Tongkeh Fowale
July 30, 2008
Introduction
There is nothing as glorious in the history of resistance to colonial oppression as seeing one man being able to successfully combine the will to resist, the ability to resist and the opportunity to resist, to finally win independence for his country. This is how heroes are created in a scenario of upheaval. There is also nothing as devastating in the history of a flourishing country as seeing a hero fall from fame because of blind and unbridled love for power, and dragging along with him the life of the entire country and the fate of millions. These are the two worlds of Zimbabwe´s President Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
Mugabe has remained in the spotlight of the international media for a long time. He has divided public opinion, generated unprecedented debates, created friends and foes. He has made history for reasons that are both good and bad, and shown unimaginable defiance to outside pressure. He has displayed a remarkable ability to swim through hot water, once again reminding the world about a statement he once made that while a cat has nine lives, he has ten.
Regrettably, in this political charade, Mugabe has gone to extremes to keep power. Like his peers in Africa, he has shown again that brutality against defenseless masses is only an instrument of policy, upholding the Machiavellian doctrine that "the end justifies the means." To this, he has on many occasions alluded to the sacredness of his power from which "only God" can remove him. Power to Mugabe is not only a birth right but a divine right as well.
The story of Zimbabwe is the tale of a protracted struggle over land. When cut to size, it becomes the story of brutality and butchery short and simple. This circle of carnage has gone through two main phases. Before independence, it was cruelty and bestiality on blacks by whites. After independence (or precisely after the mid 19990s), it was "history reversed." Blacks also turned against blacks as the politics over the land became increasingly complicate. As Zimbabwe´s crisis continues to undulate, it becomes increasingly clear that the politics surrounding this country´s land and resources is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mind.
The world has watched Zimbabwe burn. And it continues to do so. What aggravates the situation is the interlocking and overlapping interests of outside players involved in Zimbabwe. This clash of interest has reached the Security Council of the UN where a fine line has been drawn between the anti-Mugabe West and the pro-Mugabe east. The debate over Zimbabwe has evolved from theme to theme, the latest being the renewed call for sanctions against Mugabe by the West.
Prelude to sanctions: Key milestones
Many debates about Zimbabwe have been laced with lies. Others have been coated with ignorance and many others have been interest-driven. Many more have been overtly biased while some carry very racist connotations and go as far as deliberately distorting history in to justify claims that are false, economic or political. This debate has been picked up by the media which has played a significant role in shaping public opinion about Zimbabwe both positively and negatively. This falsehood exists at both ends of the Zimbabwe debate. While Mugabe uses the state media to justify his claims to power, the more powerful western media beamed on Zimbabwe paints him as a devil with a tail and two horns. History along has the truth about Zimbabwe.
From the 11th of February 1880, when John Cecil Rhodes duped the Ndebele King, Lobengula, to affix his signature on a document that deprived him of his land and authority, to independence on 17th April 1980, the history of Southern Rhodesia centered around land excision by successive white governments. After independence, it was a mixture of stories – independence, reconciliation, prosperity, constitutional amendments, land restoration, economic collapse, political unrest, regime change and then sanctions.
Before it came to sanctions, all was quite rosy between Mugabe and the West especially when the Zimbabwean President showed readiness to respect the Lancaster Constitution, the supreme document that defined the way forward for the new Zimbabwe. The "willing-seller, willing-buyer" clause of this constitution had restricted the government´s ability to interfere with private land. This clause was to run for ten interrupted years. Because of Mugabe´s compliance, he received friendly responses from the West. He was hailed as a good example of leadership in Africa and the West showed readiness to support land reforms. The U.S and Britain had earlier made very firm commitments to provide financial assistance at the Lancaster Conference. Added to these praises, mugade was showered and adorned with honorary degrees and awards from British and American Universities. With this came his knighthood in 1994.
When the ten year period of Lancaster elapsed, Mugabe came under increasing pressure to respect his promise of restoring land to blacks. This period marked the beginning of trouble as Mugabe was caught between satisfying white land owners to ensure the support of western aid donors and meeting the demands of dispossessed blacks. Many other misfortunes added to this pressure. In 1991-1992, a catastrophic drought almost totally ravaged maize production. Another dry period followed in 1994-1995. Western sanctions started creeping in in 1998 and for the first time in his political life, Mugabe saw the birth of an opposition party the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) in 1999.
Zimbabwe entered the 3rd millennium with a series of economic misfortunes. Britain and other aid donors including the IMF and World Bank had stopped aid to Zimbabwe. The MDC with the support of land owners vigorously challenged Mugabe in a referendum on the new constitution in 2000. If approved, the new constitution would have empowered the government to acquire land compulsorily without compensation. After loosing constitutional support for his reform program, Mugabe resorted to radicalism. Following a fierce wrangling with the judiciary, he made it clear that no court ruling would stop him from implementing his reforms because the issue was political and could only be solved through political means. Such developments culminated in the March 2000 invasions of white farms by war veterans under Mugabe´s watchful eyes. Mugabe initiated his farm seizures with a passionate appeal to history and posterity. "If there be trouble with the Zimbabwe land redistribution policy, let it be my day so that future generations of Zimbabwe may live in peace." Till this day, Zimbabwe has not known peace.
The road to sanctions
Sanctions against Mugabe were unleashed in waves, depending on the depth of radicalism. The IMF, under the instigation of Britain and the U.S, imposed unpublicized sanctions against Zimbabwe in November 1998. These sanctions were imposed despite an earlier commitment made by this institution to support land reforms at a Donor´s Conference on Land Reform and Rehabilitation Phase 11 (LRRP 11) in Harare, 1998. The IMF embarked on an anti-Mugabe propaganda, warned off potential investors, froze desperately needed loans to Zimbabwe and refused to negotiate Zimbabwe´s debt.
The sanctions diplomacy took a higher gear in September 1999 when the IMF completely suspended its support for economic adjustment and reform in Zimbabwe. This move was followed by the International Development Association (IDA). This multilateral development bank suspended all structural adjustment loans to Zimbabwe. In May 2000, it suspended all other forms of lending, leaving Zimbabwe desperate for badly needed funds. With these strings on Mugabe´s neck, the western press started predicting his imminent collapse. .
When Mugabe refused to fall as soon as was predicted, America rushed to the forefront of sanctions. In March 2000, the U.S Senate passed the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill (ZDB). This bill called for a travel ban and the freezing of assets belonging to President Mugabe, his family and other top government officials. The ZDB sought to deny Zimbabwe access to international loans and credits. It called on Zimbabwe to respect existing ownership titles to property. This bill further aimed to support opposition groups within Zimbabwe and to fund projects aimed at undermining ZANU-PF. It also called on Zimbabwe to withdraw its forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Since the beginning of farm seizures in 2000, America has engaged Zimbabwe in a bitter diplomatic row, characterized by sanctions, threats and verbal exchanges. This period has also been very sensitive in American diplomacy, notably after the September 11 2001 attacks on America. In this bitter state of relations, President Bush ranked Mugabe´s Zimbabwe among the "six outposts of tyranny" in the world. In 2003, his government froze the assets of 77 Zimbabwe government officials including Mugabe. In 2005, Bush signed an "Executive Order" expanding the number of those affected by the U.S sanctions and 33 institutions whose assets where frozen in America. This sanctions list was further widened after the current election upheavals in 2008.
American hatred for Zimbabwe is equal to, or rivaled only by that of Britain. Ancestral home to majority of Rhodesian settlers, Britain stands at the center of Zimbabwe´s crisis. Britain stopped funding land reforms in 1997 on grounds that the land went to Mugabe´s cronies. And since then, there have been more excuses linked to political and human rights issues in Zimbabwe. In April 2001, Britain canceled an aid package to Zimbabwe worth $US 5million. The American-initiated ZDB received the complete blessings of Britain, especially its support for opposition activities. Unwilling to see Mugabe basking in the glory of the knighthood, the Queen stripped him of this title in June 2008.
In the British scheme of things, Zimbabwe will only know peace with Mugabe out of power. "We are likely going to be in for many more years of this kind of tyranny until Preisident Mugabe moves away," said Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary. When Straw tried in vain to whip African leaders into joining his anti-Mugabe campaign, he labeled the African attitude "a conspiracy of silence." With this intransigence from African leaders, Britain relied on pressure from the U.S, EU and other European countries. British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, nodded with satisfaction when Zimbabwe was expelled from the Commonwealth in 2003, saying it was important for the Commonwealth to send "a strong signal to Zimbabwe."
Australia was among the several European countries to heed to Anglo-American calls for sanctions against Mugabe. Like the U.S, Australia widened its sanctions list to include 127 names, adding to an initial list of people in the Zimbabwe government banned from doing business with Australian firms. Together with New Zealand, Australia lobbied the UN Security Council to indict Mugabe in the International Criminal Court. This European consensus on sanctions culminated in an EU sanction package carrying a travel ban on Mugabe, business and trade restrictions and an arms embargo.
These sanctions as crippling as they are, have not succeeded in achieving the desired goal of regime change. With a thunderous media blitz on Zimbabwe, the West hoped to use the 2008 Parliamentary and Presidential elections to make a good case for what they call the "restoration of democracy" in Zimbabwe. Alluding to western conspiracy and support for the opposition, Mugabe resorted to outright violence and intimidation, forcing the opposition to back out of the run-off elections. This left Mugabe with a "landslide victory" in the one candidate poll. His information Minister, George Charamba baptized this victory with a message to the West to "go hang."
Though unable to kick Mugabe out of power, western propaganda paid off in the form of a crack that it inflicted on African sympathy and solidarity for Mugabe. A handful of African leaders raised concerns about the conduct of the elections, the violence involved and the credibility of the polls. Former South African President Nelson Mandela, qualified the situation in Zimbabwe as a "tragic failure of leadership." With this limited diplomatic breakthrough, the U.S, with the support of Britain and France, drafted a sanctions resolution which it carried to the UN.
The recent debate over Zimbabwe in the Security Council marks the height of the diplomatic row between the West and the East over Robert Mugabe´s Zimbabwe. Never before in the history of the UN has the internal affair of a sovereign country reached the Security Council. It is a replay of the cold war-era tussle by Great powers over Africa. "Has the Cold War after all arrived at the UN?" asked Thalif Deen in the Sunday Times. Events building up to this debate date back to Mugabe´s manipulated victory in the last presidential elections. The western powers raised the problem of Zimbabwe at the G8 Summit in Japan and blamed African leaders for not bringing enough pressure to bear on Mugabe. They joined the U.S in tabling a sanctions resolution at the Security Council which was vetoed by China and Russia. "China and Russia have stood with Mugabe against the people of Zimbabwe," said Zalmay Kalilzad, U.S Ambassador to the UN declared.
The depth and implications of western sanctions
Western sanctions against Mugabe have always been presented as being "narrowly targeted" or "mild." Such words greatly conceal the full depth, scope and impact of these sanctions. It is true that Mugabe´s mismanagement of the economy, wrong policies and heavy-handedness have significantly contributed to Zimbabwe´s economic collapse. His huge and irrational "compensation" to war veterans, his costly venture into the DRC and the radical nature of his land reforms all struck a deadly blow at Zimbabwe´s once vibrant economy. Mugabe himself acknowledged this fact when he observed, "Having restored land to the people, we have learnt a host of lessons," Continued he, "Chief among these is that of engaging more scientific methods to ensure greater productivity of all the resettled land….
These failures on Mugabe´s part notwithstanding, any attempt to completely dissociate Zimbabwe´s economic woes from western sanctions is grossly misleading and only enhances the hypocrisy and double standards surrounding the sanctions debate. When the EU unleashed sanctions in 2002 following earlier sanctions by the IMF and U.S, the political adviser to former Nigerian President Olusenngun Obasanjo observed, "They seem to want Mugabe´s head delivered on a platter of gold." Six years on, the West will stop at nothing to get this head. The combined effects of western sanctions and Mugabe´s political and economic blunders have kept Zimbabwe crawling.
The full impact of western sanctions on Zimbabwe is conveyed in speech delivered to the U.S Congress in 2002 by Zimbabwe´s Ambassador to Congress in which he criticized western double standards in his country. "The campaign against my country has nothing to do with democracy, the rule of law or elections as they [the West] claim," he said. "They imposed informal sanctions on the country, including attempts to prevent oil deliveries from reaching Zimbabwe. This resulted in gasoline queues and the closure of some factories." He continued further, "They withheld spare parts for our machinery including spare parts for incubators and respirators for new-born babies." This is what the West calls narrowly targeted sanctions. The effects are quite visible today in the form of hyperinflation. Zimbabwe´s exchange rate stands today at 900 billion Zimbabwe dollars to 1 U.S dollar.
What goes by the name of sanctions on Zimbabwe is the twin brother of the "regime change" objective of the West. It is Mugabe´s punishment for standing on the way of the West in Zimbabwe. Howard W. French for example recounts a statement made by a former U.S Ambassador to Zimbabwe. "Everyone felt that they had invested something to the success of Zimbabwe, so when it all started unraveling, everyone felt personally disappointed." This historical statement betrays the hidden agenda of the West on Zimbabwe.
Mugabe may be a devil in the eyes of the West. But these same eyes are blind to, the atrocities of other devils in Africa. There is nothing Mugabe has done which is so strange in the continent. Plunder, torture, corruption, ethnic politics, mismanagement, election rigging and state brutality. Under normal room temperature and pressure, these are characteristics of Africa. These abuses thrive with the support of the same great powers of the West and East who cry foul over Zimabwe. That is why Mugabe recently challenged his "friends-turned-foes" in Africa to "point a finger" at him when some joined in the western chorus against him. As an individual, Mugabe remains firmly unshaken by sanctions as he barks left and right.
Arms embargoes have also helped to strengthen Mugabe´s "look east" policy especially towards China. "Clearly Zimbabwe is looking east," he said, "and there is no turning back." Besides its leverage on Zimbabwe´s land and minerals, China stands ready to turn in shiploads of weapons even at the heart of Zimbabwe´s election unrest. For these and other economic advantages, China is ready to veto any sanctions resolution against its proxy, Zimbabwe.
Among the several reasons advanced by the West for sanctioning Zimbabwe are talks about human rights abuses, torture and killing. It is rather unfortunate that these calls came at the wrong time. Not only are these evils common in Africa, but the West itself has its hands stained. The unjustified invasion of Iraq and the cruel hanging of its President in the eyes of the world have cast doubts on the credibility of Britain and the U.S as defenders of human rights and democracy. "Today in Iraq, with all their democracy, the oil pipelines are more secure than the women and children in the streets of Baghdad," says Yaya Jammeh, President of Gambia and admirer of Mugabe.
Western travel bans on Mugabe have also proven ineffective and counterproductive. In his diplomatic tours around the world (including the West), Mugabe has on several occasions received a hero´s welcome, using this opportunity to present himself as a victim of aggression by the mighty. A good example of how Mugabe has turned this to his advantage was at the last EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon. This summit had been planned since April 2003 but failed to hold because African leaders refused sitting down without Mugabe. The conference finally held in December 2007 with the unmistakable presence of Mugabe while Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister stayed away. Mugabe singled out a "gang of four" which he blamed for arrogance towards Africa. This European arrogance and finger wagging attitude is largely responsible for African solidarity towards Mugabe. "Telling Africans they will be judged by how they line up on Zimbabwe is counterproductive....The West´s constant search for African leaders to anoint or vilify is resented on the continent and its track record, moreover is riddled with spots," says Howard French.
Conclusion
In 2005, Tony Blair described Africa as a "scar on the conscience of the world." Zimbabwe today has deteriorated beyond the level of a mere scar. Zimbabwe is a palpitating ulcer that leaves the body without peace or rest. Of all things in this world, what Zimbabwe needs most is peace, and all other things in biblical terms "shall be added unto it." The ultimate lesson Zimbabwe has to learn from history, is the fact that peace in Zimbabwe will not, cannot come from outside. It has to be cultivated within Zimbabwe and nurtured by Zimbabweans. The evils of the Lancaster Constitution and its obnoxious "willing seller, willing-buyer" clause are enough indications that the West has a better agenda for Zimbabwe than peace. Also, China´s flourishing arms trade with Mugabe does not in any way walk the path of peace.
As the West continues to seek Mugabe´s head, there are very slim possibilities that it will tone down its rhetoric about sanctions even though this issue has hit a hard rock at the UN Security Council. China and Russia will seize this opportunity to dig deeper into Zimbabwe´s bowels for minerals and other economic advantages especially as Mugabe has vowed to look east.
This places the destiny of Zimbabwe squarely in the palms of Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangarai and South African President Thabo Mbeki who stands between them in the ongoing mediation efforts which many see as "a window of opportunity." Africa awaits a "triumph of reason" in these negotiations. There is no better way of telling the world that "African Renaissance" and "African solutions to African problems" are real manifestations of African independence. These attempts at negotiation will however amount to nothing if Mugabe and Tsvangarai cannot look beyond individual and party differences and unite against outside manipulation. Zimbabwe cannot survive without the outside world but it most choose its friends with care bearing in mind that peace will return to that country only when it works along the line which Mandela saw as being "... partnership with those who wish it well."
