Messages From Zimbabwe

A human rights organisation has criticised the massive recruitment of Matabeleland youth to the national army, saying this is a plot by ZANU PF to win back the province through intimidation and violence.

“Why target Matabeleland from all the regions in particular? We have seen Matabeleland being used as a political laboratory for all sorts of experiments and we feel this is one such project,” Bulawayo Agenda said in a statement obtained by Radio VOP.

Bulawayo Agenda called on youth in Matabeleland to shun the army call up, saying the youth needed jobs in industries and not the military.

“Matabeleland has more pressing priorities than employing its youth by the military. People of Matabeleland need water not the Army. Employ all these youth in the Matabeleland Zambezi Water project than make them soldiers.

“We believe that they will be used to perpetuate violence during elections next year if they join the Army. We would like to urge the youth to make responsible decisions concerning their future and that of the country,” Bulawayo Agenda noted.

“We are not in a war situation. We do not see any significant security threat to warrant fresh recruitment. This is a plot to weaken the Matabeleland electorate through a postal vote mechanism.

Soldiers cast their vote through the postal voting system. But the mechanism has been criticised as a vote rigging process as there have been reports of soldiers being forced to cast their votes in front of their commanders.

“Voting of the military is highly vulnerable to manipulation and this would have an adverse effect on the political voice of the people of Matabeleland,” it noted.

The country may head for polls next year to undo a unity government launched in February, 2009 between President Robert Mugabe and the former opposition MDC. Both Mugabe and MDC leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have insisted on fresh elections as a way of solving the current political impasse caused by the lack of implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) which brought about the formation of the fragile coalition government.

ZANU PF has already embarked on a campaign of intimidation and violence against suspected MDC supporters with reports that soldiers had been deployed to direct election campaigns for the party.

Tsvangirai has however said his MDC party will boycott polls if there is violence and intimidation against its supporters.

In 2008 almost 200 MDC supporters were killed, while thousands others were tortured, beaten, raped and displaced from their homes in the pre and post election violence.

Robert Mugabe, whose roots have been traced to the Hutu tribes in the Africa’s Great Lakes region, is suddenly claiming to be Ndebele.

A highly placed source revealed that Mugabe plans to use the Ndebele soldiers to committ atrocities on Shona people.

In Hurungwe,  villagers of ward 8 here have already been warned that election time will be a time for war and a lot of blood will be spilt.

Former Kariba MP Tongai Nyikadzino told villagers at a meeting attended by Radio VOP: “ZANU PF will rule forever. Election is declaration of war against the party. Blood must spill like in any war situation, we are geared for that. We will establish bases a few days before elections to deal with those against ZANU PF even if it means killing them.”

Ward 8 was won by late MDC-T councillor Paddington Chavhuruma during the March 2008 harmonised election.

ZANU PF’s Jahweti Kazangarare and Peter Madamombe led terror campaign in the area in 2008 where women were raped and some men beaten and injured ahead of the bloody presidential June run- off.

Nyikadzino is currently leading the party membership audit team ahead of the annual party conference to be held in Mutare this month.

Fifty- five headmen covering Karuru and Chundu were forced to attend meetings recently with their subjects as part of a roll call.

“We are attending these meetings out of fear because they are instilling fear in us,” said a villager.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe media reports that Soldiers stationed in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East province have held training drills in villages as part of a drive to intimidate villagers into backing President Robert Mugabe in elections expected next year, a human rights group has reported.

Zimbabwe’s army is fiercely pro-Mugabe and together with youth militia from the President’s ZANU PF party and war veterans has led violence against the veteran leader’s political opponents during elections. The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said the army has stepped up its presence in villages while ZANU PF militia have set up torture camps in some parts of the country – in a chilling reminder to voters of the unprecedented violence that swept across Zimbabwe two years ago.

“Military presence in communities has been a source of constant fear for villagers, who anticipate a repeat of the 2008 electoral violence at the hands of the ZANU PF militias and serving members of the army,” the ZPP said in its latest report on politically motivated human rights violations in Zimbabwe.

“The military’s show of power has been strong in Mashonaland East, where soldiers at Joko Army Barracks are taking their training drills to the villages, instead of the secluded military base near Mutoko,” the group said in the report on political violence and human rights abuses in the month of October.
In another incident, the ZPP said traditional chiefs from Manicaland province were summoned to a “indoctrination workshop” where the Brigadier-General Douglas Nyikayaramba told the chiefs to support ZANU PF or they would be deposed from their positions.

