Messages From Zimbabwe

Mthwakazians, Invited Guests, Honoured Friends, Executive Members of the our NEC, NOMW and NOMY Members of MPC, Women and Youth Organizations of MPC, Representatives of the international community and Observers here present today;

I greet you all.

Today, by these humble occasions across the globe, we announce to the world the formal start of our political struggle to establish ourselves as an independent nation under an independent and sovereign state we have called United Mthwakazi Republic - UMR - for short.

Today, we are officially launching MPC abroad. The launches abroad are a precursor to the main launch that will take place in South Africa soon on a date yet to be announced. This follows the recent postponement of the South African launch, then also scheduled for the 27th September 2008.

MPC took the political decision to defer launch in South Africa in deference to the difficult transitional phase that South Africa is going through at this moment. We are confident that South Africa will emerge from this difficult period even stronger.

Honoured Friends, Invited Guests; we are Mthwakazians. Across the globe we are popularly known as the Ndebele, and currently occupy Matebeleland North and Matebeleland South and parts of the Midlands Provinces of present-day Zimbabwe.

From today, the politics of present-day Zimbabwe will never be the same again.

As a people, we have resolved to separate from present-day Zimbabwe and establish ourselves as an independent and sovereign nation.

We have set out not to destroy but to build. Our history and political circumstance dictate that this is the only way forward at this stage.

Today, we are united not in fear but in hope. We are also sure that those whom we seek to leave behind as Zimbabwe, we leave in hope, not fear. Hope that arises from the realization that the fundamental political differences that have divided us and continue to divide us will no longer be a factor once we part ways. Each of us, Zimbabwe and Mthwakazi, can begin to harness our creative energies for the betterment of our respective countries without the distractions of political squabbles. We can also look to the future with confidence. It would be false to pretend that those political differences have been anything but serious. To this stage, those political differences have been irreconcilable and have made both our situations politically untenable under the same state. Someone had to make the political leap for the good of all. We have.

Mthwakazi, we are gathered here today no longer as victims but as shapers of our political destiny, determined to take on history and fate with courage and commitment shown by all successful peoples of the world. After stone-walling for all these decades, we have come full cycle to stare our history and circumstance in the face rather than run away from it. We have had to. What we are doing today is the politically correct thing to do. It defies fashion and political correctness. It is truth in political action.

Mthwakazians, Honoured Friends and Invited Guests, the history of Mthwakazi under Zimbabwe rule is a matter of international knowledge; we need not repeat it here. But we would be insincere not to record its salient features that have informed and in some way driven this process today. We repeat it here not as a swipe at Zimbabwe but as a true record of history.

Amid the hope and promise of independence in 1980, uMthwakazi lost everything. Overnight, our hopes turned to tragedy and a living nightmare. Overnight, uMthwakazi became the sworn enemy of the new state. Overnight, uMthwakazi became the hunted and hounded. Falsely labelled traitors, we became easy and legitimate prey for collective punishment. In no time, we had lost thousands, perhaps as many as 40000 people, to a tribal operation that became known as the Gukurahundi Genocide. Hundreds others disappeared and have never been accounted for since.

Today, we bear the physical and emotional scars of that tragedy.

For us, it was the sword of political betrayal stuck in our backs.

In the intervening years, despite clamours for it, we have received no apology from Zimbabwe. Instead, we have received everything that says we deserved what we got. To this day, Zimbabwe still uses the genocide for political sport. For us, this is a cynical and insensitive form of continuing collective punishment.

We have also been subject to continuing underdevelopment, started as part of the Gukurahundi operation. We also continue to be systematically denied access to opportunities of life. Our culture and language have been under siege since 1980. Government and state institutions continue to act as an occupation force in Matebeleland and Ndebele-speaking parts of the Midlands. We are a people under political siege and suffocating under it.

All these things have been done to drive home by force and repetition, and to force-feed the new reality that Zimbabwe is a Shona state, for the Shona by the Shona. That is the international image of Zimbabwe promoted by our political adversaries. This image is reflected in all levels of government, party politics and all spheres of Zimbabwean life.

It was never going to last forever. It can never last permanently anywhere in the world.

Mthwakazians, Honoured Friends and Invited Guests, as we are gathered here today, our purpose is not to mourn about these tragic and sad events, or to catalogue them as if to seek some divine intervention on our behalf, it is to formally start the political process of writing those wrongs. For us, it is time to draw a line in the sand and say never again.

To say never again will uMthwakazi become the game of warped Shona politics. To say never again will uMthwakazi suffer genocide or be victims, and to say never again will uMthwakazi be silent about the political and other injustices or political machinations and games targeted at us as a people. To say never again to everything no people would want done on them.

Today, beginning with these gatherings, we say enough is enough.

Beginning today, we are calling our people to political arms. Today, we are calling on our people to rise up and challenge these wrongs, to eject all manifestations of them totally and not to be apologetic about it in the process. We are calling our people to be forceful and proud in dumping tyranny and domination.

In calling on our people to rise up to right these wrongs, we are asking our people not to touch a single Zimbabwean life, or acquire a centimetre of Zimbabwean territory or possess an aorta of Zimbabwean assets. We want only what is ours or what we will agree on. We want Zimbabwe to remain and develop as Zimbabwe and we want uMthwakazi to leave Zimbabwe and develop as Mthwakazi.

Today, in the presence of our invited guests, and as our witnesses, we are calling for the peaceful partition of present-day Zimbabwe into the new Zimbabwe and the unfolding UMR. We want a ‘velvet divorce’.

Only, United Mthwakazi Republic can guarantee us our political aspirations.

Mthwakazi, today, we want to tell the world that nothing will suffice but a total partition of present-day Zimbabwe into the new Zimbabwe and UMR. We also want to tell the world today that we will accept nothing less.

