The Scotsman
Published Date: 15 June 2008
By Cris Chinaka
in
Harare
ROBERT Mugabe increased the threat of all-out civil war in
Zimbabwe
yesterday when he insisted that he would fight against an MDC
government if
it won power in this month's presidential election.
"We are
prepared to fight for our country and to go to war for it," the
president
told a crowd of supporters in Harare at the funeral of a former
army
general.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvan-girai will face Mugabe in a run-off
presidential
election on June 27, after winning the first round in March but
without the
necessary majority.
Tsvangirai, rights groups and Western
powers accuse Mugabe of unleashing a
brutal campaign, including using police
to harass opponents, to win the
run-off. Tsvangirai and 11 MDC campaign
colleagues were held by police for
three hours yesterday after being taken
into custody at a roadblock in the
morning. He has been detained several
times this month.
Meanwhile, Tendai Biti, the party's secretary-general
who was arrested on
Thursday as he returned to the country, appeared before
a judge.
At the closed hearing, prosecutors said they planned to charge
him with
"treason and making malicious statements detrimental to . the
state", which
could carry a death penalty, Biti's lawyer said.
Police
took Biti - accused of announcing results of the March 29 poll
prematurely -
away after the hearing and said they might bring him back to
court tomorrow,
the lawyer told reporters.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF lost control of parliament in
elections also held in March
but the president, who has ruled since
independence from Britain in 1980,
has shown little sign of accepting
change.
"It is clearly impossible to talk about a free and fair election
in
Zimbabwe," the MDC said after their leader was detained. "To suggest
otherwise is to be blind to the grave harassment, intimidation and violence
that the people of Zimbabwe have had to endure over the past few
years."
The MDC says 66 of its followers have been killed in attacks
since the March
polls. Mugabe, 84, blames the MDC for the violence that has
caused
international concern.
His language has grown increasingly
belligerent. He said again yesterday
that Western countries were
interfering. "We have become the focus of the
British and the Americans. The
US has provided $70m to the MDC for regime
change ... and British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown is interfering in our
internal affairs.
"Never
again shall this country come under the rule of the white man, direct
or
indirect. Not while we, who fought for its liberation, live," Mugabe said
to
wild cheers from thousands of supporters, including soldiers.
The former
guerrilla commander had told ZANU-PF youth members in Harare a
day earlier
that liberation war veterans had told him they would launch a
new bush war
if he lost the run-off.
Mugabe's sentence of death on women of
Zimbabwe
Kevin Kane
in Johannesburg
ABIGAIL Murewa is a mother
at the age of just 19 and her son is already well
past his first birthday.
She has no income and dropped out of school before
completing basic
schooling. Her beautiful face and direct stare are
haunting, as is the
malnourished child tied to her back in a blanket.
WOZA protesters
risk their lives demonstrating on the streets of Harare.
Photograph: Getty
Images
One thing is certain about Abigail: she is likely to be dead before
her son
reaches the age of 16. Life expectancy for Zimbabwean women was down
to only
34 years by early 2006, according to the World Health Organisation
(WHO),
compared with 62 years in 1990. Now, two years later, life expectancy
for
Abigail is less than 34 years.
Thirty-four, an age when women in
stable democracies are thinking about
careers, starting families, or buying
homes, is by far the lowest life
expectancy in the world. Even in Iraq,
women can expect to live for more
than 51 years. In poor countries, such as
Cuba and North Korea, women's life
expectancy is 75 and 65
respectively.
Inscriptions on the headstones of hundreds of graves at the
Granville
cemetery in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital and Abigail Murewa's home,
tell the
harrowing tale of women's life expectancy in a country where 3,500
citizens
a week die from HIV/Aids, higher than the overall death rate in
Darfur where
Sudanese government forces are accused of genocide.
But
the rate is increasing in the government violence that has followed this
year's March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections. And the deaths
have accelerated with the approach of the presidential run-off poll
scheduled for June 27, with women taking the brunt of the violence
perpetrated by the militiamen of incumbent President Robert Mugabe, who has
given veteran militias permission to wage war on his opponent, Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mugabe told a
ruling Zanu-PF party rally that Tsvangirai will return the
country to white
control if he wins the run-off. The veterans, Mugabe's
followers during the
1970s war against white rule, are not prepared to
recognise a Tsvangirai
victory, said Mugabe. "They said they got this
country through the barrel of
a gun, so they cannot let it go by a ballot."
One woman who got in the
way of Mugabe's militiamen was Dadirai Chipiro,
wife of Patson Chipiro,
leader of the MDC in Mhondoro, 100 miles northeast
of Harare. Three
truckloads of militiamen came looking for Patson 10 days
ago but, in his
absence, they turned on Dadirai, a 45-year-old nursery
teacher, and broke
both her legs before chopping off both her feet and one
of her hands. In one
of the most diabolical of many barbarous acts of evil
perpetrated by
Mugabe's regime since independence in 1980, the militiamen
then threw
Dadirai into her hut, barricaded the door and tossed a petrol
bomb through
the window. Police refused to issue a crime incident report. At
the funeral
Dadirai's coffin lid remained ajar because her outstretched arm
had burned
rigid.
