Reuters
Tue 22 Jan
2008, 18:11 GMT
HARARE, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main opposition
launched a legal
challenge to a police ban on a march against the government
of President
Robert Mugabe that it has planned for Wednesday.
The
police had initially allowed the march, which the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) called to protest against a crumbling economy blamed
on
government mismanagement, and to press for a new constitution that would
guarantee that elections due in March are free and fair.
On Tuesday,
MDC lawyer Alec Muchadehama said the Harare magistrate court
would on
Wednesday hear an application to overturn the ban, which police say
was
prompted by fears the demonstration would degenerate into violence and
looting.
"We are making an appeal against the regulatory authorities'
decision to
prohibit the march. We filed the application in terms of the new
Public
Order and Security Act," Muchadehama told Reuters.
Zimbabwe
has adopted changes to its security laws -- seen by critics as
aimed at
suppressing Mugabe's opponents -- to compel police to spell out
their
reasons for refusing a political party the right to hold a public
meeting.
Muchadehama said there was nothing legally standing in the
way of
Wednesday's planned march, which police had originally allowed to
start at
11:15 a.m. (0915 GMT).
MDC officials were not reachable for
comment on Tuesday.
In remarks broadcast on state television, police
spokesman Assistant
Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said the police would be
out in full force on
Tuesday to stop the march.
Zimbabweans have
tended to shy away from demonstrations in recent years,
mainly from fear of
a heavy-handed response by security forces. (Reporting
by Nelson Banya;
Editing by Giles Elgood)
SABC
January 22, 2008, 18:00
A
showdown is looming between Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) and the police over tomorrow's proposed march through the
capital Harare.
The MDC has vowed to continue with the procession,
despite a police order
prohibiting it. But police say they will in turn
enforce the law.
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti says: "The march is
going on as planned
even if it means that we get killed."
Police
initially gave the MDC march the green light but now they claim the
opposition plans to act against the spirit of their earlier
agreement.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena says: "The MDC has been
making
inflammatory statements and talking about putting more pressure. We
think
that they are confusing putting pressure with being
violent."
Police say anyone taking part in tomorrow's march will be
arrested. The
latest developments fly in the face of concessions made during
the Southern
African Development Community mediated talks, which include the
relaxation
of laws such as the infamous Public Order and Security
Act.
By Lance Guma
22
January 2008
Former army general Vitalis Zvinavashe sent political
temperatures soaring
Monday after calling on Robert Mugabe to step down. A
report on the Zimbabwe
Times website quotes Zvinavashe saying; ‘By clinging
on to power Mugabe was
betraying the essence of the liberation struggle.’
Although the report does
not say where the remarks were made our sources say
Zvinavashe, a politburo
member, addressed a meeting of constituents in Gutu
on Monday.
Known for his controversial and blunt remarks Zvinavashe is
also quoted as
saying; ‘I may also want to be president one day, but if one
clings onto
power for too long how do you expect youngsters to be leaders of
tomorrow?
The President has played his part and should go immediately to
give a chance
to others whom we feel have the guts to shape a good
Zimbabwe.’ Zvinavashe
then added; ‘Of course, he (Mugabe) is a hero but now
it’s high time he
should go. When we went to war we did not fight for a
single person but for
all of us. But what the President is doing now defeats
the whole purpose of
our having gone to war.’
It’s reported that at
the same meeting another retired senior army official,
Major Kudzai Mbudzi,
joined in the criticism. Mbudzi is currently on
suspension from his post as
Masvingo party provincial spokesman and also
called on Mugabe to resign
before the elections. He likened Mugabe to a
driver falling asleep behind
the steering wheel and refusing to relinquish
control, despite the danger he
poses to passengers. He said the Zanu PF
leader had been given enough time
to prove himself but had failed. In the
weeks gone by Mbudzi, Zvinavashe and
another retired army general Solomon
Mujuru have all been linked to reports
of a Zanu PF breakaway party, to be
led by former finance minister Simba
Makoni. However Mbudzi has apparently
vowed not to leave Zanu PF, choosing
instead to change it from within.
The Zimbabwe Times sought comment from
Zanu PF political commissar Elliot
Manyika who said, ‘those who criticise
the President are rebels but everyone
has the right to form a political
party.’ Despite Manyika’s offhand
dismissal discontent within the military
ranks and Zanu PF itself is
growing. Just last year Zvinavashe tore into
Mugabe during a meeting with
war veterans in Gutu. During that meeting the
war veterans demanded the
banishment of the MDC, to which Zvinavashe rebuked
them saying the MDC was
an official opposition party. It was during this
meeting that he said for
the first time that Mugabe should step down, as he
had nothing to offer.
Mugabe’s controversial endorsement as the Zanu PF
candidate for the 2008
elections, coupled with reports that Mujuru is
sponsoring a breakaway party,
provide evidence all is not well within the
party. Up to now the military
has served as Mugabe’s political bedrock.
These developments however suggest
a weakening of his grip in the party and
in the military. The problem is
that the retired generals might be making
all the noise, but no one really
knows whether this is in consultation with
serving generals.
Meanwhile more political drama is in store in the
province after Zvinavashe
openly dismissed the Zanu PF policy to reserve
certain parliamentary seats
for women in the coming elections. Zimbabwe
Football Association Chief
Henrietta Rushwayo is thought to be eyeing the
new constituency of Gutu
East, but Zvinavashe has said people must choose
their own candidates and
not have a quota system imposed on them. It remains
to be seen just how the
party decides to choose its candidates, given the
simmering tensions over
the selection procedure.
Pedzisai Ruhanya, an
analyst with the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, told
Newsreel that because
the retired generals who form the old guard of the
party have started
speaking out, it means most Zanu PF members have had
enough. He said the
military has played a key role in rigging elections for
Mugabe and for some
of them to speak out against him betrays the seriousness
of the situation.
Ruhanya said most of the army personnel had benefited from
Mugabe’s regime
in terms of money, farms, cars and other perks and this
explained the
reluctance of some of them to challenge him.
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
By Tichaona
Sibanda
22 January 2008
Despite reports that the Zimbabwe crisis is
not on the agenda at the AU
summit, there may still be some debate. The 10th
African Union summit begins
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this
weekend.
While analysts believe some leaders on the continent support
Robert Mugabe,
thereby limiting debate, the MDC want the AU to tackle the
issue of bad
governance during this summit.
Professor Elphas
Mukonoweshuro, the MDC secretary for International Affairs,
said the AU has
to realise there are now pressing issues on the continent
that need to be
resolved before more blood is shed on the streets.
