Yahoo News
by Susan
Njanji Thu May 1, 10:10 PM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Deadlocked all-party talks
hosted by Zimbabwe's electoral
commission were due to resume on Friday in
Harare with the opposition
claiming an outright victory over President
Robert Mugabe in a March 29
poll.
Election officials told the
closed-door meeting on Thursday that opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai had
won 47.8 percent and Mugabe had won 43.2
percent, several sources present at
the talks told AFP.
But the Movement for Democratic Change party
presented its own figures
claiming Tsvangirai had won 50.3 percent, just
scraping past the threshold
needed to avoid a second round run-off, the
sources added.
The talks were due to restart at 0700 GMT but the
disagreement paves the way
for further delays to the final results of a vote
that took place nearly
five weeks ago as the opposition compares its own
tally with the official
one.
Tsvangirai, who is currently in South
Africa, insisted in an interview on
Thursday he saw no need for a run-off.
But refusal to participate in a
second round would hand victory on a plate
to his 84-year-old rival Mugabe.
Tsvangirai, whose party wrested control
of parliament from Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party in legislative polls also held on
March 29, said he won a "decisive"
victory and doubted the credibility of
any official results given the
delays.
Based on results from
individual polling stations, the MDC has "come up with
a result which we
feel is credible. That result gives us a decisive victory
so there's no need
for a run-off," Tsvangirai told the news channel France
24.
The
former trade union leader also accused Mugabe of being a dictator and of
unleashing a wave of violence against the opposition, which he said made it
impossible for a second round of voting to be free and
fair.
Zimbabwean and international rights groups say attacks by
pro-government
militias are aimed at instilling fear in MDC ranks. The MDC
says 20 of its
supporters have been killed by pro-government militias since
the vote.
The United States Thursday urged Mugabe to "call off his dogs"
who are
allegedly attacking opposition supporters and to release the
presidential
election results.
State Department deputy spokesman Tom
Casey said there had been "an
absolutely unconscionable and inexplicable
delay in the process of releasing
votes."
Casey said he believed it
would be "almost be impossible to hold" a fair
run-off election "given the
current campaign of state-orchestrated violence
and intimidation" against
the opposition in particular and Zimbabweans in
general.
"First of
all, what we need to have happen is to have President Mugabe call
off his
dogs and cease his security services and his supporters' attacks on
those
who are simply trying to express their views peacefully," he said.
A
first-round defeat would be a major blow to Mugabe, a former guerrilla
leader and hero of Africa's national liberation movements who has ruled the
former British colony since independence in 1980.
Already reeling
from his party losing parliament for the first time in 28
years, it would
leave him at his weakest point since coming to power amid a
spiralling
economic crisis in Zimbabwe, where inflation is at 165,000
percent.
However, his control of the security apparatus has led the
MDC to conclude
that he will intimidate voters into giving him a sixth term
in office in a
run-off which should take place within three weeks of results
being
announced.
Tsvangirai has been out of the country for most of
the time since the
election, trying to drum up diplomatic support across
southern Africa,
although he indicated he will return after the results
became clear.
Former finance minister Simba Makoni, who is believed to
have come a distant
third in the polls, is widely expected to back
Tsvangirai in any second
round. A fourth candidate, Langton Towungana, is
unlikely to get even one
percent.
Zimbabwe Metro
By Staff
⋅ May 1, 2008
Senegal President sent his foreign minister to Zimbabwe on
Thursday to help
mediate the country’s growing political crisis. He met with
Robert Mugabe
for two hours Thursday and urged the quick release of results
more than a
month after the vote.
“Mugabe reassured President Wade
that he will accept the results of the
second round without any hesitation
and invited the opposition to pledge the
same,” Senegalese Foreign Minister
Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said in the
statement.
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission has said the presidential election will be
forced into a second
round, even though no official results have been
released from the March 29
poll.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has rejected a
runoff,
insisting that their candidate won outright with more than 50
percent of the
vote and refusing to participate in a second round they say
will be rigged
to ensure Mugabe’s victory.
“For President Mugabe, the
opposition and its supporters must not only
accept the results proclaimed by
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, they
must also enter into the second
round in good faith and with the firm desire
to accept the verdict of the
people delivered in an election that is
transparent, free and democratic,
without the possibility of dispute,” Gadio
said in the
statement.
Gadio said Mugabe “thanked President Wade for his counsel on
the urgency of
releasing presidential results,” without giving details as to
the Zimbabwean
president’s response.
The public pressure by Senegal
stands in contrast to an earlier visit by
South African President Thabo
Mbeki, who urged patience while results were
being
verified.
Senegal’s foreign minister also met with Mbeki later Thursday
in South
Africa. Mbeki said he welcomed Senegal’s help in the mediation, the
statement said.
Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler pledged Thursday to accept
the verdict of any
runoff vote and called on the opposition to do the same,
Senegalese
officials said.
Mail and Guardian
Mandy Rossouw, Nic Dawes and Jason Moyo
02 May 2008
06:00
For a massive ship that carries tons of ammunition
and has its
own cranes on board, the controversial Chinese ship carrying
arms for
Zimbabwe is about as easy to pin down as a cockroach in a dark,
damp cellar.
The An Yue Jiang is carrying three million
rounds of ammunition
for AK-47s, 1 500 rocket-propelled grenades and several
thousand mortar
rounds. The cargo was destined for Zimbabwe, where the
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) says violence is at its
worst since the country
became independent.
Maritime and
arms-control experts could only speculate on the
whereabouts of the Chinese
Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) cargo ship this
week, which was meant to be
heading back to China. It has managed to stay
under the radar after leaving
South African waters, but was spotted near the
Angolan coast on April
25.
On Wednesday the International Transport Workers'
Federation
(ITF) said the An Yue Jiang was still outside the port of Luanda
but had
neither docked nor shown signs of returning to
China.
"It appears that the ship slowed right down over the
weekend,
probably while it awaited orders. The fact that it then made full
speed for
Luanda suggests that it got them. We trust that they will be for
it to take
on fuel and make their way home and that no attempt will be made
to land any
of its cargo of arms.
Given the lack of any
definitive promise from Cosco or the
Chinese government to this effect, we
can promise that the world will be
watching what happens next," ITF general
secretary David Cockroft said.
Lloyds Maritime Information
Unit (Lloyds MIU), which monitors
shipping worldwide, told the Mail &
Guardian on Wednesday that according to
its tracking records the vessel
docked at Luanda airport, refuelled and then
set sail
again.
This series of events is supported by the Angolan
government,
which insists the ship docked in Luanda but was allowed only to
offload
construction material destined for Angola.
The
exact location of the ship could not be given by Lloyds MIU
as the captain
repeatedly switches off the vessel's transponder, which can
be detected by
maritime authorities.
There is some scepticism about a
promise by Angolan President
Jose Eduardo dos Santos that the arms would not
be offloaded in Angola.
Newspaper reports this week said that
Malawian and Zimbabwean
intelligence officials and politicians made their
way to Angola to meet Dos
Santos.
The M&G has learned
that Mugabe's right-hand man, Cabinet
minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, was
accompanied by the country's top spy,
Happyton Bonyongwe, and other security
figures on his quest to deliver a
"special message" to Dos Santos this
week.
"I think people also underestimate the basis of some of
our
alliances in the region," a senior Zimbabwean diplomat who was involved
in
the Mnangagwa mission said. He pointed to a decade-old "military pact"
between Zimbabwe with Angola and Namibia.
Many top
government officials this week said they believed
Mnangagwa would lean on
these old military alliances to persuade Angola to
allow the release of arms
held aboard the An Yue Jiang. Meanwhile, other
sources said that a Chinese
air cargo company, MK Air, might be involved in
transporting the An Yue
Jiang's arms to Zimbabwe. The MK Air flight lodged a
suspicious flying plan
from Luanda that might have allowed it time to divert
to Zimbabwe, said
sources in the arms-control industry.
The flight last
Saturday from Luanda to a European destination
was "lost" for at least 17
hours on its leg between Luanda and Entebbe in
Uganda. This gap would have
given the aircraft time to make it to Zimbabwe
and then on to
Entebbe.
The Zimbabwe Times
By Aneni Mada
AS FAR back as I can remember
in my 28-year life, there have always been
questions about the policies and
the governance of Zimbabwe.
Something else I can remember clearly
is how these complaints have always
been accompanied or responded to by
people who had a knack for blaming
everybody else but the man leading
Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. It has always
been, “It’s the people around him”,
or “It is the ‘yes men’ around him who
block anyone else from telling him
the truth.”
Today is April 29 and it is now exactly a month after
people voted in a
presidential election whose results have still to be
announced. As Jonathan
Moyo rightly said, it has to be a world
record.
I may not have any experience with how a presidential
State House functions
but I do know how people think and also how they
normally act. People
question things that do not happen according to simple
logic and people are
often suspicious and are not always receptive of
everything they are told,
especially when they are surrounded by evidence of
things going wrong.
In the circumstances, anyone who claims that
Mugabe does not know that he is
unpopular is peddling lies. Anyone who
claims Mugabe does not know that he
lost the election on March 29 and is
waiting to be told by some people who
are apparently trying to figure out
how to tell him is shamefully deceiving
himself or herself. To continue to
think like this is to admit that Robert
Mugabe, the man the world has
thought to be the revolutionary President of
Zimbabwe and the 'strong man'
of pan-Africanism, has not been in charge and
is a pawn of the whims of army
generals, police commissioners and Jabulani
Sibanda.
I have
to admit I was sad to read an article saying Jabulani Sibanda and
Joseph
Chinotimba are the reason why Mugabe lost the election because they
led him
to think he was popular. If Mugabe truly believed the word of
Sibanda and
Chinotimba then it is only Mugabe himself who deceived himself.
There was
ample evidence for Mugabe to realise that he was taking a gamble
by standing
as a candidate in this election.
His candidature was not the most
popular in his own y and he had to hold two
congresses to push himself
through. Even after those efforts, the fact that
he had to rely on Jabulani
Sibanda, unconstitutionally bringing him back
into the party from suspension
(or was it expulsion?), to do his bidding
should have signaled to him that
he was gambling with his future There is
evidence to show Mugabe knew that
he was in trouble.
There were many reports in the media before
the elections about the reduced
numbers
of supporters attending
Mugabe’s rallies. He spoke to large numbers of
non-voting
school
kids, who were brought in to beef up the crowds. He urged them to
vote for
Zanu-PF and
him, knowing that this audience would not help
him on election day.
Now, if anyone tells me that Mugabe, a
veteran politician who has been on
the campaign
trail for as far back
as I can remember Zimbabwean politics, could not see
the
difference,
then his 84 years of life have caught up with him. I am
worried about being
led by such
a person as
President.
Mugabe’s veteran politician status makes him very
knowledgeable about the
normal
political situation in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans are not used to waiting for
election
results for over
72hrs without knowing who won. If Mugabe did or does not
know
the
results and has not asked why the results have not been announced
following
the usual
pattern then Zimbabwe has been without leadership
for a longer time than the
past 32
days.
