africasia
03/04/2008 09:10 HARARE, April 2 (AFP)
Zimbabweans waited anxiously Thursday for an
end to a deafening official
silence over the outcome of presidential
elections after the opposition took
control of parliament.
The
electoral commission wrapped up final results on the parliamentary
contest
in the early hours, in which President Robert Mugabe's ruling
Zimbabwe
African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) lost its
majority to the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
State media said Mugabe
now faces the likelihood of a run-off in the
presidential contest against
his arch-rival MDC chief Morgan Tsvangirai, who
Mugabe recently pledged
would never rule in his lifetime.
Presidential candidates were due to
meet Thursday with electoral commission
officials to witness the
verification of ballots results, which were
expected to be announced at the
very latest by the end of Friday, commission
sources said.
Frustrated
with the silence from the commission, the MDC pre-emptively
released its own
results on Wednesday indicating that Tsvangirai had won the
presidency
outright with more than 50 percent of votes.
While Mugabe's government
was quick to condemn the announcement, diplomatic
sources indicated
intensive behind-the-scenes negotiations were underway to
ensure a smooth
exit for the veteran leader after three decades in power.
The MDC's
secretary-general Tendai Biti told a press conference in Harare on
Wednesday
that Tsvangirai had won 50.2 percent of votes against 43.8 percent
for
Mugabe.
"Put simply he has won this election ... Morgan Richard
Tsvangirai is the
next president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, without a
run-off."
However the state-run Herald newspaper was laying the ground
for a second
round, predicting that Tsvangirai would "fall far short" of the
total needed
for an outright victory and that "a run-off appears the most
likely
outcome".
In the parliamentary contest, the MDC won 109 seats
against 97 for ZANU-PF.
An independent candidate, former information
minister Jonathan Moyo, also
retained his seat in the 210-member
chamber.
The situation is slightly complicated by a split in MDC ranks,
with 10 of
the newly-elected lawmakers belonging to a faction at odds with
Tsvangirai.
Three candidates died in the build-up to the polls and
elections in their
constituencies will take place at a later
date.
With 84-year-old Mugabe's grip on power starting to loosen,
diplomatic
sources said there was a concerted effort to persuade him to
stand down with
dignity after a 28-year rule which began at
independence.
Edgar Tekere, a one-time cabinet minister who is now one of
the president's
arch critics, feared that Mugabe would still try and cling
to power.
"They (ZANU-PF) have lost control, and so has Mugabe, if he in
not trying to
resort to to his habitual tricks of stealing the vote," Tekere
told AFP.
"I hope that he does not try that as that will be absolutely
foolish and
plunge us into chaos."
The economy of Zimbabwe has been
in meltdown since the start of the decade,
with inflation now standing at
over 100,000 percent and unemployment at
beyond 80 percent. Even basic
foodstuffs such as bread are now in scarce
supply.
africasia
03/04/2008 08:18 NAIROBI, April 3 (AFP)
The delay in Zimbabwe's presidential
election results is unpleasantly
familiar but a Kenya-style crisis could be
averted by the run-off system,
Kenya's Standard newspaper said
Thursday.
"Runoff Offers Hope of Popular Mandate," was the headline of
the first
editorial to be published in Kenya on the elections in Zimbabwe,
which took
place on Saturday.
"Yes, Zimbabwe is at a familiar tipping
point," said The Standard, Kenya's
second daily in terms of
circulation.
Veteran president Robert Mugabe, whose party lost control of
parliament in
the polls, was under pressure by the opposition and the
international
community Thursday to announce the outcome of the presidential
poll.
The delay has fueled suspicions that the 84-year-old leader was
seeking
tamper with the results and cling to the seat he has held since
Zimbabwe
gained independence from Britain in 1980.
Kenya's worst
post-independence political crisis erupted when delays in
vote-tallying for
the December 27 presidential poll saw incumbent president
Mwai Kibaki pip
pre-election frontrunner Raila Odinga to retain the top job.
Odinga
accused the 76-year-old Kibaki of rigging the results, sparking
nationwide
riots that swiftly deteriorated into a cycle of ethnic killings.
The
violence left at least 1,500 dead and hundreds of thousands
displaced.
"Unlike Kenya's first-past-the-post system, which allows few
options for
dealing with a close vote other than the courts or the streets,
Zimbabwe's
two-round runoff system could be the mechanism that forces a
relatively
peaceful transition," The Standard said in its
editorial.
"There is a lesson here for Kenya," the paper said.
