Messages From Zimbabwe

The deportation of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe has now been halted, Gordon Brown said.

The Prime Minister told MPs that while officials continued to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis, no returns were currently taking place.

“No-one is being forced to return to Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom at this time,” he said.

Mr Brown, who has been under pressure to stop the deportations in the wake of the violence surrounding the disputed presidential election, said that ministers were also looking to help failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers who were unable to work.

“They are prevented from leaving the UK through no fault of their own,” he said. “They are provided with accommodation and vouchers to ensure that they are not destitute but we are looking to see what we can do to support Zimbabweans in this situation.”

Mr Brown, who was making a Commons statement on this week’s G8 summit in Japan, appealed to the entire international community to back the imposition of United Nations’ sanctions on Robert Mugabe’s regime.

British officials had thought they had the support of the entire G8 for a resolution in the UN Security Council after the leaders signed up to a statement calling for measures against regime figures responsible for the violence.

However, on the final day of the summit, Russia - one of the five permanent Security Council members with the power of veto - denounced the draft resolution drawn up by Britain and the US as “excessive”. With the position of China - another permanent member - also unclear, Mr Brown said detailed negotiations were now taking place at the UN headquarters in New York.

He acknowledged that the draft resolution - which also calls for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe - went further than the G8 statement, but urged members to support it.

“It is very important that the whole weight of the international community is behind the efforts to secure a transition in Zimbabwe,” he said. “I believe that time is short for doing that and it is very important that the UN pass its resolution as soon as possible. I hope that all countries and all continents will come behind it.”

(Source)

Robert Mugabe’s regime of thugs and militia has intensified its reign of terror as reports of political violence and torture of MDC supporters across Zimbabwe continue to emerge. Reliable sources on the ground told Newsreel on Tuesday that Gokwe has been completely shut down by armed groups and youth militia, with extensive road blocks preventing aid agencies from reaching victims of torture in the area. We have been unable to clarify Monday’s initial reports that a refugee centre in Gokwe was attacked over the weekend, but information received indicates that there has been widespread violence in the area over the past few days. Our sources have said that at least 32 civilian victims are being detained at the Gokwe hospital with serious burns and axe wounds as a result of torture and that there are three confirmed deaths.

Newsreel has also learnt that ambulances have been refused access to the hospital to remove the victims for treatment and that medical emergency crews have been held up at roadblocks surrounding the Gokwe area. Sources said a Red Cross crew was stopped by youth militia while trying to gain access to the Gokwe hospital. The crew was then detained and questioned for eighteen hours before being turned away. The information from the ground coincides with a report from the MDC that ten party supporters who were attacked by ZANU PF thugs in Gokwe over the weekend were being detained at the Gokwe Hospital. The MDC said two soldiers hijacked ambulances transporting the injured on Sunday. They are now at the Gokwe hospital where they have not received any medical attention due to a lack of medicine. Among those in need of urgent treatment is the Gokwe MP Costin Muguti, who was abducted from his home by men in army uniforms and severely beaten. He was handed over to the police at the Gokwe Centre where he is reportedly still in custody.

At the same time, 14 people who were abducted during a militia raid on a refugee centre in Ruwa on Sunday night are still missing. The attack came as the group of more than 300 men, women and children were sleeping at the Ruwa local squash courts, where they have been sheltering since last month. The group were removed to the so called “place of safety” after fleeing to the South African Embassy in Harare in the week leading up to the election run off. The refugees fled their Epworth homes after an upsurge of violence there, and turned to the embassy for refuge. They were removed to Ruwa after an agreement facilitated by the South African ambassador and approved by the International and Zimbabwean Red Cross.

The group had been promised twenty four hour protection, but were forced to form their own security patrols. On Sunday night a group of masked men with shotguns burst into the squash courts and started beating up the refugees, including pregnant women and children. Eight people were hospitalised. The fourteen people who are missing were mainly young men who were part of the camp’s security patrol. An official from The Federation for Red Cross and Crescent Societies in Johannesburg told Newsreel on Tuesday that it was still providing basic humanitarian care at the Ruwa refugee site, but that it was not responsible for providing security. The official said the group would not be commenting further of the issue.

(Source)

A Robert Mugabe supporter who is said to use a newspaper column to attack Britain and the West is receiving tens of thousands of pounds a year of taxpayers’ money.

Today the Ministry of Justice said it was investigating the affair as a “matter of urgency”.

Peter Mavunga, 54, allegedly uses his column in the pro-Mugabe Harare Herald newspaper to attack the Zimbabwean dictator’s opponents and rant against the UK and the West.

Yet it was reported today that Mr Mavunga earns £25,000 from British taxpayers as a court probation officer for the Ministry of Justice.

