2010 07 02
Written by Staff Reporter
Friday, 02 July 2010 08:23
Here in Shamva, we are being barred
from saying out our views and ideas for inclusion in the new constitution.
Village heads have told us that they alone shall speak on behalf of everyone
during public consultation meetings. Disappointed.
Let us not be cowed by these Zanu
(PF) cowards, let’s defy their intimidation messages and go ahead to write a
constitution ine zvido zvedu (that contains our views and wishes). Anonymous
I am appealing to all Zimbabweans to
push for inclusion in the new constitution the following issues that affect us
all: a bill of children and women’s rights, limited presidential powers and a
cap on presidential terms to a maximum of two, press freedom, dual citizenship
and a review of marriage and inheritance laws. Anonymous.
How can we write a people centred
constitution when Zanu (PF) has unleashed chaos here ?.
Civic society bodies should monitor
the outreach exercise and produce a report before the referendum so that we
know whether to vote yes or no. Chirandu, Murehwa.
Thanks to The Zimbabwean on Sunday
for providing a platform where we can discuss issues that concern us, I would
like to share my opinion with the rest of Zimbabwe that we should resist trying
to write a constitution to suit an individual like Zanu (PF) is doing.
We have seen Zanu (PF) campaigning
for inclusion in the constitution of clauses designed to protect President
Robert Mugabe seemingly forgetting that Mugabe is mortal like all of us. He
will die one day and a constitution needs to live forever.
Anonymous.
Massive graft hits Harare council
2010 07 04
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-07-04-massive-graft-hits-harare-council
MOSES MATENGA
Jul 04 2010 11:41
Cases of massive corruption have hit
the city of Harare where reports of theft, forgery and alleged “recycling” of
workers facing criminal charges or disciplinary action are said to be on the
increase at the scandal ridden municipality.
The city fathers on Tuesday said
they noted with concern growing cases of corruption within the council,
especially in their schools, clinics and municipal controlled markets.
Irate councillors charged at a full
council meeting this week that Town House had developed into a ‘paper tiger’
while council meetings had been reduced into “talk-shops” and criminal activity
were also rampant.
“Many cases of corruption are being
uncovered but no arrests are being made. It is surprising that we continue to
lose a lot of money but we remain quiet,” said one councillor who declined to
be named.
Cases of theft discussed included
that of a bursar in Highfield who stole $ 11 000.
The bursar, according to
councillors, was said to have been arrested but was recently seen at work in
another department within the city council.
“Cases of theft in the city are
increasing but the culprits are being let scot-free. There are two cases in
Kuwadzana involving two workers but the workers now work at the head office. We
need change in this august house. Change is needed in council,” said councillor
Herbert Gomba.
Councillor Peter Moyo said: “We’re
dealing with politicians and not professional people in this council and we are
losing on technicality.”
The full council meeting further
heard of two cases in Kuwadzana where employees who stole money from council
coffers were transferred to the head office.
Other related cases of corruption
reports include suspicions of counterfeit maternity receipt books in the city’s
health department.
Council resolved that the Director
of Housing and Community Services, Psychology Chiwanga, should take
disciplinary action against council employees and that criminal cases be
reported to the police.
The cash-strapped Harare City
Council is facing difficulties paying its employees and in other instances
workers had been paid salaries as late as mid-month. Council officials blame
this on lack of revenue because residents were resisting to pay rates citing
poor delivery service.
Other councillors blamed this on
corrupt officials working in schools and those tasked to collect revenue from
council- controlled markets.
2010 07 04
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-07-04-joshua-nkomo-family-to-speak-out
LOUGHTY DUBE
Jul 04 2010 11:36
Joshua Nkomo’s family is expected to
speak out today on the raging debate over the erection of a statue of the late
Father Zimbabwe at Karigamombe Centre in Harare as rumblings grow louder over
government’s inaction to hold a commemoration in honour of the country’s
national hero.
Nkomo’s daughter, Thandiwe Nkomo,
said she would grant Newsday an interview today to clear the air on the furore
created after the announcement that Nkomo’s statue would be erected at
Karigamombe Centre.
Political activists, civic society
groups and residents in Bulawayo reacted angrily to the reports and said plans
to erect the statue at Karigamombe Centre were a big insult to Nkomo and the
region.
The furore over the statue comes a
few days after commemorations of Nkomo’s death, with those that worked with him
during the liberation struggle saying he was being disrespected.
Thandiwe told Newsday she would not
answer questions on the matter over the telephone but promised to speak to this
newspaper today on the sidelines of a commemoration for Nkomo expected to be
held in Bulawayo.
“I cannot answer your concerns over
the phone but I will grant your paper an interview tomorrow if you come for the
commemorations,” Thandiwe said.
Nkomo’s nephew Dumisani Nkomo, said
the decision to erect the late Father Zimbabwe’s statue at the former
Piccadilly Centre was an insult to the family.
“The decision would be interpreted
as an insult to the family especially when one looks at the history of what
Karigamombe stands for,” Nkomo said.
Family sources said the family would
make their position public at Amakhosi cultural centre where Nkomo’s
commemorations would be held today.
Those that worked with Nkomo were
seething with anger over the way the nationalist has been treated.
Former ZIPRA intelligence supremo
and interim president for the revived Zapu, Dumiso Dabengwa said: “There was a
lot of confusion over the celebration of Nkomo’s life and it is not fair and
very hurting that a person of Nkomo’s standing in society could be remembered
in a confused way. One does hope that in future there would be better
co-ordination of the event.”
He said commemorations in Zimbabwe
were led by Friends of Joshua Nkomo, a trust formed to preserve his works,
while there was no visible effort from government this year.
“The fact that they did not even
hold a gala for Nkomo reflects the disrespect that the government has for
Nkomo. He was a great man and he deserves to be treated much better than this,”
he said.
He said the issue of erecting
Nkomo’s statue was discussed long ago but nothing concrete came out of the
meetings.
“Nkomo’s statue was supposed to be
erected a long time ago in Bulawayo and Harare. In Bulawayo a street was identified
but the previous Zanu PF government did not act on the resolutions made. These
delays are trivialising the sacrifice Nkomo made for the liberation of
Zimbabwe,” Dabengwa said.
Joshua Nkomo Foundation Trustee,
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, a Zanu PF politburo member expressed dismay at the low key
commemorations across the country.
“This is disheartening, a man of the
stature of Nkomo really deserves better than what is happening right now and
more should be done in future to adequately honour him,” Ndlovu said.
“It would be one of the biggest
blunders to put that statue there (Karigamombe Centre) if it is to be put there
at all. So there is need for consensus when honouring a great man like Nkomo,”
Plans by the Harare city council to erect the statue to honour Nkomo have
caused ructions in Matabeleland region.
Karigamombe means one who takes the
bull by the horns, and is associated with President Mugabe’s family.
Nkomo used a charging bull as his
party symbol while President Mugabe used a cockerel.
2010 07 04
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-07-04-maguwu-threatened-with-two-years-in-remand-prison
CHARLES LAITON
Jul 04 2010 11:47
An investigating officer in the high
profile case of incarcerated human rights activist Farai Maguwu told the court
yesterday that Maguwu could spend the next two years in remand prison without
trial unless the police access “vital” information locked in his laptop.
Maguwu’s laptop is in police hands
but they have since failed to unlock the access codes.
Detective Inspector Henry Dowa said
it could take them up to two years to complete their investigations as long as
Maguwu did not cooperate.
The state successfully argued that
Maguwu could not be granted bail before police investigations were complete.
But Maguwu’s legal counsel, led by
prominent Harare lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa immediately challenged Dowa’s
conditions for Maguwu’s release.
She reminded him that her client
was, according to the law, entitled to remain silent and as such could not be
forced to open files on his laptop.
The state insists that police need
to interview witnesses outside the country but their whereabouts could only be
found through information in Maguwu’s laptop.
Dowa told the court he needed to
locate Tor-Hugne Olsen, Antony Dekker and Gabriel Shumba whom he intended to
interview in connection with the case.
“I need more time to contact Olsen,
Dekker and Shumba but I do not know where they are. Maguwu refused to give me
their addresses and as a result I have engaged Interpol to assist me,” Dowa
said.
Harare Magistrate Donald Ndirowei agreed with the state and denied Maguwu bail saying the defence had not submitted any changed circumstances from the previous bail hearing submissions where the state said there were extraterritorial investigations that needed to be carried out.
He further remanded Maguwu to July
14.
“On June 23 this court found there
were no changed circumstances when the defence made an application for bail and
still today the court finds there is need for the state to be given more time
to carry out extraterritorial investigations. Therefore application for bail is
dismissed,” Ndirowei ruled.
Dowa told the court he had made very
little progress in the investigations and accused the defence of stalling and
frustrating his efforts.
“I have made very little progress in
carrying out investigations because the defence lawyers instructed Maguwu not
to comply with my request to access information from his laptop,” Dowa said.
On Thursday Maguwu accused the state
of dragging its feet saying there was no need for outside investigations since
the document at the centre of the case was originated locally and was in the
possession of the police.
“The prosecution is showing no
urgency at all. They have taken interest in my continued detention and
incarceration,” Maguwu said.
“They have the document which they
allegedly got from (KP monitor Abbey) Chikane and if they want anything from
him they can simply call him on the phone or e-mail him.”
Maguwu, the director of Centre for
Research and Development, denied authoring the document which the state based
its case on. He said he was only aware of a draft document which was taken from
his residence.
“I read the document which was
supposedly written by an officer from the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA)
chronicling the events at Chiadzwa diamond fields,” he said.
