Britain calls for sanctions in face of Zimbabwean president's defiance

SignOnSanDiego

By Donna Bryson
ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:04 a.m. July 6, 2008

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Britain called Sunday for tough action as
well as talk in the face of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's defiance
and signs of disunity among his opposition.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged South Africa and the
rest of the international community to "unite behind a tough, strong, clear
(U.N.) Security Council resolution" calling for international sanctions
against Mugabe.

Miliband spoke to reporters after visiting a downtown Johannesburg
church that is a refuge for Zimbabweans fleeing their homeland's political
and economic crises.
South Africa, though, has said the proposed resolution could undermine
President Thabo Mbeki's attempt to mediate between Mugabe and Zimbabwean
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The U.S.-drafted resolution backed by Britain would require nations to
freeze the financial assets of Mugabe and 11 of his officials, and to
restrict their travel to within Zimbabwe.

Miliband said such targeted sanctions would spare the majority of
Zimbabweans, already suffering in a collapsed economy, and could result in
those closest to Mugabe pressuring him to yield at the negotiating table.
Mugabe is accused of holding onto power through violence and fraud.

Miliband also said he supported Tsvangirai's calls for the African
Union to appoint a mediator to work with Mbeki. Tsvangirai accuses the South
African leader of siding with Mugabe, who has extolled Mbeki's role.

"There has got to be a clear mix of diplomacy and sanctions," Miliband
said, adding that the suffering Zimbabweans described to him during his tour
of the Central Methodist Church would spur anyone to try to find a solution.

"I've seen the human toll and the human face of the catastrophe,"
Miliband said.

Church officials say thousands of Zimbabweans have found a temporary
haven at the church over the past four years, and the numbers coming have
increased in recent weeks.

Around 2,000 Zimbabweans, double the usual number at any one time,
were sheltering in the church's hallways, stairwells and storerooms Sunday.
The main chapel has been kept clear for services, and some worshippers
wearing their church best paused to greet Miliband.

Church officials said despair over the impasse in Zimbabwe was
resulting in more people crossing the border. They also said Zimbabweans
were heading downtown after fleeing areas elsewhere in South Africa where
immigrants were attacked by poor South Africans who accused them of taking
scarce jobs and housing - an example of the far-reaching impact of
Zimbabwe's troubles.

Mbeki made a brief, unannounced visit to Zimbabwe on Saturday. His
spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said Mbeki met with Mugabe and Arthur
Mutambara, leader of a small faction of Tsvangirai's party, but not with
Tsvangirai.

Mutambara's meeting with Mbeki could signal dissension within the
opposition, complicating already dim prospects for the success of mediation.

Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for Tsvangirai, said Sunday that Tsvangirai
wants a negotiated settlement but did not meet Mbeki because of questions
over how "the process will proceed." Chamisa accused Mugabe of giving
"conflicting messages" about his readiness to talk.

Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail newspaper, a government mouthpiece, quoted
Mugabe as calling Tsvangirai's failure to meet with Mbeki "a show of utter
disrespect."

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and two other candidates in a first round of
presidential balloting in March. But he failed to win the 50 percent plus
one vote needed to avoid a runoff against the second-place finisher, Mugabe.

International observers said the runoff, held June 27, was not free or
fair, largely because of violence against opposition supporters. The attacks
were so intense that Tsvangirai pulled out of the race in protest days
before the vote. Mugabe went ahead, keeping Tsvangirai's name on the ballot.

Mugabe was declared the winner June 29 and took the oath of office for
a sixth term within hours of the release of results.

At Johannesburg's Central Methodist Church, Zimbabweans offered a
range of opinions on resolving their country's crisis.

Wellington Sithole, a 20-year-old tiler who has been at the church for
four months, called on South Africa to send in troops to topple Mugabe.

Kudakwashe Mirandu, a 30-year-old electrician, agreed with Sithole
that Mugabe's tenacity was a challenge, but said there must be a peaceful
way out. She called on the U.N. to send a mediator, someone "who could talk
to Robert Mugabe, so that we can have free elections. ... Then, when he
loses, he can give up power."

Zimbabwe is infecting the region, Miliband says

The Telegraph

By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg
Last Updated: 8:15PM BST 06/07/2008
The crisis in Zimbabwe was "infecting the whole of southern Africa" and it
was now "imperative" that there was a legitimate government in that country,
David Miliband said.
In his first visit to the region , the Foreign Secretary was speaking after
visiting refugees from Zimbabwe in central Johannesburg.

He said he had seen the "human face" of the catastrophe in Zimbabwe during
his tour of the Central Methodist Church, having met many orphans among
those fleeing the country.

Around 2,000 Zimbabweans, double the usual number at any one time, were
sheltering in the church's hallways, stairwells and storerooms during the
tour. Many had fled beatings and pre-election violence that has seen more
than 100 opponents of the Mugabe regime killed.

"No one who meets the people here could do anything other than redouble
their efforts to secure international consensus that the Mugabe regime is
not a legitimate representation of the will of the people of Zimbabwe," he
said.
"At the heart of President Mugabe's rhetoric is the idea that this is a
fight between Zimbabwe and Britain. It is not.

"It is a fight between two different visions for the future of Zimbabwe, one
of which has the support of the Zimbabwean people and the other which is
held together by a small clique that holds power on the basis of violence
and intimidation today."

Mr Miliband will meet his South African counterpart, Nkosazan Dlamini Zuma,
tomorrow (TUES) to discuss the situation in Zimbabwe.

The Foreign Minister said the international community, including South
Africa, had to rally behind touch new UN Security Council resolutions in New
York next week to target individuals within the Mugabe regime.

President Thabo Mbeki, supposedly the mediator on behalf of the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC) in Zimbabwe, has come under increasingly
harsh criticism in recent week for his seeming support of the Mugabe regime.

Mr Mbeki flew to Harare on Saturday in an attempt to persuade Mr Mugabe to
form a government of national unity. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), refused to meet the South
African leader.

Mr Tsvangirai said that if he met Mr Mbeki it would imply his party's
recognition of Mr Mugabe as president following his controversial and
disputed re-election.

Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail newspaper, a government mouthpiece, quoted Mr Mugabe
as calling Mr Tsvangirai's refusal to meet "a show of utter disrespect."

Leaders of the G8 group of nations, meanwhile, were expected to "strongly
condemn" Mr Mugabe in their final statement of a three day summit in Japan,
the White House said.

EU eyes Zimbabwe aid if crisis lifted

Reuters

Sun 6 Jul 2008, 14:40 GMT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission is ready to provide up to 250
million euros (199 million pounds) in development aid for Zimbabwe's
worst-hit sectors if the country gets a legitimate, credible government, the
EU's aid chief said.

The European Union's executive arm would then also call for an international
lifting of debt owed by the country, EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said.

"I would encourage the rest of the international donor community to make it
clear today that it is ready to provide substantial and immediate assistance
to Zimbabwe in the wake of a transition towards democracy," Michel said.

The EU aid would go towards supporting hospitals, schools or the farming
sector, he said in an opinion piece distributed to media.

The 27-country European Union called on Friday for a new election as soon as
possible in Zimbabwe after a short transition from the rule of President
Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe was declared re-elected after a June 27 runoff in which he was the
only candidate once the opposition withdrew in protest at violence and
intimidation by the security forces and government-backed militia.

The European Commission is the most important aid donor to Zimbabwe and last
year provided 91 million euros in humanitarian aid and other assistance.

