Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 September 2009 A few weeks back, I told you that that the National Security Council is no longer meeting and that it is all but disbanded. Tsvangirai had that one meeting, like a baby given a dummy to suck on and shut up, and that was it. In fact, JOC (Joint Operations Command) was never disbanded. Why, only last month, they were deploying truckloads of soldiers to base camps in Manicaland, which has been identified as the decisive battleground in a future election, where Mugabe will be seeking to regain a majority of seats. The people of Manicaland, JOC has now decided, must be taught a lesson. That there are soldiers guarding the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields is a bonus. It means that the shifting of armed men into the province will be easily written off as changes of shifts for the soldiers guarding the diamond mining area. Only when you look closely at the locations of the bases does it become clear: Manicaland is slowly being encircled. Corner to corner, there will ...

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe has shown his open contempt for the processes of government yet again. He is seen here at the AU Summit in Libya on 31 August. Even though it was announced even by state media that he would address the joint houses of parliament yesterday, 01 September and access roads were even blocked around parliament as I saw with my own eyes yesterday, he stayed away, only coming back last night. He may open parliament today, but that is nothing, because he has now decided to suspend all implementation of any agreements, including the continued sitting of the National Security Council and there is nothing Tsvangirai can do about it except look on and complain as he did yesterday. Harare, Zimbabwe 02 September 2009 Robert "The Solution" Mugabe has effectively pulled the wool over Morgan Tsvangirai's eyes on the matter of the National Security Council and has vowed not to reconvene the meeting after the highly publicised inaugural meeting on 30 Ju...

Joey Bimha, the Permanent Secretary in the Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs Ministry, has announced that MDC ambassadors are not going to be posted to their missions this year because the government "is broke". They will finish their training and then sit there twiddling their thumbs, possibly until the end of this Inclusive Government. Meantime, Roy Bennett is not sworn in, governors are not sworn in.........this Global Political Agreement is a joke Harare, Zimbabwe, 16 August 2009 While MDC lackeys and apologists prematurely celebrated the "appointments" of ambassadors from their parties, Robert Mugabe has, as usual, been busy plotting and it has now been announced that the candidates for these posts will not be posted to their respective missions. Even before Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in, I told you on this very blog, in an article entitled "MDC Dreaming" says Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs Officials , (which I wrote early February, after Tsvangirai had announced h...

Harare, Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was told that there were no security papers for him to review from the days of JOC during the inaugural National Security Council meeting in Harare on Thursday. Tsvangirai indicated that he wanted to "familiarise myself with the historical role of security establshment" and said he would want to "peruse previous documentation" to that end. Mugabe told him that no minutes were taken during JOC meetings because of the sensitive nature of the discussions. There was no offer to give him copies of previous operational minutes from security structures outside JOC. Tsvangirais office shrugged off teh snub today: "What is important is not what happened before, but what is going to happen in the future. We are looking ahead." And my hunch is that this future is a bleak desert filled with the whitened skulls of unfulfilled hope. Mugabe could have convened the NSC meeting at the snap of a finger, but he dithered, giv...

Mugabe, seen here with Defence Forces Chief General Chiwengwa (whose car allegedly abducted Deputy Minister of Agriculture-designate Roy Bennett from Charles Prince Airport in February) remains firmly in control of the Defence Forces and Justice portfolios and the National Security Council meeting yesterday reinforced that with a tightly controlled agenda. This was the inaugural meeting of the NSC, from which nothing much should be expected. JOC remains active and PM Tsvangirai got no response to his "encouragement" to the body to dissolve. The National Security Council (NSC) finally met for the first time yesterday under the Chairmanship of Robert "The Solution" Mugabe, whom the State Media now never mention without adding "Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces." The service chiefs made a point of attending the meeting in civilian clothing. The Service Chiefs reportedly sat stony-faced throughout. The meeting was tightl...

HERE ARE THREE ZANU PF HARDLINERS: General Chiwenga, Mugabe's top Commander, happily congratulates the president soon after his inauguration at State House on Sunday June 29. Misheck Sibanda, the Secretary to the President and Cabinet, can be seen in the background, partly obscured by the General. These are the men who are causing Tsvangirai endless headaches. But he insists Mugabe, at least, is "not the problem." Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe and his security chiefs have refused to disband JOC (the Joint Operations Command, which was at the forefront of strategising Mugabe's retention of power in the chaotic aftermath of the March elections in 2008). Instead, JOC still sits regularly, thumbing its nose at the Inclusive Government. The meetings, some of which I have reported here before, are mainly held in two places: at State House, which Mugabe now uses as his preferred office after moving his family to his mansion in Helensvale, Borrowdale, a minute's ...