Messages From Zimbabwe

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)

Eddie Cross on the new South African president’s failure to press for change in Zimbabwe

Nothing could illustrate the failure of African leadership more clearly than the farce that took place in Harare this weekend. Following the debacle last week when Morgan Tsvangirai refused to travel on an emergency travel document restricted to Swaziland, the SADC organ on politics and security convened in Harare this Monday. It was attended by the Presidents of South Africa and Mozambique as well as the Prime Minister of Swaziland and an official from Angola.

They know exactly what the problem is - in March the MDC beat Zanu PF in a closely contested election and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe by a wide margin. These leaders know that Morgan got more than 50 per cent of the vote - I understand his actual vote was 54 per cent but after five weeks of procrastination and desperate efforts to falsify the poll the Junta was forced to admit that Mugabe had been beaten but that Tsvangirai had received less than 50 per cent and would have to face a run off.

The South Africans know full well that the real result was a clear victory for MDC and a humiliation for Mugabe, but went along with the charade and allowed the run off to take place. What followed was three months of intense political violence unleashed on the population by 100 000 youth militia under military leadership in over 2000 camps spread throughout the country.

When finally it became apparent that any attempt by the MDC to monitor the election would be faced with violence and even the murder of MDC polling agents, the MDC decided to pull out of the contest. Zanu PF went ahead and in complete contrast to the March election, Mugabe was declared the winner in 48 hours and sworn in, in unseemly haste.

The African observer missions then turned Zanu’s world upside down by declaring that the election had ‘not been a reflection of the people’s will’ and stating that Mugabe had not been elected President. Battered and bruised, the MDC and the hapless electorate picked themselves up and were then faced with a demand by SADC leaders that they ‘resume’ the talks with Zanu PF under the mediation of Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki picked up from where his previous mediation had left off, as if nothing had happened in the interim. We are now 4 months down the road on that new initiative and having agreed and signed a power sharing agreement on the 15th September; we are still trying to get the deal implemented. In signing the deal, the MDC massively compromised its rights as the Party that had won the elections outright in March.

Mugabe, who by all accounts lost the election in March and certainly has no legal or democratic justification to call himself President, continues to act as if he had won the election and Hansard still lists all ZANU PF ministers and Deputy Ministers as Ministers of Government. No doubt they are still on their full salaries and perks even though a number of them were defeated by MDC in the election in March and all of them were stood down as Ministers when Parliament was sworn in a few weeks ago.

Just to compound this situation Mugabe is treated as a State President by SADC and given full political and diplomatic recognition. The so called ‘Global Agreement’ provides for a clear separation of powers between the Prime Minister and the President and also sets out in precise terms how the different arms of government are expected to work together.

Only an idiot could interpret the agreement as meaning that ZANU PF is still in charge and MDC is the junior partner. It is self evident that the allocation of ministerial portfolios should be divided equitably, So when, after weeks of pointless argument ZANU PF published an allocation of Ministerial portfolios that gave ZANU PF complete control of the security machinery of the state as well as all resource ministries and left the rest to the MDC, it was a step too far.

That brought the region back into the process and gave us the hope that the regional leadership would recognise the illogical and unacceptable nature of such an allocation and impose a solution on the local players that made sense. First it was Mbeki and he made a hash of things - actually endorsing the ZANU PF allocation of posts! Then came the Troika and the aborted meeting in Swaziland.

Morgan had raised the issue of his passport with the negotiators and when he was issued with a Emergency Travel Document with a single destination restriction he refused to travel. In fact the issue goes far beyond just the question of withholding his travel documents (the passport has been ready for weeks and is sitting in the desk of the Registrar General) it was just the latest of a series of incidents that show that the Junta in Harare has no intention of allowing the new government to be formed.

They are continuing to restrict and interfere with food distribution by the international community. They have retained tight control over commercial food distribution. The security forces continue to attack any attempts by civil society to support the negotiation process and the media is as warped and restricted as ever. There has been no attempt to implement the ‘Global Agreement’ in any form up to now.

When Morgan Tsvangirai failed to attend the Troika meeting it was aborted and reorganised for Harare a week later. In Harare the key player was always going to be the new President of South Africa, Mr. Motlanthe. This was his first real test when it comes to foreign affairs and for most of us it seemed completely logical that he would step up to the plate and smash a home run.

