Deal gives Mugabe too much power: ZCTU

http://www.zimonline.co.za/

by Sebastian Nyamhangambiri Tuesday 30 September 2008

HARARE - Zimbabwe's labour movement on Monday rejected a power-sharing deal
signed by the country's political leaders, saying it left too much power in
the hands of President Robert Mugabe while creating a "ceremonial prime
minister" serving at the mercy of the president.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) - which spoke as Mugabe
announced that a unity government envisaged under the deal would be in place
by the end of this week - said prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai
will wield little power in the new government whose methods of governing
will be determined by Mugabe.

"The deal does not provide power-sharing, rather it creates a ceremonial
prime minister and an executive president," ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo
told journalists in Harare.

"(The deal) gives the prime minister a supervisory role of government
business and the prime minister is at the mercy of the president. It was a
rushed document only meant to for political accommodation of the MDC
(opposition party) in an inclusive government," he added.

The ZCTU is a powerful constituency in opposition politics in Zimbabwe and
has strategically aligned itself with the MDC, which it gave birth to nine
years ago. Tsvangirai himself built his national profile as a
secretary-general of the ZCTU before leaving the movement to head the MDC at
its formation in 1999.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and leader of the smaller faction of the MDC Arthur
Mutambara signed an agreement two weeks ago to form a power-sharing
government to tackle Zimbabwe's long running political and economic crisis.

Under the deal, Mugabe will remain president and head of government but will
relinquish some of his presently wide-ranging powers to Tsvangirai who
becomes prime minister while Mutambara will be appointed deputy prime
minister.

But the ZCTU and several other key civic society groups have criticised the
deal labelling it an elitist pact between powerful politicians and that pays
little regard to the wishes of workers or the electorate.

Matombo said the ZCTU had met Tsvangirai at the weekend who the union boss
said admitted that the power-sharing deal was a compromise deal and not the
best that he (Tsvangirai) had hoped for.

"Mr Tsvangirai made it clear that this was not the best he hoped for but a
compromise agreement. In other words, the methods of the new government are
left to the behest of the president," said Matombo.

There was no immediate reaction from Tsvangirai's office to the ZCTU's
criticism of his acceptance of the power-sharing deal.

Tsvangirai, who defeated Mugabe in a March presidential election but failed
to secure the margin required to takeover power, has defended the deal as
the best compromise that could be achieved and at the weekend called for the
urgent formation of the unity government to deal with a deepening food and
economic crisis.

Talks to form the unity government stalled more than a week ago after
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara failed to agree on how to share key posts
in the new government.

The failure to form a government has raised doubts over whether the
power-sharing deal clinched after seven weeks of tortuous negotiations could
stand the strain given deep-seated mistrust, especially between Mugabe and
Tsvangirai.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai as well as Mutambara have over the last few days
emphasised that they would overcome the deadlock over sharing of government
ministries when they resume talks this week.

"We discussed the ministries before I left. Only four remain, but there is
no deadlock. We will be setting up government this week, towards the end of
the week," Mugabe told reporters on his return to Harare from a UN General
Assembly meeting.

Meanwhile the ZCTU has criticised the move by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) to allow some shops to sell basic commodities in foreign currency,
saying this would seriously affect ordinary people with no access to hard
cash.

"The ZCTU is dismayed by the RBZ move to allow shops to sell products in
forex as this will seriously affect the ordinary people who have no access
to foreign currency. The ZCTU reserves the right to take action as it may
deem necessary," Matombo said without specifying what action the union was
considering taking.

The ZCTU however said it was deferring a national job strike by workers that
had been set for October 1 after the central bank bowed to calls to increase
the amount of cash people can withdraw from banks.

The RBZ, which is struggling to import special paper required to print
banknotes, limits the amount of cash individuals and firms can withdraw from
their banks per day as part of desperate measures to curb a shortage of
cash.

The central bank last week increased withdrawal limits for companies and
individuals from ZW$1 000 to $20 000 and $10 000 respectively.

