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Archived News
9th December 2003
Mugabe tyranny about to end?
ZANU-PF violence at Kadoma by-election
MDC President arrested in Kadoma
Zimbabwe opposition leader back in dock for treason
Lawyers seek Zimbabwe treason trial acquittal
Tanzania may skip CHOGM in solidarity with Mugabe
SA solicits MDC's views
We'll overcome woes and build a rival world power, Mugabe tells Zimbabwe
Cholera kills 12 in Zimbabwe tourist district
Running on empty
Zimbabwe faces expulsion from IMF
Women injured in Zim protest
Rights groups fear Zimbabwe political violence increasing
Zimbabweans to blame for crime, says Botswana
Zambia bids to end Zimbabwe Commonwealth sanctions
Canada floats Commonwealth compromise on Zimbabwe
Queen gets an unreality check
Succession lottery roll-over
Protests
Malawi and Zambia will go in to bat for Zimbabwe
High risk bid by Nigeria to prevent summit split
Comrade Mugabe must change
Cold comfort for Mugabe's 'zombies'
Citizens take ANZ case to High Court
The cost of speaking out
Africa split on re-admission of Zimbabwe
McKinnon re-elected as Commonwealth secretary-general
Commonwealth tackles Zimbabwe rift
MDC sends delegation to Chogm
Daily News has its say at summit
Mugabe launches vicious tirade against Britain
Kunonga accused of incitement to murder
Mugabe: I'll quit Commonwealth
Mugabe urged to stay put
Mugabe: Commonwealth is 'Animal Farm'
I'm not ready to go, says Mugabe
Libya buys stake in diamond miner that took on the BBC
Of buses, dogs and presidents
Mugabe quits Commonwealth
Full text of statement from the Commonwealth regarding the situation in Zimbabwe
The split
Move to oust Msika as Mugabe rules out departure
Turning land to 'live' capital
Commonwealth struggles to show united front as summit ends
Zim C’wealth exit hurts SA diplomacy
Adios Zimbabwe
Mirror, mirror...Mr Mugabe or Mr Smith
What’s the Commonwealth for?
Mugabe heads towards the heart of darkness
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From Reuters, 2 December
Zimbabwe opposition leader back in dock for treason
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare - State lawyers in Zimbabwe who accuse the main opposition leader of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe sought on Tuesday to amend the allegations against him as his treason trial resumed after a two-month break. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is charged with planning Mugabe's assassination ahead of 2002 polls that saw the veteran leader re-elected amid allegations of rigging. If convicted, Tsvangirai could face the death penalty. High Court judge Paddington Garwe reserved ruling on the application and adjourned the trial to an unspecified date. The state's original case held that Tsvangirai took part in three meetings related to the plot, including one in Canada where he asked a Montreal-based political consultancy firm to arrange Mugabe's assassination and effect a military coup. But State prosecutor Joseph Musakwa said his team wished to amend the alleged content of the meeting in December 2001 saying it focused on "transitional arrangements after the assassination as well as seeking military support after the elimination."
The request drew an angry response from chief defence lawyer George Bizos, who said the amendment amounted to a ''new overt act charge'' against Tsvangirai and that the state had no evidence to support its case. "This is putting Mr Tsvangirai on trial on a different charge than the one he came to face My Lord. A new set of conspirators is now introduced," Bizos said, suggesting the court should re-consider the defence's application in July for a dismissal of the case. Musakwa denied Tsvangirai's defence would be prejudiced. The state's original case rests mainly on a grainy, partly inaudible videotape of a meeting in Montreal between Tsvangirai and Canadian-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe in which the prosecution said Mugabe's "elimination" was discussed. Ben-Menashe has admitted he taped the meeting using surveillance cameras solely to get evidence for the government, with which he consequently signed a political lobbying contract, but he denies entrapping Tsvangirai. The defence argues the video was doctored to discredit the MDC, the biggest political threat to Mugabe's 23-year rule. Tsvangirai is awaiting trial for a second treason charge that he tried to instigate the overthrow of Mugabe's government through mass protests staged by the MDC in June. The opposition leader has launched a legal challenge to Mugabe's 2002 re-election, which critics say was rigged. Mugabe insists he won fairly and dismisses the MDC as a stooge of Western governments he says have sabotaged Zimbabwe's economy in punishment for his distribution of white-owned commercial farmland among landless blacks.
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From The Scotsman (UK), 2 December
Lawyers seek Zimbabwe treason trial acquittal
Defence lawyers today asked the Zimbabwe High Court to acquit opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after, in mid trial, prosecutors tried to amend the treason charges he faces. Tsvangirai denies plotting the assassination of President Robert Mugabe. He was initially accused with two senior members of his Movement for Democratic Change, Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela. But the two were acquitted in September for lack of evidence. When Tsvangirai’s trial resumed today, state attorney Joseph Musakwa asked Judge Paddington Garwe to accept a reworded indictment deleting references to Ncube and Gasela. Tsvangirai is now accused of plotting the assassination during a meeting with Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe. Defence lawyer George Bizos argued that changing the identity of the conspirators was tantamount to trying Tsvangirai on a new charge, which he said cannot be done mid-trial under court rules. "We are not coming up with any new charge" Musakwa insisted. "It is still treason." Ben Menashe and his assistant, Tara Thomas, testified earlier this year that they secretly videotaped the Montreal meeting for Zimbabwe authorities who had paid them to entrap Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai was charged with treason two weeks before last year’s presidential election which Mugabe narrowly won amid charges of vote rigging and intimidation. The case Zimbabwe’s longest trial to date started in February.
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From The East African (Kenya), 2 December
Tanzania may skip CHOGM in solidarity with Mugabe
Faustine Rwambali
Nairobi - Tanzania is adopting a wait-and-see attitude before deciding whether to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that begins in the Nigerian capital of Abuja this Friday. Some members of the 12-member regional body have reportedly indicated that they would skip the summit in solidarity with President Mugabe, following the announcement last week by summit host and CHOGM chair, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, that the Zimbabwean leader would not be invited to the meeting. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Jakaya Kikwete, told The EastAfrican: "We are studying the situation to see what other fellow member states decide. After that, we will be in a position to decide how to handle the matter." Unconfirmed reports indicated that some member states had dispatched their ministers on special missions to other SADC countries to persuade them to boycott the CHOGM or send a low level delegations - vice presidents or prime ministers - as a sign of protest against the exclusion of President Mugabe.
In the event that Tanzania does decide to attend, it would be represented by Mr Kikwete, by virtue of his holding the foreign affairs portfolio, or Vice President Ali Mohamed Shein, who is holding brief for the president. Mr Mkapa is undergoing treatment in Switzerland. A Dar-based SADC diplomat told The East African last week: "The December Commonwealth meeting might change the course of this grouping if the decision to exclude Mugabe remains." But even as President Robert Mugabe warned on Friday that Zimbabwe could leave the Commonwealth if it was not treated as an equal, he failed to win the backing of a troika of Southern African countries meeting in South Africa. A diplomatic source at the meeting said foreign ministers from Mozambique, South Africa and Lesotho who met in South Africa on Friday to discuss Zimbabwe's exclusion from the summit only called for "constructive engagement" between the government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Morgan Tsvangirai. "The bottom line is that Zimbabwe will not be going to Abuja. The troika endorses negotiations by the Zimbabwean government with the opposition and appropriate stakeholders," the source said.
Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told the meeting that talks with the opposition were underway, but this statement that has been repeatedly denied by the MDC. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth's decision-making councils following allegations of vote rigging and intimidation in last year's presidential election, whose outcome is being contested by the MDC. But the polls were declared free and fair by African observers, including those from South Africa and Nigeria, whose leaders have resolutely stood by Mugabe even in the face of growing domestic and international criticism about the way he has handled land redistribution and his strong-arm response to growing internal dissent as the country sinks ever deeper into economic decline. This latest "snub" from President Obasanjo is therefore seen by some observers as a position he was cornered into following the threat of a boycott by Queen Elizabeth and the leaders of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific nations.
Tanzania too has been a steadfast supporter of the Zimbabwean leader. At the SADC summit held in Dar es Salaam in August, President Benjamin Mkapa called for the lifting of the sanctions on Zimbabwe, saying: "The faster they are lifted, the faster more influence for positive growth and change can emerge." He said SADC supported the land redistribution exercise being carried out by Zimbabwe, because Zimbabweans could not remain workers while their land continued to be owned by a handful of commercial white farmers. Mr Mkapa told foreign aid partners that although they were greatly valued, "they should recognise and respect the independence and sovereignty of states in SADC." Critics of the "land grab" in which scores of white farmers and hundreds of their black workers were killed say it was a populist move motivated by Mugabe's desperation to cling on to power and that it benefited the president and a clique of his cronies, while the landless poor remain dispossessed.
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From Business Day (SA), 3 December
SA solicits MDC's views
In an apparent move to give an urgent push to talks on a Zimbabwean settlement ahead of the opening of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting this weekend, foreign affairs department officials met leaders of Zimbabwe's main opposition group yesterday. No statement has been issued yet, but Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad has called for greater political will "on both sides" in Zimbabwe to work towards a settlement. With Zimbabwe on the Commonwealth agenda in Abuja it is likely yesterday's meeting was aimed at assessing the current position of the Movement for Democratic Change. SA is under international pressure to show the results of its quiet diplomacy policy on Zimbabwe.
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From The Guardian (UK), 3 December
We'll overcome woes and build a rival world power, Mugabe tells Zimbabwe
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Robert Mugabe vowed yesterday to haul Zimbabwe out of economic decline, but offered few concrete measures for reversing the slump. Instead, in his state of the nation address to parliament, President Mugabe blamed foreign "interference" for Zimbabwe's plight, denouncing the Commonwealth as an "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance". "We abhor high global high-handedness of the strong and powerful; we abhor unilateral interference in the internal political affairs of other countries, especially smaller states," he said. "We accordingly jealously guard our sovereignty against such interference," he added, reiterating his threat to leave the Commonwealth. Mr Mugabe described Zimbabwe's economic problems as "challenges that can be overcome". He vowed to crack down on corruption and blackmarket deals that he said were aggravating currency shortages, and promised to curb inflation, currently 526%, through price controls. He said he was working to build a rival world-power axis involving China to face up to the unipolar world dominated by the US. "The speech was entirely delusional," said Iden Wetherell, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, one of the few remaining privately owned newspapers. "He's living in a world of his own invention. He offered no solutions and appears to think a lifeline is about to be thrown by China and there's no sign of it." Mr Mugabe declared his seizures of white-owned farms as a "success for all of Africa", and claimed the government was improving the country's ailing transportation, energy and telecommunications sectors. But he made no mention of crippling strikes by doctors, nurses and postal workers. The speech came as the state's treason case against the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai faltered amid an unusual request from prosecutors to change their charge, because of flimsy evidence. He is accused of ordering Mr Mugabe's assassination.
