Reuters
Tue 9 Sep 2008,
20:20 GMT
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert
Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said on Tuesday they have
made progress in power-sharing talks in
Zimbabwe and are to address
outstanding issues on Wednesday.
A deal to form an all-inclusive
government would end two months of wrangling
and help ease a post-election
crisis that is worsening Zimbabwe's economic
decline.
A new round
of talks began in Harare on Monday between Mugabe's ZANU-PF,
Tsvangirai's
MDC party and a breakaway MDC faction, but prospects had looked
bleak.
A senior ZANU-PF official accused the MDC on Tuesday of
"trying to put
spanners in the works", while Tsvangirai said on Sunday he
would rather quit
talks than sign a bad deal.
But after several hours
of meetings led by South African President Thabo
Mbeki on Tuesday, the
rivals appeared hopeful a deal was in sight.
"As you are aware these
talks have been dragging on for some time now, but I
must say that there is
a positive development," Tsvangirai told reporters as
he left the Harare
hotel after hours of negotiation, without giving more
details.
"Nothing has been concluded yet but we are hoping that
tomorrow (Wednesday)
we will be able to look at the outstanding
issues."
Mugabe also told reporters that progress had been
made.
"We are still going to talk. We are finishing tomorrow
(Wednesday)," he
said. "There is progress, and lack of it, in some areas,"
he said, adding
that "one or two areas" were still
outstanding.
Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway MDC faction, was
even more
optimistic, saying "tremendous progress" had been
achieved.
"... we hope tomorrow (Wednesday) we will be able to bring
finality and
closure to the dialogue process," he said.
Mbeki --
mandated by the region to mediate an end the crisis -- had
presented a
proposal sharing executive powers, the main sticking point in
the
negotiations, the state-run Herald newspaper said.
It also looked at
structuring an all-inclusive government.
SADC SUMMIT MOVED?
An MDC
source told Reuters four issues remained unresolved, including the
contentious issue of who would chair the cabinet, although differences had
been narrowed.
The suggested proposal was for ministers to report to
Tsvangirai as prime
minister on a daily basis, but Mugabe would still chair
cabinet meetings.
Other issues included the number of ministers for each
parties, which
version of the constitution the new government adhered to and
how long the
transitional process would last, the source said.
The
defence committee of regional grouping the SADC was due to meet in
Swaziland
on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but a senior Zimbabwe
government
official said the summit may now be moved to Harare to celebrate
the signing
of a power-sharing deal.
"It looks like it is a done deal. From the way I
understand it, a signing
ceremony had been provisionally set for tomorrow
(Wednesday)," the source,
who did not want to be named, said.
"But
there are suggestions that this could be delayed a bit and we could see
the
SADC troika meeting being held here to give pomp and fanfare to the
agreement."
The SADC meeting was to include the heads of state from
Mozambique, Angola
and Swaziland. Mbeki and Mugabe had also been expected to
attend.
The MDC leader beat Mugabe in a March 29 presidential election
but fell
short of enough votes to avoid a June run-off, which was won by
Mugabe
unopposed after Tsvangirai pulled out, citing violence and
intimidation
against his supporters.
Mugabe's victory in the run-off
was condemned around the world and drew
toughened sanctions from Western
countries whose support is vital for
reviving Zimbabwe's ruined
economy.
Mbeki has come under repeated fire for not being tough enough
with Mugabe,
in power since 1980.
Other southern African leaders have
taken a harder line, but Mugabe has
resisted pressure".
Zimbabweans
were hoping the election could produce a leadership able to
tackle
hyper-inflation and severe food and fuel shortages that have driven
millions
across the country's borders, straining regional economies.
(Writing by
Gordon Bell and Michael Georgy; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
SABC
September 09, 2008,
22:00
Principals in Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks say they are on the
verge of
clinching a deal that should see the formation of the unity
government.
President Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) leader
Morgan Tsvangirai this evening said all is on track and the
talks looks set
to be concluded tomorrow.
After another marathon
meeting that ended just before 9pm, Mugabe says there
are two outstanding
issues but prospects of a deal are now brighter than
ever
before.
