Business Day
10 April 2007
Karima
Brown
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHEN
Father Oskar Wermter of the Catholic communications secretariat in
Harare
said at the weekend that "oppression is not negotiable, it must stop
before
there can be any dialogue," he summed up a very basic requirement if
engagement between the government and the opposition in Zimbabwe is to bear
any fruit.
A pastoral message penned by the Catholic Bishops'
Conference in Zimbabwe,
posted at churches around the country, expresses
grave concern over the
thuggery that passes for political process in
Zimbabwe. "As the suffering
population becomes more insistent, generating
more and more pressure through
boycotts, strikes, demonstrations and
uprisings, the state responds with
ever harsher oppression through arrests,
detentions, banning orders,
beatings and torture," the letter
reads.
The concern not only highlights the continued violence,
beatings and
intimidation that have come to characterise Zanu (PF)'s
political culture,
it exposes the weakness of President Thabo Mbeki's
insistence that there be
"no preconditions" to proposed negotiations in
Zimbabwe following the
renewal of his mandate as facilitator by the Southern
African Development
Community.
That there must be dialogue
between Zanu (PF) and all the factions of the
movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) and other civil society formations is
not disputed. But as in any
negotiating process, levelling the playing field
is crucial if the
negotiations are to have any credibility, especially when
power is
disproportionately concentrated in the hands of any one of the
parties
involved in the conflict, as is the case in Zimbabwe.
As the ruling
party, Zanu (PF) has total control over the apparatus of the
state,
including the police, intelligence services and the army and, judging
from
reports, it has deployed these forces in its political war against the
opposition with a large degree of impunity. One would have thought that as a
part of the African National Congress (ANC) negotiating team during
negotiations with the apartheid state prior to 1994, Mbeki, of all people,
would know this. I wonder how Mbeki proposes the MDC negotiates with Zanu
(PF) when government-aided goons beat up citizens at rallies and throw them
in jail for holding demonstrations. How does one conduct talks with a
government that thinks it is a democracy because it went through the charade
of holding fraudulent elections?
Ironically, Mbeki pondered the same
point in a recent interview with the
Financial Times, when he said: "You
see, President Mugabe and the leadership
of Zanu (PF) believe they are
running a democratic country. That's why you
have an elected opposition,
that's why it's possible for the opposition to
run municipal government (in
Harare and Bulawayo)."
In that same week, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
(also beaten up by Mugabe's
henchmen) said Mugabe had attempted to "behead"
the opposition movement and
that any dialogue between the MDC and government
needed to be "transparent".
And while Mugabe and his cohorts might want
to extract political capital
from the US state department's candid admission
that it was "assisting"
opposition groups in Zimbabwe as proof of their long
held belief that their
political woes are all really as a result of an
"imperialist conspiracy"
orchestrated by the west, South African diplomats
know that flagging
"foreign involvement", as Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister
Aziz Pahad tried
to do a couple of weeks ago, is nothing but a red
herring.
Surely SA, which received generous aid and solidarity from
governments and
organisations around the world during its freedom struggle,
cannot complain
about the involvement of "foreign" forces in Zimbabwe.
Moreover, given our
own recent cosy relationship with the "imperial west",
the argument becomes
even more bizarre. For those who have forgotten, SA was
as recently as last
year party to the US practice of rendition, when the
government deported
Khalid Mahmood Rashid to Pakistan. Respected
investigative journalist
Stephen Grey eloquently outlines SA's shady
involvement with America's
so-called "war on terror" in the preface to the
South African edition of his
book, Ghost Plane. "It emerged that Rashid's
deportation was no ordinary
transfer. Seized in a raid, and given no
opportunity to make any legal kind
of challenge, Rashid was bundled on board
an executive Gulfstream II jet and
flown away from the Waterkloof air base
outside Pretoria. It was a real
surprise that such a liberal South African
government should take no account
of the fate that awaited Rashid in a
Pakistani prison."
Foreign policy, whether in the case of Zimbabwe or the
Middle East, simply
cannot be conducted outside the rule of law and
democratic principle.
Brown is political editor.
Cape Argus (Cape
Town)
April 7, 2007
Posted to the web April 9, 2007
William
Saunderson-Meyer
Cape Town
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's
palpable contempt for Movement for
Democratic Change leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, British prime minister Tony
Blair, and President Thabo Mbeki is
understandable.
He has yet to lose a round against any of them and there
is no reason to
imagine that this is going to change any time
soon.
Mbeki's spell as US president George Bush's point man on Zimbabwe -
that
should be "pointless man" - has meant four wasted years, as Mugabe took
advantage of the South African president's reluctance to move beyond quiet
diplomacy.
Mbeki's appointment now by the Southern African
Development Community as
their mandated mediator to resolve the Zimbabwean
crisis will founder in
much the same way, if he remains reluctant to act
forcefully.
Mbeki is no poker player.
One reason why Mugabe has
run rings around him is because Comrade Bob has
always known what cards
Mbeki holds. Perversely, Mbeki has obligingly always
shown his hand: no
smart sanctions; no disruption of electricity supplies,
however tardy
Zimbabwe is in paying its bill; no disruption of Zimbabwean
exports; and no
condemnation of Mugabe's human rights abuses.
It's a new round but the
deal is virtually unchanged.
The only new card in Mbeki's hand is that
Mugabe's neighbours have become
impatient and want to speed the exit of the
Zimbabwean president.
This is not because the SADC countries have any
ideological commitment to
restoring democracy to Zimbabwe. It is because
they fear the fallout from
the impending final collapse of the Zimbabwean
state will have a serious
impact on the fortunes of the region.
The
MDC opposition is presumably aware that Mbeki and SADC would be
perfectly
happy if the Zanu-PF were to retain power in an autocratic state,
as long as
Mugabe, the lightning rod of international opprobrium, is
sidelined and the
economic decline is halted.
Given his antipathy to a trade
union-dominated neighbour, this might indeed
be Mbeki's personal
preference.
Mbeki shed some light on his likely approach as mediator in
an unusually
frank interview with the Financial Times of
London.
Contradicting his own government's stubborn and nonsensical
assertion that
the 2002 and 2005 elections were free and fair, in the face
of overwhelming
evidence to the contrary, Mbeki tentatively acknowledged
that they were
perhaps blemished.
