http://www.monstersandcritics.com/
Nov 15, 2010, 10:49
GMT
Harare - The Zimbabwean government is planning to block public access
to
state information like court judgments, legislation, official notices and
public registers, a press freedom watchdog warned Monday.
The
proposed legislation, drafted by President Robert Mugabe's wing of the
country's coalition government, would worsen an already heavily restricted
media environment, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
warned.
Clauses in the General Laws Amendment Bill published last month
are a
blatant attempt to gag the media from reporting on important
government
actions that are currently free from restriction, the MMPZ said
in a
bulletin.
The MMPZ said the bill would enforce copyright on all
government documents,
which could be published only with government
approval.
If a human rights organization wanted to publish details of a
court ruling
that affected the rights of citizens, it would have to get
permission from
the justice minister, the project warned.
Details of
new electoral laws could also only be published by the media with
state
approval and official registers, like voters rolls, could also be made
secret.
Significant reforms were made to media laws in Zimbabwe last
year, resulting
in the launch of the country's first independent daily
newspaper in eight
years, but journalists still suffer regular
harassment.
Last week Mugabe's chief media official said no new radio or
television
stations would be given licences to operate, in violation of an
undertaking
in the power-sharing agreement signed by Mugabe and
pro-democracy Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in September 2008.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Lance
Guma
15 November 2010
Six months ago several independent daily and
weekly newspapers were licenced
by the Zimbabwe Media Commission, in what
was hailed as progress by the
coalition government in terms of media
reforms. But back then we correctly
predicted that ZANU PF would only let go
of something that it could easily
control and that people had limited access
to (print media) and that the
same reforms would not be extended to
broadcasting.
Last week Robert Mugabe’s ‘motor-mouth’ spokesperson and
permanent secretary
in the Ministry of Information, George Charamba,
confirmed the worst kept
secret in ZANU PF’s election strategy. He told a
parliamentary portfolio
committee that government had no intention of
issuing broadcasting licences
to private players, as stipulated by the power
sharing accord, until they
had developed the capacity to monitor and
regulate the activities of the new
players.
Charamba was
contradicting remarks made by his boss, Information Minister
Webster Shamu,
who only last month urged the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe to urgently
expedite the issuing of licences to private
broadcasters and create a
platform for community radio stations to go on
air. Not that anyone took
Shamu seriously anyway, but Charamba’s position is
thought to reflect
Mugabe’s own position, given he is his spokesman.
Among the many flimsy
excuses Charamba used was; "Our laws still need to be
developed in regard to
political advertising. Presently the law only
regulates advertising in the
election period and this is a well-defined
period that is from the
declaration of the election date to the polling day.
The regulation is done
by Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The law is unclear
of what ZBC should do
outside elections and the ministry's position is clear
we let sleeping dogs
lie.”
The MDC-T immediately hit back saying;“ZANU PF wants to refuse
these reforms
and continue with its propaganda agenda on its failed policies
and rampant
corruption that is now in the public domain. By maintaining the
status quo
and denying the entry of private broadcasters, Charamba and his
masters are
desperately trying to prop-up ZANU PF’s declining grip through
the airwaves
ahead of elections expected next year.”
Even though
Charamba claims there are no clear regulations on political
advertising the
state owned broadcaster continues ‘churning out ZANU PF
propaganda,
bordering on hate language hourly while advertisements of
national interests
such as the Constitution making process have been denied
space.’
Tabani
Moyo, an advocacy officer with the Media Institute of Southern
Africa, told
SW Radio Africa other countries and regions had already moved
away from
debates centred of who should be licenced. Instead they were
focused on
issues to do with digital standards in the broadcasting area.
Moyo said it
was clear there was no interest in the Ministry to open up the
airwaves and
‘shockingly Zimbabwe wants to present a picture of uniqueness
that there is
a unique state security issue at stake” when is come to
broadcasting.
Meanwhile the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper
reports that ZBC, which is
struggling financially, “is paying senior
executives obscene salaries and
allowances” and could soon collapse if there
is no emergency capital
injected. The paper quoted sources who say ZBC
almost failed to pay workers
last month. The broadcasters “transmission
equipment and cameras are
obsolete and constantly break down” the Standard
reported.
At the centre of their financial woes is the 60 percent drop in
advertising
after the station hiked rates to unreasonable levels. The
situation is made
worse by the broadcaster’s poor programming and nauseating
ZANU PF
propaganda which has forced many people to invest in satellite
decoders to
watch foreign stations. But this situation has not stopped ZBC
managers
giving themselves over US$200 000 each for the purchase of houses
and
residential stands.
While most reporters are on US$350 per month,
the Standard reports that
“managers were getting as much as US$20 000 per
month inclusive of salary,
housing, transport and entertainment allowances
as well as fees for their
children and holiday allowances. On top of that
they also get 1 000 litres
of fuel every month.” The motive, the paper
reports, is to keep the managers
happy since they are at the ZBC to prop up
ZANU PF and Mugabe.
All this mismanagement and corruption has not stopped
the Iranians from
coming in to help fund the broadcaster's digitalisation
programme. Via a
loan from Iran “ZBC will refurbish its studios at Pockets
Hill, Montrose,
Radio Zimbabwe and Gweru in addition to outside broadcasting
equipment,”
according to Charamba.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
by Irene
Madongo
15 November 2010
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has branded
Robert Mugabe a crook and has
threatened to boycott the elections if they
are violent, he told supporters.
The MDC would also want monitors from the
United Nations and European Union
(EU) to oversee the elections, alongside
the Southern African Development
Community (SADC).
Tsvangirai over
the weekend held consultative meetings in Bulawayo that were
attended by MDC
supporters. The meetings are meant to brief Zimbabweans on
the performance
of the inclusive government and the disregard of the Global
Political
Agreement (GPA) by Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF.
The relationship between
Tsvangirai and Mugabe has now deteriorated so badly
that it seems unlikely
that it can be repaired. The MDC says it’s impossible
to work with ZANU PF
because it blatantly disregards the GPA, citing Mugabe’s
appointment of
provincial governors and ambassadors without consulting the
Prime Minister,
as required in the Global Political Agreement. Mugabe has
dismissed
Tsvangirai’s complaints as “nonsensical” and says he’ll fully
honour the
GPA, but only when Western imposed sanctions on him and his inner
circle are
removed.
“Mugabe is a crook. Mugabe is a dishonest person. We do not see
eye to eye
in cabinet. We don’t look at each other. The MDC has given up on
Mugabe
because of his continued violation of the GPA and early elections are
the
best option,” Tsvangirai said to supporters on Friday.
“We want
elections next year to end this unhappy marriage with Zanu PF. The
MDC is
ready for the elections but as a party, we will not participate in
any
election if there are incidents of violence and intimidation against
out
supporters,” Tsvangirai said.
The Prime Minister’s comments are a
sharp contrast to his remarks in
September where he said Mugabe was a
national hero of the liberation
struggle who accepted the power-sharing
agreement. Asked to comment on this
change of heart, Chamisa said: “The
Prime Minister gave the issue of the
inclusive government a chance, he gave
all he could within his power, but it
was not reciprocated. All he is
telling the whole world is there has been no
reciprocated action on the part
of ZANU PF.”
The MDC-T also says it wants officials from the United
Nations and European
Union to monitor Zimbabwe’s elections. It wants the
monitors to be in the
country six months before and six months after
elections. The party says the
country’s history of violent elections shows
there is a need for this.
