Messages From Zimbabwe

A human rights organisation has condemned the decision by South Africa to withdraw the special status granted to illegal Zimbabwean immigrants, saying deportations would endanger their lives.

The spokesperson for the Global Zimbabwe Forum in South Africa, Luke Zunga, told News24 that it was premature for South Africa to make such a decision as a lot of Zimbabweans face imminent persecution.

“Zimbabwe is not yet back to normal as the situation remains violent. There is no settlement in that country. It’s unfortunate that South Africa is listening to its brothers in Zimbabwe and that doesn’t help us. Both countries are pretending that things are fine and this is to their own convenience,” said Zunga.

South African government spokesperson Themba Maseko said on Thursday the country will begin deportations after December 31.

The announcement brings to an end an April 2009 amnesty that allowed Zimbabweans who had fled the country’s economic meltdown and political violence to stay in the country without passports and visas.

Zunga said South Africa should have waited until elections were held in Zimbabwe, as it would then be easy to ascertain the stability in that country.

“There is still a lot of tension in Zimbabwe and that is why it is important for South Africa to wait until end of elections.

“As far as I see it, this is another way for South Africa and the SADC (Southern African Development Community) to prolong the stay of President Robert Mugabe.  They are pretending to solve Zimbabwe’s problems and yet their intention is to extend Mugabe’s stay in the government of Zimbabwe. It’s high time they realised that Zimbabwe’s problems are centred on Mugabe and should therefore, work towards solving that,” said Zunga.

According to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed in September 2008 which led to the creation of a unity government in February 2009, Zimbabwe is expected to hold elections next year. Previous elections in the country have seen a lot of violence resulting in many being killed and injured.

“Violent structures still exist in Zimbabwe and it’s unfortunate that these structures are made up of people who after beating and exposing people to torture, they are still protected by the police. These people persecute, abduct and beat up people and are not arrested.

“South Africa doesn’t seem to understand how Mugabe is controlling that country. We are bound to see even more of this violence when election time comes.”

Zunga said most Zimbabweans were likely to flock back into South Africa a few days after being deported.

(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)

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)

Armed soldiers led by Major Muti Musakwa last night forcibly removed property and goods belonging to MDC Zvimba West district treasurer, James Jonga. Jonga runs a supermarket at Murombedzi growth point in Zvimba, Mashonaland West province. Last night the soldiers ransacked and looted groceries in his shop saying he should vacate the premises as he was an MDC official. The soldiers were also incensed on why Jonga had made a contribution during the Constitution-making outreach meeting held in the area last week.

In Chendambuya in Headlands, Manicaland province, ZANU PF militia led by the ZANU PF district chairperson, John Kanindiriri are assaulting people who fail to attend forced ZANU PF meetings in the area. Kanindiriri is forcing people to attend ZANU PF meetings everyday ahead of the Constitution-making outreach meetings this month.

Meanwhile, in Hurungwe, Mashonaland West province, Chief Chundu is moving around the district accompanied by two ZANU PF activists, Peter Madamombe and Bilo Kaunde threatening to beat up anyone who will contribute during the COPAC public meetings opposing ZANU PF’s discredited Kariba draft. Chief Chundu also repeated the threats while addressing villagers at Kapiri business centre on Monday and at Kachiva business centre on Tuesday.

(Source: via email)

In May 2005, the Zimbabwean government embarked on a massive, highly systematic programme of demolitions of all informal housing in urban and peri-urban areas across Zimbabwe. Combined with a total clampdown on the informal trading sector, including the destruction of official vending areas and confiscation of all wares, Operation Murambatsvina (OM), or “Drive out the Filth” caused direct havoc in the lives of millions. The sheer scale and thoroughness of OM set it apart from previous demolitions, not just in Zimbabwe, but in Africa.

1. 2005: immediate losses of dwellings and livelihoods

Three million people countrywide directly and indirectly suffered, as a result of the demolitions; an estimated 100,000 vendors were arrested – many of them legally licensed and selling from legal vendors’ markets; 560,000 people lost their shelter countrywide, with some small centres losing as much as 60% of their housing. A further 2,4 million lost markets for their goods, and/or remittances from the urban areas. Most of the demolished shelters were of good quality with access to electricity, water and sewerage, and many had been legitimated by virtue of standing for decades. The illegality of the government’s actions, which were in violation of the nation’s own laws with respect to evictions, as well as in violation of international statutes and protocols, has been noted in our previous reports on OM, as well as by other commentators.