O lift high the banner, the flag of Zimbabwe. The symbol of freedom proclaiming victory; We praise our heros' sacrifice, And vow to keep our land from foes; And may the Almighty protect and bless our land. O lovely Zimbabwe, so wondrously adorned; With mountains, and rivers cascading, flowing free; And may the Almighty protect and bless our land. O God, we beseech Thee to bless our native land; The land of our fathers bestowed upon us all.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Burma and Zimbabwe witness the last gasps of the supreme global sheriff
Burma and Zimbabwe witness the last gasps of the supreme global sheriff
The west can no longer impose its will on the increasingly powerful and self-confident nations of the developing world.We are but halfway through 2008 yet it has already born witness to a sizeable shift in global power. The default western mindset remains that the western writ rules. That is hardly surprising; it has been true for so long there has been little reason for anyone to question it, least of all the west. The assumption is that might and right are invariably on its side, that it always knows best and that if necessary it will enforce its political wisdom and moral rectitude on others. There is, however, a hitch: the authority of the self-appointed global sheriff is remorselessly eroding.
There have been two outstanding examples so far this year. The first was Burma (or Myanmar as it should be known). We can all agree that the regime is odious. The question facing the rest of the world in the aftermath of the cyclone, however, was how to assist the millions of victims of a humanitarian disaster. True to form, it was not long before the west, including our own foreign secretary, was talking up the idea of military intervention; warships were deployed off Burma's coast, talk was rife of helicopter landings and amphibious craft making their way up the Irrawaddy delta.
The idea, of course, was patently absurd. Burma's closest ally is China, with whom it shares a long border, while it is also a member of Asean (the Association of South East Asian Nations). China, India and Asean - who largely make up the region - were irrevocably opposed to the use of military force. Western leaders were living in a time warp: the kneejerk responses of old, freshened up by the short-lived era of liberal interventionism, have become a stock response. It was not long before the bellicose talk subsided and the west was obliged to channel its aid via Asean - which, from the outset, was the obvious and desirable course of action.
The fact that the west could not understand the geopolitical realities of east Asia - now the largest economic region in the world - and adapt its policies accordingly, revealed that old assumptions and attitudes run very deep indeed. Even when the very thought is ridiculous and utterly impractical, the call for military intervention, on the part of political leaders and media commentators alike, is seemingly the invariable reflex action. In fact, what Burma demonstrated were the limits of western power, the need for the west to understand those limits, and to respect and work with a region rather than seeking to intervene over its head like some kind of imperial overlord.The second example is Zimbabwe. This hurts the British psyche. Because we suffer from an acute case of colonial amnesia, we seem to think that we have some unalienable right to lecture Zimbabwe on its iniquities. Yet Britain's culpability for the country's plight - from tolerating Ian Smith's declaration of independence to the disgraceful land deal that guaranteed the privileged position of white settlers - is second to none. Notwithstanding all of this, the British feel they enjoy incomparable moral virtue on Zimbabwe.
Yet this episode too has revealed British - and western - impotence in its starkest form. After much grandstanding at the G8 summit, the Anglo-American attempt to toughen up sanctions foundered in the UN security council, where it was vetoed by Russia and China and opposed by South Africa and two others. Meanwhile, President Thabo Mbeki, whose efforts to broker some kind of deal have been widely and patronisingly scorned, has scored a major diplomatic triumph. The Southern Africa Development Community's appointed mediator for Zimbabwe, Mbeki managed to bring both Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC to the negotiating table. All the western bluster and invective now look just that: the route to a possible solution has been the work of South Africa, the SADC and the African Union alone. This is yet a further illustration of a shift in global authority.
Western power can no longer deliver in the face of the growing power, competence and self-confidence of developing countries. Instead of universal western power, we are witnessing the rise of regionalisation and regional solutions. This reflects broader changes in the global economy. Economic power is fast ebbing away from the old G7 countries towards the so-called Bric economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), or, rather more accurately, a growing number of developing economies. The G7 now account for less than half of global GDP and that share is steadily falling. Such economic shifts are the irresistible prelude to parallel changes in political power. The two examples discussed are classic instances of this process: Burma involved China and India, together with the Asean countries, while Zimbabwe featured South Africa, with Russia and especially China, emboldened in this instance to play a more assertive role on the global stage. They illustrate what might be described as the growing "Bricisation" of global politics.
They also underline the comprehensive failure of Anglo-American foreign policy. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, no thought was given to the idea that western economic power was on the wane; on the contrary, the likes of Bush and Blair seemed to believe that we were seeing the dawning of an era of new and overwhelming western power.
Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence. In contrast, those other "rogue" states, namely North Korea, Zimbabwe, and perhaps even Iran, show strong signs of responding in a positive manner to a very different kind of treatment. Liberal interventionism has failed. But as yet the west shows no sign of either understanding the new world or being able to live according to its terms.
It remains in denial, refusing to recognise the diminution in its own authority and, as a result, seemingly incapable of adapting to the new circumstances and coming up with an innovative response. This is certainly true of Britain. The foreign secretary only seems able to utter the platitudes and cliches of the discredited Blairite era: he has yet to come up with a single idea, suggestion or insight that indicates he understands the nature of this new world. British foreign policy is mired in its own past and in its relationship with the United States. In such circumstances we will find ourselves dragged kicking and screaming into the new era, constantly shunned and disappointed, a spectator rather than an architect, cast in the role of Mr Grumpy.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre
martinjacques1@aol.com
The west can no longer impose its will on the increasingly powerful and self-confident nations of the developing world.We are but halfway through 2008 yet it has already born witness to a sizeable shift in global power. The default western mindset remains that the western writ rules. That is hardly surprising; it has been true for so long there has been little reason for anyone to question it, least of all the west. The assumption is that might and right are invariably on its side, that it always knows best and that if necessary it will enforce its political wisdom and moral rectitude on others. There is, however, a hitch: the authority of the self-appointed global sheriff is remorselessly eroding.
There have been two outstanding examples so far this year. The first was Burma (or Myanmar as it should be known). We can all agree that the regime is odious. The question facing the rest of the world in the aftermath of the cyclone, however, was how to assist the millions of victims of a humanitarian disaster. True to form, it was not long before the west, including our own foreign secretary, was talking up the idea of military intervention; warships were deployed off Burma's coast, talk was rife of helicopter landings and amphibious craft making their way up the Irrawaddy delta.
The idea, of course, was patently absurd. Burma's closest ally is China, with whom it shares a long border, while it is also a member of Asean (the Association of South East Asian Nations). China, India and Asean - who largely make up the region - were irrevocably opposed to the use of military force. Western leaders were living in a time warp: the kneejerk responses of old, freshened up by the short-lived era of liberal interventionism, have become a stock response. It was not long before the bellicose talk subsided and the west was obliged to channel its aid via Asean - which, from the outset, was the obvious and desirable course of action.
The fact that the west could not understand the geopolitical realities of east Asia - now the largest economic region in the world - and adapt its policies accordingly, revealed that old assumptions and attitudes run very deep indeed. Even when the very thought is ridiculous and utterly impractical, the call for military intervention, on the part of political leaders and media commentators alike, is seemingly the invariable reflex action. In fact, what Burma demonstrated were the limits of western power, the need for the west to understand those limits, and to respect and work with a region rather than seeking to intervene over its head like some kind of imperial overlord.The second example is Zimbabwe. This hurts the British psyche. Because we suffer from an acute case of colonial amnesia, we seem to think that we have some unalienable right to lecture Zimbabwe on its iniquities. Yet Britain's culpability for the country's plight - from tolerating Ian Smith's declaration of independence to the disgraceful land deal that guaranteed the privileged position of white settlers - is second to none. Notwithstanding all of this, the British feel they enjoy incomparable moral virtue on Zimbabwe.
Yet this episode too has revealed British - and western - impotence in its starkest form. After much grandstanding at the G8 summit, the Anglo-American attempt to toughen up sanctions foundered in the UN security council, where it was vetoed by Russia and China and opposed by South Africa and two others. Meanwhile, President Thabo Mbeki, whose efforts to broker some kind of deal have been widely and patronisingly scorned, has scored a major diplomatic triumph. The Southern Africa Development Community's appointed mediator for Zimbabwe, Mbeki managed to bring both Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC to the negotiating table. All the western bluster and invective now look just that: the route to a possible solution has been the work of South Africa, the SADC and the African Union alone. This is yet a further illustration of a shift in global authority.
Western power can no longer deliver in the face of the growing power, competence and self-confidence of developing countries. Instead of universal western power, we are witnessing the rise of regionalisation and regional solutions. This reflects broader changes in the global economy. Economic power is fast ebbing away from the old G7 countries towards the so-called Bric economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), or, rather more accurately, a growing number of developing economies. The G7 now account for less than half of global GDP and that share is steadily falling. Such economic shifts are the irresistible prelude to parallel changes in political power. The two examples discussed are classic instances of this process: Burma involved China and India, together with the Asean countries, while Zimbabwe featured South Africa, with Russia and especially China, emboldened in this instance to play a more assertive role on the global stage. They illustrate what might be described as the growing "Bricisation" of global politics.
They also underline the comprehensive failure of Anglo-American foreign policy. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, no thought was given to the idea that western economic power was on the wane; on the contrary, the likes of Bush and Blair seemed to believe that we were seeing the dawning of an era of new and overwhelming western power.
Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence. In contrast, those other "rogue" states, namely North Korea, Zimbabwe, and perhaps even Iran, show strong signs of responding in a positive manner to a very different kind of treatment. Liberal interventionism has failed. But as yet the west shows no sign of either understanding the new world or being able to live according to its terms.
It remains in denial, refusing to recognise the diminution in its own authority and, as a result, seemingly incapable of adapting to the new circumstances and coming up with an innovative response. This is certainly true of Britain. The foreign secretary only seems able to utter the platitudes and cliches of the discredited Blairite era: he has yet to come up with a single idea, suggestion or insight that indicates he understands the nature of this new world. British foreign policy is mired in its own past and in its relationship with the United States. In such circumstances we will find ourselves dragged kicking and screaming into the new era, constantly shunned and disappointed, a spectator rather than an architect, cast in the role of Mr Grumpy.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre
martinjacques1@aol.com
Monday, 28 July 2008
Zimbabwe, Zuma and Odinga
By Sam Akaki
I congratulate Sunday Vision for the interview with ANC leader Jacob Zuma titled, “No racism in South Africa.” The interview will send a clear message to the British and other Western countries that they are not going to use the crisis in Zimbabwe, which they created, to divide either the African National Congress (ANC) or the African Union so to control Africa again.
The West, especially the British, had been trying to push Zuma to swallow their bait by publicly criticising Robert Mugabe thus driving a dangerous wedge between him and President Thabo Mbeki who has been pursuing quiet but fruitful diplomacy to defuse the problems in Zimbabwe.
Thankfully, Zuma had the courage to reiterate what leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have repeatedly made clear on many occasions.
They have said the West exaggerates the crisis in Zimbabwe, that we have had problems on the continent but the West does not raise the alarm as it has done regarding Zimbabwe; we had millions dying in Angola, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and northern Uganda, but the West kept silent.
The more I read the interview, the more I admired Zuma. He reiterated the belief that the British and the American are hypocrites who practice “double standards” because Olusegun Obasanjo, Mwai Kibaki and other African leaders have also rigged elections but nobody said there must be regime change; that a Pakistan military man who staged a coup against his government and even wears a military uniform on TV is their friend, and that “you cannot prescribe for the Zimbabweans and tell them who must be their president.”
Zuma also made clear the point that the Zimbabwe land problem has its roots in the Lancaster House.
“There are specific agreements that were reached which were not honoured (by the British) thereafter,” he said.
Zuma was right to disassociate himself from the statement allegedly made in London by Nelson Mandela who reportedly said “the problem of South Africa is weak leadership”. This is the same Mandela who was given a long prison sentence from which he was never expected to come out alive. Today, his statue stands in Parliament Square, London, as a monument of British cynicism and insult to the intelligence of Africans.
Mandela’s statue stood there for three years before the US finally removed his name from the list of international terrorists two weeks ago.
The Western powers who accuse Mugabe of killings looked on when in 1969 people were killed by South African police in Sharpeville township during what came to be called the Sharpeville massacre. They did not say there must be regime change in South Africa. The big powers also kept a blind eye in 1976 when 23 people were killed during the Soweto uprising where secondary students were protesting forced tuition in Afrikaans.
Just as Zuma was telling the world through the Sunday Vision “You can’t tell Zimbabweans who must be their president” and that “In Kenya, thousands of people died, more than those who have died in Zimbabwe, but nobody said Kibaki must go,” Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga was in London telling the British exactly the opposite.
Seen in the UK as a hero and introduced by the BBC’s Andrew Marr as “one of the few enlightened African leaders to have publicly criticised Mugabe,” Raila told the popular BBC Sunday programme, “Mugabe is a shame for Africa” and that he must go.”
All Africans who value Africa’s hard-won freedom from colonialism and slavery should praise Zuma and question Raila’s stance on Zimbabwe.
I congratulate Sunday Vision for the interview with ANC leader Jacob Zuma titled, “No racism in South Africa.” The interview will send a clear message to the British and other Western countries that they are not going to use the crisis in Zimbabwe, which they created, to divide either the African National Congress (ANC) or the African Union so to control Africa again.
The West, especially the British, had been trying to push Zuma to swallow their bait by publicly criticising Robert Mugabe thus driving a dangerous wedge between him and President Thabo Mbeki who has been pursuing quiet but fruitful diplomacy to defuse the problems in Zimbabwe.
Thankfully, Zuma had the courage to reiterate what leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have repeatedly made clear on many occasions.
They have said the West exaggerates the crisis in Zimbabwe, that we have had problems on the continent but the West does not raise the alarm as it has done regarding Zimbabwe; we had millions dying in Angola, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and northern Uganda, but the West kept silent.
The more I read the interview, the more I admired Zuma. He reiterated the belief that the British and the American are hypocrites who practice “double standards” because Olusegun Obasanjo, Mwai Kibaki and other African leaders have also rigged elections but nobody said there must be regime change; that a Pakistan military man who staged a coup against his government and even wears a military uniform on TV is their friend, and that “you cannot prescribe for the Zimbabweans and tell them who must be their president.”
Zuma also made clear the point that the Zimbabwe land problem has its roots in the Lancaster House.
“There are specific agreements that were reached which were not honoured (by the British) thereafter,” he said.
Zuma was right to disassociate himself from the statement allegedly made in London by Nelson Mandela who reportedly said “the problem of South Africa is weak leadership”. This is the same Mandela who was given a long prison sentence from which he was never expected to come out alive. Today, his statue stands in Parliament Square, London, as a monument of British cynicism and insult to the intelligence of Africans.
Mandela’s statue stood there for three years before the US finally removed his name from the list of international terrorists two weeks ago.
The Western powers who accuse Mugabe of killings looked on when in 1969 people were killed by South African police in Sharpeville township during what came to be called the Sharpeville massacre. They did not say there must be regime change in South Africa. The big powers also kept a blind eye in 1976 when 23 people were killed during the Soweto uprising where secondary students were protesting forced tuition in Afrikaans.
Just as Zuma was telling the world through the Sunday Vision “You can’t tell Zimbabweans who must be their president” and that “In Kenya, thousands of people died, more than those who have died in Zimbabwe, but nobody said Kibaki must go,” Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga was in London telling the British exactly the opposite.
Seen in the UK as a hero and introduced by the BBC’s Andrew Marr as “one of the few enlightened African leaders to have publicly criticised Mugabe,” Raila told the popular BBC Sunday programme, “Mugabe is a shame for Africa” and that he must go.”
All Africans who value Africa’s hard-won freedom from colonialism and slavery should praise Zuma and question Raila’s stance on Zimbabwe.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Richard Dowden panicky as British (MDC) neocolonial puppets get entangled in talks with ZANU.
One thing totally rotten about people like Richard Dowden is the total lack of shame and strange paternalistic complex they exude while hymning for british imperial and neocolonial misbehaviors. In doing so they allow what could be a very brilliant mind to undergo a baptism of shit. All that the article below is trying to say is that 'its against british interests for their puppet (Tsvangirai) to be negotiating with a man who has dismantled british neocolonial and settler loot in Zimbabwe. That is the plain naked truth. I have also included another 'self-deluded' piece from Richard Bowden below just to show how desperate the british are to see the back of Mugabe, a man who has literally kicked british interests straight in the teeth in Zimbabwe, and completely decolonised Zimbabwe's land.
What this unfortunate child of empire is failing to realize is that the energy behind those in the decolonising campaign far out-match the energies of those whose brain and stomachs can be bought by british pounds. Its not about the person of Mugabe. The struggle (Chimurenga) started in the 1890s. Its can ONLY continue. Up until ALL the remnants of the whitemen's racism in Zimbabwe is TOTALLY dismantled.
....................
