Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
AFTER the collapse of his 2010 election proposal which
would have
extended his term by two years, President Robert Mugabe will next
week fight
in his party's make or break politburo and central committee
meetings to
secure endorsement of his candidacy next year.
Mugabe failed to get support for his controversial candidacy at last
week's
Zanu PF Youth League National Assembly meeting in Harare.
The
youths did not formally endorse him as the presidential candidate
despite
his public pleas that he wants to run for re-election. Mugabe has
been very
tentative in his campaign for support, now always qualified by "if
the party
says so", showing his anxiety over internal dissent.
Sources said
the Zanu PF youth leadership did not come up with a clear
resolution on the
matter due to divisions in the party. While Mugabe is
supposed to be the
automatic candidate in terms of the party practice
because he is the elected
leader until the 2009 congress, growing opposition
to him in Zanu PF has
made his candidature disputable.
Mugabe's loyalists are putting a
brave face although there is mounting
opposition to his continued leadership
inside the party.
Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said Mugabe
was the "automatic
candidate", which is correct in practice but unpopular,
while party youth
leader Absolom Sikhosana pledged support for Mugabe "even
if you call an
election today". Mugabe needs nomination because the party
constitution,
except practice, does not make him the automatic
candidate.
But senior Zanu PF officials, especially those aligned
to heavyweight
retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru, are opposed to
Mugabe running
for another term.
Mugabe has said he wants to
run for another term in joint presidential
and parliamentary elections on or
before March next year.
Zanu PF MPs are also not happy that their
tenures would have to be cut
by two years to help Mugabe stay in power for
another five or six years.
Mugabe wants to amend the Zimbabwe constitution
to reduce the term of the
president from six to five years.
Sources said Mugabe would next week push hard in the politburo and the
central committee for endorsement of his candidacy to extend his term. While
he is likely to bulldoze his way in politburo and central committee meetings
stuffed with pliant members, senior party officials warn Mugabe is risking
defeat and embarrassment after the election. They said Vice-President Joseph
Msika had warned of this.
"The issue of Mugabe's candidacy will
be the major agenda item in next
week's meetings, but the fact of the matter
is that there is now resistance
to his proposals," a Zanu PF source
said.
But sources said Mugabe was determined to go for combined
elections as
part of his new survival strategy after his 2010 plan was
blocked by Mujuru
and his allies. Mugabe has said Mujuru's wife, Joice, has
damaged her
chances to succeed him following the flop of the 2010 plan. This
will make
Mugabe's campaign for support within the Women's League difficult,
hazarding
another failure similar to the 2010 fiasco.
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe is now increasingly getting cornered by his
peers in the region who
are pushing for a speedy resolution of the Zimbabwe
crisis ahead of a Sadc
summit in Zambia in August.
The renewed pressure from Southern
African Development Community
leaders has left Mugabe further isolated. He
is already isolated in his
party, country and internationally.
The United States and the European Union, especially Britain, are
tightening
the screws on him. Mugabe's isolation has compounded Zimbabwe's
image of a
pariah state.
The US and EU are now pushing for the Zimbabwe issue
to be tabled
before the United Nations Security Council, but South Africa is
resisting.
Diplomatic sources said this week key Sadc leaders have
a masterplan
to force Mugabe to quit in view of the upsurge in political
violence and the
economic emergency now affecting the region.
The Sadc troika of Tanzania, Namibia and Lesotho meets in Dar es
Salaam
tomorrow in a bid to find a solution to Zimbabwe's problem.
After
that Sadc foreign ministers will meet to deal with the same
issue. This
process will build up to the Sadc heads of state summit in
Lusaka, Zambia,
in August. The Lusaka summit is being dubbed a watershed
meeting because
leaders want to decisively tackle the Zimbabwean crisis.
Zambian
President Levy Mwanawasa this week said Zimbabwe was a like a
"sinking
Titanic" and that rescue measures were needed to save it.
Sources
said the Zambian leader, who was visiting Namibia when he
fired the
broadside at Mugabe, wanted to convince his counterpart
Hifikipunye Pohamba
to work with other regional leaders to deal with the
issue. Zambian Foreign
minister Mundia Sikatana has suggested Zimbabwe is
now a Sadc
hotspot.
Mugabe this week dispatched Security minister Didymus
Mutasa to Lusaka
to engage Zambians in a bid to stave off growing pressure,
but sources said
he was told to back off. Diplomats said the Zimbabwe issue
was informally a
talking point yesterday during the Sadc Council of
Ministers meeting in
Maseru, Lesotho, where there was a discussion over the
2007/2008 Sadc budget
and other issues relating to regional economic
integration.
They said it was also talked about at a Standing
Committee meeting of
senior Sadc officials who gathered on Monday in Maseru
to prepare for the
Council of Ministers conference.
Diplomatic
sources said South Africa - which this week said it was
"extremely
concerned" about the Zimbabwe crisis - was working
behind-the-scenes to
rally Sadc leaders to speak with one voice.
It is said Pretoria
wants to engage Angola and Namibia, which signed a
mutual defence pact with
Zimbabwe during the DRC war for joint security, to
connect with other Sadc
countries in confronting the Zimbabwe problem.
Namibia openly supports
Mugabe while Angola is indifferent. Kinshasa is now
closer to Pretoria than
Harare.
Zimbabwe's critical four neighbours - South Africa,
Botswana, Zambia
and Mozambique - no longer support Harare's position,
sources say. Their
policy is said to be in accord with that of Tanzania,
Lesotho and Mauritius.
The other countries are either neutral or
uninterested.
The sources said the Sadc drive was to make Mugabe
realise that he has
to quit both in his own interest and that of the country
to avoid a
full-scale conflict exploding in Zimbabwe.
Tanzanian
President Jakaya Kikwete met Mugabe last week to tell him
that he had met
with European Union leaders who have stated that they view
the Zimbabwe
situation as a dangerous trouble-spot. The sources said Kikwete
informed
Mugabe the international community was mobilised against him, hence
the need
to quit.
Kikwete also noted, the sources said, that Sadc leaders
had lost
patience with Mugabe and were gravely worried about
Zimbabwe.
Last month Kikwete sent his country's director of
Intelligence
Services, Rashid Othman, to talk with Zimbabwe's senior
government officials
and Central Intelligence Organisation chiefs on how to
resolve the country's
crisis. The sources said Othman told Kikwete after his
regional tour that
Sadc leaders had now abandoned Mugabe, hence the need to
move urgently to
deal with the problem.
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
GOVERNMENT is removing civilians from the Department of
Immigration at
border posts and airports and replacing them with security
and intelligence
officers in a bid to beef up security.
The
move exposes the growing insecurity of a government faced with
social
discontent and political unrest.
Government this week started
staffing the Immigration Department with
security officers after appointing
three senior assistant commissioners from
the police to run the operations
of the department. The move means chief
immigration officer, Ellasto
Mugwadi, could be reassigned in government to
make way for the three senior
police officers.
The Registrar-General's office, the Immigration
Department and the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) are all linked to the
security structures
of the country. The registrar-general sits in the Joint
Operation Command
(JOC) which is the main joint security board in the
country.
The Immigration and Zimra also participate in JOC by
invitation.
The three officers, who were introduced to the workers
yesterday, will
take full-time employment at the department but will not
leave their post in
the police force.
Sources said the three
were drafted into the department as part of the
new security measures that
government has introduced to monitor the borders
and airports. One of the
officers will take over the newly created post of
principal chief
immigration officer while the other two become assistant
principal chief
immigration officers.
The sources last night said there were plans
to reassign Mugwadi to
the president's office. They said the move was part
of a wider plan to fill
all strategic security area jobs with either the
CIO, police or the army.
They said more security agents would be employed by
the department to man
the country's ports of entry.
Zim Independent
Augustine
Mukaro
THE opposition MDC has vowed to step up its defiance
campaign against
a government ban on political activities despite last
week's arrests and
torture by the police of its leaders and civic society
players.
In separate interviews with the Zimbabwe Independent
yesterday, Arthur
Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai faction spokesman Nelson
Chamisa, said they
were prepared to pay the ultimate price and that no
amount of beating would
deter them.
"We have been made hungrier
for freedom by the beatings and the
continued arrests," Mutambara said. "The
price of freedom is death and the
people of Zimbabwe should not expect to be
free without offering their
lives. We are here to provide the leadership to
that freedom."
Mutambara, who was arrested together with 50 other
opposition
activists a fortnight ago, was re-arrested on Saturday at Harare
International Airport. In both instances he was released without
charge.
Chamisa was attacked by unknown assailants at Harare
International
Airport on Sunday and is still in hospital. He vowed from his
hospital bed
to continue with the struggle, declaring that he was prepared
to pay with
his life.
Chamisa was attacked as he was planning
to catch a flight to Brussels
to attend the EU-ACP regular round of
meetings. He is one of three MPs who
represent Zimbabwe at the EU-ACP
forums. He was accompanied by Highfield
legislator Pearson Mungofa at the
time of the attack.
Chamisa said as he entered the departure lounge
at the airport, three
men dressed in black suits blocked his way to the
check in point while
another group of three approached him from
behind.
"Before I could figure out what was happening, one of the
three people
in front of me pulled out a black object from his jacket and
hit me on the
forehead," Chamisa said.
"One of them pressed me
to the ground with his shoe. Passers-by and
onlookers started screaming. In
no time people had gathered around and the
assailants ran away. They rushed
into two vehicles that were flashing hazard
lights in the airport concourse
and drove off at high speed."
Chamisa lost his passport, laptop,
suitcase, mobile phone, money and
all his documents.
"What
makes everything suspicious is the failure of the police to
respond to the
melee," Chamisa said. "There were lots of riot police at the
airport but
they behaved as if nothing was happening, showing that the whole
thing was
planned. The state was determined to block me from going to
Brussels."
Zim Independent
By Trevor Ncube
THE escalation of violence in
Zimbabwe over the past week is a sure
sign of a panicking regime desperately
lashing out at its political
opponents. The situation threatens to
deteriorate unless regional and
international diplomatic initiatives are
hastened to find a peaceful
solution to the crisis.
Perhaps to
say this is about a desperate regime is not accurate. The
current situation
is fuelled by President Robert Mugabe whose bid to extend
his term of office
to 2010 has been rejected by his own party. He therefore
believes violence
might secure him extended political tenure.
One thing is clear
though. Mugabe has no intention of stepping down on
his own any time soon
for a number of reasons.
His own explanation is that Zanu PF is
currently divided over the
succession issue and needs him to face the
opposition. This is a crisis of
his own making for he has not put in place a
succession plan or created an
environment in his own party that would allow
for the emergence of a new
leader.
However, the real reason for
his refusal to step down appears to be
his fear of prosecution for human
rights abuses perpetrated against innocent
Zimbabweans since Independence in
1980. These include the Matabeleland
massacres, the violent land invasions
that saw hundreds of white commercial
farmers and black opposition activists
killed, and the Murambatsvina
atrocities which the United Nations report
recommended should be referred to
The Hague. And he continues to add onto
these crimes through the current
round of violent attacks on opposition
activists.
Playing on Mugabe's mind must be the recent Charles
Taylor incident,
the death of Nicolae Ceausescu and the recent events in
Iraq. Thus, the main
reason for staying in office is not because he has a
vision of a better
Zimbabwe under his leadership but that the office offers
him protection from
prosecution for human rights abuses. For the sake of
progress, Zimbabweans
might have to consider guaranteeing him immunity under
certain conditions.
Zimbabweans have already suffered long enough
and there is no price
too high to pay for peace. They will have to choose
between continued
violence and pardoning Mugabe if he leaves office now.
This demands
political maturity and the international community will have to
take a cue
from Zimbabweans.
Should this immunity be extended
to all his close associates? This
could be worth considering in exchange for
full disclosures of all
documented human rights abuses.
It is
important to realise that unless this is done, Mugabe is
prepared to use
violence against all Zimbabweans calling for change towards
a more
democratic dispensation. Zimbabweans must pay the ransom so that they
are
freed from Mugabe's violent clutches.
People need another chance to
live and dream again and only Mugabe and
those whose fortunes are wedded to
his stand in the way. Mugabe has nothing
to lose and is prepared to take
down the country with him but he must not be
allowed this evil
scheme.
With Mugabe gone, we can then contemplate the future and
its
challenges. As part of the transition to a new Zimbabwe, we will have to
draw a line in the sand and ensure that we don't allow another Mugabe to
emerge from our midst. An all-party negotiated constitution along the South
African model which is rights-based would be a necessary building block for
a new Zimbabwe.
It is instructive that so far violence, as a
political tool has worked
perfectly for Mugabe. The current round of
violence is partly intended to
divert attention away from calls within Zanu
PF for him to step down.
Mugabe has orchestrated the violence
against the weak and divided
Movement for Democratic Change as a way of
focusing his divided party on a
perceived outside enemy. Mugabe hopes that
the factions in his party will
buy into this gimmick and rally to his call
to eliminate an ineffectual
opposition and help him purchase a few more
years in office.
The violence is also intended to send a clear
message to those within
his party who are opposed to him that they could
face similar treatment from
his band of hired thugs.
It appears
that for the moment the two factions opposed to Mugabe are
not taken in by
his diversionary tactics. They have woken up to the fact
that he is using
them to achieve his personal goals. They are realising that
there is no
national purpose to be served by Mugabe's selfish political
survival
project.
Indeed, Mugabe's indication last week that he wants to run
in 2008 is
another tactic meant to force his enemies within Zanu PF to fall
into line
and campaign for him under the threat that if he loses so will the
party.
In that regard, calls by British Prime Minister Tony Blair
this week
for more action against Zimbabwe plays into Mugabe's hands and
forces his
protagonists into an uncomfortable corner with him.
It is now common cause that two powerful factions have emerged within
Zanu
PF which want to see him leave office. These factions take the kudos
for
defeating Mugabe's 2010 project. There is also a faction which supports
Mugabe.
The more powerful of these is led by retired general
Solomon Mujuru
whose wife is one of Mugabe's vice-presidents. A year ago
this faction was
on the ascendance but has clearly fallen out of favour as
evidenced by
Mugabe's attack on Mujuru's ambitions during events around his
birthday
celebrations.
The flavour of the moment is the
Emmerson Mnangagwa-led faction which
suffered a major reversal of fortunes
following the Tsholotsho incident in
2004. Now Mugabe is making this faction
believe they are his preferred heirs
as a way of dealing with the Mujuru
camp.
It would be political folly for the Mnangagwa camp to get
false
comfort from Mugabe's political embrace. He will dump them as soon as
they
become a real threat and once he is secure again. Politics in Zimbabwe
is
about Mugabe and nothing else.
And Mugabe has his own
faction fighting for his survival in the top
echelons of the army, the
police and the intelligence services. It must be
noted however that there
exist deep divisions within the middle and lower
ranks of the uniformed
forces which mirror the three factions in the party.
Two things are
instructive as Zimbabweans ponder the way forward.
The first of
these is that the defeat of Mugabe's 2010 project was
delivered by forces
for self-serving change within Zanu PF and had little to
do with pressure
from the opposition or the international community.
Also, the
weakness of the opposition MDC, unfortunate as it is,
removed an outside
threat to Zanu PF, focusing the party on internal
dynamics. The factions
have since realised that Mugabe is the problem.
