(PATRIOT ZW) US hand in fake abductions
By Patience Murava - June 27, 20190420
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ZIMBABWE is besieged by non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) regime change antics despite exposing their illegal machinations time and again.
They have used countless attempts to get the opposition MDC-T into power through the backdoor; using unconventional and illegal tactics, all of which are scripted by their Western handlers.
Attention-seeking actions that provoke the state to act are a sure way for civil society and opposition leaders to gain a few front page screamers in newspapers at home and abroad.
These antics also guarantee their donors and handlers in the West have platforms to further attack the Government and justify continued isolation of Zimbabwe.
There is one particularly tired script the civil society has been using in its attempts to effect regime change.
Over the past few weeks, members from NGOs have been making claims of being abducted, being under surveillance, their lives being in danger and other imagined threats from the Government.
The latest is that of Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) leader Obert Masaraure who claims to have been abducted, tortured and dumped a day after by suspected State agents.
US behind fake abductions?
The Patriot has established that recently, the US Embassy in Zimbabwe invited nine ARTUZ provincial representatives to Harare for a meeting to discuss the Union’s pending demonstrations.
The meeting was facilitated by ARTUZ board member Douglas Coltart.
The Union has proved beyond reasonable doubt that they have an insatiable appetite for anarchy.
According to the source, the US Embassy offered the ARTUZ members accommodation at their embassy.
US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols encouraged ARTUZ to stage more demonstrations, indicating that it was within their democratic rights.
He added that they are always welcomed at the US Embassy whenever they have any need.
Several local and international NGOs, including prominent regime change agenda activists, have been implicated in an unfolding plot to topple the Government of Zimbabwe through violent protests.
Code-named Savannah Revolution and running under the theme ‘Political Revolution, National Order and Economic Revolution in Zimbabwe’,the operation, to be executed through violent means, is being spearheaded by NGOs.
Last month, several NGO leaders, including Citizens Manifesto co-ordinator Tatenda Mombeyarara, Centre for Community Development in Zimbabwe Advocacy officer George Makoni, Nyasha Frank Mpahlo of Transparency International Zimbabwe and executive director of COTRAD Gamuchirai Mukura were implicated for planning to destabilise a constitutional Government.
More so, another regime change project workshop was held in South Africa, emphasising on the need for what they termed ‘political revolution in Zimbabwe.
The modus operandi for the unseating of the Government would include massive demonstrations, sit-ins, student protests, civil disobedience and online activism.
Abductions that never were
Another issue that was discussed at the meeting with the US Ambassador was abduction of ARTUZ members and other civil society leaders.
ARTUZ claims that 47 of its members have been harassed by State agents, with several abducted, while five others have skipped the borders.
In April, three ARTUZ members, Robson Chere, Jess Drury, Precious Ndlovu and Munyaradzi Ndawana claimed to have been abducted in Greystone Park by four plain-clothed men using one vehicle.
It was, however, discovered that Chere skipped the border to evade arrest.
He was scheduled to leave for the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) 2019 this month. Interestingly, in 2017, Masaraure attended the Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) for Young African Leaders programme.
The fellowship, launched in 2014, is the flagship programme of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).
These young African ‘leaders’ are at the forefront of pushing for regime change in Africa, as they have been taught and brainwashed to despise their past and heritage.
YALI was established when the US interests on the continent shifted from opposition political parties to the youths.
The term, ‘generation democracy’, best describes the targeted group.
Upon returning to their home countries, Fellows continue to build on the ‘skills’ they would have learnt during their time in the US through support from US embassies, four regional leadership centres, the YALI Network and customised programming from USAID, the Department of State and affiliated partners.
The Mandela Washington Fellowship is sponsored by the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government and administered by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX).
But back to the alleged abduction of Masaraure.
It was claimed the union leader was kidnapped when he was on the line with Voice of America Zimbabwe Service, saying he was fearing for his life as he felt he had been followed to his house by suspected members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).
Voice of America (VOA), headquartered in Washington DC, is funded by the US Government.
Funds are appropriated annually by Congress under the budget for embassies and consulates.
“Minutes after raising concern, loud noise could be heard from the background as the home was being broken into,” reported VOA.
“When VOA tried to reach him a few minutes after he raised alarm, his wife responded in a text, noting that ‘they took him away, they broke our house’.”
Pictures purported to be of Masaraure, with a battered back with old bruises were circulated on social media platforms such as Whatsapp and facebook.
There are also pictures of Masaraure with his head bandaged and his right arm in a sling that circulating on both social and local media as well as a video in which he is thanking Zimbabweans for their thoughts and prayers.
Is it by coincidence that the so-called abduction was done at a time when Zimbabwe was holding a political dialogue forum with the European Union?
Zimbabwe and the EU launched a formal dialogue process based on Article 8 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which governs relations between member-states of the African-Carribean-Pacific regions and the EU.
