Messages From Zimbabwe

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I was stunned today when I watched Morgan Tsvangirai pull out of the June 27^th election. I had not expected this but since then have had a couple of calls from Zimbabwe that made the situation a bit clearer.

You must first understand how big a decision this was for the MDC. We are a Party committed to a democratic outcome of this struggle. Elections are our game - we do not want to take to the streets or to pick up weapons to make
our point. We are democrats.

We won the March 29th election by a wide margin. 73 per cent of the population voted against Mugabe. The regime was forced to simply lie about the result to get a run off and only the protection of the SADC States prevented an outright MDC victory.

We were and are quite satisfied that in any free and fair contest the MDC would have walked away with the run off. In the event, what we have witnessed over the past two months since the run off was announced, has been a nation wide campaign of violence and intimidation, the closing down of all democratic space inside Zimbabwe, intensified restrictions on the media and the complete militarisation of the functions of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

Today armed militias were allowed to attack a MDC rally in Harare even though it had been given permission by the High Court and was entirely peaceful. The MDC leadership meeting in crisis session reviewed the overall situation and finally, reluctantly, decided they had no option but to withdraw from this farcical process.

Having done so the way is now open for the new ZEC to declare Mugabe as State President and for him to resume office.

The MDC decision, although painful and difficult for everyone, is in fact a very strategic move. It gives Thabo Mbeki the floor by virtually cancelling the run off and opens the door to SADC intervention. Any government that now includes Mugabe in any capacity, will not get recognition from the international community. It will not therefore attract any international assistance and will be unable to deal with the humanitarian and economic crisis now facing Zimbabwe. Both leave no room for manoeuvre and both demand immediate action.

On the humanitarian front we need to import 150000 tonnes of basic foods every month just to feed the country. Without external help Zimbabwe faces the very real prospect of starvation on a large scale. Currently the country has no stocks at all. On the economic front with inflation raging at 2 million percent or more and run away macro economic fundamentals, a complete economic collapse is not far off and could be triggered by the magnitude of this new political crisis.

The UN is bracing itself for a new flood of refugees both political and economic into neighbouring States and in my view South Africa must prepare itself for a fresh influx at the worst time of the year. Millions of Zimbabweans are preparing to leave the country and the only option for 90 per cent of them is South Africa.

From a political standpoint the global consensus is clear. The Mugabe regime has gone too far. There is now talk, for the first time, of the possibility of charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC. The US is calling for the Security Council to meet urgently on the Zimbabwe crisis. The UN Secretary General has become more vocal and outspoken on the situation and demanded action on several fronts. In the SADC it really looks as if a new consensus is emerging on the crisis, Angola and Swaziland becoming new critics of the Mugabe regime in the past few days.

The Zimbabwe crisis team of Mafumadi and Gumbo were both in Harare over the weekend and I cannot imagine this decision by the MDC being taken without their input. It would seem to me that the stage is set for another emergency SADC summit, that at such a summit the region will at last decide what to do and that the only way forward is the formation of a transitional government that will include all Parties elected to the new Parliament and that will then take the country through a period of stabilization and recovery before holding new elections.

It is quite clear that Mugabe simply cannot play any role in such a government - he was clearly defeated in the March 29th elections and is simply no longer acceptable to anyone except the Joint Operations Command (JOC). The only person who can head up such an interim administration, unless it is on a caretaker basis and will function for only a few months until new elections are held, would be Morgan Tsvangirai. The rest would be up to negotiations sponsored by the SADC and the UN. Clearly South Africa cannot continue in its role as a mediator and must step aside for someone more distant from the region and the current regime. This would allow South Africa and the SADC States to assume the role of enforcer rather than a mediator.

One of the phone calls I had today spoke of widespread violence in Zimbabwe. People being forced to do things against their will and children not attending school for security reasons. It is quite clear that not only do we have a rogue regime in Harare, but also it is a rogue out of control. That wounded buffalo of mine is just staying in the Jesse and destroying what is left instead of coming out and facing his hunter one last time. In effect the MDC as the hunter has prudently decided to seek help rather than try to deal with the old bull on its own. It may well prove to have been the right decision.

For all our friends all over the world, do not despair, I think you can clearly see that our first shot was fatal - it is just taking a bit of time to take effect. Whatever happens now, Mugabe is no longer capable of governing Zimbabwe. He said on Friday only God can remove me from power. He must know that his challenge would have been heard where such things matter and that his plea is being attended to.

Eddie Cross

Johannesburg,

22 June 2008

(Source: via email)

Armed supporters of Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party have started beating people at a rally where opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was due to speak on Sunday, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change said.

“The (ZANU PF youth) militia have started beating people who are at the venue and those that were on their way,” the MDC said in a statement. Tsvangirai is campaigning for the June 27 presidential run-off against President Robert Mugabe.

