Zim Online
Monday 07 May 2007
By Wayne
Mafaro
HARARE - Zimbabwean police were by late Sunday night still
detaining two
human rights lawyers in open defiance of a High Court order to
release them.
The lawyers, Alec Muchadehama and partner Andrew Makoni,
were arrested late
on Friday after challenging a certificate issued by Home
Affairs Minister
Kembo Mohadi barring the courts from granting bail to an
opposition
legislator and 12 other activists accused of accused of petrol
bombing
government properties.
High Court Judge Tedius Karwi on
Saturday ordered the police to release the
lawyers saying they had been
unlawfully arrested.
But lawyers acting for Muchadehama and Makoni told
ZimOnline that the two
were still in custody because the police were
refusing to release them as
ordered by Karwi.
"They are still in
police custody," said Otto Saki, who is part of the legal
team representing
the detained lawyers.
Another defence lawyer Eric Matinenga said the
police had on Sunday morning
searched Muchadehama and Makoni's offices in
Harare.
"I have just received a message that police this morning (Sunday)
searched
Muchadehama and Makoni's offices but I am not sure what they were
looking
for," said Matinenga.
The police claim Muchadehama and Makoni
had during the bail application of
their clients' uttered words which
amounted to obstructing the course of
justice.
Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena was not immediately available to clarify
how exactly the two
lawyers, who were only carrying out their professional
work, had obstructed
the course of justice or to shed light on why the
police were refusing to
follow a court order to release the lawyers.
However, this is not the
first time that state security forces - accused by
churches and human rights
groups of committing human rights abuses - have
acted outside the law to
arrest and detain civilians.
The police have over the past seven years
unlawfully arrested, detained and
tortured scores of main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
party supporters while the army in 1998
infamously detained and tortured
journalists Ray Choto and the late Mark
Chavhunduka for days in defiance of
a High Court order to release the
journalists.
President Robert Mugabe, who has himself said his government
will only obey
court orders it deems reasonable, has stood by the security
forces and
dismissed as false charges that they violate human rights or
disobey court
orders.
Meanwhile, the Southern African Development
Community Lawyers Association
has condemned the arrest of Muchadehama and
Makoni.
Association president Sternford Moyo said: "We condemn the arrest
of lawyers
especially where the arrest is motivated by something done by
lawyers in the
execution of their duties.
"Domestic law and
international law requires that lawyers be free to
discharge their functions
without hindrance and that is necessary for an
effective administration of
justice. We are therefore highly concerned that
the arrest took place but we
welcome the order by the courts for the lawyers'
release." - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Monday 07 May 2007
By
Patricia Mpofu
HARARE - Zimbabwe state security agents arrested and
tortured more
opposition and civic society activists in February than in the
previous of
month as President Robert Mugabe's government intensifies a
crackdown on
dissension, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum NGO Forum has
said.
The Forum is a coalition of 17 of the biggest human rights and
pro-democracy
groups in the southern African country and regularly publishes
reports on
the human rights situation in the crisis-hit nation.
In
its latest report, the Forum said 294 people were unlawfully arrested in
February for attempting to stage anti-government protests compared to only
16 arrested in January, adding increasing arrests were a clear sign of
Mugabe's increasing reliance on "brute force" to crush peaceful
dissension.
State agents assaulted 183 anti-government activists and
tortured another 86
in February compared to 43 assaulted and four tortured
in January, the Forum
said.
"In exercising the right to freedom of
association and assembly, civic
society organisations were met with brute
force and repression by the
state," reads part of the 17-page report made
available to ZimOnline at the
weekend.
Both Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa and Information Minister and
government spokesman Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu were not immediately available to
respond to charges of increasing
human rights violations by state agents.
However, the government has in
the past rejected criticism of its human
rights record by the Forum, which
it accuses of seeking to use false claims
of human rights abuses by state
agents as part of a wider Western-led plot
to tarnish and vilify Mugabe's
government.
The Forum report comes as international human rights
watchdog, Human Rights
Watch (HRW), last Wednesday called on the Harare
administration to halt a
violent crackdown on political opponents and civic
groups.
HRW said, which visited Zimbabwe to assess the situation in the
country,
said the human rights situation had deteriorated since March and
accused
government security forces of using "disproportionate and lethal
force"
against unarmed people, which had led to the death of one opposition
activist, Gift Tandare, from gunshot wounds.
In its report, the Forum
implored Mugabe's government to "to respect the
right of Zimbabweans to
assemble, associate and express themselves freely as
enshrined in the
Constitution and International Human Rights instruments to
which Zimbabwe is
a party."
Politically motivated violence and human rights abuses - mostly
blamed on
state agents - have become routine in Zimbabwe since the emergence
in 1999
of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party as a
potent
electoral threat to Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party's
stranglehold on
power. - ZimOnline
Independent Catholic News
7 May 2007 - 336 words
Dan Bergin
Archbishop
Pius Ncube of Bulawayo has again spoken out against Zimbabwean
government
policies and the international community that is allowing the
"disastrous"
humanitarian situation there to escalate.
Speaking at the University of
New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where he
was a guest of the Australian
Human Rights Centre, Archbishop Ncube said:
"while the people of Zimbabwe
are starving, Mugabe and his ministers are
busy corruptly trading and
getting themselves rich."
Referring to the international community's lack
of action against the
regime, Ncube said: "There should be agreement among
nations that, when a
person goes against their own people, the international
community have a
right to invade and bring them down. Otherwise people die
while the
international community folds its hands and looks on."
At
Easter, Zimbabwe's Catholic Bishops issued a five-page pastoral letter
calling on Mugabe to end oppression in the country and allow for democratic
reform. It also said violent confrontation and deepening economic hardships
was pushing the nation close to a flash point.
Many bishops'
conference around the world have since issued statements fully
supporting
the Zimbabwean bishops' stand.
