Messages From Zimbabwe

President Mugabe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is reportedly investigating five ambassador designates from the two MDC formations after they sneaked out of Zimbabwe to the Czech Republic in a 10-day trip.

The five who were led by Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Moses Mzila Ndlovu are MDC-T’s Hebson Makuvise, Hilda Suka Mafudze, Jacqueline Nomhla Zwambila, Khumbulani Mabed and Getrude Stevenson Dikey of MDC.

 They flew out of the country on Tuesday without notifying the dictator, hence the CIO, the country’s premier spy agency is now hot on their heels.

Makuvise is set to be Zimbabwe ambassador to Germany, Suka Mafudze will go to Sudan, Zwambila goes to Australia and Mabed is the ambassador designate to Nigeria. Stevenson Dikey is assigned to Senegal.

The Embassy of the Czech Republic, in Harare, declined to comment when they were contacted by a reporter from the government mouth piece, The Herald last week.

MDC-T spokesperson Mr Nelson Chamisa also declined to give any details to The Herald as well.

It is understood that Mugabe’s regime was extremely unhappy at the trip as one of Mugabe’s Foreign Affairs official seconded to travel with the diplomats was denied a visa by the Czech Embassy.

“Taking the whole bunch to take instructions from them will be a cause for concern for the Government,” a ZANU-PF official said.

Mugabe’s allies accused Europe of trying to influence the envoy ahead of their deployment next month.

“Government is currently drawing up their contracts as they will soon be leaving for their posts outside Zimbabwe and their actions are quite surprising,” he said.

The five ambassador-designates were nominated from the MDC formations following the formation of the inclusive Government early this year.

The MDC-T has put the issue of ambassadorial postings as a GPA issue but Zanu-PF maintains that diplomats are not appointed on political lines but on professional basis.

(Source)

President Robert Mugabe’s former chief media policeman Tafataona Mahoso has invaded a commercial farm near Mutare, giving the white owner only 48 hours to vacate the property that had been his home for years.

Top military commanders, officials and supporters of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party have stepped farm seizures despite formation of a unity government nine months ago and a ruling by the SADC Tribunal outlawing land grabs.

A devastated Charles Bezuidenhout told of how Mahoso – who ordered the closure of independent newspapers including the Daily News during his time as chairman of the now defunct Media and Information Commission – last month stormed his Welverdien Farm accompanied by an army of AREX officers and announced he was taking over the property.

Bezuidenhout initially resisted Mahoso’s attempts to evict him apparently because the former journalism lecturer did not produce an offer letter from the government showing that he had been allocated the farm.

Mahoso went away only to return this month with an offer letter for the 200-hectare farm and told Bezuidenhout to leave immediately.

When Bezuidenhout attempted to seek help from local police he was simply told that if Mahoso – earmarked by Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to head the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe – wanted the property then the farmer had to make way.

“Its the law of the jungle really. Mahoso and Agritex people produced an offer letter and just took the farm just like that,” said Bezuidenhout.

Earlier Bezuidenhout had accepted a government offer to subdivide his farm between himself and state-appointed “settlers”, an arrangement government officials assured the farmer would allow him to continue farming. But that was until Mahoso turned up demanding the piece that Bezuidenhout had kept after subdivision of his farm.

Mahoso did not answer his phone when The Zimbabwean on Sunday tried to contact him last Friday for comment on the matter.

(Source)

Human rights groups in Zimbabwe have condemned world football’s governing body for allowing Robert Mugabe to hold the World Cup trophy as it passed through Zimbabwe.

The trophy is on a tour of all 53 African countries ahead of next year’s football showpiece in neighbouring South Africa. But activists in Zimbabwe criticised Fifa for handing a propaganda coup to a leader blamed for atrocities and oppression.

At a ceremony in Harare yesterday, Mugabe joked gleefully as he lifted the cup. Inspecting the 6.5kg solid gold trophy, the president could not resist a dig at his old enemy Britain, according to the New Zimbabwe website. “Britain does not have any gold, neither does Germany,” he was quoted as saying.

“I am tempted to think that it came from Africa, and from Zimbabwe, and was taken away by adventurers who shaped it into this cup.”

