Mandebvhu Talks “Zimbabwe”…

Zimbabwe’s neighbours should close their borders in an attempt to bring down President Robert Mugabe, Botswana’s foreign minister said Wednesday in the strongest call yet for action from Africa.

Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani told BBC World News television that southern African nations have failed to move Mugabe with mediation and they should now impose sanctions.

The leaders should “tell Mugabe to his face, ‘Look, now you are on your own, we are switching off, we are closing your borders,’ and I don’t think he would last. If no petrol went in for a week, he can’t last,” Skelemani said.

Zimbabwe’s government made no immediate comment.

Botswana and Zambia have been lonely African voices against Mugabe as Zimbabwe has undergone an economic and political crisis in which agriculture, health and education services have collapsed and shortages of food, clean water, medicine, electricity and fuel have become routine.

South Africa began taking a harder line last week, announcing it was withholding 30 million rand ($3.3 million) in agricultural aid until Mugabe forms a coalition government with the opposition. It still appears unlikely to heed Botswana’s call for a closure of its border, the lifeline for landlocked Zimbabwe, for fear of creating a wider humanitarian crisis.

An outbreak of cholera among hundreds of Zimbabweans has spread to South Africa and Botswana in recent weeks.

South Africa is hosting a new round of talks aimed at getting Zimbabwe’s rival parties to agree on wording of a constitutional amendment that would form the legal basis for a unity government with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister.

But opposition sources said Wednesday the two sides cannot even agree on what to discuss and are meeting “without prejudice” - meaning nothing binding will result.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a media blackout imposed by the mediator, said opposition negotiators are pressing renewed calls for the withdrawal of mediator Thabo Mbeki, the ousted South African president whom they accuse of favouring Mugabe.

Among other issues, Tsvangirai’s party wants to negotiate the sharing of Cabinet posts. Mugabe’s party, according to secretary-general Kumbirai Kangai, is prepared only to give them the finance ministry among key portfolios and to share the contentious post of home affairs. That ministry is responsible for police who helped brutalize opposition members and supporters during campaigns around disputed presidential elections this year.

Mugabe, who has unilaterally given his own party all the main Cabinet posts, indicated his continuing hard stance Wednesday through a state media announcement extending central bank head Gideon Gono’s tenure for another five years.

Gono has been denounced by the opposition as he has presided over the near-collapse of Zimbabwe’s banking system and the Zimbabwean dollar. Gono removed 13 zeros from the currency and constantly prints more money in an attempt to keep up with inflation running in the hundreds of millions of percentage points. Today, the highest denomination note of 1 million Zimbabwe dollars is not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

The United States on Tuesday tried to increase pressure on Mugabe by adding four of his “cronies” to a list of scores under financial sanctions.

Tsvangirai won March elections in which his party ended the 28-year domination of Parliament by Mugabe’s party. But he did not win enough votes to prevent a runoff and boycotted that because of state-sponsored violence that put thousands of his supporters in hospital and made more homeless as tens of thousands of homes were burned.

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Zimbabwe’s state media on Tuesday accused former US president Jimmy Carter and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan of plotting to overthrow the government, after Harare rebuffed a humanitarian visit by the statesmen. Carter, Annan and rights activist Graca Machel - the wife of Nelson Mandela - planned to visit Zimbabwe at the weekend to find ways of easing a humanitarian crisis that has left half its population in need of emergency food aid. President Robert Mugabe’s regime turned away the three, who belong to a group of senior statesmen known as the Elders, accusing them of seeking to bolster the opposition in power-sharing talks due to resume on Tuesday in South Africa. “The so-called ‘Elders’ are a creature of pro-Labour British corporate interests. There is nothing elderly about them,” Zimbabwe’s secretary for information George Charamba said in the government mouthpiece Herald newspaper.

