Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Irene Khan, Head Honcho at Amnesty International is seen here at a press conference in Harare earlier today. She said human rights violations persist and said the Unity Government had failed to arrest this trend. In Zimbabwe today, Irene Khan, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, issued a damning report of the Unity government to journalists. But even this was couched in diplomatic-speak, which is uncharacteristic of the organisation. Khan said commitment was lacking from "sections" of the government, without naming names. She did, however, state that "persistent and serious human rights violations continue." Quite sensibly, she also added, "The government must give as much attention to securing human rights reforms as they are to seeking economic resources ." This will no doubt get The Solution's back up. It will be dismissed as talk of regime-change agenda. It is all quite predictable that way. The Mail and Guardian says: "Khan said a...

MDC-T supporters and others accused of being such camp outside the US Embassy in Harare on July 3. Post election violence had got so bad that they fled their rural homes to come and sleep in the open outside the embassy in order to avoid ending up looking like: ...........this victims of last year's election violence, Gift Mutsvungu, whom the MDC-T said "suffered" before he was kille d Often, just a word from Mugabe suffices. In 1985, he told a rally in Chitungwiza: " Ngatichigoborai zvigobo zviri mumunda medu" - meaning, "Let us get rid of the tree stumps in our field. The next night, countless families in the cities were thrown out of their homes by masked ZANU PF supporters. Most had their furniture thrown out, the doors locked and their keys swallowed by ZANU PF supporters. Targets were supporters of Ndabaningi Sithole and Abel Muzorewa. There was a pile of Ndonga (Mwenje) and Dzakutsaku t-shirt at the local dump the by morning. Fast Forward to 200...

With the failure by the MDC to bring in foreign aid and balance of payment support and the "pesky" demands by the MDC for equitable distribution of government posts, Mugabe and his crew have now decided to keep the MDC in government busy by inciting civil servants labour unions to march and protest against the ministries responsible, all held by Tsvangirai's party. Within a week or two, armed forces may be brought into play, to complain also about their measly salaries. Mugabe feels he no longer needs the MDC in government, since they have proved incapable of loosening the pruse strings of the West and Bretton Wooods. In a move incited by the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, Mariyawanda Nzuwa, George Charamba (Mugabe's spokesman) and Misheck Sibanda, the Secretary to the President and Cabinet, civil servants marched to the offices of two MDC-T ministers complaining about their "poor" salaries. The brains behind this scheme are now planning on roping in th...

While Tsvangirai is busy defending Mugabe and saying he is not the problem but the solution, that solution is harassing Tsvangirai supporters and arresting his spiritual adviser. But MDC-T supporter say Tsvangirai must stay on, like an abused wife sticking around for "her children". He should walk. He paralysed Mugabe last year and this year, for seven months. Yet he thinks he has no option? Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's pastor has been abducted and disappeared, according to an MDC press release published by SW Radio. It must be those hardliners and "residual elements" that we keep being told about. Almost certainly, MDC-T supporters will defend all this, asking the world what they expect Tsvangirai to do. Do we not know that there is 30 years of entrenched rule to fight against and so on. Of course, this marriage is on the rocks. But we are told time and again that the groom has been a bachelor for thirty years and is not used to having a wife lounging aro...

The Tobacco Auction Floors in Harare on May 7 2009 Quite odd, this. Coming hard on the heels of the MDC-PF government declaring that farms protected by Bilateral Investments Protection Agreements (BIPAs) are not immune to being seized by the government of Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, Morgan Tsvangirai has dealt yet another blow to the hopes of Zimbabwe's white farmers. The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe was in Bindura yesterday for what the state newspapers are calling a "Stakeholders Conference". (An awful lot of these are being held with nothing to show for them, by the way." Anyway, the Prime Minister is quoted as saying, "There is no going back on land reform," by the Herald. His actually words were, "No one is going to reverse Land Reform. Isu tiri kuti rimai tidye tese tese ." No mention of the Land Audit, one of the most burning issues of Zimbabwean elections since at least 2002. It was rightly demanded by the opposition because m...

President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's dictator, looks mighty pleased as he acknowledges the roar (and chanting of his name) from the crowd gathered as he arrives for Jacob Zuma's inauguration at Union Buildings in Pretoria . With him is Grace and behind them but out of this photo, Misheck Sibanda, Secretary to President and Cabinet Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai arrives for the inauguration of Jacob Zuma at Union Buildings in Pretoria, accompanied by an unidentified woman, who is believed to be named Jacqueline and is effectively the Prime Minister's second wife. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has dismissed the ultimatum issued by his own Secretary General and Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, saying "it is not helpful to jump on the Gideon Gono bandwagon." Speaking to the Financial Times of London's Richard Lapper and Tom Burgis in South Africa where he was attending the inauguration of Jacob Zuma as president of South Africa, Tsvangirai pointedly said, ...

This is Nigel Mutemagau, the 2 two year old toddler imprisoned by the government at a Maximum Security Prison in Harare for some months before his release after an outcry, at his release from that notorious prison. Now the Unity Government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai has imprisoned a nine month old baby A nine month old baby has been thrown into jail by the government of Zimbabwe. The baby is there with its mother, a court clerk who is charged with abusing her office by ordering the release of Gandi Mudzingwa and two others. Perhaps this is as good a time as any to take you back to what I wrote on this blog in November last year as the MDC and its supporters cried that it was better to die than to not be given the ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police. I did point out back then getting the Ministry of Home Affairs was irrelevant anyway and the MDC-T was simply fighting over an empty can. I refered to Joshua Nkomo and the fact that he was told of the arrests of his top comman...

Tendai Biti speaking at the press conference at party Headquarters yersterday, Wednesday 06 March 2009, at which he issued an ultimatum to Tsvangirai and Mugabe to resolve "outstanding issues" during their scheduled routine meeting on Monday 11 May, failing which the MDC-T would refer the matter back to their National Council Nine MDC-T members of parliament, including three cabinet ministers, have taken a hard line against their own leader Morgan Tsvangirai, giving him until Monday to confront Mugabe and get the "outstanding issues" resolved. The nine consolidated their position on Tuesday night, in the wake of Mugabe's government sending MDC-T activists back to jail. Mugabe is aware of the moves against Tsvangirai within the MDC-T and it said he is more comfortable dealing with Tsvangirai, whom he feels he can manipulate and bully. This was the reason why he scrambled to strengthen the Prime Minister's hand by having the activists released on bail yesterd...

25 February 2009: Tsvangirai,flanked by Mutambara, declaring Permanent Secretary appointments made by Mugabe as "null and void". Three much later, the PermSecs are proving to be neither null nor void With Morgan Tsvangirai telling workers at Gwanzura stadium on May Day that his government was broke and could only continue to pay civil servants US$100 (and was duly booed for his pain), it is perhaps time to examine why the MDC-T and Morgan Tsvangirai decided to join government. Few saw the interplay and connection between what ZANU PF had started doing internally and how the MDC reacted. The timing is especially betraying. Here's what it is. As Morgan Tsvangirai and his party refused to be sworn in and ran away over our borders from the very agreement they had signed, Mugabe was finally persuaded to abandon his long-standing, ideological aversion to dollarisaton. First, it was Patrick Chinamasa who stood up in parliament as Acting Minister of Finance and delivered not on...

"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 electi...

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 incepti...

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 M...