BBC correspondent sues Times of Zambia for libel
By Noel Sichalwe
Thursday August 14, 2008 [04:00]
BBC Sports correspondent Kennedy Gondwe has sued Times of Zambia for libel. According to a statement of claim filed in the Lusaka High Court on July 30, 2008, Gondwe stated that on June 29, 2008 Times of Zambia falsely and maliciously wrote, printed and published or caused to be written words which were defamatory against him.
The article read, "Kennedy is not alone, there are many waiting in the terraces for coach Herve Renard and FAZ president Kalusha Bwalya's committee to fail so that they can laugh themselves silly.
They are waiting for the moment when they will pump hands over drinks, coffee, cigarettes, champagne and wine hiding in their darkened sheds before toasting to the defeat of the Chipolopolo. To them, Zambia's 1-0 win against Swaziland was certainly not good at all especially that chances of qualification still looked blurred as they just might tumble on the way."
"I thought FAZ elections were long gone and that those who had their manifestos cancelled out would stay beaten and wait for the 2011 FAZ elections so they could try their luck again, how mistaken I was."
Gondwe contended that the words referred to and were understood to him and others as he was specifically mentioned.
"The defendant by its own words intended to bring the plaintiff into total disrepute with the public at large and particularly with those currently charged with the responsibility of running footballing affairs in Zambia," Gondwe stated.
He argued that the words meant and were understood to mean that he belonged to a group of malcontents who despised the current FAZ executive and those who celebrated any failure on the part of Zambia national football team and its technical staff.
Gondwe contended that the words meant that he belonged to a group of people who harboured aspirations for positions in FAZ executive and were consequently undermining the efforts of the current executive instead of waiting for the next elections in 2011.
"The plaintiff in consequence of the said words has been seriously injured in his character, credit and reputation and has been brought into public scandal, odium and contempt," he noted.
Gondwe further argued that because of the article, he had suffered damage to his integrity, objectivity, professionalism and impartiality as a sports journalist.
Labels: BBC, COURTS, KENNEDY GONDWE
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Illegal regime change takes Internet by storm
By Dambudzo Mapuranga
THE British Government appoints the BBC’s entire top management. In fact, one can safely say BBC is a mouthpiece of the British Government. This being said, how then can BBC be expected to report objectively concerning the Government of Zimbabwe seeing that Zanu-PF has been labelled enemy number one by the residents of Number 10 Downing Street.
"We cannot independently verify the contents of this story as BBC is banned from reporting in Zimbabwe".
This is the disclaimer that you will find under many of the stories on Zimbabwe on the BBC’s website, TV and radio broadcasts.
The disclaimer is posted solely for the purpose of protecting BBC from being sued by the Government of Zimbabwe over its blatant false news stories.
Several questions arise when one closely examines the disclaimer and chief among them is, if the BBC has failed to verify a story why then would they report it and also post it on its website as a news article?
The only answer that there is to the actions of the BBC is that as long as any story paints a heinous picture of Zanu-PF, President Mugabe and Zimbabwe it will find itself attaining high priority on the BBC website, TV and radio. I am confident that if I were to open a fictitious story chronicling how Zanu-PF supporters have done all sorts of evil deeds on my being and on my property and even include several pictures of road accident victims it will make it on to BBC.
The game of creating news stories is not anything new; in fact the Americans perfected it a long time ago.
A classic example is seen from the American movie "Wag the Dog" starring Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman. The concept of the movie being that after news broke out that on the run up to the first Gulf War the Kuwaiti Lobby in Washington, DC commissioned the production of false news stories that showed Iraqi army tanks and soldiers advancing towards a supposed Iraqi/Kuwaiti border. It turns out that the entire footage was shot in the Nevada Desert with the help of the Bush administration.
The deception did not end there. These unscrupulous people went on to produce false testimony before the US Congress (the equivalent of our parliament). The daughter of the then Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States was coached into testifying and lie before the US Congress on how her entire village was razed and how she escaped being killed by pretending to be dead and covering herself with the intestines of her dead mother.
The partiality of western media houses is well known, as most of them are nothing more than public relations offices of their countries’ foreign affairs ministries.
The negative reporting of the BBC and CNN on Zimbabwe is a mockery of the same institutions their governments claim to be propagating across the globe.
Rumours make juicy stories and are very difficult to take back. The type of irresponsible journalism being witnessed on the Internet has turned BBC and CNN into some of the biggest rumour mills.
Only myopic people and racists would find such rag tag stories to be of value.
Here are two stories that highlight gross irresponsibility on the part of the BBC and CNN. Some of them leave the reader wondering whether the editors of these media houses even bother showing up for work.
Zimbabwe campaign: Secret document
The article claims that undercover BBC news correspondent Ian Pannell obtained evidence of plans by Zimbabwe’s ruling party to harass and drive out opposition supporters.
I for one would like to have whatever medication Zanu-PF legal affairs secretary Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa is drinking, because according to the secret document, Cde Mnangagwa is doing the work of ten very strong men.
One day he is reported to be in South Africa consulting with the ANC, the next day he is hailed as the man running the so called military junta that is now "ruling" Zimbabwe, and now he is heading the Zanu-PF presidential election campaign.
That being said an analysis of the secret document shows that it is a total take. Zanu-PF takes great pride in its work and anyone who is familiar with Zanu-PF’s operations would know that any correspondence or party documents would have the Zanu-PF letterhead. The so called Zanu-PF secret document contains no logo or letterhead to show its origin.
Given that the cunning legal brains of Cde Mnangagwa are said to be heading the Action Plan documented in this disgraceful and shoddily down piece of work one wonders whether there is another Mnangagwa with half a brain who would come up with such a poor strategy.
One can only conclude that this secret document came from some opposition dim-wit with nothing better to do. The poor English used in the document leaves the mouth with a sour taste. The poor fellow then adds the names of several prominent Zanu-PF figures and accredits them to be from the Zanu-PF Midlands Province.
With the exception of Cde Mnangagwa, the rest of the party functionaries are not from the Zanu-PF Midlands Province. Senator Edna Madzongwe is from Mashonaland West Province.
Both Senator Joshua Malinga and Cde Jabulani Sibanda are from the Bulawayo Province, while Cde Joseph Chinotimba is from Manicaland Province.
The BBC failed to realise this and further more it is common knowledge that Politburo members such as Cdes Madzongwe and Mnangagwa head teams in their respective provinces and are not thrown all over the country in a haphazard manner.
Death of a Zimbabwe Activist
In an ironic twist of events Tonderai Ndira became a hero in death and yet he lived the life of a thug.
Despite all her hatred for Zanu-PF, Trudy Stevenson can attest that she did not moan the death of a former MDC-T activist who was responsible for her assault in Mabvuku in 2005, an assault that resulted in head injuries and a fractured arm.
The two police officers based at ZRP Marimba who were unfortunate to be at the station when it was petrol-bombed by Ndira and his accomplices surely did not shed a tear for the man responsible for their skin burns.
None of these heinous acts were featured in the glowing obituary that BBC News posted on Tonderai Ndira. Instead the news article glorified a violent man who died a violent death. The elderly are correct when they say those who live by the gun die by the gun.
"I knew him personally, he was a youth activist who went around the country holding workshops and teaching people their rights."
That is what one unnamed ZimRights official is quoted to have said. Too bad we cannot contact the so-called official and ask him for the names of the three towns where Ndira held human rights workshops.
Ndira’s farewell should have been a true reflection of what he was. It should have said "the death of an MDC-T foot soldier".
