Key army and CIO figures helping Mugabe stay in power: Part 1

http://www.swradioafrica.com

By Lance Guma
28 March 2012

Mugabe’s regime has over the years deployed serving and retired soldiers
into non-military structures, to ensure Mugabe remains in power. Today SW
Radio Africa looks at some of these individuals in both the army and Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) who have helped keep Mugabe in power.

In November 2010 Air Vice-Marshal Henry Muchena from the Air Force of
Zimbabwe was sent to the ZANU PF headquarters in Harare and assigned to lead
a team of 300 army officers deployed around the country to help Mugabe’s
party rebuild its collapsed structures. Assisting him was CIO Internal
Director Sydney Nyanhongo.

Recently promoted Major-General Douglas Nyikayaramba is the most vocal of
the senior soldiers used by Mugabe’s regime. Not only has Nyikayaramba been
implicated in rhino poaching and partisan food distribution, he has also
helped rig elections for Mugabe, especially the 2002 presidential elections
when he was the Chief Executive Officer of the then Electoral Supervisory
Commission.

Lovemore Chipunza Sekeramayi, the current Chief Elections Officer in the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is a former CIO. The two directors under him,
Utoile Silaigwana (Operations) and Notayi Mutemasango (Administration and
Finance), are former soldiers fiercely loyal to Mugabe. Silaingwana is
responsible for polling, training, election logistics, voter education and
public relations.

Retired Brigadier General George Chiweshe was in May 2011 unilaterally
appointed by Mugabe as the new High Court Judge President. Chiweshe is the
former chairperson of the discredited Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, that
kept Mugabe in power in 2008 by withholding election results for a month
while they massaged the figures to force a presidential run-off, which
Tsvangirai was forced to boycott due to the violence.

Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, a former colonel in the army, was also at one time
chairperson of the Electoral Supervisory Commission charged with the running
the 2002 presidential election. Gula-Ndebele was later appointed
Attorney-General, a position he held until 2008. Ndebele was fired after
being accused of ‘corruptly assuring’ then fugitive banker James Mushore
that he would not be prosecuted. Others blamed ZANU PF infighting for his
demise.

Watch out for Part 2 tomorrow….

Hearing begins in Zimbabwe torture case

http://www.osisa.org/

By Alan Wallis | 28 March 2012

The landmark Zimbabwe torture case brought by the Southern Africa Litigation
Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) began in earnest in the
North Gauteng High Court on Tuesday March 27th after a one-day postponement
caused by the state's last-minute change of counsel, following the filing of
sensational new testimony from the head of South Africa's Priortiy Crimes
Unit.

Wim Trengove SC, appearing for SALC and ZEF, began the hearing by noting
that it was common cause between the parties that crimes against humanity
had been committed in Zimbabwe and that that there had been a collapse of
the rule of law there. He added that the prohibition against torture is one
of South Africa’s fundamental constitutional values, as recognised by the
Supreme Court of Appeal, and that it is a crime that all states are required
to prosecute.

He then proceeded to distill SALC’s case into three issues of law, and five
grounds for review.

On the law, the issues were: the applicant’s standing; the applicability of
the principle of legality to the case; and the applicability of the
Promotion of Administration of Justice Act (PAJA) to the case. The five
grounds for review were: when the respondents say they had no power to
investigate international crimes committed in Zimbabwe; when they say they
have no duty to investigate; when they say that SALC’s dossier contains
insufficient evidence to trigger an obligation to investigate; when they say
they couldn’t gather evidence themselves in Zimbabwe this was not an excuse
to not do such investigation as they could; and when the respondents say
that an investigation would negatively impact on the relationship between
Zimbabwe and South Africa they demonstrate that they took into account
wholly irrelevant considerations in making their decision.

On the issue of standing, the law is clear. A slew of cases — from Ferreira
to Biowatch — support the proposition that NGOs, which are dedicated to
constitutional values and are litigating in the public interest for those
constitutional values to be upheld, should not be denied standing. In
addition, the respondents concede in their papers that SALC has an interest
in having a proper decision made and having conceded that interest cannot
now contest itsstanding.

One of the best quips of the day was made by Judge Fabricius at this point,
who noted that torture victims have no voice in Zimbabwe; on the respondents’
version, they would have no voice in South Africa either and the applicants
too would be denied a voice.

Judge Fabricius appeared to accept that the principle of legality applied to
the case, indicating to Wim Trengove that there was no need to address him
on this point.

On the applicability of PAJA to the respondents’ decision, Trengove referred
to a number of cases indicating that the question at issue is whether the
decision, even if only provisional or preliminary, has an effect and that
with applications — as with SALC’s submission of the dossier to the
PCLU/NPA — it is enough that the decision, which is subject to review,
determines rights and not that it necessarily violates rights.

It was submitted to the court that the respondents’ position that they did
not have the power to investigate was erroneous. They had both the power and
duty to do so in terms of the relevant applicable legislation. South Africa’s
ICC Act is very clear that international crimes contained in the Rome
Statute — genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes — are crimes under
SA law whether committed in SA or beyond its borders. At the time SALC
submitted its dossier to the PCLU/NPA, the Scorpions were in existence
within the NPA and had investigative powers as would have allowed them to
pursue the case. At the very least, the PCLU/NPA might have requested that
the police investigate. In essence this was the recommendation made by Anton
Ackermann, head of the PCLU, and evidenced in his afidavit admitted to court
yesterday when he disclosed that he recommended to his superiors within the
NPA that an investigation be initiated.

As to the sufficiency of the dossier, Ackermann’s views that dossier should
be investigated must hold sway. Furthermore, supporting affidavits which the
respondents put up appear to conflict: with some criticising the dossier for
containing insufficient detail; others for too much. The respondents in
their heads also appeared to misunderstand the ICC’s jurisprudence on the
different thresholds applicable to different stages of
investigation/prosecution. For an investigation to be initiated it is
sufficient that there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ and in their papers
respondents appear to have conceded that SALC’s dossier met this standard.

The respondents could also not rely on the likelihood that they themselves
would be unable to gather evidence in Zimbabwe as a reason not to
investigate. They could have undertaken other investigation, such as
re-interviewing victims of the torture.

Respondents also sought to rely on the potential prejudice the investigation
might cause for SA/Zimbabwean relations as a reason not to proceed with
investigation. One particular potential prejudice identified by the
respondents included that SA might one day lose its chance to chair the SADC
police chiefs forum on the basis of this investigation. Applicants’ counsel
underlined that the argument was not that foreign policy considerations
should never be a consideration. But in this case, those who would be
‘miffed; are the torturers or those complicit in the torture'.

Trengove referred to authoritative Canadian jurisprudence to the effect that
comity, while important, must end where international crime begins.

‘NPA failed in duty to probe crimes in Zim’

http://www.iol.co.za/

March 28 2012 at 01:53pm
By ZELDA VENTER

The NPA has been accused of failing in its duty to probe and prosecute
crimes against humanity committed in Zimbabwe.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) failed in its duty to investigate
and prosecute crimes against humanity committed in Zimbabwe, and former head
of the NPA Mokotedi Mpshe “unlawfully passed the buck” in this regard.

This was the argument of advocate Wim Trengove SC in the Pretoria High Court
application by the Southern African Human Rights Litigation Centre Trust
(Salc) and the Zimbabwe Exiles’ Forum (ZEF).

They are asking Judge Hans Fabricius to review and set aside the decision by
the NPA and the SAPS not to investigate Zimbabwean officials allegedly
linked to acts of torture.

The application stems from an event in March 2007 when the Zimbabwean
police, under orders of the ruling Zanu-PF, raided the headquarters of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

More than 100 people were arrested and taken into custody at the time and
detained for several days.

It is claimed they were severely tortured during that time.

In response to the raid, Salc compiled a dossier relating to the events
which was handed to the NPA.

Salc felt that in light of the collapse of the rule of law in Zimbabwe and
because SA was legally required to investigate war crimes and crimes against
humanity – regardless of whether or not these atrocities were committed in
SA – those people responsible should be held accountable.

The dossier was handed to the head of the NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation
Unit, advocate Anton Ackermann SC. It contained the names of the Zimbabwean
officials responsible for the raid and torture as well as details of the
incident.

Salc’s argument before court is based on the contention that SA is obliged,
in terms of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court Act (ICC
Act), to investigate these crimes.

It is based on the fact that SA is a party to the Rome Statute.

Although the NPA did ask the police to investigate, this request was refused
and the matter was left there.

Trengove told the court on Tuesday that the NPA failed in its duty by
refusing to investigate the matter.

“The case is not about the prosecutorial discretion of the NPA. We accept
that a prosecuting authority can, for a number of reasons, decide not to
prosecute. But we are not there yet. The State failed to investigate the
matter,” he said.

