Links ~ 29 July 2008
Mbeki: Zimbabwe power-sharing talks ‘going well’ (AP)
South African President Thabo Mbeki insisted that talks between the political parties of Zimbabwe are going well, despite reports of disagreements. “The negotiators are negotiating. They are continuing to meet. … They are doing very well,” said Mbeki on Tuesday.
Sources said however that talks had reached an impasse on Monday. Reportedly, the MDC negotiators were unhappy with Zanu-PF’s insistence that Robert Mugabe remain the president of Zimbabwe, with full executive powers, and that Morgan Tsvangirai leader of the MDC should take the position of third vice-president.
Mbeki said that the teams had needed time to consult with their respective parties before continuing talks. “They have not concluded; they will be adjourning shortly for a few days because they want to do back to Harare to go and consult with their principles about the work that is being done and then come back by the end of the week to resume the negotiations,” he said. “But they are proceeding.”
Zimbabwe negotiators fly home as crisis talks break up (AFP)
Negotiators flew home on Tuesday to resolve a deadlock over power sharing between Mugabe and the MDC.
George Sibotshiwe spokesperson for the MDC said, “We cannot discuss the main issues, we can only say that they are in a deadlock and that the parties will consult with their principals,” he said. “If the sticking points are resolved then the talks will resume.”
South African President Thabo Mbeki insisted at a news conference on Tuesday that talks were “going very well”. “In the memorandum of understanding they said they will try to conclude negotiations within two weeks … ,” said Mbeki.
“They are indeed very determined to keep to that commitment and so they are continuing to talk among themselves and indeed to reach agreements about various matters that are on their agenda.”
Some 16,000 Incidents Of Political Violence In Zimbabwe Through June (ZPP)
January – June 2008 - 16 400 documented incidents of politically motivated violence.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said during the first six months of this year (January to June 2008) there has been at least 16 400 incidents of politically motivated violence. ZPP said that it might have missed some incidents during times when its monitors were also displaced due to violence.
The ZPP cumulative report shows that there has been an “exponential increase in human rights violations”. During the month of May, there have been 6288 documented incidents and in June, 77 murders were reported from across the country. ZPP national director Jestina Mukoko said that many incidents during June might have gone unrecorded as monitors were forced to flee the most violent areas.
The ZPP report raises the question if there has indeed been a significant decline in political violence during June, or not.
Zimbabwe enduring worst political violence: NGO (SABCnews)
The Solidarity Peace Trust (SPT) said in a report that the country is experiencing its worst political violence since the 1980s. The SPT has recorded more than 100 politically motivated killings in the past few months and said that violence has continued unabated despite talks between the political parties.
Professor Brian Raftopoulos of SPT said, “What we saw is that the Zimbabweans were subjected to the worst violence by the state and the ruling party. It was the worst electoral violence we have seen in the country.”
Zimbabwe’s information ministry said that the SPT’s findings are ‘baseless’ and insisted that Zimbabweans have not been exposed to state-sponsored violence.
The violence continues (The Zimbabwean)
Photographic evidence of the wounds inflicted by means of torture on a man from Mudzi North. [Please follow the above link to view photo]
J.M. [full name withheld] was severely beaten by Zanu-PF militia on July 20. The militia tied his hands with wire and took him to the Chimkoko base at Tugamira and Chipangwa. J.M. was beaten on the buttocks and his left arm was fractured. He was released two days later and managed to crawl to the road where a passer-by had found him and took him to hospital.
War Vets Kill Policeman (RadioVOP)
King Muteta, a police officer of Mudzi North, has died from injuries sustained after being severely assaulted by Zanu-PF militia and war veterans. 12 war veterans assaulted Muteta on July 17 when visited his home to check on the welfare of his parents. The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said in a statement that Muteta’s assailants were led by two war veterans only identified as Kangora and Gafa. Zanu-PF MP Newten Kachepa and Zanu-PF councillor Peter Nyakuba sponsored the war veterans.
War veterans assaulted Muteta’s parents on a previous occasion, ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff election.
