem to cherish,
it appears that
African leaders then become reluctant to adopt the
prescribed course of
action, whatever its merits.
They cleared have no wish to project an
image of themselves as being
chaperoned from the West.
A new
generation of progressive leaders - Levy Mwanawasa, Seretse Ian Khama,
Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Raila Odinga, to mention a few - has emerged on
the African continent. They cannot be blamed if they sometimes hold back
merely because they do not want to undermine their own credibility by
creating an impression that they regurgitate pronouncements from London and
Washington.
The West must give them the benefit of the doubt. If the
West gave them the
opportunity I believe the Africans would spontaneously
condemn
state-sponsored violence and electoral fraud such as last Friday's
in
Zimbabwe with the same robustness as David Miliband and Condoleeza Rice.
But
while the Africans are still polishing up their statements, Miliband and
Rice, speaking from London and Washington, respectively, always beat them to
the microphone. Because they do not wish to appear as if they are echoing
their proverbial master's voice, they refrain from commenting on the same
issue.
Just before I wrote my article in 2005 the highly respected
Richard
Goldstone, a retired South African Constitutional Court Justice who
became
an international war crimes prosecutor, had commented at a tangent on
this
phenomenon when he said that, "unfortunately, Western criticism of
state-sponsored violence and torture is seen as an anti-African
campaign".
Unfortunately, many of his peers find Mugabe persuasive on
this theme.
Mwanawasa, one of Mugabe's harshest critics, threatened to
boycott the
Lisbon Summit last December if the Zimbabwe President was not
invited, as
urged by British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
It is this
kind of syndrome which has, to a considerable extent, undermined
the
credibility of Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change in the
eyes of African Heads of State, despite its commendable credentials and
popular following in Zimbabwe. The party suffers from a Mugabe fuelled
perception that it is chaperoned from London.
The MDC has failed
dismally to present a robust rebuttal of this hackneyed
accusation from
Mugabe and Zanu-PF. They must quickly do something about
this, both in the
interests of the MDC and of the general wellbeing of the
population of
Zimbabwe at large.
Perceptive Zimbabweans feel the pain when their
beautiful and once
prosperous country is reduced to just another African
crisis in Western
capitals or just another Mugabe headline in the Western
media.
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon said on June 22
that he
had consulted with various leaders, including those of the African
Union and
the Southern African Development Community (SADC). He said the
United
Nations was prepared to work urgently with SADC and the African Union
to
help resolve Zimbabwe's political impasse.
The majority of
Zimbabweans, peace-loving, law abiding and hard-working
people, pray that he
follows up on this undertaking to avert further
bloodshed in their
country.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/
June 30, 2008
By Nhaka Runesu
I AM in
such a state of anger and despair that the last person I would agree
with on
anything would be the author of my circumstances, Robert Gabriel
Mugabe.
But I have to be honest with myself and say, the bullet has
replaced the
ballot in Zimbabwe. As Mugabe said, the AK 47 will not be taken
out of power
by the power of a mere ball point pen.
In putting this
across, Mugabe did not pretend that he wanted to give up
power through the
election he so wanted when he set the March 29 date
against the desires of
others. He wanted to crown himself yet again as the
legitimate President of
Zimbabwe. When the result of the March 29 election
went against him, he
chose not to obey the pen but to unleash the bullet.
Serving members of the
army and air force were deployed to command militia
and vicious youths in
the country.
In Gutu, reports were received of military operations headed
by Colonels
Muchechetere, Chiwara and Ushe. A retired Colonel Masanganise
was also
recalled to wage war against his kinsmen. They took orders from the
Commander of 4 Brigade in Masvingo, Brigadier General Rugeje. It was a
bloody and vicious campaign. Similar campaigns were rolled out on state
funding in most parts of the country. On the voting day, teachers were
"assisted" to vote like illiterates by youths and militias they in fact
taught how to read and write.
Clearly, even if the vote had gone
against Mugabe, he would never have
announced a result contrary to his
desires. That he made clear before the
elections. He had chosen the power of
the gun ahead of the persuasion of the
masses to cast ballots in his favour.
That he made this evil choice once
again will shock no one. His ruthlessness
and hunger for power was always
there. It makes one wonder whether Prof
Jonathan Moyo is still sane for
chastising Tsvangirai for pulling out of the
run-off. Or is it true that
certain Tsholotsho expectations under Mnangagwa
are soon to come to
fruition?
Unfortunately, the lesson Mugabe has
taught our peace-loving country is that
Tsvangirai's quest for democratic
change through the ballot is incomplete.
The decisive factor will be the
person with the gun. Joshua Nkomo was
battered into unity by a military
campaign led by Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Tsvangirai is about to be shepherded
into some unity agreement by Thabo
Mbeki under the threat of the gun held by
Mnangagwa and his gunmen. The
tragedy of it all is that Zimbabweans have in
this anger and despair learnt
that they must seek first the gun and all else
shall be given unto them.
Fortunately, those who live by the sword will
die by the sword. And history
has shown us repeatedly that "those who make
peaceful change impossible make
violent change inevitable." And we thought
our war of liberation had taught
us this!
I related to my Swazi
friend on "election day" that 1980 was a year of great
hope popularly
promoted by the new black government as "gore remasimba
evanhu", or the year
of the people's power. To my amazement he laughed hard.
After a while, he
suppressed his laugh and said, to my horror, "masimba" in
his mother tongue
means human waste!
Maybe the joke was on the rest of us in 1980! We are
yet to be liberated and
Mugabe is right. The ballot is not the answer.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/
June 30, 2008
By Michael Holman and
Greg Mills
SOMETHING is stirring in Africa. Belatedly, often reluctantly,
its leaders
are speaking out on Zimbabwe. The rogue president in their
ranks, they are
coming to realise, poses a threat with the potential to
destabilise their
fragile continent, already caught in a growing
storm.
Even though annual economic growth remains above 5 per cent, food
prices are
rising, transport costs soaring and, while commodity prices rise,
oil
bonanzas are squandered. So-called role models collapse and terrorism
lurks
in failed states. Aids and malaria continue to decimate, corruption
destroys
and inefficient management debilitates.
The causes are
complex, the faults not exclusively Africa's. Yet far from
rising to the
challenges, the region's leaders have seemed incapable of the
co-ordinated
response the crisis needs.
But change may be under way. In Rwanda,
President Paul Kagame is among the
first to raise his head above the
parapet, joining Botswana's Ian Khama and
Zambia's Levy Mwanawasa in a
growing band of African leaders who are
prepared to condemn a tyrant. Not
only has Robert Mugabe put southern Africa
in jeopardy. Like ripples on a
pond, which can drown a man already up to his
nose in water, his actions can
strain an uneasy peace in Kenya, affect food
shipments to refugees in east
Africa and add to the trials of Britain's
beleaguered government.
It
is not hard to imagine the events that could contain such a catalyst.
Here
is one scenario:
The UK urges its nationals to leave after the brutal
harassment of
supporters of the opposition MDC extends to whites in Harare
and Bulawayo. A
convoy to the South African border is attacked. The southern
city of
Bulawayo, an opposition stronghold, becomes the centre of an Ndebele
group
demanding autonomy for Matabeleland. Railway lines through the
province to
South Africa are sabotaged.
Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's
president, offers Mr Mugabe sanctuary. It is
spurned by the Zimbabwe leader
but prompts countrywide protests organised by
the South African trade union
movement and backed by Jacob Zuma, Mr Mbeki's
successor in waiting.
Xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans in South Africa
spread. Somali-based
terrorists bomb a tourist hotel.
In east Africa, Kenya's fragile
coalition, divided over its response to
Zimbabwe, faces protests over food
and transport price increases; there are
further ethnic riots. United
Nations aid to refugees in central Africa is
held up.
If the
catastrophe that draws nearer is to be averted, Africa's leaders have
no
time to lose. They must begin by publicly acknowledging that Zimbabwe is
an
African problem that Africa must solve. Existing measures, imposed by
Europe, have proved futile. Bank accounts targeted for freezing have long
been moved; cutting off school fees for children of Zimbabwe cabinet
ministers who are studying abroad is morally dubious and politically futile.
