Messages From Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe was effectively crowned President for life yesterday after Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party “affirmed” that he was its sole candidate in elections due next year. A carefully orchestrated special congress passed without a vote or a single word of debate, all but assuring Mr Mugabe, 83, another five-year term as President. Senior party officials lavished praise on the leader as thousands of supporters wearing shirts bearing his image brandished banners denouncing Gordon Brown, whom Mr Mugabe regularly accuses of trying to foment opposition. Possible challengers from the two main factions within the ruling party were sidelined by the stage-managed congress. Mr Mugabe, who has been Zimbabwe’s supreme leader since independence in 1980, has spent much of the past year manoeuvring to block the ambitions of Joyce Mujuru, one of two vice-presidents, and her husband Solomon, a former general who is regarded as a major party power broker.

The “extraordinary” congress was called to rubber-stamp Mr Mugabe’s candidacy. After he made a wandering two-hour speech to the 10,000 delegates, mostly the rural poor, at an indoor stadium in Harare, the congress moved on to the item of his “affirmation” as presidential candidate. Each chairman of the party’s ten provincial councils rose in turn to read out reports of their meetings in the past few months, each stating that they had endorsed Mr Mugabe. “That was it,” said a ruling party official who asked not to be named. “He wasn’t going to risk taking a vote. Of course no one objected. It would be suicide to challenge him openly.” Analysts say that the earlier provincial meetings were also orchestrated. In 2005, when Mr Mugabe nominated Mrs Mujuru as vice-president, six of the ten provinces voted against her. In a rage, he sacked the chairmen in the six provinces, replaced them and ordered the vote to be retaken. The required result was then returned.

His most blatant manipulation was when his late wife, Sally, stood for the chair of the party’s women’s league in 1990. Although the results showed her well behind in second place, he declared her the winner. Observers say that yesterday’s affair shows Mr Mugabe’s extreme anxiety over his authority as the country hurtles deeper into economic chaos. Queues for cash outside banks were longer than ever yesterday, each person hoping for a maximum of Z$5 million - scarcely enough for a return trip between township and industrial area. In the city centre, people chopped at hedges for firewood as power cuts lengthened. Mr Mugabe, in a shirt featuring large pictures of himself, mentioned none of this in his speech. “I am 75kg, but I am carrying the weight of 14 million people, babies, ladies fat and thin,” he said. “I dare not abandon them. Every one of them matters to me. Their welfare is my welfare.”

(Source)

Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party forced members to fork out Z$10 million each to bankroll the party’s five-day extra-ordinary congress that began in Harare last Tuesday, ZimOnline has learnt.

Sources within the party said ZANU PF secretary for finance David Karimanzira last week ordered members of provincial executives, districts, the youth and women’s wings to pay the money “without fail.”

“We were asked to pay $10 million each. Karimanzira said the money would go towards food and accommodation for the 4000 delegates at the congress. It was an order from the secretary for finance.

“There was no room for excuses, which I think was a bit unfair. Most of our members are finding it difficult to make ends meet and cannot afford to pay,” said a member of the ZANU PF politburo who refused to be named.

ZANU PF is meeting in Harare for an extra-ordinary congress that is expected to, among other things, endorse President Robert Mugabe as the party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election.

Karimanzira yesterday confirmed that the ruling party had asked its members to help foot the costs of the congress adding that the move was “nothing new” as the party had done so in the past.

“This is not the first time we have asked our members to contribute towards the funding of the congress,” Karimanzira said.

“Apart from asking for money and material support from our members, we have also appealed to companies and our friends locally and abroad for assistance,” he added.

Last month, ZimOnline reported that ZANU PF was coercing teachers in rural areas to contribute Z$300000 each towards the hosting of the Harare congress while headmasters were being forced to part with Z$500000 each.

The Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, which has several strikes by teachers demanding more pay and better working conditions, condemned the move calling it a simple case of extortion.

Karimanzira rejected charges that teachers were being coerced to contribute towards the congress adding that such reports were being fabricated by people bent on tarnishing the image of the party.

