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"ZIMGREATS" REPORTS ON BRUTALITY BY SA POLICE ON ZIM REFUGEES!
As dozens of South African police piled into the tiny room she was sharing with about 30 other Zimbabwean refugees and eight children on Wednesday night, they went first for the men. “They beat them and hit them and pushed them half-naked out of the room. They then turned to the women. First, they harassed, stole and even propositioned them and then ordered them out too. They told the pregnant women to remain behind. I am very happy,” she beamed.
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2007
(13)
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October
(9)
- "Male chauvinism betrays MDC" : Mrs Sekai Holland
- AFRICAN REFUGEES WELCOME IN AUSTRALIA: RACIST MINI...
- MDC behaves "autocratically"???
- Urgent Call for Action to help Zimbabwean Refugees...
- In memory of Learnmore Jongwe!
- ZANU-PF MUST RID ITSELF OF MUGABE!
- MBEKI AND MUGABE ARE BIRDS OF A FEATHER!
- DEAR MR THABO MVUYELWA MBEKI!!!
- Open letter to President Robert Gabriel Mugabe (fr...
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October
(9)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
"Male chauvinism betrays MDC" : Mrs Sekai Holland
FIGHTING BACK: Lucia Matibenga's supporters are hitting back at the MDC leadership
By Sekai Holland
Last updated: 10/30/2007 23:25:42
LINK!!!
WHEN visited Sydney in SAugust this year, Morgan Tsvangirai he made a briefing during which he mentioned that the MDC would adopt a policy of 'Devolution of Power' in the New Zimbabwe.
Knowing how our male leaders work, I asked him where women would be in this scheme, crafted by men with no women present. I demanded reassurance.
I told Tsvangirai that his handicap is his close friends masquerading as advisors who give him bad advice. I quoted the recent dropping of the deputy secretary post, an unconstitutional move.
For MDC women, it has led to the removal of four articulate, solid professional women, who are all graduates. These are Dr Elizabeth Marunda (Policy and Research), Editor Matamisa (Education), Jessica Majome (Legal and Parliamentary Affairs) and Grace Kwinjeh (International Affairs).
They were part of a list of 10 women proposed by Women's Assembly (WA) chair Lucia Matibenga after the March 2006 congress for the NEC, to ensure that MDC met its third quota of women in leadership positions still verbally agreed to by MDC’s top male leaders who reject the SADC, African Union and United Nations 50% women's quota whenever we demand it be honoured. There now remains only two female shadow ministers out of 15 in the new line up. I told Tsvangirai this was unacceptable. Tsvangirai agreed to correct this.
I did not refer to my own sacking as secretary of international affairs in 2003 when I was the first woman casualty of the MDC’s so called ‘Top 6' male chauvinism and dictatorship. I dealt with that painful episode decisively and swiftly when after his announcement, I took the President Tsvangirai and Vice President Gibson Sibanda into the president's office and had my say.
With support from my spouse and a small network, I am still working even after that torture with others by Mugabe's thugs on March 11 to add to pressure on Mugabe by civil society and the MDC members for free and fair elections for a democratic Zimbabwe. For us, the struggle continues till victory!
After Tsvangirai’s reassurances in Sydney, the recent women’s assemly dissolution was unexpected and is a big shock. We read that MDC Youth Assembly (YA) members loyal to Matibenga committed acts of violence against WA delegates in Bulawayo! There are no names provided of the 60 people said to have been injured and taken to Mpilo Hospital. The reason for that is simple, it’s because the YA did not beat up anyone. They performed their duties and did so with respect and excellence.
However, what did happen -- and this information was everywhere a few hours after it happened – is that the night before the congress, Gogo Sanelisiwe Sibanda, popularly known as Gogo Ma Sibanda, had her home stoned as punishment for organising congress delegates according to the MDC constitution, which is how Lucia Matibenga invited the 1500 delegates from all over the country. She followed the MDC constitution.
Ma Sibanda lives at Emakhandeni just near the Hall. Her eyesight is her latest ailment following a long and difficult illness after surgery these past few years. Matibenga had not arrived in Bulawayo when this gruesome act took place against one of the MDC’s strongest founding members. We salute Ma Sibanda for her courage, for her work over the years in organising the MDC in such difficult terrain. Sisonke Gogo MaSibanda! Tiritose Mbuya Sibanda!
Another incident of violence also ignored took place on the day when MDC Tsvangirai faction members of parliament met in Bulawayo. This act is reported to have been committed by the bodyguard of one of the Bulawayo-based NSC members. He hit one of the YA members who sang with others against their own two NSC leaders present for derailing the MDC in Matabeleland by breaking the constitution.
Someone gave Tsvangirai wrong information about what was happening in Bulawayo. He rang the deputy YA chairperson instructing him to address the YA members at Emakhandeni Hall to stop beating people. The YA leader pointed out that he was unaware of a WA congress taking place in Bulawayo. The President had not advised him about such a congress taking place in the first place. YA members were present in force with each delegation from their provinces. As at any party congress, they looked after delegates at Emakhandeni Hall. There was no violence.
Here is what we know from eyewitnesses.
Even Bulawayo-based delegates said that they were not told of the congress venue, agenda or time. By morning stories were about that women were being registered secretly at Selbourne Hotel in the city centre. Once they went inside, their cell phones were taken away from them until after the congress!
By morning leaks confirmed that the congress was booked at Emakhandeni Hall. The properly constituted 1500 delegates went there. There are no secrets in Zimbabwe. It was soon whispered that there was a secret meeting in progress behind closed doors at Vice President Thokozani Khupe’s restaurant. The delegates went there to demand that the congress be convened at the correct venue with all present. The restaurant doors were locked. Some observers inside came out to interview delegates. The Bulawayo province chairperson is a grassroots woman, a party stalwart. She apparently went to the restaurant meeting and was ejected from there!
Matibenga as chairperson addressed delegates outside the VP's restaurant. The delegates adopted a resolution that those not attending the Congress at the venue booked by the party were deemed absent. Police arrived to confirm that Emakhandeni Hall was booked by the MDC for the WA congress that day. They advised the women to return there. The delegates made another plea for those locked inside the restaurant to return to the venue and join the other delegates. They refused. Tsvangirai was apparently advised about this situation.
There are those who write that two congresses were held. The restaurant group did not invite their delegates according to the requirements of the MDC constitution. Lucia Matibenga did. The restaurant group did not have the constitutional composition of delegates to claim that they held a congress. They even discussed whether to set up an interim committee -- another unconstitutionality, an anomaly! But they then concluded to make themselves the real WA NEC.
In Zimbabwe the worst tragedies produce humour as well. There are many hilarious stories from the restaurant crowd from those who were locked in!
The Emakhandeni party congress deliberated. They resolved not to dissolve their NEC but gap-filled the posts of those absent. The meting resolved to hold their annual conference this year.
The new WA NEC line up is:
Chairperson – Lucia Matibenga (Midlands South) Deputy Chairperson – Sanelisiwe Sibanda (Bulawayo) Secretary – Faith Musarurwa (Harare) Deputy Secretary – (Manicaland Province to provide their name) Organising Secretary – Lucia Masekesa (Masvingo) Deputy Organising Secretary – Constance Taruvinga (Chitungwiza) Treasurer – Chetamasile Katanga – (Mashonaland Central Information and Publicity – Catherine Bobo (Midlands North).
Those writing in the press expose their naivety. Accusations are that women want Tapiwa Mashakada and Gift Chimanikire as new MDC leaders! How insulting to women's intelligence! After everything that has been done to people inside the country by Robert Mugabe, the father of male chauvinism, ordinary people see through the stupidity of all forms of chauvinisms in Zimbabwe. The women at Emakhandeni Hall this weekend were clear. The 50% will be a reality this time. They were jubilant.
Those leadership qualities of those NSC members who made the dissolution decision will be tested in the next few days. Their judgment would be how they work out the solution to bring the party back on an even keel and tap the women's energy displayed at Emakhandeni Hall, not only for our party's survival but for victory in 2008. There is no going back. Matibenga has demonstrated the required skills not only to provide principled leadership internationally, but inside Zimbabwe itself. The weekend proved that.
Matibenga as WA chairperson and Nelson Chamisa as YA chairperson saved President Tsvangirai by mobilising consultative gatherings around Zimbabwe when he was nearly toppled on October 12, 2005, by his ‘Top 6’ colleagues. The claim that Matibenga was offered the deputy chairperson's post to replace acting chairperson Lovemore Moyo is presumptuous. Matibenga refused this offer outright.
This is yet another strategy to get women fighting. On one hand Matibenga is expected to vacate her post by backdoor unconstitutional male deals to make way for a favoured-by-male-leaders woman, to kill off the very body in the party for women's advancement. On the other she is being made to fight with me. I stood as deputy chairperson at the March 2006 congress. Our men fished out Lovemore Moyo who stood and lost in the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC congress the week before, to block me.
So far when people ask me my plans, I tell them that as soon as I am well I am returning home and will contest for the deputy chairperson's post at this year's annual conference. So Matibenga and I are to fight each other for this post!
The offer to Matibenga is unconstitutional. We have to fill in the chairperson's post at the annual conference whenever that is held, as well as the deputy chairperson's, by voting. The restaurant politics has shifted all that to something new and exciting.
In conclusion, MDC party structures at home are united that we must all be bound by our constitution. Men and women are standing shoulder to shoulder to ensure that observance of the constitution becomes an integral part of MDC culture, Zimbabwe's culture.
Also, Zimbabweans everywhere are exhausted. We are in endless pain emotional and physical. For example my whole left side has been bad again since all this drama began. This latest male chauvinist abuse is dragging all our positive energies to ground. It is the height of arrogance, whoever thought out that plan to hold this charade in Bulawayo. After everything that has been done by the regime to the people of Bulawayo! Udiniwe uBulawayo bakithi! VokuBulawayo vaneta veduwe!
Bulawayo is exhausted with Zimbabwe's political antics, always emanating unexpectedly from Harare in their backyard. This morning when we spoke to members who attended the congress and others, the restaurant, they said that Bulawayo was sad at the tragedy played out in their city. Others were in fits of laughter at the Harare circus that they said had come to play out its foolish show in their otherwise quiet city over the weekend. Bulawayo residents are mostly stunned.
Sekai Holland is an active MDC member. She writes from Sydney, Australia
Thursday, October 25, 2007
AFRICAN REFUGEES WELCOME IN AUSTRALIA: RACIST MINISTER SLAMMED!
LINK!!!
Kerryn Williams
19 October 2007
Claims by immigration minister Kevin Andrews that African refugees are
less capable of resettling in Australia than other migrant groups have
been met with widespread condemnation by welfare, community and human
rights organisations.
Andrews’ racist assertions were an attempt to justify his government’s
reduction of the African refugee quota to a mere 30% of Australia’s
total annual humanitarian intake (a shamefully low total of just 13,000
places). This 30% quota has already been reached this financial year,
so
no new applications will be considered until next July.
Andrews told media in early October that “some groups” weren’t
adequately “adjusting to the Australian way of life”, so “it makes
sense
to put the extra money into providing extra resources, but also to slow
down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan”. With nothing
more
than anecdotal “evidence” to back up his claims, Andrews cited serious
problems with African youths forming gangs and engaging in crime.
Infamous xenophobe Pauline Hanson immediately jumped on the bandwagon
to
endorse the government’s move with one of her signature racist
diatribes. “Do you want to see your daughter or a family member end up
with AIDS”, ABC News Online quoted her asking, as she claimed that
further African immigration would increase crime and violence and lead
to an increase not only in HIV infections, but also leprosy!
Federal Labor, in predictable “me too” fashion, responded to Andrews’
Tampa-style pre-election scapegoating campaign by announcing its
support
for cutting the African refugee intake.
The corporate media wasted no time in launching a sensationalist
fearmongering campaign. The October 8 edition of ABC’s Media Watch
exposed the blatant manufacture by channels 7, 9 and 10 in their
October
3 Melbourne news coverage of a story about “Sudanese gangs” supposedly
creating terror. All used as “evidence” footage of violence and theftin
a Noble Park bottle shop. However Media Watch showed that none of those
filmed engaging in violence were Africans. The single African youth
visible was not participating in the affray, and was later revealed to
be 18-year-old Sudanese-born Liep Gony, who was bashed to death in late
September.
However the facts began to emerge amid the hysteria, as migrant service
organisations, the human rights commissioner and even the police
rejected Andrews’ fabrications. Victorian police commissioner Christine
Nixon told 3AW radio that “When you look at the numbers we’re talking
about, the young Sudanese who actually come into custody or dealt with
us, only really make up about 1% of the people we deal with … they’re
not, in a sense, representing more than the proportion of them in the
population”.
After Andrews had used Gony’s murder as an example of violence among
Sudanese migrants, it was revealed that those charged over the brutal
attack were not Sudanese, but white Australians.
In an open letter to the government published in the Australian’s
education supplement on October 9, 165 university academics including a
range of health experts stated that “We know of no empirical evidence
that refugees from particular countries find it more difficult to
integrate into Australian society compared to others”, adding that
“Australia has a responsibility to ensure the trauma of the refugee
experience is not further exacerbated by racism and discrimination in
the resettlement context.”
Sudanese community leaders strongly objected to the racist slander,
denying allegations of Sudanese youth gangs. Choul Deng Gai from the
Sudanese Community Association of Australia told AAP that groups of
Sudanese gather together not as gangs but to socialise. “It is
something
very national and cultural. It doesn’t pose any threat to anyone”, he
explained.
Haidar Abdalla, secretary-general of the Liverpool Australian Sudanese
Community, told Green Left Weekly that he was shocked by Andrews’
statement and that his community had been deeply affected. He said many
of the kids in his community — who had felt settled here, “playing
rugby
and cricket and having barbeques” — now “cry, they say they want tostay
home and not go to school because they are being told they are not
Australian”.
In a June 15 letter to the Liverpool Australian Sudanese Community,
Andrews had written that the federal government would continue to
accept
refugees from Africa and that it acknowledged the Sudanese community in
Liverpool was “contributing greatly to Australia’s future”. Abdalla
asked: “Why did he change his mind? What are the hidden reasons? Is it
for the election?”
Abdalla highlighted the absurdity of Hanson’s claims that African
refugees spread disease in Australia, explaining that “before getting
an
entry visa, refugees must pass the medical check”.
Andrews’ claims about the failure of refugees to “integrate” says more
about the lack of adequate services provided by his government than the
behaviour of new arrivals. “What do you do to help Sudanese people to
integrate into Australia?” Abdalla wants to ask Andrews, citing long
waiting lists for furthering English and other studies.
According to the October 4 Melbourne Age, local south Sudanese
community
leader Gatwech Kulang also called for greater resettlement assistance:
“There are a lot of NGOs and service providers that are doing the work,
but not working together with the community.”
When Andrews announced the refugee cutbacks in August, he stated that
“[t]he intake from the Africa region reflects an improvement in
conditions in some countries and an increase in the number of people
returning to their country of origin”. However the war in Darfur in
Sudan’s west, which has so far cost the lives of more than 450,000
people and displaced millions, continues; vast elements of the peace
agreement that ended the war with the country’s south remain
unimplemented and little rebuilding or improvement in people’s living
conditions has occurred in the south; and throughout Sudan all people
suffer as they are denied democratic rights and their basic needs are
neglected while resources are diverted into the military budget.
