Zimbabwe appeals against release of activists

http://news.yahoo.com

Sat Dec 27, 5:51 am ET

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe has appealed against a court ruling ordering police
to transfer to hospital a top rights activist and several others accused of
plotting against the government, a state daily said Saturday.

"We have been advised by the attorney-general's office that they have noted
an appeal against the high court order issued on Wednesday," The Herald
quoted national police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena as saying.

"We are still holding them in custody until the appeal is heard," he said.

But one of the defence lawyers, Alec Muchadehama, said they have not been
formally notified of the appeal.

"It is just a way of trying to frustrate the release of our clients. The
state intends to appeal but no appeal has been noted as far as we know," he
told AFP.

High court judge Yunus Omerjee on Wednesday ordered police to release to
hospital Jestina Mukoko and several opposition activists accused of
recruiting or goading people to undergo military training to fight President
Robert Mugabe's government.

The detainees' lawyer has said they may have been tortured in custody.

Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project -- a rights group which has
been compiling cases of election violence -- was seized from her home on
December 3 by armed men who identified themselves as police.

Two members of her staff were taken away from their office days later. They
are being accused together with 28 members of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party of recruiting anti-government plotters.

The detainees, including a two-year-old boy, were taken away from their
homes and some from their workplaces by armed people who identified
themselves as police.

They are expected back in court on Monday.

Mukoko's location was unknown for several weeks and a high court order for
her release went unheeded, sparking protests from international rights
bodies. Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders on
Friday urged their immediate release.

"The accusations brought against Mukoko are absurd and baseless. We call on
the Zimbabwean authorities to free her and withdraw all the charges at once.

"The prosecution of these opposition activists has all the hallmarks of a
government conspiracy to sabotage the power-sharing agreement," it said.

Zimbabwe's political crisis has added to the woes of the country suffering
from world's highest inflation rate, last estimated at 231 million percent
in July and a devastating cholera outbreak that has claimed about 1,200
lives.

The MDC on Saturday said the detentions would further hamper stalled talks
with the ruling party on forming a unity government after contested
elections earlier this year.

"This persecution on trumped-up charges is simply going to jeopardise the
process and spirit of a negotiated settlement which is already
destabilised," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Saturday.

"Clearly the attitude ...is going to puncture the dialogue ...They are
trying to create a movie story along the lines of Hollywood but
unfortunately they are playing with people's lives," he added.

President Mugabe and his rivals from the MDC signed a power-sharing deal in
September in Harare but negotiations to form a unity government have stalled
as both sides squabble over key cabinet posts.

Jailed Zimbabwe activists caught in legal battle

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwean police are in contempt of court for failing to follow a judge's order to release jailed members of the opposition, attorneys for the activists said.

Zimbabwean human rights activist Jestina Mukoko arrives at court in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Wednesday.

Police, however, maintain the 32 people who oppose President Robert Mugabe will remain in custody pending the outcome of a government appeal to the Supreme Court.

"We have been advised by the attorney general's office that they have noted an appeal against the High Court order issued on Wednesday," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told the state-owned Herald newspaper in a story Saturday. "We are holding them in custody until the appeal is heard."

High Court Judge Yunus Omarjee on Wednesday ordered the unconditional release of 23 opposition members -- including a 2-year-old boy. The judge ordered that the other nine, including activist Jestina Mukoko, be freed and sent for medical treatment, because of allegations they were tortured while in custody.

Irene Petras, one of the lawyers representing the opposition members, dismissed Bvudzijena's remarks.

"We still maintain that the police [are in] contempt of court," she told CNN. "I saw the purported appeal and it is defective for a number of reasons, including that it has not yet been filed with the Supreme Court. It was only served to the High Court. The police [are] trying to mislead everyone about [it]."

It was unclear when the government appealed.

Some of the detainees are charged with recruiting people to undergo military training in Botswana for purposes of removing Mugabe from power, officials have said.

Police accused of torturing jailed activists

From The Guardian (UK), 27 December

Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent

Lawyers for leading Zimbabwean human rights activists and political
detainees abducted by the state, held incommunicado for weeks and then
imprisoned in defiance of a court order have accused the police of torturing
them in an attempt to extract false confessions of a plot against President
Robert Mugabe. The lawyers are demanding the release of Jestina Mukoko, one
of the country's most prominent activists and head of the Zimbabwe Peace
Project, and eight others who were jailed on Christmas Eve despite a judge
ruling that they should be moved to hospital and examined by doctors for
signs of torture. "The state is in contempt of court," said Alec
Muchadehama, one of the lawyers for the detainees. "The reason they brought
some of them to court is for public relations purposes to save their image
but the truth is that they have no intention of releasing them. The police
have not moved an inch and our clients are still detained at Chikurubi
maximum security prison, including [a] two-year-old child." Mukoko was taken
from her home by armed men on 3 December. Five days later, Police Chief
Superintendent T Nzombe wrote to the national NGO coalition saying Mukoko
was not in police custody and that the state regarded her disappearance as a
"kidnapping". But Mukoko and eight others were suddenly brought to court on
Christmas Eve, when it was revealed that they had been in police custody all
along. They were accused of being part of a plot to train an armed group in
Botswana to attack Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe from power. The government and
state-run media has made much of the supposed plot in recent weeks but
produced no firm evidence. Last week, South Africa's president, Kgalema
Motlanthe, said the Zimbabwean government had raised the accusations at
regional meetings but "we never believed" it.

More than 200 prisoners die of cholera

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9237

December 27, 2008

By Owen Chikari

MASVINGO - Cholera has hit Zimbabwe's prisons with over 200 inmates said to
have died in the country's prisons over the past week alone.

There are reports that the government now contemplates the closure of some
of the country's prisons because of the epidemic.

Poor sanitary conditions and the generally deplorable state of the country's
prisons are hampering efforts by health officials to control the disease.

More than 20 inmates have died in Masvingo Remand Prison over the past five
days. A cholera treatment camp has since been established at the prison.

At Mutimurefu Prison also in Masvingo Province nine inmates succumbed to the
epidemic while at Hwahwa prison in the Midlands Province 16 are reported to
have died.

Although figures of inmates who died in other  prisons could not be obtained
Justice Legal and parliamentary Affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday
confirmed the outbreak of the disease adding that cholera treatment camps
had since been established  at the affected institutions.

"I have no figures off hand but what I can tell you is that the situation in
the country's prisons is deplorable because of cholera", said Chinamasa.

"We have established treatment camps at all the affected institutions and we
hope our efforts will minimise the deaths".

Reliable sources within the prisons service yesterday said that the
government was contemplating closing some of the affected prisons because it
can not cope with the situation.

"We have approached government and requested for the closure of some of the
prisons but we are waiting for a response," said one source.

"We have also appealed to judges and magistrates for them to order the
release of some of the inmates who are on remand for minor offences but they
have since refused."

A recent report compiled to asses the situation in the country's prisons
this year revealed that there was mass starvation in the prisons due to a
serious shortage of food while sanitary facilities were reported to be in a
deplorable state.

The report suggests that the government should grant amnesty to inmates
awaiting trial for minor cases because the prison population is now 10 times
the size of its holding capacity.

Zimbabwe's children 'wasting away' - aid group

December 27, 2008 -- Updated 1148 GMT (1948 HKT)

 

HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Some of Zimbabwe's children are "wasting away" as political turmoil and economic crisis has caused a severe food shortage, according to a report from Save the Children.

Children sleep rough on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The number of acute child malnutrition cases has risen by almost two-thirds in the past year, the report from the UK-based agency said in its appeal to world donors for help.

"There is no excuse for failing to provide this food," said program director Lynn Walker. "The innocent people of Zimbabwe should not be made to suffer for a political situation that is out of their control."

Five million Zimbabweans -- out of a population of about 12 million -- are in need of food aid now, the report said. The group is appealing for 18,000 tons of food for next month.

"We have already been forced to reduce the rations of emergency food we are delivering because there isn't enough to go around," the report said. "If, as we fear, the food aid pipeline into Zimbabwe begins to fail in the new year the millions of people who rely on emergency food aid will suffer."

Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence from Great Britain 28 years ago. There is an acute shortage of all essentials such as cash, fuel, medical drugs, electricity and food.

President Robert Mugabe blames crisis on the sanctions imposed on him and his cronies by the West for allegedly disregarding human rights. But Mugabe's critics attribute the crisis to his economic policies.

As the economy falters for almost a decade now, a cholera epidemic is raging on fueled by the collapse of its health, sanitation and water services in Zimbabwe. It has claimed more than 1,100 lives and infected more than 20,000 people since its outbreak in August.

Health experts have warned that the water-borne disease could infect more than 60,000 unless its spread is halted.

The political crisis rose to a boil in this year when the opposition party claimed it won the presidential election, but Mugabe's government refused to recognize the result. Instead, the race was thrown to a run-off which was boycotted by the opposition.

Mugabe signed an agreement with the opposition in September to form a unity government, but a bitter dispute over the division of cabinet seats has prevented its formation.

Inflation is so severe that the government was forced to print $10 billion currency notes last week, which were expected to pay for just 20 loaves of bread

A nun's story from a stricken Zimbabwe

http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/around-town/a-nuns-story-from-a-stricken-zimbabwe-1586463.html

By Peter DeRosa

Saturday December 27 2008

As we slowly recover from over-eating at Christmas, spare a thought for a
heroic Irish Dominican nun.

Patricia Walsh is 66. Her roots and her heart are in Athlone, but she has
been working in Zimbabwe for 35 years. I recently heard her on the radio,
expressing her hopes and despair over the country she had dedicated her life
to.

Never has she seen such hunger as today. By the end of January, more than
five million people will need food-aid to stay alive.

Their only crime, she says, is to be poor and brow-beaten in a land without
oil. This makes it of little concern to the affluent West.

It deeply troubles her that in rural hospitals even the nurses are always
hungry. They ask why feed dying patients and not us who are needed to tend
them? Their salary will not buy them one meal a month. They can't afford to
travel to work.

She and her comrades work in an encampment called the Hatcliffe Extension.
It houses 40,000 of the poorest in Harare. There are 10,000 children, many
suffering from Aids. Even when anti-viral drugs are available, many of the
starving refuse them. They need all their strength to stay alive.

Three years ago, Mugabe's crowd bulldozed the Extension.

Sister Walsh found two little boys next to their ruined hut. Their mother
was dead.

A grandmother asked: "Sister, why has God abandoned us?"

