http://en.afrik.com/article16409.html
A three-leader summit underway to
resolve crisis
Tuesday 3 November 2009 / by Alice Chimora
Another
summit to tackle Zimbabwe's unending political crisis is set for
Mozambique
on Thursday but little is expected from it. Swaziland's King
Mswati,
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and Zambian President Rupiah
Banda will
hold talks hoping to help narrow differences between Zimbabwe's
leaders.
Zimbabwe's unity government, which was formed in February,
plunged into a
new crisis last month after the premier Tsvangirai partially
pulled out the
inclusive government over the implementation of their
power-sharing
agreement.
The stalemate in Harare comes after months
of bickering over the unity deal.
Tsvangirai's office said it hoped that
the Mozambique talks would yield
positive results that would be acceptable
by all parties. "The troika will
meet in Mozambique in a bid to break the
current deadlock," Tsvangirai's
spokesman James Maridadi
said.
According to Tsvangirai, if the three-leader summit fail to yield
results,
he would press for a full summit of the 15-member Southern African
Development Community (SADC).
It was not yet clear by Tuesday whether
both Tsvangirai and President Mugabe
would attend the Maputo
meeting.
The stand-off is the biggest crisis to hit Zimbabwe's new
government, which
has managed to stabilise an economy ravaged by
hyperinflation, but is still
severely strained by political
disputes.
Mugabe is accusing by the premier of undermining the coalition
but
Tsvangirai says Mugabe is a "dishonest and unreliable
partner".
DRC, leader who is currently in Harare met Mugabe on Monday
with Mugabe
saying he expected Kabila to tell Tsvangirai that he must
re-join the
coalition "and must be able to face the problems and not to run
away from
them."
Kabila the SADC's current chairman, arrived in
Zimbabwe on Sunday to meet
the country's feuding leaders.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Own
Correspondent Tuesday 03 November 2009
HARARE -
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said he got assurances
from Southern
African Development Community (SADC) chairman Joseph Kabila
that the region
was committed to see full implementation of Zimbabwe's
power-sharing
agreement.
"He gave me assurances that SADC is committed to see
this country move
forward (and) to make sure that the train is back on the
rail," Tsvangirai
told reporters after meeting Kabila on Monday
night.
Kabila, who is the President of the Democratic Republic of
Congo
(DRC), met the Zimbabwean Premier after the SADC chairman's five-hour
afternoon meeting with Mugabe.
"There is common cause that the
GPA must be fulfilled, it's a question
of how to implement it," said
Tsvangirai
Zimbabwe's nine-month-old unity government that the SADC
helped set up
was plunged into its worst crisis when Tsvangirai and his
MDC-T party
announced more than two weeks ago that they were boycotting
Cabinet meetings
to protest President Robert Mugabe's failure to fully
implement a
power-sharing pact - Global Political Agreement (GPA) - that
established the
coalition government.
Kabila's visit comes two
days after a ministerial team from the
regional bloc's politics, defence and
security organ - also known as the
Troika - completed a fact-finding mission
on the inclusive government.
The Troika, chaired by Mozambican
President Armando Guebuza with
Zambia's President Rupiah Banda his deputy
and Swaziland's King Mswati the
third member, is set to meet in Maputo,
Mozambique on Thursday to discuss
Zimbabwe's troubled coalition
government.
South Africa attends the Troika's meetings on Zimbabwe
as mediator in
the crisis.
Commenting on the Troika meeting
Tsvangirai said there was need for a
solution to be found.
"They have to move and if this fails then there is need for an
extraordinary
summit of heads of states."
Mugabe's ZANU PF party and Tsvangirai's
MDC remain deadlocked over key
appointments while the MDC also accuses ZANU
PF of engaging in a campaign to
persecute its supporters.
At
least 17 MDC legislators have been arrested since the beginning of
the year
on charges ranging from theft and public violence to rape and
playing music
that denigrates Mugabe.
ZANU PF, in turn, accuses the MDC of
reneging on a promise to push for
the removal of travel bans and an asset
freeze slapped by the West on its
senior officials. - ZimOnline
http://nehandaradio.com
Published on: 3rd November, 2009
By Fortune
Tazvida
Botswana's President Ian Khama will for the second year running
miss a
crucial SADC summit that is meant to resolve the political impasse in
Zimbabwe.
