The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft and Byron Dziva in Harare
Last Updated: 2:52am GMT
27/03/2008
Zimbabwe's ruling party is offering voters a
generous incentive to
re-elect President Robert Mugabe for a sixth term: "If
you want a farm, vote
Zanu-PF".
The message is being relayed in
a campaign jingle for the ruling party
that is being played repeatedly on
the country's four radio stations, all
state-controlled, ahead of Saturday's
parliamentary and presidential polls.
As well as offering a farm to
government loyalists, the jingle goes
on: "If you want a tractor, vote
Zanu-PF. If you want a company, vote
Zanu-PF."
Mr Mugabe's
seizure of white-owned property, which began in 2000, was
supposedly for
distribution to landless blacks but was abused on a grand
scale by the
ruling elite.
It destroyed commercial agriculture and began the
downward spiral of
the economy. Now expropriated farms do not produce enough
food to feed even
half the population.
Handouts of seized
farm equipment are a mainstay of Mr Mugabe's
campaign. Despite the jingle,
his government could never afford to give all
voters a tractor, as it
promises.
While a new law has been passed requiring all businesses
to become
majority owned by Zimbabweans - a nationality which is defined in
the
legislation as excluding whites - few doubt that if it is put into
effect on
a wide scale the remains of the economy will soon
crumble.
The minute-long jingle begins more lyrically: "Growing up
I thought
that I would look for a job. But now I am the one who is giving
people jobs.
Visionary leadership, vote Zanu-PF, consistent leadership, vote
Zanu-PF,
black empowerment, vote Zanu-PF."
But the blanket
airplay it is receiving illustrates complaints by
opposition candidates,
human rights organisations, and the US State
Department that the polls will
not be free and fair.
For the first time, the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change is
being allowed to advertise on radio, and its chorus
runs: "Change the way
you think, be free to speak, be free from
fear."
But Denford Magora, the spokesman for Simba Makoni, the
former finance
minister who is standing against Mr Mugabe, said that his
advertisements
were not being carried by newspapers.
"We book,
we pay and they say they won't accommodate them," he said.
Tendai
Biti, the MDC secretary-general, added: "The conditions are
definitely not
conducive for free and fair elections. Our supporters are
still being
harassed and the police are being used as weapons for
intimidation."
In a statement, the US state department
spokesman Sean McCormack
listed a litany of "significant shortcomings" ahead
of voting, including
"inaccurate voter rolls, violence and intimidation,
overproduction of postal
ballots, absence of independent observation of the
counting of postal votes,
inadequate polling stations in urban
areas".
Amnesty International cited examples of intimidation,
including one
case where three MDC activists were forced to rip down and eat
election
posters they had put up. Zimbabwe's police dismissed the
accusations as part
of a Western plot to discredit the polls.
Police are being allowed into polling stations to "help" infirm
voters, but
a blind man, Masimba Kuchera, 26, has gone to court seeking the
right to be
helped by someone of his choice.
"That person should be someone he
can trust and confide in," said his
lawyer Jeremiah Bamu. "The amendment is
a violation of a voter's right to
privacy, which can only be guaranteed
through the secrecy of the ballot."
The Times
March 27, 2008
Jan Raath in Harare
The voice uncannily resembles President
Mugabe's. "I gave you maize for my
election campaign and you made popcorn
out of it," it drones. "I gave you
fertiliser and you made kachasu [bootleg]
out of it. I gave you cattle and
you sold them to the butcher. My people are
a terrible disappointment."
The listeners, crouched over a mobile
telephone, convulse with laughter. The
voice belongs to a mimic who
satirises the speeches of the 84-year-old
leader.
Then there is the
new ringtone being sold at markets around the country. To
the tune of a
well-known "revolutionary" song of the ruling Zanu (PF) party
of Robert
Mugabe, the singers chant derisively: "And for how long are you
going to
vote for Zanu(PF)?"
The electronic trinkets are part of an onslaught of
mockery of Mr Mugabe and
his party as he tries to add five more years to the
twenty-eight already in
power. Only two months ago political satire such as
this would have
attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence
Organisation. But in the
absence of the customary intimidation by the
brainwashed youth militia and
war veterans, the police and the army that has
preceded every election since
2000, the climate of terror that has kept Mr
Mugabe in control has lifted.
I watched a group of children in the back
of a pick-up truck playing hand
games yesterday. Not pat-a-cake but the open
palm salute of the opposition
party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
the clenched hands of Simba
Makoni, the former Finance Minister who has
become a popular independent
presidential candidate.
At a weekend rally
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the larger faction of
the divided MDC, was
welcomed by 30,000 open palms and red cards to "send
off" Mr
Mugabe.
The posters for Mr Tsvangirai list a series of fouls for which Mr
Mugabe is
being sent off, such as destroying the economy. The posters for Mr
Makoni
make no word plays but his beaming, boyish face shines out from them,
in
contrast to the menacing "vote for the fist" declared by Mr Mugabe's,
which
picture him in a Cultural Revolution propaganda pose, raising his fist
in
the Zanu (PF) salute and promising hungry, outraged Zimbabweans
"revolution,
yesterday, today, tomorrow".
Mr Mugabe made a stiff joke
at the weekend about the parties' salutes,
asking: "Why do the MDC wave at
the British when we should strike them with
the fist?"
A poster war
is being waged throughout the country. When I passed through
the northern
town of Chinhoyi last week the walls were plastered with mostly
Tsvangirai
and Makoni campaign posters. That night, before Mr Mugabe
appeared there,
they were papered over with "the fist".
At the beginning of the campaign,
coverage by the only permitted, and
state-owned, television service in the
country was giving Mr Mugabe 202
minutes' news coverage in a month against 9
minutes for Mr Tsvangirai. It
has reduced to 86 per cent since 11 days ago,
coincidentally at the same
time that the observer mission of the Southern
African Development
Community, the 15-nation regional alliance,
arrived.
Since then Zimbabweans have also had the experience of seeing,
for the first
time in 28 years, full-page advertisements placed by opponents
of the regime
in the daily press, which is controlled by the ruling
party.
There is clearly anxiety now that the observers are not going to
rubber-stamp Mr Mugabe's election.
Robert Mugabe will
lose power eventually. But the country's dissolution,
like Africa's, has
deep roots in its colonial past
Petina Gappah
The
Guardian,
Thursday March 27 2008
On April 18 1980, the last outpost of
empire in Africa died. From Rhodesia's
ashes rose a country that would take
its place among the free nations as
Zimbabwe, the last among equals. And men
and women leapt to embrace this
dream called Zimbabwe.
