http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:00
BY
OUR STAFF
THE City of Harare never officially received a container
bearing sodium
cyanide as due procedure had been followed to ascertain
whether or not it
had correct water treatment chemicals, The Standard has
established.
Despite an official inquest into how a poisonous
chemical had been allegedly
delivered at the water works, it has emerged
that there was never a threat
to Harare’s water supply as normal checking
procedures were still to be
done.
The development comes against
last week’s allegations that the city’s water
supply had almost been
poisoned due to negligence or deliberate acts on the
part of suppliers and
transporters.
MT & N Distributors (Pvt) Ltd this year won a
tender to supply water
treatment chemicals, particularly granular aluminium
sulphate, lime and
activated carbon to the City of Harare for the period
ending December 31
2012.
The company trades with Curechem
Overseas (Pvt) Ltd, which sources the
product from abroad and sub-contracts
various trucking companies to deliver
the product to the intended
destination.
The required treatment chemicals are delivered at Morton
Jaffray waterworks
where MT & N’s sales representative normally meets
the truck driver at the
waterworks.
“The product is then checked
by a Curechem Overseas representative, an MT &
N representative and City
of Harare receiving officials,” one source told
The Standard last week.
“Receiving attendants at the water treatment plant
invite the foreman,
resident chemist and a loss control officer to the
receiving bay after a
vehicle is allowed access into the premises.”
In a process that also
involves the quality assurance officer, the foreman
breaks the product seal,
the source said.
After this procedure, the resident chemist compares the
consignment
documents and consignment labels in the presence of the other
officials.
Only if the product is in order is a delivery note issued
to the City of
Harare by MT&N.
“There was no way the cyanide would
have been put into the water when all
these procedures were to be done,”
said another source. “The procedures are
so tight that its actually wishful
thinking that a person can poison Harare’s
drinking water”
Acting Mayor
of Harare Emmanuel Chiroto told a Press Conference last week
that council
did not receive a wrong chemical.
“Thirteen steps are taken when
receiving chemicals for use at Morton
Jaffray. Only two steps were taken
before it was discovered that the
consignment was flawed. At no time was the
container unpacked or off-loaded
for use,” he said.
Events
leading to cyanide delivery
On the May 4 2012, MT&N placed an
order with Curechem Overseas (Pvt) Ltd for
the supply of 500 000 kg
aluminium sulphate with instructions to deliver it
to Morton Jaffary
waterworks.
Documents in The Standard’s possession show that on July
20 2012, Curechem
Overseas advised that two trucks with consignment from
overseas had arrived
and were ready for delivery at Morton Jaffray
waterworks.
On the day in question, the company representative
advised that only one
delivery note had been made with 25 tonnes of
aluminium sulphate.
The other truck had been returned as it had been
discovered to contain
sodium cyanide. It is understood that the driver knew
that the truck
contained sodium cyanide and advised
accordingly.
A Curechem Overseas representative, Yevai Goto advised
MT&N of a mix up by
the trucking company in question. A truck containing
MT&N’s aluminium
sulphate order was sent to Bak Storage instead of the
truck containing
sodium cyanide.
The product was clearly marked
cyanide for any recipient to see.
Consequently, Pair Trade Investments
transport and logistics manager Farai
Muchenje was arrested over the
delivery of toxic sodium cyanide to Harare’s
main water works and was
granted US$1 500 bail.
Government has since appointed a seven-member
team to investigate the
matter.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:20
BY
JENNIFER DUBE
A local residents’ trust has called on the Harare City Council
(HCC) to show
political commitment towards improving water delivery in the
city.
The call comes after several outbreaks of diarrhoearal diseases
such as
typhoid and dysentery have hit Harare since the major cholera
outbreak in
2008/9.
The latest outbreak of typhoid has affected
about 300 people in Harare and
Chitungwiza and it is feared that the disease
is fast-spreading.
The Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) last week said
the outbreaks were a result
of “a clear lack of political will by the City
fathers to proffer practical
solutions to address the water challenges which
the residents are facing”.
Asked for a comment HCC spokesperson
Leslie Gwindi, “We are not talking
about that at the moment. We will call a
press conference to give an
update.”
