http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 18:28
BY PATRICE
MAKOVA
ZANU PF’s heavyweights are in a bitter fight over Phillip
Chiyangwa with
information emerging that the businessman has once again been
cleared to
stand in elections for the vacant post of provincial chairperson
slated for
later this month.
Sources told The Standard that fresh
squabbles have hit Zanu PF with senior
politburo members divided on whether
to allow Chiyangwa to contest the post
after the party’s secretary for
administration Didymus Mutasa wrote to the
businessman confirming his
re-admittance to the party after a five-year
suspension
period.
Zanu PF central committee member Tony Mwanza
confirmed that some senior
party officials were trying to bar Chiyangwa from
contesting as they felt
threatened by his “popularity” in the
province.
“Certain senior party officials who I cannot name are
trying to impose
people they can easily control,” he said.
“They
will face resistance from the people because Chiyangwa is popular
throughout
the province. He managed to unite party members when he was
chairman. The
man has paid for whatever mistakes he has made in the past and
must now be
allowed back.”
Zanu PF national chairman Simon Khaya- Moyo last month
presented a report to
the party’s recent annual national people’s conference
in Bulawayo which
stated that Chiyangwa’s re-admission was not an issue
because he had not
re-applied.
But on November 9 2011, Mutasa had
written to Chiyangwa advising him about
his re-admission.
“This
letter serves to advise you that the Zanu PF politburo sitting at its
Ordinary Session on 2nd of November 2011 at Zanu PF Headquarters resolved to
re-admit you back into Zanu PF party at the expiry of your period of
expulsion on 20 March 2011,” says the letter.
A Mashonaland West
provincial executive member said the decision would be
challenged.
“We are working to block Chiyangwa from becoming
chairman because he uses
money to buy power and influence,” said the member
who requested anonymity.
Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said
Chiyangwa was indeed now a full
member of the party but added that the
businessman would, for the time
being, remain an ordinary card carrying
“cadre”.
“The central committee report presented to the national
people’s conference
incorrectly said Chiyangwa has not been re-admitted,”
said Gumbo. “What
Mutasa wrote is the correct position, but he left out that
Chiyangwa will be
an ordinary member until further notice to allow us to
monitor his
performance.”
Sources said when the Chiyangwa issue
came for discussion in the politburo,
the party’s political commissar
Webster Shamu and Local Government, Rural
and Urban Development minister
Ignatius Chombo opposed his re-admission.
But Defence Industries boss
Colonel Tshinga Dube, Senator for Mwenezi
Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Senate
President Edna Madzongwe and President Robert
Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao
are said to have fought on behalf of
Chiyangwa.
“At the end of
the day, it was Mugabe himself who saved Chiyangwa declaring
that he can
rejoin the party,” said a politburo member.
Sources said at least three Zanu
PF factions have emerged in Mashonaland
West as party chiefs in the province
fight to have their preferred
candidates elected to the powerful post which
fell vacant following the
death of the then-acting-chairman Robert Sikanyika
in a car accident in
April last year.
A faction which has the “ears” of
the most senior party official in the
province and politburo member Nathan
Shamuyarira is said to be pushing for
Chiyangwa’s candidature.
On
the other hand Chombo is said to be sponsoring Zvimba South MP and Deputy
Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals Walter Chidhakwa.
Shamu,
who is also Media, Information and Publicity minister is lobbying for
the
current acting chairman Reuben Marumahoko, sources said. Expelled former
chairman John Mafa is also in the running.
Chombo and Shamu could
not be reached for comment.
With elections expected to take place
later this year, the post of chairman
is critical in the selection of
candidates to represent the party and
eventually a possible successor for
Mugabe.
Chiyangwa was suspended by Zanu PF in 2005 after he was
arrested but later
acquitted on charges of espionage.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011
18:27
BY OUR STAFF
NINETY-THREE people have perished in road accidents
since police started
recording festive season accidents two weeks
ago.
Police spokesperson Andrew Phiri yesterday said 1 061 accidents have
been
recorded across the country since December 15. Although the total
number of
accidents recorded remains lower than last year’s 1 119, the
fatalities are
already higher than last year’s 92 deaths.
Phiri
said police have since impounded 2 151 defective vehicles compared to
last
year’s 2 909. No drivers have been arrested for drunken driving this
year
although police have issued 86 858 tickets for different
offences.
Last year, police last year arrested 182 drivers for
drunken driving.
Currently, Harare has the highest accidents with a
total of 360 as at
yesterday morning while Matabeleland North has the least
with a total of 28.
Among other provinces, Bulawayo recorded 149 accidents,
Midlands 135,
Masvingo 77, Manicaland 71 and Mashonaland Central
39.
Phiri said the bulk of the accidents were caused by speeding and
misjudgement on the part of the drivers.
Lack of attention, drunken
driving and the poor state of roads have also
been previously blamed for the
country’s road carnage.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 18:26
BY NQABA
MATSHAZI
MYSTERY surrounds the cause of death of MDC-T legislator, Gladys
Gombami.
News reports said she had died of avian influenza or bird flu but
health
expects deny there any cases of the disease in the country. Health
and Child
Welfare Minister Henry Madzorera said the government had not
raised any
alerts of an outbreak of the disease as they had not received
reports of a
possible epidemic.
“The Epidemics and Disease
Control centre has not informed me about any
outbreak, but they are closed
and we can only know that after the holidays,”
he said.
Madzorera
said he could not comment further as he had not received any news
of an
outbreak.
Officials from the health ministry also revealed that there
were no known
cases of the virus in Zimbabwe or in the region. They said it
was highly
unlikely that there could have been an outbreak in the
country.
The only recently recorded cases, the officials said, were
reported in Hong
Kong and a spread to Zimbabwe at this stage was highly
improbable.
But the family of the late senator insist that post-mortem
results had
indicated that Gombami had been afflicted with the deadly avian
virus.
The Standard could not have access to the post-mortem
report.
To add to the mystery, a Kadoma doctor reportedly declined to
carry out a
postmortem and instead referred the family to a hospital in
Harare.
“We were told that she had a swelling in her stomach because
there was water
in her lungs, but this did not make sense to us,” an
informed source said.
The source said before her death, the senator was
down with influenza, she
however developed an unnamed infection in her
chest.
In the past Zimbabwe’s health systems have been reported to be
incapable of
handling epidemics such as bird and swine flu. In 2010 it was
reported that
some children in Tsholotsho were affected by swine flu.
However, results on
whether it was actually swine flu were
inconclusive.
Meanwhile, a storm is brewing within the MDC-T after the
party’s deputy
president, Thokozani Khupe and women’s assembly boss, Theresa
Makone failed
to attend Gombami’s funeral.
At the funeral, people
spoke in hushed tones on the absence of the duo, with
Khupe reportedly
having gone on holiday to Dubai.
Some mourners claimed Khupe could have
postponed her trip by a day
considering that she travelled either on the day
of the funeral or a day
before. They were particularly scathing on Makone,
whom they said was
working together with Gombami in the women’s assembly and
should have been
present.
But the party’s deputy spokesperson Tabitha
Khumalo said: “They excused
themselves because they had prior
arrangements.”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 18:25
BY JENNIFER
DUBE
RECENTLY capped doctor, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Obert
Mpofu, has urged his colleagues in government to dedicate time to improving
their education as this not only benefits them in their work but also in
their personal lives. Mpofu last month graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy
(PhD) in Policy Studies from the Zimbabwe Open University
(ZOU).
