Green Bombers shore up Mugabe

Mail and Guardian

Jason Moyo

19 May 2008 06:00

      Howard’s mother is just happy her problem child has a job. But
she has asked him to spare her the details of what he actually does for a
living.

      He is a “Green Bomber”, a member of Zimbabwe’s National Youth
Service (NYC). Zanu-PF says he and others like him are learning patriotism,
morality and service to the nation, as well as skills that will stem the
“unpatriotic” brain drain. But the opposition charges they are President
Robert Mugabe’s brutal political enforcers.

      Welshman Ncube, founding secretary general of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), once said that NYC training camps are there to
“force Zanu-PF garbage down children’s throats”.

       But jobs are hard to come by in Zimbabwe, especially if, like
Howard, you are a 25-year-old high school dropout with no marketable skills.

      So when the local government office in Shurugwi, a central
Zimbabwean mining town, posted an advertisement seeking national service
recruits four years ago, he put his illegal gold panning behind him.

      The official pitch to unemployed youths was that a national
service certificate would be a ticket to a civil service job.

      “It sounded better to me than rolling around in the mud looking
for gold, getting into fights and going in and out of jail,” says Howard.
“Ask my mother.”

      His mother, a retired postal worker, agrees. If it keeps him out
of jail, she says, “it’s something better”.

      She hardly sees her son now and when on the rare occasions that
he is allowed to visit the family avoids “talking politics”, she says. She
is afraid of what she might hear.

      Howard now claims a higher calling. “As youths we are the
leaders of tomorrow. But Zimbabwean youths want Western cultures and ideas.
Some of us need to maintain our nationalist outlook.”

      Wearing the olive-green uniform that gave it its “Green Bomber”
moniker, Howard says the NYC is something every “patriotic” Zimbabwean must
go through.

       “I support those of our leaders who say it [the NYC] must be
compulsory,” he says. “Look at me. I’m an example.”

      Is he willing to maim and kill to instil his brand of
patriotism? “Do you think the [liberation] war would have been won if the
comrades were soft with people who refused to support the struggle?”

      But he insists: “We never kill. I’ve attacked only those who
attacked me.”

      So what did Howard, and the 20 000 youths government has
trained, learn in the camps? The programme’s bible is a manual called Inside
the Third Chimurenga, a reference to land reforms beginning in 2000.

      Supposedly an account of Zimbabwe’s history, it downplays the
role of dozens of liberation war leaders, making way for an embellished
image of Mugabe as the one true hero of the struggle.

      Much of the manual comprises Mugabe’s speeches, including
addresses at party conferences and funeral eulogies for war comrades.

      The manual refers to MDC members as “rough and violent
high-density [township] lumpen elements” backed by “disgruntled former
Rhodesians”. The MDC is driven by “the repulsive ideology of a return to
white settler rule”.

      And foreign governments are “enemies” using “their local lackeys
to drive regime change”.

      Howard denies this is brainwashing, saying: “Youths that sit in
front of the TV and read magazines all day are the brainwashed ones.”

      Howard is taking a break before his unit is deployed to eastern
Manicaland, where police say the MDC is attacking Zanu-PF supporters.

      “We are going there just to support the police and other
security arms. Ours is only a supportive role.”

       For this mission he will receive a daily stipend of
Z$1-billion -- only R30, but still more than the average worker earns in a
day.

       Howard is now a service graduate. But, with his new national
certificate his only “qualification”, his post-service career options are
limited.

      He says: “Maybe after the elections I will speak to some people
and become a senior police officer after I leave the Taliban [another name
by which the militia is known].”

      A report by an MP committee last year gave a disturbing picture
of conditions in the training camps. Female trainees live in constant fear
of sexual attacks from their trainers and fellow trainees, while the youths
live in abandoned military barracks without doors or windows and are fed
pap, boiled beans and cabbage, the report said.

Opposition wants army removed from rural areas

Zim Online

by Nqobizitha Khumalo Monday 19 May 2008

BULAWAYO – Zimbabwe’s opposition said on Sunday it was lobbying African
leaders to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe to withdraw the army from
rural areas where soldiers have committed violence and human rights abuses.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party acting leader Thokozani Khupe
told a rally in the second largest city of Bulawayo – that party leader
Morgan Tsvangirai skipped because of assassination fears – that the
opposition was confident of winning a run-off presidential election but
wanted certain conditions met to ensure a free and fair contest.

