Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Members of the ZANU PF Women's League chant and shout during the closing ceremony for their party's Congress yesterday (Saturday 12 December 2009) at the Harare International Conference Centre at Rainbow Towers Hotel. Mugabe used the occasion to dismiss Tsvangirai's calls for the reform of the Security Services, who remain the bedrock of his continued rule of Zimbabwe, using force and intimidation to ensure that Mugabe stays where he is and that Tsvangirai is kept out of the Presidential Office at Munhumutapa Building. Harare, Zimbabwe, 13 December 2009 Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, yesterday dismissed Morgan Tsvangirai's calls for the reform of the Security Services in Zimbabwe, saying this was what the British and "imperialists" wanted. He sees the call by the MDC as simply an amplification of the voice of the British. “Zipra and Zanla forces constituted the basis of our national army and air force,” he said Mugabe, adding: “That is the most depen...

The elite Presidential Guard stands guard, watching the Independence flame burning during celebrations in Harare earlier this year. The army is Mugabe's principal source of power and he has rewarded them very well, to the extent that retired personnel are deployed into the boards of civilian companies owned and run by the government. The State now says this is ok and points to comments by an American Defence Attache as proof that this is accepted practice worldwide, even in the States Harare, Zimbabwe, 04 November 2009 It is called clutching at straws. State media has been sent in to try and dampen criticism of the militarisation of Zimbabwe's government companies by using the statements of a former American soldier as a crutch to support Mugabe's patronage system.  Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Anderson, the Defence Attache at the American Embassy, delivered a speech at the Food For Thought workshop run by the American Embassy in Harare yesterday. He spoke about  former Ameri...

The Zimbabwe Air Force (the bane of rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the end of the 1990s decade, where they decimated columns and nests of guerrillas fighting against Joseph Kabila Snr) is seen here marching in August this year. Zimbabwe's military is being openly, deliberately and systematically indoctrinated by ZANU PF through "lectures" at the Staff College. Yesterday, it was the Minister of National Security who was telling them NGOs are enemies of Zimbabwe, Trojan Horses for the West's "regime change agenda" Harare, Zimbabwe, 22 October 2009 Former Defence Minister and ZANU PF heavyweight, Sydney Sekeremayi was at the military Staff College in Harare yesterday where ministers appear in order to give political direction to the soldiers of the country under training. Sekeremayi, who is now the Minister of State For National Security (a superfluous and redundant appointment designed by Mugabe solely for the purpose of bloating government and ...

The armed forces in Zimbabwe, heavily factionalised like ZANU PF, now simply consider Tsvangirai leader of just another faction vying to replace Mugabe when the time comes. It explains their hostility towards him because he at first did not realise this at all and thought that their resistance was based on his electoral success. Instead, not one amongst the armed forces leaders thinks Tsvangirai has a chance of actually assuming the presidency but they believe he would be useful to have in their camp if he can bring his followers along with him, thereby giving whatever faction his chooses a semblance of mass support. It is a dangerous game that shows just what trouble we are in Harare, Zimbabwe 27 August 2009 The Zimbabwe Defence Forces are heavily factionalised and it is by no means a foregone conclusion that, should anything happen to Mugabe, the army will fall in behind a single successor. This was revealed to me in detail yesterday after an interview I did with SW Radio regarding t...

Best of Friends: Mugabe and Zuma at a recent Heads of State meeting in South Africa. South Africa is to send "more than a million rounds" of ammunition to Zimbabwe, the opposition Democratic Alliance has told the South African Parliament Harare, Zimbabwe, 07 August 2009 A fact-finding mission from South Africa's Democratic Alliance opposition has told parliament that Mugabe is stockpiling weapons and is due to receive a shipment of ammunition from Jacob Zuma's government shortly. South Africa has indeed sold 9mm and 7.2mm ammunition to Mugabe's armed forces and the shipment will shortly arrive in Zimbabwe, the South African parliament was told. More than a million rounds of both types of ammunition are said to be on order. The DA says it spoke to government ministers from the opposition parties and "people on the ground" to come to this conclusion. Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea were mentioned as sources of arms for Mugabe. But they are barking up the w...

Morgan Tsvangirai speaks under the watchful eye of his boss, Robert "The Solution" Mugabe at the opening of the "Investment Conference" in Harare yesterday. A South African investor interviewed by ZTV yesterday said the conference was a joke because, if he invests in a factory in Zimbabwe, "I will need to drill a borehole because there is no water in the country. And then I have to buy a generator to give me power. Your government needs to address these issues first before asking investors to come in." The Inclusive government of the two men above is, however, too busy "eating" all revenue, paying for a bloated government etc to actually see that it has its priorities wrong. On top of all this, you now have the army thumbing its nose at investor confidence as I explain in this article. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces has now publicly come out to demonstrate that it listens to no one in the world and is essentially running the show in Zimbabwe. Earli...