Tsvangirai accused of disrespecting Mbeki

SABC

July 06, 2008, 19:00

By Thulasizwe Simelane
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF has accused opposition Movement of Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai of disrespecting the Southern African
Development Community, (SADC) appointed mediator, President Thabo Mbeki.

Tsvangirai yesterday failed to attend a meeting scheduled by Mbeki between
his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders. Mbeki says
Tsvangirai pulled out of the meeting at the last minute saying he had been
advised by African Union (AU) leaders to hold off until Mbeki's mediation
effort is reinforced.

Meanwhile, a milestone moment occurred in Zimbabwean politics when Mugabe
was seen shaking hands with MDC faction leader Arthur Mutambara. However,
the picture would resonate even more, if the hand Mugabe shook was that of
his arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai. The leader of the bigger MDC faction
apparently withdrew at the last minute from a meeting facilitated by Mbeki
with Mugabe yesterday.

The ruling party wasted no time in attacking Tsvangirai over his snub of the
dialogue mediator.

While some analysts say Tsvangirai let a golden opportunity slip to give the
dialogue the momentum it needs, others believe his snub of Mbeki makes a
powerful statement to the international community.

Under tight security, G-8 leaders face expectations on climate, oil and Zimbabwe

Jakarta Post

The Associated Press ,  Rusutsu, Japan   |  Sun, 07/06/2008 4:34 PM  |
World

Climate change, soaring oil prices and possible steps against Zimbabwe were
high on the agenda as leaders from the Group of Eight economic powers
gathered in Japan for their annual summit.

With fewer than 200 days left in his term, U.S. President George W. Bush was
to meet Sunday with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who is hosting the
three-day meeting at the picturesque lakeside resort of Toyako on the
northern island of Hokkaido.

Security kicked into high gear on the weekend, with riot police in body
armor monitoring checkpoints along roads leading to he summit site through
the rolling farmland.

Japan has mobilized roughly 20,000 police officers in Hokkaido, many of them
brought in from other parts of the country, to avert any terrorist attacks.
The Yomiuri newspaper reported that F-15 fighter jets will patrol during the
summit.

Protesters gathered Sunday for a second day of demonstrations against the
G-8 in Sapporo, about 100 kilometers northeast of Toyako. On Saturday,
thousands of demonstrators representing a range of causes, from fighting
poverty to stopping global warming, marched through the city. Police briefly
clashed with marchers, detaining four people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G-8 leaders will discuss how they
can toughen sanctions on Zimbabwe in the wake of President Robert Mugabe's
widely denounced presidential election runoff victory.

"We will confer on how we can toughen sanctions against Zimbabwe, and I hope
that we will also get support from our African colleagues here," Merkel said
in her weekly video message.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, whom Zimbabwe's opposition has accused
of bias toward Mugabe, and Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua have been
invited to meet with the Group of Eight leaders on Monday.

The EU already has travel bans and an asset freeze in place on Mugabe and
other senior Zimbabwean officials. The U.S. also is seeking international
sanctions against Mugabe and his top aides.

Climate change is a key topic at the meeting, and many hope the G-8 will
give some indication of its commitment to cutting greenhouse gases to move
forward the U.N.-led talks aimed at
replacing the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which expires 2012.
Negotiators face a deadline of December 2009, when some 190 nations will
meet in Denmark.

Host Fukuda would like to emerge from the summit with an agreement on 50
percent overall reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050. Some European
countries and developing nations favor establishing targets for cutting
emissions by 2020. Scientists say those targets are needed to avoid the
worst effects of global warming.

But few expect major headway or concessions from Bush. He insists on holding
China and India, fast-growing economies and among the world's biggest
polluters, to emission-reduction standards as well.

Bush himself says a priority of this year's summit is not advancing new
initiatives but making good on ones from previous summits, especially
promises for health aid for countries in Africa and other underdeveloped
nations.

"We need to show the world that the G-8 can be accountable for its promises
and deliver  results," Bush said ahead of the summit. "America is on track
to meet our commitments. And in Japan, I'll urge other leaders to fulfill
their commitments, as well."

With global oil prices surging, the G-8 leaders are expected to urge major
oil producers to increase supplies while also calling for steps to improve
energy efficiency and develop
alternative sources of energy within their own economies. Oil spiked to a
record US$145.85 a barrel on Thursday.

However, observers have questioned the effectiveness of any calls by the G-8
to boost oil production when the group does not include Saudi Arabia, the
world's largest exporter of crude, or any OPEC members.

Likewise, there is growing criticism that the G-8 excludes other major
economies such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Leaders of
those nations are due to meet with the G-8 leaders on Wednesday.(**)

Meeting with refugees strengthens Miliband's resolve on Zimbabwe

Monsters and Critics

Jul 6, 2008, 12:53 GMT

Johannesburg - Following his meeting Sunday with Zimbabwean refugees in
South Africa, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was
'imperative' to find a solution to the worsening crisis in Zimbabwe.

After meeting with around 2,000 refugees at a centre in Johannesburg,
Miliband said Britain would redouble its efforts to ensure that Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe's regime was not seen as 'a legitimate
representation of the will of the people of Zimbabwe.'

Miliband also called for the international community to support US-proposed
sanctions on Zimbabwe to be tabled in the coming days at the United Nations
Security Council in New York.

Miliband arrived in South Africa earlier Sunday for talks with Foreign
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma under the auspices of the South Africa-UK
Bilateral Forum.

His visit follows South African President Thabo Mbeki's attempt Saturday to
kickstart talks between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on a
proposed government of national unity.

Mbeki held talks in Harare with Mugabe and members of a smaller faction of
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change led by Arthur Mutambara.

Tsvangirai boycotted the talks. An MDC spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, said the
conditions Tsvangirai had set out for talks, including the presence of an
African Union (AU) envoy, had not been met.

African Union heads of state meeting in Egypt during the week called on
Mugabe and Tsvangirai to share power after Mugabe claimed victory in a
controversial presidential run-off election he alone contested.

Tsvangirai, who won the first round of voting for president in March,
withdrew from the run-off over a spate of attacks on his supporters by
Mugabe supporters in the wake of the March election.

The MDC, the West and a handful of African countries are refusing to
recognize Mugabe's victory.

The impasse in Zimbabwe is expected to feature prominently in talks between
leaders of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations in Tokyo this
week.

Zimbabwe faces famine after harvest fails

The Australian

Jan Raath, Bulawayo | July 07, 2008

ZIMBABWE is on the brink of an unprecedented famine after its worst harvest
since independence in 1980. The plight of Zimbabweans is compounded by the
deliberate starvation of most of the population because of their support for
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

A crop assessment by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation
says the country that once fed scores of famine-stricken African nations
will harvest only 575,000 tonnes of maize, the national staple, from last
summer's crop - only 28 per cent of the grain needed to feed the country's
11.8 million people.

Already 29 per cent of the population are "chronically malnourished,"
according to the Health Ministry and the UN. A similar percentage of
children suffer stunting.

In Bulawayo, cases of malnutrition in hospitals have increased 110 per cent
in two months.

Rural stocks of food will start running out next month, according to the
FAO, when more than two million will have to be fed or face starvation.

By January, the number will have risen to 5.1 million.

The Government gives assurances that it has imported 500,000 tonnes of
maize, but there is no evidence of it. The FAO has forecast a shortfall of
one million tonnes of grain.

In spite of the dire situation, President Robert Mugabe's regime is
maintaining a total ban on famine relief by local and international aid
agencies. What little food the Government has for distribution is handed to
supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

"It's a catastrophe," said an aid worker who asked not to be named. "It is
much worse than the drought of 1991-92 (when thousands of head of cattle and
wildlife died of starvation but people were fed from ample food reserves).
Now there is no preparedness."

