Messages From Zimbabwe

Fresh elections are the only way to a lasting solution for Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change in South Africa said on Tuesday.

“We sincerely believe that SADC [Southern African Development Community] must now shift its attention and start organising the new election sooner than soonest instead of romanticising a loser of election [President Robert Mugabe],” said MDC chairman in South Africa Austin Moyo at a media briefing in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

The briefing was held as South Africa negotiators returned to Harare in a bid to iron out the troubles plaguing Zimbabwe’s unity government.

“This [elections] should be started by breathing life into a new constitution and electoral Act.”

Moyo told of an increase in farm attacks in Zimbabwe and attempts to strip power from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai by ZANU PF in the power sharing government.

Problems in governance in the southern African country include alleged attempts by ZANU PF to cling on to power.

The global power-sharing agreement, which will be a year old on Thursday, stated that a new constitution had to be in place before fresh elections could be held.

The agreement stipulated that the constitution should be finalised within 18 months. However, Moyo charged that attempts to finalise the constitution were being frustrated by ZANU PF.

This is because, said Moyo, the current constitution favoured ZANU PF.

Moyo wants the South African delegation to put aside all other aspects of the negotiation and push for the finalisation of a new constitution.

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Zimbabweans living abroad may have to pay tax in exchange for voting rights and retaining their citizenship rights if the government embraces a proposal made by finance minister Tendai Biti in London on 13 December 2009.

Some émigrés fiercely oppose the idea. “It’s completely barmy. You cannot put a price on citizenship and voting rights - normal countries have these guaranteed by their constitutions,” protested Mduduzi Mathuthu, editor of the London-based NewZimbabwe.com website.

The 156-page economic blueprint, Moving Forward in Zimbabwe - Reducing Poverty and Promoting Growth, recommended various strategies to hasten social and economic recovery in the troubled southern African nation, including taxing its far-flung citizens.

The report was produced by 13 distinguished Zimbabwean academics and published by the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, and launched by Biti at the invitation of its authors. He also urged expatriates to support the economic recovery process by investing in the economy.

Biti promised that their investments would be safe under the unity government, formed in February 2009 by President Robert Mugabe, leader of the long-ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main wing of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Arthur Mutambara, head of a breakaway faction of the MDC. It has been an uneasy marriage.

Biti agreed that tapping into the savings of expatriates through taxation, in exchange of voting and citizenship rights, was one way government could source much-needed funds for economic recovery.

But the idea has not gone down well with all migrants. “Politicians must first focus on fixing the politics, which is broken, and investment will come in response to that … This is a sure way to lose an election - whoever takes this up and makes it their political manifesto,” Mathuthu told IRIN.

Remittances from expatriate Zimbabweans is credited with softening the impact of the country’s economic collapse, which caused widespread food shortages.

According to estimates by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a UN agency dedicated to eradicating rural poverty, US$361 million was remitted in 2008 - excluding hand-to-hand transfers - a number that was expected to double in 2009.

Other estimates have put all remittances from expatriates in Britain to Zimbabwe at about US$1 billion annually.

The report, which has not yet been officially discussed, urged government to accord dual citizenship and voting rights to the estimated three million Zimbabweans scattered across the world - at a price.

“Confidence-boosting measures would include allowing dual nationality, restoring voting rights for migrants who hold Zimbabwean citizenship, and creating mechanisms for them to be heard. In exchange, migrants should be prepared to pay an annual tax for retaining Zimbabwean nationality,” the report recommended.

Zimbabwe’s stringent immigration laws proscribe dual citizenship, and those living outside the country are not allowed to cast absentee ballots unless they are civil servants on government business, but activists have been pressing for reforms since the establishment of the unity government - a fight that has support in both MDC formations.

“Voting rights are inalienable - we don’t have to pay government to be allowed to vote. It’s just outrageous… It will certainly be a big mistake if government buys into this idea,” Dumaphi Mema, president of the US-based Association of Zimbabweans based Abroad (AZBA), told IRIN.

