Zim Online
by Sebastian Nyamhangambiri Tuesday 27 May
2008
HARARE – Zimbabwe civic leaders on Monday expressed
doubt that President
Robert Mugabe would agree to handover power if he were
defeated in a second
round presidential election on June 27.
Mugabe –
who garnered 43.2 percent of the vote compared to 47.8 percent won
by
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round ballot on March
29 –
enters the run-off contest as an underdog, the first time in more than
two
decades that the veteran leader has been billed as the most likely
looser in
a major election.
Political commentator and chairman of the National
Constitutional Assembly
(NCA) political pressure groups, Lovemore Madhuku,
said Mugabe could block
the release of an unfavourable poll result or he
could simply pressure the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to declare him
the winner.
Such a declaration of victory would be followed by a quick
inauguration,
enabling the “newly elected” Mugabe to crack down on the
opposition and
other dissenting voices, said Madhuku, warning Zimbabweans
not to think that
they will simply “walkover Mugabe” come next
month.
"It is very unlikely that he will accept defeat,” said Madhuku,
speaking at
an event organised by civic society groups in Harare to mark
Africa Day.
“June 27 might actually be the beginning of a long struggle,
it will be
difficult for the regime to accept defeat," added Madhuku, whose
NCA brings
together churches, opposition political parties, women and civic
rights
groups, labour and the student movement.
Speaking at the same
event, Bulawayo Agenda executive director Gordon Moyo
said Mugabe and his
ruling ZANU PF party have become addicted to power after
28 years at the
helm and would attempt to hold on to it despite the outcome
of
elections.
“I am very cautious about whether they will let it go and
handover power,”
said Moyo. "They will not allow the process of democracy to
go through . . .
there is a team of people at the top that has benefited
from the system and
cannot give up."
There have been conflicting
statements from Mugabe’s government over whether
he would willingly give up
power in the event of defeat next month.
One of Mugabe’s closest
lieutenants and his chief election agent Emmerson
Mnangagwa was quoted by
state media on Monday as having said that the
veteran leader would accept
the outcome of the second presidential vote
including an opposition
victory.
But several other leaders of the ruling ZANU PF have in recent
weeks
threatened that the party was not even contemplating giving up power
despite
losing to Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in
March.
Mugabe has himself vowed never to give up power to Tsvangirai,
whom he
accuses of being a stooge of Zimbabwe’s former colonial power,
Britain.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told ZimOnline on Monday that
talk of
Mugabe agreeing to give up power was premature because ZANU PF was
in the
first place going to emerge winners in the presidential run-off
election.
He said: "ZANU PF will not lose the run-off, so the issue of
handing over
power is out of question. They are day-dreaming if they think
ZANU PF will
lose.”
The run-off election is being held amid worsening
food shortages and an
economic recession shown in the world’s highest
inflation rate that is close
to a million percent according to some
estimates.
Such a scenario would mean certain and emphatic electoral
defeat for any
sitting government but analysts say a blistering campaign of
political
violence against MDC structures and supporters might just tilt the
scales in
favour of Mugabe. – ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Tuesday 27 May
2008
HARARE – A senior envoy of President Thabo Mbeki held
talks with President
Robert Mugabe in Harare on Monday, as Zimbabwe’s
run-off presidential
election draws nearer amid claims of rising political
violence against the
opposition.
No details on the talks were
released to the media but government sources
said Sydney Mufamadi – South
Africa’s Local Government Minister and Mbeki’s
point man on Zimbabwe –
discussed the run-off poll with Mugabe as part of
Pretoria’s ongoing
mediation efforts in its northern neighbour.
“Mufamadi arrived at State
House (Mugabe’s presidential palace) at around 10
o’clock in the morning and
went into talks with the President. It’s all in
the context of the mediation
process,” said a source.
Some government officials indicated that
Mufamadi would also meet with the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the body
that runs elections in the country.
Mbeki is the Southern African
Development Community (SADC)’s mediator on
Zimbabwe and has promised to push
for an end to violence in order to ensure
the run-off poll is held under
free and fair conditions.