Tsvangirai says the pact is now in sight. The opposition leader
says there
are just a few sticking issues which they hope to iron out
tomorrow before
sealing the deal.
His counterpart from the smaller
MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara, also says he's
set for conclusion
tomorrow.
Anytime from now, anything is possible is Zimbabwe. The deal
may finally
bring to an end a decade long confrontation between the veteran
president
and former trade unionist Tsvangirai.
IOL
September 10 2008 at 06:58AM
By Peter Fabricius, Special
Correspondent and Sapa-dpa
President Thabo Mbeki was late on
Tuesday still trying to broker an
agreement between Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe's
opposition parties.
He was due to brief a summit of the SADC troika
in Swaziland on
Wednesday on the ongoing facilitation work in Zimbabwe, said
Department of
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa in a
statement.
However, it was not clear last night whether Mbeki would
be able to
leave Harare in time as he was still locked in negotiations with
President
Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition
leaders
Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.
It is
understood that Mbeki came to Harare on Monday with a slightly
different
proposal from the one which Tsvangirai, leader of the main MDC
faction, had
rejected before.
Tsvangirai turned down the earlier proposal
because he said it left
all executive powers in the hands of Mugabe who
would remain president,
leaving him as a merely ceremonial prime
minister.
Sources said Mbeki's new proposal shifted some executive
powers to
Tsvangirai and that Mugabe was the one who was now
resisting.
Mamoepa said Mbeki had been invited to Mbabane by the
current chairman
of the SADC security body, Swaziland's King
Mswati.
The security body's troika comprises Swaziland, Angola and
Mozambique.
The troika - with an annually- rotating membership - is
the body in
charge of the Zimbabwean power-sharing negotiations and which
mandated Mbeki
as mediator last year.
The talks are believed to
have continued into the evening at Rainbow
Towers hotel in
Harare.
Mbeki was earlier reported by the Zimbabwean state media to
have
brought new proposals to the talks, which follow on a failed three-day
round
of late-night talks in August.
Tsvangirai at the time
backed away from a draft agreement that would
have made him prime minister,
but leaving Mugabe as president in control of
the security services and
cabinet.
Tsvangirai has been demanding full control of
government.
The state-controlled daily Herald, quoting government
sources, said
Mbeki had arrived "with a document which seeks to resolve the
issue of
sharing and distributing executive powers", and would "lay the
basis for the
continuation of the negotiations".
The newspaper
gave no details, but quoted sources as saying it was "an
extensive and
technical document".
A source close to the talks on the Zanu-PF
side said Mbeki had
proposed Mugabe and Tsvangirai co-chair
cabinet.
The same source however said Mugabe was "very unlikely" to
agree.
The two sides were putting a tentatively positive spin on
developments
on Monday.
Mugabe was saying "we are moving
forward, we are not going back,"
while MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa was
saying, "we are trying to bridge
the areas of our
differences."
This article was originally published on page 2
of Pretoria News on
September 10, 2008
SABC
September 10, 2008,
05:45
Miranda Strydom
President Thabo Mbeki will travel to Swaziland
this morning to brief the
South African Development Community (SADC) heads
of state about the ongoing
Zimbabwean negotiations.
Reports from
Swaziland say that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is also
likely to
attend the meeting. The SADC Troika of the Organ on Politics,
Defence and
Security will meet at the Lozitha Palace outside the capital
Mbabane.
Swaziland is currently chair of the organ troika which includes
Angola and
Mozambique.
Today's meeting comes as reports emerge of an imminent
breakthrough in the
negotiations. Last night MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
said there has been
what he called "positive developments", while Mugabe
said there were still
one or two areas of disagreement. The leader of a
breakaway MDC faction,
Arthur Mutambara, also expressed optimism that a deal
is in sight.
Stalled power-sharing talks
President Mbeki, as the SADC
appointed mediator, has been in Zimbabwe since
Monday and held meetings with
President Mugabe and the leaders of the two
MDC factions.
The stalled
power-sharing talks resumed on Monday after being adjourned for
more than
two weeks. The sticking point was the allocation of executive
powers.
