Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog: 3/1/09 - 4/1/09 Live From Harare, Zimbabwe

Arthur Mutambara is seen here with harassed, assaulted Zimbabwean farmer, Ben Freeth. We broke the story about the intended recall of Mutambara by his party right here on this blog last week on Wednesday.

This blog continues its fine tradition of publishing scoops and inside information that is being proved true left right and centre. Just in the last week we brought you two such scoops.

On Wednesday, I published a story scoop here telling you news about the imminent "firing" of Arthur Mutambara, Zimbabwe's Deputy Prime Minister. The very next day, on Thursday, Zimbabwe Financial Gazette carried that story on their front page!!

Then on Friday, we brought you the story about the Reserve Bank Zimbabwe Governor asking all his staff to return their cars to the Reserve Bank Sports Club so that he could offer even more cars to even more MPs.

On Sunday, two days later, the Standard confirmed that story and did an even longer piece on the issue, saying some of the RBZ staff had come to work without their cars for fear that these would be “acquired” forcibly from them.

Also in the last week, I had the pleasure of dealing with extremely professional people, who clearly take pride in their work.

Joan Yarnold of Media24 Magazines contacted me saying they were doing a feature story on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his trials and tribulations and especially concentrating on the grief he has suffered recently, the double tragedy of the deaths of his wife and grandson.

Joan had come across a picture of Tsvangirai holding one his grandsons on this blog. He contacted me to request permission to use it. (Which no Zimbabwean "online newspaper would have done. They would have just stolen it like they steal all my articles).

I directed Joan to the Prime Minister's office, since the picture is clearly part of Tsvangirai's family album and I hold no copyright on it.

Within an hour, Joan had got back in touch with me to say that the Prime Minister had said Media24 should go ahead and use the picture on my blog.

I tell you, the professionalism was refreshing!!

I mention this because I am increasingly feeling pity for some online “newspapers” who, for example, besides stealing the story about the intended firing on Arthur Mutambara from this blog and publishing it on their own sites, also rather pathetically tried to pursue the story, to make it their own and to misled the reading public in the process.

As you are by now aware, these so-called online newspapers subsequently published a "follow-up"story saying that one of the instigators of the rebellion against Arthur Mutambara, Job Sikhala, had been fired or suspended from the MDC party led by the deputy Prime Minister.

It turns out this is nothing but a pack of lies. Sikhala himself, as well as the disciplinary committee of the Mutambara MDC, both denied that any such action had been taken!!

But this pack of lies has already been swallowed by gullible readers, mostly those who hate the smaller MDC for no reason except that the men in it, people like Welshman Ncube, rebelled against the dictatorial tendencies of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and broke away from the main MDC.

These are the same people (it is a group of only twenty or so blinkered Tsvangirai fanatics) who hound websites on the Internet in a forlorn and lonely battle to salvage the reputation of the Prime Minister and his MDC who are now so firmly in the pocket of Robert Mugabe that they are now the dictator’s currency, with which he pays to get out of the isolation the world had imposed upon him.

It is pathetic, really, to see how, while they try (without success) to shout down voices like mine that seek to examine the failures of the MDC in office (they are not in power, only in office), these twenty or so online fanatics (some masquerading as "journalists") swallow these lies published by “newspapers” who pander to their myopic and blind following of the discredited MDC-T . They gleefully read the lies about the firing of Sikhala, absolutely ecstatic that they had now finally found something to take attention away from the failure of their own MDC-T in government.

Well, thank heavens for people like the Zimbabwean professionals at SW Radio. They, like true professional journalists, immediately got in touch with both sides of the story. Sikhala denied that he had been handed a letter suspending him from the party. The MDC itself also denied that it had suspended the Sikhala.

Here is what you need to understand about the dynamics of this phenomenon of Zimbabwean online “newspapers”:

Most of them are one-man bands run by someone holding down a full-time job in the diaspora and trying to make money online through advertising. They probably do not even have enough money to make phone calls back home to verify their stories. They don't have the phone numbers of the political players in Zimbabwe. They have, effectively no way to report from within Zimbabwe.

This has led to them publishing lie after lie after lie. You will recall that earlier this year, the newly appointed Minister Welshman Ncube told a conference that “online journalists and newspapers” lie so much that they have lost all credibility with anyone who is serious about finding out what is happening in Zimbabwe.

This explains the venom that you now see directed at me personally by some of these online papers, even as they steal my stories from this blog and publish them as if I am one of their columnists!

Like I have said before, the only online newspaper that has asked for permission to reproduce my articles is the Zimbabwe Mail. TalkZimbabwe have also approached me, but this is normally on a story by story basis. Everyone else is simply stealing the content and republishing it. Some make a pathetic attempt to insert an “introduction” to my story (which is normally just disparaging comments on my article, without engaging a single fact in it) before reproducing it in its entirety!!

We are now in the process of making moves to ensure that the theft of our copyright material on this blog is brought to an end once and for all. And you can expect that this battle will get very nasty. I fully expect it to get personal, with all manner of personal smears against me. It will be nasty because we are going after the motivations of these online thieves – money (which they get from reputable advertising programmes run by ethical companies like Google, who do not take kindly to anyone making money from their advertising using other people’s copyrighted content).

But we have to protect our intellectual property from people who are to lazy to think or work to make something of their own publishing platforms.

Despite all this, I am happy to report that this blog continues its meteoric rise in terms of readership and remains ranked Number 1 in Zimbabwe and in the top 100 000 in the world. Good going for a one-man effort, which is what a blog is. We have never pretended to be a newspaper, we just have a good nose for scoops.

Expect more scoops. And expect more people to attempt to stop you from reading the truth that we publish here.

I myself never read any of the online stuff, except for SW Radio, Nehanda Radio, VOP, Zimbabwe Mail and yes, the Zimbabwe Times as well as Zimbabwe Metro. Other resources I use now and again are mukoma.com and foreign publications.

No other Zimbabwean online paper deserves my attention, especially since time is so precious here in Zimbabwe these days!!

Meantime, I take my hat off to the professionals at SW Radio who have brought us the truth and exposed the lies being fed gullible people (who had already started rejoicing) on the Sikhala/Mutambara saga.

How Mugabe Has The MDC Where He Wants Them

"Hmmmm, how will make sure this never works" - Mugabe is plotting still and all the "problems" within the GNU are serving a purpose, but it is not the power, as the MDC, its supporters and almost everyone else thinks.

Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, must be very pleased with himself.

I did tell you in February that Mugabe's sentiments, expressed in a birthday interview with ZTV, that the payment of civil service salaries was not "sustainable" because there was no money was basically an admission that he would behave atrociously all the way through this GNU and hence ensure that no donors came in with money to support its operations.

It is turning out that way.

The MDC has fallen into the trap of thinking that all these fights are about power. They are not.

Mugabe is terrified that the Coalition Government will actually bring results, strengthening Tsvangirai's hand in the process and putting him in a very strong position for the next elections.

Mugabe's purpose in sending the MDC on a wild goose chase after power and positions, the delaying tactics he is playing, the continued persecution of MDC supporters - all this is deliberately designed to ensure that the GNU does not deliver any tangible results and disadvantages Tsvangirai.

Mugabe knows that as long as he continues to behave as he is doing now, foreign funders, the sole hope for a turnaround in Zimbabwe, will keep their hands firmly in their pockets.

That suits him just fine.

Come the end of three or five years, when the next elections are held, he wants to be able to turn to the people of Zimbabwe and tell them that the MDC were given a chance to prove themselves in government and failed.

That is one part of the strategy.

The other part is for him to tell the people that foreign funders are opposed to Land Reform and unless and until land is returned to white farmers, Zimbabwe is in the international doghouse. This, he will say, was the rerason why they refused to support their "surrogate", Tsvangirai in the Coalition government with funds to turn the country's economy around.

The Mass Public Opinion Institute of Zimbabwe has just concluded a comprehensive survey of urban and rural Zimbabweans that confirms that frustration with lack of delivery is already being blamed on Tsvangirai and Mutambara. Mugabe gets away scot-free in this.

(In fact, one of the most common sentiments, very shocking to any democrat in Zimbabwe, is that it is better to stick with ZANU PF at next elections. I urge you to get the results of that survey from MPOI if you can, it will open your eyes to the sentiment in the country much more than reading online propaganda ever will!)

Now, as you well know, pretty much everybody in Zimbabwe is agreed that Land Reform is necessary and can not be reversed.

Even the white farmers from whom land has been forcibly taken without compensation, agree with this.

By telling people that no help will come until land is returned to white farmers and pointing to MDC's failure in government as evidence of this at the next elections, Mugabe is betting that people will then throw their hands in the air and say, "In that case it is hopeless".

This works against the MDC because it is seen, even by its supporters, as having the favour of western powers. Hence, the impression that the MDC support from the West is based on the hope that Land Reform will be reversed would be fatal, because it will cast doubt on the motivations of those western powers who are seen to favour the opposition party.

The result will be voters abandoning all hope that the MDC would indeed be able to get financial support from the west if they get into power. They would not be able to get it if the condition is that they must reverse Land Reform.

This is because it is unthinkable for the MDC to return farms to white farmers without sparking civil war in the country.

So, the continued bad behaviour by Mugabe has nothing to do with protecting his power. It has everything to do with the next elections, weakening the MDC in the eyes of voters. As long as the MDC can not deliver on its promises, as long as they are paralysed by the diversions of power-struggles, the world is not stepping in.

Like I said, this plays into Mugabe's hands.

The puzzle though is why Tsvangirai can not see this. Why are the MDC allowing themselves to be caught up in this nonsense? It is quite clear this is a battle they are not going to win. So what's the deal?

The trappings of office have become so comfortable that they are willing to limp along for the rest of the life of this GNU creature, even if they emerge from it completely discredited, shattered and mortally wounded?

Your guess is as good as mine.

By the way, it is my birthday tomorrow, 28 April, so I will be living it up, do not be surprised if there is no post to the blog as a result.

And also, ComOne's internet connections basically went offline on Sunday, which means, for those who rely on the Government gateways for internet and especially those who use those wireless modems that had become popular in Zimbabwe, there is no internet.

I left those days behind me a long time ago. My Internet Service Provider connects directly to satellite, so I am immune to those interruptions now!!

Is The Gun Tsvangirai Using To Shoot Himself In The Foot Loaded

Morgan Tsvangirai arrives at Chinhoyi Stadium on Saturday to address supporters who had gathered for the 10th anniversary of the formation of the MDC. Ten years: which also means, according to the MDC constitution, which restricts the president of the party to two five-year terms, Tsvangirai must now step down. But, like Mugabe, it appears the Prime Minister is refusing to go. Handiende!

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told a gathering in Chinhoyi (which has gone for some weeks without water and is seeing an increase in the ancient, embarassing disease of cholera) that his and Mugabe's "Inclusive" government is working fine.

"There is nothing Mugabe does without me approving," he said.

Really?

What about Gideon Gono? The appointment of permanent secretaries? The gutting and disembowelling of Nelson Chamisa's Information Communication Technology ministry? The continued prosecution of MDC activists including Tsvangirai's very close aide, Gandi Mudzingwa? The continued arrests of his supporters?

Was it not only two weeks ago that a policeman told the MDC-T MP for Chipinge, while arresting him at a funeral of an MDC-T supporters to "go and report to your Prime Minister"?

This was with his approval?

All of these things Mugabe is doing, and is Tsvangirai saying that they are being done with his approval?

It appears so.

You see, the fact that the Prime Minister refuses to face reality, buries his head in the sand like an ostrich and insists that there actually is such a thing as a "coalition" running Zimbabwe is the reason why this government is going to fail.

What exactly has Tsvangirai seen to convince himself that things are moving in the right direction? Mugabe's continued intransigence is a good sign and augurs well for the future?

MDC supporters are being arrested in Mbare, Buhera, Chipinge, Mt Darwin and many other centres in Zimbabwe. He thinks this is moving in the right direction?

Did Mugabe not tell Tsvangirai as recently as Monday last week that he (Mugabe) is the one in charge and can make any changes and appointments and gutting of ministries as he sees fit?

Yet the Prime Minister tells gullible suppporters in Chinhoyi that there is nothing Mugabe does without his approval.

The danger is that he will be believed, and his supporters will start thinking that their own continued persecution and prosecution is being done with the approval of the leader of their party.

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Meantime, can the Minister of Finance get to the bottom of the four or five buckets of diamonds that are in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe?

Whose are they?

What are they being used for?

Seeing as a few are being sold at a time to finance a parrarel government being run by Generals and ZANU PF, is this not proof positive that Mugabe is intent on ensuring that the MDC-T finds its own sources of funds to run government, while the money from the Chiadzwa diamond fields is used to bolster and strengthen ZANU PF.

At the same time, we must not forget that some of that money if finding its way into the pockets of individuals.

Clearly, the MDC-T is not in control, otherwise they would have known about those buckets of diamonds and investigated them.

Or perhaps they do and, seeing as they are totally powerless when it comes to the Generals, the Defence Forces and the entrenched interests of ZANU PF, there really is nothing much they can do except look the other way?

Which would of course, mean that they are not in any way part of this government.

Let us face facts: MDC-T and MDC-M (both PF) are nothing but the errand boys of ZANU PF, being sent overseas to get the finances to resurrect the economy.

Beyond that, they can not claim to be a part of this government. Beyond that, they absolutely no power to do anything.

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And at the same rally in Chinhoyi, Tsvangirai basically admitted defeat on the continued land invasion controversy. His bluster of previous weeks, threatening to "arrest farm invaders" (he has as much authority to order the police to arrest anyone as he does to order the sun to stop shining) has now given way to reality.

Tsvangirai told the rally that his government will now focus on those who have multiple farms (they are all ZANU PF and will tell him to take a hike) as well as those who are not producing anything on their farms (ditto).

The issue of continued invasions has now been put to the side. Now Tsvangirai has set himself up for embrassment on another front.

I just hope the gun he is using to shoot himself repeatedly in the foot is not loaded.

How Gono Corrupted The "Independent" Media & Stole Government Funds

House of Horrors: Seen here is the entrance to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, with an appropriately torn-up ZANU PF campaign poster in the foreground. It has now emerged that Gideon Gono has not only given money to the independent media, but he has also bought a journalist at one of the independent newspapers a house, throwing objectivity into the dustbin. On Gono, therefore, the public no longer has a watchdog in the mainstream media

Several impeccable sources are now confirming that the Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, has essentially put all the media in his back pocket.

Gono allegedly bought a house in Bulawayo for a reporter on the staff of the Zimbabwe Independent, owned by Trevor Ncube and all the stories on him that are published in that paper are written by Kumbirai Nhongo, the former Business Editor of Zimbabwe Television, who is Gono's spokesman at the Reserve Bank.

These stories are then given a byline belonging to a staffer on the The Independent. I spoke to my friend Vincent Kahiya, the editor of the Independent about this ealier this morning and he says the paper did apply for BACCOSSI money but he does not know whether they got it or not. The application would have been handled by Raphael Khumalo, the Group's Managing Director.

I do know that Trevor Ncube is perhaps the only newspaper owner in this country who genuinely lives by the creed of Editorial independence and never interferes in the workings of his editorial teams. So it could well be that he does not even know of the goings-on here.

In another shocking show of just how wide Gono had spread his patronage tentacles, it is also emerging that the Governor gave BACCOSSI money to the Zimbabwe Independent as well as The Financial Gazette. Gono owns the Gazette.

Immediately after the Financial Gazette got these BACOSSI funds, Gono apparently went to the paper's management and asked for all of it to be paid back to him personally, saying that the paper owed him dividends. I understand the management had no option but to hand over a large part of those funds.

Effectively, then, it means Gono paid himself personally through the Gazette on the pretext of giving the paper government funds to keep their operations going.

This information is thrown sharply into the spotlight today when you look at the way the Zimbabwe Independent covers Gono's battle with Tendai Biti in today's issue of the paper, effectively rallying to Gono's cause in his fight against Biti.

The Indy reports that there was pandemonium in cabinet on Tuesday when Tendai Biti moved a motion in the cabinet meeting to have Gono investigated for borrowing more than five billion United States dollars between 2004 and 2008.

The same story confirms what I told you yesterday about ZANU PF "heavyweights" being opposed to the Governor and failing to defend him in his battle against the Finance Minister.

It emerges in that story that Biti was openly suppported in his proposal to investigate Gono by Herbert Murerwa, Saviour Kasukuwere (known to friends as Tyson), Francis Nhema and Sithembiso Nyoni.

Mugabe apparently opposed the proposal in cabinet. He was supported in this by Mnangagwa, Mumbengegwi, Didymus Mutasa and Stan Mudenge.