In the long
war against the settler regime that preceded independence, the
guerrillas
kept up their morale by evoking this dream in song. Smith - just
hit him on
the head until he sees sense, dzamara taitonga Zimbabwe / until
we rule a
country called Zimbabwe. The struggle for Zimbabwe lit up the
imagination of
people around the world. In London, New York, Accra and
Lagos, bell-bottomed
men and women with big hair and towering platform shoes
sang the dream of
Zimbabwe in the words of the eponymous song by Bob Marley:
Every man has the
right to decide his own destiny. The dream of
self-determination was
realised in 1979 when the war ended and the green and
white flag of the
rebel colony was replaced by a flag of riotous colour and
heartfelt, if
cloying, symbolism.
That flag, raised by the country's first black prime
minister, flew high.
And with it the aspirations of its people, from the
born-frees sucking in
independent air to the rheumy-eyed men peering at
independence through their
cataracts. And the women - ululating, leaping,
exploding with joy.
Almost 30 years later, Zimbabwe is still under the
leadership of that first
prime minister, now an octogenarian executive
president with dyed hair, a
glamorous wife and a stranglehold on power. The
street vendors of Harare
haggle over how many mita or bhidza, slang terms
for million or billion,
something costs. These vendors and their customers -
and the 9 million
people left in the country (three million have fled) -
have been rendered
criminals, for it is a crime now to buy anything at the
non-gazetted prize,
to change money on the parallel market, to "externalise"
foreign currency.
It is hard to ignore the fact that there are still many
who believe the
ruling party line, that the current "challenges" are a
necessary pain. So a
few people die because there are no dialysis machines
or surgical supplies;
this is a small price to pay for consolidating the
gains of the liberation
struggle.
The millions who do not share this
vision are considered puppets of foreign
governments, and sellouts - not to
mention inflated frogs, witches and
two-headed creatures. For these
millions, the dream of Zimbabwe has mutated
into a nightmare of rampant
inflation and shortages of everything: surgical
gloves and surgeons,
schoolbooks and schoolteachers, drugs and nurses. The
only leaping that
women do now is when they jump over potholes and pipes
spewing waste on to
the streets.
It is difficult to pinpoint when the political and economic
decline began.
Was it with the land reform programme? The war in Zaire? The
unbudgeted
payments to the former guerrillas? Did things start to go wrong
when the
United African National Council (UANC) and Zimbabwe African
People's Union
(Zapu), the only entities that could have formed the
opposition to the
ruling party, splintered and disappeared - with the latter
being swallowed
by the bloated leviathan that is now the ruling party? Did
it all sour when
the constitutional amendment in 1987 created an executive
presidency with no
accompanying strengthening of parliament and the
judiciary?
Or was it in 2000, when the people delivered a vote of no
confidence in the
government by rejecting its sponsored constitution?
Perhaps it was even
before independence, when the guerrilla commanders
adopted the methods of
centralising control and stifling dissent used by Mao
Zedong, later adding
lessons from bosom pals of the struggle such as Nicolae
Ceauçescu, the
Butcher of Bucharest? Was it when they agreed with Kim
Il-sung, the Great
Leader and another friend of the liberation struggle,
that there was nothing
intrinsically wrong with personality cults in which
children were taught
praise poems to honour a single man, in which women
flocked to the airport
to welcome our homegrown Great Leader as he returned
from his many trips,
kneeling before him in the early dawn? Or did things
first go wrong when the
government tried to impose a one-party state? Did it
have its origins back
in the bush where the struggle was fought, when the
talk was all of power
and not democracy, control and not inclusiveness, and
the liberation
struggle was fought on tribal fronts?
The painful
truth may be that Zimbabwe, the youngest of Africa's former
colonies, has
simply followed where the continent has led, treading the
well-worn path
beaten out of the lie that taking power from the colonialists
and delivering
democracy to the people are one and the same.
Saturday's election will
give the country another chance to re-imagine the
dream. And if it fails
this time? Well, there will be the next election, and
the election after
that. It is no immediate comfort perhaps to the
suffering, but nothing lasts
forever. Ian Smith thought his Rhodesia would
last 1,000 years: it lasted
less than 15. This, too, shall pass, and when it
does, women and men and
children will again leap to embrace a dream called
Zimbabwe.
· Petina
Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer and lawyer based in Geneva
comment@guardian.co.uk
iafrica.com
Thu, 27 Mar
2008
Observer missions sent to Zimbabwe by regional governing
organisations are
faced with a big challenge of presenting a credible
election report to the
world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on
Wednesday.
"They should give a guarantee that the elections were free and
fair and were
conducted in an environment where people expressed their views
without
intimidation," Tutu said.
Knowing that intimidation preceded
the elections, he hoped observers would
be able to guarantee that elections
were credible.
Tutu was speaking in Midrand, where he was awarded a gold
medal by the
Public Relations Institute of SA (Prisa) for raising the
profile and
reputation of South Africa.
Sapa
Houston Chronicle
March 26, 2008, 10:26PM
After 28 years of Mugabe, annual inflation
exceeds 100,000 percent
By ANGUS SHAW
Associated
Press
HARARE, ZIMBABWE - The word is out: The Spar supermarket has bread
at only
$7 million a loaf. People rush to the shelf duly marked $7 million,
but by
the time they reach the till with their hyper-inflated Zimbabwean
dollars,
the price is up to $25 million.
That equals just 62 American
cents, more than a teacher makes in a week.
Customers leave their loaves at
the counter and walk out with their
brick-sized bundles of bank notes, angry
and disconsolate.
Daily scenes like this are the dark backdrop to an
election Saturday in
which Robert Mugabe is fighting to prolong his
28-year-old presidency,
outpolled by his main opponent and accused of laying
elaborate plans to rig
the vote.
On 84-year-old Mugabe's watch, the
country has collapsed from food exporter
to being dependent on international
food handouts and money sent home by
many of the 5 million people - more
than a third of the population - who
have fled.
"This election is
about survival ... about empty stomachs and health and
education that we are
not getting for our families," said Elizabeth Chaibvu,
a member of the
Feminist Political Education Project.
People long cowed into silence by
Mugabe's strong-arm methods are speaking
openly against their leader, seeing
the election as a last hope for the
country where inflation is over 100,000
percent a year.
But Mugabe is accused of stacking the decks against his
opponents,
redistricting voting constituencies, buying votes with gifts such
as
tractors and delivering state-subsidized food only to his party
supporters.
"Zimbabweans aren't free to vote for the candidates of their
choice," New
York-based Human Rights Watch said.
Amnesty
International alleged "intimidation, harassment and violence against
perceived supporters of opposition candidates, with many in rural regions
fearful that there will be retribution after the elections."