Zimbabwe is next year looking to hold a referendum on a new constitution followed by elections that many analysts have warned could see a return to violence without political, security and electoral reforms. The ZPP said political violence is resurgent across the country with the group saying it recorded 896 cases of violence and human rights abuses including assault, intimidation, rape and torture in October compared to 869 such incidents recorded in the previous month.

The ZPP said ZANU PF militia have set up torture camps in Mashonaland Central province – a sure sign of worse things to come. “Torture bases have also been established in Mashonaland Central in the areas of Muzarabani and Bindura North constituencies leaving villagers terrified,” said the ZPP.

Zimbabwe’s elections have been characterized by political violence and gross human rights abuses with the last vote in 2008 ending inconclusively after the military-led campaign of violence and murder that forced then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from a second round presidential ballot.

A power-sharing government formed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai after the flopped poll was tasked to stabilise the economy, easy political tensions and write a new and democratic constitution that would ensure future elections are free and fair.

The coalition government has scored well on the economy but has struggled on the political front with constitutional reforms marred by reports of violence and intimidation, while security forces have continued to threaten the rule of law and human rights.

(Source)

THE Immigration Department has launched a manhunt for a British national, Mr Charles Heatly, who is reportedly working illegally as a “consultant” in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Office.

The Immigration Department wants to verify Mr Heatly’s immigration status amid reports that he is working in Zimbabwe without a permit.

The Briton is suspected to be a member of MI6, the UK’s overseas intelligence service.

Assistant Regional Immigration Officer Mr Evans Siziba said they wanted to quiz Mr Heatly.

“We want to verify his immigration status. We visited their offices (Adam Smith International) and we were told that he left the country for South Africa last Sunday.”

Asked if Mr Heatly had a work permit, Mr Siziba said: “We want to confirm whether he came for a visit or for business.

“If he is working in Zimbabwe using a visitor’s permit, he will be violating immigration laws because a visitor is not supposed to work in the country unless he/she has a work permit.”

Mr Heatly was reportedly working from Adam Smith International’s offices in Avondale.

Sources said immigration officers visited the premises on Tuesday and were told that he had left the country.

However, other sources said Mr Heatly was at the British Embassy that same day Ambassador Mark Canning gave a media briefing in which he said Mr Heatly was in Zimbabwe at PM Tsvangirai’s invitation.

Mr Siziba said: “We heard that information, but I don’t want to confirm that because we don’t have facts to that effect.”

The Herald is reliably informed that Mr Heatly entered Zimbabwe on a visitor’s permit soon after the formation of the inclusive Government in 2009.

He reportedly came after PM Tsvangirai requested technical assistance and subsequently helped establish parallel government structures.

He is also said to have helped draft documents such as the 100-Day Plan marketed by PM Tsvangirai and had access to classified State information.

It is understood that he had access to Munhumutapa Building, which houses the Presidency, the PM’s Office and key Government ministries.

He also reportedly mingled with Government officials at a retreat in Nyanga this year organised by the PM’s Office.

British Ambassador Canning on Tuesday said Mr Heatly was in the country under a special scheme managed by Adam Smith International and at PM Tsvangirai’s request for help from the UK.

Adam Smith International is packaged as a development agency funded by the British government but is understood to be a think-tank for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

(Source)

Once again, a golden opportunity beckons for SADC, as the principal underwriter of the Global Political Agreement on behalf of the African Union, to exercise its authority and notice the tears of the people of Zimbabwe as they grieve over Robert Mugabe’s stubborn refusal to let them off the edge of an extremely dangerous precipice.

For the past decade, Zanu PF and Mugabe have shown downright disdain for African initiatives and African solutions to Zimbabwe’s recovery and a smooth return to legitimacy, with far-reaching consequences on our common humanity at home and in the neighbourhood.

It is common cause that Zimbabweans continue to lead a nomadic life through SADC and even beyond for reasons which the regional grouping are fully aware of; and have the capacity – given a resolute political will – to attend to without risking further social disruption, needless loss of life and political turbulence. As the SADC Troika on Politics, Defence and Security meet in Gaborone, Botswana this weekend, Zimbabweans are waiting on a knife edge with bated breath for rock-solid guarantees on their future, now that the political stalemate in Harare has reached a crescendo sufficient to blur tomorrow and to mash the little progress towards peace and security during the past two years.