(Source)

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change, has come under pressure from his own supporters to pull out of the presidential election with Robert Mugabe.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said there was “a huge avalanche of calls and pressure from supporters across the country, especially in the rural areas, not to accept to be participants in this charade”.

However, the party later vowed to continue, saying “withdrawing will not solve anything”.

Mr Tsvangirai sent an email statement to supporters urging them to vote on June 27 to sweep away the Mugabe regime.

The comments came amid mounting violence against the MDC ahead of the election, with the wives of leading activists murdered, the imprisonment of party members and intimidation and beating of its supporters.

At least 70 opposition activists have been killed by ZANU PF militia and security forces and thousands of others have been beaten and harassed, the MDC says.

Mr Mugabe’s regime blame the opposition for the bloodshed, and say his opponent is a stooge waiting to return Zimbabwe back to its former colonial power Britain.

Mr Mugabe vowed yesterday that he will not leave power until all land in Zimbabwe is controlled by the majority black population.

“Once I am sure this legacy [of returning land to the black population] is truly in your hands, people are empowered… then I can say: Aha, the work is done,” the Herald newspaper reported him as saying.

“I walk on this land. I farm on this land. I sleep on it… That is truly our number one legacy.”

Mr Mugabe made the comments at two rallies in the Matabeleland North province in the country’s west.

He has previously warned he was ready to fight to keep the opposition out of power, and he repeated earlier statements about veterans of the 1970s liberation war.

“The war veterans came to me and said: ‘President, we can never accept that our country, which we won through the barrel of a gun, be taken merely by an ‘x’ made by a ballpoint pen’.”

“If I take a handful of sand from the ground like this, to me that is my treasure, it’s from my land,” he said. “It’s not from Britain. It’s Zimbabwean soil.”

He added: “What kind of people would we be to say the country should return into the hands of the British? We would reduce ourselves to be the laughing stock of the whole of Africa.”

(Source)

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has warned a week ahead of a run-off election that he will not leave power until land is returned to the majority black population, state media reported Friday.

‘Once I am sure this legacy (of returning land to the black population) is truly in your hands, people are empowered… then I can say: Aha, the work is done,’ Mugabe said in the Herald newspaper.

‘I walk on this land. I farm on this land. I sleep on it… That is truly our number one legacy.’

The government mouthpiece reported that Mugabe made the comments at two rallies in the Matabeleland North province in the country’s west.

Mugabe has previously warned he was ready to fight to keep the opposition out of power, and he repeated earlier statements about veterans of the 1970s liberation war.

‘The war veterans came to me and said: ‘President, we can never accept that our country, which we won through the barrel of a gun, be taken merely by an ‘x’ made by a ballpoint pen’.’

Mugabe embarked on a chaotic land reform programme at the turn of the decade which saw some 4,000 white-owned farms expropriated by the state.

He has repeatedly portrayed his opponent in the June 27 run-off vote, Morgan Tsvangirai, as a stooge of former colonial power Britain, and returned to that theme in the Herald report.

(Source)

Edward Stourton, Presenter: We’re joined now by the Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown, Lord Malloch-Brown.  Good morning.

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Office Minister: Good morning, Edward.

ES: I don’t know whether you heard earlier on the programme our correspondent in Johannesburg speculating about the possibility that the South Africans had been talking to Robert Mugabe and to the opposition about the possibility of some kind of grand coalition.  What’s your view of either the likelihood or the desirability of that emerging in Zimbabwe?

LMB: Well, the South Africans have, or at least President Mbeki has been promoting that throughout this period, and indeed there’ve been talks between intermediaries and the two sides.  But it seems a long way off because Robert Mugabe’s version of it is one where he stays in charge; the opposition’s, very properly, is one where they take power and then invite parts of Mugabe’s party, the reformist part, to join them.  Because, after all, they won the first round and there’s no doubt that the MDC enjoy overwhelming popular support in the country, and if there were a free and fair election - a huge ‘if’ as you rightly report - they’d win overwhelmingly in a second round I suspect.

ES: Well from what you say I take it that you don’t think it’s very likely that that idea is going to fly very far; in which case, we are confronted with the likelihood that the elections will go ahead in some shape or form, but they probably won’t be free or fair and that Mr. Mugabe will win or declare himself the victor.  In which case he’s sort of got away with it really, hasn’t he?

LMB: Well first I, I think at one point both sides in Zimbabwe will have to come together and govern together, so I, I don’t want to rule that out, it’s just a matter of when and on what terms.  As to the election itself next week, you know I suspect, from the fact that there was a 55 per cent anti-Mugabe vote in the first round, and everything he’s done since has only outraged and offended his own people and his African neighbours, that in, that number has increased, say, just modestly by another 10 per cent.  That means he’d have a, the, the opposition would have a two to one lead in the popular vote.  That’s hard to steal and get away with it.  If he does steal it, and he’s obviously on track to try to with all these things he’s doing – throwing out UN workers, stopping local observers deploying, limiting the number of international ones, stopping opposition ads on the TV, arresting the opposition leaders – he obviously wants to steal it.  But he’s going to have to do it so visibly and ostentatiously and outrageously I think the world will, I hope, not let him get away with it.

