Friday, 20th February 2009

Howzit

Foreign currency mid-rates updated,

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Not so long ago, we read that these people - Constantine Chiwenga, Augustine Chihuri, Perence Shiri and Paradzai Zimondi - would refuse to salute Morgan Tsvangirai if he became Prime Minister. Now they seem to have relented...

Months ago, when this photograph first surfaced, I
queried as to whether the police officer was charged...

"Zimbabwe's security chiefs have pledged to work with the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to restore the rule of law, which President Robert Mugabe's critics say, broke down during his regime's bid to hang on to power at all costs.

The generals, who last year shocked the world when they declared that they would not salute Mr Tsvangirai if he beat Mr Mugabe in the presidential elections, have been accused of trying to derail the new unity government installed last week. The generals who allocated themselves some of the most productive farms during the violent land grab did not attend Mr Tsvangirai's swearing in last week, fuelling speculation they were opposed to the unity government. The thawing of relations came as Mr Mugabe prepared to swear in 25 ministers of state and deputy ministers on Wednesday to complete the formation of the coalition government."

Perhaps these men has seen the error of their ways and are really committed to working with Tsvangirai - but I doubt it. This is a feint and is designed to get close to Tsvangirai from where the generals can cause the most damage.

"The continued detention of opposition activists and reports of fresh farm invasions had also complicated the task for the new inclusive government. Mr Tsvangirai on Tuesday met Mr Mugabe's confidante and Minister of Defence, Mr Emerson Mnangagwa and Dr Sydney Sekeramayi whose ministry is in charge of the feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). They reportedly assured the Prime Minister of their support for the inclusive government and promised to support the restoration of the rule of law.

"The ministers also pledged to investigate reports of the recent invasion of farms," the Prime Minister's spokesman, Mr James Maridadi told the weekly Financial Gazette. "The Prime Minister in turn pledged total support to the Ministers."

I do urge caution here. ZANU PF have a bloody reputation, and have a habit of getting up close and personal with those who oppose them, and then swallow those opponents.

"We must not be naive," he said. "There would be some resistance but I am must assure you that after three days in office I am convinced more than we signed this agreement that this is the first phase in the journey to create a free Zimbabwe."

(Can someone please tell me what is the correct spelling of the designated Deputy Minister for Agriculture - is it 'Bennett' or 'Bennet'?)

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The call for Mugabe to face charges of crimes against humanity has been around for more than just few years. Whilst I don't believe it would take much to build a case against him, Mugabe has maintained that any charges against him would be 'racist' and an 'East vs West' affair - and he has this habit of shouting his detractors down and seemingly has the tacit support of the majority of African leaders.

This is borne out by him being able to go against AU and SADC ruling with absolute impunity...

"The mounting movement for Robert Mugabe to be charged with crimes against humanity will be boosted this week by a report that finds the Zimbabwean dictator is responsible for criminal neglect that caused the country’s deadly cholera epidemic.

Mugabe is culpable for dismantling Zimbabwe’s health and sanitation services and thereby provoking the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people to date and could kill as many as 5,000 people if left unchecked, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights to be released this week. The doctors’ damning report, provided exclusively to GlobalPost, adds momentum to the growing international campaign for the Mugabe regime to be charged with crimes against humanity. Mugabe should be charged with crimes for "presiding over the destruction of a health system and an economy. It is not mismanagement, it is calculated. It is criminal," said Frank Donaghue, chief executive of the Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights, which will issue its report Jan. 13 in Johannesburg and New York."

As I have already highlighted, if this report were authored by Africans, it may hold more weight, but coming out of the USA it will not do anything.

We are in dire need of a report by "Medicines Sans Colour or Bias" to make Mugabe sit up and take notice.

"Mugabe spends money on the military and intelligence services that keep him in power instead of on the medical and sanitation services essential to the health of the population," said Donaghue. "The Mugabe government created the grounds for the cholera epidemic by allowing the water supply system to break down, by not repairing broken sewer pipes and allowing public water to become contaminated, by closing hospitals and allowing the entire health system to collapse," he added."

Mugabe alleges that the cholera epidemic was deliberately started by the UK and USA. Go figure.

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Mugabe has decided to play the 'uninformed' with regard to the case against Bennett. I don't think it will be long before he is happily sticking the knife in...

"Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told reporters Thursday he doesn't see why a terrorism case against a longtime rival has made news around the world.

Mugabe's first public comments on the charges faced by arrested lawmaker Roy Bennett show the gulf between his ZANU PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change, two longtime opponents now trying to work together in a unity government to rescue Zimbabwe from economic collapse.

"The issue of Roy Bennett is making headlines worldwide. I wonder why?" Mugabe said Thursday. "This is a court case. Let the courts decide for themselves."

The Movement for Democratic Change, the former opposition party, says Bennett's arrest a week ago is part of a plot by ZANU PF hard-liners to wreck Zimbabwe's unity government. A judge on Wednesday ordered Bennett held for at least two more weeks pending trial on terrorism and weapons charges linked to long-discredited accusations that his party had plotted Mugabe's overthrow."

Of course Mugabe is going to take this stance. That way the fact that he controls the criminal courts will be overlooked and when a conviction is handed down, Mugabe can tell the world: "Not me!"

"While Mugabe refuses, at least in public, to acknowledge the seriousness of the case, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has raised it with him in private.

Tsvangirai, speaking at the party's 10th anniversary celebration Wednesday night, said the Bennett case was a priority.

"Roy Bennett is still locked up with other political prisoners arrested in the name of the MDC," Tsvangirai said. "We are working hard to resolve that issue and we hope they will be released."

The detention of Bennett and other opposition figures and human rights advocates raises the pressure on Tsvangirai to convince supporters that joining a government with Mugabe and his ZANU PF party was not a mistake."

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Mugabe is so sure of himself that he has given up doing things behind closed doors or under cover of darkness. He is so sure of himself that he feels nothing in going against the written word of the Zimbabwean Constitution.

"The country may depend on food aid, the currency may be worthless and its people impoverished, but Zimbabwe finalised a bloated Government of 61 ministers yesterday, the biggest executive since independence.

At a ceremony at State House President Mugabe swore in 20 deputy ministers and four ministers of state, on top of the 33 full ministers and four ministers of state sworn in last week. The total means that the Government has 15 more members than provided for in the Constitution, itself amended two weeks ago to take in the agreement for a coalition Government.

Of particular profligacy are the ministers of state, positions created for disgruntled ZANU PF members from the previous administration who had been left out of the new power-sharing executive. They are in effect Cabinet ministers with vague or no responsibilities - but with the offices, salaries, expenses allowances and accommodation that go with the job. Several have already been issued with new E-class Mercedes Benz limousines.

The final tally came a day after a meeting between Mr Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and Arthur Mutambara, head of the breakaway MDC faction, to finalise the numbers. "It's profligate," said an MDC minister. "But it's the product of a compromise. It's like a postwar reconstruction Cabinet."

Mugabe is no longer ruling under his own steam, but does so as a fugurehead only.

"The increase reveals Mr Mugabe's inability to check the outrage of members of his old Cabinet - which he referred to last year as “the worst in history” - who had been sidelined by the MDC's inclusion. Three of the five ZANU PF ex-ministers who had to walk disconsolately away from Friday's swearing-in ceremony were back in power, beaming broadly.

Survivors from the last Government include Didymus Mutasa, now a minister of state in the President's office, who once welcomed the likelihood of half the population dying of starvation; Emmerson Mnangagwa, now Defence Minister, regarded as the ZANU PF party's corrupt godfather; Sydney Sekeramayi, Minister of State for National Security, who has been in power for three decades; and Joseph Made, author of Zimbabwe's disastrous land reforms, who returns to the Agriculture Ministry."

It beggars belief that these additional appointments are accepted by Tsvangirai are the MDC party. What this means, in essence, is that Mugabe and ZANU PF are ruling Zimbabwe still, with a few MDC hangers-on...

"Mr Mugabe has managed to manipulate the numbers in the Cabinet to give ZANU PF a majority, reversing the former majority held by the two MDCs. This may well hamper the MDC's plans for big policy changes. Roy Bennett, in line to be Deputy Agriculture Minister, was spending his seventh day in custody on terrorism and sabotage charges."

A simple question - does Mugabe's signature on an agreement mean nothing? Has he not got a conscience?

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Take care.

'debvhu