Khama the only regional leader to speak strongly against
President Mugabe
leaves for Washington on Tuesday to attend the Conservation
International
board of directors meeting.
Reports say Khama will meet
US President Barack Obama on Thursday. Botswana
Foreign Affairs Minister
Phandu Skelemani could not confirm what Khama and
Obama will
discuss.
"The meeting has no agenda as such. The two presidents will meet
and we will
put forward the challenges facing our country that we think
Americans could
help us address," Skelemani said.
Skelemani said the
Zimbabwean crisis might be mentioned in passing but it
would be
unprofessional to take the matter to the US since SADC was dealing
with the
matter.
Mozambique will host a regional summit on Zimbabwe on Thursday in
the hope
of breaking a deadlock that threatens the fragile unity
government.
Mozambique currently heads SADC's security organ, which sent
a delegation to
Harare last week to mediate between President Robert Mugabe
and Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader who
joined the
government in February.
Last year Khama at almost the same
did not attend an extraordinary SADC
Summit on Zimbabwe held in South
Africa.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tichaona Sibanda
3
November 2009
A grouping of 37 Civil Society Organizations has expressed
disappointment
after being excluded from meetings with the SADC Troika
ministerial team
which visited Zimbabwe last week.
The Civil Society
Monitoring Mechanism (CISOMM) is a grouping of civil
society organizations
committed to the independent monitoring and evaluation
of the implementation
of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).
CISOMM are unhappy that they
were not involved in the latest initiative
aimed at resolving the current
impasse between Robert Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights executive director Irene Petras told SW
Radio Africa they
were extremely disappointed that their request to the SADC
secretariat for a
meeting with the visiting Troika delegation was snubbed.
'Yes it's true
that they did not respond to our request. Basically, we
wanted to talk about
issues that relate to the GPA that affect us. For
example we have become
targets because the GPA is not working. We wanted to
discuss issues of
security with the SADC ministerial team.' Petras said.
Besides meeting
Mugabe and the Prime Minister, the SADC team met SADC
diplomats accredited
to Zimbabwe as well as negotiators from ZANU PF and the
MDC
formations.
According to the weekly Legal Monitor (a newsletter produced
by Lawyers for
Human Rights) Mozambique's Foreign Affairs Minister Oldemiro
Baloi, who was
leading the Troika ministerial delegation, denied that a
request for a
meeting had been received by SADC.
CISOMM through its
various member organizations that are dotted right round
the country seeks
to contribute to a new culture of transparency, scrutiny
and accountability
of all public processes taken on behalf of the people of
Zimbabwe by the
government.
Some of its participating organizations are Bulawayo Agenda,
Christian
Alliance Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Zimbabwe National
Association of
Non-Governmental Organizations, Progressive Teachers' Union
of Zimbabwe,
Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for
Human Rights
and Zimbabwe Election Support Network.
The grouping also
produces monthly monitoring reports for mass publication,
in order to allow
the people of Zimbabwe to understand and discuss political
processes,
actions and decisions taken on their behalf and which have an
impact on
their lives.
After its visit to the country last week, the Troika team
recommended that a
SADC Troika summit be held to try to resolve the crisis.
Tsvangirai two
weeks ago suspended co-operation with Mugabe, accusing him of
failing to
live up to his side of the power-sharing deal.
The
deadlock has heightened fears about the fate of the inclusive
government,
which is meant to end the deadly political violence that erupted
after last
year's sham one man presidential elections.
Three regional leaders who
form the SADC Troika will meet with Zimbabwe's
political leaders in Maputo,
Mozambique on Thursday for the crisis summit.
Mozambican President
Armando Guebuza, Swaziland's King Mswati and Zambia's
Rupiah Banda will meet
with Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara in
Maputo to tackle the current
standoff.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Violet Gonda
3
November 2009
Human rights and media lawyer, Mordecai Mahlangu, was
arrested on Monday for
allegedly obstructing the course of justice, in a
case involving MDC
official Roy Bennett.
Media watchdog,
MISA-Zimbabwe, says the lawyer was detained after he wrote a
letter to
Attorney General Johannes Tomana, protesting a subpoena that was
issued to
Peter Hitschmann, directing him to testify against Bennett.
Mahlangu's
letter said Hitschmann's statements were extracted through
torture. The
lawyer was arrested and detained overnight at Harare Central
police
station.
