Messages From Zimbabwe

A human rights organisation has condemned the decision by South Africa to withdraw the special status granted to illegal Zimbabwean immigrants, saying deportations would endanger their lives.

The spokesperson for the Global Zimbabwe Forum in South Africa, Luke Zunga, told News24 that it was premature for South Africa to make such a decision as a lot of Zimbabweans face imminent persecution.

“Zimbabwe is not yet back to normal as the situation remains violent. There is no settlement in that country. It’s unfortunate that South Africa is listening to its brothers in Zimbabwe and that doesn’t help us. Both countries are pretending that things are fine and this is to their own convenience,” said Zunga.

South African government spokesperson Themba Maseko said on Thursday the country will begin deportations after December 31.

The announcement brings to an end an April 2009 amnesty that allowed Zimbabweans who had fled the country’s economic meltdown and political violence to stay in the country without passports and visas.

Zunga said South Africa should have waited until elections were held in Zimbabwe, as it would then be easy to ascertain the stability in that country.

“There is still a lot of tension in Zimbabwe and that is why it is important for South Africa to wait until end of elections.

“As far as I see it, this is another way for South Africa and the SADC (Southern African Development Community) to prolong the stay of President Robert Mugabe.  They are pretending to solve Zimbabwe’s problems and yet their intention is to extend Mugabe’s stay in the government of Zimbabwe. It’s high time they realised that Zimbabwe’s problems are centred on Mugabe and should therefore, work towards solving that,” said Zunga.

According to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed in September 2008 which led to the creation of a unity government in February 2009, Zimbabwe is expected to hold elections next year. Previous elections in the country have seen a lot of violence resulting in many being killed and injured.

“Violent structures still exist in Zimbabwe and it’s unfortunate that these structures are made up of people who after beating and exposing people to torture, they are still protected by the police. These people persecute, abduct and beat up people and are not arrested.

“South Africa doesn’t seem to understand how Mugabe is controlling that country. We are bound to see even more of this violence when election time comes.”

Zunga said most Zimbabweans were likely to flock back into South Africa a few days after being deported.

(Source)

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe coalition government has turned down a loan offer of up to US$50 billion from Norange Capital Mar-kets of South Africa after security checks indicated the money could be “dirty”.

Government insiders said yesterday the offer was rejected because the country’s security agencies had “reasonable suspicion” that the company might be seeking to “launder their money through Zimbabwe”.

The Zimbabwe Mail has has been informed by high level sources in the Central Intelligence Organisation, CIO that Mugabe suspects that the money is destined to either the MDC or one of the ZANU PF factions and might be used to topple him.

The proposed funding was divided into two categories - a non-repayable US$100 million grant and a loan of up to US$50 billion payable over 30 years.
It attracted a negotiable annual interest rate of up to 3 percent.

Secretary for Finance Mr Willard Manungo wrote to Norange president and chief executive General Hendrie Hattingh on August 12 this year advising him that the proposal was “unsustainable”.

The letter was copied to Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda.

“Please be advised that Government has done a thorough appraisal of your proposal and has come to the conclusion that the proposal is unsustainable.

“We are thus unable to take up your offer,” read part of the letter.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti confirmed receipt of the proposal, but refused to shed more light.

Mr Manungo could not be reached to provide further details yesterday.

State media said security verifications raised suspicion that the company might have wanted to “launder dirty money” through Zimbabwe.

“The issue was dealt with by the Presidency and it is suspected that these guys might be involved in money laundering and might have wanted to clean their money here,” said an official who requested anonymity.

Norange wrote to Minister Biti on May 31 this year saying it had contractually entered into an agreement with Mei Hua Family United Nations, the principal backer of its Global Funder, to advance a loan to Zimbabwe through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

The funds were to be allocated under what is called Programmes of Global Fund-505 Project of World Peace, whose main objectives are “working for a world free of war, poverty eradication and global green movement”.

Without revealing names of other potential beneficiaries, the company indicated that Zimba-bwe was one of the first proposed recipients of the facility in the Asia-Pacific-Africa bloc.

According to the proposal, Zimbabwe would open a custodian account with the RBZ in the name of Norange Capital Markets for the investor to deposit a Safe Keeping Receipt to start funding procedures and link this to the main account of the Global Funder.

Minister Biti would assist in translating the SKR into liquid funds.

All the transactions were to be done between the Negara Bank of Malaysia and RBZ.