She doesn't even try to answer the unanswerable.

- Peter DeRosa

Bleak season for families of drowned crew

http://www.thetimes.co.za

Lauren Cohen Published:Dec 27,
2008

Four bodies recovered after chokka boat capsizes
When Carl Dicken spoke to his fiancée on Monday afternoon, he told her how
much he was looking forward to holding their new baby for the first time.

He never got the chance.

Hours later, the Kingfisher chokka boat on which Dicken was a shipmate,
capsized in rough seas and heavy winds off the Eastern Cape coast with 19
men on board. Only five managed to get to shore safely: captain Dougie
Campbell and Zimbabweans Silas Charwarira, Joseph Ganga, Gift Nyamutenha and
Clemence Muduva.

Four bodies have been recovered, the last two on Christmas Day near Gibson
Bay where the boat went down.

But Dicken - who told his captain while treading water after the boat
overturned: "I can't die, I have a baby" - is not one of them. As a result,
it was a black Christmas for Dicken's Durban-based family .

But one Dicken family member is oblivious to the tragedy which has unfolded.
Just 15 days old and already bearing a resemblance to her father, little
baby Natalie will never know the father who so loved her.

" Carl was really looking forward to seeing her," said Dicken's grieving
fiancée Simone Williams, 29, on Friday. "Not a day went by without Carl and
I speaking on the phone. "

Williams's grief is compounded by the fact that Carl, aged 29, had so much
to live for.

Apart from their precious new bundle of joy, the couple - who have been
together for almost four years - had planned to marry in January, as soon as
Dicken returned from sea.

The couple's eldest child, two-year-old Carlyne, is named after her father.

The eldest of four children, Dicken had been a fisherman since leaving
school.

His death has been a hard blow for his family, and is just weeks after that
of his mother, said his sister Somayya Suffla.

"Everyone is waiting impatiently. There is nothing much anyone can say or
do. We need a body before anyone can say anything. If there is no hope of
survival we at least hope we can bring his body home," she said.

Suffla said Dicken, who has been based in Port Elizabeth for eight years,
had never expressed any concerns for his safety at sea as he was from a
family of fishermen. "He never spoke of the dangers," she said.

Meanwhile, back in the Eastern Cape, the survivors recounted their desperate
bid to live. The three Zimbabweans said they were happy to be alive after
their traumatic first-ever fishing trip. But their joy is mingled with
sorrow - some lost family and friends in the accident.

"We are all in South Africa looking for work. The situation in Zimbabwe is
horrible, terrible. There are no jobs. There is food, but no money to buy
it," said Ganga.

After the boat capsized, Ganga said Campbell had swum to the life raft
before attempting to assist his crew, but the wind blew him in the opposite
direction.

Ganga swam more than one nautical mile (1.85km) to the shore. "When I was in
the water, I was praying to God to help me. The water was cold, but I felt
okay, confident I would get there."

Campbell said the crew had been calm in the water. "I managed to flip the
life raft over and shoot off three flares, but then the line attaching the
raft to the boat came loose.

"My saving grace in the water was thinking about my wife, Yvonne, and our
three-year-old daughter. I knew I could swim to shore if I had to," said
Campbell, a Grade Three skipper who also has a High Seas Command
Endorsement.

Nyamutenha's wife Lucia cried "tears of joy" when she heard her husband was
safe, but her twin brother, Lawrence, lost his life in the disaster. The
couple has lived in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth, for the last three years. "I
can't sleep at night. I blame myself for telling Lawrence that life here (in
South Africa) is better and that he should come here to help our parents,"
Lucia said.

Because of the tragedy, the Nyamutenha family did not celebrate Christmas.
Instead, 11 friends and relatives went to Oyster Bay and searched the
coastline, finding a life jacket and a few pieces from the boat.

Kingfisher owner David Goldberg said he was doing his best to help the
survivors and the families of the dead. "The men have been given money as
well as an advance of what they will be paid for their catches. When the
insurance companies open in the new year we will find out what amounts can
be paid out for death benefits," he said.

But Goldberg denied an allegation by the Food and Allied Workers Union
(Fawu) that he had employed "poorly trained workers and skippers, thereby
risking their lives".

He said the men had completed a Pre-Sea Familiarisation Course run by the SA
Maritime Safety Authority-accredited Siyaloba Training Academy.

Samsa regional manager for the Southern region, Captain Nigel Campbell (no
relation to Dougie), said the Kingfisher had been pronounced seaworthy in
November and awarded a local general safety certificate.

The dead have been identified as Charles Manhimazi, 34, and Benjamin
Nurebisa, 29, both from Zimbabwe. Three other bodies recovered have not been
identified, while the search for the missing nine continues.

Almost 60 die in Zimbabwe road crashes: Herald

http://www.khaleejtimes.com

(AFP)

27 December 2008

HARARE - Fifty-nine people were killed and 231 were injured in road
accidents in Zimbabwe over Christmas and Boxing Day, the government
newspaper The Herald reported on Saturday.

The figure compared with 34 dead during the same period last year, it said.
Central Masvingo Province recorded the worst toll at 13 fatalities and 51
injured, the newspaper said.
Police spokesman superintendent Andrew Phiri blamed the accidents on the
prevailing wet conditions, negligence and defective vehicles.
"Motorists should ensure that vehicles are roadworthy and should avoid
speeding and drinking and driving," he said.
Police have mounted roadblocks on all major highways and roads to enforce
road discipline, the report said.
A cholera outbreak has already claimed about 1,200 lives in five months in
Zimbabwe.

Colourblind to an evil regime

http://www.news.com.au/

Piers Akerman, in The Sunday Times

December 26, 2008 10:00pm

MALCOLM Fraser, the former prime minister directly involved in ensuring
Robert Mugabe rose to ultimate power in Zimbabwe, now believes the
dictator's time has come.

In a newspaper interview, Fraser said African nations, supported by the rest
of the world, should take "extraordinary action" to depose the despotic
leader's evil regime.
The political situation in Zimbabwe was so dire, Fraser told the newspaper,
and the people's plight so desperate, there was a moral and economic
imperative for other African nations to intervene.

While Fraser's remarks are to be welcomed, let us not forget it has taken
him nearly 30 years and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans
through torture and now an awful cholera outbreak to reach this conclusion.

That's almost 10 times as long as it took him to condemn US President George
Bush for an imagined "abuse of power" in Iraq in 2004.

On that occasion, Fraser took the US leader to task for acting unilaterally
against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

While Mugabe has not launched war as frequently as Saddam, he has treated
his people abominably and destroyed what was formerly the most prosperous
African nation and reduced his own people to starvation in the process.

The cholera epidemic, which international aid agencies estimate has killed
more than 1100 people so far, shows no sign of abating and neighbouring
nations are bracing themselves as more refugees flee across Zimbabwe's
borders.

Death by cholera is among the worst ways to die.

It brings about an ugly, excruciatingly painful and disgusting death.

Perhaps it is this which has caused Fraser to speak out 28 years after he
assisted Mugabe into office.

Whatever, it is pleasing to note that the former squire of Nareen now
believes his old friend, the dictator, is "beyond redemption".

But even in Zimbabwe's hour of crisis, Fraser can't bring himself to address
the real problem facing the former Rhodesia, South Africa and other African
nations.

That problem is not the old colonialism, the colonial legacy or
neo-colonialism. It is African racism, tribalism and endemic corruption.

Fraser wants South Africa to cut off the remaining power supplies to
Mugabe's impoverished capital, Harare, but this would in all likelihood hurt
those who need the most help, not the Mugabe gang.

Fraser wants the African Union to take united action against Zimbabwe, but
African leaders are very wary of taking action against a colleague and
setting a precedent that may be used against them in the future, even though
Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana have been induced to speak out against Mugabe.

If sanctions don't work, Fraser suggests it might be time for a South
African-led intervention, but that, again, is unlikely.

He says it would be unwise for non-African nations to be involved because
"this is not something white faces can solve".

This is the kind of ridiculously tangled logic followers of Fraser (and the
Left) inevitably resort to when they are confronted with their own political
correctness.

How is it possibly any worse for Western nations to directly intervene in
Zimbabwe than it is for poorly trained, ill-equipped, ill-educated troops
from African nations to invade?

Why shouldn't African nations be shown what a disciplined Western force can
do in the name of humanity, against a truly evil person?

Is Fraser so afraid of upsetting other African dictators he'd prefer no
action be taken to free the people of Zimbabwe from their suffering, for
which he must take some responsibility?

Mugabe, of course, sees plots everywhere.

He is as loopy as Idi Amin was before he was finally tossed out of Uganda
and given sanctuary in Saudi Arabia.

Fraser has attempted to justify his years of silence by claiming he wished
to protect aid workers from CARE International, of which he had been
president.

What's more certain is that Mugabe could not care less. He has destroyed a
nation and he has introduced a culture of murder, of gross political
corruption.

Those "white faces" may well have exploited Africans in the former Rhodesia,
but they left a nation with a health service, schools and a legal system.

Mugabe destroyed them.

His face happens to be black, but the colour of those who can end his
criminal reign should be unimportant to all but racists.

White Farmers Confront Mugabe in a Legal Battle

Robin Hammond for The New York Times

Mike Campbell, 76, was the first farmer to challenge Zimbabwe’s land redistribution law. He and his son-in-law, Ben Freeth, 38, were beaten in a farm invasion.

 

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: December 27, 2008

CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe — Edna Madzongwe, president of the Senate and a powerful member of Zimbabwe’s ruling party, began showing up uninvited at the Etheredges’ farm here last year, at times still dressed up after a day in Parliament. 

And she made her intentions clear, the Etheredges say: she wanted their farm and intended to get it through the government’s land redistribution program.

The farm is a beautiful spread, with three roomy farm houses and a lush, 55,000-tree orange orchard that generates $4 million a year in exports. The Etheredges, outraged by what they saw as her attempt to steal the farm, secretly taped their exchanges with her.

“Are you really serious to tell me that I cannot take up residence because of what it does to you?” she asked Richard Etheredge, 72, whose father bought the farm in 1947. “Government takes what it wants.”

He dryly replied, “That we don’t deny,” according to a transcript of the tapes.

Mr. Etheredge this year became one of dozens of white farmers to challenge the government’s right to confiscate their land, and they sought relief in an unusual place: a tribunal of African judges established by the 15 nations of the Southern African Development Community regional trade bloc.