Political violence broke out in many parts of
Zimbabwe almost immediately it
became clear opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and his Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party had defeated
Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF
party in the March 29 polls.
The MDC,
Western governments and human rights groups have accused Mugabe of
unleashing ZANU PF militias and the army to beat and torture Zimbabweans in
a bid to intimidate them to back him in the second round presidential
ballot.
The June 27 run-off election is being held because Tsvangirai
defeated
Mugabe in March but failed to garner more than 50 percent of the
vote needed
to take power under Zimbabwe’s electoral laws.
The MDC
says at least 43 of its supporters have been murdered while at least
another
5 000 have been displaced in the violence that has raised
international
outcry with United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon, Western
governments and human
rights groups urging African leaders to do more to end
the
crisis.
The Harare administration denies authorising violence and instead
says it is
the MDC that has carried out political violence in order to
tarnish Mugabe’s
name.
Mbeki, who controls Africa’s biggest economy
and is Mugabe’s most important
neighbour, is seen as best positioned to
influence the Zimbabwean leader to
back off from violence and remove all
impediments to the democratic process.
However, Mbeki has faced criticism
over his handling of the Zimbabwe crisis
not least from the MDC, which says
he has failed to apply pressure on Mugabe
and should be relieved of his
duties as SADC chief mediator. – ZimOnline.
VOA
By Howard Lesser
Washington,
DC
27 May 2008
Lobbying efforts by Zimbabwe
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have
produced agreement with the
Southern African Community (SADC) to send
additional election monitors for
Zimbabwe’s June 27 presidential run-off.
Angola Foreign Minister Joao
Miranda announced the increase yesterday,
shortly after Tsvangirai’s return
from six weeks in South Africa. Miranda,
who chairs SADC’s security and
defense committee, told Angola’s Angop news
agency the 14-nation regional
bloc would boost its observer team above the
120 provided in March, when no
western monitors were allowed to view
Zimbabwe’s first round of voting.
Africa director Georgette Gagnon of Human
Rights Watch recently urged the
African Union to provide observers to
promote free and fair voting. She
says that without more monitors,
escalating violence will ensure a run-off
victory for President Robert
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF
supporters.
“Without any changes on the ground, we are very concerned
that the violence
could escalate because with no independent observers or
condemnation or
action by the African Union, by SADC, and others, obviously,
ZANU-PF is free
to do what it wants with impunity, and in our view will try
to win at any
cost,” she said.
In a written statement last week,
Human Rights Watch called on the African
Union to demand publicly that the
Zimbabwe government halt what it called a
campaign of violence, torture, and
intimidation. Among steps recommended to
reduce tensions, Gagnon called for
the end of attacks and intimidation of
MDC supporters, who she charged have
been beaten, tortured, and killed
since March 29 in the provinces of
Masvingo, Manicaland, and Mashonaland
West, East, and Central. Other steps
include changes and implementation of
new legislation, a lifting of media
restrictions, a halt in ZANU-PF’s
targeting and harassment of election
officials, the resolution of various
court cases involving election
irregularities, and an improvement in
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)
officials being able to conduct their
operations fairly and impartially.
Gagnon said that sending in outside
peacekeepers to halt the violence
probably won’t happen and that further
sanctions against Harare are an
unlikely option because those already in
place have not worked.
“I do
not see any international peacekeepers coming into the country or even
being
suggested at this point. Some would say this isn’t enough of an
internal
conflict for that to happen. In terms of sanctions, the European
Union
already has some sanctions on Zimbabwean authorities. The United
States has
in fact a sanctions regime in place. But it is unlikely more
sanctions will
be forthcoming because obviously, they haven’t stopped the
violence up to
now,” she said.
Since his return, Tsvangirai has requested that SADC
election monitors be
deployed in Zimbabwe by June 1. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s
state-run Ziana news
agency reports this week that 30 observers from the Pan
African Parliament,
the African Union’s legislative body based in South
Africa, are expected to
arrive in Zimbabwe on June 13. Gagnon says the
importance of an AU presence
in Zimbabwe to ensure a fair June 27 vote
cannot be played down.