“Upon signing all protocols, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe will directly engage Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz of the Bank of Negara, Malaysia, to carry out due diligence and verification of the funds exercise within the agreed time window,” proposed Norange.

“We will notify the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the FED (US Federal Reserve), (and) Interpol prior to and upon the verification procedure of the funds.”

Apart from a loan package, Norange also offered technical assistance to Government in capitalising and hedging of loans into international financial programmes to securitise the capital and interest.

This was an extra option independent to the funding proposal under a separate contract.

“We therefore approach you within the context of your drive to turn around the economy and for investment in Zimbabwe’s infrastructure and other opportunities for immediate facilitation of this process,” said Norange.

“Norange does support your objective of a 7,7 percent (economic) growth which was recently downgraded to 4,7 percent and is confident that this Global Fund has the potential to eradicate the debt of US$7,1 billion and ensure economic growth.

“Norange does not trade debt for assets. We require no security, assets or treasury collateral against funding.”

The company wanted tax concessions through enactment of a Statutory Instrument.

It requested authority to repatriate, for other investments outside Zimbabwe, its funds allocated without “undue restrictions and exchange control”.

In addition, it wanted permission to repatriate and remit 100 percent of dividends and interests from its investments in Zimbabwe free of any withholding tax and any other restrictions.

It wanted Government to exempt customs union and excise duty, value added tax and any other taxes on imported goods, vehicles of all types, factor inputs, plant and machinery.

It said it was aware of the Western sanctions on Zimbabwe but said these would not affect the deal because Norange had global immunity.

(Source)

Globalisation has made military intervention in rogue regimes overseas more necessary than ever, Tony Blair argues in his memoirs. Not toppling Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is one regret voiced by the former prime minister.

His belief that Iran needs to be confronted in its nuclear ambitions and as a last resort prevented by force shines through. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan has not diminished his commitment to taking on opponents.

His appetite for international affairs, he admits, has been sharpened by his role as a mediator in the Middle East. “Personally I have never felt a greater sense of frustration or indeed a greater urge to leadership,” he writes in his postscript.

But it was the Balkans that formed the crucible for his new policy of liberal interventionism. “My awakening over foreign policy was… abrupt,” he explains. “It happened over Kosovo.”

Distinctions between foreign and domestic policy are breaking down as consequence of globalisation, he maintains. Television news beams foreign crises into every living room. “The world [is] interconnected not just economically or in self-interest but emotionally, the heart as well as the head.”

Looking back he admits he was surprised: “The 1997 campaign was fought almost exclusively on a domestic policy basis. If you had told me on that bright May morning as I first went blinking into Downing Street that during my time in office I would commit Britain to fight four wars, I would have been bewildered and horrified.”

Foreign policy based on “narrow self-interest” is outdated, he asserts. “Global alliances [have to] be … based on shared global values.” That realisation has resulted in the undermining of the old political divisions of left and right.

“We ended up in the bizarre position where being in favour of the enforcement of liberal democracy was a ‘neoconservative’ view and non-interference in another nation’s affairs was ‘progressive’.”

Kosovo was his first test. The “ethnic cleansing” and killings “completely changed my own attitude to foreign policy”, he admits. While Europe stalled, in favour of pacification rather than resolution, Blair was “extraordinarily forward in advocating a military solution”.

He persuaded Bill Clinton, the US president, he suggests, to take part in aerial bombardments even though there was no direct US interest in the region. “I saw it essentially as a moral issue. And that, in a sense, came to define my view on foreign and military intervention.”

Clinton, he says, was “the most formidable politician I had ever encountered”. He exults in their close political empathy, describing them on one occasion working US crowds “like two old music hall queens”.

Many opposed Blair. He compresses their counter-arguments. “Beginning wars is relatively easy; it’s ending them that’s hard. Innocent people die; unintended consequences develop; bad situations can be made worse.”

On the range of his military targets, he comments: “People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, [Slobodan] Milošević, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is I would have loved to, but it wasn’t practical (since, in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).”

Over Kosovo, Blair recounts how he tried to “stoke up concern” with other European leaders. Kosovo became the template for his subsequent military interventions. His close relationship with and affection for his generals is a recurring theme.

“The leader has to decide whether the objective is worth the cost,” he states. “What’s more, he or she must do so unsure of what the exact cost might be or the exact price of failing to meet the objective… In this context, by the way, indecision is also decision… Omission and commission both have consequences.”