One UK-based opposition activist said: “It’s rich that he criticises the British Government yet is happy to make a living working for them.”

Anti-Mugabe campaigner Dumi Tutani, 38, who fled to London in 2001, added: “Mavunga is putting down the country that offered him sanctuary. He knows he can say what he likes because this is a democracy.

“If he’s such a big fan of Mugabe’s, why doesn’t he return to Zimbabwe to live?”

Mr Mavaunga is thought to have come to Britain to study journalism in the 1970s.

In his column Mr Mavunga is said to have claimed this year’s rigged polls - in which Government mobs killed dozens of opposition workers - were “held in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity”.

Last week, Mr Mavunga, who lives in Newham, East London, allegedly accused one woman of lying about her torture to win UK asylum and said: “It was the sort of story that helped shape and reinforce attitudes of people in Britain.”

In April, he reportedly branded opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC “liars and hypocrites” and added: “They’ve become so used to lying that it’s part of their vocabulary.”

Mr Mavunga declined to comment when challenged by the Daily Mirror about this role at the Harare Herald.

A spokesman for the Probation Service said today: “These views have been expressed in an individual capacity; these are not the views of London Probation. We are looking into this as a matter of urgency.”

Mr Tsvangirai won March’s elections but Mr Mugabe demanded a re-run, which he won unopposed after violence forced his rival to quit.

(Source)

There are recent widespread reports that ZANU PF and MDC are talking and are about to conclude an agreement to form a Government of National Unity (GNU). Nothing can be as malicious and as further from the truth.

As a matter of fact, there are no talks or discussions taking place between the two parties and most importantly, there is no agreement in the offing.

Whilst the MDC pursued dialogue in a bid to establish a Government of National  Healing before the 12^th June 2008, the sham and catalyptic election on 27 June 2008totally and completely exterminated any prospects of a negotiated settlement.

It is now the firm view of the MDC that those who claim they have got a mandate to govern should govern. Chitongai tione.

Hon Tendai Biti, MP

MDC Secretary-General

(Source: via email)

The proposed new full-time mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis, AU Commission chair Jean Ping, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are expected in the country this week amid speculation they will be seeking to bring MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe together.

African diplomats told The Standard last week that the two would be expected to arrive from the G-8 Summit in Japan and that they will be in Zimbabwe as part of efforts to get the MDC and ZANU PF to begin talks on a transitional arrangement.

Mbeki flew into Harare yesterday on his way to the G8 nations’ summit, which runs in Japan from tomorrow until Wednesday, when he and Ping are expected to travel to Zimbabwe.

During his two-hour stop over, Mbeki met Mugabe and representatives of Arthur Mutambara’s MDC formation, which was represented by Mutambara, Professor Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga at State House.

Ncube told The Standard that there had been no discussions and that the meeting had been for the leaders to mandate their negotiators to seek a settlement to the impasse.

Tsvangirai and his negotiators did not attend the meeting. They have said they will meet Mugabe in the presence of Ping.

Last week, the AU’s 11th Summit in Egypt passed a resolution enjoining the two Zimbabwean political parties to begin talks as a first step towards efforts to resolve the country’s eight-year-old crisis. The resolution also supported the proposal for a government of national unity.

Hopes of an accord between the two main political gladiators came in a week which saw prices spinning out of control, demonstrating for the first time the colossal nature of the problem facing the government and the urgency required to resolve it.

Prices of goods soared last week and for the first time since the political crisis, basic commodities were being quoted in the US dollar or the rand in what analysts said was an emphatic loss of confidence in both the government and the local currency.

Diplomats who spoke to The Standard saw this turn for the worse as one factor that could force the two parties to sit down and hammer out an acceptable means of running the country during the transitional period.

“One of the conditions is that Mugabe and Tsvangirai meet face to face,” said one of the African diplomats. “Unlike Mbeki’s mediation, there will be a memorandum of understanding and a framework within which the talks will take place. The government is looking for a way out (of the crisis).”

Attempts to deal with the crisis came as more than 200 internally displaced Zimbabweans sought refuge at the US embassy in Harare, with the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee stressing that his country was and would continue to be “a friend of the suffering people of Zimbabwe. . .”

McGee was speaking in Harare on Friday during celebrations to mark the 232nd anniversary of the Independence of the United States. He said Zimbabweans deserved better.

Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai have expressed their willingness to open dialogue, but have each set conditions for participation in the talks. Tsvangirai says Mugabe should stop the violence against MDC supporters and “deZanuise” state institutions.

Tsvangirai last Wednesday said “the MDC remains committed to negotiations” based on results of the March 29 elections, not the run-off. He set conditions for dialogue.

“Our commitment to a negotiated settlement is not about power-sharing or power deals but about democracy, freedom and justice,” said Tsvangirai.

