June 25, 2007 - October 10, 2007
Zimbabwe scores highly despite sanctions
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007
By Caesar Zvayi
October 10, 2007
The herald
The adage, lies run sprints but the truth runs marathons, has always been vindicated in Zimbabwe since the stand off with Britain began in November 1997.
In a developing country like Zimbabwe which did the "unthinkable" by challenging the world order of double standards, the lies churned by rightwing Western governments and their hired lackeys travel at supersonic speed claiming the gullible at regular intervals.
The situation is compounded by the fact that the Western powers control powerful international news agencies that churn out copious copy that reaches millions of people, and places the public media, tasked to tell the real Zimbabwean story, cannot reach at the moment.
Even cyberspace is dominated by these powerful nations that have made it their vocation to tar and feather Zimbabwe in a bid to preserve the myth of white supremacy.
As such anyone who relies on the Western media for news about Zimbabwe, ends up wondering whether there is any sanity in the country.
For starters such a person cannot reconcile how a Government which is "repressive" continues getting successive mandates, by huge margins at that, at election time, particularly when reports say Zimbabweans are being squeezed to the eyeballs by "increasing Government repression".
Such a person can never understand why the MDC, which such media claim has so much support, fails to rally people in the streets to effect the much-vaunted colour revolutions the West executed with prurience in Eastern Europe.
Such a reader can never understand why rightwing groups like the International Crisis Group, actually acknowledge that President Mugabe's popularity is increasing and that the opposition has hit its nadir.
How is that possible at a time Mugabe's tyranny is said to have reached fascist proportions?
Similar questions probably gripped all who read the recent report by UN Habitat, ‘Enhancing Urban Safety and Security – Global Report on Human Settlements 2007', released ahead of the World Habitat Day commemorations on October 1.
The report acknowledges the success Zimbabwe has scored in housing delivery, and that Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order was a two-pronged clean up exercise aimed at decongesting cities and towns, and to rid them of crime.
Says UN Habitat in part: "The Government, local authorities and the private sector have all joined hands to build houses for the people.
"Over the past four years 277 038 housing stands have been planned and allocated for housing development in urban areas.
"Other services such as roads, water, sewer and electricity are having to follow after ensuring that each family has a roof over its head.
"The Government-initiated national housing delivery programme, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, the numerous local authorities' housing programmes and those led by the private sector have helped shape a composite housing delivery programme that recognises the needs of the poor and the rich.
"Class-specific housing programmes have been put in place with the smallest housing stands on 200 square metres of land while the biggest residential stands can go up to 6 000 square metres."
UN Habitat further acknowledges the virtues of Operation Murambatsvian/Restore Order, saying: "The celebrations' theme ‘A Safe City is Just a Safe City' dovetails very well with Zimbabwe's thrust of affording a safe urban environment that is free of squatter settlements.
"It is important to note that the celebrations are taking place two years after Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order which, among other things, sought to rid urban areas of crime and to decongest overcrowded settlements like Mbare."
Yes dear reader, this is the same UN Habitat led by one Anna Tibaijuka Kajumulo, who was condomised by former British prime minister, Tony Blair during her "fact-finding" mission to Zimbabwe at the height of Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order in mid-2005.
Tibaijuka; now director-general of the UN Office in Nairobi; drafted a controversial report that claimed the clean-up operation was a State-sanctioned clampdown on political opponents.
Tibaijuka's report was littered with judgmental language from start to finish, and the very first paragraph of her executive summary had the phrase "clean-up" in quotation marks to show that she did not consider Operation Murambatsvina to have been about destroying illegal structures and crime as she regurgitated MDC propaganda that said the operation was targeted at opposition supporters.
Tibaijuka's report claimed 700 000 urban dwellers (21 percent of the total urban population) lost either their homes or source of livelihood or both, while a further 2,4 million (71 percent of the total urban population of 3,4 million) where affected.
Yet the Zimbabwe Republic Police which was carrying out the demolitions revealed that only 50 193 illegal structures had been demolished in all 10 provinces by June 28, when the operation was winding up.
These 50 000 structures covered all illegal structures, not just houses, which is why Tibaijuka's claims that over 700 000 people were affected failed to find purchase, except among those sold to the illegal regime change agenda.
In the end it turned out that Tibaijuka had not even authored the report but merely endorsed it as the writing had apparently been done long before she sat down to try to do so.
In fact, three-quarters of the report was dedicated to submissions from opposition groups and their embeds in the "civil" society, as well as demolition pictures to the exclusion of reconstruction pictures.
It latter emerged that Tibaijuka, who initially hailed Government housing programmes on her arrival in Zimbabwe, confessed to President Mugabe that her hands were tied as she was under pressure to produce a negative report.
What is more, the figure of 700 000 affected she bandied around had been arrived at using mathematical formula, and not hands-on findings, which was strange for a team that was on the ground.
During an interview with Ray Choto on the Studio 7 programme, "Personality of the Week", Tibaijuka also confessed that pressure had been brought to bear on her after Choto asked why the responses she was giving were at variance with the vitriol in her report.
Though Tibaijuka could not say who was pressuring her, it was not difficult to surmise given that on June 27, prior to her departure for Harare, Blair had openly said he was happy that someone he knew and who was also his Commissioner had been chosen to undertake the mission as he expected a "good" report from her.
And to anyone familiar with the stand-off between Harare and London, what is good for Blair where Zimbabwe is concerned is the equivalent of Christmas to turkeys.
The Tibaijuka scenario, however, was not new to Zimbabwe, as former Nigerian president General Abudulsalami Abubakar, who headed the Commonwealth Observer Mission to the 2002 presidential elections, had walked the same tightrope before her.
After freely touring Zimbabwe, talking to, and interacting with the electorate, General Abubakar made very positive comments just three days before the poll, when he paid a courtesy call on President Mugabe at Zimbabwe House. He said reports of violence in the campaign period had been grossly exaggerated by Western media; he was, however, to say the exact opposite in his report after the poll.
A few months later, Abubakar was quoted as saying he was equally surprised by the report, as he was not in agreement with the contents, implying he had not written it, though he had led the mission.
Many other envoys were to be dispatched to Zimbabwe after that, among them Tim Morris and Jan Egeland who were apparently compromised by the same interests that had pressured Tibaijuka.
Which is why the Government should be commended for outflanking recent attempts by the British government that sought to pressure the UN Secretary-General to dispatch a humanitarian envoy to Zimbabwe to vindicate claims that the country had become a humanitarian disaster.
On the flip side, the UN Habitat report should not be surprising as it simply contains what Tibaijuka ought to have written if she had not been compromised by forces inimical to Zimbabwe's national interest.
Zimbabwe's success in housing, achieved on the back of purely domestic resources, is a microcosm of successes registered in many other social sectors.
Zimbabwe notified the UN of its housing crisis way back in 1996 when it submitted a report on the implementation of the economic, social and cultural rights on September 25 1996 in line with articles 16 and 17 of the UN International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but nothing was forthcoming.
Despite that, statistics from UN Habitat speak for themselves as Zimbabwe has outdone even those countries that received such assistance.
Zimbabwe has a population of 13 million, 36 percent of whom live in urban areas, yet only 3 percent of them live in slum conditions.
Of the 3 percent in slum conditions, 100 percent have access to a water source, 96 percent have improved sanitation, 84 percent have sufficient living area, and 97 percent have durable housing.
This is against an African tragedy that has 72 percent of urban dwellers in slums. To put things into perspective, this writer will juxtapose Zimbabwe's statistics against those for South Africa, issued by the same UN office.
South Africa has a population of 44 million of which 58 percent are urbanites.
Of these 33 percent are in slums. Of the slum dwellers, 92 percent have access to a clean water source, 88 percent have access to sanitation, and 87 percent have sufficient living space while 93 percent have durable housing.
And this is a country considered an African success story. As such where housing delivery is concerned, Zimbabwe's success is unparalleled in sub-Saharan Africa.
Operation Garikai, that seeks to build at least 1,5 million housing units over the next four years, is not only in line with, but will also beat Millennium Development Goal 7 that has a deadline of 2015 by a good six years.
Many other successes have been well documented for instance Zimbabwe, using its own resources after the politicisation of the Global Aids Fund, is one of only three African countries – along with Kenya and Uganda – to have recorded a decline in the HIV and Aids prevalence rate over the past five years.
Zimbabwe also has the highest adult literacy rate in Africa due to the investments made in the education sector, again using mainly domestic resources.
These are, among the successes of self-reliance; the world is denied the right to know by the duplicitous Western media.
But mark this writer's words, with the distribution of land and recently farming implements to newly resettled farmers, very soon the rest of the world will be flocking to Zimbabwe to study how accelerated economic growth can be achieved on the back of indigenisation and strong investment in the agrarian sector.
Mark this writer's words.
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Zimbabwe should attend summit: Germany
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2007
Herald Reporter
October 06, 2007
President Thabo Mbeki yesterday staved off pressure from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to take a tougher stance against Zimbabwe.
The two leaders met in South Africa yesterday.
Prior to the meeting, the German leader had reportedly vowed to persuade the South African leader to take a tougher stance on Zimbabwe despite the notable achievements his mediation has already scored.
Media reports last night indicated that Ms Merkel came out of her meeting with President Mbeki singing from a different hymn sheet and even categorically stated that Zimbabwe should be present at the European Union-Africa Summit regardless of British attempts to bar Harare from the Lisbon summit.
Her pronouncement will put a damper on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's apparent desire to have President Mugabe barred.
Last night she was quoted as having said: "During our presidency of the European Union (earlier this year), we worked very much to prepare the ground for the upcoming EU-AU Summit ... and we want this summit to, indeed, open a new chapter in the relationship between our continents.
"I have said right from the start that the President of the Republic of Germany wanted to invite all African countries to that summit and it's up to the countries themselves to decide how they are going to be represented at the table.
"I also said (to Mr Mbeki) that obviously we will make all our assessments heard. We will also raise all our criticisms. We would do so in the presence of each and everyone and obviously each and every one has the right to attend."
Germany is working with Portugal on the organisation of the summit.
The German leader went further and thanked President Mbeki for the role he is playing in facilitating dialogue between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC.
Portugal has already indicated that it would like to have all African leaders in attendance while a number of African leaders have made it clear that there will be no summit if President Mugabe is not invited to Lisbon.
Sadc heads of state earlier this year mandated South Africa to mediate between Zimbabwe's main political parties, resulting in the co-sponsoring of Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (Number 18) Bill in Parliament last month.
It is understood that President Mbeki impressed upon the German leader that considerable progress had been achieved in the South African-facilitated talks between Zanu-PF and the two factions of the MDC.
After meeting his German counterpart, Mr Mbeki told the media he was confident that the two political parties would soon reach a composite agreement and next year's harmonised elections would be free and fair.
"There is a united voice emerging from the ruling party and opposition on what to do to address these political problems. There was a common determination to conclude them (the talks) as quickly as possible.
"We are confident they will reach an agreement on all of these matters. So, at least as far as the political challenges are concerned, there was a united voice. Both the ruling party and opposition are committed to making sure the elections are free and fair.