Mugabe's power ploy
Zimbabwe's president is using talks with Morgan Tsvangirai to buy time while he prepares for war
All comments ()
* Richard Dowden
* The Guardian,
* Saturday July 26 2008
* Article history
It is clear what Robert Mugabe wants to see from the talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began in South Africa on Thursday. On December 27 1987 he sat down with Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) and signed a unity accord. It followed seven years of sustained violence against Nkomo's party in which some 18,000 people died. The creation of a government of national unity made Nkomo vice-president. Three Zapu leaders were given cabinet posts. They might as well have been hamsters in a cage on Mugabe's desk.
This is what Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, must remember as he sits down at the talks. Like Nkomo, his party has been battered, with many of his MPs dead, in hiding or facing charges, and more than 1,500 officials in prison. The mediator, Thabo Mbeki, and other African presidents would be happy with a deal similar to the 1987 accord. But will the MDC be able to arm-wrestle a deal that leads to Mugabe stepping down or to free and fair elections - or even a joint Mugabe/Tsvangirai control of the state and its security apparatus? The question, as Humpty Dumpty said, is: who is to be master?
Much is being made of the Kenyan model forged earlier this year when the country exploded after a stolen election. Raila Odinga, who most neutral observers considered to have won, accepted the post of prime minister under Mwai Kibaki's presidency. But Kenya is different. The security apparatus remained largely unengaged, if not neutral, in Kenya's violent January. Kibaki is no Mugabe, and Kenya's politicians are more cynical. In return for a slice of the power pie, they traded in their loyalty to principles and voters.
In Zimbabwe everyone in the power structure has been appointed by Mugabe, all are loyal members of Zanu-PF. Several of the military and security bosses have pledged their refusal to allow Tsvangirai to come to power. Their "right to rule" comes not solely from their "conquest" of the country by war against white rule, it is also because many Zimbabweans voted for them. In the March parliamentary elections, Zanu-PF gained more votes than Tsvangirai's MDC. Even discounting rigging and bullying, the unpalatable fact is that there is still popular support for Mugabe and those around him.
Is it conceivable that some time in the near future - two weeks to complete the talks is an unlikely deadline - prime minister Tsvangirai will say to Emerson Mnangagwa, the man who organised the reign of terror since the March election, that it is time to retire? Could he tell General Philip Sibanda that he is no longer head of the army? Miracles of reconciliation, peace and power-sharing have happened before in Africa but this is not credible. Mugabe and his cronies have allowed the country to be destroyed in order to hold on to power. Talks, for Mugabe, are not about reaching a compromise, they are a time-wasting ploy while he prepares for more war, or a tool for retaining - even extending - power.
What strengths does Tsvangirai have? The support of millions of Zimbabweans and a stubbornness that the flaky Nkomo lacked. Support from western countries is a double-edged sword. They provide financial, technical and diplomatic support but they also give Mugabe a cause - anti-imperialism - to unite his allies. And their power is waning. The Chinese and Russian veto of the American UN security council resolution calling for sanctions against Mugabe last week marked the full stop at the end of the west's exclusive post cold war domination of Africa. They cannot rescue Zimbabwe.
Much weight was put on the rest of Africa in sorting out Zimbabwe but the African Union ducked its responsibilities at its summit in Egypt last month and passed the buck back to Mbeki. His power as president of South Africa is ebbing daily. The African National Congress, now dominated by allies of Jacob Zuma, is removing Mbeki's allies from positions of power and is setting up a parallel ANC negotiation. In the next few months we may see South Africa begin to take the Zimbabwe crisis seriously.
But can Zimbabwe's economy wait? It is sliding quickly into subsistence and starvation with guns and mobiles. There are no buffers, just endless decline. Tsvangirai knows that confidence and financial support will not return without his say-so. But the ruling elite are not troubled. Some make good money out of Zimbabwe's ruin. They are shifting their money overseas; sending the Zimbabwe dollar on down. They can always bring a little foreign exchange back and buy a few trillion dollars to pay servants and purchase food and black-market fuel. The only question is how long the government can produce money to pay its troops, police and thugs?
For different reasons, both sides may play for time. At present whatever moral and political strength Tsvangirai has, Mugabe is in power. Unless something inside Zanu-PF happens to unseat him, the battle for democratic change in Zimbabwe is far from over.
· Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society. His book: Africa Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published in September
richarddowden@soas.ac.uk
The piece below by Richard Dowden is just plain hysteria and self delusion.
Zimbabwe has had two rulers leaders in 43 years. Both gave the finger to international opinion and led their country into isolation, conflict and despair. Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe have much in common, but, in the end, Ian Smith blinked and came to the negotiating table. Mugabe shows no sign of blinking. Not even when inflation hit 1,594% in February.
He was probably happy to see that picture of a bloodied, beaten Morgan Tsvangirai broadcast around Zimbabwe: that is what happens to those who oppose me. He probably wasn't too worried when the picture appeared on the front pages of the rest of the world. He knows they can't touch him.
Mugabe is a man who would let his nation collapse and his people starve to death rather than give up power. Sanctions mean little to him, as he struggles against the demons in his head: Tony Blair trying to depose him, British imperialism recolonising Zimbabwe, international capitalism destroying his socialist paradise.
It is true that there is little the outside world can do without South Africa. President Thabo Mbeki fears Mugabe personally and, even more, fears the hymns he sings. They can awaken South Africa's own devils and some of them are real: the inequality of millions of South Africans living in poverty while most land remains in the hands of whites. If Mbeki was seen to be aligning himself with Blair, he might light fire in his own house.
So, the South African policy for the past seven years of Zimbabwe's rapid decline has been for Zimbabweans to talk to each other and make a deal. That's hard when the government beats up the opposition, rather than talks to it. As long as South Africa stays on this course, with passive support from the rest of Africa, the rest of the world cannot apply pressure on Zimbabwe.
But apart from the blaze of news from the demonstration last weekend, the tectonic plates are beginning to shift in Zimbabwe. Last December, the ruling Zanu-PF party failed to deliver on a request from Mugabe to change the constitution (again) to allow him to rule until 2010. The two factions within the party came together on this issue at least. Mugabe no longer has the power or the patronage to play them off against each other. They want a contest now, not when Mugabe dies.
As the ruling party divided, the two factions of the opposition MDC have come together again. The MDC party, which split in 2005, is talking to frustrated presidential wannabes in the ruling party, and they are talking about the departure of Mugabe. Pressure is mounting on two fronts. Despite the violence against it, the opposition is planning its next big march on April 4. Watch this space.
What this unfortunate child of empire is failing to realize is that the energy behind those in the decolonising campaign far out-match the energies of those whose brain and stomachs can be bought by british pounds. Its not about the person of Mugabe. The struggle (Chimurenga) started in the 1890s. Its can ONLY continue. Up until ALL the remnants of the whitemen's racism in Zimbabwe is TOTALLY dismantled.
....................
Mugabe's power ploy
Zimbabwe's president is using talks with Morgan Tsvangirai to buy time while he prepares for war
All comments ()
* Richard Dowden
* The Guardian,
* Saturday July 26 2008
* Article history
It is clear what Robert Mugabe wants to see from the talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began in South Africa on Thursday. On December 27 1987 he sat down with Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) and signed a unity accord. It followed seven years of sustained violence against Nkomo's party in which some 18,000 people died. The creation of a government of national unity made Nkomo vice-president. Three Zapu leaders were given cabinet posts. They might as well have been hamsters in a cage on Mugabe's desk.
This is what Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, must remember as he sits down at the talks. Like Nkomo, his party has been battered, with many of his MPs dead, in hiding or facing charges, and more than 1,500 officials in prison. The mediator, Thabo Mbeki, and other African presidents would be happy with a deal similar to the 1987 accord. But will the MDC be able to arm-wrestle a deal that leads to Mugabe stepping down or to free and fair elections - or even a joint Mugabe/Tsvangirai control of the state and its security apparatus? The question, as Humpty Dumpty said, is: who is to be master?
Much is being made of the Kenyan model forged earlier this year when the country exploded after a stolen election. Raila Odinga, who most neutral observers considered to have won, accepted the post of prime minister under Mwai Kibaki's presidency. But Kenya is different. The security apparatus remained largely unengaged, if not neutral, in Kenya's violent January. Kibaki is no Mugabe, and Kenya's politicians are more cynical. In return for a slice of the power pie, they traded in their loyalty to principles and voters.
In Zimbabwe everyone in the power structure has been appointed by Mugabe, all are loyal members of Zanu-PF. Several of the military and security bosses have pledged their refusal to allow Tsvangirai to come to power. Their "right to rule" comes not solely from their "conquest" of the country by war against white rule, it is also because many Zimbabweans voted for them. In the March parliamentary elections, Zanu-PF gained more votes than Tsvangirai's MDC. Even discounting rigging and bullying, the unpalatable fact is that there is still popular support for Mugabe and those around him.
Is it conceivable that some time in the near future - two weeks to complete the talks is an unlikely deadline - prime minister Tsvangirai will say to Emerson Mnangagwa, the man who organised the reign of terror since the March election, that it is time to retire? Could he tell General Philip Sibanda that he is no longer head of the army? Miracles of reconciliation, peace and power-sharing have happened before in Africa but this is not credible. Mugabe and his cronies have allowed the country to be destroyed in order to hold on to power. Talks, for Mugabe, are not about reaching a compromise, they are a time-wasting ploy while he prepares for more war, or a tool for retaining - even extending - power.
What strengths does Tsvangirai have? The support of millions of Zimbabweans and a stubbornness that the flaky Nkomo lacked. Support from western countries is a double-edged sword. They provide financial, technical and diplomatic support but they also give Mugabe a cause - anti-imperialism - to unite his allies. And their power is waning. The Chinese and Russian veto of the American UN security council resolution calling for sanctions against Mugabe last week marked the full stop at the end of the west's exclusive post cold war domination of Africa. They cannot rescue Zimbabwe.
Much weight was put on the rest of Africa in sorting out Zimbabwe but the African Union ducked its responsibilities at its summit in Egypt last month and passed the buck back to Mbeki. His power as president of South Africa is ebbing daily. The African National Congress, now dominated by allies of Jacob Zuma, is removing Mbeki's allies from positions of power and is setting up a parallel ANC negotiation. In the next few months we may see South Africa begin to take the Zimbabwe crisis seriously.
But can Zimbabwe's economy wait? It is sliding quickly into subsistence and starvation with guns and mobiles. There are no buffers, just endless decline. Tsvangirai knows that confidence and financial support will not return without his say-so. But the ruling elite are not troubled. Some make good money out of Zimbabwe's ruin. They are shifting their money overseas; sending the Zimbabwe dollar on down. They can always bring a little foreign exchange back and buy a few trillion dollars to pay servants and purchase food and black-market fuel. The only question is how long the government can produce money to pay its troops, police and thugs?
For different reasons, both sides may play for time. At present whatever moral and political strength Tsvangirai has, Mugabe is in power. Unless something inside Zanu-PF happens to unseat him, the battle for democratic change in Zimbabwe is far from over.
· Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society. His book: Africa Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published in September
richarddowden@soas.ac.uk
The piece below by Richard Dowden is just plain hysteria and self delusion.
Zimbabwe has had two rulers leaders in 43 years. Both gave the finger to international opinion and led their country into isolation, conflict and despair. Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe have much in common, but, in the end, Ian Smith blinked and came to the negotiating table. Mugabe shows no sign of blinking. Not even when inflation hit 1,594% in February.
He was probably happy to see that picture of a bloodied, beaten Morgan Tsvangirai broadcast around Zimbabwe: that is what happens to those who oppose me. He probably wasn't too worried when the picture appeared on the front pages of the rest of the world. He knows they can't touch him.
Mugabe is a man who would let his nation collapse and his people starve to death rather than give up power. Sanctions mean little to him, as he struggles against the demons in his head: Tony Blair trying to depose him, British imperialism recolonising Zimbabwe, international capitalism destroying his socialist paradise.
It is true that there is little the outside world can do without South Africa. President Thabo Mbeki fears Mugabe personally and, even more, fears the hymns he sings. They can awaken South Africa's own devils and some of them are real: the inequality of millions of South Africans living in poverty while most land remains in the hands of whites. If Mbeki was seen to be aligning himself with Blair, he might light fire in his own house.
So, the South African policy for the past seven years of Zimbabwe's rapid decline has been for Zimbabweans to talk to each other and make a deal. That's hard when the government beats up the opposition, rather than talks to it. As long as South Africa stays on this course, with passive support from the rest of Africa, the rest of the world cannot apply pressure on Zimbabwe.
But apart from the blaze of news from the demonstration last weekend, the tectonic plates are beginning to shift in Zimbabwe. Last December, the ruling Zanu-PF party failed to deliver on a request from Mugabe to change the constitution (again) to allow him to rule until 2010. The two factions within the party came together on this issue at least. Mugabe no longer has the power or the patronage to play them off against each other. They want a contest now, not when Mugabe dies.
As the ruling party divided, the two factions of the opposition MDC have come together again. The MDC party, which split in 2005, is talking to frustrated presidential wannabes in the ruling party, and they are talking about the departure of Mugabe. Pressure is mounting on two fronts. Despite the violence against it, the opposition is planning its next big march on April 4. Watch this space.
Friday, 25 July 2008
MoU: Dining Tsvangirai, Deigning the British
MoU: Dining Tsvangirai, Deigning the British
LISTENING to the MDC officials talk, you cannot miss that party’s wish to be viewed and accepted as a party of major thresholds.
It views itself as the herald to great good things about to visit our country.
It speaks of the suffering, the impoverished, the traumatised, speaks of "exit points" to the current "crisis", but seemingly without any hint at the taunting irony underpinning these convoluted self-claims.
Apart from being the cause of the present crisis facing Zimbabwe, the party does not seem to recognise its all-British company, its all-sanctions agenda. One can hardly visualise any sadder pretension to millenarian personality than this. Even more worrisome is the mental state of the voter MDC is angling to catch with such fulsome claims. The politics of the MDC imply a credulous voter, one readily willing to suspend painfully begging questions, indeed one ready to ignore outward fact.
On its part, I hope the MDC does not believe self-flattery is the way out of its existential dilemma, a dilemma whose consequences it may now find harder to defer, let alone escape, after what happened on Monday. Henceforth, it has no choice but to answer foundational questions from an insistent and extraordinarily wary interlocutor.
While everyone was focusing on the larger and often humour-packed drama of the Monday MoU signing ceremony, very few noticed very significant auguries in and around the venue. How many, for instance, noticed that Tsvangirai received swapped briefcases with one of his minions, just before the signing? The briefcase he got for the ceremony held a speech he attempted to own and read with such striking unfamiliarity. Whose speech was it; whose ideas did it contain? After all, he had shown real reluctance to address the audience.
Out, out brief Scott and Rabitsch
More frighteningly, did anyone see two white men who fought so hard to access the venue, and the MDC leader, until they were emphatically frustrated and stopped by security? One was Keith Scott, the British Embassy’s intelligence officer whose official cover nomenclature is "first secretary". The other was Armin Rabitsch, again whose cover title is "Elections and Democracy Expert" of the European Union. He "works" from the EU House.
What was the mission of the two men and why was it so important as to summon their combined belligerence? Are they part of the MDC-T human paraphernalia, part of the MDC cosmopolitan colour mix? I leave Scott for a while, noting though that he is also in charge of the Embassy’s communications, possibly in recognition of the highly mediased British assault on Zimbabwe.
They have signed the wrong document!
I focus on the so-called elections and democracy expert of the EU. A rather simple and depthless man attempting a game on a complex pitch of politics, Rabitsch (Rubbish for short and simple!) was duly baited by a copy of the signed MoU, whereupon receiving and scanning through it, he gave the game away by exclaiming: "They signed the wrong document! Representatives of negotiating parties should have been five, not two."
You could not miss the consternation on the face of this white child of the emperor. Haggard, hair tousled, he withdrew to a corner meant for Rainbow guests, all under the watchful gaze of you-know-who. He whipped out a shrivelled and heavily finger-printed (from repeated references) piece of paper from his jacket which he furiously began comparing with the copy of the just signed MoU, paragraph by paragraph, point by point, word by word, oblivious to the watching Zimbabwean world.
Clearly there were variances, glaring variances that seemed to spell doom for him and the complex web of interests he minds in this country. All had been lost, or so it seemed. He cut a very lonely and resigned figure, simply overwhelmed by his own impotence, against another whirlwind turn in Zimbabwe’s shifty politics.
So many questions, no answers
You are assailed by many questions. Which draft should the principals of the negotiating parties have signed? From where; from whom? Why did this outsider boy seem to know what was correct and possibly right for us, we the bereaved? Why were the emerging variations between the two documents such a horror for Mr Rubbish and Mr Kitty Scotchy?