“The ‘Elders’ should not pretend to have Zimbabweans at heart when, in fact, they were fronting a regime change agenda being pushed by Britain and the US,” the paper said. The Herald also accused the statesmen of trying to pave the way for United Nations intervention in Zimbabwe. Negotiators for Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are due to attempt the latest bid to rescue a power-sharing deal signed more than two months ago but never put into effect. Annan, Carter and Machel spent the weekend meeting with Zimbabwean exiles in South Africa. Carter said on Monday that the humanitarian crisis was greater than feared, as a cholera epidemic is killing hundreds across the country. “The entire basic structure… is broken down. These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we ever could have imagined,” Carter told reporters.

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As Zimbabwe’s dire humanitarian crisis worsened, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Graca Machel cancelled their humanitarian mission to Zimbabwe yesterday because President Robert Mugabe’s government would not let them in. Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, Carter, a former United States president, and Machel, an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and the wife of Nelson Mandela, were to travel to Zimbabwe yesterday. They are members of the Elders, a group of former leaders who try to resolve conflict. Mandela is also an Elder. The cancellation of their visit came as a deadly cholera epidemic spread, and The Sunday Independent learnt that an estimated 20 prisoners were dying in Zimbabwean jails every day, victims of disease and malnutrition.

Carter said at a press conference in Johannesburg yesterday that both President Kgalema Motlanthe and former president Thabo Mbeki had intervened to try to get the Elders visas for Zimbabwe - but in vain. He said he had been told by Zimbabwe’s US ambassador, before coming to South Africa, that the group would not get visas. He said the group had planned to fly to Harare yesterday and apply for visas at the airport. But Mbeki had told them on Friday night that they would not be allowed into the country. “We believe that came from the head of state,” Carter said. He said that never before had he been refused a visa to undertake a humanitarian mission. Annan said he had heard indirectly that Mugabe feared that the Elders’ visit would interfere with the unresolved political negotiations between his ZANU PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change on forming a unity government.

But Annan insisted that the Elders’ mission would have been purely humanitarian, not political. “We seek no permission other than permission to help the poor and the desperate. Millions of people are in need of help in Zimbabwe. We want to use our influence to increase the flow of assistance, immediately and in the longer term, to stop the terrible suffering. We are here to show solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and assure them that they are not alone.” Carter said that, as US president from 1976 to 1980, he had been a “partisan”, supporting Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. “But it’s obvious to me that the leaders of the government [of Zimbabwe] are very immune to reaching out for help for their own people.”

“I am extremely disappointed that we are unable to visit Zimbabwe,” said Machel. “We want to talk to the people and hear their stories.

“We want people to know that we care, and that we will do all we can to help them. People are dying from hunger every day in Zimbabwe and hospitals are unable to treat the sick.

“We are not going to be stopped from helping,” Annan said. “We are even more determined,” Carter added.

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UPDATE: The goverment of Robert Mugabe has refused to give Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Graca Machel visas to enter Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission. The group, known as the Elders, and set up by Nelson Mandela, a man Mugabe loathes, applied for visas more than a week ago but the answer was no. Annan tried to call Mugabe this past week, but the Zimbabwean dictator refused to come to the phone. Carter also tried, with the same result.

There were last-minute, frantic efforts that also involved in South African government in trying to make the ageing dictator see sense, but he rebuffed even them. Petulantly, his refusal to entertain the intervention of the South Africans is, in his own mind, a reaction to the suspension of the delivery of promised aid by South Africa. But Mugabe’s paranoia has also convinced him that the Elders are the thin end of a wedge. He has said these eminent persons are coming into the country to find a pretext to invite the intervention of the United Nations on humanitarian grounds. It is his opinion that they would have come in, taken a look around and then reported a crisis that requires the urgent intervention of the world body. Mugabe is mortified that the US and Britain will use that as a pretext for coming into the country and forcibly ejecting him from power.

The Elder’s ill-advised (diplomatically) move to meet with Tsvangirai in South Africa before coming to Harare also made the dictator suspicious.