‘In the case of
Zimbabwe and Kenya, the African Union has been found
wanting. They have
failed completely to bring together rivals to talk peace
in the two
countries. The results of this failure are there for everyone to
see,’
Mukonoweshuro said.
During the summit, the 53-nation AU is expected to
reignite debate on newer
issues like the African diaspora and developments
in the continent’s
conflicts. These two issues relate to the problems in
Zimbabwe where
millions of citizens based outside the country find
themselves unable to
participate in the country’s elections. There also has
been no development
in the country since the disputed parliamentary
elections eight years ago.
Mukonoweshuro, who is in London on a working
visit, said their message to
the AU would be to resolve problems of
governance first so that an
environment can be created which would be
conducive to economic pursuit and
economic enterprise.
‘It’s a
tragedy that the AU doesn’t have a yardstick by which they can
measure
effective governance and democratic governance. The continental body
still
has a problem of legitimising problematic governments by side-stepping
or
totally ignoring issues brought against such regimes,’ he
said.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
HARARE, 22 January 2008 (IRIN) - It is 4 a.m. and still
dark in the
low-income suburb of Kuwadzana, about 10km outside the central
business
district (CBD) of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. There has been no
electricity
in Kuwadzana for around two weeks.
Bobbing beams of light
from the flashlights of some 20 men and women are the
only source of light
in the inky blackness. They stop near the local
shopping centre, where they
speak in whispers. Several members of the group
yawn loudly.
After 10
minutes they move off in the direction of the city, but shrill
whistles
pierce the quiet dawn, signalling that latecomers and other
stragglers are
being left behind. There is a shout in the darkness and two
men and a woman
join their colleagues. The group are all professionals who
can no longer
afford the high transport fares in an economic environment
where earnings
are wiped away by galloping inflation.
The government has not publicly
released official inflation figures for the
last two months but the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the
rate is now 100,000
percent and still rising.
Granger Phiri, one of the walkers, told IRIN
that thousands of workers in
Harare's low-income and middle-density suburbs
had formed “walking clubs”
because they could no longer afford the cost of
public transport. As they
near the city centre, the group merges with other
walking clubs.
"I have been a member of the local walking club for the
past seven months,
as all my earnings would be depleted if I used public
taxis for 15 days,"
said Phiri, a junior official in the civil service in
the CBD. He said he
earned Z$30 million a month (US$15 at the parallel
market rate of Z$2
million to US$1), but a single trip to town costs Z$1
million (US$0.50).
Making more money
Why go through the agony of
walking 20km every day just to earn US$15 a
month? Phiri smiled and pointed
to a bulging knapsack on his back. "There is
one thing that the human body
cannot do without and that is food. I sell
plain bread sandwiches to my
colleagues. I also sell sliced tomatoes and
cucumbers to colleagues who can
afford them, and that supplements my
income."
The telephones at work
also come in handy: "I am now known as the person who
can pass messages to
friends and relatives in the country and beyond our
borders through the
government telephones which I use. Of course that comes
at a cost, which
adds to my income."
Phiri said he was not embarrassed at having to resort
to unorthodox methods
to earn a living. "Everybody is selling something to
somebody in order to
survive. Very little work is ever done. We have
colleagues who have turned
to prostitution for survival, while others take
annual vacations in
neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Mozambique and
South Africa to work
as maids or farm labourers."
He said South
Africa was the destination of choice for most civil servants,
because an
arrangement between the two governments meant they were not
restricted by
stringent visa requirements. "All that is required is a
current payslip and
a passport, and that can enable you to work for several
days before
returning."
Neglecting workers could do more harm
Wellington
Chibhebhe, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions,
(ZCTU), a labour federation, told IRIN that companies and the civil
service
were losing a lot of production time because workers were too tired
to
work.
According to ZCTU research, workers woke up as early as 3 a.m. to
go to work
and only got back home at 11 p.m. "We are calling on employers to
meet the
full monthly [transport] costs for the workers because this
[walking to
work] creates a scenario whereby employees are subsidising the
operations of
companies and the civil service."
Chibhebhe said
employers needed to relate salaries to the "poverty datum
line" of Z$200
million (US$200) a month, otherwise they could be exposing
themselves to the
risk of theft. "What is obviously evident is that there
are scenarios that
workers would steal from employers or conduct private
business using the
employer's time and resources, which has a serious
negative impact on
productivity."
[ENDS]
[This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations]
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 12:50
HARARE - Confusion and mystery reigned at Parliament on
Monday when
beleaguered Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono
failed to
turn up.
Gono had threatened to attend the Portfolio Committee
on Budget, Finance and
Economic Development, where he would name senior
government officials he
claimed had been hoarding and dealing in cash on the
parallel market.
Parliament Clerk Austin Zvoma was said to be away, but a
junior official,
speaking on condition of anonymity said, "Gono himself
called the clerk to
inform him to cancel the meeting and others say he got
an order to do that
from senior government officials who asked him what he
was trying to do."
Several calls to Gono's office failed to produce any
official comment, and
an official in the bank's PR department, who declined
to provide his name
said: "The Governor is busy with other
things".
Chairman of the Portfolio Committee Daniel Mackenzie Ncube, a Zanu
(PF) MP
for Zhombe, was not available at Parliament and his mobile phone was
not
reachable.
A Government minister, speaking anonymously, claimed that
"Gono was ordered
to stay away from that meeting by his superiors and
bosses".
It is further reported that senior government officials had got wind
that
Gono intended to name top officials, including one of the vice
presidents,
in the cash scandals.
"Mugabe himself couldn't stand it
because one of his top campaign chiefs was
going to be mentioned and that
would mean action also taken against him
which would affect his campaign
strategy," a source said. - Itai Dzamara
IOL
Peter
Fabricius
January 22 2008 at 04:54PM
Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe appeared until recently to be
negotiating in
reasonably good faith with the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) for a new political dispensation.
He made some important
concessions, including the scrapping of the 30
appointed members of
parliament and reforms to the Public Order and Security
Act and the Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which had
given the government
undemocratic powers to control political activity and
the media
respectively.
Then he dug in his heels on other demands from the
MDC that are more
crucial still, including a new constitution, to be
implemented before this
year's elections and a postponement of those
elections beyond March to allow
all the reforms to take
effect.
President Thabo Mbeki, who had been
mandated by the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) last March to
mediate the political
negotiations, had largely left the job to his
aides.
But last week he took personal charge and flew to Harare to
meet
Mugabe and the MDC leaders to try to break the deadlock.