Trengove said that after the police refused to investigate the matter, Mpshe
should have referred the dossier to the Scorpions.

“He unlawfully passed the buck. It is now impossible to prosecute as there
is no investigation.”

The advocate told the court that Mpshe was the NPA head at the time and thus
the boss of the Scorpions.

He said the NPA had a formidable investigation unit under its noses with a
lot of power to investigate. He questioned why this was not done.

Police commissioner Tim Williams at the time gave a number of reasons for
refusing to investigate, which included that the SAPS did not have the power
to investigate international crimes committed in Zimbabwe and that they did
not have a duty to investigate these crimes, as they did not occur on SA
soil.

Another reason forwarded was that any such investigation would negatively
affect SA’s relations with the Zimbabwean government.

Trengove said these reasons did not hold water, as SA had a duty to
investigate under the ICC Act, regardless of who the victims of the torture
were.

Judge Fabricius remarked: “The victims in Zimbabwe have no voice there and
the respondent’s (the NPA) argument is they have no voice here.”

Trengove said the excuse of the respondents was simply that they had no
power to act, which they in fact did have.

The police and NPA are expected to deliver their arguments later this week.

Pretoria News

Zim torture victims protest at landmark SA court case

http://www.swradioafrica.com

 

 

 

Pretoria High Court Tuesday. Left is Lovemore Chikandiwa MDC Vice Chair SA, Gabriel Shumba torture survivor and ZEF Chair, Brendon Nyoni Torture Survivor and Sox Chikohwero, Torture Survivor all exiled to SA.

By Alex Bell
28 March 2012

A number of Zimbabwean torture victims joined scores of exiled nationals in South Africa this week, calling for justice for the hardships they faced back home.

The group has been protesting outside the Pretoria High Court where a landmark legal challenge is being heard. The case is urging South African authorities to investigate and prosecute high level Zimbabwean officials accused of crimes against humanity, as part of their international legal obligations.

The case was filed by the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum and is based on a decision by South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the police not to investigate the torture of MDC members in 2007.

These details were contained in a dossier submitted by SALC and the Exiles Forum to the NPA and the police in 2008. This week’s court challenge will urge this investigation to happen, because South Africa is a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Yes to justice and No to torture

Torture survivors and other exiled Zimbabweans meanwhile have for the past three days gathered to show their support for the case, wearing t-shirts with the slogan: ‘Yes to justice and No to torture’. Some members of the group wore shackles on their ankles and handcuffs on their wrists, while others wore tape over their mouths.

Gabriel Shumba, the head of the Exiles Forum and a man who is also a torture survivor, joined the protesters this week. He told SW Radio Africa that he was very moved by the reaction.

“People were singing and dancing and chanting against the impunity in Zimbabwe. It was a signal moment for me and I really hope that South Africa will heed the calls for justice,” Shumba said.

The case continued Wednesday with more arguments from the NPA and police over its decision not to investigate. The lawyer representing the police even went so far as to argue that if the case is successful, it would be an exercise in futility.

Lawyers representing SALC and the Exiles Forum then argued that the NPA and the police had relegated the matter to one of ‘unimportance’ and did not act as a responsible signatory to the ICC.

The judge presiding over the matter was also critical of the state’s arguments that its political considerations outweigh its legal obligations, stating that he would “lift up his hands in horror” if crimes against humanity go unpunished because states care more for their political relations.

The case will continue on Thursday.

 

ZPF’s violent Chipangano gang running “parallel Council” in Harare

http://www.swradioafrica.com

By Tererai Karimakwenda
28 March 2012

The violent gang of ZANU PF youths known as Chipangano have reportedly taken
over many council properties in Harare and are now collecting huge sums of
money illegally from vendors and minibus drivers. According to NewsDay
newspaper, Chipangano is practically running a “parallel Council”.

The gang started a few years ago as young hired guns that did the dirty work
for politicians in Mbare during elections. But with impunity and support
from police and top party officials, they ventured into illegal businesses
like collecting fees from kombi drivers and market vendors in Harare.

It has now been reported that Chipangano has overtaken Harare’s City Council
and are illegally collecting large sums of money from revenue sources that
the council has authority over.

A council official reportedly admitted to paying Chipangano for water in
buildings they had illegally taken over. Newsday reported that Charles
Nyatsuro, who heads the Council’s Housing and Community Services Committee,
described the situation in Harare as “chaos”.

George Makoni from the Centre for Community Development Zimbabwe told SW
Radio Africa that the gang’s influence has spread from Mbare to other parts
of the capital, including Mabvuku, Epworth and Chitungwiza.

“They have now set up structures in other cities, calling themselves
Chipangano Chinhoyi, Chipangano Karoi and they are terrorising people willy
nilly. These people are sustained by violence and have nothing else to offer
the electorate,” Makoni said.

The gang’s grip on Harare’s Mbare high density suburb and the violence they
unleashed on local residents last year, caused the influential Bill Gates
Foundation to suspend a development project they were funding, which would
have helped the entire community.

There is consensus that top ZANU PF officials benefitted financially from
Chipangano’s illegal activities, but the gang has become more independent as
their influence grows and politicians are now said to fear them.

According to NewsDay, Mbare MP Piniel Denga admitted that he had been barred
from his constituency by the gang, which he said was running a “parallel
council”.

Education Ministry Probes Resale of UNICEF-Donated School Books

http://www.voanews.com/

27 March 2012

Secretary general Raymond Majongwe of the Progressive Teachers Union says
there is a loophole in the system allowing vendors to access the textbooks,
which is a shame as school children are again missing out on a proper
education.

Tatenda Gumbo | Washington

"Transporters were only paid once confirmation of receipt of the delivery of
all books was provided by each school principal. There is therefore no
possibility of books being diverted prior to delivery to the school," said
the statement signed by Minister David Coltart

Zimbabwe's Ministry of Education has launched an investigation after
teachers union organizations reportedly confiscated from street vendors
textbooks that were donated by the United Nations Children Fund but soon
found their way onto the streets.

The textbooks for both primary and secondary schools were donated under the
Education Transition Fund, set up in forging the revitalisation of the
education sector.

The books that normally retail from $12 to $20 were selling on the streets
for $7 to $10 dollars each.

The Ministry of Education said in a statement it had transported the
textbooks to the schools with the help of UNICEF with each school receiving
steel cabinets to guard against theft, maintaining any sale of text books by
vendors is at a small scale and will be confined to the purchase by a small
number of non-registered or informal schools

"Transporters were only paid once confirmation of receipt of the delivery of
all books was provided by each school principal. There is therefore no
possibility of books being diverted prior to delivery to the school," said
the statement signed by Minister David Coltart,  "upon receipt, all school
authorities were instructed to ensure appropriate stamping and
identification of the books as a measure to keep the books protected from
sales."

The ministry along with UNICEF in the first phase of the ETF distributed
more than 22 million textbooks to all primary and secondary schools in
Zimbabwe, including English, Mathematics, Shona, Ndebele, and Geography
books, shifting the pupil textbook ratio from a crippling 10:1 to 1:1.

Secretary general Raymond Majongwe of the Progressive Teachers Union says
there is a loophole in the system allowing vendors to access the textbooks.
He told reporter Tatenda Gumbo it’s a shame school children are again
missing out on a proper education.

"We are now getting reports that certain schools never received certain
books, there are others that have been lost through the school structure,
there are some that have been stolen, there are others coming from
uncertified sources, but in all it is corruption," said Majongwe

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, through its Department of International
Development, today allocated nearly $38 million  to the second phase of the
Education Transition Fund.

The funds will go towards accelerating the revitalization of the education
sector and giving a second learning chance to school drop-outs, especially
girls who have failed to proceed to secondary school.

Zimbabwe to cut back on hangings

Mar 28, 1:05 PM EDT

By GILLIAN GOTORA
Associated Press

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe is considering cutting back on hangings
according to a proposed new constitution, reserving the death penalty for
only extreme cases of aggravated murder, a government official said
Wednesday.

Constitutional Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga said only killers who commit
"gratuitous violence to the extent it becomes sickening" will be hanged.

In a compromise between human rights groups and traditional supporters of
capital punishment, it will be up to judges to rule on the level of violence
used.

Matinenga told The Associated Press that despite calls for its abolition,
the death penalty cannot be "totally scrapped because there are murders that
make you shudder and ask: What was the person thinking?"

Just this month a man was sentenced to death for relentlessly hunting down
his teenage sister-in-law, assaulting her, strangling her to death and
throwing her mangled body down a mine shaft in what the court ruled was
brutality with "actual intent."

In another case, an off-duty soldier gunned down five people he accused of
taunting him in a bar.

