Why do the briSHIT dedicate so much of their time on Zimbabwe?

What will it take to convince the briSHIT that Zimbabwe is no longer a briSHIT colony?







Zimbabwe


House of Lords yesterday (6/02/08)


Lord Blaker asked Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the prospects for a resolution of the political, economic and human problems in Zimbabwe.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, we can see now why Robert Mugabe's representatives at the series of talks arranged by President Mbeki following the SADC meeting in March 2007 were so often late in arriving or said that they were unable to attend at all. It has been Mugabe's objective right through the nine months of the infrequent talks to make the proceedings last as long as possible so that the new constitution which was eventually agreed would not come into force before the elections. That has now been achieved by Mugabe. The elections will take place at three levels and will now be held on 29 March this year.

The registration of candidates was originally to be completed this week; now it has been extended to next week. The new constitution has been initialled but not signed. ZANU-PF has clearly not been taken by surprise. It has been accumulating supplies of food, which Mugabe has for a long time been using for political purposes and which are said to be intended to amount to a few trillions of Zimbabwe dollars. ZANU-PF has, of course, had warning of the impending elections. In a cynical ploy to buy votes the regime has announced that it will over coming weeks open people's shops across the country to provide the basic commodities that are generally unavailable in Zimbabwe.

Developments as recently as today show that Mugabe's control of events is faltering. The postponement of the nomination day for a week seems to have been taken more in panic in ZANU-PF than with a sudden concern for the democratic process. The emergence yesterday of Simba Makoni from within ZANU-PF as a challenger for the presidency shows Mugabe's increasing isolation. This suggests that the political landscape of Zimbabwe could alter dramatically with new alliances and formations. Mugabe's fightback could be vicious. Makoni is reckoned by many to have prevaricated and supped with the devil for too long. Both he and Arthur Mutambara are widely claimed to lack grassroots support, while Morgan Tsvangirai has courageously led the mainstream MDC since its foundation and has won both scars and voter recognition for his efforts.

The rising anger against Mugabe was expressed recently by the president of ZINASU-the Zimbabwe National Students Union. In a letter to Mugabe he writes:

"ZINASU is disappointed by your conduct, lack of seriousness and urgency in the purported on-going SADC mediation process meant to resolve the current multi-faceted crisis our country finds itself in. Your attitude towards the initiative facilitated by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, leaves a lot to be desired, especially considering the fact that you proceeded to announce the election dates before the conclusion of the mediation process.

We further put to you that the students of Zimbabwe will not accept an election outcome from a flawed election process. We strongly and unequivocally warn you and your cronies that the country will be ungovernable if you steal the people's vote".

Mugabe clearly fears that the students mean business and are capable of becoming a focus for dissent. He has ordered all state-run universities and colleges to stay closed until after elections on 29 March.

In Zimbabwe, the place where the people most often go to keep their sense of identity is the local church. More than that, when there is little cause for economic or political hope, it is in the churches that people find the most essential human quality-hope for the future. I do not want to mislead noble Lords. Because the church is often the most extensive and deeply rooted community-based network, it also reflects the tensions and divisions of the world in which it is set. Recently in the diocese of Harare, there has been a tremendous battle for the soul of the church, with a close political ally of President Mugabe, Bishop Kononga, driving out clergy who oppose him. The province acted and removed him from office. On Sunday, a new bishop was installed, with more than 700 people worshipping with him at short notice. The good news is that this demonstrates how the brave people of Zimbabwe, given the opportunity, are more than ready to take responsibility for governance. What can happen at the heart of the church can happen at the heart of Government. Please, God, may it do so before too long.

Viscount Goschen: My Lords, as we have heard this evening, the world has stood by and watched the systematic destruction of a once great country. Whatever the merits of the policies pursued by Her Majesty's Government, the UN, the European Union, the Commonwealth and, indeed, the SADC states, they have all, without doubt, failed miserably. The country is broken, the majority of the people are utterly destitute, society has broken down and the rule of law has gone. This is entirely a man-made tragedy, the blame for which lies squarely with Robert Mugabe, his ZANU-PF henchmen, and those political leaders in the region who have appeased him.

In my four minutes this evening, I wish to develop only one point. Previous debates have covered a lot of detail, and the House knows very well the depth of the tragedy in the country: the lack of water, the lack of electricity, the misery and the destruction of human rights. We know those bitter facts. We now need to look beyond the current regime. It will not last for that much longer. There are those with power and influence in the country who realise this. We now need to concentrate on what happens after Mugabe goes, as he inevitably will, in, one hopes, the not too distant future.

The infrastructure is now in a terrible state, but it can be rebuilt with help from the developed world. Now is the time to start talking in concrete terms about this reconstruction process, by putting together a coalition of funders, including Governments, multilateral development and funding agencies, including the World Bank, and corporate-and even private-donors. With funding pledges on the table and a reconstruction plan standing by, the prospects for rebuilding the country, stabilising the economy, starting to tackle the desperate healthcare situation and restoring power become more tangible. The prospect of a successful transition from a disastrous dictatorship to a benevolent peaceful regime must be attractive to those with the potential to influence events from within the country.

I am, perhaps, surprisingly optimistic about the prospects for Zimbabwe in the medium term. Many of the productive emigrants, including farmers, teachers and engineers, would come back and work with the brave people who have stayed in that country to rebuild it. Zimbabwe will get worse before it gets better, but hope may not be too far away. We can influence this process with a constructive contribution, as well as maintaining political pressure on Zimbabwe and its influential neighbour in the south, which surely has the key to accelerating this process.

Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, for his tenacity in giving us this opportunity, again, to debate the many challenges facing Zimbabwe. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, that the situation has gone from bad to worse to disastrous. Despite the heavy rains over the past month, most of the farms remain deserted, with very few new crops being grown, facing the inevitability of yet another year of starvation, this time even worse than last year. This will lead, inevitably, to an ever-larger number of Zimbabweans attempting to get across the border into South Africa.

While I support all the measures that can be exerted by the international community to bring pressure to bear on Zimbabwe, I have always advocated that there need to be African solutions for African problems. To this end, while President Thabo Mbeki has had reasonable success as the SADC facilitator in his mediations with Mugabe and the MDC, these efforts, as has already been mentioned, have been aborted by President Mugabe calling a snap election for 29 March. This leaves no time for an agreement to be reached on the new constitution, or the repeal of the tough and very draconian security laws. There is unlikely to be any material change in Zimbabwe, as we all know, until there is a change in leadership. To this end, I certainly welcome the recent news that Simba Makoni will be standing against Mugabe in the presidential elections.


Mugabe clearly saw the opportunity to call a snap election with the opposition MDC being totally disorganised and failing to form a unified front. While that is unlikely to happen, the hope is that Morgan Tsvangarai and Arthur Mutambara will make way for Simba Makoni's challenge for the presidency. Having the backing of Solomon Mujuru, the ex-head of the armed forces, and several other senior ZANU-PF leaders, should add weight to his campaign. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, I fear the backlash of Mugabe's support base against Simba Makoni.

There is no doubt that Mugabe manipulated the ZANU-PF December congress to ensure that he was the only candidate standing on behalf of the party for the presidency, which was totally wrong. Whatever the outcome of the presidential election, should Mugabe win, the general view is that at the age of 84 he will seek to hand over power soon after being re-elected to his chosen successor. The fear of many Zimbabweans is that this will be Mr Mnangagwa.

There have been many calls for South Africa to do more to put pressure to bear on there being a change in leadership in Zimbabwe. The recent move by Eskom to cut off the electricity supply to Zimbabwe due to electricity shortages in South Africa has shown the huge dependence that Zimbabwe has on South Africa. However, it is unlikely that South Africa will seek to take these measures intentionally to force political change in Zimbabwe. What is more interesting is whether President Mbeki's successor, who is likely to be Jacob Zuma, will take a stronger line on forcing changes in Zimbabwe. I believe that he would take a stronger line, but it is unlikely that he will come to power before the middle of next year, and that depends on the outcome of the criminal case against him. It is anticipated that President Mbeki will elaborate on his strategy on Zimbabwe in his state of the nation speech this Friday.


My time is almost up. I would have liked to speak on the alleged illegal extradition of Simon Mann to Equatorial Guinea; perhaps the Minister could comment on that. I would also have liked to elaborate on the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, as to what measures have been taken by the international community to offer some form of Marshall Aid package to promote change but, more importantly, expedite the reconstruction of the country once there has been a long-awaited change in leadership in Zimbabwe.


The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we have been here before. In the past eight years we have had a number of debates on Zimbabwe. The only thing that has changed is that, although we never think the situation is going to get worse, by the subsequent debate it has become a great deal worse. That is the case today. Particularly in the past two weeks, there has been another rapid decline in the fortunes of Zimbabwe.

What is sad about this is that, as my noble friend Lord Goschen said, the government policy on Africa is in tatters. Under the NePAD agreement, many African states have taken all the extra money we said that we would give them but they have given nothing back in increased civil rights, better protection for their citizens or democracy. That is a major failing. The situation, as we see it from this country, is not helped by the situation internationally. The EU is what I would term peely-wally with regard to Zimbabwe. The UN does not take much interest in it and there does not seem to be much agreement. China is sneaking in through the back door whenever it can to disrupt the situation and is planning its future in terms of all the mineral and other assets that Africa has.

One unique and extraordinary thing about Zimbabwe is that despite the past eight years it has not resorted to violence. That is an amazing fact. If it had resorted to violence, perhaps something might have happened. The French are very quick to protect their interests in Chad, and Kofi Annan, former head of the UN, quickly went to sort out the situation in Kenya. Those countries are getting all the help that can possibly be given. The poor Zimbabweans have been the good guys in this and have not fought. The MDC has resisted every temptation and every encouragement to fight, and it has come worst off. It is a sad tale of human beings in the current world that the bad guys get the help and seem to come out better off than the good guys.

Mugabe continues to run rings around Mbeki. I differ on this, as I always have, with the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso. Mugabe knew exactly what he was doing; he was running the talks with Mbeki to the last possible minute, knowing that if there was no agreement the MDC would split, making his rigging of the election that much easier. That is exactly what has happened. I give no credit at all to Mbeki. He should have stood up to the other African states and been much stronger with Mugabe right at the beginning. He should have said, "These are the terms. Come on, Robert, sign up. We have been old friends long enough". But he let it run right to the end and Mugabe ran circles round him.