"Next year after the elections, it will be very important they take the same approach with regard to economic challenges that they together evolve a common approach," he said.
However, the Government in Harare yesterday criticised Ms Merkel for labelling the so-called Zimbabwe crisis a "disastrous" one.
Secretary for Information and Publicity Cde George Charamba said Germany had no moral standing to pass judgment on Zimbabwe.
"Zimbabwe would very much appreciate it if this good lady would do us a great favour by simply lifting those illegal sanctions which her predecessor imposed hoping to protect German (wildlife) conservancies here.
"It is ironical that Germany, with a history such as it has, has the temerity to see a speck in Zimbabwe's eye," Cde Charamba said.
http://www.herald.co.zw
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Zimbabwe: Outrage Intensifies Over Brown's Threat
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2007
By Bulawayo Bureau
September 22, 2007
The Herald
'Arm-twisting not way to solve Zim's challenges' CONDEMNATION of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown over his threat to boycott the Euro-Africa Summit if President Mugabe attends intensified yesterday.
Amid growing international consensus that the conference must go ahead even without Britain, the Pan-African Parliament said Mr Brown should desist from behaving like an overlord.
In remarks that received worldwide coverage yesterday, Dr Gertrude Mongella, the Tanzanian president of the Pan-African Parliament, said "arm-twisting" was not the way to solve Zimbabwe's challenges.
Her comments reflect the determination of the African Union to go ahead as planned and invite President Mugabe to the Euro-Africa summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in December.
Dr Mongella, attending a conference with Socialist Members of the European Parliament in Brussels, has made it clear that African solidarity might undermine Mr Brown's "him-or-me" challenge to the summit.
"We do know there are some problems (in Zimbabwe), but if somebody wants to arm-twist Zimbabwe, that's not the best way to solve the problems," she said.
"I think this is again another way of manipulating Africa. Zimbabwe is a nation which got independence. I think in the developed countries there are so many countries doing things which not all of us subscribe to – we have seen the Iraq war, not everyone accepts what is being done in Iraq."
Dr Mongella urged all African and European leaders to go to the summit – including Mr Brown – to join the talks to "meet, develop a very committed dialogue to solve problems, rather than threatening each other by going or not going".
She said dialogue must be pursued to resolve any disputes.
"I think if we want to move in the right direction, with the African way of doing things, you discuss things under a tree till you agree. So if somebody does not come under a tree to discuss, that is not the African way of doing things."
Mr Brown was also condemned by Zimbabwe's Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Boniface Chidyausiku, who said the prime minister had no right to dictate who should be at the summit or not.
Mr Chidyausiku said President Mugabe had a sovereign right, like all other African heads of state, to attend the Lisbon summit, adding that bigger issues affecting Africa should be prioritised.
Mr Chidyausiku's remarks follow almost similar sentiments by Portuguese EU legislator Mr Paolo Casaca and the Southern African Development Community chairman, President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, on Thursday.
President Mwanawasa even countered Mr Brown with his own threat, saying if President Mugabe is barred from attending the summit, Zambia and probably other African leaders would not go to Lisbon.
Mr Louis Michel, the EU Commissioner for Aid and Development, signalled Mr Brown's growing isolation, saying that one person cannot scuttle a key summit between two continents.
"We think that a single individual case cannot take as hostage the relations between two continents," said Mr Michel.
He added that the European Commission would want the summit to go ahead regardless of Mr Brown's threat.
Writing in a British newspaper, The Independent, on Thursday, Mr Brown provoked sharp international criticism when he said he would boycott the Portugal summit – the first since 2000 – if President Mugabe attends.
Mr Brown, like his predecessor Mr Tony Blair, claimed that the Government had presided over the prevailing economic challenges, ignoring the impact of illegal EU and American sanctions.
He said the EU's five-year visa ban on President Mugabe must be enforced to ensure that he does not travel to Portugal.
But Mr Michel said the ban does not apply to international meetings.
"I expect it is possible to have a compromise, but if there is no compromise, what can you do? The only option I cannot accept is suppressing the summit," he said.
Mr Brown, who assumed office in June, is said to base his foreign policy on a series of anti-Zimbabwe reports aired by several British media outlets, including the BBC and ITV News.
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Zimbabwe: Latest media hype well timed, calculated
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2007
By Simon Khaya Moyo
September 21, 2007
AS we draw closer to the opening of the 62nd Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, we are again observing intense media focus to draw international attention on Zimbabwe.
Coincidentally, anti-Government elements and their allies in the non-governmental and trade union movement with ties to certain opposition political formations are lining up activities at home and abroad to play their respectively assigned roles in a circus that repeats itself before and during international conferences.
In the run-up to a number of recent international conferences, desperate and misguided anti-Zimbabwean activists have predictably descended on the venues of these conferences in order to stir discord. These include the Sadc Heads of State and Government Summit held in Maseru in August 2006, the Sadc Extraordinary Summit held in March 2007 in Dar-es-Salaam, the Pan African Parliament Session held in Johannesburg in May 2007, the African Union Summit held in July 2007 in Accra, Ghana, and the 27th Sadc Summit held in Lusaka last month.
The same faces that showed up in Maseru showed up in Dar-es-Salaam, Accra and recently in Lusaka. This is done at the behest of governments in well-known capitals outside Africa. And soon after making the now familiar noises, the hype fizzles out only to re-emerge at a future conference: it is patently a pattern designed and deliberately contrived to cause maximum damage to the image of Zimbabwe and its leaders.
At the international conferences so far held this year, the heavy presence of officials from opposition political factions and a host of like-minded NGOs was an embarrassing and unwelcome detraction. The fact is that Sadc and the AU are one in their total rejection of unpatriotic sell-outs.
This is not to suggest that there is anything wrong with political opposition in Zimbabwe as elsewhere. What we find abhorrent and objectionable is when such opposition is firmly rooted in, directed by and funded from Western capitals to peddle external agendas. Indeed, it is not only normal, but welcome to have healthy contradictions and well-meaning opposition in society: a homogenous and monolithic society is neither feasible nor desirable.
This well-orchestrated campaign to demonise Zimbabwe and its leadership is inspired by the Western agenda of regime change; it is directly from the very top political echelons in London, Washington, Canberra etc, and it is funded by taxpayers in those countries.
This discernible pattern in which sections of the political opposition and the media seek to contrive non-existent scenarios is deplorable as it is utterly distasteful, and must be condemned by all pan-Africanists and those beyond our borders who share with us the common vision of a progressive and peaceful co-existence of sovereign nations, big and small.
While our detractors are busy plotting our long-predicted but ever-receding demise, the Government and people of Zimbabwe remain focused and are romping in the home stretch of our victorious march against Western imperialist machinations. As a responsible nation, our people, and not outsiders, will remain the active agents of change within their own political frontiers.
We are the authors and masters of our own destiny, and, therefore, need to secure our common future through a purposive alliance of patriots from all walks of life across the broad spectrum of our society. In this regard, we applaud and support the mediation efforts of His Excellency, President Thabo Mbeki. There is no turning back whatsoever.
What is abundantly clear is that a lasting solution to Zimbabwe's challenges does not lie in Canberra, or in the media for that matter, but is domiciled within our political frontiers and among our people. There has been remarkable progress in the talks being mediated by President Mbeki.
On September 18, 2007, the Parliament of Zimbabwe reached agreement by consensus on Constitutional Amendment Number 18 Bill which seeks, inter alia, to harmonise presidential and parliamentary elections with effect from next year.
Even in the face of this bipartisanship and consensus among the Zimbabwean people, mainstream South African and Western media (both print and electronic) are awash with misleading news bulletins that suggest that the Amendment seeks to give His Excellency President Robert Mugabe powers to appoint his successor.
The Amendment provides that in the event of the President being unable to continue in office for whatever reason and before his/her elective term comes to an end, Parliament will sit as an Electoral College and elect the successor.
The patronising and paternalistic stance of the Western media smacks of second guessing the people of Zimbabwe and casting aspersions on the dignity and integrity of our institutions and elected leadership.
Surely if the people of Zimbabwe, through their elected representatives, make a sovereign decision to amend their Constitution as they see fit, who can question their action? This is totally disgraceful.
The latest media hype is well timed and calculated to coincide with the opening of the 62nd regular session of the United Nations General Assembly next week. Some unsubstantiated reports now allege an "alarming" exodus of Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries.
Over recent months the media have elevated fiction, rumour and cheap gossip to the level of fact regarding the number of Zimbabwean citizens in neighbouring countries.
Earlier this month, a study conducted by the Forced Migration Studies Programme and Musina Legal Aid concluded that the media have grossly exaggerated the number of people migrating from Zimbabwe to South Africa.
Recent reports of another so-called "human tsunami" overwhelming Mozambique are calculated to raise tension with our neighbour, and draw unwarranted international attention and focus towards Zimbabwe just before the opening of the General Assembly.
Similar false reports about an influx of Zimbabweans into Zambia were orchestrated just before the Sadc Summit held in Lusaka last August, only to evaporate soon after the summit.
These have become familiar noises that we expect before every international conference. We expect these noises to get louder in the week ahead as the army of paid anti-Zimbabwe activists troop into New York at the bidding of their masters, comfortably ensconced in London. The mischievous report on Zimbabwe released this week in Brussels by the so-called International Crisis Group (ICG) is another case in point. We must remain vigilant.
Finally, I wish to appeal to our misguided sisters and brothers, and to their Western handlers, to rise from their deep slumber, and realise that Zimbabwe is not for sale. While we will never apologise to these Western handlers for the historic land reform we embarked on in the year 2000, we will not disown those of our people who have been hoodwinked to sell their birthright.
We have a responsibility to all our people irrespective of race, creed or political affiliation.
In unity we shall triumph.
Simon Khaya Moyo is Zimbabwe's High Commissioner to South Africa.
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Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube Forced to Resign
Posted: Tuesday, September 11, 2007
By Isdore Guvamombe
The Herald
September 11, 2007
DISGRACED Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo Diocese, Pius Ncube (60), has been forced to resign by the Vatican, nearly two months after a Bulawayo man filed a $20 billion lawsuit against him for adultery.
Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Father Martin Schupp to act until the Holy See makes a substantive appointment.
Roman Catholic Church priests are sworn to a vow of celibacy, meaning that they must never marry and must never engage in sexual intercourse.
Ncube is embroiled in a $20 billion lawsuit brought against him by Mr Onesimus Sibanda, who alleges in papers filed at the High Court in Bulawayo in July that the cleric had an adulterous relationship with his wife, Mrs Rosemary Sibanda, who is also a member of his parish.
Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference secretary general Father Fradreck Chiromba said Archbishop Ncube's resignation was accepted in terms of the church's Code of Canon Law.
"Pope Benedict XVI, on Tuesday, 11 September 2007, accepted the resignation of Archbishop Pius A. Ncube as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Bulawayo.
"The resignation was tendered to the Holy Father by Archbishop Ncube in accordance with canon 401 & 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
"Canon 401 & 2 encourages a bishop to offer his resignation when, because of health or some other serious reason, he has become less able to fulfil his office,'' said Fr Chiromba.