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From Reuters, 2 December
Cholera kills 12 in Zimbabwe tourist district
Harare - A cholera outbreak in one of Zimbabwe's prime tourist districts has killed 12 people but the government said the disease was under control, state media reported Tuesday. The official Herald newspaper quoted Health Minister David Parirenyatwa as saying the government had set up temporary health centers following a cholera outbreak that had affected hundreds of people in the northern Kariba district. "The 12 deaths that were recorded are those people who did not receive treatment but the 413 cholera cases have been contained as they are receiving treatment," Parirenyatwa was quoted as saying. He was not available for further comment on Tuesday. Officials said the victims were all Zimbabweans. The Kariba district is a top tourist destination with a huge lake and a number of wildlife parks. Zimbabwe's tourism industry has shrunk by more than 60 percent in the past three years as the southern African country grapples with a serious political and economic crisis blamed by President Robert Mugabe's critics on his government. The crisis, and especially Mugabe's controversial seizure of white-owned farms for distribution among landless blacks, has tarnished Zimbabwe's image in the West and raised some visitors' concerns about security.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 1 December
Running on empty
Sean O'Toole
Zimbabwe’s worsening fuel crisis has occasioned some unusual social customs. Of these, the daily activities of Golden Chamisa (20) certainly rank among the more desperate. Chamisa earns a meagre wage jobbing for the truckers congregated in the Zimbabwean border town of Beit Bridge. Not that he is paid for cleaning and servicing the large pantechnikons loaded with fuel and goods. As fair exchange for his services the truckers simply allow Chamisa to siphon-off the last dregs of fuel from the empty tankers they are returning to South Africa. "Why should I be afraid of the police?" Chamisa asks laconically as he watches a modest flow of fuel drain into an open drum. His contempt is palpable. Chamisa dips a finger into the retrieved liquid and then tastes it. "It’s a leaded blend," he says authoritatively, moving off to drain another exit pipe. On Zimbabwe’s burgeoning black market for fuel, Chamisa’s moderate fuel stash promises him rich cash rewards. Depending on the availability of fuel, which nowadays is erratic, Chamisa’s price will vary between Z$20 000 and Z$25 000 for five litres. His price is (on average) double the official rate, which in October was set at Z$2 550 a litre. Analysts estimate that Zimbabwe consumes 1,7-million tonnes of fuel a year, and spends approximately US$55-million a year to import this fuel. Most of the fuel is imported through a pipeline from Beira to Mutare and Harare, or via road or rail from South Africa, where it is stored in depots at Beit Bridge, Feruka and Harare. The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) manages all these petroleum imports. In December 1999 the company’s inability to service its foreign debts resulted in a number of oil companies closing off supplies to Zimbabwe.
Even the country’s arrangements with Libya’s Tamoil Trading ended when Harare ran short of foreign currency reserves. According to one recent estimate, Noczim currently owes its foreign creditors about US$305-million. Seen against this backdrop, Golden Chamisa’s actions are tellingly emblematic of contemporary Zimbabwe’s despairing scavenger economy. Commenting on the visible manifestations of this problem, Tafirenyika Wekwa Makunike, a Johannesburg-based business consultant, wrote a scathing opinion piece in a recent edition of the Zimbabwe Independent. "It seems we have been converted from an industrialising nation into a nation of street vendors," he caustically observed. Makunike’s opinion is amply vindicated in the far northern South African town of Musina, in Limpopo . There Zimbabwean street vendors sleep rough on the streets, while earning a pittance selling empty plastic drums to traders and taxi drivers en route to Zimbabwe. The drums enable the passing vehicles to transport extra loads of personal fuel into Zimbabwe.
For Mary Phiri (42), her 20-litre and 25-litre plastic drums are far more important than their utilitarian purpose would suggest. The drums, which she retails for R30 and R35 respectively, provide this mother of five with sufficient money to keep three of her children in school. "I usually go home every three weeks to visit my kids," says Phiri. After a pause, she adds: "But this is my home now." She points to a rock garden littered with plastic drums and overripe red tomatoes. "I have a five-roomed house in Mutare," Mary later reveals, "with electricity". In Musina, however, the local Spar has become her kitchen, the 24-hour Engen garage her toilet. "It’s a good business," remarks Margaret Sibanda (42) from Masvingo, another roadside hawker. "I came to South Africa in June this year to earn rands. At first I used to sell sugar and tea leaves. However, people from Zimbabwe were always asking me about cheap containers to transport petrol. Now I only sell plastic drums." Sibanda claims she sells between nine and 12 drums a day. The popular demand for these containers offers a refracted view on the Zimbabwean government’s recent decision, in August, to relinquish Noczim’s monopoly on fuel importation and allow oil companies to directly import and sell fuel. The immaculately maintained BP service station just outside Beit Bridge, on the main road to Harare, suggests that little discernable benefit has been derived from this change in policy. The BP station has not had fuel in the past six months. As for individuals such as Golden Chamisa, their desperate entrepreneurial bravado will probably be rewarded by a profitable wage for a while yet.
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From BBC News, 4 December
Zimbabwe faces expulsion from IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)has initiated procedures to expel Zimbabwe from its ranks. The international lender said the move came in response to Zimbabwe's failure to cooperate with it. "The IMF regrets that the authorities have not adopted comprehensive policies needed to address Zimbabwe's serious economic problems," the IMF said. It added that Zimbabwe had been in arrears to the IMF since 2001, and now owed a total of $273m (£155m). The expulsion procedures take some months to complete, and the IMF said Zimbabwe would have "ample opportunity" to reverse the process. But it warned that the procedures "could ultimately result in the compulsory withdrawal of the country from the IMF." The IMF has already substantially downgraded Zimbabwe's membership over the past two years, withdrawing most financial aid and technical assistance, and suspending its voting rights. The fund said it would review Zimbabwe's debt arrears within the next six months. The IMF's announcement deepens the international isolation of Zimbabwe, which was suspended from the Commonwealth earlier this year after charges that the country's president, Robert Mugabe, had rigged his re-election. It comes as the African nation faces economic collapse. According to the IMF, Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by about 40% in the last four years, while inflation rose to an annual rate of 526% in October 2003. About two thirds of the population face food shortages, and the country suffers from one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in the world.
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From News24 (SA), 3 December
Women injured in Zim protest
Harare - At least five women were injured and 10 arrested when Zimbabwe police broke up a demonstration against food shortages in the second largest city, Bulawayo, an activist claimed on Wednesday. Magodonga Mahlangu of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) said from the southwestern city that riot police arrested them after they marched through the city making "a lot of noise, beating pots and waving placards". The demonstration, which she said had the support of around 200 women, had been called to protest against "high prices of food and shortages that are leading us into starvation", according to a Woza statement. Perpetua Dube, a lawyer for the women's group, confirmed the arrests. She said the women were "being held at various police stations" around Bulawayo. But police denied that there had been any demonstrations in Bulawayo. "It's a lie. There were no demonstrations," police spokesperson Smile Dube said.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of severe food shortages threatening around half of the country's 11.6 million people. Even people with jobs struggle to make ends meet with hyper-inflation, currently at more than 500%, eroding wages. In October Bulawayo health officials reported that 43 people, mostly children, had died of malnutrition in the city in the previous two months. Mahlangu said on Wednesday the demonstrators had been able to march for around 5km to central Bulawayo before three truckloads of riot police broke up the demonstration. "I've got five injured (protesters) who were beaten by the riot police," she said. The march by the women comes around two weeks after the country's main labour body called for countrywide street demonstrations to protest high taxes and economic hardships. More than 100 activists, including labour leaders, were arrested during those demonstrations, which were also broken up by police.
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From VOA News, 3 December
Rights groups fear Zimbabwe political violence increasing
Statistics released by human rights monitors this week show that, while random violence in Zimbabwe is down, arrests and torture of political opponents has increased dramatically. According to medical officials and human rights workers, 14 people needed hospital treatment during the weekend parliamentary by-election to fill a vacant seat in the town of Kadoma, a two-hour drive southwest of Harare. The victims told human rights monitors they had been tortured by an organized group of ruling Zanu PF supporters. The ruling party ended up winning the off-year election by a wide margin, taking the seat away from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Human rights workers compiling statistics from hospital records and complaints say the pattern of violence has changed since the presidential elections in March of 2002. The Human Rights Forum reported that, compared with the same period last year, the number of random torture cases dropped by half to 500 through November. But, a leading human rights activist, who asked not to be named, said Wednesday torture of targeted victims for political reasons has increased dramatically. "These days victims are usually political leaders within their communities," he said. Most of them have been tortured frequently." He told VOA that last year before the presidential election, torture was often random. Now, he said, the authorities appear to have lists of people who they will arrest in specifically targeted areas.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 3 December
Zimbabweans to blame for crime, says Botswana
Botswana's police chief has broken ranks with its government by blaming hordes of illegal border-crossers from Zimbabwe for a sharp increase in crime, a daily newspaper reported on Wednesday. "The influx of illegal immigrants into Botswana, most especially the Zimbabweans, is a serious problem impacting negatively on the crime scene and undermines crime prevention efforts," police commissioner Norman Moleboge told the Botswana Gazette. "Zimbabweans have now become a formidable burden to the police service," he said. "The police facilities are overcrowded by Zimbabweans. Our facilities are flooded... and we are no longer able to maintain a proper upkeep of our offices." Botswanan President Festus Mogae last month vowed to crack down on illegal immigrants and constantly referred to the regional political problems in Zimbabwe without directly naming the country. Botswana is currently experiencing a huge influx of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe as a result of a political and economical meltdown in the neighbouring country. The country's immigration department has said more than 125 000 Zimbabweans enter the country illegally every month. On an average, only 2 500 are repatriated every month. The police boss said even law-abiding Zimbabweans who entered the country covertly were "draining the resources" of Botswana. The illegal immigrants have been blamed an upswing of crime in the country, including robberies, murders, rapes and petty theft
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From Reuters, 3 December
Zambia bids to end Zimbabwe Commonwealth sanctions
Lusaka - Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said on Wednesday he would lead a campaign at this week's Commonwealth summit to end neighbouring Zimbabwe's suspension from the group. "We want the suspension to be lifted... Zambia does not support the continued suspension of Zimbabwe (and) we will raise the matter so that the suspension is lifted," Mwanawasa told reporters at Lusaka airport as he left for the summit. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has not been invited to Friday's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja after being suspended from the 54-member body over allegations of vote-rigging in his 2002 re-election. The suspension, originally for a year, was extended after deep divisions emerged in the group of mainly former British colonies over how to handle Mugabe, who is accused of abusing human rights and mismanaging Zimbabwe's now crippled economy.