In a country where economy has collapsed, proposing formal economic
sanctions is as effective as threatening to take a comb away from a bald
man.
Acknowledgment of responsibility must be followed by the
personal
intervention of a distinguished emissary - and who better than a
tough
ex-soldier, the former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was
a
member of the Commonwealth team sent to South Africa in 1986? He should
fly
to Harare and, authorised by Africa, deliver an ultimatum to Mr Mugabe:
stand down immediately and call off the thugs; or face prosecution,
initiated and supported by his African peers, at the International Criminal
Court.
This ultimatum must be given weight by two moves that would
isolate Zimbabwe's
ruling elite and have an immediate impact. Unless Mr
Mugabe complies, all
flights to and from Zimbabwe should be halted, and a
visa ban imposed on
officials and supporters.
Why should African
governments, after so long turning a blind eye to the
horrors unfolding in
Zimbabwe, now act in this unprecedented way?
For two reasons: only by
radical, prompt action can they redeem their own
tattered reputation; and
above all, unless they deal with the rogue in their
midst, one of the
elements in the scenario above will precipitate a storm
that will engulf
them. So far the moral outrage perpetrated in Zimbabwe has
failed to move
them - but self-interest may. Without such action, Mr Mugabe's
corrosive
effect will be felt throughout the continent.
(Michael Holman is a former
Africa editor of the Financial Times; Greg Mills
heads the
Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation).
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
June 30, 2008
By Glen Mpani
AS Mugabe is
sworn in after the one man election the country has to brace
itself for
another five years of suffering. This development spells doom for
the
country as the crisis is most likely to deepen.
Every Zimbabwean who has
shared and endured the pain and grief of the last 8
years is probably asking
"where do we go from here?" The thought of Mugabe
and Zanu-PF presiding over
Zimbabwe for another five year is too ghastly to
contemplate but a reality
that we now have to live with. The two unenviable
options left for the
people of Zimbabwe are either to negotiate with Zanu-PF
for a transitional
authority with hope of having fresh elections or to
confront the government
through other legitimate democratic processes such
as protests.
Both
options are less likely to yield any positive and significant benefits
for
the people of Zimbabwe to extricate them from this crisis but are worthy
exploring.
With most regional and friendly countries invited to
observe the elections
by Mugabe openly condemning the recent elections as
lacking the basic
minimum standards of credibility other countries are
contemplating
recognising the election and these are led by South Africa.
Mugabe once more
rides on the division in the region as he seals his façade
election to earn
a 6th term in office.
With the disappointing reports
that South Africa and other African countries
are preparing to legitimise
the election, one wonders how African States can
recognise the Mugabe
presidency under the cloud of calls from the Pan
African Parliament and SADC
observer teams that the election was a sham and
not representative of the
will of the people of Zimbabwe and amid numerous
reports of widespread
intimidation and violence.
There is nothing much to expect from the SADC
and AU especially with Thabo
Mbeki's obsession with Mugabe. As long as the
talks between the Zanu-PF and
MDC do not acknowledge that the June 27
elections were a joke the
negotiations are doomed. I am sceptical about the
sincerity of Zanu-PF in
their 5 day old pronouncement of their willingness
to negotiate with the
MDC. If they refused to negotiate with Morgan
Tsvangirai before the election
why now? Is it their illusionary victory in
the one man presidential
election that has made them to see the light? To
Zanu-PF negotiating is all
about consolidating and returning state
power.
Negotiation will not respect the March result neither will they
recognise
the fact that the current crisis is not about land neither is it
about
Britain or America but a crisis of governance. The negotiations will
produce
an ineffective product skewed in favour of Zanu-PF. Mugabe will not
be
amenable to addressing a change of political culture reforming the courts
and the constitutions and all state apparatus that have been politicised.
Zanu-PF will not be keen to disband institutions of violence and repression
that have salvaged their so called "victory". In fact those structures are
waiting to be rewarded for the mayhem they created in the name of Zanu-PF.
For Zanu-PF repression violence, intimidation and rigging is the source of
their mandate and legitimacy.
Can Zimbabweans explore other options
such as protests to express their
dissatisfaction with the ruling party? The
will of the people of Zimbabwe
for change has been trampled on and
disregarded. The risk of protesting
against Mugabe might be too dire to
contemplate with the glaring evidence of
widespread violence across the
country unleashed by Zanu-PF.
Debate about why Zimbabweans have not taken
part in protests, despite what
would seem like a conducive environment, have
elicited diverse explanations
range from popular fear of the regime, to the
weakness of the opposition
leadership and the country's political culture.
Explanations on why
Zimbabweans are not protesting range from economic,
political, cultural,
cognitive and collective action factors. While
empirical evidence from
studies of protest elsewhere would "associate
protest with the economically
insecure, the unemployed and individuals who
belong to the working class, in
Zimbabwe protest potential is reported to be
high among the urbanised, the
young, professionals, educated and the
economically secure".
This evidence raises questions about the efficacy
of the previous mobilising
strategies of civil society and opposition in
Zimbabwe. Despite being
marginalised and confronted with the most severe
crisis, they are not
inclined to push for economic and political
transformation through protest.
Could they have chosen to engage the state
on a tactical basis, in order to
ensure daily survival?
It is the
time for MDC and civil society in Zimbabwe to invest their
energies on
organising the people of Zimbabwe to participate in different
forms of
protest against the regime. Now that the people have succeeded in
boycotting
the elections it is important for the opposition to capitalise on
the
disillusionment and the anger and map out a strategy that can liberate
Zimbabweans from this dictatorship.
For the strategy to work the
opposition has to invest its energies on
mobilising grassroots structures
working with the people on how they can
liberate themselves.
What
ever happens we are on our own. By next week Zimbabwe will no longer be
on
the radar.
New York Times
Editorial
Published: July 1,
2008
Robert Mugabe brazenly and brutally stole his latest re-election as
president of Zimbabwe. Now Africa's leaders, who have looked the other way
for far too long, must decide what they will do.
They can continue to
enable Mr. Mugabe out of political cynicism or
misplaced solidarity with a
former liberation leader turned tyrant. Or they
can follow the wiser example
of the living symbol of African liberation,
Nelson Mandela, who last week
condemned Zimbabwe's "tragic failure of
leadership."
The signals from
Monday's opening session of the African Union summit, with
Mr. Mugabe smugly
in attendance, were not encouraging. While African
election monitors rightly
denounced the voting, few summit speakers went
beyond muted and indirect
criticism.
More than truth telling is at stake. Zimbabwe and its people
are dying at
Mr. Mugabe's hand - ravaged by an imploding economy,
skyrocketing inflation,
man-made famine and a governmental machinery whose
only visible function is
to reward the dictator's collaborators and cronies
and beat and kill his
critics and opponents.
Zimbabwe needs a
transitional government that reflects the true will of its
voters, who gave
a convincing first-round victory to the opposition
candidate, Morgan
Tsvangirai. And it needs a fair rerun of the election.
Africa's leaders
are best placed to keep Zimbabwe from further destabilizing
the whole
region. They can do so by refusing to recognize Mr. Mugabe's
election theft
and by pressuring those who continue to collaborate with him
by denying them
visas, freezing bank accounts and calling on the rest of the
world to follow
suit.
While far too many African leaders - most notably President Thabo
Mbeki of
South Africa - refuse to accept that responsibility, the United
States and
other Western countries have taken the lead.
President
Bush has extended unilateral sanctions against Zimbabwean
officials. The
United States is pressing the United Nations Security Council
to impose an
arms embargo on Zimbabwe and sanctions on Mr. Mugabe's
cronies.
Unfortunately, Russia, China and South Africa seem determined to
block such
moves.
That is yet another reason Africa's other leaders
must take the lead. They
must speak the truth about Mr. Mugabe and all the
horrors he has visited on
Zimbabwe, back their words with sanctions and call
on the Security Council
to do the same.
SABC
July 01, 2008,
05:45
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya has spoken out strongly
against
the tragedy unfolding in Zimbabwe following that country's run-off
elections
last week.