Zimbabwe holds a presidential run-off poll on June 27 after electoral
authorities said Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March 29 election but
failed to garner more than 50 percent of the vote required to takeover the
presidency.

Khupe told more than 10 000 supporters at Bulawayo’s White City stadium that
the MDC was lobbying the regional Southern African Development Community
(SADC), African Union (AU) and the international community at large to put
pressure on Mugabe to end political violence and to allow international
observers ahead of the run-off poll.

“We are busy putting demands to the SADC, AU and the international community
that . . . there should be the removal of the army from rural areas,” Khupe
said.

The MDC says senior army officers have directed violence by war veterans and
ruling ZANU PF party militia against opposition supporters in rural areas in
a bid to cow them to vote for Mugabe in the June election.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told the Sunday rally that at least 41 members
of the opposition party had died in the violence that had also left
thousands others injured and homeless.

The army has denied committing violence while Mugabe told a meeting of ZANU
PF’s central committee last Friday that the MDC was behind political
violence that broke out in many parts of Zimbabwe soon after the March
elections.

Khupe said the opposition also wanted African leaders and the international
community to push Mugabe to allow observes from SADC, AU and the
international community into Zimbabwe to monitor the run-off poll and that
the 84-year old leader should permit “the international media to come and
cover what is happening in Zimbabwe”.

The Harare administration has said the SADC and AU, which observed the March
polls, are welcome to send observers to the June election but flatly
rejected earlier demands by Tsvangirai to allow the United Nations to send
observers.

The Zimbabwe government, which barred major Western news networks from the
March polls, is unlikely to accede to demands to allow the international
media unfettered access to the country.

Tsvangirai, whose Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has rejected
the delay of the run-off election, starts as favourite to win the second
round ballot after garnering 47.8 percent against Mugabe's 43.2 percent in
the first round election.

However analysts say violence and intimidation against opposition supporters
could effectively alter the political balance to deliver victory to Mugabe
in June.

Meanwhile Tsvangirai’s spokesman George Sibotshiwe said the opposition
leader would not be immediately returning to Zimbabwe after receiving
credible information from “highly placed sources” that his life was in
danger if he returned.

Sibotshiwe refused to elaborate on the nature of the threat or whether it
was the government forces who were after Tsvangirai's life.

Tsvangirai has remained outside Zimbabwe since defeating Mugabe in the March
election. – ZimOnline

Court begins hearing election petitions

Zim Online

by Nokuthula Sibanda and Sebastian Nyamhangambiri Monday 19 May
2008

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s Electoral Court will on Monday begin hearing the first
batch of election petitions filed by candidates of both the ruling ZANU PF
and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parties challenging
results in a total 105 constituencies.

The court that had additional judges allocated to it to help quicken
handling of petitions will hear the applications until Friday with a
possibility that that the hearings could stretch into the weekend as
Zimbabwe’s election crisis shows little sign it will end anytime soon.

Harare lawyer Alec Muchadehama, among a team of lawyers representing MDC
candidates, said his law firm would be handling about 10 opposition
petitions this week.

"The first batch of the cases will be heard on Monday," said Muchadehama. He
added, "Our law firm is handling 10 cases which will be heard on Monday, but
there are several other cases which will be heard this week.”

According to the Electoral Court law, the petitions are supposed to be heard
within a period of six months.

High Court Judge President Rita Makarau two weeks ago told a meeting of
judges and lawyers involved in the electoral petitions that she wanted the
cases heard within the six months period prescribed under the law.

Fifty-three ZANU PF candidates and 52 MDC candidates are challenging the
outcome of elections in their respective constituencies and want the court
to set aside the results.

The court can order the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to hold fresh polls in
some or all of the disputed constituencies, a development that could see
ZANU PF regain control of Parliament if it wins most of the constituencies
where new elections are held.

ZANU PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since Zimbabwe’s
1980 independence from Britain when it won 97 seats against 109 garnered by
the MDC in the March 29 polls. – ZimOnline.