Fr Chiromba said Fr Schupp, who is also the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Bulawayo, would act "until the Holy See decides otherwise in terms of the Archdiocese that is now vacant".
Although no comment could be obtained from Ncube yesterday, the BBC quoted him as saying he had resigned as the Archbishop but remained a bishop in the church.
"I remain a Catholic bishop in Zimbabwe and will continue to speak out on the issues that sadly become more acute by the day.
"I am committed to promoting the social teachings of the church and working among the poorest and most needy in Zimbabwe," said the disgraced bishop in his face-saving statement to the BBC yesterday.
His forced resignation is a slap in the face of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference, which last week made an impish attempt to defend him in his alleged adulterous affair with Mrs Sibanda.
The media in July published photographs of Ncube in bed with Mrs Sibanda. It also showed him being intimate with another woman.
In March, Ncube – who had developed a tendency to stray from holy preachings to devilish and heinous political statements attacking President Mugabe and the Government – said he was prepared to stand in front of "blazing guns" in street protests to bring down the Government. He urged other Zimbabweans to do the same.
Four months later, he was at it again, saying Britain should invade Zimbabwe to remove Cde Mugabe, claiming this would be "the lesser of two evils".
He is also on record for declaring he was praying for President Mugabe's death.
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Funding illegal regime change in Zimbabwe at expense of Aborigines
Posted: Friday, September 7, 2007
By Peter Mavunga
www.herald.co.zw
September 07, 2007
NOW we have Australian Prime Minister John Howard appointing himself leader of the anti-Zimbabwe campaign. He funds the opposition while shouting loudest against Zimbabwe's democratically elected President – all in his bid to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
MDC faction leader Morgan Tsvangirai is the beneficiary of Howard's hospitality.
He recently traipsed to Australia where he addressed the Institute of International Affairs and was in fulsome praise of that country's foreign minister, Alexander Downer.
"Australia, I think has moved far ahead of other countries in ensuring that at least pressure is applied through multilateral interventions than any other country so far," Tsvangirai gushed in Melbourne.
"So in my communication to him," he continued, "I am going to congratulate Australia . . . there are many measures that have been taken by Australia that I admire and that I think are in the right path."
Tsvangirai went on to say – and this probably is the main reason for his visit – that he would like financial help in the form of a package for President Mugabe.
He wants help from Australia and the "international community" to build this fund for the President together with a guarantee that when their regime change task is accomplished, President Mugabe would not be prosecuted. Without this he claimed, President Mugabe would not go.
Tsvangirai also believes this is a reasonable request for him to put to his generous hosts. He does not seem to see how odd it is that he is virtually conspiring with a foreign government to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
True, Tsvangirai thinks, as he told his hosts, that President Mugabe had "rigged elections over the past six years to maintain power" but that is only his personal view.
There are many more people in Zimbabwe and throughout the region who know Zimbabwe does not rig elections.
Even if there was any truth in Tsvangirai's claim, only a political midget finds solutions in cavorting with foreigners in trying to achieve illegal political objectives.
Politicians of substance realise that changing a leader is a matter for Zimbabweans.
Politics is the art of persuading the people. Mr T, having failed to effect regime change by violent means, now wants to do so through bribery.
Mr T's naivety in trying to put together for the President a so-called package is mind-boggling for two reasons.
The first is the shallowness of the thinking.
The second is that Mr T either has a short memory or he does not read history. For this strategy of trying to bribe President Mugabe in the tortuous history of our country was tried before.
David Caute's book, "Under the Skin – the death of White Rhodesia" records the frustration of Andrew Young, former US Ambassador to the United Nations who was given by President Jimmy Carter the task of working with David Owen, British foreign secretary, to find a solution to the Rhodesia problem.
This is what David Caute says:
"Young described both Mugabe and Nkomo as gentle fellows, incapable of firing a gun, of killing. The trouble with Mugabe was that he was 'so damned incorruptible. He's inflexible.'
Mugabe rejected the compromises that Young and Owen regarded as necessary for a settlement; he wanted everything now.
'The problem is he was educated by Jesuits and when you get the combination of a Jesuit and a Marxist kind of ideology merging in one person, you've got a hell of a guy to deal with,' explained Young."
So if Mr T had asked Andrew Young his prospects of success in bribing the President with a "package" I think he would have been told not to be silly.
But I am sure Mr T would still have gone to Australia and I'll tell you why.
Mr T loves Australia so much. He and the country's leaders have a bond so strong that nothing, not even good; rational arguments will prise them apart.
In his speech to the Institute of International Affairs, Mr T said he would like to congratulate Australia for the many but unspecified measures that country had taken that he admired "and that I think are in the right path."
When Mr T does not specify these "measures", I can only speculate that he does not want to embarrass his hosts by thanking them publicly that they robbed his black brothers – the Aborigines – to fund his own regime change back home.
For what else would he thank them for and not say publicly if it was not for the fact that his hosts had treated him so well and given so generously at the expense of the indigenous Australians?
Such hypocrisy is exposed in John Pilger's book: "The New Rulers of the World" that makes compelling reading.
Pilger, one of the leading investigative journalists of our time, is a white Australian who is angry at the way his government abuses the human rights of the Aborigines.
As Professor Colin Tatz of the Genocide Studies Centre in Sydney put it: "If there was a race between democratic nations to see who could best address the violation of the human rights (of its own people) Australia would be coming stone motherless last."
That is because there seems to be no willingness on the part of the government and the majority in Australia to recognise the rights of the Aborigines.
After all, they are treated as though they were not human beings worth anything.
Pilger begins by looking at Australia's "showcase" in the 2000 Olympics when Australians, "the chosen ones" tried to portray their country as united and happy. He describes an incident in which the wife of an IOC delegate spotted a black man playing a game to entertain tourists.
"Who's that?" she enquired.
"An Aborigine," came the reply.
"Really? Where are the rest of them?"
"Er, in the outback."
The point is that there is a large Aboriginal presence unknown to the outside world. They live in ghettos like Redfern that Pilger says are "easily distinguished from the rest of the city by an oppressive police presence."
He describes how everyone came to cheer on the Olympic torch on its way to Sydney – "except the black people who could not see it, having been blinded by trachoma, a disease as old as the Bible."
He goes on: "Australia is the only developed country on a World Health Organisation 'shame list' of countries where children are still blinded by trachoma. Impoverished Sri Lanka has beaten the disease, but not rich Australia."
The Aborigines were once hunter-gatherers in their traditional society. They had exceptional vision. Yet, says Pilger, "now watch the old people stumble, many of them wearing cheap dark glasses and wiping streaming eyes."
He says according to Professor Hugh Taylor, the Director of Eye Research in Sydney; up to 80 percent of Aboriginal children have potentially blinding trachoma because of untreated cataracts. "This is inexcusable," he is quoted as saying.
Pilger accompanied an Aboriginal Medical Services team making a spot check of children in and around Kununurra. A third were found to have trachoma.
At Doon Doon school, says Pilger, half the 56 children were diagnosed with the disease. "And what if these were white children?" he asked Dr Alice Tippetts who replied with a hand over her mouth:
"Like Australian apartheid, it is the unspeakable."
The disease is of course entirely preventable. It infects the eyelids and spreads in conditions of poverty, such as overcrowding and lack of clean running water and sewerage.
Pilger says the death rate of Aborigines in the state of Western Australia is higher than that in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a developing world country; Australia is rich.
He says Dr Kim Hames, the minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Water Resources, told him he had many Aboriginal friends and believed that the problem of trachoma would be "washed away if only Aboriginal children had swimming pools".
His government was planning to build twelve swimming pools but he did not know when this would happen. In fact, in trying to explain the reasons why this, along with the provision of proper clean water and better housing had still not been done, he appeared to apportion blame among victims themselves, apparently "for cultural habits that are millions of years old."
Pilger asked the minister why basic facilities like tarred roads, decent housing, recreational facilities --- things that were provided as standard in the white Australia --- were missing in Aboriginal areas.
He was told that it was because "white people feel that if you give a swimming pool to an Aboriginal community it is a luxury, and they are fine the way they are, living in the desert, like they've always done . . ."
Dr Richard Murray of the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council, whose patients are all Aboriginal, studied the cause of their suffering.
"By most measures of indigenous health," he said, "Australia is last in the world. The Aboriginal people suffer from diseases we saw the end of in the Edinburgh slums in the last century, like rheumatic fever. Here, it is the highest ever reported in the world. And Diabetes, which affects up to a quarter of the adult Aboriginal population, causing kidney failure and a diabetic blindness."
The cause, said the doctor, was "poverty and dispossession. Look at housing. Ninety percent of overcrowded households in Australia are Aboriginal, and this from two percent of the population. What it comes fundamentally down to is a lack of political will to allocate resources."
It turns out the Federal government spends about 25 percent less per capita on the health of Aboriginal people compared to the rest of the population. Aborigines have a very high suicide rate due to lack of opportunities and hope. In a community where there are, say 50 men up to the age of 25, one or two will kill themselves, the doctor said.
He complained that these were families who lived with constant grief. "They do not want to go to bed at night for fear of waking up in the morning to find someone hanging. It is a heart-wrenching truth that the world knows little about," he said.
Pilger also describes his experience in Queensland where he followed behind Paul Gribble, a church minister, who had the coffin of a two-month-old Aboriginal baby girl in the boot of his car. She was to be buried that afternoon at St Matthew's church.
Paul explained to Pilger: "The first funeral I conducted, I was irritated by the people wailing, and I screamed out for them to shut up. And they did, and all the funerals thereafter were dead quiet. Then one day I stood up and apologised to them. I told them I was wrong, just as it is wrong that people continue to die as they do. Look at this list: babies, young men. And its wrong the authorities harass them as they do. I am the chaplain at Rockhampton Prison, where a third of the prisoners are Aboriginal – from two percent of the population."
Pilger told a Federal Minister, Philip Ruddock, that his fellow Federal Cabinet colleague, Dr Michael Wooldridge, the health minister, had admitted that in his area of health he had no evidence to suggest any improvement whatsoever in the last decade. The gap between white and Aboriginal health was actually widening.
Ruddock agreed that the Aboriginal health statistics were truly appalling.
"I understand you have been a member of Amnesty International for 20 years?" enquired Pilger, to which the minister agreed.
"How do you feel receiving amnesty reports on human rights violations with 'Australia' written across the top, such as: 'Aborigines are still dying in prison and police custody at levels that may amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment'?
The minister smiled and replied: "Why do they use the word 'may'?"
Pilger says such supercilious response is quite common in political Australia and confirms that during their interview, Ruddock made no attempt to challenge the facts of Aboriginal suffering yet offered nothing that suggested a political commitment to make amends.
When John Howard came to office in 1996, his first act was to cut $A400 million from the Aboriginal affairs budget – which Pilger said he referred to contemptuously as the "Aboriginal industry political correctness gone too far."
This is Australia as seen in the eyes of another Australian. This is Australia under Howard, a country that is in the business of limiting the life chances of Aborigines and breaching their human rights. Yet the same Howard has the temerity to team up with Tsvangirai to "teach" Zimbabwe human rights!