This points to the
fact that Zanu PF's internal dynamics might be key
in finding a way out of
Zimbabwe's crisis and that the MDC might not be the
place to look for
relief. While this is an unpopular view, it is a pragmatic
one informed by
the current weakness of the MDC and the potential offered by
progressive
forces in the ruling party.
Equally important is the realisation
that Zimbabwe's problems are far
bigger than Zanu PF and the MDC put
together. We need to disabuse ourselves
of the notion that talks between the
MDC and Zanu PF will solve Zimbabwe's
problems.
A durable
solution requires getting a broad section of Zimbabweans
talking to each
other about their problems and structuring the future
together. This is
clearly not a winner-takes-all strategy but a process of
negotiating how
Zimbabwe's future is going to be ordered. For this project
to have wider
purchase, trade unions, the churches, business and all other
civic society
players will have to be involved.
What Zimbabwe needs from the
region and the international community is
an honest broker who commands
respect from all players. Zimbabweans have
become so polarised that it would
be difficult to find anybody internally to
play this role.
First, there needs to be a realisation that we need to talk to each
other,
followed by agreement on the things to talk about. The latter appears
daunting but should really be the easiest because Zimbabwe is sick and needs
fixing urgently.
We need to tear up the Lancaster House
constitution and start afresh
in fashioning a progressive rights-based
founding law.
We would then need to agree on an electoral law and
the rules of
engagement and invite the international community to help in
running a
democratic election whose outcome would form an important bedrock
for the
future.
We would need to put in place a process to
rebuild key national
institutions such as parliament, the army, the police
force and
intelligence.
The people would need to be given
reasons to believe in their power to
elect and unelect
governments.
Our recent past tells us that we have lost our
humanity and respect
for each other and we need to define who we are. Our
national psyche has
been poisoned by Zanu PF discourse and we need to
cleanse it and rebase our
norms and values.
We need to confront
the ghosts of our recent past and decide how we
deal with them in a fair and
just manner so that they don't revisit us in
the future. We are where we are
largely because we failed to deal with
troubling issues around our war of
liberation which have all come back to
haunt us.
Talking of
peace, justice and reconciliation will find few takers
among the hardliners
in the opposition and the ruling party. But we should
refuse to have
extremists on both sides dictate a winner-takes-all and
narrow political
agenda to the nation. Zimbabweans have been brutalised,
dehumanalised and
need political maturity and not grandstanding from their
leaders. Indeed,
Zimbabweans desperately need a visionary leadership.
This
all-inclusive political approach realises that while the MDC has
played a
significant role in confronting Mugabe's dictatorial regime, it is
far from
ready to govern.
On the other hand, while cognisant of the fact
that Zanu PF is largely
responsible for our current predicament, there are
good people in the ruling
party who are prepared to play a role in
fashioning a new Zimbabwe if they
re-organise their leadership and party
structures. They need clear policies
and a programme of action.
Apart from simply wanting to dislodge Mugabe and grab power, none of
the
Zanu PF factions has shown they can be trusted to govern on their own.
Thus
a new Zimbabwe will have to be the outcome of a collective and
consultative
national effort.
My favourite quote from Brutus in Julius Caesar is
very pertinent in
our current circumstances: "There is a tide in the affairs
of men, which
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the
voyage of their
life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full
sea are we now
afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose
our ventures."
Indeed, we face a choice between violent or peaceful
change and we
need to make the right choice for the future of our
country.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
EACH time President Mugabe is confronted with a
crisis that threatens
his position, he has come up with threats that have
taken predictable
patterns.
His political opponents are only
too familiar with how quickly Mugabe
unsheathes the sword from its
scabbard.
There is now a discernible style to his sabre-rattling
since his
disagreements with veteran nationalists from the late Ndabaningi
Sithole,
Joshua Nkomo, to Edgar Tekere and now with both factions of the
Movement for
Democratic Change.
Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC
and Ndabaningi were both accused of
trying to assassinate him.
Save for Tekere, all others have at one time or other been stooges
enough to
want to unseat his regime.
Addressing Zanu PF party youths at the
weekend, Mugabe gave them a
sense of importance which has often turned out
to be ephemeral: "You are the
party's big fist and history concedes that
Zanu PF has a big hard knuckled
fist which it can summon effectively once
challenged," he said.
Lambasting the opposition, he said: "They
think we are weak, think we
have lost the resolve to defend our freedom.
They are wrong and stand for a
great shock if they continue to stretch our
patience. We are Zanu PF and
please check our record."
Rewind
to 1982.
Mugabe accused his comrade-in-arms the late Nkomo of
trying to unseat
his government. Nkomo was in cabinet, but was soon accused
of plotting a
coup together with South African double agents, after the
"discovery" of an
arms cache on the farms owned by his party
PF-Zapu.
In a public statement at a rally in Mashonaland East,
Mugabe said:
"Zapu and its leader, Dr Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a
house. The only
way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and
destroy its head."
He unleashed the notorious Fifth Brigade in
Matabeleland and the
Midlands in an attempt to destroy Zapu and create a
one-party state.
After the Gukurahundi era, Nkomo consented to the
absorption of Zapu
into Zanu PF, leaving Zimbabwe effectively a one-party
state.
When asked late in his life why he allowed this to happen,
Nkomo said
he did it to stop the murder of the Ndebele and Zapu politicians
and
organisers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe's security forces since
1982.
With monotonous predictability, Mugabe has scoffed at friends
and foe
alike seeking to restrain him.
His speech to party
youths last week in response to public outrage
over the state's ban on basic
rights to assemble and to associate, provides
a harbinger of dire things to
come.
"As for stooges, let them get this friendly advise: no monkey
business
here," Mugabe said.
History is replete with such
instances.
When President Mugabe, in early 2002 called on his party
to wage "a
real war" on the opposition MDC, politically-motivated violence
escalated
resulting in number of deaths.
In December the same
year, he told a Zanu PF conference: "We must
continue to strike fear into
the heart of the white man. The white man must
tremble."
Subsequent to this, white farmers and their workers were terrorised,
assaulted and sometimes killed.
Mugabe's speech to the youth
conference sounded like a record stuck in
a groove - a rehearsal of what he
said five years ago in Domboshava.
"We are people of the fist. Zanu
PF will never lose in such a
situation." Mugabe said.
"We will
wage another war if Britain wants to enslave us through its
puppets.", his
loved crude reference to the MDC.
Witness how this dovetails into
his speech to mark International Women's
Day in Harare last
Saturday.
"We have given too much room to mischief makers and
shameless stooges
of the West. Let them and their master know that we shall
brook none of
their lawless behaviour," he said in reference to
pro-democracy activists
who were brutalised in police custody as part of a
fresh crackdown on the
opposition.
This callousness has not
been limited to the opposition only. In 1998,
the late Mark Chavunduka, the
then editor of the weekly Standard newspaper,
and his chief reporter Ray
Choto, were severely tortured for reporting an
alleged coup attempt in the
armed forces.
Mugabe told Voice of America radio: "The army had
been provoked. I
will not condemn my army for having done that. They can do
worse things than
that."
Mugabe has not been found wanting in
using the rhetoric of revolution
to excuse repression.
Like the
dancing of the Carmagnole in Charles Dickens' Barnaby Bridge,
his speech
exhorted the youths to defend a law of the suspect that strikes
away all
security for liberty.
That law delivers over any good or innocent
people into prison who
have not committed any offence and cannot obtain any
hearing.
Veteran nationalist and Zanu founder president, Ndabaningi
Sithole,
passed on with a "traitor and assassin's" tag to his grave, accused
of
funding Chimwenje, a shadowy rebel group that turned out to be a CIO
creation.
Notwithstanding Nkomo's capitulation to save the
people in
Matabeleland, tragic memories of victims of Mugabe's belligerence
linger in
the minds of thousands today.
Mugabe's speech to this
party youths potends ill ahead of elections
next year.
Zim Independent
Loughty
Dube
THE European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP)
lawmakers on Wednesday resolved to send a delegation to assess the
human
rights situation in Zimbabwe as international pressure against
increasing
brutality in the country rises.
The EU-ACP decision
on Zimbabwe was passed at the same time that the
country was being discussed
at length at an informal meeting of Foreign
Affairs ministers of five Nordic
and 10 African countries in Norway
beginning on Tuesday.
The
EU-ACP assembly passed the resolution to send a team to assess the
situation
on the ground after condemning the attack on MDC spokesperson
Nelson Chamisa
at Harare International Airport on Sunday.
Chamisa was on his way
to attend the EU-ACP meeting which began in
Brussels on Tuesday this
week.
Reports from Brussels say the EU lawmakers urged the Zimbabwe
government to cooperate with the political opposition to restore the rule of
law.
The EU lawmakers and representatives from 78 ACP countries
also called
on the government to investigate the attacks on opposition
leaders,
allegedly perpetrated by the police and security
forces.
Efforts to get a comment from Information minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu
on whether Zimbabwe would allow the team into the country
were fruitless as
he continuously said he was in meetings.
Opposition leaders who include Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and
constitutional reform activist Lovemore Madhuku were seriously injured after
they were arrested and assaulted by police last week.
The
EU-ACP assembly also demanded that the perpetrators of the attack
on Chamisa
be brought to justice speedily.
"Mugabe's government must
re-establish, in cooperation with the
opposition, the respect of human
rights and the rule of law in Zimbabwe,"
the EU-ACP assembly said in a
statement.
In Norway, the Foreign Affairs ministers of Nordic and
African
countries that include South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, Tanzania,
Ghana,
Senegal, Botswana, Mali, Benin and Lesotho also raised concern at the
deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
Norwegian Foreign minister
Jonas Gahr Store was quoted saying of
tensions in Zimbabwe: "We will raise
this matter and clearly state where we
stand but in such a manner as not to
harm its purpose."
Pressure is mounting on President Mugabe to
respect human rights and
stop the harassment of opposition leaders and their
supporters.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
A PARLIAMENTARY portfolio committee was this week
stunned by
government disclosures that it was paying a paltry $8 000 in
monthly
allowances to the country's poor.
The money is hardly
enough to buy two loaves of bread or for a bus
fare return trip into the
city centre to collect the payouts.
"We are concerned with that
amount. Why is it very little?" asked
Mabel Mawere, chairperson of the
committee, after presentations by Sydney
Mhishi, acting permanent secretary
for the Ministry of Social Welfare.
But Mhishi was surprised by the
legislators' concern.
"This is not a salary," Mhishi retorted. "It
is not income that one
can sit down and look forward to every month-end; it
is just assistance
given to keep one's soul."
Mhishi said
social welfare beneficiaries had to live with the payouts
which could only
be revised at the end of this year.
Prices have been escalating
daily and inflation is close to 1 800%.
Social welfare assistance
is usually given to destitute elderly,
disabled and sick people after social
welfare officials satisfy themselves
that these are no longer capable of
working to earn a living. Mhishi said
once figures are worked out in the
national budget, his ministry could not
revise them.
"We have
to wait for another budget at the end of the year," he said.
Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis in history, characterised
by
runaway inflation and basic commodity shortages.
Humanitarian aid
agencies have estimated that at least 4,1 million
people face starvation in
Zimbabwe due to a combination of poor harvests and
mismanagement of the
economy and these would depend on donor handouts for
survival.
Government has already declared this cropping season a disaster
following
poor harvests due to low rainfall during the wet season.
Agriculture minister Rugare Gumbo this week painted a depressing
picture of
the agricultural sector, saying traditionally productive areas
had suffered
extensive crop failures.
He said government was working on drought
mitigating strategies to
avert hunger.
Mhishi said he was
mindful of the plight of the country's poor.
"We don't know what
will happen this year with the $8 000, given that
a 50kg bag of maize at the
Grain Marketing Board costs $2 000. With the high
costs of transport, the
income will not be enough. But cabinet has approved
the $8 000 that we had
applied for in 2006," said Mhishi.
A 10kg bag of maize meal costs
around $8 000.
"We got into trouble with the World Bank, who funded
most of the
reforms and technically, from 2000 we were winding up the Social
Dimensions
Fund (SDF) because there was no money.
"The SDF
board last met in 2001. They had no reason to meet because
there is no
activity and no funds to account for," said Mhishi.
The SDF was a
donor-funded facility to assist the country's vulnerable
groups and was
largely bankrolled by the World Bank. The Basic Education
Assistance Module
(Beam), which was established to assist children from poor
families with
school fees, was the largest loser with the number
beneficiaries plunging
from 900 000 in 2005 to 351 000 in 2006.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWEAN diplomats abroad have gone unpaid for over
four months and
could find themselves working from the streets as their
landlords are said
to be threatening to evict them for failure to pay
rent.
Most of the 40 missions abroad face eviction for non-payment
of
rentals for chanceries and staff accommodation because Zimbabwe does not
have the foreign currency required to pay for expenses.
Sources
said the government would not be replacing staff members whose
contracts
have expired as it does not have the capacity to pay them.
Some
diplomats and their spouses have been forced to "moonlight" to
survive, the
sources added. Zimbabwe's mission staff in New York have not
been paid for
four months. Diplomats are said to be contemplating moving to
smaller houses
where rentals are cheaper.
Rentals are said to have risen sharply
in East Africa. Zimbabwe's
embassies are said to be selling sculptures and
artifacts to raise money for
rentals and daily expenses.
Officials at Air Zimbabwe confirmed that sculptures and artifacts were
flown
out of the country occasionally but could not single out the exact
destination saying "most of them would be heading for Europe".
While this is going on diplomats sent in as military attaches have
been
receiving their salaries regularly. The military attaches are said to
have
turned themselves into liaison officers mainly from the Central
Intelligence
Organisation and are said to also routinely claim huge amounts
in
allowances.
Efforts to get comment for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs were
fruitless. Foreign Affairs secretary Joey Bimha recently told a
special
parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs, Industry and
International Trade
that diplomats were not being paid due to foreign
currency shortages.
"The rental arrears at chanceries have gone for
up to three months
while staff have endured up to two months without
salaries," Bimha was quote
saying.
Zim Independent
POLICE this week
stepped up the harassment of opposition activists
after they arrested close
to a dozen activists from Bulawayo Agenda and the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) in Masvingo, Lupane and Karoi.
This came as the
Zimbabwe Council of Churches issued a statement
yesterday condemning "police
brutality" and called for the lifting of the
ban on political
gatherings.
"ZCC notes with concern statements being made by the
police that they
will resort to maximum force - when tenets of the law say
minimum force -
whenever the ban is defied," the ZCC said in a
statement.
"We strongly condemn the brutal treatment of opposition
leaders and
their supporters whilst in the hands of the police leading to
their
injuries," the ZCC said.
The ZCC also called on
government and the police to consider lifting
the ban on political
gatherings as "this will continue to provoke acts of
violence".
"We therefore recommend that police should restrict themselves to
their
duties of arresting and investigating all criminal activities and not
to use
torture and ill-treatment as a means of interrogation," it said.
On
Monday two Bulawayo Agenda officials were arrested in Lupane after
they were
accused of holding an illegal meeting. The police also arrested
seven ZCTU
members in Masvingo the following day.
They accused the ZCTU
activists of distributing what they termed
subversive materials announcing
next month's planned nationwide two-day work
boycott.
Those
arrested in Masvingo include Gilbert Marembo, of The Worker, a
newsletter
published by the ZCTU, and two others who were distributing
fliers with
information on the job stay-away.