2. 2010: impact of OM

Five years on, what observations can be made regarding the causes and impact of OM, bearing in mind its context in the multi-layered, cataclysmic decline of Zimbabwe, which began in the 1990s? The massive internal displacement of people that resulted from OM in 2005, has been followed by further economic, humanitarian and political crises that have created seemingly impossible conditions for Zimbabwe’s citizens. In 2008, a combination of political violence on a scale unseen since the 1980s, the total economic implosion of the nation with inflation running into the millions of percent, the almost total closure of schools and hospitals and the resulting cholera epidemic, all led to another exponential movement of people, this time out of the country in search of work, basic services and safe haven. In a previous report, we documented that in 2008-9, the rate of diasporisation increased one-hundred-fold from that of the 1990s, in rural Matabeleland at least.

A nation on the move – still

In this report, we follow up on previous OM research conducted by SPT in 2005 and 2006, and build on our narratives of the lives of particular families and informal settlements from 2005 to 2010. The story is a grim one, with many of those we remembered now prematurely dead, and others living in unspeakable poverty.

The four detailed case studies in this report illustrate the lives of extreme hardship that have driven Zimbabweans from one place of abode to another in the last five years. In urban Bulawayo, we found that 80% of people on our target sites had moved on between 2005 and 2010. We found that people in the informal settlements in Bulawayo have moved an average of 4,2 times in the last five years – to end up exactly where they started out – only to be evicted again in July 2010! And we found that Zimbabweans who have travelled as far as the Western Cape have lived in up to seven places in the last five years, and are also once more on the move, chasing seasonal employment and fleeing xenophobia. Zimbabwe’s population is in a state of flux and movement, and each move costs dearly in terms of lost possessions, interruption in access to services, and emotional stress. Families have been forced to live apart, with children in Zimbabwe living with grandparents while their parents earn abroad, or living in rural areas while their parents struggle to make money in the informal sector in the towns. The social fabric of Zimbabwe has been ripped apart.

(Source)

Approaching his 87th birthday next February, President Robert Mugabe appears to give his friends a few birthday gift ideas as he walks unsteadily down the steps prompting aides to offer some support.

These pictures were taken as Mugabe left the closing ceremony of the African Union’s Summit in Kampala, Uganda, on July 27.

Mugabe, who still looks fit for his age, has never been seen in public with a walking stick and until recently, was bouncing up and down the steps of Air Zimbabwe planes – an image his PR people were happy to put out as it showed their man to be robust and raring.

But these pictures from Uganda show a man struggling to hold onto his youthful stoicism that has helped him stay in power for an incredible 30 years – for his minders and his Zanu PF party an unwelcome reminder that aging is mandatory, and he too is vulnerable to the pulling power of the end of time.

Surprisingly, Mugabe’s cabinet colleagues speak of a man whose attentiveness at meetings belies his advanced age.

A senior minister from Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party revealed recently: “Cabinet meetings start around 9AM and Mugabe can go all the way up to 1 or 2PM without taking a break, all the time listening intensely to the proceedings, but rarely talking himself.

“There is no question he’s doing better than many at his age.”

The teetotaller President is known to exercise regularly and is a big fan of yoga – a combination that has helped him stay fit and outfox his opponents despite growing public disaffection.

(Source)

At least 20 MDC supporters including two councillors were arrested in Rusape, Manicaland province last week after residents protested against the Local Government, Rural and Urban Development minister, Ignatius Chombo. The arrested councillors are Rusape council chairperson, Kidwell Gomana and Ward 8 councillor, Teddy Chipere. Residents of Rusape were infuriated by Chombo’s ruling that he wanted to set up a commission to run the affairs of the Rusape Town Council.

Of these twenty, eight were released with no charges laid against them and the other seven appeared before a Rusape magistrate. Six of these were released on US$50 bail each, whilst Chipere who is also the MDC Rusape district chairperson, was denied bail and remanded in custody. The other five, who were picked up on Friday, are expected to appear in court today.

The Manicaland province spokesperson and Makoni South MP, Hon. Pishayi Muchauraya appeared before a Murambinda magistrate on trumped-up charges of undermining the President at a rally in 2006. He will appear before the courts on September 22.

In Midlands North, the MDC Midlands North provincial chairperson, Cephas Zimuti has been acquitted by a Gokwe magistrate. Zimuti was arrested last month for holding an MDC executive meeting at Gokwe Centre. The case was dismissed on the basis that any closed door meeting is not supposed to be booked to the police.

