Zimbabwe News Bulletin: President Mugabe Embarks on Star Rallies; Vote Must Uphold Revolution; Whose Behind Makoni?

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and First Lady Madame Grace at a ZANU-PF rally. The President will stand for reelection on March 29.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

President embarks on star rallies

Herald Reporter

PRESIDENT Mugabe begins addressing star rallies in Manicaland Province today as Zanu-PF steps up its campaign for the upcoming harmonised presidential, parliamentary and council elections.

Cde Mugabe will address two rallies in Chipinge and Marange today before taking the campaign to Mashonaland East Province tomorrow.

In Mashonaland East, he will address rallies at Mahusekwa, Domboshava and Ruwa.

On Thursday the President will be in Masvingo where he will address two more rallies before proceeding to Matabeleland South on Friday.

The star rallies will complement rallies which House of Assembly, Senate and council candidates have been holding since February 16, a day after the sitting of the Nomination Court.

Zanu-PF has already won the Muzarabani House of Assembly seat, Rushinga-Mount Darwin Senate seat and 392 council wards after its candidates were unopposed at the nomination courts last month.

Launching the Zanu-PF manifesto in Harare last Friday, President Mugabe said the party should now focus on grabbing the rest.

Cde Mugabe expressed confidence that the ruling party would romp to victory, saying the campaign was about widening the margin to send a clear message to detractors that Zanu-PF was a people’s party.

‘‘Victory is certain, but the size of the victory is what we are aiming at. We are not aiming at victory because we have won already. All we want now is the enhancement of that victory. We want a big, big, big victory, a thunderous one.

"So let us now all go as a team. So now I say to one and all candidates: Go and achieve a thunderous victory, go and achieve a thunderous victory. That’s my message to you, it is an instruction, it’s an order. On the 30th tell me mission accomplished,’’ Cde Mugabe said to wild applause from the delegates.


Zim must vote to protect revolution

From George Shire in LONDON, United Kingdom

THE majority of people who work at the IMF headquarters, the World Bank and the WTO have qualifications the length of my arm. I recently discovered that many of them have at least one or two PhD’s to their names. They are eminent scholars in their own fields and I am only too aware of the intellectual labour it takes to acquire these.

THE majority of people who work at the IMF headquarters, the World Bank and the WTO have qualifications the length of my arm. I recently discovered that many of them have at least one or two PhD’s to their names. They are eminent scholars in their own fields and I am only too aware of the intellectual labour it takes to acquire these.

However, I have been struck by the fact that no single IMF policy or prescription produced by these boneheads has ever worked for Africa or any other part of the global south. To be seduced by the policy wonks of these institutions is a dangerous game and a contagious disease.

Their political spouses are the neo-conservatives who mouth off the triumph of neo-liberal capitalism. The MDC and their friends keep on telling us that we should learn to love these economic hit men.

The twin-headed MDC and their acolytes of ‘independents’ are a Zimbabwean version of the neo-conservatives, who are eminent graduates of an epistemology of ignorance.

The ignorance that underpins their understanding of the whiteness of power, the meaning of democracy and human rights in neo-liberal times, is not just a gap in their knowledge or the accidental result of an epistemological oversight.

They actively produce that ignorance for the purposes of securing domination and exploitation. One does not get to understand the role of power in the construction of what is known and provide a lens for political values at work in knowledge values from lessons in robotics, from the chemistry laboratory or from a hybrid of American mass communication and Weberian sociology. There is something of the night about them.

Let’s get serious here. I spent the last few days reading the manifestos of the MDC and their allied ‘independents’. I re-read some of the speeches made by that reprobate Eddie Cross over the past 10 years. Keywords keep on coming up in the MDC’s entire manifesto, varied literature and the websites of its supporters.

They are seduced by the discourse of privatisation and a dependence on the West. Just in case we have forgotten, privatisation means the transfer of productive assets from the state to the private sector. Zimbabwe’s productive assets include land, natural resources, forests, water, and rivers. These are asserts that the state holds in trust for the people.

