Daily Mail
By one of the few
remaining white citizens of Zimbabwe
Last updated at 00:28am on 23rd
September 2007
Gordon Brown says he will not attend December's
Europe-Africa summit in
Portugal if Robert Mugabe (below) is
invited
You might think he wants to help. You'd be wrong. Because the
time for help
is long gone and he knows it. This is gesture politics,
designed not to
damage the rule of Mugabe but to promote the rule of
Brown.
We who endure the daily tragedy of Zimbabwe live amid a quiet
genocide. It
could have been stopped if the British Government had come to
our aid before
the 2000 elections when our emergent black middle class
fought for economic
prosperity, political democracy and racial
harmony.
But the man who today advertises himself as Africa's saviour sat
on his
hands back then and let Mugabe crush democratic change. Now he's
trying to
diminish our President's power.
Yet that is the only thing
holding the tattered remnants of this country
together. When Mugabe goes, we
will become the next Rwanda, such is the
hunger and fear and desperation of
the people abandoned by Britain seven
years ago who now face near 100per
cent unemployment and a life expectancy
of 40 or less.
The British
High Commission in Harare is currently updating its register of
British
citizens in Zimbabwe. My guess is it's because they know they might
have to
orchestrate a mass evacuation of UK nationals.
I won't be going with
them. I am a fourth generation white African. I belong
to Zimbabwe, it's my
home and I'm still in love with what it once was. It
was always a special
place, a backwater, a mixture of England in the Fifties
and tropical
Africa.
But let me tell you about it now, about the country it has
become, little
pockets of paradise and hell in between.
These days I
hate getting into lifts or standing too close to someone in a
food queue.
You can smell their foul breath and see their mouth ulcers and
you know they
are the one in four who has Aids. It's like walking among the
living
dead.
The cemeteries stretch for miles. There are no official statistics
but Aids
takes a lot and malnutrition takes the rest. Government-run
hospitals don't
have so much as an aspirin. If you have an accident they ask
you to bring
your own bandages and whatever drugs you have at
home.
My house gets water once a week and my routine is interrupted by
around
three power cuts a day. I went to my supermarket on Friday morning
and all
it had was grapefruit segments, American hot dogs and boiled sweets.
There
was no bread or milk, no meat, no cooking oil, salt or sugar. Nothing
you
actually need to live.
I spend most of my day phoning around
friends to see what's available on the
black market. You risk arrest or you
go without because the shelves are
empty. Once storekeepers would stretch
packets of loo rolls or something
equally incongruous around the shop but
now they've stopped pretending
there's anything to sell. A child was killed
last month in a stampede for
cooking oil.
I am still working so I try
to help where I can. There was an elderly white
lady last week buying one
tomato, one potato and one onion and hesitating as
to whether she could
afford them. Her clothes were at least 30 years old.
It's a common sight.
You just pass the money to the shop assistant and hope
the old lady's hunger
overcomes her pride.
The professional generation before me, the doctors
and lawyers and the
engineers who built Zimbabwe, are all starving to death
on their pensions.
And yet there is money for those in power. The
obscenity of it is
mind-boggling. Recently I was sitting in a coffee shop -
it's the nature of
the place that you can still get a decent cappuccino
while scenes of
medieval barbarity unfold outside the door - and I overheard
a conversation
at an adjoining table.
Three big fat government guys
were slurping coffee and eating their full
English breakfasts - yes, we
still call them that - and boasting about their
connections.
They had
withdrawn dollars at the official rate from the Reserve Bank,
($30,000 Zim
to $1 US), converted them on the black market (where it's
$350,000 Zim to $1
US) and made such a vast profit they'd all bought
themselves new Hummers,
Harare's motor of mark.
Their kind take what they want. A couple I know
were recently turfed off
their farm two weeks before they were due to get
married. They simply got
home one day to find everything the new owner
fancied locked in their house
and everything that wasn't being looted dumped
on the lawn.
A government minister had commandeered it as a graduation
present for his
daughter. She took her degree at a British university, by
the way.
Another friend of mine who owns a meat distribution business was
confronted
by a minister last month and told he, the politician, was the new
owner. It
happens all the time, this state-sanctioned theft of homes and
livelihoods.
This, then, is our life. It's surreal but it's real. Most
people have
surrendered. There are so few whites in Zimbabwe now - maybe
7,000 to
10,000 - we are probably outnumbered by the Chinese.
Those
of us who remain don't give a damn whether Gordon Brown goes to
Portugal or
not. We expect nothing from him. Why should we? He's given us
nothing in the
past and while he's a new Prime Minister, he's been at the
heart of British
government for more than a decade.
We see straight through him. He's a
man in search of a cause. He wants to
make a dramatic entrance on the world
stage and he wants voters at home to
think he empathises with our once
cherished belief that as the old colonial
power, Britain has a moral
obligation to the former Rhodesia.
Last month when China, one of
Zimbabwe's oldest diplomatic friends, told the
Foreign Office it was turning
its back on Mugabe's regime, Brown simply
thought he could do the same
without antagonising Beijing. That's not a
heartfelt political statement,
that's flyboy opportunism.
History tells us of great turning points at
which people and countries have
failed to turn. He's missed ours. If we had
the time or the energy we'd be
angry that our betrayal is now being subject
to convenient revisionism. But
we're too busy trying to find a tankful of
petrol and some bread.
The truth is the British Government wants nothing
to do with Zimbabwe. They
will let this drama play out. They don't really
care about another failed
state in Africa - just as long as the ink is dry
on those evacuation plans.
And they shouldn't really believe all that stuff
the Chinese have been
telling them. In Beijing the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs went on the record
three days ago to say it was business as usual
with Zimbabwe, with normal
state-to-state relations. That means both
economic and humanitarian.
The Chinese could teach New Labour a thing or
two about spin. They want our
platinum. Of course they're staying. A friend
of mine who works for the UN
lives near a houseful of Chinese soldiers.
Every morning they jump into a
truck with their AK47s and drive
away.
What's going on? I think it's fairly obvious they're using their
wide
experience in putting down civil revolt. Actually I believe they are
training a new Fifth Brigade (the elite military unit created by Mugabe
specifically to wipe out political opposition in the early years of his
government) to quell what's left of the dissenters.
Mugabe wants a
ruling class of Zanu PF in the towns and a countryside filled
with peasants
totally dependent on food aid, and therefore compliant. There
has to be a
total breakdown of society in order to achieve that, the rending
apart of
the very fabric of our lives, and it's almost complete.
So no, we don't
care if Gordon Brown cancels his plane ticket to Portugal
but we'd quite
like him to stop printing this counterfeit compassion for his
own political
profit while we're struggling to survive.
Comments
travelled
around Zimbabwe in 1990 and was horrified about what was going to
happen
there in the future. It was so obvious the government was made up of
complete scum. The people I met were so nice and it makes me boil with anger
that this has been allowed to happen. This government has not done enough
and I believe a lot of this is down to a "white" government being too afraid
to challenge Mugabe because he is black. Please God, let this monster die
soon and meet his appointment in hell.
- A Withers, London,
England
I am in regular contact with both black and white Zimbabweans -
here in the
UK and in Zimbabwe itself. This piece is heartrendingly true of
the
situation in Zimbabwe and the absolute disgrace of Western governments
and
the United Nations for playing their fiddles while Rome burns.
-
Sue Shaw, Morpeth, UK
A very sad account of what was once the bread
basket of Africa. The Uk has
ignored the brutality of Mugabe for years.
People also seem to conveniently
forget that for all Brown is the new PM he
has been complicit in every act
of this government for years. As said I
think it's just political spin from
an old master.
- Duncan Walker,
Thailand
The Sunday Times
September 23, 2007
Christina Lamb
A Harare taxi driver, Tafadzwa Nyatsanga, was
negotiating fares with
passengers outside an agricultural show when a
policeman arrived and
demanded to be taken somewhere for a fare of just
Z$50,000, about 10p.
When Nyatsanga refused, pointing out that other
people had been queuing for
hours, the officer, Michael Masamwi, began
beating and punching him,
whacking him round the head with his
truncheon.
There was nothing unusual about this in the Zimbabwe of
President Robert
Mugabe. But then something strange happened. Someone from
the crowd stepped
forward and told the officer that what he was doing
constituted "a human
rights abuse" and he should stop.
Masamwi
laughed and hit him too. The man again told him that what he was
doing was
wrong as there were hundreds of people waiting. This time the
crowd joined
in, turning on the policeman and beating him.
The officer called in riot
police. They dispersed the crowd violently and
arrested the taxi driver, who
is still in jail two weeks later.
A few days after the incident, however,
Masamwi received a legal summons.