The case is rooted in one of the most fraught issues facing not just Zimbabwe, but other nations in the region, especially South Africa: the unjust division of land between whites and blacks that is a legacy of colonialism and white minority rule.

But the tribunal’s recent ruling, in favor of the white farmers, is also a milestone of particular relevance to Zimbabwe. It suggests that a growing number of influential Africans — among them religious leaders and now jurists — are confronting Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s 84-year-old liberation hero and president, for his government’s violations of human rights and the rule of law, even as most regional heads of state continue to resist taking harsher steps to isolate his government.

Zimbabwe’s handling of the land issue has had disastrous consequences. Since 2000, when Mr. Mugabe began encouraging the violent invasion of the country’s large, white-owned commercial farms — once the country’s largest employers — food production has collapsed, hunger has afflicted millions and the economy has never recovered.

Mr. Mugabe presents this redistribution as a triumph over greedy whites. But it set off a scramble for the best farms among the country’s ruling elite, who often had little knowledge or interest in farming, and became a potent source of patronage for Mr. Mugabe. His own relatives, as well as generals, judges, ministers and members of Parliament, were beneficiaries, farmer and human rights groups say.

By this year, the number of white-owned commercial farms dwindled to about 300 from 4,500. Even many of the remaining ones came under assault in this year’s bloodstained election season.

Among those singled out were farms here in Chegutu, where some owners had dared to take their cases to the S.A.D.C. tribunal, challenging Mr. Mugabe before judges he could not entice with gifts of land.

In March, the tribunal ordered the Zimbabwean authorities not to evict any farmers seeking legal protection, pending resolution of the case. But as with other international efforts to influence Mr. Mugabe and his allies, Zimbabwean authorities apparently decided to ignore the tribunal’s order.

On June 17 — just 10 days before the discredited presidential runoff between Mr. Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai — dozens of youths led by a man named Gilbert Moyo surrounded Mr. Etheredge’s son, Peter, 38, at the main gate of the farm, family members said.

“Moyo told me he’d been sent by Edna,” Peter recalled, referring to Mrs. Madzongwe, the Senate president. Peter said Mr. Moyo threatened to kill him if the Etheredge clan did not clear off the farm immediately.

Peter, his twin, James, and their families fled.

Mrs. Madzongwe denied hiring Mr. Moyo and his gang. “If a farm is acquired, there are rules,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I go by the book.”

But Jason Lawrence Cox, a local farmer, swore in an affidavit that he saw her on June 21 drive past piles of the Etheredges’ belongings, dumped at the side of the road, and onto their farm.

The gang had looted the three family homes on the farm of all but the large mounted heads of an eland and a kudu, according to photos taken before and after the invasion. They used a jackhammer to break through the foot-thick wall of the walk-in safe. The haul from the homes and the farm included 1,760 pounds of ivory, 14 handmade guns, 14 refrigerators and freezers, 5 stoves, 3 tractors, a pickup truck and 400 tons of oranges, the family said.

Eleven days later, a far more violent farm invasion occurred at the home of Mike and Angela Campbell, also here in Chegutu. Mr. Campbell, 76, was the first farmer to take on Mr. Mugabe before the tribunal.

A gang came that Sunday afternoon, pouring out of a pickup truck and a bus, Mrs. Campbell said. Her son-in-law, Ben Freeth, 38, said that he was bludgeoned with rifle butts and that his skull and ribs were fractured. Mike Campbell was also severely beaten.

Mrs. Campbell, 66, said she was dragged by her hair, after her arm was broken in multiple places, and dumped next to her husband. The doctor who treated them in the capital, Harare, signed affidavits confirming the severity of their injuries.

“Mike was so battered, I hardly recognized him,” Mrs. Campbell said. “I didn’t know he was alive until he groaned.” The three of them were loaded into the Campbells’ truck and driven to a nighttime vigil of youth loyal to the ruling party at Mr. Moyo’s base camp, she said.

It was cold, and men poured freezing water over them. Mr. Campbell drifted in and out of consciousness. By the flickering light of bonfires, the youths denounced the Campbells as white pigs, Mrs. Campbell said, and ordered her to sing revolutionary songs. She remembers singing a children’s song instead, which enraged one of her intoxicated tormentors. He charged at her, she said, trying to thrust a burning stick into her mouth.

Later that night, the Campbells and Mr. Freeth were again stuffed into the back of the Campbells’ truck. Before they were dumped, Mrs. Campbell said, the kidnappers insisted that she sign a paper promising not to press the tribunal case.

Within days — just as the international outcry mounted over the state-sponsored beatings of thousands of opposition supporters — photographs of the grotesquely battered faces of the Campbells and Mr. Freeth circulated on the Internet.

By July 4, the police informed the farmers here who were part of the tribunal case that they could go back to their land. Peter Etheredge speculated that the authorities might have relented because the photographs were spreading online just as Mr. Mugabe was meeting with Africa’s leaders about his country’s political crisis.

On Nov. 28, the farmers gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to hear the final ruling of five judges of the S.A.D.C. tribunal. As Justice Luis Antonio Mondlane of Mozambique read the full 60-page decision aloud, it dawned on the farmers that they had won.

The tribunal found that the government had breached its obligations under the trade bloc’s treaty, which committed it to respecting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, by denying the farmers compensation for their farms and court review of the government’s confiscation of them.

More broadly, it rejected the government’s claim that the land redistribution program was meant to right the wrongs of a colonial era when a white minority ruled what was then Rhodesia. Instead, the court found that the government had itself racially discriminated against the white farmers.

In a stinging rebuke, the tribunal, citing an earlier legal case, said it would have reached a different conclusion had the government not awarded “the spoils of expropriation primarily to ruling party adherents.”

The usually stoic farmers wept. “We burst into tears, the whole lot of us,” Mr. Freeth said.

The reaction of the government was defiant. Didymus Mutasa, the minister who oversees the distribution of seized land, told the state media that the judges were “daydreaming” if they thought Zimbabwe would heed the ruling.

The government would take over the rest of the white-owned farms, he vowed. And the state has since moved to prosecute four Chegutu farmers, though not yet the Etheredges or the Campbells, for illegally occupying land they owned before the government claimed it, the farmers’ lawyer, Dave Drury, said.

Perhaps it was a banner at the recent funeral of a ruling party boss that best captured the government’s rejection of those who question its righteousness, even a panel of distinguished African jurists.

The banner said: “The Rhodesian Tribunal Can Go to Hell.”

Kaseke threatens school over article

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9244

December 27, 2008

By Our Correspondent

THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) Chief Executive Officer, Karikoga
Kaseke, threatened staff at a private school with unspecified action after
the school librarian filed a copy of a newspaper that contained a negative
story about him.

The school librarian identified as a Mr Maunze filed in the library at
Watershed School in Marondera a copy of The Zimbabwe Independent which
carried an article about Kaseke being evicted from a house in Harare.

Kaseke, a former army officer, who is notorious for his temperamental
behaviour, is said to have visited Watershed College in Marondera towards
the end of the school's third term to attend the school's Inter House
Softball competition.

Upon his arrival, Tinashe Kaseke, one of his four children enrolled in the
school, is said to have reported to his father that Maunze had prevented him
from destroying the newspaper containing the negative story about his
father.

Sources at the school say Kaseke then approached the librarian who was left
with no option but to flee for dear life after Kaseke attempted to
pyshically assault him, while his children cheered.

"Mr Maunze had to run away because Kaseke looked very menacing and his
children, Tinashe in particular, cheered and urged their father to deal with
the librarian," said a source who witnessed the incident. "They even threw
stones."

Another source said Kaseke's son had tried to cut out the Independent paper
containing his father's eviction because it had become a subject of intense
discussions among students at the school but the librarian dissuaded him
from mutilating the newspaper.

The young Kaseke had then phoned his father who then visited the school on
the day in question, apparently with a view to discipline the school
librarian.

The sources said when the Watershed headmaster, Dr John Bradshaw, tried to
intervene and calm the situation, he was also threatened by Kaseke who
dismissed him as a "racist".

The Zimbabwe Independent  story was published on September 8, 2008 under the
headline, "Kaseke faces eviction". Kaseke had been asked by his landlord in
Sentosa, Harare, to vacate the property he was renting after expiry of a
three-month notice period. Kaseke apparently argued that far from renting
the house in question, he had, in fact, purchased it.

A school teacher at the school told The Zimbabwe Times that it was common
practice at Watershed for high-ranking government officials to bully school
authorities.

"We have several such cases of people in government who visit the school to
threaten staff members. For example a senior army officer once brought his
children to school without paying for their school fees and was told by the
bursar that his children would not be admitted," said one school teacher.
"He threatened the bursar with a gun."

Kaseke has been reported to have abandoned school in his second year of
secondary school.

"We now live with such threats," said the teacher. "Some of these people's
children are disrespectful and threaten us following the example set by
their parents.

"Kaseke's behaviour undermines his status as Zimbabwe's supposedly Number
One tourism ambassador."

Last year Kaseke was involved in another unsavoury incident when he
assaulted a hotel waiter for bringing his order late.

The ZTA boss is said to have manhandled Ngoni Ngwindingwindi, a waiter at
Meikles Hotel, hitting his head against the wall, and ripping his hotel
uniform.

In 2005, Kaseke was at the centre of yet another storm following reports
that he had made a 15-year-old orphan pregnant in 2003 before refusing to
pay maintenance for the child.

ZIMBABWE: Holy Water Is Serious Business

http://www.ipsnews.net

By Ephraim Nsingo

HARARE, Dec 27 (IPS) - "I am making much more profit selling seawater than I
used to get from selling groceries and small household goods," Carlos
Marufu, a holy water dealer based in Harare told IPS.

"I travel to the coast of Durban in South Africa or Beira in Mozambique
every month to fetch seawater. I usually bring five 20 litre containers of
water per trip, but at times the demand is so high I have to double the
quantities, or go twice or thrice a month."

The collapse of formal economic structures has pushed many Zimbabweans to
find new ways of making money. Many have established themselves as dealers
in foreign currency and precious stones, which in the past was the preserve
of foreign shopowners.

Marufu and other Zimbabwean entrepreneurs have struck gold selling water to
traditional and faith healers. There are others who travel to Botswana to
fetch clay, which they say helps overcome all complications for pregnant
women.

Seawater is the most valued, but there are other types of water that are
also -- according to the dealers - in demand, including water falling from
rocks or cliffs, and water trapped in caves.

