nasdaq
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP)--Zimbabwe's main opposition
movement has won a
historic victory over President Robert Mugabe's ruling
party, official
results showed Saturday, but the outcome of the presidential
vote remained
unknown.
The results in 18 of the 23 constituencies
where ballots were being double-
checked were unchanged after the recount of
a March 29 vote, officials said,
confirming victory for the Movement for
Democratic Change.
The remaining five constituencies weren't sufficient
for Mugabe's ruling
Zimbabwean African National Union - Patriotic Front,
which has controlled
the parliament without interruption since 1980, to gain
a majority of seats.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told AFP
that the results of the
recount showed the electoral system was transparent,
saying: "The recounting
was not meant to try and offset the
outcome."
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the recount was "a waste of
time".
"It was never necessary to begin with because we knew we had won
and we have
won and this has been confirmed again," Chamisa
said.
Electoral commission chairman George Chiweshe said there had been
no "major
changes" in the parliamentary results and that a recount of votes
in the
presidential election also held on March 29 should be completed by
Monday.
"We trust that by Monday, April 28 this process will have been
concluded...leading to the announcement of the result of the presidential
election," Chiweshe told reporters in the capital Harare.
"But I
can't say exactly when the results will be coming," he continued.
Four
weeks after the elections, no results from the presidential vote have
been
released despite mounting international pressure.
The police have also
detained more than 200 opposition activists and raided
the offices of the
country's main independent election-monitoring body.
The MDC has accused
the authorities of delaying tactics in order to mount a
campaign of
intimidation against the opposition, saying that 15 of its
activists have
been killed so far in politically-motivated attacks.
The authorities
haven't confirmed any of the deaths claimed by the
opposition, dismissing
the reports as "lies" aimed at stirring up unrest,
and have accused MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai of treason.
Tsvangirai, who says he won an
outright majority in the presidential
election over the 84-year-old Mugabe,
was in South Africa and not expected
to return for the end of the recount on
Monday, Chamisa said.
Mugabe supporters say no candidate won and there
should be a run-off.
The U.K. and the U.S. have put pressure on Mugabe to
concede defeat, with
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer
arguing that post-election
violence makes a second round of voting
impossible.
Frazer, the main U.S. envoy for Africa, was on a tour of the
region aimed at
cutting off support for Mugabe. She said Thursday that
Tsvangirai had won a
clear victory and should head any new
government.
Frazer met Tsvangirai earlier and has also held talks with
South African
officials and Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, a Mugabe
ally. She was
due to meet Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on
Sunday.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the spiraling
violence in
Zimbabwe and pledged intensified international action following
a planned
U.N. Security Council debate next week.
"I condemn the
violence against those who voted for change. Their voices
must be heard,"
Brown said in a statement that also called for a U.N.
mission to verify
human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
He has previously said that "no one
believes" Mugabe won the election.
Mugabe, a former guerrilla leader and
a hero of Africa's national liberation
movements, has presided over a sharp
economic decline in recent years, with
inflation officially at 165,000% -
the highest in the world.
Meanwhile, Angola on Friday authorized a
Chinese ship loaded with arms
destined for Zimbabwe to dock in Luanda but
said it wouldn't be allowed to
unload the weapons following an international
outcry.
Port officials said Saturday the ship hadn't yet arrived in
Luanda.
The U.S. earlier urged China to turn back the shipment amid fears
that the
arms could be used for repression by Zimbabwean security
forces.
The U.K. has called for an international arms embargo on
Zimbabwe.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-26-081423ET
Yahoo News
Sat Apr 26, 11:57 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - A partial recount of
ballots in Zimbabwe's presidential
election should be completed by Monday
after which the result will be
announced, the head of the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission said on Saturday.
"We trust that by Monday, April 28 this
process will have been concluded...
leading to the announcement of the
result of the presidential election," ZEC
chairman George Chiweshe told
reporters in Harare.
Chiweshe said the presidential candidates or their
agents are expected to
meet next week to compare results they will have
gathered at each polling
station.
"I don't know whether they are
going to bring the same figures and everybody
is going to agree from the
word go, or whether they will (bring) various
figures which need to be
looked into and checked and argued about," Chiweshe
said.
"But I
can't say exactly when the results will be coming," he added.
Four weeks
after the southern African country went to the polls, results of
the
presidential vote are still unknown.
Opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai
says he won the race without need for
a run-off, but the ruling ZANU-PF
party of veteran leader Robert Mugabe said
the election produced no outright
winner.
Chiweshe dismissed claims
that his agency is doctoring figures to rig the
vote.
"Nothing could
be further from the truth," he said.
Reuters
Sat 26
Apr 2008, 14:59 GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC) said on Saturday
it would invite candidates to verify the results of
the March 29
presidential elections from Monday, before the results are
publicly issued.
"We trust that by Monday this process (of compiling
recount statistics) will
have been concluded," ZEC Chairman George Chiweshe
told a news conference.
"Immediately thereafter (we) will invite the ...
presidential candidates or
their agents to a verification and collation
exercise, leading to the
announcement of the results of the presidential
election," he said.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change
says its leader Morgan
Tsvangirai beat veteran President Robert Mugabe
outright in the poll. The
MDC accuses Mugabe of delaying results to rig
victory and has rejected the
possibility of a run-off.
Reuters
Sat 26 Apr 2008,
11:45 GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - The government said on Saturday it deplored
the
escalating violence against opposition supporters in Zimbabwe a month
after
elections there and called for a United Nations mission to inspect
human
rights abuses.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is seeking an
arms embargo on President
Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, said Britain
would step up diplomatic
efforts ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on
the former British colony.
"The coming days will be critical. We will
intensify international action
around a UNSC discussion on Tuesday. We will
press for a UN mission to
investigate the violence and human rights abuses,"
he said in a statement.
"The whole international community must speak up
against the climate of
fear in Zimbabwe."
The opposition Movement for
Democratic Change has said it won the March 29
parliamentary and
presidential elections, and a partial recount ordered by
Mugabe confirmed it
had pushed ZANU-PF into second place in parliament for
the first time in 28
years.
However, the official results of the presidential vote have still
not been
released despite the fact Mugabe has called for a
re-run.
"If there is a second round, the international community will
insist that
there are international monitors deployed and SADC and AU
principles
upheld," Brown said.
"I welcome the positions taken by the
UN Secretary General, by African
leaders, by Europe, by the US and by all
those who want to see a return to
democracy in Zimbabwe.
"We, and
others, stand ready to help rebuild Zimbabwe once democracy
returns. I
pledge that Britain will be in the vanguard of this effort."
(Reporting
by Jeremy Lovell; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Christian Today
Posted: Saturday, April 26, 2008, 16:13 (BST)
In the
fourth week since Zimbabwe went to the polls a violent crack down is
clearly
underway, warns Christian humanitarian agency Tearfund.
As Zanu PF
militias target those suspected of voting for the opposition MDC,
Tearfund
partner, The Churches in Bulawayo (CIB) today released a statement
calling
for action in response to confirmed reports of widespread torture,
beatings
and harassment of community members.
CIB confirmed that its member
churches would be "immediately opening its
doors so as to shelter the
victims of harassment". They are also calling on
the government to release
the presidential results immediately and for
increased international efforts
to resolve the crisis before the situation
degenerates into a
"bloodbath".
Since the elections, property has been destroyed and seized.
Communities
have been threatened with further violence if they fail to vote
for Robert
Mugabe should a run off ballot take place.
While the South
African Development Committee (SADC) leaders have called for
release of the
presidential results, they consistently avoid open criticism
of Mugabe, says
Tearfund. And while President Thabo Mbeki has claimed that
there is "no
crisis" in Zimbabwe, Tearfund partner organisations are
reporting something
quite different.
“Talk of a run off is frightening as people are still
waiting for the result
of the Presidential elections," says Pastor Promise
Manceda of Zimbabwe’s
Christian Alliance, who explains that a simple tally
of polling station
votes would quickly yield the results. "Worse still in
the outskirts of
Bulawayo, militia are reported to be undergoing intense
training. Such a
heavy presence and involvement of the military is having a
traumatic affect
on the population."
Tearfund’s partners have
reported violence in rural areas, particularly in
those areas scheduled for
a recount. "We have heard that a regional meeting
had to be cancelled
because staff members are too afraid to leave their
families. Fear and
confusion are spreading across the country in this vacuum
of uncertainty and
threat," says Karyn Beattie, Tearfund’s Disaster Response
Manager for
Zimbabwe. "We are very concerned for the safety of people, those
just simply
trying to exist – although there is nothing simple about
existing in a
country in collapse.”
There is increasing concern for church leaders and
staff of civil society
groups, who have courageously spoken out, demanding a
democratic and
peaceful transition. Tearfund calls on SADC, the African
Union and UN to
intervene and ensure that the results of the elections are
not falsified and
that the democratic right of the people of Zimbabwe to
choose their leaders
is respected.
Tearfund is sustaining a feeding
programme through local churches to support
some 35,000 people - orphans and
vulnerable families – although the current
situation is hindering logistic
movements. Food, water and nearly all basic
necessities have become all but
unavailable to the vast majority.
To make a donation to Tearfund’s
Zimbabwe Crisis Appeal call 0845 355 8355
or visit www.tearfund.org
Yahoo News
Sat
Apr 26, 7:39 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - At least 15 opposition supporters have
been killed in
political violence in Zimbabwe since elections last month,
the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) told AFP on
Saturday.
"So far we have recorded 15 but the carnage is worse than
that because of
the iron curtain that has been imposed on the villages.
People are being
killed like flies and buried in the villages," said MDC
spokesman Nelson
Chamisa.
One of those killed was allegedly shot on
Friday by men in military uniform
in Makoni, a district east of the country,
according to a newly elected
lawmaker for the area.
"I understand
that a number of people were abducted by people in military
uniform and
taken to ....(a) camp. Some people went to seek their release
and that was
when this woman was shot in the stomach," said Webber
Chinyadza.
The
victim was identified as 40-year-old Tabitha Marume, an opposition MDC
activist.
Seven others were injured in the confrontation and three
were examined by
doctors and released, he told AFP. Four are still in
hospital, he added.
Police were not available for confirmation.
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
April 26, 2008
Hundreds of MDC supporters and officials
that were arrested by police at the
party headquarters in Harare on Friday
are still in detention. The offices
at Harvest House were raided as part of
a campaign by police to confiscate
documents and information relating to the
elections held last month. MDC
spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said property was
destroyed in the building and
police confiscated all computers and equipment
used by the MDC at their
election command centre.
The police also raided
the offices of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(ZESN) on Friday, and
searched for what their warrant termed “subversive
material”, but no arrests
were made. They asked the programmes manager,
Tsungai Kokerai, to accompany
them to the police station “to assist with
investigations”. No arrests were
made.
Harare based journalist Angus Shaw said information on the arrests
has been
extremely difficult to come by. The state media confirmed that 215
supporters and officials are in the cells. The police spokesperson,
Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena, reportedly said that the
arrested would be screened for various crimes, but most are suspected of
involvement in political violence. Yet reports from around the country say
that it is the police, armed soldiers and ruling party youths who are
conducting the violence.