“The chances are probably quite low unless the
African Union as a united
team urges and confronts the Zimbabwean government
to let them in. Also,
the observers would need probably financial support
from the United Nations
or some other group to actually permit them to
deploy quickly. We are
hopeful that as the pressure mounts, it will come
out publicly and condemn
these abuses and try and pressure the government to
hold a free run-off vote
on June 27,” she noted.
VOA
By Peter Clottey
Washington, D.C.
27 May
2008
Zimbabweans have reportedly expressed skepticism after
President Robert
Mugabe’s government stated it would accept the results of
the upcoming
election results if the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change wins.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is a member of Mugabe’s cabinet and the
chief
election agent of the ruling ZANU-PF party reportedly, said Mugabe
would
respect the wish of Zimbabweans if the opposition wins. But some
political
analysts say the government’s rhetoric does not match the
escalating
violence against those perceived as supporters of the opposition
party.
The opposition MDC is calling for international peacekeepers to
help stop
the ongoing violence against its partisans ahead of the election
run-off.
The MDC accuses the Mugabe government of using violence to
intimidate its
supporters to ensure the government’s victory. John Makumbe
is a political
science professor at the university of Zimbabwe. From the
capital, Harare he
tells reporter Peter Clottey that the government is
putting structures in
place to ensure its success in the run-off.
“I
think it is a clear sign that ZANU-PF intends to manipulate the election
results. I think that is not really a greater statement at all. It is not a
pragmatic statement because we can see that they are making all the plans
for resisting whatever, which will help make Mugabe win,” Makumbe pointed
out.
He said Zimbabweans are skeptical about the statement coming
from the
government that incumbent President Mugabe would accept defeat if
the
opposition wins the election run-off.
“Zimbabweans will never
accept that statement, especially coming as it did
from Emerson Mnangagwa,
whom we know is canvassing for the position of
Mugabe himself, and he
basically depicts ZANU-PF in power. And so
Zimbabweans will not take that
statement with any substance at all. But they
know that it is all about
planning to win at all cost,” he said.
Makumbe said the opposition MDC
stands a good chance of making a significant
impact in next month’s
presidential election run-off.
“People of Zimbabwe are very determined
that they have to put an end to the
Mugabe era and they are going to endure
the hardships, the beatings, the
torture and even imprisonment…and they will
still vote for MDC and Morgan
Tsvangirai. They will not vote for people who
beat them, they will not be
easy to intimidate,” Makumbe noted.
He
said the ruling party would have little option to refuse to hand over
power
to the opposition if President Mugabe is defeated.
“It would have to hand
over power if it loses the election. The onus would
be on the MDC, which
could say, okay, we would like to form a government of
national unity for
the benefit of the nation. But they would have no choice
than to hand over
power. If they don’t, then it would become a military
coup, and with the
military coup, Zimbabwe would be further ostracized. In
fact it would be
kicked out of the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) and the
country would struggle even further for the next five years,”
he pointed
out.
26th May 2008
We received the
following text from Stendrick (in Zimbabwe) of our partner
organization,
ROHR: "We are ready for a 'stop the killing' demo. Our boys
are determined
to defy the killings. We are not safe at all. We are not
staying at home.
Please request churches to pray for us. We need prayers.
Our eyes are full
of tears for our fallen heroes, Better, Cain and Godfrey.
Mugabe can only
delay freedom but he cannot block it. I am finding it
difficult to accept
the death of our three heroes. I can't express it but I
am in pain for their
deaths."
ROHR and the Vigil took a collection on Saturday 24th May for
the funeral
expenses of Tonderai Ndira and raised over £200.
We have
heard from our friends in Bristol that their protest in April went
ahead
successfully. It was organised in co-ordination with Bristol Zimbabwe
Association, the Bristol branch of ACTSA and the Bristol MDC and attended by
two local MPs, a local councillor and a Zimbabwean preacher who gave some
very moving and uplifting prayers. Music was provided by the local Ambling
band and Zimbabwean protesters who performed in their unique style. It was
gorgeous weather and the day worked very well. They are still holding
monthly vigils and their latest last Saturday was well supported by the
public. The Glasgow Vigil also reports a successful Vigil last
Saturday.