The story then tells of how ten men came in a pick up truck to Ndira’s house in Mabvuku armed with AK-47 rifles around seven in the morning and boldly asked Ndira’s wife to inform him that they had come to collect him. The men then abducted Ndira in his underwear in front of his children.
Of all the incredible things you have ever heard this is right up there with "the dog ate my homework" story.
Anyone who has been to Mabvuku or any other high-density suburb knows that there is no way anyone can be abducted at seven in the morning.
Are we meant to believe that somehow there were no people going about their business to witness ten armed men in an open pick-up truck kidnapping Tonderai Ndira?
With the way the MDC-T loves to cry for attention should this not have been on BBC and CNN within thirty minutes of Ndira’s abduction?
Observe how the BBC and CNN seem to be able to report of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s arrests within minutes of them happening.
How then did Ndira’s abduction go unreported for days only to have the news of his death reported to coincide with Tsvangirai’s return from self-imposed exile?
As if that was not enough, Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s self-proclaimed saviour "cried" at Ndira’s funeral, to invoke emotions of the Holy Book’s shortest, "Jesus wept" before raising Lazarus from the dead.
BBC now offers to answer readers’ questions about Zimbabwe through their undercover correspondent Ian Pannell. One can only guess what lies this hack of a journalist will be peddling to those who intend to ask him about the political situation in Zimbabwe.
I sent Ian Pannell several questions which I believe to be very pertinent to the Zimbabwean situation, but he is yet to respond to. My questions were:
l Why has the BBC and CNN not reported on MDC-T perpetrated violence against Zanu-PF supporters?
l Why has the BBC failed to reveal where it got the copy of the alleged Secret Zanu-PF campaign document?
l Why has the BBC never written about the effects of the illegal sanctions on ordinary Zimbabweans?
l Why is there no reference to the US’ Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 on its website?
l Why does the BBC only quote right wing Rhodesians and MDC-T as the people representing "Zimbabweans"?
In conclusion, the long and short answer is that the Zimbabwe situation has largely been played up by the Western media and it is clear that it is an extension of their foreign relations policy on Africa.
This stark reality puts our private media poles apart with the Western media that they mimic, since our private media believes that "following the flag" is retrogressive.
The Internet, where lies, half truths and misinformation are peddled as news has internationalised the issue with pseudo experts and arm chair critics who have an axe to grind against Zanu-PF, President Mugabe and his Government always being available with "opinions and analyses" of every news item reported by the BBC and CNN and a whole host of other foreign networks.
However, the shameful thing is that the lies always come through, and the embedded journalism shows itself.
Labels: BBC, CNN, ELECTIONS, INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
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BBC, stop fanning flames of war In Zimbabwe
Cyprian Monju—Opinion
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:02:00 +0000
ZIMBABWE had been a very peaceful country before the coming of Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai as a political party leader. He came through the British to disturb the government of President Robert Mugabe because of his land reform policy. Mr. Tsvangirai is a rebel whom the British want to use and kill Mugabe to take the land from the blacks and hand it over to the white minority again.
I strongly advise Mugabe to arrest Mr. Tsvangirai and not only jail him, but try him for treason, murder and the displacement of innocent Zimbabweans.
Those African leaders and the West who are in support of Mr. Tsvangirai are not doing any good to Africa and Zimbabwe in particular.
Mr. Tsvangirai's form of democracy is rebellious.
Listening to BBC radio, I heard President Dos Santos of Angola calling for Mugabe to stop the violence whereas the perpetrator to me is Mr. Tsvangirai, who seems to be scheming to get money for the acquisition of arms and probably dole out some of it to his family abroad.
Dos Santos seemed to be in support of Mr. Tsvangirai. The big question here is, if Mugabe supported Jonas Malheiro Savimbi who led the UNITA rebels to fight against his government, he (Dos Santos), would he have been the president of Angola today? Let Dos Santos be informed that Tsvangirai is a rebel just like Savimbi.
Mugabe should send troops to boot Tsvangirai out of the Dutch Embassy and throw him into jail where he will wallow for the rest of his life.
As long as there is freedom of speech in Zimbabwe, journalists too, should stop fanning the flames of war in Zimbabwe, especially BBC journalists. I think they are doing so because the white minority are of British extraction.
If the international body wants Mugabe to step down from power they should clean the whole of Africa, starting with Africa's longest-serving leaders, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Paul Biya of Cameroon, etc.
Cyprian Monju—Opinion
The Post (Buea, Cameroon)
[Article published courtesy of allAfrica.com where it was first published]
Labels: BBC, ZIMBABWE
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BBC, CNN, Sky News losing credibility
Sihle Dube—Opinion
Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:10:00 +0000
DEAR EDITOR—I am concerned by the portrayal of Zimbabwe in international media and the negativity surrounding the reports on Zimbabwe. It seems like Zimbabwe is breaking news on every channel in the United Kingdom. Can any of your readers care to tell me what the fascination with our country is. I see wars and conflict elsewhere in the world where the news do not even make it to prime time.
Is there something that is in Zimbabwe that these people know about that we don’t – like hidden oil, diamonds or something?
The media onslaught is unwarranted. We need 'real news' not their opinions.
President Mugabe might be bad, but surely not so bad as to warrant such a media onslaught.
Western media’s bias has made it lose its credibility, especially with regards to Zimbabwe.
The BBC, CNN, Sky News unfortunately are exposing their inability to report on complex political crises like in Zimbabwe.
There has been an increasing number of political analysts from the opposition and human rights organisations expressing their ignorance on Zimbabwe.
I wonder how these analysts are selected by these seemingly authoritative news channels, but no more.
I’ll give an example of the hyperbole spread by ‘analysts’. The BBC entertained Wilf Mbanga of The Zimbabwean newspaper saying: “We have a leaked memo saying that the military junta in Zimbabwe is trying to kill off all MDC MPs.”
Now if this is not crazy, I do not have another definition of that term.
And why does The Zimbabwean always have these ‘leaked memos’ that never materialize. It is shocking that the BBC gives such people, obviously shallow analysts, the time of day.
The BBC has to work hard now to regain its credibility.
Sihle Dube—Opinion
sihledube@hotmail.co.uk
Labels: BBC, INTERNATIONAL MEDIA, ZIMBABWE
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Mugabe's remarkable comeback
By John Simpson
World affairs editor, BBC News, Harare
It has been done with great brutality, but Robert Mugabe has achieved an extraordinary turnaround here. Back in March, when the first round of voting took place, he was humiliated by being beaten into second place in the presidential race, and by losing the parliamentary election outright. Now he's the sole effective candidate in Friday's presidential run-off, and he cannot fail to win with an overwhelming majority.
The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power
His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been completely outmanoeuvred. The outside world, which mostly sympathises with him, can do nothing whatever to help him.
The suburban street outside the Dutch embassy where he's taken refuge in Harare is empty, except for a few security policemen on the look-out.
Even his choice of embassy has been turned against him by his political enemies. It might well have been better for him politically if he had chosen an African rather than a European country to ask for help.
As it is, MDC supporters are gloomy and resentful. They are also cowed.
The streets of Harare are quiet because there is no longer any need for the groups of violent political activists in Zanu-PF T-shirts who have been roaming them, looking for people to beat up.
Media bias
There will be no demonstrations in favour of the man inside the Dutch embassy. He seems as cowed as his supporters.
There are plenty of people here who do not even know yet that Morgan Tsvangirai has dropped out of the political race.