I cannot predict what is going to happen in the next month until the election. All one knows is that Mugabe is going to cause severe mayhem with all the opposition candidates, including Makoni. The postponement of the nomination panel gives him a very good chance, as he has a week to screen out all the Makoni supporters and make the election a safer bet. What will happen to poor Zimbabwe? Can the Minister tell us what plans there are for the future? If he is going to get a Marshall Aid package or something like that, what strings will be attached? We cannot afford to let Africa get away with another NePAD, where we give it money and it gives us nothing back in return. I am talking about "us" in the wider sense of the citizens of Africa and of the world. They should give us back democracy and civil rights.


Lord Avebury: My Lords, the Minister may reflect on the remarkable contrast between the huge international efforts made to resolve the crisis between the Government and the opposition in Kenya, which we debated earlier this afternoon, involving the UN, the AU and many states, and the puny attempt by President Thabo Mbeki on his own to ward off the far greater catastrophe that is engulfing the people of Zimbabwe, including endemic unilateral violence by the Government against anyone they think may be against them. That includes not only the official opposition but the 2.5 million shantytown dwellers in Operation Murambatsvina, and now university students and teachers. The plight of those people and of the 4.5 million people who flooded across the border, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, is in stark contrast, as it remains completely unremedied after the eight years of discussions that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, just mentioned. He may like to reflect on the statement that was attributed to an Irishman in the 19th century that, "Violence is the only way of securing a hearing for the voices of moderation".

There was no mention of Zimbabwe at the AU summit which ended last Sunday. SADC got a report from Mr Mbeki in the margins, but it has said nothing about the reforms that will be necessary for even a partial approximation of free and fair elections on 29 March. The signs are ominous, with opposition rallies being prohibited, activists beaten up, and the police chief being given a grand new title and new car and making public threats against what he calls "those bent on exploiting the economic situation". We can expect to see violent attacks against candidates and supporters who campaign against the policies that are beggaring the nation while handing new privileges to the army, the police and the so-called war vets.

It is a tragedy, as my noble friend Lord Alderdice said, that the two wings of the MDC failed to reach an agreement on joint presidential and parliamentary candidates, but with ZANU-PF and Mugabe universally hated by the people, there could still be a sporting chance that Mugabe could be defeated. There are splits within the ruling party, with Simba Makoni, the former finance Minister, deciding to contest the presidential election. Apart from him, there are several incumbent ZANU-PF Ministers and former MPs being sidelined in the selection of candidates. No one imagines that there will be a free and fair election, but if the presence of well-resourced observers over the next seven weeks could make a difference-and I believe that it could-what efforts are we making to see that observer teams are properly resourced and financed?

Could we perhaps ask the SADC countries to sound out the Commonwealth about possible technical help that it might be able to give not only to the SADC observers but also against the possibility, as has been mentioned, that Zimbabwe will need substantial reconstruction after the election? The observer team might have something to contribute to that.

The regime has said that it will relax the restrictions on foreign journalists, who can play a crucial part in monitoring conditions in the run-up period. I would like to mention the intrepid Sue Lloyd-Roberts, who last autumn got in to show people starving and disease rampant; and, just the other day, John Simpson, who exposed the divisions within ZANU-PF. The free media, particularly journalists from SADC countries, can do more than politicians to ensure that Zimbabwe does not wake on 30 March to a disputed result, with consequences that could be even more disastrous than the horrors we have seen in Kenya.


Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is of course impossible in the few minutes available to me from this Dispatch Box to summarise or do justice to this excellent little debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blaker for once again returning to the issue.

Looking back on our endless debates on this subject, I find that we were told again and again that quiet diplomacy was the best course and would work. I gather that the Minister has just been touring parts of Africa, and I hope that he found out for himself what some of us have long argued. While we obviously could play no direct and confrontational part in the unfolding Zimbabwean tragedy, we could and should have been much tougher from the start on sanctions against individuals, companies and interests that were enriching themselves while supporting the regime, and on doubters at the UN who persistently blocked attempts to bring the horrors of Zimbabwe to the Security Council. We could and should have pressed Mr Mbeki and South Africa to be more robust and creative. We could and should have urged China sooner to stop sending aid and succour to Mugabe-as my right honourable friend David Cameron has now rightly done. This is not the fault of the present Minister, as he was not in place, but the Government did not do any of those things. Instead we were constantly and repeatedly told that quiet diplomacy would do the trick.

Now where have we got to? We have inflation touching anything between 13,000 and 100,000 per cent-somewhere between the two. We have unemployment at 80 per cent, a quarter of the population relying on food aid, refugees streaming over the borders and the rule of law collapsing. To repeat the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso: it would be interesting to know about British subject Simon Mann and why all his legal rights seem to have been ignored in his illegal extradition to Equatorial Guinea.

This is a disastrous scene in which, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown-I think that I have them right-we have an aid and development policy in Africa but not a foreign policy. That has been the trouble. When one looks at the huge imbalances between the resources available to DfID and those available to diplomacy and the Foreign Office, it is only too obvious what has happened. In the new Comprehensive Spending Review up to 2011, the FCO gets a 0.2 per cent reduction each year, and DfID-which already has a budget four times larger-gets an 11 per cent increase. This is a dangerous imbalance. Instead of having a foreign policy alongside our aid policy, we have been left to drift along with spineless international policy on Zimbabwe and, just somehow, to hope for miracles.

Maybe a few small miracles could be about to happen, but I do not know. We have heard about Simba Makoni, who has had the enormous courage to emerge to challenge Mugabe in the elections. We know that the Government are now being forced to take back farms that were parcelled out to cronies and officials because they have produced nothing, and that they will now be put in more competent managerial hands. While the MDC opposition is sadly split, so now is ZANU-PF, and that must be good.


What more can we do now, on top of the long list of things that we have urged should have happened but have not? I believe that the Commonwealth could play a forward role, even if Zimbabwe is not at the moment a member. I would like to see a Commonwealth working committee drawn from both African and other member state personnel to explore real land reform options, to encourage donors to re-engage and to plan an effective recovery strategy post Mugabe in that once rich country. I am sure that point has not yet been reached, and maybe things are going to get worse before they get better. We can only pray that, when it comes, there will be recovery and prosperity. Again, it ought to prosper and it ought to be free-and it is not.


The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My Lords, let me echo the noble Lord's last words. We can indeed pray for that outcome and I hope we will achieve it. I join all those who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, on having tabled this debate on Zimbabwe. We all respect his continued commitment to raising the crisis in Zimbabwe at every possible opportunity. He has shown himself a real friend of the people of Zimbabwe if not of its president.

We all support the view that our primary focus must be on helping ordinary Zimbabweans. The UK is the second largest bilateral donor, giving £45 million in the current year and some £173 million since 2000. As we have frequently reassured this House, this aid is distributed via third parties-the UN and NGOs-and not via the Government. As many noble Lords said, the indications, on every indicator, are that the country faces worse times ahead. The harvest will be poor. We are spending £10 million a year tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis. As the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, said, that does not do justice to the fact that this money is not achieving the results we would wish. Life expectancy is now a catastrophic 35 years.

We continue to spend money to support democratic change, supporting civil society as well as lawyers to try and improve the climate for free and fair elections. We have ensured that EU-targeted measures are in place to punish President Mugabe and the elite and not the ordinary people of Zimbabwe. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, that we are confident that those targeted measures will be renewed again later this month.

We speak regularly with other countries in the region, in particular South Africa and other SADC countries, to encourage them to resolve the crisis. But I take the point about quiet diplomacy. I myself met with the South African Foreign Minister at the end of last week, in the margins of the AU summit. We also have word of the briefings that the South Africans made to the other SADC member states. I am not quite as well informed as the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, on how the countries are divided on the issue, but we are seeing a disappointing failure of the neighbours to stand up for the kind of change that we must see in Zimbabwe.

I do not agree that withholding aid from other SADC members is the way to achieve change there. Angola, which the noble Lord mentioned, is an oil-rich country that is in no way dependent on aid and with its own strong point of view on these issues. SADC contains a number of countries whose development and performance of democracy and respect for it is admirable in its own right. We just wish that they would be as vigorous in applying the same standards to their neighbour Zimbabwe as they are brave enough to apply them at home.

President Mbeki's efforts to mediate have essentially now expired. The election has been declared by President Mugabe and he has not accepted the MDC's demands for delays. By so doing he has negated the few conditions that had been negotiated, all of which depended on time for implementation to allow for a freer and fairer election.

President Mugabe has stated that there will be no amendment to the constitution until after the elections. One must therefore assume that the conditions for genuinely free and fair elections remain far away. The electoral roll is incomplete and inaccurate. It seems that millions of those outside the country have no prospect of being able to vote. The many new constituency boundaries introduced under the negotiations have been introduced in a rush and essentially amount to gerrymandering, favouring ZANU-PF. To this day, the opposition is unable to hold rallies freely or complain without harassment and is not being given equal access to the media. The military and the police continue to crawl all over the election management process.

On the point about international election observers, it is very unlikely that credible international teams will be allowed to monitor the elections. I therefore use this debate in the House tonight to appeal to the SADC Heads of State and Government who have established very good principles of electoral conduct for their sub-region to insist that those principles be applied in Zimbabwe, and to be the first to declare that they have not been met if indeed they are not met.
The Zimbabwean economy is in a state of collapse. The shops, including food shops, have bare shelves because of Mugabe's decree that all shops must reduce the price of goods by 50 per cent. The first people to get to the shops after that decree, before the shelves were empty, were the police and the military. Other people have had to scavenge for food in waste bins.

What can be done? The mandate given to President Mbeki last March, at the urgently called conference of SADC heads of government in Tanzania, following a brutally disrupted prayer meeting, was simply to facilitate negotiation between ZANU-PF and the MDC. Before negotiations began instructions were given to the MDC by the police to avoid violence, even though the MDC is entirely peaceful. No such instructions were given to ZANU-PF.

One of the most urgent things which must be done is to renew the European Union-targeted measures against 131 of Mugabe's cronies limiting their travel, which expire this month. I would be grateful for the Minister's assurance that they will be renewed on time. Last year there were signs of backsliding by some EU members, which were halted by urgent action. These travel restrictions have been exaggerated by Mugabe's constantly describing them as savage economic sanctions, when of course they are nothing of the kind. African Union and SADC leaders peddle the same line. It is not known from what source these falsehoods come-possibly somewhere not far removed from SADC headquarters-but they seem to be given credence by a number of the SADC leaders. I should be glad to know what Her Majesty's Government are doing to refute these lies. Mugabe is a formidable practitioner of spin, but we may now have an opportunity to take our revenge against him.