The fact
that this fourth contested presidential election is going ahead,
with
multiple candidates, is a tribute to Zimbabweans' democratic sinew,
epitomized by Mugabe's main opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai. The 55-year-old
trade unionist has dealt Mugabe past electoral humiliations, and his
battered face was flashed around the world after he was severely beaten by
police last year.
Also running is Simba Makoni, 58, a former finance
minister and member of
Mugabe's politburo until he was expelled for
challenging the leader.
Makoni's last-minute defection is a sign of
growing dissent in Mugabe's
ruling party. But while he could take support
from Mugabe, Makoni also could
divide the opposition vote.
Business Day
27 March 2008
Dumisani
Muleya
Harare
Correspondent
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe has put his security
forces on alert
ahead of elections on Saturday to quell the disturbances
that are expected
if he wins.
The move reveals anxiety within the
corridors of power that there might be
anti- government riots similar to
those that rocked Kenya after that country's
disputed elections in December,
if Mugabe and his ruling Zanu (PF) win.
Security sources said Zimbabwe's
military and police forces have been told
to be ready to act after the poll
results because the government fears there
could be street
protests.
Sources said yesterday Mugabe was most likely to scrape through
with at
least the required 51% of the vote.
But if Mugabe fails to
get 51% there would be a run-off which many analysts
say he will lose to
either opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
leader Morgan
Tsvangirai or formed finance minister Simba Makoni. Tsvangirai
says Mugabe
is likely to rig the elections as he did in 2000 and 2002.
Sources
also said Zimbabwe could take delivery of jet fighters from either
China or
Russia this week to prepare for the feared violence. A team of
Russian
military experts arrived in Harare this week to discuss
delivery.
Zimbabwe has bought arms from Russia and, mostly , China to
strengthen its
arsenal which was largely depleted by involvement in the
Democratic Republic
of Congo civil war between 1998 and 2002.
The
opposition has said there is overwhelming evidence of manipulation of
the
polls through ballot fraud, voters' roll tampering and gerrymandering.
Mugabe's regime denies the charges.
"The army, police and other
key security agencies have been put on alert
because government fears that
there could be an eruption of protests and
violence after the elections," a
senior government official said.
Opposition and civil society
organisations, and SA's African National
Congress, have condemned thinly
veiled threats of a military coup by
pro-Mugabe diehard army generals.
Mugabe has warned he would crush any
anti-government demonstrations. State
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa also
said government would deal with
protesters.
Police said on Tuesday that they would ruthlessly deal with
any anti-Mugabe
mass action.
Business Day
27 March 2008
Wilson
Johwa
Political
Correspondent
ON THE eve of Zimbabwe's general election, opposition
parties have expressed
concern that by the time the counting of votes
starts, election observers'
accreditation will have expired, preventing them
from watching over the
counting process.
At a news conference in
Johannesburg yesterday, presidential candidate Simba
Makoni's campaign co-
ordinator, Nkosana Moyo, said foreign observers were
accredited only until
voting day. According to the former Zimbabwean cabinet
minister, this raised
the question of who would monitor the counting and the
likely second round
run-off, should Saturday's presidential vote produce no
clear winner. In
terms of Zimbabwe's constitution, if none of the
presidential candidates
gets 51% of the vote or more, a run-off between the
top two contenders must
take place within 21 days. Although this had no
precedent, analysts predict
that the second round could determine what
appears to be a closely contested
presidential poll.
A senior member of the 54-person South African
observer team, who did not
want to be named for fear of breaching protocol,
said although their
accreditation tags had March 29 as the expiry date, they
were told this was
a mistake. "They acknowledged that they made a mistake,
we did check," he
said. But the cards had not been changed. "We will be here
until the end,"
the official said.
The accreditation "bungle"
affected journalists as well.
"It's a costly mistake, meaning that beyond
that date technically we'll be
covering the election without accreditation,"
said a Harare-based
journalist.
But the Pan African Parliament's
information officer Khalid Dahab said
members of its 19-member observer
mission were accredited until April 10.
"I would assume that is the
expiry date," he said from Zimbabwe where the
mission was deployed in all 10
provinces.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) official Eddie Cross
shared Moyo's
concern.
"They don't do things like this casually," he
said. However, he said the
foreign observers would be too few to make a
difference in a country nearly
the size of Texas, which had 9000 polling
stations. More than 1400 observers
had been accredited.
He had
harsh words for the Southern African Development Community's (SADC's)
150
observers. "SADC observers seem to be incredibly naive. They don't
understand what's going on on the ground."
Independent, UK
By Alex Duval Smith
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Vote
rigging in Saturday's election in Zimbabwe may have begun as early as
last
week when the 75,000 members of the country's armed forces cast their
postal
ballots, according to internal critics.
The claim came as Amnesty
International listed a series of infringements of
opposition activists'
freedom yesterday, including physical threats,
detentions, and denial of
access to food because of their perceived
political affiliations. Amnesty
said opposition supporters had been forced
to take down election posters and
to "chew" them.
The police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, who is an
outspoken supporter of the
ruling Zanu-PF party, defended the postal voting
process used by the armed
forces. "Postal voting is a private process," he
said. "Why should it be
monitored by observers? The votes will be sealed and
taken to the Zimbabwe
Election Commission."
But members of the
military in Mutare told a South African reporter that
soldiers had been
ordered to write their service numbers on the backs of the
ballot papers,
making it simple to establish how they had voted. The
reporter was also told
that ballots were "sifted" by commanders and police
chiefs before being
forwarded to the electoral commission.
The run-up to the presidential,
parliamentary and local council elections
has been dominated by evidence of
desperate measures by Robert Mugabe to
prolong his 28-year grip on power.
President Mugabe, 84, faces a challenge
from the leader of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan
Tsvangirai. A former Zanu-PF finance
minister, Simba Makoni, is also
standing, although he is promising Mr Mugabe
a pension rather than
retribution.
Amnesty said food had been used as
an electoral weapon and cited an example
of the MDC being prevented from
buying 235 bags of maize from the
state-owned Grain Marketing Board. The
party was told that "GMB maize is not
supposed to be distributed to MDC
supporters".
"Although, opposition parties appear to be enjoying a
greater degree of
access to rural areas compared with previous elections, we
continue to
receive reports of intimidation, harassment and violence against
perceived
supporters of opposition candidates," said Amnesty's Zimbabwe
researcher
Simeon Mawanza.
Mr Makoni claimed yesterday that he had
been prevented from placing
advertisements in state media. The MDC said a
helicopter it had chartered
was grounded by the authorities last weekend,
preventing its leader from
addressing several rural rallies.