Women have been right in Zimbabwe's front line - more so than the
MDC's male
leaders - opposing Mugabe and his hitmen, and few have been
braver than
Jennie Williams and Betty Makoni while living to tell their
stories.
Williams, a so-called 'coloured' (mixed race) Zimbabwean, is a
future
contender for the Nobel Peace Prize - provided she survives her
current
incarceration in the notorious Chikurubi Prison, near Harare, where
conditions have been described as worse than Auschwitz.
Williams
founded WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) as a women's civil rights
movement in
2003. In the past five years Williams and the WOZA women have
been
constantly going on to the streets to demonstrate against the Mugabe
government when MDC chiefs have been too frightened to do so. The
40,000-strong movement flouts restrictive protest laws in non-violent
marches of thousands of women, many with their children strapped to their
backs.
Some 30,000 WOZA women have spent time in police custody, many
more than
once, for their street protests against Mugabe's excesses. Under
the slogan
"Tough love", they have demonstrated to the timid MDC the
possibilities of
mass mobilisation, suffering beatings and near-unbearable
prison conditions
to exercise their fundamental freedoms.
But her
followers and Amnesty International are deeply worried about the
fate of
Williams. She has been in custody at Chikurubi for 18 days with 13
other
WOZA activists, including Williams' deputy Magodonga Mahlangu, after a
street demonstration in Harare on Africa Day on May 28 against government
violence following the March election.
Under Mugabe's draconian
decree, the WOZA marchers, who carried placards and
distributed flyers
condemning the violence, were stopped by police and their
leaders arrested.
Williams' bail was set at 10,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars
(£10 under
Zimbabwe's inflation rate of 500,000%), but the police refused to
release
her. Williams is charged with "participating in a gathering with
intent to
promote public violence" and "causing disaffection among the
Police
Force".
The evidence produced by the state relates to a paragraph in one
of the WOZA
flyers addressed to Zimbabwe's uniformed forces which said: "We
ask them to
respect that Zimbabweans have voted (on March 29] for change and
refrain
from being used to perpetrate violence and to carry out
injustices."
Betty Makoni is also a potential Nobel Peace Prize nominee
for her campaigns
against rape - as a weapon of political intimidation by
Mugabe's militias
and in Zimbabwean society more widely.
As a child
labourer aged six, she was raped by a neighbour together with
nine other
girls. Makoni is now aged 37. But none of the others violated
that day are
still alive to tell their stories.
Makoni eventually went to university
and became a teacher. She now
administers a Girl Child Network with nearly
700 clubs. In its nine-year
history the Network has helped more than 60,000
females who have been raped,
ranging from a one-day-old baby to a
94-year-old grandmother.
Among Makoni's recent honours are the 2008
Amnesty International Ginetta
Sagan Award for Women's and Children's Rights
and the 2007 World Children's
Prize for the Rights of the Child
"As I
speak now, I know a woman is getting killed," Makoni said at a public
lecture she gave last week in Toronto. "There's a silent genocide going on.
I've picked up stories about women who are raped in front of their
grandchildren, in front of their sons, in front of their daughter, and of
women forced to be raped by their own relatives. I think the idea is to
destroy the womb that brings their opponents in the country into the
world."
She has been jailed several times and receives constant death
threats.
But Makoni was today flying back to Harare to share with
Williams, the women
of WOZA, and the country's countless rape victims a
struggle against the
increasingly merciless onslaught by Mugabe and his
security force chiefs.
Migrant 'necklaced' to death
Anti-foreigner
rioting flared up again yesterday in a South African township
as a foreign
migrant from Mozambique, as yet unidentified, was "necklaced"
to
death.
The death brought to 63 the number of people who have died in the
ethnic
cleansing that broke out last month and has seen the poorest areas of
the
country emptied of black migrants from other parts of Africa,
particularly
Zimbabwe.
Necklacing was the method used in black
townships in the 1980s and early
1990s to kill suspected 'sell-outs' to the
former apartheid government.
It involved jamming a car tyre over the
shoulders of the victim, filling it
with petrol and setting it
ablaze.
The necklacing in the Pretoria township of Atteridgeville is the
second of a
Mozambican migrant in the wave of anti-immigrant attacks. Early
reports
suggested clashes occurred between residents of Atteridgeville and
Somali
migrants housed in a nearby United Nations-run refugee camp. Police
opened
fire and fires were burning.