Vigil Co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy,
429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to
protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in
Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) The Zimbabwean government on Monday maintained its
stance on Mengistu Haile Mariam, saying it would not extradite the former
Ethiopian leader on death row for crimes against humanity in his native
country.
A Zimbabwean government official said there had been no
shift in Harare’s
position on the deposed Ethiopian leader who has stayed in
the southern
African country since fleeing an uprising against his regime in
1991.
“Nothing has changed yet about our position on that matter,” the
official
said. He insisted that the former Ethiopian leader was and would
remain a
guest of the Zimbabwe government.
An Ethiopian judge in
Addis Ababa on Monday sentenced Mengistu and 19 others
to death for genocide
during his reign between 1974 and 1991.
The Zimbabwean government has
repeatedly refused to extradite Mengistu since
last year when the Ethiopian
high court handed down a life sentence against
the former leader.
His
honeymoon in Zimbabwe could however come to an end if President Robert
Mugabe loses to opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a presidential
election run-off set for June 27.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for
Democratic Change has already said it would hand
over the former Ethiopian
ruler to his country if it comes to power.
JN/daj/APA
26-05-2008
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Tuesday 27 May
2008
JOHANNESBURG – The Red Cross said on Monday that
thousands of Zimbabwean
immigrants fleeing South Africa because of
xenophobic violence were opting
to go to Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique,
avoiding their home country where
food is in short supply and the economy in
deep crisis.
Red Cross director for Southern Africa Francoise Le Goff
told the media that
at least 25 000 Zimbabweans were heading for Zambia with
thousands others
going to Mozambique and Botswana.
Goff said: “In
Zambia, our teams are expecting the arrival of 25 000
Zimbabweans, or 5 000
families. At least 5 500 Zimbabweans have had
assistance to Mozambique," she
added, and 342 had been received in centres
near the border with
Botswana.”
Only a decade ago, the economies of the three countries were
much poorer
than that of Zimbabwe, which was a regional breadbasket with an
economy
second to that of South Africa only.
But controversial
policies by President Robert Mugabe’s government including
seizure of
productive white-owned farms since 2000 have plunged Zimbabwe
into an
economic meltdown described by the World Bank as the worst in the
world
outside a war zone.
The economic crisis – that is shown in the world’s
highest inflation of more
than 165 000 percent, chronic food and fuel
shortages – has forced at least
three million Zimbabweans or a quarter of
the country’s 12 million
population to flee to neighbouring countries and as
far as Britain and the
United States in search of jobs and better living
conditions.
However, many of the fugitives from Mugabe’s rule as well as
thousands of
other immigrants from African countries have fallen victim to
xenophobic
violence that swept across South Africa over the past two
weeks.
Armed gangs of South African men have roamed townships and
shantytowns
beating, and killing African immigrants. At least 50 immigrants
were killed
in the attacks and more than 15 000 left without food or shelter
after their
homes were looted and burnt down by the gangs.
Meanwhile
South African Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told
reporters in
Pretoria that the government had brought the xenophobic
violence under
control.
"I do believe the situation is under control," he said at a
briefing at the
Union Buildings in Pretoria, following an inter-governmental
task team
meeting with President Thabo Mbeki.
The team was
established shortly after xenophobic attacks erupted in
Johannesburg's
Alexandra township.
Nqakula said that 342 shops belonging to foreign
nationals were looted and
another 213 burnt down across the country in the
violence that Mbeki has
described as an absolute disgrace. – ZimOnline
Business Day
27 May 2008
IT WAS good to
see President Thabo Mbeki addressing the nation on Sunday
night. He was
late, very late, but what he had to say was well said.
What has been
happening in SA these past few weeks is, as Mbeki said, an
absolute
disgrace.