The cuts have increased the stress and uncertainty for those who are
desperately waiting for family members to join them in Australia. “Many
have family waiting in Kenya or Cairo. Now they have to wait at least
another 10 months and we don’t know what will happen after July”,
Abdalla said.
Andrews’ lies have also encouraged racist abuse and violence against
African migrants. ABC News reported on October 10 that according to
John
Moi from the Sudanese community in the NSW town of Wagga Wagga,
Sudanese
migrants have been vilified on the streets since Andrews’ outburst.
Abdalla told GLW that on October 11, a group of up to 12 young people
making racist taunts attacked some Sudanese youths who were walking
along the street in Liverpool. One young Sudanese man had to undergo an
operation in Liverpool hospital the following day after his jaw was
broken.
On October 9 in the Melbourne suburb of Melton, a young Sudanese-born
man was bashed by four men who stole his mobile phone and wallet,
before
using his phone to send racist messages to the victim’s brother.
Adelaide’s Sunday Mail reported on October 14 that Simon Angok,
secretary of the Sudanese Australian Community of South Australia,
wrote
a letter demanding an apology from Andrews, arguing that his
“discriminatory and insensitive comments” amount to the “demonisation
of
a community of people who have suffered and escaped from the tyranny of
brutal dictatorship”. He wrote that the government’s stance had “caused
a lot of anger, grief and anxiety in our community, let alone inciting
racist people to attack members of our community”.
An open letter signed by more than 60 organisations including the
Refugee Council of Australia, the National Council of Churches in
Australia, Amnesty International, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and
Human Rights Commission, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the
Liquor
Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union and the Australian
Federation of Islamic Councils Inc, was published in the Australian,
urging “all Australians, particularly our elected representatives, to
stand up in support of African refugees who have resettled in
Australia,
to support their further resettlement and family reunification, and to
strengthen services that make the transition to Australia easy”.
AAP reported on October 5 that the Federation of African Communities
Council was lodging a complaint of racial discrimination with the Human
Rights Commission. The organisation’s chairperson, Abeselom Nega, said
as a result of the denigration of the African community, “we are
exploring all options including using the legal framework of this
country to lodge our complaint, and we will be exploring international
frameworks as well to ensure the human rights and equal opportunity of
our members are protected”.
Abdalla told GLW that a meeting was being planned in Liverpool on
October 28 aiming to bring together the different parts of the Sudanese
community and local MPs to discuss how to respond to Andrews. More than
200 people attended a public meeting in Wagga Wagga on October 13
called
by local Sudanese leaders.
From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #728
LINK REFERENCE 24 October 2007.
Kerryn Williams
19 October 2007
Claims by immigration minister Kevin Andrews that African refugees are
less capable of resettling in Australia than other migrant groups have
been met with widespread condemnation by welfare, community and human
rights organisations.
Andrews’ racist assertions were an attempt to justify his government’s
reduction of the African refugee quota to a mere 30% of Australia’s
total annual humanitarian intake (a shamefully low total of just 13,000
places). This 30% quota has already been reached this financial year,
so
no new applications will be considered until next July.
Andrews told media in early October that “some groups” weren’t
adequately “adjusting to the Australian way of life”, so “it makes
sense
to put the extra money into providing extra resources, but also to slow
down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan”. With nothing
more
than anecdotal “evidence” to back up his claims, Andrews cited serious
problems with African youths forming gangs and engaging in crime.
Infamous xenophobe Pauline Hanson immediately jumped on the bandwagon
to
endorse the government’s move with one of her signature racist
diatribes. “Do you want to see your daughter or a family member end up
with AIDS”, ABC News Online quoted her asking, as she claimed that
further African immigration would increase crime and violence and lead
to an increase not only in HIV infections, but also leprosy!
Federal Labor, in predictable “me too” fashion, responded to Andrews’
Tampa-style pre-election scapegoating campaign by announcing its
support
for cutting the African refugee intake.
The corporate media wasted no time in launching a sensationalist
fearmongering campaign. The October 8 edition of ABC’s Media Watch
exposed the blatant manufacture by channels 7, 9 and 10 in their
October
3 Melbourne news coverage of a story about “Sudanese gangs” supposedly
creating terror. All used as “evidence” footage of violence and theftin
a Noble Park bottle shop. However Media Watch showed that none of those
filmed engaging in violence were Africans. The single African youth
visible was not participating in the affray, and was later revealed to
be 18-year-old Sudanese-born Liep Gony, who was bashed to death in late
September.
However the facts began to emerge amid the hysteria, as migrant service
organisations, the human rights commissioner and even the police
rejected Andrews’ fabrications. Victorian police commissioner Christine
Nixon told 3AW radio that “When you look at the numbers we’re talking
about, the young Sudanese who actually come into custody or dealt with
us, only really make up about 1% of the people we deal with … they’re
not, in a sense, representing more than the proportion of them in the
population”.
After Andrews had used Gony’s murder as an example of violence among
Sudanese migrants, it was revealed that those charged over the brutal
attack were not Sudanese, but white Australians.
In an open letter to the government published in the Australian’s
education supplement on October 9, 165 university academics including a
range of health experts stated that “We know of no empirical evidence
that refugees from particular countries find it more difficult to
integrate into Australian society compared to others”, adding that
“Australia has a responsibility to ensure the trauma of the refugee
experience is not further exacerbated by racism and discrimination in
the resettlement context.”
Sudanese community leaders strongly objected to the racist slander,
denying allegations of Sudanese youth gangs. Choul Deng Gai from the
Sudanese Community Association of Australia told AAP that groups of
Sudanese gather together not as gangs but to socialise. “It is
something
very national and cultural. It doesn’t pose any threat to anyone”, he
explained.
Haidar Abdalla, secretary-general of the Liverpool Australian Sudanese
Community, told Green Left Weekly that he was shocked by Andrews’
statement and that his community had been deeply affected. He said many
of the kids in his community — who had felt settled here, “playing
rugby
and cricket and having barbeques” — now “cry, they say they want tostay
home and not go to school because they are being told they are not
Australian”.
In a June 15 letter to the Liverpool Australian Sudanese Community,
Andrews had written that the federal government would continue to
accept
refugees from Africa and that it acknowledged the Sudanese community in
Liverpool was “contributing greatly to Australia’s future”. Abdalla
asked: “Why did he change his mind? What are the hidden reasons? Is it
for the election?”
Abdalla highlighted the absurdity of Hanson’s claims that African
refugees spread disease in Australia, explaining that “before getting
an
entry visa, refugees must pass the medical check”.
Andrews’ claims about the failure of refugees to “integrate” says more
about the lack of adequate services provided by his government than the
behaviour of new arrivals. “What do you do to help Sudanese people to
integrate into Australia?” Abdalla wants to ask Andrews, citing long
waiting lists for furthering English and other studies.
According to the October 4 Melbourne Age, local south Sudanese
community
leader Gatwech Kulang also called for greater resettlement assistance:
“There are a lot of NGOs and service providers that are doing the work,
but not working together with the community.”
When Andrews announced the refugee cutbacks in August, he stated that
“[t]he intake from the Africa region reflects an improvement in
conditions in some countries and an increase in the number of people
returning to their country of origin”. However the war in Darfur in
Sudan’s west, which has so far cost the lives of more than 450,000
people and displaced millions, continues; vast elements of the peace
agreement that ended the war with the country’s south remain
unimplemented and little rebuilding or improvement in people’s living
conditions has occurred in the south; and throughout Sudan all people
suffer as they are denied democratic rights and their basic needs are
neglected while resources are diverted into the military budget.
The cuts have increased the stress and uncertainty for those who are
desperately waiting for family members to join them in Australia. “Many
have family waiting in Kenya or Cairo. Now they have to wait at least
another 10 months and we don’t know what will happen after July”,
Abdalla said.
Andrews’ lies have also encouraged racist abuse and violence against
African migrants. ABC News reported on October 10 that according to
John
Moi from the Sudanese community in the NSW town of Wagga Wagga,
Sudanese
migrants have been vilified on the streets since Andrews’ outburst.
Abdalla told GLW that on October 11, a group of up to 12 young people
making racist taunts attacked some Sudanese youths who were walking
along the street in Liverpool. One young Sudanese man had to undergo an
operation in Liverpool hospital the following day after his jaw was
broken.
On October 9 in the Melbourne suburb of Melton, a young Sudanese-born
man was bashed by four men who stole his mobile phone and wallet,
before
using his phone to send racist messages to the victim’s brother.
Adelaide’s Sunday Mail reported on October 14 that Simon Angok,
secretary of the Sudanese Australian Community of South Australia,
wrote
a letter demanding an apology from Andrews, arguing that his
“discriminatory and insensitive comments” amount to the “demonisation
of
a community of people who have suffered and escaped from the tyranny of
brutal dictatorship”. He wrote that the government’s stance had “caused
a lot of anger, grief and anxiety in our community, let alone inciting
racist people to attack members of our community”.
An open letter signed by more than 60 organisations including the
Refugee Council of Australia, the National Council of Churches in
Australia, Amnesty International, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and
Human Rights Commission, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the
Liquor
Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union and the Australian
Federation of Islamic Councils Inc, was published in the Australian,
urging “all Australians, particularly our elected representatives, to
stand up in support of African refugees who have resettled in
Australia,
to support their further resettlement and family reunification, and to
strengthen services that make the transition to Australia easy”.
AAP reported on October 5 that the Federation of African Communities
Council was lodging a complaint of racial discrimination with the Human
Rights Commission. The organisation’s chairperson, Abeselom Nega, said
as a result of the denigration of the African community, “we are
exploring all options including using the legal framework of this
country to lodge our complaint, and we will be exploring international
frameworks as well to ensure the human rights and equal opportunity of
our members are protected”.
Abdalla told GLW that a meeting was being planned in Liverpool on
October 28 aiming to bring together the different parts of the Sudanese
community and local MPs to discuss how to respond to Andrews. More than
200 people attended a public meeting in Wagga Wagga on October 13
called
by local Sudanese leaders.
From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #728
LINK REFERENCE 24 October 2007.
Monday, October 22, 2007
MDC behaves "autocratically"???
Urgent Press Release
Zimbabwe: MDC woman leader & SADC trade union leader bring urgent court action against MDC leadership
If the MDC behaves autocratically now, how will it behave if it gets power?
The top ranking woman leader in the Movement for Democratic Change � Lucia Matibenga, who is also first vice of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the Southern African Development Community Confederation of Trade Unions, has brought an urgent interdict against the Movement for Democratic Change leadership and Morgan Tsvangirai.
Matibenga, who was also a guerrilla in the Zimbabwe war of independence and whose late husband was a revered hero, took action after embattled MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai disbanded the MDC Women's Assembly last week.
The Women's Assembly has been the most active section of the MDC politically and in successive political campaigns has been the only arm of the MDC willing to undertake door-to-door campaigns.
In September last year Matibenga was one of a group of protestors who were arrested during civil rights demonstrations and severely tortured. On that occasion Matibenga led trade unionists and MDC women in protests against Zimbabwe's then 1 000% rate of inflation (it's now closer to 1m%) and no medication for those ill with HIV or AIDS. It is the third time Matibenga had been detained and tortured.
Matibenga filed papers in the Harare High Court on Friday. The application is expected to be heard tomorrow (Tuesday, 23 October) in Harare. Matibenga said: "The MDC leadership is breaking the constitution left, right and centre. I have applied for an indictment to stop them holding an extraordinary conference on 28 October. My application is an attempt to force the MDC to follow its constitution.
There are three constitutional clauses that the MDC has contravened says Matibenga they include: * Sections 54 and 52 of the MDC Constitution, that the standing committee shall have no executive or policy decision making powers these are under the auspices of the National Council;
� The Women's Assembly Constitution, clause 622, says any changes in the make up of the Women's Assembly (which has more than half of all MDC members) shall only occur after an extraordinary congress either by the National Council of the Party or the National Council of the Women;
� Composition of delegates to the extraordinary congress on October 28 is being limited to provincial and district structures although it should go down to ward level, instead of 3 000 delegates entitled to vote only 230 people have been invited.
Matibenga said: "The MDC leadership is showing it is allergic to strong women, they want women they can manipulate. The leadership had the audacity to say to me the women's section is not performing and yet they have given us no resources, we have no fax machine, only one telephone, no chairs, no desk, I have to travel by public transport to meetings whereas the male leadership all have one, two or even three vehicles each."
Matibenga has been receiving calls of solidarity and support from organisations across the world.
Grace Kwinjeh, a Zimbabwean writer and well-known human rights campaigner who was also detained and tortured in March this year said from Johannesburg: "this is no longer just about women, but how men and women in the MDC leadership uphold the laws that they have put in place. They adopted both the Womens Assembly and National Party Constitutions and it is absurd that they are violating them.
"What will happen if the MDC gets into government if it continues to operate in this way. The manner in which it operates now gives us an indicator of the sort of government it would be in the future � and that gives cause for concern. Zimbabweans are tired of autocratic mismanagement."
� Lucia Matibenga (53) lives in Gweru and is the mother of four children. She has been politically active all her life. She was a founder member of the MDC.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Lucia Matibenga 00 263 91 2850 532
Grace Kwinjeh c/o friendsoflucia@gmail.com
Issued by MediaOnLine 011 646 7637 mediaonline@global.co.za
Friday, October 19, 2007
Urgent Call for Action to help Zimbabwean Refugees in South Africa.
PRESS RELEASE:
Corruption and inefficiencies wrecks Cape Town Refugee Reception in Foreshore.
On Monday 15 October 2007, hundreds of Zimbabwean Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Cape Town have been joined by other Asylum Seekers from countries like Congo in a peaceful demonstration at Customs House, Foreshore. The demand was that they be granted asylum permits in time.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees have been denied their constitutional right to apply for political asylum in South Africa. Among them are Widows, Orphans, and the Poor. They have nowhere to go. They have nowhere to appeal. Police harass and arrest them for not having permits. Employers don’t give them work. Majority of South Africans both black and White despise them. Even Churches don’t even care to speak up for them. South African Christians are not interested in their plight, they love Mugabe more than their oppressed brothers and sisters.
Is anyone immune from experiencing injustices in this unjust world? Why don’t you care for the oppressed? Some South African officials are thoroughly corrupt and don’t even care to give Zimbabweans asylum permits.
Most Zimbabwean refugees are required to pay bribes in order to get political asylum in South Africa. If you visit Customs House in Foreshore Cape town you will see that the place is congested with desperate immigrants. Go day after day you will see the same people waiting for permits. Home Affairs officials are alleged to be working with well known agencies who take bribes of between R600 and R1000 from asylum seekers.
Those few who get refugee status find it difficult to get IDs or Passports. Some have been waiting for IDs for more than six months.
Refugee group leader, Braam Hanekom said, "The majority of the refugees have been battling to get documents for more than 10 years and this is despite the fact that they are genuine asylum seekers escaping from persecution back home." (Cape Times 15/10/2007)
What is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. Together we can make a difference write letters to South African Embassy near you to protest abuse of Asylum Seekers and Refugees. Or Write to: Jacky Mashapu (Acting Head of Communication) Email: Jacky.Mashapu@dha.gov.za;
Lebogang Maenetja Communicator E-mail: Lebogang.Maenetja@dha.gov.za
Take Action now. Time has run out refugees are suffering in South Africa.
