text:
Fri 15
Aug 2008, 21:07 GMT
By Muchena Zigomo
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 16
(Reuters) - Zimbabwe's political rivals are expected to
resume power-sharing
talks on Saturday on the sidelines of a regional summit
in South Africa with
pressure mounting to find a way to end the country's
"There is one focus and it is that this matter must be resolved,"
African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said of Zimbabwe ahead
the Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting.
Africa's Thabo Mbeki, mandated to mediate an end to post-election
turmoil in
Zimbabwe, met participants in the talks on Friday. President
Robert Mugabe's
ZANU-PF said negotiations would continue at the two-day
summit of regional
Botswana's president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, meanwhile
announced he would
boycott the SADC summit to protest Mugabe's
Botswana has taken the toughest stand among Zimbabwe's
neighbours but all
fear the consequences if its political stalemate coupled
with economic
decline leads to total meltdown.
Millions of
Zimbabweans have already fled across the country's borders to
escape the
world's highest inflation rate of 2.2 million percent, widespread
unemployment, and chronic shortages of food and fuel.
Months of
political crisis in Zimbabwe reached a head with the June 27
run-off vote
which saw Mugabe win re-election. He was unopposed because
opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the contest over attacks
on his
The poll was condemned around the world and criticised by
regional election
observers. The 14-member SADC urged Zimbabwe's leaders to
forge an inclusive
Tsvangirai has said Zimbabwe's
post-election government should be based on a
March 29 first-round
presidential election -- which he won, but not by a
Three days of marathon discussions earlier this week between
Mugabe, main
Movement for Democratic Change leader Tsvangirai and breakaway
MDC faction
leader Arthur Mutambara ended after Tsvangirai refused to agree
to a
proposed power-sharing deal.
Mbeki has said he remains confident
a quick resolution is still possible,
raising hopes that an end to the
impasse can be found at the summit.
South African labour federation
COSATU -- a key ally of the country's ruling
African National Congress --
will lead a march to protest Mugabe's
participation at the summit. (writing
by Gordon Bell, editing by Mary
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: August 15,
JOHANNESBURG: When President Robert Mugabe of
Zimbabwe attends a summit
meeting here over the weekend he will face
protests and pressure to
surrender at least some of his
Botswana said its president, Seretse Ian Khama, will not attend
the southern
African summit because Mugabe will be there, and
once-supportive South
Africans are to hold an anti-Mugabe march when the
leaders meet.
The meeting of the Southern African Development Community
was to focus on
efforts to fight poverty through regional development
through cross-border
cooperation - the two-day meeting is to close Sunday
with the announcement
of a free trade agreement. But such economic good news
was overshadowed by
political trouble in Zimbabwe that was creating tension
within the 14-member
bloc, known as SADC.
The Zimbabwean opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai met with key southern
African leaders in
Johannesburg on the eve of the meeting.
One of his aides, George
Sibotshiwe, said Tsvangirai was briefing them on
efforts to form a
transitional unity government that are being mediated by
President Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa, who takes over SADC's rotating chair
at the
Mugabe's party says the talks, on hold since Tsvangirai
walked out Tuesday,
could resume on the sidelines of the meeting. But
Sibotshiwe said prospects
for more talks depended "on the sincerity of
Robert Mugabe."
The rhetoric on both sides has sharpened in recent
On Thursday, officials at the Zimbabwean capital's airport briefly
confiscated the passports of Tsvangirai and two of his top aides, delaying
their departure for South Africa by a day. Tsvangirai's party said such
"antics" called Mugabe's commitment to a negotiated settlement into
question, and said SADC, the African Union and the broader international
community should "take a strong position against Mugabe."
The Herald,
a Mugabe mouthpiece, derided Tsvangirai's claim to leadership
accusing him of "parroting" Western arguments.
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and
two other candidates in the presidential election
of March 29, and he has
since insisted that any power-sharing agreement
recognize that
But the official tally did not give Tsvangirai the 50 percent
plus one vote
needed to avoid a runoff. He withdrew from the June runoff
after Mugabe
supporters waged a campaign of terror against his
Mugabe held the widely denounced runoff anyway and claimed an
Mugabe reportedly wants to keep his authority
as president, while Tsvangirai
reportedly wants executive powers as prime
minister, including the right to
lead cabinet meetings.
which has had to accommodate refugees from the political and
economic crisis
in Zimbabwe next door, has called on SADC to bar Mugabe from
the meeting.
Other members refused to take what would have been an
extraordinary step.
The government issued a statement Friday saying Khama,
the president, would
not attend the meeting, but would send the foreign
said that with power-sharing negotiations still under way, the
in Harare "should not be represented at the political level at
any SADC
summit as that would be equal to giving them legitimacy."
Presidents in
Botswana have respected their Constitution's two-term limit
and the country
is proud of its reputation as a stable democracy that has
seen several
peaceful transitions since independence from Britain in 1966.
That contrasts
sharply with the turmoil in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe, in power
independence from Britain in 1980, is accused of jailing and killing
opponents to hold onto power.
The crisis in Zimbabwe has cracked the
traditional solidarity of African
leaders. Kenya, Liberia and Zambia, for
example, have condemned Mugabe's
In the past, Mugabe
has been cheered by ordinary South Africans who embraced
his fiery
anti-colonial rhetoric. But this weekend, the powerful Congress of
African Trade Unions was to join labor and human rights groups from
the region in an anti-Mugabe protest march at the summit
Zwelinzima Vav, leader of the trade unions congress, recently
Zimbabwe an island of "dictatorship surrounded by a sea of democracy
in our
By Zahira Kharsany
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 15 (IPS) - A free trade
agreement is one of the main
points on the agenda at the Southern African
Development Community (SADC)
summit presently under way in Johannesburg,
South Africa. The summit will
also discuss political problems in Zimbabwe,
Malawi and Lesotho and consider
protocols on gender and poverty
The summit formally opened on Thursday with the outgoing
chair, Zambia,
handing over to South Africa who will hold the position for a
year. South
Africa's Minister of Trade and Industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa,
chaired the SADC
Ministerial Task Force on Regional Economic Integration
which deliberated on
a customs union for SADC and the regional free trade
area which will be
launched on August 17.
At the Ministerial Task
Force on Regional Integration, chaired by South
African foreign affairs
minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the crisis in
Zimbabwe was the main
talking point among delegates, with Zimbabwean leader
Robert Mugabe
controversially participating in the summit. The Botswana
president Ian
Khama is boycotting the summit in protest.
"The authorities in Harare
under the present circumstances should not be
represented at the political
level at any SADC summit as that would be equal
to giving them legitimacy,"
said a statement from Botswana's foreign
talks between Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the two factions of
the Movement
for Democratic Change are stalled; the leaders of all three
parties to the
talks are present at the summit.
Speaking at a press briefing on
Wednesday, SADC Executive Secretary Tomasz
Salomão conceded that while the
region faced challenges, it remained stable:
"There are no conflicts and no
wars. Yes, we do have challenges in the
Democratic Republic of Congo,
Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The summit will
give us a chance to see how we
address these challenges and the challenge
that we had a few months ago in
South Africa."
Salomão was referring to xenophobic attacks that took
place in South Africa
in May this year, claiming more than 60 lives and
displacing tens of
thousands of migrants.
Also on the agenda is the
Southern Africa Gender Protocol. The draft
protocol commits member states to
gender parity at all levels of government;
to amend or repeal laws that
discriminate against women; devise policies and
laws to enable equal access
to economic resources by women and men; bring in
gender-sensitive policies
to fight HIV and AIDS and enshrine gender equality
in their
The protocol was not signed at previous summits and gender
activists are
hoping that it will be in signed this year.
Speaking at
the protocol alliance strategy meeting on Thursday morning,
South African
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad assured the women and
men present
that it will be on this year's agenda. "August in South Africa
is women's
month, so it is important that this historic summit is happening
here. South
Africa is committed to signing it.
"It is not only Africa's time that has
come, but Africa's women's time that
has come."
The protocol has been
approved by SADC's Council of Ministers and will now
pass to heads of state
for final deliberation.
Also recommended to heads of state are a protocol
on poverty eradication and
food security; consideration of reduced energy
supplies in the region; and
the re-admission of the Seychelles -- which
pulled out of SADC in 2003,
unable to meet its financial obligations to the
regional grouping.
SADC, which was formerly known as the Southern African
Coordination Conference (SADCC), has been in existence since
1980 when it
was formed in Lusaka, Zambia with the slogan "Southern Africa:
Economic Liberation".
SADC's current member states are
Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar,
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South
Africa, Swaziland, United
Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
by By Lizwe Sebatha
Saturday 16 August 2008
BULAWAYO - Irate Harare officials
branded South Africa's labour movement a
terrorist and uncivilised body
after it announced it would mobilise workers
in the region to refuse to
handle goods destined for Zimbabwe in protest
against President Robert
Mugabe's rule.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which
also plans to
hold a "massive march" against Mugabe during this weekend's
Southern African
Development Community (SADC) summit in Midrand near
Johannesburg, on
Wednesday said it was pushing for a week-long protest in
September during
which all workers will refuse to handle goods destined for
Deputy information minister Bright Matonga dismissed COSATU's
against Mugabe as an uncivilised act that smacks of
"The protest by COSATU is uncivilised and a criminal way of
behaving with
all the hallmarks of terrorism. They are saboteurs and they
should move away
from the slavery mentality of trying to please whites,"
Matonga said in an
COSATU - a longtime vocal opponent of
Mugabe's controversial rule - said the
veteran Zimbabwean leader was
illegitimately in power after his re-election
in a June presidential run-off
election boycotted by the opposition because
of political
The run-off election was held because opposition Movement for
Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in
the first
round voting on March 29 but failed to secure the margin required
takeover power.
COSATU's boycott action was one of the resolutions
taken at the Zimbabwe and
Swaziland "Solidarity Conference" which ended in
South Africa on Monday.
The labour body also called for an end to
political violence and for the
lifting of a restriction aid on groups and
civil society organisations that
has paralysed delivery of much needed
relief to needy communities mostly in
far-flung rural areas of the
Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu also dismissed COSATU as
a grouping
led by brainless and misdirected people.
"COSATU is led by
brainless and misdirected people who should instead focus
on poverty and
xenophobic attacks in South Africa," said Ndlovu. "It has
never happened in
the history of politics that a labour body can organise
such a criminal
Mugabe's controversial re-election on June-27 courted international
criticism and worsened the country's dire economic situation with the cost
of basics and other services spiraling beyond reach as the worthless
currency continued plummeting to new lows daily.
Analysts see no edn
to Zimbabwe's woes until Mugabe cedes power to the MDC
under a power sharing
deal, a demand that stalled the crisis talks last week
after the 84-year old
leader refused to let go his grip on power.
