When I slipped into Zimbabwe a few years ago as a board member of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, I slept restlessly out of fear of being arrested. President Robert Mugabe had shut the door on visas to outside journalists. Since then attacks have increased against the press and anyone else who does not toe Mugabe’s political party line.

And Zimbabweans sleep more fitfully. Some of the reasons are spelled out in a list of the Zimbabwe’s dead, compiled and distributed by Mugabe’s political opposition to international media and reported by Paul Salopek, the Chicago Tribune’s prize-winning Africa correspondent.

There’s a man who was attacked and beaten after sitting down to eat dinner.

There’s another killed while tending his garden.

There’s a woman whose targeted husband was not home, so she was killed as a warning to him.

There’s another woman who was locked in a room at the shopping centre and burned with plastic all over her body and in the mouth.

A man was given rat poison and, when that wasn’t enough to kill him, he was slaughtered with an axe.

More than 80 known victims were killed in the run-up to Mugabe’s June 27 sham of a reelection. The carnage and intimidation have not stopped. The country’s economy is a wreck. It takes millions of Zimbabwean dollars to buy a loaf of bread, and the prices go up every half hour or so. As many as 80 percent of the workers are unemployed. Peaceful sleep is a luxury.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, was poised to win the runoff, despite Mugabe’s best vote-stealing efforts, but withdrew to stop the brutal state-sponsored attacks against thousands of his supporters.

At 84, Mugabe clings to power against all pretense of carrying about the lives or liberty of his country’s people. He cares only for power.

It wasn’t always like this. I remember when Mugabe was viewed as one of Africa’s brightest postcolonial hopes.

Like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Mugabe was imprisoned for opposing white-minority rule. Freed in 1975 after 11 years in prison under the breakaway British colony of Rhodesia, he led a resistance movement that ended with his election in 1980 as prime minister of the newly named Zimbabwe.

But power corrupted him. In the early 1980s, his special forces, assisted by the North Korean army, massacred an estimated 20,000 members of the Ndebele tribe who supported a rival leader. In 2000 he defended the seizure of land from white farmers by self-proclaimed “war veterans.” The country deteriorated rapidly from food exporter to food beggar.

Ian Smith, white Rhodesia’s last prime minister, observed poignantly before his death last October, “I was wrong about Mandela, but right about Mugabe.” Indeed, Mugabe’s always been on his best behavior only as long as his own power is not threatened. Subject him to something so humbling as an honest election and, as far as he’s concerned, everybody gets hurt.

He paints himself as Africa’s champion. That’s a mockery of the Pan-African dream for which he once stood. Instead he’s a retro-throwback to the old Big Man system of kleptocracy and pseudo-democracy: “One person, one vote, one time.”

So Nelson Mandela, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sen. Barack Obama have condemned his violence? So, the United Nations Security Council have joined the condemnations? So, the Queen of England has revoked his knighthood? So, you think Mugabe cares?

Mugabe cares only for power and, perhaps, keeping himself and his cronies for having to answer for war crimes at The Hague. Instead, he’s coddled by bodies like the African Union.

At last week’s AU meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheik, the presidents of Kenya and Senegal were most prominent among the few who sharply rebuked Mugabe for embarrassing the continent. Most of the African Union urged a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. But, like resolutions the UN and others have passed, it had no enforcement teeth.

Zimbabweans still wait in vain for what they really need to hear, a strong rebuke of Mugabe’s arrogance from their neighbor, South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki. As the region’s designated negotiator in the Zimbabwe crisis – and president of the region’s biggest economic and political powerhouse – Mbeki could almost single-handedly persuade Mugabe to retire to a comfortable villa somewhere.

Through carrot-and-stick threats of international sanctions against the landlocked Zimbabwe and Mugabe’s cronies, Mbeki could save his legacy and Africa’s future. Instead, Mbeki behaves, in the words of an old African fable, like a mouse in the pocket of Mugabe’s elephant while the grass suffers – and does not sleep.

(Source)

ShareThis

Our heartfelt gratitude to National Parks who mobilized very quickly this morning, together with the police, the army and the Central Intelligence Organization. They are all spending the night at Imire tonight and if the war veterans attempt to carry out their threats, we are confident that they will come off second best.

John Travers received phone calls from the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Francis Nhema, the Minister of Defence, Sidney Sekeramai and the Governor of Mashonaland East, assuring him that Imire will be protected.