A post election conversation with Mugabe – Part I

Zim Online

by Mutumwa Mawere Monday 19 May 2008

OPINION: At the 73rd Ordinary Session of his former ruling ZANU PF
party’s central committee meeting, held on May 16 2008, Zimbabwe’s President
Robert Mugabe made a number of significant observations on his and the party’s
dismal electoral performance.

To the extent that Mugabe is a generally misunderstood person, it is
important that we use the remaining weeks leading to the decisive run-off
elections to reflect on his own post election analysis and implications
thereof on the resolution of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis.

Although ZANU PF has still to officially concede defeat in the
parliamentary election after the unsuccessful attempt to reverse the
election through a recount followed by yet another failed scheme to use the
judiciary to achieve the same result, Mugabe at the said meeting accepted
that one of the reasons the party lost the elections was that it had entered
the elections with lethargic structures.

It is instructive that it was Mugabe who set the timetable for the
elections presumably on the advice of his intelligence team. Unlike the
other three contestants, Mugabe had the state machinery at his disposal and
conceding that such arsenal was found wanting in the epic battle confirms
the existence of a failed state.

Even after casting his vote, Mugabe was confident that his party would
do exceptionally well to the extent that no contingent investment as
required by law was made for financing the run-off election, resulting in
the unfortunate post election drama that has had the effect of permanently
impairing any residual claim to legitimacy that he may still have.

Whatever happened to the boisterous Mugabe? When will he start
respecting his own people in terms of the choices they make? This election
was supposed to be a referendum on Mugabe’s rule and, therefore, no one
would have expected the incumbent to seek to assign blame on third parties.

In this first instalment of a conversation with Mugabe using extracts
of his speech as recorded in the Herald online edition published on
Saturday, May 17 2008, it is appropriate to start the conversation with the
following words which when properly read suggest that he is conceding
defeat:

"We went to the elections completely unprepared, unorganised and this
against an election-weary voter. Our structures went to sleep, were deep in
slumber in circumstances of an all-out war.

They (structures) were passive; they were lethargic, ponderous,
divided, diverted, disinterested, demobilised or simply non-existent. It was
terrible to see the structures of so embattled a ruling party so enervated.

As leaders, we all share the blame: from the national level to that of
the branch chairman. We played truant; we did not lead, we misled; we did
not encourage, rather we discouraged; we did not unite, we divided; we did
not inspire, we dispirited; we did not mobilise, we demobilised. Hence the
dismal result we are landed with."

If one accepts that Mugabe’s post election analysis is valid, it
represents a serious indictment not only on him as the Commander in Chief
but also his own party. What is strange is that no heads have rolled in the
face of such embarrassing acknowledgement. If he got it wrong in the first
election, what will it take to reverse his fortunes?

When the election date was announced, it was opposition Movement for
Democratic Change party leader Morgan Tsvangirai who pleaded for a
postponement without knowing that he would be the beneficiary. It never
occurred to anyone that even Mugabe was not ready as well.

We now know that notwithstanding the control of the state machinery,
ZANU PF is essentially a disorganised party that went to battle unprepared
yet fully cognisant of the stakes involved. This leads any rational observer
to legitimately ask what kind of leader Mugabe is, who would commit his
troops to battle without a clear plan of action.

He accepted that the voter is election weary and I have no doubt that
his audience would have silently asked why the President would have arrived
at this conclusion without providing an explanation that it may well be the
case that through his actions the voters have lost any hope of reclaiming
their future through the ballot.

If anything, the post-election ballot counting and attendant bizarre
announcements is enough to discourage citizens from participating in
important decisions that affect their future.

It is really an indictment to find Mugabe, a person whose life was
purportedly dedicated to democracy, at this historic hour clinging to power
while acknowledging that his house is not in order principally because he
has failed to deliver the kind of Zimbabwe citizens expected to see.

After 28 years in power, it is evident that no rational conversation
is possible in ZANU PF for if it existed, one would expect the party members
to have expressed a vote of no confidence immediately after the President
had delivered a speech that sought to blame the infantry not the general for
defeat. Why would anyone need a leader who abdicates and seeks to blame
others for lack of organisation?