Reuters
Thu 3 Apr 2008, 8:18
GMT
HARARE, April 3 (Reuters) - Results from an election for Zimbabwe's
upper
house of parliament are expected on Thursday, state media said, but
there
was no word on the vital presidential outcome.
"The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission has said the results of the senatorial
elections will
be announced today," ZBC state radio said. The senate has
powers to block
legislation from the lower house, where President Robert
Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party has lost control for the first time since
independence.
It is with
considerable, but not unreserved, optimism that I write today
because the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has finally completed the
announcement
of the House of Assembly results. The final tally is historic
because for
the first time in 28 years Zanu PF has lost control of the House
of
Assembly. Of the 210 seats contested Zanu PF won 97 seats, the MDC
(Tsvangirai) 99, the MDC (Mutambara) 10 and an independent 1. The remaining
3 seats will require by elections because candidates contesting those seats
died (of natural causes) during the election. All 3 are likely to be won by
either the MDC (Tsvangirai) or ourselves, the MDC (Mutambara).
The
tortuous process implemented by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)
this
week to announce the results is unacceptable. Four days after the
closure of
the polls we are nowhere near receiving all of the results. I
knew at 4am on
Sunday morning, 9 hours after the polls had closed, that I
had won the
Khumalo Senatorial seat. I was formally declared a duly elected
member of
the Senate at 12.30pm Sunday by the Constituency Elections
Officer, in terms
of the Electoral Act. I won by such a wide majority (1944
votes) that there
was never any prospect of the result being challenged.
Despite that, four
days on my election has still not been announced by the
ZEC.
The same
applies to the all important Presidential race. The Herald
curiously
appeared to have the results of this race yesterday because it
announced
confidently that no candidate is likely to get the absolute
majority
required to win. The MDC (Tsvangirai) responded by announcing its
own
result, based on original polling station returns, giving Morgan
Tsvangirai
an absolute majority of 50,3%. I cannot comment on how accurate
that is and
note that Robyn Dixon writing in the LA Times this morning says
that the MDC
(Tsvangirai) made an error in calculation and that on their own
figures
Morgan Tsvangirai's tally is less than the 50% required.
However whether
the final tally in the Presidential race is 49% or 50,3%
this is in fact
irrelevant because all that lower figure means is that we
will have to wait
a further 3 weeks to see the end of Robert Mugabe's rule.
It is obvious that
all democrats must rally around the candidacy of Morgan
Tsvangirai in the
run off and if we all do then Robert Mugabe stands to be
annihilated and
indeed humiliated. Not only will he face a single opponent
but all the
momentum is now with the MDC (I use that word in the collective
sense).
Robert Mugabe has already gerrymandered, has already given out all
the
taxpayers' tractors and ploughs and has already tried to use food as
weapon.
In other words he has nothing further to bribe or intimidate the
electorate
with. They rejected these methods in the general election and
there is no
doubt they will reject them even more forcefully in the run off.
However
I hope that there will now be some sober reflection in the MDC
(Tsvangirai).
The sad reality is that their failure to agree on a coalition
has undermined
the opposition's victory. In at least 8 House of Assembly
constituencies we
handed victory to Zanu PF by dividing the vote. In several
others we only
narrowly avoided doing the same again. At the same time many
of the
opposition's best MPs such as Gibson Sibanda, Welshman Ncube, Paul
Temba
Nyathi, and Trudy Stevenson lost and will not be in the new
Parliament. We
have lost their experience, integrity and expertise -
qualities we will
sorely need as we seek to rebuild Zimbabwe and to turn
Parliament into a
genuinely democratic institution.
But most seriously in the Presidential
vote the failure to agree the
coalition agreement, so painstakingly
negotiated by many of us, has opened
up the possibility of a rerun which
would have been impossible had the 7% of
voters who voted for the MDC and
the candidate it endorsed, Simba Makoni,
voted for Morgan
Tsvangirai.
In short the MDC (Tsvangirai) must acknowledge that it has
enjoyed a pyrrhic
victory in many respects. All is not lost as we can still
win the
Presidential election in the rerun. However it is now incumbent upon
the MDC
(Tsvangirai) to build a broad and effective coalition. For this to
be
achieved it must be prepared to bring into its team some of those who
lost
in the House of Assembly election and who have so much to offer
Zimbabwe. It
must also be prepared to accommodate some of the legitimate
policy concerns
expressed by those of us in the MDC
(Mutambara).