This is John Howard, splashing big money on some Zimbabwean politicians in the name of human rights, money that he should be spending on the natives of his country.
Above all, this is probably what Mr T meant when he was congratulating his hosts for "the many measures" that had enabled his hosts to give him quite a tidy sum to add not only to his regime change fund but also to a package with which to bribe the "incorruptible Mugabe."
Trouble is this money does not benefit the people of Zimbabwe neither is it intended to benefit them.
www.herald.co.zw
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Mugabe: When a cheer jars the West, rings farthest
Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Herald
Exactly as one would have ever wished it! After the historic Dar Summit held towards the end of March this year, I made it clear Southern Africa had reached a turning point, and with it, the Zimbabwean situation. I made it clear the significance of the resultant communiqué was the fact of the 14-member grouping had for the first time taken a collective stance against illegal sanctions imposed by the West, led of course by Britain and America.
I made it clear that from that day on, the fight would achieve exactly what Britain had always wished, namely the internationalisation of its fight with Zimbabwe, but only in ways not so palatable to Britain and her bankrupt foreign policy. I argued that from that historic day, Britain, America and the pro-sanctions segment of the EU would have to confront Sadc as a block, itself quite an escalation in the situation.
The fight would become sub-regional, indeed would pit a sub-region against its historical adversary. I suppose many thought Manheru was politicking.
I know that those who mistakenly thought so are beginning to wake up to this hard-hitting fact. But grant it to the British. Correctly, they panicked, and used their man in Gaberone to express this panic. Much later, they also used their Ghanaian-turned Briton, one Boateng who is their man in South Africa, to express the same disquiet.
This shameful man from the womb of so respectable a people, did not mind being foolish on behalf of the Empire.
The Zim migrant peril
As already indicated in previous installments, from that month of March, the British were peddling frantically, hoping a big TB (Tony Blair) bang would visit and demolish Mugabe before a change of guard at No. 10, indeed before the next Sadc Summit.
They enlisted the support of the Americans, an assignment made easier by America’s man here – Dell – so gifted with a long mouth, so backed by a stub of intellect. The whole hype on illegal immigrants was meant to use the people-to-people magnitude as a subtle instrument for British foreign policy goals.
Repeated claims of a Zimbabwean migrant peril, edified by a Parliamentary Committee, the white opposition Democratic Alliance and much else, would have not only nudged Mbeki out of the "slumber" of "quiet diplomacy"; it would have generated violent xenophobia which would have forced the South African government to act. Or better still, create refugee camps, in which case the Sadc Summit would have had no choice but to deal with a supposedly ever snowballing Zimbabwe situation. The connection with the price madness which should have provided the trigger both at home and abroad, is too obvious to be missed.
Re-editing Dar
Meanwhile the West’s captive media, especially their beachhead in South Africa, kept harping on the dim prospects of the political dialogue the Dar Summit had assigned President Mbeki to mind. Regardless of the progress on the ground, everything had to read dim, very dim, to warrant a hard-ball which Sadc was supposed to play against Zimbabwe.
It is this hard-ball scenario which the daft Muleya writing on the eve of the Summit harped wild, to look very foolish a little later. Under such a scenario, Sadc did not have to do much: It only needed to acknowledge that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, a crisis solely caused by its "mis-governors". That would have re-edited Dar. That would have also provided a pretext for intervention at a higher level, including the UN, itself the dignified plate Britain badly needs to legitimise an armed pursuit and enforcement of its interests in Zimbabwe. Needless to say all this crumbled and nothing dramatic happened, both inside and outside Zimbabwe.
Pawning aid pound for politics
Faced with a consuming implosion of the supposedly delivering scenario, the British and Americans grew even more desperate, and therefore more open and unguarded in their political subterfuges.
They have been lobbying some governments within Sadc, hoping to turn their aid pound into a pawn for foreign policy support. They won two or three states, and staked it all on these leaders’ readiness to tackle Zimbabwe and its President.
Beyond an embarrassing blip and blunder, nothing much happened. The British did much more. They generously mobilised their puppet NGOs here, all under the rubric of the so-called "social forum", to generate a din that would drown and hopefully move heads at the Summit.
There was an attempt to bus "demos" from Zimbabwe, and from two other neighbouring countries, so these would mount demonstrations in Lusaka. Imperialism had mobilised its askaris, many of them literate but not conscious enough to be anything nationally helpful.
These schooled lumpens, many affiliated to the NCA and external chapters of Crisis, never made it to the venue, leaving their hapless linkman already in Lusaka, quite angry and frustrated. Of course the limping MDC was deployed by both the British and Americans, led by Khupe, to perform so dismally that one within their ranks – Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshure, sorry, -weshuro - ended up breaking ranks. He traded his tattered MDC cap for a more dignified one as an academic on regional integration.
Simply put, Khupe was an unremitting disaster on Zambia’s FM stations, ungainly confirming that her party brought sanctions on Zimbabwe. It was not a helpful message to a politically mature society that Zambia is.
From carnival to the carnal
The NGO rubble which had flown ahead, was characteristically in sixes and sevens, redirecting its frustrated political ardour into open and unmitigated debauchery: A sure sign that the billed Lusaka opposition carnival had degenerated to bare carnality.
As always, their pockets are always sound for such base pursuits. They lived in mortal fear of a security crackdown that none in Lusaka had heart or reason for. Clear juvenile politics, much of it quixotic to win girlish hearts.
Changing tack
In the world of high politics, the British deployed their most hardened propagandists, including the usually suave Tony Hawkins. A "Zimbabwe-unmasked" media psyche had to be evoked. Not quite new; not quite news.
The real news was a piece in the British Guardian by one Simon Tisdall, titled "Mbeki’s backing for Mugabe may make west change tack". The article vicariously expressed British consternation at Mbeki’s liberation rhetoric on Zimbabwe, particularly his identifying Britain as "a principal protagonist in the Zimbabwean issue.
The writer then brings in the American angle by way of a right wing James Kirchick of the New Republican magazine who attacks Mbeki for playing "heir" to "anti-imperialist intellectual tradition heroically opposed to the western democracies".
The gist of the article is to warn that the just-ended Sadc Summit could deepen the West’s misgivings about a radical South Africa’s role in safeguarding "wider US and western interests", presumably in Southern Africa, forcing a disenchanted West to adopt a military strategy against Harare. "A detachment of US marines could do the job on its lunch break", adds Boston Globe columnist, Jeff Jacoby, seemingly well beyond any learning from the shock and awe America is getting from post-Saddam Iraq.
At another level, Michael Evans and Fred Bridgland (remember apartheid South Africa in Angola?) were busy recycling the British military evacuation plan story for 22 000 Britons who are said to be in Zimbabwe. It is a weary story, but one indexical to British propaganda designs.
Paradox of impoverishing growth
Lusaka has consolidated Dar es Salaam. Lusaka has thoroughly upset the British and Americans, forcing both into a Southern African foreign policy posture sure to upset and alienate Southern Africa, in the process reinforcing the already strong pro-Zimbabwe sentiment which is showing no sign of abating.
And if any had any doubts, the wild cheers that President Mugabe drew in Zambia, rammed the message home, much to their utter disbelief and disappointment. It is clear the Mugabe sentiment is strong as ever, making him intractable. And of course these envoys think Mugabe is a talisman. He does not need to be. The material circumstances for deep resonance to Mugabe’s politics are both abundant and ubiquitous in Southern Africa.
After all, is it not a fact that the principal paradox of Southern Africa lies in a regional economy which makes its people poorer and poorer each time it registers bigger and bigger growth?
What politics does the West expect in a mining economy which attracts well over US$3bn in new investments but rewarding its citizens a mere 0.006% by way of royalties? In such a despicable environment, would a Mugabe who preaches indigenisation in the mining sector, be a reviled loner, a leper? When back is futuristic And that is the essence of Mugabe-ism in regional politics: politics validated by deepening poverty. Increasingly, the West is waking up to the fact that the politics they blamed for dragging Zimbabwe back to the stone age, are in fact a compelling peep into the future politics of Southern Africa.
In the so-called Zimbabwe crisis is read the future politics of a new Southern Africa in which the West has no place. Which is what makes the Guardian reporter dead right; which is what makes British and American wiles here quite deadly.
Cheering Lisbon
But one more point. Sadc has re-stoked the African sentiment ahead of Portugal, itself the setting for the EU-Africa Summit. And it’s not accidental that the western envoys who expressed shock at Mugabe’s popularity are from Lisbon. They know what they will be up against should they ever buckle to British fears of the potential hazard of a Brown accidental hand-shake with the "coarse" Mugabe in a dimly lit Lisbon corner.
And Lusaka is the tonic which shall get Lisbon to get EU to come to terms with their illegal sanctions against Harare, in the process heading the call of Dar. Something in me tells me we are close - very close – to a resolution. Something gotta give in, and looking at the sinewy muscles that prop the Great Zimbabwe, I have not the slightest doubt what shall!
Gobbling Zanu (PF)’s reformersIs anyone getting what is reaching my ears? Strange reconfiguration of national politics is taking place, seemingly without a din. I hear Tsvangirai – which means the British – is extracting his pound of flesh. Apart from tackling Mutambara - which is not quite the same thing as tackling Welshman Ncube and his trenchantly loyal urban Ndebele vote – Tsvangirai has turned on the so-called Zanu (PF) reformers he has been courting for a broad and miscegenated anti-Mugabe front.
The so-called Zanu (PF) reformers were supposed to cause a rapture from within – relying both on political dissidence and a military putsch. The former would have enabled a palace coup; the later a real one. The former would have delivered Zanu (PF) structures to a re-made MDC; the latter would have pacified and cowed a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Neither happened and Tsvangirai, speaking the frustration of the British and the always skeptical Americans, is now accusing these reformers of having neither the nerve nor the mob to make change happen.
He is charging they wield no power enough to influence both the military and the structures of Zanu (PF). If anything, he further charges, they are actually struggling to retain influence in their little constituencies, let alone wielding the muscle to decisively project their influence at national level.
Then, the bombshell. Tsvangirai is telling them that if they want anything to do with his faction, they must join it as humble individuals who hold nothing for the table. This side of intrigue which Mukonoweshuro was leading, is set to founder, and with it, his own political career. Biti should be happy, very happy I tell you! Now, Tsvangirai is expecting big egos to swallow humble pie. Ane chokwadi? Great perturbations. Watch this column. Icho!
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Tsvangirai a hopeless leader – Mutambara
Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007
By Bulawayo Bureau
The Herald
August 08, 2007
PROFESSOR Arthur Mutambara, who heads a faction of the opposition MDC, yesterday poured scorn on the leadership qualities of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, saying Zimbabwe does not deserve "another Chiluba".
Speaking in a television interview on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Hardtalk programme, Prof Mutambara dismissed Mr Tsvangirai as a hopeless leader, remarking that even though he may be viewed by some as "brave", the truth is that he certainly lacks the "strategic vision" to transform Zimbabwe into a globally competitive economy.
Likening Mr Tsvangirai to Mr Frederick Chiluba – a former bus conductor and trade unionist who toppled President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia in the 1991 elections but was later tainted by accusations of corruption and economic mismanagement – Prof Mutambara said "bravery is not enough ... you need an economic vision".
