Zimbabwe's Slow-Motion Horror Show

Village Voice

Does a nation's sovereignty allow it to destroy its own people?
by Nat Hentoff
May 27th, 2008 12:00 AM
According to official results by Zimbabwe's electoral commission on May 2,
the great African liberator, Robert Mugabe, lost that country's March 29
election to Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change,
by 43.2 to Tsvangirai's 47.9 percent. Since the law requires a runoff,
Mugabe, who is the law, had the second round delayed while his thugs
terrorized those ungrateful Zimbabweans who dared to vote against him. (Or,
at least, those suspected of doing so.)

As the supreme enforcer told the BBC on May 16: "We will not allow an
opposition backed by Western imperialists to win." The opposition is
forbidden from holding rallies preceding the runoff.

On May 8, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights reported that
in the capital of Harare alone, "[s]o many victims [of Mugabe's enforcers]
have come in with broken bones in the last 24 hours that hospitals and
clinics . . . are running out of plaster of Paris" (The New York Times, May
10).

And in rural areas, where the Movement for Democratic Change did well, the
General Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union said that at least 40,000
farm workers and their families were driven from their homes on suspicion of
having voted against the Liberator.

A doctor in Harare, submerged in the wounded, said of one night's carnage:
"What came in on the trucks was too pathetic for words. They can't walk.
Their feet are beaten. Their buttocks are rotting. Their arms are broken.
They're trying to walk on their knees." In the Economist's May 10th bloody
summation: "Following the aftermath of Zimbabwe's presidential election is
like watching a horror film in slow motion."

Have you heard a word of protest from Nelson Mandela, the one African whose
voice could awaken the world to these horrors? I asked someone who knows
Mandela about his silence on the genocide in Darfur and Zimbabweans seeking
real liberation. He told me: "This liberator cannot turn against this
fighter who won the independence of his country from the British."

As of this writing, nearly a hundred suspected wrong voters in the March 29
election have been murdered by Mugabe's forces, which include his loyal "war
veterans" of the liberation and his merciless youth militia. More than a
thousand people—including children—have been badly battered by these goon
squads, and over 800 homes have been burned down.

But Mugabe is so ferociously intent on staying in power (and finishing the
grand palace he's been building) that, as Doctors for Human Rights cautions,
all of these figures, nightmarish as they are, "grossly underestimate the
[actual] number of victims," many of whom never made even it to a hospital
or doctor.

Amnesty International, raising its voice back on April 25 against the storm
that was gathering even before the election, declared: "The actions taken by
the police today are unacceptable. The Zimbabwean police must stop harassing
political and human rights activists immediately and act to protect victims
of post-election violence."

To whom are Mugabe's atrocities "unacceptable?" The United Nations, of
course, is useless, as it has been for five horrifying years in Darfur. The
members of the African Union confer among themselves, with only Tanzania and
Zambia being openly troubled. South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki—still
the main negotiator on Zimbabwe—calmly said, in the days before Mugabi's
government unleashed its scorched-earth approach to the runoff: "It's just
an election. I see no crisis there." Now Mbeki admits there may be one—but
he remains as ineffective as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Meanwhile, some of Mugabe's terrorists are preening about their success in
intimidating opponents of the deadly regime before the June 27 runoff. One
of them, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 14, "showed off a written
log of victims and their 'confessions' that they had voted for the
opposition."

But that runoff election could be delayed for months—until Mugabe feels
certain that his voter re-education program has secured a sufficiently
overwhelming victory for him. The BBC predicts that on that day, "people
coming to every polling station will see 'war veterans' in police uniforms"
waiting to check off their ballots. Untold numbers of Zimbabweans will be
too scared to show up.

Meanwhile, in Darfur's endless slow-motion horror show, the ghastly present
scene is captured in the headline of a March 20 story in the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune: "No One Is Counting the Dead." This Associated Press story
quotes Jan Egeland, former U.N. chief of humanitarian operations, as urging
the media to stop using the ubiquitous Darfur death count of 200,000: "It's
two and a half years old. It's wrong."

Now a special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Egeland does
not doubt that thousands more have been killed or died of unintended
diseases in areas that humanitarian workers can no longer reach. The A.P.
report grimly adds that the United Nations doesn't support the new
large-scale mortality survey that Egeland insists is necessary, "because
Sudan's government doesn't want one." Sudan, you see, is a sovereign state!

A new mortality survey would include the seven children killed on May 4
when—as reported by the Paris-based Sudan Tribune's website—"Sudanese
government planes bombed Shegeg Karo [in] Northern Darfur." The raid's
targets included a primary school. General Al-Bashir's Antonov plane (a
retrofitted Russian cargo plane) destroyed kids in the second, third, and
fourth grades—plus five-year-old Yusuf Adam Hamid in the kindergarten.