"You might question whether these
elections are genuinely free and fair,"
says Mbeki, "but we have to get the
Zimbabweans talking so we do have
elections that are genuinely free and
fair." Elsewhere he notes that the
challenge is "to create a climate that
will be truly free and fair
elections, for an outcome that will not be
contested by anybody."
Mbeki admits that this will be a "tough challenge"
but is surprisingly
sanguine about Mugabe being willing to stand
down:
"I think so. Yes sure. You see President Mugabe and (the)
leadership of
Zanu-PF believe that they are running a democratic country
"
Mbeki claims as evidence of this democracy the MDC's elected control of
Bulawayo and Harare. He is apparently unaware that Mugabe has tried to usurp
control of these cities with the stratagem of Zanu-PF-appointed city
governors.
Nor does he explain how free and fair elections can be
held in March next
year when that same Zanu-PF has destroyed every
democratic freedom,
including the crucial ones of a free press and
independent judiciary, and
political violence is government
policy.
Mbeki and the other SADC leaders stood benignly by, while Mugabe
boasted at
their summit last week that Tsvangirai deserved his recent
beating by the
security forces and that there were more such hidings on the
way for anyone
who opposed him.
Since Mbeki has foresworn sanctions
or any form of pressure on Mugabe, it is
not clear how he hopes to achieve
the belligerent old man's exit.
The assumption at Foreign Affairs seems
to be that the escalating economic
meltdown and dissatisfaction within
Zanu-PF ranks will do the dirty work for
SADC.
One hopes they are
right, since Mbeki's mediation style has left him with no
way of exerting
pressure if sweet persuasion fails, as it almost certainly
will.
President now fears the children of the opponents killed after
independence
Chris McGreal in Bulawayo
Tuesday April 10, 2007
The
Guardian
George B is not even sure of his own surname. It's not
written down anywhere
that he knows of because in the eyes of the Zimbabwean
state he does not
exist.
The 27-year-old Bulawayo street trader was made
a non-person as a small boy
on the day that Robert Mugabe's troops killed
his parents, just two of about
20,000 men and women slaughtered by the
Zimbabwean army more than two
decades ago. "I don't know who my parents
were. I think the first family I
lived with knew, but if they told me I've
forgotten," he said.
For all the difficulties of living in a netherworld
of poverty, George B
thought violent persecution was a thing of the past.
But now he feels hunted
as Mr Mugabe once again turns to violence in an
attempt to cling to power.
"I don't have an identity card. I can't vote. It
wasn't so bad before but
now it's a problem. Things have changed. They think
we are the enemy," he
said.
The government's bloody suppression of
opposition in southern Zimbabwe after
independence in 1980 is known as the
Gukurahundi, or "the rains that sweep
away the chaff".
The North
Korean-trained fifth brigade swept through villages in
Matabeleland and the
Midlands, shooting people in mass executions. Some of
the victims were
forced to dig their own graves, others were herded into
huts and burned
alive. Victims were frequently beaten and forced to sing
Zanu-PF songs as
they were marched to their deaths. It made little
difference whether they
were men or women, politically active or not.
The dead left behind tens
of thousands of children, many of whom were denied
the official papers
essential for daily life in Zimbabwe. Without an ID card
they cannot take
school leaving exams, marry or get government jobs.
George B was three
when his parents were killed. He was taken in by one
family and then
another, and by the age of eight he was living in one of
Bulawayo's poorer
neighbourhoods. At 15 he was earning a living trading on
the
streets.
"The family was good to me. They fed me and sent me to school.
But all the
children had to work as traders. We sold shoes, flip-flops, and
clothes like
shirts. You can make money doing that," he said.
Felix
Mafa, director of the Post-Independence Survivors Trust, an
organisation
that supports relatives of the victims of the Gukurahundi,
estimates that
there are more than 100,000 sons and daughters of people who
died in the
massacres.
"Most of the parents who were killed left children who are now
adults. Some
do not know who they are. Some end up having the identity of
someone who is
not even their parent. Widows and widowers can't get access
to funds of the
deceased because [there are] no death certificates," said Mr
Mafa. "Those
you see selling around are people who have no formal
employment, no ID
papers. People are scared to come forward and help them
because it is very
sensitive, very political."
Bulldozers
Two
years ago a second "rain" swept through Bulawayo and other Zimbabwean
towns,
once again devastating the lives of men such as George B.
This time it
was called "Operation Murambatsvina", or Clean Up Filth, as the
government
bulldozed people from their shacks and stalls and drove them from
the
centres of Zimbabwe's major towns in what was ostensibly a clean-up of
illegal trading. In reality it was targeted at concentrations of support for
the political opposition.
In Bulawayo thousands of the stall-holders
who were licensed by the city
council and paid rates nonetheless saw their
businesses and homes destroyed
in often brutal raids in which the terrified
traders were beaten, to death
on more than one occasion.
The United
Nations estimates that more than 700,000 people lost their
livelihoods and
another two million were affected in some way.
George B lost his stall
and the wooden structure at the back that was his
home. Many other traders
did what the government wanted and dispersed to
rural villages, where there
is little chance of spontaneous mass protests of
the kind that Zanu-PF fears
could hit the cities. But George B refused to go
and today he lives in a
corner of a deserted warehouse. He has dragged with
him all that remains of
his home: the chair he is sitting on, a broken bed,
pots and pans he uses on
a small electric stove and a few pictures of Jesus.
"I don't know why
they attacked us. People said it was because we are the
opposition but we
can't vote. Perhaps they think that we want to get rid of
Mugabe because he
killed our parents," he said. "How can we get rid of
Mugabe? He is an old
man but he has all the power. I have nothing. How can I
be a
threat?"
Harassment
Mr Mafa said George B was among those who were
victims twice over.
"A lot of those who were driven out were the children
of the Gukurahundi
victims. These people are hit hard more than anyone else.
They had nothing,
no education, and what they did have has been destroyed
under the pretext of
cleansing the towns," he said. "I think the government
sees them as a
threat. It knows what it did to their families and Zanu-PF is
worried that
they will want revenge."
The police constantly harass
George B and the other informal traders, trying
to prevent them from earning
a living so they leave town.