"We were hoping that they would lift the suspension but it has continued. The matter should come up for review. Zambia is saddened at the continued suspension of Zimbabwe," Mwanawasa said. The Zambian president's comments appeared to set him on a collision course with other Commonwealth leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose International Development Secretary Hilary Benn told Reuters on Tuesday Britain would campaign to maintain the suspension. Mugabe has threatened to leave the Commonwealth if membership threatened Zimbabwe's sovereignty, and accused Britain, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday of creating an "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance" against him. He says a "white" section of the Commonwealth is trying to punish his government's seizure of white-owned farms for distribution among landless black Zimbabweans. The issue has dominated the run-up to the summit, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday he hoped it would not dominate proceedings in Nigeria. Britain's Queen Elizabeth was due to arrive later on Wednesday for a visit that will include opening the meeting.
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From Reuters, 4 December
Canada floats Commonwealth compromise on Zimbabwe
By Randall Palmer
Tenerife, Canary Islands - Faced with deep divisions in the Commonwealth over whether to end Zimbabwe's suspension from the group, Canada will propose a compromise intended to keep the country under close watch, a senior Canadian official has said. The official, travelling in Prime Minister Jean Chretien's plane en route to this week's Commonwealth summit in Nigeria, said Canada favoured maintaining the suspension for now but wanted to set up a mechanism whereby Zimbabwe would not have to wait until the next summit in two years to rejoin. "No, we're not ready to lift (the suspension). We haven't seen any real positive developments. But let's not wait for another two years before we readdress the issue at the next (summit)," the official said on Wednesday. Zimbabwe was suspended from the 54-nation grouping of mainly former British colonies last year after President Robert Mugabe was accused of rigging his own reelection. Mugabe has not been invited to the December 5-8 summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja, but the issue of how to deal with the southern African country, its collapsing economy and political domestic turmoil is sure to dominate the meeting. Harare has suggested it might quit the Commonwealth.
"We cannot just go to Abuja and say, 'OK, they're suspended for two years'. We have to put more pressure so that there will be progress," the Canadian official said. "And for them (the Zimbabweans), if this is what they wish, there will be some hope of being reinstated before the next (summit in 2005)." The compromise would involve assigning some sort of group to monitor Zimbabwe carefully and report back to the Commonwealth leaders in six months or a year. This could involve a troika of Commonwealth leaders, or a committee of "wise men" or the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which is a group of eight foreign ministers charged with ensuring member states uphold the Harare Declaration, which committed the grouping to democratic principles. Britain said on Monday it would urge fellow Commonwealth members to keep up pressure on its former colony by maintaining a punitive suspension of Mugabe's government at the summit. Mugabe accused Britain, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday of forging an "unholy alliance" against him, a charge that Chretien firmly rejected. "It's not an alliance...you respect the Harare Declaration, and (you) will be invited (to leaders' summits)," he told reporters on the plane. He also said at one stage, the idea of Zimbabwe allowing opposition parties into the government had been discussed.
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From AAP, 4 December
Queen gets an unreality check
Abuja - Tight security surrounds the arrival of the Queen and 52 prime ministers and presidents in volatile Nigeria for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which begins on Friday. The Queen will open CHOGM, but planned visits to the Muslim northern city of Kano and the metropolis of Lagos have been cancelled. Instead, she will see a sanitised version of Nigeria in her first visit here since 1956. She is to go walkabout in a market village, New Karu. But instead of seeing authentic life in Nigeria, she will see a fake village built for her in the grounds of the local government secretariat in Abuja. Many of the market stall holders will be actors; the real residents of the village will be kept half a kilometre away. The leaders, including Australian Prime Minister John Howard, are due to arrive today. The main source of tension is likely to be the suspension of Zimbabwe, which will be the focus of the summit.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 4 December
Succession lottery roll-over
By Michael Hartnack
Zimbabwe’s politburo secretary for information Nathan Shamuyarira dropped a diplomatic bombshell Monday, blowing apart South Africa’s scenario for "quiet diplomacy" that would yield a dignified exit for Robert Mugabe by mid-2004. Far from Mugabe announcing his retirement at the Zanu PF annual conference in Masvingo this week, as South Africa has hinted for months, the subject of the succession is not even on the agenda, Shamuyarira told state radio. "The whole thing will be done at the 'people's congress' in December 2004. That will be the place for debating the succession and related issues," disclosed Shamuyarira, former foreign minister and principal spokesman for the ruling party. While South Africa has been pressing for an interim government of national unity, commentators in Zimbabwe have been warning that Mugabe, who turns 80 in February, has no intention of stepping down before the next presidential elections - due in March 2008 - if then. Talk of transition was a ploy both to diffuse foreign criticism and trap the opposition Movement for Democratic Change into a coalition that would discredit them with voters.
On the premise Mugabe would step down possibly by June, South African President Thabo Mbeki has tried to pressure MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and Zimbabweans generally, to abandon the idea of fresh presidential elections, or an openly determined succession, in favour of a behind-the-scenes lottery in which they may shorten the odds of getting an "acceptable" Zanu PF personality by agreeing to take part in the gamble under Mugabe's rules. South Africa suggested that by joining with civil society, the current political establishment, friendly neighbours and a tolerant Commonwealth, the MDC should have been able to maximise the odds for an amenable candidate getting the presidential first prize. However, Shamuyarira's latest words confirm fears that each time the eagerly awaited lottery draw is due, what will be announced is not a new name but a cheerful statement that, due to unfortunate circumstances, the prize has been carried over.
The South African government has failed to understand the most powerful Zanu PF succession faction, including Joseph Made at "agriculture", Patrick Chinamasa at "justice", and Jonathan Moyo at the equally fictitious "information", is the Mugabe faction who want him to stay on to 2008 - and beyond if possible. Under these circumstances, there will be no genuine "draw" for the succession until Mugabe has a health/palace power crisis. When the draw finally does comes under those forced circumstances it will be hastily convened and fraught with peril for the entire region. Most Zimbabweans refuse to accept these dangerous odds, and want the Commonwealth to help, now, in having this whole gamble declared illegal. In the absence of an open selection process and fair elections, Mugabe might be succeeded by a member of his Zanu PF hierarchy who helped drop several thousand people down mineshafts in the 1980s, looted big time from the Congo in the 1990s, and treated himself to a farm or three after 2000.
In the past, Africa has run on personalities rather than policies, and no one is more obsessed with personalities than Mugabe himself. Hear what he said on Friday at the graveside of an obscure party apparatchik who was granted national hero status. Mugabe did more than threaten to "say goodbye to the Commonwealth'' for refusing to invite him to its summit in Nigeria. The state funeral was to remind the faithful what cradle-to-grave perks come the way of those who stick by the man with the jam ladle, in a land where ordinary people queue for the basic loaf of bread. Mugabe loves eulogies for heroes: dead men tell no tales, neither do they argue with whatever opinions he may ascribe to them. His methods are based on being able to sway individual personalities by bribery, flattery or threat. At the graveside, Mugabe uttered infantile personal abuse against Australian Prime Minister John Howard as "genetically modified, because of the criminal ancestor he derives from". Would any white politician, anywhere in the modern world, survive uttering such racist remarks about a black personality? Whites, he said "remain a dangerous lot and we should be warned about that."
And then he turned on his fellow black Africans. No one could have done more than Mbeki to keep Mugabe in power. But in a clear reference to Mbeki and other African presidents committed to the New Economic Partnership for African Development, Mugabe attacked leaders "who are apologetic about being nationalistic...others who fear to be complete Africans, hesitate to be in complete solidarity with us." "There were those who feared to be associated with Zimbabweans because Zimbabweans were said to be taking the white man's land. They fear Robert Mugabe," he said. "Once we have given Africa back her pride of place, only then can we talk about a successful renaissance," he added, in a jibe at Mbeki's hopes. Some analysts in Zimbabwe think Mbeki dreads being arraigned before a newly reconstituted Race Classification Board, chaired by Mugabe, that will declare him "non-African" and therefore ineligible to work in the region. In Mugabe's test anyone who expresses distress at the sight of people, black or white, farmers or workers, being robbed and murdered by self-styled ex-guerrillas is not truly African. The same goes for anyone horrified at the prospect of 5,5 million Zimbabweans starving next year.
Mugabe has a personality profile typical of his generation of nationalist leaders - the alienated Third World intellectual. Tsvangirai, 51, Mugabe's only serious rival for the presidency if there were ever a free and open poll, is from a completely different breed. In the past, Africa ran on personalities first and policies second. South Africa's line that Zimbabwe should concentrate on getting an amiable new Zanu PF personality in charge and worry about the policies later is therefore understandable, but long out of date. Zimbabweans anyway do not want the "One nation, one party, one leader" philosophy that marked states such as Zambia in their early decades of independence. They feel there is no safe substitute for free and fair elections.
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From ZWNEWS, 4 December
Protests
Johannesburg - The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition will be holding a protest outside the Zimbabwe Consulate on Friday 5 December, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, at the corner of Frederick and Andersen Streets, Johannesburg. All welcome.
London - The Stop the Suffering Coalition will be holding a protest outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in the Strand on Saturday 6 December, from 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm. All welcome.
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From The Star (SA), 5 December
Malawi and Zambia will go in to bat for Zimbabwe
By Beauregard Tromp, Anthony Mukwita and Raphael Tenthani
Abuja / Lusaka / Blantyre - Pakistan is likely to be readmitted to the Commonwealth after a suspension over a military coup, but there are no immediate prospects of Zimbabwe's return to the club of former British colonies. Some African countries have, however, vowed to vigorously lobby for Zimbabwe's re-admission, raising the spectre of a major rift along north-south lines at the Commonwealth summit that got under way in Abuja, Nigeria, today. Both Pakistan and Zimbabwe were suspended for violating the Commonwealth's democratic principles. But Commonwealth secretary-general Don Mckinnon said while there was progress towards restoring democratic legitimacy in Pakistan, this was not the case in Zimbabwe. "The feeling among ministers dealing with this issue is that they are certainly moving in the right direction on all fronts," said McKinnon of progress in Pakistan. Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1999 following the military takeover by General Pervez Musharraf. The Islamic nation has also received firm backing from the US and Britain for its continued support in the "war against terror".British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported Pakistan's readmission before leaving London for Abuja yesterday but said Zimbabwe must remain suspended.