Zimbabwe, like other SADC countries, is a signatory of the treaties for the African Union, SADC and NePAD. Those contain undertakings to observe human rights, good governance and the rule of law and to accept peer review. If Zimbabwe has not yet agreed to this last point it should be pressed by other SADC countries to do so. The promise was that these treaties were to be adhered to as part of a bargain with the developed world, which was the subject of a passionate speech by Tony Blair in 2001. The promise by the developed world was to increase the amount of aid, which has largely been done. I shall be glad to know also whether Her Majesty's Government have given thought to the implications of the substantial aid which is given to the SADC countries by the EU and by this country in particular. According to a Written Answer given to me on 10 October 2007, in col. WA 17, aid given by the United Kingdom in the year 2005 to the Southern African Development Community as a whole and to its member nations plus the UK's imputed share of multilateral aid to SADC member nations was over £750 million. That is a formidable figure.


The issue of Zimbabwe was discussed in Addis Ababa at the meeting of SADC countries a few days ago, on the sidelines of the African Union summit. President Mbeki reported that Mugabe's intransigence, and his reneging on agreements made early in the talks, had moved the mediation process to deadlock and failure. Eight nations supported President Mbeki's call for censure but three-Swaziland, Namibia and Angola-backed Mugabe and, surprisingly to me, that was deemed an insufficient basis for a consensual decision. Will Her Majesty's Government reconsider grants of development aid to these three countries to bring home to them the implications for our aid budget of their policy of supporting Mugabe? The Department for International Development will undoubtedly wish to consider aid holistically to SADC. By prolonging the crisis in Zimbabwe, these countries are adding to the massive sums that will be required for reconstruction when ZANU-PF eventually goes and undermining the development of the region as a whole.

Lord Morris of Handsworth: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, for his tenacity and determination in ensuring that the plight and suffering of the people of Zimbabwe continue to command the attention of your Lordships' House. We need an election in Zimbabwe but we do not need Mugabe as a candidate. Zimbabwe has gone through a number of stages; it has gone from bad to worse and now to disaster. It is no wonder that thousands have left the country. For the unfortunate ones who have stayed, the rewards are quite clear: the abuse of their human rights, the destruction of their democratic rights and processes, and, of course, the suppression of their liberties.

As we have heard, the economy is not just on the verge of collapse but, as many would say, has collapsed. Seventy per cent are now unemployed; inflation figures are no longer believable. One in five is now living with HIV/AIDS and more than 1 million children have been orphaned and made vulnerable by the pandemic. One doctor described Zimbabwe in the following terms. He said:

"Zimbabwe once offered the most comprehensive medical service in Africa, but it has now become a textbook of medical horror".

Zimbabwe long ago lost most of its skilled people, the doctors, teachers, engineers and agricultural workers. Now all that it exports is its poverty.Our Government have until recently been somewhat diffident in speaking up and speaking out against Mugabe's vile regime, but the time has come for us to confront the myth that our colonial past is somehow responsible for the current misery-nothing could be further from the truth. To succeed in helping the people of Zimbabwe in their liberation struggle from Mugabe, we must take a proactive stance. I was proud that our Prime Minister declined to attend the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon because he did not wish to be in the same room as Mugabe. That was a good start. But if the Prime Minister does not want to be in the same room as Mugabe, is it right to expect our sportsmen and women to be on the same field of play as representatives of that regime? John Howard, as Prime Minister of Australia, gave a clear lead. He said that Australian cricketers would not play against Zimbabwe. If that is good enough for Australia, it should be good enough for the United Kingdom.

A sporting, cultural and economic boycott would hasten the collapse of the regime and relieve the suffering of the people. We must give that lead. The Commonwealth, Europe and the United States would follow. I see the collapse of the regime not as an "if" but as a "when". We should pause and reflect on how best we can help the people in order that we can ensure their liberation. During the apartheid regime in South Africa, Governments in many parts of the world trained and prepared members of the black population for leadership in that country, to enable them to make the transition from prison to power seamlessly and without violence. I therefore ask the Minister: what preparation is being made in that respect and more generally to help the people of Zimbabwe when that time comes? Protestation and whingeing is not enough. We must back our words with action and the time is now.

Lord Alderdice: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, has shown a consistent commitment to the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and all of us who share that concern are grateful to the noble Lord for having obtained this debate at such an apposite time, in the run-up to elections in Zimbabwe. Sadly, if the experience of Zimbabwe under Mr Mugabe in the past, or Kenya under Mr Kibaki in the present, are anything to go by, we can expect not only a rigged election, but violence afterwards.

As the noble Lord, Lord Morris, has already said, there is already a profound humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. With an unprecedented convergence of AIDS, poverty and malnutrition, and some 3,500 people dying every week, Zimbabwe now has the lowest life expectancy in the region. If loss of life, as well as historic relationships and responsibility, are important criteria in determining the rankings on the United Kingdom's foreign policy agenda, Zimbabwe certainly deserves to be higher up. There is now a critical shortage of basic foods. How are Her Majesty's Government and the European Union stepping up their efforts to meet the shortfall and to ensure that basic human needs are met in full to help create better conditions for the up-coming elections and for people's lives?


Our South African friends have made an effort to obtain the conditions for a decent poll. However, President Mbeki has failed to move Mr Mugabe, who is flatly refusing to dismantle the structures that he has created over the past decade to manage elections and dictate the outcome. Unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, said, when President Mbeki took the issue back to an extraordinary summit of SADC in Addis Ababa, not only did Mr Mugabe refuse to implement the reforms agreed and required, but he was backed by a number of the other African leaders, which is most disappointing.

As a result, these elections are simply not going to be free and fair by international standards. The opposition have no exposure in the state-controlled media, they cannot campaign freely and many activists are refugees in South Africa and elsewhere. The voters roll is completely distorted by years of manipulation and any fair control of the poll is going to be difficult-some would say impossible. The decision of the split opposition MDC to fight on a divided ticket is tragic. Whatever the short-term problems of agreement between Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the long-term consequences for the country are likely to be savage.

Mr Mugabe and Zanu-PF are now so unpopular that I suppose an upset is just possible, but only if what happened in Kenya can be stopped. Prevention of a rigged election and count depends almost entirely on the presence of observer missions and the ability of local NGOs and the political parties to supervise the vote and the count and ensure that it is reported accurately and properly. How are HMG pressing African leaders to make that a possibility? I focus on African leaders because it is just not possible for this to be dealt with simply as an issue for Europe or European states. However, Her Majesty's Government should maintain their position that:

"It will only recognise an outcome that reflects the will of the people and only in that context would stand ready to help the new government to get back onto its feet".

On the other hand, if the election is, as we expect, rigged, there may be value in making it clear in advance that recognition of the new Government could be withheld. Certainly, we must find a way of doing more than simply wringing our hands.

Now that the Mbeki initiative has failed, the UK Government along with other Governments need to engage in proactive multilateral diplomacy. Can we find a common position with South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique? Does the Minister think that his right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will go to South Africa to help build consensus that could bring about an end to the extreme suffering of so many millions of Zimbabweans?


Lord Sheikh: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blaker for initiating this debate. What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe over the past few years has been absolutely horrific, and, while we can all rehearse the depressingly familiar statistics, we need to recognise that this is, first and foremost, a human tragedy. Effectively, the Government of Zimbabwe have declared war on their own people. The cruelty that has been inflicted under Mugabe's regime will take a long time to heal: and the hurt continues. Fifty-six per cent of the population in Zimbabwe lives on less than $1 dollar a day and around 80 per cent lives on less than $2 dollars a day. In economic terms, Mugabe has managed to transform one of Africa's most successful economies into a complete disaster. Inflation is rampant and some economists count the figure as above 11,000 per cent. There is a shortage of food and the basic necessities of life.

Mugabe's hold on power appears strong. He continues to be declared the winner of elections, despite these being considered as seriously flawed by the opposition and foreign observers. In the 2005 elections, Zanu-PF won more than two-thirds of the votes in parliamentary elections said by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to be fraudulent. But, as my noble friend Lord Blaker acknowledged in the Motion for this debate, the damage extends well beyond economics and politics. Around 3,000 people die in Zimbabwe every week of HIV/AIDS, with an estimated 1.8 million Zimbabweans infected with the disease. When some people stand up and proclaim the wonders of their assistance in tackling this human tragedy, they measure their contribution in terms of money spent. We should focus attention on the number of infections prevented and on the number of treatments, rather than the crude measurement of finance injected.

To focus our minds, life expectancy has fallen below 35 years, and there are an estimated 1.3 million orphans. I am appalled that other African countries have not shown more leadership and initiative: their approach has been supine. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity in his response to this debate to update the House on the actions of the British High Commissioner in South Africa to ensure that Mugabe is placed under maximum pressure. I appreciate that the British Government have to overcome sensitivities, given our colonial history with Zimbabwe, but it must be possible to do more.

Zimbabwe stands as testament to the truth that although the power, even of a good Government, to do good, is not infinite, the power of a bad one knows no limit. I hope that other African leaders will change course and live up to their responsibility for the disaster that keeps deteriorating in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has done his country no favours, and the sooner he is out of office the better. It is imperative that the country returns to true democracy, and that opposition leaders are respected and protected. Other African countries need to support this.

In conclusion, it is not the removal of Mr Mugabe that is necessary; the country needs humanitarian aid, the building of institutions, the restoration of democracy on a proper basis, and considerable investment by foreign countries.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, for the opportunity for your Lordships' House once again to debate Zimbabwe, in which the church has a deep, abiding and ongoing interest. My diocese has companion links with three dioceses in Zimbabwe. Members of our parishes pay occasional visits there, and we encourage our link bishops, from time to time, to come here for consultations. One returned to Zimbabwe last week after such discussions. He gave us a first-hand account of the dire situation in his country and what the churches are doing to try to alleviate suffering.

Given the scale of suffering in Zimbabwe, and the total collapse of the economy, it seems incomprehensible that it has been impossible for Her Majesty's Government to achieve more international support for their efforts to bring pressure to bear on the Mugabe Government. President Mugabe's apparent ability to act decisively on land reform has impressed many in Africa. We know that the short cuts taken to land reform through violent farm seizures were disastrous, involving the transfer of land to ZANU-PF supporters, regardless of their ability to farm, and often on the basis of cronyism. Agriculture has been devastated, which, along with poor harvests and drought, has turned the bread basket of Africa into an unproductive wasteland. With elections on the horizon and the knowledge of the political capital that President Mugabe has made from land reform, it is most important that the British Government re-emphasises their commitment to helping a legitimate Zimbabwean Government to achieve land reform that is equitable for all Zimbabwean citizens.