Yours For freedom & Justice,
Collen Makumbirofa
Foundation of Reason & Justice
zimnews@mail.com
http://forjustice.atspace.org
Foundation of Reason & Justice shall exist to defend the cause of the poor, refugees, and Asylum Seekers. For the past for years we have been exposing gross human rights abuses and State atrocities in Zimbabwe.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Open Letter to the Minister of Home Affairs, Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula from Mr. Collen Makumbirofa of Foundation of Reason & Justice
18 October 2007
Attention: Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
Private Bag X114
Pretoria
0001
[T] +27(0)12 810 6126
[F] +27(0)12 323 7312
Dear Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
Greetings to you!
I have chosen this form of communication because everyone is aware of the evils currently going on at Cape Town, Home Affairs, Refugee Reception Centre.
I request that you urgently investigate cases of corruption, bureaucracy, and inefficiencies at Cape Town, Refugee Reception Centre.
Thousands of Zimbabwean Refugees are failing to get Asylum Permits. Many are spending nights at Customs House at Foreshore in order to join the queue as early as 3am. We also observed that some people are spending weeks waiting for permits in vain.
It is alleged that Security Guards are taking bribes to allow some asylum seekers inside the office to get permits. Officials are working with agents outside who take bribes of between R600 and R1000 per person so that the asylum seeker can get permit.
Minister if you have objection to this l will be very glad to submit to you a list of Zimbabweans who have been desperately waiting for weeks and months at Customs House in Foreshore, but have failed to get inside due to inefficiencies and such reasons as mentioned above.
Moreover, Zimbabweans with refugee status are not getting Identity Documents within three months of application. It is alleged that many are waiting for more than 6 months before getting Identity Documents. Why is it taking long for Refugees who have been granted Refugee Status to get IDs or Passports?
Minister South Africa claim to be a Human Rights Society but is failing to respect basic rights of Refugees and Asylum Seekers especially those from Zimbabwe. Due to corruption and deliberate inefficiency by certain officials over Refugees and Asylum Seekers South African image is being destroyed abroad.
It’s tragic that human rights abuses are committed by well- of officials to the helpless members of society such as Refugees, Orphans, Widows and the Poor. Minister, l request that you investigate allegations of corruption and urgently help Asylum Seekers waiting at Cape Town Refugee Reception (Foreshore) to get permits.
Your urgent action to help helpless Zimbabwean Asylum Seeker will be greatly appreciated and highly valued. If you have any question feel free to contact me at Email: makumbirofa@justice.com
Yours for the Rights of Refugees & Asylum Seekers in South Africa,
Collen Makumbirofa
Foundation of Reason & Justice
Email: zimnews@mail.com
http://forjustice.atspace.org
Foundation of Reason & Justice shall exist to defend the cause of the poor, refugees, and Asylum Seekers. For the past four years we have been exposing gross human rights abuses and State atrocities in Zimbabwe.
Corruption and inefficiencies wrecks Cape Town Refugee Reception in Foreshore.
On Monday 15 October 2007, hundreds of Zimbabwean Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Cape Town have been joined by other Asylum Seekers from countries like Congo in a peaceful demonstration at Customs House, Foreshore. The demand was that they be granted asylum permits in time.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees have been denied their constitutional right to apply for political asylum in South Africa. Among them are Widows, Orphans, and the Poor. They have nowhere to go. They have nowhere to appeal. Police harass and arrest them for not having permits. Employers don’t give them work. Majority of South Africans both black and White despise them. Even Churches don’t even care to speak up for them. South African Christians are not interested in their plight, they love Mugabe more than their oppressed brothers and sisters.
Is anyone immune from experiencing injustices in this unjust world? Why don’t you care for the oppressed? Some South African officials are thoroughly corrupt and don’t even care to give Zimbabweans asylum permits.
Most Zimbabwean refugees are required to pay bribes in order to get political asylum in South Africa. If you visit Customs House in Foreshore Cape town you will see that the place is congested with desperate immigrants. Go day after day you will see the same people waiting for permits. Home Affairs officials are alleged to be working with well known agencies who take bribes of between R600 and R1000 from asylum seekers.
Those few who get refugee status find it difficult to get IDs or Passports. Some have been waiting for IDs for more than six months.
Refugee group leader, Braam Hanekom said, "The majority of the refugees have been battling to get documents for more than 10 years and this is despite the fact that they are genuine asylum seekers escaping from persecution back home." (Cape Times 15/10/2007)
What is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. Together we can make a difference write letters to South African Embassy near you to protest abuse of Asylum Seekers and Refugees. Or Write to: Jacky Mashapu (Acting Head of Communication) Email: Jacky.Mashapu@dha.gov.za;
Lebogang Maenetja Communicator E-mail: Lebogang.Maenetja@dha.gov.za
Take Action now. Time has run out refugees are suffering in South Africa.
Yours For freedom & Justice,
Collen Makumbirofa
Foundation of Reason & Justice
zimnews@mail.com
http://forjustice.atspace.org
Foundation of Reason & Justice shall exist to defend the cause of the poor, refugees, and Asylum Seekers. For the past for years we have been exposing gross human rights abuses and State atrocities in Zimbabwe.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Open Letter to the Minister of Home Affairs, Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula from Mr. Collen Makumbirofa of Foundation of Reason & Justice
18 October 2007
Attention: Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
Private Bag X114
Pretoria
0001
[T] +27(0)12 810 6126
[F] +27(0)12 323 7312
Dear Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
Greetings to you!
I have chosen this form of communication because everyone is aware of the evils currently going on at Cape Town, Home Affairs, Refugee Reception Centre.
I request that you urgently investigate cases of corruption, bureaucracy, and inefficiencies at Cape Town, Refugee Reception Centre.
Thousands of Zimbabwean Refugees are failing to get Asylum Permits. Many are spending nights at Customs House at Foreshore in order to join the queue as early as 3am. We also observed that some people are spending weeks waiting for permits in vain.
It is alleged that Security Guards are taking bribes to allow some asylum seekers inside the office to get permits. Officials are working with agents outside who take bribes of between R600 and R1000 per person so that the asylum seeker can get permit.
Minister if you have objection to this l will be very glad to submit to you a list of Zimbabweans who have been desperately waiting for weeks and months at Customs House in Foreshore, but have failed to get inside due to inefficiencies and such reasons as mentioned above.
Moreover, Zimbabweans with refugee status are not getting Identity Documents within three months of application. It is alleged that many are waiting for more than 6 months before getting Identity Documents. Why is it taking long for Refugees who have been granted Refugee Status to get IDs or Passports?
Minister South Africa claim to be a Human Rights Society but is failing to respect basic rights of Refugees and Asylum Seekers especially those from Zimbabwe. Due to corruption and deliberate inefficiency by certain officials over Refugees and Asylum Seekers South African image is being destroyed abroad.
It’s tragic that human rights abuses are committed by well- of officials to the helpless members of society such as Refugees, Orphans, Widows and the Poor. Minister, l request that you investigate allegations of corruption and urgently help Asylum Seekers waiting at Cape Town Refugee Reception (Foreshore) to get permits.
Your urgent action to help helpless Zimbabwean Asylum Seeker will be greatly appreciated and highly valued. If you have any question feel free to contact me at Email: makumbirofa@justice.com
Yours for the Rights of Refugees & Asylum Seekers in South Africa,
Collen Makumbirofa
Foundation of Reason & Justice
Email: zimnews@mail.com
http://forjustice.atspace.org
Foundation of Reason & Justice shall exist to defend the cause of the poor, refugees, and Asylum Seekers. For the past four years we have been exposing gross human rights abuses and State atrocities in Zimbabwe.
In memory of Learnmore Jongwe!
By Asher Mutsengi
LINK!!!
ON October 23 2002, the nation awoke to the news that Learnmore Jongwe has passed on while in the hands of the state. I was struck deep with solemnity.
No informed person could well deny that Jongwe was probably the most spectacular spokesperson in the history of Zimbabwe’s politics.
Like Moses before him, he had the task of leading a people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of a nation’s man-made flaws.
Like Moses he never lived to see the promised land. But he pointed the way for us — a land no longer torn asunder with intolerance, tyranny, ethnic strife and poverty.
A land in which strength is defined not by the capacity to wage violence but by the determination to forge peace — a land in which all Zimbabweans come together in true patriotic pride. We have not yet arrived at this longed for place, but he passed on the torch.
I remember not one moment of tragedy, but a short life of great purpose and achievement.
May it impress upon all of us that the greatest homage we can pay to Jongwe and all those who have paid with their lives in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe, is to work together for a society based on the principles of justice and true democracy to which he dedicated his life.
* Mutsengi writes from Canada.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
ZANU-PF MUST RID ITSELF OF MUGABE!
LINK!!!
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is seeking endorsement from his own party, an increasingly difficult lobby for his loyalists. Leading his re-election campaign are hardliners in the war veterans movement. METHUSELI MOYO, who recently quit his job as head of the ZBC's Spot FM after rejecting a posting to a new 24-hour propaganda station, Voice of Zimbabwe, says Mugabe is at his most desperate: By Methuseli Moyo
Last updated: 10/18/2007 01:02:09
THE latest charade by Jabulani Sibanda and his comrades, of marching through provinces in “support of President Mugabe’s candidature in next year’s elections” - to use catch phrase in the state media these days – is a futile and desperate, yet revealing event in the political life of Robert Mugabe and his party Zanu PF.
From 1980 to 2002, we have never witnessed any stage-managed march of this magnitude in support of Mugabe’s candidature, nor have we seen irrelevant constituencies – from a Zanu PF internal politics point of view – such as chiefs, mujibhas, chimbwidos, mayors, and even war vets themselves, being marshalled to declare in public like they have been doing this time around, their support for “President Mugabe’s candidature”.
Why would they do it this time? It is clear that Sibanda’s tired marches are designed to scare would-be challengers to President Mugabe within Zanu PF. It means the enemy is within Zanu PF. Who is the enemy? Sibanda has been very reckless to reveal that the people he is marching against are Vice President Joice Mujuru and her husband Solomon, Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo, ex-minister Dumiso Dabengwa, and others in Zanu PF believed to be ready to challenge Mugabe’s leadership.
What is clear is that Mugabe does not want that sort of competition, and is resorting to scare tactics to keep them at bay, going to the extent of compromising himself and letting a discredited character of the sort of Sibanda (who is till suspended from Zanu PF) and his deputy Joseph Chinotimba lead his campaign. Why would Mugabe stoop so low to place his arguably legendary political career – which I am afraid, is nearing its demise very soon – at the hands of the people like Jabulani Sibanda?
Wherever he goes – in the war veterans’ association and in the Zanu PF Bulawayo provincial executive – Sibanda has lived and fallen by the sword, and there is no reason to doubt that even now he is going to be removed by the sword, as was done in 2004 in the aftermath of the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration.
To start with, Sibanda was expelled by the same Mugabe and the rest of the leadership of Zanu PF for his involvement in the alleged palace coup planned in Tsholotsho. They even ejected him from the war veterans association and replaced him with Andrew Ndlovu, who like Sibanda, is from Matabeleland.
I was there at Nhlambabaloyi Secondary School in Umguza district in Matabeleland North sometime towards the end of November 2004 when Mugabe asked Ndlovu to stand up at a rally and introduced him as the new leader of the war veterans. Where is Andrew Ndlovu now? Where are you Cde Andrew? It is clear that things are so bad for Mugabe in Zanu PF that he has decided to throw away principle for his own political survival, and he has found another willing tool in Sibanda, who like other well-known tools before him, is from Matabeleland. It is also clear from Sibanda’s high-sounding speeches that he is targeting people within Zanu PF.
He seems to have no clue that it would do him a lot of good as a Zanu PF cadre if the party won next year’s polls even without Mugabe, than for Mugabe to win the polls without the party. What would they do then? It would be a hollow victory that may not last beyond the declaration by Tobaiwa Mudede or whoever will be running elections come March.
It is clear that Sibanda and his followers have chosen Mugabe at the expense of Zanu PF. Why I say so? Zanu PF is, or was, a massive political grouping that has survived for 44 years, of course with Mugabe at its helm in the last 31 years or so.
What is obvious to many is that Mugabe is now old, weary and redundant. Listen carefully to his speeches in the last five years and analyse them and see if you will find anything new or inspiring. Does Sibanda really believe that Mugabe is strong enough to campaign with the same vigour he did five years ago, in view of the spiralling economic problems? What will he tell the people? That Bush and Blair are behind the food shortages? That Brown is driving inflation?
So if Bush and Blair are behind the shortages and Mugabe has failed to stop them from causing the shortages, why would we elect him to be President for a further five years to make it 33 years in power, when he has failed to protect the nation from Bush and Blair’s machinations? Isn’t it time to elect a new leader who could “deliver us” from the suffering caused by Bush and Blair?
Sibanda needs to open his mind and look ahead and not tie his own existence to that of someone who has seen his better days on earth and is just whiling up time while waiting to meet his creator in the not so distant future. If he lives longer as he is praying for, then tough luck for him as he may find himself having to answer to some of the things that happened during our “moment of madness” in Matabeleland and the Midlands in the eighties, and even more recent during the 2000 and 2002 elections.
Had it been Mujuru, Nkomo, Dabengwa and others marching in support of Mugabe that would be understandable. They have been with him since the 1960s, and are bound together by their experiences in the struggle and in government in the last 27 years. Yet they are not. Why are they not participating in the marches? It is clear they have waited for too long for Mugabe to go, and can’t believe he still wants to stay on.
The Bulawayo march was more revealing than any other that has been embarked upon. To start with, the Zanu-PF provincial executive distanced itself from the march, saying they have not been told to choose a candidate, and there was no need to march in support of a candidate who has not been chosen and endorsed by congress. The executive also locked out of the offices war veterans who wanted to gather there for the march.
When the march finally took place, there was no recognisable Zanu PF supporter from Bulawayo who participated. I was there and I know all the senior Zanu PF officials and supporters in the city. They were not there. Instead, there were strange and new faces, who I believe were brought by the five ZUPCO buses I saw parked somewhere in town. To me, that clearly revealed that the march was futile in terms of geographical relevance as the people of Bulawayo did not participate, serve for a group of street kids who joined in after learning that there would be meat galore at Stanley Square after the march.
Where was Nkomo, Dabengwa, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu and other political luminaries in Bulawayo? We now know that they held their own meeting after the war veterans’ march and mandated their political leader Vice President Joseph Msika to ask Mugabe if he still cared about the Unity Accord between PF-Zapu and Zanu? If he cared, why would he send a party rebel like Sibanda to go about lambasting them in public? We are yet to hear what Mugabe’s answer to that would be.
One strange observation that I have made about Sibanda is that he takes delight in lambasting Zanu PF leaders from Matabeleland, in particular from the PF-Zapu side. He has rubbished Mskika, Nkomo, Dabengwa and all, yet he does not dare do the same with the Zanu PF leadership from Mashonaland, Masvingo, Manicaland and the Midlands. Let him do that he will find himself out of Zanu PF. Prove me wrong Sibanda.