He says the elections were clearly not free or
fair. Skweyiya has pinpointed
topical human rights issues at the opening of
the 17th African Human Rights
Moot Court Competition at the University of
Pretoria.
Skweyiya has condemned the human rights violations that have
erupted in
Zimbabwe since their first election on the 29th of March. "No
discussion on
human rights in Africa is possible without mentioning all the
tragedy
unfolding across our boundaries in Zimbabwe. The possibility of
genocide
remains strong and we as the government of South Africa and the
African
National Congress remain opposed to the flagrant violation of human
rights
by the countries," said Skweyiya.
He said it remains to be
seen how Africa and the AU will deal with the
issue. But he says the world's
eyes are fixed on South Africa to tackle the
problem. He also lashed out
against the recent outbreak of xenophobic
violence in South
Africa.
He said although South Africa is proud of having the best
constitution in
Africa, the xenophobic violence shows that the country is
still not flawless
in terms of human rights.
Skweyiya says the law
students - who will take part in the Moot Court
Competition - will play a
vital role in the protection of human rights in
Africa. At least 167
students and 81 lecturers from 28 African countries are
expected to take
part. The final round will take place at the University's
Groenkloof Campus
on Saturday.
IOL
July 01 2008 at
07:33AM
By Dumiso Siboshiwe
President Robert Mugabe,
who took his sixth oath as Zimbabwean leader
since independence, joked with
reporters shortly after casting his vote that
he was hungry.
He
made a similar jest when he addressed a rally in Chitungwiza in
March, that
he had had a cold bath because there was no electricity and
running water at
State House.
Actually, he was not joking.
Chronic
shortages of basic needs - from cooking oil, petrol, purified
water, maize
meal to rice, carbon dioxide for fizzy drinks and foreign
currency - have
turned Zimbabwe into one of the poorest, but most expensive,
countries in
the world.
My dinner of unappetising beef stew and rice, with a
king-sized bottle
of fizzy drink, cost Z$172-billion (around R70) on Friday
night.
But after the elections the hotel room-service staff told me
on
Saturday the same dinner had shot up to 459-billion Zimbabwean dollars -
around R300 - on the black market.
"Why?" I asked.
"Sir, the inflation has increased (to around 9-million percent). This
means
the (US) dollar is also up. So, we are reviewing our prices, Sir,"
says an
unassuming voice on the other end of the phone.
Solomon, the waiter
did not bring the bill. Why?
"We will do it manually Sir, because
we have just revised our prices,"
answered Solomon.
As Mugabe
was declared president yesterday, Harare streets were
deserted, with no sign
of celebrations or protests - people are more
concerned about sadza (pap)
than the military pomp at the State House.
Most restaurant menus do
not have prices because prices change daily.
You have to ask for a
hand-written menu for prices, and ensure that
you brought piles of
Zimbabwean dollars.
Pharmacist David Gwesela says his landlord
demands that rent be paid
in US dollars, pushing the cost of living in
Harare very high.
Gwyneth Mushangwe was forced to vacate her flat
in Fifth Avenue and
move to Budiriro Township because she can no longer
afford rent.
She left her job at a Harare hotel where she earned
R80 as a guest
relations manager, because it costs more - transport and food
- for her to
go to work.
This is the daily experience of
ordinary Zimbabweans in a country of
pauper billionaires. Zim$50-billion,
the highest note, can only buy you
rooibos tea and some fruit.
In fact, this month the Zimbabwean dollar will reach quadrillion, but
the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe wants to slash more zeroes to avoid
embarrassment
and inconvenience.
The harsh economic realities, and not political
pressure, will force
Mugabe to the negotiating table.
With
sanctions - or targeted sanctions - likely to intensify, and no
cash coming
from China as Mugabe promised through his Look East policy five
years ago,
Zimbabwe will be squashed harder.
He is old, never had a chance to
spend time with his young family,
tired of leading a crumbling country and
personally feeling the pinch of an
economy on its knees, struggling with
internal political instability and
international pressure.
He
cannot repair the country's roads, nor pay his civil servants,
while private
shops struggle to cope with controlled prices and costly
imports.
But Mugabe is a hardened politician who still believes
in his
liberation hero stature, and he would like to leave his "great
Zimbabwe"
under an anointed successor.
He does not give a toss
about Western hostilities, he is feared by his
African peers and worshipped
by his supporters.
Megaphone diplomacy actually intensifies his
defiance and resolve to
"defend our sovereignty".
One southern
African leader close to the mediation tells Independent
Newspapers: "Those
who want us to shout do not know this timer (old man). He
will close doors
and never listen while we have to deal with the mess."
ANC
president Jacob Zuma - who will inherit the mess if he becomes the
South
African head of state - should be cautious in his public condemnation,
or he
may lose any form of leverage with Mugabe.
This is why Mugabe has
respect for outgoing President Thabo Mbeki,
because the South African leader
knows how to stroke "the chef's" ego.
Mbeki knows that Mugabe just
needs assurance that he will not join
former Liberian President Charles
Taylor as a war criminal.
He also needs assurance that his wealth,
including properties in
Malaysia and farms in Zimbabwe, will not be
confiscated once he hands over
the baton of power that he clutched so
tightly for 28 years.
He will be comfortable handing over power to
his protege - Emmerson
Mnangagwa - another hardliner.
The
transitional arrangement - if it happens - will definitely be led
by
Zanu-PF, with the standoff likely to be the crucial security and finance
portfolios.
Remember, the security chiefs also have the same
fears and financial
interests as Mugabe.
The government of
national unity will buy them time to sketch their
safe exit and hide their
loot.
This means the MDC and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, must
forget
about proper power sharing for at least five years. Zanu-PF will
never give
up power that easily.
Tsvangirai's misjudgment or
lack of understanding of Zanu-PF,
particularly Mugabe, resulted in power
slipping through his fingers.
Tsvangirai - who won the first round
of presidential elections in
March - was outmanoeuvred by Zanu-PF which
regrouped, rearmed and launched
an offensive right under his
nose.
The opposition leader is called a cry baby, taking refuge in
the Dutch
embassy, withdrawing from the elections and then telling
supporters to go
and vote for Mugabe.
He spent most of his time
after the March elections in Johannesburg or
around the world, while Mugabe
was planning a reign of electoral terror that
gave the Zimbabwean president
a resounding victory in the one-man show.
Actually, some MDC
supporters and leaders are fed up with Tsvangirai,
who might face an
internal challenge next time the MDC holds its conference.
"Tsvangirai indirectly allowed Mugabe to get away with murder," says
an
African diplomat who refused to be named.
On the other hand,
Zimbabwe's intellectually sharp leaders are
languishing in less influential
and insignificant splinter groups.
They include Simba Makoni and
Dumiso Dabengwa, who left Zanu-PF's
politburo earlier this year to mount the
latter's presidential campaign. The
campaign included intellectual and
businessman Ibo Mandaza.
Their thorough knowledge of Mugabe and
Zanu-PF was an advantage.
But the outcome of their presidential
campaign was disastrous - the
content was shallow but the strategy was
visionary. They started late and
were over-ambitious.
They
still hope Makoni will play an influential role in the government
of
national unity, even though he disappeared from the centre of Zimbabwean
politics during the runoff.
Another group with sharp brains is
the MDC splinter group led by
engineer Arthur Mutambara and lawyer Welshman
Ncube.
Mbeki preferred this group, and the rumour in the Tsvangirai
MDC is
that Mbeki is responsible for the split.
But Mutambara,
Ncube et al are tacticians without mass support, and
they - misguidedly -
rallied heavily behind the losing Makoni, and not
Tsvangirai, during the
March elections.
Mutambara's MDC was decimated at the parliamentary
elections, and
forced into a coalition with Tsvangirai and independent
candidates against
Mugabe.
As a loose coalition, they can
frustrate Mugabe in parliament, but
Zanu-PF has the brutal mass mobilisation
on the ground, a weapon that
sustained the ruling party in power for almost
three decades. A senior ANC
leader once privately said Zanu-PF survived on
killings and fear.
The only way the opposition can paralyse
Zanu-PF's brutal force is to
ensure that the security forces are placed
under an external monitoring
force - an unlikely scenario,
though.