He was capped by President Robert Mugabe together with Zanu-PF
chief whip
Joram Gumbo (PhD in Policy Studies) and Police Senior Assistant
Commissioner
Charles Makono (PhD in Philosophy in Management). Many
questioned how Mpofu
had managed to pursue his studies considering the tight
schedule ministers
have.
“Yes, a minister’s schedule is busy but
with dedication, it is possible to
study and improve oneself,” Mpofu
said.
“Technological advancements make it easy to study nowadays as
one can read
from their computer instead of moving from one library to
another.”
He added: “Being a minister is a 24 hours’ work but I still manage
to do a
lot of reading and everything I read becomes part of my
research.”
There have been sentiments that some legislators, even those at
high
offices, lack requisite skills for their jobs.
A PhD is a
doctorate usually based on at least three years graduate study
and a thesis.
It is the highest degree awarded graduate study and is awarded
for original
contributions to knowledge.
Most work for a PhD centres around
research for the thesis which can be over
200 pages compared to typical
undergraduate dissertations which might be
forty pages and Master’s theses
which can be 100 pages.
Mpofu said he started gathering data for his
PhD thesis in 2008 when he was
Minister of Industry and International
Trade.
He said publishing companies had approached him with requests to
publish a
book based on his thesis titled “An Analysis of The Tripartite
Negotiating
Forum (TNF) in Zimbabwe”.
TNF is a forum where
government, industry and labour meet to discuss issues
to do with the
economy, business environment and workers’ welfare among
others.
“My stint in the ministry, which exposed me to a lot of
negotiations
locally, in the region and internationally influenced my
research topic,”
Mpofu said.
“My thesis explores why we had a lot of
inconclusive negotiations in the TNF
and is about the enhancement of
negotiating skills which Africa is not fully
equipped in as is shown in
negotiations under such organizations as World
Trade Organisation, Sadc,
Comesa, ACP-EU and Kimberly Process.”
Mpofu encouraged his colleagues
to study despite hinderances. He said he
studied for his Masters in Policy
Studies with the University of Zimbabwe
and Fort Hare under difficult
conditions as his lecturers who included Dr
John Makumbe, Eldred Masunungure
and the late Masiphula Sithole were always
critical of his party
Zanu-PF.
Mpofu said despite some negative views about ZOU, the
institution is better
than many in the region, especially regarding research
as supervisors are
drawn from various universities in the
region.
“Of course, there is need for them to improve in some areas
like those with
programmes which have been suspended but that does not mean
they are a bad
institution,” he said.
Mpofu said he believed
government was committed to improving the quality
education in the country
despite the lack of resources.
“My colleagues in the Information and
Technology Development Ministry are
doing their best to equip schools with
computers,” he said. “Others in other
ministries linked to education are
also doing all they can so I believe
government is doing its best to ensure
that education is available to all in
Zimbabwe.
He added:
“Conditions at schools are better these days compared to our days
when books
were limited and the sole source of information, especially in
rural
schools, was the teacher.”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 18:08
BY
CAIPHAS CHIMHETE
senior Zanu PF officials are worried that the impending
restructuring
exercise of the party will trigger fresh infighting as
different factions
manoeuvre to place their loyalties in strategic positions
as the battle to
succeed ageing President Robert Mugabe intensifies, party
insiders said last
week. They fear that the current intense lobbying for
posts and political
mudslinging could leave the party more divided and
unable to face its main
political rival, MDC-T, should polls be held any
time soon.
Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo however, said the
exercise would instead
strengthen the party and weed out bad apples in time
for elections later
this year.
The restructuring exercise begins
this month as the party prepares for
elections, which Mugabe insists should
be held later this year without fail.
Sources said Zanu PF political
commissar Webster Shamu has been instructed
to superintend over the exercise
with due care as it has the potential to
further divide the former ruling
party, already plugged by internal fights.
It is against this
background that Shamu recently warned party members
involved in the
succession debate that there was no vacancy for the post of
president as
Mugabe was still in charge.
He accused party cadres who wanted to be
elected in top posts of causing
chaos in the party and its
organs.
There are at least four distinct factions in Zanu PF. These
are said to be
led by Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, Vice President
Joice Mujuru,
Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) chief, Constantine Chiwenga and
one devoted to
keeping Mugabe in power.
“The fears are legitimate
because every faction is determined to control the
party’s structures from
districts to provinces,” said one insider.
“Shamu’s warning stems from the
same fears. One’s control of provinces plays
a crucial role in the dynamics
on who takes over from the old man (Mugabe).”
Another source said
factional fighting has seen Zanu PF failing to elect a
provincial chairman
for Mashonaland West, where the party’s gurus are said
to have clashed on
several occasions as they try to impose their favourite
cadres.
In Masvingo, a rival faction has set a parallel district
coordinating
committee office at Nyika Growth Point as the fight for control
of Bikita
district intensifies. The factions are said to belong to Mujuru
and
Mnangagwa camps.
A few days before the Zanu PF annual
conference in Bulawayo, turmoil erupted
in Matabeleland provinces as the
party’s factions openly clashed. This
resulted in the party’s Matabeleland
North chairman Zwelitsha Masuku being
sacked for alleged incompetence. He
was replaced by former chairman Headman
Moyo.
Senior central
committee and politburo members in the province also clashed
over the
prolonged suspension of the provincial women’s league secretary Eve
Bitu.
Sources said the clashes were a direct result of factional
fault lines in
the party, as senior party members make strategic political
manoeuvres ahead
of elections later this year. They said the clashes in
Bulawayo, Masvingo
and Mashonaland West were reflective of bigger fights in
Zanu PF as
presidential hopefuls position loyalists in strategic and
influential posts
hoping for their favours later.
Efforts to get
a comment from Shamu were fruitless.
However, Zanu PF spokesperson
Rugare Gumbo said the restructuring exercise
would solve the problem of
factionalism.
He denied the exercise would further divide and weaken
the party but
strengthen it ahead of the elections.
“We can’t
fail to restructure because there are factions,” said Gumbo. “In
fact, we
have to restructure so that we remove forces that are destructive
to the
party.”
Gumbo said Shamu, as the party’s political commissar, would
address every
member’s grievances, if there are any, to make sure that the
party remains
stable.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 17:02
BY PATRICE
MAKOVA
A lot has been said about President Robert Mugabe hanging on to power
for
too long. Mugabe has been under attack for the current economic and
political problems in the country with analysts and his local and foreign
opponents urging him to go in order to save the country from further
decline. Even some of his top lieutenants were last year exposed in
controversial whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks that they were secretly
meeting United States diplomats to discuss Mugabe’s exit.
But not
much is being said about the contribution to the current situation
of some
of these lieutenants who have been in government with Mugabe for the
past 32
years.
The Standard takes a look at the performance of some of the
cabinet
ministers who have been in government since the
1980’s.
EmMerson Mnangagwa
Defence minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa is one of the longest serving government
ministers and
was once touted as Mugabe’s heir apparent.
At Independence in 1980 Mnangagwa
became the first black Minister of State
for Security responsible for the
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).
The CIO, just like its colonial
predecessor, became dreaded for suppressing
real and imagery
opponents.
