Regulating media coverage, an infringement on press freedom-Nawakwi
TIME PUBLISHED - Saturday, April 14, 2012, 1:29 pm
Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president Edith Nawakwi has said regulating the media in coverage of State House functions is an infringement on press freedom.
Speaking in an interview, Ms. Nawakwi said the media is the fourth estate of government and that it must be allowed to carry out its mandate of informing the general populous efficiently.
She has since called for the enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill stating that this will allow for an effective media in the country.
And Former Information and Broadcasting Minister Mike Mulongoti said the move is untenable as it will not work in the best interest of Zambians.
Their comments come in a wake of an attempt by Permanent Secretary in-charge of administration at Cabinet office Annie Sinyangwe to restrict the coverage of state house functions to the Zambia News and Information Services (ZANIS), a move that has received wide condemnation.
According to Ms. Sinyangwe, State House has become too small to accommodate all the journalists.
QFM
Labels: EDITH NAWAKWI, FDD, MIKE MULONGOTI
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COMMENT - LAP Green did not pay $256 million for ZAMTEL, they received $75 million, courtesy of the Zambian taxpayer. Add to that the way the new Libyan government came to power, on a wave of violence and the murder of the head of state, and add to that their human rights violations, especially of Africans of Libyan and continental descent. And I will say - no way. There are islamist terrorists in their government and military command. I don't see the West lining up with their business interests either.
LAP Green promises long legal battle over Zamtel
TIME PUBLISHED - Thursday, April 12, 2012, 6:12 pm
Libya’s LAP Green Network has promised a long legal battle both in Zambia and internationally over its seized 75% shareholding in Zamtel.
The Libyan firm which bought Zamtel for $256 million from the previous MMD government before the PF government reversed the sale, says in a statement released to QFM News that no one should be in any doubt that it will vigorously pursue its full legal rights and interest in Zamtel through the courts in Zambia and internationally, until they have satisfaction.
LAP Green has described the Lusaka high court’s decision on Tuesday to throw out its request to freeze its 75 percent shareholding in Zamtel as troubling.
It says its request was to ensure that the Zambian Government does nothing with its shares as it has been reported it might, until the matter has been properly settled by its Petition in the courts.
LAP Green argues that basic safeguards and reassurances to protect its shareholdings should be in place until the case is resolved.
It adds that its preference is that Zamtel and its equity is returned, so that it can resume making its important contribution to the Zambian people and the Zambian economy.
The Lusaka High Court will hear LAP Green’s Petition on 9th July 2012.
QFM
Labels: CORRUPTION, COURTS, LAP GREEN, ZAMTEL
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Zimbabwe: When Rhodesia coils through lasting myths
Friday, 13 April 2012 23:23
Today is April 14, a mere four days away from yet another 18th April, the day we commemorate our birthday as an independent, sovereign nation.
The year for that momentous event was of course 1980, a year that, read against the pain of a long war of liberation, seemed ungraspable, seemed unreal, quite unattainable. There is something so enveloping about a war, something so abridging about the life you live under conditions of war, that a day is long enough time, long enough planning horizon. Life gets that basic, that practical, that immediate, that circumscribed, that you hardly vision beyond your little life grinding tragically on, towards an uncharted, uncertain end.
Struggling against challenged masculinity
By time age, I had just broken past boyhood to become some teenager, barely 17. The year before, I had struggled with my chest which threatened to turn me into a woman. My nipples were growing, in fact bulging to great self-mortification.
To achieve greater certainty to my own claim to masculinity, I tackled both nipples with the sharp mubayamhondoro thorn. A weeping opening once established, you then pressed the hard, round tissue inside the nipple, itself the source of all your woes, until it wept itself dry, initially as clean tears, then cloudy white puss-like stuff, and then white stuff discoloured with a bit of blood. You kept pressing until the hard ball softened, collapsed, often to weeping nostrils. Without realising it, you had bent your neck, your head for far too long, all in a bid to reclaim your masculinity which inevitably faced challenges from your peers, each time you ventured into the school bathroom for a mandatory early morning shower.
In the shadows of Afrikaners
Makumbe, the school I went to, was not very sophisticated. It belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, a religious sect whose roots lay in the truculent Afrikaner tradition. Strangely, these missionaries of Afrikaner extraction — vanaMuneri — as they were called, had incorporated into the curriculum a spartan element which made schooling quite some endurance.
Makumbe never had a modern bathroom system. I hope it does now. But never in our days which for people in my stream had started at the break of 1976. The bathroom was one long row of peeping shower heads, all of them made from silver, possibly to reduce the maintenance bill. Silver endures rust quite well. So each morning would see a row of black figures, all nude, standing under these spitting shower heads, towels of various shades, at various stages of time-induced shredding, stretched across wriggling bodies, all aspiring for cleanness. And the guy next door would always steal a glance at you, primarily to establish whether you had ripened to manhood, and then generally to inspect the rest of your mien. The zone around your loins would always set you free from charges of boyhood.
When you got violated
Woe betide if your chest was found adorned with some two cylindrical, or is it conical hills! It was not just derisive laughter that pelted you; you also got fondled, the whole violation legitimised by a sissy name elder boys would have cast on you. Often, the name stuck and girls would soon know which amongst us was breaking from boyhood.
Of course pimples also aided the detection, but mercifully sparing you the agony which a nubial chest always brought onto your humble but runaway person. And since the charge was always led by older boys, there was very little you could do is self-defence. To avoid such comeuppance, you always worked extra hard to “subside” your own womanish chest. You did so during school holidays, away from the madding, mocking school crowd.
Meeting the boys
I said by time-age I was 17 when Independence came. By experience I was much older. Towards the end of 1977, the war had reached the schoolyard, transforming all of us in the process. Madhara Chihombe and his group of heavily armed fighters were the first to arrive, to find the whole school in the cathedral. The group included fighters like Tambaoga, the diminutive Chillus Kadiki, Zvadzudza who carried an LMG, poto yaMbuya Nehanda (Grandma Nehanda’s pot) as it was popularly called. It had earned this name from its round magazine, as opposed to the banana-shaped magazine of an AK.
Zvadzudza impressed me. His whole body was strapped with a charged machine gun belt. The coiled belt emitted a rattle each time Zvadzudza made a footstep, with each rattle adding to our wonderment. And this young guerrilla had the gaiety and poise that gave his whole person a silhouette of formidable people’s power which impressed and reassured all of us. We were safe, very safe. Or so we naively thought, even daring Rhodesians to “start us”.
Laughter in times of war
Zvadzudza walked with a bodily tilt, as if burdened by this precious cargo of liberation, our liberation. Then there was Elmond Wangu, a soft-spoken guerrilla who hardly stitched together a coherent Shona sentence. Clearly he was Ndebele and his broken Shona gave a new mystique to the war and its lingo. Looking back, I think Chihombe Madhara had brought with him a specially assembled unit of fighters for our own purpose.
Later I would meet a good number of the guerrillas leading different units as section commanders. Later too I would see Madhara as an officer in the then Prime Minister’s Office, this time known as Jonah Chimuka, a veteran from Nyazura. This was after the war when I was already working on my first degree. Tragically he would perish in a car crash, but having tested a few years of our Independence.
Others like Jimmy Mashiriapungana I would meet again well after Independence, serving under the Presidential Guard. This particular comrade had this strange way of mocking death. “Ndipei sadza nenyama maPuruvheya andiwane ndakanuna,” he would say, before falling upon his own portion of sadza with resolute zeal. Those would be lighter moments of a cruel war, rare, treasured moments of grim laughter.
Ugly, ugly war
By mid-1978 most of us had witnessed horrid scenes of war. We had seen dead bodies; we had survived skirmishes; we had carried badly injured comrades like Mukoma Terence who had to be evacuated from the legendary Gwirambira Mountain where he had been shot, evacuated under fire all the way back to the rear.
But we had also witnessed serious and even bloody contradictions and betrayals so common in wars. Including an incident in Masamha Village where differences and rivalry between Cdes Utsinye and Nharo MaGuerrilla cost the latter his dear life. Nharo was addressing us when Utsinye lobbied a grenade at him. His whole bowels just dropped to the ground in an instant, to clear, terminal agony. The grenade had ripped him open, ripped him apart. As he fell he uttered words that haunt me to this day: “MaComrades mandiurayireiko? Pamberi neHondo! Pamberi neHondo!” Before long he expired, a clenched fist in the air.
We buried him to great grief. He was a humble fighter, hugely built, always quiet.
Then the hunt for Utsinye followed and after a week on the run, the rogue guerrilla was finally accounted for. He, too, died a very violent death. It could never have been otherwise. The comrades just went crazy at the thought of a fellow guerrilla who dared take the life of musoja wepovho, musoja wenyika. Still I cannot tell which blow, which bayonet stab actually finished him. War can be ugly, very ugly.
The issue we take for granted
Today, four days away from Independence I accuse tyrannical time of prettifying an ugly war, making us all forgetful of it even. Today we are all guilty of enjoying the plumage of Independence while forgetting the bird that died. Independence has become a fact of life: natural, too natural to be grasped, to be quantified. It is taken for granted and many in our midst are wont to view it as uneventful, as inevitable, as something we were owed by the generation that sacrificed for it. To many of us, it carries no price.
We even taunt that generation which won it, deride it as “O” Veterans. One youthful MP once challenged war veterans to take back Independence to where it once lay tied, to see if the current generation which include him, won’t free it again!
Kudzai who perished
I have given just vignettes of my own experiences as a student-war collaborator. They are gory enough, yet insignificant relative to the experiences of the men and women who actually fought through countless battles, both at the rear and at the front. And there was a deliberate policy to protect students from undue exposures, which is what saved most of us, but never all of us.