Political violence still simmers across the
country, following the bloody
2008 elections when Tsvangirai won the first
round of the presidential race,
Mugabe’s first-ever defeat at the ballot
box. In response, hundred of MDC
supporters were murdered, tens of thousands
tortured and hundreds of
thousands were displaced.
On Monday MDC-T
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa said: Our elections in this country
have been
subject to real disputation, we would want to make sure that we
have a way
of doing an election without people having disputes. There is
SADC, the AU
and any other credible institution that may wish to help people
in
Zimbabwe.”
When asked if this included the UN and EU, Chamisa said: “Yes,
certainly,
those are credible institutions; we would want solidarity and
endorsement,
but more importantly SADC and the African Union as our brothers
and sisters
to come in here and work on the issue of elections.”
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tichaona
Sibanda
15 November 2010
The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has
recalled retired police officers and
war vets to take up vacant posts in the
force to reportedly direct
operations during the 2011 elections.
The
weekly Zimbabwe Standard reported that the re-calling of the ex-cops
follows
the scrapping of this year’s promotional examinations for the police
force,
which were scheduled to start early this month.
The examinations are held
annually in November and the results are used as
the basis for promoting
junior officers to positions of sergeant up to
inspector. But the paper said
this year’s promotional examinations were
scrapped to pave way for the
retired officers and war vets to take up vacant
positions.
A retired
Assistant Commissioner told SW Radio Africa on Monday that while
the
scrapping of examinations was not a big issue; the recalling of
ex-combatants into the force will surely raise
eyebrows.
‘Examinations can be scrapped or postponed and this has
happened on several
occasions but it is clear the recalling of former
policemen with links to
ZANU PF is meant to prop up Mugabe’s party during
elections,’ the former top
policeman said.
The ZRP is led by
Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri, a hawkish former
ex-combatant and a
member of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), an
influential group of
hardliner securocrats. The group is now working to
ensure that Robert Mugabe
wins the presidential ballot, which may take place
next year.
The JOC
comprises the commanders of the army, air force, police, prison and
intelligence services and is chaired by Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The secretive JOC has always played a major role in the country’s politics
from behind the scenes.
According to analysts the recalled ex-cops
and war vets are expected to lead
another crackdown on MDC supporters, like
the one witnessed in 2008. The
violence in the countryside before the June
presidential run-off in that
year was the brainchild of the JOC.
Sox
Chikohwero, the chairman of the MDC veterans’ activists association,
told us
the rehiring of the former officers is clearly being done for
election
purposes.
‘The problem with Chihuri is that he is now a political
commissar for ZANU
PF in uniform. The people that he is recalling are
experts in violence and
its clear now they want to wage another bloody
campaign against innocent
civilians for the sake of holding on to power,’
Chikohwero said.
Human rights defenders in Zimbabwe accuse the police
force of being
responsible for many of the most serious human rights and
rule of law
violations in Zimbabwe today. The ZRP has consistently shown
disrespect and
contempt for the law.
The ZANU PF leader is feverishly
pushing for elections next year, despite
resistance from senior party
officials. Mugabe is once again banking on
serving military officers and
other security agents who have been deployed
to ZANU PF, including at the
party’s headquarters in Harare, to revive the
party’s crumbling structures
ahead of anticipated elections next year.
We reported last week that a
group of soldiers — code-named Boys on Leave —
has been deployed to work
with ZANU PF to rebuild and renew the party’s
collapsing structures.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Own Correspondent Monday 15
November 2010
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s white farmers hold an emergency
congress at the
month-end to plot a new survival strategy, after a decade of
controversial
government land reforms that saw the majority of the farmers
driven off the
land.
The mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU)
said in a notice to members
that the November 30 special congress was
expected to come up with a new
strategic plan and constitution for the
organisation.
“The official notice has been sent out to inform everyone
about the
Emergency General Meeting which will be held here at the union on
30th
November 2010,” said the CFU.
The special congress is also
expected to discuss a report by consultant Rob
Ward who conducted a survey
of the union members in October to gather their
opinions and input on the
restructuring of the organisation.
Ward specialises in strategic
planning, organisational development and
strategic mentoring and has a
wealth of experience in change management in
large private sector companies,
non-governmental organisations and
government
departments.
Preliminary results of his survey showed that only 32
percent of the CFU
membership is still farming, 64 percent of who said they
want to continue
operating.
Half of the more than 100 farmers who
responded to Ward’s questionnaire
believe that their expectations are being
met by the CFU.
Zimbabwe’s beleaguered white farmers have shown growing
frustration at
failure by the country’s coalition government and their union
to end chaos
in the farming sector.
The unity government of President
Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai has watched helplessly as
members of the security forces and
hardliner activists of Mugabe’s ZANU PF
party intensified a drive to seize
all land still in white hands.
The
coalition government is yet to act to fulfil the promise to restore law
and
order in the key agricultural sector, while more farms – including some
owned by foreigners and protected under bilateral investment protection
agreements between Zimbabwe and other nations -- have been seized over the
past few months.
And to make matters worse, according to the CFU,
police and judicial
officers who are supposed to enforce the rule of law
were also among the
beneficiaries of the free-for-all land grab.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Own Correspondent Monday 15 November
2010
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s growth prospects are likely to dim – and
even become
negative – next year and in 2012 amid fears that elections
planned for 2011
could turn violent to trigger a fresh political crisis and
deepen economic
uncertainty, according to the London-based Economist
Intelligence Unit
(EIU).
Zimbabwean economy is set to grow for the
second successive year in 2010,
thanks partly to strong commodity
prices.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week again revised its
2010
growth forecast for Zimbabwe, raising it to 5.9 percent from the 5.1
percent
forecast in June and 2.2 percent expansion projected in
April.
At the same time, however, the Fund cut its 2011 forecast to 4.5
percent
from the 5 percent projected in June.
However, EIU last week
warned that prospects for 2011 to 2012 are less
positive, because of
economic constraints and political uncertainties.
“Prospects for 2012 are
likely to be even gloomier if—as we assume—elections
are held in that year,”
the think-tank said.
President Robert Mugabe has said he would call for
early elections before
mid-2011 to put an end to what he called are “stupid”
power-sharing disputes
with long-time rival and coalition government partner
Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The EIU said the willingness of the
government – whether it remains as
currently constituted or takes some other
form – to pursue policy reforms
would lessen in the run-up to polls while
political and business uncertainty
would increase.
“This suggests
that growth will moderate to some 2.6 percent at best—growth
could be much
lower or even negative if the election process proves
violent,” said
EIU.
The threat of violence-marred polls is a real possibility, judging
by events
during previous elections held in 2002, 2005 and
2008.
Mugabe’s ZANU PF has maintained its position through a combination
of
intimidation and electoral manipulation.
Despite having been in a
government of national unity with the opposition
since 2009, there is little
to suggest that ZANU PF will adopt a
substantially different approach in the
next elections.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Alex Bell
15 November 2010
A
20-member delegation from the Belgian diamond industry, including three
top
diamond bankers, an insurance broker and a representative of a courier
company, on Monday left for a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe. The mission
is headed by the President of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre and the
group’s
CEO.
According to the diamond watchdog group, Diamond
Intelligence Briefs, the
team is planning a visit to the mining firms
operating at the Chiadzwa
alluvial fields, including the discredited
Canadile Mining firm which has
been blacklisted from operating at Chiadzwa.
Six directors of Canadile, a
joint venture firm with the parastatal Zimbabwe
Mining Development
Corporation (ZMDC), were recently arrested on fraud
charges.
Five members of the group have been released on bail, but the state
says
they deliberately misrepresented the ownership of their South African
partner, Core Mining and Minerals, to get the Chiadzwa mining rights. The
group allegedly claimed that their hidden partner behind Canadile is the
Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) company, which is reportedly well
known in the metals and minerals mining world.