Together with the fifth Brigade of the army, the CIO was accused
of
committing atrocities in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces which saw
the
death of thousands of people during the now infamous Gukurahundi era
whose
scars remain visible up to today with victims and survivors calling
for
justice.
Mnangagwa later became Minister of Justice, Legal
and Parliamentary Affairs.
He promised sweeping media reforms, including the
scrapping of the notorious
criminal defamation act, but this never
happened.
In 2005, after spending five years as Speaker of Parliament, where
he was
said to have earned the respect of both Zanu PF and then opposition
MDC,
Mnangagwa was “demoted” to Minister of Rural Housing and Social
Amenities
after the “uncovering” of the so-called Tsholotsho “coup” attempt
in 2004.
As Defence minister, Mnangagwa is linked to the notorious
Joint Operations
Command (JOC) comprising military and other security
officials who
masterminded Mugabe’s re-election in the bloody 2008
elections.
Joice Mujuru
Mujuru became Zimbabwe’s first
woman Vice-President in 2004. She was also
the first woman to become a
provincial governor. Although she is energetic
and at one time seen as an
uncontestable successor to Mugabe, Mujuru has not
distinguished herself in
the various portfolios she held.
Mujuru is not without controversy. When she
was Minister of Information,
Post and Telecommunication, she overturned a
directive by acting-President
Joshua Nkomo to license Econet Wireless as the
third cellular operator in
the country. Mujuru was rebuked by many after
allegedly insulting Nkomo
calling him “senile.”
She has also been
Minister of Youth, Sport and Recreation and that of
Community Development
and Women’s Affairs and Water Resources and
Infrastructural
Development.
Sydney Sekeramayi
Sekeramayi is the
Minister of State for Security. He has kept a low profile
since joining
government in 1980. He has also been Minister of Defence,
Health and Mines
and Energy. Although he is considered bright and
articulate, he has not
performed well in government.
The CIO which he heads stands accused of
violating human rights, but he has
done nothing to improve the record of the
secret services, preferring to be
on the sidelines leaving intelligence
bosses to run the show.
Mugabe is thought to be now favouring him as
successor, but he is likely to
face stiff resistance from the Mujuru and
Mnangagwa factions.
Didymus Mutasa
Mutasa is the
Minister of State in the President’s office. Mutasa’s only
notable record
appears to be that of stirring controversy. Mutasa was the
country’s first
Speaker of Parliament from 1980 to 1990. He once called
parliamentarians
“dead woods,” accusing them of being “unwitty” and
uninspiring.
When he was appointed Minister of Special Affairs in
the President’s Office
in charge of the Anti-corruption and Anti-monopolies
programme, graft
actually blossomed with several top government and Zanu PF
officials
implicated in corruption scandals.
The grabbing of white-owned
farms accelerated when he was Minister of State
for National Security,
Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement. Mutasa himself
was accused of helping
himself to several farms.
Mutasa was involved in a bizarre hoax of
the infamous diesel n’anga, Rotina
Mavhunga who fooled Mugabe’s cabinet and
Zanu PF that refined diesel was
gushing from a hill in
Chinhoyi.
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi
Mumbengegwi is the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, but is largely considered a
joker. He was
deputy speaker of Parliament in 1980 before being appointed
deputy Minister
of Foreign Affairs.
He later served as Minister of Water Resources and
Development, National
Housing and Transport but had to be demoted to the
diplomatic service role
due to poor performance.
As Minister of Foreign
Affairs, relations with Western countries which
imposed sanctions on
Zimbabwe have not improved.
Health woes seem to undermine Nkomo’s
performance
John Landa Nkomo
Nkomo (pictured) has been
Vice-President since 2009 after succeeding Joseph
Msika who succumbed to
cancer.
He was previously Minister of National Healing, Reconciliation
Integration,
Speaker of Parliament, Minister of Home Affairs, and that of
Local
Government and Rural Development.
Nkomo’s performance
leaves a lot to be desired.
His political star seems to be waning due to
mounting health problems.
In 2011, he was in and out of the country seeking
medical attention for
life-threatening cancer.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December
2011 16:59
BY NQABA MATSHAZI
ZIMBABWE today enters 2012 the same way
it entered the previous year,
uncertain what political route the country
will take for the next 12 months.
Just as towards the end of 2010, the Zanu
PF conference last year made
resounding resolutions that elections would be
held in the following year,
but so far this call has come to
nought.
To add to the uncertainty is the confusion over the
constitutional reforms,
with the three parties trading accusations and
counter-accusations on who
was to blame for the delay in completing the
drafting of the new supreme law
for the country.
The new
constitution, ideally, should be a precursor to holding fresh polls,
but
Zanu PF and more recently MDC-T seem willing to head to elections before
the
completion of the drafting of the constitution.
What complicates
matters further is Zanu PF’s strong resolve to have the
return of the local
currency, reigniting memories of hyper-inflation and
money shortages, which
dogged the country for most of the last decade.
Political analyst
Dumisani Nkomo reckons that 2012 will be very eventful, as
he expected the
conclusion of the drafting of the constitution. He however,
has doubts on
whether elections will be held this year.
“There is likely to be the
conclusion of the constitution, although I don’t
think there will be
elections,” he said.
Nkomo said there was likely to be a lot of
“shadow expecting” as the parties
tried, as in the past year, to outdo each
other politically and
economically.
“I know it is one of their (Zanu PF
conference) resolutions, but bringing
back the Zimbabwe dollar will be the
height of madness,” he said.
Nkomo has fears that the economy would suffer
this year as the political
strain would take its toll.
Another
political analyst, Effie Ncube, said despite Zanu PF’s push for an
election,
the party was unlikely to get its way if it continues to refuse
implementation of democratic reforms. “Sadc and the international community
are likely to resist any elections and since Zanu PF is dragging its feet in
democratising the country, it will not be possible to hold elections,” he
said.
Ncube doubted whether there would be any significant
changes on the
political front, with all parties trying to stamp their
authority on the
electorate.
He predicted a surge in violence
with rural areas likely to be the worst
affected.
Ncube agrees
with Nkomo that the most exciting development of 2012 was
likely to be the
conclusion of the drafting of the constitution. The draft
constitution will
be taken for a referendum.
Zanu pf, mdc factions at loggerheads
over elections
Zanu PF has been angling for elections for the
past two years, but so far
these calls have been rebuffed by its coalition
partners, MDC and MDC-T,
whose leaders want reforms before any polls are
held.
MDC and MDC-T have a likely ally in the Southern African
Development
Community (Sadc), which has been insisting that the country
should first
implement an electoral roadmap before polls. But Zanu PF is
increasingly
getting agitated and impatient, claiming the regional body is
overstepping
its terms of reference.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 15:58
BY
FORTUNE MOYO
BULAWAYO — THE deportations of more than 6 000 Zimbabweans from
South Africa
has seriously affected families that solely survived on
remittances from the
neighbouring country. Hardest hit are families from dry
provinces of
Matabeleland North and South that have the highest number of
people who
flocked to South Africa to look for greener pastures in the past
decade.
Most people who spoke to The Standard recently, said the
deportations have
condemned many families to lives of destitution.
This
is compounded by the fact that the provinces receive very low rainfall,
rendering any meaningful agricultural activities difficult to sustain
without irrigation.