The fate of at least 61 prisoners on death row will be considered on
individual merits if the measure is adopted in a constitutional referendum
that may be held in September, he said.

Rights groups argue every criminal killing is extreme violence and say it
will be open to wide interpretations in courts asked to differentiate
between axing deaths in village disputes, anger-fueled shootings and
cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

No executions have been carried out under the three-year old coalition
government. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's former opposition Movement
for Democratic Change party has voiced its disapproval of hanging.

Execution orders must be signed by the coalition's co-ministers of justice
and approved by President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

Executions were suspended for a decade after Mugabe met with Pope John Paul
II in 1988. During the moratorium, scores of inmates' death sentences were
commuted to life imprisonment on grounds that they suffered inhumane mental
torment awaiting execution.

Matinenga said laws already exist for prisoners to appeal for a death
sentence to be altered to a life sentence.

In 2010, the justice ministry said it was looking for a new hangman.

The last executioner retired after carrying out his last execution in 2004,
saying he was struggling with his conscience in the face of superstitious
local custom and beliefs in avenging ancestral spirits. After that,
authorities reportedly sought a foreign executioner from Asia.

Human rights groups in 2010 cited a Supreme Court plea by a death row inmate
who said he and other convicted killers were "losing their minds" in
uncertainty over when jailers would call them for hangings at dawn on
gallows of scaffolding and wood dating from the colonial era.

Official records show 78 people have been executed in Zimbabwe since the
African country won independence from Britain in 1980.

Zimbabwe Militia Linked to President Mugabe Ban Lawmakers From Constituencies

http://www.voanews.com

28 March 2012

A new report by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said lawmakers Piniel Denga
for Mbare and Southerton’s Gift Chimanikire, are the worst affected by
Chipangano's activities in Harare

Jonga Kandemiiri | Washington

A youth group linked to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has
banned lawmakers from the MDC formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai
from visiting their constituencies, creating no-go areas civic groups say
are affecting developmental projects.

A new report by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said lawmakers Piniel Denga
for Mbare and Southerton’s Gift Chimanikire, are the worst affected by
Chipangano's activities in Harare.

Denga confirmed the development adding the militia group, allegedly led by
ZANU-PF Harare province’s youth chairman Jim Kunaka, was also collecting
revenue from Harare City Council’s markets and stalls, depriving the local
authority  of thousands of dollars.

On Tuesday the city's housing committee chairman, Charles Nyatsuro, told the
Newsday that Chipangano was causing chaos in the capital, adding it has
become “more powerful than the council and the police”.

The group was said to have invaded parking spaces in the capital Monday,
taking over from Easipark, a company currently running the business on
behalf of the council.

Denga told VOA's Jonga Kandemiiri that he has raised the Chipangano issue
with the parliamentary committee on defense and home affairs in an effort to
find ways of containing the gang.

But ZANU-PF's Jim Kunaka rubbishes the allegations by Denga and the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition. He says the MDC is not telling the truth.

Lawmakers Finally Cleared To Visit Controversial Diamond Fields

http://www.voanews.com/

27 March 2012

The committee has in the past criticized the manner in which the government
has handled the mining and marketing of Marange diamonds and expressed
concern over the way some foreign investors, especially those from Asia,
were not respecting Zimbabwe’s labor laws

Violet Gonda | Washington

Zimbabwean lawmakers have finally been granted permission to visit the
controversial Marange diamond fields for the first time since mining
operations in the east of the country began in 2009.

Chairman Edward Chindori Chininga of the parliamentary mines committee
declined to give pre-tour details, but confirmed the legislators had finally
been cleared to go to Marange to familiarize themselves with the joint
venture mining operations in the fields.

The committee has in the past criticized the manner in which the government
has handled the mining and marketing of Marange diamonds and expressed
concern over the way some foreign investors, especially those from Asia,
were not respecting Zimbabwe’s labor laws.

Chininga told VOA reporter Violet Gonda the committee is going on a
fact-finding mission, including conducting a follow-up investigation into
diamond operations in the area.

“We are doing an oversight role that is all. We are going to Chiadzwa to see
how the operations are going and figure out what is going on in terms of
security; what is happening in terms of operations and how they are selling
the diamonds,” said Chininga.

Director Farai Maguwu of the Center for Research and Development said the
tour to Marange by the mines committee is long overdue, adding it’s a
welcome development.

“In fact they should have gone even ahead of civil society. They are the
legislative body of government and they represent the Zimbabwean people,”said
Maguwu. “They must be answerable to the people but how can they have answers
to things they do not know. It must not be a token but a routine exercise.”

Meanwhile, Maguwu said he feared that diamond mining operations in Marange
may undermine the work of the inclusive government, democratic transition
and sustainable economic development in the country.

He said many are concerned that an Israeli pilot was arrested recently at
the Harare International Airport trying to smuggle out of Zimbabwe 1,300
pieces of diamonds worth an estimated $2,4 million.

Maguwu said it was shocking that despite committing such a serious crime the
Israeli national was granted bail of only $5,000 and remanded out of
custody.

He questioned how the Israel pilot was able to access such a large
consignment of diamonds from an area that has a water tight security system.

Maguwu said this raises a lot of questions on the implementation of the
Kimberly Process Certification Scheme's minimum standards in Zimbabwe.

Food situation in prisons is critical

http://www.swradioafrica.com/

By Tichaona Sibanda
28 March 2012

The food situation in the country’s prisons has once again become a crisis
and inmates are surviving on just sadza and groundnuts, the deputy Minister
of Justice has revealed.

Senator Obert Gutu told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that he was
disheartened to get first hand reports of the desperate food situation
inside the prisons.

The deputy Minister was at Chikurubi Maximum Security prison where he was
visiting the MDC-T youth chairman, Solomon Madzore.

‘I met Solomon for 90 minutes, he’s in good spirits but he did describe the
food situation as bad. I was able to get confirmation of this from senior
prisons officers at the complex.

‘Prisoners are now surviving on a diet of sadza eaten with nzungu
(groundnuts) as relish. On a lucky day they get sadza and boiled cabbages,’
Gutu said.

The deputy Minister described as disastrous government’s decision to tell
the Red Cross the economy had improved and they no longer needed to supply
food to the prisons, which they had been doing since 2009. They had been
supplying prisoners with beans, groundnuts and oil and this enhanced the
nutritional status of inmates, and vastly improved management of the food
supply chain.

But last year the Red Cross withdrew food aid to the prisons after
government indicated the prison services would take over the nutritional
needs of inmates.

‘That decision was not only premature but ill-advised. It’s clear Treasury
doesn’t have the financial material and resources to run prisons in as far
as food and uniforms are concerned.

‘I saw prisoners who were 75 percent naked because they don’t have adequate
uniforms. So the prison officers implored upon me to re-engage the Red Cross
and see if they could offer some help again,’ the Senator added.

‘If the situation does not improve, we will soon have prisoners suffering
from food deficiency diseases such as scurvy and pellagra,’ he said.

Magistrate in ‘no show’ to hear Gwisai appeal

http://www.swradioafrica.com

By Tichaona Sibanda
28 March 2012

A Harare magistrate failed to turn up in court on Wednesday to preside over
the appeal hearing against conviction and sentence of Munyaradzi Gwisai and
5 others.

The hearing was postponed twice, on Monday and Tuesday. The reason for the
first two postponements was the failure by the prosecutor to attend and
represent the state.

This led to defence lawyer Alec Muchadehama complaining on Tuesday about the
disturbing trend of state prosecutors to not show up in court.

Now on Wednesday the hearing was postponed to Thursday because the
provincial magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini failed to pitch up.

‘The magistrate did not communicate with us why he failed to come to court.
We were only informed by the prosecutor of his absence, which makes this
whole thing a mockery of justice,’ Muchadehama said.

The defence lawyer has been in court since Monday applying to have the
community service sentence imposed on Gwisai set aside, pending appeal.

The former MDC-T legislator was last week convicted on charges of conspiracy
to commit public violence. He was jointly charged with Antonater Choto,
Tatenda Mombeyarara, Edson Chakuma, Hopewell Gumbo, and Welcome Zimuto.

The magistrate also ordered the six to pay a $500 fine each. A further 24
months-prison term was imposed on the activists, 12 months of which were
suspended on condition of good behaviour for the next five years. The
remaining 12 months were suspended on condition the six perform 420 hours of
community service, starting on March 31.

20 pupils share desk in Matabeleland North: Coltart

http://www.newzimbabwe.com

27/03/2012 00:00:00
    by Staff Reporter

EDUCATION Minister David Coltart has warned that students from Matabeleland
North are being crowded out of university opportunities because of a
breakdown in education infrastructure in the province.
On average, 20 pupils share a single desk in the province, while 17 share a
bench.