The expedition to restore democracy to Sierra Leone in 2000, Blair says, “is one of the least discussed episodes of my 10 years as prime minister, but it’s one of the things of which I am most proud.” His father used to teach at Freetown University in the African nation’s capital.

The former prime minister’s discussion of his early foreign adventures contain remarkably few references to United Nations resolutions or international law, considering he is a lawyer by training.

In one passage he comes curiously close to expressing a sneaking admiration for the bold action of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 rather than Kerensky’s social democrat government.

Seeking to systematise his theory of foreign interventions in regimes that are “oppressive or dictatorial”, he writes: “They may pose no outside or external threat; or it may be easily contained diplomatically. It may – as with Mugabe – be impractical to intervene.”

A judgment has to be made. “If change will not come by evolution, should it be done by revolution? Should those who have the military power contemplate doing so?”

On Iraq, he insists that he never regarded those who opposed war in Iraq as “stupid or weak-minded”.

About 9/11, he concedes that: “I misunderstood the depth of the challenge… If I had known then that a decade later we would still be fighting in Afghanistan, I would have been profoundly disturbed. I hope I would have still taken the same decision, both there and in respect of Iraq.”

Blair is uncompromising in the face of the dangers he perceives in Tehran, discussing them in the context of the growing danger that terrorists will obtain nuclear weapons. “It is America that leads the challenge to Iran and its nuclear ambitions,” he says. “But let us be frank: Iran is a far more immediate threat to its Arab neighbours than it is to America… That’s why Iran matters. Iran with a nuclear bomb would mean others in the region acquiring the same capability; it would dramatically alter the balance of power in the region, but also within Islam.”

In his interview with the Guardian, he declared: “I wouldn’t take the risk of Iran with a nuclear weapon.”

Speaking to Andrew Marr in a BBC interview to be broadcast in full tonight, Blair says: “I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily. I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.”

(Source)

Commander of the Defence Forces General Constantine Chiwenga said the inclusive government, which is built on shifting sands, was working like a well-oiled machine.

This is contrary to claims by one of the principals to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara who told mourners at the late Gibson Sibanda’s funeral that the government was dysfunctional.

Chiwenga’s utterances also come at a time Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is fuming over President Robert Mugabe’s alleged insincerity in fulfilling provisions of the unity pact.

Addressing delegates at the Sadc Defence Inspectorate Working Group (DIWG) in Harare Chiwenga said: “There is peace and tranquility prevailing in Zimbabwe contrary to malicious propaganda which agitates for regime change in our country.

“You are aware of the current political and economic dispensation in our country. I shall not comment much on that. Suffice it to say the inclusive government brought upon after Sadc mediation is working well.”

Outgoing DIWG chairman General Raphael Saphilina from Angola will step down to pave way for Major General Engelbert Rugeje of the Zimbabwe National Army on Friday.

Last week, the premier told scores of party supporters in Harare during the launch of the new party card that continued violation of the GPA by Zanu PF threatened the future of the country.

“Indeed, the reluctance by some to abide by the commitments to which they had agreed to in September 2008 threatens the future of our great nation,” Tsvangirai said.

“Such an attitude threatens the legacy of our war of liberation which was waged to empower each and every citizen, to provide all of us with the privileges and protections which are our inalienable right.

“Therefore the only way forward is for all signatories to the GPA to abide by the agreement that we signed. Continued failure to fully implement the GPA betrays the trust and the hope the people placed in the inclusive government.”

The fragility of the inclusive government has been exposed by Zanu PF when it declared that new governors would be installed simultaneously with the removal of sanctions.

(Source)

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said on Friday that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe must step down.

Malema met Mugabe earlier this year during a visit to Zimbabwe.

He has also praised Zanu-PF’s land redistribution programme.

But Malema said Mugabe must go.

“In as much as we support the revolutionary programme in Zimbabwe, President Mugabe must hand over to those young chaps so that we engage with [them] on the same level. We will never agree with permanent leadership,” Malema said.

(Source)

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is heading for the wheelchair as health problems mount, a senior intelligence source in the President’s office has revealed to The Zimbabwe Mail.

A special wheel chair and other electronic gadgets are being designed in an unnamed Asian country, the source told our reporter in Bindura at the funeral of the First Lady Grace Mugabe’s brother, Reward Marufu.