Morgan Tsvangirai's presidential campaign has been ignored or belittled
That is not entirely surprising. The official media scarcely mentions Mr Tsvangirai or the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) unless they are obliged to.
The main English-language television news programme at 8pm each evening on the ZBC is an hour-long paean of praise to Mr Mugabe and his past record.
The programme's reporting merges imperceptibly with the frequent election advertisements for Mr Mugabe. If anything, the reporters and newscasters praise him more than his own party hacks.
As for Mr Tsvangirai, he only gets a substantial mention on television when he is being attacked. One rather well-made advertisement lists him with Tony Blair, George W Bush and Gordon Brown as members of the "failures club".
A long news report on Mr Mugabe's political campaigning contrasts his successes and his likely future achievements with Mr Tsvangirai's inexperience. The reporter, referring to Mr Tsvangirai's past as a union leader, says dismissively that he has merely negotiated about getting more money.
Neither she nor anyone else in this hour-long programme mentions that on Monday the Zimbabwean dollar fell to 30 billion against the US dollar. The cost of a tub of margarine in a Harare store on Monday was Z$420m.
Chinese support
No-one knows how much worse the economic collapse will be after Mr Mugabe wins the vote on Friday. The economy seems to be in complete freefall now.
But as long as he can blame it on Western sanctions, even though they are few and mostly aimed at leading members of Zanu-PF, he will remain unscathed.
Western powers will be openly angry about the eclipse of Morgan Tsvangirai and the sweeping victory of Robert Mugabe on Friday. Many African governments will be just as angry, but will be more discreet about it.
Some countries, China in particular, will continue to help Mr Mugabe quietly and give him what diplomatic protection they can.
It all adds up to a remarkable sweeping victory for a man who only three months ago seemed to be on the ropes.
The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power, nor the ability of his political opponents to destroy their own case.
COMMENT -
" That is not entirely surprising. The official media scarcely mentions Mr Tsvangirai or the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) unless they are obliged to. "
Not so. The Herald daily has articles criticizing the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai. If all publicity is good publicity, one cannot say that Morgan Tsvangirai or the MDC have been ignored.
The problem is that they are so clearly linked to foreign interests, economic programs and the support of former colonial powers. At the same time, the MDC seems to have very little support in the rural areas, where most people live.
" No-one knows how much worse the economic collapse will be after Mr Mugabe wins the vote on Friday. The economy seems to be in complete freefall now. "
How does that work? How do you go into freefall after having 100,000% inflation? Just wondering. Too many lies have been told about Zimbabwe.
" But as long as he can blame it on Western sanctions, even though they are few and mostly aimed at leading members of Zanu-PF, he will remain unscathed. "
Again, not so. Sanctions are far reaching, and more severe than against Rhodesia. The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 has banned the government of Zimbabwe from borrowing internationally for 7 years now, which resulted in the worldrecord hyperinflation the BBC can't stop reporting about. I suggest you read it.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s107-494
Zimbabwe has been banned from borrowing from the IMF, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and many more. Those sanctions are not 'aimed at leading members of ZANU-PF', no matter how much the MDC wants to both call for sanctions and avoid responsibility for the negative effects they have on the economy and society. Which is another reason why the MDC is a sham organisation. They refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, let alone face the people of Zimbabwe as the cause of the sanctions they call for.
" The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power, nor the ability of his political opponents to destroy their own case. "
Especially when his opponents are what they seem - a foreign supported, neoliberal collection of entitled sellouts. Other than neoliberalism and the desire to ascend to power, they have no ideology.
The world needs to move beyond the condemnation of Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe, and get on board with the issue of land reform, and the central role it is going to play in the world food crisis.
We need to get land back into the hands of the only people in Africa who produce staple crops, wich is the ordinary African farmer. 70% of staple crops in Zimbabwe were grown by African 'peasant' farmers, and the remaining 30% was grown on white commercial farms, by the African farm workers. The commercial farmers mainly grew tobacco.
What the world needs is more food, not more crops that undermine people's health.
After let's remember, Britain could have prevented all this by just continuing to fund the old 'Willing Buyer, Willing Seller' land reform program back in 1997. Just ask Claire Short about her 1997 letter to the Zimbabwean minister of Agriculture.
And I like Claire Short, but by unilaterally blowing up what was left of the Lancaster House Agreement, she and Tony Blair just screwed up on this issue.
Labels: BBC, ELECTIONS, MUGABE
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Zimbabwe: Place of dreams, Copy of horrors
I suppose in this day and age of abrasive neo-liberalism, very few people care to read of, even know about a British leftist literary and cultural critic called Raymond Williams. Alongside other leftist scholars of his generation, Williams is credited with providing cradle to what we presently term "cultural studies", and whose most notable scholar arguably is Stuart Hall, presently with the British Open University.
I will recall one thought Williams made so forcefully in one of his early publications, "The Long Revolution", which made its first appearance in 1961. Drawing a sharp distinction between "abstractions" and "actual relationships", Williams warns against confusing "our abstract ideas about society" with the society itself within which we all live, within which our diverse experiences as living, relational organisms find summation.
Abstract ideas, or simply our reading of the society we live in, are "interpretations" or "our ways of describing the organisation and of conceiving relationships, necessary to establish the reality of social life but also under continual pressure from experience". Experience is thus primary, is what matters, in fact is what ultimately shapes and reshapes our abstractions on or interpretation of that lived experience.
For Queen and Country
He goes on to note that theories on society largely stand of fall by their starting point: "the particular experience that is seized as determining". England, from feudal days to this day, uses the figure and place of the King or Queen as its starting point for abstractions.
The king is the experience, the palace the place, and both the sole purpose for English life and society. Long after Thomas Paine and his "rights of man" discourse, the English people have obdurately viewed themselves as demure subjects of "Her Majesty’s Government", minors in the creation of the reality we call United Kingdom, which is the other name for their Kings or Queens.
The tragic side to this abstraction plays itself out in the rugged and cruel battlefields of Afghanistan where English youngsters serving in Her Majesty’s army, sweetly take fatal bullets from Talibans (who are rightly and righteously defending their land and territory), firm and holy in the belief that they are dying for Queen and Country, their conception of the latter always deriving from their reverence of the former. For Britain, time is frozen, which is why the modern common Briton is no wiser than the serf of yore who saw his interest and welfare as the same as the welfare and "maintenance of his lord".
However, archaic the monarchy is or may be, however, modern Britain ever becomes, the regal institution will always remain as the prime instrument for manufacturing the consent and obedience of ordinary Britons. Williams clinches the point by stating the life of society is "unequally regarded . . . seen practically through the needs of the established order" which must be considered sacred and God-given, immutable, permanent.
Revolutionary ruptures only occur where citizens begin to question and challenge existing social abstractions — usually formulated and perpetuated by the dominant force of a given society — to found a new view of relations between the common citizen and those in authority, between community and larger country.
Certified dead by the media
I drew this elaborate social theory to make a few points this week. What Raymond Williams could not have foreseen is the present overbearing role of Western global media networks in drawing abstractions or interpretations of our experiences.
You notice I called them "Western global media networks" deliberately to foreground their ownership, identity and character, and distinguish this ownership factor from the projection and scope of their operation and influence which is global. Often — and our media lecturers are not guiltless — we confuse ownership with scope, ending up with the misleading epithet of "global news networks". Such a mischaracterisation imparts a false legitimacy to these highly partisan, exclusively Western mind networks whose role in global affairs is highly ideologised and affiliated to the West’s overall machinery of global dominance.