Mbeki emerged from a five-hour meeting with Mugabe and told reporters:
"It's
work in progress and very good progress."
But Mbeki was apparently
obfuscating, referring to past progress
rather than the outstanding issues
he had come to Harare to try to resolve.
Because he then apparently
went to meet the MDC leaders and told them
Mugabe had agreed to none of
their demands on the outstanding issues.
It appears Mbeki himself
is sympathetic to the MDC demands.
That would make sense. When he
returned last March from the SADC
meeting in Dar es Salaam where he was
given his mediation mission, Mbeki
made it clear that his mandate was to
help the Zimbabweans agree on "what
should be done between now and those
elections to create a climate that will
be truly free and fair, for an
outcome that will not be contested by
anybody".
This was in an
interview with Britain's Financial Times, which his
office later referred to
as the "official position on Zimbabwe".
For Zimbabwe to be able to
hold an election that meets Mbeki's test of
universal acceptability, a new
constitution is necessary.
It would include a proper bill of rights
and an independent media
commission; would take the vital voter registration
process out of the hands
of officials answerable only to Mugabe and
generally diminish the
extraordinary executive powers he has given himself,
which would allow him
to control and possibly manipulate the
elections.
Postponing the election is also critical so that all the
necessary
reforms can take effect.
The MDC has been asking for
the elections to take place in June. It
will take much longer than that even
to restore politics to something like
normality. But those extra three
months would at least make a difference.
Mugabe's refusal to budge
presents the MDC once again with the
dilemma; whether to contest elections
on an uneven pitch or boycott them.
This weekend the two MDC
factions were meeting to consider their
options. They were also trying to
reach an electoral pact to ensure they do
not stand against each other and
thereby hand the election to Mugabe on a
platter, if they do decide to
contest.
And, if Mbeki has indeed accepted that he Mugabe is the
cause of the
breakdown, what will Mbeki do?
In the same
Financial Times interview, he said that if he judged that
"this particular
player in Zimbabwe is obstructing the possibility of
finding a political
settlement - we will go back to the SADC to say we are
not moving because
these ones are obstructing process".
"And of course the region must
then make a decision as to what to do."
Will he do that? After
being played by Mugabe for so long, will he
finally point an accusing finger
at him? It's hard to imagine but what are
his options? - Independent Foreign
Service
This article was originally published on page 8 of
Daily News on
January 22, 2008
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Observers can see none of the improvements claimed from the
negotiations on
resolving the long-running political
stand-off.
By Joseph Sithole in Harare (AR No. 151,
22-Jan-08)
South African president Thabo Mbeki has once again reported
progress in the
talks he is mediating between Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF
party and the
opposition in an attempt to end the country’s eight-year
political and
economic crisis.
However, analysts say that any headway
made in the negotiations brokered by
the Southern African Development
Community, SADC, is as imperceptible and
inaudible as the so-called “quiet
diplomacy” Mbeki has used in dealing with
President Robert Mugabe.
On
January 17, Mbeki met Mugabe for four hours at State House, and then
talked
separately with both leaders of the divided opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, MDC, at the South African embassy in Harare.
The
South African leader told journalists after these private meetings that
he
was satisfied with the commitment of all political leaders to resolving
the
long-running crisis.
“You cannot doubt the level of commitment of the
Zimbabwe leadership to
ensuring that the country’s problems are solved,”
said Mbeki, standing next
to Mugabe, who will be 84 next month.
“This
[negotiating process] is work in progress and I must say that there
has been
very good progress. There is definitely a lot of light.”
Both sides in
the negotiations have refused to comment on the content and
outcome of their
meetings with Mbeki, insisting on the blanket of secrecy
they swore to at
the start of the SADC-initiated negotiations in April last
year.
Earlier in the week, Mbeki told visiting Irish prime minister
Bertie Ahern
that while a breakthrough was close in the talks, there
remained certain
“sticking points”.
During the negotiations talks,
the opposition have called for a new
constitution, reform of the country’s
electoral laws and the right to vote
for all Zimbabwean expatriates, as well
as an end to political violence and
repression before the elections
scheduled for March.
After Mugabe categorically rejected introducing a
new constitution before
the elections, the MDC asked instead for a
transitional document designed to
ensure free and fair
elections.
However, the opposition recently complained that Mugabe’s
ZANU-PF party had
backtracked on agreements to come up with such a
transitional constitution
and to postpone the elections to allow reforms to
electoral and security
laws to take place in advance.
An analyst in
Harare said that it was hard to see what progress Mbeki could
be referring
to.
“Perhaps they know something we don’t know,” said the analyst, who
also
noted the continuing reports of violence around the
country.
“Since they began, the talks have been cloaked in secrecy except
for leaks
and occasional complaints by the opposition about ZANU-PF’s
failure to meet
fully its commitments. The progress is as imperceptible as
the effects of
Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ on Mugabe. There is nothing on the
ground.”
The MDC also came in for criticism.
Sources close to this
week’s talks between Mbeki and the MDC leaders say the
opposition
“capitulated” without a whimper when they were informed that
Mugabe had
dismissed their calls for a new constitution and for a delay in
holding the
elections until June.
Few of the MDC’s other demands have been met by the
ruling party. ZANU-PF
has so far agreed on only cosmetic amendments to
repressive laws such as the
Public Order and Security Act, which empowers
police to unilaterally ban
opposition rallies if they have a reason to
believe these might result in
violence.
Less than two months before
the polls, there is still no sign that
government plans to relax its grip on
the state media and allow the
opposition to campaign freely.
From the
look of things, said one observer, the MDC had backed down from its
previous
militant approach.
“Either they have capitulated or they believe that
indeed ZANU-PF can’t beat
them in free and fair elections,” he
said.
According to this analyst, who did not want to be named, the MDC
have drawn
encouragement from recent events in Kenya, where violence erupted
after the
opposition accused the incumbent president Mwai Kibaki of stealing
the
election.
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the MDC faction led by
Morgan Tsvangirai,
recently told a rally in the poor suburb of Dzivaresekwa
that there would be
a bloodbath worse than that in Kenya if there is a
feeling after the March
elections that the vote was rigged.
The
analyst concluded that the MDC may believe the threat of angry protests
will
be enough to deter the authorities from vote-rigging in the spring
elections.
“They believe ZANU-PF will be loathe to go that route when
events in Kenya
are still fresh and Mugabe has not got over the tag of
illegitimacy which he
has worn since his controversial re-election in
2000.”
Meanwhile, the MDC announced demonstrations for January 23 to push
for a new
constitution and also to test ZANU-PF’s commitment to
non-violence.
