Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko is in the news again: VOA News report on an act of censorship by the inclusive government banning some of his art:

A special government order was issued in Harare late Friday banning art works by Owen Maseko, briefly seen by the public last march in the main art gallery in Bulawayo.

The artworks, some of them huge murals, concentrated on political violence in the two Matabeleland provinces in the 1980′s aimed at the opposition of that time, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union led by the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo.

President Robert Mugabe sent a brigade of North Korean-trained soldiers into rural areas in the two Matabeleland provinces.  Few outside those areas knew about this terror campaign, South African and British journalists exposed the atrocities in 1983.

[...]

The government order banning the paintings came from the Home Affairs Ministry under the Censorship and Entertainment Control Act.  The ministry is jointly controlled in the 18-month-old unity government by ministers loyal to Mr. Mugabe and to Movement for Democratic Change leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. (more…)

Signing the Unity Accord

Owen Maseko art works depicted in this post have been banned in Zimbabwe. Please see this post here for further information. More images available via our gallery on Flickr. Please also visit this gallery on the Solidarity Peace Trust website which also hosts photos of Owen’s art.

Tears of old ladies

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Mugabe's 'liberating' fist

Facebook is great for observation. A short while ago I eavesdropped on a rather heated facebook debate that one of my friends (let’s call her Priscilla) was having with a dyed-in-the-wool Mugabe supporter (we’ll call him Albert). What struck me was that rather than engage with any of the charges of human rights abuse or economic ineptitude that Priscilla laid at the feet of ZANU-PF, Albert simply insisted rigidly that Mugabe was fighting for emancipation of all Africans. What’s more, Priscilla’s critiques only demonstrated her indoctrination via “eurocentric, colonial propaganda”. At one point he referred to her “white-girl mentality”. Impervious to any of the evidence that Priscilla cited, Albert blindly maintained his stance and finally rounded off his remarks with the rather chilling insistence that “it’s great being a black man in Zimbabwe cos we call the shots”.

Priscilla then pointed out that Albert has been living in America for the past 6 years. (more…)

Reminder: Please send a blank email to survey@sokwanele.com to receive an auto-respond reply with information on how you can participate in Sokwanele’s constitution survey. Alternatively, complete the survey online at www.sokwanele.com/zimbabweconstitution/survey. The following are media extracts relating to the constitution outreach process, appearing between 13 August – 19 August.  To review previous news items, or follow updates daily, please visit the Constitution Resource page on the Sokwanele website. Please note that links to sources and full articles are also available on the resource page. These extracts are being emailed to our subscribers today – click here to sign up for our newsletter.

13 August 2010 – cont

SMS news message throws Manicaland CIO into panic

Members of the Central Intelligence Organization who were terrorizing villagers in Manicaland Province have removed registration numbers from their cars, after an SW Radio Africa SMS news alert on the 6th August. The SMS exposed the names of officers involved in the violence and gave the registration numbers of the cars used. The alert exposed the use of a white Nissan double cab ABM0196 used by a CIO officer identified as Shingi, ABM0155 used by the Officer in Charge of Chipinge CID known as Chizemo and another similar truck ABM0203, used by a CIO known as Matake. On Friday Makoni South legislator Pishai Muchauraya told Newsreel; ‘After that exposure by SW Radio Africa the CIO’s involved in that violence removed the number plates of the cars operating in Chipinge. They also confronted some of our members, including some drivers, asking us why we are putting them on the internet including their registrations numbers and names.’ The identified CIO officers were moving from village to village ahead of constitutional outreach meetings and terrorizing known MDC supporters. The campaign is part of moves by ZANU PF to silence any opposition to a draft constitution supported by Mugabe’s regime. The CIO’s named were particularly active in the Chipinge, Chipinge South and Musikavanhu constituencies [Via SW Radio Africa]. (more…)

The 30th general summit of SADC has just been concluded in Windhoek, Namibia. That meeting was important in defining key milestones and signposts to the end-game of the Global Political Agreement.

It will be recalled that pursuant to the Maputo troika meeting of 5 November 2009, the negotiators of the political parties were asked to deal with 27 agenda items of dispute, a task they concluded on the 3rd of April 2010. Following this, the principals debated the negotiators’ report on 8 June 2010, and forwarded a report to the SADC facilitator, President Zuma, on 10 June 2010.