But acting Mayor Emmanuel
Chiroto however defended the council saying it had
done its best to revive
water delivery to residents since taking over from
the Zimbabwe National
Water Authority (Zinwa) in 2009.
“When we took over from Zinwa, there
was no Firle (sewage plant) to talk
about and we are now talking of 85
percent operating capacity to be reached
soon,” Chiroto said. “Sewage was
flowing everywhere; there were leaks and
rotten pipes
everywhere.
We put new pipes and you no longer see much of these
things nowadays
although of course challenges remain here and there.”
HRT
said there was need for a complete overhaul of the water infrastructure
in
line with increasing demand for water.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:21
By
TATENDA CHITAGU
MASVINGO — More villagers are expected to be displaced from
their homes to
pave way for the construction of the Tokwe-Mukorsi dam, which
is slowly
taking shape, a report by the Ministry of Water Resources
Development and
Management has revealed.
Initial estimates
indicated that 3 000 families residing in the dam basin
would be displaced,
but the report predicts that the figure could be higher
after the
enumeration process.
“At full supply the reservoir will inundate
approximately 9 600ha,” reads
part of the report. “As a result, about 3 000
families will need
resettlement. The actual number of families requiring
resettlement will be
known after the enumeration process, which is yet to be
done.”
When The Standard visited the construction site last week,
some families
were busy pulling down their huts to make way for the
construction taking
place.
One of the affected villagers, Shuvai
Rushangu, said she would be happy to
move after government had compensated
her.
“I will only be happy when we have been compensated,” she said as she
monitored her son, Rasi Mandishona, pulling down one of her thatched
huts.
The report noted that the US$19 million that was to cover
compensation for
the displaced would be insufficient, if the number of those
affected
increased.
Currently, 500 families are directly affected
by construction work but the
project was expected to displace over 3 000
households on completion.
Already, 400 families have had their
properties assessed for compensation by
the Ministry of Public
Works.
“The current focus has been the resettlement of a small number of 56
families from the 400 assessed families in a desperate bid to get work going
at the saddle dams,” reads the report.
“The aforementioned
families are now on the verge of being resettled. It is
hoped that the
remaining 444 families will be resettled by October 2012.”
The report
however noted that the delays in resettling the displaced
villagers had
stalled progress on the construction of the dam, especially in
areas where
blasting was required.
It blamed haggling among the Ministries of
Water Resources Development;
Local Government, Urban and Rural Development;
Public Works and Lands and
Rural Resettlement.
“Resettlement
activities are being severely delayed as key government
Ministries of Water,
Local Government, Public Works and Lands are struggling
to undertake their
respective activities in the resettlement process. They
have no funding for
resettlement in their respective establishments,” reads
the
report.
A total of US$70, 6 million has been invested by the
government into the
project so far and a further US$45 million is expected
before year end.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012
13:22
BY Our STAFF
A team of South African police officers is
reportedly in Zimbabwe hunting
for an alleged murderer who escaped police
custody and then pretended to be
employed by a crack crime fighting unit,
the Hawks, in an effort to evade
arrest.
The South African team
has also been to Mozambique in their hunt for Musa
Khumalo, who is believed
to a Zimbabwean national.
According to reports from South Africa, Khumalo is
wanted for murder
committed in Chatsworth in Kwazulu Natal, South
Africa.
Seeing that the police were hot on his trail, he pretended to
be a brigadier
with the Hawks and bizarrely helped police solve a string of
outstanding
crimes.
Police now believe that he could have pulled
wool over their eyes and helped
them arrest his rival gangs.
But the
South African police have their work cut out for them, as it is
believed
that the fugitive faked his death in 2010, thereby killing his
Zimbabwean
identity, only to “resurrect” as Khumalo.
South African police
spokesman, Colonel Vincent Mdunge, told the South
African media that a team
of more than 20 officers — comprising the KZN
tracking team, the Crime
Intelligence Unit, and Hawks from KZN and Gauteng —
had been working around
the clock following leads.
“The team was in Maputo earlier this week.
They are now in Zimbabwe,” Mdunge
said. “Information has it that Khumalo has
returned to his homeland.”
But his Zimbabwean counterpart, Andrew
Phiri said he was unaware of the
visit by South African police.
