702 Talk Radio are doing a ‘Zimbabwe Special’ (12 May, 6am – 9am)
Update: We have just learned that there was a technical fault today, and that this will happen tomorrow instead, at the same time. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
702 Talk Radio (South Africa) are doing a two hour special on Zimbabwe on Monday 12th May 6am to 9am.
Zimbabweans who have DSTV can tune in on DSTV audio.
Talk Radio 702 is available on both 106 FM and 92.7 FM and on the Internet at this link.
Please spread the word and ask as many people as possible (especially Zimbabweans) to phone in and contribute. It would be best to go by the phone numbers announced on air, but if you have any problems, try these:
- 702 Studio Phone +27 011 883 0702
- Main Switchboard +27 011 506 3702
- 702 Comment Line +27 011 506 3588
- Comment & Traffic SMS line 31702
We are assumning this wil be presented by the morning show host John Robbie. His email address is Rjohnr@702.co.za.
May 12th, 2008 09:45
Mbeki ‘ignored judges’ on Zim’s 2002 poll
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=338945&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
[Extract]
President Thabo Mbeki’s role as a mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis took another knock after disclosures that he ignored the advice of two judges he commissioned to observe that country’s 2002 general elections, Business Day reported on Monday.
Mbeki commissioned judges Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke to observe the controversial Zimbabwean election in 2002 — which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) still claims was rigged.
On their return, the judges wrote a scathing report on the conduct of the election and submitted it to Mbeki.
This was despite the ruling African National Congress, the government and the Southern African Development Community giving a thumbs up, saying the election result “represented the will of the Zimbabwean people”.
Their report detailed the constitutional changes made by President Robert Mugabe before the presidential election to give him sweeping powers to amend electoral laws. It also said the failure of that country’s legal system to permit a valid challenge to the results undermined these efforts.
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SA delegation sent to Zimbabwe
http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,2172,169290,00.html
May 12, 2008, 05:00
‘South Africa has sent a delegation to Zimbabwe to ensure that peace prevails in the run-up to the poll. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has disclosed this at the end of the fifth Ministerial Commission between India, Brazil and South Africa, known as IBSA.’
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More Mbeki-Mugabe handholding
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=89498&sn=Detail
A couple of days later Mbeki gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he said that the Mugabe regime (or rather, the “people of Zimbabwe”) needed to be given “space”. He added that there was no need for the United Nations to observe the run-off of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll. The foreign observers handpicked by the Mugabe regime to monitor the first round, he said, were perfectly capable of performing this function a second time around. He implied that anyone who thought differently was a racist.
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Zimbabwe may bar some observers from run-off…
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jxJ1sHBEi3Fr6Q0boj1VB6gGLOkQ
“We will not allow them (Western countries) because they are players,” the state-run quoted Chinamasa as saying.
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May 12th, 2008 14:25
Does anybody else see what I am seeing? Play see saw with the MDC until they give up on the run-off and hand victory to Mugabe on a silver platter as they say. I am stumped at the audacity of a “government” which no one elected to tell the whole world to go and hang while they burn their backyard. I am equally amazed that Chinamasa should tell the world the playing field is uneven due to MDC induced sanctions: Did the West instruct Mugabe to award war vets unbudgeted payments in 1997? Did the West hanker over foreign intervention plans and clear Mugabe to participate in the DRC adventure?
Did the West tell Mugabe to send in his goons to destroy the country’s lifeblood in 2000? And has the West since participated in Mugabe’s hara kiri of systematically destroying his own power-base by stealing elections and brutalising his people? Who in short, is responsible for Zimbabwe’s demise as a country? Chinamasa should get things straight; the MDC is a product of a people tired of ZANU’s perfidy not the West which as we all know was not there when Mugabe was doing all of the above wrong things .
That Mugabe has failed to publicly denounced the current violent wave must remind all right thinking Zimbabweans that this regime will not be removed by through the ballot box alone.
That Mugabe must now set preposterous election conditions and reject international help to save this wretched country must remind us all we are up against an unreconstructed reprobate. Mugabe will yet show us what he really stands for , mark my words- unless the MDC looks elsewhere other than the ballot box- no salvation lies elsewhere my friends.