Mema said many Zimbabweans in the US were willing to invest in the economic rebuilding of their once-prosperous country, but worried about the fragility of the unity government. They also wanted postal votes to be allowed in elections, and to maintain Zimbabwean citizenships even after acquiring permanent residence in their host countries, with no strings attached.

“Many people don’t have faith in this unity government; recent statements by President Mugabe have not been encouraging. People need to see palpable political and economic reforms before they can commit their resources,” Mema commented.

Brilliant Mhlanga, a political analyst, said it was important that Zimbabweans living in the diaspora played a major role in national rebuilding, despite the current political uncertainty.

“We have a responsibility to play in Zimbabwe. If we are really worried about creating a good future for our posterity, it is imperative that we support government’s revival efforts, despite the politics of the day,” Mhlanga told IRIN from London. “If it means paying tax, so be it.”

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The Solidarity Peace Trust has released four videos to the media showing the victims and testimonies of the horrific political violence last year towards the abborted Presidential election run-off.

The videos which were shot last year as the country’s political and economic crisis worsened, shows victims, mainly opposition supporters narrating their ordeals.

On two of the videos titled Democracy: Missing Presumed Dead and After the elections: A Crisis In Zimbabwe, supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), narrate the ordeals they went through, how they were abducted, beaten using various weapons that included chains, iron bars, whips while others were burnt under their feet with burning grass for supporting a ‘British’ funded party.

The other two videos are titled Death Of A Nation and A Marriage Of Inconvenience narrate the effects of the cholera epidemic and while the other video chronicles stages to the formation of the inclusive government.

The videos on violence shows property and houses that were burnt down and destroyed which were for MDC supporters in various parts of the country as ZANU PF supporters and state security agents reigned on anyone perceived to be an MDC supporter.

The role of the dreaded government spy agency the CIO, the police and the army is told in the videos, how they were using state institutions to suppress ordinary people and how they used cars without registration plates to abduct and kill opposition supporters.

Names of ZANU PF Members of Parliament, Newturn Kachepa, Edward Raradza, Saviour Kasukuwere are mentioned frequently in the testimonies by the victims of the political violence on their role in the violence against MDC supporters.

Mugabe’s presidential run-off election campaign last year was spearheaded and led by the military at the highest level leaving dozens dead, thousands displaced and resulted in Tsvangirai pulling out of the presidential race days before the polling day citing ‘unprecedented’ violence against his supporters by Mugabe’s ZANU PF supporters and state security agents.

The MDC has said over 200 of its supporters and officials were killed in the violence towards the presidential run-off election after the March general elections.

Although the government formed an organ on national healing and reconciliation led by the three political parties, victims of the violence have called for justice to be done and for the police to arrest perpetrators of violence.

The Solidarity Peace Trust is a Non-Governmental Organisation based in South Africa and led by church leaders in Southern Africa who are committed to human rights, freedom and democracy. The trust has already documented rights abuses in Zimbabwe in the past years.

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Robert Mugabe will delay new constitution in a bid to scuttle the country’s coalition government and avoid elections in which he may not be allowed to compete, two members of his party’s decision-making body said.

The president is concerned that if he cedes power he may face prosecution for violent crackdowns on opponents, the members of the body, the politburo of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, said. The officials declined to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak to the press on this matter. The politburo, which has more than 40 members, sets policy for the party.

Robert Mugabe will insist on the Kariba Draft as the main reference document and if he doesn’t get his way, he will use Parliament where the majority of the opposition, the MDC is systematically reduced by trumped up charges and prosecutions and on guard is the Senate which is packed up by ZANU PF thugs ready to scuttle the process.

Negotiations that were due to start on July 10 between the Movement for Democratic Change party and ZANU PF were postponed, MDC lawmaker, Douglas Mwonzora, said.

An agreement between the rival parties for a coalition government hinges on the talks beginning today, according to Mwonzora.

The collapse of the agreement may reverse gains that include the stabilization of the economy after 10 years of recession and the curbing of an inflation rate that rose to nearly 500 billion percent in September, according to the International Monetary Fund. The inflation was triggered by a scarcity of foreign currency that caused shortages of everything from staple foods to gasoline.

