Messages From Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will form a unity government “as soon as possible” and a minister said he would invite opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to nominate members of a joint cabinet. Asked when a new cabinet will be announced, Mugabe told Zimbabwe state television (ZTV) on Monday: “We will try to institute it as soon as possible.” A summit of regional leaders on Sunday said Zimbabwe must form a unity government immediately and that Mugabe and the opposition should share control of the pivotal home affairs ministry, but Tsvangirai swiftly rejected the call.

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In the Capital, there was pandemonium and deadly scenes only reminiscent to events in Eastern DRC war between Kabila’s forces versus CNDP rebels loyal to General Laurent Nkunda, when violence broke out amongst ZANU PF party faithful at the party’s Harare provincial offices near Harare’s Fourth Street bus terminus, late Friday afternoon leading to the death of two party supporters with scores injured, including police officers.

War Veterans, party militia, members of the Women’s League, ex-political detainees, war collaborators and Senior ZANU PF officials, fought running battles amongst each other leaving stunned onlookers at Harare Fourth Street Bus Station running for cover as guns, clubs, half bricks, machete wielding members of Robert Mugabe’s beleaguered ZANU PF fought for control of the party’s Harare provincial executive.

Robert Mugabe wants to oust the Amos Midzi led executive before the December party Congress. 

A number of riot police officers tried to impose peace and tranquillity, but they were disarmed and ended up nursing injuries and some are reported to be having injuries threatening their lives.

Shots were fired in the air to calm down the violence, but other party faithful led by Elliot Manyika, the party’s political Commissar, not to be outdone, pulled out their own guns waved them in the air threatening to shoot police officers.

Some War veterens were seen rolling on the ground with sticks immitating guns, in war moves.

Members of the army in green barrets from the Commando Barracks and PG (Presidential Guard) were called in to help the hapless police officers and a man was fatally shot dead for refusing to disarm.

Our reporter who was having a drink at Raylton Sports club managed to speak with one ZANU PF official who had taken refuge in the Sports club toilet and he said the party provincial branch of Harare was planning a vote of no confidence in Robert Mugabe at the Congress, next month and he said there is growing disgruntlement in the party with all forces for change tilted against the embattled leader.

The violence follows a petition to the party President Robert Mugabe asking him to dismiss chairperson Amos Midzi for his alleged “history of counter-revolutionary activities” and failure to lead the party to victory in the March elections. In the petition, the ZANU PF activists pleaded with Mugabe to expel the ZANU PF provincial executive council led by Midzi whom they accused of incompetence and reducing the party to a laughing stock.

They asked Mugabe to appoint an interim provincial executive council. The activists also wanted Midzi and his council to be removed for failing to endorse Mugabe at the 2006 Goromonzi annual people’s conference as the party’s sole presidential candidate for the 2008 elections.Knives are out for Midzi, the Minister of Mines and Mining Development, for also failing to come up with a campaign programme for ZANU PF for the 2008 harmonised elections.

“(Midzi must be expelled for) failure to assist ZANU PF candidates during the campaign period leading up to the 29th March elections, despite being availed with motor vehicles and fuel for the party,” the petition read. It also said Midzi should be expelled “failure to support His Excellency the President during the opening of parliament leaving the opposition to embarrass and humiliate His Excellency the President and first secretary of ZANU PF.”

They said the Harare province was to blame for the heckling of Mugabe at the September 15 signing of an all-inclusive government agreement.

They said the Harare province was to blame for the heckling of Mugabe at the September 15 signing of an all-inclusive government agreement between Mugabe and leaders of two MDC formations — Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara — because it failed to mobilise ZANU PF members to attend the ceremony.

“The failure was deliberate and meant to ensure that the party remains weak and disorganised in Harare,” the petition read.The petitioners claimed that Harare province executives were buying votes to ensure their victory in November 30’s provincial elections.

The province was accused of failing to comply with the party’s constitution, regulations and guidelines. Instead “it was falsifying records of cells and branches of the party so as to ensure that the elections of the district executives scheduled for November 8 will be in their” favour.

The petition read: “Members of the party are being hoodwinked by the provincial executive committee which is dishing out money and goods to branch and district executive members under the false guise of poverty alleviation.

“The project is highly selective targeting those occupying the top six positions of each branch or district. The objective is to buy their votes. Party members are being exploited and abused because of the economic hardships in the country,” said the petitioners.

Sources in ZANU PF claimed the petition was signed at the behest of Harare South MP Hubert Nyanhongo and chairperson of the National Incomes and Pricing Commission chairperson Goodwills Masimirembwa.

Nyanhongo is eyeing the chairmanship while Masimirembwa reportedly wants to be a member of the provincial executive.

On Wednesday hordes of ZANU PF youths attempted to forcibly close the party’s provincial offices.

Nyanhongo recently said ZANU PF in Harare was full of traitors and sellouts and they should be dealt with before the conference in Bindura in December.