I remember the tragic story of Kudzai Mhiripiri from Gutu. She was part of my class — Form Two class of 1977. We parted for holidays, hoping to meet again when schools reopened. We never saw her again, together with her young sisters. They perished in an all-out attack at a “base” not very far from Mupandawana.
A few years ago, the public media re-ran the story of Kudzai and the many girls who perished in that attack. The father of Kudzai provided the narrative of such gripping pathos that memories were stirred.
Horror of re-enactment
Many horrid things happened in the war of our liberation and just this week Alexander Kanengoni gave us a slice of the anguish felt by a guerrilla who witnessed the death of a colleague in that war, but who bore the burden of keeping that tragedy from parents and sisters of the dear departed. Until he could not keep the burden any longer. He broke down uncontrollably.
I have heard many similar stories, including layers and layers of horrid memories that stir and start souls in sleep. Alexander, at least purges such memories through his eloquent pen. Many can’t. They remain mute, yet haunted. A few find refuge in drink, others in spurts of inexplicable anger. Yet others in raging minds that relive the horrors of a war which a good 32 years later, should have gone quiet, gone cold. This is where time baffles.
To those who find life after 1980, the war happened a long time ago. Why inflict it on us, they opine. Yet to those who participated in, or witnessed it, it is a fresh horror, a horror that won’t go away, a wound that suppurates and will not heal any time soon.
Peace appears to give war an ideal environment for its horrid re-enactment. Much worse for this group, it is a reminder of what might have to be endured yet again if we become too causal about our Independence.
Nations and myths
And there is lots of evidence of that nowadays. Not many of us realise that nations are not made; they are invented. They come about through narratives, whether of woes or of grandeur. Nations rest on the foundation of myths and myth-making. And if we did not have myths, we would have had to invent them to found ourselves as Nations.
And there are what are known as founding myths which shape and form our claim to nationhood. Munhumutapa, Kaguvi, Lobengula; Nehanda, all these have faded in time as personages. But they have been reborn as founding patriarchs and matriarchs. In them we trace our collective being, in them we anchored our struggle against imperialism.
The 1893, 1896 umvukelas/chimurengas, all those became the cornerstone of myths that kept us going. Hondo yemadzinza, the war of ancestors, we called our second Chimurenga, thereby establishing some cognate link between the two wars of resistance.
Cry my beloved history
But we find exactly the same process taking place on the other side, the Rhodesian side. And this is where I cry for my beloved Nation. There is little recognition that we do not build our founding myths on a blank page, unhindered, unchallenged.
This belief that the world shall leave us to rework our own myths and identity, rework our nationhood in our own space, in our own time, at our own pace. That national identity-making is uncontested! Much worse, that royalty like, Rhodesia software by way of its historiography and other narratives shall pour forth upon us so we select and summon what we need, want, in forging our own identity.
And the Rhodesians have been providing lots of material in our name — Zimbabwe — with us as players. We think they are beneficent, a huge helping hand to our own identity formation. My goodness!
Myths of atrocities
Do we realise that today, 14th April, 2012, we the victors, we the independent, we the sovereign, have no history of our own? Have no narrative of our own? That we are a nobody, a non-people, non-actors whose role in life and history is as mercifully assigned to us by those we defeated? In fact do we realise that the fact of reposing our history in the efforts of Rhodesians who, amazingly, continue to live after they have lost territory, rekindles the old myths of the white man’s civilising mission?
We are stuck in the founding myth of Rhodesia, the myth that the white man makes and interprets history. The Rhodesians are writing about us, have been since before 1890, in the process creating a climate for our conquest and eventual occupation.
Rhodes needed atrocity stories to sway Britain to grant BSAC a Royal Charter. He mobilised missionaries — men of conscience — to supply lurid accounts of Ndebele atrocities against a supine, peace-craving people called the MaShonas.
Listen to the First Superior of the Zambezi Mission, one Henry Depelchin, S J writing to his church superior on 8 October, 1879, 11 years before our colonisation: “As I write these lines, I can see Lobengula’s army passing, 200 yards from our wagon. The soldiers are armed with shields and assegais (lances); and one or two with guns. They are off (one does not know where) to attack some poor tribe, massacring the innocent, making slaves of them and seizing their flocks. What brigands they are! These are crimes which cry to heaven for vengeance. When, dear God, will we be able to put a stop to so much cruelty and depravity? When will we be given the strength to overthrow and destroy the work of the devil; to purify in the blood of Jesus this accursed and crime-soiled land and to establish at last, throughout the length of Africa, the glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ? Fiat! Fiat!”
Atrocities myth updated
Read all this against what would follow, namely the conquest of both the Ndebeles and the Shonas alike; their brutal subjugation under company colonial rule, the misappropriation of their land, forced labour, taxation, and you ask yourself whether this was the “glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ” craved for by Father Depelchin for Shonas.
Much worse, ask yourself if this same myth-making has not replayed itself still under the holy auspices of the Church by way of the regrettable conflict of the early 80s which has now been reworked into an elaborate myths we now know as Gukurahundi? If yesterday it was Lobengula and his Ndebeles set against the Shonas, today, a good 25 years after the 80s conflict, it is Mugabe and his Shonas against the Ndebeles.
Either way imperialism makes and deploys myths against us as a people. And in such we repose our history?
When white death is an abomination
Or another seemingly hidden myth which has just been reworked. As with the aforementioned one, I trace it back to colonial times. With the Ndebeles up in arms again in 1896 after their initial defeat in 1893, Rhodes whose ill-fated Jameson Raid had exacted a heavy cost on him, was with his Matabililand Relief Force and a Detachment of the Bulawayo Defence Force under then Colonel Plumer, hoping for a nailing blow against the Ndebeles encamped at “Thaba S’ Amamba”. With him was one Vere Stent his chronicler and myth-maker.
In due course the Ndebeles were routed but not without extracting a heavy price on Rhodes’ force. I defer to Stent for what followed: “At sundown a sad little procession set out, carrying 18 dead. Eighteen white men; good men; men of courage. It cut Rhodes to the heart. Eighteen white men in a country that needed white men so badly. Soldiers of fortune, if you will; having their faults; no plaster saints; 18 men of the legion that never was listed; not too overburdened with human considerations; they asked for no quarter; they probably would have given none. But they were the men that Rhodesia wanted to smooth her rugged ways; to break her in. Their lives were the price of victory and the price was heavy . . . There had been a good many natives killed too. But the death of the rebels who had murdered white women and children did not come home to us as the death of these eighteen of our own kind and colour.”
When history never retracts
This is as colour blind, as balanced as the very historiography we repose our whole trust in is. The deep humanity of Rhodes is asserted. The contrasting worth of the two lives is dramatised, in the process commissioning the sanctity of the white man’s life in colonial and post-colonial conflict. Need we wonder then that a whole nation, a whole people, came under crippling sanctions as recompense for the death of six or so white farmers in the Third Chimurenga?
A good 32 years later, we remain a people in history but with no history. We remain suffocatingly coiled in Rhodesian myths from which we derive a negative identity. And these myths are being reworked afresh, redeployed to carry Rhodesia’s current needs.
Much worse, to demolish real leaders while ornamenting mediocrity, while tantalising us with a fake leadership of containment paraded as the change we need. We get a false sense of forward movement, in reality a huge leap backward.
It is such gullibility on our part which shall get us to taste another war. Man, know thyself. After all history recurs; it never retracts. Icho! — nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: HISTORY, NATHANIEL MANHERU, RHODESIA
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(HERALD) Zimbabwe: When Rhodesia coils through lasting myths
Zimbabwe: When Rhodesia coils through lasting myths
Friday, 13 April 2012 23:23
Today is April 14, a mere four days away from yet another 18th April, the day we commemorate our birthday as an independent, sovereign nation.
The year for that momentous event was of course 1980, a year that, read against the pain of a long war of liberation, seemed ungraspable, seemed unreal, quite unattainable. There is something so enveloping about a war, something so abridging about the life you live under conditions of war, that a day is long enough time, long enough planning horizon. Life gets that basic, that practical, that immediate, that circumscribed, that you hardly vision beyond your little life grinding tragically on, towards an uncharted, uncertain end.
Struggling against challenged masculinity
By time age, I had just broken past boyhood to become some teenager, barely 17. The year before, I had struggled with my chest which threatened to turn me into a woman. My nipples were growing, in fact bulging to great self-mortification.
To achieve greater certainty to my own claim to masculinity, I tackled both nipples with the sharp mubayamhondoro thorn. A weeping opening once established, you then pressed the hard, round tissue inside the nipple, itself the source of all your woes, until it wept itself dry, initially as clean tears, then cloudy white puss-like stuff, and then white stuff discoloured with a bit of blood. You kept pressing until the hard ball softened, collapsed, often to weeping nostrils. Without realising it, you had bent your neck, your head for far too long, all in a bid to reclaim your masculinity which inevitably faced challenges from your peers, each time you ventured into the school bathroom for a mandatory early morning shower.
In the shadows of Afrikaners
Makumbe, the school I went to, was not very sophisticated. It belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, a religious sect whose roots lay in the truculent Afrikaner tradition. Strangely, these missionaries of Afrikaner extraction — vanaMuneri — as they were called, had incorporated into the curriculum a spartan element which made schooling quite some endurance.
Makumbe never had a modern bathroom system. I hope it does now. But never in our days which for people in my stream had started at the break of 1976. The bathroom was one long row of peeping shower heads, all of them made from silver, possibly to reduce the maintenance bill. Silver endures rust quite well. So each morning would see a row of black figures, all nude, standing under these spitting shower heads, towels of various shades, at various stages of time-induced shredding, stretched across wriggling bodies, all aspiring for cleanness. And the guy next door would always steal a glance at you, primarily to establish whether you had ripened to manhood, and then generally to inspect the rest of your mien. The zone around your loins would always set you free from charges of boyhood.