Four ZCTU workers were also
arrested in Bulawayo while distributing
similar fliers.
The
ZCTU said it was mobilising workers for a two-day work boycott to
protest
the country's deteriorating economic crisis and worsening conditions
for
workers.
On Tuesday, Jacob Magombedze, the ZCTU chairman for Kariba
district,
was summoned by members of the CIO for interrogation regarding the
stay-away. He was accused of distributing fliers allegedly containing
subversive information. Other ZCTU activists were arrested in Karoi for
distributing fliers urging workers to take heed of the ZCTU
stayaway.
Bulawayo Agenda director, Xolani Zitha, confirmed to the
Zimbabwe
Independent the arrest of two workers and said the organisation was
appalled
by the manner in which they were treated by the
police.
"The two employees were arrested and thrown into the back
of a truck
that was carrying a corpse and they spent the whole day with the
corpse as
police went about their business. We feel that this was not
proper," said
Zitha.
In Harare on Monday two members of Women
of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) were
taken from their homes at gunpoint by
allegedly CIO operatives in Warren
Park.They were blindfolded and taken to
an unknown destination in the bush
where they were questioned about Woza and
assaulted with weapons and fists
and then dumped.
They later
got a lift back to Harare where they raised the alarm. The
women are
currently receiving medical attention for their injuries.
Meanwhile, several MDC supporters were yesterday arrested and
assaulted in
Chitungwiza for distributing fliers mobilising residents to
attend a
defiance rally to be addressed by Arthur Mutambara and other MDC
officials
at Huruyadzo shopping centre in St Mary's on Sunday.
Police raided
the home of Job Sikhala, MP for St Mary's. They
proceeded to raid more homes
in Zengeza and St Mary's, indiscriminately
beating up anybody suspected of
having distributed the fliers. Those
assaulted include Patience
Chisvo-Mhiripiri, an expectant mother. The
arrested activists are detained
at Makoni police station. - Staff Writers.
Zim Independent
THE
opposition MDC this week said a second activist, Itai Manyeruke,
was two
weeks ago shot dead by the police in Canaan, Highfield and his body
dumped
at the Harare hospital mortuary.
His relatives discovered the body
after a week when they conducted a
search at mortuaries in Harare. Police
have so far confirmed shooting to
death Gift Tandare.
Manyeruke
was buried on Monday in Buhera South, his rural home, at a
funeral attended
by MDC national youth leaders and officials.
MDC MP for Kambuzuma,
Willas Madzimure, confirmed that Manyeruke's
relatives found the body at a
city mortuary after searching for him for a
week following an outbreak of
violence in Highfield after policy banned an
MDC rally.
"The
police after shooting Manyeruke did not inform his relatives of
the death,"
said Madzimure. "They just dumped the body at a city mortuary
and the
relatives discovered it after a week," Madzimure said yesterday.
Police spokesperson, Wayne Bvudzijena, said he had no information on
Manyeruke's death and said police only had records of Tandare's shooting and
of another victim who was shot in the arm in Highfield.
"The
information that I have involving shootings is that of Tandare
and of
another opposition supporter who was shot in the arm in Highfield,"
Bvudzijena said.
It has now emerged that there are several
unreported victims of police
beatings who are still detained in hospitals
around the city receiving
medical attention.
This week the
Zimbabwe Independent discovered that an MDC youth,
Dickson Chagonda who was
shot in Highfiled, is still detained at the Avenues
Clinic with leg
injuries.
Chagonda was allegedly shot twice on the leg by a major
in the
Zimbabwe National Army.
Bvudzijena confirmed the
shooting incident but said he did not have
details.
"I know
there was shooting in Highfield but I don't have names at the
moment," he
said. "I will check for details," said Bvudzijena.
The incident
occurred at Machipisa shopping centre where 50 members of
the opposition MDC
were arrested when police called off a prayer meeting
organised by the Save
Zimbabwe Campaign.
MDC Tsvangirai faction secretary-general, Tendai
Biti, confirmed that
Chagonda was admitted at the Avenues Clinic with gun
wounds and that the
party had records of seven other people who were being
treated for wounds
sustained during police and army shootings.
It also emerged that a report of the shooting was made at Waterfalls
police
station.
ZNA spokesman, Colonel Simon Tsatsi, however professed
ignorance of
the involvement of the army in the Highfield attacks but said
he would
check.
"As it is, I am not aware of that but I will
look into the issue. You
can also phone the police to verify that," Tsatsi
said.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
coordinator,
Primrose Matambanadzo, this week said MDC leaders and activists
sustained
serious injuries after their assaults by the police.
"Last Sunday alone 64 people were attended to by doctors in Harare
alone,"
Matambanadzo said. "20 were hospitalised with the rest being treated
and
discharged. We are in the process of compiling the figures throughout
the
country and they should be ready soon," she said. - Staff Writers.
Zim Independent
THE United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Zimbabwe's row over
vehicles with
Bubye Minerals Pvt Ltd has deepened with the agency saying it
has no cars
registered under its name being used by River Ranch Mine Ltd.
However, Bubye Minerals lawyer Terrence Hussein insisted yesterday
that
records at the Central Vehicle Registry - which he has inspected
again -
show that the cars in question were registered under UNDP, although
they
were now allegedly being used by River Ranch. The vehicles in dispute
include a Toyota Land Cruiser VX - registration number 200 TCE 666 - and a
Toyota Hilux whose number plate is AAQ 9041. The UNDP said the Land Cruiser
is grounded, while River Ranch said the other car (according to them a
Toyota Surf not a Toyota Hilux) was stolen from its office in Johannesburg
last year.
Hussein said his clients were now taking up the
issue with the United
Nations headquarters in New York, United States. He
said he had invited the
UNDP to come to his office for him to show them his
records, but they did
not come.
The wrangle follows a recent
letter to the UNDP resident
representative Agostinho Zacarias from Hussein
complaining that UN cars were
being used by River Ranch in controversial
circumstances.
However, the UNDP said Hussein's allegations were
not true. "We hereby
state explicitly that UNDP has no such vehicle (AAQ
9041) because in
accordance with the Zimbabwean laws and the UN agreement
with the government
of Zimbabwe all UN vehicles have to bear white
diplomatic or non-diplomatic
registration number plates."
Hussein insisted records inspected yesterday show that the car belongs
to
the UNDP. "Records at the Central Vehicle Registry, which is the only
custodian of files of vehicles registered in Zimbabwe, show that the vehicle
AAQ 9041 belongs to the UNDP but it was being used by River Ranch," Hussein
said yesterday.
The UNDP also said the other car - 200 TCE 666
- which Hussein said
belonged to them was also not theirs. "The vehicle
registered 200 TCE 666
actually belongs to the Global Fund sub-recipient
operating in the Binga
district supporting an HIV and Aids project," the
UNDP said.
"Furthermore, this vehicle is currently grounded after
it was involved
in an accident on 14 December 2006. Therefore, there is no
remote
possibility for the same vehicle to be seen at the River Ranch mine
in
Beitbridge. UNDP as the temporary principal recipient merely facilitated
the
procurement and the registration of the vehicle."
Hussein
said his clients have an affidavit to support their claim
concerning vehicle
200 TCE 666.
The UNDP said Hussein's "erroneous impression" might
have been
triggered by the fact that it has a relationship with African
Management
Services Company (Amsco). The UNDP said it facilitates Amsco's
engagement in
the country through government by way of registering staff and
vehicles.
Hussein maintained his story. But River Ranch legal
consultant retired
Justice George Smith said Hussein's allegation "is
completely false". "The
allegation by Mr Hussein that a Central Vehicle
Registry certificate shows
the registered owner (of the cars) is UNDP is not
true," Smith said.
Bubye Minerals and River Ranch are in a dispute
over ownership of a
diamond mine in Beitbridge. The quarrel over cars has
been characterised by
claims that the UN-registered vehicles were being used
to smuggle diamonds
to South Africa.
The UNDP said this was
also incorrect. "In the light of the facts
adduced and issues clarified
above, we categorically refute any allegation
that UNDP Zimbabwe has been
involved in any diamond smuggling," it said.
Hussein the matter was
now going to UN head office. "My clients are
now taking the issue up with
the UN HQ in New York," he said. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye
LAWYERS representing opposition leaders and civic
groups who were
arrested and brutalised while in police cells for trying to
hold a prayer
meeting 12 days ago have been threatened by the police to
prevent them from
lodging court papers against the state.
On
Wednesday police officers manhandled and threatened human rights
lawyer,
Beatrice Mtetwa, and her assistant whilst serving them court papers,
drawing
strong condemnation from the International Bar Association.
On
Tuesday this week, lawyer Harrison Nkomo was allegedly threatened
with
arrest by head of the Law and Order Section at Harare Central police
station, Assistant Commissioner Mabunda when he tried to serve court
notices. Nkomo had earlier been assaulted with a baton by officers at
Machipisa police station in Highfield after inquiring about the whereabouts
of opposition leaders arrested on their way to the prayer meeting organised
by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign.
The day before, Andrew Makoni,
another lawyer, was reportedly
threatened with "disappearance" at Harare
Central police station whilst
attempting to serve a High Court order on
Mabunda.
Another lawyer, Tafadzwa Mugabe, was threatened with
assault and
arrest when he tried to assert Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinjeh's
rights to
leave the country to access medical treatment in South Africa. The
same day
lawyer, Dzimbabwe Chimbga, was threatened by officials at the
airport and
was told to stop taking up cases involving opposition
members.
These police actions have courted condemnation from the
IBA and the
Human Rights Institute.
"The recent threats made to
lawyers place the rule of law in Zimbabwe
in even greater peril," Mark
Ellis, executive director of the International
Bar Association,
said.
"The international community must increase pressure on the
Mugabe
government to end this series of unprecedented attacks on basic human
rights."
Justice Richard Goldstone, co-chair of the Human
Rights Institute,
expressed concern over what he described as disregard for
international
human rights obligations and the rule of law.
Meanwhile, the MIC has jumped to fight in government's corner
following
international coverage of the crackdown on the opposition.
MIC
chair Tafataona Mahoso in a statement yesterday said he was aware
that
several foreign journalists had been brought into the country to "boost
the
current racist campaign against the government".
"The purpose of
this statement is to warn all citizens of Zimbabwe
that Section 83 of the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act
as amended makes third
parties liable for complicity with unaccredited
journalists," he
said.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
ZIMBABWE is drifting towards an
embarrassing loss of membership to the
London Bullion Market Association
(LBMA) due to a slump in gold production
that could see the country failing
to produce enough to maintain its
association with the international gold
market regulator.
The loss would be a major indictment on Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon Gono who has steadfastly refused to
devalue the local
currency and allow gold producers to sell gold at prices
that would ensure
their viability and boost output.
A loss of
LBMA membership would deprive the country of exclusive
privileges to sell
bullion directly to the international market. LBMA
licences gold refineries
globally to trade on the world market.
Fidelity Printers &
Refiners, a subsidiary of the RBZ and the only
legal buyer of gold in
Zimbabwe, is a member of LBMA.
LBMA accreditation is the biggest
surety of quality that traders
consider before they buy gold from any
refinery or country. The organisation
monitors the quality of gold produced
by refiners for on-selling to the
market.
LBMA stipulates that
members should produce a minimum of 10 tonnes per
annum in order to maintain
their licences.
Cumulative gold deliveries in 2006 stood at 10,96
tonnes.
Latest figures indicate that gold production levels remain
on a
downward spiral and that the country is highly unlikely to produce over
eight tonnes of gold this year.
Statistics obtained by
businessdigest indicate that the country only
managed to produce 819 kg of
gold in January and 600 kg in February.
This, mining experts said,
was a clear notice that production would
plunge to levels below 10 tonnes
this year, threatening Fidelity's
accreditation with LBMA.
A
loss of the LBMA accreditation means that Fidelity will no longer be
an
internationally-recognised gold refiner.
To trade its gold on the
international market in the event that
Fidelity loses its accreditation,
Zimbabwe would have to go through an
accredited third party.
The effect of this would be that Zimbabwe would immediately surrender
control of its gold to the third party whom it would have to pay fees in
foreign currency to get the required approval to trade the precious metal on
the international market.
Fidelity and South Africa's Rand
Refinery Ltd are the only two African
refineries accredited by the
LBMA.
"There are very slim chances that we will remain accredited
to the
LBMA because we will certainly not reach the 10 tonnes required this
year,"
a senior official with Fidelity told businessdigest.
He
said the cost of going through a third party could "run into
hundreds of
thousands of United States dollars".
Zimbabwe is grappling with
crippling shortages of foreign currency.
The local productions figures have
been on a slide since the peak of 1999
when the country produced 27
tonnes.
Production has nose-dived on the back of mine closures
caused by
galloping operational costs which have not matched revenue due to
a
controlled exchange rate.
But gold expects say the worst is
yet to come.
"The mines are in trouble, they can't get their
foreign currency from
the central bank which means they are not able to get
raw materials," said
one mine chief executive.
Gono had this
year promised to expedite payment for gold deliveries in
order "to free up
gold producers' working capital requirements".
Sources indicated
gold miners were still battling to get overdue
payments for their gold
deliveries to Fidelity. Some of the payments have
been outstanding since
last year.
This year's production is likely to be even lower
because of the
closure of small-scale mines under operation Chikorokoza
Chapeara.
Last year, small-scale mines contributed about 20% of the
total gold
output.
More than 100 mines have shut down since
1998 due to hostile economic
conditions. The remaining large mines face a
bleak future.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWE has lost its place
among the world's top five tobacco
exporters due to dwindling output largely
caused by disturbances on farms,
lack of critical inputs and a fixed
exchange rate.
According to January's global production figures
from the US
Department of Agriculture, the top five exporters are now listed
as Brazil,
the United States, India, Malawi and China.
Zimbabwe
used to occupy the second spot after Brazil as the world's
top exporter of
tobacco.
The country's tobacco, once the most-sought after by the
world's
blenders, significantly experienced a major decline last year,
hitting an
low output figure of 55 million kg last year, the lowest output
since 1972.
Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association (ZTGA) president
Julius Ngorima
said the decline in output was largely a result of late
disbursement of
inputs and a fixed exchange rate which had forced farmers to
reduce the
amount of hectarage planted.
Delays in the
processing of loan applications with banks had also
weighed down production
during the year, he said.
"If inputs are made available on time
while attractive incentives are
offered, production would increase," Ngorima
said.
The latest global production figures also revealed that the
country
had been overtaken by Malawi as the continent's largest exporter of
tobacco.
Zimbabwe is expecting to harvest about 80 million kg of
tobacco this
year.
Tobacco production in Zimbabwe has been
declining over the years from
a peak of just over 236 million kg in 2000 to
current levels.
A new breed of black farmers, who displaced former
white land owners
under an agrarian reform, is said by experts to lack the
technical expertise
and collateral to secure loans and inputs.
In 2001, about 202 million kg went under the hammer while 165,84
million kg,
81,81million kg and 69 million kg were sold in 2002, 2003 and
2004
respectively.
A total of 73,3 million kg and 55,5 million kg were
sold in 2005 and
2006 respectively.
Tobacco farmers who spoke
to businessdigest said it was going to be
difficult for the country to
regain its status as one of the top exporters
of tobacco in the world since
the infrastructure conducive for tobacco
production was no longer in place
and there was a massive shortage of labour
in the tobacco growing
sector.