The development is a major realisation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s re-engagement policy which seeks to reintegrate Zimbabwe into the global family of nations.
In an interview, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services permanent secretary Nick Mangagwa said the wounds that Masaraure has were malicious and self-inflicted.
“We have checked with the security services, including the police, and they do not know anything about that,” said Mangwana.
“We believe that this was stage managed to put Zimbabwe in very bad light since Zimbabwe and the European Union (EU) have launched formal political dialogue.”
It was however, found out that ARTUZ leader faked the abduction to justify his extended absence from work without official leave since January this year.
Public Service Commission (PSC) has since stopped his salary.
It’s important to note that some reports allege that the abduction of Masaraure was stage managed by MDC-Alliance’s Tendai Biti and Maureen Kademaunga.
“A few days after the abduction, Biti travelled to UK where he met British Foreign Minister and showed him the photoshopped pictures of ARTUZ president Obert Masaraure’s fake abduction,” said another source.
From lies and exaggerations to fake abductions, NGOs and opposition leaders will do anything and everything for attention and donor funding.
No tactic is far-fetched!
Labels: ABDUCTIONS, DAVID COLTART, DOUGLAS COLTART, MDC, REGIME CHANGE, RHODESIANS
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Coltart: SADC appeals embarrassing
14/06/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
COMMENT - " The MDCs were left seething with anger on Thursday after Mugabe ordered elections to be held at the end of next month. " Would the ANC have been left 'seething with anger' if the National Party had announced nationwide elections with universal suffrage a month away? No way, the would have said 'hold them today'. The MDC is all about winning elections, no matter how many people pay the price for it. They are a mercenary party, who cannot face the people of Zimbabwe and convince them to vote for them on the strength of their policies. No one wants a return to ESAP, which is what privatisation, deregulation and free trade mean. - MrK
MDC secretary for legal affairs and education minister David Coltart has told colleagues they are better off pursuing domestic solutions to the bitter row over election dates instead of appealing to the regional SADC grouping for help.
Coltart spoke as the top leadership of the MDC formations travelled to Mozambique for a SADC extra-ordinary summit where they are hoping President Robert Mugabe will be compelled to reverse his decision to hold elections on July 31.
Addressing a public meeting at the Bulawayo Press Club Thursday evening Coltart said: “It is not worthwhile to be running to SADC all the time.
“The irony of it is that when we take our problems to them we attract criticism and embarrass ourselves.
“We are a sovereign country and I am a proud Zimbabwean. I do not believe that as a nation we should be guided by any outside country in solving our problems.”
The MDCs were left seething with anger on Thursday after Mugabe ordered elections to be held at the end of next month.
The Zanu PF leader also used a presidential decree to circumvent Parliament and pass the necessary amendments to the country’s electoral legislation.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said going through Parliament would have made it impossible to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling ordering Mugabe to call the elections before July 31.
Prime Minister and MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has dismissed the court ruling as a political directive although he plans to challenge Mugabe’s proclamation before the same court.
Coltart however, said the court order, which followed an application by a Harare-based political activist, was binding.
“I am not one of those who say we should ignore the Constitutional Court ruling because it is binding. I also do not criticise the content of the ruling,” he said.
“The correct procedure in my view would be to go back to the Constitutional Court and say it would be difficult to comply with the ruling.”
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), DAVID COLTART, MDC, PATRICK CHINAMASA, SADC
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Education fund abuse claims baseless: Coltart
26/05/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
EDUCATION Minister David Coltart has dismissed as baseless allegations money contributed by donors to the Education Transition Fund (ETF) was being used to fund his MDC party’s projects.
Funded by donors such as the European Union the ETF was aimed aimed at helping revive an education sector once described as the pride of Africa before it was pushed close to collapse by the economic crisis experienced in the last decade.
Coltart said allegations the Fund – designed to mobilise resources for the sector and ensure equitable access to quality education - was being used to support MDC projects in Bulawayo were baseless.
“What those people are saying is false . . . ETF is managed by Unicef in Harare. The ETF implementation committee is chaired by (Ministry of Education official) Constance Chigwamba,” he said.
“ETF is a fund by donors coming from EU countries. I chair the fund but it is managed by Unicef in Harare. Not a single cent comes to Government that I can use personally . . . (Unicef’s) country director can confirm that.”
The Herald newspaper claimed MDC activists Linnet Nyathi and Ellen Shiriyedenga were running an ETF office in Bulawayo which was distributing books to local schools.
But Coltart said there was no ETF office in Bulawayo adding the two officers were, in fact, Education Ministry employees.
“Ellen works in Harare, she has been my personal assistant from day one and her political affiliation cannot be questioned. She is not in the ETF implementation committee. Nyathi was employed to run the Education Advisory Board and is based here in Harare,” he said.