Obvious
questions that he as President should have asked are: what are the
results
and
what is the cause of the delay in announcing them? Another important
to ask
would be;
why are our people now bringing up “incriminating”
documents about the MDC
after the
elections and why did they not
present them before the elections?
Apparently Mugabe is not
bothered by these pertinent and important questions
and is
listening
only to a few people who are telling him what they think he wants
to
hear.
My question now is: Are we talking about the very same
person who is
supposed to be
highly educated and a cunning
politician?
The worst headline I have seen on this same deceptive
line has been that
Mugabe was
willing to leave but was blocked by the
security chiefs. I have no problem
with the basic
line of argument
here but I think this it presents Mugabe as an unwilling
player
in
continuing to disregard democracy and the will of the people of
Zimbabwe.
Simple
questions should have been asked. What did Mugabe
mean when he said, “Voting
for
MDC is wasting votes. Why did Mugabe
not attend the SADC summit in Lusaka as
he
did last year in Tanzania?
Why has Mugabe not denounced violence but has
instead
implicitly
endorsed the beating, maiming and killing of Zimbabweans for
exercising
their
democratic right?
What did Mugabe mean by saying on
April 18 2008, “Nothing, absolutely
nothing is
going to
change?"
For me the answers to these questions present someone
those who has been
blaming everything on people around Mugabe with a Mugabe
they cannot relate
to but who in fact is the man who has ruled Zimbabwe for
28 years. While I
do not deny the influence of JOC and Zanu-PF partisans, I
think it is an
injustice to the brutalized people of Zimbabwe to imply that
Mugabe is an
unwilling and unknowing player in all this. Publishing articles
that put the
blame on anybody else without making Mugabe also responsible is
also an
injustice.
Finally, speaking of world records, Mugabe
knows without a doubt that
Zimbabwe has an official 164 900 percent
inflation, a world record, and that
the country is on its
knees.
I believe Mugabe reads The Herald everyday. Even The
Herald can no longer
hide the chaotic state of the economy and social
services and any leader who
reads these realities daily and still does not
see himself as being
responsible is deceiving
himself.
Zimbabwe needs a realist at the helm yesterday. If
anyone making an excuse
for Mugabe cannot see the damage on the country in
such thinking then we
have the leadership we deserve! Let us stop pretending
we can make Mugabe
the person we want him to be and focus on rebuilding the
beautiful country
that is Zimbabwe
OhMyNews
[Opinion] Zimbabwe's Zanu (PF) President an antithesis of
freedom
Isaac Hlekisani Dziya
Published
2008-05-02 10:26 (KST)
Zimbabwe's illegal President Robert
Mugabe has exposed his and his
party's monstrous and decadence, more clearly
in the month from the time of
the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections
of March 29 to today, almost
four weeks later.
One can clearly
observe how March 29 and subsequent events, including
the refusal to accept
the verdict of the voters and beating them up, were a
manifestation of a
Mugabe and the Zanu (PF) leadership's belief that they a
somehow superior to
the rest of Zimbabweans.
The way Zimbabwean history has been
presented by Mugabe and his mass
communication institutions tells us and has
shaped the way Zimbabweans view
their country. Zimbabweans view their
country and the world around them in
an doctrinaire manner, reducing their
objective judgement and leading them
to a very narrow analysis of their
current reality.
As Zimbabweans we have been left with a tendency
to remain docile,
somehow believing that the crusades of the liberation war
heroes have who
led us out of colonial bondage now deserve to hold us under
their own
bondage -- we their own kinsmen who show a base understanding of
kindness,
compassion, love and equality.
The liberation cortege
seems itself on a higher plane of liberties and
rights and do not have to be
bound by these universal values.
True commitment to ending this
crisis in Zimbabwe now requires a
global human rights campaign which will
make the illegal government realize
that the voice of the people does indeed
matter, and cannot be ignored.
If we had the courage to do this,
notwithstanding the pain it will
bring on the rest of the population, the
power would shift automatically
from the politicians, to the majority of the
population.
People in the West and the rest of the world are truly
and generally
interested in the realisation of universal freedom, however a
lot of people
in Zimbabwe are dying while putting their faith in this
solidarity being
translated into action.
Indeed they have every
right to expect it since the education system
has taught us that after World
War Two world leaders made a pact to say
never again would any government be
allowed deprive its people of
fundamental freedoms, like the right to choose
their own leaders.
The reluctance to accept this responsibility, as
expressed by the
Security Council's failure to agree, even to sending an
envoy or a
fact-finding mission to an obvious cesspool of Robert Mugabe's
cruelty to
other human beings, is indeed buffing to
Zimbabweans.
The Zanu (PF) spokesperson George Charamba on April
28, 2008 through
The Herald (Harare) categorically stated that his party is
alive of its
killing machinery: "... we know blood, indeed we easily tell
the smell of
gunpowder, the sound of projectiles looking for targets. We
have seen and
fought wars, including a long one which founded us as a
sovereign people, a
sovereign nation."
One is bound to ask
whose sovereignty Charamba is rattling on about
when the rest of the
Zimbabwe population is held to ransom by those who
claim to have brought
sovereignty.
The collective voice of the people wanting change has
been massaged
through intelligent and criminal vote rigging. This has been
exacerbated by
the beatings and the torture of opposition supporters into
quite submission
as they do not hold any weapons with which to defend
themselves.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change accuses
Mugabe of using
the delay to rig a second round run-off through fraud and
intimidation.
And human rights groups, international media, and
independent monitors
have also confirmed that Mugabe has launched a campaign
of violence and
intimidation in an attempt to swing the second round, if
ever there is going
to be one, in his favour.
There is no
integrity or dignity left for the Zimbabwe populace that
continue to be
assaulted on all fronts by this illegal government. The
situation gets worse
each passing day. The Zanu (PF) government carries on
with reckless and
dangerous abandon. These men have gotten carried away with
the taste of
power, as they now know no other life.
The Zimbabwe Electrical
Commission has proved its lack of independence
by delaying the announcing of
the election results. It has proved by its
acquiescence that it has been
working on the instructions of the illegal
Harare regime.
The
now announced results have proved what we feared would happen. If
Mugabe had
won, an announcement would have been made so quickly that it
would have
defied any logic. In the past when Zanu (PF) won, the
announcements were
always made within three days, not 30 days!
The illegal Zimbabwe
government is slowly becoming the perpetrator of
genocide against its own
people. True! The illegal Zimbabwe regime is arming
combatants under the
pretext of fighting so-called western imperialism. What
a shame, when the
people are crying out for their rights, Zanu (PF) has done
all these ugly
things, unhindered by anyone in the neighbourhood.
Zimbabwe should
not be allowed to slip into the kind of violence that
hit Kenya after
disputed elections in December last year, notwithstanding
that Mugabe's
security forces are likely to quickly crack down on any
unrest.
The propaganda machinery, The Herald, has already started whipping up
the
atmosphere for a planned escalation, by reporting that opposition
activists,
villagers with no weapons, are attacking armed soldiers! And the
custodians
of world security a believing this!
God help us.
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:52
MAIN opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai will contest the
looming presidential election run-off despite
his public remarks to the
contrary.
This came as the presidential election candidates or their
agents
yesterday met Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) officials to tackle
the
crisis triggered by the withholding of results — more than a month later
—
due to a demand by President Robert Mugabe for a recount of the
votes.
Yesterday’s emergency meeting took place against a backdrop
of a fresh
problem sparked off by ZEC’s leakage of official results to
defeated Zanu PF
leaders who in turn passed them on to the international
media in a bid to
sustain their pursuit for a run-off.
ZEC and
Zanu PF were anxious to ward off mounting pressure for results
to come out
and build a case for a run-off, especially against a background
of MDC’s
claims that Tsvangirai had won the election outright.
“The result
gives us a decisive victory so there’s no need for a
run-off,” Tsvangirai
told France 24 from Johannesburg yesterday. “How can
you have a run-off when
Mugabe over the last month has been unleashing
violence, death squads and
violence against our structures?”
The MDC says Zanu PF has deployed
state security forces — the army,
police and intelligence units — across the
country to campaign for Mugabe.
This, it says, has triggered a wave
of violence nationwide, which has
claimed more than a dozen lives and left a
climate of fear. A bruising
political campaign is expected in the run-up to
the run-off.
Although Tsvangirai insisted he would not enter a
run-off, information
gleaned from documents on the deal between the two MDC
factions to work
together in parliament shows he will take on Mugabe in the
second round.
“This agreement is premised on the underlying
assumption that Morgan
Tsvangirai has either won the 2008 Zimbabwean
presidential elections held on
29 March 2008, or will face a ‘run-off’
election,” the MDC agreement says.
“In the event of a ‘run-off’
election, the parties undertake to
campaign together to ensure that
Tsvangirai wins the ‘run-off’ election.”
According to ZEC results,
Tsvangirai got 47,8% and Mugabe 43,2% of the
vote. Simba Makoni and Langton
Towungana shared the difference.
This means officially a run-off
would now follow within 21 days after
the official announcement of the
results.
The results leaked to the foreign media this week were the
same as
those given to the candidates yesterday.
The MDC said
it was shocked by the conduct of ZEC and Zanu PF
officials, who after
failing to release figures for more than a month,
leaked the results to the
‘hostile media’.
Candidates, due to meet again today, were given
results but had to
enter a secrecy pledge not to leak the already known
figures.
Verification by the candidates would begin today and may
last a number
of days.
The MDC accord shows that Tsvangirai —
who indicated he would come
back home after announcement of results — will
battle Mugabe in the run-off.
The MDC agreement — facilitated by
exiled local tycoon Strive Masiyiwa
based in South Africa — was finalised
this week.
The reunification of the MDC in parliament effectively
relegated Zanu
PF to opposition benches, while ensuring Mugabe is in the
meantime the
leader of the official opposition.
The two MDC
formations reached the deal meant to secure control of the
House of Assembly
in the aftermath of elections which produced a hung
parliament.
None of the parties was able to win an absolute majority to be in
command
of parliament on its own. This led to cooperation between MDC
factions.
The MDC factions have also agreed to reunify to
revert to being a
single party within a year.
In terms of their
agreement, titled Coalition and Cooperation
Agreement, the parties agreed to
work together not just in parliament, but
also in other platforms, including
during the anticipated presidential
election run-off.
“The
parties acknowledge that they are two separate formations, but
for purposes
of consummating this agreement, the parties irrevocably agree
and undertake
to vote as one, in the legislature,” the document says.
The parties
agreed to have one chief whip and caucus; to vote together
in parliament; to
elect a Speaker of Parliament, nominated by the MDC
(Tsvangirai) and a
deputy speaker from MDC (Mutambara).
Initially it was agreed that
Mutambara’s faction would provide its
deputy leader Gibson Sibanda as the
speaker, but it was later changed.
There had been suggestions that
Welshman Ncube be the speaker but
officials in the Tsvangirai camp
refused.
The Mutambara camp would now provide the deputy speaker
and chief whip
of the united MDC.