“Significantly, the conditions prevailing in Zimbabwe today are not conducive to negotiations. If dialogue is to be initiated, it is essential that ZANU PF stops the violence, halts the persecution of MDC leaders and supporters, releases all political prisoners, disbands the militia bases and torture camps and that the security services halt their partisan operations.”

He said he “will never compromise to betray these ideals”.

“We cannot just go into those discussions or negotiations for the sake of it… The principle is a transition,” Tsvangirai said. “But it must be a transition that is going to soft-land this crisis leading to elections… it should provide for a period in which a new constitution is hammered out, the deZanuisation of all these (state) institutions has to take place.

“For us it’s very simple, either they engage in negotiations or there is no engagement. They have elected themselves, they have inaugurated themselves, they can as well run the country. But we are saying we wish them good luck if they have to pursue that kind of self -destructive delusion.”

In a measure indicative of the treacherous terrain the talks will need to negotiate Mugabe told a rally in Chitungwiza 12 days ago before the 27 June poll: “A ZANU PF victory does not mean we would push opposition parties into oblivion. The MDC won a considerable number of seats in Parliament, there is a role they would play in Parliament… Victory for us does not mean the death of MDC or any other party that wants to participate in our electoral process… We want our brothers in the MDC to come to us to discuss our problems…”

But speaking on his arrival from Egypt on Friday, Mugabe appeared to set conditions for talks saying the MDC should accept him as Head of State and that they should get the West to remove targeted sanctions.

(Source)

South Africa ’s deputy Minister of foreign affairs had said ZANU PF must stop violence and said if violence does not stop they will be forced to ‘act’.

“It is up to Zimbabwe to take immediate steps to stop the violence. If they do not stop it, we will take action, whatever action is possible to stop it,” Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Friday.

The solution to the situation in Zimbabwe needs to be sorted out by the parties in Zimbabwe, guided by the African Union (AU) resolution that a government of national unity should be established, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Friday.

“The African Union calls on Zimbabwe to discuss the way forward,” he said in Pretoria.

The Zimbabwe issue, among a number of others, was discussed at the recent AU summit and it had been decided that the only solution to the “urgent” problem was a government of national unity.

He said any additional pressure from the AU and international communities would only impede peace and stability in the country. No other contingency plans other than the resolution had been discussed, added Pahad.

However, the current situation could not continue.

But there have already been indications that the parties in Zimbabwe were in discussions, said Pahad.

Pahad also added his voice on the putting of 7 seven MDC MPs on police wanted list.

‘So, we believe that logically, an important element of getting the Zimbabweans to sit down and seriously talk is to create the necessary conducive environment in which this can happen and that includes all these aspects - the violence, the humanitarian situation and the issue of arrests. I am also sure that if you want these discussions to succeed then you would have to create the conducive climate.’

State sponsored violence had been on the rise.This week Buhera South MP,Naisaon Madziva was abducted and two MDC supporters were killed last night,police today said they want to arrest seven MDC MPs on unspecified charges.20 MDC MPs are behind bars.

(Source)

A local farmer’s wife was doing the school run to Triangle school from their cane farm on Hippo Valley Estates, when they came across a body of a young man lying on the side of the gravel road. She said that it looked like his face had been smashed in; there were no skid marks at the scene, it looked like he had been dumped there. She continued to the school, dropped of the traumatised children then went to the Triangle police station to report finding the body. The police were reluctant to go as it was Chiredzi Police station’s jurisdiction, but eventually they followed her out to the scene and after examination they also agreed that the young man had been beaten to death.

(Source: via email)

Agents of Robert Mugabe’s regime are harassing and intimidating Zimbabwean dissidents in Britain in an attempt to silence his political rivals and disrupt vital fundraising for Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Mugabe’s feared security force, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), is waging a highly-organised campaign to terrify the 4,000 MDC members living in the UK.

It involves surveillance, threats against family members in Zimbabwe, menacing late-night phone calls and bogus messages saying that fundraising activities are cancelled or disrupted.

The existence of the campaign was confirmed last night by British security sources, who said the targeting of dissidents and MDC members was stepped up in recent weeks as Mugabe sought to maintain his grip on power. Police are investigating a number of incidents, including an alleged phone call to an MDC member who was told that his parents in Zimbabwe faced eviction unless he stopped criticising Mugabe.

Yesterday, militias loyal to the ruling ZANU PF party roamed Zimbabwean villages and towns to press-gang MDC supporters into voting for Mugabe in the discredited second round of the presidential election. The European Union described the vote as a “sham”.