Three types of tobacco are grown in Zimbabwe. These include
flue-cured
Virginia which is produced by large scale commercial farmers. The
other two
are burley and oriental tobacco which are grown by peasant
farmers. Oriental
tobacco accounts for less than 1% of total Zimbabwean
tobacco output.
Despite dwindling output, tobacco remains
Zimbabwe's major foreign
currency earner.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
ZIMBABWE'S small and medium-scale miners say the
controlled price of
gold is financially hurting their operations, a
situation that has forced
many of them to stop production.
They
are reportedly angry with Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's
refusal to
review upwards the price of gold as well as the exchange rate in
line with
inflation, currently topping 1 700%.
The small-scale gold producers
had relentlessly pushed Gono to
increase the gold price during his monetary
policy presentation in January,
but were surprised that he did not change
anything while they struggled to
stay in business.
The current
gold producer price stands at $16 000 per gram.
Fidelity Printers
& Refiners, an arm of the RBZ, are the only
authority allowed to
purchase gold from local miners
Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF)
president, George Kawonza, confirmed
that small and medium-scale miners had
decided to stop gold production until
the RBZ gave them a reasonable
price.
"It's true that we have decided to stop gold mining until
Gono reviews
the producer price of gold. Surely, when the production cost is
higher than
the selling price, is it possible to survive in business?" asked
Kawonza.
Businessdigest understands that monthly gold production
levels have
gone down drastically, with miners only managing to produce 600
kg from four
tonnes they used to produce monthly.
Kawonza said
small and medium-scale miners wanted the price of gold to
be pegged at $180
000 per gram.
"We had a meeting (this week) and according to our
calculations, with
the inflation rate standing at 1 729, 9% we agreed that
the gold price
should be pegged at around $180 000 per gram" he
said.
Kawonza criticised Gono for not accommodating their views and
concerns.
"The problem with our RBZ governor is that he doesn't
want to listen
to grievances while he knows that we are struggling to
survive in business,"
he said.
ZMF represents 28 mining
associations in the country.
Chamber of Mines president, Jack
Murehwa, whose association represents
the big mining companies in the
country, said the price of gold was
worrying.
"The price of
gold is so worrying; it should move (in tandem) with the
inflation rate
since the rate has been going up every month," said Murehwa.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
ZIMBABWE'S gold mines face
imminent collapse as it emerged this week
that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) is failing to pay them for gold
deliveries made since last
November.
Sector players say they could be forced to shut down
their mines if
the central bank does not pay for deliveries in foreign
currency in the next
few weeks.
Businessdigest understands that
troubles in the gold sector are also
likely to intensify on news that the
central bank has no plans to devalue
the dollar in the first half of the
year.
Mines have been clamouring for a devaluation, arguing that
the current
rate of $250:US$1 at which they are getting 25% of their gold
sales is
undermining their viability.
Gold mines are supposed
to get 75% of their gold sales to the central
bank in foreign currency while
the remainder is paid in Zimbabwean dollars
at the official
rate.
Sources say numerous efforts by mines to make representations
on their
plight to central bank governor Gideon Gono have not yielded
much.
Already some mines have started bleeding as they fail to
acquire the
foreign currency required to import inputs crucial for their
operations.
Mines import more than three quarters of their crucial
inputs. The
source said at a recent Chamber of Mines meeting some companies
announced
that they were contemplating sending their workers on unpaid leave
if the
central bank does not pay them soon.
The central bank is
however understood to have told some mining
executives that it does not have
foreign currency and instead offered to pay
them in local currency at the
ruling exchange rate.
The miners rejected the offer. They want Gono
to pay them in time and
devalue the dollar because the current rate is
pushing them into massive
losses.
Source said Gono was afraid
that a sectoral devaluation would open
flood-gates for other industries to
demand the same preferential treatment.
"If we don't get an
immediate payment then some mines will have to
shut down," said an official
with one of the troubled mines.
Sources said Gono had indicated to
some of them that devaluation was
only likely to come in June by which time
most mines would have shut down
due to unsustainable losses caused by the
overvalued exchange rate.
A central bank official said it was
highly unlikely that gold mines
would get any joy because the central bank
does not have foreign currency.
The situation is made dire by the
fact that most outside suppliers of
raw materials are now demanding cash
upfront from local mining companies.
The worst hit company is said by
sources to be Metallon Gold - the largest
single gold producer operating
five mines: Shamva, Mazoe, Penhalonga,
Arcturus and How - which contribute
more that 20% of the country's gold
output.
Metallon, which
employs just over 5 000 workers, has been battling to
get its foreign
currency from the central bank over the past four months.
The
mining industry contributes approximately 8% towards the country's
gross
domestic product and about 30% to export earnings.
It employs just
over 40 000 people. A closure of the gold mines would
worsen Zimbabwe's
foreign currency shortages.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
THE multi-billion dollar,
government-backed industrial park project in
Beitbridge remains incomplete
nine years after it was hastily abandoned due
to lack of funds,
businessdigest established this week.
There is no sign that the
project will be revived as there are no
funds available this year to
complete the project, initially the brainchild
of the Export Processing
Zones Authority which merged with the Zimbabwe
Investments Centre to form
the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) this
year.
A visit to
the industrial park site, whose construction briefly took
place in 1999,
revealed that it remains idle, with no planned factory shells
in
place.
The factory shells were meant to accommodate manufacturing
companies
particularly those in the agro-processing sector.
The
42-hectare piece of land on which the park should sit was also
earmarked to
accommodate a multi-billion dollar orange processing plant.
ZIA
public relations manager, Phenius Mushoriwa, confirmed that the
project had
not been completed because of lack funding from the government.
"We
are still on the first phase of the project which is the
construction
stage," said Mushoriwa.
Newly appointed ZIA board chairperson, Mara
Hativagone, said she was
aware of the abandoned project.
"I am
aware of the abandoned project in the border town and I suspect
the main
reason (for its abandonment) was lack of foreign currency to buy
building
material," she said.
She indicated that she would identify the
problems that had stalled
the project and deal with them.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro/ Ray Matikinye
CHANCES of the divided
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
forming a Kenya-style
"rainbow coalition" to defeat President Robert Mugabe
in next year's
presidential election have been boosted by the brutal attacks
by government
security forces of dozens of opposition activists in the past
two
weeks.
Statements this week by both factions and main groups of the
Save
Zimbabwe Campaign (SZC) - a coalition of churches, trade and students
unions
and civic groups - presage a confluence of interest and a renewed
desire to
form a united front to confront Mugabe in the crucial
poll.
But there are hurdles that have to be overcome by the warring
camps of
the MDC which have been widely condemned by the public as
constituting the
biggest threat to the party compared to a collapsing Zanu
PF regime. The MDC
finds itself under attack not just from Zanu PF but also
from people
committed to its cause for failing to resolve its internal
differences.
Since the 2005 split, MDC leaders appear hell bent on
burning the home
simply because a snake has entered the house instead of
flushing the snake
out.
That the MDC leaders have not seen this
up to now is not just strange
but a serious indictment of their capacity to
deal with internal
contradictions, including those that emanate from
outside.
History will judge the MDC harshly if it persists on the
current
self-destructive path against the well-meaning and good advice of
well-wishers.
The MDC coalition's major task is to convince
progressive members in
the ruling party to put their weight behind efforts
for a new constitution
that will usher in an internationally acceptable
electoral dispensation.
There is likely to be serious resistance to
the proposal from diehard
ruling party followers since it will whittle some
of Zanu PF's undeserved
advantages derived from the current set
up.
A people-driven constitution would seek to remove the power of
the
president to appoint unelected members to parliament, establish an
independent electoral commission and entrench a Bill of Rights.
There is also agitation to repeal Posa and Aippa, among other
draconian
laws.
Apart from the daunting task of choosing a single candidate,
the
coalition has to marshal the electorate and convince individual party
members that it is in their best interest to put party differences and
ideology aside for a common cause.
SZC members have insisted
there is enough time to put together a new
constitution and an
internationally acceptable electoral dispensation. They
argue that all
stakeholders from political parties, including the ruling
party, to civic
societies, have drafts which can be synthesised into a
comprehensible new
constitution.
They expressed fears that an election under the
present constitution
and prevailing political conditions would be a waste of
time.
Polls under present circumstances, they agree, are
susceptible to
outright rigging, resulting in predictable outcomes that
attract
international condemnation as has happened since 2000.
Morgan Tsvangirai refused to comment.
MDC pro-senate faction leader
Authur Mutambara said the elections must
be held under a new constitution.
His party and other democratic forces were
taking advantage of the past
week's events and momentum to push their demand
for a new constitution, he
said.
"If there is political will to come up with a new
constitution, time
will not be of consequence," Mutambara said. "We are
prepared to take all
the time required to work on the constitution if there
is political will and
irreversible commitment to the process," he said in an
interview yesterday.
Mutambara said the current electoral
conditions were inimical to their
cause and they would not be interested in
participating in sham elections.
"If Mugabe throws elections at us
without changing the current
constitution, we will not be interested.
However, a common position will be
taken by all democratic forces if such a
worst scenario happens."
He said events of the past week - the
arrests and torture of the
opposition activists - had shown that Zimbabweans
were capable of working
together for a common cause.
"Events of
the past week have demonstrated that we can work together
in the trenches,
battlefield and everywhere. With this in mind, we have
declared a zero
competition against the opposition, be it at the
presidential level, MP
level or even council level.
"We are not going to compete against
each other. We are going to field
a single candidate against one common
enemy, which is Mugabe. We have our
differences but we will manage them for
a common cause to drive Mugabe out
of power," said Mutambara.
Mutambabra said the people of Zimbabwe would be reinvigorated by
having a
single candidate. "A one candidate resolution would give people
confidence
in us and re-energise them."
Crisis Coalition Zimbabwe coordinator,
Jacob Mafume, said SZC was in
the process of pushing for a new constitution
or even an interim measure
that would level the electoral playing
field.
"There are many frameworks for a new constitution to hand,"
Mafume
said. "We need to build the desire for a new constitution among all
stakeholders and then progress on one platform. It's easy to work out the
modalities once there is commitment from all stakeholders," he
said.
"It would need about four weeks to put together the various
proposals
and then call for a referendum."
Mafume said the call
for a new constitution was to level the political
playing
field.
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Lovemore
Madhuku said
there was enough time and material to come up with an
internationally
acceptable constitution before the presidential election
next year.
"Government itself has a constitutional framework that
was rejected in
2000, the MDC factions have frameworks and the NCA also has
a framework,"
Madhuku said.
"All these frameworks can be used
as starting documents. What is
required is an all-stakeholder national
conference, which will agree on a
new constitution. It would take at most
six months to come up with the
desired constitution."
Zimbabwe
Election Support Network chairman Reginald Matchaba-Hove said
there was
sufficient time for stakeholders to agree on an acceptable
electoral
dispensation.
"We are agitating for the removal of electoral
hurdles that have made
free and fair elections impossible," Matchaba-Hove
said.
"We are calling for a new constitution that will establish an
Independent Electoral Commission, repeal sections of Posa and Aippa to allow
free campaigning and give unlimited access to media to all parties," he
said.
"Holding elections under the current conditions would be
a waste of
time because it will give the same results as 2000 and the same
reports of
electoral fraud will be reproduced."
Matchaba-Hove
said his organisation was encouraging people to go and
vote beginning at
local levels because that is where democracy starts.
Zimbabwe Peace
Project chairman Alouis Chaumba said their push for a
new constitution was
aimed at eliminating electoral barriers that have
discouraged ordinary
people from viewing elections as a way of making a
change.
"We
are working towards the elimination of barriers such as the
prohibition of
political gatherings, violence and intimidation," Chaumba
said.
"We are already encouraging people to participate in elections at all
levels
and view elections as a way of making a change to better their
lives," he
said.
"Under the current situation people often don't see the
importance of
their vote. So unless these fundamentals are addressed, the
elections would
be just a routine exercise that will not improve anyone's
life."
Other political parties have also thrown their weight behind
a new
constitution and are ready to support a single candidate to challenge
Mugabe.
"We are prepared as a party to forgo individual
ideologies and rally
behind the chosen candidate," says Reketai Semwayo, the
publicity secretary
for Zanu (Ndonga).
"Our members have
already agreed to work together with others under
the SZC. What is left is
coming up with who will stand," Reketai said.
He said Zanu Ndonga
was encouraging its members to register in order
to avoid being turned away
in the event that internationally supervised
elections are held under a new
constitution as demanded. Leader of Zapu FP,
Paul Siwela, said political
leaders must be seen to meet the demands by the
electorate.
"There is need for a new constitution before the next elections. What
the
opposition must contend with is generating sufficient pressure on Mugabe
to
accept the need for a new constitution," he said.
Siwela said other
constituents of the SZC must also fully understand
that no single party can
unseat Mugabe.
Zim Independent
By Pedzisai
Ruhanya
THE attempted murder of Nelson Chamisa, the MDC MP for
Kuwadzana, as
well as the torture of Grace Kwinjeh, Morgan Tsvangirai,
Lovemore Madhuku
and Sekai Holland among other civic and opposition leaders
by President
Robert Mugabe's regime cannot be described as a domestic matter
that the
international community should not pay attention to.
One of the critical reasons for the formation of the United Nations in
1945
was to safeguard and protect the rights of citizens from the
arbitrariness
of the state. This followed the mass killings of citizens in
countries such
as Germany under Adolph Hitler's dictatorship where more than
six million
Jews were
murdered in concentration camps and gas
chambers.
In order to avoid similar circumstances, the founders of
the UN came
up with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which
some scholars
have described as the international bill of rights which every
member of the
UN, Zimbabwe included, must abide by.
The
preamble of the UDHR states: "The General Assembly proclaims this
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement
for all
peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every
organ of
society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive
by
teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms
and
by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their
universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples
of member states themselves and among the peoples of territories under their
jurisdiction."
It is my opinion that the human rights enshrined
under the UDHR which
include freedom of expression, assembly, expression,
the right to life, the
right not to be subjected to any form of torture,
inhuman and degrading
treatment are supposed to be observed by UN member
states, Zimbabwe
included.
Pursuant to this view, the argument
by the Zanu PF government that
diplomats and foreign governments who remind
it of its international
obligations under the 1969 Vienna Convention on
Diplomatic Relations are
interfering in the domestic affairs of Zimbabwe
does not hold. These nations
and their representatives have an obligation to
assist this regime to make
sure that it fulfils its international
obligations under the international
human rights regime.
Most
critical is the UN Charter whose preamble urges member states to
reaffirm
faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human
person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and
small,
and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the
obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can
be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life
in larger freedom.
The international community and the people
of Zimbabwe including those
who were brutalised by the Mugabe regime in the
past weeks are calling for
the observation and respect of Zimbabwe's
obligations under international
law and norms and standards governing member
states of the UN. The concept
of non-interference cannot be invoked in order
to promote impunity and the
general breakdown of law and order by a regime
that has lost the conscience
to govern.
Furthermore, Article 55
of the UN Charter which among other things
calls for universal respect for,
and observance of, human rights and
fundamental freedoms for all without
distinction as to race, sex, language,
or religion does not assist the
non-interference idea being parroted by the
Mugabe regime as a cover-up to
its violation of human rights in the country.