The opposition movement, which insists it remains committed
to the SADC
talks, has planned a total of 300 rallies to take place this
month, starting
with three in the capital Harare at the weekend.
“The
march of a million men and women that we intend to hold on January 23,
2008
is a dipstick in an oil tank to gauge the seriousness I have alluded to
earlier on,” said Tendai Biti, who is secretary-general of the Tsvangirai
faction and is representing it at the Mbeki-led negotiations.
“I have
to point out that this intended march is in no way prejudicial to
the SADC
mediation efforts,” he said. “I have to place it on record that the
MDC
remains committed to the SADC talks and we remain hopeful that something
will come out of that process.”
“This is part of Zimbabwe’s
democratisation process,” said Biti.
“Now that we have been in the
boardroom [with the ruling party] for this
long, we want to take the
struggle outside the boardroom and into the
streets, where we will gauge
whether there was any seriousness and
commitment to the SADC dialogue on the
part of ZANU-PF.”
Joseph Sithole is the pseudonym of a journalist in
Zimbabwe.
Business Day
Dumisani
Muleya
Harare
Correspondent
ZIMBABWE’S main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) has urged
the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to
intervene to break the
deadlock in its stalled talks with the ruling Zanu
(PF).
The appeal throws the ball into SADC’s court since the regional
body
initiated the negotiations in March last year after MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and others were assaulted while in police custody.
The
SADC mandated President Thabo Mbeki to facilitate the talks which all
but
collapsed last week after Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe refused to
accept a new constitution before elections in March or postpone the polls to
allow for the implementation of the final agreement.
Mugabe rejected
Mbeki’s pleas last week to adopt a new constitution and
delay the polls, in
effect ending talks which had been going on for nine
months.
MDC
spokesman Nelson Chamisa said yesterday the SADC should intervene to
save
its initiative.
“The talks were initiated by the SADC. The MDC did
everything, worked,
co-operated and compromised to make the dialogue work
but Zanu (PF) was
negotiating in bad faith,” Chamisa said. “It’s now up to
the SADC to
intervene to save the process. They have to deal with Mugabe’s
intransigence
and arrogance.”
The MDC says talks collapsed because of
the government’s stubbornness but
the government claims that dialogue
stalled on account of land and
sanctions.
Mugabe’s spokesman, George
Charamba, said the reported differences between
Zanu (PF) and the two MDC
factions were being exaggerated.
“Both parties have agreed on practically
all substantive issues. Most, if
not all, of the MDC’s concerns have been
addressed. It is on the Zanu (PF)
side where two matters are outstanding,
namely a declaration on land and a
declaration on illegal sanctions. It is a
small quarrel over procedures and
timing.”
Last week Mbeki told the
visiting Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern that a
breakthrough was almost
secured. The MDC is now likely to boycott the polls.
With Reuters
zimbabwejournalists.com
22nd Jan 2008 00:26 GMT
By Chenjerai Chitsaru
THERE must be
Zimbabweans who remember the big New York blackout of 1977.
They must have
been reminded of that Big Apple incident by last Saturday’s
nationwide
blackout, which set some conspiracy theorists’ tongues wagging.
Was this
the prelude of a coup of some sort? Would the lights soon return
and the
State television and radio, after blasting away with a military
tune, then
boom with the baritone of an extremely calm and collected
military officer,
intoning solemnly:
“This is the voice of the leader of the National
Redemption Council,
announcing that the government of…..”
And so on and
so forth.
“No such luck,” one cynic retorted to that theory. “All the
likely coup
leaders are deceased…either in an accident at a railway crossing
or an
accidental jab with a lethal injection…”
The New York blackout
was reported thus:
“On a hot July night in 1977, the lights went out in New
York City. The purr
of air conditioners, cooling millions of New Yorkers,
was replaced by
stultifying silence - and then the sound of breaking glass.
Faced with the
second blackout in twelve years, New Yorkers responded with
resilience as
well as violence. Many stories emerged from the night of July
13th that
revealed New Yorkers' divergent feelings about the city in which
they lived.
In some places, neighbors helped neighbors, and strangers helped
strangers.
Yet, at the same time, neighborhoods throughout New York exploded
into
violence. Stores were ransacked, looted and destroyed. Buildings were
set
ablaze. And the police, for the most part, stood helpless. In these
stark
contradictions, an unusual yet definitive moment left its mark on New
York
history - the night the lights went out.”
Fortunately for many
Zimbabweans, the blackout was no more than another
dirty chapter in the
reckless bungling of their government, under President
Robert
Mugabe.
There have been blackouts in selected cities and towns for years,
even after
the state electricity company, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority
(Zesa), was no longer under the aegis of one Sidney Gata, a
relative by
marriage of President Mugabe.
Previously, critics had
zoomed in on this seeming nepotism as a reason for
Mugabe’s lack of action
at Zesa, in spite of its atrocious record.
But the crisis has worsened
without Gata and recently a top official of the
rotting parastatal was
relieved of his job amid much publicity in the State
media.
Among
rabidly anti-Mugabe and anti-Zanu PF critics, the scourge of power
cuts is
aimed at the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) whose
turf is
the urban population sector.
Other critics, more politically sober but
still not impressed with Zanu PF,
apportion the blame to a government so
preoccupied with retaining power it
has taken political and economic
decisions which have alienated most of the
countries which could have
offered aid on very generous repayment
conditions.
Zimbabwe receives
power from its neighbours, but because of the foreign
currency crunch, it
has often run out of funds to pay for the power. A few
of the countries have
cut off power as a result or threatened to do so.
To many critics of
Mugabe’s government, this is another tragic example of
how the former
guerilla leader has failed, literally, to bring the light of
development
into the darkness of the people’s lives since independence in
1980.
Which might explain why there was feverish speculation when it
was reported
by the independent media that Simba Makoni might at last have
taken the
plunge and decided to challenge Mugabe in the presidential
election this
year.
Some critics scoffed at the very idea of such a
challenge, calling it a Zanu
PF plot to muddy the election waters. Makoni
has been previously linked to a
faction of Zanu PF led by the Vice
President, Joice Mujuru and her husband,
the former army commander, Solomon
Mujuru, the so-called kingmaker in the
party.
Theoretically, such an
alliance would be quite a challenge for Mugabe: the
Mujuru’s combined
support would encompass two large provinces in
Mashonaland – Central and
East – and Manicaland, from where Makoni has his
roots and where he could
also depend on the support of another anti-Mugae
stalwart, Edgar
Tekere.