Senator David Coltart
Bulawayo
3 April
2008.
Toronto Star
Mugabe
cronies hold top posts in industry, mining, banking and armed forces
Apr
03, 2008 04:30 AM
Olivia Ward
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER
In Zimbabwe,
all ears are to the ground awaiting President Robert Mugabe's
decision on
whether to give up power peacefully if opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai
is confirmed as the winner of the presidential poll.
But even without a
military backlash, Tsvangirai will have a difficult job
turning the page on
one of the most ruinous dictatorships in modern history
without
bloodshed.
"If you look at the banking sector, mining, every kind of
production and
land redistribution you find the people who have benefited
are mostly
cronies closest to Mugabe," says Gabriel Shumba, executive
director of the
Zimbabwean Exiles Forum.
"They're likely to be losing
power in the next days or weeks. Making sure
that happens peacefully will be
a monumental task for (Tsvangirai's)
Movement for Democratic
Change."
Experts on Zimbabwe say that although the core of Mugabe's
supporters in the
ruling ZANU-PF party are old ideological comrades from his
independence
struggle days, others may fight to preserve the wealth and
influence they've
accumulated during the autocratic leader's 28 years in
power.
Members of Mugabe's notorious security forces have prominent roles
in
Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank and Grain Marketing Board as well as the
Electoral
Supervisory Commission, which is a crucial factor in the current
poll.
Since 1987, corruption scandals have been gathering steam in
Zimbabwe. They
had a dramatic surge after 2002, reaching into the country's
crumbling
private sector. Grain, housing, timber, aircraft and water
scandals followed
one another at a steady pace.
But one of the worst
examples of cronyism, experts say, was the
redistribution of white-owned
land, which benefited Mugabe's allies and
government officials but left much
of the 12 million-strong country close to
starvation. Reclaiming that land
will be a volatile process.
"Zimbabwe will be a big tangle to undo when
Mugabe leaves," says economist
Craig Richardson, author of The Collapse of
Zimbabwe in the Wake of the
2000-2003 Land Reforms. "Tsvangirai or his party
will have to move slowly,
on a case-by-case basis to address the political
sensitivities."
That may be too low-key for some Zimbabweans, like the
16,000-odd destitute
people arrested for gold panning after they lost jobs
on once-productive
farms. Or those whose ramshackle market stalls were
destroyed in Mugabe's
"cleansing" campaign.
Much of the elite group's
wealth may have been moved offshore for the rainy
day when the 84-year-old
Mugabe's hold is broken.
"The new government should make a cautious
approach to insiders who know
where the wealth has been hidden," says
Shumba.
"They should also pass a law that allows for confiscation of
assets. Then
they could engage with countries where the assets have been
sent."
With or without a clear victory for Tsvangirai, the most difficult
days for
Zimbabwe lie ahead.
But, says Richardson: "I am very hopeful
for the future. Even if Mugabe were
to press forward and be re-elected he
faces a country in total meltdown.
"Throughout history, hyperinflation
means regime change. Mugabe is in an end
game."
www.cathybuckle.com
Wednesday 2nd April 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been
an excruciating three and a half days waiting for the Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission to announce the results of the March 29th elections. At
the time
of writing this letter at 3.30 pm on the 2nd April 2008, the full
parliamentary results have not yet been announced. None of the figures for
the Presidential, Senate and Local Council elections have been announced at
all.
The results are coming out at un-advertised intervals and at
rate slower
than a snails pace. The waiting has been utterly exhausting, not
to mention
cause for considerable suspicion but, as we Zimbabweans are so
good at
doing, we have waited patiently and calmly. After all, we've been
waiting
for change since February 2000 so a few more hours or days is a mere
pebble
on our rocky road.
On the evening of the 1st April 2008 after
hours of frantic international
media speculation about deals, talks and
resignations, MDC President Morgan
Tsvangirai addressed a press conference.
As one, those of us who had access
to the broadcast, sat forward in our
seats. Mr Tsvangirai's words will go
down in the history of this long and
painful struggle we are nearing the end
of. In part he said:
"I would
like to thank the millions who came to reclaim their dignity and
invest in
the change they can trust. The votes cast on Saturday was for a
change and a
new beginning. It was a vote for jobs; it was a vote for food,
for dignity,
for respect, for decency and equality, for tolerance, for love
and for
trust."
Mr Tsvangirai urged the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to proceed
with haste
in announcing the full results of the election and said that the
MDC would
be disclosing their own tabulated totals on Wednesday. He said
there were no
deals, talks or resignations and wouldn't be until all results
had been
announced officially.