"It's hide and seek," said Mr Mafa. "They
are scavenging. No one is prepared
to assist. When they try and sell
tomatoes, eggs, whatever, the police come
and they are arrested. They can't
buy and sell. No one likes them. No one
sees them."
New York Sun
By JAMES KIRCHICK
April 10,
2007
The world's attention towards Africa could not be more peripatetic.
Last
month, the battered face of the leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for
Democratic
Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, was beamed around the world after
President
Mugabe's thugs tortured the former trade unionist and shattered
his skull.
Western governments condemned the action, editorial pages
disapproved of it,
and the world quickly moved on.
But the past two
weeks have seen a further deterioration in the situation.
Reports are scarce
because of a ban on foreign press entering Zimbabwe.
Suspected opponents of
Mugabe have been abducted and tortured, and a
cameraman suspected of
smuggling out video of the violent crackdowns has
been murdered. This
state-sanctioned violence has been only a piece of a new
defiance emerging
from the Mugabe regime; last week the state-controlled
newspaper, the
Herald, warned the British political attaché in Zimbabwe,
Gillian Dare, that
she risked "going home in a body bag."
It has become de riguer among the
press to call on South Africa, the
regional power and, at present,
Zimbabwe's lifeline, to act. Newspapers
ranging from the Los Angeles Times
to the Wall Street Journal have
reprimanded South Africa for its silence and
complicity in Mr. Mugabe's
crimes. These remonstrations are necessary and
right, but no matter how much
international outrage there is over the
horrors of Zimbabwe, there is little
hope that South Africa will ever do
anything close to what the West wants it
to do.
To understand why, it
is essential to comprehend the history of the African
National Congress,
which has ruled South Africa since the country's first
postapartheid
election in 1994, and its relationship to Mr. Mugabe's
Zimbabwean African
National Union-Patriotic Front.
ZANU-PF is not just a Tammany Halllike
political club; it is the liberation
movement that wrested Zimbabwe from
colonial oppression, and thus, it is
more than just the unquestioned savior
of the Zimbabwean people. It is the
state itself, according to the dictates
of African politics.
As early as the 1970's, when he was fighting the
Bush War against Rhodesia's
white minority regime of Ian Smith, Mr. Mugabe
was endorsing the notion of
the one-party state. The faction fights that he
instigated with his guerilla
comrade, Joshua Nkomo, waged on after Mr.
Mugabe became prime minister in
1980. Despite what those in the Carter
administration, who played a major
role in legitimizing Mr. Mugabe over the
moderate bishop, Abel Muzorewa,
wanted to believe, Mr. Mugabe was no
democrat and had no pretensions to be
viewed as such. Since achieving power,
he has done everything to confirm
that he will not tolerate
opposition.
The African National Congress was the political movement that
led the fight
against a racist regime and was catapulted into power not just
because of
the charismatic leadership of Nelson Mandela but also because it
could
rightfully claim a great deal of responsibility for ending apartheid.
While
South Africa is a fully functioning democracy with opposition parties,
this
rubric exists in spite, not because of, the ANC.
The ANC would
prefer that no opposition exist, and when the ruling party
does acknowledge
the leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, it
is acknowledged as
a "neo-Nazi," "racist," or, perhaps more charitably, a
"neo-colonialist"
organization.
The ANC sees itself implicated in the story of ZANU-PF. The
fact that
Zimbabwe's ruling party is violent and thuggish might act as a
self-comforting mask for South Africa's more benign leadership, but the
ruling parties in both countries do not differ significantly in their
attitude towards their roles within the political structure of their
respective countries. If black Zimbabweans are successful in overturning
ZANU-PF, then it will raise frightful questions for the ANC about whether it
too merits continued black support.
But Mr. Mugabe knows his fellow
African leaders well. Departing a conference
of the Southern Africa
Development Community earlier this month, he told the
press, "We got full
backing; not even one [SADC leader] criticized our
actions." Most ironic
about this fiasco is that the ANC - which demanded
that the international
community drop everything it was doing and end
apartheid - has taken the
completely opposite track towards its very own
neighbor, where a black
despot is inflicting crimes against his own people
far worse than anything
the racist regime in Pretoria ever committed.
The most that the embattled
Zimbabwean opposition can hope for is that the
president of South Africa,
Thabo Mbeki, will quietly pressure Mr. Mugabe to
move from the presidency to
a ceremonial position. This would allow another
ZANU-PF official to take the
helm for the country's 2008 presidential
elections. The move would serve the
ANC's goals of deflecting the world's
attention from Mr. Mugabe, while also
preserving the political power of its
sister liberation movement.
At
this point, anything is better than Mr. Mugabe. But the ANC's complicity
in
his atrocities over the past seven years is something that no act of
diplomacy can salvage.
Mr. Kirchick, who reported from Zimbabwe last
year, is the assistant to the
editor in chief of the New Republic.
The New Republic
Fiends and Neighbors
by James Kirchick
Only
at TNR Online | Post date 04.10.07
On a flight last summer
from Johannesburg to Harare, I sat across the aisle
from a large man, who,
like nearly everyone else on the plane, had hoarded
as many luxury items
onboard as South African Airways would allow. It is
practically impossible
to find televisions, stereos, and microwaves--not to
mention basic
necessities like food--in Zimbabwe anymore, and Zimbabweans
with means
(which means those loyal to President Robert Mugabe and his
party, the
Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF)
must travel
to South Africa to purchase them. The man across from me was
talkative and
jovial and was traveling with his two young daughters. I did
not tell him I
was a journalist (it is, for all practical purposes, illegal
for foreign
journalists to enter Zimbabwe--some have been deported, others
imprisoned
for short stints), though he nonchalantly volunteered that he was
a corporal
in the South African military, based in Zimbabwe, somewhere
around Harare.
(I didn't think I could ask why without giving myself away.)
Of course, it's
no secret that South Africa has a close and cooperative
relationship with
Zimbabwe. But I was not prepared for such an open
confession of its bond
with a ruler who, whatever he once did to throw off
the yoke of colonial
oppression, is now one of the world's most loathsome
tyrants.