I turn to the issue of cricket, raised by my noble friend Lord Morris. There are no sporting sanctions on Zimbabwe, but the Foreign Secretary and others in this Government have made it clear that we do not encourage the England and Wales Cricket Board to allow Zimbabwe to tour England in 2009 or England to tour Zimbabwe in 2012 if the situation in the country is as it is now. We continue to speak to the ECB about these issues but it remains a decision for the board. We have decided that the Government can make their position clear, but that it is not for us to intervene directly in this matter.

I shall say a word about Simon Mann. Before his appeals process had exhausted itself, and therefore completely in contravention of Zimbabwe's own legal standards and system, he was removed from the country and sent to Equatorial Guinea. We have sought consular access to him there without success to this point. We are pressing both there and here in London for Simon Mann's rights to be met. We are extremely concerned about the situation given the history of what has happened to prisoners before in that country. We shall certainly press fully for Mr Mann to enjoy his full legal rights.

A number of noble Lords including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark raised questions on the future situation in Zimbabwe. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place that we stand ready to assist in the economic recovery of Zimbabwe once our benchmarks for change in that country have been met; once there is a Government who are genuinely committed to economic and political reform and to the restoration of the rights of its citizens; and once there is a Government who enjoy the support of their people. At that point Britain will be generous in its support to economic recovery. I can assure noble Lords that we are already preparing for that day. We have been working with international institutions such as the World Bank, about which the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, inquired. We are looking at the cost of recovery. We are planning for it and talking to international partners. I agree entirely that recovery must deal with the issue of land, which remains at the heart of so much of the dispute in that unhappy country.

I share the views of those who contrasted the international attention given to Kenya and that given to Zimbabwe. I hope it does not prove the point that several noble Lords made, that the international community will be stirred into action only if there is violence. We all devoutly hope that that will not happen in Zimbabwe, although we all also recognise that a very high level of state violence is already being applied to the citizens of that country.

Zimbabwe is the guilty secret of Africa and the international community. There is a terrible double standard. There has been a failure to point the finger publicly and to declare what a terrible crime is occurring against the citizens of that country. We hope that this election will enable those who run against President Mugabe to champion that point of view. We wish them all the best in the election. To go any further than that would be to undermine their own standing. Even these words will be passed on by President Mugabe and his propaganda sidekicks in an attempt to suggest that one or other or all three of them are British stooges and the British candidates to replace him.

We hope, as others have said, that there is a glimmer of hope; that, even in a snap election conducted under impossibly unfair conditions, with all the levers, advantages and cards in hands of government, God and good fortune will smile on that unhappy country, and that perhaps out of these elections will emerge a surprising electoral upset. In order to try to ensure the possibility of such an outcome we will insist-and impress on Europe, the region, the UN and the rest of the international community the need to insist-that the right standards of freeness and openness are met in that election to allow the country to return to democracy and prosperity. Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate, lowest life expectancy and, as has been pointed out, an ever-growing number of HIV/AIDS orphans. It is clear to everyone that the solution to this crisis cannot come soon enough.

We still believe that that solution must first and foremost be an African solution supported by the region and the wider international community. We will continue to explore and support all efforts to deliver that solution. In the mean time, to ease the suffering of Zimbabweans at the hands of their leadership, we will continue to provide crucial humanitarian assistance to ordinary Zimbabweans, to try to ease their suffering amidst all the pain and pressures they endure in their everyday lives.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in the debate. It has been a particularly good one.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: Forgive me, my Lords, but the noble Lord who initiates a Question for Short Debate is not allowed to respond.

Simba Makoni: Brishit-ZANU win win situation??

There is little doubt Simba Makoni is courting a favourable briSHIT press. Its easy to see the shift of briSHIT hopes from the dull puppet Morgan Tsvangirai to Makoni. Interesting times ahead. Makoni on the other hand is reciprocating briSHIT hospitality by remaining silent about the damaging and crippling effects on briSHIT-led punitive measures, sanctions, and negative propaganda, or American sanctions like ZIDERA. Simba has therefore seen it 'less harmful' to exclusively blame Mugabe for the meltdown, although he is fully aware of Anglo-American sabotage.

Why?

1. It has now become apparent Tsvangirai doesnt have what it takes to safeguard briSHIT interests.
2. It has become apparent that dislodging ZANU is not as easy as 'damaging Zimbabwe's economy'.
3. Zimbabwe has now become an embarassment to briSHIt politicians. EU patience has been stretched too far in defending briSHIT interests and settler monopoly in Zimbabwe...and the position is becoming undefendable.
4. A Mugabe win in March 2008 would further undress briSHIT neocolonial appetites in Zimbabwe to much further embarassment.
5. Continued rivalry between ZANU and the briSHIT government is a lose lose situation.

Is Simba being used as a condom to bridge the diseases between briSHIT-Zimbabwe coitus?

The questions are.
1. Which partner bought the condom?
2. How foolproof is the condom?


We hope it doesnt burst....


In the mean time enjoy the positive briSHIT press on Simba below.

Simba Makoni: Zimbabwe's roaring lion?
By Joseph Winter
BBC News website

Simba Makoni, a senior member of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party, has announced he is to challenge Robert Mugabe for president.

With a PhD in chemistry, his supporters say he has the magic formula to reverse Zimbabwe's economic collapse and end its political stalemate.

The mild-mannered, jovial man has long been seen as a possible compromise candidate, with backers both in Zanu-PF, as well as plenty of admirers in the opposition.

He has variously been described as a moderniser, a technocrat and a "young turk".

Opposition MP Priscilla Misihairabwi told the BBC News website that Mr Makoni was very courageous to publicly challenge Mr Mugabe from within the system.

He could be living up to his name, Simba, which means lion in Swahili - spoken across East Africa - and means strength in Shona, one of Zimbabwe's main indigenous languages.

Ms Misihairabwi also says that Mr Makoni is a man of principles.

The then finance minister stood up to President Robert Mugabe over economic policy in 2002 and was sacked for his trouble.

'Saboteur'

Mr Makoni's supporters note that he has a good understanding of orthodox economics and he comes from the party which delivered independence from Britain in 1980 and which does not want to relinquish power.

He could appeal to those voters who are desperate for some improvement in their daily lives but do not quite trust the opposition.

I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships that we all have endured for nearly 10 years now
Simba Makoni
His soft tone could also help heal the country's bitter divisions and end the years of political lambast and name-calling.

But his critics dismiss him as a political lightweight within his party and say he will struggle to compete against Mr Mugabe, who will be his main opponent in the March elections.

He was brought in as finance minister in 2000 to restore relations with donors and the business community but failed to change Mr Mugabe's policies.

He was sacked 18 months later after calling for a devaluation of the currency to try and boost exports.

Mr Mugabe said those who wanted a devaluation were "economic saboteurs".

Mr Makoni responded by cheerfully introducing himself as "Saboteur".

But until he announced his candidature for the elections, he remained a member of Zanu-PF's policy-making body, the politburo and so must share some of the blame for the country's economic woes.

Heavyweight backing

He nevertheless tried his best to distance himself from the crisis.

"Let me confirm that I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships that we all have endured for nearly 10 years now," he said.


SIMBA MAKONI
Zanu-PF moderniser
1980: Named deputy minister aged 30
2002: Sacked as finance minister after argument with Mugabe
2002: Went to South Africa
Possible support of Zanu-PF heavyweight Solomon Mujuru
Trained chemist
And despite saying he would have preferred to stand as a Zanu-PF candidate, he strongly criticised its leaders.

"I also share the widely-held view that these hardships are a result of failure of national leadership and that change at that level is a pre-requisite for change at other levels of national endeavour."

But he is believed to have the backing of Zanu-PF heavyweight Solomon Mujuru, whose wife Joyce is vice-president.

Zimbabwean political analyst John Makumbe said that if the former army chief is indeed backing Mr Makoni, then the Zanu-PF vote would be split in the 29 March election - boosting the chances of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which is also fielding two candidates.

"This is a significant development," he said. "We are beginning to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel."

Scandal-free

At just 57, he comes from a different generation to the octogenarians currently running the country and its ruling party.

While the party old-guard were fighting the 1970s guerrilla war of independence, Mr Makoni was studying chemistry in Britain.

He is very approachable and ready to laugh - unlike Mugabe
Priscilla Misihairabwi
Opposition MP
But he also found time to represent Zanu in Europe and clearly made an impression.

When the first post-independence government was formed, he was appointed deputy minister of agriculture at just 30.

Over the next four years he served as minister of energy and of youth before abruptly leaving government.

"He was too hot to handle," one long-time associate told the BBC.

"He was too clever and too young for the older members of the party. They wanted him out of the way."

Mr Makoni went on to become Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community, (SADC), a job which he says required "a fine balance between high principles and pragmatism".

Ms Misihairabwi says that Mr Makoni is also untainted by allegations of corruption or scandal.

"He is very approachable and ready to laugh - unlike Mugabe," she said.

"There is a real excitement about this but whether that will translate into votes is another question."

Friday, 15 December, 2000, 15:38 GMT
Simba Makoni: Waiting in the wings?
By Grant Ferrett in Harare
Simba Makoni is the most popular figure in a deeply unpopular government.

Appointed in July following the country's bloodiest and most divisive general election campaign since independence two decades ago, he's widely liked and respected.


Friends and critics alike agree that he's extremely clever and has a reputation for integrity.

The puzzle is why he accepted the almost impossible job of finance minister at a time when the economy is collapsing and shows every sign of getting worse.

Rise - and fall

By the standards of the ruling party, Zanu-PF, Simba Makoni has reached high office at a relatively young age.

Compared with President Mugabe and his two vice presidents, all of whom are in their late 70s, Mr Makoni is a youngster at just 50.


While the party old-guard were fighting the liberation war in the 1970s, Simba Makoni was studying chemistry in Britain, gaining a BSc and a PhD.

But as well as being a student, he went on to represent Zanu in Europe.

He clearly made an impression.

When the first post-independence government was formed, Simba Makoni was appointed deputy minister of agriculture. He was 30.

Over the next four years he served as minister of energy and of youth before abruptly leaving government.

"He was too hot to handle," says one long-time associate.

"He was too clever and too young for the older members of the party.

"They wanted him out of the way."

High profile

Mr Makoni was down but far from out.