At 1.30pm on Tuesday the 2nd of April
2008 the MDC announced that they had
won the parliamentary and presidential
elections in Zimbabwe. Speaking at a
press conference in Harare, MDC
Secretary General Tendai Biti announced the
following results based on
figures which had been displayed outside polling
stations as prescribed by
electoral law.
2,832,243 votes had been cast.
99 parliamentary seats
had been won by the MDC (Tsvangirai)
96 seats had been won by Zanu PF
11
seats had been won by MDC (Mutambara)
1 seat had been won by independent
Jonathan Moyo.
3 further parliamentary seats were subject to by-election
and Mr Biti said
the MDC were confident of securing victory in these
constituencies too.
With regard to the results of the Presidential votes,
Mr Tendai Biti
announced the following percentages:
50,3% to Morgan
Tsvangirai
43,8% to Robert Mugabe
7 % to Simba Makoni
As a
result of the above figures Tendai Biti said: "Morgan Richard
Tsvangirai has
won this election."
Two hours after the MDC had announced victory the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission produced another batch of 11 results which
give Zanu PF 93 seats,
MDC (Tsvangirai) 96 seats, MDC (Mutambara) 9 seats
and 1 seat to Independent
candidate Jonathan Moyo. A further 7 results are
still outstanding.
Its not clear how this is going to end but what is
clear is that the
avalanche towards change has started. It may take a few
days or even a few
weeks but we will continue to wait patiently until we can
stand up with
dignity and self respect and say that we are proud to be
Zimbabweans.
Until my next letter, thanks for reading this update. With love
cathy.
New York Post
April 3, 2008 -- It takes
a special kind of dictator to fix an election -
and still lose.
Yet
that's exactly what seems to have happened to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe,
whose 28-year reign of terror has dragged a nation once known as Africa's
breadbasket to the brink of starvation.
Voters went to the polls
Saturday for elections that no one of sound mind
thought would turn out to
be free or fair.
Still, the Zimbabwe Election Commission revealed
yesterday that Mugabe's
ruling ZANU-PF party has lost control of parliament
for the first time since
1980.
It looks likely that Mugabe himself at
best will be able to throw his
re-election race with opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai into a runoff
later this month. (Tsvangirai claims he won
outright.)
Not an impressive showing, in other words, for a man whose
vote-rigging
resources include a puppet elections bureaucracy and a
thoroughly loyal -
and brutal - police state.
But this time, he's had
to face the spreading conviction that the country
simply won't survive much
more of his rule. For Zimbabwe is quite literally
falling
apart.
Money is worthless, with the annual inflation rate north of
150,000
percent - a reflection of the equal parts incompetence and thuggery
of
Mugabe's rule.
Horrors abound: Under the guise of rectifying a
colonial injustice, Mugabe's
2000 "land reform" seized land en masse from
Zimbabwe's prosperous white
farmers, handing it over to ruling-party cronies
who - surprise - couldn't
farm.
Wheat production in what was once one
of Africa's most fertile nations
plummeted practically overnight; it's now
at less than one-sixth its
pre-"reform" high.
Average life expectancy
has fallen nearly 26 years since 1990, the World
Bank reports; up to a
quarter of the population has fled in desperation.
But don't expect
Mugabe to go quietly.
The Elections Committee has yet to release the
official results of the
presidential race - a sure sign it's scrambling to
give the boss some
breathing room.
A runoff race, meanwhile, would
give him time to ramp up the repression
that's already seen widespread
reports of food aid used as political
blackmail - not to mention the vicious
beating Tsvangirai took from police
thugs last year.
Still, credit
the raw courage of Zimbabwe's people for pushing Mugabe this
far; they'll
likely need an equal measure of perseverance to give him the
final
boot.
The survival of their country surely depends on it.
Dispatch, SA
2008/04/03
ROBERT
Gabriel Mugabe once assured Zimbabwe’s fleeing whites that “there is
a place
for you in the sun”. Now his own place in the country he has ruled
for 28
years is uncertain.
Mugabe, now 84, was born in 1924, the son of a
village carpenter in Zvimba,
90km west of Zimbabwe’s capital,
Harare.
As a child, he tended his grandfather’s cattle, fished for bream
in muddy
water holes, played football and “boxed a lot,” as he recalled
later.