But despite McKinnon's efforts to underplay the Zimbabwe issue, it seems likely that Zimbabwe will dominate proceedings at the summit. Zambia and Malawi vowed to seek Zimbabwe's readmission. Speaking before departing their respective capitals for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, presidents Levy Mwanawasa and Bakili Muluzi said they did not support Zimbabwe's continued suspension. "We are going to discuss the issue (Zimbabwe's continued suspension)," Mwanawasa said at Lusaka International Airport. "Zambia does not support the continued suspension of Zimbabwe." Muluzi said that by ostracising Zimbabwe, the world was not punishing President Robert Mugabe but rather the people of Zimbabwe. "The position of Malawi is to encourage the international community to create a window of assistance to Zimbabwe so that the people do not suffer."
Muluzi has, together with President Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, visited Harare and unsuccessfully tried to encourage Mugabe to engage all stakeholders to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis. But despite that, the Malawian leader feels that Mugabe should be given a reprieve. He said Zimbabwe's economic crisis, characterised by record high official inflation of 526%, was unsustainable. The crisis could not be resolved through isolating Zimbabwe. However, Muluzi warned Zimbabwe's ruling clique against maintaining repressive laws which "are not meant to benefit the people". He said political leaders in Zimbabwe must realise that the world is "changing towards democracy" and repeal repressive laws. The position of South Africa on Zimbabwe's readmission remained unclear yesterday, although Mbeki has previously said he did not recognise any Commonwealth sanctions on Zimbabwe. It was not clear whether Mbeki would vigorously lobby for Zimbabwe's re-admission. It was also not clear whether South Africa would back McKinnon for re-election or would support a new candidate put forward by Sri Lanka. Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had said the government had not made up its mind on the issue.
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From The Independent (UK), 5 December
High risk bid by Nigeria to prevent summit split
By Richard Dowden in Abuja
In a high-risk strategy, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria last night called together the leaders of African and Caribbean states attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference to try to prevent Zimbabwe dominating the meeting. The conference starts to today and President Obasanjo, the host, is trying to sell his fellow leaders the proposal that he and Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth secretary general, should monitor Zimbabwe until the next meeting in two years. If they accept this idea, the issue of Zimbabwe, which threatens to split the conference, will be kicked into the long grass. But the plan is risky. By calling African and Caribbean leaders it could result in the split everyone is trying to prevent, a split along racial lines. If President Obasanjo's plan goes wrong it leaves the way open for the South Africans to gather support for the lifting of Commonwealth sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime. That would make it difficult for Tony Blair, who flew into Abuja last night. He let it be known that he could not attend the Commonwealth meeting if Mr Mugabe was there.
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has consistently argued that Zimbabwe should not be subject to sanctions and has said talks between Mr Mugabe's government and the opposition are making progress. The opposition denies they are happening in a meaningful way. Mr Mbeki has the support of Namibia, Zambia and possibly one or two other African countries and , until recently President Obasanjo. But the Nigerian President flew to Zimbabwe a fortnight ago to see for himself and found there was not sufficient progress to allow him to issue an invitation to Mr Mugabe. Zimbabwe was suspended from "the Councils of the Commonwealth" after the Commonwealth election monitors declared the 2002 election unfree and unfair. President Obasanjo's interest is to use the conference as a showcase to sell Nigeria and encourage foreign investment. He hopes to get the talking over as quickly and smoothly as possible. West African states such as Ghana and Sierra Leone will support Zimbabwe's continued suspension as will Uganda and Kenya. But African solidarity remains a potent force and even those who would vote against Zimbabwe's readmission would do so with a heavy heart. Some may even be persuaded to change their minds.
All are critical of the way Britain has handled the issue and remember that in 1966 when white-ruled Rhodesia declared independence, Britain failed to implement effective sanctions. While anti-colonial and anti imperial rhetoric has been encouraged by the American British invasion of Iraq, it does not play strongly in the Caribbean any more. People there are more concerned about economic matters. The Nigerian leader may have called the meeting for precisely that reason. But in southern Africa, where white rule lasted 20 or 30 years more, the anti-imperial rhetoric still has an audience. South Africa is pursuing its policy on other fronts. It is thought to be behind a move to replace Mr McKinnon with a former Sri Lankan foreign minister, Laksham Kadir Gamar. Usually secretary generals are given two terms and Mr McKinnon is only just completing his first. This proposal also looks as if it is going nowhere since neither Mr Gamar nor the president or prime minister of Sri Lanka are attending the conference. Mr Mbeki feels that Mr McKinnon has been too close to the British in the handling of the Zimbabwe issue, among others.
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From News24 (SA), 4 December
Comrade Mugabe must change
Charles Banda
Blantyre - Shortly before leaving home for the Commonwealth Congress in Nigeria on Thursday, Malawian President Bakili Muluzi warned Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe it was time he got his house in order. "My brother, comrade Mugabe, and his Zanu-PF must realise the world is changing in the direction of democracy. Laws that don't benefit the people should be scrapped," he said. This is the first time an African leader has publicly opposed Mugabe to such an extent. But Muluzi said he did not think Zimbabwe should be isolated by the international community. Malawi feels the international community should offer Zimbabwe a window of opportunity to stop the people's suffering, he said. Muluzi's comments come amid a great divide among African countries concerning Zimbabwe's re-admittance to the Commonwealth. Zambia said on Thursday it would ask for Zimbabwe to be re-admitted. South Africa's stand is not yet clear. Muluzi told journalists Mugabe needed to embrace democracy fully in a bid to stop his country from falling apart completely.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 4 December
Cold comfort for Mugabe's 'zombies'
Harare - Right up to the last moment, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe appeared to be keeping up his hopes that he might be invited to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria this weekend. That the Commonwealth summit would coincide with the annual conference of his ruling Zanu PF party did not bother Mugabe two weeks ago. "We look forward to participating at Abuja," he said brightly, a week before. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo announced last week that the Zimbabwean leader would not be invited, after finding no evidence that Mugabe had carried out any reforms to meet the Commonwealth's principles of democracy and governance. The Zanu PF annual conference, a three-day meeting of 3 000 rank-and-file supporters, was always opened by Mugabe on the Friday of the weekend on which it was held. This year, however, party officials had hinted he might speak instead on Thursday - an arrangement which would allow him to deliver his speech and head off to Abuja, in case Obasanjo relented at the last moment. Reports from travel agents that domestic flights from Harare on Thursday and Friday had been reduced without explanation added fuel to speculation. One of Air Zimbabwe's few remaining aircraft was on standby for Nigeria, they suggested. However, no official comment was available on what might well be a couple of coincidences.
Nor was there any hint from Abuja that Mugabe would be diverted from rallying the party faithful at the conference in the southern town of Masvingo. A year since the last party conference, inflation had surged to 526%, gross domestic product was estimated to have shrunk nearly 20%, over five-million Zimbabweans were in the grip of a second year of famine and Zimbabwe had become number 112 in a list of 133 of the world's most corrupt nations. Only two weeks ago, similar conditions saw thousands of Georgians take to the streets of Tbilisi and drive out long-standing president Eduard Shevardnadze. Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro of the University of Zimbabwe's politics department said: "It's a long shot to expect any kind of autonomous revolt. They're like a pack of zombies. Everything that the 'great leader' says will be cheered by all the delegates." In the 23 years since he came to power in 1980, he said, Mugabe has got rid all of the old generation of black nationalist politicians who were his peers in the resistance against white minority Rhodesian rule, when the party had a tradition of open debate and public criticism of its leaders. The wealthy, corrupt ruling hierarchy around Mugabe now were all beneficiaries of his patronage, said Mukonoweshuro. "They are nothing without Mugabe. If there was a revolt and they got rid of him, they would lose everything they have - including his protection, and some of them would probably go to jail. "How can you expect Mugabe's own creations to stand up to him?"
This week, the chances of any important debate neutralised in advance. On Monday, ruling party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira announced that the conference "will not discuss the issue of succession," local shorthand for Mugabe's retirement and the choice of his replacement. Every previous conference since Mugabe approached retirement age had been preceded by almost identically worded bans by Shamuyarira on such talk. On Tuesday, Mugabe delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address which had television viewers wondering which country he was talking about. "Corruption and dishonesty will not be tolerated," he intoned, a day after political intervention reversed the eviction of a senior party official from a white-owned farm he had grabbed for himself. There would be "rational management" of prices of basic commodities, an echo of the "fine-tuning" to prices of basic commodities he promised at last year's annual conference. Fourteen new post offices had been opened this year, he said, without a word on the strike that has stopped all postal deliveries for the last three weeks. "The conference is a non-event. You are not going to get any decisions that will have any effect on the situation. The problem with Zimbabwe is political, not economic," said Mukonoweshuro
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 4 December
Citizens take ANZ case to High Court
More than 1 000 Zimbabwean readers of the Daily News and its sister weekly, Daily News on Sunday, will next week petition the High Court under the Class Action Act to order the reopening of the two newspapers shut down by the government two months ago. At least 1 017 people from various parts of the country had by Tuesday this week appended their signatures to the petition that is being handled by human rights advocacy group, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). Several thousand more people are expected to have signed the petition by the time it is filed at court next week. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and state Media and Information Commission (MIC) chairman Tafataona Mahoso are cited as the respondents in the petition. The petitioners say that the state grossly violated their right to information as enshrined in the constitution of Zimbabwe and in the Universal Declaration of Human rights when it shut down the two newspapers on September 12.
The petition reads in part: "We as Zimbabwean citizens are being denied access to diverse information. "We are also being denied the other side of news which we used to obtain from the Daily News and the Daily News On Sunday, hence our right to freedom of information outlined under the constitution of Zimbabwe and the Bill of Rights are being trampled by the government's action." Armed police forcibly closed the two titles owned by private publishing company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), and had their equipment seized following a ruling by the Supreme Court that ANZ was operating its newspapers illegally because it had not registered them with the MIC. But the citizens who are now taking the government to court say the closure of the two newspapers was now forcing them to rely for news on state-controlled newspapers, radio and television stations. Harare businessman Paddington Japajapa, who is leading the citizens, said: "What the government is doing is muzzling the Press and the citizens at the end are the ones who suffer because they have been denied diverse views and different news angles."