It will certainly bury, for most of the lives of citizens alive
today, any
notion of South African uniqueness or special modernity on the
African
continent.
In a way, that might make it easier for the people
who will replace him and
his government next year. They will not have to try
to live up to the
construct of SA as a modernising influence on the
continent. They’ll be able
to be themselves.
The outbreak of
xenophobia may also help South Africans grow up and, maybe,
even grow up
together. For that to happen, though, they would have to draw
the correct
conclusions from the violence.
One would be that racism or xenophobia
belong to both white and black South
Africans and both are capable of being
immensely cruel because of the
prejudices they cling to. Another would be
that we delude ourselves too
easily here. The poverty in our townships is
desperate and dangerous and no
amount of advertising or holding hands or
grand speeches about “rising” is
going to make it go away. Only good policy
correctly and determinedly
executed will.
And let us end the
doublespeak Mbeki and his ministers have brought to our
public
life.
Butchering other human beings is indeed a disgrace, as he called it
on
Sunday night. But not only here. In Zimbabwe too, surely, where Robert
Mugabe’s followers have killed and beaten thousand of opponents over the
past decade?
Why has Mbeki never called that a disgrace? Because it
isn’t his country?
What about the violence meted out daily in his own
country by criminals on
innocent citizens?
That was the weakness in
his television address. It wasn’t the work of a
moral leader. You couldn’t
hear the word “disgrace” without wondering where
it has been all his time in
office.
By R.W. JOHNSON
FROM
TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
May 27, 2008
CAPE TOWN, South
Africa
South Africa is taking stock after two weeks of xenophobic riots.
By the
latest count, 50 people have been killed and thousands injured. Over
600
rioters have been arrested as the violence spread through all nine of
the
country's provinces. The images are shocking. Large, well-armed mobs of
black people rampage through the townships, even the center of the
commercial capital, Johannesburg. The necklace (burning tire) style of
killing, so familiar from the civil strife that swept the country in the
early 1990s, has made a horrific return. The plight of the foreign Africans
has been desperate, with some 30,000 displaced and many of their shops and
shacks ransacked or destroyed; unknown thousands have gone back
home.
The damage to South Africa's image both within Africa and beyond is
very
large. Perhaps worst of all, the riots have raised the question of
whether
the country really made a miraculously peaceful transition from
apartheid to
multiracial democracy, as so widely trumpeted, 14 years ago. In
a ghostly
reversal of history, mobs are once more in the streets, and as in
apartheid
days, the military has been called out to control them. The ruling
African
National Congress is used to thinking of large, politically
mobilized
township mobs as masses demanding democracy, and the soldiers out
to bring
them into submission the instrument of apartheid oppression. Now
the roles
are reversed, posing some disturbing thoughts about whether one
has viewed
the past correctly. Certainly the sight of workers attacking
workers is a
nightmare for the left. The greater fear is that this could all
easily spill
over into intra-South African tribal conflict.
Nobody
knows how many illegal immigrants there are in South Africa. Most
estimates
suggest that up to four million Zimbabweans have fled here from
Robert
Mugabe's rule of brutality and enforced poverty. Mozambicans make up
the
second-largest group. But South Africa's borders are porous and there
are
also large numbers of people from Malawi, Nigeria, the Democratic
Republic
of Congo, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa. At a bare minimum there
must be
five million such illegals, though some think there are twice that
number.
Xenophobia is not new -- over 30 Somali shopkeepers were murdered in
Cape
Town in the last two years -- but the country has not witnessed civil
strife
on anything like this scale before.
The causes are obvious. A Markinor
survey earlier this month found that only
42% of South Africans had jobs.
Millions are housed in shacks lacking many
basic amenities. It is now winter
here and at night on the Gold Reef, on
which Johannesburg was built,
temperatures can fall below freezing, so the
homeless can no longer live on
the streets. In addition, soaring food prices
and shortages of maize, the
African staple, have left many hungry. Tempers
have frayed and many point to
foreigners as a major source of crime.
But the greatest complaint,
inevitably, is that "They are taking our jobs."
