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PRESIDENT
TSVANGIRAI’S TUESDAY MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE OF
We
completed our provincial consultative meetings on
Unlike the
violence that marked the end of the Mashonaland Central meeting on Friday, the
Chinhoyi gathering ended without incident.
There is a
broad acceptance countrywide that once a dictatorship starts to yield to popular
pressure, the people must push it further towards full political reform for the
sake of a lasting solution and peace. Deceit is a recipe for long-term national
instability.
Political
transformation is a comprehensive process of change, as was the case in
I am happy
that all the senior leaders of the MDC, right down to our provinces and
districts, are united on the need for a radical revision to our electoral
standards before we embark on another national plebiscite.
The
Mashonaland assemblies vowed to reject any cosmetic changes to our electoral
framework. Our successes at the weekend exposed the myth and unmasked the
falsehoods and perceptions that Mashonaland provinces are no-go areas for the
MDC. Our party is as strong in those areas as in other parts of the country.
Against all odds, our structures are still visible and our membership is
increasing daily.
At our
meetings, we worked out ways to revive the spirit of 1999. We
designed strategies to intensify our campaign for free and fair elections and to
curb violence. There is so much political confidence in the three provinces –
sufficient confidence in the MDC to deal with any attempts to repeat the horrors
and experiences of the past five years.
Starting
today, we are taking the campaign to individual districts. We shall liaise with
all the communities and share our vision for the future. We have to reach out to
millions of people in the next few months, even if it requires us to conduct our
meetings at night.
Our
country is hungry. Our country is bleeding. Our country desperately needs help.
The MDC has to do its best to consult and search for solutions from the
people.
As I drove
through Mashonaland at the weekend, it became impossible to ignore the highly
visible knock on agriculture in an area whose previous production levels helped
to earn
From the
The
restoration of order onto our land is a national priority. We aim to introduce
an efficient distribution mechanism, accompanied by a comprehensive land use
programme in order to clean up the mess in the former commercial farming areas.
We are committed to land reform. We are committed to ending the crisis in
agriculture through a democratic, transparent and lawful process. We are
committed to food security and prosperity.
Agricultural
recovery will be rooted on a non-negotiable return to the rule of law,
restoration of private property rights and a strict adherence to the fundamental
rights enshrined in a people-driven Constitution.
What I
witnessed on the former commercial farms in the Mashonaland prime agricultural
districts is too much for anybody to conclude that claims of bumper harvest and
food security this year are mere political statements from a cornered regime
that is keen to cover-up a failed populist experiment.
For an
economy largely dependant on agriculture, what happened here in the past four
years is unfortunate. If you tamper with the land, you destroy your revenue
base. You blow life out of all essential services: health, education, taxation,
public services and employment. We must restore sanity in agriculture to use
that industry to revive education, to repair our health services, to restart the
economy and to create jobs.
Food
security is a basic human right. The MDC policies and programmes
seek to observe that fundamental right as a social and legal obligation, on the
part of the state, to ensure that all Zimbabwean citizens get sufficient food.
Because of our abundant resources, full employment can be a reality within a
short space of time.
We wish to make it clear that
Surviving on handouts
either from the state or from international donors diminishes the people’s
dignity and their influence and choices over what and how they are being fed.
The situation gets worse when the little that is available is distributed along
partisan lines.
Access to food and
food availability affect the protection and promotion of human dignity.
One of our values as a
party emphasise the concept of equity and solidarity. Since we recognise
adequate food as a fundamental right, we shall deploy considerable resources to
dealing with the concerns of weaker communities and vulnerable
groups.
The concept of human
rights refers to the manner in which our human dignity is respected and
recognised. Merely feeding people degrades them, especially when they know that
they are capable of looking after themselves.
What
We need to meet
without hindrance and to express ourselves without restrictions. We need an
atmosphere in which mechanisms exist for us to question and to remedy
developments that infringe on our sovereignty.
The MDC believes the
right to assemble and to speak out provides essential solutions to food
deficits. That is the only way we can shape our destiny because we will be in
control of the conditions in which we live.
