Vaarwel, “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”
2 years ago
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New Zimbabwe Diamond Fields Invaded By Lebanese
These are the Chimanimani Mountains in Eastern Zimbabwe, where some more diamonds have been found and a new rush has started. Lebanese buyers are said to be the most active and persistent as they deal with the new illegal diamond miners, called panners because of the rudimentary equipment they traditionally use to extract the precious stones and minerals. Now that the government of Zimbabwe has publicly said it will intervene, it will not be long before we see another bloodbath like the one witnessed at Chiadzwa in Marange, at the original diamond fields of ZimbabweHarare, Zimbabwe, 01 February 2010
As more and more of the Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province area is discovered to contain even more diamonds than previously thought, Lebanese citizens have emerged as the major driving force behind the new surge in informal mining of the precious stones in the area.
The area that had been previously identified as rich in diamond deposits in Eastern Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province (Marange Diamond Fields) has been fenced off and parceled out to various companies despite the protests of the original owner of the Marange concession, Africa Consolidated Resources (ACR), which was booted out of fields and had its licence withdrawn for being British.
Now, however, it emerges that Chimanini (which, incidentally, means "a tight place") and Chipinge, also in Manicaland Province, have vast deposits of diamonds, which have not yet been "secured"by the Zimbabwe government.
The informal miners (panners) have now discovered these new areas and quickly moved in, selling the diamonds they mine these areas to the a vast contingent of Lebanese traders who have descended on the Eastern Province of Zimbabwe to buy up as many diamonds as they can before the Zimbabwe army inevitably moves in.
The Lebanese are working hand in glove with well-connected politicians in Harare and they have funded the panners to buy expensive equipment with which to extract the diamonds. So far, according to one Chief in the area, Chief Muusha, there are about 60 claims that are being mined by the illegal miners.
He says the panners are now a "security threat", using guns against each other and against any outsiders nosing around. "They even use them against dealers at the diamond fields", says Chief Muusha.
The emergence of these reports is a precursor to another crackdown in the new areas.
The reason why the crackdown is coming now is that the big boys have had their fill of the illegal proceeds, which are being smuggled into Manica Province in Mozambique on a daily basis. The new crackdown will ensure that there are no more new people coming in to the fields.
Before long, these fields and the new claims will be parceled out and controlled by the military.
But some people have become very rich in the process.
I suspect even the reports about the Lebanese are only coming in because the Big Boys in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, can now not compete against these seasoned diamond buyers who are coming in and buying up everything in sight, ensuring that even some of the panners funded by the Harare Big Boys sell to the Lebanese instead of handing over everything to their political sponsors.
Manicaland police would only say that they had got the reports and "investigations are under way". One wonders what this means. What are they waiting for?
What is there to investigate when there more than 60 camps on the slopes of mountains in the Highlands where the illegal miners have set up permanent camp? What more is there to establish when the panners are busy firing guns at each other in broad daylight. What is there to investigate when bullet-riddled bodies are being brought to mortuaries daily from the new Diamond Fields?
One wonders. But I suppose they have to wait until they get a proper go-ahead from Harare. Then, you can rest assured, there will be bloodshed at the new Fields, just as there was at Marange. Helicopters will hunt the panners down while soldiers in cars and on foot comb the area to flush out all the illegal miners from their hiding places.
Oh yes, there will be a bloodbath. Yet again.
All that is being done now is setting the stage for it.
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Zimbabwe's Mugabe Strangles Morgan Tsvangirai
Robert Mugabe is greeted yesterday (Saturday 30 January 2010) at Bole Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he is attending the African Union Summit, at which, surprisingly, Zimbabwe has been elected into the Peace and Security Council of the continental body, the African Union. Mugabe is currently on a high, after getting the aid of the British in putting Morgan Tsvangirai on the back foot, getting the support of regional and African leaders for his calls for Tsvangirai to make Britain and "her allies"lift"sanctions against him.Harare, Zimbabwe, 31 January 2010
In February 2009, Morgan Tsvangirai threw Robert Mugabe a lifeline, thereby assuring the loser of Zimbabwe's last credible presidential poll a continued stay in office.
Now Mugabe is using the very same lifeline given to him by Morgan Tsvangirai to strangle the MDC-Tsvangirai leader. Tsvangirai is feeling the heat. As I predicted early last year (when I said it will not be long before we hear Morgan Tsvangirai shouting at the British and Americans), Tsvangirai is now publicly calling the British Foreign Secretary names!
Zimbabwe's government-owned press and even newspapers in neighbouring countries have now openly turned against Tsvangirai, in stark contrast to the fake respect he has been accorded since he got into government. Local media says it is now time for Tsvangirai "to come clean on sanctions". Opinion pieces with dubious bylines in the same media is lambasting the MDC-T president for being dishonest and all efforts are being made to turn the population against Tsvangirai and the MDC for "causing the suffering of Zimbabweans" by calling for sanctions.
That Morgan Tsvangirai is feeling the pressure can easily be established by listening to his statements at the Davos World Economic Forum, where he complained that comments by Britain's Foreign Affairs Minister, David Miliband, are "uncalled for and unfortunate."
Damage limitation attempts by the British are not helping at all. Their statement, issued late last week, that they and only they will decide when to lift sanctions, have fallen completely on deaf ears.
The Zambia Post, which has all along been one of the most critical papers against Mugabe and applauded the late President Mwanawasa when he took a strong line against Mugabe's antics, has now flipped. Now the paper says Tsvangirai is to blame for the chaos in Zimbabwe and he has been dishonest.
In an editorial piece last week, The Zambia Post noted:
"All along, the MDC has been untruthful and insincere about their role in the sanctions against Zimbabwe by the US and the EU. They have maintained that they have no role in the removal of sanctions. The US and EU have also been untruthful and insincere about the effects of the sanctions. They have maintained that the only sanctions in place are “targeted” at the 203 members of President Robert Mugabe’s inner circle, who are only not permitted to travel or do business in Europe and America. To the contrary, the sanctions have not affected even one of the so-called targeted individuals. After all, they, including President Mugabe still travel to the US and EU.
It is clear for all to see that the sanctions have affected the poor and “untargeted”. Here is how. It is common knowledge that because of sanctions, the US and EU have suspended all forms of balance of payments support, technical assistance, grants and infrastructural development flows to both government and private sectors and stopped all lending operations to the country. Yes, the humanitarian aid comes in and is channelled through US and European NGOs and agencies, not through the government. Is it not because of sanctions? The shortage of foreign currency resulted in the country accumulating external payment arrears. Zimbabwe's balance of payments position deteriorated significantly since 2000 from the combined effects of inadequate export performance and reduced capital inflows.
According to government figures, foreign exchange reserves declined as a result, from US $830 million or three months import cover in 1996 to less than one month's cover by 2006. The foreign exchange shortages severely constrained the country's capacity to meet foreign payment obligations and finance critical imports such as drugs, grain, raw materials, fuel and electricity, leading to hunger, closure of hospitals, fuel shortages, power cuts etc.