Mugabe told Biti that he had no right to investigate Gono and that he would not approve such a move. According to the Independent, Mugabe said any moves to do this would result in the collapse of the Inclusive Government.

Tellingly, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai remained absolutely silent throughout the exchanges and did not speak up at all to support Tendai Biti's quest.

But I think the real story of the day here is the fact that Gono has managed to get all of Zimbabwe's media into his pocket. This corrupt and decietful man is now calling in those favours, it appears, and the Independent itself also carries a story today entitled "Hyprocrisy Over Reserve Bank Cars Exposed".

The article seeks to paint ministers and others as being hypocritical because they have more than one car each from Gono while they are insisting that MPs should return the vehicles that the Governor gave them.

I am afraid Gono has compromised these ministers and the paper lists Prados, Toyota Fortuners and others as cars given to these ministers by the Governor.

Nelson Chamisa apprently not only got a Prado (4x4) but is also driving a Mercedes Benz ML320, a very sleek and luxurious all-wheel drive.

Others who got Prados include: Herbet Murerwa, Theresa Makone, Henry Dzinotyiwei, Fidelis Mhashu, Ignatious Chombo, Welshman Ncube, Priscillah Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo and Senate President Edna Mdzongwe.

What you see happening now is that Gono is calling in his favours, if these allegations of funding newspapers are anything to go by.

In a democracy, the subverting of independent critical voices is an unforgivable sin for all who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It compromises the public's watchdogs and makes it impossible to hold public officials to account.

Gono, by buying influence with the papers, is essentially buying public opinion and this is a subversion of democracy.

The sooner this man goes the better. He has to be chased out of town and if this government is to collapse because of that, as Mugabe threatened in his Tuesday cabinet meeting, then so be it.

Gono Terrorises RBZ Staff

Gideon Gono and Robert Mugabe in a warehouse where Gono had stashed basic commodities as part of his quasi-fiscal operations, which are now threatening his job. This was a couple weeks after the bloody June 27 presidential election run-off, during which Gono also provided cars and funds to ZANU PF for their murderous campaign

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono has thrown the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe staff into panic and despair.

Earlier today, Gono ordered all RBZ staff to surrender their vehicles and park them at the Reserve Bank Sports Club along Sherwood Road in Malbereign in Harare. This directive applies to all staff except Directors and Senior Managers at the RBZ.

Most of the staff are in despair because these were their only means of transport and, as Zimbabweans know very well now, staff at the Central Bank have also not been paid their salaries because Tendai Biti has managed to cut off all revenue-generating schemes that Gono had prior to the Inclusive Government's inception.

The staff at the RBZ say they feel terrorised by Gono.

More importantly, though, this move betrays the fact that the cars given to parliamentarians have not been returned.

Why?

Because these cars that will be surrendered by RBZ employees today are being offered by Gono to even more MPs. Not all MPs got cars the first time around, so Gono is now telling the legislators that he has even more cars for those MPs who did not benefit from the first round of his patronage.

Clearly, Gono is trying to thumb his nose at the Minister of Finance and he is clearly playing with fire.

Mugabe, you will notice, has not come out publicly to say anything about Gono. He has refused to grant Tsvangirai and Biti their wish of firing Gono immediately, it now emerges, not because he still suppports the Governor, but more because of his own pride.

The issue now is only about Mugabe's authority and Gono is benefiting by proxy.

However, as I told you earlier this year when the Tsvangirai and Biti first demanded Gono's head just after the GNU was formed, Mugabe had told them that they should not use past deeds of Gono (his financing of ZANU PF's bloody presidential run-off) to oust him.

He had demanded that they show whether he would be insubordinate to the new dispensation or had committed any crimes.

Well, it appears that the RBZ staff are now bringing out the cans of worms.

Apparently, there is currently a fleet of brand new Toyota Hilux Vigos and Isuzu KB twin-cabs parked at BAK storage in Harare which were imported by Gono.

The keys to these cars have now been confiscated by ZIMRA, the revenue authority in Zimbabwe, because Gono was refusing to pay taxes on them. He had reached a stage, basically, where he thought he was above the law.

As one source pointed out to me, avoidance of taxes is a "cardinal sin". And so it is. The Governor, who all along has sought to convince us that he occupies a moral high ground, who denied for ages that he buys foreign currency on the black market, is refusing to pay taxes on cars that he imported?

Does he still seek to lead us to believe he is blameless when we now know that one of the MPs acting as his cheerleaders made a lot money through getting bagfuls of freshly printed Zimbabwe dollars, which he used to purchase foreign currency on the black market for Gideon Gono and the Reserve Bank?

Does he still think he occupies a moral high ground? I think not.

Tendai Biti told Cabinet that Gono was running a parallel government. The extent to which he was doing this can be illustrated by the following example I got from a source today:

When Leonard Tshumba left RBZ, he had 600 employees at the Central Bank. Now, Gono has expanded the staff complement at the Reserve Bank to 6000. That's right, the staff complement at the RBZ is now 6000.

What on earth was he doing with all these people? What on earth, in fact, is he doing with them still.

Anyway, the real story here today is that the Governor is now seeking to aggravate the Finance Minister further by offering even more cars to even more MPs.

Morgan Tsvangirai, of whom I said earlier that he is nothing if not doggedly determined, appears to still want to pursue the man and his angle is still that economic recovery is impossible with Gono at the Central Bank.

On the other hand, like I told you before, it is clear that Gono is being left to swing by ZANU PF. Have you heard a single "heavyweight" in ZANU PF speaking up on his behalf? Have you heard a single ZANU PF minister defending him?

He only has this one MP whom he bought with bags of Zimbabwe dollars used to purchase forex on the balck market!

We are set for interesting times ahead.

Tsvangirai Setting CIO On His Own MPs?

Happyton Bonyongwe, the Director General of Zimbabwe's Secret Police, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is seen here trying to earnestly convince Mugabe of something in July last year, soon after that bloody Presidential election run-off. With them is General Constantine Chiwengwa, the Commander of Zimbabwe Defence Forces

I told you at the end of my post yesterday that I would bring you a developing story regarding the Zimbabwe Prime Minister and the Secret Police, the CIO.

I could not post that last night as promised, mostly because I was verifying the story and I only managed to speak to the Prime Minister's office this morning.

The thing is, yesterday, information coming to us directly from Chaminuka Building, the CIO Head Office, was that the Secret Police were stopping MDC-T MPs who accepted those Reserve Bank cars and were confiscating them on the orders of the Prime Ministers.

"This is a direct order from the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe," we were told.

Which meant that the Prime Minister was using the CIO against his own MPs.

Now, Tsvangirai may be many things but he is not stupid.

I found it difficult to believe that he would do something so damaging to his personal image, especially considering that during the negotiations, he said the CIO had to be disbanded (which it hasn't been).

Sure enough, this morning, the PM's office denied this was the case, although they still will not reveal which MPs, if any have returned the cars and fail to account for the fact that the committee in parliament on which six of their MPs sit has issued a statement saying they will not be returning those cars.

As regular readers of this blog will know, the CIO has now lost favour with Mugabe. The dictator is now using Military Intelligence and Law and Order policemen for the work that CIO used to do.

As you will also recall, the Director General of the CIO was fired last year by Mugabe, who accused him of being sympathetic to Makonis bid for the presidency. He was only reinstated after the direct intercession of General Chiwengwa, but Mugabe has now basically cut that organisation off.

They are in the dog house.

What is happening, therefore, is that the operatives within CIO are now seeking to ingratiate themselves with Tsvangirai and this may well have been part of that.

There is also the view that this might have been an attempt to discredit this blog by feeding us false information, which would throw into question the reliability of our information and analysis here.

I have never relied on a single source except in very exceptional circumstances, so I went ahead and spoke to the PMs office as well as to two other people within the CIO itself.

The net result is that it is clear the info was wrong.

However, what is still fact is that the MDC-Tsvangirai are lying that their MPs have returned those cars.

They have not.

And that story has now died down. No one seems to be pursuing it on behalf of the public, who have a right to know the truth.

I believe this is wrong. The taking of the cars was wrong. The lie is wrong and public officials should be held to account when they lie like this, which is why I followed up that story and will continue to do so until we know for certain that those cars have been returned.

I expect they will never be returned. Greed now rules the roost within the MDC parliamentary caucus.

The Prime Minister's office told me this morning that we should not listen to Hlongwane, the ZANU PF head of the Committee in parliament that is leading the rebellion against the return of the cars.

Yet they within the MDC-T are not being transparent about this at all.

We need to know how many MDC-T parliamentarians took those cars. How many have returned them? To whom have they been returned seeing as Tendai Biti, the Finance Minister to whom Gideon Gono said the cars should be returned, has said he does not want them surrendered to him and the speaker of parliament has said he also does not want them.

To whom have they been returned?

They have not been returned. And we will not allow the opposition to pull wool over our eyes on this one.

They owe it to the people murdered in those cars to be as transparent about this as possible, to have a sense of shame and moral outrage about it and return those cars.

They are blood cars.

Zimbabwe: Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara About To Be Fired

Zimbabwe's Deputy Prime Minister and President of the MDC, Arthur Mutambara, is seen here with Ben Freeth, a white farmer under siege at his farm and whose photo I have published here before, showing him beaten black and blue by people who are after his farm, which has been gazetted by Mugabe for forcible acquisition. Mutambara's future is now under threat.

Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the MDC-M is about to be fired and recalled by his party.

A rally scheduled for this weekend in the satellite town of Chitungwiza is the platform at which this action will almost certainly be taken.

Spearheading this rebellion is former St Mary's MP Job Sikhala, who is the one organising the rally.

Top of the grievances is that Arthur Mutambara, Prof. Welshman Ncube and other MDC leaders now in government have abandoned the party.

One source put it this way: "We are now headless chickens. We have no leadership as far as the people are concerned."

Sikhala and his fellow plotters are say that Mutambara has not bothered to report back to the grassroots of the party since the formation of this inclusive government. They claim that when the negotiations leading to the current Inclusive Government started, Mutambara told provincial leaders that the national leadership would be reporting back to the party grassroots on progress.

Instead, they claim, Mutambara is now busy enjoying the trappings of office and mollycoddling the dictatorship of Mugabe and has completely abandoned the structures of the MDC, which he is leader of and which is unofficially called the MDC-M.

It still remains to be seen whether the rally called by Sikhala goes ahead and whether he succeeds in his quest to recall Mutambara from the leadership of the party and from the Deputy Prime Ministership.

I doubt the action will succeed because these guys from both MDCs have been embedded into the ZANU PF so thoroughly that it is shocking.

Speaking of being embedded:

There is a development here involving the Prime Minister's office, which has only hours ago been exposed to be using CIO for certain activities. As usual, I will not publish until I have confirmed this with a couple of other sources.

You can expect that shocker to be on this blog sometime tonight.

MDC-T Lying About The Blood-stained Vehicles Given To Their MPs

Proof that things that things are being done the ZANU PF way in the Incusive Government of Morgan Tsvangirai. These banners are a staple of ZANU PF functions and are printed at ZANU PF companies. They were prominent at the Independence Celebrations on Saturday, where Morgan Tsvangirai was in attendance. The Prime Minister's office told the Zimbabwe Standard that, although Morgan Tsvangirai had begged Mugabe to be allowed to address the gathering, Mugabe told his Prime Minister to bugger off, sit there and listen

There is apparent confusion about whether MDC MPs have returned the bloodstained cars they got from Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to Tendai Biti's office. Or to anybody for that matter.

The MDC are patently lying.

None of the parties involved, not ZANU PF, not MDC-T, not MDC-M - not even parliament, have revealed the number of MPs from the Tsvangirai MDC, especially, who have accepted the cars.

Nelson Chamisa, that disemboweled Minister of Nothing, who is also the spokesman for Tsvangirai's party, announced that the opposition MPs had returned the cars. He did not say who they were or how many had originally taken the cars.

Still, he says the cars have been returned by the MPs.

To whom?

Tendai Biti, the Minister of Finance, to whom Gono said the cars should be delivered, said yesterday in an interview with the state media that he did not want those cars anywhere near his offices.

He said the vehicles should instead be delivered to parliament, to be left in the custody of the Speaker of Parliament.

The Speaker of Parliament, the MDC Tsvangirai's Lovemore Moyo, responded by telling the state media that he also did not want them in his custody.

He says this issue has nothing to do with him and he does not want to get involved. Gono and Biti should sort out their own mess, is his stance.

So, this begs the question: if the cars have not been delivered to Biti's office and they have not been delivered into the custody of the Speaker of Parliament, to whom did these MPs who supposedly returned them hand them over?

We know that they are not back at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

They are still with their new owners, the Members of Parliament.

To buttress this, today, state media reports that the Parliamentary Committee in charge of the welfare of legislators has announced that they will not return the cars until "the last tractor" given out during the Farm Mechanisation Programme is returned to the authorities, as per Gono's provocative document issued on Monday.

Chaired by a ZANU PF legislator, the Committee also includes six MPs from Tsvangirai's MDC. So, while Chamisa is claiming that MDC MPs have returned the cars, his own MPs in this Committee are declaring that they have not returned them and will not do so.

The MDC-T basically want to claim the moral high ground while they sit in a sewer of moral filth. They want to mislead the public. Can't blame them: they are used to having their cake and eating it.

They are being aided and abetted in this by "journalists" on all sides, in and outside Zimbabwe, who have prostituted themselves to the MDC-T and now act like Public Relations operatives of Tsvangirai's party.

The worst culprits appear to be online media, who have been at the forefront of spreading the disinformation that the MDC-T has now developed a moral spine and has returned the murderous vehicles.

This diversionary tactic is not working within Zimbabwe, although it may work with people living outside our borders, who have swallowed this tripe.

There are substantive issues at stake here that should be engaging our attention.

Such as, for instance, the null and void statements from Tsvangirai. We were told there was a meeting on Monday of all the principals and their underlings at Zimbabwe House, Mugabe's preferred office.

Have you heard anything since? No.

And that is because the MDC-T has been defeated in its quest to reverse Mugabe's actions on Nelson Chamisa, the permanent secretaries and a whole host of other things that they said were "outstanding issues."

The dictator has asserted his dictatorial authority and the MDC-T are powerless to do anything about it.

I keep bringing this up because, while the attention of the new government of Morgan Tsvangirai is caught up in these fruitless power games, people are still dying, service delivery is still suffering, Zimbabwe is still teetering on the brink.

In essence, even on the things the MDC-T has power to make a difference, they are sitting back, letting the country go to the dogs because they believe it more important to fight for cushy jobs (in which they will do nothing, just as they are doing nothing in the cushy jobs they already have at local government and national government level).

This government, on both the MDC and ZANU PF side, is not interested in changing the fortunes of Zimbabwe. The MDC should bear the maximum blame here because, when you look at it, they indeed have done nothing in the ninety days they have been in power.

The dollarisation of Zimbabwe (allowing use of foreign currency) is NOT their policy. It was announced in January by Gideon Gono and Patrick Chinamasa, then acting minister of Finance (both of whom are ZANU PF).

That dollarisation was announced while Tsvangirai and his supporters were refusing to join the Inclusive government because they had not been given comfortable enough seats on the gravy train.

That dollarisation is the most significant policy initiative in Zimbabwe for some years now and it has indeed started lessening the suffering of the people through filling supermarket shelves. But it is woefully inadequate.

The payment of salaries to civil servants in foreign currency? That was also Gideon Gono and Patrick Chinamasa, ZANU PF people. The only difference is that ZANU PF announced this policy move saying the civil servants would be given "vouchers" with which to purchase groceries at shops selling in foreign currency, whereas Biti then came in and said no vouchers would be given and the civil servants would instead access the US$100 as hard cash from their banks.

Even the MDC councils, who have been in control for years now, still sit back and watch as the cities rot, with burst water pipes all over Harare wasting hundreds of thousands of litres of treated water. This while high-density, poorer townships go without water for months on end, fuelling diseases like cholera.

The truth of the matter is that the MDC have no ideas about turning this country around, except for asking the West to give them money, which money will, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, be abused, "eaten" and misappropriated as well by the new crop of MDC administrators, since they have now shown that they are as corrupt as ZANU PF

Panicking Gono Is Blackmailing His ZANU PF Friends

Morgan Tsvangirai is seen here on Saturday arriving at the National Sports Stadium for the Independence Celebrations, to be welcomed by his deputies, Thokozani Khupe and Arthur Mutambara. Tsvangirai and Biti are doggedly pursuing Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor, who is now in panic mode and trying to blackmail ZANU PF MPs into saving his skin

I can honestly say that I have never done an article on this blog that generated as much "live" feedback as the story below, in which I told you all about Gono trying to take the fight to Tsvangirai and Biti by drawing in a large number of people into his battle with the two men.