Just say one or two negative statements about Mugabe, Nathan Shamuyaria, Didymus Mutasa or someone from the other side and we see that you are your own man. It would appear Sibanda is on a paid-up mission to denigrate and weaken the standing of the old Zapu leadership in the eyes of the public in order to eliminate them from the race to succeed Mugabe. What a shame! Is Sibanda a later day version of Enos Nkala?
I remember how Prof Jonathan Moyo got away with his fights against Nkomo and others in Matabeleland, until he touched on Shamuyarira and Mujuru. He was ejected in an instant from Zanu PF. I also remember how nothing happened to Joice Mujuru when she made those unsavoury remarks about Joshua Nkomo years back.
It would appear former PF-Zapu leaders are not Zanu PF enough, and can be abused by junior party members and nothing happens to them. Sibanda’s latest schemes buttress this view. This does not help Mugabe in any way. He may need the votes from Matabeleland if he succeeds to squeeze himself in as his party’s candidate, and hopefully faces off against a single opposition candidate. He may live to regret the way he has failed to protect and show true unity with his colleagues from PF-Zapu. The people are watching.
Why do I say Sibanda’s charade is futile? In my view, it is an own goal because it exposes Mugabe as a desperate incumbent who needs solidarity marches from discredited quarters to win an internal competition, and who is isolated by his colleagues, who all along have supported him.
Sibanda’s actions dramatise for all to see the internal problems in Zanu PF as a party at war with itself, a party that is expending its limited energies in an internal war, a few moths before a crucial vote which they would be advised to conserve their little energy for.
There is just too little time between the congress in December and the elections in March for Mugabe to mend relations with his bruised comrades and close ranks to confront the opposition. What makes it worse is that Mugabe -- if he succeeds to get himself declared the Zanu PF candidate – does not know his opponent or opponents in the actual poll would be. Is it going to be Morgan Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni, Gideon Gono, Joice Mujuru, Arthur Mutambara or Paul Siwela? Worse still it could be Emmerson Mnangagwa, who seems to be taking a rest as he gets Mugabe to square-off with the Mujuru camp.
Even if Mugabe wins the election, will he survive the economic opposition that seems to be intensifying against him? Will Sibanda successfully march against the economy and keep Mugabe in office after March? What will the rest of the people do? Watch as a few hundreds old men and women march in support of something they in the least understand?
Time, the magician, will tell.
In the meantime, Zanu PF would do itself a lot of good to advise Mugabe to go peacefully in his own interest, that of the party, the country, and the future.
Whoever stops Mugabe from declaring himself the Zanu PF candidate for next year’s polls will be a hero, and State House the prize. It’s better for Zanu PF for that hero to emerge from within their ranks, than to wait for that hero to emerge at the polls in March. It may be too late for Zanu PF and its officials who may find themselves in a Charles Taylor scenario.
It is clear that the people who want to dislodge Mugabe in Zanu PF are not doing it simply because they do not like him anymore or are sell-outs, but have genuine fears that fielding the man in next year’s election would be a big electoral risk, which could backfire spectacularly and engulf them all, and are tempted to serve themselves and their business empires by removing Mugabe themselves.
Sadly, others like Sibanda imagine that Mugabe is a supernatural being, who at 84 next year and having being in power for 28 years, is the same respected and inspiring revolutionary he was in 1980. The sooner they realise that isn’t the case, the better, otherwise they will continue misleading Mugabe into believing that he is there forever. How can that be?
In short, it is better for the people in Zanu PF to remove Mugabe themselves than to let the masses do it for them in March, lest they live unhappily ever after. Jabulani Sibanda and company should actually be organising farewell marches for Mugabe than marching for him to stay longer.
I am dead certain the so-called million-men-march that Sibanda dreams of would explode in Harare if he invited us to participate in a Mugabe farewell march. It would not even need a week of invitations on TV and radio like is the case now with the “solidarity marches”, which have still failed to attract the intimidating marches that would boost Mugabe’s confidence.
Methuseli Moyo is a former news editor of the Sunday News and more recently Editor-In-Chief of Spot FM. He left his job in July after he refused a posting to the government’s propaganda station, Voice of Zimbabwe. E-mail: methumoyo@yahoo.co.uk
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is seeking endorsement from his own party, an increasingly difficult lobby for his loyalists. Leading his re-election campaign are hardliners in the war veterans movement. METHUSELI MOYO, who recently quit his job as head of the ZBC's Spot FM after rejecting a posting to a new 24-hour propaganda station, Voice of Zimbabwe, says Mugabe is at his most desperate: By Methuseli Moyo
Last updated: 10/18/2007 01:02:09
THE latest charade by Jabulani Sibanda and his comrades, of marching through provinces in “support of President Mugabe’s candidature in next year’s elections” - to use catch phrase in the state media these days – is a futile and desperate, yet revealing event in the political life of Robert Mugabe and his party Zanu PF.
From 1980 to 2002, we have never witnessed any stage-managed march of this magnitude in support of Mugabe’s candidature, nor have we seen irrelevant constituencies – from a Zanu PF internal politics point of view – such as chiefs, mujibhas, chimbwidos, mayors, and even war vets themselves, being marshalled to declare in public like they have been doing this time around, their support for “President Mugabe’s candidature”.
Why would they do it this time? It is clear that Sibanda’s tired marches are designed to scare would-be challengers to President Mugabe within Zanu PF. It means the enemy is within Zanu PF. Who is the enemy? Sibanda has been very reckless to reveal that the people he is marching against are Vice President Joice Mujuru and her husband Solomon, Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo, ex-minister Dumiso Dabengwa, and others in Zanu PF believed to be ready to challenge Mugabe’s leadership.
What is clear is that Mugabe does not want that sort of competition, and is resorting to scare tactics to keep them at bay, going to the extent of compromising himself and letting a discredited character of the sort of Sibanda (who is till suspended from Zanu PF) and his deputy Joseph Chinotimba lead his campaign. Why would Mugabe stoop so low to place his arguably legendary political career – which I am afraid, is nearing its demise very soon – at the hands of the people like Jabulani Sibanda?
Wherever he goes – in the war veterans’ association and in the Zanu PF Bulawayo provincial executive – Sibanda has lived and fallen by the sword, and there is no reason to doubt that even now he is going to be removed by the sword, as was done in 2004 in the aftermath of the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration.
To start with, Sibanda was expelled by the same Mugabe and the rest of the leadership of Zanu PF for his involvement in the alleged palace coup planned in Tsholotsho. They even ejected him from the war veterans association and replaced him with Andrew Ndlovu, who like Sibanda, is from Matabeleland.
I was there at Nhlambabaloyi Secondary School in Umguza district in Matabeleland North sometime towards the end of November 2004 when Mugabe asked Ndlovu to stand up at a rally and introduced him as the new leader of the war veterans. Where is Andrew Ndlovu now? Where are you Cde Andrew? It is clear that things are so bad for Mugabe in Zanu PF that he has decided to throw away principle for his own political survival, and he has found another willing tool in Sibanda, who like other well-known tools before him, is from Matabeleland. It is also clear from Sibanda’s high-sounding speeches that he is targeting people within Zanu PF.
He seems to have no clue that it would do him a lot of good as a Zanu PF cadre if the party won next year’s polls even without Mugabe, than for Mugabe to win the polls without the party. What would they do then? It would be a hollow victory that may not last beyond the declaration by Tobaiwa Mudede or whoever will be running elections come March.
It is clear that Sibanda and his followers have chosen Mugabe at the expense of Zanu PF. Why I say so? Zanu PF is, or was, a massive political grouping that has survived for 44 years, of course with Mugabe at its helm in the last 31 years or so.
What is obvious to many is that Mugabe is now old, weary and redundant. Listen carefully to his speeches in the last five years and analyse them and see if you will find anything new or inspiring. Does Sibanda really believe that Mugabe is strong enough to campaign with the same vigour he did five years ago, in view of the spiralling economic problems? What will he tell the people? That Bush and Blair are behind the food shortages? That Brown is driving inflation?
So if Bush and Blair are behind the shortages and Mugabe has failed to stop them from causing the shortages, why would we elect him to be President for a further five years to make it 33 years in power, when he has failed to protect the nation from Bush and Blair’s machinations? Isn’t it time to elect a new leader who could “deliver us” from the suffering caused by Bush and Blair?
Sibanda needs to open his mind and look ahead and not tie his own existence to that of someone who has seen his better days on earth and is just whiling up time while waiting to meet his creator in the not so distant future. If he lives longer as he is praying for, then tough luck for him as he may find himself having to answer to some of the things that happened during our “moment of madness” in Matabeleland and the Midlands in the eighties, and even more recent during the 2000 and 2002 elections.
Had it been Mujuru, Nkomo, Dabengwa and others marching in support of Mugabe that would be understandable. They have been with him since the 1960s, and are bound together by their experiences in the struggle and in government in the last 27 years. Yet they are not. Why are they not participating in the marches? It is clear they have waited for too long for Mugabe to go, and can’t believe he still wants to stay on.
The Bulawayo march was more revealing than any other that has been embarked upon. To start with, the Zanu-PF provincial executive distanced itself from the march, saying they have not been told to choose a candidate, and there was no need to march in support of a candidate who has not been chosen and endorsed by congress. The executive also locked out of the offices war veterans who wanted to gather there for the march.
When the march finally took place, there was no recognisable Zanu PF supporter from Bulawayo who participated. I was there and I know all the senior Zanu PF officials and supporters in the city. They were not there. Instead, there were strange and new faces, who I believe were brought by the five ZUPCO buses I saw parked somewhere in town. To me, that clearly revealed that the march was futile in terms of geographical relevance as the people of Bulawayo did not participate, serve for a group of street kids who joined in after learning that there would be meat galore at Stanley Square after the march.
Where was Nkomo, Dabengwa, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu and other political luminaries in Bulawayo? We now know that they held their own meeting after the war veterans’ march and mandated their political leader Vice President Joseph Msika to ask Mugabe if he still cared about the Unity Accord between PF-Zapu and Zanu? If he cared, why would he send a party rebel like Sibanda to go about lambasting them in public? We are yet to hear what Mugabe’s answer to that would be.
One strange observation that I have made about Sibanda is that he takes delight in lambasting Zanu PF leaders from Matabeleland, in particular from the PF-Zapu side. He has rubbished Mskika, Nkomo, Dabengwa and all, yet he does not dare do the same with the Zanu PF leadership from Mashonaland, Masvingo, Manicaland and the Midlands. Let him do that he will find himself out of Zanu PF. Prove me wrong Sibanda.
Just say one or two negative statements about Mugabe, Nathan Shamuyaria, Didymus Mutasa or someone from the other side and we see that you are your own man. It would appear Sibanda is on a paid-up mission to denigrate and weaken the standing of the old Zapu leadership in the eyes of the public in order to eliminate them from the race to succeed Mugabe. What a shame! Is Sibanda a later day version of Enos Nkala?
I remember how Prof Jonathan Moyo got away with his fights against Nkomo and others in Matabeleland, until he touched on Shamuyarira and Mujuru. He was ejected in an instant from Zanu PF. I also remember how nothing happened to Joice Mujuru when she made those unsavoury remarks about Joshua Nkomo years back.
It would appear former PF-Zapu leaders are not Zanu PF enough, and can be abused by junior party members and nothing happens to them. Sibanda’s latest schemes buttress this view. This does not help Mugabe in any way. He may need the votes from Matabeleland if he succeeds to squeeze himself in as his party’s candidate, and hopefully faces off against a single opposition candidate. He may live to regret the way he has failed to protect and show true unity with his colleagues from PF-Zapu. The people are watching.
Why do I say Sibanda’s charade is futile? In my view, it is an own goal because it exposes Mugabe as a desperate incumbent who needs solidarity marches from discredited quarters to win an internal competition, and who is isolated by his colleagues, who all along have supported him.
Sibanda’s actions dramatise for all to see the internal problems in Zanu PF as a party at war with itself, a party that is expending its limited energies in an internal war, a few moths before a crucial vote which they would be advised to conserve their little energy for.
There is just too little time between the congress in December and the elections in March for Mugabe to mend relations with his bruised comrades and close ranks to confront the opposition. What makes it worse is that Mugabe -- if he succeeds to get himself declared the Zanu PF candidate – does not know his opponent or opponents in the actual poll would be. Is it going to be Morgan Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni, Gideon Gono, Joice Mujuru, Arthur Mutambara or Paul Siwela? Worse still it could be Emmerson Mnangagwa, who seems to be taking a rest as he gets Mugabe to square-off with the Mujuru camp.
Even if Mugabe wins the election, will he survive the economic opposition that seems to be intensifying against him? Will Sibanda successfully march against the economy and keep Mugabe in office after March? What will the rest of the people do? Watch as a few hundreds old men and women march in support of something they in the least understand?
Time, the magician, will tell.
In the meantime, Zanu PF would do itself a lot of good to advise Mugabe to go peacefully in his own interest, that of the party, the country, and the future.
Whoever stops Mugabe from declaring himself the Zanu PF candidate for next year’s polls will be a hero, and State House the prize. It’s better for Zanu PF for that hero to emerge from within their ranks, than to wait for that hero to emerge at the polls in March. It may be too late for Zanu PF and its officials who may find themselves in a Charles Taylor scenario.
It is clear that the people who want to dislodge Mugabe in Zanu PF are not doing it simply because they do not like him anymore or are sell-outs, but have genuine fears that fielding the man in next year’s election would be a big electoral risk, which could backfire spectacularly and engulf them all, and are tempted to serve themselves and their business empires by removing Mugabe themselves.
Sadly, others like Sibanda imagine that Mugabe is a supernatural being, who at 84 next year and having being in power for 28 years, is the same respected and inspiring revolutionary he was in 1980. The sooner they realise that isn’t the case, the better, otherwise they will continue misleading Mugabe into believing that he is there forever. How can that be?
In short, it is better for the people in Zanu PF to remove Mugabe themselves than to let the masses do it for them in March, lest they live unhappily ever after. Jabulani Sibanda and company should actually be organising farewell marches for Mugabe than marching for him to stay longer.
I am dead certain the so-called million-men-march that Sibanda dreams of would explode in Harare if he invited us to participate in a Mugabe farewell march. It would not even need a week of invitations on TV and radio like is the case now with the “solidarity marches”, which have still failed to attract the intimidating marches that would boost Mugabe’s confidence.
Methuseli Moyo is a former news editor of the Sunday News and more recently Editor-In-Chief of Spot FM. He left his job in July after he refused a posting to the government’s propaganda station, Voice of Zimbabwe. E-mail: methumoyo@yahoo.co.uk
Friday, October 12, 2007
MBEKI AND MUGABE ARE BIRDS OF A FEATHER!
By Rebecca Mwaimbotinyi
LINK!!!
THE controversies currently swirling around South African president Thabo Mbeki’s head serve to confirm the long-standing suspicions of many skeptics that he has been so spectacularly impotent in handling the Zimbabwean crisis because he and Robert Mugabe are kindred spirits committed to the same ruthless principles and modus operandi.