What is more, is it sheer coincidence that among the issues MDC-T sought to reopen for negotiation just before the signing, was item 3 to do with representatives of each party to the talks, the same item which triggered a Rubbish yell? Why would the British, the EU and the MDC seek an enlarged team of negotiators to the talks? And why would all the representative negotiators to the talks — including those from MDC-T — unanimously reject the proposed enlargement, once put before them by the facilitator? Surely Biti and Mangoma would have been familiar with such a request from their party and backers, and would have exercised their obligation to push for its acceptance in the hastily convened pre-signing talks?
Would this suggest contradictions within the MDC and between these officials and those driving the British, European and American agenda? When one recalls that the two officials had to turn to Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi (the other neglected barrel this time!) when they sought to persuade Tsvangirai to sign the MoU, the plot simply thickens.
What is worse, MDC-T had a meeting of its executive last Thursday, ahead of the Monday signing. Are we sure the media have reported all that happened in that meeting, including tracing fractures within MDC-T, worsened by the Thursday meeting focused on whether or not to sign the MoU with Zanu-PF? More important, how do all these dynamics enable or disable the inter-party dialogue? What are the threats? What are the prospects?
Returning to old wine, old bottle-skins
I notice the media have been fixated on the timetable of the talks, unanimously concluding the time frame is unrealistic. Frankly, time is a non-issue, and, sadly, one reminding us yet again that the media are an industry of misleading recency, a profession where there is mutual agreement to annihilate memory and history, all to the combined detriment of the unwary reader. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU is new or undiscovered among the negotiating parties. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU was not debated on, with agreed positions adopted in the marathon discussions that took the whole of last year, right up to the March polls.
Including a draft constitution — made, adopted and ready — which the two MDCs decided to abuse in order to avoid signing the more binding comprehensive political declaration which the British did not want signed at all. And also hoping to dodge or defer the March poll. The declaration would have got both MDCs to affirm the correctness and irrevocability of land reforms, as well as British obligations to the resolution of that vexed question; would have affirmed the sanctity of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty; would have rejected sanctions and other forms of Western intrusions, including pirate radio stations.
Needless to say, such a declaration would have ousted the tenuous moral string on which British neo-colonial designs here hang. More immediately, and especially for MDC-T, the declaration would have amounted to a vote against themselves, a conclusive resolution of an existential dilemma through suicide. Needless to say, that would not have made sense ahead of the harmonised elections which both MDCs were not quite ready for, even without realising that Zanu-PF, for all its unjustified confidence, was in a far worse position of readiness.
A moment to fornicate
I would daresay a number of issues, particularly those to do with communication, were, in fact, moved forward from the draft constitution, into current law, and this on the eve of the campaign period. There is a draft constitution already, agreed to also, which got mothballed ahead of the elections. So there is nothing new or un-agreed in what is in the MoU.
What may be new and a clear nuisance is the propensity to reopen negotiations on old matters and agreements. Even then, that would not suggest too short a timeframe; merely too long a foreplay by those forgetful they are stealing a moment to fornicate! Which is why I think real focus should be on which limbs balance, intertwine or penetrate in this dance of macabre dalliance.
Kicking out the British
Apart from its photogenic and gastronomic value, the real significance of the meeting between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai is that the two men tucked out the British from between them. The meddlesome British. The failure of Scott and Rabitsch to access the venue, influence the content and obtain on their terms the final documentation of the Monday ceremony, may have been very symbolic of how well sequestered from disruptive intrusion the beginning of the accommodation process (which is what it is now that substantive issues were long thrashed) was.
Judging by the appetite for more (the two men shared lunch) meetings which Tsvangirai has developed, it is clear something of a transfiguration happened in that small suite on Floor 17 of the Rainbow.
Phased declaration of war against Independence
But the risks of recidivism in Tsvangirai abound, which takes me to the real threats to the process. The largest threat comes from red-hot anger in London and Washington, less so some European capitals which had joined in the fight in the hope of delivering a good turn to the British. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter under which Britain, through the US and smaller states which sponsored the resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council, is a war segment of the UN Charter.
Britain was and is ready to go to war over Zimbabwe, against Zimbabwe. The resolution was meant to be a phased declaration of war, adorned with a patina of international legitimacy. Had the resolution succeeded, Britain would have fought a second colonisation war here, in the full joy of a UN mandate. It, thus, would have been a righteous war to unrighteous ends. That means the UN would have been complicit in inaugurating Berlin Conference 2, with itself in the chair that Bismarck occupied at the turn of the 19th Century.
It would have started a new phase and wave of recolonisation, of which Zimbabwe would have been the opening salvo. Through that one resolution, the UN would have edited all its anti-colonial resolutions that gave focus and impetus to liberation forces in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the name of a cardinal value of the UN Charter: self-determination. Ironically, Russia and China, which in Western propaganda terms are bastions of autocracy, stepped in to save the UN Charter from its marauding Security Council, and a strangely ululating Secretary General.
Telegraphing British hostility
But the message had gone home. Britain was and is ready for a dire decision against Zimbabwe. And this filtered through its media for the greater part of the week. Illustratively, the British Telegraph, itself a breath away from those who really govern England, dismissed the Monday event as "a disgraceful solution" for Zimbabwe (for Britain?)". Claiming the agreement "legitimised Mugabe’s shameful flouting of the democratic process", the paper added the only person gladdened by the breakthrough would have been "South Africa’s unimpressive president, Thabo Mbeki".
You cannot miss the royal rage, made madder by a recognition that "the wider international community (read Britain and America) would have little option but to look impotently on". With Mugabe and Tsvangirai sharing lunch and thoughts, Britain and her overriding interests were temporarily impotent, which is why the Telegraph bemoans the fact that "any sanctions against Mugabe and his henchmen would have to be abandoned".
The question is whether the British are permanently shut out. The Telegraph had the temerity to offer advice to Tsvangirai: "Mr Tsvangirai should not accede to such a one-sided settlement. The starting point for any power-sharing agreement is that it should recognise the result of the first, contested, presidential, election. That would require Mugabe’s removal from the presidency and his replacement by Mr Tsvangirai. Any deal that does not recognise the democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe will not be worth the paper it is written on."
Well, well, well! Exactly, which is why no serious person gave regard to the British deal here, so succinctly spelt out by the Telegraph. It is a deal which does not recognise the supreme law here, implying securing British interests must, in fact, be our law as a neo-colony of the British. March gave Tsvangirai an early lead. June gave President Mugabe the conclusive win which yielded the Presidency for him. This Tsvangirai appears to have finally understood and appreciated on Monday, with his suggestion (and it’s a mere suggestion he put to the President) for a 19th Amendment to the Constitution indicating a shying away from his initial British-inspired obduracy and fixation with the penultimate March polls. This may mark the beginning of Tsvangirai’s second liberation, brought about by the man who is his father’s age mate, the man he delights in reviling on behalf of the West.
Temptations of government-in-exile
The British are all out to wreck the project towards settlement here, and much rests on how well they are kept out, both by the MDC and the facilitator. The demand for an expanded mediation team and an expanded negotiating team is a search for opportune fissures for massive disruptions. Now that Tsvangirai is about to get a new passport to enable him to participate in the forthcoming meeting of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security in Angola, he will have to resist the tempting idea of leaving the country to launch a government-in–exile, which for the British is a precursor to insurgency here, and more forays into the Security Council.
It will be a ruinous route to follow, one which would bring personal grief to Tsvangirai. After Monday, his best chances are with President Mugabe, ironically enough. The Russians have a brilliant idea. Sanctions should be applied on whoever stalls talks, including MDC-T and those hostile thoughts obstructing the course of a peaceful settlement.
Flutter in both dove-coats
The other threat — no doubt minor — comes from all the parties. Both the British and Americans are mulling reconfiguring the opposition here, once the two MDCs join Zanu-PF. Expectedly not everyone will have a place in the sun, in the new agreement. Those inside Zanu-PF who would not dare do what foolhardy Dabengwa did, but are known to have been sympathetic to Makoni, would sulk if it turns out — for reasons of sheer practicality — that they are not absorbed. The British expect this to be the nucleus of a new opposition movement, alongside embittered elements from both MDC-T and MDC-M.
And MDC-T seems set to suffer serious fractures, which I will not go into this week. Noteworthy, too, is evident angst in the old Zapu fold, one well founded in the concern that a new agreement with the two MDCs, would topple or relegate the 1987 Unity Accord. Fortunately, this is needless worry, given that the ruling party has made the 1987 Unity Accord a non-negotiable principle which will continue to shape and influence the composition of the Presidency.
Restoring the charity clause
What to do with the Mutambara group,
l To Page 7
that is the embarrassing but easy question. Embarrassing to both MDCs, but triggering massive gloating within Zanu-PF. Soon after the end of the 20 racial seats provided for under the Lancaster House Constitution as given us by the British, Zanu-PF — no doubt with remarkable nation-building foresight — turned those seats into special seats appointable by the President. The idea was to ensure inclusive structures of governance, which is how minority groups have always had a place in our structures.
However, these powers were severely pared down at last year’s talks, all on the insistence of both MDCs. Mugabe can no longer abridge the people’s will, they howled triumphantly, one eye pitying the supposedly eunuch-ed president. They relished the moment. Still in that din of ill-fated joy, Goche and Chinamasa were humane enough to remind Welshman Ncube that Matabeleland was, in fact, the biggest beneficiary of this provision in the electoral law. No, the learned professor and his colleagues would have none of it. The powers had to go, and go they did! Hardly six months down the victory, those powers are badly needed, badly needed by especially (excuse my broken syntax for emphasis) Welshman and his group in leadership, all of them killed and wiped out by the same democracy in whose name they pared down the charitable provision with such reckless ho-la-la-la! That is the difference between experience and knowledge, between mid-eighties and early fifties.
The Brown man at it again
Mandaza is at it again. With the money for Mavambo finished, the man wants new benefactors. To get these, he has to improve his appeal. And the benefactors are Western donors who will pour billions for any jibe at Zanu-PF. Those who were with Mandaza in the now defunct publishing project will tell you how throughout the ownership fight, the man would politically and legally catwalk to gain the notice of Western benefactors. He had to prove he was deeply anti-Zanu-PF to win Western donor approbation. His latest target is Joyce Kazembe, vice chairperson of the constitutional Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, herself a long-standing employee of Sapes Trust. She has to leave Sapes, we are told, because the Sapes Trust which Ibbotson Joseph dominates if not personify, accuses her of bringing it into disrepute! A Kazemba on national assignment brings disrepute to some nondescript, donor-driven NGO whose accounts books gooseflesh at the mention of the word "audit"? And Kazembe who serves a constitutional body under which Mavambo competed for power, soils the Trust the way Mandaza himself as a player in that terminal political thing, does not? And how did Professor Sam Moyo, or other regional scholars who left Sapes in such ignominy, soil it? This guy has been allowed to go too far in abusing people. Each time he wants to improve his credentials as a mendicant angling for donor notice, some scapegoat has to be found, some head has to roll! So Joyce is the coin that settles the electoral trouncing of Mavambo? And, sisi, you allow the man to defame you so openly? Why? The same week the EU crucifies you? Doesn’t that make him a Brown man? Icho!
-End-
MoU: Dining Tsvangirai, Deigning the British
LISTENING to the MDC officials talk, you cannot miss that party’s wish to be viewed and accepted as a party of major thresholds.
It views itself as the herald to great good things about to visit our country.
It speaks of the suffering, the impoverished, the traumatised, speaks of "exit points" to the current "crisis", but seemingly without any hint at the taunting irony underpinning these convoluted self-claims.
Apart from being the cause of the present crisis facing Zimbabwe, the party does not seem to recognise its all-British company, its all-sanctions agenda. One can hardly visualise any sadder pretension to millenarian personality than this. Even more worrisome is the mental state of the voter MDC is angling to catch with such fulsome claims. The politics of the MDC imply a credulous voter, one readily willing to suspend painfully begging questions, indeed one ready to ignore outward fact.
On its part, I hope the MDC does not believe self-flattery is the way out of its existential dilemma, a dilemma whose consequences it may now find harder to defer, let alone escape, after what happened on Monday. Henceforth, it has no choice but to answer foundational questions from an insistent and extraordinarily wary interlocutor.
While everyone was focusing on the larger and often humour-packed drama of the Monday MoU signing ceremony, very few noticed very significant auguries in and around the venue. How many, for instance, noticed that Tsvangirai received swapped briefcases with one of his minions, just before the signing? The briefcase he got for the ceremony held a speech he attempted to own and read with such striking unfamiliarity. Whose speech was it; whose ideas did it contain? After all, he had shown real reluctance to address the audience.
Out, out brief Scott and Rabitsch
More frighteningly, did anyone see two white men who fought so hard to access the venue, and the MDC leader, until they were emphatically frustrated and stopped by security? One was Keith Scott, the British Embassy’s intelligence officer whose official cover nomenclature is "first secretary". The other was Armin Rabitsch, again whose cover title is "Elections and Democracy Expert" of the European Union. He "works" from the EU House.
What was the mission of the two men and why was it so important as to summon their combined belligerence? Are they part of the MDC-T human paraphernalia, part of the MDC cosmopolitan colour mix? I leave Scott for a while, noting though that he is also in charge of the Embassy’s communications, possibly in recognition of the highly mediased British assault on Zimbabwe.
They have signed the wrong document!
I focus on the so-called elections and democracy expert of the EU. A rather simple and depthless man attempting a game on a complex pitch of politics, Rabitsch (Rubbish for short and simple!) was duly baited by a copy of the signed MoU, whereupon receiving and scanning through it, he gave the game away by exclaiming: "They signed the wrong document! Representatives of negotiating parties should have been five, not two."
You could not miss the consternation on the face of this white child of the emperor. Haggard, hair tousled, he withdrew to a corner meant for Rainbow guests, all under the watchful gaze of you-know-who. He whipped out a shrivelled and heavily finger-printed (from repeated references) piece of paper from his jacket which he furiously began comparing with the copy of the just signed MoU, paragraph by paragraph, point by point, word by word, oblivious to the watching Zimbabwean world.
Clearly there were variances, glaring variances that seemed to spell doom for him and the complex web of interests he minds in this country. All had been lost, or so it seemed. He cut a very lonely and resigned figure, simply overwhelmed by his own impotence, against another whirlwind turn in Zimbabwe’s shifty politics.
So many questions, no answers
You are assailed by many questions. Which draft should the principals of the negotiating parties have signed? From where; from whom? Why did this outsider boy seem to know what was correct and possibly right for us, we the bereaved? Why were the emerging variations between the two documents such a horror for Mr Rubbish and Mr Kitty Scotchy?
What is more, is it sheer coincidence that among the issues MDC-T sought to reopen for negotiation just before the signing, was item 3 to do with representatives of each party to the talks, the same item which triggered a Rubbish yell? Why would the British, the EU and the MDC seek an enlarged team of negotiators to the talks? And why would all the representative negotiators to the talks — including those from MDC-T — unanimously reject the proposed enlargement, once put before them by the facilitator? Surely Biti and Mangoma would have been familiar with such a request from their party and backers, and would have exercised their obligation to push for its acceptance in the hastily convened pre-signing talks?
Would this suggest contradictions within the MDC and between these officials and those driving the British, European and American agenda? When one recalls that the two officials had to turn to Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi (the other neglected barrel this time!) when they sought to persuade Tsvangirai to sign the MoU, the plot simply thickens.
What is worse, MDC-T had a meeting of its executive last Thursday, ahead of the Monday signing. Are we sure the media have reported all that happened in that meeting, including tracing fractures within MDC-T, worsened by the Thursday meeting focused on whether or not to sign the MoU with Zanu-PF? More important, how do all these dynamics enable or disable the inter-party dialogue? What are the threats? What are the prospects?
Returning to old wine, old bottle-skins
I notice the media have been fixated on the timetable of the talks, unanimously concluding the time frame is unrealistic. Frankly, time is a non-issue, and, sadly, one reminding us yet again that the media are an industry of misleading recency, a profession where there is mutual agreement to annihilate memory and history, all to the combined detriment of the unwary reader. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU is new or undiscovered among the negotiating parties. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU was not debated on, with agreed positions adopted in the marathon discussions that took the whole of last year, right up to the March polls.
Including a draft constitution — made, adopted and ready — which the two MDCs decided to abuse in order to avoid signing the more binding comprehensive political declaration which the British did not want signed at all. And also hoping to dodge or defer the March poll. The declaration would have got both MDCs to affirm the correctness and irrevocability of land reforms, as well as British obligations to the resolution of that vexed question; would have affirmed the sanctity of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty; would have rejected sanctions and other forms of Western intrusions, including pirate radio stations.
Needless to say, such a declaration would have ousted the tenuous moral string on which British neo-colonial designs here hang. More immediately, and especially for MDC-T, the declaration would have amounted to a vote against themselves, a conclusive resolution of an existential dilemma through suicide. Needless to say, that would not have made sense ahead of the harmonised elections which both MDCs were not quite ready for, even without realising that Zanu-PF, for all its unjustified confidence, was in a far worse position of readiness.