Mugabe’s comments raised laughter at a ceremony attended by government officials, football fans and journalists at Harare international airport. He added: “When I hold the cup, I know all of you will have the urge that I should not let it go because this could be our gold.”

Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, said FIFA should not have given Mugabe legitimacy.

He said: “It’s a symbol of sporting excellence and the trophy every world leader craves to hold in their lifetime. They could have sent a political message by keeping it away from Zimbabwe. But with this, Mugabe was able to say the World Cup will come and go and he will still be there.”

(Source)

Whenever I look at the charred ruin of what a few weeks ago was our home, and see on my bed when I close my eyes the flames that engulfed everything we owned, I can not help thinking of the flames that, to the nationalists of Germany, were the final solution to the Jewish question sixty years ago.

My wife’s grandfather, Landale Train, used to tell us of when, as a South African prisoner of war next to Dachau concentration camp, he used to smell the sweet sickly smoke of the burning Jews from the crematorium incinerators.  The very word, “holocaust,” comes, I understand, from the Hebrew word “olah” which when translated to the Greek is holokausten.  It means “a burnt offering to the Lord.”

Gradually, terribly, the German National Socialists had been working towards the final solution of the Jewish question for over two decades.  It culminated in the grand titled, “Kristallnacht,” where thousands of Jewish homes and synagogues and businesses were burnt down in November 1938.  The SS wrote at the time: “we no longer hear the world screaming…we shall take the Jewish question to its final solution.  It is total elimination…” All police stations were told beforehand in a directive from the Gestapo chief that: “actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all Germany.  These are not to be interfered with.”  The burning began and the victims of destruction were arrested.  In the next few days 30,000 people were sent to Dachau and other camps.  The concentration camps had begun.  Landale smelt the smoke of their final annihilation a few years later from Stalag 4.

Living in Zimbabwe, I can not help feeling that a NAZI nationalist type agenda lives on in the hearts of some of the African leaders today.  Just as racism was the central and pervasive theme of NAZI ideology, so it is under Mugabe in our time.  Propaganda has to portray a simple message to a mass audience.  Just as  the nationalist agenda in Germany taught people to hate other people that are not the same, so the nationalist agenda in Zimbabwe mirrors this aim. The message being spun to the party adherents is that all Zimbabwe’s problems are related to the white man.  Mugabe calls the white men “criminals” just as Hitler called the Jews “criminals.”  The NAZI party talked of their rise to power and the sorting out of the Jewish question as the beginning of a German “renaissance.”  Echoes of the German “renaissance” live on in the “African renaissance” where white men can not be called “Africans” by the black nationalist leaders because of their pigmentation.  They can not belong.

The white population, which at its height numbered  270,000 in Zimbabwe, has been in a state of exodus ever since the black nationalist racist policies began here.  It has now been whittled down to perhaps 20,000.  The relentless purge of white farmers in Zimbabwe which continues, has seen ninety percent of farmers being forcibly and illegally evicted over the last 7 years.  We have left our homes and livelihoods without compensation, through a persecution process that has left some of my friends dead and others severely debilitated or traumatised.  Most of our homes and other property has been ruined or burnt.  Further, the invasions have resulted in over a million farm workers losing their homes and livelihoods too.

We live in a country where a desert stares out through the furtive eyes of so many of our soul scorched compatriots.  Anne Frank wrote in her diary a little before she was captured in her attic and taken away and burnt at the age of 15: “that’s the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered…”

After they burnt our house my nine year old son Joshua, who saw the only home he had ever known consumed before his eyes asked me: “is water stronger than fire; or is fire stronger than water?”

I thought a bit and I said to him: “fire is very strong and consumes everything if water isn’t available to quench it – but if there is water, fires are extinguished and fire is weaker.”  Unfortunately, at out home, we did not have water because the thugs that have been persecuting us, had stolen our tractors and water carts and other fire fighting equipment; and so they laughed while our home burnt because they knew that the fire would burn everything we had.