Few blacks at the time learned to write their names. But Mugabe
went to
school, where he was taught by Jesuit priests. Classmates described
him as
shy and bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful
of his
absent father, according to Heidi Holland, author of Dinner with
Mugabe.
Mugabe later became a primary school teacher himself, and taught
at mission
schools until he won a scholarship to all-black Fort Hare
University in
neighbouring South Africa.
There he underwent a
political baptism of sorts. He avidly studied Karl
Marx. Gripped by the
“passive resistance” movement of Mahatma Gandhi in
India, he vowed to play a
similar role in helping his own country to end
British rule. In 1951, he
earned a bachelor of arts degree. It was the first
of seven degrees,
including one in law.
Back in Zimbabwe – then known as Rhodesia – Mugabe
quickly became
disenchanted with the white government. In 1958 he flew to
Ghana, a newly
independent former British colony, to teach. There he married
his
Ghanaian-born first wife, Sally Hayfron.
He was known as austere,
a non-smoking, non-drinking Roman Catholic. Sally
Mugabe said of her
husband: “He’s very warm and gentle at home. He is very
fair. He will go to
any limits to see that justice is done. He has never
been violent for the
sake of violence, though we have both struggled for our
freedom.”
Upon his return to Zimbabwe, Mugabe became a political
activist and was
jailed for 10 years by the white minority regime of Ian
Smith. While in
jail, his son died from malaria, and his appeal for parole
to attend the
funeral was denied.
When he was released, he fled into
exile in neighbouring Mozambique.
There he became the head of a
liberation movement and guerrilla army and
dreamed of a one-party Marxist
state.
He came to power in 1980 after a seven-year bush war for black
rule, serving
first as prime minister and then as president. At
independence, he was
hailed for his policies of racial reconciliation and
development that
brought education and health to millions. Zimbabwe’s
economy thrived, and
Mugabe appealed to whites to stay in the country.
Twenty years later, many
wished they hadn’t.
Mugabe ordered the often
violent seizure of white-owned farms on behalf of a
landless black majority.
But instead, he gave the farms to black relatives,
friends and
cronies.
Mugabe also lost no time in establishing his absolute power. He
quickly
crushed political opponents, and sent North Korean-trained troops
into
Matabeleland to hunt down armed anti-government rebels in the 1980s.
Thousands of people, mainly civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe, were
killed.
Using the same draconian regulations used to keep him in jail
for a decade,
he put scores of political opponents in detention without
trial. Zimbabwe’s
economy gradually fell apart, and a third of the country
fled.
In 1992, Mugabe’s first wife died of kidney failure. He married
Grace
Marufu, his former secretary, 40 years his junior. He had three
children
with Marufu, and was 73 when she gave birth to their third
child.
During his rule, the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans has
fallen from
60 to 35 years. — Sapa
Monsters and Critics
Apr 3, 2008, 8:17 GMT
Harare - Former
Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano is in Zimbabwe to help
broker talks
between embattled President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and
Morgan
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change on the outcome of last
weekend's
elections, diplomatic sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
Thursday.
Chissano was president of Zimbabwe's neighbour Mozambique
from 1986 to 2005.
Since stepping down he has regularly been called on by
international bodies
to mediate in conflicts.
A longtime friend of
Zimbabwe's leader of 28 years, Chissano was best man at
Mugabe's wedding to
his second wife, Grace.
He was also a member of a team of elder African
statesmen and women who
mediated in Kenya's bloody post-election conflict
earlier this year.
africasia
03/04/2008 09:15 JOHANNESBURG, April 3 (AFP)
Zimbabweans who have fled to South Africa
to escape economic misery and
political persecution are hopeful they might
be about to see the back of
President Robert Mugabe at last.
While
Zimbabwe awaits official word of whether Mugabe will stay or go, in
downtown
Johannesburg the possibility of change, while welcomed, is almost
too good
to be true.
"I am happy because I heard that the opposition won. But I'm
afraid Mugabe
will find another trick to stay in power," says 29-year-old
Admire
Gwadzoayi.
"The old man killed a lot of people and he wants to
cover up many corrupted
things," speculates a young worker, who came to
Johannesburg in November and
has since survived by doing odd
jobs.
Along with thousands of his compatriots with nowhere else to go,
Gwadzoayi
beds down for the night in the Central Methodist church hall, in
the heart
of downtown Johannesburg.
"There is a mix of cynicism and
excitement among the people here. Some don't
believe it is happening and
fear some trick from Mugabe," says Paul Verryn,
the pastor.