However Sibanda could be
appointed President of Senate, sources said
yesterday.
Arrangements in senate depend on whether Tsvangirai wins the run-off
or
not.
The MDC factions also agreed not less than two parliamentary
committee
chairpersons would be from the Mutambara group which would be
fully
represented in all parliamentary committees.
“Tsvangirai
in exercising his prerogative to form a new government in
Zimbabwe, and to
make legislative appointments, undertakes and agrees to
include some elected
legislators and leaders from MDC (Mutambara) into his
government,” it
says.
The agreement says there would be two cabinet ministers from
the MDC
(Mutambara) and four deputy ministers assigned by Tsvangirai in main
ministries “substantially involved in the transformation
process”.
Tsvangirai, if he wins the run-off, would also appoint
two senators
from the Mutambara camp to facilitate the agreement. Tsvangirai
will have
powers to appoint five senators.
Mutambara’s group
will also get not less than five ambassadors, two of
which are in
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nations,
which are
well-developed, and one in a significant developing country.
Tsvangirai has offered to appoint one governor of the three
Matabeleland
provinces from the Mutambara formation.
“In the event of any
vacancy arising in any of the positions for any
reason whatsoever, including
but not limited to death, dismissal,
incapacity, resignation, promotion
and/or demotion, Tsvangirai, as
president, shall be required to appoint a
replacement from nominees of MDC
(Mutambara), within 30 days of such vacancy
occurring,” the agreement says.
“The parties hereby agree that they
will have an irrevocable right and
option to re-unify the two
parties.
The re-unification may take place within a period of 12
months from
the effective date.”
By Dumisani Muleya
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:46
POLICE this week intensified their
crackdown on civil society by
arresting employees of a humanitarian
organisation, Action Aid.
The non-governmental organisation’s acting
director Anne Chipembere,
senior programmes officer Precious Shumba and
three other employees were
arrested in Mayo, Manicaland, by police officers
from the Law and Order
department.
Police spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena confirmed the arrests, but said
the five Action Aid employees had
since been released.
“Investigations are still underway,” said
Bvudzijena. “We came across
these guys in Mayo and we are interested in
finding out the nature of their
business.”
Earlier this week
the police asked to see Zimbabwe Election Support
Network director (Zesn)
Rindai Chipfunde-Vava following last week’s raid on
the organisation’s
Harare offices.
The police seized election-related material from
the offices.
Noel Kutukwa, the chairperson of Zesn, on Monday
handed himself over
to the police and has since been requested to submit the
organisation’s
financial and banking accounts and a written description of
the network’s
operations.
He was also asked to give an
explanation on the role of Zesn in the
March 29 elections.
The
National Association for Non-Governmental Organisations yesterday
said in
the last two weeks similar raids were carried out at Crisis
Coalition,
Centre for Research and Development, and Plan International
offices in
Mutoko.
More than 200 MDC activists were last Friday rounded up by
armed riot
police at the party’s Harvest House headquarters in central
Harare.
However, High Court Judge Anne-Mary Gowora on Monday
ordered their
release after MDC lawyers successfully argued that the search
warrant which
was used to carry out the raid was vague.
Jeremiah Bamu, who represented the MDC members, provided the Zimbabwe
Independent with a copy of the search warrant which says the police raided
the MDC offices in order to search for articles called “suspicious
people”.
“It refers to such suspicious people as articles in the
possession of
or under the control of the MDC or any unlawful occupiers in
Harvest House
which are concerned or believed to be used in the commission
or suspected
commission of an offence or contravening Section 36 of the
Criminal law,”
Bamu said in his founding affidavit.
“It is
inhuman and degrading to refer to any person as an article. It
is
denigrating and demeaning to the human status and must be frowned upon
and
condemned in the strongest censure possible. All human beings are born
equal
in dignity and status .It is therefore quite offending to the virtue
of
humanity to refer to any human as an object or article.”
Bamu
added: “The phrase ‘suspicious’ is too broad and vague for
comfort. There is
no criteria set to identify what constitutes suspicious.
It is not clear in
whose eyes the suspiciousness or otherwise of the people
is to be measured.
As a result, anyone can be indsciminately rounded up
depending on the
caprious whims of whoever deems that person to be
suspicious for that
moment.”
Meanwhile Human Rights Watch this week accused Zimbabwe’s
army of
working with ruling party militants to unleash “terror and violence”
against
dissent.
This comes amid claims by the Morgan
Tsvangirai-led MDC that at least
20 of its supporters have been killed since
the March 29 elections in
politically motivated violence.
In a
statement, the New York-based group joined other international
rights
watchdogs and the MDC in linking violence since a disputed
presidential vote
to the security forces and “war veterans”.
The war veterans are
loyal to President Robert Mugabe and have roots
in the nation’s Independence
struggle.
“Mugabe’s regime has countered that the opposition groups
are
responsible for the violence,” the statement read. “Authorities have
even
arrested scores of people, including women and their nursing babies,
who the
opposition says had taken shelter from violence in the countryside
at its
headquarters in Harare.”
The High Court on Monday
ordered everyone arrested at its headquarters
last week to be
freed.
“The army and its allies — ‘war veterans’ and supporters of
the ruling
party Zanu PF — are intensifying their brutal grip on wide
swathes of rural
Zimbabwe to ensure that a possible second round of
presidential elections
goes their way,” Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at
Human Rights Watch,
said in the statement.
Neither the army
chief nor a government spokesman could be reached for
immediate
comment.
By Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:35
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
has rejected a proposal by Sadc and the
United States to form a government
of national unity (GNU) with former
Finance minister Simba Makoni as one of
its key members.
Impeccable sources told the Zimbabwe Independent
that Tsvangirai last
Thursday told the US assistant secretary of state for
African Affairs
Jendayi Frazer in Pretoria that the MDC did not want Makoni
to be part of a
government of national unity or a transitional
one.
The sources said Frazer had suggested that Tsvangirai should
work with
Makoni and Zanu PF to come up with a GNU as a solution to the
country’s
deepening political crisis heightened by the failure of the
Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission to announce the results of the March 29
presidential
poll.
Apart from the US, Sadc is reportedly also
pushing for a GNU, or a
transitional government, in Zimbabwe and want Makoni
to play a crucial role
in its formation.
Sadc leaders think
that a presidential election run-off would not
resolve the current situation
but only worsen it.
This view is shared by some in
Zimbabwe.
The MDC does not want the run-off because it says
Tsvangirai won
outright in the first round.
“Tsvangirai
rejected the idea of Makoni becoming part of his
government,” one of the
sources said. “He accused Makoni of undermining him
in Sadc by suggesting
that there should be a transitional government headed
by him instead of
Tsvangirai who won the presidential election.”
Makoni reportedly
told an extraordinary meeting of Sadc on the
Zimbabwe crisis on April 12
that he should lead a transitional government
made up of Zanu PF and the
MDC.
However, Tsvangirai questioned his proposal, arguing that the
ex-finance minister came in a distant third in the presidential elections
and could not be a leader without a mandate from the people.
Speaking to journalists after meeting Tsvangirai, Frazer acknowledged
the
possibility that negotiations between the ruling party, led by President
Robert Mugabe, and the opposition may be necessary.
However,
the US ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee this week denied
that Frazer had
asked Tsvangirai to consider a government of national unity
or a
transitional arrangement with Zanu PF and Makoni.
“It’s not true
that my boss made that suggestion,” McGee said. “It’s
up to the parties
involved to decide the way forward. The will of the
people, however, should
be respected.”
Sources said top officials in the Makoni camp last
week tried to meet
the MDC leadership to “clear the air” over various
issues, but Tsvangirai
reportedly spurned the move.
The gap
between Tsvangirai and Makoni widened this week when the
former finance
minister told a South African television station, etv, that
the opposition
leader and Mugabe should not be part of a transitional
government.
Instead, Makoni said someone else, apparently
himself, should lead it.
Makoni had suggested before the elections
that if he won he would
establish a transitional authority to run the
country before fresh polls are
held. “The utterances by Makoni on etv have
further offended Tsvangirai,” a
source said. “It will be very difficult for
them to work together.”
Makoni and his group tried to force
Tsvangirai to drop out of the
recent election, claiming that they had a
better chance of winning but
failed.
A meeting between the two
to resolve the issue failed to take place.
MDC spokesperson Nelson
Chamisa said his party would not yield to
pressure from any quarter to have
people imposed on it. “We are not going to
work with people simply because
of pressure from whatever quarters. We will
determine our arrangement,
programme and the course of events,” Chamisa
said.
“However,
our lines of communication remain open to all progressive
Zimbabweans. If
Makoni is one of those, we are open to communicate and even
work with him,
but we will not be pressured to do so. It seems there are
some people who
think we have an obligation to work with or be led by him.
Where does Makoni
or his supporters get this notion that he is ordained to
rule?”
The sources said despite the Tsvangirai-Makoni stand off, Sadc –
through
South African President Thabo Mbeki – was still pressing ahead with
its
proposal for a GNU to avoid a presidential run-off between Mugabe and
Tsvangirai this month which they argue would deepen the Zimbabwe
crisis.
Mbeki this week dispatched his envoy Kingsley Mamabolo to
Harare to
push negotiations for a compromise solution.
Sources
said Sadc wanted to avoid the presidential run-off saying its
outcome was
likely to increase political tension, fuel violence and claims
lives.
Sadc and other African countries, the sources said,
wanted a
transitional government to give the country a chance to reorganise
itself
and come up with an effective government.
They argue
that Tsvangirai and the MDC need time to learn the ropes of
government
before they could take full control. “The thinking is that the
MDC needs
help to be able to form an effective government,” a source said.
“A
winner-takes-all solution won’t work.”
The MDC appears amenable to
these proposals.
Tendai Biti, MDC secretary-general, last week said
the MDC would
accept a transitional government provided Mugabe was not part
of it.
“We have said that we have no problem with a transitional
government
but our terms are as follows: Mugabe cannot be part of it, Mugabe
belongs to
the past, he is a hyena,” Biti said in a radio
interview.
“The new Zimbabwe belongs to cheetahs, so that is our
answer. You
cannot afford a winner-take-all situation. It cannot be a
transitional
government in which Mugabe is at the helm. Quite clearly
Tsvangirai won this
election so he has to be the dominant player, but
everyone must play a role
in it.”
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:32
SENIOR state security agents
in Mashonaland West have started
re-orientation lectures in preparation for
a presidential election run-off
later this month.
Sources
told the Zimbabwe Independent that the lectures kicked-off
last
Friday.
“The lectures started on Friday and are being attended by
senior
police officers from the rank of assistant inspector and other senior
security agents,” one of the sources said.
The source added
that most of the agents are former freedom fighters
and have been in the
police, army and prison service for long.
“The programme is being
run by a retired assistant commissioner who
has been on a roadshow carrying
out the same re-orientation programme
throughout the province,” the sources
added.
The retired assistant commissioner reportedly told the
security agents
that if the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai wins the election
run-off against
President Robert Mugabe they would lose their jobs and
luxury cars.