Observers have suggested in the past that Mbeki’s lacklustre performance as troubleshooter vis-à-vis the Zimbabwean problem, first in an informal capacity under his dubious "quiet diplomacy" from 2001 to 2004, and now under the aegis of the Southern Africa Development Community, is due to his having a soft spot for Mugabe. The reason for, this, skeptics have suggested, is that the South African leader sees nothing wrong with his northern peer’s despotic rule because he believes in the same forms of bad governance to maintain his grip on power.
In all the years that Mbeki has been touted as Africa’s point-man on Zimbabwe, he has never spoken out publicly against human rights abuses, lawlessness, attacks on the independence of the judiciary and intolerance for divergent and opposing views that the Mugabe regime is notorious for. Instead, Mbeki has often been accused of belligerence towards the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) some of whose founding leaders are former trade union leaders because he does not want to give the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) any ideas that it could one day pose a similar challenge to his leadership.
The current furor over Mbeki’s firing of National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli in order to protect Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi from prosecution, is a ploy straight from the Mugabe book of tricks and subterfuge. In Zimbabwe many cases of corruption in high places have been swept under the carpet through similar blatant interference when "orders from the top" have resulted in forced transfers of key investigating officers or attacks on members of the judiciary who have shown determination to deal with such cases without fear or favour. There is an on-going example as I write this. The press has reported that on "orders from above" Selina Mumbengegwi, wife of Zimbabwe’s finance minister, who is accused of involvement in the death of a worker on her farm, is to be left to go scot-free.
The Mugabe government has resorted to similar arbitrary decrees to protect corrupt officials involved in scandals such as the multiple farm ownership racket, the pillaging of equipment from Kondozi Farm in Manicaland , the looting of the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) and the abuse of government facilities such as subsidized fuel and farm inputs. Mbeki has shown himself to be a dedicated student and imitator of the Mugabe autocracy, which punishes the efficient bureaucrat for his diligence and rewards corrupt officials and cronies.
Mbeki’s reason for firing Pikoli after the Director of National Prosecutions had secured a warrant for Selebi’s arrest for corruption is that relations between Pikoli and Justice Minister Bridgette Mabandla had broken down irretrievably. What kind of coincidence that Mbeki should decide to act on this at the precise moment when he should not have interfered. No wonder Mbeki has been accused of "misleading and undermining the intelligence of the nation." The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille has been quoted as saying, "In fact all the circumstantial evidence suggests he is actually protecting Selebi and not trying to get the truth of the Selebi matter."
Mbeki aped another Mugabe trait, protecting the corrupt and inefficient, which has allowed him to keep some of the same deadwood in his cabinet over the last 27 years. In an earlier controversy involving his unpopular Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Mbeki showed himself to be a good disciple of his older counterpart. He stood staunchly by Tshabala-Msimang after a newspaper expose that showed she had previously been prosecuted for theft and was an alcoholic, whose excessive drinking had damaged her liver, necessitating a life-saving liver transplant. In the unmistakable "shoot the messenger" Mugabe tradition in such situations, Mbeki’s government mounted a sustained attack on the newspaper that broke the story and on the judge who ruled in its favour when Tshabalala-Msimang took the matter to court.
Mbeki and Mugabe also have an almost identical way of dealing with anyone who poses a potential challenge to their positions. Mugabe has been ruthless in the way he has maintained his iron grip on power over the last 27 years as shown by the way he treated the late Joshua Nkomo and the late Ndabaningi Sithole, who were like him, pioneers of the nationalist movement. More recently, Mugabe has turned against one of his vice presidents, Joice Mujuru because of his detestation of the idea that she could successfully challenge him for the leadership of the ruling party and government. She initially gained favour because he needed to use her to fend off a serious challenge from another presidential aspirant, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Despite discarding Mnangagwa in the heat of the moment in 2004, Mugabe is now wooing him both to spite Mujuru and for his own survival ahead of crucial elections next year.
In similar underhand antics, Mbeki has been accused of sacking his former deputy, Jacob Zuma and accusing Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa of involvement in a conspiracy to oust him from power illegally because of the same motivation - self preservation. Mbeki’s paranoid moves against Sexwale and Ramaphosa echoed Mugabe’s claim in 2004 that a number of Zanu-PF officials, including former propaganda minister Jonathan Moyo, had met in Matabeleland to plot a palace coup against him.
Mbeki and Mugabe apparently both appointed women vice presidents that they had no intention of allowing to advance any further to succeed them as stop-gap measures to soothe tensions within their parties while buying themselves time to figure out how to out-manoeuvre any other political rivals. As indicated above, Joice Mujuru no longer features in Mugabe’s plans ahead of next year’s polls. Similarly, Phumzile Mlambo-Nqcuka whom Mbeki appointed to the position of vice-president after Zuma’s dismissal is rarely mentioned these days as Mbeki concentrates on securing a third term for himself. So much for gender balance and adherence to the SADC Protocols, which both men exploited to maximum advantage to gain women’s support when they made the appointments.
The similarities between the two men are endless. They are birds of a feather and like peas from the same pod. No wonder Mbeki has stubbornly refused to condemn the human rights abuses and other repressive acts of the Mugabe regime. He has been hamstrung by the fact that he believes in the same undemocratic and non-transparent methods and may want to resort to more of them himself the more his bid to cling to power is opposed.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
DEAR MR THABO MVUYELWA MBEKI!!!
I'M PREPARING A DETAILED ARTICLE AS A FINAL WARNING TO YOU, SIR!................MY ASSUMPTION IS THAT YOU MAY BE COMPLETELY REMOVED FROM THE GENERAL REALITY AND MAY THUS NEED AN UPDATE FROM A COMMON PERSON LIKE MYSELF!.............."CRIME IN SOUTH AFRICA???".............. I THINK YOU ARE FAST ASLEEP!!!..............SURELY WITH ALL THE INTELLIGENCE YOU HAVE, WHAT ARE MILLIONS OF ZIMBABWEANS FEEDING ON HERE IN SOUTH AFRICA?...........SO YOU THINK THEIR BELLIES WILL BE FULL OF OXYGEN AND WATER???........YET ITS YOU THAT SAID In PARLIAMENT THE OTHER DAY THAT THEY ARE COMING!!!.....BY GOD THABO SON OF GOVAN, YOU REALLY BEAT ME!!.....SO THEY ARE COMING TO DO WHAT???....TO SURVIVE ON PROSTITUTION SLEEPING AT MARABASTAD HOME AFFAIRS, THEN DEPORTED TO LINDELA WHERE YOUR FRIENDS HAVE TENDERS TO "FEED" THOSE AWAITING "REPATRIATION"???.........DO YOUR INTELLIGENCE PERSONNEL NOT TELL YOU WHAT THE REAL SITUATION ON THE GROUND IS LIKE????...........THE ISSUE OF WHETHER THERE ARE TWO MILLION OR ONE MILLION OR THREE MILLION IS NEITHER HERE NOR THERE!!!..........WHERE ARE THEY SLEEPING IN THIS ROUGH WEATHER?........... YOUR "FIXED", NARROW, BIASED THINKING MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR ORDINARY SOUTH AFRICANS TO HELP EG BY SETTING UP PROPER REFUGEE CAMPS ETC!......... THERE IS NOTHING AS DIFFICULT FOR US COMMON PERSONS AS TO HAVE A PERSON WHO DOES NOT DESERVE RESPECT TO OCCUPY A "HIGH OFFICE" WHICH ITSELF DESERVES RESPECT!!!......WHAT A SHAME ON YOU!!.............. MY PROBLEMS WITH YOU GO BACK ABOUT SIX YEARS!!!.......I WILL NOT DELVE INTO YOUR OTHER BLUNDER EG YOUR SHELTERING OF THAT DESPICABLE JACKIE SELEBI!............TO ME, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR INSENSITIVITY TO THE PLIGHT OF MY COUNTRYMEN!!!!!!......OH, YOU PATHETIC, STINKING, MISGUIDED FAILURE!......... SHAME ON YOU, THABO MVUYELWA MBEKI!.......YOU CAN'T HIDE BEHIND THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE TO ESCAPE OUR ANGER!!.........(Rev Mufaro S Hove.)
Open letter to President Robert Gabriel Mugabe (from Mr Geoff Nyarota!)
By Geoffrey Nyarota
October 1, 2007
IT IS said by the wise that whenever a man - or a woman - points a finger in accusation, three fingers point back at himself or herself, presumably in similar accusation.
Nowhere could this saying have been more applicable than at the United Nations last week when President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stood up to address the General Assembly. True to form, he put this golden opportunity to bombastic use as he lambasted President George Bush of the United States and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for their alleged hypocrisy, while opportunely reminding them of his credentials, including his commitment, his contribution and his sacrifice during Zimbabwe’s protracted struggle from almost a century of colonial and settler domination.
I am surprised that he missed this opportunity to inquire of the British Prime Minister why he attended the same meeting with him in New York if he could not even contemplate the prospect of being a delegate at the same meeting with his Zimbabwean counterpart in Lisbon in December.
What follows is a modified version of President Mugabe’s grandiloquent sermon at the UN. Where he addressed Srgian Kerim, President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 26, 2007, I am now addressing him as the President of my beloved country, Zimbabwe:
Your Excellency,
Allow me to congratulate you on your insightful, invigorating and revolutionary delivery before the august UN General Assembly last week. We are always confident that through your inspirational stewardship, the concerns and aspirations of the citizens of Zimbabwe, as indeed those of the rest of the Third World, will not only be appropriately highlighted before this world forum, but that they will also be dealt with in a balanced manner and to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Mr. President,
We extend our hearty welcome to you on your safe return back home, where we continued to wallow in the abject poverty and misery that have become our way of life. While we scrounged for food you took up the challenging task requiring your rare quality of dynamism to confront the global challenges of the 21st Century, while placing both George Bush and this newcomer Gordon Brown in their proper place right in front of the assembled leaders of the world. You did us proud as you singled out Tony Blair in absentia for severe and overdue tongue-lashing.
But, Mr President now that you are back on home ground, let me seize on this opportunity to remind you that balancing national interests and steering Zimbabwe in a direction that gives hope to the multitudes of the poor, the sick, the hungry and the marginalized is, indeed, a mammoth task. We would like to assure you that we as a nation continue to expect of you and your government an open, transparent and all-inclusive multilateral approach in dealing with national challenges.
Mr. President,
We do not dispute that climate change is one of the most pressing global issues of our time; that its negative impact is greatest in developing countries, particularly those on the African continent. We believe that if the international community is to seriously address the challenges of climate change, then we need to get our priorities right. In Zimbabwe, the effects of climate change have become more evident in the past decade as we have witnessed increased and recurrent droughts as well as occasional floods, leading to enormous humanitarian challenges. But don’t forget, Sir, that the greater part of the enormous humanitarian challenges facing us as a nation today are a direct result of ill-advised decisions deliberately taken by your government over the same period going back to 1997.
Mr. President,
We are for a Zimbabwe that recognises the equality of citizens and political parties, whether big or small. We are averse to an environment in which the economically and militarily powerful among us behave like bullies, trampling on the rights of weak and defenceless opponents as sadly happened at Machipisa on March 11, 2007. In the light of such inauspicious developments, your government must surely examine the essence of its authority and the extent of its power when legitimately challenged by other stake-holders on the political landscape.
Such challenges to the authority of your government underpin our repeated call for the revitalisation of that landscape. Your government should be more active in all areas, including those of peace and the security of all citizens. The encroachment of some organs such as the omnipresent Central Intelligence Organisation and the Green Bombers upon the work of the opposition and civil society is of great concern to us. Meanwhile, any process of revitalizing or strengthening of our Constitution should necessarily avoid eroding the principle of the accountability of all principal and subsidiary organs of government.
Mr. President,
Once again we reiterate the position held by an overwhelming majority that the government of Zimbabwe, as presently constituted, is not democratic. In its present configuration, the government has shown that it is not in a position to protect the weaker parties who find themselves at loggerheads with a marauding and all powerful ruling party. Most importantly, justice demands that any constitutional reform redresses the fact that Zimbabwe is conspicuous in the international community for its denial of basic freedoms to the majority of its citizens.
Mr. President,
We further call upon your government to refrain from interfering in matters that are clearly the legitimate domain of political formations other than your own, matters, therefore, that are clearly not a threat to national peace and security. The development of our nation should continue to be guided by sound policies and principles, and not be subject to the whims of a few powerful, selfish, corrupt and incompetent politicians.
Mr President,
Zimbabwe won its independence on April 18, 1980, after a prolonged war against British colonial imperialism which denied us our human rights and democracy. On that historical day we defeated the colonial system which suppressed and oppressed us while enjoying the support of many countries of the West.
Sadly, it is patently clear that where you and your government are concerned, vested economic interests and racial and ethnocentric considerations continue to take precedence over adherence to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Indeed, the West still negates our sovereignties by way of control of our resources, in the process making us mere chattels in our own lands, mere minders of its transnational interests. It is more painful when our so-called people’s government reduces us once more to mere chattels in our own land and mere minders of the personal interests of our avaricious political leaders. In Zimbabwe the most visible form of this control has been over land which was seized from the white farmers and distributed essentially among your cohorts, while the rest of us watched from the sidelines.
This shameful and divisive control largely persists, although it stands firmly challenged by us, the majority, thereby triggering the current stand-off between us and your party. Indeed, the sense of human rights of Mr Bush, Mr. Blair and now Mr Brown may preclude our right to the resources of their kith and kin in our country. But are we not about to witness the control of those same resources pass onto your own kith and kin, while economic empowerment remains a pipe-dream for the rest of us.
You have been termed a dictator not because you have rejected the supremacist view of Mr Bush and Mr Blair and now Mr Brown, while frustrating the neo-colonialists. No. You have been called a dictator because of your oppression of your own people through denying them their basic human rights. Wanton incarceration of innocent citizens, the assault on prominent politicians while in police custody, the bombing of printing presses – those are the hallmarks of dictatorship. Our genuine grievances over these important issues are not in any way inspired by Western politicians.
Mr President,
You lost eleven precious years of your life while jailed by Ian Smith, a white man whose freedom and well-being you graciously assured from the first day of Zimbabwe’s Independence. Yes, you lost a further fifteen years while fighting white injustice in our country. But once you ascended to power, did you assure the freedom and well-being of Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole or Abel Muzorewa from the first day of Zimbabwe’s Independence? How many years did they and a multitude of other Zimbabweans lose and continue to lose while fighting black injustice in the land of their rukuvhute?
You say Ian Smith was responsible for the death of well over 50 000 of our people. This was over a period of 15 years. How many thousands perished or were maimed in Matabeleland at the hands of Five Brigade in just five years? Yes, you meet Smith’s victims everyday. But how many of your own victims are petrified by you today? Yes, Smith walks free. He farms free. Do I walk free in Zimbabwe? Do I farm free?
You are probably right that Smith would have faced a different fate in the United States and in Europe if the 50 000 he killed were white people. But then you have not suffered any fate for the heinous crimes committed by your own regime against multitudes of your own black people.
You are right. President Bush of the United States stands for “this civilization” which occupies, incarcerates and kills in the distant lands of Iraq and Afghanistan. But your own government killed in Tsholotsho and Lupane. It killed at Murambinda. It killed in Harare, in Bulawayo and on the commercial farms. Your government kills its own people.
