Messages From Zimbabwe

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)

Zimbabwe’s coalition government should bring to justice individuals responsible for recent and past episodes of political violence say analysts, rejecting attempts by President Robert Mugabe to forgive perpetrators of violence and move on.

Analysts told The Zimbabwean that government could help stabilize the country by bringing to justice the organizers of violence on all sides. Acting President John Nkomo told celebrations to mark ZANU PF politburo member and presidential affairs minister Didymus Mutasa’s 75th birthday in Rusape on Saturday that Zimbabweans should forget past political squabbles which led to bloody clashes.

Nkomo spoke hardly a week after Mugabe told Defence Forces Day celebrations that Zimbabwe should not seek to convict goon squads who took hundreds of lives in organized political violence sparked by ZANU PF’s devastating electoral loss in the 2008 presidential and general elections. Mugabe also suggested a blanket amnesty for security forces, who used excessive force in dealing with opposition supporters.

Admore Tshuma, a Zimbabwean journalist and political analyst, said by calling for amnesty for those guilty of political violence, Mugabe was subordinating justice to political self-interest, thereby shielding criminal elements who perpetrated violence on his behalf. “There can never be any reconciliation without accountability,” Tshuma said. “Amnesty is problematic because it promotes impunity.”

Researchers have documented serious abuses across the country, with ZANU PF militants and State actors attacking perceived MDC supporters when victory was announced for the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai. MDC supporters later retaliated. Much of the violence was organized by local leaders and politicians from all sides, according to eyewitnesses.

Although many observers were surprised by the speed and scale of the recent violence, the underlying causes of the crisis are old and deep.

The failure to address systemic problems of governance and organized political violence was a direct cause of the recent crisis. And it dates back to the 80s. Nkomo said the squabbles between ZANU PF and 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.

But analysts urged the coalition government to support the various inquiries established under the February 2008 mediation process to investigate abuses by state forces and those responsible for the violence. How well these initiatives succeed will be central to the coalition government’s ability to improve the lives of Zimbabweans and stabilize the country.

(Source)

MDC Member of Parliament for Masvingo West, Hon. Tachiona Mharadza has been detained by police in Masvingo on trumped up charges of waving a gun and disrupting a ZANU PF meeting at ward 14 Zano in Masvingo North. Hon Mharadza was today picked up at his home in Masvingo at around 3pm and is still detained by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of Masvingo.

According to the police, Hon Mharadza disrupted a ZANU PF meeting after waving a gun towards the gathering. Masvingo provincial chairman, Wilsatff Sitemere has however denied the charges against Hon. Mharadza.

According to Stemere, there was an MDC meeting held at Zano yesterday when ZANU PF youths converged at the meeting making noise and claiming that the gathering was a ZANU PF gathering leading to a scuffle between them and MDC youths.

ZANU PF youths however were quick to report on the case leading to the arrest of Hon. Mharadza who was nowhere near the district.

(Source: via email)

A wounded buffalo, known as one of the most aggressive animals in the African bush, gored veteran Zimbabwean conservationist Steve Kok to death, ending his years of dedication to saving wild animals from poachers’ traps, colleagues said Tuesday. He was 71.

The buffalo had injured its leg, partially severing it, while tearing itself free from a poacher’s wire snare. Kok joined park rangers in a weeklong search for the wounded animal near the lakeside resort of Kariba in northern Zimbabwe. An alert was sent to scattered communities that the buffalo was highly dangerous and the search was on to track it down, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

Kok, seasoned in bushcraft and tracking, located the buffalo Thursday and it evidently charged him before he could call for help. His gored body was found Friday. Contrary to first reports from the remote district, it was not mutilated by jackals or other predators overnight.

The Charara state parkland is adjacent to lakeshore fishing communities and is no longer a suitable habitat for lions.

Park rangers closed in on the buffalo near the scene of Kok’s death and shot it dead Saturday.

Rodrigues said Kok, a longtime volunteer for conservation groups and an active anti-poaching campaigner, patrolled the bush at first light most mornings, unraveling snares and calling in veterinary assistance for animals caught and hurt in traps as impoverished human settlements encroached in adjacent areas and poaching grew.

“Thanks to him many hundreds of animals were saved from agonizing death,” said Rodrigues.

Kok had once told friends and family on his death his last wish was to be cremated on a pyre-like wood fire in the park he loved.

But fires are forbidden under National Parks regulations. Friends told The Associated Press on Tuesday that alternative cremation arrangements were being planned and his ashes would be sprinkled instead at a nearby river estuary he loved.

Rodrigues said Kok, a quiet and humble man, was “desperately concerned” by the dwindling number of animals on Lake Kariba’s shores.

“His death is a huge blow for the wildlife in Kariba,” Rodrigues said. “He is going to be very badly missed by humans and animals alike.”

(Source)

A major gems company has reiterated a trade ban on all diamonds from Zimbabwe’s Marange fields despite an official sale last week.

The Rapaport Group said it would expel members of its global Rapnet diamond trading network if they sold them.