Then last week about 500 people gathered
outside his police station to
demonstrate. This protest was also broken up
by riot police and 11 people
were arrested, but the demonstrators returned
the next day.
Such unprecedented public action is the result of a new
movement that has
been launched in Zimbabwe to try to end police brutality
by naming and
shaming the most violent officers and taking them to
court.
Restoration of Human Rights is the brainchild of two Zimbabweans,
one white,
one black, who were living in Britain.
Until a few months
ago Justin Shaw-Gray, 33, was in Godalming working in IT
sales; Stendrick
Zvorwadza, 38, was a business studies teacher at a college
in Bradford. But
the two men were so shocked at the repression in their
homeland that they
decided to give up their jobs and do something.
"We're saying enough is
enough of police brutality," said Shaw-Gray. "We
felt you might not be able
to get rid of Mugabe, but we could make people
aware of their rights and how
to act.
"It seemed to us there were plenty of human rights organisations
documenting
abuses, but none actually doing anything about it."
Using
their savings and contributions from friends, they have spent the past
two
months meeting district leaders and recruiting members. This is no easy
task, given Zimbabwe's notorious public order laws that require police
licences for gatherings of more than five people.
The pair have been
arrested several times. "My mum is so scared she can't
sleep at nights,"
Shaw-Gray said. Yet so far they have signed up more than
15,000
people.
"We tell people if you stand up alone you're at risk; if five of
you stand
up, you're at risk, But if we stand up in our thousands, they
can't do
anything," said Zvorwadza.
"There are around 45,000 police,
of which maybe 5,000 are bad guys. The rest
want to do their job. What we
want to do is start weeding them out and
naming them so they can no longer
hide behind the cloak of the system and
will be living in fear."
The
plan is to hold demonstrations outside offending officers' homes and
workplaces, and to sue them, working with Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human
Rights.
On one occasion last month the two men were driving with three
colleagues to
donate footballs at a match in Gutu, south of Harare, at which
they hoped to
spread their message.
Police roadblocks had been set up
to prevent people travelling to a memorial
service for a leading member of
the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC). About 15 miles from the
match venue, they were stopped as the
game had not been approved by
police.
"We explained that we were a nonpolitical group working with
orphans and
children, but they refused to let us go on," said
Shaw-Gray.
Loveness Matapura, the district police chief, then arrived.
She called in
armed riot police who surrounded the men and pointed guns
against their
heads while others searched the car.
"All they found
were footballs," said Zvorwadza. "We told them this is an
abuse of our human
rights, but they replied that if we attempted to go on we
would be
shot."
After two hours the men were allowed to go, but only if they
returned to
Harare. The following Sunday they took out a full-page
advertisement in the
Standard newspaper, recounting the incident and
explaining that they were
taking Matapura to court.
"We know where
she lives. If she does not respond to the summons we will
hold mass peaceful
demonstrations outside her house, preventing her from
leaving," said
Shaw-Gray.
When asked about the risks, he said: "Zimbabwe has the lowest
life
expectancy in the world and people are starving. We're explaining to
people
if you don't stand up you'll be dead anyway in six months, 12 months,
maybe
18 months, because the economic situation is so bad. You must stand up
or
you'll die."
Inflation is estimated by bankers to be about 13,000%
and a military-imposed
campaign of price controls has left nothing on the
shelves. As the economic
crisis grows, police brutality, long a feature of
the Mugabe regime, has
worsened.
In a typical incident nine days ago,
police descended on Nyaradzo funeral
home in Harare and prevented a service
taking place for 24-year-old Memory
Jenaguri. Her home had been destroyed in
Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out
the Filth), a government demolition
campaign that began in 2005, and she had
been living in the open for the
past two years until dying of hunger. The
police arrested all 60
mourners.
More such repression is expected in the run-up to next year's
parliamentary
elections.
Some wonder if the government will make it
that far. A report published last
week by the International Crisis Group
described Zimbabwe as "closer than
ever to complete collapse".
It
stated: "Four out of five of the country's 12m people live below the
poverty
line and a quarter have fled."
David Coltart, an MDC MP from Bulawayo,
said: "There might not be blood in
the streets, but people are just falling
off the edge everywhere.
Pensioners, orphans, child-headed families are
literally starving."
Few see any likelihood of a Ukraine-style uprising.
"It's like asking people
in intensive care, why aren't you protesting," said
Coltart.
Pointing out that there are no guards on the Zimbabwe side of
the border, he
believes the regime is encouraging people to flee. "Mugabe
knows every
person who crosses the border is one less vote against
him."
Coltart welcomed Gordon Brown's stance in threatening to boycott
the
EU-Africa summit if Mugabe is invited. "If Mugabe is allowed, he will
think
Europe has lost its resolve. It will encourage him to run for office
again."
The Telegraph
By Stephen
Bevan, and special correspondents in Harare and Bulawayo
Last Updated: 1:00am
BST 23/09/2007
Wilson Mangoma sighed as he looked out over
the pool of raw sewage
that had formed in the back yard of his tiny
tin-roofed house in a suburb of
Harare.
A
shortage of petrol has prevented the water authority from driving to
the
burst water pipes. As a result Budiriro, one of the capital's poorest
suburbs, has also been without drinking water for more than a
month.
"I last took a bath three days ago," said Mr Mangoma, 30, a
shopkeeper
in Harare city centre. "My wife has been up and down looking for
water, but
in two days she has failed to get a drop."
Outside,
barefoot children played in the streets amid swarms of large
green flies,
undeterred by the stench of sewage. Many have dropped out of
school because
their parents can no longer afford the fees.
It is among the
residents of townships like Budiriro that Zimbabwe's
seven-year economic
decline is hitting hardest. Under President Robert
Mugabe, a country that
once supplied food to half of southern Africa cannot
even provide water for
its own people. Public services are grinding to a
halt, with interruptions
to both power and water supplies now part of daily
life.
"My wife has to walk seven kilometres to Glen
Norah (a neighbouring
area) to buy water from a borehole at 200,000
Zimbabwean dollars a bucket
[30 pence at the unofficial rate]," complained
Mr Mangoma, who earns less
than Z$2million (£3) a month. "But where do we
get the money? Our salaries
never last three days."
The
crumbling infrastructure has also led to health problems. In
Harare Central
Hospital more than 60 infants - many from Budiriro - are
crammed into a
makeshift ward, victims of the severe diarrhoea that has
swept the city in
the past month. The outbreak was caused by raw sewage
being diverted into
Lake Chivero, the city's main water supply, because
there is no money to
repair Harare's sewage treatment plant.
At the hospital, too, the
squeeze on public finances is taking its
toll. A notice by the entrance
warns that financial constraints mean
patients may have to bring their own
medicine. A nurse, who cannot be named
for her own safety, said: "We handle
more than 300 hundred cases per week,
but there are no drugs here to treat
these children or other patients. This
government has let us
down."
Moments later the silence was torn by the wails of a young
mother
watching her sick child die before her eyes. "The doctor says he
cannot
help. There are no drugs," moaned a relative.
Outside
the main cities it is even worse. At the district hospital in
Kezi, 70 miles
south west of the country's second city, Bulawayo, patients
sleep on the
floor and must provide their own food and medicine.
Where once 12
doctors would have been on duty, there is only one. The
rest have joined the
3.4 million professionals who have fled the country.
Here in the
south-west, a double tragedy is unfolding. Food production
in the
countryside has collapsed since 2000, when Mr Mugabe began the
seizure of
land from white commercial farmers.
A government campaign launched
in June to force businesses to halve
prices led to empty shelves and closed
factories. Bread, corn meal, cooking
oil and other basic foodstuffs are now
only found on the black market, which
few here can afford.
Combined with a prolonged drought, there are all the ingredients for
disaster. According to the World Food Programme a third of the population
will need food aid by next year.
Twelve miles from Kezi, in the
village of Mayobodo, hungry villagers
surged forward as trucks arrived
bringing grain donated by the charity World
Vision.
Among them
were 16-year old Thamsanqa Zulu and his three siblings:
Sipho, 10, Melusi,
eight and Thabani, six. "We haven't had food for a long
time and our rations
from donor agencies aren't enough to last us a month,
because our crops
failed last year due to poor rains," said Thamsanqa, whose
family eats only
one meal a day. While World Vision does provide each
villager with corn
meal, a bottle of cooking oil and a sachet of beans, it's
not enough to feed
a large family.
Peter Sibanda, the village headman, said the
state-controlled Grain
Marketing Board brings in grain to sell every four
months, but there is
never enough for everyone.