By all
outside appearances, Zimbabwe stands on the brink of disaster. Its
life
expectancy (37 for men, 34 for women) is the lowest in the world. It's
inflation rate, more than 1,000 percent, is the world's highest. Food
shortages are chronic, and people have been reduced to eating rats and mice,
a desperate measure I witnessed mere miles from Mugabe's presidential
mansion in Harare. Unemployment stands at 80 percent.
South Africa,
on the other hand--not long ago a pariah state--likes to think
of itself as
a benevolent hegemon in the region (in contrast to its record
in the 1970s
and 1980s, when it occupied Namibia, killed anti-apartheid
activists in
neighboring countries and around the world, and fueled civil
wars in Angola,
Rhodesia, and Mozambique). Now a democracy, its influence in
the region
ought to be for the better. And its international profile has
been burnished
most recently with a temporary seat on the United Nations
Security Council,
the rotating presidency of which South Africa held last
month. Yet South
African support of Mugabe belies its pretensions to benign
authority. And,
while its support so far has mostly been economic and
humanitarian, it's
possible that my friend from the airplane might be put to
work for
Zimbabwe's regime. If Mugabe's government should ever collapse,
South Africa
may be induced by the legal commitments it has signed to rescue
him--through
a military intervention if necessary.
South Africa has committed itself
to the Mugabe regime through a series of
continental, regional, and
bilateral legal agreements. In 2002, the African
Union (AU) was launched as
a successor to the Organization of African Unity.
African leaders hoped that
the change would be more than just cosmetic, and
a major difference between
the AU and its forerunner was that, in the age
after Rwanda, it would grant
member states the power to intervene,
militarily, to prevent humanitarian
catastrophe. Yet in February 2003, a
year after Western election observers
deemed Zimbabwe's presidential
balloting neither free nor fair, it adopted a
significant change to its
founding document regarding military
interventions. The members added a line
that "reserved" the right of the AU
to intervene in another member state to
stifle a "serious threat to
legitimate order." This was a crucial addition
to a clause that originally
allowed intervention only in "grave
circumstances ... namely war crimes,
genocide and crimes against humanity."
Functionally, the change protected
the more authoritarian-leaning states
from the threat of insurrection. The
amendment was "not intended to protect
the individual rights but to entrench
the regimes in power," wrote Evarist
Baimu and Kathryn Sturman of the South
African Institute for Security
Studies at the time.
If the amendment
helps regimes in power, Zimbabwe is the obvious
beneficiary. Even though the
West and human rights groups view Mugabe as an
illegitimate ruler, South
Africa and the AU both independently certified
Zimbabwe's rigged 2000 and
2005 parliamentary elections and his 2002
presidential reelection,
conferring "legitimate authority." From South
Africa, this wasn't a complete
surprise: The countries are already quite
close. They are both members of
the Southern African Development Community
(SADC), whose forerunner was the
Southern African Development Coordination
Conference, a group founded in
1980 to lessen economic dependence on the
then-apartheid South African
regime. It had nine founding-member states;
just-liberated Zimbabwe was
among them. But, when the organization became
the SADC in 1992, it underwent
an important legal transformation: Suddenly,
it wasn't just an economic
cooperative; it was now a legal and military
alliance much like NATO. South
Africa joined in August of 1994, soon after
its first post-apartheid,
democratic election.
As members of the SADC, South Africa and Zimbabwe
are also signatories to
that organization's Mutual Defense Pact. Article 7
of the agreement
stipulates that "No action shall be taken to assist any
State Party in terms
of this Pact, save at the State Party's own request or
with its consent."
Thus, Mugabe can continue to run a police state and his
neighbors can't do
anything about it without his permission. Conversely, if
Mugabe feels that
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), his opposition,
poses a threat, he
could theoretically ask SADC members to help him stamp it
out.
This isn't hard to imagine. Raenette Taljaard, a former opposition
member of
parliament and director of the Helen Suzman Foundation--a
persistent critic
of the South African government's policy on
Zimbabwe--asked me: "If [wide
scale protest] happens tomorrow and there's
unrest and Mugabe starts
shooting and he sends in a call to either the SADC
Mutual Defense Pact or to
the [AU] Protocol, what's the decision going to
be?" Taljaard isn't sure
South Africa would forcibly put down a Zimbabwean
revolt, but she thinks
that's the "logical conclusion" of the commitments it
has signed.
Of course, just because treaty language allows an
intervention doesn't mean
it'll happen. But, given how close the countries
are, it's hardly
impossible. In 1996, South Africa and Zimbabwe signed a
defense pact, and,
in 2005, they established a Joint Permanent Commission on
Defense and
Security, which aims to coordinate military strategy. At the
commission's
inaugural meeting, the South African intelligence minister,
Ronnie Kasrils,
stated that "The history of the liberation struggles of
Southern Africa and
the resultant shedding of blood for a common cause ...
cemented our
cooperation on the way forward in the development of our
respective
countries." The SADC maintains a "Regional Peace-keeping training
center" in
Harare that has trained well over 1,000 troops from member
countries--a clue
about what the man I met on the plane might have been
doing in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has also trained South African air force pilots,
and Pretoria is
rumored to have provided intelligence to Mugabe on
Zimbabwean democracy
activists exiled in South Africa.
But, to
justify a South African intervention, Mugabe's regime would
genuinely need
to be at risk--and, since the start of the 2000 farm
seizures, the political
situation has remained remarkably stable. There has
been no armed
insurrection, due largely to the fact that Mugabe wields
complete control of
his country's armed forces and police (they are some of
the few people in
the country earning a regular paycheck).
Yet the stability provided by
their loyalty to Mugabe is beginning to
wither. According to a memo from the
Zimbabwean police commissioner leaked
in December, as much as 10 percent of
the country's police may resign in
protest over government failures to pay
their salaries. The letter, dated
December 8, 2006 and sent to the home
affairs minister warned, "We are
overwhelmed by the numerous operations that
we are being asked to carry out
in almost every facet of government. It is
now as if the police have been
assigned the role of governing the
country."
There are also signs that Mugabe's political base is shrinking.