For the record, the fate of GPA is not, and has never been, at the discretion or benevolence of Mugabe and Zanu PF. Mugabe is a mere beneficiary, a bargain he rummaged after SADC nudged the MDC – the winners of the 29 March 2008 election – to soft-land the national crisis Zanu PF plunged Zimbabwe into through tyranny and a dictatorship. For that reason, Mugabe and Zanu PF must be restrained and stopped from adding fire to an already burning homestead in SADC’s tranquil environs.

The issues at stake are clear. The MDC insists on the full implementation of the GPA with specific timelines for action; the realisation of a total transitional reform agenda; the restoration of a Constitutional and civil order in national institutions; ending Zanu PF’s war psychosis which demands a heavy infusion of the security forces in civilian governance concerns, in particular the villagisation of the military; and the crafting and adoption of a new, people-driven Constitution that would pave the way for a open and fair, credible and legitimate, violence-free and dispute-empty national election.

The MDC believes the pace of the process, the results thereof, and the electoral environment shall determine the dates for national referendum on the new Constitution and a general election at which all Zimbabweans shall have a right to take part and decide their destiny. Any misguided attempt to short-change the process and to act out of nostalgic emotions shall drag us backwards into our dark past.

Since the 27 January 2009 SADC summit and communiqué, progress along that road-map to legitimacy has been painfully slow. Mugabe and Zanu PF ignored subsequent SADC resolutions, directives and deadlines purely out of their lack of respect for African mediation and wisdom; steadily eroding the hopes and confidence of Zimbabweans about the possibility of an imminent, lasting solution to the crisis.

By now SADC knows that Mugabe is likely to agree to whatever it says but behaves differently as soon as he returns home. At the weekend’s meeting, a monitoring and enforcement mechanism must be put place to ensure compliance beyond the existing shuttle diplomacy whose fruits remain still-born.  The MDC believes SADC’s reputation is sacrosanct and must be protected. Mugabe must never be allowed to get away with acts that compromise that regional esteem.

The MDC calls on the Troika and SADC to make clear to Mugabe and Zanu PF that the time has come for them to fulfill their side of the deal. The MDC remains fully committed to the letter and spirit of the GPA. The party has gone out of its way to make sure that the current transitional arrangement succeeds. For the sake of our nation and the entire region, the MDC kindly appeals to SADC to take a decisive stand and assist in normalising the volatile situation in Zimbabwe today.

(Source)

Honestly, ZANU PF is totally unimaginative, to say the least. How can a political party that has experienced so much loss of popular support continue to hold onto the very individual who has caused it to become a political leper throughout the country, if not the region?

How is it possible that none of the people in ZANU PF can summon the courage to tell the 86-year-old dictator that he has now become a serious liability to his political party? Is it possible that all the members of that crumbling party are so scared of Mugabe that they dare not tell him to his face that it is now time for him to retire from politics? No wonder, Margret Dongo once called all ZANU PF members of Parliament “Mugabe’s wives”.

Perhaps the truth of the matter is that it is not really Mugabe that these people are afraid of. Rather, it is Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the MDC-T that they are petrified of. They know that without Mugabe, ZANU PF is incapable of producing any serious electoral candidate at the presidential level who can stand shoulder to shoulder against Tsvangirai and expect to win.

That is very true as the results of the 2008 presidential race amply demonstrated. Indeed, it is strongly suspected that the published results had been heavily manipulated in order to give poor old Robert a respectable percentage vis-à-vis what Tsvangirai had received. In other words, Robert may have received much less than the 43% that was officially announced by the ZEC at that time. This means that in the elections of 2011 there will be worse rigging in order to give Mugabe a win over Tsvangirai. The people of this country know that Mugabe no longer has any capacity to win an election.

Media reports indicate that the ZANU PF’s violence machinery has already started operating in some areas, and some people have already had to leave their homes for safer areas. Tsvangirai has publicly stated that the MDC will pull out of the 2011 elections should violence be used by ZANU PF. Should this happen, then Mugabe will proceed with the elections since other smaller parties are likely to stay in the rat race.

