VOA
By Peta Thornycroft
Southern Africa
12 December
2007
Negotiations between the ruling ZANU-PF and Zimbabwe's
opposition are almost
complete, but the timeframe for implementation could
become a make-or-break
issue. For VOA, Peta Thornycroft has
more.
Negotiations on democracy issues to pave the way for elections in
Zimbabwe
are almost complete. All the legal work has been done and a new
constitution
has been agreed on by the negotiators and technical committees
for the
ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change.
The major outstanding issue is the timeframe in which these
agreements will
be implemented. An African diplomat based in South Africa
has told VOA this
is the reason the parties have not yet concluded the
negotiations.
The diplomat fears that a failure to agree on timeframes
could ultimately
wreck eight months of talks. He suggests this is unlikely
to occur until the
conclusion of the national conference of South Africa's
ruling African
National Congress next week.
President Robert Mugabe
has agreed to significant reforms of the election
laws, but has so far given
no indication he will allow time for those
reforms to take effect before the
next poll.
Analysts say the reforms will need to be well-publicized to a
skeptical,
nervous and politically exhausted electorate in Zimbabwe in order
to ensure
Zimbabweans vote in numbers.
Diplomats in Harare and
several political analysts warn that senior leaders
of both opposition
factions will likely boycott the poll if Mr. Mugabe
insists on elections in
March and also delays implementation of new
constitution. Analysts say an
opposition boycott would receive strong
support from non-governmental
organizations and civil rights activists.
That, analysts say, would deny
President Mugabe the free and fair election
verdict he needs in order to
return Zimbabwe to the international community
and raise foreign loans to
rescue the economy.
A boycott would also deny South African President
Thabo Mbeki, who is
mediating the Zimbabwe negotiations, the goal he has
said he wants - a
Zimbabwe-election result that is undisputed.
It all
depends on the timing. So they are very close to success and also
dangerously close to failure at the same time, the African diplomat
said.
Meanwhile, the government is proceeding as if no electoral reforms
had been
agreed to in the talks. New electoral commissioners are being
appointed and
Mr. Mugabe has said he will only invite election observers
from friendly
nations.
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
leaders initiated the
negotiations at an extraordinary summit in March,
after being shocked by
television images of injuries sustained by founding
MDC president Morgan
Tsvangirai and colleagues while in police custody
earlier that month.
The Zimbabwean
Wednesday, 12 December 2007 16:48
By Tichaona Sibanda in London
and Itai Dzamara in Harare
Zanu (PF) and MDC are accusing each other of
leaking sensitive
information to the media about the on-off peace talks. At
the beginning of
the negotiations in April this year, the SADC-appointed
mediator, South
African President Thabo Mbeki, swore all concerned to
secrecy. But details
of the discussions have made their way into the public
domain throughout the
process.
"People are desperate for
information. Their very lives are at stake
here and they have a right to
know what is going on," said a respected
political commentator this week.
"It is unrealistic of Mbeki to expect the
talks to continue for more than
six months without any details being leaked.
Mbeki seems to like secrecy -
as evidenced by his failed policy of quiet
diplomacy, where everything was
done behind doors," he added.
Information leaks have heightened tension
among the negotiating
parties, who are blaming each other for leaking
'sensitive' information to
the media.
A source in South Africa told
SW Radio Africa that the parties were
wasting time haggling over who was
responsible for the leaks.
Mbeki had set this Friday as the deadline
for the conclusion of the
negotiations between the two MDCs and Zanu (PF)
but it is highly unlikely
that this will be met.
Secretary for
International Affairs Professor Elphas Mukonoweshuro
said the Accord is
expected to come in two parts. He said the first would be
the actual text of
agreed measures between the ruling party and the two
factions of the MDC.
The second would be a memorandum of understanding.
"Once we get copies
of these, we will convene a meeting of the
national council and study the
two documents. But we should emphasize from
the beginning that we have kept
our bargain from the start and Zanu (PF) has
failed to implement any of its
concessions," Mukonoweshuro said.
Sources close to the negotiations
told The Zimbabwean that Mbeki was
expected to extend the deadline yet again
in order to break the logjam
caused by the reluctance on the part of Zanu
(PF) to accept critical reforms
in the electoral system as well as the
political environment. It is
understood that the issue of the new
constitution, which earlier was said to
have been agreed on and resolved,
has once again emerged to be a sticking
point as the ruling party resist
efforts by the opposition to have a new
constitution in place before the
2008 elections.
"It is a real stalemate," a source said. "To Zanu (PF),
it is game on
and the course is clear to go to next year's elections under
whatever is
there in terms of the electoral framework and the political
environment. But
for MDC, there is a lot to be done in every aspect - the
constitution, the
electoral framework and the political
environment."
Zanu (PF) claims to have stopped state-sponsored violence
and defends
the existence of terror troops from its national training
service programme
as solely for developmental and training
purposes.
"Zanu (PF) is not compromising on its position, which is
clearly aimed
at safeguarding and defending its power and election-rigging
mechanisms,"
said a source.
Tsvangirai issued an ultimatum last
week to Zanu (PF) to stop the
violence and halt the ongoing preparations by
the partisan Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC) using a flawed voters'
roll. But there has not
been any response from the ruling party.
Zim Online
by Cuthbert Nzou Wednesday 12 December
2007
HARARE – Three people were killed in politically
motivated violence and more
than 500 tortured in Zimbabwe since the
beginning of the year, amid reports
that state sponsored human rights
violations were escalating in the southern
African nation.
In a
statement to mark the International Human Rights Day, the Zimbabwe
Human
Rights NGO Forum said unlawful arrest and detention, torture,
political
discrimination, and interference with basic human freedoms were
the most
common violations reported in a country also facing its severest
economic
crisis.
The forum said it recorded high numbers of human rights
violations on civic
rights groups such as the Women of Zimbabwe Arise,
(WOZA), the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA), lawyers and students as
well as activists of
the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party.
The Forum said: "Cumulative totals for January 2007 to
October 2007 show
that there have been 549 cases of torture, 3 086 of
unlawful arrest and
detention and 2 719 violations of the right to freedom
of expression,
association and movement.
"As at 31 October 2007, the
Forum had recorded three murders which are
either politically motivated or
exhibit abuse of state power."
Politically motivated violence and human
rights abuses – mostly blamed on
state agents - have become routine in
Zimbabwe since the emergence in 1999
of the MDC as a potent electoral threat
to President Robert Mugabe and his
ruling ZANU PF party’s stranglehold on
power.
Dozens of activists of the opposition party were killed and maimed
during
the run-up to parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000 and
2002 in
which the labour-backed MDC nearly unseated Mugabe and ZANU
PF.
The Forum, which is a coalition of 17 human rights and pro-democracy
groups
in Zimbabwe, said rights violations were continuing despite South
African
mediated talks between ZANU PF and the MDC.
The Zimbabwean
political parties have held several rounds of talks and last
August agreed
constitutional reforms that will see parliamentary elections
brought forward
by two years to be held together with presidential elections
in
2008.
But analysts say South Africa should urge Mugabe to end political
violence
and repeal tough security and press laws that have hampered the
opposition
from carrying out its political work if next year’s polls are to
be free and
fair.
The Forum said most of the violations reported have
been linked to the
police and called on the Harare administration to act to
end human rights
abuses by state agents.
It said: "The Forum calls
for the immediate cessation of all state sponsored
acts of violence against
citizens peacefully demonstrating for their
constitutional or political
rights (and) reiterates the need for the
government of Zimbabwe to take
measures to stop acts of torture, repeal
repressive legislation, and
generally uphold human rights."
Both Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
and Information Minister and
government spokesman Sikhanyiso Ndlovu were not
immediately available to
respond to charges of increasing human rights
violations by state agents.
However the government has in the past
rejected criticism of its human
rights record by the Forum, which it accuses
of seeking to use false claims
of human rights abuses by state agents as
part of a wider Western-led plot
to tarnish and vilify Mugabe’s
government.
Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
on Monday
denounced Zimbabwe's human rights record while honoring a lawyers'
group for
fighting government repression in the southern African
country.
"In Zimbabwe, civil society remains under siege amid a political
and
economic crisis caused by the irresponsible policies of the regime,"
Rice
said at an award ceremony.