Meanwhile, about 100 people
turned out for an anti-xenophobia march in
central Johannesburg yesterday
afternoon organised by the International
Community Unifiers (ICU), a group
representing the five million African
migrants in South
Africa.
Dennis Mpangane, the ICU president, said: "We do not understand
why we have
been savagely and brutally assaulted, raped, killed,
intimidated.
"We have had our property destroyed and looted and we have
been evicted from
our homes and experienced all forms of humiliation."
The Telegraph
Last
Updated: 12:01am BST 15/06/2008
The 84-year-old Robert
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's tyrannical ruler, has now
given up all pretence of
wishing to hold anything remotely resembling free
and fair elections in his
country.
The army and the police are under the direct control of
his party,
ZANU-PF, and they relentlessly intimidate ordinary Zimbabweans.
They arrest
and murder activists for the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), the party
led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mr Tsvangirai
himself is arrested almost every day: the sole purpose
of imprisoning him is
to disrupt his campaigning. As Zimbabwe starves,
thanks to Mugabe's inept
economic management, food and medicine are being
used by his cronies as
weapons with which to coerce the population into
voting for
ZANU-PF.
Yesterday, Mugabe boasted that he would go to war rather
than hand
over power to the MDC. If he wins the election on June 27, it will
only be
because he has bullied the population into submission.
The West continues to watch helplessly as Mugabe destroys the last
vestiges
of democracy in Zimbabwe. Sanctions against the country are already
in
force, but show no sign of persuading Mugabe to step down.
The next
option would be for the West to take direct military action
against him, but
that seems highly unlikely, and not only because it would
resurrect his
legitimacy as an "anti-colonialist warrior".
So what can be done?
The UN must put heavy pressure on South Africa
and China, Mugabe's remaining
supporters, to drop him. Once that happens,
members of his own party should
force him to relinquish power.
Elections could then be held,
perhaps supervised by the African Union.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an
international reluctance to confront
South Africa and China. They have
prevented the topic from being discussed
by the UN Security
Council.
We can only hope that reason and humanity will soon
persuade at least
Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, to jettison
the man who is
leading Zimbabwe, and all of its suffering people, over the
precipice.
Yahoo News
Opinion Cynthia Tucker
Sat Jun 14, 7:58 PM ET
During the
late 20th century, human rights campaigns led by Western
progressives helped
to liberate two nations on the southern tip of the
African continent from
brutal whites-only rule. In 1980, the apartheid
regime of Rhodesia gave way
to a black-led Zimbabwe. And in 1994, the first
multiracial elections in
South Africa delivered the presidency to a black
man, the longtime
anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.
In the years since, the two
nations have traveled very different paths.
South Africa has enjoyed
stability, a free press, international investment,
an independent judiciary
and democratic elections -- helped by the graceful
exit of Mandela, who
retired after one term. While the nation still
struggles with poverty,
underdevelopment and an AIDS epidemic, it has become
a model for multiracial
democracy on the African continent.
Zimbabwe, by contrast, has spiraled
downward into disaster. Thirty years
ago, the nation was stable and
productive, a net exporter of food blessed
with a small class of educated
black professionals ready to form its
governmental bureaucracy. Now,
Zimbabwe is beset by a thuggish regime that
has ushered in starvation,
hyper-inflation, rampant unemployment, political
oppression and
corruption.
Yet the tyranny of Zimbabwe's black president, Robert Mugabe,
has met with
little reaction from America's black elite. Black politicians,
Hollywood
celebrities and ordinary Americans loudly protested apartheid --
staging
demonstrations outside the South African embassy -- but Mugabe's
despotism
has produced only muted criticism. What gives?
Though
Mugabe has labored mightily to blame his nation's troubles on others,
including the dwindling population of white Zimbabweans and Western human
rights activists, Zimbabwe's voters have finally determined he needs to go.
His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, led the opening round of voting in
elections in March.
But Mugabe's henchmen have resorted to murder to
make certain the runoff
election, scheduled for June 27, is anything but
free and fair. Tsvangirai
has been harassed and detained repeatedly by
police. The wives of other
opposition leaders have been butchered and burned
alive. Mugabe's police
even went so far as to seize food sent to
schoolchildren by international
donors, giving it only to those who promised
to vote for him.
His followers maim and murder their opponents and starve
children, but few
black Americans notice. Why? Why do we ignore the
transgressions of black
African tyrants while assailing those of white
tyrants?
Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young is among those who still
manage to see
more morality than malice in Mugabe's rule. "Americans cannot
be rational
about Mugabe," Young said. "We've always miscast Mugabe. He's a
fundamentalist Roman Catholic. He doesn't steal."
Young traces
Zimbabwe's troubles back more than 30 years, to the failure of
the United
States and Great Britain to fund land reform efforts as
generously as
promised.