President Mbeki, who is mediating the talks, is understood to have
tabled
fresh proposals. Some speculate that these include a fifty-fifty
sharing of
executive power.
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Own
Correspondent Wednesday 10 September 2008
JOHANNESBURG - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) organ
on
defence and security meets in Swaziland on Wednesday to discuss progress
made in implementing an African Union resolution last July calling for a
government of national unity to end Zimbabwe's crisis.
Swaziland on Tuesday said President Robert Mugabe and SADC mediator in
the
Zimbabwean crisis South African President Thabo Mbeki would attend,
alongside heads of state from Mozambique, Swaziland and Angola.
"The meeting will mainly review the status of implementation of the
African
Union summit resolution on Zimbabwe," SADC said.
At its summit in
Egypt the AU adopted a resolution calling for
Zimbabwe's political leaders
to open negotiations leading to the formation
of a government of national
unity.
Since then Mbeki has been shuttling between Harare and
Pretoria in a
bid to persuade Mugabe's ZANU PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai's
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and its splinter led
by Arthur
Mutambara to reach a power-sharing deal.
Tsvangirai
beat Mugabe in a March 29 election but fell short of the
margin to avoid a
June run-off, which Mugabe went on to win unopposed after
Tsvangirai pulled
out, citing violence and intimidation against his
supporters.
Mugabe's victory in the run-off was widely condemned.
Analysts say
only a government of national unity could be able to
tackle Zimbabwe's
long-running crisis marked by political violence and a
bitter recession seen
in the world's highest inflation of more than 11
million percent, 80 percent
unemployment, shortages of food and basic
commodities. - ZimOnline
VOA
By James Butty
Washington,
D.C.
10 September 2008
Zimbabwe's President
Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
were both optimistic
Tuesday after a day of talks on power-sharing.
Tsvangirai told reporters
that there had been a positive development during
the negotiations in
Harare. President Mugabe also reportedly said there was
progress in some
areas, although he said there were still outstanding
issues.
One news
account quoting Zimbabwe government sources said a possible
power-sharing
agreement could even be signed Wednesday. Tsvangirai earlier
rejected a
proposal for Mr. Mugabe to remain president and keep control over
Zimbabwe's
security forces.
Harald Pakendorf is an independent South African
political analyst. From
Cape Town, he told that if reports of a deal are
true then there must have
been an added incentive offered to both
sides.
"If the information is true, the implication would be that Mr.
Mugabe heads
the government. He has been trying to form the government, and
this would be
that Mr. Tsvangirai has accepted that he won't be in the
powerful position
that he thought he would have after winning the election.
I would think that
if the report is correct then there must be an added
something that we don't
know about, perhaps a timeline, something which says
Mr. Mugabe would serve
the government for a year and then Mr. Tsvangirai
takes over or perhaps
talks of another election," he said.
Tsvangirai
earlier rejected a proposal for Mr. Mugabe to remain president
and keep
control over Zimbabwe's security forces.
Pakendorf said it would be a big
mistake for Tsvangirai to accept a largely
ceremonial post as prime minister
while giving President Mugabe extensive
executive power.
"If Mr.
Mugabe has the power then he would undermine Mr. Tsvangirai in every
corner,
and I'm afraid that if Mr. Mugabe is in the government, there would
be very
little positive response from countries outside of Zimbabwe to help
the
country rebuild itself," Pakendorf said.
He said another factor that may
make possible a power-sharing deal is if
either South African President
Thabo Mbeki or the Southern African
Development Community makes available an
economic package to help Zimbabwe's
broken economy.
Pakendorf said he
would be surprised if President Mugabe offered Tsvangirai
more power as
prime minister.
"That would really be a surprise, and it would mean that
the depth of the
economic strangulation in Zimbabwe has finally made the
present rulers
understand that there is end to the game," he
said.
Pakendorf said if the reports are correct and a power-sharing
agreement is
reached Wednesday then President Thabo Mbeki, the talks'
mediator, should be
given some credit for effective diplomacy, even though
he said such
diplomacy might have come in the final hour of the Zimbabwe
crisis.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Gerald Cubitt Wednesday 10 September
2008
OPINION: "Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole
nation; you were
deputed here by the people to get their grievances
redressed, are yourselves
become the greatest grievance." Cromwell -
1653.