We, as a newspaper, have been in Zimbabwe for almost three years now and we have not seen any of the so-called targeted people suffering. Instead, we, along with millions of the poor and untargeted people, have had to deal with everyday problems listed above."
Mugabe is chuckling to himself as I write (he is in Ethiopia for an African Union Summit), having managed to rally regional leaders like Jacob Zuma and Rupiah Banda, Amando Guebuza etc to his side. The comments by Miliband mean that the leaders now accept Mugabe's assertion that the MDC-T has it within its power to get balance of payment and IMF funds flowing back into Zimbabwe.
According to sources in ZANU PF privy to Mugabe's announcement of his conversations with them, the regional leaders themselves are now of the view that the British and American have shown extreme disrespect to them. As presidents and as a regional bloc, SADC (Southern African Development Community) leaders have called for "sanctions", especially the blocking of funds for balance of payment support, to be lifted and their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Now it emerges that the British and Americans say they will only listen to Tsvangirai? Jacob Zuma, the South African president, is said to have told Mugabe that, in that case, the British should stop bothering him (Zuma) to put "pressure"on Mugabe and instead rely on their all-knowing wise-man, Tsvangirai. Zuma is reportedly of the view now that the Zimbabwe problem, in light of the comments by the British Foreign Secretary, can only be solved by Mugabe, Tsvangirai and the British without involving other African countries "that have problems of their own."
As I said at the beginning of this article, Mugabe is where he is today because Tsvangirai did not press home his advantage in March 2008, when he out-polled the veteran Zimbabwe president. Instead, he threw it all away and blamed everybody but himself for capitulating, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
He has even blamed Simba Makoni, the man who ensured that the election in March 2008 was peaceful enough to be free and fair. He conveniently forgot that, if Simba Makoni had not run, that election would have been the same as all the others before it, violent and full of rigging at such a scale that there would not have been a second round. What happened in the June run-off would have happened in March 2008.
If Tsvangirai had held out to press home his advantage (Makoni says he would never have signed that deal if he was Morgan Tsvangirai), Mugabe would have gone ahead to form a government that would not have been recognised even by the African Union, which specifically endorsed Tsvangirai's request for a Coalition Government in Zimbabwe at the Sharm al Sheik African Union Summit held after the violent one-man presidential election "run-off".
Mugabe would not have managed to hang on for six months, let alone the whole year that he has now been lording it over Zimbabwe despite losing an election.
Yes indeed, that lifeline that Tsvangirai threw Mugabe is now being used by the latter to strangle the former, and it appears nobody is willing to fight in Tsvangirai's corner now, except the usual suspects, who use meaningless words like "must", "should"and "has to"when talking about Mugabe.
Meantime, a emboldened Mugabe is shouting back, "Make me!"
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Mugabe Rallies Regional Presidents To His Cause, Refuses To Cooperate With Tsvangirai Anymore
Robert "The Solution" Mugabe addresses the media at the end of the ZANU PF Politburo meeting on Wednesday 27 January 2010 at ZANU PF Headquarters along Rotten Row in Harare. The president of Zimbabwe says the Politburo has directed that no more concessions be made to the MDC-Tsvangirai until sanctions (illegal sanctions, he calls them) are lifted unconditionally by Britain, American and the European Union and their allies. Mugabe had earlier informed ministers from ZANU PF that Jacob Zuma and other SADC presidents had told him that they support this stance
Harare, Zimbabwe, 29 January 2010
Robert "The Solution", the Houdini president of Zimbabwe, appears to have done it again, claiming to three senior ZANU PF ministers that he spoke to Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, this week and got an assurance from him that the issue of sanctions was of real concern to the South African Development Community (SADC) leader because it was a "threat to regional security".
Mugabe also says he spoke to four other Heads of State in the Southern African region who told him that "they fully understood the implication of what the British Foreign Secretary said" and that they would stand by Mugabe and ZANU PF in demanding that the MDC-T holds up its end of the GPA bargain by getting sanctions on Zimbabwe lifted and funds flowing back into Mugabe's back pocket.
This is what informed the ZANU PF Politburo decision to make an announcement on Wednesday that their party will not make any more concessions on the Zimbabwe Global Political Agreement (GPA) upon which the Inclusive Government is founded until all sanctions are lifted.
This comes after the British Foreign Secretary announced in the House of Commons that his country would "be guided" by the MDC-Tsvangirai in deciding whether to lift sanctions or not.
Prior to this, Mugabe had bought into Morgan Tsvangirai's argument that he could not control whether the British, USA and European Union lifted sanctions against Zimbabwe or not.
When Tsvangirai embarked on a tour of Europe after he was sworn in as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mugabe publicly announced that when his Prime Minister came back, he would ask him: "Do you see how unreliable your friends are? They will not lift sanctions until we reverse the land reform programme. (Madziona here shamwari dzenyu idzi bambo?)"
Now, however, because of the announcement by the British Foreign Secretary, ZANU PF is back on a war footing.
According to Mugabe, President Zuma of South Africa told him that he "knew all along" that the issue of sanctions was real "and that the MDC-T was using it still, even while in government, in order to dis-empower ZANU PF and effect regime change".
The alleged conversation with Zuma as reported by Mugabe "assured me that we have the support of SADC in refusing to make any more concessions because SADC now see that they have been made fools of by Tsvangirai and the MDC-T. They are as mad as we are about this and they will not tolerate Tsvangirai's nonsense any more. He should get those sanctions lifted before we do anything else for his party."
As a result, you got that announcement by Mugabe himself on Wednesday that the ZANU PF Politburo had "directed" him to make no more concessions on the GPA until the issue was resolved to ZANU PF's satisfaction. (Of course, anyone who knows Zimbabwean politics knows that NOBODY directs Mugabe to do anything).
Ephraim Masawi, ZANU PF deputy Spokesman, echoed his masters voice:
"The hypocrisy of the MDC-T's denial of its role in the evil saga of the imposition of illegal sanctions now stands exposed for all to see. The people of Zimbabwe, as victims of the MDC-T and Western murderous collusion, now demand that Mr Tsvangirai and his Western allies remove their illegal sanctions so that children can go to school, the sick can be attended to in hospitals, people can find jobs and farmers produce."
Of course, the man forgets that it is his party ZANU PF, that put Zimbabweans in this state by shouting at the very "murderous West" that he now wants to give Zimbabwe money for schools and hospitals.
Was it not the President of Zimbabwe himself who called Australians "the progeny of convicts"? Was it not the leader of ZANU PF who told the British and the American governments to "keep your filthy lucre"?
Why does he want that lucre now? Is it no longer filthy?
Again, Mugabe and ZANU PF have brought up the issue of "pirate radio stations" and are linking this to the "sanctions agenda".
Says ZANU PF:
"The Politburo therefore instructs its negotiators on the GPA to desist from making concessions in the negotiations until the sanctions are removed and the pirate radio stations cease to pollute airwaves."