If, as expected, most of Matabeleland fell to the MDC, Mugabe and
Zanu PF
could be on a very sticky wicket indeed. Unfortunately, Makoni is
not
Tekere, although he too was “bitten by mosquitoes” in Mozambique during
the
struggle – as the late Eddison Zvobgo used to label the “true freedom
fighters”.
For many Zimbabweans, any new government containing
elements of Zanu PF
would be fatally contaminated. This party has performed
so dismally that
most people would not be excited if a new government was
tainted, even
remotely, by a Zanu PF element – old or new.
Why some
have speculated on the so-called new party being a “Trojan horse”
is the
mention of Ibbo Mandazas, as being among the luminaries of the new
party.
The former newspaper publisher and ardent admirer of Mugabe is
not in Tekere’s
or Makoni’s political league. Although it is his publishing
house which
brought out Tekere’s autobiography, in which Mugabe is heavily
rubbished, he
is not seen as a “heavyweight critic” of Zanu PF.
So,
the political landscape, it would seem, will be dominated for a long
time to
come by a cocky Zanu PF, relying on its apparatus of terror and
subterfuge,
to take on all-comers, and the MDC, weakened by division at the
top, and
easily liable to be hoodwinked by Zanu PF into signing pacts with
the enemy
which might turn out to be their final undoing.
Most hard-nosed critics
of the government tend to dismiss any radical reform
programmes under
Mugabe. They say the president is trapped in a time-warp.
Hardly is he
likely to abandon completely the idea of the government having
a hand in the
economy.
For instance, although on paper the government has accepted the
participation of the private sector in its parastatals, including the
national airline, the national railways and the national electricity
company, not many would-be partners would risk it after studying a new law
on the ownership of mines.
Under that law, indigenous people would
legally own 51 percent of any new
mining company. That ownership could
translate into government ownership, as
there are few Zimbabweans rich
enough to invest so heavily on their own in a
mining
venture.
Moreover, the suspicion is that most of the indigenous stakes
would be
snapped up by Zanu PF heavyweights, as happened with the formerly
white-owned commercial farms.
Mugabe has not abandoned his flirtation
with Marxism-Leninism, it would
seem. Although some of his colleagues in the
party hierarchy, notably the
Vice President Joseph Msika and the Speaker of
the House of Assembly and
Zanu PF chairman John Nkomo, are not too keen on
socialism, Mugabe may lure
them into his circle with “goodies”.
All
this, as an election platform, would be meaningless to most voters. An
improvement in their lives would hinge on the creation of more well-paying
jobs which would mean foreign direct investment, affordable schools with
well-paid qualified teachers, hospitals and clinics with well-paid doctors
and nurses – and reliable electricity, preferably run by a private company
and not by Zanu PF zealots or relatives of the president.
All this
would be topped by a government with zero tolerance on corruption.
Yahoo News
Tue Jan 22, 4:52 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe's central
bank chief has accused local banks of
creating "artificial" cash shortages
by failing to collect money from the
country's main bank and distribute it
to clients.
"Nothwithstanding the high levels of cash stocks sitting
at the Reserve Bank
ready for dispatch into the market, some banking
institutions have been
noted to be engaging in imprudent and unethical
practices which are creating
artificial queues for cash," Gideon Gono,
central bank governor, told
journalists and bankers in the capital
onMonday.
"Indepth analysis of banks' asset-liability profiles has shown
the following
glaring malpractices by some banks, non-collection to pay cash
for such cash
on collection.
"This inability at some banks is
primarily a result of such banks tying
depositors' funds in illiquid
speculative investments in the stock exchange,
real estate, motor vehicles,
foreign exchange and other forms of non-core
investments," he
added.
Last month, Gono threatened to expose high-ranking politicians and
top
business executives who he said were hoarding cash to buy scarce foreign
currency on the burgeoning parallel market.
Gono, a close ally of
veteran President Robert Mugabe, announced in December
that 200,000-dollar
bills (about eight US dollars, 5.4 euros) would cease to
be valid at the end
of the year as part of efforts to fight the black
market.
He later
shelved the idea and introduced new 250,000, 500,000 and 750,000
Zim dollar
notes as part of measures to ease the cash shortages.
He said the central
bank will "not sit by and watch whilst banks use the
fictional cash
shortages as smokescreens shielding their unethical
practices".
"Blaming the government, the reserve bank or the governor
all the time is
unacceptable and will be met with serious
consequences."
Although Gono introduced the new currency denominations,
queues are still a
common sight at banks across the country with depositors
sometimes waiting
in vain to withdraw their savings.
Jan-22-2008 (450 words) xxxi
By Bronwen
Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Church
officials said it's unlikely
Zimbabwe will hold a free and fair presidential
election this year, since
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has refused
demands for a new
constitution to be implemented before the
poll.
"Mugabe knows he can play games and get away with it," said Bishop
Kevin
Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa.
The 83-year-old Zimbabwean
president "has the security forces on his side,
and his opposition has no
protection under the law, so he doesn't need to
make any concessions,"
Bishop Dowling told Catholic News Service Jan. 21.
Mugabe has rejected the
opposition's requests that the election, scheduled
for March, be postponed
to June to allow for a new constitution to be put in
place.
Mugabe,
who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Great Britain in
1980,
"is untrustworthy and does not intend to make significant changes to
bring
stability to the country," said the bishop, noting that until a new
constitution that protects human rights is in place "there can be no free
and fair elections."
At mid-January meetings in Zimbabwe's capital,
Harare, Mugabe rejected all
suggestions made by South African President
Thabo Mbeki, who since March has
been mediating between Mugabe's government
and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change.
"Mugabe has been
stringing Mbeki along all this time," said Bishop Dowling,
a member of the
Solidarity Peace Trust, an ecumenical group of church
organizations from
Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Alouis Chaumba, head of Zimbabwe's Catholic
Commission for Justice and
Peace, said he was "not surprised the talks
(Mbeki's mediation) have failed
as the (Zimbabwean) government doesn't
negotiate in good faith."
Zimbabwe "can't afford to have another election
rejected by the
international community," he told CNS Jan. 21. "But, as
things stand now,
there is no doubt that Mugabe will win elections in
March."
Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and chronic
shortages of
food, fuel and most basic goods.
"The mood in the
country is very bleak and people are obsessed with
day-to-day survival,"
Chaumba said. The people "cannot access cash, and our
incomes are eroded
every day," he added.
"Despite a good rainy season, farmers had no
fertilizer, so crops have
failed again," Chaumba said. "Electricity and
water are in short supply, and
there has been an outbreak of diarrhea in the
major cities."