In the coming weeks, special medical engineers will fly to Harare to prepare ground work of internal structural changes to be carried out at President Mugabe’s private residence in Borrowdale and his offices at Munhumutapa Building to accommodate state of the art high-tech gadgets.

The senior intelligence officer also confirmed that in future, the veteran leader will be on his fit only on special occasions, alongside a medical doctor and a special drug will be used to keep him fit for a small walking distance.

The source also disclosed that a number of the President Mugabe’s security details have undergone a special training to help them manage an extraordinary situation with regards to his mounting health problems.

President Mugabe’s health is taking a battering due to old age, family problems and a punishing schedule for a man of his advanced age and as a result swollen ankles, knees and all sorts of problems are mounting as the endgame looms.

A few weeks ago Mugabe collapsed into a pile in Uganda, Kampala during the Summit of African Union Heads of State and, in China, a week after; he had to be way led by Chinese security agents from the podium after addressing delegates at the Chinese at the Shanghai World Expo.

His sister Sabina died a few weeks ago and another Bridgette is in the intensive care in a Harare hospital.

Over the years, for a man of his advanced age President Robert Mugabe has looked remarkably active and ostensibly fit.

Closer inspection, however, reveals that while he is actively making it business as usual for continued stay in power, advanced age appears to have finally caught up with him. Like the rest of the body, the brain deteriorates with age.

At 86 and with 30 years as head of state behind him, Mugabe remains surprisingly in control of his mental faculty, at least during those occasions that he appears on television and on International Summits.

But of late pictures of Mugabe have appeared in the media that reveal a condition that would automatically rule him out as a serious contender for the presidency in a less authoritarian country.

In most countries, for instance, presidential candidates are required to pass what is tantamount to a rigorous public bill of health.

In the United States, such serious concerns were raised about the advanced age of the Republican presidential nominee John McCain that his campaign managers were forced to assure the nation that he was still fit not only to campaign but also to assume office as President of the United States of America. They handed over to the Associated Press 1 173 pages of medical documents spanning the period from 2000 to 2008.

Mugabe was a 12 year-old boy at Kutama School when McCain was born. Unlike his American counterparts, details of whose health make news headlines, the state of Mugabe’s health has been elevated to the status of a state secret closely guarded by him and those who surround him.

A research into the subject of the swelling of feet reveals that “systemic diseases and conditions are associated with foot and ankle swelling and are characterized by fluid retention or, less commonly, by an increase in thickness of the skin. Diseases of the joints, such as arthritis, can also affect the joints of the ankle and foot, leading to swelling of the involved areas.”

Swelling of the extremities can be an indication of underlying chronic conditions, starting from the less frightening such as deep venous thrombosis (better known as blood clots) to the more severe and life-threatening conditions such as congestive heart failure. A reported recent visit to China by Mugabe can only lead to speculation as to where in this spectrum his health currently lies.

The abnormal build up of fluid in the ankles, feet, and legs is called peripheral edema, or swelling of the lower extremities. This condition can be painless or painful.

Apparently the painless swelling of the feet and ankles is a common problem, particularly in older people. The condition may affect both legs and may include the calves or even the thighs. Because of the effect of gravity, swelling is particularly noticeable in these locations.

The following are listed as other common causes of foot, leg, and ankle swelling: prolonged standing, long airplane flights or motorcar rides, overweight and increased age. Among women menstrual periods and pregnancy may also cause swelling. Zimbabweans have nick-named their President Vasco da Gama because of his knack for excessive travel, which has taken him to every corner of the world. The imposition of travel sanctions on Mugabe and his colleagues has done nothing to reduce his penchant for travel to distant lands, mostly in the Far East of late.

He has just returned to Harare from a visit China and shopping trip to China where he was reported to have undergone a medical at a private clinic.

Surprisingly, starvation or malnutrition may also cause the swelling of feet, medical experts say. It is not conceivable that a Head of State would develop peripheral edema because of starvation while resident in State House, unless there were issues of entirely inappropriate dietary guidelines.

The experts say that swollen legs may, in fact, be a sign of heart failure, kidney failure, or liver failure. In these conditions, there is too much fluid in the body.

Heart failure is a life-threatening condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the rest of the body. Hypertension or high blood pressure is one of the most common causes of heart failure, a disease which is almost always chronic and becomes more common with advancing age. People, who are overweight, have diabetes, smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or use cocaine are at increased risk for developing heart failure.