"You may be brave, have guts, but what is needed is to have a vision ... strategy and tactics," he said.
Prof Mutambara had been riled by insinuations by the BBC interviewer, Alan Little, that he was a coward compared to Mr Tsvangirai, who was charged with treason in 2002 and was on March 11 this year hurt in a clash with the police in Harare. Mr Tsvangirai had gone to the police station after learning of Prof Mutambara’s arrest.
Political analysts said at that time Mr Tsvangirai feared that Prof Mutambara would "steal the thunder from him" in the eyes of the Western forces supporting the opposition party in the regime-change agenda in Zimbabwe.
He allegedly confronted the police, resulting in an incident in which he was injured.
In yesterday’s interview, Prof Mutambara – who recently described his arch-rival Mr Tsvangirai as "an intellectual midget" and "a weak and indecisive leader" – fell short of saying that the Tsvangirai camp is full of hypocrites who accuse Zanu-PF of being undemocratic yet they themselves routinely flout the basic tenets of democracy.
He said opposition leaders must be truly democratic and desist from violence, or else Zimbabwe would end up with "a false revolution" like what he said happened in Zambia.
A fortnight ago, the robotics and mechatronics professor launched a scathing attack on Mr Tsvangirai, a former mine
worker and trade unionist, caricaturing him as a leader who lacks a vision and is "pursuing a perverted agenda".
This was after the Tsvangirai-led group had spurned a unity offer by refusing to adopt a so-called coalition agreement that would see the two groups fielding the perennial election loser, Mr Tsvangirai, as their sole candidate in next year’s presidential race.
Last week, Mr Tsvangirai did not take Prof Mutambara’s salvo lying down but returned fire by warning that he was "not the enemy".
During yesterday’s interview, Prof Mutambara unsuccessfully tried to duck questions on the attacks that have been levelled by his camp on Mr Tsvangirai.
When cornered, he was left with no choice but to lash out at Mr Tsvangirai.
Clearly at pains to convey his anguish to his British and United States audiences following the collapse of the so-called unity talks between the two MDC factions, Prof Mutambara repeatedly complained that although his camp was ready to adopt a "coalition agreement" on a "single-candidate principle" for the March 2008 joint presidential and parliamentary elections, the Tsvangirai camp had since refused to embrace the initiative.
The agreement, he explained, was scuttled by Mr Tsvangirai at the 11th hour.
He blasted the Tsvangirai camp for failing to appreciate the importance of mobilising a united opposition to Zanu-PF, but quickly added that his faction was ready to go it alone by fielding its own candidates at the forthcoming polls.
Prof Mutambara told his BBC interviewer that it was wrong for people to consider him a newcomer to opposition politics.
He was in opposition politics long before Mr Tsvangirai even considered venturing into politics, he said.
He argued that, in fact, when he was arrested by police as a student leader at the University of Zimbabwe in the late 1980s, his recollection of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai was his (Mr Tsvangirai’s) condemnation of the detention. This clearly showed that he has been in the "struggle against Zanu-PF" for a longer time than Mr Tsvangirai, he added.
The interviewer asked Prof Mutambara whether it was true that he was a Shona figurehead at the helm of what is essentially a Ndebele faction.
Hard-pressed to strike a chord with sections of the Matabeleland population, where a desperate scramble for votes between the MDC factions is anticipated in the countdown to March 2008, Prof Mutambara criticised Mr Tsvangirai for recently announcing during an overseas visit that his camp was willing to consider a blanket pardon for alleged human rights violations.
"No blanket amnesty. No. We want restorative justice. What about the victims?" said Prof Mutambara, in remarks apparently directed at Mr Tsvangirai, who has touted the "amnesty" line.
When asked about his election plan, Prof Mutambara said his faction has a twin-pronged strategy anchored on civil disobedience and the ongoing Sadc-brokered dialogue between Zanu-PF and the MDC factions.
"We want free and fair elections," he added.
This is the second time within two weeks that Prof Mutambara has attacked the leadership qualities of Mr Tsvangirai following the break-up of the unity talks between the two factions.
BBC: Arthur Mutambara
Allan Little talks to Arthur Mutambara, the leader of one faction of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Why are the opposition fighting each other?
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Africa must fight alongside Zimbabwe
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007
By Reason Wafawarova
July 26, 2007
ON September 3, 1986, a 36-year-old revolutionary by the name Thomas Sankara, representative and head of state for the West African state of Burkina Faso, spoke at the 8th Summit Conference of the then vibrant Non-Aligned Movement held in Harare, Zimbabwe. His speech was titled "Ours Is a Seething Anti-Apartheid, Anti-Zionist Dream."
This writer was a mere 19-year-old then, busy preparing for Cambridge O-Level examinations at Zimuto Secondary School in rural Masvingo.
Yes, O-Level at 19, thanks to Ian Douglas Smith who, because of pressure from the escalating war for independence, had ordered the closure of our rural schools in 1976, effectively dumping some of us out of school for a long two years.
The speech by Sankara did not escape the attention of this writer then and today it has reignited precious memories and influenced this article. Sankara's speech was so inspirational then that when Samora Machel was killed by imperialist forces on October 19, just over a month after Sankara delivered his great speech, this writer and 15 other students, abandoned a Cambridge Ordinary Level Shona paper due to be written at 8:30am on October 20, 1986, and embarked on an emotionally charged 20km walk from the mission school into the town centre of Masvingo.
No amount of persuasion from friends and school authorities could dissuade us from the march and we were in such an uncompromising mood that we stopped every motorist we came across and demanded that they unequivocally denounce Pieter Botha, apartheid, imperialism and racism.
The night of October 20, 1986, was to be the first time this writer ever appeared on television and I remember telling one Norman Tirivavi of ZBC that we cared nothing about the Shona paper and subsequent papers because all we wanted was to be given guns and allowed to walk to South Africa and teach Botha the lesson of his life.
We were actually gathered at Zimuto Camp, an army barracks complex and many adults who had come to see what was going on just wept like we were all doing with rage.
Of course, no one granted our teenage plight, choosing rather to persuade us to go back to school in a military truck and making sure that we sat for our paper in a special room at 8:00pm.
This writer got an "A" grade in that Shona paper after writing with tears of bitterness over the death of that gallant son of Africa — Samora Machel — and today he revisits the inspirational memories from Thomas Sankara's speech.
The context in which Sankara delivered his speech was the Cold War era scenario, a situation that made the Non-Aligned Movement so significant to the awakening that brought a refusal by the weaker developing states to be the grass that fighting elephants trample with impunity. Sankara was speaking about a force the imperialist forces were obliged to respect and to take into account, a force meant to recover the dignity of the oppressed.
It was a context reminiscent of what we just saw in Accra, Ghana at the beginning of this month. Two prominent speakers at the 1986, Harare NAM summit were there at the 2007 African Union summit in Accra, Ghana namely Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya and Cde Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
In 1986, young Sankara cried out saying, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, wake up, the Non-Aligned Movement is dying. Help us.
"Namibia is still occupied, the Palestinian people are still searching for a home, and we are still being traumatised by foreign debt."
Today, Namibia is 17 years old and Palestinians are still looking for a home and the Non-Aligned Movement is all but dead. Fifty-three African countries gather in Accra, Ghana and alas, it's still a seething anti-imperialist dream. The Soviet Union is 18 years down under, the US is pushing forward with its selfish and brutal imperial agenda with unmitigated impunity.
If Sankara had not been killed in that brutal imperialist sponsored anti-revolutionary assassination on that fateful October 15, 1987, maybe he would have been part of the 2007 Accra AU Summit. If this had been the case, the firebrand Burkinabe would have no doubt lamented more the departed of our African heroes.
This writer can hear his voice crying out, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Joshua Nkomo, wake up, the African Union, born out of your Organisation of African Unity is dying! Help us. Zimbabwe is under imperial siege.
The imperialistic forces isolate Mugabe! They want an Africa without him at their summit in Portugal. They have put his economy under brutal siege.
They are trying to force independent South Africa to join them as a pawn in their shameless attack on the people of Zimbabwe.
The seething dream against imperialism is to see a day when the forces of oppression, manipulation and imperial military supremacy all brought down.
The justice in the philosophy that right is might — replaces a day when the philosophy that might is right — is the driving force behind the suffering of Iraqis and Afghans.
This is the dream in the camp of the silent majority of this planet who have watched the vocal minority from the North plundering the God given resources of this planet with reckless greed.
This is the dream for which Hugo Chavez is termed "a reckless populist", it is the dream for which Fidel Castro is labelled "an intolerant authoritarian", the dream for which Mammoud Ahmadinejad is dubbed "an overly confident dissident Arab leader", it is the dream for which Robert Mugabe is labelled an "African dictator" and it is the dream for which Lumumba, Machel and Sankara himself were killed.
In Accra, someone is reported to have endlessly played Bob Marley's Redemption song, especially the lyrics "How long shall they kill our prophets; while we stand aside and look?" It's a good question given the attitude of some in the African Union as well as some in our African community.
Many regard Cde Mugabe as a hero just as much as onlookers who dine and wine with the enemy.
What is the point in expressing solidarity with a fellow comrade through the megaphone and from the galleries while one's hands are folded in the comfort of crumbs provided by the very enemy one cheers his brother to stand up to?
Sankara expressed similar concerns about the attitude of the same African leaders during the apartheid era in South Africa.
He questioned, "Will we continue to whip up our brothers in South Africa with our fiery speeches and deceive them as to our determination, thus rashly throwing up against the racist hordes, knowing very well that we have done nothing to create a relationship of forces favourable to blacks?"
He further questioned: "Is it not criminal to exacerbate struggles in which we do not participate?"
Africa adores the Zimbabwean struggle for land rights but hands are largely folded when it comes to participation.
They love every bit of Cde Mugabe's pan-Africanist principles but they would rather have the struggle for those noble principles exacerbated without the remotest of participation.
Just imagine if the Americans merely lauded the Israeli unjustifiable onslaughts on Lebanon and Palestine without active participation through arming the Israelites.
If they did that today, Palestine would be back to its rightful owners and Lebanon would not have been bombed last year.
Africa must take a pragmatic resolve to win its struggles; a resolve beyond conference rage; a resolve beyond merely shunning the imperialistic enemy by diplomatic means.
As Ngugi wa Thiongo would put it, men should talk and act like people "with something between their legs".
It is commendable that both Sadc and the AU have refused to be the pawns of Western imperialistic forces but that refusal should be backed by tangible action in fighting alongside Zimbabwe as opposed to cheering Cde Mugabe from the touchline.
During, the Apartheid era, many delivered fiery speeches against the racist regime in South Africa, but the onslaught and backlash was on the Frontline States, especially Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
We prolonged the Swapo war for independence in Namibia by endlessly cheering Sam Njuoma from the sidelines while giving calculated and cautious support.
Zimbabwe came through 15 slow years of a war of attrition while we left most of the support work to come from Russia and China, although countries like Mozambique did put up a good fight.
When Zimbabwe went to help end the nonsense the US sponsored Jonasi Savimbi was wrecking in Angola, some western oriented intellectuals among us reminded us about the cost of war and the importance of maintaining "cordial relations".