Rice gave the State Department's
annual Freedom Defender Award to the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a
non-governmental organisation that has
given legal help to activists who
oppose President Robert Mugabe. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Thulani Munda Wednesday 12 December
2007
HARARE – Zimbabwean authorities have temporarily stopped
accepting local
currency as payment for new passports, in a bizarre twist
that virtually
amounts to official admission that the country’s depreciating
currency is no
longer worth using.
Mid-year, Harare vigorously
rejected proposals by some economic experts to
adopt neighbouring South
Africa’s more stable rand currency as the medium of
exchange in order to
deal with one of the world’s worst recessions.
But the adoption this week
of the US dollar by the Registrar General's (RG)
office – which officials
emphasised was only temporary and meant to raise
foreign currency to import
production materials – is probably the first
indication that Zimbabwe’s
rulers may also be losing heart with a currency
that is losing value faster
than any other on earth.
A senior official at the RG's office in Harare
told ZimOnline yesterday that
the RG Tobaiwa Mudede had directed that with
immediate effect adults
applying for passports would pay US$220 while minors
would be required to
pay US$120.
The charges have the backing of
President Robert Mugabe’s Cabinet.
"The arrangement for applicants to pay
in US dollars has been there in the
past two months but people were also
allowed to pay in the Zimbabwean
dollar," the official said
yesterday.
"But the government has realised that the cost of producing a
passport had
been going up, hence the decision to charge all passports in
foreign
currency," the official said.
Mudede was not immediately
available for comment on the matter as he was
said to be out of
office.
The government has in recent years been demanding payment in hard
cash from
foreigners visiting Zimbabwe and sometimes locals importing goods
such
luxury cars.
However, Zimbabweans residing in the country were
allowed to pay application
fees for new passports in local currency, while
those living abroad and with
access to foreign currency could pay fees in
hard cash.
The passport is probably the most sought after document in
Zimbabwe with
tens of thousands of people fleeing the crisis-hit country
every year to
look for better-paying jobs and standard of living
abroad.
For example, the RG’s office is sitting on a backlog of 300 000
applications
for new passports with the figure rising each
week.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a debilitating political and economic
crisis that
is highlighted by hyperinflation, a rapidly contracting GDP, the
fastest for
a country not at war according to the World Bank and shortages
of foreign
currency, food and fuel.
A shortage of local currency has
further choked Zimbabweans, a vast majority
of who are living on less than
US$1 per day. Four out of five people are out
of work, while a quarter of
the country’s 12 million people are in urgent
need of food aid but Mugabe
insists the country will not collapse. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Simplicious Chirinda Wednesday 12 December
2007
HARARE – The Southern African Development Community
(SADC) Tribunal on
Tuesday reserved judgment in a case in which a Zimbabwean
white farmer is
appealing against seizure of his land by President Robert
Mugabe’s
government.
But Tribunal Registrar Justice Charles
Mkandawire told ZimOnline that it
would on Thursday grant interim relief to
the farmer allowing him to stay on
his property pending final ruling on the
matter.
“Determination on the interim relief (application) will be passed
on
Thursday which will allow the farmer to continue staying at his farm
until
the conclusion of the case next month when the Tribunal will deliver
the
final court order,” Mkandawire said by phone from Windhoek, Namibia
where
the Tribunal sits.
The farmer, William Michael Campbell, 75,
approached the Tribunal seeking an
order stopping Mugabe from interfering
with operations at his Mount Carmel
Farm pending a full hearing on the
legality of Harare’s controversial
programme to seize land from whites for
redistribution to landless blacks.
President of the Tribunal Louis
Antonio Mondlane, a judge from Mozambique,
heard the matter together with
fellow tribunal members, Malawian Supreme
Court Judge Isaac Mtambo and
Botswana Judge Onkemetse Tshosa.
Acting Director of the civil division of
the Attorney General’s office in
Harare Fatima Maxwell represented the
government of Zimbabwe while advocates
Jeremy Gauntlet and Adrian de Bourbon
acted on behalf of Campbell.
The case, the first to be handled by the
SADC Tribunal that was set up in
2000, could have far-reaching consequences
for Mugabe who has over the past
seven years seized white farmland for
redistribution to landless blacks.
The controversial farm seizures have
resulted in the majority of the about 4
000 white farmers being forcibly
ejected from their properties. Only about
400 farmers have retained their
farms since the land reforms began in 2000.
Campbell is among a group of
10 farmers who were dragged to court in Chegutu
for defying a September 30
deadline to vacate their properties that were
compulsorily acquired by the
government for resettlement.
He faces a two-year jail term if
convicted.
Campbell wants the Tribunal to rule that the government of
Zimbabwe is in
breach of its obligations as a member of SADC after it signed
into law
Constitution of Amendment No.17 two years ago.
The
constitutional amendment allows the Harare government to seize farmland
without compensation and bars courts from hearing appeals from dispossessed
white farmers.
Campbell says the amendment is a violation of his
constitutional rights. He
has already appealed against the amendment at the
Supreme Court of Zimbabwe,
after the court reserved judgment on the matter
last March.
Campbell’s lawyers, say the Supreme Court, the highest court
of law in the
country, has already delayed “unreasonably” in dealing with
the matter
forcing them to approach the SADC Tribunal.
The white
farmer says Mugabe’s land reforms were racist and illegal under
the SADC
treaty adding that Article 6 of the SADC treaty bars member states
from
discriminating against any person on the grounds of gender, religion,
race,
ethnic origin and culture.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the SADC treaty. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Wayne Mafaro Wednesday 12 December
2007
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
(ZESA) says power cuts
are set to continue as South Africa’s Eskom and other
regional power
utilities were struggling to maintain supplies to Zimbabwe
due to rising
demand in their own countries.
ZESA chief executive Ben
Rafamoyo told ZimOnline yesterday that Zimbabwe was
only importing 280
megawatts, a mere 22 percent of its requirements, against
a national demand
of 2 200 megawatts per month.
Rafamoyo said although ZESA had cleared its
debt to Eskom it was not
receiving any supplies from the utility because the
South African energy
firm did not have excess power to export.
“We
have not been importing anything from Eskom for quite some time now
because
they have no excess capacity to sell to us. They are actually
load-shedding
in South Africa,” said Rafemoyo.
The ZESA chief said they were currently
only importing 200 megawatts from
the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Snell
power company and 80 megawatts from
Mozambique’s Hydro Cahora
Bassa.
Rafemoyo said ZESA did not have any outstanding debts with Eskom
despite a
Zimbabwe parliamentary report two weeks ago that claimed ZESA
still owed
money to the South African firm.
“We are current with our
payments to Eskom, we owe them nothing,” Rafemoyo
said.
A
parliamentary report on mines and energy shown to ZimOnline last week said
South Africa and Zambia had stopped electricity supplies to Zimbabwe over an
outstanding US$42 million debt.
The report said only the DRC and
Mozambique had continued to supply power to
Zimbabwe “out of goodwill”
despite being owed huge sums of money by the
virtually bankrupt
ZESA.
Zimbabwe, which is in the grip of its worst ever economic
recession, has
battled severe electricity shortages over the past seven
years.
The power shortages are only one among a list of hardships
bedeviling
Zimbabwe as the country grapples with a severe recession seen in
hyperinflation, a rapidly contracting GDP and shortages of food and fuel. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Tafirei Shumba Wednesday 12 December
2007
CHIREDZI – Police and agents of the government’s spy
Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO), who otherwise generally co-operate
on security matters,
clashed here at the weekend over a voter education
concert that the CIO
wanted banned despite the police having cleared the
event.
To their credit, the police had cleared in advance the musical
concert
promoted by the civic organisation Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
(CZC) to
disseminate information on people's civil rights to
vote.
The local council, who own the venue Tsvovani Stadium, in this
sugar cane
growing region 420km south-east of Harare, had also given artists
the green
light to use the stadium.
But moments before the show could
begin before about 5 000 people, council
officials arrived to stop the
performance claiming the dreaded CIO had
ordered the concert
cancelled.
There were grumblings from the crowd as musicians milled
around the set
stage but council officials remained unmoved, insisting the
show had to be
stopped in compliance with orders from the CIO, who operate
directly under
President Robert Mugabe’s office.
"There has been
political pressure from the CIO who were mad that council
had approved the
use of the venue by the artists for civic education,” a
council official
told ZimOnline at the stadium.
“We had already accepted their $30 million
to book the venue but now we have
no choice but to listen to what the CIO
want," added the official, who asked
not to be named.