"When I bring the water here, I repack it into small 500 ml and 375 ml
bottles," says Marufu. "There is no fixed price for a bottle, I just
negotiate with the buyer. But whatever the charge, we factor in the
transport costs, and the other expenses we incur along the way. Most of the
time, we take orders before we go to get the water."

In a good month, Marufu says he earns up to a thousand U.S. dollars from
selling holy water, which is much more than what most average workers earn
in Zimbabwe.

IPS caught up with one regular buyer of seawater, Richard Makiwa, a prophet
who is based Harare's high-density suburb of Dzivarasekwa.

"Most of the water you get here is contaminated, it's got some artificial
stuff that is not good for our operations," he said. "The whole idea is to
get water that is free from the dirt that the witches and wizards here are
familiar with. Some of these things are mysteries which you will never
understand unless you are possessed."

Makiwa said in some cases he supplies his clients with seawater, but at
times they have to bring it themselves, especially those who require large
quantities. To avoid being sold the wrong type of water, Makiwa says they
always stick to their regular dealers.

"But even if a new supplier comes, we can tell without carrying out any
tests whether the water is fake or not,"he added.

Among the people waiting for consultation at Makiwa's surgery was
37-year-old Tonic Nhamo. For him, seawater was the most powerful liquid he
has ever seen.

"I used to have problems with my wife," said Nhamo. "Prophet Makiwa told me
my problems could only be solved if I washed myself with seawater. I wanted
to go to Beira in Mozambique, but he advised against that. I had to go to
Durban because there are few Zimbabweans there, and its difficult for
whoever was bewitching me to launch a counter attack because of the
distance, and language barrier."

President of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association
(ZINATHA), Prof. Gordon Chavunduka would not be drawn into giving details of
the use of holy water.

"Yes, seawater is very useful, but it is against our ethic for anyone to
discuss such details in the public. This is supposed to be confidential
information between the patient and the practitioner," said Chavunduka.

There are those who believe that "this excitement about seawater is a fuss
about nothing".

"Water is water, whether it is rainwater, seawater, water from the tap, as
long as it is water, there is no way it can suddenly be bestowed with
certain functions that it doesn't have. This is all a matter of belief. Most
of the people who use these things believe it works for them, and they will
go out of their way to prove that indeed it works," said Sheunesu Moyo, a
youth leader at a Pentecostal church in Harare. Acclaimed Bulawayo-based
prophet, Thabiso Ngwenya, who has made waves with supernatural powers he
claims have helped many people, said seawater was one of the prescriptions
he got in the spirit.

Ngwenya claims to have the power to recover stolen goods, solve marital
problems, help people who do not conceive and even cure some illnesses like
cancer -- all through the bottles of water he gives to each of his patients.

"I just give people water that I would have prayed for and God simply
replies. God is using me to save His people," he added. "I do not mix the
water with anything, I just pray for it. That is why the water has to be
pure, natural water."

Scores of patients gathered at Ngwenya's house in Pumula South in Bulawayo
were unanimous that his magic water works.

Some of them had come from as far as Botswana and South Africa. Among them
was Moegomosti Matude, of Botswana who had come to give thanks to Ngwenya.
"My husband had gone for three years without a trace but when I came here, I
was given some water and prayers and after a week my husband was back home."

There have been media reports of high profile musicians from South Africa
and Botswana coming to consult him. Born on June 5, 1975, Ngwenya is now a
celebrated individual in Bulawayo. Before he started his prophetic works,
Ngwenya says he spent two years "staying in the wilderness in isolation
surviving on insects".

In a small pamphlet distributed to his potential patients, Ngwenya says he
can "solve all problems through prayer with the aid of a bottled water
bomber".

Reads the pamphlet: "The person (prayed for) then smashes the bottle onto a
rock. While smashing the bottle you say out what you wish for in the
presence of the prophet. If you fail to break the bottle then there is a
second trial for you. Holy rains are cast over the multitudes that attend
the seminar. The rains come in the form of holy water prayed for by the
prophet."

The importation of seawater is also giving customs officials nightmares.
They are not sure whether or not to charge duty on the water. "It is
understandable if a person brings a carton or so of mineral water for
drinking. But now we have to deal with people who bring at times hundreds of
litres of water. Most of the water would be in cooking oil or fuel bottles,"
said a Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) official who requested anonymity.

IFRC emergency response units in Zimbabwe

Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC)

Date: 26 Dec 2008

Here is some information on the IFRC Emergency Response Units in Zimbabawe

Background information

Water and sanitation ERU

- There are two versions of this particular type of ERU. One provides the
treatment and distribution of up to 600,000 litres of water a day for 40,000
people and requires the availability of a suitable local surface water
supply. The other provides 225,000 litres for 15,000 people and is designed
for response to scattered populations

- it includes five to eight personnel, distribution and trucking capacity

- it can set up nine different storage and distribution points for 75,000
litres a day

The two water and sanitation ERUs were made available through the Red Cross
Societies of France, Germany and Austria.

Basic health ERU

- includes eight to twelve personnel and 20 beds

- works alongside local health staff to provide immediate curative,
preventative and community health care for up to 30,000 people

- delivers basic outpatient clinic services, maternal-child health,
community outreach, immunization and nutritional surveillance

The three basic health ERUs were made available through the Red Cross
societies of Finland, Japan and Norway.

Mass sanitation ERU

- includes five to eight personnel and basic sanitation facilities -
latrines, vector (insect and rodents) control and solid waste disposal

- provides an integrated response through hygiene promotion, including
community mobilization, hygiene education, operation and maintenance

- designed to serve 20,000 people

The two mass sanitation ERUs were made available through the Red Cross
societies of Spain and Britain.

The seven ERUs will work in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society
which has been responding to the cholera outbreak since it began. The
response is being made upon the direct request of the Zimbabwe Government
and the Ministry of Health. The efforts are being coordinated with other
organisations in Zimbabwe.

On Monday (15 December) an IFRC truck with relief supplies arrived in Harare
. The truck was carrying:

- 4 cholera kits, enough to treat 4,800 people. A further 16 cholera kits
are on their way, giving the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society the ability to treat
30,000 people

- 552,000 water purification sachets. Each sachet treats 20 litres of water,
giving the Red Cross the capacity to provide over 10 million litres of safe
water to those most in need

- 1,500 'life straws' for Zimbabwe Red Cross volunteers to keep them healthy
as they continue with their cholera awareness programmes, and distribution
of oral re-hydration salts and water purification tablets

- 40,000 pamphlets on the causes of cholera, symptoms and preventative
hygiene measures in both English and Shona to further extend cholera
awareness programmes. This information is vital to inform and empower at
risk communities and contribute towards the reduction of cholera cases and
deaths

Contact:
Farid Abdulkadir M. A.
Disaster Management Coordinator
International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies, Southern
Africa Zone
44 Wierda Rd West, Wierda Valley, Sandton
Tel: +27 11 303 9700 Direct line: +27 11 303 9721
Faridabdulkadir69@yahoo.co.uk

UZ Student Leader Acquitted

http://www.radiovop.com

HARARE -December 27, 2008 - A University of Zimbabwe Disciplinary
Committee has acquitted suspended student leader Lovemore Chinoputsa of any
wrong doing and the Zinasu secretary general awaits his reinstatement.

Chinoputsa told RadioVOP that he was very delighted by the committee's
decision to acquit him and he hope to continue with his studies when the
college reopens early next year.
"I am waiting for the Vice Chancellor Levy Nyagur's final decision and
I hope it will be positive since the disciplinary committee has cleared me,"
said Chinoputsa.
The hearing had to be finalized following a High Court ruling ordering
University of Zimbabwe management to finalise the matter no later than
January 9 next year.
Chinoputsa is being represented by Joshua Shekede of Wintertons Legal
Practioners.
 Shekede told RadioVOP then  that Justice Yunus Omerjee wanted the
matter finalized before the college's first semester is closed by the end of
January next year.
Chinoputsa, the Zimbabwe National Students' Union (Zinasu) secretary
general was suspended in July this year after disturbances at the campus. He
was alleged to been the brains behind the disturbances.
The Zinasu secretary general was facing charges of wrongfully and
unlawfully inciting students to destroy university property among other six
disciplinary charges.
He was arrested with eight other students who were charged separately.
He first appeared for a hearing on August 6 and the matter has been
postponed on six occasions.

Tsvangirai should review his priorities

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=9228

December 26, 2008

By Kennedy Gezi

THE appearance on Christmas Eve of abducted human rights activist, Jestina
Mukoko, being led to court by the Zimbabwean police has been both a relief
and a source of outrage for many.

After denying in public any knowledge of the whereabouts of many abducted
activists, the Zimbabwean authorities had the audacity to produce the same
abductees, and to lead them to the same courts and get them charged on some
obviously trumped-up charges.  We thank Morgan Tsvangirai for finally
putting his foot down on behalf of these victims of government abuse.

But what took you so long Mr. Tsvangirai?

Many of us believed and said then, that it was a grave mistake for the MDC
to have signed the power-sharing agreement with Robert Mugabe.  What did
they expect really?  Does anything that has transpired since the signing
surprise anyone in the MDC?  If it does, then the MDC has graver issues than
many of us have previously realized.  Nothing that Mugabe and his regime
have done since the signing of the power-sharing agreement has really come
as a surprise.

I am not sure what drives Morgan Tsvangirai's fight against Mugabe and his
regime.  Ideally, we would all like to believe that it is sincere desire to
instill democracy in Zimbabwe, that drives Tsvangirai and the MDC, but
often, some of us are left scratching our heads wondering about the logic
behind some of the MDCs decisions.

If the drive behind Tsvangirai and the MDC's fight in Zimbabwe is truly
about a desire to install democratic institutions in Zimbabwe, then the MDC
should not be engaged in any further negotiations with Robert Mugabe and his
cronies.  This is especially so after the Zimbabwean illegitimate
authorities have produced Ms. Mukoko and a few of the other abducted
activists, no doubt in response to a combination of Tsvangirai's threats and
the serendipitous discovery by Zimbabwe's dedicated human rights lawyers,
that in fact, Mukoko and other abductess were being held in jails across
Harare by the Zimbabwe police.

It should be a source of outrage to all democracy-loving principals,  that
after signing the power-sharing agreement, Robert Mugabe and his regime have
been engaged in a covert operation to abduct innocent Zimbabwean civilians.
It is an affront to all that these activists stand for, that Morgan
Tsvangirai would sit with Mugabe and his cronies in any kind of negotiation,
and let alone, sign any kind of power-sharing agreement with Mugabe's
regime.