“The assistant commissioner told them that they are
going to lose
their jobs if Tsvangirai wins and they will have to re-apply
and wait for
the new government to invite them back into the force,” the
sources added.
As part of the re-orientation exercise, the retired
police officer is
reportedly using a document purportedly authored by the
MDC
secretary-general, Tendai Biti, and published in the public media to
claim
that the opposition party wanted to surrender control of the security
forces
to white people.
The state media was last week forced to
retract the article after
Biti, through his lawyers, threatened to take
legal action against them. —
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:30
BISHOP Sebastian Bakare of
the fractious Anglican Diocese of Harare
has accused the government of
persecuting “Anglican Christians” to protect
fired Bishop Nolbert
Kunonga.
Kunonga, a Zanu PF apologist and a beneficiary of the
chaotic 2000
land reform programme, was expelled from the church last
year.
Bakare’s accusations against the government came after riot
police
allegedly intimidated and dispersed over 3 200 women from all over
the
country who were commemorating Mary’s Day in Mbare.
“The
events of the past weekend have led me to believe that there is a
deliberate
attempt to persecute Anglican Christians in this diocese,” Bakare
alleged.
“Three thousand two hundred members of Mothers’ Union had gathered
at St
Michael’s Church Mbare to commemorate Mary’s Day and were chased away
by
riot police under a so-called directive from above, are a case in
point.”
He added: “Why do the police enforcement agents keep on
telling us
that they are getting “orders from above” when they come to
interfere with
our services? After all Kunonga has no followers except a few
clergy and
their families.”
“As a bishop of this diocese I was
reminded of Christian churches who
were persecuted in communist countries
before the fall of the iron curtain,”
he said.
By Bernard
Mpofu
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 21:25
THE United States says the
international community should intervene in
Zimbabwe to end state-sponsored
political violence that has sparked a human
rights crisis.
US
ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee, in an interview with
independent media
journalists in the capital on Tuesday, said the post-March
29 election
violence had resulted in a humanitarian crisis.
“The primary issue
in Zimbabwe now is the political violence,” McGee
said. “Besides the
political crisis, we now have a human rights crisis and
in some instances a
humanitarian issue…The international community should
intervene to stop the
animal-type brutality.”
The ambassador declined to specify the type
of intervention the US
wanted in Zimbabwe.
“It is not the
business of the US to intervene, it is up to the UN,
but at the moment
indications are nothing is happening at the UN,” he said.
“We believe in
continuing with diplomacy to find a solution to the crisis.
We agree that
the Zimbabwe case requires African involvement and
international
involvement.”
McGee said the US had empirical evidence that the
government was
behind the political violence in the country and warned that
perpetrators
would one day face justice.
He said the government
embarked on violence after the electorate
“voted for change”.
The ambassador said there was no doubt that MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai won
the election against President Robert Mugabe, but was quick
to point out
that the US was not sure whether he garnered the 50% plus votes
for him to
assume power.
“The will of the people should prevail,” McGee said.
“The people of
Zimbabwe have spoken. They have spoken through their votes
and the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission should announce the results of the
presidential
election.”
He said the US had forwarded a dossier
to the government containing
pictures of assaulted villagers and their
affidavits on how they were
brutalised by state security agents, Zanu PF
militia and war veterans.
“We have handed over evidence of violence
to the government. There are
pictures of assaulted people and there are
affidavits from the victims
narrating what happened to them,” McGee
said.
He said the dossier was given to the government after it
claimed that
there was no violence in rural areas.
“We have
given them the evidence. It is up to the government to give
us evidence that
there is no violence against the opposition,” he said. “Out
of the over 500
cases recorded, only one was allegedly perpetrated by the
opposition.
We are watching and one day justice will prevail,”
McGee added.
The career diplomat said the US — which has maintained
visa and
financial sanctions against Mugabe and his top lieutenants since
2002 —
could widen and tighten the punitive measures to force the Harare
administration to uphold human rights.
He denied categorically
that Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown was a result
of economic sanctions imposed
on the country by Britain, the US and
international community.
McGee said Zimbabwe was failing to get lines of credit from
multilateral
organisations because of its track record of failing to service
debts.
“The country cannot access lines of credit because it
does not repay
debts. It owes the World Bank US$600 million,” he explained.
“The country
also owes the African Development Bank — where the US has one
vote — US$400
million.
How then can you access credit lines if
you don’t service debts? Are
these sanctions?”
By Constantine
Chimakure
Zim Independent
Local
Thursday, 01 May 2008 19:13
ZIMBABWE joins the rest of
the world in marking World Press Freedom
Day, May 3 still carrying the
infamous crown of being one of the worst
violators of media and freedom of
expression rights in the world.
Despite attempts to cover up this
distinction thorough amendments to
repressive legislation in December 2007,
the reality on the ground indicates
that the Zanu PF government, still
holding on to power, has not changed its
spots.
Zimbabwe is
probably one of the few countries that are unashamed of
not only arresting
but detaining journalists on cooked up charges ranging
from the
criminalisation of the profession itself to charges of political
violence.
As a result of this two journalists are in state
detention awaiting
trial at the time of writing.
From
experience, we are in no doubt that these cases will not stand
the scrutiny
of any competent court but those arrested will have served
their
“sentence”.
The levels of harassment, fear and anxiety that pervert
the journalism
profession is so far reaching that many are afraid of even
being seen
carrying out interviews or taking pictures in
public.
In fact this madness has reached such levels that the
apparatuses of
repression can no longer distinguish between their “own
journalists”,
meaning those tasked with fuelling the propaganda machinery of
the party and
their “real enemies”, the journalists working for the
independent media.
Hence the thorough beating of journalists and
media workers from the
state broadcaster, the ZBC, a few weeks
ago.
We sympathise with our colleagues at the ZBC, and indeed feel
for them
and hope that this incident serves as a practical example and
reality check
on how Zanu PF and security agents are perpetrating
violence.
Next time ZBC reporters such as Reuben Barwe report that
violence
against innocent civilians is non-existent, at least they can lift
their
heads across the newsroom and see living examples of such
violence.
That should sober up our overzealous colleagues at the
state media who
are too fond of falling for the official line without the
slightest attempt
at objectivity.
This abuse has even taken the
form of the state media being used as an
official propaganda channel by the
CIO.
Many of the letters to the editor appearing in state
newspapers appear
to be originating from Red Bricks.
More
chilling for journalists is the behaviour of the police and
militia groups
who are showing a frightening distaste for the word
journalist.
I know that from a war veteran uncle who thinks that journalists work
for
the British and Americans.
Following this line of thinking, a
fellow journalist was arrested
while filming at the Fourth Street bust
terminus.
His alleged crime was that he had filmed the hive of
activity at
Zimbabwe’s foreign currency exchange market.
Professing his innocence and his right to work by producing the
MIC-issued
accreditation card did not help matters.
The journalist ran the
tape backwards to show that, in fact, he had
not filmed the police, again
this did not help.
The police, he was told, are under instructions
to arrest journalists.
This sounds like something from Stalin’s Soviet Union
or Pol Pot’s Cambodia,
but it is Zimbabwe.
The journalist and
his camera were duly dragged throughout the city
centre on their way to
Harare Police Station.
Along the way a call was made that a
journalist had been arrested and
the chefs at the central station were
already preparing a place for him.
The police officers confessed
that they had been told to arrest
journalists, anyone who claims to be a
journalist and seen in public doing
their work.
Zanu PF through
its apparatchiks such as George Charamba and Tafataona
Mahoso have poisoned
the media profession so badly over the years that it
will take a lot of work
to restore sanity.
In the true sense of the word, it is difficult
to talk of any serious
media business or journalism in Zimbabwe as a result
of the environment of
fear that Zanu PF has created.
The
remaining independent media voices are under so much pressure
economically
and from state security agents to the extent that some cannot
even trust
their own staff.
In an environment where the intelligence is able
to read independent
newspapers before they are published, one really wonders
what else the CIO
is capable of doing.
The media and the
profession of journalism are much worse when you
have individuals such as
Charamba and Mahoso who find pleasure in the
collapse of an industry they
should have helped grow.
By Rashweat Mukundu:Media monitoring and
research programme specialist
based in Windhoek, Namibia.
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 01 May 2008 20:30
THE Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon this week increased
withdrawal limits for
both individuals and corporates barely.
Gono increased the
withdrawal limits for individuals and corporates
from $1 billion to $5
billion a day.
“As advised to financial institutions on the 3rd of
April 2008, the
daily cash withdrawal limit for both individuals and
corporates was reviewed
to $1 billion,” Gono said.
“In order to
provide further relief to depositors, the daily cash
withdrawal limit to
both individuals and corporates has been increased to $5
billion dollars
with immediate effect.”
The immediate problem for the banking
public is what it can buy. The
$5 billion limit will buy fewer commodities
next week because of galloping
inflation.
Soon the public will
be asking for more as inflation continues to
erode the limit.
Even at the current prices $5 billion does not buy much.
Economic
analyst John Robertson said the $5 billion would barely cover
basic
expenses and that it was too little for corporates, resulting in
multiple
accounts.
“We’ve got evidence in the inflation rate, what appeared
to be a good
figure a month ago has now turned out to be
worthless.
Likewise what may appear to be a good figure may not
turn out to be so
sometime from now,” he said.
Gono increased
the amount of local currency that can be exported or
imported on a person or
his baggage to pay for various travel related
expenses at the border posts
to $5 billion from $500 million.
Gono admitted that inflation had
proven difficult to tame. For this he
blamed the failure of the social
contract to take off.
He said the RBZ would continue maintaining
tight monetary conditions
by increasing interest rates.
Unsecured accommodation rate went to 5 000%, up from 4 500% while
secured
accommodation rates are now pegged at 4 500% from 4 000%.
“It is
imperative to note that the Reserve Bank continues to have no
appetite for
lending money to the banking system, and banking institutions
are called
upon to mobilise deposits through their normal banking business
processes
and programmes,” Gono said.
Economic analysts said the interest
rates unveiled by Gono were too
little considering that inflation is fast
approaching the 200 000% mark.
Robertson said the rates are too low
as they are quickly eroded by
inflation. The move according to him is likely
to result in pensioners
losing their money.
“These interest
rates are damaging the relationship between borrowers
and lenders as the
latter is likely to watch their money disappear,” said
Robertson.
Gono delivered his monetary policy as the inflation
rate continued to
gallop due to increased money supply.
Broad
money supply has been on an upward trend, shooting from 1638,4%
in January
2007 to 51 768,8% in November of the same year.
Domestic debt grew
by 96 233,6% in November 2007 largely driven by
growth in credit to the
private sector, 125 348,4%, government credit which
was 53 796,1% and claims
on public enterprises which amounted to 28 757,2%.
“Gono mentioned
the domestic debt but he didn’t comment on where the
money came from. He
also did not mention the consequences of the domestic
debt and how it will
move the country further into hyper inflation,” said
Robertson.
“There was little information on how the government will fund its
operations
and requirements in the future.
