Messages From Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president, Mr Lovemore Matombo has refused to give up power ahead of the labour body’s congress in August.

Mr Matombo was expected to hand over power to a new leader but is seeking re-election despite serving his mandatory two five-year terms.

He joins MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, who forced the amendment of his party’s constitution to enable him to stay in power longer and National Constitutional Assembly chairman Mr Lovemore Madhuku, who is also clinging to power.

On Wednesday, Mr Matombo declined to comment on the congress.

“I will not entertain any questions or discussion on the congress. You are wasting time, I will not talk about that one, no matter which way you ask me.

“Why don’t you wait until we convene a Press conference to update you? We have nothing to hide. We cannot prepare our congress in newspapers before our members are even briefed,” said Mr Matombo.

The ZCTU will hold its congress in Bulawayo from August 19 to 20 this year where all posts are up for grabs.

Incumbent secretary general Mr Wellington Chibebe is expected to officially step down to take up the post of deputy general secretary of the International Trade Unions Confederation in Brussels.

But it is the case of Mr Matombo that is hogging the limelight after he indicated that he would be seeking re-election.

Mr Matombo argues that amendments to the ZCTU constitution to have two-term limits were adopted by the labour body’s general council in 2006.

This, he says, means his first term began in 2006 and is eligible for another term.

The ZCTU boss was quoted by a newsletter of the labour body’s affiliate making the same claims, alleging that the constitution was doctored by the secretariat by clandestinely inserting the clause giving the two-term limit.

“About the presidential term, I don’t recall the congress where we discussed this. I have tried to ask some members and they are also not sure where this is coming from,” Mr Matombo is quoted as saying by The Connector, a Zimbabwe Energy Workers Union newsletter.

He scoffed at suggestions that he would stand as a secretary general saying he would not go for a less influential post.

“I must say from the onset that it will be unusual for a person of my capacity to move away from the presidency to join the secretariat within the structure of ZCTU. This is just politicking and I would not want to contribute to dirty tricks and dirty campaigns that are being used,” said Mr Matombo in the newsletter.

ZCTU acting secretary general Mr Japhet Moyo said he has read the reports in which Mr Matombo claimed that the ZCTU constitution was clandestinely doctored to insert the two-term limit.

“We have only read about it but he has not officially notified the general council about his position, including the allegations that the constitution was doctored. Mr Chibebe has, however, officially notified us in our last meeting that he will be leaving for Brussels after the congress,” said Mr Moyo.

He said constitutional amendment discussions to limit the terms to two started in the 1990s when Mr Tsvangirai was the secretary general and it was something that was known by everyone.

“It is a bit strange for him to say that the constitution was doctored because the issue was subsequently debated in Mutare, Masvingo between presidents and secretary generals of affiliates before it was adopted in 2006 at a meeting Mr Matombo himself chaired,” said Mr Moyo.

“I cannot comment on these issues because he has not officially complained about that. Whether he is eligible or not it is not something we can discuss until we have seen nominations.”

(Source)

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is secretly arming Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept defeat in the presidential election in the Ivory Coast has brought his west African country to the brink of war.

A giant chartered Antonov An-22 cargo plane with Angolan registration delivered tons of weapons from Harare to Gbagbo over Christmas and the new year, highly placed intelligence sources in Zimbabwe’s capital revealed last week.

The aircraft took off from Manyame airbase outside Harare. The exact quantity of arms is not known but the Soviet-built Antonov can carry up to about 80 tons of cargo. Zimbabwean military and intelligence officials accompanied the weapons on the flight.

Earlier, the sources said, the plane had flown into Manyame with a consignment of small arms, mortars and rockets from China – Mugabe’s chief arms supplier – for the Zimbabwean army.

On Mugabe’s instructions, part of this shipment remained on board and was supplemented with more armaments from the stocks of Zimbabwe Defence Industries, the state arms maker. A few hours later the plane flew to the Ivory Coast where the cargo was secretly unloaded.

Sources in Harare said that Mugabe, 86, had authorised the arms shipment after an appeal from Gbagbo for military assistance in return for oil. The sources said that a mysterious Chinese businessman – identified only as Sam Pa – had played a pivotal role in organising the shipment so that it could not be traced back to Mugabe.