Food production and
access to food have strong links to our crisis of governance. What I observed in
Mashonaland explains why politics is the main factor in our failure to assure
Zimbabweans of adequate food as a human right.
After our
consultations in Mvurwi on electoral standards with the grassroots leadership of
the MDC from Dande, Kanyemba, Guruve, Mukumbura, Mt Darwin, Dotito, Shamva,
Bindura and Chiweshe, the subject of access to food cropped
up.
Hundreds of MDC
supporters, whose property was destroyed in political violence, complained about
discrimination in the allocation of food in their wards. Some had their
granaries burned down; others were denied seed.
The issue was raised
again on Saturday by delegates from Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe, Hwedza, Chikomba,
Murehwa, Mutoko, Marondera West and Goromonzi. Officials from Zvimba, Msengezi,
Chegutu, Chitomborwizi, Makonde, Mhangura, Banket, Hurungwe, Karoi and Kariba
made similar submissions, protesting at the use of food as a coercive political
weapon. The levels of
abuse are so open and so deep that only a truth and justice commission can
assist in healing our nation.
At the centre of this Zanu PF
tragedy is political intolerance. Unless Zanu PF accepts multi-party democracy
and advises its supporters about the diversity of
Instead of creating conditions for
debate and discussion where consensus and disagreement are possible outcomes,
our opponents in Zanu PF still believe that whenever we meet, notwithstanding
the police clearance and monitoring, they should start to organise
violence.
The society we seek to build has no
room for such behaviour. In concert
with civil society, we shall search, promote and establish a
Our people
shall be encouraged to get down to work. The rationalization of land allocation
will reconcile the MDC’s policy principles with on-the-ground realities. We
shall resolutely apply the principles of justice to the letter to rectify the
anomalies created in Mugabe’s land reform process.
Total
agrarian reform, covering the whole country including the communal lands, must
be one of our top priorities. With an impartial, independent and well-resourced
Land Commission to determine the legal status of all land holdings through a
comprehensive land audit, our aim is to rationalize ownership and land use
patterns as a precursor to a properly planned resettlement programme.
Zimbabweans must never
be hungry again.
Together, we shall
win.
Morgan
Tsvangirai
President.
u www.theaccountabilitycommission.com
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The
Accountability Commission
Z i m b a b w
e
Press
Statement
Date: 6 July
2004
Re: African Union Report on
Zimbabwe
The Accountability Commission-Zimbabwe (AC)
welcomes with relief the
African Union Executive Council report on Zimbabwe. The report condemns the
government of Zimbabwe for ‘flagrant human rights abuses’, arrest, harassment
and torture of opposition Members of Parliament, human rights lawyers and
journalists as well as the breakdown of the rule of law in
general.
As a human rights
organisation involved with victims of gross human rights violations in the
country, the AC feels that civil society has been vindicated in noting that the
Zimbabwe government if ruling the country through terror, torture and tyranny.
Indeed, the AU has urged the government of Zimbabwe to take measures to ensure
that the country ‘withdraws from this precipice’. The AU would like to see this
unprecedented and forthright condemnation followed by tangible and concrete
action from all African countries to force the ZANU (PF) regime to restore
fundamental human rights and to create an environment in which every citizen of
Zimbabwe can elect his or her own government freely.
The AC also urges individual
the Southern African Development community and individual governments, in
particular South Africa, to take the cue from the African Union and stop
shielding the Mugabe regime from international pressure. To condemn human rights abuses on our
continent is an imperative for all progressive country and is also consistent
with the principles that guide the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and
the African Renaissance.
In conclusion, the AC hopes
that the African Heads of State will have no hesitation to endorse the report of
the Executive Council.
Gabriel
Shumba
Legal
Director
Accountability
Commission-Zimbabwe
C/o
Centre for Human Rights
University of
Pretoria
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
Cell: +27 72 6393 795
PH:
+27 (12) 420 3034
Fax: +27 (12) 362
5125