Efforts by South African President Thabo Mbeki to armtwist the
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party into a government of national
unity with
President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party are pure
sleaze.
Mugabe heads a murderous regime. Endeavours to coerce the MDC
into a
political alliance with ZANU PF are morally odious: they are akin to
pressuring a victim of abuse to remain in a violent, predatory relationship
for the sake of form.
The very idea is sordid, dishonourable: evil.
More especially as Mbeki's
motive is to rescue Mugabe rather than the
downtrodden people of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's legitimacy derives from the
barrel of the gun and the jackboot, in
the circumstances, the ANC's mantra:
the people of Zimbabwe must sort out
their own problems is cynical and
cruelly rapacious.
On March 29, the voters of Zimbabwe went to the polls
in an effort to do
precisely what the ANC was exhorting them to do - sort
out their own
problems. In no uncertain terms, a sizeable and undisputed
majority of
Zimbabweans, despite a political playing field heavily tilted in
favour of
the ruling party, told Mugabe to pack his bags and head off into
the sunset.
They did this at considerable risk to life and limb. One
would reasonably
have expected the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) countries,
especially South Africa which purports to be committed to
a Zimbabwean
solution to the problem, to support them.
To come down
on the side of the people Mbeki would have had to jettison
Mugabe.
So, instead, the people of Zimbabwe were hung out to dry
while they endured
Mugabe's wrath. He made them pay dearly for exercising
the most basic of
democratic rights - voting for a party and candidates of
their choice while
Mbeki and most of the other SADC heads of state looked
the other way.
By the time Mugabe and his goons paused for breath, more
than a hundred MDC
supporters had been brutally murdered. Many hundreds had
been savagely
assaulted; tortured so badly they will carry the physical and
psychological
scarring for the rest of their lives.
In addition
thousands more, mostly peasants, were dispossessed and driven
from their
land and homes.
One wonders what Mbeki and his peers were thinking while
all this was
happening. One cannot imagine that they did not know about the
violence.
Their cowardly silence amounts to a wink and nod to Mugabe to do
as he
pleases. Complicity, in short.
What must rate as one of the
most bizarre and stupid statements ever made by
a South African politician
was Mbeki saying there was no crisis in Zimbabwe.
He made the remark some
two weeks after the election when no results had
been released yet. He made
the statement in a country, and about a country,
where the rule of law had
collapsed; a country where institutional violence
had become the norm; a
country with an economy in freefall and where misrule
and corruption had
resulted in a breakdown of family and community life,
education and health
services and other life-sustaining infrastructure; a
country which had lost
a quarter of its population as political and economic
refugees.
It is
a country where most people are unemployed and hungry, where many
hundreds
of thousands have been condemned to a premature grave by hunger and
disease
and where many thousands live without proper shelter, potable water
and
proper sanitation.
In short, a country where the very existence of most
of the population is a
tale of degrading misery without hope while Mugabe's
tyranny holds sway.
As bizarre as the content of Mbeki's statement, was
the setting in which it
was made. At the time, he was walking smiling,
hand-in-hand with Mugabe,
while they wore garlands around their
necks.
His statement and the occasion exhibited a callous disregard for
all the
people of Zimbabwe who have suffered and died because of the moral
cowardice
of the SADC leadership that since 2000 has been prepared to look
the other
way while Mugabe flouted the rules of civilised political
behaviour.
Where Zimbabwe is a signatory to the various SADC treaties and
protocols
that among others prescribe the conduct of free and fair
elections, respect
for the rule of law and human rights, etc, one has to
wonder how the recent
summit in South Africa arrived at the conclusion that
after the June 27
fiasco Mugabe should be seated as a head of
state.
What makes the decision even more puzzling is that none of the
observer
missions (SADC, Pan-African Parliament and the African Union)
allowed into
the country for the June 27 run-off, found that the election
had been free
and fair or that he had produced a credible, legitimate result
that
reflected the will of the people.