It suggests — wrongly — that these news networks are there to serve all peoples of the globe, placing them next to godliness. It gets worse. These Western expressions of global mind dominance in the field of the media are increasingly and mistakenly perceived as evidence and test of the presence and enjoyment of civil liberties, principally that related to expression. Designed and launched to encourage false interpretation of our societies, their starting point is to falsify their real origins, role and purpose in our societies which host them.
We see them as bearers of truth, nothing but the whole truth. When they pronounce our societies dead, we begin to feel dead, thoroughly dead. When they pronounce us undemocratic, we begin to feel hemmed within never-never structures of imagined autocracy.
They certify everything about us, or more accurately, everything they want about us, they want imputed on us. Williams may have given us a presentiment of this new and pervasive global force; but he did not prepare us for its present overbearing status.
The Zimbabwe of BBC
We Zimbabweans have garnered enough experience and pain to bear testimony to this unwholesome development which has since disfigured international relations. The Zimbabwe the world reads, is not the place of our abode, the place and the lived experience arising from a complex web of interactions and relations we all contribute to as living organisms collectively labelled "Zimbabweans".
The Zimbabwe of the media is an abstraction, an interpretation, as Williams would have told us. An interpretation which is and should remain heavily fortified against the subversion of the truth of our lived experience to assure it of undisturbed continuity.
It is a synthetic Zimbabwe designed to meet the propaganda needs of the United Kingdom and its European and American allies. For that reason this synthetic Zimbabwe does not evolve; should never evolve but must remain unremittingly unchanging, unremittingly bad, worse and worst. A place condemned, a Sodom and Gomorrah which can only be cleansed and redeemed through the brimstone of Anglo-Saxony bombs and other incendiaries! And, of course, the "place" has got one "Lucifer" — Robert Mugabe — whose ambition cost him British grace, earned him a fling into dark perdition, a toss into the bottomless pit which John Milton so elaborately drew and painted in his Paradise Lost.
It was Lucifer who was guilty, not Milton’s god who would not brook a new relationship of equals in heaven. After all, being the victor, Milton’s god lived to give the world account of the rebellion. The condemned Lucifer is long way from telling his own side.
Prologue to worse fate
Clearly the media no longer report; the media now have a deeper role, namely that of manufacturing lies that justify wars, that justify aggression of the weak by the powerful.
Those whom the West want to conquer, CNN and BBC render diabolic. This is unknown to most Zimbabweans who do not view the present circle of demonisation of their country as a prologue to a worse fate. The last few days have seen a ratcheting up of anti-Zimbabwe propaganda in the Western global networks. From this poisoned perspective, Zimbabwe is daily descending into gratuitous orgies of mindless violence.
It has become an un-livable hell, deserving redemption through Anglo-Saxony aggression. And Britain and America who must lead that aggression are painted as shy suitors who will not be goaded by so many expostulations into a "saving" bloody invasion.
Zimbabwe has to be burned to save it! As with Iraq, Britain and America are using African voices for legitimacy: Paul Kagame, Raila Odinga, former presidents, bishops of varying holiness, etc, etc to suggest deserved invasion necessitated by a consensual African call. It is an evil hour of betrayal.
Harmed by friends
An unwitting variant to this betrayal is what Zimbabwe’s allies are doing, but without realising what mortal danger they bring to our doorstep. We have had a number of friendly countries joining in the call for a Government of National Unity (GNU), ironically thinking they are doing Zanu-PF a great favour.
A great favour because they wrongly read that Zanu-PF is acutely vulnerable, judging it all from the March result. From this misreading of March, they reasoned Zanu-PF could only be made to hang in there through this creature called a GNU. So they have been pushing the concept for reasons completely different from that of the MDC and its Western supporters, thinking we would be grateful for this "saving" intervention.
Of course, they have not read March correctly, are not reading the present national mental temperament ironically triggered by the same result.
They have gone by abstractions from the Western media. But contrary to this misleading interpretation, Zanu-PF has come back with a vengeance and seems irrevocably set for a dramatic win on June 27.
What is damaging about our friends is not their misreading of the political dynamics which are shaping voter opinion. That can be corrected in the fullness of electoral time.
Senselessness from friends
What is damaging is their attempts at forcing GNU as a political formulae in our present circumstances, forcing it by building false arguments against the run-off election. One easy way has been to suggest for various reasons — real or imagined — that Zimbabwe is not ready for the run-off.
One real reason given is that the Zimbabwe economy cannot afford the run-off. This suggests democratic rituals are not a requirement, but a matter of volition. It suggests elections are not mandatory. I mean anyone can "decline" the economy to stave off a plebiscite, is it not? Since when has a sound economy become a qualification for holding elections?
If it was, how many nations would hold elections? Why this sudden permissiveness with Zimbabwe? Would the suggestion have been entertained if it had come from President Mugabe?
How does this differ from the idea from the Goromonzi Conference two years ago suggesting postponement of elections in order to harmonise the electoral calendar? Why did such a suggestion which is so similar to the present one raise such fury at home and abroad?
Figment of violence
Another way is to exaggerate political violence in the country to suggest Zimbabwe is sliding into civil war.
This is the most dangerous act from these friends. They think by exaggerating political conflict, they are able to persuade us and the international community to obviate elections through GNU.
The argument is bolstered by a reading that Zimbabwe is polarised. How on this good earth do you run an election without polarising society? Is that not what elections inherently mean, namely splitting society through choice? How can a natural and inevitable concomitant of democracy be purveyed as the reason for abolishing that same democracy? But this is the academic side of it all. There is the sinister side relating to destruction of a sovereign nation born out of a bloody struggle.
Serving the British agenda.
The British and the Americans have been dying for an excuse to intervene militarily in order to reverse the revolution. But what revolution? Well, principally one related to how Zimbabwe has decided to restructure its relationship with the colonial West, largely Britain. From the calculated obeisance of the 1980s and part of the 1990s, Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s Zanu-PF from 2000 embarked on an aggressive course of self-assertion through control of its resources, starting with the land. In a very short time, the Queen and her government, whose rebellious protégé government here called UDI had been militarily and politically ousted here, soon found herself de-centred in the affairs of this young self-assertive nation.
Her sons in the Diaspora here — the white settler farmers — found themselves asked to share the land with blacks — the rightful owners. These whites were never evicted outright. Nor were they told to go back to their original home Britain, in one giant seizure of African xenophobia.
No, merely told to let go of excess land. It was only when they resisted that the hand got firmer, geography and boundaries got visibly marked and drawn. And, of course, Britain aggravated matters by showing its hand in the affairs of this country, in the process confirming what we have always known, namely that whites we have here could only function as our colonial rulers, or as Britons with an unchallenged pride of place overseas.
Never as Zimbabweans, never as Africans who happened to be white. After all, to make them ordinary Zimbabwean citizens under a black Government, or worse under Mugabe, is to symbolically and vicariously subordinate Her White Majesty to Conrad’s pitchy black authority, to unenlightened African leadership itself a taboo in the present global order where power is racially hierarchised.
A Zimbabwe without a British King, a Zimbabwe without the British Queen — both symbolically and materially — this is what the present stand-off between Zimbabwe and Britain, between Mugabe and Brown, is all about.
A Zimbabwe with the British Queen, a Morgan Tsvangirai with a Brown in his flaps, is what the MDC wants, is what endears the MDC to the British and American establishments. Hence the genii that popped out the MDC bottle soon after the harmonised March elections, invading the land we thought we had secured.