"The situation
is terrible," he added. "Children no longer go to
school because it's
impossible to go on empty stomachs - most of them faint
in school." As he
searched for his name on the long list of recipients for
the food, Thamsanqa
told how the four children had to fend for themselves
after their parents
succumbed to Aids.
An estimated 3,000 Zimbabweans a week die from
Aids-related
conditions, worsened by lack of proper nutrition and weakened
immune
systems.
In a nearby home, Melda Ndlovu, 32, was feeding
porridge to her son
who has Aids and was visibly weak. "We are watching
helplessly as my son
wastes away," she said. "There is no food to give him
and no medication is
available. It is painful to watch my son waste away
like this." Meanwhile in
Harare, Shamiso Chonzi, 28, looked disconsolate as
she emerged from a
supermarket empty-handed. Even with her job as an
accountant at a leading
bank, her salary cannot keep pace with inflation
that last month hit 6,500
per cent.
She had just withdrawn
Z$2million from her account, just enough for
basic groceries. But the bundle
of newly printed notes was still bulging in
her purse: the shop was
empty.
"We're living from hand to mouth," said Mrs Chonzi. "What
you see in
my hand are just valueless papers called Zimbabwe dollars. They
cannot buy
anything. My children are starving because the government has
failed to
import mealie meal and the shops are empty. On the black market a
bucket of
maize costs $1million, which is about half my salary. Mugabe has
made us all
beggars."
But not everyone in Zimbabwe suffers.
Tawanda Ndoro, 25, a gardener,
sees the president pass each day in his
armoured Mercedes-Benz limousine..
"City life is becoming
unbearable for low income earners like me," he
said. "My marriage has broken
up because this man has mismanaged the
economy. My wife ran away because I
could not provide. But surprisingly, the
man who has ruined the country
lives like a king."
Leader
Sunday
September 23, 2007
The Observer
Robert Mugabe is a tyrant who has
crippled Zimbabwe. He has oppressed its
people, degraded its constitution
and vandalised its economy. Millions of
Zimbabweans face famine; their basic
freedoms are denied; 80 per cent are
unemployed; life expectancy is 37. Mr
Mugabe's continued rule over the
wreckage of the country is a brake on
economic development and an affront to
hopes for a democratic renaissance in
sub-Saharan Africa. He has committed
crimes against his nation and so
forfeited his right to represent it on the
international
stage.
That is why Britain is right to be leading moves to exclude Mr
Mugabe from
an EU-Africa summit in Portugal in December. The Prime Minister
has said he
will not attend if the Zimbabwean President is there.
Britain
has tried to lead diplomatic moves against Mr Mugabe before and they
have
proved either ineffective or downright counterproductive. That is
because,
as a former imperial power, Britain's claim to moral authority is
vulnerable
to attacks of hypocrisy. Neighbouring African leaders, in
particular Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa and Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, have
been quick to show
solidarity with Mr Mugabe, remembering his credentials as
a veteran of the
region's struggle for independence. The argument is simple
and emotive:
having colonised and exploited Africa, Britain is in no
position to lecture
African leaders on how they manage their independent
states.
Given
the sensitive history of colonisation and exploitation, European
leaders
must be wary of appearing arrogant in their prescriptions for
Africa. But
African leaders must also be wary of confusing past solidarity
with
present-day criminal collusion. Britain does not seek to reassert its
hegemony over Zimbabwe - it seeks the empowerment of Zimbabwe's own people.
This is not a replay of the old independence struggle, it is a new struggle
for political freedom within Africa. That should not be seen through the
prism of race.
The cause of liberating Africa from the legacy of
imperialism is helped not
by solidarity with a veteran-turned-despot; it
requires solidarity with
Zimbabwe's beleaguered opposition movement. That
opposition has called for
Mr Mugabe to suffer international isolation. The
call must be heeded.
The Prime
Minister's decision to boycott a Europe-Africa summit in Lisbon if
the
Zimbabwean leader attends caused a diplomatic row and reopened old
wounds.
Tracy McVeigh and Nicholas Watt report
Sunday September 23, 2007
The
Observer
'Mugabe stands very tall and black,' boasted Nathaniel
Manheru yesterday.
'Brown stands white and colonial.' Words are not minced
among President
Robert Mugabe's allies. And this weekend they were
knife-sharp. Manheru,
political commentator for The Herald, the mouthpiece
newspaper for
Zimbabwe's government, wrote an especially lengthy and furious
column, laced
with historical references, blatant racism and antipathy,
decrying the
arrogance of the 'infantile' British government. It even
sneered at a
'Scottish moment' in British politics, drawing a comparison
between Gordon
Brown and Zimbawe's white minority rule leader, Ian Smith -
both Scots, both
reviled.
But although such rants are commonplace
in the much ridiculed but none the
less avidly read state-owned paper, it
does act as a reminder of the painful
wounds of colonialism that have
contributed to keeping the 83-year-old
dictator President of Zimbabwe in
power for 27 years; to making his African
neighbours slow to condemn as they
watch the country collapse; and to the
intensity of the diplomatic row that
has erupted over Gordon Brown's
unilateral decision to boycott a
Europe-Africa summit if Mugabe shows up.
The row is over who will be looking
at whose empty chair at the meeting,
planned to be held in Lisbon in
December and intended as a key moment for
European countries to try to
recover ground they have lost to China - whose
influence is now soaring
across Africa on the back of billions of pounds
applied in aid and
investment. There have been three African-China summits
in as many
years.
No one wants a repeat of 2000 when Tony Blair boycotted a
conference over
Mugabe's presence, or of 2003 when a summit in Lisbon was
abandoned over the
same issue - EU sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe in 2002
included a travel ban
on the dictator. And this year, the Portuguese hosts
say, the potential
rewards of closer ties between the two continents
outweigh antagonism
between the leaders of Britain and
Zimbabwe.
Whitehall sources insist Brown's decision to boycott is not
meant as a
rebuke to Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who will host
the
meeting. 'In the coverage it has been about the Prime Minister and
Mugabe,'
the source said. 'That is not how he sees it. The assumption is
that Mugabe
is going. If he is there, the Prime Minister doesn't want to
attend. But he
is not saying he should not go. He is not dictating who
should attend. He is
just saying he will not go.'
Other nations have
weighed in - Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has
stepped up to say if
Mugabe doesn't go, then he won't either, and two empty
African chairs would
cause considerable embarrassment to fledgling African
unity.
There is
now the possibility that the Nordic countries will line up behind
Britain.
Tom Cargill, the Africa Programme manager at London-based
think-tank Chatham
House, said the quarrel was hijacking the summit - and
had potentially
doomed it. 'It's looking like it's going to be a mess either
way,' he said.
'It's a real problem, because they need to have a summit, but
already the
Zimbabwe issue has clouded things.'
Zimbabwe's UN
ambassador, Boniface Chidyausiku, was quoted as telling the
BBC that Mugabe
would attend. 'Gordon Brown has no right to dictate who
should come to
Lisbon,' Chidyausiku said. 'Definitely we are going if we are
invited,
because we are part of Africa.'
But despite the great political rift he
has opened, Brown isn't for budging.
A source close to the Prime Minister
said that for Brown 'this is a personal
passion' that has arisen out of his
loathing for a man he holds personally
responsible for the destruction of a
country which was once on course to be
Africa's greatest post-colonial
success story. 'He is more than happy to
make a stand alone if need be,' the
source said.
It has drawn admiration from some - Labour MP Kate Hoey
called his stance 'a
breath of fresh air' - and accusations of manipulation
by others - the
Tanzanian president of the Pan-African Parliament, Gertrude
Mongella, said
'arm twisting' would do no one any good.
Since Labour
first came to power it has had an uneasy approach to Zimbabwe -
every
criticism seemed only to boost Mugabe's standing at home as a man who
stood
up against the old colonial white power trying to meddle in African
affairs.
But this week Britain will ratchet up the pressure on Mugabe
and his ruling
Zanu-PF party, and set a challenge to Africa's other nations
by calling on
both the UN and the EU to appoint humanitarian envoys to
Zimbabwe to provide
regular reports on the state of human rights there.
Britain will make its
move in New York at Tuesday's meeting of the UN
Security Council, whose
current members include South Africa.
A month
later David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, will call for stronger
European
action when he uses the next meeting of EU foreign ministers to
call for an
EU envoy to Zimbabwe.
The call for humanitarian envoys is not just
another powerful signal that
Brown is abandoning Britain's softly-softly
approach to Zimbabwe; it is also
seen by some as a gauntlet thrown down to
Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's
President, who has been charged with finding a
quick-fix solution to
Zimbabwe and stop it becoming an out-and-out failed
state.