When you got violated
Woe betide if your chest was found adorned with some two cylindrical, or is it conical hills! It was not just derisive laughter that pelted you; you also got fondled, the whole violation legitimised by a sissy name elder boys would have cast on you. Often, the name stuck and girls would soon know which amongst us was breaking from boyhood.
Of course pimples also aided the detection, but mercifully sparing you the agony which a nubial chest always brought onto your humble but runaway person. And since the charge was always led by older boys, there was very little you could do is self-defence. To avoid such comeuppance, you always worked extra hard to “subside” your own womanish chest. You did so during school holidays, away from the madding, mocking school crowd.
Meeting the boys
I said by time-age I was 17 when Independence came. By experience I was much older. Towards the end of 1977, the war had reached the schoolyard, transforming all of us in the process. Madhara Chihombe and his group of heavily armed fighters were the first to arrive, to find the whole school in the cathedral. The group included fighters like Tambaoga, the diminutive Chillus Kadiki, Zvadzudza who carried an LMG, poto yaMbuya Nehanda (Grandma Nehanda’s pot) as it was popularly called. It had earned this name from its round magazine, as opposed to the banana-shaped magazine of an AK.
Zvadzudza impressed me. His whole body was strapped with a charged machine gun belt. The coiled belt emitted a rattle each time Zvadzudza made a footstep, with each rattle adding to our wonderment. And this young guerrilla had the gaiety and poise that gave his whole person a silhouette of formidable people’s power which impressed and reassured all of us. We were safe, very safe. Or so we naively thought, even daring Rhodesians to “start us”.
Laughter in times of war
Zvadzudza walked with a bodily tilt, as if burdened by this precious cargo of liberation, our liberation. Then there was Elmond Wangu, a soft-spoken guerrilla who hardly stitched together a coherent Shona sentence. Clearly he was Ndebele and his broken Shona gave a new mystique to the war and its lingo. Looking back, I think Chihombe Madhara had brought with him a specially assembled unit of fighters for our own purpose.
Later I would meet a good number of the guerrillas leading different units as section commanders. Later too I would see Madhara as an officer in the then Prime Minister’s Office, this time known as Jonah Chimuka, a veteran from Nyazura. This was after the war when I was already working on my first degree. Tragically he would perish in a car crash, but having tested a few years of our Independence.
Others like Jimmy Mashiriapungana I would meet again well after Independence, serving under the Presidential Guard. This particular comrade had this strange way of mocking death. “Ndipei sadza nenyama maPuruvheya andiwane ndakanuna,” he would say, before falling upon his own portion of sadza with resolute zeal. Those would be lighter moments of a cruel war, rare, treasured moments of grim laughter.
Ugly, ugly war
By mid-1978 most of us had witnessed horrid scenes of war. We had seen dead bodies; we had survived skirmishes; we had carried badly injured comrades like Mukoma Terence who had to be evacuated from the legendary Gwirambira Mountain where he had been shot, evacuated under fire all the way back to the rear.
But we had also witnessed serious and even bloody contradictions and betrayals so common in wars. Including an incident in Masamha Village where differences and rivalry between Cdes Utsinye and Nharo MaGuerrilla cost the latter his dear life. Nharo was addressing us when Utsinye lobbied a grenade at him. His whole bowels just dropped to the ground in an instant, to clear, terminal agony. The grenade had ripped him open, ripped him apart. As he fell he uttered words that haunt me to this day: “MaComrades mandiurayireiko? Pamberi neHondo! Pamberi neHondo!” Before long he expired, a clenched fist in the air.
We buried him to great grief. He was a humble fighter, hugely built, always quiet.
Then the hunt for Utsinye followed and after a week on the run, the rogue guerrilla was finally accounted for. He, too, died a very violent death. It could never have been otherwise. The comrades just went crazy at the thought of a fellow guerrilla who dared take the life of musoja wepovho, musoja wenyika. Still I cannot tell which blow, which bayonet stab actually finished him. War can be ugly, very ugly.
The issue we take for granted
Today, four days away from Independence I accuse tyrannical time of prettifying an ugly war, making us all forgetful of it even. Today we are all guilty of enjoying the plumage of Independence while forgetting the bird that died. Independence has become a fact of life: natural, too natural to be grasped, to be quantified. It is taken for granted and many in our midst are wont to view it as uneventful, as inevitable, as something we were owed by the generation that sacrificed for it. To many of us, it carries no price.
We even taunt that generation which won it, deride it as “O” Veterans. One youthful MP once challenged war veterans to take back Independence to where it once lay tied, to see if the current generation which include him, won’t free it again!
Kudzai who perished
I have given just vignettes of my own experiences as a student-war collaborator. They are gory enough, yet insignificant relative to the experiences of the men and women who actually fought through countless battles, both at the rear and at the front. And there was a deliberate policy to protect students from undue exposures, which is what saved most of us, but never all of us.
I remember the tragic story of Kudzai Mhiripiri from Gutu. She was part of my class — Form Two class of 1977. We parted for holidays, hoping to meet again when schools reopened. We never saw her again, together with her young sisters. They perished in an all-out attack at a “base” not very far from Mupandawana.
A few years ago, the public media re-ran the story of Kudzai and the many girls who perished in that attack. The father of Kudzai provided the narrative of such gripping pathos that memories were stirred.
Horror of re-enactment
Many horrid things happened in the war of our liberation and just this week Alexander Kanengoni gave us a slice of the anguish felt by a guerrilla who witnessed the death of a colleague in that war, but who bore the burden of keeping that tragedy from parents and sisters of the dear departed. Until he could not keep the burden any longer. He broke down uncontrollably.
I have heard many similar stories, including layers and layers of horrid memories that stir and start souls in sleep. Alexander, at least purges such memories through his eloquent pen. Many can’t. They remain mute, yet haunted. A few find refuge in drink, others in spurts of inexplicable anger. Yet others in raging minds that relive the horrors of a war which a good 32 years later, should have gone quiet, gone cold. This is where time baffles.
To those who find life after 1980, the war happened a long time ago. Why inflict it on us, they opine. Yet to those who participated in, or witnessed it, it is a fresh horror, a horror that won’t go away, a wound that suppurates and will not heal any time soon.
Peace appears to give war an ideal environment for its horrid re-enactment. Much worse for this group, it is a reminder of what might have to be endured yet again if we become too causal about our Independence.
Nations and myths
And there is lots of evidence of that nowadays. Not many of us realise that nations are not made; they are invented. They come about through narratives, whether of woes or of grandeur. Nations rest on the foundation of myths and myth-making. And if we did not have myths, we would have had to invent them to found ourselves as Nations.
And there are what are known as founding myths which shape and form our claim to nationhood. Munhumutapa, Kaguvi, Lobengula; Nehanda, all these have faded in time as personages. But they have been reborn as founding patriarchs and matriarchs. In them we trace our collective being, in them we anchored our struggle against imperialism.
The 1893, 1896 umvukelas/chimurengas, all those became the cornerstone of myths that kept us going. Hondo yemadzinza, the war of ancestors, we called our second Chimurenga, thereby establishing some cognate link between the two wars of resistance.
Cry my beloved history
But we find exactly the same process taking place on the other side, the Rhodesian side. And this is where I cry for my beloved Nation. There is little recognition that we do not build our founding myths on a blank page, unhindered, unchallenged.
This belief that the world shall leave us to rework our own myths and identity, rework our nationhood in our own space, in our own time, at our own pace. That national identity-making is uncontested! Much worse, that royalty like, Rhodesia software by way of its historiography and other narratives shall pour forth upon us so we select and summon what we need, want, in forging our own identity.
And the Rhodesians have been providing lots of material in our name — Zimbabwe — with us as players. We think they are beneficent, a huge helping hand to our own identity formation. My goodness!
Myths of atrocities
Do we realise that today, 14th April, 2012, we the victors, we the independent, we the sovereign, have no history of our own? Have no narrative of our own? That we are a nobody, a non-people, non-actors whose role in life and history is as mercifully assigned to us by those we defeated? In fact do we realise that the fact of reposing our history in the efforts of Rhodesians who, amazingly, continue to live after they have lost territory, rekindles the old myths of the white man’s civilising mission?
We are stuck in the founding myth of Rhodesia, the myth that the white man makes and interprets history. The Rhodesians are writing about us, have been since before 1890, in the process creating a climate for our conquest and eventual occupation.
Rhodes needed atrocity stories to sway Britain to grant BSAC a Royal Charter. He mobilised missionaries — men of conscience — to supply lurid accounts of Ndebele atrocities against a supine, peace-craving people called the MaShonas.
Listen to the First Superior of the Zambezi Mission, one Henry Depelchin, S J writing to his church superior on 8 October, 1879, 11 years before our colonisation: “As I write these lines, I can see Lobengula’s army passing, 200 yards from our wagon. The soldiers are armed with shields and assegais (lances); and one or two with guns. They are off (one does not know where) to attack some poor tribe, massacring the innocent, making slaves of them and seizing their flocks. What brigands they are! These are crimes which cry to heaven for vengeance. When, dear God, will we be able to put a stop to so much cruelty and depravity? When will we be given the strength to overthrow and destroy the work of the devil; to purify in the blood of Jesus this accursed and crime-soiled land and to establish at last, throughout the length of Africa, the glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ? Fiat! Fiat!”