There is a metaphor there.  The nationalist fire that burns Zimbabwe with racial hatred burns on so strongly because nobody has cared enough or been brave enough to pour enough water on it and to put it out.  So it was in Germany.  Indifference served the NAZI cause. The small acts of complicity allowed the arrogance and cruelty of power to consume the Jews and ultimately destroy Germany.  All of us have memories of times we should have done something and didn’t.  In Germany not one of the 1.4 million workers on the railways that transported people to their deaths is known to have protested or resigned.  At the Wannasee conference where the “final solution” was agreed in January 1942 there was no voice of opposition despite the fact that half the delegates were intelligent and educated people with doctorates from German universities.

Have the Western “civilised” nations learned anything from the holocaust?  If such racist practices were to take place against minority groups in Western nations today in a climate of  fear, would there be an outcry? Or would it be easier to allow it all to take place again?  In Africa, despite  an African International Court – the SADC Tribunal – ruling that the confiscation process of our home and farm is racist and illegal, nobody in the western nations halls of power appears to be willing to lift a finger to stop the rule of law and human rights breakdown.  The money rather goes to treat the symptoms.  Zimbabwe is now the most food aid dependant country on earth.  We also have the lowest life expectancy on earth; and the madness is just allowed to go on by the rest of the world.  More than that, yesterday I heard that our local police officer in charge, Chief Inspector Manika, who has allowed the brutalisation of our workers and destruction and burning of our property, has been sent on a peace keeping mission with the United Nations to Liberia!

When my parents-in-laws house was burnt on the farm, two days after our own,  the fire consumed a battered wallet that had been from Landale.  In it there was a treasured photograph of my mother-in-law as a little child with “Stalag 4” stamped on the back.  It survived that holocaust of the 1940s and was carried with  Landale till the day he died.  It came to Angela recently.  Last month, in Zimbabwe’s version of the holocaust, it went up as the smoke of black nationalist incense – an offering to their “Lord.”  The solution to the black nationalists white problem was in hand.

The German writer, Von Weizacker wrote for his people after the holocaust: “whoever closes his eyes to the past becomes blind to the present.  Whoever does not wish to remember inhumanity becomes susceptible to the dangers of new infestation.”  It is sad that the most of the Western leaders of today have such short memories.

(Source)

Background:  The Beattie family were some of the most productive farmers in Zimbabwe.  When the rule of law prevailed they used to grow 1300 hectares of crops under irrigation and 1700 hectares of crops dry land.

They also had a substantial livestock production enterprise.  In 2009 the 300 hectares of citrus trees are now all but completely ruined.  The approximately 3000 tons of commercial maize off 400 hectares and 600 tons of seed maize off 100 hectares is not able to be planted this planting season.  The 800 hectares of soya beans that they grew each year producing approximately 2000 tons of soya is not able to be planted in 2009 either.  The 800 hectares wheat crop which produced 5000 tons of wheat each year was also nonexistent this winter.  This year the invaders stopped all wheat from being grown on the farm and did not grow any themselves.  With the Zimbabwean national crop in 2009 the lowest ever at approximately 20,000 tons, the Beattie family alone could have increased the national crop by 20 percent if law and order were allowed to prevail in Zimbabwe.  The Beattie family used to employ between 1200 and 1400 workers in peak season.  This year the majority of these workers are unemployed.  63 double houses as well as 5 managers’ houses and 7 cottages on their estate have been taken over with the occupants being removed without eviction orders from any court.

Below are just some of the events that the Chegutu police have allowed to take place over the last few months that have led to such a dramatic break down in this once very productive farming operation:

14 August 2009:  Invader Hanyani and people from the Ministry of lands came to demand use of cottage in garden of main homestead.

15 August 2009: The front gate was smashed and the locks removed.  5 vehicles drove into the garden and the invaders spent the whole night drinking and dancing.  Fires were lit on the lawn. A police report was made RRB no. 0611011 but Chegutu police did nothing to arrest the perpetrators.

16 August 2009:  A goat was slaughtered and cooked on the lawn by the invaders while invaders carried on getting drunk.  Invader Hanyani and Nicholas led the break in to the main house area.  The cottage was then occupied and the furniture removed.  Sue Beattie was assaulted and threatened with a large iron bar to her neck.  Mr. Thomas Beattie finally got a police team out which included Assistant Inspector Bepura; Inspector Sasa and Inspector Zengeni.  Mrs. Beattie laid a charge against those who had assaulted her. Police put pressure on Mr. Beattie to allow invader Hanyani and his wife to move into the cottage that they had broken into.