The ETF was established to address the acute shortage of textbooks across the country with most schools operating on a 10:1 pupils-to-textbook ratio as well as provide teaching and learning materials.
The first phase would see some 13 million textbooks distributed to schools around the country while the next phases would focus on expanding support to the secondary schools curriculum revision and supporting implementation of the ministry’s new strategic plan.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, EDUCATION, MDC CORRUPTION
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Teachers slam Coltart over referendum
28/02/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
TEACHERS' unions have slammed Education Minister David Coltart’s move to block them from working in next month’s referendum saying their members should be allowed to make extra cash since the government refuses to pay them a living wage.
Zimbabwe holds a constitutional referendum on March 16 and teachers, who make up the bulk of the state’s estimated 230,000 employees, have traditionally worked as polling officers during national votes.
But Coltart was quoted by the Herald Wednesday saying he would seek to block teachers from taking part in the referendum arguing this would disrupt learning around the country.
On Thursday the minister, however, said the publication misrepresented the ministry's position over the issue.
"At no time did either I or any member of my staff state that there would be a total ban on teachers participating in the referendum. What we have said is that there should be minimal disruption of the education sector and to that extent qualified teachers should only be used as a last resort to ensure that as many of them as possible remain as long as possible at their posts in their classrooms," the minister said in a statement.
"We cannot afford the remainder of the term being disrupted with thousands of qualified teachers leaving their posts to be trained. The recently released O Level results are a reminder that the education sector remains in crisis and children's education remains under threat. Accordingly it is in our national interest not to disturb their education any more as far as possible."
Still, teachers’ unions said the ministry should have consulted them first and insisted that their members could not be stopped from taking part in national events.
“The minister should not stop teachers from participating in a national event as that would create a feeling of exclusion,” said Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) chief executive officer, Sifiso Ndlovu.
“To say the referendum would disrupt the learning process is a flimsy excuse because we have always participated in national events and teachers have made contingency measures for the time lost.
“What the minister says is not plausible at all. Some educators want to take part in this exercise to get some pennies. This is a once off opportunity for teachers to make extra cash especially in this difficult economic situation.”
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary general, Raymond Majongwe, added: “The referendum is a government programme and teachers must participate although we want a clear contract and conditions of payment.
“This exercise will help the teachers to augment their paltry salaries. The minister knows that civil servants are poor and such programmes come as an advantage to teachers.”
Teachers and the rest of the civil service spent most of last year battling the government for a near doubling of their salaries from the current US$296 for the least paid to about US$600 in line with the country’s poverty datum line.
The government maintained it could not meet the demands arguing the state wage bill was already accounting for more than 60 percent of overall revenues and expenditure. An inflation-adjusted 5,3 percent increment backdated to January was announced early this month.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, EDUCATION, NEOLIBERALISM, SIFISO NDLOVU
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Coltart wants teachers out of referendum
27/02/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
EDUCATION Minister David Coltart has moved to
bloc teachers from next month’s constitutional referendum saying their involvement would disrupt cause further disruption to a sector already reeling under concern over
falling standards.
Zimbabwe holds a referendum on a new constitution on March 16 and
state employees, the bulk of whom are teachers, are usually used as polling officers during elections.
“Schools will be used as polling venues, but not all of them. As a ministry, we are concerned about the disruption of the learning process and we want to minimise the effects,” Coltart was quoted saying by state media.
“My view is that teachers should not be used as polling agents. This is meant to ensure that the learning process is not disrupted. We held a meeting yesterday (Tuesday) with officials from my ministry where we discussed that issue.”
The referendum will be held on a Saturday but Coltart said polling officers would still need to be trained which could mean taking teachers away from classrooms.
“Our officers are looking into the issue and we feel that if ZEC insists, it would be better to release untrained teachers,” he said.
“We would ask them to look for manpower from other Government departments because we do not want the children to be affected by this.”
The Parliamentary constitutional committee (Copac) is already carrying out a campaign to publicise the draft new constitution which has been endorsed by all the parties in the coalition government.
Political parties outside the unity government have yet to make their positions clear but civil society groups such as the National Constitutional Assembly have called for a rejection of the new charter, dismissing it as a political compromise between the coalition parties.
New elections to end the uneasy unity government between President Robert Mugabe and long-term rival Morgan Tsvangirai are expected to be held later in the year whether or not the Copac draft becomes the country’s new supreme law.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, EDUCATION, MDC, MDC SABOTAGE
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COMMENT - This is nothing short of sabotage.
Coltart making a bad situation worse
07/02/2013 00:00:00
by Prof Jonathan Moyo, MP
WHILE Zimbabweans are still struggling to digest the appalling news that 81,6 percent of the 172,698 pupils who took Zimsec’s “O” Level examinations in 2012 failed to pass at least five subjects with a grade of “C” or better with only 31,767 managing to succeed, resulting in a pass rate of 18,4 percent, the embattled Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture—David Coltart—has typically proffered four spurious and emotive explanations of this shockingly high failure rate thereby scandalously making the bad situation worse.