However, the new limits remain too low in a country hit hard by inflation
and where people have to pay several thousands of dollars for simple
purchases such as household groceries.

The ZCTU said it would keep pushing for withdrawal limits to be scrapped for
good. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe waits

The Times
September 30, 2008

Robert Mugabe must keep his word and let go at last
Zimbabwe's so-called power-sharing deal is two weeks old, and no power has
been shared. No Cabinet posts of any significance have been ceded to the
former Opposition. Western diplomats in Harare fear a slide back to de facto
dictatorship, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, is in danger of
being outmanoeuvred.

Mr Mugabe promised yesterday that the deal would be finalised this week. Yet
his record inspires no optimism. When he appeared on September 15 to sign
what now appears to have been only the vaguest agreement, he was booed in
public for the first time in decades. But outside, his paramilitaries
proceeded as if nothing had happened, chasing and beating opposition
supporters. Since then it has become painfully clear that Mr Tsvangirai
signed - and Thabo Mbeki, then the South African President, approved - a
deal with no concrete undertakings as to how ministries would be divided
between Zanu (PF) and the MDC, nor any compulsion to make any.

Details were unclear because they did not exist. Mr Mugabe was said to have
insisted on keeping control of the Army. It was assumed that Mr Tsvangirai
had agreed on the assumption that he would take over the Home Affairs
Ministry and with it the police. He has not done so.

Aid agencies say the country's grain stocks will run out next month. Famine
looms. Children will die. Mr Mugabe will blame the West. Kgalema Motlanthe,
South Africa's interim President, will have an historic chance to reject out
of hand Mr Mugabe's delusional and dangerous narrative of colonial
persecution and make clear that, as anything more powerful than a
figurehead, the old man's time is up.

ZIMTA warns of collapse of education sector

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=4979

September 29, 2008

By Our Correspondent

HARARE - The Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (ZIMTA) has warned that that
education system is on the verge of collapse because of a critical shortage
of teachers, teaching and learning materials, poor remuneration and low
morale.

ZIMTA is the country's largest representative body for teachers with a
membership of more than 60 000.

In ZIMTA's sharpest criticism of government yet, its president, Tendai
Chikowore, said in a circular number dated September 20 that public
examinations scheduled to start in October, and end in November could be
disrupted as teachers continue to leave the country or simply stay away from
their schools.

She said: "Whereas the Zimbabwe government is a signatory to the Dakar
Declaration, which seeks to achieve Education for All by 2015, midway that
timeline, the goals are seriously lagging behind and the achievement of the
goals is undermined by remuneration policies, which relegate the teaching
professionals to the inferior General Key Scale.

"Government has under-funded and under-resourced the education system,
leading to demotivation and a brain-drain."

Circular Number 64 was addressed to ZIMTA members, the national secretariat,
national executive members and branches.

Chikowore said that the economic decline, which has spawned high prices and
low wages, and the government's failure to respond to salary demands, had
put the education sector under severe stress, threatening total breakdown of
the system.

"This development, put into perspective, spells doom," said Chikowore

She also criticised the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's move to allow designated
dealers to sell their products in foreign currency, saying teachers would be
unable to buy from the outlets because they are paid in local currency.

"The socio-economic status of the teacher in Zimbabwe has drastically
declined over the years," Chikowore charged.

"While Zimbabwe is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals,
the increasing poverty and hunger engulfing our country, threaten the
delivery of quality education in this country."

Because of the problems the education sector is facing, added the ZIMTA
boss, teachers were struggling to pay school fees for their own children,
buy food, pay rentals and for transport.

"Educators will continue to leave the Zimbabwean teaching service, leading
to a further decline in the quality of education," said Chikowore.

"No meaningful learning and teaching will take place as the professional
status of teachers declines and in turn affects self-esteem, particularly if
they continue to be economically incapacitated to carry out their duties.
The impending national examinations are likely to be disrupted due to
non-attendance of qualified personnel."