Hospitals around the country are paralyzed as doctors and
nurses strike for
more pay, and hospitals face "a chronic shortage of
drugs," Chaumba said.
Most schools "have less than half their quota of
teachers, who can't afford
the bus fare to get to work."
"Nothing is
in good shape," he added.
Bloomberg
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe may produce 41 percent less
tobacco than
forecast this year because of unfavorable weather and a lack of
fertilizers,
said Andrew Ferreira, president of the Zimbabwe Tobacco
Association.
The southern African nation may produce as much as 70
million kilograms of
the leaf, compared with 120 million kilograms predicted
in October, Ferreira
said in an interview today from the capital, Harare.
Zimbabwe produced 73
million kilograms of tobacco last year, earning the
country $170 million.
``We're expecting a crop of less than 70 million
kilograms because drought
in the early season and unseasonably heavy rains
more recently have affected
the crop,'' Ferreira said. ``Some growers have
opted out of tobacco because
of the problems getting hold of
inputs.''
Tobacco production in Zimbabwe, which produces mainly flue-
cured tobacco
that rivals the U.S. for quality, has plummeted since 2000.
That year the
country produced 236 million kilograms of tobacco, earning
Zimbabwe $400
million. In 2001 President Robert Mugabe began seizing
white-owned
commercial farms for distribution to blacks deprived of land
during colonial
rule, triggering a drop in agricultural
production.
Zimbabwe is the world's sixth-largest exporter of tobacco
after Brazil,
India, the U.S., the European Union and Argentina. In 2000, it
ranked No. 2
after Brazil.
To contact the reporter on this story: pmrichardson@bloomberg.net
.
Last Updated: January 22, 2008 02:59 EST
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 16:23
HARARE – The Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries (CZI) on Tuesday warned
power outages affecting Zimbabwe since
Saturday had brought production to a
halt, in an economy in deep recession
and saddled with record unemployment
and shortages of basic
commodities.
CZI president Callisto Jokonya called for urgent action to
end power
shortages as a massive outage – the third since Saturday – plunged
Zimbabwe
into darkness including the capital Harare for much of yesterday.
“The
electricity issue is serious. It needs to be sorted out as a matter of
urgency because as we speak now there is no production taking place in the
manufacturing sector and industry is losing out,” said Jokonya, speaking to
ZimOnline moments before power was restored to most parts of Harare around
2.30pm. Jokonya, who said industry has not been able to run meaningfully
since Saturday, did not quantify the losses that could have been incurred by
the manufacturing sector so far. The capital had not had electricity since
early in the morning bringing business to a virtual standstill. The Internet
was down across the country because the main servers are in Harare. Mobile
phones were largely not working and many callers had to rely on the state’s
archaic and perennially congested fixed phone network. Zimbabwe has faced
power shortages since the economic crisis accelerated in 2000 with the
government’s Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) blaming the
problem on lack of foreign currency to expand generation capacity or to buy
parts for existing power stations. But this is the fist time that the nation
has faced power failures across the country. ZESA has blamed power failures
on what it says was system disturbance on the interconnecting grid that
links southern African countries to a common grid. Power failures have also
been experienced in Zambia and Botswana. However, for long-suffering
Zimbabweans, the electricity cuts are only an addition on a long list of
hardships bedevelling the country in the grip of economic meltdown critics
blame on repression and wrong policies by President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe,
in power since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from Britain and seeking another
five-year term in elections in March, denies ruining Zimbabwe and instead
blames his country’s problems on sabotage by Western governments he says are
out to topple him.
The Zimbabwean
Tuesday, 22
January 2008 12:40
… but won't talk about Mugabe's
grave
HARARE - Zimbabwe's Heroes Acre is being manned by war
veterans with a
crude hatred for the opposition and uncouth language that
has no place at a
shrine supposed to espouse the national heritage with
dignity and honour.
A visit last week was punctured by uncouth and rude
tour guides who
constantly made rude remarks against opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, as
if he was the subject of our visit. Tourists, who were
part of our group,
were obviously put off by the remarks, and said the tour
guide's language
did not add any value to the tour.
Amid the verbal
abuse we suffered at the hands of the tour guides, The
Zimbabwean made
startling observations. There are two graves "technically
reserved" for
President Robert Mugabe and his second wife Grace, but the two
pro-Zanu (PF)
tour guides accompanying us were reluctant to say so outright.
The two
blank tombstones are next to the grave of Sally Mugabe, the
much-loved First
Lady who died in 1992.
The tour guides, whose party Zanu (PF) has been
in power since
Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, obviously know that
Mugabe is mortal.
But it seems they cannot quite come to terms with the fact
that their
President, like all mortals, will one day cease to
exist.
The guide was however overly eager to say whose body "would
never" be
laid to rest at Heroes' Acre - opposition party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai's.
"My brother, can you imagine Tsvangirai being buried
alongside these
heroes," he said, taking us past the graves of Joshua Nkomo
and war veterans
leader Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, among others.
"This man (Tsvangirai) does not belong here. What has he ever done for
his
country? What has he sacrificed for the liberation of his people?"
Tsvangirai, the tour guide said, is an "imperialist stooge" who takes
his
orders from Britain and the US. They say they will never allow someone
like
him to "dishonour" the Heroes' Acre.
The two apparatchiks are different
in their own ways: one is a
liberation war veteran, a retired army officer
and a party loyalist still in
search of a farm; the other a youngish Border
Gezi youth militia graduate,
pumped full with Zanu (PF) propaganda. They are
united in their faith in
Zanu (PF) and in Mugabe.
But what about
the thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans who vote MDC, we
ask? The Zanu (PF)
guides ignore our question. To them, the idea that there
are people who find
parties other than theirs attractive is as much an
anathema as talking about
Mugabe's grave. You know it's there; you just
don't talk about it.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Parents are pulling their children out of schools which have run out
of
food, water, and electricity.
From Nonthando Bhebhe in Harare (AR
No. 151, 22-Jan-08)
Millions of schoolchildren throughout Zimbabwe had to
endure dreadful
conditions as they began a new term this month, as a result
of power cuts
and water and food shortages.
Jane Musekiwa, whose
daughter Nyarai is in the first class at a mission
boarding school in
Mutoko, about 150 kilometres northeast of Harare, said
the trip to her
child’s school turned into a nightmare when she realised
what kind of life
her daughter would have to endure there.
“What I saw was not what I had
bargained for,” said Musekiwa.
In the past, it was prestigious for
middle-income families such as hers to
send their children to boarding
schools.