After being subjected to three months of savage political violence before
the universally condemned presidential run-off elections last week, and
trapped by an economy in collapse, Zimbabweans are about to be afflicted by
chronic hunger. "There is no village (in the low-rainfall western provinces
of Matabeleland and Midlands) that is not touched by hunger and
malnutrition," said Effie Ncube, the director of a small local aid agency.

"We go out on a weekly basis to see what they cook and eat. Many are eating
wild fruits, nothing you could call a decent meal.

"Only ZANU-PF people have a better life, because the government gives them
food. The majority support the opposition and the majority are being starved
by the government."

In a small office in central Bulawayo, the capital of western Zimbabwe, Mr
Ncube sits at a desk, filling in "history of violence" reports as he
interviews a constant stream of rural people needing medical attention after
being assaulted by militias of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

In the week after the elections on June 27, most of the violence in rural
Matabeleland had subsided, although it continued in several pockets, he
said.

Most of the rural youths dragooned into youth and "war veteran" militias to
carry out the violence to force people to vote had drifted away.

The illegal roadblocks to stop people - especially the injured - from
fleeing their homes after attack have been taken down, Mr Ncube said. This
had released a surge of people with broken limbs and lacerated and bruised
backs, buttocks and legs to seek help for the first time, more than a week
after they were assaulted.

Gogo (grandmother) Christina Thabani, 68, was dragged out of her hut at
midnight in Umzinghwane district about 80km south of Bulawayo last week, and
thrashed until they broke her right arm.

Then she was forced to dance and sing songs idolising Mugabe for several
hours. Her broken arm led to a cruel irony. When she got to the polling
station she was unable to use her hand to write, and officials insisted that
she was assisted to vote.

"Someone followed me into the polling booth. He put his X on Mugabe for me.
I don't want Mugabe," she said.

She also told how, earlier this year, she and everyone in the village went
to their head man to register for famine relief. "They took our names, but
then the head man and the war veterans in the area vetted the list. Everyone
who they thought was MDC had their names crossed off."

A truck from the Grain Marketing Board, the state monopoly maize dealer,
comes perhaps once a month and hands out 50kg bags of maize - but only to
ZANU-PF supporters.

"You see them eating and you get angry, but there is nothing you can do,"
she said. "Sometimes they sell it to you, for a very high price, but only at
night, because they will get into trouble for feeding MDC people."

One after another, the victims in Mr Ncube's office told the same story, and
also how there was "absolutely no food" after the disastrous harvest.

"I have eight grandchildren and two children," Mrs Thabani said. "They are
starving."

On June 5, the government shut down all aid agencies and charities. Mugabe
claimed they were using their food distribution to bribe people to vote for
the MDC - exactly the tactic that ZANU-PF is using.

The Times

Ballot-beaten and weary

Mail and Guardian

JASON MOYO - Jul 06 2008 06:00

Robert Mugabe's widely condemned "re-election" last weekend appears to have
broken the resolve of many Zimbabweans.

Two weeks ago there was steely determination among many voters to reject
him, despite mounting violence and the economic crisis.

But after a week which began with Morgan Tsvangirai's last-minute withdrawal
from the poll and ended with Mugabe's whirlwind "inauguration", resignation
is taking over.

A day after the elections, as state radio reported Mugabe was heading for a
"landslide", Dadirai, a clerk with a phone company, was waiting in line to
play last Saturday's Z$100-trillion lotto, hoping, she joked, for better
luck than Tsvangirai.

"Whatever happens now has to be about solving the economic crisis. That's
the biggest concern for most of us," she said.

Few had any hope that the proposed dialogue between Mugabe and Tsvangirai
would make much difference -- or happen at all.

"What will they talk about? Just sharing power or solving our problems?"
asked Charity Njanji, a high school English teacher. Like most people, she
feels she is on her own. "I don't trust any politician any longer. They say
one thing and do the other. I have to concentrate on my family."

Njanji was hired as an election official in March but declined the job in
the run-off, saying "the job is not worth the money or the stress".

Some Zimbabweans still see a ray of light. The head of a listed company
declined to be named but said he is encouraged by what he sees as a
hardening anti-Mugabe sentiment in the region.

"Mugabe can't continue with things as they are. Even he must realise the
economy will get him in the end," the businessman said.

Official vote tallies indicate a sudden doubling in support for Mugabe since
the first-round election and has become the subject of many jokes on
Harare's streets.

In Harare central, the postal ballot tally was 14 for Mugabe and none for
Tsvangirai.

But according to Clifton, a young middle-rank officer in the army who rents
out an apartment in the constituency, Mugabe still has support in army
ranks.

"But many are a bit impatient, especially about the economy," he said. "I
don't like Tsvangirai, but I hope the chiefs [top politicians] will now
really look at how they are running things."

Three observer groups said the poll was not credible and the Pan-African
Parliament went further, calling for fresh elections.

But Zimbabweans have very little appetite for another round of voting.

"New elections mean more fighting and more bad news for the economy. Who
wants that?" asked newspaper vendor Nancy, cynically adding: "Let them
rule."

Weeks ago, the buoyancy of MDC supporters was such that anybody suggesting
dialogue with Mugabe risked a public flogging. But even the most radical
anti-government activists now grudgingly concede that Mugabe will be around
for a while longer.

"If talking brings peace, why not?" said Makusha Chivara, an MDC activist in
Ruwa, a farming area east of Harare.

The big firms that prop up Zim

Mail and Guardian

PERCY ZVOMUYA | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Jul 06 2008 06:00

The demand for full-blown sanctions against Zimbabwe grew louder this week
with the announcement by a Munich-based company, Giesecke & Devrient, that
it would stop supplying blank paper to make the country's bank notes after
coming under pressure from the German government.

The decision followed hard on the heels of the decision by British
supermarket group Tesco to stop buying produce from Zimbabwe "while the
political crisis exists".

To date, "smart" sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union and the
United States have taken the form of travel bans and of freezing the foreign
bank accounts of about 130 members of the ruling elite.

Moves to isolate the country may now be extended to sport. The International
Cricket Council is set to discuss whether to exclude Zimbabwe from
international competitions.

This week the United States was preparing to propose the imposition of
international sanctions at the UN, including an arms embargo. A draft
resolution, formulated by the American authorities, says the financial
assets held abroad by Mugabe and 11 other Zimbabwean officials should be
frozen.

If the resolution is adopted by the UN Security Council Mugabe and his
associates will also be banned from travelling anywhere in the world.

Late last month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged British companies
to stop investing in Zimbabwe and said his government was preparing
"intensified sanctions" against individual members of Mugabe's government.

This statement followed news that Anglo American would invest $400-million
in a platinum mine in Zimbabwe. The investment is equivalent to the total
foreign direct investment Zimbabwe received in 1998, during relatively more
peaceful days.

"Businesses and individuals who have any dealing with Zimbabwe must examine
their own responsibilities and must not make investments that prop up the
regime," Brown toldthe House of Commons, where some Tory MPs are known to
have shares in Zimbabwe-based companies.

Brown's Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch Brown, warned companies active in
Zimbabwe to "look very carefully at their investment portfolio".

Despite Mugabe's ranting about British imperialist designs on Zimbabwe,
British companies still control vast swathes of the country's economy, with
interests ranging from petroleum to banking.

Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank are among the biggest British-owned
banks. British American Tobacco has cornered what remains of the tobacco
crop, while BP has a large slice of the fuel retail sector and Rio Tinto and
Falgold are involved in gold mining.

US companies Chevron and Coca Cola also have a presence, as does the
Canadian-owned Bata shoe company.

South African capital is another big player in Zimbabwe, with many
continuing to do business there while no longer reflecting the performances
of their Zimbabwean operations on their books.

These include AngloAmerican Corporation, which has interests in
agro-industry and mining; Standard Bank, whose Zimbabwean subsidiary is
Stanbic; Old Mutual, which is involved in real estate and insurance; PPC
Cement; Murray and Roberts; Truworths; Edcon, which owns the Edgars clothes
retail chain;

Hulett-Tongaat, which has a stake in Hippo Valley Sugar Estates; grocery
chain Spar; and SAB Miller, which has a stake in Zimbabwe's Delta Beverages.

The country's mining sector is dominated by foreign companies that include
South Africa's Impala Platinum and Mzi Khumalo's Metallon Gold.

Mugabe has in the past threatened to nationalise British-owned companies. He
has also passed a law compelling foreign-owned companies to cede 51% of
their shares to Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe's total export revenue last year was $1,7-billion, to which mining
contributed $850-million and agriculture $500-million, tobacco exports
accounting for half of this.

Metallon Gold, which owns five gold mines in the country, produced more than
50% of the country's revenue from gold production.

In the last six months of last year, Zimplats, the Zimbabwean arm of South
Africa's Impala Platinum, recorded revenues of $99-million (about
R750-million).

The only answer to Mugabes of the world may be a coup

http://www.star-telegram.com

On July 6: Reminders that not every country is blessed with a political
system like that of the United States
By PAUL COLLIER
Special to The Washington Post

OXFORD, England - The government of Zimbabwe recently ordered foreign aid
groups to halt their operations within its borders, thereby blocking the
food aid that the United Nations funnels through such organizations from
getting to the country's starving people.

Earlier, the government of Myanmar issued a similar ban. Of course, when we
say "the government of Zimbabwe," what we really mean is President Robert
Mugabe, just as "the government of Myanmar" these days means Senior Gen.
Than Shwe, the leader of the ruling junta. In justifying the bans, each
ruler harrumphed that outsiders should not be allowed to tell his nation
what to do.

But the real obstacle blocking international food aid is not the principle
of national sovereignty; it is the insistence of dictators on being left to
call their own shots. Mugabe decided that his citizens were better dead than
fed; his nation had no part in the decision.

This murderous outrage reminds us of a central problem in trying to help
ease the misery of the developing world, especially the "bottom billion"
inhabitants of countries being left behind by global prosperity: Leaders in
such sad little states as Zimbabwe and Myanmar are quite ridiculously
powerful. They have turned parliament, the news media and the judiciary into
mere implementers of their strangling systems of control. But the
extraordinary lack of external restraints on these dictators is poorly
understood.

Many people are still trapped in a politically correct mindset that sees a
strong rich world bullying a weak poor world. The disastrous 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq played straight into this mentality of seeing wealthy
countries as bullies.

Yet the planet's key power imbalance is not between rich and poor; it is
between confident, open governments willing to pool sovereignty to help
their publics and crabbed, defensive governments determined not to give up a
scrap of sovereignty. The former produce prosperity; the latter manufacture
misery.

Compare the powers of Germany's government to those of Zimbabwe's.

The German economy is around 400 times larger than the Zimbabwean. But it is
the Zimbabwean government, not the German, that has independent monetary,
fiscal, trade and migration policies, an independent currency and courts
from which one cannot file international appeals. Like virtually all rich
countries, Germany has learned that there are real advantages to limiting
its own sovereignty and pooling it with neighbors and allies.

But the governments of failing states such as Zimbabwe and Myanmar have
refused to share any sovereignty with anyone. And remember, in these
countries, "government" means the president or other head of state: Mugabe
and Shwe have powers that eclipse those of President Bush, let alone those
of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

So how can the grossly excessive powers of the Mugabes and Shwes of the
world be curtailed? After Iraq, there is no international appetite for using
the threat of military force to pressure thugs. But only military pressure
is likely to be effective; tyrants can almost always shield themselves from
economic sanctions. So there is only one credible counter to dictatorial
power: the country's own army.

Realistically, Mugabe and Shwe can be toppled only by a military coup.

Of course, they are fully aware of this danger, and thus have appointed
their cronies as generals and kept a watchful eye on any potentially
restless junior officers. Such tactics reduce the risk of a coup, but they
cannot eliminate it: On average, there have been two successful coups per
year in the developing world in recent decades.

A truly bad government in a developing country is more likely to be replaced
by a coup than by an election.

I find it a little awkward to be writing in praise, however faint, of coups.
They are unguided missiles, as likely to topple a democracy as a
dictatorship. But there is still something to be said for them.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the international community has taken
the rather simplistic position that armies should stay out of politics. That
view is understandable but premature. Rather than trying to freeze coups out
of the international system, we should try to provide them with a guidance
system.

In contexts such as Zimbabwe and Myanmar, coups should be encouraged because
they are likely to lead to improved governance. (It's hard to imagine things
getting much worse.) The question then becomes how to provide encouragement
for some potentially helpful coups while staying within the bounds of proper
international conduct.

In fact, some basic principles are not that hard to draw. For starters,
governments that have crossed the red line of banning U.N. food aid - a
ghastly breach of any basic contract between the governors and the
governed - should temporarily lose international recognition of their
legitimacy. Ideally, such moves should come from the United Nations itself;
surely banning U.N. help constitutes a breach of rudimentary global
obligations. But realistically, other dictators, worried that they might
wind up in the same boat, would rally to block action at the United Nations,
so we must look elsewhere.

Which brings us to the obvious locus of international action: Europe.

The European Union has a long tradition of setting minimum standards of
political decency for its members, who must protect their minorities and
defend basic rights. A collective E.U. withdrawal of recognition from the
Mugabe or Shwe regimes would be an obvious and modest extension of the
values that underpin the European project.

Making any such suspension of recognition temporary - say, for three
months - would present potential coup plotters within an army with a brief
window of legitimacy. They would know that it was now or never, which could
spur them to act. And even if the loss of recognition did not induce a quick
coup, E.U. recognition would be restored after the three months were up.
This would spare the world the gradual accumulation of a club of
unrecognized regimes, something both problematic and unrealistic.

The scope of the torment in Myanmar and Zimbabwe should be more than enough
of a goad to action. We need to move away from impotent political protest,
but we must also face the severe limitations on our own power. The real
might lies with a dictator's own forces of repression. Our best hope - and
the best hope of suffering citizens - is to turn those very forces against
the men they now protect.

Paul Collier, an economics professor at Oxford University, is the author of
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be
Done About It .

Zimbabwe Vigil Diary - 5th July 2008

A big crowd attended the Vigil to launch our new petition calling on FIFA to
move the World Cup from South Africa in 2010. It reads: "A Petition to the
International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA). With the
deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and the likelihood of unrest spreading
to South Africa we call upon FIFA to move the 2010 World Cup from South
Africa to a safer venue. By the time the World Cup takes place President
Mbeki's support of the Mugabe regime will have made the whole region unsafe
because millions more refugees will flee Zimbabwe prompting further
xenophobic violence in neighbouring countries. FIFA must ensure that World
Cup teams and their supporters are not endangered."