The names and ages are in a report by Eric Reeves, the most authoritative
historian of Darfur's genocide, in the May 12 Christian Science Monitor. He
asks a question that some of you may find uncomfortable: "How would
Americans respond if terrorists—acting on behalf of another
country—deliberately killed, with complete military impunity . . . children
in one of our nation's schools? Outrage would bring the country to a halt.
It would change the very nature of the presidential campaign. News coverage
would be unending.

"Washington's response against the offending nation would be swift and
destructive. . . . The whole world should respond vigorously to a nation
that barbarously bombs kindergartners such as Yusuf Adam Hamid. Instead, we
lamely bow in deference to Sudan's 'national sovereignty.' "

Next week: Only intervention by force into Zimbabwe and Sudan will put an
end to these slow-motion horror shows.

The Despots' Democracy

Washington Post

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Page A13

"Things on the ground," e-mailed a friend from a groaning Zimbabwe, "are
absolutely shocking -- systematic violence, abductions, brutal murders.
Hundreds of activists hospitalized, indeed starting to go possibly into the
thousands." The military, he says, is "going village by village with lists
of MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] activists, identifying them and then
either abducting them or beating them to a pulp, leaving them for dead."

In late April, about the time this e-mail was written, President Thabo Mbeki
of South Africa -- Zimbabwe's influential neighbor -- addressed a four-page
letter to President Bush. Rather than coordinating strategy to end
Zimbabwe's nightmare, Mbeki criticized the United States, in a text packed
with exclamation points, for taking sides against President Robert Mugabe's
government and disrespecting the views of the Zimbabwean people. "He said it
was not our business," recalls one American official, and "to butt out, that
Africa belongs to him." Adds another official, "Mbeki lost it; it was
outrageous."

It is also not an aberration. South Africa has actively blocked United
Nations discussions about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe -- and in Belarus,
Cuba, North Korea and Uzbekistan. South Africa was the only real democracy
to vote against a resolution demanding that the Burmese junta stop ethnic
cleansing and free jailed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. When Iranian nuclear
proliferation was debated in the Security Council, South Africa dragged out
discussions and demanded watered-down language in the resolution. South
Africa opposed a resolution condemning rape and attacks on civilians in
Darfur -- and rolled out the red carpet for a visit from Sudan's genocidal
leader. In the General Assembly, South Africa fought against a resolution
condemning the use of rape as a weapon of war because the resolution was not
sufficiently anti-American.

When confronted by international human rights organizations such as Human
Rights Watch about their apparent indifference to all rights but their own,
South African officials have responded by attacking the groups themselves -- 
which, they conspiratorially (and falsely) claim, are funded by "major
Western powers."

There are a variety of possible explanations for this irresponsibility.
Stylistically, Mbeki seems to prefer quiet diplomacy with dictators instead
of confrontation. Some of his colleagues in the African National Congress
(ANC) -- South Africa's ruling party -- argue that because Mbeki was an
exile during apartheid instead of a prisoner or freedom fighter, he has less
intuitive sympathy for prisoners and freedom fighters in other countries.
South Africa clearly is attempting to league itself with China and Brazil in
a new nonaligned movement -- to redress what one official calls an
"imbalance of global power," meaning an excess of American power. And
longtime observers of Mbeki believe that racial issues -- including Mbeki's
experience of raw discrimination during the London part of his exile -- may
also play a role. He lashes out whenever he believes that Westerners are
telling Africans how to conduct their lives, or who their leaders should be.
So for years he viewed AIDS treatment as a plot of Western pharmaceutical
companies -- and now he helps shield Mugabe from global outrage.

Whatever the reasons, South Africa increasingly requires a new foreign
policy category: the rogue democracy. Along with China and Russia, South
Africa makes the United Nations impotent. Along with Saudi Arabia and Sudan,
it undermines the global human rights movement. South Africa remains an
example of freedom -- while devaluing and undermining the freedom of others.
It is the product of a conscience it does not display.

Zimbabwe is the most pressing case in point -- reflecting a political
argument within South Africa and a broader philosophical debate.

The labor movement within the ANC, led by Jacob Zuma, is close to the
opposition MDC in Zimbabwe (which also has labor roots) and is highly
critical of Mbeki's deference to Mugabe. Zuma's faction has provided planes
to transport MDC leaders. The labor faction of the ANC is using the Zimbabwe
crisis to argue that Mbeki is "yesterday's man" -- indifferent to the cause
that gave rise to the ANC itself.

And this debate is clarifying a question across southern Africa: Did
revolutionary parties in the region fight for liberation or for liberty? If
merely for liberation from Western imperialism, then aging despots and
oppressive ruling parties have a claim to power. But if for liberty, those
who work for freedom in Zimbabwe must also have their day.

So far, South Africa -- of all places -- sides with the despots.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

'MDC will win despite crackdown'

IOL

    May 28 2008 at 07:49AM

By Sapa-AFP-DPA

A month before a presidential election run-off, Zimbabwe's opposition
said on Tuesday that conditions were not conducive to a free and fair poll,
but still expressed confidence that it would oust Robert Mugabe.