The CIO agents,
who are accused by churches and human rights groups of
persecuting Mugabe’s
opponents, also told the police to disperse the artists
and the audience
which the police apparently refused to do.
A police officer, who would
not give his name, said the CIO had even
suggested that the musicians be
arrested.
“We advised the CIO that it would give the government a bad
name if we
stopped the show and arrest musicians. We told them we would not
do that,"
said the police officer.
While the police, CIO and council
were shuttling behind the scenes the
restless artists defied the order to
stop and started performing much to the
chagrin of the dreaded Gestapo-style
spy agents.
"We defied the CIO action and went ahead to play. We wanted
to see how they
were going to arrest 40 artists who had, after all, been
cleared by the
police and council itself in the first place," said Okay
Machisa who managed
the show.
There have been similar voter education
musical shows organised by the CZC
in Harare, Chitungwiza, Mutoko and
Bulawayo in recent weeks that the CIO
have not attempted to stop.
It
could not be established whether the CIO has now changed its policy on
such
voter education campaigns as the secretive security organ, which
normally
does not discuss its work with the media, did not respond to
calls.
Zimbabwe police and the CIO have this year banned at least a dozen
theatrical performances they perceived as too critical of Mugabe’s rule and
detained the artists without trial. Some of the artists are in the process
of taking the police to the courts for the unlawful interference with their
work of art. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Wednesday 12 December
2007
JOHANNESBURG – The German foreign ministry on
Tuesday summoned
Zimbabwe’s envoy in Berlin after information minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu
labeled German Chancellor Angela Merkel a
“fascist.”
The foreign ministry said it summoned Zimbabwe’s charge
d’affaires
because Harare’s ambassador to Berlin, Cuthbert Zhakata was not
in the
German capital.
Speaking at the European Union-Africa
summit in Lisbon, Portugal last
weekend, Merkel criticised President Robert
Mugabe’s human rights record
saying the Zimbabwean leader “was damaging the
image of the new Africa.”
Ndlovu reacted to the criticism of Mugabe
by labeling Merkel a
“fascist” and “Nazi remnant,” remarks that have not
gone down well with the
German authorities in Berlin.
“Foreign
Minister (Frank-Walter) Steinmeier summoned the Charge
d'Affaires of
Zimbabwe yesterday to the Foreign Ministry.
It was made very clear
to him that the comments about the chancellor
heard coming out of Zimbabwe
were in no way acceptable," said Martin Jaeger,
the foreign ministry
spokesperson.
In an article in the state-controlled Herald
newspaper, Ndlovu
defended Mugabe saying he was an icon of African
nationalism, accusing the
Germans of racism following the attack on
Mugabe.
“Zimbabwe is not a colony of Germany," the paper quoted him
as saying.
“This is racism of the first order by the German head of
state.”
The European Union has over the past six years maintained
targeted
sanctions on Mugabe and his senior lieutenants to pressure them to
halt
human rights violations and uphold democracy. - ZimOnline
News24
12/12/2007 19:12 -
(SA)
Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday defended
her attack on
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's human rights record at
the EU-Africa
summit in Lisbon which saw her branded as a racist by
Harare.
"Freedom and tolerance, democracy and human rights form the
foundation for
existing side-by-side in dignity," Merkel told lawmakers in
the German lower
house of parliament.
"One cannot relativise these
values. They either exist fully or not at all."
Merkel said the EU-Africa
summit in the Portuguese capital last weekend had
again demonstrated that
Germany's "foreign policy is based on principles".
"Promoting our
economic interests and defending human rights are two sides
of the same coin
for us," she said.
Merkel used the summit to launch a stinging attack on
Mugabe, who is seen by
the West as a ruthless dictator who rigged his 2002
re-election and has led
his once-prosperous country to economic
ruin.
She accused the Zimbabwean leader of trampling on human rights and
"harming
the image of the new Africa" in a speech that has sparked a war of
words
between Berlin and Harare.
Several African leaders accused
Merkel of being out of touch with the
situation in Zimbabwe while that
country's information minister, Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu, branded her a racist and
said she should "shut up".
"Zimbabwe is not a colony of Germany. This is
racism of the first order by
the German head of state," he told Zimbabwe's
Herald newspaper.
The German foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned the
charge d'affaires at the
Zimbabwean embassy in Berlin to protest at Ndlovu's
outburst.
New Vision, Uganda
Tuesday, 11th
December, 2007
By Kofi Bentil
AFRICAN Union leaders who met
their European Union counterparts at the
weekend are supposed to represent
our future but when it comes to Robert
Mugabe they are stuck in an
ideological time-warp: Mugabe is a
freedom-fighter and Zimbabwe is a victim
of Western depredations, including
threats to boycott the
meeting.
Even democratically-elected Ghanaian President John Kufuor,
Chairman of the
African Union, recently observed equivocally: “When the
leader of the
opposition gets beaten up, for good or ill, naturally all
concerned should
be worried.”
At least Mugabe is honest: “Some are
crying that they were beaten. Yes, you
will be thoroughly beaten. When the
police say move, you move. If you don’t
move, you invite the police to use
force,” he said about trade union
activists arrested in September last
year.
Paralysed by hero-worship, the Southern African Development
Community summit
in August supported Mugabe’s claims of a UK plot, our Heads
of State gave
Mugabe a podium and a standing ovation in Kenya in May, most
of them backed
Zimbabwe’s cruelly ironic election to the UN Commission on
Sustainable
Development this year and the whole AU boycotted a 2003 summit
with the EU
because Mugabe was excluded. Their pretext is the sacred mantra
of
non-interference and respecting sovereignty—meaning the sovereignty of
ruling cliques, not of long-suffering citizens.
Our leaders have to
recognise that Mugabe is not an ideological dictator in
the mould of their
heroes Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Julius Nyerere in
Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda in
Zambia or Milton Obote in Uganda, nor even like
ideologues such as Hitler,
Stalin or his own hero Kim Il Sung: he is a
straightforward kleptocrat
determined to hold on to power at any cost.
Even the democratic African
leaders, including Kufuor and South Africa’s
Thabo Mbeki, like to hear
Mugabe blaming the West for Zimbabwe’s and all our
ills, as he did in
Nairobi at May’s Common Market for Eastern and Southern
Africa (COMESA)
summit.
He was applauded for complaining about commodity prices being
fixed by the
West, although free markets do not fix prices in the way that
African
governments fix prices and monopolise commodity sales.
SADC
leaders in Lusaka even backed Mugabe’s claim that Zimbabwe is a victim
of
economic sanctions although the only measures, by the EU and the USA, are
travel and financial restrictions on about 130 members of the ruling clique
(in fact, the UK is the second biggest provider of humanitarian assistance
to Zimbabwe).
SADC executive secretary Dr. Tomaz Salomao said in
November: “for us they
are sanctions and our approach has been to have them
lifted.”
Many also shared Mugabe’s economically-ignorant call for
self-sufficiency.
But no developed country is self-sufficient in commodities
(nor even most
manufactured products) and we Africans cannot live on a diet
of cocoa beans
and tea: selling it is much more
profitable.
Manufacturing and adding value are great economic aims but
they do not
happen successfully by government decree. right now, Africans
suffer heavy
import tariffs for essential inputs (such as fertiliser) and
medicines,
state control of exports, lack of property rights, obstacles to
private
enterprise and a ubiquitous corrupt bureaucracy.
Yet our
leaders do not accept that the key to our future is allowing our
people to
create wealth: we cannot free ourselves from poverty without
economic
freedoms such as property rights, the rule of law and free markets.
But the
Mugabe version remains attractive because we all like to believe
that our
failures are someone else’s fault. And Mugabe remains in power
after 27
years, at the age of 83!
It seems true that evil men live long but that
is because every day an evil
man lives is like eternity to the
oppressed.
Neither South Africa’s “quiet diplomacy” nor Western
restrictions on
money-laundering can influence a man who is cocooned in
delusions and
treated with deference by his neighbours. Our new crop of
elected African
leaders, blithely talking of an African Renaissance, should
be emboldened by
their own democratic authority to face up to people like
Mugabe (and the
leaders of Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia).
They should
make Mugabe unwelcome at civilised meetings like the EU-AU
summit in Lisbon
and put legal pressure on him by consensus, as West African
leaders did to
force out Charles Taylor in Liberia.