Many of those detained already needed
medical treatment after being beaten
and tortured in the rural areas from
where they fled. Shaw said he drove by
the police station on Friday and saw
women with babies on their backs,
children and youths, hardly the types to
conduct a violent campaign against
the government. With no information
available, it is not clear when they
will be released.
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
CONTINUED
ARRESTS AND HARASSMENT OF ELECTION OFFICERS
PRESS STATEMENT
25 April
2008
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) wishes to express its
serious
concern about the escalating arrests, detention and harassment of
presiding
and polling officers from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC),
in the
context of the ongoing controversial recounts.
Since 29 March
2008, many presiding and polling officers have been arrested
and accused of
having been part of a plot to rig the elections in favour of
candidates from
the Movement for Democratic Change. In this on-going
exercise, 34 Presiding
Officers have been arrested in Masvingo province
alone during the recounting
process which commenced on 19 April 2008. The
presiding officers are
currently detained at Masvingo Central Police Station
and are being
represented by ZLHR lawyers.
Over and above the arrests, non state actors
such as ZANU-PF officers and
war veterans have attempted to extract
‘confessions’ from these hapless
presiding officers. Notable is the unlawful
detention and assault of one of
these presiding officers in an attempt to
make him write a statement
incriminating himself of having misled voters who
required assistance and
having made them vote for the opposition when they
desired to vote for the
ruling party.
The war veterans and ZANU-PF
officials have attempted to justify their
unacceptable conduct by saying
that they were ‘taking instructions from
Harare’. There is no lawful
justification for non state actors to involve
themselves in relation to
detainees and the investigation of alleged
criminal conduct. This is the
role of the police, and non state actor
participation constitutes
unacceptable interference in such processes which
must be condemned and must
cease forthwith.
ZLHR reiterates its calls for transparency and
non-interference by state and
quasi state functionaries in an already
heavily disputed electoral process.
The involvement of non state actors
in interrogating presiding officers
raises concerns as to whether this is
due process at work, justifiable
prosecution or merely persecution. The
arrested presiding officers are
public servants who have served the nation
devotedly under extreme hardships
for years on end under conditions which
amount to a contemporary form of
slavery as defined under international
law.
Involvement of this range of actors must be seen and condemned for
what it
is - an intimidatory tactic to compromise their ability to carry out
their
constitutional duties without fear or favour. It will also have a
residual
impact in the event that a run-off is held which will require these
public
servants to once again provide their services in the electoral
process.
ZLHR also takes note of the extreme violence which has engulfed
the nation,
particularly in rural areas, as is the place where the unlawful
detentions
and assault noted above occurred. We thus demand that the
undignified
attacks upon these long-suffering presiding officers ceases
forthwith and
that police carry out their duties without interference from
other players
and without fear or favour to ensure that all people are safe
and duly
protected by law.
We also demand that the various
departments of the administration affected
by the unlawful threats and the
arrests of members of staff take a stance
against the harassment of their
members – the entire governance and
administrative system is at stake as
teachers and other state employees have
been forced to flee their
workstations for fear of victimisation. The entire
electoral process has
been subverted.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
ZADHR
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for
Human Rights Statement concerning
ongoing cases of organised violence and
torture, and of intimidation of
medical personnel, from April 22nd to April
24th 2008 dated April 25th 2008
The number of victims of organised
violence and torture presenting to
members of ZADHR continues to escalate,
with 62 patients being documented in
the last 3 days alone. The numbers
quoted under-reports the true total as
full documentation (e.g. confirmation
of suspected fractures by Xray) of a
number of cases has not yet been
completed.
Sixty two cases were assessed and treated, including 9 women,
one of whom is
84 years old and sustained serious facial injuries when she
was struck in
the face with stones on opening her door to unknown
assailants. The youngest
patient seen was a one year old baby boy who
suffered gastroenteritis with
dehydration following sleeping in the ‘bush’
with his mother after their
home had been burnt down. 23 cases were from
Karoi; otherwise there was
still a concentration in Mudzi, Mutoko and Murewa
with 12.
As in previous reports, the commonest problem was soft tissue
injury,
frequently with large haematoma formation, sometimes with ulceration
and
sepsis requiring surgical debridement, especially if there had been more
than 24-48 hours between injury and presentation.
In this series there
were 20 facial injuries, including 13 of the eye. A 34
year old man was
beaten, lost consciousness for a few minutes, and woke to
find that his
right ear had been cut off, and a 26 year old had such a deep
laceration of
the base of the nose that it appeared to be falling off.
Several days after
suturing the nose was healing well.
Four cases of burns were seen, two in
which people had been trapped inside
their houses which had been set on
fire. There were 5 further cases of
falanga (beatings on the soles of the
feet which frequently result in
chronic pain on walking). One sixty year old
man had clinical fractures of
his left ulna (forearm) and three bones in the
left hand, and there were 2
cases of radiologically confirmed fractures of
the (left) ulna. Many
patients had multiple wounds, for example a 50 year
old man with an axe
wound to the back of the head, extensive soft tissue
injuries especially to
the buttocks, with haematoma formation, and injuries
to the soles of the
feet due to falanga.
Severe psychological stress
is common to all these cases, including the few
without major physical
findings. One 37 year old woman who related that her
husband and son had
been killed during the violence accompanying the 2002
election suffered
moderate soft tissue injury from being beaten but
presented, essentially,
with extreme anger resulting from her cattle being
stolen, her crops
destroyed and her house burnt.
Increasing number s of reports have been
received by ZADHR of medical and
other health personnel suffering
intimidation and physical threat. This is
either because they have been
perceived to be ‘opposition’ supporters or to
have voted for the
‘opposition’, or because they have treated or might in
the future treat
‘opposition’ people who have been injured. To date few of
these reports have
been confirmed. However, in one mission hospital where
most of the medical
and nursing staff (amongst others) were said to have
been put on a list of
people to be beaten up for perceived political
affiliations, three cases of
beatings were indeed attended to by medical
personnel. However the police
were called, four arrests of perpetrators of
the violence were made. The
hospital never closed. As recently reported in
The Lancet
(2008;371:1059-1060), the resilience and dedication of health
workers in
Zimbabwe is remarkable.
We re-emphasise that we can only report on those
who have been able to
access health facilities staffed by ZADHR members. We
have received reports
of widespread violence in remote rural areas where
victims have no access to
medical care, and there have also been reports of
perpetrators blocking
access of victims to medical attention. It is
therefore likely that the
numbers reported here represents only a small
fraction of those injured.
ZADHR again appeals to the international
community of health workers,
including the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and
Child Welfare and the Zimbabwe
Medical Association to bring whatever
effective pressure is within their
capability to bear on the Government of
Zimbabwe to stop these grotesque,
cruel and shameful acts of violence, and
to be prepared to actively defend
their colleagues facing intimidation and
physical threat.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Zimbabwe Metro
By Staff ⋅ April 26,
2008
Jacob Zuma condemned on Friday a police raid on opposition party
headquarters in Zimbabwe, adding that it appeared “somebody is sabotaging
the elections” there.
The ANC president told The Associated Press in
an interview that incidents
like Friday’s raid on opposition headquarters in
Harare make the country
resemble a police state.
“Why should the
police come in, why should they do this?” he asked after
reading a news
report about the raid, in which heavily armed police shoved
or beat scores
of people, arrested hundreds and seized materials on vote
counting. The
offices of independent election observers were also targeted
in the
raid.
Both groups have claimed the opposition, lead by Morgan Tsvangirai,
won the
March 29 presidential elections. Zimbabweans are still awaiting
official
results, amid charges that President Robert Mugabe is using
violence and
stealth to hold on to power.
Zuma called the delay in
announcing the results “unexplainable”, and said
“it cannot be
supported”.
Asked whether the delayed announcement suggested Mugabe did
not win the
elections, Zuma said “it is difficult to speculate, except that
somebody is
sabotaging the elections”.
Incidents like Friday’s raids
are “creating a situation where people could
say this is now a police
state,” he said.
Zuma said the situation in Zimbabwe “is going beyond the
point where people
should just look at it”, adding that action is needed “as
urgently as
possible”.
He said that in order to resolve the “impasse”
in Zimbabwe, Mugabe and
Tsvangirai will have to sit down for
talks.
Asked about a South African court’s decision earlier this month to
prevent a
shipment of arms from China from transiting to Zimbabwe, Zuma said
it
highlighted the region’s determination to prevent an escalation of
violence
in Zimbabwe.
Authorities in Mozambique, which also borders
on Zimbabwe, which is
landlocked, refused the Chinese freighter carrying the
arms permission to
dock.
Zuma was speaking on a visit to Paris, the
last leg of an ANC delegation
tour that has also taken him to Germany and
Britain, where he held talks on
Thursday with Prime Minister Gordon
Brown.
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
25 April, 2008
Protestors from the Revolutionary Youth
Movement of Zimbabwe (RYMZ) in South
Africa have alleged that the SA police
assaulted them and used teargas as
they disrupted a demonstration at the
Chinese Embassy in Pretoria. The group’s
patron, Reverend Mufaro Hove, said
about 1000 activists had participated in
the protest march, and they
intended to hand over a petition to Zhong
Jianhua, the Chinese Ambassador to
South Africa. The petition calls on China
to stop all arms sales to Zimbabwe
because the country is not at war.
Reverend Hove said he had visited
Sunnyside Police station and was informed
that 129 activists were in
detention at various police stations. Among the
detained is the group’s
President Simon Mudekwa and their secretary general
John
Chikwari.
Hove said the 2 youth leaders alleged that they were assaulted
by police
when they were arrested. A female activist named Princess was
beaten with a
rifle butt. It is believed she was pregnant. Hove said the
activists also
alleged that police threw teargas into an enclosed vehicle
that contained 30
of the arrested.
These details were confirmed by
Gabriel Shumba, director of the Zimbabwe
Exiles Forum, who helped to
organise the protest. But we were not able to
reach the SA police for
comment. We will keep trying.
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
New York Times
By BARRY
BEARAK
Published: April 27, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe — I had never been
arrested before and the prospect of
prison in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest,
most repressive places on earth,
seemed especially forbidding: the squalor,
the teeming cells, the
possibility of beatings. But I told myself what I’d
repeatedly taught my two
children: Life is a collection of experiences. You
savor the good, you learn
from the bad.
I was being charged with the
crime of “committing journalism.” One of my
captors, Detective Inspector
Dani Rangwani, described the offense to me as
something despicable, almost
hissing the words: “You’ve been gathering,
processing and disseminating the
news.”
And I’d been caught at it red-handed, my notes spread across my desk,
my
text messages readable on my cellphone, my stories preserved by Microsoft
Word in an open laptop.
At one point, 21 policemen and detectives
milled about my room at a small
lodge in Harare, the capital. They knocked
against one another as they
ambled about, some kneeling, some on tiptoes,
searching for clues in the
cabinets and drawers. Men with rifles guarded the
door.
They immediately found my two United States passports, ample
evidence of
subterfuge. One contained work papers indicating I was a
reporter; the
other, the one with my visa, said I had entered the country as
a tourist.
“But you’re actually a journalist?” I was asked.
“Yes,”
I answered.
“And you are not accredited in Zimbabwe?”
“No, I’m
not.”
I had concerns well beyond myself, for certain Zimbabweans had been
assisting me. Messages between us lived on in the phone. Whatever bad times
lay ahead for me, I imagined things would undoubtedly be worse for these
others, these friends.