Ronald Mamabolo (75) from Ntepe in Gwanda,
who had three sons deported last
year, said the support he used to get from
his sons has drastically been
reduced since the time they were forced to
return home.
“I had five children who were working in South
Africa.
“However, since the deportations began, three of my sons were
returned
home,” said Mamabolo.
“As such, it means that the money
and food I was receiving from my children
has been reduced and that
reduction is too much, considering that Gwanda is
a dry
area.”
Vice-president of the Zimbabwe Unemployed People’s Association
(Zupa)
Mqondisi Moyo said deportations have worsened poverty in most areas
in
Matabeleland.
“Most of these people relied mostly on food and
money sent by the relatives
and the recent deportations will defiantly
increase the levels of poverty in
most areas,” said Moyo, whose organisation
has about 8 000 members
countrywide.
The deportations have also
affected people in urban areas who have also been
reliant on relatives
working in South Africa.
Tawanda Moyo (55) from Bulawayo said he also
had been surviving on food sent
by his sons working in South Africa since he
was retrenched in 2009.
But life for him has changed for the worst since the
deportation of his
sons.
A Southern African Migration Programme
(Samp) sample survey conducted in
2005, revealed that for most of the 1980s,
about 200 000 people crossed from
Zimbabwe into South Africa each
year.
In the early 1990s, with the growing economic hardship in
Zimbabwe, the
numbers increased dramatically, peaking at 750 000 in
1994.
Increasing political repression and economic hardship in the country,
saw
the number of people crossing into South Africa topping 500 000 in 2000
and
by 2008, the figure had more than doubled to about 1,25
million.
The Samp survey also reveals that within the Southern
African Development
Community (Sadc) in 2001, 55% of Zimbabwean migrants
were in South Africa,
followed by Mozambique (17%), Zambia (16%) and Malawi
16%.
Between May 2009 and July 2011, the South African government
gave
Zimbabweans living in that country temporary deportation reprieve while
it
engaged in a process to regularise their stay.
During that
period, Zimbabweans with passports were encouraged to come
forward and apply
for four-year work, study and living permits in that
country.
But
the South African Home Affairs department said it managed to process 275
000
permits out of an estimated two million Zimbabweans living in that
country.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011
15:57
BY JENNIFER DUBE
VILLAGERS who were forced out of their homes to
pave way for the mining of
diamonds in the Marange area in Manicaland
province said the relocations
were a relief from abuses by security agents
guarding the gem fields. They
were moved to Arda Transua Estate, about 100
kilometres from Chiadzwa in
Marange district. The estate is a few kilometres
from the city of Mutare.
The villagers said life in Chiadzwa and
surrounding areas had become a
nightmare as they faced constant abuse from
security agents.
However, security agents and representatives of companies
mining in Marange
dismissed allegations of human rights
abuses.
“That place was no longer safe, especially for our children
who were
frequently harassed and beaten up by soldiers,” 46-year-old Chipo
Nyangani
said.
“Some of our children now have permanent scars to tell the
story of our
lives at that place.”
She added: “Everyday, I would
ponder on what to do for my children to be
safe but had no choice except to
watch and endure like everyone else.”
The Nyangani family is among those who
have been relocated to Arda Transau
Estate to pave way for mining operations
in Marange.
Four companies operating in Marange have built about 700
standard homes at
the estate to accommodate villagers affected by their
operations.
Anjin Investments said it had constructed 474 houses and
allocated them to
90% of families affected by its operations while Marange
Resources has built
104 houses and successfully moved 42
families.
Another mining firm, Mbada Diamond Mining (Pvt) Limited,
said it had
allocated over 100 houses while Diamond Mining Corporation (DMC)
is reported
to have constructed 21 houses.
The villagers were
resettled on one hectare plots, each consisting of a
four-roomed house, one
round and thatched kitchen, and a toilet. Chiefs and
village heads have
five-roomed houses.
Anjin has also allocated half hectare plots to
484 villagers for use as
farmland while other companies said they will soon
embark on a similar
programme.
In the meantime, the companies supply the
families with foodstuffs and will
continue to do so until they harvest. Each
family was also given US$1 000
disturbance allowance while negotiations for
compensation allowances are
said to be underway.
Homesteads built
by Anjin are supplied with tape water drawn from the nearby
Odzi River while
other companies sunk boreholes.
The Anjin section is however, the dark-city
of the estate while houses built
by other companies are solar
powered.
The latter claim each homestead cost more than US$50 000
because of the
solar installations.
“Personally, I am happy with
the structures as they are an improvement from
the homestead I had in
Chiadzwa,” Nyangani said.
“But I am still trying to see how best I
can fend for my four children
because in Chiadzwa, I grew vegetables to sale
at Nyanyadzi.
“I hope to revive that business once they allocate us
the fields. Although
the weather conditions do not seem to be different from
Chiadzwa, I hope for
more business here since we are closer to town
(Mutare).”
Relocation affecting
schoolchildren
Sixteen-year-old Jaison Tsvarai, who is in Form
Two at Odzi Secondary
School, complained that the school was too far from
home.
His former school, Chiadzwa Secondary, was closer to
home.
Other parents also expressed concern that Wellington Primary
School, which
caters for children living at homesteads constructed by Mbada
Diamond and
Marange Resources, had no Grade Seven classes, forcing affected
pupils to
travel a long distance and cross a railway line to the nearest
school in
Odzi.
“All those issues are being looked into,” Mbada
Diamond Media Consultant
Ignatius Mazura said.
“Marange Resources
are constructing a clinic to improve access to health
facilities while Mbada
refurbished the school and will soon construct 20
more classrooms.”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 15:51
BY
TATENDA CHITAGU
TAKUNDA Moyo (46) gazes in the sky, continuously puffing out
clouds of smoke
from a homemade cigarette, while giving his back to the mud
huts perched
precariously at the confluence of Tugwi and Mukosi rivers. This
is where the
massive water reservoir, Tokwe-Mukosi dam, set to be the
largest inland
water body in the country, is under construction.
At this
time of the year, Moyo is usually worried about where to acquire
agricultural inputs at an affordable price but today he is concerned about
being displaced from his ancestral land.
The sound of the
caterpillars chewing the earth, drawing nearer and nearer
to his homestead
everyday leaves him with sleepless nights.
“We do not know our fate
as we are about to be evicted from this place to
pave way for construction
of the dam. We have to leave the place that we
have called home since we
were born, but the big question is where do we
start from?” said the father
of five.
“We have not been given options of where to go. We should
have been the ones
allocated farms in the land reform programme. What about
our school-going
children? What about their uniforms? Oh no, not
again!”.
Moyo is among the 6 000 villagers that are set to be
displaced by the
government to pave way for the construction of Tokwe-Mukosi
dam, which upon
completion would become the largest inland dam after Lake
Mutirikwi in the
same province.
For a long time now, villagers
have been trying to resist relocation.
When construction stalled a
decade ago due to lack of funds, villagers
heaved a heavy sigh of relief,
but the recurrent grumbling caterpillars have
rekindled their
misery.
However, the villagers’ fate was sealed when the government
allocated US$20
million for the construction of the dam in the previous
budget.
Moyo’s worst fears were confirmed by Masvingo provincial governor
Titus
Maluleke who said the villagers could end up being resettled out of
his
province because of space constraints.