Atrocities myth updated
Read all this against what would follow, namely the conquest of both the Ndebeles and the Shonas alike; their brutal subjugation under company colonial rule, the misappropriation of their land, forced labour, taxation, and you ask yourself whether this was the “glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ” craved for by Father Depelchin for Shonas.
Much worse, ask yourself if this same myth-making has not replayed itself still under the holy auspices of the Church by way of the regrettable conflict of the early 80s which has now been reworked into an elaborate myths we now know as Gukurahundi? If yesterday it was Lobengula and his Ndebeles set against the Shonas, today, a good 25 years after the 80s conflict, it is Mugabe and his Shonas against the Ndebeles.
Either way imperialism makes and deploys myths against us as a people. And in such we repose our history?
When white death is an abomination
Or another seemingly hidden myth which has just been reworked. As with the aforementioned one, I trace it back to colonial times. With the Ndebeles up in arms again in 1896 after their initial defeat in 1893, Rhodes whose ill-fated Jameson Raid had exacted a heavy cost on him, was with his Matabililand Relief Force and a Detachment of the Bulawayo Defence Force under then Colonel Plumer, hoping for a nailing blow against the Ndebeles encamped at “Thaba S’ Amamba”. With him was one Vere Stent his chronicler and myth-maker.
In due course the Ndebeles were routed but not without extracting a heavy price on Rhodes’ force. I defer to Stent for what followed: “At sundown a sad little procession set out, carrying 18 dead. Eighteen white men; good men; men of courage. It cut Rhodes to the heart. Eighteen white men in a country that needed white men so badly. Soldiers of fortune, if you will; having their faults; no plaster saints; 18 men of the legion that never was listed; not too overburdened with human considerations; they asked for no quarter; they probably would have given none. But they were the men that Rhodesia wanted to smooth her rugged ways; to break her in. Their lives were the price of victory and the price was heavy . . . There had been a good many natives killed too. But the death of the rebels who had murdered white women and children did not come home to us as the death of these eighteen of our own kind and colour.”
When history never retracts
This is as colour blind, as balanced as the very historiography we repose our whole trust in is. The deep humanity of Rhodes is asserted. The contrasting worth of the two lives is dramatised, in the process commissioning the sanctity of the white man’s life in colonial and post-colonial conflict. Need we wonder then that a whole nation, a whole people, came under crippling sanctions as recompense for the death of six or so white farmers in the Third Chimurenga?
A good 32 years later, we remain a people in history but with no history. We remain suffocatingly coiled in Rhodesian myths from which we derive a negative identity. And these myths are being reworked afresh, redeployed to carry Rhodesia’s current needs. Much worse, to demolish real leaders while ornamenting mediocrity, while tantalising us with a fake leadership of containment paraded as the change we need. We get a false sense of forward movement, in reality a huge leap backward.
It is such gullibility on our part which shall get us to taste another war. Man, know thyself. After all history recurs; it never retracts. Icho! — nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
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Healthcare and the sanctity of life
By The Post
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:30 CAT
THE revelation by Elwyn Chomba, the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health, that neonatal mortality has remained consistently high in Zambia is seriously worrying. We are told that 119 children out of a thousand live births die before their fifth day and 34 die within the first day of life. The cold eloquence of these figures is in itself terrifying enough.
It is an imperative need of our times to be aware of these realities because of what it entails in terms of human suffering and the squandering of life. But beyond these figures lies the tragic situation of poverty and neglect that is individualised many times over.Life is sacred and should be valued from the moment of conception until death. One cannot claim to uphold the sanctity of life if there is no provision for minimal healthcare for all.
These babies are dying in such large numbers because access to healthcare is low. Most of these newborns die at home, without skilled care that could greatly increase their chances for survival.
Skilled healthcare during pregnancy, child birth and in the post-natal period prevents complications for the mother and the newborn, and allows for early detection and management of problems. But this is not there for the great majority of our people.
Lack of healthcare leads to many complications that result in the deaths of many newborns. The main causes of newborn deaths in our country are prematurity and low-birth-weight, infections, asphyxia and birth trauma. These causes are said to account for nearly 80 per cent of deaths in this age group.
It is said that up to two thirds of newborn deaths could be prevented if skilled health workers were made available to perform effective health measures at birth and during the first week of life. But this is not there for the great majority of our people.
We still have many women, especially in our rural areas, giving birth at home, with very few of them receiving post-natal care in the first 24 hours. And many mothers who give birth in health facilities fail to return for post-natal care because of financial, social and other barriers. The first days of life are the most critical for newborn survival.
Healthcare is an essential right of everyone and a responsibility of society as a whole. The figures we have been given by Prof Chomba show the severity of the tragic health conditions that affect the vast masses of our people.
It is clear to all that the solution for this and other serious problems lies in the elimination of poverty, but a lot can be done right now. There is need to urgently tackle the present critical situation of health in our country through the massive mobilisation of national and international resources and human resources required.
It is absolutely necessary to promote mother and child care programmes. There is a crying need to extend health services, train required technical personnel and guarantee the essential basic medicines which such conditions demand.
There is need to improve the conditions of women. Women suffer doubly all the calamities related to the living conditions that exist in our country. This is so because they are the ones that bear the heavy burden of the home, they are the worst hit by the lack of clinics, hospitals, medical care, mother-child programmes, hygiene and so on and so forth.
An extremely high number of women receive no attention during pregnancy. And a very high number die during delivery without any type of care. And it is women who must see their children die in their first few days of life.
A comprehensive approach is required to fight this situation. It is a question of improving the quality of life, not only fighting the serious shortages in every sphere, but acting on them where the development of our society is concerned.
The figures we have been given serve as the basis for the sombre immediate outlook for our country and are the most obvious expressions of the unbearable situation of injustice still prevailing among our people today. But they are not necessarily inexorable. We can, if we really want, act to change this increasingly unjust situation for one that is bright and just.
As long as healthcare fails to be considered a fundamental right of every one of our people and a duty of the community; as long as the responsibility of the state and of society in regards to healthcare fails to be recognised; as long as inequalities in the distribution of health resources fail to disappear; as long as poverty, hunger, ignorance and squalor fail to be directly fought against, little will be achieved in improving this sad situation in our country.
This situation needs to be urgently tackled if we truly value the life of every baby born in our country. Each baby born in our country has a right to special care and attention. And the welfare and interests of this baby should be recognised and protected.
Newborns are very vulnerable and therefore need special attention to survive and enjoy their human rights in full. The interests of the newborns should take precedence. Respecting the rights of the baby entails promoting the welfare of the baby.
And it shouldn't be forgotten that the rights and welfare of the baby are best realised in the context of the welfare of the family. The promotion of the welfare of the baby therefore requires the promotion of the welfare of the family.
Labels: ENGWASE MWALE, HEALTHCARE
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Levels of neonatal deaths in Zambia a crisis - NGOCC
By Abigail Sitenge
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:27 CAT
NGOCC executive director Engwase Mwale has called on the government and stakeholders to treat the high levels of neonatal deaths in Zambia as a crisis. Commenting on the UNICEF statistics that 199 infants out of a thousand live births in the country die before their fifth day, Mwale said the government must ensure the health sector has adequate infrastructure in rural areas.
She said
Zambia committed itself to reducing the high numbers of neonatal deaths, adding that it was therefore imperative that the government looks at the issue seriously.
"NGOCC(Non- Governmental Organisation Coordinating Council) does recognise the abolishment of user fees in the health sector but that's not enough in itself," she said.
Mwale said stakeholders must work together in advocating for good health and the reduction in the death of newborn babies.
"We expect that it (the high neonatal deaths) should be treated as a crisis and that more stakeholders must avail themselves to ensure that we work together advocate for good health in our country, we cannot allow continued high numbers of neonatal deaths and high maternal mortality rates in our country," said Mwale.
During the launch of the dissemination meeting on community-based Newborn Care in Lusaka on Wednesday, community development permanent secretary Prof Elwyn Chomba said the neonatal mortality has remained consistently high.
Prof Chomba said the survival of newborn babies depends on the timely care that is provided, adding that although there has been survival programmes over the last 25 years to reduce the death rate among children under five, the biggest impact has been in the era of reducing neonatal deaths.
According to Prof Chomba, the demographic survey indicated that neonatal mortality remained high representing 34 per cent of under five deaths in Zambia.
Currently, out of a thousand live births, 119 newborns die before their fifth day while 34 die within the first day of life.
Labels: ENGWASE MWALE, HEALTHCARE, NGOCC
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Auditor General vows to ‘dig a little deeper' into oil scams
By Moses Kuwema
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:27 CAT
AUDITOR General Anna Chifungula says her office will dig a little deeper and get more evidence for the investigative wings once they read the report on the Energy Regulation Board and the oil procurement process.
And former Public Accounts Committee chairman Emmanuel Hachipuka says investigative wings should delve into the oil procurement contracts and ensure the culprits were brought to book.
Commenting on revelations by Wynter Kabimba, the chairman of the commission of inquiry into the Energy Regulation Board and oil procurement, in which the government lost about K2 trillion through corruption between 2007 and 2011, Chifungula said her office was active to the revelations.
"Normally what we do is we will look at the report as well when it is issued and see if there are some areas which we can dig a little bit deeper so that we can get more evidence for our investigative wings. At face value, it's difficult to find some of these things, you have to do other types of audits," Chifungula said.
Chifungula said most of the issues raised in the revelations were done through tendering and other procedures.
"So they would come out if it is in financial reports, they will come out as normal because there will be proper tender procedures followed and everything will be in line but then the question now which comes in is value for money. Did we get value for what we got? So those are a little bit complicated because you need to do other types of audits like forensic and investigations. You have to do performance audits in order to get to those kinds of things," she said.