There is some truth to this:
Employers generally find Zimbabweans and
Malawians make desirable employees
-- they are often better-educated, speak
better English and work harder. In
my little valley in Cape Town every
single domestic servant or gardener is
now from one of those two countries.
Some are political refugees from
Mugabe's Zimbabwe but mainly they're
economic migrants, drawn by South
Africa's more developed economy. South
Africa's per capita income is, for
example, 36 times Mozambique's.
Thabo Mbeki's government has floundered
in response, clearly unaware that it
has been sitting on a powder keg for
some time -- despite warnings from
African ambassadors here. Astonishingly,
President Mbeki has failed to visit
any of the trouble spots or even vary
his program of frequent foreign
visits. This has merely added to the general
impression that the disaster is
due to the government's having allowed
everything to drift -- it simply
couldn't be bothered to do its job. It
failed to exercise immigration
control; halved the number of riot police;
abolished the rural commando
system that used to patrol rural areas; propped
up Robert Mugabe's regime in
Zimbabwe, causing millions of Zimbabwean
refugees to flee to South Africa;
and did too little about jobs and housing
for locals. Above all, in its
pan-Africanist naïveté the Mbeki government
assumed that all Africans are
brothers. It failed to realize that to allow
uncontrolled and massive
immigration into a society already overflowing with
unemployment is
inevitably explosive.
The government has been
frantically trying to suggest that right-wing whites
or Chief Mangosuthu
Buthelezi's Inkatha movement are behind the attacks.
This is ludicrous.
Chief Buthelezi has in fact distinguished himself in this
crisis. He is the
only major black leader to tour the trouble spots, to
commiserate with the
refugees and apologize to them, and to sternly threaten
that any of his
supporters who join the rioters will be expelled from
Inkatha.
ANC
leaders have preferred to give homilies, from a safe distance, about how
when the ANC was in exile they received hospitality from many African
countries and everyone must accordingly treat other Africans as brothers
now. This fails to understand the difference between a country hosting a few
thousand ANC exiles and the competitive impact in the labor, housing and
other markets of millions of illegal immigrants.
The government has
treated the problem as one of xenophobia only, as if it
is all about people
having the wrong ideas in their heads. The underlying
causes have not been
tackled and there is no sign that they will be. In its
pan-Africanist
enthusiasm the government has now signed a protocol allowing
free movement
of people within the 15-nation Southern African Development
Community. When
this comes into effect shortly, many million more
Mozambicans and Congolese
could well attempt to move to South Africa.
Apostles of African unity like
Mr. Mbeki cannot see why Africa should not
follow the example of the
European Union. In effect the street mobs are
demanding the opposite.
Further collisions can hardly be ruled out.
Mr. Johnson is southern
Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times of London.
“Isifile lenja!” translation ‘The dog is dead’ they
said,Blow blow account on how Fransisco Avmando Kanze was set alight. Ernesto Alphabeto Nhamwavane, a 22-year-old Mozambican, became the face of
the horror engulfing Gauteng as xenophobic mobs continued to drive foreigners
out of their neighbourhoods this week. Last Sunday , Nhamwavane, and his sister’s husband, Fransisco Avmando Kanze,
were fleeing the shack they shared in the settlement outside Reiger Park, east
of Johannesburg. Kanze lies at OR Tambo Memorial Hospital in Benoni with a broken hand and
gashes in his head, back and legs inflicted by a machete-wielding mob. The 29-year-old father of five spoke of how the mob left him for dead and
turned to his brother-in-law — pouring petrol on him and his belongings, setting
him alight, and covering him with his own blankets and clothes to ensure he died
the worst death possible. The men, from Nyambane village in the Mozambican province of Gaza, were both
bricklayers who arrived in South Africa in February in search of work to enable
them to send money to their families. Sunday was Kanze’s day off from the building site in Primrose where they both
worked. Nhamwavane had been at work in the morning and Kanze had been waiting so they
could flee together. Once Nhamwavane got home, they grabbed some clothes and
prepared to leave. “We were confronted by a group armed with hammers, machetes and pangas.