There was no revelation on what the
plans are with the currency as the
zeros have become too many resulting in
people and companies failing to
cope”
Credit to the private
sector continues to dominate domestic debt
rising to $307,9 billion in
November 2006 and $386.3 trillion in November
2007.
“The
increase in lending to the private sector is mainly driven by
loans and
advances against a background of limited offshore financing,” said
Gono.
“The bulk of the funding is used for working capital
requirements,
impacting adversely on capital developments.”
The
RBZ governor blamed the absence of external support as the reason
for the
continuous reliance of government on domestic bank sources to
finance its
operations.
In April government debt was at $6,480 quadrillion of
which Treasury
bills amounted to $2,986 quadrillion.
Credit
supplies which were largely restricted to Agricultural
Parastatals recorded
an annual growth of 28 757,2% from $16,9 billion in
November 2006 to $4,9
trillion in November 2007.
Gono blamed sanctions for the economic
crisis but his explanations
found few takers in the market.
Economic analyst Tony Hawkins said there was no point pretending that
the
problems being experienced were as a result of external factors.
“The problem is government expenditure,” Hawkins said.
He said the
government had created a crisis and were now coming up
with artificial ideas
to control the crisis.
Though admitting that some beneficiaries of
the Basic Commodities
Supply Side Intervention (Bacossi) were diverting
funds, Gono said the
facility will be extended.
He also
extended the Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement
Facility
(Aspef).
“On application, each company shall commit to producing
and delivering
specific output levels, over explicit timeframes and the
Bacossi support
will be extended on a reimbursement basis, based on actual
output produced,”
Gono said.
Hawkins said the Bacossi was not
the answer to the current problems in
the industry. “What is required is an
open market that is driven by interest
rates and other appropriate market
forces,” Hawkins said.
An economist with a local commercial bank
said although the Bacossi
had been essential in saving some companies from
collapse, it was
essentially a bad idea supporting other bad
ideas.
“As a country we are paying the price, the country has lost
its pool
savings by availing these cheap funds, we cannot build anything
because no
savings means no investments,” he said.
“We need
people from other countries to bring in their savings to
sustain the
Bacossi, by that we are continuing to destroy our savings.”
By
Jeslyn Dendere
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 01 May 2008 20:26
A DRASTIC decline in
mining exports and delays in opening the tobacco
auction floors saw the
country’s foreign currency-starved economy recording
an 8% decline in net
export receipts for the first quarter of this year
compared to last
year.
This decline in export trade comes at a time when the country
is
facing a severe economic crisis on the back of reduced productivity
levels
in industry and a weakening local currency.
The Reserve
Bank governor, Gideon Gono, in his first quarter Monetary
Policy Statement
(MPS) on Wednesday, said export proceeds recorded from the
first quarter
this year were US$250 271 354 compared to US$273 307 948
recorded during the
same period last year.
An increase in inflows from the diaspora
pushed foreign currency
receipts from Money Transfer Agencies (MTAs) to
US$22 210 118 from about
US$3 102 994 recorded in the same period in
2007.
This increase represented a 616% change.
Income
receipts dropped to US$2 620 461 this year down from US$7 830
282 earned
last year.
Capital investments, however improved significantly to
over a US$1,8
million from about US$4 500 recorded last year.
This means that people continue to send money to their relatives in
Zimbabwe.
Loan proceeds also declined by 63% as the country’s
isolation from the
financial world continue.
For the period
under review Zimbabwe only managed to get US$13 625 424
in foreign loans
compared to US$36 779 223 achieved during the same period
last
year.
Free funds increased by 15% to achieve US$113 701 452 from
US$98 445
116 recorded during the first quarter of last year.
Gono said there was also a decline in total monthly export shipments
in the
period under review.
Although the mining sector continued to top
the export contributors
this year dropped to about US$182 million in the
period from January to
March compared to US$850 recorded last
year.
The total foreign currency receipts from the gold sector
slumped by
49%. The main reason for this downturn was the decline in gold
production.
Most mines have been struggling to remain viable
because of foreign
currency shortages and power outages.
A low
support price and delays by the central bank in paying for gold
deliveries
also affected the production.
Zimbabwe is now expected to produce
3,6 tonnes of gold this year down
from 6,7 tonnes recorded last
year.
At its peak Zimbabwe produced 27 tonnes in 2000.
University professor Anthony Hawkins said the decline in exports was a
reflection of an ailing economy.
“This is just part of a
collapsing economy characterised by a
completely screwed up and distorted
policy framework,” Hawkins said.
He said the “overvalued” local
currency on the official market,
frequent power cuts and erratic supplies
had led to the decline in exports.
He said that only a change in
government could transform the pattern
of this country.
“This
trend can only change when there is a change in government,” he
said.
Gono’s monetary policy came as tobacco farmers continued
to withhold
their crop from the auction floors as they protest depressed
prices.
Tobacco was once among the country’s top foreign currency
earners
before the sector was destroyed by government’s land
reform.
Despite slow trading at the auction floors, the central
bank is
expecting deliveries at the floors to surge.
“Owing to the
support the sector has received from the Reserve Bank,
production in the
2007/2008 season is expected to surpass the 63 million kgs
realized in
2007,” Gono said.
Agriculture, the erstwhile mainstay of Zimbabwe’s
agro-based economy,
failed to generate sufficient foreign currency that
could match last year’s
earnings.
Despite being dubbed the
“Mother of all agricultural seasons”,
earnings in the first quarter of the
2007/2008 season significantly dropped
to US$38 million against US$224
million in 2007.
Although manufacturers are now exporting in order
to keep afloat
against a backdrop of government -imposed price controls, the
sector
continues to reel from suppressed capacity utilisation reported to be
around
10%.
Export earnings from the sector took a nosedive
recoding almost a
quarter of the US$283 million recorded in
2007.
“The exporting sector is being affected by foreign currency
shortages
for procure raw materials, low capacity utitlisation,
hyperinflation and
massive skilled labour flight,” Economic analyst Luxon
Zembe said.
Zembe also blamed the Reserve Bank for expansionary
policies, which he
said were counterproductive to business
growth.
He said there was need for a major foreign currency
injection of $5
billion to kickstart the economy.
Zim Independent
Business
Thursday, 01 May 2008 20:21
AFRICA
is and for a long time will remain one of the major mining
areas of the
world and its position in the geography of global mining in
terms of
resources, production and trade appears quite strong.
However, this
apparent strong position fails to adequately reflect the
underlying
reality.
Africa is the birthplace of mining activity with the
oldest ever
discovered mine that was operated more than 45 000 years ago
located on an
iron site in Swaziland.
Even at the beginning of
European adventures into Africa there was
evidence of fairly developed iron
metallurgy.
Notwithstanding Africa’s undisputed pioneering mining
and
metallurgical tradition, its modern mineral story commenced with the
diamond
rush in Southern Africa at the end of the 19th century.
The decolonisation of Africa was partly motivated by a shared vision
to
democratise access to the continent’s vast resources by all its peoples
and
yet after more than 50 years of uhuru, attempts to challenge the
hegemony of
Western capital’s dominance of Africa’s resources have not
succeeded.
The mining industry we see today in Africa is not a
consequence of an
accident of history but a direct result of the interplay
between European
state and non-state actors who in their wisdom decided to
appropriate to
themselves and their successors the continent’s rich heritage
to the extent
that we still have no significant indigenous challenge to the
colonially-inherited positions and interests of international mining
capital.
Unlike European colonisation of South America which
was from the
beginning linked to the exploitation of precious metals, gold
and silver,
Africa’s mercantilist capitalism was for centuries based on
plundering human
resources through the slave trade and mineral wealth was
largely neglected.
Early in the 20th century, the whole continent
of Africa with the
exception of Ethiopia, was under colonial domination and,
therefore, its
mineral resources were franchised to private companies based
on banking and
industrial monopolies underpinned by capital conquests and in
some instances
on violent conquest by the European powers.
The
independent adventurers who participated in the diamond rush of
the 1870s in
Southern Africa were supported and manipulated by British
imperialism.
At this time, the main mining companies which were
to dominate the
African mining scene for the last 120 years were established
— mainly Rio
Tinto-Zinc, De Beers, Consolidated Gold Fields — with people
like Rhodes
playing a leading role as one of the founding fathers of African
mining.
Rhodes, as his fellow Rand Lords, made huge profits from
Africa’s rich
mineral resources and there is no evidence of either any
indigenous person
ever being allowed by the colonial state to acquire wealth
from mineral
resources or such class of individuals faring any better in the
post-colonial state.
In post-colonial Africa, the competition
for exploiting Africa’s
mineral wealth is now between
European/American/Canadian/Australian and
Chinese/Indian capital with
indigenous Africans continually playing a
marginal role.
Although cronyism is often frowned upon in post-colonial Africa, the
colonial experience was characterised by close ties between Britain and
European financial centres and the Rand Lords who gained power and prestige
that has been seamlessly transmitted to their successors at the exclusion of
indigenous people.
By the end of the 19th century, Rhodes who
owned both De Beers and
Gold Fields had founded the British South Africa
Company (BSAC), a company
that was to play a leading role in the
colonisation of central Africa.
Until the mid-1920s when the
British administration took over, BSAC
ruled the territories of Zimbabwe and
Zambia.
Truncated agreements with the local chiefs granted mining
concessions
to the BSAC in all the territories it ruled and such
arrangements were
readily confirmed by the British government.
Later, BSAC granted an exclusive licence to two mining enterprises
owned by
British, American and South African interests.
It was only in 1964
that the post-colonial Zambian government acquired
the concession rights of
BSAC against a compensation of £2 million.
However, the government
of Zambia had nothing to show for its
ownership of the copper mines
suggesting a faulty line in the construction
of a post-colonial mining
strategy.
The pattern of granting mining rights whereby colonialism
was
organised by private mining companies with the support and on behalf of
the
imperial state was not limited to British Central and Southern Africa
but
was also applied to the Belgian Congo where the Katanga Mining Company
was
the ruler.
As we negotiate Africa’s future, it is important
that we attempt to
locate the role of indigenous monopolies in the quest to
broaden and deepen
empowerment.
Would it be harmful to Africa’s
future if we created our own New Rand
Lords to take the lead? What should be
the role of the post-colonial state?
What should also be the role of African
citizens in the reconfiguration of
the politics of African
mining?
The political balkanisation of the continent inherited from
the
colonial state presents one of the major challenges that post-colonial
Africa faces especially in the contemporary era marked by the setting up of
great politico-economic entities like the EU and the modernisation of China
and India.
The fortunes of African geology and history located
the main deposits
in countries of limited economic and demographic size
raising the question
of the significance of a fragmented Africa on the
global stage in the face
of homogenous consuming zones such as India,
Brazil, EU, China, USA, Canada
or Australia.
It must and should
be accepted that for the foreseeable future, Africa
will probably remain a
strategic theatre for external operators and many
conditions must be
realised before it can become an autonomous actor with
its own
strategies.
A large share of African mineral resources are located
in South Africa
which was a colonial and racist regional power block prior
to 1994 and,
therefore, any meaningful change to the character and content
of an
inclusive mineral development strategy will necessarily have to start
by
creating new Rand Lords supported by the new republic just as colonial
capital was supported by imperialism.