One of the signatories to the petition, Thabiso Makhalima, who is a constitutional lawyer, said religious groups, political parties, civic organisations and other interest groups whom the state media denied a platform to propagate their views had been ruthlessly silenced by the closure of the ANZ publications. Makhalima added: "The lives of the employees of ANZ have also been jeopardised by government's shameful intolerance of dissent." The signatories say they will take their case to the country's highest court the Supreme Court, if they fail to get relief from the High Court. The Class Act empowers a group or groups of people to take collective legal action to initiate change or to lobby authorities for a certain cause. ANZ is the second media organisation to be closed by President Robert Mugabe's government. Three years ago a private radio statio n, Joy TV, was taken off air under unclear circumstances. Zimbabwe's Administrative Court, which is a branch of the country's High Court, last month ordered the MIC to issue the ANZ newspapers with an operating licence by Novemember 30. The MIC however has appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling.
Meanwhile Administrative Court judge Sello Nare is expected to deliver judgment this week on another application by ANZ seeking permission to be allowed to publish its newspapers pending the outcome of the MIC's appeal at the Supreme Court. Nare, who is president of the Administrative Court in Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo had to take over the case after president of the court in Harare, Michael Majuru, recused himself following allegations by the state-run Herald newspaper that he had been heard telling his friends and relatives on separate occasions that he was going to rule in favour of ANZ.
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From ZWNEWS, 5 December
The cost of speaking out
Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube, hailed internationally for his courage in speaking out against the abuses committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime, disclosed in a recent BBC interview that the authorities offered him a farm in an attempt to keep him quiet. "I refused because they wanted to silence me...I will not allow myself to be muzzled," said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, interviewed for the BBC programme The Choice during a visit to Rome. Ncube described the harassment: the stalking by Mugabe’s dreaded intelligence agents; the death threats; the smears in the state-controlled press including saying he fathered children by a nun; how a young woman who testified in the Bulawayo Cathedral to atrocities by Mugabe’s militia was smuggled out dressed as a nun to escape state agents. He vowed he will never give up.
"The trouble is that Mugabe and them are liars. They don’t want the truth to be known. Life has become impossible in Zimbabwe, even for the middle classes," said the archbishop. "To me it is a sin not to speak out when people are suffering. I have trust in God, that is what the faith is about," he added. "So while I cannot guarantee my own safety, if He wants me to serve him I think He will see to it that he protects me...I cannot be quiet just to preserve my own life." Speaking quietly, the 57-year-old prelate estimated that last year 5,000 people died from starvation, while the regime gave the United Nations falsely inflated harvest targets. "The U.N. then withdrew some of their aid. But they (the regime) were forecasting so it would appear the land reform is working very well." He put unemployment at 80 percent and described the state estimate of 500 percent inflation as "absolute lies it is 1,000 percent right now." In solemn tones, Nucbe referred to the luxurious lives of Mugabe and others well-connnected with the Zanu PF party. "They are living in luxury while people are starving. Your heart is simply broken and you feel powerless."
Nucbe said at first there was little reaction from the regime when he spoke out strongly during the current crisis after the murder by a gang of Mugabe supporters in April 2000 of a farmer not far from Bulawayo. "To me he becomes evil when the person risks the lives of the people for his own personal power. So when he started sending out these war veterans to actually kill people...I began to feel these people are not simply going after land, they have evil intention for keeping their power status," said Ncube of the violent seizure of most white-owned farms. "I didn’t like the way they did it," he added in an apparent reference to the murder of white farmer Martin Olds. "There were something like 100 war veterans and they shot one farmer. For me, first of all it was cowardly and, secondly, it was evil. They could have taken over that farm in a peaceful way...I brought together my priests and told them I am taking a stand now."
Apart from support from other church leaders in Bulawayo, Ncube has been a lone voice for much of the crisis. The most senior Catholic prelate in Zimbabwe, Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa, was until his death in April a longtime apologist for Mugabe. The Anglican Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, goes further. He is a fanatical Mugabe supporter and recipient of a farm. "I don’t know, I don’t understand it," the archbishop said when asked about Kunonga. Of his fellow Catholic prelates, Ncube said only, "Everyone was really nervous in the Catholic Church about my speaking out...a number of my fellow bishops felt I had to be much more prudent and much more careful in my choice of words."
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 December
Africa split on re-admission of Zimbabwe
Summit differences over Harare are not drawn between 'blacks' and 'whites', reports Anton La Guardia in Abuja
Robert Mugabe would like nothing better than to provoke a fight between "blacks" and "whites" at the Commonwealth summit, stirring memories of the great battles with Margaret Thatcher over apartheid. But yesterday it became clear that the real division runs somewhere close to the Zambezi river - between Zimbabwe's supporters in southern Africa and the rest of the continent which, despite the call of African solidarity, does not want to risk its credibility for the sake of President Mugabe. The first sign of this inter-African rift appeared on the eve of the summit, when the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, convened a mini-summit of African and Caribbean leaders to co-ordinate a position. The meeting broke up without agreement. But Mr Mugabe's backers - Namibia, South Africa and Zambia among them - had failed to win support for their demand that Zimbabwe's suspension be lifted immediately. Mr Obasanjo had to admit that he had failed to secure any change of behaviour from Mr Mugabe, and countries such as Kenya and Ghana held the line against his rehabilitation.
The pro-Zimbabwe group's other line of attack - seeking to unseat the secretary-general, Don McKinnon, in favour of the former Sri Lankan foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar - collapsed yesterday after Mr McKinnon was re-elected. The vote was not disclosed, but Helen Clark, New Zealand's prime minister, earlier predicted that he would win by at least 40 to 10. Jean Chretien, the Canadian prime minister, seemed to dismiss the whole challenge as a joke. "There was a challenger from Sri Lanka whom I don't know. I never met him, and if I did meet him I don't remember," he said. The Canadian premier will sit on a committee of six leaders who will draw up a "monitoring mechanism" to decide when Zimbabwe has met the Commonwealth's democratic standards and how it should then be re-admitted. The committee will report to the full summit at the weekend. Mr Mugabe's supporters will probably try to ensure that the conditions for re-admission are not too strict.
Tony Blair had hoped the question of Zimbabwe would be quickly settled in the first negotiating session yesterday, leaving time for other issues such as terrorism, Aids and world trade. Instead the summit host, Mr Obasanjo, passed the question on to the committee of six. A stern-looking Mr Blair was the first to leave the meeting. He did not join other leaders for a lunch reception, leaving officials to play down speculation that he had stormed out. However, Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, who is the most powerful advocate of Zimbabwe's re-integration, also left the building without speaking and avoided the social gathering. Mr Blair expressed disappointment about the delay. "I think it would have been better to deal with it straight away, but I think it's fine as long as we deal with it," said the Prime Minister. "I think it was anticipated that there would be some sort of process before we reach a final decision as obviously there are different views. I hope and remain reasonably confident that the suspension of Zimbabwe will continue until such time as they comply with what the Commonwealth set out in terms of human rights, democracy and proper governance."
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth last year after observers reported widespread violence and rigging in Mr Mugabe's re-election campaign. The one-year ban lapsed in March this year, but Mr McKinnon said most of the countries he consulted had wanted the suspension continued until the summit. He then set out five tests to measure any rehabilitation. As African drummers welcomed the assembled leaders to Abuja, Mr Mugabe was like a ghost at the party. There was no mention of Zimbabwe and Mr Mugabe in the introductory speeches by the Queen, Mr Obasanjo, and the Australian prime minister, John Howard. But everybody knew what the central dispute was about.
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From SABC News, 5 December
McKinnon re-elected as Commonwealth secretary-general
Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, has been re-elected at the organisation's summit in Abuja, Nigeria. His re-election for a second four-year term comes in the face of the objection of some nations to his handling of the Zimbabwe issue and their favouring a rival candidate. Said Musa, the Belize Prime Minister, has disclosed that the former New Zealand Foreign Minister won a closed-door vote among heads of state by 40 to 11. The alternative candidate was Lakshma Kadirgamar, a former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister. His candidacy was widely believed to have been urged by Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, who objected to McKinnon's backing Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth over human rights abuses. Diplomats at the conference are quoted as saying that South Africa was among the African nations favouring the election of the Sri Lankan.
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From Reuters, 5 December
Commonwealth tackles Zimbabwe rift
By Tom Ashby and Andrew Cawthorne
Abuja - A divided Commonwealth has appointed a six-nation task force to resolve a racially charged dispute between Western and African nations over the exclusion of Zimbabwe for rights abuses. The six countries, split equally between foes and friends of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, have until Sunday to find common ground in the 54-nation club of mostly ex-British colonies encompassing one-third of the world's population. The debate on Friday eclipsed other issues such as trade, terrorism and AIDS at the start of the four-day biennial Commonwealth summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja. But delegates said the Commonwealth had decided not to lift the suspension of another member, Pakistan, imposed in 1999 after a military coup which brought the then General Pervez Musharraf to power. They said that despite its cooperation in the U.S.-led "war on terror", Pakistan would not be re-admitted until President Musharraf stepped down as head of the armed forces and addressed other Commonwealth demands for democratic and judicial reform.
In the case of Zimbabwe, Britain - which with Australia, Canada and New Zealand wants to keep the heat on its former colony - was optimistic the task force would not allow Harare back into the club. "I hope and remain reasonably confident that the suspension will continue until they comply with what the Commonwealth set out in terms of rule of law, human rights and proper governance," Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters. The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe last year because opposition groups and Western nations accused Mugabe of rigging his re-election and harassing opponents. But some half dozen fellow African nations - including regional heavyweight South Africa - believe the sanction is not helping political reconciliation in Zimbabwe. "A lot of African countries have said in private they think this human rights stuff is just a cover for British interests there and they want to resist it. And that brings out a sort of Africanist attitude," Africa analyst Richard Dowden said. "We do not believe that the continued isolation of Zimbabwe is delivering the desired result," Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano told reporters. "In our opinion they should return to the fold."
The task force includes two nations in favour of keeping the suspension - Canada and Australia - two that want it lifted - South Africa and Mozambique - and two 'neutrals' - Jamaica and India. The six leaders met for the first time on Friday evening. "We feel that common ground can be found," said an official from Canada, whose Prime Minister Jean Chretien is attending his last Commonwealth summit before retiring. A furious Mugabe, aged 79 and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has threatened to leave the Commonwealth altogether. Membership gives many poor nations an important international stage as well as some aid and trade benefits. Once southern Africa's breadbasket, Zimbabwe now relies on aid to feed millions. Unemployment is running at more than 70 percent and inflation is above 500 percent. Political opponents of Mugabe are regularly harassed and there are strict curbs on press freedom. The banned Daily News - Zimbabwe's only privately owned daily newspaper - printed a special edition in Nigeria to coincide wit the summit. Its editorial called for Mugabe to quit and front page photos, which the paper said showed youths stoning opposition supporters, appeared under the headline: "The voices Mugabe wants to silence."