The Pan African Parliament observer mission noted in its
report that
the security forces are highly politicised in Zimbabwe
.
Unless the armed forces are pulled from Zanu-PF control,
frustrations
will force the MDC to withdraw from the government of national
unity within
24 months.
Once the sanctions are lifted, the
economy and political situation
stabilise, and the country is under a
coalition government, Zanu-PF is
likely to revert to its old
tactics.
This article was originally published on page 9 of The
Star on July
01, 2008
IOL
July 01
2008 at 07:27AM
By Fiona Forde
Hopes for a tough
resolution that will bring an end to Zimbabwe's
political crisis are fading,
as the African Union summit enters its second
and final day in Sharm
el-Sheikh.
A draft copy of the resolution tabled for discussion
yesterday and
today suggests that the 53-member bloc is not prepared to go
any further
than call on the main political players in the southern African
country "to
commit to a negotiated and peaceful solution".
The
document, agreed upon by 15 foreign ministers at Sunday's
pre-summit
meeting, also calls on Zimbabwe's political parties to "refrain
from
violence" and to call on their supporters to follow suit.
While the
eight-point draft also "denounces the acts of violence and
the loss of
lives" in the run-up to last Friday's run-off, it falls short of
the
much-hoped for condemnation of the heavily disputed poll and the
violence
and intimidation that observer groups of SADC and the Pan African
Parliament
say characterised it.
What shape the proposed peaceful solution
might take is likely to be
the bone of contention that will divide the heads
of state meeting in the
Red Sea resort town.
The recently
negotiated government of national unity in Kenya is the
example that many
like to tout, while a considerable number of delegates
believe Robert Mugabe
does not have the moral authority to continue in
political
life.
However, during a briefing yesterday evening, US Secretary of
State
for Africa Jendayi Fraser said it would be wrong to propose a
one-size-fits-all solution to such crises.
She said while it
was the election result that divided Kenya last
January, "the people of
Zimbabwe spoke clearly on March 29 when they opted
for a change of
leadership by electing the MDC".
Fraser also said her government
supports the MDC's call for the SADC
negotiations to be expanded to the AU
level.
While she believed President Thabo Mbeki could still play a
part in
such a mandate, the situation required a full-time envoy to the
country to
negotiate daily with all sides, "not unlike the role Kofi Annan
played in
Kenya".
The US envoy said she was confident that the
summit would deliver a
strong resolution when it ends today, despite
yesterday's opening ceremony
during which no mention was made of Mugabe, and
only couched criticism of
his party's undemocratic behaviour.
"I would suggest not to take the soft words of the opening plenary as
a
reflection of the deep concern of the leaders here for the situation in
Zimbabwe," she said.
"I would expect them to have very, very
strong words for him."
Regardless of tonight's outcome, Fraser said
there was little that
would come in the way of her government rolling out
the threat of sanctions
against Zimbabwe; sanctions that would take the form
of travel bans,
freezing of assets, freezing of companies of those
sympathetic to the Mugabe
regime as well as an arms
embargo.
This article was originally published on page 1 of
Pretoria News on
July 01, 2008
Nation News, Barbados
Published on:
7/1/08.
I REFER TO worldwide condemnation of the Robert Mugabe
government in
Zimbabwe which appears to be totally focused on destroying the
lives and
expectations of the very predominantly black
population.
Mugabe is a proven dictator and a man whose hands are
stained with the blood
of many of his people. The so-called leaders of the
other countries in the
African continent are accessories to the mass murder
by default.
It is a most unfortunate fact that the Pan African Commission
of Barbados,
which is previously on record as supporting the Mugabe regime,
remains
completely and utterly silent and at the same time apparently
totally
forgetting the reason for its existence.
A sad - very sad -
indictment of what is a Government of Barbados-funded
institution.
- CHRISTOPHER A. McHALE
BBC
Tuesday, 1 July 2008 05:23 UK
Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN has dismissed calls for
sanctions
against his country over pre-election violence, in an interview
with US
media.
Boniface Chidyausiku dubbed US-led calls for
fresh UN measures against
Zimbabwe a "non-issue".
Pressure is
growing on African leaders meeting in Egypt to take a firm
line on
Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.
Mr Mugabe has claimed victory in a
presidential poll that the
opposition pulled out of amid widespread
violence.
'Not bothered'
Asked about sanctions, Mr
Chidyausiku told AP news agency: "I'm not
even bothered, I wouldn't lose
sleep over it... We are not a threat to
international peace and
security."
He added: "We see the whole approach to sanctions as a
weapon to try
and effect a regime change in Zimbabwe."
The
Zimbabwe crisis has overshadowed the African Union (AU) summit in
Sharm
el-Sheikh.
Sierra Leonean President Ernest Koroma said African
leaders should use
Tuesday, the final day of the two-day summit, to condemn
Mr Mugabe's
re-election.
Mr Koroma expressed support for a
South African initiative to
encourage the formation of a transitional
government of national unity.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga
urged the AU to suspend Mr Mugabe
until he allows free and fair
elections.
And Senegal's Foreign Minister, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio,
complained of
hesitancy among the AU leaders to openly pressure the
Zimbabwean president.
But Africa's longest serving leader, Gabon
President Omar Bongo, said
Mr Mugabe should be accepted as the country's
elected president.
'Hugs'
Before the opening meeting
at the Red Sea resort, Mr Mugabe hugged
several heads of states and
diplomats, one African delegate told AP news
agency.
Correspondents say he is still seen by many Africans as a hero of the
anti-colonial struggle.
The US ambassador to the United
Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he was
pressing for the Security Council to
impose sanctions against Zimbabwe.
The US is expected to
present a draft resolution on Wednesday calling
for an arms embargo, a
travel ban on regime officials and a freeze on the
assets of key individuals
and companies.
US state department spokesman Tom Casey said: "We think
it is
important that the African Union signal that a sham inauguration that
was
preceded by a sham election does not make the government
legitimate."
But analysts say it may be difficult to persuade South
Africa, Russia,
China and others to accept UN sanctions.
Criticism from Europe mounted on Monday with France labelling Mr
Mugabe's
government "illegitimate," and Britain saying the recent election
would not
be recognised.
Italy - which last week urged EU nations to withdraw
their ambassadors
to Harare - recalled its envoy to Zimbabwe in
protest.
MDC leader Mr Tsvangirai defeated Mr Mugabe in the
presidential vote
on 29 March but failed to win an absolute
majority.
He reluctantly agreed to participate in the 27 June
run-off but
withdrew blaming violence which he said had killed nearly 90 of
his
followers.
He has been holed up at the Dutch Embassy in
Harare since withdrawing
from the race.
Irish Times
Tuesday, July 1,
2008
GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS in Belfast
yesterday heard from a Zimbabwean human
rights lawyer of the threats facing
her profession under President Robert
Mugabe's regime, and how this in turn
is affecting the most vulnerable in
the troubled African
country.
Beatrice Mtetwa told the World Bar Conference that even as she
was flying to
Ireland for the conference, her colleagues were being targeted
by President
Mugabe's militias.
She said that a magistrate was beaten
up because he had released some
opposition members, while the lawyer who
defended them was abducted on
Saturday and his whereabouts remained
unknown.
"We have a number of lawyers facing criminal charges arising
from their
action for people in the opposition or other people in society,"
she said.
"We have had lawyers leaving Zimbabwe because they are on a
death list; we
have had members assaulted for carrying out their duties as
lawyers.
Basically, lawyers doing human rights cases in Zimbabwe right now
are being
continuously harassed, assaulted and intimidated. More and more
lawyers,
particularly the younger ones, are refusing to do certain kinds of
cases
because it is too dangerous."
Ms Mtetwa said that there was no
independent media in Zimbabwe, that "the
police do not pretend to exercise
any form of impartiality" and that while a
number of magistrates still tried
to act independently, "the higher up you
go in the judiciary, the less is
the independence".
Ms Mtetwa was involved in a number of high profile
cases in Zimbabwe
defending journalists from newspapers such as the Daily
Telegraph and Sunday
Telegraph, the London Guardian, and the New York
Times.