To get the Queen back and revered, to get the settler white farmers back and farming: that is the struggle which shall be settled on June 27. Friends are made and recognised by where they stand on this one matter. A war will be provoked on this one matter; fought and settled around this one question. This is what is not quite known or appreciated by those who facilely see Mugabe’s assertion that the white man will never be allowed back, whether directly or indirectly, as proof of his autocratic hunger for power.
War or peace.
One does not wish war for one’s country but I reluctantly say that given present levels of propaganda abstractions of Zimbabwe, reality could very well only obtrude and reassert through this very bloody business.
The MDC and its masters are aware they will lose the run-off. They have started to prepare the world for a rejection of results of the run-off.
They are also toying with the idea of war — proxy war using the MDC and a few African countries harbouring different grievances against Zimbabwe.
This, not claims of local violence, is what will bring about a real post-election crisis. And only then will the world realise Mugabe is not alone. In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s friends need to reach and encompass Zimbabwe the real country, not Zimbabwe the horror copy of Anglo-Saxony propaganda calculations. Icho!
l nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: BBC, INTERNATIONAL MEDIA, ZIMBABWE
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Ndlovu lashes out at BBC
Herald Reporter
GOVERNMENT yesterday lashed out at the British Broadcasting Corporation for discrediting the June 27 presidential election run-off and the three House of Assembly by-elections by alleging that the polls will not be free and fair. Information and Publicity Minister Cde Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said the BBC reporter who recently sneaked in and out of Zimbabwe was alleging that the ruling party was responsible for the violence.
He said it was ironic that the BBC did not interview the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission or anyone from Zanu-PF for balanced coverage.
"That is what I call the gunboat of British journalism in which they see only one side of the story.
"They are trying to discredit the elections by saying the run-off result should not be recognised if President Mugabe wins," he said.
Cde Ndlovu said the BBC was also alleging that people in rural communities were being forced to attend Zanu-PF re-orientation programmes but this was not true.
"These are public workshops being conducted by seasoned politicians who are explaining to the people what the Government has achieved since independence and what it is doing to address the economic challenges," he said.
"Our approach is to educate the people on the illegal economic sanctions as some of them were duped to vote for the MDC in the March elections. We owe it to our people and to our youths that we should have programmes for self-sustenance."
Cde Ndlovu castigated some non-governmental organisations which he said were in the habit of politicising food and campaigning for the opposition.
This, he said, had forced the Government to cancel the licences of all NGO’s before asking them to re-register, in a move meant to weed out organisations that were meddling in dirty politics. Cde Ndlovu said some manufacturers were even supplying the NGO’s with basic commodities while starving the formal market.
"However, there are some NGO’s which have been doing a good job by working with the Government structures and we have no problems with such organisations.
"But there are some NGO’s who have been evading the Government then you wonder what is their motive if they do not want to work with the Government of the day," he said.
Labels: BBC, ZIMBABWE
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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he is deeply concerned about the sharp rise in global food prices.
Mr Ban said the trend would hinder progress towards the millennium development goals (MDGs), which aim to halve extreme poverty by 2015. The UN World Food Program (WFP) and other agencies may be forced to ration food aid, he said in a BBC interview.
He said shortages might be eased by a "green revolution" to transform farming methods in Africa. Global food prices have risen by 40% in nine months and food reserves are at their lowest for 30 years. The WFP is facing a $500m (£248m) shortfall in its attempts to feed 73 million people this year.
'Political challenge'
Mr Ban said that "many countries in particular in Africa they now have to pay double or triple the price for their bread," and warned that this would lead to increased malnutrition.
"This will all affect our MDG programmes - I am very much seriously concerned about this," he said.
The change has been blamed on poor harvests, population growth, rising energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change, and a shift to biofuel crops.
Although one UN official has called the increasing use of crops for fuel rather than food a crime against humanity, Mr Ban said there was a need to balance the positive and negative aspects of biofuels.
Among possible solutions, he said that "there is broad consensus that more resources should be provided to help an African green revolution".
But he cautioned that transforming commitments into action would be a "huge political challenge".
"We need to rededicate and commit ourselves by galvanising political will, by mobilising necessary recourses."
Labels: BAN KI-MOON, BBC, FOOD, GREEN REVOLUTION, UN
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BBC reporting a disgrace
By Leo Makombe
NO wonder the BBC was banned from reporting from Zimbabwe as it behaves like a terrorist or spy media organisation if their recent story, "Mugabe faces rival from within party", broadcast on Monday January 14 2008 at 23:56GMT, is taken into consideration.
The BBC, it appears, also reported from ignorance, because if they had known that two Zimbabwe weekly newspapers had reported the story, they would not have acted as if it was breaking news. If it is the story of shortages, be it of foodstuffs or money, all newspapers including The Herald and privately owned newspapers in Zimbabwe are covering these daily and weekly.
To other fair-minded people, and me the reporter was covering stale news.
And for John Simpson to brag that he defied the odds and sneaked into Zimbabwe and managed to shoot video and then report when he had returned to his base is childish, because knowing the security system in Zimbabwe, he was being protected all the time he was in the country so that he could report back his stale news.
What would have happened if he had been arrested, as what happened to the e-TV crew of South Africa that was arrested when they were reporting on illegal diamond mining in Mutare? It seems the BBC either wants its reporters to be arrested, harassed or to report stale news. That is news to the BBC.
The BBC is now, as I said earlier, behaving like a terrorist or spy organisation. It is now stage-managing events just like it did during past elections, when it stage-managed events for the MDC.
This is why the BBC was banned from Zimbabwe, because it was partisan and acting on behalf of the British government who have an agenda against Zanu-PF and the Government it leads, an agenda they have sought to internationalise.
It is true that the ordinary Zimbabwean can afford a satellite dish and can tune and view the BBC and many other international television and radio stations.
The BBC is not popular; it is just like an other international TV and radio station.
The Government of Zimbabwe, which the BBC and other misguided people view as inhuman, allows people to access views from other international broadcasting stations, a situation that does not prevail in some countries the British government openly supports.
If the BBC did not know, we also have France24 on satellite, which is competing with the BBC on world news in addition to CNN, among other channels.
The BBC can interview all the anti-Zimbabwe people, I say anti-Zimbabwe because these people have nothing to offer the ordinary people in Zimbabwe, like Dr. John Makumbe, whose hatred of President Mugabe has outgrown him that he is so hypocritical that he is employed by the University of Zimbabwe whose Chancellor is President Mugabe.
If President Mugabe was so bad, why don’t Makumbe and Lovemore Madhuku quit their jobs at the UZ and concentrate on their numerous sojourns that have enabled them to hoodwink the Western world and donor agencies who are pouring money into their various money-spinning ventures? What is more, why haven’t they been fired?
I have always told my friends that Zimbabweans are very clever in that they can get money from foreigners with minimal sweat.
Is the ordinary person in Britain getting the pounds as easy as the likes of Madhuku, Makumbe and the MDC are doing in Zimbabwe? The British public is being taken for a ride by their own government.
The British public sweat to pay lazy and unemployable Zimbabweans.
What a shame! If ever there should be an uprising it should be in Britain, because their government is wasting money on a cause that does not benefit them. Even the BBC has fallen into the trap. Were the people who were moving with Simpson doing that for free? That is my ordinary cunning Zimbabwe brother at work.
Make money from gullible Westerners without breaking a sweat.