Zimbabwe sold $72m (£46m) worth of diamonds in the first release from Marange since the body overseeing trade in “blood diamonds” lifted a ban.

But Rapaport said the Kimberly Process could not guarantee human rights.

The Kimberley Process suspended diamond exports from Zimbabwe last November in response to allegations of atrocities committed by the military at Marange, in the east of the country, in 2008.

But last month, it ruled that abuses had ceased and said Zimbabwe could resume limited exports.

However, there has been concern that Zimbabwe’s army still controls and benefits from the mines at Marange

“There is no assurance that diamonds with KP certification are free of human rights violations,” Rapaport group chairman Martin Rapaport said in a letter to members.

Rapnet claims to be the world’s largest diamond trading network, with members in more than 70 countries and daily online listings of gems worth more than $4bn.

Zimbabwe’s unity government, in power for the last 18 months, has been trying to stabilise an economy hit by rampant inflation and shortages of food and fuel.

Diamonds from the Marange field could see the country become one of the world’s top six exporters and generate $1.7bn a year.

A review of conditions at Marange will be carried out in September by a Kimberley Process monitor, after which Zimbabwe may be able to resume full exports.

The Kimberley Process was set up in 2002 after the diamond trade was accused of fuelling several conflicts in Africa.

(Source)

Robert Mugabe lost the plot last week when he chose the occasion of his sister Sabina’s burial to chide key Western countries he is desperately seeking to re-engage to resuscitate the country’s comatose economy, Indonesia’s new ambassador to Zimbabwe, Eddy Poerwana, has said.

Although Poerwana was of the view that the diplomats who walked out on President Mugabe may have overreacted, he said the President said the wrong things at the wrong time.

“It is the right of every President to express his or her views, but at the same time when you look at the time, and considering that it was done at the Heroes’ Acre, I feel the timing was wrong,” Poerwana said.

“If you come to the funeral of my family member, I can’t say bad things about you.”

Other diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity said President Mugabe has lost the plot and that his statement had caused almost irreparable damage to relations between Zimbabwe and the international community.

“The President is not doing any good to Zimbabweans by shouting at countries he seeks to re-engage,” a diplomatic source said.

“If at all, he is worsening the situation. Relations between Zimbabwe and the West had begun to warm up, but such statements by the President do not help things at all. It’s regrettable. It really is.”

Poerwana said the subsequent walkout by ambassadors from the United States, Greece and Germany was “regrettable”.

“I was there and I saw it and I have also had the opportunity to discuss with other diplomats. We feel the action (walkout) was very much regrettable.

“It is not in the norms of diplomatic behaviour. Whatever inconvenience, we still have to say they should have just sat,” he said.

The Indonesian diplomat was speaking to journalists at a luncheon at his Harare home on Wednesday.

He said he had spoken to members of the diplomatic community and they had told him they felt the President and the diplomats’ action could not be justified.

“But the behaviour (walk-out) was not consistent with diplomatic norms,” Poerwana said. “If I do that, it reflects badly on the people of Indonesia and I don’t think their behaviour reflects the will of the people from their countries.”

US Ambassador Charles Ray, Germany envoy Albrecht Conze and the Greek and European Union chargé d’affaires Stephanos Ioannides and Barbara Plinket respectively, walked out on the President after he told the West to “go to hell” several times for allegedly interfering in the affairs of the country.

“They think they can dictate the pace here, remove so-and-so, Mugabe first – to hell with them, to hell, hell, hell with them,” President Mugabe seethed.

“They cannot be good for us today when they could not be good to us yesterday. They detained us, jailed us, shot at us, bombed us and slaughtered us in our hundreds.”

The diplomats were summoned for a tongue-lashing by Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi the following day, but they stuck to their guns and insisted they did nothing wrong.

They snubbed the Heroes’ and Defence Forces’ Day commemorations this week.

Their defence attachés attended the ceremonies in their stead.

Poerwana presented his credentials to President Mugabe last month.

The latest diplomatic tiff between Zimbabwe and the West comes at a time when President Mugabe’s government is desperately seeking to normalise tattered relations between them.

Envoys have been sent to the European Union from Zimbabwe but have returned empty-handed. The President complained on Heroes’ Day, observed on Monday, that the EU was not being sincere over re-engaging Zimbabwe.

“We have sought to re-engage the EU on the issue of the immediate removal of the evil sanctions that are hurting our people,” he said.

“We seek friendship not enmity, togetherness not apartness, good understanding not division.

But no sooner had we started the re-engagement than we realised that the EU is far from being sincere, as the bloc keeps shifting goal posts. . .

We appeal to them: ‘Please think again. Think again Europe, think again America, you are wrong’.”

Political analysts have said President Mugabe was losing the plot by insulting the same people from whom he appeared to be begging for friendship.

(Source)

Recent remarks by President Robert Mugabe at the National Heroes’ Acre that the process of reconciliation was national are a breath of fresh air.

However, President Mugabe has to walk the talk if these calls are to be taken seriously.

Zimbabweans’ greatest fear is that his calls are meant to ensure ZANU PF supporters – who constitute the majority of those who perpetrated political violence since the formation of the MDC in September 1999 - may get off the hook.