“We have run out of
space for resettlement. We are looking for space in
Masvingo and elsewhere.
This means that the villagers can be resettled in or
outside Masvingo,
depending on where we get the land,” said Maluleke, who is
also the resident
minister.
“Tiri Kutsvaga uta nemuhari (We are desperate). We will
look for land from
farms which have been resettled by the new farmers.
Probably we can have
some extra hectarage here and there that can be
consolidated to settle some
few hundreds.”
A taskforce to scout
for land has already been set up in the province.
Government will also look
at conservancies to see if their owners could be
compelled to shrug off part
of their land for the villagers.
“We will look for land wherever
possible, including conservancies. We will
be making consultations with the
relevant ministry,” said Maluleke.
“This is a national project that will
benefit the nation, just like what
happened in the Chiadzwa diamond fields,
so it should be given first
priority.”
Moyo’s wish for
Tokwe-Mukosi
Like others villagers, Moyo’s wish is to be
resettled near the dam so that
he may also benefit from the massive water
project through irrigation.
“Even if it is a national project, we
should be the immediate
beneficiaries,” he said. “We have been compromised
a lot, abandoning
graves of our relatives whose remains will be drowned in
the water. Can we
be sacrificed for the whole nation?”
But the
government argues that once complete, the dam would be the panacea
to the
perennial food shortages that have hit Masvingo for the past decades
as the
water would be used for irrigation purposes.
It would also be used
for electricity generation, thereby filling the void
left by the Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa), which is failing
to adequately supply
power to the nation.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 15:53
By Jonathan
Waters
AT least to the academic world, Peter Garlake put to rest the “Mystery
of
Great Zimbabwe” with his 1973 publication on the greatest historical site
in
sub-Saharan Africa. Great Zimbabwe, the ruined stone settlement brought
to
the attention of Western world by Karl Mauch in the late 19th Century,
was
the capital of a local Shona state, having reached its zenith in the
14th
Century AD.
The white settlers had found that keeping the
“mystery” alive by suggesting
Rhodesia was the Ophir of the Ancients, not
only helped drive tourism, but
satisfied their own racist ideals in that the
blacks were not sophisticated
enough to build this great stone structure on
their own.
For the myth to thrive, the Rhodesians had it that ruins
were built by the
Queen of Sheba, with King Solomon’s Mines in close
proximity. Garlake, who
has died aged 77, resigned his post as Inspector of
Monuments in 1970 when
it was demanded — in the Rhodesian Parliament no less
—that he give an
“equal” platform to the “theory” that Great Zimbabwe was
built by “light
skinned people”.
According to the member for Fort
Victoria District, Colonel George Hartley
OBE, the “theory” that Great
Zimbabwe was erected by indigenous people was
“nothing but pure
conjecture”.
Where previous archaeologists hid to some degree behind
scientific obscurity
to make their case for the construction by the local
African people, Garlake
was unequivocal in his findings:
“Great
Zimbabwe must be recognised for what it is — a building of peculiar
size and
imposing grandeur, the product of two or three centuries of
development of
an indigenous stone-building technique, itself rooted in long
traditions of
using stone for field walls, building platforms and terraces.
“The structure
reflects the economic dominance and prestige of a small
oligarchy that had
arisen within an Iron Age subsistence economy.”
Peter Storr Garlake
was born in Cape Town on January 11 1934, the son of a
soldier, “Dooley”
Garlake, later Major-General, Commander of the forces in
the Federation of
Rhodesia & Nyasaland. His mother Catherine, a South
African of Scottish
extraction, had a passion for animals and was
instrumental in setting up the
SPCA in Rhodesia.
After completing senior school at St Georges
College in Harare, Garlake went
on to read architecture at the University of
Cape Town from 1952-1957.
After college, he left for England, finding a job
as an architect in London
within two days of arriving.
Joining
the Catholic Order was also a consideration, and he was drawn to a
Carmelite
monastery at Aylesford in Kent, where he participated in
processions with
relics of the revered local saint Simon Stock.
Enrolling at UCL’s
Institute of Archaeology in London in 1961 for a post
graduate diploma, he
met his future wife Margaret, who was studying
archaeological
conservation.
They married in 1962, the year he was awarded a
Nuffield Research
Studentship, which took him to the British Institute in
Eastern Africa in
Dar es Salaam.
Here Garlake studied the
architecture and archaeology of medieval Swahili
coast towns after which he
published The Early Islamic Architecture of the
East African Coast
(1966).
However, he went on to lecture at the History Department at the
University
of Zimbabwe in 1984, a year before a full archaeology programme
was set up.
While regarded as highly amusing in his private life,
professionals found
him “prickly”, especially when it came to criticism from
amateur and racist
quarters, and loony nationalists after 1980.
He
received his doctorate in archaeology from SOAS in 1992.
He was
fond of ‘dzimbahwes’— houses of stone
A year before UDI in
Rhodesia in 1965, Garlake was appointed Inspector of
Monuments.
In this
position, he visited many of the ruined settlements or dzimbabwes
(“houses
of stone”) that cover much of modern Zimbabwe, excavating two of
the smaller
centres.
He also excavated three ancient Portuguese settlements in
modern Zimbabwe —
Dambarare, Maramuca and Luanze — which had been occupied
by the Portuguese
until they were overrun by Changamire in the late 17th
Century.
However, finding his intellectual integrity increasingly
compromised as the
racist politics of the settler regime impinged on his
domain, he resigned
and left the country in 1970.
Having been
offered a post at the University of Ife in Nigeria, Garlake led
two major
excavations of sites with lifelike terracotta heads (now on
display in the
British Museum).
During this time he also completed his Great
Zimbabwe manuscript.
“The major question posed over the years — was
Great Zimbabwe the unaided
work of indigenous Africans — has created lasting
controversy, and probably
no other prehistoric site has aroused such strong,
widespread and often
bizarre emotional responses.”
Garlake’s book
brought together the work of early antiquarians and
archaeologists such as
Randall McIver, ElizabethCaton-Thompson, Roger
Summers and Keith Robinson.
Being free of the imaginative theories of later
archaeological symbolic,
Garlake’s work remains the definitive work on the
facts of the
subject.
From 1976 to 1981, Garlake held an appointment as Lecturer
in the Department
of Anthropology at University College London during which
time he carried
out excavations at Manekweni, a stone-walled settlement in
Mozambique.
Garlake returned to Zimbabwe after Independence and was
reportedly
disappointed at not being offered the top post in the National
Museums &
Monuments.
However, he went on to lecture at the
History Department at the University
of Zimbabwe in 1984, a year before a
full archaeology programme was set up.
After his losing a complete
manuscript on Zimbabwean Archaeology to a fire
at his Borrowdale homestead
in the late 1980s, Garlake shifted his focus
again: this time to Zimbabwe’s
diverse rock art. Building on his earlier
work The Painted Caves (1987), it
was to culminate in his 1995 treatise, The
Hunter's
Vision.
This he regarded as his magnum opus and it established
Zimbabwean rock art
in a field of its own. Garlake popularised it with
lecture tours to the US
and Europe where he would speak from a lifelike cave
of paintings that had
been meticulously traced and re-created on a paper
mache wall. Drawing on
many of the symbolic interpretations of Prof David
Lewis-Williams and the
trance experience, Garlake went further to draw his
own conclusions.