She recommended that the government pays teachers competitive salaries that
are in line with the inflation rate, estimated at more than 11 million
percent, or to pay them in foreign currency, like other critical skilled
workers in the civil service.

Teachers earn between $15 000 and $250 000 per month and are some of the
lowest paid professionals in the country.

"In cognisance of the foregoing observations and implications," she said,
"we strongly call upon and urge the government to fulfil its commitments and
obligations towards the realisation of quality public education for all by
2015, restore the status of the teacher as guided by the International
Labour Organisation/UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers
(1966)."

Chikowore said the fact that most teachers were not reporting for work did
not mean that they were on strike. They were simply incapacitated by adverse
economic conditions, which entailed that they could not afford to pay
transport costs to en from work.

"ZIMTA observes and further advises that unless meaningful steps are taken
to address these issues more educators will continue to fail to go to work,"
she said.

Zimbabweans Celebrate Mugabe's Unity Government Pronouncement

VOA

By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
30 September 2008

Zimbabweans are reportedly expressing excitement after President Robert
Mugabe said he would ensure a unity government is formed with opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) some time this week. The unity
government is expected to end a bitter political impasse between President
Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF government and the opposition MDC after both parties
recently signed a power sharing agreement.

Some Zimbabweans are hopeful that the formation of the new unity government
could help resolve the worsening economic crisis. They added that it could
also send a signal to the international community to lift sanctions imposed
on the Mugabe government.

George Mkwananzi is the deputy chairperson of the National Constitution
Assembly. He tells reporter Peter Clottey from South Africa's capital,
Pretoria, President Mugabe is under enormous pressure to abide by the tenets
of the agreement.

"Obviously Zimbabweans are reacting to that piece of news with excitement
because that is what they have been waiting for all along. It was the side
of ZANU-PF that has been a stumbling block to the conclusion of the
agreement and effecting it into a workable system. It was because of the
Intransigence of the ZANU-PF and their refusal to share ministries of
importance with the MDC. So, this is an indication that they are now psych
up to share with MDC whatever those ministries were," Mkwananzi noted.

He said Zimbabweans are hopeful that President Mugabe would keep to his
word.

"People are banking on a number of sectors that are expected to force him
(Mugabe) to take this thing seriously because the economy is continuing to
do badly. And Mugabe knows it very well that if he takes longer or delays to
conclude this agreement, things would get worse and worse. And there is the
likelihood that there is not going to be any harvest from this coming season
to the non-availability of all implements that are used for farming, and
that is really scary for Mugabe. So, that is expected to motivate him to do
better than he has become known for," he said.

Mkwananzi said it was about time that all stakeholders in the power sharing
agreement should hold their side of the agreement.

"I believe this is a period where the principals of the three political
formations would have to show leadership. There could be people who may not
be happy with the distribution of post and positions and areas of influence
in all the three respective parties. But then if the three principals engage
in these discussions are clear about what they want to see that is a
reconstructed Zimbabwe. We believe that these remain four ministries, which
are the cause of this dispute would be equitably distributed in such a way
that there is a balance of power between these two major parties," Mkwananzi
pointed out.

He said President Mugabe seems displeased with his own ZANU-PF party.

"I believe Robert Mugabe is operating at a higher level than the people that
are leading his party. You can see that from the way he explains to them
that he has been forced into this humiliating situation because "we did not
win this election". And he actually wanted to throw it back at them that
they didn't work hard enough so that they could be saved from sharing power
with a party that they had all along has been touting as a puppet of the
west," he said.

Now To Share Power With Women

http://www.ipsnews.net

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Sep 29 (IPS) - The ink was barely dry on the power-sharing agreement
signed by Zimbabwe's main political parties on Sep. 15 when women activists
demanded a fair share of power for the fairer sex.