She said people could never have believed that matters would
deteriorate so
disastrously.
"The economy is completely collapsed.
The inflation is the highest the world
has even seen and the suffering for
the ordinary man in the street is far
greater than has even been explained.
There is a lot of poverty and hunger.
The entire medical structure is broken
down, and with that combination you
can imagine what ordinary life for the
Zimbabwean has become."
She saw little hope that South African president
Thabo Mbeki could mediate a
solution with President Mugabe. "The whole
mediation should not be left to
South Africa but should go higher up to the
African Union," she said.
Asked about Archbishop Desmond Tutu's
suggestion that military intervention
might be required, she said that
should be a matter for the African Union.
"Everything must be done that is
possible to ensure that a semblance of
normality is returned to Zimbabwe,
and that the people of Zimbabwe are
accorded some of the rights that are
taken for granted elsewhere," she
added.
Ms Mtetwa said that
regardless of the situation, she was returning to
Zimbabwe because that was
her duty. "It is not a political thing, it is a
legal thing," she
said.
She said she still had hope for her country. "Historically we have
seen
regimes fall," said Ms Mtetwa. "You have seen how the Soviet Union
crumbled;
you've seen how apartheid crumbled. Historically, one has to have
hope
because hope comes from the most ugly situations."
This Day, Nigeria
06.30.2008
Zimbabwe, once the pride of Africa and a choice
destination for tourists is
now on the boil as Robert Mugabe, its president
for 28 years insists on
clinging on to power in the face of strident
international and local
opposition. With last weekend's run-off elections in
which, with the
withdrawal of the main opposition party, Mugabe ran against
himself, UDO
JUDE ILO observes that situations like this bring to the fore
the need for
African nations to ratify the African Charter on Democracy,
Elections and
Governance. What is happening in Zimbabwe, he argues, is not
an isolated
case of brazen disregard to the rule of law but an accumulation
of twisted
and selfish leadership in Africa where leadership is seen as a
birthright
The world stood in shock on June 26, 2008 when Zimbabwe in
defiance to
international consensus and the weight of fairness went ahead to
conduct the
charade called the presidential election runoff. The
embarrassment this
action has caused Africa is unquantifiable but the effect
on the life of the
Zimbabweans is simply unimaginable.
Zimbabwe is an
ugly paradox. From the chains of colonialism, it grew to
become the food
basket of the region under the watch of Mugabe. Under the
watch of that same
man, the country battles currently with about 100,000
percent inflation
rate and a poverty rate not easily rivalled in that
region.
The
socio/political implications of the unfolding drama in Zimbabwe causes
one
to pause and critically interrogate the kind of democracy we practice in
Africa and the conspiracy of silence which has emboldened despots around the
region.
Africa continues to redefine democracy. What is happening in
Zimbabwe is not
an isolated case of brazen disregard to the rule of law but
an accumulation
of twisted and selfish leadership in Africa where leadership
is seen as a
birthright and the holder of power in an insulated cosmos,
answerable to no
one. Zimbabwe symbolizes the failure of leadership in
Africa and reflects a
resonating malaise around the whole of Africa. From
Cameroon with the
endless leadership of Paul Biya to Ethiopia with the sit
tight Prime
Minister, Zimbabwe represents a desperate effort to maintain the
culture of
impunity which darkens the Africa's horizon.
Mugabe did not
metamorphose into a despot overnight. What is happening is an
accumulation
of desperate moves to perpetuate one man in power. Africa kept
quiet.
The
appalling silence of African leaders since the deterioration of Zimbabwe
is
symptomatic of the inability of the African Union and African leaders to
publicly condemn and sanction erring leaders. We always wait the last minute
to act. If the noise being made by western countries was resonating in
Africa before now, perhaps this rape of democracy would not have taken place
in Zimbabwe. Countries around Africa continue to stage manage elections,
African leaders continue their conspiracy of silence. Hardly can you see a
public and unanimous condemnation of any African state in matters relating
to democracy and election.
There seem to be this silent understanding
that nobody is clean and so no
one can cast the first stone. The various
standards on election adopted by
African leaders seem to be observed more in
breach. The Nigerian general
election is a case in point. When Africa keeps
quiet or condones electoral
impunity in whatever form, the moral authority
to condemn brazen rape of
democracy as is the case of Zimbabwe is heavily
compromised.
The constitutive Act of the African Union recognises the prime
place of
democracy, rule of law and human rights in the foundation of every
society.
It commits the African leaders to work to promote these ideals.
Zimbabwe is
a test case. No doubt at the end of the joke going on in Harare,
Mugabe will
be returned as President. The big question is: How will Africa
react? Will
they welcome him to the fold and behave like this was not a
coup? Or would
they stamp their feet hard on the ground and refuse to accord
this process
any recognition and thereby send a message across the region
that we do have
standards and that we understand what democracy is.
To
allow Mugabe to walk home dry after the disenfranchising his people and
enthroning an African brand of colonialism will mock the principles behind
the AU and further darken the perception of Africa around the world. The
people of Zimbabwe possess within the African Charter on Human and People
Rights both collective and individual rights to determine their destiny,
Africa cannot stand by and watch these rights brazenly violated in defiance
to a unanimous world condemnation.
Events like this bring pungently to
the fore the need for African nations to
ratify and cause to come into
effect the African Charter on Democracy,
Elections and Governance. This
document represents a hard law adopted by
African states to give meanings to
the principles of democracy. Since its
adoption more than a year ago, it has
received no ratifications. If Africa
continues with this conspiracy of
silence in matters of democracy and
governance, our continent may one day be
silenced.
. Udo is of the Programs Department of the Nigerian Bar
Association
By Cynthia Tucker
The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/01/08
The Congressional Black
Caucus, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, does not
often make common cause
with the Bush administration. However, caucus
members and other members of
Congress have good reason to support the
president's push for stiffer
sanctions against Zimbabwe.
On Saturday, President Bush called for an
international arms embargo against
the southern African nation, as well as
tightened economic sanctions. He
took those steps to protest the sham runoff
election held last week, in
which Zimbabweans were physically intimidated
into casting votes for tyrant
Robert Mugabe. The government-sponsored
violence against those supporting
Mugabe's rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, was so
severe that Tsvangirai was forced
to withdraw to save supporters from the
savagery of Mugabe's police and
army.
However, because of opposition
from China, South Africa and other countries,
the U.N. is unlikely to
approve an arms embargo. South African President
Thabo Mbeki has refused to
condemn Mugabe, calling his misrule an internal
matter.
Some
international human rights activists have said they feared a backlash
if
they harshly criticized Mugabe, who in the past has dismissed opponents
as
tools of white colonialist oppressors. But Zimbabweans seem well past
believing that nonsense. It's likely that Tsvangirai would have won the
election had it been free and fair.
While the U.N.'s inaction is
tragic, vigorous condemnation of Mugabe by the
U.S. government, including
prominent black members of Congress, could begin
to change international
opinion. In contrast to Mbeki's coddling of the
tyrant, other highly
respected African leaders have weighed in. Nobel Peace
Prize winner Desmond
Tutu criticized Mugabe in no uncertain terms. "His
regime has turned into a
horrendous nightmare. He should stand down," Tutu
said, while Kenyan Prime
Minister Raila Odinga called the election a "fake
victory."
The grand
old man of South African politics, Nelson Mandela, issued his own,
gentler
rebuke, referring to a "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.
Mandela
is hardly a stooge of white colonialists.
-- Cynthia Tucker, for the
editorial board (ctucker@ajc.com)
Washington Post
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 1,
2008; Page C01
Zimbabwe, how it was before:
The smell of millet
beer, the smoke from cooking fires, Oliver Mtukudzi
singing at a club
downtown, the grasses of the veld waving in the breeze.
Drone of ceiling
fans. Sadza meal, rolled up in the palm to eat. Rain,
driving down so hard
it explodes in the dust, sending up tiny showers of
droplet shrapnel. Farms
stretching for thousands of acres, people walking
alongside the roads at
first light, tourists drinking gin and tonics on
safaris, elephants flapping
their ears in the heat of Mana Pools. Termite
hills as tall as your head.