His
sermon on Wednesday night was topical: "Whatever the results, you must
behave like one nation."
Verryn encourages people to heed each
others' opinions, whether they are
followers of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change or Mugabe's
Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic
Front party (ZANU-PF).
"That doesn't mean that you have to agree on
everything, but that you will
struggle for the right of your opponent to
express his points of view."
ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority in
Saturday's general elections and
the opposition has already proclaimed
victory in the simultaneous
presidential poll of which the official results
are still to be announced.
One of the crowd gathered for the mass,
22-year-old Owen Muchanyu, says he
has been praying for opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai to become president
in place of Mugabe -- the country's
only leader since independence in 1980.
"Maybe with him, Zimbabwe will
change. With Mugabe, the future is very
bleak," says the former teacher, who
decided to leave two months ago in
order to escape intimidation by ZANU-PF
officials towards public sector
workers.
"Since I was a teacher, I
was contrived to support the ruling party, but I
couldn't do that, I am on
the opposition side."
As Zimbabwe's once thriving economy went into
meltdown, with inflation now
exceeding 100,000 percent, neighbouring South
Africa became the destination
of choice for those seeking greener
pastures.
Some estimates say the number of refugees may be as high as
three million.
Amidst those preparing for sleep in the church, a young
woman sings a song
of peace in Shona, one of the Zimbabwean
languages.
Eyes closed, her head tilted back, Ann Chaps, 30, sways her
hips to the
rhythm.
"I feel happy. It's time for Mugabe to go. He is
very old," says Chaps, who
used to work in marketing before, like so many
others, illegally jumping the
border because she couldn't afford a
passport.
"There is nothing left in Zimbabwe, nothing to eat, no money in
the banks."
Hopeful of eventual change in her country, Chaps, like many
of her
compatriots, could not return to vote.
"I was scared because
people I know went last week and got arrested at the
border. They are still
in jail in Zimbabwe."
Reuters
Thu 3 Apr
2008, 7:53 GMT
LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) - Investment group LonZim
<LZM.L> Plc plans to
spend $65 million buying Zimbabwean assets this
year as interest in the
once-wealthy nation emerges with the rule of
President Robert Mugabe under
threat.
An end to Mugabe's rule could
make the once-wealthy nation appealing again,
foreign investors
say.
"Any kind of stability brings commercial dividends," LonZim
Executive
Director Geoff White told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"Zimbabwe will
become an economic powerhouse again one day."
LonZim
plans to within the next four to six weeks raise $50 million in an
institutional share placement to help it buy assets in the technology,
banking, transport and agro-processing sectors, White said.
Shares of
LonZim, which still has about $15 million in uninvested funds, are
up 2
percent to 118 pence at 0848 GMT, valuing the company at about 43
million
pounds ($85.43 million). (Reporting by Hsu Chuang Khoo, Editing by
Sue
Thomas)
Zim, Be Wary of
Western Stooges
The Herald (Harare) Published by the
government of Zimbabwe
OPINION
3 April 2008
Posted to the web 3
April 2008
Tendai Hildegarde Manzvanzvike
Harare
Garikai
Musanonoka Sithole, son of veteran nationalist, the late Dr. Edson
Sithole,
has called on Zimbabweans to avoid aborting the revolution at this
critical
stage.
Garikai (35) said: "2008 itai mbiri yakakosha yokuvhotera Zanu-PF.
"Tava
negwara.
"Tava neindependence". (In 2008, let the people of
Zimbabwe be well known
for voting en masse for Zanu-PF and for giving
Zanu-PF a resounding
victory). Born in Mt Selinda on December 24, 1973 to
veteran nationalist Dr
Edson Sithole and Sihle (Mavhu) Khupuka, a South
African
national from KwaZulu-Natal, Garikai Sithole is not a newcomer to
Zimbabwe's
political issues. On June 17, 2007, The Sunday Mail reported that
Garikai
initiated moves to have the late Rhodesian prime minister Ian
Douglas Smith
indicted over the mysterious disappearance in 1975 of his
father Dr Edson
Sithole, who
was a central committee member of the
then Zanu. A retired soldier and now
an A2 cattle farmer in Masvingo
Province, Garikai instructed his lawyers to
institute litigation against
Smith whom he held responsible for the death of
his father and for denying
him and his siblings the right to grow under the
guidelines of a loving
father.