Robert Mugabe is constantly singing about how he can only be removed from
power by Zimbabweans.  The impotent SADC regional leaders are constantly
talking about how the western nations should let the people of Zimbabwe
decide their fate.  We did that already, on March 29.  Forget this
ridiculous claim that five weeks after holding onto the March 29 election
results, Tsvangirai somehow came short of the majority votes to take over
the presidency.

It is an affront to the people of Zimbabwe, for the SADC regional leaders to
expect us to look to them for a solution after all the impotence they have
demonstrated.  We never did look to them for a solution to our problems of
the past 10 years.  But we did look to Tsvangirai and the MDC.  Tsvangirai
needs to re-examine where his priorities and obligations lie.  Is it with
the SADC regional leaders or the people of Zimbabwe?  Is it with the Jestina
Mukokos or with the Mbekis and Motlantes?

Robert Mugabe has shown continuously, what his true colors are, and what
cards he is holding close to his chest during this circus of a negotiation
process.  It would be an insult to the people of Zimbabwe, and the mandate
that the people of Zimbabwe gave to Tsvangirai, if he continues to play into
this charade.   What kind of people are they that jail a mother together
with her two- year old child? Where else on this earth, have we ever heard
of a two-year old child being jailed?

There is absolutely no-good that can come out of any negotiated settlement
with such callous animals.  And it is preposterous that the SADC so-called
leaders continue to demand that the MDC enter into a negotiated settlement
with such a regime.

A clear and better option has now presented itself for the
strategically-defunct MDC.

Do not enter into this power-sharing agreement.  Let a transitional
governing authority be appointed, that does not include either Mugabe nor
even Tsvangirai himself.  Fight for internationally supervised elections to
be held.  Short of military invasion, this is the only other viable option
that will deliver the people of Zimbabwe from the tyrants that make up the
current illegitimate government.

A power-sharing arrangement of any sort will only prolong the people's
suffering.  That is certainly not what the people voted for on March 29.
Tsvangirai was not given a mandate by the people to negotiate a
power-sharing arrangement with the defeated Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe.

It may be what the SADC regional leaders want, but it certainly is not what
the people of Zimbabwe want.

Whose side are you on, Mr. Tsvangirai?

Editorial: In Zimbabwe, tragedy unfolds

http://www.sacbee.com

Published: Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008 | Page 14A
Difficult as things have been in the United States, with job losses and home
foreclosures, they are immeasurably worse 10,000 miles away in Zimbabwe,
southern Africa.

There, people sift through garbage for morsels of food. Children scoop water
out of street puddles to drink. Others die of cholera, a water-borne
disease. Women collect non-nutritious berries and beetles to eat. People mix
cow dung with food to make it go further.

Schools and hospitals have closed. Hyperinflation - 100 million Zimbabwean
dollars buys three loaves of bread - makes basic necessities out of reach
for most people. Life expectancy for men is 37 years; for women, 34.

The New York Times reported earlier this week on a family of six that
gathered enough meal to make a loaf of bread, their one meal of the day.
Five got two slices each; the 2-year-old, one slice.

That last image brings to mind the famous poem by Spike Milligan, titled
"Christmas 1970":

A little girl called Sile Javotte

Said 'Look at the lovely presents I've got'

While a little girl in Biafra said

'Oh what a lovely slice of bread.'

Like Biafra 40 years ago, Zimbabwe today is an utterly avoidable man-made
disaster. Zimbabwe used to, and could again, be the breadbasket of southern
and central Africa. It once had a higher literacy rate than the United
States.

The nation has become a living hell because of the megalomania of tyrant
Robert Mugabe. Despite international calls for his regime's end, its mantra
remains "power sharing" and "dialogue."

These have become euphemisms for barbarism. Dialogue means doing nothing;
power sharing means hanging on through a campaign of terror against his own
people.

It is time for Mugabe to go. The United States finally has added its voice
to that call, but must press regional holdouts into action. For example,
South African leaders, who have been reluctant to challenge a fellow
nationalist who sheltered them during the exile years fighting apartheid,
must take a stand. Kenya and Botswana, to their credit, have stepped
forward. The United Nations must be prepared to intervene.

The situation in Zimbabwe is not likely to correct itself. It's time for
world leaders to act. As the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe has said, "The time
for speaking softly is over."

Zimbabwe's neighbours must act

Forget the bombast, David Miliband. Concentrate on getting southern Africa
to pull the plug on Robert Mugabe's regime

Phil Hall
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 December 2008 10.00 GMT

If the British government wants to help Zimbabwe, it would be better if the
foreign secretary, David Miliband, refrained from making bombastic
pronouncements and instead focused on petitioning legitimate political
players in the region to act against Robert Mugabe. Southern African
Development Community (SADC) countries are the ones who can cut off the
supply line of luxury goods to the Zimbabwean regime just in time for
Christmas, not Britain.

Of course, Britain as the former colonial power in Zimbabwe lacks the moral
authority to intervene directly. It is too easy for Mugabe to respond by
characterising Miliband's soundbites as hypocritical interventions, mainly
concerned with preserving the land rights of the residual white diaspora.

By portraying Blair, and now Brown and Miliband, as machinating "racists",
"imperialists" and "former settlers", Mugabe has been able to increase the
level of solidarity and warmth felt towards the Zanu-PF government by a few
degrees. Because nobody likes an interfering former colonial power.

In contrast to the British government, however, the British people have a
magnificent record of fighting against injustice in southern Africa through
the anti-apartheid movement. And one of the strategies of anti-apartheid
that worked was to target those companies that sustained the apartheid
regime.

Two of those companies were Barclays Bank and Anglo American. And just to
prove that they are truly colour blind when it comes to supporting
oppressive regimes, the same companies are also currently shoring up the
Zanu-PF dictatorship.

Barclays provides the government with the lines of credit it needs and
foreign earnings from mining provide the Zanu-PF elite with enough foreign
currency to live comfortably. In June this year, British-based
Anglo-American announced it would be investing £200m in its Unki platinum
mine.

In another echo of former times, it was Peter Hain, one of the leaders of
the anti-apartheid movement, who immediately spoke out against Anglo
American's decision to make a major investment in Zimbabwe. These two
companies should now be boycotted by the British people and targeted for
their support of Mugabe in the same way that they were boycotted and
targeted in the time of anti-apartheid.

But ultimately, of course, the solution to the problem is in the hands of
the SADC countries. In fact, there are very few reasons for the governments
of the other SADC countries to support Mugabe. There were always deep
differences between them and the Mugabe government.

It had to be explained to me that Mugabe did not "go bad" after
independence; he was always a conniving apparatchik scheming and murdering
his way to the top.

Wilfred Mhanda has chronicled how he did this. Mhanda describes the reaction
of African leaders to Mugabe seizing control of Zanu from Ndabaningi Sithole
in 1975: "Robert Mugabe and his followers had staged a coup against Sithole
while they were all in prison. Smith released Mugabe, who then led a Zanu
delegation to meet with the leaders of the frontline states - Agostino Neto,
Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel and Kenneth Kaunda. They were surprised and
horrified to see Mugabe leading the delegation and asked how on earth he
could stage a coup inside an enemy prison against the properly elected
leader of the movement. They suspected the prison authorities had helped
Mugabe."

Mugabe was even put under house arrest by Samora Machel, the president of
Mozambique in 1977. Unlike the other African leaders, Mugabe was not a
socialist, a nationalist or even a brave military commander. He was a
tribalist, who we now know was responsible for the Gukurahundi massacre of
an estimated 20,000 in Matabeleland.

The crisis is getting worse and worse in Zimbabwe and only SADC can pull the
plug on the Zanu-PF government. It should put aside false loyalties and do
so, and as soon as possible.

Comments

  ElbowToe
  27 Dec 08, 10:45am (about 9 hours ago)

  You sound as if you are more annoyed with David Miliband than with the
African countries surrounding Zimbabwe who are still giving Mugabe the
benefit of the doubt.

  But.

  Of course.

  This is 'The Guardian'.

  Personally, I would be very happy to see ANY European military forces sent
into Zimbabwe with the intention of confronting Mugabe's 'brave militias'
and killing them.

  Enough of this lunatic who has lost all feelings for his own country men
and is now just concerned with consolidating his rule.

  You just have to look at the excesses in his palaces to feel violently
sick.

  Enough already.

   

  Mantissa
  27 Dec 08, 10:49am (about 9 hours ago)

  Its the same old faces in the same old places,Barclays and the Offshore
Banks,then
  Peter Hain closed out of the Cabinet office,Mandelson in the House of
Lords,the
  gruesome twosome running the Mining Companies. Clearstream and Corfu with
the icing on the cake Mugger Mugabe laughing all the way to the graveyard.Is
it any wonder that there wont be Peace?.
  The asset stripping of Africa as a continent will have to stop.

  

  DrJohnZoidberg
  27 Dec 08, 10:58am (about 9 hours ago)

  uncle bob is a murderous tyrant and the people of zim deserve better.
however, as the former colonial power, we should not be the ones to
intervene, as it will look like neo-colonialism and i'm frankly sick of any
intervention then being wilfully misinterpreted by anti-western types (i'm
sure that pilger would be front of the queue). besides, we don't have the
money or arms to bail the zims on this one.

  whilst mugabe has brutalised his people, the neighbouring nations also
bear responsibility. africa needs to look after its own interests, rather
than relying on former colonial powers. the former colonisers who do go in
are in a lose-lose situation, as they are accused of neo-colonialism if
things go tits up, or they are reminded of their former colonial role if it
all goes right ('it would never have happened if whitey hadn't come over in
the C19th etc').

  i hope that there is a solution soon and that it's one which benefits the
ordinary people of zim. god knows, they deserve better than they have. yet
another leftist dictatorship which has murdered and oppressed those it
intended to liberate.

  

    ikusbekus
  27 Dec 08, 11:05am (about 9 hours ago)

  Phill Hall, you man of conscience...when will you call for the arest and
trial of war criminal Tony Blair for mass murder?

  Has Mugabe killed more than Blair?
  Why is Mugabe's sins Blacker (lol) than Blair's?
  Did Mugabe ever ignore any UN Diktats?

  Oh no..its so easy to Whip the Black villain in your media, while the
worse White one you simply tut tut at.

  O dear I think the liberal, non racist Guardian is going to ban me now.