But Musekiwa described how she almost cried when she discovered
that for the
three-month term, her daughter would be drinking and bathing
with water from
an unprotected source, and would spend long hours without
the electricity
needed for study and entertainment.
According to
Musekiwa, on opening day, the school was bereft of basic
foodstuffs such as
the staple “sadza maize meal, chicken, beef and greens.
She said there
was no bread, let alone eggs, for breakfast, and the school
headmistress had
no idea when the situation would return to normal.
Musekiwa said one
teacher told her privately that the problems had also been
there the
previous term.
“Last term, the only sounds at night in the dormitories
were of girls crying
themselves to sleep. Some were even threatening to
commit suicide if their
parents did not pull them out of the boarding
school,” she said, quoting the
teacher.
Nyarai is just one of the
hundreds of thousands of scholars braving harsh
conditions at boarding
schools as a result of problems brought on by the
collapse of the country’s
economy over the past nine years.
Zimbabwe’s inflation rate is now over
8,000 per cent as prices rise every
day, and most foodstuffs have to be
sourced from the black market.
A price freeze ordered by President Robert
Mugabe's government in July 2007
that was meant to ease the plight of
consumers has only worsened the
shortages of basic commodities, and this is
hitting boarding schools hard,
with most facing difficulties in getting
food, electricity and water.
The authorities at Kwenda High School in
Wedza, some 150 km from Harare,
have advised pupils not to return until
further notice this term, because
the school has had no power since rains
damaged electricity cables in the
area.
Without electricity, the
school cannot pump water from boreholes for
sanitation or to prepare food.
It is also missing basic foodstuffs such as
maize meal for its
boarders.
As well as power and water, schools also face a serious
shortage of books,
with some relying on cross border traders who import
teaching materials from
Zambia and sell them at exorbitant
prices.
Parents are now faced with a tough choice between leaving their
children to
endure difficult conditions at the once-fashionable boarding
schools, or
taking them out and spending millions on transport to get them
to day
schools.
Many parents are still frantically looking for places
at day schools closer
to home, as they try to spare their children from
suffering three months of
hell at boarding school.
It now costs
between 2.5 billion and six billion Zimbabwean dollars, ZWD, a
term for
private boarding school fees, or between 500 and 1,200 US dollars,
calculated at the more realistic black-market exchange rate.
Parents
who send their children to state schools still have to fork out
between 1.2
and two billion ZWD a term
Boarding schools are now demanding payments of
half the fees up front to
allow them to buy in groceries from neighbouring
South Africa. The money is
used to buy South African rands on the black
market, and the schools then
send runners across the Limpopo River to buy
the foodstuffs.
George Mhandire, another parent whose child attends a
private school in
Masvingo, 300 km south-east of Harare, is desperate to the
2.6 billion ZWD
the institution is demanding in advance for his son’s
place.
“I just don’t know what to do now. The school wants half the levy
in cash
and the other half electronically transferred into their account. I
don’t
know how I am going to raise that money.”
Mhandire said that
while he understood why schools resorted to this
practice, he was still
unable to find the cash.
“If they don’t do that, our kids will starve, he
said. “Some parents are
already paying the fees in foreign currency but this
is too much for me.”
Others can no longer afford private school fees and
are trying to secure
places at government schools, where the quality of
education has
deteriorated over the past ten years due to a loss of teachers
and shortage
of teaching materials.
Frustrated and demoralised by low
government salaries and inadequate
teaching aids, teachers have left state
schools in droves. They have either
been poached by private schools or have
crossed the borders to neighbouring
countries in search of greener
pastures.
Granny MaMoyo, from the working class suburb of Highfield,
Harare, whose
grandson attends a private school in Chegutu, 100km away, told
IWPR that her
daughter in the UK could no longer afford the 2.6 billion ZWD
she has to pay
for this term.
Many families like hers depend on
relatives scattered all over the globe for
financial support.
“It is
just too much money, even for my daughter in the UK. She can’t afford
it.
She wanted the best for her son but it looks like we have to transfer
him to
a government school regardless of the poor facilities,” she said.
MaMoyo
said the demand for places meant she was struggling to find a new
school for
the boy.
“The problem is that schools opened this week but I still
haven’t found a
place for him,” she said. “The scramble for places is
intense.”
Nonthando Bhebhe is the pseudonym of a journalist in Zimbabwe.
SABC
January 22, 2008,
09:15
Frightened foreigners in Soshanguve South, Pretoria, are moving out
of the
area fearing for their lives following a spate of violent attacks on
Mozambican and Zimbabwean nationals, a daily paper reported today. Several
businesses belonging to foreigners have been looted and their shacks
destroyed by residents who accuse them of being behind crime in the
area.
Four people - two foreigners and two locals - have since died and
several
people have been injured in the violence which started a month ago.
Police
spokesperson Captain Solly Marindi confirmed that two residents aged
45 and
17 were killed on Friday night at extension 5 and extension 4
respectively
in what residents believe was a revenge attack by
foreigners.
Zimbabwean spaza shop owner, John Dludlu told the Sowetan
that he watched
helplessly last Saturday as a group of residents looted his
shack and
business, taking electrical appliances, power tools and stock
worth R9 000.
"I was so scared I just stood there as they looted and
destroyed my
property. I realise that the situation would not get any better
so I sent my
wife and children back home to Zimbabwe.
"I have also
moved out of the area. If they do not want us here anymore,
they should at
least give us time to move out instead of killing us and
destroying our
belongings," Dludlu told the newspaper. Dludlu said the
problem started when
four foreigners broke into a spaza shop owned by a
Soshanguve resident. He
said residents apprehended and necklaced one of the
suspects.
Ward
councillor Mpho Lamola was quoted as saying that a meeting with the
community was held on Sunday where residents were asked not to resort to
violence when trying to sort out their problems. "We have also approached
the Department of Home Affairs to educate people about the status of
immigrants. Residents feel that illegal immigrants are responsible for crime
in the area because they are untraceable," said Lamola.
Captain
Marindi said police will continue to hold meetings with residents in
an
attempt to bring calm to the area. Nineteen residents were arrested and
charged with public violence on January 13. They were expected to appear in
the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, the Sowetan said. -
Sapa
From The Sunday Independent (SA), 20 January
History shows that the Zimbabwean
president might not have been in his
present position without the help of
the British government, writes David
Moore
Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe claims to have been locked in conflict with
all things British
for a long time. Celebrating the European Union's
decision to welcome him to
the Lisbon summit with African heads of state
late last year, he gloated at
the "disintegration" of Britain's "sinister
campaign … to isolate us". At
the United Nations general assembly meeting in
September, he declared
Zimbabwe "won its independence … after a protracted
war against British
colonial imperialism which denied us human rights and
democracy". Mugabe
said that British colonialism was - and is - "the most
visible form of
[western] control" over Southern Africa, the negation of
"our
sovereignties". He decried the "sense of human rights" of George Bush,
Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown which "precludes our people's right to their
God-given resources".
