SA Abandons Mbeki’s ‘Quiet Diplomacy’: SA Envoy

http://www.radiovop.com

Harare, September 25, 2011 - South African president, Jacob Zuma is
abandoning his predecessor, President Thabo Mbeki’s infamous ‘quiet
diplomacy’ on Zimbabwe as he believes the impasse has gone on for too long.

Zimbabwe’s governing partners, two years after signing the Global Political
Agreement (GPA) that seeks to arrest the country’s social, political and
economic woes have failed to implement the agreement in full.

Former ruling party Zanu-PF blames its rivals insincerity in calling off
‘illegal sanctions’ while the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
formations accuse the octogenarian leader of sponsoring part militias to
perpetrate violence in the countryside.

Addressing the Sapes Trust Dialogue, South Africa ambassador to Zimbabwe
Vusi Mavimbela Zuma had made it clear that he would be approaching the
Zimbabwe issue with a more hands on approach.

“He has been busy, on diplomatic meetings ahead of the United Nations
Summit, but after that he will concentrate on the Zimbabwe issue,” he said.

Mavimbela said the summit would prove the most definitive on the Zimbabwe
issue and was surprised that the media had missed it.

The South African ambassador said Zuma had told the Angola summit that there
was need for him to engage more, signalling regional fatigue on the
seemingly unending Zimbabwe crisis.

“In his report to the Sadc summit Zuma said [he] shall arrange an interface
programme with the political principals and how best we can expedite the
full implementation of the GPA and help create conditions for a smooth
election in Zimbabwe,” he said.

Zuma is reported to have said there was goodwill among the principals to end
the impasse, but there was need for them to be given a nudge in the right
direction.

The ambassador said Zuma hoped the interface meetings would generate
momentum among the parties to the GPA to end the years-long stalemate.

Mavimbela said Sadc now needed closure on Zimbabwe and this was evidenced by
Angolan leader, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, who was critical about lack of
democratic space and violence.

Mbeki was viewed as Mugabe sympathiser that analysts say informed his soft-
soft approach on Zimbabwe’s decade long crisis.

Constitution process in chaos

http://www.timeslive.co.za/

JAMA MAJOLA | 25 September, 2011 03:52

The constitution -making process in Zimbabwe is in disarray as thematic
committees capturing data in narrative forms were locked in heated arguments
this week on how to do it and what guidelines to use.

The situation throws President Robert Mugabe's election plans further into
disarray.

Checks by the Sunday Times showed that 23 thematic committees of the
Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (Copac) assembled in Harare to write
narrative district reports and download information had been haggling over
the exercise, and so falling further behind their timetables.

"We have been fighting over so many issues, including how to write district
reports in narrative forms and what template to use," a senior Copac member
said. "We have even been fighting over typists, after eight of the 23
seconded from parliament had dubious credentials. We suspect they were
intelligence agents deployed to manipulate the situation.

"It's chaotic and frustrating. Each time we reconvene, we fight for days
before working."

Another Copac member said there was still a long way to go before the
drafting stage.

After they had finished writing district narrative reports on top of the
qualitative and quantitative ones, members still had to move onto provincial
and national narrative reports.

This has raised doubts about the possibility of elections early next year,
the time Mugabe wants them, after failing to get his wish to hold polls this
year.

After finishing its reports, Copac will move onto the drafting stage, which
is more contentious. A new draft constitution will then emerge and be
submitted for a referendum.

But prior to that, it will be put out for public comment and taken to
parliament, where it would need a two-thirds majority to pass.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader, says a referendum on the
new constitution is now only likely to be held in May or June next year,
past the time Mugabe wants elections to be held. But polls can only come
after a new constitution has been adopted.

Welshman Ncube, the Minister of Trade and Industry and leader of the MDC-N,
says polls can only realistically be held in 2013, which is bad news for
Mugabe, who is old and ailing.

The compilation of district and provincial reports by the thematic
committees through qualitative and quantitative methods was completed
recently. Sixty district reports were compiled from the reports of meetings
held in 1857 wards by the outreach teams. The reports, together with written
submissions to Copac and all website submissions, were then collated into 10
provincial reports.

Before drafting can commence, the provincial reports have to be consolidated
and distilled into a national report. But work on this has not yet started,
because Copac felt it was necessary for the consolidation of the outcomes of
the outreach process into the district and provincial reports to be checked
for errors and omissions, to ensure that what the people said had been
correctly captured. The thematic committees are still battling with the
narrative reports.