"Access to the state media is totally closed, holding rallies is
almost impossible and we had to appeal to the high court to get an order to
hold our last two rallies," said Movement for Democratic Change chief
spokesperson Nelson Chamisa.

"As of yesterday, at least 50 of our supporters had been killed in
violent attacks. The perpetrators of this violence have devised a new
strategy where they abduct key members of the party and, after some days,
you find the victims dead."

 He said that hundreds of party supporters had fled their homes after
attacks by ruling party militants.

"Our supporters are being displaced in rural areas, and key players
have been abducted and killed, rendering our campaign crippled. The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission and the army are working in cahoots to advance the
cause of Zanu-PF," said Chamisa. "But our candidate, Mr Tsvangirai, will win
the election. Our campaign is code-named 'Let's Finish It', and we are
saying all these things are birth pangs as we move into a new Zimbabwe."

Morgan Tsvangirai won the initial election on March 29, but failed to
garner enough votes to avoid a run-off, according to the official electoral
commission.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, launched his
campaign for the run-off on Sunday, accusing Tsvangirai of seeking to return
the country to colonial rule. The 84-year-old blamed his poor showing in the
first round on divisions within the ruling Zanu-PF party, and urged
supporters to set their differences aside.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean police had arrested three people, two of them
South Africans, in connection with "illegal broadcasting equipment" for
British television network Sky TV, state radio said on Tuesday.

It said the three had been detained in Bulawayo at the weekend after
the discovery in a factory, in the suburb of Belmont, of what it described
as "Sky television broadcasting equipment" as well as laptops, computers,
disks, tapes and "a South African-bound car".

It claimed the three had "tried to bribe police" with R25 000. The
equipment had been in the factory since March 23, a week before elections in
March 29. The broadcast gave no further details, and police comment was not
available.

Mugabe's government has cracked down on foreign journalists visiting
Zimbabwe without official accreditation.

Also at the weekend, a 14-ton truck carrying 60 000 copies of the
Zimbabwean on Sunday, a London-based newspaper printed in South Africa for
Zimbabwean readers, was hijacked by men with automatic rifles and burnt with
its cargo, said its editor, Wilf Mbanga. - Sapa-AFP-DPA

This article was originally published on page 9 of The Mercury on May
28, 2008

Increasing the Pressure on Zimbabwe

frontpagemag.com

By Thomas M. Woods
The Heritage Foundation | Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The second round of Zimbabwe's presidential elections will be held on June
27 according to Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission. The runoff pits the first
round winner, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
against President Robert Mugabe. Mounting state-sponsored political violence
leads even Mugabe's staunchest supporters to question whether elections held
under current conditions could produce a result with even a modicum of
legitimacy. With the United Kingdom serving as the current President of the
United Nations Security Council and the United States poised to take over in
June, these countries should use their position on the Council to bring
increased U.N. pressure and attention to Zimbabwe.

The Demise of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential election cast the already unstable country
into further crisis as the Mugabe regime sought to retain power despite
losing at the polls. Delayed election results coupled with state-sponsored
violence on the part of the military, police, and government-backed "war
veterans" are compounding suffering for average Zimbabweans. The country has
endured years of hyperinflation, currently estimated at over 200,000
percent, and an unemployment rate of over 80 percent. Some 3-4 million
Zimbabweans have fled the country and the remaining 8 million have seen the
country's average life expectancy drop from 57 years to just 34 years. The
Mugabe regime destroyed the agricultural base of the economy through its
chaotic land reform, which put productive land in the hands of regime
supporters and created chronic food shortages in a country that once served
as a regional breadbasket. The current regime's violence against civil
society and opposition supporters leaves Zimbabwe on the edge of collapse.

South Africa took the unprecedented step of sending a team of senior army
generals to Zimbabwe to assess the political violence resulting from the
March 29 first round of voting. Their "shocking" findings led the team's
leader, Lt. General Gilbert Ramano, to state that a peaceful runoff election
would be "almost impossible."[1] This assessment mirrors the views of
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Executive Secretary Tomaz
Salomao, who highlighted that "we can't say the playing ground is safe or
will be fair."[2]

The Failure of South Africa and the SADC

The United States and the international community have rested their entire
strategy for democratic elections in Zimbabwe on the so-far disappointing
leadership of the SADC. It would be absolute folly at this point to fall
into line with the Mugabe-appointed Zimbabwean Electoral Commission's
election plans without strict demands aimed at ensuring a free and fair
electoral process. The SADC has proven incapable, unwilling or both when it
comes to forcing Zimbabwe to adhere to regional and international election
standards. It is time for the mandate to shift to its appropriate place in
the U.N. Security Council.