He became Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community, (SADC), a job which he says required "a fine balance between high principles and pragmatism".

As, in effect, the most senior civil servant in the organisation at a time when regional and world attention was focused on ending apartheid in South Africa, Mr Makoni gained a great deal of international experience and exposure.

"He learnt a great deal," says one colleague.

"He returned to Zimbabwe a far sharper and more polished performer."

Return to the fold

President Mugabe's decision to appoint him as minister of finance was welcomed on all sides, but it carried risks for both men.

In giving a very senior post to someone of such obvious popularity and relative youth, Mr Mugabe has invited unfavourable comparisons.
A recent opinion poll suggested that Simba Makoni was the most serious challenger to Mr Mugabe's leadership among ordinary Zanu-PF members.

Among fellow party politicians he's

Craig Timberg spinning against ZANU and Mugabe.

Western journalist who write on Zimbabwe are perhaps the worst of their type. When did ZANU, Mbeki, and the MDC agree to a transitional constitution? Why would there be a need to amend the existing constitution (amendment 18) if all the parties had agreed to a new 'transtional' constitution? Why amend a thing that all have agreed to replace?

The problem with Craig is that he doubles up as an MDC activist and journalist at the same time. What rot!!! Intentionally misleading his readership in support of the Puppet party!

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 4, 2008; Page A17


HARARE, Zimbabwe, Feb. 3 -- Reunification talks between leaders of Zimbabwe's fractured opposition collapsed Sunday, giving the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe a powerful boost heading into elections next month.

The two opposition factions, which both claim the name Movement for Democratic Change, immediately announced plans to run separate candidates for the country's major offices, splitting the anti-government vote and weakening their chances of ending Mugabe's 28-year rule of a country now in steep economic decline.

The development undid months of intense negotiations aimed at healing a rift that opened in 2005, shortly after the last national vote, over the leadership style of Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's most prominent opposition leader.

Both sides had agreed to run on a single ticket headed by Tsvangirai. But in meetings over the past two days, the factions could not agree on how to select candidates for parliamentary seats. In the face of renewed stalemate, both sides renounced all previous agreements.

"Everything was done," said Gabriel Chaibva, spokesman for the faction led by Arthur Mutambara, Tsvangirai's leading rival.

Chaibva acknowledged that a divided opposition would find it hard to mount a credible challenge to Mugabe. "This is the tragedy. Obviously, united we stand, divided we fall," he said.

The presidential vote scheduled for March 29 will now pit Mugabe against Tsvangirai and Mutambara. Mugabe's ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, won elections against a unified opposition in 2000, 2002 and 2005 amid widespread allegations of irregularities. The opposition has said Mugabe rigged those votes.

But the Movement for Democratic Change has weakened in recent years and consistently failed to mount major protests.

Tsvangirai said at a news conference Sunday afternoon that he did everything possible to bring the sides together. "If there is anyone who took the high road to bring this agreement together, it is me," he said.

Of the continued division, he added: "It is regrettable. It is unfortunate. But that is the reality."

The day's events also seemed to mark the final unraveling of talks led by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was dispatched by southern African leaders to mediate the long-standing political stalemate in Zimbabwe after police brutalized Tsvangirai and dozens of opposition activists last March.

Mbeki had made what appeared to be considerable progress, meeting with Mugabe's deputies and leaders of both opposition factions. Together, they had agreed to a transitional constitution incorporating significant new rights. The talks also led to a relaxation of laws restricting political activity and newsgathering.

But Mugabe rejected opposition demands to either implement the constitution, with its new freedoms, ahead of the elections or delay the vote beyond March. By setting an election date of March 29, Mugabe gave the opposition little time to overcome its daunting internal divisions. Parties must submit their lists of candidates by Friday.

Zimbabwe opposition says coalition talks have collapsed

HARARE (AFP) — A bid by Zimbabwe's opposition parties to present a united challenge to President Robert Mugabe in elections on March 29 has collapsed, leaders from two of the main factions said Sunday.
"This thing is irretrievably broken," Arthur Mutambara told reporters after a series of meetings between his bloc of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and another led by former trade unionists ended in deadlock.
"People of Zimbabwe, we apologise for failing to construct a united front," Mutambara said, saying that the chances of defeating Mugabe in elections scheduled for March 29 were now sharply "reduced."
"There is a disagreement," Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the other, larger MDC faction said at a separate news conference.
"We can't force it (unity) down the people's throat. It's regrettable, it's unfortunate, but that's the reality."
Both factions would participate in next month's polls despite conditions Tsvangirai said favoured Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
"We are giving the people of Zimbabwe a fighting chance against the dictatorship," Tsvangirai said. "We aim to focus on Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF as the authors of the present national crisis.
"The challenge we have got is that we are going into this election fully aware of the unfavourable conditions."
Political analyst Augustine Timbe said the split would hand victory to ZANU-PF.
"The votes for those who do not like the ruling party will be scattered between the various opposition candidates while those who have always supported the ruling party will stick to it," he said.
"The opposition has always spoken about creating an alternative government but where making important decisions is concerned, they have been found wanting," Timbe said.
Godfrey Chikowore, an analyst in the University of Zimbabwe's Institute of Development Studies, agreed the opposition's chances looked worse than ever.
"If the opposition was serious it should have put its house in order long back," he told AFP.
Mutambara said disagreement over seat allocations had been the dealbreaker.
"From haggling over two seats last night, this morning our colleagues came back to us demanding 20 more seats in Matabeleland even where we have sitting MPs," he said.
"At the same time they are not prepared to make such concessions in Harare."
Matabeleland is considered a stronghold of the Mutambara faction while the group led by Morgan Tsvangirai is dominant in Harare.
"In the absence of an agreement, we have no choice but to go right ahead and provide leadership in this country," said Mutambara.
"This means from this place we're going out in the country to work out our nominations for the presidency, 210 members of parliament, senators and councillors. Morgan Tsvangirai is not our candidate for the presidency of this country."
Once a formidable force posing the stiffest challenge to Mugabe's more than two-decade stranglehold on power, the MDC was riven by factionalism following a row over senate elections in 2006.
The factions temporarily set their differences aside and vowed to launch a united front against Mugabe last year after Tsvangirai and other party members were beaten by security forces breaking up an opposition rally.
Amid regional attempts to mediate an election framework between the MDC and the ruling ZANU-PF, Mugabe announced last month that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on March 29.
The MDC has been pushing for the poll to be held only after a new constitution was in place.
The 83-year-old Mugabe, who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, is widely blamed for his country's economic meltdown, with annual inflation officially put at nearly 8,000 percent.
Mugabe has blamed sanctions imposed by the European Union and United States after he allegedly rigged his re-election in 2002.

British Journalists and Press sympathetic to Simon Mann.

Below, one can not miss Peta's intention to portray the dog of war Simon Mann in a positive light. A shameless endevour on Peta's part especially when she is aware of the civil strife people like Mann have sown in African states. Read how Peta tries to paint an evil 'African' cannibal out of the Equatorial Guinea's leader. A very ancient 'racist' tactic whites use against Africans who stand up to their mischiefs and greed.

By Peta Thornycroft

Convicted mercenary Simon Mann was seized from his tiny cell at the maximum-security prison Chikurubi in Harare in the early hours of Thursday and rushed to an Air Force security base near Harare International Airport.

He was briefly detained there before being deported to Equatorial Guinea - the oil-rich country whose dictatorial leader he was accused of trying to overthrow in an aborted coup in March 2004.

President Robert Mugabe's government delivered him to the potential horrors of Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea's capital Malabo, while his lawyers were still appealing against his deportation.

'It is illegal. He has been abducted'
Well-placed sources said that Obiang's government sent an aircraft to Harare to collect Mann hours after he lost an appeal against his deportation order in the Harare High court on Wednesday - and before his lawyers were able to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Mann's lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, on Friday accused the Zimbabwean authorities of illegally "abducting" Mann. Samkange then lost a legal bid to have Mann returned from Equatorial Guinea late on Friday.

High Court judge Alfas Chitakunye dismissed Samkange's application for Mann's extradition to be reversed and for him to be returned to Harare.

Mann has opposed the deportation order all along on the grounds that he would be tortured in Equatorial Guinea as other members of the coup plot allegedly have been.

"It is illegal. He has been abducted," said Jonathan Samkange, his lawyer.

'I will be a dead man'
"Deporting a person at night is not only mischievous but unlawful."

A new wing has been built at Black Beach jail and the regime says that conditions have improved since Amnesty International reported in 2005 that prisoners routinely starved to death. Nguema's regime has pledged to refrain from torturing or executing Mann.

But Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich dictatorship formerly ruled by Spain, has one of Africa's worst human rights records.

Mann, who served a four-year sentence in Zimbabwe for trying to buy weapons, made frantic efforts to avoid extradition. He once told his lawyer that if he was ever sent there, "I will be a dead man".

It is understood that Mann tried to resist being taken out of his Chikurubi cell around midnight on Wednesday.

Mann told the officials who had come to collect him that he had an appeal against his deportation pending at the Supreme Court. However the officials ignored his pleas and bundled Mann out of the prison under heavy security and took him to Manyame Air Force base.

He was on a plane to Equatorial Guinea by about 1am on Thursday morning.

Mann's lawyers are insisting that he should be returned to Zimbabwe because he was deported in violation of the law.

This was because they had given notice that they would file an appeal against High Court judge Rita Makarau's ruling on Wednesday upholding an earlier decision to deport him.

"Once Mann's lawyers had noted their intention to appeal at the Supreme Court, his deportation should have been stopped pending a decision of the higher courts," said one lawyer, who did not want to be named. Mann's lawyers will go to the Supreme Court on Monday to try to persuade the country's highest court to have him returned.

But that appears to be a futile exercise as Zimbabwe's Supreme Court is stuffed by Mugabe's cronies. The deal to have Mann deported was apparently struck between Mugabe and EG President Teodoro Obiang Nguema when the two leaders visited each other in their respective capitals last year.

Some observers believe that Mugabe has in effect sold Mann for oil as Equatorial Guinea has been helping bankrupt Zimbabwe with the precious commodity.

Nguema is a African leader of the old school. In power since a coup in 1979, he has built an adulatory personality cult. State radio has declared Nguema a "god" who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell".

Some reports - unproven and unverifiable - suggest that Nguema might have been an occasional cannibal, in the mould of despots like Idi Amin in Uganda.

Equatorial Guinea is Africa's third biggest oil producer. Since the alleged plot was uncovered, Nguema has become an ally of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, supplying Harare's cash-strapped regime with fuel.