Similarly, Nicole Lee, head of TransAfrica Forum, a
Washington-based human
rights group founded by black Americans, points to "a
larger context" that
includes the failure of Western nations to fund
programs to grant farmland
to poor black Zimbabweans. She, too, says that
Americans shouldn't
"demonize" Mugabe.
There's just one problem with
that: Mugabe has become a demon.
Here and there, a courageous human
rights activist sees the problem clearly
and has the guts to say so. Last
week, Desmond Tutu called for Mugabe's
resignation. "Mugabe began so well
more than 30 years ago. We all had such
high hopes," said the former
Anglican archbishop. "... But his regime has
turned into a horrendous
nightmare. He should stand down."
Georgia Rep. John Lewis said he
supports a more forceful response to
Mugabe's tyranny. "Just because he's a
black leader of an African nation
doesn't mean that we can afford to be
silent," he said.
It may be that Americans can do little to influence
Mugabe's course. If he
is willing to starve his people, he is probably
immune to public
condemnation. But those committed to civil and human rights
have a duty to
register their disgust for Mugabe's madness, as loudly and as
readily as
they did for apartheid's brutality.
VOA
By Akwei Thompson
Washington, DC
14 June 2008
Pressure is mounting
on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to hold a free
and fair election
run-off.
Forty of Africa's prominent figures, including former UN chief
Kofi Annan,
on Friday published an open letter urging an end to violence and
intimidation in the days leading to election day, June
27th.
Meanwhile, as former ZANU-PF politburo member Simba Makoni is in
South
Africa pitching a government of national unity, Mugabe says he has
dissuaded
war veterans from fighting to keep the opposition from
power.
Herman Hanekom, an independent researcher of contemporary Africa
in
Capetown, South Africa told VOA's Akwei Thompson the attempt by the
African
leaders to put pressure on Mugabe was futile.
"I think that
letter is worth as much as a straw being blown around in the
wind. With the
impunity that is taking place at the moment, I don't think
that anyone on
the regime's side in Zimbabwe has any intention of taking
notice of
international opinion."
Hanekom said he fears Mugabe gas lost control to
his generals.
"What we are witnessing today is the end result of the
brutality of generals
who fear for their own freedom.due to past violations
of human rights in
Zimbabwe and they need Mugabe there as president in order
to ensure that
they will not be prosecuted in future by a future
government," he said
He added that the chance of Mugabe and opposition
leader Tsvangirai ever
meeting to discuss a government of national unity was
absolutely zero.
"I cannot see that those two can ever be brought
together., he said"
Great foreboding at the Vigil.
Everyone is worried about the atrocities in
Zimbabwe. We fear for the
safety of Tendai Biti and others in the forefront
of the struggle. We were
joined by Lovemore Mukeyani who spoke about the
violence his family had
suffered both in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The
family in Zimbabwe had been
targeted because Lovemore has been involved in
protests in the UK. Also
with us was Greshel Alibinu. She has been in and
out of hospital in
Southend for the past two months and was finally allowed
by the hospital to
come and visit us. We were encouraged by her dedication.
It's been a
busy week for the Vigil and it looks like there will be no let
up. For many
of us it was our third demo of the week, after our meeting
with Archbishop
Tutu on Monday and the presentation of our petition to the
South African
High Commission on Thursday. A Zimbabwean lady told us at the
Thursday event
that she had been charged £80 by the Zimbabwean Embassy for a
(free)
passport application form. She was given a receipt! She still has to
pay
£200 US dollars for the passport. We are thinking of setting up a
little
business at the Vigil selling the application forms for, say, £1, if
someone
will send us a supply.
At the meeting on Monday with Archbishop Tutu we
made contact with the
clergy at St Martin-in-the-Fields and they have
readily agreed to take part
in our prayer vigil for Zimbabwe next Saturday.
For details see below. We
hope that a number of Zimbabawean pastors will
attend and we have been
informed that Southwark Cathedral in south London,
which has a long
association with Zimbabwe, is offering a mass in Shona and
Ndelbele on
Sunday, 13th July at 6.30 pm.
More immediately, the Vigil
is to take part in a demonstration outside the
Embassy on Monday, 23rd June
organised by Action for Southern Africa
(ACTSA), the successor organization
to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and the
Trades Union Congress in support of
beleaguered Zimbabwe trade union
leaders. For more information, check for
your diary below.
Prominent African civil society leaders have united to
call for free and
fair elections in Zimbabwe and an end to the violence in
the run up to the
June 27 presidential election run-off. The signatories
include a host of
respected African leaders, renowned African artists and
influential figures
including Desmond Tutu. Civil society groups and
individual citizens are
invited to sign their letter at a dedicated website
which can be found at
www.zimbabwe-27June.com. We were
disappointed that Nelson Mandela's name
wasn't among the
signatories.
