Links ~ 29 October 2008

‘Tsvangirai won’t attend summit without passport’ ~ ZimOnline
Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC party said on Tuesday its leader Morgan Tsvangirai will not attend an extraordinary summit of the regional SADC grouping that will discuss the country’s stalled power-sharing deal if he is not issued a passport. [...] “We will not travel on an emergency document. It’s an insult,” said Biti, adding that the matter of Tsvangirai’s passport was now a “political issue” and not just a simple case of whether the MDC leader was given the travel document.

MDC contradicts SADC on deadlock ~ The Zimbabwe Times
The mainstream MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai has vehemently denied claims that the current dispute between the party and Zanu-PF has narrowed to only a single ministry. The MDC says the parties are in fact yet to agree on all the 31 ministries proposed in the new power sharing arrangement. This, it says, is among six outstanding issues still to be concluded before the new government can successfully be constituted. “There is an attempt to ignore or overlook these fundamental principles and hence the claim in some circles that only the portfolio of the Ministry of Home Affairs is outstanding,” MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti told reporters at a media briefing in Harare Tuesday afternoon. “Nothing can be further from the truth. The entire gamut of ministries is still open.”

WOZA women denied bail, as peaceful protestors released in Harare ~ Amnesty International
The leaders of the activist organisation Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, were denied bail on Monday following their arrest on 16 October 2008. They are being held at Mlondolozi Prison in the city of Bulawayo, where conditions are said to fall well below international standards. The decision came as at least 40 women were arbitrarily arrested during a peaceful protest in Harare. The women, many of whom were in their 60s, were released from police custody at about 9pm last night by the Zimbabwe Police.

Protester beaten to death inside ZANU PF office ~ SWRA
A protester from Monday’s demonstration is alleged to have been beaten to death at ZANU PF’s offices in Fourth Street, Harare. Newsreel has been told that Osborne Kachuru from Mbare was abducted immediately after the demo by unidentified men, and bundled into a twin cab truck belonging to ZANU PF. A few minutes later 3 other people were abducted by youths using a Nissan single cab truck, believed to be owned by Zanu PF political commissar Eliot Manyika. Manyika was allegedly driving the car and instructing the youths to beat up some of the protesters.

Thabo Mbeki ‘unable to extract concessions’ from Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe ~ The Telegraph
The latest round of power-sharing talks, at a regional security summit in Harare, broke up early on Tuesday morning with the parties still deadlocked over the allocation of ministries in a coalition government. “Mbeki will not stand up to Mugabe,” said a source very close to the negotiations. [...] He added that the new South African president Kgalema Motlanthe – who attended the talks and who Western diplomats had hoped might bring with him a change of approach – would “never go against Mbeki,” saying that both men were too distracted by political upheavals at home in South Africa to give the crisis in Zimbabwe their full attention.

Interview: Lessons from Zimbabwe ~ Democratic Voice of Burma
Zimbabwean opposition MP Trudy Stevenson said in an interview with DVB yesterday that Burmese and Zimbabwean activists could benefit from closer links in their struggles for democracy. Drawing on her experience as an opposition representative in Zimbabwe, Stevenson said that strategic planning and the flexibility to adapt to new circumstances were key factors in the struggle for democracy.

Bishop Bakare wins human rights award ~ ZimbabweJournalists.com
An Anglican bishop from Zimbabwe was Tuesday named winner of a Swedish human rights prize for ‘having given voice to the fight against oppression.’ Bishop Sebastian Bakare was also cited for his work to promote ‘freedom of speech and of opinion in a difficult political situation.’ He was due to accept the 2008 Per Anger prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on November 10, Johan Perwe of the government agency Living History Forum told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

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