In an interview with the Zimbabwean state
newspaper The Herald, President
Mugabe warned that the country's nine
Catholic bishops had chosen "a
dangerous path" by getting involved in
politics. He said his government
would in future treat the bishops as what
he called "political entities" and
"deal with them
accordingly."
Father Oskar Wermter of the Catholic social communications
secretariat in
Harare said Mugabe's response to the pastoral letter was to
be expected.
"What is surprising is that he kept silent for so long. People
have reacted
to the letter very positively and maybe that is riling
him."
A church spokesman said state agents have been questioning several
priests
and laypeople. On Friday a priest was arrested and held for 24 hours
before
being released without charge.
Sources:
UNSW/Herald/ZWN
© Independent Catholic News 2007
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: May 6,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: The ruling party has resolved
differences over a power
struggle to succeed President Robert Mugabe and
backed him to stay in office
for another six years, the state Sunday Mail
newspaper reported.
Didymus Mutasa, the powerful No. 3 official in
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, said
Mugabe's succession was now off the agenda,
according to the newspaper, a
government mouthpiece.
"There is
absolutely nothing to talk about the succession issue any more for
the next
six years because we shall have the president as our leader. He is
not going
to be succeeded for that period," Mutasa was quoted as saying.
Mutasa
acknowledged two main factions in the Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front had vied for supremacy over who would replace
83-year-old Mugabe. But he said both factions now "closed ranks" behind
Mugabe's continued role as president.
The party agreed Mugabe could
not leave when he was needed by both the party
and the nation facing what he
described as "difficulties," Mutasa said,
according to the
newspaper.
"So it was quite right of him (Mugabe) to say: ... 'I am not
going away, I
cannot be running away from a burning house. I should stay and
put out the
fire,' " Mutasa was quoted as saying.
He insisted Mugabe's
decision to stay on until at least 2013, when he would
be almost 90, did not
leave the party divided.
"As trained and loyal liberation fighters,
everyone was rallying around the
incumbent leader," Mutasa said in an
interview with the state media, the
Sunday Mail reported.
The tenor
of Mutasa's remarks was reminiscent of several previous occasions
when
Mugabe, Mutasa and other close loyalists clamped down on calls within
the
party for Mugabe, the only ruler since independence in 1980, to step
down.
In 2004, the ruling party faced its deepest split over Mugabe's
choice of
Joyce Mujuru, wife of the influential former army commander Gen.
Solomon
Mujuru, as the nation's second vice president. She became the first
woman in
the post and effectively blocked former Parliament Speaker Emmerson
Mnangagwa's place as first in line to replace Mugabe.
Mugabe
railroaded Mujuru into office but last year relations between the two
cooled
as Gen. Mujuru became increasingly critical of Mugabe and the
couple's
faction strengthened against Mnangagwa's group.
Mugabe's critics blame
him for the southern African nation's economic
meltdown, citing
mismanagement, his failure to curb high-level graft and for
sanctioning
state-orchestrated violence against opponents, including the
assaults by
police and the hospitalization of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, and
scores of opposition activists in recent weeks.
Official inflation is
running at 2,200 percent and Zimbabwe faces acute
shortage of hard currency,
gasoline, food and most basic goods.
Five-yearly parliamentary and
presidential polls are scheduled next March
and there had been suggestions
Mugabe might later step down after winning a
clean sweep against the
fractured opposition, making way for at least fresh
economic
reforms.
The Sunday Mail sold briskly on the streets of Harare on
Sunday.
"Six years? God help us. I don't know how much more of this can
we take?"
said one businessman at news stand who asked not to be
identified.
It is an offense in Zimbabwe, punishable by jail, to publicly
insult Mugabe.
From The Sunday Independent, 6 May
Patrick Laurence
President Thabo
Mbeki's endorsement of the Nigerian election result bodes
ill for successful
fulfilment of his mission on behalf of the Southern
African Development
Community (SADC) to persuade political adversaries in
Zimbabwe to settle
their differences. His approval of the result is implicit
in his message of
congratulations to the winner of the presidential
election, Umaru Yar'Adua
of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), who was
handpicked by the outgoing
president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The Nigerian
department of foreign affairs
certainly seems to have concurred with that
deduction, judging by the
alacrity with which it trumpeted triumphantly on
receipt of Mbeki's
congratulatory missive. Mbeki's indirect affirmation of
the election outcome
is, however, in conflict with the sharp criticisms or
stony silence of many
of the international and local election observers who
monitored the polls
for Nigeria's state and local elections on April 14 and
parliamentary and
presidential elections on April 21.
The reasons for concern over the
fairness of the election include apparent
administrative incompetence,
violence directed at voters as well as at the
electoral commission for its
alleged bias, and outright bribery of voters by
reportedly ubiquitous party
agents as they queued to deliver their
far-from-secret ballots. The election
was marred by a shortage of ballot
papers that resulted in the frenzied
printing of extra papers and in long
delays before voting started at many
polling booths and even, though less
frequently, no voting at all at a few.
The shortage was reported to be acute
in areas where opposition parties were
particularly strong, which aroused
suspicions that the scarcity of ballots
papers was, to use a colloquial
expression, "accidentally on purpose". Some
200 people reportedly died
during the election, which, though relatively
small in the context of
Nigeria's total population of 140 million, hardly
qualified the elections to
be described as a peaceful demonstration of
democracy in action.