The Mugabe regime
must also be cognisant of the idea that the concept
of human rights
observation has assumed a universal status which every
civilised country
should respect. It therefore does not make sense for a
government that
purports to be a member of the UN to use the sterile
argument of
non-interference when it unashamedly violates both domestic and
international human rights statutes in its dealings with peaceful civil
dissent.
Most critically, Mugabe must also realise that issues
such as
torturing people are both forbidden under the country's constitution
and
international law under the 1985 Convention Against Torture
(CAT).
It is important for the regime to realise the idea of
torture has
crystallised into a pre-emptory norm of international law. This
means that
both signatories and non-signatories of CAT are bound to respect
the
provisions of this treaty.
Simply put, torture is forbidden
under international law. Mugabe and
his regime should therefore understand
and should be prepared to stand
trials against humanity when the time comes
for their continued violation of
human rights.
The current
political crisis in Zimbabwe has been experienced in many
African countries
such as Kenya, Uganda and apartheid South Africa but the
end result has been
clear for everyone to see, including the Mugabe
dictatorship.
For instance, under Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the Ugandan government
denied
allegations of human rights abuses including the arbitrary seizures
of
property belonging to foreigners such as Indians. Like Mugabe, Amin's
government threatened to expel British diplomats and their nationals from
Uganda and the international media for continuing to report on his human
rights abuses.
Amin went further to fool himself by mobilising
support within Africa
and in 1975 the Organisation of African Unity, now the
African Union, heads
of state met in Kampala and elected Amin as their
chairman for 1975/6. In
order to counter mounting human rights criticism,
Amin appointed a
commission of inquiry to whitewash his domestic
criticisms.
Similarly, the Mugabe government's attempts to mislead
the world by
attempting to make police investigations on the attempted
murder of Chamisa
when it is clear, just like the torture of Madhuku and
others, that the
state was heavily involved.
Like Amin, whose
demise came when he attacked Tanzania in 1978 leading
to the invasion of
Uganda by Tanzanian forces, Mugabe's downfall will be
witnessed when Sadc
states, particularly South Africa, abandon him and join
the struggling but
defiant pro-democracy forces and reject his dictatorship.
The
extra-legal killing of opposition activist Gift Tandare and the
abuses that
followed the Save Zimbabwe Campaign prayer rally scheduled for
March 11
should send clear messages to the international community that if
they
remain silent, Mugabe has the capacity and zeal to repeat the massacres
that
Zimbabwe witnessed in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces in the
1980s
where more than 20 000 innocent civilians were murdered.
The time
to speak against Mugabe's continued violation of
international human rights
law is now and President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa should take
note.
I make reference to Mbeki because his country has been
involved in
similar circumstances under apartheid in which the international
community
stood up to condemn and put sanctions against the apartheid
rulers. Zimbabwe
was one of the states that opposed the abuse of human
rights in South
Africa.
Most critically, former president
Nelson Mandela has created a stable
state in South Africa - at least for now
where human rights and the rule of
law are observed by the government. This
tradition should continue and Mbeki
should assist Mugabe by telling him that
what is good for South Africans
should also be good for Zimbabweans
especially the creation of a country
premised on the observation of the rule
of law and promotion of human
rights.
* Pedzisai Ruhanya is a
human rights researcher.
Zim Independent
By Sipho
Seepe
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki finds himself
increasingly
isolated. A tone of condemnation of Mbeki's presidency cuts
across the
political spectrum, with the harshest criticism emerging from
within the
ranks of the tripartite alliance.
The image of a
dictator is routinely evoked by the Congress of South
African Trade Unions
(Cosatu), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the
Young Communist
League and the ANC Youth League in describing his tenure.
The mask
of the democrat is being chipped away bit by bit. Barney
Mthombothi could
not have expressed it better when he wrote: "For President
Thabo Mbeki, it
doesn't rain these days; it pours. And Jacob Zuma couldn't
help but delight
in his misfortune. He's keen to dance on Mbeki's political
grave . . .
Zuma's court appearances have simultaneously become
breast-beating sessions
and Mbeki-bashing exercises by his supporters. Never
in the history of the
movement have its members used such a squalid platform
to publicly defy and
denounce its leader."
This portrait is a far cry from Mark
Gevisser's 1999 picture-perfect
depiction of Mbeki at the beginning of his
presidency as the prophet
supreme, the astute strategist, the philosopher
king, the reconciler who is
forthright and pragmatic, able to appease and
accommodate the communists,
the Africanists and the high-flying capitalists.
Africa had finally produced
the elusive Renaissance Man.
The
unflattering portraits derive from real experience of Mbeki's
rule.
Gevisser's picture was the product of wishful thinking, arguably
necessary
as Nelson Mandela loomed larger than life. It was also an attempt
to explain
why Mbeki was selected (not elected) and preferred above popular
figures
like Cyril Ramaphosa.
Economically, Mandela's presidency was not a
success. South Africa
remained the world's second most unequal society after
Brazil.
In Mbeki's words, South Africa was a country of two
nations, one
"white, relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or
geographic dispersal"
and the other black and desperately poor. Corruption
had become endemic in
government, and HIV and Aids was beginning to wreak
havoc in black
communities.
Dealing with these challenges would
require a leader with the wisdom
of Solomon. If such an individual did not
exist, it would be necessary to
invent him/her. So began the making of
Mbeki. The end product was an
all-embracing solution - an anti-populist who
was also a studious and
reflective academic, an urbane democrat and
incorruptible.
The reassuring image of a hands-on managerialist
presidency was vital
to boost business and investor confidence. The ease
with which this image
was embraced indicated the level of political and
social desperation of the
times.
Evidence to the contrary was
brushed aside. The picture-perfect
evocation became a product of a fertile
collective imagination and Mbeki
became the victim of image-making as he
began to live the part.
The few brave souls who refused to buy into
this world of make-believe
exposed themselves to virulent personal attacks.
They were projected as
"counter-revolutionaries" who had suddenly "sprung
from nowhere".
Wilmot James, an insightful scholar based at the
Institute for
Democracy in South Africa, intimated that Mbeki's government
would require
close monitoring with regard to democratic and human
rights.
The ANC machinery was galvanised into action. James was
roundly
condemned, with some in the ANC's national working committee
suggesting he
should be fired.
Interestingly, Mandela had made
a similarly prescient observation.
Handing over the reins of the ANC to
Mbeki, he warned: "One of the
temptations of a leader who has been elected
unopposed is that he may use
his powerful position to settle scores with his
detractors, to marginalise
them and in some cases get rid of them, and to
surround himself with yes-men
and women . . .
"People should be
able to criticise the leader without fear or favour.
Only in that case are
you likely to keep your colleagues together."
For his part, Mbeki
spent time diverting attention from his
weaknesses, levelling accusations
against a range of people both inside and
outside the organisation,
insisting on blind obedience, and ensuring that
his views were not
questioned. The ANC was reduced to a party run by cliques
and committees
made up of individuals beholden to him.
Mbeki's stroke of genius
was in neutralising potential critics, the
educated class, by co-opting them
into this personal project. As Gevisser
correctly observed, it was important
"not only to grow a black middle class
but to find a way of bringing it into
the ruling elite and to hold it there
with a set of policies (black economic
empowerment) and an ideological frame
(Africanism) which resonates with its
own aspirations.
"Mbeki has used the African renaissance to bring
on board articulate
black journalists, lawyers and academics who might
otherwise become the ANC's
most damaging critics."
In so doing,
Mbeki cultivated a symbiotic relationship between himself
and this class of
supporters, who sacrificed their own beliefs on the altar
of political
expediency. The unstated pact was that they would affirm his
brilliance and
he would provide the comforts they required. They have become
dependent on
him for direction, definition and analysis.
Blinded by loyalty,
they are hypersensitive when Mbeki is criticised.
Sunday Times editor Mondli
Makhanya puts it elegantly: "(We) have
voluntarily handed over our
collective brain to him. He does all our
thinking and our agenda setting and
we just limp lamely behind him.
"Even when he asks us to engage
with him, all we do is look upon him
with awe or disdain. Without him, it
seems, we cannot initiate any thinking
projects."
Yet Mbeki's
performance on key issues has been lacklustre. He was
billed as a crime
buster, an anti-corruption crusader, a deliverer of jobs,
an entrencher of
democracy, and an ardent contributor to the non-racial
project. The reality
of his rule suggests otherwise.
Mbeki enjoys having enormous power
yet he is given to blaming
everyone - blacks are counter-revolutionaries,
whites are racist, and unions
are ultra-revolutionaries.
He
sees threats and conspiracies everywhere. In a fit of paranoia he
endorsed
the concept of a plot to topple him, fingering Mathews Phosa, Cyril
Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale. The plot was nothing more than an elaborate
political strategy to ensure that he was not challenged.
Mbeki's once erudite speeches and righteous words now fall on deaf
ears and
are dismissed as empty promises or incorrect assertions. His
supposedly
epoch-making 1996 "I am African" speech was carefully crafted to
allay white
fears and sought to address Mbeki's own sense of identity. It
could be said
that only those plagued by self-doubt need to proclaim their
identity.
Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka, a brilliant poet and
dramatist, drove
this point home in a critique of Leopold Sedar Senghor's
Negritude
philosophy, when he wrote: "The tiger does not proclaim its
tigritude."
It did not take long for the president's inclusionary
words to be
exposed as a farce. Whites are Africans if they sing his
praises. Otherwise
they are corrupted by the disease of racism.
Mbeki's response to Tony Leon's criticism of government's handling of
the
HIV and Aids crisis is an example which underscores this
expediency.
Mbeki wrote: ". . . the white politician makes bold to
speak openly of
his disdain and contempt for African solutions to the
challenges that face
the peoples of our continent. According to him these
solutions, because they
are African, could not but consist of the pagan,
savage, superstitious and
unscientific responses typical of the African
people, described by the white
politician as resort to 'snake-oil cures and
quackery'."
While Mbeki wants to save the African continent and
integrate it into
the global economy, he presides over a dysfunctional
educational system.
Political membership takes precedence over competence
and political
independence.
In addition, Mbeki fell short in
nation-building and reconciliation.
His strong opinions about how he
believes whites perceive Africans betrays a
troubled soul.
His
is a love-hate relationship with the West - condemning it but
constantly
seeking its affirmation. He could not bring himself to
acknowledge the
contributions of the likes of Robert Sobukwe, Chris Hani,
Zephania Mothopeng
and Steve Biko, and his attempts to airbrush them out of
history invited a
stinging rebuke from journalist Abbey Makoe in a piece
titled "Mbeki how can
you forget them?" Perhaps he tried too hard to leave
an intellectual
mark.
HIV and Aids is probably Mbeki's biggest failure. He remains
impervious to the huge body of scientific evidence demonstrating the causal
relationship between HIV and Aids.
While he routinely berates
the West for its uncaring attitude towards
the developing countries, he
displays the same callousness towards his
compatriots who are affected by
and infected with HIV. His government had to
be hauled before the courts
before it would provide anti-retroviral drugs to
HIV-positive
patients.
Buoyed by Zuma's travails with the law, Mbeki has
conveniently
displayed an exaggerated confidence in the independence of the
judiciary.
Yet, in 2005, as head of the ANC, he led the charge against the
judiciary
and expressed the ANC's intention of transforming its "collective
mindset".
His government introduced a package of draft bills aimed
at
concentrating "administrative control of the judiciary in the hands of
the
justice ministry" to "an extent that is fundamentally incompatible with
the
separation of powers and the independence of the
judiciary".
Crony capitalism grew under Mbeki's regime. His
anti-corruption
crusade is recent and convenient. He led the attack against
those who called
for an investigation into the arms deal. He ensured that
corruption-busting
judge Willem Heath was excluded from the arms deal
investigation. Touted as
job creating, this expensive project has not
delivered. Instead of the 65
000 jobs promised, fewer than 15 000 have been
created, while the cost to
the taxpayer has soared.
In response
to expressions of frustration by the restless masses and
as accusations of
cronyism abound, Mbeki has attempted to reinvent himself.
He now castigates
those intent on being instant millionaires. Yet he is the
chief sponsor of
the black elite project. His presidency has promoted this
elite and given it
unbridled space to reign.
Mbeki's anti-rich stance is transparent
and expedient. Allegations of
a plot against him by Ramaphosa, Sexwale and
Phosa failed to take root, so
another strategy had to be found. What could
be better than to exploit the
masses' frustration with the uncaring rich,
the logic being that the
uncaring rich cannot be trusted as
leaders?
It took the intervention of Nelson Mandela to make Thabo
Mbeki
announce that he would not run for a third term.
His
attempt to test the water backfired. Opening the Africa Conference
on
Elections, Democracy and Governance in April 2003, he observed: "Great
Britain does not limit the period during which a person may hold the
position of prime minister, to say nothing about the hereditary position of
the head of state. It does not have an independent electoral commission that
conducts elections.
"I have never heard of international
observers verifying whether any
British election was free and fair . . . In
a sense, the challenge we face
is to understand why the rulebook of
democratic musts applies unevenly
between ourselves and other countries of
the North, such as Great Britain."
In an interview with the South
African Broadcasting Corporation,
having correctly pointed out that the
succession debate is diverting ANC
members from discharging the electoral
mandate, he contradicted himself by
declaring his availability for a third
term as president of the ANC.
In the end, Mbeki is arguably the
architect of his own downfall.
As he disappears into the sunset,
and casts a lonely shadow, will
Thabo Mbeki finally come to the realisation
that multiple meanings derive
from the statement "the people have spoken" -
an assertion he once used
triumphantly to trumpet his victory? Will it dawn
upon him as he recedes
from the political scene that the people have indeed
spoken once more? -
Focus/Helen Suzman Foundation.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
THE debate below is not
for those of a nervous disposition, those
allergic to the truth or those who
have already chosen their future
political leaders according to their
immutable laws of ethnicity. If you are
one of them stop reading right
here.
The only Zimbabwean leaders who have ever enjoyed real
popularity are
the late Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. The greatest service
performed for
Zimbabwe by Morgan Tsvangirai was to stop Zanu PF's hegemonic
drift towards
a one-party state dictatorship. What the MDC failed to stop
was the
emergence of a fully-fledged tyranny. What Zimbabwe desperately
needs is a
leader whom the nation can trust, is committed to democratic
values and rule
of law, not by law.
As the political stalemate
moves swiftly and inexorably towards an
indeterminate self-resolution,
President Mugabe still casts a long shadow
over our future even as his evil
rule nears its inevitable end. He is no
longer the popular, gripping orator
he was at Independence in 1980 and now
evokes near universal revulsion by
his repressive policies.
Beyond his support for police brutality
against opponents, what Mugabe's
regime has managed to do is stifle and kill
open debate about the country's
leadership. The result is that voters are
never fully informed about the
people who want to lead them. Instead Mugabe
has occupied all the space for
27 years and people have by default elected
the only person they know.
So far as debate about his successor
goes, Mugabe has kept Zimbabwean
playing the sunflower as his sun scuds
across the sky. The feigned
ambivalence about his preferred choice between
Joice Mujuru and Emmerson
Mnangagwa keeps the nation vacillating from one
faction to the other.