A majority of the population of the people of Zimbabwe live in the rural areas. Their lives depend directly on access to these asserts. To snatch away these assets and sell them as stock to private companies is a process of such barbaric dispossession on a scale that has no parallel in history.

Privatisation, especially the transfer of public, collectively owned and established wealth into private ownership is a form of dispossession more total than what Zimbabweans have witnessed up to now. This is the reality of what the MDC offers. That is what they call change.

The MDC think that Zimbabwe can return to the good old days simply by being friends with the Bretton Woods agencies. They have conveniently forgotten that the so-called successful 1980s were primarily based on distribution rather than growth, and the redistribution was of income rather than assets.

They absolve themselves from the fact that the trade union’s demand for an increase in wages contributed to the rise in inflation. They are blind to the fact that if there is devaluation, a favourite of Simba Makoni, import prices become expensive and that too leads to inflation. They forget that if the price of raw materials increases that also leads to inflation.

The biggest sin of them all is that they have participated in the economic sabotage of Zimbabwe by frightening everybody away.

They are joined up at the hip with the ‘independents’. They wrongly and dangerously reduce the problems Zimbabwe has been going through as a mere problem of governance. They focus on what might be the symptoms and not the problem itself. They have let the dogs out and no wonder they get so much coverage in the Western Press.

Zimbabweans have learnt in the last 10 years that when there is hyperinflation, money loses its value rapidly and nobody wants to use it as a medium of exchange.

That is why there is so much clamour for land and why the land revolution is such a conflictual issue. They do not buy the idea that economics is some arcane branch of mathematics.

They know that their money will not buy as much today as they could yesterday and they know who has contributed to that fact because Zanu-PF has kept them informed about the causes of the hardships and who is standing in the way of the economic turn around strategy.

The MDC Tsvangirai manifesto talks about ‘re-establishing full diplomatic relations with all countries and rejoin the Commonwealth’.

What a load of tosh. Somebody needs to remind Morgan Tsvangirai that Zimbabwe already has diplomatic ties with the rest of the world. Their desire to rejoin the Commonwealth is not surprising. Zimbabwe does not need the Commonwealth; it is the Commonwealth that needs Zimbabwe.

In case anyone has forgotten, the MDC has for the past 10 years of its life distanced itself from Sadc, Ecowas, Comesa, AU, NAM and ACP countries, the G77 and the Global South who make up the majority of the world. They have used every international platform to verbally abuse Sadc and everyone else who does not agree with them and have the audacity to suggest they can restore Sadc to its original principles.

MDC leaders fail to grasp that there would have been no Sadc without Zanu-PF, Frelimo, the ANC, Swapo, the MPLA, and other progressive liberation movements in the region. They have conveniently forgotten that the original principles of the Sadc were built on the spirit of Pan-Africanism, built on the legacy of the liberation war and extending the lexicon of freedom and democracy underpinned by such policies as the land distribution programme.

They tell us that they ‘will uphold a vision of Sadc that develops in a spirit of tolerance and understanding, and will propagate a vision of a region where respect for the sanctity of the individual, the rule of law, and the politics of consultation and free democratic civic participation’.

However, the venom and hate speech that dominates the MDC support websites tells a different story. This is a party that sees nothing wrong with penalising innocent people because they happen to be children or relatives of people whom they do not agree with. They have been busy sending hate mail and death threats to those who argue that there is more to Zimbabwe than Harare North.

One of the more entertaining delusions of the bornfrees living in the Diaspora is their belief that the man in the middle, the moderate, the friend of business, the ineffective bureaucrat, the one the West went to great length to ensure that they did not get the coveted job at the African Development Bank, the ‘independent’ is always right.

Why should such a formidable failure be a solution to Zimbabwe beggars belief? It should be obvious that there is no middle ground between ‘hondo ye minda’ and the return to God knows where.

Why should anyone put their trust in failed politicians sacked from Government, the so-called big wigs that lost support from their constituencies, and retired army majors who were mediocre strategists and beneficiaries of Detente? They are worse than Muzorewa and Tsvangirai put together. Should they by some miracle win, it will be time to switch off the lights and contemplate drinking rat poison.