17 August 2009 and beyond: Sue Beattie had a doctors report regarding her bruised neck from the assault.  Given previous severe medical problems with her trachea the assault was potentially life threatening.  This report was taken to police Inspector Sasa in Chegutu police.  As at 24 November 2009 no follow up or arrests have been made.  Invaders Hanyani, Nicholas and others moved into the cottage.  Sue Beattie was then away until 10 October 2009 attending to her sick son, Hamish, who died at the age of 39 on the 5 October.  In the meantime the pressure and harassment from the invaders continued with them parking their vehicles in the garden by the main homestead, drinking, playing loud music at all hours of day and night and letting the Beattie’s dogs out.

9 October 2009: The invaders stole pipes and 95 liters of milk.  This was reported to Chegutu police but no arrests were made [RRB no. 0694062].

23 October 2009: The lock was broken to the stable office by the invaders. This was reported to Chegutu police but no arrests were made [RRB no. 0699144]. Thomas Beattie was threatened by the invaders. This was reported to Chegutu police but no arrest were made [RRB no. 0699145].

28 October 2009:  Nicholas demanded of Sue Beattie, with threats and abuse, that the garden equipment be removed from the shed next to the back door of the homestead.  Sue Beattie made a report to police on 29 October and when police did nothing made a second report with Thomas Beattie on the 30 October.  When nothing happened to restore law and order they also submitted a letter to the Officer in charge Chegutu police but still nothing happened to stop the invaders.

1 November 2009:  Police told Thomas Beattie that he must remove his guards.  Invader Hanyani threatened Thomas Beattie with violence.

2 November 2009:  The stable block of out buildings near to the homestead was taken over by invader Hanyani.  Invader Hanyani vandalized the stables by knocking down the interior walls and blocking up the doors.  A lock was removed from the access gate.  Buckets and a watering can and a badza were stolen by the invaders from the garden.

5 November 2009: Sue Beattie wrote a letter to invader Hanyani which was copied to the police asking invader Hanyani not to continue to harass her and disturb the peace and to return her stolen garden implements.

15 November 2009: Thomas Beattie was threatened by Nicholas and another new invader called Seti who said he was there to make sure that he evicted the Beattie’s.  Thomas Beattie left to get his guards and make a report to the police.  The police came out and invader Nicolas made a false report that Thomas Beattie had made racist comments.  The police threatened to arrest both parties.

22 November 2009:  Invader Hanyani put his own lock on the main gate.

23 November 2009:  Invaders locked the Beatties out of their home.  They chased Thomas Beattie with sjamboks and sticks.  The Beatties workers in the citrus orchards were also chased away.  A report was made to the Chegutu police but no arrests were made [RRB no. 0699145] and the Beatties were blocked from getting to their home that night.

24 November 2009:  Another report is made to the Chegutu police.  Invader Hanyani said that he would give the Beattie’s a key to the gate where he had also put an armed guard.  He did not do so.  Invader Seti threatened violence with a sjambok but eventually allowed Sue Beattie to her house on foot.  The oil from the generator was stolen as well as the diesel from the tractor in the invaded stable yard.  A report to Police was made but no one was arrested [ report RRB no. 0699159 ].

25 November 2009:  Sue Beattie took video footage of invader Nicolas coming at her in a very threatening manner.  He proceeded to swear abuse at her and threaten her.

26 November 2009:  Lands officer Kunonga along with invader Hanyani and other thugs arrived early at the Beattie’s home early in the morning to demand that the Beattie’s vacate their home.  A report was made to police.  At time of writing the situation is very threatening and Chegutu police still refuse to stop the harassment.  Strategic fires have been lit around the thatched double storey homestead and the threat of being burnt out is very real.  The member in charge Chegutu Police Station, Inspector Zengeni, the stood down lands officer Kunonga and Edna Madzongwe are all involved in this lawless attack.

(Source: via email)

President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party reached a point of total collapse Tuesday after a war of words erupted in Zanu-PF’s Masvingo Province between party officials and war veterans over the nomination of Vice President Joice Mujuru(pictured) and Oppah Muchinguri.