This is astounding - that a nation which
seeks a complete break with
Mugabe's violent culture should look up to him
to select for it the person
to lead it. How can a person who perpetuates
Mugabe's legacy give Zimbabwe a
better future? Thankfully, Mugabe has
refused to oblige this illogical
expectation. He can't trust anyone to
guarantee his security, hence the push
for life presidency.
Those in Zanu PF who want the presidency will have to step out of
Mugabe's
shadow for the people to see them. Future leaders should make a
clean breast
of their past and tell us what they stand for. Transparency
demands that
leaders account for their actions. In short, a leader should
justify his
claim to national office by selling us realistic, measurable
policies.
So far the people we have been sold by the media as
potential
successors to Mugabe in Zanu PF have opted to remain inscrutable.
We hear
the names but not who they are or their national agenda. We have
been told
of their links to the military and other security agencies yet the
Zimbabwe
we want is not a latter-day Sparta but a modern Athens. It doesn't
bode well
for any nation that its political leaders are elected on the basis
of
speculation about who they are, what they stand for or purely for
belonging
to a particular party.
In addition to Mujuru and
Mnangagwa, the media has given us Reserve
Bank governor Gideon Gono and
former Finance minister Simba Makoni. Both
have however been waved aside for
two misconceived reasons. One is that they
are not Mugabe's clear
favourites. The other is that they lack grassroots
support.
I
have already dismissed the first as illogical. The second reflects a
failure
to understand how Zimbabwean politics works, which is gravely
detrimental to
the national good.
Up until now, Zimbabwe's national leaders have
not been chosen by the
people but by the party. People only elect them. That
was the full meaning
of the late Simon Muzenda's statement when he said if
Zanu PF selected a
baboon as its candidate, people should vote for it. That
is why Zanu PF's
presidential aspirants can't be bothered to go public with
their credentials
but still expect to be elected once selected by the
party.
Outside Zanu PF, it is no secret that many Zimbabweans
didn't know
most of the 57 MDC MPs they voted for in 2000. They wanted
change, any
change, not the calibre of the people they voted for and the MDC
has not
moulded that protest mentality into a sustainable ideological
framework. How
do you sell a new constitution, free and fair elections and
international
observers to a hungry villager in Tsholotsho, Omay or Buhera
whose wish-list
is precise and concrete: food, water, shelter, medicine and
roads?
The problem with this system of selecting leaders is that
once they
are elected, they rule in their own interest at worst or on behalf
of the
party at best. They are under no obligation to fulfill national
pledges they
never made - we are too desperate to see the back of Mugabe to
care whether
Zanu PF or the MDC wants us to vote for a baboon. We run the
danger of
moving in circles and then blaming history for repeating itself.
Let's not
repeat errors of the past where the sole qualification for high
political
office was to have crossed the border into Mozambique before
1979.
*To respond to those who ask me how the current crisis will
end, my
answer is simple: I don't know. The situation is flux. Mugabe is
still
holding on tenuously. Tsvangirai warned recently of a dangerous
leadership
vacuum because of faction fights in Zanu PF while his MDC enjoys
ephemeral
resurgence after attacks on its activists last week. A power
vacuum must be
avoided at all costs, even if it means making what the ICG
calls "an
alliance of convenience" with the devil, an odious phrase. It
stinks of PF
pre-1980.
Still, it is time we made our political
leaders pass through the
crucible of public scrutiny on their way to the
top.
Zim Independent
Comment
IF President Mugabe thought he could
continue playing the race card
about Zanu PF's dictatorship, statements by
northern neighbour Zambia's
President Levy Mwanawasa this week smashed that
to smithereens.
All along, regional heads have offered Mugabe a
shoulder to lean on
through solidarity messages for his rule or by telling
the West to leave
Zimbabwe alone. Buoyed by this, Mugabe has tried to
portray all criticism of
his rule as a Western construct steeped in racial
prejudices and a quest to
recolonise Zimbabwe.
But times are
changing and the heat on Mugabe is now coming from
closer to home. In fact,
there is a meeting of minds between Western
governments and Sadc states that
Mugabe's time is up.
Mwanawasa, on a visit to Namibia this week,
which ironically Mugabe
visited three weeks ago, likened Zimbabwe to a
sinking Titanic. He said Sadc
had achieved little through negotiations with
President Mugabe.
"Quiet diplomacy has failed to solve the
political chaos and economic
meltdown in Zimbabwe," said Mwanawasa. "As I
speak right now, one Sadc
country has sunk into such economic difficulties
that it may be likened to a
sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out
in a bid to save their
lives."
He added: "Zambia has so far
been an advocate of quiet diplomacy and
continues to believe in it. But the
twist of events in the troubled country
necessitates the adoption of a new
approach."
Mwanawasa's comments are a clear signal that President
Mugabe's peers
in the region are fed up with his continued stay in power.
The brutal
crackdown on dissent last week, culminating in the beating up of
opposition
leaders and civic activists, has done a lot to sway those with a
soft spot
for our ruler. They have now realised that he has gone way beyond
the limits
of rehabilitation on the basis of African
brotherhood.
Mwanawasa, whose country takes over the Sadc chair in
August, could be
preparing the ground for a new responsibility to show
Mugabe the door. But
Mugabe has thrown his hat in the ring to contest next
year's presidential
poll in an act of defiance of popular will. This is the
examination Sadc's
new resolve will have to pass and open a new political
chapter by acting
against a comrade once regarded as the epitome of
pan-Africanism.
While enamoured of the policy of quiet diplomacy,
an invention of
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe has used the
opportunity to try
and vend his discredited land reform programme in the
region and keep alive
the camaraderie of the old club of nationalists. The
heydays are over for
our Mugabe who now sits grotesquely at the heart of the
region like a
stranded monster. He has failed to gain currency for his
mantras on land
while his contemporaries have moved on.
Former
Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda, while trying to sound
sympathetic, avoided
flattering our octogenarian leader.
"Mugabe should not be demonised
... he will not accept any
humiliation. He needs to be talked to to see
sense in doing something to
change things in Zimbabwe because he is a victim
of broken promises from
Britain," Kaunda told Reuters. "We need to find an
answer and not to throw
accusations at him."
The answer from a
Sadc point of view lies in Mugabe leaving the
political scene. The new
approach hinted at by Mwanawasa replaces quiet
diplomacy. It is a blend of
megaphone diplomacy and Sadc withdrawing its
support for Mugabe. The leaders
have now realised the folly of believing
that Mugabe is amenable to
reform.
By trashing the efficaciousness of the policy of quiet
diplomacy,
Mwanawasa is speaking a new language that is fashioned to nudge
regional big
brother South Africa to also adopt a resolute stance against
Mugabe. But
what can South Africa do?
Opposition MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, interviewed on an e-tv
magazine programme this week, was
disappointing in his response to that
question. He could only say that South
Africa knew what it should do without
stating what he expects Tshwane to
do.
He missed the opportunity to say that SA should stop
entertaining any
hopes that change in Zimbabwe can come from a rehabilitated
Mugabe.
Tsvangirai should have pointed out that Mugabe was handed this
opportunity
to create national consensus and chart a new path for the
country without
external interference from Sadc after the 2000 and 2006
presidential polls.
He squandered the opportunity and the results are too
obvious for Sadc to
ignore, hence Mwanawasa's concerns. How long Mugabe
holds on depends on the
latitude Sadc gives him. Definitely not up to
2013!
Zim Independent
Muckraker
SO it's now official - the National Economic
Development Priority
Programme has failed. The Business Herald quoted a
senior government
official this week as saying the NEDPP had been extended
to December after
it failed to "meet its original targets".
At
its launch in April last year, the programme was touted as an
action-oriented and results-based project to tame inflation, mobilise
foreign currency and boost agricultural productivity. All these targets were
supposed to be achieved in nine months.
Its failure has been as
spectacular as were its dreamland objectives.
Inflation is now close to 1
800% from 1 092% when the programme was launched
and there are no foreign
currency reserves in the country if we go by the
spectacular collapse of the
Zimbabwe dollar from $230 against the US dollar
on the parallel market last
April to more than $16 000 this week.
Agricultural productivity is
a scandal worth of a Hollywood movie.
Suffice to say we are importing maize
from the same countries which before
2000 depended on Zimbabwe to meet their
own requirements.
The government official admitted there had
been no significant foreign
investment in the past six years. Instead
companies were closing down or
shifting their operations to South Africa and
Mozambique, while those still
based locally were operating at less than 50%
of capacity, he said.
More importantly, the official should have
added, the country has
experienced a huge flight of skills which are needed
for the mirage-like
turnaround.
The official said the programme
had been extended because it had
failed within the timeframe it was set in,
but didn't say why it had failed
or why he believes it will now succeed when
all its targets are far off the
mark. It's a classic example of a political
leadership which has run out of
ideas.
The NEDPP process
appears to have faltered in tandem with the fortunes
of its key driver VP
Joice Mujuru whose romantic dream of economic recovery
included telling
Vapostori to rear pigs. We wonder if she said this as
symbolism for
investors to come and set up shop in Zimbabwe. What happened
to Chinese coal
mining and the thermal power station project in Dande?
Another
fallout from our "successful" land reform was a story in the
same issue on
Zimbabwe experiencing a shortage of oranges. The report said
the country was
having to import juice concentrates from South Africa.
Production had
declined greatly at Mazoe Citrus Estates.
The company also reported
that outgrower production had fallen by 44%
since our land chaos began seven
years ago.
Muckraker believes Sunday Mail chief reporter Emelia
Zindi could tell
us a thing or two about reaping where you did not sow, or
Information deputy
minister Bright Matonga can tell us how he is managing
"his" orchards in
Chegutu.
Deputy police commissioner Innocent
Matibiri offered a clue on the
causes of our misery. He told an anti-stock
theft meeting in Chinhoyi last
week that the police were "perturbed by the
prevalence of vandalism of farm
equipment in newly-resettled
areas".
"Indeed," he warned, "if unchecked this trend can
compromise the
productive capacity of our farmers."
Beware of
the enemy within. Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono also
recently complained
that there were senior government officials who had
"become career land
occupiers, vandalising farming equipment from one farm
to
another".
Isn't that what happens when you bring up "farmers" on a
diet of
lawlessness and turn looting of private property into an industry?
Why
should they change now when government tolerated and encouraged acts of
vandalism for seven years in the name of land reform?
Still
on vandalism, the most egregious comment on the issue was given
by Transport
and Communications minister Christopher Mushohwe this week.
He said
he was concerned at the growing culture of vandalism involving
road and rail
infrastructure.
At first he said he didn't know where this culture
was coming from
since it was a new phenomenon in the country.
Then Eureka! The answer struck him suddenly with the force of a
lightning
bolt.
"I think it is coming from the opposition," declared Mushohwe
triumphantly. "We never used to have a situation where people would go on a
rampage and vandalise road and rail infrastructure."
Any wonder
most normal people want to avoid politics like a plague?
Yet
there was still more dross coming to churn your stomach.
In a story
headlined "Government reads riot act" in the Herald on
Tuesday, Foreign
Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi claimed Zimbabwe
was a sovereign
state "with a vibrant democracy, judiciary and police force
that is
committed to its constitutional duty of protecting its citizens by
maintaining law and order".
This brazen contempt for human
decency follows the barbaric beatings
last week of opposition leaders and
their supporters for attempting to
exercise their constitutional right to
assembly and worship.
Isn't it contradictory that Mumbengegwi
attacks the Western diplomats
for interefering in Zimbabwe's internal
affairs when all they have done is
ask the government to observe
constitutional provisions against torture,
freedom of worship and
assembly?
Where in the civilised world do you find a president of a
country
praising the police or army for assaulting citizens for merely
telling their
rulers that they are hungry, they need better medical
facilities and good
education for their children?
Where in the
civilised world is giving food or water to a person
detained by the police
described as "political interference" in a country's
affairs?
We wonder if there are any diehard Zanu PF supporters who still
believe the
facetious nonsense about somebody trying to recolonise Zimbabwe.
Mumbengegwi
is pitiable excuse for a foreign minister.
Probably realising that
his blatant lies about opposition parties
causing an orgy of violence would
not sell, Mumbengegwi tried to raise the
stakes, telling a sceptical nation
and disgusted foreign ambassadors that
the MDC was in fact engaged "in acts
of terrorism" so he could catch George
Bush's ear.
Who is
causing terror between unarmed civilians huddled in a church
for worship and
armed police gangs who fire teargas into the church?
The ruling
Zanu PF party has adopted President Mugabe's self-serving
position that
there is no vacancy for a new president.
Mugabe reinforced this
position with his dubious self-offer that he
would stand as the party's
presidential candidate next year after his bid to
move the polls to 2010 hit
a brickwall in the party and faced resistance
from opposition
parties.
Last week he confirmed to the party's youth league in
Harare that he
"was not afraid" of elections and was therefore offering
himself as a
potential candidate "if the party chose" him.
It's
a huge gamble and desperate act of bravado. But Mugabe has been
known for
this kind of brinksmanship if noone stops him. Which his party
should do if
it is interested in the welfare of this country.
We were therefore
surprised to read in the official Zanu PF
mounthpiece, The Voice, that the
party's information secretary Nathan
Shamuyarira had declared Mugabe's
candidacy "automatic".
"We are very pleased that he has made a
clear statement on his future
plans," Shamuyarira told The
Voice.
"Our task has been made all the more easier and we support
him in the
party and there will be no other contestant," he declared with
the finality
of an oracle.
Will the Zanu PF central committee
let Mugabe get away with this "no
vacancy" threat or will it stand up to his
bully tactics we wonder?
Is this the internal democracy that Zanu
PF fought for? No wonder the
opposition is seen as such a mortal threat to
the fossilised status quo.
Neo-Rhodesian, neo-apartheid and
global media all portray the
democratic state of Zimbabwe as a monster,"
said MIC chair Tafataona Mahoso
in his column in The Voice this
week.
"Some of our people start to accept this demonised image of
the
state," he said in an article titled "The propaganda war against
Zimbabwe".
We found this utterly callous coming in the midst of
rising state
brutality against opposition party supporters. Zimbabwe does
not need
foreign media to do propaganda pieces with apologists like Mahoso.
Their
defence of these acts of lawlessness exposes the democratic deficit in
the
country and the way in which human life has been cheapened by constant
violence.
Muckraker has no doubt that Gideon Gono means
well when he says there
are many unscrupulous fuel dealers out to rip off
desperate commuters. In
his effort to fight this cancer, he needs our
support.
It is however in bad taste for the governor to use crude
comparisons
between these vampires and the deadly HIV/Aids pandemic. In his
anger, Gono
said the law should take its course against those who increased
the price of
fuel to unrealistic levels in a space of one week.
"We have no sympathy for them," the Herald quoted Gono as saying on
Wednesday. "The spirit of profiteering in this country is now almost as
deadly as the disease (HIV/Aids."
That's a bit over the top Mr
Governor. Not all who contracted the
disease were quite as reckless or as
rapacious as some of our business
fellows.
Still, in the spirit
of helping, on the flip side of the governor's
angry threat was a prominent
advert for "bulk petrol and diesel" going for
$13 000 compared to the
official figure of $325. The telephone numbers were
there. Are we going to
see some action or is it another lost cause like
inflation?
We have been viciously attacked in the past for trying to debunk the
Big Lie
about EU and American sanctions on Zimbabwe. We were therefore
interested to
read in the Sunday Mail Business a story announcing "Zimbabwe
trade with US
soars to US$103 million".