The constitution-making process has been a stop-start affair. The earlier
stages of the process - since 2009 up to the first all-stakeholders'
conference followed a set timetable, but after that the process stalled.

The outreach was scheduled to start by the end of July 2009, but did not do
so until late in June last year. It was supposed to take no more than four
months, but was not completed until March 15 this year. This meant the
thematic committee stage started a year and a half late, and its progress
too has been a stop-start one. The delays were due to poor logistics, poor
planning, lack of funding, political party disputes, accusations of
tampering with data and political harassment and the arrest of some Copac
members, including MDC-T co-chairman Douglas Mwonzora.

Disagreements about the methodology to be used stalled the start of
interpreting and downloading data, and the committees only eventually
assembled for a training workshop on May 3 and started work on the ward
reports on May 5.

More time was then lost through renewed disagreements.

Zanu-PF broke

http://www.timeslive.co.za/

JAMA MAJOLA | 25 September, 2011 03:52

Zanu-PF is broke and President Robert Mugabe is under growing pressure from
within his party ranks to quit ahead of the next crucial elections because
of his chequered record.

Information obtained by the Sunday Times this week shows Zanu-PF is
virtually broke and is losing members dramatically. It will have to rely on
donations from its fatigued funders to finance its annual conference in
Bulawayo in December.

The party needs about $4-million for the conference.

Zanu-PF officials told the Sunday Times that Mugabe was under irresistible
pressure to retire ahead of the elections. The party wants him to tell
delegates at the Bulawayo conference he will not be available as the Zanu-PF
presidential candidate and to put in place a succession process which will
ensure the party has a new candidate for the polls in 2013.

"Given the current untenable situation, the president finds himself in
trouble due to many problems around him. It would be better for him to
indicate in Bulawayo that he would not be available as a candidate in the
next elections," a senior Zanu- PF politburo member said.

"That would allow us to convene an extraordinary congress next year to
choose a new leadership and resolve the succession issue which has damaged
the party so much through factionalism and infighting."

Zanu-PF has been torn apart by internal strife fuelled by the rival factions
led by Vice-President Joyce Mujuru and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Both factions want Mugabe to go. This was clearly exposed in secret United
Stated diplomatic cables dispatched from Harare to Washington by successive
ambassadors and contained in the WikiLeaks documents .

Mugabe has been shocked and paralysed by the WikiLeaks revelations, despite
claims by his spokesman George Charamba that he was not surprised because he
knew about secret meetings between Zanu-PF officials and American diplomats.

The disclosures that almost everyone in the Zanu-PF hierarchy wanted him to
quit have renewed calls for him to pack his bags and go before the next
elections.

According to the Zanu-PF constitution, the annual conference's main function
is to "declare the president elected at congress as the state presidential
candidate of the party" in the next elections.

Senior Zanu-PF officials want Mugabe to use the opportunity to quit and
allow the party to elect a new leadership and candidate for the elections.

Over the past decade, Zanu-PF relied on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for
survival. The bank printed money each time there was a crisis.

Senior Zanu-PF officials told the Sunday Times this week the party had a
bank balance of less than $5000, which is not enough to fund its Bulawayo
conference, let alone the next elections. The party is currently persuading
local businessmen and sympathisers to secure funding for its activities.

Officials said the party was not getting enough from Chiadzwa diamond deals
to fund its activities because those with access to the gems were more
concerned about lining their own pockets.

Although Zanu-PF gets a parliamentary allocation like all parties
represented in Parliament, the money is inadequate to meet its financial
demands.

Zanu-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo admitted on Friday that the party was
struggling to raise funds. "We don't have money, we are always battling to
do some fund-raising. We appeal to all our friends, supporters and
sympathisers to support us," he said. "We have a fund-raising committee
which is always trying to get funds but it's very difficult."

The late party treasurer David Karimanzira told the annual in conference in
Mutare last December that it was broke and losing members. He said Zanu-PF
had a $3.4- million debt and was surviving on bank overdrafts - attracting a
staggering $1-million in interest. He said for the first time in 30 years
Zanu-PF was struggling to pay its 180 workers and had frozen 142 posts. Last
year's conference cost $3.3-million.