Mthwakazi, Invited Guests and Honoured Friends, as we gather here today, we do so under the backdrop of a so-called agreement signed between ZANU PF and two formations of the MDC on the 15th September 2008. It is as if we knew when we set our launch date as the 27th September 2008 that such a non-event would have occurred. We could not have asked for anything better to illustrate our point and advance our cause.

Mthwakazi, three Shona-led political parties have come together, as expected, and signed a document which they call an agreement of the people of Zimbabwe which has solved the political problems present-day Zimbabwe. Nothing could be further from the truth. But there is a more sinister accomplishment of the so-called agreement that we, as Mthwakazians, would be loathe to fail to see.

Mthwakazi, in this so-called agreement, we see Gukurahundi in triumph. We see the so-called Grand Plan accomplished. We see the entire Zimbabwe Project finally come together. We also see Shona truimphalism in public display.

Those involved call it a power-sharing agreement. That is only a small part of the truth. The so-called agreement is more important for what it does not say than what it says. Here is what it does not tell you and the world.

They do not tell you that this so-called agreement is the culmination of years of hard work by the Zimbabwe government to finally and formally establish Zimbabwe as a Shona state. The so-called agreement represents the triumph of the politics of tribal domination, of the Shona politically dominating uMthwakazi, forever. Forty-five years later since the launch of this project in 1963, the Zimbabwe Project has finally succeeded. With its nemesis, Joshua Nkomo, whom it hounded and persecuted now dead and buried, its triumph could not be sweeter.

Mthwakazi, today we want to tell it in our own way, in our own language. Yes, we want to say it in a manner that shows our emotion and registers our passion; a manner that shows our character and tells who we are. Today, therefore, we avoid the language of learned concepts and tired political clichés that obscure our message, dulls our emotions and passion and numbs our festering wounds. We want to tell it is as it is.

They call this political charade an agreement of the people of present-day Zimbabwe.

Who in the world today, let alone in the region and Africa, does not know that in Zimbabwe politics is and has always been about whether one is Shona or Ndebele?

What agreement can there ever be, therefore, if that agreement does not address or even purport to address this pertinent issue? Where is the political legitimacy of the whole thing when the people never mandated the so-called talks and uMthwakazi was always absent from them? How can the private project of a few power-hungry or scared men and women ever be an agreement of the people?

The answer is not difficult to find.

On the 15th September 2008 we saw political opportunism and political expediency join tyranny as bad bedfellows. Even before the ink on the document was dry, we saw Mr Mugabe describe signing it as a ‘humiliation’. He was right. We know that, but for his fear of the then impending and now-assured Zuma presidency, he had no option but to sign. We also know that both factions of the MDC, with virtually nothing to offer except that which the international community leveraged for them, they had to sign. It is an agreement preordained to fail and will fail. And with no political legitimacy of any note, it is a private agreement between individuals. It has done nothing politically except virtually guarantee that Zimbabwe is stuck with Robert Mugabe until he drops dead. It has also guaranteed him and his cronies, virtual impunity. It has given those in the MDC access to political office, but nothing more, assuming we even get that far.

The whole so-called agreement has nothing to do with to do with solving present-day Zimbabwe’s political problems.

Thankfully, ZANU PF and those in the MDC who have signed this agreement are relics of a fast-disappearing past. All of them have no relevance or place in the emerging age of consensus politics, openness and accountable governance, people power over the arrogance of leadership, truth over falsehood.

Neither of the parties had the interests of Zimbabwe at heart. Both are interested only in power and political office. The text of the so-called agreement virtually confirms this. Thankfully, the agreement has only served to leave both parties weaker than stronger. It is only a question of time before those weaknesses are exposed and the fissures of greed, power, and gloated egos break out into open civil war. The first political salvos have already been fired.

We hope the emerging regional order will revisit this so-called agreement expeditiously.

Mthwakazi, we have been through this before. This is a replay of the so-called Unity Accord of 1987 in another guise. It is also a repeat of Lancaster in 1979. Both are tragic political errors of the past we would be foolish to ignore. Mthwakazi, this time we must say no. We must say this time we will not be silent and we will not be silenced.

Mthwakazi, today, by this launch, we have become of political age. We are saying goodbye forever to the politics of inaction, to the politics of protest voting, to the politics of playing victim and to the politics of naïve and blind belief in political institutions as self-acting and self-applying in the name of some common good or interests of some justice. This is a utopian world uMthwakazi has wallowed in for far too long.

Today, by these launches, we have awakened from this slumber and come to the real world. It is a real world that says a common good is made and does not pre-exist, a world that also says that what you think is a common good might turn out to be a false reality created for you while the true reality exists elsewhere. It is also a real world that says justice is what you assert, not what you wait for; and a real world that says be your own liberator because no one will liberate you.

In 1980, uMthwakazi was sold a false reality of a free Zimbabwe for all while the true reality was the political elimination of Mthwakazi. We have paid a heavy political price for buying into that illusion. We helped liberate our own later oppressor. Thirty years on, and today, here we are at the beginning.

The world we live in is a real world, not just of rights but asserted rights, of power, not just power but exercised political power. We have waited for justice and power. They will never come until we activate them. We have come into this real world late but it is never too late to discover it and live in it.

Mthwakazi, today, in launching our political struggle and demanding our UMR we have finally arrived in that world. We are moving on.

But we have only begun.

In the next few days, months and years we will be rolling out continuing programmes of action that will see us achieve our independence and establish our UMR. That will be our collective future effort.

For today, our role is different.