(Source)

Police at OR Tambo International Airport have seized a consignment of handguns which might have belonged to the Zimbabwean police force. The weapons - 50 CZ 75 9mm parabellum handguns - were found yesterday in the cargo hold of a passenger plane, packed in a simple wooden padlocked box which had “Zimbabwe contingent” scrawled across it. The plane had stopped over in Zimbabwe. Most of the weapons, which appeared secondhand, had ZRP stamped on them with an additional serial number. According to a security expert, ZRP stands for Zimbabwe Republic Police. The firearms were made in the Czech Republic, and still had their original serial numbers. No ammunition was found in the consignment, which is estimated to be worth about R175000.

(Source)

From my book “Without Honour“:

“The CZ ‘75 is a semi automatic handgun made in the Czech Republic and originally introduced in 1975 by Ceska Zbrojovka Brod (CZUB) in 9mm calibre parabellum. It is one of the original ‘wonder nines’ featuring high-capacity double column magazine, sturdy all-steel construction, great accuracy, and superb reliability.

Weighing in at exactly 2 kilograms with a full magazine and one up the spout, the CZ is a remarkable weapon and had slowly become the issue pistol of the ZRP, taking the place of the aged and somewhat antiquated P1. I know how good the CZ ’75 is because not only had I qualified as a marksman with it every year I was in the Police, but I had also used it in the Police Pistol Shooting Championships in Harare for two years and found it to be the perfect pistol for myself - I have rather large hands.”

Spain backed Britain on Tuesday in calling for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to stay away from a European Union-Africa summit in Lisbon this week. “We would all prefer that he does not take part because he will not bring much and he would be a media distraction,” Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters. “What is important is to discuss subjects in depth and that his presence does not take up all the headlines.” Mugabe, usually the target of a travel ban by the EU, is due to attend the summit in Portugal on December 8 and 9. Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he will not participate if Mugabe is there because of the president’s human rights record. But not all other EU countries have followed his firm stance.

Portugal Foreign Minister Luis Amado recently said it was “preferable” if Mugabe did not attend, since he might divert participants from essential issues. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Mugabe’s participation would be an opportunity to “raise all our criticisms” about the “disaster” in Zimbabwe. Critics accuse the 83-year-old Mugabe, in power for the past 27 years, of stifling basic freedoms and political opposition. They also blame his policies for an economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, where annual inflation is running at nearly 8 000 percent. No EU-Africa summit has been held since the first and only one in Cairo seven years ago, as several European countries rejected inviting Mugabe. “We still hope that Mugabe will not take part” in the Lisbon summit, Moratinos said.

(Source)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has stepped up the use of torture against political opponents, civil rights protesters and students in an attempt to clamp down on dissent ahead of next year’s elections.

A Sunday Telegraph investigation has revealed how torture methods that were once used only by the feared Central Intelligence Organisation, Zimbabwe’s internal security agency, are now routinely employed by uniformed police officers. Victims report that electric shock torture is being used simply to spread indiscriminate terror.

They have given vivid testimony of life behind the barbed-wire fences of Fairbridge camp, a sprawling police detention centre in dusty bushland 15 miles outside Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, Bulawayo. It backs up claims by Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that the government has stepped up its campaign of intimidation despite the continuing talks between the two sides mediated by South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki.

The revelations from former camp inmates also raise further concerns about the decision by Portugal, which holds the presidency of the European Union, to invite Mr Mugabe to next weekend’s EU Africa summit in Lisbon. The invitation has prompted the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to boycott the event, saying he will not share a table with a man guilty of “oppression and repression”.

Fairbridge, which houses a feared police unit known as the “Black Boots”, acts as a regional interrogation centre for students and protest leaders arrested in southern Zimbabwe, where support for the MDC is strongest. Its bloodstained cells have been full in recent months as Mr Mugabe seeks to quell protests over the country’s 8,000 per cent inflation rate and chronic food and fuel shortages.