Sam Pa uses a variety of aliases. His main business interests are in oil in Angola but he has lately expanded into diamond-rich Zimbabwe, where he has established commercial relations with some of the most powerful figures in Mugabe’s inner circle.

The clandestine arms delivery pits Mugabe against the United Nations, west African leaders and the African Union. The UN has 10,000 peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast and has had an arms embargo in force since 2002.

International pressure is mounting on Gbagbo to hand over power peacefully to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, the would-be president, who won last November’s presidential election run-off, according to UN-verified results.

Economic sanctions and diplomatic measures are favoured to get Gbagbo to step down but force has not been ruled out as a last resort.

In the Ivory Coast, the army is the one part of the state machinery that has remained intensely loyal to the beleaguered Ivorian leader throughout the crisis.

Arrangements for face-to-face talks between the two rivals have twice failed because the army has refused to lift a blockade around a luxury hotel in Abidjan, the commercial capital, where Ouattara is holed up. If fighting does break out, the arms sent by Mugabe could be a crucial boost for the troops willing to try to keep Gbagbo in power.

(Source)

Zimbabwe’s meteorological department and Civil Protection Unit issued flood warnings for low-lying areas, saying heavy rains and already saturated soils could prove dangerous.

Several rivers in southern Zimbabwe are already flooding after the country received its highest rainfall in three decades, Civil Protection Unit director Madzudzo Pawadyira said today.

“While it is not yet an emergency, we strongly urge people living in low-lying areas to move to higher ground,” Pawadyira said by phone from the capital, Harare.

In neighboring South Africa, floods have hit nine provinces since mid-December, claiming at least 40 lives and displacing more than 6,000 people. Another 13 people have been killed in Mozambique, the state-owned Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique reported between Jan. 12 and today. Crops have been damaged across the region.

Pawadyira said his Civil Protection Unit was on “High Alert” and had warned authorities that it may require urgent assistance in the event of flooding.

In South Africa, Agri SA, a farmers’ organization, says it is “far too early” to calculate damage caused by the floods that have drowned crops.

“While the floods are subsiding, the weather bureau has predicted more rain in the coming days, so it may be a while before we can calculate numbers,” Agri economist Dawie Maree said by phone from the capital, Pretoria, today. “Very tentative and early” assessments of farm losses could amount to more than a billion rand ($145 million), he said.

Southern Africa’s main farming season for summer crops like corn, soy and sunflower falls between November and April.

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Officials in Zimbabwe have refused to confirm reports that President Robert Mugabe has undergone emergency prostate cancer surgery in Malaysia.

‘As far as I am concerned, the president is on his annual leave. He will be back soon,’ presidential spokesman George Charamba was quoted as saying in Tuesday’s edition of the independent daily Newsday.

The paper also quoted a spokesman for Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party as saying: ‘As a party, what we know is that he is on annual leave.’

A report earlier this week in British daily The Telegraph said the 86-year-old leader had undergone examinations on the condition of his prostate gland while on vacation in Malaysia and then returned home.

He was then forced to fly back to Kuala Lumpur for surgery after his gland condition suddenly worsened, the paper said.

Speculation about the president’s health has been growing over the past year amid signs of increased frailty.

In February, Zimbabwean diplomats said he repeatedly nodded off while meeting them.

Mugabe was said to have collapsed with exhaustion at last year’s United Nations general assembly in New York, while members of his cabinet have at times complained about his lapses in concentration.

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In a move to alleviate the panic among those who fear losing everything if they submit their fraudulent South African identity documents, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Wednesday that Zimbabweans who have been living in the country for years on fake South African IDs — and have bought property and started businesses — would be legalised, if they make the 31 December deadline.

She said Zimbabweans who have fake South African IDs with the same name and photograph as their Zimbabwean documents, and which also correspond with papers such as banking, business or property documents, will be assisted by the police with an affidavit that will allow their properties and businesses to be transferred to legal documentation.