The MDC never stops to ask themselves whether the United States or Britain would be willing to have international agencies or foreign governments dictate its policies or institutions. They think that what they are being promised is for free.

More than one in a 100 adult Americans are in prison, a higher rate of incarceration than at anytime in the history of the United States thereby pushing the budgets of several states to breaking point. The cost of the Iraq war is nearing a trillion US dollars and the global financial crisis is exposing the failure of the neo-liberal economic model that rules the world.

In Britain, Gordon Brown, who has no understanding and vision of the new, has a serious lack of comprehension of the contradictory nature of globalisation, its destruction of the social and the public interest. Brown has evacuated the idea of equality and is a religious convert to entrepreneurialism.

The MDC are seduced by his photo shoots in Mozambique and elsewhere and cannot wait to be in the frame. What makes them think that the West will come to rescue Zimbabwe for nothing is a question everybody should ask. Why would the British and American public agree that Tsvangirai be given US$10 billion for nothing when their own public services are crumbling?

It is all froth.

I was in Lisbon during the EU-Africa Summit and I met an Ethiopian economist who told me that 50 percent of rural Ethiopian children are malnourished. They have the world’s highest incidence of hunger. She said that a typical father in the Ethiopian countryside has an income of around 74 cents a day in purchasing power adjusted dollars. She calculated how his needs fit into the foreign aid process.

She said that if all was going well and the international lenders and donors release new funds to Ethiopia, some of these funds would reach the Ethiopian father’s hungry children.

In the best case scenario, if lots of shaky empirical relationships and assumptions hold, a continuing flow of aid might raise the country’s economic growth by one percentage point a year. This means that 10 years from now, the aid programme will have increased the Ethiopian father’s income by a grand total of 8 cents per day. That is the exact template of what the MDC is offering Zimbabweans in exchange of giving back the land and its natural resources to the West.

People should not be fooled by the MDC’s claim that their history is rooted in labour history and solidarity with trade union movement. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has very different origins and orientation compared to Cosatu in South Africa. Cosatu was part and parcel of the liberation of South Africa.

It had an alliance with the people of South Africa. ZCTU comes from an entirely different if not opposite trajectory. It was born out of space created by Zanu-PF. It has conveniently forgotten about who made it possible for them to come into existence and it has gone to bed with big business in a bid to topple a government elected by the people.

On March 29, I urge Zimbabweans to vote Zanu-PF in large numbers and peacefully simply because I love you and I hope that will mark the beginning of putting some brakes to the rampant neo-liberal policies that have wrought misery on our people.

The consequences of giving in to the demonisation of Zanu-PF and its representatives, the evacuation of the social and the public interest, the belief that market forces are the sole definer of social value, converting every use value to exchange value, is what I find a particularly terrifying prospect that is being spearheaded by the MDC and its regime change agents.

A root and branch philosophical destruction of this hollow cardboard of tricks and evasions is what is called for.

I remain "mwana wevhu" and I have nothing else to gain.


UK, SA firms fund Makoni

Herald Reporter

A BRITISH property company, Citigroup, and South African Breweries-Miller are among international corporates that are fund-raising for Simba Makoni’s presidential campaign in the harmonised March 29 elections, confirming reports that his election bid was part of the Western regime change agenda.

Another company, Actis Africa, a leading private British equity investor based in London, is being used as a conduit to bring in money to Zimbabwe.

SABMiller is one of the world’s largest brewers, with brewing interests and distribution agreements in over 60 countries across six continents.

Former Minister of Industry and Trade Nkosana Moyo, who is Makoni’s campaign strategist, is a managing partner in Actis Africa that has branches in China, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Information available indicates that the London-based Zimbabwean-born Christine Thompson, who is the policy issues manager with SABMiller, co-ordinated a fund-raising lunch held in London last Friday.

Moyo, who was described by Thompson as "a key strategist behind the Zimbabwe presidential campaign of Simba Makoni", attended the lunch at Citigroup’s offices at Stirling Gardens.

The Herald is yet to establish how much was raised at the occasion meant to attract funding from UK companies.