Statistical improbabilities aroused suspicions
that the people's choice was
unduly affected by improbable anomalies. Thus,
in one area the winning
candidate polled conspicuously more votes than the
number of recorded ballot
papers that had been distributed, while in another
the number of votes
accredited to the victorious contestant and three rivals
(7 000, 2 000 and 1
000 respectively) were too precisely rounded off to be
credible. On top of
these cogent reasons for regarding the elections as
flawed, there is one
more of singular importance: the suspected use by
Obasanjo of the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commissions (EFCC) to
disqualify his political
opponents from standing for office in the
elections. As The Economist notes,
the EFCC sent letters to the various
parties containing a list of 130
candidates who were scheduled to be charged
with corruption, while, as if it
were acting in tandem, the electoral
commission let it be known that these
candidates should not be allowed to
stand.
One of the 130 disqualified candidates was no less a person
that Atiku
Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC).
Abubakar,
a former leader of the PDP, had served as Obasanjo's
vice-president but
fallen foul of him when he opposed Obasanjo's attempt to
alter the
constitution to allow him to stand for a third term. Faced with
Obasanjo's
wrath, Abubakar defected to the AC, where he was chosen as its
presidential
candidate, only to find himself on the list of allegedly
corrupt politicians
deemed to be unsuitable for election to leadership
positions. Abubakar,
however, appealed to the supreme court, which ruled
that he should be
allowed to stand. His late entry into the contest,
however, put him at a
disadvantage, even to the extent of the exclusion of
his name from the list
of candidates in some, if not all, ballot papers.
These reports were largely
authenticated by reputable election observer
teams. They included the
European Union and the Nigerian Transition
Monitoring Group. The
mass-circulation newspaper This Day labelled the
elections a "rigging and
killing extravaganza".
Mbeki's
endorsement of the elections cries out for explanation, particularly
as the
president-elect was a man with a parochial profile until Obasanjo
thrust him
on to the national stage to win an improbable 70 percent of the
votes cast.
Mbeki has shown himself reluctant to publicly criticise his
peers in Africa
in general, and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in
particular, during his
nearly eight years as South Africa's head of state.
Perhaps he merely
exercised the same restraint when he failed to express
even tactfully worded
misgivings about Nigeria's elections, for which
Obasanjo, as the incumbent
president, cannot escape censure. Perhaps he
admired Obasanjo's skill in
successfully marginalising a powerful rival and
promoting a relatively
unknown and potentially malleable politician to
succeed him while retaining
his powerful position as chairman of the ruling
PDP.
The Sunday Times
May 6, 2007
Jon Swain
SIMON MANN, the former SAS officer linked to a botched
coup attempt in west
Africa, will either walk free from a Zimbabwe jail this
week or face
extradition to Equatorial Guinea and many more years'
imprisonment in
horrific conditions.
He believes he will die if a
magistrate in Harare agrees on Wednesday to his
extradition. He needs
medical treatment, including a hernia operation and
hip replacement. "If I
go there, consider me dead," he has told his legal
team.
Equatorial
Guinea wants to try the Old Etonian on charges of plotting to
overthrow
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Mann is in prison in Zimbabwe after
being convicted in August 2004 of trying
to buy weapons without a licence in
connection with the bungled coup to
overthrow Nguema.
He is due for
early release for good behaviour on Friday and could be on a
plane home to
Britain by next weekend.
If the magistrate grants Equatorial Guinea's
extradition application, Mann
will appeal to the high court, his lawyer
Jonathan Samkange said yesterday.
Mann's fellow mercenary Nick du Toit is
serving a 34-year jail sentence in
Equatorial Guinea for his role in the
plot to topple Nguema, which
unravelled in March 2004 when a plane carrying
Mann and other mercenaries
was seized in Zimbabwe. Du Toit and his team were
arrested as they waited to
meet them in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial
Guinea.
Mark Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher's son, who was a friend and
neighbour of
Mann in Cape Town, admitted funding part of the scheme and was
fined by
South African authorities.
Du Toit is held in Black Beach
prison and is in terrible shape as a result
of beatings, mistreatment and
poor food, according to reports. A German who
was captured with him has
died, Amnesty International believes from torture.
Du Toit will have to
serve at least 20 years before he can be considered for
parole, Nguema has
stated.
The tiny oil-rich state in West Africa is notorious for its
torture,
electoral fraud and corruption. American State Department reports
say
suspects have died in custody and prisoners have been raped by
police.
Weja Chicampo, a former inmate at Black Beach, said that he had
been so
badly beaten he could not eat properly and was left in handcuffs
without
washing facilities and no water so he had been required to drink his
own
urine.
Chicampo was released last year and is now a Spanish
citizen living in
Madrid. He was invited to testify at Mann's extradition
hearing but has been
denied a visa to fly to Zimbabwe.
Mann's lawyer
said: "The only way I think Mann can be extradited is if there
is political
interference. I hope it works out."
Zimbabwe is gripped by chronic fuel
shortages and Equatorial Guinea has made
it clear it is happy to assist.
Friday 4th May 2007
http://africantears.netfirms.com
Dear
Friends.
It is sometimes useful to stand back from the horror and chaos
that
characterises this last stage of Mugabe's rule and try to look at the
situation objectively. Easier to do that I suppose if you're not there in
the country suffering the total collapse with starvation and poverty all
around you but I admit to bouts of fair-mindedness when I think I ought to
try and be objective!
You all know how Mugabe constantly harps on about
the west - and the UK in
particular - and how they 'demonize' him and his
party. 'You never tell them
the good things that are happening under
Mugabe's rule' the media is told
and my response to that is 'What good
things are there to talk about?' In my
quieter moments I do wonder if
perhaps we critics of the regime do not
sometimes over-state the case but
then I hear about babies being beaten,
women being kept naked in the cells
and just yesterday I read in The
Zimbabwean details of the number of
political prisoners being held and I go
back to my angry question, 'What
good things are there to talk about?'
An interesting article in the UK
Guardian recently caught my eye. It was
entitled 'How To Turn an Open
Society Into A Dictatorship in Ten Easy Steps'
and although it was not about
Africa or even Zimbabwe the article exactly
pinpointed what has happened in
our country.