According to
government officials, Core Mining and Minerals was selected as
a preferred
partner from a large group of applicants because of its standing
and
financial acumen. It had been claimed by Core Mining and Minerals that
some
$2 billion of investments would be forthcoming.
The BSGR group have
denied any link to Core Mining and Minerals, telling
Diamond Intelligence
Briefs that it “wants to state unequivocally that it
has no connections
whatsoever to either Core Mining and Minerals, Canadile
Miners, or any of
their shareholders.”
It further stated that: “Two months ago, BSGR made
its non-involvement in
Canadile Miners and any of its shareholders
unequivocally clear to the
Zimbabwe Government and will, of course,
cooperate with any investigation if
requested to do so. It will also reserve
its legal rights against anyone who
deliberately seeks to damage or
undermine its reputation. BSGR regrets that
its name has arisen in the
context of litigation in Zimbabwe, and it is
issuing this statement to
preserve its excellent standing globally.”
The Canadile case is believed
to be just the tip of the iceberg with regards
to the looting and corruption
at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Rights groups
have said that top ZANU PF
officials are involved in plundering the mines,
to prop up the Mugabe regime
ahead of elections next year. Even the MDC has
said that the Canadile
officials are ‘small-fry’, and the real powers behind
corruption, supported
by the military, are hiding “in the shadows.”
Media Alert
15 November
2010
Church youths assault journalists
Munyaradzi Doma and one
Tawanda, two journalists with the Harare based daily
tabloid H-Metro were
reportedly assaulted by youth members of the Church of
Central Africa
Presbyterian (CCAP) on 14 November 2010 in Harare’s township
of
Mbare.
The two were assaulted while taking photographs of an incident
during which
a church pastor was being attacked by one of the church members
who accused
him of ‘destroying his home’.
Church service was halted for
almost an hour as elders rushed to protect the
pastor and restrain the
youths from assaulting the journalists.
The H-Metro reporters were
rescued by church elders who also proceeded to
escort them to their vehicle
as the church youths bayed for their blood.
MISA-Zimbabwe is greatly
concerned with continued attacks on journalists
conducting their lawful
professional duties. These attacks should be
condemned by the authorities
while perpetrators of such wanton acts of
lawlessness and violence should be
made to face the wrath of the law.
The assault of the journalists was
also condemned by the Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists.
End
For
any questions, queries or comments, please contact:
Nyasha
Nyakunu
Senior Programmes Officer
MISA-Zimbabwe
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by The
Zimbabwean
Monday, 15 November 2010 12:38
Within days of
86-year-old president Robert Mugabe having announced
unilaterally that
elections will be held in June next year, state agents and
ruling party
thugs started harassing, beating up, robbing and generally
threatening
independent journalists.
REPEAT LOOMING: Victims of Zimbabwe's
post-election violence camp outside
the US embassy in Harare in 2008. Since
President Robert Mugabe announced
that elections will be held next year,
fears of violence are escalating.
Journalists are already being targeted
Picture: REUTERS
'Since Zanu-PF's power started to wane in the 1990s, it has
seen the
independent media as its enemy'
Despite having an arsenal of
anti-press laws at their disposal, Zanu-PF
loyalists - desperate to keep
their snouts in the feeding trough - have
resorted to using brute force to
silence the independent media. This is
nothing new. The tempo rises
noticeably whenever an election looms. A
fundamental tenet of Zanu-PF's
election strategy is to silence any
dissenting voices - no matter what.
Tactics used in the past have included
burning,
Bombing, murdering,
arresting, banning and terrorising.
.
Since its power began to wane in the
late 1990s, Zanu-PF has seen the
independent media as its enemy. In 1998,
the establishment of the country's
first independent national daily, The
Daily News, with its exposure of
misgovernance and corruption, and the
paper's huge public appeal, rattled
the cage severely.
Then Zanu-PF lost
the 1999 constitutional referendum and faced the spectre
of electoral defeat
at the general elections in 2000 by the newly formed
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC). The battle lines were drawn. An
onslaught against the media
was unleashed that has worsened with each
passing year.
Key to this
onslaught is the draconian and mis-named Access to Information
and
Protection of Privacy Act - AIPPA - that demands the registration and
licensing by the state-controlled Media and Information Commission of all
newspapers, media outlets and journalists.
In its first two years, the
MIC closed down five independent newspapers.
Hundreds of journalists were
arrested and beaten - not one conviction was
secured. The authorities,
desperate to maintain the news blackout, resorted
to the catch-all "criminal
nuisance" charge in some cases; and even invented
the ludicrous charge of
"committing journalism".
The 2008 general and presidential elections, which
Mugabe and Zanu-PF lost
to the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai, made the previous
decade's media
repression look like a grandmothers' tea party.
One
Zimbabwean analyst said, during the election period, that ZBC/TV would
have
"made Goebbels proud". And yet chief executive Henry Muradzikwa and
seven
top executives were fired for not being enthusiastic enough about
Mugabe and
allowing a few MDC election adverts to slip through.
So it is not only
independent journalists who operate in a constant climate
of threats and
fear. State editors and reporters, too, live in constant
terror of the chop
- and worse.
Before, during and after both 2008 polls, the state-controlled
media went
into overdrive - its ham-fisted spin and sickeningly blatant
deception would
have been laughable had it not been so tragic.
And if
early indications are anything to go by, the 2011 election will see
similar,
if not worse, horror. These pre-emptive strikes against independent
journalists are the first, familiar, salvo.
Lined up against the
formidable state media empire - which includes a total
monopoly of radio and
television, two national dailies, two national
Sundays, several urban and
rural weeklies, the national news agency Ziana
and the Zimbabwe Information
Service, with correspondents in the country's
52 districts, is a tiny array
of independent voices.
These comprise one local weekly, The Independent, one
local Sunday, The
Standard, as well as The Zimbabwean and its Sunday sister
- trucked in from
South Africa because of the restrictive government
licensing requirements.
And the Sunday Times. On the broadcasting front,
there is the London-based
SW Radio Africa, South Africa-based Voice of the
People and the US-based VOA
Studio 7.
And still Zanu-PF fails to control
the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans -
even rural Zimbabweans, whose levels
of literacy and political
sophistication surpass those of most other
Africans. The widespread hunger
for news is evidence that the state media
has totally lost all credibility.
During the weeks leading up to the March
2008 elections and their horrific
aftermath, circulation of The Zimbabwean
soared to 200 000 a week and such
was the demand for news that The
Zimbabwean on Sunday was added to the
stable. Distribution of this title
peaked at 100 000 before the truck
carrying 60 000 copies of the Africa Day
(May 25) issue was torched by eight
CIO operatives from Masvingo,
brandishing new AK-47 rifles. A few days
earlier Mugabe's election agent,
Emmerson Mnangagwa, had publicly blamed The
Zimbabwean and SW Radio Africa
for Mugabe's humiliation at the polls.
The Zimbabwean reported last week that
three freelance journalists in Mutare
were set upon by thugs who demanded to
know why they were reporting "bad
things about the president". Also, two
reporters for The Independent were
summoned by the police to reveal their
sources.
And the week before, ZBC and ZTV carried announcements from the
police
spokesman, Andrew Phiri, that a warrant had been obtained for my
arrest and
that the ZRP were on a "manhunt for Mbanga - believed to reside
in the UK".
My telephone number and e-mail address are published.
I have
made no secret of the fact that I am in self-imposed exile in the UK!