The talks between MDC and
ZANU PF began last month under the facilitation of
South African President
Thabo Mbeki.they wiil continue on the sidelines of
the SADC summit. -
NINE WOMEN, were arrested in Bulawayo on Wednesday night. They are being
charged with 'malicious damage to property', a charge, which they are
denying. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights are representing the women and
hope they will appear in court on Saturday August 16.
Four of the
younger members were seen 'road-writing' the WOZA 'love' slogan
and the
'Woza Moya' (come healing wind) on a road in Mabutweni suburb of
under cover of darkness. They were arrested and detained first at
Commonage station before being transferred to the dirty police cells
Bulawayo Central. Police officers then threatened them and forced one to
point out the homes of other leaders. A further five including two 75 year
olds, were taken from their homes and detained. It is unclear why they are
facing the same charges or why they were arrested.
WOZA wish to make
it clear that the arrest of their members is a further
violation of the
Memorandum of understanding signed by Zanu PF, and the 2
MDC parties as part
of the SADC led Dialogue. It is further proof that Zanu
PF may have called
for an end to violence in word but no in deed. It is WOZA's
view that unless
there is an audit and transformation of the police and
army, there can be no
healing and restoration of human rights in Zimbabwe.
WOZA will continue with
road writing their messages until the politicians
hear them loud and
WOZA leaders will march with South Africa labour and civic society
Saturday 16 August 2008 to deliver demands to SADC leaders. Once such
is articulated in their slogan - Woza Moya which is written on many
roads in
Zimbabwe by WOZA members.
WOZASolidarity is asking
supporters to:-
a) write again to SADC state ambassadors/high
commissioners in the UK urging
them to listen to civic society's
b) use the cell phone numbers of Zimbabwean authorities to text a
e.g WOZA harassment is not in the Memorandum of Understanding
phone friends in Joburg and encourage them to go on the red card march
Saturday 16th August
d) phone any Bulawayo police station to urge officers to
show just treatment
to WOZA members
The protesters contact list is
attached and pasted below for those wary of
Use these
contacts to lobby those in positions of authority to bring about
an end to
the election related violence in Zimbabwe.
Dorset Street W1U 6QY
020 7299 9850Phone
Fax 020 7486 9397
6 Stratford Place W1C 1AY
020 7499 0031/020
7647 1000
Fax 020 7495 8595/020 7409 7382
REPUBLIC) [French & English speaking]
281 Gray's Inn Road, WC1X 8QF
020 7278 9825
Fax 020 7833
45 Portland Place W1B
020 7636 2371
Fax 020 7323 6717
7 Chesham Place, Belgravia SW1X 8HN
020 7235
Fax 020 7235 5023
OF MADAGASCAR [French speaking]
Dr Iary Berthine Ravaoarimanana Charge
8 - 10 Hallam Street, W1W 6JE
020 3008 4550
Fax 020 3008
70 Winnington Road
London N2
020 8 455 5624
Fax 020 8325 1066
[French & English speaking]
Elvaston Place
London SW7 5NW
020 7581 0294/5
Fax 020 7823
MOZAMBIQUE [Portuguese & English speaking]
His Excellency Mr
António Gumende
21 Fitzroy Square W1T 6EL
020 7383 3800
Fax 020 7383
HIS EXCELLENCY MR GEORGE MBANGA LISWANISO 6 Chandos
Street W1G 9LU
020 7636 6244
Fax 020 7637 5694
EXCELLENCY MWANAIDI SINARE MAAJAR 3 Stratford Place W1C 1AS
020 7569
Fax 020 7495 8817
Trafalgar Square WC2N 5DP
020 7451 7299
Fax 020 7451 7284
Excellency Ms L. Mabuza * High Commissioner (since 12 November 2001)
Mr C. S.
Ndaba * Deputy High Commissioner
Mr J K Tiba m Consul (Immigration and Civic
Mr G M Meder m Vice-Consul (Immigration and Civic Affairs)
Mrs Z
Hansen m Vice-Consul (Immigration and Civic Affairs)
Ms C N M Chinkanda
Vice-Consul (Immigration and Civic Affairs)
Ms T M Lusibane Vice-Consul
(Immigration and Civic Affairs
Her Excellency Mrs Mary M.
20 Buckingham Gate
020 7630 6611
Fax 020 7630
Zambia House
2 Palace Gate W8 5NG
7589 6655
Fax 020 7581 1353
Excellency Mr Gabriel Mharadze Machinga
Zimbabwe House 429 Strand WC2R
020 7836 7755
Fax 020 7379 1167
[Note: + 263 11 indicates a call to a
BULAWAYO AREA: - (from abroad: + 00 263 9 + the local
Bulawayo Central: +263 9 72515 - 61706
Mzilikazi: +263 9 202908 -
Hillside: +263 9241161
Donnington +263
9 474005 - 467309
Queens Park: +263 9 226212 - 226411
Sauerstown: +263 9
200960 - 218431 - 218432
Luveve +263 9 520801/2/3
Tshabalala +263 9
Donnington: +263 9 474005/4673309
Barbourfields +263 9
Filabusi Police Station +263 17 202 281 or 247 9 72515 /
Figtree Police Station +263 83 216 ??????
(from abroad: + 00 263 4 + the local number)
General HQ +263 4
Harare Central +263 4 733033 – 732589; 733030; 733733; 733734;
735832; 735833
Airport + 263 4 575366
Avondale + 263 4
Borrowdale +263 4 860067- 860061- 883152
Braeside +263 4
742261-742260-742383- 743020- 743006-742259
Glen View +263 4
Hatfield +263 4 570506- 570123- 570138
4 495304- 495504 - 495340
Kuwadzana +263 4 665511
Mabelreign +263 4
336000- 339075
Marlborough +263 4 336647- 301801/2
Mbare +263
4 706401
Monavale +263 4 336613
Rhodesville +263 4 495753-
481111- 496567- 496568
Southerton +263 4 668438 – 667032 -
Warren Park +263 4 223921-229990 – 229991 – 229992
+263 4 662626/7
Other Areas
Chitungwiza + 263 70
22001 Hwange +263 81 36491
Masavingo Central+ 263 39 62221
Fax: Masvingo Police Enqs. +263 39
Masvingo +263 39
Chikato +263 39 62308
Gweru + 263 54 2477
Chinhoyi + 263 67 22299
Bindura +263 71 9933 Marondera +263 79
Mutare +263 20 63380 Gwanda +263 84 2911
Chegutu: +263 53
2209 / 2411/ 2974
Member in Charge__Police Station Chegutu: Tel: +263 53
DA__Criminal Investigation Dept+263 53 3699__
Inspector Ganyani
(MEC) Cell: +263 91 264 0537 or 11 56
ZANU-PF Information Tel: 00 +263 4 753329 - 753145
+263 4 774146
Police commissioner Augustine Chihuri+ 263 4 862410
-250008 –
792621 - 700171 cell 26311808290
State Security Minister
Didymus Mutasa +263 11 200532-774189 (Mobile)
Personal Mobile: +263 11
Minister for Justice Patrick Chinamasa
+263 4 777054 – 774620 –
Mobile: +263 11 605 523
Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi +263 11 605424/ 430422/ 794628/
703695(Mobiles) +263 4 723635 -703642 - 703644 Fax +263 4
Nathan Shamuyarira: +263 862073-6 - 7 RUBIDGE CL
Samuel Mumbengegwi: +263 4 882930 - 22 STOUR ROAD VAINONA
Office of the President: 263 4 252440 - MUNHUMUTAPA BLDG S
Gideon Gono's Office: 263 4 703096
guard: 263 4 707745 - 707451
Francis Nhema: 263 4 882926 - 3 FARTHINGHILL
CIO boss BONYONGWE H: 04 497849 - 76 ORANGE GROVE DR
RECONCILIATION talks mean that our self-inaugurated
president Robert Mugabe
is now unlikely to face justice in Zimbabwe, but it
is hard to see where he
could run from international law - and he must know
The last colonial-vintage ruler, Ian Smith, spent the twilight of his
peacefully at his Shurugwi farm. Credited with a dirty anti-liberation
that accounted for 20,000 deaths in the 1970s, Smith received a
handshake of
forgiveness on the eve of freedom in April 1980 from a Mugabe
who had been
expected to vent his Marxist-Leninist vengeance on him. Now
national hatred
has turned on Mugabe.
Mugabe's political résumé
features the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland
with North-Korean-trained
troops, Operation Murambatsvina that "cleaned out
the filth" of
slum-dwellers, military intervention in the Democratic
Republic of Congo,
and the abduction, torture, murder and displacement of
thousands of Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) activists: these fall
squarely into the category
of crimes against humanity.
Now faced with the real prospect of him
losing power, many of us believe
that for his every past action there should
now be an opposite and equal
retaliation. There might be, however, a
substantial part of the present
generation that will want to adopt a more
conciliatory position to
facilitate rapid nation building.
We cannot
expect any support for his prosecution from our neighbours (except
Botswana). Many Africans of all types support Mugabe and really believe his
economic vandalism is caused by Western (principally British) machinations.
Other Africans tell me Mugabe is not as bad as Uganda's Idi Amin or
Ethiopia's Haile Mengistu - but this callous moral relativism means nothing
to the dead, the tortured or the fearful in Zimbabwe or to more than two
million refugees.
The only person with the moral authority to stand
up and call the dictator a
dictator is our neighbour Nelson Mandela, but his
single mild comment about
"failure of leadership", in June during the
election terror, gave the
impression that all Zimbabwe needs is a few policy
In practice, it is difficult to see what trade-offs Southern
Development Community-appointed mediator president Thabo Mbeki of
Africa can demand in order to insulate Mugabe from national or
Pursuit of consensus like the 1979
British-brokered Lancaster House
Agreement calls for large-scale compromises
but this depends on the ability
of MDC to extinguish the anger of its
supporters and allies who bore the
full brunt of Mugabe's post-2000
political wrath followed by the latest
post-election campaign of
Many groups are crying foul for being shut out of the
negotiations in
Pretoria between Mugabe's representatives and the MDC: the
1998 People's
Convention that gave rise to the formal opposition was a
concoction of
disparate civil society bedfellows. Ironically, it is in
Mugabe's own
interest to encourage an inclusive negotiating team since
reconciliation and
forgiveness are backed by the Zimbabwe Council of
Churches, the Christian
Alliance of Zimbabwe and the Evangelical Fellowship
of Zimbabwe.
