Messages From Zimbabwe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Source)

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

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

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

But Malema said Mugabe must go.

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

(Source)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the minister was not to be easily deterred.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Source)

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Source)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Together, united, winning, ready for real change.

(Source)

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

He was 66.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Source)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Source)

The inclusive government has come down heavily on George Charamba, the permanent secretary of Media, Information and Publicity, ordering him to immediately stop dabbling in politics.

The principals to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) – which led to the formation of the inclusive government – agreed at a meeting on August 4 that Charamba should not overshoot his responsibilities as a senior civil servant by dabbling in politics.

The leaders tasked Misheck Sibanda, the chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, to ensure Charamba does not delve into politics again. Mariyawanda Nzuwah, the chairman of the Public Service Commission, was also tasked with similar responsibilities. The decision against Charamba, who doubles as President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson, came after MDC-T complained that the sharp–tongued civil servant was continually undermining the Office of the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.

In a progress report sent to the GPA facilitator, South African President Jacob Zuma, entitled Implementation Matrix for the Issues Settled by the Three Principals to the Zimbabwe Global Political Agreement (GPA), the principals said they have agreed to ensure Charamba immediately stops delving in politics. The progress report sent to Zuma is in our possession. NewsDay reported in June that principals to the GPA – President Mugabe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara – had expressed reservations over Charamba’s conduct after he had made disparaging public remarks against the Prime Minister.

The duplex roles of Charamba and his behaviour towards Tsvangirai and the inclusive government were among the sticking issues to the GPA.

In the progress report, the principals told Zuma that they had agreed on 24 of the 27 outstanding issues to the GPA.

The three outstanding issues are the appointment of Roy Bennett as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, the unilateral appointment of Gideon Gono as Reserve Bank chief and Johannes Tomana as the Attorney General.

The principals said they have agreed on contentious issues such as the removal of sanctions, media reforms, reforms on state security institutions, land reform audit and tenure systems, review of ministerial allocations, vacant electoral posts, transport arrangements for principals, security aides for Tsvangirai, and conferment of national heroes’ status, among other issues.

The principals agreed on the removal on sanctions imposed by the Western world to force President Mugabe to embrace democratic reforms.

The three leaders tasked leaders of the political parties and the Cabinet re-engagement committee to handle the issue.

The issue of sanctions will be dealt with on a continuous basis.

The principals agreed to regularise the appointment of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) board and to appoint a new board at the national broadcaster, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.

The principals, Webster Shamu, the information minister, and the Parliamentary Standing Rules and Orders Committee were given one month to implement the task.

The principals agreed to call upon foreign governments hosting, funding and relaying “pirate” radio stations to stop doing so.

The task was given to the Cabinet re-engagement committee and the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic). This should be done within a month.

The media was directed to support all agreed government programmes and to stop attacking ministers implementing such programmes.

The principals implored on the police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri to immediately ensure Zimbabweans are free to organise political activities without any hindrances from the police.

The principals agreed to appoint an inclusive and balanced land audit commission within a month.

The issue of land tenure security was also agreed upon. They said emphasis should be placed on a leasehold system that guarantees security of tenure and collateral value of land but without reversing the land reform programme.

On electoral vacancies, the principals agreed that parties to the GPA should not contest each other for the entire duration of the inclusive government.

The leaders agreed to immediately speed up the process of vetting, training and engagement of security personnel of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Administrative arrangements for Tsvangirai’s motorcade will be immediately rectified.

There was also an agreement for a review of ministerial allocations.

“For the maintenance of cohesion and progress, the status quo must be maintained, but continuously monitored,” the principals said in the progress report.

(Source)

SADC’s habit of being involved in regional issues by remote control will never bear fruit.

But then, SADC was not formed to perform any meaningful purpose; SADC was formed to fan the egos of regional leaders and, in that regard, it is performing its duties well.

Thus I was astounded when SADC “came down hard” on Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai and directed that Zimbabwe must hold elections next year.

Zimbabweans are not that stupid; SADC leaders are, because we know that SADC has no punitive measures to apply on its wayward member states.

So when those SADC leaders “demanded” that Zimbabwe holds elections by next year, we knew that what they meant was that their bosom buddy, Mugabe, can continue beating up Zimbabweans at will.

Over the years, how many directives on Zimbabwe has SADC issued and how many of those directives were heeded?

None.