Phiri
has subsequently stated that the ZRP has asked Interpol to assist in
apprehending Mbanga.
In the formation of the Global Political Agreement
that paved the way for
the government of National Unity two years ago, the
MDC was conned into
agreeing to ask foreign governments to ban independent
Zimbabwean radio
stations broadcasting from their shores. Thankfully, none
have done so. A
year ago, the Minister of Media, Charles Ndlovu, set up an
"independent"
broadcasting authority stuffed with former soldiers. Yet not a
single
licence has been issued.
And so we are bracing ourselves - for
whatever they throw at us. There will
obviously be casualties. This is just
another hazard of working as a
Zimbabwean journalist, our so-called
president wants to kill us.
I'm sure many world leaders would like to murder
journalists who snap at
their heels daily, exposing their weaknesses,
holding them accountable,
bringing their dark secrets and craven
self-serving into the light, but they
don't actually send out armed thugs on
government pay to thrash, maim and
kill them.
• Mbanga has been the
editor of The Zimbabwean and its Sunday sister,
since 2005. The papers
circulate in Southern Africa and Zimbabwe as well as
in the UK.
http://www.rnw.nl/
Netherlands
Radio
Published on : 15 November 2010 - 2:37pm | By RNW Africa
Desk
Extra soldiers and police men have been deployed in several
provinces of
Zimbabwe. They have mounted roadblocks and have taken over
duties of
traditional chiefs in some places. Villagers in Zimbabwe’s
provinces of
Masvingo, Manicaland and Matabeleland wonder whether the
country is in a
state of war.
By Thabo Kunene
“What is the
reason for deploying soldiers when there is no war in this
country? People
are no longer free to socialise after work”, says the head
of the village
Esigodini.
The deployment of soldiers came after robbers gunned down
police chief
Superintendent Lawrence Chatikobo during an armed robbery at a
local
restaurant in Bulawayo. During the shooting another officer was
seriously
wounded.
At the funeral of Superintendent Chatikobo, police
commissioner Augustine
Chihuri prayed to God the lives of the robbers would
be short. Army
commander, General Constantine Chiwenga declared war against
the robbers.
A few days after these remarks residents found themselves in
a state of war.
Citizens were stopped and searched in the streets. Clubs and
pubs were
raided by soldiers and policemen in search of the
robbers.
General Chiwenga explaines the police’s reaction: “The robbers
declared war
against the security forces when they killed the police chief”,
he states.
In Manicaland province leaders of the MDC political party
confirm soldiers
have taken over duties of local chiefs. “The soldiers are
running the show
here. It’s like villagers are living under martial law”,
Taurai Mungezi
tells Radio Netherlands Worlwide by phone from
Nyanga.
The MDC-T party also declares that soldiers have barred Member of
Parliament, Douglas Mwonzora ,from holding meetings in his
constituency.
“This kind of army presence reminds our people of the
massacres in the
eighties. It started just like this - small deployment of
soldiers and then
townships were cordoned off by the army”, remembers
Reverend Xolani Dlamini
of the Methodist Church in Bulawayo.
The
police denies that soldiers are harassing residents. A police spokesman
declares that soldiers and police units are only hunting down armed robbers
who are terrorising residents.
But according to villager Thembinkos
from Matabeland South soldiers harassed
villagers during the first days of
their deployment. Although they currently
seem to be too occupied with the
women of the villages.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
Monday, 15 November 2010
17:46
HARARE - Businessman Mutumwa Mawere has accused Justice
Minister Patrick
Chinamasa of subjecting him to “commercial violence”
through the actions
taken in wresting control of his business
empire.
Giving evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on Mines
and Energy
Monday, Mawere said the Justice minister had deliberately
misinformed the
nation on the financial position of his companies with the
aim of taking
them over.
“I have been subjected to commercial
violence by the minister, which for me
is highly unusual. You have a
minister of justice, a lawyer for that matter,
who is a perpetrator of such
injustices and surprisingly everyone keeps
silent,” Mawere said.
“The
state of the minister was not informed on indebtedness of the companies
when
he took his actions but on takeover.”
He said contrary to public
perception that he had acquired SMM Mines through
a government guarantee, he
said he had, in fact, secured a loan from local
banks to finance the $60
million purchase price.
“Chinamasa has misrepresented that government
used a guarantee to enable me
to acquired the mines, but I actually got a
loan from First Merchant Bank of
$20 million, and for the balance of the $60
million I had to use the revenue
generated to pay it off,” said
Mawere.
He said the Reconstruction Act, which had been used to take hold
of his
companies, had created a monster which reflected negatively of the
country’s
business environment.
“You have a law that makes the
minister the judge and administrator. There
is no administrator in the world
with the same powers. The law serves no
actual purpose and was passed in
this House,” the South African–based
businessman said.
“At some stage
someone has to protect people, there is need for protection
of property
otherwise everything done in this House is academic,” said
Mawere.
When quizzed about the effect of his nationality on the
country’s
empowerment laws, Mawere said the new law did not apply to him
since he had
acquired the mines and his businesses when he was still
a
Zimbabwean national.
“The law states that those disadvantaged in
1980 not in 2010, when I
acquired my businesses I was indigenous. Anyway do
you surely have to be in
Zimbabwe to be Indigenous?” he asked.
Mawere
said despite the collapse of the mines, the minister had not taken
any
actions to revive their operations.
“The mine is not working, why is he
(Chinamasa) not putting in place a
reconstruction order to remove
Gwaradzimba from administering their
operations,” he asked.
Mawere
said he will seek to regain control of all his business interest,
adding
efforts were underway to address the matter.
“I have a lot of companies
that have been taken away from me and the law is
clear that all those
transactions are void. It’s like a prisoner who comes
out of prison and even
his clothes have been
stolen,” he said.
Before the Reconstruction
Act, Mawere had a controlling interest in First
Banking Corporation,
General Belting, Steelnet, Tube and Pipe, Turnall and
Zimre Holdings
Limited, and many other concerns.
http://www.apanews.net
APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) The International Organisation for Migration
(IOM)
said on Monday in Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare that it has launched
a
project to strengthen support for vulnerable Zimbabwean migrants in the
face
of impending mass deportations from South Africa.
An IOM
spokesperson said the project anticipated the potential return of
large
numbers of Zimbabweans in South Africa following an announcement by
the
South African government of a regularization campaign for Zimbabweans in
that country.
South Africa announced in September that it would by
December 31 resume
deporting undocumented Zimbabweans, ending an 18-month
moratorium on
deportations of illegal immigrants from its northern
neighbour.
Pretoria, however, said Zimbabweans already working, engaged
in business or
studying in South Africa would be issued with relevant
permits on condition
they produced valid documents to show they are citizens
of Zimbabwe before
expiry of the deadline.
“The IOM project will
improve coordination of services addressing mass
displacement and returns,
by establishing a centralized information
management system and providing a
forum for the exchange and dissemination
of information,” the spokesperson
pointed out.
IOM would also assist in implementing an early warning
system for new
displacements and strengthening inter-agency contingency
planning for the
anticipated mass return of Zimbabweans from South
Africa.
As part of the initiative, funded by the European Commission for
Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), a gap analysis is being
conducted in close coordination with the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), mapping the capacity of different agencies to
provide assistance to displaced Zimbabwean migrants.
Zimbabwe has
since 2000 experienced increasing levels of internal and
external migration
as a result of the country’s political and economic
crises.
The exact
number of Zimbabweans in South Africa is unknown but it is
estimated to be
between 1 and 1.5 million people.