The article by a certain Naomi Wolf argues that there are ten
steps that
need to be taken by anyone taking over power. She gives the
examples of
Hitler and Pinochet but in Africa we have our own examples. The
process is
not a random one. All those seeking power have to do is follow a
sort of
historical blueprint to close down an open society and turn it into
a
fascist state - with varying degrees of bloodshed along the way. Wolf goes
on to argue that creating and sustaining a democratic society is a long and
arduous process but closing it down is much easier. Just follow the
blueprint.
If you are a Zimbabwean reading this you will be able to
decide quite
quickly whether the country passes the Dictatorship Test. I
leave it to you
to decide!
Step One: Invoke a terrifying internal and
external enemy. For Nazi Germany
it was the Jews. In the west today it's
Islamic terrorism. Step Two: Create
a gulag - a place where all dissenters
are sent for long periods. In America
that's Guantanamo Bay. Step Three:
Develop a 'thug' caste eg. the Nazi
Blackshirts whose job was to go round
brutalizing the population. Step Four:
Set up an internal surveillance
system. Step Five: Harass citizen groups and
civic society. Step Six:
Institute arbitrary arrest and detention. Step
Seven: Target key
individuals. Step Eight: Control the Press. Step Nine:
Equate all forms of
dissent with treason. Step Ten: Suspend the rule of law,
subvert the
judiciary and police.
There's one other point Naomi Wolf makes; once you put
all the powers,
legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands you
have all the
makings of a tyranny. Externally, on the surface everything
looks normal.
That's what the dictator wants you to see; look behind the
external picture
and you will see the full horror of torture, brutality and
the infringing of
basic human rights.
And there you have it. By my
reckoning Zimbabwe scores nine out of ten on
this Richter scale of
dictatorship. We don't yet have a gulag as far as I
know but then you could
argue that the whole country is nothing more than a
gulag - for dissenters
anyway.
So, in answer to the question, 'Why don't you tell us the good news
coming
out of Zimbabwe?' I repeat, 'What good news is there?' What good news
can
there be when the price of the staple food goes up by 700% condemning
millions to near-starvation?
Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH
http://africantears.netfirms.com/thisweek.shtml
Saturday 5th May 2007
Dear Family and
Friends,
On World Press Freedom Day the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists were
denied
permission by Police to hold processions in 10 provincial centres
around the
country. This did not come as a surprise. How could the
government possibly
sanction processions when in the last month alone there
has been a shocking
surge of repression and abuse against media workers in
Zimbabwe.
Edward Chikomba, a 65 year old freelance cameraman was abducted
from his
home, beaten to death and dumped on a roadside. Gift Phiri, a
reporter for
The Zimbabwean newspaper was seized in a supermarket, taken
into police
custody and beaten repeatedly over four days. Tsvangirai
Mukwazhi - a
photographer - and Tendai Musiyazviriyo, a producer, were
arrested while
covering the March 11th arrests of opposition leaders. Both
were beaten in
custody. Luke Tamborinyoka , an MDC press officer, has been
in police
custody for a month
On World Press Freedom Day in Zimbabwe,
the Minister of Information said :"
the Americans are at work busy
destroying Zimbabwe's national policies. On
the ground, however, for the
ordinary men, women and children of Zimbabwe,
there is no sign of the
Americans. If there was, perhaps they would do
something about the ten hours
of electricity cuts and seventeen hour water
cuts we are having in my home
town every day. Perhaps they could have
stopped the 680 percent increase in
the price of maize meal that was
announced this week. Perhaps they could
stand next to the mothers in the
supermarkets who pick things up and put
them back on the shelves because
they cannot afford even life's most basic
of goods.
Zimbabwe's Minister of Information did not mention any of these
things as he
spoke on World Press Freedom Day. He did not speak about the
dead cameraman
or the arrested journalists and said nothing about how people
were being
beaten whilst in police custody. Beaten by men who are paid with
our taxes!
The President of Zimbabwe's Union of Journalists made the most
appropriate
comment when he said; "We are not celebrating anything. We are
looking back
to a tragic year when reprisals against journalists have gone
up."
I end with a quote from an Easter Pastoral Letter published by the
Zimbabwe
Catholic Bishops Conference: "The suffering people of Zimbabwe are
groaning
in agony: 'Watchman, how much longer the night.'" How much longer
is indeed
our call, our litany.
Until next week, thanks for reading
and for anyone interested please have a
look at the African Tears website
where a letter from the outside, looking
in, is a new link and this week is
a superb read and brings a chilling
realisation.
Thanks PH for your
work and your example !
Love cathy.
Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 3 May
Muna Ndulo
Zimbabwe is scheduled to
hold presidential and parliamentary general
elections next year and the
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
has delegated the task of
ensuring they are free and fair to President Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa.
Free, fair polls can be held only where there exists
an environment that
seeks to provide popular participation, promotes human
rights, guarantees
fundamental freedoms, ensures accountability of the
government and freedom
of the judiciary and press, and protects and respects
political pluralism.
None of these conditions exist in Zimbabwe, nor are
they likely to exist
between now and next April, as there is an absence of
decisive action to
bring them about. Contradictory statements from SADC do
not inspire
confidence in that organisation's efforts to resolve the crisis.
There is a
real risk that the regional efforts will end up promoting an
electoral
process that will legitimise the Mugabe government.
Yet there is an
absolute need to ensure that the next election in Zimbabwe
is not only free
and fair but also seen to be free and fair if it is to be
accepted by all
political factions as well as by the outside world. The
circumstances under
which the elections are to be held present enormous
challenges. These
include the lack of a democratic culture of political
tolerance, political
violence and high levels of intimidation and bias.
There are also huge
logistical concerns. Previous elections were
characterised by selective
voter registration and the gerrymandering of
electoral districts. The police
and the army have proved themselves partial
and are often used by the
government to frustrate free political activity.