Yes, President Bush imprisons and tortures at Guantanamo. He imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib. But you imprison and torture innocent Zimbabweans in the spine-chilling chambers at Goromonzi, in the dungeons of the long condemned Matapi Police Station at Harare Central and, since 3/11, at Machipisa Police Station.
Take Goromonzi, for example; the rule of law does not apply there. Only the unjust law of the CIO applies. Should the leaders of the world in assembly at the UN accept being lectured to by you on the provisions of the universal declaration of human rights? Definitely not!
Mr President,
We are perturbed that under your leadership, the basic rights of the people of Zimbabwe have summarily been rolled back. Your government is primarily responsible for constantly rewriting (18 times at the last count) core tenets of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. You seem to hold us collectively and eternally guilty after we rejected constitutional reforms proposed by your government in 2000. Since then you seem to believe you stand above all structures of governance, whether local or national.
In Harare you apparently do not need the Constitution or Parliament. Abroad you do not seem to respect the very UN, before which you were posturing last week. Neither do you respect international laws or opinion. The UN did not sanction Gukurahundi or Murambatsvina. You rode roughshod over local and international opinion. Yet you dare to lecture others on tyranny. Indeed, you should mend your ways before you clamber up the UN pulpit to deliver “pieties of democracy”.
Mr President,
Zanu-PF and your government have mounted a relentless campaign to destabilise and vilify innocent and law-abiding Zimbabweans. They have sponsored surrogate forces to challenge lawful opposition in our country. They don’t want a change of government, placing themselves in the role of the protectors of the people of Zimbabwe, forgetting that democracy places the right to define and change regimes in the collective will of the people.
Let these sinister forces, the CIO and the Green Bombers and others be told here and now that Zimbabwe will not allow a governance status quo authored and maintained by them. We do not need America and Britain to tell us that we are starving. Mr Bush and Mr Brown have little role to play in our current national demise. They are outsiders and should therefore not be mischievously blamed for all our woes. The colonial sun set a long time ago; in 1980 in the case of Zimbabwe. The progressive people of Zimbabwe should not relentlessly be reminded about colonialism for no good reason. No!
You are fond of quoting from the chapters of history. Mr President, the milkman made door-to-door deliveries in Mbare back in the 1960s - and collected payment only on Friday! Now the milk has disappeared altogether under your visionary and revolutionary leadership!
We do not deserve to be subjected to contempt by our own government. We are Zimbabweans and we know the cause of our problems. We knew the cause of our problems well before Bush and Brown were born politically.
In that vein, I wish to express my compatriots’ disapproval of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who, on behalf of SADC, successfully engineered the ‘futile dialogue between your ruling party and the opposition MDC parties, which yielded the agreement that has now resulted in new constitutional provisions being finally adopted. This we do in light of the utterances of the commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, Lieutenant-General Phillip Sibanda, who told impressionable young army recruits in Rusape last week that the army would never tolerate the ascendancy of a party other than your own Zanu-PF to power in Zimbabwe.
Even if you don’t reprimand him, as you should do publicly, we will turn out in full force to cast our vote in the multiple democratic elections to be held in March 2008. Once more we will use our vote wisely. But then, once more, your Mr Tobaiwa Mudede will obviously not allow our vote to translate into victory over tyranny.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, let me stress once more that the strength of the people of Zimbabwe lies in the impartiality of your government as it implements its mandate to promote peace and prosperity as well as national security, economic and social development, while respecting human rights and law and order, as outlined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans stand ready to play their part in all efforts and programmes aimed at achieving these noble goals.
Now that you are back with us it’s not entirely out of place to remind you that we were without food when you departed for New York. We were still without food as you mesmerized them with your thunderous eloquence at the UN and, as you return to Harare, the young ones still cry for food.
To give credit where it’s due, we did have electricity from 3.00 am to 5.00 am on the day of your arrival. Sadly, the water taps have remained dry for the past two weeks.
Indeed, down with Bush. Down with Blair and, now, down with Brown.
I thank you.
(Geoffrey Nyarota is the Managing Editor of the Zimbabwe Times and the author of Against the Grain, Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman, published by Zebra Press of South Africa.)
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Mugabe undermined by ZANU-PF divisions!!
Mugabe may face greater threat from own party than weakened MDC. From IWPR.
By Norman Chitapi in Harare for IWPR (24/09/07)
LINK!!!!
Though President Robert Mugabe is reported by state-controlled media to have won endorsement from ZANU-PF's powerful Women's League, Youth League, traditional leaders and war veterans to lead the party in next year's elections, analysts say his fight for survival is just beginning.
In their view, the biggest threat to his supremacy emanates from other more powerful groupings within his party who are far less vocal in their support of him.
The decision by the ruling party last week to call for a special congress in December suggests deeper, behind-the-scenes divisions in the ZANU-PF leadership.
The agenda of the meeting has not been made public and the ruling party's political commissar, Elliot Manyika, said it would be determined by the central committee.
But speculation is rife that the purpose of the special congress is to choose a candidate to represent ZANU-PF in next year's joint presidential and parliamentary elections after a faction of the ruling party, led by retired army general Solomon Mujuru, refused to have Mugabe endorsed as the sole candidate at the party's central committee meeting in March.
Since then, Mugabe has cajoled more pliable wings of his party to demonstrate their show of support for him as the preferred candidate.
The decision to call for the special congress shows that Mugabe's position is now even more precarious because he has to fight his battle on two fronts: within his party and against the opposition, in the form of a determined, if splintered, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Oppah Muchinguri, leader of the ZANU-PF Women's League and a close associate of Mugabe, has often been quoted endorsing Mugabe as the sole candidate but some say she is speaking for herself. She is openly campaigning to replace Joice Mujuru, wife of Solomon Mujuru, as vice-president. She can only achieve this feat if Mugabe holds on to the presidency.
All is not well either in the Youth League where vocal Mugabe supporters - youth leaders Saviour Kasukuwere and his close lieutenant, Patrick Zhuwayo (who is also Mugabe's nephew) - apparently made false claims that the league had unanimously endorsed Mugabe as the sole candidate. The two were subsequently removed from the leadership of the Youth League, ostensibly because they were "too old." However, analysts believe senior members of the party opposed to Mugabe were behind the move to clip their wings.
Two weeks ago, war veterans demonstrated on the streets of the capital Harare, vowing that they would "die with our president" who should be president for life.
"We don't want to give the imperialists any room to remove him (Mugabe) from power and we think now is a good time to show the whole world that we are behind President Mugabe," said war veteran leader Jabulani Sibanda, explaining the reason for their demonstration. "Anyone in the ruling party with ambitions to challenge President Mugabe is digging his own grave."
Although he denied that there were factions in ZANU-PF, he referred instead to "internal reactionary forces within our own party."
Mugabe has called war veterans "torchbearers" of his presidential campaign but as far as the special congress is concerned they have no independent vote. Also some analysts say it would be foolish to think that the war veterans are a homogenous grouping. A week after the demonstration a fight broke out between senior war veteran leaders in Masvingo city, 300 kilometers south of Harare.
War veteran leader Joseph Chinotimba was beaten up by provincial leaders who told him they did not support Mugabe's candidature but backed the Mujuru faction instead.
In May this year, some war veterans said they would not campaign for Mugabe unless they were given huge cash payments well ahead of the elections.
"You have ignored us all this time only to resurface because there is an election tomorrow," a war veteran was quoted saying at a meeting in Mutare. "We are tired of being used. We are not going to campaign for the president or the party (ZANU-PF) until you give us more money."
Analysts say Mugabe would have to fork out huge sums to placate this important grouping, as he did in November 1997 when he gave each of the 50,000 or so former fighters a lump sum of 50,000 Zimbabwe dollars each, as well as other unbudgeted-for perks. The Zimbabwe dollar collapsed in the aftermath of that "black November" decision, setting the country's economy into a tailspin which continues today.
The embattled Mugabe has bribed traditional leaders in rural areas by giving them new vehicles for their personal use. He has said they can buy fuel from the money they receive from penalties paid by offenders under their jurisdiction. Traditional leaders are empowered by the constitution to try minor crimes in their areas and charge fines.
Analysts note that traditional leaders can easily manipulate their subjects to vote according to their bidding. Food shortages have only made rural communities more dependent on government handouts which come through chiefs.
In past elections, traditional leaders have been ordered to herd their subjects to polling stations where they then "helped them mark their ballots" because they were illiterate. That way Mugabe's victory in the populous rural areas has been guaranteed. With the latest gifts to the chiefs, their voting pattern is a foregone conclusion. But the urban-rural drift which followed Operation Murambatsvina - where hundreds of thousands of people had their dwellings destroyed, leaving them with no choice but to return to their rural homes - may change voting patterns in the rural areas.
A political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe said Mugabe was personally facing a greater threat from within his own party than from the weakened MDC. He said in recent months Mugabe had begun warming towards a faction led by Rural Amenities Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa who "because of the nature of his portfolio should be closer than anyone to influence the majority rural voters.
"There is no doubt that Mugabe is having more sleepless nights [because of threats] from within his own party than from the MDC," said the commentator. "He would have loved to have been endorsed as the sole presidential candidate at the March meeting but that did not happen and he is angry. That has driven him closer to the rival faction led by Mnangagwa who sees this as a chance to improve his prospects against Mujuru."
The political scientist said it was not a coincidence that Sibanda, the head of the war veterans, was also personally close to Mnangagwa. "When it really comes to the elections, we know what the war veterans can do," he said. "Mugabe would like to use them as his foot soldiers just as he has done in the past. This will undermine Mujuru's influence. But when it comes to the special congress, there will be so much noise about Mugabe [from the women and youth leagues] we may never hear what Mujuru stands for."
Another analyst said that a wily Mugabe had cleverly linked his fate to that of his ministers and members of parliament by holding presidential and parliamentary elections at the same time. He said it would be difficult for his members of parliament to "delink" their campaign to the president's. "It means every MP who is campaigning for ZANU-PF is also campaigning for Mugabe, because if ZANU-PF loses the MP also loses his seat," he said. "Similarly, one cannot vote for a ZANU-PF MP and not vote for Mugabe."
But will he survive the extraordinary congress? Analysts say the battle lines are drawn but which way the fight will go is not yet clear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Chitapi is the pseudonym of an IWPR journalist in Zimbabwe.
This article originally appeared Africa Reports, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).
Washington Consensus vis-à-vis Dictatorship, Proxy Addis Ababa undermines Harare Progressives!!
LINK!!!!!
By Alois Phiri Mbawara
Two faced struggle in Zimbabwe!
A lot of people wonder why Africa is not responding to the struggle in support of the masses in Zimbabwe.
There are a lot of external, internal political and economic restrictions heftly imposed on the People of Zimbabwe. We must not forget as a result of those restrictions, a good number of children and youth today go hungry, scantily clothed and cannot afford school fees because they and their parents are in restrictions.
These restrictions have disrupted more African homes and more social problems have been created. It is therefore important that the Zimbabwe Youth Charter gives this matter its serious considerations.
Character assassination ploys have been played by the Right-wing in our struggle portraying us as being sympathetic to the Harare establishment sorely because of our radical thinking - our position has been very clear as linking the peasant question with the workers question.
The Youth Charter deliberately recounted to you the various factors which influence the situation in Zimbabwe one way or another. Those who believe that the United Nations (UN) and mainly the Western forces will liberate Zimbabwe are greatly mistaken. Only reformist forces embrace such ideologies.
Political and Economic liberation can only be brought to Zimbabwe by us. No-one can liberate the other. Empowerment or Emancipation won’t be ours unless we liberate ourselves. There is no such thing as being liberated by others, others can only help us to liberate ourselves.
This has been a calculated error, bad judgement in the Art of war in our struggle from Tyranny and Neo-Imperialism, that people are foundered and taught to expect to be liberated, instead of being taught to liberate themselves.
However, we are glad to see that the Youth in drafting the charter have grasped this central point of liberating ourselves.
The Youth believe it is impossible to transport what has been perfected (Capitalism) in one set of historical circumstances mainly in the West and transplant it in an entirely new environment (Sub-Sahara).
This is why we are unwilling to be carbon copies of either Western Capitalism or Neo-Liberal disguised as democracy. We shall pursue our own ideology of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism, Social democracy best suited to the Zimbabwean conditions. (Social justice)Zimism!!
The Youth of today have no alternative other than reigniting the struggle to restore Majority Rule, is the only true solution to the present problem. This solution is supported by the Masses of the inhabitants in our continent (Mama Africa) on condition we maintain and protect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and weed out those external capitalistic/imperialistic forces and the new class of Black & White Bourgeoisies.
The Youth must direct their attention to the following problems......
- One has to understand fully the situation in Zimbabwe to appreciate the nature of the betrayal of the revolution and how imperialism has manifestoed itself in the political and economic demography. Sometimes we find that people do not understand the true nature of the problem that confronts Zimbabwe, for instance, the youth have been urged by many people to embrace "The Mugabe Must Go" philosophy which is a co-modified definition which does not attack systems.
Surely the Youth will not embrace such a litmus struggle as we clearly stated our enemy as a System not individuals. Some have suggested that the people of Zimbabwe should be reformist, fight confined to the current constitution i.e. participate in elections etc. The Youth can never fight or engage in elections under the present constitution and we will boycott the 2008 elections under the 1980 Lancaster House constitution. We will not go back on our word, our opposition to the present constitution still stands.
There has been a miscast of our claim for betrayal of the Revolution by the leadership of Zanu against the initial aspirations laid by our ancestors of a total transfer of Political and mainly economic power to the hands of the African masses.
It is quite imperative at this juncture that we lay our fundamental principles and aspirations of the real true nature of our struggle, what we are convinced to be the betrayed unfinished Zimbabwean Revolution.
In 1976 Geneva (Switzerland), Mugabe insisted that elections should be held in what is being called Zimbabwe today after the transfer of power to the Revolutionary nationalist forces and that they should be based on Universal and democratic suffrage - this was a principle position the nationalist leadership had based on what the masses were demanding.
In 1979 in London Mugabe abandoned what he said in 1976. He agreed that elections should be held under the supervision of the British imperialists with the Rhodesian Armed Forces remaining intact.
He agreed an electoral franchise guaranteeing the Rhodesian electorate 20 parliamentary seats out of 100 despite the fact that they represented less than 4% of the population. When it came to the constitution, it included a section on freedom from the deprivation of property which guaranteed and protected the settlers against forcible seizure of land for 10 years and also required adequate compensation for all land appropriated.
Well may I quote Nyerere who in 1974, five years before said: "The reality of neo-colonialism quickly becomes obvious to a new African government which tries to act on economic matters in betterment of its own masses, for such a government immediately discovers that it inherited the power to make laws to treat with foreign government and so on, but did not inherit effective power over economic development in its own country. Indeed it often discovers that there is no such thing as national economy at all."
This is an apt description of the situation that the Lancaster House Agreement imposed on the people of what used to be called Southern Rhodesia. That is where the Revolutionary struggle in Zimbabwe was betrayed and stopped unfinished; this is what started what is seen as the Land Question and no principles of social justice.