War veterans accuse the ZANU-PF provincial leadership of fomenting disunity and threatening the party’s viability by trying to replace Mujuru at next month’s national congress.

In response, ZANU-PF provincial chairman Lovemore Matuke, hit back at the war veterans saying they had sinister agenda.

Masvingo nominated Muchinguri for the Vice Presidency to replace Mujuru.

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association secretary-general Alex Mudavanhu said they were “extremely concerned” by the initial decision to nominate Muchinguri.

“As war veterans we are very disturbed by that apparent attempt to cause disunity in the party through the decision not to nominate VP Mujuru for the position of Second Secretary.”

According to sources Muchinguri is a former girlfriend of President Robert Mugabe.

“As the vanguard of the revolution we believe that the initial decision by the party in Masvingo to leave out VP Mujuru was motivated by a desire to cause disharmony in the party.

“As a result we will soon have our own caucus as war veterans and see what course of action to take.

Last week, ZANU-PF provinces rubber-stamped the nomination of President Robert Mugabe to lead the party for the next five years.

Current party national chairman John Nkomo was nominated to be Vice President while Simon Khaya-Moyo has been nominated to take over from Nkomo.

Masvingo had nominated Kembo Mohadi for the national chairmanship but later reversed the decision.

Masvingo was the only province that had set to change the status quo by nominating alternatives names rather than the same old faces.

(Source)

The partial immunity from prosecution granted to the Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono through amendments to the Reserve Bank Reform Bill “is a safe exit strategy” for a man under immense pressure to throw in the towel, political analysts said last week.

Parliament passed the Bill after it was amended to include a clause that gives partial immunity to Gono or any employee of the bank “for anything done in good faith and without negligence under the powers conferred by this Act”.

Earlier in the week, ZANU PF MPs had threatened to block the Bill because they felt it was “targeted at an individual rather than an office”.

But the analysts said by agreeing to a clause that gives immunity to Gono, ZANU PF had, in a way, endorsed calls for the central bank chief to make way for fresh ideas.

They said ZANU PF can no longer bear with the pressure from both MDC and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the resolution of the outstanding issues to the power-sharing agreement with the MDC factions.

The MDC-T has been pushing for the removal of Gono from the RBZ accusing him of destroying the economy through quasi-fiscal policies and recklessly funding ZANU PF programmes.

A SADC ministerial team that assessed the implementation of power-sharing agreement between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations recommended that Gono should be reassigned to save the shaky coalition from collapse.

University of Zimbabwe political scientist Eldred Masunungure said the immunity granted to Gono was to pave way for “a soft landing” for the troubled RBZ chief.

Masunungure said the fact that the immunity came through an amendment gives credence to speculation that Gono might soon be reassigned.

“This is meant to pave a way for soft landing and a trouble-free exit from the central bank,” Masunungure said.

“It’s a golden handshake for him and he will soon be reassigned to a politically invisible job where he will start a new life without being haunted by prospects of being prosecuted.”

Another UZ science lecturer, John Makumbe agreed but described the immunity as a “costly” golden handshake.

Makumbe blasted the MDC formations for making such a “concession” saying it was an insult to Zimbabweans who suffered at the hands of Gono’s poor quasi-fiscal policies.

“It’s dangerous to give immunity to a person who destroyed our economy propping up ZANU PF,” Makumbe said.

“I am furious about it. The MDC has no authority to grant anyone immunity.”

After granting immunity to Gono, said Makumbe, it will be a contradiction to prosecute all those fingered in a recent audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General Mildred Chiri.

In her report for the first quarter of 2009 financial year tabled in Parliament recently, she said members of President Robert Mugabe’s previous administration took advantage of a vacuum in government to loot state property.

The report revealed that state assets such as cars, laptops, computers, fax machines, cell phones and spares for vehicles were stolen by ministers, deputies and other senior government officials.

“Chiri has done a brilliant audit. What is Biti going to do to the ministers who looted vehicles and laptops when he is giving the chief culprit immunity?” Makumbe asked.

But Finance Minister Tendai Biti who at one time called Gono “the country’s number one enemy said the Bill did not provide immunity for cases of theft, fraud or a breach of the law.

“The new provision in the Bill simply says those officials who acted in good faith and without negligence will not be liable to prosecution.