It can be argued that as
long there are no serious internal political
and economic changes in Africa
towards homogenisation, the prospect of any
attempt to challenge the
historically acquired hegemony over African mineral
resources by a few South
Africa-based oligopolies and the newly
industrialising countries like China
succeeding is remote.
By Mutumwa Mawere: A Zimbabwean born
businessman based in South
Africa.
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 01 May 2008 22:50
AS the post-March 29
electoral standoff begins to gather even more
dangerous momentum with
growing reports of electoral intimidation, political
violence, murders and
the destruction of homes across the country
at a time when the
battered economy is exacting a new deadly toll on
helpless Zimbabweans,
three scenarios are emerging as the only possible ways
out. These
are:
*The holding of a presidential run-off between Morgan
Tsvangirai and
Robert Mugabe towards the end of this month to break the
March 29 electoral
deadlock and facilitate a winner-takes-all outcome with
the winner almost
guaranteed to be Tsvangirai as Mugabe can no longer win
any election whether
free or not.
*A boycott of the run-off by
Tsvangirai under the claim that he won
the first round on March 29. The
consequence would be to hand the presidency
to the embattled Mugabe on a
silver electoral platter.
*A negotiated 24-month transitional
government to break not just the
March 29 electoral stalemate but also to
resolve the deep-seated political,
economic and constitutional crisis that
has dogged Zimbabwe generally since
Independence and particularly over the
last nine years.
The first scenario of a run-off is the most
straightforward as it is a
necessary step in terms of the Electoral
Act.
If there are two or more candidates in a presidential election
and
none of them gets an absolute majority of at least 50% plus one vote in
the
poll, there should be a run-off between the candidates with the first
and
second highest votes within 21 days of the election
results.
The official position, which has been by and large
corroborated by
independent sources which may differ on the actual figures,
is that no
presidential candidate on March 29 received the required legal
threshold to
win outright.
Objectively, all indications are
that Tsvangirai would trounce Mugabe
in the run-off. The reasons for this
are not difficult to understand.
Mugabe has become widely and
deeply unpopular with a majority of
voters who see him not just as too old
to remain in office after 28 years of
his failed rule but who also see him
as the personification of the biting
economic crisis about which he clearly
has no solution.
The feeling now among voters is no longer about
electing the right
person or the right party with the right policy but about
choosing a
different person and different party with a different policy.
Tsvangirai and
the MDC fit that bill.
The mind of the
electorate is now so fixed against Mugabe that if he
were to contest against
a donkey in the run-off, the donkey would win by a
landslide not because
anyone would vote for it but simply because people
would vote against Mugabe
and thus benefit the donkey.
What makes the task even more
impossible for Mugabe is that Zanu PF is
no longer united behind him. It is
now split in the middle with one half
decidedly against Mugabe’s continued
rule and is ready to work with the
opposition while the other half supports
him during the day only to spend
the night scheming ways about how to
replace him internally.
The results of the March 29 election
clearly show that the biggest
loser was Mugabe as he lost big not only to
Tsvangirai but also to the MDC
and Zanu PF!
Therefore, there is
no doubt that Tsvangirai would win the run-off as
he would be supported by a
de facto united front of opposition and ruling
party forces.
Mugabe would be haunted by the very problem that he sought to avoid by
having “harmonised” elections: namely that his party would play “bhora
musango” against him.
While there is no doubt that Tsvangirai
would win the run-off, there
is every doubt that he would be able to govern
the day after when prospects
of instability would emerge and threaten his
regime in very destabilising
ways.
This is because the present
constitutional, legal, institutional,
bureaucratic and policy environment in
Zimbabwe is deeply underwritten by
Mugabe’s 28 year legacy which is run by
his associates who would be prone to
playing dirty games to undermine and
sabotage the new dispensation after the
run-off.
It is a matter
of the public record that some of Mugabe’s key
associates in the security
forces have said that they would neither salute
Tsvangirai nor support his
MDC government should he win the presidential
election.
These
include but are not limited to General Constantine Chiwenga,
Retired Major
General Paradzayi Zimondi, Commissioner-General Augustine
Chihuri,
Brigadier-General David Sigauke and Major-General Martin Chetondo.
Their public position is inherently destabilising and is cause for
serious
reflection about the dangers of Tsvangirai’s certain success in a
winner-takes-all run-off.
The MDC itself has added fuel to the
fires of this potential
instability by failing to provide security
guarantees to Mugabe and his
associates beyond worthless rhetorical promises
that keep changing by the
day.
Eyebrows were raised a few weeks
ago when the MDC publicly called on
the International Criminal Court to
start investigating Mugabe and his
associates with a view to prosecuting
them now.
The call hardened attitudes inside Mugabe’s crumbling
powerhouse which
nevertheless still has an institutional capacity to cause
mayhem against a
Tsvangirai victory in the run-off.
If
Tsvangirai boycotts the run-off as posited in the second scenario,
then
Mugabe and his cronies would smile all the way back to State House.
This is in fact the scenario they are praying for because it would
enable
them to claim victory, however empty, on the back of a constitutional
and
legalistic position that they would use to paint Tsvangirai as an
electoral
coward.
But even if Mugabe were to win by the backdoor through an
unfortunate
Tsvangirai boycott of the run-off, the sobering reality is that
the already
catastrophic economic situation in the country would deteriorate
to levels
never before imagined and Zimbabwe would truly become hell on
earth.
The very real and most likely yet utterly destabilising
effects of the
first and second scenarios have given rise to a third
post-March 29
scenario: a negotiated transitional government.
What fundamentally drives the third scenario is the realisation that,
after
28 years of de facto one-party and one-man rule which sums up the
Mugabe
legacy, Zimbabwe does not have the means of changing its government
or
national leadership while also conserving the soul of the nation in
constitutional, legal and institutional terms.
A nation with a
system of a de facto one-party and one-man rule cannot
move forward and be
democratically-transformed through an election.
In such a system,
elections are used to keep and not change the
government and its leader.
Indeed, it is critical for Zimbabweans and others
with good intentions of
helping out to understand that an election is not a
conflict resolution
mechanism.
Resolving the Zimbabwean crisis necessarily requires a
transition from
Mugabe’s legacy of a de facto one-party and one-man rule to
an
institutionally based and a constitutionally defined dispensation whose
pillars would not be threatened by any change of government or leadership
through a democratic election.
It is for this reason that the
third scenario has a lot of appeal
among nationalist and patriotic elements
who recognise and accept the
electoral victory of the MDC and Tsvangirai but
also fear that the victory
might be subverted and rendered meaningless by
the unreformed constitutional
and institutional legacy of Mugabe’s 28-year
one-man and one-party rule.
By Professor Moyo:The independent
MP-elect for Tsholotsho North.
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 01 May 2008 18:47
POLITICAL analyst and
Tsholotsho North MP Professor Jonathan Moyo
spoke to South Africa’s City
Press newspaper on Sunday on the unfolding
Zimbabwe crisis.
Here is what he had to say:
Q: What is going to happen in the next
couple of weeks in your view?
A: WE have to come to some closure on
the March 29 election and that
specific process should be wrapped up by the
end of this week.
By this time next week we should know what
officialdom says was the
final outcome of both the presidential election,
the results of which have
not been announced, and the parliamentary election
which has been going
through a recount in 23 constituencies.
However, that will not assist much because it’s the official position,
which
will not have many takers given that it has been compromised by the
inexplicable delay surrounding the presidential poll results and also the
inexplicable decision to order a recount of 23 constituencies whose results
had been declared as final.
It is unusual, in fact unheard of,
that an authority declares the
final result, turns around and reopens the
same results. In terms of due
process, when an authority has made a final
declaration, it stands. It can
only be overturned by another authority, in
this case the Electoral Court.
Even if that authority discovers
something wrong, when they do that,
their discovery should form part of an
affidavit that is submitted to
somebody else to look at.
So we
have this background in which the first public reaction will be
to question
the official declaration that must be made this week.
We are about
to move to the real problem which is a political
stand-off in
Zimbabwe.
And that stand-off will not be resolved by the official
declaration of
the results, whatever is declared.
It is also
important to remember that the political stand-off is in
fact the real issue
that has remained unresolved.
We are back to square
one.
Before March 29 there was a political stalemate in Zimbabwe
and there
had been attempts earlier, throughout much of 2007, to resolve the
political
stalemate through mediation.
But we know that
mediation by South Africa mandated by Sadc didn’t
resolve the political
stalemate.
In fact, that mediation, like this election, ended in a
stalemate.
It was inconclusive.
So the Zimbabwean
story is a story of stalemates, even though we must
observe that the
mediation assisted the levelling of the political field
ahead of the March
29 election.
We have to note, however, that it was unsuccessful in
two respects.
One, levelling the field to ensure that Zimbabwe has
an election whose
outcome will not be disputed. Well we know that this
election has produced
an outcome that is disputed.
The
mediation had also come up with a new draft constitution and
transitional
mechanisms for Morgan Tsvangirai.
The new draft constitution was
drafted and signed by the various
parties but unimplemented.
There were various calls, especially from the MDC, to have the
elections
under that new draft constitution.
Mugabe and Zanu PF resisted
that.
The mediators accommodated that resistance,
unfortunately.
But what has happened now takes us back to that time
when there was an
agreement on a new constitution and disagreement over when
it should be
implemented.
Now that the election has failed to
resolve the political stand-off,
the mediation must take over from the
election and deal with the political
stand-off, taking into account both the
progress made after the election and
also the new situation created by the
election.
The new situation that has been created by the election
is that MDC
Tsvangirai got the most votes in parliament.
The
mediation must now take into account that the MDC which had 41
seats
combined with the other MDC in a 150-member chamber now has 109 in a
210
seat chamber.
Zanu PF, which before the election, during the
mediation, commanded
two thirds majority now finds itself not only having
lost the two thirds
majority which empowered it to change the constitution,
but without even a
simple majority.
That is an important
reality that must be taken into account moving
forward with the
mediation.
Q: What are the factors at play in this
stand-off?
A: Well the political stand-off in Zimbabwe has been
unfolding over
the past nine years.
It is an all encompassing
stand off precipitated by a combination of
two things.
One, the
collapse of the Zimbabwean formal economy which started in
1997 when the
Zanu PF government gave and sanctioned an unjustified
compensation to war
veterans which severely tainted the economy, thereafter
continued with the
military campaign in the DRC and with devastating effects
on the
economy.
It could not sustain that and it worsened in February 2000
after the
rejection of the draft constitution followed by massive land
invasions which
then became the basis of a new land reform
programme.
It had dire consequences on the economy.
We
saw unprecedented flight of capital and loss of confidence in the
economy,
which coincided with the emergence of the MDC as a very serious
political
opposition to Zanu PF and the beginning of Mugabe’s unpopularity
and the
increasing resort to force and other coercive means to retain
power.
Now the stand-off is characterised by a complete shutdown of
Zimbabwe’s
economy.