A moment to fornicate
I would daresay a number of issues, particularly those to do with communication, were, in fact, moved forward from the draft constitution, into current law, and this on the eve of the campaign period. There is a draft constitution already, agreed to also, which got mothballed ahead of the elections. So there is nothing new or un-agreed in what is in the MoU.
What may be new and a clear nuisance is the propensity to reopen negotiations on old matters and agreements. Even then, that would not suggest too short a timeframe; merely too long a foreplay by those forgetful they are stealing a moment to fornicate! Which is why I think real focus should be on which limbs balance, intertwine or penetrate in this dance of macabre dalliance.
Kicking out the British
Apart from its photogenic and gastronomic value, the real significance of the meeting between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai is that the two men tucked out the British from between them. The meddlesome British. The failure of Scott and Rabitsch to access the venue, influence the content and obtain on their terms the final documentation of the Monday ceremony, may have been very symbolic of how well sequestered from disruptive intrusion the beginning of the accommodation process (which is what it is now that substantive issues were long thrashed) was.
Judging by the appetite for more (the two men shared lunch) meetings which Tsvangirai has developed, it is clear something of a transfiguration happened in that small suite on Floor 17 of the Rainbow.
Phased declaration of war against Independence
But the risks of recidivism in Tsvangirai abound, which takes me to the real threats to the process. The largest threat comes from red-hot anger in London and Washington, less so some European capitals which had joined in the fight in the hope of delivering a good turn to the British. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter under which Britain, through the US and smaller states which sponsored the resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council, is a war segment of the UN Charter.
Britain was and is ready to go to war over Zimbabwe, against Zimbabwe. The resolution was meant to be a phased declaration of war, adorned with a patina of international legitimacy. Had the resolution succeeded, Britain would have fought a second colonisation war here, in the full joy of a UN mandate. It, thus, would have been a righteous war to unrighteous ends. That means the UN would have been complicit in inaugurating Berlin Conference 2, with itself in the chair that Bismarck occupied at the turn of the 19th Century.
It would have started a new phase and wave of recolonisation, of which Zimbabwe would have been the opening salvo. Through that one resolution, the UN would have edited all its anti-colonial resolutions that gave focus and impetus to liberation forces in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the name of a cardinal value of the UN Charter: self-determination. Ironically, Russia and China, which in Western propaganda terms are bastions of autocracy, stepped in to save the UN Charter from its marauding Security Council, and a strangely ululating Secretary General.
Telegraphing British hostility
But the message had gone home. Britain was and is ready for a dire decision against Zimbabwe. And this filtered through its media for the greater part of the week. Illustratively, the British Telegraph, itself a breath away from those who really govern England, dismissed the Monday event as "a disgraceful solution" for Zimbabwe (for Britain?)". Claiming the agreement "legitimised Mugabe’s shameful flouting of the democratic process", the paper added the only person gladdened by the breakthrough would have been "South Africa’s unimpressive president, Thabo Mbeki".
You cannot miss the royal rage, made madder by a recognition that "the wider international community (read Britain and America) would have little option but to look impotently on". With Mugabe and Tsvangirai sharing lunch and thoughts, Britain and her overriding interests were temporarily impotent, which is why the Telegraph bemoans the fact that "any sanctions against Mugabe and his henchmen would have to be abandoned".
The question is whether the British are permanently shut out. The Telegraph had the temerity to offer advice to Tsvangirai: "Mr Tsvangirai should not accede to such a one-sided settlement. The starting point for any power-sharing agreement is that it should recognise the result of the first, contested, presidential, election. That would require Mugabe’s removal from the presidency and his replacement by Mr Tsvangirai. Any deal that does not recognise the democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe will not be worth the paper it is written on."
Well, well, well! Exactly, which is why no serious person gave regard to the British deal here, so succinctly spelt out by the Telegraph. It is a deal which does not recognise the supreme law here, implying securing British interests must, in fact, be our law as a neo-colony of the British. March gave Tsvangirai an early lead. June gave President Mugabe the conclusive win which yielded the Presidency for him. This Tsvangirai appears to have finally understood and appreciated on Monday, with his suggestion (and it’s a mere suggestion he put to the President) for a 19th Amendment to the Constitution indicating a shying away from his initial British-inspired obduracy and fixation with the penultimate March polls. This may mark the beginning of Tsvangirai’s second liberation, brought about by the man who is his father’s age mate, the man he delights in reviling on behalf of the West.
Temptations of government-in-exile
The British are all out to wreck the project towards settlement here, and much rests on how well they are kept out, both by the MDC and the facilitator. The demand for an expanded mediation team and an expanded negotiating team is a search for opportune fissures for massive disruptions. Now that Tsvangirai is about to get a new passport to enable him to participa
LISTENING to the MDC officials talk, you cannot miss that party’s wish to be viewed and accepted as a party of major thresholds.
It views itself as the herald to great good things about to visit our country.
It speaks of the suffering, the impoverished, the traumatised, speaks of "exit points" to the current "crisis", but seemingly without any hint at the taunting irony underpinning these convoluted self-claims.
Apart from being the cause of the present crisis facing Zimbabwe, the party does not seem to recognise its all-British company, its all-sanctions agenda. One can hardly visualise any sadder pretension to millenarian personality than this. Even more worrisome is the mental state of the voter MDC is angling to catch with such fulsome claims. The politics of the MDC imply a credulous voter, one readily willing to suspend painfully begging questions, indeed one ready to ignore outward fact.
On its part, I hope the MDC does not believe self-flattery is the way out of its existential dilemma, a dilemma whose consequences it may now find harder to defer, let alone escape, after what happened on Monday. Henceforth, it has no choice but to answer foundational questions from an insistent and extraordinarily wary interlocutor.
While everyone was focusing on the larger and often humour-packed drama of the Monday MoU signing ceremony, very few noticed very significant auguries in and around the venue. How many, for instance, noticed that Tsvangirai received swapped briefcases with one of his minions, just before the signing? The briefcase he got for the ceremony held a speech he attempted to own and read with such striking unfamiliarity. Whose speech was it; whose ideas did it contain? After all, he had shown real reluctance to address the audience.
Out, out brief Scott and Rabitsch
More frighteningly, did anyone see two white men who fought so hard to access the venue, and the MDC leader, until they were emphatically frustrated and stopped by security? One was Keith Scott, the British Embassy’s intelligence officer whose official cover nomenclature is "first secretary". The other was Armin Rabitsch, again whose cover title is "Elections and Democracy Expert" of the European Union. He "works" from the EU House.
What was the mission of the two men and why was it so important as to summon their combined belligerence? Are they part of the MDC-T human paraphernalia, part of the MDC cosmopolitan colour mix? I leave Scott for a while, noting though that he is also in charge of the Embassy’s communications, possibly in recognition of the highly mediased British assault on Zimbabwe.
They have signed the wrong document!
I focus on the so-called elections and democracy expert of the EU. A rather simple and depthless man attempting a game on a complex pitch of politics, Rabitsch (Rubbish for short and simple!) was duly baited by a copy of the signed MoU, whereupon receiving and scanning through it, he gave the game away by exclaiming: "They signed the wrong document! Representatives of negotiating parties should have been five, not two."
You could not miss the consternation on the face of this white child of the emperor. Haggard, hair tousled, he withdrew to a corner meant for Rainbow guests, all under the watchful gaze of you-know-who. He whipped out a shrivelled and heavily finger-printed (from repeated references) piece of paper from his jacket which he furiously began comparing with the copy of the just signed MoU, paragraph by paragraph, point by point, word by word, oblivious to the watching Zimbabwean world.
Clearly there were variances, glaring variances that seemed to spell doom for him and the complex web of interests he minds in this country. All had been lost, or so it seemed. He cut a very lonely and resigned figure, simply overwhelmed by his own impotence, against another whirlwind turn in Zimbabwe’s shifty politics.
So many questions, no answers
You are assailed by many questions. Which draft should the principals of the negotiating parties have signed? From where; from whom? Why did this outsider boy seem to know what was correct and possibly right for us, we the bereaved? Why were the emerging variations between the two documents such a horror for Mr Rubbish and Mr Kitty Scotchy?
What is more, is it sheer coincidence that among the issues MDC-T sought to reopen for negotiation just before the signing, was item 3 to do with representatives of each party to the talks, the same item which triggered a Rubbish yell? Why would the British, the EU and the MDC seek an enlarged team of negotiators to the talks? And why would all the representative negotiators to the talks — including those from MDC-T — unanimously reject the proposed enlargement, once put before them by the facilitator? Surely Biti and Mangoma would have been familiar with such a request from their party and backers, and would have exercised their obligation to push for its acceptance in the hastily convened pre-signing talks?
Would this suggest contradictions within the MDC and between these officials and those driving the British, European and American agenda? When one recalls that the two officials had to turn to Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi (the other neglected barrel this time!) when they sought to persuade Tsvangirai to sign the MoU, the plot simply thickens.
What is worse, MDC-T had a meeting of its executive last Thursday, ahead of the Monday signing. Are we sure the media have reported all that happened in that meeting, including tracing fractures within MDC-T, worsened by the Thursday meeting focused on whether or not to sign the MoU with Zanu-PF? More important, how do all these dynamics enable or disable the inter-party dialogue? What are the threats? What are the prospects?
Returning to old wine, old bottle-skins
I notice the media have been fixated on the timetable of the talks, unanimously concluding the time frame is unrealistic. Frankly, time is a non-issue, and, sadly, one reminding us yet again that the media are an industry of misleading recency, a profession where there is mutual agreement to annihilate memory and history, all to the combined detriment of the unwary reader. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU is new or undiscovered among the negotiating parties. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU was not debated on, with agreed positions adopted in the marathon discussions that took the whole of last year, right up to the March polls.
Including a draft constitution — made, adopted and ready — which the two MDCs decided to abuse in order to avoid signing the more binding comprehensive political declaration which the British did not want signed at all. And also hoping to dodge or defer the March poll. The declaration would have got both MDCs to affirm the correctness and irrevocability of land reforms, as well as British obligations to the resolution of that vexed question; would have affirmed the sanctity of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty; would have rejected sanctions and other forms of Western intrusions, including pirate radio stations.
Needless to say, such a declaration would have ousted the tenuous moral string on which British neo-colonial designs here hang. More immediately, and especially for MDC-T, the declaration would have amounted to a vote against themselves, a conclusive resolution of an existential dilemma through suicide. Needless to say, that would not have made sense ahead of the harmonised elections which both MDCs were not quite ready for, even without realising that Zanu-PF, for all its unjustified confidence, was in a far worse position of readiness.
A moment to fornicate
I would daresay a number of issues, particularly those to do with communication, were, in fact, moved forward from the draft constitution, into current law, and this on the eve of the campaign period. There is a draft constitution already, agreed to also, which got mothballed ahead of the elections. So there is nothing new or un-agreed in what is in the MoU.
What may be new and a clear nuisance is the propensity to reopen negotiations on old matters and agreements. Even then, that would not suggest too short a timeframe; merely too long a foreplay by those forgetful they are stealing a moment to fornicate! Which is why I think real focus should be on which limbs balance, intertwine or penetrate in this dance of macabre dalliance.
Kicking out the British
Apart from its photogenic and gastronomic value, the real significance of the meeting between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai is that the two men tucked out the British from between them. The meddlesome British. The failure of Scott and Rabitsch to access the venue, influence the content and obtain on their terms the final documentation of the Monday ceremony, may have been very symbolic of how well sequestered from disruptive intrusion the beginning of the accommodation process (which is what it is now that substantive issues were long thrashed) was.
Judging by the appetite for more (the two men shared lunch) meetings which Tsvangirai has developed, it is clear something of a transfiguration happened in that small suite on Floor 17 of the Rainbow.
Phased declaration of war against Independence
But the risks of recidivism in Tsvangirai abound, which takes me to the real threats to the process. The largest threat comes from red-hot anger in London and Washington, less so some European capitals which had joined in the fight in the hope of delivering a good turn to the British. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter under which Britain, through the US and smaller states which sponsored the resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council, is a war segment of the UN Charter.
Britain was and is ready to go to war over Zimbabwe, against Zimbabwe. The resolution was meant to be a phased declaration of war, adorned with a patina of international legitimacy. Had the resolution succeeded, Britain would have fought a second colonisation war here, in the full joy of a UN mandate. It, thus, would have been a righteous war to unrighteous ends. That means the UN would have been complicit in inaugurating Berlin Conference 2, with itself in the chair that Bismarck occupied at the turn of the 19th Century.
It would have started a new phase and wave of recolonisation, of which Zimbabwe would have been the opening salvo. Through that one resolution, the UN would have edited all its anti-colonial resolutions that gave focus and impetus to liberation forces in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the name of a cardinal value of the UN Charter: self-determination. Ironically, Russia and China, which in Western propaganda terms are bastions of autocracy, stepped in to save the UN Charter from its marauding Security Council, and a strangely ululating Secretary General.
Telegraphing British hostility
But the message had gone home. Britain was and is ready for a dire decision against Zimbabwe. And this filtered through its media for the greater part of the week. Illustratively, the British Telegraph, itself a breath away from those who really govern England, dismissed the Monday event as "a disgraceful solution" for Zimbabwe (for Britain?)". Claiming the agreement "legitimised Mugabe’s shameful flouting of the democratic process", the paper added the only person gladdened by the breakthrough would have been "South Africa’s unimpressive president, Thabo Mbeki".
You cannot miss the royal rage, made madder by a recognition that "the wider international community (read Britain and America) would have little option but to look impotently on". With Mugabe and Tsvangirai sharing lunch and thoughts, Britain and her overriding interests were temporarily impotent, which is why the Telegraph bemoans the fact that "any sanctions against Mugabe and his henchmen would have to be abandoned".
The question is whether the British are permanently shut out. The Telegraph had the temerity to offer advice to Tsvangirai: "Mr Tsvangirai should not accede to such a one-sided settlement. The starting point for any power-sharing agreement is that it should recognise the result of the first, contested, presidential, election. That would require Mugabe’s removal from the presidency and his replacement by Mr Tsvangirai. Any deal that does not recognise the democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe will not be worth the paper it is written on."
Well, well, well! Exactly, which is why no serious person gave regard to the British deal here, so succinctly spelt out by the Telegraph. It is a deal which does not recognise the supreme law here, implying securing British interests must, in fact, be our law as a neo-colony of the British. March gave Tsvangirai an early lead. June gave President Mugabe the conclusive win which yielded the Presidency for him. This Tsvangirai appears to have finally understood and appreciated on Monday, with his suggestion (and it’s a mere suggestion he put to the President) for a 19th Amendment to the Constitution indicating a shying away from his initial British-inspired obduracy and fixation with the penultimate March polls. This may mark the beginning of Tsvangirai’s second liberation, brought about by the man who is his father’s age mate, the man he delights in reviling on behalf of the West.
Temptations of government-in-exile
The British are all out to wreck the project towards settlement here, and much rests on how well they are kept out, both by the MDC and the facilitator. The demand for an expanded mediation team and an expanded negotiating team is a search for opportune fissures for massive disruptions. Now that Tsvangirai is about to get a new passport to enable him to participate in the forthcoming meeting of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security in Angola, he will have to resist the tempting idea of leaving the country to launch a government-in–exile, which for the British is a precursor to insurgency here, and more forays into the Security Council.
It will be a ruinous route to follow, one which would bring personal grief to Tsvangirai. After Monday, his best chances are with President Mugabe, ironically enough. The Russians have a brilliant idea. Sanctions should be applied on whoever stalls talks, including MDC-T and those hostile thoughts obstructing the course of a peaceful settlement.
Flutter in both dove-coats
The other threat — no doubt minor — comes from all the parties. Both the British and Americans are mulling reconfiguring the opposition here, once the two MDCs join Zanu-PF. Expectedly not everyone will have a place in the sun, in the new agreement. Those inside Zanu-PF who would not dare do what foolhardy Dabengwa did, but are known to have been sympathetic to Makoni, would sulk if it turns out — for reasons of sheer practicality — that they are not absorbed. The British expect this to be the nucleus of a new opposition movement, alongside embittered elements from both MDC-T and MDC-M.
And MDC-T seems set to suffer serious fractures, which I will not go into this week. Noteworthy, too, is evident angst in the old Zapu fold, one well founded in the concern that a new agreement with the two MDCs, would topple or relegate the 1987 Unity Accord. Fortunately, this is needless worry, given that the ruling party has made the 1987 Unity Accord a non-negotiable principle which will continue to shape and influence the composition of the Presidency.
Restoring the charity clause
What to do with the Mutambara group,
l To Page 7
that is the embarrassing but easy question. Embarrassing to both MDCs, but triggering massive gloating within Zanu-PF. Soon after the end of the 20 racial seats provided for under the Lancaster House Constitution as given us by the British, Zanu-PF — no doubt with remarkable nation-building foresight — turned those seats into special seats appointable by the President. The idea was to ensure inclusive structures of governance, which is how minority groups have always had a place in our structures.