Our opposition to the Harare establishment surely has and is completely different with some. Ours is truly confined Revolution based on how Zimbabwe under R.G was given back economically to the External forces (Imperialist). Upon the electoral victory of Zanu in 1980 in a national address, Mugabe appealed to the masses: "I urge you whether you are black or white to join me in a new pledge to forget our grave past, to forgive others, and forget, and join hands in a new amity”.
People were being told to forget what they had suffered. For betraying the likes of Cdes Tongogara, Moyo, Nehanda, Mangena, Takawira and many others who all sacrificed there lives fighting settlerism and kicking-out Euro-centric Capitalism, placing economic power in the hands of the African masses.
Showing his fakeless, purely behaving like a Western-oriented regime by embracing the poisonous neo-liberal economic reforms Structural adjustment program (ESAP), imported rather imposed by IMF/World Bank.
Surely Harare was advised infact there was a massive mobilisation late 80s early 90s not only in Zimbabwe but across Africa against SAPs by the Left and Revolutionary Pan-Africanist warning about this liberalization process of African borders.
We saw the turning of a Nationalist movement into Neo-Colonial regime or tyrant. What people where promised in the bush against Settlers was a complete Revolution meaning systematic change or, in other words, turning round completely. Not meaning replacing white bosses with black bosses or white with black privileged classes (bourgeoisie). No, but creating an entirely new order and system in which classes and privileges cease to exist.
- Political power in the hands of a foreign minority being wrested from them and placed in the hands of the indigenous African majority.
-fight against foreigner enjoying economic and financial privileges, clearly stating it will be abrogated and rights of the indigenous people to all natural resources and economic and financial betterment restored to them and kicking out exploitation, degeneration promising real equality, freedom and social justice.
On economy we were promised a free, democratic, and independent and Pan Africanist/Socialist Zimbabwe designed to meet the basic needs of each peasants and worker. Outlining Zimbabwe as endowed with rich natural resources capable of supporting and feeding the masses, means of production and distribution into their hands.
Smashing out the capitalist economic system which was designed to benefit a few settlers and external forces at the expense of the labouring masses.
There was a major promise of applying a concrete condition to put worker and peasant contributions to means of production and distribution beyond any reasonable doubt, a economic policy that provide for the greatest dominance of worker-peasant interests. A self-supporting economy, not an extension or an enclave of the economies of External forces. There was a clear definition of African labour as employed for the benefit of the capitalist investors elsewhere and as alienated, an alienation that destroys the human personality of the worker and which clinch him/her from progress or develop his full capacity.
Let us be clear that it was prophesied a real articulation of the manufaction of Imperialism, mind you neo-colonial interest have always wanted to maintain there dominants in Africa. The systematic form of colonization is the control of neo-colonial regimes and opposition forces what we termed as bourgeoisie's and pseudo-progressives respectively as a way of maintain ownership, management and control of the entire system of production.
Of-course economic goes hand in hand with political control, Under colonialism political control was often direct through the settler representatives or through a white-controlled native administration, under the neo-colonial form control is exercised through a comprador bourgeoisie as long they guarantee the continued dominance of external interest.
While one acknowledges the corrupt mechanism as one of the prime cause to the economic collapse in Harare, the Kangai GMB saga, manipulation of relief aid for political gain, prominent government officials and army officers manipulating the agrarian reform for elite gains, Willowvale scandal, unbudgeted payment to freedom fighters and an unbudgeted elite war in DRC.
In 1991 we saw the bribery strategy being injected in Harare a complete turn around on the principles of Pan-Africanism ideals of a home grown policies that will feed the masses against Rhodesian type of exploitation of the Africans resources in there own land. The introduction of the Structural adjustment program (ESAP), having been fooled by IMF/ World Bank that SAP's were poverty reduction exercises the Reagan and Thatcher's administration prop policy impoverished Zimbabwe as a result of the liberalization and deregulation policies.
It is unfortunate the "Mugabe Must Go" activists of today does not diagnose the effects of SAP's into the life’s of ordinary citizens since late 80's and how they have transformed Savanna into a settler control state using economic means to control the ruling and opposition forces (neo-colonial) as a way to plunder cheap raw materials at the expense of the suffering workers and peasants.
Surely such a real articulation shall guide us of not being victims of the divide and rule principles of Capitalism which creates anarchy in societies to use it to its advantage.
For a Government which had promised and implemented populist policies by investing heavily in health, free education, parastatals, rural development and the productive sectors as a way of putting the needs of the workers and peasants on the top agenda ideals of the liberation struggle of a people centred economy.
The liberal economic reforms pushed by IMF/World Bank saw the slashing of government spending, privatisation and opening up of Zimbabwe's economic borders to exploitative foreign investment, of-coarse it is very difficult for an ordinary Zimbabwean to see with a nicked eye as what were and are the negative impact on an ordinary person of these austerity reforms, and how it has transformed there lives back to the settlers rule of begging for hand-outs.
It is imperative that we break down the effects of the free market programs of the 90's and how they have created class divisions primarily looking at the sell off of government-owned enterprises to external private owners this of-coarse has a draw back of redundancy of workers in the privatised enterprises. (with no proper progressive informal sector) We saw the government distancing it self from the welfare of the masses by cutting its spending, marketing parastatals scrapping off the free social services (education and health services) injecting” user fees" for the use of government -provided services.
Coming to the exploitation of resources vis-a -vis for a country to progress economically there has to be a pure mechanism of promotion of exports but the question is for who's benefit and who is the exporter, well with SAP's we saw its discouragement of land reform programs for domestic needs as small scale farmers and peasants are bought out by multi-national companies (foreign investors) who mostly their interest is profit making (foreign markets). (I remember in Form 1 being told by my tutor “the 1st grade brand tea grown in Zimbabwe is for the Queen”)
As it promote trade liberalisation however it does not balance the export and import barriers as it eliminate tariff protection for industries, scraps off price controls leaving the ordinary (workers and peasants) exposed to a external control markets (systematic colonization) meaning business will determine the prices of the day.
In short SAPs have bankrupted local industries, increased dependency on food imports, gutted social services and fostered a widening gap between rich and poor creating a class of black and white elites who will be in charge of the narrow stratum of the private sector running export production, trade brokering, and portfolio finance on-behalf of the neo-liberal World transnational companies.
It is important that we expose how IMF's economic policies imposed on Harare (1990’s) have brought untold havoc on the economic and social structure of Zimbabwe. This of course with the help of its right-wing partner, Zanu PF elites. The major cut in public expenditure triggered a collapse in public investment and the disintegration of the basic infrastructure which created a major rift between the masses and the right-wing ruling party as it had proved itself to be a fully grown proxy agenda of Neo-colonialism even implementing home grown SAPs, leaving the white settler community's share of the country's land, wealth and income intact fulfilling the infamous Lancaster Agreement.
Nevertheless, one should not forget the acts of the blood sucking fascist tendencies of the Harare establishment, which has since 1980 been an agent of neo-colonialism. Zanu PF has been what we term " a coconut regime" black outside and white inside, serving the Rhodesian Smith agenda. A regime which has inherited Colonial oppressive type of rule by forcibly legitimising repressive and suppressive pieces of legislation to oppress its own masses.We should dismiss Zanu PF's fake quasi-left anti-west outmanoeuvre spin, as an agent of neo-colonial regime which has withdrawn subsidies on Western goods in the domestic market, surely transferring the cost of Western exploitation onto its own masses.
What should challenge the Harare establishment must be in its purest form original and home grown, openly defining the struggle that confronts our motherland not only of tyranny but of also neo-liberal policies, a struggle for an African cause. Of course it is true the struggle has been co-modified - the private sector and business seem to be directing the flow of the movement.
The struggle suffers grassroots understanding using emotions. "The Mugabe must go" activist seem to have drawn parallel lines of the struggle that everything has to be anti-Harare not acknowledging the pre-2000 movement. But let us be reminded comrades who worked tirelessly in the 90's civil society to shape up a more radical movement against the free market, privatization process purely. An anti-Imperialism struggle is not a Zanu PF struggle but it is a masses struggle.
Enter the Land issue. Zanu PF was never committed to a fair Agrarian reform programme given the above facts of a well-behaved western-oriented regime that it agreed to a bourgeois willing buyer willing seller, followed by its austerities which saluted property rights without addressing the land imbalances (giving back land to its rightful owner from the settlers)
As enshrined at the infamous Lancaster House agreement that it did not guarantee a progressive and tangible framework to fund and to implement the empowerment drive. The Land issue remains on the centre of the struggle as it should determine the development plan for the future generation, we strongly believe only a purest form of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism, Socialist movement will undertake a more radical programme that will restore land to its rightful owners landless Black peasants and workers.
Surely Ideological bankruptcy within the opposition forces of today gives the bourgeois Zanu PF regime political leverage that it sorely believes in Black empowerment, when history tells us they were on the centre of suppressing hungry landless peasants in Svosve and Churu who were demanding to have a piece of their land.
Land has always been a driving force for our Independence against Settlers, and that it should be given back to its rightful owners, the ordinary landless black peasants and workers not to elite cronies of the regime. The Westminster Administration do have an obligation to fund the Agrarian reform programme.
The u-turn by the Blair administration 1997 over the Land issue must not be taken lightly and has for long compromised our politics. We strongly believe we can and should never unite with the West and right-wing of the external forces in our struggle for social justice as they are partly to blame with there neo-liberal SAP's.
We remain critical on our position that the sums spent by London remain remarkably low given the benefit the British Empire gleaned from the fertile lands of Rhodesia. Further, Clare Short's bellicose language over Britain's responsibility to its historical culpability and commitment undermines the whole thing - in-fact it is one of the most divisive debates surrounding the struggle in Zimbabwe.
As long as the British runs away from the Implications of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke's promise vis-a-vis Short's back-drop dogging its Obligation over the Agrarian reforms, using the human rights card, surely it shall sound proxy in the World of Neo-colonialism
Only a radical movement shall ensure when redistribution takes place farm workers and landless peasants are the first to benefit. Farm workers are compensated ensuring before any commercial farmer is compensated a retrenchment package must be paid to the long-suffering and hard working African.
Into Addis
Ethiopia today reminds of Zimbabwe 80's in-fact a prime example of neo-colonialism, what is an African problem? Now Mugabe is evil, let us be very careful of who is our friends it is important that we question why the West was so quite when atrocities in Matabeleland were taking place when they knew about it. Is it because interest were protected? or it is because it was black on black.......
It is very important as Young Pan-Africanist that we deliberate a well balanced Afro centric visionary of the African problem, today we all need to question and openly condemn proxy elements of External forces propping up the Melees Zenawi regime. The Washington backed Ethiopian regime has for long been orchestrating genocide and a chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrea and highly undermining the civic rights of Ethiopian masses.
With the Bush Administration's blessing the Addis Ababa's regime late last year enforced troops to Somalia to expel the radical Islamic Courts movement which they claimed were linked to al-Qaida, in Ethiopia the Zenawi's regime has caused untold suffering to the ordinary and opposition forces.
These are same establishment claiming Human rights in Harare the butchers of tens of thousands of children and women in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Somalia......
Now you do the Maths we are a Movement born out of an anti-free market policies, privatisation struggle now uniting with the Multi-national.....
Into Azania
Surely one should not accuse us of eroding the gains of the anti-Apartheid questioning why Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is claimed to be the World's 10th biggest seen booming profit taking as good, but with only 5% of the JSE in the hands of the ordinary Black Azanians (South Africans).Half of the black population still living below US$1 a day….
The position of International Capitalism remains what it has always been, which is to safeguard its interest in making the most profits. That is why External Governments forced the settlers’ regimes of Southern Africa to the negotiating table; continued intransigence posed a greater risk of genuine revolution. Steve Biko must be turning in his grave, the Left in Johannesburg must unite and deliver us from evil……..
We are not opening up old wounds but just reminding you that Thatcher once called Mandela a terrorist...
The bottom line is the Zimbabwean Youth of today have a challenge and responsibility of drawing an ideological understanding of the current question in its full political economic context as a crisis of an authoritarian poisonous neo-liberal reforms, rather than a simple mis-governance crisis by the Harare Establishment.
Without such understanding our struggle is in danger of co-option, colonization and neutralization by local and international hostile Capitalist forces, such a struggle will guarantee an organic people-driven democratic constitution that not only guarantees free and fair elections but also guarantees a masses centered economy. Our socio-politico-economic programme should determine our development and reconstruction plan, driven by an organic movement.
Surely such a movement will not sleep in the same bed with the George" Guantanamo Bay " Bush and John Howard of this World.
Remember its a class issue not a race issue!!
“It is only the purest form of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism/Social democracy movement that will restore social justice and economic power in the hands of the African masses in Zimbabwe”
Josiah Tongogara /Joshua Nkomo / Ndabaningi Sithole
I Comradely Thank You!!
Alois Tawanda Mbawara
Free-Zim Youth Movement
freezim6@yahoo.co.uk
By Alois Phiri Mbawara
Two faced struggle in Zimbabwe!
A lot of people wonder why Africa is not responding to the struggle in support of the masses in Zimbabwe.
There are a lot of external, internal political and economic restrictions heftly imposed on the People of Zimbabwe. We must not forget as a result of those restrictions, a good number of children and youth today go hungry, scantily clothed and cannot afford school fees because they and their parents are in restrictions.
These restrictions have disrupted more African homes and more social problems have been created. It is therefore important that the Zimbabwe Youth Charter gives this matter its serious considerations.
Character assassination ploys have been played by the Right-wing in our struggle portraying us as being sympathetic to the Harare establishment sorely because of our radical thinking - our position has been very clear as linking the peasant question with the workers question.
The Youth Charter deliberately recounted to you the various factors which influence the situation in Zimbabwe one way or another. Those who believe that the United Nations (UN) and mainly the Western forces will liberate Zimbabwe are greatly mistaken. Only reformist forces embrace such ideologies.
Political and Economic liberation can only be brought to Zimbabwe by us. No-one can liberate the other. Empowerment or Emancipation won’t be ours unless we liberate ourselves. There is no such thing as being liberated by others, others can only help us to liberate ourselves.
This has been a calculated error, bad judgement in the Art of war in our struggle from Tyranny and Neo-Imperialism, that people are foundered and taught to expect to be liberated, instead of being taught to liberate themselves.
However, we are glad to see that the Youth in drafting the charter have grasped this central point of liberating ourselves.
The Youth believe it is impossible to transport what has been perfected (Capitalism) in one set of historical circumstances mainly in the West and transplant it in an entirely new environment (Sub-Sahara).
This is why we are unwilling to be carbon copies of either Western Capitalism or Neo-Liberal disguised as democracy. We shall pursue our own ideology of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism, Social democracy best suited to the Zimbabwean conditions. (Social justice)Zimism!!
The Youth of today have no alternative other than reigniting the struggle to restore Majority Rule, is the only true solution to the present problem. This solution is supported by the Masses of the inhabitants in our continent (Mama Africa) on condition we maintain and protect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and weed out those external capitalistic/imperialistic forces and the new class of Black & White Bourgeoisies.
The Youth must direct their attention to the following problems......