He said there was more to the shamanism of the
San people as there was
something deeper in the art when it came to the
wider religious experience.
He hypothesized that “formlings” – oval-shaped
images unique to Zimbabwe
rock art – were an abstract representation of the
physical manifestation of
“potency”, which he argued guides the worldview of
San people.
Following publication of The Hunter's Vision, he took up rose
growing,
delivering his produce to florists around Harare. Increasingly he
started to
divide his time between Harare and London, and published his
final book,
Early Art and Architecture of Africa, in 2002. An avid theatre
goer, Garlake
enjoyed visiting cities in Europe and the Middle East, where
he fed his love
of Islamic architecture. Believing “what you write is your
memorial”,
Garlake opted for “green burial” and no ceremony. He is survived
by sister
Carole, his wife Margaret, three children and six
grandchildren.
Peter Storr Garlake, archaeologist and architect. Born
January 11, 1934.
Died December 2, 2011
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011 14:38
BY OUR
STAFF
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s (RBZ) powers are set to be trimmed
further as
the central bank would no longer have authority to deregister or
put banks
under curatorship in the new legislation that is awaiting
President Robert
Mugabe’s assent to become law.
Under the Deposit
Protection Corporation Bill that sailed through
Parliament, the Deposit
Protection Board (DPB) that was housed under the
Banking Act would be turned
into a statutory body, Deposit Protection
Corporation (DPC) independent of
the central bank.
Clause 64 of the proposed legislation would amend the
Banking Act and state
that the DPC should be consulted before banking
institutions are registered,
de-registered or placed under
curatorship.
It also states that banking institutions should keep the
corporation
informed about the state of their business and requires RBZ
supervisors to
co-operate with officials of the corporation.
The
proposed legislation, while it is designed to protect depositors in the
event of bank failures, dilutes the influence of RBZ. It comes soon after
the amendments of the RBZ Act left the bank to concentrate on its core
business.
Before the amendments, the bank would, at the stroke of a
pen, directed by
the Ministry of Finance, engage in activities that should
be covered by
Treasury.
Although the functions would be similar to
the existing board led by John
Chikura, the corporation would have power “to
obtain information from
financial institutions that will allow it to detect
early signs of
difficulties within the financial system”.
The
corporation would also be given power to “administer failed or failing
institutions and, where possible, restore them to financial
health”.
The proposed legislation states that RBZ shall appoint the DPC
as the
provisional liquidator, provisional judicial manager, liquidator or
judicial
manager of a banking institution.
Currently, RBZ appoints
curators and provisional liquidators of banking
institutions.
There
has been concern in the banking sector that RBZ wields too much power
and
the proposed legislation would not have come at a better times according
to
analysts.
The proposed legislation could also be seen as Finance minister
Tendai Biti’s
moving to trim the powers of RBZ governor Gideon Gono through
reforms in the
financial sector.
Biti and Gono have been fighting
over reforms of the central bank. Biti won
round one of the battle after he
steered through Parliament amendments of
the RBZ Act to make the institution
concentrate on its core business.
Under Gono, seven banks — Time,
Trust, Royal, Barbican, CFX, Intermarket and
ReNaissance — were put under
curatorship for various misdemeanours.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011
14:36
BY NDAMU SANDU
RAINBOW Tourism Group’s (RTG) single largest
shareholder, Nicholas van
Hoogstraten, wants the entire group’s board fired
for bringing the company
on the brink of technical insolvency as a condition
for a bail-out of over
US$20 million.
The RTG board is chaired by
Econet executive, Tracy Mpofu.
The hospitality group desperately needs
cash to retire expensive short-term
debt, complete hotel upgrades and
re-align operating structures. It has
proposed a US$15 million
re-capitalisation through the sale of one of its
properties for US$10
million and raising the remainder from existing
shareholders.
In an
interview with Standardbusiness last week van Hoogstraten, who has a
36,5%
stake in the company, said he had the money to bail-out the second
largest
hospitality group but wants suitable guarantees.
“In view of the theft
and frauds associated with the current board, clearly
no shareholder with a
brain would give control of further monies to the same
persons,” he said.
“Therefore the current board will need to be removed and
a forensic audit
will be required to ascertain the factual financial
position.”
The
money, van Hoogstraten said, would be provided by a rights issue and or
a
convertible five-year bond with security on the assets of the
company.
However, the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) said no
single
shareholder has the powers to fire the board.
James Matiza,
NSSA general manager said: “It is not as simple as that. What
basis would
that person be using? We know he holds shares in RTG but the
remainder is
held by other shareholders who have the same rights,” said
Matiza.
NSSA
has over 22% in RTG.
For the past six years, van Hoogstraten has been
fighting for the control of
RTG but with little success.
His nominees
for the board at previous Annual General Meetings were rejected
by
shareholders.
The businessman said the current problems at the group stem
from the fact
that his proposed directors were dishonestly denied their
rights to
represent the major shareholder.
“It needs to be placed on
record, and noted, that had NSSA and the Ministry
of Tourism not supported
the incompetent and self-serving Econet-sponsored
board, RTG could not have
been defrauded. In particular, NSSA and the
ministry voted against our
nominated directors at the recent (and previous)
AGMs and must now accept
responsibility for the current situation at RTG,”
he said.
Before the
June AGM, van Hoogstraten had secured the support of NSSA which
had promised
to vote for his directors. On the eve of the meeting, NSSA were
whipped into
line by the Ministry of Tourism and told to vote against van
Hoogstraten.
In the end the businessman’s bid to appoint four
directors — Shingirayi
Chibanguza, Alexander Hamilton, Maximilian Hamilton
and Ian Haruperi — on
the board was blocked.
Matiza told
Standardbusiness on Friday that it was wrong to blame the
pay-as-you-earn
pension scheme for abetting the situation as it would not
take sides in the
fight for the control of the hospitality group.
“We don’t want to gang up
to fight others. We are a national institution and
we try to promote the
interest of everybody,” Matiza said.
Matiza said he had met van
Hoogstraten in December where they discussed the
re-capitalisation of RTG
and he doesn’t remember him saying that board
members should be
fired.
RTG has been a theatre of fights as shareholders flex muscles at
the
detriment of the group which is failing to capitalise on the stable
political environment to grow its business.
Management contends that
it has to be recapitalised in order to grow unlike
in the current scenario
where it is growing using short-term loans.
Other than looking for money
from shareholders, the group is disposing of
non-core assets.
In
August, the group announced that it was disposing of its interest in
non-core assets such as Touch the Wild Private Limited, Hathanay Investments
Private Limited and Zimbabwe Mauritius Tours and Travel Private Limited
trading as Tourism Services Zimbabwe.
Correspondences have been
flying between van Hoogstraten and a financial
advisory company on the
urgency of the group’s re-capitalisation to avoid
slipping into
insolvency.
If that were to happen, van Hoogstraten said, he would “take
legal action
against the current board and those shareholders who sponsored,
assisted, or
enabled them to defraud the company.”
There are now
plans to allow the businessman to appoint directors on the
board which van
Hoogstraten insists would only happen after his concerns
have been addressed
and a “major shareholder’’ legal agreement is in place.
RTG also has
US$5,2 million locked in ReNaissance Merchant Bank, currently
under
curatorship.