“I have
checked with Interpol — their regional offices are here — and there
are no
indications that the South African police are here,” he said. “Since
it’s a
murder case they should be working with CID Homicide, but again there
is no
record of them being here.”
Phiri, however, said some provinces had
provincial arrangements with
neighbouring countries and they could carry out
cross border activities,
without necessarily having to go through the
bureaucratic processes.
South African police have since raided
Khumalo’s properties in Johannesburg
and Kwazulu Natal.
He is suspected
of committing murder in 2007 and escaping from prison after
he had been
brought to the courts to answer the murder charge.
From there,
Khumalo claimed to be a police officer and worked with the
police department
in Kwazulu Natal, and this gave rise to the charge of
impersonation.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012
13:17
Archbishop Robert Ndlovu heads the Harare diocese of the Roman
Catholic
Church which covers 63 555 square kilometres and boasts of a
Catholic
population close to 500 000 people.
The Standard deputy
Editor Walter Marwizi, was granted an exclusive chance
to meet the man of
cloth, and in excerpts below he speaks candidly about
errant priests,
politics and the future of the church.
WM: What is the state
of Roman Catholic Church in Zimbabwe: Is it growing or
declining in terms of
numbers?
ARN: Well, I would say it’s growing judging by the number of people
and
records that we have, of those that are being baptised, those that are
being
confirmed it’s grown, but there is an element that we have to look at.
In
the past few years, within the last 10 years or so, a good number of
Catholics have gone to the diaspora and we can feel that in our parishes.
But otherwise in terms of growth, I can say it is balancing.
WM:
There are critics who say the church is losing members especially the
youth
because it has remained too conservative on matters such as condoms
and
birth control. What is your comment?
ARN: We believe that sex is something
sacred and it is to be used within a
relationship, and therefore it’s an
expression of love of two people and
they realise in so doing they are
co-operating with their creator. And that
is God…So if it is morally wrong
it does not become morally right because
someone has invented a
condom...
WM: Let’s turn to the problems in the priesthood. The
church has been
criticised for failing to rein in wayward priests. Is the
church addressing
these problems?
ARN: You always have problems and a
rotten apple here and there because we
are human beings and I think action
is being taken, a good number of priests
have been suspended once they were
found out. A good number have just been
told to leave the
priesthood.
WM: Do you have numbers?
ARN: Well, I wouldn’t give
you statistics but I know for instance since I
came to Harare, I can say
more or less with certainty five or six priests
have been told to leave the
priesthood. And I think two or three were sent
on suspension because it
depends on the gravity of the matter, some of them
are not really (serious
offences) but for discipline’s sake we have to do
that… But also look at it
from this point of view; we are recruiting from a
society that we all know.
I like to use the term a wounded society, so
sometimes these temptations
don’t stop because someone has become a priest…
WM: We have this case
of former Archbishop Pius Ncube. Here is a head of the
church who got
involved with a woman, what do you think about his conduct?
WM: Well, I get
your point and I know the gravity of the situation
especially as it was
reported. But as I said there is a human side to all
things and sometimes
people can exploit that, I wouldn’t know the details of
it, you know it was
really a private life, how he came to be hooked into
that situation, was it
something set up, it is very difficult to get, he
knows the rest but I
always said, I look at myself and say it could happen
to me, I am still a
human being I can still get attracted to a person of the
opposite sex …And
we have to also realise that celibacy itself is not an
easy life and I
think anyone who tells you it’s an easy life, will not be
truthful. Celibacy
is not an easy life but is a life that is worth living
with the grace of
God. It can be, it can be done.
WM: And what would you say is the damage that
was caused by to the church by
the Pius Ncube saga.
ARN: Well, as I said
the issue of what happened to Archbishop Ncube has a
lot of question marks
that we still cannot answer. That is why I use the
word, was he trapped into
that… but you know it had also, some people will
still think it had a
political dimension, true or false I don’t know.
WM: But he confessed
when he went to Vatican
ARN: Yah, but you see he confessed having, it’s not
to deny that something
happened that he had an affair with her but how it
came about. This is what
I don’t know and how do you get to that, he is the
only one who knows what
happened. How he met that woman and how he managed
to reach that stage with
a married woman for that matter, I don’t know what
transpired there. But
definitely I would be naïve about it, we have to
accept that it scandalised
the faithful.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:23
WM: The Catholic
Church has over the years issued pastoral letters
commenting on the social,
economic and political situation in the country.