One of the cops gripped the phone. “You’re in
terrible trouble,” he
admonished. His tone was menacing but there was also
an odd curl to his
smile that I took to be an invitation.
“Can you
help me?” I whispered.
His right thumb was nimbly working the keypad of
the phone, but then it
dropped to his side and he used it to massage his
forefinger, sign language
for the universal lubricant of the greased palm.
In a few minutes, I
negotiated safe passage to the bathroom and left him
$100 in my shaving kit.
Then we stood shoulder to shoulder. “What’s
this?” he’d demand accusingly as
we scrolled through the messages. Each time
I’d nod yes, he’d hit delete.
The crowded room was hot. Already, I felt
jailed. I needed a breath of air,
but when I moved toward the door,
Detective Jasper Musademba, a well-built
man in a jacket and tie, stopped
me. He had been the most threatening of the
police. “If you try to go
outside...” he said sternly, stopping in
midsentence. He made his hand into
a gun and pulled the trigger.
“You’ll kill me?” I asked.
“Good,”
he remarked wryly. “Then you’ve seen that movie.”
An Electoral
Limbo
I’d come to Zimbabwe to cover the March 29 elections, momentous
times in a
contentious country. History was taking a gallant turn against
long-shot
odds. Robert Mugabe, the enduring political chameleon who’d led
the nation
since its liberation from Britain in 1980, seemed on the cliff
edge of
defeat.
Day after day, Zimbabwe languished in a peculiar
limbo. While the government
refused to release the results of the
presidential race, totals already had
been posted at every polling station
and there were solid reasons to think
that Mr. Mugabe, the 84-year-old
president, had suffered an unexpected
comeuppance.
This must have
come as a shock to the “old man,” as Zimbabweans call him,
not only since
the election apparatus was so slanted in his favor but
because he considered
himself the father of his people. Knowledgeable
sources told me the rebuke
had at first left President Mugabe depressed and
ready to
concede.
His power had flourished through methodical cruelty, including
the murder of
thousands of people in the dissident stronghold of
Matabeleland. As he and
cronies then acquired lavish mansions and enormous
bank accounts, he thrust
the nation into a calamitous economic meltdown, the
main precipitator being
a misbegotten takeover of productive farms from
white landowners.
Mr. Mugabe, who holds the genuine bona fides of a
liberation hero, likes to
present himself as one of freedom’s great
champions. Maintaining a veneer of
democracy is important to his image.
Civic groups are permitted to meet so
long as their messages fail to reach
the masses. Courts can convene so long
as Mr. Mugabe reserves the right to
sweep aside inconvenient decisions.
Elections can be held so long as
political adversaries survive beatings and
jailings and torture — and the
results can be reliably rigged.
On April 3, the day I was arrested, my
means of observing these mechanisms
oddly shifted from a vantage point
outside to one within. My own freedom
would depend on those remnant smidgens
of civil liberty still granted the
citizenry — and on the many brave people
who carry on unbowed against
relentless intimidation.
The veneer of
freedom Mr. Mugabe permits the press is applied with the
thinnest of coats.
Though some independent weeklies are allowed to publish,
the state controls
the only daily newspaper and television station. Most
Western reporters are
routinely denied entry.
I was new to Africa. My wife, Celia Dugger, and I
arrived in January as The
New York Times’s co-bureau chiefs in Johannesburg.
With elections coming in
Zimbabwe, I soon made two trips to Harare, each
time taking ritualistic
precautions for safety. I left my credentials and
laptop at home, entered
the country as a tourist and interviewed people only
behind closed doors.
Each night, I destroyed my notes after e-mailing their
contents to myself at
an Internet cafe. I wrote my articles only upon
returning to Johannesburg.
But the presidential election presented new
complications. Daily articles
needed to be filed. I had to openly work the
streets, then go back to a room
with a reliable wireless link to transmit
from my laptop. Over time,
normally wary reporters began taking risks that
mocked earlier prudence,
announcing their names and affiliations at
opposition news conferences.
Necessity numbed my own caution. My articles
required continuous updating
for The Times’s Web site, so there I’d be in
downtown Harare, a backpack
slung over my shoulder, dictating quotes from my
notebook and spelling names
into the wavering connection of the mobile
phone. Early on, I had asked that
my byline be kept from the articles. But
other reporters were less guarded
about revealing themselves in print. I
eventually followed suit.
I was staying at York Lodge, a collection of
eight cottages spread around a
lovely expanse of shrubs and lawn. At age 58,
after 33 years as a reporter,
I’d like to think I have a nose for trouble,
alert to danger like some
frontier cavalry scout who tenses up at the sound
of a suspicious birdcall.
But the police had been at the lodge for 45
minutes before I knew a thing. I
was filing another update for the Web site
when I left the room for a
breather at about 4 p.m. Maria Phiri, a tall,
wiry detective in hoop
earrings and a red dress, called out, “Hey you!” I
was stunned.
Several men hurried my way. Their very first question had me
reeling.
“Who are you?”
A Land of ‘No Law’
Two reporters
were rounded up at York Lodge; two others were warned away
before returning
from the field. The other unfortunate was Stephen Bevan,
45, an able British
freelancer who works for The Sunday Telegraph.
We were taken in a pickup
truck to the Harare Central Police Station, a
large colonial-era complex
colloquially known as Law and Order. The
detectives’ evident glee at our
capture was soon tempered by the arrival of
a familiar and implacable foe,
Beatrice Mtetwa, the nation’s top human
rights lawyer.
She is a
striking woman with rectangular glasses and a neatly trimmed Afro.
“There
is no crime called ‘committing journalism,’ whether it is with
accreditation
or without,” she informed us privately in her exaggerated,
lawyerly diction.
This was actually news to us — and quite a relief. In
fact, the law had been
amended in January. It was now only illegal to
falsely claim to be
accredited, and neither Stephen nor I had done that.
But Ms. Mtetwa also
explained the sinister realities of a woebegone place:
“Ultimately, there is
no law in Zimbabwe. Your governments can’t apply
pressure; the British and
the Americans have negative influence here. The
police will hold you as long
as they want.” She was president of the nation’s
law society. The police had
beaten her with truncheons the year before.
Her colleague, Alec
Muchadehama, had recently spent time in the Harare
Central cells that now
loomed before us. “This is one of our worst places,”
he told us gravely.
“You’ll need to brace yourselves.”
The human mind is actually good at such
things. It doesn’t take much time to
think of greatly admired people who
have been wrongly locked up in the jails
of the world. I already knew a
dozen civic leaders in Zimbabwe with horrid
tales of time in custody. Some
were beaten, most often around their torsos
and the soles of their feet.
Some were simply held in the vile cells.
I managed to call Celia with a
borrowed phone. My wife somehow knows how to
all at once be emotionally
distraught and serenely levelheaded. She was
already strategizing about how
to free me; at the same time she was getting
ready to assume the newspaper’s
Zimbabwe coverage from Johannesburg.
“Don’t worry, whatever the cells are
like I can handle it,” I told her,
attempting a tough guy’s bravado. I added
a reporter’s inside joke. “Really,
anything is better than having to file
four stories a day for the Web site.”
Not long after midnight, Detective
Musademba escorted Stephen and me to the
jail. Electricity no longer works
in much of the decrepit complex. The
hallways were entirely desolate and
silent but for the squeaking of our
shoes and intermittent drips from
exposed pipes.
At such an ominous time, my senses felt eerily deprived,
except for smell.
With every step, the odor of the urine-soaked lockup grew
a bit stronger.
The Cell Door Slams Shut
The uniformed jailers
wrote our names in a ledger and asked us to empty our
pockets. I was flush
with $4,000 cash, an amount meant to last weeks in a
nation where credit
cards were of little use. About $150 of that had been
converted into the
ludicrously inflated Zimbabwean currency; crammed in my
pants were bundles
of $10 million bills that piled up four inches high.
The jailers
patiently counted the sum before stashing it in a safe. There
was never an
attempt at a shakedown. Bribery was more on our minds than
theirs. Stephen
doled out $40 for the tenuous privilege of spending our
initial hours on a
wooden bench in the admittance area instead of the
dreaded
cells.
Sleep was impossible. The bench was hard, the room cold and noisy.
Near
dawn, one of the bribed night crew, fearing his supervisors, rousted us
from
the bench and hastily herded us upstairs into an unlighted empty
cage.
“You can’t be found wearing your socks,” he warned urgently. “It’s
not
allowed. You can’t wear more than one shirt either. Hide these
things.”
The heavy bars then clanged shut; a padlock clicked. We couldn’t
really
observe the surroundings until morning, when the first sliver of
sunlight
pierced the one narrow window at the ceiling.
The cell was
about 7 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Three bare shelves of rough
concrete
extended a body’s length from both of the longer walls. Only the
top slab
left enough space for a person to sit upright, albeit with slouched
shoulders. There was a circle of concrete in a corner to be used as a
toilet. Behind it was a faucet. Stephen tried the knob. It did not
work.
The floor was filthy. The odor of human waste infected the air.
More
bothersome were the bugs. “Cockroaches the size of skateboards,” I
quipped.
This was hyperbole. The insects were mostly tiny and black, others
short,
white and wormy. We were soon sharing our clothes with
them.
At about 7 a.m. the cells were emptied for “the count,” a routine
taking of
attendance in a large room farther upstairs. I clumsily hid my
socks in my
pants and buttoned one shirt to completely cover the
other.
There were about 150 inmates, many of them staring our way. We
were older;
we were the only whites. We joined them on one side of the open
room. As
names were called, prisoners were obliged to acknowledge their
presence and
shift to the opposite wall. I parroted some of the others,
using the Shona
word “ndiripo” when my turn came. The gesture drew some
cheers and applause.
It seemed an icebreaker, and before the session was
over, we were being
tutored in how to say “mangwanani,” or good
morning.
Prison movies had made me fear predation. But the inmates were
instead a
forlorn lot, a fair selection of Harare’s downtrodden, people
who’d once had
decent jobs and who’d now been reduced to scrounging and
worse. Two of the
more personable ones were car thieves. Only because their
families were
starving, they said. Two others, Donald and Lancelot, were
accused of
poaching after cutting the hindquarter off a deer that had been
hit by a
bus.
We mingled easily, swapping stories and comparing bug
bites. Most were in a
worse fix than we were. None said they’d been beaten;
they weren’t political
types. But few had lawyers — and many were jailed
without their families
knowing. This had dismal implications. The jail
provided prisoners no food.
If no one knew you were there, no one knew to
bring you something to eat.
At breakfast, Stephen and I were allowed
downstairs and pointed toward a
well-stuffed wicker bag. The empathetic wife
of the British ambassador had
personally overseen preparation of our first
meal. Sandwiches of bacon and
eggs were triple-wrapped to hold their warmth.
Tea, coffee, cocoa and sugar
were packed in little bags to use with a
thermos of hot water. There were
juice boxes, soda cans, chocolate bars,
hard candies and breath mints.
Neither of us had much appetite, but we
were enormously grateful. Thwarted
as journalists, we now had renewed
purpose.
We could feed the hungry.