Maguwu said the alleged document was
local and the police claimed it was given to them by Chikane.
“They asked me if I had any links
with the ZNA who could have possibly given me the document and I told them I
had none,” he said.
Maguwu told the court that while he
was in police custody he was labelled an economic saboteur, an enemy of the
state working for foreign institutions to destabilise the economy but no such
charges were laid against him.
2010 07 04
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-07-04-coalition-government-fails-to-stem-killings
STAFF WRITER
Jul 04 2010 11:46
The power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe
has failed to stop extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and torture, a new
report on the state of rule of law in Zimbabwe has revealed.
The report titled A Place in the
Sun, was prepared by international legal bodies, the Bar Council, Bar Human
Rights Committee, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Advocates Sans
Frontiers.
It looks at the state of the rule of
law in Zimbabwe since President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s
MDC political parties went into a coalition government in 2008. According to
the report, human rights abuses continue to occur and go uninvestigated by the
authorities.
“The culture of impunity on the part
of the police, army and intelligence services persists.
“The majority of the senior
judiciary are still compromised by state patronage, grants of land and other
inducements,” reads the report.
“And magistrates, the ‘unsung heroes
of recent years, remain subject to threats, intimidation, arrest and
prosecution when their rulings displease the government.”
The report said the law faculty of
the University of Zimbabwe was in a ‘dilapidated state’. “The student body has
been infiltrated by the intelligence service, making it difficult for lecturers
and students to be candid, for fear of reprisals,” the report says.
Authors of the report, however,
praise the dedication of the teaching staff.
“Access to justice is virtually
non-existent, the legal aid system is so starved of funds that the Legal Aid
Directorate is on the ‘verge of collapse’, and there is ‘no properly
articulated or coherent policy’ for addressing failures in the rule of law,” it
said.
The legal bodies urged the
government to allow lawyers to practice “without hindrance, harassment or
intimidation”, to introduce a code of conduct for judges and to end “forthwith”
the culture of impunity by the police and state security forces.
Zim not out of the woods yet
2010 07 04
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article531554.ece/Zim-not-out-of-the-woods-yet
Closing Bell
Jul 4, 2010 12:00 AM
By Zimbabwean Edition
Market analysts have warned that the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange is set to continue its decline, with some arguing it
will take another six years before it regains its place as the second-biggest
bourse in Africa, in terms of listing and market capitalisation, after the JSE.
'Zimbabwean share market continues
to be impervious to positive news'
Analysts said reasons for the
decline included, but were not limited to, the launch of the
constitution-making outreach programme, the Kimberley Process for diamond trade
by Zimbabwe, reshuffling of the cabinet courtesy of Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai's MDC-T, the winding-up of the tobacco-selling season, and
adjustments to the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act.
The slow pace of economic recovery
has also been blamed for the decline. Christopher Takunda Mugaga, head of
research at Econometer Global Capital, said all the above events could have
significantly affected the direction of the ZSE; in other words, the liquidity
situation could have changed either for better or for worse due to such factors.
"Analysis of the market state
had been so skeletal of late, with most pundits limiting the lacklustre
performance of the equities market to the liquidity crunch, not appreciating
that the latter is just an effect of the factors listed above," Mugaga
said.
"The Zimbabwean share market
continues to be impervious to positive news, with the bad news being digested
so easily."
He said when the indigenisation law
was gazetted, the market slumped by 10% to the end of February this year. When
the law was reviewed to promote the employee share ownership scheme, the market
ignored the move.
"At this turn what is driving
the market is more fear than reality," he said. "If reports doing the
rounds are anything to go by, the infighting in MDC-T will definitely pose a serious
threat to the prospects of the ZSE recovering, considering that the involved
parties form the face of the economic agenda at the moment by virtue of them
holding both the treasury and economic planning ministry."
Mugaga argued the market would view
the current move by Tsvangirai in two ways: it is either he genuinely wants to
bring sanity and results to his party's agenda of turning around the economy or
it is a way of silencing dissenting voices.
"The latter will not help the
ZSE if investors are to choose that view. Politics has proven to be a serious
determinant of market direction; once it coughs, the market sneezes
instantly," he said.
When the market opened on January 4,
the industrial index was at 151.99 points, with the mining index rising by 0.92
points to 186.42.
Bindura lost three cents to trade at
22 cents. Now Bindura is trading at 10 cents, which is a 54.55% decline in
stock price from the January value. This is regardless of the firming commodity
prices on the international market.
After opening the year at 151.99
points, the industrial index closed the half year at about 126.92 points, which
translates to a 17% decline in value; the resource index shifted from 185.50 to
142.10, a 12.25% fall.
The ZSE's industrial and mining
indices reached their peak levels at 173.21 and 297.63 points, respectively on
October 22 2009 and June 2 of the same year.
"This means the industrial
index has shed 12.25% for the nine months to date, while the mining index has
lost 52.3% - what an outstanding decline!" Mugaga said.
So what should punters do with their
hard-earned cash ?.
"Go for gold," is the
advice of Ranga Makwata of Tetrad Securities.
The ZSE has two gold mining
counters, namely Falgold and Rio Zim. Rio Zim has the potential to produce
1600kg per year if it can get funding to invest in mine development and plant
refurbishment. It produced only 450kg in 2008. Falgold produced 1088kg in 2000
but production has since declined to 124kg in 2008.
2010 07 03
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article531485.ece/US-blacklists-Mugabe-and-his-friends
Jul 3, 2010 4:05 PM
By SALLY EVANS, ROB ROSE and SIPHO
MASONDO
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
The US Treasury has placed former
Hyundai boss Billy Rautenbach, President Robert Mugabe, and a well-known SA
charity on the latest list of people against whom it has enforced economic
sanctions.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
LISTED: President Robert Mugabe and
his cronies have been blacklisted by the US Treasury
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
The Specially Designated Nationals
(SDN) list is updated by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC).
The Al Aqsa Foundation of SA - which
claims to be Southern Africa's "largest orphan and needy children
sponsorship project for Palestine" - is the latest SA organisation to be
blacklisted for allegedly funding terror.
Pretoria cousins Farhad and Junaid
Dockrat were placed on the list three years ago. The pair, who own a gun shop
in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, remain on the list.
Though they could not be reached for
comment on Friday, they have denied any links to global terror organisations.
Also on the list are Mugabe, his
wife Grace and nephew Leo. Though the reasons for their inclusion are not
clear, Mugabe recently hosted US arch-enemy, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
Rautenbach, who reached a
R40-million plea bargain with South African prosecutors in connection with 326
charges of fraud early this year, was included for his support of Mugabe and
his "large-scale mining projects" in Zimbabwe.
Also included for supporting Mugabe
is the controversial Zimbabwean multimillionaire John Bredenkamp. US Treasury
officials believe he is Mugabe's "crony" and subsidised his regime.
Earlier this year, Bredenkamp was
blocked by US Treasury officials when he tried to sell a golf club in Marion,
Illinois. His company, Breco, has also been blacklisted.
Since the 2001 terror attacks on the
US, thousands of businesses and individuals have been added to the list.
2010 07 04
http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article532131.ece/Mugabe-defies-gem-sales-ban
Jul 4, 2010 12:00 AM
By ZOLI MANGENA
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
and his ministers are preparing to sell the controversial Chiadzwa diamonds
despite the ban of the sale of the "stolen goods" by the
international monitoring body, The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.
Insiders at the Zimbabwe Mining
Development Corporation (ZMDC) and Minerals Mining Marketing Corporation of
Zimbabwe (MMCZ), the official state agency which sells all precious minerals,
said a decision to resume the diamond trade was communicated to the bodies this
week after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The minister of mines, Obert Mpofu,
said after the cabinet meeting that ministers had agreed to resume diamond
sales and that the government would soon start doing so.
Mpofu also claimed a meeting by the
certification body in Israel last week had given Zimbabwe the green light to
resume selling - something denied by Eli Izhakoff, president of the World
Diamond Council, and civil society groups.
The certification scheme is a United
Nations-backed initiative to reduce trade in conflict diamonds. By December
last year, the organisation, founded in 2003, had 49 members, representing 75
countries, with the European Union member states counting as individual
participants. It accounted for 99,8% of the global production of rough diamonds.
The Zimbabwe diamond field was
discovered in 2006 and has a bloody history of illegal mining.
Despite the ban on the trade of
Chiadzwa diamonds, MMCZ insiders said Mugabe and his ministers were going to
sell the precious stones ahead of a meeting of the Diamond World Council
meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, to decide on whether Zimbabwe could resume
sales through KPCS.
"Government has instructed us
to resume diamond sales and the process is currently under way," a senior
MMCZ official said. "We are going to start selling the Chiadzwa diamonds
again very soon."
Following a recent visit to Zimbabwe
by KPCS monitor Abbey Chikane, Mugabe's government was forced to stop diamond
sales.
Mugabe's government is in dispute
with London-listed company Africa Consolidated Resources over the ownership of
the diamonds.
The company's lawyer recently wrote
to international diamond dealers warning them against buying Chiadzwa diamonds
from Zimbabwe as they were "stolen goods".