They do not inspire
confidence. The problem is heightened by an
institutional culture that
tolerates a profound disrespect for human rights.
This makes the police
unsuitable to guard the polling stations and perform
other election-related
functions, such as transporting ballot papers,
without
supervision.
These factors create suspicion and doubt about the
integrity of the process
and make it essential that, if it is to have any
chance of success, Mbeki's
mission has to put in place credible structures
that will tackle these
challenges. In the South African process in 1994,
special structures - such
as the transitional executive council - were
established to ensure that the
apartheid regime did not undermine the
transition to democracy. Also, the
international community often monitors
national elections. This is designed
to ensure that elections are held in an
atmosphere conducive to the holding
of free and fair elections, thereby
ensuring that the process advances
democracy. But such involvement can be
effective only if it involves
participation in the whole spectrum of the
national election process. It has
to include support of national election
administrations, training of
election officials, election supervision,
election observation, election
verification, provision of civilian police
and technical assistance on
election-related matters.
The final
determination is made easier if the international observers ensure
that each
stage of the election is satisfactory and pronounce their
judgement at each
of the three key stages: the registration of voters, the
campaign period and
the voting and counting of votes. Mbeki should not be
interested only in
what happens on the day of the elections. If he is to
reduce the probability
of rigging and enhance the integrity of the process,
he should give
considerable weight to the conditions on the ground leading
up to the
elections. The big question that arises is how Mbeki is going to
ensure that
the right conditions are in place. What structure is SADC going
to put in
place to ensure that necessary conditions are implemented? It
appears that,
for now, SADC's strategy is to make Mugabe reform and
dismantle the
autocratic and repressive system he has established. If that
is indeed the
strategy, SADC's initiative is bound to fail. One of the
lessons to be
learnt from the recent disgraceful Nigerian elections is that
undemocratic
regimes cannot reform themselves. The Mugabe government will
not democratise
unless it is pushed. The role played by the international
community will
thus be critical in the outcome of the mediation process.
But, to be
effective, it needs to be united. This will greatly increase the
chance of a
successful international intervention. Only serious, determined
and united
efforts can move Zimbabwe out of its current quagmire.
Muna Ndulo is
professor of law at Cornell University Law School. He served
as senior
political adviser to the special representative of the secretary
general in
South Africa and head of the United Nations observer mission in
South
Africa, which oversaw South Africa's first democratic election. In
1999, he
was the legal adviser to the United Nations mission to East Timor
So many partings. So many deaths. We
may be 5,000 miles away but nothing can
insulate us against what is
happening at home. Many Vigil people were drawn
to Wolverhampton today to be
with family of the MDC National Chairman, Isaac
Matongo, who died suddenly
this week. He was an inspiring person, a great
supporter of the Vigil, who
was always urging unity on Zimbabweans in the
diaspora. We remember him
with affection and respect. We know how
difficult it has been for the MDC
to survive in the hostile environment of
infiltration and decampaigning and
massive state abuse.
Unfortunately Mr Matongo's was not the only death we
mourned. One of our
key activists, Luka Phiri, called by briefly to break
the news that his
wife, Sihle, had died while on her way home to Zimbabwe
after an operation
in South Africa. He said "I know she is not in pain now
but she has passed
her pain on to me and I have to live with it. We shared
a lot in life and
she is still a greatest figure in my life that brought me
two lovely
children. I will miss her till we meet in a new life. Rest in
peace. Lala
ngokuthula." On hearing the news Vigil supporters broke into
the mourning
song "Aigaro zvakanaka nevamwe". Coincidently, Sihle was 34 -
now the life
expectancy of a Zimbabwean woman.
So a sad day for us,
despite the lovely sunshine. Many passers-by stopped
to share our anguish.
More and more people are becoming aware of the
catastrophe unfolding in
Zimbabwe: rarely a day passes without reports of
torture, death and
destruction.
We are confident something new will be born out of this.
Our job is to keep
on reminding people about the situation in Zimbabwe, for
instance how absurd
it is that, with the support of the African lobby,
Zimbabwe is likely to be
the next Chair of the UN Sustainable Development
Commission. If the
Zimbabwe regime is sustainable, God help us
all.
The music was particularly vibrant today. Moses, Arnold and others
made the
drums sound from Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden and down to the
Thames.
Today was baby Zizi's 5th visit to the Vigil - he is becoming a
seasoned
activist. Ian's Vigil blog: http://www.myspace.com/zimbabwevigil
has
acquired 98 friends since he set it up in December (check Vigil diary of
16/12/06). It brought a supporter to the Vigil on 31st March. She writes on
the blog "The Vigil was great! Great to dance and be joyful in the midst of
sorrow".
PS after our comment last week about the Embassy leaving all
its lights on,
we noticed today that it was shrouded in darkness. Glad to
see they read
our diary. Come and join us.
For this week's Vigil
pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 63 signed the register.
There will be no Central London
Zimbabwe Forum on Monday 7th May because it
is a public holiday. Next forum:
Monday 14th May at 7.30 pm.
Vigil co-ordinator
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
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
06 May 2007
10:25
A Zimbabwean court has ordered the release of two
opposition
lawyers arrested in the capital last week after challenging a
ministerial
certificate, defence lawyers said on Sunday.
The lawyers, Alec Muchadehama and partner Andrew Makoni, were
arrested late
on Friday after challenging the certificate issued by Home
Affairs Minister
Kembo Mohadi barring the courts from granting bail to their
clients.
"Justice [Tedias] Karwi ordered that they be
released as he said
their arrest was unlawful," advocate Eric Matinenga told
Agence
France-Presse.
The lawyers were representing a
member of Parliament for the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
and 12 other activists
accused of petrol bombing government properties and
other privately owned
businesses.