In her invitation sent out to various people, including company executives, Thompson wrote:

"Nkosana Moyo will outline the background to Simba Makoni’s late bid for presidency and clarify Simba Makoni’s position within the context of the very fluid political situation in Zimbabwe.

"He will also outline Simba Makoni’s plans for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and the future welfare of Zimbabwean citizens."

Thompson further stresses that key international resources were required to support Makoni’s campaign, especially now when there are only five weeks left.

These revelations come in the wake of comments by Roy Bennett, the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction treasurer, that Western powers were imposing Makoni on the opposition despite the fact that he had no grassroots support.

Bennett’s remarks were preceded late last month by a British government pledge to increase funding to civil society groups and non-governmental organisations working to effect regime change in Zimbabwe.


‘Polls must reflect people’s will’

Herald Reporter

THE March 29 council, parliamentary, senate and presidential elections should reflect the will of Zimbabweans, African ministers have said.

In separate interviews on the sidelines of the just-ended Africa Regional Labour Centre forum in Kariba, Sudanese and Nigerian labour ministers said they were following closely Zimbabwe’s elections.

"We are looking enthusiastically at what is going to happen. We hope and wish Zimbabwe a peaceful, credible election that reflects the real interests of the people," Sudanese Minister of Public Service and Development of Human Resources Mr Mohamed Yousif Mustafa said.

He said Zimbabwe should strive to hold the elections in a democratic environment to avoid the Kenyan situation, which undermines development of Africa.

Zimbabwe has always held credible elections since independence in 1980.

"We wish Zimbabwe fair and successful elections that would not produce any kind of post-election conflict like in Kenya," the Sudanese minister said.

Mr Mustafa, who was among ministers from more than 22 English-speaking countries, also noted that the social dialogue conference was vital in enhancing comprehensive development of the continent that required efforts from all African states.

"We need to establish such kind of togetherness through dialogue rather than be confrontational. So the important partners should exchange views and ideas given the long history of conflict we have in Africa.

"We are in great need to reconcile views and opinions in order to unify our vision about the future of our countries and continent," he said.

Mr Mustafa said Sudan, which has also been ravaged by war, was currently using social dialogue in trying to achieve socio-economic and cultural development.

"The government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement are involved in what we call the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a process of democratic transformation. We are trying to change the totalitarian political regime into a fully democratic system that allows all human rights, freedoms and plural systems of life, politics and culture," he said.

He said Sudan was also using social dialogue to build the capacity of trade unions, private sector, non-governmental organisations and other social groups to restore the culture of inclusiveness.

Nigerian Labour Minister Dr Lawal Hassan also wished the Government of Zimbabwe and the ruling Zanu-PF party a successful election.

"We would also like to wish the Zimbabwean Government and Zanu-PF a successful, peaceful and credible election. We hope that the elections will lead to economic prosperity," Dr Hassan said.


Dabengwa defection a non-event, says Nkomo

ZANU-PF national chairman John Nkomo yesterday described Dumiso Dabengwa’s defection to Simba Makoni’s camp as a non-event and good riddance of undesirable elements.

Dabengwa defected to Makoni’s camp on Saturday at a campaign rally held in Bulawayo’s White City Stadium, ending speculation about where his allegiance lay.

Addressing a Press conference at the Zanu-PF provincial offices in Bulawayo yesterday, Nkomo said the party was moving on to cleanse itself of infiltrators.

"This is one party that you cannot destroy. This is the party that liberated the country. There were infiltrators and sellouts during the struggle, but that did not deter us from achieving our ultimate goal.

"What happened at White City is good riddance. It is now clear that we have infiltrators among us.

"We are also not crying, as we believe there is freedom of choice. This is a passing phase which people should not preoccupy themselves with," he said.

Nkomo said the ruling party’s presidential candidate for the harmonised March 29 elections was President Mugabe and that decision had not been changed.

"Zanu-PF must stand by its decision in terms of nominating their candidate. We have a candidate and that is Cde Mugabe. Abangafuniyo abayekele," said Nkomo, drawing applause from party supporters.