This will give Mugabe the opportunity to argue that the elections were not a one-horse race. The nation will be forced backwards in terms of political development. Our situation will, once again, deteriorate to the levels of 2007/08. This will mean that sanctions will stay in place and Zimbabwe will remain a pariah state that is shunned by other countries.

Mugabe and his party will not receive any meaningful recognition and acceptance by other countries. Hundreds of thousands of our people will once again trek out of the country into the Diaspora. Our social sector will collapse as schools, clinics and hospitals will close down.

It will be as if the clock has been turned back to the year 2007. This will result in a lot of damage to a whole generation of young people, some of whom may never be able to attain a college education in their lifetime. The big boys will intensify their looting and primitive accumulation of wealth and wives. The Chombo example is but the tip of an iceberg. Several things can be done to prevent all of the above from happening. We should pray for God’s intervention to end the reign of some of our most cruel oppressors. It bothers me that the church no longer calls for days of prayer for the nation these days.

(Source)

Zapu president Dumiso Dabengwa says he will challenge President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in possible mid-2011 elections and is optimistic of romping to victory.

The former ZANU PF politburo member, Dabengwa told the Zimbabwe Independent yesterday that he would contest for the presidency while his party would field candidates in all constituencies.

He said indications by Mugabe that Zimbabweans would go to the polls next year was a wake-up call to Zapu to start preparations for the elections.

Last month, the 86-year-old leader told a ZANU PF youth assembly in the capital that he wanted elections by mid next year to end the shaky inclusive government he formed with political rival Tsvangirai in February 2009. A referendum for a constitution is expected in March, followed by elections before August next year.

Mugabe blames Tsvangirai for the political logjam in resolving the Global Political Agreement (GPA) sticking points while the premier accuses the president of violating the pact by making unilateral appointments of senior officials.

Dabengwa said an election was the only solution to end the political stalemate created by Mugabe and Tsvangirai and allow Zimbabweans to choose the next government.

“We are ready to face ZANU PF and any other party because a six months notice is a reasonable period for a serious party to prepare for polls,” said the former Home Affairs minister.

Dabengwa led the revival of Zapu after pulling out from the December 22 1987 Unity Accord that was signed between PF-Zapu and ZANU PF, accusing Mugabe and his allies of marginalising the Matabeleland region.

The former Zipra intelligence supremo was elected Zapu president at the party’s inaugural congress in September.

Analysts say Zapu can grab a number of parliamentary seats, mostly in Matabeleland where MDC-T has dominated in polls in the past decade. Following the revival of Zapu, ZANU PF members left in droves to join the party.

Dabengwa said his party was an option to many Zimbabweans who were fed up with MDC-T and ZANU PF’s “confusion and fighting” that has seen the GPA outstanding issues dragging on for two years.

“We are moving in circles; our colleagues in the inclusive government have failed to implement the GPA and the only solution is fresh elections,” he said.

(Source)

The head of Zimbabwe’s electoral commission (ZEC) on Thursday poured cold water on prospects for presidential and parliamentary elections next year, despite President Robert Mugabe saying he wanted the votes to take place by mid-2011.

In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa the chairman of the commission, Simpson Mutambanengwe, said the ZEC did not have the funding to organize a free and fair ballot.

And even if it did, the process of drafting a new constitution – a precondition for the elections – was running far behind schedule.

‘I know politicians have been talking about it, saying there is going to be elections next year,’ Mutambanengwe, a Zimbabwean-born retired Namibia Supreme Court judge, said.

But only the ZEC could determine whether the conditions for the holding of elections were in place, he said.

Last month Mugabe said he wanted elections to replace the transitional government he formed last year with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to take place by the middle of next year.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Mugabe had asked him to set aside 200 million dollars in next year’s 2011 budget for the elections.

But that money, if allocated, would only be made available in January at the earliest.

Mutambanengwe, who was appointed to the head of the ZEC by Mugabe and Tsvangirai, said the ZEC needed the money ‘immediately.’

‘If the funds are made immediately available for us to carry out preliminary operations then we will be ready to carry on elections.’

One of the biggest challenges facing the ZEC is to overhaul the voters roll.

Zimbabwe’s 2008 power-sharing agreement also states that elections can only be held after Zimbabweans vote on a new constitution.

Yet, the process to draft a new constitution is running more than 12 months behind schedule.