And Hachipuka who served as PAC chairman during the period in question, said K2 trillion or any other sum for that matter was too large for the country to afford to lose.
He said it was important for investigative wings to delve into the matter and as recommended by the commission, give Cabinet more details and pursue the contracts to the letter.
"It is very important, it's a lot of money to let go. I am very disappointed that it is coming out so late. I think it should have been picked up much earlier. Certainly, I know that PAC can simply talk about it but I think the Auditor General has also powers to have referred these matters to the necessary security wings of the government beyond her office. But I am not privy to know exactly where the omission was, whether they were covered. But really for me, it is a serious revelation which deserves follow up," Hachipuka said.
Hachipuka further said he did not recall covering the Auditor General's report on contracts in question.
"Anna Chifungula and her team are quite a very thorough group, it is possible those were not in the recent past. Many discussions in the PAC have been based on audit reports and this to me seems to be a special audit. In fact, I am surprised that the commission under Wynter Kabimba was focusing specifically on that, but I think it was a correct thing to do. I was a member of the PAC for many years but I don't remember us dealing specifically with this and in any case I am happy that these have come to light and whilst it is the commission of inquiry, I would imagine that cabinet will ask the Auditor General to specifically go in more details," he said.
Meanwhile, Chifungula said the audit report on the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) has been completed.
"They have basically finished and are compiling the report. We should have the first draft presented to the CEEC and then after they respond to the findings, that's when we can now conclude the report," she said.
In February this year, secretary to the treasury, Fredson Yamba, suspended the disbursing of funds to the CEEC in order to reorganise the institution.
A forensic audit was further instituted to look at the CEEC operations.
Labels: ANNA CHIFUNGULA, AUDITOR GENERAL, CORRUPTION, ERB, OIL, WYNTER KABIMBA
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Corruption fight needs everyone's input, says chief Macha
By Cynthia Phiri in Choma
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:27 CAT
CORRUPTION fight should be everyone's business, says chief Macha of the Tonga of Choma district. Speaking when Choma district commissioner Golden Nyambe paid a courtesy call on him at his palace yesterday, chief Macha said he was humbled by the government's efforts in the fight.
"I am humbled to see government trying to fight corruption but it cannot be fought by government alone; it should be everyone's business," chief Macha said. "Corruption fight is a long journey; it needs a lot of effort because it cannot be won in one day, it needs everyone's input and good systems."
Chief Macha urged the government to put in place deliberate policies and a stronger legal framework in order to win the fight against corruption in the country.
The traditional leader said the law enforcement agencies must be empowered to visit anyone proved to have been corrupt regardless of their status in society.
"Government needs to put up precise systems that will catch up with corrupt elements in the country, because it seems like everyone is corrupt," said chief Macha.
He said systems needed to be put in place in order to manage corruption and that concerted efforts were needed to win the fight.
Chief Macha said that it was depressing to see how huge sums of money were being misappropriated.
He said he was happy with the PF government's stance on corruption and the way it was running the affairs of the nation.
And speaking at his palace, chief Mapanza said his chiefdom was ready to work with the government of the day.
He hoped that the PF government would take its developmental policies to his chiefdom.
"I can assure you that we are ready to bring peace and understanding even as the government addresses our many challenges," said Chief Mapanza.
Labels: CHIEF MACHA, CORRUPTION, PF
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There'll be no sacred cow in prosecution of political corruption, warns DPP
By Kombe Chimpinde
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:29 CAT
DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions Mutembo Nchito has warned that there will be no sacred cow in the prosecution of political corruption even among present leaders.
During a conference in Lusaka for the ruling Patriotic Front and civil society organisations to discuss democracy and good governance organised by Hebert Stiftung Foundation, Nchito said political corruption must be dealt with in its entirety or the current efforts to fight the vice will not yield positive results.
"…As I speak, I am sounding out a warning not to people who have left government, but today we have ministers coming out of the present government and those should know that it is corruption to go and collect money and put it in their pocket in the name of funding politics," he warned.
Nchito said one of the areas that needed to be addressed was the question of political corruption which had become a challenge.
"We have to deal with the question of political corruption head on. We have to address it squarely or else our efforts to fighting corruption will amount to nothing. And talking about political corruption, we have to deal with the funding of the system that promises to deliver the development we are looking for, the politics of our country," he said.
Nchito said the rule of law could not be delivered without politics.
"We can't deliver the rule of law without politics…So the politics of a country are very important and we need to think about how we can clean our politics," Nchito said.
He said there were a number of things that were needed to improve the economic development of the country, among them the rule of law and respect for it.
"What that means is that the rule by which we govern ourselves and settle our disputes must be clearly understood and clearly laid down and respected by all, whether we are in government or outside government," said Nchito.
"One of the key roadblocks against achieving benchmarks for development is corruption. The rule of law is undermined because of corruption. Today we have a crisis in our rule of law because many of our people do not believe that we can rely on institutions of justice to determine our disputes and on the other hand, it is not uncommon for our people to believe that the government of the day uses its power, authority to unduly interfere with institutions of justice, and therefore deny its people to justice. These are real problems."
Labels: CORRUPTION, DPP, MUTEMBO NCHITO
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Government will have a good case of money laundering against Henry - Shamenda
By Joan Chirwa-Ngoma and Masuzyo Chakwe
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:29 CAT
CHIEF government spokesperson Fackson Shamenda says the government will have a good case of money laundering against Henry Banda based on the amount of money paid to his lawyer Robert Amsterdam.
Amsterdam, in a statement yesterday, accused the government of violating international norms of due process, rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers.
In his response to the government's demands that Henry, former president Rupiah Banda's son, returns home to appear before investigating agencies, Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Peroff LLP stated that the Zambian government lacks any real case against his client.
But Shamenda, in his reaction to Amsterdam's claims, said international money laundering standards require even lawyers to enquire into the source of funds that their clients were using, especially so when the legal fees were significant as the government suspects was the case with Amsterdam.
"If Henry can afford to pay Mr Amsterdam, then the government has a good case of money laundering against Henry," he said.
Shamenda, who is also information and labour minister, advised Amsterdam to "stop politicking over simple and straightforward matters".
"Looking at the statement, clearly it is Mr Robert Amsterdam who is politicking over a very simple and straightforward matter. If Mr Robert Amsterdam believes that there is no case government has against Henry, why has Henry been failing to avail himself before the investigative wings to provide answers to the questions that are waiting for him? It is only the guilty that will always be afraid to face the law enforcement officers," he said.
"And before Henry Banda and his lawyer start challenging government and accusing us of bad faith, we challenge Mr Amsterdam to ask both his clients, Rupiah and his son Henry, where they are getting money to pay him colossal sums because we know that Henry, before his father became president, he was virtually bankrupt."
And on Amsterdam's statement that Henry was "running into Zambian ministers" in South Africa, Shamenda said ministers were not law enforcement officers to question Henry on any matter when they meet him.
"Clearly, Amsterdam who is supposed to be of international standing appears not to understand that ministers are not investigators in this matter…If he sincerely believes that the government has got nothing against him Henry, why not appear before the investigative wings? If indeed the government has got nothing, let him quickly acquit himself by appearing before the investigative wings," said Shamenda.
Amsterdam, in his statement yesterday, said there was fundamental lack of credibility to the state's case, given its irregular and unlawful abuse of the due process of the law.
"If you look at the way this matter is being handled by Zambia, you see all the hallmarks of a politically motivated farce," stated Amsterdam who represents both former president Rupiah Banda and his son, Henry.
"Mr Banda has never been questioned by the police about anything, while instead the state has conducted a trial by headline consisting of frequently changing accusations. The fact that Zambia has refused to describe what Mr Banda is accused of should set off alarm bells. It is a clear sign that they lack any real case."
He stated that the ‘persecution' of Henry was ultimately aimed at pressuring former president Banda and the destruction of the main opposition party, the MMD.
Amsterdam stated that the allegations had been accompanied by a broad attack on the MMD, including a shocking attempt to de-register the party.
He stated that there had been repeated arrests of its officials, including spokesperson Dora Siliya, and most recently a claim by the former High Commissioner to Canada Nevers Mumba that his house had been raided by suspected state security agents.
"… The Zambian authorities have so far failed to respond to Banda's legal representatives request for information and clarification of the alleged charges but instead chose to attack him in the media with unsubstantiated allegations, including labeling him a fugitive, which is false," he stated.
Amsterdam stated that Henry could hardly have any reasonable expectation of a fair judicial process, much less any fair treatment in the Zambian media.
Amsterdam & Peroff LLP, along with law firm Brian Kahn Inc of Johannesburg, South Africa represent Banda and Henry.
The legal team is in the process of presenting appeals before international bodies to expose the unlawful conduct undertaken by the current administration against the political opposition.
Labels: FACKSON SHAMENDA, HENRY BANDA
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The risk of indigenising banks
By Lance MambondianiBanking, Companies, Money, Stock Market Last updated on: April 13, 2012
A YEAR ago, David Brown – the head of Impala Platinum – believed Zimbabwe’s indigenisation plans for foreign-owned mines “would not happen”. The policy, which required all companies with a share capital above US$500,000 to arrange for 51 percent of their shares or interests to be owned by indigenous Zimbabweans, was taken as a bit of a joke, a populist policy by the government to win votes ahead of the elections. It’s not so funny now.
In the words of former US president George Bush, Brown “mis-underestimated” the government’s blind determination. When Zimplats – the world’s second largest platinum producer – announced recently that it would transfer 51 percent of its shares “at an appropriate value”, there could have been no bigger scalp for Saviour Kasukuwere, the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment. After this, Brown announced his retirement from the platinum group.