But international law now makes it impossible for dictators
to retire in
comfort to the Côte d'Azur or even inside their own country.
it makes dictators harder to shift as they have nowhere to
hide. China
didn't seem to want Mugabe at the Olympics, but they have no
problem selling
him arms so maybe they or his friends in North Korea will
have him. Any
. Rejoice Ngwenya has been involved in
constitutional research and electoral
supervision in
a.. Last Updated: 15 August 2008
b.. Source: The Scotsman
c.. Location: Edinburgh
Aug 2008 23:38 GMT
Innocent Chofamba Sithole
READING Arthur Mutambara's Heroes Day
article (read) left me quite
disillusioned. I struggled to see the point of
the whole thing right up
until I got to the section where he addresses
Zimbabwe's international
The key point that he
communicates by way of this article is that he has
capitulated and found
accommodation in some significant respect with Robert
article has Mugabe's demagogic ring to it. By regurgitating Mugabe's
political rhetoric and flawed anti-imperialism in this article, Mutambara is
merely confirming to us that he has endorsed Mugabe's ideological position
and relieved pressure on the old dictator by taking up the mantle of
anti-imperialist spokesman on Mugabe's behalf. He has in the process created
the perception or semblance of national or cross-party ideological
coalescence around Mugabe's ideas and vision.
The theme on western
intervention is reflective of Mugabe's regime survival
strategy. Mugabe's
Third Chimurenga discourse deploys the outside-looking-in
approach, by which
local political contradictions are explained through the
prism of
international relations. That way, everything that is wrong within
is the
result of exogenous factors. The use and abuse of history that is
central to
the Third Chimurenga discourse - what Terence Ranger called
History - arises as the necessary result of this attempt to marry
international to the local in a cause-and-effect relationship.
becomes the cement with which these linkages are maintained.
Propaganda also
becomes the shield with which external accusations of
illiberal practices on
the part of the regime are parried. The easiest and
commonly employed
strategy is to point to the west's own moral
inconsistencies to pre-empt the
criticism. Mutambara's piece endorses this
approach unashamedly.
this thinking means, essentially, is that we will countenance no
of the state of our democracy for as long as we can find evidence
of worse
realities subsisting elsewhere, or of western double standards and
hypocrisy. This deliberate subterfuge is meant to distract from engaging
with the substantive, egregious reality of violence and abuse on the ground.
But it is incomprehensible and shocking when these bouts of defensiveness
seize the leader of a democratic opposition whose activists are actually the
victims of such brutality!
As a leader of a pro-democracy party,
Mutambara's chief problem should be
with Zanu PF authoritarian nationalism,
which has also been the key
contradiction in Zimbabwe's post-independence
history. This same
authoritarian nationalism has retained the violence of
the liberation war
era at its core; it has retained the democratic
centralism of the
This resulted in
stifled internal liberation and a crisis of democratic
expectations on
account of Zanu PF's incapacity to respond to democratic
impulses and reform
accordingly (one of the central pillars in Zimbabwe's
crisis today remains
Zanu PF's own internal succession crisis). This same
nationalism has in the course of our young history
deliberately attempted to
jettison democratic politics by actively lobbying
for and mobilising towards
a legislated one-party state, all the while
dispensing harsh and violent
treatment towards the erstwhile opposition
then - Zapu, itself a legitimate
nationalist movement - by use of the old
colonialist's arsenal of repressive
laws and emergency powers. It is this
context that ushered in Mutambara's
political consciousness and gave birth
to his activism.
how can the leader of a party contending with such historical
authoritarianism not address the question of our violently stifled search as
a nation for viable, democratic post-nationalist politics? Why does he not
speak of the second phase in our struggle - which is to put democracy back
into national liberation? On the day we commemorate the heroes of
yesterday's war, how can he afford not to speak to the reality of our
incomplete internal liberation and the need, therefore, for new heroes to
keep the democratic torch blazing until Zimbabwe is truly free?
that he speaks as the blood of hundreds of our brave compatriots flows
into the soil of our motherland, why does he not speak to the tragedy
oppression and violence that still stalks our land? Instead, he chooses
share the podium with the author of our oppression to fart into the
whirlwind about western hypocrisy, when the widows of my uncle Dickson
Sibamba, Tonderai Ndira, Joshua Bakacheza and countless other brave souls -
all murdered by Zanu PF militia - still don mournful sackcloth and cry out
for justice!
The paradigm of repressive nationalism that gave
Mutambara political
consciousness is right now at its zenith, with the
so-called liberator
having come out clearly and unashamedly to declare to
the entire nation that
it stands imprisoned to the gun that ended white
rule; that the ballot - a
mere pen and paper affair - will not compromise
the will of the bullet. It
is worse now than when, as a student leader,
Mutambara clambered down the
walls of his University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
residence on the historic morning
of October 4 1990, to escape Mugabe's
murderous assassins, following
attempts to commemorate the 1989
anti-corruption demonstration.
It was even worse when, during Learnmore
Jongwe's student leadership, riot
police opened fire for the first time on
campus and shot Morememories
Chawira in the neck during a demo; and it
deteriorated even further for Dewa
Mavhinga's student administration when
riot police went a murderous step
further and bludgeoned poor Batanai
Hadzizi to death, giving the UZ its
first student funeral from police
brutality on campus. If Mutambara's
political genesis arises from his
confrontation with Mugabe's repressive
state as a student leader, his
successors faced even worse, as I've just
tried to show. The entire nation
has experienced violence and death and
hunger and disease at the hands of
Robert Mugabe.
If Mutambara cannot see the glaring tragicomedy of his own
behaviour by sidling up to the author of Zimbabwe's misery and
wearing his
rhetorical garb to make political headway for himself, then he's
an utterly,
irredeemably lost cause. For good measure, he chooses to berate
the west and
not even once mention Mugabe's friends in the east who have
continued to
pour in weapons and lend diplomatic succour to a regime that is
guilty of
brutalising its own people.
Not once does he mention
China's insidious role not only in Zimbabwe but
across the continent,
including that hell on earth that is Darfur. He does
not question Mugabe's
mortgaging of the country's natural resources to China
for the survival of
the Zanu PF regime. Mutambara's moral compass only
registers western
hypocrisy but easily glides over Chinese and Russian
contributions both to
Zimbabwean and global illiberalism. Do China and
Russia present a model of
involvement in international affairs that is
benign and positive? Is that
what we should expect from a Mutambara foreign
fulminations reflect little by way of critical thought and
judgment. One gets the sense of someone in a hurry to bolt in
before the
back door is bolted. This is opportunism of the worst kind. But
why the
hurry, Arthur?
Chofamba Sithole is a Zimbabwean journalist. E-mail: email@example.com
This article
was first published by newzimbabwe.com
The 100% affirmative embezzlement programme, organised state sanctioned asset theft and looting by the ZANU (PF) criminal enterprise commenced when its First Secretary and Embezzler-in-Chief Robert Mugabe
The 100% affirmative embezzlement programme, organised state sanctioned asset theft and looting by the ZANU (PF) criminal enterprise commenced when its First Secretary and Embezzler-in-Chief Robert Mugabe at his usual Marxist echo chamber, the National Heroes Acre, issued the following statement:"We are embarking on a land
redistribution exercise as a way of redressing a colonial imbalance and
decongesting our communal areas. The criteria shall be to target farms that lie
on the peripheries of villages and the government shall relocate the affected
farmer to another farm in the hinterland. Commercial farmers with multiple
farms, absentee landlords and others will have their farms designated and
repossessed by the government for the land redistribution exercise.
Commercial farm sizes shall be reduced to a maximum of 450 hectares with
all agro plantations and specialized farms remaining intact. No farmer shall be
left without land. Priority for farms and land shall be given to black
Zimbabweans with the proven prerequisite skill levels and capital required for
successful agriculture."
What followed this universally applauded historic statement, which appeared designed for the correction of colonial wrongs, was a litany of deception and lies.
White Zimbabwean farmers were robbed of their land in broad daylight, their private assets stolen, most were tortured, jailed, beaten, murdered and stripped of their birthrights. They were instantaneously replaced on these farms by sycophantic, inept ZANU (PF) functionaries masquerading as heroes of the war of liberation.
The same heroes who had earlier looted the War Victims Compensation Fund which saw some of them, including serving ministers, being declared 95% disabled. Housing Allowances, Presidential Scholarship Fund, Vehicle Allocation Schemes and they still claim that all they really wanted was land.
Mugabe tells his supporters and anyone else who listens
that he went to war for land. Zimbabwe's
liberation war has been vastly distorted by synthetic freedom fighters that
never fired a single shot and were safely tucked away in Maputo from the long reach of the Rhodesian security forces only to emerge
unscathed, enriching themselves and then rewarded with land.
Farms were not only a business but also a way of life and more importantly the nation's source of all the raw materials essential for its robust agro processing and homegrown food manufacturing industry.
In 1999 when Mugabe was given his first defeat in a democratic process through the referendum, he vented his anger on the hapless white farming community and blamed them for supporting the "NO" vote. What then followed was a vindictive political score settling exercise with Jonathan Moyo as its mouthpiece.
There exists a Grand Canyon of difference between land reform, agrarian reform and land distribution. A hoe, shovel and a pick are farm tools used for digging the earth, although they obtain the same result of turning the soil, they cannot substitute each other . What has happened in Zimbabwe since 2000 is nothing more than an illegal racist act that enriched the political elite, displaced farm worker families and reduced Zimbabwe to a beggar nation status.
How is it possible to allocate a 1000 hectare mechanized tobacco farm to a sports administer, a citrus estate to a journalist, a cattle ranch to petrol attendant and an export flower farm to a government nurse?
In 2000, Zimbabwe became one of Africa's largest exporters of aluminiun ingots. The government was forced to issue a ban on the export of this metal only after the agricultural unions complained of the imminent national shortage of irrigation pipes. Briefcase and shelf companies belonging to ZANU (PF) "chefs" were collecting irrigation pipes from designated farms and melting them into ingots for export. Today Zimbabwe cannot irrigate its winter crop due to shortages of irrigation equipment.
Greenhouses, coffee trees, citrus groves and other plantation crops, which had earlier in the decade-consumed capital for their establishment, were being uprooted to make way for maize. Without the foreign currency, returns from these export crops, the economy went into a tailspin and has not recovered since.
Zimbabwe cannot afford to compensate white farmers for the losses stemming from criminal activities perpetrated by ZANU (PF). The claims for compensation must thus be borne by the beneficiaries and the architects of the chaotic asset misappropriation exercise. Private housing units, shopping complexes and other property development schemes, which only benefited a few, have sprung up from previously productive commercial farms. The land, upon which these ostentatious homes are built on, was never paid for and yet the beneficiaries reap huge profits from land that was meant for peasants.
The only feasible way to correct the initial colonial injustice is to allow all Zimbabwean-born farmers to participate in an agrarian reform conference that sets up an independent Agricultural Board whose mandate is to formulate pragmatic roadmap for land redistribution, land use and land tenure.
Zimbabwe needs to redefine what is meant by the word farmer. Is farming an honourable profession? Do farm assets have the same value as those in the manufacturing or retail sector? Zimbabwe's balance sheet is deficient mainly because its most valuable asset , the land is being misused, underutilised and has been rendered worthless by the illegal cancellation of universally recognised title deeds.