One appreciates that SADC, as
a political grouping, may differ in its
opinions from those of the
Pan-African Parliament and the African Union,
dismissing the observations
and conclusions of its own observer mission is a
vote of no-confidence in
its own political integrity and seriously
undermines SADC's international
standing as a political entity deserving of
dignity and esteem.
A
further thought regarding a government of national unity with Mugabe
derives
from Joshua Nkomo's experience. We hear a great deal about how the
veteran
nationalist was betrayed and destroyed by Mugabe.
However, Tsvangirai
would probably be wiser to bear in mind the awful fate
of Herbert Chitepo,
an eminent Zimbabwean lawyer who headed ZANU during the
1960s and 70s while
Mugabe was imprisoned by the Ian Smith government.
One could reasonably
argue that Mugabe and Nkomo were competitors, and
hence, the animosity
between them. However, the same cannot be said for the
relationship between
Mugabe and Chitepo. They were allies, colleagues, and
comrades in
arms.
Yet, Mugabe had no qualms about blowing up Chitepo when he got out
of prison
in Zimbabwe and wanted the top spot in ZANU.
Chitepo was an
eminent black lawyer who played a major role in the genesis
of the
nationalist movements opposing the Smith government during the 1960s
and
70s. He rose to become the head of ZANU that functioned in exile out of
Lusaka.
When Mugabe was released from prison at the behest the then
South African
Prime Minister, John Voster in 1974, he fled to Lusaka where
he became
embroiled in a power struggle for the leadership of
ZANU.
Then already, he showed that he wasn't squeamish when it came to
bloodletting where someone stood in the way of his ambition and lust for
power.
Chitepo was blown up in the driveway of his home in Lusaka in
1975.
Thereafter, Mugabe and his co-conspirators fled to Mozambique to
avoid the
investigation into his death.
It is worth noting that the
power struggle was perpetuated in the camps in
Mozambique where many of
Mugabe's competitors were murdered, imprisoned and
brutalised.
Cozying up to Mugabe - with his degrees in violence - is
about as foolish as
getting into bed knowing there is a scorpion hiding
between the sheets. -
ZimOnline
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Cuthbert
Nzou Wednesday 10 September 2008
HARARE -
Zimbabwe's former finance minister Simba Makoni has put on
hold plans to
launch a political party, amid reports that a movement formed
to back his
failed presidential bid last March was on the verge of
collapsing.
Makoni staged a dramatic rebellion against
President Robert Mugabe to
challenge the veteran leader in the March 29
presidential election, running
under the banner of Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn
movement which he claimed at the
time had the backing of several more senior
officials of the ruling ZANU PF
party disgruntled by Mugabe's
rule.
Both Makoni and Mugabe lost the March poll to main opposition
MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai who however failed to garner the mandatory
votes to
land the presidency, resulting in the June 27 second round run-off
election
won by Mugabe after the opposition boycotted the poll because of
political
violence.
Sources in Makoni's movement said plans to
turn it into a full fledged
political party this month were frozen after the
three southern Matabeleland
provinces that had appeared more receptive to
the movement threatened to
pull out citing gross mismanagement of the
organisation.
Makoni had planned to launch his political party that
is to be known
as the National Alliance for Democracy (NAD) on September 13
but had to
shelve his plans after the provinces of Bulawayo, Matabeleland
North and
South wrote to him threatening to quit over the way the Mavambo
movement was
being run.
"There is chaos in the Mavambo movement
at the moment and Makoni has
decided to put on ice plans to launch NAD," a
member of the movement's
management committee said. "The three Matabeleland
provinces have written to
Makoni saying they were contemplating leaving the
project."
The letter by the three provinces came barely a fortnight
after former
home affairs minister and Makoni's main backer in his
presidential bid,
Dumiso Dabengwa, abandoned the movement.
In a
letter to Makoni, a copy of which was shown to ZimOnline, the
three
provinces' steering committee said it was dismayed by the manner in
which
its contributions to the formation of the party had been handled by
the
movement's head office in Harare.
"We would like to remind you that
we are equal human beings and that
we were ill-treated for a long time under
similar circumstances, and cannot
live to repeat this," the letter
read.