Notebooks of pulp paper. Women going across the
border into South Africa and
bringing back things to sell in street markets.
Lots of children with no
parents, and lots of 42-year-olds dying after a
"short illness," a "long
illness," a "sudden illness."
This was 1997.
Zimbabwe, how it is
now:
Life expectancy is 36, the lowest in the world. Annual inflation at
an
unofficial rate of 4 million percent, which is, you might have guessed,
the
highest in the world. Grocery store shelves are empty. There are power
failures every day and water shortages most days. There are roadblocks on
most main roads, many of them run by armed thugs who will steal your food
and remind you that the West is the enemy. There aren't any tourists to
speak of. There was a presidential election the other day that doesn't
really mean anything because the old man running the country has made it
clear, in his megalomaniacal kind of way, that he will kill any number of
black people so that he can spend the few years he has left in a deranged
version of comfort. (There aren't enough white people left to make any
difference.) The nation is one of the world's AIDS epicenters, a crisis that
doesn't even rate headlines anymore because so much more is so much
worse.
I was one of the few Western reporters based there from 1997 to
2000, and
then I had to get out before I was expelled. I talked to Morgan
Tsvangirai,
the presidential contender who has taken shelter in the Dutch
Embassy, as
well as Robert Mugabe, the old man and president who has led the
country
over a cliff.
The main thing I remember about Mugabe is that
his hands shook, at this
conference when he talked to reporters, and you
could reach out and touch
him. I don't think his hands shake anymore, and I
know reporters are no
longer able to get so close.
I haven't been
there in eight years and I miss it.
I miss the friends I used to know
there. I miss the way the rains would come
in a sudden monsoon, a deluge you
just couldn't believe, and I miss the
fires I had to light in the dry season
because Harare is way above sea level
and it would get colder than you could
believe possible in Africa. I went
with the writer Sekai Nzenza-Shand to her
home village and we all cooked
over a bonfire, and neighbors materialized
out of the dark and drank all the
beer we had in the ice chest and everyone
was talking and laughing. I sat on
a stump and looked up from the fire and
there were so many stars that you
could actually see the outline of hills in
the distance. This fact isn't in
the papers much anymore, but Zimbabwe is
actually a beautiful place.
Mostly I miss the way it was then only
because it looks good by comparison.
It was no paradise. It wasn't
romantic. I didn't have soft-focus goggles on.
White farmers owned way too
much land and the government was corrupt and
AIDS was catastrophic and there
was a sense things were going wrong,
something vaguely ominous in the
sunlight. But the nation could sleep and it
could dream and there was room
for some sort of hope.
By 1998, when the Zimbabwean dollar fell to 15-1
against the U.S. dollar,
things were thought to have sunk to a new low.
People talked about the
"malaise" in the country. People would talk about
the way you couldn't get a
mortgage without passing an AIDS test. A friend
staged a rally in a shopping
center to urge people to be optimistic. They
released a lot of balloons.
Today, it takes one trillion Zim dollars to
make $100 U.S., and nobody
bothers with words like "malaise"
anymore.
"Every day is a real battle, just a grind of hunting and
gathering, getting
food, petrol, soap."
This is Angus Shaw talking, the
Zimbabwean reporter who heads the Associated
Press operation there. I called
him up the other day to see how he was
doing. Angus is white, and though
he's known the government leaders since
the independence war in the early
1970s, they turned on him years ago,
accusing him of being a spy and
worse.
Angus is not easily scared. He was orphaned at 9. He was standing
a few feet
away when a fellow reporter was beaten to death in Somalia. He
covered the
Rwandan genocide and remembers Idi Amin's death camps in Uganda,
when
"corpses had been bound with wire and pressed into grotesque bales
forklifted onto trucks."
When his home country slapped him in jail a
few years ago, he wrote that the
prison survival kit "should contain strong
sleeping pills, lice and mosquito
repellents, remedies for dysentery and
money for bribes."
He fled the country in 2005 to avoid another stay in
prison, allegedly for
practicing journalism without a license. (You have to
have a license to be a
reporter in Zimbabwe these days. Also, they don't
allow any more foreign
reporters to be based there -- they kicked out the
few remaining in 2001 --
and the ones who come in now do so undercover and
at risk.)
Angus came back home in 2007. I asked him if he could say what
things were
like now.
"The last six months it's been quite tense.
I've had threatening phone
calls, there are unmarked police cars parked
outside my house, militia
members in my car park. But I haven't been in jail
for two years."
When I moved there in 1997, my wife at the time, Vita,
and I walked into an
orphanage one day a few months after arriving and
there, in the second crib
on the right, was the most stunningly beautiful
child I had ever seen. She
was 11 weeks old and had been left to die beneath
an acacia tree on the day
she was born. Ants were eating her right ear.
Someone found her and called
rural police. At the orphanage, the matron
named her Chipo, the Shona word
for "gift."
At three months, she
weighed 4 pounds 3 ounces. She'd been hospitalized for
pneumonia twice, and
would be one more time before we could take her home.
Eighteen children died
in her orphanage during the time she was there.
These days she loves to
read and play basketball. She is still beautiful.
We came in the house
from summer camp the other night, and there was
Zimbabwe, the old country,
right there on the television. Here were pictures
of Mugabe, smiling, waving
to supporters, then a shot of soldiers and clubs
and people running and
smoke in the distance.
"Is that the bad guy?" Chipo asked
Yes,
honey, he's the bad guy. He is why we left. He is why we don't live in
Zimbabwe now.
Here were televised images of Morgan Tsvangirai
emerging from a hospital,
eyes puffy and swollen from being
beaten.
"And that's the good guy?"
Pretty much, yeah. He's the
good guy.
Pictures now of children, ill-dressed, rough-looking skin,
swollen bellies,
holding bowls for corn porridge.
"Is that the
hospital I'm from?"
I don't think so, no. There were lots of sick
children then, but it was not
nearly so bad as now. I don't think they could
have taken those sorts of
pictures at the hospital where you were. The
children were sick and many of
them died. But they had clothes.
So
now the election is done and things will go on like this until it all
collapses. Until Mugabe runs out of money to pay his thugs? Until South
Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, decides Mugabe is too much of a problem?
Yeah. Some time like that. Maybe it will even be on television.
This
brings to mind a particular feeling. It is something like Fritz
Kreisler's
arrangement of Dvorak's "Songs My Mother Taught Me," the violin
and cello
slow and mournful, and the sense that there once was a time when
you could
turn to someone older and stronger and wiser for comfort and they
would make
it all okay. Except now that time is like e e cummings's little
lame balloon
man, whistling far and wee, and it's something you can't even
see anymore,
it's just a feeling you used to have.
Zimbabwe: uneasy its sleep, uneasy
its dreams.
Z Net
July 01, 2008 By Mahir
Ali
To divide and rule could only tear us apart
In
every man's chest, there beats a heart
So soon we'll find out who is the
real revolutionaries
And I don't want my people to be tricked by
mercenaries
IT was less than 30 years ago that Bob Marley
serenaded the birth of a
nation with a song that featured the above verse
amid joyous incantations of
the phrase, "Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe". The
transition, peaceful in its
final phase, was reflected in a crucial change
of nomenclature: Southern
Rhodesia, named after a well-known coloniser,
ceased to exist 14 years after
its unilateral declaration of independence
from Britain. Ian Smith, who had
engineered the breakaway largely because of
his determination to retain the
Rhodesian variant of apartheid, made way for
Robert Mugabe, on the face of
it a relatively unassuming leader of the
liberation struggle.
To his brothers-in-arms, he was simply
Comrade Bob. Lord Soames, who
presided over the change as London's
representative, called him a "splendid
chap". Smith, who had kept Mugabe in
prison for 10 years, abhorred the idea
of majority rule but recognized its
inevitability; in the event, his
preferred successor was Bishop Abel
Muzorewa, a man without revolutionary
pretensions who also lacked popular
support. In Zimbabwe's first elections,
a largely unexpected landslide
catapulted Mugabe into the post of prime
minister.