She was accompanied by Zimbabwean Home Affairs Ministers Theresa Makone and Kembo Mohadi, who were in South Africa to ask for help in handling the volume of paperwork flooding their offices.

Dlamini-Zuma also said those who applied for passports in Zimbabwe but had not received them in time for the deadline would be considered as being “inside the shop or bank when the doors close”, adding that the Zimbabwean authorities would submit the database of passport applicants still being processed on deadline day to the DHA. But the department isn’t backing down on the recent statement that there will be no extension for Zimbabweans who fail to meet the December 31 deadline.

“Those who do not comply will face immigration laws — this means we arrest,” Ronnie Mamoepa, the department of home affairs spokesperson, said.

Those who work with migrants say the policy will result in a return to mass arrests, detention and “fruitless mass deportations”.

“You’ll also see a return to tens of thousands of spurious asylum claims as people try to get a hold of some kind of documentation,” said Loren Landau, director of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS).

The applications

According to home affairs, between September 20 and December 1, 99 435 Zimbabweans applied; of these there are 64 980 applications in progress and 34 455 have been finalised.

With estimates of the numbers of Zimbabweans living in SA ranging between 1,5 and 2 million there is a long way to go.

Landau said the deadline wasn’t realistic and he believed only 5% of that number would receive work and business permits.

The process is open only to those Zimbabweans who are working, studying or doing business in South Africa says Mamoepa, and the documents they will receive “must last at least four years”.

He emphasised that the deadline, set by the Cabinet decision for the deadline would not be extended. “What is critical is to get people to get their applications in long before the 31st.”

Zweli Mnisi, the spokesperson for the department of police, said they would work closely with home affairs.

“It is not our stance to criminalise law-abiding foreign nationals in South Africa,” Mnisi said, but added that during police operations, and in daily policing, they will continue to search those who were here illegally, whether they were from Zimbabwe or any other country. But activists say recent raids, such as the one in Hillbrow during the police’s Operation Duty Calls campaign, had raised some concern.

“The presence of the home affairs officials at the raid clearly indicates that there was an intention to arrest, detain and potentially deport non-citizens,” said Landau. “While this raid was part of a broader crime-fighting initiative, it’s evident that the police want to send a message to the citizenry and to foreigners that they are seen as criminals and that their presence is not going to be tolerated.”

The progress

At the home affairs offices in Plein Street in Johannesburg late on Tuesday afternoon there was a queue of more than 80 Zimbabweans, who had already applied for permits but were back to check on progress.

At the back of the line was a young man who has been living in the country for two years. He had received an SMS on Friday to collect his documents, which he submitted on October 18. He said he had applied because he had just finished his studies and was now working.

“It was efficient but, here and there, there were delays. But we can’t really complain. We understand there’s a lot of congestions, there are a lot of ­people,” he said.

Lack of procedure

However, Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, chairperson of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa), said the process had been poorly managed and there were no uniform procedures.

“There are no clear guidelines on what is required and different offices have different requirements. There is no certainty in the process.”

Another problem, said Ramjathan-Keogh, was the more than 30 000 applications for passports sent to Zimbabwe.

One Zimbabwean woman, who did not want to be identified, said she had been living in South Africa for the past five years and was working as a domestic worker. She said she was still waiting for her passport to enable her to apply for the special permit.

“I do have a passport, but it expires on January 5,” she said. “I was told that I need a new one because this one expires very soon. I applied for my new passport three weeks back and they said it will take six weeks.”

She said a passport cost R800 and she had not had enough money to apply for it earlier. She said she was very scared as she did not know what will happen next year. Many of her friends who had applied for both passports and permits had still not received them, even those who applied six weeks ago.

“My older brother has applied for the permit and is still waiting. I do not know anyone who has received the permit. I do not know what’s going on.” She said if she had not been able to apply for a permit by the time the deadline expired, she would have to go back home. “There’s nothing I can do, I’ll go.”

The situation leaves those who work with migrants questioning the intention behind the September decision to grant Zimbabweans the opportunity to apply for the special permits.

Roni Amit, a senior researcher at ACMS, said: “The fact that they are so adamant about not extending the deadline suggests that this was not really a way to regularise the status of Zimbabweans. Instead, it seems to be a cosmetic measure aimed at justifying the resumption of arrests and deportations.”