JN/ad/APA
2010-11-15
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/
15 Nov 2010 |
Sapa
Alarming reports of members of the SAPS detaining Zimbabweans are
being
reported, the Movement Democratic Change says
Those who are
being picked up are being driven around for hours waiting for
relatives to
come up with bribery in exchange for freedom of their dear ones
This is
affecting Zimbabweans with and without proper documents.
"This is despite
clear public announcements by the government of South
Africa that
Zimbabweans shall be enjoying a dispensation until December 31,"
MDC
spokesman Sibanengi Dube said.
"Those who are being picked up especially
in Yeoville are being driven
around for hours waiting for relatives to come
up with bribery in exchange
for freedom of their dear ones."
He said
huge police trucks that are notorious for ferrying Zimbabweans to
Lindela
Repatriation Centre were seen hovering around in Yeoville and
Turffontein
this weekend.
"Honestly these guys in blue can't wait for December 31
before they could
fleece 'cooldrinks' (bribes) from Zimbabweans."
He
said the MDC leadership in South Africa was worried that the deadline was
drawing near before much ground has been covered by the two governments
responsible for issuing the proper documents to Zimbabweans.
The
first applicants for the Zimbabwe passports are still to receive them,
he
said.
"We again appeal to the South African government to exercise
patience and
stop immediately to harass Zimbabweans in the
streets.
"We hope that the SA government will be sympathetic enough to
move the
deadline to any period after the next year elections."
He
said none of the detained Zimbabweans laid criminal charges because it
would
be "a waste of time".
"That has become the norm..."
Senior
Superintendent Vish Naidoo said Zimbabwean nationals should open
criminal
cases against the officers.
"People subjected to this behaviour are
encouraged to open criminal cases.
SAPS is committed to the process being
implemented by the government to have
foreign nationals legitimised and stay
here in South Africa," Naidoo said.
"Any form of corruption by any of our
members will not be tolerated," he
said.
http://www.voanews.com/
Darren Taylor
15 November 2010
Hundreds of officials from South Africa’s Home Affairs
Department are
processing applications from thousands of Zimbabwean migrants
seeking legal
residence. But with just over a month to go until the
end-of-year deadline
for applications, there’s no sign that the pressure on
the officials is
easing, as Zimbabweans desperate to remain legally in
Africa’s most powerful
economy continue to swamp almost 50 state offices
around the country.
In early September, the South African government
announced new immigration
rules specifically for Zimbabweans. It said they
could apply for work,
study or business permits by December 31. If they’re
approved, they’ll be
allowed to stay in South Africa for the next four
years. Those who don’t
apply or are rejected, and those without refugee
status, it says, will be
deported beginning early next year.
Home
Affairs offices have been swamped since late September, when the
government
began accepting applications. The International Organization for
Migration
says there are up to two million Zimbabweans living in South
Africa
illegally, while some NGOs say the figure is much higher.
Zimbabweans
have been streaming into South Africa for about a decade, in the
wake of
ongoing political violence and economic meltdown in their homeland.
"We
are millions…."
Migrants are spending days camped on pavements outside
Home Affairs offices
in various South African cities, afraid that if they
leave their positions
in the queue, their applications for legal residence
won’t be processed in
time and they’ll be expelled.
Home Affairs
spokesman Mzwandile Radebe says the government is “boosting
capacity” and
“more staff are being moved to all offices that are
overloaded.” But
applicants continue to complain that the process is very
slow, with queues
at some offices barely moving. Government officials
confirmed that most
Home Affairs offices are unable to process more than 130
applications a
day.
“The time for this program is too short. They can’t serve all the
Zimbabweans here in this short time. We are millions here in South Africa,”
says Jendayi Nkomo, in the street outside a Home Affairs station in the
South African capital, Pretoria. Nkomo is a teacher who’s been working
illegally in South Africa for the past four years.
“There are only
now these few offices that are serving us. At other
offices, we can’t be
served. So we are piling (up) at one office, where
they only serve 200 of
us per day. To get this program back on track they
must extend the deadline
and then open up more offices where Zimbabweans can
apply for these
permits.”
Gabriel Shumba, a Zimbabwean-born lawyer and director of the
Zimbabwe Exiles
Forum, says the “long delays” at Home Affairs offices around
South Africa
are “really unacceptable.… Some people risk losing their jobs
spending so
much time in queues. And if they lose their jobs that will
disqualify them
from getting work permits.”
"Procedure is weak and
unprofessional"
Many migrants complain that South African Home Affairs
officials are “lazy”
and appear to work “mornings only.”
“The problem
is (Home Affairs officials) are supposed to work the whole day,
not just to
work for certain hours."
On the day a reporter visited the Pretoria Home
Affairs office, security
guards locked the gates shortly after midday.
Hundreds of Zimbabweans,
including many who had made journeys of hundreds of
miles, had to sleep in
the street until the office reopened the next
morning.
Applicant Thomas Jongwe applauds the South African government
for giving
migrants “this great opportunity” to stay legally in South
Africa. But he
says, “What is lacking is the experience in implementing
it. The working
procedure is weak. They are taking too few people. The
operation is very
unprofessional.”
Radebe maintains Home Affairs
officials are “well trained.” He acknowledges
initial “teething problems,”
but says, “We have a very competent team to
handle this project and we are
confident that they are performing their
duties to the best of their
abilities, even though so many applications are
being
received.”
Confusion
But Shumba says the process is complicated by
“unnecessary bureaucracy.” He
explains that Home Affairs officials are
demanding documentation from
migrants that’s “outside of what has been
stipulated as the requirements” to
apply for the new permits.
“At
this office in Pretoria they are demanding proof of residence. That has
never been what we understood the South African government to say is one of
the prerequisites. Many Zimbabweans do not have proof of residence. They
don’t live in suburbs but in shacks in squatter camps,” the lawyer
says.
Shumba says many Zimbabweans are afraid “that this is a way for the
South
African authorities to trace them at a later stage in order to deport
them.…
Demanding prerequisites like this make me think the South Africans
are hell
bent on deporting as many Zimbabweans as possible.”
Leon
Isaacson, the managing director of a specialist South African
immigration
firm, says there’s a “lot of confusion” surrounding the new visa
regime. He
says some Home Affairs officials have demanded that Zimbabweans
who have
official asylum status surrender their refugee papers in order to
apply for
the new permits – again, not an official prerequisite to apply for
a
residence permit.
“This means that these people lose their refugee status
in South Africa and
will be deported if their permit applications fail,”
Shumba says.
South Africa’s chief of immigration at its Home Affairs
Department, Jackie
McKay, confirms that proof of residence and surrender of
asylum documents
are not requirements to apply for the new visas. “I think
this was part of
problems we experienced in the beginning; I don’t think
it’s happening
anymore,” he says.
But Shumba maintains such incidents
continue “unabated.”
Deadline doubts
He says given “all the
problems” associated with the process of permit
applications, there’s “no
way” most Zimbabweans living in South Africa will
have had the opportunity
to apply for the new residence permits come
December 31.
“Many people
cannot access the Home Affairs Department to apply. The office
in Pretoria,
for example, is only accepting about 135 people per day; other
offices
around the country are accepting even less,” says Shumba.
A Home Affairs
official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was
expected of
government officials working on the “Zimbabwe documentation
project” to each
“complete and adjudicate 46 applications per day. With the
staff this
project currently has, that’s about 16,000 fully processed
applications
every day.... I think that’s a very good performance.”
But Shumba voices
“serious doubts” about such figures. “Sixteen thousand
per day? That
doesn’t sound possible. I mean, the South African government
must still do
background checks on all applicants for criminal records, for
example. You
can’t tell me they have the capacity to do all this in just
one
day.”