A Deadline Looms
It was
a Friday, and Fridays held a fateful deadline. If we didn’t get bail,
we’d
be locked away all weekend. We were relieved to be sent back to Law and
Order, where we again found Beatrice Mtetwa, our lawyer.
The night
before, I had wanly told her that the case against me seemed
hopelessly
open-and-shut. I had written articles, and anyone who Googled my
name with
“Zimbabwe” would have all the proof that was needed. She
harrumphed at that,
insisting that even a simple database search was beyond
the technical
expertise of the Harare police.
I now realized she might be right. The
Criminal Investigations Department
had only a few computers, a shortage of
chairs and no functioning toilet.
Detectives who earlier had seemed so
competently fearsome now reminded me of
the beleaguered gumshoes on “Barney
Miller.”
Detective Musademba hunt-and-pecked on an antique typewriter,
making
triplicates with carbon paper. He’d sometimes shake away his boredom
by
breaking into song and pounding out the beat with the palms of his
hands.
Detective Inspector Rangwani, in charge of the investigation, was
lamenting
his need for a copy of the updated statutes. “May I use yours?” he
asked our
lawyer, who took the opportunity to hector and berate
him.
“This is a police state,” Ms. Mtetwa said brassily. “The law is only
applied
when it serves the perpetuation of the state. How does it feel,
Inspector
Rangwani, to be used this way by the state?”
The browbeaten
cop looked bedraggled, his head sagging from his neck like a
wilted house
plant. He replied meekly, “Madame, I agree with you and I have
made a
recommendation just as you have stated to drop the charges.”
Suddenly,
the nightmare seemed to be ending with a yielding snap of the
finger. The
inspector forwarded the matter to the attorney general’s office,
and the
appropriate official there advised the police to set us free.
But there
was then an odd delay, then an abrupt reversal, the pretense of a
working
justice system lost in a maddening flicker. “The law only applies
when it
serves the perpetuation of the state,” Ms. Mtetwa repeated.
Two South
African television technicians had been arrested the week before
on similar
charges. That morning, a magistrate found them not guilty. Yet
instead of
being released, they were rearrested. Someone in the government
thought this
a useful time to suppress the zeal of interfering foreign
media.
Clemens Madzingo, the police’s chief superintendent, himself
gave us the
news. He is a huge, pit bull of a man. He stood in the doorway
with a
triumphant grin. New charges were forthcoming, he said. Proof of our
misdeeds would soon be excavated from files in our confiscated
laptops.
“Until then, you’ll be back in the cells.”
The Hard-Liners
Prevail
Things had turned badly for us; more important, things were more
hapless for
Zimbabwe. The government now bizarrely announced a recount of
its
unannounced election results. The hard-liners had apparently steeled Mr.
Mugabe to fight on. In a fine Orwellian touch, they had accused the
opposition of cheating. They now appeared set to finagle an election
victory.
Did our incarceration somehow suit such purposes? That
possibility set us
into anxiety overdrive. Our wives, our editors, our
embassies: they were all
working hard to get us out. And while these welcome
efforts supplied hope,
they also left us vaguely embarrassed. If pressure
could be applied on Mr.
Mugabe, it ought to be for Zimbabwe’s sake, not
ours.
Jail, once so forbidding, now seemed merely dreary and depressing.
How would
we keep warm? Was there a way to get clean? When will this
end?
I was fortunate to have Stephen as a comrade. I once observed that
while we
were amply accompanied by every sort of insect, the jail lacked
rodents.
“Why would rats stay here?” he responded with his wonderful dry
wit. “There’s
no food. They’ve left the country the same as everyone
else.”
More than a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people have fled. The
nation’s
primary income is the cash sent home by this diaspora. Soon to
follow are
many inmates and guards from the jail. They wanted our phone
numbers in
Johannesburg — and pleaded with us not to forget them.
We
had befriended a few jailers, but those who allowed us favors would end
their shift, followed by jailers more stern, some wielding lengths of rubber
hose. Our socks went on, our socks came off. Sometimes we were left alone;
sometimes we were stuffed in with many others. I delivered a parental
lecture to a young cellmate who’d cut a man with a beer bottle in a bar
fight.
We continued to share our food. But even this enjoyable
gesture of charity
could trigger regret. During the two daily “counts,” we’d
try to note who
seemed hungriest: The acrobat? The peddler? The guy in the
“69” T-shirt?
At meals, we were permitted to select only a few inmates to
join us
downstairs. A short, emaciated man in a red jersey had meekly asked
to be
included. “Stay close to me when they come for us,” I told him. But
then I
forgot.
“I was near you,” he later muttered disconsolately,
“right near you.”
A Blanket, Then a Fall
Sleep escaped me. The
concrete was too hard, my body too bony. I had never
so craved a pad and
blanket. The insects were most annoying at night. In my
wakefulness, I’d
pull my sleeves over my hands but then the stretched fabric
exposed my
midriff.
One time, when able to wander the bleak corridors, I found what
once had
been a bathroom, with the remnants of sinks and showers. In one
corner was a
heap of blankets, stiff and moldy and fetid. I was tempted to
take one but
they were simply too disgusting. I wasn’t yet that cold or
tired.
Still, I had a fixation. Surely, a blanket was obtainable. We
hadn’t paid
any bribes since that first night but we decided to raise the
subject of
contraband blankets with a favorite jailer. “Yes, this can be
organized,” he
agreed. The next day was Sunday; stores would be closed. He’d
bring them
from home.
That night, we awaited his footsteps. The jail
possessed no flashlights. The
guard used the tentative glow from a cellphone
to find the right key. “I’m
sorry but one blanket is very thin,” he quietly
apologized. Stephen and I
vied in self-sacrifice for the lesser covering,
and I won with quicker
hands.
The top shelf in the cell was seven
feet off the ground. I climbed up and
smoothed the flimsy material over the
concrete, but when I stepped down I
lost my balance and grabbed a swatch of
fabric instead of the sturdy ledge.
I tumbled sideways, my hand grasping at
empty air. I bounced off one
concrete slab on the opposite side and then
fell flat on my back.
That was how I spent my fourth — and final — night in
the Harare cells, in
pain, slapping at bugs, still unable to
sleep.
The Bail Hearing
Detective Musademba collected us in the
morning for a bail hearing. The
transport was an old pickup whose engine
required a rolling start. He
recruited Stephen to help push. I was excused
because of my backache.
The courthouse is called Rotten Row, after a
nearby street. It’s a circular
five-story structure built around four
elaborate saucers that once fed into
one another as a fountain. With the
nation insolvent, there’s no money to
maintain either ornamentations or
courtrooms. Floors are filthy. Microphone
stands have no mikes. The
building’s clocks are each stymied at 7:10.
Our hearing was pro forma;
the magistrate released us each on bail of 300
million Zimbabwean dollars,
about $7, and the police were ordered to
surrender our seized passports into
the custody of the bailiffs.
The real showdown only came later, a hearing
when Beatrice Mtetwa would
argue we never should have been arrested at all.
I sat fretfully in the
“dock,” the enclosed rectangle reserved for the
accused. Across the room in
the witness box stood Superintendent Madzingo,
the brawny police chief who’d
pledged to scavenge through our incriminating
laptops. What did he have?
Nothing, it turned out. He testified that
“critical new evidence” had caused
the attorney general’s office to reverse
its initial decision to let us go,
a hasty fiction that was not even
loitering in the rough vicinity of the
truth.
When asked to provide
documentation, he tendered the printout of an article
scooped off my desk at
York Lodge, something I’d brought to Harare as
background for a possible
feature article about a political candidate.
Ms. Mtetwa proceeded to hang
up Mr. Madzingo like a side of beef.
“Who is the author of that article?”
she asked.
The article wasn’t mine. It had been written by one of the
all-time-greats
of The New York Times, Anthony Lewis.
“Can you tell
us the date of that article?”
It was published in 1989.
Magistrate
Gloria Takundwa first covered her giggles with fingers, then with
the loose
sleeve of her black robe.
Freedom, and Uncertainty
Beatrice Mtetwa
said it was fortunate the case was before a magistrate. Most
were
independent, many were courageous. They were leftover gloss in Mr.
Mugabe’s
veneer of freedom. Justice was seldom found in higher courts.
The
magistrate announced her decision on April 16. While we had expected it
to
go our way, our minds were infused with our lawyer’s admonition: the law
only matters when it serves the interest of the state. We suspected that the
government intended to rearrest us, which turns out to be true.
But
whatever the intentions, we were better prepared. We fled quickly from
Rotten Row, our car pirouetting through the streets until we were sure we
weren’t followed. We waited in the parking lot of a pork production plant
until word came that our passports had been recovered.
Then, by
prearrangement, we rendezvoused with a driver in a fully gassed
car,
avoiding the country’s airports and heading northwest through the
winding
roads of the Matuzviadonha Mountains, toward the Zambezi River and a
small
border crossing into Zambia.
I had left the cells with a case of scabies,
an infestation of microscopic
mites that swelled my hands and wrists to
nearly twice their size. But I am
better now, back in Johannesburg, with
Celia, with our sons, Max, 17, and
Sam, 12.
In the meantime, Zimbabwe
is beset with paroxysms of violence. Thuggery,
torture and murder are
familiar implements in Robert Mugabe’s tool kit.
Political opponents are
being brutalized, as are everyday people whose
voting defied him. The
presidential election results are still unannounced.
The Telegraph
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare, Tom Chivers and
agencies
Last Updated: 2:22pm BST 26/04/2008
A partial recount of votes in Zimbabwe's disputed election has shown
that
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has not regained control of the
country's parliament.
The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) party gained a
parliamentary majority for the first time in 28
years in last month's
elections. A recount was required in 23 of the 210
constituencies.
So far fourteen have been recounted, with the
original result
confirmed in all 14. This means that even if Zanu-PF wins
all the remaining
seats, it would still fall short of a
majority.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decried the escalating
violence that
has followed Zimbabwe's elections, saying that Britain will
step up
diplomatic efforts ahead of a UN Security Council
meeting.
Zimbabwean security forces staged a series of violent
raids on critics
of Mr Mugabe, arresting hundreds of opposition activists,
election monitors
and even hospital patients.
"The coming days
will be critical. We will intensify international
action around a UNSC
discussion on Tuesday. We will press for a UN mission
to investigate the
violence and human rights abuses," Mr Brown said in a
statement.
"The whole international community must speak up
against the climate
of fear in Zimbabwe."
In the capital,
Harare, heavily armed riot police smashed their way
through groups of
injured opposition supporters, including women and
children, who had fled
from the violence being meted out in rural areas by
thugs deployed by
Zanu-PF.
The group was gathered outside the headquarters of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, which the police then stormed,
arresting an
estimated 300 people.
In the first raid on the
offices since the disputed March 29
elections, police also confiscated
computers and all the party's election
materials including data it used to
predict results.
Many MDC supporters in Zanu-PF strongholds have
had their homes razed
in arson attacks, while hundreds have been treated for
serious injuries,
particularly in the east of the country.
Members of the security forces have said that they received orders to
go
"back to the bush" to protect the land and to soften up the population
for a
re-run of the presidential poll.
Mr Mugabe has yet to announce the
result of presidential election,
despite his government insisting that it
must go to a second round.
A security guard at the MDC's
headquarters described what happened.
"They grabbed people off the pavement.