Even as Zimbabwe's post-election tensions reached ominous levels in April,
South African President Thabo Mbeki stymied efforts to take up the crisis in
the Security Council, noting that the issue did not represent a threat to
international peace and security. Now, with over 700 documented cases of
post-election violence that have resulted in scores of deaths, few could
cling to such an argument. Strong statements from U.N. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon show a willingness within the world body to engage, and Zimbabwe's
presidential runoff will certainly require international resources best
provided through multilateral mechanisms.

Those who might still be inclined to leave Zimbabwe's fate in the hands of
Mbeki and the SADC must reflect on the potential scale of human suffering
that awaits. It should not be forgotten that the number of political
opponents and ordinary people killed in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1982 by
Mugabe and his North Korean-trained Shona army is widely estimated at
20,000. Mugabe took extreme measures to erase Joshua Nkomo's power base
then, and it must be assumed that he is equally willing to act against the
MDC now.

It is also relevant to highlight the fact that South Africa's African
National Congress (ANC) was itself committed to a strategy of revolutionary
violence and came to power after a decade of political violence that
resulted in 25,000 deaths. Current ANC President Jacob Zuma, in whom the
international community has placed significant hope, recently referred to
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a
"fraternal liberation movement and an ally."

U.S. Leadership Is Needed

There is an appropriate time for "soft power" in the form of moral suasion,
diplomatic pressure, and pointed outspokenness. These have been the tools of
U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe and have worked hand in glove with Mbeki's
"quiet diplomacy" for nearly eight years. The world has little to show for
it, and the life of the average Zimbabwean has continued to sink into a
quest for day-to-day survival. African leadership on Zimbabwe is still a
goal worth preserving, but it must find new impetus far from the reach of
Mugabe's "allies."

The State Department should be commended for its recent efforts to cajole
Zimbabwe's neighbors to take actions that are clearly in the region's best
interests. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer took the
first bold step when she flatly stated that Morgan Tsvangirai won Zimbabwe's
presidential election. The importance of U.S. leadership cannot be
underestimated, and by throwing aside Mugabe's distractions the U.S. opened
the door to a process that can still result in a democratic outcome for
Zimbabweans.

Recommendations

U.S. policy must continue first and foremost to support the Zimbabwean
people and their nearly decade-long quest to rid themselves of a dictator.
The process of moving beyond regional efforts and Mugabe's skillful ability
to deflect them is at hand. Specific steps that the U.S. government should
adopt include:

  a.. Congress should immediately hold hearings in both the House and Senate
on the situation in Zimbabwe. Congress should work with the Bush
Administration to announce America's commitment to provide resources to help
bring stability to Zimbabwe's chaotic economic and humanitarian situation
should the upcoming election be free and fair.
  a.. Both Congress and the Administration should immediately declare
America's strong support for U.N. action to ensure that Zimbabwe's electoral
process is free and fair and announce its willingness to coordinate with the
U.N. to address post-election stability and economic recovery. While the
U.N.'s track record can be questioned, there are few strong alternatives
given the impotence displayed by the SADC and the African Union.
  a.. The United States should work with the U.K. to engage the U.N.
Security Council on Zimbabwe. The U.K. is the current President of the
Security Council and will be followed in June by the United States. Both
countries should coordinate to ensure their consecutive presidencies bring
maximum pressure on Zimbabwe. The first step would be for the U.K. to issue
a presidential statement on behalf of the Council rejecting Mugabe's easily
anticipated denunciation of neo-colonialism, condemning the post election
violence, and calling on Zimbabwe to invite election observers from all
nations. Additional statements should be issued as circumstances merit.
Simultaneously, the U.K. and the U.S. should work to pass a Security Council
resolution condemning post-election violence in Zimbabwe. It should require
the country to admit international human rights and electoral process
observers, including from non-African countries, to work alongside SADC
teams, which were the only observers permitted in the March elections. And
it should call for targeted international economic and travel sanctions
against Zimbabwe's leadership, including the police and military, should the
government fail to safeguard opposition supporters and members of civil
society as they participate in legitimate election-related activities.
  a.. Secretary of State Rice should play a visible and active role in
bringing pressure on Zimbabwe, including supporting actions by the Security
Council to ensure that Zimbabwe holds a free and fair runoff presidential
election and working with countries in the region affected by the crisis in
Zimbabwe, such as Botswana and Zambia.
Conclusion

The election runoff date of June 27 chosen by the Zimbabwean Electoral
Commission must be heavily scrutinized and the MDC should maintain a
powerful voice in determining when the conditions are adequate for a free
and fair contest. The opportunity to set Zimbabwe on a course toward peace,
stability, and democracy must not be squandered. Africa's democratic
movement over the last decade represents a hard-won gain, and Zimbabwe's
shadow cannot be allowed to diminish the positive trends throughout the
continent. Mugabe's efforts to obscure facts, stall for time, and hold on to
power at all costs make him an iconoclastic relic of Africa's past. The
United States and the world must now take decisive action to champion those
fighting for democracy and hope of change in Zimbabwe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Dumisani Muleya "Zimbabwe: Violence 'Shocks' SA Generals," Business Day
(Johannesburg), May 14, 2008.