   

  RedXian
  27 Dec 08, 11:10am (about 9 hours ago)

  I doubt if any of Zim's neighbours will move to oust Mugabe, for 2
reasons:

  1. He's still feted in some circles as a "freedom fighter",

  2. Any regime change in Zim would inevitably put the spotlight on the
shortcomings of their own governments, (Mbeki's deliberate refusal to allow
modern AIDS drugs into SA, preferring to promote the use of garlic is a fine
example that spings to mind).

  

    rabbitin
  27 Dec 08, 11:25am (about 9 hours ago)

  It would appear a massive propaganda effort to further anti-African
interests in Southern Africa is underway. The latest appears to be an
assortment of African stooges from clergymen to asylum-seekers, to
'human-right's' groups and 'socialists' are all encouraged to 'sound-off'
against one demon in the british/uncle-sam press and media. A similar effort
(reported to be funded in Britain by some ~£16m) was mounted prior to the
discredited '45-minutes-wmd' 'sadam-is-the-problem' Iraq-war.

  It is also obvious that the MDC has been externally-pressurised to not
take part in a government of national unity in Zimbabwe. The anti-African
forces want to 'Mugabaefy' the problem. The urgent questions of land-reform
for 12 million Africans and their economic-empowerment (handing stolen
colonial lands back to their rightful African owners and fashioning a
society where the African majority has an equal stake in the economy) in
Zimbabwe becomes unimportant to 'manufactured-problem' of 'one-man'. The
crippling sanctions that are driving Zimbabwe to the stone age are also
never mentioned. And down the road, the manner of Thabo
(who-brokered-a-fair-power-sharing-deal) Mbeki's removal from office also
suggests some dark anti-African forces at work within the ANC/SouthAfrica.
In 1994 a similar well-funded effort was mounted to nullify the PAC in the
SouthAfrican elections. Rather than the ANC in collaboration with the PAC
becoming a vehicle for African economic empowerment and the needed rapid
pan-africanisation in a post-apartheid setup, it instead became a nebulous
all-things-to-all-men outfit. It thus became negligent of the needs of the
dispossessed African majority (in servitude) and indeed pan-Africanism which
played a vital role (cf Cuita Cuanavale) in the ANC gaining 'political
office'. There was a move not-long after the '94 election from 'seniorish'
operatives within the ANC for close alliance with India, Australia, and
NewZealand over any African country. Africa north of the Limpopo was a
non-starter as it would dilute the influence of such people.

  Today it appears a frantic effort is underway to reverse the land-reforms
in Zimbabwe and impose an MDC-puppet-regime- with mark-II/pre-1980's
settler-economy. This is not primarily because land-reforms is bad for
Zimbabwe, but because it forms a blueprint for solution of the bigger
problem in South Africa.

  The forces of neo-colonialism want to isolate one country at a time then
propogandise the problem (they created) as due to "leadership-failure". They
then fund and encourage discontent to effect regime change. (Such a policy
appears to have been implemented in Rwanda in 1994. And a second phase to
break-up the neighbouring DRC to beef-up their proteges Rwanda/Uganda is now
underway.) They then move on the the next country. This strategy can only
work with weak isolated states. And Africa with its plethora of such states
is the ideal test-bed. The antidote to this is rapid panafricanisation.
Removal of the colonial borders into viable regional geopolitical unitary
'states' and solution of problems intra-regionally. Accordingly the best
thing the more progressive wing or the fractured ANC can do is to forge
close links with the remnants of the PAC and push for these policies to be
turned into practice pronto.


   Report abuse

  DrJohnZoidberg
  27 Dec 08, 11:29am (about 9 hours ago)

  ikusbekus- good luck with that self-flagellation son. i think you have
constructed a straw man...well done.

  look at how many have died from hiv/aids since bob started limiting arv's
to the party faithful only.

  look at how agriculture has gone to shit since he forcibly evicted whitey
from the land, rather than engineering a gradual transfer to ensure that
production remained constant.

  look at how the war veterans, the army, the police and the cio have
brutalised people, from the oldest to the youngest. rape (often deliberately
employing hiv+ gangs to rape victims), torture and 'disappearances' by the
ton.

  look at how the regime has allowed cholera to spread unimpeded.

  look at how many are starving in zim and look at the rhetoric used towards
people (something along the lines of ' we don't mind losing half the
population as long as we keep the half that's faithful'- i paraphrase).

  look at how he has allowed the economy of one of africa's most prosperous
nations to collapse.

  don't forget how bob slaughtered the people of matabeleland.

  how easily the liberator takes on the mantle of oppressor.

  to point at blair to deflect the blame from bob's brutality towards his
own people is not going to fool anyone.

   

  PhilipHall
  27 Dec 08, 11:44am (about 8 hours ago)

  I was also under the mistaken impression that at one point Mugabe had been
the father of the nation. But it was explianed to me in no uncertain terms
that he was not and never had been by both Zimbabweans and South Africans.

  I sincerely apologise to Rosa Davis for suggesting that he had any
legitimacy whatsoever.

  The problem is that the British Government is in no position to take
Mugabe to task and just causes fuja when it does so. The British people,
however, do have a lot of moral capital in southern Africa for their support
of anti-apartheid ata time when the British government under Thatcher was
calling Mandela a terrorist.

 

   
  MDELELWA
  27 Dec 08, 11:49am (about 8 hours ago)

    By portraying Blair, and now Brown and Miliband, as machinating
"racists", "imperialists" and "former settlers", Mugabe has been able to
increase the level of solidarity and warmth felt towards the Zanu-PF
government by a few degrees. Because nobody likes an interfering former
colonial power.

  Whoever you are Mr Hall you seem to know the truth.
  Zimbabwe, Zimbabweans do not brook any stupid nonsense from the likes of
Milliband a young boy who has never done an honest days job in his life.
Mugabe and others spend years in prison fighting for the people. The only
discomfort the likes of Brown and Miliband know is the hours spent in a
first class cabins enroute to Washington DC.
  They were in their diapers/pampers nappies when Mugabe was fighting for
equality and justice and the right for the blacks to vote only thirty years
ago. When it comes to championing social justice these shallow characters
cannot hold a candle to old Bob.
  The likes of this writer can rant and scream from the mountain-tops but it
changes nothing- Zimbabwe can never be a british colony again. NOT IN A
LIFETIME.
  ViVa MUGABE Viva!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

   
  DrJohnZoidberg
  27 Dec 08, 11:59am (about 8 hours ago)

  mdelelwa- i hope that you've got your zanu-pf card in your pocket to make
sure you can get something to eat.

  think of the hundreds of thousands of (presumably) your compatriots who
aren't in such a privileged position.

  mugabe is a murderer. i misguidedly thought he was going to be good for
zim when he first came to power. now i see him for the monster he is.

    c.. Clip |

  MungoTeazer
  27 Dec 08, 12:01pm (about 8 hours ago)

  rabbitin

    anti-African interests in Southern Africa?

  Don't make me laugh. You regard Mugabe's interests as African interests?
What of the Zimbabwean people? Are their interests not African interests?

  It sickens me the way that the country in which I grew up (South Africa)
has betrayed the country in which I was born (Zimbabwe), with the ANC
government shielding Mugabe and his goons from the very international action
that they demanded be taken against the apartheid regime.

  Mugabe has destroyed one of the most promising countries in Africa,
turning it from a relatively prosperous breadbasket into an impoverished,
disease-stricken basketcase.

  Yes, the UK must be ashamed. It lauded Mugabe (even giving the vicious old
tyrant an honourary knighthood), when the mass murders and atrocities in
Matabeleland were well known. I suppose that black on black repression was
just not as protest-worthy and cause-able as the white on black repression
south of the Limpopo. Action should have been taken against Mugabe's regime
then; we should not have had to wait until he started targeting the white
farmers in 2000.

  There can be no debate about the necessity of armed intervention to remove
Mugabe and his goons from power. It is absolutely necessary, not only to
save the Zimbabwean people (who tried democratically to remove Mugabe, only
to have the election stolen from them), but it is also in the interests of
the neighbouring states of Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique,
who are directly affected by Zimbabwe's collapse (refugees, the spread of
cholera, etc).

  I am tempted to call for Mugabe's assassination, but that would be too
quick and easy a fate for him. He needs to rot for the rest of his days in a
small, damp, dark cell, in the full knowledge that he is scorned , hated and
held in contempt.

  That there are still people on CiF willing to defend the man, speaks
volumes of them.

    c.. Clip |

  Workshop
  27 Dec 08, 12:03pm (about 8 hours ago)

  rabbitin (and the others) rabbiting on again - Mugabe good, starving
beaten murdered homeless people bad. AND anyone who says otherwise bad too.

  Something very strange about this Mugabe thing. The other African
countries appear to be shivering in their boots with fear! Except for
Botswana and Zambia they are a crowd of clueless clots. Do any readers think
like me that Mugabe has to hang on in there because he has put Zimbabwe in
hock - you know 'My country for a Chinese Palace, for my own little bit of a
Forbidden City'.

  It is not because of colonialism that Mugabe and zanupf have got Zimbabwe
where it is today. The blame lies firmly on their shoulders. Colonialism did
a lot more good than bad and why is it so wrong for trading to continue - it
is the fault of Mugabe, his cronies and their wives for greedily grabbing
the country's money. In their evil way they think, why spend Zimbabwe's
money on the people, on food, education, health or on giving them Clean
Water, when they can have the money for THEMSELVES.

  Simple as that. Argument settled.

 

   
  MungoTeazer
  27 Dec 08, 12:06pm (about 8 hours ago)

  MDELELWA

  Do you write for the Harare Herald in your spare time?

  Your hysterical defence of the old thug leads me to think you might.

  I won't bother to discusss your intemperate and mindless rant further.

   

  physiocrat
  27 Dec 08, 12:06pm (about 8 hours ago)

  Yes but then what? The root of the problem was the wrong sort of land
reform but like most African countries, it will still be waiting for the
right reform one Mugabe has gone.

  

    MungoTeazer
  27 Dec 08, 12:26pm (about 8 hours ago)

  physiocrat

    Yes but then what? The root of the problem was the wrong sort of land
reform but like most African countries, it will still be waiting for the
right reform one Mugabe has gone.

  And exactly what is the "right sort land reform" that you believe still
needs to be done in Zimbabwe? Effectively all the white farmers (and non
Zanu PF black farmers) have been thrown off their farms, most of which are
now either owned by Mugabe's cronies or have simply gone back to bush.