He told The Sunday Mail: "I have already instructed my lawyers,
Tshuma,
Gurajena and Partners, to take up the issue with the courts because
I feel
the family has a right to redress."
Dr Edson Sithole, who
disappeared mysteriously in the then Rhodesia in
October 1975 and whose body
was never recovered, was accorded national hero
status in 1994 together with
eleven other 11 nationalist and liberation war
heroes: Lieutenant-General
Lookout Masuku, Dr Samuel Tichafa Parirenyatwa,
Cde Benjamin Burombo, Cde
Lazarus Nkala, Cde Artwell Bokwa, Cde Amon Jirira,
Cde Jini Ntuta and Cde
Nikita Mangena.
Dr Sithole has a cenotaph at the National Heroes Acre.
Referring to Simba
Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai as unfocused individuals,
Garikai said the duo
are pawns of the British and their Western allies,
especially the United
States, and they were being used in attempts to
sabotage the land reform
programme, and to serve British
interests.
He, however, said that their projects were exercises in
futility, arguing
that Makoni and Tsvangirai will not govern Zimbabwe until
and unless the
remains of the children of Zimbabwe who perished during the
liberation
struggle have been identified, brought home and properly
interred, including
the remains of his father Dr Sithole.
Garikai
hailed President Mugabe for returning land to its rightful owners
saying:
"Cde Mugabe has a vision of wanting to see all of us develop. "The
youths
today have land, the elderly have land, but Makoni and Tsvangirai are
saying
that whites or the West should come and administer this country. "Am
I at my
age supposed to be a recipient of the land reform programme, let
alone being
an A2 farmer? Garikai was allocated his farm when he was 30.
"Am I
supposed to be a recipient of farm implements being allocated by
Government,
over and above the farm that I got?
"Pazera rangu ndonzi ndine
tractor.
"Tractor yandisina kushandira.
"How much does one tractor
cost?"
He attributed the prevailing economic hardships to the illegal
Western
sanctions imposed at the instigation of the MDC, which sanctions
were
imposed in retaliation to the land reform programme. Garikai accused
Tsvangirai of "killing Zimbabwe", saying Tsvangirai was destroying
Zimbabwean families, and challenged the people of Zimbabwe to have
discerning minds and eyes regarding people like Makoni and
Tsvangirai.
Turning to Makoni, he said: "My father disappeared without
trace in 1975 and
we were left as orphans.
"Simba Makoni must also
know that his ancestor Chingaira's head was
decapitated by the British and
taken away to Britain, and it has not been
repatriated to Zimbabwe," adding:
"Mudzimu wokwaChingaira nhasi wave
kuwirirana papi
nevarungu?
"Chingaira nhasi angazvirumbidza here kuti mwana (Simba
Makoni) ari kuita
basa?
"I would have wanted to see Makoni as one of
my relatives being in the
forefront, assisting our family to find the
remains of our father. But he
has failed us." He also challenged Makoni's
performance track record,
arguing: "What did Makoni develop in Manicaland in
the past 28 years? Did he
ever buy a bus for the people of Manicaland, even
something small for
cross-border shoppers?
"Just one vehicle to
assist the people of Manicaland Province?
"I just want him to mention one
developmental milestone he achieved in his
Manicaland Province, before he
can tell the nation that he can do this and
that for them as a president."
Garikai said President Mugabe had never
denied putting his leadership to the
test through constitutional and
democratic processes like elections. This is
why elections are held
regularly and on a timely basis in this country. In a
caveat, Garikai made a
very interesting analogy when he said that all
problems are now being blamed
on President Mugabe.
"Munhu
unoita barika rako asi woshaya kuziva kuti mhuri yakakura inoda mari.
Zvokunetsa woti ndiMugabe. (You become a polygamist, but fail to realise
that a big family requires a lot of money for its upkeep. When you cannot
maintain your family, you turn around and say it is Mugabe's
fault.)
"Uku kwangove kuhwanda chokwadi. Vamwe vanhu President Mugabe
havamudiri
chokwadi chaakamirira. (This is just hiding from the truth. Some
people do
not like President Mugabe because he stands for truth and
honesty.)"
He urged all Zimbabweans to remember that "Zimbabwe yakabva
murimi remoto,
haigoni zvakare kudzorerwa makare." (Zimbabwe was tempered by
fire and
brimstone, and it cannot be returned into fire
again).