Mohadi had issued the
certificate saying the 13 activists should
remain in prison as they had gone
to South Africa for military training in
South Africa and police were still
investigating the case.
However, Muchadehama and Makoni said
in court papers the
ministerial certificate had been irregularly
issued.
"The certificate produced by the minister is
senseless, unlawful
and ineffectual," the lawyers said.
Lawrence Chibwe, secretary for the Law Society of Zimbabwe, said
the court
order was issued late on Saturday, but the two lawyers were still
detained.
"By last night the two lawyers were still in
jail," Chibwe said.
"We do not know why, they are still
behind bars, but we are
trying to have them released." - Sapa-AFP
The Telegraph
By Mark
Salter, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:43am BST
06/05/2007
In Zimbabwe, those who have foreign
currency can laugh off the scary
price tags, Mark Salter finds on a trip
home. For everyone else, inflation
makes life hell
A warm and
sultry Friday night at the Holiday Inn, Bulawayo. Soft
music complementing
the gentle clink of crockery and glasses in the
luxurious dining room. A
muted drone of conversation.
Aaahh, this is the life, say I as I
crack open another ice-cold
Zambesi lager. But hang on, is this not
Zimbabwe, that ravaged fief of the
evil Robert Mugabe? The land of thuggish
police breaking up opposition
rallies with whips and batons and
guns?
The land of a bankrupt economy and 2,200 per cent inflation,
where
unemployment has reached an unbelievable 80 per cent?
Indeed it is, but all that seems so far away... until the bill comes.
All
this good living has a price... and that price is a bill for Z$360,000 I
didn't even blink.
Earlier that day, we had taken my mother out
to lunch for her 90th
birthday to the magnificent Nesbitt Castle hotel in
the southern suburbs.
A simple affair: chicken breast, two
chicken kebabs, beef strogonoff,
three puds, couple of beers and a glass of
local wine.
The bill then was Z$1,135,000. It took half an hour to
count out all
the notes. As the official exchange rate is about Z$500 to the
£1, it should
have been an awesome £2,270. Actually, it cost a very
reasonable £28.
The day before, we had tea at a garden café. Three
cups of tea and two
chocolate cakes: Z$84,000 - could that really come to
£170?
Of course not. We weren't paying at the official rate. We
were dining
and drinking off the black market, what the locals smilingly
call "the
parallel market", where £1 buys Z$40,000. Zimbabweans prefer US
dollars, but
any currency will do.
Straight after arriving at
Bulawayo airport, a friend took us to see a
nice young man in the office of
his supermarket, the governor of the
(unofficial) Bank of Bulawayo, Smiley
Super-market branch.
I handed over US$200, he shovelled Z$4 million
across the table in
wads of Z$50,000 and Z$10,000 notes.
''Life
is not too bad here,'' he said, ''if you have money.'' You can
buy anything
you want in his supermarket: Drambuie at Z$1.74 million. Bread
at Z$7,700.
The average price of a beer is Z$20,000. I don't mind paying 50p
for a
beer.
The true exchange rate is determined solely by the market,
although it
is subject to wild fluctuation, especially when companies go out
on to the
street to buy up foreign exchange to service their mounting
debts.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority did this recently,
pushing
up the price of the US dollar to Z$28,000, up from around
Z$20,000.
Gideon Gono, the governor of Zimbabwe's (official)
Reserve Bank, has
finally come to realise this, and while steadfastly
refusing to devalue the
Zimbabwe dollar, has announced the creation of a
"drought mitigation and
economic stabilisation fund", by which the bank will
pay exporters, gold
miners and tobacco farmers the base rate times 60 for
their foreign
currency.
He hopes that this will encourage
everyone to channel their foreign
exchange through the bank and not through
the supermarket.
After all, remittance income from the vast
Zimbabwean diaspora - an
estimated three million Zimbabweans live in South
Africa alone - reached
US$1.2 billion last year.
Fine for those
with families abroad, but anyone without access to
forex struggles to buy
even the basics. A labourer earns about Z$300,000 a
month (about £7.50); a
nurse Z$450,000 (£11); a teacher Z$500,000 (£12.50).
The official
poverty level is Z$1 million (£25) a month. And just to
rub salt into their
many wounds, the Inland Revenue has left unaltered the
top-level tax rate
for so long that even the labourer pays 40 per cent
super-tax.
Salaries have to be adjusted nearly every month, but they can never
keep
pace with inflation. A friend in the pharmaceutical trade told me he
adjusts
his prices by 25 per cent every fortnight. A quote from the plumber
is open
for just eight hours.
I had not been back to Bulawayo, city of my
birth, for eight years.
Nothing on the surface had changed except that some
pockets now bulged with
Monopoly money, the roads were more pot-holed, the
people looked tired,
their spirit damaged but not yet broken. The power cuts
are accepted
philosophically and with candles at the ready.
Zimbabwe works, against all odds, in a two-tier system: on one tier
are
those with either huge salaries or access to foreign funds for whom the
ever-increasing prices are little more than an inconvenience.
On the other tier are the rest, who must scavenge for a living in the
fetid
townships, or mass-density housing, as it is politely called. For them
a car
is a luxury, even if it is a 1960s Ford Anglia or a 1970s Peugeot.
Yet there is no shortage of gleaming, gas-guzzling 4x4s in the
showrooms (or
speedboats for towing behind them if you wanted to head off to
Lake Kariba
for the weekend). Petrol is freely available now that the
government has
thrown open the market. We bought it at Z$24,500 (61p) a
litre.
If one were able to avoid any contact with the desperately poor
(impossible,
of course), life could seem pretty good in Zimbabwe.
Our hosts in
Bulawayo warned us to take extra care in locking the car
and guarding
against theft, but even with the horrendous poverty and the
seething
bitterness that must exist, there was little evidence of crime.