The story boasted that political
differences between Zimbabwe and the
United States had "not stemmed the tide
of the country's exports" to the US.
Trade had in fact risen by 9%
to US$103 million last year from US$94,3
million in 2005, the report said.
This trade was fuelled by the textile and
clothing sectors.
It
said while the country had not benefited from Agoa, several
companies had
continued to export into the vast US market.
"Statistics from the
Central Statistical Office," said the story,
"have shown that Malawi,
Mozambique, Botswana, the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands, Germany, Namibia
and the United States are some of the country's
top trading partners in
terms of exports."
A comment from the apostles of "illegal
sanctions" would have been in
order here. So much for official posturing
about the Look East policy.
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
THE Old Testament's book
of Proverbs states: "A good name is more
precious than oil", but there is
indisputable evidence that Zimbabwe has a
totally different sense of values
(or, perhaps, has none!).
For many years Zimbabwe appears to have
striven assiduously at
destroying its international image, notwithstanding
the immensely negative
consequences of a severely tarnished
appearance.
The Guinness Book of Records does not give evidence
which country has
tainted itself in the eyes of the world more often than
any other, and it
also does not record which country has resorted to more
ways of doing so
than have others. But Zimbabwe would surely be a foremost
contender for both
records.
Upon attaining its Independence in
1980, Zimbabwe was one of the world's
most admired nations. Having gone
through many years of racial oppression
and a prolonged and embittered
struggle for release from that oppression,
and for the creation of an
independent free, democratic country which would
be a responsible member of
world society, Zimbabwe came into being, with a
declared intent to be
exactly such a country. And, for a short period of
time, it did so
brilliantly. Within a very few years it enhanced Zimbabwean
education to an
extent and rapidly doubled its literacy levels. It
vigorously addressed
health delivery systems, resulting in an exponential
increase in average
life expectancy.
It interacted constructively with its neighbours
to the economic and
infrastructural development of the region at an
impressive scale. It adopted
an international role of positive interaction
and converted a distraught
economy to one of progressive virility, primarily
founded upon dynamic
development of the agricultural sector and exploitation
of its potential.
But, after five years the "real" Zimbabwe exposed
itself. Intense
genocide was energetically pursued against the Ndebele
people, with
government's 5th Brigade resorting to bestial attacks upon many
thousands of
innocent people, horrendous murders becoming the order of the
day, and the
economic upturn being halted and reversed. Two years later,
with great
razz-ma-tazz, a Unity Accord was negotiated between the ruling
party and its
principal opposition, and hope developed that Zimbabwe would
revert to that
which it had been in its first five years.
However, it fairly soon became apparent that, to all intents and
purposes,
the accord was essentially a façade and that, in reality, not only
did
democracy not exist, but autocracy was developing transcendentally.
However, the determined destruction of the Zimbabwean image became
pronounced 10 years ago, and with the efficacy of government's endeavours to
taint that image beyond recognition, government has steadfastly escalated
its drive to lower the country's international image to levels below any
possible redemption.
It did so by displaying a blatant
disregard for the fundamental
principles of human rights (very clearly
defined by the United Nations, of
which Zimbabwe pretends to be a
responsible member, although it objects
vociferously to any attempt to have
the Security Council debate Zimbabwe's
contemptuous disregard for those
human rights).
It did so, and continues to do so, by an equally
flagrant breach of
the concepts of justice, of law and order, of respect for
property rights,
and by its practices of racial and tribal discrimination
(being the essence
of the liberation struggle that brought Zimbabwe into
being, and now being
practised, albeit in reverse, almost horrendously as
was then the case - as
evidenced, for example, by some of the very
antic-caucasian statements of
the Minister of State for Security and
Lands).
In the last fortnight Zimbabwe really excelled at its
efforts of image
destruction. Whether or not the political opposition
breached the law by its
attempted convening, under the aegis of the
churches, of an alleged prayer
meeting, contended by the authorities to be a
façade for a political rally,
is not the issue. The key issue was that, by
all accounts, the so-called
guardians of law and order resorted to excessive
violence in breaking up the
gathering and in arresting those considered to
be breaking the law.
And, of even greater consequence was that,
having effected the
arrests, the violence did not discontinue. Not only have
there been numerous
contentions that the large numbers of those arrested
were subjected to
beatings and torture after they were in custody, but it is
very significant
that government has not attempted to deny and refute those
contentions.
Of course, any denials would inevitably be very
difficult to have any
semblance of credibility. Over 50 people had to be
hospitalised, including
some into Intensive Care Units, and some of the
injuries were as extensive
as fractured skulls and limbs. As these injuries
were inflicted after the
arrests, and not in effecting them, it cannot be
argued that they were
unavoidable consequences of attempted resistance to
arrest.
As a result, Zimbabwe's already gravely blackened image was
lowered to
unimaginably great depths, with worldwide condemnations becoming
the order
of the day.
But government evidently wishes for an
even worse international
perception (it's difficult to imagine unless one
assumes that government is
vested with extreme masochism).
As
the world voiced its dismay and disapproval at the holocaustic
actions of
Zimbabwe against the political opposition, Zimbabwe moved rapidly
into a
defence mode, applying two defensive strategies. The first was to
berate the
critics, accusing them of unjust interference in Zimbabwe's
internal
affairs, of supposed sponsorship and support of the political
opposition,
and of pursuit of own vested interests, at Zimbabwe's expense.
Its
second defensive posture was one of justification, contending that
the
actions were wholly warranted because the political opposition also
resorted
to violence. In other words, government considers that "two wrongs
make a
right!" If the opposition resorts to violence, the law must be
enforced, by
arrest and prosecution of offenders, but not by assault,
beatings, and
torture, of others.
Resentful of the international community's
justifiable condemnation of
Zimbabwean brutality, of Zimbabwean rejection of
precepts of justice, of
Zimbabwe's intensifying authoritarian rule, in
conflict with its own
constitution, and with international norms of good
governance, the political
hierarchy that dominates Zimbabwe is resorting
evermore to hurling insults
at the international community in general, and
at USA, the European Union
and, especially, Britain.
Its
outpourings of childish vitriol have achieved nothing other than
to polarise
Zimbabwe even more, and to taint Zimbabwe's image to a greater
extent than
ever before.
That adverse image has innumerable adverse
consequences for Zimbabwe,
but among the greatest is that it leads to even
greater impoverishment than
is already the case. The negative image
precludes Zimbabwe's access to
balance of payments support, development aid
and lines of credit from
international monetary bodies, and the world's
private sector financial
institutions.
Zimbabwe pretends that
non-access to such facilities is the
application of "illegal" sanctions
although any such sanctions are not in
breach of any law and, therefore,
would not be "illegal". But the reality is
that Zimbabwe's image includes
that of being an appalling credit risk.
The negative image is a
deterrent to desperately needed investment,
for few wish to invest in an
environment of economic morass, injustice,
excessive regulation and
untenable political divide. Similarly, that image
discourages trade, for
supplier nations doubt whether payment will be
forthcoming, whilst
purchasing nations are uncertain as to reliability of
delivery, and many are
reluctant to be even indirectly supportive of
dictatorship.
And
the understandably concerned perceptions of Zimbabwe demotivate
tourists
from patronising Zimbabwe, fearing for their security and safety,
and not
wishing to experience the declining sociological environment.
Thus,
it is not the international community that is destroying
Zimbabwe. It is
Zimbabwe that is destroying Zimbabwe. If government is
imbued with any
genuine concern for Zimbabwe and its peoples, it will
belatedly recognise
its own culpability, determinedly seek to transform
itself and, in so doing,
transform Zimbabwe's image and thereby curb the
unnecessary deaths of
thousands from malnutrition and economically-driven
ill-health.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
FOREIGN Affairs minister
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi takes himself so
seriously that he wants to be
regarded as a tough diplomat who strikes fear
in the hearts of Western
envoys accredited to Zimbabwe.
This week, taking a cue from
President Mugabe, Mumbengegwi summoned
Western diplomats to "read the riot
act" to them for their alleged support
for opposition MDC leaders who were
bludgeoned by police last week.
There was the usual gobbledygook
about a desire by the West to
recolonise Zimbabwe and the soporific refrain
that "Zimbabwe will never be a
colony again". He threatened to invoke the
Vienna Convention to expel the
errant diplomats from Zimbabwe. Ha, ha,
ha!
If Mumbengegwi believes that it is his mandate to defend the
actions
of his party, no matter however egregious those actions, then his
performance this week turned him into a caricature of a
diplomat.
To begin with, last Friday he called Sadc ambassadors and
the Chinese
and Russians diplomats to win their sympathy in the face of
international
criticism over President Mugabe's repression.
There is no doubt that the ambassadors saw through his funny story
trying to
justify the beating up and torture of opposition leaders. Perhaps
the
nodding of the head by the Chinese ambassador gave the minister
confidence
but that was all. Last week's events were not a good
advertisement for a
country seeking investment, even from the Chinese!
Then came the
session with Western diplomats on Monday at which the
minister threatened to
expel them. This was empty talk because despite the
bluster and posturing,
Mumbengegwi knows that his government does not have
the conviction to expel
the diplomats.
Mumbengegwi, like his predecessors, believes that he
can cow Western
diplomats by summoning them to dressing-down sessions at
which they are not
given an opportunity to respond to insipid
lectures.
The diplomats are happy to assemble to listen to the
warnings and
threats as this only exposes the level of desperation in the
Zimbabwean
aristocracy. The message that has come out very clearly from the
Zanu PF
government is that diplomats must support the government's action at
all
costs.
The level of political intolerance is being extended
to the
ambassadors. Everyone must love Zanu PF's obtuse policies, its
dictatorship
as well as its ruthlessness. Freedom of political choice is a
crime.
Just assessing the way Zimbabwe has brandished the Vienna
Convention
lately, one would easily surmise that the spirit of the treaty is
to empower
host governments to expel diplomats opposed to
misrule.
Mumbengegwi and his comrades carry this misinformed belief
that they
can employ the pact as a weapon to whip diplomats into line and
force them
to cheer Zimbabwe's democratic deficit. But the convention is
actually
fundamental to the conduct of foreign relations and ensures that
diplomats
can conduct their duties without threat from host
governments.
As stated in its preamble, the convention seeks to
facilitate the
development of friendly relations among nations, irrespective
of their
differing constitutional and social systems. The purpose of such
privileges
and immunities is not to benefit individuals but to ensure the
efficient
performance of the functions of diplomatic missions.
The convention also requires diplomats to obey local laws. However,
the only
sanction permissible under the convention, in the absence of a
waiver of
immunity, is expulsion. This prevents the potential abuse by host
governments of the power of a state's law enforcement system.
Zimbabwe can expel the diplomats if they have violated laws of the
land.
According to Mumbengegwi the diplomats have, by attending court after
the
arrest of the opposition leaders and visiting them in hospital,
committed
crimes. The ambassadors' other crimes include giving the
hospitalised
activists and politicians food and failure to compliment
government for its
crackdown.
Our Foreign minister thinks that these acts constitute a
crime because
poor Zimbabweans are often arrested, detained and beaten up
for simply being
members of the opposition.
It would be
laughable to expel diplomats because they went to observe
a court hearing of
opposition activists or because they condemned the police's
torture of
civilians and the disregard of court rulings. Mumbengegwi knows
this, hence
he can only threaten.
In 2005 Mumbengegwi issued another battery of
empty threats to expel
US ambassador Christopher Dell after the diplomat's
speech in Bulawayo
blaming President Mugabe for the country's economic
crisis.
A month before the incident, the government had accused
Dell of trying
to provoke a diplomatic standoff after he entered a
restricted area near
Mugabe's residence. He was held at gunpoint by the
Presidential Guard as he
strolled through the Harare Botanical Gardens,
apparently not realising it
was off limits.
Referring to the
incident, Mumbengegwi said Dell "cannot flagrantly
violate the laws of
Zimbabwe and interfere in its internal affairs". That is
as far as the
threat went. The current threat is set to end up in the same
dusty file at
Munhumutapa Building. The diplomats ain't scared of you Simba.
Concern over violation of activists' health
rights
By ZADHR
THE Zimbabwe Association of Doctors
for Human Rights (ZADHR) expresses
grave concern over the continuing
violation of the health rights of
opposition party leaders, particularly
Grace Kwinjeh and Sekai Holland.
Both Kwinjeh and Holland were
tortured in police custody on March 11
and sustained serious injuries as
follows:
Holland - multiple fractures to her left leg and left arm,
severe,
extensive and multiple soft tissue injuries to the back, shoulders,
arms,
buttocks and thighs.
Injuries she sustained were also
worsened by denial of timely access
to medical treatment which led to an
infection of deep soft tissue in her
left leg; and
Kwinjeh - a
split right ear lobe, severe, extensive and multiple soft
tissue injuries to
the back, shoulders, arms, buttocks and thighs and a
brain
contusion.
The two activists were prevented from seeking further
medical
attention in South Africa on March 17 when they were blocked from
boarding
an air ambulance and forcibly taken from Harare International
Airport to
Harare Central police station where their travel documents were
confiscated
by Assistant Commissioner Mabunda of the Law and Order
Section.
At the station, the ambulance was instructed to take
Kwinjeh and
Holland back to the Avenues Clinic where they were placed under
police
guard.
These activists have a right to seek medical care
at institutions of
their choice. ZADHR calls upon the authorities violating
this right to allow
these two activists to seek the medical care they have
chosen.
On March 18, Nelson Chamisa, who was also tortured on March
11, was
attacked at Harare International Airport, sustaining a fractured
right orbit
and sub-conjunctival haemorrhage (under the lining of the eye)
as well as
multiple lacerations on the face.
ZADHR condemns the
continuing violations of health rights of
Zimbabwean citizens and requests
the Minister of Health and Child Welfare
(David Parirenyatwa), ZiMA and
other regional national medical associations
to take a position on this
matter and apply the influence in their capacity
to put an end to these
violations.
* ZADHR is a NGO for doctors dealing with health
rights.
--------------
Chamisa's assault should make
Brussels agenda
KUWADZANA MP Nelson Chamisa was brutally attacked
on March 18 at
Harare International Airport en route to Brussels to attend
the bureau
meeting of the African, Caribbean and Pacific/European Union
Joint
Parliamentary Assembly.
Reports indicate that he was
assaulted with an iron bar by six to
eight male persons who took his
luggage, computer and cellphone and made off
in two unmarked cars, one of
which was described as a Peugeot 306.
Chamisa suffered a fracture
to the bone surrounding his eye and
massive lacerations to his forehead and
face.
While not able to identify the perpetrators, it is clear that
the
attack was intended to stop the participation of the MP at the Brussels
meeting in his capacity as a representative of the Parliament of
Zimbabwe.
He would have been in a position to give a first-hand
report of the
brutality of state agents towards those with differing
political views and
the increasing impunity which accompanies their
actions.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 16
human rights
NGOs, has placed its grave concerns on record with the assembly
and has
requested that they in turn place this barbaric assault on one of
their
members on the agenda for the Brussels meetings this
week.
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum,
Harare.
----------
Be wary of deadly Zanu PF/CIO
trap
THIS past week has been traumatic for the entire country, and
many are
still in shock, frightened or angry.