Hitschmann is being forced to testify as a State witness against
the MDC
Deputy Agriculture Minister designate, although he made it clear
when he was
released from jail in July that he has no evidence against
Bennett. The
firearms dealer was arrested for allegedly plotting to
assassinate Robert
Mugabe in 2006, but was acquitted. However he served a
total of 40 months
for possessing dangerous firearms without a licence
(although he was a
registered firearms dealer at the time).
Bennett is
facing charges of possession of weapons with the intention to
commit
insurgency, sabotage, terrorism, and banditry. Robert Mugabe has
refused to
swear in the MDC official, claiming he is facing serious charges.
The MDC
and Bennett maintain the charges are trumped up. Several other MDC
officials, including the co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa, were also
arrested in connection with this alleged case, but their case fell
apart.
Shortly after his release from jail Hitschmann told SW Radio Africa
that he
was tortured in custody and forced to make false confessions. He
said: "And
when we were tortured at Adams Barracks, because we were taken to
a military
barracks for torture during the night of 2006, we were told that
we had to
confess and all of us having to confess to about five or six
different
scenarios which were dictated to me. So the connection between
myself and
Giles Mutsekwa and myself and Roy Bennett and whatever exists in
the
imagination of these people, that's where it exists."
Bennett's
controversial trial is set for November 9th, in a case that has
now been
taken over by the Attorney General Johannes Tomana himself, who
will be
acting as lead prosecutor.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
03
November 2009
Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has shocked international
government delegations
and rights groups by threatening NGOs and an
international diamond review
mission, who have reported on widespread human
rights abuses at the Chiadzwa
diamond fields.
Mpofu was speaking in
Namibia where the Kimberley Process, the international
body tasked with
ending the global trade in conflict diamonds, is holding
its annual meeting.
The meeting is set to decide Zimbabwe's future
participation in the global
diamond trade market, after a recent Kimberley
Process review mission to
Zimbabwe recommended the country be banned over
gross human rights
violations at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Numerous NGOs
and human rights
groups have also voiced their support for Zimbabwe to be
banned because of
rampant and ongoing rights violations at the diamond
fields.
As a
result, the NGOs as well as the Kimberley Process review mission, came
under
attack by Mpofu on Tuesday, where he called them 'deranged and
requiring
psychological examination'. A source in Namibia explained Mpofu
has angered
many government delegations gathered for the Kimberley Process
meeting,
including the Canadian delegation, which has apparently publicly
condemned
Mpofu's conduct. It is understood that Mpofu was also snubbed by a
noted
Greenpeace activist who the minister co chaired a panel discussion
with. Our
source explained that the Greenpeace official refused to shake
Mpofu's hand,
saying he "would not shake hands with dishonest people."
Annie Dunnebacke
from Global Witness, a British group that monitors the
exploitation of the
world's natural resources, confirmed that there has been
intimidation of
NGOs by Zimbabwe government officials this week. Speaking
from Namibia,
Dunnebacke said that threats and intimidation of rights groups
is
'unacceptable'. Dunnebacke continued that there is widespread concern
about
what course of action the Kimberley Process will now take on Zimbabwe,
given
that all decisions are based on consensus by member states. She
explained
there is a general fear of a stalemate, as some member countries
remain
supportive of Zimbabwe's place in the diamond market.
"We are very concerned
that there will be no consensus and then there will
be a stalemate on what
to do," Dunnebacke said. "A stalemate at this point
could be detrimental to
Zimbabwe given the ongoing rights abuses there."
The Kimberley Process
review mission, which submitted its final report on
Zimbabwe at the annual
meeting on Monday, has accused the government of
deliberately lying to the
Kimberley Process, because it is directly involved
in illegal mining and
illicit smuggling of diamonds from Chiadzwa. The
delegation completed its
mission to Zimbabwe more than four months ago and
had recommended the
immediate demilitarisation of the diamond fields. The
recommendation has
been openly ignored, and ongoing abuses are still being
reported.
Human Rights Watch has also echoed calls for urgent action
on Zimbabwe by
the Kimberley Process, detailing in a new report that the
military grip of
Chiadzwa has intensified. Following an investigation to
Chiadzwa last month,
the group explained that "elements of the Zimbabwean
Defence Forces have
consolidated their presence in the diamond fields and
that they are abusing
members of the local community and engaging in
widespread diamond
smuggling."