They should understand that Mugabe is very, very touchy about the subject of his legitimacy. He wishes eminent visitors to the country to pay homage to him first before the prime minister-designate. To him, this acknowledgement of the fact that he rules the roost and the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. It is this sort of pettiness that is slowly destroying Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai himself, looking to score points, also rashly announced that he would meet the elder statesmen before they come to Harare. He is still runing away from Mugabe and is unlikely to come back into the country soon. He has, according to MDC sources, moved his entire family to Botswana and is now virtually a permanent resident there.

Another bomb exploded at Harare Central Police Station on Thursday night. This is the third bombing of a police station in Harare within about a month. The first bomb, which exploded at the same police station bombed Thursday, was said by the Police Commissioner to be an inside job. This one is almost certainly also the work of policemen, since access to these places is very strictly controlled.

The Mugabe regime should really not be surprised by all this. The police, used by Mugabe to quell dissent, to harass and arrest peaceful protesters and muzzle civil rights wantonly, are also feeling the pinch of the economic meltdown. Their pay is pitiful, as is the case with all other civil servants. Corruption is rife in their ranks, but even this has failed to lessen the impact of a world-breaking economic meltdown.

While campaigning for the presidency with Dr Simba Makoni in Manicaland in March this year, I was approached by a policeman at a growth point who made it clear that he and his fellow officers were sick and tired of Mugabe. He complained that they had no resources, were treated like wiping rags (zvikorobo), by Mugabe who used them and then abandoned them when they had served their purpose.

The policeman pointedly told me that “90%” of the officers at his station were supporting Dr Makoni and asked for contact details of the provincial leadership for our movement. It was one of the most unforgettable experiences of our six-week marathon drive across the country.

Interestingly, to date no arrests have been made in the bombings, except the Morris Depot (Police Headquarters) one, in which two soldiers were arrested on suspicion of the crime.

ZANU PF’s patronage system is definitely crumbling. Yet the opposition MDC is failing to capitalise on this. The fruits are ripe for the picking but the leaders have fled from the orchard. Morgan is somewhere over the oceans, on his way to or from Europe. Their MPs are to be seen drinking in Harare’s beer halls, boasting about a parliamentary majority that they are not using at all to help the suffering masses, Tendai Biti, their third most senior member remaining in Zimbabwe, is busy fighting to kill the negotiations over a government because he wants to run the Home Affairs ministry single-handedly and punish the policemen who have been arresting and harassing him.

You see, the MDC-T is now focused on acquiring power, but only so that they can wreak revenge on the police and the Registrar-General’s office. Just like Mugabe, they have forgotten that there are people dying from disease and hunger in the country. They have forgotten that the people of Zimbabwe want an urgent solution to their problems. The fight for power is all that they are keen on now. They could quite easily marshal the rank and file of the police to defy Mugabe, to start the process of making the country ungovernable for Mugabe and to ensure that the dictator sees once and for all that he is left only with the support of the police bosses who owe him their 4X4 vehicles and obscene perks.

But this is all wishful thinking. The MDC are floundering, without a real strategy, hoping for events to direct them as opposed to directing events.

It is the Zimbabweans who are paying for this with their lives and it’s amazing to stand in bank queues and hear just how people are turning against the opposition party. They have long since given up on Mugabe, but their bitterness at opportunities wasted by the MDC and the party’s insensitivity to their suffering is palpable.

Our Movement’s offices in Harare have now had to be rearranged to cater for an avalanche of visitors, ordinary people who are coming in to ask if Dr Makoni can do anything about the current situation. And last week on Tuesday, in my meeting with Professor Arthur Mutambara, he lamented the absence of Simba Makoni from the process, telling me, “we really needed Simba at those negotiations, I think he could have made a big difference.”

But I know that Dr Makoni is not interested in dirtying his hands trying to deal with people whose focus is now avarice for lucre and power. He knows how insincere both main parties are, how utterly impervious they are to reason or compassion and he is preparing the ground for his own frontal attack on the system. This will be evident to all and sundry before long.

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Riot police prevented striking doctors and nurses Tuesday from protesting against Zimbabwe’s collapsing health care system, which lacks even basic drugs amid a rapid spread of cholera in the country.