Only a
small number of election observers have been admitted, none of them
from the
European Union or Commonwealth. Nevertheless, amid expressions of
concern
from those who are there, the authorities pledged that ballots cast
will not
be removed from polling stations to be counted centrally.
George
Chiweshe, chairman of the election commission, told observers from
the
Southern Africa Development Community: "A section of society
misconstrued
what we said. The presidential election results will be counted
at polling
stations but collated by the chief electoral officer at the
central command
centre. We did not mean that all ballot boxes will be
carried to the
national centre." Mr Tsvangirai had threatened to boycott the
election if
votes were counted centrally.
Mr Chiweshe also sought to allay fears that
a loophole existed regarding a
second round of elections. He said: "A
candidate should get a greater number
of votes than those cast for all his
competitors combined - 50 plus one. The
law provides for a rerun after 21
days if any of the contesting candidates
fail to get a majority."
Irish Sun
Irish
Sun
Wednesday 26th March, 2008
President Robert Mugabe of
Zimbabwe has chosen a campaign meeting to rail
against his country's
business community.
A campaign rally in Hwange provided the setting for
Mugabe to blame
supermarkets and manufacturers for high prices in the
shops.
Speaking to a small crowd, Mugabe said his government wanted
prices reduced
to their February 12th levels, when teachers and other civil
servants were
awarded pay increases.
President Mugabe has sought to
give the impression that private companies
are trying to force him out of
power by increasing prices and stirring up
resentment.
At the Hwange
meeting, he said: "We are going to read the riot act to them.
We are going
to use the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act".
Under that Act companies
are forced to reserve at least 51 per cent of
shares for indigenous
people.
Economic analysts have blamed the government's ballooning
domestic debt for
driving up prices.
BBC
Thursday, 27 March 2008, 00:41 GMT
A former loyalist of Zimbabwean leader
Robert Mugabe has spoken openly
about the possibility that he be defeated in
Saturday's presidential
election.
Former Education Minister Fay
Chung told the BBC that the two main
rivals could win if voters were
"courageous enough to come out in large
numbers".
Ms Chung said
that "if you have millions coming out to vote, it will
be very difficult to
rig" the election.
Ms Chung is now a Senatorial candidate allied to
the independent Simba
Makoni.
Earlier, Mr Makoni, a former
finance minister and senior member of Mr
Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, complained
that he had been unable to place adverts
in the state
media.
The comments came as rights group Amnesty
International said
opposition supporters were being harassed ahead of the
elections on
Saturday.
Over the weekend, air traffic control
authorities grounded a
helicopter hired by the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC),
preventing its presidential candidate, Morgan
Tsvangirai, from addressing
party rallies.
'Gordian
knot'
In an interview with the BBC, Ms Chung said that Mr Makoni's
decision
last month to stand against President Mugabe because of what he
described as
a "failure of national leadership" had begun a "period of
change" in
Zimbabwe.
"The steps taken by Simba Makoni
have broken a Gordian Knot in which
we were so tightly strung that we did
not know how to get out of it," she
told Radio 4's World Tonight
programme.
"I think that whether he wins or not - I think he will
win - he has
changed the political geography of the country."
Ms Chung, who left the Zimbabwean government in the early 1990s and
then
spent 10 years working for the United Nations, said that Mr Mugabe
obviously
did not want to let the opposition candidates win, but may not be
able to
prevent it.
"I think the issue is whether the electorate is going
to be brave or
courageous enough to come out in large numbers, because I
think the rigging
of the election has been possible when there were small
numbers dividing
votes," she said.
"But if you have millions
coming out to vote, it will be very
difficult to rig. If the polling agents
and the observers are very watchful,
it will become more
difficult."
The US and the European Union have accused Mr
Mugabe of rigging
previous elections - charges he has denied. Western
monitors have been
barred from this election.
Ms Chung conceded
that "there are a lot of 'ifs'", but said the
opposition had so far been
allowed to campaign more freely than in past
elections and stressed that
Zimbabweans were desperate for change after 28
years of Mr
Mugabe.
"I hear people saying... 'We are being abused. If we keep
on electing
the same government, we will continue to be abused'," she
added.
"So the question is: will they vote for the MDC or Simba's
movement?"
Ms Chung acknowledged there was a potential for violence
similar to
that witnessed after the Kenyan presidential election last year,
regardless
of the result.
New York Times
Editorial
Published: March 27,
2008
It has been painful to watch the terrible decline of Zimbabwe, a country
so
rich in human and natural resources. Perhaps that is why the elections
scheduled for Saturday still raise hopes that President Robert Mugabe's
destructive rule can be brought to an end, despite the certainty that the
vote will be neither free nor fair.
This time the challenge is coming
from both the battered and splintered
opposition and from within. Simba
Makoni, a former finance minister, was a
ranking member of the ruling party
until declaring his candidacy.
There is every reason to be cautious given
that past. But Mr. Makoni has
publicly - and bravely, given the brutal
treatment of critics - acknowledged
the corruption and failings of his
former party. And he has talked of
forming an alliance with the main
opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai,
who was beaten almost to death by
police last year.
The 84-year-old president is obviously worried. He has
dug into his usual
bag of sordid campaign tricks: calling his opponents
traitors, monopolizing
the news media, distributing tractors among rural
supporters and signing a
law forcing foreign and white-owned companies to
sell a majority interest to
black Zimbabweans - meaning, of course, his
cronies. The costs of Mr. Mugabe's
brutal and capricious rule should be
obvious to everyone. Inflation is
running at more than 100,000 percent a
year. Virtually every once-thriving
enterprise, from commercial farming to
mining, has run aground.
Mr. Mugabe's henchmen, including powerful
figures in the army, the police
force and the fearsome Central Intelligence
Organization, are certain to
resist any change. Before this weekend's vote,
South Africa's president,
Thabo Mbeki, who has been far too passive, and
important Western states must
send a clear message that those henchmen will
pay a high price - in denied
visas or frozen bank accounts - if they
continue to block the will of
Zimbabwe's people.
Mr. Mugabe's defeat,
while fervently hoped for, would not be enough. Saving
Zimbabwe will require
generous aid and constant pressure from South Africa,
Britain, the United
States, the European Union and international lenders.
All must insist that
any new government respects human rights and the rule
of law and be ready to
provide sustained advice on how to make a difficult
transition happen. It is
a long shot, but the best shot Zimbabwe has had in
years.
THE WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL
March 27,
2008
Once-prosperous Zimbabwe has the world's lowest life expectancy,
six-digit
inflation and political horrors to rival China's or North Korea's,
and yet,
Robert Mugabe, the 84-year-old strongman who has presided over it
all for 28
years, will almost surely "win" re-election to another five-year
term this
weekend in a rigged contest.