-----------------------
Poll Results - UK's Hidden Hand
Exposed
The Herald (Harare) Published by the government of
Zimbabwe
3 April 2008
Posted to the web 3 April 2008
Caesar
Zvayi
Harare
The British government and its prime minister, Gordon
Brown, have now come
out in the open as the real power behind the MDC
Tsvangirai faction,
demanding the release of the results of Zimbabwe's
elections that show an
opposition victory.
Almost the entire British
state machinery -- from the BBC to its House of
Commons -- was almost going
hysterical over the delay in announcing the
election results by the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission.
Britain's three main political parties united
in urging Brown to approach
South African President Thabo Mbeki to press him
"to deal with the crisis in
Zimbabwe". It was these three British parties
that set up the so-called
Westminster Fund for Democracy that bankrolled the
launch of the MDC from a
ZCTU platform in September 1999 after the
Government announced it would
compulsorily acquire white-held farms for
redistribution to landless black
families.
Brown told the BBC that
the "eyes of the world" are on Zimbabwe, saying the
election results should
be published without delay.
Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg urged
Brown to increase pressure for a
"swift and transparent" declaration of
results, even though ZEC has been
hailed by observer missions for the manner
in which it conducted the
election and managed the release of the
results.
"Gordon Brown must seek urgent discussions with Thabo Mbeki and
other
leaders of the Southern African Development Community to ensure that
maximum
pressure is applied to ensure a swift and transparent declaration of
results," Clegg said.
Brown's office said the British premier had
discussed "the situation" with
President Mbeki on Monday, but would not give
details of the talks. British
Foreign Secretary David Miliband and former
Labour cabinet minister Peter
Hain called on Africa and the rest of the
world to express their support for
the MDC.
Miliband told the BBC's
Newsnight programme: "It is long overdue for the
rest of the world to stand
shoulder to shoulder with the spirit of democracy
which has expressed itself
in Zimbabwe and which is now about to be traduced
by President Mugabe and
his ruling clique."
At a meeting in Paris, foreign ministers from France,
Italy, the
Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain issued a joint
statement, along
with Milliband, saying: "We call on the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission to
swiftly announce all the election results, especially the
results of the
presidential election. The future of the Zimbabwean people
depends on the
credibility and transparency of the electoral
process."
The BBC said Brown's spokesman had hinted at possible increases
in aid for
Zimbabwe in the event Tsvangirai wins.
Zimbabwe's election
results have become a top story on all international
media networks, drawing
far more attention than Kenya was accorded when over
1 500 people were
hacked or speared to death while 600 000 others were
displaced following the
disputed re-election of incumbent president Mwai
Kibaki on December 27 last
year.
Given the intimate relationship between the global media
structures, Western
politics and the quest for world domination, analysts
say this vindicates
the view that what is at stake in Zimbabwe is far bigger
than what the
contestants, with the notable exception of those in Zanu-PF,
realise.
A view vindicated by the conspicuous flow of many white former
commercial
farmers who trooped back into Zimbabwe once the MDC prematurely
claimed
victory. Some of them have headed to the farms where they threatened
to
evict newly resettled farmers particularly around Chegutu and Kariba, as
many are coming through Chirundu Border Post.
Zimbabwe, the analysts
say, represents the last frontier of resistance
between the black
nationalist struggle and Western neo-colonial encroachment
under the guise
of globalisation and the parochial discourse of
democratisation
Following the Government's decision to bar all news
networks hostile to
Zimbabwe from covering the elections, many of them are
encamped right round
the borders with flushed correspondents giving feverish
coverage to all
sorts of conspiracy theories and utterances by the
opposition and its
allies.
The BBC, the public face of British
foreign policy, yesterday devoted the
entire day to non-stop coverage of
Zimbabwe before splashing hourly updates
to claims of electoral victory by
the MDC. The BBC, in fact, dispatched its
main news anchor to report from
Johannesburg.
Yesterday all major news networks ran hourly updates on
Zimbabwe eclipsing
even US President George W. Bush's visit to Europe for a
Nato conference
that is supposed to resolve some contentious issues between
the world's
major military powers.
What has raised eyebrows is the
fact that the Western leaders are basing
their premature pronouncements on
results compiled by the MDC and its civil
society compatriots, yet ZEC - the
only organisation legally and
constitutionally mandated to issue the results
-- has not declared a winner,
let alone the winner of the presidential
contest.
What makes the pronouncements from the West even more glaring is
that
African leaders, many of whom have a lot to gain or lose from the
political
dynamics in Zimbabwe, have not spoken, obviously waiting to issue
their
statements once the full outcome is in the public domain.