"We have seen the superiority complex displayed by
individuals at 'the
head office' which is run like a family outfit and are
very unhappy to be
part of this, and particularly detest the arrogance, lack
of foresight and
leadership that has so far been displayed."
The three provinces complained about unequal allocation of resources
to
movement members and told Makoni they would be cutting ties with him if
he
did not call a consultative meeting to address the various issues raised
in
the letter.
Godfrey Chanetsa, the Mavambo spokesperson, conceded
that there were
problems in the movement but took issue with disgruntled
members for
resorting to the media instead of raising their grievances
through internal
movement structures.
"I am wondering why some
people want us to address issues of Mavambo
in the media. Those that feel
they have grievances know what the party
structures are and they should be
free to approach the head office and these
matters shall be thrashed out at
that forum. There is absolutely no need to
ty and resolve our matters in the
media," Chanetsa said.
He confirmed that plans to launch NAD have
been put on hold. -
ZimOnline
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=3761
September 10, 2008
By Owen
Chikari
MASVINGO - An initiative to purge the Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial
executive
of known critics of President Robert Mugabe's continued rule has
been
instituted.
The provincial executive which comprises mostly of
retired senior army
officers, faces the chop in a restructuring exercise
sanctioned by the party's
political commissar Elliot Manyika.
It
emerged yesterday that a long-standing power struggle between former army
commander, Retired General Solomon Mujuru and former rural housing and
social amenities minister Emmerson Mnangagwa will claim its latest
casualties within the Masvingo executive.
Sources say Manyika had
ordered the restructuring of the party in the
province amid reports that all
those regarded as being aligned to the Mujuru
faction should be stripped of
their party posts in favour of functionaries
viewed as being sympathetic to
Mnangagwa.
Manyika, who was a minister without portfolio in government,
yesterday
confirmed he had ordered the restructuring exercise in Masvingo,
adding that
all those who did not toe the party line would face the
chop.
"The idea of the exercise is to make sure that we have people who
support
the party with all their hearts", said Manyika.
"If we find
that the provincial executive in Masvingo is not doing a good
job then we
are now saying goodbye to it."
The Masvingo provincial executive consists
mainly of retired army officers
who are believed to be loyal to the Mujuru
faction.
Among those in the executive are chairman, retired Major Alex
Mudavanhu,
vice-chairman retired major Clever Mumbengegwi, retired colonel
Claudius
Makova, and Zimbabwe Football Association boss, Henirietta
Rushwaya.
Former spokesman of the party in the province retired major
Kudzai Mbudzi
was shown to the door after he became critical of Mugabe at
the beginning of
the year.
Mbudzi immediately joined former finance
minister Simba Makoni's Mavambo
project.
Mudavanhu, who took over
from Daniel Shumba - now leader of United People's
Party president - as
party provincial chairman, yesterday confirmed that the
restructuring had
been imposed on the provincial executive.
"We have a restructuring
exercise which was forced on us by Mr Manyika,"
said Mudavanhu. I hope it is
aimed at re-organising the party and not at
destroying it.
The
tug-of-war within the ruling party between Mujuru and Mnangagwa is
believed
to have already claimed victims, amid reports Mugabe dropped all
governors
believed to be linked to the Mujuru camp.
In Masvingo Willard Chiwewe was
replaced as governor by Titus Maluleke.
Others governors removed from office
include Ray Kaukonde of Mashonaland
East and Manicaland's Tinaye
Chigudu.
Kaukonde and Chigudu were replaced by Enias Chigwedere and
Christopher
Mushowe respectively, both of them former government
ministers.
http://www.latimes.com
With most independent newspapers
shut down by Mugabe's regime, activists --
and even a diplomat -- have
turned to the Internet.
By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times Staff
Writer
7:31 PM PDT, September 9, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- The
blogger calls himself a "fat white man"
and jokes about the right way to
approach a cordon of Zimbabwean riot
police: Don't wear an opposition
T-shirt, or ask for the results of the
recent one-man presidential runoff.
Instead, greet them with a breezy "Good
morning! How are you,
sirs?"
"I note that there are no officers in the line, which is good as
it means
there's nobody to order the cops to start hitting me," he writes.
"But then
again if they do start hitting me there's no one to tell them to
stop."