This is the 10th year
of Zimbabwe's present recession. Close to 15 percent
of the country is
HIV-positive. The male life expectancy is 37 years
according to the World
Health Organization, for women it is 34 years. Annual
inflation tops 100,500
percent.
In 1980, upon Zimbabwe's independence from the United
Kingdom, the country
was relatively prosperous, and Mr. Mugabe was hailed as
a hero and
nationalist. He quickly built a brutal, personalistic
dictatorship. The
government also began expropriating farmland from white
Zimbabweans to fuel
his redistributionist agenda. As a result, the
Zimbabwean dollar has fallen
from 20 cents under parity with the U.S. dollar
in 1980 to a ratio of
approximately 50 million-to-one
today.
For a sense of how deliberate and extensive the abuse of
all Zimbabweans has
been, consider 2005's "Operation Murambatsvina," or
"Take out the trash."
This government "anti-squatter" initiative deprived an
estimated 700,000
Zimbabweans of their homes and businesses. It was aimed at
poor Zimbabweans
who lived in "illegal" towns and cities. The targeted
regions were mostly
associated with the opposition. Hundreds of thousands of
Zimbabweans are
refugees even now thanks to their government's capital
inhumanity. It is
hard for most Westerners to fathom.
Heroic
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been brained and nearly
killed,
jailed and tortured by Mugabe henchmen. The former labor leader Mr.
Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, Mr. Mugabe's former minister of finance, are
the opposition candidates. Evidence of Mugabe's vote-buying, intimidation
and election irregularities are already surfacing.
Sometimes
democracy's virtues are best illustrated with reference to the
sad, tragic,
corrupt and repressive opposite, which Mr. Mugabe's rule
exemplifies.
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 25 March 2008 15:33
Duplicate Ballots Printed as Zanu
Prepares Massive Rigging?
HARARE
The Zanu (PF) regime has printed
more ballot papers for Saturday's elections
with sources saying they are in
duplicate - raising strong fears of rigging
plans.
It has also emerged
that the regime plans to use youth militia and members
of the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to mark the extra ballots at
a secret
location in Harare.
This, our impeccable sources say, is part of the rigging
strategy by Israeli
spy agency, Mossad hired by Zanu (PF) to save it from
defeat.
Sources at Fidelity Printers, which has been used by the Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission (ZEC) to print the ballot papers revealed to this paper
that
close to 10 million ballot papers had been printed for the council,
House of
Assembly, Senate and presidential polls, with some information
suggesting
they were duplicate serial numbers.
ZEC has said there are 5,9
million registered voters, and as has been the
case in previous elections,
the number who will actually turn up to cast
their vote could be as low as
three million.
"The ballot papers were printed in excess, with each of them
for the
respective elections getting up to 10 million," a senior official at
Fidelity Printers said on condition of anonymity. "ZEC first put an order
for 5 million ballot papers for each category of election and later came to
do another batch of sets of five million, with some having duplicate serial
numbers."
ZEC chairman George Chiweshe has admitted that the electoral
body printed
more ballot papers than required but insists they shall not be
used for
rigging. "There are no such fears. The process has enough checks
and
balances to prevent such an occurrence," he said during a meeting with
stakeholders recently.
Information leaked from the CIO reveals that the
so-called "Boys on Leave",
who are CIO and former army officials now in
retirement but called upon to
play the dirty tricks of Zanu (PF) on
elections, were this week preparing to
be domiciled at a secret base in
Harare together with about 100 youth
militia for the purpose of marking
extra ballots.
"There is a team that has already been put in place to carry
out that duty
from a secret place in Harare," a source said. "According to
the plans, they
could start on Thursday and go on up to Saturday. But the
next move shall
depend on feedback from the team on the ground and that
shall assess the
situation after voting."
For this plan to work, Zanu
(PF) would require a situation whereby the
opposition and independent
candidates fail to field polling agents at many
polling stations, and this
can be ensured in the remote areas where in the
past, violence and
intimidation led to the agents fleeing before the voting
was
completed.
MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who is one of the leading
contenders in the
presidential elections last week sounded a warning saying
he might have to
pull out of the race if ZEC did not address the issue of
the excess ballot
papers. Tsvangirai said his party had established that an
extra three
million ballot papers had been printed.
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 25
March 2008 15:37
The time has come to rid Zimbabwe of Robert
Mugabe and Zanu (PF) -
they have destroyed our country. We need to vote for
somebody who will bring
about a return to the rule of law, who will take the
necessary steps to
return us to what we know as normal. Somebody who will
make it possible for
us to join the international community of nations once
again and hold our
heads high. Someone who will ensure that there is respect
for human rights
at every level of our government and society. We need
someone in power who
will make decisions based not on a selfish, greedy
desire to cling to power,
but for the good of the nation. We believe that
man is Morgan Tsvangirai.
Of those standing for the presidency, we
believe he alone has what is
necessary to make us proud to be Zimbabweans
once again.
Only his party, the MDC, has enunciated policies that will
lead to
investment - bringing the jobs we so desperately need. Only his
party has
policies that can successfully revive the health service, fix the
economy,
get children and teachers back into our schools, and bring a return
to the
rule of law.
We implore you, as people who have suffered for
the past eight years
under the tyranny of the Zanu (PF) government, you who
are now hungry,
jobless, you who have been forced to bury your loved ones
for want of simple
medication or operations, or a bank clearance of your
funds.
The future of this country is in your hands. You can change the
destiny of Zimbabwe. That is what one person one vote means. We have this
power. Those who fought to win it for us have turned rotten. They have been
corrupted by power. We must have the courage to vote them out of power -
just the way we once voted them into power.
We all remember how our
country was the bread basket of Southern
Africa. We were the envy of all our
neighbours. The international media
acknowledged that our country was the
jewel of Africa.
Our economy was vibrant and diverse. We had jobs, our
children were in
school, our sick ones were in hospital, our roads were
without potholes. In
towns and cities, clean water ran from our taps and
electricity was there at
the flick of a switch. The shops were full of high
quality, locally made
goods. The Zimbabwe dollar was the strongest currency
in the region. People
were border jumping into Zimbabwe - the promised land
- in search of food
and jobs. When the late President Laurent Kabila was
shot, he was rushed to
Zimbabwe for the finest medical attention. Now all
the government fatcats go
to South Africa to be treated by Zimbabwean
doctors who have fled there.
The Zanu (PF) government imports maize
from Zambia where Zimbabwean
farmers, driven off their land by Mugabe's
thugs, are farming successfully.