Yet, in most peoples' view, ZANU PF only need look at how many satellite dishes there are in Mbare and even rural areas, accessing SABC (South Africa Broadcasting Corporation) to see who the people of Zimbabwe consider to be polluting airwaves.
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Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Mini-Me Demands Mugabe Treatment
Dr Evil, aka, Robert "The Solution" Mugabe, seen here leaving ZANU PF Headquarters in Harare on Wednesday, 27 January, surrounded by some of his security guards. The guards are only part of his vast motorcade, guzzling enough fuel to drive to London and back every week. Morgan Tsvangirai, aka Prime Minister Mini-meHarare, Zimbabwe, 29 January 2010
Morgan Tsvangirai, aka Prime Minister Mini-me of Zimbabwe, is demanding what Dr Evil, aka Robert "The Solution" Mugabe has in terms of security, essentially signalling that there will be no change in the way Zimbabwe is governed should Prime Minister Mini-me replace Dr Evil as President of Zimbabwe.
In the ongoing discussions around "outstanding issues" in the implementation of the Global Political Agreement, Morgan Tsvangirai wants to be given the same level of security as Mugabe. The President of Zimbabwe currently moves around with a convoy around 15 cars, including an ambulance that is equipped to be a mobile hospital, two truckloads of heavily armed soldiers (complete with machine guns and assault rifles in addition to the standard-issue AK47s)and several gas-guzzling top of the range limousines.
All this is accompanied by outriders on motorcycles as well as several police cars blaring sirens.
When Mugabe travels, everyone has to pull out of the road and let him pass. If his guard thinks you delayed moving out of way, one of the trucks with soldiers stays behind and ensures that the "errant" motorist is punished severely. Some people have been shot at for not pulling out of the road fast enough.
There is no reasoning with the security people, they do not care whether there was nowhere for you to park when Mugabe's motorcade happened upon you.
This is what Morgan Tsvangirai now wants: outriders, police escort and soldiers accompanying his motorcade.
Now, you have to understand that even at the height of war of independence in Zimbabwe, Ian Smith, the white Prime Minister of the then Rhodesia, had no protection of this kind.
All Smith had was a police bodyguard, even when he went to tour the posts deep in the rural areas where the war was raging.
Mugabe started this madness with security after he was narrowly missed by a huge bomb in Masvingo just after independence. At independence itself, he was also targeted after disgruntled former members of Ian Smith's armed forces hatched a plot to blow him sky high on the podium where the handover ceremony was being presided over by Prince Charles of the United Kingdom.
So, what is Tsvangirai's excuse?
Even the British Prime Minister drives around with a couple of Scotland Yard escorts and stops for traffic lights (Tsvangirai's current motorcade already does not stop at traffic lights).
This is the man who was talking about the a "change the governance culture of Zimbabwe"? Yet he is making the issue of emulating Mugabe's extravagant behaviour an "outstanding issue".
As I keep saying, with the MDC-T, it appears as if the more things "change", the more they stay the same.
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Zimbabwe Attorney General Scores Victory In Roy Bennett Case
Peter Hitschmann arrives at Harare High court in Zimbabwe on Thursday last week for the trial of MDC-T Treasurer Roy Bennett, in which he is a key witness for the State. The presiding judge has now ruled that he is a "hostile"witness against the State, allowing Attorney-General Johannes Tomana to cross-examine him in order to discredit his new testimony that the confession upon which Roy Bennett's current prosecution is based was obtained under torture.
Harare, Zimbabwe, 25 January 2010
Zimbabwe's Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana, has managed to get his own main witness declared "hostile"to him by the judge presiding over the ongoing trial of MDC-T Treasurer-General Roy Bennett.
It means that Tomana has managed to score a victory most observers said was unlikely and strengthen the Attorney-General's hand considerably in the trial of the embattled Tsvangirai confidante, Roy Bennett.
Justice Bhunu said that he was impeaching Hitschmann on the basis of his "demeanour", saying he showed that he had "an axe to grind"with the State because of his imprisonment and "absurd statements"while giving evidence in the current trial.
Zimbabwe does not have a jury system. Instead, the verdict is reached by the presiding judge together with two "assessors" after all evidence has been led and all witnesses examined.
This is why this ruling by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, the judge in Bennett's trial, is so significant. It shows the judge's disposition at this early stage and is also an indication that the judge himself is tending to agree with the prosecution that the witness is changing a statement given freely and implicating Roy Bennett.
It gives a glimpse into the judge sees the case right now and that glimpse is not an encouraging one for Roy Bennett.
By declaring Peter Hitschmann a hostile witness, the judge is effectively saying that he agrees with the Attorney General that the State witness' testimony in court can not be trusted and is not to be taken seriously.
Which leaves the original confession by Hitshmann that he was keeping arms of war on his farm for Roy Bennett the only "credible"evidence and testimony before the court.
It marks a worrying turn of events for Roy Bennett and points to the inevitability of a conviction.
Which, as I have said countless times before on this blog, means that there will also be inevitably an appeal. The purpose of trying Roy Bennett would still have been achieved in the eyes of Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF - to delay the process so much that the Inclusive Government comes to an end before Roy Bennett can be sworn in as Deputy Minister of Agriculture.
If an appeal is made, it would be to the Supreme Court, where there is, right now, a 33 month backlog of cases waiting to be heard.
That would be more than a year of waiting for Bennett from the date of a judgement being passed by Justice Bhunu in his current trial.
As I also said here last year, the balance in this specific trial seems to be shifting towards the State. But nothing is ever as it seems in Zimbabwe.
What I can say with confidence is that Bennett's fate is tied directly to how long the Inclusive Government lasts.
Most reports on this case today are concentrating on the fact that Justice Bhunu has struck down the confession from Hitschmann without examining the implication of allowing the prosecution to treat the witness as hostile.
The allegations of torture that Hitschmann is bringing up now have never been tested in a court of law and the striking down of the confession was simply on the basis that the prosecution could not proceed with its case unless Bhunu allowed them to treat Hitshmann's new testimony in the current as a pack of lies that needed to be exposed through cross-examination.
This is the true significance of this ruling and the reason why, contrary to reports, the ruling favours Tomana more than it favours Bennett.
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Zimbabwe Police Join Hands With Car Dealers On Crime Spree
Zimbabwe police appear to have decided that chasing after protesters does not pay but that crime is the route to go. Several have been arrested in the last few months for robberies, mostly armed robberies, in a move that also shows that there are others within the force whose suffering has not blunted that their sense of right and wrong. Still, the underpaid civil servants in Zimbabwe, including policemen and Intelligence agents will continue to engage in these activities until and unless their working and remuneration conditions are improved
Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010
Struggling Zimbabwe police officers have been in the news of late quite a lot for engaging in crime activities and the latest case involves a police officer and a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative, together with car dealers.
Police in the Matabeleland South Province of Zimbabwe have now arrested four people, including the police officer and CIO operative. They have been charged with armed robbery and smuggling.