Not
surprisingly, the advent of democracy prompted a mass exodus by white
Rhodesians, many of whom resettled in South Africa, where they seemed to be
no imminent danger of a comparable transformation. But a substantial
proportion of whites (including Smith) decided to stay on in Zimbabwe, and
found little cause in the short term to regret that decision. However, the
new leader's black opponents had fewer grounds for complacency. The Western
demonization of Mugabe did not gain traction until the late 1990s,
particularly after he began authorizing the takeover of white-owned farms by
landless black war veterans. It is oft forgotten that some of the traits
that during the past decade have been ascribed to paranoia or senility were
actually first exhibited back in the 1980s, when Mugabe set out to deplete
and intimidate the power base of his best-known rival, Joshua
Nkomo.
Ostensibly to stave off further violence, Nkomo eventually
authorized the
dissolution of his Zapu-PF party, advising members to join
Mugabe's Zanu-PF,
thereby facilitating a drift towards the latter's ideal of
a one-party
state. In a somewhat distorted reflection of Nkomo's gesture,
last week
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC), advised followers, in the interests of their own
safety, to
vote for Mugabe in Friday's second round of the presidential
election.
Although his name remained on the ballot paper, Tsvangirai had
formally
withdrawn from the race on the previous Sunday, before seeking
refuge in the
Dutch embassy.
It is widely presumed that
Tsvangirai decisively defeated Mugabe in the
first round of the election
back in March; the election commission was
persuaded, however, to fiddle
with the figures: as a result, although the
challenger retained the lead, it
was decreed that he fell short of the 50
percent mark, and that a run-off
would therefore be required. By pulling out
of the second round, Tsvangirai
paved the way for a putative Mugabe
landslide - but at the same time
stripped the electoral exercise of all
legitimacy.
A lust for
power is not an uncommon trait among leaders of national
liberation
movements: Nelson Mandela might actually be unique in refusing to
retain
office beyond a single term. And there may well be cause to ponder
the
extent to which Western (and particularly British) angst over Mugabe's
misbehaviour relates to the recalibration of his attitude towards white
farmers. At the same time, there can be little question that Zimbabwe has
been grotesquely mismanaged in political as well as economic terms. For
instance, while serious land reforms may indeed have been called for in a
country with egregious disparities of wealth, the anarchic farm seizures
were politically motivated and economically disastrous, leading to food
shortages on a shocking scale.
Cronyism and nepotism are
among the distinguishing features of the political
system Mugabe presides
over, and those who lament the fact that Tsvangirai's
credentials are
dubious in some respects should be willing to direct at
least some of the
blame towards Mugabe, given his long-standing allergy to
anyone who could
potentially be perceived as a political rival. Whatever his
shortcomings,
Tsvangirai has morally gained the upper hand during the past
year. And
Mugabe's ability to convince Zimbabweans that he continues to
deserve a
mandate has steadily been depleted amid soaring unemployment and a
mind-boggling rate of inflation that runs into millions of
percent.
Western sanctions and the legacy of British colonialism
are Zanu-PF's stock
excuses for the Mugabe regime's monumental economic
failures. The majority
of Zimbabweans no longer accept this explanation. To
most of them, the
liberation struggle to which Mugabe significantly
contributed is ancient
history. They need food and jobs, and it increasingly
seems that regime
change alone can facilitate access to such basic
necessities.
A decade or so ago, Mugabe could have retired with
some of his dignity
intact. That is no longer possible, but a humiliating
exit isn't the only
available option. Voices of reason are pointing towards
a compromise whereby
the president and his closest military and civilian
cronies can depart
without a fuss, paving the way for an MDC government,
possibly in
collaboration with remnants of Zanu-PF. If an agreement to that
end can be
worked out, it may indeed be the least destructive way out of an
unsustainable situation. Convincing Mugabe to do the sensible thing will
probably require all the powers of persuasion at the command of his friends
and neighbours, particularly Thabo Mbeki, whose refusal to publicly
criticize the octogenarian Zimbabwean leader puts him at odds with powerful
voices within South Africa, including the African National Congress under
Jacob Zuma, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and former
archbishop Desmond Tutu. Even the mild-mannered Mandela, after a prolonged
silence, joined the chorus last week with a reference to Zimbabwe's "tragic
failure of leadership".
Not surprisingly, there have been
calls in some quarters for international
intervention, including of the
military variety. Such a course would be
utterly disastrous. Zimbabwe today
is a far cry from the exemplary African
state envisaged by those of us who
shared Bob Marley's infectious optimism,
thanks in large part to the conduct
of the Mugabe clique. But it is not
beyond redemption, and nor do its
multiple afflictions warrant a bitter dose
of
neocolonialism.
Email: mahir.worldview@gmail.com
!
This Day, Nigeria
06.30.2008
OLAWALE FAPOHUNDA,
just back from Ouagadogou as part of a West African Civil
Society lobby
group, says the African Union must firmly tell Zimbawe's sit
tight President
it's time to go. The AU must, he urges, see beyond Mugabe's
anti-colonial
rhetoric and consider the millions of suffering Zimbabweans
At the
African Heads of State meeting last weekend at the African Union
summit in
Sharm-el-Sheikh, Cairo top on the agenda was the deteriorating
political
situation in Zimbabwe and what to say to its President, Robert
Mugabe.
Already there is growing cynicism about the ability of African
leaders to
find a honest solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. Indeed, the
silence of most
of Africa's leadership has brought back memories of the days
of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) where the entrenchment of the
principles
of non-interference in the internal affairs of states and the
emphasis on
state sovereignty became an excuse for bad governance and human
rights
violations on the continent.
Mr. Mugabe has told anyone who cares
to listen that the socio- economic and
political situation in his country
is a result of his refusal to allow
British and American colonial
ambitions. He has severally cited the
inequality in land ownership in his
country and insists that he is being
vilified for wanting black Zimbabweans
to own land.
This anti-colonialism stance has no doubt resonated with several
African
leaders. President Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso and Chairman of
the
ECOWAS alluded much to this when this writer met with him in Ouagadogou
last
week as part of a West African Civil Society lobby mission. Mugabe
undoubtedly deserves much credit for the heroic liberation struggle in that
country and his contribution to the freedom movement of a number of other
African countries. There is no way the story of Africa's liberation will be
written without a reference to the contribution of Mr. Mugabe.
However,
if the truth is to be told the situation in Zimbabwe today is the
effect of
Mr. Mugabes misrule and high-handedness.
Mugabe has pursued a catastrophic
policy of self and regime preservation.
The effect on ordinary Zimbabweans
has been dreadful. Once the bread-basket
of Southern Africa and one of the
continent's wealthiest countries, Zimbabwe
is now a basket-case and suffers
a severe shortage of food. Several million
Zimbabweans now depend on foreign
aid to keep them alive. Some three million
of them (out of a population of
thirteen million) have fled the poverty and
chaos at home, many to
neighbouring South Africa. Zimbabwe is also the world's
fastest-shrinking
peacetime economy, with unemployment now standing at 80%.
Its inflation rate
is the world's highest: currently 1,730% and still
growing.
Since Mugabe
lost the first round of the March 29 Presidential election he
has stopped at
nothing to ensure total victory in the second round. The
opposition's hope
for a free and fair election has been ruthlessly
extinguished with the
repeated arrest and detention of opposition leader Mr.
Tsvangirai and
leaders of his party, the MDC. This, in addition to state
sponsored violence
inflicted his supporters, has prompted Tsvangirai to
withdraw from the run
off. Mugabe has gone ahead to conduct the run off
election despite concerns
expressed by the international community.
Therefore, short of a miracle, it
seems obvious that Mr Mugabe is set to
achieve a landslide victory.
More
worrisome is the suggestion by some African leaders of a government of
national unity in which Mugabe and Tsvangirai will be required to share
power possibly along the Kenyan model. If this were to be adopted then
Africa will be laying the foundations for the design a new electoral system.
One which an incumbent president loses an election but for the sake of peace
is allowed to continue in office with the real winner playing an inferior
role in government. This will in no small way rubbish whatever progress
Africa has made in towards political liberalisation that leads to
participation and choice.