The "fat white man" is not just some cheeky cyberdissident
-- he's a British
diplomat named Philip Barclay. His blog is found on the
official British
Foreign Office website.
Barclay's exhilaratingly
undiplomatic
https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/harare/,
veers from humor reminiscent of
P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves books to bleak
horror. Zimbabwe, he says, is a
country where "good manners and repression
go hand-in-hand."
With most of Zimbabwe's independent newspapers shut
down by President Robert
Mugabe's authoritarian regime, bloggers and
cyberactivists fill the vacuum.
It's a world peopled with intelligence
agents from the old white-led
Rhodesian government, pumping out news
updates; fleeing journalists who have
parachuted into the wide, blue freedom
of the Internet; and emigres who left
the country 10 or 15 years ago but
can't get it out of their systems. But
the most compelling blogs are from
the people who have stayed home.
There are those who write everything
in red, capitalized italics, calling
for the violent removal of Mugabe.
There are whimsical letters from the
bush. There's poetry. And there's more
than the occasional outbreak of
whining.
In short, it's a world
filled with as much paranoia, rumor, frustration,
stoicism, humor, rage and
wild hope as the country itself.
Bev Clark, who calls herself an
"electronic activist" and helped found a
website named kubatana.net,
portrays Zimbabwe's bizarre contradictions and
numbing frustrations with
wry, cynical humor that sometimes bubbles into
anger.
Comrade Fatso,
a lanky, dreadlocked Zimbabwean poet whose real name is Samm
Farai Monro,
elegantly captures the atmosphere of a country that is waiting,
trapped,
afraid.
Cathy Buckle, a 51-year-old divorcee and author who lost her farm
in
Mugabe's land seizures, posts angry, poignant letters on cathybuckle.com
about the bare supermarket shelves, the deprivations of Zimbabwe's "Fourth
World" conditions, and the Msasa tree leaves pattering on her roof,
promising a new season and hope.
Kubatana.net, founded by Clark and
her partner, Brenda Burrell, organizes
protests and sends out newsletters
and text messages to reach people in a
country where only a few use the
Internet. Other sites clip and disseminate
news from foreign media, adding
their own commentaries in garish fonts.
What shines through it all are
the small, colorful transactions of life,
like bright postage stamps winking
from a mountain of brown-paper parcels.
Barclay writes about meeting
Marita, a teenage orphan who says she has HIV.
It is just after the
government has lopped 10 zeros off the currency because
of galloping
hyperinflation:
"Marita reminds me that she has not yet eaten and needs
$200,000,000,000 to
do so. I give her two shiny little new $10 coins and
explain that they are
worth the same as two hundred billion old dollars. She
clearly does not
believe me and gives me a filthy look -- the look one gives
a man who cheats
poor, sick girls -- and stalks off."
Some afternoons
Clark and the other Kubatana activists turn up their music
loud in their
suburban Harare office. They play the Nigerian hip-hop artist
Dr Alban -- "
. . . freedom is our goal . . . " -- and sing their hearts
out.
Clark
cut her teeth as a white gay activist in the 1980s and '90s, at a time
when
Mugabe called homosexuality "sub- animal behavior" and said gays and
lesbians had no rights and should be arrested.
In the 1980s, when she
published a gay and lesbian newsletter, Clark's
office was raided by about
eight police officers searching for "pornographic
materials," which turned
out to mean a booklet listing gay, lesbian and
bisexual support
groups.
These days, when worn down by the business of agitating for
change, Clark
retreats into a bubble bath in her home in Harare, the
capital. That is,
when there are any bubbles left in her bottle. Or any
water in her tap.
She writes: "In no particular order, I'm fed up with:
a) vendors selling me
overpriced trays of eggs whilst I'm crossing the road;
b) dead of night
tsotsis (criminals) stealing telephone cables rendering all
phones kaput; c)
my hunting dog waking me up at 4am, 3 nights in a row; d)
civil society fear
merchants who say Don't Do A Damned Thing, or we'll
provoke a state of
emergency in Zimbabwe; e) Mugabe; f) waiting."