Zanu-PF, he said, stands by its resolution taken in December last year and that resolution bound them.

He challenged all patriotic Zimbabweans to be more united during this crucial time.

"We would like to thank those who fought hard to bring about what is Zimbabwe today, those who led us through the difficult times enduring subjugation in order to bring about a new Zimbabwe.

"I, therefore, challenge Zimbabweans to keep on marching in their defence of the country as it is now clear that the enemy is within us," said Nkomo.

He said Zanu-PF members should not be distracted by the turn of events as the party had experienced rebellion before.

"We have come across such things before. We had the Dumbutshenas, but they faded into oblivion. There were bishops who also failed. This is just a passing phase. Lingathatheki. Remain where you are.

"We are still here. Your leadership is still there. Let us guard against people who want to tarnish this region. I am not looking at the region as being a Ndebele region, but encompassing all tribes of Zimbabwe as we all face the same problems.

"Ukuphupha kuyavunyelwa. This country is not going to be a colony of the British again. No. It is only a dream. Last December we chose our candidate and come 29 March we are going to vote him into office," he said.

Matabeleland South Governor Angeline Masuku also distanced herself from Makoni’s formation, putting paid to media reports that had linked her to the former finance minister.

"I am the secretary of the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project. I was in South Africa with the chairman (Dabengwa), the project’s co-ordinator. If Makoni was in South Africa during the time of my trip I would not know. I did not even see him or hear about his presence. Do not lump me with that group of people.

"I am not two-headed. In 1987 I was part of the integration exercise that brought the two parties together and I have not yet been told that the Unity Accord is now dead. I am a development-oriented person. I am a seasoned politician. I am not a political prostitute," Masuku said.

The Minister of Information and Publicity, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, urged Zanu-PF members to remain steadfast and campaign vigorously for the ruling party.

He advised the members against the use of hate language in the run-up to the elections.

Resident Minister for Bulawayo Province Cain Mathema, Politburo members Richard Ndlovu and Eunice Sandi as well as the Bulawayo provincial chairman Macleod Tshawe and his secretary for information and publicity Effort Nkomo attended the Press conference.

Politicians from Matabelaland have roundly condemned Dabengwa’s move and Masvingo provincial chairman Vitalis Zvinavashe has vowed that Masvingo Province would not be part of schemes meant to undermine the revolution.

In Harare, the Zanu-PF candidate for the Chisipite Senate constituency, Pauline Zvorwadza, has also called on party members not to rest on their laurels but to campaign vigorously for Cde Mugabe.

She urged Zanu-PF candidates for House of Assembly, Senate and council elections to guard against complacency but work to ensure that they win resoundingly in the forthcoming harmonised elections.

Speaking at rally held at Courteney Selous Primary School in Greendale yesterday, Zvorwadza said now that the election manifesto had been launched, it was important that party candidates take these guiding principles to the people.

"Harmonised elections should prioritise economic and social issues that affect people. It should show how the party is working to bring solutions to the problems and how the sanctions have militated against Government efforts," she said.

Zvorwadza urged the electorate to rally behind Zanu-PF female candidates to ensure that Government completes the various economic policies that it had initiated, such as the land reform and farm mechanisation programmes.

The participation of the ordinary people, she said, remained critical if Government was to fully address the challenges being faced by Zimbabweans.

Addressing the same gathering, Zanu-PF House of Assembly candidate for Harare East Noah Mangondo urged all party members to converge on the polling stations early so that they have enough time to cast the votes.

He said Zimbabwe was currently under the spotlight hence Zanu-PF members and supporters should remain vigilant and be wary of enemies operating from within the party.

"People should not be fooled by those who are deserting the party as it was common practice that some defect when the going gets tough. Zanu-PF brought the independence and democracy we are enjoying now, but some people are saying the party has brought them suffering.

"Where on earth do people enjoy the same independence that we have in this country? Zimbabwe’s foundation was laid on blood and it is every citizen’s right to protect this sacred country," he said.

Mangondo warned the electorate against voting for "missing persons" who only came back to them for support during election time.

Bulawayo Bureau-Herald Reporter.