2010 07 04
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1007/S00073.htm
Sunday, 4 July 2010, 1:04 pm
Press Release: International Trade
Union Confederation
Spotlight interview with Gertrude
Hambira (GAPWUZ - Zimbabwe)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
"Farm Workers Are Ill-Treated
And Abandoned"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
Brussels, 02 July 2010 (ITUC
OnLine):
Gertrude Hambira is the general
secretary of the General Agricultural Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe
(GAPWUZ). She has been forced to leave her country after criticising the land
reform that has triggered countless barbaric acts and left hundreds of
thousands of workers jobless. Amid continued human rights violations and the
persecution of trade unionists, she is calling for a genuine land reform
programme that will bring greater social justice without violating human
rights.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
What does the land reform
implemented in Zimbabwe since the year 2000 consist in ?.
It could be seen as a racial issue,
as white farmers are evicted from their farms to be given to blacks... but the
fact is that they are given to the blacks that are part of the political elite:
ministers, war veterans, ZANU-PF supporters, judges, etc. The ministers have
received around five to ten farms per person. In the process, the new owners
have evicted the farm workers who were supposed to work this land. They only
keep five to ten workers, for example, on a farm that used to employ 200
people. Production is falling as a result, and this affects the production of
the entire country.
The potentially active agricultural
labour force prior to the reform was around 500,000 during high season
(including seasonal workers), but it has now fallen to almost 120,000. Most
workers are abandoned on the farms and become internally displaced, living on
the side of the road; others hang around in the villages and try to survive on
piece work. Some take up illegal activities, such as gold or diamond panning,
or join the informal economy, etc.
But it is not in the new owners'
interest to evict the farm workers. Why do they do this ?.
Everyone wants land, but not
everyone wants to be a farmer. Farming is a business, not a hobby; every effort
has to be put into it. To produce, you have to be on the farm. Yet these new
owners spend most of their time in offices from which they give orders, and
there is no one on the ground to supervise the work that is supposed to be
done. If you take on a farm and part with the labour force and start to
underpay the workers, you are heading for failure. When this happens, you place
the blame elsewhere (on the opposition, the workers, the banks that won't give
you a loan), but it is you yourself who put yourself in this situation.
Has the entrance of opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai into the government not helped the situation ?.
Things may have improved for the
rich, but when there is a change in the structure of a system, people expect to
see bread and butter on the table. This is what the ordinary person in the
street would like to see the government focusing on, but within a week of the
national unity government being formed, farms were being seized again, workers
were being evicted and others continue to be underpaid. The human rights
violations have continued and trade unionists are still being persecuted and
arrested. It was under the rule of the unity government that I had to go into
exile. Yet an ordinary woman like me has no intention of overthrowing the
government, or reversing the land reform. All I am doing is telling the truth.
What led you to go into exile ?.
I was summoned to the JOC (Joint
Operation Command), a high-level structure of the army, police, prison system
and intelligence services. On 19 February, they summoned me to the police
headquarters and asked me why I had produced a documentary on the human rights
violations linked to the land reform. They questioned me for about two hours.
Three days later, they sent seven men to "kidnap" me, which implies
being arrested and held in secret for an indefinite period. Fortunately, I
wasn't at the office, and I fled the country. After my departure, my colleagues
were arrested. They were not beaten but they were heavily intimidated. They
were told that they would die in jail if they didn't tell them where I was.
What form did your interrogation
take ?.
They kept asking me where the images
of the documentary were filmed and what our intentions were. They told me I
should be imprisoned and die because I am a dangerous person. I answered that I
was only telling the truth, that I would expect them, rather, to ask me how to
stop all these terrible acts of violence. Instead of that, I was confronted
with an aggressive interrogation.
Have you been arrested in the past
?.
Yes, and I have also been beaten by
the police on a number of occasions. My latest arrest was in December 2008,
when we took part in a ZCTU demonstration about the lack of money in
circulation. I was severely beaten by the police in the street and was then
held in detention for about two hours before being released.
The GAPWUZ documentary denounced the
torture inflicted on black workers and white farmers. It shows, for example,
the case of a worker thrown into a crowd of drunken people that treat him with
appalling cruelty. Are these people paramilitaries, gangsters ?.
They are the "Youth
Militia". The government has set up a youth militia made up of young
unemployed people from rural areas. They receive training and are then sent to
invade farms. They start to harass the workers, forcing them to attend their
meetings. If the workers refuse to obey them, they accuse them of being members
of the opposition and threaten to "discipline" them. Then they harass
them, beat them up, tie them to trees to beat them, force their children to
watch the torture they inflict on them.
They are like paramilitaries
employed to do the dirty work ?.
Yes, and if we call the police for
help, they simply look on without doing anything.
Is the same violence against white
farmers and their black workers described in your documentary still taking
place now ?.
At present, they are evicting them
but not assaulting them. The Youth Militia sometimes comes to drive away the
workers living on the roadside, but there are organisations that come to
provide them with humanitarian assistance.
What happens to the white farmers
who are evicted ?.
Some have gone to Australia,
England, New Zealand or neighbouring countries All they can take with them is
their family. Our documentary shows the case of an evicted white farmer
worrying about his daughter's schooling, but who is going to take care of the
schooling of the 200 workers he used to employ ?.
There is nothing wrong with
correcting the inequalities that existed, because the good land was owned
exclusively by the white minority, but why kill a worker, a farmer, in the
process, why do children have to be thrown out of school ?.
We need a genuine land reform
programme that does not lead to human rights violations.
Can the union remain active in such
a context ?.
Prior to the land reform, we had
150,000 members. This number has now fallen to around 25,000. Most of our
members have been thrown off the land where they used to work. Our union is
doing everything it can to remain strong; we have done nothing but rebuild it
over recent years. When the farms were seized as of the year 2000, all the
trade union structures were destroyed. We started to build them up again. Then,
in 2005, human rights violations were rife and trade union structures were hit
once again. We had to start rebuilding them after the elections. The farm
evictions that have been pursued over all these years have meant that we have
constantly had to rebuild our structures. In 2008, during the most violent
elections ever seen in Zimbabwe, all the union structures were affected once
again. Other trade unions were hit, but the agricultural union was the worst
affected.
We have always, in fact, been in the
process of building up the trade union within rural communities. We have been
recruiting members since 1985 through education programmes, meetings,
explaining the benefits of becoming a member. It took nearly 20 years to
develop this union, but what we had built was demolished virtually overnight.
One day we are building, they next day it is destroyed... that is the context
we have had to overcome, surviving thanks to the support of foreign unions and
other partners around the world.
What services are you able to offer
your 25,000 members ?.
A trade union's work is not limited
to negotiating wages. When farm workers are thrown off the land, we represent
them in the courts; we establish links with organisations that can provide them
with humanitarian assistance. We also organise civic education programmes,
education on HIV, etc.
You provide legal assistance, but it
is a well known fact that the judicial system in Zimbabwe is far from
independent...
Of course, but we have to do it,
because one day normality will be restored and we will be able to reopen the
cases and demand justice.
Your documentary reports on the
cases taken to the SADC Tribunal. What rulings did it deliver ?.
The SADC Tribunal affirmed that the
government should not seize the farms, but the latter refuses to implement
these rulings and there is no one there to force it to do so. Some of the cases
taken before this tribunal even involved farms that came under the SADC
bilateral partnership agreement, which were not supposed to be affected by the
land reform. According to this partnership, everything produced on these farms
is for export to SADC countries.
How can international labour
solidarity help you ?.
The ITUC and its members should
write to the government of Zimbabwe, support the ZCTU, and join with the IUF in
highlighting the plight of farm workers. And whenever possible, financial
resources should be offered through the ZCTU, to help our members affected by
the reform. All the workers interviewed in the documentary, whose faces were
concealed, are still in hiding in Zimbabwe, they are in an extremely difficult
situation.
Knowing the problems you would face
as a trade union leader, what motivated you to take on this role ?.
I am passionate about my country and
the people I represent. They were voiceless for so many years. I cannot simply
sit back and watch what we have built over the years being destroyed. Someone
has to speak out, and I was given the mandate to speak on behalf of Zimbabwe's
workers when I was elected at a congress.
* Interview by Samuel Grumiau
2010 07 04
http://www.ptinews.com/news/762966_No-one-country-should-dominate-ICC--Howard-
STAFF WRITER 11:8 HRS IST
Melbourne
Jul 4 (PTI) J
ohn Howard refuses to blame India
for scuttling his bid for the ICC vice-President's job but the former
Australian Prime Minister feels international cricket's financial powerhouse
should not be allowed to dominate affairs like it does right now.
"We have to be careful of
making India some kind of target of disdain in world cricket," Howard said
when asked whether he considers India the primary reason for losing out on the
crucial Afro-Asian support for his bid.
"(But) I think it is very
important we understand there's got to be a fair sharing of responsibilities
and no one part of the world, no one country, should dominate.
"People in the past criticised
the fact it was dominated by England and Australia and now we don't want to
replace one perceived domination with another," he told 'Channel Nine'.
Is colonialism still to blame for the DRC's woes ?.
2010 07 04
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-07-04-is-colonialism-still-to-blame-for-the-drcs-woes
Jul 04 2010 08:24
"Fabulous minerals. Magnificent
music. Great cuisine. A landscape that stretches from lush rain forest to
Swiss-looking mountains. And a people still mired in violence and misery a half
century after independence from Belgium." This was the take of the
Associated Press on the 50th anniversary celebrations in the Democratic
Republic of Congo last week. A total of 18 African presidents, including
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, watched a parade of 15 000 soldiers and 400 tanks and
heard Congo's leader, Joseph Kabila, call for a "moral revolution".
Other guests included Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, but the biggest
talking point was the presence of Belgium's King Albert II.
The rape and plunder of Congo under
his ancestor, Leopold II, remains one of history's greatest crimes. Last week's
milestone reignited debate over the legacy of colonialism in Africa and
whether, even half a century later, all the continent's ills can still be hung
around its neck.