While Mugabe accepts that the party structures went to sleep in
battle, he nevertheless contradicts this version by seeking to blame
imperialists for his own inadequacies. When will members of ZANU PF wake up
to the fact that they are leaderless in as much as the nation has accepted
that Zimbabwe urgently needs a leadership renewal.

If any general comes to the conclusions after losing a battle that his
army was passive, lethargic, ponderous, divided, diverted, disinterested,
demobilised or simply non-existent then you know it is time to replace the
general. Who would want to go into another battle with such a leader at the
helm? Is it not surprising that Mugabe would still want to go for another
battle after ridiculing his own troops?

When Makoni chose to enter the race, it is now evident that he must
have applied his mind about the state of the party and whether in fact it
had the kind of leadership to successfully execute the battle. Although
Mugabe will never take responsibility for failure, it is clear that the
problem of ZANU PF and Zimbabwe is a lack of leadership.

ZANU PF lost because it no longer has a leader and it is unfortunate
that this kind of conversation will never take place in the party as long as
Mugabe is allowed to continue to pontificate while the country is burning.

Surely Mugabe cannot seriously maintain and acknowledge that he played
truant, did not lead, he misled, he did not encourage, he did not unite, he
divided, he did not inspire, he dispirited, he did not mobilise and then
seek to continue leading the charge for progress and change.

By accepting that the dismal result that visited ZANU PF and himself
was a direct result of a leadership vacuum, it would not be unreasonable to
expect Mugabe to stand down and accept that there can be no better time than
now failing which the people must and should send the message of the fierce
urgency to change leadership and leave ZANU PF to sort out its own internal
challenges without continuing to drag the nation down with it.

Mugabe is a complex man and many have wondered what kind of mind
informs his actions. If anything, his speech at the central committee
exposes the fact that he may no longer be the same person that his
supporters think he is.

If one accepts that the fountain of Mugabe’s power is the party that
he now acknowledges to be disabled through lack of leadership, then one has
to accept that the same leadership can no longer be trusted to lift the
country up.

Zimbabwe is too important to leave in the hands of a leader who by his
own admission has failed his own party but would not accept that the country
is a victim of the same mediocre leadership.

Mugabe is always at his best when he plays victim but the country
requires a new conversation for the future battles to be fought in advancing
the cause of the nation will not be successfully executed without a change
of leadership and direction.

The mere fact that he can be allowed by his party to dream aloud
clearly shows that his fate can only be decided decisively on June 27
through the ballot.

As the countdown continues to the hour of change, the need to continue
the conversation with Mugabe in this virtual world cannot be overstated.

The inevitability of change must be made obvious to Mugabe through
meaningful conversations with him based on his own words given that such
conversations are risky and life threatening in Zimbabwe.

In the face of impending humiliation, violence is readily used as a
substitute for rational discourse and, therefore, it would be dangerous to
succumb to a reality that suits a general who has no value to add even to
his own party by accepting to be silent when through his words there is
enough ammunition to lubricate and energise the change agenda. – Zim Online

Zimbabwe Opposition Welcomes Tutu’s Call For International Peacekeepers

VOA

By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
19 May 2008

Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has welcomed
calls by former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu for international
peacekeepers ahead of the election run-off next month. Tutu said the
deployment of international peacekeepers would help prevent violence during
the presidential run-off. The opposition MDC accuses President Robert Mugabe’s
ruling ZANU-PF of using violence to intimidate its partisans in rural areas
to ensure victory for the ruling party. But the ruling party dismissed the
accusation and blamed the opposition for conniving with enemies of Zimbabwe
to force a regime change.

The government warned the MDC that any act to subvert the country’s
constitution by forcing a regime change is treasonous. From Harare, MDC
international affairs secretary Eliphas Mukonoweshuro tells reporter Peter
Clottey that the ongoing violence is detrimental to free and fair elections.

“It is quite clear that with the level of violence at the present moment, it
would be difficult for people to express their political opinion without
interference. Therefore, the MDC will support any effort from whatever
international quarter to ensure that voting takes place under free and fair
conditions in the context of peace,” Mukonoweshuro pointed out.

He concurs that it would be an enormous challenge for the MDC to do well in
the election run-off with the scale of the ongoing violence.