(Source)

STATE security agents have warned off editors of privately-owned newspapers from repeating South African and British newspaper claims that President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace, had an affair with Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.

Aides of both Gono, who is married, and Grace Mugabe, nee Marufu, strongly reject the allegations.

Four senior Central Intelligence Organisation officials met newspaper editors separately in Harare and issued various threats on Tuesday, according to an editor who attended the meetings, but who wanted his publication to remain unnamed.

“They basically claimed they knew that our paper was planning to report the story, which sounded like fishing to me. I pretended I had no clue what they were talking about and forced them to go over it.

“They said someone might die if we go on and repeat the allegations, they made that very clear,” he said.

The editor said the CIO operation appeared aimed at “getting the threats in before the midweek papers and weekend editions” of the Financial Gazette, News Day, Zimbabwe Independent and Standard newspapers.

New Zimbabwe.com has learnt that President Mugabe met Gono for lunch on Monday, and advisers of the two men had met on Tuesday and Wednesday morning to map a strategy of tackling the damaging reports first carried in both the UK and South African Sunday Times newspapers.

A source familiar with the discussions said: “These have been intense discussions. Their lawyers have advised them that they have strong grounds to sue the Sunday Times newspapers for libel, but the political advisers are split.

“Some are saying they would rather the matter be totally ignored, but those on the opposite end of the planning say this would create a permanent impression that reports of the affair were true – something which would dog the rest of Mugabe’s presidency and subject both Gono and the First Lady to unending public ridicule.”

Meanwhile, President Mugabe and his wife made their first joint public appearance since Sunday at the burial of his brother in law at Kachere Farm in Concession on Tuesday.

Bonny Brian Gumbochuma, who died aged 57 last Saturday, was married to Grace Mugabe’s elder sister.

Mugabe described the late Gumbochuma as a humble person who helped him “integrate into the Marufu family”.

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A brave Grimsby based Zimbabwean born British soldier is using his specialist knowledge of roadside bombs to help save British lives in the dangerous Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Lance Corporal Albert Dzapasi moved to the town from Zimbabwe to study electronics at Grimsby Institute – and he is now putting his expertise to the good use by training UK service personnel to operate technical equipment that detects deadly explosives.

The fearless 25-year-old, who is known as ‘DZ’ to his colleagues, serves with the 30th Signal Regiment, Royal Corps of Signals and volunteered for the six-month operational tour where he is responsible for maintaining and repairing the life-saving kit.

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Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is heading for the wheelchair as health problems mount, a senior intelligence source in the President’s office has revealed to The Zimbabwe Mail.

A special wheel chair and other electronic gadgets are being designed in an unnamed Asian country, the source told our reporter in Bindura at the funeral of the First Lady Grace Mugabe’s brother, Reward Marufu.

In the coming weeks, special medical engineers will fly to Harare to prepare ground work of internal structural changes to be carried out at President Mugabe’s private residence in Borrowdale and his offices at Munhumutapa Building to accommodate state of the art high-tech gadgets.

The senior intelligence officer also confirmed that in future, the veteran leader will be on his fit only on special occasions, alongside a medical doctor and a special drug will be used to keep him fit for a small walking distance.

The source also disclosed that a number of the President Mugabe’s security details have undergone a special training to help them manage an extraordinary situation with regards to his mounting health problems.

President Mugabe’s health is taking a battering due to old age, family problems and a punishing schedule for a man of his advanced age and as a result swollen ankles, knees and all sorts of problems are mounting as the endgame looms.

A few weeks ago Mugabe collapsed into a pile in Uganda, Kampala during the Summit of African Union Heads of State and, in China, a week after; he had to be way led by Chinese security agents from the podium after addressing delegates at the Chinese at the Shanghai World Expo.

His sister Sabina died a few weeks ago and another Bridgette is in the intensive care in a Harare hospital.

Over the years, for a man of his advanced age President Robert Mugabe has looked remarkably active and ostensibly fit.