What do you think about
President Mugabe’s leadership of the country?
ARN: The church has
been consistent (on issuing pastoral letters). So even
after 1980, there are
certain events that took place that the church has not
been silent; we had
the disturbances in Matabeleland and Midlands, the
church made a comment and
I think it was a pastoral letter that opened eyes
of the people really that
something wrong was happening, the nation needed
to address it and I think
the President, am sure he was also grateful. I don’t
think he knew
everything that was happening but the church helped him even
to understand
what was happening on the ground. Even before … the church had
already
warned about inequality when it comes to land ownership ... So the
church is
not against what happened therefore in terms of land reform but
the way it
was done. The end does not justify the means, you don’t kill so
you can
repossess what you believe is yours and in some cases some of the
people who
suffered were innocent people.
WM: You also talked about Gukurahundi,
what went wrong in Matabeleland and
how can this be addressed?
ARN: It
was just after independence and maybe we failed to find each other
as it
were, you know as a new nation and you know it is always easy to
exploit
ethnic differences sometimes and blame everything on ethnicity but I
think
we failed to find each other after independence really…It’s a pity
that so
many people lost their lives but I said if there are some genuine
grievances
that have to be addressed, I will be for that myself.
WM: How can
that be addressed?
ARN: A question of compensation has to be done. People who
lost breadwinners
mind you, how could these people be helped to rebuild
their lives, I think
that for me would be more practical.
WM: And
how can we address national healing…?
ARN: I more inclined to talk about a
truth and reconciliation commission.
Let people pour out their hearts about
what they went through, what
happened. If really during the process it is
found that there are people who
have to answer for their deeds, then it
doesn’t become a question of revenge
but a question of justice: that is how
I see it. But at the moment sometimes
you feel that people are talking about
revenge, I think it has to be a
question of justice…
WM: Is
Zimbabwe ready for elections?
ARN: Well, I don’t know who has to make us
ready for elections. I think we
ourselves have to make ourselves ready for
elections. There are still
skirmishes here and there that are starting to
happen, which in my opinion
is really sad, I must say. It’s a lack of
maturity on our part, but that
said if there is goodwill on all the
political parties, I think we can have
elections.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:49
BY KUDZAI
CHIMHANGWA
ZIMBABWE has been urged to invest into research as this is an
enabler
towards employment creation and substantial economic
development.
Former Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries President
Callisto Jokonya said
that besides importing raw materials, Zimbabwe is a
landlocked country that
already faces many costs in the selling and
distribution of its products.
“Our industry is not competitive
because it is simply an import substitution
industry created long ago by Ian
Smith’s government to counter United
Nations sanctions.
“We
currently have a 90% unemployment rate but through the credibility and
integrity provided by research, a businessperson is able to plan and create
downstream employment,” he said.
“We can gain a competitive
advantage through developing our own raw
materials and research can provide
that.” The United States of America,
Germany, China, Brazil and South Africa
among others are examples of
countries that have realised astronomic levels
of economic growth through
the establishment of well co-ordinated research
programmes.
However, Zimbabwe’s national research system has been
characterised by
limited financing of research.
Government approved four
thematic National Research Priorities (NRPs) in
2011 in recognition of the
importance of research to socio-economic
development.
The
thematic areas are sustainable environmental and resource management,
social
sciences and humanities, health promotion and Zimbabwe’s national
security.
Speaking at a workshop organised by the Research
Council of Zimbabwe (RCZ)
Science and Technology minister, Heneri
Dzinotyiwei, said the NRPs come at a
time when the country is headed towards
economic recovery.
“Very rarely do we go into a systematic analysis
of the factors that drive
the development of other countries’ economies.
This country has tended to
play a leadership role since the pre-independence
era in terms of industrial
development and agricultural activities,” he
said, adding that South Africa
and other Southern African countries followed
suit as Zimbabwe was once a
beacon of development.
He added that
in order for Zimbabwe’s economy to be meaningfully
transformed, a minimum of
1% contribution of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) to research is vital in
line with the African Union and Sadc
positions.