Presenting shock statistics, Coltart said of the 175,000 pupils who sat O’
Level exams in the province last year, just 137 had sat Maths and Science
exams – which dramatically lengthened the odds of pupils from the area
making it to university.

“These figures are unacceptable and they should be improved,” Coltart said,
speaking at the commissioning of a new classroom block at Somgolo Primary
School in Lupane which was financed by the Czech Republic.
Matabeleland North, Coltart said, only had 26 A’ Level schools – far too few
too absorb the O’ Level students.

He added: “The level of poverty in this province is alarming. About 40
percent of children learn under trees because of a shortage of classrooms.

“This region has been through difficult times over a protracted period of
time and this had adversely affected infrastructure development.

“There is an urgent need to allocate more resources to the education sector
which is the backbone of the economy. Countries with strong economies have a
strong education system.”

Not only were poorly-equipped schools unlikely to attract specialist
teachers for Science and Maths, Coltart said, but they also produced a
generation of drop-outs.

The Matabeleland North deputy provincial education director Matthias
Luphahla said the province was being exploited for timber by large companies
who invested little in local communities.

“Something should be done to improve the furniture shortage in order to
create a friendly learning environment for our children,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Transport and Infrastructure Development Ministry donated 76
benches, 38 desks and 10 chairs to Mbuhulu Primary School and a consignment
of textbooks for major subjects to Dlamini High School in the same province.

The ministry also pledged to repair the solar energy system at the two
schools to provide power especially for computers that were donated by
President Robert Mugabe.

Sugar, Mine Companies Risk Govt Take Over

http://www.radiovop.com

Masvingo, March 28, 2012 - Zanu (PF) Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and
Empowerment Minster, Saviour Kasukuwere has set his eyes on foreign owned
business here following revelations by a senior government official that his
ministry had shortlisted four firms to cede 51% with immediate effect, under
the controversial indigenisation laws.

The Ministry has allegedly resolved to move into big foreign owned firms
including giant Sugar producers Tongaat Hullet who owns Triangle and Hippo
Valley Sugar estates, the country’s sole Lithium producers, Bikita Minerals
mine, Gold producing Renco mine and Wildlife conservancy Malilangwe Trust.

Presenting his progress report before a Zanu (PF) dominated Masvingo
Provincial Development Committee at the Civic Centre, Chairperson of
Industry, Commerce, Mining and Tourism subcommittee; Munyaradzi Rubaya said
time was up for foreign firms in the province.

“We are targeting four firms for now to cede their shares under the
Community Share Ownership Trust, namely Bikita Minerals, Renco Mine, Tongaat
Hullet and Malilangwe Trust in the low-veld to the tune of $30 million.The
funding will come from those organisations,” said Rubaya.

Although he could not give the actual dates government intended to move into
the firms, Rubaya said their first target was Bikita minerals which he said
was one of the biggest Lithium producing mines in Africa and the whole
world.

“Very soon we will launch the Bikita Minerals community share ownership
trust before moving to the other enlisted organizations,” he said.

The controversial indigenisation laws that have since been criticised by
fellow partners in the shaky inclusive government, the two Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) formations, have been accused of causing foreign
investors to lose confidence in the country.

The move by government comes in the wake of unsuccessful efforts by a Zanu
(PF) youth group, Masvingo Youth in Business to grab foreign and white owned
companies under the same controversial laws. About five of the youth group
leaders are still in the courts after they attempted to grab white owned
buildings in Chiredzi.

Rubaya however said the Ministry of Youth would be announcing the dates and
deadlines for the firms in Masvingo province to compel with their demands.

The Provincial Development feels that Masvingo was lagging behind in
implementing the Indigenisation law as other provinces have since forced
firms to surrender 51% shares.

The announcement also comes barely a week after Kasukuwere threatened
foreign companies with arrest if the fail to compel with the indigenisation
policy in Matabeleland.

Unity Partners Spar Over Vacant Parliamentary Seats

http://www.voanews.com

27 March 2012

Hardliners in Zanu PF, led by Jonathan Moyo are now pushing for by-elections
as a way to end the troubled coalition government, saying the failure to
hold elections is illegal

Blessing Zulu | Washington

Tensions are rising again in the Zimbabwe unity government with the two
formations of the Movement for Democratic Change accusing hardliners in Zanu
PF of trying to divert attention from crucial matters such as the writing of
a new constitution by urging by-elections in 28 vacant senate and
parliamentary seats.

Clerk of Parliament, Austin Zvoma says there are 16 parliamentary
constituencies and 12 senate seats without representation. In the 2008
parliamentary elections, the MDC party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai
scooped 100 seats, the formation led by Welshman Ncube got 10 while Zanu PF
won 99.

Since then, some legislators have died; others have been expelled or
re-assigned by their parties. Three former members of parliament for Nkayi
South, Lupane East and Bulilima East won a High Court order in October
compelling President Robert Mugabe to proclaim election dates.

But the attorney general appealed the ruling at the Supreme Court on behalf
of Mugabe. Hardliners in Zanu PF, led by Jonathan Moyo are now pushing for
by-elections as a way to end the troubled coalition government, saying the
failure to hold elections is illegal.

Moyo argues that the outcome of these by-elections could, “see one of the
coalition parties in parliament emerging with a majority of at least 106
seats out of 210 with the consequence of sinking the Global Political
Agreement and its so-called unity government, not to mention kissing Copac
goodbye."

Clerk Zvoma told VOA reporter Blessing Zulu that his hands are tied as he
can only notify the president and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of the
vacancies, while ZEC chairman Simpson Mutambanengwe said Mr. Mugabe alone
can proclaim the by-elections.

Tsvangirai MDC deputy organizing secretary and former Nkayi South MP,
Abednico Bhebhe, said that Mugabe was undermining representative democracy
by refusing to call a vote to fill in the vacant posts.

But organizing secretary Qhubani Moyo of the Ncube MDC said the vacant posts
must be filled concurrently with anticipated general elections. Lawyer
Jeremiah Bamu of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights accused Zanu PF of
being insincere.

AG appeals against prosecutors

http://www.dailynews.co.zw

By Xolisani Ncube, Staff Writer
Wednesday, 28 March 2012 14:24

HARARE - Attorney General (AG) Johannes Tomana has vowed to defy a High
Court ruling ordering the reinstatement of public prosecutors fired by the
AG after striking for better pay.

High Court judge Justice Ben Hlatshwayo ruled that the five prosecutors
should be reinstated after their prosecution powers were withdrawn by
Tomana.

Leopold Mudusi, Patros Dube, Dereck Charamba, Musekiwa Mbanje and Mehluli
Tshuma were dismissed from their posts for leading a strike action demanding
a salary increment last October.

The strike nearly paralysed the justice delivery system in the country.

The team then approached the courts challenging Tomana’s decision. Justice
Hlatshwayo ruled in their favour.

Tomana has since written to the five saying no court has authority to
challenge his powers when it comes to their appointments as public
prosecutors.

He says he has since challenged Justice Hlatshwayo’s ruling in the Supreme
Court.

“Be also advised, however, that my authority to prosecute remains withdrawn
firstly by operation of the law as the Attorney-General’s prosecutorial
mandate is not subject to no other authority including the judiciary,” said
Tomana in his March 23 letter.

Justice Hlatshwayo said in his ruling: “In light of the above discussion it
can be concluded the AG committed a material error of law or fact when he
purportedly withdrew the prosecutors’ authority to prosecute."

“The AG may not withdraw his/her authority from a public prosecutor because
it is never delegated in the complete manner in which it is done for legal
practitioners so appointed, but public prosecutors prosecute under
instruction from the AG,” ruled Justice Hlatshwayo.

Mugabe ‘hijacks’ Chamisa project

http://www.thezimbabwemail.com

FELUNA NLEYA, 21 hours 27 minutes ago

MDC-T officials yesterday accused President Robert Mugabe of planning to
hijack an e-learning project initiated by Information Communication
Technology (ICT) minister Nelson Chamisa for political mileage ahead of the
forthcoming general elections.

MDC-T sources said Mugabe had taken over the project and was set to
officially launch a schools’ computer laboratory project at Chogugudza
Primary School in Goromonzi tomorrow, which function Chamisa had been billed
to officiate.

But Presidential spokesperson George Charamba denied allegations of
hijacking Chamisa’s programme, saying Mugabe was the pioneer of the
computerisation programme.

“The President was invited and he does not have to hijack a programme,” said
Charamba.

“The Ministry of ICT is just building on the foundation which the President
started a long time ago.

“Do you think he can hijack this project when he has given the whole country
computers as the pioneer and head of government?

