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e premte, 29 qershor 2007

Africa Insight: This man, Mugabe





Story by GITAU MUTHUMA

Publication Date: 6/29/2007

LINK!!!!!

Having ruled for 27 years, it doesn’t look like Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe is in a hurry to quit even as his country falls into pieces.

Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has picked on him to run for yet another term. What stops him from retiring? A brief history of his “personal rule” is necessary in order to understand why he is staying put.

The predecessors of Zanu-PF were born in the context of mine and railway strikes in the late 1940s. The evolution of nationalism in southern Africa led to the establishment of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (SRANC); combining Salisbury’s City Youth League with Bulawayo’s emerging professionals who were however reluctant to lead the new party. Joshua Nkomo was therefore elected a compromise leader. Salisbury is the colonial name for Harare.

When the professionals finally joined the nationalist movement, it was hampered by government restrictions, inability to lobby effectively in the international arena, conflicts over compromises in London constitutional conferences and the extent to which the armed struggle should be enjoined.

As usual, generational and ethnic factors came into play and even the China-Russia divide even as both supported the struggle.

This mix contributed to a leadership crisis, leading to the formation in 1964 of the new Zimbabwe African National Union led by Ndabaningi Sithole, with Robert Mugabe as publicity, and later, national secretary. Nkomo remained head of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union—as the SRANC became known.

Aside from a paper-thin “Patriotic Front”, starting in late 1976 and ending in Mugabe’s command before the 1980 elections, “unity” between the two movements was never consummated until 1987.

Between 1964 and 1987, the tensions between the quest for unity and the efforts of leaders to consolidate their own power – using political and ideological resources ranging from ethnic identification to regional and superpower rivalry – ran through the ostensible unifying project of a “national liberation” war and its post-independence consolidation.

In 1974 Ian Smith, leader of the Rhodesian state, and the Zimbabwean nationalists were persuaded to hammer out a moderate compromise in a ‘détente’ (an understanding) led from Lusaka, Zambia.

This came after generational and ethnic conflicts in both Zapu and Zanu. To complicate matters further, a group of nationalists under Bishop Abel Muzorewa emerged in 1971 to contest a British initiative testing opinion on a new constitution.

The agreement among the parties led to the release of Zimbabwean leaders detained in Rhodesian prisons since 1965. Mugabe, one of those who had been detained had captured Zanu’s leadership in what appeared to be a coup in prison. That coup was never confirmed by a full party congress until 1984, four years after Mugabe’s party was in power.

The route to that authentication is the root of his need and ability to stay in power. Neither the front-line states nor Zanu rank and file accepted Mugabe’s rise easily—although ‘deposed’ Ndabaningi Sithole’s bad choices did nothing to slow the usurper.

The 1974-1979 period marking Mugabe’s rise up the Zanu hierarchy can be divided into five moments, all important markers of the difficulties he has in his letting go of power.

The first is the still unsolved March 1975 assassination of Herbert Chitepo, the party’s national chairman who had shepherded the struggle from its Lusaka base since 1966. Some quarters associate Mugabe circles with the murder.

Mugabe also eliminated a perceived challenge from a group of radical and unity oriented young Turks who formed the Zimbabwe People’s Army, taking over the armed struggle while Zanu leaders were imprisoned in Lusaka on the charge of murdering Chitepo and Mugabe was under house arrest in Mozambique. Known as the vashandi (Shona for workers), they established Marxist training schools and a new ‘line’ for unity.

Mugabe appropriated their militant Marxism but altered their plans for military unity with Zapu to a looser diplomatic and political front: thus the ‘Patriotic Front’.

While sidelining the young radicals, he patched together an alliance of exiled and internal Zanu actors and the army leaders which helped him deal with the vashandi challenge in January 1977 by sending its leaders to Mozambique’s prison camps.

By July of the same year, a special conference announced Mugabe and his ‘enlarged Central Committee’s’ ascendancy. Also within a year Mugabe and his cohorts sidelined a group of politicians who belatedly decided to champion the vashandi cause and deeper unity with Zapu.

The ‘Hamadziripi – Gumbo Group’ was accused of attempting a ‘coup’ in much the same way as the vashandi and they were also sent to Mozambican prison camps. Josiah Tongogara, the guerilla general who had joined Mugabe in ridding the party of the young ‘rebels’ but later started advocating unity with Zapu also died in a mysterious car accident.