“It does not say anywhere that where there has been theft, fraud or where there has been a breach of the law, the people should not be prosecuted,” Biti said.

The Bill, which faces further scrutiny in the ZANU PF-dominated Senate, will reduce the powers of the governor and restrict the bank to core business of dealing with interest rates, currency management and regulating banks.

The governor’s core function would be to chair a planned monetary policy committee.

However, the central bank governor would continue to chair the RBZ board.

Biti proposed cutting to two deputy governors from the four catered for under the current law.

Critics blame Gono for policies that crippled the economy, stoking inflation by printing money and taking over functions of the national treasury, including buying farming inputs and extending financial support to government departments.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe are locked in a dispute on how to share power, with the MDC-T leader accusing the veteran ruler of refusing to appoint a new central bank governor and attorney general as part of their political pact signed last year.

Mugabe has vowed that Gono will not be sacked.

(Source)

Two of Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF loyalists are on the verge of making it into the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC).

The two loyalists namely Jacob Mudenda, the former ZANU PF chairman for Matabeleland North and Joseph Kurebwa, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) are on the list of 16 candidates shortlisted for imminent appointment to serve on the ZHRC by President Robert Mugabe.  

Mudenda, the former Provincial Governor for Matabeleland North was nominated amongst new ZANU PF central committee members for Matabeleland North.

Kurebwa is the UZ political scientist who is famous for toeing the ZANU PF party line by making a controversial pre-election survey tipping President Mugabe to score a “majority win” in last year’s presidential elections which he however lost to his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of elections. Tsvangirai failed to garner the mandatory majority to form a government.

A presidential run off that was marred by human rights abuses forced Tsvangirai to pull out of contestation and resultantly Mugabe became “victorious” in a one man race.

Kurebwa’s survey was labeled by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) project after it was disowned by the University of Zimbabwe’s political science department.

Other candidates on the list which was submitted to President Mugabe by the chairman of Parliament’s Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC) and Speaker of Parliament Hon. Lovemore Moyo include former Chief Immigration Officer and lawyer Elasto Mugwadi, medical practitioner Douglas Gwatidzo, Benhilda Makomva, Irene Sithole, Eunice Velempini, Professor Carol Temba Khombe, former Bulawayo Mayor Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, Sethulo Ncube, Kwanele Jirira, Stewart Nyakotyo, Sheila matindike, Kucaca Phulu and Ellen Sithole.

The sixteen were selected from 33 people who were interviewed to serve as commissioners on the ZHRC last month.

President Mugabe is expected to appoint eight members from the 16 nominees four of whom should be women.

He will also appoint a chairperson who should be someone who has been qualified for at least five years to practice as a legal practitioner and who is appointed by the President after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission and the SROC.

According to the Constitution persons appointed to the ZHRC shall be chosen for their knowledge of and experience in the promotion of social justice or the protection of human rights and freedoms.

Among other functions the ZHRC will promote awareness of and respect for human rights and freedoms at all levels of society and to promote the development of human rights and freedoms.

The ZHRC will also monitor and assess the observance of human rights in Zimbabwe and recommend to Parliament effective measures to promote human rights and freedoms.

(Source)

President Jacob Zuma is preparing to intervene urgently in Zimbabwe as his advisers express impatience with Zimbabwean leaders for failing to meet to resolve their differences.

Regional leaders at summit in Maputo on November 5 gave the Zimbabweans 15 to 30 days to sort out their differences.

But 17 days later, the Zimbabwean leaders have not yet met.

Zuma’s international relations adviser, Lindiwe Zulu, said yesterday the delay was worrying and this had forced the Presidency to speed up its facilitation role.

“We have been engaging with the people of Zimbabwe since the Maputo summit and we cannot afford to miss the deadline set by SADC,” she said.

“The negotiators have to be serious with the deadline they were given and we hope to push them to meet.

“The facilitator (Zuma) wants the process speeded up because this issue has been dragging on for a long time.

“People from this side have been travelling to Zimbabwe to meet the political leaders and we have no option except to push for an agreement.”

Zuma was expected to travel to Harare on December 6 to assess the negotiations.