At the most
recent ZANU-PF conference in December, Mugabe attempted to pass
an amendment
to the country's constitution that would have allowed him to
extend his
six-year presidential term by two years so that he would not have
to face
re-election until 2010. He claimed this was an attempt to harmonize
presidential and parliamentary elections (the latter of which are not slated
until 2010) to save the country money. But he was surprised by opposition
from both leaders in his party and grassroots supporters, and, at the
insistence of provincial ministers, the amendment was tabled. The Zimbabwe
Independent, one of two independent newspapers in the country, reported that
"there was a groundswell of discontent among delegates" and that, if ZANU-PF
had experienced a face-off between its hard-liners and moderates, "it could
have had seismic repercussions in the party that could have led to Mugabe's
early departure."
Still, Mugabe's grip on power is nearly
ironclad, and South Africa is
probably the only country in any position to
change that. So far, it hasn't
shown much inclination to tighten the screws
(although President Thabo Mbeki
did join a chorus of countries criticizing
Mugabe's 2010 initiative, perhaps
because South Africa will be hosting the
World Cup that year and does not
want bad news coming out of the country
next door). The SADC agreement,
which might push it toward intervening, is
one possibility why South Africa
has been docile--though it is hardly the
only one.
But the SADC treaty that might help Mugabe also provides a way
for Pretoria
to use it against him. Tony Leon, the leader of South Africa's
opposition
party, the Democratic Alliance--who has tried and failed to make
government
leaders see the hypocrisy in their support of Mugabe--told me
that his
country could give Mugabe an ultimatum: "You can either democratize
and
accept the consequences of democracy, or you're going to be hoisted on
your
own petard--and the petard is the protocols of the SADC states." Those
same
protocols, it turns out, demand free and fair elections, democratic
governance, and human rights--all things that Mugabe has repeatedly denied
his people. (The treaty's preamble calls for "the guarantee of democratic
rights, observance of human rights and the rule of law.")
Pretoria,
for its part, shows no interest in this approach. The government
hasn't said
publicly whether it stations troops other than SADC trainees in
Zimbabwe
(its U.S. Embassy did not return a call for comment), but my friend
from the
flight could be posted in Zimbabwe only with the country's
knowledge and
approval. Since Western pressure has, so far, done nothing to
break Mugabe's
reign of terror, maybe it's time to turn our attention to his
greatest
patron.
James Kirchick is the assistant to the editor-in-chief
IPS news
Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 9 (IPS) - A debate is
underway among analysts and civil
society activists about how South African
President Thabo Mbeki should
proceed in fulfilling the mandate given to him
last month by the Southern
African Development Community (SADC), to continue
mediating between
Zimbabwe's government and opposition.
The hope is
that talks between the political groupings will enable Zimbabwe
to address a
political and economic crisis that has led to repeated human
rights abuses,
as well as soaring inflation and unemployment, and shortages
of basic
goods.
Some question the effectiveness of the policy of quiet diplomacy
that Mbeki
has adopted towards Zimbabwe until now.
"Mbeki has failed
in his quiet diplomacy. This is the fifth time SADC has
mandated him to
mediate in Zimbabwe since 2000," Idai Zimunya, co-ordinator
of the Crisis
Coalition of Zimbabwe, a pressure group based in South Africa,
told
IPS.
"But it's too early to judge him on his previous
failure."
Noted Claude Kabemba of the Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa, a
think tank in the South African commercial hub of
Johannesburg: "I think
Mbeki needs to move from quiet diplomacy to open
mediation so that people
know what he's doing."
"In the past we
didn't know who he was talking to -- and nobody knew who was
creating
problems for the quiet diplomacy," he told IPS. "If the mediation
is
transparent, people will know who's holding it to ransom."
For its part,
the South African government argues that an outspoken approach
would
alienate the Mugabe regime, and cause Zimbabwean officials to harden
their
position.
The special SADC summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where the
14-bloc
grouping handed the mandate to Mbeki, was convened amidst global
concern
about another wave of political violence in Zimbabwe.
"The
government of Zimbabwe has permitted security forces to commit serious
abuses with impunity against opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans
alike," the New York-based Human Rights Watch noted in a Mar. 28
statement.
"Security forces are responsible for arbitrary arrests and
detentions and
beatings of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
supporters,
civil society activists, and the general public."
One
activist has been killed in the latest bout of repression, while a
number of
opposition supporters were beaten and hospitalised when a prayer
meeting was
broken up by police Mar. 11 -- including Morgan Tsvangirai,
leader of one of
the factions in the MDC.
Mugabe accuses the party of undertaking a terror
campaign to topple him, a
charge the opposition has denied.
The
media, already constrained in their operations, have also been feeling
the
effects of the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
Last week, the body
of Zimbabwean cameraman Edward Chikomba was found some
50 kilometres west of
the capital, Harare -- this after he had been abducted
towards the end of
March. The killing of the former state broadcaster
employee has been
attributed to his reported leaking to foreign media of
footage showing
injuries sustained by Tsvangirai during the violent
dispersal of the Mar. 11
prayer meeting.
Under the 2002 Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act, foreign
correspondents have effectively been banished from
Zimbabwe, where
authorities have also made accreditation for local reporters
mandatory.
Gift Phiri, who writes for a London-based weekly, 'The
Zimbabwean', was
hospitalised last week. According to a statement by the
International
Freedom of Expression eXchange and Reporters Without Borders,
he required
treatment for injuries acquired while being beaten during four
days spent in
police custody. Phiri has apparently been charged with working
without the
required accreditation.
In addition, Time magazine
reporter Alexander Perry was arrested, convicted
and fined for working
without accreditation; the fine was reportedly less
than one U.S.
dollar.
Trade unions in Zimbabwe called for a strike last week to
increase the
pressure for political change. However, there was reportedly a
limited
response to the appeal.
"With unemployment standing at 80
percent, you can imagine the pressure on
the 20 percent employed -- many of
whom do not belong to any union,"
Nicholas Dube, a representative in South
Africa of the MDC, told IPS.
"The majority of Zimbabweans are
self-employed, selling tomatoes or other
types of vegetables. They are not
members of any union to go on strike."
Also, "If any employer closes a
business.the government automatically
withdraws his or her licence," said
Dube.
Further pressure has come from Catholic bishops in Zimbabwe, who
issued a
message over Easter warning that public uprisings against the
current
situation were imminent (Mugabe is himself a Roman
Catholic).
"Many people in Zimbabwe are angry, and their anger is now
erupting into
open revolt." stated the letter, which was titled 'God Hears
the Cries of
the Oppressed'.