“Any delay will cause a chain reaction of other delays that could scupper the whole power-sharing agreement,” Mwonzora said in an interview from the capital, Harare. “Then we’d be back at square one.”

Under the coalition agreement, which ended a decade-long political impasse in February, a new constitution must be agreed and elections held within two years of that. Mugabe’s victories in elections against the MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai in 2000, 2002, 2005 and last year were described as marred by violence and irregularities by the U.S. and European Union.

Tsvangirai got the most votes in presidential elections in March last year but didn’t win the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round. He boycotted the runoff in June because he said his supporters were being attacked by Mugabe’s backers and the police. Parliamentary elections also held in March 2008 were won by the MDC, costing ZANU PF its majority for the first time since it took power in 1980.

The coalition government was formed after talks organized by the Southern African Development Community, a group of 15 nations, and led by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki.

The office of South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, didn’t respond to e-mailed questions about the delay in talks.

“We are aware of the development,” Michele Montas, spokeswoman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said. “The secretary-general has been encouraging democratic progress to be made in Zimbabwe, but that is a matter for the parties, that are now in one government, to discuss. It is not for us to have an opinion at this point.”

The EU supports Tsvangirai, Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, said in an interview. Tsvangirai travelled to Brussels on June 18.

“We support the prime minister,” she said when asked about the delay to the talks. “We think a lot can be achieved if we are able to move along the lines of what he presented to the EU when he was here.”

Since the government’s formation the country’s economy has improved. Tendai Biti, the finance minister and a member of the MDC, last month forecast that Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product will expand by at least 4 percent this year. The IMF on July 2 said there is evidence of a “nascent economic recovery” and China has agreed to lend Zimbabwe $950 million.

The benchmark index of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has more than tripled since reopening on Feb. 19 with share prices set in U.S. dollars after a three-month closure, according to Renaissance Capital, a Moscow-based investment bank that focuses on emerging markets.

Mugabe, 85, has ruled the country since a civil war that ended white minority rule in 1980, and the MDC is demanding that a new constitution forbid him from running for president again. Mugabe has insisted that the country adopt a draft constitution drawn up last year and now rejected by the MDC that would allow him to serve two more terms.

Patrick Chinamasa, ZANU PF’s chief negotiator, and Olivia Muchena, a politburo member, didn’t answer calls to their mobile phones seeking comment. Joram Gumbo, ZANU PF’s chief whip, didn’t answer the phone. Three calls to the phone of George Charamba, Mugabe’s spokesman, were terminated after being answered.

Calls to Webster Shamu, ZANU PF’s communications minister, weren’t answered today, while calls to ZANU PF’s headquarters in Harare also went unanswered. Text messages to the five officials weren’t responded to.

“ZANU PF wanted the meeting delayed indefinitely, then they changed it to the end of July,” said Mwonzora, who’s the head of an interparty committee on a new constitution. “We have only agreed to delay things” until today.

Mugabe’s concerns about possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court or a new government stem from allegations that he instigated violence ahead of elections over the last decade that caused the death of hundreds of Tsvangirai’s supporters, the politburo officials said.

The president, a member of Zimbabwe’s Shona majority ethnic group, is also concerned about a crackdown on dissidents from the Ndebele people in the 1980s that resulted in the death of about 20,000 civilians, according to an estimate by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, they said. The MDC has not offered Mugabe or his allies an amnesty.

Under his rule the country’s economy contracted by 40 percent between 2000 and 2007, according to the IMF.

In 2000, after Mugabe lost a referendum that would have boosted his powers, he initiated a land reform program that involved the often violent seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black subsistence farmers.

That slashed income from the country’s biggest export, tobacco, and caused a famine in what had been sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest corn exporter as the company couldn’t finance sufficient imports to meet its needs.

About a quarter of the population, estimated by the UN at 12.9 million in 2003, has left the country, with most of them illegally crossing the border into South Africa.