Participants
heard that 3,3% of Sweden’s GDP is contributed towards
research, 1,4% of
China GDP to the same while 0,70% of South Africa’s GDP
also goes towards
research.
Although South Africa’s GDP contribution ranks among the
highest in Africa,
the African region generally falls short of the minimum
1% of GDP funding
for research.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:48
BY KUDZAI
CHIMHANGWA
FIXED telecommunications service provider, TelOne, says plans are
at an
advanced stage to roll out fibre optic links from Bulawayo to
Beitbridge and
Bulawayo to Victoria Falls.
The company has
already rolled out optic fibre from Mutare to Harare under
Phase 1 carried
out in 2010. It also completed the Harare-Bulawayo route in
May 2012 under
Phase 2.
The advantage of the Harare to Bulawayo cable is that it has
add and drop
Points of Presence (PoPs) in Norton, Chegutu, Kadoma, Kwekwe
and Gweru where
other major centres can create a joint to tap into the main
service.
TelOne Marketing and Public Relations head, Isheanesu
Mugadza, told
Standardbusiness that the company currently offers the least
expensive
broadband internet services via its Asymmetrical Digital
Subscriber Line
(ADSL) service.
“TelOne has invested in new
systems hence the new services that we are now
offering. These have
obviously been integrated with the existing and old
systems,” he
said.
ADSL uses existing copper lines to offer broadband internet at
very low
cost. “The architecture of the networks is such that they are
scalable and
can be upgraded in a very short space of time. What determines
the capacity
of the optic fibre cables is the add and drop equipment at the
end of the
links and that makes upgrades easy and fast,” he
said.
He added that the transmission backbone capacity is of type
STM-64, which is
sufficient to cater for the entire national
requirements.
TelOne is presently the only major Zimbabwean company
which has equity in
the East African Cable System (EASSy), through WIOCC, a
firm partly owned by
a consortium of 14 African telecoms
operators.
TelOne accesses EASSy and SEACOM via Mozambique (TDM) and
South Africa
(InfraCo). EASSy is an undersea fibre optic cable system
connecting
countries of East African countries to the rest of the world
while SEACOM is
a private venture offering wholesale broadband services and
products.
Mugadza said download speed is up to 2Mbps (Megabytes per
second) and upload
is up to 512Kbps (Kilobytes per second) with an unlimited
monthly data cap.
“Securing technical partners is but one way of
modernising TelOne’s
networks.
TelOne is currently implementing projects
from own generated funds as we
migrate to new technologies and certainly
external funds will assist to
speed up the process as required by all
businesses the world over,” he said.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012
13:29
Zimbabwe needs a communist party. Zimbabwe has never had a vibrant
communist
party and this has made local politics mundane. The leftist agenda
has been
conspicuously absent from Zimbabwe’s public discourse in a way that
has
raised questions about whether or not Zimbabwe’s political parties are
really built on sound ideological grounding.
It can be argued
that part of the reason why the country finds itself in the
political and
socio-economic mess that it is in today is partly because of
the absence of
left-leaning political actors. The world’s capitalist system,
driven by the
industrialised Western powers, is reeling from the devastating
effects of a
global economic crisis and this has given rise to a renewed
interest in
communism.
This is especially true for young people across the
world that are eager to
pursue a new economic world order in light of the
stunning reality that the
free market system agenda has stalled. This means
that Zimbabwe has an
opportunity to reconfigure its politics and give birth
to a communist party
at a time when it has become apparent that the leftist
agenda has staged a
phenomenal Lazarus act in the very backyards of
Europe.
It is necessary to first examine whether or not communism has
ever taken
root in the political dynamics of Zimbabwe. The most compelling
reality in
trying to address this question is that there was no communist
party even as
the liberation struggle was being fought while in other
countries such as
South Africa, the South African Communist Party (SACP)
played a critical
role in fighting apartheid and was actually among the
leading political
actors to give birth to the nationalist struggle. Some
have argued that Zapu
was a left-leaning party due to its association with
the Soviet Union but
the reality is that it was a conventional liberation
movement bent on
capturing the state rather than championing class struggle
as a communist
party would. In more recent times, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
was initially touted as a left-leaning workers’
party but this has
drastically changed.