British-born Mann, a former member of the British special forces and a mercenary, was living in Cape Town in 2004 when he allegedly hatched a plot with others Britons and South Africans to topple Obiang in a coup and replace him with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.

But SA intelligence sources apparently got wind of the plan and tipped off the Zimbabweans.

When a chartered aircraft full of hired mercenaries landed at Harare airport in March 2004 to collect a consignment of arms which Mann had ordered from the Zimbabwe arms parastatal, Mann and about 70 other men were arrested.

A little later, in Malabo, the South African ex-mercenary Nick du Toit and several other South African and foreign accomplices, were also arrested.

The Du Toit group was tried in Malabo and convicted of planning a coup to be launched when Mann and his men arrived on the island in their chartered aircraft loaded with weapons.

Du Toit was sentenced to 34 years in prison and the others were given lesser sentences. Most are still sitting in Black Beach prison where they claim to have been tortured.

Zimbabwe sends British mercenary to face the despot he plotted to overthrow
By Andy McSmith and Basildon Peta
Saturday, 2 February 2008

The alleged leader of a foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea was taken from his cell at a maximum-security prison in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in the early hours of Thursday and despatched to an air force base near Harare airport where he was briefly detained and then deported.

Fears of what now lies in store for him will be exacerbated by a sudden decision by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema to cancel a visit to Equatorial Guinea by the UN special rapporteur on torture. Mann is expected to be held in Black Beach prison, in Malubo, the Equatorial Guinea capital. Conditions there are said to have improved since Amnesty International issued a warning in 2005 that the inmates were in danger of starving to death on their daily ration of a cup of rice and one or two bread rolls.

In Zimbabwe, Mann's lawyers had pleaded against extradition on the grounds that he would be tortured if he fell into the hands of the African ruler whose overthrow he is accused of plotting in 2004.

Mann's lawyers are insisting that he should be returned because he was deported in violation of the law, after they had indicated that they were filing an appeal against a decision of a High Court judge Rita Makarau, who had ruled in favour of Mann's deportation on Wednesday. She said Mann's team had failed to come up with convincing evidence that Mr Nguema practises torture on political opponents.

He was on a plane to Malabo at about 1am on Thursday, apparently under an agreement between the Zimbabwean and Equatorial Guinean authorities. In the morning, his lawyer Jonathan Samkange lodged an appeal in the Zimbabwe Supreme Court, only to learn that his client was "missing".

It is another twist in an extraordinary life of an officer and a gentleman who seems to have stepped out of the pages of a Victorian penny thriller. Mann's father, George, and his grandfather, Frank, heirs to the Watneys brewery fortune, both captained the England cricket team. The only other father-and-son combination to have done that are Colin and Chris Cowdrey.

Mann himself, born in 1952, went to Eton and Sandhurst, joined the Scots Guards and served in the SAS until 1981. Early in the 1990s he set up Executive Outcomes, a security consultancy which earned millions guarding Angolan oil installations against rebel attacks. He then joined a fellow former Scots Guardsman, Tim Spicer, to set up Sandline International, which smuggled arms into Sierra Leone to help bring down the regime of Foday Sanko and restore President Ahmed Kabbah to office.

In March 2004, Mann was arrested at Harare airport after he touched down in a plane carrying more than 60 mercenaries, most from South Africa, and a huge quantity of arms. They claimed to be on their way to guard diamond mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mann was sentenced to seven years for breaking immigration laws, and was expected to be released last year.

In Equatorial Guinea, an advance party of 19 men, including the Afrikaner arms dealer, Nick du Toit, received long jail terms. Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former prime minister, was arrested in South Africa and received a heavy fine for helping to finance the coup.

Du Toit's wife has claimed he was tortured, provoking fears that the same is in store for Mann. Mr Nguema has a fearsome reputation, though there is no evidence to support the more lurid stories about him, such as his supposed habit of eating his victims' testicles. But Marise Castro, of Amnesty International, said there were three known cases in 2007 of petty offenders being beaten to death by the police in Equatorial Guinea.

Mann was whisked to Equatorial Guinea on the very day that the UN special rapporteur, Manfred Nowak, was due to begin a 10-day visit to look into allegations of torture. Professor Nowak was told "at very short notice" that the visit was being put off because of "urgent government business". He contacted Equatorial Guinea's Vice-Prime Minister for Human Rights, Aniceto Ebiaka Moete, to ask what this urgent business was, and was told that the government was updating its electoral register.

Professor Nowak's spokesman said: "The special rapporteur wishes to remind the government of Equatorial Guinea that fact-finding missions are planned long in advance and require extensive research as well as logistical and financial resources on the part of the special rapporteur. It is therefore with strong regret that the special rapporteur accepted this postponement."

The men behind the 'coup'

* Nick Du Toit

A South African arms dealer and former commando, he was jailed for 34 years in November 2004 after confessing to his role in the coup allegedly masterminded by Simon Mann. Du Toit, 51, withdrew his confession before his trial, claiming it was forced out of him under torture.

* Severo Moto

Moto is the exiled, self-styled "president" of Equatorial Guinea, who allegedly would have been installed in power in Malubo had the coup succeeded. In 1997, he was arrested in Angola, where the authorities found him aboard a boat laden with arms. He then sought exile in Spain, where he still lives. The Spanish government was accused by Equatorial Guinea of complicity in the 2004 coup attempt. He was sentenced in his absence to 63 years in prison.

* Sir Mark Thatcher

The former prime minister's son is an old friend of Mann, and they brokered a number of business deals together. The South African authorities intercepted a letter from Mann saying he was expecting £111,000 in US currency from "Scratcher" – his nickname for Sir Mark – as an investment in the coup. Sir Mark was fined £250,000 and received a four-year suspended jail term. As a result, he was refused a residence visa in America.

* Eli Calil

The Lebanese-born businessman was accused by the government of Equatorial Guinea of financing the alleged coup, but this has never been proved.

* Jeffrey Archer

Four days before the planned date of the coup, £74,000 was deposited in Mann's account by one JH Archer. Lord Archer categorically denied any involvement in the coup, and was not accused of wrongdoing.


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Peta Thornycraft is getting even more schizophrenic

'Injured' Simon Mann may still be in Zimbabwe

By Peta Thornycroft in Johannesburg and Byron Dziva in Harare
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 04/02/2008

The whereabouts of Simon Mann remains unknown as his lawyer said that Zimbabwe's regime may not have deported him to Equatorial Guinea.

Instead, the former SAS officer may have been injured by police and then hidden in a secret location inside Zimbabwe. The alleged mercenary has served a four-year sentence in Chikurubi maximum security prison outside Harare for attempting to buy weapons.

Last week, the authorities said that Mann, 55, had been deported to the West African state of Equatorial Guinea, where he is accused of plotting to overthrow the regime in return for a share of the country's oil wealth.
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Mann is known to have disappeared from his prison cell before Jonathan Samkange, his lawyer, could appeal to the supreme court to halt the extradition.

At first, Mr Samkange believed that his client, an old Etonian and the son of a former England cricket captain, had been sent to Equatorial Guinea.

But new evidence suggests that Mann may still be in Zimbabwe. Mr Samkange said that he had checked the "occurrence book" at Chikurubi jail, which records all movements of prisoners in and out.

"Simon Mann should have signed that book when he left. He did not sign it," said the lawyer. "I went to Chikurubi at midday on Thursday. I was told by officials at the prison that Simon Mann was screaming as they dragged him out, and he was crying for me. He told them that he could not leave without me - he knew his rights, that I had to be there."

Mr Samkange added: "I believe that he resisted them and that he has been injured and they are hiding him until he recovers."

Mann left behind all his personal possessions in his cell, including some letters from his family.

Journalism: Lamentations to a profession that died

Journalism: Lamentations to a profession that died



A week before the Zanu-PF Extraordinary Congress, I played reluctant host to a young journalist seeking to make a confession. His road to my office had been a trying and circuitous one, punctuated by many detours, many misses, many turns, until finally he made it. Still his tribulations were not over.

He had heard about my fiery temper. He knew he had wronged me enough to invite it. I did not. Still he did find any safety in my ignorance. I am not so sure why, but in the media world, I am perceived as high-handed.

The rumour is I wield a very swift hand, one made swifter and a little deadly by Japanese senseis (instructors) I have gone through. It is true I have my own share of human temper.

So does everyone. It is also true, on a few occasions I have used this faculty to remake the world a bit, to my liking. While once in long whiles I have pulled handsome fights, created a few gaps in a couple of mouths, broken a few limbs, I swear I did pretty little of this to merit this dubious fame.

Holier than a pontiff

So this reluctant confessor dragged himself to my office, courage and pride limping. He cut such a pitiful image, too paralysing to summon even an iota of my anger. There I sat, an expectant pontiff before a sinner of Tony Blair’s proportion (he is now a catholic, many thanks to President Mugabe, his backhanded idol).

Past niceties of introductions, he cut straight in. And soon, the horror, the horror! Right before me was one of the many ghost writers feeding into websites that have ruined the good image of the Republic. And that of those governing it. Before this heinous contract, his publishing employer had folded up.

But not his burdens of raising his family, burdens which seemed to magnify and multiply with each day of unemployment. "Inzara mukoma," he underlined, plaintively. For once I felt like validating my reputation. "I even wrote on you, using a false name to cover my back. I hear you punch hard." I do, and maybe I should, this honest bastard! Thankfully discretion overrules valour, and I sit there — most reassuring, calmer, holier than any pontiff that ever said Amen.

I hear how for two long years, this man has been working with a foreign government in a propaganda war against Zimbabwe; how this long relationship has been ruined by non-payment for dishonest work so diligently done.

He has not been paid. He has not heard from the paymaster who lives somewhere in Lutton, only a few days from Christmas. How is he supposed to manage? His children have not eaten a hot meal for days. They expect new apparel for Christmas. His anger mounts and conveys him to my office, hoping for some solution.

Trading traitors among us

For this money, he has mounted daily pilgrimages to the paranoid structures of this foreign power. He has met that government’s local point-man — a below-forty young graduate, previously with Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, previously with Swedish International Development Agency, now handed over to this foreign government in a friendly act of coordinating efforts for "a new Zimbabwe".

Still no payments done; still no firm commitment. He threatens to escalate things, such as by spilling all beans to the Zimbabwe Government. Curiously, I seem a detour between that foreign fortress and the Zimbabwe Government.