"In order to avoid further bloodshed and
avert a mass uprising, the nation
needs a new people-driven constitution
that will guide a democratic
leadership chosen in free and fair
elections."
Elections held over the past few years have been marred by
irregularities
and rights abuses.
The bishops also called for prayer
and fasting to take place this coming
Saturday, to push for
reform.
This would doubtless have the approval of Zimunya, who believes a
broad
range of actions is needed to bring about change.
"We are not
putting all our eggs in SADC. We will not sit back and relax,"
he
said.
"We will use other strategies.to complement SADC efforts. We
believe it's
not only one key that can unlock the Zimbabwe crisis."
(END/2007)
Cape Times
Letters
April 10, 2007 Edition
1
So at last the South African government is to attempt to step in
and ensure
free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. Wonderful!
The
problem, however, is that South Africa declared the last two Zimbabwe
elections free and fair, even though they involved intimidation, murder,
arson, restrictions on public meetings, no free access to public media by
the opposition, a press gag on reporting what was happening, gerrymandering
of polling times and places, vote rigging, etc.
Will these all be
acceptable this time round too? If not, what forms of
interference and
intimidation by the Mugabe government will be deemed
acceptable by President
Thabo Mbeki's government this time?
We'd better have a very clear
statement as to what electoral behaviour they
will regard as acceptable,
with vastly different standards from last time,
before this offer of
ensuring free and fair elections can carry any weight
at all.
George
Ellis
Kenilworth
Punch, Nigeria
By Editorial
Board
Published: Tuesday, 10 Apr 2007
President Robert Mugabe's desperate
bid to hold on to power in Zimbabwe
amidst growing resentment may worsen the
southern African country's human
rights record and deepen its economic
crisis. In the last couple of weeks,
Mugabe has launched a brutal campaign
to crack down on the opposition under
the Movement for Democratic Change's
umbrella. The latest of Mugabe's
clampdown was the manner in which riot
Police squads were used to foil a
stay-away protest organised by the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
as part of a national mass action
to force the 83-year old despot out of
power.
Earlier, Mugabe had
deployed state security apparatus to break up meetings
and rallies by
opposition group, leaving some opposition leaders, including
Morgan
Tsvangirai, with severe injuries. Apart from sponsoring state
violence
against his own people, Mugabe has continued to verbally attack
foreign
leaders who dare to challenge his autocratic rule. He accused the
West,
especially the United Kingdom, of sponsoring opposition against his
government because of his land redistribution policy that hurt white
farmers.
At a point in Zimbabwe's history, Mugabe, like other African
leaders who
fought against colonialism, was an asset to Zimbabwe. Once the
economic
success story of southern Africa, Zimbabwe was the only regional
player to
export food to Ethiopia during the drought in the 1980s.
Unfortunately,
Mugabe, who led a prolonged guerrilla war to free the then
Rhodesia from the
white minority rule, has become an albatross to his
country. First elected
president in 1980, Mugabe has persistently
manipulated the Constitution and
the electoral process to remain in power,
despite the deteriorating living
conditions of his people.
A
combination of mismanagement and corruption on the part of the Mugabe
administration is responsible for Zimbabwe's decline. Since 1992, when his
ill-digested economic adjustment programme caused widespread hardship, the
Zimbabwean economy has been on the decline. While inflation runs at more
than 1,700 per cent, nearly eight in 10 Zimbabweans eligible for employment
have no formal jobs. Though he claimed to be driven by nationalism, his land
redistribution policy, which attracted global condemnation, has led to a
steady decline in agricultural production, especially, food supply, thus
worsening the country's poverty rate. The production of tobacco, which is
responsible for about 30 per cent of the country's export, is in serious
crisis. All this while Mugabe and his cronies are allegedly using stolen
money from public treasury to acquire extravagant private
buildings.
The Zimbabwean crisis represents another leadership failure in
Africa, where
sit-tight syndrome has bred a herd of tyrants. Having
corruptly enriched
themselves, most African leaders continue to shield
themselves from justice
by clinging to power at all costs. From Paul Biya of
Cameroun, Omar Bongo of
Gabon, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to Matthew Kerekou of
Benin Republic, Africa
parades skewed democracies where the rule of law is
difficult to implement,
transparent political succession hard to achieve and
anarchy always stares
the people in the face.
Yet, without a vibrant
democracy, Africa may never develop. Africans must
wean themselves from the
culture of excessive veneration of their leaders,
which creates a sense of
indispensability and nurture dictatorship. The
international community,
especially saner African leaders, should prevent
Zimbabwean crisis from
degenerating to another case of human tragedy. Mugabe
should be exposed
mainly for what he is-a sit-tight tyrant. With the sorrows
and pains the
wars in Sudan, Somali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire
and until
recently, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have brought on Africans,
adding another
debacle from Zimbabwe may be too much for a continent that is
gasping to
catch up with the rest of the world in human development indices.
Mugabe
will have to go for Zimbabwe to have a chance to develop again.
The Telegraph
By Byron
Dziva in Harare
Last Updated: 12:47am BST 10/04/2007
Catholic bishops in Zimbabwe have turned against President Robert
Mugabe,
accusing him of running a bad and corrupt government and calling for
radical
political reforms to avoid a mass uprising in the country.
In a
pastoral letter posted on church notice boards on Sunday as
worshippers
gathered to celebrate Easter, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops'
Conference said
that Mr Mugabe's misrule had left the country "in extreme
danger".
"The reasons for the anger are many, among them bad
governance and
corruption," they said in their strongest attack on Mr
Mugabe's ruling
Zanu-PF party in years.
advertisement
"In order to avoid further bloodshed and avert a mass uprising, the
nation
needs a new people-driven constitution that will guide a democratic
leadership chosen in free and fair elections," they said.
The
Catholic Church is the biggest Christian denomination in Zimbabwe
with the
83-year-old leader himself a Catholic and a regular church goer.
The clergy's outspoken criticism is the latest rebuke to the veteran
leader,
who has become increasingly isolated in recent weeks after his
regime
carried out violent crackdown on opposition activists.
In their
letter, the bishops condemned the police brutality, which
forced Morgan
Tsvangirai, the country's main opposition leader, and others
to seek medical
treatment after they were beaten in police custody.