“If the President is invited to a launch, the host has to send a draft
speech and a draft programme which have to be looked at and worked on by the
permanent secretary and the chief of protocol respectively and be turned
into a Presidential speech and a Presidential programme, that is the
standard procedure.”

Chamisa confirmed the launch of the schools project, but could not be drawn
to confirm allegations that the Zanu PF leader had hijacked the project from
him.

“We will be launching the e-learning aimed at equipping all the schools in
the country with ICT. Every school has to have access to ICTs, projectors,
printers and also connectivity,” said Chamisa.

“The launch is at Chogugudza Primary School. This will be the first of the
e-learning computerisation of the schools. It will see each school having at
least 80 computers by 2015,” he said.

“Although we have challenges on having our teachers equipped, we are trying
to make it a point that they are equipped so as to make it easier for them
to teach the students and avoid a situation where we would have the teacher
becoming the student.”

Chamisa said the programme, which initially targeted government, would also
be rolled out at clinics, councils and in the police force.

In the run-up to the March 2008 harmonised elections, Mugabe doled out
thousands of computers, 10 per school, mostly sourced from Zanu PF’s
all-weather friend China to urban and rural schools countrywide.

Political analysts, however, dismissed the President’s gesture as a
vote-buying gimmick after it emerged some of the schools that received the
donated computers did not have electricity or solar power to run the
computers.

Chamisa, who is the MP for Kuwadzana East, said schools with no electricity
would have solar panels installed to make it possible for them to use the
computers.

“We do not want a situation where the computers will just be dumped at
schools and not be used,” he said.  -- http://www.newsday.co.zw

Mugabe received Gaddafi gown from criminal

http://www.swradioafrica.com/

By David Muganda
27 March 2012

The man who gave Mugabe the black and gold glittering gown, which once
belonged to slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, is a high profile criminal
who was the architect of multi –million dollar fraud that almost put Kenya
on its knees.

Paul Kamlesh Pattni is the chief architect of a fraudulent scheme in which
US$850 million, then estimated to be 10 percent of Kenya’s gross domestic
product, was looted from the country’s Central Bank.

Pattni was in Zimbabwe last month during the official opening of the
rescheduled 2011 Chiefs Council conference in Bulawayo. He was introduced as
the “national chairman of the House of Traditional Elders in Kenya”, before
he handed over the gown.

Pattni, of Indian extraction, “anointed” Mugabe as the next ‘Chief of Africa’
after Gaddafi. “I got the gown from Gaddafi before he died,” he claimed. “So
after his death Mugabe is the only African leader who deserves to have it.”

But questions are now being raised as to how such a dubious character could
be allowed to meet Mugabe. Pattni was accused of exploiting a scheme
designed to revitalize Kenya’s faltering economy in the years surrounding
the first Gulf War.

The Kenyan government subsidized exports of gold, far beyond standard
arrangements, between 1991 and 1993, by paying Pattni’s company Goldenberg
International 35 percent more, in Kenyan shillings, than their foreign
currency earnings.

Claiming that his company was processing gold and diamonds for export,
Pattni was able to manipulate loopholes in the system with the help of
government officials. “Pattni appears to have hit Kenya below the belt at a
time when the country was at its weakest,” the East African Standard, a
newspaper in Kenya, wrote at that time.

Pattni along with 20 others suspects, including government ministers and
senior government officials involved in the scandal, were prohibited from
leaving Kenya.

During an inquiry Pattni implicated former President Daniel Arap Moi, his
two sons, Philip and Gideon and his daughter June, as well as a host of
high-ranking Kenyans. He alleged during the inquiry that he “never visited
Moi empty handed”. He claimed he gave money-filled suitcases to the former
president.

The scandal haunted Moi up until his retirement in 2003 and it left Kenyans
(the  majority of whom live on less than a dollar per day) seething with
anger at how much money the country lost to fraudster Pattni.

In Bulawayo Patti was allowed to give a brief solidarity speech at the
chiefs’ indaba before he handed the Gadaffi gown to Mugabe. They briefly
exchanged pleasantries before hugging each other.

Zanu PF resists skills audit

http://www.dailynews.co.zw

By Own Correspondent
Wednesday, 28 March 2012 10:20

HARARE - Zanu PF is resisting a skills audit for workers at Marondera
municipality — a town which has a bloated staff that is chewing more than 85
percent of the monthly cumulative revenue.

Marondera currently has 537 workers but the town that is home to 120 000
people only needs 150 workers according to mayor Farai Nyandoro.

Speaking at a full council meeting, Nyandoro, the mayor from Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC, said the previous Zanu PF-led council employed at
least 120 Zanu PF youths who were staffed in the middle and upper grades
just before the 2008 elections.

There are allegations that most of the employees who are now resisting the
skills audit were actively involved in acts of violence and intimidation as
Zanu PF lost its stronghold in the Mashonaland East province.

“We would like to have a skills audit but the workers are resisting, saying
that they are being witch-hunted — which is however, not the case, as we are
doing something that is common in any professionally-run organisation,” said
Nyandoro.

The youths were employed by the previous executive led by Faber Chidarikire,
who was an executive mayor and had the powers to hire staff.

“When we talked about a job evaluation, it was immediately viewed as a
witch-hunt,” said Nyandoro.

The mayor told stakeholders at the meeting that the cash-strapped council,
which is also failing to meet its water and electricity bills, approached
the minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Ignatius
Chombo.

“We went to minister Chombo but as a minister he does not have the powers to
deal with workers. So we are now in a fix,” he said.

“We know that the workers who are among the middle and top grades and doing
nothing, do not have any qualifications and that is the reason why they are
resisting the audit,” said Nyandoro.

Minister Says Stanbic Bank Agrees to Set Up Wealth Fund For Poor Youth

http://www.voanews.com

28 March 2012

In a message posted on his Facebook page, Kasukuwere said youths aged
between 21 to 35 years are expected to start accessing up to US$20,000 each
starting next Monday.

Gibbs Dube | Washington

Indigenization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere says Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe
Limited has agreed to set up a US$20 million youth wealth fund to be
administered by the National Youth Council and the bank as the country’s
controversial black economic empowerment program gains momentum.

In a message posted on his Facebook page, Kasukuwere said youths aged
between 21 to 35 years are expected to start accessing up to US$20,000 each
starting next Monday.

Stanbic executives were not available for comment while the chief executive
of the youth council Livingstone Dzikira said the funds, like the Central
African Building Society wealth creation program created a few months ago,
will be accessed by all young people despite their political affiliation.

Political analyst Bhekilizwe Ndlovu said it is unfortunate that such funds
are set to benefit youth aligned to President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

Zim women shortlisted for award

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/

Two UK- based Zimbabwean women are set to be recognised for their
inspirational work campaigning for girls’ rights after being shortlisted for
a Women 4 Africa award.
26.03.1208:38am 0 0
by KJW

Human rights campaigner Betty Makoni has been nominated in the Inspirational
and Humanitarian Woman of the Year categories and BekezeleNsingo has been
nominated for a recognition award for her work with the African Mothers
Foundation which she began.

Women4Africa is a UK-based organisation which works to help street children
and girls in Africa. It launched the scheme to honour and celebrate the work
of dedicated African women making a real difference in their communities.

Makoni has won more than 20 awards for her work helping girls in the rural
areas take control of their lives and break the cycle of the poverty trap
they are born into, through her organisation the Girl Child Network. But she
says each award is special because it raises more awareness about the plight
of children in the rural villages.

It is a plight she knows all too well. She grew up in a rural village in
Zimbabwe and survived domestic abuse and rape as a child. Through sheer
determination she worked her way through school and became a teacher after
gaining two bachelor degrees.

She has expanded her network to helping girls in Sierra Leone, South Africa,
Uganda as well as the USA and the UK. And she uses her inspirational story
to teach children that they can work their way out of their villages.

She said: “What we are doing is giving girls the skills they needs to make
something of their lives. We set up girls’ clubs in villages and teach them
leadership skills. They are free to talk through the issues and problems
they are encountering but also to know that they have solutions.” She said
the girls are encouraged to start small businesses to make money for
themselves by planting food or learning how to make reuseable sanitary
towels they can sell. “Maybe these girls want to get through secondary
school, maybe they have even dreamed of going to university. You need
someone to stand up and tell them: ‘you can achieve that.’”
BekezeleNsingo: nominated for work with African Mothers. BekezeleNsingo:
nominated for work with African Mothers.

Nsingo also works to help girls in the rural areas become self-sufficient.
She was inspired to start her foundation after an emotional trip to Zimbabwe
in 2008 when she was shocked by the dire situation she found in her village.