Our leaders managed to evade any
action at the recent Commonwealth Summit
because Zimbabwe is no longer a
member but the AU-EU summit puts Mugabe
centre-stage: he attended the summit
and Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon
Brown boycotted it. They should heed the
call of Ghanaian former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan who said recently:
“Africans must guard against
a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism
that unites citizens to rise
up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white,
but to excuse tyrannical
rulers who are black.”
Before embarrassing
themselves again, our leaders must come to their senses
and join the huge
majority of Africans who reject the barbaric Mugabe: by
embracing economic
freedoms to save their own countries, they would offer
hope to Zimbabweans
for the day after Mugabe.
The writer is a lecturer at Ashesi University
and a consultant in business
strategy in Accra, Ghana
Bloomberg
By Ed Johnson
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- New Zealand
extended sanctions against President
Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe,
saying it will deny student visas to
the children of regime
officials.
The government remains ``deeply concerned by the continuing
destructive
conduct'' of Mugabe's regime, Foreign Minister Winston Peters
said in a
statement.
The measure aims to increase pressure on senior
officials to change
government policies, Peters added. There are currently
no Zimbabwean
passport holders, who are related to officials on the banned
list, in New
Zealand on student permits.
Mugabe, 83, has ruled
Zimbabwe since 1980. He sparked the nation's economic
collapse by seizing
white-owned commercial farms and handing them over to
his supporters, who
had little finance and farming skills. The country is in
its ninth year of
economic recession and has the world's fastest-shrinking
peacetime
economy.
``Mugabe's government is continuing to violently suppress
political
opposition and it is driving the country toward economic ruin,''
Peters
said. ``It is wrong that amid the chaos and suffering they imposed,
the
regime's leaders are able to send their children abroad to study so they
can
escape such conditions.''
Australia and the U.S. imposed similar
restrictions on granting student
visas in recent months, New Zealand
Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove
said. The ban will apply to regime
officials' children aged 18 years and
older.
New Zealand imposed
travel bans on 20 members of Zimbabwe's government in
2002. The list
includes Mugabe, many Cabinet members, the heads of the armed
services,
police, intelligence and prisons agencies and other leading public
servants.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney
at
ejohnson28@bloomberg.net
.
Last Updated: December 11, 2007 23:16 EST
Sudan Tribune
Wednesday 12 December
2007 06:03.
By Woldu Mikawl
December 11, 2007 — It is hard to get
the world to take a closer look at all
the brutal African dictators of the
21st century. No wonder, the call by
Reporters Without Borders to bar the
Eritrean Strongman Isayas Afeworki from
entering Europe to attend a rare
EU-African summit in Portugal over the
weekend, failed to draw the
international attention it deserved. Unlike
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, the
equally, if not more ruthless regime of Mr.
Afeworki, has not yet come on
everybody’s radar screen for public scrutiny
and denunciation.
In
dealing with human rights issues, most world leaders are guided by
political
expediencies rather than lofty principles and ideals. Human rights
become
nobody’s business when national interest alone takes precedence.
Aware of
this state of affairs, over 30 years ago, Idi Amin, the
blood-thirsty
Ugandan dictator terrorized an entire population with
impunity. Idi Amin
simply rebuffed and mocked Western condemnations as mere
racist
rhetoric.
Ironically, many Pan-Africanists of the time, though often
embarrassed by
his vulgar and ill-mannered behavior, admired him for
standing up to old
colonial Europe and imperialist USA.
Indeed, in
1975, after murdering over an estimated 200-thousand of his
citizens, Idi
Amin was unanimously selected by his contemporaries to chair
the
Organization of African Unity, the forerunner of the African Union. The
OAU
never condemned Idi Amin for his flagrant human rights abuses under the
pretext of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
The
Ugandan bully also had non-African friends. Soviet Communists armed him
to
the teeth to counter Western influence in East Africa, and Arab
governments
took care of his finances because he hated Israel.
Not much has changed
since the Idi Amin days. Only the players have changed.
ROBERT
MUGABE:
Like Uganda’s Idi Amin, President Mugabe conveniently shrugs off
European
and American criticisms of his failed policies as racist. At the
same time,
he is hailed by many African leaders for standing up to Western
double
standards and for seizing thousands of white farms.
But the
mismanaged and corrupt land reform process, launched in 2000, has
only
managed to enrich Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party and consolidate his
power
base. It has further alienated and embittered Mugabe’s political
opponents
who are the main target of his repressive policies.
There is no argument
against the idea of land redistribution among
Zimbabweans to redress past
white racist policies. But the rash to destroy
thousands of commercial farms
has led the country to abject poverty and
famine. Half of the country’s
population of 12 million now depend on food
aid donated by the US or
Britain. Millions have left the country in the past
few years to escape
repression and poverty.
To control a restive population, the regime uses
imprisonment, torture,
killings and mass starvation. Instead of feeding its
people, the regime has
purchased 100’s of millions of US dollars-worth of
weapons from China for no
other purpose than to intimidate Mugabe’s
political opponents.
It is widely recognized that the Zimbabwean leader
was a dictator from the
start. In a political purge, before and immediately
after independence
in1980, Mr. Mugabe - member of the majority Shona ethnic
group - unleashed
genocide against the minority Endebele tribe killing up to
30,000 of them.
In 1984, he imprisoned his chief political rival Baptist
Bishop Abel
Muzorewa without trial for10 months on false treason
charges.
He is as oppressive today as he was then. Human rights
organizations speak
of relentless atrocities aimed particularly at members
of the main
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Government
forces have
stepped up their repression as the 2008 national elections draw
near.
Despite all this, African leaders, many of them openly or closet
dictators,
threatened to boycott the European-African summit in Portugal
over the
weekend unless Mr. Mugabe was allowed to participate.
ISAYAS
AFEWORKI
The Eritrean strongman presides over a brutal authoritarian
military regime
camouflaged in civilian attire. Mr. Afeworki has given the
military a free
hand to use torture, murder, disappearances, arbitrary
arrests, imprisonment
without trial and intimidations against dissenting
politicians, academics,
students, journalists, civic and religious leaders
and ordinary
parishioners. Thousands continue to suffer in the harshest
prison
environments including filthy dungeons and metal containers on
account of
their political views or faith.
In 2001, the Eritrean
dictator imprisoned without trial his entire cabinet
of ministers, among
them, the vice president and the foreign and defense
ministers under false
accusations of conspiring against the country. They
are held in secrete
prisons and only the authorities know if they are still
alive or not. Prior
to their arrest, the officials had tried in vain to meet
with Mr. Afeworki
about the need for constitutional democracy, elections and
rule of law. The
request for a meeting is the only “crime” they are believed
to have
committed.
That same year, Mr. Afeworki shut down the entire independent
press and the
only one university in the country – Asmara University; the
government
imprisoned without trial close to two dozen journalists and
publishers, and
detained thousands of university students. The independent
press and Asmara
University still remain out of service as a punishment for
attempting to
entertain democratic ideas.
While four journalists are
known to have been tortured to death, 15 others
still remain in secrete
prisons. Eritrea is now considered number one,
behind North Korea, as the
worst country for press freedom.
On the economic front, Mr. Afeworki has
nothing to offer. He uses mass
starvation as a political weapon and he
exaggerates about crop harvest in
order to justify refusal of food aid. UN
reports suggest two thirds of the
country’s 4.5 million people have to
receive external food aid or perish.
When he told the Los Angeles Times in
October that his people did not need
food aid, thousands of Asmara city
dwellers were standing in line - many of
them near one of his lavish,
affluent presidential palaces - to get their
meager food ration.
The
mismanaged economy is in a shambles and corruption is rampant. The
ruling
PFDJ (People’s Front for Democracy and Justice) party members and
supporters
have absolute monopoly over the country’s resources. Many of the
top
military officers and party members have accumulated immeasurable wealth
and
some are already millionaires.
The Eritrean government shuns Western
criticisms as “hypocritical, misguided
or misinformed.” Although the human
rights situation in Eritrea is far worse
than in Zimbabwe or anywhere else
in Africa, the European Union has never
threatened the Asmara regime with
any sanctions. On the contrary, European
development aid continues to flow
to Eritrea.
Mugabe is unwelcome in Europe for rigging elections in 2002.
Afeworki, on
the other hand, has never allowed elections to rig or not to
rig.