However, these powers were severely pared down at last year’s talks, all on the insistence of both MDCs. Mugabe can no longer abridge the people’s will, they howled triumphantly, one eye pitying the supposedly eunuch-ed president. They relished the moment. Still in that din of ill-fated joy, Goche and Chinamasa were humane enough to remind Welshman Ncube that Matabeleland was, in fact, the biggest beneficiary of this provision in the electoral law. No, the learned professor and his colleagues would have none of it. The powers had to go, and go they did! Hardly six months down the victory, those powers are badly needed, badly needed by especially (excuse my broken syntax for emphasis) Welshman and his group in leadership, all of them killed and wiped out by the same democracy in whose name they pared down the charitable provision with such reckless ho-la-la-la! That is the difference between experience and knowledge, between mid-eighties and early fifties.
The Brown man at it again
Mandaza is at it again. With the money for Mavambo finished, the man wants new benefactors. To get these, he has to improve his appeal. And the benefactors are Western donors who will pour billions for any jibe at Zanu-PF. Those who were with Mandaza in the now defunct publishing project will tell you how throughout the ownership fight, the man would politically and legally catwalk to gain the notice of Western benefactors. He had to prove he was deeply anti-Zanu-PF to win Western donor approbation. His latest target is Joyce Kazembe, vice chairperson of the constitutional Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, herself a long-standing employee of Sapes Trust. She has to leave Sapes, we are told, because the Sapes Trust which Ibbotson Joseph dominates if not personify, accuses her of bringing it into disrepute! A Kazemba on national assignment brings disrepute to some nondescript, donor-driven NGO whose accounts books gooseflesh at the mention of the word "audit"? And Kazembe who serves a constitutional body under which Mavambo competed for power, soils the Trust the way Mandaza himself as a player in that terminal political thing, does not? And how did Professor Sam Moyo, or other regional scholars who left Sapes in such ignominy, soil it? This guy has been allowed to go too far in abusing people. Each time he wants to improve his credentials as a mendicant angling for donor notice, some scapegoat has to be found, some head has to roll! So Joyce is the coin that settles the electoral trouncing of Mavambo? And, sisi, you allow the man to defame you so openly? Why? The same week the EU crucifies you? Doesn’t that make him a Brown man? Icho!
-End-
MoU: Dining Tsvangirai, Deigning the British
LISTENING to the MDC officials talk, you cannot miss that party’s wish to be viewed and accepted as a party of major thresholds.
It views itself as the herald to great good things about to visit our country.
It speaks of the suffering, the impoverished, the traumatised, speaks of "exit points" to the current "crisis", but seemingly without any hint at the taunting irony underpinning these convoluted self-claims.
Apart from being the cause of the present crisis facing Zimbabwe, the party does not seem to recognise its all-British company, its all-sanctions agenda. One can hardly visualise any sadder pretension to millenarian personality than this. Even more worrisome is the mental state of the voter MDC is angling to catch with such fulsome claims. The politics of the MDC imply a credulous voter, one readily willing to suspend painfully begging questions, indeed one ready to ignore outward fact.
On its part, I hope the MDC does not believe self-flattery is the way out of its existential dilemma, a dilemma whose consequences it may now find harder to defer, let alone escape, after what happened on Monday. Henceforth, it has no choice but to answer foundational questions from an insistent and extraordinarily wary interlocutor.
While everyone was focusing on the larger and often humour-packed drama of the Monday MoU signing ceremony, very few noticed very significant auguries in and around the venue. How many, for instance, noticed that Tsvangirai received swapped briefcases with one of his minions, just before the signing? The briefcase he got for the ceremony held a speech he attempted to own and read with such striking unfamiliarity. Whose speech was it; whose ideas did it contain? After all, he had shown real reluctance to address the audience.
Out, out brief Scott and Rabitsch
More frighteningly, did anyone see two white men who fought so hard to access the venue, and the MDC leader, until they were emphatically frustrated and stopped by security? One was Keith Scott, the British Embassy’s intelligence officer whose official cover nomenclature is "first secretary". The other was Armin Rabitsch, again whose cover title is "Elections and Democracy Expert" of the European Union. He "works" from the EU House.
What was the mission of the two men and why was it so important as to summon their combined belligerence? Are they part of the MDC-T human paraphernalia, part of the MDC cosmopolitan colour mix? I leave Scott for a while, noting though that he is also in charge of the Embassy’s communications, possibly in recognition of the highly mediased British assault on Zimbabwe.
They have signed the wrong document!
I focus on the so-called elections and democracy expert of the EU. A rather simple and depthless man attempting a game on a complex pitch of politics, Rabitsch (Rubbish for short and simple!) was duly baited by a copy of the signed MoU, whereupon receiving and scanning through it, he gave the game away by exclaiming: "They signed the wrong document! Representatives of negotiating parties should have been five, not two."
You could not miss the consternation on the face of this white child of the emperor. Haggard, hair tousled, he withdrew to a corner meant for Rainbow guests, all under the watchful gaze of you-know-who. He whipped out a shrivelled and heavily finger-printed (from repeated references) piece of paper from his jacket which he furiously began comparing with the copy of the just signed MoU, paragraph by paragraph, point by point, word by word, oblivious to the watching Zimbabwean world.
Clearly there were variances, glaring variances that seemed to spell doom for him and the complex web of interests he minds in this country. All had been lost, or so it seemed. He cut a very lonely and resigned figure, simply overwhelmed by his own impotence, against another whirlwind turn in Zimbabwe’s shifty politics.
So many questions, no answers
You are assailed by many questions. Which draft should the principals of the negotiating parties have signed? From where; from whom? Why did this outsider boy seem to know what was correct and possibly right for us, we the bereaved? Why were the emerging variations between the two documents such a horror for Mr Rubbish and Mr Kitty Scotchy?
What is more, is it sheer coincidence that among the issues MDC-T sought to reopen for negotiation just before the signing, was item 3 to do with representatives of each party to the talks, the same item which triggered a Rubbish yell? Why would the British, the EU and the MDC seek an enlarged team of negotiators to the talks? And why would all the representative negotiators to the talks — including those from MDC-T — unanimously reject the proposed enlargement, once put before them by the facilitator? Surely Biti and Mangoma would have been familiar with such a request from their party and backers, and would have exercised their obligation to push for its acceptance in the hastily convened pre-signing talks?
Would this suggest contradictions within the MDC and between these officials and those driving the British, European and American agenda? When one recalls that the two officials had to turn to Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi (the other neglected barrel this time!) when they sought to persuade Tsvangirai to sign the MoU, the plot simply thickens.
What is worse, MDC-T had a meeting of its executive last Thursday, ahead of the Monday signing. Are we sure the media have reported all that happened in that meeting, including tracing fractures within MDC-T, worsened by the Thursday meeting focused on whether or not to sign the MoU with Zanu-PF? More important, how do all these dynamics enable or disable the inter-party dialogue? What are the threats? What are the prospects?
Returning to old wine, old bottle-skins
I notice the media have been fixated on the timetable of the talks, unanimously concluding the time frame is unrealistic. Frankly, time is a non-issue, and, sadly, one reminding us yet again that the media are an industry of misleading recency, a profession where there is mutual agreement to annihilate memory and history, all to the combined detriment of the unwary reader. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU is new or undiscovered among the negotiating parties. Nothing — not an iota — of what is in the MoU was not debated on, with agreed positions adopted in the marathon discussions that took the whole of last year, right up to the March polls.
Including a draft constitution — made, adopted and ready — which the two MDCs decided to abuse in order to avoid signing the more binding comprehensive political declaration which the British did not want signed at all. And also hoping to dodge or defer the March poll. The declaration would have got both MDCs to affirm the correctness and irrevocability of land reforms, as well as British obligations to the resolution of that vexed question; would have affirmed the sanctity of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty; would have rejected sanctions and other forms of Western intrusions, including pirate radio stations.
Needless to say, such a declaration would have ousted the tenuous moral string on which British neo-colonial designs here hang. More immediately, and especially for MDC-T, the declaration would have amounted to a vote against themselves, a conclusive resolution of an existential dilemma through suicide. Needless to say, that would not have made sense ahead of the harmonised elections which both MDCs were not quite ready for, even without realising that Zanu-PF, for all its unjustified confidence, was in a far worse position of readiness.
A moment to fornicate
I would daresay a number of issues, particularly those to do with communication, were, in fact, moved forward from the draft constitution, into current law, and this on the eve of the campaign period. There is a draft constitution already, agreed to also, which got mothballed ahead of the elections. So there is nothing new or un-agreed in what is in the MoU.
What may be new and a clear nuisance is the propensity to reopen negotiations on old matters and agreements. Even then, that would not suggest too short a timeframe; merely too long a foreplay by those forgetful they are stealing a moment to fornicate! Which is why I think real focus should be on which limbs balance, intertwine or penetrate in this dance of macabre dalliance.
Kicking out the British
Apart from its photogenic and gastronomic value, the real significance of the meeting between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai is that the two men tucked out the British from between them. The meddlesome British. The failure of Scott and Rabitsch to access the venue, influence the content and obtain on their terms the final documentation of the Monday ceremony, may have been very symbolic of how well sequestered from disruptive intrusion the beginning of the accommodation process (which is what it is now that substantive issues were long thrashed) was.
Judging by the appetite for more (the two men shared lunch) meetings which Tsvangirai has developed, it is clear something of a transfiguration happened in that small suite on Floor 17 of the Rainbow.
Phased declaration of war against Independence
But the risks of recidivism in Tsvangirai abound, which takes me to the real threats to the process. The largest threat comes from red-hot anger in London and Washington, less so some European capitals which had joined in the fight in the hope of delivering a good turn to the British. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter under which Britain, through the US and smaller states which sponsored the resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council, is a war segment of the UN Charter.
Britain was and is ready to go to war over Zimbabwe, against Zimbabwe. The resolution was meant to be a phased declaration of war, adorned with a patina of international legitimacy. Had the resolution succeeded, Britain would have fought a second colonisation war here, in the full joy of a UN mandate. It, thus, would have been a righteous war to unrighteous ends. That means the UN would have been complicit in inaugurating Berlin Conference 2, with itself in the chair that Bismarck occupied at the turn of the 19th Century.
It would have started a new phase and wave of recolonisation, of which Zimbabwe would have been the opening salvo. Through that one resolution, the UN would have edited all its anti-colonial resolutions that gave focus and impetus to liberation forces in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the name of a cardinal value of the UN Charter: self-determination. Ironically, Russia and China, which in Western propaganda terms are bastions of autocracy, stepped in to save the UN Charter from its marauding Security Council, and a strangely ululating Secretary General.
Telegraphing British hostility
But the message had gone home. Britain was and is ready for a dire decision against Zimbabwe. And this filtered through its media for the greater part of the week. Illustratively, the British Telegraph, itself a breath away from those who really govern England, dismissed the Monday event as "a disgraceful solution" for Zimbabwe (for Britain?)". Claiming the agreement "legitimised Mugabe’s shameful flouting of the democratic process", the paper added the only person gladdened by the breakthrough would have been "South Africa’s unimpressive president, Thabo Mbeki".
You cannot miss the royal rage, made madder by a recognition that "the wider international community (read Britain and America) would have little option but to look impotently on". With Mugabe and Tsvangirai sharing lunch and thoughts, Britain and her overriding interests were temporarily impotent, which is why the Telegraph bemoans the fact that "any sanctions against Mugabe and his henchmen would have to be abandoned".
The question is whether the British are permanently shut out. The Telegraph had the temerity to offer advice to Tsvangirai: "Mr Tsvangirai should not accede to such a one-sided settlement. The starting point for any power-sharing agreement is that it should recognise the result of the first, contested, presidential, election. That would require Mugabe’s removal from the presidency and his replacement by Mr Tsvangirai. Any deal that does not recognise the democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe will not be worth the paper it is written on."
Well, well, well! Exactly, which is why no serious person gave regard to the British deal here, so succinctly spelt out by the Telegraph. It is a deal which does not recognise the supreme law here, implying securing British interests must, in fact, be our law as a neo-colony of the British. March gave Tsvangirai an early lead. June gave President Mugabe the conclusive win which yielded the Presidency for him. This Tsvangirai appears to have finally understood and appreciated on Monday, with his suggestion (and it’s a mere suggestion he put to the President) for a 19th Amendment to the Constitution indicating a shying away from his initial British-inspired obduracy and fixation with the penultimate March polls. This may mark the beginning of Tsvangirai’s second liberation, brought about by the man who is his father’s age mate, the man he delights in reviling on behalf of the West.
Temptations of government-in-exile
The British are all out to wreck the project towards settlement here, and much rests on how well they are kept out, both by the MDC and the facilitator. The demand for an expanded mediation team and an expanded negotiating team is a search for opportune fissures for massive disruptions. Now that Tsvangirai is about to get a new passport to enable him to participa
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Britain's slavemaster hand: Can Tsvangirai free himself from the neocolonial yoke.
A Mugabe deal could land Britain with a dilemma
The Telegraph
By David Blair
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/07/2008
World Stage
A Zimbabwean opposition leader, lauded for his brave struggle against
Robert Mugabe, arrives in London on an official visit as the new prime
minister.
Morgan Tsvangirai asks Britain to recognise his government and offer
millions of pounds of aid. He urges the lifting of all sanctions and
declares that Harare's era of isolation is over. Mr Tsvangirai requests
Gordon Brown's help in releasing large sums from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.
He returns to Harare and reports back to his boss - one Robert Mugabe.
After they formed a "government of national unity", Mr Mugabe stayed on as
president and Mr Tsvangirai became his prime minister. Now Britain faces a
cruel dilemma - recognise the government (led by Mr Mugabe) and pour aid
into its coffers (controlled by Mr Mugabe), or face the blame for economic
catastrophe.
At present, this scenario is pure imagination and fantasy. But events
along these lines could unfold in the weeks ahead, confronting the Prime
Minister and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, with a conundrum. Would
they recognise and fund a new Zimbabwean government that includes Mr
Tsvangirai in a senior position, but keeps Mr Mugabe as president?
The talks which opened yesterday between the opposition and Mr
Mugabe's Zanu PF party could have this outcome. President Thabo Mbeki of
South Africa is still mediating between the two sides, despite Britain's
efforts to sideline him. Senior British sources believe the talks will
probably fail. If so, London will avoid its dilemma.
But what if they do sign a deal? Aside from total failure, there are
two possible outcomes. The MDC wants a shortlived "transitional government"
leading to fresh elections, which Mr Tsvangirai would almost certainly win.
Exactly what role Mr Mugabe would play in this interim administration
is undefined. Mr Tsvangirai has resisted pressure to recognise Mr Mugabe as
rightful president. At his insistence, the two leaders conducted their
handshake inside the neutral venue of a Harare hotel, not in the
presidential office in State House, where Mr Mugabe wanted it.
Also, their "memorandum of understanding" deliberately describes Mr
Mugabe as "president and first secretary of Zanu PF", not of Zimbabwe. Mr
Tsvangirai's allies robustly declare that he will not serve as the
dictator's subordinate in any coalition government. Instead, Mr Mugabe's
role in a temporary administration before new elections would be as titular,
ceremonial president, with real executive power transferring to Mr
Tsvangirai. If this takes place, few would complain.
David Coltart, an opposition senator and one of Zimbabwe's wisest and
most humane politicians, has publicly favoured this option. For it to
happen, however, would require Mr Mugabe to transform overnight from
power-hungry despot to benign elder statesman. Having waged a ruthless
struggle to hold power, inflicting untold suffering on thousands, Mr Mugabe
would have to surrender everything at the negotiating table.
Because 84-year-old leopards rarely change their spots, this seems
unlikely. Instead, Mr Mugabe will obviously press for the second possible
outcome: a "government of national unity". This would leave Mr Mugabe in
command as president, with Mr Tsvangirai as a prime minister, able to travel
the world, securing aid and diplomatic recognition. London would be his
first stop - and Mr Brown and Mr Miliband would face their dilemma.
There is a precedent for this. When President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya
lost an election last December, he announced a fake result and stayed in
power, triggering bloodshed that claimed 1,500 lives. The killing only ended
when Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, oversaw the birth of a
unity government.
Mr Kibaki stayed on as president, despite having lost the election.
Raila Odinga, his leading opponent who actually won the poll, became prime
minister. Kenya's cabinet was doubled, so all the politicians who had lost
the election could keep their jobs - and all the winners could have jobs,
too. Most senior politicians in Kenya now enjoy ministerial office.
Britain endorsed this subversion of democracy and, astonishingly,
senior officials cite Kenya as a recent success story. If the same unfolds
in Zimbabwe, the Foreign Office will have no grounds for indignation. If
prime minister Tsvangirai shows up at Downing Street, he will doubtless ask:
"If this was good enough for Kenya, why not Zimbabwe too?"
The Telegraph
By David Blair
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/07/2008
World Stage
A Zimbabwean opposition leader, lauded for his brave struggle against
Robert Mugabe, arrives in London on an official visit as the new prime
minister.