Half of all cabinet posts should be for women, argued the Feminist Political
Education Project (FePEP), a pressure group led by the country's top gender
thinkers and leaders. Of the 31 ministers, 15 should be women, and of the 15
deputy ministers, eight. Moreover, women should be appointed to
non-traditional, "hard ministries" such as foreign affairs, home affairs,
defense, local government, finance and trade.

The group wants to prevent a repeat of the exclusion from the power-sharing
talks, where there was only one woman among eight negotiators.

This is not the first time that the women's movement has criticised the male
stranglehold on the political process. In the impasse after the March
elections, FePEP lashed out at politicians who tear the country apart with
their "selfish male egos, the quest for unbridled power, and total disregard
for citizens' rights."

If the unity government appointed women to half of the cabinet posts, said
FePEP, it would be showing its true commitment to gender equality, a core
principle in the agreement. It would also comply with the recently approved
Southern Africa Development Community Protocol on Gender, which requires
50/50 male and female representation in government by 2015.

Moreover, appointing women would build trust in the unity government, said
FePEP.

These days, trust may be a commodity as scarce as cooking oil and sugar.
Zimbabweans endured yet more political, economic and social hardship this
year as they staggered through a flawed and violent election, which left
some 200 dead, and 25,000 displaced, according to the rights monitor
Zimbabwe Peace Project. Many instances of sexual violence against female
members of the opposition by pro-government militias were documented.

Some human rights activists believe that having more women in power will
bring issues of justice and redress to the fore. Jenni Williams, founder of
the lobbying group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), would like the new
government to provide psychological treatment for the victims of torture and
shelter for the displaced, prosecute perpetrators of political violence,
reform the army and police, repeal oppressive laws, and allow international
humanitarian aid.

But "nothing will ever come out of this deal until women are included," she
told IPS.

Jameson Timba, a Member of Parliament for the Movement for Democratic
Change, notes some positive steps towards gender parity.

Of the unity government's executive -- a president, two deputy presidents, a
prime minister and two deputies -- two must be women. Timba adds that "at
least a third of the cabinet and ambassadorial positions will go to women."

The Parliament and Senate also have equitable representation, both in both
political and gender terms. The Parliament's speaker is an MDC man, Lovemore
Moyo, and the deputy speaker a woman, Nomalanga Khumalo. In the Senate, the
speaker is ZANU PF's Edna Madzongwe, with a male deputy, Naison Ndlovu.

Others remain skeptical about power-sharing among men and women. Among them
is Gladys Hlatswayo, advocacy officer at the umbrella group Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition.

"We have heard these nice words before but, without political will, they do
not mean anything," she told IPS. "The power relations are uneven and
reflect the power struggles of the general Zimbabwean society."

For many women, bread and butter issues are the priority. About 80 percent
of the population is unemployed and lives with less than $2 a day, according
to the United Nations. Life expectancy for women has dropped to 34 years and
seroprevalence stands at 20 percent.

Patience Chitapi, a mother of two living in Harare's Glen View suburb, knows
this first-hand.

"All I want is food in the supermarket, medicine in the hospitals, water and
electricity, but I can't afford any of these basic needs, let alone personal
hygiene products. I believe women can address these issues better than men,"
she told IPS.

A devilish deal? Most probably....

http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com

29th Sep 2008 13:03 GMT

By Chenjerai Chitsaru

Shakespeare himself is said to have included in one or two of his plays
quotations from Marlowe's work. The similarities between them went beyond
their literary works. Both are said to have been atheists, a controversial
assertion even in the 1500s...
Marlowe has the additional distinction of being linked to espionage and
homosexuality, yet it is emphasized there was not much evidence of this.
Marlowe died, at 29, Shakespeare at 52.

Faustus was also written about by the German novelist, Goethe
(1749-1832)....
This is admittedly a long-winded way of introducing a very local subject -
that of the peculiar political gymnastics the world has been witnessing in
Zimbabwe.
People have been killed and much property destroyed but there have been very
few arrests and even less court appearances of alleged murderers or
assailants. The government has made no attempt to complement   the impending
political transformation with such positive gestures as scrapping many of
the restrictive provisions of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and
the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (AIPPA).