Zimbabwe pondering fate of foreign firms shirking equity

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

HARARE — Zimbabwe will decide Monday the fate of foreign firms that missed a
deadline to map out how they will transfer majority stakes to local blacks,
a cabinet minister said.

"We will make a decision tomorrow on companies that have not complied,"
indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere told AFP on Sunday, the day of
the deadline for compliance with an equity law that has alarmed investors.

She would not say how many companies were affected.

"We are going to invoke provisions of the law and determine what should be
done with companies that have complied, those who have shown willingness to
comply and those who are outright arrogant and have refused to comply."

Foreign firms had until Sunday to submit plans on how they will comply with
the law which requires black Zimbabweans to hold a stake of at least 51
percent.

The law has caused anxiety among foreign investors and division in
Zimbabwe's power-sharing government between President Robert Mugabe and
long-time rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe has given the platinum-mining giant Zimplats more time to meet the
requirements of the law and reached an agreement with Old Mutual allowing
the British insurer to conduct a "first phase" of compliance which will see
the firm place 25 percent of its local subsidiary in the hands of black
Zimbabweans.

The shares will be awarded as grants, mainly to pensioners and staff, but
also to partners and a youth development fund, Kasukuwere said.

The minister has argued that the law is not aimed at victimising foreign
companies, but rather to fight poverty and put control of the economy in
local hands.

The project has been called the final phase of "economic emancipation"
following controversial land reforms targeting white-owned farms a decade
ago that involved often violent takeovers.

Kasukuwere had earlier warned that non-compliant companies risk
nationalisation.

‘Erosion of judiciary’s independence in Zim’

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

September 25 2011 at 01:25pm

AFP

Politically motivated arrests, ahead of general elections scheduled for
2012, seem to be on the increase in Zimbabwe.

This is according to a report on the rule of law in Zimbabwe, compiled by
the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, which also
raised concerns about the systematic erosion of the independence of the
judiciary.

The report is the result of a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe led by former
High Court Judge Unity Dow, from Botswana. IEC head advocate Pansy Tlakula,
Chicago-based human rights and international law professor Bartram Brown and
UCT constitutional and human rights law professor Christina Murray were also
part of the delegation.

The group spoke to a number of law bodies, lawyers and NGOs including
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. “The rate of arrests also appears to have
increased dramatically since some members of Zanu-PF began calling for an
early election and an end to the inclusive government. Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights, which maintains a hotline to assist people arrested on
politically motivated charges, told the delegation that it received 300
requests for assistance for the whole of 2010, but this had jumped to 800
for the first six months of 2011,” the report said.

While the numbers vary, it is believed that between 200 and 300 people were
murdered in 2008 election violence, while the International Crisis Group
reported that 15 000 “serious violations were recorded” including torture.
Amnesty international reported that more than 9 000 people were tortured and
beaten.

“These figures have been dismissed by Zanu-PF supporters,” the report said.
“It should be noted that the current wave of arrests fit into a broad
pattern that gives rise to considerable concern about selective application
of the law… It appears that the police and prosecuting authorities are
simply arresting and detaining people as a form of harassment and
persecution, without any reasonable prospect of successfully prosecuting
them.”

The delegation called for an independent Director of Public Prosecution, as
the current system left prosecution open to political influence.

It was also concerned that judges and magistrates appear to “exert very
little control over the prosecution process”. Many in the judiciary were
compromised as a result of having received farms, lavish gifts and houses.
The judges had not received the title deeds, giving the “government an
obvious source of patronage and pressure over them”.

“It clearly creates a conflict of interest,” the report said. - Dianne Hawker

Farm worker disputes

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Farm workers are clashing with new farmers of grabbed properties amid
reports of bad farm management, changes of employment, appalling
remuneration and a bleak future.
23.09.1110:31am
by Fungai Kwaramba Harare

Many farm workers witnessed how the black farm owners grabbed the land, and
some were caught up in the often-violent evictions.

"We were better off under Mr Watson," said one farm worker, Nyasha Mutero.

According to the General Agriculture Plantation Workers Union, there are 350
000 black farm workers, many of whom thought they would be beneficiaries of
land reform programmes.

The farm workers say they been paid erratically and are forced to work
longer hours than they had previously been expected to work. Amid the
friction is emerging a new class of land barons who, under pressure from
restive workers have called back the previous owner and leased the land to
him under a profit sharing arrangement. Mugabe has sternly warned against
such a practice.