‘Unity’ with Zapu happened only after the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade tore the heart out of the party by killing up to 35,000 Ndebele people and torturing many more, in the search for a few hundred dissidents thus justifying the terror.

After being expelled from Zanu for his vociferous condemnation of corruption within the corridors of power, Mugabe’s once trusted lieutenant Edgar Tekere started his own party, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement. This opened Zimbabwe to the idea that opposition parties could be based on other than ‘tribal’ motivation. Its credible urban showing in the 1990 election also showed that Mugabe’s politics held more rural than urban appeal.

With World Bank/IMF structural adjustment policies hitting workers at the same time as the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) was weaning itself from Zanu-PF’s influence, the stage was set for widespread opposition to the ruling party.

Strikes merged with war veterans’ dissatisfaction with a disability payment plan.

However, Mugabe stymied a potential worker-veteran alliance with his September 1997 accession to the war veteran’s demands, which included a 20 peer cent promise of the land to be expropriated in the land reform programme therefore finding a new ally to replace those he had lost.

With a parliamentary election due in early 2000, Mugabe chose to unleash the allied ‘war vets’ on over white-owned commercial farms. Productive and white commercial farmers decreased from 4,500 in 2000 to under 500 in 2004. Wheat production fell to 170, 000 tons from the former 300, 000 average, the commercial beef herd went down from 1.2 million to approximately 150 000, inflation has escalated to over 2000 per cent as of now, and unemployment is well over 80 per cent— all these threatening to lead to an economic meltdown.

With the formation of Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition party MDC in 1999, and its strong showing in urban areas, Mugambe might be there to stay, especially given that he could be called upon to answer for certain historical wrongs against Zimbabweans.








e martë, 26 qershor 2007

GALLANT W.O.Z.A. MEN AND WOMEN WRITE RSA PRESIDENT MBEKI!!!

Open Letter to President Thabo Mbeki
June 25, 2007
Posted by admin
No Responses
His Excellency Mr M W Makalima
The Ambassador
The South African Embassy
HARARE
Your Excellency,
Talking about TALKS – WOZA/MOZA's view – ten steps to a new Zimbabwe.
WOZA has been reading and hearing about 'the talks' and wish to express our views about these. We ask that you kindly relay this letter to President Thabo Mbeki.
Women and men of WOZA have initiated a non-violent campaign with the aim of mobilising Zimbabweans to demand social justice from their leaders. Our mandate is to hold leaders accountable and mobilise people to demand leaders who will deliver all aspects of social justice and a genuinely people-driven constitution. We will not vote in an election without the latter.
As we deliver this letter, Zimbabweans are living in a state of fear and uncertainty. They suffer discrimination in all its forms and are unable to earn a living. Levels of poverty are high; unemployment is at 82% and inflation at four figures. Non-existent service delivery also makes life difficult. Access to education, housing and other basic needs is now only for the rich.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has created thousands of orphans and child-headed households, is a social catastrophe compounded by a failed healthcare system and little or no access to ARVs. Further loss of valuable human resources is happening due to people leaving the country in large numbers. People have been unsuccessful at holding their government accountable due to a raft of repressive laws and shrinking freedom of expression/media space. Corruption at all levels of government and the politicisation of all aspects of society has led to chaos and disorganization in every sector.
We believe that only including politicians in the SADC initiative will perpetuate the problem rather than deliver a solution. We have an alternate view, which we drew up after consulting widely with our membership, and have attached it below – '10 Steps to a New Zimbabwe'.
We would like to know what mandate South Africa has from SADC? What do Presidents Mbeki and Kikwete wish to achieve by this mediation? We are hopeful that they wish to bring about a new government AND assist this new government to bring about meaningful political, economic and social reform. We wish to suggest that for the South African government to establish itself as a genuine mediator, it would need to secure the cooperation of the present Zimbabwean government. They must be persuaded to allow a transitional process to go ahead without interference; this will obviously mean that they have to step down from office.
WOZA leaders and members commit to working hand in hand with any political or civic leaders who will honour the wishes of the Zimbabwean people and deliver social justice. By our peaceful presence outside your embassy gates, we demonstrate to you that we will continue to exert nonviolent pressure for them to step down by exposing the injustices they have brought down on the heads of their citizens. Please help us to birth a new Zimbabwe where Zimbabweans can enjoy equality and live with dignity.
We also attach our vision document, a resolution made after an eleven-month, nationwide consultation process. During 2006, over 284 meetings, consulting almost 10,000 rural and urban people on social justice were conducted.
The people spoke clearly about what they want in a new Zimbabwe and their contributions are contained in the People's Charter attached below. We ask that you read it knowing that it contains the dreams and desires of a heartbroken nation.
With respect,
Members and supporters of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (MOZA)
 