Another Home Affairs officer who asked that his name not be used
agreed that
making the December 31 deadline appeared to be “out of reach. I
can’t see
how we’ll make it. December is a holiday month. We all go on
holiday on
December 16th until the New Year.… That means for the last two
weeks of the
year, no applications will be processed.”
He’s convinced
it will take “at least a year to complete this process.”
When it was put
to McKay that many observers felt there wasn’t enough time
to allow
Zimbabweans to enter the new process, the immigration chief
responded,
“Well, that’s their opinion,” before emphasizing, “We are trying
our best to
get to every Zimbabwean in every corner of South Africa. Should
we miss
some of them, it would be unfortunate.”
Zimbabwean migrant Carol Dika
says such a scenario would be “beyond
unfortunate” for her and her family
still living in her homeland. “With the
money I earn here in Pretoria, I am
keeping seven people alive in Bulawayo.
If I am deported, what will happen
to us all?” she asks, shaking her head.
Dika says officials who maintain
the new visa system is working well are
“totally out of touch with
reality.” She appeals to the “bosses of Home
Affairs” to visit government
offices in person to “come and watch how we are
struggling here.”
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Patrick Bond Monday 15 November
2010
IF LEADERS of a small African country stand up with confidence
to
imperialist aggression, especially from the US and Britain, it would
ordinarily strike any fair observer as extremely
compelling.
Especially when the nightmare of racist colonialism in that
country is still
be to exorcised, whites hold a disproportionate share of
economic power and
state’s rulers appear serious about changing those
factors.
But that country needs a second glance. What may seem to some a
progressive
and brave government is upon closer examination a tyranny whose
leader
repeatedly acts against grassroots and shop-floor social solidarity,
and
notwithstanding rhetoric about land redistribution, is ultimately very
hostile to its own society’s poor and working people, women, youth, elderly
and ill.
“Progress in Zimbabwe” was the title of a four-day
conference in Bulawayo
last week, gathering mainly academics but also
leading civil society
strategists.
It was organised by University of
Johannesburg political economist David
Moore and by Showers Mawowa of the
University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) School
of Development Studies and the
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development.
Said Moore, “For many
analysts, the end of progress is signified in the
political projects of
Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe African Nation
Union-Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF] –
not to mention the Government of National
Unity.” It has been two years
since South Africa’s then-president Thabo
Mbeki negotiated dysfunctional
power-sharing between Mugabe’s junta and
Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Just before the deal took effect in early 2009,
the local currency collapsed
entirely, and is no longer used. On the upside,
that move ended
hyperinflation and empty shop shelves.
The tiny elite
is happier, as is the World Bank (not yet lending, but
carefully looking
over the state’s shoulder). Yet without any ability to
earn hard currency,
what is a peasant or the unemployed person (90 per cent
of the workforce) to
do?
A related problem: monetary policy is now set in Washington and
Pretoria,
since the US dollar and South African rand are now Zimbabwe’s core
currencies.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe cannot stimulate the sickly
economy because its
governor, Gideon Gono, gave Zimbabwe “monetary
gonorrhea”, a corrupting
disease transmitted from his overworked printing
press to the economy as a
whole.
A $2 billion bill for Gono’s
leftover local debt is being negotiated and
another $5 billion plus in
foreign debt remains unpayable.
Progressives writing the National
People’s Convention Charter in February
2008 demanded a debt audit before
any World Bank and International Monetary
Fund (IMF) loans are serviced and,
as happened similarly in Ecuador in
December 2008, “the right of the people
of Zimbabwe to refuse repayment of
any odious debt accrued by a dictatorial
government”.
Politically, progress against Mugabe’s dictatorship is
terribly fragile, as
the army is now being deployed in many hotly contested
peri-urban and rural
areas. Since paramilitary violence forced Tsvangirai to
pull out of the
mid-2008 presidential run-off election (after winning the
first round – but,
claimed Mugabe’s vote counters, with less than 50 per
cent), a
constitutional rewrite outreach process has provided space for 4
000
meetings in recent weeks.
Many were marred by intimidation.
Worse, a mid-2011 election announced by
Mugabe promises a return to bad
habits: outright violence, including murder,
ending in poll
thievery.
The most likely scenario, according to leading commentator John
Makumbe,
“The MDC will win and Zanu (PF) will again refuse to concede
power.” So back
they will go into the cul-de-sac of renewed power-sharing
talks.
History reviewed
Hence the “Progress in Zimbabwe”
conference was devoted mainly to recording
regress not progress, given
Zimbabwe’s deep plunge.
History needed reviewing, for after all the most
banal measure of progress,
that of the economics profession, is per person
gross domestic product (GDP)
and the point it began declining may
surprise.
Per capita GDP didn’t begin its slide in February 2000 when
President Robert
Mugabe lost his first election (a constitutional
referendum) and unleashed
war veterans on white farmers. Nor was it on
November 1997’s Black Friday,
when the Zimbabwe dollar lost 74% of its value
in four hours, a world
record.
Nor was it when the
Washington-sponsored structural adjustment program began
in 1991, nor when
independence in 1980 meant the small economy’s
re-articulation with hostile
global capitalism after 15 years of sanctions.
If one thinks of progress
in this conventional way, as GDP per person, then
Zimbabwe began shrinking
in 1974, as indeed was the case in most of Africa,
as the world slowdown hit
the poorest continent hardest, at a time when most
African leaders had
succumbed to neocolonialism.
In Zimbabwe, overproduction of luxury goods,
machinery and steel for a
limited market left the economy with huge excess
capacity at a time of
shrinking confidence in Ian Smith’s racist Rhodesian
Front regime. After
liberation was won in 1980, the economy then recovered
some of the lost
ground in a growth spurt from 1984 to 1990.
Income
in 1990 was much better distributed than under Smith’s white rule –
or than
under Mugabe’s kleptocracy after it became avaricious in the
mid-1990s.
A small black middle class had emerged mainly through the
expansion of
Zimbabwe’s civil service, though the World Bank successfully
insisted that
it shrink by 25% during the 1990s.
Sorting out the
politico-ideological confusion in historical context
requires, according to
Sheffield-based Zimbabwean Ian Phimister, a “distinct
paradigm of radical
historiography”.
But Muchaparara Musemwa lamented that their discipline
still lacks cohesion
and purpose. Phimister recommended the new book,
Becoming Zimbabwe –
featuring work by Alois Mlambo, Brian Raftopoulos and
younger historians,
which treats the contemporary degeneration in historical
context.
By all accounts, a central challenge in an era of Mugabe’s
state-sponsored
“Patriotic History” – a mirror image of Rhodesia’s racist
settler history –
is recovery of the liberation tradition from damage done
even before
Independence in 1980, a task aided by the coming publication of
Wilf Mhanda’s
autobiography.
Mhanda’s leadership of the Zimbabwe
People’s Army offered an alternative
liberatory trajectory, one Mugabe
violently suppressed two years before
signing the Lancaster House compromise
deal that maintained the repressive
state and white-biased property
relations entirely intact.
Mugabe’s overarching need, it seems, is
control of the telling of history –
as a way to remind his subjects there
was once a time when ZANU-PF was
indeed a popular force, like fish swimming
in the sea of the people.
Regurgitation of that memory is what motivates
the “talk left, walk right”
project of crony nationalist capitalism, which
Mugabe and so many other
post-colonial despots adopted, as Frantz Fanon
predicted in his 1961 book
The Wretched of the Earth.
Today the main
legacy of this struggle is “securocrat” control of the state.