The pariah status of the regime has changed little and there have not been
many reports of foreign governments contemplating a shift in their positions
of strict non-cooperation with the regime. Until there are tangible and
positive signs of real change in direction, there may be no improvement in
the situation at home for a long time to come.
Many have given up trying to keep track of who is doing what to do whom and
why. Mostly, all have been wondering if the lack of faith in Robert Mugabe's
word of honour can sink any lower than it has already.

Today, there may be some leaders of the MDC   wondering if they were coerced
or conned into a deal with the Devil and are now in the process of paying
the price of their naiveté...

To characterise Robert Mutable and Zane PF as devils may sound to some as
unfair, except if confined to political terminology - as if there can be any
other way.
But others, leafing through their fat, dog-eared dossiers of Zanu PF's
record of political perfidy since 1975, may be emphatic in their stance that
the MDC was sold a bum steer.
Mugabe and his party knew, even as they signed on the dotted line of the
agreement for a power-sharing deal, brokered by the hapless Thabo Mbeki that
they would welsh on the deal at the most crucial, psychological moment.
Critics say they did this with Joshua Nkomo's PF-Zapu in the Unity Accord,
signed in 1987.

Incidentally, there are many neutral observers of the Zimbabwe muddle who
swear Mugabe lost a grand opportunity to enhance what remains of his
international reputation by not including Morgan Tsvangirai in his
delegation to the United Nations general assembly meeting in New York early
this month...

Rules would most likely have been amended, albeit temporarily, to allow
Tsvangirai to address the assembly, either before or after Mugabe.

In fairness, it probably would have been before. After all, there can now be
no doubt that Tsvangirai's supporters inside the country number more than
Mugabe's.
If you include the millions who are now outside the country, mostly in
involuntary exile, then you have a virtual landslide.

Such a gesture would have prompted many fence-sitters - those who still
believe Mugabe cannot be trusted to honour any deal - to soften their
position and probably speed up the release of urgently-needed aid to the
hunger-stricken, penniless, medicine-less, bankrupt, jobless and we'll-all-die-at-34
population.

There was something of the bold-as-brass defiance in Mugabe's address to the
UN.
The man should, in reality, be feeling humiliated, bushwhacked and
thoroughly wet because this was a situation he had not anticipated in a
thousand years - having Tsvangirai, of all people, sharing power with him,
let alone the prospect of the former trade unionist -at some point - telling
him not do this or that.

Mugabe almost pulled it off, a façade of no-change, of still being the one
bull in the herd, being still top of the heap. But not even he, master of
the double-bluff that he is, could sustain the fiction.

Admittedly, it was towards the end of his speech that he referred to the new
leadership of the country. The timbre of his voice sounded decidedly
altered, as if this was an afterthought, something of much less importance
than the reform of the UN, on which he dwelt for a boringly long time.

But the reality, which he now belatedly acknowledges in the statement "I can
work with the MDC" , is that nothing will ever the same again in Zimbabwe,
politically, economically and socially. The world will come knocking on
Zimbabwe's door and not expect to be turned away. People Mugabe barred from
entering the country because they dared to tell the world the truth of his
brutal regime, and people who courageously offered to help the poor and
harassed with food and shelter and spiritual succour will not now be
frightened of coming to the country.

Even foreign journalists on an earnest quest to discover what strange and
weird monsters terrorised Mugabe into launching a number of savage campaigns
against his own people, will no longer be fobbed by a curt "Not a chance!"
response from George Charamba, his master spin doctor.

If he does, then the non-Zanu PF partners in the government, to whom he will
be as answerable as he will be to the president and the prime minister, will
demand an accounting..