[2] Dumisani Muleya "Zimbabwe: Country Sets Sights on July Poll Date,"
Business Day (Johannesburg), May 15, 2008.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas M. Woods is the Senior Associate Fellow in African Affairs at The
Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

MDC Leadership Vacuum

Mnangagwa’s Flip flops

New Zealand calls for an end to Zimbabwe violence

Scoop, NZ

Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 12:58 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Government

New Zealand calls for an end to Zimbabwe violence

New Zealand is adding its voice to international calls for an immediate end
to state-sponsored violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe, Foreign Minister
Winston Peters said today.

"It's essential that international monitors be allowed into Zimbabwe to
deter further violence and to monitor the second round of voting for the
presidency, scheduled to take place on 27 June," Mr Peters said.

"The New Zealand government has been closely following events in Zimbabwe
since the disputed elections in March.

"President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party appears to have been conducting a
deliberate campaign of violence in a final attempt to overturn the results
of the elections, in which Mugabe was defeated but allegedly not by a wide
enough margin to prevent a second round of voting.
"The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights has reported assaults
on more than 900 people who voted for the opposition - the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) - while the Zimbabwe Peace Project has documented
more than 4000 cases of human rights abuses since March.

"There are also reports from a number of different sources that 43 MDC
supporters have been killed in violence linked to ZANU-PF.

"Attacks have also been directed against the Zimbabwe Election Support
Network.

"These attacks must end. Unless the violence stops it will be very difficult
to hold the second round of voting, and the result will be an election that
is neither free nor fair," Mr Peters said.

ENDS

Opposition Says Zimbabwe Should Not Be Criminal Haven

VOA

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

Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says the
country would not be a haven for criminals under its leadership. This comes
after President Robert Mugabe’s government reportedly said former Ethiopian
leader Mengistu Haile Mariam will be protected in Zimbabwe despite being
sentenced to death by an Ethiopian High Court. Mengistu, has lived in exile
in Zimbabwe since he was overthrown in 1991, is unlikely extradited to
Ethiopia to face punishment unless Mugabe loses next month’s election
run-off. The Ethiopian government has however, not formally requested
Mengistu to be extradited. From Harare, MDC international affairs secretary
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro tells reporter Peter Clottey that the imminent MDC
government would review the case of the former Ethiopian leader before
taking any action.

“The position of the MDC is that it will accept people running away from
other countries seeking refuge in Zimbabwe. If they are not needed by any
country for crimes committed, then they would be free to stay in Zimbabwe.
But Zimbabwe can never be a haven of criminals under an MDC government. If
Mengistu has not committed any crime anywhere to the satisfaction of the
incoming MDC government, then he has nothing to fear at all,” Mukonoweshuro
pointed out.

He said the opposition party would review the case against the former
Ethiopian leader to determine its next line of action.

“When the MDC comes to power, the MDC government will study the case
pertaining to Mr. Mengistu. If it is satisfied that Mr. Mengistu has not
committed any crime anywhere, of course, his refugee status would stand. But
if Mr. Mengistu has committed crimes anywhere in any part of the world of
course the MDC government would take that into consideration in deciding
whether Mr. Mengistu has to remain as a guest in Zimbabwe or not,” he said.

Mukonoweshuro said it was important for the party to ascertain the full
scope of the case against the former Ethiopian leader.

“We cannot prejudge the situation, and as a movement and a political party,
at the present moment we do not have the facts pertaining to Mr. Mengistu’s
case. But what we are saying is that the MDC government through the ministry
of justice would have to study the papers, would have to convince ourselves
whether or not there is a genuine case against Mr. Mengistu. And if there
are no genuine cases he could stay, but if there is a genuine case, then of
course the MDC government would not allow the country to become a haven for
criminals who are wanted elsewhere for serious crimes,” Mukonoweshuro
pointed out.

He described as ludicrous accusations by the government that opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai is a sellout.

“It’s very unfortunate because these are allegations, which are made without
any substantiation at all. Mr. Museka’s statement did not chronicle where
the MDC in particular and where the MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai has sold
out to anybody. We have never been a government of this country and
therefore there is no record to sustain those allegations,” he said.

Mukonoweshuro said the government is using the tactics of division to divert
attention from the suffering of the masses.

“This is the tragedy in Zimbabwe. Instead of focusing on the issues that can
resolve the crisis, people resort to mudslinging. It’s time that
Zimbabweans, it’s time that SADC (Southern African Development Community)
and Africa realize that no amount of mudslinging could ever even begin to
punt in place the ingredients to resolve the crisis that has engulfed this
country for the past 10 years,” Mukonoweshuro noted.