And what did SADC do about that?

Nothing.

SADC is so chicken-livered that it now makes our regional leaders look really stupid for dabbling in politics of futility where they are supposed to either keep quiet or say something nonsensical in support of mindless communiques that betray public trust.

SADC citizens accepted SADC in their midst because we believed and expected the organisation to take a leading role in protecting citizens, not presidents, of this region.

We expected SADC to keep an eye on our leaders and gourd them in the right direction; we expected those of our leaders who came together to form this organisation to respect the organisation’s role because SADC was meant to be people-driven and was expected to formulate policies for regional integration.

SADC was meant to provide regional public safety, regional conflict resolution, along with imposing and monitoring the rule of law.

Instead, SADC publicly and undiplomatically undermines its own Tribunal by not acting against Robert Mugabe for his refusal to abide by rulings of SADC Tribunal’s pronouncements.

Imagine what this says to the people in our region; imagine what this says to those professionals who sit on the Tribunal and what it says about those individual Heads of State.

Above all else, this misguided, selfish and shortsighted reaction, which could only have been hatched and promoted by people like Jacob Zuma, has laid bare the credibility of both SADC and the Tribunal.

As far back as 2008, the SADC Tribunal ordered the Zimbabwean government to compensate owners for the farms that were seized and to protect the farmers’ rights to their land.

Mugabe ignored those orders, prompting the SADC Tribunal to find the Zimbabwe government in contempt of court three times.

Mugabe and Patrick Chinamasa, his justice minister, both declared that the Tribunal’s rulings were “null and void”.

One of Mugabe’s men on the bench, Justice Bharat Patel, then went on to rule that “the Tribunal’s orders on land reform have no authority in Zimbabwe”.

During its policy formulations, did SADC ever try to harmonise laws from its different member countries to fit the SADC framework and membership?

Of course, no!

Mugabe is right. If SADC itself does not uphold its own emissaries’ conclusions, who should?

Earlier this year, South African courts set a precedent by recognising the SADC ruling as being enforceable.

But this week, instead of SADC standing by its Tribunal, they decided to disband the regional human rights court because Mugabe had refused to honour its pronouncements.

What kind of nonsense is this?

SADC is a talk shop where problems afflicting the region are never discussed.

SADC “demanded” elections in Zimbabwe by next year. I dare ask “who the hell is SADC?”

Zimbabwe is not ready for elections and SADC knows it.

I would have hoped that this useless and expensive grouping would be aware of that, but they are not.

Ok, suppose SADC wants elections in Zimbabwe next year, what are they doing about the on-going violence, which has already started interfering with that expectation? Is this SADC aware that Zimbabwe needs a new constitution to hold such elections?

Is SADC aware of the problem it created in Zimbabwe?

If SADC means well, how come it always sides with the person who is messing up not only Zimbabwe but the region?

Is SADC not aware of the on-going violence in Zimbabwe today?

Is SADC blind to the fact that, because of SADC itself, the party that won elections is still, in effect, the opposition party?
Is SADC aware that people are being prevented from giving views for a new constitution that would make SADC demand for elections next year a reality?

If SADC wants to further prove its now internationally renowned incompetence by using Zimbabwe as the dummy, then to hell with SADC.

SADC must not, SADC cannot, SADC should not order elections when they have absolutely no authority or legal leeway to intervene when their Prince of Darkness starts slaughtering our citizens as before.

SADC should have told Mugabe and Tsvangirai that they were coming into Zimbabwe to monitor the constitutional outreach programme and set the stage for free and fair elections then, and only then, would SADC leave.

I now hold SADC’s individual Heads of State and Government as co-conspirators in the abuse and subjugation of the people in our region. SADC leaders must now choose whether or not to remain in this stupid organisation, which tarnishes every office of the president in the region. Those Heads of State with shame and any semblance of decency must quit this hopeless organisation.

SADC insults the citizens of the region that it is supposed to protect.

The death of SADC is a plus for the region.

Because of SADC, we watch the likes of Mugabe, Zuma, Mswati and all our horrid “leaders” abusing us at their conferences at which we have neither an invitation nor a say, only footing the bill.

SADC, because of its inactivity, is actually unwittingly lowering human rights standards in the region.

An African leader who does not abuse his people is frowned upon by other African leaders.
Prove me wrong.

Human Rights is a scary word to most of our SADC leaders.