Mugabe says Britain, Australia and New Zealand have forged an "unholy alliance" against him. He accuses domestic and international "racist" foes of sabotaging the economy to punish him, mainly for a policy of seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. The Commonwealth's split over Zimbabwe led to moves by some African nations to back a challenge to the leadership of Secretary-General Don McKinnon from New Zealand, an unusual move in an organisation that prefers to work by consensus. Sri Lanka proposed its former foreign minister, Lakshma Kadirgamar, for the post, but McKinnon won re-election for a second four-year term by 40 votes to 11, Belize Prime Minister Said Musa said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 5 December
MDC sends delegation to Chogm
Dumisani Muleya
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Wednesday dispatched a high-powered delegation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) which begins in Abuja, Nigeria, today. The MDC team includes party chairman Isaac Matongo, Information and Publicity secretary Paul Themba Nyathi, secretary for foreign affairs Moses Mzila Ndlovu, secretary for international relations Sekai Holland, and its representative to the European Union, Grace Kwinje. It is understood the MDC group is armed with a dossier on the situation in Zimbabwe that will be distributed to Commonwealth leaders and be part of their discussions in meetings with heads of government. While the MDC was welcome on the sidelines of the Abuja meeting, President Robert Mugabe was effectively barred from the summit because his government remains suspended from the Commonwealth for rigging last year's presidential election. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said last week Mugabe was banned from the summit of mostly former British colonies and would not attend. This week Obasanjo said "it was not easy" to exclude Mugabe from the meeting but he felt justified in his decision. He said Mugabe was free to come to Nigeria as long as he was not coming to the Commonwealth meeting.
The MDC delegation is expected to engage Commonwealth leaders on the sidelines of the summit on a wide range of issues concerning Zimbabwe. MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube said since Zimbabwe was suspended following an election marred by vote-rigging and violence, government had refused to address issues of concern. "They have not promoted political dialogue, restored the rule of law, ended political repression and violence, dealt with democratic and electoral reforms, and cleaned up the land reform programme in line with United Nations Development Programme recommendations as the Commonwealth had required them to do," he said. "Zimbabwe has also refused to engage the Commonwealth secretary-general (Don McKinnon) about these issues. The Commonwealth should act firmly to show that there are serious consequences for defying it and to safeguard its credibility."
The MDC has been on diplomatic swings across the world in a bid to find a solution to the corrosive Zimbabwe crisis. On Monday Ncube met the Prime Minister of Mauritius on the crisis. Ncube, Nyathi and Mzila also met South African deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad, South African High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Jeremiah Ndou, and other senior officials in Pretoria to discuss events in Zimbabwe. Last week Nyathi addressed South Africa's parliamentary foreign affairs committee in Cape Town. Recently MDC MPs David Coltart and Tendai Biti met Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and other West African leaders. Ncube lately also met with the presidents of Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique, while his party officials met with Kenyan and South African authorities.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 December
Daily News has its say at summit
Abuja - A special edition of a newspaper banned three months ago by the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe hit the newsstands in Nigeria on Friday as Commonwealth leaders were debating how to handle the Zimbabwe crisis. "The voices Mugabe wants to silence," shouted the front-page headline of the 48-page edition of The Daily News, distributed as Commonwealth leaders met with the shadow of Zimbabwe looming large over their four-day summit in the Nigerian capital. The paper, adorned with colour pictures depicting state oppression against the media and the opposition in Zimbabwe, was tucked inside an influential Nigerian newspaper, ThisDay. "This is part of a new effort to ensure that the newspaper hits the newsstands on Zimbabwe's streets," said the paper's legal adviser, Gugulethu Moyo. "The story of Zimbabwe is the story of The Daily News," she said.
The Daily News, the only private newspaper in Zimbabwe, was banned on September 12 after a Supreme Court judgement declared it illegal. It appeared briefly on October 25, a day after an administrative tribunal ordered it to obtain an operating permit from a government-appointed commission before the end of last month. But several journalists and top company officials were arrested and charged with illegally publishing a newspaper, and The Daily News has been off the presses since then. The paper has been strongly critical of the Mugabe government and its stance has won wide respect among ordinary people in Zimbabwe, where it boasted as many as 950 000 readers. The special edition was published in Nigeria to try to give maximum exposure to the plight of the paper and the deep political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, which was suspended from the Commonwealth last year after Mugabe won elections marred by vote-rigging and violence.
Commonwealth leaders have set up a special committee to look into the Zimbabwe crisis and try to avoid a damaging split over whether the Southern African nation should remain suspended from the 54-member global body. Without The Daily News, Zimbabweans only have the government-run propaganda sheets The Herald and its Bulawayo regional edition, The Chronicle. Under the headlines "Press bombed", "Mobs destroy newspapers" and "New reign of terror erupts on farms", the special Nigeria edition chronicled a history of media and opposition repression by Mugabe's 23-year-old government and the disastrous effects of its controversial land reform programme. Under the land reforms, Mugabe's government has seized land from white commercial farmers and redistributed it to landless black Zimbabweans. Critics of Mugabe have said the land seizures have worsened a food crisis in Zimbabwe sparked by a severe drought in the Southern African region. Other Southern African countries affected by the drought have since recovered and do not require food aid, while up to 5,5-million Zimbabweans - almost half the country's population - are expected to require humanitarian aid by the end of the year.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 December
Mugabe launches vicious tirade against Britain
Harare - Shut out from the Commonwealth summit, Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, launched a brutal long-distance attack against Britain yesterday and threatened to unleash "legal violence" against the opposition. Addressing his ruling Zanu PF party congress, he returned to the fiery rhetoric he habitually employs against Britain, suggesting that London wanted to return Zimbabwe to colonial rule. "Mr Blair, listen to what we are saying. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans, and when you are in Abjua, let the Commonwealth also hear that. If the choice was for us to lose sovereignty, or be a member of the Commonwealth, let the Commonwealth go. It is just a club, and there are many other clubs we can join." In a wide-ranging attack against all his enemies, Mr Mugabe also defended his bloody "land reform" programme, which led to the deaths of scores of black farm workers, several white farm owners and the impoverishment of the countryside. "Our people are overjoyed, the land is ours," Mr Mugabe said. "We are now the rulers and owners of Zimbabwe." He then added words clearly threatening a return to the officially inspired violence that has scarred the country's young democracy. "The police and security forces have remained completely alert and most loyal," he said. Anyone wishing to destabilise Zimbabwe, take care. We can unleash these forces on him. We can unleash legal force and violence, which we are permitted to do."
More worrying, however, was the nonchalant way Mr Mugabe dismissed any possibility of talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which African nations, in particular South Africa, Nigeria and Malawi, have claimed had already begun. "We can't just talk to the MDC about nothing. Do they want us to be independent or sovereign, or do they want us to come under the yoke of imperialism and colonialism?" Mr Mugabe has always accused the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai of being "tools" of Britain and "imperialism" since the trade union-based party came within six seats of beating Zanu PF in the 2000 parliamentary elections. Most of Mr Mugabe's familiar and bilious rhetoric was saved for Tony Blair, whose name was plastered on posters on the walls of the huge white congress tent in the small, poor town of Masvingo, known before independence in 1980 as Fort Victoria. Mr Blair shares a name with a Zimbabwe-designed pit latrine used in rural areas, and delegates giggled each time Mr Mugabe mentioned the Prime Minister. Looking and sounding robust, Mr Mugabe, who will be 80 in February, gave no indication that he was planning to leave the political stage.
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From The Church Times (UK), 5 December
Kunonga accused of incitement to murder
By Pat Ashworth
More details have emerged of the charges made against the Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga. The Bishop, an apologist for President Mugabe, is charged with 38 offences, in a move that will bring him before an ecclesiastical court to face the Archbishop of Central Africa, Dr Bernard Malango. On the seven-page charge sheet, addressed to the Registrar of the provincial court, Bishop Kunonga is charged with apostasy; of publicly and deliberately maintaining doctrines contrary to the teaching of the Church; and of conducting himself "in a manner which gives just cause for scandal and offence". More seriously, he is also charged with inciting or attempting to incite the killing of named members of the opposition party, "so that they would leave a certain congregation or congregations", and with the intimidation, suspension and dismissal of priests and lay people. A catalogue of further charges includes bringing the diocese and the Church into "ridicule and contempt" by taking civil proceedings against church members; of an unlawful attempt to dismiss the Chancellor; of failing and continuing to fail "to call for justice and plead for truth"; of substituting three signatories of his own choice to an account at the Stanbic Bank; of having churchwardens and councillors called in for questioning on the unfounded suspicion of their knowledge of a plot to assassinate him, "when he knew such an allegation to be false"; and of "failing to communicate with or consult clergy or laity save for a select few specially associated with him." It is not known when the Bishop will be summoned before the provincial court.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Matabeleland, the Most Revd Pius Ncube, has acknowledged the cost of speaking out against President Mugabe and the ruling Zanu PF party. In a BBC radio interview with Michael Buerk on Monday, he spoke of the government’s attempts to intimidate and to silence him, including bringing false accusations of rape against him. He was offered a farm in return for his co-operation, but refused. "I will not allow myself to be muzzled. If I had accepted the farm, I would not have been able to talk," said the Archbishop, who took part in the public demonstration against the World Cricket Cup in Harare this year. Afterwards he held a service at which atrocities committed by the ruling party were exposed. However, as a consequence of attending the service, a 14-year-old schoolboy had been tortured in the cells "until he lost his mind", he said. The Zimbabwean government had procured no seed for its starving people, the Archbishop said. And President Mugabe’s misleading forecast of a big harvest had caused the World Food Programme to withdraw some of its aid. "Six million US dollars have gone on a 70-room house, cars and lives of luxury while people are starving," he said. Mr Mugabe and his government were liars. "These people claim to be Christians, but they have not even observed fundamental Christian teaching. Their Christianity is not honest." The Archbishop acknowledged that he could not guarantee his own safety; but he said: "It’s a sin not to speak out when people are suffering. I have to trust in God. That’s what faith is all about."
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From The Observer (UK), 7 December
Mugabe: I'll quit Commonwealth
Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
The Commonwealth was plunged into disarray last night after President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe threatened to withdraw his country from the organisation. This dramatic escalation of the dispute over Zimbabwe's suspension from membership was timed for maximum embarrassment, with member nations gathered for a summit in Nigeria and talks over the issue still deadlocked after two days. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party voted yesterday for a motion to withdraw unless the talks, which are expected to conclude tomorrow, go his way. 'If we say we are doing this, we will do. We never retreat,' Mugabe said. His Foreign Minister, Stan Mudenge, said the Cabinet would meet soon to discuss withdrawal and he saw 'no difficulty' in securing its agreement. The intervention, which successfully hijacked the biannual meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government, was being seen last night as a last-ditch attempt to blackmail other nations into agreeing that Zimbabwe could be readmitted.