“It would be extremely difficult to consider elections held in such a
violent condition as legitimate and bringing about a legitimate expression
of the people’s wishes. So, it is not a matter of what Mr. Mugabe and his
political party wishes to see. I think the international community must
insist that elections must be held in the contest of peaceful conditions,”
he said.

Mukonoweshuro said the ruling party has always denied election victories to
the opposition party.

“The MDC has been defeating the ruling party since 2000, but the votes have
been stolen. And what the vice president (of the opposition MDC) has been
saying is that we will repeat the same experience again. We will defeat
ZANU-PF. We are saying to the international community to assist us in
guarding the people’s vote,” Mukonoweshuro noted.

He said with international pressure, incumbent President Mugabe would hand
over power to the opposition if the ruling party loses the run-off.

“Mr. Mugabe would have no choice if the international community monitors the
election and the MDC wins again. So, we are saying to the international
community the time has come to ensure that the charade that is going on in
Zimbabwe comes to a stop,” he said.

Mukonoweshuro urged the regional SADC (Southern African Development
Community) body to help with the calls on deploying poll observers from the
international community ahead of the run-off.

“We are appealing to SADC… we are saying that SADC must ensure that this
process is brought to its logical conclusion,” Mukonoweshuro noted.

He said the opposition MDC is well prepared to win the run-off.

“We are very, very prepared. Our structures are ready to go, but they are
being destroyed by the violence that is meted out by the ZANU-PF,” he noted.

Why America Sent a Black Man to Do a White Man's Job ...

The Mugabe Effect: Every African leader can turn into a monster...

The East African
 May 19, 2006

CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO

I have just realised that disdain for Zimbabwe’s autocrat, Robert Mugabe,
has blinded us from seeing that, as the religiously inclined might say, God
has driven him mad so can he can serve His purpose.

Barely 10 years ago, Mugabe was still among the most admired leaders in the
Third World, and his country was a bouncy fertile land. Today, he is a
raving oppressor, and his nation an economic and political wasteland.

Yet Mugabe’s fall from grace is probably supposed to teach us a simple
lesson – that there’s no African leader who cannot turn into a monster.

And the news from Senegal this week only proves that the shameful things we
are seeing in Zimbabwe were probably meant to prepare us for more
heartbreak. Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade has got his government to
publish proposals to lift the two-term limit.

When President Yoweri Museveni abolished terms limits in Uganda, less than a
quarter of the country was surprised. Not too many people had banked on his
leaving. When Sam Nujoma, another rebel leader president did the same,
enough people had seen it coming.

When Olusegun Obasanjo, a generally lovable former military dictator tried —
and failed — to bribe and arm-twist parliament to give him a third term, it
was just the thing a Nigerian-soldier was expected to do. The great surprise
this time was that enough parliamentarians rejected a backhander.

Next door in Sudan, we woke one morning last week and the news was that
rebels had driven all the way from Darfur and attacked Khartoum. I have
always wished the worst upon the murderous Sudanese regime, but had
nevertheless come to consider it one of the most entrenched in the region.
Not too many people were prepared to see it being so easily exposed as a
shell. Here was a bunch  of rebels, driving for days in a convoy of 200
machine-mounted trucks and they were detected only hours before reaching the
capital.

WADE, TOGETHER WITH OBASANJO, and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, is one of the
architects of the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development, Nepad,
and the African Peer Review Mechanism.

An easily excitable international community rushed in with millions of
dollars to reward the African governments whose leaders lived by the Nepad
standards.

As we have seen, Obasanjo turned rogue. Mbeki, a man with admirable
intelligence, has been discredited by his quixotic views about HIV and Aids.

But what has discredited him equally in the eyes of the world is that,
instead of using South Africa’s leverage to bully Mugabe into decent
behaviour, Mbeki has mollycoddled him and cheered the Zimbabwean as he
throttled his people.

Up to last week or thereabouts, the world still had a lot of time and paid
serious attention to what Wade had to say. To his credit, he rarely
disappointed.

A plain-speaking bloke, he was surprisingly gentle with his political
enemies in his first years in office, and one always looked forward to him
berating African leaders for corruption and ineptitude. When Nepad turned
out to be a hollow enterprise, he was the first to lambaste it.