Mr Tsvangirai,
the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, was
detained for trying to
attend a prayer meeting which the regime had deemed
an illegal gathering.
Over the Easter weekend, two opposition supporters
were abducted and
tortured and a number of families were forced to flee
their homes at a farm
outside Harare.
Opposition groups claimed that Settlement Chacha,
31, was abducted on
Good Friday by state agents from his home in Kwekwe,
about 60 miles south of
Harare. He was tortured and left for dead the next
day along Harare highway.
They claimed that five men abducted Mr Chacha in
front of his family as they
prepared for the Easter services.
Mr Chacha is an MDC activist and state agents accused him throughout
his
ordeal of masterminding petrol bombings.
In their letter, the
Catholic leaders said that black Zimbabweans were
fighting for political
rights in almost the same way as during British
colonial rule and accused
President Mugabe of adopting unjust and oppressive
laws inherited at
independence in 1980.
Zanu-PF has already endorsed Mr Mugabe as its
presidential candidate
in elections expected to be held next year. Opponents
fear that it will be a
repeat of past polls, which they say were rigged to
ensure a Mugabe victory.
A once prosperous southern African nation,
Zimbabwe is mired in a deep
economic crisis, marked by inflation of more
than 1,700 per cent,
unemployment of about 80 per cent, increasing poverty
and chronic shortages
of food, fuel and foreign currency.
The
president's critics blame the crisis on mismanagement, including a
controversial programme to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to
landless blacks. President Mugabe blames the problems on sabotage by Western
nations, including Britain.
New Zimbabwe
By
Jonathan Moyo MP
Last updated: 04/10/2007 10:59:18
THERE is something
about the national mood sweeping across Zimbabwe today
and steadily gaining
irreversible momentum ahead of the watershed 2008
election.
This
ambiance is reminiscent of the political mood that gripped the country
in
1979 ahead of the historic 1980 independence election.
In 2007 President
Robert Mugabe is increasingly finding himself in exactly
the same political
predicament that surrounded Bishop Abel Muzorewa in 1979
and eventually led
to his humiliating defeat at the 1980 polls whose voter
turnout was as
massive as the turnout in 2008 promises to be against Mugabe
and Zanu
PF.
While the causes of the mood in 1979 and 2007 are of course
different, not
least because then Zimbabwe was under illegal occupation by
Rhodesian rebels
and today it is an independent sovereign country, the
political and economic
consequences of then and now are exactly the
same.
To those who remember it, the essence of the political mood in 1979
was a
national consensus in which everyone had gotten fed up with the war
and the
economic sanctions associated with and wanted it all stopped to end
what was
ubiquitous and indiscriminate suffering.
At the same time,
it had also become clear to all and sundry that Muzorewa
and his UANC
government had no capacity to stop the bush war and the
economic sanctions
to end the suffering whose toll was raising hell for
everyone in the country
regardless of their race, ethnicity or political
affiliation.
Come
the general election in 1980, an overwhelming majority who had
supported
Muzorewa ditched him not really because they disliked him but
mainly because
he simply could not stop the war and economic sanctions. This
is why Mugabe
won the 1980 election because that was the only way of
stopping the war and
economic sanctions by getting him out of the bush and
making him in charge
of government.
And so by some cruel turn of history repeating itself, the
1979 mood is back
again 27 years after independence. While Zimbabwe is this
time not having a
bush war, it is clearly in the throes of a silent war
marked by economic
sanctions and other ills whose combined impact is
equivalent to the
consequences of a brutal war.
The political and
economic meltdown is widening and deepening with inflation
now well above
2000% while basic goods and services are either unavailable
or unaffordable
on the back of widespread unemployment and collapsed social
services
particularly in health and education.
In its panicky response, the now
dysfunctional Zanu PF government is
resorting to the crude use of violence
as its political manifesto while it
blames the country's crippling ills on
economic sanctions and other
machinations of Western governments and their
alleged local puppets with
whom it says it is at war.
All this has
made ordinary Zimbabweans regardless of their race, ethnicity
or political
affiliation to conclude as they did in 1979 that it is time to
stop the
raging but silent war together with the economic sanctions
associated with
it in order to end the ubiquitous suffering.
And, as was the feeling in
1979, there is now a growing national consensus
that the incumbent
government cannot stop the silent war and its economic
sanctions to end the
endemic national suffering. In other words, whatever
Mugabe and Zanu PF say,
promise or do, they simply cannot end the horrific
suffering afflicting
Zimbabweans today. In fact, each day that goes by with
Mugabe and Zanu PF in
power necessarily means more and worse suffering.
Therefore, just like
the 1980 historic election was primarily about ending
the war and economic
sanctions to end the suffering occasioned by UDI rule
inherited by Muzorewa,
the essential purpose of the watershed 2008 election
is about ending the
raging silent war and the suffering from economic
sanctions all occasioned
by Mugabe's unilateral quest to remain in power for
life.
This is
why, although little is being spoken about it, the self-evident and
increasingly contagious national truth is that something very big and
historic will happen in 2008. For the same reasons that saw Muzorewa and his
UANC booted out in 1980, Mugabe and Zanu PF do not have an electoral chance
in 2008.
While Mugabe's propagandists and securocrats who have not
campaigned in any
election let alone contest one themselves continue to make
foolish
projections of a Mugabe victory at the polls, the fact is that he
stands to
lose the 2008 election in a big way for the same reasons that cost
Muzorewa
in 1980 because he simply cannot stop let alone reverse the
devastating
political and economic meltdown in the country. Zimbabweans can
see that the
only way forward is to vote Mugabe and Zanu PF out.
But
this history on the horizon will only be possible if the 2008 election
is
free and fair and if the political field is to some degree leveled in
advance of the election through political mobilisation by progressive
forces.
Above all, this history will be made if progressive forces
across the
political divide do what the Patriotic Front failed to do in
1980, that is,
to contest the election bound by the patriotic and strategic
principle of
"One Candidate, One United Front".