 
 

Peace and Tranquility???
Peace and Tranquility???
 Cell in RSA: 0791463039
 


e hënë, 25 qershor 2007

ZANU-PF IN-FIGHTING OVER-SHADOWS TALKS!!

LINK!!!

Zanu-PF rift sidelines talks
Mail and Guardian reporter
24 June 2007 11:59
Zimbabwe's opposition leaders returned to their supporters eager to report some progress after their first direct talks with the ruling Zanu-PF recently, but found fresh evidence of widespread concern that infighting in the ruling party poses a threat to dialogue.

The first round of formal talks between Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which took place in South Africa, has been overshadowed by the story of how four travel agents, a suspected visa scammer and a 20-year-old serviceman allegedly planned a military coup to overthrow President Robert Mugabe.

The case grabbed headlines in the past week, but sceptics said the alleged plot is probably linked to deepening rivalries within Mugabe's party over his succession, which some also see as an obstacle to the mediation efforts.

Zanu-PF and the MDC have agreed not to make public comments on the talks, but a senior official said this week that "they were talks about the talks and they were held in a good spirit".

It had been hoped that the parties would agree on an agenda for more formal dialogue, including a historic meeting between Mugabe and opposition leaders. However, officials involved in the talks said there was no conclusive agreement on an agenda, with the Zanu-PF delegation of Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labour Minister Nicholas Goche asking for an adjournment to consult their party.

This came after a proposal had been made to return to the terms of an earlier negotiation process that was aborted in 2004. Then, South Africa and a representative of former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo had seen their push for formal talks collapse, but only after key sections of a draft for a new constitution had been agreed between the ruling party and the MDC.

At the latest talks, the opposition, and reportedly also South Africa, proposed a return to that draft as a possible basis for further talks. Zanu-PF is said to have declined immediately to back the proposal. A new round of talks is expected early in July.

Officials said South African mediators were anxious for the dialogue to be moved forward quickly so that significant progress would be made by the time SADC heads of state meet at a summit in Zambia in August.

President Thabo Mbeki has already pledged to report some progress to SADC by the end of June.

But the MDC fears that Zanu-PF, already unenthusiastic about dialogue, is increasingly distracted by continuing internal feuding, as played out in the courts this week.

Charles Warara, a lawyer representing the alleged coup plotters, said this week there had been more arrests and that his clients had been tortured in custody. The alleged mastermind of the coup, Albert Matapo, a travel agent who has previously been investigated in Britain on suspicion of running a fake documents scam, had his lawyer announce that he was a "victim of internal Zanu-PF politics".

Matapo said he had "never met [Emmerson] Mnangagwa, never spoken to him and had seen him only on TV". Mnangagwa, who has been implicated in the alleged plot, described the affair as "stupid".

Unlike the opposition, Zanu-PF has managed to avoid a complete split despite bitter rivalries between groups vying for power. But a report by the ruling party's own security department reveals the anxiety within Zanu-PF over the long-term impact of the factional fighting.

"The succession debate has worsened factional fighting, as the various camps champion the aspirations of some senior members of the party who aim to lead Zanu-PF in future. These aspirants have remained largely inactive, but continue to instigate counterproductive activities, which are motivated by their selfish and leadership ambitions," Zanu-PF's security branch said in a report to the party's central committee.

A report by South Africa's department of foreign affairs, recently discussed in Parliament, said "the ongoing infighting within Zanu-PF, if not contained, would pose challenges for mediation efforts … Energy within the party would be consumed in efforts to come out on top in the succession battle."


 
 

Peace and Tranquility???
Peace and Tranquility???
 Cell in RSA: 0791463039
 

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