Closer inspection, however, reveals that while he is actively making it business as usual for continued stay in power, advanced age appears to have finally caught up with him. Like the rest of the body, the brain deteriorates with age.

At 86 and with 30 years as head of state behind him, Mugabe remains surprisingly in control of his mental faculty, at least during those occasions that he appears on television and on International Summits.

But of late pictures of Mugabe have appeared in the media that reveal a condition that would automatically rule him out as a serious contender for the presidency in a less authoritarian country.

In most countries, for instance, presidential candidates are required to pass what is tantamount to a rigorous public bill of health.

In the United States, such serious concerns were raised about the advanced age of the Republican presidential nominee John McCain that his campaign managers were forced to assure the nation that he was still fit not only to campaign but also to assume office as President of the United States of America. They handed over to the Associated Press 1 173 pages of medical documents spanning the period from 2000 to 2008.

Mugabe was a 12 year-old boy at Kutama School when McCain was born. Unlike his American counterparts, details of whose health make news headlines, the state of Mugabe’s health has been elevated to the status of a state secret closely guarded by him and those who surround him.

A research into the subject of the swelling of feet reveals that “systemic diseases and conditions are associated with foot and ankle swelling and are characterized by fluid retention or, less commonly, by an increase in thickness of the skin. Diseases of the joints, such as arthritis, can also affect the joints of the ankle and foot, leading to swelling of the involved areas.”

Swelling of the extremities can be an indication of underlying chronic conditions, starting from the less frightening such as deep venous thrombosis (better known as blood clots) to the more severe and life-threatening conditions such as congestive heart failure. A reported recent visit to China by Mugabe can only lead to speculation as to where in this spectrum his health currently lies.

The abnormal build up of fluid in the ankles, feet, and legs is called peripheral edema, or swelling of the lower extremities. This condition can be painless or painful.

Apparently the painless swelling of the feet and ankles is a common problem, particularly in older people. The condition may affect both legs and may include the calves or even the thighs. Because of the effect of gravity, swelling is particularly noticeable in these locations.

The following are listed as other common causes of foot, leg, and ankle swelling: prolonged standing, long airplane flights or motorcar rides, overweight and increased age. Among women menstrual periods and pregnancy may also cause swelling. Zimbabweans have nick-named their President Vasco da Gama because of his knack for excessive travel, which has taken him to every corner of the world. The imposition of travel sanctions on Mugabe and his colleagues has done nothing to reduce his penchant for travel to distant lands, mostly in the Far East of late.

He has just returned to Harare from a visit China and shopping trip to China where he was reported to have undergone a medical at a private clinic.

Surprisingly, starvation or malnutrition may also cause the swelling of feet, medical experts say. It is not conceivable that a Head of State would develop peripheral edema because of starvation while resident in State House, unless there were issues of entirely inappropriate dietary guidelines.

The experts say that swollen legs may, in fact, be a sign of heart failure, kidney failure, or liver failure. In these conditions, there is too much fluid in the body.

Heart failure is a life-threatening condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the rest of the body. Hypertension or high blood pressure is one of the most common causes of heart failure, a disease which is almost always chronic and becomes more common with advancing age. People, who are overweight, have diabetes, smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or use cocaine are at increased risk for developing heart failure.

Among the most common symptoms of heart failure are weight gain, swelling of feet and ankles and decreased alertness of concentration.

Apart from swollen feet and ankles Mugabe now appears to have another health issue. His voluble but not particularly commonsensical Information Minister, unwittingly let the cat out of the bag about the President’s failing vision. He said Mugabe’s sight had deteriorated so much that he could no longer read the newspapers.

Apparently Mugabe had complained that his effort to keep himself informed about events in Zimbabwe through reading the state-controlled Herald was frustrated by the small size of the print.

Describing the newspaper’s font as “the size of ants”, Mugabe, unbelievably, appealed to the minister to advise the editors of the state newspapers to increase the font size for his benefit. Always eager to please, the minister apparently promptly summoned the editors and duly delivered the President’s message.

“We could not believe it when the minister said the President had told him to ask us to increase the size of the font,” said one of the editors. “We all looked at each other amazed at what he had just said. We could not hold ourselves and openly giggled about it.”