Most of the feedback was in the form of phone calls from Zimbabweans within Zimbabwe. (After a while I started asking myself why so many people seemed to know my cellphone number!)

Several of the callers (all of whom were, in the traditional Zimbabwe style, very friendly) complained that I update the blog late. They want their analysis and scoops first thing in the morning!

I shall try harder!

But the reason for the excitement against Gideon Gono is understandable.

In my article below, I explained to you that Gono had cornered Biti and Tsvangirai by extending the vehicle scandal to touch on the Farm Mechanisation Programme (which saw a vast number of MPs and ordinary supporters of both MDCs, as well as ZANU PF, Mugabe's party, receive free tractors, ploughs, pick-up trucks, combine harvesters, Cultivators, disc harrows, seed, fertiliser and a whole lot of other stuff.

Gono also warned that companies that had been given BACCOSSI money (US dollars mostly, given to Zimbabwean manufacturers of basic commodities to allow them to buy raw materials and spare parts at vastly state-subsidised rates) should be ready to return the millions of dollars advanced to them at a moment's notice.

The Governor sought to draw in the army, ministry of defence....in fact, everybody who has ever benefited from the programmes of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Most of these are ZANU PF people.

But now for the really interesting background that I did not have before.

It appears that Tendai Biti and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, especially, are very cool customers in all of this.

Tsvangirai is doggedly pursuing Gono with a strategy of stubborn, unrelenting pressure, which he is applying to Mugabe at every single Monday meeting the two men have. (You will recall that Tsvangirai reports on his business to Mugabe every Monday).

Refusing to be rebuffed, Tsvangirai is pressing home the need to re-look at the Governor's role in any future fortunes of Zimbabwe. Consistently, he is telling the dictator that Gono is a stumbling block to Zimbabwe receiving money from donors and the Bretton Woods institutions and hence, to recovery.

So, Gono is panicking.

What Tsvangirai is not aware of yet is that, even within ZANU PF, Gono is fast losing friends. He has alienated some very influential party leaders who are now quietly stocking up the fire under Gono by urging MDC parliamentarians to go ahead and propose a parliamentary investigation into the governor.

So far, the numbers I am told of seem to indicate that any parliamentary action against Gono would get bi-partisan support and garner a two-thirds majority.

Claims that have been passed on to me that Gono has also fallen out of favour with Grace Mugabe can not be confirmed. It is said that the speech given by Grace Mugabe earlier this year in which she demanded that those in ZANU PF who were engaged in corruption should be investigated was directed at the Governor.

Gono's document, apparently, is a challenge to his former friends in Mugabe's ZANU PF party. He is bitter at what he sees as "being sacrificed by my comrades." He feels hard done by, that people whom he sought to bribe with all these goodies now appear willing to sacrifice him to Tsvangirai and Biti.

The call to return all the stuff he gave them should be seen in that light. He is looking for sympathy and support.

The Reserve Bank Governor still has another ace up his sleeve (although it appears as though this will not help him), and that is to come out publicly and name people who benefited from such schemes as the buying of foreign currency on the black market by the Reserve Bank.

For instance, some of the people who benefited from this include a sitting MP from ZANU PF, a former Zimbabwe Television reporter who made his fortune through the scheme of being given freshly printed Zimbabwe dollars to source foreign currency on the black market for Gono and the Central Bank.

The lack of transparency with this black market forex scheme meant that a lot of people were left with "change" running into tens of thousands of US dollars from the black market after changing the "hard to come by" Zimbabwe dollars on the black market.

You will recall that during that period, Gono squeezed ordinary Zimbabweans, refusing them access to their own Zimbabwe dollars from their bank accounts, so hard Zimbabwe dollar cash was in very short supply and yet was what was used in day-to-day trading.

The Governor is now threatening to let all of these things become public unless ZANU PF parliamentarians ( most of whom got money from Gono for their general election campaigns in March 2008) protect him from the MDC in parliament.

Ultimately, though, Gono is looking directly to Robert Mugabe, who, it is a well-known fact, does not take the embarrassment of ZANU PF as a party lightly.

By threatening to open this can of worms, which has the potential to bring ZANU PF crashing down in the legislature especially (although perhaps not at the courts, knowing what we know about the Attorney General), Gono is trying to force Mugabe's hand, to get him to move unilaterally to quash all investigations and protect his banker from scrutiny.

Tellingly, Gono, in that document he released yesterday, says his activities should not be seen in the context of normal central banking operations, saying that the real problem he faced was "political in nature", even before the Inclusive Government and hence, he had to act in a "political manner" in responding to the "challenges."

This subject, ladies and gentlemen, is actually too big to be covered in one article and I expect that I will be doing another piece again tomorrow unless something else crops up.

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MEANTIME, THOUGH, I now have it on very good authority that the announcement that Thabo Mbeki was going to come to Zimbabwe to "define Mugabe's powers in the context of the Global Political Agreement (GPA)" was nothing but CIO and ZANU PF disinformation.

ZANU PF wanted this to happen, absolutely certain that Mbeki would take the (correct) legal position that Mugabe's presidential powers remain intact and, as he heads cabinet, has the authority to make changes to ministries as he did with Chamisa's.

But it could only happen if the Prime Minister falls into the trap and agrees to ask Mbeki to come back to Harare to deal with the matter.

But the Prime Minister moved quickly to dismiss the disinformation. He may have actually wisened up on this one and it appears as though, for the first time, he has anticipated the dictator and has a wonderfully workable counter-strategy.

Hence, he is insisting that, yes, he knows that Mugabe has all of those LEGAL powers, but that this is not a legalistic matter, rather a moral one.

He intends to keep hammering home to Mugabe that, although he has the "legal" powers, he must approach this whole matter from the moral viewpoint: there are things he can do to ensure that money is unlocked by the international community.

If Mugabe relents on some of the "smaller issues", Tsvangirai tells the dictator, then the job of asking for donor funds to revive Zimbabwe would be that much easier.

Tsvangirai's problem, however, is that Mugabe apparently believes that no matter what he does, the West will not come in to help the Inclusive Government.

He is still of the view that the fight with Britain and America is about land and he is actually hoping that Tsvangirai fails to convince the donor nations to help, so that he can turn around to the electorate and the African constituency and tell them, " I told you this was about Land Reform....they will not help us until we give back the farms to white farmers."

I think the one thing even Tsvangirai's enemies agree on is that the man has a dogged determination.

It appears he is putting this to good use here, unrelenting even as he uses a pinhead to poke the ZANU PF lion repeatedly.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he may irritate it into moving, even if it is just for a bit.

I think we have entered a very interesting time in the affairs of Zimbabwe and the next couple of weeks, while not delivering a clear verdict on whether ZANU PF stands or falls, should indicate to us just how much moral power the Prime Minister can wrestle from the ruling party, in the name of asking for space to right the economy.

The only let-down may be from the West, who may indeed refuse still to listen to him and resist all efforts to bring in money to help the economy.

If they do that and continue on that path, they may well be sabotaging the Prime Minister at a time when he is emerging with what I personally see as the strategy that has the best prospect for success.

It appears he has found a ZANU PF weak spot and that spot is Gideon Gono, who is being abandoned by people with ZANU PF, although not yet by Mugabe. If Tsvangirai succeeds on Gono, it would be correct to say he would have badly wounded ZANU PF. Whether the wound would be fatal will then depend on what he (Tsvangirai) does for an encore.

Brace yourselves, Zimbabwean politics is about to get even more turbulent!

Gono Corners Biti and Tsvangirai In An Explosive Public Document

Reserve Bank Governor today issued a 20 page tabloid mini-newspaper taking the fight directly to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who are vehemently opposed to his issuing of cars to Members of Parliament, especially those from the MDC.

The document also includes the following statements towards the very end:

"The RBZ would like to advise Hon Members of Parliament that the Governor is under instruction from the Minister of Finance Hon. T.L. Biti to ask all Hon. Members of Parliament to return the second hand vehicles recently issued to them at their request by the Reserve Bank."

Gono says in the announcement that although Biti wanted the cars returned by end of today, 20 April 2009, he, Gono is "appealing to the Honourable Minister that this deadline be extended to Friday, 24 April 2009."

The cars are to parked at the Biti's offices and the keys handed over to Biti.

However, it is the other announcements in the same document that are bound to see this situation get out of hand.

For instance, Gono claims that Tendai Biti is also asking that all companies that benefited from foreign currency for their operations should return the same. He lists the following:

Lobels (Bakery Company) - US$6 million
National Foods: US$1.7million
Dairibord (Dairy company): US$1.3million
Megapack (Packaging Company) : US$1.2 million
Unilever: US$1.1million
Delta, Schweppes, United Refineries, Olivine, CFI: US$2.4million

In a show of pique, Gono also announced in the same document that all ministers who benefited from the vehicles issued by the RBZ should return them, saying "this will ensure that there are no double standards.."

Even more explosive is his suggestion that all farming equipment issued under the various schemes should be readied for return.

In addition, Gono is also claiming that Biti has asked him to recall debts amounting to more than US$1.1 billion advanced to various ministries, including Defence, IMF loan repayments, ZESA and others.

Clearly the idea is to make this fight wider than just between Gono and Biti, drawing in heavyweights like Mnangagwa and effectively cornering Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai.

Furthermore, the recall of the farming equipment will almost certainly be resisted by beneficiaries and could see Tendai Biti and the Prime Minister being put into an impossible situation and this is the idea behind Gono's extraordinary show of petulance today.

It is a defiant, petulant and dangerous powder-keg that he has thrown onto the laps of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister.

It really is no exaggeration to say that this is the start of a very explosive situation that could consume the Inclusive government and possibly mortally imperil it.

In today's document, Gono lists 38 cars that he said he has "loaned" to MPs. These include Mazda B2500 twin-cabs, Mazda BT-50 twin-cabs, Nissan Navaras and others.

Gono says Biti was out of the country when MPs approached him and begged for the cars in order to travel to their constituencies to explain Biti's half-baked Short Term Economic Recovery Programme (STERP).

Directly contradicting both Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Nelson Chamisa, the MDC Spokesman who both called the initiative a quasi-fiscal operation, Gono says in his tabloid (which was inserted into The Herald of today, "It is critical to note, however, that the second-hand vehicles loaned to Honourable Members of Parliament do not represent new or additional quasi-fiscal operations by the RBZ."

Gono says he took the pleas of MPs to Tendai Biti and that Biti responded by saying the cars should be distributed by the Ministry of Finance. The governor goes on to say this suggestion was rejected by the MPs.

In a completely pointless exercise, Gono also lists more one thousand cars that have been distributed to various government ministries, hospitals, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Operation Maguta, Attorney General's Office, Universities and parastatals going back to 2006.

It is his venom towards the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, however, that is thinly disguised, although the challenge to their authority is clear enough in his document.

He says, for instance, on page 19:

"The level of actual and intended persecution on the Reserve Bank, the person of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, his Team and those who supplied the bank with various products, from grain, motor vehicles to farming implements, as well as those who provided lines of credit during the period before the coming into being of the Inclusive Government, is astounding and reaching critical levels."

Gono says Biti and Tsvangirai are even suggesting that he be investigated "right down to the teaspoon....all in the name of trying to show how evil, unworthy and incompetent the Reserve Bank Governor is."

The Governor questions all this, saying this is surprising to him, "at a time when there are calls for National Healing and Inclusivity."

Speaking to Tendai Biti's efforts to paralyse the RBZ by stripping it of all income generating avenues, Gono says, "Some authorities who must act with the minimum expected responsibility are working day and night on ways of undermining and marginalising the Reserve Bank"

Intolerance and Desperation

Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, is flanked by a saluting Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Chiwengwa, during the singing of the national anthem at the National Sports Stadium on Saturday as Zimbabwe celebrated Independence Day

Somebody calling themselves "Anonymous" (how unimaginative!) left a message overnight on this blog saying that I would be lucky to get to the end of the year alive. I don't publish comments from Anonymous contributors because anyone without the guts to identify themselves loses their right to be heard on this blog.

I consider this desperation which is coming from an MDC-T supporter who misguidedly believes that democracy means agreeing with everything the MDC-T does no matter what.

But on a more general note, there are things that I feel I should, just this once, address. It is the first and last time I will devote a post to anything other than the examination of the goings on in Zimbabwean society and government. So here it is.

I have always been very clear that there is no point in writing articles and analysis if everyone agrees with your opinion, because that means you are not generating debate, from which new ideas emerge.

I am also of the opinion that, unless you can upset some people with what you write, then you do should not be considered a serious contributor to national debate.

I think that if my articles stopped upsetting some people, then I might as well stop writing. When I start hearing everybody agreeing with me, then I think I would have lost the way!!

I bring this up in light of the desperate examination of my work for hidden hands and so on by people that I am very happy to upset.

For a start, let us get it in the open that, yes, my boss at the office, Mr Godfrey Chanetsa, was Mugabe's spokesman from 1975 to 1984.

But then again, Geoff Nyarota of the Zimbabwe Times was Canaan Banana's spokesman after independence, so that means nothing.

Yes, Chanetsa was a resident of Mgagao Camp in Tanzania, where ZANLA fighters were stationed during the Liberation War and he remains extremely good friend with most of the top army brass, including General Chiwengwa and Perance Shiri, the Commander of the Air Force.

It is also true that Sally Mugabe and Robert Mugabe considered Chanetsa "a son", with Sally always referring to Mugabe in her conversations with Chanetsa as "your father." This is understandable, since Chanetsa was only 22 years old when he started working with Mugabe.

All this means nothing, really, to the work I do now.

I could also easily point to the fact that for some time after independence, Morgan Tsvangirai was a Political Commissar for ZANU PF in Redcliff. I could decide to concentrate on the fact Tsvangirai personally engaged in beatings of opponents of ZANU PF in those early days as he defended his party, ZANU PF.

But I realise that people change, they see the error of their ways and I will only judge them by what they are now and what motivates them now.

While not disputing the truth of my stories and analysis on this blog, enemies of diversity and democracy are seeking to shut me up by throwing accusations and innuendo at me, by suggesting all sorts of nefarious things on my behalf.

It will take a lot more than that to get me to shut up, I am afraid. Like I said, I love it when enemies of diversity in opinion and views clearly get hot under the collar from my work.

If I stopped upsetting them, then I would stop writing. There would be no point.

Perhaps they do not understand that I have never been swayed by criticism because I believe that is what actually makes democracy exciting.

It is the reason you will never, ever see me respond to personal insults, because my eyes are set on issues.

I hope to continue upsetting as many anti-democratic forces as possible, be they from the MDC or ZANU PF or any other party until the day I die.

Mugabe Freezes Tsvangirai Out of Independence Day Celebrations

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai welcomes dictator Robert Mugabe to the VIP tent at the beginning of Independence Day Celebrations in Harare today. He looks too jovial considering the bruising battles and humiliations he and his ministers have been suffering at the hands of Mugabe in the last couple of weeks, do you not think?

Dictator Robert Mugabe gave the shortest speech of his career at the Independence Celebrations in Harare earlier today and his characteristic attacks on Britain and the West were missing.

Sources close to the dictator say he wanted it "over and one with quickly" because of the presence of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and other MDC officials, which ZANU PF felt "sullied" the event.

Besides Morgan Tsvangirai, others in attendance included Mavambo.Kusile.Dawn president Dr Simba Makoni, the vice presidents and deputy prime ministers and ministers from all the parties in the coalition government.

Mugabe, together with his wife (who was dressed in yellow) was accompanied into the stadium by the Service Chiefs, who were in full ceremonial dress. He inspected the Guard of Honour, after which a soldier, as usual, asked permission for the soldiers to do their march past, which the dictator granted.

After the march past, Mugabe then lit the flame of Independence and took his place in the VIP tent.

The surprising thing is that there was no official role for any MDC officials in the proceedings today. The Master of Ceremonies was one of the most hated man in urban Zimbabwe today, Ignatius Chombo, who is a ZANU PF minister from Mugabe's home area.He is the one man directly responsible for the breakdown of urban services and cholera can quite comfortably be called his baby.

Effectively, then, the other partners in the coalition government were frozen out from the proceedings. Tsvangirai was not given a role to play except to listen to Mugabe. And, like I said, the proceedings were presided over by Ignatius Chombo.

Tsvangirai sat next to vice president Msika in the VIP tent (having arrived well ahead of the dictator) and the two chatted amicably all the way through.

As I write this, the traditional Independence Trophy soccer match is going on and I am not sure whether any of the VIPs are still at the stadium watching the event.