But while the brutal treatment that Mugabe’s followers have meted out in his own country in recent weeks, with the deaths of at least 80 people, has provoked international condemnation, tactics designed to instil fear and panic have been deployed out of the public gaze against the 20,000 Zimbabweans living in Britain. MDC officials said a key target of the CIO operation appeared to be the money between £5,000 and £10,000 a month, which was being sent from the UK to back Tsvangirai’s campaign until he withdrew from the ballot last week. With inflation in Zimbabwe running at three million per cent, hard cash is vital to buy campaign essentials such as fuel and printing supplies.

Tendai Goneso, treasurer of the MDC’s UK and Ireland branch, said: “It is a highly-organised and co-ordinated campaign to intimidate members and interrupt our ability to send money to support the presidential campaign. Mugabe has exported the methods he has used against Zimbabweans at home to the heart of the former colonial power.

“The money was very important for enabling us to keep Tsvangirai campaigning. We can buy 10,000 litres of fuel each month and send regular consignments of mobile phones, and that is what they are trying to stop. An investigation by The Independent, corroborated by British security sources, found a range of strategies used to disrupt and coerce Mugabe’s opponents, many of them asylum-seekers who feel unable to complain to British authorities.

(Source)

The African Union last night called for a national unity government in Zimbabwe, but stopped short of directly criticising Robert Mugabe or assigning mediators to help with the crisis. After two days of angry exchanges at an AU summit in Egypt that revealed deep rifts over democratisation, African leaders put together a joint statement that ignored appeals to get directly involved in Zimbabwe’s political conflict, leaving the task of mediation to Zimbabwe’s neighbours. It appeared to put Mugabe under little pressure to step down. In contrast to this approach, the European Union said it would not accept a Zimbabwean government if it was not led by the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, made the statement on Europe’s behalf, as France has just taken over the rotating EU presidency.

European diplomats acting as observers in Sharm el-Sheikh expressed disappointment at the AU’s conclusions. The final resolution made no criticism of Mugabe or his government, falling well short of the demands of some African states for his government to be barred from the AU. It only recognised “the complexity of the situation in Zimbabwe” and simply “noted” reports by African monitors of widespread intimidation in the run-up to Friday’s single-candidate election. The summit gave no guidance on how negotiations for unity government should proceed: whether Mugabe should be treated as head of state despite the election debacle, or the recognition to be given to the victory of Tsvangirai in the first round of elections in March. Egyptian officials said that the decision had been accepted by all the African leaders at the summit, including Mugabe. “It’s a shame for Africa,” said a diplomat at the summit who had favoured taking tougher action.

Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Senegal and Botswana all questioned Mugabe’s legitimacy in the wake of a government-backed campaign of violence that forced Tsvangirai to withdraw from the election. They argued that the AU should live up to its charter that aspires towards democratic government. They had called for AU mediators to help broker reconciliation talks as the current mediator designated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, is distrusted by Tsvangirai. The statement also appealed to “states and all parties concerned to refrain from any actions that may negatively impact on the climate of dialogue”, an apparent criticism of UN sanctions being promoted by the US and Britain. The resolution emerged as the lowest common denominator between leaders at the summit who wanted to challenge Mugabe’s legitimacy and others who wanted to acclaim him.

The Zimbabwean crisis has brought to the surface simmering tensions among African leaders over whether legitimacy can only be achieved through the ballot box. Those tensions came to a head yesterday evening with an extraordinary call from Zimbabwe’s neighbour, Botswana, for Mugabe to be thrown out of African institutions. Botswana’s vice-president, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe, declared that the outcome of last Friday’s elections, in which Mugabe was the sole candidate, “does not confer legitimacy on the government of President Mugabe. “In our considered view, it therefore follows that the representatives of the current “government” in Zimbabwe should be excluded from attending SADC and African Union meetings. Taking the floor in a closed session, Mugabe spoke at length and delivered a blistering counter-attack on his accusers, according to diplomats at the summit. The tone was summed up by his spokesman, who said his critics could “go and hang. They can go to hang a million times. They have no claim on Zimbabwean politics”. After his address to the summit, Mugabe flew home to a country still in ferment.

It was unclear last night how a dialogue would be orchestrated between two sides who yesterday showed few signs of compromise. George Charamba, the Zimbabwean government spokesman, rejected proposals of a Kenyan-style unity government and accused the Kenyan prime minister, Raila Odinga, of having hands “dripping with blood”. Zimbabwe’s opposition party yesterday also played down the prospects of a deal with the Mugabe government. South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, was reported in the Business Day newspaper yesterday as being close to brokering an agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai that would lead to a unity government. But a spokesman for Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, George Sibotshiwe, told the Guardian this morning: “There is no truth in that. There is no deal. Unless the African Union can identify Mugabe as illegitimate there is no deal.”

(Source)

ZNU 127 was released yesterday morning. Sorry for the delay in updating this page
accordingly.

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