The South African government has been criticised at home and
abroad for not
taking a tougher line with Mugabe over human rights and
electoral fraud. But
everyone admits that talking to Mugabe, so conscious of
his position in many
parts of Africa as a revered anti-colonial freedom
fighter, is no easy task.
President Mbeki - in charge of a country riven
by crime and by HIV/Aids -
has privately said that dealing with 'Bob' is the
single most difficult task
of his office. Even that most diplomatic and
forgiving of all men, Nelson
Mandela, when asked what he would miss least
about being President is
reported to have said simply: 'Bob
Mugabe.'
South Africa is currently one of 10 elected members of the
security council
and will have an immediate chance to reply to the British
initiative.
Britain does not share the criticism of the South Africans.
Officials insist
Britain supports Mbeki's efforts to apply gentle diplomatic
pressure to its
neighbour. But Brown's call for a UN envoy indicates that
Britain is
thinking, if only in private, that the policy of leaving Zimbabwe
to its
neighbours may not be working. One Whitehall source highlighted
Brown's
determination to appoint a UN envoy by saying: 'At the UN Security
Council
meeting on Tuesday we will raise Zimbabwe. We will call for a
humanitarian
envoy who would report back to the security council on a
regular basis.'
Frustration with Mbeki is not entirely fair, according to
the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change inside Zimbabwe. 'Talks are
going well,
Mugabe has made some major concessions,' said one MDC figure.
'Although on
the key one over the elections in March 2008, we are
nowhere.'
And South Africa's Aziz Pahad, Deputy Foreign Minister,
defended his
country's policy of 'quiet diplomacy'. 'All our interventions
on the
Zimbabwean issue have been to prevent a failed state on our
doorstep,' he
said.
Brown has been thinking for months about changing
tack, a process which has
taken place without the knowledge of many old
Africa hands in the Foreign
Office. The Observer understands that some
senior diplomats were caught by
surprise by Brown's announcement about the
boycott and opinions are varied
as to the wisdom or otherwise of his
stance.
'I don't think you can talk about Brown's decision in terms of
right or
wrong. I think this situation has been, and is being, handled very
badly on
both sides of the world, and although Africa draws much strength
from these
summits it is at the African meetings where most progress is made
on the
Zimbabwean situation,' said Martin Rupiya, a former senior lecturer
in
strategic studies at the University of Zimbabwe. 'The problem is that no
one
has seen any evidence of any progress in the South African talks, so we
see
Mugabe being cheered by crowds across Africa and you do not see the
progress
for his people, so Africans lose faith too.'
And so the
impasse continues - Mugabe's critics accuse him of economic
mismanagement,
failure to curb corruption and contempt for democracy, Mugabe
accuses his
domestic opposition and the West of colluding to destroy his
economy, which
suffers acute shortages and inflation that, according to the
International
Monetary Fund, may hit 100,000 per cent by the end of the
year - and now of
being Scottish.
Meanwhile yesterday, on the outskirts of Zimbawe's
capital, Harare, where
food shortages are rife and transport services and
energy supplies are
crippled, the police were occupied with curbing a
situation of civil
unrest - trying to stop a hungry crowd of desperate
people from killing 'for
the pot' an adult giraffe that had wandered into a
township.
The Scotsman
KENNY FARQUHARSON
I
BET Jack Straw still has nightmares about the moment in New York three
years
ago when an elderly African chap at a lunchtime reception at the
United
Nations offered him an outstretched hand in greeting.
Straw, who was
Foreign Secretary at the time, was working the room and
instinctively
grasped the hand and shook it, muttering a pleasant "nice to
see you". It's
still unclear how many nanoseconds it took Straw to realise
that the elderly
chap was in fact President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the
megalomaniac
tyrant who had brought one of Africa's proudest nations to its
knees.
For fans of car-crash television, Straw's subsequent
explanation of what had
happened was essential viewing, coming perilously
close to an admission that
"all these African fellows look the same to me,
y'know". In fact, he said:
"I was sort of being pushed towards shaking hands
with somebody as a matter
of courtesy, and then it transpired it was
President Mugabe." Apparently,
he'd also passed Osama bin Laden on the
stairs and stood next to Saddam
Hussein in the gents.
Understandable,
then, that Gordon Brown wants to avoid a similar encounter
at the European
Union summit on Africa, scheduled for Lisbon in December.
Downing Street
last week made it clear to the organisers: if Mugabe's going,
the Prime
Minister isn't.
Brown's decision was not taken lightly, nor should it
have been. There is
serious business to be done in Portugal, and Africa's
problems do not begin
and end at Zimbabwe's borders. HIV, poverty,
education, climate change,
economic development, corruption - these are all
areas where Europe can make
a difference across Africa, and in the process
save countless lives.
The stay-away strategy is an unusual one for
Britain to pursue. It goes
against the diplomatic orthodoxy that the Foreign
Office adopts elsewhere in
the world - in China and Iran, for example -
where no matter how serious the
disagreement with a troublesome state, the
Brits will still engage. Yet the
sheer scale of the calamity visiting
Zimbabwe now demands that the usual
diplomatic niceties are
junked.
As we detail in our report on page 23, the country is close to
economic and
political collapse, with 80% unemployment, inflation at 6,500%
and the thugs
in the ruling Zanu-PF party resorting to ever more brutal
tactics to retain
power. Half the country's remaining population of nine
million is in need of
emergency food aid.
Brown's decision will not
be consequence-free. Ghana, currently leading the
African Union, wants
Mugabe to be treated as any other African leader in
Lisbon. There's a risk
that in the parts of Africa where Mugabe is still
regarded as a freedom
fighter against white tyranny, resentment towards
Britain will harden.
Gertrude Mongella, Tanzanian president of the
Pan-African Parliament, last
week said of Brown's stance: "I think this is
again another way of
manipulating Africa."
Mugabe himself will continue to bleat about
"British imperialism", knowing
full well the buttons that presses in the
white liberal conscience. But can
we really allow our moral choices to be
swayed by notions of collective
guilt for events that took place before we
were born? It would be cowardly
to use that as an excuse for doing
nothing.
Brown is taking a risk in another sense as well. There is
something about
British public opinion that's instinctively sceptical about
politicians
attempting good deeds in Africa. In the summer, David Cameron
was traduced
in the London press for having the audacity to be in Rwanda
when England
mopped up after its floods. How dare he try to save African
children from
starvation, cried Middle England. Doesn't he know my cellar's
knee-deep in
water?
And before we in Scotland congratulate ourselves
on our moral superiority,
let's just remember the widespread sneering at
Jack McConnell's laudable
initiatives in Malawi when he was First Minister,
bringing teaching
materials and Scots medics to one of the poorest nations
on the planet.
Beset with practical difficulties the McConnell schemes may
have been, but
they couldn't be faulted on the justness of the
cause.
Enlightened self-interest should be reason enough for us taking a
close
interest in Africa. The growth in economic and political power seen in
India
and China in recent years will be replicated in Africa in due course.
The
continent offers vast reserves of natural resources and cheap labour.
China
has already recognised the need to forge new alliances with African
states
and is starting to eclipse the influence of the British and French in
some
areas.
Of course, there is an element of gesture in what Brown
is doing. If the
Prime Minister himself does not attend the Lisbon
gathering, there will
still be a British delegation at the conference. If
Mugabe does stay away he
will be represented by some other representative of
his tawdry regime,
possibly one of his closest cronies in the form of
foreign minister
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi.
The risks in alienating
opinion at home and abroad have been weighed by
Brown, a cautious man by
instinct, and still he has decided to take a stand.
It's a commendable
decision, and a heartening one for anybody who believes
that politics can
still be a power for good in the world. Here at Scotland
on Sunday we have
made our own small contribution with our successful
campaign to have Mugabe
stripped of his honorary degree from the University
of Edinburgh. Another
gesture, perhaps, but in the pursuit of an honourable
goal even gestures
have their place.
The Scotsman
IAN MATHER (imather@scotlandonsunday.com)
The
country is standing on the edge of a cliff which threatens to
irreversibly
take us downhill if we do not boldly move forward with speed to
address most
of our shortcomings.
ON THE surface it seemed a welcome concession to a
grateful, if not broken,
opposition. President Robert Mugabe, for once
heedful of international
opinion about his brutal Zimbabwean regime, last
week relinquished some
control over his country's parliament.
Those
who have closely observed the wily Mugabe in action for decades,
however,
soon realised that the price was high.
The president, now 83, knows that
despite his stubborn refusal to give up
power, the end game is fast
approaching. Last week, even as western leaders
led by Prime Minister Gordon
Brown once again condemned his record, the
parliament gave him what he
wanted.