Then they went upstairs and started
dragging people down. I think they must
have got 300 of them because they
filled up one big police bus and then the
bus came back again and took the
next ones. Then they brought a big police
truck and took the last.
"I estimate they took 300 people. There is
no one left inside now,
just us security."
The offices of the
country's only independent election monitor, the
Zimbabwe Election Support
Network, were raided by intelligence officers and
files and computers were
removed.
Its chairman, Noel Kututwa, said that he and other senior
staff had
gone into hiding. A warrant shown during the raid said that the
authorities
were looking for subversive material which could be used to
overthrow the
government.
He also said they had confiscated
lists of names and addresses of
thousands of people who had been hired by
the network as observers for the
election.
There were reports
from central Zimbabwe that the rural Driefontein
hospital run by the Roman
Catholic Church was closed down on Wednesday after
men calling themselves
war veterans kidnapped patients and beat up medical
staff.
The
patients were suspected MDC members and had been admitted for
treatment
after suffering beatings. MDC welfare personnel who had been
trying to find
both the patients and the doctors from the hospital have
since been
detained.
Nelson Chamisa, an opposition spokesman, said: "This is
systematic
harassment. What is clear is that these people are desperate and
they can do
anything."
http://appablog.wordpress.com
April 25, 2008 – The Southern African Development
Community is negligent in
responding to Zimbabwe’s crisis and must begin
urgent political intervention
to stop the violence and resolve the four-week
electoral standoff. Freedom
House is deeply concerned about new reports of a
worsening humanitarian
crisis caused by government forces cracking down on
members of the political
opposition, civil society and ordinary
citizens.
Today, Zimbabwean security forces raided the offices of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, arresting hundreds of people and
seizing
files on the March 29 presidential election. In addition, similar
raids
occurred at the offices of the independent Zimbabwe Elections Support
Network, which performed a parallel vote tabulation of the
election.
The raids were the latest in a series of attacks that
opposition and
independent religious and human rights groups say has left at
least 10 dead,
hundreds wounded and displaced 3,000 families.
“The
regime of President Robert Mugabe is instigating this violence and
refusing
to respect the will of the Zimbabwean people,” said Daniel
Calingaert,
Freedom House deputy director of programs. “Nearly a month after
the
elections, any results that would be released are highly suspect and the
conditions for a credible second round do not exist at this
time.”
A recount from the presidential election is underway
in 23 constituencies,
even though the Zimbabwe Election Commission has yet
to release official
results of the presidential vote. A South African member
of the SADC
observation team dismissed the recount as “fatally
flawed.”
“SADC works on the important principle that African problems
require African
solutions,” said Calingaert. “Solutions to the Zimbabwean
crisis are needed
now, more than ever.”
Thomas O. Melia,
Freedom House deputy executive director, said South Africa
has a crucial
role to play in resolving the crisis.
“Successive South
African governments have said that the country ought to be
a permanent
member of the UN security council,” noted Melia. “Now is the
time for South
Africa to demonstrate that it is up to the challenge of
providing effective
leadership in a time of crisis in its immediate
neighborhood.”
Zimbabwe is ranked Not Free in the 2008
edition of Freedom in the World,
Freedom House’s survey of political rights
and civil liberties, and in the
2007 version of Freedom of the Press.
Newsweek
Southern Africa is paralyzed
by a hoary old drama—how to persuade an
independence leader to
go.
By Scott Johnson and John Barry | NEWSWEEK
May 5, 2008
Issue
Gangs loyal to Robert Mugabe have covertly rampaged across
Zimbabwe's
countryside for weeks. They wield axes and crowbars as well as
AK-47s; some
wear Zimbabwean military uniforms. Survivors tell of witnessing
awful
sights. A villager being lashed to the door of his house and set
afire.
Another who was draped in flaming plastic before the thugs torched
his
house, drenched his goats in fuel and ignited them, too.
On the
surface, Zimbabwe's meltdown seems to be proceeding at a stately
pace:
government officials say they need to recount results from the March
29
general elections, and every few days they release a revised total from
one
disputed constituency or another. But opposition supporters and much of
the
outside world recognize this as a sham—"If [Zimbabweans] had voted for
Mugabe, we would have the results" by now, Jendayi Frazer, the assistant
secretary of State for African Affairs, said last week—and with each passing
day resentments are hardening. The economy has ground to a halt. (In one
five-hour period last week, inflation climbed 5 percent.) And the thugs are
able to continue their dark work.
A region that has witnessed
unprecedented growth and political stability is
now consumed by an
all-too-familiar problem—how to persuade a Big Man to go.
"It's like the
last days of Mobutu," says opposition activist Simon Spooner.
It's a scary
analogy: by the time Mobutu Sese Seko ended his 30-year reign
over the
Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Zaire), the country had
sunk into
a civil war that would kill 4 million people at home and spread
across the
region.
Mugabe is not likely to leave gracefully. A leader in the bush
war that
overthrew white minority rule in 1980, he helped make the new
nation of
Zimbabwe a model for the rest of the continent. His transitional
government
included two white ministers from the previous regime; he made
education a
top national priority, and he helped turn Zimbabwe into one of
the most
agriculturally productive and stable countries in Africa. But he's
failed
his country the same way so many other African liberation leaders
failed
theirs—by seeing himself as indispensable. In 2000, to gain support,
Mugabe
began seizing land from white farmers and giving it over to
liberation-struggle veterans who knew nothing about raising food. Today the
country is starving, and the war vets have become regime enforcers.
If
anything, the fact that the March vote wasn't rigged outright was
surprising. "Six months ago people at State were saying there wasn't going
to be any significant change in Zimbabwe in this administration's tenure,"
says Michelle Gavin, a Zimbabwe expert with the Council on Foreign
Relations. Western poll monitors were barred from the country during the
March vote, but independent African observers were allowed—and many of them
were equipped with mobile-phone cameras, to transmit vote counts as soon as
they were posted. The coverage wasn't total, but it was good enough to keep
challenger Morgan Tsvangirai from being openly robbed.
While Frazer
was forceful in her comments last week, Washington knows that
only local
actors can show Mugabe the door. Zimbabwe's neighbors have been
reluctant to
challenge a man they used to idolize. But many do not want to
be dragged
down by some hoary decolonization drama. Mozambique, Namibia and,
until late
last week, Angola took a huge step by refusing to let a Chinese
freighter
enter their ports carrying nearly 80 tons of assault-rifle
ammunition,
mortar shells and grenades en route to Mugabe's security forces.
Last week
Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, raised the possibility that
his
country's troops might be used in Zimbabwe. "We will certainly consider
it
if asked," says a senior Tanzanian official who asked not to be named on
such a touchy subject. "If we get there, to a point where military action is
needed, if it's a multilateral project, then we'll do it. At the moment we
do not think that will be necessary."
There's one big obstacle: Thabo
Mbeki. South Africa's lame-duck president is
the most powerful actor in the
region, and so far he's resisted any calls to
get tough with Mugabe. Mark
Gevisser, Mbeki's biographer, says the two
leaders have had a deep personal
connection since the days when both were
struggling against white rule,
years after most other African countries had
achieved independence. "Mbeki
made a point of telling me that he considered
Mugabe to be a father figure,"
Gevisser says, adding that Mbeki (19 years
younger than Mugabe) has never
emerged from the shadow of his old mentor.
No one knows whether a
peaceful transition is possible. "It's going to be
difficult to choreograph,
very complicated—with one central question being
how to manage the security
forces," says Mark Bellamy, a longtime State
Department Africa hand now at
the Center for Strategic & International
Studies. Tsvangirai, who is
widely believed to have won the March vote, has
promised that Mugabe will be
shielded from prosecution if he steps down, but
Mugabe's senior security
officials have no such guarantee. "Some of these
guys are war criminals or
abusers of human rights at the very least," says
one well-placed Western
diplomat in Harare, asking not to be named on such a
sensitive topic. "They
definitely know that if Mugabe gets a golden
parachute they're not going to
get one, and they're doing everything they
can to keep him in there." For
now Mugabe's enforcers are standing tough.
NEWSWEEK has obtained a memo from
an internal briefing to a group of police
and intelligence officers by
Zimbabwe's deputy minister of Home Affairs. "We
are a Liberation Movement
and will not hand over power," it says. It speaks
for
itself.
MDC PRESS STATEMENT
25 April 008
The MDC is outraged and dismayed by the continued abuse of innocent
civilians by ZANU PF through the use of the Zimbabwe Republic
Police.
We note that as in previous cases such as Murambatsvina where
Zimbabweans
were displaced from their homes at the hands of the police on
the orders of
the Mugabe government it is mostly women and children that are
not only
exposed to the vagaries of the cold whether but also are having to
deal with
the social trauma that is inflicted on them as a result of the
abuses.
It should be noted that each time the ZANU PF leader, Robert
Mugabe makes
some inflammatory statements about his perceived enemies, it
has been
followed by a wave of violence in the country and we would want to
believe
that the current wave is no different to previous ones. We call on
ZANU PF
leaders especially their President, Robert Mugabe to issue a
condemnatory
statement and order a stop to violence
forthwith.
Today the ZRP raided Harvest House in Harare, the
Headquarters of MDC Morgan
Tsvangirai and indiscriminately arrested youths,
staff members and displaced
people from rural areas who had sought refuge in
the building. It will be
noted that all the displaced people are victims of
state sponsored violence
since the results of the March 29, 2008
Parliamentary elections were
announced.
Some of these people have had
the misfortune of having their homes, food,
clothes and other personal
belongings either burnt or destroyed by ZANU PF
agents and thugs. The
further assault on their right to seek refuge, smacks
of sheer cruelty and
unabated brutality.
The further raids on ZESN offices by the ZRP
speaks volumes of ZANU PF's
intention to silence voices and subvert the will
of the people expressed so
loudly in the March 2008 elections. It will be
noted that the MDC National
Council unequivocally resolved that the ZEC
should forthwith respect the
will of the people and dignity by immediately
releasing the results of the
Presidential Elections.
The use of
the ZRP and other states agencies to brutalize and harass
innocent
Zimbabweans whose only crime was to exercise their democratic right
is
unacceptable and is an affront to human dignity. The MDC calls upon the
ZRP
to behave in a manner consistent with a professional police force and
desist
from allowing it to be used as an instrument of oppression and terror
by the
regime of Robert Mugabe.
As the MDC led by Professor Arthur
Mutambara, we call on SADC to immediately
send a delegation to Zimbabwe to
investigate the human rights violations
that are taking place in the country
now. We further call upon SADC, African
Union and the rest of the
international family to assist Zimbabwe in all
possible manner so as to
avert an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. In the
meantime, we call upon
all human rights groups to urgently assist in
providing shelter and support
to all persons displaced by the political
violence.
Priscilla
Misihairabwi- Mushonga
Deputy Secretary General
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April
2008 12:54
BY TRUST MATSILELE
JOHANNESBURG – All people
identified with Zanu P(F)face a blockade at
the South African border by
civil and other organizations seeking to bar
them from entering the
country.
Speaking at a civic society meeting convened by the
Congress of South
Africa Trade Unions (COSATU) at Cosatu House last week
delegates agreed that
targeted sanctions against supporters of the military
junta ruling Zimbabwe
would be a step towards ending the country's
crisis.