Additionally, Unlike Zimbabwe, Eritrean opposition parties may not
operate
inside the country. The Asmara regime has arbitrarily arrested and
indefinitely imprisoned thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of its
citizens incommunicado without trial. Unspecified number of people have been
tortured and killed in the process.
There is a clear case of European
double standard, which may soon change
once two things happen. One: the
Eritrean opposition parties need to take
concrete steps as a united
democratic force and demonstrate to the world
that they are ready and
capable to mobilize the people for government
change. Two: the European
Union will have to go along with the United States
and impose sanctions if
Washington goes ahead as planned and designate
Eritrea a state sponsor of
terrorism.
AFRICA’S CHOICES
Europe does not have solutions to all
problems. Its guiding principle of
“enlightened self-interest” is inadequate
to deal with domestic or
international problems.
Africa, which has
suffered so much in the past under colonial and racist
rules, has a great
deal to offer to the rest of the world by creating saner
social and economic
systems that really work.
But, this won’t happen unless African leaders
choose to make the firmest
commitment to the principles of human rights,
rule of law, transparency and
participatory democracy. Zimbabwe and Eritrea,
among many other troubled
African states, do not have problems that these
values cannot solve.
Dictatorships breed poverty, diseases, civil unrest,
wars, and terrorism.
Woldu Mikael is a veteran African Journalist and has
in the past interviewed
Presidents Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe.
This Day, Nigeria
By Hammed
Shittu, 12.11.2007
When the present administration in Kwara State under
the leadership of
Dr.Bukola Saraki put in place its agricultural revolution
project located at
Shonga in Edu Local Government Council Area of the state,
little did the
people of the hosting town, Shonga believe that the dividends
of the project
would go beyond the production of food crops and vegetables.
The project has
also brought social services like communication, water,
rural development,
roads development and especially the health care delivery
to the people of
Shonga at an affordable rate.
The project which was
being coordinated by the farmers from Zimbabwe in the
past four years in the
town has brought a new lease of life to the people.
It has also put the
state in the world map as various international and
local organisations have
taken serious interest at ensuring that the low
standard of living of the
people should be changed for better, while trying
to accelerate the socio
economic growth of the hosting community.
One of such challenges that had
been threatening the life of the people is
lack of health care delivery and
this prompted governor Saraki to take a
bold step at addressing the matter
as this would go along way of bringing
succuor to the hosting
community.
In doing this, the Saraki government decided to link the Dutch
government
under the Hygeia Community Health Plan, an, international
non-governmental
organisation (NGO) from Netherlands to boost his
administration‘s service
delivery in the health sector that requires little
or no money from the
patients. It takes the payment of just N200 to receive
a quality health
insurance scheme at their door steps courtesy of the
agricultural revolution
in the town.
The Dutch Community Insurance Scheme
was launched by Saraki on January 26,
at Shonga with fanfare and was
attended by the representatives of Dutch
officials in realisation of its
commitment to the health care delivery to
the people of the state. Launching
the programme, Saraki said in pursuant of
the programme, the government has
embarked on the renovation and provision
of ultra modern equipment of some
health institutions in the state as a way
of meeting with the conditions
stipulated by the Dutch in the implementation
of the health insurance
scheme.
Saraki said apart from this, the state government has embarked on the
training of medical personnel that would be managing the health institutions
so as to allow the delivery of the health insurance scheme to the people
without any hindrance. The governor said the people of Shonga should make
use of the scheme because “the cost of your health care delivery is partly
paid for by the health Insurance Fund, a fund that will work in several
African countries starting from Nigeria and this makes the cost of getting
good quality healthcare affordable for your community.”
The governor said
the scheme will be restricted to a family of maximum of 10
for Kwara State
and a family with four children for Lagos State while the
coverage period is
tied to the premium, which is payable on yearly basis and
can be renewed.
THISDAY visited the town recently to monitor the operation
of the scheme
after nine months.
Testifying to the positive impacts the health plan has
made in life of the
people of Shonga, the Ndeji of Shonga, Alhaji Abdullahi
Mohammed said
families have enrolled for the insurance scheme in view of its
usefulness in
the health development of the community.
Mohammed who is
the second in command to the Emir of Shonga said that the
members of the
family had paid only N200 per head, covering up to 10 members
of the
household in the town for the benefit of the health insurance scheme
being
provided by the Dutch in the community.
He said before the establishment of
the scheme, many people died before
intervention came their way. Mohammed
explained that the development has
created people’s access to good medical
care as they can now go for one test
or the other or check their blood
pressures. As a result, he said this has
reduced the untimely death of many
people in the town.
“Let me tell you that the people of Shonga are very
grateful to governor
Saraki for the agricultural revolution in the town
which facilitated the
bringing of health insurance community to the people
at an affordable cost,”
he said.
At the Shonga Health Centre, the Chief
Medical Director, Dr. Suleiman Yusuf
said because of the reality of actions
being taken by the health centre
within the last nine months in line with
Hygeia Community Health Plan, an
average of 110 to 120 people register per
day to access the health care
delivery.
Yusuf said that apart from the
Comprehensive Health Centre here in Shonga
which serves as operational base
of the scheme, there are other hospitals in
the state that serve as referral
units for the scheme. He mentioned the
University of Ilorin Teaching
Hospital, Ola-Olu Hospital and Specialist
Hospital, Sobi among
others.
Yusuf said that like other conventional hospitals, the health centre
which
serves as operational base of the scheme, has various departments and
units
like accidents and emergency, in–out patients department,
pharmaceuticals
department among others.
The Special Assistant to
Governor on Health, Hajia Rukayat Issa said that
the leadership zeal of the
governor and his commitment to the health
development has assisted the
governor to facilitate the bringing of the
Hygeia Community health Plan to
the state. She said that the development has
helped the low income group in
the society to have access to affordable
health care delivery.
To make
the scheme a success, the government has recruited medical doctors,
nurses,
laboratory technologists among others. Hajia Issa said the present
administration is committed to the health care delivery of the common people
and it is based on this that the government purchased a new brand Ambulance
bus for the transfer of any emergency cases from the community to the
referral hospitals in the state.
While stating that the present
government would leave no stone unturned at
enhancing the healthcare
delivery to all the nooks and crannies of the
state, the Special Assistant
called on the people of the state to continue
to support the government in
its tasks of taking health care delivery to
greater height.
The
introduction of agricultural revolution project in the Shonga has, no
doubt
changed the lives of the people of the town with the commencement of
health
care delivery to the people of the town. And with the great concern
this
present government is showing, health care delivery would be taken to
the
next level if it can sustain the current tempo.
The entire people including
those at the grassroots would find it of immense
benefit and at the long run
reduce infant and maternal mortality as well as
other kind of ailments.
HARARE, 12 December 2007 (IRIN) -
Zimbabwe's war veterans are camped outside
the conference hall of a critical
congress of the ruling ZANU-PF party this
week, determined that President
Robert Mugabe, 83, stays in office until he
retires.
Mugabe, who has
led the party since 1977, seemed on the ropes 12 months ago.
Last year's
congress refused to endorse a resolution for him to remain in
power beyond
the end of his term in 2008. Moreover, Zimbabwe's economic and
humanitarian
crisis spelled electoral doom for ZANU-PF, and his rivals knew
that only
with Mugabe gone would the international community consider
bailing the
country out, analysts said.
But Mugabe seems to have succeeded in turning
the tables on internal
dissent, led by wealthy, regionally based political
heavyweights, and
analysts predict that he will almost certainly be elected
party leader and
candidate in next year's elections at the extraordinary
congress this week.
Mugabe's political comeback owes much to his alliance
with the veterans and,
more recently, the party's youth and women's leagues.
Immediately after last
year's congress the veterans began a campaign of
pro-Mugabe "solidarity
marches" to mobilise local party support, culminating
in a "Million man and
woman march" on 30 November in the capital, Harare,
which ZANU-PF
politicians could not ignore.
"The war veterans are
being used to intimidate those opposed to the
president, and that is a sign
that he is not wanted anymore by his
colleagues in the ruling party. They
are an informal structure being used as
storm troopers," said Pedzisayi
Ruhanya, programmes manager of the
pro-democracy civic group, Crisis
Coalition in Zimbabwe.