Together with Mimosa mine, Zimplats accounts for over 40 % of the London-listed Impala’s global platinum reserves, a priced asset by any standard and a major victory for the government’s indigenisation crusade. The kind of victory that makes you believe you can pump your car tyres into a monster truck.
Buoyed by the Zimplats success, the minister has turned his attention to the banking sector and a possible showdown with Barclays and Standard Chartered – Zimbabwe’s oldest banks established over 100 years ago at the height of colonialism. If it were a stunt, it would be one of those suicidal junkets which the feint-hearted cannot stand to watch. You want to close your eyes and ask after – did he really do it? If successful, it would cheer the crowd, a slip-up would be terminal.
[But only if you're a coward. Remember all the cries of disaster when the land was redistributed. They were wrong, self serving, and attempting to sabotage a real revolution. - MrK]
Banks are ‘special’
The prospect of indigenising the banking sector has ignited a war of words between Kasukuwere, who has found an unlikely ally in the Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, and the central bank governor Gideon Gono who has also found an unlikely ally in the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti. The banking sector may yet be a stern test for the indigenisation policy, reflecting an ideological chasm between the ‘nationalists’ and the ‘free marketers’.
Legally, the Empowerment Act makes no sectoral distinction nor does it exempt the banking sector, but should it? Indigenising the banking sector, while possible, may not be as easy as the mining sector. Unfortunately for the minister, banks are special and their interconnectedness makes a systemic crisis contagious and very costly. A disruption at one bank could have a knock-on effect not only on the entire banking sector but the entire economy.
The importance of the financial sector and the need for stable banks cannot be underestimated. Banking is the business upon which all other businesses are based.
[Actually in any healthy economy, banking is merely an adjunct to the REAL economy, which is about growing food and manufacturing goods. Not banking or finance. - MrK]
Banks are at the core of the payment system in the country and play a primary role in the intermediation of savings and investments. Several empirical studies support the view that countries with efficient and strong financial and banking sectors experience higher rates of economic growth.
[Or that countries with high economic growth generate a sound banking system. - MrK]
Caution ... RBZ governor Gideon Gono and Finance Minister Biti
The RBZ Governor’s opposition to indigenising the banking sector seems to suggest a man who speaks with the benefit of experience following a spectacular failure of ownership changes after the 2003 banking crisis. Indigenisation would also reverse the core of the governor’s policies which have forced banks into seeking international partnerships to meet capital requirements which are seemingly disproportionate to the economy.
There is every possibility that a coercive change in bank ownership structure would again lead to a weakened banking sector. Indigenising banks in a highly illiquid sector seeking foreign capital seems quite irrational, particularly where the 51 percent is ceded “on credit”.
Whilst Zimplats looks like a done deal, the terms of the agreement suggests that the mining giant will “make available for sale” to the government a final 31% stake for cash “at an independently determined fair value”. The cash-strapped government which pays all its employees an average of $250 per month is yet to agree to this because the money isn’t there.
Lessons from other African countries
It appears there is an increasing trend towards indigenisation across Africa. This is premised on the idea that to achieve its economic potential within global capitalism, African governments will need to redress economic imbalances created by colonialism through economic policies such as indigenisation.
Several African countries have implemented indigenisation policies with less controversy or combativeness. There is the complicated and non-prescriptive BEE law in South Africa and the approach in Ghana which proposes that local participation in the oil and gas sector be increased to 80 percent by 2020.
Other indigenisation approaches include the sectoral approach in Angola, where locals must hold 51% of the share capital in mining and telecommunication companies and 30% in insurance enterprises. In Kenya, the law requires that at least 20% of company shareholding in the telecoms sector must be taken up by Kenyans and in insurance, whilst listed companies must reserve at least 25% to locals.
The different prescriptive, non-prescriptive and sectoral approaches to indigenisation across the region can be analysed to inform best practice. Whilst indigenisation is imperative and by all accounts unstoppable, we don’t always have to be combative where there are tested options.
A flexible alternative
Following challenges previously experienced with the Land Reform programme and the concerns raised by the private sector, a critical appraisal of the indigenisation policy and its effect on the economy will need to be undertaken. Regional and international best practices will need to be analysed. A consultative process between stakeholders will also be useful.
Technical assistance from international financial institutions will also be important to inform a robust and effective indigenisation policy. The impact of the policy on foreign direct investments would need analysing. Although Zimbabwe’s economy is growing again, foreign investors are needed to ensure sustained growth. The damage which can be caused by a combative policy cannot be underestimated.
An alternative for the banking sector may require a less rigid, sector-specific approach which factors in the intricacies of banks. Whilst Kasukuwere may yet be victorious in a showdown with the international banks, the risk may have a destabilising effect on an economy limping out of a decade-long crisis.
Dr Lance Mambondiani is an Investment Executive at Coronation Financial. He is also a Teaching Assistant in International Finance for Development and Financial Markets and Corporate Governance at the University of Manchester. The view expressed in this articles are personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of Coronation Financial
Labels: GIDEON GONO, IMPALA PLATINUM, INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE, TENDAI BITI, ZIMPLATS
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When self-indulgent wishes set news agenda
By Gilbert NyambabvuMedia, Politics Last updated on: April 13, 2012
Alive and well ... Mugabe walks with Vice President Mujuru on April 12THE recent media shambles regarding President Robert Mugabe’s latest trip to Asia brought into the open two of the terminal maladies feasting at the core of Zimbabwean journalism from the time our national politics became so perilously conflicted and degenerated into a matter of mortal combat instead of a good-natured, if spirited, contestation of ideas between and among compatriots.
Indeed many a veteran colleague rightly felt rather silly when a fairly fit-looking Mugabe emerged from a chartered plane at Harare International Airport on the morning of April 12, defying wide-spread reports [whose propagation many of us wilfully aided] that he was comatose and dying in a Singaporean hospital.
It would be is very easy to plead, in our defence, that the people around Mugabe help create such needless crises because they are not always forthcoming with information; that this embarrassing fiasco could have been avoided had the President’s spokespersons made public the fact he would take advantage of the trip to also enjoy a much-needed family break over the Easter Holiday.
Indeed, Zanu PF officials routinely refuse to speak to the privately-owned media because they ordinarily publish negative material about the party, and that is clearly unhelpful. But that alone cannot be the reason seasoned media operators in Zimbabwe and abroad were quick to lap onto and spread an obscure claim without CHECKING its veracity, even when it became clear that the supposed prophesy by that Nigerian chap possibly referred to Malawi’s Bingu wa Mutharika.
If we are to be honest with ourselves, we should concede the sad fact that we have clearly taken the embedded journalism of America’s controversial Iraqi wars to a whole new level. This is no longer a case of mere hyperbole for sensational effect which, traditionally, has subsisted on the entirely commercial objective of getting more readers and, with them, increased advertising income.
We now have in the industry practitioners prostituting themselves to political causes. Journalists have wilfully become political activists and, in the process, cast out through the window principles which old school colleagues told us should remain sacrosanct and inviolate. Many of us are no longer reporters but so-called boots-on-the ground cadres for certain political interests, committed cadres who would personally wring Mugabe’s wrinkled neck given the chance.
Where objectivity undermines our desired political ends and the causes of our political overlords, we become creative writers, propagating self-indulgent wishes and outright fiction as fact. The justification is either that we are helping free the weak and vulnerable masses from autocratic regimes or protecting revolutionary democracies from arrogant imperial overreach. In many cases still, it is quite simply a matter of unprincipled professional prostitution; because we are in regular receipt of stashes of cash in brown envelopes.
It is no wonder, therefore, that because Mugabe has been away in Asia for ten days with no-one, apparently, explaining why or when he was due back, we immediately concluded that he must either be dead or dying in some hospital out there. The evidently convenient (politically) presumption is backed with a WikiLeaks report which claimed the Zanu PF leader suffers from advanced cancer and TB Joshua’s supposed prophecy that an elderly African leader would soon kick the bucket.
Nothing can be more disingenuous and ridiculous than the suggestion that the online publication which originated the report was genuinely misled by a senior Zanu PF official. The fact of the matter is that many in the media now serve an agenda that says a good Mugabe is one gone yesterday – wherever and however. You do not go on to sack phantom reporters if they can prove they were genuinely conned by a senior Zanu PF official. In any case, we all know that there are no members of staff to speak of, much less fire; those in the business are aware that online publications are ordinarily a one-or-two-men operation at base, with a few under-cover correspondents back in Zimbabwe.
Again the industry has not been helped by the explosion, over the last few years, of Zimbabwe-focussed news publications on the internet – today’s equivalent of Bakhtin’s grotesque body which has grown to consume the world and is itself voraciously devoured by the same. We have a situation now whereby, attracted by income from Google adverts and the ease with which anyone can set up a website, political activists and all manner of shady characters have, overnight, turned into publishers in a practically lawless virtual world where anything goes because there is no accountability.
The old school types tell us that the role of journalist is to make those in positions of authority and responsibility accountable, but that is the reason they have largely been shunted aside in our newsrooms and “promoted upstairs” to obscure roles. Newly-graduated, young, overeager but malleable charges have since have been promoted in their place because they understand that principle does not pay. They have no problem doing the bidding of politicians so long as they can keep their high-sounding job titles which, of course, come with swanky new wheels and the weekly brown envelope.
Even so, it would of course be naïve to expect today’s journalist to be an “independent, neutral, objective and dispassionate” professional in an environment where media organisations are owned by individuals and or groups of people with interests beyond mere profit. But even as newspapers will necessarily take certain political positions, that does not mean journalists should tell bare-faced lies or pretend that opinion – or their wishes – is fact.