On behalf of all Zimbabweans, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Minister Nhema, Minister Sekeremai, the Governor of Mashonaland East, National Parks, the Zimbabwean Republican Police, the Zimbabwean Defence Forces and the Central Intelligence Organization for using their powers of authority to prevent a tragedy from happening at Imire Safari Ranch. 

Johnny Rodrigues

Chairman for ZimbabweConservation Task Force

(Source: via email)

ShareThis

On Sunday 29th June 2008, a group of war veterans went to Imire and demanded that John Travers shoot 3 impala for them to eat. When John refused, they stated that they would burn the place down. They were extremely aggressive and John eventually had no option but to shoot the impala. The invaders left with the impala, saying that Imire was at the top of their list and they were going to take it. The next morning, John reported the incident to the police who responded by initiating investigations.

Last night, Wednesday 2nd July, a group of about 16 war veterans arrived at Imire and told the Travers to vacate the property by this morning, Thursday 3rd July. They were threatened with their lives if they didn’t comply. It has been alleged that an army general is leading the eviction thugs.

It is a foregone conclusion that if the invaders succeed in evicting the Travers, all the animals will be slaughtered within a very short space of time. We have reported the matter to National Parks who have confirmed to us that Imire is designated as a black rhino breeding area and is therefore not part of the land redistribution programme. They say that the invaders have obviously taken the law into their own hands and they will give the matter their urgent attention.

We are extremely concerned about all the animals at Imire, but in particular, Tatenda, Hogwash, Tsotsi and Nzou who we have come to know so well. We will circulate an update as soon as we have more news.

(Source: via email)

ShareThis

“They hit me on the back with the butt of the gun. They told me to lie on my stomach and stamping on my fingers asking me where my brother was.” Mr Kayesu’s brother Josiah’s house was destroyed by a mob after the election, and when he went to police to lay a complaint he was told they “can’t interfere in these political issues”. Josiah was last seen on Monday, said Mr Kayesu, 25 and unemployed. “I don’t know where my brother is right now. I fear for his health.” Mr Kayesu said he feels “great pain”, but added: “There’s nothing I can do to them because they are the ones that have guns and I don’t have guns. I will stay in my house until I die there. I don’t have anywhere to go because all my parents are dead. If they want to kill me, they can come and kill me any time.”

But organisations dealing with the victims of ZANU PF’s violence say that they have received few casualties in recent days. It appears that the threat of “Operation Red Finger”, targeting those who did not vote in last week’s one-candidate poll, was intended mainly to create a climate of fear, with wholescale revenge attacks yet to be authorised following Mr Mugabe’s “re-election”. But that has not stopped ZANU PF militiamen taking matters into their own hands, and it is open to question whether having been unleashed, they can be restrained. Isheunesu Mhindu, chairman of the MDC in ward 1 of Harare South constituency, said mobs had wrecked eight houses in Hopley Farm, including his own, since the poll and evicted more than 30 occupants. “They came singing and chanting slogans, saying MDC is a puppet party of the Europeans so we want to do away with all MDCs. They destroyed our houses.”

The 49-year-old and the four other members of his family fled. “We had to run for our lives. They didn’t say anything, they were destroying. They have the list of all MDCs, whether you voted or not they were attacking.” It is the second time he has lost his home to ZANU PF - his previous house, along with his timber merchant business - was razed to the ground in the ruling party’s Murambatsvina, or “clear out the trash” operation a few years ago. A hat, a black T-shirt, a pair of trousers and two brightly-coloured flip-flops are all he has been left with. “I have got nothing,” he said. “As it is things are hard. We can hardly afford to buy a piece of bread. We don’t have anything to eat, we haven’t even bathed because we have no soap.”

(Source)

ShareThis

This episode looks at the sham of an election last Friday.

The programme can be listened to using the multiplayers in the sidebar of The Bearded Man blog. Conversely, it can also be heard here or downloaded from here.

My thanks for your continued support.

Take care.

‘debvhu

ShareThis

It has been a hard and tough-fought campaign. The opposition ran a crooked and evil competition, but ultimately the will of the people was truly reflected in your absolutely overwhelming victory at the polls. The people have spoken! They want you! Again…

…you might have run unopposed, but that’s a minor formality in the face of your glorious triumph, placing you at the pinnacle of democratic expression. Those whiner-babies at the MDC could not put a dent in your old-school, down-to-earth style and sheer charisma. Allegations of mass-murder, rape and general tomfoolery by your hired goons are rightfully dismissed as simple diversionary tactics by the opposition.

I can sympathise with your struggle. It’s not easy running a country that has been driven to the dirt by those no good white devils, intent on pillaging our wonderful state with their irrigation techniques, foreign aid infused with genetically-modified poisons and their foreign-inspired notions of ‘good governance’. No, your complete victory at the polls is because of your exemplary leadership, your refusal to allow any manner of foolishness into your economic policies, your stellar adoption of agrarian reform and your fair and just attitude towards democracy would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, if that award itself weren’t tainted with the hands of Europeans.

So on this, your magnificent democratic triumph I congratulate you. May you reign long, may the people ever enjoy the warmth of your pragmatism and may democracy never die in your fantastically-liberated country. I hope your example truly serves as a beacon for other African leaders who rely on archaic methods of governance handed down to them by their colonial masters.

Hugs, Kisses and a .50 BMG Between the Eyes

John

(Source)

ShareThis

On Saturday a few shops and businesses opened but it was still preternaturally quiet in the capital, Harare, as if people were collectively holding their breath, waiting for the retribution that ZANU PF enforcers had promised for those who voted against them or stayed away from the polls. Activists from the government party were searching bread lines outside bakeries this morning, checking people’s fingers. Those who didn’t have the telltale purple ink showing they had voted, were pulled out of line and told they’d be allowed no bread. It didn’t take long for outright violence to break out, either. Ismail Siyarun, the secretary of Tsvangirai’s MDC in the Chitungwiza district, wisely fled his house Friday night; at 1 a.m. on Saturday, a gang of Green Bombers, Mugabe’s youth militia, ransacked the place, breaking all the windows and stealing whatever of his belongings seemed worth taking, mostly clothing and household items. Siyarun was just happy they didn’t get his family or him; in the course of the election campaigns of recent years, he’s been arrested 32 times.

We dropped by a hospital in Harare to talk to some MDC victims, though all of them had been attacked before the election, some as recently as Thursday. We were immediately told that journalists have been banned from this hospital (probably from all of them by now), but we presented ourselves as friends of victims, and the nurses on reception just shrugged. The victims, whom Siyarun had identified for us, were MDC activists from Chitungwiza and we only had a chance to talk to three of them; many more are there as well. They’d all been targeted separately by large gangs of ZANU PF activists, and savagely beaten with iron bars and clubs. Jacob Muvavi, 38, a municipal policeman himself, was singled out for particularly harsh treatment and taken to a ZANU PF base, where he was beaten for three hours and had scalding water thrown on his wounds. His tormentors wanted him to confess where he was hiding his MDC t-shirt, so they could make him publicly destroy it, but he refused. Eventually one of his fellow policemen heard where he was and rescued him. “I will never give up my t-shirt,” Muvavi said.

Winfielder Musarrurwa, 21, a youth leader for the MDC, only survived because her tormentors left her for dead. “I pretended to be dead and they left me,” she said. They had found her at 1 a.m. on Thursday, hiding in her sister’s house, stripped off her clothing and beat her with sticks and iron bars on her buttocks and privates. She readily dropped her dress to show the evidence, which was horrifying - modesty surrendered in the sake of giving testimony. They also poured scalding water on her wounds and pounded her arms until they were black and blue. It hasn’t dampened her spirit any. “I will never stop supporting the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai, even if it costs me my life,” she said. Scalding water seems to be a favourite weapon; it was also used on Georgie Simango, 27, a party worker and a samoosa street vendor, who was also burned by hot ashes from a fireplace. But we didn’t get much more into the details; at that point the hospital’s director came in and demanded to know who we were. One of the nurses had ratted - probably only one, because most seemed pretty happy to see us visit.

We explained we were just interested parties, certainly not accredited journalists. “Look, I want the world to know what is happening here as much as anyone,” the director said. “But I also want these people to still be getting treatment here next week.” It was a reasonable position and a classic conundrum; we left after agreeing not to divulge the name of the facility. How much worse this will get before African countries manage to pressure Mugabe into surrender, it’s hard to say, though the initial indications are worrisome. It probably helps the case against him that the low turnout will make it even harder to try to peddle this as a legitimate victory, and at this point, as the second highest vote-getter in the first round of elections, Mugabe can hardly continue to claim to be the legitimate president of Zimbabwe. Dictator, is the title he deserves now, or, at best, self-proclaimed president.

Stopping by the business centre of a major hotel to file this story, I was warned off when we saw one of the computer bays occupied by one of Mugabe’s Men in Black - black suit, black shirt, natty yellow tie, an officer in the Central Intelligence Office. In this case my guide actually recognized him as a CIO man, he said, but since the CIO all wear pretty much the same uniform, that’s only a formality (at night they switch to black leather jackets for the wet work). We eavesdropped on him from a nearby booth; he was multi-tasking, checking his Yahoo e-mail account (I’m tempted to post the address for all those good-intentioned hackers out there) and talking on a cellphone. “I told those guys at the State House to release 400 litres of fuel for the drivers and they didn’t do it,” he said. “What’s their problem? We have an operation tonight.”

After a spell of shouting, he got up and went outside. There he exchanged money and keys with the driver of a minibus parked in the lot, and gave him and several Zimbabweans inside the vehicle instructions. Interestingly, the bus had a sign on the side identifying it as “African Union Observers.” Since they never go out at night, the election observers probably have no idea how their vehicles are being used in the dark. There’s no end to the dirty tricks the regime employed in stealing the election. Thanks to the sullen protest of Zimbabwe’s voters, it seems likely Mugabe will end up like the burglar who finds he has gone to all that trouble to rumble an empty house.

(Source)

ShareThis

Meanwhile the MDC said there were real signs of defiance in Mutare on voting day. Muchauraya said he could only see polling agents and police officers when he went to polling stations like Baring and Chancellor primary schools - no voters. There was a low voter turnout outside Mutare, in places like Makoni, Musikavanhu and Nyanga, although it’s reported that some people were being “helped” to vote by ZANU PF agents. In some instances there were reports that people were spoiling their votes by putting their “X” next to the names of both Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe, and then writing “Mugabe must go” on the top. Meanwhile Crisis in Zimbabwe issued a statement saying seven bodies of MDC activists were found in Epworth on Thursday. Crisis said: “Since the defeat of ZANU PF on the 29th of March 2008, Epworth has been the hardest hit suburb. ZANU PF youth militias were frequently captured on camera pursuing MDC supporters and burning their homes.”

(Source)

ShareThis

Mbeki has been mediating between the Zimbabwean parties since 2001 in an attempt to break the cycle of stolen elections and mounting violence. Repression by the Zimbabwean state and its agents has seen tens of thousands of Zimbabweans harassed and displaced and scores killed. The M&G can reveal that in recent years: Armaments to the value of $237 401 (R3,3-million) were privately transferred from South Africa to Zimbabwe, according to 2004 and 2005 figures; The South African defence department donated Dakota aircraft engines worth millions to Zimbabwe, while Armscor transferred spares to get Zimbabwean military choppers flying again; Zimbabwean soldiers and flying instructors have been trained by the South African Defence Force and the South African Air Force; Armscor was contracted to transport the weaponry destined for Zimbabwe and carried by the An Yue Jiang from the Durban port to Harare. The deal fell through when a court order stopped the ship from offloading and it sailed away.

The arms transfers to Zimbabwe are reflected in official trade records between 2004 and 2005. Although these statistics concern sales by private companies in South Africa, they would still have had to be approved by Mufamadi’s NCACC. The trade records show that in 2004 South Africa exported about 2,6 tonnes of revolvers and/or pistols, another 2,5 tonnes of other firearms, between four and 7,5 tonnes of cartridges and what appear to be parts for military vehicles. These armaments were transferred in the run-up to and aftermath of Zimbabwe’s 2005 parliamentary polls, which were marked by violence. Altogether 18 entries in the trade records were specified from 2004 to 2005, most of them under the general category, “Arms, Ammunition, Parts and Accessories”. But some were specified under the category that includes bombs, grenades, torpedoes and missiles, while some transfers fell into the category of “revolvers and pistols”.

In the NCACC’s annual reports from 2003 to 2006, which are not publicly released but of which the M&G has been given a detailed description, no mention is made of any of these transfers. The only mention of arms transfers to Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2006 is a “temporary export” called “Type A” - a classification used for spares or repairs - in 2005. The data also show the sale of arms to Zimbabwe by China, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates - but South Africa is by far the most frequent and largest supplier. In 2005 Armscor delivered spare parts for Alouette military helicopters to Zimbabwe to a value of $150 000 (about R1-million), an Armscor spokesperson confirmed. The Alouettes, previously grounded, were made airworthy. According to the annual report of the South African defence department, South Africa donated eight Dakota aircraft engines worth R9,5-million to the Zimbabwean Air Force in September 2005.

The disclosure of the extent of South African arms transfers to Zimbabwe comes after the Chinese arms ship saga, when civil society stepped in to prevent the An Yue Jiang from offloading at Durban harbour. The issue is known to have caused conflict in the Cabinet, where President Mbeki and Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota insisted that the ship should be allowed to offload. As previously reported in the M&G, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Transport Minister Jeff Radebe disagreed and tried to halt the delivery. Trucks from an Armscor affiliate were ready to take the weapons from Durban to Harare by road. But when the ship sailed away in contravention of the court order, the transaction was cancelled, said the Armscor spokesperson. Mufamadi later told Parliament that the permit for the transportation of the arms had been approved and that the South African government saw nothing wrong with facilitating delivery. This suggests a political conflict of interest for Mufamadi, who is also a key player in the Mbeki facilitation team brokering a deal between ZANU PF and the MDC.

SANDF annual reports make it clear the South African government has become closer to the Zimbabwean military in recent years. Several Zimbabwean soldiers and flying instructors have been trained by the SANDF since 2002. In 2006 a joint permanent commission of defence and security was formed to ensure close cooperation on defence issues between the two countries. In May 2006 the SANDF presented a course to, among others, Zimbabwean chaplains in the combating of HIV. In the 2006 annual report the deputy minister of defence, Mluleki George, said the South African Air Force was considering using Zimbabwean flying instructors to supplement its own trainers, who were in short supply. The South African Air Force participated in the “silver celebrations” of the Zimbabwean Air force in 2005. Cooperation between South Africa and Zimbabwe on the issue of border protection is also ongoing.

South Africa recently voted in the United Nations General Assembly for a process to set up a global Arms Trade Treaty to prevent the irresponsible transfer of arms, an idea launched in a campaign by Amnesty International and 800 other NGOs in 2003. South Africa was recently allowed into the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, subscribed to by a number of countries, to contribute to regional and international security and stability by promoting transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies. The text of the arrangement reads: “Participating states seek, through their national policies, to ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine these goals.” According to Nicole Fritz, director of the Southern African Litigation Centre, states which render assistance to states that use state machinery against some sections of their society are held responsible under international law. “Knowing what the situation is like in Zimbabwe means a government that gives them assistance becomes complicit.”

(Source)

ShareThis

He singled out South Africa as one country that needs to apply more pressure on Mugabe, 84, who has refused to step down.

“What’s happening in Zimbabwe is tragic. This is a country that used to be the bread basket of Africa. Mugabe has run the economy into the ground. He has perpetrated extraordinary violence against his own people,” Obama told a news conference in Chicago.

Obama, a Democrat, is running in the November presidential election against Republican John McCain.

“Not only do I think that the United Nations needs to continue to apply as much pressure as possible on the Mugabe government, but in particular other African nations, including South Africa, I think have to be much more forceful in condemning the extraordinary violence that’s been taking place there,” Obama said.

“And frankly, they have been quiet for far too long and allowed Mugabe to engage in this sort of anti-colonial rhetoric that is used to distract from his own profound failures as a leader,” he added.

In the heaviest pressure yet on Mugabe by Zimbabwe’s neighbours, a troika of southern African nations urged the postponement of Friday’s presidential election which they say would lack legitimacy in the current violent climate.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai took refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare this week after announcing he had pulled out of election because of violence which has killed about 90 people and displaced 200,000.

The government has said it will go ahead with the presidential election despite a storm of international condemnation and calls to postpone the vote.

“What is remaining of this election is a complete and total sham,” Obama said, echoing US President George W. Bush.

“I don’t think that whatever the results of this election on Friday, that Mugabe will be able to claim any sort of legitimacy as a democratically elected leader in Zimbabwe,” he added.

(Source)

ShareThis