The MDC (in its
various formations) has, of late, sought to characterise
itself as a social
democratic party, a political ideology which, in itself,
is difficult to
articulate. The MDC leaders of today are accused of
betraying the workers’
agenda and are now the epitome of wealth
accumulation. Analysts now say that
the party merely capitalised on the
energy and discontentment of the workers
at the initial stage and has now
deviated from its core
values.
It is also critical to note that, while it was assumed that
communism died
with the fall of the Soviet Union, it is very much alive and
is actually
staging a triumphant resurrection. In capitalism strongholds
like Britain
and the United States, interest in communism is growing on the
back of a
serious re-evaluation of the free market system in light of the
global
recession. Western policymakers are also considering the success of
Chinese
mercantilism as they contemplate long-term policy development as
they battle
to rein in a problematic banking sector.
I am not
suggesting that a communist party can ever govern Zimbabwe. This is
highly
unlikely as shown by what is happening elsewhere. That is why, for
instance,
the SACP will never go it alone but would rather exercise
influence through
the ANC-led alliance and take advantage of the ANC’s
numbers. Contemporary
communist parties are more about pushing ideological
issues than winning
elections and capturing the state. The revival of
interest in Marxism,
especially for young people, comes because it provides
tools for analysing
capitalism and especially capitalist crises such the one
that the world
finds itself in today.
BY MZIWANDILE NDLOVU
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:28
A sad
story is told of the harrowing experience of an old man who decided to
take
a short-cut through Chancellor Avenue next to State House in Harare
recently.
It is said upon finding a horse pipe watering the shrubbery
outside the
heavily guarded presidential premises, the old man, innocently,
decided to
quench his thirst. One of the presidential guards,
characteristically armed
to the teeth, approached him demanding to know what
he was up to. Suspecting
nothing untoward in the question, the old man
responded that he was thirsty
and thought he could help himself with a drink
of water from the horse pipe.
That was the beginning of his
nightmare. The soldier ordered the old man to
continue drinking the water,
even after he said he had had enough. With the
soldier brandishing his
weapon menacingly, the old man realised he was in
serious trouble. The guard
was not joking and insisted he continue drinking
the water. He did, until he
was almost chocking on it.
The soldier then, in an act of
inexplicable meanness, directed the horse
pipe into the old man’s jacket
pockets, telling him he should carry some of
the water in case he became
thirsty again on his journey. With his jacket
dripping wet, the old man
continued on his way wondering what it is he had
done wrong to deserve this
sadistic treatment.
Many other citizens passing along Chancellor
Avenue, which is closed to
public traffic between 6pm and 6am daily, or
motorists who have failed to
give way to the presidential motorcade, have
their own tales of woe to
relate. Many speak of being subjected to
unprovoked savage beatings and
humiliation at the hands of soldiers, many of
them barely out of their
teens.
In many countries State House is
a source of pride for the nation always
open even to foreigners. In the UK,
Buckingham Palace where the British
monarch resides, is a source of pride
for the British and is routinely made
accessible to foreign
tourists.
Tour guides are on hand to explain its historic
significance as an enduring
monument of the British legacy and this endears
the monarch to the British
citizens and visitors alike. In South Africa
Nelson Mandela’s residence was
a tourist attraction where taxi drivers were
proud to take their passengers
on the way from the airport. In Zimbabwe,
statehouse is the exact opposite.
The president’s residence is a no-go area
that engenders fear and
trepidation.
Consequently, is it any
wonder that President Mugabe is feared rather than
respected? It is sad that
a leader who came to power through sacrifices made
by the generality of
Zimbabweans taking up arms to fight the colonial regime
now lives in
isolation from the very common men and women who voted him into
power.
Many people only see the President from a distance at
public rallies like
Independence Day celebrations or in the news on
television. The heavy
security that surrounds Mugabe creates the impression
of a reclusive and
paranoid leader who believes everyone is out to get
him.
Many ask the question that if President Mugabe is the popular
leader that he
claims to be on the basis that he has been voted into power
by the majority
of Zimbabweans over the past 32 years, then why does he feel
the need to be
protected by ruthless armed guards?