“We work with young girls in Zimbabwe, keeping them in school and ensuring
they get an education, we pay their school fees. I also do workshops
teaching girls how to make re-useable sanitary towels with materials
available to them, because it is very difficult for them to access these
things. I am also working with doctors and midwives in the country to make
sure they have the right drugs to prevent maternal deaths,” she said.

Nsingo, who has also been nominated for a Zimbabwe Achievers Award, said she
knows Betty well and is proud that their work is being recognised.

“That is the mark of a Zimbabwean woman, to keep on fighting and fighting
until you see the light at the end of the tunnel. You don’t stop,” she said.

A third Zimbabwean, singer/songwriter Roucheon, has been nominated for
Outstanding Mother of the Year and Business Woman of the Year. The
Women4Africa winners will be presented with their awards on May 19 at a
ceremony in London. - KJW

Transcript of Betty Makoni on Question Time

http://www.swradioafrica.com

 

Posted by Lance Guma on Wednesday, March 28, 2012

 

Betty Makoni spoke to SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma on Question Time

A day before she launched her new book, Girl Child Network founder Betty Makoni spoke to SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma on Question Time. The book “A Woman Once A Girl: Breaking Silence” chronicles Makoni’s lifetime of activism towards protecting the rights of young girls and women in Zimbabwe.

Interview broadcast 07 March 2012

Lance Guma: Good evening Zimbabwe and thank you for joining us on this special edition of Question Time. She’s been a guest on the programme before; she’s girl child rights activist Betty Makoni and she has a book that she’s launching in a couple of days entitled “A woman, once a girl: Breaking Silence”. Betty Makoni, thank you for joining us on the programme.

Betty Makoni: Thank you so much Lance Guma.

Guma: Okay, the book – let’s start off with that – why the book?

Makoni: Ah the book is a clear documentation of all the work that I did in Zimbabwe to assist young girls. The book is actually opening up a story of the many things that happen to young girls who are raped, who don’t exist because they are not assisted. It’s basically a mouthpiece for those girls you don’t see every day or who don’t come to be known anywhere in the world. So it’s an advocacy tool, trying to speak on their behalf.

Guma: And are you doing this via your own experiences? Is the book focusing on you, Betty Makoni as the individual and what sort of work you’ve been doing?

Makoni: The book is basically focusing on me and my story as a girl and then I’ve come to say I’m now a woman. But as a woman I also walked a journey where I took one girl at a time. So the book is trying to tell the world that after I am done, we still have many more to assist.

So the book begins with the Betty stories of girls that have never, you know, come out in the open and it speaks also stories of women who are trying to do something to help on the ground. Then it speaks about the challenges that we encounter as people who are trying to help the victims, situations where we end up as victims as well.

But at the end of it, the book is trying to say to everybody, nobody in this world should be a victim. When we were born, we were all victors in our own right so the book is also trying to uplift everybody who is doing something to defend human rights in the world.

Guma: In as far as the challenges that women and even girls face in Zimbabwe, how much of those problems are down to politics? If you were to be asked to weigh where the source of the problems emanate from?

Makoni: As you know at the moment the political situation in Zimbabwe is not fully full addressed nothing is going to move about the social wellbeing of women and girls because everything is about policy, everything is about leadership, everything is also about women getting a 50 percentage stake in the decision making.

As it is now, we still have a lot of things polarized and people’s energy is actually spent on the political conflict so it’s going to be very difficult for women and girls who are already vulnerable to suit anywhere within the structures of leadership, so it’s a big challenge. Politics is actually the root causes of most of the issues I’m raising in the book.

Guma: You entitled your book – “A woman, once a child: Breaking Silence” – why that phrase there – “Breaking Silence”? What are you trying to say?

Makoni: Issues around rape are where people have declared wars on girls’ bodies, sugar daddies, Apostolic sects that are marrying off girls, rape used as a political, as weapon of war, in the homes where we are, issues around rape are not easy issues for anyone to talk about anyway.

You become ashamed, you also take the blame, so we’ve come to say – Betty was once a girl, I’m breaking the silence so that everyone else does the same. Women I’m going to meet on International Women’s Day, were also girls which should help other girls transform through our stories, so “Breaking Silence” means you are not going to stay a victim at all. So it all ties up with the theme that we are not victims, we are victors.

Guma: In all the years that you have been doing this activism work, what would you say is the attitude of fellow women to the type of work you do? Do you feel women have supported you enough in your cause?

Makoni: You will see I’ve got a poem entitled “I’ve seen it all”; in this poem I actually said it’s very difficult in a country with scarcity of resources especially money, funding and dwindling donor support for one woman to be prosperous and others struggling so always there’s this back-biting, rumour mongering, blackmailing each other in order to outdo each other.

So there’s a big fight not against Betty Makoni only but also against other women who are trying to do something. So it’s actually a battle of surviving in a space where everything is limited to individuals who already made it. When you try to make a breakthrough there are always spanners on your way.

So every day I did my work for a decade, there was always a spanner that I had to pull out of the road in order for me to move on, so in the book I’ve made it clear but at the end of it, I know the women who do that especially in Zimbabwe, I’ve only said shame on you all.

Guma: Well Zimbabwe I’m speaking to girl child rights activist Betty Makoni and remember this is Question Time, if there’s anything that you are hearing her say that you disagree with by all means send in your questions, we will get her back on the show and pose those questions.

So remember this is your programme, you get to ask the question. My next question for you Betty – the nature of our society – some say it is a patriarchal society – do you think that also contributes to the problems that you face as an activist trying to change attitudes?

Makoni: Oh yes definitely because in a patriarchal system the development of women and girls is underestimated. Just one being in domestic circles cooking for a family is not understood as a contribution to the development as a country so anything that women do is not money tied; patriarchy still sees the place of a woman being a bedroom and a kitchen.

And then when you try also to get out of that bedroom and kitchen and stand up to say – no, don’t use women as sex objects, what you see is backlash. The backlash comes in the form of you being isolated, insulted in public, labeled nicknames and everything that I stated in my book. So patriarchy is still very strong, it’s one of the oldest wars that we are still fighting against. You know, we had colonialism, we had slavery but patriarchy is really one of those things that really stand anchored in our community.

Guma: Do you think it’s an African problem or it’s worldwide? Would you, where would you restrict it – onto the African continent?

Makoni: Ah no, no, no, no – actually in my book you will see it’s taken also a global perspective because if you see recent developments in the United States of America with this radio producer who called a woman a prostitute and a slut on public airwaves, calling a student, a law student that, and even last night he went on to say over-educated white women are a problem.

You can see the labeling, you can see the gender stereotyping so it’s not something confined to African societies. Even United States of America, a developed and civilized country, women are still in tears in that country.

Guma: Let’s move on to your book launch – when is it going to be on, where and who’s coming?

Makoni: My book launch is going to be in London; South Bank University, London Road and I’ve got quite a number of important women who are coming, high profile women. I’ve got the London Mayoral candidate for 2012, I’ve got also the Secret Millionaire, Pauline Long one of the distinguished Kenyans in UK is actually coming to be the Director of Ceremony so I do have quite a number of women who are coming who are quite high profile.

Guma: You are based in London of course, the United Kingdom, for those of our listeners who have forgotten why, why are you based in the UK now?

Makoni: As you know I was doing my activism in Zimbabwe and it became a challenge, the interference in my work and as you know, 2007 I was arrested and interrogated whether I wanted to run for presidency. That disturbed me and I left the country to just make peace and be somewhere where I can continue with my charity work. So I was just trying to find a spot to do my charity work without harassment.

Guma: Has this impacted on the work of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe?

Makoni: Not at all, it has not impacted on our work. What we have gone on to do is to actually establish worldwide network which actually ensures we incorporate Zimbabwe but you know if, as an activist you become targeted, there’s no need for you to become a dead hero so I tried to work from a different location but still contributing to my permanent work. So nothing has changed, it was just me trying to make a transition from being at the forefront to being like the supporter.

Guma: And just finally Betty, seeing you are essentially now based in the Diaspora, how much of that Diaspora are you harnessing in your work? Are you finding it easier working with people in the Diaspora than let’s say when you were back home?

Makoni: Ah most definitely; I’ve formed networks of young women, I’ve got quite a big fan base of young women who ring me and tell me daily that you empower us, we want to be with you, we want to do this kind of work. So you will see from the launch tomorrow, that quite a group of young women have come out and this is another massive, massive movement of younger women staying in the United Kingdom and all over and all over the world.

So I can say Zimbabwe really, really I got a lack of support from young girls but the development that is happening here in the Diaspora is that the age group, 19 to 30, is actually massively supporting what I’m doing which is something that has actually taken me by surprise because I thought by uprooting myself from Zimbabwe I was going to start from nowhere but only to meet thousands of young women of all colours in the world following.