The legislator declined to comment on the matter.

Masimirembwa last month was reported to have said ZANU PF should flush out leaders who were not backing Mugabe, especially in Harare. This was reportedly in apparent reference to Midzi.

However, he denied singling out Midzi, but blamed the whole provincial executive.

Masimirembwa said: “I never singled out Amos Midzi. It was a complete lie. What I can confirm as to have said was that the general performance of Harare province during the March 29 election was very bad, just to get one seat won by Nyanhongo.”

(Source)

The leaders of the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams, were finally released on bail on Thursday after spending three weeks at Mlondolozi Prison. However the two outspoken activists have been put under strict bail conditions. Speaking after her release Williams told SW Radio Africa: “Our freedom of movement has been curtailed. We cannot move more than 40km out of Bulawayo which means I cannot visit my rural home. Magodonga cannot visit her rural home at all. And we have to report twice a week to the nearest police station. So yes we may be out on bail but our freedoms, our liberties have not been fully restored, until the case has been dropped,” the WOZA leader added. The two leaders who were arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Bulawayo were suffering from lice infections and said conditions in the prisons are appalling.

Zimbabwe’s prisons are notoriously unhygienic and overcrowded. After spending 71 days in prison as a political detainee Luke Tamborinyoka, an MDC official, said upon his release last year; “I am not sure which one is worse - hell or Mugabe’s prisons.” During the course of their unjust detention Mahlangu was moved into a yard inhabited by mental health patients and dangerous prisoners, both on remand and convicted. WOZA said: “She was put in a cell with a patient that is allowed to wander around naked and was moved from Ingutsheni Mental Health Hospital for murder. She was unable to sleep at night due to the antics of this and other patients.” The women said there is extreme hunger in the prisons and inmates fight over scraps of food. The human rights defenders said abuses are rampant and at Mlondolozi Prison male guards are allowed to wander around the female prison and can also see into washing facilities. “Prisoners in Yard Two are also stripped naked every day for inspection by prison officers as they are locked down. At least three minors (aged 15 and 16) were being kept in the same cell as Williams.” The WOZA leaders are expected in court on Monday for their remand hearing.

SANTOC (South African No Torture Consortium) welcomed the release of the WOZA leaders but said it was “deeply concerned’ about the conditions under which prisoners are being held, especially women in Zimbabwe. SANTOC member Hugh Lewin told us: “Isolation and appalling prison conditions can be defined as torture and it’s not anything that people should be subjected to.” South African anti torture groups have called on their government and the regional body, to press Robert Mugabe at this weekend’s SADC summit to allow International Red Cross immediate access to prisons in Zimbabwe. Williams believes investigations should also be made into police detention, which can often be worse. She said there is generally no water or food at all in police cells.

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Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC on Thursday said President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party had put a “full stop” to negotiations on forming a government by carrying out what it said was widespread violence.

“In short ZANU PF has killed the dialogue despite the hopes, patience and expectations of the people of Zimbabwe. The bottom line is that ZANU PF must be upfront with the Zimbabwean people and openly bury the corpse of these talks,” it said in a statement ahead of a regional summit on the deadlocked talks.

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President Robert Mugabe’s government on Wednesday accused Botswanan President Ian Khama of interference and said his call for fresh elections to solve Zimbabwe’s political crisis was an “act of extreme provocation”.

Khama, who has emerged as one of Mugabe’s staunchest critics in Africa, told Botswana’s parliament on Monday that an election was the only way out of the deadlock that threatens to derail a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and the opposition MDC.

“The statement he has made to his country is an act of extreme provocation to Zimbabwe,” Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted as saying in Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Herald newspaper.

“He has no right under international law as an individual or country to interfere in our domestic affairs.”

The diplomatic row occurred just days before the Southern African Development Community, a 15-nation regional bloc, was scheduled to hold an emergency summit in South Africa to discuss the political stalemate in Zimbabwe.

A smaller SADC meeting in Harare last month failed to break the impasse.

Mugabe and the leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change agreed on Sept. 15 to share power, but talks have stalled over control of ministries.

Setting up a unity government is seen as critical to reversing an economic meltdown in the southern African nation.

Zimbabweans are struggling to survive amid widespread shortages of meat, milk and other basic commodities as a result of the collapse of the agricultural sector. The country is dependent on food handouts and malnutrition is on the rise.

Tsvangirai, would would become prime minister under the power-sharing deal, has accused Mugabe’s ZANU-PF of trying to seize the lion’s share of important ministries to try to relegate the MDC to the role of junior partner.

The MDC won a March parliamentary election.

(Source)

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Advisers to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai want him to look past a planned SADC summit and prepare to take his stand-off with President Robert Mugabe to the African Union, and ultimately to the United Nations.