PS a sign of hope. The pigeons are nesting in one of our
maple trees. Five
years ago Westminster Council told us not to attach
anything to the trees
for fear of damaging them. We have not been able to
comply but the trees
have thrived nevertheless.
For latest Vigil
pictures check:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/.
FOR
THE RECORD: 151 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
·
Eucharist for Bernard Mizeki. Wednesday 18th June 2008, 6.30 at
Southwark
Cathedral. The Zimbabwean Christian Fellowship Choir will sing.
·
Zimbabwe Association Refugee Day. Thursday, 19th June 2008, 10.30
am - 3 pm.
Venue: Central Library, 2 Fieldway Crescent, London N5 1PF.
'Different
Pasts, Shared Future.' Addressed by Jeremy Corbyn MP, the Mayor
of Islington
and others. Performances of dance, drama and music alongside
health and
well-being sessions run by City and Islington College.
· Prayer
Vigil. Saturday 21st June from 3.30 - 5 30 pm outside the
Zimbabwe Embassy
429 Strand, London WC2. This will take place within the
normal Vigil which
runs from 2 - 6 pm.
· Next Glasgow Vigil. Saturday 21st June 2 - 6
pm.. Venue: Argyle
Street Precinct. For more information contact: Ancilla
Chifamba, 07770 291
150, Patrick Dzimba, 07990 724 137 or Jonathan Chireka,
07504 724 471.
· Zimbabwe Day. Sat 21st June: 12 noon - 12 midnight
Bristol
Zimbabwe Association invites you to 12 hours of celebration: music,
food &
gumboot dance, plus Lois Davis' film "Women of Zimbabwe Arise",
and book
launch of Nontobeko Moyo's "Trampled No More: Voices from Bulawayo"
Venue:
Pierian Centre, 27 Portland Square, St. Paul's, Bristol BS2 8SA. The
event
is part of Refugee Week at the Pierian Centre
·
Demonstration for democracy, rights and freedom for Zimbabwe.
Monday 23 June
2008, 12.30 - 2 pm organised by the TUC and ACTSA and
supported by the
Vigil. Outside the Zimbabwe Embassy. On 23 June Lovemore
Matombo, President
of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and
Wellington Chibebe,
General Secretary of ZCTU are due in court to face
charges of spreading
falsehoods prejudicial to the state. As part of their
bail conditions they
are not allowed to address political or public
gatherings. For full details
check www.actsa.org.
· Service of
Solidarity with Torture Survivors of Zimbabwe, Thursday
26th June 4 - 5.30
pm on UN International Day in Support of Victims of
Torture organised by the
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum supported by the
Vigil. Venue: St Paul's
Church, Bedford Street, Covent Garden WC2E 9ED. All
welcome to join the
service and post-service procession to lay flowers on
the steps of the
Zimbabwe Embassy.
· Zimbabwe Vigil's Mock Presidential Run-off.
Friday 27th June 10
am - 4 pm outside the Zimbabwe Embassy.
·
Mandela 90th Birthday Concert. Friday 27th June, 4 pm in Hyde Park.
Vigil
supporters to attend the event with banners reading "Speak out
Mandela" and
"What about Zimbabwe?"
· Next Bristol Vigil. Saturday, June 28th in
Gloucester Road,
opposite Amnesty Bookshop
· Shona / Ndebele Mass
in Southwark. Sunday. 13 July At 6.30pm,
Southwark Cathedral will be
holding a special Eucharist for the Zimbabwean
community in the Shona and
Ndebele languages with a Zimbabwean choir.
· Zimbabwe Association's
Women's Weekly Drop-in Centre. Fridays 10.30
am - 4 pm. Venue: The Fire
Station Community and ICT Centre, 84 Mayton
Street, London N7 6QT, Tel: 020
7607 9764. Nearest underground: Finsbury
Park. For more information contact
the Zimbabwe Association 020 7549 0355
(open Tuesdays and
Thursdays).
Vigil co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe
Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00
to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in
Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.
The Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:10pm BST 14/06/2008Page 1 of
3
Andrew Alderson and Russell Hotten untangle the complicated
deals of Phil
Edmonds' Aim-listed mining company with Zimbabwe
As one
of England's best ever spin bowlers, Phil Edmonds cut an intimidating
figure
on the pitch. Six feet three inches tall and barrel-chested, he
captured the
wicket of many a talented international batsman who was unable
to cope with
his combination of skill and steely aggression.
In the boardroom and on
the African sub-continent, the two places where
Edmonds now conducts most of
his business, he is said to have a similar
presence, capable of charming and
terrifying business rivals at the same
time.
Now, however, Edmonds'
brash approach to striking deals has led to him and
his company, the Central
African Mining and Exploration Company (Camec),
becoming embroiled in a row
over the shipment of arms to President Robert
Mugabe's dictatotrial regime
in Zimbabwe.