The situation in Zimbabwe challenges the
commitment of the AU for respect
for democratic principles, rule of law, and
fundamental freedoms. The AU
must see beyond Mugabe's anti-colonial rhetoric
and consider the millions of
suffering Zimbabweans particularly those who
have lost life and limb in the
xenophobic attacks in South Africa. The AU
must condemn the violence and
intimidation in Zimbabwe that made it
impossible for the run off election to
be free and fair. That election must
in no uncertain terms be declared a
sham. There is a need for a transitional
government to put in place interim
measures aimed at retuning Zimbabwe to
democratic ways. This must not be
confused with a government of national
unity.
Ultimately, Mr. Mugabe must be told politely and firmly that it is
time to
go.
. Fapohunda is Managing Partner, Legal
ResourcesConsortium
Trinidad Express
Editorial
Tuesday, July 1st 2008
Kenya's
Foreign Minister said yesterday it was his government's
position that
Zimbabwe should face immediate suspension from the African
Union (AU), and
that the newly reinstalled President, Robert Mugabe, should
be made to feel
unwelcome at the AU's summit now underway in Egypt.
He is,
unfortunately, likely to be condemned and ridiculed by Mr
Mugabe and his
unapologetic supporters, inside and outside Zimbabwe, as
possibly another
tool of the west.
Seeing the current crisis in Zimbabwe through
jaundiced lenses
coloured by their steadfast retention of old
anti-imperialist, anti-colonial
paradigms, those supporters bluntly refuse
to ascribe any blame for this
situation on Mr Mugabe himself.
He is not being held at all responsible for his demonstrated inability
to
fashion solutions to the problems of inequality, discrimination and
disenfranchisement which he had inherited when he took over the government
in Zimbabwe more than a quarter of a century ago.
Those
supporters are not conceding, as they should, that it is Mr
Mugabe who has
gone to great lengths to stifle any and all opposition to his
rule; and that
he has helped to sponsor and perpetrate the violence which
has now virtually
crippled the march towards greater democracy which he had
been so
instrumental in ushering in.
Of course Mr Mugabe had inherited a
society dominated by the
inequality and the unfairness based on the
centuries-old land question, in
which vast acreages of land belonging to
native Africans had been wrongfully
given over to minority white
settlers.
And of course, the British government has reneged on
its promise to
compensate Black Zimbabweans who had been dispossessed. But
the situation
had called for a new approach to justice and fairplay which Mr
Mugabe had
pledged to undertake and to lead. It had called for new, creative
approaches
to the issue of fostering equality and inclusiveness which he has
been found
incapable of delivering.
So as the world now watches
the continuing deterioration of life for
large numbers of the Zimbabwean
people, Mr Mugabe goes to increasing lengths
simply to perpetuate himself in
power and in office.
It is his people, however, who have grown more
and more tired of his
political ineffectiveness and who have been abandoning
him. It is they,
also, who have been plunged into more and more
suffering.
And it is that "tragic failure of leadership'' to which
the venerable
Nelson Mandela rightly referred when he spoke in London last
week, only to
be so rudely dismissed by Mr Mugabe and his unrepentant
cronies.
Mr Mandela's African National Congress, the ruling party
in
neighbouring South Africa, also found it had no choice but to reluctantly
issue its own criticism of Mr Mugabe as presiding over a regime that was
riding roughshod over "hard won democracy'' for the people of
Zimbabwe.
Rather than be defended at all cost, he should be
encouraged to face
these facts squarely.
Dispatch, SA
2008/07/01
ROBERT
Mugabe may be facing further isolation by the West after his one-man
election victory, but he is far from the only long-serving African leader
with a questionable rights record.
As the 84-year-old meets his peers
at an African Union summit, some are
reluctant to take him to task over
pre-poll violence and intimidation since
similar circumstances have played
out in their countries.
Mugabe has himself minimised the violence
surrounding Zimbabwe's vote by
pointing out that thousands have been killed
in other African elections and
polls were held anyway.
Summit host
Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 27 years and routinely been
re-elected
unopposed with vote totals of more than 95 percent.
Mubarak has enjoyed
close relations with the United States despite the
regular arrest of members
of the main opposition, Muslim Brotherhood.
In neighbouring Libya,
Muammar Gaddafi has been in power for nearly 39 years
and in 1977 unveiled
the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, in which
his only formal
function was as revolutionary guide. While he has faced
heavy criticism over
his human rights record, he has mended fences with the
West in recent years
after renouncing any ambition to develop weapons of
mass
destruction.
Gaddafi, however, falls just short of qualifying as Africa's
longest-serving
ruler; a distinction belonging to Gabon's Omar Bongo, who
came to power in
1967. The 72-year-old won the country's most recent
presidential election
with 79 percent of the vote.
Mugabe "is
president" of Zimbabwe, Bongo insisted yesterday at the start of
the African
Union summit in Egypt.
The crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur has
recently shone a spotlight
on that country, where President Omar al-Beshir
came to power in an
Islamist-backed, bloodless coup in 1989 that overthrew a
democratically-elected government.
His regime is accused by rights
groups of torture and arbitrary detentions,
and backing Arab militias
against ethnic minority Africans in Darfur, where
the UN says 300 000 people
have died since conflict broke out in February
2003. - Sapa-AFP
BBC
Monday, 30 June 2008 20:33 UK
By Hugh Pym
Economics editor,
BBC News
International outrage over Robert Mugabe's self-styled
election
victory in Zimbabwe has generated further debate about sanctions
and
wielding economic weapons against the regime.
Some major
British firms are still trading there, including Barclays
and Waitrose, but
pressure on them to sever their commercial links with
Zimbabwe is
growing.
Back in 2003, Robert Mugabe's regime was facing strong
international
criticism, albeit not as intense as now.
I did
some research then on British companies with trading links to
Zimbabwe and
was surprised to discover that 18 out of the 50 biggest UK
firms said they
had a presence in the country or trading relationships with
Zimbabwean
organisations.
A further 12 companies failed to
respond.
This was just after England's cricketers pulled out of a
World Cup
match in Zimbabwe, following pressure for them to take a stand
against the
Mugabe regime.
A Foreign Office spokesman said at
the time that it was felt that any
block on commercial links would harm
Zimbabweans.
But English cricket's ruling body, the ECB, said it
was perverse and
inequitable that, while businesses were trading with
Zimbabwe, cricketers
had been asked to make an isolated and symbolic
gesture.
Five years on, as English cricket severs its bilateral
links with
Zimbabwe and cancels a tour here next year, the spotlight is
turning once
again on the conduct of companies - although it is not yet
clear how many of
them have pulled out in the intervening
period.
On the defensive
The mining giant Anglo
American was put on the defensive when news of
its plans to develop a new
platinum mine in Zimbabwe emerged. Some MPs
argued this clashed with modern
ideas of corporate responsibility.
The company said it was
concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe but
the project had been in
development since 2003.
Critics ague that doing business in
Zimbabwe is, in effect, supporting
the Mugabe regime and should therefore be
stopped.
Others point out that pulling the commercial plug
would destroy jobs
and further impoverish ordinary people rather than the
ruling elite.
We contacted some of the leading British companies to
have trading
relationships there.
Barclays told us it had been
there for almost 100 years, well before
the current difficulties. The bank
said it conducted its business in an
ethical manner, providing vital
services to 130,000 customers.
Tesco said that by trading with
Zimbabwe, it was supporting hundreds
of small farmers and not the Mugabe
government.
BP said it had a tiny business running forecourts which
didn't really
make any profit.
Waitrose buys in some Fairtrade
fish from Zimbabwe and argues that the
venture supports hundreds of workers
and their families.
All point out that they are acting lawfully and
in line with EU
regulations - current sanctions cover the defence trade and
travel
restrictions on some Zimbabwean officials.
But this
debate won't go away in a hurry.
The Foreign Office minister Lord
Malloch Brown has warned companies,
"The game is changing," with tougher
economic sanctions a possibility.
Companies will have to work
harder to sustain the argument they are
supporting jobs and livelihoods
rather than propping up a discredited
regime.