Morgan Tsvangirai asks Britain to recognise his government and offer
millions of pounds of aid. He urges the lifting of all sanctions and
declares that Harare's era of isolation is over. Mr Tsvangirai requests
Gordon Brown's help in releasing large sums from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.
He returns to Harare and reports back to his boss - one Robert Mugabe.
After they formed a "government of national unity", Mr Mugabe stayed on as
president and Mr Tsvangirai became his prime minister. Now Britain faces a
cruel dilemma - recognise the government (led by Mr Mugabe) and pour aid
into its coffers (controlled by Mr Mugabe), or face the blame for economic
catastrophe.
At present, this scenario is pure imagination and fantasy. But events
along these lines could unfold in the weeks ahead, confronting the Prime
Minister and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, with a conundrum. Would
they recognise and fund a new Zimbabwean government that includes Mr
Tsvangirai in a senior position, but keeps Mr Mugabe as president?
The talks which opened yesterday between the opposition and Mr
Mugabe's Zanu PF party could have this outcome. President Thabo Mbeki of
South Africa is still mediating between the two sides, despite Britain's
efforts to sideline him. Senior British sources believe the talks will
probably fail. If so, London will avoid its dilemma.
But what if they do sign a deal? Aside from total failure, there are
two possible outcomes. The MDC wants a shortlived "transitional government"
leading to fresh elections, which Mr Tsvangirai would almost certainly win.
Exactly what role Mr Mugabe would play in this interim administration
is undefined. Mr Tsvangirai has resisted pressure to recognise Mr Mugabe as
rightful president. At his insistence, the two leaders conducted their
handshake inside the neutral venue of a Harare hotel, not in the
presidential office in State House, where Mr Mugabe wanted it.
Also, their "memorandum of understanding" deliberately describes Mr
Mugabe as "president and first secretary of Zanu PF", not of Zimbabwe. Mr
Tsvangirai's allies robustly declare that he will not serve as the
dictator's subordinate in any coalition government. Instead, Mr Mugabe's
role in a temporary administration before new elections would be as titular,
ceremonial president, with real executive power transferring to Mr
Tsvangirai. If this takes place, few would complain.
David Coltart, an opposition senator and one of Zimbabwe's wisest and
most humane politicians, has publicly favoured this option. For it to
happen, however, would require Mr Mugabe to transform overnight from
power-hungry despot to benign elder statesman. Having waged a ruthless
struggle to hold power, inflicting untold suffering on thousands, Mr Mugabe
would have to surrender everything at the negotiating table.
Because 84-year-old leopards rarely change their spots, this seems
unlikely. Instead, Mr Mugabe will obviously press for the second possible
outcome: a "government of national unity". This would leave Mr Mugabe in
command as president, with Mr Tsvangirai as a prime minister, able to travel
the world, securing aid and diplomatic recognition. London would be his
first stop - and Mr Brown and Mr Miliband would face their dilemma.
There is a precedent for this. When President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya
lost an election last December, he announced a fake result and stayed in
power, triggering bloodshed that claimed 1,500 lives. The killing only ended
when Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, oversaw the birth of a
unity government.
Mr Kibaki stayed on as president, despite having lost the election.
Raila Odinga, his leading opponent who actually won the poll, became prime
minister. Kenya's cabinet was doubled, so all the politicians who had lost
the election could keep their jobs - and all the winners could have jobs,
too. Most senior politicians in Kenya now enjoy ministerial office.
Britain endorsed this subversion of democracy and, astonishingly,
senior officials cite Kenya as a recent success story. If the same unfolds
in Zimbabwe, the Foreign Office will have no grounds for indignation. If
prime minister Tsvangirai shows up at Downing Street, he will doubtless ask:
"If this was good enough for Kenya, why not Zimbabwe too?"
The MDC's neocolonial gangs.
A prominent group of British and American politicians and businessmen - many with energy and mining interests in Zimbabwe - are behind an international organisation to fund opposition to the regime of Robert Mugabe.
The Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons include former Tory Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe has been accused of using the organisation as a cover for promoting the interests of Western multi-nationals in the troubled region.
According to ZDT literature, the organisation 'has the simplest of goals: to help the democratic will of the people flourish'. But The Observer can reveal that several of the patrons of the newly formed trust are directors of companies which have substantial commercial interests at stake in Zimbabwe. ZDT keeps its membership secret for fear of reprisals from the Mugabe regime, but The Observer has discovered that they largely come from the white business community in Zimbabwe.
In April 2000, ZDT organised the visit to London and Washington of Morgan Tsvingirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition group in Zimbabwe. During the visits he met British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan Rice.
The visits followed a visit to South Africa with an itinerary which included meetings with prominent figures in the business community, including the mining giant Anglo-American, which has interests in Zimbabwe.
The driving force behind ZDT is Sir John Collins, the Zimbabwean Chairman of National Power, Britain's largest energy company, who organised a letter to the Times, published in April, calling for free elections. He did not say his company had substantial interests in Zimbabwe; in 1998 National Power won a $1.5 billion contract to develop a power station in the country.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind has a long-standing connection to the country where he worked as a lecturer prior to independence. He works for the Australian mining company Broken Hill Proprietary which has been involved in a wrangle with the Mugabe government over a mine in Zimbabwe.
Former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Dr Chester Crocker is another patron - a director of Ashanti Gold Fields, which owns Zimbabwe's largest gold mine. When approached by The Observer, he said: 'I have nothing personally to gain from supporting the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust. They were reaching out for like-minded people and I am like-minded.'
Lord Hurd, who has no known interests in Zimbabwe, said that the patrons of ZDT were aware that some people would accuse the organisation of neo-colonialism: 'The risk was in our minds when we decided to proceed, but we are not going to just sit with sticking plaster on our mouths. If anybody chooses to make xenophobic and racist comments about what we are doing, then so be it.'
Concerns about 'European' funding of the MDC were raised by South African Ministers visiting Britain last week with President Thabo Mbeki.
Analysts and advisers close to the MDC have raised concerns that Zimbabwe Democracy Trust could be playing into Mugabe's hands by allowing him to suggest the opposition is a front for white 'Rhodesian' business interests.
John Makumbe, lecturer in political science at Harare University and a supporter of the MDC, said: 'It cannot be ruled out that the ZDT viewed the Movement for Democratic Change as a way of facilitating their own interests. It is largely white Rhodesians who are backing the trust. Morgan is fully aware of the ZDT agenda'
Harare's Herald newspaper, claimed that American and British financial interests were plotting to overthrow the Government. ZDT has threatened to sue over the claims. Zimbabwe Democracy Trust spokesman Patrick Robertson said: 'The ZDT was set up to make sure there is a free and fair election in Zimbabwe. All our patrons have been involved in the country in one way or another. All the more reason to want to protect it.'
David Anderson, a Zimbabwe expert at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, said: 'The Movement for Democratic Change is backed by a mixture of self-serving Europeans and those who are genuinely liberal. The opposition wants to remove Mugabe, but they are not radicals.
'They get support from the lower orders, as any opposition would, but they don't really represent the landless.'
The Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, whose patrons include former Tory Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe has been accused of using the organisation as a cover for promoting the interests of Western multi-nationals in the troubled region.
According to ZDT literature, the organisation 'has the simplest of goals: to help the democratic will of the people flourish'. But The Observer can reveal that several of the patrons of the newly formed trust are directors of companies which have substantial commercial interests at stake in Zimbabwe. ZDT keeps its membership secret for fear of reprisals from the Mugabe regime, but The Observer has discovered that they largely come from the white business community in Zimbabwe.
In April 2000, ZDT organised the visit to London and Washington of Morgan Tsvingirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition group in Zimbabwe. During the visits he met British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan Rice.
The visits followed a visit to South Africa with an itinerary which included meetings with prominent figures in the business community, including the mining giant Anglo-American, which has interests in Zimbabwe.
The driving force behind ZDT is Sir John Collins, the Zimbabwean Chairman of National Power, Britain's largest energy company, who organised a letter to the Times, published in April, calling for free elections. He did not say his company had substantial interests in Zimbabwe; in 1998 National Power won a $1.5 billion contract to develop a power station in the country.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind has a long-standing connection to the country where he worked as a lecturer prior to independence. He works for the Australian mining company Broken Hill Proprietary which has been involved in a wrangle with the Mugabe government over a mine in Zimbabwe.
Former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Dr Chester Crocker is another patron - a director of Ashanti Gold Fields, which owns Zimbabwe's largest gold mine. When approached by The Observer, he said: 'I have nothing personally to gain from supporting the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust. They were reaching out for like-minded people and I am like-minded.'
Lord Hurd, who has no known interests in Zimbabwe, said that the patrons of ZDT were aware that some people would accuse the organisation of neo-colonialism: 'The risk was in our minds when we decided to proceed, but we are not going to just sit with sticking plaster on our mouths. If anybody chooses to make xenophobic and racist comments about what we are doing, then so be it.'
Concerns about 'European' funding of the MDC were raised by South African Ministers visiting Britain last week with President Thabo Mbeki.
Analysts and advisers close to the MDC have raised concerns that Zimbabwe Democracy Trust could be playing into Mugabe's hands by allowing him to suggest the opposition is a front for white 'Rhodesian' business interests.
John Makumbe, lecturer in political science at Harare University and a supporter of the MDC, said: 'It cannot be ruled out that the ZDT viewed the Movement for Democratic Change as a way of facilitating their own interests. It is largely white Rhodesians who are backing the trust. Morgan is fully aware of the ZDT agenda'
Harare's Herald newspaper, claimed that American and British financial interests were plotting to overthrow the Government. ZDT has threatened to sue over the claims. Zimbabwe Democracy Trust spokesman Patrick Robertson said: 'The ZDT was set up to make sure there is a free and fair election in Zimbabwe. All our patrons have been involved in the country in one way or another. All the more reason to want to protect it.'
David Anderson, a Zimbabwe expert at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, said: 'The Movement for Democratic Change is backed by a mixture of self-serving Europeans and those who are genuinely liberal. The opposition wants to remove Mugabe, but they are not radicals.
'They get support from the lower orders, as any opposition would, but they don't really represent the landless.'
Friday, 18 July 2008
Zanu-PF: Little noises, big distractions
Zanu-PF: Little noises, big distractions
I will not be detained by MDC arguments regarding the inter-party dialogue. Save for their sharp, cumulative irony, they do not make any sense at all.
For example, on the one hand, the MDC wants all "political detainees" unconditionally released. On the other, the MDC wants "all perpetrators of violence to be prosecuted expeditiously and impartially". How does one realise one without undermining the other? Those thugs in police cells — thugs we have been feeding as taxpayers — are MDC’s so-called democratic resistance committees (drcs).
To the man and woman, they are part of the gang which the MDC has been nursing for Renamo-like banditry in Zimbabwe. Hoping, of course, to frighten Zanu-PF into making grand concessions at the talks, the MDC last week ineptly leaked this ugly dimension of insurgency it hopes to bring into play as an extra string on its political bow. Strangely, these thought-free politicians forgot they were addressing Zanu-PF, a party with deep roots in insurgency.
Over-rating the dying
Then you have the MDC demand for a resumption of humanitarian aid, presumably made as a public relations stunt. Except this is a strange request from a party of sanctions. I mean how do you make a case for humanitarian relief, invasion and greater sanctions at the same time? It is plain stupid. Of course, the MDC does not want Zimbabweans assisted. It wants them to suffer more and more, as its leader said.
What the MDC is agitating for is the resumption of political work by NGOs who did all the dirty political work for it and Britain. But there is a greater danger. It is one of creating an aura around the MDC-T as the party with the key to resolving the Zimbabwe question which we all know to pit the country against imperial Britain. On the ground, the MDC has no wherewithal to set preconditions and send ultimatums. None absolutely. Its backers were humiliated last Friday; its structures are weak or non-existent on the ground. What is more, Zimbabweans are now more aware and are unlikely ever to repose their vote in that party. Which is why MDC-T will never want to go back to the polls, as the European auxiliaries of its backers mistakenly thought initially.
Pink politics
Then you have the danger of paucity of information filtering through the media. This could very well lend decency to MDC’s elaborate political stupidity. Or the danger of the media filtering false reports, such as the one we had in this week’s issue of The Financial Gazette. The residually pink publication wrote about "a United Nations sanctions list forming part of a draft resolution on Zimbabwe . . . "
It is as if the pink paper is unaware who drafted the list he imputes on the UN. Or that after the historic Friday veto there was no draft resolution on Zimbabwe before the United Nations Security Council. The list was never a UN list; the draft resolution was never a UN one. Both were idiosyncratically Anglo-American, and it is sinister dishonesty for any editor, least of all with a Zimbabwean paternity, to make such heinous claims against truth and country. To achieve what? Respectability for Anglo-American spite born out of neo-colonial avarice?
If it was a UN resolution, why then did it need debate in the Security Council? Such politically invested falsehoods disable informed judgements on the MDC, indeed incites the MDC to greater harm.
When the horn of plenty drips dry.
On two occasions, the MDC-T president has refused face-to-face talks of principals of negotiating parties. On both occasions he claimed the Chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, had advised him against participating, citing an AU Summit Resolution he says required Mbeki to share mediation on Zimbabwe with "a permanent representative" of the AU.
Of course, no such AU resolution exists, which is why the MDC, thoroughly embarrassed by its own leader’s sparse reading skills, could only wish the bad story some quick death. Secondly, what is "a permanent representative" of the AU?
Does permanency refer to a definite position and tenure within the negotiating structures of the AU? Or does it refer to the quality of expected seizure with the mediation matter? Thirdly, why would the AU’s top civil servant mislead Tsvangirai? Except Khupe and Sibotshiwe were also in Egypt, in fact well connected through a Zimbabwean working for the AU Secretariat?
Of course, I am indulging myself a bit. Tsvangirai absented himself from the talks in the hope of plenty from the G8 Summit, and from the debate in the Security Council. He expected both developments to give him greater leverage at the talks, if not presidency of Zimbabwe itself. It was a strategy wholly staked on an external dynamic, then read as unfaltering, as inevitable.
When Sibotshiwe is not Ping
But all this presupposes Tsvangirai indeed heard from Jean Ping. He did not! This is where the media has not been helpful at all. Ping is reachable, surely? Or is there a consensual editorial reluctance to report the truth, and to expose its victims? July 16, the day an MoU was supposed to be signed. When it became clear Tsvangirai was not coming, Mangoma pleads with Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Mushonga (I never like double barrels where one shoots enough!) to reach Tsvangirai to try and persuade him to do the right thing.
Biti and Mangoma would trail behind, clearly knowing the predictable outcome but still hopeful the day would deliver a rare miracle. In the end, Mangoma was the only one in tow to witness the failure of Tsvangirai’s erstwhile comrades.
The media make passing reference to this encounter, quickly dropping it as if it bore no significance or relevance to the state we are in, or the turn of events in future. I will bring out the significance which lies well before the outcome. Fascination with outcomes makes the media less inquisitorial, and thus more likely to miss significances in the penultimate.
Asked whether indeed he had spoken to Ping to receive the counsel against participation, Tsvangirai stunned his interlocutors by confessing he had not spoken to Ping. George Sibotshiwe had!
And who is Sibotshiwe? Some little boy who hits fame as a once-off music promoter, helping with the design of MDC’s tasteless website, and, of course, playing PRO to Strive Masiyiwa, himself the real nut for cracking.
Does anyone expect a whole leader to take momentous decisions on the basis of impressions of some little minion unable and disabled from spelling out P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S? And it turns out the little boy got nowhere near to Ping, all the time spending his un-precious time in the digging the minds of Masiyiwa and Bennett, his real founders.
Hurting interest and diplomacy
But worse was to come. It later transpires that on both occasions the villager was supposed to meet with fellow principals, the prologue was a quick despatch of dialogue documents to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, courtesy of George Sibotshiwe.
And on both occasions, Milliband made it crystal clear Tsvangirai should not attend, lest British interests and diplomacy are damaged. Interests because the document for discussion and signing requires all political parties to affirm the irreversibility of land reforms and to renounce Anglo-Saxon-led unilateral sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe from 2001.
Diplomacy damages because Britain hoped a combination of US support and manipulation of the Russian position at the G8 Summit, would make a sanctions resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council an accomplished fact. Unable to invent any victory on the domestic scene, Brown badly needs a foreign policy breakthrough for a dividend at home.
Zimbabwe was eminently suited for such a role. The white émigré community here makes it very easy for Brown to ethnocentrically dock British domestic politics here. Which is what would have made Brown and Tsvangirai Siamese twins if one was not the master, the other the servant. Both badly expect domestic glory from foreign affairs. Again, the media has not been fair with their readers.
Who is out of touch?
Increasingly, Brown is getting desperate, really desperate. He can no longer pretend that Zimbabwe is a matter "for the world", a matter to do with democracy and governance. It is a matter for Britain, both as former coloniser and as an intending neo-coloniser.
Which is why Brown came for heavy drabbing from the tabloid Press for "sub-contracting Zimbabwe to the UN" when he should have just sent in the boys to do a quick job. We are a parcel, a piece of work for Britain. We are not a sovereign country. No!
So reckless is Brown that his system has laid bare British motives in the whole matter. Apart from wanting Mugabe out (and they never pause to ask themselves on what legitimate basis), Brown wants to sideline Mbeki in the resolution of the Zimbabwean question.
Of course, the larger meaning is hard to miss: diplomacy is standing in the way of war, which is what Britain and America are itching for. The American permanent representative to the UN was even more brazen. Describing Mbeki as "out of touch", he added that the US takes heart from "interesting developments inside South Africa itself".
What are those? Do they include xenophobic attacks we have always known to have been made "spontaneous" on behalf of black South Africans? I am surprised Pahad did not give the US a fitting retort: who now has been shown to be out of touch, Mbeki or Bush and Brown who could not read President Medvedev?
From revolution to bureaucracy
When will Zanu-PF learn? When? Is it not obvious that while power is exercised in and through the institution of Government, in reality it resides elsewhere in larger society? I am not referring to that long-ululated lie of political science that the people are the power.
Of course, they are not, much as power is successfully exercised in their name and supposedly on their behalf. Throughout history, the people have always been the pretext for the unilateral use of power by those who have it. Between 1980 and now, we all witnessed Zanu-PF’s slow but inexorable morphing into a staid and very inefficient bureaucracy. It was not society that suffered a gradual de-politicisation. It was Zanu-PF itself, as its ideology and revolutionary programme went dormant.
It is not surprising that the one matter that has repeatedly vexed Zanu-PF has been that to do with ideology and the school for it. Bureaucracies run on cold, brittle, universal rules to which all societies are expected to adapt. Which is why bureaucracies are never agents of transformation. Their craving and appetite is stability guaranteed by immutable rules, strictures of precedent.
Rude awakening of 29
So did Zanu-PF expect the civil servant to politicise society for it? Or to keep and defend power for it long after it had itself dis-empowered and demobilised itself? Which takes me to the nub: why does Zanu-PF confuse bureaucratic power with its own stability and continuity as a party, tradition, goal and legacy?
Until it nearly happened on March 29, it was inconceivable to imagine a Zanu-PF out of power and without power or leverage for a second coming. Its power was its Government, its civil servants, its parastatals and its dominance in making rules for the rest of society.
Until March 29 rudely shocked it to realise that power residing in Government is there for taking by anyone whose tricks makes him more successful in an election. Had it not been for this clever clause requiring a run-off, Zanu-PF would have been without Government, without parastatals, without media, without security, without the power of making commandments only the morning after.
Ghastly, is it not? Yet possible, is it not? That party of struggle, of liberation, of history would have been wiped from the political face of this our small earth. By puppets, settler puppets at that!
Product, price and peasant
Has Zanu-PF drawn any lessons from this? That power resides outside Government and its instruments, cleverly dispersed in larger society, ready to be mobilised on a rainy day? Is that not why the soul of the British Conservatives lies in CBI — Confederation of British Industries — never in their party headquarters?
Is that not why Labour’s is in TUC — Trade Union Congress — never at its headquarters? Indeed, is that not why MDC’s fate lies in its ability to keep ZCTU politically interested? The predicate of Zanu-PF power has always been the peasantry in the countryside. No doubt a stable base, but the events of the last year have clearly shown that the moguls in cities wield the whip that upsets the peasant.
Goods and prices make up this deadly whip, made even more painful by nature’s own retribution, such as drought. Thanks to its successes in transforming rural lives, Zanu-PF’s rural vote is increasingly having to be defended and stabilised from the market-place.
Gone is the era of place and numbers; come has the horror of product and price, the horror of placeless stomachs. Which is why the 100 percent Empowerment mantra is a do-or-die for the ruling party. It has to find life and place in post-June 27 politics.
Law for good or bad times?
Much worse, Zanu-PF has to learn that the art of good law-making and development is not one where laws are made to confirm and comfort a party in moments of its undisputed power and dominance. After all with a parliamentary dominance, who needs the law?
The test of good laws is how well they become a veritable resource in the seven lean years, that is, when the margins are slender, dominance slim. In such dispensations, far-sighted parties with a strong urge to fall and rise, rise and fall will wring succour from good rules and generous interpretation of them.
The whole legislative agenda of Zanu-PF has been geared to serve a party at its zenith of power, never a party in serious political trouble. The agenda has never been crafted to become a tool, a resource for hard and harder times which are so predictable and so inevitable in politics.
I cannot say more, although I imply mouthfuls to the thoughtful. From now on, Zanu-PF must learn to think outside the box of power. Literally. Including knowing that once bigger ideals are jettisoned because an election has been won, little thoughts become big and dangerous distractions.
Such as the miasmic succession debate. Such as the myth of "gossip" and "stooges" for Matabeleland. How so experienced a party, so encircled a party ever affords such inane thoughts, is what beats little boys like me. The Israelites needed a star to keep focused; to avoid getting confounded and conquered by their own ugliness; to keep going, focused. As the 100 Percent Empowerment election hype hits a slow denouement, Zanu-PF, true to form, begins to chew its own entrails, strangely satiated by its own self-destruction.
Icho!
l nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
I will not be detained by MDC arguments regarding the inter-party dialogue. Save for their sharp, cumulative irony, they do not make any sense at all.
For example, on the one hand, the MDC wants all "political detainees" unconditionally released. On the other, the MDC wants "all perpetrators of violence to be prosecuted expeditiously and impartially". How does one realise one without undermining the other? Those thugs in police cells — thugs we have been feeding as taxpayers — are MDC’s so-called democratic resistance committees (drcs).
To the man and woman, they are part of the gang which the MDC has been nursing for Renamo-like banditry in Zimbabwe. Hoping, of course, to frighten Zanu-PF into making grand concessions at the talks, the MDC last week ineptly leaked this ugly dimension of insurgency it hopes to bring into play as an extra string on its political bow. Strangely, these thought-free politicians forgot they were addressing Zanu-PF, a party with deep roots in insurgency.
Over-rating the dying
Then you have the MDC demand for a resumption of humanitarian aid, presumably made as a public relations stunt. Except this is a strange request from a party of sanctions. I mean how do you make a case for humanitarian relief, invasion and greater sanctions at the same time? It is plain stupid. Of course, the MDC does not want Zimbabweans assisted. It wants them to suffer more and more, as its leader said.
What the MDC is agitating for is the resumption of political work by NGOs who did all the dirty political work for it and Britain. But there is a greater danger. It is one of creating an aura around the MDC-T as the party with the key to resolving the Zimbabwe question which we all know to pit the country against imperial Britain. On the ground, the MDC has no wherewithal to set preconditions and send ultimatums. None absolutely. Its backers were humiliated last Friday; its structures are weak or non-existent on the ground. What is more, Zimbabweans are now more aware and are unlikely ever to repose their vote in that party. Which is why MDC-T will never want to go back to the polls, as the European auxiliaries of its backers mistakenly thought initially.
Pink politics
Then you have the danger of paucity of information filtering through the media. This could very well lend decency to MDC’s elaborate political stupidity. Or the danger of the media filtering false reports, such as the one we had in this week’s issue of The Financial Gazette. The residually pink publication wrote about "a United Nations sanctions list forming part of a draft resolution on Zimbabwe . . . "
It is as if the pink paper is unaware who drafted the list he imputes on the UN. Or that after the historic Friday veto there was no draft resolution on Zimbabwe before the United Nations Security Council. The list was never a UN list; the draft resolution was never a UN one. Both were idiosyncratically Anglo-American, and it is sinister dishonesty for any editor, least of all with a Zimbabwean paternity, to make such heinous claims against truth and country. To achieve what? Respectability for Anglo-American spite born out of neo-colonial avarice?
If it was a UN resolution, why then did it need debate in the Security Council? Such politically invested falsehoods disable informed judgements on the MDC, indeed incites the MDC to greater harm.
When the horn of plenty drips dry.
On two occasions, the MDC-T president has refused face-to-face talks of principals of negotiating parties. On both occasions he claimed the Chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, had advised him against participating, citing an AU Summit Resolution he says required Mbeki to share mediation on Zimbabwe with "a permanent representative" of the AU.
Of course, no such AU resolution exists, which is why the MDC, thoroughly embarrassed by its own leader’s sparse reading skills, could only wish the bad story some quick death. Secondly, what is "a permanent representative" of the AU?
Does permanency refer to a definite position and tenure within the negotiating structures of the AU? Or does it refer to the quality of expected seizure with the mediation matter? Thirdly, why would the AU’s top civil servant mislead Tsvangirai? Except Khupe and Sibotshiwe were also in Egypt, in fact well connected through a Zimbabwean working for the AU Secretariat?
Of course, I am indulging myself a bit. Tsvangirai absented himself from the talks in the hope of plenty from the G8 Summit, and from the debate in the Security Council. He expected both developments to give him greater leverage at the talks, if not presidency of Zimbabwe itself. It was a strategy wholly staked on an external dynamic, then read as unfaltering, as inevitable.
When Sibotshiwe is not Ping
But all this presupposes Tsvangirai indeed heard from Jean Ping. He did not! This is where the media has not been helpful at all. Ping is reachable, surely? Or is there a consensual editorial reluctance to report the truth, and to expose its victims? July 16, the day an MoU was supposed to be signed. When it became clear Tsvangirai was not coming, Mangoma pleads with Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Mushonga (I never like double barrels where one shoots enough!) to reach Tsvangirai to try and persuade him to do the right thing.
Biti and Mangoma would trail behind, clearly knowing the predictable outcome but still hopeful the day would deliver a rare miracle. In the end, Mangoma was the only one in tow to witness the failure of Tsvangirai’s erstwhile comrades.
The media make passing reference to this encounter, quickly dropping it as if it bore no significance or relevance to the state we are in, or the turn of events in future. I will bring out the significance which lies well before the outcome. Fascination with outcomes makes the media less inquisitorial, and thus more likely to miss significances in the penultimate.
Asked whether indeed he had spoken to Ping to receive the counsel against participation, Tsvangirai stunned his interlocutors by confessing he had not spoken to Ping. George Sibotshiwe had!
And who is Sibotshiwe? Some little boy who hits fame as a once-off music promoter, helping with the design of MDC’s tasteless website, and, of course, playing PRO to Strive Masiyiwa, himself the real nut for cracking.
Does anyone expect a whole leader to take momentous decisions on the basis of impressions of some little minion unable and disabled from spelling out P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S? And it turns out the little boy got nowhere near to Ping, all the time spending his un-precious time in the digging the minds of Masiyiwa and Bennett, his real founders.
Hurting interest and diplomacy
But worse was to come. It later transpires that on both occasions the villager was supposed to meet with fellow principals, the prologue was a quick despatch of dialogue documents to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, courtesy of George Sibotshiwe.
And on both occasions, Milliband made it crystal clear Tsvangirai should not attend, lest British interests and diplomacy are damaged. Interests because the document for discussion and signing requires all political parties to affirm the irreversibility of land reforms and to renounce Anglo-Saxon-led unilateral sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe from 2001.
Diplomacy damages because Britain hoped a combination of US support and manipulation of the Russian position at the G8 Summit, would make a sanctions resolution against Zimbabwe in the Security Council an accomplished fact. Unable to invent any victory on the domestic scene, Brown badly needs a foreign policy breakthrough for a dividend at home.
Zimbabwe was eminently suited for such a role. The white émigré community here makes it very easy for Brown to ethnocentrically dock British domestic politics here. Which is what would have made Brown and Tsvangirai Siamese twins if one was not the master, the other the servant. Both badly expect domestic glory from foreign affairs. Again, the media has not been fair with their readers.
Who is out of touch?
Increasingly, Brown is getting desperate, really desperate. He can no longer pretend that Zimbabwe is a matter "for the world", a matter to do with democracy and governance. It is a matter for Britain, both as former coloniser and as an intending neo-coloniser.
Which is why Brown came for heavy drabbing from the tabloid Press for "sub-contracting Zimbabwe to the UN" when he should have just sent in the boys to do a quick job. We are a parcel, a piece of work for Britain. We are not a sovereign country. No!
So reckless is Brown that his system has laid bare British motives in the whole matter. Apart from wanting Mugabe out (and they never pause to ask themselves on what legitimate basis), Brown wants to sideline Mbeki in the resolution of the Zimbabwean question.
Of course, the larger meaning is hard to miss: diplomacy is standing in the way of war, which is what Britain and America are itching for. The American permanent representative to the UN was even more brazen. Describing Mbeki as "out of touch", he added that the US takes heart from "interesting developments inside South Africa itself".
What are those? Do they include xenophobic attacks we have always known to have been made "spontaneous" on behalf of black South Africans? I am surprised Pahad did not give the US a fitting retort: who now has been shown to be out of touch, Mbeki or Bush and Brown who could not read President Medvedev?
From revolution to bureaucracy
When will Zanu-PF learn? When? Is it not obvious that while power is exercised in and through the institution of Government, in reality it resides elsewhere in larger society? I am not referring to that long-ululated lie of political science that the people are the power.
Of course, they are not, much as power is successfully exercised in their name and supposedly on their behalf. Throughout history, the people have always been the pretext for the unilateral use of power by those who have it. Between 1980 and now, we all witnessed Zanu-PF’s slow but inexorable morphing into a staid and very inefficient bureaucracy. It was not society that suffered a gradual de-politicisation. It was Zanu-PF itself, as its ideology and revolutionary programme went dormant.
It is not surprising that the one matter that has repeatedly vexed Zanu-PF has been that to do with ideology and the school for it. Bureaucracies run on cold, brittle, universal rules to which all societies are expected to adapt. Which is why bureaucracies are never agents of transformation. Their craving and appetite is stability guaranteed by immutable rules, strictures of precedent.
Rude awakening of 29
So did Zanu-PF expect the civil servant to politicise society for it? Or to keep and defend power for it long after it had itself dis-empowered and demobilised itself? Which takes me to the nub: why does Zanu-PF confuse bureaucratic power with its own stability and continuity as a party, tradition, goal and legacy?
Until it nearly happened on March 29, it was inconceivable to imagine a Zanu-PF out of power and without power or leverage for a second coming. Its power was its Government, its civil servants, its parastatals and its dominance in making rules for the rest of society.
Until March 29 rudely shocked it to realise that power residing in Government is there for taking by anyone whose tricks makes him more successful in an election. Had it not been for this clever clause requiring a run-off, Zanu-PF would have been without Government, without parastatals, without media, without security, without the power of making commandments only the morning after.
Ghastly, is it not? Yet possible, is it not? That party of struggle, of liberation, of history would have been wiped from the political face of this our small earth. By puppets, settler puppets at that!
Product, price and peasant
Has Zanu-PF drawn any lessons from this? That power resides outside Government and its instruments, cleverly dispersed in larger society, ready to be mobilised on a rainy day? Is that not why the soul of the British Conservatives lies in CBI — Confederation of British Industries — never in their party headquarters?
Is that not why Labour’s is in TUC — Trade Union Congress — never at its headquarters? Indeed, is that not why MDC’s fate lies in its ability to keep ZCTU politically interested? The predicate of Zanu-PF power has always been the peasantry in the countryside. No doubt a stable base, but the events of the last year have clearly shown that the moguls in cities wield the whip that upsets the peasant.
Goods and prices make up this deadly whip, made even more painful by nature’s own retribution, such as drought. Thanks to its successes in transforming rural lives, Zanu-PF’s rural vote is increasingly having to be defended and stabilised from the market-place.
Gone is the era of place and numbers; come has the horror of product and price, the horror of placeless stomachs. Which is why the 100 percent Empowerment mantra is a do-or-die for the ruling party. It has to find life and place in post-June 27 politics.
Law for good or bad times?
Much worse, Zanu-PF has to learn that the art of good law-making and development is not one where laws are made to confirm and comfort a party in moments of its undisputed power and dominance. After all with a parliamentary dominance, who needs the law?
The test of good laws is how well they become a veritable resource in the seven lean years, that is, when the margins are slender, dominance slim. In such dispensations, far-sighted parties with a strong urge to fall and rise, rise and fall will wring succour from good rules and generous interpretation of them.
The whole legislative agenda of Zanu-PF has been geared to serve a party at its zenith of power, never a party in serious political trouble. The agenda has never been crafted to become a tool, a resource for hard and harder times which are so predictable and so inevitable in politics.
I cannot say more, although I imply mouthfuls to the thoughtful. From now on, Zanu-PF must learn to think outside the box of power. Literally. Including knowing that once bigger ideals are jettisoned because an election has been won, little thoughts become big and dangerous distractions.
Such as the miasmic succession debate. Such as the myth of "gossip" and "stooges" for Matabeleland. How so experienced a party, so encircled a party ever affords such inane thoughts, is what beats little boys like me. The Israelites needed a star to keep focused; to avoid getting confounded and conquered by their own ugliness; to keep going, focused. As the 100 Percent Empowerment election hype hits a slow denouement, Zanu-PF, true to form, begins to chew its own entrails, strangely satiated by its own self-destruction.
Icho!
l nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
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