The war veterans occupying white-owned farms in Zimbabwe say farm workers
are sabotaging their operations because of their attachment to the previous
owners and their own ambitions to own land.

"It’s difficult to work with these people my brother," said Richard Gono, a
successful flower farmer who grabbed his farm from a white-owner in 2003.
"They feign illness, steal, sabotage the operation and simply refuse to
cooperate. They would rather be under a white farmer. There is urgent need
for a paradigm shift. The farm workers need to be told that this is
irreversible. Baas is not coming back."

Sources in the Indigenous Commercial Farmers Union and General Agricultural
Plantation Workers Union acknowledged, some off the record, the widespread
friction between the new black owners and their inherited workers.

Woza Seeks Closure Of Police Station

http://www.radiovop.com/

Harare, September 25, 2011 - Leading local women activists has filed an
urgent application with the High Court seeking the closure of police
holdings cells at the Harare Central Police Station they deem inhuman and
inhabitable.

The Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), which has won several international
human rights awards, want the court to order responsible authorities to
ensure that the police holding cells at Harare Central Police Station have
clean and salubrious flushing toilets with toilet paper and a washing bowl.

The application was filed by WOZA leaders Jenny Williams, her deputy
Magondonga Mahlangu, Clara Majengwa and Celina Madukani.
WOZA want the cells closed until a time when there have been renovated to
include running water and bathing showers.

The four women, together with a band of their followers, spent several days
at Harare Central Police holding cells in April this year after being
arrested for staging an unauthorised demonstration in the city centre in
protest of the unilateral hiking of electricity charges by the Zimbabwe
Electricity Power Supply (ZESA).

The two core ministers of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi and Teresa Makone, are
the first respondents while the police Commissioner-General Augustine
Chihuri and Attorney General Johannes Tomana are second and third
respondents respectively in the matter.

In their application the women activists want the courts to order that
flushing toilets be cordoned off from the main cell to ensure privacy, the
cells at Harare Central Police Station be cleaned daily with soap and
detergents, and that a good standard of hygiene should be maintained in the
police holding cells.

They are further demanding that each person detained in police custody
overnight be furnished with a clean mattress and adequate blankets, adequate
bathing or shower installations be provided so that persons detained in
custody may be able to bath and that every person detained in the holding
cells be given access at all times to sufficient drinking water suitable for
consumption.

They also want women and girls detained at the police holding cells be
provided with sanitary wear or be permitted to purchase such necessary items
with their own money, the holding cells be equipped with a disposal
mechanism to ensure that women in detention are able to safely and
hygienically dispose of their sanitary wear as well as that women detained
in police custody be allowed to keep on their shoes and under garments.

It is also WOZA’s demand that persons detained at the holding cells be given
daily exposure to natural light and appropriate ventilation and heating and
that police officers at Harare Central Police station be refrained from
arbitrary searching and seizing possessions of persons detained in custody.

The activists want Mohadi, Makone and Chihuri interdicted from holding any
persons at the police cells at Harare Central Police Station until the place
has been revamped.

They further want the ministers and Chihuri to be directed to submit to the
High Court, within three weeks from this week, a clear programme of action
on the steps and timeframes it would take in ringing changes at the
condemned holding cells.

In her affidavit Williams said of her ordeal at the holding cells:

“The conditions of the cells at Harare Central Police Station were so sordid
as to constitute an affront to human dignity, as they are not the inevitable
consequence of the operation and administration of police holding cells, but
are a result of gross police negligence, and unwillingness to comply with
minimum standards of human decency,” said Williams.

“The conditions at the holding cells are not only inhuman and degrading, but
are calculated to induce despondency, and frustration, and are therefore a
form of pre-trial punishment, in the absence of a court order to that
effect,” she added.

How China lost Zim steel deal

http://www.iol.co.za

September 25 2011 at 10:32am

Zimbabwe’s Industry Minister Welshman Ncube has described how he had to
battle against stiff Chinese competition, backed by President Robert Mugabe
and Zanu PF ministers, to win the deal for Indian iron and steel giant Essar
to buy Zimbabwe’s derelict Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company, Zisco.

It was the largest single foreign investment into Zimbabwe since
independence 31 years ago.

Ncube was the founding secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) before it split and is now president of the smaller MDC. He was
a very senior lawyer before politics overtook his career at the bar.