Here’s a man who’s soon turning 90, and after two long terms you would think
he would be impatient to limp off into quiet retirement. But no, he wants to
rewrite the rulebook so he can celebrate his 100th year birthday in office.

It’s unbearably disappointing. But if Mugabe could turn into a demented
autocrat, it tells you that one of these days one of these handsome, smartly
suited East African presidents could appear on national TV at prime time,
and declare himself Emperor as Jean-Bedel Bokassa did.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s managing editor for convergence
and new products. E-mail:cobbo@nation.co.ke

Mugabe Receives War Weapons

OhMyNews

[Opinion] Tsvangirai will be assassinated within the next 60 days

Nicolas van der Leek

     Published 2008-05-19 07:13 (KST)

A 77-ton arms shipment has now reached Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe,
with speculation rife that South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki assisted
directly and confusion as to whether the arms were offloaded at Lobito
(Angola) or Ponta Negra (Democratic Republic of Congo).

Mugabe, the man Mbeki recently held hands with, instructed the SAS
Drakensberg to refuel the An Yue Jiang, according to the online newspaper
Canal de Mocambique. The Chinese ship was being tracked by Lloyds of London;
however, the Drakensberg had radar and satellite jamming equipment on board.

In any event, Mugabe now has weapons for a war, weapons to crush dissent,
and he has wasted no time deploying his war machine. Forty Movement for
Democratic Change activists are reported already dead, and we are about to
see armed military controls increasing all over Zimbabwe.

Given the lack of outside involvement in Zimbabwe, we are likely to see
escalating levels of bloodshed and disorder, in anticipation of the June 27
election.

In light of these developments, Morgan Tsvangirai has wisely changed his
plans, choosing not to return home on Friday, as planned.

One has to sympathize with the man -- how can he ever return home given that
his adversary has now armed himself? Only if Tsvangirai loses the election
can he expect a smaller target on his back, because Mugabe certainly won't
let him win. And if Tsvangirai does win, he will certainly face
assassination. Either way, it appears now, that he won't and can't win.

Because of outside intransigence, particularly from South Africa's leaders,
Mugabe now holds all the keys and cards to furthering his highly egregious
dictatorship.

How can Mugabe get away with this? Because his backer in South Africa is
powerful. Mbeki must be getting a lot of money from Mugabe to play ball.
Mbeki said in his own defense of his erratic and questionable diplomacy that
"someone is telling lies."

The question is not whether Mbeki is being honest or not; the question is
why is he doing what we know he is doing? The answer is simple. He has been
offered incentives to make sure Mugabe can continue giving him even more
incentives, and that can only happen if Mugabe remains in power.

Guard against Garande's Zimbabwe Guardian

Mugabe Must Stop Brutal Tactics

Black Star News

By Hillary Clinton
May 18th, 2008
.

As the turmoil in Zimbabwe continues after a seriously tainted election
process, President Robert Mugabe is employing brutal tactics against
dissenters in an attempt to retain power.

In addition to raids on opposition party offices and the killing of
opposition democracy activists by Mugabe supporters, there are increasing
reports that the police are interrogating, arresting, and beating Anglican
parishioners and preventing them from attending Church.

I join with people of all faiths in the United States and around the globe
in calling for an end to the religious persecution taking place in Zimbabwe.
These offenses are an affront to everyone and, as we know, religious
persecution anywhere is a call to action everywhere.

Zimbabwe's families and communities teeter on the edge of starvation and
economic distress while intimidation and violence toward people of faith is
being carried out by the ruling party.

This past Sunday while many participated in Holy Communion, a church service
was raided and congregants had to run for safety instead of participating in
their most holy sacrament.

We, as a free nation, must join in prayer for the faithful of Zimbabwe. In
April, the worldwide Anglican Communion called on everyone to pray for
Zimbabwe's rescue “from violence, the concealing and juggling of election
results, deceit, oppression and corruption.”

Let us all join in this call to prayer seeking an end to the persecution,
for the church of Zimbabwe to remain faithful and strong for justice and
truth, for an end to the drought that is creating a food crisis, for those
suffering from the HIV/AIDS pandemic and their families and the clergy who
are weary in their ministry. Let's work to lift up this nation during their
time of distress.