Tiseke Kasambala, Africa researcher
with the rights group, told SW Radio
Africa on Tuesday that urgent action is
critical to prevent the ongoing
abuses at the diamond
fields.
"Zimbabwe has had more than enough time to put a halt to the
human rights
abuses and smuggling at Chiadzwa," Kasambala said. "The
situation there
cannot be allowed to continue any longer."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=24453
November 3, 2009
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party has
once again
boycotted the Cabinet meeting which is regularly attended by
government
ministers on Tuesday.The latest move somehow puts paid to
President Robert
Mugabe's bid to see the current political crisis resolved
ahead of the
troika summit on Zimbabwe scheduled for Thursday in the
Mozambican capital,
Maputo.
As has happened over the last two weeks,
MDC appointed ministers convened a
separate meeting at Harvest House, the
party's headquarters in central
Harare instead of attending the full cabinet
meeting held every Tuesday at
Munhumutapa Building.
Meanwhile,
Zanu-PF ministers and those from Deputy Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara's
smaller faction of the MDC attended the regular Cabinet meeting.
But
Gorden Moyo, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office said the
Zanu-PF - MDC-M meeting did not qualify to be a cabinet meeting saying
cabinet meetings are complete only when representatives of all the three
political parties in government attend.
"What they are having is just
a caucus," he said.
"The GPA says government is constituted by all the
three political parties
in government and there is no party that can claim
to be having a cabinet
meeting without any of the other parties being
represented."
The MDC stay-away is the third successive boycott since the
party pulled out
of the country's two executive organs of government in
protest over
President Mugabe's failure to abide by the terms of the unity
agreement
signed last year by the feuding parties.
The MDC is adamant
it will not re-engage Zanu-PF at any executive level
until all its demands
are met.
"We launched a disengagement from Zanu-PF until such a time when
the toxic
issues are addressed," Moyo said.
The MDC disengagement
from Zanu-PF, the first major incident to rock
Zimbabwe's otherwise shaky
unity government since its formation in February
this year, was described by
President Mugabe as a non-event.
The Zimbabwean leader has since toned
down his rhetoric against the pull out
by MDC as he prepares to face his
peers this Thursday.
Since the visit by the SADC troika ministerial
delegation last week, Mugabe
has been tacit overtures towards the
MDC.
The visit by the delegation was also in line with SADC's pledges in
January
this year to review Zimbabwe's unity government after six months of
its
inception.
Mugabe, usually a sabre-rattling speaker, accomplished
a rare toning down of
his anti-MDC rhetoric when he told mourners at a
Heroes' Acre burial on
Saturday that his party was willing to talk to
accommodate MDC's grievances.
SADC leaders are under pressure to
reprimand the Zimbabwean leader for his
apparent contemptuous violation of
the Global Political Agreement (GPA),
which they brokered last year
September.
The MDC accuses Mugabe of violating the GPA through unilateral
appointments
of party loyalists into positions which are supposed to be
filled through
consultation of all the parties in government.
The
irregular appointments cited by the MDC include those of central bank
governor Gideon Gono, Attorney General Johannes Tomana and governors in the
country's 10 provinces.
Tsvangirai's party has been hit by a spate of
retributive violence by
militant groups loyal to Mugabe whose party has also
been accused of willful
prosecution of MDC officials, most often on spurious
allegations.
http://af.reuters.com
Tue Nov 3, 2009 10:29am
GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has lost about 200 rhinoceroses -- a
quarter of
its total population -- to rampant poaching over the last three
years as
security and the economy deteriorated, state media reported on
Tuesday.
The southern African country has been badly damaged by an
economic crisis,
which critics blame on President Robert Mugabe's seizure of
white-owned
farms, including wildlife farms, to resettle landless
blacks.
The director of the National Parks and Wildlife Authority, Morris
Mutsambiwa, told a parliamentary committee that 86 poachers linked to
international smuggling syndicates had been arrested this year
alone.
"We have lost close to 200 rhinos in the last two to three years,"
Mutsambiwa was quoted saying by the Herald newspaper.
"From the
intelligence we are gathering, we strongly believe that there are
syndicates
which operate in the region, involving locals."
Estimates put Zimbabwe's
black and white rhino population at about 500 and
300,
respectively.