It is one thing to pen an op-ed that says we believe Cde Egypt Dzinemunhenzva is the only person capable of leading Zimbabwe out of its present mire, but quite another to lie on the fellow’s behalf. In any case, even America’s embeds have since admitted that while the practice has “vantage point value, it hardly (gives the) full picture” and that, apart from the risk of inheriting the prejudices and distortions of the side with which we are embedded, “we can’t explain a conflict if we hear from only one side.”
One therefore hopes that, while we clear the egg off our shamed collective faces in the wake of Mugabe’s latest Asia sojourn, we also use the deserved embarrassment to reflect on how we can better protect our integrity and, with it, our covenant of trust with the reading and or viewing public.
Organisations such as the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and related institutions must engage online and other media organisations operating from outside Zimbabwe and find ways of encouraging some form of ethical conduct because abrogation of the same shames us all and harms the credibility of the whole industry.
Labels: MEDIA, PROPAGANDA, ROBERT MUGABE
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Makoni promises Mugabe ‘rude awakening’
12/04/2012 00:00:00
by Gilbert Nyambabvu
FORMER Finance Minister and Mavambo Kusile Dawn (MKD) leader Dr Simba Makoni has dismissed snide remarks by President Robert Mugabe that he has no followers and warned the Zanu PF leader he faces a “rude awakening” at the next polls.
Addressing a recent Zanu PF central committee meeting in Harare, Mugabe said this of his former charge: ‘…ndakamubvunza kuti unaani... ko uneParty here? ... iye akati aah! vanhu vanondivhotera… hanzi vanhu vanonditera nekuti ndinonzi Simba Makoni.’ (I asked him whether he has any supporters and he said people will support me because I’m Simba Makoni).
In a statement Thursday, Makoni said he was “not moved” by Mugabe’s churlish remarks which, he added, “display the height of political intolerance” on the part of the Zanu PF leader.
“We do not need the endorsement of intolerant political competitors. We would be worried if such remarks were coming from thirteen million Zimbabweans,” he said.
“President Mugabe’s utterances do not reflect a popular sentiment and M.K.D will give him a rude awakening come next elections, which we hope will be conducted in an environment that guarantees a free and fair outcome.”
For years touted as a potential successor to Mugabe but frustrated by the veteran leader’s refusal to make way, Makoni challenged him for the presidency in 2008, claiming several Zanu PF big wigs backed his bid. But only Dumiso Dabengwa and a few lesser lights publicly supported him.
In the end he managed about 8 percent of the vote and, with that, the wrath of critics who accused him of helping keep Mugabe in power by taking away part of the opposition vote which could have handed Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T an outright win in the first round of the Presidential ballot.
But Makoni said Thursday his party was ready to pull a shocker at the next elections which are likely to be held this year if Mugabe has his way.
“President Mugabe’s utterances do not reflect a popular sentiment and M.K.D will give him a rude awakening come next elections, which we hope will be conducted in an environment that guarantees a free and fair outcome,” he said.
“Simba Makoni and M.K.D are here to stay and not going anywhere. By now, at least President Mugabe should know better. He would not have been so jittery if Makoni was not an issue in the country’s body politic.
“We are a serious game changer and neither an easy pushover nor cry baby in this field. We will stand our ground with equal measure. M.K.D has all it takes not only to contest, but win elections, govern effectively and efficiently and make this country work again.”
Fresh polls to replace the coalition government could be held this year if the country completes constitutional and other political reforms in time.
Even so, Mugabe has warned he could name an election date without the new constitution, accusing his rivals of deliberately undermining the reform process in order to delay the elections.
Still, Tsvangirai has insisted that the Zanu PF leader cannot unilaterally call elections under the terms of their coalition deal, adding his party would not contest the elections unless conditions are in place to guarantee a “free and fair” vote.
Labels: MAVAMBO KUSILE DAWN, SIMBA MAKONI
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Journalism in the dock as Mugabe returns
12/04/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
Mugabe – whose Asia holiday triggered wild speculation that he was “on his deathbed” in Singapore – “looked fine” during the five-hour meeting also attended by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a minister who was present told New Zimbabwe.com.
Asked if Mugabe, 88, had been asked about the rumours over his health, the minister would neither confirm nor deny, citing a strict ministerial code of secrecy over Cabinet proceedings. The Zanu PF leader, travelling on a chartered Airbus 319, touched down at the Harare International Airport just before 6.30AM.
He exchanged brief pleasantries with waiting officials including Vice President Joice Mujuru, State Security Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, Transport Minister Nicholas Goche, Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere, army commander General Constantine Chiwenga and CIO director general Happyton Bonyongwe before zooming off in his motorcade.
Mugabe’s apparent wellness was drawing a backlash against media organisations which rushed to publish claims of his purported illness based on a false report by a Zimbabwean website.
The website’s bogus report was originally reprinted by an Australian newspaper before being regurgitated by major world newspapers.
Most Zimbabwean media organisations were, however, measured in their reporting. Trevor Ncube, the publisher of the Zimbabwe Independent and Standard, took to Twitter to warn: “Please note that the source of the Mugabe rumour story is not a reliable one.”
Alasdair Munn, a Zimbabwe-born CEO of the Communications Group and blogger said the episode had exposed the limitations of “citizen journalism”.
He wrote on his blog: “When studying journalism some 25 years ago, we used to talk about ‘news-induced crime waves.’ As a publisher, to create the illusion that the crime of, say, snatching handbags from grannies is on the increase, all you need to do is increase the number of instances you report on it.
“The recent Mugabe health-scare, whether true or not, has shown how social media has amplified and grown a report from a single, unsubstantiated source.
“We wait to find out what is really going on, but what is clear is citizen journalism, in this instance, has done nothing more than fuel speculation and rumour.”
Some of the UK newspapers which were speculating that Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa was on the verge of being installed as “dying” Mugabe’s successor have been backpedalling furiously since he returned to Harare.
Former Zimbabwe Mirror editor Chofamba Sithole said: “The global media's morbid interest in the mortality of one Robert Mugabe supercedes all journalistic ethos, it seems.
“All the big media outlets shamelessly rested their claims on the frail shoulders of a pathetic citizen news site bereft of all credibility quoting a faceless source.
“Journalists failed to test the credibility of the story. For instance, what was the name of this Singaporean hospital? Were there any signs of heightened security outside it? Had anyone from the Mugabe family been seen leaving or entering this hospital?
“What comes across is that no news outlet seems to have invested any journalistic effort in uncovering the basic facts about this story.”
Information Minister Webster Shamu chided reporters for “spreading rumours” moments after Mugabe touched down.
"As you can see, he is fit as a fiddle. Why do we spread rumours? It's all lies told by a press driving an imperialist agenda," he said to a group of reporters at the airport.
Labels: MEDIA, ROBERT MUGABE
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Govt calls for policies promoting green economy
Friday, 13 April 2012 00:00
Herald Reporter
GOVERNMENT yesterday called for the adoption of policies that focus on waste reduction and mitigating the effects of climate change for the sustainable development of a green economy. Speaking at the National Environmental Expo and Conference in Harare, Environment and Natural Resources Management Minister Francis Nhema said the policies should be in place for business as they played an important role in delivering a green economy.
“It is my call to all businesses to operate in a way that does not threaten the future of our existence by continually seeking out new ways of sustainable operations.
“In this regard my ministry, through platforms like the Environment Expo we held in 2011 and this Green Business Indaba for 2012, encourages operations that are environmentally sound and promote sustainable development,” said Minister Nhema.
The expo is running under the theme: “Greening the Economy — Addressing Behaviour, Energy and Climate Change”. The Environment and Natural Resources Management Ministry in conjunction with Exhibit-It Events Management Company organised the event.
He said his ministry’s thrust was to promote sustainable development that is in line with the Millennium Development Goal number seven, which seeks to ensure environmental sustainability.
“In environmental stewardship, the achievement of our objectives and national targets is hinged on the unique partnerships we create with communities, societies and the corporate world at large.
“The environment is of global concern and our mandate is engulfed in global efforts to ensure progress in achieving both national and international targets,” he said.
Minister Nhema said scientific research has over the years drawn attention to existing and hypothetical threats to the environment and humanity.
“There continues to be growing pressure on natural resources from human activities, in particular business exploits.
“That is why it is of paramount importance for businesses to operate with minimum environmental impact, carbon footprint and increased awareness of environmental implications of their operations,” said Minister Nhema.
He said the transition to a green economy was essential for delivering sustainable development and long term economic growth.
Minister Nhema said if people used and managed resources properly, they (natural resources) would continue to meet people’s needs for energy, food, fresh water, clean air and fertile soils, all of which are essential in enabling them to grow and prosper.
“To enable the transition to a green economy, business and consumers must take advantage of the benefits of resource efficiencies.
“All the sectors of the economy will need to grow with less environmental impact and greater resilience to future environmental challenges including adaptation to climate change,” he said.
Also speaking on the same occasion Forestry Commission general manager Mr Darlington Duwa lamented the lack of resources confronting the parastatal.
This has left it unable to effectively roll out programmes that promote the sustainable use of resources in line with the drive to achieve a green economy.
“We get very little from the fiscus, which makes it critical for the corporate sector to chip in through awareness campaigns and maybe the purchase of seedlings for planting in many deforested areas,” said Mr Duwa.
The expo and conference that has drawn participants from the business world and environmentally concerned organisations will end today.
Labels: FRANCIS NHEMA, GREEN REVOLUTION
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The US’s Barbarous Policy on Iran
April 12, 2012
By Stephen Gowans
“Sanctions,” New York Times’ reporter Rick Gladstone writes, have subjected “ordinary Iranians” to “increased deprivations” in order to “punish Iran for enriching uranium that the West suspects is a cover for developing the ability to make nuclear weapons.” [1] In other words, Iran is suspected of having a secret nuclear weapons program, and so must be sanctioned to force it to abandon it.