As First Lady and Senator, I have spoken out against religious persecution
around the world, from China to Afghanistan to Ukraine. And in places such
as Northern Ireland, I have worked on behalf of religious reconciliation to
help foster peace.

As President, I will continue to speak out for religious freedom and work
towards religious tolerance and peace around the world.

Senator Clinton is seeking nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential
candidate

Foreigners Attacked in S. Africa

Zimbabweans, Others Chased From Homes

A Zimbabwean man rests in the courtyard of the Alexandra township police station, where more than a thousand foreigners have sought refuge from anti-foreigner violence. (By Jerome Delay -- Associated Press)

By Craig Timberg

Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 19, 2008; Page A10

JOHANNESBURG, May 18 -- Gangs of men armed with guns, clubs and threats have chased thousands of Zimbabweans and other foreigners from their homes in this nation's poor townships over the past week, leaving at least 12 people dead and scores injured, according to news reports.

The nighttime rampages have turned police stations in several townships in the Johannesburg area into virtual refugee camps, with makeshift tents, portable toilets and clusters of terrified people, many displaying wounds from the attacks.

Many have vowed never to return to their looted houses but have few options when their own nations are experiencing a dearth of economic opportunities, or, in the case of Zimbabwe, a devastating political crisis and inflation that has topped 165,000 percent.

"I'm not going back to Zimbabwe," said Patricia Sibanda, 38, a widow who, along with her 15-year-old daughter, was among more than 1,000 victims camped out in the police station in the township of Alexandra, where the attacks began May 11. "There's no food in Zimbabwe. There's no everything."

The attacks have embarrassed many South Africans, including prominent members of the ruling African National Congress, whose own leadership depended on the hospitality of its neighbors during decades in exile before the fall of apartheid in 1994. An estimated 3 million people, most from Zimbabwe, have come to South Africa since then.

Zimbabwean Tom Matayo, 34, who was chased from his home in Alexandra, said he had heard of South Africans living in his native region, Matabeleland, while fighting apartheid. He fled his home Monday night as the attacks spread, leaving behind his South African wife, their three children and his tuberculosis medicine.

"Now we are here, they chase us away. It's unfair," said Matayo, a security guard who has lived in Alexandra for 10 years. "They don't remember because they are living all right."

Fourteen years after the end of apartheid, many townships remain deeply impoverished with few jobs, tiny metal shacks for homes and high rates of AIDS and other diseases. South African residents complain bitterly that foreigners have moved into many of the government-built concrete homes in recent years and are undermining wages, contributing to high crime rates and establishing relationships with South African women.

The townships also have been swollen by millions of rural South Africans coming in search of opportunity closer to economically vibrant urban centers. In several instances, according to news reports, South Africans from relatively small ethnic groups have been attacked along with foreigners.

The violence began in Alexandra, which has an estimated 500,000 people crammed into a three-square-mile cityscape dominated by small homes and shacks. It has since spread to other townships in Johannesburg and near Cape Town. An official told the Associated Press that 12 people have died in the violence and that 200 have been arrested.

Despite official condemnations -- the Alexandra police station has received a succession of high-profile visits by political, religious and government leaders -- the effort to drive out foreigners appears to enjoy widespread support among township residents.

South African house builder Albert Ramaite, 44, who supports a wife and five children, said he has not had steady work in more than three years. While he still holds out for a daily wage of about $20, many Zimbabweans will work for less than half that amount.

"Every day, I wake up and say, what am I going to do? What am I going to eat?" said Ramaite, who had skipped both breakfast and lunch that day.

Ramaite criticized the violence but said the foreigners must leave Alexandra. He suggested that the government build new townships to accommodate those who do not want to return to their home countries.

Formally relocating those chased from their homes would not necessarily ease the sense of frustration felt by many South Africans as they wait years for the arrival of modern housing and other amenities they expected soon after the end of apartheid.

"Once you give them houses or whatever, we'll be creating a big war," said Thomas Sithole, a member of the Alexandra Community Police Forum, a residents' group. "The question will be, 'Why are you giving them houses?' "

Yet many immigrants say they have lived peacefully here for many years.