At a meeting of shareholders in June, van Hoogstraten said
that the money
“shouldn’t be with Mickey Mouse people in the first
place”.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011
14:32
BY KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA
ZIMBABWE’S much lauded economic
blueprint, Medium Term Plan (MTP), is
anticipated to bring about a
sustainable annual economic growth rate of 7,1%
in the period 2011 to 2015
which should result in significant job creation
and poverty
eradication.
The country’s unemployment rate is pegged at well over 80%,
while the
majority of the population lives and earns below the poverty datum
line of
US$500 on average.
MTP was launched against the background of
a massive economic free-fall
witnessed in the last decade, precipitated by
internecine conflict between
the country’s leading political parties and
increased international
isolation.
In an endeavour to publicise the
country’s economic achievements since
dollarisation in February 2009, the
Ministry of Economic Planning and
Investment Promotion recently launched the
Planning Bulletin with the
support of the United Nations Development
Programme.
The bulletin would be regularly published in conjunction with
economic
research findings from local academic institutions as the ministry
moves
towards increasing policy-makers’ decision-making
capabilities.
Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Permanent
Secretary, Desire
Sibanda said that the country expects to achieve an
economic growth rate of
9,4% in 2012 against a southern African region
average growth rate of 5%.
Sibanda said Zimbabwe was on the path towards
a sustainable growth
trajectory, a key factor which would serve to attract
more foreign direct
investment inflows into the country.
“The economy
has grown by leaps and bounds . . . If people in the world do
not know this,
then they will not invest in the country,” he said, adding
that the bulletin
would serve as a key imperative in government’s drive
towards re-engaging
the international community.
Despite the constrained fiscal space alluded to
by Finance minister Tendai
Biti in his recent budget statement, the MTP
requires US$9,2 billion in
order to boost economic growth and create more
employment among other
economic targets.
Funding is expected to
emanate from internal savings and investment as well
as foreign credit
lines.
The plan recognises that investment regulation, co-ordination and
promotion
will be critical within the plan period.
However, the bulletin
notes that the MTP faces major hurdles in the form of
wavering policy
consistency, debt distress, and chronic deficits in
delivering basic public
goods and services to the population and private
sector as well as an
overall business environment that is not conducive to
external
investment.
Several governments the world over have devised economic
blueprints which
failed but they eventually developed pragmatic approaches
to development
planning that saw them changing economic face for the
better.
Japan’s 1946 Priority Production Plan, the tragedy of China’s
1958 Great
Leap Forward and the early failures of South Korea in the 1950s
are a few
cases in point noted by the bulletin.
The bulletin also
notes that a number of countries such as China, Brazil,
India, Malaysia and
Kenya, which underwent a period of political upheavals,
among others, have
successfully developed planning blueprints.
“Through the consistent
application of development plans, these countries
have managed to register
impressive rates of economic growth that has seen
them graduate from their
developing country status to newly emerging
developed economies,” Sibanda
said.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai noted that mixed messages from the
inclusive government have largely led to policy inconsistency and
unpredictability, thereby sending negative signals to the local and foreign
investors.
The incessant political bickering and uncertain calls for
an early election
in 2012, despite failure by the principals to consummate
the Global
Political Agreement, have only served as an albatross on the
blueprint’s
objectives.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 31 December 2011
16:29
BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE
My New Year’s resolution is that I will
stop playing the Lotto, because, I’ve
realised only fools believe in luck.
Instead I’ll write a book that will win
the Booker Award; it will be the
first book by a writer living outside the
British Isles to win the
award.
It’ll also win the Commonwealth Literature prize if Comrade
You-Know-Who
agrees to have the country readmitted into the Commonwealth.
I’ll win these
prizes not by luck but by sheer hard
work.
The book will be about a boy called Toni. He lives at a
place called
Mangoromera in St Mary’s township. Toni apparently is orphaned;
he has been
told that his mother was abducted by war vets in 2008 when he
was an infant.
She was never heard of again.
The mother had
been an apprentice prostitute; her mentor was the woman
popularly known as
MaGumbo, who sells lots of things at the Big Bhawa
including what she calls
Gunpowder. Men love MaGumbo’s gunpowder which they
mix with sorghum beer or
cow-hoof soup; they say it brings harmony to their
bedrooms.
MaGumbo adopted Toni when his mother disappeared or was
abducted by the war
vets. They live in a wooden cabin which Toni thinks is a
dog kennel. When
Toni was still only a year old the cabin caught fire; he
lost all his
right-hand fingers in the fire but the thumb survived. So Toni
is sometimes
called Toni Thumb.
He dislikes the name
insisting that he is simply Toni but on his clinic
card, the only document
testifying to his existence, he is referred to as
Toni Wachikoro. When
Magumbo took him there for treatment, she realised the
boy had no surname
and told the nurse so. The nurse asked: “So whatchwecall
him?” and Magumbo
agreed saying, “Yes, Wachikoro?” The nurse scribbled the
name on the
card.
Toni belongs to the “Wachiko-ro” generation; a unique group of
people born
in Zimbabwe in the new millennium. Mangoromera is their home. Do
you know
what mangoromera means? It means the charms (muti) used by boxers
to enhance
their chances of winning a bout.
There is always a
fight at Mangoromera and Toni enjoys the fights. He isn’t
the only one,
everybody enjoys the fights at Mangoromera. Toni wants to be a
boxing ref
when he grows up. He knows all the rules already.
The fights are not
always in the ring but mostly outside it. There are two
groups or gangs at
Mangoromera. One comprises two characters calling
themselves Comrade Forward
Ever and Comrade Backward Never. They are war
vets. Toni is always in
trouble with these two because he often mixes up the
surnames calling them
Cde Forward Never and Cde Backward Ever. They don’t
like him when he refers
to them that way accusing him of being an agent of
the West; Toni has no
clue what that means. Their leader is a burly war vet
calling himself Cde
Vanguard Consciousness. Toni can never say the name, so
he calls him Cde
God!
This gang has other members, mostly fat women who always sing
liberation war
songs and young men who call themselves mamonya, which means
thugs. The
women’s dress bears the president’s head mostly on their
protruding parts.
It’s this gang against the rest of residents of
Mangoromera, who call
themselves the Chinja (Change)
Brigade.
Toni belongs to both gangs. That is how he has managed to
survive. You see
Toni knows that the shop owners at Mangoromera secretly
support the Chinja
Brigade but they are afraid to come out into the open for
fear of Cde
Vanguard Consciousness. You see Cde Vanguard Consciousness
calles meeting
every night and everyone should attend. At the meetings
anyone who is deemed
to sympathise with the Chinja Brigade is called to the
front and lectured
about western neo-colonialism and the look-east policy.
To make sure the
message sinks he is beaten up according to what they call
“the way”.
Toni has a knack for being everywhere people, especially
businessmen, are
discussing politics particularly chinja politics. That’s
how he gets his
food. When they have said more than enough he announces his
presence by a
giggle. When they see him he raises his hand, the one with
only the thumb
and smiles his cynical smile.
His thumbs-up sign
and that smile are a bad omen for the businessmen. They
often angrily say to
him, “Toni, what’re you doing here?” but quickly tone
down their anger.
“Toni, here is a packet of maputi.” So Toni secures
another
meal.