Political appeasement does not work anymore and the Nuclear Physicists with PhD's, Doctorates or Degrees in Violence will not put food on the table. What Zimbabwe needs is real agrarian reform, fresh leadership, the rule of law and competent farmers.
We were farmers once.
Phil Matibe -Agrarian Insurgent
Njabulo Ncube and Clemence Manyukwe Political Repo
Party hawks
out to derail talks"
THE hawks in ZANU-PF are determined to safeguard their
positions in Cabinet
and other arms of government by sinking the
negotiations between their party
and the Move-ment for Democratic Change
(MDC) after President Robert Mugabe
made a number of unexpected concessions
giving power to Morgan Tsvangirai,
The Financial Gazette can
The negotiations reached a stalemate for the second time in as
many weeks
mainly over ZANU-PF's refusal to make Tsvangirai head of
government and
insistence that President Mugabe, who has ruled the country
for the past 28
years, should remain both head of state and
ZANU-PF insiders told The Financial Gazette this week that
although the
parties failed to conclude a deal after Tsvangirai's rejection
of a junior
role, the MDC leader had been granted some powers, including
government policy and presenting it to Cabinet, supervising
ministers and
chairing Cabinet meetings in President Mugabe's
Tsvangirai turned all this down because with President Mugabe as
both head
of state and government, he would be obliged to report to
Sources told this paper that ruling party hawks, whose business empires
survive on influence peddling, are opposed to the concessions that President
Mugabe made to the former trade union leader and are mobilising to ensure
that Tsvangirai maintains his stance and is thus precluded from reaching an
agreement according him such powers.
They said a number of ZANU-PF
bigwigs are now realising that they may have
to perform a Herculean act to
stay in the race to succeed the ageing
Zimbabwean leader once they are left
out of a Government of National Unity
(GNU) frantically being pursued by
South African President Thabo Mbeki.
To stay in contention, the sources said,
the hawks would rather rock the
boat to avoid clouding ZANU-PF's succession
politics by bringing into the
picture external dynamics.
With Simba
Makoni, the former finance minister once touted as President
possible successor out of the picture, a number of ZANU-PF
believe the crown is now within reach.
"A ZANU-PF clique is now seeking to
subvert the process as they think
President Mugabe made too many
"That is why you see that even though the principals are bound
by the terms
of the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) not to leak
information to the
media, confidential information is now finding its way to
the state media.
They hope that Tsvangirai maintains his stance," a source
The sources insist that ZANU-PF hardliners were angered by the MDC
plan to appoint former politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa as Speaker
of the
House of Assembly in a bid to consolidate his support in Matabeleland
bring to his side legislators from the other side of the political
who had strong links to PF-ZAPU.
Dabengwa and Tsvangirai are said
to have met last month to discuss the
issue. The former ZIPRA intelligence
supremo refused to comment on the issue
yesterday when contacted by The
Financial Gazette.
"ZANU-PF and the other MDC faction refused to grant the
speaker's post
because the MDC group led by Mutambara saw it as a bid to
undermine its
support in Matabeleland while ZANU-PF saw Dabengwa's proposed
appointment as
not being made in good faith but designed to provoke," a
source said.
Dabengwa has been languishing in the political wilderness since
2000 and
unlike other former PF-ZAPU bigwigs, President Mugabe has not
considered him
for any appointments.
He has often said he would not
accept appointment unless he contested and
won an election.
At a Press
conference on Wednesday, Arthur Mutambara, leader of the smaller
faction of
the MDC, said Tsvangirai was on the verge of signing on three
"At this stage in the dialogue all the issues are agreed upon
between the
three parties.
"We are in agreement on everything except one
aspect, just one aspect,"
Mutambara said.
"I must emphasize that three
times in our discussions, Morgan Tsvangirai was
agreeable to that aspect.
And thrice he changed his mind. In the end he said
he wanted an opportunity
to reflect and consult and then resume the
process," said Mutambara.
insider said yesterday: "That sticky issue is not having him as head of
government. Innocent Chagonda, Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma screamed 'No'
to signing, over that issue."
Chagonda is Tsvangirai's
According to the same sources, negotiators from the Mutambara camp
were in
total agreement with President Mugabe and ZANU-PF's proposals,
appointing Mutambara deputy prime minister.
In fact, Mutambara
allegedly sees himself as a key player in the process as
his faction has 10
parliamentarians. These can support either President
Mugabe's ZANU-PF or
Tsvangirai's MDC, which have almost an equal number of
seats in the lower
While Tsvangirai favoured a transitional government of two-years in
negotiations, both President Mugabe and Mutambara insisted on a
period and the retaining of the existing constitution with its 18
amendments, to run a government.
Tsvangirai and his team of advisors,
according to the sources, dug in their
heels, demanding a people-driven
constitution within a two-year transition
that would eventually lead to free
and fair elections by 2010.
It is alleged that both ZANU-PF and the Mutambara
camp reneged on a
constitution agreed by all the three parties in Kariba
during earlier
mediation by Mbeki.
At Tuesday's Press conference,
Mutambara confirmed that his formation sided
with President Mugabe in the
negotiations. He fell short of blaming
Tsvangirai for scuttling the sealing
of a deal that night.
Mutambara said as far as his formation was concerned
the aspect, which
Tsvangirai expressed reservations about, was a
"non-issue", which should not
have hampered the dialogue.
Tsvangirai said
on the same day that the MDC remained committed to
participating in any
meaningful and genuine dialogue that would move the
process forward.
are committed to a solution that ensures that tangible deliverables are
on the table for Zimbabweans - a solution that must thus put the people
first, not leadership positions and titles," Tsvangirai said.
Staff Reporter
THE country's three
tobacco auction floors received over 442 000 bales of
the golden leaf
weighing about 36 million kg in the 63 days of trade ending
August 1, the
latest figures released by the Tobacco Industry Marketing
Board (TIMB)
showed this week."
TIMB said the 36 332 098 kg of tobacco sold at the
auction floors so far
this season earned the currency-starved economy US$116
183 389, which is
still way below the figures generated by the crop before
the fighters of the
country's liberation struggle moved in to seize
white-owned commercial farms
in 2000.
At its peak, the country produced
nearly 220 million kilogrammes of tobacco.
Zimbabwe is this year expected to
receive about 70 million kilogrammes of
tobacco, about a third of the output
produced during the peak period. With
about two months left before the close
of the tobacco-marketing season, half
of the projected output could still be
in the hands of the farmers. TIMB
chief executive officer Wilson Nyabonda
said tobacco deliveries had slowed
down due to transport problems facing
farmers as a result of the acute
shortages of fuel and the skyrocketing
costs of fuel.
Trading figures for last week were not available as the
auctions floors were
temporarily closed for the Heroes' and Defence Forces
holidays. Sales only
resumed on Wednesday.
Figures released by the Board
indicated that the bulk of the sales were
generated through contract farming
where US$73,6 million worth of tobacco
was traded at the three floors.
the three auction floors, the Zimbabwe Tobacco Auction Centre received
bulk of the crop followed by the Burley Marketing Zimbabwe and the
Sales Floor.
The tobacco sales season opened on a bumpy note after hundreds
of farmers
failed to cash their cheques on time until the central bank
cleared the
huddles for the mostly indigenous farmers.
Tobacco is the
country's single largest foreign currency earner, accounting
for about 18
percent of the US$759 million generated from export shipments
in the six
months ending June 30.
The entire mining sector contributed 53 percent of
this revenue while the
key manufacturing and agricultural sectors
contributed 15 percent and 11
percent respectively.
Last season about 50
million kilogrammes of tobacco were traded through both
the auction floors
and contract farming.
Makoshori Senior Reporter
THE Zimbabwean economy, suffering severe
after the main political parties failed to reach a deal, might
slip into a
comma if ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
fail to reach
a viable settlement, analysts told The Financial Gazette this
A lot of hope for an economic upturn
had been pinned
on the long drawn talks between ZANU-PF and the two MDCs led
by Morgan
Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, but the optimism disappeared on
after it became apparent that the two feuding parties had once again
to agree on how to resolve the Zimbabwe
Tsvangirai, who leads the larger faction of
the MDC,
could not agree with Mutambara and ZANU-PF leader President Robert
Mugabe on
the critical aspects of the deal, resulting in the
While the mediator in the negotiations,
Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, selected his choice of words
carefully by
denying the talks had ran into a brick wall, analysts said the
manner in
which, the foreign exchange rates and the stock market reacted
after the
heroes and the defence forces holidays suggested all hell had
broken loose.
The Zimbabwe dollar slumped to a
historic low on the
dominant parallel market on Wednesday as news of the
deadlock filtered in.
The greenback, which was trading at US$1 to $3,5 ($3,5
billion) on Friday
plunged more than two fold to US$1 to $8 ($8 billion)
soon after the
On January 2 the
parallel market exch-ange rate was
US$1 to $1,9 million, but this had
increased to about US$1 to $75 billion on
Thursday last week, representing a
fall of 39 000 percent in eight months.
The local
unit lost significant value aga-inst the
South African rand during the
holidays, falling from R1 to $38 on Friday to
R1 to $100
Dealers said they expected a gradual decline
in the
value of the local currency because of the uncertainty that has
shrouded the
direction of the economy following the deadlock in power
sharing talks.
Analysts said the country should brace
for tougher
times ahead should Mbeki fail to rescue the
Last month, the central bank all but admitted
its efforts to turn-around the economy would falter should the
political leadership subordinate sectional or partisan interests
national interests.
The recovery of
Zimbabwe's economy hinges on the
outcome of the talks, which appeared headed
for a deadlock on Tuesday after
Mbeki flew back to South Africa without
striking a deal.
The stand-off has been blamed on the
rapid decline
of Zimbabwe's economy that saw the key-manufacturing sector
declining by 28
percent last year, and a record inflation of two million
Already, export revenues declined by 14
percent in
the first six months of the year to US$759 million from US$882
during the comparative period last year.
Independent economist John Robertson said the delays
in reaching an
agreement would see the uncertainty in Zimbabwe's persisting
discouraging critical new investment and employment
"The delays will cause very severe problems
for the
recovery we were all hoping for," Roberson
"We were waiting for changes that would bring
the recovery, so it is very important that the government does
something to
get rid of the uncertainties in the economy. They (the
negotiators) sho-uld
not concentrate on debates that will not make the
economic recovery
possible. If they do not reach an agreement the economy
will decline very
heavily and the government will continue its blame game on
"But the government is actually destroying
the value
of the dollar. The accusations are not only unfair, but also
dishonest. It's
not that prices are rising, but the value of the dollar is
falling," said
Zimbabwe Allied
Banking Group economist David
Mupa-mhadzi said the movement of the dollar on
the illegal market reflected
high demand and depressed
"The country urge-ntly needs balance of
support sin-ce it does not have capacity to generate enough foreign
currency," said Mupamhadzi.