Notable also today was the set up, which, for the first time since independence, put the marching soldiers and the independence celebrations at some distance from the VIP tent. Most people read this to mean that the organisers wanted to keep the armed forces as far away from the Prime Minister as possible, for fear that any salutes could be mistaken for salutes to him!

The Prime Minister did not get a chance to interact with any of the defence forces present at the proceedings.

The issue of the saluting of the Prime Minister would never have taken such a high profile were it not for the MDC themselves. They seem very keen to have soldiers salute Tsvangirai.

On the day he was sworn in as Prime Minister, for instance, I was in my 9th floor office in the city centre when MDC supporters in a pick up truck drove past, singing loudly, "Mucha musaluta chete Morgan" meaning "You will salute Morgan whether you like it or not."

I genuinely believe that had the MDC not made a song and dance out of the whole thing, it probably would not have crossed the minds of the Service Chiefs to make this an issue.

So, that was Independence Day in Harare today. Nothing extraordinary took place and it was over very quickly, much quicker than it has ever been.

Mavambo Sets A Date For Launch As A Political Party

The Party Formation Steering Committee of the Mavambo Kusile Dawn met on Tuesday this week in Harare and settled on May 13 as the date on which the party is going to be officially launched.

The meeting, which was Chaired by Mavambo Interim Chairman, Mr Godfrey Chanetsa, has already finalised a draft constitution and now has an interim structure in place, with Dr Simba Makoni as Interim President until the elections for substantive office holders on the launch date.

Meanwhile, I can reveal that most civic organisations have now started consultations with the Mavambo leadership in order to put together a united front and take on the moribund Inclusive Government.

So far, Dr Simba Makoni and the MKD leadership have met with Dr Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional Assembly, Mr Wellington Chibhebhe of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and others.

There are also three "smaller" parties that have effectively dissolved themselves and joined Makoni's movement. I am not yet at liberty to disclose them, but they should be announced on May 13 when the Mavambo Party is launched officially.

There are also more than a dozen MDC MPs who have indicated their displeasure with Morgan Tsvangirai who have indicated that they will be jumping ship to join the new party with their constituencies, which will immediately give the new party a presence in parliament.

I was personally stunned today to see Harare blanketed by posters from the National Constitutional Assembly, which has now become much more confrontational towards the MDC-T.

Posters have been put up all over Harare, asking: "Are you still hungry? Are you still jobless......"

It is clear that the fact that the MDC have taken on the NCA, with MDC parliamentarians boycotting an NCA meeting this week, called to explain why the Constitution-making pressure group is unhappy with the Party-driven Constitution process, has energised the NCA, which has taken gloves off in their approach to the opposition party.

The Trade Union body, also a former ally of the MDC, have now also started distancing themselves from the MDC-T, which they accuse of betraying teh struggle against the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe.

We will all have to wait until May 13 to see what sort of alliances and endorsements these organisations will strike up with Dr Makoni's new party.

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Meantime, in an interesting development, the MDC continues to bend over backwards to accommodate the dictator's party, ZANU PF. It has been announced that the opposition party will attend the independence celebrations tomorrow.

BUT, the parties have banned their supporters from wearing their own party regalia.

I was in a conversation about this with Dr Makoni yesterday and he made the interesting observation that this move benefits ZANU PF more than it does MDC-T.

He saw it this way: In Harare, especially, Mugabe knows that he has no support at all. If the wearing of party regalia (typically T-shirts or dresses with the parties' leaders heads on them) had been allowed, then it would have been a given that Tsvangirai's face would have dominated the event, with Mugabe's face struggling to make its presence felt.

Hence, this is basically a concession to ZANU PF by the MDC, to spare them embarrassment! And what thanks does Morgan Tsvangirai get? He is told to put up or shut up!

In our conversation, we also agreed that this move clearly shows that the Inclusive government has failed in its objective of promoting tolerance. In fact, Dr Makoni said, "It would have been a wonderful sight, wouldn't it, to see the party regalia of these two organisations side by side on the terraces. That would have given me hope that tolerance has triumphed."

The fact that these uniforms have been banned clearly shows that the two two parties still have not accepted each other at all.

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And have you heard?: Nelson Chamisa has threatened to resign if the issue of his disemboweling by Mugabe is not sorted out. The meeting I referred to at the beginning of this article has basically agreed that Mugabe's position stands. Chamisa remains effectively a Minister who now has no portfolio.

By announcing his intention to "resign", Chamisa has painted himself into a corner.

Will he indeed resign?

No, of course not.

He is enjoying his perks as a minister too much and, like all the other greedy Ministers and MPs from the MDC who have prostituted themselves to the ZANU PF patronage system, he will stick around, sitting in his office twiddling his thumbs.

Remember, this is the very same man, this Chamisa, who said only a couple of weeks ago that he took the Mercedes Benz from ZANU PF in order "to demonstrate to our supporters that we are in power."

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To sign off, I just want to tell you about about my interview with Lance Guma of SW Radio yesterday, for his programme, Behind The Headlines. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was glad to get an opportunity to explain my motivations for this blog.

As you know SW Radio is one of the most popular private radio stations beaming into Zimbabwe from outside (since Mugabe will not allow them to operate from within our borders!). They, together with Studio 7 of Voice of America and another radio station broadcasting out of South Africa, have become the media of choice especially in the rural areas. They are seen as more truthful than Dead BC, the state broadcaster.

I was genuinely surprised to hear from Lance that this little blog has, as he put it, "taken the Zimbabwe media scene by storm."

I am at a loss as to why this is so, since I have never thought of what I am doing here as extraordinary at all.

Still, I remain grateful for your patronage and support. We are now officially the Number 1 blog on Zimbabwe, ranked Number 1 by Afrigator, the South African Blog Aggregator that lists more than 8000 (eight thousand) African Blogs from Egypt to South Africa, with this little blog being featured in such publications as the Guardian of the U.K. and the Telegraph, BBC and others.

I hope you continue to visit and exchange views and opinions with others here.

And I also hope you have a happy Independence Day!

By the way, I intend to Live-Blog the Independenc Celebrations here tomorrow and will be reattaching the Chatroll that used to be at the bottom of this page for that purpose, internet connections allowing!

I have taken the chatroll off because it was now being used to post strange websites by spammers and that could have been dangerous to you my visitors because those sites could have viruses on them and, if you clicked on them, your computers could have become infected.

The best thing, therefore, was to remove it until I found a way to protect you. You can still get in touch with me and continue the conversation through comments on any of the stories and I will publish those comments as long as they are on topic and are not abusive towards other users and readers of the blog.

MDC MPs Accept Blood-Stained Cars

MDC-Tsvangirai MPs have now collected RBZ cars, some of which were loaned to ZANU PF during the June 2008 Presidential run-of election and used to murder MDC-T activists

MDC-T MPs have humiliated Morgan Tsvangirai by going ahead and accepting the cars that were offered to them by Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, defying the Prime Minister's express wishes (and orders).

Some of the vehicles that are now being driven by these MDC-T MPs are the very same vehicles in which MDC-T activists were murdered. If the MPs look carefully, they may actually be able to see faint bloodstains in the load bays of their newly-acquired Nissan Navaras (pictured above), Rhino CAMS and BT-50s.

A Navara loaned to ZANU PF by the RBZ, for instance, was seen on Nyaguwe Bridge in the Chikwaka Communal Areas where blood was being washed off its loadbay. A day later, the body of Beta Chokururuma was discovered under the same bridge.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai had ordered his MPs not to accept the cars.

You will read the Herald story in full when the Herald updates its website, from which most online "Zimbabwe Newspapers" normally plagiarise articles to publish as their own.

The MPs from MDC-T have now started openly criticising their leader, the Prime Minister, with some of those who took the cars saying Tsvangirai himself had accepted government cars. This, they felt, was "hypocrisy" on Tsvangirai's part, especially since he now expected them to refuse the cars from Gono.

The Prime Minister has not publicly reacted to the acceptance of the Gono cars by his MPs yet, although the most principled MDC-T leadership member, Tendai Biti, is said to be "distraught".

He had threatened to remove the whip from MDC-T MPs who accepted the cars, but the sheer number of those who have accepted would mean that he would have to fire practically ALL of the MDC-T MPs if he were to follow through on his threat.

This rebellion by the MDC-T MPs is certainly an embarrassment for the PM.

However, it would be a mistake to see this as a challenge to Tsvangirai's hold over the party. He still remains the undisputed leader, his position akin to Mugabe's in ZANU PF. In other words, the MDC-T (the T in the party's name stands for Tsvangirai, showing you just how utterly owned by its leader that party is) would, like the proverbial rats in the Pied Piper story, follow Tsvangirai over the edge if he were to lead them there.

The significance of the story lies only in highlighting the greed that drives this government. That greed now bestrides the political divide, existing in both MDCs and in the utterly corrupt and discredited ruling ZANU PF.

Only a few days ago, on 8 April, Deputy Prime Minister (MDC-T) Thokozani Khupe, was booed by the MDC-T MPs when she addressed them urging them to refuse to take the cars. It was after that incident that Tsvangirai issued the order for the MPs not to accept the vehicles, which he said was a bribe and would compromise parliament's supervisory role towards the RBZ.

Does this then mean that, knowing this, the MPs have decided that it is OK to be bribed simply because the Prime Minister accepted government cars and government escort vehicles?

It would appear so.

What then are the implications?

First, the MPs, especially those from the MDC-T, have now forfeited any moral high ground they might have had over Gono had they maintained a principled stand of not accepting those cars.

Second, this also means that they will certainly not be "grilling" Gono as MDC-T supporters had all along led us to believe. He will never have to answer for his financing of the brutal Presidential run-off in which MDC-T supporters were murdered and horrifically assaulted all over Zimbabwe.

Third, it shows that the MDC-T parliamentary caucus is not motivated by any ideals of democracy and accountability. They pay lip service only to these ideals and would abandon them in an instant for the sake of self-aggrandisement.

Fourth and most importantly, it emboldens ZANU PF, which now believes that the MDC-T is no better than they are and can be bought for the right price.

This, as I said, is by no means a significant challenge to Tsvangirai's leadership. It is, however, a very noteworthy challenge to his moral authority.

Greed and self-interest have triumphed and the MDC-T has compromised itself, prostituting itself to the ZANU PF patronage system.

As Mugabe told that visiting Norwegian Minister a couple of weeks back, "We don't have an opposition in this country anymore."

The dictator is being proved correct.

Simba Makoni Blasts Mugabe/Tsvangirai At Commonwealth Meeting

Dr Simba Makoni revealed on Thursday last week that he had confronted Mugabe and questioned the decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth in a Politburo meeting.

Dr Makoni was addressing Commonwealth Ambassadors at a luncheon in Harare, at a luncheon event to which the ambassador grouping had invited him to hear his thoughts on the current situation in Zimbabwe, the prospects of the Coalition Government and his plans for the future of Zimbabwe.

Makoni started off by saying, "We welcomed the commencement of negotiations between ZANU (PF and MDC, though we believed that a truly national negotiating forum, involving leader from constituencies broader than just politics, was more appropriate. Such a national forum would not only canvas the full range of national concerns, but also provide a firm and sustainable foundation for national re-engagement and reconciliation.

We are happy that accommodation was reached for cooperation within an inclusive government and extend our support to the MDC-PF government."

He then launched into a critique of the government, saying the Global Political Agreement between ZANU PF and the MDC was "not a solid base for relaunch of the country to normalcy."

"There was and still is to much emphasis on "sharing power", hence the result is that we have way too many ministers, with the contest for power continuing over provincial governors, diplomatic postings, permanent secretaries, RBZ governor and Attorney General, amongst many others" he said.

Dr Makoni also said he was worried that mannerisms of ZANU PF are emerging amongst the new MDC ministers, seeing, for instance the issuing of directives and orders to business to slash tariffs and prices.

This, he said, signalled that there was no paradigm shift in the thinking of the new government, which appeared to still want to dictate to the country instead of consulting it.

He called Tendai Biti's revised budget, STERP (Short Term Economic Recovery Programme) and the so-called 100-day plan, "ill-considered and hurried". The revised budget of the MDC, for instance, he said, was as damaging as ZANU PF's because it stripped away all provision for infrastructure rehabilitation, leaving only consumptive expenditure - the payment of salaries and perks.

The entire budget, therefore, was simply for recurrent expenditure, whereas what Zimbabwe needed now was the proven route of a "New Deal" of public works to rehabilitate the infrastructure, thereby creating thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of job.

This would have required political will to trim the public service, save money and then channel the saved money towards these sustainable infrastructure projects.

He said he was certain that if this was done, the world would notice that Zimbabwe was using the little revenue it had to kick-start its own development and would be more inclined to help. Right now, though, the world sees that Zimbabwe politicians' first priority if to fill their own stomachs first.

Makoni highlighted the following:

Too much emphasis on raising money, without rational and prioritised programmes and plans
Too many public stunts - stakeholder gatherings, for example, that are without strategic focus
No evidence yet that a Team is emerging - currently we have just a collection of individuals projecting different messages and priorities (e.g. PM/President over the farm invasions)
Much talk about inclusion, but reality is that there is limited or no space for other civic or political actors
Initial indications on the constitution-making and national healing do not signify adequate and substantive inclusion

"For the sake of the people, we genuinely wish the Inclusive government to succeed. Part of the requirement for such success is there continues to be an alternative view and voice to national affairs. In this connection, preparations to transform MKD into a fully-fledged political party are advancing well," he said

Dr Makoni then ended with the following statement of faith:

We believe that in the new Zimbabwe, the following principles should guide our national systems, especially state functions:

supremacy of the constitution;
separation of responsibilities of state institutions;
separation of party and state;
limitation of terms of office of both party and state officers; and,
separation of religion and state.

We believe that the country is ready for another force in national politics. One that does not only articulate what we are against, but more so, what we are for. A political force that offers a vision of the future, rather than remain prisoners of the past. A force that recognises and values the past, as a foundation and stepping stone to the future, not as the destination.

The country needs a leadership that understands and accepts the strength of diversity in a united nation. A leadership that recognizes that there is more that unites us than divides us, and embraces each one of us into the family of Zimbabwe. A leadership that understands and accepts that our strength, as a country, is assured when we belong to the family of nations; than when we remain in isolation.

Zimbabwe One Step Closer To Becoming A Province of South Africa

Death to The Zimbabwe Dollar! Elton Mangoma, minister of Economic Planning from the MDC, announced on Sunday that the Zimbabwe dollar (such as the FIFTY BILLION DOLLAR NOTE pictured here) has been "suspended" for a year. A lot of commuters are going to be mad as hell, because they had been using these to board commuter omnibuses. But in confirms the timeline I gave in December in my article, Zimbabwe Approaches South Africa to Officially Use The Rand

So, you woke up on Sunday morning to hear that what I revealed to you here in my article in December last year (Zimbabwe Approaches South Africa To Officially Use The Rand) has been proved correct. Yet again.

As I explained it back then, Gono had met with Mboweni to discuss the adoption of the Rand and the conditions laid down by the South Africans were daunting.

Zimbabwe, I told you back then, was required to suspend its own currency for at least six months. (They have done better, with Elton Mangoma, the minister of economic planning, revealing yesterday that the Zimbabwe Dollar has now been officially suspended for a whole year.)

The other condition was the provision of security of some sort for the deal. I passed on to you the information I got that Mugabe and his governor were seriously thinking of mortgaging the country's mineral wealth for this.

It appears they have now settled on the Chiyadzwa diamonds (which were promptly banned and can't now be sold on the open market). The South Africans will probably take them and certify them on a much larger scale than they have been doing now. (Yes, our diamonds have been certified on our behalf by the South Africans for some time now and they are sold in the market as originating from South Africa.

There is nothing much the international market can do to South Africa, seeing as it is the leading nation in diamond mining. A South African company, De Beers, has an international monopoly on diamonds and can manipulate the price to its own advantage if it felt hard done by.

Then there was the issue of trust. The South Africans were not prepared to support budgetary allocations in Zimbabwe. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would not be able to set monetary policy and would not be the lender of last resort for the government of Zimbabwe.

Hence, just like Biti then announced in his own budget revision last month, all budgetary money, to be disbursed to ministries for their operations, will now be housed at Treasury (meaning the Ministry of Finance) and not at the RBZ as was the case before.

Further, none of the money can be withdrawn by any ministry without the express consent of the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti. And, of course, there was the minister's Hunter-Gatherer budget, about which he himself said, "From now on, what we gather is what we eat."

Please take note of the words he used......".....What we eat." That is the whole point of this government, "to eat". Vari kuda kudya mari dzedu chete-chete.

But, to get back to the matter at hand: Most of the conditions for Zimbabwe to be Randified are now met.

Tendai Biti himself has also announced that all government accounts will be held in Rand and all accounting matters will also be Randified

We can now see the trend very clearly. The President of South Africa told the media earlier this year that he saw nothing wrong with Zimbabwe adopting the Rand as its official currency.

The Reserve Bank of South Africa itself refused to comment and only, tellingly, said no "official" approach has been made.

Basically, the possibility was thrown into the ring to gauge public reaction in South Africa. Public opinion having been prepared for the move, we are now seeing an inexorable march towards adopting the Rand openly, officially.

Then, Zimbabwe will forever be a colony again, a province of South Africa. What with the announcement last week that Zimbabweans would no longer need visas to visit South Africa (an announcement that was immediately disowned by the South African Ministry of Home Affairs on their website...)

We are ahead of the pack. Regional-integration-r-us. By the time Africa comes to be a united continent (United States of Africa, is what Gaddafi wants), we would have been one country for ages.

I bet the new mega-country combining Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho (who all already the use the South African Rand), Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique will be called.......South Africa!

Tsvangirai's Final Defeat

The significance of Mugabe swearing in Tsvangirai and his ministers was dismissed when I discussed it on this blog in February. The importance of that gesture is now becoming very clear as it emerges who it is that is, as Mugabe it, "firmly in control" It is a final defeat for the MDC and the Prime Minister, as events now show that they have responsibility, but not authority or power. And they are accepting this

Laughter was echoing through the corridors of State House yesterday afternoon, where, uncharacteristically, the dictator Robert Mugabe had showed up for work, meeting with the three ZANU PF Politubro members who are now virtually his kitchen cabinet.

It is the Politubro members who had called the meeting, concerned at the latest developments within the coalition government. Mugabe assured them that everything was in order and they need not worry.

The reason for the laughter was the Prime Minister's office statement issued to the press over the weekend declaring the disemboweling of Nelson Chamisa's ministry by Mugabe "null and void."

"Regai apedze shungu," the dictator said.

It is quite clear that Mugabe has no intention of reversing any of these things, and Tsvangirai knows it. But the Prime Minister is playing to the gallery here, issuing statements only to make himself look good with his half-informed, fanatic supporters who still refuse to accept that Prime Minster Tsvangirai has been finally defeated, utterly, by the dictator. He holds office without power, responsibility without authority.

And he is being humiliated by the very man he has now taken to calling "Father" - "Baba".

This is simply a statement of fact, which some will see as "hatred" for Tsvangirai. But that has never bothered me, because time has a way of proving me right so far.

Tsvangirai declared the appointments of Permanent Secretaries "null and void" before the accident that claimed his wife's life.

Have you heard about this matter since?

He also declared the appointments of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono and Attornery General Johannes Tomana null and void. Now we know that they are neither null nor void and the two men are not going anywhere.

Now this.

Zimbabwe news is getting predictable, isn't it?

So, for the level-headed and realistic ones amongst us, I refer you back to an article I wrote a month ago on this very blog: "The Reason for the Mugabe/Tsvangirai Clash To Come".

Let me say, when a fish is caught on a hook, the best thing for it is to stop struggling because it will only hurt itself. It may escape, yes. But it would be fatally wounded, unable to feed and facing certain death.

So it is with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. In that article a month ago, I explained to you all that the clause that was never questioned by Morgan Tsvangirai in the agreement he signed, the one which says, "The Prime Minister shall have executive authority" was going to be the source of the problems between the two men.

Authority of whom? Over what? I asked. Because their agreement does not say, and Tsvangirai was too afraid to press home the point.

So it has come to pass.

Remember that I also told you that in "the battle to come" (it was still to come then), Tsvangirai would prove to be at a disadvantage and his regaining the advantage would entirely depend on the goodwill of Mugabe. It would, in other words, depend on what Mugabe was willing to give away to Tsvangirai out of the goodness of his heart, not because he has to.

Here's why: According to this Agreement of theirs, both Mugabe and Tsvangirai "shall have executive authority."

But, Tsvangirai's authority is not written down anywhere else, or detailed in any statutory instrument. Mugabe's powers. however, which Morgan Tsvangirai decided not to contest but to confirm in their agreement, are intact.

Worse, Mugabe's powers are contained in the constitution that we are currently operating under. Tsvangirai only has a job description, which also says that he reports to Mugabe, an act that the Prime Minister last week confirmed he does every Monday.

Hence, the position we have today, which is that the Prime Minister shall have whatever executive authority the president chooses to delegate to him.

Here's the bottom line: Mugabe is President. That role was not redefined in the Global Political Agreement. So Mugabe still chairs cabinet. He is the Head of state and government.

Yes, folks, according to that agreement, Tsvangirai is not even head of government, as a normal Prime Minister would be. He is instead head of the Council of Ministers.

The Council is like a task force, put together by the executive authority (cabinet, to which the agreement says the Council of Ministers reports) to deal with a specific mandate. In this case, the mandate is policy formulation and implementation. Nothing more and nothing less.

Tsvangirai is well aware of this. That is why, on the day he announced his pick of cabinet ministers, before he was sworn in, he made the following comment; "I hope that I, as Prime Minister, with responsibility for policy formulation and implementation, will be allowed to define the mandates of the ministers."

It was a hope.

Mugabe, as executive cabinet chair, makes appointments across the board. This is why Tsvangirai's ministers were sworn in by Mugabe. Some naive people thought at the time that I was pointing out the fact that the ministers were being sworn in by Mugabe just to get up the noses of MDC supporters.

Well, what we are seeing now is the reason why that swearing-in was important. If, as with other Prime Ministers, Tsvangirai had been allowed to swear in the ministers, you would know where the power over ministers and ministries lay - with him.

But it does not. And I think he had accepted that.

Legally, therefore, according to the constitution in operation in Zimbabwe, the President makes appointments of Permanent Secretaries and defines the mandates of the ministers. Their job descriptions are essentially written by Mugabe.

Tsvangirai did nothing to renegotiate this, so happy was he with the Prime Ministerial title that all that escaped him. He was outwitted. Which is not the end of the world.

Instead of trying to fight these little battles that will not count for anything, he should regroup and restrategise.

He knows this. But politically, there are gullible people out there who need to be assured by the PM, whom they support blindly, that he is still "tough" and can stare down Mugabe. He is doing nothing of the sort.

There are now too many "null and voids" that never go anywhere. Gono, Tomana, PermSecs etc

Of course, not a single newspaper or journalist is going to hold the Prime Minister to account when his words fall flat.

Permanent Secretaries? What happened? Nothing? Did any of the media ask the Prime Minister what he was going to do after the "null and void" statement? No.

So now he knows he can get away with it and issues a statement again on the Ministry of Communications issue.

He knows that, within two weeks, the issue will be forgotten, no journalist will follow it up and his supporters, having last heard the words "null and void", cheer him and say their man is in charge.

The issue dies a quiet death and matters remain as they are.

The Prime Minister knows this. The President knows this. They all know this.

It is the supporters, especially the MDC ones, whom I pity. Still, they cling to the title, Honourable Prime Minister.

It is all they have, even if it means absolutely nothing. But I will give them that, at least.

Still, the dictator wins again.

Paranoia in The Presidential Corridors

The cup that Morgan Tsvangirai drinks tea from, as well as the tea bags and sugar, are brought into his office by his own secretary everyday. When he is done with the cup, it is the secretary who washes it up herself and puts it back into her handbag.

At meetings, sources in the Prime Minister's office says he routinely and randomly exchanges cups with other people attending the meeting or simply refuses to have any.

The Prime Minister's car, although serviced by the Government Garages, CMED, is sent for a second opinion at a leading car company in Harare the moment it comes back.

The Prime Minister has indeed been given a CIO escort from the Mugabe government, the ones who were in the car in front of his 4x4 when it was hit by the death truck from USAID. But, his head of security is still the same man he had when he was still in opposition.

It is he, the head of security, who routinely changes the routes of the Prime Minister's cavalcade. Trips out of town are only truly revealed as they get into the cars to leave the house. There is also the matter of the additional security the Prime Minister has, from his own party days, who are being rejected for government service and having their training delayed in order to keep them away from Tsvangirai.

The issue of State House was not out of any altruistic motive. It was a practical security consideration. After all, this House is right next door to some of the most elite fighting men Zimbabwe has, at the King George VI Barracks.

It is but a short hop and skip from there to the dining rooms of State House. And with the army brass behaving the way they are behaving, it was not considered wise to move the Prime Minister into the Lion's Den like that.

And another thing, I don't know why The Independent yesterday claimed that Mugabe also lives on the other side of the road, at Zimbabwe House.

He does not. And he hasn't lived there for years. The dictator commutes daily from Helensvale, where he now lives in that notorious "Gracelands" House, a sprawling palace with a Blue Chinese Roof (for good luck, the Chinese say).

Mugabe does not like Munhumutapa Building, the Presidential Office Complex, so much. It is said, with the deterioration in the mood of urbanites, especially, his security also thought it an easy target and hard to completely secure.

Hence, you will notice that all of Mugabe's publicised meetings take place at Zimbabwe House. He uses that as an office now, having moved out all of his private property to Helensvale.

So, yes, Tsvangirai did a wise thing in refusing to take the State House, but the motive force is more security than concern.

So it appears there is paranoia in the Presidential Corridors of Munhumutapa Building. Hope it does not go too far, else we will find people running away from their own shadows before long.

Nelson Chamisa Is Disemboweled By Mugabe

These are the two men who have been humiliated by Mugabe in the last two days. Day before yesterday, it Tendai Biti who was forced to eat humble pie and live with Gideon Gono. Yesterday, it was Nelson Chamisa who was stripped of all the most important elements of his ministry

There really is no other way to put it: Robert Mugabe today essentially disemboweled Nelson Chamisa, gutting his ministry into a shell and hiving off Telephone and cellphone companies and their regulatory bodies to a ZANU PF heavyweight minister.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is being systematically cut down to size by President Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe quietly announced the "redefining" of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, which Nelson Chamisa is in charge of. He sent the Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Mugabe is in charge of cabinet while Tsvangirai is in charge of the Council of Ministers), to tell the ministers how their turfs were now defined.

You will recall that Chamisa clashed with Webster Shamu, the ZANU PF minister at the Ministry of Information and Publicity when both men tried to address workers at the cellphone company owned by government, NetOne.

Immediately after this, Permanent Secretaries were also announced.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai called a press conference at which he declared the appointments null and void. He also announced at the same press conference that he was going to set out the areas of contention in the ministries of communication. Tsvangirai also expressly said the government-owned parastatals would fall under Chamisa.

In fact, Tsvangirai also announced that it was his job to define the job descriptions of cabinet ministers and said this is exactly what he was going to do.This, the Prime Minister has repeated on at least three separate occasions.

He did no such thing, obviously. Mugabe has once again asserted his authority over the Prime Minister. He himself decided to take the Department of Communications away from Nelson Chamisa, the MDC minister of Information and Communication Technology.

In essence, by taking this bit away from him, Mugabe has taken TelOne, the phone company, Netone, the cellphone company and the regulating bodies for the communication industry out of the ambit of the MDC.

Which means that Nelson Chamisa is now a minister in charge of shops that sell cellphones, phone shops and computer shops. Even the matter of the Internet has now been taken out of his hands.

And no, Mugabe has not given the Department of Communications to Webster Shamu, the ZANU PF communications minister. It goes instead to a heavyweight in ZANU PF, Nicholas Goche, who was one of the ZANU PF negotiators in the talks that led to the formation of this government.

Goche is the minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Development.

Do you now understand that we have three ministers in charge of essentially the one industry. Each of them gets a US dollar salary, a Mercedes Benz, unlimited fuel allocation, an office, secretary and staff, all with their own running costs.

Jobs were indeed created for the boys. But we wander....

Back to this story, this disemboweling of Nelson Chamisa. It goes back again to the issue of control, power. That is what this government is preoccupied with while this country burns, while no water flows through taps, while cholera roams the rubbish-strewn streets of our cities like The Grim Reaper, while the health system collapses.

Mugabe was never going to allow the instruments of eavesdropping, wiretapping and spying fall into the hands of the MDC. They are a junior partner and had to be put in their place.

And all of a sudden, the Prime Minister is quiet. He did brief his spokesman, James Maridadi on the position of his office today, in case the media asked. That position is that, "there has to be give and take, in the spirit of inclusivity." You will almost exactly these words when the MDC justifies its capitulation yet again.

This disemboweling of Nelson Chamisa is only a chapter in the book that is being written now as it is lived. There is still the little matter of Permanent Secretaries to come. And then some.

That score now reads: Robert Mugabe 2 Morgan Tsvangirai 0

With all this going on, the Prime Minister is satisfied enough with his role to want to make the arrangement permanent, making deals with Robert Mugabe to divide this country like their cake?

The Shocking Deal Between Mugabe and Tsvangirai

For the next parliamentary elections, the MDC-T and ZANU PF have agreed to split Zimbabwe in half as if it is their private property.

According to this deal, revealed by impeccable sources, the MDC-T will field candidates in the the urban areas of Zimbabwe, with ZANU PF fielding candidates in the rural areas. The objective is to have yet another coalition government after the next elections, with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ("or his nominee/successor) retaining the Pm post, while Mugabe or his successor/nominee retains the presidency of Zimbabwe.

Just today, I have spent a good one hour on the phone with the Prime Minister's office trying to pin them down on this story.

They refuse to confirm or deny it. Judge for yourself their response and tell me whether you do not smell a rat here. A very big rat.

The response from the PM's office was as follows on phone: "Right now, we are fighting to smoothen relationships within this transitional government." That was their first line. When I kept pressing for an answer, I was then told:

"The MDC will continue to exist, we are a separate party to ZANU PF, which will also continue to exist."

I was looking for a yes or no answer and it never came. Instead, all I got was this slipperiness.

Under these circumstances, I have no option but to conclude that the deal really was struck and, as my sources say, it is just waiting for an "opportune time" to be announced.

All I can say is that, by agreeing to this deal, the MDC-T are the ones losing. You see, Mugabe knows that he has to write off the urban areas. He will never win there. His popularity with urbanites is ZERO and is likely to remain that way for some time. So Mugabe would never win anyway even if he ran in the cities and towns.

The MDC-T, on the other hand, can indeed make inroads and win the rural areas. Their popularity there has been increasing (especially prior to the Inclusive government).

By agreeing to this deal, they are throwing away their chance to win an outright majority and rule the country by themselves, all things being equal.

Yes, I do understand that the MDC-T may have come to the conclusion that they will never be "allowed" to run the country by themselves (by the military and those phantom "hardliners" Mugabe speaks of), but they could have at least tried.

Still, it appears as though the deal is done, especially considering the slipperiness of the PM's office on the issue today.

By agreeing to remain in perpetual opposition on the basis that they will get the Premiership of the country, is the MDC not selling out the hopes of its supporters? And will those supporters accept it?

I do know that the Prime Minister says that he is so popular within his party that he can sell them anything and they will fall in line with whatever he decides, but he may be biting off more than he can chew here.

Time will tell, but there are also very strong indications now that this Inclusive government may actually last for more than two years, maybe as much as five years. Too many people within the government are giving this indication for it to be mere rumour.

If that does indeed happen, then it will also be confirmation of this deal that they have struck.

At least now we know. But have these two parties considered that Zimbabwe is not their to carve out like a cake? There are other parties in the offing, not bound by this agreement at all. ZAPU has come back into its own (the PM apparently dismisses it, saying that Matabeleland "is mine" - that is how confident he is.)

And what of the MDC-M, which apparently has been considered such an insignificant player that it is not part of these Nicodemus moves between Mugabe and Tsvangirai? What will they do with this party?

I think we should all brace ourselves because the political landscape in Zimbabwe is about to get a lot more interesting.

Mugabe 1: Tsvangirai: 0

Soon after Morgan Tsvangirai "nullified" the appointment of Permanent Secretaries, I told you on this very blog of the meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai at which the dictator informed the Prime Minister that he was not going to fire Gono or the Attorney General, that Tomana guy.

I was right, my detractors were wrong.

Yesterday, Morgan Tsvangirai and Tendai Biti ate humble pie.

Because, yesterday, Tendai Biti was forced to hold a press conference at which he declared that he was best friends with the Reserve Bank governor. Online newspapers, Tendai Biti said, were "awash with falsehoods about my relationship with the Central Bank Governor".

The truth of the matter is what I told you on this blog. You will recall that I did inform you that Mugabe had told Tsvangirai that there was no reason for the government to fire Gideon Gono. I also informed you that Mugabe had said the two men must first work together and, if Gono was found to be insubordinate, then, and only then, would Mugabe think about firing the RBZ governor.