Similar warnings were given when Zimbabwe went to put an end to the madness Alfonso Dhlakama was unleashing in Mozambique and today many are falling over each other writing articles that remind us that the economic problems of Zimbabwe are a direct result of the country's participation in stopping the US sponsored Jean Pierre Bemba of DRC from capturing Kinshasa in a regional war that pitted six African countries.
Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia were the anti-imperialist forces repelling Bemba who enjoyed unfortunate support from Uganda and Rwanda.
These pieces of history do make bad reading. Africa should stop displaying individual docility through its member states.
We must stop this habit of negotiating with our exploiters by betraying our brothers, secretly hoping that in this way we will be awarded some bonuses. Such bonuses are the wages of indignity, of shame and of betrayal.
These are futile sacrifices offered at the altar of political expediency, greed and quick-fix solutions.
These are the futile sacrifices characterising the Zimbabwean opposition; an opposition made up of political upstarts who believe more in sympathy than victory.
They wine and dine with the very enemy of Africa; all for the fuzzy feeling derived from sweet media coverage from the bases of their imperial masters.
They even have the audacity, temerity and face to disown the AU and Sadc in line with the thinking of their masters who like master, like puppet, somehow believe that their imperialistic club makes up the international community.
The dream against imperialism is collective resistance.
The Empire fronting the imperialist agenda knows pretty well that there is no victory against collective resistance and that is why they keep attacking threatening power centres like Venezuela in Latin America, Cuba in the Caribbean, Zimbabwe in Africa, Iran and Syria in the Middle East and Russia in Eastern Europe.
They know as much as all of us do that, a successful socialist project in Venezuela will dismantle their capitalist hold in Latin America, a successful land reform programme in Zimbabwe will lead a revolution in Sub Saharan Africa, a prosperous Iran in the Middle East will tame the bandit-like Israelites, an uncontrolled North Korea will strengthen the Chinese influence and an undefeated Cuba is bad news to the myth of imperial authority.
Is it not a shame that today the developing world stands divided by aid, which in all cases is at most 10 percent of the total wealth looted by the imperialistic machinery?
We even stand divided by the sweet rhetoric of freedom and democracy, the American type of exported democracy, delivered as a shiny package of limitless liberties and individual self-rule.
We all aspire for this freedom to do as each pleases and we even plead for arms to fight each other in the name of this fictitious kind of freedom which does not exist even in heartland America.
This is the folly of deception and I am surprised that the vision of Sankara is dying; the vision of Machel is now ridiculed.
The treachery of Tshombe, Muzorewa and Mangusuthu Buthelezi is what some of us now believe in. The treachery rooted in the politics of silver.
Like Sankara and Machel; is it not more noble that we die fighting on our feet instead of dying with stomachs full of the crumbs from the ill-gotten fruit of the tree of repression and exploitation? This writer rests his case.
Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean writer leaving in Sydney, Australia and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.zw
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Zimbabwe: Death penalty not the solution
Posted: Saturday, July 14, 2007
The Herald
Opinion & Analysis
Zimbabwe has been very reluctant since independence to use the death penalty, and the majority of those sentenced to death have had their sentences commuted to life in prison, with the apparent proviso that this does mean the rest of their lives behind bars.
There is a growing group who feel the time has come to formally abolish the death penalty, and this week the supporters of abolition received support from a very influential quarter — the Council of Chiefs.
The chiefs in favour of abolition used traditional arguments, as is their function, but these arguments are frequently reflected in the views of modern proponents of abolition.
Both traditional and modern proponents of the abolition of the death penalty argue that those who kill, even when this is permitted by law, are tainted by the same horror they are trying to deter, that of killing another human.
By hanging those who wilfully take the life of another in order to remove an obstacle, society accepts the argument that killing can indeed solve a problem.
We lower ourselves to the same level as those we hang.
Of course, there are crimes that are so terrible that the perpetrators have removed themselves totally, and forever, from the society of their fellows.
Wilful murder is one such crime and, in certain circumstances, so is treason.
Zimbabwean law acknowledges this by making these two crimes, along with mutiny, the only possible capital crimes. The Zanu-PF Government removed all other crimes from the old colonial list that attracted a death penalty.
The system of safeguards to ensure that murder was indeed the crime committed was also strengthened after independence.
Not only is it impossible to plead guilty to a capital crime, ensuring that the prosecution must prove its case, but appeal is automatic.
Where death sentences are passed and confirmed, judges have to submit detailed reports to the Cabinet and the final decision to execute the sentence or commute the sentence is one for the Cabinet as a whole, not just one person as is common in the rest of the world.
Zimbabwe has probably reached the stage now where the only argument in favour of retaining hanging is that of deterrence. There is a feeling that abolishing the death sentence might encourage those committing robbery or other serious crimes to kill possible witnesses.
But experience in other jurisdictions suggests that so long as non-murderers receive fixed sentences and killers get "life without parole" there is a sufficient gap to deter killing.
What is also important — and Zimbabwe follows this rule — is that the chance of arrest and conviction for a murderer must be high. There are very few unsolved murders in Zimbabwe.
The police pour vast amounts of man-hours by talented detectives into solving murder cases.
That near certainty of arrest, followed by a life sentence, is likely to retain the deterrent. After all, a killer will know he will die in jail.
Whether this is next year on the gallows or in decades to come after a miserable life behind bars is not that important.
What is critical is that we, as individuals and as a society, will relinquish the right to decide who lives and who dies.
We will preserve life and let God dispose. We will rise above the morality of those who believe that killing can solve anything.
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Zimbabwe: MDC must be responsible
Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Reason Wafawarova
July 12, 2007
IT is unbelievable, indeed shameful that at a time we should all be ganging up against imperialist forces bent on destroying our nationhood, there are some among us who are not only doing nothing but shamelessly availing themselves at the disposal of the brutal forces working against us.
It is mind boggling to imagine that those in the MDC have chosen to showcase their usual double-minded approach to everything by trying to undermine the Sadc initiative, being spearheaded by South Africa.
That feuding MDC leaders have teamed up with the self-anointed representative of the church, a self-styled activist running an organisation claiming to have the mandate to write a national constitution and an overzealous student under the illusion he is the custodian of all students, testifies to this.
That this is happening at a time talks meant to help Zimbabwe pull in the same direction only goes to show that the so-called democratic forces are nothing more than destructive forces that every well-meaning Zimbabwean should be wary of.
It is amazing that MDC leaders and their allies in the so-called civil society have the temerity to brag about their shameful trip meant during which they sought to outdo each in selling-out.
In reality, the European tour by the feuding opposition forces was a mere competition for recognition by the members of the delegation; a competition meant to get gullible westerners to loosen the purse strings.
The Save Zimbabwe Campaign team was made up of renegades who need to be educated on the basics of serving Zimbabwe before they can even think of saving it. The important question begging a speedy answer is how MDC leaders and their allies intend to save Zimbabwe by teaming up with the same people working to bring the country to its knees?
They may be pleasing themselves, their masters and their supporters but they should rest assured that they are not doing their 2008 campaign any good as their tour was viewed as the epitome of treachery by discerning Zimbabweans.
MDC leaders were also insulting Sadc as their Western campaign was a direct slap in the face of those working at finding common ground between the main political players in Zimbabwe.
The same goes for the African Union that recently reiterated its support for Zimbabwe in Accra.
MDC leaders are also slighting the United Nations by undermining the world body’s position that Zimbabwe is not an acceptable candidate for sanctions.
However, they are doing the hawks in the European Union a world of good by proving to be good, faithful stooges.
Those who have played similar roles in the Middle East, some parts of Africa, South America and even Asia have traditionally operated as exiled politicians, carrying out their treacherous missions from the bases of their masters. The situation is, however, quite different for the MDC in that it operates from the same Zimbabwe it is working to destroy, and in the process confirm the country’s democratic credentials.
Of course, none of the quislings will ever admit that Zimbabwe is a democracy that tolerates divergent views, which is why they can pursue their ruinous mischief at will.
Zimbabweans have the freedom to form political parties of their choice, even treacherous ones. MDC leaders are free to openly deride the living and fallen heroes of our liberation struggle at will, hiding their mischief under the cover of freedom of expression.
MDC leaders have no qualms vilifying the same system that makes it possible for them to exist as a political party, even though their activities would have invited a ban in less democracies.
Tsvangirai and Mutambara flying in and out of Zimbabwe, because they have freedom of movement and association, they back rabid online websites that tell the world everything but the truth, all in the name of Press freedom.
They associate with all sorts of subversive characters, because they enjoy freedom of association. They are blissfully unaware that their Western masters outlawed Communist Parties in their countries, simply because they were identified with the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In fact, the MDC and its allies enjoy so much freedom and rights that they are now convinced that it is their "democratic" right to unconstitutionally unseat an elected government. They believe that to the extent of publicly declaring a "defiance campaign" and a war against the police. They are even more than convinced that a speech that threatens the violent removal of a sitting President is well within their "democratic" rights.
MDC leaders will tell their supporters that urban orgies of violence disguised as mass actions are a "democratic" attempts to unseat a Government in a country where the majority of people, over 70 percent, live in the rural areas.
They are convinced that putting screws on one’s own economy by way of campaigning for isolation is well within "democratic" rights.
It is high time the MDC and like-minded organisations and individuals are reminded that yes, they do have a lot of legitimate rights under the international human rights regime but those rights will only yield benefits if one takes up the responsibility that goes with the enjoyment of such rights.
Irresponsible people should not expect to benefit from the rights at their disposal. It is the simple rule of sowing; you can’t sow a mango seed and expect to see a guava tree germinating.
The MDC needs to be reminded that the right to gather or assemble comes with a lot of responsibility and most certainly, planning violent protests and inciting people to revolt against the Government is not responsibility. MDC leaders need to know that they have every right to hop in and out of Zimbabwe at will but that their forays also demand responsibility.
Again, flying out to campaign for sanctions and increased suffering for one's own people is being responsible, it is simply unacceptable and Zimbabwe has had enough of such shameless betrayal.
The right to free expression is at everyone’s disposal but it comes with responsibility. Certainly, lies, exaggerations, foul language and running "houses of lies" in the name of media houses is not part of the expected responsibility.
Fighting police officers in an attempt to effect illegal regime change cannot pass for the responsibility expected under freedom of expression, assembly or protest.
The current double standards being shown by MDC leaders that see them pretend to be willing participants in inter-party talks on one hand, while embarking on an anti-Zimbabwe campaigns in Europe on the other is just what we have all along seen of this quisling party.
MDC leaders hail election results that go in their favour as free and fair, and reject all outcomes that go against them as fraudulent. They purport to love the very people for whom they create massive suffering by grovelling for ruinous Western sanctions.
They take part in parliamentary elections and conveniently boycott elections where they see pending defeat and claim to be doing so out of commitment to democratic principles.
They say the land reform programme is failing because it is not well supported with machinery and inputs and loudly cry in protest when the inputs and machinery are delivered.
They cry that the economy is bad but stand up to protest every effort to turn around the same economy. To them, the only legitimate economic growth that Zimbabwe can ever have must be under an MDC government.