Delegates also warned SADC and the Africa Union not to
continue
inviting the illegitimate Mugabe regime for International meetings
as they
were denying recognizing defeat they suffered last month at the
hands of the
MDC.
Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of COSATU,
said mobilisation for
massive demonstrations such as has never been seen
before was already
underway in all country's provinces that would see the
junta bowing to
demands.
"The demonstration we are planning for
May 10 will be a massive one
and it will take place concurrently in Cape
Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth,
Pretoria and Johannesburg," said
Vavi.
Addressing the meeting Elinor Sisulu of the Crisis in
Zimbabwe
Coalition lamented that the emergency had reached alarming levels
that
needed to be addressed as citizens were now facing a brutal environment
similar to that of 2002 elections.
"We have in our possession
documents highlighting meetings of the
Joint Operation Command, Chiefs,
Governors and also war veterans stating
that systematic attacks launched by
the Mugabe regime are under way and
should be completed soon," said
Sisulu.
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April 2008 06:27
Cashflow crisis also hits HIV
patients
HARARE
Scores of nongovernmental (NGO) and humanitarian
organisations are
threatened with collapse after Zimbabwe’s central bank
failed to release
money needed for their operational costs.
Cephas
Zinhumwe, Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of
Nongovernmental Organisations (NANGO), the national NGO umbrella body, said
the financial situation for his members was “desperate”.
The Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ) in September 2007 demanded that all
foreign currency
deposits of foreign funded NGOs and humanitarian
organisations were kept by
the central bank on their behalf. The
organisations then had to maintain
‘mirror’ accounts, which reflected the
amount of foreign currency in their
local banks, which was then reconciled
by the central bank.
Zinhumwe
said, when the programme was introduced, organisations would apply
to the
central bank to access foreign currency. Foreign embassies and United
Nations agencies were excluded from the RBZ’s foreign currency management of
accounts.
“Initially, it took about three days to get foreign currency
cleared by the
RBZ. As far as I know, it now takes more than three months
before being
cleared to use your money by the RBZ. Some of our member
organisations have
not been able to access their money since the beginning
of the year and they
say they are facing closure because they have not been
able to pay workers,
rentals and to run programmes for which they are
funded,” said Zinhumwe.
He said since last year, NGOs had tried, without any
success, to meet with
the RBZ Governor Gideon Gono.
[xhead]Situation is
grave
Zinhumwe said the RBZ strategy to manage the foreign currency had
exacerbated the foreign currency shortage and impacted negatively on an
already collapsing economy.
“Indications are that since that decision was
taken, foreign currency
inflows have reduced dramatically. Some
organisations are looking at the
option of opening off-shore accounts, but
there are very stringent
requirements that have to be met in order to get
such accounts. But the
situation is very grave. Another month or two of this
then NGOs will close
en masse,” he said.
Thabani Moyo, the Information
Officer for Crisis Coalition, a grouping of
pro-democracy organisations,
said the move was a deliberate attempt by the
government and the RBZ to
financially throttle NGOs.
“The government has for years accused the NGO
sector of supporting the MDC.
The same government tried two years ago to
shut down NGOs through the
proposed NGO Bill, which was never signed into
law,” Moyo said.
Moyo said in the run-up to the elections, Zanu (PF) had used
scarce foreign
currency reserves to bribe voters ahead of the poll.
“The
RBZ was responsible for the purchase of farming equipment and buses,
which
were used by the ruling Zanu (PF) to entice and bribe voters. The RBZ
cannot
use the people’s money to prop up the ruling party.”
Vukile Mkushi, a
programme officer for a civic society organisation that he
declined to name,
said he had not been paid since the beginning of 2008.
“By the end of April,
I would have exhausted all my savings because we are
now in the fourth month
without receiving a salary. My wife, who is paid in
local currency, has been
keeping the family going and I am getting
frustrated with the RBZ for
failing to give us our money,” he said.
The scarce availability of foreign
currency is also affecting people living
with HIV and AIDS.
[xhead]HIV
drugs in short supply
Lindiwe Mhunduru, the spokesperson for the country’s
largest medical aid
service provider, Cimas, said her organisation had
stopped supplying
antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for HIV positive
clients.
“The inability to get hard currency to import ARVs has in part
caused the
disruption. Some of the drugs that are manufactured locally were
in short
supply and we could not buy the quantities which we required,” she
said.
Mhunduru said foreign currency was needed to both import the drugs and
to
equip local manufacturers to ensure adequate supplies, while other ARV
drug
manufacturers had stopped production because of a government price
control
regime that forced companies to sell commodities at unrealistic
prices.
This, according to Mhunduru, had forced medical aid service providers
to
approach the government.
“We understand that medical aid societies and
service providers have set up
a task force which is preparing a paper
detailing foreign currency
requirements for pharmaceutical and other service
providers to be submitted
to the government.”
Reverend Maxwell Kapachawo,
Zimbabwe’s first religious leader to publicly
disclose his HIV status, said:
“My salary has not come in as one of the
people who work in the NGO sector
because of problems at the Reserve Bank.
“Now I am told that my medical aid
company cannot access foreign currency to
provide the life-saving (ARV)
drugs. The Reserve Bank should do all in its
power to provide foreign
currency so that ARVs are available at affordable
prices.”
Now I am
told that my medical aid company cannot access foreign currency to
provide
the life-saving antiretroviral drugs.
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April
2008 13:03
HARARE – The military junta ruling Zimbabwe claimed this
week that it
had recovered more than 200 000 hectares of formerly
white-owned land from
ruling party loyalists who had taken more than one
farm.
Minister of Land Reform, Didymus Mutasa, told State radio that
the
amount of land recovered from the ruling party loyalists was changing
all
the time. He said he would not know for some time how much land had been
finally recovered from those who grabbed more than they are allowed, but
that it would be redistributed to people who applied for land, but had so
far not received any.
The few white commercial farmers left on
their properties said
recently they could see no evidence that Cabinet
ministers, judges, bank
managers, senior army personnel and other leaders,
had abandoned any of the
farms they took. In fact, senior army officials are
scrambling for the
remaining 300 productive white-owned farms.
For
example, Police Assistant Commissioner Veterai this week stepped
up demands
on a farm in eastern Zimbabwe and told the white owners, Jessie
and Digby
Nesbitt and their family, they must leave the land immediately.
Veterai, who already has one farm, is ignoring a recent court order
prohibiting his confiscation of the farm and his illegal occupation of the
Nesbitts’ home.
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April 2008 13:54
ACDP SAYS THE AU AND
UN MUST INVESTIGATE REPORTS OF ASSAULT AND
TORTURE OF ZIMBABWEAN
CIVILIANS.
Rev Kenneth Meshoe, MP and President of the ACDP today
called on the
AU and UN to investigate reports of torture and assault of
Zimbabwean
civilians.
“The latest reports about the assault and
torture of known opposition
supporters in Zimbabwe warrant an immediate
investigation by both the
African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN). While
the ACDP supports calls
for the Zimbabwean crisis to be addressed by the UN
Security Council, we
nevertheless believe that in the light of the
atrocities committed by
militias comprising war veterans and members of the
Zanu-PF’s youth wing, an
immediate intervention must take place to stop the
suffering of innocent
people, whose only ‘crime’ was to exercise their
democratic right to vote
for a candidate and party of their choice.
The ACDP calls on the appointed AU mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis,
President Mbeki, to visit hospitals and clinics where tortured and
brutalized members of the opposition have been receiving medical treatment,
and then prevail on the Zimbabwean President to clamp down on groups and the
militia responsible for terrorizing innocent civilians.
The AU must
disqualify the 84 year old Mugabe who is an embarrassment
to the African
continent and take heed of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s appeal
for SADC leaders
to persuade Zimbabwean President to step down.
The ACDP supports calls
by the Human Rights Watch, a respected
non-governmental group that monitors
human rights across the globe, for the
African Union to step in immediately
to address the crisis and protect
civilians.”
For more
information please contact:
Rev Kenneth Meshoe, MP and President of
the ACDP: 082 962 5884
Released by Liziwe Ndalana
Media Liaison, ACDP Parliament
Tel 021 403 2284 or 072 199
30126
lndalana@parliament.gov.zaThis
e-mail address is being protected from
spambots, you need JavaScript enabled
to view it
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25
April 2008 12:59
HARARE - Veteran British human rights campaigner,
Peter Tatchell, is
preparing a case for a central London court to obtain an
arrest warrant and
extradition order against Robert Mugabe, according to
documents made
available this week.
His case against Mugabe, the
civilian head of the military junta
ruling Zimbabwe, is supported by
affidavits from three Zimbabwean torture
victims.
“They implicate
Mugabe in the authorisation and condonement of
torture,” Tatchell said,
adding: “I also have affidavits and reports from
human rights groups
attesting to the widespread use of torture with the
knowledge and consent of
the Zimbabwean government and its security and
defense forces.”
The
seasoned campaigner against Mugabe, Tatchell said he was seeking
legal
authority to be issued under Britain’s Criminal Justice Act 1988,
which
outlaws torture, and the UN Convention Against Torture 1984.
“If an
arrest warrant and extradition order is granted, it would mean
Mugabe could
be arrested and extradited to Britain from any of the 100-plus
countries
with which Britain has an extradition treaty,” he said. Those
countries
include Malaysia, South Africa, and Thailand, “all of which he has
visited
recently,” he added.
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April
2008 13:38
HARARE - The losing Zanu (PF) Senate candidate for Gutu,
General
Vitalis Zvinavashe, has blamed Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe,
for the
party’s poor showing in Masvingo Province after a recount of ballots
in his
constituency failed to change the party’s fortunes.
The
former army commander also urged fellow Zanu (PF) candidates at a
counting
centre in the province to live with the reality that they had
indeed lost
the elections to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) led by
Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zvinavashe, a former army commander who once vowed
he would never
salute Tsvangirai, spoke on Wednesday while addressing Zanu
House of
Assembly and local council election candidates during the
recounting of
ballots for three constituencies at Gutu rural district
council offices in
Masvingo.
“There is no need to fight over these
results. We must accept the
reality that we have lost these elections to the
MDC. What is important is
to live together in peace, both losers and
winners. We do not want violence
in this area. We are relatives,” he
said.
Zvinavashe startled election officials and agents when he
publicly
suggested that Zanu (PF) candidates in Masvingo had lost because of
the
party’s presidential candidate - Mugabe.
“Most of us lost these
elections not because we are not popular in our
constituencies. We lost
these harmonised elections because of one man.
People rejected us because we
were campaigning for Mugabe. People in
Masvingo have rejected him and we
became collateral damage. There is no
reason to fight with the MDC over this
election. The real problem is that
man not us,” he said. - Agencies
The Zimbabwean
Friday, 25 April 2008 13:14
HARARE – The MDC
government-in-waiting has written formally to the
Police Commissioner and
the Commander of the armed forces. In the public
interest and for the
record, these letters are reproduced here in full.
Deliberate failure
by ZRP to carry out its constitutional duty
24 April
2008
For The Attention of Police Commissioner-General Augustine
Chihuri
Dear Sir
RE: DELIBERATE FAILURE BY POLICE TO CARRY
OUT ITS CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY
AND SELECTIVE ARRESTS AND PROSECUTION OF MEMBERS
OF THE MOVEMENT FOR
DEMOCRATIC CHANGE
In the run up to the
harmonised elections, the Zimbabwe Republic
Police addressed meetings around
the country calling for peace in the run
up, during and after the
elections.