On April 2, 2007, the
President of one of the two feuding MDC factions,
Arthur Mutambara,
recognised the importance of this principle when he
observed in a press
statement that "it is essential opposition parties do
not compete against
each other in the (2008) elections. There is a need to
galvanise and
energise the entire national electorate by presenting a united
front against
Zanu PF. We believe in a single candidate philosophy and
principle in all
elections (presidential, parliamentary, senate and council,
etc)".
However, it should be appreciated with some considerable
emphasis that, from
a strategic point of view, the principle of "One
Candidate, One United
Front" is not about uniting opposition parties per se
but about mobilising
progressive forces from across the political divide for
joint progressive
electoral action in the national interest.
In order
to achieve the desired outcome which is there for the taking, it is
important for everyone concerned to understand that there will be no
electoral breakthrough in Zimbabwe if people seek to move forward while
looking backwards or stuck up in their usual old narrow ways. There is an
urgent need to be strategic, realistic, open minded and all inclusive guided
by principles and not principals.
More particularly, it should be
understood that a United Front that does not
have strategic national appeal
to multitudes of Zanu PF members, supporters
or sympathisers and neutrals
out there will not get anywhere.
Besides the adoption and active
implementation of the principle of "One
Candidate, One United Front", there
is also a need to take note of key
national issues around which some
national and international consensus is
now building even though some of
those issues still have contentious
elements.
Specifically, the
following issues call for urgent attention and action at
the level of
principles that should bring together a United Front in the run
up to the
watershed 2008 election:
. Given that 2007 is a terrible drought year,
everything possible should be
done to ensure that there is no politicization
of humanitarian aid.
. The holding of free and fair democratic elections
with international
assistance under the auspices of Sadc. In this regard, it
is important to
appreciate that the 2008 general election involving
presidential,
parliamentary and local government candidates would require
resources and
logistical support of a scale never before experienced in
Zimbabwe.
Consequently, and given the current poor state of the economy, it
is
important to accept now that this election will require international
assistance and to work out the relevant modalities early in the
process.
. There is a need to prepare for the ending of Zimbabwe's
international
isolation and to restore the country's international status as
a respectable
and responsible member of the international community that
benefits its
citizens through sound international relations including
cooperation with
Sadc, the African Union and the United Nations as well as
constructive
engagement with international financial institutions such as
the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund.
. There is a need
to accept the importance of legal and constitutional
respect of property
rights by the government of the day as an expression of
the rule of law in
the national interest and in support of the economic
interests of the State
on behalf of its citizens and other interested
parties wishing to do
business or to invest in Zimbabwe.
. An irreversible commitment to the
enactment of a new democratic
constitution which should be implemented by
not later than the end of the
first year following the 2008 election and
under which all contentious
legislation would be necessarily repealed and
replaced.
Virtually all of the above issues have been part of national
debate, and
have defined areas of differences between the Zanu PF government
and
sections of the international community, over the last seven or so
years.
For this reason, considerable consensus on key aspects now exists.
The task
ahead is to build on that developing consensus in order to end the
suffering
that is bleeding the nation.
Professor Moyo is independent
MP for Tsholotsho. He can be contacted on:
moyoz@mweb.co.zw
Business Day
10 April 2007
Thabang
Mokopanele
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trade
and Industry Correspondent
ECONOMISTS remain optimistic about the health
of the overall economy even
though business confidence in SA dropped last
month.
The South African Chamber of Business' (Sacob's) business
confidence index
(BCI) released last week slipped slightly to 99,5 last
month from 100,5 a
month before as infrastructure constraints and the
political crisis in
Zimbabwe weighed on the business mood.
"The
BCI is experiencing a bumpy ride, this current turbulent wave
(declining
confidence trend) is the fourth experienced since the beginning
of 2005,"
Sacob said in a statement.
It said the economy was growing fast but
improvements in infrastructure were
not keeping up with expansion,
compounding capacity constraints.
"You can't talk about wanting to
grow by 6% then not have proper
infrastructure to accommodate that. If you
want to grow fast you must see to
it that your environment is conducive to
that," said Sacob economist Richard
Downing.
He said the lack of
a proper rail network, poor roads and inefficient
electricity provision were
sources of frustration.
Sacob said it was concerned about the
political and economic crisis in
Zimbabwe.
"It is affecting business
confidence and the political situation is
affecting our economy. We're not
denouncing anybody but it should be sorted
out soon," said
Downing.
On the positive side, SA's economic confidence rebounded
last month after
slipping the previous two months, as forecasts for economic
growth rose and
long-term inflation expectations eased.
Released
last week, the Reuters Econometer, a confidence measure of six
weighted
indicators, rose to 261,54 last month from 256,38 in
February.
According to the survey of 10 economists, the economy
continues to surprise
on the upside, with growth scaling 5,6% year on year
in the fourth quarter.
This lifted expansion for last year to 5% of
gross domestic product - just
off the more than two-decade high of 5,1% for
2005 - despite higher interest
rates.
George Glynos, MD of
Econometrix Treasury Management, said although the
economy might be
experiencing capacity problems it remained in relatively
good
shape.
"These constraints will be solved in due time by means of
imports of cement,
although this will put pressure on the current account of
the balance of
payments. The economy will continue to grow at 4,5% in the
next three years
at least," Glynos said.
While capacity
constraints might slow growth, "they will not derail it".
Economic
growth exceeded the treasury's predictions last year, and stronger
corporate
earnings and VAT receipts boosted the tax take to allow the
government to
register its first budget surplus. Analysts are now adjusting
upward their
forecasts for the next few years as the economy's main driver -
robust
consumer spending - shrugs off last year's two percentage point rise
in the
repo rate to 9%.
Economists polled by Reuters put consensus average
growth at 4,67% for this
year, compared with 4,57% in February's survey.
With Reuters
VOA
By Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye
Washington
09
April 2007
Former Zimbabwe Cricket player representative
Clive Field said Monday he
supports former Zimbabwe cricket coach Phil
Simmons' call for the
International Cricket Council to look into charges of
financial
mismanagement in the national administrative body.
Simmons
urged the ICC to audit the local cricket board before providing
fresh funds.
He said no new facilities have been built, raising questions as
to the use
of funds.
Field told reporter Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye of VOA's Studio
7 for
Zimbabwe that an audit could bolster the integrity of the game and
halt the
exodus of seasoned players to South Africa and beyond due to
nonpayment of
player bonuses.