Now factories in Zimbabwe are not
working.
There is no production and the Zimbabwean treasury coffers
have no
forex because there are no exports going through formal channels and
massive
unemployment and massive food shortages.
The economic
meltdown, probably could have put Zimbabwe where Somalia
and other countries
like that are, but for the Diaspora population which is
subsidising the
country through remittances and so forth.
That economic meltdown
has exposed the failure of the government in
the sense that Mugabe and Zanu
PF have not come up with any policy response
to the Zimbabwean currency
collapse.
We have no currency to speak of.
Rural
people, even for a hair cut, are now asking for payments in
rands because
not only has the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed, no-one, not even
the peasants
have confidence in it.
Mugabe has no solution besides saying the
mess is because of sanctions
by the Americans and British who disagree with
the land reform programme.
The survival of the ruling party is at
risk each day Mugabe remains in
power. He personifies the crisis. He
represents it.
That’s why in terms of the political stand-off it’s
not a matter of
who is better than Mugabe, and what policy is better than
Zanu PF policies.
But now it has become who is different from
Mugabe.
The difference is what people are looking for now. Mugabe
is no longer
able to implement any policy — good or bad.
Q:Where does the military and civil service fit in this crisis?
A:
I think that it is fair to say that this is their experience.
Definitely that is how everybody else, including the military and the
securocrats around Mugabe are experiencing the conditions.
But
of course, the government’s explanation is that the suffering is
due to the
sanctions.
This has been the mantra. The generals around Mugabe
experience this
in ways that are different.
They have access to
subsidised fuel. They have state vehicles; they
even get subsidised foreign
currency.
So they are able to live in a fantasy world within hell
for everyone
else.
However, the one thing that has connected
them to the problem is that
whereas generals have access to this subsidised
lifestyles, their forces don’t.
They now are finding it difficult
to provide the ordinary forces with
their constitutional
rations.
They are finding it difficult to provide even
uniforms.
You see some of them say this is not how a soldier should
look like.
The police are not able to attend to their normal duties
because they
have no transport.
It’s no longer possible for the
civil service to function in a normal
way.
So you have generals
who may have subsidised lifestyles leading
impoverished forces.
These people who are led by the generals have connections with other
ordinary people.
The reason Mugabe did not win the election and
the reason Mugabe
cannot win any election whatsoever in Zimbabwe is
precisely because in
reality this understanding is broadly shared in
Zimbabwe, save for the fact
that there are some generals who have a
different understanding of this
situation.
Their understanding
would not be to say Mugabe personifies this
crisis.
Their
understanding would be to say Mugabe is a victim of Tony Blair
and now
Gordon Brown, George Bush and the European Union that conspired
behind
former Rhodies who had their farms repossessed.
However, I must add
that the generals have a close working
relationship with Mugabe since
Independence.
They have been playing the role of safeguarding
national security
while Mugabe has been useful because of his hegemonic
influence, his
political capital which he was bringing to the
table.
Now things are falling apart because while the generals
bring guns to
the table, Mugabe does not bring cohesion to the
table.
He no longer has the support of the ruling party, he is
presiding over
a divided ruling party, which division was dramatised by the
Simba Makoni
project and apart from losing support from the ruling party, he
has lost
support in the nation.
It is embarrassing for those
generals to sit with Mugabe, look at him
and start to explain why he did not
get the votes and if you are a
politician and you lose the political support
that you bring to the table,
then they will start asking what use are you
because now you are a source of
insecurity whereas when you were commanding,
you were a source of control,
cohesion and so forth.
Mugabe’s
problem right now is that he stands humiliated before his
generals.
He is no longer able to say to them “look, these
multitudes behind me,
they support what we are doing, they support me” and
that is a very
dangerous situation in the context of the political
stand-off.
The lip service of the generals might be that this is
due to the
sanctions but they know better.
They can see that
the political ship is sinking, they can see that it
is sinking because it no
longer has a captain.
Q: Why has Sadc failed to put pressure on
Mugabe to reform?
A: When I wear my political hat as an activist, I
sometimes find
myself on the political bandwagon of people who say Sadc has
failed.
But when I wear my hat as a political observer, I don’t
share that
view.
I don’t think the evidence supports a
conclusion that says Sadc has
failed.
The impatience of people
on the ground invites that conclusion.
The reality is
different.
I think if you look very closely at how this Zimbabwean
crisis has
unfolded over the past nine years, you will see a dramatic shift
by Sadc,
especially if you look at it against the background of what we all
know to
be the Sadc essence.
The essence of Sadc is a
solidarity organisation, it starts with the
premise that we are all the
same, we share the same values, we are here to
stand for one
another.
We are victims of a common colonial history and so
forth.
But we have seen Sadc shifting gradually from a reflexive
expression
of solidarity with Zimbabwe to an inquisitive and now proactive
disposition.
The 2007 Sadc summit on Zimbabwe in Dar es Salaam was
the turning
point when that mediation was put in place.
It
became specific, focused.
While continuing the solidarity rhetoric,
there was a new acceptance
that Zimbabwe was facing a crisis and that to get
out of that crisis the
principal political players had to dialogue and for
that dialogue to take
place Sadc had to facilitate through the good office
of the president of
South Africa.
That was a new ball game. Has
that new ball game failed? I think it
would be premature to say so because
as I indicated earlier we must
acknowledge that the dialogue led to a set of
constitutional reforms and
legal reforms that were accepted by Zanu PF and
the MDC and adopted by all
members of parliament.
That’s a
first.
To imagine Mugabe, who likes to say we are our own masters
and
sovereignty is the beginning and end of everything allowing a
constitutional
amendment influenced by the Sadc process, supervised by
President Thabo
Mbeki, I think if we balance our observation and review the
record with what
we know about Mugabe, and what we have seen happening, we
have to conclude
that it’s not fair to say that they have
failed.
In fact right now, when things seem to be getting worse,
wheels
falling off, the consolation is that there is an inconclusive Sadc
mediation
that must come in to conclude.
Thanks to that
involvement I think there is a need for people to shift
their appreciation
of the dynamics and to stop this automatic, uncritical
conclusion that Sadc
has failed simply because Sadc refuses to do its
diplomacy
publicly.
Zimbabwe would not have had as free, as peaceful, as fair
an election
as happened on March 29 had it not been for the Sadc
mediation.
Along with that, I want to say that the MDC would not
have performed
as well as it did in Zanu PF strongholds as happened in this
election.
Q: Morgan Tsvangirai says Mbeki should be asked to step
down from the
mediation. Is that helpful?
A: The opposition
must, especially Tsvangirai and the MDC, move away
from continuing behaving
as opposition and start behaving as a government in
waiting.
It
is very easy for an opposition politician to shout from a press
conference
and say president so and so must be removed.
The only people who
can do that and get away with it are opposition
politicians.
Real people with obligations to govern, people who are ready to
govern,
can’t do things like that.
They should know better.
You will not get President Mbeki removed because an opposition
politician
has said so.
The immediate response to that call was for Sadc to
say President
Mbeki is going nowhere and for Sadc to reaffirm its confidence
in President
Mbeki.
I think the opposition MDC should start
behaving like a government in
waiting. They have the numbers in
parliament.
They have opposed and succeeded.
Q: What
is the best approach for the opposition to circumvent this
obduracy by key
institutions like the security forces?
A: They need to allow for a
reform of key institutions which are a
problem right now. This includes the
army, the air force the police the
Reserve Bank, the public service and so
on.
The pockets of resistance which threaten conflict come from
these
institutions. So the transfer of power from an election is impossible,
certainly difficult where you have institutional resistance.
We
need to democratise these institutions so that we remove
unjustified fears,
anxiety and insecurity… to allow key institutional
players, heads of some of
these institutions who right now fear that an
electoral handover will result
in retribution against them, to allow them
time to retire and to allow a
process of providing guarantees for their
security so that they do not feel
secure because one politician says so at a
press conference: “don’t worry
nothing will happen to you”. Nobody believes
that.
But because
nobody allowed the transition that could have happened
under the President
Thabo Mbeki mediation to take its course, where those
issues would have been
taken into account, they said no let’s just have the
elections.
Well one impact of an election is that you wake up and find that your
job is
up for grabs and you start becoming insecure.
This transition must
see that it provides key legal, institutional
guarantees for
that.
Q: Does that include guaranteeing Mugabe immunity from
prosecution?
A: Well the facilitation of his exit ... should
include that.
Q: But does the MDC have the capacity to govern
Zimbabwe?
A: Not alone. That’s why we are talking about a
transition.
If we have an election, we will be talking about an MDC
government and
then you ask that question.
But a transitional
government will bring the best talent in the
country.
And a key
aspect of a transitional government that people are talking
about is that it
should have a Prime Minister who will supervise these
processes and these
functions.
Ideally, that Prime Minister should be somebody who did
not
participate in the election. And so, to address precisely this question,
clearly the MDC alone does not have that capacity.
In fact if
the MDC were to do this alone, we would not need a
transitional government;
that would have been a hand-over of power
completely. But that is not
possible due to the stand off.
The fact that we have a stand-off
means that we do not have the
possibility of a hand-over of
power.
So, now, we need a transition between this and the next
step.
During the transitional process, which is proposed to be
around 24 to
36 months, one hopes that the MDC will be learning the ropes of
power so
that when there are elections, comes the new constitution down the
line, the
MDC can rule on its own.
You then have a democratic
hand-over.
That’s what the MDC were telling Mbeki before the
election. But having
tasted the pudding, now that the election results tell
a different story,
they are saying “no give us the whole pot” because of the
election results
which is why there is a need for sensitive negotiations and
maturity,
responsible politics and statesmanship.
That’s what
is really needed because we are treading on dangerous
ground.
But it’s very important to know, that’s why I thought this business of
trashing Mbeki is very irresponsible in my view.
The Mbeki team
knows too well that Tsvangirai was putting to them
proposals for this kind
of a transition two months ago, before the election.
They did not
even want the election.
They wanted the election delayed and held
under a new constitution
which made tremendous sense.
The only
stumbling block was Mugabe who thought he would win the
election and then
call the shots and then author his own transitional
arrangements and his own
succession.
It’s one of those strange situations. Yesterday it was
Mugabe blocking
the transition, today it is the MDC.
Q: You
worked with Mugabe as Information Minister for five years. Do
you think he
will leave voluntarily?
A: I think he has no choice but to agree to
go.
I think the issue is a sensitive one and nothing much will be
achieved
by addressing it with specific details in public because that’s
what riles
him.
But it’s not that people should be so
continuously afraid of Mugabe
that they don’t discuss useful things even in
public.
The bottom-line is that he has come to the end of the road
and that is
a bottom-line which he can do absolutely nothing about other
than accepting
that fate, accommodating it in order to secure his interest
and safeguard
his legacy as an African liberation icon.
He
would be immensely respected even by people with a lot of issues
with him if
he plays a statesman role now to exit graciously in the same way
he
entered.
What is he thinking right now?