In Masvingo province, Zanu PF has continued with its terror campaign. In Masvingo South, Masviba Dhombo, Kariba Musaidzwa, Saston Maroveke and Julius Masimba – all headmen have been on the forefront of inciting political violence in the area despite the fact that the Global Political Agreement (GPA) openly states that traditional leaders should be apolitical.  The four have clearly declared that they would campaign for Zanu PF.

In Mwenezi district, Zanu PF thugs and soldiers last Friday stormed Chingami Primary school, Ward 5 in Mwenezi East and reportedly ordered the school authorities to temporarily stop lessons to pave way for a Zanu PF rally. The Zanu PF mob, which was led by one Colonel J Hungwe   and Zanu PF District Coordinating Committee (DCC) commissar for Mwenezi, Justice Sithole, arrived at the school around mid morning and instructed the pupils to go home and bring their parents to the rally, which was later addressed by Colonel Hungwe.

In the same province, Gorden Mugadza, the MDC Masvingo South vice-chairperson was last week arrested and denied access to food and medication by overzealous police officers at Renco police station, only to be released two days later with no charges being brought against him.

(Source: via email)

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has received more than 200 calls from distressed Zimbabweans fearing xenophobic attacks, an official says.

“Since Sunday, we’ve been receiving calls… I received 207 calls from members of the party who say they can’t go home…” MDC SA spokesman Sibanengi Dube told reporters in Johannesburg.

“They said they were seeing locals standing in groups, strategising [to attack].”

Dube said the calls were from all corners of the country, but most of them came from the Western Cape.

“I received calls of individuals who claimed to have been beaten up,” he said.

(Source)

Zimbabwe may soon attain Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) status after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asked it to prepare an urgent request for debt relief under the initiative in order to offset the debt distress the country is facing.

The request was made last month during a visit to Zimbabwe by an IMF mission led by Vitaly Kramarenko.

In a report released this week, the IMF stated that the country, which is recovering from a decade-long economic decline, is severely debt-distressed and that neither income from the huge mineral resources nor the implementation of the Fund’s policy recommendations could resolve the country’s debt overhang without debt relief.

“The (IMF) authorities agreed that the country was in debt distress. Following intense debate within the government on possible use of mineral wealth to resolve external debt arrears, consensus is emerging among key government officials that mineral wealth alone would not be sufficient to achieve debt sustainability. As a result, the government is working on a comprehensive ‘hybrid’ strategy involving both a request for debt relief under the HIPC Initiative to resolve external payments arrears and use of fresh international financial institution financing and mineral wealth to achieve sustainable development,” the IMF stated.

Zimbabwe is struggling to repay its US $7.145 billion external debt and is currently in arrears of US $4.575 billion.

According to the IMF, the country’s external position was so unsustainable that without intervention, external debt could reach 151 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2015, with 104 per cent of GDP in arrears.

Finance minister Tendai Biti this week said the country’s economy was “sick” from an array of factors including lack of capital resulting from a lack of foreign direct investment, lines of credit and budgetary support from donors as well as mounting inflation and a lack of fiscal space.

Zimbabwe, which needs around US $10 billion to turn its economy round from a severe depression of 10 years resulting from a political crisis brought about by unprecedented land reforms, has been struggling to attract investors and donors to provide the much-needed capital.

Biti said the first quarter of 2010 was the most challenging and the economy’s “factors of sickness” had dampened the prospects for recovery and had returned inflationary pressures.

Between January and June, inflation surged from a target regime of one per cent to 6.1 per cent, and researchers project that it may surpass 10 per cent by August.

The IMF stated in its report that there was no way out for Zimbabwe but through debt relief. It recommended that the country prepares a request for HIPC status.

The HIPC initiative was initiated by the IMF and the World Bank in 1996, following extensive lobbying by NGOs and other bodies.

It provides debt relief and low-interest loans to cancel or reduce external debt repayments to sustainable levels for countries with high levels of poverty and unsustainable debt levels.

It has worked for several poor countries including Zambia, which, in 2005 won massive debt relief that saw its debt falling from US $7.1 billion to only US $500 million while some of it was rescheduled and spread over a period up to 2022.

“There is a debate in Zimbabwe on whether the country’s mineral wealth can be used to resolve external debt arrears. (IMF authorities) estimate that at end-2009, Zimbabwe’s net foreign asset (NFA) position, including the net present value of future mineral receipts under an optimistic scenario for the extraction of high-value minerals, is significantly negative, in the order of 63 per cent of GDP,” the IMF stated.