Yet, an investigation of Mugabe's history
with the British "colonialists"
shows he was eager to co-operate with them.
He embraced their notions of
human rights and justice. Archival evidence
shows he was close to these
"sinister" forces in 1970, writing personal
letters and telegrams from
Salisbury's jail to Prime Minister Harold Wilson
to support his wife's stay
in England. The British also helped him eliminate
a group of radical young
guerrilla soldiers threatening his precarious hold
on the Zimbabwe African
National Union (Zanu) later in that decade. In 1967,
Mugabe's wife Sarah,
often called Sally, received a scholarship to study
secretarial science in
London while her husband was imprisoned. The Ariel
Foundation was her
sponsor. Ariel, founded by Kenneth Kaunda's one-time
adviser Dennis Grennan
and funded largely by the tobacco-enriched Ditchley
Foundation, was devoted
to introducing African nationalists to western
politicians and capitalists.
Sally needed special authorisation from
the British foreign and commonwealth
office (FCO) for her studies. The FCO
telegram to Accra (where she, a
Ghanaian, was residing while her husband was
in jail) authorising her entry
permit says Ariel "is well known to us". In
scribbles, it asks: "Would you
wish to have this on your files? If not, it
can be destroyed." Sally studied
for the next two years, while also working
as the director's personal
assistant and a dress-making teacher at the
Africa Centre in Covent Garden.
However, by the end of 1969 Mervyn Rees, the
home secretary, wanted her out.
Her marriage to Mugabe did not allow her
citizenship in the illegally
independent state; thus, the British owed her
none of the protection due to
the pariah's residents. The home secretary
told her to return to Ghana.
Grennan, in whose home Sally lived - "she was
like a sister to my children",
he said in an August 2007 interview - mounted
a petition campaign for her to
stay.
Colin Legum's articles in
The Observer helped too: referring to examples of
white Rhodesians living in
England with dubious legality, Legum suggested
things might have been
different if Sally had shared then Rhodesian prime
minister Ian Smith's
race. The petition garnered nearly 400
parliamentarians' signatures. Victory
ensued. Legalities notwithstanding,
Sally could stay. Perhaps Mugabe's
telegram and letter to Wilson helped too.
His and Sally's entreaties to
various "imperialists" indicated their
willingness to utilise the empire's
services. Hoping humanitarian persuasion
would dissolve legalities, they
employed the moral imperative of human
rights discourse. On February 23
1970, Sally wrote to Maurice Foley, the
Royal African Society director who
had been importuned by Ariel Foundation's
executive secretary Anthony Hughes
to take up her case. She wanted Foley's
advice on how to "touch the hearts
of the decision makers".
Hughes had said to Foley that Sally's case
was "exceptional" due to "human
and political factors": her trials and
tribulations had brought her to a
"breakdown". In any case the British state
should take on responsibility for
the residents of a rogue state. "Surely,"
he wrote, "Britain has a moral
duty to alleviate, not worsen, her
unhappiness." In a letter to MP Bernard
Braine, Hughes refers to "Robert" as
if they were mutual friends. He reminds
Braine that "for … personal reasons"
the Ariel Foundation thought it
"appropriate to bring Mrs Mugabe to Britain
in order to help her obtain
further skills". Robert Mugabe's June 8 1970
telegram, addressed directly to
Wilson at 10 Downing Street appeals that
"you recognise her status and grant
residence permit till my release from
political detention". A three-page
letter follows a day later, documenting
the case's history. Mugabe pleads on
legal grounds, but ends with "more than
that" - that is, the British state's
"moral responsibilities towards …
persons in my circumstances [and] their
wives …"
He closes with a
request: "Sir, that you personally exercise your mind on
the case … so that
justice is done to my wife and myself". The postscript
follows: "I regret
that the consequences of my writing this letter will
inevitably be a
surcharge on you, Sir …" Mugabe's and his interlocutors'
language is laden
with the human rights discourse so derided in his speeches
of today and used
with such slipperiness by the West. Mugabe's words are
Victorian and
moralistic, pleading yet almost secure in assuming idealistic
yet rational
and middle-class action. His appeal to justice goes beyond the
letter of the
law and the strictures of sovereignty. It's no wonder that his
London
friends lauded his cool intellect and asceticism (in contrast to
Joshua
Nkomo spending all their money on women and drink, Grennan said). Six
years
later, in the aftermath of the assassination of Herbert Chitepo,
Zanu's
national chairman, and the leadership vacuum it left, Mugabe's climb
to the
top of the party's hierarchy seemed threatened by a group of young,
radical
guerrilla soldiers.
The Zimbabwean People's Army (Zipa) had taken the
liberation struggle back
from the hands of those who had engineered a
"détente" process intended to
create a pliant state to replace Smith's, and
had come close to uniting
Zimbabwe's rival nationalist parties to boot.
Archival evidence suggests the
British helped Mugabe win this battle against
the Zipa soldiers. Zipa was
resisting going to the Geneva conference
organised by Henry Kissinger, the
United States secretary of state, behind
one leader. They supported a united
front. As arrangements were being made
for the conference, on September 29
1976, Ted Rowlands, the minister of
state for the FCO, telegrammed home from
his Gaborone meeting with Nkomo,
the leader of Zimbabwe's "other" liberation
movement, that "Mugabe was …
controlled by the young men … in Mozambique".
The British were
worried that they were too radical for a conference
designed to usher in a
Zimbabwe compatible with their hopes for their last
colony. It would be
essential to convince the "young men" controlling
Mugabe - who could, as the
British ambassador in Maputo put it, "turn out to
be African Palestinians" -
to lay down their arms and go to the conference.
One way to do this would be
to offer their host - President Samora Machel of
Mozambique - some
assistance if he co-operated. Sure enough, an
interest-free loan of £15
million (in two parts) was arranged and Machel
told Zipa's leaders to go to
Geneva. On their return, he agreed with
Mugabe's request to jail them.
Mugabe was no longer under their control, and
went on to consolidate his
leadership of Zanu PF. The rest, as they say, is
history - a history for
which Mugabe has much to thank the British, who
managed to create their own
form of "blowback".