Guma: Just one more extra question – those who are listening in who want to contribute to the work you do – how do they do that? Is there a way that they can reach out and support you?

Makoni: Yes definitely, they can actually go through our web site: www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org. Everything that is done there is done with a team of volunteers so on the web site, they can pick any areas they feel they want to contribute and all contributions that we make in cash and in kind, my job is to ensure that we all support efforts in Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Uganda.

Guma: Well Zimbabwe, that’s girl child rights activist Betty Makoni joining us on this special programme on Question Time. She’s going to be launching in a few days her book “A woman, once a girl: Breaking Silence” and as I said, if you have questions for Betty Makoni about her book, about her work or anything to do with her activism in Zimbabwe or here in the United Kingdom, just drop us a line – lance@swradioafrica.com or you can just visit our web site and see how you can participate in Question Time. Betty Makoni, thank you for joining us on the programme.

Makoni: Thanks so much Lance, thank you.

To listen to the programme:

http://www.swradioafrica.2bctnd.net/03_12/qt070312.mp3

Feedback can be sent to lance@swradioafrica.com http://twitter.com/lanceguma or http://www.facebook.com/lance.guma

Revolution hits Zimbabwe's theatres

http://www.theafricareport.com

Posted on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 17:16

By Janet Shoko

Playwrights and actors in Zimbabwe are slowly stirring up a revolution of
some sort, as theatre rosters are packed with protest plays aimed at the
political establishment.′′

The plays are being premiered before sold out audiences mostly in the
capital, Harare, with Theatre in the Park being one of the few remaining
outposts of free speech.′′

The plays, including February 32 Movement, Protests Revolutionaries - which
premiered on March 13 and ends on March 31, Changing of the Guard and The
Coup, come after six activists were charged for allegedly showing recordings
of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia in the hope that these could inspire
similar demonstrations in Zimbabwe.

′′Playwrights and directors speak of being inspired by political uprisings
in North Africa last year to voice out through arts. The Coup depicts
corpses rising in a stinky mortuary to stage a bloody coup. They march to an
imaginary presidential palace to gun down the head of state. However, the
soul of the slain head of state attempts to bribe its way into heaven but
fails and is sent straight to hell.′′

Stanley Makuwe, who wrote The Coup, conceived the idea during his training
as a nurse. "In one of my visits to the mortuary to dump another body,
something gripped my imagination. I said if those bodies could speak what
would they say? Who would they hold responsible for their death and what
action would they collectively take?"

Dead bodies enraged by the state of affairs in the country come alive and
plan to stage a coup against the government

Dead bodies enraged by the state of affairs in the country come alive and
plan to stage a coup against the government/Photo/All Rights Reserved

Realising a much safe gateway to voice out frustration, media activists are
joining in. One such is Takura Zhangazha, who penned Changing of the Guard.
He calls his work "frustration theatre".′′

"Protest is no longer aimed at Zanu PF but to a broader section. Even though
it is still embedded in political persuasions, it has reached a stage of
frustration," Zhangazha said.′′

Protest Revolutionaries director, Silvanos Mudzowa says the play shows that
citizen participation in national issues is vital in bringing about change.
"It is possible as a people to use such avenues (protests) to voice out our
opinions on the state of affairs in the country. We can do so peacefully as
long as we will be able to address issues," he said.

He adds that the play was written to "provoke people into action."

In the play, the toy toying (a protest dance), placard carrying and slogan
chanting protestors gather at Africa Unity Square in central Harare, to
protest against the government and its leader, whom they accuse of running
down the country.

Millions from all walks of life gather at the square, which have they
renamed as the "Revolutionary Square". It is a stark reminder of when The
Green Square in Libya under Gaddafi, changed to The Martyr's Square as the
self named "Libyan Guide's" regime neared its end.

But the police soon arrive at the "Revolutionary Square" and quash the
protest leaving three of the protestors dead. However, the masses who have
gathered at the square remain unfazed as they continue with their protest.
Overwhelmed by the resolute protestors some of the senior police officers
join the protests, much to the chagrin of their superiors.

The army is then called in to manage the situation which they do, with
brutal force. The status quo unleashes its propaganda machinery in a bid to
control the situation which is getting out of hand. The government, through
the minister of information even tries to bribe the protest leaders who
refuse to take the offer.

Eventually, the president flees like former Tunisian President Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali and surrenders to a new breed of leaders.

How to steal elections – Zimbabwe style

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

One can just imagine the views circulating within a certain small,
retrogressive camp bent on reversing democratic transition:
28.03.1211:54am 1 0
by Dewa Mavhinga

Well, never mind what has happened to Wade in Senegal, he is spineless, why
concede defeat when the entire state machinery is behind you? In any case,
elections are not stolen, or won on the day of the vote, but way in advance.

For anyone in need of the basics in ‘managing’ elections then the following
easy steps should be committed to memory and applied with the necessary
changes in a given situation.

The first step is to ensure total control of the kind of information that
people receive – through state television, radio and papers. Make sure
privately owned papers have a difficult time operating, threaten them,
arrest one or two of their leaders – then self-censorship will follow. If
the daily circulation of private papers is small, never mind them, but never
let them operate community radio stations or independent national radio
stations.

If pressed to free the airwaves, you are better off creating private
companies – clones of your own image. Grant them licenses and satisfy the
requirement of plurity or radio stations.

You may allow other political parties to operate, but do not grant them
access to the people. Here you will find it useful to use a raft of laws
that regulate public order and security – and the access to information and
protection of privacy. Use the law to show who is in charge – even if it is
ridiculous that six people could topple your government through watching an
Arab Spring video – cause them to be charged, tortured, convicted and
sentenced harshly.

This serves as a reminder to like-minded activists that you are in charge,
and that your political hand is inside the judiciary glove.

Be careful who is recruited and promoted in the police, the central
intelligence and the army. You would not want to rely on independent people
to ensure you stay in power –only those whose history is clear, and whose
loyalty is proven.

On paper, do not tamper with the independence of national institutions, but
in practice, make sure it is only card-carrying cadres who run the show.

Specific to elections, if the regional bloc insists on the need to have a
set of new commissioners for the electoral management body – comply. But
make sure you retain staff from old commissions, who are thoroughly schooled
in the art of rigging – and many of whom belong to the military and state
intelligence.

Limit the mandate of the Electoral Commission – do not permit it to clean up
the voters roll, or to carry out the delimitation exercise. Instead, keep
that roll with the ever loyal Registrar General – he knows the ropes.

Do not let any United Nations Paris Principles on the independence of
national commissions stand in your way – make sure you own political
appointee – the minister of justice has total control of the Electoral
Commission and of resources allocated to it and the electoral commission
must know who butters their bread.

Remember the mistakes of 2008 – open , uncontrolled violence. This time
violence must come only as the last resort. Intimidation should be enough.
But to succeed, make sure whatever reforms you concede to are largely
cosmetic.

Whatever they say, no reforms must touch the nerve centre of your power –
the security sector.

Do whatever it takes to break up SADC consensus on the need for democratic
elections. Cut deals, bribe some, threaten some, offer them a vote for their
candidate at the AU – if they will shut up about electoral reforms. If they
want to construct a railway line through your country then they must make
less noise about western concepts of democracy and human rights respect.

Do not allow too many domestic and foreign observers to see what is
happening in the country – allow them to come a week before elections and
stay a few days after. Keep them in hotels in the capital. Even before
elections come, prepare for the next round of power-sharing government
talks.

As you may have noticed, some in the pro-democracy movement can be co-opted.
Do not allow them to dangle carrots to induce you to leave office, instead,
go for the pre-emptive strike, dangle the carrots for them to join you in
office and shut up about this human rights nonsense.

If you accomplish that, you would have mastered the art of stealing
elections Zimbabwean style. - Dewa Mavhinga, Acting Director & Regional
Coordinator, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition

Sanctions: the West’s most generous gift to Zanu (PF)

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Sanctions against Zimbabwe do not actually exist. Restrictions have been
imposed on certain individuals who have been identified with human rights
abuses.
28.03.1211:51am 3 0
by John Robertson

While it can be argued that some of these restrictions have missed their
targets and have affected individuals and companies that did not deserve to
be caught in the net, these cases cannot be claimed to prove that the
sanctions were applied to the whole country.

Zanu (PF) certainly does argue that sanctions are undermining the whole
country’s economic recovery, but this does not mean they believe the claims
to be true. Their purpose is to have everyone else believe that. By planting
and nurturing this belief in the minds of Zimbabweans in particular and the
world in general, Zanu (PF) believes it has found the best way to deflect
the blame for the economic collapse onto others. However, the Zanu (PF)
hierarchy knows very well that its own policy choices caused the damage.