Sibonisiwe Moyo, 23, said she came to Alexandra from Zimbabwe in 2004 and was living happily with her husband and their 4-month-old son.

They had few problems until a mob came to their home Sunday night. When her husband went outside to investigate while carrying their son, the boy was struck with a rock hurled by an attacker. Moyo's husband suffered wounds on his neck and abdomen.

She recalled the men shouting, "Zimbabweans must go back home!"

The gang looted their home, taking a refrigerator, radio, DVD player and clothes. Clad in the same blouse and dark skirt that she was wearing that night, Moyo was looking for a way to return to Zimbabwe.

"It's not good. People have guns," she said with a shrug. "I must go."

Violence in Johannesburg Spreading

OhMyNews

[Commentary] High fuel and food prices ravaging poor communities in
South Africa

Nicolas van der Leek

     Published 2008-05-19 06:54 (KST)

On the 7 p.m. South African Broadcasting Corporation news bulletin, violence
hotspots were superimposed over a map of Johannesburg. Markers included
Alexandra, Dieplsoot, Olifantsfontein, Tembisa, Thokoza, Jeppestown,
Cleveland, Honeydew, Johannesburg Inner City, Sowetan and half a dozen other
areas filled with rampaging mobs.

While the Media and even "intelligence experts" remain dumbfounded as to why
"apparently random" attacks have happened, what is already immediately clear
and obvious is the following:

1. The attacks are conducted in large groups.

2. The attacks are associated with a high level of robbery, which is in fact
organized looting.

3. The attacks are not mere xenophobia since there are many reports of South
African citizens being attacked, but xenophobia is an element rationalizing
the crowd mindset behind these violent activities.

4. All of the attacks have occurred in poor areas.

5. The attacks are spreading rapidly around Johannesburg.

In order to provide an explanation, it is not necessary to open up a special
investigation or to refer this matter to experts. The explanation for the
spread of violence is incontrovertible:

1. Timing. In recent weeks South Africa has seen large increases in fuel and
basic food prices, and even the price of services such as electricity. At
the same time South Africans of all income groups have a perception of a
breakdown in services, including crime, electricity, health, etc., which
induces a heightened sense of hopelessness in poor populations in
particular. Higher interest rates and other associated costs has had a
sudden and immediate impact on primarily the poor, quickly rendering large
groups of unemployed groups incapable of meeting certain long established
levels of subsistence.

2. The ongoing instability across the border has engendered a mindset of
unease and perceived threat -- since the Zimbabwe situation appears unlikely
to be resolved soon, the perception is that competition over scarce
resources (food, jobs and housing) by the poor is reinforced.

3. The onset of winter increases the discomfort levels, and the perception
of "danger to survival," and some perceptions are associated with a
widespread belief that houses have been corruptly offered to illegal aliens
rather than those in squatter camps placed on a waiting list for countless
months with no results in their favor. The reality of winter is starker if
you have been waiting without success for a house, and seen houses being
given away over one's own head, as it were, to foreigners. The result is an
angry and in some ways desperate response.

It may be coincidental, but recent news indicating long-term oil prices may
also have filtered through, reinforcing again a hopeless and deplorable
state of affairs. Whether the future prices of food or fuel and their impact
on South Africa's economic losers have been accepted, realized or even
understood is less important than knowing that the present Hooligan
Revolution is likely to increase in severity over the longer term for
exactly these reasons.

Beyond a certain critical level of civil strife in Gauteng, it will be
generally unsafe and become necessary for middle class whites in suburbia to
leave Johannesburg entirely.

High food and fuel prices have a profoundly negative impact on the poor
(estimated at around 50 percent of South Africa's population) and may well
lead to a revolutionary overthrow of systems currently in place. As such,
the government ought to initiate massive aid packages to poor communities
nationwide at the earliest possible time.

A longer-term initiative, assuming order is regained, ought to be an
intensive farming program to activate and mobilize the poor into addressing
the nation's food troubles directly. The South African scenario can also be
reasonably assumed to provide a model for how communities worldwide will
begin to respond to rising concerns around energy and food costs.