Mutsambiwa said poachers were mainly targeting the
low-lying south-eastern
part of Zimbabwe and the Zambezi valley to the
north. Asia seemed to be the
main destination for the illicit rhino
horns.
The southern African country has been badly damaged by an economic
crisis,
which critics blame on President Robert Mugabe's seizure of
white-owned
farms, including wildlife farms, to resettle landless
blacks.
Mutsambiwa said the wildlife authority was unable to provide
adequate
security, hence the rise in poaching cases.
"We haven't been
able to generate enough revenue for rhino protection.
KwaZulu-Natal (in
South Africa) spends $3,000 per square metre, while we
spend less than $10,"
he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Simon Mann
was jailed for 34 years in July 2008 by a court in Equatorial
Guinea for a
failed attempt to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang in 2004.
By Andy
Bloxham
Published: 11:13AM GMT 03 Nov 2009
The former SAS
officer's jail term in the small, oil-rich African country is
a far cry from
his privileged background.
He was born the son of the heir to the Watney
Combe & Reid brewery, one of
the main beer-makers in London, and
attended Eton then Sandhurst.
Mann passed out and served in the Scots
Guards before getting through SAS
selection and starting a career as one of
the last mercenaries of Africa
known as "the dogs of war".
Mann, who
is now 57, was leading a team of 70 battle-toughened South African
mercenaries to seize control of Equatorial Guinea in 2004, when he was
captured and jailed in Zimbabwe.
In February last year, he was taken
from Harare and flown through the night
to the target of his attempted
coup.
He was sentenced to 34 years and taken to the Black Beach prison in
the
island capital Malabo, where an Amnesty International report suggests
denial
of medical treatment of sick prisoners is routine and rumours of
worse
treatment abound.
However, lawyers and diplomatic sources said
he had negotiated a deal with
the country's by agreeing to name the alleged
co-conspirators in return for
his freedom.
Despite the grim
conditions for most in Black Beach, Mann has reportedly
been treated very
well, eating chicken, steak and vegetables cooked
specially for him by chefs
in a nearby hotel, and drinking good wine.
He has an exercise bike in his
cell to keep him fit and is allowed an hour's
daily phone conversation with
his wife Amanda and seven children in
Hampshire.
He also apparently
enjoys conversations with the minister for national
security while he
eats.
However, Mann's relaxed prison regime also allows President Obiang
to combat
claims of horrific conditions in Black Beach, as well as to use
Mann's
comments as a wider public relations exercise to improve the
reputation of
his regime with the international powerbrokers, and to crack
down on
opponents.
It has also been suggested that Western powers may
be anxious to avoid being
associated with a dictator on whom they depends
for vast quantities of oil
and that any benefit to his international stock
could ease pressure on
trade.
Obiang is reported to have a personal
wealth of around £6 billion, invested
in around 60 bank accounts, in one of
which he deposited £430m in a single
year.
The president has been
accused of cannibalism - he belongs to a tribe once
feared for eating human
flesh - a charge he denies and counters with the
insistence that he is "a
Catholic and a humanitarian".
One clue to his vast wealth was revealed in
a rare interview in 2004, in
which he admitted he personally signed for, and
received, all his country's
oil money "so that nobody else could steal
it".
Shortly afterwards, he hired a Washington lobbyist on a reported
£100,000 a
month salary to boost his image.
At around the same time,
the coup against him came to a premature end.
During Mann's trial, he
said he was a mere "employee", and suggested the
real masterminds included a
London-based millionaire called Ely Calil, 62,
who he nicknamed The
Cardinal, and Sir Mark Thatcher, 55, the son of
Baroness Thatcher. Mr Calil
and Sir Mark have denied any involvement.
Mann said Calil, a friend of EU
trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, was the
overall boss who financed the
plot, which he alleged was to fly in a puppet
leader from Spain after the
mercenaries overwhelmed the presidential guard,
seized the radio station
and, if necessary, murdered Obiang.
Six men on trial were each jailed for
between one and 18 years. Another man
died before the trial after he was
beaten. The official verdict was
"suicide" caused by throwing himself from
a police bed.
Mann was jailed for 34 years and ordered to pay a fine of
£12million.
However, less than 18 months into his sentence, he is a free
man.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Robb WJ
Ellis
Tuesday, 03 November 2009 17:15
So the Southern African
Development Conference (SADC) has decided to
hold a summit in Maputu on
Zimbabwe on Thursday.