He obviously
is a very, very shocked man because he had become like a
typical African
leader who thinks that when there is an election, their
people love them so
much that they are guaranteed 99,9% of the vote.
And you know
taking into account that this is an 84 year old and he is
not immune to the
vagaries of biology.
He is not at his best in terms of his thinking
capacity, even if he
tells us or those around him tell us that he is. We
ought to know better
that he can’t be.
He is as human as
anybody else. He can be pumped with all sorts of new
medicine but he is at
the end of the day a creature of God and he has come
not just to the end of
his political life, he is very close to the end of
his own life and he
probably would spend his last days far better with his
family and I’m sure
his family needs him.
If Mugabe was of Tsvangirai’s age, we would
be facing a serious
problem, a very, very serious problem, but no we are
dealing with an old
man.
That is why we are saying, “look let’s
be reasonable dealing with this
old man, let’s try and be as dignified as
possible”.
But otherwise he is terrified. He is afraid. He can’t
imagine life
without the trappings of high office, the sirens of his
motorcade. He can’t
imagine that.
That’s the life he had known
since he came out of the bush.
Here is a guy who was in prison for
10 or more years, goes to the bush
and then comes back and gets into this
lifestyle.
He cannot imagine living without that.
Mugabe cannot continue as president of Zimbabwe.
The time for a new
leader in Zimbabwe has decidedly come, irrevocably
so.
We have
not had a platform where everybody is sitting around the
table — Morgan
(Tsvangirai), Arthur (Mutambara), Welshman Ncube.
The run off was
going to create that strategy, but now that it looks
unlikely that there
will be a run off, the thinking now is to have a
transitional
arrangement.
The discussions for that should start taking place,
especially after
this week when the results are announced.
Going forward, the choices are simple.
If the army carries the day,
then we are going to have a run-off which
would be difficult, or which the
MDC will refuse to participate in, in which
case Mugabe would be declared
the president, which would be catastrophic in
the sense that the crisis will
be prolonged for a while.
That’s a scenario you should
expect.
Otherwise the most likely one is that a result is finalised
and the
result does not create any new situation that brings any confidence
in
anybody, it makes the situation worse and mediation kicks in and that
mediation should within a month or so conclude.
So it’s either
a run-off and the MDC participates with guarantees or a
run-off and the MDC
refuses to participate and Mugabe is declared a winner
or mediation where
there is a negotiated settlement.
The one I would like to carry the
day is a negotiated settlement.
I will put my money on that
one.
The sooner the better. Mugabe should be history within six
months.
Q: You have taken various and maybe contradictory positions
in your
political career. Is that a strength or weakness?
A:
One of the beautiful words of wisdom from the late Mahatma Gandhi
when some
little boy approached him and asked why he had changed his
position and it
appeared like he contradicted himself, was “young man,
consistency is the
virtue of a donkey”.
I think in politics consistency is
linear.
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 01 May 2008 18:41
A GOVERNMENT of national
unity (GNU) in Zimbabwe can only succeed if
the ruling Zanu PF and the MDC
resolve their differences on the ideological
front, political analysts have
said.
Sadc is reportedly pushing for a GNU as a solution to the
country’s
multiple crises after the March 29 presidential election which the
MDC’s
Morgan Tsvangirai claimed to have won against President Robert
Mugabe.
The crises are characterised by plummeting GDP, inflation
of above 165
000%, 80% unemployment, growing poverty, and deteriorating
health and
education standards, among other ills. It is feared another
election will
simply compound political divisions.
It is
against this background that Sadc is understood to have tasked
South African
President Thabo Mbeki to open negotiations between Zanu PF,
the MDC and
other opposition forces to form a GNU.
Political analysts said the
Zimbabwe crisis should be treated as an
emergency and the proposal by Sadc
for a GNU was the only way the country
can come out of the
morass.
The analysts argued that political parties should set aside
their
ideological differences to champion national interests.
They said a GNU was compelling given that legislative election results
showed there was no clear winner between the ruling Zanu PF and the
opposition MDC.
The Tsvangirai-led MDC garnered 99 seats, Zanu
PF 97 and the Arthur
Mutambara-headed MDC won 10.
On Monday the
MDC leaders announced they had decided to reunify the
party.In the Senate
poll, Zanu PF won 30 seats, MDC-Tsvangirai 26 and
MDC-Mutambara
6.
Chris Maroleng, a political analyst with the Institute for
Security
Studies in Pretoria, said a GNU was the only solution to the
current crisis
in Zimbabwe. He argued that parliamentary and senatorial
results revealed a
society that was politically torn down the
middle.
This polarisation has been evident since the general
election in 2000.
“The divisions coalesce around two dominant
crisis narratives,” wrote
Maroleng. “One focused around regime security
concerns and an alleged
neo-colonial imperialist conspiracy epitomised by
the campaigning slogan,
sovereignty, land and empowerment.”
The
other narrative, the analyst said, was championed by civil society
and
opposition parties emphasising the need for a post-nationalist
liberation
discourse centred around good governance, democratisation and
human rights
that finds expression in the broad notions of political choice
and societal
renewal.
“It is clear that if a solution is to be found to this
protracted
crisis a middle ground has to be reached. The winner-takes-all
rule that
presides heavily in the political culture of the elite, on both
sides, has
to begin to give way to compromise,” Maroleng
suggested.
Another political analyst, Michael Mhike, said while a
GNU was the
solution to the Zimbabwean crisis, achieving it would be a tall
order.
“The crisis in Zimbabwe can be defined in two ways —
imperialism and
governance,” Mhike said.
“Zanu PF sees the MDC
as an agency of Western imperialism bent on
reversing the gains of
Independence.
On the other hand, the MDC accuses Zanu PF of being
antithetical to
democratic ethos and good governance.”
In that
case, argued Mhike, it would take a great deal of negotiations
to strike a
compromise between protagonists that will culminate in the
formation of a
GNU.
“I am not suggesting that it is impossible for a GNU given the
main
parties’ differences; I am simply saying there will be need for
thorough
negotiations to reach a settlement,” he added.
He said
the negotiations were likely to be hamstrung by who would lead
the GNU
between President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai if the anticipated
presidential run-off is called off to make room for the unity
government.
“The best is to have the run-off and whoever emerges
the winner will
form and lead the GNU,” Mhike suggested.
“This
is the way it was done in South Africa.”
South Africa constituted a
successful unity government to end
apartheid. Between April 1994 and
February 1997, South Africa was governed
under the terms of an interim
constitution that required that any party
holding 20 or more seats in the
National Assembly could claim one or more
cabinet positions and enter the
government.
Despite the African National Council winning the
majority of seats in
the assembly, the National Party and Inkatha Freedom
Party obtained cabinet
posts.
The then president Nelson Mandela
also invited other parties to join
the cabinet, even though they did not
obtain the minimum 20 seats in the
assembly.
The requirement
for the GNU lapsed at the end of the first parliament
in 1999. Even so,
Inkatha Freedom Party and the Azanian People’s
Organisation continued to
hold seats in the government, as minority
partners, until the elections of
2004.
The South African GNU was a result of a series of
negotiations between
1990 and 1993 aimed at ending apartheid and was between
the NP, ANC and a
wide variety of other political
organisations.
It was the Multiparty Negotiating Forum that
resulted in the GNU,
after the Convention for a Democratic South Africa
(Codesa) 1 and 11 failed
to end the political crisis in South
Africa.
The negotiations took place against a backdrop of political
violence
in the country, including allegations of a state-sponsored third
force
destabilising the country.
In Zimbabwe, the same
accusations of state-sponsored violence have
surfaced after the polls, with
the MDC claiming that 15 of its supporters
have been killed, 3 000 families
displaced and 800 huts burnt in the
countryside by security agents, Zanu PF
militia and war veterans.
Tsvangirai and independent presidential
hopeful in the March 29
election Simba Makoni have since endorsed the idea
of a GNU.
Unconfirmed reports said Makoni expressed his willingness
to head a
GNU during Sadc’s extraordinary meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, on
April 12
despite coming a distant third in the presidential
race.
Zanu PF is yet to make an announcement on the GNU proposal
even though
Tsvangirai claimed that the party approached him in pursuit of a
unity
government soon after the poll, but later backed off.
Deputy Information minister Bright Matonga has poured cold water on
the
suggestion.
South Africa’s ANC president Jacob Zuma last week leant
his support to
a unity government to end the Zimbabwe crisis.
Speaking in London, Zuma said the call for a unity government “is not
premature, it is actually appropriate at this time”.
Zuma said
the presidential election appeared to have produced a very
narrow margin
between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, meaning that both men commanded
significant
support among Zimbabweans.
But he was keen to avoid the impression
that he was initiating the
call for a unity government, which was a model
used to resolve Kenya’s
bloodstained post-election crisis earlier this
year.
It therefore remains to be seen if Zimbabwe will have a GNU
in the
next few weeks.
Its proponents in the diplomatic
community say voters have lost faith
in electoral politics because of the
behaviour of the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission in withholding the results
and the violence that has been
unleashed against opposition
supporters.
Many on the other hand believe Mugabe would stand no
chance in a
second round and they would welcome the chance to prove
it.
The MDC should not run away from a challenge it will win, they
say.
By Constantine Chimakure
Zim Independent
Opinion
Thursday, 01 May 2008 17:54
THE turning away of the arms shipment from
China last week after loud
resistance by neighbouring countries for it to
pass through their borders is
a victory for all the democratic forces in
Zimbabwe in many ways.
For a small African country like
Zimbabwe, whose people have been
facing the hardest living conditions in the
region under an increasingly
brutal establishment, there’s no reason why
arms should take priority over
other necessities such as food.
For Zimbabweans fed up with a worthless currency, endless queues,
shortages
of food, fuel and cash, collapsing social services in health and
education,
there’s all the reason to celebrate, even as thousands continue
to face
political intimidation and cringe under the shadow of President
Mugabe’s
illegitimate government.
For the people of Zimbabwe, who have been
denied their democratic
right to know the outcome of a presidential election
that took place a month
ago, the turning away of the arms ship shows how
global opinion is beginning
to turn in their favour.
For the
MDC it comes as a boost to its sleepless campaign of knocking
on the doors
of regional leaders, of Sadc, of the UN, of labour unions, the
clergy, and
the ordinary man all over the world to spare a moment for
Zimbabwe.
For Zanu PF the turning away of the arms cache spells
doom for a proud
party that refused to embrace change long ago.
Two weeks ago the Sadc emergency meeting held in Lusaka gave a
lukewarm
response to the crisis in Zimbabwe, a response that no doubt failed
to
satisfy Zimbabweans.
But the arms shipment allowed the Sadc region
to bring out their true
sentiments regarding the political situation in
Zimbabwe that has been
prolonged for nearly 10 years.
No port
from Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia and finally even
Angola — all of them
governed by liberation movements that have had cosy
relations with Zanu PF
for so long — could accept the package from China.
For the people
of Zimbabwe the forced u-turn of the arms shipment is
proof that change is
much more imminent now than ever before.
By Givemore Nyanhi
:freelance journalist based in Harare.