Eyewitnesses said police broke up a protest at a hospital in the capital, Harare. The health workers regrouped later but were prevented by riot police from leaving the hospital.

The protesters planned to present a petition to the government calling for “urgent action” to address the crisis in the public health system, which is crumbling from lack of medical supplies, equipment and drugs.

Meanwhile, the official Herald newspaper reported Tuesday that cholera had killed 36 people since Friday in the town of Beitbridge on the South African border. It said that 431 people had been diagnosed with the highly infectious intestinal disease.

The Herald said the local hospital had cleared all its wards to make room for cholera victims but that there were not enough staff or equipment to cope. The newspaper reported 11 bodies “scattered all over the place” in the female wards because there was no room in the morgue. Health workers had no idea about the situation in surrounding rural areas because lack of fuel and transport prevented investigations, it said.

Beitbridge is one of the regions busiest border crossings, with huge volumes of vehicles and people passing to South Africa to buy supplies that are impossible to find in Zimbabwe.

Even before the Beitbridge outbreak, more than 130 people had died from cholera, which is spread by contaminated food and water. The disease is thriving in Zimbabwe because there is no money to maintain the sewage and draining systems, to clear garbage or supply clean water.

Aid groups fear the outbreaks will worsen as the rainy season progresses and Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, has warned that 1.4 million people are at risk. MSF said patients were lying outside on the grass at Harare’s infectious diseases hospital and the charity was putting up tents to cope.

Zimbabwe, which has one of the world’s worst AIDS epidemics, once had among the best health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa. But the country’s economic meltdown has led to chronic shortages of food and gasoline, and daily outages of power and water.

President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, blames Western sanctions for his country’s extreme financial woes. But critics point to corruption and mismanagement under his increasingly autocratic leadership.

Hopes were raised when Mugabe signed a power-sharing arrangement with the opposition in September, but little progress has been made toward setting up a unity government.

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Zimbabwe’s largest newspaper group has indefinitely suspended subscriptions in the Zimbabwe dollar and now demands payments in the more stable United States dollar in yet another sign of Harare’s deteriorating economic crisis, APA learnt here Monday.

The state-owned Zimbabwe Newspapers Group (ZIMPAPERS) no longer accepts personal or bank cheques for subscriptions until further notice, the publisher said.

Only bulk subscriptions for companies can still be paid for by cheque while anyone else is now required to get their newspapers for cash from street vendors.

ZIMPAPERS insiders said on Monday that ordinary subscriptions are also still open to anyone willing to pay US$10 a month.

The group publishes Zimbabwe’s two main daily newspapers, the Herald and Chronicle, as well as three weeklies, the Sunday Mail, Sunday News and Manica Post.

All the newspapers under the ZIMPAPERS stable are the official mouthpieces of the government of President Robert Mugabe.

The newspaper group becomes the latest Zimbabwe company to refuse cheques as a payment mode, reflecting the growing lack of confidence in the value of the Zimdollar.

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As always it is interesting to read the spin in the official press - it reflects the thinking of ZANU PF at the time. I am pleased to see that they remain committed to the deal - in fact they cannot walk away and it is clear they cannot publically oppose what MDC is proposing - the reality is very different and we wait to see what this collection of clowns does next.

Eddie

Saturday, November 15, 2008

MDC-T okays unity Govt

Herald Reporter

TheMDC-T national council met yesterday and resolved that the party joins the envisaged inclusive Government once the legislature has given legal force to the broad-based agreement signed on September 15.

The council’s third resolution read: “…the MDC shall participate in a new Government once Constitutional Amendment No. 19 has been passed and effected into law.”

Constitutional Amendment No. 19 would give legal force to the positions of the Prime Minister and his two deputies.

The opposition party also proposed that Parliament be convened immediately to deliberate on the Amendment Bill and oversee the resultant Government.

”Parliament must be convened as a matter of urgency to carry out its normal business of overseeing the Executive,” read the 10^th resolution.

These resolutions are in line with clauses (i) and (iv) of the communiqué released at the end of the extraordinary summit of SADC Heads of State and Government who met in Sandton, South Africa, earlier in the week.