I also wish to remind the BBC that Zimbabweans do not just vote for anyone just because the BBC or British government says so. People from within Zanu-PF can form as many parties as they want (Edgar Tekere did so and what happened?), but if the ordinary person who has no access to the BBC knows you as we know Zanu-PF, the parties are doomed.
Why should someone who has a personal vendetta against Zanu-PF want the whole of Zimbabwe to fight his battles? Zimbabweans know what the British and their allies have done in other countries and they are now wiser and will not be hoodwinked.
In all fairness, if there are over a million Zimbabweans in the UK, why doesn’t the British government deport them now so that they can vote in the March elections so that the Government is democratically removed from office? No the British government will not do that, they continue poisoning us with the stale news from the BBC, simply because those numbers are cooked up.
In Zimbabwe we hold elections, we do not handpick leaders, as was done with Gordon Brown, so which system do the British want to teach us? If there is an illegitimate prime minister/president, it is Gordon Brown.
No wonder he did not attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon, he knew it was for elected heads of state and government.
Zimbabweans welcome diversity and if it happens that the Young Turks from Zanu-PF form a party that can win the elections, fair enough.
We do not have any problems with that. But for the BBC to start campaigning for that stillborn party raises eyebrows, just as we have always queried the BBC’s support for the MDC.
Already, people are saying the "new" stillborn party is a creation of the West as a replacement to the MDC which is past its sell-by date, thus the proposed party has already lost relevance before its arrival.
With the news doing the rounds, it seems the new stillborn party will be a one-man show. Its proposed leader is hardly known in the rural areas where the bulk of the vote is. So please BBC, do not celebrate yet.
Disgruntled and power-hungry people from Zanu-PF have been dumped by Zimbabweans and the same will happen to anyone from anywhere who wants to use his disgruntlement to get into power.
People will ask you, if Zanu-PF was so bad why did you stay in that party for the past 25 or so years?
Coming to the MDC, the reason they lose the elections, like one sister stated in The Herald the other day, is that its membership is made up of people who do not vote. True, everyday at the MDC offices one would think there is a rally as unemployable — not unemployed — youths, men and women roam the street outside.
Such people have taken the MDC as their employer and the reason they do not want to vote is that when the situation changes for the better, no employer will engage them because they are lazy.
They would rather stick by Harvest House and hoodwink gullible opposition leaders, because they know the MDC will not win the elections as they withhold their votes.
Tsvangirai, instead of wooing voters, is busy threatening them with Kenya-style violence and boycotting the elections.
Whose child is he going to sacrifice and kill? What kind of a leader openly calls for violence against his own people? While Zanu-PF and everyone else in Zimbabwe is calling for peaceful elections, the MDC Tsvangirai faction is doing the opposite.
Why threaten people before elections? And why is the BBC silent on this? Would they be silent if it were Zanu-PF threatening violence? Let us not be blinded by being partisan. If it was in other countries, Tsvangirai would have been arrested.
He is calling for the equivalent of genocide, yet he fancies himself a potential president.
Tsvangirai is so obsessed with power that he is busy decampaigning for himself. He is doing the same thing he has done in the past whereby he has called for sanctions. It appears he does not learn from his mistakes.
Tsvangirai is in his last term as MDC president. If he loses in March, as he is likely to, then it will be good riddance for many in his faction. But Tsvangirai seems not to see this. He sees President Mugabe as his enemy and is not seeing the enemy within his own party.
Labels: BBC, JOHN SIMPSON, THE HERALD
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Zimbabwean: 'We were the enemy'
Zimbabwean Richard Donald Munsaka, 53, told the BBC News website, via telephone from his home in the north-western town of Hwange, how he felt after hearing that the ex-Rhodesia leader Ian Smith had died. Ian Smith was a sick old man. I don't begrudge him for what he did - I think he felt he was doing right. He was just an old Zimbabwean man. But life under Ian Smith wasn't better than it is now. I have lived under a cruel regime and I am old enough to know the difference between the two.
When he was prime minister most of us [black] Africans used to live in what were then called tribal trust [communal] lands. But my father worked on the railways so I lived in town - in the country's second city, Bulawayo.
Little change left over
In those days, things like bread, although it was there on the shelves, for us it was a luxury. Our staple food was sadza [maize meal cooked with water and a little salt]. We had a desire for bread but didn't have money to buy it. I remember always smelling bread if I was walking near to the area where the whites lived and shopped - I loved its smell and wished I could taste it. But I never did for many years!
Working on the railways until 1978-79, my father's wages enabled him to buy two 50kg bags of meilie [maize] meal and have a little change left over. My father worked as an assistant grinder - a white or a coloured [mixed race] man would weld the tracks and then my father would grind. The most an African could aspire to be, working on the railways, was a stoker on one of the locomotives and even then that was more for coloureds. Blacks only got the menial jobs. But if you were an educated African you could be either a teacher or a nurse.
Blacks weren't allowed
Under Ian Smith the job that I do now - I am an operating superintendent at Hwange power station - would have been a job for a white man. Even train drivers were white - blacks weren't allowed. People like me weren't trained to learn skills.
When my dad set off to work in the morning, my mother would follow him along the railway line to look for shrubs and any wild vegetables that were growing. She would return home and cook them - without cooking oil - so we had something to eat with our sadza.
That was the life of my mother; to make sure we had a meal on the table. And there was no tea either because there was no money for sugar. In those days there were many silly taxes that blacks had to pay. You had to pay a sum to be able to own a dog, even a bicycle.
Goodbye
And if you so happened to have a few cattle to your name and if a white person came along and wanted them, they could just take them. Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves - we were the enemy. You would just be told: "You see that bull over there, that is for the boss." That was it. Goodbye. There was nothing you could do.
I had a cousin who left in 1978 for Angola to become a fighter. He went to war because his late father's nine cattle had been taken away from him by a white cattle rancher. At independence he went and took his cattle back.
But I lost another of my uncles to that same white rancher. He was fishing with a few of my other uncles when they were used for target practice. I was still a young man but I have never forgotten, up to this day.
My parents had to pay for our school fees. My two younger brothers lived with one of my uncles in the so-called tribal trust area so they could attend school.
War
When I visited them, I remember the soldiers - Selous Scouts and forces from the Rhodesian Light Infantry. We even knew some of the notorious ones by name. They used to come and ask: "Where are the terrorists?". They used to beat up the women and children if no-one answered.
I remember in 1978 there was a fight between the Rhodesian forces and the guerrillas. We all had to run and hide for a long time because the next day Ian Smith's soldiers came, as they always did, to take all the young men away. It was war then. I stayed and hid at an uncle's home. There were 20 of us in a three-roomed house. We survived on cabbage leaves cooked in plain water with some salt (no cooking oil or tomatoes!) and sadza when it was there. I never actually joined the struggle as a fighter because by the time I wanted to fight, we were told to stay as it was said that there was so many in Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania.
We were the enemy
The things we see now, like the bad shortages and everything, you still can't compare. Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves. We were the enemy. In those days, though, people in tribal trust lands did not suffer like those in the towns because they made sure they were self-sufficient despite that the land the blacks had to live on was not so fertile. The whites took the best for themselves. Then my father used to point to this land in the distance and tell me that was where our family belonged... but now since the land reform programme, our family have got a portion of our land back. I never saw a time when I thought that Ian Smith was helping the African people.
Tough nowadays
The comparing reasons that people are making now is not right. After 1980 and up to the 1990s, life in Zimbabwe was so good. Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith meets the press at 10 Downing Street with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (Photo by Terry Fincher/Getty Images)
Britain tried to persuade Smith not to illegally declare independence. It was only after the 1980s that blacks could afford to buy cars, televisions, radios, furniture and houses. And everyone went to school, right up to university.