Not
like in Johannesburg for example, where I stayed on my way to
Zimbabwe.
There, my hosts picked me up from the airport with a
checklist of
precautions: all windows up, doors locked, and some sage advice
about what
to do if we are car-jacked: volunteer to drive for the thieves if
they want
to take you, then crash the car as soon as possible, preferably at
80km an
hour (about 50mph); the safest, most effective speed.
Bulawayo lives in a time warp; perhaps it is the cost of petrol that
prompts
drivers to cruise along at about 20mph, perhaps just the relaxed
pace of
life. But there isn't much traffic around; no pressure, no sense of
urgency.
They had good rains this year, too, so the trees are
green and the
lawns are watered; just like it was in the "old
days".
Those are days that the people of Bulawayo believe can be
recaptured.
But for the moment, they endure their surreal world, waiting for
The Change,
for when Mugabe finally goes.
Sitting in the
Holiday Inn that evening, I couldn't help recalling
scenes from Hotel
Rwanda, or The Last King of Scotland: people living a life
they know they
ought not to lead; a life of luxury on a small stage, while
outside, the war
creeps closer.
The Scotsman
Sun 6 May 2007
MURDO MACLEOD POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (mmacleod@scotlandonsunday.com)
TWO
of Scotland's leading artists have threatened to return their honorary
degrees from Edinburgh University unless the institution immediately strips
Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe of his own award.
In a dramatic
escalation of the campaign to remove the dictator's doctorate
in education,
composer James MacMillan and writer Liz Lochhead have said
they are
considering returning their awards unless Edinburgh revokes the
degree.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main Zimbabwean
opposition, the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is expected to visit
the UK this week
and meet with senior British political figures to discuss
the situation in
Zimbabwe.
On the eve of Tsvangirai's departure, his
chief adviser on foreign affairs
urged the university to act quickly and
called on others who have received
honorary awards to send theirs back if
Edinburgh fails to act speedily.
Scotland on Sunday revealed last month
that Edinburgh University was taking
the first steps to remove the doctorate
awarded to Mugabe in 1984 in the
initial euphoria over independence and
majority rule in the country.
Edinburgh University has assembled a team
of three "wise men" whose task it
is to investigate and prepare the case for
Mugabe's degree to be removed.
However, the institution has come in for
criticism for failing to act
rapidly and decisively on removing the award,
despite having changed the
rules to allow honorary degrees to be
revoked.
Returning an honorary degree in protest is a rare, although not
unprecedented, form of protest.
In 2004, scientist Sir Harry Kroto, a
Nobel laureate, was so incensed that
Exeter University was closing its
chemistry department, he sent back his
honorary degree in protest at what he
saw as the marginalisation of the
science.
MacMillan said: "I am
certainly thinking about it, and it is something I am
reflecting on. This
award has a powerful significance, and for an important
institution like
Edinburgh to maintain this connection is a slight on the
city.
"Mugabe is odious and the university should have nothing to do
with him, and
those left-wing liberals who feted him in the 1980s, when it
was well known
what kind of a person he was, should now reflect on their
mistake."
Lochhead said: "I would certainly think about it [returning her
degree],
although it's not something I would take at all lightly. The
honorary degree
is a wonderful thing to have and it means a lot to me, and
it symbolises
those who nominated me for it. But I do think that the
university should
remove his [Mugabe's] award, and if the mechanisms are
there, it should act
quickly."
Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro,
Tsvangirai's senior adviser on foreign
affairs - and a university lecturer -
criticised what he saw as Edinburgh's
failure to act quickly on the
matter.
Mukonoweshuro said: "Edinburgh University should act now to
remove Mugabe's
degree and they should not delay. It would be a shame for
any university to
have Robert Mugabe as an honorary graduate. And others who
have honorary
degrees from the university should not want to be associated
with Robert
Mugabe in this way and I would advise them to return them in
protest at
Edinburgh's delay.
"I am a professor and a dean of
faculty. I have dealt with the issue of
honorary degrees myself and I
understand their situation. But it is very
clear that Mugabe does not
deserve the approval of the university and the
university should not want to
associate itself with him. At the moment I am
speaking to you I do not know
what is going to happen to me in the next
hour. Mr Mugabe has gangs of
vigilantes going around beating people up."
While Edinburgh University
says its 'wise men' are aware of the situation in
Zimbabwe and are "actively
reviewing" Mugabe's degree, it is understood that
some insiders are
concerned that revoking the award might set a precedent
whereby honorary
degrees could be removed by popular pressure and lobbying.
They believe that
the university authorities need to build a rigorous
academic case to remove
the award.
Last week, the international watchdog Human Rights Watch urged
South African
President Thabo Mbeki and other southern African leaders to
step up pressure
on the Zimbabwean government to end massive - and
escalating - human rights
violations.
The organisation said Mbeki -
who was recently appointed by southern African
leaders to mediate in the
crisis - should make human rights central.
Mugabe has intensified his
crackdown on the opposition movement last March,
with police seriously
beating its leaders. He has become increasingly
defiant since.
The Zimbabwean
(06-05-07)
Otto Saki, a leading human rights lawyer, on 3 May 2007 said
disregard of
the rule of law was fast turning into a culture in Zimbabwe as
characterised
by the unlawful arrests, detention and torture of
journalists.
Speaking during the World Press Freedom Day commemorations
in Harare , Saki
said the situation was even more worrying as lawyers were
also having
difficult accessing clients who include journalists who would
have been
arrested while conducting their professional
duties.
"Journalists are becoming an endangered species in Zimbabwe
while the
unlawful arrests, abductions and kidnapping of journalists are
becoming a
culture which in our view is very worrying," he said.