Under Leopold's brutal regime, as many
as 10-million were killed, according to some estimates. An outcry over the mass
slaughter forced him to surrender the country in 1908 to the Belgian
government.
When independence finally came in
1960, the country entered a new nightmare. Not unlike other former colonial
masters, Belgium continued to meddle and was blamed, along with the CIA, for
the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected
prime minister. Both Belgium and the US then supported the 32-year dictatorship
of Mobutu Sese Seko, a pro-Western leader seen as a bulwark against communism.
He robbed his people of an estimated $ 5bn and made corruption a political way
of life.
Mobutu was finally overthrown in
1997, but then came a war that sucked in six neighbouring countries and left at
least four million dead, mainly from strife-driven hunger and disease.
The world's biggest UN peacekeeping
force has been in Congo for more than a decade but some 45 000 people are still
dying each month, according to the International Rescue Committee, mainly from
hunger and disease.
Mwahila Tshiyembe, director of the
Pan-African Institute for Geopolitics in Nancy, France, said the Belgians were
not solely to blame for Congo's woes. Congo's leaders since independence have
been marked by corruption and bad governance and have needlessly sought to
blame their former coloniser, he told AP.
Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, Congo's
foreign minister, now seems ready to end the blame game. "Fifty years
later, we cannot say that if things are not going well in Congo, it's the fault
of Belgium or of Leopold II."
Not everyone is ready to draw a line
under the past, however. Patrice Lumumba's three sons announced this month they
would bring a private prosecution against 12 living Belgians allegedly involved
in the abduction, torture and murder of their father in 1961. - guardian.co.uk
© Guardian News and Media 2010
2010 07 04
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/265179/steel-vise-slowly-crushing-global-activists-clinton
July 4, 2010, 4:48pm
KRAKOW, Poland
(AP)
Intolerant governments across the
globe are "slowly crushing" activist and advocacy groups that play an
essential role in the development of democracy, US Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton said Saturday.
She cited a broad range of countries
where "the walls are closing in" on civic organizations such as
unions, religious groups, rights advocates and other nongovernmental
organizations that press for social change and shine a light on governments'
shortcomings.
Among those she named were Zimbabwe,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela and
Russia.
"Some of the countries engaging
in these behaviors still claim to be democracies," Clinton said at an
international conference on the promotion of democracy and human rights.
"Democracies don't fear their own people. They recognize that citizens
must be free to come together, to advocate and agitate."
Before an audience of several
hundred senior government officials, Clinton recalled Winston Churchill's
warning 60 years ago at Fulton, Missouri, that an iron curtain was descending
across Europe. She noted that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that
curtain no longer remains.
"But we must be wary of the
steel vise in which governments around the world are slowly crushing civil
society and the human spirit," she said. Social activists, Clinton said,
are being harassed, censored, cut off from funding, arrested, prosecuted or
killed.
President Barack Obama, in a
statement released in Washington, said the United States is particularly
concerned about "the spread of restrictions on civil society, the growing
use of law to curb rather than enhance freedom and widespread corruption that
is undermining the faith of citizens in their governments."
Clinton's speech came at the opening
of a 10th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Community of
Democracies, which has 16 members and is meant to forge international consensus
on ways to support and promote democracy.
She recommended that the organization
set up an independent means of monitoring repressive measures against social
advocacy groups, and that the United Nations Human Rights Council do more to
protect civil society. She announced that the US would contribute $ 2 million
to support the work of embattled nongovernmental groups.
Poland was a fitting setting for
Clinton's address. The country escaped from decades of totalitarianism in the
downfall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism across Eastern
Europe in the early 1990s - thanks largely to the efforts of the Polish labor
movement, Solidarity - whose founder, Lech Walesa, was in the audience for the
speech. Poland was holding a presidential runoff election Sunday.
Earlier Saturday, Clinton expressed
hope that Russia would drop its opposition to a US missile defense system in
Europe and accept an offer to cooperate in developing technologies for shooting
down hostile weapons.
"The offer stands,"
Clinton told a news conference after witnessing the signing of an amendment to
a US-Polish agreement on the basing of US missile interceptors in Poland.
Repeating a theme the Russians
consistently have rejected, Clinton said Moscow has nothing to fear from a
North Atlantic Treaty Organization-endorsed missile defense system based in
Europe because it will be aimed at Iran's missile arsenal.
"This is a purely defensive
system," she told reporters, with her Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski,
at her side. "It does not threaten Russia." Moscow views the project
as a potential threat to its own missile arsenal.
Sikorski said his country fully
supports the project, which the Obama administration radically altered last
year in a move that some critics interpreted as a conciliatory gesture to
Russia and a slap at Poland.
The Bush administration had planned
to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech
Republic. President Barack Obama decided to reconfigure the system to account
for what he said were changes in the nature of the Iranian missile threat.
Obama's system eventually would include land-based SM-3 anti-missile
interceptors in Poland; the early elements are largely sea-based.
The amendment signed Saturday was a
technical adjustment to reflect Obama's changes.
Upon her arrival from Ukraine,
Clinton laid a wreath and paid her respects at the Katyn Cross, a memorial to
the nearly 100 Poles killed in an April plane crash in Russia en route to
commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet massacre of Polish POWs in Katyn
forest. Among those killed in the plane crash was Poland's president, Lech
Kaczynski.
Clinton also toured the World War
II-era Schindler Factory Museum, which captures in stark images and artifacts
the suffering of Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany.
2010 07 04
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hrDNlFR51juecmFV5bHKjS-5vY-g
(AFP)
HARARE
At least 18 people were killed and
dozens injured in Zimbabwe on Sunday when two buses hit a truck within seconds
of each other, a police spokesman said.
"At least 18 people died and 31
were seriously injured when two buses rammed into a stationary haulage vehicle
in separate incidents in Chegutu along the Harare-Bulawayo highway,"
around 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Harare, Oliver Mandipaka told AFP.
"The first bus rammed into the
truck and veered off the road killing seven people on the spot. Within seconds
the second bus hit the same truck and killed six people."
He said the other five were
confirmed dead at a clinic in a nearby village and the Chegutu hospital where
some of the injured were admitted, while others were taken to Harare.
Road accidents are among the major
killers in Zimbabwe, where roads are in a state of disrepair, riddled with
potholes due to years of neglect.
The disregard for safety regulations
has seen some vehicles unfit for the streets cruising the country's roads.
In March last year, Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai's was involved in a road accident that killed his wife Susan.
In March this year, Finance Minister Tendai Biti survived a crash with a lorry.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights
reserved.
2010 07 02
Written by The Zimbabwean
Friday, 02 July 2010 17:53
HARARE
Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) boss
Paradzai Zimondi (Pictured) has told his subordinates that he will remain in
charge of the country’s jails for as long as President Robert Mugabe is in
power.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
According to prison officers, who
did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, Zimondi boasted that those
wishing to see him leave the ZPS have to wait a little longer before that can
happen.
The ZPS chief is one of the
country’s top security commanders, who have vowed not to respect any president
who did not participate in the 1970’s liberation struggle, in what was seen as
a thinly veiled threat to stage a military coup against then opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai in the event he defeated Mugabe in elections.
Tsvangirai, who rose from trade
union ranks, did not take part in the long struggle that brought Zimbabwe’s
independence from Britain in 1980.
“The commissioner opened the meeting
by saying that he knew that there were people who leak information to the media
and they were free to switch on their recorders so that they would not misquote
him,” recounted a prisoner officer who attended the address by Zimondi.
“He went on to say that he was aware
of some element in the organisation who was saying he was very soon going to
leave the organisation.
He put the record straight to us
that he was going nowhere for as long as Mugabe was the head of state and
government, commander -in-chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and the
President of this country,” the officer said.
Why doesn't Campbell want to testify about her diamond ?.
2010 07 04
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-07-04-why-doesnt-campbell-want-to-testify-about-her-diamond
Jul 04 2010 07:19
Over the years we have become
accustomed to seeing Naomi Campbell in court. In 2000 she pleaded guilty to
attacking her assistant with a telephone in a hotel room. Six years later she
admitted hitting her housekeeper with a jewel-encrusted cellphone, causing an
injury to the head that required several stitches. In 2008 she was arrested at
London's Heathrow airport on suspicion of assaulting a police officer after one
of her bags was lost. Then, earlier this year, a limousine driver filed a
report with the New York City Police Department claiming that Campbell had
slapped and punched him.
Campbell's court appearances, like
the blooming of the cherry blossom or the migration of swallows, seem to have
become a regular occurrence in the calendar. But not even the most seasoned
Campbell watcher could have predicted that she would one day be pursued by the
courts in The Hague.
And yet last week the model was
ordered to give evidence at the war crimes trial of Liberia's ex-president,
Charles Taylor. The UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone issued a subpoena
forcing Campbell to appear after allegations surfaced that she was given a
so-called "blood diamond" by Taylor at a dinner party held by Nelson
Mandela in South Africa in 1997.
The former dictator is accused of
selling diamonds to fund a bloodthirsty war that cost thousands of lives. It
was one of these uncut diamonds that Taylor is alleged to have given the
supermodel. The actress Mia Farrow, who was a guest at the same dinner party,
has claimed that Campbell told her she was interrupted in the middle of the
night by some men saying they were representatives of Taylor before handing
over a "huge diamond".