Right now I own a motor vehicle - a Toyota Hilux [4x4]. I live in a nice suburban house - three bedrooms, two adjoining lounges, two bathrooms each with a toilet, TV with satellite and I have the internet. You are phoning me on my mobile phone and I also have a landline.
And I although I am a Zanu-PF member, I am not an official. I have worked for everything I own. Apart from the land that was returned to my family.
I own property in Victoria Falls that I acquired myself, without a loan. I am having a house and guesthouse built but these days it is difficult. Getting building materials, even cement is a challenge. Yes life is tough nowadays here. But when I say that I am comparing it to life during the 1990s. Not to the those during Smith's time because about that, there is nothing to talk about - it was oppression. Robert Mugabe is not the best leader that we can have. I want the president to leave - he has had his go, he has had his time. But never will Mugabe be worse than Smith.
Labels: BBC, CHIMURENGA, RHODESIA
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Mbeki upbeat after Zimbabwe talks
President Thabo Mbeki
President Mbeki has been tasked to seek an end to the Zimbabwe crisis South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki says he is "very confident" that mediation will produce a solution for Zimbabwe's political crisis. He was speaking after talks with President Robert Mugabe and opposition officials in the Zimbabwean capital.
There has been
a virtual news blackout around the South African-mediated talks but sources suggest they have agreed four of the five points on the agenda. The sticking point is the last issue - the political climate.
Mr Mbeki stopped off in Harare on his way to the Commonwealth summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to meet both sides. He told reporters he had visited "to see the president, and the leadership of the MDC [opposition Movement for Democratic Change], so we can reflect on where we are and to report to them as facilitator how the talks have gone."
Mr Mbeki, who has been tasked by the Southern Africa Development Community with helping to find a solution to Zimbabwe's political crisis, said the mediated talks were "going well". Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has also gone to Kampala to lobby Commonwealth leaders on the Zimbabwe issue.
Concerns
MDC leader Mr Tsvangirai also said there had been notable progress. He said he was confident that the agenda set through the South Africa-led mediation would address the fundamental concerns around elections due next year.
The BBC's Peter Greste in Johannesburg says the issue of the political climate is proving to be a much harder issue to resolve and the talks are now months behind schedule as a result. Our correspondent says it encompasses both the violent suppression of the MDC's political activities, and the sanctions that Mr Mugabe's government blames for creating the crisis in the first place.
He says there is no guarantee that President Mbeki will be able to break this deadlock, but at least he will be able to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting demonstrating real effort, if nothing else. Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003 after it was suspended because of allegations of poll rigging. But Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Kampala it was important for the body to continue engaging, to ensure Zimbabwe is rescued from its political and economic crisis.
Labels: BBC, SADC, THABO MBEKI
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Zimbabwe to take mining stakes
By Peter Greste
BBC News, Johannesburg
Mr Mugabe says the population should benefit directly from mining
Zimbabwe's government has published new legislation that would force mining firms to transfer a majority shareholding to local owners. That will include giving the government a free 25% stake. The legislation is expected to be presented before parliament before the end of the year.
Economists warn that if the mines and minerals amendment bill is passed, it will halt any new investment in Zimbabwe's mining industry. Ever since the government in Harare passed legislation earlier this year, forcing foreign-owned companies to sell a majority share to Zimbabweans, the mining industry knew it would have eventually have to comply. But what has alarmed industry insiders is a provision in the draft law that says 25% of the shares must be given to the government for free.
Direct benefits
The remaining 26% of the country's share must also be paid for with future earnings. The government has long argued that because foreign companies are exploiting the country's natural resources, Zimbabweans must benefit directly. But independent economists, such as John Robertson, say the move will effectively halt any development of new mines. It will also ultimately severely damage the one industry that is still bringing in significant amounts of foreign currency, he says.
The government already takes income from the mining sector in the form of royalties and taxes, so why would you invest 100% of the capital, Mr Robertson asks, if you are only going to get 49% of the returns.
According to the Chamber of Mines, there are 22 mining companies in Zimbabwe, of which 10 are foreign-owned. The Department of Mines could not be reached for comment.
Labels: BBC, BEE, MINING CONTRACTS, ZIMBABWE
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Zimbabwe: BBC lies exposed
Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007
EDITOR – The article by Stephen T. Maimbodei (The Herald, August 8 2007) made interesting reading particularly as we celebrate our Heroes Holiday. As Zimbabweans we should not fail to sleep over the programme because there are so many of them these days from CNN, BBC and other radio and TV stations. Zimbabwe is a great country that is why we had to fight for it to liberate ourselves.
Ian Smith rebelled against Her Majesty, the Queen of England, and nothing happened and just like what happened in the film "Hotel Rwanda" they said: "We have been sent to collect whites only", the British government did not act against their kith and kin. Our greatest "sin" was to take land from their kith and kin and they will not forgive us for that. Ko vanombodei muZimbabwe?
There are a lot of countries where things are happening and the world is doing nothing and in our beloved Zimbabwe sanctions have been the source of our challenges. The playing field is not even and is openly and deliberately violated by those sponsoring regime change.
The BBC programme is nothing but racist bigotry bent on trivialising the war of liberation and the living liberation war heroes. For decades the history of a black person has been that of subservience, abused and humiliation. He has been denied his rightful place. He must always say baas to "superhuman" beings.
Maybe the BBC should do a special programme on how they toppled Kwame Nkrumah, and how they threw Patrice Lumumba into sulphuric acid.
Did Tom Mboya of Kenya have to be assassinated if the British are so democratic as they claim to be?
What about the fraud they committed against King Lobengula?
The BBC and their government wanted the black man to have remained confined to the "mukwenyashuro" type of soil in Chivi, Mberengwa, Gutu and other rural areas. This is why economic rights have been relegated to the dustbin by the white man. The black man is made to believe that civil and political rights are more important than economic rights and the end result is perpetuation of poverty.
What the programme is meant to achieve will certainly not perturb us. We know we are under sanctions and we know they imposed them on our country and our sin was taking what rightly belongs to us.
God gave us Zimbabwe to enjoy its fruits not to be treated like second-class citizens. The kith and kin of the British owe it to President Mugabe for his generous commitment to reconciliation.
When Father Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Nkomo said: "Nxa ufuna imali pendulela ivala elithi lima uzayithola imali", he simply meant that money comes from the soil.
To my brothers and sisters the fastest way to get rich is to work hard in the fields.
Just like the Israelis and Palestinians have the right to their land, Zimbabweans are no exception. The late Stanlake Samkange wrote the book "On Trial for My Country", indeed our President is on trial for giving land to his people.
The BBC lies have been exposed and they will continue to be exposed. The Bible says the truth shall set you free.
C. Zhou.
Gweru.
Labels: BBC, THE HERALD, TRINICENTER
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Call in program from the BBC. They try to be 'evenhanded' in a rather clumsy way. however, their lack of information on the facts prevents a thorough discussion. Especially Kate Bird is either lying or extremely misinformed. I think she was just lying - so the question is - why?
Labels: BBC, ZIMBABWE
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Zambian anti-drug chief suspended
President Levy Mwanawasa in 2006
President Mwanawasa has made fighting corruption a key policy
Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has suspended the head of the country's anti-drug unit for alleged abuse of office.
A presidential spokesman said Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) head Ryan Chitoba had been suspended to allow for a smooth investigation.