ES: You, you’ve made a big assumption there about what’s happening in Zimbabwe and public opinion, even if you’re right about people’s feelings do you really think that that will be reflected in the way that they vote given what’s been happening, and continues to happen, in Zimbabwe?

LMB: Well, by the way, not that big an assumption.  I mean for the first time in Zimbabwe we saw the result of votes counted relatively cleanly…

ES: All right, let, let’s grant you…

LMB: …the opposition won…

ES: …let’s grant you your assumption.

LMB: Okay.

ES: In terms of people actually going into polling stations this second time, after all the intimidation, the pressure there’s been, do you really think that, that that sort of figure is going to vote for the opposition in this…

LMB: Well, Ed…

ES: …in this round?

LMB: Ed, I think it’s a very good question.  I mean people must feel disheartened and must wonder whether their votes will be allowed to count, must be making the sort of cost benefit analysis…

ES: Must be frightened.

LMB: …in their own mind, they must be frightened of the risk of going to vote.  Is it worth it if you don’t think your vote’s going to, be allowed to count?  So I’m sure all those things are going through people’s minds.  But, you know, the fact is they, they nevertheless did it in the first round, they took the risk, and my suspicion is, having punctured the authority and invincibility of Mugabe, having seen he could lose, that they will have the courage to come out despite these massive disadvantages.  The issue though will be, can the, the, the integrity of that vote be protected because he’s targeted the observers and is dismantling them in a very, very systematic way, and so that’s the challenge.  I think people will vote…

ES: And, and as ever we can do… we can do very little to influence that.

LMB: No, I think that’s, I hope, where you’re wrong in that, you know, throughout these bitter, difficult years, it’s always tended to be Britain versus Mugabe.  Now it’s really Mugabe versus the world.  His African neighbours are starting to speak out, the, the rest of the world is as appalled as we are by what’s happening.  I think were he…

ES: Lord Malloch-Brown, very briefly, sorry we, we must stop it there, I think we, we got the message, but thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

LMB: No, thank you.

(Source)

ZANU PF’s youth militia, aided by war veterans are now resorting to the use of highly toxic herbicides to injuries inflicted on victims. To date, doctors say at least 12 people including a nine year old girl had her buttocks laced with Tactic Cattle Spray, a dipping chemical, and Paraquat. This is to exacerbate pain as well as increase the chances of fatality. A visit Tuesday to one of the private health care cantres set up by missionary doctors in Harare revealed a grim picture of Robert Mugabe’s desperation to stay in power. One MDC victim, Tonde Mondiwa aged 24, had his skin on the left leg pealing off. Both arms are full of blisters. Doctors said his chance of full recovery are next to nil. “The cell death in Tonde’s skin tissues are rapid, his chance of recovery are nil now.” Paraquat is a highly toxic herbicide which medical experts say can be fatal if it enters the bloodstream or when swallowed by accident even in small measures.

The ZANU PF militias, led by war veterans has been administering this kind of punishment on victims of violence since the retribution started after Mugabe’s loss to Tsvangirai in the presidential election held on March 29. Paraquat, described as a quick-acting, non-selective herbicide, which destroys green plant tissue on contact and, by translocation within the plant, was widely used in the farming areas to kill any green weeds in preparing land for planting. “When I was beaten up by the green bombers they poured cold water laced with Paraquat on my leg” recounts Tonde. Doctors said the injuries sustained by some of their patients especially those in the buttocks through beating are unusual and not consistent with beating. Bones in buttocks are left exposed and grisly. The herbicide eats through the tissues, hence the horrific sight of the injuries, they told me.

A single swig of Paraquat, immediately spat out, can cause death as a result of fibrous tissue developing in the lungs leading to asphyxiation. Long term exposures to paraquat would most likely cause lung and eye damage. “This is sickening, two teaspoons are enough to kill .There is a chemical war against supporters of the MDC which no-one has been aware of,” said the doctor. She said with time Paraquat affects the lungs and liver and can also lead to kidney failure. Douglas Gwatidzo, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights, says the medical fraternity is baffled by the gravity of the injuries and length of time they were taking to heal despite the fact that some of the wounds were not burns.