Today, our role is to rally our people to the cause, and to do so publicly, loudly and openly. It is also to unite our people and to invite them to bury their differences here and today. It is about burying the rancour and mutual suspicion caused by the pain of past political defeat and erasing the memory of defeat. It is about venting our pain to the state that has caused us this much political frustration, not targeting each other. It is about pulling each other up, each extending a hand of support to the other until, finally, we all stand up and charge in the right direction and the correct political target. It is about galvanizing and coalescing to form a political force for change not rival little groups engaging in petty squabbles.

It is about defining and enabling our people to see a common vision and a shared future. It is about us as a people. It is about Mthwakazi and being Mthwakazian, about our pride, our self-belief, abilities and possibilities.

It is about saying, whether you are ZANU PF, MDC, MPC or any other, we are all Mthwakazians. Being ZANU PF, MDC, MPC or any other, are mere political labels not definitions of who we are. What defines us, and separates us from others and others from us, is our inner core, our values, beliefs, visions and conceptions of who we are. Being who we are is our inalienable right.

We have a right to be who we are, who we want to be and who we aspire to be and to do so in ways that we have agreed as a body politic. Today, therefore, Mthwakazi know that in seeking your independence and sovereignty, you have committed no crime and offended no one.

Mthwakazi, we are confident to announce our political struggle publicly because we know it is the right thing to do. There are no hidden agendas. We will prosecute this struggle publicly and politically because this struggle is a public and collective effort of all Mthwakazians.

Mthwakazi, Invited Guests and Honoured Friends, as soon as possible after this launch, we will formally begin the processes of engaging the political leadership of Zimbabwe. We will also be taking steps to secure the registration of our political movement, MPC, as a political party/movement in Zimbabwe. MPC has produced documents which are now available on our website and other media detailing how we intend to prosecute our political struggle. It is not necessary for me today to rehash that detail except to refer you all to the said media.

It remains for me to reiterate that we will prosecute our political struggle through the political institutions and processes of present-day Zimbabwe to the fullest extent allowed by those processes. That is why we need to register MPC. Further, I need point out that the process of registration will be a political act rather than primarily a legal formality. It is therefore incumbent upon us all to fully support that process.

It is an exciting time for us. It is a time of boundless possibilities.

However, we will be failing you and misleading you Mthwakazi if we failed to tell you that there may be those who are opposed to this project, and they are many, who, because they wield power, might seek to place harm in our way. We must therefore remain vigilant.

On the part of MPC, we will do everything in our power to protect and ensure the safety of all our people, and indeed, those with whom we are politically opposed. We will also exercise cautionary optimism that political wisdom and foresight will prevail on the leadership of Zimbabwe to allow this issue to proceed as a political matter in which the safety and security of everybody will be guaranteed. For our part, as uMthwakazi and MPC, in the presence of all our Honoured Guests here gathered, we commit ourselves to the peaceful and political resolution of our independence agenda and to protect, by all means available to us, the safety and security of every person.

Mthwakazi, that process of mutual protection starts early, and now. We therefore see it as our political duty to take our people out of the political mindset of Gukurahundi and to convince our political adversaries that the political instrumentation of fear will never work in the long-term. Today, we are evidence of that. We will and are committed to implementing measures that promote confidence and trust as instruments of choice in this process.

Mthwakazi, we all know it is a painful and angry situation from which we want to extricate ourselves but that does not mean we must prosecute our cause angrily and with rancour. We must remain measured, non-judgmental and true to ourselves.

Mthwakazi, we are at a defining stage of history. History is on our side and we are on the side of history. We are sure that future generations of Zimbabwe and UMR, if we succeed with this velvet divorce, will applaud us and say we were correct, particularly but not exclusively, with reference to the Gukurahundi tragedy.

We must therefore press on. We are on the right path. We are doing the politically correct and politically responsible thing to do. That should motivate us and strengthen us all. As Mthwakazi and Zimbabwe, we are all politically vulnerable and we all stand on the verge of boundless opportunities. Which side we fall will depend on how we proceed from here on. The choice is both ours. We are sure both Mthwakazi and Zimbabwe will make the right choice.

Mthwakazi, for our part, as we have said above, we will initiate the process and do the unthinkable. We will politically engage the Government of Zimbabwe at the earliest opportunity. Whatever the response we get, we will come back to you for the political mandate on how to proceed. That is our undertaking.

Where we have come from as Mthwakazi and Zimbabwe, no one in their right mind should want to go back. Sadly, but realistically, for us, this is no longer a matter of pious assurances or firm political declarations. It is now a matter that can only be guaranteed by the people of Mthwakazi protecting and promoting themselves in a state of their own. Zimbabweans, too, have a right to their own state. We have no doubt this two-state solution is the best way forward and the international community should support it.

The international community will support any agreement we will reach as equal and free partners. We must therefore work to agree first. We cannot agree on everything at the same time, but as start, and at the very minimum, we must agree to start political negotiations at the earliest opportunity. Our commitment to that initial process is solid.

We therefore publicly extend an invitation to the Government of Zimbabwe to be partners in this political process. We are sure that together, we can bury the past and together we can bury fears and concerns which may well turn out to have been unfounded. We believe political negotiation can illuminate otherwise dark vistas. We must explore the political route fully.

We also believe in forgiveness as a human function. We cannot get it unless we seek ways to find it first.

Forgiveness is never further than the simplest of truths. Once forgiveness is achieved, the process of forgetting can begin. By its nature forgiveness is a bilateral process. Sometimes it appears too difficult to ask for or too harsh to demand it. However, in the process of political engagement, forgiveness may find a vent through which it can escape and secure a political settlement and future no clever political mind could ever have devised. We hope, if not openly, Mthwakazi and Zimbabwe will find such a miraculous political escape and enable both peoples to move on.