Clause (i) urged President Mugabe to form an inclusive Government forthwith, while clause (iv) urged the parties to legislate to give the agreement legal force.

”To give effect to these decisions and the provisions of the Global Political Agreement, the Parties must, without any further delay, introduce the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Number 19,” read the communiqué.

Though the MDC-T national council raised a number of complaints over the SADC resolution, the complaints were mainly over procedural matters, which many said could not be used to scupper the successful resolution of the long-drawn talks.

MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai did not attend the meeting that was chaired by his deputy Ms Thokozani Khupe.

Ms Khupe told journalists that Mr Tsvangirai was out of the country consulting SADC leaders.

The party’s spokesperson Mr Nelson Chamisa said Mr Tsvangirai had not returned from the SADC Extraordinary Summit held in Sandton, South Africa, last Sunday.

Ms Khupe raised concerns over the appointment of provincial governors, senior Government officials like permanent secretaries and ambassadors and the composition of the National Security Council, among others.

SADC leaders, however, have since said the bone of contention was the Ministry of Home Affairs as they endorsed the Troika decision that the ministry be shared between ZANU PF and MDC-T. The ZANU PF Politburo and the Professor Arthur Mutambara-led MDC formation have since endorsed the Summit resolutions and called for the speedy formation of the inclusive Government.

The Minister of Information and Publicity, Cde Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, on Wednesday announced that Cde Mugabe had started the process of forming the inclusive Government in line with the regional body’s recommendations.

(Source: by email)

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Riot police fled angry protestors in Harare on Tuesday, with angry demonstrators pelting the fleeing police officers with stones, with the activists in hot pursuit.

Tuesday’s demonstration in Harare by the National Constitutional Assembly showed how the tide had turned and how Zimbabweans, renowned for being peaceful, are reaching breaking point.

About six riot police officers learnt the hard way that crowd control was not a stroll in the park.

The overzealous police officers initially brandished their batons sticks and baton-charged the demonstrators, who were marching with a banner written “We are ready to die for a new Constitution.”

The NCA was demonstrating for the immediate installation of a transitional government.

They were also demanding a new people-driven Constitution, and then free and fair international supervised elections to determine the way forward.

The riot police officers seized the banner from the protestors who were starting the march from Hurudza House and assaulted a few with batons, causing a mini stampede.

But the demonstrators regrouped near the British Council shouting “Ahoy, ahoy, ahoy.”

They advanced towards the police officers, repossessing their banners and kicking the riot police officers.

Overwhelmed with the commotion and the people joining the demonstration from a bank queue adjacent to Century Bank, the officers sprinted towards Coal House, with angry demonstrators in hot pursuit. In the meantime they were alerting their colleagues that they wanted reinforcements.

“Yeeee” the people shouted in town, savouring the victory over the hapless riot police officers who had apparently misread the mood.

The joy was however short lived as three white Mazda trucks laden with riot police officers in blue helmets, commonly called “maChamber” here, pulled up and descended on the people.

In a short space of time, they had subdued the crowd, which was apparently shocked with the sheer brutality meted on the protestors by the riot police officers. Their handiwork left scores injured.

Meanwhile Dr. Lovemore Madhuku, the NCA was detained in advance of the demonstration. ZimDaily heard that police raided Madhuku’s home in Waterfalls at 6 a.m. in the morning. They left empty-handed after they found Madhuku not at home.

ZimDaily heard that at 8 a.m. Madhuku received a call from police officials, demanding that he report to Harare Central Police Station. At 11:30am, he presented himself to the police along with his lawyer Alec Muchadehama.

Madhuku remained in police custody at the time of going to print.

The police high-handedness has been roundly condemned.

“The NCA emphatically condemns this unjustified obstruction of the organization’s peaceful protest actions,” NCA spokesman Maddock Chivasa said. “However, the NCA refuses to be intimidated by this illegitimate unwarranted aggression and remains committed to its campaign for democratic reform.”