Carole White, Campbell's agent at
the time, says that she witnessed the event. "I was there," she says,
speaking from the London headquarters of Premier Model Management, the company
that she founded and that represented Campbell for 17 years. "He did give
it to her. It was a small, uncut diamond. I am totally surprised that Naomi
hasn't admitted it."
But Campbell has consistently
refused to volunteer her own testimony to the tribunal, furiously walking out
of a recent television interview with ABC News when the reporter had the
temerity to ask about the allegations. It seemed a strange reaction for a woman
who, having turned 40 earlier this year, has tried to distance herself from a
youth-obsessed modelling industry and reinvent herself as a charity campaigner.
She is a "global
ambassador" for the White Ribbon Alliance, which aims to raise awareness
of the number of women who die each year following complications arising from
pregnancy and childbirth. She has also campaigned on behalf of Aids charities,
and raised money to tackle global poverty. In February she staged a catwalk
show at London fashion week to support victims of the Haiti earthquake. So
assiduously has Campbell developed her charity profile that she now counts
Sarah Brown, the wife of the former prime minister, as a close friend.
And it is true that, despite her
flaws, Campbell remains a role model for many in the fashion world for her
trailblazing determination to put black models on an equal footing with their
white counterparts. Campbell was the first African-Caribbean woman to make the
cover of French Vogue and is one of the few models to speak out about racism in
the industry. Steve Pope, editor of the Voice, the weekly newspaper aimed at
Britain's black community, says that Campbell is a pioneer. "It has always
been an unspoken rule that if you're a fashion magazine editor and you put a
black model on the cover, you lose sales. Naomi turned that around and showed
that, if you put her on the cover, if anything it would boost sales. Unlike
some other models who have kept quiet about discrimination, she has actually
started speaking out about it."
'She has two sides'
It is hard to reconcile this Naomi
Campbell - the pioneer, role model, tireless charity campaigner - with the
petulant, aggressive woman who lashes out by throwing cellphones at assistants
and refuses to testify at a war crimes tribunal apparently in a fit of pique.
But those close to Campbell say her behaviour is fairly typical for a woman who
can flip without warning from one extreme to another. "It's most
definitely her temperament," says White. "She's a Gemini and she has
two sides. One side is this generous, intelligent, witty, funny and vulnerable
individual, but the bad side negates a lot of those things. The bad side is
very self-destructive, with no self-control. She doesn't care about the
consequences when she's like that, for herself or other people."
White adds bluntly that working with
the model was "a bloody nightmare ... She was very hard work,
unpredictable and you never quite knew if she was going to turn up. I just took
care of her, almost as a mother would. I also worked out that you should never
get close to her. I watched so many people think they were her best friend. In
her case, familiarity did breed contempt. I think she is very driven by not
wanting to go back to where she came from. She got out of that life into a
fairy-tale life, meeting incredible people and becoming pretty powerful in her
own way."
Campbell was born in Streatham,
south London. Her part-Chinese father was unnamed on her birth certificate and
walked out when Campbell's Jamaican-born mother, Valerie, was four months
pregnant. Valerie danced in a 1970s go-go troupe and was on the road for long
periods - until the age of 10, Campbell was largely brought up by friends and
relatives. Her way out of Streatham came about by chance. When she was 15, she
was spotted in Covent Garden by a model scout and signed up for a shoot with
Elle magazine, whose then editor, Sally Brampton, later recalled the gawky
teenager as "a bird of paradise". Within five years, Campbell had
earned her supermodel stripes, appearing on countless magazine covers, posing
nude for Playboy and starring in George Michael's 1990 Freedom music video
alongside Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista.
Straight talking
It must have been quite a culture
shock for a south London schoolgirl. In the catty world of high fashion, where
models and designers were accustomed to smiling prettily while stabbing one
another in the back with a judiciously placed stiletto, Campbell's straight
talking won her few admirers. The designer Alexander McQueen, who died earlier
this year, once said that because Campbell "came from the street, like I
do, people can't handle her. They can't handle that sort of aggression."
Dylan Jones, the editor of GQ magazine, puts it differently: "Naomi
Campbell genuinely kicks up dust, and for that reason people find her fascinating."
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey
in May, Campbell tried to explain her outbursts as stemming from "an
abandonment issue and also from trying to just build up a family around me
that's not my immediate family. If I feel a mistrust, then ... all my cards go
down."
But for all that she might seek to
build up a protective dam of friends and surrogate family, Campbell still cuts
a distinctly lonely figure. She has never married, instead pursuing a
succession of short-lived relationships with high-profile men, including
Formula One boss Flavio Briatore, boxer Mike Tyson and dancer Joaquín Cortés
(she has been dating her current boyfriend, billionaire Russian property mogul
Vladimir Doronin, for a little over a year). Although her fellow model Kate
Moss describes Campbell as "one of the most truthful and generous friends
I have known", she does not seem to have all that many people she can rely
on.
"Her lifestyle is quite
lonely," says Carole White. "It's very privileged in the way that she
travels first class or on private jets or hangs out with princes and
presidents, but that cuts you off from normal life. I think she finds it
difficult to behave in a normal way and she's plagued with hangers-on. She's
quite suspicious of the people around her. She has a few friends, but it's a
small group and because of her bad temper she falls out with people."
Perhaps it is this innate mistrust
of the motives of others that has made Campbell so unwilling to travel to The
Hague to give her side of the "blood diamond" story. But for a woman
who has so few constant relationships in her life, how sad that one of the main
ones should apparently be with her solicitor. - guardian.co.uk © Guardian News
and Media 2010
SA farmer arrested - (Mike Odendaal)
2010 07 02
Written by Staff Reporter
Friday, 02 July 2010 12:17
Harare
A white South African farmer was
arrested last week on charges that he refused to vacate his farm despite
holding a court order barring the new Zimbabwe land owners from moving onto his
property.
Civil rights group AfriForum said
Mike Odendaal was “wrongfully arrested” by the Zimbabwean police on Friday
morning on grounds that he was illegally living on his farm, Wolvedraai, which
has been acquired by the government for resettlement.
According to AfriForum, the arrest
took place despite the fact that Odendaal was granted a court order by the
Zimbabwean High Court on June 26 in terms of which he and his family could stay
on the farm while farm settlers had to be removed from it.
AfriForum chief executive Kallie
Kriel criticised the South African embassy in Zimbabwe for refusing to assist
Odendaal during the past three weeks when people illegally occupied his farm.
“It leaves a bitter taste in the
mouth when one sees that the South African government turns its back on its own
citizens who are subject to human rights violations in Zimbabwe, while the same
South African government at the same time rolls out the red carpet for Robert
Mugabe at the Soccer World Cup Tournament,” Kriel said.
Mugabe was one of the world leaders
invited to attend the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup on June 11.
Kriel said the South African
government’s refusal to assist Odendaal served as further motivation for
AfriForum to hold Pretoria “to
account in court soon” because of
its failure to protect the lives and property of South Africans in Zimbabwe.
AfriForum’s senior legal team is
currently preparing court documents to ask the High Court to order the South
African government to indicate which steps will be taken to intercede on behalf
of South Africans in Zimbabwe.
In terms of the settlement reached
between AfriForum and the South African government in November 2009 with
regards an investment protection agreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe,
the South African government undertook to maintain the rights and remedies of
South African victims of Zimbabwe’s land redistribution programme.
______________________________________________
Diplomat Secures Release of Farmer in Zimbabwe - (Mike Odendaal)
2010 07 05
http://allafrica.com/stories/201007050003.html
BusinessDay
Hopewell Radebe
5 July 2010
Johannesburg
DIPLOMATIC intervention by SA's ambassador in Zimbabwe, Prof Mlungisi Makalima, has helped secure the release of a South African farmer jailed in Zimbabwe.
Mike Odendaal, "wrongfully" arrested by the Zimbabwean police last week, was released on Friday, civil rights organisation AfriForum said yesterday.
AfriForum - which has become a thorn in the administration of President Jacob Zuma, who has taken over the facilitation in Zimbabwe's political stalemate - is putting pressure on SA to use diplomatic channels to force the Zimbabwean government to halt new illegal land seizures without compensation.
Kallie Kriel, AfriForum CEO, said Mr Odendaal had been released unharmed on Friday after Prof Makalima's intervention.
He said the South African embassy in Zimbabwe had also ensured the illegal occupants on his farm, Wolvedraai, were removed.
Attempts to get a response from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation were unsuccessful.
Mr Odendaal was granted an order by the Zimbabwean High Court on June 26 that his family could stay on the farm. But local police ignored the order and refused to help him remove farm invaders.
"While we appreciate the ambassador's assistance in this regard, we are disappointed that not every reported case of invasion of farms owned by South Africans in Zimbabwe ... is treated with similar urgency," Mr Kriel said.
He said the event was distressing as Mr Odendaal had been appealing to the South African embassy in Zimbabwe for urgent assistance for three weeks.
"It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when one sees that the South African government turns its back on its own citizens who are subject to human rights violations in Zimbabwe, while (it) rolls out the red carpet for (President) Robert Mugabe at the Soccer World Cup."
Mr Kriel said AfriForum was going ahead with its court action, expected to be filed soon, to hold the government to account for its failure to protect the lives and property of South Africans in Zimbabwe.
"Our senior legal team is finalising court documents to ask the high court to order the South African government to indicate which steps it will be taking to intercede on behalf of South Africans in Zimbabwe."
In terms of a settlement reached between AfriForum and the South African government regarding the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, formalised as a court order in November, SA undertook to maintain the rights and remedies of South African victims of Zimbabwe's illegal land redistribution.