It was revealed in court that police have recovered two pistols and six cars used to commit the armed robberies. The cars included a Mercedes Benz ML 4X4 vehicle which police say was smuggled into Zimbabwe through Beitbridge Border Post, Zimbabwe's main post on the border with South Africa. They also believe that the gang is larger than the four arrested so far. The armed robbers operated in Mat South province, in southern Zimbabwe, but appears to have been relying on help from a car dealer based in Harare.
The four arrested people are: Rabson Mapurisa, a CIO operative, his brother Herbert Mapurisa , a car dealer, Admire Chihambakwe, a police officer and Misheck Muchemedzi.
Rabson Mapurisa, the CIO operative, broke into the CIO armoury where he stole guns that the gang used to rob its victims. Chihambakwe, the police officer, supplied them with police uniforms with which to pose as law enforcement agents to their victims.
One of those victims, farmer Patrick Dice, was phoned by Chihambakwe who claimed that the police wanted to give him advice on preventing armed robberies. When the gang showed up at his farm, they asked to see where he kept his guns. When he did, the gang pounced, tied him and his family up before bizarrely forcing them to drink some sort of liquid that knocked them out.
When they came to, the police had already arrived and the policemen who attended the scene say the family still appeared "drunk"from the liquid that they had been forced to drink.
The gang had managed to steal 90 000 South African rands, 2 kilograms of gold and jewelery. They helped identify the robbers when they were caught.
The spate of robberies by law enforcement agents is only a reflection of the slave wages being paid to civil servants while Ministers and their cohorts live the life of Riley.
With policemen and CIO agents turning to crime, the question being asked repeatedly by the public and in public is: "Who will police the police".
This is unlikely to end any time soon. The government has no resources to pay police officers or any other civil servants properly. What makes it worse is that these same civil servants see Ministers growing fatter and fatter from ill-gotten wealth, while they reward their supporters and friends with contracts and per diems, while creating room at the donor-funded feeding troughs being set up by the Inclusive Governmenet.
As one civil servants put it last month: "We are not in this together. Tsvangirai, Biti and Mugabe have abandoned us. They are looking out only for themselves."
Which could not be truer.
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Zimbabwean Baby Survives Night In A Grave
A mother buried her baby alive in Zimbabwe last week. The baby miraculously survived a whole night buried in the "grave", which was really just a pit. She has been hauled before a traditional court and fined a goat and a cow by Chief Negomo. It reminds me of the infamous incident when my friend Noreen Welch and the late Tsitsi Vera were suspended by Zimbabwe Television after failing to contain themselves while reading the story of a woman who had gone to the toilet on a train and given birth thinking she only needed to relieve herself, unaware that she was pregnant. This is much sadder, obviously and the mother deserve much more than being fined a cow and a sheepHarare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010
A new-born baby buried alive by her mother survived for a whole night in the grave before being rescued by an alert man who lives near the graveyard.
Phibian Chinehasha (the surname means "that which has anger"in the Shona language of Zimbabwe) says he became suspicious after realising that a fresh grave had appeared in the graveyard overnight.
He teamed up with other villagers and dug the grave up. They got the shock of their lives when they unearthed a baby, alive and struggling to breathe.
The mother was identified as Margaret Munjanja, a farm worker at nearby Bermaside Farm. The villagers arrested her and took her to their chief.
The woman said she attempted to kill the child because she had an affair with her husband's nephew and suspected that he was the father of the child. The chief fined her a sheep and a cow and said he would also refer her matter to the police.
It turns out there is something in the water around the area, ruled by Chief Negomo. According to State media, recent cases of infanticide included one occasion when a mother doused her baby in petrol and burned it alive. Another mother threw her baby into a Blair toilet (pit toilets dug in Zimbabwe's rural areas where there is no modern sewage system).
Zimbabwean traditional practice is that a nephew plays around (almost always harmlessly) with his uncles and his uncles' wives traditionally but jokingly referred to as "husband" by his uncles' wives.
It would appear this young man went a bit further than just mere role-playing. Why this should have led to the cruel act of burying a baby alive remains a mystery and it is also not reported whether the husband knew about his wife's pregnancy or not.
The potential baby-killing mother pleaded with Chief Negomo not to hand her matter over to the police, saying she will take good care of the child.
I am not sure whether the Chief believed this. Why should the woman be trusted after having done such a deplorable thing, something that is unthinkable in Zimbabwean society and is normally the preserve of immature young girls who fall pregnant at very young ages and prefer to dump their babies instead of looking after them.
Considering that the practice appears to be widespread in his domain, the Chief should really hand the matter over to the police and allow the law to take its course.
The Chiefs in Zimbabwe, although they have the power to try criminals under traditional law, have no power to put anyone in prison and can only pass sentences of fines, mostly cows, goats, chickens and sheep.
Chief Negomo obviously needs to send a message that the life of a human being, even a new-born one, is worth much more than a cow and a goat.
Even he, Chief Negomo, admits that this was a special case:
“This case is one of the most extraordinary cases I have handled. It was cruel for the mother to attempt to kill an innocent soul in such a manner. It’s quite disturbing that she had the nerve to go to the cemetery at night and dig a pit,” he told reporters.
What, one is compelled to ask, has come over Zimbabweans?
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Zimbabwe Cabinet Calls Meeting To Threaten God
Zimbabwean farmers face a bleak season as rains refuse to fall, leading Cabinet to announce that it will meet next week "over the dry spell", although it is unclear what exactly they intend to do to God about this.. Of course, this is all a convenient scapegoat for the failure by the Inclusive Government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe to turn its attention away from the feeding trough to the farming season. Fertiliser is in short supply and seed was late arriving in Zimbabwe. Now the MDC-T will also adopt Mugabe's perennial excuse for bad planning - "there was a drought"!Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010
Zimbabwe's completely useless and lunatic fringe, masquerading as a Cabinet, has announced that it will convene an urgent meeting "over the dry spell"that is threatening to plunge the country into another year of food shortages.
What exactly they intend to do at this meeting about this "Act of God"remains a mystery.
The drooling Minister Of Agriculture and Irrigation and Threats Against God in the Inclusive Government, Dr Joseph Made, says:
“It cannot be denied that crops have been badly affected by the dry spell in most parts of the country. However, it is too early to speculate that there is going to be a drought."
Finance Minister and MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary-General Tendai Biti also came out with a comic act of his own, telling State media:
“The Ministry of Agriculture has not yet told to us if there is going to be a drought.!"
So now the Ministry of Agriculture is a Ministry of Prophecies and the Reading of God's Mind?
There is no need to ask the useless Joseph Made (who is normally busy as Mugabe's farm manager) whether there is going to be a drought or not. Farmers are worried in Zimbabwe because their crops are wilting.
Of course, the so-called "New Farmers", the black beneficiaries of Mugabe's farm invasions, have looted irrigation equipment, which means that, even in areas that lie beside dams, no irrigation an take place.