MDC leaders must assure Zimbabweans where they are going to get interest for Zimbabwe’s national interest if ever they are elected to power. Right now, they do not only lack appreciation for the national interest, they actually stand as prime enemies to the national interest in all its forms, that is the economic interest, the ideological interest and the cultural interest.
What drives their hearts, souls and spirits are western interests, all because of the motivation they derive from the power of treacherous silver in the form of foreign donations.
Agreed, this is a one-sided analysis of part of the political process in Zimbabwe and that is deliberate and for a purpose. That purpose is to tell the MDC that Zimbabwe is getting sick and tired of bei ng taken for a ride in circles of treacherous madness.
People may want change, indeed they do, but not the MDC kind of change geared at destroying the economy in the hope of rebuilding it under an opposition dispensation. Zimbabweans want economic development and ownership of their economy in all its forms.
If Zimbabwe is to have a change of government then the alternative government must be made up of well-meaning and loyal citizens who have the national interest at heart; not the hopeless donor mongers who are masquerading as opposition politicians today.
It is a tragedy to have an opposition party that takes part in elections as a civilised political party that then turns itself into a rebel movement seeking to topple the sitting government between elections. That is what we have seen of the MDC since 2000 and one wonders what would happen if Zanu-PF was organising counter-violent marches to overthrow local governments in places like Bulawayo, Masvingo and other urban areas under MDC control.
It is high time the MDC started acting in good faith and Zimbabwe hopes for a better opposition sooner than later.
Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean writer living in Australia; he can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk.
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African Union failed the crucial test
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
By Caesar Zvayi
The Herald
July 12, 2007
No one denies that it is only through a Union government and unity of purpose that Africa can claim its rightful stake in the world.
Barring unity, Africa would continue suffering the depredations of Western nations bent on exploiting its vast resources for self-enrichment.
But so vast are the challenges Africa has to overcome that a really radical approach is needed if the dream of a United States of Africa is to be realised, which means there is no room for placating the West in this revolutionary undertaking.
Radicalism, however, does not mean haste, which is where Libyan President, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, appears to have got it wrong. Col Gaddafi wanted a Union government elected at the African Union Summit in Accra, and did not make it a secret whom he believed should lead it.
A few examples of the hurdles to be overcome will suffice here; all of which are linked to the colonial legacy of divide-and-rule politics.
The biggest obstacle of all is, of course, crunching poverty. That and differential development are major stumbling blocks to the proposed Union government, which would demand, among other things, a vibrant unified economy with economic parity. This does not exist on a continent that largely plays host to economies dominated by multinational corporations and foreign investors.
Even where the impressive economic indicators exist, they do so on paper only as the profits are repatriated to the metropole. In fact, most African countries, with the notable exception of South Africa, rely on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for alms, two organisations that are used by the United States and the European Union to entrench their interests in the developing world.
This dependence is also manifest in the AU institutions, some of which are African in name only; this is why it is vital that all institutions are truly African before they can be trusted with propping up the envisaged Union government.
It is also unforgivable that in this day and age, if one wants to go to the so-called Francophone West Africa, from, let's say, largely Anglophone Southern Africa, one is forced to pass through that region's former metropolis, France, unless the flight is charter. Likewise, if one wants to travel from Francophone West Africa to Anglophone East Africa, one has to go via London.
In short, there are no direct flights between most African countries, yet there are direct flights from nearly every African country to the capitals of the countries' former colonisers.
What this means is that the transport links existing in much of Africa today were not developed to promote intra-continental communication, but to make it easy for settlers to siphon the continent's resources to their home countries since most of them lead either to the coast or directly to Europe.
In fact, to this day, some poor countries route their international calls through former colonial capitals.
Similarly, if one wants to know about, say Malawi, one has to rely on Associated Press, CNN, BBC, AFP, and many other Western news agencies that never really mediate accurately, but always package their news in the service of Western interests.
While Africa saw the dangers of this and sought to address the problem through the Pan-African News Agency, perennial dependency saw Westerners compromise the agency with their ruinous conditional funds. To this day, PANA has failed to live up to expectations, which is why Africa continues relying on Western news agencies. Any wonder then, that at the just-ended AU Summit in Accra, Ghana, Western news agencies were given royal treatment where African media was treated like trash?
The organisers saw it fit to give Western media organisations unfettered access into the Accra International Conference Centre, while African journalists were barred, save for those from the host country, of course.
In fact, the officials in charge of media liaison read out the names of the agencies from a list they had, and did not even have time to hear the protests of the African media personnel present. African journalists had no choice but to picket the Conference Centre to present a strongly worded petition to the General Assembly.
What this simply showed was that the organisers were keen to ensure that the West was kept well-informed of deliberations, while Africans, whose lives were bound to be changed by the decisions reached in Accra, were kept largely in the dark.
Africa must really be wary of such signs that simply confirm that Western approval is still highly valued by some, meaning Western tentacles are still very much alive on the continent.
This brings in the question, for whose interests are some leaders pushing for hasty continental unity, even when it is apparent that as currently constituted, some of the AU institutions supposed to prop up the Union government are African in name only, with many others existing only on paper?
This writer will not mention names here, but neither will he draw punches. Some African leaders known to be darlings of the West even threatened to go it alone in a Union government if those counselling a bottom-up approach remained adamant.
Again, no names here, others questioned the similarity between the Africa itinerary of former British prime minister Tony Blair's last tour, and the countries that a certain African leader visited as part of his grand campaign for a Union government.
Again there is no finger pointing at anyone, but eyebrows were also raised as to why a certain African government appears to have bought all copies of New African's May edition that had a splash on Zimbabwe.
The jury is still out on whether the government in question bought the copies because of an unflattering article therein that questioned its cosy relationship with the West, or whether it had to do with an attempt to obliterate the truth about the situation in Zimbabwe?
Whichever reason one wants to believe, in Accra, the AU failed one major test that would have confirmed it was man enough to face the Western bullies on equal footing.
Granted, the Assembly made it unequivocally clear that Zimbabwe has every right to attend the EU-Africa Summit set for Lisbon, Portugal, in December; but that does not remove the fact that the AU failed where it matters most, that is in condemning the illegal Western siege on Zimbabwe.
What is more, it was actually Portugal, an EU state, that came closest to speaking like an African when it said the dispute between Harare and London was merely bilateral and should not be allowed to scupper engagement between Africa and Europe.
The irony was too deafening to ignore, here were 51 African heads of state and government, convening in Accra to deliberate on forming a Union government, yet those mandated to speak on the continent's behalf had nothing to say over the attempted siege on one of their own.
The satire did not end there. The AU Summit was in Ghana as part of that country's golden jubilee celebrations, and also in recognition of the legacy of Ghana's founding president, Dr Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, a man cut from the same cloth as Cde Robert Mugabe.
In fact, as far as Africa is concerned, the script the West is trying to direct in Zimbabwe was first tried in Ghana against Dr Nkrumah. The mediation the Western media is exercising over Zimbabwe was honed on Dr Nkrumah's Ghana.
The similarities between what is obtaining in Zimbabwe and what obtained in Ghana from 1960 are so striking.
Ordinary Ghanaians, civil society organisations and university students saw it fit to speak boldly in solidarity with Zimbabwe to the extent of organising a resounding welcome for President Mugabe at Kotoka International Airport on June 30, and a day later, July 1, a solidarity rally at Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park where the great African statesman lies today.
In fact, due to his tight schedule, President Mugabe ended up failing to feature at another rally, dubbed "International Solidarity Forum on Zimbabwe", that had been organised by the Pan-African United Front at Osu Presby Hall on July 2. Part of the flyers for that rally boldly declared:
"Africa is under severe attack from the forces of our anti-colonial struggles. Zimbabwe is a symbol of our struggle for sovereignty and ownership of our land and all the resources therein. Zimbabwe's fight is Africa's fight! Touch one! Touch All! African Liberation, no compromise!"
The editor of New African magazine, Baffour Ankomah, in his piece, said, among other things:
"... Now please come with me to my own country Ghana. At least we have no hunches there, sorry, the people have no hunches but some officials in government have. And we shouldn't allow them any longer. I know if Nkrumah can read this where he lies at the Old Polo Ground in Accra, he will turn and turn and turn in his grave.
"To the shame of all discerning Ghanaians, our country, the land of Nkrumah, the torchbearer of African liberation, our beloved Ghana, is fast becoming the ‘weakest link' in the African liberation/solidarity chain. And it is time members of the current government in Accra sat up in front of huge mirrors and had a good look at themselves. We have had seven years of ambling along, seemingly oblivious of our high place in Africa ..."
In fact, one Ghanaian student could not have put it any better: "We should not delay the Union government in Africa much longer, for we already have the President, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe."
This writer concurs. If Africa had the courage of its convictions, that is the only man with the stature to lead a Union government.
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Ghanaians proud of Mugabe
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007
The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, won the admiration of Ghanaians when he maintained being the disciple of Ghana's founding father of independence, Kwame Nkrumah. Mr Mugabe said the legendary leader's teachings had bolstered his spirits to liberate Zimbabwe from the British colonial rule in 1980.
President Mugabe and the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi were given tumultuous welcome by Ghanaians while they set foot in the country for the 9th African Union Summit.
Mr Mugabe delivered the speech at the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah - the scene of Dr Nkrumah's famous independence speech in 1960.
The Zimbabwean leader, who has been showered with criticisms home and abroad, especially in the west, took his audience down the memory lane when he flew to Ghana to borrow Dr Nkrumah's wisdom and sea of knowledge on freedom fighting.
Full Article : afrol.com
Ghana's ex President hits out at Foreign Office for 'disrespecting' Robert Mugabe
Colonial days are over, says Rawlings
Jerry Rawlings, the former president of Ghana, condemned the statement said to be written by a Foreign Office official, which said that President Robert Mugabe would suffer a similar fate to Charles Taylor of Liberia, who is currently standing trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Rawlings, who leads Ghana's main opposition party, the National Democratic Party (NDC), said it was "disrespectful" for Britain to make such a statement about President Mugabe. "No British official, be he a politician or Royalty has the right to say those words about a Pan-Africanist like Robert Mugabe" Rawlings said in an exclusive interview with The Lens, a local Ghanaian newspaper.
Whilst acknowledging that the Zimbabwean president might have made some mistakes in governance, Rawlings said Britain should recognise that the days of colonialism are over and as such must relate with former colonies in Africa in the light of what they are - sovereign and independent states.
"Do they think we are back to those primitive eras when the colonialists could arrest and exile leaders of Africa any time they felt like it?" he questioned.
Full Article : blackbritain.co.uk
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Ghana no go area for the MDC
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007
By Caesar Zvayi
The Herald
July 05, 2007
"ARE you attacking me?" "No, Mr Mangoma," the student calmly replied, "You are being attacked by facts."
This was part of an exchange between one Ghanaian University student and the deputy national treasurer general of the MDC Tsvangirai faction, one Elton Mangoma, at an anti-Zimbabwe gathering the MDC had convened on June 28 at Teacher's Hall in Accra, Ghana.