"We will oppose all renegades and counter
revolutionaries," chairman of the
veterans, Jabulani Sibanda, told IRIN. "We
have confidence in our leader and
we believe the suffering being experienced
is to be expected, because he is
reversing unfair economic structures,
which, in the past, benefited a few
colonial settlers."
Zimbabwe is
in its seventh year of recession. It has the world's highest
rate of
inflation, eight out of 10 people are unemployed, there are
shortages of
most basics, from food to fuel, and the country's once
impressive social
indicators seem stuck in reverse. Yet ZANU-PF, under
Mugabe, will head into
elections, tentatively scheduled for March 2008,
riding high.
The
chiefs in the countryside, ZANU-PF's heartland, have remained loyal.
They
control their areas, dispensing food aid, agricultural inputs and
patronage
- allegedly on a partisan basis - and intimidation means that the
main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has failed to
effectively
mobilise in the rural areas.
The MDC is in disarray, split into two main
factions, and analysts argue
that the likelihood of voter apathy would boost
ZANU-PF's electoral
advantage.
Zimbabwe's unreformed electoral
machinery is also likely to work in the
ruling party's favour. A
constitutional amendment agreed to by the MDC in
September has increased the
number of constituencies from 120 to 210 elected
seats, but the electoral
commission has gone ahead with delimitation without
the guarantees of
impartiality that the MDC demanded.
Laws limiting public assembly and
free speech, described by human rights
groups as undemocratic, have not been
repealed. "The main issue is that
Mugabe is now looking at self-preservation
by dying in office, in order to
avoid being arraigned before international
criminal courts," commented Prof
Gordon Chavunduka, former vice chancellor
of the University of Zimbabwe.
"But the issue is much bigger than
Mugabe," said the Crisis Coalition's
Ruhanya. "Even if Mugabe was replaced
today, as long as the next leader
inherited the existing political
structures, with a culture of violence and
intolerance, then we might create
somebody even worse than Mugabe. What is
needed is a democratisation of all
state institutions and the political
parties
themselves."
[ENDS]
[This report does not necessarily reflect
the views of the United Nations]
Reuters
Wed 12 Dec
2007, 10:11 GMT
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's
ruling ZANU-PF party will formally endorse
President Robert Mugabe this
weekend as its candidate for re-election next
year, a choice which critics
say will prolong the economic crisis ravaging
the country.
Mugabe,
83, has overcome a half-hearted attempt by some top ZANU-PF
officials to
force him to retire before the March 2008 poll, and looks set
to tighten the
grip on power he has held ever since Zimbabwe's independence
from Britain in
1980.
An extraordinary ZANU-PF congress is expected to confirm
Mugabe, nominated
by the party in March, as its candidate in the 2008
presidential poll, to be
run alongside parliamentary and local elections
before the end of March.
Political analysts say Mugabe -- who denies
rights groups' charges that he
has rigged the last three major elections
since 2000 -- is almost certain to
remain in office against an opposition
weakened by internal strife over
strategy and years of government crackdowns
on its structures.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC), has threatened to boycott the 2008 polls if
there are no guarantees
of a free vote.
"It's now generally accepted
that Mugabe is here for a while, but it's also
generally accepted that the
economy may be doomed by his stay," said Eldred
Masunungure, a professor of
political science at the University of Zimbabwe.
"Mugabe is in a
political fight with the West, and I just cannot see how
Zimbabwe is going
to get international aid to rescue the economy while this
is going on," he
said.
Although some senior ZANU-PF officials tried quietly to stop Mugabe
from
extending his rule, analysts say they failed to win enough support and
many
are afraid to confront the veteran leader under whose patronage they
have
prospered.
The MDC accuses Mugabe of hanging on to power through
vote-rigging and
repression. It says Zimbabwe needs radical reform to end a
crisis that has
brought it the world's highest inflation rate of about 8,000
percent and
crippling shortages of food, fuel and foreign
exchange.
Mugabe says the economy is being sabotaged by Western
opponents, led by
former colonial power Britain, which want to oust him for
seizing
white-owned farms for landless blacks, a programme critics say has
ruined
the key agriculture sector.
ZANU-PF says it needs Mugabe's
strong leadership to assert national
sovereignty and drive a black economic
empowerment programme in the face of
fierce Western opposition.
The
party's political commissar, Elliot Manyika, said on Zimbabwe radio this
week that ZANU-PF's backing for Mugabe despite the deep economic crisis was
"a matter of principle."
"Comrade Mugabe is our tried and tested
revolutionary leader, a principled
man advancing the interests of our people
and nation ... and we are not
going to have our enemies choosing leaders for
us," he said.
Yahoo News
Wed Dec 12, 11:12 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe on Wednesday opened a
meeting of his ruling ZANU-PF party's
central committee, paying tribute to
loyalists who are backing his bid for a
sixth term in office.
"Just under two weeks ago, we witnessed the
unforgettable million men and
women march which further reinvigorated the
party and confounded our
critics," Mugabe told members of the committee
ahead of his party's national
congress which opens Thursday in the capital
Harare.
"Well done war veterans, women's league, youth league...where your
getting
together was a resounding one. Resounding and it is talked about the
world
over," he said.
Last Friday, thousands of Zimbabwe African
National Union - Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) supporters marched through the
streets of Harare to express their
support for Mugabe's candidature in March
2008 joint presidential and
parliamentary elections.
The march came
as Mugabe faced growing pressure from his Western critics to
step down over
his country's economic crisis.
"Outside our borders, our message has been
reaching a growing numbers of
countries on the continent and Europe," Mugabe
told party supporters.
"This growing understanding of our situation saw
some countries in the
European Union recently dissociating themselves from
the confusion in
Britain and pledging support for our full participation at
the just-ended
EU-Africa summit."
He did not name these
countries.
Mugabe participated in the summit in Lisbon, Portugal, which
British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown boycotted in protest at his
presence.
"Our message is simple and undiluted: we proclaim here, today
and in the
future that our sovereignty and the economic empowerment of our
indigenous
people cannot be compromised," Mugabe said.
He urged party
supporters to vote massively for ZANU-PF in next year's
elections in which
he is the party's sole presidential candidate.
"That resounding vote
should produce an echo across the seas and let it be
heard in Number 10
Downing Street (residence and office of British Prime
Minister). The ring
should be the ring of the words, 'Zimbabwe will never be
a colony again'",
he said to the applause of supporters.
According to the conference
programme, Mugabe is expected to formally open
the normal business of the
congress on Thursday.
About 10,000 delegates are expected to attend the
congress, including
political parties from the region and other solidarity
groups, officials
said.
SW Radio
Africa (London)
12 December 2007
Posted to the web 12 December
2007
Lance Guma
Until this weekend only two major sports stars
in Zimbabwe, Henry Olonga and
Andy Flower, had stood up against Mugabe's
regime in the famous 'black
armband' protest.
But former national
soccer team coach Roy Barretto has now joined that elite
club of brave
sports people willing to speak out. On Saturday in Portugal,
Barretto and
his wife joined protestors from the Zimbabwe Vigil, making it
clear he
wanted to be identified with what the protesters were saying.
Barretto told
Newsreel that the crisis was affecting everyone, including
sports
personalities, and he joined the Zim Vigil activists to add his
weight to
their message.
Over 30 activists travelled from London to Lisbon and
voiced their
disaffection with Mugabe's presence at the EU-Africa summit,
given his human
rights record. Barretto said the protests were very
successful as they
raised awareness on the crisis in the country. He said
both delegates to the
summit and ordinary Portuguese residents were left
very clear on what the
problems in Zimbabwe are about. Barretto is currently
on a break from
coaching and is staying in Lisbon while he maps out his
future. As soon as
he heard there were demonstrators from the UK he made the
decision to join
them.
The seasoned coach had stints with
Highlanders, Zimbabwe Saints, Shu-Shine
and Black Rhinos in Zimbabwe before
coaching Free State Stars, Manning
Rangers and Orlando Pirates in South
Africa. Asked if he will go back to
coach teams like Dynamos, Highlanders or
Caps United in Zimbabwe, Barretto
said he would only go back once things
normalised. Commentators have in the
past urged sports personalities with a
huge fan base to use their clout and
speak out against abuses in the
country. In 2003 Henry Olonga and Andy
Flower were banished from the
Zimbabwe Cricket team after they wore black
armbands during a match in which
they mourned the death of democracy in
Zimbabwe.