(Source)

There was wanton destruction of property in Mbare on Sunday after Zanu PF youths reacted angrily to the visit to Matapi police station by a group of observers from the Southern African Development Community. The observers had gone to Mbare on a fact finding mission to investigate the living conditions that Biti was being held under at the now infamous Matapi police station, which the regime uses to lock up its political opponents. The MDC MP elect for Mbare, Piniel Denga said the observers were denied permission to see Biti, who has only been seen once in public since his arrest last week Thursday. He was arrested at the Harare International Airport soon after returning from South Africa where he had been based for the past two months. According to Denga, trouble began the moment observers left the station. Hoards of ZANU PF thugs, who were monitoring the movement of the observers from a safe distance, started attacking residents living near the police station.

“There was mayhem in Mbare. We thought the presence of observers was going to improve the security situation but it has only made things worse. These ZANU PF guys literally told people there was nothing that the observers could do to stop them from re-educating people to vote wisely on 27th June,” Denga said. The Mbare MP said the observers seemed nervous and tense when it became apparent that ZANU PF youths were patrolling the area. The observers took note of the situation and promised to forward their concerns to the head of the observer mission. “I have never witnessed such political harassment and intimidation in my adult life. This has become unprecedented, where they indiscriminately beat up people with the police watching and doing nothing,” Denga added. In Kadoma, hundreds of people were force marched to attend a rally that was to be addressed by Robert Mugabe. Our source told us ZANU PF youths were moving from door-to-door ordering home owners to attend Mugabe’s rally.

(Source)

ZNU 125 is released this morning. (Believe it or not, Odeo rejected the file as ‘invalid’ - go figure - and 4shared has just disappeared off the internet - so that leaves just Switchpod, which last week and the week before, gave me hell…)

One out of three is better than nothing, I s’pose…

In this show, I take a brief look at the email I received attacking my internet activities, the penchant of Mugabe’s to remove anything he can from the people - in this case, satellite dishes - whilst I also look at Mugabe’s threat to take his forces back to a war footing if he loses the election, in the light of another group of people stating that THEY will utilise whatever means it can to establish democracy.

I also look at the impounding of Tsvangirai’s buses and the arrest of MDC Secretary-General, Tendai Biti, for treason… And a look at the terror gripping the country at the hands of ZANU PF activists, and a brief look at the call to arms by Elliot Manyika - himself a ZANU PF MP, but the call is heeded by the militia - but not reacted to by the ZRP.

This episode can be listened to using the players in the right hand side bar of The Bearded Man blog.

Thanks for your continued support.

Take care.

‘debvhu

Zimbabwe’s presidential run-offelection must be called off because a free and fair vote is impossible, ruling ZANU-PF party defector Simba Makoni has said.

Makoni’s statement came after a similar call by U.S.-basedHuman Rights Watch, which said brutal intimidation and murderby supporters of President Robert Mugabe made normal campaigning impossible for the June 27 poll.

An EU-U.S. summit in Slovenia on Tuesday called on the Zimbabwe government “immediately to cease the state-sponsored violence and intimidation against its people.”

It urged U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send monitors to Zimbabwe to deter further violence.

Makoni, who challenged Mugabe in disputed March 29 elections, told reporters in Johannesburg that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai must negotiate a five-year transitional government.

“Normal political conduct and behaviour is not possible in the circumstances within Zimbabwe at the moment. I don’t believe we can have free elections under these circumstances that’s why we are suggesting that the run-off will not takeplace,” he said.

A South African newspaper reported on Tuesday that ZANU-PFand Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were incrisis talks that could lead to cancellation of the poll.

Makoni, a former finance minister, came a distant third inthe March election in which Tsvangirai beat Mugabe but failed to reach the absolute majority needed to avoid a second round.

Human Rights Watch said on Monday a free and fair poll wasimpossible because of a systematic campaign of murder and torture unleashed by ZANU-PF in which at least 36 people haddied. Some 2,000 people were victims of violence.

Mugabe blames his foes for the violence. Jacob Zuma, leader of the ruling party in Zimbabwe’s powerful neighbour South Africa, said during a tour of India onTuesday that he was alarmed and anxious about the reports of violence and called on ZANU-PF to ensure free political activity.

South Africa’s Business Day newspaper, quoting negotiators for both sides, said on Tuesday:

“ZANU-PF and the opposition… are engaged in 11th hour talks - mediated by President Thabo Mbeki - to salvage a solution to the political stalemate, which may include cancelling a proposed presidential run-off election.”

Business Day quoted the negotiators as saying the run-off might be too “dicey”. They were looking at various options including a national unity government led by Mugabe, with Tsvangirai as prime minister - similar to the solution found for Kenya’s bloody crisis earlier this year.

This idea was previously rejected by the MDC.

Makoni said he was involved in consultations between thetwo sides but they could not be described as negotiations. He called for this process to be accelerated.

Mbeki spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said he was unaware ofthe talks. Zuma, who has been outspoken about the Zimbabwe crisis, is frontrunner to succeed Mbeki next year after toppling him as leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The latter has been widely criticised for his softly softly approach to Mugabe.

(Source)