If a businessman has been particularly stingy, Toni knows how
to fix him. He
would deliberately be seen walking around with the Comrades
Gang, all
lovey-dovey. Then later he would go to the businessman’s shop and
mill
around. “What do you want here, you little devil?” the businessman
would say
angrily.
But realising his mistake immediately, he
would take a number of buns and
offer them to Toni. “But I also need a drink
to wash down the buns,” Toni
would say. So Toni gets his
dinner!
There is the mistaken belief that every story must have a
moral; this one
doesn’t. It is just about a boy belonging to a nameless
generation that has
learnt only one lesson in politics, namely that politics
is a dirty game but
one can thrive very well in the muck.
Someone
might steal my idea, so I won’t go into further details. Suffice to
say the
book will have a happy ending.
The final paragraph will read:
Cde
Vanguard Consciousness was now all worked up. He pointed at Toni and
told
the crowd, “We’ve to discipline them while they’re still young. This
urchin
here, Toni, has been destroying the party from within. He has been
passing
party secrets to the Chinja people.” The crowd, which had gathered
that
evening for political lessons, remained quiet. One could hear a pin
drop. In
a fit of rage Cde Vanguard Consciousness pulled a machete from
under his
overcoat and chopped off Toni’s thumb. Toni did not cry, he raised
what
remained of his palm and smiled. His best friend The Graduate stood up
and
asked the crowd, “Why did he do it?” The crowd surged toward the burly
man.”
The happy ending will be that I’ll win the Booker.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Today we celebrate the New
Year. Like the fabled Janus who had two faces;
one looking backwards while
the other looked to the future, it is time for
us not only to reflect on the
year gone but also to anticipate the future.
The year just ended was
eventful on the continental front. It began with the
Arab Spring uprisings
that saw the demise of entrenched dictatorship in
North Africa. The fall
mid-January of long-time Tunisian strongman Ben Ali
after 23 years in power
triggered a wave of protests throughout the Islamic
Maghreb whose climax was
the capture and execution of Libyan dictator
Muammar Gadaffi in
October.
In its wake the Arab Spring also saw the fall of
Egyptian leader Hosni
Mubarak who had ruled for 30 years. The uprisings
spread across the
Mediterranean into the Middle East where they are still
raging.
It is still a mystery why the uprisings didn’t spread
southwards into
sub-Saharan Africa although there were some harmless
skirmishes in
Swaziland.
The main lesson to learn is how dictators become
increasingly detached from
the lives of the people they purport to lead. It
took the self-emollition of
26-year-old Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohamed
Bouazizi to jolt the whole
Arab world into consciousness.
But
surprisingly dictatorships in sub-Saharan Africa haven’t taken heed and
seem
to be further entrenching themselves in power instead of reforming. The
sham
elections held recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo have
already
been endorsed by other dictators in the region even when they
clearly
destabilise that country. The trend of holding sham elections seems
the norm
in the region but these will continue to blight the whole
subcontinent which
otherwise has the potential to be a beacon for the whole
continent.
The Arab uprisings have not brought the expected
stability to North Africa;
in fact the opposite has happened. What
Zimbabweans should read from this is
the importance of truly free and fair
elections as the only way to change
undesired regimes. This means the
parties to the GPA should play their party
in ensuring the crafting of an
election roadmap that guarantees this.
New
Year’s greetings from the Vigil
The end of the year
is traditionally a time for reflection and at the last Vigil of 2011 we
discussed likely developments at home in the next twelve months. Sadly they were
rather pessimistic. Few people at the Vigil expect a happy outcome in Zimbabwe
to 2012.
There was agreement
at the Vigil on the most likely options:
1.
The situation could
continue as it is for another year with halting progress on the constitution
front, not helped by Mugabe spending most of his time flying to and from
Singapore for medical treatment. The MDC says it will refuse to agree to
elections until the right conditions are in place and, given the lack of urgency
shown by Zuma, elections are unlikely before they are constitutionally due in
2013 – if then!
2.
Zanu PF (and we
include in this military leaders), desperate to see a dying Mugabe returned to
office, could engineer elections by collapsing the government – for instance,
arresting Tsvangirai (see: Tsvangirai fraud
probe complete – https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/old/dec23a_2011.html#Z1).
People at the Vigil
made a number of observations including the urgent question of what happens if
Mugabe dies before the elections? Would we even know? Will Zanu PF do a Franco
and keep Mugabe going with ever increasing doses of formaldehyde until no one
knows if he is alive or dead? More seriously, can we expect Zanu PF to do
anything else but go into emergency mode, with Defence Minister Mnangagwa or
General Chiwenga openly seizing power? They would then employ their usual
violence and vote rigging to stay in office – in defiance of SADC
bleating.
Other
points
·
The MDC UK is joining
the Vigil for a demonstration outside South African House on Saturday
21st January. It is part of an MDC global protest to urge South
Africa to pressure Mugabe to honour the Global Political Agreement. More details
next week.
·
Our wristband ‘Mugabe
Must Go’ has been popular over the years, but, given Mugabe’s medical condition,
we can’t bank on them much longer so as from next week they will be available at
sale price.
·
We were joined by a
foreign diplomat who is being posted to Harare. The diplomat came to hear what
we had to say and is to come to the Vigil again.
·
Thanks to Margaret
Gotora for bringing chocolates and doughnuts for us to share on New Year’s
Eve.
For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/.
Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website – they
cannot be downloaded from the slideshow on the front page of the Zimvigil
website.
FOR THE
RECORD: 35 signed the
register.
EVENTS AND NOTICES:
·
The Restoration of
Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s
partner organisation based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil
to have an organisation on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s
mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through
membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in
Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/.
Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way
represents the views and opinions of ROHR.
·
ZBN
News. The Vigil
management team wishes to make it clear that the Zimbabwe Vigil is not
responsible for Zimbabwe Broadcasting Network News (ZBN News). We are happy that
they attend our activities and provide television coverage but we have no
control over them. All enquiries about ZBN News should be addressed to ZBN News.
·
The Zim Vigil
band
(Farai Marema and Dumi Tutani) has launched its theme song ‘Vigil Yedu (our
Vigil)’ to raise awareness through music. To download this single, visit: www.imusicafrica.com
and to watch the video check: http://ourvigil.notlong.com.
To watch other Zim Vigil band protest songs, check: http://Shungurudza.notlong.com
and http://blooddiamonds.notlong.com.
· ROHR Leicester
monthly meeting. Saturday
7th January from 1:30 – 4:30 pm. Venue: New Walk Museum Café, 53 New
Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA. Contact Rachael Munda 07989093661, Enniah Dube
07403439707 or Lorraine Manenji 07854801250
·
Vigil Facebook
page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8157345519&ref=ts.
·
Vigil Myspace
page: http://www.myspace.com/zimbabwevigil.
·
‘Through the
Darkness’, Judith Todd’s acclaimed account of the rise of Mugabe. To receive a copy
by post in the UK please email confirmation of your order and postal address to
ngwenyasr@yahoo.co.uk and send a cheque for £10 payable to “Budiriro Trust” to
Emily Chadburn, 15 Burners Close, Burgess Hill, West Sussex RH15 0QA. All
proceeds go to the Budiriro Trust which provides bursaries to needy A Level
students in Zimbabwe.
Vigil
co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside
the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00
to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights in Zimbabwe. The
Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitore `1d, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.
http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.