People queued up to sign the petition, showing the same support as they have
for our other petition, which calls for aid to SADC governments  to be
suspended because of their failure to hold Mugabe to account. For example we
do not see why British taxpayers should give the Malawi government more than
sixty million pounds a year when it supports Mugabe. We suggest that Malawi
asks him for the money. We want the aid that the UK and other countries are
giving to SADC to be used instead to pay for refugee camps in the countries
bordering Zimbabwe so that those forced to flee the country can find food
and medical attention in safety.

We were joined by the Reverend Canon Nicholas Sagovsky of Westminster Abbey
who invited us to a service 'Restore Zimbabwe' led by the Archbishop of
York, John Sentamu, on Friday 11th July at 12 noon at St Margaret's Church,
Parliament Square, Westminster. It will be followed by a rally 'Free UK
Zimbabweans from Limbo!' at 1.30 and a walk to the nearby Home Office
(Ministry of Internal Affairs). The event is being organised by the group
'Strangers into Citizens' who are calling on the Home Office to allow
Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK to be able to work and have access to
training (www.londoncitizens.org).

People might have the impression that the British are united in their
attitude to Zimbabwe but we must draw attention to the latest edition (30th
June) of the best-selling black newspaper in the UK, 'New Nation'. The front
page lead was "Second War of Liberation. Black Brits ready to fight for
Mugabe against Western Military". Website: www.newnation.co.uk. The Mugabe
people are out in force in the UK and their propaganda is quite effective,
particularly among the Afro-Caribbean community. However we are pleased to
note that a pan-African campaign has been launched calling for vigils
outside Zimbabwean Embassies continent-wide next Saturday.

We welcomed the Zimbabwean actress Ulla Mahaka and her partner Mike Auret
(son of Mike Auret, the former MDC MP). They live in the UK but say their
votes were hijacked in the election. Ulla's uncle Gideon Mahaka was a
well-known fighter in the liberation war and her father, Solomon, was an
ambassador.  Ulla was one of the stars of the film "Flame" about two young
female liberation fighters.  Many at the Vigil recognised her.

We were sorry to hear from supporter Pauline Mushangwe that her uncle has
died after being severely beaten by Zanu-PF thugs in Masvingo. He had head
wounds which were not treated.   We were impressed that Irene Muswaka, a
faithful supporter,  came to the Vigil  fresh from hospital after an
operation yesterday.

We have been asked by another supporter to join in collective thought and
prayer at 12 noon UK time on Monday 7th July (the anniversary of the London
bombings) for a minute to focus on the eradication of terror in Zimbabwe and
the restoration of peace.

MPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT.  We have a new page on the website for reports from
our partner organisation, Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR).
They speak from the ground in Zimbabwe. We will post any reports they send
us on this page.

For latest Vigil pictures check:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/.

FOR THE RECORD: 161 signed the register.

FOR YOUR DIARY:
·    'Restore Zimbabwe' Service and 'Free UK Zimbabweans from Limbo!'
Rally and Walk. Friday 11th July from 11.30 am - 2.30 pm. 12 noon: service
at St Margaret's Church, Parliament Square, Westminster led by the
Archbishop of York, John Sentamu. 1.30 pm: rally 'Free UK Zimbabweans from
Limbo!' at 1.30 and a walk to the Home Office. The event is being organised
by the group 'Strangers into Citizens' who are calling on the Home Office to
allow Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK to be able to work and have access
to training. www.londoncitizens.org.
·    Shona / Ndebele Mass in Southwark.   Sunday 13th July at 6.30 pm,
Southwark Cathedral will be holding a special Eucharist for the Zimbabwean
community in the Shona and Ndebele languages with a Zimbabwean choir.
·   Next Glasgow Vigil. Saturday 19th July, 2 - 6 pm Venue: Argyle
Street Precinct. For more information contact: Ancilla Chifamba, 07770 291
150, Patrick Dzimba, 07990 724 137 or Jonathan Chireka, 07504 724 471.
·   Zimbabwe Association's Women's Weekly Drop-in Centre. Fridays
10.30 am - 4 pm. Venue: The Fire Station Community and ICT Centre, 84 Mayton
Street, London N7 6QT, Tel: 020 7607 9764. Nearest underground: Finsbury
Park. For more information contact the Zimbabwe Association 020 7549 0355
(open Tuesdays and Thursdays).

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 by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.

Military Option Not Likely In Zimbabwe

VOA

By Akwei Thompson
Washington, DC
06 July 2008

South African President Thabo Mbeki has held talks in Harare with Zimbabwe's
President Robert Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway
opposition faction. Mr Mbeki, the chief regional negotiator on the Zimbabwe
crisis, has been trying to persuade Mr Mugabe to form a government of
national unity. However, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition
party, declined to meet Mr Mbeki. Before Saturday's meeting VOA's Akwei
Thompson spoke with John Makumbe, senior lecturer of political science at
the University of Zimbabwe the country's political future.

Makumbe said that, technically, President Mugabe will rule Zimbabwe for the
next five years, however, "it will be interesting to see how he rules this
country with an illegitimate presidency that he has acquired " he added.

On the issue of negotiations for a possible unity government in Zimbabwe
Makumbe said that would be possible only if the conditions laid down by the
Movement for Democratic change are met.

"Their members who are in prison should be released. The violence should
stop and the military bases that have been set up throughout the country
should be dismantled and the charges that are being faced by all MDC
supporters and members should be dropped. Then I think the MDC will be
willing to talk to Robert Mugabe as President of ZANU-PF, but not as
President of Zimbabwe." Makumbe said.

He went on to say that if the AU and SADC want a government of national
unity they would have to mediate between the MDC and ZANU_PF. He said while
sanctions against Mugabe's government may be effective, a military option is
very unlikely.

Sec. Rice Interview w/ Judy Woodruff, Bloomberg TV

     Extract:

Monday, 7 July 2008, 7:28 am
Press Release: US State Department

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
July 1, 2008

QUESTION: Well, we know the Chinese continue to supply arms, among others,
to the repressive Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe. If the Chinese are not
going to change their policies on an issue as clear cut as that one, do you
think they can be expected to cooperate on these other issues?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I wouldn't say that the Chinese are not changing some
of their policies. They've been somewhat more helpful on Darfur, pressuring
the regime there. Not as much as we would like, but they've been better than
they had been. We talked about Zimbabwe and we talked about the fact that an
arms shipment that was to go to the Zimbabwean Government was turned around
because people refused to offload it. I think that was actually something of
an embarrassment for the Chinese, and I found them on Zimbabwe recognizing
that the international community, even many African states, are condemning
what Mugabe is doing.

Imperialism no longer a shield for the dictator

http://www.hararetribune.com

By Godwin Murunga | Harare Tribune Contibutor
July 6, 2008 12:38
opinion@hararetribune.com

The red flag one is most likely to be confronted with for criticising
the thoroughly illegitimate leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, is
imperialism and racism.

If you are an African criticising Mugabe, you are likely to be accused
of being guilty of working in cahoots with racist-imperialists.

The names of George Bush, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are consequently
spoken of in the same breath with those of proven and uncompromising critics
of imperialism like Horace Campbell (author of Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The
Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation, 2003) run the risk of
being lumped together with pro-imperialism because they dared criticise
Mugabe. In other words, one is guilty of racist imperialism by the simple
fact of voicing a demand for democracy in Zimbabwe, which Mugabe has avidly
abrogated.

Unfortunately, the people who tend to raise the race/imperialism flag,
especially on the list-serves, tend not to be Zimbabweans. Like me, most do
not have a serious radical and revolutionary record and connection to the
country. They are actually late entrants into the anti-racism and
anti-imperialism hall of fame.