Our children are condemned to lives of
ignorance and disease as Zimbabwean
nurses and teachers flood South Africa
and the UK in search of a living wage
and freedom from persecution by Green
Bombers.
We want our children to return from the diaspora to rebuild
our
shattered nation. We want families to be reunited.
Don't be
intimidated. Don't be afraid. Chihuri, Chiwega and Zimondi
have abused their
positions - seeking to direct our voting with threats of
violence. It is not
their place to tell any Zimbabwean how he or she should
vote.
Mugabe himself has been threatening that the MDC will not be allowed
to form
a government if they win the elections. It is not up to him to
dictate who
should take over from him. It is our decision, as Zimbabweans.
It is our
choice. It is not up to a dictator. He has brought misery and ruin
to our
nation. It is unreasonable and arrogant for Zanu (PF) to expect us to
vote
for them again. It is quite clear that they have no clue how to get us
out
of the mess their misrule got us into.
Here we include Simba Makoni -
who still insists that he is a member
of Zanu (PF).
We need a
change of government and a change of direction.
This can only come
about if you make the right choice, if you vote for
Morgan T and MDC
candidates for the House of Assembly, the senate and
councils.
Let
us go in our millions to vote for change. Be strong and very
courageous. We
owe it to our children to give them hope and a future.
We all know
Mugabe is planning to rig the elections. The only way we
can counter that is
by a massive turnout. We must send an unmistakeable
message to Mugabe that
we do not want him to rule us any longer.
He has had his chance. We
gave him power and he became corrupted by
it. He abused our trust. Now we
are taking that power back and giving it to
another person of our
choice.
Let us remain peaceful, no matter what. As we have successfully
done
on many occasions in the past, let us not respond to the regime's
provocation to violence. This only plays into Mugabe's hands. Remember, he
is the one with 'degrees in violence.'
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 26 March 2008 10:33
25th March 2008 -
The public media has once
again closed equal access to the opposition
despite the SADC guidelines on
the conduct of free and fair elections
demanding that all parties should be
granted equal access.
Both the Zimbabwe Newspapers and the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation
continue to be purveyors of the voice of the
dictator. Their news items
comprise Zanu PF campaign material while the MDC
is granted scant negative
coverage. Mugabe has become a permanent news item
on the public media, which
has been a launchpad of malicious verbal assaults
against other Presidential
candidates while the MDC has been blacked out of
these two publicly funded
media.
The ZBC and Zimpapers have become
conveyor belts of Zanu PF propaganda in
this election. Only yesterday, the
MDC was granted 45 seconds coverage on
the main news while over 40 minutes
were granted to Zanu PF. The ZBC is
flighting less than 10 percent of the
political messages that we have booked
with them on the pretext that all
political parties should buy equal time
even though Zanu PF has monopolised
the main news coverage, thereby denying
the people the right to make
informed choices.
Equally, in the publicly owned print media, the MDC has
been granted token
advertising space while all news articles are pro-Zanu
PF. This is an
affront to the SADC guidelines on the conduct of free and
fair elections to
which Mugabe appended his signature in Mauritius in August
2004.
This is definitely not a free and fair election. The people's voice
has been
gagged. The public media has become a willing appendage of the
regime in a
desperate attempt to annihilate the people's sovereign will. The
media can
black out our voice but they cannot black out our imminent
victory.
On Saturday, the people of Zimbabwe will reclaim their country
and their
dignity. They will vote for the change they can trust. Victory
belongs to
the people.
MDC Information and Publicity Department
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 25 March
2008 13:44
The termites are on the march and those leaves they're
clutching
between their feelers are actually ballot slips reports dpa from
Harare.
The Great Termite Revolt is the title of a painting by
well-known
Zimbabwean artist Cosmos Shiridzinomwa, which he produced for an
exhibition
entitled Let's Get Together that opened at Harare's Gallery Delta
earlier
this month.
In the painting columns of termites pour
across dark hills into a
sunlit valley waving green leaves marked with an
X.
Two weeks ahead of elections in which authoritarian 84-year-old
President Mugabe is seeking to extend his rule, the artist's message is
clear: the people of Zimbabwe are about to arise and reclaim their country
through the ballot box.
Criticizing the government or leader of
Zimbabwe, the one-time
breadbasket of Africa where hunger is rife and
inflation now in six figures
as a result of Mugabe's populist policies, is a
risky business. Accusations
of treachery, intimidation and even torture can
ensue.
Several artists, including popular musician Thomas Mapfumo and
playwright Tinashe Jonas have been forced out of the country for penning
words of protest.
Mapfumo, the voice of the 1970s guerrilla war
against minority white
rule in then Rhodesia and one-time darling of the
Zanu-PF government, fell
out of favour with the state after warning against
corruption in an album of
the same title in 1989.
After years of
harassment, including impromptu visits from the
secret service, he moved to
the United States in the late 1990s.
"You're a marked man if you sing
songs like that," he says of his
political brand of music called chimurenga
(meaning struggle), after the
liberation war.
Jonas, the nephew
of deceased former Zimbabwean justice minister
Edson Zvogbo, who was
sidelined by Mugabe after criticizing his policies,
also fled Zimbabwe after
his satirical play about Zimbabwe's president
entitled The Devilish was
banned in 2005 and he received threatening phone
calls.
Jonas,
who says he loves Mugabe but hates "his style of governing"
finally managed
to stage his play in Johannesburg in November 2007.
Although South
Africa is home to an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans,
the cast was entirely
South African because Zimbabweans were too afraid to
participate, he
says.
Back at home some theatre companies like Rooftop Promotions
have
continued to stage hard-hitting works, including the satirical The Good
President in 2007, blasted as the "sick" work of enemies of the state by
state-controlled media.
Visual art, on the other hand, attracts
less official opprobium,
says Derek Huggins, founder of Gallery
Delta.
"I think it's probably easier to be subtly relevant or
pertinent in
a painting than it in dialogue," he concedes.
The
works by 43 artists hanging in Gallery Delta, all produced by
local artists,
all speak of their longing for change.
Above the fireplace a painting
by Mischeck Masamvu entitled Post
Election Results shows a figure clad in
black comforting another figure
whose mouth is agape in horror.
In another work entitled Speech of the Friday, a puffed-up
cockerel - the
symbol of Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF - addresses a group of
hens.
The vast majority of the works, however, expressed a desire for
unity and
reconciliation.
"A lot of the work was saying let's sit together and
talk or it's
possible to get together," says Huggins. "It's a soul-cry
really." "It was
supposed to be non-political but of course everyone is
politically-minded
here," says Jean-Christophe Courbin, director of the
Alliance Francaise in
Harare which co-sponsored the exhibition held under
the auspices of
Francophonie (French-speaking) Week.