It is unlikely the summit of heads of state, called after a meeting of the SADC troika failed to end the deadlock, will bring a resolution, as the MDC appears to have adopted an ambitious strategy to “escalate this matter as far as we can”, according to a senior Tsvangirai adviser.

The opposition sees this week’s call for a broader regional summit as a major step towards a plan to drive the Zimbabwe crisis back on to the UN agenda, said the official.

It is unlikely, he said, that the SADC summit, planned for next week, will see a resolution to the crisis.

“We are looking beyond that. We need to take this to the AU and then to the UN, and fight there for international involvement in the crisis,” said the official, who declined to be named.

This week, the MDC broadened its demands and disputed the SADC’s statement that the power-sharing deal has stalled over the allocation of the home affairs portfolio.

*The MDC now cites six areas it wants to discuss:

*The allocation of ministries;

*The appointment of the 10 provincial governors;

*The composition and functions of the national security council, a cluster of security agencies proposed to replace the Joint Operations Command;

*The appointment of ambassadors, heads of state enterprises and permanent secretaries, who direct the operations of government ministries;

*Constitutional amendments enabling the new government; and

*The “fraudulent alteration” of the agreement reached on September 11. The MDC now claims the document its leader signed on September 15 was different from the original deal reached earlier.

More controversy was generated after MDC secretary general Tendai Biti gave reporters a new plan which proposes to cut the rival MDC faction out of the agreement completely.

Advisers to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai want him to look past a planned SADC summit and prepare to take his stand-off with President Robert Mugabe to the African Union, and ultimately to the United Nations.

It is unlikely the summit of heads of state, called after a meeting of the SADC troika failed to end the deadlock, will bring a resolution, as the MDC appears to have adopted an ambitious strategy to “escalate this matter as far as we can”, according to a senior Tsvangirai adviser.

The opposition sees this week’s call for a broader regional summit as a major step towards a plan to drive the Zimbabwe crisis back on to the UN agenda, said the official.

It is unlikely, he said, that the SADC summit, planned for next week, will see a resolution to the crisis.

“We are looking beyond that. We need to take this to the AU and then to the UN, and fight there for international involvement in the crisis,” said the official, who declined to be named.

This week, the MDC broadened its demands and disputed the SADC’s statement that the power-sharing deal has stalled over the allocation of the home affairs portfolio.

*The MDC now cites six areas it wants to discuss:

*The allocation of ministries;

*The appointment of the 10 provincial governors;

*The composition and functions of the national security council, a cluster of security agencies proposed to replace the Joint Operations Command;

*The appointment of ambassadors, heads of state enterprises and permanent secretaries, who direct the operations of government ministries;

*Constitutional amendments enabling the new government; and

*The “fraudulent alteration” of the agreement reached on September 11. The MDC now claims the document its leader signed on September 15 was different from the original deal reached earlier.

More controversy was generated after MDC secretary general Tendai Biti gave reporters a new plan which proposes to cut the rival MDC faction out of the agreement completely.

(Source)

After allegedly murdering a whistle blowing Zimbabwe Election Commission official, state agents last weekend forcibly took the body of Ignatius Mushangwe from his Waterfalls home and buried it in the Mukumba Village of Chihota. A report by the Zimbabwe Times website quotes a family member saying Mushangwe was meant to be buried at the Granville Cemetery in Harare by his family. However agents from the notorious Central Intelligence Organization forced his wife and eldest son to sign a letter consenting to the burial in Chihota. The wife protested the forced change but was told ‘security concerns’ warranted his burial outside Harare. The website reports that, ‘a family member was then force-marched to the Registrar of Births and Deaths to change the burial order so the burial would now take place in Chihota.’

The CIO are said to have taken over the entire funeral with several agents present at the burial. Viewing of the body was confined to ‘very close family members.’ A source confirmed that the agents claimed they had orders from the Presidents Office to carry out a hasty burial. ‘By the time many people arrived in the village, he had already been buried. He was buried by strangers, with very few of his family members there to witness the burial. We are completely at a loss of words,’ a source told the website. More details are emerging on the murder of Mushangwe who allegedly spilled the beans on how Mugabe’s regime planned to print surplus ballot papers to rig the June 27 Presidential run-off. An intelligence source has claimed that the ZEC director of training and development was, ‘murdered by a hit-squad from the military intelligence, allegedly led by one Staff Sergeant Makwande, to silence him in an operation that was approved by the Joint Operations Command (JOC).’

The source described the assassination as, ‘a dry operation, a dry disposal’ because it was carried out in a hurry. After being kidnapped in June, Mushangwe’s partially charred body was found dumped in Norton last week. Liberty Mupakati, a former civil servant who worked with Mushangwe, told Newsreel on Thursday that the hasty burial was meant to keep the media away and prevent photographs and other forms of recording. He said the idea was to limit exposure of the issue as much as possible and so control levels of outrage. He gave an example of the body viewing being confined to close relatives as another attempt at diluting the impact of his brutal death.

(Source)