MPs voted through a reform package that for the first time gives
parliament
the right to choose a president if the incumbent resigns. Mugabe
can now
pick his own timing to step down in the full knowledge that the
parliament,
still dominated by his ruling Zanu-PF party, will vote in his
chosen
successor.
It means that although Mugabe may not be around for
very much longer, his
regime will continue.
The vote came on the same
day that Brown made it clear he would not attend a
special EU-Africa summit
in Portugal in November if Mugabe was invited. His
offer to attend if
someone else other than the dictator represented Zimbabwe
was designed to
hasten Mugabe's departure.
Brown's statement represented a significantly
harder line by the British
Government after years of soft-peddling by his
predecessor Tony Blair.
But a more immediate challenge to Mugabe is the
impact of his advancing
years and failing health. His daily routine now
involves arriving at his
office by 10am and heading home before lunchtime.
Public appearances are
strictly limited.
Even party loyalists are
beginning to desert him because of fears his
continued leadership will
threaten their own eventual hold on power.
And the country's health is
far worse than the dictator's. Mugabe is blamed
for an eight-year-long
economic crisis, marked by unemployment at over 80%,
inflation of nearly
6,600% and chronic food shortages. Crops are failing, a
price freeze has
cleared supermarket shelves of most staple foods and
starvation is
rife.
Nearly a third of the country's 13 million citizens have fled to
neighbouring countries.
Last week, the governor of Zimbabwe's central
bank sounded the alarm on the
crumbling economy when he warned of possible
food riots. Gideon Gono, a
Mugabe appointee, said: "The country is standing
on the edge of a cliff
which threatens to irreversibly take us downhill if
we do not boldly move
forward with speed to address most of our
shortcomings. We must do
everything to ensure the army does not one day have
to face angry, hungry
people on the streets."
Political analysts said
Gono's stark forecast revealed deepening fears
within Mugabe's inner circle.
"Beneath the veneer of a brave face, there is
underlying fear of political
unrest," said Eldred Masunungure, chairman of
the political science
department at Harare's University of Zimbabwe. "The
fact that they are now
discussing their fears in public is a demonstration
of the growing
anxiety."
Hence last Thursday's parliamentary vote.
Analysts say
that it will allow Mugabe to handpick his successor, the
assumption being
that a candidate endorsed by Mugabe would protect him from
future
prosecution.
Behind the move lies the influence of South African
President Thabo Mbeki,
to whom the Southern African Development Council
(SADC) gave the job of
trying to find a compromise in Zimbabwe. Zanu-PF and
the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) have been holding talks
behind closed doors in
Pretoria for several weeks.
That the MDC is
going along with the compromise is a surprise to many
observers since it is
dedicated to bringing an end to Mugabe's 27-year rule.
Yet the agreement
could yet cause open civil war within the MDC, which is
already so divided
it cannot agree on a single candidate to challenge Mugabe
in presidential
elections due next year.
Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of an MDC-allied
political pressure group, the
National Constitutional Assembly, has branded
the parliamentary deal an "act
of treachery", while rights campaign group
Crisis Zimbabwe Coalition has
accused the MDC of selling its
soul.
Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader who has led the MDC
since its
formation eight years ago, is Mugabe's main challenger. But
analysts say
Tsvangirai, badly beaten and hospitalised by Mugabe supporters
earlier this
year, has squandered his opportunities and been outflanked by
Mugabe.
In any case, the proposed deal fits in with South Africa's desire
to ease
Mugabe from power while remaining reluctant to force him out because
of the
need to show African solidarity against former colonial
powers.
Mugabe's anti-colonial rhetoric still has resonance with his
power base,
including the 50,000 veterans of the war of independence who
have benefited
from Mugabe's largesse through cash gifts and parcels of
white farmers'
land.
Mugabe also knows he has no reason to fear
international military
intervention. Britain and the US have no stomach for
more military ventures,
and the African nations have neither the interest
nor the funds.
The chances of a domestic uprising against his rule are
also virtually nil.
The extent to which the population has been cowed was
demonstrated again
last week when a strike call by the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions was
largely ignored. Most workers are only too aware that the
security forces
are given carte blanche to beat up strikers.
Yet
insiders at SADC say Mugabe has confirmed to regional leaders that he
will
leave "soon" after the 2008 elections. He is said to have told SADC
leaders
that he needs to ensure a smooth transition both within Zanu-PF and
in the
country.
Mugabe is now well past the peak of his power. William Gumede,
research
fellow at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management,
University of the Witwatersrand, said: "Zanu-PF's politburo - the powerful
organ in charge of party affairs between national conferences - is now
hostile towards him. Earlier this year he was humiliated by his own party
when he tried to stay on until 2010. Even the party's old guard, its
so-called 'elders', are rebelling. For example, Enos Nkala and Edgar Tekere,
surviving founding members of Zanu-PF, have denounced Mugabe."
In a
secret briefing to the Zanu-PF leadership, Zimbabwe's Central
Intelligence
Organisation, which is notoriously loyal to Mugabe, said that
extending his
term of office beyond next year would destabilise both Zanu-PF
and the
country.
The security forces, which are crucial to Mugabe's long reign,
now see his
leadership as a danger to their economic interests. In January,
Mugabe was
forced into sending a memo to senior police commanders,
threatening to
discipline them if they rebelled, as they had threatened to
do.
The entire Zanu-PF party is now on the verge of implosion, and a
breakdown
into separate entities is possible.
For a long time now,
the glue that has held the party leadership together,
the wealth from
governing an agriculturally and commodity-rich country, has
been weakening.
Last week, there were clashes in Masvingo province between
groups supporting
rival factions of the party.
One MDC official said that Mugabe has run
out of tricks to ensure his
survival. "We are watching Houdini finally
drowning in his chains," he said.
Who could follow Mugabe?
Emmerson
Mnangagwa, the secretary of the ruling Zanu-PF party, is a key
political
ally of Mugabe. He has been at his side since the 1970s, fighting
alongside
Mugabe during the Marxist guerrilla offensive against white rule
in what was
then Rhodesia. He became known as 'The Butcher of Matabeleland'
for
allegedly masterminding the slaughter of more than 25,000 civilians in
the
region in the mid-1980s.
Zimbabwe's first female vice-president, Joyce
Mujuru, has also expressed
ambitions to succeed Mugabe. Mujuru, who joined
the former guerrilla leader
at the age of 18, and now heads a faction of the
ruling party, says the
recent election success of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to
head Liberia, "shows
that Africa has come of age and that women are as good
and competitive as
their male folk."
Former finance minister Simba
Makoni is also a possible choice for the
Mujuru faction and has powerful
supporters within Zanu-PF. He is favoured by
the US and Britain because he
opposed Mugabe's land reform programme.
Morgan Tsvangirai, 55, is
president of the mainstream wing of the Movement
for Democratic Change, the
main opposition party in Zimbabwe. Earlier this
year, Tsvangirai was
arrested on his way to a prayer rally in the Harare
township of Highfield.
TV footage that shocked the world later showed him
suffering from deep
gashes on his head and a badly-swollen eye. His wife
claimed he had been
heavily tortured by police and his skull had been
cracked.
The Sunday Times
September 23, 2007
Rod Liddle
On the face of it, Gordon Brown's
determination to boycott the Europe-Africa
summit if Robert Mugabe is
invited, seems thoroughly decent and principled.
The meeting, due to be held
in the sort of halfway house of Portugal, would
not be a very agreeable
affair even without Zimbabwe's Big Bob; a few days
of European leaders being
blackmailed for money by a bunch of unscrupulous
thugs and culminating in
some ghastly, cringing statement of apology from
whitey for slavery, or
colonialism, or not letting Egypt into the Eurovision
Song
Contest.
But given our official disgust at Mugabe's regime, Brown surely
cannot go;
he will have to send a suitably down-market underling. I suggest
Margaret
Beckett.
There's a bit of truth, too, in the allegation that
the prime minister has
attempted to "multilateralise" our problems with
Zimbabwe and has unfairly
singled Mugabe out for special
opprobrium.
This point has been made by the president of neighbouring
Zambia, Levy
Mwanawasa, and he knows well of what he speaks. His own
"election" to high
office in 2002 was, of course, rigged, according to
independent observers.
His party - called, hilariously, the Movement for
Multiparty Democracy -
apparently used vast sums of state cash in its
electioneering and happily
tampered with the ballot boxes.
Since the
election, Amnesty International report that there is "widespread
harassment
and intimidation of people perceived to be critical of the
government" as
well as continual and flagrant abuses of human rights,
opposition leaders
peremptorily locked up and plenty of beatings from the
police for anyone who
steps out of line.
Meanwhile, some 75% of Levy's benighted subjects live
in what the United
Nations describes as "absolute poverty", on less than a
dollar per day.