Sentiments swirling are that ZANU PF supporters who engaged in these heinous acts will be the biggest beneficiaries of the blanket amnesty proposed by President Mugabe.

What Zimbabwe needs is transitional justice. There can be no national healing unless those responsible for politically-motivated violence and murders are brought to book for disregard of human lives and property.

If South Africa and even Ghana have had Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, why then should the uneasy coalition government of President Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara be an exception?

Unless such radical actions are taken, then the message of national healing will lack meaning and relevance.

There is no way there can be national healing and reconciliation when perpetrators of violence are walking freely on the streets, at times coming face-to-face with their victims.

This then just becomes grandstanding which no right-thinking Zimbabwean will take seriously.

The deadly snare of political conflict will remain a reality, and that demon cannot be exorcised unless bold steps are taken to send a very strong message that political violence will not be tolerated.

It is important for action to be taken against those who have perpetrated wanton violence and reparations made to surviving victims or their kin.

Unless President Mugabe toes this line, then his messages on unity are going to be taken as vanity because this is not the first time people have heard the rhetoric.

The only way ZANU PF can cleanse itself is by taking action against those of its members who raped, tortured, maimed and murdered all in the name of the party, which has in the past boasted of its “degrees in violence”.

It is the hope that - as part and parcel of the ongoing national healing process - all these dreadful cases will be revisited, examined and justice served before the country can move forward as one without skeletons in anyone’s cupboards.

(Source)

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to annul Robert Mugabe’s election in 1980 as first black leader in independent Zimbabwe following shocking violence by his supporters against opponents, the last Rhodesian military commander, Lt. Gen. Peter Walls said.

Thatcher whose government supervised the trantional Rhodesian elections which resulted in the black majority government after Mr Mugabe emerged winner, had powers within her jurisdiction to annul the elections, but she chose not to.

Lt. Gen. who died in South Africa last month acknowledged in a BBC interview before his death that he had asked Mrs Thatcher, the British prime minister at the time, to annul the results of the election that brought Mr Mugabe to power because vast numbers of voters had been intimidated. Mrs Thatcher refused, British officials said.

Lt. Gen. Walls who played a central and sometimes ambiguous role in the first days of his country’s transition to majority rule only to fall out bitterly with its first black leader.

The prospect of black rule sent tremors of concern through many whites, and as elections - brokered by Britain, the former colonial power - approached in early 1980, the country seemed on a knife edge, balanced between the expectations of the black majority and fears that white soldiers under General Walls might resist the new order and even stage a coup.

In a memoir published in 1987, Ken Flower, the intelligence chief of both the last white government and the first black one, said General Walls himself had helped deepen fears of a coup among the British officials overseeing the transition to majority rule. But, Mr. Flower said, the idea of a coup was never seriously debated by the military and security elite.

White apprehensions sharpened on March 4, 1980, when the election results were announced and the clear victor was Mr. Mugabe, seen by many whites as a Marxist rabble-rouser who would hound them out of the country.

But instead of staging a coup, General Walls publicly appealed to the white minority “for calm, for peace,” Mr. Flower recalled.

Mr. Mugabe also went out of his way to assure whites. In what seemed a political masterstroke, he appointed General Walls to oversee the planned fusion of the former white-led army with the two guerrilla armies.

In one widely reported exchange after several attempts on his life, Mr. Mugabe was said to have asked why the general’s soldiers were trying to kill him. General Walls reportedly replied that if his men had been involved in the attempts, Mr. Mugabe would be dead.

Deep down, though, profound mistrusts lingered from the war years, and Mr. Mugabe began to pay heed to reports circulating at the time that General Walls had indeed plotted against him.

Increasingly estranged from Mr. Mugabe, General Walls offered his resignation within months of independence and later moved to South Africa’s Eastern Cape region, where he lived for many years in relative obscurity.

As the overall commander of Rhodesian forces from 1977 onward, General Walls oversaw an ultimately doomed campaign to halt a shifting bush war conducted by guerrillas loyal to Joshua Nkomo, a nationalist patriarch, and Robert Mugabe, who went on to become the increasingly autocratic - and so far only - president of Zimbabwe after the country achieved independence in 1980.

As the fighting unfolded, Rhodesia, named for the British archcolonialist Cecil John Rhodes, was an international pariah, shunned by most countries with the exception of apartheid-ruled South Africa, its neighbour.

The Rhodesian forces were far superior to the sometimes ill-equipped guerrillas, displaying their military might with cross-border strikes against insurgent rear bases in Mozambique and Zambia, even as General Walls spoke of winning the “hearts and minds” of the black majority inside the country.

By 1980 the options open to Rhodesia’s white minority had narrowed, whittled away by international economic sanctions, the withdrawal of unconditional South African support and the growing recognition that a deal with the guerrilla leaders was inevitable.

Born in Rhodesia in 1927, General Walls had a long military career, training at the British military academy in Sandhurst and the staff college at Camberley. As a commander of a Special Forces unit, he also fought insurgents in colonial-era Malaysia.

(Source)