"The impact is being
felt by the ordinary man on the
street as prices of goods and services are
being priced using parallel
market rates when disposable incomes are not
being adjusted in line with
parallel market rates," Mupamhadzi
University of Zimb-abwe economics lecturer Tony
Hawkins said until an agreement is sealed, the delays in the talks might not
have any significant impact on an economy already in the
Hawkins argued that even if an agreement
concluded, economic recovery would depend on the type of pact
would strike.
"We will have to see
what type of government comes
up," Hawkins said.
"But as it stands we are no longer making long term
decisions. If they make
a coalition government, the situation can remain
worse because they may have
different objectives," he said.
Kingdom Stockbrokers
(KSB) said with the talks
having failed to reach a conclusion, any hopes of
an immediate solution to
problems that have befallen the country's economy
are immediately dashed.
"The local currency will
likely depreciate and
inflation skyrocket. As a result, investors would
storm the equities market
as an inflation hedge and we thus expect the
market to be bullish this week.
"However, investors
should target counters with
strong balance sheets and high foreign currency
earning capacity, as they
are better positioned to stand the test of time,"
said KSB in its weekly
Nkuhlu, a former adviser to Mbeki said
Zimbabwe poses a great challenge to
regional integration of southern African
Nkuhlu, who was commenting ahead of a
meeting of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministerial
task force on
regional integration in Johannesburg this week said he
believes the idea of
a common currency for the region by 2018, should be put
on hold.
"We cannot move ahead with the question of
having a
single monetary system where we have our currency
He says having a single currency requires
inflation levels and government deficit levels to be aligned. Nkuhlu
that portion of integration will have to wait but other elements can go
But other analysts say such an agreement
would not
turn-around the ruined economy unless Western powers threw massive
backing behind it and the powerful "securocrats" supporting
President Mugabe
were also on board.
The army and
police chiefs are widely believed to
have strengthened President Muga-be's
resolve after he lost a first round
presidential vote on March
Analysts believe they will not support a
power-sharing deal unless they are given immunity from international
Human rights groups and the opposition
accuse them
of leading a violent campaign to ensure President Mugabe's
re-election in a
widely condemned second round on June 27 that was boycotted
by MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai because of the
"I think those who expected Tsvangirai to
be heading
the government, those who want Mugabe out of the scene altogether
will not
be happy with a situation in which Mugabe retains significant
power," said
political analyst Eldred
"I think quite a number of Western
countries will
want time to assess and review the outcome before committing
themselves, and
will not simply listen to ZANU-PF or the MDC's versions of
events," he said.
"If they come on board and give the
process a
chance, that will be good for the economy, but if they don't,
Zimbabwe will
still face problems internationally," said Masunungure, a
political science
professor at the University of
Key Western powers, led by the United
States and
Zimbabwe's former colonial master Britain, have frozen financial
aid and
imposed sanctions on President Mugabe's closest allies because of
human rights abuses and vote-rigging.
Analysts say assistance from these countries and the
IMF and World Bank, is
crucial to reversing years of economic decline in a
country battling with
the world's highest inflation of over 2.2 million
percent, a crumbling
infrastructure, massive unemployment and food
President Mugabe blames the economic
meltdown -
which has forced a quarter of Zimbabwe's 13 million people abroad
and left
the rest struggling with chronic shortages of food, fuel and
currency - on opponents trying to oust his
President Mugabe's party ring-fenced as
"non-negotiable" a number of issues ahead of the talks, including his
presidency, his land reforms and what it called Zimbabwe's political
Analysts say this was a clear
pointer that President
Mugabe was not going to give up control over
agriculture and the security
forces, crucial to his hold on
John Makumbe, a political commentator and
critic, said a political deal that left President Mugabe with key
could split the opposition.
"Mugabe has
been the problem, and if he is allowed
to have overwhelming power and
allowed to dominate, there may be others in
the MDC who will find that
unacceptable and will break away (from Tsvangirai's
leadership)," he
"It will be a difficult scenario, but there are
people who are wary about being cheated by Mugabe," he
Critics accuse the 84-year-old former
leader of ruining the once prosperous southern African state with
including his seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution to
inexperienced black farmers struggling to produce
But Mugabe - who led the country to
independence in
1980 after a seven-year bush war - says the land seizures
and lately his
plans to nationalise foreign companies, including mines and
banks, are part
of a drive to empower blacks impoverished by the white
settler community.
John Robertson, a leading economic
commentator, said
Zimbabwe would be in for more pain if the power-sharing
deal failed to win
international endorsement.
"The economy is on its knees, and while a political
deal is important, the
crucial question is, are we going to see a change in
the policies that got
us into this mess?" he said. "That is the crux of the
-Additional reporting by
Tendai Dumbutshena
THE SADC summit in
Johannesburg this weekend was supposed to be the moment
of triumph for South
Africa's President Thabo Mbeki. He was set to cock a
snook at his detractors
by presenting a deal signed by all parties to
With praise ringing in his ears he would have savoured the
moment he proved
critics of his Zimbabwe policy wrong. Stung by accusations
of bias in favour
of ZANU-PF leader President Robert Mugabe Mbeki wanted to
have the last
laugh in front of his SADC peers and the world's international
It is a measure of his desperation for success that he spent an
unprecedented three days in Harare nudging President Robert Mugabe and MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai to sign a deal paving the way for a government of
national unity (GNU). A room at the Rainbow Towers hotel was suitably
decorated for the signing ceremony.
According to reports a deal in which
President Mugabe would retain the
executive presidency with Tsvangirai as a
token prime minister was on the
verge of being signed.
Mbeki wanted to
kill two birds with one stone - secure an agreement that
keeps President
Mugabe in power. The only concession President Mugabe would
have made was to
have some MDC cabinet ministers.
But things went terribly wrong. At the last
minute Tsvangirai refused to
sign a document that would have legitimised
President Mugabe's rule for a
full five years and condemned the MDC leader
to a meaningless subordinate
role. Mbeki must now face the summit to report
failure. He will put a
positive spin on it but few will bite. Once again the
Zimbabwe issue will
overshadow all others on the agenda.
His critics at
home and abroad will have a field day.
Thousands of demonstrators led by the
labour federation COSATU will be there
to voice their opposition to
President Mugabe's presence if he dares attend.
There will be renewed calls
for tougher action against President Mugabe's
regime. Botswana is likely to
boycott the summit if President Mugabe is
Mbeki can no longer
count on the support of his ANC party for his Zimbabwe
policy. It is a
Mbeki's intervention in Zimbabwe was flawed from the start because it
sought to find a fair solution to the crisis. Its strategic objective
was to
keep ZANU-PF in power.
As a result his mediation degenerated into
shameful appeasement and
The mediator became part of the
problem. His foreign affairs ministers and
officials moonlighted as
President Mugabe's defenders at various
international fora. President Mugabe
saw in Mbeki a staunch ally not a
neutral broker.
This only strengthened
his resolve not to yield any ground. It is this
obduracy that forced
Tsvangirai to walk away from the talks.
It is so easy to forget recent
President Mugabe lost the March 29 elections. Faced with certain
defeat in
the June 27 presidential run-off he used savage violence to force
out of the race.
The African Union and SADC urged him to form
a GNU. It was a polite way of
telling him that they could not recognise the
farce of June 27.
The MDC took the reasonable position of proposing an
inclusive transitional
government of limited duration to perform specific
tasks culminating in a
free and fair election.
Mbeki should have nudged
Mugabe towards this eminently reasonable position.
Instead he tried to
railroad the MDC into accepting a President Mugabe-led
GNU with Tsvangirai a
pathetic sidekick.
Mediators try to find compromises that are fair to all
parties to a
They do not bully and cajole one party to
sacrifice its interests and
principles to the point of
Unconfirmed reports say the MDC had accepted President Mugabe's
presidency. If that is true it was a grave mistake.
there was no big reciprocal concession from ZANU-PF. All power
belongs to
A derisory vice-presidency was offered to Tsvangirai joining a queue
Joseph Msika and Joice Mujuru.
When this was rejected Tsvangirai
was offered an empty shell - a prime
minister with zilch executive powers.
They might as well have offered him
the post of minister without portfolio
in Didymus Mutasa's office. The MDC
leader was expected to sign such a
humiliating suicide note.
What the MDC was expected to do was validate the
June 27 run-off in exchange
for cabinet posts. Mugabe's enormous powers
underwritten by the military
would have remained intact. In Zimbabwe cabinet
ministers do not carry much
Ask former finance ministers Simba
Makoni and Herbert Murerwa.
The MDC was indulging in self- delusion if it
thought the allocation of
certain ministries to it would make a difference
to the governance of the
It is a point they have to note
seriously. The only issue of critical
importance as far as power politics
goes is the position of Mugabe and the
generals who underpin his rule.
that is not addressed the MDC will be sucked into a shameful agreement
will achieve nothing but its eventual humiliation and demise.
Partson Matsikidze Senior
ANALYSTS said this week that they foresaw the hiccups in
Zimbabwe's power
sharing talks when powerful military generals were not
given a prominent
role in the political consultations. "The outcome of the
talks hinges on
power," said a senior military strategist who is not
authorised to speak to
the press.">
"This was the case during the
Lancaster House conference in 1979 when the
likes of General Josiah
Tongogara, Rex Nhongo (now Solomon Mujuru), Josiah
Tungamirai, Dumiso
Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku played leading roles in the
final settlement.
That arrangement should be replicated in this case."
Mbeki left Zimbabwe on
Wednesday without sealing a deal between President
Robert Mugabe and the two
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formation
leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai
and Arthur Mutambara.
Commentators say the generals' role is critical in
Zimbabwe's attempts to
achieve a lasting solution to a crisis precipitated
by an economic meltdown.
Former Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) commander,
Retired General Vitalis
Zvinavashe declined to comment on the impact of the
absence of the military.
He said he was not privy to the arrangements and was
therefore not qualified
to comment.
"Personally I cannot comment on that
since I am not part of the negotiating
team, lest my comments are
misconstrued," he said.
The Joint Operations Command (JOC) comprises the
Zimbabwe National Army, the
Air Force of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Republic Police,
Zimbabwe Prison Services
and the Central Intelligence
Sources say the JOC reportedly balked at an agreement because
the top brass
remains deeply suspicious of any deal with the MDC.
in JOC are worried that making more concessions to Tsvangirai could
their privileges and businesses.
Some have openly declared that they would
never salute a leader without
liberation war credentials.
But an officer
attached to the Department of War and Strategic Studies at
the University of
Zimbabwe regards the JOC as being indispensable to the
resolving of the
national political jigsaw puzzle.