Make Peace With Mugabe

http://zimbabwemetro.com

By Heidi Holland ⋅ zimbabwemetro.com ⋅ May 27, 2008
While the MDC party has claimed victory in its effort to unseat President
Robert G. Mugabe, it would be a mistake to count him out. And if Mr. Mugabe
prevails, it would be a mistake to continue to isolate him, as Western
governments have done for the last decade.

Mr. Mugabe is bad, but he could get worse.

“My granny was a heathen,” Mr. Mugabe muttered from behind his big wooden
desk at his office in Harare, the capital. It was not the sort of comment I
had expected to hear from the 84-year-old dictator, but during our 2 ½-hour
interview late last year, some of my assumptions about the most enigmatic
figure in modern Africa were crumbling.

As soon as I entered the room I realized that the awkward man wearing a
finely stitched white shirt and an elegant dark suit was apprehensive of me,
just as I was of him. Mr. Mugabe stared hard, and then cleared his throat
nervously. I had expected to meet someone exuding power — an older version
of the steely freedom fighter I encountered over a secret dinner at my home
30 years ago.

Instead I saw a mild and diminished figure, his rumbling but faint voice
often barely audible, his head at times lolling forward self-consciously as
if he wanted to hide away. As the interview progressed, he slumped and then
slid down like a gangly teenager in his threadbare swivel chair, his long
limbs dangling. What I eventually realized from Mr. Mugabe’s earnest efforts
to justify his actions to me was that he is more vulnerable than his
outlandish public posturing suggests.

Certainly, Mr. Mugabe is no feeble recluse — we have seen him campaigning
with sudden bursts of vigor at staged rallies before busloads of supporters
of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front —
yet he almost never grants interviews to journalists. To obtain mine took
two years of requests, the persistent intervention of Mr. Mugabe’s priest
and then a five-week wait in Harare.

Early on I had assumed that he was too busy to spare the time. Only later
did it dawn on me that he might be fearful of the independent press.

That fear is understandable. Zimbabwe’s once booming economy is in tatters.
Inflation has soared to fantastical levels, unemployment is near universal,
starvation looms. And Mr. Mugabe, for all his protestations about the wicked
West and for all the sycophantic comments from the yes-men who surround him,
must know that he is to blame.

So why talk about his heathen grandmother? I wanted to understand the Robert
Mugabe who had been obscured amid the chaos and misrule. The one described
by his classmates as shy, bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and
resentful of his absent father. The one who was at first remarkably
forgiving of white landowners when he came to power in 1980. (For instance,
Mr. Mugabe allowed his predecessor, Ian Smith, who led the white minority
government that ran Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known, to live on in Harare
without harassment, even when Mr. Smith embarked on a campaign against him.)

But bitterness had clearly welled up within him. When I first met him at
that dinner in 1975, he seemed to be a considerate man, asking after the
health of my toddler son even as he fled into exile to a neighboring country
shortly afterward. By the end of 2007, as we sat together again after 28
years of his rule, he exuded the air of a lost and angry man.

Why? Part of the answer came to me in our interview, as Mr. Mugabe expressed
almost tearful regret at his inability to socialize with the queen of
England. He feels that the West — and Britain in particular — has failed to
recognize his “suffering and sacrifice.” As someone who by his own
estimation is part British, this rejection has taken on the intensity of a
family quarrel.

Much of the quarrel centers on the vexed issue of land redistribution. As
part of the pact that created Zimbabwe’s independence, Britain promised
financial aid to help the young country redistribute land from white farmers
to blacks.

When this money was misused, the British government under Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher began to withhold it. Mrs. Thatcher’s successor, John
Major, agreed to restore the money. But before he could do so, his
successor, Tony Blair, reversed course, taking the aid off the table, where
it remains today. It is this grievance against Britain for short-changing
him on the land redistribution issue that Mr. Mugabe craves understanding.

I left Mr. Mugabe’s office with an uneasy sense of the futility of the West’s
punitive diplomacy toward him. It was my feeling that he was going to stop
at nothing to prove that he had been wronged. Indeed, he told me that he was
prepared to sacrifice the welfare of his country to prove his case against
Britain.

That a precariously balanced individual like Mr. Mugabe is in charge of a
country and willing to destroy it to score points against an enemy is a
tragedy in itself. That he has an arguably justifiable complaint against a
major Western power — namely the repudiation of the land reform pledge — is
doubtless an embarrassment in the West. But that Britain and others choose
to shun Mr. Mugabe rather than attempt to settle these differences is quite
frankly reckless.

The West needs to change its approach to Mr. Mugabe. Years of isolation and
ineffective sanctions, with which he has fueled his propaganda campaign,
have only driven Mr. Mugabe downward. More of the same will backfire. A
strategy of engagement — whether Mr. Mugabe wins re-election and stays in
office or whether he achieves his ends through fraudulent means and needs to
be talked out of power — is the only viable option.