Since they hardly have any serious connection to Zimbabwe, they may
not understand the plight of the average Zimbabwean who has to deal with the
daily consequences of a ravaged economy and a dictatorial regime.

The tragedy is that they have transformed the debate on Zimbabwe to a
shouting match between pro-imperialism and anti-imperialism with little
regard to what is the more crucial thing; the reality of dreams deferred for
average people in Zimbabwe due largely to autocracy and mismanagement.

THIS CLAIM OF DEFERRED DRE-ams for average Zimbabweans is countered by
the exaggerated and misleading assumption that the West is responsible for
the collapsing economy in Zimbabwe.

Others, like the editors at New Africa, used to rely on the excuse of
the drought that ravaged the region. They argued that all would be well once
the drought is over.

The first argument regarding the culpability of the West is partially
true and many have expended enough energy dissecting it. But the argument is
only partially valid! The argument about the drought was shortsighted
because it was temporary. The time for a reality check has come and gone and
Mugabe has failed to acquit himself.

Let me start with a brief anecdote that recently brought home the
tragedy of Zimbabwe under Mugabe. I was asked to speak at the Africa
Liberation Day celebrations last month at the same venue where our Samuel
Kivuitu and his Electoral Commission of Kenya commissioners bungled the
Kenyan election. I spoke generally about getting the basics right in
developing an African Union government.

I emphasised the need for Africans to be able to freely move across
the continent. Somewhere in my argument, I mentioned the then ongoing
xenophobic attacks in South Africa. I also noted how Mugabe learned from and
benefited from the pan-African vision.

I was not forceful enough in taking a critical stand on xenophobia and
dictatorship. In the audience were two keen observers who pointed out my
rather lukewarm interest in these two issues.

One of them, a Zimbabwean, was very eloquent about the atrocious
Mugabe ways. He claimed to have resisted British colonialism and was met
with violent reprisals. He also claimed to have opposed Ian Smith's white
minority rule and was met with violent reprisals.

HE NOW CLAIMS TO BE OPPOSED to Mugabe's dictatorship and has been met
by violent retaliation. In both instances, he observed, the reactions to his
resistance have been similar and they have included brutal police responses
leading to torture, maiming and political murders. He concluded by arguing
that all he would have expected was that Mugabe's response should have been
different.

I use this anecdote to re-centre the plight of Zimbabweans in the
discussion on Mugabe. To my mind, a different and better way of framing the
Zimbabwean problem is to ask whether anti-racism and anti-imperialism are
incompatible with pro-democracy and pro-development.

In other words, is it possible to be against the machinations of
George Bush, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and still expect and demand that
African leaders remain democratic, ensure development and social
inclusivity?

My answer to this question is affirmative. It is also my reason why
Mugabe deserves to be chastised and dismissed as a first step to
constructing a different future for Zimbabwe.

As of last year, I was willing to cut Mugabe some slack on the issue
of anti-imperialism. As of this year, and especially following the
just-ended electoral fraud of which (I think) Tsvangirai is partly
responsible, I will have none of his manipulation of anti-imperialism to
drive Zimbabwe down.

First, Mugabe's big failure has been his inability to effectively use
the severing of relations with the West to institute some forms of
autonomous development for Zimbabwe.  Zimbabwe, indeed Africa, deserves
autonomy from the West.

Those who shout anti-imperialism hardly remember that sanctions
constituted a golden opportunity for Mugabe to show the dreaded West that
without foreign aid, Zimbabwe could still remain a shinning example in the
middle of Africa of how to prosper without dependency on the West.

Instead, what we have is hyper-inflation and dictatorship of the
highest order. Rather than protect citizens, Mugabe's regime has become the
chief perpetrator of human-rights abuses against citizens, in some instances
hiring thugs to abuse basic citizen rights.

MANY OF THOSE WHO SHOUT IMP-erialism to critics of Mugabe will also
write paying glowingly tribute to Fidel Castro. It is lost to most of them
that Castro faced similar sanctions like Mugabe from the West but has
acquitted himself with credit in Cuba.

He took advantage of the US-led sanctions to install a form of
leadership that may not be democratic in the manner in which imperialists
expect but in which all social indicators suggest that Cubans enjoy better
education and medical services than many so-called developed Western
countries.

Land reform was crucial for Cuba and Castro did not carry out land
reform in the inequitable manner in which Mugabe has. These indicators and
the social inclusivity involved have vindicated Castro and endeared him to
all of us.

What does Mugabe have to show?

All he has misleadingly managed to illustrate is that dependency on
the West is critical to survival of the Zimbabwean economy. This is what
makes Gordon Brown feel vindicated to arrogantly lecture us on democracy.
The US and others cannot evince a similar sense of vindication towards Cuba
because Castro's success has been a good lesson.

Secondly, and here I am using discussions I recently had with my
colleague Jimi Adesina of Rhodes University, Zimbabwe had capacity for
independent economic development in the mineral commodity boom which
counter-balanced the decline of white commercial farming.

If Zimbabwe lost its foreign exchange earnings from commercial
farming, it gained in mining. Less than a week ago, Anglo-American was
defending investing $400 million in platinum mining in Zimbabwe.

WHAT CAN MUGABE SHOW FOR the mineral wealth? Consistency is part of
the deal and Mugabe should not just be anti-imperialist when talking about
Blair and Brown and not when dealing with a London-based miner like Anglo
American!

Other than counter-balancing foreign exchange loss from commercial
farming, shouldn't earnings from the mining boom have been used to
significantly improve food security in Zimbabwe? After all, commercial
farming has never sufficiently supplied Zimbabwe with subsistence needs.

The country has historically depended on small-scale African
cultivators for food. As Adesina notes, "while agricultural tradables
depended on the white commercial farmers, food production in Zimbabwe had
always depended on small-scale African cultivators or agriculturalists.

The claim of drought does not explain why Malawi, in the same
geographical zone, is fully back with food surplus and Zimbabwe is not. The
claim of sanction also does not help, since these are small-scale
cultivators rather than combine harvester cultivators.

And the re-appropriation of land is from white settlers cannot explain
the crisis of food production." It is about mismanagement and the excessive
avarice of the elite around Mugabe.

Adesina's argument is by far more solid than a thousand red flags by
newfound anti-imperialists who do not seem to appreciate how demeaning and
dehumanizing life has become for Zimbabweans forced to cross borders into
neighbouring countries that are unwilling to host them.

In such places, they are derogatorily referred to as "the Zimbabweans"
and, in other instances, have become targets of xenophobia in many Southern
African states. When the name of your country is reduced to a derogatory
reference and your self-confidence demeaned, that is obviously very
dehumanizing experience.

THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WAX lyrical about racist imperialism come from
countries where foreigner from Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have
historically been haunted  and repatriated into refugee camps and where few
of us are willing to stand up and be counted for this basic denials of human
rights.

The late Archie Mafeje reminded all who cared to listen that it was
never the intention of African nationalism to replace imperialism with
dictatorships and mediocrity. African nationalism aspired for higher goals.

Pan-Africanism was never about defending mediocre leaders just because
they were black. Nationalist African leaders needed to be better, not the
same or worse, than the imperialist. They needed to guarantee freedom based
on democracy, economic growth and social inclusivity. Robert Mugabe has
failed on all these tests.

Vote rigging - we got it right

Zmbabwe Today

How new film backs up our claims of organised Zanu-PF corruption

Video evidence currently being broadcast on western media, shows members of
the Zimbabwe prison service being officially supervised as they vote for
Robert Mugabe well in advance of the recent presidential run-off poll. The
film serves to verify our reports of the practice published here a month
ago.