Others had stones,” Kanze said. “They stopped us and demanded to see our IDs. Then they said there was no
need because our dark skins and accents made it clear we are foreigners.” Kanze said the mob of “over 100” people took their cellphones and the “few
rands” they had on them. “They began attacking us, saying we are amakwerekwere (foreigners), and we
are stealing and committing all sorts of crimes in the settlement.” The mob hacked at his and his brother-in-law’s flesh with their pangas and
machetes. “We were pleading with them to spare our lives. Blood from my head was
flowing like a river. I collapsed ,” he said. “Then they stopped attacking me, probably thinking that I was dead. I heard
them saying ‘Lenja ifile’ (the dog is dead).” From where he lay, Kanze watched as his brother-in-law begged for his
life. “He was screaming for help, but it was as if everyone wanted a share of the
assault,” he said. “He stopped screaming and they poured petrol over him and set him on fire,
spreading our clothes around him so that the fire could spread fast.” The smoke from Nhamwavane’s burning body drifted over to Kanze and he knew
they didn’t stand a chance. “ I believed I was going to die too.” Photographers raced to the scene, followed by police, who put out the flames
on Nhamwavane. The two men were rushed to hospital, but Nhamwavane died on arrival, Kanze
said. “I’m grateful to the police for saving my life. I could hear them arguing
about whether they should also set me alight. Others wanted to come and check if
I was still breathing.” On Friday, Kanze phoned his family in Mozambique to tell them what had
happened. They had learnt from other refugees that their “quiet, hard- working son” was
burned alive. “I will recover, I will recover, but I don’t think I’ll be able to use my
hand again,” he told his weeping wife, Nhamwavane’s sister, who was begging him
to come home. And as soon as Kanze is discharged from hospital, he will do just that. “We
don’t face being roasted alive at home,” he said. Nhamwavane’s body lies at the Germiston mortuary and Kanze is set to
accompany his South African-based relatives to claim the body tomorrow. “I will definitely identify the body. I know it is him. No matter how badly
his body is burned.” Growing calls for Mbeki to quit Political leaders have criticised Mbeki for using television and radio to
address the nation instead of going to “the people on the ground”. He should
have, like other ANC leaders, appealed in person for an end to the violence that
has claimed more than 50 lives and displaced about 50000 people. Presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga defended Mbeki, saying: “The fact
that the president has not been able to go out there, due to his busy schedule,
does not mean that he is not concerned. He would not have said what he said if
he wasn’t concerned and the government would not be doing what it is doing.” Mbeki has not visited the victims but appeared on TV two days after an ANC
national executive committee meeting criticised the cabinet for not treating the
violence as a national emergency. The ANC deployed executive members, including president Jacob Zuma, to
hotspots across Gauteng to urge communities to end the conflict. Calls for Mbeki to step down and for an early election to be called were
gaining support because he was out of touch with the people of South Africa. The ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League, too, said they were
disappointed by Mbeki’s failure to visit affected communities. ANC Youth League president Julius Malema said although he welcomed Mbeki’s
“eloquent” speech, it was important that he get information first-hand from
people on the ground. The Young Communist League’s secretary-general, Buti Manamela, criticised
Mbeki for ignoring the root causes of the attacks. ‘‘It would also have been important for him to commit the state to the
acceleration of service delivery. At the core of this is the contest for
resources and not just the hatred of foreigners,” Manamela said. United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa said: “I join those who say
the speech [was] too little, too late. He condemned the xenophobic attacks, so
what? He needs to lead. “Mbeki needs to organise special indabas where he visits the people in the
areas that have been worst hit by these attacks,” Holomisa said. He needs to put
together a team of politicians and civil society [representatives] to walk him
through this one because he won’t cope on his own.”
By Gerald Harper ⋅ zimbabwemetro.com ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅
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a comment 
This
picture of a man in flames, kneeling in agony on a street in Ramaphosa informal
settlement, confronted the world on television and the front pages of newspapers
last week.