After all, our history, experience and circumstance are now intractably intertwined.

We would be fools to pretend otherwise.

We also believe in public retribution. But public retribution does not operate in a political vacuum uninformed by the informed and freely expressed wishes of our people. We believe retribution can still be achieved in ways that meet the interests of justice and forgiveness. But the victims must be allowed to speak. That is not impunity. It would be politically unwise and unhelpful for both Zimbabwe and Mthwakazi to seek to shy away from some form of retributive process or to wish it away. There are ways that will satisfy victims while holding perpetrators to account without necessarily the spectre of imprisonment. We must find ways and put the ghost of Gukurahundi to sleep. And it is high time we did too!

Mthwakazi, as a people, we must be prepared to explore all the ways.

This is a golden moment we both should not and cannot afford to lose.

Mthwakazi, let us go on and build a modern and forward-looking UMR that knows no colour, creed or tribe; that promotes and celebrates, not kill diversity; that advances equality not superiority; that includes, not excludes; that promotes and rewards innovation and creativity and not frustrate it; that opens up opportunities of life to all without discrimination; that is respectful and not fearful of its citizenry; and that is open, accountable and allows popular participation by the citizenry in all matters of public life.

Together with the international community we can build two states that are successful and progressive members of the international community.

I invite all of you Mthwakazians and Zimbabweans to join hands in building those two separate but equal nations. This is what we need to do at this stage.

I thank you all.

Ndabenhle E.M. Shamase

President - MPC

(Source)

Mugabe may call for Bush to be tried for violations but these two cases are very distinct from each other.

Bush’s people are not afraid to speak out and there are no militias beating people and the country feeds itself and feeds Zimbabwe as well.  Bush’s people can wear opposition T-shirts without persecution and they can mock him in his face on TV without consequences.  They can also hold rallies and protests almost at will.  None of these can be said for Mugabe.

His people live in fear and his party kills opponents. His people are always being killed, disappearing, imprisoned or tortured.  Women are always raped by the militias.  Bush does not beat his people to vote for him, he has no operation “Mavhotera Whatever”. Neither does he use rape as a weapon.  He also has no food or currency shortages, not to mention sanitary wear for women.

Both men are similar in that they love to export war. Bush took the war to Iraq and Afghanistan and dreams of invading Iran, way after Mugabe took war to Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of course, he started at home with genocide, beat people up, killed his own comrades and fed the CIO to be a terror. This is not to disagree or agree with any of the wars.  Bush also enjoys watching the Palestinians getting beaten up. He hunts for non-existent weapons of mass destruction inasmuch as Mugabe seeks non-existent enemies and diesel where n’angas directs him in Chinhoyi.

Disagreeing with either man renders one unpatriotic and a threat to national security, although in Bush’s country you may live to argue about it.

For Mugabe to compare Bush to himself (I hear it all the time) is not too far from the truth but there are major differences as well. Bush will be gone in 40 days, when is Mugabe going?  Even he doesn’t know!  Even those who tried to give him a red card don’t know!  Mbeki is gone and so is everyone around him except Dos Santos.

Mugabe is no Bush and Bush cannot be Mugabe. Thing is though, the Americans may not be so willing to hand over Bush, but is the vast majority of Zimbabweans willing to protect Mugabe?

(Source)

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has described as “devastating” the removal from office of his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki, who is seen as a key ally of the of ageing authoritarian Mugabe in the last eight years.

“It’s devastating news that President Thabo Mbeki is no longer the president of South Africa,” the Zimbabwe’s state-controlled daily Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying on Thursday.

“But that is the action of the South African people,” he added.

“Who are we to judge them? But it is very disturbing.”

Mugabe was speaking to journalists from Zimbabwe’s state media in New York where he is due to address the United Nations general assembly.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party on Saturday demanded Mbeki resign, after a court ruling that he may have manipulated the prosecution of ANC president Jacob Zuma on charges of the fraud and corruption, to destroy the political career of his chief rival.

Mbeki’s resignation came less than two weeks after he managed to bring together Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s pro-democracy leader Morgan Tsvangirai to sign an agreement on power-sharing meant to end the decade of economic and humanitarian chaos.

However, Mbeki has been widely criticised for siding with Mugabe during the 18-month process of negotiations that he chaired as the mediator on behalf of the 14-member regional Southern African Development Community.

Critics say he has refused to criticize Mugabe for his violent repression of his opponents with his controversial policy of “quiet diplomacy”.

Analysts warn that with Mbeki now out of the way, Mugabe faces a potentially hostile new hierarchy in South Africa that has been outspoken in its criticism of him and his role in Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and its series of elections marked by violence and fraud.

The agreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, as well as a small faction of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, stalled almost immediately after it was signed on September 15.

The three groups failed to agree on sharing ministries, with MDC officials saying Mugabe demanded he retain the key ministries of defence, home affairs - with includes the police - and finance.

Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, speaking in New York on Wednesday, said there was “no cause for alarm” over the effect that Mbeki’s resignation would have on the Zimbabwean initiative.

“The South African government remains and will continue to focus on the issue.”

SADC spokesperson Charles Mubita was quoted in the Herald as saying Mbeki would continue to be the mediator between Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the MDC.

“It does not need someone to be a sitting president to facilitate in a dispute,” he said.

“It does not subtract anything because he has resigned, unless he thinks otherwise.

“Mbeki was appointed by SADC to facilitate mediation in Zimbabwe and this appointment was based on his knowledge, understanding and acumen of the situation. The status quo remains as it is,” Mubita said.

(Source)

The United States has warned Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe not to go back on a power sharing agreement with the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Washington has said it will impose new sanctions if President Mugabe fails to abide by the recently signed power sharing agreement.