‘Some of the suggestions that we are going to have an elections next year would seem to imply that the elections would be held without a new constitution,’ Mutambanengwe said. ‘If that is the case we wait to be advised.’

(Source)

Top ZANU PF officials recently warned party first secretary, Robert Mugabe, against holding elections next year as the former ruling party would lose big time to MDC-T, a politburo member told The Zimbabwean.

“After Mugabe announced that elections would be held next year, as senior politburo members we updated him about the true situation on the ground. We told him ZANU PF as a party and he as an individual no longer commanded support at grassroots level. It would be politically suicidal to go to the ballot anytime soon,” said the source. He said ZANU PF politburo did not deliberate or approve going to the polls. It was Mugabe alone who remained adamant that the country should hold elections next year.

“If Mugabe takes a decision, nothing would make him change his position, no matter how risky it is. Like sheep, we are being led to the sacrificial alter come next elections. No ZANU PF legislative or Senatorial candidate was willing to contest in the proposed elections as the outcome would not favor ZANU PF. Since the party lost its grip among rural communities, MDC-T would easily romp to victory. Despite all these observations, Mugabe dangerously stuck to his guns that his party was ready for elections,” the source added. The party election machinery has already gone into action in the rural areas, where intimidation is Mugabe’s trump card.

(Source)

President Robert Mugabe should not be allowed to stand in any future elections in Zimbabwe, as it was overdue that the ageing dictator retired, after being in power for the past 30 years, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) Chairman, Dr Lovemore Madhuku has said

Madhuku told journalists at the Quill Club in Harare that the only candidate, who should be stopped from contesting in any elections in the country, was President Mugabe as the 30 years he has been in power was enough.

“It is dangerous and stupid for any group of citizens to call for Mugabe to stand again in the next elections. We are not being unfair here. Thirty years is enough and the next leader must only be allowed to be in power for a maximum of 10 years,” he said.

Madhuku called for the disbandment of the Constitutional Select Committee (COPAC), saying the current process to write a new constitution has failed dismally.

“We appeal to our political leadership to accept that the COPAC process is not going anywhere and accept that a mistake was made to do the process led by politicians,” he said.

He said if the political leaders refuse to abandon the COPAC led constitution making process, NCA would continue to oppose the current process and mobilize people to vote No in the Referendum.

Madhuku said there was need to reengage the broader society and establish an Independent Commission responsible for writing a truly people driven constitution.

The NCA boss said there was no need to rush for new elections as the inclusive government was a transitional authority whose mandate ends in 2013.

“If we go to elections we know what will happen. Focus must be on making reforms and getting a properly done constitution which will ensure that  the playing field is even to provide for a free and fair election,” he said.

Madhuku said Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has taken the right step in accepting that violence and intimidation by the military were hindering attempts to write a new constitution.

Tsvangirai on Wednesday said the process had failed  to pass the test of legitimacy, credibility and people-drivenness and promised to meet President Mugabe and the other principal, Arthur Mutambara in order to map the way forward.

This followed the suspension of  public consultations on the constitution after ZANU PF militias and the military unleashed violence in Harare and Chitungwiza resulting in the death of an MDC-T supporter Chrispen Mandizvidza who was beaten by thugs at Mai Musodzi Hall in Mbare.

(Source)

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to annul Robert Mugabe’s election in 1980 as first black leader in independent Zimbabwe following shocking violence by his supporters against opponents, the last Rhodesian military commander, Lt. Gen. Peter Walls said.

Thatcher whose government supervised the trantional Rhodesian elections which resulted in the black majority government after Mr Mugabe emerged winner, had powers within her jurisdiction to annul the elections, but she chose not to.

Lt. Gen. who died in South Africa last month acknowledged in a BBC interview before his death that he had asked Mrs Thatcher, the British prime minister at the time, to annul the results of the election that brought Mr Mugabe to power because vast numbers of voters had been intimidated. Mrs Thatcher refused, British officials said.

Lt. Gen. Walls who played a central and sometimes ambiguous role in the first days of his country’s transition to majority rule only to fall out bitterly with its first black leader.

The prospect of black rule sent tremors of concern through many whites, and as elections – brokered by Britain, the former colonial power – approached in early 1980, the country seemed on a knife edge, balanced between the expectations of the black majority and fears that white soldiers under General Walls might resist the new order and even stage a coup.