He explained in an interview how he had persuaded Mugabe, the final arbiter
of such decisions, to accept the Essar offer over a Chinese bid. Two Zanu PF
cabinet ministers were backing potential Chinese investors and Mugabe has
mostly ensured that China gets preference.

But private company Essar, a giant in India, made its first significant move
into southern Africa by buying the state’s junked and abandoned Zisco and
much of its underground assets at Redcliff in central Zimbabwe.

Zisco used to produce the cheapest pig iron in the world before
independence. But despite considerable investment since then, Zanu-PF ran
this national asset into the ground five years ago. The plant is silent.

At the height of hyper inflation in 2008, when the Zimbabwe dollar devalued
every few minutes, a clique of Zanu-PF-aligned merchants and South African
scrap dealers looted much of the valuable metal lying around Zisco.

The value of its derelict infrastructure was only R280 million when Essar
bought it.

Ncube said that Essar, a privately-owned company, bought Zisco’s foreign and
domestic debt of about R2.8 billion and would invest about the same again
into rebuilding the plant and developing new iron ore sites, the first in
Chivu about 150km south of Harare.

Ncube came under enormous scrutiny while setting up the deal. His landlines
and cellphones were bugged, as was his Harare home and for months he was
impossible to find as be worked on the deal.

“Mugabe preferred the Chinese. That’s his policy. Eventually he met with
Essar executives privately and then said OK,” Ncube said. – Peta Thornycroft
( Independent Foreign Service)

CDF abuse: Chivamba under fire

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

Local Zanu (PF) House of Assembly member, Kizitho Chivamba, is under fire
from locals and councillors over mismanagement of the Constituency
Development Fund.
23.09.1110:22am
by Brenna Matendere Munyati

Councillors say Chivamba, the former Zanu (PF) Midlands Youth Chairman,
abused the money and misled the Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs
Ministry officials when they visited the area.

The ministry officials visited Chiundura in July and announced that about
US$20 000 of the US$50 000 facility may have been used on the projects they
toured. At that time Chivamba failed to produce receipts to show how he had
used the money saying the parliamentary affairs ministry should have first
conducted book-keeping trainings for legislators in order for them to be
knowledgeable in accounting.

“The MP ordered Tendai Marongwe, councillor for ward 14, to show the
parliamentary ministry officials a classroom block at Chikwingwizha school
as one of the projects he had done. The truth is that the block was built by
Vungu Rural District Council without his involvement,” a councillor said.

A classroom block that was built by Sino cement company as part of its
community services was also shown to the ministry officials as another
project conducted by Chivamba using CDF.

Sources have also said that Chivamba has fallen out with ward 16 councillor,
Anna Tohwe, whom he wants inflate the figures on the receipts of the
materials she bought with the little money given to her by the legislator.

Sources at a piggery section in the constituency said there were amazed when
parliamentary ministry officials visited the place under the impression that
the project had been funded by Chivamba.

“He only donated 20 bags of cement. We understand they had been donated to
him by Sino cement company. We did everything else to construct the piggery
section with our own resources.”

When contacted for comment, Chivamba rubbished the reports and said he
actually used more than the US$50 000 Constituency Development Fund for the
projects.

“I know you have been tasked by MDC leadership to tarnish my name so they
get my constituency in the next elections. That is your agenda. I actually
used money from my personal pocket to supplement CDF,” Chivamba said.

Zimbabwe 'match-fixers' face ban: FIFA

(AFP) – 10 hours ago

HARARE — FIFA security chief Chris Eaton warned Sunday that there will be no
amnesty if Zimbabwe fooballers and officials are found guilty in an ongoing
probe into alleged match-fixing on a tour of Asia.

"There is no amnesty, not today," Eaton told the Sunday Mail.

He is in Harare to meet football officials.

"We have got zero-tolerance on match-fixing and we have to understand that
this is now a big problem facing the sport."

Eaton dismissed local newspaper reports that anyone found guilty would be
pardoned and sent for rehabilitation instead of being banned.

"We want our football to be clean because criminals take advantage of the
sport. We didn't invite gambling and now, because of gambling, we have got
criminals."

Zimbabwe is under investigation by FIFA over an alleged match-fixing scam in
Asia involving the national team.

Former Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) chief executive Henrietta
Rushwaya sent the national team to play unsanctioned friendlies in Thailand,
Syria and Malaysia two years ago and a betting syndicate allegedly fixed the
results.