Both sides signed a power sharing agreement last week to form a unity government aimed at resolving the country’s economic crisis.

But it has recently been reported that an impasse exists between the ruling party and the opposition over cabinet posts.

There have been concerns within opposition circles that if the US were to go ahead with sanctions, Mugabe’s party would portray the opposition as lackeys of the West.

Some Zimbabweans have also expressed concerns about the power-sharing agreement after the resignation of the mediator; South African President Thabo Mbeki, who steps down this week.

(Source)

The ouster of South African President Thabo Mbeki could weaken his mediating role in crisis-torn Zimbabwe but may also nudge Robert Mugabe to quickly agree to a power-sharing cabinet with the opposition before a new leadership settles in Pretoria, analysts said.

Mbeki was forced to resign at the weekend, just five months before the end of his term, clearing the way for Jacob Zuma who has openly criticised Mugabe while his main backers in South Africa’s COSATU labour movement have long called for a tougher approach towards the Zimbabwean leader.

Mbeki pulled a foreign policy coup when he successfully mediated a political settlement between Mugabe and his chief political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads the larger group of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

But the deal, which was signed on September 15 amid hope by millions of struggling Zimbabweans, could yet unravel as Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and their negotiators have failed to agree on the allocation of Cabinet ministries.

“Robert Mugabe will be wise to reach a settlement with the MDC because the longer he takes the more he is likely to come under pressure from the new South African leadership,” John Makumbe a University of Zimbabwe senior political science lecturer said.

Makumbe said some leaders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which appointed Mbeki as mediator, viewed Mbeki as not doing enough to pressure Mugabe to end his political excesses.

The MDC has previously said it had no confidence in Mbeki’s mediation efforts while Mugabe’s ZANU PF has rallied behind him.

Mugabe has come under pressure from ruling party hawks to try regain lost ground in the talks and is demanding that his ZANU PF party takes control of all key ministries. Under the political agreement, his party is entitled to 15 cabinet posts, Tsvangirai’s MDC 13 and a rebel opposition faction three seats.

MDC officials say Mugabe can take control of defence and state security, now a department in the presidency, but in return would want home affairs, which controls the police and the key finance ministry to re-assure donors it will influence economic policy.

Political analysts said while SADC was likely to keep Mbeki as mediator in Zimbabwe, his standing would now be significantly weakened.

“He is significantly weaker now without the presidency and this will be tested if he is asked to resolve the deadlock over the allocation of ministries,” Eldred Masunungure, a leading political commentator said.

“But I believe Mugabe is noticing that the bells have tolled for Thabo Mbeki and there is no reason why they should not toll for him. He (Mugabe) would be advised to settle for a deal now,” Masunungure said.

Zimbabweans are in the grips of a serious economic crisis, shown by the world’s highest inflation, unemployment and shortages ranging from food, fuel and foreign currency. The political deal had brought hope in the former prosperous country.

(Source)

The policy of “one man one farm” has to be enforced in a transparent fashion and all Zimbabwean farmers disadvantaged by the 2000 fast track land programme have to be embraced in a new all inclusive land reform programme.

Land reform in Zimbabwe as a means of reducing poverty is an absolute economic and political imperative. The agricultural and non-agricultural sectors have a direct impact on foreign trade and any reform needs to be cognisant of the ramifications caused by the disruptions to organised agriculture.

Prior to the archaic land grab, commercial agriculture used to contribute 40% of market delivery of maize, cotton, groundnut; 90-100% of market delivery of wheat, soyabean, tobacco, coffee, tea and sugar cane; 80% of all commercial beef sales and virtually all milk deliveries. A third of the raw materials to local manufacturing were sourced from the farming sector and contributed 50% of all export earnings through the export of tobacco, maize, cotton and beef, in the normal seasons.

Organised agriculture was 16% of Zimbabwe’s GDP providing employment for 70% of the population and accounting for 40 to 45% of the country’s merchandise exports before ZANU (PF) opted to invade farms as a way of appeasing an agitated rural electorate.

The idea of nationalizing all productive farmland in Zimbabwe, abolishing of all title deeds and replacing them with 99-year leases was ill advised and counterproductive.

If all the agricultural land in Zimbabwe were equitably distributed amongst its 12 million citizens, each person would receive 2.75 hectares of land.

Yet most politically connected people who belong to ZANU (PF) have grabbed over five thousand hectares of prime land each for speculative purposes.

Zimbabwe has a total land area of about 39 million hectares of which 33.3 million hectares are suitable for agricultural purposes and the remaining 6 million hectares reserved for National parks as well as Wildlife and Urban settlements. At independence, agricultural land was divided along racial lines as follows: 6 000 white large-scale commercial farmers controlled about 15.5 million hectares, almost half the total agricultural land in the country, while 840 000 communal area farmers controlled about 16.4 million hectares.

The mainly white commercial farmers held title to about 51% of the land outside urban areas and national parks, including most of the land in Natural Regions I, II and III. This constituted 44% percent of the total land in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s agrarian structure, four different land tenure systems, communal areas, resettlement areas, large-scale commercial farms, and small-scale commercial farms, operate across its five natural regions.

Region I, 613 233 hectares, 1.56% of total land, receives more than 1000 millimetres of rain per year and is suitable for dairy farming, forestry, tea, coffee, fruit, beef and maize production.

Region II, 7 343 059 hectares, 18.68% of total land, receives 750-1000 millimetres of rain per year and is suitable for intensive farming based on maize, tobacco, cotton and livestock.

Region III, 6 854 958 hectares, 17.43% of total land, receives 650-800 millimetres of rain per year is a semi-intensive farming region where severe mid-season dry spells are common. Suitable for livestock production, together with production of fodder crops and cash crops under good farm management.