He adds that many more such ghost writers are just as unpaid, just as upset, and as ready to spill the beans. The man looked genuinely unpaid, besieged by the demands of an expectant family struggling somewhere in a high density suburb to the West of my office. But beyond his predicament, I needed soaking detail, and am determined to prise it out of his skull, whether round or smashed. I am given a whole roll call of the many he works with in this dark enterprise against the republic.

The list cuts across titles, both public and private. It encompasses some freelancers, a real miscellany of personages feeding from this one trough. But to me all that is a red herring.

I need in precise terms the nature of the interface with this foreign power, via its mediating local staffer.

Worse than Allende’s Chile

I work on the environmentals, until the man is relaxed and trusting. He starts dropping precious nuggets which I cannot repeat here, but all indicating a complex programme of psychological warfare which only Allende’s Chile may recognise. Even then, Allende’s age was well before America turned the internet into a civilian portal. It got me thinking.

We have trained so many Zimbabweans. We now have so many interpreters in our newsrooms. Yet we seem to have lost so many of them who now stand beholden to hostile foreign powers. How so? My informant went much further.

"Mukoma hazvinetsi. Zvinodikwa nevanhu ava [commissioning foreign powers] tinozviziva. You just look for stories

which damn the system; which confirm their expectations, serves and uphold their mischaracterisation of the Zanu-PF Government.

Where you cannot get such stories, you make them up. I am told how the money gets to each and every one of the players, often using the well-meant home-link banking portal. As his confidence mounts, more is yielded: "You have two categories of stories: those which you originate; those for which they provide leads.

"They are always harder in respect of the latter, for these are the most damaging ones, the most needed." Like getting the interior of the President’s new home! I am told of how hostile intelligence services provide these leads.

"We have a whole line up of sources we always turn to carry our story to predetermined ends. If you doubt this, check all Congress stories against this list of sources." I was given the full list of authorised and approved knowers, and cross-checked with Congress copy. Good gracious me, to the name! Are they also on payroll? He cannot quite say, and I know why.

Swelling the lie, authenticating it

But I also got confirmation on a phenomenon I had always noticed: internet-driven snowballing effect to a given falsehood. You push a lie through one website; the lie gets an echo through sister ghost websites who quickly pick it up and run with it, at all times lacing it with authenticating comment. Until it graduates and matures into the mainstream media. That way, it becomes a "truth" against "Robert Mugabe’s mad regime".

It is even more helpful if reputed agencies like Reuters, AFP and AP, pick it up. And where these cannot, you can always push it through the UN-related but western sponsored IRIN. Much later, the story is rehashed by a local NGO which lifts it from this web-based cesspool into "a human rights review/update report".

The report is then launched with much fanfare in Johannesburg or London. That way the lie is refreshed and given the weight of "a study". NGO reports constitute third level authentication. After these rituals, a case for human rights abuse has been made, ready for some tabling in Addis, Geneva or New York.

One begins to understand how fiction is slowly and carefully turned to fact; understand how manufactured fact soon transfigures into a foreign policy goal and a virtual human rights charge sheet against a sitting Government.

Newsrooms as safe houses

Not far back we had a story from one newsroom where an irate junior reporter challenged the authority of his editor, reminding the poor editor how his income far surpassed his, many times over.

The insouciant journalist did not need an editor who constantly barked instructions to him, a news editor who severely edited his stories. His income came from elsewhere. The furious editor showed him the door. He quickly and happily walked through it, seemingly to oblivion.

But no, to this day he eats well, eats better than his editor. Editors will tell you there is nothing unusual about this encounter which is becoming a daily affair. We have a new breed of reporters for whom newsrooms are safe houses, journalists who are employed elsewhere but who need formal newsrooms for cover. But I have also watched as journalists who can’t even construct a decent "intro" have hit fame, have ended up well decorated abroad.

I have seen journalists who have committed great offences against the profession, but get hailed and crowned as shibboleth of the profession. Soon, they are airlifted to work from some sumptuous apartments in a foreign country, to live happily ever after.

How much ?

Whichever way you look at it, Zimbabwe’s complex politics badly need new language, new writers, new texts. Real Zimbabwe has simply become ungraspable, very hard to reach. Between Zimbabwe and the rest of the world stands this phalanx of foreign paid journalists for whom inventing untruths brings fabulous rewards, all US-dollar denominated.

Old journalism used to insist on four "Ws", and a lonely "H". The four Ws were who, what, where and when. The lonely H was an occasionally how. Not much has changed since. But today Zimbabwe journalism challenges all these lessons, and places on record its strange contribution to theories on the craft. It aggressively tells the world that well before the four "Ws", journalism must answer the all-important HM: "How Much?"

Not many in the media admit to this. It does not matter. Nor does it take away the one despairing fact that for Zimbabwe journalism, the purse dictates to, and remoulds facts. Or the obverse, that the purse factualises falsehoods. I challenge anyone in the media to contest this lofty point.

What is worse, we are talking about a foreign purse. Zimbabwe journalism is being paid for, and is driven by foreigners, dirty foreigners standing in for foreign regimes and interests. Increasingly, we are having to face that grim fact that newsrooms have become extensions of the arcane world of spooks, the grim fact of newspersons becoming spooks themselves, often playing the high game of espionage and subversion. This follows Walter Kainesteiner’s foreboding announcement a few years back, that US foreign policy on Zimbabwe would challenge Zimbabwe’s sovereignty through journalists. Also mentioned were church leaders, which is why we have Christian Alliance and the Bakare factor in national politics.

I hope the reader recalls that the US’s latest so-called Democracy Report underlined this strategy, even assessing how it has panned out since.

When news died

What is the result? Devastating! News has died, amidst a multitude of shaping occurrences. News has become synonymous with carving Dickensian vignettes out of politicians who mean well for their people. Far from being figures of truthful witness, journalists have become principal tools for privileging naked, sponsored lies, all calculated to move foreign policy goals of states hostile to the Republic.

Patriotism is un-journalistic. Defending the national interest is betraying Pulitzer. As if Pulitzer was a black Zimbabwean, Nehanda’s contemporary and fellow comrade! The boundary between party manifestos and journalistic features daily wears thinner and thinner.

Read The Zimbabwean and tell me what you make of it. The industry now has damning prototypes. Grace Kwinjeh, William Bango, Pedzisayi Ruhanya and Luke Tambolinyoka smash the myth of the media as an estate in its own right, one counterpoising the first three. They personify journalism hired by degraded opposition politics, journalism deeply embedded in anti-state politics. Today many in the industry see these characters as personifying the acme of excellence.

How sad! Geoff Nyarota is equally interesting. One time editor of the Daily News, Nyarota bred many who now crowd Harvest House, and worship the lame Tsvangirai. Or who hang about Harvest House, unsure. He minded the hatchery quite well, and gave the British cause its manpower. He revealed the genetic link between the newsroom and sponsored open dissent. But he also means much more.

His own confessions (done safely from abroad) proudly proclaims him as a co-conspirator in mediated regime change scenarios. Who says journalists wait to cover events? You can also ask Munodawafa at Liberators Platform. When news takes too long to be made, just jump into the fray.

Gyrating to a foreign drum

Then you have our Grace Mutandwa, our Sam Kaerezi, our Sizani Weza. In them journalism gets directly ridden by a foreign cause. I could go on and on, dramatising possibilities and distortions which each career implies, indeed dramatising the monetary futures which Zanu-PF’s fallout with the West has carved for this profession. At the end of it all, it is a sordid tale of a great betrayal, of interpreters who followed the rhythm of a foreign drum.

We have a new generation of writers who bed and swap causes far better than harlots; a new generation of editors who have become austere and unforgiving pimps that punctually and dutifully keep the stoeps to busy propaganda brothels.

Newsrooms have become redder, dimmer and foul-smelling anterooms to propaganda whorehouses. The profession today smells fetid, carries the repelling aroma of failed ethics. The wonder is why in this my father’s house falsehoods get so sensuously licked, so prolifically mated.

In what Zimbabwe calls news, truth writhes and wriggles, impaled on concrete blocks of vacuous, but well-backed lies. And the whoremaster sits atop this steaming mount, distributing honeyed patronage to our journalists, most of whom are too eager, too ready even for perfunctory advances and courtship. Cry the beloved profession. Icho!

l nathanielmanheru@zimpapers.co.zw

A breadbasket that never was ours

A breadbasket that never was ours

By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

THE current signature on most political editorials in the Western media on Zimbabwe is likely to be something to the effect that the Southern African country was once the breadbasket of the region and that now the country has been reduced to "a basket case".

Some daring commentators have even inferred that Ian Smith’s Rhodesia was better than the modern-day Zimbabwe.

Some locals have boldly made declarations that their old days of canvas and plastic shoes for the privileged and bare feet for the common man were way better than the life of today.

This has been the sequel of eight years of economic recession — a recession so gleefully celebrated by those in opposition politics as an opportunity to push the incumbent Government out of power and so heartily cherished by the unscrupulous element of the ruling elite as well as crooked businesspeople who have seized the crisis as a magnificent chance to amass ill-gotten wealth at the expense of the Zimbabwean masses.

This writer will assert once more that the current challenges facing Zimbabwe are rooted in the land reform programme as adopted in the year 2000 and the suffering has been executed by systematic isolation of Zimbabwe as effected by Britain’s committed efforts to ensure that the land reform programme is reversed at best or compromised at worst.

This writer will also point out that while the common Zimbabwean today owns the current status of the economy, with its successes and failures there was definitely no indigenous ownership to the breadbasket status that Zimbabwe is often touted as having once commanded.

Here goes the history of the breadbasket Zimbabwe — that "economic success" that was a product of indigenous people occupying 20 859 350 acres while the white settlers held 48 065 055 acres out of a total of 96 213 120 acres that makes up the entire country.

That was despite the fact that there was only one white person to every 25 indigenous people.

Of course, this is the breadbasket that black Zimbabweans are said to have once proudly owned before President Mugabe "ruined" the basket with his "unsound" policies.

The above shareholding statistics speak volumes on who actually owned the breadbasket but more to it, it might be necessary to look at how the whole set up built up to where it was before the land reform programme.

Cecil John Rhodes founded Rhodesia as a by-product of the South African gold mining industry as he believed that Zimbabwe was a "Second Rand".

This led to Rhodes and his rogue colleagues like Rudd and Robert Moffat tricking King Lobengula into "signing" mineral concessions — in turn leading to the occupation of Zimbabwe by the Pioneer Column in 1890.

The 1896 First Chimurenga could not stop the imperial tide and Rhodes proceeded to run his mining enterprises on forced labour enforced by the Rhodesian Labour Bureau.

However, Zimbabwe did not exactly turn out to be the "Second Rand" that Rhodes and his BSA Company had dreamt about.

Many of the British settlers Rhodes had misled into leaving Britain for "the Land of Gold" had to turn to agriculture and the settlers became too powerful for Rhodes’ BSA Company and in 1923 they pushed for a self-governing colony with all power vested in the hands of the settler farmers.

By 1902 these settlers had forcibly grabbed 75 percent of the land from the indigenous people and to make sure that this privilege was protected the settler farmers created the 1931 Land Tenure Act that restricted all indigenous people to what the settlers called Native Purchase Areas.

In 1969, the Land Tenure Act was amended to entrench a 50-50 division of land between blacks and whites, despite the fact that there was only one white person to every 25 blacks.

The result of this policy was that by 1970, 98 percent of the land suitable for afforestation, fruit growing and intensive beef production was in the hands of whites, as did 82 percent of the land suitable for intensive farming, while 100 percent of the land unsuitable for any agricultural purpose lay in the hands of blacks.

Before the Second World War, mining and agriculture assumed primary production for the Rhodesian economy. Settler farmers who were just starting off were heavily assisted by the state while the settlers paid next to nothing for African labour provided by the newly created African peasantry whose own indigenous economy had to be destroyed first.

All the settlers had to do was jump onto a horse and peg the length and width of a farm as per personal wish.

All Africans living within the pegged area suddenly became the settler’s serfs, who would have to work for him.

Mobilising this labour was not a big problem because the sjambok or hippo hide whip came in quite handy. Other methods like "chibharo" or forced labour were also used and the demand for hut and poll tax forced the blacks into wage labour.

Meanwhile, the overcrowded blacks in the newly created Tribal Trust Lands or reserves had to make do with overpopulation, overstocking, soil erosion, malnutrition and plain starvation.

This writer, apart from other things, is a geography high school teacher by training and remembers very well how his own high school geography teacher used to blame all the above geographical ills on the "peasants’ ignorance and lack of education and adequate farming skills".

The good old teacher at Zimuto Secondary School used to ridicule "the uneducated peasants" with so much zeal and confidence that our little minds were convinced that our parents were responsible for soil erosion, poverty, malnutrition and overpopulation all because they lacked education.

Every one of his sentences explaining the causes of any of these problems would always begin with "Due to ignorance, these peasants dah da-da da- da-dah . . . "

The good teacher seemed to have good intentions against poverty, overpopulation and all these ills but was surely not telling us the truth about the causes of all these problems.

We did blame our peasant parents in our examination questions and we got flying colours for it and some of us even went on to become geography teachers as well.

This is the kind of brainwashing that will tell us today that blacks are unskilled to farm — that agricultural production has gone down because someone took the uneducated peasants onto productive land and that unless white farmers are brought back onto our commercial farms Zimbabwe "will never be a country again".

Anyway, back to the history of the breadbasket.

Rhodesia moved into manufacturing through the amassing of a huge capital base through agricultural and mineral exports during the Second World War.

There was massive state backing for industrialisation — even resulting in the nationalisation of steel works and spinners.

By 1945 the value of manufacturing output was £14,1 million, having overtaken both agriculture (£9,8 million) and mining (£8,1 million).

The Rhodesian economy grew by more than 10 percent between 1945 and 1953, attracting a lot of capital from Britain.

This led to the creation of the Central African Federation embracing modern-day Malawi and Zambia together with Zimbabwe.

Southern Rhodesia’s manufacturing industry expanded because of the enlarged market and the revenues from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) were devoted to improving the economic infrastructure of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).

By 1957, Southern Rhodesia’s manufacturing output had grown to £105,1 million and foreign investment grew from £200 million to £550 million between 1953 and 1965.

Foreign capital was dominant in beverages, tobacco, chemicals and chemical products and the industrial drive created an urban black working class. By 1960 black wage earners numbered 640 000 and that was 17,8 percent of the black population.

The settler government introduced a "partnership" policy meant to create a black middle class that could be politically and economically integrated into the colonial system for purposes of containing the black proletariat — the so-called peasants.

This middle class was oriented to view peasants as failures who could not make it into the privilege of joining the middle class and those who excelled into upper middle class were openly called "black whites".

The settler regime went on to create the Native Land Husbandry Act aimed at creating a layer of black small-scale capitalist farmers by allowing a few blacks ownership of small plots that were not to be subdivided, that way forcing those without the land into wage labour.

The overriding aim of all this was to preserve white supremacy and Godfrey Huggins described the "partnership policy" as "the partnership of the horse and the rider".

Garfield Todd took this partnership policy a bit too far — in the eyes of the settlers and was removed as prime minister in 1958.

The threat of the black middle class created by the settler regime manifested itself through an African railway workers’ strike that even the sympathetic Todd could not scruple to use troops and emergency powers in thwarting.

This is the time Britain was granting independence to its colonies through peaceful means and these winds of change were also sweeping through Rhodesia.

The settler farmers and their business colleagues could not comprehend the idea of even the most moderate black government in light of the need to protect their monopoly of fertile land as well as skilled and white collar jobs.

They rebelled against the winds of change, giving victory to the Rhodesia Front in the 1962 general election, the appointment of Ian Smith as Prime Minister in 1964 and the Unilateral Declaration of Independence on November 11 1965.

The Federation had broken up in 1963 and Zambia and Malawi had been granted independence in 1964.

Essentially, a radical constituency of settler farmers who had committed themselves to stop the tide of black rule in order to preserve their hold on Zimbabwean land put Ian Smith forward as their commander-in-chief.

Ian Smith went on the offensive cushioning himself against sanctions by Britain and the UN by taking advantage of Rhodesia’s debtor status to retaliate by freezing payments and also holding on to a hostage of foreign capital that was now too large for the reduced market after the break-up of the federation.

Ian Smith also put strict state controls to block the repatriation of profits on foreign investment and also on the outflow of capital.

All foreign controlled firms were Rhodesianised, only leaving their CEOs — mainly white Rhodesians and white South Africans in place.

These industries relied on cheap black labour that was next to free labour.

This set-up meant that Rhodesia’s gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 8 percent between 1966 and 1974 despite the sanctions regime.

The economy in question had a zero social spending on the black population who continued to live on subsistence farming and waged labour or both.

These factors; added to the fact that Britain was not ready to jeopardise its massive investment in Rhodesia and had decided to adopt a watch and see attitude towards Ian Smith as opposed to military intervention helped the Rhodesian settlers to survive.

Smith was so determined to preserve the land interests of white farmers that he snubbed Wilson’s two offers of 1966 and 1968 where Britain wanted to give the settlers independence without black majority rule. Smith’s ultras could not accept those terms because he now trusted no one.

After all, Ian Smith now had the financial backing of apartheid South Africa through the Verwoerd and the Vorster administrations.

South Africa filled in the investment gap created by the sanctions and it is against this background that Ian Smith could afford to vow that "not in a thousand years" would blacks ever make a government in his Rhodesia.

The liberation war by the gallant freedom fighters composed of Zanla and Zipra guerrillas brought Ian Smith to the negotiating table, not the sanctions.

It is at these negotiations that the Lancaster House agreements were hammered out in 1979.

Britain was trying to reach a balance where its own investment interests would be protected and at the same time trying to protect the interests of the arrogant white settlers.

That is when the pledge to compensate willing sellers was made and that is when the commitment to review the process after 10 years was also made.

The elections came in 1980, a black majority government led by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe emerged and the settler farmers retreated to their farms and started to do serious farming and were happier with the disappearance of tight controls over the repatriation of profits.

That enabled them to have huge offshore accounts. Agricultural exports increased and the blacks continued to be a source of cheap labour while Western donor funding for rural social projects played a pacifying role to ensure that the landless peasants would not temper with the "breadbasket".

There was not much that came out of the willing buyer-willing seller arrangement all the way until 1990 when the agreement expired.

Efforts by the Government to designate some of the land for redistribution were thwarted in the courts of law as about all of the affected settler farmers took their cases to court.

Meanwhile, the Government had been duped into accepting that Washington 10-point plan for the New World Order which was disguised as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme and the massive retrenchments and privatisation of essential services only created a more dependent black population as it also provided a bigger pool of cheap labour for the settler farmers who had to expand their cash crop production with little regard for the production of the staple maize crop.

That was meant to create a more starving population that would have to trade their labour more cheaply in exchange for a wage to buy imported cereals which, given access to productive land; they could easily produce themselves.

When the peasants finally decided to take matters into their own hands and started occupying the white-held lands it was like another UDI for Britain and her allies.

Unfortunately for the Zimbabwe Government, they could not arrest the profits and capital in the agricultural sector as Ian Smith did just because unlike in Smith’s case the settler farmers were now the enemy and not the ally.

The Britain-mobilised sanctions have been harmful for Zimbabwe because no one has played the role that was played by Vorster and Verwoerd of South Africa to cushion Ian Smith.

The investors of Ian Smith’s time largely co-operated with the Rhodesianisation of industry unlike today’s investors who are playing all sorts of games to destroy the Zimbabwean Government’s efforts at indigenisation.

In short, Ian Smith had the minority business clique on his side against the sanctions while the Zimbabwe Government has the majority poor on its side against the sanctions.

Naturally, Ian Smith’s army of capitalist paid a lesser price with the sanctions regime than what the poor Zimbabwean masses are paying right now.

The only price that the settler capitalist could not pay was the price that was needed to stop the blazing guns from the determined and ever advancing freedom fighters.

What must be noted is that Ian Smith had his victories against the sanctions regime but could not defeat the power of the masses.

It is now a battle of the same sanctions against the same masses and like history will always tell nothing can destroy a people’s power.

The masses of Zimbabwe have taken back what belongs to their heritage and they are in the process of creating their own breadbasket since the one preached so much about was never ours.

As this writer has asserted before, this war against Zimbabwe is not a war against President Mugabe or the ruling Zanu-PF.

It is a war against the poor masses of Zimbabwe and this is why some in the ruling elite must start learning how best to serve the revolution as opposed to how best the revolution must serve them.

The people of Zimbabwe are not at the service of their leadership.

It is the leadership that is at the service of the people and that is the only attitude that will bring victory to this revolution.

The revolution now needs a big shaking to ensure that all foreign bodies are shaken away and there should be zero mercy with corrupt leaders.

l Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk