March 17, 2008 - April 21, 2008
Zimbabwe: Why is Britain Provoking us Over Mugabe?
Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008
by Sam Akaki
The Monitor (Kampala)
19 April 2008
Posted to the web 21 April 2008
Only with the Conservative Party in power in the UK can that country hope to salvage its rapidly deteriorating relationship with Zimbabwe and Africa.
Under the New Labour government, Zimbabwe has needlessly become to the British, what Cuba has been to the United States for the last 50 years.
Just as the US has maintained an economic blockade against, and repeatedly violated Cuba's territorial independence, the Labour government has misused its influence in the UN, European Union, G8, Commonwealth, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure Zimbabwe's economic collapse.
From making disparaging remarks in Parliament and the international fora to organising self-demeaning TV gestures by the Labour-voting Ugandan-born Archbishop of York John Sentamu; from boycotting two EU Africa summits to illegally ferrying BBC reporters and Labour MPs into Zimbabwe, and organising a "citizen's arrest" against President Robert Mugabe - since coming to power in 1977, the Labour government has single-mindedly pursued an aggressive Africa policy aimed at running down Mugabe, ignoring African views and the dire humanitarian consequences.
The deaths of thousands of Zimbabwean children due starvation and preventable diseases as a result of the blockade are blamed on Mugabe.
The BBC which is funded by the Foreign Office under a Royal Charter but now banned from Zimbabwe recently boasted, "The BBC's John Simpson confirmed the news while under cover in Zimbabwe". If this is not a deliberate violation of Zimbabwe's independence, the UN and AU Charters, what else can it be?
The Labour government is cynically using the current political dispute in Zimbabwe to create a crisis in South Africa by promoting the view that, unlike the state president Thambo Mbeki, the ANC president Jacob Zuma wants tough actions on Zimbabwe. Nonsense!
African leaders are infuriated. Last Wednesday, at the special session of United Nations Security Council, they pointedly rejected British to flag Zimbabwe as a threat to international security - a move which would have necessitated the deployment of foreign troops in country.
The Labour government's obsession with Mugabe goes back many years. Speaking at the 2001 Labour Party Conference, the then Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair said, "Partnership for Africa, between the developed and developing world based around the New African Initiative, is there to be done."
And he concluded, "But it's a deal: on the African side: true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights; no tolerance of bad governance, from the endemic corruption of some states, to the activities of Mr Mugabe's henchmen in Zimbabwe".
But this so-called "deal" with Africa excludes Yoweri Museveni whose records on governance and human rights is just as bad, and in many ways worse. In November 2007, the Labour Government honoured him with a royal visit and gave him £750 million.
Except President Museveni who has publicly and repeatedly supported President Mugabe's controversial land policies, the Labour government demonises any other African leader who does not share their view on Zimbabwe, especially President Thambo Mbeki who has allegedly failed to bring President Mugabe down by cutting off essential supplies.
Mr Mbeki was so infuriated that he exploded during the 4th April Conference of Progressive Centre left parties in Watford, UK, and told reporters, "Zimbabwe is not a province or a former colony of South Africa". Any wonder that Africa is rebelling against its former colonial master, the UK, refusing to send troops to Somalia, saying they need no white faces in Darfur as peace keepers and turning to China, a country with nothing in common with Africa except trade.
In December 2007, African leaders spoke with one voice and said they would not attend the European Union-Africa summit, held in Lisbon, Portugal, if President Mugabe was not invited, as demanded by the Labour government.
And, speaking to reporters during the China-Africa summit, which took place in Beijing in November 2006, the then Botswana President Festus Mogae said, "I find that the Chinese treat us as equals. The West treats us as former subjects. Which is a reality. I prefer the attitude of the Chinese to that of the West".
Isn't it now plainly clear that the British relationship with Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general will not improve until the Conservative Party takes over in the United Kingdom? After all, it was Conservative MP William Wilberforce who spear-headed the fight against slavery in the UK.
Reproduced from:
www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/sam_akaki/
Why_is_Britain_provoking_us_over_Mugabe.shtml
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Zimbabwe: 'Vote recount to take longer'
Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008
Herald Reporters
RECOUNTING of votes in 23 constituencies might take longer than the three days initially projected, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has said.
ZEC deputy chief elections officer responsible for operations Mr Utloile Silaigwana said the election body's preliminary assessment had indicated that the process might take longer than originally anticipated as there was a lot of work involved.
Reports from Mashonaland West, Matabeleland and Masvingo indicated that the recounting process started well with all political parties involved including the MDC-T, despite denials by the party's leadership.
"Recounting is going on well and all political parties are represented by their election agents. There are signs that the counting might take longer than the three days we had projected," Mr Silaigwana said.
"The agents are mostly influencing the delay because they are raising issues which they would want attended to and clarified.
"I am still to get a full report on what is happening from across all the 23 constituencies, but that is our preliminary assessment so far."
He said in Goromonzi West five wards out of eight had been completed and he had by last night not yet received any reports of a major hiccup arising from the recount.
At least one ward had been completed out of eight in Zvimba North when The Herald visited Murombedzi Government Complex yesterday afternoon.
The provincial election officer, Mr Michael Guzha, said counting was going on well and by late afternoon counting for the second ward had started.
The Herald saw chief election agents for both Zanu-PF and the MDC-T, both of whom declined to comment on progress.
In Masvingo, MDC-T polling agents became part of the process yesterday although one of the party's top officials said they were simply playing a monitoring role.
"We have disengaged from the process (recounting), but we are merely playing a monitoring role to see how the process proceeds," he said, preferring anonymity.
Reports from Bulawayo also indicated that MDC-T had polling agents on the ground despite denials by the party's spokesperson Nelson Chamisa.
The Matabeleland North provincial election officer, Mr Mark Ndlovu, confirmed that MDC-T was represented.
He described some MDC-T election agents' threat to boycott the recount as a "short walkout".
Chamisa denied that his party was participating in the recount despite being told that the party's vehicle bearing its logo was seen at Murombedzi Government Complex with officials from the party participating.
"The national executive committee of the party made a resolution that we will not participate in the recount or run-off. We have zero confidence in ZEC because we believe that it is an extension of Zanu-PF, so why should we participate in the recount?" said Chamisa.
When told that The Herald was on the ground and had seen officials from his party participating, Chamisa said: "You might have been on the ground, but on the wrong ground."
Mr Silaigwana said the MDC-T was represented in all the 23 constituencies and castigated Chamisa for "misleading people".
"In all the 23 constituencies that are being recounted, the MDC-T is represented and all the concerns they have raised have been attended to their satisfaction, including those concerns raised by Zanu-PF, paving way for the recount to begin."
He said one of the issues raised by both parties was the claim that the ballot boxes had been tampered with.
"We told the election agents that the election material they were referring to were cardboard boxes containing accessories like pairs of scissors and so forth, and not the translucent boxes and they understood our explanation and counting started," he said.
In Masvingo yesterday, recounting started at a snail's pace with preliminary estimates pointing to the completion of the process by end of this week.
On Saturday, the process started around 2pm in Masvingo West and Central constituencies because of the meticulous verification process, among other logistical requirements.
Sources said the process was likely to take about a week to complete as the painstaking verification process was consuming most of the time.
By 6:45am yesterday, only a few ballot boxes had been recounted in both Masvingo West and Central constituencies.
The situation was also reported to be the same in Chiredzi, Gutu, Zaka and Bikita.
In Lupane East constituency, the process began at about 9.30pm on Saturday at Kusile Rural District Council offices and resumed yesterday at 8.30am.
Mr Ndlovu said the delays being experienced were a result of the refusal to participate by the MDC-T when the recounting process started alleging that the ballot boxes had been tampered with.
"After the accreditation on Saturday, we proceeded to Zwangendaba where the ballot boxes were being kept. We carried out an external examination.
"It was at that juncture that the MDC-T agents started claiming that the ballot boxes had been tampered with and called for an investigation.
"I told them that it was not necessary to go that route as there was no tangible evidence and they walked out, but it was a short walkout. After telling them that it did not help to walk out but it was better for them to witness the recount, they reconsidered their decision," he said.
Lupane East constituency has 14 wards and by midday yesterday only ballot boxes for four wards had been brought to the recounting centre.
"Because of inadequate storage space here, we cannot bring all the ballot boxes at once. As soon as we are done with these, we will move in and collect the following batch," Mr Ndlovu said.
He was, however, confident that the process would be completed on time.
"It's possible. Yes, we lost a day, but let me assure everyone that with the pace at which we are moving, we will complete the work within the stipulated period," he said.
Mr Ndlovu said the other constraint they faced was poor communication which has since been rectified.
In Bulilima East constituency, recounting started well yesterday until late afternoon when MDC-T polling agents threatened to boycott the exercise, accusing ZEC and Zanu-PF officials of holding a private meeting.
The recount resumed after an hour's delay when the Matabeleland South provincial elections officer, Mr Jotham Nyathi, and other ZEC officials had held a meeting with all candidates, polling agents and observers who were present to clear the air.
The MDC-T agents had seen Zanu-PF Bulilima-Mangwe Senate candidate Cde Eunice Sandi and House of Assembly candidate Cde Mathias Ndlovu chatting with Mr Nyathi and other senior ZEC officials outside the Plumtree High School Hall where the counting was in progress.
The agents who were outside the hall informed the MDC-T candidate, Norman Mpofu, about the alleged meeting after the first count.
Mpofu and his party's Senate candidate Lutho Tapela immediately went outside and challenged the ZEC officials and Zanu-PF members on why they had held a meeting in their absence and in the absence of observers.
The MDC-T members then held a brief meeting on their own before walking out of the hall in protest, declaring that they would only take part in the proceedings after ZEC officials had told them what the meeting was about.
Although Mr Nyathi later apologised during a meeting where the MDC-T members outlined their grievances, he emphasised the fact that the meeting was not about undermining anyone.
Zanu-PF officials walked out of proceedings after ZEC officials refused to entertain their complaints that the MDC had bussed in voters into the constituency during the March 29 elections and wanted the voters' roll to be checked.
"We came here as people who lodged a complaint and we don't know how that would cause a problem. Checking people on the voters' roll is a normal electoral process and remember it's not only one party which can walk out," Cde Sandi said before walking out of the hall.
But she returned later and an agreement was reached that ZEC officials, candidates and their agents should be present when parties present their grievances to ZEC officials.
Mr Nyathi said apart from these delays, the recounting went well.
"We are finalising the local government elections and we will soon go into the House of Assembly ballots. Because of poor lighting, we have agreed with all parties that we will end the exercise at 6pm and start at 8am," he said.
Recounts were being carried out in Chimanimani West, Mutare West, Bikita West, Bikita South, Bulilima East, Zhombe, Zaka West, Zvimba North, Silobela, Chiredzi North, Mberengwa East, West, South and North, Gutu South, North, Central and Goromonzi West.
ZEC ordered a recount after it said it had discovered some miscounts which in its view might have affected the results.
The High Court has since dismissed an application by the MDC-T to have the recount halted.
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=33446&cat=1
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Zimbabwe: Let unity be our watchword -- President
Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2008
Full text of the address by His Excellency the President, Comrade R.G. Mugabe, on the occasion of the 28th Independence Anniversary held at Gwanzura Stadium yesterday.
Honourable Vice President Comrade Joseph Msika, Honourable Vice President Comrade Joice Mujuru and Baba Solomon Mujuru, Mai Muzenda, President of the Senate Mai Edna Madzongwe, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku and Mai Chidyausiku, Members of the Politburo and Central Committee of Zanu-PF;
Members of the Senate and House of Assembly, Service Chiefs, Chairperson of the Harare City Commission Engineer Michael Mahachi;
Families of Heroes of Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Detainees and Restrictees;
Your Excellencies Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Esteemed Foreign Guests and Visitors;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Comrades and Friends,
I am most delighted to welcome all of you to the main celebrations of our country’s 28th Anniversary of Independence; mainly, because various other gatherings with a similar theme are being held all over the country. Our political history is well known yet, with time, we feel more challenged to recall it, especially for those who appear ignorant of it or are deliberately engaged in reversing the gains of our liberation struggle. It was on the 18th of April in 1980 that, after a triumphant and unyielding struggle by our people, our great Nation finally shook off the chains of British racist settler colonialism and became free and independent assuming, thereby full sovereignty over the country and its resources.
We, not the British, established democracy based on one person one vote, democracy which rejected racial or gender discrimination and upheld human rights and religious freedom.
Literally overnight, Government began a process of transforming and expanding the range and nature of opportunities that had not been available to the majority of the people. In short, the advent of an independent Zimbabwe restored dignity to our people. That, Comrades and Friends, is the essence of our celebrations here, indeed, the very core of it. No challenge or hardship can ever overcome the sense of being independent. For that reason, let us take pride as we renew our independence joy in loudly proclaiming that Zimbabwe, this our Zimbabwe, shall never be a colony again.
An honest appreciation of where we came from is vitally important for us in order to understand the need, indeed the obligation, to jealously guard our sovereignty and freedom. This understanding bids us as Zimbabweans, across our different political party lines, to always uphold the supreme sacrifice paid by our heroes, both departed and living, in high esteem.
Today, we need to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of the vicious machinations by our detractors. Whereas yesterday they relied on brute force to subjugate our people and plunder our resources, today, they have perfected their tactics to more subtle forms, as they, through money as a weapon, literally buy some of our people to turn against their Government, and accept to be politically manipulated in abandoning their rights. This is what is called the advent of neo-colonialism.
We should all be clear that regime change does not only refer to the illegal removal of our present Government and those personalities seen as sympathetic to Government. Britain’s endgame is to erase the history of our Liberation Struggle and craftily devise ways of installing a puppet leadership that will restore white supremacy in our country. Let us be wary that their weapons of mass deception do not hoodwink us into reckless political adventurism that will only leave our land and its resources in the hands of our erstwhile colonisers. Every Zimbabwean should, therefore, count it joy, indeed, justifiable social justice, that the Land Reform Programme, which has given more of our people access to the means of production, is irreversible and a happy outcome of our democracy. Yes, our Independence should in every way be an opportunity and avenue to economically empower our people. With the passage of the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act, we will be able to now explore and utilise opportunities in the mining, manufacturing and tourism sectors.
We continue to face several challenges largely emanating from the unwarranted and illegal sanctions imposed on us by Britain and her cronies as punishment for our Land Reforn1 Programme. This is the more reason why our new farmers should aim for maximum productivity on their pieces of land. Barring the unpredictable cycles of the weather patterns, we need to profitably use the farms in order to address most of the challenges in the economy. We plan this winter season to apply this view as we maximise the growing of wheat. With better economic performance, we can improve our exports and hence foreign currency earnings; raise our capacity for social services delivery, especially in health, education and transport for the commuting public. The prevailing situation of planned shortages of basic commodities has given rise to corruption, further bleeding our economic performance.
In response to these challenges, Government has, in the last year, implemented several measures aimed at stabilising the economy and, therefore, containing some of the negative effects of the crippling sanctions. In order to work towards food security at the national and household levels, Government has vigorously pursued measures to augment the country’s food reserves by importing grain from neighbouring countries to boost domestic reserves. While the programme at times is slow, inflows of maize and wheat continue to be received.
Government has continued to strengthen agricultural production capacity by providing the necessary machinery and equipment to all categories of our farmers as demonstrated by the Agricultural Mechanisation Programme. The sector also continued to be prioritised in terms of resource allocation through the Agriculture Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility (ASPEF). Other measures such as the improvement of skills and farm management through compulsory farm training and the elimination of the abuse of inputs support are afoot.
Government feels concerned about the suffering of the people due to the contrived non-availability of some goods and also the extortionate prices of basic and essential commodities in the shops. To avert the collapse of industry, Government last year introduced a series of bold measures, such as the establishment of the National Incomes and Pricing Commission in order to ensure the realistic pricing of goods and services. Other interventions, led by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, have seen an improvement in capacity utilisation in industry, in some cases from as low as 10 percent to improved capacities of up to 65 percent.
Government has also intensified the implementation of the Look East Policy, which has resulted in the deepening of co-operation with countries such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran and India. The benefits of this policy initiative have already been seen in certain sectors of the economy.
A sustained increase in productivity and the promotion of exports in the various sectors of our economy remains the key lever in efforts to tame inflation. Accordingly, I would like to encourage local companies to exhibit at this year’s edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in order to enhance their chances of becoming global players. Local industry should also take a long-term global competitive perspective and undergo a shift from being commodity exporters to exporters of value-added secondary and tertiary goods instead.
Our Nation, like the rest of the sub-region, has witnessed unprecedented power cuts due to a high demand for electricity. This has had negative effects on households and industry. Government has taken measures to expand the Kariba Power Station, with two additional units of 150 megawatts each while elsewhere, work has been taking place on the Gokwe North Coal-Fired Power Station, with a capacity to produce 1 400MW. A bio-diesel manufacturing plant, commissioned at Mount Hampden late last year, has already yielded over 100 000 litres of the fuel. A massive nationwide jatropha-growing programme to provide feedstock for this and future provincial bio-diesel plants is already underway, while the blending of petrol with ethanol is set to commence towards the end of this month, following completion of the refurbishment of the ethanol plant at Triangle.
Government remains concerned with the plight of both our rural and urban commuters owing to unreliable and escalating costs of transport. Zupco continues to provide a valuable service to both rural and urban commuters and this is expected to be strengthened by Government’s acquisition of 184 minibuses under the National Transport Enhancement Programme. Charging half of Zupco fares, this programme is set to further improve the public transportation situation. Each of the rural provinces has received 23 of these buses and the allocation is expected to eventually rise to 35 buses per province as the remainder of the buses are now available.
Government is keenly aware of the difficulties endured by the people in urban areas, in regard to accessing reliable and clean water supplies. In response to the problem, and to avoid costly chemicals, plans are afoot for Zinwa to enter into mutually beneficial partnerships to boost the local production of water treatment chemicals.
The country continues to experience high levels of skills flight, especially to South Africa, owing to the opportunities available there, and the prevailing challenges in our economy. This naturally impacts negatively on the quality of public service delivery. This is being addressed in a number of ways, which include the constant review of salaries and wages of public servants, programmes designed to retain critical skills, and the provision of accommodation and affordable transport. Government is currently building houses for civil servants under the Civil Service Housing Fund. Several co-operative schemes for enhancing housing accommodation are already in existence and many more are being planned.
In the health sector, some institutional accommodation for doctors and nurses will be provided. Indeed, it is in this context that I recently launched the Medical Sector Skills Retention Programme in Harare, to revitalise the health sector through the provision of modern equipment, drugs and incentives to medical personnel countrywide. Under the first phase of the programme, Government bought 510 cars for distribution to senior and middle level doctors, 97 ambulances, 88 generators and 52 buses, all worth US$8,7 million.
Parastatals have also been called to assist with housing provision, with NSSA currently leading the way. In the past 12 months, NSSA has serviced 699 high-density stands and constructed 143 houses under the Marondera-Rusike Housing Project and a further 394 medium-density stands under the Glaudina Housing Project near Snake Park. A total of 16 multi-purpose community centres are also being constructed throughout the country to facilitate co-ordination of community development projects.
Government has not ignored other social ills such as child abuse and the incidence of corruption. Accordingly, Government has put in place measures to strengthen a Child Abuse Prevention Programme in schools and in the community, while the fight against corruption and other economic crimes has intensified, as witnessed by the number of cases before our courts. The HIV/Aids awareness programmes have also been strengthened with a bias towards encouraging behaviour change.
On the international arena, we have continued to enjoy strong relations with our partners in the region, on the continent as a whole and with progressive nations throughout the world. We continue to deepen such relationships in the region through Sadc, and on the continent through the African Union. Our imminent chairmanship of Comesa should bolster our efforts to forge stronger ties within that community and with other regional communities.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank our Sadc family for clearly articulating our case on the harmonised elections we held last month. The elections, which were premised on Sadc guidelines and run by the independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission took place against the backdrop of the Sadc-brokered inter-party dialogue involving Zanu-PF and the two MDC political formations.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the various political parties, contestants and their supporters on displaying political maturity and tolerance in the period leading up to the elections. This peace and stability should be maintained as our law enforcement agencies will quickly restore law and order where these are threatened. In the same vein, I wish to register the country’s appreciation of the work done by the Zimbabwe Republic Police and other Security Forces on ensuring that peace prevailed during the entire elections period. You have defeated the designs of those who still continue to agitate for anarchy and violence amongst our people.
The challenges we face as a Nation should fortify the heroic spirit in us and inspire us to even greater heights of sacrifice for our country and the long-term prosperity of our people. Through it all, we should emerge stronger, and more united than ever before. Let us nurture and promote the spirit of dialogue and collaboration in all our endeavours.
In conclusion, I wish to thank all our people for their resilience in the face of the prevailing harsh economic conditions. Let us continue to exhibit such fortitude of mind and allow for the peaceful conclusion of whatever remains of our electoral process.
Let unity and more unity be our watchword.
May God bless our Nation.
Amhlophe! Makorokoto! Congratulations on our 28th Independence Anniversary.
I thank you!
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Zimbabwe: MDC-T Seeks to Bar Declaration of Vote Recount Winners
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008
The Herald (Harare)
April 18, 2008
Harare
MDC-T yesterday filed another application at the High Court seeking an interim order barring the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission or constituency election officers from declaring as duly-elected anyone who might emerge victorious in tomorrow's vote recounts.
Cited as respondents in the application are ZEC and constituency election officers in the concerned 23 constituencies. MDC-T wants the provisional order to remain operational notwithstanding any appeal by the respondents.
The High Court will hear the application and another one seeking to stop the recounts today. ZEC has ordered a recount of presidential and House of Assembly results in 23 constituencies on the basis that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the votes were miscounted and that the miscount would affect the result of the election.
Recounts will be done tomorrow and local and foreign observers have been invited to witness the process. The recounts come after Zanu-PF unearthed anomalies in the way V11 and V23 forms were completed by ZEC officers, some of whom have since appeared in court charged with electoral fraud. ZEC has already announced House of Assembly and Senate poll results. In the House of Assembly elections, MDC-T won 99 seats, Zanu-PF 97, MDC 10 while one seat went to an independent. In the Senate elections, Zanu-PF garnered 30 seats, MDC-T 24 with MDC winning the remaining six seats. ZEC yesterday said ballot boxes used in the just-ended harmonised elections were secure as they were under police guard pending completion of the electoral process. In an interview, the commission's deputy chief elections officer, Mr Utoile Silaigwana, said the ballot boxes were kept at constituency command centres in the districts countrywide under police guard. "So far we have not received any reports of ballot boxes that have been tampered with," Mr Silaigwana said. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has criticised Zimbabwe's electoral authorities for their plan to recount the March 29 presidential vote, alleging the State could have fiddled with the ballots.
Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity Cde Bright Matonga said the Bush administration's statements were hypocritical.
"It is a very unfortunate statement. He (US President George W. Bush) won the presidency through the recounting process and the courts. "It's hypocritical of him to try and advise Zimbabwe on the matter. We follow the Constitution and the electoral laws, unless he is saying that he doesn't respect the laws of this country," he said.
Cde Matonga said anyone who was against this idea should approach the courts.
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Zimbabwe: The 'Crisis' That Never Was
Posted: Thursday, April 17, 2008
By Reason Wafawarova
April 17, 2008
The yet to be announced result for the presidential election held two weeks ago has presented to the opposition MDC-T and its Western backers, an opportunity to stage-manage a crisis -- a condition that they have failed to create for the past eight and a half years.
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa rightly said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe and with the phrase: "No crisis," he instantly hit world headlines. President Mbeki did not employ supernatural or genius science to discover that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe and neither did he say something that everyone around him was not seeing. He stated the obvious, but the obvious was not supposed to be stated. For the British and the generality of the West, what must be stated about Zimbabwe is very clear. The country is an unmanageable crisis and that is that.
Until the client regime of lapdog politician Morgan Tsvangirai is put in place, all "democratic forces" must see a crisis in Zimbabwe. If they cannot see it they must either open their eyes wider or simply create the crisis. Across the Zambezi, President Levy Mwanawasa was made to see the non-existent crisis for the second time in about 13 months. Last year in March, Mwanawasa saw a "sinking Titanic" in the wake of the MDC's so-called "defiance campaign" that culminated in the March 11 disturbances in Highfield. It had to take a Sadc Extraordinary Summit in Dar es Salaam to remind him his eyes had deceived him.
President Mbeki has had to face the agony of eight and a half years of a crisis-waving Britain but the ever alert and revolutionary Mbeki has not been fooled, even once. He saw no crisis with the land reclamation, squarely blaming Britain for its past mistakes. He saw no crisis with the 2000, 2002 and 2005 elections, snubbing all imperialist pressure to declare the elections unfree and unfair. President Mbeki saw no crisis with the March 11 skirmishes that made Mwanawasa see a "sinking Titanic". The ever-discerning Pan-Africanist, Mbeki; saw beyond the bruises of the skirmishes and excellently held the mediation talks that resulted in the peaceful March 29 elections.
The Zambian leader would do well to emulate him.
At the peak of the mobilisation of the illegal sanctions by Britain and her allies, they did their best to drag President Mbeki into their corner and, of course, they got it all wrong. Tsvangirai was so livid that he did not even see the folly of making public attacks on Mbeki -- blaming him for not cutting off power and fuel supplies, yes cutting off Tsvangirai's own motherland, Zimbabwe -- just as stupid as that.
Obviously, President Mbeki is seen as a potential big political scoop by Western powers -- that emanating from his powerful position as the leader of the most powerful economy in Africa. With the now characteristic rebuffs from Mbeki, the West has been desperately looking for allies within Sadc and it would appear our brother across the Zambezi is playing ball.
But is this assertion correct?
The convening of an emergency summit on Zimbabwe was the kind of move that makes people like Gordon Brown feel like successful politicians.
The invitation of pro-West opposition leaders like Tsvangirai and Makoni to such a summit is the prototype behaviour expected by the West from any "democratic" chairperson leading such a regional grouping like Sadc. The fact that eight out of 14 heads of state and government attended is not exactly the scenario Bush would instruct Gordon Brown to have on a matter with so much Western interest at stake. The absence of the man for whom the summit was supposed to sit as a court of law did not really make matters look any better. The dock was empty and Mwanawasa had to start by acknowledging that President Mugabe was not in the dock but the talk shop would proceed nonetheless.
The three-point resolution -- clearly nothing to offend or to please anyone, does not really make much sense of the half night spend in discussions. Sadc wants the results of the poll announced "expeditiously" and expects all parties to accept the result. Is that not very obvious and given? If Sadc needs all-night-long summits to come up with this kind of resolution then they are not very different from the European Union that spent nights of empty debates on issues like poverty eradication and free trade, something they keep doing knowing very well that they have neither will, wish nor commitment to effect such change.
Anyway, a "crisis" summit ordered by the West cannot end up any worse than being declared a non-crisis by President Mbeki, snubbed by six regional leaders (maybe rightly so) and presenting an unassuming and clearly harmless piece of paper in the name of resolutions. This writer would normally see a snub of the MDC by Africa in all this but there is every need to worry when such a snub comes through what looks like outright confusion.
For the MDC and the West, the "victory" lies in calling for an emergency summit on Zimbabwe not in the outcome of the summit. For Britain, any meeting over President Mugabe is a crisis, and by definition a success story. This writer sees the outcome of this Lusaka summit as the beginning of another damage control enterprise by President Mwanawasa -- a man who appears to be struggling with his judgment when it comes to international relations. It would not be surprising if Mwanawasa will repeat what he did last year in a bid to disown and dissociate himself from the West.
Now we hear the much-exalted Zimbabwe High Court has just pulled the pin on the MDC. ZEC can keep the result to themselves for as long as it is not appropriate to release them. Again the High Court decision must have been an obvious judgment for anyone who sincerely believes in free and fair elections. When irregularities have been cited it is only natural that the process may not continue regardless.
What are the alternatives for Africa in all this? There is only one alternative for Sadc and the rest of Africa. It is unity and more unity. There is need for Africa, South America and Asia to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire dominated imperialist ruin and terror.
The US-led Western alliance has long dominated the world; Africa topping the list -- and that domination coming through two major methods: Violence and economic strangulation. In fact, frankly speaking, international affairs have increasingly grown a striking resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by the smallest of storekeepers -- and the US has not taken it lightly with Zimbabwe's land redistribution programme -- indeed all Zimbabweans know this too well.
From 1945, the US has made it a point that true national independence or independent nationalism is not allowed to happen. The US success in achieving this sabre-rattling dream can only be credited to a lack of regional and continental co-operation in Latin America, Africa and other less developed parts of this world.
Without this co-operation, threats such as Zimbabwe's land redistribution programme can be handled one by one. The continued and resolute support for Zimbabwe by Sadc and the AU is the kind of co-operation the US and its Western allies would not want to see. This is why they keep hoping that they can play the regional leaders against each other.
In Latin America the US has had to shift policy just because of the regional co-operation that started at the beginning of this millennium. There are many governments in Latin America that would long have been overthrown by the US had it not been for the current prevailing regional unity and co-operation.
Michelle Bachelet of Chile is a socialist like Allende and during the days of Henry Kissinger she would have long been bombed to ashes in the Chilean palace -- of course, for the crime of being a "contagious virus". But now America cannot dare touch her because of the regional co-operation across Latin America.
The Americans cannot stand Eva Morales of Bolivia but they cannot handle him the way they did Maurice Bishop of Grenada in the past. The American ruling elite calls Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela all sorts of names but they cannot afford to tackle him the way they bullied Nicaragua, Haiti, Panama and Honduras in the past. Chavez has pushed for a gas joint venture with Bolivia and has a vision for Petroamerica, an integrated energy system of the kind China is initiating in Asia. The US looks like they can do absolutely nothing about this at this point in time.
It is only this kind of co-operation that can render the vampire useless. In the 1970s the US would long have occupied Venezuela and Bolivia, but this is the 21st century and the times are indeed changing.
In 2006 the Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, proposed a land and river trade link running from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to Ecuador's Pacific Coast -- something like the Panama Canal. There are other promising developments like Telesur, an effort to break the Western media monopoly in Latin Americas and Lula da Silva of Brazil has been calling for an overcoming of historical distortions and all this has strengthened the Latin American resolve for true and genuine independence.
Even Daniel Ortega, the victim of the Sandinista onslaught by Washington, is now back in power in Nicaragua and has been co-operating very well with Venezuela.
Latin America offers incisive lessons for Africa and it is a prerequisite for genuine independence that all African states unite and make a genuine drive towards meaningful integration. All these years, imperialism has thrived on its ability not only to divide countries from one another but also on its sharp internal divisions within individual countries -- mainly between a wealthy small elite and a mass of impoverished masses. The rich are normally either white or indigenous people well connected and linked to the West, not necessarily to their own societies.
The current unity of purpose in Latin America has forced the US to foster new relations with governments they would normally just kick out of power without a second thought. Lula's government in Brazil is a replica of Joao Goulart's government -- a government that was ousted by a US-backed coup in 1964. However, the US has had to shift and make an ally out of Lula's government in a bid to isolate the so-called bad boys, Hugo Chavez and Eva Morales.
The US has been forced to focus on a means of control hidden in the abuse of the International Monetary Fund, which is virtually a branch of the US Treasury Department -- indeed for all intents and purposes.
Argentina was the poster child of the IMF until the 2001 crash. For recovery Argentina had to violate IMF rules, refusing to pay its debts and buying up what remained of the debt -- partly with the help of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. It is this kind of co-operation that can cripple the imperial authority and Africa must learn here and now that there is no need to allow the West to play one leader against the other. Such a situation is not only stupid but extremely dangerous as Latin Americans now know too well.
Brazil has been moving to free itself from the IMF and that is the direction the rest of the developing world should be taking. After 25 years of obedient studentship to the IMF, Bolivia ended with an income per capita much lower than when it adopted the IMF policies in the first place.
Now Bolivia is getting rid of the IMF and that is coming through co-operation with Venezuela. Lula was re-elected in 2006 and immediately after being sworn in he rushed to support Chavez's electoral campaign. In the eighties such a move would invite the immediate wrath of the US, but with the current integration and unity the US just watched almost helplessly and still maintained Lula was their "ally".
Africa must look closely at the Latin American example and take it from 2007, when they stood with Zimbabwe over the Lisbon Summit. That unity is needed, if only to cripple the imperial interest over the resources of the continent. It is a unity that is direly needed, if only to ensure that true independent nationalism is achieved.
In this context Zimbabwe's land reform programme must be supported until it succeeds. In fact, the principle and policy has been supported well enough while the implementation has just been ignored by other African states. There is need for Sadc to offer material support for the land reform programme by loaning materials to the new farmers of Zimbabwe.
Such a gesture has a consolidating effect that can only motivate the new farmer to do their best and bring out the best they can out of the land they were given.
Such a vision is loathed to the marrow by the likes of Tendai Biti of the MDC, that perpetually ranting official who is convinced that Zimbabwe has never ever known any good in the past and their only chance to do so lies in an MDC government. He has the temerity, or is it stupidity; to deride the efforts of the liberation struggle and even call the whole effort an "unjust war".
The only way to deal with parties like MDC and the Bitis of this world is to expose them for what they are and to ensure that their assignments never get a pass mark.
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SADC rules no electoral impasse in Zimbabwe
Posted: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Posted: Mon, 14 Apr 2008
newsnet.co.zw
The Zimbabwean government delegation to the SADC summit held at the weekend has hailed SADC’s ruling that there is neither a stalemate nor an impasse in the electoral process in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean government delegation to the SADC summit held at the weekend has hailed SADC’s ruling that there is neither a stalemate nor an impasse in the electoral process in Zimbabwe.
Addressing journalists in Harare this afternoon, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa said the Zimbabwean delegation briefed the summit on the recent harmonized elections and emphasized that the situation was calm and peaceful. In his reasons for calling the summit on Zimbabwe, Zambian leader and current SADC chairman, Mr. Levy Mwanawasa cited an alleged stalemate and impasse in the Zimbabwean harmonized elections.
The Zimbabwean team to the summit explained the various legal processes that are currently underway which had caused the delay in the announcement of the results of the presidential election and refuted suggestions that the government of Zimbabwe was in anyway responsible for the delay in the announcement of the results. Cde Mnangagwa also explained how the Zimbabwean delegation was ached by the fact that Zimbabwe which was the topic of the summit was only told of the planned summit on Thursday, well after western media houses that include CNN of the United States, BBC and Sky News, were told at a news conference of the impending summit.
They said other member states were also taken by surprise by since there were no prior consultations undertaken by the SADC chairperson Mr. Mwanawasa as is the tradition. The Zimbabwean government at the summit objected in the strongest terms to the inclusion of the addresses by Morgan Tsvangirayi and Simba Makoni saying the two individuals are neither heads of state and government nor representatives of heads of state and governments. The representatives of the government of Zimbabwe felt that the inclusion of this item on the summit agenda was tantamount to elevating the opposition politicians to the status of heads of state.
The summit through the SADC observer team’s report which was read by chairman of the organ President Eduardo dos Santos was full of praises for Zimbabwe’s harmonized elections and that they were held in a free and fair atmosphere and that the counting was meticulous.
In a related development an eyewitness at the summit Darlington Muzeza said he was surprised to see a strong presence of white former Zimbabwean farmers who clapped and cheered when MDC leader Tsvangirayi arrived at a news conference he addressed on the sidelines of the summit.
http://www.newsnet.co.zw/index.php?nID=12385
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Zimbabwe: Brown's Tyranny of Words on Zim
Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008
By Stephen T. Maimbodei
April 15, 2008
The Herald (Harare)
Harare
The blurb in Stuart Chase's 1938 book, "The tyranny of words" reads: "This eminently useful analysis of language continues to exert a forceful influence, directing our choice and employment of words toward accurate, complete, and readily understood communication."
This writer wondered over the implication of this statement after reading what could be considered one of the most bigoted statements made by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the BBC, regarding what he conveniently called "the Zimbabwe crisis".
For it is a statement that made the British leader forget about diplomatic etiquette as he used all the epithets in the English language to show his disregard not only of President Mugabe's leadership, but also the entire Zimbabwean population. It also displayed the arrogance we have witnessed from our former colonial master since 1890.
As usual, the British premier spoke from that high moral pedestal where they see, hear nor smell no evil about themselves, for they are always "right", especially when it comes to Zimbabwe.
The world watched and listened in amazement when Brown, on the eve of the so-called Sadc Extraordinary Summit (on Zimbabwe), was allegedly quoted by the BBC as having "warned the Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe that he was 'appalled' at the latest developments in Zimbabwe".
Brown is also alleged to have said, "the world was running out of patience in President Mugabe with results still not released almost two weeks after the election".
In a statement that showed total disregard for Zimbabwe's electoral laws as enshrined in the Constitution, Brown was not only "amazed", but he could not understand why (the Zimbabwean Government) was taking so long to announce the result of the presidential election.
And, speaking on behalf of "Zimbabweans", he said that they (the people) had "demonstrated their commitment to democracy", (while) we and the leaders of the region strongly shared their commitment".
Remarked Brown, "I am appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence".
He added: "We will be vigilant. The international community will remain careful to do nothing to undermine efforts to secure an outcome that reflects the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe. But the international community's patience with the regime is wearing thin."
The following excerpts from Brown's statement are worthy paying special attention to, for in these words, the British prime minister employed words that do not only reveal his attitude towards Zimbabwe, but they were words meant to directly and indirectly influence the outcome of the summit.
"The world was running out of patience in President Mugabe
"We and the leaders of the region strongly shared their commitment
"I am appalled.
"We will be vigilant
"The international community will remain careful to do nothing to undermine efforts to secure an outcome that reflects the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe.
"But the international community's patience with the regime is wearing thin."
These were very strong words from someone who knows fully well that he is abdicating his responsibility, and wants to hoodwink the world that when he speaks with the likes of South African and Ugandan presidents Thabo Mbeki and Yoweri Museveni, he is not only playing his part, but that he has the welfare of the Zimbabwean people at heart.
For didn't the media report last weekend that Brown actually held private talks with President Mbeki, spending more than two hours trying to persuade President Mbeki to use his influence to end the Zimbabwe "crisis".
The questions that beg an answer, who are the "we" being referred to by Brown? Is Brown not talking about the major British corporations in Zimbabwe that have put this country under a state of attempted siege?
Conveniently they have managed to make some sections of the Zimbabwean population believe that the food security situation the country has been facing for the past few years is due to mismanagement by Government of the land reform programme.
We have also been blinded to the fact that British big business interests that own the means of production in this country, have actually used food as a major political weapon in their quest to recolonise Zimbabwe through the illegal regime change agenda?
Why does the British government believe it can use the likes of presidents Mbeki and Museveni, to do their dirty work in Zimbabwe when we all know that the central issue in the equation is land?
Why does Brown also not come clean on what exactly he wishes African presidents to do on his behalf, since he has sworn that he will never sit in the same room with President Mugabe?
Is Brown also not aware that their facilitation role can only go up to a certain point, but after that whether Britain likes it or not, it has to talk to the Government of Zimbabwe?
Brown's statements should also not just be looked at as coming from a powerful member of the Western world which claims that they want to see due process of an electoral system prevail, but they are coming from the leader of a country that once colonised Zimbabwe.
They are also coming from the leader of a political party (New Labour), who upon assuming office in 1997 blatantly and unashamedly told the Government that they were not shackled to their history, and they were going to conduct their business with former colonies in a different manner.
They also told the Government that they would not be bound by agreements made by prior British governments, which would have seen a "smooth" resolution of the land issue (where all the property rights issues are tied therein).
The Blair government suddenly had selective amnesia and conveniently made Zimbabwe's liberation struggle and fight to reclaim its stolen land a non-issue and a non-event.
This writer thinks that it is high time that we earnestly revisit the contents and implications of the Claire Short letter of November 5 1997 to the Government of Zimbabwe, which the Government has made much reference to several times.
NewAfrican magazine in their May 2007 issue described the Claire Short letter as "one bad letter with long-lasting consequences".
They also wrote: "Britain's then secretary of state for international development, Claire Short, wrote what has become one of the most defining landmarks in Zimbabwe's recent history --- her letter to Zimbabwe's then Minister of Agriculture and Land, Kumbirai Kangai, repudiating Britain's colonial responsibility for land reform in Zimbabwe."
This letter is now one of the most crucial historical documents in post-independent Zimbabwe. For it was this letter, written by a New Labour government, which was sprucing up its image after several electoral defeats at the hands of the Conservatives which set the tone of where Zimbabwe is right now.
It was the implication of Claire Short's letter, which made the Zimbabwean Government declare in no uncertain terms that "Zimbabwe will never be a colony again".
It was also Claire Short's letter, which made the Government declare that the asset that is called land is a major economic resource and that Zimbabwe's economy is locked in a resource called land.
When the message did not seem to sink after several illegal regime change attempts were made through the stooges they have been propping up, it is clear that Claire Short's letter had a bearing when President Mugabe and Zanu-PF chose to fight the March 29 poll under the banner, "Defending our land and sovereignty".
It was also against the backdrop of this letter that the Government had to announce to the international community that as a way of consolidating its liberation struggle gains through land reform, it would embark on a policy of "building prosperity through (black) empowerment".
Brown's weekend utterances are therefore not surprising for he openly and obdurately told the world after getting into power last year that he was spoiling for a fight with President Mugabe, a fight that the Lancaster House Constitution had ended in 1979.
The world remembers Brown's utterances when he declared against all common sense that he would not sit in the same room with President Mugabe, a statement that set into additional motion a diplomatic hocus pocus of unprecedented proportions.
However, reading between the lines it was and is still very clear that these ploys employed by the British are a way of buying time, hoping against hope that they will wish away the land reform programme.
However, while Brown was busy worrying about Zimbabwean elections, he forgets that he is in a leadership position that was not decided by the will of the British populace through the ballot box.
For his was a premiership that was decided through a constitutional arrangement, and the so-called international community, Zimbabwe included never questioned this, for Britain's sovereignty is not Zimbabwe's business.
In addition when there was every indication that Brown's leadership should be tested through the ballot box, he chickened out, and postponed the elections.
It is therefore Claire Short's letter, initially represented by Blair, and now Brown which is revealing the deep-seated racist tendencies in former colonialist governments, systems which show their arrogance and patronising attitude towards former colonies, who are forever supposed to be told how to organise their affairs.
When Brown refused to listen to the voices of reason to attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon last year, the so-called international community was silent.
However, they did not realise that by so doing, Britain was diverting world attention regarding its unfinished business, not only in Zimbabwe but in all former colonies.
The West has been so engrossed in its quest to see President Mugabe leave office at all costs, that they actually forget that unless London and Harare resolve the land issue, they can bring in one puppet government after another, but land will forever remain an issue that needs to be decisively resolved.
It is also common knowledge that land is still an issue in the United States between the settlers and the native Americans.
It is also an unfinished business in Australia between the British and the Aborigines.
It is an issue, whether talked about or not in places like South America, and the entire African region. It is also an issue between the English monarchy and the Scottish in the United Kingdom.
The Judaeo-Christian world taught us that land was the first major asset that the Lord gave to the people of Israel: "And the Lord said to Abraham after Lot had parted from him, 'Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north, south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever ... Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you'." (Genesis 13: 14-17).
This part of the international community would also like to know what has happened to Brown's request to President Museveni at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Kampala last December?
Notwithstanding, how long does the British government think this mediation by second and third parties should take before they can take the bull by the horns and come to the negotiating table to talk to the Government of Zimbabwe in order to resolve this impasse?
How many emissaries will the British government send before they realise that all they need to do is to sit down with the Government of Zimbabwe to resolve the outstanding issue: Land?
We also wonder why this second and third party tactic is being used. By asking leaders of former colonies where the land issue also has to be resolved, one way or the other, isn't the British government not only playing a divide and rule game, but also trying to make these leaders negate a problem that they should be resolving right now?
An analysis of Brown's weekend comments shows very clearly who the instigators and masterminds of the Lusaka Summit and why.
The British government and their Western allies had expected a quick fix result after the March 29 poll, and they could not contain themselves as we see Brown using the most undiplomatic language to show their impatience.
The zeal and anger with which he descended on the Zimbabwean Government makes us wonder whether the West is only too happy to see people in Africa forever embroiled in conflicts, fighting and hacking each other to death, and being eventual recipients of humanitarian aid.
For how else does one explain Brown's headmaster-like attitude towards the Zimbabwean leader when he did not do the same in Kenya? Four months down the line, the Kenyan crisis is still to be resolved.
And, aren't skewed property rights created by the British as the former colonial master one of the major sources of the Kenyan conflict?
Does one need to have a super IQ to realise that Zimbabwe's detractors are eating humble pie because of the prevailing peace and tranquillity, before, during and after the March 29 poll?
And finally, Brown's reactions revealed one important element: how issues and agendas are framed, and who calls the shots.
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Zimbabwe: ZEC Officials Arrested
Posted: Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Herald (Harare)
8 April 2008
FIVE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials have been arrested on allegations of tampering with election results and prejudicing Zanu-PF presidential candidate President Mugabe of 4 993 votes cast in four constituencies in the just-ended harmonised elections.
Police chief spokesman Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the arrests yesterday.
One of the ZEC officials, Asst Comm Bvudzijena said, was arrested in Manicaland, two in Masvingo and another two in Mashonaland Central.
He could, however, not give details of the constituencies where the crimes were allegedly committed for fear of prejudicing ongoing investigations.
The five are being charged with either fraud or criminal abuse of duty as public officers.
"The suspects are currently being prosecuted through the courts in their respective areas.
"We are still carrying out investigations. The arrests arose from inconsistencies between figures recorded at polling centres, constituency centres and those which were forwarded to the National Command Centre," said Asst Comm Bvudzijena.
Asst Comm Bvudzijena said police were carrying out investigations in two other constituencies in Manicaland where the Zanu-PF presidential candidate was also allegedly prejudiced of 1 392 votes.
In Mashonaland Central, it is alleged, the same candidate was prejudiced of 773 votes while investigations also revealed that the same candidate lost 1 000 votes in two Matabeleland North constituencies and 1 828 votes in Masvingo.
Asst Comm Bvudzijena said police were also investigating similar cases in Zvimba North and other constituencies with a view to prosecuting officials who tampered with the figures.
The arrests come barely a week after the announcement by Zanu-PF that it would take its case to the Electoral Court contesting results in 16 House of Assembly constituencies alleging that some ZEC officials were bribed to doctor results during the counting process to prejudice the ruling party.
The anomalies were detected following a close scrutiny of V11 and V23 forms.
A V11 form is an original document carrying results at polling stations and is signed by all agents of contesting parties.
After the signing of the V11 form, information is then recorded on the V23 forms that collate polling station results within a ward.
These forms also show the results of the council elections.
The Sunday Mail reported at the weekend that at Rimbi Primary School in Manicaland Province, the V11 form showed that President Mugabe got 612 votes but the V23 form that was forwarded to the National Command Centre shows that the President received 187 votes.
This anomaly was detected in a number of constituencies.
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF legal committee member Cde Patrick Chinamasa yesterday said the party was still waiting for a response from ZEC on its request for a recount of the presidential results in some constituencies.
The ruling party's secretary for administration, Cde Didymus Mutasa, told journalists after the party's politburo meeting last Friday that some ZEC officials connived with the opposition to manipulate results in favour of the MDC.
In some case, he said, some voters were influenced to vote for the opposition.
Zanu-PF -- which garnered 97 House of Assembly seats -- lost its parliamentary majority to the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction, which amassed 99 seats with the Mutambara faction weighing in with 10 seats.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200804080002.html
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Zimbabwe: British interest in poll telling
Posted: Friday, April 4, 2008
By Peter Mavunga
April 04, 2008
IT HAS been a momentous week. The harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local elections have concentrated the minds of many Zimbabweans wherever they are. But they have also attracted a level of interest from beyond our borders; a level of interest that left me intrigued.
In Britain, the interest has been keen. This has manifested itself in acres of newsprint devoted to the subject; journalists (like John Simpson) smuggling themselves into Zimbabwe despite the ban on the BBC; and a debate in the House of Commons in which David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, made a full statement.
Miliband said the level of interest is due to their concern for Zimbabweans whose will, he argued, had to be respected. He called for the results of the elections to be published as soon as possible as further delay was likely to heighten suspicion.
This of course sounds wonderfully balanced and diplomatic although it does not hide the fact that the statement is given from the point of view of a government minister who, like many before him, wants President Mugabe to go.
If anything, the whole media coverage has been about maximising the President's discomfort to facilitate his "departure". A good example of this pre-occupation was Jeremy Paxman's question for Cde Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe's USA envoy, on Newsnight on Wednesday night.
"Why doesn't he just go?" Paxman asked.
"To go where?" came the rhetorical question in reply. And quite right too!
For all their "good" intentions and ‘‘love'' for the people of Zimbabwe, the British interest in Zimbabwe's electoral process ought to be seen in the context of their perceived interests in the country. If we lose sight of this we do so at our own peril.
The purpose of this article is not in any way to argue that President Mugabe should not go if that is what the people of Zimbabwe desire. He himself will not deny this given that he is the man who brought democracy to a troubled people who had been denied the vote since colonial times by the white man.
The point I make here is that the responsibility to remove Cde Mugabe from office or any public servant for that matter, is, after due process, a matter for Zimbabweans. It is certainly no business of the British to inject haste and sense of urgency in the process.
Election results in Iraq after the removal of Sadam Hussein took months to come out without questions being asked of the British and the Americans.
There is a due process, though, that has to be gone through. Zimbabwe has a Constitution that sets out the rules of how the electoral business is conducted in circumstances similar to those that we saw during the course of this momentous week.
Even John Simpson the BBC's world correspondent conceded back on Wednesday that the Zimbabwe Constitution allowed the presidential election results to be published by today, Friday. Yet the sense of urgency in British political circles and media alike implies wrong doing on the part of the Zimbabwe authorities when, in actual fact, due process, which Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC faction leader said quite sensibly on Tuesday he was going to allow to take its course.
British intervention in matters like this, I am afraid, has tended to be partisan, condescending and unhelpful. It has implied that Africans, those ‘‘benighted heathens'', cannot manage their affairs, let alone resolve their own differences peacefully.
The coded messages inherent in what they were saying was that very soon Zimbabwe was about to descend into Kenya-type chaos of murder and destruction. Talk of "tensions rising" was designed to whip up feelings of grievance to trigger a violent reaction.
Once Zimbabwe was in smoke; images of dead bodies like we saw in Kenya, would become the subject of western cameras. It is all done in the interest of informing the world what is going on in the African country. Yet, if truth be told, bodies of dead British soldiers coming from Iraq are quite rightly never paraded in public. This would be an affront of public decency.
It is essential, that Africans should consider themselves capable of doing what they have to do for themselves. Sikhanyiso Ndlovu put it nicely when he told an interviewer earlier this week that: "We do not do things in order to please you."
Yet there is an unhealthy desire to report issues of national interest to the British.
The harmonised elections were held in an atmosphere of self-imposed peace and tranquillity. It should be a measure of what a people can do without outside interference despite their differences.
The only blot to this sense of maturity was the constant stream of unofficial "results" that kept coming out as if to undermine the official results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. True, there was political posturing and manoeuvring, as there was something in it for the MDC Tsvangirai faction.
For instance when the faction's secretary general, Tendai Biti, repeatedly said on Sunday, the day after the elections, that "there was no room for doubt, in fact no shadow of doubt" that the MDC had won 67 percent of the vote or had won the election, it served two purposes.
First, it was a clever way of creating in the collective mind of the British public that the opposition had finally won the election. The clever bit was that given that the strategy of the opposition party was to portray Zanu-PF as a party that "rigs" and "lies" about the elections, any figures that came out officially afterwards would be dismissed by the British public as such.
But Biti's repeated claims served another purpose: of making black people look silly. I would have thought that one claims that there is "no room for doubt" about anything when one is in possession of the full facts, not when this is but an opinion. Or one should tell the world the basis on which the claim of total sureness is made.
Another contribution to the silly season was Basildon Peta's suggestion that Morgan Tsvangirai, whom he believed to have won, should go to State House accompanied by supporters to claim the presidency.
I notice, though, that the MDC faction leader did not choose that option. For a start it serves to undermine the very institutions that allow due process to take place in peace. It also begs the question as to whether Peta would be willing to travel from South Africa to lead the supporters?
And Bishop Desmond Tutu was also suggesting in the "London Paper" that foreign troops must be deployed to "watch Zimbabwe". He is concerned about human rights and that the country might "descend into chaos." I do not know how the cleric came to that view.
What is known is that ours is a professional army that has performed its duties excellently.
There will be no requirement of an outside force to keep it in check.
And so to depart! This has been a momentous week and one in which Zimbabweans ought to reflect coolly what happened and continues to happen. For, as I write on Wednesday night, the end results of the parliamentary and presidential elections remain unknown to me.
But whatever happens, the will of Zimbabweans must prevail not through the coercion of an external force that has an axe to grind, but through the efforts of our own people.
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Zanu-PF, MDC-T in photo finish
Posted: Thursday, April 3, 2008
Herald Reporter
THE contest for the House of Assembly went into a photo-finish with MDC-Tsvangirai ending with 99 seats, Zanu-PF with 97, MDC with 10 and one independent.
Neither major party has an absolute majority and even when the results of three by-elections caused by death of candidates are known, neither will have the 106 seats needed for an absolute majority
Besides the 206 seats contested on Saturday, Muzarabani South was won unopposed by Zanu-PF and three by-elections are pending following the death of MDC candidates. While the MDC-Tsvangirai is likely to win at least two of these, since one is Redcliff and the other is in Bulawayo, it cannot gain the 106 seats needed to hold a majority in the House of Assembly.
While the MDC-Tsvangirai had a small lead in seat numbers, Zanu-PF was ahead in the popular vote.
In the polls for the 206 contested seats, Zanu-PF had won 45,94 percent of the votes, MDC-Tsvangirai 42,88 percent, the MDC 8,39 percent and the minor parties and independent candidates 2,79 percent.
Zanu-PF won an absolute majority of the vote in five provinces: the three Mashonalands, Midlands and Masvingo; and last night came first in Matabeleland South with just under 43 percent of the vote, although that lead was not translated into seats.
MDC-Tsvangirai won the absolute majority of the vote in just two provinces: Harare and Manicaland. No party took an absolute majority of Bulawayo, although MDC-Tsvangirai won all the contested seats with just 47 percent of the vote in a vicious three-way contest, coming first in that province and coming first in Matabeleland North with just under 37 percent of the vote.
In the two rural Matabeleland provinces, three-way fights produced some curious results. In the 12 contested constituencies of Matabeleland South, Zanu-PF came an easy first in the total vote, but won just three seats. MDC came second in the vote, but translated that into seven seats, and MDC-Tsvangirai was third, and with just two seats.
Masvingo, like Matabeleland South, produced an anomalous distribution of seats when compared to the provincial vote. Zanu-PF was an easy winner of the popular vote, taking 52,01 percent of the votes, but only 12 of the 26 seats. The other 14 seats went to MDC- Tsvangirai, although the party only managed 41,61 percent of the popular vote. Many Masvingo seats were won with minute majorities.
Zanu-PF has lost its majority in the House of Assembly for the first time since independence, despite its lead in the popular vote. It tended to win with larger majorities where it was stronger than the opposition parties were winning in their strongholds.
Since the 2000 and 2005 elections, Zanu-PF has lost significant support in Manicaland and some support in Masvingo, although a drop of less than 10 percent in its share of the vote in that province saw the huge cut in seats.
The party held its support in rural Mashonaland and rural Midlands while MDC-Tsvangirai has maintained its support base in the cities and towns, and changed the face of the next Parliament with its large gains in Manicaland and modest advances in Masvingo.
Rural Matabeleland has always tended to concentrate most of the marginal constituencies in Zimbabwe, and the strong three-way fight in that area accentuated that trend. Many seats in the region were won with well under 50 percent of the valid vote.
The ZEC, with the national agents of the candidates monitoring its work, is still compiling the totals for the presidential vote.
But if the voting patterns follow the votes for the MPs fairly closely – with Zanu-PF supporters voting for President Mugabe, MDC-Tsvangirai voters opting for Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC voters voting for Dr Simba Makoni – it is difficult to see how any candidate can reach the total of 50 percent plus one required to avoid a run-off.
Even if almost all those who voted for independent candidates and the minor parties gave their presidential vote to Mr Tsvangirai, he would still fall far short of the total unless a large number of Zanu-PF and MDC voters switched to him in the presidential poll.
A look at the turnout in the four constituencies that did not vote for MPs suggests that even with the bulk of these votes, neither of the two main candidates can avoid a run-off.
Without significant cross-voting, a run-off appears the most likely outcome.
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Zanu-PF, MDC in tight contest
Posted: Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Herald Reporter
RESULTS from Saturday's 2008 harmonised elections started trickling in yesterday morning and by last night the main contestants – Zanu-PF and the MDC Tsvangirai faction – were in a neck-and-neck contest in the House of Assembly official results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
By 10pm last night, the ruling party had won 31 seats, the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction 30 seats and the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC faction six seats out of the 67 House of Assembly seats announced.
The results were mostly from Matabeleland South, parts of Masvingo, Bulawayo, Harare, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, West and Central.
There were no results yet from the Presidential and Senate elections.
ZEC deputy chief elections officer Mr Utoile Silaigwana said more results would continue to be released late last night and today, after the usual verification process.
He said results that had been pasted outside polling stations were official though the electoral body was still in the process of verifying them by late last night. He said results for the Presidential race would be announced later, as ZEC was in the process of collating them.
"Results of councillors, House of Assembly representatives and Senators were announced at respective wards and these are now known, but we are still in the process of collating the Presidential ballot," Mr Silaigwana said in a telephone interview.
He advised that voting results were pasted on polling stations for the benefit of the electorate.
Supporters of contesting political parties are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the polls but ZEC chairman Justice George Chiweshe warned earlier on that the results had to be authenticated by a strict verification process to avoid mistakes.
He said unlike the last election where voters were selecting House of Assembly candidates, this time the electorate would have to bear with the time that would be taken as the polls involved four categories, hence the term harmonised.
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Zimbabwe: Harare Releases Observer List
Posted: Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Hopewell Radebe
11 March 2008
Business Day (Johannesburg)
ZIMBABWE yesterday released a list of international organisations and countries accredited to observe elections there this month.
The move is aimed at rebutting media reports that no international observer structures would be welcome during the March 29 poll.
"Zimbabwe has invited countries and organisation from all parts of the world . Our list excludes those countries with preconceived ideas who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins," Zimbabwean ambassador to SA Simon Moyo said.
The countries that have been excluded include the US, the UK, Australia and other European countries with the exception of Russia.
Moyo charged that some of these countries had already "written their reports", and that his government had no desire "to give such cooked reports the credence and credibility they lack and do not deserve".
"Foreign invitees were selected on the basis of reciprocity as well as their objectivity and impartiality in their relationship with Zimbabwe."
He said all member countries in the Southern African Development Community were invited.
South American and some Asian countries were coming to observe the elections in line with the country's electoral act and the SADC principles and guidelines that governed democratic elections.
He lambasted the South African media for peddling what he called "a virulent and vicious smear campaign by the west" against his country that was "certainly not out of ignorance of the facts, but out of sheer malice".
Among other African organisations and institutions, Zimbabwe has accredited organisations such as the Pan African Parliament, the African Union Commission and the continent's five regional economic structures.
The international institutions invited included the Non-Aligned Movement, the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group of states, the Caribbean Community, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Community of Portuguese Speaking (Lusophone) countries and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions said it welcomed the news that some international bodies would be invited.
Spokesman Patrick Craven said: "We remain sceptical about the conditions that have not been properly and sufficiently rendered conducive for all parties to campaign freely." Zimbabwe had not failed to render elections free and fair even in the presence of international observers who monitored earlier elections.
"But we hope that democracy and the will of the people will prevail this time," he said.
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Zimbabwe Election Deja Vous
Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2008
By Netfa Freeman
March 26, 2008
African people let's wake up! Just as they did three years ago detractors of Zimbabwe's governing party ZANU PF and President Robert Mugabe are already forecasting that the election in Zimbabwe is rigged, even though it has not happened yet. All of the propaganda machines are in motion to plant misgivings about any outcome that announces victory for Mugabe.
One Mary Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean "human rights" activist has been feverishly providing anti-Mugabe articles and analyses to set the stage for whatever happens. In one published by Pambazuka News she supports her prediction with a diatribe of misinformation and over simplifications asserting, "there is no minutest possibility of a 'free and fair' election. Those observers from SADC who boast that it can still be so are only destroying their own credibility."
Logic dictates that such thinking by an African places their faith in and aligns them more with the neo-colonizers, the United States and European Union, led by Britain than with Africa embodied in this case by entities like Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), and the African Union mission (AU).