Mr Chitoba allegedly misappropriated funds recovered from criminals. He has not commented on the claims.
He is the latest senior official in Zambia to face charges of corruption.
A statement by Mr Mwanawasa's aide, John Musukuma, quoted the president in a letter to Mr Chitoba.
"To facilitate the completion of these allegations, or should it be decided to charge you in a court of law, I am suspending you from exercising your functions... with immediate effect," it said.
President Mwanawasa, who took office in 2002, has made the fight against corruption a key policy of his government.
Opposition parties, however, accuse him of not being firm enough on corruption in his own administration.
Labels: BBC, MWANAWASA, RYAN CHITOBA
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Malawi parliament ban overturned
Malawi's parliament is free to meet again after the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned an earlier injunction. On Sunday, opposition MPs were granted the injunction, apparently seeking to stall debate on the national budget. The order was overturned after the attorney general argued in court that parliament should be allowed to meet and approve the already-delayed budget.
The budget has been caught up in a political row over the defection of opposition MPs to the government side. Earlier this week, police raided the home of Judge Joseph Mwanyungwe, who issued the injunction barring the speaker of parliament from reconvening the house. United Democratic Front (UDF) MP Leonard Mangulama and independent MP Gerald Mponda obtained the injunction on Sunday. Opposition MPs have been refusing to discuss the budget unless MPs who switched to President Bingu wa Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are expelled.
Demonstrations
News of the injunction prompted demonstrations in which people threw stones at the parliament building and barricaded the MPs inside for more than five hours. The current political impasse began in June, when the Supreme Court ruled that the speaker of parliament can expel MPs who switch parties. Most members of Mr Mutharika's party were elected on the ticket of the UDF, the former ruling party.
Mr Mutharika also won elections for the UDF, but left to set up the DPP, accusing UDF officials of blocking his anti-corruption drive. Analysts say should the speaker expel the floor-crossing MPs, it could take six months to organise all the by-elections which would ensue.
Labels: BBC, MALAWI
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Q&A: Zimbabwe's economy
Price controls have ravaged stocks in Zimbabwe's stores
Zimbabwe has just about the worst-performing economy in the world. Some say the economic problems could soon bring down the government of President Robert Mugabe, although that has been predicted many times before.
People are struggling with soaring inflation, widespread joblessness and the exodus of millions of Zimbabweans, both to neighbouring countries and to Europe and the US.
What's going on with Zimbabwe's economy?
By any measure, Zimbabwe is in deep financial trouble.
In many stores, the shelves are nearly empty much of the time, and prices are skyrocketing for what goods remain as hyperinflation sets in.
About four out of five people are estimated to be out of work - at least as far as the official economy is concerned.
The situation is so bad that about 3,000 people a day are thought to be crossing Zimbabwe's borders into neighbouring countries.
And increasingly, many Zimbabweans are dependent on support from relatives and friends abroad to keep food on the table and roofs over their heads.
Hyperinflation - what's that?
This is what happens when the value of money plummets.
Police stop shoppers from approaching a discount warehouse
Stampedes have broken out when goods arrive at some stores
In Zimbabwe's case, the near-5,000% annual rate of inflation means that a loaf of bread bought today is about 50 times more expensive - in cash terms - than it was a year ago.
And prices are continuing to accelerate, in some cases doubling in weeks - or even, on occasion, days.
Wages, on the other hand, are nowhere near keeping up.
One correspondent recently told the BBC News website that one candle can cost twice the official government wage for a farm worker, while the price tag for a single banana is 15 times what she paid seven years ago for a four-bedroom house.
Another effect is that people simply do not hang onto money. As soon as it is earned, it must be spent - because prices will have risen sharply even by the following day.
How do people cope?
Barter is increasingly common.
So, too, is a reliance on remittances from abroad - in money but increasingly in goods. Several shopping websites now allow expatriate Zimbabweans to order food supplies to be paid for in foreign currencies and delivered to relatives at home.
Similarly, with petrol shortages endemic and prices spiralling - not to mention power cuts, often for 20 hours in the day - one enterprising firm now allows vouchers to be sent as text messages, to pay for fuel in US dollars.
Wherever possible, people exporting and importing goods do so on the black market, since a sizable slice of foreign currency exchanged at the official rate has to be kept in accounts which the government can use to feed its need for foreign exchange.
In any case, exchange rates on the unofficial or "parallel market" can be 20 times more generous than the official one of Z$15,000 to the US dollar.
How did it get to be like this?
For many people, the key cause of the current problems is Zimbabwe's land reform programme.
Most of the country's most productive farmland remained in white hands after independence in 1979, and through the 1990s the government of President Robert Mugabe worked to shift ownership.
By 1999, however, with little movement, the government unveiled plans to seize land without compensation - a process which started in earnest the following year.
Zimbabwe dollar bills and bearer cheques
Revaluations and new currency have failed to halt inflation
As hundreds of farms were taken over - sometimes by local people, often by senior government officials - production, and export, of grain and tobacco collapsed.
Huge spending on involvement in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo was also a drain on the public purse.
The result was a food crisis, and a battering for the economy as foreign exchange earnings slumped - both from farming and from tourism, amid violence surrounding the land reform programme.
What is the government saying - and doing?
As far as President Mugabe and his ministers are concerned, land reform has nothing to do with the country's economic travails.
Instead, sabotage by the West in general, and the UK - the former colonial power - in particular, is responsible.
They point to sanctions imposed against the country - although these are aimed at leaders, rather than at the economy as a whole.
And the government has also taken a string of measures intended to stem the country's decline.
Among them have been limits on foreign currency movements, a revaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar, the introduction of vouchers instead of banknotes, and - most recently - the imposition of stringent price controls.
Cuts of as much as 50% on many commodities are now required by law, and thousands of businesspeople have been arrested for pricing goods at levels it sees as amounting to profiteering.
Meanwhile, the government is planning to "indigenise" foreign-owned businesses by making sure black Zimbabweans have majority control.
And Mr Mugabe is also promising to print even more money, should government projects require it.
Is any of this working?
President Robert Mugabe
President Mugabe blames foreign sabotage for Zimbabwe's ills
No.
The hyperinflation affects raw materials and wages as well as retail prices, after all.
So businesses argue that at the prices the government demands, they simply cannot afford to make or buy the goods in the first place.
The result, Zimbabweans report, is hoarding of what goods remain; stampedes whenever a shop acquires a much-needed staple like cooking oil or maize meal; and further hardship.
And the import restrictions may make things worse, since the collapse of domestic output means goods brought across the border are often the only thing on the shelves.
Printing even more money, meanwhile, will simply add to the hyperinflation.
Some analysts say the situation will lead to a complete collapse of the economy and the government by the end of the year but each time people have said in the past that things couldn't get any worse, they have.
So is anyone gaining from this?
A few businesses are making huge profits from the black market - for example those with good connections who can buy hard currency at the official rate and sell it to those who need it at a far higher price.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has also been roaring ahead - it has been one of the best-performing in the world in recent years.
As the government prints money, and interest rates have failed to keep up with the rampant inflation, assets such as stocks have been one of the few places where Zimbabweans have been able to put their money so as to retain its value.
The result: share prices increasing even faster than retail price inflation.
Meanwhile, many South African shops are experiencing their own mini-boom.
As goods become ever scarcer, Zimbabweans are flocking across the frontier to stock up - and not only to stores in towns near the border.
And many of the million or more Zimbabweans already in South Africa are similarly buying up staples to send home.
Labels: BBC, ZIMBABWE
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