On June 11 this blog, under the headline "It hasn't begun - but Mugabe is
winning!" reported that "thousands of police and associated uniformed thugs"
had been lined up by their officers, presented with postal voting slips, and
ordered to put their mark against Mugabe's name.

We quoted a source within the police as saying that Senior Assistant
Commissioner Lee Muchemwa "told us we would vote for Mugabe whether we liked
it or not. We voted in front of the Police Internal Security Intelligence
(PISI), who checked our ballot papers."

The process was carried out at that early date to avoid any scrutiny by
outside observers, who had yet to arrive in the country. It was also
conducted without the presence of any officials from the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission.

The new video, taken with a hidden camera by a member of the prison service,
confirms that the practice was widespread amongst all sections of the
military, the militia, and the security services, and undoubtedly helped to
give Mugabe his huge majority in the sham election.

In my report at the time I quoted Assistant Police Commissioner Nyakutsika,
who made this striking forecast in front of his men: "Even if you tell the
foreign press, even if you tell the western governments, we do not care.
They will do nothing."

As I said then, and as I say again now, he's got that right.

Posted on Sunday, 06 July 2008 at 07:30

"We are ready to help"

l'express, Mauritius

By Louis Michel, European Commissioner
for Development and Humanitarian Aid

This week, Mugabe fired a shot at the international community saying
its members « could shout as loud as they like » but that it wouldn't make a
blind bit of differen-ce to election plans in the country since it was for
the people to decide.

It is very unnerving to find myself agreeing, even if it is just in
part, with Robert Mugabe.

Democracy is indeed the voice of the people being heard and respected.
It's just that Mugabe has chosen to muffle that democratic voice.

Let's not forget that Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the
first round of elections back in late March. Mugabe and his cronies may like
to think that such a resounding call for change can just be forgotten amid
the chaos and bloody terror of present day Zimbabwe - but it cannot. The
people of Zimbabwe will not forget. We will not forget. Saturday March 29th
marked the first day of the end of this regime. Mugabe's posturing as a hero
of anti-colonialism which once earned him some popularity in Zimbabwe and
throughout Africa is fooling no-one anymore. The African voices of democracy
and justice are being heard.

And let me also calmly point out to Mr Mugabe that the international
community has no need to shout because the truth can be heard even when it's
a whisper.

The truth is that the international community will continue to stand
united with the people of Zimbabwe with actions and not just words. The
ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe want and need the international community to
maintain the pressure on Mugabe and his cronies.

One of the clearest signals of our intentions to do so would be to
publicly commit to a post-Mugabe assistance plan in union with our African
partners.

Of course, there are several scenarios that could play out including
that of so-me form of transitional government. When that time for change
comes, which I hope is sooner rather than later, the only guarantee is that
any future legitimate government will face an incredibly daunting task of
rebuilding a state that has been brought to its knees following years of
neglect. Mil-lions of people are on the brink of starvation - a situation
made worse by Mugabe's recent decision to prevent European Commission
life-saving humanitarian aid from being distributed. The economy is gasping
for its last breath. The inflation rate is out of control, unemployment is
the norm rather than the exception. And despite all this, I sincerely
believe Zim-babwe has the potential to recover from this crisis as long as
Africa, Euro-pe and the rest of the international community stand at the
ready.

The European Commission, on behalf of the EU, is the most important
donor towards the people of Zimbabwe providing more than 90 million euros in
aid last year that targeted areas from emergency food aid to basic needs in
the health and education sectors.

Let me, here and now, assure the citizens of Zimbabwe that we are
ready to help when change comes - no matter what it takes.

Within the framework of the European Development Fund, the European
Com-mission stands ready with at least 250 million euros available to assist
in the stabilization of the country. This funding could focus on supporting
hospitals, schools or on the farming sector that was once the pride of the
nation. Of course, we would work with our partners within SADC and the
African Union to identify other key areas of the economy needing our
financial, structural and programmed support. One key area will be ensuring
significant debt-relief to free any incoming and legitimate government of
the massive debts accumulated by the Mugabe regime. These are just some of
the practical reasons why I would encourage the rest of the international
donor community to make it clear today that it is ready to provide
substantial and immediate assistance to Zimbabwe in the wake of a transition
towards democracy.

But there is a much more fundamental and politically rooted reason
that the international community must continue to signal its solidarity
towards the citizens of Zimbabwe. Right now, the people on the streets of
Harare or in the countryside need to know that there is a vision for their
future and that any transitional government will get the support that it
would so inevitably need. These ordinary people need to know that their
lives can get better once again. These people need hope.

Such open declarations may also just help to rekindle a spirit of
belief among Mugabe supporters that there is an alternative to the brutal
violence being inflicted on their fellow men and women. In short, even they
may once again be able to believe that they can be part of building a
brighter future for their country.

As Zimbabwe lies battered and bruised from the fist of Mugabe, the
country must know that it is surrounded by friends ready to come to its aid
: whether from the region of SADC, across the African Union or, of course,
here in Europe.

It is essential that we keep repeating our message of reassurance and
support during this and democratic and economic coma for Zimbabwe.

And I'd remind Mr Mugabe, that we've no need to shout because even
with the country in such a desperate state, the truth reaches the people.
The truth is that the international community is ready for action with any
future legitimate government.

And it's exactly this kind of positive message - one of hope for
change, hope for a better life - that Mugabe fears the most.

Nat Hentoff: As Mugabe murders, world shrugs

Billings Gazette

Published on Sunday, July 06, 2008

By NAT HENTOFF

Voting early on the morning of Election Day in Zimbabwe, the only candidate,
Robert Mugabe, smiling broadly, said he was "happy and hungry for victory."
In his wake are the corpses of at least 80 members of the Movement for
Democratic Change and thousands of tortured and beaten opposition
Zimbabweans. Among them - seen on the front page of the June 26 New York
Times - is an 11-month-old boy whose legs were shattered by the "Green
Bombers," Mugabe's youth militia.

Following Mugabe's Stalinesque triumph, the U.N. Security Council expressed
"deep regrets" that the election was conducted "in these circumstances."
That language would have been a tad more critical, but South Africa, not
wanting to hurt Mugabe's feelings, objected to describing the elections as
"illegitimate."

On the very day before, hospitals in Harare, the capital, were overflowing,
as there weren't enough doctors. Some hospitals, responding to threats by
the military, refused to take any more victims of torture.

Not at all surprisingly, the U.N. Human Rights Council has yet to even put
on its agenda Mugabe's extended version of the Nazis' Kristillnacht that
presaged the Holocaust, when the world also declined to intervene.

As the June 25 Times of London reported, Mugabe the Liberator of his country
crowed: "Other people can say what they want, but the elections are ours. We
are a sovereign state, and that is it."

The United Nations insists that the sovereignty of its members - even those
who terrorize their own people - is inviolable. Savoring that guarantee,
Mugabe declared during his solo "campaign": "We will not accept any meddling
in Zimbabwe's internal affairs, even from fellow Africans."

Horrific suffering
Among the millions of Zimbabweans abandoned by the world are the survivors -
in Chitungwiza, 18 miles south of Harare - of an attack on a home that was a
refuge for Movement for Democratic Change members. Said one of them,
57-year-old Georgina Nyamutsamba, in a June 27 Washington Post report:
"There are so many boys buried in (nearby) Warren Hills Cemetery, killed by
Mugabe. Please help us suffering in Zimbabwe. What can we do?"