As it is today, so it was in 2005 when Zimbabwe held elections for seats in parliament. The US, EU, the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a slew of Western beholden "civil society" or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and Britain all cried foul prior to the election and grasped for anything that could remotely be called evidence of rigging. While painting their movement as something popular in Zimbabwe, these so-called social justice NGOs/ "civil society" advocates keep claiming their agenda and that of imperialism are not one and the same.
Never mind their rabid contempt for Mugabe mirrors in words and deeds that of officials from the US State Department or the British government. One will never hear them address the point of former Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs, Chester Crocker when he said in a testimony to the US Senate "To separate the Zimbabwean people from ZANU-PF we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you senators have the stomach for what you have to do." [Democracy Now!, April 1st, 2005]
This not only proved that the sinister intent of US imperialism has been to destabilize Zimbabwe, it also indicates that they believe the government of ZANU-PF is a popular one. Elections in spring 2005 had also reflected the will of the Zimbabwean people and those results were confirmed so by observers from the SADC, the AU, and others like the US based December 12th Movement who were not afraid to speak truth to power.
It should be pointed out that although the MDC had lodged unsubstantiated claims of fraud back then, their ballot counters signed off on the results from each polling station. They later admitted publicly that elections were not rigged. "In first signs of yet another possible split within the opposition party, (Isaac) Matongo (3rd highest ranking MDC leader) publicly acknowledged that the MDC had no grassroots support and that was the major reason the opposition party was losing elections." [Daily Mirror, February 5th, 2006]
So why are ZANU-PF and Mugabe detractors so insistent in repeating over and again the lie that Zimbabwe elections are fraudulent?
On Tuesday I was interviewed about Zimbabwe on The Breakfast Club, a Kingston Jamaica radio talk show, and the fellow guest, Prof. Richard Hull at NYU made the baseless claim that Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election was fraudulent. I couldn't be surprised. Because it was barely disclosed, it would be hardly surprising if Hull were unaware that the renowned NAACP has a report bearing witness that those elections too were free and fair. Like the parliamentary elections of 2005, Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential elections were certified by SADC, the Union of African States, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and more.
Prof. Hull also believes Zimbabwe should revert back to depending on its cash crops like tobacco and exotic flowers as a way to get much needed foreign currency. But people cannot eat tobacco, flowers or currency. A Pan-Africanist realizes that the cash crop set up is what keeps us away from using our land to produce for our needs. It is under that neo-colonial set up that unfair trade persists and why the masses of African people continue to suffer.
However, the arrogant and shameless measures of imperialism to affect the outcome in Zimbabwe this Saturday should not be underestimated. They've wanted Mugabe out at least for the last ten years. Those who think that the British and US governments confine their contempt for an independent country and its leaders to public denunciations and lip service are wallowing in the height of folly. If this were the case they would have simply needed only to talk negatively about Saddam Hussein and not invade Iraq, or orchestrate a coup against Kwame Nkrumah, or assassinate Patrice Lumumba, or bomb Libya.
Some Western media pundits have been dangerously forecasting for the last month or so that Zimbabwe elections hold in store the same intense and fatal violence we saw in Kenya. Even though Pan-African Parliament's observer mission, now on the ground in Zimbabwe, has said that the current environment in the country is conducive to free and fair elections. "After what Africa witnessed in Kenya, we are encouraged by the pre-poll situation in Zimbabwe… The mood is good and it brings hope to the continent that we are moving in the right direction" [BuaNews, March 25, 2008]
Those making such comparisons between Zimbabwe and Kenya are playing on the already tarnished image of democracy in Africa and want to prevent the public from asking the hard questions and doing thorough investigations when all is said and done. However, unlike Kenya, there is already motive and prior conviction for African people to more than suspect interference by the iron fist and velvet glove of imperialism in Zimbabwe. Some were surprised when, on April 5th 2007 the US State Department admitted to sponsoring opposition in Zimbabwe but allowances for this policy had already been written into the text of the US' hypocritical Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2000, aka ZIDERA.
This is why when the imperialist beholden "civil society activists" speak or write about the leading figures opposing Mugabe these figures seem almost surreal. They speak of Morgan Tsvangirai and his faction of the MDC as if he is not the same person who plotted an assassination of Zimbabwe's president as a prelude to a coup; as if it is not unusual for Tsvangirai to be flanked by young thugs from urban areas who just over a year ago went on a terrorizing spree around the country fire bombing buses, kombis, police dormitories, and attacking citizens and police in the streets. All of that was part of imperialism's modus operandi to make Zimbabwe ungovernable. One won't hear the "civil society activist" mention these things. If they mention Archbishop Pius Ncube, a vocal critic of Mugabe, one can be excused for not realizing from them that Ncube is a discredited amoral who has shamelessly advocated for the British and their allies (imperialism) to invade Zimbabwe in order to "remove Mugabe by force".
Likewise when this imperialist beholden "civil society" speak or write about Robert Mugabe, one might never understand from them that he was against the Lancaster House Agreement that tied the hands of the ZANU PF government from reclaiming the land from white settlers; that the 1989 conditions and constraints that led to Zimbabwe's acceptance of loans and the Economic Structural Adjustment Program of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund were largely due to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and felt by all countries trying to pursue an independent path. You will never hear from them that Mugabe spearheaded the abolishment of said Economic Structural Adjustment Program, something done nowhere else in Africa. One would think a land reform program like none seen since the days of Sekou Ture in Guinea or Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, was not under the leadership of Mugabe; or that there is nothing positive in the new law he signed that mandates majority ownership of all businesses to "indigenous" Zimbabweans.
Such a listing of facts by an African (person of African descent) is often belittled as a one-sided and romantic worship of an old liberation fighter, turned tyrant. However, when these things are completely omitted, then a bias befitting of a racist Western perspective is the result. No one thinks criticism should not be placed where criticism is due. However, the usual suspect detractors more often list the symptoms of economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the US, EU and Britain making no attribution to the sanctions. They keep peddling the lie that the sanctions are "smart" sanctions, targeting only certain Zimbabwe officials.
Could they be totally ignorant to what Brandon Stone has been able to assess in his well-documented paper, An Investigation of Zimbabwe's Different Path?
Stone reveals "the results of the sanctions were severe, as foreign trade plummeted towards near zero, and "foreign direct investment in Zimbabwe plunged by over 99 percent." Inflation soared, and the lack of foreign exchange devastated Zimbabwe's manufacturing sector, causing unemployment to rise to over 70 percent. These factors - the external campaign by great powers to cripple Zimbabwe's economy - are rarely discussed by Western academics or journalists, who instead portray the crisis in Zimbabwe solely as the result of the land reform, or Mugabe's mismanagement."
The intensely biased propaganda campaign has been no less damaging. One example can be seen when comparing Guinea and Zimbabwe which both have a head of state who has been in power since early-mid 80's; Lansana Conte in Guinea and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Conte, however became leader through a military coup following the death of the democratically elected Pan-Africanist President Sekou Ture. Mugabe on the other hand was democratically elected after earning his place as a freedom fighter in the struggle against British settler colonialism. But only Mugabe receives a heavy degree of patented denunciations for being "in power too long".
Further, a year ago both Guinea and Zimbabwe experienced some internal unrest but again not equal consideration by the media or these "civil society activists". As part of the aforementioned terrorizing spree in Zimbabwe by opposition thugs, the MDC disguised a protest as a prayer vigil during a temporary ban on demonstrations.
When an out numbered group of police --who are rarely armed with guns-- were attacked by the mob they were provoked into killing one of them, the police still received a brutal beating and had to flee. The incident earned a flurry of attention from the international media that spun its coverage as a Mugabe crackdown on dissent completely omitting the actions of the mob. The imperialist governments and "civil society activists" all chimed in unison with condemnations of Mugabe and ZANU PF.
However, the brutal and unprovoked attack by Conte, which occurred roughly at the same time, went relatively unnoticed. Advancing on a crowd with tanks, Conte's forces sprayed a mass demonstration of thousands with rapid-fire automatic weapons killing just fewer than 200 people. The same benevolent Western governments and their NGO agents uttered hardly a critical murmur.
Now after 8 years of sanctions against Zimbabwe the election outcome is uncertain. The intended affect of "making the economy scream" as Crocker put it has transpired. Whether or not sisters and brothers in Zimbabwe react the way imperialism wants remains to be seen. As African people we should hope not.
At this juncture the question should not be whether or not Mugabe stays in office but whether or not an imperialist beholden opposition could ever bring resolution to Zimbabwe's problems. The answer should be obvious. And if the people do hold strong and see through the designs and machination of imperialism by once again voting in Mugabe, we must still be wary of how imperialism and its agents will react. And we must understand that as goes Zimbabwe, so goes Africa and her Diaspora.
Only fools sleep in a burning house and only bigger fools watch while arsonist burn.
Netfa Freeman is currently the director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists at the Institute for Policy Studies. Freeman is a longtime activist in the Pan-African and international human rights movements and is also a co-producer/co-host for Voices With Vision, WPFW 89.3 FM, Washington DC. He can be reached at netfa@hotsalsa.org.
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The Company Patrick Bond Keeps
Posted: Tuesday, March 25, 2008
By Stephen Gowans
March 25, 2008
While Patrick Bond likes to create the impression he offers an independent left perspective on Zimbabwe, it's difficult to reconcile the impression with the reality. Bond has, in the past, recommended that progressives look to two of Zimbabwe's "pro-democracy" groups, Sokwanele and Zvakwana, to find out what's going on in Zimbabwe. (1) Both groups are modeled after Otpor, a Western-funded youth group that worked to oust Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Like their Serb progenitor, the Zimbabwean groups are handsomely funded by Western governments (2), not to oppose the interests of wealthy individuals, corporations, banks, investors, and imperialist states, but to promote them.
"The United States government (is) working with the Zimbabwean opposition" "trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations" "to bring about a change of administration." (3) It supports "the efforts of the political opposition, the media and civil society," including providing training and assistance to grassroots "pro-democracy" groups (4) - groups Bond celebrated in a Counterpunch article as "the independent left." (5)
The US also supports "workshops to develop youth leadership skills necessary to confront social injustice through nonviolent strategies," (6) a project enlisting the kinds of nonviolent imperialists Stephen Zunes has made a practice of vigorously defending. (7)
Bond's most recent attempt to bamboozle the West's progressive community is a Z-Net article co-authored with a woman who is part of US-sponsored regime change operations in Zimbabwe. (8)
Last April, Grace Kwinjeh traveled to Washington with Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of one faction of the Zimbabwe opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and representatives from NGOs funded by the US Congress's National Endowment for Democracy: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. (9)
The NED does overtly what the CIA once did covertly, namely, meddle in the affairs of foreign countries to bring down governments that refuse to do Washington's bidding.