Region IV, 13 010 036 hectares, 33.03% of total land, receives 450-650 millimetres of rain per year and is a semi-extensive region subject to periodic seasonal droughts and severe dry spells during the rainy season.

Suitable for farming systems based on livestock and resistant fodder crops.

Forestry, wildlife/tourism.

Region V, 10 288 036 hectares, 26.2% of total land, receives less than 450 millimetres of rain per year and is a farming region suitable for extensive cattle ranching or game ranching. Zambezi Valley is infested with tsetse flies.

Forestry, wildlife/tourism.

1 220 254 hectares of land constituting 3.1% of Zimbabwe’s land is nsuitable for any agricultural use.

Almost all member of the ZANU (PF) Central Committee and Politburo have grabbed all the productive farms in Natural Regions I,II and III.

Natural regions IV and V, which are arid and semi-arid and where 75% of Zimbabwe’s poorest people live has been carved into 45 hectare plots for the masses.

These areas present a negative cost-benefit scenario for current resettlement models coupled with an uneconomical livestock carrying capacity for subsistence farming.

Forty-nine percent of Zimbabwe’s total land is forest and woodlands while 12.5% is grazing. Only 8% of Zimbabwe’s total area is arable meaning that about 3 080 000 hectares of land are suitable for agriculture. Only 3.5% of the cropland is irrigated and of this land 120 000 hectares is under full irrigation.

Forty-three percent of the arable land is earmarked for cereal production - 1% wheat, 32% maize, 7% millet 3% sorghum. In 1996 with 26 000 tractors, Zimbabwe used 185 000 metric tonnes of fertiliser and was ranked 46th in the world with a total area of 2 057 685 hectares under cereal cultivation which equates to 5.2 % of the total land area of Zimbabwe.

In 2000 Zimbabwe produced 2 108 100 metric tonnes of maize, 85 600 metric tonnes of sorghum and 320 000 metric tonnes of wheat. This healthy food surplus has since been replaced by a 1 000 000 metric tonne maize deficit and a 400 000 metric tonne wheat deficit due to antediluvian agrarian reform policies.

Of the 243 centre pivots irrigation (CPI) that were in use in 2000, satellite imagery reveals that only 60 are in partial and active use in Zimbabwe today. A CPI is a self-propelled sprinkling irrigating apparatus that can irrigate about 150 hectares from a pivot point that supplies water and electricity. The model of CPI’s that were imported into Zimbabwe cost an average of US$95 000.00. Equipment worth 18 million dollars and capable of irrigating 50 000 hectares is now unaccounted for.

The government announced that it is about to fork out US$ 10 million dollars for vehicles to give to the 280 senators and MP’s. As soon as Mugabe appoints his full cabinet, another 10 million will be required for vehicles for ministers and other gravy train riders. This combined amount is more than what is required to restore our national center pivot irrigation systems to their pre-2000 level.

If these missing center pivots were operational and competent farmers appointed to manage them, Zimbabwe would easily harvest 500 000 metric tonnes of early-planted maize grain that would be germinating by September 15 after the wheat harvest. The remainder of the maize crop, 1.2 million metric tonnes would be harvested from another 250 000 hectares. With supplementary irrigation, yields would average of 5 metric tonnes per hectare. A total of 300 000 thousand hectares divided into 1000 hectare farms managed by less than 300 agricultural professionals could produce our national grain requirements.

Contrary to popular belief, Zimbabwe is in its fourth land reform and resettlement programme (LRRP). All of which were dismal failures due to corruption, cronyism and partisan allocation of land to incompetent individuals.

The first phase from 1980 to1997, redistributed 3,498,440 million hectares to 71,000 families and the second phase lasted from 1997 to December 2004.

LRRP2 was in the second phase and acquired 5 million hectares between September 1998 and December 2004.

Then there was the catastrophic fast track resettlement phase from July 2000-December 2001 which sought to redistribute 9 million hectares creating 160,000 model A1 communal farmers and 51,000 small to medium-scale ‘indigenous’ commercial farmers.

Four thousand white farmer families have since been displaced together with their 600 000 worker families to make way for 127 000 resettled new farmers through invasions backed by nefarious legislation. Commercial agriculture has been ruined and the poor landless are now poorer than when they started.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s food security lies with its competent farmers, politicians have no business owning agricultural land.

(Source)

When Robert Mugabe was a young boy, he was shy, prone to worry, and desperate to please his mother. A recent biography tells of his amazing rise from a village upbringing to become an African statesman, leader of a people’s long struggle for independence, and then, tragically, his dismal failure in office: an angry and suspicious old man, haughty, ruthless, and desperate to please only himself. Mr Mugabe will be remembered for the ruin he has inflicted on Zimbabwe. True freedom for the people still awaits.

Whether Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, can help Zimbabwe escape the yoke of Mr Mugabe’s rule is not yet clear. The two bitter rivals have signed a power-sharing deal, a complicated arrangement that leaves Mr Mugabe as President, makes Mr Tsvangirai Prime Minister, and promises a joint cabinet for decision-making. The army stays under Mr Mugabe’s control, while Mr Tsvangirai apparently has the job of fixing the devastated economy. With inflation running wild, at a rate which makes the local currency effectively worthless and drives Zimbabwe’s people ever deeper into poverty, that task is daunting.

Mr Mugabe may see this deal as a strategic concession, part of a tangled scheme to cling to power, and indeed, the early signs offer little encouragement to believe he is surrendering much. After only a week, talks have already stalled on which of the two parties will control important government portfolios.