Talk about dying of thirst while your feet are in water!!
Since it is now clear that MDC-T and ZANU PF both believe in dictating on the economy, in people's lives and in every aspect of governance, we can assume that they intend to give an ultimatum to God to deliver the rains.
Perhaps Prime Minister Tsvangirai will threaten to pull out of the GNU unless God delivers that rain within 30 days?!
And Mugabe?
He will probably send youths up there with axe handles and whips, shovels and other tools of their trade to teach God a lesson that Zimbabwe is a sovereign country and he does not take kindly to that sovereignty being tampered with, even by the Creator himself.
There is no doubt about it at all: this country passed the "Banana Republic"milestone a long time ago and our leaders continue to show supreme incompetence in both thought and action.
Meantime, all hope now rests in donor funds (which will be looted promptly and never make it to intended beneficiaries). Joseph Made says he is now talking to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, a United Nations Agency, about rehabilitating the looted and vandalised irrigation equipment.
Whether donors will be in a mood to support such a plainly corrupt government is another matter.
Of immediate concern is why irrigation is only be talked about now. Mugabe himself has said in public that every year, his ministers know that there is going to be a November and a December, when Zimbabwe farmers are supposed to start planting. They know every year in January that, at the end of that year, there needs to be fertiliser and seed available in the shops for farmers to purchase in order to revive this agriculture-based economy.
Why then has this been a problem for the last ten years or so?
It is only because both MDC-T and ZANU PF prefer the situation where, instead of being self-sufficient, farmers have to suffer the indignity of asking for handouts from the government every single year.
This way, the farmers and their families can be controlled.
The MDC itself, you will recall, also joined the party when it tried to import maize and meal to distribute before it was part of the Inclusively Corrupt Government. Mugabe simply held up the food at the border and refused to let it in the country.
Now that the MDC-T is part of government, they can not be stopped from giving handouts to their supporters and potential supporters in an effort to buy their votes.
We still have a long way to go before this country can be sorted out and that sorting out is not going to come from the MDC-T or ZANU PF.
They do not want to hear this and would rather we all praise the Emperors, saying what nice clothes they have, although we know for a fact that they are naked, unclothed and embarrassing everybody.
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Donors Dump Corruption-ridden Constitutional Process
Buttock-waving Mugabe women supporters and youths disrupted a Constitutional Conference in Harare last July 14 (above), leading to police being called in to restore order and guard the meetings. Now, ZANU PF, Mugabe's party, and MDC-Tsvangirai have joined hands to loots funds allocated to the process by donors. The donors have responded by refusing to pay for lavish bar bills, room service and US$40 daily "allowances"for almost a thousand delegates, including gatecrashers and street kids who were allowed to attend the last workshop earlier this month. The organisers from ZANU PF and MDC responded by looting US$4 million given to them by Finance Minister and Tsvangirai confidante Tendai BitiHarare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010
Donors like the United Nations Development Fund have dumped the corruption-ridden Zimbabwe Constitution-making process amid claims by ZANU PF that the move is informed by the failure of Western governments to craft a Constitution on behalf of Zimbabwe.
Germany, the United Kingdom's DFID, Sweden, European Union, USAID and the French government had pledged to fund the Zimbabwe constitution-making process, especially the so-called "outreach"programme, to the tune of US$16 million but have now refused to have anything to do with the chaotic and half-hearted process.
The donors took the decision after a workshop for representatives of political parties and civil society in Harare, where, instead of the originally planned 600 "rapporteurs", a thousand people showed up at the workshop. The number was inflated by ZANU PF War Veterans and Youth League members who saw an opportunity "to eat"in the process.
I first broke the story on this blog in the article: Zimbabwe Constitutional Process Suspended As Funds Are Looted
The donors responded by refusing to pay for the hotel bill and also refused to fund the US$40 daily allowances given to these people who had attended the workshop.
But it gets worse.
Amidst revelations that parliament has decided to hire the very cars that it purchased for MPs at a rate of US$1 per kilometer instead of the US$.60 cents charged by reputable car rental firms in Harare like Hertz, the donors decided that this was now just a chance for the politicians from both MDC and ZANU PF to loot the funds and that they would not spend their government's taxpayers' money lining the pockets of these crooks.
When organisations like the NCA cottoned on to the gravy train, the Parliamentary Select Committee co-chairman from ZANU PF decided to play the partisan politics game. Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana told the media that those complaining about the US$40 daily allowance when civil servants were being paid slave wages of US$150 per month should "should go and ask Tendai Biti (Zimbabwe's Finance Minister and MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary-General) why he is underpaying them.”
There is no doubt that, with poverty remaining a big problem in Zimbabwe, with this useless and moribund Inclusive Government failing to formulate, let alone implement, a single job-creating policy, the politicians are now bent on using aid and donor funds to buy the loyalty of their supporters.
The MDC-T did it when it hired loads of people into city and town councils they control in order to ensure that they get voted back in next time round.
Now, both ZANU PF and MDC think that the nationally significant process of crafting a new constitution for Zimbabwe is an opportunity to nominate even more of its own people to stick their snouts in the feeding trough.
No wonder the process is moribund. The government itself has no money. Which means they can not proceed unless they do so in a manner that satisfies the standards of transparency and good governance insisted on by their Pied Pipers.
As I mentioned in the article I refer to above, the looting of the funds for the Zimbabwe Constitution process had to be based on the US$4 million availed to the process by Finance Minister Tendai Biti.
This money was used to pay the US$40 daily allowances for the one thousand delegates, including the gatecrashers who had neither been invited nor nominated officially by ZANU PF.
The rest was used to pay for hotel bills, including lavish bar bills and room service.
All this while sewage continues to flow in the streets, while Zimbabwe's schools record zero percent pass rates, while cholera rears its head, while unemployment in Zimbabwe is still the highest in the world.
These people are supposed to run the country?
These are people that certain apologists on both the MDC and ZANU PF sides insist must not be criticised or taken to task?
These are the people who say they want to deliver change to the way Zimbabwe is run and governed.
It must be the joke of the century.
The donors must be commended for this. They must not take any nonsense from these people who are growing fat from eating the sewage of a broken down nation, thieves and robbers who believe that being elected is a licence to line their own pockets while those who elected them rummage around at rubbish dumps for scraps from their lavish five-star hotel dinners.
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Zimbabwe's MDC Abandons It's Supporters In The United Kingdom
Morgan Tsvangirai is booed as he leaves the podium at Southwark Cathedral in London after he failed to finish his speech to Zimbabweans there on June 20 2009. The MDC leader and Zimbabwean Prime Minister had just called for Zimbabweans to return home because it was now safe despite all evidence to the contrary. Tsvangirai subsequently told a reporter in South Africa that he stands by the statement that Zimbabweans outside the country must return and that he would no longer support their claims for asylum since things had normalised back home. Tsvangirai supporters should have no problems following this instruction since they believe that he is never wrongHarare, Zimbabwe, 23 January 2010
Although ZANU PF youths and even the military continue to run riot in the rural areas of Zimbabwe, threatening "a bullet to the head"for anyone voting for Morgan Tsvangirai in the next elections, most MDC supporters in the Diaspora (especially United Kingdom and America), continue to defend the unfounded statements by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that Zimbabwe is now a safe and stable democracy to which Zimbabweans abroad must return in their droves.