Germany threatens to withdraw aid
2010 07 04
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-07-04-germany-threatens-to-withdraw-aid
STAFF
WRITER
Jul 04
2010 11:44
Germany
has threatened to cut off aid to Zimbabwe unless Zanu PF supporters who
reportedly invaded a farm owned by a German national, Heinrich von Pezold, were
removed.
Yesterday
Germany wrote a protest note to Zimbabwe’s foreign ministry, saying the
continued
occupation
of their national’s property violates a decade-old investment agreement between
the two countries.
Germany
said the farm seizure and looting on the property could imperil aid. Last year,
Germany gave
$ 50
million to Zimbabwe.
Germany
said it “will not be in a position to support a government which tolerates the
blunt theft” of the land where houses, equipment and $ 120 000 worth of corn,
the staple food, had been looted.
Police
national spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told NewsDay last night that he was
unaware of any fresh farm invasions in the country.
However,
reports are that an armed mob stormed the estate in Chipinge on June 18 and
held two farm managers hostage in their homes.
Police
arrived later but did not attempt to end the hostage taking.
“Property
rights should be dealt with in court and not by applying raw violence,” the
German embassy in Zimbabwe said.
The
German government called on authorities to end the occupation, and noted that
the situation had created large financial losses in food crops, timber, tea and
coffee operations for von Pezold, the largest German investor in Zimbabwe.
Ripe
coffee worth $ 500 000 was rotting on the bushes, it was reported.
Germany’s
government also said the occupation violated international law and demonstrated
lack of commitment from senior Zimbabwean officials to honour investment
agreements.
In
Berlin, the German foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday that the
European nation ceased development aid to Zimbabwe in 2002 but continued to
provide humanitarian aid through non-government and civil society
organisations.
Humanitarian
charities in Zimbabwe say their foreign aid goes towards food supplies to the
needy and improving health, education and other government services that
collapsed in the country’s economic meltdown in years of political and economic
turmoil.
Farmers’
organisations also protested the arrest on Thursday of South African national
Mike Odendaal for allegedly not vacating his farm in south-eastern Zimbabwe
under an eviction notice.
Odendaal
was released by police and was leaving his land in Chipinge, 400 kilometres
southeast of Harare, yesterday, headed for South Africa.
On June
26, he had won a High Court ruling that struck down the eviction, allowing him
to stay on the farm, ordering authorities to remove illegal occupiers.
Deon
Theron, head of the Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe, said Odendaal had
“had enough” after months of threats and legal wrangling.
“This again
shows total disrespect for the law,” Theron told the media. The South African
support group AfriForum said South African officials in Zimbabwe and South
Africa ignored pleas from Odendaal and other South Africans forced from land
protected by bilateral trade and investment deals.
“It
leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when one sees that the South African
government turns its back on its own citizens who are subject to human rights
violations in Zimbabwe,” the group said in a statement. Violent land seizures
began in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy. 300 white farmers
remain on their land and more than half of them are facing eviction orders.
About 4
000 have been forced from their farms since 2 000 under a programme President
Robert Mugabe insisted was to correct colonial era imbalances in land
ownership. Many prime farms were allocated to new black farmers still lie idle.
2010 07 04
SILAS
NKALA
Jul 04
2010 11:50
A Bulawayo
High Court Judge, Nicholas Mathonsi, yesterday overturned a police ban on the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)’s planned demonstrations to
commemorate the Hwange Kamandama Mine disaster.
The
commemorations were supposed to have been held on June 6, the day disaster
struck the mining town of Hwange 38 years ago when 427 workers were killed
after the collapse of a tunnel at the coal mine.
But the
police last month denied the workers permission to remember their colleagues.
Officer
Commanding Kwekwe District, indentified as Superintendant R. Madiro turned down
the application on the grounds that Hwange Kamandama was not in Kwekwe.
The ZCTU
took up the case with the High Court challenging the police order.
Justice
Mathonsi ruled that police should not interfere with trade union activities
because there was no lawful basis for them to purport to deny authority for the
holding the commemorations.
The trade
union was granted leave to go ahead with their commemorations today without
police escort.
The police
were ordered to pay the legal costs of the court action.
“The
respondents or whoever acting on respondents’ instructions be and is hereby
interdicted from interfering or stopping the commemorations as planned by the
trade union,” Justice Mathonsi ruled.
Professional titles have to be earned through study
2010 07 04
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/letters/25373-professional-titles-have-to-be-earned-through-study.html
Saturday,
03 July 2010 17:00
YOUR
comment (The Standard June 27 2010) on the rationale of prefixing professional
titles to one’s name cannot go unchallenged.
The title
Engineer is earned through a post-graduate qualification process. When, for
example, you do and complete your four year BSc Honours Engineering degree
programme, you don’t automatically use the title Engineer but it only makes you
eligible for the title. That is the reason why you see a lot of Engineering
graduates not using this title. In most countries you still need to go through
some rigorous training as well as write and pass some professional practice
exams before you can use the title.
In
Zimbabwe the term “professional engineer” is defined in the Zimbabwe
Engineering Council Act 2007 as referring to “a corporate member of the
Zimbabwe Institute of Engineers (ZIE) or any other constituent body registered
by the Engineering Council of Zimbabwe and given a practicing certificate
permitting them to offer their engineering services or work directly to the
public. These terms mean that the actual practice of professional engineering
is legally defined and protected by law and only registered engineers are
permitted to use the title, or to practice professional engineering.
Thus,
what distinguishes a registered professional engineer is the authority to
approve and sign engineering documents (reports, drawings, and calculations)
for a study, estimate, design or analysis, thus taking legal responsibility for
it.”
I
therefore respect the title given to Engineer Mudzuri as he is registered to
practice as an engineer but I am not sure whether Walter Mzembi is qualified to
use those titles as I understand he has a diploma in Water Engineering or
something similar and nothing else.
I also
don’t understand how you tried to equate the Engineer title to the use of
titles like Lawyer Obert Gutu or Hotelier Munyeza. Obert Gutu is an ordinary
lawyer and only when he passes the Bar Examinations can he earn the title
Advocate. Shingi Munyeza has an Accounting degree and an MBA and cannot
therefore have his name pre-fixed by hotelier.
What you
should have challenged is the prefixing of the word Doctor to politicians and
business leaders - Dr Gideon Gono, Dr Burombo Mudumo. These guys received
honorary degrees and do not qualify to use these titles.
Chihwa
Kanyemba
Harare
2010 07 03
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article531566.ece/Gono-donation-queried
Jul 3,
2010 3:31 PM
Reserve
Bank Governor Gideon Gono donated two Isuzu vehicles to a labour union aligned
to Zanu-PF at the height of the country's economic crisis.
CONTROVERSIAL:
Governor Gideon Gono
This was
revealed in a court case in which two deposed unionists are seeking to compel
the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) to return the vehicles to them.
Alfred
Makwarimba and Kenias Shamuyarira argue that the federation is enjoying the use
of the vehicles acquired through a series of blunders and anomalies.
In a
statement to police last year Mirirai Edson Chiremba, the bank's director in
the financial intelligence inspectorate evaluation and security division
confirmed donating vehicles to the federation.
"I
remember some time in September 2008, ZFTU wrote to the RBZ Governor,
requesting assistance for the smooth operation of the union's activities.
"In
answer to this, the RBZ donated two brand-new Isuzu twin cabs, which were to be
used to promote ZFTU's efforts to advance worker welfare," read part of
Chiremba's statement, which was recorded by Inspector Nhuta.
Chiremba
said although the vehicles were received and signed for by Makwarimba and
Shamuyarira, they were donated to the ZFTU as an organisation and not to
individuals.
"The
vehicles were donated to ZFTU as an organisation and not to Messrs Makwarimba
and Shamuyarira as individuals."
Besides
donating the vehicles, the RBZ under Gono's leadership doled out tractors, farm
implements and loans to companies, individuals and "new" farmers
sympathetic to Zanu-PF.
The
donations and the central bank's engagement in quasi-fiscal activities were
largely blamed for plunging the country into the economic abyss.
2010 07 03
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/07/03/world-bank-is-africa%E2%80%99s-biggest-friend-ezekwesili/
National
News
Jul 3,
2010
By Clara
NWACHUKWU, London
World
Bank’s Vice-President for the Africa Region, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has
defended the role of international institutions and their policies, which have
often been criticized as worsening African economies.
For
Nigeria’s current financial sector reforms to meet set targets, she said it
must be focus specific such that fiscal policies and monetary policies are
complementary to each other.
She said,
“The financial sector is the backbone of the private sector in any economy, so
you need to have the financial sector able to provide the needed financing for
the real sector.
“For it
to be able to do that, it’s got to be a financial sector that is very sound in
corporate governance and having the capacity to inspire confidence and
therefore mobilise the domestic resources as well as private capital flows from
abroad.”
Ezekwesili
insisted that the World Bank has, in fact, been Africa’s biggest friend in its
growth policies.
She said,
“Frankly speaking, the World Bank, for instance, has been a very good friend to
Africa in a number of areas of policy.
Some of
the policies in the kind of changes and in the kind of improvements you have
seen in Africa’s growth performance have been the very important macro economic
reforms that the Bank has worked with the continent to make happen. These are
fundamental reforms that countries like China and India embarked upon and set
the pace for their growth.
Africa is
setting the stage for its own growth, and we at the World Bank are proud to
support this process of Africa taking mastery of its own macro economic choices
as well as embarking on important sector-specific reforms that will enable it
grow and enable it create jobs for the people.