As Bulawayo
MDC administrator Joshua Mpofu remarked, “Talking about
political parties is
like chewing gravel. Military culture never died, and a
lot of public
institutions are headed by brigadiers and generals.”
Land
Another
memory is of a time when indigenous Zimbabweans controlled their
land.
According to Blessing Karumbidza, whose recent UKZN doctorate
describes
post-independence land experiences, there will be “a truly
restructured and
dynamic farming sector if and only if the support
mechanisms and
institutional regimes necessary for land and agricultural
rationalisation
are put in place”.
That’s not happening insists University of Zimbabwe
(UZ) geographer Esther
Chigumira: “Bifurcated land ownership continues, not
by race but by class,
favouring elites who are politically
connected.”
Those nationalists, recalled former war veteran and now UZ
sociologist
Wilbert Sadomba, emerged from internecine liberation movement
feuds and
“hijacked that revolution, in connivance with international
capital.
We war vets are opposed to both ZANU-PF elites and MDC elites.
We see
neither being able to take the country forward.”
Added leading
liberation-era intellectual Ibbo Mandaza, “There was a ZANU-PF
that we were
part of, the liberation movement, and then there was Mugabe’s
ZANU-PF, which
is very different. Mugabe is essentially right wing,
notwithstanding the
anti-imperialist rhetoric.”
As for his own role, Mandaza confessed, “We
helped in many respects dress up
an essentially right-wing regime in leftist
clothing.”
Raftopoulos agreed: “This discourse threw off many African
scholars, most
importantly in the Mamdani debate. ” He was referring to the
great Ugandan
political scientist Mahmood Mamdani’s 2008 London Review of
Books defence of
Mugabe.
The two most prominent scholars who are
supportive of land redistribution,
Mamdani and Sam Moyo, were invited but
could not attend.
In their place, Ben Cousins from the University of the
Western Cape promoted
the post-2000 land reform’s “changing structures of
ownership and new
agrarian structure”, concluding, “The positives probably
outweigh the
negatives.”
In the main A1 land program, he said, “about
a third of the new farmers are
succeeding, a third getting by, and a third
getting out”.
The negatives in Cousins’ list include “the collapse of
large-scale
commercial farms, which contributed to wide-scale economic
decline; the
motor force of land reform was the ZANU-PF power grab; the
decline of the
rule of law; violence.”
Added Zimbabwean human rights
advocate Elinor Sisulu, “food security,
environment, HIV/AIDS, and the
gender and class dimensions.”
No matter how Zimbabwe needed to end white
domination of good farms before
2000, an overall judgment on the land
invasions (which sporadically continue
because 10 per cent of 4000 white
farmers hung on by hook or by crook) will
wait for long-term
evidence.
The spate of new research by those associated with Moyo and
Cousins does
show a few selective sites of success, especially in Masvingo
province near
the ancient Great Zimbabwe empire’s capital, but critics argue
this is not a
typical region.
MDC criticised
But opposition
policies came in for equally harsh critique. “In the 1990s
the motivation
for the MDC was the struggle for social and economic
justice – and that’s
the crucial unique character of the MDC’s origins”,
said Hopewell Gumbo of
the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development. “But
the trend to
neoliberalism within the MDC means we will not see progress. We
need to look
for new alliances and new formations.”
But the terrain is uneven,
Harare-based urban civic organiser Mike Davies
pointed out the profusion of
petit-bourgeois suit-and-tie professionals
among the capital’s NGO cadre:
“They acquire a self-preserving aspect
perhaps more concerned with
continuation than function.
They became more remote from their members,
even elitist, losing their
accountability, more concerned with meeting donor
aspirations and
requirements than serving the needs of their
members.”
According to Davies, “opportunistic elements make every effort
to preserve
their positions, often at some cost to their member
organisations and
undermining their stated goals.
In my opinion, we
failed to identify and contain these elements as well as
the vehicles that
carry them. As a result, the super-NGOs captured the
voices of civics and
domesticated them for the consumption of an
increasingly externalised
audience of international donors and Zimbabweans
in the
diaspora.”
How then can progress emerge against both a sell-out to the
Washington
Consensus (by either or both of the leading parties) and Mugabe’s
fake
populist language and violence-prone delivery – short of awaiting his
death,
and then the inevitable ZANU-PF power struggle (between the Mujuru
and
Mnangagwa factions) that could be even more disruptive?
Mass
action, solidarity
An answer came from the leading trade unionist
present, Kumbirai Kudenga:
“In terms of mass action, we need people without
fear. If you’re not used to
going to the ground, it’s hard. Mass action is
for people who are used to
the ground.
She even provided a new
vehicle: “We have a Democratic United Front for the
workers, especially for
mass action. What we need is support. Can you take
down our email: zimlabour@gmail.com. That is if you are
serious, we are
there to act.”
For the rest of us, according to
Raftopoulos, a renewed “international
labour solidarity discourse is one of
the best antidotes to Mugabe’s
rhetoric”, especially the “exemplary
solidarity” shown in April 2008 when in
Durban, South Africa’s transport
workers refused to unload 3 million bullets
destined for Mugabe’s army from
the Chinese ship An Yue Jiang.
Even if the conference was way too top
heavy with talking heads and NGOers,
all agreed that a new surge of such
solidarity will be needed next year,
when regress again trumps progress in
Zimbabwe.
Patrick Bond is on sabbatical from the UKZN Centre for Civil
Society. He is
now based at University of California-Berkeley Department of
Geography. His
books include Uneven Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe’s Plunge. This
article was
published by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Last week the United Nations
stated that three countries, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Congo, have a “Human
Development Index” lower than they had in 1970. This represents 40 years of
lousy leadership and failed economic policies in all three countries. Strangely,
all three are enormously rich in natural resources and have great
potential.
I was not at all surprised by
the Congo and ourselves, but the inclusion of Zambia in this group of three
global failures was a surprise. It suddenly made me realize how long it takes to
get back ground lost in periods of poor governance and economic collapse. I
remember the Zambia episode because I had family in Zambia at the time. It was
five years after Independence when Kaunda announced that all companies that
employed more than 100 people had to have majority Zambian ownership (sounds
familiar!).
The result was immediate,
economic activity just crashed, investment fled and Zambia slid into a donga of
stagnation and failure. From a peak when they produced a substantial proportion
of the global demand for copper, the newly nationalized mines slumped into
insignificance and the former owners took their dollars and invested
elsewhere.
When finally, after 30 years,
the Zambian people were able to cast off the corrupting mantle of Kaunda, the
new government was slow to put things back on their feet. It took another change
of government after Chiluba to start things moving and they reversed the
policies of Kaunda and sold off the mines. That was in the first years of the
new Century and for the past five years, Zambia has been growing rapidly. So
much so that they have watched the collapse in Zimbabwe with a sense of
justification in their own political and economic actions and policies. Where
once they suffered from snide remarks by Zimbabweans about the Zambian Kwacha,
they gasped as we went even further and more rapidly than they had, down the
slope of inflation and collapse.
Once economic growth resumes,
people relax and think that times are better and they can look forward. However,
they seldom count the real cost of the wasted years and here is the United
Nations reminding them of just that, Zambians are worse off today than they had
been after Independence in the early 60’s. What a tragedy and what a waste of
all the hopes and aspirations of the struggle for democracy and
independence.
In Zimbabwe the failure has
been even greater than it was in Zambia and more precipitous. The foundations of
the collapse were laid in the first two decades of Independence when the new
Government could do no wrong and was allowed to get away with both economic and
political violations that in other areas of the world would have wrought instant
condemnation.