But reports from Pretoria suggest that he might go earlier if the political leaders in Zimbabwe continue to drag their feet on negotiations. Regional leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held a summit in Maputo on November 5 to discuss the continuing failure of the Zimbabwean leaders to resolve their differences.

This was after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), partially pulled out of the unity government to protest against President Robert Mugabe’s failure to implement agreements.

These included his refusal to appoint MDC officials to senior government posts and Mugabe’s demand that the MDC do more to persuade Western countries to lift sanctions against senior ZANU PF figures.

The leaders, including Zuma, gave the Zimbabweans 15 days to resolve their differences with a further 15 days’ grace before SADC intervened.

But the Zimbabwean parties have not met because the negotiators of the smaller MDC faction led by deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara have been overseas for the past two weeks.

MDC-Mutambara negotiators Professor Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga were also said to be out of the country.

MDC-Tsvangirai negotiator and finance minister Tendai Biti said in Harare yesterday that they were still waiting to hear from Ncube and Misihairabwi-Mushonga before they could resume negotiations.

“I am not sure when the negotiators who are said to be out of the country will avail themselves for the negotiations.

“We have not heard from them but I am confident the meeting will be held and we will be able to meet the deadline.

“Even if it means we have to work through the night when they avail themselves, then we have to do it. There is no going back on the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA),” said Biti, referring to the agreement which created the unity government.

However Misihairabwi-Mushonga said they were back in Zimbabwe, although she refused to comment further.

“You can only speak to Professor Ncube, but we are back in the country,” she said yesterday.

Ncube could not be reached for comment. Tsvangirai’s MDC was bitter about what it described as a deliberate ploy to delay the implementation process.

It suspects that there is some connivance between the Mutambara faction and ZANU PF to delay the implementation process.

“The deadline set by the SADC troika for the resolution of outstanding issues has once again been missed because of the intransigence, mischief and insincerity exhibited by the political players who are not taking the plight of the people of Zimbabwe seriously,” said Tsvangirai’s MDC in a statement.

“For two weeks, Zimbabweans have waited in vain for the political gridlock to be unlocked.

“We note with concern that the body language from both ZANU PF and the Mutambara-led political outfit does not show sincerity and faithfulness to resolving the outstanding issues.

“The MDC expects urgent resolution of issues that have stalled the work of the inclusive government.

“We expect that all parties, especially those that have chosen to ignore the important time-frames, targets and deadlines set by SADC, should urgently meet and clear the deck of the outstanding issues that have poisoned the people’s collective journey of hope spawned by the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009.”

Nine months into the inclusive government, the MDC is complaining that Mugabe has still not appointed party members as provincial governors or to one of the key positions of attorney-general or Reserve Bank governor.

The MDC also complains about Mugabe’s refusal to appoint MDC deputy minister of agriculture-designate Roy Bennett, the slow progress in the constitution-making process and the continued harassment of MDC supporters and officials.

Apart from sanctions, Mugabe wants the MDC to stop foreign radio stations like the Voice of America broadcasting in Zimbabwe.

(Source)

A failed asylum seeker who lived in a car outside his wife’s hostel has been handed a suspended prison sentence after using a false passport in a bid to gain work.

Gabrial Ziki was chairman of the National Aircraft Engineers’ Association in his homeland of Zimbabwe.

But he fled to the UK in 2003 after his life was threatened when he grounded the national airline by taking his men out on strike.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard yesterday that the 40-year-old’s application for asylum was refused.

He then lived in this country without claiming benefits, mainly through the goodwill of friends. 

But Ziki became desperate and, on November 2, applied for work at an agency in Shelton. His documents were checked and he was arrested on November 10.

The defendant, of no fixed address, made no comment in his police interview.

But he pleaded guilty to having a false Zimbabwean passport, which he knew or believed to be false, with the intention of establishing facts about himself.

Jason Holt, defending, said Ziki lived in a vehicle outside a women’s hostel in Shelton where his wife lives.

He added: “She received £35 per week and they buy food from that. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He has been put in a situation and had very little choice but to do what he has done.”

Mr Holt asked Judge Paul Glenn to consider passing a suspended sentence with unpaid work.

The judge agreed and sentenced Ziki to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, with 180 hours’ unpaid work.

(Source)