Effectively, it means that the MDC no longer supports any claims by any asylum seeker in the United Kingdom, USA and other countries who says that their life would be in danger if they returned home.
Right on cue, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has now announced: "The formation of the Inclusive Government (the coalition between Mugabe and Tsvangirai) has led to improvements in the economy, schools and the availability of basic commodities."
These are words straight from Prime Minister Tsvangirai's mouth. The MDC leader was booed at Southwark Cathedral in London for saying exactly this and urging Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to come back home.
Effectively, it means that the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai no longer support any claims by anyone claiming to be their supporter that they face danger if they were to return or be returned Zimbabwe from foreign countries where they have sought refuge.
At the same time, it is quite clear that the Prime Minister has no power to protect any of his activists from persecution and even murder at the hands of ZANU PF.
Roy Bennett, the MDC-T Treasurer-General, is in the courts right now facing what are clearly very tenuous charges, perhaps even completely fabricated. Tsvangirai was unable to prevent the arrest of this very senior MDC figure.
He was unable even to influence ZANU PF, which controls the system, to grant Bennett bail. Instead, he spent endless nights in police cells (at one point sharing the cell with the body of a prisoner who had died in custody while the police took two days to remove it).
What more mere activists and foot-soldiers, ordinary members who face overzealous and murderous ZANU PF "cadres"in their home areas if they are to come back?
Still, the essence of the matter is that the Prime Minister is desperate to sell his capitulation to Mugabe and to show the world that he has made a difference. When he does this, MDC-T supporters are quick to support him, even those who face certain death were they to walk back into their neighbourhoods today from overseas.
They forget that by trying to whitewash the situation, to paper over the cracks and put a brave face on the capitulation, they are also shooting themselves in the foot.
Tsvangirai says MDC supporters are now safe back home in Zimbabwe. Britain says MDC supporters must then come back. So come back they will.
The situation is different, obviously, for those whose lives are endangered because they are with Simba Makoni's party or with Dumiso Dabengwa's party. People from these organisations, as far as I know, are aware that the situation back home is far from normal and can enumerate the instances when they have escaped with their lives, by a whisker. Their parties, aware of the danger that faces certain of its activists, are not hesitating to plead their cases with foreign governments. It is not yet Uhuru in Zimbabwe. That much is certain.
But for MDC-T supporters and according to their own president, it is now Uhuru (freedom) in Zimbabwe. Their president says they must come back. If they truly support him and his capitulation, they should come back and face the music, instead of trying to hoodwink the world from foreign shores that things are normal back in Zimbabwe, only to turn around and resist deportation when the British ask them to put their money where their mouths are.
Speaking of which: the British government says it will give each deported Zimbabwean 6 000 (six thousand) pound sterling with which to start a new life back home in Zimbabwe.
Some will be tempted, not knowing that this is chump change under the conditions prevailing in Zimbabwe today. Life in Zimbabwe is now expensive and unless they are prepared to come and live the life of a civil servant (civil servants are protesting slave wages and dismal living conditions at the moment), then they must have another plan for surviving in Zimbabwe.
So expensive is Zimbabwe now across the board that supplies for individuals and even for companies are being sourced from South Africa. For instance, as the reporting season for companies sets in now, almost all Zimbabwean companies are sending their annual reports to South Africa for printing, because Zimbabwean printers are charging them about four times what they would pay if they took their printing across the border in South Africa (that price includes the cost of transporting the annual reports back to Zimbabwe!).
But, since MDC-T supporters insist that their party is now in power and totally has Mugabe on the back foot and is gaining ground (an assertion now not supported by a single person within the border of Zimbabwe), they must come back home and help their newly-powerful party to rebuild Zimbabwe alongside a "repentant"and "reformed"Mugabe.
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Mugabe Lands Another Punch On Tsvangirai
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai playing buddy-buddy with newly sworn-in Vice President John Nkomo in Harare last month. The Prime Minister has egg on his face again today after announcing one of Mugabe's "promises" as fact to his supporters, only to have ZANU PF announce yesterday that the MDC was simply "making noise"! Although his supporters refuse to see it or accept it, the Prime Minister in way over his head.
Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 January 2010
Robert "The Solution"Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, has gone back on yet another promise to Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's hapless Prime Minister and Mugabe's ally in the coalition government currently ruling Zimbabwe.
This time, Mugabe is going back on his word concerning the appointment of ambassadors from the MDC-Tsvangirai party.
When an "agreement"was reached between Mugabe and Tsvangirai over Zimbabwean ambassadors, Tsvangirai announced that the Zimbabwe president has agreed that other MDC-T ambassadors would be appointed "as and when vacancies arose"in the Zimbabwean embassies around the world.
As it turns out, the appointment of Simon Khaya Moyo as Chairman of ZANU PF (Mugabes party) last month meant that a vacancy was created for a Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa.
Naturally, the MDC-T thought that this was an opportunity for them to send a person from their party to Zimbabwe's embassy to Pretoria and they made this public last week.
Not so fast, says ZANU PF now.
Simon Khaya Moyo himself, speaking at a ZANU PF Youth League event in Harare yesterday in his new capacity as Chairman of ZANU PF, announced that the Pretoria ambassadorial post would be given to a ZANU PF person.
So much for Mugabe's argument that ambassadors were not political appointees but civil servants who were "apolitical"!
Khaya Moyo told his audience:
"All the noise about the South African ambassadorial position is useless because ambassadors are appointed by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.
"The diplomatic posts that were allocated to the MDC formations were enough as they were prescribed in the GPA."
For some time now, I have been cautioning against the MDC supporters' tendency to believe every little announcement of Mugabe's "promises"from Morgan Tsvangirai as if these have already been implemented.
As was to be expected, I have been called all manner of things for my pains, to the extent that I now get a little disappointed if anything is written about me without it mentioning that I am against everything Tsvangirai does or says!!
But the proof that my skepticism is well-founded has come in time and again. Still, MDC supporters believe that we should all celebrate when Tsvangirai announces that Mugabe has agreed to appoint MDC-T Provincial Governors (it never happened and is unlikely to happen), will appoint more MDC-T ambassadors when and if vacancies arise (now we know this will not happen) and so on and so forth.....
Fundamentally, it has not sunk into the heads of MDC supporters that their party and their leader have squandered the political capital given to them by the people of Zimbabwe in March 2008. It has not sunk in that, despite winning the March 2008 election, psychologically, Morgan Tsvangirai has told himself that he will never be president and has no problems bowing and scrapping before Mugabe in order to be given crumbs of power from Mugabe's table.
Of course, the MDC will never admit this in public, but privately, even Tsvangirai's own staff in the Prime Minister's office say "he is tired and he has mellowed".
ZANU PF knows this.
People within Mugabe's party, as I have revealed before, say that the the Prime Minister is now simply the leader of another ZANU PF faction vying to replace Mugabe. This statement, which I found hard to believe at first, is now being borne out by the fact that the Prime Minister is playing ZANU PF politics.
Recently, he has been seen cosying up to ZANU PF Kingmaker Retired General Solomon Mujuru, perhaps politically the most powerful man in Zimbabwe today after Mugabe himself. This comes a few months after Mugabe went ballistic over secret meetings held between Tsvangirai and Mnangagwa, Mugabe's presumed heir-apparent within ZANU PF now, as I reported here on this blog in an article entitled: Mugabe Goes Ballistic Over Tsvangirai, Mnangagwa Secret Meetings.
The Prime Minister seems to be warming up to ZANU PF and playing the ZANU PF succession game, complete with succession politics.
There is no doubt that he is in way over his head, with ALL ZANU PF senior politicians saying that Tsvangirai has now been "neutralised".
They would say that, wouldn't they.
Who wouldn't, after hearing the following statements from Tsvangirai:- "President Mugabe is indispensable and irreplaceable" (said in an interview in London)
- "Mugabe is not the problem. He is the the solution."
- "The West must get over its obsession with Mugabe."
- "Mugabe is genuine...!"
And lots more statements like that.
In capitulation after capitulation, the Prime Minister is quite clearly guided by one thing and one thing alone: safeguarding whatever little power decides the leader of the MDC must have. The Zimbabwean Prime Minister is also quite clearly guided by the desire to ensure that those who stood by him in his fight against Mugabe are rewarded with plum posts and perks.
Everything else, including the problems facing Zimbabwean, is plainly playing second fiddle to Tsvangirai's desire to continue featuring in office, even though he may not be in power.
No protest will come from the MDC over this latest reneging on a promise by Mugabe.
The MDC appear to now have accepted that this is the way they will survive, while hoodwinking supporters now again by threatening "pull-outs"that are not really pull-outs, announcing "intentions"by Mugabe that they know will never be fulfilled but will be celebrated by their gullible supporters as statements of fact.
Fact remains: like it or not, Mugabe has just landed another punch on Tsvangirai.
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"No Zimbabwe Land Audit Until Sanctions Are Lifted" ZANU PF
After invading farms (above) in Zimbabwe, ZANU PF went on to dish out these farms to people with no resources to work the land, while some senior politicians from both ZANU PF and MDC managed to lay their hands of multiple farms, hoarding them in the hope that they would get title deeds and eventually sell the farms (perhaps even back to their former owners). This makes the likelihood of a Land audit to investigate productivity and those with more than one farm highly unlikely. On Tuesday, a ZANU PF Minister told Zimbabwe television that there will no land audit until sanctions on Zimbabwe are lifted
Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 January 2010
Robert Mugabe's party has ruled out carrying out a Land Audit demanded by the people of Zimbabwe, the MDC, opposition parties and donors who want to pour in aid for agriculture in Zimbabwe. And they are blaming "sanctions" for their refusal to allow an audit to gauge whether there are black farmers with multiple farms and to also see whether any of them are being productive on the farms given to them.
Speaking on Zimbabwe television, Joseph Made, one of the Ministers in charge of Agriculture in Zimbabwe and a senior member of Mugabe's ZANU PF party, said that it was "premature" to conduct a land audit right now because "New Farmers" (Zimbabwean parlance for beneficiaries of the farm invasions) have been operating under a harsh environment "characterised by illegal sanctions" over the last few years.
"The capacity that we need has been impacted upon by the imposition of illegal sanctions. You can’t build capacity under sanctions.
"We might be wrong to say that there are large tracts of land lying idle. The new farmers need to be capacitated and sanctions need to be removed," Made said, as he justified yet another instance of the tearing up of the Agreement between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe."You need human resources, financing and so on and you can’t do that under economic sanctions," Made added, as he justified why the new farmers are failing to feed the nation, despite some of them owning several fertile farms.
One of the biggest multiple farm owners is Mugabe himself, who has several farms, including the notorious Gushungo Farm which was selling milk to Nestle and forced that company to temporarily suspend operations after they had stopped buying the president's milk.
No noise will be made about this by the MDC because they themselves have now started benefiting from the farm invasions, with MDC MPs and Ministers being given some of the farms that have been invaded after the Inclusive Government was formed. Some of these MDC Ministers and MPs are also now multiple farm owners.
As one insider put it, "The MDCs have been thoroughly compromised and will not be making much noise about this, except to hoodwink their supporters now and again."
This announcement by the Minister Agricultural Mechanisation, Joseph Made, is only a fulfillment of the resolution passed by ZANU PF delegates at their Congress in Harare in December, during which they insisted that no land audit should take place until all sanctions on Zimbabwe, including the travel bans on Mugabe ZANU PF officials, are lifted.
It appears there is not much the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai can do about this!
I am sure that by now you have noticed that there is no movement at all towards normalising the situation in Zimbabwe, no progress on the fundamental issues that have brought the country to its knees, despite Morgan Tsvangirai trying to airbrush Mugabe's and his own failure to failures to have an impact on the lives of Zimbabweans.
The people themselves seem to have no say in this.
Tsvangirai is unconcerned with these matters, since he is more interested in ensuring that his people are put in jobs at embassies around the world.
It will take a miracle for the Land audit to finally be done as long as ZANU PF is part of the Zimbabwe government. They have been resisting this from day one and are likely to get even more intransigent as time goes on.
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Zimbabwe Constitution Process Suspended As "Funds Are Looted"
With civil society organisations like the National Constitutional Assembly of Zimbabwe "ready to die for a new constitution" not based on the dismal Kariba Draft agreed to between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in 2005, the process that was supposed to have started this month is now suspended. This comes as it is alleged that US$4 million given to the process has been "looted" and not a single thing required for the "outreach" purchased
Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 January 2010
What did I tell you about celebrating "announcements of intentions"?
Amid reports that US$4 million already given to the Constitution-making process for Zimbabwe's new Constitution, parliament has announced that the process has been suspended "indefinitely" until certain issues are sorted out.
"All constitutional programmes have been suspended by the management committee. They felt there were other issues which needed attention before the outreach programme begins.
"There are still disagreements on the composition of rapporteurs, but there are other more pressing issues, which have to be addressed like financial constraints.
"Recording equipment is yet to be bought, cars haven’t been mobilised and rapporteurs are yet to be trained.
"Therefore, we cannot give a timetable of when the actual outreach will start because some of the issues are beyond our control as the Select Committee," was the comment from Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana of ZANU PF, who is co-chair of the Zimbabwe Parliamentary Select Committee on the New ConstitutionThe Ministry of Finance has already given the process US$4 million, yet one of the reasons cited for suspending the "outreach programme" by people driving this process is that no resources have been put at the disposal of the outreach teams.