Rushwaya was fired last October.

She is also said to have cleared former league champions Monomotapa to
travel to Malaysia masquerading as the national team.

Last month, ZIFA suspended three board members, including a former national
team player and a former referee, for alleged involvement in match-fixing.

A ‘silent no more’ movement

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk

Participants to an international conference on human rights abuse in
Zimbabwe agreed on a programme of action at the end of the three-day meeting
at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, USA.
22.09.1110:59am
by Stanford G Mukasa

They agreed to transform themselves into a “Silent no more movement”
indicating that they would be proactive on issues of rape, politically
motivated violence and poverty.

The mission statement for the movement was to encourage comprehensive and
sustainable responses that promote healing, empowerment and resilience of
all traumatized survivors of torture and rape in Zimbabwe.

The theme of the conference was “Silent No More: Rape as a weapon of
Political Violence in Zimbabwe.” The conference was organized and sponsored
by the Kabak Endowment Fund; University of Pittsburgh- based departments:
The Global Studies Center; the Department Of Family Medicines, the
Department of Africana Studies, the Centre for Minority Health; Department
of Administrative and Policy Studies; the Institute for International
Studies in Education and Black Women and Health Outreach for Longer Life and
Empowerment.

The lead organizer of the conference was Dr. Anne Matambanadzo, research
assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University
of Pittsburgh.

Some participants came from Africa, Canada, United Kingdom as well as the
USA. The keynote speakers included Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s
Office for the Organ of National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration,
Senator Sekai Holland; Founder of the Girl Child Network and last year’s CNN
Hero Betty Makoni as well as Director of South African based Exiles Forum,
Gabriel Shumba.

Dr. Donald Burke, the dean of public health at the University of Pittsburgh,
closed the conference by offering support for the programme of action
adopted by participants.

Wikileaks: Mugabe so unpopular that he needs 250 000 to canvass for him

http://www.insiderzim.com/

Sunday, 25 September 2011 07:04

A former legislator for Chimanimani Michael Mataure told United States
embassy officials in February 2001 that President Robert Mugabe had become
so unpopular that he would have to deploy 250 000 people to canvass for him
to win the 2002 presidential elections but his party simply did not have the
resources to mount such a campaign.

He said the only way Mugabe could win was if there was a three or four-way
race to essentially split the opposition vote but this was highly unlikely.

According to a cable released by Wikileaks Mataure described the Zimbabwe
African National Union-Patriotic Front as a "disgruntled" and "divided"
party. A "silent majority" did not approve of Mugabe's violent tactics to
cow opponents and wanted him to leave power but they had to keep quiet to
keep their jobs.

He said the only exceptions were Youth Minister Border Gezi, Local
Government Minister Ignatius Chombo and Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa who were
now regarded as Mugabe’s running mates because of their unswerving loyalty
to the President.

“The president values loyalty above all else”, Mataure argued, “and doles
out patronage based on that allegiance. The needs of this reward system and
the party are ‘paramount’ before the needs of the country.”

Wikileaks: Fast-track land reform divides white farmers

http://www.insiderzim.com/

Sunday, 25 September 2011 07:02

The concerted fast-track land reform that the government had embarked on
since 2000 had divided white farmers by February 2001 with some arguing that
they should work with the government to break the impasse while others said
the government was not interested in any compromise because as far as the
government was concerned land was political.

According to one of the cables released by Wikileaks former Commercial
Farmers Union President Nick Swanepoel wrote to the government on 9 February
2001 offering to make changes at the CFU in order to break the impasse.

The offer included:

    Changing the name and leadership of the CFU
    Assuring that the CFU would be strictly apolitical
    Accepting the government requirement of 5 million hectares of commercial
farmland for resettlement
    Dropping all lawsuits against the government over "fast-track"
    Assuring cooperation of commercial farmers in assisting resettled people
to be successful as farmers, and
    Lobbying donors to release funds to support "fast-track"

Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo wrote to Vice-President Joseph
Msika that Swanepoel’s letter could be just another diversionary tactic of
the commercial farmers.

Msika concurred but told Chombo to acknowledge the letter and indicate that
before the government could seriously consider the offer they expected
concrete action on changing the name and leadership of the CFU, dropping all
lawsuits against the government and lobbying donors to release funds for
land reform.

A New Broom – Zimbabwe Vigil Diary: 24th September 2011