Aren't we getting a little bit sick of
this?
Whenever the situation in Zimbabwe becomes too much for the
politicians in the country to handle, they turn to SADC and ask them to
mediate to resolve the issue - and what do SADC do? They have a summit to
talk about talking about it!
I have stated, on many occasions that
Mugabe is a past master on
delaying tactics. He will embark upon
negotiations and these will last
forever, and then, having almost sorted the
problem, the mediator announces
a 'breakthrough' which doesn't happen and
the situation resets itself for
yet another summit and so on.
But
perhaps the point that irks me more than any other is the fact
that Mugabe
somehow dictates the pace of events in Zimbabwe and he heads a
political
party that lost the election last year. Why do the regional
authorities
accept this? Why do the governments in the area accept what
Mugabe does to
his own people? Why do they insist on letting Mugabe get away
with nothing
short of murder?
Why waste more time, resource, people and money
talking into a vacuum
when Mugabe is never going to go along with whatever
is decided, and he will
be thankful for the additional days that he has in
power? Mugabe sees each
day as a victory. Time is his friend.
We
know that he and his party faithful have stripped Zimbabwe of
virtually
anything and everything worth having, that they have private
accounts
scattered throughout the world that are filled to overflowing with
public
funds stolen from the people of Zimbabwe.
An example of this is
easy. An audit of a government department
revealed huge corruption. "The
Comptroller and Auditor-General has made more
shocking revelations that
expose gross abuse of state resources, with
government vehicles being taken
away by top government officials and state
assets, fuel coupons and cash
being misappropriated. In her report for the
first quarter of 2009 financial
year tabled in parliament last week the
Comptroller and Auditor-General
Mildred Chiri showed how rampant corruption
is in government.
In
addition to the cars being possessed by ministers and their
deputies and
permanent secretaries, the report revealed that state assets
such as
laptops, computers, fax machines, cell phones and spares of cars
were stolen
but no police reports were made.
A total of 14 vehicles donated to the
Ministry of Public Service,
Labour and Social Welfare by the Reserve Bank in
2008 were neither recorded
in the vehicle register nor the donations
registered. Vehicle registration
papers were not produced and therefore the
report said specification details
of the vehicles were not known to the
ministry." The report goes on to
reveal more and more illegal activity, and
we should remember that this is
just one department!
And what
has been done about this?
Nothing. Zero. Zip. De nada.
And yet
we have regional government representatives going to Maputu to
talk about
Zimbabwe! Why? The man who ostensibly rules Zimbabwe - the man
that stole
the presidency - continues to take whatever he wants (and a
little more
besides). Why should the regional heads want to sit down and
talk to a
person (or his representatives) when his securing the post he
holds
transgressed so many basic laws?
SADC should not be holding a summit to
resolve the Zimbabwean crisis -
they should be working out just how to
remove him from any position that
could conceivably allow him to continue
his wholesale destruction of the
country which was once the bread basket of
Africa.
To perpetuate Mugabe's rule is not only pointless, but is a
serious
threat to the region.
Robb WJ Ellis
The
Bearded Man
http://mandebvhu.instablogs.com/entry/summits-on-zimbabwe-are-a-waste-of-time/
BILL WATCH
36/2009
[3rd November
2009]
The
House of Assembly resumes sitting on Tuesday 3rd
November
Senate
is adjourned until Tuesday 10th November
SADC Organ Troika
There will be a
The Organ Troika consists of three
heads of State – the President of Mozambique [present Organ chairperson], the
King of Swaziland [immediate past chairperson] and the President of Zambia [next
chairperson, elected at the
The purpose of the
SADC
Organ Troika Ministers in
The
SADC Organ Troika’s foreign ministers spent Thursday and Friday in
The team met with the
GPA principals and other representatives of the three political parties, JOMIC,
SADC diplomats and members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to
Speaking at the end of
their visit, the leader of the mission, the Foreign Minister of Mozambique, said
the mission would be recommending the holding of an extraordinary SADC Summit to
discuss the
SADC
Organ Ministers Team Communiqué
[full
text of communiqué available on request]
The official communiqué
issued by the three foreign ministers includes the following passage [the underlining is
Veritas’]:
“7. MCO Troika urged
the political parties that:
(i)
they engage
in a dialogue in order to find a lasting solution to the outstanding issues
towards the full implementation of the GPA;
(ii)
they should
fully comply with the spirit and the intent of the GPA and SADC
(iii)
they should
not allow the current situation to hamper further progress on the gains made so
far.