He
also lamented the unethical conduct of some journalists notwithstanding
the
selective application of the law when it comes to the arrests and
detention
of journalists. Saki, however, said difficult and trying times
demand
individuals who remain focused in what they want to achieve adding
that
there was nothing treasonous in seeking regime change. He said regime
change
was simply about coming up with a democratic constitution, free and
fair
elections and accountable governance.
The meeting, convened by the Media
Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) which
comprises MISA-Zimbabwe , Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists and the Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe also resolved to
petition the government over
the deteriorating media and freedom of
expression environment in the wake of
the continued harassment, unlawful
arrests, detention and confiscation of
equipment belonging to accredited
journalists by state agents.
Journalists noted with concern the
deafening silence on the part of the
government and the Ministry of
Information and Publicity in particular and
the state media in view of these
wanton acts of impunity against
journalists, some of whom are duly
accredited as required under the
repressive and restrictive Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy
Act (AIPPA).
MAZ was also
tasked with coming up with awards that would be presented to
outstanding
journalists on World Press Freedom Day to give the event more
significance.
Daily Times, Pakistan
Tawanda Mutasah
UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and his human rights commissioner, Louise
Arbor, made a good start when they spoke out about the abuses in Zimbabwe
this March. The UN could take the next step by sending in a mission to
review, monitor, and call for an end to abductions and torture, and to
protect human rights defenders
I had never seen a combat machine gun
in a civilian hospital until the day I
went to Harare's Avenues Clinic to
visit two women, pro-democracy leaders
who had just survived a brutal,
methodical beating at the hands of the
police.
"We went through
unspeakable torture. Each time that night when we heard the
sound of boots
returning, our bowels loosened," said Grace Kwinjeh of the
ordeal she and
Sekai Holland, 64, underwent.
Now they were attempting to heal while
under armed guard, hearing those same
boots approaching their bedsides
intermittently throughout the night.
Zimbabwe's "3/11" - the day 50
people set out to attend a prayer meeting but
ended up suffering hours of
torture by security agents - shocked the world
and raised hopes that
President Robert Mugabe's impunity might at last be
halted. But barely a
month later, the television news cameras are pointing
elsewhere, and
international leaders are switching off their phones,
declining to hear the
shrill cries coming out of Zimbabwe.
Why? There are two reasons. First,
southern African leaders have told the
world that the Zimbabwe problem must
be left to them to address; and second,
the new victims of Mugabe's
crackdown are "smaller" people - street level
pro-democracy organizers,
known in their communities but scarcely recognized
in the neighbouring
district, let alone in the wider world.
At least 600 of them have been
abducted and tortured by state terror agents
this year. Far from being
chastened by all the attention, Mugabe's regime
has stepped up its efforts,
invading homes at night, picking off local
leaders and activists and taking
them to cells in isolated police stations.
Officers who protest are
court-martialled and transferred to remote
stations. A journalist has
recently been murdered. And lest they protest too
loudly, non-governmental
organizations have been warned that they may lose
their license to
operate.
The world has been told - as so often during the past seven
years - to put
matters in the hands of South African President Thabo Mbeki's
quiet
diplomacy. Yet the repression and violence have only intensified since
Mbeki
received his mandate from his neighbouring heads of state. Far from
condemning Mugabe, they called for the "lifting of all forms of sanctions
against Zimbabwe" and insisted that the scandalously rigged elections of the
past six years had been free and fair.
Small wonder that Mugabe was
emboldened, and that terror squads now openly
brag to their victims that
there will be no opposition left by the time of
the elections next
year.
The efforts of those progressive African leaders who are seeking a
solution
to the Zimbabwe crisis are, of course, welcome. But, while African
solutions
for the constitutional, electoral, and economic questions that the
country
faces are sought and debated, the reality of torture and abductions
is an
urgent matter that literally cries out for immediate intervention.
Does not
the international community have a responsibility to
protect?
In her seminal 2003 book America and the Age of Genocide,
Samantha Power
warned that when it comes to preventing loss of life and the
torture of
groups and individuals at the hands of armed, predatory regimes,
the world
community always does too little too late.
Yet in 2005, the
United Nations Security Council rightly decided to discuss
Operation
Murambatsvina, under which the Zimbabwe government destroyed the
homes of
700,000 people and the livelihoods of at least 20 percent of
Zimbabwe's poor
population. Now, Zimbabwe is again at a point where the UN
needs to act to
end the escalating abductions and torture.
South Africa's UN ambassador,
Dumisani Kumalo, argues that Zimbabwe's crisis
is not an appropriate matter
for the Security Council, because it does not
threaten international peace
and security. Yet Mbeki himself has spoken of
the huge humanitarian "burden"
on his country as a result of the chaos next
door. Indeed, three million
Zimbabweans have escaped into neighbouring
countries, fuelling increased
poverty, crime, and xenophobia.
We must learn from history. Ambassador
Kumalo undoubtedly approved when the
UN General Assembly passed its
resolution of September 30, 1974, against
South Africa. Yet it was not
premised on apartheid's threat to security, but
on its serious violation of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In UN Security Council
resolutions passed this year on Somalia, Haiti, the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, and others, the Security Council has
appropriately observed that
serious human rights abuses pose a threat to
peace and security in the
regions where those states are situated. Zimbabwe's
crisis meets this
standard.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and his human rights
commissioner, Louise
Arbor, made a good start when they spoke out about the
abuses in Zimbabwe
this March. The UN could take the next step by sending in
a mission to
review, monitor, and call for an end to abductions and torture,
and to
protect human rights defenders. This falls clearly within the UN's
responsibility to protect, no matter what local diplomatic initiatives
African leaders undertake and regardless of how South Africa feels about it.
It is unconscionable that no one, so far, has been willing to try to stop
the perpetrators of Zimbabwe's terror. -DT-PS
Tawanda Mutasah is the
Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa