Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano along with award-winning women farmers Carmina Pessane and Jesse Kaunde of Malawi.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Political Editor Munyaradzi Huni
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail
THE British and American governments, working closely with a prominent leader in Sadc, recently made overtures to former Mozambican leader Cde Joaquim Chissano to entice him to take up the leadership of an amalgam of elder statesmen in the region whose mandate was to persuade President Mugabe into accepting a government of national unity with the MDC, diplomatic sources have revealed.
It is also understood that the American government was separately pushing for the involvement of former United Nations Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan in the talks leading to the government of national unity.
The targeted elder statesmen included former Zambian president Dr Kenneth Kaunda, former Botswana leader Sir Ketumile Masire and former Tanzanian leader Mr Benjamin Mkapa.
Diplomatic sources say the plan by the British and the American governments went up in smoke when Dr Kaunda criticised the British Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, over the way he is handling the Zimbabwean issue.
"The British and Americans made overtures to Cde Chissano to take up the leading role in the set-up. The plan was that the former Mozambican leader would persuade Dr Kaunda, but on the eve of that persuasion, the former Zambian leader released a statement attacking Mr Brown over Zimbabwe," said one diplomat.
In a speech that he delivered last month as a special guest to recipients of recognition awards from Pope Benedict XVI, Dr Kaunda said: "It is sad for Prime Minister Brown to say what he has said about the Zimbabwe situation . . . Brown does not understand what he is talking about. It is a sad thing that he said that (calling for more sanctions against Zimbabwe)."
The diplomat added: "They also wanted Sir Ketumile and Mr Mkapa, but the later was considered too radical and too close to President Mugabe."
The diplomat said the US President, Mr George W. Bush, was also pushing another initiative where Mr Annan was supposed to mediate as he recently did in Kenya.
"If you were closely monitoring events you will realise that on Friday US Secretary of State Ms Condoleezza Rice, alongside the Sadc chairman, President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, and the AU chairman, President Jakaya Kikwete, consulted Mr Annan on Zimbabwe," said the diplomat.
However, the two initiatives failed and the Americans and the British were left with no option but to order the MDC-T leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, to go for the run-off.
Yesterday, after weeks of dithering, Mr Tsvangirai announced that he would be coming back home "in two days’ time" to contest in the run-off whose date has not yet been fixed.
President Mugabe has already said he is ready for the run-off and the ruling party machinery is already at work making preparations for the poll.
Other sources added that now that the efforts to force a government of national unity had failed and that the UN Security Council had refused to be drawn into the politics in Zimbabwe, the UK and US governments, through the international media, will play up incidences of violence in the country and agitate for the international supervision of the run-off.
Indications are that the Government will not bow down to the machinations by these two governments and only the AU, Sadc, countries from Asia and a few selected European countries would observe and monitor the elections.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail yesterday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Publicity, Cde George Charamba, said: "The Zimbabwe case illustrates perfectly that Africa and the Third World are capable of delivering a clean poll. The British and Americans cannot accept the results of the just-ended harmonised polls and at the same time claim any inadequacies in any African observation and election monitoring. They cannot accept the result and disparage the agency that made that result possible."
'Opposition thugs seek to reverse land reform’
Sunday Mail Reporter
THE cases of violence being reported around the country are no longer politically-motivated as they now seem to be more about reversing the land reform programme as evidenced by reports that the opposition MDC-T hooligans with the aid of some former Rhodesian forces are unleashing violence only in the resettlement areas, war veterans have charged.
It is understood that the opposition thugs are targeting A1 and A2 areas, not because of frustrations emanating from the ballot box but in a bid to ensure the return of former white farmers on the farms.
The war veterans have said the pattern developing from the pockets of violence show that these are no longer clashes due to political differences but clashes to reverse the land reform programme.
"This is no longer a political matter. It’s not political violence arising from the ballot but from land. It’s a silent war to reverse the land reform programme being masterminded by former Rhodesian forces with the aid of MDC-T thugs. The former white farmers think their hour has come and they can’t wait for an MDC-T government," said one war veteran from Hurungwe.
Another war veteran from Mudzi said the MDC-T hooligans were targeting newly resettled farmers under the A1 and A2 farms adding that war veterans would soon find a way to counter the violence.
"We will not watch as these opposition thugs together with some members of the former Rhodesian forces torment newly resettled farmers. What they are doing can even threaten the run-off because we won’t take this lying down," said the war veteran.
Reports say police in Shamva recently arrested 56 suspected MDC-T hooligans who had allegedly damaged a house belonging to the Zanu-PF district chairman for Ward 29 in Mashonaland Central, Mr Gore Chiyanike.
Inside Mr Chiyanike’s house were 21 bags of maize, eight bags of sunflower, a granary, a wardrobe and a bed that were destroyed by fire.
Also in the same area, a house belonging to Mr Godfrey Sumani of Number 11 Chiyanike Street, Shamva Gold Mine compound, had all its windows shattered while a bicycle, a kitchen unit, an electric fan, a room divider and sofas were burnt following the attack by the suspected MDC youths.
At the same compound, houses belonging to Miss Muusha and Mr Kashangura, a schoolteacher at Shamva Primary School, were destroyed by fire after attacks by the suspected MDC youths.
In addition to the 56 suspects that were arrested, police in Shamva are keen to interview Mrs Chikeya, who was the aspiring MDC-T House of Assembly candidate for Shamva North constituency; Mr Idoh Katumba, the MDC-T chairman for the area; and a Mr Mhene, who is also an MDC-T member.
Police say after causing terror in Shamva, the suspected MDC-T hooligans took their orgy of violence to Chisaka A2 Resettlement Area where they burnt nine houses belonging to Zanu-PF supporters.
Last week, the First Lady, Amai Grace Mugabe, donated blankets worth billions of dollars, clothing and footwear to victims of politically-motivated arson in Villages 1 and 2, Rusununguko Resettlement Scheme, Mayo in Makoni North.
Similar cases of violence against Zanu-PF supporters have been reported in Mudzi, Hurungwe and Matabeleland.
Commenting on these developments, the Secretary for Information and Publicity, Cde George Charamba, said Western ambassadors in the country were also fuelling the violence.
"Yesterday (Friday) Western ambassadors in the country went to the Avenues Clinic to see two MDC-T supporters who were caught up in the violence. They didn’t go to Mayo, not Hurungwe and not Mudzi where not only life and limb were put into jeopardy through the MDC thuggery but also grain which means a season’s harvest was destroyed. This is disgusting selective outrage. It looks like the ambassadors are here to sanctify MDC violence.
"Interesting enough, the geography of the MDC thug violence neatly coincides with areas of resettlement. Are we dealing with political violence or the land question here?" asked Cde Charamba.
It is understood that as the country heads for the presidential run-off, cases of violence will be played up in the international media to give credence to calls that the international community should supervise the poll.
2008 run-off, a vote for peace against war
AFRICAN FOCUS By Tafataona P. Mahoso
OUR own history shows us that an African vote manipulated by white Rhodesian and apartheid forces in 1979 helped to prolong civil war and escalate the death toll in the interest of settlerism and imperialism.
One year later, an African vote strategically cast for the liberation movement on March 3 1980 not only ended the civil war but also brought the peace we still enjoy today, 28 years later.
Technically the purpose of the proposed 2008 run-off election is to determine which one of the top two presidential candidates in the 2008 harmonised elections should become President. To do so he needs to garner at least 51 percent of the valid votes cast.
Strategically and qualitatively, however, there is a new purpose which has become clear since March 30 2008 and which is far superior to the need to resolve a technical constitutional question on paper. That strategic and qualitative objective is for Zimbabweans to decide whether to vote for peace and avoid a return of the war which ended in 1980 or vote for the foreign-sponsored conflict which the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) and its Rhodesian backers have already introduced in the prime farming areas of Zimbabwe since April 30 2008.
Voting for continuation and defence of the peace which began in 1980 and against foreign-sponsored conflict and war means voting for President Robert Mugabe of Zanu-PF and rejecting the MDC, which has already made its war agenda clear.
The MDC has made its foreign-sponsored agenda for conflict and war very clear by, first, asking for and obtaining the curse of economic war (sanctions) against the people and, second, begging the UK and US to overrun Zimbabwe through the manipulation of the UN Security Council, the manipulation of the AU and the manipulation and division of Sadc. The MDC’s agenda of foreign-sponsored conflict and war is further made obvious through the subsequent demands by the UK and US for a so-called government of national unity between Zanu-PF and the MDC, as if the country has already been involved in a civil war which the British and the North Americans think the MDC won.
The MDC’s agenda for foreign-sponsored conflict and war is further made clear through the return of 750 to 1 000 former Rhodesian white farmers in March 2008, former land thieves who proceeded not only to announce and celebrate a unilaterally declared MDC electoral victory but also to interpret that fraudulently announced victory as having terminated the African land reclamation and resettlement programme. There can be no greater cause of war than this in the history of Zimbabwe: that former land thieves use the African vote (won in war) to sneak back into Parliament and encroach on once reclaimed and redeemed farms with the intention of rounding up the rightful owners and sending them to The Hague for trial as criminals!
Therefore let no Zimbabwean fool himself or herself into thinking that what is at stake in the coming run-off election is just a statistic. The return of former Rhodesian settler farmers to Zimbabwe’s reclaimed lands has further war implications: the Anglo-American fantasy for infiltrating and over-running Zimbabwe has always included white farms as strategic places to land and base special forces who would train and prepare local agents while communicating with the larger invading force waiting outside.
In other words, the coming run-off election must be viewed in light of the MDC’s open invitation to the UK and US to overrun Zimbabwe by having the UN Security Council open the political door, together with the efforts to have Zimbabwe placed under a UN arms embargo in March-April 2008.
On March13 2007, it was confirmed in the House of Lords in Britain that the British, the original sponsors of the MDC, have long wished they could invade and over-run Zimbabwe. Lord Hamilton of Epson said:
"My Lords, if it is right to invade Iraq to get rid of the tyrant Saddam Hussein . . . why is it not right to invade Zimbabwe to get rid of Mugabe?"
According to the British Independent newspaper of November 11 2007, Sir Charles Guthrie, the former chief of staff of Britain’s defence force, confirmed that the British Labour government of Tony Blair was always trying to get him to consider plans for invading Zimbabwe.
Therefore the multi-faceted destabilisation plan which unfolded together with the MDC’s efforts to rig itself into office in March 2008 was supposed to be the crowning material fruition of fantasies, predictions, conspiracies and plans dating back to 1998:
In late 2000 Megabuck magazine and other neo-colonial papers adopted the New Labour line that the Government of Zimbabwe would be ousted unconstitutionally by Christmas. This claim was credited to the newly formed foreign-sponsored Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The Megabuck article was entitled "Zimbabwe doomed" and it occupied the cover of the paper.
This constituted media terror because it announced doom for an entire people and it blamed that doom upon the liberation movement in government which was portrayed as an evil to be discarded without any regard for peaceful and constitutional means to get rid of it. That movement and government was certain to win any free and fair election for the foreseeable future.
So these media were, in fact, inviting the people to stage a coup d’etat and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai eventually said this out loud and clear, with fanfare from the usual Press. And the point is that any nation which is described as doomed is a nation marked for extinction. So Megabuck was trying to prepare both the citizens of Zimbabwe and the outside world to accept what Zimbabwe’s enemies were wishing and planning against the nation: doom.
On February 21 2001 The Daily News put a date to Morgan Tsvangirai’s call to oust the liberation movement in government by violent means. It announced that this would happen by July 1 2001.
The next month, March 2001, Norman Reynolds put articles on the internet and in South African papers which further sought to terrify and terrorise the people. He claimed that by July 2001 there would be no bread, no mealie-meal, no fuel, nothing in Zimbabwe. This would lead to the collapse of the country unless people overthrew the Government before such a collapse.
One of Reynolds’ articles appeared in The Daily News on December 12 2001. In it, Reynolds predicted "the blood of countless citizens on his (President Mugabe’s) hands as likely massacres take place in Harare or Bulawayo".
Reynolds continued his campaign into January 2002. He argued that Sadc armies should occupy Zimbabwe or at least conduct war games on Zimbabwe’s borders in order to influence the population to vote against Zanu-PF and elect the MDC in the 2002 Presidential elections.
On January 18 2002, The Daily News published a front-page article called "South Africa braces for flood of Zimbabwean refugees". This was one of the pioneering propaganda pieces on Zimbabwe. Since that time there have been millions of them, especially on television. Although African labour migrations into South Africa date back to the 1890s, the regime change forces have made them appear to have started only after land reform and as a result of land reform in Zimbabwe.
In The Daily News story, a bit of drama was added by claiming that the South African government had already designated and prepared a disused military base to receive the flood of Zimbabweans. In 2007 and 2008 the SABC and Al Jazeera stories began to count every African migrant to South Africa — Mozambican, Somali, Malawian, Zambian, Angolan — as a Zimbabwean fleeing the same "meltdown" which was reported as happening already in January 2002!
On January 31 2002, The Daily News followed its fake refugee flood story with a long letter from Toronto, Canada, to the editor, which was entitled "No caves to hide for the local Taliban". It equated the African liberation in government in Zimbabwe with the Taliban of Afghanistan and predicted that the UK and US would invade Zimbabwe to give back to white settlers the African land which the land movement had just reclaimed.
"One thing for sure is that Mugabe is having many a sleepless night. I can smell sweet victory in the air . . . whichever way Mugabe likes to look at it, 2002 is his last year as president."
The opposition MDC and its Anglo-Saxon sponsors mistook the conjunctural protest vote of 2000 for a permanent trend in Zimbabwean politics. So they worked hard to escort Zimbabwean and external public opinion towards an MDC victory in the Presidential elections of 2002. Forged surveys were done by South African and British agents and published in the Financial Gazette and The Daily News to the effect that the MDC would receive 74-75 percent of the popular vote. This did not happen.
So when Zanu-PF won the presidential election, the MDC and its Anglo-Saxon principals went on a global propaganda rampage to demonise and discredit the result.
On April 23 2003, The Daily News published a front page (top) story called "Young girls see their mother’s head cut off". Apparently, foreign intelligence agents helping the MDC to discredit the election had arranged for one George Nyadzayo Tadyanemhandu to pose as a victim of thugs sponsored by Zanu-PF, the party which had just won the March presidential elections.
He told the MDC and The Daily News that Zanu-PF thugs camped at Sanyati Bridge had beheaded his wife, Brandina Tadyane-mhandu, in front of her own daughters aged 10 and 17. This was presented as a politically motivated execution. Tadyanemhandu the source was booked into a hotel and probably paid a lot of money to tell his fake story. The police carried out investigations. There were no mourners in the Magunje area where the beheaded woman was to be buried. There was no corpse, no fresh grave, no death certificate and no police report. The informer then vanished.
It was later discovered that Brandina Tadyanemhandu had died of HIV-Aids in a different province altogether. The Daily News on April 30 and May 7 had to do two more stories to try to cover its tracks. It claimed that the informer had been hired by State security to trap and discredit the newspaper. But it could not explain why its editor would publish such a provocative story without a police report, without a single mourner, without any second or third witness, without a corpse or grave and with no death certificate.
Reading the three issues of the paper for April 23, April 30 and May 7 2003, it seems clear that the story was carefully planned by skilful provocateurs who even provided a fall-back position in case the story was proven to be fake. Conveniently, the editor of the papers was already in Manila, Philippines, by the time it was shown conclusively that the story was a gigantic hoax!
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