The press conference yesterday was evidence of the truth of that story I gave you here. The two men are now "starting on a clean slate". Gideon Gono is not going anywhere.

Mugabe wins again, is what this means.

In the same story I am talking about, I also informed you that the Attorney General was not gonna go anywhere. Sure enough, a couple of days later, the AG was sworn in on the same day as the Prime Minister was sworn in as a non-constituency member of Parliament.

Effectively, then, the issue of Gideon Gono and Johannes Tomana is dead. Mugabe has triumphed. All the complaints we have been hearing from Morgan Tsvangirai about the need to "revisit" the appointments of the two men have now come to exactly nought.

At the press conference yesterday, Gideon Gono was careful to say that Tendai Biti was his boss. Which falls in line with Mugabe's position to Tsvangirai that the only grounds on which the Governor could be fired would be if he proved insubordinate.

So he signalled yesterday that he would not go down that route and give Biti and Tsvangirai reason to demand his head from Mugabe.

It is important here to note that Biti and Tsvangirai objected to Gono on the basis of his past actions. Biti publicly called for Gono to be "put before a firing squad" during the election campaign of March 2008.

The MDC-T have always said that Gono used public funds to tilt the playing field in favour of ZANU PF, that he funded the horrific violence that surrounded the ill-fated presidential run-off election from which Tsvangirai eventually withdrew.

Of course, we don't need to be reminded that, from day one, Morgan Tsvangirai has said that the "outstanding issues" in this government included the appointments of Gideon Gono and Tomana, the Attorney General. He was demanding that these appointments, made by Mugabe before Tsvangirai was sworn in, should be withdrawn.

Nothing of the sort is about to happen.

In other words, the scoreboard in that stand-off at the moment reads:

Mugabe: 1, Tsvangirai:0.

Soon, we will get public confirmation of the fact the Attorney General is also not going anywhere and that Mugabe's "unilateral" appointment of him stands and that the MDC has also climbed down on that one.

So, for those western countries that met last week and demanded that a "credible team" be put at the Reserve Bank, they got their answer yesterday, the team that is at the RBZ stays and the donors and the MDC will have to live with that.

The MDC, through the presence of Biti at that press conference yesterday, has signalled that it will indeed live with this.

Which is, I guess, a slap in the face for the MDC's supposed allies in the west.

The true impact of this is yet to be realised. But it is quite clear that the aid and donor money that Tsvangirai's government is looking for will certainly not be coming. Tsvangirai has signalled to the donors that he stands with Mugabe. Now it is up to the donors to announce whether they are happy with this and will help their man, Morgan Tsvangirai, who claimed during the March 2008 elections that he holds the keys to the unlocking of aid to Zimbabwe.

Where are those keys now?

Or have his western landlords changed the locks on him?

We'll see.

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And another thing, Mugabe told his ZANU PF Central Committee yesterday that he wants the MDC-T to be more vocal in calling for the lifting of sanctions. He is quoted in today's Herald as saying:

"We want the voices of all against the sanctions, we want the voices of the MDC-T to be heard much more loudly against the sanctions."

So Mugabe is certainly making Tsvangirai jump through hoops of fire. The PM has already called for the lifting of "restrictive measures" against Zimbabwe. But Mugabe now says this is not enough. The PM must do more.

And he will. He has no choice now. As Mugabe said during his last address to his ZANU PF Central Committee:

"We are firmly in the driving seat and we will not tolerate any nonsense from our new partners in government."

And there's an end to it.

Mugabe Tells Tsvangirai To "Mind His Own Business" On The Commonwealth

Mugabe and Tsvangirai are looking in different directions on everything except the need to get money from the West to revive Zimbabwe's economy

Dictator Robert Mugabe has told Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that he should forget about repairing relations with the British Commonwealth, from which Zimbabwe withdrew after it had been suspended for violation of human rights.

I am reliably told that Mugabe reminded Tsvangirai that according to the Constitution of Zimbabwe, he, as Head of State, had sole authority when it comes to international agreements.

Effectively, Mugabe was telling Tsvangirai to mind his own business and leave the matter of the membership of Zimbabwe in the Commonwealth to the Head of State. The dictator vowed that Zimbabwe will not return to the Commonwealth as long as he is still leading the country.

Tsvangirai had brought up the subject in the context of "reintegrating" Zimbabwe into the international community, pointing out that there would be material advantages to Zimbabwe being a member of the Commonwealth.

This raises the question of just what sort of "policy formulation authority" the Prime Minister has. Suggesting re-engaging the Commonwealth is certainly a policy initiative. But the President clearly thinks this is one of many areas where the Prime Minister's mandate does not apply.

Mugabe apparently believes that going back to ask to be part of this group is tantamount to being colonised again. He especially objects to what he calls the "dictatorship of Britain" in the grouping of former colonies.

Tortured So Hard They Have Spent A Month In Hospital - And They Are Still Not Free

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is seen in this file photo after he had beaten up by police while in custody. Worse treatment has been meted out to his personal assistant, who remains in detention under police guard at the Avenues Clinic, even as Tsvangirai "runs" government

Those who know and have worked with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will tell you that he adored Ghandi Mudzingwa, his former personal assistant.

Mudzingwa abducted along Mutare Road in the Industrial Area of Msasa, Harare, in December last year only to surface in court days later, charged with banditry and terrorism together with a freelance photographer, Andrison Manyere and Chris Dhlamini, now has no hope of being released, despite intense lobbying by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mudzingwa and Dhlamini were tortured so hard while in prison that they have now spent more a month at the Avenues Clinic in Harare being treated for their injuries. They are still there.

Yesterday, the High Court denied all of them bail, although it was granted weeks ago to Jestina Mukoko and others, including the mother and father of two-year old Nigel Mutemagau, who spent months at Chikurubi Maximum Prison with his parents, some of it in solitary confinement.

Meantime, to show that nothing has really changed as a result of this Unity Government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, eight white farmers were arrested last week and appeared in court yesterday, where it was revealed that they had been severely beaten up by the police while in custody.

The farmers are accused of kidnapping ZANU PF youths and assaulting them with bicycle chains. The police also claim that one of the kidnapped ZANU PF youths is still missing and may even have been murdered by the farmers.

But these are not the reasons for their arrests. Instead, they were arrested for resisting the Tsvangirai government's attempts to finally evict them from their forcibly acquired farms.

Amongst those arrested for this and in court yesterday is one of Zimbabwe's most succesful farmers, Digby Nesbitt. He is also owner of the world famous Nesbitt Castle Boutique Hotel in Bulawayo.

Andrison Manyere, the freelance photographer charged with Gandi Mudzingwa, was refused permission to go to the clinic where his fellow prisoners have been for more than a month now. He remains the only "political prisoner" still at the notorious Chikurubi Maxium Security Prison.

Question: what sort of torture sends a person to hospital for more than a month? And counting. We will not have a full answer until these men come out, but they have already revealed in court that it included electrocution of their private parts and horrific beatings.

One of those who have now been freed on bail (the cases have not been dismissed), a 72 year old man, told of having a brick tied to his penis and being asked to jump up and down naked, with the brick attached.

He also said that he had been locked in a deep freezer as part of the torture.

The denial of bail to the three men yesterday signals the tone of this Inclusive government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. And it shows just how powerless the Prime Minister is. Mugabe is still in charge and vindictively pursuing MDC supporters.

Even as I write this, there are MDC supporters who have been missing for months and whom the police say they have no information about. They are feared dead, because if they were still alive, they would have been brought to court as was done with Mudzingwa, Mukoko and the rest of the group that disappeared between August and December 2008.

Still, Mugabe and Tsvangirai, with all this going on, believe that the world will come to Zimbabwe's aid.

They are pressing ahead with efforts to send a team to Europe and America to ask these countries for money and for the lifting of sanctions and "restrictive measures."

This is not likely to happen before Jesus comes back down to earth on a cloud and accompanied by a choir of whistling angels. Just yesterday, the German Ambassador to Zimbabwe told Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara that his country is not going to lift snactions until it was satisfied about the rule of law and "protection of BIPAs (Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements, which the Tsvangirai government has now said it would legal to violate)."

Anyone who is putting faith in this government to turn the country around will obviously need to have their head examined. All things point to the fact that Zimbabwe will remain a pariah state for some time to come.

Tsvangirai's Government Deals Another Blow To White Farmers

Zimbabwean farmer Ben Freeth poses in court with injuries sustained from a beating he got at his farm for resisting the government's efforts to acquire it compulsorily

The Inclusive government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe has announced that farms protected by Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements are not immune to compulsory acquisition.

The announcement was made by the body that Tsvangirai said last week he had referred farmers' grievances to, JOMIC (Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee), which comprises officials from all three political parties in the Inclusive government.

I told you a few days back that the "referring to JOMIC" that Tsvangirai spoke of was simply a way to get a hot potato out of his hands. And this prove it.

Speaking in Victoria Falls, where the whole cabinet and Permanent Secretaries are living it up under the pretext of a "retreat" to strategise on the way forward for the economy, Professor Welshman Ncube, who is also minister of International Trade from the MDC-M and a member of JOMIC dropped this bombshell.

He told the media that there was a mistaken belief amongst farmers and the general population that farms protected by agreements between nations, such as the Danish-owned dairy farm I showed here on this blog a few days ago, can not be "compulsorily acquired"

They can be, he said. The only difference is that, unlike the other farms, government would have to pay full market value for them in foreign currency. For the other farmers not protected by BIPAs, government has been taking the farms without compensation, telling the owners to go and get their money from Britain, the former colonial master of Zimbabwe.

This latest announcement by the Inclusive Government effectively means that Tsvangirai and Mutambara have endorsed the way Mugabe has been acquiring land. What they still object to is the fact that he is keeping people who are not producing on these farms.

Mugabe says he agrees that non-producers should be kicked off the land.

You remember that donor nations a week and a half ago asked for an end to the compulsory acquisition of land before they could assist Zimbabwe with aid. Other conditions had to do with political prisoners, cleaning up the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by putting in a "credible team" there (meaning firing the current governor) etc etc.

It does not look like Tsvangirai and Mugabe's new government is listening.

It beggars belief that they are doing this now, and making this announcement now, when they are readying themselves to go to the West and ask for aid for the lifting of "restrictive measures" against Zimbabwe so that the country can access not only loans from the IMF and World Bank, but also investments from Western (especially American) companies that are now forbidden from dealing with Zimbabwe.

I don't know whether they are just thick or perhaps it is just that they do not understand what they are doing.

By going after BIPA farms, protected by a word of honour as well as contracts given to foreign governments, Tsvangirai is basically adopting Mugabe's "I don't care" attitude.

It means we can forget about investments because this sends a message that no investment in Zimbabwe by foreigners is safe.

What if Tsvangirai also joins Mugabe tomorrow in going after companies, having finished with the farms?

This crisis of confidence is what has destroyed Zimbabwe. Do the two MDCs not understand this?

And please, do not try and make this about MDC Mutambara because it is Welshamn Ncube who made the announcement.

No.

He is still just a minister who reports to Tsvangirai and can be censured by him if he speaks out of turn. His announcement was made with the full knowledge and support of the Prime Minister. You will not hear him condemn Ncube because this is his government's official policy now.

It is sad because it confirms that there is no help coming to Zimbabwe. I think the Norwegians and Swedish and Danes who had started moving towards Zimbabwe will also now recoil in horror.

This, I guess, is the change the MDC promised us. This is "A new Beginning, A New Zimbabwe" as their slogan during the campaign said?

Sounds like Mugabe all over again to me.

We Got An Award

This Blog is extremely delighted to announce that we have been given an award, the Best Blog Thinker Award, from Mama Shujaa over at Mama Shujaa blog.

As most of you reading will know, we normally don't do awards here and when we do accept an award, it is because there is meaning behind it. This one is one of those meaningful ones.

We are quite honoured and grateful for this, the second award this blog has received in its short life. The first was when we were voted one of the Top Five Blogs For Amnesty Day by Reconstitution, based in the USA.

The Best Blog Thinker Award we have been awarded by Mama Shujaa was created by B. J. Roan who says of the award:

"This award acknowledges the values that every Blogger displays in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values with each message they write. Awards like this have been created with the intention of promoting community among Bloggers. It's a way to show appreciation and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

I will now pass this award on to the following Bloggers: Kenyan Poet, a deep thinking and soul-nourishing blog out of Kenya, which is quite a vibrant blogging community.

Transforming Zambian Leadership, an impressive Zambian blog that I find engaging in the way it continuously questions the status quo and presents suggestions and alternative ways to raise the level of political thinking in Africa and Zambia beyond the mundane.

Afromusing, a blog that strongly advocates renewable energy, which happens to be one of my passions. I find Afromusing quite inspiring, with posts that highlight the best innovative ideas and developments coming out of Kenya and Africa.

And of course, my friend SOLOMONSYDELLE at Nigerian Curiosity, who has also just won the Best Political Blog in the just-ended Nigerian Blog Awards. Nigerian Curiosity opens up Nigeria to the world with its incisive posts about developments within the country, the latest I found engaging being the efforts to rebrand Nigeria.

Check them out and you will realise why I think so highly of them.

The Three Men Who Run The Zimbabwe Government

Not long ago, Dr Simba Makoni spoke about what he called the "classic Yes Minister style" of Zimbabwe's government.

For those who do not know, Yes Minister is a British comedy set in Whitehall, the seat of the government of the United Kingdom. In the comedy, people like Sir Humphrey actually run government business, telling a minister what he can and can not do, getting up to all sorts of tricks to ensure that their agenda (which they say is the national agenda), carries the day.

Dr Makoni mentioned the issue of speeches, for instance. When he took over at the Ministry of Finance, he found that his speeches were written for him by the civil servants.

Worse, these speeches would not be given to him until just before he got into his car to go to the function where they were to be delivered.

To get around this, and being a fully technologically literate person, he asked for a computer to be put into his office. He also demanded that the computer be given Internet and intranet access. He wanted to ensure that communication within the ministry could be done via email instead of pieces of paper.

He also announced that he would be using his own Internet-based email, which the government can not hack into.

This, remember, was the year 2000!

After much resistance, it was done.

As for speeches, he started writing his own. Civil servants in his ministry took him to task about this, saying there were people who could write the stuff for him. He resisted.

It is no exaggeration to say that as a result of the resistance to change in the civil service and their need to control the ministers, the clash with these functionaries contributed to the eventually departure of Dr Makoni from the government.

You see, Mugabe uses the civil service to spy on his ministers, in addition to the usual spying on them done by the CIO, the Intelligence Organisation.

Hence, the three most powerful men in government (as opposed to in the country) are:

1. George Charamba: as the spokesman to Mugabe, he has immense influence with the man, especially since Mugabe is insulated from the public and does not interact or even remotely socialise with his ministers. The daily briefings he gets from Charamba and the opinion and advice that is shared between them has made Charamba Mugabe's ears and eyes on the administrative side of government.

For the other eyes and ears functions, Mugabe has the Central Intelligence Organisation of course, although even these are out favour to an extent now.

Charamba is really so powerful only because, working with Mugabe, it is understood that only Mugabe can fire him. Hence those in government, including cabinet ministers, see him as untouchable.

2. Mariyawanda Nzuwa: As head of the Civil Service Commission, he approves all appointments below the Deputy Minister level. He is the one who drafts the original list of Permanent Secretaries and where they are assigned. He and George Charamba are the ones who drafted that list of Permanent Secretaries which Morgan Tsvangirai said was null and void.

This issue is still to be settled and you will see in the end who is more powerful by just how many of Nzuwa and Charamba's original PermSecs are kept on in the new line up. Tsvangirai has told his staff that he is going to be "professional" and will even keep well known ZANU PF PermSecs in ministries run by the MDC if they are well qualified.

3. Misheck Sibanda: As Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Sibanda (and before him Utete) has actually had a direct influence in decisions on which ministers Mugabe fires and which ones he keeps when he reshuffles. Apart from the ministries that Mugabe himself has an interest in, such as Women's Affairs, Agriculture and the old Ministry of Political Affairs as well as the Ministers of State he appoints within his office, all other recommendations were done by Sibanda, who then consulted Charamba before the list was presented to Mugabe for his final vetting.

If there was someone on the list that Mugabe had a personal vendetta against, then the name would jump up at him and the fellow would be removed without question. All other "lesser" ministries sailed through.

Sibanda was, therefore, heavily lobbied by ZANU PF politicians who wanted themselves or their favourites to be given jobs. This is how people like Bright Matonga ended in jobs that were too big for them - recommendations to Sibanda from ZANU PF politicians who were interested in "tribal balance".