Nor will the weekend ousting of neighbouring South African President Thabo Mbeki help to secure a stable government in Zimbabwe, at least for now. Mr Mbeki had been roundly criticised in the West for treating Mr Mugabe too gently, but in the end, he brokered the deal with Mr Tsvangirai. With Mr Mbeki the victim of his own power struggle at home, what little authority he carried to make demands of the notoriously defiant Mr Mugabe has disappeared, even if he stays on as mediator. Without a credible person to steer the deal through the difficult days ahead, the arrangement could collapse.

Yet Mr Mugabe may worry that Jacob Zuma, the man likely to eventually take over as South Africa’s president, will bring a tougher approach. After all, up to 1.5 million Zimbabwean refugees are estimated to have fled across the border, so South Africa has enormous interests at stake. Mr Zuma has shown little nostalgia for Mr Mugabe’s history of fighting white minority rule, instead, lambasting the regime for “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people”. If Mr Mugabe wants to foster a situation where he can leave office, free from prosecution, the current deal offers his last and best chance.

It certainly rankles that for all his crimes, Mr Mugabe could escape punishment. In this, Mr Tsvangirai’s dilemma is acute. He has consistently refused to call for a popular uprising against the regime, fearing the terrible toll this would take on an already battered people. Yet he has been derided abroad for running from a fight. His own safety has been under threat - last year he was bashed before a political rally, and this year he pulled out of presidential elections, citing fears of an assassination plot. Yet he is unwilling to simply wait for the 84-year-old Mr Mugabe to expire, and in the meantime allow the people’s suffering to go on.

Instead, Mr Tsvangirai has taken an enormous risk, to strike a deal with a man who deserves little trust. Any moves to prosecute Mr Mugabe will derail the precarious agreement. The blithe calls for justice by outsiders is fine sentiment, but does little to end Zimbabwe’s crisis. As Mr Tsvangirai explained during a visit to Melbourne last year, there are conflicting emotions on Mr Mugabe: “Land and race are intricately linked issues in Africa, so you find some people supporting him, not because he’s right, but because he’s one of our own.”

While Mr Mugabe will be at the United Nations in New York this week, no doubt denouncing Western imperialism as a way of distracting from his chronic misrule, the world should keep its attention on Mr Tsvangirai. He will need support to begin the painful task of building Zimbabwe, with food, supplies and sensible advice. There are risks. He cannot be seen as a Western stooge. Equally, if the world hangs back for too long, waiting to see who is really in charge, whatever opportunity this deal offers will vanish.

Zimbabwe needs an escape from Mr Mugabe’s tyranny. Even if this deal comes unstuck, importantly, it has shown change is possible. Better it comes sooner - Zimbabwe’s people have waited enough.

(Source)

Even if all goes well, it could take more than 12 years for Zimbabwe’s economy to recover peak levels of per capita income reached in 1991, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report published yesterday.

The report, Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe , was researched and written by five Zimbabwean economists. It is the first economic assessment to be published in the wake of this week’s power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister-designate.

Over 239 pages the report charts the radical and, in many cases, painful policy measures necessary to revive the country’s fortunes following a decade of crisis.

A minimum of €3.5 billion in foreign aid, including debt relief, will be needed over the next five years if the government is to plug financing gaps, revive infrastructure and stave off hunger among the five million Zimbabweans threatened by starvation.

This would make it one of the largest recipients of aid in Africa.

Those figures would be significantly higher if pensioners were reimbursed for savings eviscerated by the collapse of the currency, and thousands of white farmers driven from their land by Mr Mugabe’s resettlement programme compensated.

“Without substantial foreign assistance sustainable economic recovery will be impossible,” the report says, adding that the manner in which Zimbabwe tackles structural problems at the outset could determine whether it becomes aid-dependent or able, in the long term, to sustain its own development.

Farm production has more than halved in a decade, starving the manufacturing sector, once among the most developed on the continent, of raw materials and creating conditions for mass starvation. Tourism has petered out, while the HIV-Aids pandemic has contributed to reducing life expectancy from 57 to 37 years.

At least two million of the 12 million population have emigrated to South Africa, the UK, Botswana and other countries, many of them skilled workers and professionals. Eighty per cent of medical personnel trained since 1980 have left the country.

A prerequisite for recovery will be plugging vast budget deficits financed in recent years by money-printing and credit creation. This has driven inflation to a world record of about 40 million per cent and created a nation of pauperised trillionaires.

The mechanisms used to tackle hyperinflation could make the difference between a short-term bust followed by recovery and a near-term consumption boom followed by recession.

In a “lost” decade Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted 37 per cent, while the rest of sub-Saharan Africa made average gains of 40 per cent. It would take uninterrupted growth of 5 per cent annually until 2020 to recover peak per capita income levels. A more likely average is less than 4 per cent, the report’s authors suggest.

Bilateral donors could step in quickly, one senior western official said, if they are convinced the new government is able to carry out reforms. However, this will be dependent on clear signs that Mr Mugabe, in power since 1980, and whom they blame for the crisis, has been sidelined.

Longer-term budgetary support - of the type the UNDP suggests will be vital to stabilise the economy - will be dependent on Zimbabwe agreeing a programme with the International Monetary Fund.

Donors have yet to allocate specific funds for Zimbabwe, and recovery plans, of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) administered by the World Bank, are still at draft stage.

(Source)

Yesterday I spent close to 2 hours in and out of a bank queue trying to withdraw my $1000 for the day. I stood so long I began to shiver slightly from both hunger pangs and exhaustion. Soon as I got my one leaf, I proceeded straight to Libby’s and bought myself hot chips for exactly $1000. They were the cheapest meal on the menu. I told my partner and since then he won’t stop making fun of me. He says it’s a whole new meaning to the term hand-to-mouth. It’s simply ridiculous and defeats logic that I spent so long to get such little cash and when I did, I immediately used it all on lunch. The reasoning was had I not spent so long in the queue, I wouldn’t have felt faint in the first place. Which makes me think of the way South African politics work. When they feel someone is not doing their job properly, they shout from the rooftops if they have to and actively advocate having that person removed with immediate effect. Currently, that is what’s happening to President Mbeki, despite his so-called victory on the Zimbabwe mediation.