Of note is that of the 27 dispute issues, the principals agreed on 24 leaving outstanding the deadlocked issues of:
(a)    The swearing of Roy Bennett
(b)    The appointment of the Attorney-general, Johannes Tomana
(c)    The appointment of the RBZ governor, Gideon Gono. (more…)

News today is that the SADC Tribunal has been suspended, delaying a decision on Zimbabwe land reform. This via VOA News:

Southern African leaders have put off confronting Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe for his refusal to abide by a regional court’s ruling that rejected controversial land reforms in favor of a group of white farmers.

The tribunal of the Southern African Development Community wrapped up a two-day summit in Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, Tuesday.  It gave itself six months to review the stand-off, effectively delaying any decision until the next summit in 2011.

The SADC tribunal ruled in 2008 that 78 white Zimbabwean farmers could keep their land, saying they were unfairly targeted because of their race.  Mr. Mugabe has refused to respect the ruling even though Harare signed the treaty that created the court, which has no power to enforce its decrees except through summit decisions.

More than 4,000 white-owned commercial farms have been seized by supporters of President Mugabe since 2000.  The seizures were part of a politically charged land reform program that was supposed to re-allocate the farms to landless blacks.

The president said the program was aimed at correcting colonial-era injustices.  However, critics say much of the land was given to ruling party supporters with little farming experience, and that the new farmers were not given the equipment, seeds or fertilizer to keep the farms productive.

Patrick Chinamasa’s views on this have been given extensive coverage via The Herald today (state-controlled media):

Speaking to local journalists after the issue was tabled in the summit yesterday, Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the region should accept the fact that a treaty does not come into operation unless ratified. (more…)

These are media extracts relating to the constitution outreach process, appearing between 4 August – 13 August.  To review previous news items, or follow updates daily, please visit the Constitution Resource page on the Sokwanele website. Please note that links to sources and full articles are also available on the resource page. These extracts are being emailed to our subscribers today – click here to sign up for our newsletter. Reminder: Please send a blank email to survey@sokwanele.com to receive an auto-respond reply with information on how you can participate in Sokwanele’s constitution survey. Alternatively, complete the survey online at www.sokwanele.com/zimbabweconstitution/survey

4 August 2010 – cont

ZBC rejects adverts

The Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee (Copac) has failed to flight advertisements on national radio and television because the national broadcaster is demanding payment at commercial advertising rates. Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs minister Eric Matinenga complained that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)refused to air Copac jingles at subsidised rates, or at similar rates to those paid for other government programmes. Matinenga said constitution-making was a national programme and as such, ZBC was obliged to support it by assisting the awareness programmes. [...] The state broadcaster plays frequent and lengthy pro-Zanu PF jingles on both radio and television and has said the advertisements are a national programme although other parties in the inclusive government charge the jingles are clearly partisan [Via NewsDay]

Artists draft charter for new Constitution

IN an effort to develop a common position among artists on what they could contribute to the making of a new constitution of Zimbabwe, a group of committed artists have written what they have called Artists’ Charter for Zimbabwe. [...] The Artists’ Charter for Zimbabwe is an 11-point document that begins with a preamble where the artists acknowledge “commitment to inclusiveness and diversity in the 2010 process of consultation that will produce a people driven constitution for Zimbabwe”. It is expected that artists attending Copac’s outreach meetings will articulate any of the 11 points they think should be incorporated in the new constitution. The first area of concern in the Artists’ Charter is freedom of artistic creativity. [Via The Herald - state-controlled media].

ZANU PF using soldiers, chiefs and militia to attack MDC

“Reports of assaults, displacements, arrests and harassments are being received daily from around the country. Many observers are questioning whether the MDC formations should continue being part of this constitutional exercise and also of the so-called inclusive government, when they clearly have no power. Reports on the ground confirm that many people are now too afraid to contribute freely at the outreach meetings”. SW Radio Africa go on to list violent incidents reported from Zvimba West, Headlands, Hurungwe, Uzumba and Guruve South [Via SW Radio Africa]. (more…)

Reminder: Please send a blank email to survey@sokwanele.com to receive an auto-respond reply with information on how you can participate in Sokwanele’s constitution survey. Alternatively, complete the survey online at www.sokwanele.com/zimbabweconstitution/survey

There has been little change on the Zimbabwean political landscape since our last Zimbabwe Inclusive Government Watch mailing. Certainly, the twenty one-month old Zimbabwean Global Political Agreement (GPA)  produced little tangible progress through the month of June.

To find the root cause of this shameful display of negative governance, one needs to analyse the situation. Seventy news articles from the internet media were captured and catalogued during the moneht of June. Each article is a unique record of a breach of the terms of the GPA. Categorising these articles according to the nature of breach, allows basic statistics to be drawn from them. (more…)