Both ZANU PF and MDC-T are claiming that no cars have been bought for the teams to go around the country soliciting the electorate's opinions on the Kariba Draft that they is now being used as the basis for Zimbabwe's new constitution, despite the protests of almost everyone with a brain in Zimbabwe.
The other reason is that there is deep distrust amongst the parties to the Global Political (Dis)Agreement. This has resulted in the parties not agreeing amongst themselves who should write down the opinions of the electorate as the outreach teams go about their business.
MDC-T people think that if it is ZANU PF members and nominees doing the recording, then they will doctor the results in order to ensure that the new Constitution reflects ZANU PF wishes and preferences.
ZANU PF is also taking the same view.
Both parties, however, are reluctant to let other players, such representatives from Mavambo, ZAPU and Zimbabwean civil society do the recording of people's views because they think that these groups would also be partisan.
All this is only because the parties in the Inclusive Government decided to ignore the genuine concerns of civil society and other Zimbabwe political parties. Knowing that most of them are opposed to the Kariba Draft, they do not trust them to be impartial in recording people's views.
The concept, therefore, is that, because ZANU PF and MDC-T know that they are a dishonest bunch, they think that other players will take the same attitude and dishonestly record the findings.
Stalemate, then.
Despite the public reasons given, sources deep within one of the main parties to the GPA say that the main reason for this suspension is that the US$4 million given to the process by the Ministry of Finance has already "been blown" and there is nothing to show for it.
Certainly, that US$4 million would have been enough to ensure that vehicles and other supplies needed by the outreach teams are purchased. There is money coming from donors, but this is being released in tranches, as certain milestones are passed. The important thing would have been to start the process itself and then the rest of the funds would have been released.
The disagreements over the way forward are at the highest level of the parties to the GPA. Teh negotiators, all senior ministers with the ear of each of their principals, seem to be lacking the will to go ahead and ensure that things move forward.
There really appears to be no way forward for this new Constitution. Besides, how the parties could be going ahead in the face of opposition from the majority of Zimbabweans and in the absence of genuine power-sharing is beyond the comprehension of normal Zimbabweans.
Tsvangirai has one leg in the Inclusive Government. Mugabe is fighting to push him out of that same Zimbabwe Inclusive Government. The divisions within the coalition of the unwilling are as deep as ever, there has been no move to start the process of national healing (yet we have three whole Ministers in charge of this and one wonders what they do everyday in their offices).....the dysfunctional government limps along, buying time, fighting and shortchanging the people.
Mugabe must be smiling today. He wants to go into any new elections with the old Constitution in place and must be thrilled that this confused process is tottering on the brink of collapse.
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Images From Zimbabwe: Mrs Takawira's Burial At Heroes Acre on Monday 18 January 2010
Harare, Zimbabwe, 20 January 2010
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Tsvangirai Deputy Gets United States To Lift IMF Veto On Zimbabwe
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is seen here at the burial of Mrs Takawira at the Zimbabwe National Heroes Acre on Monday (day before yesterday). Just to his right, partly obscured, is Zimbabwe's Kingmaker, Retired General Solomon Mujuru, without whom Mugabe would not have become leader of ZANU PF. Tsvangirai's deputy, Thokozani Khupe (that should be ThokoZANU Khupe after this), has prevailed on the Americans to lift their IMF veto on Zimbabwe, fulfilling one of Mugabe's dearest wishes.
Harare, Zimbabwe, 20 January 2010
Deputy Prime Minister Thokozanu Khupe, who is also Morgan Tsvangirai's deputy in the MDC-Tsvangirai, has prevailed upon America to lift its veto on restoring Zimbabwe's full rights at the next meeting of the IMF Directors at Bretton Woods in the Washington.
The new United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray, confirmed to the media yesterday that this was the case:
"We would want to assure Zimbabwe that once the issue of restoring Zimbabwe's voting rights in the IMF is put forward for debate at the next IMF sitting, America will fully support the motion."
America has, since 2001, vetoed any moves to restore Zimbabwe's voting rights at the Institution and has also passed ZIDERA, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, which bars American Executives at the IMF and World Bank from supporting any applications for balance of payment support or aid from these two institutions. The law also bars American executives at other banks like the African Development Bank from supporting any aid for Zimbabwe.
Deputy Prime Minister Khupe applauded the American volte-face, saying:
"The Inclusive Government has covered enough ground and we feel if financial restrictions are removed, Zimbabwe will be able to retain its former status. As a country, we are making efforts to economically empower our people (how very ZANU PF of her!) so that they do not depend much on donor funds but use their vast resources to develop themselves and the country.
"We are blessed with with a lot of natural resources (such as diamonds that are bing looted by the high and mighty in Zimbabwe) which if fully exploited, the nation will definitely prosper," said Tsvangirai Second-In-Command.
You have to understand this in the context of the pressure Mugabe is putting on the MDC to get sanctions on him and Zimbabwe lifted. The MDc is basically now dancing to Mugabe's tune on this and are making moves to ensure that their allies in the West lift some of the restrictions against Mugabe and his cronies.
A common misunderstanding is that Mugabe wants Tsvangirai to get travel bans on him lifted. This is not so at all and Mugabe has said to this plainly to Tsvangirai, as I have reported here before.
Rather, Mugabe believes and is certain that the denial of aid and balance of payment support to Zimbabwe is largely compounding the economic crisis in Zimbabwe. This, he says every time he gets a chance, is basically rigging the internal political climate in favour of the MDC.
Going into any election with the economy in tatters, he knows is a fatal handicap for ZANU PF. Hence he says the West is putting these sanctions on Zimbabwe in order to make the people of Zimbabwe suffer so much that they decide that they may as well go with Tsvangirai, who has the support of the people who can pump money into Zimbabwe and help the economy recover.
Mugabe says this means that the political playing field is not even in Zimbabwe. It is tilted in favour of the MDC just by virtue of the fact that those with the money openly say they will only give that money to a government that is not led by Mugabe.
Mugabe has, therefore, been refusing to move on the most important demands of the MDC, such as the firing of the reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General of Zimbabwe, the appointment of MDC-T people to Provincial Governorship positions and suchlike.
Of course, the MDC has miscalculated. This is what Mugabe wanted: to have the measures and sanctions that have brought him to his knees loosened and removed BEFORE he meets MDC demands.
After the MDC has convinced its Western allies to remove these, Mugabe will then renege on his promises to Tsvangirai and he will have loads of money sitting at the Reserve Bank, controlled by an ally of his. The MDC, if they feel frustrated enough, will simply have to walk away and out of government, leaving Mugabe with buckets of cash from donors with which to try and take Zimbabwe back to the false prosperity of the 1980s and early 1990s, when our economy allegedly performed well even though this was fuelled only by other people's money and there was no development of capacity either in industry or in any other critical sector except education.
Mugabe has got want he wanted. It remains to be seen if Tsvangirai gets what he wants.
I doubt it.
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