- One has to understand fully the situation in Zimbabwe to appreciate the nature of the betrayal of the revolution and how imperialism has manifestoed itself in the political and economic demography. Sometimes we find that people do not understand the true nature of the problem that confronts Zimbabwe, for instance, the youth have been urged by many people to embrace "The Mugabe Must Go" philosophy which is a co-modified definition which does not attack systems.
Surely the Youth will not embrace such a litmus struggle as we clearly stated our enemy as a System not individuals. Some have suggested that the people of Zimbabwe should be reformist, fight confined to the current constitution i.e. participate in elections etc. The Youth can never fight or engage in elections under the present constitution and we will boycott the 2008 elections under the 1980 Lancaster House constitution. We will not go back on our word, our opposition to the present constitution still stands.
There has been a miscast of our claim for betrayal of the Revolution by the leadership of Zanu against the initial aspirations laid by our ancestors of a total transfer of Political and mainly economic power to the hands of the African masses.
It is quite imperative at this juncture that we lay our fundamental principles and aspirations of the real true nature of our struggle, what we are convinced to be the betrayed unfinished Zimbabwean Revolution.
In 1976 Geneva (Switzerland), Mugabe insisted that elections should be held in what is being called Zimbabwe today after the transfer of power to the Revolutionary nationalist forces and that they should be based on Universal and democratic suffrage - this was a principle position the nationalist leadership had based on what the masses were demanding.
In 1979 in London Mugabe abandoned what he said in 1976. He agreed that elections should be held under the supervision of the British imperialists with the Rhodesian Armed Forces remaining intact.
He agreed an electoral franchise guaranteeing the Rhodesian electorate 20 parliamentary seats out of 100 despite the fact that they represented less than 4% of the population. When it came to the constitution, it included a section on freedom from the deprivation of property which guaranteed and protected the settlers against forcible seizure of land for 10 years and also required adequate compensation for all land appropriated.
Well may I quote Nyerere who in 1974, five years before said: "The reality of neo-colonialism quickly becomes obvious to a new African government which tries to act on economic matters in betterment of its own masses, for such a government immediately discovers that it inherited the power to make laws to treat with foreign government and so on, but did not inherit effective power over economic development in its own country. Indeed it often discovers that there is no such thing as national economy at all."
This is an apt description of the situation that the Lancaster House Agreement imposed on the people of what used to be called Southern Rhodesia. That is where the Revolutionary struggle in Zimbabwe was betrayed and stopped unfinished; this is what started what is seen as the Land Question and no principles of social justice.
Our opposition to the Harare establishment surely has and is completely different with some. Ours is truly confined Revolution based on how Zimbabwe under R.G was given back economically to the External forces (Imperialist). Upon the electoral victory of Zanu in 1980 in a national address, Mugabe appealed to the masses: "I urge you whether you are black or white to join me in a new pledge to forget our grave past, to forgive others, and forget, and join hands in a new amity”.
People were being told to forget what they had suffered. For betraying the likes of Cdes Tongogara, Moyo, Nehanda, Mangena, Takawira and many others who all sacrificed there lives fighting settlerism and kicking-out Euro-centric Capitalism, placing economic power in the hands of the African masses.
Showing his fakeless, purely behaving like a Western-oriented regime by embracing the poisonous neo-liberal economic reforms Structural adjustment program (ESAP), imported rather imposed by IMF/World Bank.
Surely Harare was advised infact there was a massive mobilisation late 80s early 90s not only in Zimbabwe but across Africa against SAPs by the Left and Revolutionary Pan-Africanist warning about this liberalization process of African borders.
We saw the turning of a Nationalist movement into Neo-Colonial regime or tyrant. What people where promised in the bush against Settlers was a complete Revolution meaning systematic change or, in other words, turning round completely. Not meaning replacing white bosses with black bosses or white with black privileged classes (bourgeoisie). No, but creating an entirely new order and system in which classes and privileges cease to exist.
- Political power in the hands of a foreign minority being wrested from them and placed in the hands of the indigenous African majority.
-fight against foreigner enjoying economic and financial privileges, clearly stating it will be abrogated and rights of the indigenous people to all natural resources and economic and financial betterment restored to them and kicking out exploitation, degeneration promising real equality, freedom and social justice.
On economy we were promised a free, democratic, and independent and Pan Africanist/Socialist Zimbabwe designed to meet the basic needs of each peasants and worker. Outlining Zimbabwe as endowed with rich natural resources capable of supporting and feeding the masses, means of production and distribution into their hands.
Smashing out the capitalist economic system which was designed to benefit a few settlers and external forces at the expense of the labouring masses.
There was a major promise of applying a concrete condition to put worker and peasant contributions to means of production and distribution beyond any reasonable doubt, a economic policy that provide for the greatest dominance of worker-peasant interests. A self-supporting economy, not an extension or an enclave of the economies of External forces. There was a clear definition of African labour as employed for the benefit of the capitalist investors elsewhere and as alienated, an alienation that destroys the human personality of the worker and which clinch him/her from progress or develop his full capacity.
Let us be clear that it was prophesied a real articulation of the manufaction of Imperialism, mind you neo-colonial interest have always wanted to maintain there dominants in Africa. The systematic form of colonization is the control of neo-colonial regimes and opposition forces what we termed as bourgeoisie's and pseudo-progressives respectively as a way of maintain ownership, management and control of the entire system of production.
Of-course economic goes hand in hand with political control, Under colonialism political control was often direct through the settler representatives or through a white-controlled native administration, under the neo-colonial form control is exercised through a comprador bourgeoisie as long they guarantee the continued dominance of external interest.
While one acknowledges the corrupt mechanism as one of the prime cause to the economic collapse in Harare, the Kangai GMB saga, manipulation of relief aid for political gain, prominent government officials and army officers manipulating the agrarian reform for elite gains, Willowvale scandal, unbudgeted payment to freedom fighters and an unbudgeted elite war in DRC.
In 1991 we saw the bribery strategy being injected in Harare a complete turn around on the principles of Pan-Africanism ideals of a home grown policies that will feed the masses against Rhodesian type of exploitation of the Africans resources in there own land. The introduction of the Structural adjustment program (ESAP), having been fooled by IMF/ World Bank that SAP's were poverty reduction exercises the Reagan and Thatcher's administration prop policy impoverished Zimbabwe as a result of the liberalization and deregulation policies.
It is unfortunate the "Mugabe Must Go" activists of today does not diagnose the effects of SAP's into the life’s of ordinary citizens since late 80's and how they have transformed Savanna into a settler control state using economic means to control the ruling and opposition forces (neo-colonial) as a way to plunder cheap raw materials at the expense of the suffering workers and peasants.
Surely such a real articulation shall guide us of not being victims of the divide and rule principles of Capitalism which creates anarchy in societies to use it to its advantage.
For a Government which had promised and implemented populist policies by investing heavily in health, free education, parastatals, rural development and the productive sectors as a way of putting the needs of the workers and peasants on the top agenda ideals of the liberation struggle of a people centred economy.
The liberal economic reforms pushed by IMF/World Bank saw the slashing of government spending, privatisation and opening up of Zimbabwe's economic borders to exploitative foreign investment, of-coarse it is very difficult for an ordinary Zimbabwean to see with a nicked eye as what were and are the negative impact on an ordinary person of these austerity reforms, and how it has transformed there lives back to the settlers rule of begging for hand-outs.
It is imperative that we break down the effects of the free market programs of the 90's and how they have created class divisions primarily looking at the sell off of government-owned enterprises to external private owners this of-coarse has a draw back of redundancy of workers in the privatised enterprises. (with no proper progressive informal sector) We saw the government distancing it self from the welfare of the masses by cutting its spending, marketing parastatals scrapping off the free social services (education and health services) injecting” user fees" for the use of government -provided services.
Coming to the exploitation of resources vis-a -vis for a country to progress economically there has to be a pure mechanism of promotion of exports but the question is for who's benefit and who is the exporter, well with SAP's we saw its discouragement of land reform programs for domestic needs as small scale farmers and peasants are bought out by multi-national companies (foreign investors) who mostly their interest is profit making (foreign markets). (I remember in Form 1 being told by my tutor “the 1st grade brand tea grown in Zimbabwe is for the Queen”)
As it promote trade liberalisation however it does not balance the export and import barriers as it eliminate tariff protection for industries, scraps off price controls leaving the ordinary (workers and peasants) exposed to a external control markets (systematic colonization) meaning business will determine the prices of the day.
In short SAPs have bankrupted local industries, increased dependency on food imports, gutted social services and fostered a widening gap between rich and poor creating a class of black and white elites who will be in charge of the narrow stratum of the private sector running export production, trade brokering, and portfolio finance on-behalf of the neo-liberal World transnational companies.
It is important that we expose how IMF's economic policies imposed on Harare (1990’s) have brought untold havoc on the economic and social structure of Zimbabwe. This of course with the help of its right-wing partner, Zanu PF elites. The major cut in public expenditure triggered a collapse in public investment and the disintegration of the basic infrastructure which created a major rift between the masses and the right-wing ruling party as it had proved itself to be a fully grown proxy agenda of Neo-colonialism even implementing home grown SAPs, leaving the white settler community's share of the country's land, wealth and income intact fulfilling the infamous Lancaster Agreement.
Nevertheless, one should not forget the acts of the blood sucking fascist tendencies of the Harare establishment, which has since 1980 been an agent of neo-colonialism. Zanu PF has been what we term " a coconut regime" black outside and white inside, serving the Rhodesian Smith agenda. A regime which has inherited Colonial oppressive type of rule by forcibly legitimising repressive and suppressive pieces of legislation to oppress its own masses.We should dismiss Zanu PF's fake quasi-left anti-west outmanoeuvre spin, as an agent of neo-colonial regime which has withdrawn subsidies on Western goods in the domestic market, surely transferring the cost of Western exploitation onto its own masses.
What should challenge the Harare establishment must be in its purest form original and home grown, openly defining the struggle that confronts our motherland not only of tyranny but of also neo-liberal policies, a struggle for an African cause. Of course it is true the struggle has been co-modified - the private sector and business seem to be directing the flow of the movement.
The struggle suffers grassroots understanding using emotions. "The Mugabe must go" activist seem to have drawn parallel lines of the struggle that everything has to be anti-Harare not acknowledging the pre-2000 movement. But let us be reminded comrades who worked tirelessly in the 90's civil society to shape up a more radical movement against the free market, privatization process purely. An anti-Imperialism struggle is not a Zanu PF struggle but it is a masses struggle.
Enter the Land issue. Zanu PF was never committed to a fair Agrarian reform programme given the above facts of a well-behaved western-oriented regime that it agreed to a bourgeois willing buyer willing seller, followed by its austerities which saluted property rights without addressing the land imbalances (giving back land to its rightful owner from the settlers)
As enshrined at the infamous Lancaster House agreement that it did not guarantee a progressive and tangible framework to fund and to implement the empowerment drive. The Land issue remains on the centre of the struggle as it should determine the development plan for the future generation, we strongly believe only a purest form of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism, Socialist movement will undertake a more radical programme that will restore land to its rightful owners landless Black peasants and workers.
Surely Ideological bankruptcy within the opposition forces of today gives the bourgeois Zanu PF regime political leverage that it sorely believes in Black empowerment, when history tells us they were on the centre of suppressing hungry landless peasants in Svosve and Churu who were demanding to have a piece of their land.
Land has always been a driving force for our Independence against Settlers, and that it should be given back to its rightful owners, the ordinary landless black peasants and workers not to elite cronies of the regime. The Westminster Administration do have an obligation to fund the Agrarian reform programme.
The u-turn by the Blair administration 1997 over the Land issue must not be taken lightly and has for long compromised our politics. We strongly believe we can and should never unite with the West and right-wing of the external forces in our struggle for social justice as they are partly to blame with there neo-liberal SAP's.
We remain critical on our position that the sums spent by London remain remarkably low given the benefit the British Empire gleaned from the fertile lands of Rhodesia. Further, Clare Short's bellicose language over Britain's responsibility to its historical culpability and commitment undermines the whole thing - in-fact it is one of the most divisive debates surrounding the struggle in Zimbabwe.
As long as the British runs away from the Implications of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke's promise vis-a-vis Short's back-drop dogging its Obligation over the Agrarian reforms, using the human rights card, surely it shall sound proxy in the World of Neo-colonialism
Only a radical movement shall ensure when redistribution takes place farm workers and landless peasants are the first to benefit. Farm workers are compensated ensuring before any commercial farmer is compensated a retrenchment package must be paid to the long-suffering and hard working African.
Into Addis
Ethiopia today reminds of Zimbabwe 80's in-fact a prime example of neo-colonialism, what is an African problem? Now Mugabe is evil, let us be very careful of who is our friends it is important that we question why the West was so quite when atrocities in Matabeleland were taking place when they knew about it. Is it because interest were protected? or it is because it was black on black.......
It is very important as Young Pan-Africanist that we deliberate a well balanced Afro centric visionary of the African problem, today we all need to question and openly condemn proxy elements of External forces propping up the Melees Zenawi regime. The Washington backed Ethiopian regime has for long been orchestrating genocide and a chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrea and highly undermining the civic rights of Ethiopian masses.
With the Bush Administration's blessing the Addis Ababa's regime late last year enforced troops to Somalia to expel the radical Islamic Courts movement which they claimed were linked to al-Qaida, in Ethiopia the Zenawi's regime has caused untold suffering to the ordinary and opposition forces.
These are same establishment claiming Human rights in Harare the butchers of tens of thousands of children and women in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Somalia......
Now you do the Maths we are a Movement born out of an anti-free market policies, privatisation struggle now uniting with the Multi-national.....
Into Azania
Surely one should not accuse us of eroding the gains of the anti-Apartheid questioning why Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is claimed to be the World's 10th biggest seen booming profit taking as good, but with only 5% of the JSE in the hands of the ordinary Black Azanians (South Africans).Half of the black population still living below US$1 a day….
The position of International Capitalism remains what it has always been, which is to safeguard its interest in making the most profits. That is why External Governments forced the settlers’ regimes of Southern Africa to the negotiating table; continued intransigence posed a greater risk of genuine revolution. Steve Biko must be turning in his grave, the Left in Johannesburg must unite and deliver us from evil……..
We are not opening up old wounds but just reminding you that Thatcher once called Mandela a terrorist...
The bottom line is the Zimbabwean Youth of today have a challenge and responsibility of drawing an ideological understanding of the current question in its full political economic context as a crisis of an authoritarian poisonous neo-liberal reforms, rather than a simple mis-governance crisis by the Harare Establishment.
Without such understanding our struggle is in danger of co-option, colonization and neutralization by local and international hostile Capitalist forces, such a struggle will guarantee an organic people-driven democratic constitution that not only guarantees free and fair elections but also guarantees a masses centered economy. Our socio-politico-economic programme should determine our development and reconstruction plan, driven by an organic movement.
Surely such a movement will not sleep in the same bed with the George" Guantanamo Bay " Bush and John Howard of this World.
Remember its a class issue not a race issue!!
“It is only the purest form of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism/Social democracy movement that will restore social justice and economic power in the hands of the African masses in Zimbabwe”
Josiah Tongogara /Joshua Nkomo / Ndabaningi Sithole
I Comradely Thank You!!
Alois Tawanda Mbawara
Free-Zim Youth Movement
freezim6@yahoo.co.uk
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