Recently the ANC mass mobilized to demand that all charges against Jacob Zuma be dropped citing unfair treatment by the NPA. They went out of their way to demonstrate in front of the courts, they even threatened to ‘crush’ anyone who blocked Zuma’s path to the presidency. Frankly it was my first time to witness a group of people actually advocate for a criminal to be set free. The courts probably gave in and acquitted Zuma, and now the heat has been turned onto Mbeki. The ANC is blatantly and unashamedly using the ANCYL President Julius Malema to communicate the fact that Mbeki is no longer wanted within the ANC and to demand his resignation. Although Malema does this under the banner of representing the position of the youth league even those with half a brain can figure out that the silence of the ANC whiteheads speaks of their collective opinion.

Although I do not completely subscribe to the ANC strategy of doing things I sometimes wish we had similar kinds of behavior in Zimbabwe, more so within the ruling party. That’s the way a democracy should be, for the people, and not the individual to be in control of things and to decide who stays and who goes. But in Zimbabwe, it is taboo and even if some members of the politburo were disgruntled about the leadership, they would never dare to explicitly register their disapproval. I guess it’s a question of socialization and this culture of inherent resignation threatens to prevail over all deliberations in this country as long as Bob lives.

Right now barely 48 hours after the contentious signing of the agreement, another deadlock has been reported over the allocation of Ministries and who gets what portfolio. Those clowns squabbling about whether or not the key ministries of Finance, Agriculture, Foreign affairs, Local government, Justice and Information should still be under ZANU PF patronage or not is the last thing we need. It has been as plain as day that the previous cabinet, which by the way, Mugabe himself called the worst ever, failed to run this country and its clear that for any economic progress to prevail, such posts must exchange hands into those of younger, more capable ones.

As long as Mugabe and his people retain these key positions, this will not only be egg in Tsvangirai’s face but there is absolutely no way this country will turn around. The international community has indicated it is not prepared to inject any funds where there is a likelihood of them being squandered again by the chefs in their insatiable appetite for self-enrichment while intended beneficiaries, who are ordinary Zimbabweans, continue to live in abject poverty. I would suggest that as long as selfish interests still prevail over practicality and simple humanity, Tsvangirai must just call it quits. If he decides to give in to ZANU PF’s impossible demands, then we know we’ve got ourselves another wolf out to fatten his stomach - at the expense of the poor taxpayer.

It worries me how people can spend so much time arguing over what obviously needs to be done when the country is at an advanced state of emergency and needs serious economic rehabilitation. Haven’t these ruling party politicians made enough hay while the ZANU PF sun still shone brightly, especially in the years they looted from the whites under the banners of land reform and reclamation of sovereignty? Have they not stolen enough, even from the mouths of the poor - to last them a lifetime? We desperately need a change of tactics and Tsvangirai and his people are our only hope so far. Only the selfishness of an egotistic few now stands between Zimbabweans and the road to economic renewal. This arrangement will only work when individuals involved are prepared to do without unnecessary opulence and to work together for the benefit of the majority.

(Source)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and prime minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai are deadlocked over appointing cabinet ministers after reaching a power-sharing agreement, an MDC party official said on Thursday.

Mugabe signed the agreement with Tsvangirai on Monday, relinquishing some powers for the first time in nearly three decades of rule under pressure from regional leaders and a growing economic crisis.

They met on Thursday to try to sort out who gets which posts in the cabinet.

“The meeting was inconclusive, it was a deadlock and has been referred to the negotiating teams for further work to try and find common ground,” said Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa.

The state-run Herald newspaper said earlier Mugabe had told a meeting of his ZANU-PF party on Wednesday that the agreement was “a humiliation”.

“Anyhow here we are, still in a dominant position which will enable us to gather more strength as we move into the future. We remain in the driving seat,” Mugabe said.

The deal with Tsvangirai and the head of a breakaway opposition faction followed weeks of tense negotiations to end a political crisis compounded by the veteran leader’s disputed and unopposed re-election in a widely condemned vote in June.

Under the agreement, Tsvangirai, who heads the largest of the two MDC factions, will become prime minister and chair a council of ministers supervising the cabinet.

Tsvangirai’s party is expected to get 13 cabinet posts, with Arthur Mutambara’s breakaway faction likely to control an additional three ministries.

Mugabe’s ZANU PF, which lost control of parliament in the March election for the first time in 28 years, is likely to have 15 ministers in the cabinet.

But the 84-year-old Zimbabwean ruler, who has governed since independence from Britain in 1980, will retain the presidency and head the cabinet as well as keep control of the powerful army. The police are expected to fall under the opposition.

Zimbabweans hope the agreement, brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, will be a first step in helping to rescue the once prosperous nation from economic collapse.

Inflation has rocketed to over 11 million percent and millions have fled to neighbouring southern African countries.

Western nations and international agencies have said they will be ready to help the new government financially if it commits itself to political and economic reforms and shows a clear commitment to tackle the crisis.

Members of the Southern African Development Community, a 15-nation regional body, will also have to make a financial contribution to rebuilding Zimbabwe’s economy, South African government spokesman Themba Maseko told reporters in Pretoria.

South Africa has set up a task force to develop an emergency intervention plan that will largely focus on reviving Zimbabwe’s once prosperous agricultural sector, Mbeki’s cabinet announced on Thursday.

(Source)