The bank
chief who spoke on the sidelines of the 2010 Diageo Africa Business Reporting
Awards, which held on Thursday at the Landmark Hotel, London, told our
reporter, who was one of the three nominees in the Best Business News Story
category of the award that to have positive effects, the ongoing reforms in
Nigeria must continue and be sustained.
With
regard to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reforms, which have come under
heavy criticisms lately, Mrs. Ezekwesili noted that globally, financial reforms
can be “very difficult even in the easiest of environments.”
Having
started in the right direction with the macro prudential elements, she said
that CBN must go beyond this, such that “The fiscal activities of government
are very complementary of the monetary policies and the monetary policies too
complement the fiscals and are able to pool access to finance for the real
sector.”
For this
to happen, she argued that the Nigerian economy, which is solely dependent on
petro_dollars must go beyond the oil sector, and diversify to other sectors,
particularly agriculture.
Mrs
Ezekwesili, who was the keynote speaker at this year’s awards, had earlier told
participants that “Africa offers you the highest return on investment compared
to anywhere else in the world,” adding, “For those who have not dared; it is
simply a bit of not understanding that risk is no longer African.”
She,
however, regretted that foreign investors in African economies have played up
more on the risks than on the return on investments.
“What I
find surprising is that often businesses that do well in Africa never are
ambassadors of Africa. In one king of an amazing desire, often they actually
play up the inadequacies of the business environment in Africa,” she said.
Speaking
on the awards, Mr Paul Walsh, the Chief Executive Officer, Diageo Plc, said the
Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards, now in its seventh edition, is a
recognition of “national and international media in reporting about the African
business environment.”
The
British Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for International Development, Mr
Stephen O’Brien, noted that the media plays a very important role in the growth
and development of Africa.
“The
media is the most persuasive voice of all, especially for investments. The
success story of Africa needs accurate reporting so that investors can make
accurate investment risks.”
There
were altogether 12 categories of the 2010 Diageo awards, in which Nigeria’s
Businessday Newspapers emerged the Media of the Year, based on the decision of
a panel of eight judges, which included, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the Executive
President, African Business Roundtable and Chairman, NEPAD Business Group.
2010 07 04
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/entertainment/25353-gumbonzvanda--a-champion-of-human-rights.html
Saturday,
03 July 2010 15:46
For the
last 20 years, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda has been working on issues of women and
children’s human rights, with a special focus on crisis countries. Active in
the women’s movement, Gumbonzvanda has focused on issues of violence against
women, peace with justice, property rights and HIV and Aids.
Gumbonzvanda
joined the World YWCA in 2007. The World YWCA is the umbrella organisation of
the global network of the Young Women’s Christian Association, a movement of
women working for social and economic change around the world. It advocates for
young women’s leadership, peace, justice, human rights and sustainable
development, both on a grassroots and global scale. It is the largest women’s
organisation in the world, and the second oldest organisation of its kind,
second only to the Relief Society. The organisation is currently based in
Geneva, Switzerland.
She has
over 10 years of experience with the United Nations, where she served as
Regional Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in
Eastern and Horn of Africa covering 13 countries. She had previously worked as
a human rights officer with Unicef in Liberia and Zimbabwe.
A trained
human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and
mediation, Gumbonzvanda also served as interim coordinator for the Zimbabwe
Women Lawyers Association during its formative stage and in the Ministry of
Justice and Constitutional Affairs as a law officer .
Notable
recent achievements include work on the integration of gender equality issues
in the peace processes for the Sudan, Somalia and Northern Uganda and a lead
role in the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region that resulted in
the adoption of the Protocol on Sexual and Gender Based Violence as well as
property rights for returnees. She was involved in the development of the
Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on Women’s Rights
in Africa.
She has
also worked for many years on issues of gender and HIV/Aids and was a resource
person for the International Women’s Summit on HIV/Aids hosted by the World
YWCA in 2007.
Gumbonzvanda
has a Master’s degree in Private Law with specialisation in Constitutional
Property Law from the University of South Africa and completed post-graduate
work on conflict resolution at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is also a member
of such organisations as Women in Law and Development in Africa, Zimbabwe Women
Lawyers Association and the World Conference on Religion and Peace.
She
serves on the Advisory Board for the African Centre for Women, Information and
Communications Technology. She recently founded the Rozaria Memorial Trust
(RMT), a charity organisation established in honour of her late mother who died
a role model in her community in Murewa. Gumbonzvanda has been awarded life
membership status by the Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organisation, a grassroots
organisation with over four million members, in recognition of her approach to
empowerment of women in communities.
Gumbonzvanda
is widely published and enjoys writing poetry.
2010 07 01
A new
report finds that the government of South Africa has made $ 1.7 billion in arms
sales over the past decade to 58 blacklisted countries that do not meet South
Africa's own criteria for arms customers, including those with poor human
rights records or ongoing internal conflicts.
Illegal
fire arms are burnt in Nairobi on March 24, as part of a campaign by the Kenyan
government to mop-up illicit small arms and light weapons that are at the
center of increasing violent crime in Kenya and Africa.
Tony
Karumba/AP
* * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
By Scott
Baldauf, Staff Writer / July 1, 2010
Johannesburg,
South Africa
* * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
South
Africa, which has been winning applause for its hosting of the 2010 World Cup,
is now coming under fire for another success: global arms sales.
According
to the South African watch group, Ceasefire Campaign, South African arms
merchants have sold $ 1.7 billion worth of weapons in the past decade to
“problematic” countries that are either involved in internal conflicts or with
poor human rights records. The arms sales would appear to be in violation of
South African law, which prohibits the sale of arms to countries that are on
United Nations embargo lists, have poor human rights records, or that are
involved in conflicts.
“These
arms can be used by countries to further deteriorate those human rights, or
used in local conflicts, or they can be used in countries that have poor
controls over what is going to happen to those arms in the future,” says Rob
Thomson, a member of the steering committee for the Johannesburg-based
Ceasefire Campaign.
"As
a country, we passed this act, and it was seen as part of a new South Africa
that would be a responsible player on the international stage with regards to
the matter of arms,” says Mr. Thomson. “But now, we seem to have ignored that
responsibility.”
South
Africa is, of course, just one of many arms merchants in the world. The United
States dwarfs all others, selling $ 15 billion in arms in 2009, and many of the
US’s top customers are the same “problematic” countries cited in the Ceasefire
Campaign report. But South Africa’s role as an arms dealer conflicts with its
aspirations to be a problem solver in Africa, a voice of the developing world,
a champion of human rights.
IN
PICTURES: World's Top 10 Military Spenders
According
to the Ceasefire Campaign report, South Africa sold weapons to 58 countries
between 2002 and 2009 that failed to meet the criteria of South African law in
one way or another, including Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Swaziland, and
Zimbabwe. But the lion’s share went to five countries - India, the United Arab
Emirates, Algeria, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia - that either have ongoing
internal conflicts, poor human rights records, or poor control over their
purchased arms.
“Arms are
not potatoes. The reason we have an act is because they can’t be sold like
potatoes,” Mr. Thomson told a press conference in Johannesburg. “We are selling
more arms to the worst countries than to countries that pass the criteria. More
than half of the arms to these failing countries are significant sensitive
equipment.”
Ceasefire
Campaign tried to obtain information on South African arms sales through
official government channels, but after meeting resistance, it obtained that
information through a combination of sources, including United Nations, the
South African state arms manufacturer Denel, and the Bonn International Centre for
Conversion, a research group on the arms trade.
South
Africa’s Justice Minister Jeff Radebe dismissed the Ceasefire report.
“These
allegations are not breaking any new ground,” says Mr. Radebe in statement to
the press. Every arms transaction is “subject to a meticulous process of
scrutiny and investigation,” by South Africa’s National Conventional Arms
Control Committee, which Radebe chairs. He says the committee was “satisfied
that all decisions taken on all transactions were based on aggregate consideration
of all principles reflected in our law, including our international obligations
on arms transfer.”
“South
Africa will continue to subscribe to the international agenda of responsible
trade in arms,” Mr. Radebe says in his statement.
The myths and realities of the reshuffle
2010 07 04
http://www.zimtelegraph.com/?p=7870
By
JIRIHANGA MUGADZAWETA
Published:
July 4, 2010
ZIMBABWE
HARARE
If there
is a thing that has managed to keep Rwavhi Mugabe in power for three decades,
it is the type of people that the whole nation is. Whenever something happens,
it is either blown out of proportion or else outright lies are churned out and
the majority of our gullible populace just swallows them hook, line and sinker.
Two
prominent examples here are the jocular jatropha and Chinhoyi rock diesel
projects as well as the tragic Gukurahundi. Lies were routinely cooked and
publicly traded with the market awash with consumers, demand outstripped
supply!
Just when
the nation was settling for an already rigged outreach exercise, Tsvangirayi
pulled a shocker of biblical proportions - a cabinet reshuffle. Yes a shocker
because a thing of that magnitude had never happened in the history of Zimbabwe
under Rwavhi, never. Edmund Garwe who showed her daughter a ZJC examination
paper just stayed home for two months but returned to the same ministry where
he had shown contempt of the ethics thereof. That was perhaps the only
“reshuffling” that the nation had known of before.
Now that
Tsvangirayi has done what should not be done, the rumour mill was back at work,
locally and internationally amongst the “educated” Zimbos. There is a school
that thinks Tsvangirai did the best and showed clearly and cleverly that is not
a “little Rwavhi” to take mad Prof Welsh’s words in 2005 before the formation
of MDC2 in Bulawayo. A conservative school is blasting him for dictatorial tendencies
and likening him to Rwavhi and wondering why he wants to remove the latter when
he wants to give the same old after taste of dictatorship. To the latter school
also belongs the conspirators of the theory of an imminent putsch or even
another split within the ranks of the labour movement. There you have it, we
are a democracy in the making and people are entitled to their thoughts with
rebuke.