While uniformed forces were not conspicuous
during the talks, the fact that
President Mugabe as Commander-in-Chief of
Zimba-bwe Defence Forces and
Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi were part of
the process meant they were
A militant US-based civil rights
organisation, the December First Movement,
was reluctant to comment on the
absence of military representatives in the
"We are not privy to
the talks. We will only be in a position to comment
after they are
concluded," the movement's leader, Coltrane Chimurenga told
the Financial
Gazette this week.
Mbeki's advisers are said to have met the generals on the
sidelines of the
inter-party talks in South Africa last week, but there was
no official
Ray Matikinye News Editor
RATHER ticklish joke is told about how a dispossessed farmer drove past
former property. On seeing its state of dereliction, he told the new
"If I knew you only wanted to plant on that huge anthill, I would
allowed you to do so and would have kept the rest of the land and put
it to
better use."">
Picture another "new farmer" whose property contains a
medium-sized dam
bragging to his uncle: "I realised it takes a long time to
get benefits from
farming after putting in a lot of hard work and sweat. Now
I wake up, go to
the gate and collect fees from anglers wishing to fish from
my dam."
And when the late Jock Kay officiated at a graduation ceremony at
Agricultural College, in his capacity as deputy agriculture minister
the early phase of land redistribution and acquisition under the
willing-seller-willing-buyer basis, a villager clad in a woolen balaclava
stunned guests when he stood up and asked: "Why does government not offer
land to these people who are trained to end the 'child play' we witness on
the acquired farms?
"Last year we were here witnessing a similar
graduation but the majority of
the graduates are still roaming the
Kay struggled to come up with a plausible explanation. "Government
looking into that," he assured the communal farmer.
Little seems to
have been done.
Zimbabwe's collapsing agricultural industry needs more than
just the
benevolence of a government keen to prove that its unplanned
agrarian reform
programme will work against all odds.
Statistics provided
by the central bank reveal that $62,2 trillion (old
currency) has been
disbursed by banks under the Agricultural Sector
Productivity Enhancement
Facility (ASPEF)
During the last monetary policy review, Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono
said the central bank would review production levels
achieved by farmers who
received support under ASPEF with "all beneficiaries
expected to show that
they have put all support given to them to productive
Since government threw all caution to the wind and rushed to
large tracts of farmland in 2000, to parcel out to inexperienced
and uninitiated war veterans for political expediency, its approach
agrarian reform has been mainly to break the backbone of the Zimbabwean
economy, pushing it to slide down the slalom.
It has taken a mere seven
years of dig-here-not-there-but-somewhere-here to
get to a stage where the
sector has become a pale shadow of its former self.
And experts say
agriculture would not have reached such a state of
dereliction had
government been more prudent.
At present, an unfolding food crisis that
threatens to unravel any prospects
of economic recovery stares Zimbabwe in
the face.
The agricultural sector is in a parlous state.
"Agriculture has
collapsed. This year's harvest of the key crops has been
catastrophic. The
'mother of all agricultural seasons' has miscarried," said
ambassador Xavier
Marchal head of the European Commission to Zimbabwe.
"After all, agriculture
is one of the three main vertebras of the economic
spinal cord of Zimbabwe,
together with natural resources and mining. It has
significantly contributed
to making Zimbabwe what it was. And it can again
rapidly become the engine
of its recovery," the European Union (EU) diplomat
told an annual congress
of the Commercial Farmers Union recently.
Sticking to its a dig-here-not
there-but here attitude the government still
hopes to kick-start an almost
moribund sector into a flourishing enterprise.
State Security, Lands and Land
Resettlement Minister, Didymus Mutasa, has
said the state has repossessed
more than 2 000 under-utilised farms since
last year.
While still in
government as junior information minister, Tsholotsho
MP-elect Jonathan Moyo
made a rather poignant observation: "A majority of
beneficiaries of the land
re-distribution programme are top and junior civil
servants, who still hold
onto their jobs while practicing farming part-time.
"Why not retire these
people, give them their terminal benefits so that they
can invest into the
agricultural ventures they have chosen to pursue in
order to lessen the
burden of financing them on government?"
Moyo's rump suggestion was never
taken up.
Land has always been at the core of the tensions that have
Zimbabwe from gaining full benefit from its potential. Lost
opportunities in
the sector threaten to bring the economy to its
At least four government-sponsored land audits have failed to remedy
chaos associated with the land re-distribution programme.
Last week,
Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo, confirmed yet another audit
was in the
"We have started looking at how our farmers have fared in the
utilisation of
land they were allocated.
"We want to establish who has
done what on the land they were given and who
has not," Gumbo said amid
reports that government would repossess
underutilised land.
have been reported of beneficiaries getting government subsidised
inputs and hauling the same onto the black market for quick profit
of using the fertilizers, fuel and seed for their intended purposes.
But help
could be on the horizon.
The EU says it is holding onto to its purse until
there is an acceptable
outcome of the current inter-party talks in South
Africa and a legitimate
government is formed The grouping, which was part of
a land conference held
jointly with the United Nations to craft an agrarian
reform plan that would
alleviate poverty among indigent peasants and ensure
sustainability, is
ready to help Zimbabwe avert the unfolding land reform
disaster when and if
normality and legitimacy are re-established as a result
of a fair political
agreement, Marchal told the remaining few commercial
Before the haphazard and often violent expropriation of commercial
about 4 000 commercial farmers worked the land, spurring
agriculture to the
fore as a major foreign currency earner.
Clemence Manyukwe Senior Political
THE government has refused to grant the United Nations (UN)
permission to
assess the political violence that gripped Zimbabwe between
March 29
elections and the June 27 presidential run-off, which led to
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai's
In May, the UN country team asked for government
permission to carry out a
joint violence assessment exercise. This was three
years after the
assessment of Operation Murambatsvina by a UN envoy sparked
outrage when it exposed the consequences of the demolition of
Without the Zimbabwean government's permission, only the UN Security
can authorise the assessment but this is highly unlikely considering
and Russia's history of opposing the placing of the Zimbabwean
crisis on the international agenda.
Contacted for comment on
why the government has not given the green light
for an assessment,
Information and Publicity Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu
said: "We are engaged
in talks and we do not want to be distracted by
trivial issues. The British
and the United States sponsor the UN; the UN is
a mouthpiece of the British
and the US.
"We do not want to be taken back and forth. The UN is no longer
the UN, as
we knew it. They are hiding behind the UN when they are the
British. I don't
want to waste my time on those issues, I have better things
to do," Ndlovu
Repeated efforts to get the UN Country team to
respond to questions sent to
it by The Financial Gazette last month were
In seeking permission to conduct an assessment, the UN Country
team said
there were indications that "people have died, several hundred
others have
been hospitalised, while many more have been displaced from
their homes and
some have lost property that includes livestock, homes and
The Country team said the police and army were among the
perpetrators of
violence despite their vehement denials.
A report
released by the Southern African Development Community observer
following the June 27 poll said police had failed to arrest
perpetrators of
violence and declared that President Mugabe's re-election
did not reflect
the will of the people.
However, since the run-off, some ZANU-PF supporters
have appeared in court
on charges of violence despite the party's denials
that its members were
behind the terror campaign.
Last week, the High
Court postponed to September 9 the trial of eight
ZANU-PF supporters accused
of having assaulted people in the Beatrice area
after accusing them of being
MDC supporters. Some of the victims sustained
serious injuries.
records show Kalisto Pemhiwa, Tabeth Murwira, Never Sombairo, Oncemore
Matangira and others went from house to house assaulting people they
intended to evict from the area for supporting the opposition.
OUR sixth sense had told us that the
hullabaloo about talks between ZANU-PF
and the two factions of the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) was nothing
but a façade meant to raise people's
hopes, only to dash them when they
least expected it.">
Instead of
being indifferent to President Thabo Mbeki's mediation effort, we
chose as
we still do, to ignore our intuition while throwing our full weight
the Southern African Development Community (SADC) initiative -
realising it
offered the only viable way out of the Zimbabwean crisis.
Not that we had
underestimated the distinct differences of the tussling
parties in terms of
their ideologies, their sickening hatred towards each
other and the
deep-rooted suspicion over what their leaders stand for.
Even in this darkest
stage of the negotiations, we still offer no apologies
for overriding our
instincts in the interest of giving the talks the chance
While Mbeki has over the past six years laboured to nudge ZANU-PF
and the
MDC towards a negotiated settlement, Zimbabweans had until Tuesday
when Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, bolted out of the venue of
the talks
asking for more time to reflect, kept their hopes alive that the
African leader was to eventually pull a wildcard to end the rising
tensions in the country.
To climb out of this deep hole, the
sickly Zimbabwean economy must be
allowed to operate in an environment where
the political leadership pulls in
one direction.
Working at
cross-purposes has sucked the momentum out of the economy gained
soon after
independence in 1980, when the country was renowned for being the
In the court of public opinion, the feuding political
leadership, that is
President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai, now resembles a
heavy tax burden,
which Zimbabweans do not deserve.
With inflation
northward bound at 2,2 million percent, the latest
convulsions suffered by
the Zimbabwe dollar in the aftermath of the talks
deadlock cast a shadow
over the country's future.
The hate language resurrecting in the government
media coupled with the
flagrant disregard of a Memorandum of Understanding
signed on July 21,
suggest Mbeki has a tough task cut out for him.
Mbeki impresses on the powers-that-be in Harare to rein in spoilers
who are
sacrificing national interests at the altar of political expediency,
he will
stand little chance of salvaging the talks.
To all intents and purposes, the
power sharing formulas being bandied around
the rumour mill fall short of
reassuring Zimbabweans that a deal might be
signed anytime soon. In the
absence of official communication on the talks,
there is nothing to suggest
a power-sharing arrangement is in the offing
unless of course the intention
is to annihilate Tsvangirai and his party
through the negotiations.
would appear that the incumbent and Tsvangirai are glued to their
or a stronger force is holding them back from making real
concessions that
might end the hostilities between them and breathe life
into the comatose
The inflammatory messages transmitted during the Heroes Day and
Forces Day commemorations and the elevation of security chiefs
fingered in
the violence that marred the lead-up to the June 27 presidential
run-off has
betrayed ZANU-PF's hypocrisy while exposing its arrogance that
might deny
Mbeki the opportunity to leave office with his head held
While Mbeki, must be commended for giving out everything in searching
solutions to the Zimbabwean crisis, he should always remember he is
a tight rope. The worst thing Mbeki cannot afford is to be seen
On one hand, he is fighting to gain the confidence of a
former trade
unionist whose negotiation skills leave a lot to be desired
after failing to
settle squabbles in his own backyard following the October
2005 MDC split.
The fact that Arthur Mutambara, leader of the smaller faction
of the MDC, is
now rumoured to be singing from the same song sheet as
President Mugabe,
betrays serious shortcomings on the part of Tsvangirai who
should have cut a
deal with the former university student leader long before
the negotiations.