The Zimbabwe dollar became virtually worthless because of inflation and was scrapped earlier this year in favor of the use of currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the South African rand.

While inflation and shortages of equipment and materials led to the closure of many of the country’s mines and businesses, Anglo American Plc, Rio Tinto Group, Old Mutual Plc, Barclays Plc and Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. have assets in the country.

Zimbabwe has the world’s second-biggest reserves of platinum and chrome after South Africa.

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The geriatric ZANU PF leader Robert Matibili Mugabe has admitted that he rigged the June 2008 Presidential Run-off elections that pitted him and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the televised 21st February mundane interview, Zimbabwe Telegraph has confirmed.

Following the drubbing of Mugabe in the 29 March 2008 elections by Tsvangirai, he withheld the outcome of the presidential polls by more than a month to give time to the rigging machinery to doctor the figures to force a run-off.

Prior to the run-off, Mugabe stepped up political violence to cow Tsvangirai’s legion of supporters into submission.

Tsvangirai eventually withdrew from the race in empathy with his supporters that had been a target of retribution by ZANU PF.

In the interview with ZBC’s Tazzan Mandizvidza, Mugabe said, “…Whatever happened in the June elections, I had a thunderous win.”

Mugabe is on record as having vented his anger saying that, “Nyika haingatorwe nekaX.” (A mere vote cannot take the steam from ZANU PF).

Meanwhile political commentators have said that the elections that are coming in two years time should be handled under a new constitution and in full observance with the international community because Mugabe knows that on a level play field, ZANU PF cannot stand a chance.

High level sources in ZANU PF are saying that Mugabe who is in a dilemma at the moment is pinning his hopes for the candidature of the current defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa his point man.

They said that by positioning Mnangagwa in the defence ministry, he is also protecting himself from the echoes of retribution from the opposition party.

“Have you realised that there is no deputy minister in the defence ministry. ZANU PF has the lion’s share of that critical ideological state apparatus and be assured MDC is now decapitated in the face of Jongwe,” they said.”

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The beleaguered Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe will call early elections if an agreement on power-sharing with the opposition fails to work within the next two years, state media reported on Friday without spelling out whether he will still be the candidate for his own faction ravaged party.

“We agreed to give them (the opposition Movement for Democratic Change) 13 ministries while we share the ministry of home affairs, but if the arrangement fails to work in the next one-and-a-half to two years, then we would go for elections,” Mugabe was quoted as saying by The Herald newspaper.

Zimbabwe has been in political limbo since elections in March when the opposition wrested control of parliament from Mugabe’s party and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pushed Mugabe into second place in a presidential poll.

But Tsvangirai pulled out of a run-off poll in June after dozens of his supporters were killed in attacks blamed on Mugabe supporters.

The two rivals did sign an agreement in September to share power, but it has yet to be implemented after fierce disagreements over who should control key ministries.

In his comments published by The Herald, made during an address to members of his ZANU PF party’s politburo, Mugabe accused the MDC of trying to destroy the power-sharing agreement.

“The MDC should say no if they do not want to be part of the inclusive government,” said Mugabe, 84, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.

“We agreed to work with the Movement for Democratic Change so that we push government programmes together as a country, but when elections are announced we go against each other.”

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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.

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Botswana has called for a re-run of Zimbabwean presidential election and strongly condemned the failure to issue Zimbabwean opposition leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai with a passport as a show of bad faith by President Robert Mugabe.

“This is unfortunate, totally unacceptable and an indication of bad faith,” the Botswana Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement. The statement called for a re-run of the Zimbabwean presidential election to resolve the power-sharing deadlock in the crisis torn-country.

It said the only viable solution to the Zimbabwe crisis is to let the people decide who their true leaders should be. “In this regard, the only way forward in Zimbabwe is a re-run of the presidential election under international supervision to avoid a repetition of the violence and political intimidation that characterised the failed June 27, 2008 presidential run-off,” the statement said.