In a memoir published in 1987, Ken Flower, the intelligence chief of both the last white government and the first black one, said General Walls himself had helped deepen fears of a coup among the British officials overseeing the transition to majority rule. But, Mr. Flower said, the idea of a coup was never seriously debated by the military and security elite.

White apprehensions sharpened on March 4, 1980, when the election results were announced and the clear victor was Mr. Mugabe, seen by many whites as a Marxist rabble-rouser who would hound them out of the country.

But instead of staging a coup, General Walls publicly appealed to the white minority “for calm, for peace,” Mr. Flower recalled.

Mr. Mugabe also went out of his way to assure whites. In what seemed a political masterstroke, he appointed General Walls to oversee the planned fusion of the former white-led army with the two guerrilla armies.

In one widely reported exchange after several attempts on his life, Mr. Mugabe was said to have asked why the general’s soldiers were trying to kill him. General Walls reportedly replied that if his men had been involved in the attempts, Mr. Mugabe would be dead.

Deep down, though, profound mistrusts lingered from the war years, and Mr. Mugabe began to pay heed to reports circulating at the time that General Walls had indeed plotted against him.

Increasingly estranged from Mr. Mugabe, General Walls offered his resignation within months of independence and later moved to South Africa’s Eastern Cape region, where he lived for many years in relative obscurity.

As the overall commander of Rhodesian forces from 1977 onward, General Walls oversaw an ultimately doomed campaign to halt a shifting bush war conducted by guerrillas loyal to Joshua Nkomo, a nationalist patriarch, and Robert Mugabe, who went on to become the increasingly autocratic – and so far only – president of Zimbabwe after the country achieved independence in 1980.

As the fighting unfolded, Rhodesia, named for the British archcolonialist Cecil John Rhodes, was an international pariah, shunned by most countries with the exception of apartheid-ruled South Africa, its neighbour.

The Rhodesian forces were far superior to the sometimes ill-equipped guerrillas, displaying their military might with cross-border strikes against insurgent rear bases in Mozambique and Zambia, even as General Walls spoke of winning the “hearts and minds” of the black majority inside the country.

By 1980 the options open to Rhodesia’s white minority had narrowed, whittled away by international economic sanctions, the withdrawal of unconditional South African support and the growing recognition that a deal with the guerrilla leaders was inevitable.

Born in Rhodesia in 1927, General Walls had a long military career, training at the British military academy in Sandhurst and the staff college at Camberley. As a commander of a Special Forces unit, he also fought insurgents in colonial-era Malaysia.

(Source)

President Jacob Zuma has seven days to provide the Mail & Guardian newspaper with a report on the 2002 Zimbabwe election that has been kept under wraps for eight years, a judge ordered on Friday.

The report was written by Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and Constitutional Court Justice Sisi Khampepe for former president Thabo Mbeki . It dealt with “legal and constitutional challenges” in the run- up to the disputed election.

Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes previously told Business Day he suspected the report would contain information that would contest the view that the disputed election was free and fair.

The Presidency said it had no comment yesterday.

Unless Mr Zuma appeals , the Mail & Guardian should see the report before June 23.

Judge Stanley Sapire of the North Gauteng High Court is expected to give full reasons for his decision today. The newspaper’s attorney, Dario Milo of Webber Wentzel attorneys, said the order was a “victory for openness, transparency and accountability”.

He said that it proved the Promotion of Access to Information Act had “sharp teeth”. M&G Media, which owns the newspaper, had requested access to the report in 2008 in terms of the act.

It was refused and an internal appeal was similarly dismissed – leading to the court case.

Mr Milo said the order “also makes it plain that even the office of the Presidency is subject to the access to information laws and cannot without proper justification keep official documents secret”.

Mr Dawes said yesterday the order was a “very important one”.

He said: “I think there’s been a risk that the Promotion of Access to Information Act becomes a dead letter and that no one can enforce it.

“From that point of view, and from the point of view of finding out something substantive about the information the Presidency has had at its disposal about Zimbabwe – and in particular that crucial election – it’s a very important judgment.”

The 2002 Zimbabwe election was declared “substantially free and fair” by the Southern African Development Community’s c ouncil of m inisters and the Organisation of African Unity.

But the Commonwealth Observer Group said that the conditions “did not adequately allow for a free expression of will by the electors”.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, disputed the result.

(Source)