The belief that the situation in Zimbabwe cannot get worse has proved an
inadequate strategy for ending the country’s plight under Mr. Mugabe. More
important, the current Western standoff might in itself imperil Zimbabwe as
things go from bad to worse and as Zimbabwe’s president becomes a great deal
nastier. Every effort should be made internationally to set up a
conversation with the dictator.

Heidi Holland is the Author of Dinner with Mugabe, published by Penguin
South Africa.

Rights body sees rise in Zimbabwe abductions

Irish Sun

Irish Sun
Tuesday 27th May, 2008
(IANS)

Johannesburg/One of Zimbabwe's leading human rights organisations has
pointed out that cases of abduction and killings of opposition activists are
increasing ahead of the controversial run-off in presidential elections next
month.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said it was 'greatly disturbed by
the escalating phenomenon of enforced disappearance of political party
members,' adding the victims had been 'abducted, severely tortured and in a
growing number of cases, extra-judicially executed,' with the corpses dumped
usually in remote areas.

It said that the silence of President Robert Mugabe's regime over the
incidents indicated its complicity.

The report comes after about six weeks of violent retribution following
Zimbabwe's first round of elections on March 29, with the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change claiming that 43 of its supporters and
officials have been murdered, about 2,000 who had to seek hospital attention
and thousands more fleeing their homes.

Human rights agencies confirm that except for a tiny minority of cases, the
victims have said militias of Mugabe's ZANU(PF) party, police, soldiers or
state secret agents carried out the attacks.

The violence predominantly has been in the form of savage beatings inflicted
on people mostly in rural areas, but observers say that abduction and murder
appears to be a new strategy by the regime.

ZLHR cited four confirmed cases of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
officials who were either snatched from their homes or intercepted while
driving, and disappeared, only for their decomposing and mutilated bodies to
be discovered several days later.

'These are by no means the only the only victims of enforced disappearance,
and ZLHR is currently attempting to confirm several other such cases,' it
said.

'Regrettably, the silence of the authorities in the face of such atrocities
can only be perceived by all reasonable persons as acquiescence and a
fuelling of impunity.'

The MDC won the parliamentary election in March and opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai secured more votes than Mugabe in the presidential vote, but his
tally - according to results issued by the state electoral body after it had
sat on statistics for a month -just failed to exceed 50 percent of the vote,
necessitating a run-off, on June 27.

On Sunday, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai attended the funeral in Harare of
one of the victims, Tonderai Ndira, an opposition youth official whose body
was dumped in the morgue of a Harare hospital a week ago after he was
kidnapped from his Harare home by eight unknown men wielding pistols a week
earlier.

His family obtained a court order to force authorities to allow an
independent pathologist to carry out a post mortem, but then hospital
officials moved the already badly decomposing body to an unrefrigerated area
of the hospital, accelerating the decomposition of the body to the point
where an investigation would have been almost impossible.

Mugabe launched his campaign Sunday, accusing the MDC of being the
perpetrator of the violence, while his party publicity machine adopted a new
profile, with advertisements in newspapers showing a smiling, genial Mugabe,
and quoting him as saying that '... violence is needless and must stop
forthwith.'

The 84-year-old leader is notorious for his statement before previous
election that 'we have degrees in violence.'

Sixty years on, human rights a global mess: Amnesty

Reuters

Wed May 28, 2008 1:12am EDT
By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Six decades after world leaders unanimously signed the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the record is dismal and urgent
action is needed to prevent global chaos, Amnesty International said on
Wednesday.

From Asia to the United States and Africa, countries are reneging on their
global commitments to uphold human rights and people are starting to lose
patience, secretary general Irene Khan said in an interview marking the
group's annual report.

"There is a burning platform out there, flashpoints around the world, Iraq,
Darfur, Zimbabwe, the Middle East, the Palestinian conflict. Governments
have to act before things worsen," she told Reuters.

China had to live up to its new world-power status and end rights abuses,
the United States -- which had condoned the use of torture -- must clean up
its act, Myanmar must open up to the world and African leaders had to show
responsibility, Khan said.

Although China had fallen down on the promises on human rights it made when
winning its bid to host the Olympic Games in August, the global event will
be a lever for change, she said.

"It is important that China recognizes that it is a global power, it is
coming on the global stage, it must uphold global values -- the global
values of human rights at home and abroad."

"The Chinese government has changed its position on Darfur in the U.N.
Security Council. The Chinese government has used its influence on Myanmar
to open its door to the U.N."

"So there is potential there for China to positively use the Olympics to
bring about human rights change inside China," Khan said.

On December 10, 1948 the U.N. general assembly proclaimed the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, forming a foundation for international human
rights law and a first universal statement on the basic principles of human
rights.

GLIMMER OF HOPE

Amnesty's annual report, in strong language for an organization that often
uses legal jargon, accused the U.S. government of "breathtaking legal
obfuscation" in condoning the use of torture to obtain information.