Contrary to Gladstone, the West doesn’t really believe that Tehran has a secret nuclear weapons program, yet even if we accept it does believe this, the position is indefensible. Why should Iranians be punished for developing a capability that the countries that have imposed sanctions already have?
The reason why, it will be said, is because Iranians are bent on developing nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. Didn’t Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to “wipe Israel off the map”?
Regurgitated regularly by US hawks and Israeli politicians to mobilize support for the bombing of Iran, the claim is demagogic rubbish. Ahmadinejad predicted that Israel as a Zionist state would someday disappear much as South Africa as an apartheid state did. He didn’t threaten the physical destruction of Israel and expressed only the wish that historic Palestine would become a multinational democratic state of Arabs and of Jews who trace their descent from antecedents who arrived in Palestine before the arrival of Zionist settlers, i.e., that it would someday become a more humane alternative to what it is today. [2]
No less damaging to the argument that Iranians aspire to take Israel out in a hail of nuclear missiles is the reality that it would take decades for Iran to match Israel’s already formidable nuclear arsenal, if indeed it ever aspires to. For the foreseeable future, Israel is in a far better position to wipe Iran off the map. And given Israel’s penchant for flexing its US-built military muscle, is far more likely to be the wiper than the wipee. Already it has almost wiped an entire people from the map of historic Palestine.
But this is irrelevant, for the premise that the West suspects Iran of developing a nuclear weapons capability is false. To be sure, the mass media endlessly recycle the fiction that the West suspects Iran’s uranium enrichment program is a cover for a nuclear weapons program, but who in the West suspects this? Not high officials of the US state, for they have repeatedly said that there’s no evidence that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program.
The consensus view of the United States’ 16 intelligence agencies is that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program years ago. Director of US intelligence James Clapper “said there was no evidence that (Iran) had made a decision on making a concerted push to build a weapon. David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director, concurred with that view…. Other senior United States officials, including Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have made similar statements.” [3]
Rather than weakening this conclusion, stepped up US espionage has buttressed it. Iran’s leaders “have opted for now against…designing a nuclear warhead,” said one former intelligence official briefed on US intelligence findings. “It isn’t the absence of evidence, it’s the evidence of an absence. Certain things are not being done” [4] that would indicate that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. Even Mossad, Israeli’s intelligence agency “does not disagree with the US on the weapons program,” according to a former senior US intelligence official. [5]
So, contrary to the repeated claim that the West “suspects” Iran of concealing a nuclear weapons program, no one in a position of authority in the US state believes this to be true. Neither does Israeli intelligence. So why is the United States and its allies subjecting ordinary Iranians to increased deprivations through sanctions?
The answer, according to the grand docent of US foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, is because US policy in the Middle East for the last half century has been aimed at “preventing any power in the region from emerging as a hegemon.” This is another way of saying that the aim of US Middle East policy is to stop any Middle Eastern country from challenging its domination by the United States. Iran, Kissinger points out, has emerged as the principal challenger. [6]
Indeed, it did so as long ago as 1979, when the local extension of US power in Iran, the Shah, was overthrown, and the country set out on a path of independent economic and political development free from the oppression of a Washington henchman. For the revolutionaries’ boldness in asserting their sovereignty, Washington pressed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq into a war with Iran. This served the same purpose as today’s economic warfare, sabotage, threats of military intervention, and assassinations of Iran’s nuclear scientists: to weaken the country and stifle its development; to prevent it from thriving and thereby becoming an example to other countries of development possibilities outside US domination.
Uranium enrichment has emerged as point of conflict for two reasons.
First, a civilian nuclear power industry strengthens Iran economically and domestic uranium enrichment provides the country with an independent source of nuclear fuel. Were Iran to depend on the West for enriched uranium to power its reactors, it would be forever at the mercy of a hostile US state. Likewise, concern over energy security being in the hands of an outside power has led Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and South Korea to insist over US objections that they be allowed to produce nuclear fuel domestically, without sanction. With US nuclear reactor sales hanging in the balance, it appears that their wishes will be respected. [7] Iran will be uniquely denied.
Secondly, uranium enrichment provides Tehran with the capability of developing nuclear weapons quickly, if it should ever feel compelled to. Given Washington’s longstanding hostility to an independent Iran, there are good reasons why the country may want to strengthen its means of self-defense. The hypocrisy of the United States championing counter-proliferation—and only selectively since no one is asking Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, and the United States hasn’t the slightest intention of ever relinquishing its own—reveals the illegitimacy of the exercise.
The reason, then, for punishing Iranians with new and more debilitating privations is not because their government has a secret nuclear weapons program —which no one in the US state believes anyway—but because a developing Iran with independent energy, economic and foreign policies threatens Washington’s preferred world political order—one in which the United States has unchallenged primacy.
Given that bankers, corporate lawyers and top corporate executives hold key positions in the US state and given that they fund and contribute to elite policy formulation organizations, it can be concluded that the point of US primacy is to secure the financial and corporate class’s profit-making interests. These include: creation of conditions for low-wage labor; the elimination of infant-industry protections; bans on subsidized pricing of necessities; upward redistribution of income; privatization of heath care and education; weakening environmental and health and safety regulations; and so on; in other words, all that is necessary to make profits fatter, and at the same time, all that makes the lives of ordinary people—in Iran and the West–meaner, poorer, shorter, and more uncertain.
Iran’s economic policy, with its restrictions on foreign investment and foreign ownership, and reliance on state-ownership of key industries, is an anathema to a US corporate and financial elite that depends on free access to profit making opportunities on a global scale. [8] To secure its interests in Iran, this class of super-wealthy bankers, investors and corporate titans, through its domination of the state, pursues a policy of creating misery among ordinary Iranians to destabilize their country and press their leadership into surrendering Iran to its pre-1979 role as appendage of US economic and foreign policy—and source of lucrative money-making opportunities.
The barbarism—concealed beneath lies about the need to protect Israel from an existential threat posed by an Iran that is “suspected” to be secretly building nuclear weapons –is revealed: Iran is being impoverished and threatened with physical destruction, not because it’s an offensive threat to anyone’s physical safety, but because its insistence on sovereignty is a threat to unrestricted Western corporate and financial domination of the Middle East.
1. Rick Gladstone, “Iranian President Says Oil Embargo Won’t Hurt”, The New York Times, April 10, 2012.
2. Glenn Kessler, “Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’?” The Washington Post, October 6, 2011.
3. James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. agencies see no move by Iran to build a bomb”, The New York Times, February 24, 2012.
4. Joby Warrick and Greg Miller, “U.S. intelligence gains in Iran seen as boost to confidence”, The Washington Post, April 7, 2012.
5. James Risen, “U.S. faces a tricky task in assessment of data on Iran”, The New York Times, March 17, 2012.
6. Henry A. Kissinger, “A new doctrine of intervention?” The Washington Post, March 30, 2012.
7. Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon, “Obama to discuss North Korea, Iran”, The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2012.
8. For an elaboration of this point see Stephen Gowans, “Wars for Profits: A No-Nonsense Guide to Why the United States Seeks to Make Iran an International Pariah”, what’s left, November 9, 2011.
Labels: IRAN, SANCTIONS
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Malawi calls for strengthening of ties with Zambia
TIME PUBLISHED - Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 9:11 am
File:Malawian President Joyce Banda with Vice president Guy Scott
MALAWI’s new President Joyce Banda has called for the strengthening of relations between her country and Zambia. Mrs Banda made the call at a press conference in Lilongwe yesterday when she gave an update on the funeral and burial arrangements for President Bingu wa Mutharika.
According to a statement released by the first secretary at the Zambian High Commission in Lilongwe Chansa Kabwela, Mrs Banda told the media that she had a lengthy telephone conversation with President Sata on Monday and talked about relations between Zambia and Malawi.
Mrs Banda said much as the relations between the two countries were not severed, it was important for the two nations to cooperate because of historical ties and proximity.
“I also spoke with President Sata and he offered his condolences to the bereaved family and the people of Malawi. We both committed ourselves to the restoration of cordial diplomatic relations between our two governments,” she said.
Ms Kabwela said President Banda had dispatched Malawi’s Health minister Dr Jean Kililani to South Africa to oversee the entire process of bringing the body of President Mutharika to Malawi and the details of the burial arrangements would be announced as soon as the ministerial committee finalises its work.
The remains of the President are expected in Malawi on Thursday.
During the press conference, President Banda assured the nation that the government was working for the people, with a two-pronged approach focusing on giving President Mutharika a dignified burial and addressing the economic challenges the country is facing.
Mrs Banda said she has already had discussions with Britain, the European Union, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) chief executive officer Daniel Johannes, regarding Malawi’s diplomatic relations and withheld funding.
She said Malawi faced numerous economic challenges and was prepared to address the issues that led to donors withholding aid.
She said cooperating partners were ready to assist Malawi.
[I sense a change of policy. - MrK]
Last year, donors froze aid to Malawi over what they termed the country’s failure to address concerns about economic management and governance.
[Extending a loan to the besieged Government of Zimbabwe, and telling the World Bank to take a hike when they didn't want the government to extend fertilizer support to small farmers, because it would interfere with 'the workings of the free market'. Otherwise known as 'concerns about economic management and governance'. - MrK]
Malawi also expelled Britain’s envoy Fergus Cochrane-Dyet over leaked diplomatic cables.
Britain retaliated by expelling Malawi’s envoy to that country.
[Zambia Daily Mail]
Labels: JOYCE BANDA, MALAWI, NEOLIBERALISM
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