It also knows that those were deliberately made so that damage would be
caused. Anyone taking offence at this suggestion need only ask why the steps
that arrested production across wide swathes of the productive sectors are
still being fiercely defended.

Zanu (PF) is mistaken in its belief that it has fooled everyone. Even
schoolchildren understand the need for investment in the job-creation
process and they fully appreciate the need for investor confidence before
those who have the talents needed to assemble resources and build a business
will apply their skills.

The same schoolchildren are keenly aware that very few career development
opportunities await them when they leave school. None of them has been
deluded into thinking that sanctions are to blame.

Every existing and potential investor has been repeatedly slapped in the
face, but only by Zanu (PF) officials, who are constantly trying to find
ways of inflicting handicaps on the business sectors. The most discouraging
“sanctions” were generated in the corridors of Zanu (PF) ministries or in
the President’s Office.

Ian Scoones’ makes an entirely incorrect claim that the diplomatic aim of US
and European foreign policy was to cause Zimbabwe’s isolation and turn the
country into a pariah state. Zanu (PF) wanted to reduce the influence of
countries that worked to higher standards of conduct, so the party sought
isolation.

Pariah status came with Zanu (PF)’s failing ability to service its debts and
its decreasing inclination to meet contractual obligations, while
dishonestly claiming that others should be blamed.

In demanding that its “entitlement” to international assistance should be
respected, Zanu (PF) has claimed that “sanctions” include the withholding of
aid. The facts are very different. Assistance comes to those who are
deserving of it, or to those who are the victims of events over which they
had no control. Because Zanu (PF) is seen to be deserving of nothing but
criticism, the considerable quantities of aid have been delivered straight
to the areas and communities in need.

Zanu (PF) takes grave exception to this because the party is denied access
to the funds and the assistance undermines the party’s efforts to keep as
many people as possible poor enough to keep them obedient, subservient and
dependent on party patronage. Poverty, therefore, is a Zanu (PF) objective
for the population at large.

Where it exists already, it is to be maintained. Where prosperity has been
edging upwards, that process is to be arrested by starving it of investment
capital. Because investors are so sensitive to market conditions that can be
so easily altered by changing the demands the investors have to meet, their
influence on the affluence of individuals, or even huge communities, can be
directly and quickly affected.

Zanu (PF) seems to have become enthralled at its ability to make huge
differences to levels of business activity by changing a few words or
numbers in a Statutory Instrument or in statute law.

Excessive wage demands can be passed off as attempts to raise wage levels,
but are actually being used as powerful weapons to halt the growth of
selected business sectors. Existing investors are being forced to relinquish
assets in the name of indigenisation, so new industrial investors are no
longer interested in Zimbabwe.

Farmers have already been forced out of business by changing the property
rights laws, which had previously offered them the security of tenure needed
to support business confidence and had placed bank finance within their
reach.

Mining was beginning to look a bit too promising, so investment allowances
have been withdrawn, registration fees and licence costs have been stepped
up to ridiculously high levels and royalties have now been increased so much
that only the richer mineral deposits can be profitably mined.

Zanu (PF) has deliberately made Zimbabwe’s mineral deposits less attractive.
Many thousands of young people who might have had good prospects of
receiving training and good incomes from the mining sector will now have to
do what thousands before them had to do: leave the country to find a job.

If the downturns in business had been unintended consequences, all the
changes that can be so easily identified as the origins of disastrous
effects could have been reversed, but they are still being preserved and
even reinforced. Zanu (PF) very clearly does not want ordinary people to
enjoy increasing success.

This is simply because the party knows that they will become increasingly
inclined to demand better governance and far less inclined to tolerate the
appalling blend of greed, ineptitude and arrogance that has so thoroughly
colonised Zanu (PF) thinking.

Naturally, Zanu (PF) has not wanted to have such accusations levelled
against it, so the imposition of targeted sanctions against identified
individuals has amounted to a wonderful, gift-wrapped bonus that Zanu (PF)
has magnified into the one and only reason why the economy collapsed.

The puffed up egos have allowed these Zanu (PF) heavyweights to claim “we
are so important to Zimbabwe that we are Zimbabwe” supports the analysis
that the same individuals believe they have restored a feudal society in
Zimbabwe and that everybody, foreign governments included, should defer to
their unquestionable majesty and respect their absolute authority.

The economy collapsed because the market mechanisms and business
relationships that were held together by civil rights, property rights, the
rule of law and respect for laws of contract were trashed by the same
individuals.

These features of modern society displaced the old feudal structures and
transformed the world. To the extent that they could be adopted in
pre-independence Zimbabwe, they transformed this country too. Zanu (PF) has
made strenuous efforts to reverse the entire process and to aggressively
entrench a few dozen people as the feudal overlords.

The only real mystery is why these individuals believe that the rest of the
population should feel happy with the idea.

Wade’s early admission of defeat - what lessons for Mugabe?

Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, 28/03/12.

President Abdoulaye Wade’s early admission of defeat – less than three hours
after election results began being announced in Senegal contrasts sharply
with Mugabe’s 5-week delay in announcing ‘doctored’ results in 2008
resulting in the present crisis.

There are some interesting notable similarities and contrasts between
Senegal’s and Zimbabwe’s scenarios. One major similarity is being led by
octogenarians, while the two countries have different colonial histories.

Senegal’s 85 –year old leader Abdoulaye Wade reportedly made a phone call on
Sunday night conceding victory to his former prime minister Macky Sall, 50,
a geologist, after a presidential runoff that was declared peaceful by
international observers.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe’s 88-year old Robert Mugabe did not accept
defeat in March 2008 but pressed for a presidential run-off which ended
being a one-man show after Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew citing political
violence against his supporters.

However, former security minister and Zanu-pf politburo member Nicholas
Goche conceded that Mugabe lost the 2008 presidential elections and
disclosed that senior Zanu-pf officials were reaching out to Tsvangirai to
be accommodated in a new government, according to the MDC leader’s book ‘At
the Deep End’.

Whereas, six people died in Senegal’s tragic violence sparked by Mr Wade’s
controversial bid for a third term in office, four Zimbabwean opposition
activists were found dead in June 2008 eight days before the presidential
run-off.

Zimbabwe’s political violence was so pronounced that some of the 211
election observers reportedly saw two people shot dead in front of them in
Zimbabwe in June 2008 as the violence escalated.

Critics of Senegal’s Wade say he was grooming his son Karim whom he had
appointed to key positions in government and failed to curb power cuts and
soaring food and fuel prices.

Similarly, Mugabe drew public outrage when he disclosed in February that his
15 year-old son Bellarmine harboured presidential ambitions. The
long-serving Zanu-pf leader has appointed his close relatives including his
sister’s children to ministerial and senior government positions.

Hard-pressed Zimbabweans who are struggling with electricity bills for power
that is seldom there thanks to load-shedding since 2000 were appalled to
learn that Mugabe and his wife were some of the top defaulters to the
country’s power utility Zesa, while the poor faced disconnections.
Corruption has affected nearly all political parties.

Media reports have cited the ‘Diaspora vote in Paris’ as having boosted
Macky Sall’s electoral fortunes in the Senegalese presidential elections, a
development that  Mugabe is unlikely to entertain having disenfranchised
millions of Zimbabweans abroad since the rejection of his draft constitution
in the 2000 referendum.

While the Senegalese leader, Abdoulaye Wade congratulated his rival Macky
Sall as the new president, Mugabe instead threatens war if he loses to
Morgan Tsvangirai.

Wade’s admission of defeat has earned him respect at home and abroad as a
sign of maturity, thereby bolstering Senegal’s democratic credentials
especially as its election was monitored and endorsed internationally, with
the European Union calling it a “great example”.

In contrast, Mugabe has insisted that election observers from the UK and the
European Union (EU) will not be allowed during the next poll, a move which
is set to prolong the standoff between the regime and the West.

“We want observers who will not have any choice on who to assist and who not
to assist. We abhor meddling in our own electoral affairs,” he said.

It is worth noting that Mugabe expelled the head of the EU election observer
team in February 2002 after which targeted restrictive measures were imposed
on the Zanu-pf leader, his wife and some of his inner circle for human
rights abuses and vote rigging.

Wade’s early admission of defeat should certainly present lessons for Robert
Mugabe and other Zimbabwean leaders, especially that to be a true statesman,
you may have to eat a humble pie and not hold the country to ransom for
whatever reasons.

Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, Political Analyst, London,
zimanalysis2009@gmail.com

Bill Watch 13/2012 of 27th March [List of 2011 Acts: ]

Bill Watch 14/2012 of 28th March [Human Rights Commission Bill now at Committee Stage with Amendments]