To a large extent, these meetings had the desired effect in
the run up
and during the elections. Relative peace was maintained. The
Police should
be commended for the fine effort. Alas, the post election
period has
witnessed violence of no mean proportion amounting to a
humanitarian crisis
in Zimbabwe.
The Police have turned a blind eye
to the violence perpetrated on a
defenceless population by the Zimbabwe
Defence forces and Zanu (PF) youth
and militia.
We have it on good
record that you have ordered members of the Police
not to interfere in the
orgy of violence perpetrated on the civilian
population. It is clear that
members of the Zimbabwe Defence forces and Zanu
(PF) youth and militia are
immune from arrest and persecution despite their
brazen unlawful
conduct.
Your conduct is in clear violation of the constitution which
obliges
the Police, in terms of section 93 thereof, to preserve the internal
security of Zimbabwe and maintain law and order therein. You are ultimately
responsible and liable for the failure in carrying out this constitutional
responsibility.
We hereby demand that you order the Police to carry
out their duties
in accordance with the constitution of Zimbabwe and without
fear or favour.
In particular, we demand that members of the Zimbabwe
defence forces and
Zanu (PF) youth and militia who have offended against the
law be brought to
book.
It is sad that the people who are being
arrested, members of the
Movement for Democratic Change, are victims not
perpetrators of the
violence.
We look forward to the immediate
restoration of the Civilian authority
by the Police in Zimbabwe as a
people's force not an organ of Zanu (PF).
Yours faithfully,
Hon Tendai Biti, MP, MDC Secretary General
Unlawful Deployment
of Units of Zimbabwe Defence
24th April 2008
For the
Personal Attention of General Constantine Chiwenga
Ref: Unlawful
Deployment of Units of Zimbabwe Defence
Section 96 of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe provides for defence forces
for the purpose of
defending Zimbabwe.
We note with concern the active and extensive
deployment of units of
the defence forces in the whole country, particularly
the rural areas in the
aftermath of the harmonised elections (whose
presidential result is still
awaited).
There is no internal danger
posed to the security of Zimbabwe
necessitating the deployment. Such
deployment is not in support of civilian
authority, but is meant to subvert
and subjugate the will of the people.
We are in receipt of detailed
reports of incidences of harassment,
assault, torture, murder, burning of
homesteads perpetrated by units of
defence forces or Zanu (PF) militia,
commanded, and led by the said units.
This inhuman and unmilitary behaviour
is punishment for the people having
exercised their democratic right to vote
for the candidate of their choice
as President - Morgan Tsvangirai.
During the orgy of violence people are brazenly told they should vote
for
Robert Mugabe in the presidential run-off (although results are not yet
announced).
The conduct of the defence forces against their own
innocent fathers
and mothers is a callous and contemptuous disregard for
their democratic
right to choose a leader of their choice and a clear breach
of your
constitutional office. As Commander, Zimbabwe Defence Forces, you
are
personally and constitutionally liable for the mayhem occasioned by the
unlawful deployment.
Normal civilian life has seriously been
disrupted. Zimbabwe faces a
humanitarian crisis on account of your serious
constitutional breaches. The
Zimbabwe Defence Forces has become terror
units, not defenders of Zimbabwe.
We demand that you immediately
rescind the unlawful deployment with
the consequent result that all units of
the Zimbabwe Defence Forces return
to barracks.
Yours
faithfully,
Hon Tendai Biti MP, MDC Secretary General
CC:
Commander of Zimbabwe National Army, Lieutenant V. Sibanda
Commander of
the Air Force of Zimbabwe, Air Marshall P. Shiri
Mail and Guardian
Donna Bryson | Johannesburg, South
Africa
26 April 2008 10:33
Resolving the thorny question of Robert Mugabe's fate may
hold the key to
breaking the impasse over Zimbabwe's disputed presidential
vote.
Mugabe has not himself suggested he would be
willing to
step aside if he were granted immunity for alleged human rights
abuses and
allowed to fade into comfortable
retirement.
But others in Africa have made that case
for him -- saying
that as a one-time lion of African liberation he deserves
a dignified exit,
and that other African strongmen have followed that
path.
Recent flexibility within his own party could
signal
movement toward such an arrangement. The strongest sign has been a
proposal
by Mugabe's Zanu-PF to share power with the
opposition.
The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change rejects
that, saying its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won outright. But
the Zanu-PF
overture hints at a dawning realisation in the Mugabe camp that
it has lost
its iron grip on power.
As the
political camps circle each other, election
officials have yet to release
the vote results, and the opposition says the
delay is part of a plot by
Mugabe to cling to power while his people suffer
international isolation and
an economy spiralling out of control.
Increasingly, it
appears that unless Mugabe is assured of
a future, his people won't have
one.
The top United States envoy on Africa, Jendayi
Frazer,
told reporters in Southern Africa this week that Tsvangirai had won
the
right to lead any unity government.
As to
Mugabe, she said: "If he does the right thing, he
should be allowed to stay
in Zimbabwe with the dignity of a former
president."
A proposal that Zanu-PF and the
Movement for Democratic
Change share power in a government headed by Mugabe
surfaced in an unlikely
quarter on Wednesday: a column in Zimbabwe's
state-run Herald newspaper
usually devoted to denunciations of the
opposition.
On Thursday, the column was back to
accusing the Movement
for Democratic Change of working "to frustrate land
reforms and protect the
interests of the minority landed classes", and
called the unity government
proposal unfeasible.
But it is significant that the debate is being played out
in Zanu-PF's
mouthpiece.
The idea of a coalition government -- akin
to the solution
that helped calm postelection violence in Kenya earlier this
year -- seems
to have galvanised diplomacy.
In
Zambia on Thursday, a government spokesperson said a
national unity
government in neighbouring Zimbabwe could be a "welcome
decision" if it can
unite the country. The Zimbabwean opposition has called
on Zambian President
Levy Mwanawasa to help mediate their nation's crisis.
US envoy Frazer, who helped mediate the Kenyan solution,
met on Thursday
with officials in South Africa, where President Thabo Mbeki
has been a key
mediator in Zimbabwe. On Friday she was to visit Zambia and
planned a stop
in Angola as part of her Zimbabwe diplomacy.
At
independence, Mugabe was hailed for campaigning for
racial reconciliation,
and for bringing education and health to millions.
Today, he regularly denounces whites -- at independence
celebrations last
week, he accused them of plotting to re-colonise the
country.
Economic gains that had made Zimbabwe the
region's
breadbasket have been reversed. Many of its people depend on
handouts after
the collapse of the agriculture sector blamed on the
seizures, often violent
and at Mugabe's orders, of farmland from
whites.
Mugabe claimed the seizures begun in 2002 were
to benefit
poor blacks, but many of the farms went to his Zanu-PF cronies.
Political
dissenters, meanwhile, face jail and
beatings.
"The man invokes conflicting emotions,"
Tsvangirai said in
a recent interview with the Associated Press. "The
transformation he's gone
through, from hero to villain, is
unprecedented."
Mugabe, though, isn't a villain to
everyone. He holds
fellow African leaders in thrall with fiery rhetoric at
regional meetings.
The rhetoric also plays well on the streets across
Africa.
Tsvangirai has been traveling in Africa in
recent days,
ostensibly rallying support. But he also has met leaders like
Mozambique's
Afonso Dhlakama, head of the former rebel movement Renamo now
in the
political opposition. Dhlakama urged Tsvangirai to offer Mugabe
guarantees
he would not be prosecuted.
In Nigeria,
Tsvangirai met former President Olusegun
Obasanjo at the Nigerian leader's
chicken farm.
Obasanjo first came to power through the
military in 1976,
after his own predecessor in the ruling junta was killed
in a coup attempt.
He stepped down three years later after civilian
elections -- becoming the
first after a long series of Nigerian junta
leaders to voluntarily hand
power to an elected
president.
He ran as a civilian in 1999, and was hailed
as the man
who restored democracy to Nigeria. Eight years later, he tried
and failed to
overturn constitutional term limits, then saw his anointed
successor elected
in a vote marred by fraud
allegations.
In Washington Wednesday, State Department
spokesperson
Sean McCormack said the United States would welcome the
intercession of
Nigeria or any other African nation with influence in
Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai told reporters in Nigeria he
respected Mugabe
as a liberation leader. Perhaps one who deserves a cushy
retirement on a
farm somewhere in Zimbabwe. - Sapa-AP
Zim Daily
Saturday, April 26 2008 @ 03:27 AM BST
Contributed by:
Editor
HARARE - The State-controlled Herald newspaper, fearing that
it could be
sued into poverty, has agreed to issue an embarrassing apology
to the MDC
and to the British government admitting it cooked up fake
documents.
The Herald has given assurances that it will
apologize, probably in tomorrow’s
issue, for its shameful lies that the MDC
was planning to give back land to
whites, recruit generals from Australia,
give control of the RBZ to Germans,
and that Morgan Tsvangirai was
discussing military invasion of Zimbabwe with
help from Britain.
MDC
secretary general Tendai Biti, alleged to have authored the document,
mounted legal action against the Herald, threatening to sue the fledgling
State publication into poverty.
The British embassy in Harare, which
also rubbished the alleged
correspondence between Gordon Brown and
Tsvangirai, has also addressed a
letter to Herald editor Pikirayi Deketeke,
complaining about gutter
reporting at the newspaper.
The Herald has
now confessed that it cooked up the stories and documents and
has pleaded
for an out of court settlement.
According to a le, from Biti’s lawyers,
Mbidzo, Muchadehama & Makoni, the
MDC secretary general said: “The fact
that the (Biti) document did not
emanate from Tendai Biti or the MDC was
brought to your attention. This
notwithstanding, you went ahead and
published stories or articles purporting
that the document was authored by
Tendai Biti and MDC.”
The lawyers also stated that the forgery was so
sloppy that it was difficult
for any reasonable person to assume they had
emanated from Biti.
“They (MDC) say that the document was so poorly drafted,
concocted and so
unintelligible (that it could not) have possibly emanated
from them or their
offices,” the lawyers said.
Fearing litigation
that could bankrupt the State publication, currently
teetering on the verge
of collapse owing to a record low print run, the
newspaper pleaded for an
out of court settlement.
The newspaper is now set to issue a front page
apology to Biti and to Brown
to avert litigation.
“It’s an
embarrassing episode for us,” said a senior staffer at the Herald.
“But then
you can’t blame PD (Pikirayi Deketeke), because its one of those
documents
he is given by George (Charamba) to unquestioningly publish
without
challenge.”
The Age, Australia
Chris
McGreal
April 27, 2008
EACH day, Edwin Makotore's wife and two
children hit the streets, selling
small items such as fruit to earn cash so
that he can pay for the privilege
of working.
The 38-year-old is the
only one in the family with a full-time job, but by
the time he has met the
soaring cost of travelling to his job in a
supermarket, for wages wildly out
of step with the 165,000% inflation rate,
Mr Makotore is out of
pocket.
With only one in five adults in employment, however, a job is a
far more
precious commodity than money in Zimbabwe, and Mr Makotore is not
going to
let it go.