SW
Radio Africa (London)
12 December 2007
Posted to the web 12 December
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
The SADC sponsored mediation talks led
by South African President Thabo
Mbeki are far from over, a highly placed
source told Newsreel on Wednesday.
He said: 'It is not true that the talks
have ended. Only when President
Mbeki says the talks have ended will they
genuinely be over.'
On Tuesday journalist Peta Thornycroft said that
diplomats she had spoken to
indicated that the talks ended after Zanu-PF's
Patrick Chinamasa and
Nicholas Goche were called back from Johannesburg to
Harare to prepare for
the party's extra-ordinary Congress. She said
negotiators left Johannesburg
on Monday and the few bits that remain to be
sorted would be concluded in
Harare.
Thornycroft said electoral
amendments and a new Constitution have been
agreed to, and all the legal
work was done. What were left were details as
to the timing. The MDC want a
period of 6 months after signing a deal,
before elections are
held.
But today's source said that there are a lot of other issues to be
discussed
and there are fears the talks might drag on into the new year
because of
delays caused by the Christmas holidays. The secrecy of the talks
has been a
nightmare for journalists, making it impossible to get any
concrete facts.
Asked about Saturday's deadline the source said; 'There
was never a
deadline. But what I can tell you is that a lot of ground has
been covered
and that all parties will meet soon to try and finalize a deal
or if that
fails the talks will drag to January. When the time arrives to
conclude the
talks, President Thabo Mbeki as the facilitator will announce
it to the
world. As it is the negotiators have not met him yet to draft a
summary of
an accord that would be given to the negotiating
parties.'
On Monday we reported that there were heightened tensions at
the ongoing
talks among the negotiating parties, who were blaming each other
for leaking
'sensitive' information to the media.
Another source
close to the talks told us that leaks to the media were
creating a lot of
friction between the negotiating teams, as much of the
time was being spent
haggling over who was responsible for leaking
confidential
information.
The one thing that is certain is that Zimbabweans are being
kept very much
in the dark, about negotiations that are deciding their
future.
Nehanda Radio
By Tichaona
Sibanda
12 December 2007
As we hurtle towards the eighth year of the
21st century, Zimbabweans should
take a moment to pause and judiciously
examine the state of our country. The
years ahead will no doubt bring
wondrous advances in digital television,
broadband internet, internet
shopping and the like. This is only possible
after comrade Bob leaves
office. But none of this will matter if we do not
address the most pressing
problem facing the country today–the sorry state
of our nation's physical
infrastructure.
This former great system of the 1960’s and 70’s which
encompasses Zimbabwe's
transportation, electric-power and water-supply
networks and treatment, has
been operating beyond its design capacities for
years. And, boy, does it
ever look it. If we are to restore Zimbabwe’s
infrastructure to its
pristine, original state, we must have it thoroughly
and expertly repainted.
Perhaps a nice coat of sulphur colour on our
bridges. That would really help
spruce up Zimbabwe’s infrastructure. Or
maybe a pugin red enamel finish.
That might give the infrastructure a
classy look. But whatever brand and
colour we choose, we must do it soon,
for we are at a crisis point. Take the
most visible symbol of our nation's
civil-engineering might: The Victoria
Falls Bridge. It is a marvel of
engineering and human endeavor. Constructed
from steel, the bridge is 250
metres across, with a main arch spanning
156.50 metres, at a height of 128
metres above the lower water mark of the
mighty Zambezi river in the gorge
below. It carries a road, railway and
footway.
The bridge is the and
and one of only three road links between the two
countries. However,
thousands of cars pass over this great bridge each year,
many more than its
architects intended, subjecting the structure to severe
impact stress and
dislodging large flakes of paint. Atmospheric pollution
has also taken its
toll, fading and dirtying the bridge's once-gleaming
facade. In short, the
mighty Victoria Falls Bridge has become dangerously
shabby-looking. This is
not a unique circumstance. This is the daily reality
of the country’s
rapidly aging and decaying infrastructure.
The same is true of our
highway system. Universally, roads are regraded and
resurfaced every 8 to 12
years. But due to budgetary constraints or
corruption to be precise,
maintenance schedules have been slashed while
traffic volume and average
vehicle weight–and, consequently,
blemish-inducing accidents–increased. What
has happened to the Harare to
Bulawayo dual carriageway? The last time I
cared to take note was in 2002
when the roadworks were getting close the to
snake park turn-off.
Zimbabwe is among many other African countries still
facing enormous
governance and development challenges. While emerging
economies are matching
rich countries on key dimensions of governance; with
poorer African nations
showing marked improvements on key benchmarks of
governance, Zimbabwe has
not shown any improvement worth mentioning. But its
high time the country’s
leadership took note.
On most single lane
highways, the lines that dermacate the roads have faded
while the safety
line at the road's edge has crumbled or been burned away
altogether. This is
not the clean, crisp look our civil engineers envisioned
when these
once-proud, once-safe roads were designed. I am certain
everywhere you look,
you see that our infrastructure has fallen victim to
neglect. Talk of the
electricity grid. The country's highways, bridges,
water and electricity
networks are so dilapidated that I am no longer
surprised when they collapse
or explode. This sorry state of affairs cannot
be allowed to
continue.
We must paint and paint and paint until our nation's
infrastructure looks as
shiny and attractive as it did in the long-gone days
when it was new! Our
infrastructure used to be a proud symbol of what made
Harare, the sunshine
city of Africa. We must honour those bygone times by
continuing to repaint
this symbol, by keeping it looking new despite the
ravages of time, by
treating Zimbabwe's infrastructure as if it were still
young, strong and
capable.
Blogger News Network
December 11th, 2007 by Peter Davies
For the past two weeks,
the media has been full of Mugabe and Zimbabwe
because the old dictator was
invited to attend the European Union (EU)
Summit with Africa. The
invitation was issued despite Mugabe being banned
from travel to the EU way
back in 2002 for his disgraceful record on Human
Rights. In a fit of
despair, Britain’s Archbishop of York, John Sentamu
(himself a black
African, and the second most senior Anglican in Britain)
cut his “dog
collar” into pieces on BBC television. Even US Secretary of
State,
Condoleezza Rice had her say – albeit at another venue. Pretty much
everyone is unhappy with old Mugabe – everyone that is except his fellow
African leaders.
As expected, Mugabe used the occasion to grandstand and
rail against his
“enemies”, the UK and USA. Not only them though –
Germany’s Chancellor
Angela Merkel got the rough end of his tongue, and that
of Zimbabwe’s
information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, who accused Merkel of
being a “Nazi
Remnant”.
So who benefited from the EU-Africa Circus?
Certainly not the Zimbabwean
people who are still starving in a country that
was once “the breadbasket of
Africa”. But Mugabe and his youthful wife,
Grace (both banned from the EU)
got to travel in style to the EU. Mrs
Mugabe is a great shopper, and
probably enjoyed the outing. Dictator Mugabe
is a grandstander and fancies
himself as a world leader, so he certainly
enjoyed the outing. Fellow
African leaders had very little to say on the
subject of Zimbabwe, except to
tell the EU that Zimbabwe was African
business, and it was not for the EU to
interfere.
Why did the EU invite
Mugabe to their summit with Africa? Because no other
African states would
attend unless Mugabe was invited. Why did the EU want
a summit with
Africa? Because they’re worried about China’s growing trade
and influence
with Africa. Why is China being so successful in Africa?
Because Africa is
brim full of critically important natural resources that
China needs – and
because China doesn’t interfere with African Government.
Not yet, anyway.
The same is happening between China and Iran.
There’s a lesson in all this
for Western States; “democracy” and “human
rights” do not work in Africa.
But that’s old hat and I could have told
anyone who would listen that was
the case forty years ago. More
importantly, “democracy” and “human rights”
do not work in Islamic States.
Just look at Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq and
Iran. That is what our western
governments should take note of. We should
leave them alone unless they are
a direct threat to us or our economic
interests. We should not try to
dictate their form of government. If the
West interferes, we will lose out
to China and resurgent Russia. Democracy
is an expensive luxury for the
West. I wish my readers a Merry Christmas
and a Prosperous New Year. May
God help the Zimbabwe
people.
END
Author, Peter Davies was a soldier in Rhodesia from
1963 to 1975, where he
took part in the capture and interrogation of
terrorists. His novel,
Scatterlings of Africa, is based on his own
experience during Rhodesia’s war
on terror, and personal observations of how
terrorist activities impacted
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and its
people.