Poor macro and micro economic
policies retarded growth and distorted incomes, the budget deficit ran at
unsustainable levels through the whole period increasing public debt, which at
Independence had been a paltry $700 million, to $6 000 million equal to two
years exports or 80 per cent of GDP. When finally the State went just too far,
the collapse was instant and dramatic. Mr. Mugabe ordered the payment of Z$3,5
billion to war veterans – unbudgeted and completely beyond the capacity of the
economy. Punishment by the markets was immediate and the Zimbabwe dollar
crashed.
10 years later the inflation
peaked at world record levels, a loaf of bread cost a billion Zimbabwe dollars
and salaries were worthless hours after they were paid. All savings were
destroyed – the accumulated surpluses of a century of hard work and effort by
the entire nation, wiped out. All banks, building societies, all pension funds
and other financial institutions were bankrupted. Tax revenues were essentially
worthless. Zimbabweans were beggars and 75 per cent of the entire population was
being fed on a daily basis by a consortium led by the United States in the
largest food aid programme in any country at any time in
history.
Rescued by South Africa and the
region, the Transitional Government was negotiated and came into being in
February 2009. The Zimbabwe dollar was abandoned, the Reserve Bank isolated and
rendered ineffective and the economy completely liberalized – no exchange
controls, no price controls. What remained of the economy was kept afloat by
nearly a billion dollars of aid and over a billion dollars of remittances from
the 5 million Zimbabwe refugees that had fled the chaos into other countries,
especially South Africa.
In February 2009, the total tax
collected was $5 million. The Minister had to borrow funds from a local company
to pay the 250 000 civil servants $100 a month irrespective of seniority. Our
international debt had soared to $7,6 billion – ten times the debt in 1980 and
equivalent to 5 years of exports and 150 per cent of GDP. Zimbabwe was suddenly
in the lowest quintile of the poor in the world, surrounded by the debris of 100
years of conflict, hard work, development, aid and hopes. The most educated
people in Africa with one of the most highly qualified (in academic terms)
governments in the world were on the bones of their
backsides.
It was the consequence, not of
“sanctions” as the Zanu PF propagandists would argue, but of poor government and
bad policy. First, by Ian Smith who took us into the political morass of UDI and
then a futile war where we would win all the battles and lose in the end. Then
the flawed process leading to the formation of a Zanu PF government with all the
promise of a new start, only to find ourselves caught in a savage struggle for
complete political control that was to persist through the demise of Zapu in
1987 and the elimination of all the attempts at democratic plurality in the 90’s
to the struggle against the MDC after 2000.
In the process we have
destroyed what was once a diversified and vibrant economy, we had wrecked our
agricultural system – not just the farming industry but the support
infrastructure and organized marketing that carried it through the years of UDI
and was the backbone of growth from 1980 to 1997. Our manufacturing industry
lies in shreds and our financial sector is still very fragile. We are heavily
indebted and have little to show for it. Our people are poor, marginalized and
humiliated and it will take us many years to recover to where we were at
Independence in 1980.
The extent of this collapse is
still not fully appreciated by Zanu PF. However it is clear that they fully
understand the reasons and the remedies. This collapse was a deliberate act of
national economic suicide and the so-called “indigenisation” laws are simply an
extension of this economic sabotage and subversion. The reason? Any economic
recovery will be attributed to the MDC and its team of Ministers and quite
rightly so.
Since Mr. Mugabe simply refused
to implement agreed GPA based reforms some three weeks ago, Mr. Tsvangirai has
been engaged in an exercise to bring the influence of regional leaders into the
crisis. He has refused to meet Mr. Mugabe and is touring the country holding
report back meetings. He has written to all African leaders who have a role to
play and this past week MDC raised the temperature by closing down the Senate
when the illegally appointed Governors tried to enter the Senate
Chamber.
This has now triggered a
response from the region and a SADC summit has been called and some SADC leaders
are pushing for the immediate deployment of a SADC team to oversee the reform
and electoral process. Mr. Zuma has also come in with a strong message calling
for the immediate implementation of all outstanding agreed GPA reforms and the
holding of an election as soon as possible.
Eddie
Cross
Bulawayo, 13th
November 2010
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/6242
E.M. Forster wrote about the “hundred Indias” and I am
going to be so crude
as to draw an analogy to a “hundred Zimbabwes” –
shades of good and bad and
huge scary chunks of grey.
The good comes
when you park your car in the steaming heart of Harare city
centre and the
man who parks next to you politely and modestly says “Good
morning” before
telling you about his high-powered auditing position in the
reviving baking
house nearby. Or when you see a face from the past,
considered lost to the
“diaspora” only last year, driving past you with
purpose and the almost smug
look of finally being “home”.
Zimbabweans have always worn an extremely
strong sense of identity and I,
having had my own few disillusioned years,
increasingly feel a leap of the
heart at news of the good in our
rollercoaster land: new shops opening all
over the place, excitement written
all over the new breed of “yummy mummies”
popping into Borrowdale for coffee
and a quick gossip; the determined flood
of businessmen and women, of all
colours and ages, to work in the morning –
sharp - because this is the new
Zimbabwe where working hard can really earn
you some decent bucks.
Or
the fact that a foreign number plate (not one belonging to an aid agency
that has jumped onto the back of tragedy with a golden saddle) no longer
occasions great interest, because, yes, there is a resurgent interest in our
colourful land.
Parties for young people, or the young at heart:
development, expansion,
enrichment, a place you can honestly encourage
diaspora folk to rush back to
while the opportunities are still
there.
But then there remains the bad, pressing at the back of your head
every day
as you pass the frenetic newspaper vendors on the street, scanning
the
headlines. Reminders that, beneath the shinier surface, things are not
so
well: corruption, expropriation, politics above people, the usual
Zimbabwe
business.
“Please”, I beg some higher force, “let’s not
backtrack. Zimbabwe, like
a slowly recovering patient, cannot bear another
knock”.
The tentative smiles of every day street life fluttering to life
again, even
of the cripples and the beggars, are too heartbreaking. As is
the new plea
of the vegetable vendor this morning – not “I need money to
feed my family”,
but “I need bus fare”. Amazingly, there are buses that now
work.
“Please let’s not go backwards”.
So that’s the grey
shade I identify: the uncertainty. The cliff-hanger
sensation that grips you
on the heart when rumouring of indigenisation or
pre-election violence rears
its head. Or there is the other grey that
invariably accompanies being a
city-dweller; word of rural human rights
atrocities, provoking cries of
outrage, but soon forgotten over another
cappuccino. Is this the class
barrier in its most insidious, psychological
form? Or is it simply “ostrich
in the sand” behaviour?
How shameful, I think, that I and all my friends
do not closely follow the
news when we are the “new Zimbabwe”. I’d rather
buy an extra drink at a bar
tonight than deal with dark reminders and grey
uncertainties.
I need to learn that for Zimbabwe to turn the corner for
good, I need to
change too. I don’t believe our young urban society has the
country’s
interests firmly enough at heart; life is too good for some of us
to dwell
on serious issues that lurk at the edges. So hopefully this blog is
a way
for me to both process how I feel about everyday life in our fledgling
nation, and to moderate my responses so that I fully earn my status as a de
jure citizen. Stay in touch for anecdotes from my young, urban, diverse and
possibly insightful life … bye for now.
Huntsman is a young
Zimbabwean blogger, beginning to start life and a career
as Zimbabwe tries
to struggle back to life. This is her first post,
representing one view from
a young urban professional. Welcome.
This entry was posted by Hunstman on
Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 2:08 pm