NGO Activist released on Bail (The Zimbabwean)
Peter Muchengeti regional chairperson of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) has been released on bail after being detained by the police since last Friday. Muchengeti is being charged for being in possession of documents prejudicial to the state and for spreading falsehoods about incidents of political violence. Muchengeti had documents that detailed incidents of political violence, with photographs of the victims and the names of their assailants.
Muchengeti said that he was interrogated naked and suspended upside down during interrogations. He has identified one of the interrogators as Lt Col. Kahuni, an army officer.
Foreign briefing: Zimbabwe correspondent Jane Fields (The Scotsman)
‘How do you survive in a country where there’s very little food and almost no cash to buy it with? The answer: you have to find secret sources and other ways of paying…’
Jane Fields shares gives readers a glimpse into what it is like to ‘shop’ for basic commodities in Zimbabwe.
Service Delivery Crumbles In Harare (The Zimbabwe Standard)
The economic meltdown in Zimbabwe is affecting the provision of basic services in Harare. Residents in the city have had to adapt to leading an almost rural lifestyle. It is estimated that the population of the city numbers more than three million people. In many parts of the city residents have neither running water nor electricity. The general health standards in Harare have been dangerously compromised.
Labour court nullifies suspension of ZBC journalists (CAJ News)
The Labour Court in Harare has overturned the suspension of seven Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) journalists. The journalists were accused of failing to promote the cause of Zanu-PF ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff election. Labour Court judge Justice Gladys Mhuri, who sat with Justice Eauna Makamure, has ruled that the suspensions were illegal and ordered that the journalists must by reinstated.
The journalists are: Patrice Makova (news editor, Television Services), Steven Ndoma (deputy editor-in-chief) and reporters, Robert Tapfumaneyi, Brian Paradza, Monica Gavhera, Lawrence Maphosa and Sibonginkosi Mlilo.
Zimbabwe’s mining fair a major flop (AZJ)
MineEntra, the biggest mining fair in Zimbabwe, has been a complete flop with only one foreign company and some small mining concerns and parastatals participating in the event. The fair is organised by the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Company (ZITF). Daniel Chigaru general manager of ZITF admitted that the show was a disaster. Chigaru blamed the hostile economic conditions for the lack of interest in participation.
July 30th, 2008 11:58
This extract from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 July, says it all…
(begin quote)
by Petina Gappa
…Tsvangirai was warning the world about genocide in Zimbabwe. Barely a month later he is sitting down to talk with the genocidaire-in-chief. Such is the fluid world of high politics. Like Kenya before it, Zimbabwe is to be another example of a new model of African elections. Losing an election, it seems, does not actually mean you have to give up the seat of office. The example of Zimbabwe should be particularly encouraging to Eduardo Dos Santos in Angola and Paul Biya in Cameroon, two incumbent leaders whose countries are next on the elections radar. This is the lesson of Zimbabwe: if you are the incumbent and it looks like you are on your way out, for God’s sake do not panic, just hang in there; beat the living daylights out of some of your people, just because you can, and the poorer they are the better; imprison those who would dare to oppose you, torture them, and if they are women, throw in a little spot of rape; kill them in horrible ways and burn their bodies and dump them in shallow graves, or no graves, as you please; in a word, intimidate your way back to power and, bingo, the African Union will very nicely ask you to accommodate your opponents in a government of national unity.
“The people of Zimbabwe have suffered long enough,” is the mantra that is being used to push forward these talks. And indeed, the suffering is beyond levels that anyone with compassion can accept. Everyone knows the figures; the hyperinflation, the unemployment rate and now, yet again, the spectre of creeping starvation — the United Nations reports that up to five million people face starvation. But how far should this mantra be carried? Have the people suffered so much that non-bread and butter issues to do with the dismantling of oppressive institutions, accountability, justice and reparations must be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency? There is no doubt that, even if the MDC pushed for these issues to be at the forefront of the negotiations, Zanu PF would not welcome any demands for justice, for truth and reconciliation, even at the very basic level of a public airing of the atrocities. An insistence on this point may well mean the end of any talks, any negotiation, any accommodation. And is it to be expected that Zanu PF will approve the demilitarisation of state institutions and thus dismantle the very system that has ensured its survival? The result of this negotiation, when it comes, may well be a political compromise of the kind that Zimbabwe saw in the 1980s when Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu merged with Mugabe’s Zanu PF after a violent campaign of intimidation. That process of negotiation left unaddressed the violent suppression of Nkomo’s supporters. The politicians got their Mercs and perks. And to this day the people of Matebeleland have reason to remain bitter that nothing was ever done to address their pain.