“Just maintaining this high level of the negative NFA would require generating non-mineral primary external current account surpluses whereas this balance now stands in deficit at over 35 per cent of GDP.

Closing such a large gap without debt relief is not feasible in the foreseeable future, even if the challenges with competitiveness and the business climate are addressed without further delays.”

The IMF recommended a Staff Monitored Programme for Zimbabwe, in which it will seek to strengthen the country’s policies and data reporting, as well as improve relations with the international community.

“The authorities agreed that making timely quarterly payments to the Fund and increasing them over time, as the payment capacity improves, will strengthen the credibility of their commitment to normalizing relations with the Fund,” it stated.

(Source)

An agreement allowing Zimbabwean migrants to regularise their stay in South Africa without fear of deportation is up for review, with the two countries agreeing to look at whether it should be amended.

Commonly known as “the special dispensation”, the agreement was effected in April last year and was scheduled to last for a year.

It was meant to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis, especially the arrival of scores of economic migrants in SA who did not qualify for refugee status.

Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma yesterday said the agreement would now be reviewed.

“We agreed that our officials will sit together and advise on how to deal with it,” she told journalists at the end of a bilateral meeting with Zimbabwe’s home affairs ministers Kembo Mohadi and Gile Mutsekwa.

Also on the agenda was SA’s ban of single-sheet travel documents common among neighbouring countries. SA stopped accepting the certificates earlier this month, arguing that they were a security risk and were no longer compliant with its movement control system introduced in time for the Soccer World Cup.

Through the new system, SA’s ports of entry are able to scan and read the security features of all international passports within seconds.

However, yesterday Zimbabwe - which was battling a long backlog for passport applications - won a concession allowing SA to recognise a new category of travel document that will be in booklet form. “As long as it’s machine readable and is compliant with our system, there is no problem,” said Ms Dlamini-Zuma.

Mr Mutsekwa said the document would be introduced “as soon as possible”. He said it was not a new format but something that would be found in Zimbabwe’s archives.

Yesterday’s meeting followed a similar one held with authorities in Lesotho last week. More than a million Zimbabweans were living in SA where they were also the biggest diaspora community, he said.

A hatred of foreigners could overshadow the hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup once the final whistle of the tournament is blown, if reports are anything to go by. For the second time, world attention could be focused on Africa’s biggest economy for all of the wrong reasons.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the 2010 FIFA World Cup has brought only excitement, revenue and publicity to South Africa. It is also not unreasonable to believe that the exposure Bafana Bafana players are enjoying ahead of a busy transfer window in Europe next month is a crucial step in their careers.

However, all is not well on the other side of the coin. A considerable chunk of the foreign population here in South Africa has been spending sleepless nights since the tournament kicked off. Local media and politicians have reportedly claimed the riots could happen again and past mistakes be repeated. The argument is that the invaders, foreigners in this case, have grabbed all the jobs, business opportunities and everything claimable from the natives, things the locals want back.

There is an almost tangible fear that xenophobic fever is going to rear its ugly head after the tournament’s curtains are lowered. People are terrified and many have no idea what to do or where to go.

The Mozambicans who own salons and bars in Witbank, a town east of Johannesburg, believe they have no option but to flee: “We shall have to rush home and wait for the situation to calm down after the tournament. We wanted to stay, but are definitely scared for our lives,” said Henrietta Joan, a roadside salon owner. She also says they have been threatened and told to quit before the tournament’s final ninety minutes are played or else risk their lives.

Most foreigners living in South Africa are Burundian and Mozambican. In Johannesburg, the situation was tense ahead of July 11. “For us, we hope those riots don’t happen again. Because we are all just looking for some money to cater for our families back home and here,” Nzikobanyanka Adam shared.

In May 2008, South African President Jacob Zuma slammed riots in connection to xenophobia after bloody fighting left many dead and thousands injured. The foreigners are hoping the president’s comments have softened the hearts of the willing-to-riot natives after the World Cup.

“We hope president Zuma helps us and provides enough security so that we are safe,” said Kalwira Jacob, a Congolese man who has been living and working in Johannesburg for the last 10 years.

Reports suggest that between 2000 and March 2008 an average of 67 people died in what were branded as xenophobic attacks. While in May 2008 a series of riots left 62 people dead, 21 of those killed were South African citizens.

(Source)