I share the
emotional turmoil but we should all try to get a grip on
ourselves and
prepare carefully for the coming weeks because the turmoil is
likely to
continue until the people - the majority - who are suffering and
now
traumatised - regain control of their lives during the transition to a
new,
democratically-elected government.
This transition is now clearly
visible on the horizon. The regime has
cracked and will never again have a
stranglehold on power in this country.
It will never again be accepted by
either Sadc or the African Union as a
democratic nation among
equals.
It will never again be able to grandstand at the United
Nations using
racism as its populist tool to divert attention from its evil
deeds which
are clearly visible to all. No one is taken in by the rhetoric
any more,
apart from a few apologists lacking the intelligence of the
majority.
Let us all mourn with the family of Gift Tandare, the
NCA/MDC activist
shot and killed on March 11 in the midst of mayhem in
Highfield. Let us all
sympathise and stand in solidarity with all the 50
plus activists arrested
in Harare, many badly tortured in police custody in
the ensuing mayhem.
Let us not be stupid enough to fall into the
Zanu PF/CIO trap of
believing that some were not tortured because they are
pro-Zanu PF or CIO.
Surely we all know the classic Zanu PF tactic of
divide-and-destroy by now!
"The biggest scar is the scar
(President) Mugabe has inflicted on the
nation to oppress us, and that is
the scar that must unite us," as Arthur
Mutambara said at the Save Zimbabwe
press conference.
Let us also stand in solidarity with the other
hundreds of activists
and innocent members of the public who have been
harassed, beaten and
incarcerated in the last week or so.
Let
us also send our sympathy to the injured policemen and women who
were
attacked for we abhor violence and declare that we will not respond to
violence with violence, because that is the one sure way to ensure that
chaos reigns, and that many will suffer and die. We do not want chaos and
anarchy.
We want peace - but real peace - not a false peace
imposed by
"security forces". We want peace where people are free to move
about
unhindered, free to assemble to pray or even to speak out their minds
without hindrance, free to nurture their families as they wish, and free
eventually to vote for the government they want to represent
them.
Let us keep our eyes on the prize: a free, democratic
Zimbabwe. To
move towards this we need to be disciplined as citizens and to
act
strategically.
First of all we need to work in solidarity
with others of like mind
and one thing I have learned is that practically
everyone is of like mind,
now! People are speaking openly in the streets, in
supermarkets, on buses,
on the phone condemning this regime and calling for
change. Let us open our
arms and hearts and greet our neighbours and fellow
citizens, and share the
next few weeks gladly and in solidarity, certain
that a better Zimbabwe is
on the way, and that we can help it to become a
reality.
Secondly, let us try to prevent the escalation of violence
whenever we
can, by not succumbing to either the regime's divide-and-destroy
tactics or
to the desire for revenge. The unity of purpose displayed by the
two MDC
formations and civil society under the umbrella of the churches in
trying to
attend the same prayer meeting, subsequent arrest and torture and
the Save
Zimbabwe press conference is what has given all Zimbabweans renewed
hope
that we can indeed defeat the oppressor.
We do not need
violence, we need to act together as one Zimbabwean
people to bring in a
new, people-driven constitution to protect us against
the excesses of any
and all future governments - MDC, Zanu PF and others not
yet thought of
which will allow us to elect the government of our choice
peacefully in
order to reverse the destruction of our beloved Zimbabwe.
So,
friends, we stand together, strengthening each other and
strengthened by God
and the knowledge that we are doing the right thing for
ourselves and for
future generations. We are fighting for a free and
prosperous Zimbabwe, and
it is right there, on the horizon!
Trudy
Stevenson,
Harare.
---------------
Threats now
part of Zesa culture?
OUR factory in Marondera was closed down in
July last year and one of
the reasons was due to the two or three times a
week electricity cuts.
I on numerous occasions held meetings with
Zesa Marondera to try and
ask them to give us notice or at least give a
schedule as to when
load-shedding would occur so that we could prevent huge
losses.
Zesa could never help us but put all the blame on Harare
whose top
officials were not forthcoming with any type of
assistance.
Even after the factory has been closed down and
electricity switched
off to try and cut down on costs, we are still getting
estimated bills from
Zesa.
Our actual reading now is 431096 but
Zesa's last reading is 449661.
Thrice since July, Zesa has given us
estimated bills based on our
previous average of 4 500 to 5 000 units and
the latest bill of $254 280,35.
When we try to point out the
anomaly we are told to pay up the bill or
risk being cut off. Zesa even has
the temerity to decline actual readings on
the grounds that they are not
made by their employees.
Zesa officals have threatened to remove
our sub-station which we paid
for on a non-refundable deposit.
Would it not be better for Zesa employees to put their efforts into
providing a better service rather than spending time and fuel on dead
ends.
I am sick and tired of being threatened by lazy and
inefficient
officials who don't help in any constructive way. Are threats
now part of
the Zesa culture?
Burnt Out,
Marondera.
---------
The blame game is futile
By
Clydez Chakupeta
THE absence of logic in our government is
baffling. Statements made by
leaders beg one to question not only their
sanity, but their moral authority
to continue leading us.
They
have been misleading us and taking us for granted for quite a
long
time.
Recently, at the donation of $7 million worth of books at
Chitekwe
Primary School in Mutoko by one Mr Kamunhu, the Governor of
Mashonaland
East, Ray Kaukonde, made a statement that cries out for outright
condemnation.
He applauded the donation and called on all
citizens from rural
communities but residing in towns and the diaspora to
emulate Kamunhu's
gesture.
This I found to be tantamount to an
insult to most of those people in
the diaspora, for many are either economic
or political refugees pushed out
by the very government that Kaukonde is
part of.
Create problems so that people flee the country, then call
upon them
to assist with foreign currency they earn to develop areas that
Zanu PF has
destroyed, seems to be the logic behind Kaukonde's
thinking.
The government has taken us for granted for too long a
time and now
seems to realise its folly.
Feigning lies won't
take us anywhere. Neither will blaming others when
we know the architects
responsible for the problems we are faced with.
Being objective
enough to own up to our mistakes is the first step
towards revival of both
the economy and the political arena.
* Chakupeta writes from
Harare.
Zim Independent
By Joshua Mqabuko
Nkomo
THE hardest lesson of my life has come to my realisation
too late. It
is that a nation can win freedom without its people becoming
free. I have
told in this book (The Story of My Life) how all my experiences
from my
earliest childhood taught me to oppose, first by argument and then
by armed
struggle, the domination of the black people of Zimbabwe by the
tiny white
minority within the country.
I have told of the
triumph of that struggle, and then of how the new
African government (now
under President Robert Mugabe) adopted the
repressive techniques of its
illegitimate predecessor. Zimbabwe is liberated
but freedom for the people
still lies ahead.
I am a Zimbabwean patriot and an African patriot
too. I refuse to
accept that we cannot do better than we have so far done,
or to reach out
for the easy excuse that all our mistakes are simply a
colonial inheritance
that can conveniently be blamed on the invaders. Of
course our history has
made us what we are, and the recent period of that
history was distorted
first by the influence of remote empires, then for 90
years by direct
colonial rule. It is up to us to do better now and we can do
better.
Under colonial rule the development of our social and
political life
was controlled, and could not change naturally with the
changing times. In
the best of traditional African communities, the group
was governed by
consent: the leader summoned his council, the council
debated, a decision
emerged, and that decision became bind-ing law. Those
outside the ruling
council who criticised its decisions were regarded as
treasonable: the idea
that authority can be con-trolled and its decisions
improved by independent
discussion and criticism did not exist.
Nor could it develop during the colonial cen-tury, when all authority
was
vested in a governor subject to the orders of a remote metropolitan
power.
Even the few Africans invited to take part in legislative councils or
local
authorities had to accept the law as it was given to them, not
participate
in making or correct-ing it.
The new African rulers who came to
power at Independence have all too
often claimed the same unquestioned
authority as their tradi-tional and
colonial predecessors. Instead of
welcoming debate as the necessary means
for improving government, they have
confused opposition to particular
policies with general disloyalty.
Constructive criticism is brushed aside,
and suggested improvements are
de-scribed as attempts to undermine the
state.
Far too often in
Africa, authority has become intolerant. The easy
answer is to claim that
opposition must be absorbed within a one-party
state, a modern version of
the traditional chiefs council within which full
discussion took place
before an acceptable and unchal-lengeable policy
emerged. This is to miss
the point.
A one-party state, sincerely operated, may indeed be a
way of
encouraging an open and constructive debate. A multi-party state,
badly
operated, may be just another way of keeping an elite in power. The
point is
it is not the formal system that really matters, but the spirit in
which a
single or multi-party state is managed or operated.
What matters is that the leadership should tolerate and encourage
diverse
opinions to be heard - opinions of different social groups,
differ-ent
economic interests, different regions. Since geographical regions
within
Afri-can nations tend to be inhabited by people of different
languages and
cultural backgrounds, partly as a result of colonial
boundaries, regional
dynamics to national politics are vitally important:
recognising and
accommodating regional differences is the best way to
prevent them turning
into counter-productive tribal rivalries. Diversity
must be appreciated,
celebrated and tapped for collective national good.
Of course some
African nations are generally decently ruled by leaders
who try to listen
and take into account opinions of the people. But far too
many leaders have
come to believe that their own interests and those of the
people are the
same. They confuse self-preservation with national security,
and to preserve
their own regimes throw the safeguards, the checks and
balances, of the
constitution and of individual rights out of the window.
When in
prison, I was visited by the representatives of the
Inter-national Red
Cross. I heard with dismay of the conditions in which
political prisoners
were living in other African states. They did not claim
I was well-treated -
they knew about prisons, they understood that a man or
woman deprived of
liberty is deprived of the most precious thing in life.
But they had
observed how in some black-ruled nations the loss of liberty
was made far
more evil by the inhu-manity with which prisoners were treated.
In
South Africa, they told me, the wicked system of political
imprisonment
imposed by the rac-ist apartheid government was made worse
because the
jailers hardly treated their charges as human beings;
nevertheless, there,
the physical conditions of the prisons were at least
clean. But too often in
Africa, they told me, the injustice of imprisonment
was compounded by
squalor and personal brutality.
African leaders must improve their
record on human rights, and African
people too must have a greater regard to
their national responsibili-ties. I
appeal in particular to our young
people, especially the stu-dents and the
soldiers, to accept the challenge
of political develop-ment. They too often
see in their governments the signs
of corrup-tion, of nepotism, of
tribalism, sapping the legitimate authority
of the state.
Patience in the face of injustice is hard, but it is
necessary. It
would be easier to achieve if our rulers listened to the
people and accepted
a shared stan-dard by which to judge their own
leadership and seek to
improve it through debate and ideas.
Less than 30 years ago I was a guest in Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana at the
ceremonies heralding the end of colonialism in Africa. Since then, at
different speeds and in different styles, Britain, France and Portugal have
removed their occupying forces and their alien institutions from our
continent.
Southern Rhodesia, although constitutionally a
colony, shared the main
characteristic of those neighbouring regimes, which
is why its freedom as
Zimbabwe had to be won with such pain. In southern
Africa, unlike the rest
of the continent, the white people came to settle
and to stay, not just to
exploit and go home. Our problem was not alien
rule, but minority rule
backed by alien commercial interests. Most
Zimbabweans are black, and their
rights were for far too long denied. That
is all the more reason why, now
that the problem of minority rule has been
solved, the rights of all the
people of Zim-babwe should be equally
respected.
The white people fought so hard because they feared
that, if they
handed over power, we, the black people, would treat them
badly as they had
treated us. It is up to us now to prove them wrong, to
show we really
believed in the equality we said we were fighting for. We owe
special care,
too, to the coloured Zimbabweans as well as to the black
people, and to the
Zimbabweans of Indian origin, who are in our country not
because their
ancestors were oppressors but because they were themselves
oppressed. We
need to uphold human rights and equality of all
Zimbabweans.
The strange racial policies of our past governments
have grossly
distorted the way we use our most precious resources. We have
rich mines and
prosperous factories, but our main wealth comes from the
land. We feed our
own growing population, and we normally ex-port large
quantities of tobacco,
grain and meat. But about half of our usable land
produces our entire
surplus of food. It was owned by only about 6 000
commercial farmers, all of
whom were until very recently white. The other
half of our productive land
is communally farmed, exclusively by
Africans.
The success of the white farmers had several causes. The
colo-nial
governments made sure that the best land was allocated to the
whites. Public
investment, especially in irrigation, roads and power
supplies, was for
whites, not blacks. The whites received free tech-nical
advice on how to
work their land most profitably. Since they owned their
land, they were able
to borrow on security from the banks for investment in
their farms. They
worked hard, and had almost absolute authority over their
black employees,
who therefore worked even harder. All this made Zimbabwe's
white-owned
commercial farms highly productive.
Our communal -
that is to say, African - farms are by contrast among
the most wretched on
the continent. While the best land was being grabbed
for the whites, the
black farmers were herded into the poorest and the
driest areas, denied
public investment and the edu-cation that would have
enabled them to do
better. Since their land was in communal rather than
private ownership, they
could not borrow from the banks for investment. Any
successful African
farmer found his stocks limited by order of government
officials, as the
growth of population forced more and more people into the
commu-nal
lands.
As a result, the pattern of land use that has developed in
the
communal areas is terribly wasteful. Homes are scattered widely across
the
country, the intervening ground beaten by footpaths rather than used for
grazing. Cultivated fields are small, and each one must be wastefully fenced
against wandering livestock. Fuel is obtained by random cutting of trees,
which damages the fertility of the soil and the climate itself.
The women, whose traditional task it is to fetch wood and water, must
travel
greater and greater distances to find them. Since homes are
scattered, it is
difficult to supply them with electricity or clean running
water. Because
there can be no communal sanitation, water is often polluted,
lead-ing to
the spread of diseases.
This great national problem arises from
past policies of racial
discrimination which made a tiny minority rich and
the vast majority poor.
Now all of us in Zimbabwe must face the consequences
to-gether.
There is no reason why our country, properly cultivated
and organised,
should not provide food security for the population. But the
wasteful farm
practices that have been encouraged to grow up in the communal
areas would
soon destroy land and it would be disastrous to urge new
settlements on
hitherto underused land without at the same time ensuring
that the communal
lands do not continue to be laid waste. The full use of
unexploited
commercial land, the development of planned commu-nities there,
and the
reallocation of badly farmed land in the commu-nal areas must go
hand in
hand.
Land reform must result in new settlements in the
commercial areas,
produc-tive farming communities, not scattered huts,
uncontrolled grazing
and loose dogs on the run on farms. We need planned
villages, fields and
paddocks carefully laid out to get the most from the
land. These new
communi-ties must include three important groups:
land-hungry people from
the existing communal areas, workers on existing
commercial farms and the
ex-combatants. Above all, they must be offered the
technical advice they
will need if they are to use the land well. Such
rational settlements,
whether on un-used land or on farms bought from their
white owners, would be
positively welcomed by commercial
farmers.
Zimbabweans have fought a long and terrible war. It
disrupted their
lives. But it also left them with an extraordinary sense of
national
solidarity. However, that national energy is being dissipated by a
government which instead of providing good governance is intent on damaging
partisan authority which is destroying the country.
It is not
too late to change all that, to muster the collective energy
of our people
and build the new Zimbabwe for all we promised during those
long years of
suffering and struggle.
* The late Joshua Nkomo is former
vice-president of Zimbabwe.