Apart from this procedure, Mugabe's only guidance, especially in the last ten years or so, has been to tell these men what sort of cabinet he wanted.

So, he would quietly let be known that this time he wanted a "technocrat cabinet" and the President's Men would scour for suitable new faces. In the last "technocrat" cabinet, three names suggested by these men were removed by Mugabe himself, who said one of them had been a supporter of Forum, the opposition party of the early 1990s which was led by the retired First Black Chief Justice of Zimbabwe: Enoch Dumbutshena.

Recently, after the formation of the Inclusive Government, these men have continued as though nothing has changed and Mugabe appears to be backing them, perhaps because they have gained his trust.

They are still doing some damage, flexing their muscles.

For instance, you will notice that James Maridadi is no longer quoted by the Herald, the government daily newspaper. In the first days of the GNU, the Herald referred to him as the Spokesman for The Prime Minister.

It was Charamba personally who issued the order to The Herald that Maridadi was not the spokesman for the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Instead, he is Tsvangirai's spokesman at the party level, so he was to be quoted only when Tsvangirai was speaking on matter to do with his party and not the government.

Hence, effectively, Maridadi has been banned from the pages of the Herald. Look carefully and you will see that the paper now refers to the "Prime Minister's Office", as in "The Prime Minister's Office confirmed...", without mentioning any names.

Misheck Sibanda is the man whom Mugabe uses as a sounding board to gauge the effectiveness of his ministers. Sibanda's reports are taken seriously by Mugabe, who is very much a protocol person, schooled in the old English style where rules are rules and must be followed even if they are silly.

In other words, the Yes Minister school of government....

Of the three, Nzuwa's powers are perhaps the most sweeping of all, considering the breadth of senior government appointments he controls.

In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say Nzuwa can either make or break the career of a minister, especially the lesser ones (the big fish he would not even dream of touching are Emmerson Mnangagwa, Sydney Sekeramayi, Joice Mujuru, VP Msika, Didymus Mutasa, Joseph Made and, lately added to the list, Kembo Mohadi. All others are fair game to him.

Morgan Tsvangirai realises this, and it sunk home for him on the day he was summoned to explain himself at Sate House after he issued that statement saying the appointment of Permanent Secretaries was null and void.

He walked back into his Munhumutapa Offices the next day shaking his head, telling his staff that Mugabe was not in control of government.

Why?

Because Mugabe's had apparently asked Tsvangirai if he had not had input into the selection of PermSecs. He further went on to say, " Did I sign those appointment papers? I can not remember, I signed so many papers yesterday, these young men brought me so many papers...."

Which means that the career of PermSecs were being decided by these three men in the name of Mugabe. If Tsvangirai had not objected, they would have gotten away with it, the new PermSecs would have known to whom they owed their allegiance and their ministers would have been simply figure heads, without any power over the civil servants in their ministries.

And by the way, the reason this PermSec thing is being drawn out like this is because Mugabe said to Tsvangirai, and here I am quoting a source within the PM's office:

"Prime Minister, what you should do is take the CVs of these people and look at them, see which ones are not qualified and then lets get back together and hear your thinking."

Today, Monday 06 April 2009, the PM and the Prez will meet at State House and Tsvangirai is supposed to point out the ones on the list of PermSecs whom he believes are not qualified. If Mugabe agrees, then they will go. If not they will stay.

Tsvangirai was not given the option to get rid of them on political grounds, because Mugabe maintains that his is a professional civil service. He still claims that no party interests inform their decisions, only national interests.

So, in essence, Tsvangirai can not fire any of them on the grounds that they are "ZANU PF" because he would not be able to prove it. As you know, our PermSecs do not make political speeches. The only time they make public speeches would be when they have to read a policy speech on behalf of a busy minister.

Most times, the minister is told what he would have said at such gatherings later, because he would not have written speech at all.

Another Tsvangirai Family Accidental Death

Shaun Tsvangirai, grandson to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, drowned in the swimming pool at the PM's home in Strathaven. Shaun was being looked after by the PM and his wife

The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, lost a grandchild on Friday, who drowned in the swimming pool at the PMs residence in Strathaven, a middle-density surburb in Harare.

The child who drowned is understood to be Shaun Tsvangirai, son of Garikayi Tsvangirai, himself a son of the Prime Minister. Garikayi had not been living with his parents in Strathaven but had instead left his two children in the care of their grandmother for quite some time now.

Around the time of the death of Mrs Tsvangirai, I was told that Garikayi had actually been kicked out of the home together with his wife, after his parents objected to the union (the wife had apparently at one time left Garikayi for his friend before coming back to him. This was the source of discord, I was told.) At the time, I did not think the story worth sharing at all, with the family still mourning the loss of their mother.

It is tempting to think that, in the absence of the grandmother who dotted on them, the children wandered and one of them ended up drowning in the swimming pool. The Prime Minister rushed back to Harare from the Victoria Falls, where he was attending the ministerial retreat.

The retreat had itself been postponed due to the death of Mrs Tsvangirai in a car accident.

The Prime Minister was very fond of his grandchild as can be seen in the photo above.

Our condolences are with him, Garikayi and the rest of the Tsvangirai family. The people of Zimbabwe, I am sure, share this pain with the Prime Minister who, it seems, is getting more than his fair share of sorrows just as he reaches the pinnacle of success in his professional life.

"Zimbabwe Does Not Need The Diaspora"

This photo was taken last week and shows the shelves full once again. Some say this is the extent to which the diaspora can help and that the capital projects needed to restart production and an economic turnaround are beyond them.

We were sitting at a well-known local hotel this evening when one of the guys brought up the subject of the article on the Zimbabwe diaspora, which is in today's Zimbabwe Independent.

Some of us at the table had not read the piece, so a copy was brought out and the bone of contention revealed. Jess read it out.

By the time she was half way through, it appeared as though everybody in the room was now standing around our table.

Nothing I have seen in recent memory compares to what then ensued just in terms of the passions that were unleashed.

One group said the Zimbabwe diaspora is not really a force to reckon with and it would be a mistake to single them out for any special expectation with regards to the economic turnaround.

The argument says they have been remiting money all along but that money has failed to make a dent in Zimbabwe's problems. As one guy who says he works at a car dealership said, "It's sustenance money", meaning that the contribution from the diaspora is enough only to meet consumptive needs.

He points out that right now, this is what Biti faces: just enough money to keep the Zimbabwe government ticking over, but absolutely, woefully inadequate for the heavy capital expenditure that Zimbabwe needs to get back on her feet.

On the other hand, another group contented that the diaspora money is significant. Without it, they said, the country would have collapsed completely, but the diaspora helped ensure that petrol, diesel and other imports continued to trickle into Zimbabwe, preventing a complete meltdown.

What is needed, they argued, is simply to organise and channel those efforts, perhaps bring together the different groups and encourage them to set up a single, well-capitalised company that could then be a viable entity even on a regional scale.

As most of you reading this know, I am totally against the idea of a government playing around with the markets, let alone playing God with them, creating behemoths that would be breeding grounds for favour-currying, corruption and greed.

Government has no business doing business, full stop.

Still, we have chosen to live by the tyranny of the majority, otherwise known as democracy, so the voice of the many would carry the day in the end.

I am sorry to admit that I did leave before the conversation was concluded, I had an errand to run. But still, it was an engaging enough conversation that just I wanted to share it and hear what the people out there think. It is time for the majority to exercise its tyrannical rights!!

So, of the two positions, which would you take? Can Zimbabwe not do with its diaspora if it is to achieve an economic turnaround? And, more importantly, why?

I hope we will not see anything like the debate we see now around STERP, where people simply have blind faith in the thing yet fail to answer a simple question: name at least three policy measures proposed by STERP that would have an impact on job creation and infrastructural rehabilitation. Your answer must not include the words West, Aid, Help, Donor(s), IMF or World Bank. That is not policy. It's called begging.

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And a bit of a brain teaser: what exact phrase would sound inspiring if said by Winston Churchill, but chilling when said by Robert Mugabe? Answer: "We shall never surrender."

Showing Mugabe The Door: Morgan Tsvangirai's New Strategy

There are two things that have been making it impossible for Robert Mugabe to simply resign, bugger off into the sunset and leave us all alone.

People forget that Mugabe is an example of what disaster can ensure when an idealist with the wrong ideas gets some power. For, no doubt about it, Mugabe is an idealist. The only problem is that the vision he has is outdated, outmoded and utterly destructive to the spirit of the 21st century.

Because Mugabe is an idealist, he actually sees no problem with suffering for a "cause". Hence, as Zimbabwe melted under his watch, he castigated his countrymen at rally after rally in Zimbabwe. One time, he told a crowd that Zimbabweans should not be so fickle that "if you have no salt, you say oh its the end of the world, I'd do anything to get that salt."

There was, in other words, nothing wrong for him in Zimbabweans suffering unto death for the sake of his big cause: returning land to blacks, taking it away from white owners. He is so idealistic about this that he considers failure to implement this transfer would negate everything he has fought for and lived for all his life.

This is one thing that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai realised in his early meeting with Robert Mugabe. One of these meetings took place at the Rainbow Towers in Harare, where the two men sat and had a private lunch together soon after signing the GPA in September 2008.

Tsvangirai told a reporter a couple of weeks later that he had been surprised to realise that Mugabe "actually believes what he says..." Meaning that the Prime Minister "realised" that Mugabe was "not politicking" when he pronounced his "never, never, never" speeches.

He believes that the MDC is a tool for the former colonisers to get back into Zimbabwe through the back door. Clearly, if he was sincere in believing this, the Prime Minister had to find a way to disabuse him of this notion, to demonstrate to him that the MDC was not only patriotic to the country of Zimbabwe, but that they were also patriotic to the idea that is Zimbabwe.....basically Mugabe's obssesion with "total independence" on the economic to add to the political independence Zimbabwe got in 1980.

The second thing that has made it impossible for Mugabe to go is that he really was never going to agree to go out in disgrace. This is why he forlornly fought the tide of inflation and economic meltdown, social and infrastructural decay, hoping to turn it around and "prove he could do it", then leave with his some vestige of honour.

With a crumbling economy and a generally destroyed country, Mugabe is not the type to throw in the towel and say someone else may have other ideas. He will seek to regain the upper hand with the economy so that people do not say that he "left his country in ruins."

Tsvangirai has realised this as well. And I say this with some authority. It is the realisation of these two things that have apparently informed the Prime Minister's new strategy with Mugabe.

By giving him his due, insisting as Tsvangirai does, that journalists refer to Mugabe as President Mugabe, telling the west to leave him alone because he is not the problem, addressing him as "Father" even in their one on one meetings, the Prime Minister is directly seeking to give Mugabe back his dignity.

Doing so would mean half the job done.

Should there then be success on the economic front, Tsvangirai is certain that Mugabe would then be more amenable to retiring, knowing that he would do so with applause, and not jeers, ringing in his ears.

There is certainly some sense to this strategy. But then again, it is based on, at best, the most accomplished study of the intractable subject called Mugabe. It could succeed. If, and only if, the reading of Mugabe is correct, by making sure that, in his retirement, he would believe that he has nothing to lose.

Like I said today to my conversationalist from the Prime Minister's office: it is exactly like what one would do if one had a madman in the house and the madman was refusing to leave.

You would promise the most ridiculous things, agree with his most ridiculous statements and so on, just as long as doing so keeps him moving towards the door.

This is where we are. And certainly I, for one, have a different outlook on what it is that the Prime Minister is trying to do.

I still protest, though, about the quality of the ministers he has given us and their failure to be more imaginative than ZANU PF in strategy for the revival of the economy.

And I am still disgusted that there is so much sanctioning of greed by the MDC in government

All the same, at least we all know now that there is method to the pally-pally madness. And we wish the Prime Minister well as he throws the old dog a bone.

We Have Adopted Mugabe's Version of Land Reform , says Morgan Tsvangirai

This was two weeks ago in Zimbabwe and the pic shows Danish dairy farmer Ajs Kirk showing Danish Minister for International Cooperation Ulla Tornaes around his farm. The minister was in Zimbabwe for talks with the government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe

The desertion of white commercial farmers by the MDC was completed yesterday by the Prime Minister's announcement that "there is a process on land reform we have to follow."

What is clear now is that this process is the process started by ZANU PF, which is what the MDC now say is official government policy and should be followed.

In the last seven days, it has been very clear that this was the direction the Tsvangirai-led government was now adopting.

Mugabe himself was the first to speak, telling the visiting Norwegian development minister last week that there were no farm invasions in Zimbabwe now, but that there were people whose farms have been designated and who are refusing to move off those farms.

The Norwegian minister seemed to accept this.

Then, at the weekend, we got our first sign that the MDC wing of government has also bought this and had now adopted it as the official government position.

Welshman Ncube told the SADC summit in Swaziland that very same story: there are no new farm invasions, just some people whose land has been taken and who are refusing to leave their farms to allow the new owners to move in.

And now this, from Prime Minister Tsvangirai himself. In fact, the Prime Minister signalled just how insignificant the whole issue is to him when he said he had referred the matter to the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), a body set up to arbitrate disputes between the parties to the agreement.

The curious thing is that JOMIC should not be dealing with this issue at all, because it only comes in if there is a disagreement between the parties.

It is clear now that there is no disagreement. The Prime Minister says they will follow the official government position because it is "orderly".

Having said the continuing farm invasions must stop and that he will arrest those doing this, Tsvangirai has apparently had it explained to him by Mugabe and now understands that it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC have also dodged the question asked of them by the Commercial Farmers' Union regarding where they stand on the SADC Tribunal ruling, which allowed the white farmers to remain on their properties and reversed Mugabe's acquisition orders.

He did not answer directly, of course, as the statement above shows. But he did answer. By referring the matter to JOMIC, all he wants is to get the whole thing out of his way.

So what is JOMIC likely to do?

Kick the military brass off their farms? Forbid Edna Madzongwe, President of the Zimbabwe Senate, no less, to take over the farm she is currently fighting for against one of the SADC Tribunal farmers?

You see this happening?

Well, if you do, perhaps you can also tell us where we might watch pigs flying.

JOMIC will almost certainly simply confirm the position of government: Those who have been given acquisition orders should vacate the farms and let the new owners move in.

End of story.

Tsvangirai's statement was a response to the Western nations (17 of them) who met in Washington and demanded more reforms before they could assist the government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

"This country has embarked on a number of reforms - the constitutional process, legislative reforms, economic reforms, media reforms....I don't know what other reforms they are talking about," the Prime Ministe said. So, in other words, the West are talking nonsense, then.

Amongst the West's demands, land reform was mentioned. This statement from Tsvangirai is a response to that demand.

Question: What on earth has got into the Prime Minister? "Media reforms"? Which ones? The fact that the Herald now calls the Prime Minister Comrade does not qualify as a form of Media Reform.

Continued defiance of the courts by the Attorney General is not reform.

Begging for donor money in order to finance parastatals that are themselves staffed to the gills with ZANU PF appointees does not qualify as a form of Economic Reform.

The fact that the Prime Minister was allowed to swear in additional, illegal (according to their own Global Political Agreement -GPA), senators and appoint illegal Ministers of State in his office does not qualify as a form of Legislative Reform.

This government has done nothing about AIPPA, and it's evil twin, POSA, two of the most despicable assaults ever passed against freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

This government has done nothing about putting a plan in place to revive the economy and are implementing the They Do Thega economic theory - throw money at the problems and hope they go away.

South Africa is giving us US$50 million for state owned companies, we are told. Why is the MDC not selling off stakes in Air Zimbabwe, National Railways, NOCZIM, TelOne etc in order to raise the finance needed to turn these companies around?

They enjoy begging while they sit on a gold chair, is that it?

It is straightforward really. Sell or part-sell the companies, and then give the management contract to the new shareholders. Success is guaranteed with this route as opposed to the MDC/ZANU PF plan of throwing money at these parastatals while ZANU PF appointees who ran them into the ground are still at the helm.

But we digress: Everybody now knows where they stand within and outside Zimbabwe. The farmers should now be clear that Tsvangirai is in no position to give them back their farms.

They should also now be aware, as announced by Tsvangirai yesterday, that JOMIC has now been tasked with kicking the white farmers off the farms.

The West has its answer, as does Morgan Tsvangirai the West's answer. Bottom line: You can now write off the West in terms of assistance to Mugabe.

The exasperation is probably going to explode in about two weeks time, the time frame within which SADC said member countries must come forward with pledges for Zimbabwe and lobby the West for aid.

Nothing much will come from all this, of course. And then, and then.......you will see the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the rest of the MDC publicly ape their new-found best friend and "father", Mugabe.

They have already started shouting at the West. They will just get more direct and louder.