Among the most common symptoms of heart failure are weight gain, swelling of feet and ankles and decreased alertness of concentration.

Apart from swollen feet and ankles Mugabe now appears to have another health issue. His voluble but not particularly commonsensical Information Minister, unwittingly let the cat out of the bag about the President’s failing vision. He said Mugabe’s sight had deteriorated so much that he could no longer read the newspapers.

Apparently Mugabe had complained that his effort to keep himself informed about events in Zimbabwe through reading the state-controlled Herald was frustrated by the small size of the print.

Describing the newspaper’s font as “the size of ants”, Mugabe, unbelievably, appealed to the minister to advise the editors of the state newspapers to increase the font size for his benefit. Always eager to please, the minister apparently promptly summoned the editors and duly delivered the President’s message.

“We could not believe it when the minister said the President had told him to ask us to increase the size of the font,” said one of the editors. “We all looked at each other amazed at what he had just said. We could not hold ourselves and openly giggled about it.”

But the minister was not to be easily deterred.

“The President clearly said he could not read stories in The Herald. Once when he wanted to read a story on page two about MDC and ZANU PF he failed. He called me and said ‘what is this?”

The editors respectfully held their ground, pointing out to the Minister that there was nothing they could do about the font size, as it was a worldwide standard and could not be changed.

Notwithstanding his advanced age and deteriorating heath Mugabe appears determined, not only do battle with, Morgan Tsvangirai, but to defeat him and manage Zimbabwe’s affairs of State for more years.

At 57, Tsvangirai is almost four decades younger than his rival.

Meanwhile, an unconfirmed　report published on an online publication says that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is actively considering successors after his doctor told him he is losing the battle against cancer.

The African Aristocrat reported that his urologist Awang Kechick visited him in Zimbabwe and told him that his condition is advancing faster than any treatment could delay it.

The report says that Mugabe has been struggling with undisclosed health issues for a long while, although he has returned to public life looking healthy. However, his health has deteriorated dramatically in the last months, with some images showing him unable to walk without help during a recent trip to Uganda.

Mugabe’s condition is allegedly so volatile that his physicians don’t leave his side, and the State House has been equipped with state-of-the-art resuscitation facilities.

There are also assertions that ZANU PF officials　’are aware’ of Mugabe’s ill health, and the succession issue has been high on the list of topics recently.

According to the article, Mugabe seems to have surprised everyone by dumping presidential hopefuls and selecting Simba Makoni.

Makoni left the ZANU PF to start his own party, and he seems to have support from both the ZANU PF and its opposition the MDC, as well as the media.

If Mugabe wins the elections in 2011 and institutes Makoni as president, Makoni will most certainly make an impression with the public, while, with Zimbabwe’s economic growth due to increase over the coming five years, he will also take credit for these developments.

This might be bad news for the MDC though, as four years is enough to rebrand the current ruling party.

Once a breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s food shortages have been brought on by drought and Mr Mugabe’s crippling land-reform programme.

Speculation regularly surfaces over the health of the aging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who has been in power since independence in 1980.

(Source)

A veld fire has reduced the reconstructed Old Bulawayo capital of King Lobengula to ashes, says Prince Zwide KaLanga Khumalo, a direct descendant of the Ndebele royal family.

The fire, which started late Monday night and blazed until the early hours of Tuesday, destroyed the reconstructed palace of Lobengula, eight beehive huts, an old wagon shed, a house built for Lobengula by missionaries and another built by the Khumalo clan for traditional rituals.

Khumalo said a site where President Robert Mugabe laid a stone in 1993 to commission the reconstruction of the ancient capital was also reduced to ashes.

King Lobengula’s capital was last set ablaze in 1893 when his rule was threatened by advancing missionaries and armed British colonizers. The king then settled at a site in the present-day Sauerstown suburb, north of Bulawayo and current site of the State House, the president’s second home.

Restoration of the capital was mooted in 1993 and Zulu experts from South Africa helped restore the buildings at a cost of millions of dollars.

Khumalo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube he blamed the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe for failing to protect the site. The museums department issued no comment.

(Source)

The MDC calls upon the inclusive government to urgently investigate the Local Government, Rural and Urban Development minister, Ignatius Chombo (Pictured) for abuse of office following his illegal suspension from office of seven MDC Harare councillors.

The MDC notes with concern that Chombo continues to unnecessarily interfere in the operations of the MDC – led councils across the country, having managed to foist losing Zanu PF local government candidates as “special councillors.”