"One day things will get better and then it will
be good to have a job," he
says. "It's like an investment; I pay to keep my
job because I will make
money out of it one day. Until then someone makes
money out of me."
For now, Mr Makotore is a loser in an economy shrinking
faster than any
other country's. But some are doing well out of the
hyperinflation. Winners
include those whose mortgages were reduced to less
than a single,
near-worthless banknote in months, but the real beneficiaries
can be found
in Borrowdale Brooke, an upmarket Harare suburb that is a mass
of
construction and palatial new houses.
Besides President Robert
Mugabe's palace, ruling Zanu-PF apparatchiks and
generals have set
themselves up in houses none could afford on their
official
salaries.
Some have become extravagantly rich by manipulating the vast
gap between the
official and black-market exchange rates to plunder
Zimbabwe's dwindling
hard currency, and buy new Mercedes-Benz cars for about
$A50 while the
country's manufacturing sector collapses for want of
money.
The mansions have grown as Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by about
half over
the past decade. Export earnings have dropped from about $US4.6
billion a
year to about $1.5 billion. The manufacturing sector has halved
and revenue
from the tourist industry has fallen by 75%. The currency has
been driven
down recently by Zimbabwe's central bank, which has been turning
to the
black market in a desperate search for US dollars to pay the
bills.
Zimbabwean economist John Robertson said that the Government had
also been
plundering hard currency accounts held by businesses to pay off
its election
campaign. Last year the Government introduced drastic controls
to try to
curb raging inflation, but the measures
failed.
GUARDIAN
Catholic
Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
26 April 2008
Posted to the
web 26 April 2008
Abuja
African religious leaders have reminded
President Mugabe and his government
that they have a specific responsibility
to restore peace and stability to
the country and to respect the human
rights of all citizens.
The leaders said they were profoundly distressed
and deeply disturbed that
after years of extreme socio-political and
economic difficulties, violence
is imminent in Zimbabwe.
The
African Council of Religious Leaders (ACRL-Religions for Peace),
co-chaired
by Catholic Arrchbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, and the
Grand
Mufti of Uganda Sheikh Mubajje called for a just and peaceful solution
to
the present crisis occasioned by delayed declaration of presidential
results
of the March 29 elections.
"ACRL-Religions for Peace calls for a more
pro-active, positive and
determined approach from the African Union and all
African leaders in the
face of the imminent catastrophe in Zimbabwe, which
has almost reached
crisis levels. All hands must be on deck to banish for
good the unfortunate
impression that in Africa, many leaders are not
interested in the democratic
dispensation their citizenry wishes to
prevail."
In a statement issued Wednesday, ACRL-Religions for Peace also
urged
Zimbabweans to continue the peaceful agitation for their rights, to
seek
political solutions to the current situation, and to stand together to
the
end, but to never resort to violence.
The organisation further
called on the international community to stop the
transfer of weapons
Zimbabwe, adding that what the country needs at this
moment from the rest of
the world is full and effective support for every
effort or move to reach a
peaceful solution.
BBC
12:15 GMT, Friday, 25 April 2008 13:15 UK
A POINT OF VIEW
By Clive James
People might want the world to intervene but
it's not entirely clear
there is a world, says Clive James.
Kevin Rudd, the prime minister of my homeland, Australia, covered
himself
with glory early this month by telling the Chinese leadership that
China's
behaviour in Tibet raised human rights issues.
He said that
Australia recognised China's sovereignty over Tibet,
which you might think
was still an issue in itself for some Tibetans, but at
least he had said
something. And he said it in Mandarin so the Chinese
couldn't mistake his
meaning.
He sent another message, in English this time, by means of
British
journalists to whom he entrusted the warning that Australia would
not
tolerate the idea of the blue-suited Chinese security heavies who
accompany
the Olympic torch actually doing anything about security when the
torch
passed through Australia. They could model their blue suits - that
would be
it.
Put these two messages together and they added
up to something the
Chinese could understand, even if they didn't like it.
Liberal in the best
sense, this clarity of voice was especially welcome at a
time when, back in
Australia, Mr Rudd's celebrated Summit - with a capital
"s" - was producing
at least one suggestion that didn't sound very liberal
at all.
Mr Rudd's Summit is billed as a meeting of all the best
minds in the
country to decide what policies Australia should adopt next, Mr
Rudd's own
party apparatus having apparently neglected to think of any
during their 11
years out of power.
It seems that at least one
of these minds has decided that any
Australians who are deemed
insufficiently eco-friendly should have their
citizenship withdrawn.
Speaking as one who might very well fail to meet the
criteria of
eco-friendliness - I used power tools to build my windmill - I
could be a
candidate for withdrawn citizenship.
The proponents of this
initiative have not yet said what will happen
to those whose citizenship
gets withdrawn, but in the event of a resolution
that they be deported, I am
rather glad to have deported myself already. Mr
Rudd has not bound himself
to any proposals that might be agreed on by his
Summit talking-shop beyond a
promise to take them under advisement.
Instructions to the
sea
But the possibility that at least some of the best minds might
be
talking illiberal tripe must have struck him already, so it's a relief to
find that he has talked turkey to the Chinese. Not all of the turkey,
perhaps, but as much of the turkey as can usefully be talked without a
threat to intervene effectively against Chinese government policies, which
would be a task beyond even the combined ingenuity of Australia's best
minds.
When we come to the question of Zimbabwe, things get
harder, and
precisely because in Zimbabwe's case an effective intervention
looks a bit
less impossible than giving instructions to the sea. Economic
sanctions, for
example, might work, even in the face of Mr Mugabe's
time-tested capacity to
pass any imposed hardships along to his increasingly
impoverished people.
In September last year Gordon Brown
published an article in the
Independent in which he indicated that Britain
was the second biggest donor
to Zimbabwe's relief funds, but might not
continue to be so if Mr Mugabe did
not relinquish power. Mr Brown also said
that, as far as he was concerned,
if Mr Mugabe was present at the upcoming
EU-Africa summit then he, Mr Brown,
might have to be absent.
Mr
Brown's feelings were clear enough, but as a call to action they
have been
somewhat clouded by his later exhortations that the world must do
something.
By the world he apparently means all the nations that have
condemned Mr
Mugabe's reluctance to let go.
In this case, however, it isn't at
all clear that the world can be
said to exist. The world only partly
includes South Africa, for example. To
their credit, the South African
courts have put a stop to the Chinese
ship-load of small arms heading for
Zimbabwe, small arms which Mr Mugabe
might well have employed to influence
those who have voted against him
already and thus ensure that they would be
less ready to do so next time.
But the president of South Africa, Mr Mbeki,
has still not told Mr Mugabe
that it's all over.
Everybody
suspects
This reluctance can only encourage Mr Mugabe's apparent
conviction
that it isn't all over. Similarly, alas, the UN has so far
offered little
beyond an assurance that it will supply observers and helpers
for a new
election, or a run-off for the old one, or whatever the event
might be
called. But everybody knows that there has already been an election
and
everybody suspects that Mr Mugabe lost it. If that were not so, Mr
Mugabe
would have announced the result.
So we are in a
condition where everybody suspects, but not everybody
says. That still gives
Mr Mugabe room to believe that the time has not yet
arrived when he must
deport himself to somewhere else in the world and end
his life in
poverty.
For indeed there are people abroad who think that Mr
Mugabe never
stole anything and that it is racism to say that he did.
According to them,
Mr Smith's white government stole everything, and then
the white farmers who
stayed on in Zimbabwe stole everything again, and all
that Mr Mugabe ever
did was take it back, stealing from the rich to give to
the poor. They are
rather stuck, though, with the question of how he
contrived to make the poor
even poorer.
Still, even while
waiting for the world to unite on this issue, Mr
Brown comes out looking
determined. It hasn't been an easy fortnight for
him, because the best minds
on his staff decided that it would be a wise
move for him to visit America
at the same time as the Pope.
The Pope arrived in a large aircraft
supplied by Alitalia and
Britain's prime minister should have arrived in a
large aircraft supplied by
BA. But BA had no spare aircraft, only a mountain
of spare luggage left over
from the Terminal 5 triumph. So Mr Brown arrived
in America in a charter
aircraft and cut the kind of figure the British
press strangely most likes
to report on: the British leader being outshone
by any other leader.
It's true that Tony Blair used to be harder to
outshine. But Mr Brown
also faced the problem that the Americans not only
agreed with him about
Zimbabwe, they had already spoken out even more
roundly. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice had called Mugabe's regime a
disgrace and even Mr Bush,
putting two and two together and getting the
right result for once, had
concluded that his chosen honest broker, Mr
Mbeki, had not done enough
brokering.
From that, you would
think that Mr Mugabe would have had the tactical
sense to identify the US as
the number one enemy of his regime. After all,
everybody else blames America
for everything. But Mr Mugabe - and this is
almost a source of pride -
continues to blame Britain. The awkward thing,
however, about Britain being
placed first on the despot's list of villains
is that the onus of action is
also placed on Britain.
What should the action be? I wish I knew.
This week my website got a
letter from a citizen of Zimbabwe who no longer
lives there but would
clearly like to live there again. He said some nice
things about an article
I had written in favour of the Palestinians' desire
for their own state, and
how a policy of indiscriminate suicide-bombing
could only ensure that they
would never get it.
Brown
message
On the strength of my analysis, which he agreed with
although he had
never been to the Middle East, he asked me to write
something about Zimbabwe
before it was too late. Well, I've never been to
Zimbabwe, and even if I
had, I doubt I could write anything that would
affect the course of events
to even the smallest degree. But I feel obliged
to have an opinion, as we
all do. Just imagine the kind of courage that it
would take to vote against
Mr Mugabe all over again, and try not having an
opinion about that.
My opinion about Zimbabwe, far from being
original, is pretty much the
same as Mr Brown's opinion. I have been
following Mr Brown's statements of
policy with care, not as if my life
depended on them, but as if the life of
my desperate correspondent from
Zimbabwe would depend on them if he were
still there. I think I can see what
Mr Brown is after - he is trying to send
a message to anyone in the
political class in Zimbabwe who is fearless
enough to realise that there is
a better chance of the aid money being sent
in if Mr Mugabe is sent
out.
In the absence of a united world, which can only mean the
armed force
that the UN has conspicuously not yet mentioned, there is no
other kind of
intervention available except a promise of hard currency to
supplant a
currency which inflation has turned to liquid mud. To promise
that, and to
promise that Zimbabwe can't have the aid money until Mr Mugabe
takes off.
Where he goes to is a separate question, and less
important. Where do
we go, we deported ones who have been stripped of our
citizenship for
capital crimes, eco-negligence in my case, the wilful
destruction of his own
nation in the case of Mr Mugabe?
There's
always somewhere. Idi Amin, now a mere memory, never faced
justice in
Uganda. He faced it in a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, not
far from the
Sands Hotel, where he had spent the last years of his life
finding out that
no matter how much money you steal from your people, it
can't buy you
immortality.
Omnipotence, yes, but only for a time, and Robert
Mugabe's time has
come. All we have to do is get him to agree. Hence my
message to my
correspondent from Zimbabwe, whose friends are still there to
face whatever
happens next: good luck to them, and I only wish that they
could depend on
us.