Tony Blair's attempts to prevent the issue overshadowing the summit collapsed yesterday as the Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon admitted it would take 'significant verbal gymnastics' to agree a deal over Zimbabwe - suspended last March over its appalling human rights record. Officials said it was unlikely that the group of six leaders charged with producing a blueprint for re-engagement with Zimbabwe would produce their conclusions until tonight. Officials made clear that Blair, due to leave tomorrow afternoon, could stay on if events reached crisis point. Paul Themba Nyathi, spokesman for the Zimbabwean opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, pleaded last night for the six not to submit to pressure. 'If [Mugabe] withdraws from the Commonwealth his status as a dictator will be confirmed,' he said. The MDC wanted Zimbabwe's suspension maintained, he said arguing that although little appeared to have improved during the 18 months of his suspension, Mugabe was affected by it.
The group of six - leaders of Australia, Canada, Mozambique, South Africa, Jamaica and India - spent yesterday attempting to agree new tests for progress before Zimbabwe could be readmitted and new ways of monitoring events. Civil society groups meeting formally under the Commonwealth umbrella in Nigeria yesterday accused it of 'double standards' over human rights and turning a blind eye to abuses in favoured countries. Britain and Australia were heavily criticised for invading Iraq while criticising other countries' abuses. In a statement issued yesterday, the Civil Societies Meeting warned that the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States had been used as an excuse by some governments to clamp down on legitimate, peaceful opposition. Ced Simpson, spokesman for the group, said there was concern about clampdowns in Malaysia and Singapore but that the UK and Australia had also been criticised for military intervention in Iraq.
Last night as the retreat at the Nigerian presidential villa in Abuja broke up, delegates said the group of six had produced a draft statement on Zimbabwe but had failed to secure agreement on it. Helen Clark, the New Zealand Prime Minister, said the majority of the group favoured Zimbabwe's continued suspension and setting benchmarks which it would have to meet before being allowed back in. Asked how seriously she viewed Mugabe's threat to leave, Clark said: 'If the decision is for continued suspension he has put himself in a position where he is saying he will go if that happens, so he will look a little silly if he doesn't carry through the threat.'
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From News24 (SA), 6 December
Mugabe urged to stay put
Abuja - Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon urged Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe not to compound his country's isolation by withdrawing from the world body in protest at his suspension. Commonwealth leaders meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja are arguing over the terms for Zimbabwe's eventual readmission to the world body, but Mugabe has threatened to cut the dispute short by dropping out completely. "I would hope that Mugabe would take a breath on this one and realise that the Commonwealth meeting here really does want to move on on Zimbabwe," he said, insisting that leaders wanted to re-engage with Harare. "There's a lot more to gain from being inside the Commonwealth than outside it," the former New Zealand foreign minister said. He dismissed allegations that Commonwealth membership was irrelevant to Zimbabwe, recalling that last month Mugabe had expressed hopes that he would be invited to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). "It seemed to be an extremely relevant institution when President Mugabe was saying he wanted to come to CHOGM," he said. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth's ruling councils in March last year after an election which Commonwealth observers said was conducted in a "climate of fear". Now, the body's leaders are divided over whether to readmit it or to insist first on higher standards of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. A six-nation panel comprising the leaders of Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique and South Africa has been set up to work alongside the summit and report back to the 52 national delegations with recommendations. McKinnon said he expected the panel to report before the end of Sunday, the second day of the Commonwealth "retreat" - an informal closed door session designed to encourage plain talking between the leaders at the summit.
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From The Independent (UK), 7 December
Mugabe: Commonwealth is 'Animal Farm'
By Chris Chinaka and Ed Johnson in Abuja, Nigeria
Commonwealth leaders last night agreed Zimbabwe would remain suspended from the 54-nation group and appointed the Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Commonwealth secretary general, Don McKinnon, to monitor Zimbabwe's progress over the next two years, diplomatic sources said. The decision, to monitor Zimbabwe until the next Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting, represents a victory for Britain and the anti-Mugabe camp. But, according to the sources, Thabo Mbeki, the South African President who has fought hard to get Zimbabwe readmitted, said this did not mean President Robert Mugabe's regime would be off the agenda for the rest of this meeting. This ensures Zimbabwe will continue to dominate proceedings today. Last night, the only official word on the decision of a six-member committee appointed by CHOGM to discuss Zimbabwe came from the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who said: "They have a form of words which they are still negotiating and they will continue to negotiate over this evening. "I understand that a clear view of a majority of the group is that the suspension should continue and it should be made clear what benchmarks Mr Mugabe should have to make to be let back in." Earlier in the day, Zimbabwe's President Mugabe said his government would pull out of the Commonwealth after his ruling Zanu PF party passed a resolution calling for Zimbabwe's withdrawal.
The suggestion that the Nigerian President should, as host of this conference and chairman for the next two years, monitor Zimbabwe had been turned down at a meeting of African and Caribbean leaders. President Obasanjo had hoped to get the issue agreed early on in the three-day conference. Yesterday's full meeting, including 40 heads of state, turned the Zimbabwe issue over to the committee of six, consisting of two countries in favour of readmitting Zimbabwe South Africa and Mozambique two against Australia and Canada and two others, Jamaica and India. That committee recommended Mr Obasanjo's original proposal be accepted and Mr Mbeki backed down, sources said. The decision comes as a great relief to the British, who regard the Nigerian leader as a safe pair of hands. Although in favour of readmitting Zimbabwe earlier in the year, Mr Obasanjo changed his mind two weeks ago when he went to Harare to assess things for himself. He found Mr Mugabe as unaccommodating as ever. Earlier, a South African- sponsored challenge to the exclusion of Zimbabwe was defeated when the heads of government voted 40 to 11 in favour of Mr McKinnon continuing as secretary general. The election was seen as a protest against the policy on Zimbabwe. It also destroyed the myth of African solidarity over Zimbabwe. Eleven votes for the rival candidate, a former Sri Lankan foreign minister, showed that only a handful of African countries support South Africa's stand to have Zimbabwe returned.
Mr Mugabe's threat to withdraw was made at a two-day meeting in Zimbabwe where, before 3,000 cheering delegates, he said the Commonwealth had been hijacked by racists who were interfering in Zimbabwe's internal affairs. He said there was no backing down from the resolution, because his government had been treated unfairly. "The Commonwealth is a mere club, but it has become like Animal Farm, where some members are more equal than others. How can Blair claim to regulate and direct events and still say all of us are equals?" he said. Commonwealth leaders suspended Zimbabwe last year, saying Mr Mugabe had rigged his re-election in 2002 and harassed opponents.
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From IOL (SA), 6 December
I'm not ready to go, says Mugabe
Masvingo - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday told cheering party loyalists he was not ready to step down. There had been frenzied speculation that Mugabe, who turns 80 next year, would use the Zanu PF conference this weekend in the southern city of Masvingo to announce he was resigning or selecting a successor. But instead he told around 3 000 party loyalists in his closing address that his country had given him a mandate to continue ruling. "I must make good that mandate," he said to deafening applause. "If I feel I cannot do it (govern) anymore, I'll come to you in an honourable way and say, 'Ah no. I think I've now come to a stage where I need a rest.' I'll tell you that. "I haven't told you that, have I?" he told the jubilant crowd of supporters. Mugabe has been in power here for the past 23 years since the country gained independence from Britain.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 7 December
Libya buys stake in diamond miner that took on the BBC
A mining firm falsely accused of links to al-Qaeda and selling 'blood diamonds' has an unusual investor, writes Edward Simpkins
Colonel Gadaffi's Libyan government owns a large stake in Oryx Natural Resources, the Arab-owned diamond mining company whose London listing was unexpectedly cancelled in 2000, the Telegraph can reveal. The state-owned Libyan Arab African Investment Company (LAAIC) bought a 20 per cent stake in Oryx, which has substantial diamond mining concessions in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in late December 2002. Geoffrey White, the managing director of Oryx, said: "LAAIC took the stake in us. They approached us at the end of last year and did a significant amount of due diligence. They are a hugely commercial organisation and we consider it a compliment that they want to invest in us." The investment was made a month after the BBC settled a legal dispute with the company. In October 2001 the BBC had broadcast a report - entitled "The Diamonds that pay for Bin Laden's Terror" - falsely claiming that Oryx had links with the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The BBC withdrew the claims and is believed to have paid around £500,000 to settle the case. It also broadcast an apology.
However, Oryx has found itself at the centre of controversy on several occasions. When it attempted to list on Aim via a reverse takeover in June 2000, its adviser, Grant Thornton, mysteriously resigned on the eve of the listing. Both the London Stock Exchange and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) denied putting pressure on Grant Thornton. The attempted listing came at a time when Peter Hain, then a minister at the FCO, was campaigning strongly on the issue of so-called "blood diamonds" - those mined in areas of Africa controlled by warring factions. The profits from their sale are believed to have prolonged civil wars in countries such as Angola and Sierra Leone. Oryx's concessions in the Mbuji Mayi region of the DRC were in an area controlled at that time by an international force including troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. Oryx later denied an allegation in a report by the United Nations that it had links with members of the Zimbabwean armed forces. White said that the UN withdrew the allegations earlier this year.
Mustafa Khattabi, the chairman of the LAAIC, who is also on the board of Oryx, said yesterday: "The UN panel has produced no supporting documentation for its claims against Oryx. We have certainly seen no wrong-doing by Oryx or its management. At the end of the day I am a public employee, we are state-owned and we respect business ethics. LAAIC wants to have a good image and be as open as possible." The FCO took a leading role in cleaning up the diamond trade, much of which passes through London. It also helped to set up the Kimberley Process, a way of authenticating the origin of all diamonds offered for sale on the international market. This summer the FCO had a stand at the International Jewellery exhibition in London to promote the Kimberley Process. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, gave the process strong backing. "It ensures that diamonds help Africa to develop, not condemn it to more violence," he said.