The analogy with Faustus is not made lightly. Since 1999, the year in which
the MDC was formed, Mugabe has introduced legislation specifically aimed at
limiting democratic space for all opponents, whether there are political
parties or media organisations.
When it looked as if all those draconian measures would not silence dissent
or the march to victory of the agents of pluralism, |Mugabe and Zanu PF
decided they would try to neutralise both.

Legislation had failed. Now they decided to try their own version of "quiet
diplomacy", to engage both in dialogue. There has not been much fanfare in
the dialogue with the media, but you can be sure that there have been
attempts to sway the independent media from their robustly assertive stance
on opposing the violent and unrelenting campaign to "kill" the opposition.

The evidence of violence against the parties is glaring - every week there
are reports of abductions and killings. The nearer the ruling elite draw to
a capitulation to the new dispensation the more brutal its forces have
become to the opposition.

Again, they are demonstrating to all opposing forces that the price of
change is going to be very, very high indeed.

Mugabe's incredible smugness on the podium at the UN general assembly
contrasted very sharply with his comment of being "devastated" at Mbeki's
resignation from the South African presidency. The two enjoyed such a
uniformity of views it was at times difficult to make a distinction between
their statements.

But the very fact of conducting the foreign affairs of the country as if the
political situation had not changed at all showed breath-taking contempt for
their supposedly equal partners.

It recalled the very early days of attempts to redraw the political map of
the country after the 2000 loss of 57 parliamentary seats by Zanu PF to the
opposition. The MPs were thrown out of the august House on the flimsiest
pretexts. They were harassed in many other ways, before the decision was
taken to physically attack some of them, after the March 2008 elections.

Meanwhile, Mugabe and Zanu PF are stoking the fires of a very uncertain
future in relations between themselves and their opponents. Not even their
stoutest critics expected them to hand over power on as silver platter.
Resistance would not be mild, for that was not the Zanu PF way, as most of
their opponents knew.

At the same time, everyone believed the ruling elite had at last swallowed
its pride and decided to shorten the period of combat in the interests of a
country facing starvation and needless death of unarmed citizens.

It is very dangerous to allow people to suddenly wake up to the reality that
they sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for pie in the sky. They may
decide it is time to teach Zanu PF a lesson - The Devil doesn't always win.

Producers blame State for sugar crisis

'I look really bad'

http://www.news24.com/

29/09/2008 22:43  - (SA)

Susan Cilliers, Beeld

Johannesburg - A Zimbabwean child who miraculously survived when she was
mauled by two lions two weeks ago, was sitting up in her hospital bed in the
Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on Monday - surrounded by soft toys
and recovering well.

Courtney Sparrow, 8, was moved from intensive care to a general ward on
Sunday.

There she also saw herself in the mirror for the first time after the
attack. "She looked up once, then looked down, then up again, then said: 'I
really look bad'.

"Her mood goes up and down. I have probably heard her say 'ouch' a million
times," her father, Ron, said on Monday.

Courtney has warned her six-year-old sister, Savanna, that her head has been
shaved and that she now "looks like a boy".

Part of skull ripped out

Apart from seriously injuring her right arm, the lion ripped out part of
Courtney's skull above her left eye.

The missing part of the skull was found after the attack. It is now being
preserved under sterile conditions and will be implanted as soon as her
injured cerebral membrane has recovered.

Courtney has already undergone three operations to clean her wounds, repair
her punctured gullet and do some skin grafts.

Her wounds are now a symbol of a bleeding Zimbabwe: Courtney was mauled by
the lions that were supposed to protect a second house on her father's farm
from land invaders. This property was fenced, with the lions "securely"
inside.

Zanu-PF supporters have been terrorising Sparrow for months by bumping
against his gates, camping out outside the property, toyi-toying and
breaking locks, he said.

On 16 September, Courtney walked with the labourers to the empty house
without her mother's knowledge.

There, in a room at the back of the house, a lioness broke a window and
dragged Courtney from the room by her right arm.

Saved by the gardener

The gardener, Benji Tewe, saved her life by first scaring off the lioness
and then a second lion that had gripped her by the head.