The First
Family must surely know that the company they keep has a bearing
on how they
are perceived by the general public. The ordinary man in the
street cannot
be blamed for thinking that the President approves of the
impunity of the
bodyguards who watch over him. The ordinary citizen cannot
be faulted for
thinking that when the soldiers harass and torment passersby
along
Chancellor Avenue, they do so with the full knowledge of their
superiors
including the President himself.
As things stand, President Mugabe’s
reputation and legacy are already
seriously tainted by decades of political
violence and unbridled impunity.
The President’s own ill-advised comments a
few years ago boasting of
“degrees in violence” will not have done his
reputation any good, and when
acts of torture are committed in his name,
that invariably makes him, in the
eyes of the public, complicit in the
violence and impunity.
But the reality, and President Mu-gabe should
try and get used to it, is
that State House, like Munhumatapa Building,
where his offices are located,
and any other government office are public
places to which all citizens
should be entitled access if they have
legitimate business to be there. It
is wrong that any citizen should be
harassed or tortured for passing through
Chancellor Avenue as long as they
have not shown any disrespect for the
President nor committed any
crime.
BY DESMOND KUMBUKA
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012 13:26
The
alarmist reports in the official media about an alleged act of attempted
genocide averted at the last minute at Harare’s waterworks must have caused
alarm and despondency among the city’s population.
The enormity
of the whole story and the way it played out betrayed the
presence of vested
interests that will stop at nothing to use their power to
achieve some
sinister end.
That the public was never at any time in any danger was
clear, but the
intrigue that accompanied this simple issue shows the kind of
abuse of
public office which commentators have always pointed to, in
stressing the
all-pervasive rot that has crippled our system of
governance.
Water has always been one of the biggest problems
besetting the City of
Harare. Not only is money unavailable to ensure enough
chemicals are bought
to purify our water and to repair the dilapidated
infrastructure, but also
there has never been an interest on the part of the
authorities to ensure
that our sources of water are kept
clean.
Indeed, Harare’s sources of water are the most polluted in the
country due
to industrial waste and nothing has been done to stop the wanton
release
into the river systems of this toxic waste, which makes it almost
impossible
to purify the water.
The worst polluters of the water
system are known but we have not seen the
same kind of enthusiasm and gusto
on the part of authorities to stem this
blatant poisoning of our water, such
as we saw in the past few days.
While there should be no excuses for
the recent mix-up, the manner in which
the debacle was handled smacked of
political intrigue rather than a genuine
desire to safeguard the lives of
Harare residents.
The incident also appears to have provided an
opportunity to either get rid
of, or punish, certain players in the system.
The supply and transportation
of water treatment chemicals must be big
business and a number of
politicians might naturally be eyeing a share of
the pie, but shenanigans
such as we saw recently can be played out without
causing alarm among the
city residents.
Quote of the
week
"You have stood by me for such a long time and I feel so
blessed having you
in my corner.” Swimmer Kirsty Coventry thanking
Zimbabweans after her heroic
exist from London Olympics without a medal.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw
Sunday, 05 August 2012
13:25
Has Zimbabwe become a racist nation and are we about to
institutionalise
racism in our Constitution? This is an emotive question
that is beginning to
come to the fore as the nation interrogates the draft
constitution made
public last month.
But one would have thought
the question of racism belonged to the past.
Racism was institutionalised in
Zimbabwe during the colonial era. In fact,
it was institutionalised the
world over until the affected people began to
fight it culminating in the
decolonisation of almost all nations that had
been subjugated by the
imperialist nations of Europe. In 1980 Zimbabwe
achieved its decolonisation
and started on the road to build a non-racial
society. Or, was this really
mere politicking?
Interestingly, Zimbabwe joined hands with the rest
of the world in fighting
apartheid, considered to be racism in its ugliest
form. With the fall of
apartheid in 1990, the world must have heaved a sigh
of relief in the belief
that the monster had been finally
defeated.
But racism has proved to be a hydra that continues to
resurrect its heads in
different forms all over the world. We see incidents
of racism in sport and
in business and we also see it in politics especially
when neighbouring
nations fight for resources. The troubles between Sudan
and South Sudan are
racist, so are those between Israel and Palestine. But
generally nations
have proclaimed their aversion to racism; when it pops up,
it is quickly
denounced and apologies exchanged.