The meeting dubbed, Public Hearing on Zimbabwe, was attended by the following MDC activists and their "opposition" society hangers on:
* Elton Mangoma deputy treasurer general Tsvangirai faction;
* Paurina Mpariwa MDC MP for Mufakose;
* Blessing Chebundo MP for Kwekwe;
* Arnold Tsunga Law Society of Zimbabwe, and Executive Director Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights;
* Wilbert Mandinde Legal officer – MISA Zimbabwe;
* Gift Phiri Reporter with The Zimbabwean;
* Xholani Nsiza Opposition activist;
* Promise Mkwananzi ZINASU president;
* Joseph James Former LSZ president;
* Tinoziva Bere Partner in Mbidzo, Muchadehama & Makoni Legal Practitioners;
* Gabriel Shumba Zimbabwe Exiles Forum;
* Tabitha Khumalo Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition/ ZCTU;
* Collen Chibango Youth activist;
* Hugh Masekela South African saxophonist.
The objective of the meeting, the audience was told, was to come up with a resolution condemning the Government of Zimbabwe for alleged human rights abuses. The resolution was to be presented to heads of state and government at the AU General Assembly three days later to try to pressure them to condemn Zimbabwe for alleged human rights abuses.
The presenters, among them Tsunga, Phiri and Chibango, took turns to narrate "harrowing" stories of their alleged torture and abuse at the hands of the Government, with some literally shedding tears in an attempt to move the crowd. All of them claimed that they were tortured for choosing to differ with the Government, with the lawyers saying they were targeted for representing opposition activists in court cases against the State.
They claimed the President was a dictator, whose excesses had brought untold suffering on the people, that he undermines democracy, and that Zimbabweans were now worse off than they were under colonialism, among other things.
Individual presenters recounted alleged torture, incarceration without trial, and rape while in police custody.
But the MDC underlings were in for a rude shock. They had apparently mistaken Ghana for one of the EU states where Government officials do not give their own side of the story because of travel restrictions designed to give their lies free reign. But in Ghana, the Government had been on the ground acquainting Ghanaians with facts, images and stories the Western media refused to carry.
So the audience the MDC encountered was one that was not only informed, but that knew how its forebears were hoodwinked into deposing one of the most progressive leaders, Africa has ever seen, Ghana's founding President Dr Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah.
The opposition activists were hardly halfway through their rhapsody of imaginary stigmata, when one student asked the organisers of the gathering why the Government of Zimbabwe was not invited to give its side of the story when its embassy was only a few minutes drive away.
What followed, during the question and answer session, stunned the presenters and those who were officiating as they expected supportive questions from the audience. The pointed questions and incisive comments from the audience left the MDC activists flustered and stuttering.
A few examples will suffice here:
* "I have noted with interest, the passion with which you have highlighted the alleged gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe, but I have not seen equal passion on the issue of land, the right of black people to land, which we believe is right?"
* "I worked in Zimbabwe in the 1980s in the Ghanaian foreign service, I know for sure that the British and Americans were supposed to pay for the land to be acquired from the white commercial farmers and they have reneged on this. Unfortunately, we have not seen the NGOs coming into the streets with a passion and make a clarion statement that they think the West was wrong on that."
* "Forty years ago, Kwame Nkrumah was called a dictator and had to go at all costs, now he is a hero for Africa. Are we not witnessing the same thing with President Mugabe?"
* "What kind of a hearing is this where only the opposition is invited to tell their story? We have a Zimbabwean embassy here, why have they not been invited to give the Government side for the intellectual minds to benefit?"
* "I have heard all your stories about the brutality of President Mugabe's regime, but isn't he the man who was incarcerated for the liberation of Zimbabwe, who you say has abandoned all that to face the other way, why?"
Of course, the opposition stalwarts had a few sympathisers within the audience, but they were, however, jeered when they tried to echo the anti-Zimbabwe voices.
Tsunga and his gang were also heckled and asked where they were getting the money to globetrot to demonise their Government when they said Zimbabwe was full of suffering.
So vicious was the response from the floor that Tsunga and his musketeers beat a hasty retreat from the high table, and prematurely ended their meeting without drafting the resolution they had intended to come up with.
The same fate awaited Morgan Tsvangirai's deputy, Thokozani Khupe, Mangoma and others when they visited the University of Ghana, where the students unequivocally told them that Ghana had the benefit of hindsight where Zimbabwe is concerned.
Indeed some of the students were to speak authoritatively in solidarity with the Government of Zimbabwe at a rally held at Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Central Accra, but more on that latter.
There was no respite for Khupe when she took her charade to Ghana television and radio. Unknown to her, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Cde Patrick Chinamasa had been on the same channels before her giving the Government side of the story.
So Khupe mistakenly believed it was going to be smooth sailing, but it was not long before the presenter weighed her allegations against what Cde Chinamasa had said.
Khupe's programmed response was to dismiss Cde Chinamasa's statements as Government propaganda. The presenter then fished out New African's May issue that had harrowing testimonies from people like Welshman Ncube and Trudy Stevenson detailing how violence had become institutionalised in the MDC body politick.
Again Khupe preposterously claimed the Government had bought New African.
The ace up the presenter's sleeve, however, was a DVD that had the opposition confessing to its subversive politics. When the DVD was played, short of disowning Tsvangirai, Khupe had no choice but to pray for the end of the show as irate callers told her to take her quisling politics out of Ghana.
The DVD in question opened with Tsvangirai's infamous September 30 2000 statement in which he chillingly threatened to violently unseat President Mugabe.
That clip was followed by former British prime minister, Tony Blair's, "We work closely with the MDC on the measures we should take in respect of Zimbabwe, although I am afraid, these measures and sanctions, although we have them in place, are of limited effect on the Mugabe regime…"
Blair then gave way to the Nicolle brothers' farm in Banket, where white commercials farmers were captured on CNN falling over each other to sign cheques to the MDC. The clincher there was when one of the Nicolle brothers stood up to tell his colleagues that he was investing in the MDC.
After Banket came the MDC's secretary for education, Fidelis Mhashu boob on BBCs HARDTalk programme, where he told his interviewer that the MDC would return land to white commercial farmers if elected to power.
The rest, as they say is history as angry callers jammed the switchboard to hound Khupe off the set.
After that nasty reception, the opposition delegation disappeared from Ghana days before the heads of state and government arrived. Only poor Khupe was left behind to try and get to the AU Summit. But by time the Summit wound up on Tuesday, Khupe was nowhere in sight, and the MDC officials and their hired activists, who always picket AU Summits were conspicuous by their absence.
One MDC official was heard saying Ghana was full of "Zanoids," whatever that means.
Contrast the MDC's ordeal with the resounding welcome Ghanaians gave President Mugabe and you would tend to agree with Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, that indeed there is hope for Africa.
On arrival at Kotoka International Airport last Saturday, President Mugabe was welcomed by thousands of Ghanaians singing songs in his honour, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with his image and holding placards that urged him to soldier on for Africa, and to keep Nkrumah's dream alive. As his motorcade raced through the streets of Africa, Ghanaians saluted him with his trademark clenched fist salute.
The next day, the President was invited to address thousands of people who had gathered at Kwame Nkrumah Memorial grounds to mark the 15th anniversary of the opening of the mausoleum, built for the great African statesman.
Before the President's arrival, the vociferous gathering was treated to Dr Nkrumah's speeches from the public address system. The speeches were punctuated by Bob Marley's songs, particularly Africa Unite, and Zimbabwe.
Listening to Nkrumah's speeches, one could only tell it was not President Mugabe because of the accent; otherwise the oratorical prowess, message, passion and delivery was just the same.
When President Mugabe took the microphone to pay tribute to his mentor, Nkrumah, the adults gathered went back into time, to July 1 1960, when Nkrumah took the microphone at the same venerated grounds to proclaim Ghana a republic.
And as the crowd dispersed, the young man attending to the PA masterfully primed Bob Marley's voice to wail from the speakers, "how long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?"
The irony was not lost on this writer, a bunch of Zimbabweans had breezed through Europe en route to Ghana to demonise their Government, when exactly the same composition of interest groups from Ghana was busy organising an unprecedented welcome for the President.
Maybe it is true that Morrison Nyathi, the man who sold Nyadzonia, sowed many wild oats around Zimbabwe.
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Germany's plot against Zimbabwe exposed
Posted: Monday, June 25, 2007
The Herald
At least the world can now see for itself the extent of the cowardice, dishonesty and lies that characterise the West's engagement over Zimbabwe.
A few days back, the Germany Embassy in Harare denied visas to two key members of the Zimbabwean delegation that was supposed to attend the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly underway in Wiesbaden, Germany, scuttling Zimbabwe's participation in the process.
It is important to note that Zimbabwe was supposed to feature prominently on the agenda, yet the West did not want Zimbabwe to be present to defend itself against their malicious propaganda.
What is more, they were only too happy to grant a visa to MDC legislator, Nelson Chamisa, whom they expected to grandstand on their behalf.
Head of delegation Senator Forbes Magadu, who was supposed to table a resolution to expose the West's hand in the ongoing political and economic problems in the country, was conveniently denied a visa.
Secretary to the delegation Dr Godfrey Chipare, the principal director (external relations) with the Parliament of Zimbabwe, who was supposed to help Senator Magadu with the paperwork, was also denied a visa.
Of course, Senator Clarissa Vongai Muchengeti of Zanu-PF was granted a visa, but it was evident that the EU wanted to use her as a cover for Chamisa, as they considered her a soft-target since she did not have the responsibility of tabling the resolution.
There you have it; Zimbabwe was supposed to be present but not represented, giving Westerners the opportunity to trash the country at will.
Fortunately, their nefarious agenda was exposed and we hail the Parliament of Zimbabwe for withdrawing the credentials of the entire delegation.
What is shocking about the saga is not Germany's wanton violation of the Cotonou Agreement that guarantees immunities and privileges to state parties conducting ACP-EU business, but the manner in which the Germans shamelessly lie that no applications were lodged with them when they refused to issue the application forms for the two delegates in the first place.
They should tell the world why Chamisa and Cde Muchengeti had visas if no applications had been forwarded.
The scandal is, however, consistent with the West's treatment of Zimbabwe, their strategy is simple — create problems and blame it on the victim.
That is the whole story behind the land reform programme.
White settlers of Western origin created the skewed land ownership with their racist policies.
It was Britain that refused to honour its obligations to fund land reforms in Zimbabwe.
The countries that reneged on the promises they made at the Land Donor Conference of 1998 were from the West.
It was the West again that tried to internationalise a purely bilateral dispute between Harare and London.
It is the West that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, which sanctions are behind the economic problems bedevilling the country today.
It is the West that is sponsoring subversive political activities in Zimbabwe.
It is the West that blames Zimbabwe for everything.
This is why we hope those who are quick to judge, quick to be swayed by Western propaganda learn from this scandal.
The West does not want the real Zimbabwean story to be heard.
They would rather keep feeding the world with lies.
If, as they say, they are right, they should give Zimbabwe the chance to present its side of the story and let an informed world decide who is right and who is wrong.
We have no doubt Zimbabwe will be vindicated.
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