By choosing
Let's get Together as the theme for the exhibition the
French, Canadian and
Swiss sponsors wanted to show "our heads of state
(Western and Zimbabwean)
may not agree with each other, but we, the people,
want to get together," he
added.
That spirit of cooperation also extended to the six judges,
which
selected the competition winners. Despite its political content two
judges
from the state-controlled National Arts Council and the National
Gallery
gave the thumbs-up to Shiridzinomwa's Termites as the unanimous
choice for
first prize.
Business Day
27 March 2008
Ann Bernstein and Sandy
Johnston
IN
MAY last year, speaking to the National Assembly, President Thabo Mbeki
summed up his government's attitude to the crisis-driven escalation of
cross-border migration from Zimbabwe, saying: "As for Zimbabweans who enter
SA legally, well, they enter SA legally and there wouldn't be any need to do
anything about that, but as to this other influx of illegal people, I
personally think it's something that we have to live with.. You can't put a
Great Wall of China between SA and Zimbabwe to stop people walking
across."
According to the International Organisation for Migration,
the South African
authorities deported 102413 illegal migrants to Zimbabwe
between January and
June last year, a monthly average of 17000. This
compares with a much lower
(but still high) monthly average of 4000 in
2004.
The Zimbabwe exodus poses numerous problems for the
implementation of South
African immigration policy. For instance, Zimbabwean
applications for asylum
are the second-largest component in a backlog, which
by last year had
reached 144000, despite what the home affairs department
called "concerted
efforts" to reduce it.
However, there are
opportunities as well as challenges for SA in receiving
this influx of
people. According to the South African Qualifications
Authority, of the
17086 evaluations of qualifications it performed between
January and
September last year, 9756 (57%) were for the purpose of
processing
Zimbabweans' work permit applications. This suggests quite a high
level of
skills among the migrants.
Hard facts on immigration dynamics are
notoriously difficult to establish
globally , but recent research in SA
offers at least tentative answers to
some of the important questions about
recent migration from Zimbabwe.
How many migrants are there and who are
they? Authoritative numbers on
migration from Zimbabwe remain elusive.
However, survey evidence and
deduction from what we know about Zimbabwe's
population statistics suggest
that the higher estimates - 3-million is one -
are unlikely to be true
figures and perhaps 1-million recent migrants is the
best estimate we have
at this moment.
A survey of 4654
Zimbabweans in Johannesburg, conducted by Unisa professor
Daniel Makina in
the middle of last year, produced some important pointers.
Of the sample,
92% had migrated between 2000 and 2007; the reason for
leaving varied with
the year of departure - for 2002- 06, the majority cited
political reasons,
for last year, the majority cited unemployment as a main
driver; the
majority of migrants were aged between 21 and 40 years; and the
majority of
the sample possessed matriculation and more than 30% had a
post-secondary
education.
Are patterns of migration from Zimbabwe changing? Although
there has been a
rapid escalation in numbers since Zimbabwe's crises in
2000, migration of
this sort has been going on for a long time and is made
up of many types of
people in whose lives migration plays different parts.
Some are seeking
temporary refuge, others circulate between Zimbabwe and SA,
trading or
sending remittances, while still others remain and build lives
here. More
women and children - increasingly including unaccompanied minors
- are
arriving in SA. The origins and destinations of migrants are showing
more
variation: arrivals from the more northern areas of Zimbabwe are
reported as
increasing, and a significant proportion of Zimbabwean arrivals
now
congregate in urban centres, as opposed to border areas.
What
has been SA's response? In spite of reports of increasing numbers of
Zimbabwean migrants arriving in the country, the government has been
relatively silent on a policy solution. Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula has acknowledged the need for a "new approach" toward
irregular migration, recognising both the unsustainable costs of detention
and repatriation, and the futility of these processes when deportees
continue to return to SA. However, there have been no steps forward on this
issue, and the asylum claims system appears to be carrying much of the
weight of incoming migrants from Zimbabwe. Temporary residency permits were
mooted by the home affairs department last year, but the department has not
followed through with this suggestion.
Another policy avenue open
to the government is to implement the SADC
Protocol on the Facilitation of
Movement of Persons, a statement in favour
of the principle of freer
movement of people in the region. Any attempt to
base policies on the ideals
of the protocol would in practice require these
policies to take into
account the uneven economic realities of the region
and align them with SA's
national interests, since it is the destination for
most of the migration in
the region.
The push factors of economic decay in Zimbabwe and the
pull of SA's
relatively robust economic performance will continue to drive
migration.
Whatever the prospects of political settlement, recovery will be
a long and
difficult haul and cross-border migration is set to remain a
challenge to
South African policy makers.
Many issues are raised
by these facts. How do we deal with the gap between
obligations and delivery
in refugee and asylum matters? Is it purely a
matter of bureaucratic
capacity? Are the burdens of coping with an exodus
from an increasingly
intolerable Zimbabwe SA's alone or should they be
internationalised? What
are the realistic limits, costs and benefits of
attempts to control people
flows? For example, does the failure of the
"arrest, detain, deport" policy
mean we should look for alternatives or
devote more resources and effort -
including re-assigning responsibility for
it - to its operation? How much
does SA want to spend on border control? Are
we making enough use of the
skills Zimbabwean migrants have to offer to fill
the skills gaps that are a
constraint on SA's growth? What are the effects
of migration on crime and
service delivery, including in healthcare and
welfare. What do the migrants
contribute to the South African economy?
The absence of convincing
answers to these challenging questions about
Zimbabwean migration highlights
a lack of realism and failure of leadership
within SA on the crucial issues
of regional migration. Beneath its surface
tolerance, the passive attitude
typified by Mbeki's suggestion that we "just
live with" escalating illegal
migration carries dangers with it.
Experience from other countries
makes clear that failure to take charge of
refugee and asylum issues and
demonstrate the ability not only to be
generous but administratively
efficient in discharging obligations, risks
discrediting all migration in
the eyes of the public.
Immigrants - at all skills levels - have
contributed significantly to SA's
economic success and could contribute much
more. If a well-managed
immigration policy is to facilitate that
contribution, it is essential that
every aspect of the migration issue -
humanitarian, emergency, economic and
political - should be managed with the
effectiveness and decisiveness that
brings public
confidence.
.. Bernstein is head of the Centre for Development
and Enterprise (CDE) and
Johnston is a senior associate. This article is
based on a new publication
from the CDE - Migration from Zimbabwe, numbers,
needs and policy options.