But what
actually motivated the reshuffle ?.
Was it
necessary and did Morgan act ultra virus ?.
Are all
the rumors much ado about nothing ?.
Yet the
reshuffle theory can suit the two seemingly dissimilar school’s explanations
after all. Let us explain. Tsvangiraists think that he acted within his powers
and has rightfully shown that he does not tolerate non-performers within his
ranks.50%! Dziva acted within his powers and there nothing undemocratic about a
reshuffle whether ministers are simply reassigned or dropped out of cabinet for
good. The notion of ministers as non-current assets is quite archaic and associated
with dictatorship. In an attempt to sever ties with the tradition that we are
fight to dislodge, the reshuffle augurs well. Oh at least we will not have a
permanent president, permanent ministers and permanent permanent secretaries.
In the politically mature world, reshuffles are viewed as a change in policy by
the leader or an attempt to keep policy on track by appointing individuals who
attuned to the policy in order to keep it current.
So what’s
the fuss with the whole thing after all if the man acted within his powers ?.
I believe
that Tsvangirai owed no-one an explanation about the reshuffle. That is his
sole mandate. When he appointed his cabinet in the first place, he did not give
anyone any explanations and some of us did not want it because we understood
his powers bestowed upon him by the virtue of his position. To me his error was
in announcing that he has reshuffled because of blah…blah…blah. No. A reshuffle
should be a reshuffle full stop! The poor ministers that were re-assigned or
shown the door for allegedly been non-performers were expected to do a multum
in parvo. Oh dear!
There was
little that Giles could do at Home Affairs. It should be remembered that Zanu
reluctantly agreed to share the ministry and sharing to them means him playing
second fiddle to Kembo. And did the agreement stipulate who is who in the Home
Affairs zoo, I doubt. How then can a man of flesh and blood anything tangible
with his back against the wall ?.
I might
be wrong but if the GNU is going to last at least another 16 months from now, I
want to see what Mother Theresa will have achieved and whether she will also be
sidelined if she fails to deliver. On this, Mutsekwa should just sing the late
and lamented Tazvida’s song hongu ini wandiramba asi ndinoda kuziva kuti wawada
achakupa here zvese zvaunoda (ngempela ungiyalile kodwa ngifuna kubakwazi
ukhuthi loumthandileyo uzokunikana zonke izinto uzidingayo).
I still
wonder what young Thami could achieve under Tyson the murderer at the youth
ministry. Same applies to Fidelis and Evelyn. This apparent limitation on the
scope of acts on the party of the sacked ministers lends credence to and
provides a link between the Tsvangiraist school and the anti-him. By the way
the opposing school propounded that he is like Mugabe that the party is on the
verge of disintegrating. 50%! It is hard to believe that to believe that the
ministers that were redeployed could not face the vestiges of a ministry thus
Save’s claim of deploying them would be viewed as a Mugabe-like lie. But that
is only that. There may have been milestones and timeframes that the ministers
agreed to fulfill but failed to do so. Who knows and in the absence of absolute
knowledge the rumour mill and mere speculation take centre stage. These are
some of the secrets that our society fails to unravel forever and may turn to
haunt us big time.
And
extreme anti-Morgans think the party is on the verge of disintegrating or at
least he might on the verge of being pushed out. Let’s take a situation of the
party splitting into halves - Morgan here and 50 MPs, Biti there with the other
50. Who will be the victor and the vanquished in that unworthy drama and
dissimulation ?.
Ask me wa
Mutasa. You and I the ordinary Zimbos will be the sore losers who will continue
to be dragooned by Zanu for another unspecified period. The victors, your guess
is as good as mine - Zanu, Rwavhi and Sellout Malema.
How about
operation push out Morgan ?.
Same
result, the victims will be two - ordinary citizens and democracy. Morgan has
become a symbol of democracy and our gullible populace only know about
Tsvangirai fighting Rwavhi. The fact that there is bit of a Biti I bet the
majority do not know about that. Ask Makoni and Welsh if they are honest they
will tell you that the povo out there only knows Mugabe and Tsvangirai and any
other name will be difficult to sell in an election. Those that may try to
pursue any of the two sinister options will have not learnt from the Welsh
fiasco and are doomed to fail dismally.
So what
is the real truth behind the recent development, the reshuffle ?.
The truth
is also that I do not since I am not Save but Mutasa. The rumours about
internal power struggles within the upper echelons of the party could be true.
But if it is true, could you expect Tsvangirai to accede to them. There are
power struggles playing out else in Africa which may influence some MDC cadres
to think that they can also do it. Lekota is fighting for political life in
South Africa. Raila seems to have survived a feeble challenge from Ruto in
Kenya.
It is the
Raila issue that is most intriguing. The two PM (Raila and Morgan) and the two
countries share a lot in common - Zanu, Tanu, a GNU each. It is by no means
that Tsvangirai’s reshuffle might have been prompted by prospects of a split.
Remember that when Ruto started throwing tantrums at Raila he was at the
influential Agriculture ministry only to be shoved to the less fashionable
higher education ministry. The same might be true of Mutsekwa, Mudzuri and
Mhashu.
Once
bitten twice shy! Tsvangirai once survived a botched palace coup and to me he
is to all intents and purpose a good soldier. If I am a little ambiguous, let
me elucidate. A good soldier does not necessarily win all the battles, he wins
the war and what is more, spares their opponents. Additionally, a good soldier
when faced with a sure defeat, safely returns to the barracks and waits to
fight on another day. The rumours about power games in the MDC have been
playing themselves well for some time now but Tsvangirai had just kept his cool
probably waiting to exercise his authority with a reshuffle. But the other
irony is that he has just deployed especially Fidelis and Mudzuri straight to
the party. Won’t this then strengthen their resolve to undermine Tsvangirai if
they are in touch with the grassroots every day. Only the creator knows.
Whether
or not the reshuffle shows that the fissures in the MDC (if ever there are
there in the first place) are reappearing in bolder relief is neither here nor
there. It is done and dusted. They say circumstances do not make a man but
reveal him. Similarly the GNU did not make Mutsekwa, Mhashu, Mudzuri, Thami and
Evelyn. It has not made Tsvangirai either.
JJ
MUGADZAWETA
Reforms body wants NGO monitors arrested
2010 07 05
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6185
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
PAUL MANGWANA . . . Monitors must be
arrested
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
Monday 05 July 2010
Harare
Zimbabwe’s constitutional reform
commission has called for the arrest of civil society workers monitoring the
reforms, accusing them of sowing confusion and spreading falsehoods about a
troubled exercise to consult the public on the drafting of a proposed new governance
charter.
Three top local pro-democracy and
human rights groups have dispatched 420 people around the country to monitor
the government-led constitution making process in order to be able to evaluate
whether the exercise was democratic and the outcome a true reflection of the
people’s wishes.
The monitors from the Zimbabwe Peace
Project, Zimbabwe Election Support Network and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human
Rights have reported administrative chaos dogging the constitutional outreach
exercise and widespread intimidation with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF
party said to be telling villagers what to say during meetings to gather the
public’s views.
But joint chairman of the
Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) that is leading the reforms,
Paul Mangwana, on Sunday accused the three NGOs of a “hidden agenda” and
sending out their monitors to spread lies and tarnish the constitutional reform
process.
Mangwana, a member of ZANU PF, said:
“These people from non governmental organisations must be arrested. They are
peddling lies about the process …. why should we be monitored ?.
We believe they have a hidden agenda
to tarnish the process.”
A senior member of Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party and a joint chairman of the COPAC, Douglass
Mwonzora, concurred with Mangwana that the civil society monitors were
“peddling lies” about the outreach exercise.
“These monitors are disseminating
falsehoods about the process,” said Mwonzora, who however did not call for the
civil society workers’ arrest.
National police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena, who has denied reports of violence and intimidation by alleged ZANU
PF supporters, said the law enforcement agency will “not hesitate to arrest
people disrupting the outreach exercise”.
The exercise to write a new constitution
for Zimbabwe to replace the current one drafted by former colonial power
Britain is part of a drive by the coalition government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai
to democratise the southern African country’s politics ahead of fresh
elections.
But the constitution making
exercise, that is nearly one year behind schedule after incessant bickering
between ZANU PF and MDC over what form the reforms should take and a lack of
funding delayed the beginning of the reforms, has been marred by administrative
chaos and the reports of violence and intimidation.
Arrest or removal of civil society
monitors from the field would make it nearly impossible to expose the
widespread intimidation that has characterised the early days of the outreach
programme that is now in its third week.
Soldiers and ZANU PF supporters have
been campaigning for the adoption of the controversial Kariba draft
constitution as the basis of the proposed new charter and are allegedly
instructing villagers to tailor their contributions during outreach meetings to
reflect provisions of the controversial draft.
ZANU PF and the two former
opposition MDC formations secretly authored the Kariba draft in 2007.
But critics say the Kariba document
should be discarded because it leaves untouched the immense presidential powers
that analysts say Mugabe has used to stifle opposition to his rule for the past
three decades.
Zimbabweans hope a new constitution
will guarantee human rights, strengthen the role of Parliament and curtail the
president's powers, as well as guaranteeing civil, political and media
freedoms.
ZimOnline