Cheated in elections, beaten by the police and starved. You
can understand
Mwanawasa's genuine puzzlement: just what is it, exactly,
that Mugabe is
doing that's so wrong?
Indeed, according to Amnesty
International, Zimbabwe does not figure in the
top 10 of African countries
for what it calls "horrendous" human rights
abuses; it comes instead towards
the top of the second division for unlawful
detentions, beatings, torture
and executions. According to Amnesty, there
are at least 24 other African
countries in which, like Zimbabwe, freedom of
expression simply does not
exist and there are none at all where it is
entirely free and
untrammelled.
And all is not exactly rosy in Nelson Mandela's South
Africa, where the
white liberals who fought for the overthrow of apartheid
are now getting the
hell out as quickly as they can.
It is true that
with an inflation rate of a commendable 7,500%, Zimbabwe
punches slightly
above its weight in the great African league of staggering
economic
incompetence. But that alone should not be enough to cast the
country as a
terrible anomaly. It is anything but: it is, if we're honest,
entirely
typical.
If Robert Mugabe has his invitation withdrawn, the European
leaders will
still be sitting down for talks with megalomaniac and corrupt
bullies,
tyrants, despots, criminals and purblind Marxist ideologues, a
substantial
proportion of whom will depart office having fleeced their
country of every
last penny they can lay their hands on.
Never mind
worrying about Big Bob - just stay at home, Gordon.
The Sunday Times
September 23, 2007
Judith Todd, the daughter of a former prime minister, had a ringside
seat on
the rise of the Zimbabwean tyrant. Contrary to popular myth, torture
and
corruption were his tools from the day he took power, she tells RW
Johnson
When Judith Todd was 10, her father Garfield Todd became prime
minister of
Southern Rhodesia. "We then had a few short years in which we
weren't
ostracised," she says. "When I first went to school and I was asked
what my
father did, I would say, 'He's a New Zealander', so as not to
mention his
being a missionary, because missionaries were generally despised
by whites
for being 'kaffir-lovers'."
As prime minister Todd planned
to extend the franchise to blacks, which soon
made him hugely unpopular with
white voters so Judith told classmates her
father was a missionary, not
letting on that he was prime minister.
In 1958 Todd was ejected from
power and ostracism began in earnest,
culminating with his being restricted
to his farm by his successor, Ian
Smith, once Smith had decided to declare
independence from Britain in 1965.
In 1972 both Todd and Judith were
arrested for their continuing opposition
to white minority rule. Judith went
on hunger strike, which was forcibly
broken, and was then allowed to leave
for exile.
When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and gained its independence in
1980 both
Judith and her father were feted as heroes of the liberation
struggle.
Gradually, however, they both fell foul of Robert Mugabe and in
2002 Sir
Garfield (he had been knighted in 1986) was deprived of his
citizenship and
his right to vote. Judith, though she had been born in
Zimbabwe, was also
deprived of her citizenship and would have been stateless
but for the
generous grant of New Zealand citizenship by that country's
prime minister,
Helen Clark.
Judith's new book, Through the Darkness:
A Life in Zimbabwe, is a surprise
to many who expected it to be all about
the traumas of the past few years in
Zimbabwe. Mercifully - for the story of
the land invasions and subsequent
economic collapse has been told and retold
elsewhere - she says little about
that. Instead the book deals largely with
her life in the 1980s and 1990s as
she threw herself body and soul into the
work of rebuilding the country
after its long civil war.
The effect
is powerful because she knew the whole top political elite,
frequently
interacted with them and is able to be detailed and accurate
about her
dealings because she kept an extensive file of the memos and
letters. "The
lucky thing was I had no computer, just an old manual
typewriter and I kept
carbons of everything. In a way the book existed long
before I wrote it,"
she says.
The book blows sky-high the usual picture of Zimbabwe as having
been run
more or less reasonably by Mugabe, until his defeat in the
constitutional
referendum of 2000 caused him to pull down the pillars of the
temple. As
becomes all too clear, the worm was in the apple from the start,
with the
new regime adopting a totali-tarian and often violent attitude
towards
opposition.
Torture, corruption and disregard for the rule of
law were the norm right
away - indeed, the real question is how on earth
Lord Soames, Britain's
proconsul in charge of the transition to majority
rule, could have permitted
the 1980 election.
Mugabe broke all the
rules - his guerrillas roamed the villages when they
should have been at
assembly camps, there was widespread intimidation and
open violence against
many opposition candidates: one such candidate was
last seen pinned to the
ground having red hot coals rammed down his throat.
What fooled many
people was that once Mugabe had forcibly incorporated
Joshua Nkomo's Zapu
into his ruling Zanu-PF the country was so close to a
one-party state that
Mugabe simply didn't need to show the iron fist, but it
was always there.
"As I try to show, there were a few people, like the
guerrilla veteran,
Aaron Mutiti, who understood Mugabe from the start. Aaron
said in 1980,
'Family life, religious life and economic life as we know it
will
progressively disappear if Mugabe gets to power'.
"But most people
thought this was way over the top. That was the problem.
The opposition was
naive about what Mugabe might do if challenged. They
threw themselves into
elections, really believing that Mugabe would allow
himself to be voted out
of office. Everyone underestimated the depth of his
ruthlessness."
There are several oddities in this. So many of the
politicians Judith helped
free from Smith's clutches or, later, from
Mugabe's jails, soon joined the
government and became little Mugabes
themselves.
How could Judith stay friendly with such people - and how to
explain that
the patient, long-suffering Shona people have produced such a
brutal and
ruthless regime? "None of those people are still friends of mine.
I've lost
them all. It is a conundrum about the Shona producing such a
regime - one
friend once asked me in horror, 'How did all these monsters
find one
another?'
"I spend a lot of time Googling Pol Pot, trying to
understand. The
opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, recently said that
'Mugabe wants to
push us all into a hunter-gatherer subsistence mode of life
and to scatter
whole communities in the countryside in search of food'. I
think that's
about right. Mugabe was friendly with Pol Pot, Ceausescu and
Kim Il-sung
while Mengistu, the former Ethiopian dictator, is one of his
advisers.
"All these men seem to have had the same mindset. But there's
something else
too. When Mugabe was ruthlessly imposing himself on his party
in the
guerrilla camps in Mozam-bique, the worst punishment was to be put
'in the
pits'. No one who's suffered that is willing to describe it; it just
stands
for unimaginable horror and cruelty. It's something to do with water.
But
quite a few of his lieutenants are men who suffered that and that
experience
has made them so frightened of him that they obey him
implicitly."
Judith willingly agrees that her own 10-year marriage to
banker Richard (now
Lord) Acton, heir to one of Britain's most famous Roman
Catholic peers,
pales beside the way she has been married to Zimbabwe. "I
was always wanting
to live up to my parents. My father was so brave and
principled. My mother
designed the whole national school system. And they
were such fun. Zimbabwe
has been my full-time commitment ever since
1965."
But hasn't what happened fully justified Ian Smith and the white
racists who
predicted that black rule would mean dictatorship, corruption
and chaos?
"You have to say they called it right. But if I had my time all
over again I
would oppose racism just as strongly as I did then.
"The
funny thing is that some of those old Smithites are friendly to me now.
They've changed too - they don't want to be racists any more. Smith and
Mugabe are symbiotic, though. The fear of something like Mugabe created
Smith and Smith's ruthlessness called forth a Mugabe, who has in turn now
validated Smith. It goes round and round. But Smith did love the country
which was why he gave way rather than see it destroyed. Mugabe is destroying
it rather than give way."
Now is the hardest time. "I remember the
Queen saying to me how during all
the time Smith's Rhodesia was out of the
Commonwealth 'we kept a candle in
the window for Rhodesia' - and how, while
apart-heid South Africa was also
estranged, she kept a candle in the window
for South Africa too.
"But all those years we could always look forward
to the ultimate triumph of
majority rule. Now there's no such inevitable
light at the end of the
tunnel. And at that time Zimbabwe seemed to have so
many friends - the
Commonwealth, at the UN, other African countries and so
on. Now the
Zimbabwean people seem to have no friends."
As if in
confirmation, Gordon Brown threw the preparations for the
forthcoming
EU-African summit in Portugal into turmoil last week by
announcing that he
would boycott the meeting if Mugabe was welcomed. In
response, African
leaders closed ranks, saying they would not attend if
Mugabe was
barred.
This sort of standoff just seems to justify Todd's pessimism
about Zimbabwe's
isolation. "The EU invites Mugabe to Portugal, the UN says
nothing, no
country in Africa is willing to stand up to Mugabe and Zimbabwe
isn't even
on the agenda for the coming Commonwealth heads of government
meeting in
Kampala."