  

    Mantissa
  27 Dec 08, 12:30pm (about 8 hours ago)

  What Europe could do is to stop all the Mercenary activity on the
Continent of Africa
  as well as the Mining Magnates,for
Diamonds,Gold,Platinum,Oil,Cobalt,Uranium, in fact research a Metals Atlas
and see where the problems are,then see Where these commodities are
Traded,Who Trades them,Who the Bankers are and Who Dictates the Price ?
  Next look at recent History try Simon Mann,Mark Thatcher,Earl of
Cholmondley,the Barclays,and a few Dutch Contacts,Van StrHuizen etc,enz,ens.
  Then send your Sons,Nephews to fall on the banks of the Limpopo like they
did on the banks of the Rhine in two World Wars. But dont send any of mine !
  The Worlds History of its relationship with the Continent of Africa,from
  Slavery through to Burton and Speke,through to the Voortrekers to the
current day
  is one of Universal SHAME ! one could,nt make it up if one was at a
"Witches Sabbath!" lift the Medical,Food,and Agricultural embargo and we
might be able to
  look someone in the eye over there. They never seem to run out of
Newspapers in Zimbabwe do they.?

    c.. Clip |

  theforeverman
  27 Dec 08, 12:38pm (about 8 hours ago)

  The essence of the situation in Zimbabwe is appeasement by Britain, of
course. British governments of both main parties have a hierarchy of
appeasement: At the top of the list is the USA which they have to appease at
all costs, then there are a whole lot of less powerful countries, from China
down to the likes of South Africa, that they have to appease most of the
time. That explains why Miliband/Brown/Blair go no further than "bombast"
and hot air, as Phil Hall explains. There is no principle in Brit foreign
policy, just a sort of cowardly assessment of who can be appeased at any
point and who not, based on power and potential harm to Brit interests.
South Africa is powerful in the region, it is on Mugabe's side, so Britain
does nothing, but offer token sanctions against the Zimbabwe leaders.

   Report abuse

  PGallagher
  27 Dec 08, 1:45pm (about 6 hours ago)

  This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
  WoollyMindedLiberal
  27 Dec 08, 1:57pm (about 6 hours ago)

  This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
  toom
  27 Dec 08, 2:11pm (about 6 hours ago)

  The roots of conflict in Zimbabwe are tribal it's as simple as that, so
what on earth makes anyone think that removing Mugabe and his ruling Shona
clique will result in a democratic society. Before the British arrived the
ruling class was the Matabele who treated the more numerous Shona as second
class at best and slaves at worst; so the slaughter that Mugabe inflicted
after independence was no more than payback.
  Now what makes anyone think that a change of regime will not result in
more of the same, let's just accept that Africa has to go through the
growing pains that some might argue Europe is still going through, because
democracy will never break through the present day tribal mentality that
pervades the African continent, it's sad but unfortunately true and why give
the full time protesters any more sticks to hit the West with they'll just
have learn the hard way.

   Report abuse

  bass46
  27 Dec 08, 2:13pm (about 6 hours ago)

  This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
  MDELELWA
  27 Dec 08, 2:29pm (about 6 hours ago)

  @ rabbitin

  You are right. Its all about land. Most posters here are Rhodies who
cannot bear to see the land programme succeed. Over ten years now they have
tried everything short of dropping cluster bombs on Harare to reverse the
land thing. They have tried to insult our gallant people by imposing a
helpless stooge in the form of Morgan to wrest power and give them back the
land. These Rhodies have misinformed the world and demonized Mugabe to such
an unbelievable extent. The same Rhodies are trying to poison race relations
in Zimbabwe for their selfish ends. They have turned the whole land reform
on its head into a "Mugabe thing".
  For your information, Mugabe did not start the so-called land grabs by
himself. It was the people who rose up and occupied farms in a demonstration
meant to bring attention to the land shortage in Tribal Trust lands where
settlers had consigned them over the yester years. Like any other
politician, Mugabe jumped on the bandwagon of a revolution started by the
people.
  Rhodies will never tell you this. Instead they talk of land going into the
hands of Mugabe's cronies. If someone can have half the country being his
cronies/charms then they are right- Because millions of dirt poor peasants
have benefited from land reforms. Those who worked the land for generations
as servants of Rhodies treated worse than the animals they tended now have
pieces of land they can call their own.
  The world has been misled to impose sanctions by vile calculating
predators like these Rhodies and their sympathizers.
  The good English and American people have been told so much lies that they
believe they are right when they speak ill about Zimbabwe. However, one day
they will realise the lies they have been fed over the years. Evil Rhodies
and big capital are exploiting the fact that the average Western person
loves a good story about the fight for human rights and democracy to project
their stooges like Morgan and Raila as the new Mandelas. What a laugh!!!!!!
  In Mugabe in spite of his own failings elsewhere, they have found a match.
They will learn to eat humble pie and eventually let their poodle Morgan
join the unity government.

 

   
  AfricanSnowman
  27 Dec 08, 2:37pm (about 6 hours ago)

  1) Mr Hall, thank you. This is the most sensible contribution I have seen
on this subject in any western paper. However, it does have one serious
flaw. ie the suggestion that other African leaders in the region can have
any effect on Mugabe's attitude or actions is misguided. They cannot. Like
Bush and Blair he is his own man, has a deep sense messianic
self-righteousness and is beyond any influence. The truth is that
Mugabe/Blair constituted a toxic mix that inevitebly led to the disaster
that has unfolded in Zimbabwe. I'm afraid that this is one problem that we
are all just going to have to sit out - Mugabe's end will come naturally or
from within.

  2) There was a time when this paper was capable of honest reporting -
sadly this is no longer the general case. To understand the influences under
which Blair formulated his policies on Zimbabwe look, for example at this
article(British Cash To Fund Mugabe Opposition) wich you can find here:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4020517,00.html

  British politicians have always had invesments in the country and clearly
their policies are influenced by their desire to protect these investments,
not the well-being of Africans. Example: See Trading with Mugabe here:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/30/zimbabwe1

  3) From UK press reports I am aware that non-UK citizens are not allowed
to fund UK political parties. Why then is the UK allowing its citizens to
fund political parties in foreign countries?? This is important as external
funding discredits the opposition to Mugabe and serves mainly to extend the
suffering of its peoples.

  4) Several posters above have stated that given its colonial past the UK
is not well-placed to intervene in the region. This is a superficial
attitude. The real reason that Britain is not suited to play any role in
this sad story is that many Africans today know the UK is not capable of
acting in the interest of poor Africans, nor does it have any desire to do
so. Self interest governs UK policy and many Africans see its involovement
as an attemtp to restore colonial era economic relationships. Following is a
breif description as to what type of economic structure that many Africans
suspect that the UK wants to resore in Zimbabwe.

  At independence Zimbabwe's economy was one of the most heavily dependent
on external capital in black Africa. 70% of the capital was controlled by
foreigners, mainly aprox 130 British and 43 South African (aparthied era)
companies. Foreigners owned about 60% of Zimbabwe's industries, 90% of the
mines and 19% of the commercial farms of which almost 100% was owned by 4000
whites. Barclays and Standard were the main bankers. Old Mutual was the
major insurer. The largest land-owner by far was the multinational Anglo-
America - Nuanetsi ranch at 100,000 acres was is perhaps its largest land
holding.
  Between 1980 and 1983 about $3,300 milion profits were repatriated to
foreing owners.

  This was the situation that Mugabe inherited and which the west wanted him
to maintain. Any attempt to change this set up was, not surprisingly,
resisted. Very little progress to localise the capital ownership base could
be made in the face of western objections but a few small concessions were
granted

  (eg - the decision to allow private "emergency taxis" to operate in the
cities was taken over the vigorous objections of the company that had been
granted an open-ended monoploy to run public transport in every city/town by
the previous government, a company whose shareholders happend to be members
of the UK House Of Lords ) Black Zimababweans were permitted to run public
transport in the rural areas only.

  This also explains why Zimbabwe itself could never fund a land reform
progam on its own and therefor relied upon international aid to do so.

  Did UK believe that land reform was a 1st step towards localising all
industry, mining etc? This may well be so, hence the harsh western response

  The population in the late 80s was 12m - roughly the same size as London,
I believe.

  Pre- independence this economy was sufficient to keep the half million or
so previlged whites in luxury - the blacks barley survived on the margins.
The real post-colonial challenge was to make the economy that had been
designed to support half million people to work succesfully for 12m, not an
easy task. This was Mugabe's failure. In it he recieved ample assistance
from the West when he accepted the IMF/World Bank economic structural
adjustment program that so suited the interantional owners of the
Zimababwean economy but wreaked so much suffering on the local poor.

  PS
  I am told that in Zimbabwe the acronym IMF stands for "Its Mugabe's Fault"

  PPS No western intervention needed - we must sit this one out

  

    MungoTeazer
  27 Dec 08, 2:46pm (about 5 hours ago)

  This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
  whambham
  27 Dec 08, 2:47pm (about 5 hours ago)

  South Africa pull the plug? Kinda thing Laurel and Hardy would do. We pull
the plug and all the effluent falls on our heads.

   

  Ishouldapologise
  27 Dec 08, 2:53pm (about 5 hours ago)

  But Woolly, where is your evidence that Seamus Heany supports Mugabe?
Either you are right or it's slander.

   Report abuse

  whambham
  27 Dec 08, 3:02pm (about 5 hours ago)

  MDELELWA

  As a white South African there are two African leaders I admire - Mandela
and Mugabe. Mandela for showing the black African the benefits of
co-operating with the white man and Mugabe for showing him the downfall when
he doesn't. But something has been missing - a third party such as yourself
to show the world the depth of the "we will cut off our noses to spite the
white man's face" that underpins Mugabe's continued support. Thank you. Take
a bow.

  

    FinDEmpire
  27 Dec 08, 3:13pm (about 5 hours ago)

  You zany interventionists got Ethiopia to "pull the plug" on the Islamic
Courts of Somalia and now you end up paying millions in ransom to the
pirates of the warlord you put in Mogadishu as your stooge.

  You got the Northern Alliance warlords to "pull the plug" on the Taliban
and now they take time off from counting their opium money by raping all the
virgins their men can kidnap.

  Oh but Tsvangirai, he's different, he's good. We know coz he's our SOB.

   

  ikusbekus
  27 Dec 08, 3:29pm (about 5 hours ago)

  PGallagher

  For centuries your people used your language to annilihate the African's
sense of self.

  Why not rewrite your post in the language of the shona people..I'm sure
you will get the grammar and tone just right, no?