However, the DRC has appealed to the British Government to help it address the problem of diamond smuggling, which it believes could be used by al-Qaeda or drug gangs to launder money. Eugene Diomi, the Congolese minister of mines, said: "We think around $30m worth of diamonds a month are smuggled out of the DRC. Our borders are impossible to police." The minister said around 10,000 workers exploit diamond deposits throughout the DRC. He added that Oryx operates entirely legally and that its diamond production is passed through legitimate channels. The DRC would like British help in both setting up a system to track diamonds internally and changing the Kimberley Process to prevent neighbouring countries such as the Republic of Congo, which has no mines of its own, from exporting diamonds. As one FCO official admitted last week, it is theoretically possible that diamonds smuggled out of the DRC by al-Qaeda are on sale in British jewellers this Christmas.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 7 December
Of buses, dogs and presidents
Two stories exemplify the disparity of views in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis. The first is the view of democrats within Zimbabwe and was first told by John Makumbe at the launch of the Crisis in Zimbabwe initiative in August 2001. Zimbabweans are on a bus travelling from Troutbeck to Nyanga, a notorious down-hill stretch that has claimed many lives before. The driver starts to speed up and, at first, all the passengers urge him to go faster, but it takes a short while before they realize he is drunk, and so they change their calls to slow down. It takes a little longer before they realize that he is also mad and unresponsive to their cries. When will the passengers realize that they had better get their hands on the wheel, feet on the brakes, and remove the driver? The story is as apposite today as it was two years ago. The second story is attributed to one of the SADC Presidents and was related by a senior MDC spokesman to whom the story was told. Now the problem is not a drunk and crazy bus driver, but a big dog trapped on a room, with all windows and doors closed. Try to make the dog leave the room and in all probability he will bite you, so get smart and make the dog happy. Feed him and pet him, and he will leave the room without a fuss. These two views characterize the crisis in a very distinct way. Zimbabweans know the driver is mad and the time is too short for reason, but clearly, whilst there are fears about the forthcoming accident, there are also fears that the process of removing the driver will equally cause an accident. African leaders see rather the problem of the biting dog and believe the dog can be trained, or at least conned into leaving.
The difference between the two stories reflects a gap in reality between the story tellers. The problem was succinctly summarized by a senior MDC spokesperson last weekend. In answer to questions about removing either the driver or the dog, there are some clear conditions laid out by Zanu PF. Amnesty for all, the land process in all its aspects will be left untouched, and the government shall be recognized as legitimate: meet these conditions and substantive talks can begin. The dog has some very clear views on what will stop it biting. It is evident that issues related to accountability have very high priority for Zanu PF, which, on its own, is validation that many abuses have taken place. Why worry about accountability if you have nothing to fear? The position of the MDC is rather different. Their call is for open and unconditional dialogue. The mandate for this dialogue is relatively straight forward: firstly, a return to a democratic order, an "open space", which will allow the holding of free and fair elections. This will require the repeal or non-application of draconian laws [POSA, AIPPA, etc], and the setting up of a wholly independent electoral commission. Secondly, negotiations should focus on the holding of elections as possible after the creation of the "open space". The focus is not on pre-conditions nor on prescribing the future, but merely on process. The MDC is clearly less interested in feeding the dog than in stopping the crash.
It seems however that the big dog theory leads African leaders into all sorts of illogicalities, and may even have attenuated and exacerbated the Zimbabwe crisis. Look at several of their decisions, best exemplified by a number of South African decisions. The South African Parliamentary Observer Mission to the 2002 Presidential Election noted a large number of irregularities and unacceptable practices, but still came to the conclusion that the election was "legitimate". Making the same observations, the so-called "minority parties" - actually all the other parties - came to exactly the opposite conclusion. The decision of the ANC members was not illogical if they were worried about the dog biting, and, thus, later on, it is not "illogical" to call for the MDC to drop their petition. There are further "illogicalities" that derive from the dog metaphor. The positions of South Africa and Nigeria on the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth illustrate this well. Firstly, these two countries support the views in the Commonwealth Observer Group report on the Presidential Election, which is rather illogical given the views of their own observer groups. Nonetheless, on the 19th March 2002, Nigeria and South Africa joined with Australia in suspending Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth. The suspension was to remain in force for one year, and required the Zimbabwe Government to do a large number of things. By the time of the six month review, the Zimbabwe Government had done none of them, even denying the validity of the suspension.
The South African and Nigerian Governments refused to deepen the pressure, and instead gave the Zimbabwe Government another six months grace. At the end of the twelve months, they then asked for the suspension to be dropped as the period had run out, and were somewhat disgruntled when the Commonwealth decided to keep the suspension in place until CHOGM. More "illogically", the South African Government then asked for Zimbabwe to attend CHOGM. How could Zimbabwe attend a Council from which it was suspended without the suspension being lifted? Start looking for the big dog and you find the answer. So who fears the dog? Not Zimbabweans, who are much more concerned with the bus driver and stopping a crash. It is the SADC Governments that fear the dog, and perhaps with good cause, for it will not only be Zimbabweans that get bitten. It might be that the dog is mad and will go around biting everyone it sees, and, if this is the reasoning of the SADC Governments, perhaps they have more in common with Zimbabweans and their problems with the mad, drunk bus driver. How does this all relate to reality? If we give up on the dog theory, and accept the bus driver problem, then we can give up on all the "illogicalities". We can see all the evidence for the driver not being in control, and we can accept that a good test of this would come from the election petition being mounted by the MDC. We can then accept that Zimbabwe has done nothing to warrant its return to the Councils of the Commonwealth. We can accept the position of the MDC that process must happen: open and unconditional dialogue is the only way forward. Actually, if we have the right authority, we can tell the dog to sit, heel, and then go outside.
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From The Guardian (UK), 8 December
Mugabe quits Commonwealth
Zimbabwe president defies decision by heads of government to extend sanctions for undemocratic behaviour
Michael White in Abuja
Zimbabwe quit the Commonwealth in dramatic fashion last night after the 54-nation grouping resolved to extend sanctions against Robert Mugabe's government for violating the group's democratic values. Mr Mugabe told leaders of Jamaica, Nigeria and South Africa that he did not accept a Commonwealth decision to prolong Zimbabwe's suspension from the group until the country mended its ways. "Accordingly, Zimbabwe has withdrawn its membership from the Commonwealth with immediate effect," said a government statement. The statement, as reported last night by Reuters, said the three leaders called Mr Mugabe in order to try to persuade him not to quit, but Mr Mugabe was adamant that there was no point in Harare remaining. It said Mr Mugabe had told them: "Anything that you agree on Zimbabwe which is short of this position [ending suspension], no matter how sweetly worded, means Zimbabwe is still a subject of the Commonwealth. This is unacceptable. This is it - it's quits, and quits it will be."
Mr Mugabe, who was not invited to the weekend summit at which the subject of Zimbabwe dominated, had vowed earlier last week to quit the grouping, which he described as an "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance". Zimbabwe was first suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2002, after Mr Mugabe was denounced for rigging his own re-election and persecuting opponents. The issue had threatened to split the Commonwealth along racial lines, but the body managed to forge a compromise at its Nigeria summit, appointing a seven-nation panel to monitor Zimbabwe's progress towards improved democratic values. In a display of regional solidarity, the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, had argued that Zimbabwe's continued suspension was proving counter-productive and should be lifted immediately. He eventually bowed to the majority view, though only after Tony Blair appeared to exert pressure on the South African leader to give way by allowing officials to identify publicly who was blocking a deal.
Commonwealth heads had hoped the Zimbabwe issue could be resolved quickly, to prevent the summit's important agenda on development, world trade and the HIV/Aids crisis being hijacked. To break the deadlock, a six-strong committee of Commonwealth "wise men" was established, but they split 4-2 on the search for a consensus. Mr Blair last night told Sky News: "I think it is a shame that it has dominated the conference to such an extent. On the other hand, I think it indicates the degree to which what the Commonwealth says matters in respect of Zimbabwe." On the third frustrating day of talks, Mr Mbeki, with some support from Mozambique, was holding out against the dominant view of the 52 heads of government that pressure on Harare must be maintained until progress is evident. South Africa believes that Zimbabwe is the victim of double standards that have seen Pakistan, also suspended since the Musharraf military coup, treated more lightly because of its importance to the US-led war on terrorism.
Mr Blair repeatedly claimed: "This isn't a black-white issue", pointing to support for the majority line from Kenya, Ghana, Gambia and the Caribbean. He argued that Pakistan was making progress while Zimbabwe was "getting worse". But 10 African states backed Pretoria's position in what amounted to a "proxy" show of strength when the Commonwealth's secretary general, Don McKinnon, a hardliner on Zimbabwe, won re-election for a second four-year term by only 42 votes to 10. The breakthrough appeared to come yesterday afternoon when the group of six - South Africa, Mozambique, Canada, Australia, the Nigerian hosts and Jamaica - reported back to the main summit.
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From The Commonwealth, 7 December
Full text of statement from the Commonwealth regarding the situation in Zimbabwe
Commonwealth heads of government discussed the situation in Zimbabwe. They agreed to establish a committee consisting of the heads of government of Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique and South Africa to examine the way forward. It was agreed that the prime minister of Jamaica would be the chairman of the committee. In discussing the issue the committee was guided by the following considerations:
The commitment of all Commonwealth countries to adhere to the principles embodied in the Harare Declaration and the need to address the issues raised in the Marlborough House statement of 19 March 2002
The earnest desire to facilitate the early return of Zimbabwe to the councils of the Commonwealth
The determination to promote national reconciliation in Zimbabwe
Deep concern for the people of Zimbabwe and the desire to assist towards a return to normalcy and economic prosperity
The committee also welcomed the tireless efforts of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, South African President Thabo Mbeki, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano and others to encourage and assist the process of national reconciliation and urged them not to relent. It reaffirmed the importance of supporting and consolidating democracy, ensuring peace and harmony and promoting development and growth in Zimbabwe. Heads of government endorsed the committee's recommendations and decided as follows:
Heads of government affirmed the Commonwealth's commitment to encourage and assist the process of national reconciliation
Heads of government mandated the chairperson-in-office (Obasanjo), assisted by the Commonwealth secretary general, to engage with the parties concerned to encourage and facilitate continued progress and the return of Zimbabwe to the councils of the Commonwealth and - in this regard - express support for the intention of the chairperson-in-office to visit Zimbabwe at an early opportunity
At an appropriate time when the chairperson-in-office believed sufficient progress had been made, he would consult the committee
Provided there were consensus in the committee that sufficient progress had been made on the issues of concern, the chairperson-in-office would consult with Commonwealth leaders on the return of Zimbabwe to the councils of the Commonwealth
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From ZWNEWS, 8 November
The split
Last Friday, Don McKinnon was re-elected for a second term as Commonwealth secretary-general. The challenge to his position was highly unusual - secretary-generals are usually returned unopposed for a second term. The challen |