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After a week of drama and suspense, HIV/AIDS activists in Zimbabwe welcomed with relief the decision by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to award the country a US$169 million grant.

The Global Fund has approved three grants for Zimbabwe over a two-year period: US$79 million for HIV/AIDS; US$63 million for malaria and US$27 million for tuberculosis.

The Geneva-based organisation said these grants could be extended up to five years, depending on the performance and results of the approved grants during the first two years. Zimbabwe had applied for about US$500 million for the three diseases, and also to help resuscitate the country’s ailing health sector.

Last week the country’s funding proposal hung in the balance after the government failed to meet the deadline of Thursday 6 November to return over US$7 million to the Fund. Some of the money was held by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) but was distributed “erratically and only partially”, which had affected the implementation of programmes, the Fund said.

Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Fund, had warned that no future grants would be awarded until the remaining US$7.3 million had been transferred to commercial banks by the due date.

Although the RBZ eventually paid the outstanding amount on Friday 7 November, the Global Fund had warned it would not approve any new grants for Zimbabwe until it had received assurance that its money would be safe.

Jon Liden, the Fund’s head of communications, told IRIN/PlusNews that although the board had approved Zimbabwe’s application, no grant agreement would be signed until the funding body had made sure that the money would reach the intended beneficiaries.

“Approving the grants is just the first step. Now, negotiations about a grant agreement will begin, and the Global Fund has made it clear that no grant agreement will be signed with Zimbabwe until we can guarantee that the money going to the recipients of these grants can reach them without delay or diversion,” said Liden.

“For the new grants, it normally takes six to twelve months between Board approval and grant signing, but it may take longer unless we can quickly find satisfactory ways of channelling the money in a safe way, as well as making sure all the recipients of the grants are of high quality.”

Zimbabwe’s HIV/AIDS community welcomed news of the grant, but there was concern that the conditions imposed by the Global Fund, however justified, would further delay grants to beneficiaries who were often in dire need as a result of the worsening national health and HIV/AIDS crises.

The Harare and Parirenyatwa hospitals, Zimbabwe’s largest health institutions, recently shut down when staff downed tools in protest against poor salaries and working conditions. The health professionals argued that the hospitals had become “death traps” because there were no drugs or medicines, and essential life-saving medical equipment did not work.

Dr Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) told IRIN/PlusNews that the approval of the Global Fund grant was a “welcome relief” because the country’s health resources were running low, but he feared the money might take “forever” to reach the people who needed it.

“The conditions put in place by the Global Fund are understandable after the conduct of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe; clearly there is a strong element of mistrust,” he commented.

HIV/AIDS activist Sebastian Chinhaire, a member of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP), said the delay in the grant signing could mean death for many HIV-positive people.

“As we speak, the government-run antiretroviral (ARV) drugs programme that supports at least a 100,000 people is struggling to keep afloat. Recently, the opportunistic infections clinics at Harare and Parirenyatwa hospitals closed down because there were shortages of drugs.”

While Zimbabwe puts its house in order with the Global Fund, reduced donor funding means at least 100,000 people in state-funded ARV programmes face an uncertain future; on top of this, a further estimated 320,000 HIV-positive people are in urgent need of the life-prolonging drugs.

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Riot police beat dozens of students and pro-democracy activists marching Tuesday in Zimbabwe’s capital to demand a new government to tackle the country’s worsening economic and political crisis.

Dozens of university students and activists from the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a pro-democracy pressure group, held hands they marched through downtown Harare.

Riot police used to batons to break up the protesters, chasing them through the streets and beating passersby along the way, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

The protesters were calling for a caretaker government to guide the country until President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai end their feud over forming a unity government.

Students wanted “a transitional arrangement that will urgently work towards addressing the desperate humanitarian catastrophe in the country,” said a statement from Clever Bere, president of the Zimbabwe National Students Union.

The protest came two days after a regional summit failed to break an impasse on forming a unity government under a power-sharing deal signed nearly two months ago.

Mugabe has said that a new government will be formed soon, despite objections from Tsvangirai over the distribution of key cabinet posts.

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