But no - after 13 hours of intense ‘negotiations’ they came out of the closet and issued a statement that did not change one single element in the situation (see here). The issue would go a full meeting of SADC Heads of State in two weeks time. What an even larger group of hopeless leaders will do is difficult to imagine. The key player remains Motlanthe, he alone has the power and influence to force a resolution and it just that that is required. The Junta will never give up power without the use of force in whatever form and if that is not going to come from the streets, it has to come diplomatically behind closed doors.

In 1976 that pressure came from the South Africans in support of an initiative by the American Secretary of State, in 1979 it was pressure from Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. The only question now is who will do the necessary in 2008?

While this charade is being played out, southern Africa burns. In the midst of the global financial crisis, we look indecisive and ineffective. By failing to take crucial decisions on issues such as inter Party violence in South Africa and the resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe - all within our own clear competence, we are failing our respective countries, the region and our people’s best interests.

It was up to the Secretary General of the United Nations to spell out what was needed. He called for an equitable allocation of Ministerial portfolios and the formation of a new government in Harare as soon as possible. He said that only such a move would bring the political and economic crisis under control. He is right, are our leaders up to it this time? Failure is just that would be ‘too ghastly to contemplate’.

(Source)

When the supermarkets do get some maize meal in they only accept cash money for it, with the Reserve Bank restrictions on withdrawal amounts most the populace go hungry. I as a business owner in Chiredzi have been unable to purchase food for my hungry staff for the last 2 weeks. I am now on a new system of payment and will soon be able to purchase this maize meal for them when it is available.

Hundreds of people in and around Chiredzi are surviving purely on stolen sugar cane, there are wads of chewed sugar cane every where, on the bush paths you see many people carrying large stacks of can and eating it at the same time, everybody is chewing sugar cane here.

There are many reports of starvation coming out of the communal areas; the worst to suffer are firstly children and then the women.

Local businesses and I am sure that this goes for the whole of Zimbabwe, are refusing to accept cheques as payment and are now demanding fuel or forex instead. This is firstly because of the withdrawal limit of $1o,ooo and $20,000 set by the Reserve bank on businesses and private accounts respectively. How do companies pay their staff or buy food for them when only allowed to withdraw such a little?

Secondly if businesses are paid by cheque, by the time that it has registered in the account usually 3 to 5 days, they have more than lost their profit because of the hyper inflation.

This will mean a lot less business for the banks.

If Zimbabweans had a real free and fair election now I doubt that Mugabe and his ZANU PF party would get more than 10% of the votes, most in his party have relatives who are in dire straights and starving in the communal areas.

Gerry Whitehead

(Source: by email)

Dear Friends and Donors,

Where to start?

Since the last update in July, we have, once more, another ‘new’ currency, which was introduced on the 1^st August.

This time, TEN zeros where lopped off and the old coins once more became legal tender and $5 was worth 5 billion old Zim dollars. Pensioners who were receiving meagre pensions of around 60 million no longer receive anything as that amounts now to a fraction of a cent. Already, every single commodity is in the tens of thousands of dollars. Since this introduction, more notes of higher values have been produced we now have a $1,000, $10,000 and this week $50,000.

Almost all businesses will not accept a cheque, cash only. The maximum withdrawl this week was raised to Z$50,000 each day. What will that buy after standing for several hours in a queue at the bank? Minced beef at Z$90,000 a kilo? Obviously not. Bread at Z$17,000 a loaf, 6 eggs at Z$20,000 and perhaps one potato at Z$90,000 a kilo. Then queue again the next day. Never mind paying large accounts of utilities bills or perhaps buying your life saving medication (if you can afford it). Just one American dollar at the time of writing is worth around Z$16,000 (Z$160,000,000,000,000 before 1^st August, not forgetting to add the three zero’s taken off in ‘06). In 1980 the Z$ was equal in value to the US$.

Shops are almost empty, what goods are available for payment in Zim dollars are at ridiculous prices as the shopkeeper tries to hedge against inflation estimated at over 1 TRILLION percent. How about a tin of beans for the equivalent of US$80?

In this climate, ‘Rand’ shops have sprung up in the most unlikely places. Some selling from private homes. These charge on average a 100% mark up on the South African price. Fine if you have access to foreign currency, if not you can’t buy.

Where then does this leave ‘our’ pensioners? No income, no transport to cross border shop?