Chombo’s suspensions of the Harare councillors come barely a month after he suspended another six MDC councillors in Rusape, including the chairperson.

The latest suspensions are nothing but part of Chombo’s grand political plot to stop Harare councillors from investigating him and Zanu PF’s Phillip Chiyangwa after they looted prime council land in Harare.

The MDC calls for the immediate arrest of Chombo and Chiyangwa for stealing council land. Chombo has no right to suspend the councillors who are investigating him for his corrupt activities.

Instead of the councillors being the complainants, Chombo has now abused his office by ensuring that he becomes the complainant in a trumped-up case. The prime council land that he looted was enough for the construction of 500 000 low cost houses.

We urge the police to immediately follow-up on Chombo’s case of blatant abuse of office. We strongly reject Chombo’s continued machinations to further the interests of Zanu PF, which was overwhelmingly rejected by the voters in March 2008.

Chombo has also blocked several investigations in Kwekwe, Chinhoyi and Chegutu that are being carried out by the councils on senior Zanu PF officials who corruptly acquired council land.

The Local Government minister should be immediately stopped from continuing to abuse his national office in pursuit of narrow and partisan political interests.  

The people of Zimbabwe deserve better service delivery. They demand and deserve dignity, hope, freedom, security and prosperity.

Together, united, winning, ready for real change.

(Source)

National Healing Minister and Movement for Democratic Change founding president Gibson Jama Sibanda has died, his party announced on Tuesday.

He was 66.

Sibanda, who led the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for more than a decade, died at Bulawayo’s Mater Dei hospital on Monday night, his party’s deputy secretary general Priscilla Misihairabwi said.

Misihairabwi said Sibanda had been in and out of hospital over the last year quietly battling cancer.

“We have lost a gentle giant, a father figure and quiet spirit who was hardly ruffled by many things,” Misihairabwi told New Zimbabwe.com by telephone from Harare.

Sibanda never re-married after his wife Ntombizodwa died in 2003 following her own public battle with cancer.

Sibanda, a former welfare secretary of the liberation movement, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), was detained without trial for three years by the former white minority government alongside other nationalist leaders between 1976 and 1979.

In 1984, he was elected president of five amalgamated railway trade unions. He studied and obtained a Diploma in Industrial Labour Relations, and would later become vice president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions in 1988.

He became ZCTU president a year later – a position he held until 1999 when he became the interim leader of a ZCTU-initiated political party, the Movement for Democratic Change.

Sibanda led the party for close to six months leading up to its first congress in February 2000. He was elected deputy president at the congress as Morgan Tsvangirai, the former ZCTU secretary general, assumed leadership.

In parliamentary elections that year, Sibanda became an MP after defeating Dumiso Dabengwa in Nkulumane.

In 2001, Sibanda was arrested on charges of inciting violence. The case was withdrawn in January 2003 before plea.

In November of the same year, an attempt was made on his life and those of MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube, elections director Paul Themba Nyathi and treasurer Fletcher Dulini Ncube.

A gunman opened fire on them with a machine gun while they stood outside the MDC’s regional office in Bulawayo. No arrests were made.

Sibanda’s convoy was also attacked in Kuwadzana, Harare, when he and other MDC leaders went to address a rally during the presidential election campaign in 2002.

On April 1, 2003, Sibanda was arrested once again, this time on charges of seeking to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government. The charges arose from a nationwide job boycott supported by the MDC between March 18 and 19.

He was kept in police custody for seven days before being granted bail. He was remanded four times in the ensuing year before the charges were withdrawn before plea on February 16, 2004, because the State was unable to produce any evidence.

Fissures began appearing in the MDC party in 2005 when leaders agonised over whether to field candidates in a newly-established Senate. Sibanda, along with the powerful secretary general Ncube and other leaders advocated participation, arguing that the party could not give ground to Mugabe’s Zanu PF in constituencies where it had MPs – mostly in Matabeleland.

Tsvangirai, meanwhile, took the line that the Senate was an unnecessary drain on the national fiscus and the party should boycott.

The party split that year and Sibanda briefly led a breakaway MDC before standing down at the February 2006 congress which saw the entry of Arthur Mutambara into local politics as president. Sibanda became his deputy.

He lost his parliamentary seat to Thamsanqa Mahlangu from the Tsvangirai-led MDC formation in the 2008 general elections.

In August 2008, he stood for the post of President of the Senate with the support of colleagues from the Tsvangirai-led MDC formation but lost to Zanu PF’s Edna Madzongwe.

Sibanda became a member of the Senate in 2009 following his appointment as a Minister of State for National Healing in the new coalition government formed between Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara.

(Source)

Former Matabeleland provincial magistrate Johnson Mkandla has seen all the anarchy unfolds under President Mugabe’s watch – he was detained three times without charge, the only reason for his persecution was his association with the late Sydney Malunga, Naison Ndlovu and other PF-Zapu leaders.

In his detention cell, in Bulawayo’s Stops Camp, he saw civilians being slaughtered in an abattoir-style. He saw dead civilians wrapped in blankets and thrown into the back of police trucks before being ferried into unknown destinations.

These victims of Mugabe’s brutality remain unaccounted for and calls for accountability are now getting louder each day as Mugabe’s life begins to show signs of finally coming to an end following decades of murder and plunder, he said.

Mkandla says, at some point in the 1980s, he had come to regard Stops Camp as a death camp where he often saw civilians being tortured to death and their bodies thrown away without being handed back to relatives for decent burial.

“The next thing there would be a story that so and so is missing or so and so committed suicide in a police cell. If that person was badly tortured with visible facial scars, they will prefer to hide away his body and then profess ignorance of what happened,” said Mkandla who remains visibly haunted by his harsh brush with President Mugabe’s brutal regime.

One Saturday night in the early 1980s, Mkandla found himself surrounded by heavily armed security officers in his New Magwegwe home. He was being accused of aiding and abetting dissidents in Plumtree where he had gone to preside over a court case in the border town. On his way back, CIOs alleged, he had given a lift to dissidents.

“It was about 12 midnight and I heard someone in a loud-speaker with lights beaming into my bedroom ordering me, my wife and children to come out of my house naked. We were also ordered us to raise up our hands and walk into a nearby public road and lie down there,” said Mkandla.

“Then after that, they unleashed dogs into my house, but the dogs came up with nothing. They started searching my house from 12 midnight up to 6 am but still came up with nothing. As though that was not enough, they took me to detention at Stops Camp,” he said.

“Imagine I was a magistrate then and my neighbours respected me a lot but I am seen coming out of my house with my wife in underwears. It is something that I will never forget throughout my life on earth. I want to see those people who did that to me punished. I want to face those people and ask why?  My association with Sydney Malunga and other Ndebele leaders stems from my history in PF-Zapu. I had been regional PF-Zapu chairman during the liberation struggle and after independence,” he said.

“When I was a student the University of Rhodesia I also worked part-time at the PF-Zapu offices in Harare. I have come to be close to PF-Zapu leaders and they all knew me hence even after independence we continued having a good association as we shared the same political ideology which had nothing to do with dissident activity,” he said.

Mnkandla laments the idea that political violence before 2000 in Zimbabwe seem to have been kept under the carpet yet more people died in the 1980s and now wants Zimbabweans to come together and address it.

“What the MDC seem to have experienced since inception is something that we experienced as soon as Mugabe took office in 1980.

“For example, while I was detained at Stops Camp in Bulawayo, I heard someone being tortured until his last breadth. I heard civilians’ screaming for help until their voices faded away as they finally die. During my detention at Stops Camp, I lost count of such situations. I would then peep through my small cell window and see plain clothes officers carrying the dead civilians into the back of trucks. Then they would simple drive away and after some few hours I would hear someone next to my cell screaming for help until he goes the same way,” said Mkandla.

Mkandla, now based in the United Kingdom after being threatened with a treason change upon his return in Zimbabwe for campaigning for Western sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies, says he remains upset on what happened to him and what he saw in his police with his eyes.

“I have first had information about how people in Matabeleland were slaughtered by Mugabe’s security agents. I want to tell the truth about all this, although I was detained three times as a magistrate, there was never a point I was tortured myself. The whole detention thing was meant screw me up as a human being,” he said.

Mkandla added that: “The main reason why I was not killed or tortured is that the BBC had reported my plight on numerous occasions, hence I was now known internationally so it was not in the interest of Mugabe’s image to kill me. They would just harass me, question me and I would simple tell them that I was just innocent”.

“We lost people in Matabeleland and those people died a painful death. I want if the killers are not being haunted by that.

(Source)