One of the owners of that refuge, Annastasia Chipiyo, has given up any hope
of deliverance from Zimbabwe's Liberator. She says: "I have nothing to fear.
I've just lost my son" - one of the four murdered in the June 17 attack on
her home. She has nothing left to lose. Untold numbers of Zimbabweans are
also frozen in hopelessness.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, withdrew
from the runoff election because he did not want to add to the broken bodies
of his supporters, saying in the June 25 The Guardian newspaper in London:
"Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid."

Tsvangirai has called on the United Nations to send peacekeepers to
Mugabeland to clear the way for the new elections so that he could campaign
as a "legitimate candidate," for whom Zimbabweans can vote without putting
their very lives in danger.

But if the United Nations were to do more than express "deep regrets" and
only impose more economic sanctions on Mugabe and his primary accomplices,
that would hardly cause fear in the Hitler of Africa. Though well-intended,
Queen Elizabeth's ruling on June 25 to strip Mugabe of his 1994 knighthood -
Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Bath - must have been derisively received
by the cashiered knight. You think he cares?

Sarah Childress of the Wall Street Journal has been covering this satanic
"election" - one that has shamed Africa and the world - with consistent
accuracy. "Mr. Mugabe," she wrote on June 26, "has long disregarded what the
world thinks of him. Unless Mr. Mugabe is pressured by his African
counterparts, there is apparently little diplomats can do to sway him."

An African response?
Will the African Union expel Zimbabwe, as Mugabe is strangling that nation?
What actions will now be taken by the Southern African Development
Community, which Childress describes as "the most powerful international
(economic) actor in Zimbabwe's drama"?

How about military intervention, if all else fails, by Zimbabwe's African
leaders, an increasing number of whom are dismayed and repelled by Mugabe's
literally getting away with murder? Even the revered Nelson Mandela had, at
long last, conquered his acute desire not to criticize another former
freedom-fighter against European colonizers. (The white rulers of Rhodesia
kept Mugabe in prison for 10 years before he was out, and Rhodesia became
Zimbabwe.)

Celebrating his 90th birthday at a dinner in London, Mandela faced the
naked, barbaric truth, and said there is "a tragic failure of leadership" in
Zimbabwe. He didn't speak the dreaded name, but the message was clear. Maybe
Mugabe, on hearing Mandela's irreverence, shrugged.

To be continued: Are there specific, realizable answers to Zimbabwean
Georgina Nyamutsamba, mourning "so many boys buried ... killed by Mugabe"?

"What can we do?" she asks. Will there be no reply except more deep
regrets - and the impossibility of first having to get permission from U.N.
Security Council members China and Russia to actually intervene with armed
forces?

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and
the Bill of Rights and author of many books, including "The War on the Bill
of Rights and the Gathering Resistance" (Seven Stories Press, 2004).

Stay up, Zimbabwe!

	Selwyn Ryan Sunday, July 6th 2008

Brother Valentino, the Mighty Duke, Bob Marley (if he were alive), and others who sang their hearts out in support of Zimbabwe and the anti-colonial struggle in Southern Africa, must be wondering what ever happened to their dream. Why has the fulfillment of their dream been deferred? Is it merely that we are dealing with a mad or a power crazed man? Many African leaders have betrayed the African people on the continent and in the diaspora. There was much posturing and shouting about African unity and African socialism, but behind the rhetoric, there was a great deal of political fakery and fraud. Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who Amnesty International listed among the 10 most unsavoury political characters of our time, is the most recent of them. How did Mugabe happen? How do well meaning leaders become evil? The Zimbabwean problem has a sordid history and a demographic reality which one needs to know a little about in order to make balanced judgements about what is happening today. Zimbabwe is sharply divided between two tribes, the Shonas, the numerically dominant group which occupied Mashonal and the Ndebeles who occupied Matabeleland The groups, which were historic rivals, were fused into a unitary state by the colonial settlers who were playing one group off against the other in the old game of divide and rule. Rivalries between the Zimbabwe African Peoples Party (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was destabilising the new state of Zimbabwe which became independent in April 1980. It was in this context that Mugabe, a Shona, forged coalitional links with the Ndebeles led by Joshua Nkomo, his rival for the leadership. Mugabe, a prison and a university graduate who projected himself as a militant radical Marxist, also sought to appease the settler community by adopting a gradualist approach to the economy, much of which was left virtually intact. The critical land issue was also put on ice. These policies did not, however, defuse the demographic and political crises that continued to simmer. Mugabe saw seditious ghosts on every shamba. He accused the settlers of conspiring to engineer his overthrow by encouraging elements in the army, which was still led by a white officer, to assassinate him. He also accused ZAPU of instigating guerrilla activity, and of waging a clandestine low intensity civil war in the countryside. The post independence entente collapsed dramatically in 1983 and thousands fled their homes. Many also died and were secretly buried in mass graves. Fearing for his own life, Nkomo fled to the United Kingdom from where he accused Mugabe of ethnic cleansing and generally of seeking to create a Shona-based ethnic state. Zimbabwe, the Ndebeles noted, was a Shona word which had no historical significance for the Shona people. The rivalry between Mugabe and Nkomo was at bottom a struggle between two ethnic groups struggling for political dominance and cultural hegemony and the struggle continues. The current opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is a successor to ZAPU. Its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is a Ndebele. Thus, when Mugabe and his supporters in the ruling party and the army stubbornly refuse to give up power, they do so because that would involve handing over power to a traditional rival. Western analysts judge political systems as being democratic or not in terms of whether elections are free and fair and whether there is turnover when the results are declared. Turnover is the litmus test of Western liberal democracy. In Africa and in other ethnically-based states such as Guyana, one cheats openly in order to stay in power. Turnover involves not merely changing a leader, a government or a political party. One is also changing a tribally-based regime that is rooted in the misty part. The land issue is also critical to an understanding of the dynamics of political succession in Zimbabwe. Prior to Mugabe,s land grab, one per cent of the population controlled 70 per cent of the arable land. Understandably, Mugabe believes that it was his historic responsibility to right that wrong, both symbolically and economically. What is in question is the method used to effect that correction. According to one narrative, Mugabe provoked the current economic crisis when he openly supported the seizure of lands without the payment of compensation. This served to precipitate a major food and currency crisis in Zimbabwe since it led to an accelerated exodus of white farmers from a country that was once known as the bread basket of southern Africa. The seizure of land also served to internationalise the issue in that it brought the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union, and the American and British governments on to the negotiating table. Britain refused to accept liability for compensating the settlers. The claim was that no one was occupying the land when the settlers came, and that they made no promise of compensation at the Lancaster House independence conference. Economic collapse was the by-product of Mugabe's economic adventurism, but so were the harsh fiscal measures that were taken by the American and British governments and the international agencies which they controlled. Mugabe destroyed his own credibility by presiding over a Shona land grab, notwithstanding much talk about "one man, one farm" and the land being the "birthright of the sons and daughters of Zimbabwe, regardless of race or class," There was no transparency and most of the land ended up in the hands of so called "war veterans", most of whom never saw any "battle." Zimbabwe is now at an impasse and the victims are Zimbabweans of all ethnicities. One is very concerned about collateral damage that the Western Alliance would inflict if it tightens the rope around Mugabe's neck. Africa is also at an impasse. Like Mbeki, many African leaders are embarrassed by Mugabe's unacceptable political behaviour, but they know that they too have cheated electorally and done much more to stay in power. They also know that many dispossessed and landless blacks are still chanting "Stay up Zimbabwe," even if to another tune.

A Eulogy for Democracy in Zimbabwe