S.O.A.P., here in Bulawayo is working hard to procure goods from South Africa and we have also had to start buying from one of the new importers. Luckily, because we are buying in bulk we get a special discount and pay a 60% mark up. As can be imagined this has increased our overheads dramatically.

With bereavements and people moving away, in October, we supplied food to 173 needy pensioners but these numbers do increase by 5 or 6 each month. ‘Our’ recipients will need help for the rest of their lives whatever happens.

As always, we stress that it is YOU that enable us to carry on distributing groceries because of YOUR generosity. We thank YOU all once more for giving ‘our’ pensioners a little dignity and some hope in these very trying times.

Thank you and God bless you all.

Dave Gill and Louise Campbell.

(Source: by email)

Victimization of perceived supporters of the MDC still continues in Karoi, 7 months after the disputed March 29 elections.

It is reported that the notorious ZANU PF member of parliament for Magunje, Frank Ndambakuwa allegedly dismissed 25 of his farm laborers  from his Ian Crocker Farm, accusing them of voting for the MDC during the March 29 elections.

Ndambakuwa is responsible for spearheading the violent crackdown against MDC supporters in Magunje and Hurungwe East post March 29 and is personally responsible for the April shooting of Peterson Kwenda that resulted in him losing his left leg.

Victimisation is set to continue since the government, responsible for organizing and funding the brutual post March 29 onslaught did not give the order for the violence and victimization to be stopped. As a result animosity will continue between supporters from ZANU PF and MDC, leaving the possibility of reconciliation a faraway dream.

The province of Mashonaland West, where Karoi falls in recorded a significantly high number of incidents of political violence and is where the first murder case of an MDC supporter was recorded.

Hunger and suffering has taken its toll on some residents in Karoi who in desperation have resorted to visiting nearby farms where they pick left over maize grain and soya beans from last season’s harvest from the fields to supplement on food. The town of Karoi grew and prospered hinging on commercial agriculture as the main economic activity, and the collapse of agriculture after the farm invasions resulted in a large influx of unemployed ex farm laborers moving into the town.

The town has gone for more than a month without clean running water and residents are getting untreated water from a nearby dam. This has consequently resulted in an increase of diarrhea cases at the local district hospital, and if the current situation remains unaddressed an outbreak of the deadly cholera is foreseen in the near future.

(Source)

MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai will on Sunday 12 October 2008 address a rally at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield, Harare dubbed the “Big Sunday Rally”.

President Tsvangirai is expected to unpack the character and substance of the political deal that was signed by the three principals of the three major political parties on 15 September 2008 in Harare.

Members of the MDC national executive are expected to address the rally, which is expected to start at 10.00 am.

(Source)

ZANU PF loosing councilor for Ward 15 has taken maize from the Biet Bridge GMB depot and sold it at an inflated rate. This maize was meant for the MDC winning candidate Ishmal Gilbert to distribute to the people in his Ward 15 in Chiredzi South.

This corruption by ZANU PF will not stop until there is genuine Law And Order in Zimbabwe.

(Source: by email)

Zimbabwe ’s mobile phone operators have hiked their tariffs by more than 2,500 percent, causing a massive domino effect on the pricing structure of e-commerce, e-banking, and e-business.

The increase drew howls of protest from already hard-pressed consumers who have to contend with Zimbabwe’s supersonic inflation.

The increase is certainly going to fuel inflation, as telecommunications costs comprise a significant weight in the basket used in calculating the consumer price index.

Econet Wireless, which enjoys about 57 percent of the local subscriber share hiked its tariffs by more than 2500 percent. Its competitors, privately owned Telecel, which has 17 percent of the local market and state run Net*One with 26 percent also hiked their tariffs by roughly the same margin.

Econet increased charges for intra-network calls of Econet to Econet to Z$250 during the peak period. Charges for inter-network charges, or calling other cellphone operators has also shot up during the peak and off peak periods by the same margin.

Calling a landline, sending a local and international SMS and making international outgoing calls to Group 1 and Group 2 destinations has also shot up.

Industrialists and officials in commerce bemoaned the impact the new charges would have on businesses across the country. Zimbabwean mobile phone networks have to meet the bulk of their costs, 95 percent, in foreign currency. The networks have long complained about rigid regulatory oversight over tariffs, a factor which has impacted negatively on revenue.

However, although the networks have enjoyed the relative relaxation by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), they are wary that radical tariff hikes could hit ARPU (average rate per user) statistics hard.

(Source)