It is in this regard that the most disturbing element of these talks is that, as with the Zanu-Zapu talks, and the Lancaster House talks before them, they are yet again the exclusive preserve of politicians. If there is something Zimbabweans should have learned by now, it is that the fate of the country should not be entrusted to politicians. This is a political crisis, the thinking goes, and a crisis for politicians to address. When the MDC wanted the mediation expanded, it talked only of adding another mediator to watch over Mbeki, who has given the world reason to believe that he is Mugabe’s most able and hard-working ambassador. The real expansion in the mediation should have been the inclusion of civil society, because the people who truly need watching over are not the mediators but the politicians. The exclusion of civil society means that matters of justice, however broadly defined, may never be addressed. Nor will the many economic crimes of this brutish regime.
And there is another dimension: not only redressing the evils of the past, but also laying a foundation for the future: one of the items on the agenda of the talks is a new Constitution. Certainly, this mediation presents an opportunity to jettison the Lancaster House agreement that was progressively amended to concentrate power in the hands of the executive, thus giving Zimbabwe the horrors of 28 years of Mugabe. The negotiators should agree to a new Constitution but not, as they have attempted to do in the past, come up with a draft themselves. To leave the process of Constitution-making to two political parties would be quite wrong. The absence of civil society from the talks inevitably means that Zimbabweans, like Kenyans, will be held hostage to a political compromise. And because the people have suffered enough, they will have no choice but to accept what the politicians decide and try to rebuild their lives anew on a foundation of compromise and cheated dreams.
If the MDC sings the praises of this new deal in dulcet enough tones and Zanu PF accompanies with soothing sounds about healings and new visions and unity of purpose, the money for a rescue package will start to flow. Inflation will go down. The politicians will serve their terms and campaign for new terms. They will make grand speeches at the opening of Parliament and schools. They will pose for photographs with visiting dignitaries. Zimbabweans will joke and laugh about the time inflation was 2 000 000% and they paid their bills in billions and trillions and the budget was set in quadrillions. Joshua Bakacheza and Abigail Chiroto will fade out of memory; they will certainly not appear in any history books - neither they nor the many victims whose beaten buttocks and burnt bodies served to stoke the flames and keep the story of Zimbabwe in the limelight. Having served their purpose, they will leave the limelight, appearing only in the memories of the people who loved them and in the occasional search on the internet, where nothing is deleted. And Zimbabwe will go on to a future rooted in grief and pain, where the accumulated resentments of the past will be daily reminders of the dangers of political compromise.
(end quote)
July 30th, 2008 13:09
Thanks Graham, for this quote
African solutions to African problems indeed!!
The people are not important in this instance. The talks are shrouded in secrecy. We can not truly tell what is going on but to speculate. Mugabe has an upper hand and I bet you mbaki calls him president.
The executive presidency has given mugabe monarchic powers which lead to him being addressed as ‘mambo’
They use the same expression for colonels and upper ranks in the zimbabwean army. With him being the army’s supremo can you imagine what he’s called. Possibly God!!
Why the parties should tinker with the constitution leaves me to wonder. The law should be interpreted and designed by genuine neutral lawyers for their people transparently. Not by sycophants like chinamasa. Politicians should be accountable to the law.
We need a tripartite system which can have an orgre like mugabe arrested and answerable for his actions and crimes.
What we have at the moment is a leadership akin to the Rozvi empire, which was better then than mugabe’s circus because there was no china then.
So you see, Mbeki thinks everything at the talks is going smoothly. Remember his previous ‘there is no crisis in zimbabwe’ when people were being beaten, hacked, burnt and raped.
He believes in having a similar system himself in SA, the problem is that the people there are not like us. They were not manipulated tribally and materially. And Mandela was/is keeping a close watch.