Yet on the other hand, Mbeki has to show a firm hand in
dealing with
President Mugabe whose only concession of note so far is being
agreeable to
Before the talks, the politburo - ZANU-PF's
supreme decision-making organ -
had dug its heels in over issues it said
were non-negotiable, including
President Mugabe's disputed victory of June
President Mugabe has also failed to reprimand senior security chiefs for
sending a chilling message to the electorate ahead of the March harmonised
elections, where they vowed never to salute Tsvangirai. In the absence of a
U-turn, the only logical conclusion is that the position of the security
chiefs has not changed and this does not bode well for the
While Mbeki might get comfort from a political rapprochement
Mutambara and President Mugabe, this laughable truce does not add
value to
the process of finding a lasting solution to the country's crisis.
Tsvangirai remains the critical piece to Mbeki's jigsaw puzzle.
however, fear that ZANU-PF might think Mutambara, whose factions has 10
seats in Parliament, could be the ace in the pack, which it could use to
form the next government. Taking such a detour would not give respite to
Zimbabweans, as the wafer thin majority resulting from an alliance with
Mutambara would not win the country the much-needed support of the
international community, whose interest is to see a deal representing the
will of the people being consummated without further delay.
There should
never be positions cast in stone in politics. The chance is now
for SADC to
take a stronger stance on the dialogue in Zimbabwe and to press
Mugabe and Tsvangirai to close ranks and save their country from
catastrophic collapse.
The powers-that-be should be careful not to invite
further economic
sanctions by adopting rigid positions in the hope that
China and Russia will
once again come to the country's rescue should the
issue head in the
direction of the United Nations Security Council for the
umpteenth time.
Parish the thought!
May be this might also be the time
for Mbeki to give way to another fresh
pair of hands.
BULAWAYO, August 15 2008 - The ban on lion
hunting is still in force
despite calls by some safari operators in
Matabeleland north province to
have it lifted citing a marked improvement in
the population of the big
cats, Radio VOP has learnt.
Spokesperson for the National Parks and Wild Life Management
Retired Major Mbewe, told Radio VOP that the ban was still in
"I don't think the numbers are good enough to start
hunting. We still
have a few lions and their numbers need to grow first," he
The authority imposed a ban on the hunting of lions in
2004 after
their numbers declined sharply as a result of massive hunting,
loss of
habitat and lack of prey. Until 2002, the Parks Authority approved
an annual
quarter of 60 adult males and the majority of lions were shot.
outside game sanctuaries also created a vacuum effect, causing a
flow of animals from the centre of the park into hunting
concession areas
where they were gunned down.
"We have got
lots of lions here which are terrorizing villagers'
animals and yet the
Parks Department continues to impose the ban. We feel
that we have lots of
lions here and it's high time that this ban is lifted."
complained Lovemore
Ncube a safari operator based in the Gwaai conservancy.
He claimed that the
lion population was sustainable, basing on the game
counts conducted in
safari farms last year.
However Mbewe insisted that operators
were misled as they some times
counted the same pride more than
"These are wild animals and they move, they can be
counted more than
once." he said.
Lion hunting remains a
contentious issue in Eastern and Southern
Africa with Kenya pushing hard for
an international ban on trade of lion
trophies and skins.
For example, the country is arguing that although half of the African
of the jungle are protected in national parks, there was concern
fifty percent living outside the parks.
Experts estimated that
200 000 lions roamed across Africa in 1975 but
the figures declined to an
estimated 76 000 in 1980. By 2002 the number had
drastically fallen to about
39 000. Lions are found only in Africa and Asia
while the European Middle
Eastern and Cape, lions are now extinct.
Under the voluntary
treaty known as the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species
CITES, regulated hunting of African lion is
permitted. Tanzania , South
Africa , Zimbabwe Namibia, Botswana and Zambia
sell lucrative hunting
licenses to trophy hunters who in turn provide the
much needed foreign
currency to develop tourism facilities.
By Sue
Reid With the poisoned tip of a metal arrow piercing her right leg, a pregnant
elephant stumbles miles through the African bush towards her death. After two days of agony she falls to the red earth, while her killers,
following on bicycles and carrying butchering knives, wait for the end to come.
In the darkness of a Kenyan night, the four poachers watch as she first loses
her unborn calf in a spontaneous miscarriage provoked by the poison in her
body. Under threat: Poachers launched a new attack on the
African elephant after the end of a ban on ivory sales An hour later, after the 35-year- old elephant dies, they move in - hacking
off her face to steal the two precious ivory tusks which will make them rich for
years. Soon, they hope, the tusks will have been smuggled out of Africa and be on
their way to a factory in Beijing, to be carved into jewellery and chopsticks.
Just a few weeks ago, though, these poachers were caught. James Ekiru, the
head ranger at Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary (which is in sight of Mount
Kilimanjaro and two hours' drive from the port of Mombassa), says: 'We followed
their tracks, and 24 hours after they killed this mother elephant, we found them
with the tusks lying on the ground. 'They were starting to butcher her meat - cutting it into kilo pieces. We
arrested two of them, but two more got away. They were local men. 'We suspect the elephant was killed "to order", and that her tusks would have
been smuggled to China. James Ekiru is on the frontline of a new and brutal war over Africa's
elephants. Today, the fight has caught public imagination following a controversial
decision last month by an international committee - which includes British
representatives - to lift a strict ban on the sale of ivory. Kenyan Wildlife Service handle illegal elephant tusks
seized in a town on the border with Ethiopia The Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva
ruled that for the first time in nearly 20 years, China should be allowed to buy
108 tonnes of ivory stockpiled in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe
- countries where elephant numbers are rising so fast in some areas that they
are officially culled. The decision has provoked fury. Many conservationists and 148 British MPs
have opposed the decision, saying the sale to China will be a death sentence for
elephants, because it will ignite the widespread illegal poaching of ivory. Critics argue that the lifting of the ban will make it impossible to tell
whether tusks have come from an official stockpile or have been supplied by
poachers. So what does the future hold for Africa's elephant population? Thirty years
ago, there were a million elephants in Africa. But in the 1980s, poaching took its toll - and over a period of nine years
half of Africa's elephants were slaughtered for their tusks. Even Kenya, which goes to great lengths to protect its elephants, lost huge
numbers to poachers. In 1979, there were 130,000 roaming the bush of this East
African nation. A decade later, numbers had dropped to 16,000. At the height of the crisis, in 1989, CITES agreed a worldwide moratorium on
ivory sales. Almost immediately, an end was brought to the trade - both legal
and illegal - in tusks. Prehistoric custom: An ivory sculptor from the Ivory coast
carves elephant tusks to make jewelry and ornaments In Britain and Western Europe, the use of ivory became taboo, and it was no
longer considered acceptable to have a piece of jewellery made from a tusk. As a direct result of the CITES agreement, elephant numbers recovered. Today,
there are an estimated 400,000 across the African continent. Predictably, though, the shortage of ivory meant that prices crept up and
poaching has returned with a vengeance. At the heart of the problem is China's insatiable craving for tusks. With 1.2 billion people, it is the biggest consumer of ivory, and over the
course of four centuries has enthusiastically traded in African elephant tusks.
(Asian elephants' ivory is not as desirable because it is too brittle for fine
carvings). It is a tradition for every Chinese citizen to have an ivory seal to print
their name (it means their signatures do not change over the years); every home has ivory chopsticks, and hundreds of gift shops
are devoted to selling ivory figurines and jewellery. With no legal ivory available after the international ban, an illicit market
started to thrive. Black market prices have risen by 73 per cent over the past
two years. The rewards are huge. Dubbed 'white gold' in Africa, ivory is sold illegally
at up to £40 per kilogram, and prices can reach ten times that amount once
smuggled to Chinese factories for carving. Every dead elephant can yield ten kilograms of ivory - worth £4,000. In Africa, where corruption is endemic and poverty never-ending, the sums are
a fortune and can change people's lives. Indeed, according to Interpol, tusks are so valuable that Somali warlords
send soldiers over the border into Kenya to kill elephants for tusks - and use
the proceeds to buy guns. The ivory-for-arms trade is booming in every conflict-riddled nation of
Africa. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime is exploiting the crisis, too. According to
newspapers in Harare, the government sold £850,000 of the country's ivory stocks
illegally as part-payment for a shipment of ammunition and grenades from China.
Bones of a dead African elephant caught up in the Ivory
Wars [from the BBC2 series called Ivory Wars] Whatever the precise truth, the catastrophe is growing. Experts at America's
Conservation Biology Centre in Washington DC estimate that 240 tons of ivory are
smuggled out of Africa every year - which must mean the deaths of 24,000 of
the world's largest land mammal. Winnie Kiiru, the Kenyan wildlife consultant for international animal
conservation charity the Born Free Foundation, which successfully campaigned for
the 1989 trade ban in tusks, said this week: 'There are not enough elephants on
the globe to satisfy China's market for ivory. 'They do not care if they get it legally or illegally. They just want it
now.' The decision by CITES to allow the ivory sale to China follows unrelenting
pressure from South Africa, Botswana and Namibia - countries where the
majority of Africa's elephants live. They believe they should benefit financially from their elephant herds, and
that they deserve to be rewarded for their treasure troves of ivory which have
either been confiscated from poachers or collected from carcasses of elephants
which died naturally or have been culled since the 1989 ban. On the other hand, other African countries, which have lost almost all their
elephants to poachers, are deeply opposed to the trade. While Kenya now has 30,000 elephants, in some of the poorest African
countries, elephants can be counted on the fingers of a careless sawmill worker.
Senegal, which a decade ago had 20,000, can find only two. In the enormous spaces of Sierre Leone and Liberia, they have just a few
hundred apiece. Throughout all of Western Africa there are only 7,500 elephants - a
miserable total that is once again falling fast as poaching takes hold. It is the same story in Central Africa. Patrick Omondi, senior assistant director of the Kenyan Wildlife Service,
says: 'The CITES decision last month was wrong. The elephant is in for a very
tough time. 'In some parts of our continent, the elephant will disappear. This official
sale of ivory to China will provide a smokescreen for the evil elephant killers
who trade illegally in tusks.' Others are still more vocal. Dame Daphne Sheldrick, the conservationist who
runs a home for Kenya's orphan elephants (many have lost their parents to
poachers) outside Nairobi, said: 'The decision to sanction the legal sale of
ivory to China has potentially signed the death warrant for hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of wild elephants. 'Britain's support means that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has the blood of
hundreds of elephants on his hands. By this deed he will succeed in upsetting
the British people - most of whom care deeply about elephants. 'All who trade or buy ivory have cost an elephant its life, and that of its
dependent young.' So can Africa's elephants survive? Perhaps no organisation can predict the
answer more accurately than the Kenya Wildlife Service, which was set up in 1990
to manage and protect the country's animals, birds and plants. It controls 32 national parks and has 400 rangers armed with the most modern
Russian-bought Kalashnikov rifles. The Kenya Wildlife Service says the decision to sell ivory to China is
already encouraging a poaching free-for-all. In the past six months, 41 elephants have been killed in their national
parks, compared with 50 in a normal year. The animals have been shot with rifles, snared and, increasingly, killed with
bows and arrows laced with sap from the acokanthera tree - an African shrub
dubbed 'the bushman's poison'. The sap contains a toxin deadly to humans and animals, and the arrow
technique is preferred to guns because rangers cannot hear them. Since June, nearly 100 poachers of elephants have been arrested in Kenya.