Accountancy student Velathi Ncube, 25, was among 30 taken there after taking part in a protest over a 400 per cent increase in fees at Bulawayo’s National University of Science & Technology. “They put us all in one room and told us to lie on the floor on our stomachs, then they started beating us randomly,” he said.

“They said ‘we’ll teach you not to rebel against the authorities, we’ll show you who has power now’. They took us one by one to another room for questioning.

“When my turn came I was told to remove my clothes. I sat on a stool facing one of the policemen who asked me: ‘Who organised the demonstration? Who is sponsoring you?’ There were two other policemen standing behind me with pliers. Whenever I gave them an answer they didn’t like, they grabbed me with the pliers on my neck and shoulders. I cannot describe the pain.”

The next day, he and the other students were dumped in the bush 45 miles away.

Another victim, 33-year-old Mandla Nyathi, a Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions activist, told how he and five other union members were taken to Fairbridge after being arrested during a demonstration. “When we arrived we were taken into a room whose walls were covered with blood, and the floor was strewn with broken bottles and odd shoes,” he said.

“The police demanded to know the whereabouts of our leadership, and when we did not give them the information the torture began.”

When he still refused to give them any information, police officers took out whips and started lashing him.

“When that failed they electrocuted me through the genitals,” he added. “As I passed out I could hear my colleagues screaming in pain as well.”

Some of the worst alleged abuses by police have been carried out upon members of the civil protest group Woman of Zimbabwe Arise, most of whom are ordinary mothers. Of 397 members interviewed in a recent survey, 40 per cent said they had been tortured by police, and 26 per cent needed medical treatment for their injuries.

One activist, Angela Nkomo, revealed how she was taken to Fairbridge after taking part in a demonstration in Bulawayo early this year.

“We were forced to strip naked and lie on our stomachs before dozens of Black Boots beat us with baton sticks and leather belts,” she said. “After that we were interviewed individually in a room full of male policemen while we were naked.” Another member, Clarah Makoni, 19, broke down in tears as she recalled how she was forced to run through what she described as an obstacle course of electric wires. “The torture continued for hours,” she said. “I was whipped while lying on my stomach. They then put me in a room full of ice.”

According to the latest monthly report on political violence produced by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, during the first nine months of this year there were 776 cases of assault and 526 cases of torture - almost twice as many as over the same period last year.

Tendai Chabvuta, head of the forum’s research unit, linked the increase in torture to the forthcoming congress of Mr Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party next month. It is expected to ratify Mr Mugabe as its presidential candidate for elections due in March.

“It’s quite clear that 2007 is the worst year for human rights in terms of politically motivated violence against opposition forces and human rights activists,” said Mr Chabvuta.

(Source)

This was emailed to me a few days ago:

“Many news articles on the late Ian Smith contain inaccuracies that need to be corrected. It is neither fair nor honest that some portray him as a white supremist. His policy was “Responsible Government” with a “qualified franchise.” The vote in Rhodesia was not limited to whites, but was a qualified franchise, which required either educational qualification or property ownership.

The fact that the Soviet-backed ZAPU and Red Chinese-backed ZANU terrorist groups murdered black candidates, officials and voters to intimidate the black citizens to withdraw from the electoral process, resulted in an increasingly white government.

However, that was not the policy of Ian Smith who was seeking to move the country to a position where 50 percent of the parliament was black.

As someone who knew Ian Smith well and met him regularly over the past 20 years, I have been surprised to see him described as “embittered and disillusioned”. He was most certainly not!

He had a very positive attitude, stayed in Zimbabwe through the horrific farm invasions and lawless upheavals caused by Mugabe’s dictatorship, and continually worked for the good of the country.

He regularly spoke with great hope and vision for the future.

Whether one agreed with his policies or not, one could only admire his courage, tenacity and integrity.

Also, it should be noted that no one starved in Rhodesia. Even in war time, life under him never degenerated to anything close to what there is now.

Smith was immensely popular with many black Rhodesians as well.

Many black Zimbabweans went to him for advice on how to free the country from Mugabe’s dictatorship.”

Take care.

‘debvhu