But surely the Mugabe nightmare will be over one
day? "Yes, of course. But
right now it's a genocide. What else can you call
it when you pull down
people's houses, deprive them of the means to look
after themselves and make
it impossible for them to find food? What are you
trying to do then except
commit mass murder?
"I had a dreadful dream
last night. I was in Bulawayo with my parents and
great big garbage lorries
were being filled up with the bodies of dead
children. Actually that is
pretty much what is happening."
Will she go back? "Yes, of course. As
soon as I can" - though her book may
well have made it very unsafe for her
to do that: her forthright criticism
of the regime is unlikely to go down
well.
In the early 1980s, when she had done far less to provoke its
wrath, she was
raped as a punishment.
Doesn't she look forward, when
the nightmare is over, to helping reconstruct
Zimbabwe from the ruins? "At
times I don't think I can do that again. I came
back in 1980 to help rebuild
the country after a civil war. When Mugabe goes
the rebuilding will have to
start from a much lower level. It's so
discouraging. But I know that in the
end I will.
"It is my country and the minute I see people I know I can
help - and
Zimbabweans are such lovely people - there'll really only be one
answer,"
she says.
The Telegraph
By Stephen
Bevan
Last Updated: 1:00am BST 23/09/2007
Zimbabwe's
already fractured opposition is further divided over the
wisdom of Gordon
Brown's threat to boycott the forthcoming European Union
Africa summit if
Robert Mugabe attends.
Some said it played into the hands of the
Zimbabwean president, as he
would portray himself as standing up to his
country's former colonial
rulers.
Others welcomed any more
pressure that could be brought to bear on the
83?year-old dictator, who has
presided over two rigged elections, the brutal
suppression of political
opponents and the virtual collapse of the economy.
Zimbabwe
is to be invited to the meeting, to be held in Portugal in
December, along
with other African countries, though it would be free to
send a senior
minister if Mr Mugabe chose not to attend.
Gabriel Chaibva,
spokesman for Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway
faction of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was scathing about
Mr Brown's
statement. "If the British Prime Minister does not wish to go to
the EU
Africa summit because Mugabe will be there, then he needs to tell the
world
what is his alternative to solve the crisis in Zimbabwe," he said.
"In any conflict, at the end of the day, there must be dialogue. I
don't
know how Gordon Brown thinks his boycott will help resolve the crisis,
and
it will again buttress the view among African leaders that the British
and
Americans are always telling us what we can and can't do."
However,
David Coltart, MP for Bulawayo South and a member of the
Mutambara faction,
said Mr Brown was right to take a stand as it would
undermine Mr Mugabe's
standing with Zanu-PF colleagues. "For Mugabe to keep
the support of his own
party he has to show that European and Western
resolve is weakening," he
said.
The Telegraph
By Graham
Boynton
Last Updated: 1:00am BST 23/09/2007
I spoke to
old friends in Zimbabwe this weekend. They sounded pleased
with themselves,
mainly because they'd managed to scavenge 25 chickens and a
bottle of
Teacher's whisky from some unnamed connection.
They'd shared the
chickens among friends and, having had a few shots
of Scotch, were
barbecuing their catch and feeling relatively contented.
Last week
they'd killed a cow and set up an informal butcher's shop
for the
neighbourhood in their back garden.
This is life under
Robert Mugabe for people who were once
entrepreneurs, teachers and traders.
And they say they're the lucky ones,
because their connections and foreign
exchange mean they can get hold of
food and smuggle in alcohol from South
Africa. Most of their fellow citizens
are not so lucky - they are, quite
literally, starving to death.
I grew up in Bulawayo, then a
beautiful colonial town with avenues so
wide you could turn an ox wagon in
them and streets lined with majestic gum
trees, kigelia trees and hedges of
bougainvillea.
At the time it was run by a white colonial minority,
who had carved a
modern infrastructure out of raw African bushveld and
created a thriving
economy, benefiting both themselves and the black
majority.
Of course, minority white rule could not last and when
Ian Smith's
Rhodesia became Mugabe's Zimbabwe it was a self-sufficient,
prosperous
economic success - a rare beacon of hope in Africa's bleak
20th-century
landscape.
Today, the trees and the flowers remain
but the city is in ruins. In
less than a decade Robert Mugabe has torn the
heart out of this lovely
country and reduced it to the fastest-declining
economy in the world.
Statistics offer a stark outline of the
catastrophe, but do not
adequately describe the sadness that this despot has
visited on his people,
the very Africans he was supposed to have
liberated.
An estimated 3,500 people are dying in Zimbabwe each
week which, says
David Coltart, the opposition MP who was in London last
week, makes it "a
humanitarian disaster more serious than
Darfur".
Most of my old friends have gone, scattering to the four
corners of
the earth. Those who have stayed are the African optimists, an
ever-diminishing tribe who hold on to the belief that Mugabe will be
overthrown.
This weekend my stoical friends are saying that it
can't go on like
this for much longer, but admit they've been saying that
for years.
Meanwhile, the former middle-classes - black and white -
will continue
to spend their days scavenging for food and drink, but the
poor and
dispossessed, the huddled masses for whom Mugabe was supposed to be
a
saviour, face disease and starvation on an unprecedented
scale.
The dream of a free and prosperous Zimbabwe has truly turned
sour.
The Telegraph
Last
Updated: 1:00am BST 23/09/2007
Robert Mugabe has put the
BP's Zimbabwe operation at the top of the
list for takeover under a new law
to bring foreign companies under local
control, write Michael Gwaridzo and
Stephen Bevan.
He told a meeting of his ruling Zanu-PF party's
politburo that the oil
giant would be one of the first companies to be
targeted, The Sunday
Telegraph has learnt.
Ministers said the
move was intended as retaliation for what they
claim is Britain's "invisible
hand" in a recent decision by Australia to
expel eight students whose
parents are senior Zimbabwean officials.
BP Zimbabwe, which is
jointly owned by BP Africa and Shell, runs a
network of 37 service stations
and boasts that it has been "one of the
biggest brands in Zimbabwe" for 40
years. It also supplies fuel and oil
products to the aviation
industry.
Mr Mugabe is said to have told the party meeting: "Britain
and
Australia have businesses here and we shall act accordingly to show them
the
way out. Their BPs will soon be a thing of the past because we have
capable
local entrepreneurs who can do a better job." He said the seizures
"must be
sudden and without notice".
Under the "indigenisation"
law, likely be approved by parliament in
the next few weeks, foreign-owned
companies can be required to give up 51
per cent of their shares to
"disadvantaged" Zimbabweans. However, the real
beneficiaries are likely to
be Mr Mugabe's cronies and Zanu-PF officials.
africasia
HARARE, Sept 23 (AFP)
Zimbabwe's divided opposition was pressured by
international mediators into
accepting the framework for next year's
elections in a move that will likely
condemn it to defeat, according to
analysts.
The Movement for Democratic Change, which previously denounced
the planned
constitutional amendments as a means to rig the legislative and
presidential
elections, made a surprise U-turn last week and voted for the
legislation.
While conceding it might appear that it had "abandoned its
principles," MDC
lawmakers insisted the real significance lay in the fact
that President
Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party were now engaging with
the opposition.
However analysts believe the apparent climbdown was due
to pressure from
South African President Thabo Mbeki who has been mandated
by his peers in
the Southern African Development Community to help ZANU-PF
and the MDC
resolve their differences before the polls take place, probably
in March.
Takura Zhangazha, a Harare-based analyst, said it was no
surprise the MDC's
announcement came after some of its leaders met Mbeki in
Pretoria last
weekend.
"The MDC has been pressured by the Southern
African Development Community
into a power-brokering initiative which may
cost them next year," he said.
Zhangazha said the MDC were naive if they
believed they could ensure a
level-playing field by negotiating with a party
which has been in power in
the former British colony since independence in
1980.
"There is no way ZANU-PF can negotiate itself out of power," he
said.
Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist at the University of
Zimbabwe,
agreed pressure from Mbeki rather than the prospect of concessions
from
ZANU-PF about the conduct of the election was behind the opposition
change
of heart.
"ZANU-PF can celebrate after this because they have
locked the MDC in and
they are assured of their full support in the
constitutional reforms," he
said.
Other opposition activists have
been dismayed by the MDC's move, including
the National Constitutional
Assembly, which has been pushing for a
completely new
constitution.
"Both formations of the MDC seem to be out of touch with
the aspirations of
ordinary Zimbabweans who are clamouring for an open and
genuine process of
democratisation," it said in a statement.
"The
inescapable conclusion is that the so-called agreement on the amendment
is
nothing but a power game. It must therefore be rejected."