   

  ikusbekus
  27 Dec 08, 3:43pm (about 4 hours ago)

  If Britain really want to help Africans, why won't it send its army to
help the poor people of Darfur?

  Could it be that there is no white British life in immediate danger, or
British monetary interests threatened?

  I dont hear the white liberals clamoring for intervention in Darfur...and
how quickly have you forgotten the Congo?

  Note to Editors:

  How about running a CIF "Remember the Congo" campaign and a CIF "Fight
Back for Darfur" season?

  I would even welcone a few words of support from Bidisha.

   

  desklamp
  27 Dec 08, 3:43pm (about 4 hours ago)

  You mean go cap in hand to SA to ask them to institute regime change in
another country?



  PhilipHall
  27 Dec 08, 3:58pm (about 4 hours ago)

  Isn't the idea that the experience of the Mugabe regime is a warning for
South Africa the same racist argument used in the bad old days of Apartheid.
In those days the scarecrow used by racists was Uganda.

  http://xuitlacoche.blogspot.com/2008/12/power-of-dylan-hall.html

 

   
  xenumaster
  27 Dec 08, 4:26pm (about 4 hours ago)

  If you wait for the other African dictaors to chip in Afica will have ice
caps.

   Report abuse

  Workshop
  27 Dec 08, 4:39pm (about 3 hours ago)

  ikusbekus, did you know that chiShona has always been a spoken language?
The Rhodesians colonised the land and compiled the first Shona dictionary in
1958, and the reading and writing of their language was taught in schools to
the African children. Their language was

    c.. Clip |

  Workshop
  27 Dec 08, 4:48pm (about 3 hours ago)

  ... cont'd (my comments magically disappeared just now)

  Their language, their birthright, was certainly never ignored by Rhodesian
colonisers. Sorry I don't know the history of the Sindebele language of the
Ndebele people, but their language is based on Zulu.

  For your information, and ignorance - there was/is a cif here only a
couple of days ago - The Congo's Blood Metals. Look it up.

  And why are you grumbling about the British supporting and looking after
their own. They have every right to do so. Get a life.

  

  rabbitin
  27 Dec 08, 5:04pm (about 3 hours ago)

    MungoTeazer <--You regard Mugabe's interests as African interests? What
of the Zimbabwean people?

  Read my posting very carefully MungoTeaser. And dont conflate a discourse
on the need for equitable land reforms and pan-africanisation in Southern
Africa as support for 'Mugabe's interests. This is the ploy of the
'Mugabaefy-ers'.

    MungoTeazer <-- Mugabe has destroyed one of the most promising countries
in Africa, turning it from a relatively prosperous breadbasket into an
impoverished, disease-stricken basketcase.

  (What breadbasket? One exporting tobacco which was in rapid decline?) And
promising for whom? The experience of most Africans (landless, dis-empowered
and mired in servitude under and overbearing settler elite) was to the
contrary. Yes things are very bad now but only those in denial would argue
they are not due to sanctions by those who wish land reforms and
African-economic empowerment ill. Moreover I believe your argument is
destroyed by the 'scholarly' posting of African-snowman

    African snowman<-- at independence Zimbabwe's economy was one of the
most heavily dependent on external capital in black Africa. 70% of the
capital was controlled by foreigners, mainly aprox 130 British and 43 South
African (aparthied era) companies. Foreigners owned about 60% of Zimbabwe's
industries, 90% of the mines and 19% of the commercial farms of which almost
100% was owned by 4000 whites. Barclays and Standard were the main bankers.
Old Mutual was the major insurer. The largest land-owner by far was the
multinational Anglo- America - Nuanetsi ranch at 100,000 acres was is
perhaps its largest land holding. Between 1980 and 1983 about $3,300 milion
profits were repatriated to foreing owners.

    Workshop<--rabbitin (and the others) rabbiting on again - Mugabe good,
starving beaten murdered homeless people bad. AND anyone who says otherwise
bad too...... Something very strange about this Mugabe thing. The other
African countries appear to be shivering in their boots with fear! Except
for Botswana and Zambia they are a crowd of clueless clots.

  Read my posting carefully Workshop. It is a discourse on equitable land
reforms and panafricanisation to benefit the majority Africans in their own
lands. Wherever you get your 'Mugabe thing' from, it is certainly not from
my posting. As regards the SADC 'countries' the closest we have of
'embryonic panafricanism', population distributions are roughly as follows:-

  zim ~12.6m
  zam ~11.6m
  botswana ~0.2m
  mozambique ~17m
  sa/azania ~47m
  tanzania ~35m
  angola ~13m
  malawi ~13m
  DRC ~62m

  It would appear that most SADC 'governments' support equitable
land-reforms benefiting Africans and more so 'governments' of the most
populous 'countries'. And most are aware the acute economic problems in
Zimbabwe presently are due to unjustifiable sanctions. Lets hope SADC gets
more teeth and forge into a regional 'state' that is able to assist
decisively in an equitable solution of the zimbabwe-land question and the
upcoming azania-land question internally and sensibly.

    PGallagher<--and wilfully ignoring for instance Mgabes rant on tv saying
begrudgingly 'ok to unity government but we wont be messed around and we
don't want any ideas from the West. We don't want to hear anything about the
West'

  I did not hear the rant. But I suggest equitable land reform and African
economic-empowerment in SouthernAfrica is more important than the rant of
one man be he Mugabae, Mandela, Nyerere, Neto, Lumumba or otherwise.

    bass46<---What a load of shite.

  sooo glad you liked it.

   

  Gessler
  27 Dec 08, 5:29pm (about 3 hours ago)

  Hold my hand, I'm dying.



  PeterParker
  27 Dec 08, 5:44pm (about 2 hours ago)

  Don't expect Mbeki to help out.

  For years he as defended the tyrant Mugabe.

  Only now, are there signs that as Zimbabwe descends into chaos, he is
changing his position.

  Seems humanism has no place in southern Africa, only looking after your
mates.

  Live long....

  PGallagher
  27 Dec 08, 5:56pm (about 2 hours ago)

  Ikesbukis

  If my mother was alive she would translate it like an abafazi (native
women) into Zulu or in Swazi. I can speak quite a bit in Zulu as well. I
could get one of my contacts to do it in chiShona. If I thought it would
reach them. So I don't infer that I am racist because Im not nor ever have
been. We knew the Royalty of Swaziland. Even King Mswati 3rd asked his
subjects to obey the police and respect visitors to their country over the
Christmas period. I was highlighting the reporting of road rage and racism
directed at people of European descent (and locals) by Swazis. That's
because they are told that mlungu (the white man) wants their land and
minerals. Someone needs to tell them otherwise. Do you think Mugabe should
have no opposition?
  Don't go off track with other African countries that have complicated
situations. The solution in Zimbabwe is now quite clear.

  African snowman
  do you think all those facts are really so awful? Enough to do nothing
about or challenge Mugabe's viciousness?
  Rabbiten
  If you allow Mugabe to rule with impunity there will be no equitable land
reform and still less effective african empowerment in the whole region.

  South Africa shame on you who we helped to freedom. Free the poor
Zimbabweans. To all you apologists for Mugabe and his supporters; I pray the
Angels of the Lord, chase and persecute you. Amen.

  PhilipHall
  27 Dec 08, 6:37pm (about 2 hours ago)

  I meant, where's your proof that Seumas Milne is in favour of Mugabe,
Woolly?



  bass46
  27 Dec 08, 7:47pm (21 minutes ago)

  rabbitin

    anti-african

  What exactly is that? You use the term several times, but what does it
mean?

  So Britain should have supported Mugabe in his "land reforms"? It's my
understanding that help was given at the begininning, but when it became
apparent that what Mugabe actually intended was no more than a sham, a
payoff to his comrades, and would so obviously end in disaster, subsequent
payments were refused. If the land still produced anything the people might
have something to eat. That's not hard to fathom.

    It is also obvious that the MDC has been externally-pressurised to not
take part in a government of national unity in Zimbabwe.

  It's obious to a blind man who lives in a dark cave that when your members
are being arrersted for no other reason than opposing Mugabe, when your
members are beaten, tortured, and murdered... you won't get very far in a
game of tiddly winks, let alone fixing a bankrupt country. Somehow yu see
this as "external pressure". You either live in the same cave as Mugabe or
you're looking so deep that you see things that aren't really there. The
validity of your opinion remnds me of someone on acid swearing the sky is
green. It is if you're on the same trip they're on, but back on earth the
sky is blue and always has been.

  In fact every word of your post looks like it was written by someone on
acid, although it's been my experience that it's difficult to use a keyboard
when you're tripping, it looks like you've mastered it. Practise I suppose.

  Mugabe and his Zanu-PF comrades are completely responsible for cholera,
starvation, torture, and murder. The crime of being "anti-african" is in
fact being perpetrated by Africans on Africans with whitey being just an on
looker. South Africa bears most of the shame, and looking at their pathetic
attempts (especially those of your hero, "Tiny Mbeki" as Bob calls him) you
have to wonder if one day they won't bring cholera to their own people, so
utterly useless are they in every respect.

  Even as disease spills across their borders, denied of-course by your man
in Harare, Butcher Bob, South Africa's leaders continue to do.......
nothing. There's been a slight ramping up in occasional rhetoric, but that's
it.

  It looks like loyalty to the leadership class matters far, far more than
human life to each and every African leader. They would happily see their
entire populations laid waste rather than admit for one second that one of
them, perhaps, wasn't quite up to the job.

  Somehow all this passes you by, and I don't expect that anything I can say
will make a blind bit of difference to someone who thinks so highly of a
person like Mugabe, but never the less you have to stand up to dictators and
their apologists where you can. That's what you're doing, apologising for a
dictator and dressing it up with hints of conspiracy and a dose of half
truths.

  And by the way, what the hell have "socialists" got to do with it?

Comment from a correspondent

Re: Worst Christmas Ever

http://www.radiovop.com

Why do you say Tsvangirai is also to blame.You are blaming him for not
joining losers. It is a shame that the guy who won the election is now
being forced to be invited in an illegitimate government.Remember
Morgan is just like you, he cannot do anything, he is not the president
and his supporters are being tortured in daylight right in the eyes of
sadc.No one says anything and people are being killed, still no sadc or
whatever.And you have the guts to pick up a pen and send this rubbish.
If you do not know exactly what is going on, I suggest you SHUT up.
People like you who do not get it make me sick.If you were to utter
this rubbish in front of the deprived, my friend in the olden getto
days "waitwa kanyama kanyama"