8.
MCO
Troika reiterated the
9.
The parties
agreed to attend to all outstanding issues arising from the implementation of
the GPA and the SADC
Reference
to the 27th January
[full
text of communiqué available on request]
The references to the
Summit Communiqué of 27th January may be significant, because that communiqué
specifically refers to dealing with such matters as the appointment of the
Attorney-General and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the National Security
Council Bill and the distribution of provincial governors. The relevant
paragraphs are:
“(v)
the allocation of ministerial portfolios endorsed by the SADC Extraordinary
Summit held on November 9, 2008, shall be reviewed six (6) months after the
inauguration of the inclusive government;
(vi)
the appointments of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General will be
dealt with by the inclusive government after its formation;
(vii)
the negotiators of the parties shall meet immediately to consider the National
Security Bill submitted by the MDC-T as well as the formula for the distribution
of the Provincial Governors”
This
recognition of MDC-T complaints is nevertheless balanced by the reiteration of
previous SADC calls for the removal of sanctions, the major ZANU-PF complaint.
SADC Chairperson
President Kabila of the DRC now in
DRC President Kabila, the current
SADC Chairperson, arrived in
In
Meantime MDC-T Remains “Disengaged”.
MDC-T
awaiting outcome of mediation: An MDC-T
spokesman has said that they would now wait for the outcome of mediation by the
SADC, and if this failed to end the deadlock the party would start to prepare
for elections “because there is no government without the
GPA".
ZANU-PF
Threat to Appoint Acting Ministers Unconstitutional
Last week the State
press carried reports that the President may appoint Acting Ministers in place
of “disengaged” MDC-T Ministers. This would violate the GPA, which specifies
there shall be a certain number of Ministers from each party. The GPA states
that replacements [which must necessarily be read as including temporary
replacements] of MDC-T Ministers must be nominees of MDC-T. This is in GPA
Article 20, which was incorporated in Schedule 8 to the Constitution of Zimbabwe
by Constitution Amendment 19. So any unilateral ZANU-PF move to replace the
Ministers would also violate the Constitution.
Today’s
Cabinet Meeting
Cabinet met this
morning – it routinely meets on Tuesday mornings. The Prime Minister and MDC-T
Ministers did not attend. Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara and the 3 MDC-M
Ministers did attend.
Has
Cabinet Got a Quorum While MDC-T is Disengaged?
As Cabinet has
continued to meet despite MDC-T’s disengagement from ZANU-PF in Cabinet,
questions have been asked about quorum requirements for Cabinet meetings.
Section 114(3b) of the Constitution provides that “one-half of the membership of any body established by
or in terms of this Constitution shall constitute a quorum of the membership of
that body”. It has been assumed that the general 50% rule applies to
Cabinet – although it could have adopted its own rules [but they are not on
public record]. ZANU-PF have 20 Cabinet members [they should have 21 but
Vice-President Msika has not yet been replaced], MDC-T 17 and
MDC-M 4. The
Attorney-General is a non-voting member of Cabinet [section 76(3b)(a) of the
Constitution] so it is an arguable point whether he should be counted towards a
quorum. If he is not counted and MDC-M does not attend, there would not be a
50% quorum. If the AG is counted, and provided all ZANU-PF members attend,
there would be a quorum irrespective of MDC-M’s attendance.
Budget Estimates
Due in Parliament Soon
Traditionally the Budget for next
year is tabled and passed before the end of this year. Budget Estimates of
Expenditure are usually thrashed out at senior civil service level, but it will
be difficult for the Finance Minister [MDC-T] to finalise his Budget if
disengagement is continuing. The last date according to the Constitution for
Budget Bills to be presented is 30th January.
Impact on
Economy
Difficulties
in implementing the GPA agreement have already delayed efforts to secure private
investment and development aid from Western donors, both crucial for
Increase in
Politically Motivated Violence
Civil society and MDC-T are
reporting an increase in harassment and politically motivated violence since the
announcement of the disengagement on the 16th October.
Veritas makes
every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal
responsibility for information supplied.