Edmonds is facing criticism over the decision by his company
to strike a
lucrative business deal with a state-run company in Zimbabwe and
for his
willingness to cosy up to Mugabe's government.
In particular,
critics of Edmunds, 57, who is chairman of Camec, question
whether part of
the $120m (£60m) payment that Camec made earlier this year
for platinum
rights in Zimbabwe - and a further $100m loan - have been used
to pay for a
massive arms cache from China: semi-automatic rifles, guns and
bullets that
may soon be used against Zimbabwe's impoverished population if
the situation
turns ugly in the run-up to the new presidential elections on
June
27.
It is not just outside observers of Camec who are alarmed; one
senior
shareholder in the Aim-listed company says the management team,
including
its chief executive, Andrew Groves, has been challenged over
persistent
rumours that Camec has been embroiled in an arms deal - claims
senior
executives vehemently deny.
There is no suggestion that
Edmonds or his associates directly channelled
any company funds to buy arms
for Zimbabwe, but critics say that if you are
dealing with a morally and
financially bankrupt regime, a foreign company
has no control over what the
payments will be used for once they have been
handed over.
A
spokesman from Camec said of the $100m loan to the Zimbabwe Mineral
Development Corporation: "Drawdown of this loan was affected by payments to
a series of mainly international creditors for a variety of commodities
primarily for seeds, grain, fertilizer and fuel. None of the drawdown
payments, so far as Camec knows, had anything to do with the acquisition of
arms.
Zimbabwe is in political and economic turmoil. It is a nation
where Mugabe's
political opponents face the daily threat of murder, torture
and
intimidation and, where it was revealed last week, 4m people - nearly a
third of the population - urgently need aid.
With the Zimbabwe dollar
worthless abroad, Mugabe's government is only able
to pay for arms by
striking deals with companies like Camec for the
exploitation of its mineral
rights.
In April, the Chinese cargo ship An Yue Jiang, believed to be
carrying 77
tonnes of small arms, including assault rifles, mortars and
rocket-propelled
grenades, was docked outside Durban with arms bound for
Zimbabwe.
Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship showed that
the weapons
were sent from Beijing to the Ministry of Defence in Harare.
Headed
"Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the
document was issued on April 1, three days after the first Zimbabwe's
election which ended in a stalemate. It listed the consignment as including
3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500
40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93
cases of mortar tubes. The carrier is listed as the Cosco shipping company
in China.
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, led the call
from politicians
in Britain for China to suspend arms sales to Zimbabwe,
saying the
international community must speak with one voice. "The Mugabe
regime
continues to deny the right of the people of Zimbabwe to choose their
leaders. To supply arms to it at time when opposition activists are being
intimidated and attacked, not only sends the wrong signal, but will harm the
reputation of China," Hague said.
Dockers in Durban had refused to
unload the ship while a court in the city
ruled that the shipment could not
be transported across the country to
land-locked Zimbabwe; laws in South
Africa prohibit the supply of arms to
"governments that systematically
violate, or oppress. human rights and
fundamental
freedoms".
Intelligence sources in South Africa and business sources have
told The
Sunday Telegraph that the arms were, however, eventually secretly
unloaded
at two African ports: Luanda, the Angolan capital and Brazzaville,
the
capital of the Republic of the Congo. A commercial carrier is then
believed
to have flown the two arms shipments to Harare, though other
unconfirmed
reports say the ship left South Africa bound for China with its
cargo
intact.
Independent, UK
By David Connett
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Standard
Chartered bank is under fire for allegedly breaching EU sanctions
on
Zimbabwe. The Foreign Office admitted it is investigating one case of a
possible breach of the sanctions.
Internal Foreign Office emails seen
by The Independent on Sunday reveal that
officials were concerned about the
bank's activities. "I'd say Standard
Chartered is my prime concern," says
one email. "I've not asked them whether
they've made any of these loan
payments, but there's a good chance that they
may have been forced to do so
by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe."
Officials say that if a
sanctions-busting case is proven "we will take
appropriate action. We are
determined to see that EU sanctions are properly
enforced."
The
Liberal Democrat chief whip, Norman Lamb, has tabled parliamentary
questions
asking if allegations of sanctions busting by Standard Chartered
were being
investigated. Mr Lamb has asked the Foreign Office how many
investigations
are taking place and for documents relating to the bank's
involvement. He
has also asked if the EU has complained about British banks
in
Zimbabwe.
Standard Chartered is one of three British-based groups to have
provided an
estimated $1bn (£500m) in direct and indirect funding to Robert
Mugabe's
administration. The influential newsletter Africa Confidential says
that
Standard, together with Barclays and the insurance firm Old Mutual,
continue
to provide an economic lifeline to the regime.
Barclays was
accused last November of providing loans to senior members of
Mr Mugabe's
government running farms grabbed by mobs organised by his
Zanu-PF party.