But the minister was not to be easily deterred.

“The President clearly said he could not read stories in The Herald. Once when he wanted to read a story on page two about MDC and ZANU PF he failed. He called me and said ‘what is this?”

The editors respectfully held their ground, pointing out to the Minister that there was nothing they could do about the font size, as it was a worldwide standard and could not be changed.

Notwithstanding his advanced age and deteriorating heath Mugabe appears determined, not only do battle with, Morgan Tsvangirai, but to defeat him and manage Zimbabwe’s affairs of State for more years.

At 57, Tsvangirai is almost four decades younger than his rival.

Meanwhile, an unconfirmed　report published on an online publication says that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is actively considering successors after his doctor told him he is losing the battle against cancer.

The African Aristocrat reported that his urologist Awang Kechick visited him in Zimbabwe and told him that his condition is advancing faster than any treatment could delay it.

The report says that Mugabe has been struggling with undisclosed health issues for a long while, although he has returned to public life looking healthy. However, his health has deteriorated dramatically in the last months, with some images showing him unable to walk without help during a recent trip to Uganda.

Mugabe’s condition is allegedly so volatile that his physicians don’t leave his side, and the State House has been equipped with state-of-the-art resuscitation facilities.

There are also assertions that ZANU PF officials　’are aware’ of Mugabe’s ill health, and the succession issue has been high on the list of topics recently.

According to the article, Mugabe seems to have surprised everyone by dumping presidential hopefuls and selecting Simba Makoni.

Makoni left the ZANU PF to start his own party, and he seems to have support from both the ZANU PF and its opposition the MDC, as well as the media.

If Mugabe wins the elections in 2011 and institutes Makoni as president, Makoni will most certainly make an impression with the public, while, with Zimbabwe’s economic growth due to increase over the coming five years, he will also take credit for these developments.

This might be bad news for the MDC though, as four years is enough to rebrand the current ruling party.

Once a breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s food shortages have been brought on by drought and Mr Mugabe’s crippling land-reform programme.

Speculation regularly surfaces over the health of the aging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who has been in power since independence in 1980.

(Source)

A veld fire has reduced the reconstructed Old Bulawayo capital of King Lobengula to ashes, says Prince Zwide KaLanga Khumalo, a direct descendant of the Ndebele royal family.

The fire, which started late Monday night and blazed until the early hours of Tuesday, destroyed the reconstructed palace of Lobengula, eight beehive huts, an old wagon shed, a house built for Lobengula by missionaries and another built by the Khumalo clan for traditional rituals.

Khumalo said a site where President Robert Mugabe laid a stone in 1993 to commission the reconstruction of the ancient capital was also reduced to ashes.

King Lobengula’s capital was last set ablaze in 1893 when his rule was threatened by advancing missionaries and armed British colonizers. The king then settled at a site in the present-day Sauerstown suburb, north of Bulawayo and current site of the State House, the president’s second home.

Restoration of the capital was mooted in 1993 and Zulu experts from South Africa helped restore the buildings at a cost of millions of dollars.

Khumalo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube he blamed the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe for failing to protect the site. The museums department issued no comment.

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The United Nations has appointed Alain Noudehou as new UN resident coordinator and resident representative for UNDP in Zimbabwe, replacing the long-serving resident representative Agostinho Zacarias who left in 2009, APA learns here Monday.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said Noudehou takes over as the world body’s humanitarian coordinator with immediate effect following the departure of Zacarias at the end of last year.

Since Zacarias’ departure, Elizabeth Lwanga has served as interim resident representative.

Before coming to Zimbabwe, Noudehou served as UNDP resident representative in Tanzania between 2007 and last month.

He previously served as deputy resident representative in Rwanda from 2004 to early 2007.

He started his UNDP career in Gabon as head of the UN’s Leadership Development Programme between 2002 and 2004.

Prior to his career with UNDP, Noudehou worked for US-based Community Habitat Finance (CHF) International Inc., an international development service provider.

He rose through the ranks from programme officer in 1995 to country director for CHF in South Africa between 1996 and 2000.

(Source)