Soon after it was established, the MDC became the party favored by white farmers in Zimbabwe for its opposition to the government's land reform policies. The party is backed by the US and EU. Tsvangirai, the party's original leader, and now leader of one its two factions, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, pledging to restore property rights and to compensate white farmers for the loss of land their settler ancestors took by force. (10)
Last April's delegation to Washington was organized by the Open Society Initiative, a project of billionaire speculator George Soros, to "build and strengthen the values, practices and institutions of an open society throughout Southern Africa" (11) – roughly, to promote open markets and free enterprise where governments are pursuing programs of economic indigenization.
SW Radio Africa, which operates on funding provided by the US State Department's Office of Transition Initiatives, reported that the group was in Washington to "brief Western institutions like the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Woodrow Wilson Center." (12)
The CSIS is a little known think-tank run by a bipartisan collection of upper class leaders, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. It recently prepared a report recommending that the West use preventive nuclear first strikes to stop other countries, like Iran, from acquiring nuclear weapons. (13)
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is a US government established center that links "scholarship to issues of concern to officials in Washington." The Center's Africa program was launched with a grant from the Ford Foundation to promote dialogue between scholars and US policy-makers on Africa. The tenor of the dialogue is obvious in the latest edition of the Center's journal, The Wilson Quarterly. Articles extol competition (it's hard-wired into humans) and the US Department of Homeland Security (it doesn't get enough credit.)
Kwinjeh is a frequent guest on Studio 7, a radio station sponsored by the US-government's propaganda arm, the Voice of America. (14) She calls herself "a founder member of Zimbabwe's main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC)," and says she "spent some time in Belgium as the MDC Representative to the EU." (15)
At one point, she was the deputy secretary for international relations in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the MDC. She ran for the post of MDC secretary of information (the party's propaganda office) unsuccessfully.
When writing for Western audiences, Kwinjeh conceals her MDC connections and presents herself as a journalist - not a senior member of the US and EU-backed MDC, not a part of US-government regime change operations.
The key questions for Western progressives are: Does Patrick Bond know who Grace Kwinjeh is? If so, why is co-authoring articles with her? Is Bond's definition of "independent" the same as that of the US state and Western media, i.e., any individual or group that facilitates the US government in its efforts to bring down foreign governments that refuse to do the West's bidding? If Patrick Bond doesn't know who Grace Kwinjeh is, why is he passing himself off as a left expert on Zimbabwe? Surely, someone who professes to have a knowledge of Zimbabwe greater than that of Western progressives would know about Kwinjeh's role in US regime change operations. And what separation is there between the views of Bond and those of Kwinjeh, an MDC operative who has traveled to Washington on George Soros' account to brief a ruling class think-tank that promotes a nuclear first strike strategy?
NOTES
1. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/zimbabwe-and-the-politics-of-demons-and-angels/
2. Los Angeles Times (July 8, 2005)
3. The Guardian (August 22, 2002)
4. U.S. Department of State, April 5, 2007 report on human rights. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2006/
5. http://www.counterpunch.org/bond03272007.html
6. U.S. Department of State
7. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/stephen-zunes-and-the-struggle-for-overseas-profits/
8. http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/11bond-kwinjeh.cfm
9. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-04/2007-04-27-voa54.cfm?CFID=213706089&CFTOKEN=96857847 and http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290407/un270407.htm .
Regarding NED funding of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition see http://fanonite.org/2008/03/10/nonviolent-imperialism-major-revision/
10. The Herald (Zimbabwe) (March 23, 2008)
11. http://www.osisa.org/
12. http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290407/un270407.htm
13. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/whose-nuclear-first-strike-strategy-is-this-anyway/
14. http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/zimbabwe/
15. http://gracekwinjeh.blogspot.com/
Source: http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/the-company-patrick-bond-keeps/
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10 Rules for Understanding Civil Society Imperialism
Posted: Monday, March 17, 2008
By Stephen Gowans
March 16, 2008
gowans.wordpress.com
Stephen Zunes, chair of the board of academic advisors to the US ruling class International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, and Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society at Durban, are regular contributors to Z-Net, Counterpunch and other left media. There's nothing particularly new, interesting or exciting about their writing. When it comes to foreign governments that pursue a traditional leftist agenda of independent economic development outside the domination of imperialist powers they can be counted on to ape the New York Times and Washington Post, and by extension, the White House and Department of State.
Reading Zunes' write about Belarus, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Iran, is like reading State Department press releases. "The best hope for advancing freedom and democracy in the world's remaining autocratic states," says Zunes, "comes from civil society" (1). In its reference to freedom and democracy in the abstract, Zunes' language is evocative of the propagandistic bilge that gushes in rivers from White House and State Department speechwriters trying to shape public opinion. Bond, who claims an expertise on Zimbabwe based on proximity to the country (he runs a civil society center on the other side of the Limpopo River) is hardly better. Both mimic State Department charges against the West's leftist and national liberation foreign policy betes noire, and, like the State Department, both celebrate civil society. Bond has gone so far as to naively dub activist groups in Zimbabwe that receive Western funding as "the main wellspring of hope for a Zimbabwean recovery" (2). It would be more apt to say civil society is the West's main wellspring of hope to return Zimbabwe to a colonial past.
Bond and Zunes are formulaic writers. They cleave to a basic set of rules to guide their analyses of governments that have disrupted property relations that once favored Western investors, banks and corporations. Once you know the rules, you can predict what either Zunes or Bond are going to write with astonishing accuracy.
Rule #1. All governments are bad, especially those that pursue traditional leftist agendas of placing control of a country's resources and productive property in the hands of its public, its government, or its domestic business class. The leaders of these governments deceptively employ socialist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist rhetoric to win and then to hang on to power. They enjoy enormous privileges secured and defended by corruption and abuse of authority. Governments, by nature, are corrupt, authoritarian and thoroughly rotten, particularly those that call themselves leftist and anti-imperialist. There has never been a truly leftist, anti-colonial or anti-imperialist government, and can never be one. All revolutions are betrayals and no one should expect that anything good can ever come from left and anti-imperialist forces taking power. The only good revolution is the one that has never happened, or the ones that have been financed by wealthy individuals and the US government.
Rule #2. Civil society is the main wellspring of hope. Non-governmental organizations funded by the US Congress's National Endowment for Democracy, the US State Department's USAID, Britain's Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and other Western "democracy promotion" agencies, are independent organizations that are working to build a better world. Leftists should look to these groups to understand what's going on in countries led by nominally anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and socialist governments. Zimbabwe's Lawyers for Human Rights, for example, represents one of the main wellsprings of hope for Zimbabwe. Never mind that it is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (3) – an organization that does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly. Plenty of civil society organizations take money from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments. Does that mean they're not independent?
Rule #3. Decentralized, participatory democracy is good. It is the absolute good.
Rule #4. Process is more important than outcome. Zimbabweans becoming owners of their own land and natural resources is only half as important as the British parliamentary tradition in Zimbabwe being upheld; only a tenth as important as the freedom and democracy Zunes' celebrates in the abstract; only a hundredth as important as civil society having room to operate to peacefully change the government. It's not helpful to mention that peaceful regime change is often preceded by economic warfare and threats of military intervention and that non-violent activism and civil society are only part of a larger whole of regime change operations.
Rule #5. Governments that call themselves anti-imperialist or socialist or both are neither of these things and are as deplorable as imperialists and neo-liberals. Civil society, though drawing its funding from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments, is the main wellspring of hope.
Rule #6. When writing about governments that pursue traditional leftist agendas, it is important to follow State Department narratives. This is equivalent to doing what the New York Times, CNN and other major media did when they amplified Washington's lies about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction – an inconvenient reality, but skip over it. Charges made against leftist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist governments of corruption, human rights abuses, and betrayal will resonate with a left population primed for cynicism. Accordingly, it takes little effort to make the charges stick. Don't bother to cite evidence. You don't need to. Tap into what everyone knows is true, because everyone says it's true, because the media say it's true, because the State Department and White House say it's true. Who will ask for evidence? Insist that the other side present evidence. If you don't like the evidence, say it's not from a credible source.
Rule #7. Never shy away from basing your argument on appeal to authority. If you live close to the country civil society is to promote democracy in, or have visited it, claim authority based on geography. "I've been (or live close) to Zimbabwe." This, however, might backfire. Opponents can reply: "If geography is so important, I'll accept as a higher authority the analysis of the leaders of the government you denounce, since they are long-time residents of their country, and not merely tourists and residents of a neighboring country."
Rule #8. Make definitive statements. For example, assert with certitude that Bob Helvey has never been to Venezuela to train civil society to bring down the Chavez government. When you're shown evidence that Bob Helvey has indeed been to Venezuela, say "I only found about it last week." Never let ignorance get in the way of self-appointed authority.
Rule #9. Defend civil society's receiving its funding from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments by saying, "A people's revolution cannot happen by generous funding alone." This sounds compelling. Of course, if this were true, we could also say, "Acceptance of a ruling class ideology cannot happen by the ruling class virtually monopolizing the media and schools" or "George Bush won his first run at the presidency through a groundswell of popular support that had little to do with his connections to wealthy supporters and the king's ransom spent on his campaign."
Rule #10. Some say civil society should not take money from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments. Others say the reality that wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments shower many civil society groups with money tells you everything you need to know about these groups. These people are not helpful.
NOTES:
1. Stephen Zunes, "Nonviolent action and pro-democracy struggles," February 17, 2008, www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16538
2. Patrick Bond and Grace Kwinjeh, "Zimbabwe's political roller-coaster hits another deep dip," March 11, 2008, www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/11bond-kwinjeh.cfm
3. Michael Barker, "Nonviolent Imperialism: A Major Revision," March 10, 2008, http://fanonite.org/2008/03/10/nonviolent-imperialism-major-revision/
Reprinted from:
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/10-rules-for-understanding-civil-society-imperialism/
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