Jacob Zuma has absolutely no capacity to understand all this and never will.

True to his masters, Zuma is offering Zimbabwe to South African businesspeople on a platter.

In Zimbabwe, Mugabe wants to remain in office as a means to protect, not only himself but also those who helped him to abuse the nation. And while his young wives are being bonked by his own ministers, Mswati of Swaziland, shamelessly parades in front of us as if he is some sort of symbol for our children to emulate. We can go on until the cows come home and leave again. Do we deserve such leadership?

I am not amused by the outcome of the SADC Summit in Namibia.

It was a useless, cowardly gathering which was not able to scratch its own itching behind and we knew that before all of them gathered.

SADC is a dangerous, phony organisation that must be stopped because it is using its existence to oppress citizens.

SADC is a social organisation meant for our dictators.

It really is time for well-meaning presidents in the region to disassociate themselves from SADC, which, to me, is organised crime.

(Source)

Zimbabwe’s opposition has been warned to wary of contributions by President Mugabe’s ZANU PF in the ongoing constitutional revision exercise. If taken serious, then Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T should trade carefully and possibly not rush into elections.

Despite having full knowledge of the atrocities they have committed so far in their 30 year plunder of the nation, ZANU PF are strongly advocating for the return of the death sentence.

Obviously the sentence is not meant to work against their own but MDC-T or Arthur Mutambara’s MDC officials during the run up to the next coming elections.

The three parties are in agreement that elections should be conducted soon after the new constitution is ushered in. If the ZANU PF’s view is incorporated in the new supreme law then the nation should expect a fresh legitimised wave of violence and intimidation through the police and the courts before elections. This will effectively silence and eliminate the opposition once and for all.

Treason, murder and any other trumped up charges attracting a death sentence are in store for Morgan Tsvangirai and his lieutenants if the status quo remains. Most of the MDC-T leaders are not new comers to the old and recycled tactic although the mechanism is getting perfected.

A ZANU PF oiled state machinery of Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe National Army, Intelligence and youth militia is still operational and intact, rendering any intentions to hold peaceful elections a non event.

Already the police have begun turning victims of political violence into accused, resulting in the arrest of at least five top MDC-T officials in Masvingo this week. Instead of arresting war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda for inciting violence in Bikita, an MDC-T Member of Parliament for Bikita South, Jani Vherandeni, was incarcerated by Masvingo Central Police, for making enquiries.

In Manicaland a province east of Harare, scores of MDC-T activists are nursing serious injuries whilst their colleagues are rotting in police custody simply for opposition a ZANU PF position during a constitutional outreach programme.

Let bygones be bygones, President Robert Mugabe half heartedly pleaded on behalf of his party thugs during his address on Heroes Day at the national shrine in Harare.

“For the sake of our children and prosperity, I want to urge all of you to note that the process of reconciliation is national. It does not seek to ferret out supposed criminals for punishment but rather calls on all of us to avoid the deadly snare of political conflict,” President Mugabe said.

A few days later the Vice President, John Langa Nkomo shocked merry makers at Presidential Affairs Minister Dydimus Mutasa’s 75th birthday bash in Rusape when he said Zimbabweans should forget past squabbles which led to bloody clashes during the 1980s.

“Squabbles between ZANU (PF) and PF Zapu in the 80s should be water under the bridge. We need peace, unity and tranquillity to prevail so that we can move forward as a nation. If we say an eye for an eye, Zimbabwe will be blind,” Nkomo said.

Clearly President Mugabe is not ready to let the law take its course against his own people for taking hundreds of lives in organized political violence sparked by ZANU PF’s devastating electoral loss in the 2008 presidential and general elections, even if they are calling for the return of the death sentence.

The failure by the current regime to address systemic problems of governance and organized political violence is a direct cause of the ongoing crisis. And it dates back to the 80s.

The resurgence of political violence and intimidation, during the ongoing nation’s constitutional revision exercise is an indication that the nation is still sick and cannot possibly hold any transparent elections, despite assurances by South African President, Jacob Zuma and Southern Africa Development Committee in Namibia recently.

An analyst has urged the government to start making investigations and arrests and dismantle the lethal state machinery, before the new constitution is gazetted.

“If ZANU PF is sincere by advocating for the return of the death sentence in the new constitution, they should start by accounting for their previous actions.

Amnesty has to be accompanied by accountability,” he said.

(Source)