Readers who would like to make a contribution to help innocent
pensioners,
who are unable to buy food and other basic necessities in
Zimbabwe, should
please contact Patricia Williams by email patashnix@btinternet.com.
IOL
Peter Fabricius
December 12 2007 at 06:52AM
The South
African government has slammed the "absolutely nonsensical,
collective
punishment" of the new sanctions which the United States has
slapped on
Zimbabwe, saying they are not helping President Mbeki's current
negotiations
there.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad criticised the sanctions
on Tuesday
in a press briefing in Pretoria about the European Union-Africa
summit,
which was held in Lisbon at the weekend. European leaders sharply
criticised
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to his face at the
summit.
Pahad said Western countries needed to be more sensitive
about the
current Zimbabwe negotiations or they might harm
them.
Mbeki himself had earlier told the SABC that he believed the
EU
leaders had criticised Mugabe because they were not aware of the progress
in
the negotiations.
He then pointed out
the progress made.
Pahad did not mention the US by name but was
clearly referring to the
US decision two weeks ago to expand sanctions to
include 40 more cronies of
Mugabe and their children studying in the
US.
Pahad said it was especially wrong to punish children just
because
their parents were politicians.
Africa no longer needed
"lectures on democracy and human rights" from
the West, he
said.
Pahad declined to comment, because he said he had not read
the report,
that Mugabe's Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu had called
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel a racist, fascist and Nazi because of her
criticism
of Mugabe at the summit.
This article was
originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on
December 12, 2007
The Star, SA
Letters
December 12, 2007 Edition 1
Under racist white rule, the
black people of Zimbabwe enjoyed plentiful
food, water, electricity, petrol,
good health, good salaries, stable jobs,
etc.
They loved their
country.
Today, millions of these black people are fleeing their
country.
The tyranny of a black powermonger has destroyed everything that
he
inherited from the whites.
Yet, the SADC heads of state always
cheer Mugabe as if he is the "greatest
ever".
He is their hero
because he removed the whites from government in Zimbabwe.
There is no
greater honour than that.
Mugabe is responsible for destroying the
social, economic and political life
of Zimbabwe. How many have died because
of him?
Who is really ignorant about Mugabe's ways?
In January 2004,
President Thabo Mbeki wasted South Africa's money on Haiti
arguing that
Haiti was the first country to revolt against slavery.
Today, Haiti is
the world's poorest country although they revolted against
slavery more than
200 years ago.
The same Mbeki is today totally blind to the destructive
tyranny of Mugabe.
Lefa Mofubetsoana
Soweto
The Herald (Harare) Published by the
government of Zimbabwe
12 December 2007
Posted to the web 12 December
2007
Harare
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono has
remained mum on the
cash situation as the crisis that has hit the country in
recent weeks
continued yesterday.
It is now three weeks since Dr Gono
announced that the second phase of the
currency reform programme was
imminent and many were wondering about the
possible launch date. The Herald
was inundated with calls as depositors
sought to find out why the central
bank chief did not seem to be doing much
to redress the cash
problems.
"This is very uncharacteristic of (Dr) Gono. Why is he so
quiet? What are we
supposed to do? We need answers," said one caller who
identified himself as
Tony. Others were eager to know how "imminent" the
launch of Sunrise 2 was.
With about 13 days to go before Christmas,
depositors were panicking with
regard to the availability of cash for the
festive season.
"What is the central bank doing about the situation?
Where is the Governor?
Is he back or he is still out of the country?" were
some of the questions
posed by readers. Efforts to get a comment from the
RBZ chief were fruitless
as he was said to be in meetings. As usual, queues
started forming outside
banks as early as 4:30am yesterday with many hoping
the day would bring
better tidings, but this was not to be. Those fortunate
enough were able to
withdraw $5 million while others walked away
empty-handed.
Withdrawal limits have been set at $20 million for
individuals and $40
million for companies, but banks have had no option but
to reduce the
amounts in recent weeks as they fail to cope with demand. Most
automated
teller machines are no longer dispensing cash and in some
instances, they
have been switched off.
The launch of Sunrise 2 is
expected to see the introduction of a new
currency and the removal of an
unspecified number of zeros. Some schools of
thought yesterday were of the
view that the central bank needed to knock off
four or five zeros as opposed
to the three suggested by the Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries and other
quarters, to ensure the zeros would not return
anytime soon as happened
under Sunrise 1.
However, an economist with one financial institution
said the lopping-off of
zeros in this environment would have no significant
effect. "The zeros are
not the big issue here. What people want are
strategies that will ensure
they lead a normal life they so much miss.
"People should be able to walk
into a bank and get their money, walk into
the shop and get the products
that they want. "They want value for their
money and this can only be
restored through policies targeted at inflation
reduction and the
availability of foreign exchange for industry to start
running again," he
said. Other commentators feared the removal of zeros
would trigger a sudden
rise in prices, as was the case last August when the
central bank introduced
a new family of bearer cheques.
"In the story
your paper carried today (yesterday), we did not hear CZI
assure the nation
that once the zeros are removed its constituency will not
immediately
increase prices. "They should not just talk about removing zeros
yet they
know that this will lead to price increases," said one commentator
from the
University of Zimbabwe's business studies department. Some banks
have been
releasing an average of $15 billion cash daily but were receiving
about $1,5
billion in deposits.
The bulk of the money has not been going back into
the banking system.
From Business Day (SA), 11 December
Chris van Gass
Cape Town - Former Mozambican
first lady Graça Machel said yesterday that
southern African countries
needed to look at "the systems" used to bring
about change in Zimbabwe.
Machel said that while dialogue with Zimbabwe was
one such system being
used, the issue was more complicated than that as they
were also related to
the leaders elected by Zimbabweans. She was speaking at
the launch of a new
global campaign by The Elders, a group of eminent global
leaders including
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish president Mary
Robinson, to
celebrate and raise awareness of human rights on the 60th
anniversary of the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Machel said
southern African
countries were not "folding their arms" over Zimbabwe. They
had tried
initiatives to solve its internal political problems. One effort
was for
civil society, including church leaders and nongovernmental
organisations,
to articulate what Zimbabweans wanted for their country, be
it
constitutional reform or otherwise. Up to now, dialogue was the only
instrument southern African countries had to use even though it took long.
"True, it is too much when people are suffering and starving, but what other
instruments do they have?"
Her message was to keep trying. "Don’t
give up. It may take long for changes
to take place. You just have to
persist and carry on … many people had
thought a change to the apartheid
system would not happen in their lifetime,
but freedom came. People never
gave up," she said. Tutu, chairman of The
Elders, said the Every Human Has a
Right campaign aimed to get a billion
signatures for the declaration. "We
want to create an atmosphere in which no
person, government or entity can
deny freedom and liberty for any human. By
calling on individuals to sign
the universal declaration, we are asking the
citizens of the global village
to empower themselves and their communities
by standing behind its values
and goals. But we are also asking that one
united human family join together
to protect and defend the rights of each
other," he said. Robinson said the
60th anniversary offered a chance for a
global conversation about "the
values that unite us as one human family". It
could also be a moment for new
visions and actions rooted in the best
traditions of our past, and "2008 can
be a year in which people from every
walk of life learn about and reflect on
our shared rights".
Afrique en ligne
Harare,
Zimbabwe - Weather experts in Zimbabwe said Wednesday the
country was headed
for floods after days of incessant heavy rains in some
areas.
Meteorological Services Department director, Hector Chikoore, said
more
downpours were due in the country in coming days, which were expected
to
result in flooding.
He said flash floods were expected in some
areas around the capital
Harare, and in eastern and northern
regions.
"We are expecting the current wet spell to persist into
next week
while localised heavy rainfall will be expected in most parts of
the country
with some areas being affected by localised flash floods," he
said.
"Most areas have recorded more rainfall than what they
receive during
the same period of the year. In Harare we expect a seasonal
rainfall of 800
mm but Harare has already recorded almost a quarter of the
total in only
seven days," Chikoore said.
Two years ago,
Zimbabwe suffered heavy floods induced by cyclones,
which destroyed homes
and transport infrastructure such as roads.
Some of the destroyed
infrastructure is yet to be repaired.
Rescue and emergency services
were expected to be put on alert.
Harare - 12/12/2007
Panapress