Until recently,
racism in Zimbabwe only manifested itself in incidents such
as when some
unknown white employer used derogatory language against his
employees. Such
incidents had become rare but when they emerged they have
fired up otherwise
dormant emotions. This is mainly because the war against
racism is still
fresh in the minds of most adults in Zimbabwe.
The war was brutal
and many people are wont to evoke its memories in times
when tensions
between white and black are taut.
There has been a raging debate as to
whether there can ever be reverse
racism. Many scholars have said that
racism is about economic power and only
white people have economic power and
therefore only they can really be
racist.
But it has been
demonstrated for example by former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin
that political
power can also give rise to virulent racism, that some
scholars have called
reverse racism. In other parts of the world racism
based on political power
has come in the form of ethnic cleansing whereby
the dominant ethnic group
attempts to forcibly remove from their territory,
or exterminate, minorities
they deem undesirable.
Two evils have begun to emerge in Zimbabwe:
one of them is xenophobia, the
other is racism, call it revere if you like,
but it’s still racism.
Xenophobia has manifested itself in the way
Zimbabweans hate fellow Africans
such as West Africans who have established
successful businesses in
Zimbabwe. There have been calls from weaker local
businesspeople to chuck
these foreigners out of the country; some important
ministers have actually
supported this lobby.
Racism has been
demonstrated in the way we have treated the white section of
our population
in the past 10 years or so. During the colonial times,
successive white
government practised racism in a way that paralleled
apartheid. Blacks were
categorised as second-class citizens excluded from
the mainstream
economy.
This is a fact of history which we fought successfully
to destroy. At
independence, many diehard racists took the gap and went to
countries where
racism was still being tolerated. Thousands of whites
remained — obviously
including some dyed-in-the-wool racists — but the
general outlook was that
bygones could be bygones; a new non-racial society
could emerge out of the
ashes of the war.
Generally, Zimbabwe was
doing fine as far as race relations were concerned
until about 15 years ago
when blacks again began to feel excluded more and
more from the mainstream
economy.
Many factors led to this real or perceived exclusion not
least of which were
poor government policies that led to the decline of the
economy leaving huge
sections of the population impoverished. Naturally, and
even correctly, the
impoverished people pointed at the government for their
woes and quickly
wanted to see a change of leadership.
But the
rulers had scapegoats for their own failures; this was not helped by
the
fact that the white community seemed to be prospering while the rest of
the
country was living in dire straits. This made it easy for the rulers to
revive racism as a weapon of choice to save their own skins. They then
embarked on what one prominent politician labelled a “racist enterprise” of
grabbing from the “rich whites to give to the poor blacks” so as to “correct
historical imbalances”.
The enterprise gave birth to a new
language with new terms that will forever
haunt the nation. When President
Robert Mugabe defined the enemy in racial
terms the die was cast. “Let’s
strike fear in the heart of the white man,
our real enemy; let the white man
tremble.”
After the strife that beset the country since the turn of
the millennium,
Zimbabweans have been given a chance to reflect on where
they wish to go as
a nation. The Global Political Agreement gave the country
this opportunity.
The constitution that we are working on therefore should
be the
crystallisation of our new vision, which vision should have as one of
its
cornerstones the building of a new non-racial
society.
Although the current constitution draft portends to do so,
there are too
many areas that defeat this. It is important to look again at
the sections
in the draft that go against what is so nobly stated in the
Preamble and the
Founding Principles.
The Preamble speaks of us
being united in our common desire for equality and
our resistance to racism,
and commitment to building a just nation founded
on values of equality and
fairness, among others. This is repeated in the
Founding Principles, where
Zimbabwe is founded on respect for fundamental
human rights and recognition
of the equality of all human beings, as well as
others. Likewise, in
Chapter 4, Human Rights (4.13), “Every person is equal
before the law and
has the right to equal protection and benefit of the
law.” And “Every
person has the right not to be treated in an unfairly
discriminatory manner
on such grounds as their nationality, race, colour…”
We should set
out not to institutionalise racism as the draft seems to do.
BY
NEVANJI MADANHIRE