Mugabe In Opposition

Villagers such as these seen here being given treated mosquito nets in Gutu, rural Zimbabwe, are herded to the meeting place by ZANU PF activists, working with chiefs or against them if need be, and they are told that these things are brought to them and made possible by Mugabe

An amazing thing is happening here in Zimbabwe.

When Morgan Tsvangirai went into government, he said he was going in there to continue the politics of opposition, to fight from within.

I pointed out at the time that Mugabe had handed him a stink bomb, basically, by putting the Prime Minister in charge of policy formulation and implementation, meaning he would not be able to fulfil the role he set up when he announced the decision to join Mugabe in government.

He could not go into government to oppose policies he was charged with formulating and implementing.

Well, the amazing thing at the moment is that Mugabe is now using the state media, which he still controls, despite the GNU and the presence of a Deputy Minister from the MDC in that Information ministry, to act like the opposition and to campaign against the MDC.

The dictator's side of the government is being sly, praising Tsvangirai to his face and yet at the same time, de-campaigning him on issues using the state media.

On the 8 o'clock news on state radio last night, the newsreader and reporters went to town interviewing residents of Glen Norah, Lusaka in Highfields, Glen View, Budiriro and other townships.

With a faked pain in their voices, both residents and reporters told stories of raw sewage flowing in the streets of Highfields, running into the market where ladies sell vegetables and other wares.

They spoke of a city council that is collecting very high rates and yet is not able to restore water into people's taps, which is why Glen Norah, Highfields and Glen View, amongst many other townships, has had no water for some weeks now.

They wailed that the roads are still potholed. They cried that cholera is rearing its ugly head again because of the turned-off taps and the flowing raw sewage.

These are things I have spoken about plenty of times here on this blog, but Mugabe's party is now highlighting them and playing them up because the MDC is in charge of these things, since they have crushing majorities in the City Councils.

At the same time, Emmerson Mnangagwa is now being given HUGE prominence on state television. He is everywhere, addressing appropriately awed villagers as he did in the Midlands recently, where he promised manna from heaven because the province had given Mugabe "more MPs than any other province in Zimbabwe." So the vote buying starts....

Oppah Muchinguri who, for a long time now, has had to shoulder the burden in Zimbabwe of being widely, very widely rumoured to be Mugabe's girlfriend or "small house", was also on the news bulletin.

The former minister was reported to have announced that she will now restart those women empowerment projects that made Mugabe unassailable at one time with the women's vote. She is promising them money to start all sorts of small businesses as groups.

We know Mugabe and ZANU PF can do it, using state resources. That, after all was what Mugabe used the old Ministry of Women's Affairs for, using government money to dish out to his party's Women's League for projects, cooperatives and subsidised agricultural inputs.

The odd thing about this is that, by hiving off the policy formulation and implementation to the MDC, ZANU PF is now left free to start campaigning, without having to answer any questions about their abysmal record in office.

This is largely because the MDC appears to be asleep at the wheel. Since they discovered that Mugabe was their long-lost father, they are loathe to criticise him at all. They are quiet as ZANU PF picks holes in their service delivery and points out all their "failures" so far without actually being directly confrontational like they were during the old days.

Meantime, as the Mail and Guardian reported a few days ago, Tsvangirai is concentrating on sprucing up Mugabe's image: the paper says at one press conference, after a reporter asked Tsvangirai how he could "trust Mugabe", Tsvangirai shot back: "It's President Mugabe", putting emphasis on the Presidential title.

Mugabe's aim with this strategy: to cast enough doubt about the MDC's ability to lead to be able to at least disenchant MDC voters or win them over (dream on, I say). Still, Mugabe sits there and sniggers as the MDC fights his demons for him while he de-campaigns them subtly but unmistakably.

What he has managed to achieve is to remain in power, give responsibility to the MDC (it is now reliably confirmed that Mugabe actually hopes the MDC gets nothing from its partners in the west, which will lead to MDC failure to deliver and, hence, defeat at the next election. Mugabe has already said quite openly that the next elections will be one in which ZANU PF will have an MDC record in government to campaign against.") and still find room to turn on his partners in government because the onus to deliver services is no longer on ZANU PF but on the MDC.

It is a peculiar situation. Make no mistake about it, Mugabe is at his evil best when he is cornered. And he was cornered before the MDC decided to rescue him by going into government without thinking it through. He still feels cornered and this is his way of fighting his way out of that corner.

But, you really have to be here to see the way the roles are slowly, imperceptibly being reversed. By the time the MDC wakes up, I fear it may be too late. The song will be "We gave them the chance to run government and they failed......"

This dictator is getting away with more than his fair share of luck, I think. But the MDC, by folding its hands and pursuing power, positions and oneupmanship, is entirely missing the point.

Of course they never listen to advice like this, so we can expect to tragedy to play itself out.

Britain, America and The West Dump MDC

SADC Heads of State pose for a group photograph yesterday at their summit in Swaziland, where they once again told Zimbabwe they can help financially and can only try and lobby the west to lift sanctions. Prof Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti of the MDC said at the meeting that "the sanctions have had an effect on the economy". The Heads of State have pledged to specifically target the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act in the United States, lobbying for it to be repealed.

The MDC has now effectively admitted that it has been cut loose by its friends and allies in the West and has to instead seek the intercession of Zimbabwe's neighbours to talk to its former allies in the West about helping the limping Inclusive government.

Yesterday, Tendai Biti, the MDC Minister of Finance in this Inclusive Zimbabwean government, together with Robert Mugabe and Prof Welshman Ncube, asked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State to intercede on Zimbabwe's behalf with Britain, America and other rich nations.

SADC itself repeated at the same meeting that they can not give Zimbabwe any money, as had been hoped for by Tendai Biti. Of all the SADC countries, South Africa is the only one that has stumped up some cash - they pledged US$30 million, to be disbursed in monthly US$10 million tranches over three months.

This is not even enough to cover the government wage bill, which stands at about US$50 million a month when you factor in allowances. Salaries themselves alone need US$30 million a month.

Interestingly, though, Biti adopted Mugabe's and ZANU PF language this week, after "touring banks" according to the government newspaper, The Herald.

Biti told the state-owned paper that he is "aware of saboteurs who want the Inclusive government to fail" because they are questioning whether the government can sustain the payment of foreign currency salaries.

It was Mugabe who said during his birthday interview that he did not think the payment of salaries in foreign currency for the civil service was sustainable because " we do not have the money."

So there is one saboteur right there.

But Biti also shoulders the blame because of his alarmist talk that the Treasury coffers are "empty". He carries blame for his statements warning of "chaos" unless the donor countries give him money to pay the salaries of this bloated government.

I feel sorry for the man and for the MDC in particular, because they are clearly in over their heads on this issue.

Biti is perhaps still learning that his words now carry a lot of weight as Minister of Finance. He is no longer an opposition politician whose words have no impact on the running of the country and he must realise this and start to work accordingly.

Still, even after those dire warning, except for the US$30 million from South Africa (enough for a month's salary bill), no other southern African country came up with any funds.

Even Botswana, the MDC friend in the region, appears to also be dumping the Inclusive government. They did not pledge anything. Namibia said it will continue working with the Zimbabwe Power utility, ZESA, to refurbish Hwange Power station.

And that is it.

The bottom line appears to be that the West, the people with the "deep pockets", as Biti called them at the summit in Swaziland yesterday, are keeping their money deep in their pockets.

Was it not the MDC that always insisted that there must be good governance before aid is given to Zimbabwe. That good governance does only mean doing what the MDC wants, which is what the opposition thought before they joined government.

Good governance also means not buying luxury cars when taps are dry because water treatment chemicals can not be bought.

Good governance means setting priorities right, deciding whether it is better to bloat a government by providing "jobs for the boys" when there is no money to pay those "boys".

Good governance means coming up with workable policies to turn the economy around and not simply announcing an "it will alright on the night" STERP document, which is bereft of any policy except begging for money.

Good governance means demonstrating fiscal responsibility, deciding what is more urgent, furniture for minster's offices or US$1.5million to refurbish Harare Hospital (this is sum that Morgan Tsvangirai said was needed to get the hospital in top condition).

In effect, the West have dumped the MDC because the party has failed to demonstrate, just demonstrate, that its presence in the corridors of power has resulted in a shifting of priorities.

It is unlikely that SADC will succeed in garnering the aid that they have undertaken to demand from the west. Britain and American and the IMF and the Word Bank are not amenable and no one can force them.

Their position is still the same: they do not see any meaningful change in the way the affairs of the country are being run and they are not keen to part with their money under these circumstances.

With Biti cutting away all the infrastructure development provisions in the budget and leaving only consumptive budget provisions in his "hunter-gatherer" economy as he himself has insultingly called his new regime, there is no policy in place to stimulate growth of the economy from within.

Their hopes were pinned on others giving them money to spend on salaries and also money to start production in Zimbabwe.

South Africa, by giving away the insulting sums of US$10 million, is only looking after its own interests. As long as Zimbabwe does not have a manufacturing sector, South African companies have a dollarised market in Zimbabwe that will give them even more money and grow the South African economy even more.

Meanwhile, dumped by the West, the MDC can only flounder, together with its new best friend, ZANU PF.

Tsvangirai/Mnangagwa Meetings And My Call From "The President's Office"

Most of you reading this blog know that you can not mistake a call from "The President's Office". Yes, it is that unique number, the one with five zeroes in it (and it is a land line). The presidential switchboard numbers, as you will know, have 7 digits where most others in Harare have six.

Well, I was extremely surprised at about 3 p.m. today to get a call from that number and even more surprised that the caller seemed keen to "clear the air" about the meetings I reported on yesterday between Tsvangirai and Mnangagwa.

To start with, I was surprised that the caller referred to "the article you wrote in the Zimbabwean". I did not. I have never written for The Zimbabwean in my life, ever. I checked it out later and it turns out the article was taken from this blog by an online newspaper called The Zimbabwe Mail. The Zimbabwean then took the same article from the Zimbabwe Mail.

This is now a familiar story with my articles. I must say that I have personally given permission to The Zimbabwe Mail to use my articles on condition they credit the source and provide a link to this blog within that story, as is normal ethical practice in the online industry.

Other "publications" on the Internet are also now so obsessed with this blog that, normally , within an hour of me publishing anything here, they would have stolen it and put it on their websites. I thought I would clear the air on that and tell you that it is only The Zimbabwe Mail who use my posts here with permission.

The Zimbabwean did nothing wrong in picking the article up from The Zimbabwe Mail, together with the credits to source at the bottom of it.

Anyway, my caller today puzzled me greatly because I was not sure what he was trying to achieve. He claimed that he wanted to give me "context", which is surprising because the President's Office does not bother itself with newspaper stories, let alone bloggers.

Whatever the case, the person at the other end, who I would have cut off as a wacko were it not for the number reflected on my screen, claims that I "missed the true significance" of the story that was given to me about the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence.

He says the true story is not about Mugabe's reaction and that I was "supposed" to look into the fact that the two men, Tsvangirai and Mnangagwa, are both from the same ethnic group (Karanga). This, apparently, is where the true significance of the story lies.

"How do you know that it was not His Excellency himself who asked Mnangagwa to speak to Tsvangirai as a home boy? No matter what happens in the future, the president knows that if Mnangagwa is a big player in the politics of tomorrow, then the Minister of Defence would always safeguard the interests of not the president, but also the liberation war?"

What my caller was insinuating, basically, is that the president was using the ethnic bond between the two men to sound out the future, to see whether his "legacy" would be protected once he leaves the national stage.

What I found disconcerting was this caller's emphasis on ethnicity. For instance, he claimed that "the two people who have mastered African tribal politics in post-colonial Africa are Robert Mugabe and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya."

It is disconcerting for me because, I have never, ever thought in terms of tribal politics and I really do not think that such politics has a place in the 21st century.

Still, the mentality seems strong enough and I am not sure whether MorganTsvangirai would want to perpetuate such divisive politics. I have never seen him as a tribal politician, which is a hallmark of ZANU PF power games.

Which means I doubt very much that the PM would be swayed by ethnic considerations in his decisions. I could be wrong, but I hope I am not.

But the call puzzled me because I can not see what it was trying to achieve really. A colleague in our office pointed out to me that the PM is now working from the Presidential Office Complex and that the call could easily have been made by one of his own as opposed to one of Mugabe's men.

Even then, I still can not see the point it.

So I am going to do an unusual thing here: There are three readers of this blog who have, in my experience of exchanges with them, proved astute analysers of events and I would ask that they perhaps give their thoughts.

So step forward, Mr Mutota, Thokozile and Oliver (I will not give the last name, cause I am not sure he wants to be identified, but you know who you are and I have even made an article out of one of your email comments to me).

Do any of you guys see anything in this that I am missing? I would really really appreciate those incisive and insightful analysis from you right now. And, of course, anyone else who believes I may be missing something here.

The story was straightforward to me before that accursed call came through!!!

P.S. By the way, I am failing to access my blog to post new stories today, must be the internet connection again. So to post this article, I have used a very convenient feature in Wiindows Vista, where you can compose your article in MS Word and, as long as you have some form of internet connection, you then "send" your post to your blog by putting in your Google user name and password into the Windows Vista dialogue box.

This explains why this post has no pictures in it, I have not figured out how to do that yet!! And, although Windows Vista tells me my ppost has been published, I have no way of seeing it on my own blog until the connections improve enough for me to see my Blogspot blog.

Zimbabwe Truth Commission: We're Proved Right Yet Again!

These are the remains of an MDC polling Agent, who was abducted and murdered by Mugabe's activists during the June 2008 run-off election. The picture was released by the MDC after his body was discovered on the outskirts of a Harare suburb weeks later. It is crimes and violence like this that the Prime Minister's Office now confirms will be forgiven by the envisaged Truth Commission, which will be kicked off in Bulawayo in April this year.

This blog has now been proved right yet again and this time it is on the envisaged Zimbabwe Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Morgan Tsvangirai prefers the title Truth and National Healing Commission).

Gorden Moyo, Minister of State in Prime Minister Tsvangirai's office, has confirmed to the Standard that Zimbabwe is to hold a "summit" in April in Bulawayo with other stakeholders in order to get a way forward on this process.

I told you about all this in my scoop entitled "Zimbabwe To Get Truth Commission", which was published on this blog last month, on 23 February, to be precise.

As I told you in that article, Mugabe has refused to include the Matabeleland Massacres of the 1980s in this process, telling the PM that Gukurahundi had "nothing to do with the MDC" and Tsvangirai has agreed to this.

The PM is obviously trying to make up for this betrayal of Matabeleland by holding the workshop in Bulawayo, the capital city of the Matabeleland region.

Interesting to see is the fact that my sources were also very accurate with regards to the fact that Mugabe has told Tsvangirai that Gukurahundi has nothing to do with the MDC. Hence, in the announcement made by Minister Gorden Moyo in The Standard today, the paper says the planned summit in Bulawayo will "explore ways of reconciling Zimbabweans divided by almost a decade of political".

This clearly rules out Gukurahundi. The focus will be on the violence meted out since the formation of the MDC. Mugabe has argued that when he joined hands with Joshua Nkomo in 1987, that ended the matter of Gukurahundi.

But even this "consultation" set for April is also a sham. Mugabe says on matters like this, "guided democracy is best."

What this means is that the Conference in April is simply for show. Gorden Moyo says the report from that Summit will be submitted to the Council of Ministers, chaired by Tsvangirai. This Council will, in turn, then submit its recommendations to Cabinet.

Effectively, then, the final format of this Truth Commission will be decided by Mugabe, who chairs cabinet. Because of his "guided democracy" belief, you can expect that this Commission will only take the form that Mugabe wants it to take.

As most of you know, no one has ever been prosecuted for the massacres of Gukurahundi and Mugabe wants the same to happen with the violence around the MDC, such as the one in the photo above.

There are some within MDC who are opposed to this "impunity" but Tsvangirai has such mastery over the MDC that his agreement with Mugabe will ensure that their voice never carries the day.

In effect therefore, this proposed Truth Commission is going to simply paper over the cracks. It is disappointing only because by papering over the issue instead of bringing closure to it, Mugabe and Tsvangirai will simply be handing a powder keg to future generation. The issues of Gukurahundi and the violence meted out to opposition supporters is bound to explode in the faces of future leaders of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe is reviled in Matabeleland and can never hope to win a majority there because Gukurahundi was never fully dealt with to bring closure for the people of the region. This time, he and Tsvangirai will repeat the same mistake and leave simmering hatred and resentment to be sorted out later by future leaders.

Still, I thought I would bring it to your attention that yest another scoop from this blog has now been proved correct.

Denford Magora's Zimbabwe Blog

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