The MDC has
been riven by divisions with two factions now sitting in
parliament, sending
rival representatives to the South African-led mediation
talks.
A
report by the International Crisis Group released on the same day the MDC
announced it would not oppose the legislation highlighted how the divisions
were playing into ZANU-PF's hands.
"A divided opposition offers
ZANU-PF the prospect of an easy electoral
victory, while harming its own
bargaining power in the SADC mediation," it
said.
"In the present
environment, it is difficult to see how the MDC can regain
any ability to
influence events as elections approach."
Bill Saidi, deputy editor of the
Zimbabwe Independent, said outside pressure
was crucial in breaking the
impasse but detected concessions from both
sides, given ZANU-PF's
willingness to talk to a party it has denounced as
stooges of Mugabe's
critics.
"I think both parties are under tremendous pressure from SADC to
make
concessions," Saidi said.
"Mugabe has at last accepted he cannot
continue telling everyone to go to
hell, that's why he has agreed to
dialogue with the MDC."
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa also portrayed the
development as a ZANU-PF
climbdown.
"They are the ones who were
saying the MDC is made up of puppets and they
would not negotiate with
puppets but we have managed to put pressure on them
and bring them to the
negotiation table."
Mugabe, 83, is seeking a seventh term at a time when
Zimbabwe is grappling
with the world's highest rate of inflation, widespread
food shortages and
mass unemployment.
Sunday Times, SA
Comment :
Brendan Boyle
Published:Sep 23,
2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
China's
money often is followed by China's men
Africa is laying out a red carpet
for China and its money, which is never a
bad thing to do for a rich
benefactor.
But the continent has been wounded by foreigners bearing
gifts and a little
more circumspection might be in order as Beijing pursues
its interests on
our turf.
Chinese President Hu Jintao promised
African leaders at a summit in Beijing
last November, though without giving
figures, that he would double aid to
the continent by 2009. He said China
also would extend an additional
5-billion in loans and export credits over
the same period.
Two-way trade between Africa and China has rocketed from
10-million in 1950
to 1-billion in 1970, 10-billion in 2000 and 55-billion
last year. With
Africa's share of Chinese oil imports up in a decade from 9%
to 30%, the
balance is slightly in Africa's favour.
Deputy President
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is in Beijing, heading a team of
ministers who will
be trying to make sure South Africa gets its share of the
aid, trade and
skills development China is offering in return for fair and
preferably
preferential access to its resources.
Africa and its individual countries
clearly stand to benefit massively from
China's spectacular growth, but
there is nothing about China's pursuit of
resources that will automatically
protect this continent from the abuse it
suffered when European nations
began their scramble for Africa.
Yet, at the many conferences that
discuss the effect that this emerging
giant will have, there is an
assumption by many Africans - and sometimes an
assurance - of
trust.
That was the dominant attitude this week when the Centre for
Conflict
Resolution brought a panel together in Cape Town to discuss the
potential
effect of China's growing enthusiasm for
Africa.
Underpinning the two-day debate was a consensus that Europe and
the US had
exploited Africa in the race for its riches. Delegates reminded
themselves
that the roads and railways the colonial powers built were
designed to
facilitate control or to extract raw materials and get them to
the nearest
port - and never to facilitate development or intra-Africa
trade. It was all
about them, not us.
Implicit in the consistent
criticism was an assumption that the colonial
powers should have been more
considerate of Africa's interests when they
came to claim a share of its
wealth. But, when discussing China, many apply
a different standard and the
most common theme is that Beijing's interest is
benign.
Chen Wenbing,
first secretary at the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria, sought to
drive home the
point.
"We are being told by our policy makers and government to take
more care of
the morality and to give more back to Africa. In our
relationship with
Africa, we do take into account the morality. We are
asking what we can do
to improve the image of China in Africa," he
said.
China's money often is followed by China's men. Though the
country pretends
it sends only the skilled people it needs, Africans say
that is seldom true.
It is usually Chinese labour that assembles Beijing's
latest demonstration
of largesse.
According to Cornell Law School's
Professor Muna Ndulo, it is up to the
recipient states to legislate a place
for their own people and not China's
responsibility.
There is a
danger in the acceptance of China's largely unconditional trade.
When an
economically weak nation such as Zimbabwe pawns its mines to a
foreign
government in exchange for short-term relief, and without a clear
plan to
redeem the pledge, sovereignty is at least weakened.
The good news is
that Beijing is keen to compensate for the weak domestic
standards of
governance and human rights that few governments dare openly
condemn by
creating a record of good global citizenship.
Xu Jian, vice president of
the China Institute of International Studies in
Beijing, said his country
was anxious to improve its reputation and claim a
space on the global stage
without surrendering its own values.
"The Chinese experience, on the
domestic front, is to choose China's own way
while borrowing insights from
others in line with Chinese culture. Study the
experience of others, but
don't copy it," he said.
Clearly, as China pours billions into a
continent slowly being released from
the burden of colonialism's odious
debt, it is acting with the benefit of
common hindsight.
Global
relations are different now to the period of empire.
Partnership has
trumped paternalism and this nation seems to promise it will
act differently
to its predecessors.
In contrast to the deeply self-serving interventions
of the European
colonial powers and the geo- political opportunism of the US
during the Cold
War, China promises a policy of supportive non- interference
that is music
to the ears of a Mugabe or an Omar Bongo in
Gabon.
Professor Alaba Ogunsanwo, of the University of Lagos in Nigeria,
said
bluntly it was up to Africa to ensure that the revenue from trade with
China
went towards the sustainable development of its societies and not into
the
pockets of its elites.
If African countries allowed themselves to
be ruled by rapacious autocrats,
that was their own responsibility and none
of China's concern. Under its
policy of non- interference, China was
entitled to strike deals with the
rulers of any country.
Not everyone
was as sanguine about China's African adventure.
"When I see what your
country is doing in Africa today, it reminds me of
what my country was doing
20 years ago," Professor Daniel Bach, a political
scientist from the
University of Bordeaux in France, told Xu.
He softened the blow slightly,
adding: "I think this might be a transitional
phase. China is on a very fast
learning curve regarding the socialisation of
China into the global
economy."
China might be new to this game, but Africa is not. In their
understandable
enthusiasm to break old and unwelcome ties to the West, many
African states
seem to forget that loans might be interest-free in fiscal
terms, but rarely
in political terms.
The colonial powers came, took
what they wanted, and left little more than
inappropriate traditions and
their trappings. The absurd morning dress and
ancient Rolls Royce in which
Mugabe arrives each year to open his country's
Westminster-style Parliament
is just one example.
There is a risk that the competition for China's
business will encourage
Beijing to play a poor Peter off against an even
poorer Paul. African
governments have an opportunity to ensure, together,
that this does not
happen again.
Xu argued strongly against Bristol
University Professor Amitav Acharya's
assertion that China preferred to deal
bilaterally with its African clients.
"Attitudes to multi- lateralism
have changed significantly, if not
fundamentally, since the late 1990s," he
said.
But Acharya's warning is sound: "Africa will suffer if it deals
with China,
including its demand for resources, exclusively through
bilateral channels
and as a house divided against itself, with individual
African nations
competing among themselves for Chinese economic aid or
political backing."
The petroleum-exporting countries discovered nearly
50 years ago that it was
better to combine than to compete .
We need
to treat China as the valued client of Africa that it is, to respect
its
ways and appreciate its support. But China is doing business here for
many
reasons all of its own . Africa should contain its gratitude and drive
the
best bargain it can for a continent that needs to follow and not just
fuel
Chinese development.
Mlambo-Ngcuka and her team should be wary of yet
another bilateral deal
which leaves neighbours in the cold.
Together,
the African mouse could roar. Separately, its nations can only
squeak.
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
22
September 2007
The International Federation of
Journalists called Saturday on the
government of Zimbabwe to guarantee the
safety of 15 journalists it has
reportedly targeted.
The organization
cited a leaked government report saying 15 journalists were
working "hand in
hand with hostile anti-Zimbabwean Western governments."
Entitled "2008
Presidential and Parliamentary Elections," the report said
the journalists
should be "placed under strict surveillance and taken in on
various dates
set."
The journalists include Foster Dongozi of the Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists;
reporter Gift Phiri of the London-based Zimbabwean paper, who
was abducted
and beaten by police; editor Abel Mutsakani of Web-based news
agency
ZimOnline, recently shot by unknown assailants in Johannesburg, South
Africa, and Standard editor Bill Saidi.
Saidi, who earlier this year
received a brown envelope containing a bullet
and a warning to "watch out,"
told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the
report reflects "panic of the worst kind" in
the government.