According to Dickson Lesimirdana, assistant director of the KWS Wildlife
Protection Unit: 'There has been an increase in poaching on Kenya's borders,
where it is easier to smuggle ivory out of the country.' Most of the arrests are linked to the ivory trade with China. Nowhere is this more obvious than at Kenya's main international Jomo Kenyatta
airport on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi. Earlier this year, just before
the contentious decision to approve the sale of ivory, a Chinese woman was found
trying to take four tusks out of the country in three suitcases. 'She was middle-aged, but had managed to get the heavy cases with an enormous
46 kilograms of elephant ivory to the airport,' explains Robert Muasya, the KWS
head of security. 'Suspicion was aroused when she went through the security gates hoping to
take a flight to China. Our sniffer dogs working at the airport were called in
immediately.' A week later, three more Chinese nationals were discovered trying the same
trick at the airport's international departure gates. They were arrested trying to smuggle 36 pieces of carved ivory. They are thought to have been using Kenya as a staging post, bringing in the
figurines, bracelets, blank name seals and jewellery from other parts of Africa
and hoping to take them on to China. In Tsavo East, Kenya's biggest wildlife park, which is the size of Wales, the
fight against poaching is at its fiercest. Rangers protecting elephants there have been killed by poachers. Senior warden Yussuf Adan says a 56-year-old local farmer was recently
arrested with 46 kilos of raw ivory tusks that he was offering for sale.
The arrest followed a 'sting' set up by the wildlife service. An officer
successfully trapped the man after disguising himself in Arab robes and
pretending to be a trader from Mombassa sending ivory to China. A fortnight ago, a local court sentenced the farmer to four years in prison.
Yussuf explains why poaching has become so rampant: 'The money the farmer
would have got for the ivory is enough to feed his family for five years.
'But we need elephants for everyone
in Kenya. They give us a tourist trade. By protecting them, we deter the
poachers and protect all our wildlife.' Nearby is a locked store room containing ivory that has been collected by
rangers. Each tusk is dated in indelible ink and itemised over ten closely printed
pages on Yussuf 's desk. The collection weighs 5,000 kilograms - worth almost £2 million if ever
sold on the world market. But the Kenyan government says that ivory should never be traded, and rejects
the argument used by some economists that if all African countries sold their
stockpiles, the market price for ivory would collapse and poaching would
disappear. The official policy is supported head ranger James Ekiru's British boss, Rob
Dodson, a former public schoolboy who came out to Africa on his gap year 20
years ago, fell in love with the continent and stayed. The 80,000-acre Rukinga sanctuary, adjoining the Tsavo park and home to more
than 1,500 elephants, has lost four beasts in four months to poachers. Only two
had been taken in the previous five years. Rob is a committed conservationist and believes China's greed is jeopardising
Africa's elephants. 'If you kill their national treasure, the panda, you get executed,' he says
with an ironic laugh. 'How can a country that protects its own wildlife so
strictly care so little about our animals in Africa?'
Last updated at 10:54 PM on 15th August 2008


text:
All about staffing???
0 Have any of you heard about a company called All About Staffing? If so, what do you think of them? I just got a phone call from them, and the guy said he's going to look around in the area I'm relocating to and see what he can find for me...
About priss614
priss614 has '4' year(s) of experience and specializes in 'Pediatrics'. From 'San Angelo, TX'; 32 Years Old; Joined Aug '09; Posts: 12; Likes: 1.
Must Read Topics
0Feb 9, '10 by mamamerleeNever heard of them, but I hope they don't ask you for any money for their 'search'.1Feb 9, '10 by shoegalRNI have heard of All About Staffing, from what I know they are the agency for HCA. In my area, they only put people in HCA facilities. I hear they pay every week and the pay is pretty good, something like $42/hr for nights. I also heard if you take a 12 week contract, you can make up to $60/hr. They also have a 401-K plan too.
I used to work in an HCA facility during nursing school and they had plenty of nurses from All About Staffing and this is what they have told me. I currently work with a nurse who work for them during the week and she confirmed the $42/hr pay.wooh likes this.0Feb 9, '10 by caliotter3I have seen their ads on www.indeed.com often. I would be concerned about how this recruiter got your phone number though, if you haven't been putting your contact number out there because of a job search.0Feb 9, '10 by fungezI worked for them for a year in the Austin area. They place for HCA hospitals only.
bad points -
no benefits except 401k match (can't remember how much)
lots of cancellations (my cousin called them All About Not Staffing)
good points-
34 bucks/hour for day shift on m/s, more for specialty and nights
lots of flexiblity - I only had to schedule one shift every 3 months (heard they changed it to one month) and could cancel up to 3 hours prior to my shift
paid weekly
I quit because the director left and I didn't like the new one. Also the hospitals I liked to work for started dragging their feet about using agency, leaving only the sucky one. Four shifts at South Austin and I said no more. But for the year I was there it worked out okay.0Feb 9, '10 by priss614Yeah, I keep hearing mixed reviews about HCA hospitals. He got my number from my resume on CareerBuilder. I'm a Pedi nurse moving to Jacksonville, FL because my husband is Navy, so no benefits is definitely not a problem! But if I could get a Pedi job paying $30+/hour I'd be a happy camper!0Feb 10, '10 by caliotter3Hospital Corporation of America. Major operator of hospitals throughout the nation.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Click to View Larger Image(s) |
Get 6 months financing on orders of $99 or more when you pay with Bill Me Later through PayPal at our Checkout Page.
BORLA Cat-Back™ exhausts feature patented, straight-through and multi-core technology to unleash hidden horsepower. Increased exhaust velocity adds power, driving excitement, fuel economy and the distinctive BORLA Sound of Power respected by motoring enthusiasts everywhere. Each system is built from premium austenitic stainless steel, superior to T-400 series knockoffs, to give you the absolute best in performance and durability. Ultra-smooth mandrel bends ensure maximum flow and power, and precision computer-controlled CNC manufacturing ensures an accurate fit. Best of all, BORLA stands behind every system with a Million-Mile Warranty. Just what you'd expect from the world's most experienced (and most winning) exhaust brand.
* Shipping Notes: Please note FREE Shipping refers to shipping within the contiguous contential US. All other locations extra. If your order will be delayed you will be notified via email the estimated shipping date.
AirAid Camaro 2010-11 V6 MXP Series Intake Systems Our Price $349.90 | 2010 - 2011 3.6L Camaro Cold Air Inductions Cold Air Intake System (Black Powder Coated) Our Price $399.00 | 2010 - 2011 3.6L Chevrolet Camaro Cold Air Inductions Inc. Cold Air Intake System Our Price $399.99 | Defenderworx Camaro 2010-13 Letters Black Our Price $103.99 | Flowmaster 2010-14 Camaro American Thunder Exhaust System 3.6L V6 Our Price $584.28 | BBK 2010-11 Camaro V6 Cold Air Induction System (chrome) Our Price $279.99 |
Very Pleased, Date: 6/16/2011
By: Greg
Ownership: 1 day - 1 week
I received the exhaust in less than 48 hours of ordering it. That''s a lot faster than I ever imagined. Now its on the car and it sounds great! I also noticed the additional horsepower right away. I''m very pleased.
Current Mods:
Borla Camaro 2010-11 V6 Exhaust System with X pipe
This is the fastest shipping I have ever seen and its FREE,I ordered this product Monday at 3p.m and I recieved it Wednesday at 12p.m. This exhaust is louder than stock and you can hear the rumble it also weighs less. It adds hp but I feel that it took a few pounds of tq. It's a great product and well woth the money
Current Mods:
All Stock 2010 Camaro 2LT with borla x pipe exhaust
They are awesome!!! There's really nothing more to say honestly!!!! I'm a vet happy customer!!!
Current Mods:
Intake and now exhaust!!!
I have a 2013 Subaru XV with the CVT transmission and installed this Borla exhaust. It does not sound like typical "Fart" can, this is a deep rich tone you only hear from a Subaru(it is louder than stock). I did have to buy a gasket for it, which Borla should include but does not.
I'm very pleased with the exhaust. All stainless, easy bolt-on assembly. The directions are easy to understand. No need to jack up an XV for the install. The Borla is much, much lighter and smaller than the stock exhaust.
First time I bought something from "LMPerformance", transaction and delivery was all superb. I know others from my club have ordered this exhaust from them too.
Current Mods:
K&N Filter, Borla exhaust.
The Borla ATAK Exhaust install very easy just as shown in their instructions. I just love the sound of this Borla ATAK exhaust system, not to loud in side the car but loud enough to be very impressive. The sound out side the car is the very best ever it just makes my 2013 Dodge Charger SRT8 sound the way that this car should be heard.
Current Mods:
2013 Dodge Charger SRT8
Borla ATAK Exhaust system
SLP Air Box Lid 2000-02 V8 Camaro LS1 Our Price: $95.95 | SLP Loudmouth Exhaust Camaro V8 2010-14 Axle-Back System w/4 inch Tips Our Price: $383.95 | SLP Smooth Bellow 1998-02 V8 Only Our Price: $67.95 | SLP Loudmouth II Exhaust Camaro V8 2010-14 Axle-Back System w/4 inch Tips Our Price: $527.95 | SLP Skip-Shift Eliminator Camaro 2010-13 Our Price: $34.95 | SLP Air Box Lid, 1998-99 V8 Camaro Our Price: $95.95 |


text:
- Publisher: Fox Television Stations, Inc.
- Genre: News
- Released: 22 Oct, 2009
- Size: 16.2 MB
- Price: FREE!
- App Store Info
MyFoxNY.com is now on your iPhone and iTouch providing you with the latest news, weather and traffic information for New York City and the tristate region, including New Jersey and Connecticut.Our News App provides you the option to enable specific geolocation tracking for precise location-based advertisements (review our Privacy Policy for more information on our use and sharing of location information).
What's New in Version 4.3.1900
Fresh new design with optimized User Interface.New back end platform.
Enhanced user controls through Settings.
Many other improvements including iOS 8 compatibility.