The
funny, angry woman of the Kubatana blog seems a little ironed down and
formal in a phone interview. But Clark's passion rises when talking about
the need to jack open Zimbabwe's democratic space.
She has no
illusions about the risks and difficulties involved, but can't
understand
why Zimbabwean human rights groups release reports in
Johannesburg or New
York -- anywhere but in Harare.
Sometimes her rubbish-strewn, potholed
home city gets to her, but you get
the sense she wouldn't be comfortable
anywhere more comfortable.
Zimbabweans often give out mob justice like
food at a ZANU [Mugabe's ruling
party] rally," he writes. "We tend to vent
our life-anger onto a thief who
dared to steal a bar of chocolate and a loaf
of bread. We tend to leave the
creators of our misery in the luxury of
freedom."
For a time, Zimbabweans dared hope that their waiting was
over. After
first-round presidential and parliamentary elections in March,
in which the
opposition scored more votes than ZANU-PF, people were electric
with
optimism, even as they feared it was too good to be true.
"We
await the rigging. We await the victory. With a hesitant joy. And a
bounce
in our step," wrote Comrade Fatso in the long wait before election
results
were finally released more than a month after the vote.
The fat white man
got caught up in the optimism too. He described the mood
in the Foreign
Office blog. Before the March voting, Barclay and his driver,
Elvis, sped
around the country, observing. As he left one political meeting,
a woman
pointed and said: "That party has a fat white man. We should go to
their
rally."
The political meetings involved dancing, chanting, speeches and
deep
ululation that set Barclay's heart racing. On election night, he
watched the
count in a remote settlement called Bikisa, in Masvingo
province, always a
Mugabe stronghold. He assumed the big pile of votes was
for Mugabe.
But he was wrong. The big pile was for opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai.
"I force myself to keep breathing steadily; fainting
at this point would not
become an officer of Her Majesty's
Government."
But the hope -- and Barclay's levity -- was not to last.
Mugabe and his
cronies and "securocrats" clung to power; the ruling party
unleashed
violence against the opposition.
On the day of the runoff
election, everything was closed. Clark and her
partner, Burrell, didn't vote
in the election, which Tsvangirai had
boycotted because of the violence.
Instead, they drove out looking at
polling stations in suburban
Harare.
With gangs of youth militias in the suburbs, Clark had a can of
mace in her
backpack, though she wasn't sure what she would do if it was
really needed.
"It made me feel a tiny bit safer."
They decided to
drop in on friends, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlongu.
In jail. The
activists from Women of Zimbabwe Arise, arrested for a protest,
had been in
Chikurubi Female Prison for a month.
Inside the prison, it was a dusty
10-minute walk to see their friends, past
lots of laundry drying
out.
They sat for half an hour on a rough wooden bench talking to
Williams and
Mahlongu.
Then they passed gifts through holes in the
fence: an orange, potato chips,
sweets and personal hygiene items. But the
prison guard wouldn't allow a jar
of honey.
Later Clark took a bath,
but she couldn't relax, fuming at the fate of her
friends.
"They've
had enough of sleeping on a concrete floor," she wrote on her blog.
"They
want to go home."
Some of the loudest of the jostling cybervoices are in
Zimbabwe's distant
diaspora. But Clark wishes Zimbabwean journalists running
news websites from
outside the country and cyberactivists would come home
and force open a
window from inside the country. She believes that
Zimbabweans have to stand
up for democracy and media freedom, and that the
best place to do it is in
Zimbabwe.
The place can look more
frightening from outside, she said in the interview.
"I think that as
Zimbabweans we have spent too much time accommodating this
dictatorship one
way or another. One of the things we have to address is
this
self-censorship."
She laments in her blog that Zimbabweans sometimes give
in to fear too
easily, and she wonders "what it will take for Zimbabweans to
rise up and
liberate themselves."
But as much as Zimbabweans live
with fear and anger, writes the poet Comrade
Fatso, they also live with
hope. It soars or crashes on the wind of every
rumor.
"We are so
close to that sun on the horizon," he writes. "I can almost see
it through
the dust. We need to walk together towards the sunset. We need to
be crazy
enough to keep hope alive."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com