Many of the farms, previously white-owned, were distributed
to leading
figures in the regime rather than to landless black
Zimbabweans.
According to the Foreign Office emails, Barclays insists it
has not breached
sanctions. It told officials these didn't apply because the
loans were made
by Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe which, while majority-owned by
the London-based
group, was incorporated in Zimbabwe.
The 24 branches
of Standard Chartered Bank in Zimbabwe are not believed to
be incorporated
locally but are subsidiaries of the London-based bank, which
insists it
complies with all sanction regulations.
The Times, SA
Mondli Makhanya Published:Jun 15,
2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My
first encounter with Tafadzwa was accidental. It was the final days of
the
2000 parliamentary election and Robert Mugabe was addressing a rally at
Harare's famous Rufaro Stadium.
Since Mugabe was
speaking mainly in Shona, I sought an interpreter.
Tafadzwa was one of
the Zanu-PF Youth Brigade marshals patrolling the
stadium and I asked him
for help. At first he was reluctant, fearful of
being seen talking to a
journalist. It was only when I offered to "hire" him
for the duration of the
rally that he relented.
At the end of the rally we chatted a bit and he
seemed quite excited about
the fact that I was from Johannesburg. He took my
contact details and said
he would call me at my hotel.
The next day,
a Sunday, he rocked up unannounced. We had a meal, sipped
liquids and talked
at great length about the state of Zimbabwe. And about
Johannesburg.
His was a sad story. Tafadzwa came from a staunch
Zanu-PF family and his
father was a rising star in the party.
In
order to enhance his standing, he insisted that his whole family be
active.
So Tafadzwa had to join Zanu-PF militias' attacks on the
Movement for
Democratic Change.
A thoughtful 20-year old, he hated
these tasks. They had even made him lose
faith in the party his father
loved. But he also feared daddy.
He broke down and cried during that
session, as he related how he longed for
an escape. This was clearly the
first time he had opened up about his pain.
Was there a way I could get
him to Johannesburg so he could find a job, he
wanted to know.
I
asked him about his dreams and he was not interested in education. He just
wanted to get to Johannesburg and get a job and I had to help.
Since
I'm not really familiar with the human trafficking side of life, I
could not
help Tafadzwa. We saw each other a few more times, with him
impressing upon
me the need to free him and me trying to get stories out of
him.
I
eventually left for Johannesburg and we lost contact.
During this same
period I came across many activists who were dealing with
the trauma of the
victims of political violence. Tafadzwa's victims. People
were being
tortured, houses burnt and women of all ages kidnapped for
night-long gang
rapes.
These acts were - as they are still today- carried out by Zanu-PF
Youth
militias, war veterans and security forces.
When I observed the
practices of Zanu-PF, I could not help but be reminded
of Inkatha in the
1980s.
The culture, the modus operandi, the warlords, the manipulation of
traditional structures and the rural population, the abuse of state
apparatus and the singular worship of the leader - Inkatha and Zanu-PF were
chalk and chalk.
On the other side was a party more in tune with the
ANC and the mass
democratic movement's tradition and outlook. In the ranks
of the MDC were
unionists, lefties, human rights activists, clergy,
progressive academics,
and youth and gender activists. Also thrown in were
some farmers and
conservatives who were just angry with Mugabe.
But
the driving force behind this movement was the progressive people who
wanted
a good country.
But in our foreign policy wisdom the ANC and the
government it ran chose to
alienate this nascent force, labelling them
puppets of Western imperialism
and stating, condescendingly, that the MDC
was controlled by whites and the
black leadership was just a
show.
Today we see lots of hand-wringing and hear cries of "what could we
have
done" and "were we supposed to invade" and "the Zimbabwean people must
resolve their problems".
The problem is not so much about what we did
not do, but what we did do.
From the word go we took sides in the Zimbabwean
conflict. We actively
supported Zanu-PF and protected it from domestic and
international pressure.
In the discourse of the pre-Polokwane ANC
leadership, Zanu-PF were comrades
and the MDC were pariahs.
Since
2000 we, the democratic republic of South Africa, have legitimised at
least
four stolen polls - elections which independent African observers
condemned
as fraudulent.
We are swimming against the tide of African leadership
opinion, which has
deemed Mugabe a dangerous lunatic.
As a country we
rubbished a parliamentary party, which, under atrocious
conditions,
consistently managed to win at least half of the counted votes.
Through
our government and the ruling party, we refused to acknowledge - let
alone
speak out against - the abortion of democracy, murder and other human
rights
abuses.
Over the years we told African and world leaders to keep their
filthy hands
off our angelic Zanu-PF, because we would talk sweetly to
them.
Eight years later we are still talking sweetly to Zanu-PF, while
they talk
of war. And do war.
I have been thinking a lot about
Tafadzwa lately, wondering whether he might
be one of those goons carrying
out Mugabe's war orders.
I have also been shaking my head a lot, thinking
about lost opportunity -
about how the people in Pretoria just did not seize
that moment in 2000.
How they just chose to cosy up to a party that was
as rotten and addicted to
violence as the Bantustan party they so despised
back home.
Simon
Mann's lawyer is barred from court amid legal chaos and secrecy
Peter
Beaumont Foreign Affairs Editor
The Observer,
Sunday June 15 2008
Simon
Mann, the Old Etonian mercenary accused of plotting a coup against the
president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, will appear in the
dock on Tuesday amid growing evidence that the government in the capital,
Malabo, is planning a show trial designed to embarrass its
enemies.
After claims by Amnesty International that a group of Mann's
alleged
co-conspirators - including the leader of the alleged advance party,
Nick du
Toit - was denied a fair trial in 2004, Equatorial Guinea's
government is
again deploying the tactics it has used to ensure the outcome
of three
previous trials since 1998.
Amnesty says it has been told
that Mann's local lawyer, Ponciano Mbomio
Nvo - who had said he planned to
introduce a plea of not guilty despite
Mann's confession - has been
suspended from practising law for 'defaming'
the president, a ploy the
authorities in Malabo have used a number of times
before to interfere with
the defence in political trials.
The case against Mann and his fellow
defendants, claims Amnesty, was
completed only last Thursday. The next day
the country's attorney general
announced the date of the three-day trial,
giving the defence almost no time
to look at it. Under Equatorial Guinea's
trial law - a system modelled on
Spain's system of investigating magistrates
- both the prosecution and
defence are supposed to have several weeks to
'qualify' or challenge the
case.
Amnesty is also concerned that
Mann's trial will follow the pattern set in
previous major cases, where no
material evidence is presented and the judge
instead relies on confessions
extracted under torture or duress. The
location of the three-day trial is
being kept a closely guarded secret until
the opening day, with high
security at the country's ports.
Mann, a former officer in the SAS, was
arrested in 2004 with 70 other men
when his plane landed in Zimbabwe to
collect a shipment of arms purchased
from the country's state arms
manufacturer. Another group, which included du
Toit, was arrested in
Equatorial Guinea itself. Together they were accused
of hatching a plot to
overthrow the country's president, who seized power in
a coup in
1979.
The heir to a brewing fortune and the son and grandson of England
cricket
captains, Mann - who co-founded the controversial mercenary company
Sandline
with Tim Spicer - was extradited to Equatorial Guinea earlier this
year
after serving almost four years of a sentence in Zimbabwe for buying
arms
illegally.
Although Mann 'confessed' in a television interview
that he was the
'manager' of the plot, he denied he was the 'main man'. He
did, however,
implicate Mark Thatcher, son of the former prime minister
Margaret Thatcher,
as part of the conspiracy. Mann's family has said the
interview was given
'under duress' from the authorities in Malabo, as part
of a plea bargain to
mitigate a sentence which potentially could have
carried the death penalty.
AFP
1 hour ago
MALABO
(AFP) - A minister from Equatorial Guinea has been accused of
involvement in
the 2004 coup attempt there for which mercenary Simon Mann
faces trial, a
judicial source told AFP Saturday.
Fortunato Ofa Mbo, the Secretary
General to the Government Presidency, was
accused of having kept secret the
information he had on a businessman's bid
to destabilise the country, said
the source who wished to remain anonymous.
Ofa Mbo, who at the time was
the fisheries minister, had allegedly helped
the work of Ely Calil, a
Nigerian-born Lebanese businessman, said the
source.
Ofa Mbo has not
been arrested, said the same source.
The trial of British mercenary Simon
Mann is due to start on Tuesday and is
expected to last two
days.
Mann, who was educated at England's elite private school Eton and
served in
Britain's Special Air Services (SAS), was secretly extradited from
Zimbabwe
in January.
He had been arrested there in 2004 with 61
alleged accomplices when their
plane touched down in Harare on route to
Equatorial Guinea.
The authorities there accused them of trying to pick
up arms before teaming
up with a team led by a South African, Nick du Toit.
Du Toit has since been
jailed for 34 years in Equatorial Guinea.
In
an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News from his prison cell in
Malabo,
Mann acknowledged having been involved in the coup plot but said
that he had
not been the mastermind.
He accused Spain, South Africa and named Ely
Calil as having been involved.
Equatorial Guinea has also issued an
international arrest warrant for former
British premier Margaret Thatcher's
son Mark, accusing him of having been
one of those behind the
plot.
Equatorial Guinea's hardline President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has
ruled the
country since he overthrew his own uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema,
in 1979.
In last month's parliamentary election, the president's ruling
party and his
allies obtained 99 of 100 seats in elections, according to the
official
results.