I would like
to respond to recent comments by Police Commissioner Augustine
Chihuri and
Army Commander General Constantine Chiwenga, about them not
supporting a
change of government, for whatever reasons. It is amazing how
naïve some
people have become, twenty eight years after independence they
are still
bent on pleasing their unrewarding taskmaster, Mugabe. You would
think that
by now sanity has begun to prevail especially in the echelons of
power. It
is understandable if the people in the rural areas are still
ignorant of the
real cause of the country’s problems simply because they
have been secluded
from international broadcasting and other independent
newspapers hence the
only media they have is radio two, a highly controlled
ZANU PF propaganda
machinery. But for the supposedly elite to continue to
support Mugabe as
if he is the only solution to the country’s problems is an
insult.
For
Chihuri and Chiwenga to utter these absurd statements in the middle of a
long awaited election by a people that so desperately need change is
irresponsible. Chihuri’s ignorance is shocking when you consider his recent
statement in which he said that the police should support the government of
the day. It seems no one told him that the police and army are supposed to
remain apolitical. Their job is to protect the people by upholding the law
and not beat up the opposition and enforce the will of Zanu PF or any ruling
party for that matter. It is clear that these men are not only ignorant of
their duties but also selfish. They are obviously trying to secure their
positions and feed their families. However what they fail to realize is that
they have become a liability not only to the people of Zimbabwe but also to
Mugabe himself. With millions of Zimbabweans black and white, young and old
suffering, going to bed on empty stomachs, without electricity, coupled with
food shortages and hypeinflation, you would hope that by now they would be
talking about unseating the driver who has led the country into such
disarray. Instead what do they do? They worship and revere him. Not
because they are not aware of how bad his policies have been but because
they are the primary beneficiaries of all the skewed economic policies
Mugabe has instituted.
It is clearly evident that they are happy with the
status quo. That is why
they are willing to fight for it. In my opinion if
Mugabe had left office
in 1990 perhaps he would have earned a little bit of
respect. Things were
not so bad. We have had good examples of founding
fathers that left office
before they overstayed their welcome, Nyerere, and
Mandela why could our own
president not follow the example. Oh I think I
know why! He has a terrible
human rights record to sit on. He does not want
to show up at The Hague and
face the music. So it serves him right to die in
power, that way he will not
face the embarrassment of jail time.
My
message to Chihuri and Chiwenga, is save yourselves, don’t fight for
Mugabe
and his titanic, it is sinking anyway. You might as well jump ship
before
your words come to haunt you. Remember the other guy who once said
Mugabe
was the equivalent to Jesus the son of God. He kissed up to the old
man and
where is he now? Was he not dumped by the same person he was trying
to
please? Think about Jonathan Moyo, he tried to kiss up to the old man by
building the draconian media law that has stifled the independent media and
journalism in Zimbabwe resulting in the exit and torture of so many
journalists, whose input could have helped shape the policy in Zimbabwe. Did
he get the promotion he was looking for? Not with Mugabe, he was thrown out
like a piss of thrash, and only saved face by winning a sit as an
independent. I wonder what he thinks when he sees what he did and what could
have been, had he been responsible enough to leave room for the media to do
justice to the issues of the day. My point here is, learn from history and
don’t be the next fool.
What about the late Edison Zvobgo? Who created
the office of the Executive
Presidency which gave Mugabe more powers that no
single president should
have. As soon as Mugabe was inaugurated as the first
Executive president
Zvobgo was immediately tossed out in a cabinet reshuffle
and became the
Minister of Mines, a position less influential and
unattractive to the power
hungry and politically ambitious. What a thank
you! That is the Mugabe you
are trying to please Mr. Chihuri and Mr Chiwenga
Good Luck in your
endevours!
My advice to you sirs, is that, you have fed
the monster; it’s time to
change tactics and run with the people. As for
Makoni, I do not believe
that he is a genuine leader worth following. How
does he decide to run for
elections a month before the elections especially
after a secret meeting
with Mugabe? And moreover he says Mugabe will have a
place as a founding
father, I don’t think so. No one is above the law. If
people have killed and
tortured other human beings they deserve to face the
law. They have
forfeited that front seat in history and should be treated
like wise. That’s
why I believe that he is actually Mugabe’s puppet, (a
spoiler of sorts) or
indeed a last ditch effort to take away votes from the
opposition. Was it a
coincidence that Makoni began to talk about running
for president when talks
between the two MDC factions to unite were in
progress? Even the March 29
date was set quickly by Mugabe to avoid a
possible agreement between the two
factions of the opposition was reached
obviously denying them the time to
work out their differences. Mugabe knew
they would have united and formed a
formidable force in this election. As if
that was not enough that’s when the
Mugabe and Makoni “fall out” came about.
I believe if Makoni was genuine
that he is not a puppet, the CIO would have
nipped the plan from the bud.
Perhaps a puma would have been arranged to
take him out. I don’t believe
that the CIO was caught napping. Maybe for
once they are starting to show
signs of co-operating with the people this
time. That is food for thought.
That’s why I strongly believe that Makoni is
Mugabe’s’ plan B to survive.
Whatever the case do not take the people of
Zimbabwe for granted, Judgment
day is coming and every man will be judged by
what they have said and done.
If you are going to open your mouth, say
something that will benefit the
people you are serving not your pocket. That
is the cornerstone of public
office.
Mugabe has enough puppets and if by
some massive vote rigging he wins this
election. I believe he will toss
Chiwenga and Chihuri because they have
proved that they can engineer a coup
if they want to. Their statements prove
that they are a real liability not
only for a new president but even for
Mugabe himself in the future. It’s
time for every Zimbabwean from the
police, the army and the CIO to stop
obeying the puppet master and bring
this nightmare to an end. I am sure
people are educated in Zimbabwe and
they cannot be fooled by Mugabe blaming
his failures on the West. He surely
sounds like a broken record, just like
he did when he blamed it on the 1992
drought, six years after the drought.
Let every man and woman do what is
necessary to give way to a completely new
government. If the worst comes to
the worst and we have to go Kenya style, I
would like to call on the police
and the army to refuse orders from Chihuri
and Chiwenga to shoot their own
brothers and sisters in a bid to protect a
man that has failed the country
time and time again. That will pull the rug
from under their feet. It is sad
to watch videos of the Zimbabwean police
beating up hungry and struggling
people (on Youtube.com), for supporting the
opposition, And for the same
police to be seen arresting their own for being
seen in an opposition
vehicle. Somebody needs to retrain them when this
nightmare is over. I have
travelled far and wide yet I have never seen a
police force so ignorant of
its duty, to the people. It is a true reflection
of its leadership.
Let’s vote for change. Chinjai Maitiro
Please
Sijabuliso Mburuma
USA