But it also criticized European governments for at best ignoring and at
worse facilitating "extraordinary rendition" flights taking U.S. terrorism
suspects to countries where torture was used.

"Unfortunately powerful governments like the U.S., like the members of the
European Union, set the pattern for behavior of governments around the world
but they tend to forget it themselves," Khan said.

"There is an imperative for governments to change their behavior and that
imperative is that human rights problems are like viruses, they spread
around the world."

She welcomed the action by dockworkers in South Africa who earlier this year
refused to unload a cargo of arms from China destined for Zimbabwe.

But she also noted the bloody backlash around Johannesburg against
immigrants -- many who have fled Zimbabwe where the economy is in ruins,
starvation is rampant and there is a crackdown on political dissent.

"That is the type of tension that is likely to spill out if governments
don't take care of the root causes of the human rights problems of the kind
that we see in Zimbabwe," Khan said.

But while the past 60 years were cause for lamentation on human rights
progress, Khan said there was a glimmer of hope.

"What gives me hope ... is the resurgence of people power. There is a much
stronger global movement of people demanding justice and equality. That puts
pressure on governments," she said.

"In the long term history shows that stability comes through respect for
human rights."

Hall of hope for the desperate

The Times, SA

Published:May 28, 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tamlyn Stewart gets a glimpse of their lives

Wade Jones is a paramedic who has volunteered at the Germiston city hall for
the past two weeks.

“It’s quiet now; night time is busier. There are a lot of people who are
still going to work,” he told The Times yesterday morning.

Nearly 40 people are seated on rows of plastic chairs facing the stage in
the hall, waiting their turn in the food queue. Hundreds of other refugees
are settled around the edges of the hall, and in other rooms in the
building, their blankets and belongings spread around them.

The kitchen is staffed by volunteers who are preparing lunch. George
Mothimba is the kitchen controller.

Originally from Zimbabwe, he has lived in South Africa for more than a year,
working as a signwriter.

He’s been at the city hall for two weeks, ever since he was forced to seek
sanctuary there, and now he’s in charge of making sure everyone at the
centre gets two or three meals a day.

“We’ve had help from individuals and companies, but no help from the
government,” says Mothimba.

There’s a mixed atmosphere at the hall.

“Some people were chased away from their homes. They are traumatised, but
some enjoy it here ... others are still trying to pick up the pieces,” says
Mothimba.

The clinic, staffed by two paramedics, Jones and his brother, Chad, and two
nursing sisters, treat the sick and the wounded — some still have injuries
from xenophobic attacks several days ago. Private doctors, some from the
Islamic Medical Association, are also volunteering at the clinic.

Andre Moyana, originally from Mozambique, assists in the clinic, taking
patients’ details and ushering them along the queue of seats outside the
clinic doors.

“We’ve had nearly 500 patients in the past two weeks,” says Jones.

On the pavement outside the entrance to the hall are 22 men’s and women’s
portable toilets.

For now, those sheltering at the city hall have a roof over their heads,
they are relatively warm and they are being fed.

But Partson Madzimure, a former lecturer from Zimbabwe, says the displaced
people need more than that: “I lost all my things — I was staying in
Marathon [informal settlement]. I had to sneak out of my room ... [the
xenophobic attacks] have generated displacement, loss of property, loss of
lives, separation of families ... fear of the unknown, and sleeplessness.
People aren’t really sleeping — and you can’t buy sleep like you can buy a
blanket. How can we remove this fear?”

Refugees start their own school

The Times, SA

Tamlyn Stewart Published:May 28, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parents determined that kids will learn

More than 40 children, dressed in donated clothes and shoes, walked from the
Germiston City Hall to the city’s Central Methodist Church in the freezing
wind and rain for their first day of school yesterday.

Refugees living in the city hall have started their own school so that their
children can continue to be taught despite being displaced from their homes
and schools by the xenophobic attacks that started more than two weeks ago.
Partson Madzimure, a former lecturer in education at a Zimbabwean
university, is the head of the makeshift school

Gesturing at the singing children, Madzimure said: “I think it has given
hope to parents, given their traumatic experience.”

Mgcini Ndhlovu, a secondary school teacher from Zimbabwe, who was living in
the Makause informal settlement, near Primrose, Germiston, is teaching grade
8 and grade 9 students.

He said: “They started burning shacks belonging to foreigners and beating
them, so I had to run away, fearing for my life.”

But Ndhlovu said the wave of violence against foreigners was not enough to
make him leave the country.

He has got a job as a construction worker “just to make a little bit of
money so I can post something back to my family at home”. Ndhlovu supports
his mother, his wife and two sons and a daughter.

Sibongile has her head in her books, writing an exercise Ndhlovu has set
her. She attended Oosrand Secondary School until two weeks ago, when she and
her mother were forced out of their home in Ramaphosa , in Reiger Park,
Boksburg, on the East Rand.

She said: “They burnt my mother’s house … they burnt my clothes, my books,
everything.”