It added that Botswana president Ian Khama has informed SADC chairman and South African president Mr Kgalema Motlanthe, AU chairman and Tanzania president Mr Jakaya Kikwete and UN secretary general, Mr Ban-Ki Moon about the need for a re-run and international intervention in Zimbabwe. Botswana feels that the socio-political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe threatens regional peace, stability and development and could only increase the current suffering of Zimbabweans.

The statement from the Botswana Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country is disappointed by the failure of political parties in Zimbabwe to agree on power-sharing deal. The statement said the stalemate has been caused by “one party seeking to dominate seeking to dominate power cannot” and this cannot go unchallenged.

The spokesman of the Botswana Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Clifford Maribe told the Nation that his country will continue with its tough stance on Zimbabwe if the power-sharing deal does not work.

“It should be understood that our position is informed by the fact that we wish for the people of Zimbabwe what we wish for ourselves. We, therefore, cannot stand aside and watch silently as our neighbours, relatives and fellow human beings suffer abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them. We also take this stand out of concern that further deterioration of the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe threatens regional peace, stability and economic development,” Mr Maribe said.

He added that the power sharing deal provided the parties with an opportunity to resolve their differences and set Zimbabwe on a path of national reconciliation, economic reconstruction and recovery. “Unfortunately the deadlock over how cabinet posts should be divided among the three parties has stalled this process. This is a disturbing development which cannot be ignored as further delay in forming a government and implementing the power-sharing agreement can only increase the plight of the people of Zimbabwe,” Maribe added.

He stated that Botswana currently hosts, at a great expense to its national budget, thousands of Zimbabwean nationals who are driven into neighbouring countries by the situation in their country. “This situation cannot be allowed to go on unchallenged,” he said.

Mr Maribe dismissed fears in some quarters that Zimbabwe might take retaliatory measures against Botswana for its tough stance against Mr Mugabe’s regime. Zimbabwe is Botswana’s second biggest trading partner behind South Africa. Botswana’s gets some of its power from Mozambique through a line running through Zimbabwe. Any disruptions on this supply usually causes problems in Botswana.

However, Mr Maribe does not see Zimbabwe doing anything to sabotage Botswana. “Zimbabwe desperately needs assistance from the international community of which Botswana is a member. All we want is a peaceful, stable and economically prosperous Zimbabwe which can play its rightful role in increasing intra-SADC trade, economic cooperation and regional integration,” he said.

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The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has acknowledged concerns regarding Robert Mugabe’s recognition as head of state of Zimbabwe as “legitimate”, admitting that at the time of the summit meeting in August, Mugabe had not been elected into office through a credible process.

The Zimbabwe Exile Forum (ZEF), a South African-based NGO working with people who have fled from the political violence in Zimbabwe, brought an urgent application before the SADC tribunal in Windhoek seeking the suspension of Mugabe’s invitation to the SADC summit.

It also sought an order that SADC, its organs and institutions refrain from allowing Mugabe and his government to participate in SADC more generally as representatives for Zimbabwe.

The ZEF is being assisted by Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), Namibia’s Legal Assistance Centre and South African advocate, Richard Moultrie.

Priti Patel, acting director of SALC said today: “SADC should be applauded for acknowledging that concerns regarding its recognition of Mugabe as head of state were legitimate.

“But SADC’s response thus far has been woefully inadequate in ensuring a democratic and peaceful transition in Zimbabwe.”

In its response to the application, SADC said that as it has decided the current situation in Zimbabwe must be settled through dialogue, the invitation to the summit was directed not only to Mugabe, but also to representatives from the opposition parties.

The organisation therefore asked the tribunal to turn the application down.

“The settlement of the dispute requires the parties to sit together and talk to each other,” the SADC reply said.

Gabriel Shumba, the director of ZEF, said that “Given Mugabe’s recent attempts to unilaterally convene a government in violation of the negotiated peace agreement, this response from SADC arguing that the peace process is continuing is worrisome.

“If SADC does indeed believe these concerns are legitimate then it must step up and embrace its role as the key regional institution and remove any official recognition of Mugabe as a representative for the republic of Zimbabwe.”

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