Margaret heard the screams and ran outside. She saw Tewe with her daughter
in his arms, bleeding and with her skull exposed.

"I thought she was dead, until she said: 'Mommy, mommy, help me please'. I
called a friend to let the clinic know that we were coming."

Ron Sparrow was on his way to South Africa when he got the call near Beit
Bridge. "My heart was beating in my throat. I turned around and rushed
back."

Courtney was flown to Milpark the next morning.

Ron doesn't blame himself for the freak accident. He feels the political
upheaval in Zimbabwe is to blame.

"I am a Zimbabwean, I have the same rights as anyone else in this country."

Sparrow's family has been living and working in the Zimbabwean game industry
for generations. He breeds, among others, lion and buffalo and focuses on
the hunting and tourist industry.

"The local community is loyal to me; they own shares in the farm."

SA withdraws land expropriation Bill

http://www.zimonline.co.za/

by Own Correspondent Tuesday 30 September 2008

JOHANNESBURG - The South African government has withdrawn from parliament a
bill that would have empowered it to expropriate land and other property and
to unilaterally determine the compensation to be paid to owners, it was
announced on Monday.

Local media reported that the Department of Public Works had finally
withdrawn the Expropriation Bill after a senior parliamentary legal adviser
questioned the constitutionality of the Bill that strongly echoed Zimbabwe's
controversial Land Acquisition Act under which President Robert Mugabe
seized white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

"The bill which would have allowed the minister to expropriate land and
other property and to set the compensation to be paid, was considered to be
unconstitutional by a senior parliamentary law adviser," South Africa's
News24 news website reported.

South Africa - just like Zimbabwe - has inherited an unjust land tenure
system from previous white-controlled governments under which the bulk of
the best arable land was reserved for whites while blacks were forced to
crowd on mostly semi-arid and infertile soils.

But South Africa, which has one of Africa's biggest farming sectors and its
biggest economy, has repeatedly said it will not follow the example of
Zimbabwe where Mugabe has since 2000 seized most of the farms owned by that
country's about 4 500 white commercial farmers and gave them over to blacks.

Harare refused to pay for land, saying whites had in the first place stolen
the land from blacks. The Zimbabwe administration said it would only pay for
improvements on farms such as buildings, boreholes, dams and roads - and
that it would determine the levels of compensation to be paid to farmers.

Farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into severe food shortages
after black peasant farmers resettled on former white farms failed to
maintain production because the government failed to support them with
financial resources, inputs and skills training.

The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Famine
Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said last week that Zimbabwe could
run out of food by early November because the southern African country had
failed to import adequate quantities of basic cereals to make up for a poor
harvest in the 2007/2008 season. - ZimOnline.

MPC- Presidential Launch Statement

Mthwakazians,
Invited Guests,
Honoured Friends,
Executive Members of the our NEC, NOMW and NOMY
Members of MPC, Women and Youth Organizations of MPC,
Representatives of the international community and Observers here present today;
I greet you all.
Today, by these humble occasions across the globe, we announce to the world the formal start of our political struggle to establish ourselves as an independent nation under an independent and sovereign state we have called United Mthwakazi Republic – UMR – for short.
Today, we are officially launching MPC abroad. The launches abroad are a precursor to the main launch that will take place in South Africa soon on a date yet to be announced. This follows the recent postponement of the South African launch, then also scheduled for the 27th September 2008.
MPC took the political decision to defer launch in South Africa in deference to the difficult transitional phase that South Africa is going through at this moment. We are confident that South Africa will emerge from this difficult period even stronger.
Honoured Friends, Invited Guests; we are Mthwakazians. Across the globe we are popularly known as the Ndebele, and currently occupy Matebeleland North and Matebeleland South and parts of the Midlands Provinces of present-day Zimbabwe.
From today, the politics of present-day Zimbabwe will never be the same again."

READ ON HERE

http://www.mthwakazitoday.com/images/stories/documents/mpc_pres_launch_state.pdf