In proffering his explanation in a self-indulgent press statement issued on Wednesday, Coltart unashamedly and arrogantly claimed that
“the decline in the pass rate is an indication that Zimsec have followed my instruction that standards are to be maintained so that we have an accurate idea of the health of our education system”.
What does this mean? Simply put, Coltart is boldly and proudly declaring to all and sundry that the 81,6 percent figure of the pupils who failed to get at least five subjects with a grade of “C” or better is an expression of a direct instruction he gave to Zimsec to deliberately lower the pass rate and thus raise the failure rate so that “standards are maintained” in order to “have an accurate idea of the health of our education system”.
One does not have to like or dislike Coltart’s nonsense about education to understand that whether a child fails or passes an “O” Level subject should not, cannot and must not be subject to a political instruction to Zimsec from the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture. Passing or failing a Zimsec examination must necessarily and therefore only reflect the child’s examination performance in terms of objective criteria which is academic and professional without any political grounding of the kind sought by Coltart through his illegal instruction to Zimsec.
In the circumstances, the public and shameless admission by Coltart that the low pass rate “is an indication that Zimsec have followed my (Coltart’s) instruction” is not just scandalous in the extreme but it is also manifestly corrupt, unlawful and warrants an urgent and transparent criminal investigation of both Coltart and Zimsec whom he says followed his illegal instruction.
As if unaware of his own scandalous and criminal explanation that the unsettlingly high 2012 failure rate was a direct result of his illegal instruction to Zimsec, Coltart claimed in his Wednesday press statement that the low pass rate “is primarily in my view a reflection of the extreme crisis in education experienced between approximately 2005 and 2009 when thousands of teachers left the service and many teaching days were lost”.
While it is of course true and thus undeniable that the education sector took a battering between 2005 and 2009 when the effects of Western illegal economic sanctions combined with the hyperinflationary consequences of excessive quantitative easing otherwise known as “money printing”, Coltart’s reference to this truth explains why the high 2012 failure rate in “O” Level examinations is naively opportunistic.
It is hopeless for Coltart to, on the one hand, boast that the high failure rate is “an indication that Zimsec have followed” his instruction and, on the other hand, for him to claim that the same rate is “a reflection of the extreme crisis in education experienced between 2005 and 2009”.
The two statements from one and the same mouth contradict each other unless Coltart’s proposition is that his instruction for Zimsec to effectively lower the pass rate and increase the failure rate was made to justify his political view that education went through an extreme crisis between 2005 and 2009.
In any event, Coltart has been responsible for education as Minister since 2009 and the legitimate public expectation is that he should have attended to the setbacks which the education sector suffered between 2005 and 2009 as a matter of urgency and that by now the public should be seeing positive results from his interventions. But, alas, the evidence in the air shows that Coltart has been playing dirty politics with the critical education sector exemplified by his scandalous, corrupt and criminal instruction to Zimsec which must be investigated sooner rather than later in the national interest and to save education from Coltart’s very dangerous games.
Not satisfied that his criminal instruction to Zimsec to raise the failure rate in “O” Level examinations in order to corruptly justify his political view that the poor rate is a reflection of the “extreme crisis in education between 2005 and 2009” in the vain hope of creating a false 2013 election issue, Coltart proffered a third and quite inane explanation of the low pass rate claiming that, “another reason for the decline maybe the increase in numbers of children writing which can also result in a decline in the pass rate”.
This is an inane explanation whose illogical premise is that the higher the number of pupils taking the Zimsec “O” Level examinations the higher the number of failures. But this is pure and utter nonsense. For example, in 2010 the pass rate was better than the 2012 rate at 16,5 percent when 229,522 pupils sat the Zimsec “O” Level examinations compared to the 172,698 who took it last year. And in 2009 only 87,201 were examined yet the pass rate of 19,33 percent was not very different from the 2012 rate of 18,4 percent involving 172,698 pupils.
As such, anyone who believes Coltart’s assertion that “the increase in numbers of children writing the examination results in a decline in the pass rate” will sadly believe anything. Coltart’s assertion is political gibberish not supported by any sustainable empirical evidence from anywhere in the world. The cryptic message of his assertion which was the order of the day in Rhodesia is that “the majority must be failed by design (similar to Coltart’s instruction to Zimsec) in order for the few to get through so as for them not to challenge and swell the numbers of the learned in the racialised global scheme of things”.
Zimbabweans will recall that from the first day as Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Coltart has been irrationally determined to disprove a UNDP 2009 study which showed that Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa ahead of Tunisia at 92%. Coltart’s illegal instruction to Zimsec to deliberately lower the pass rate in the spurious name of “maintaining standards” has all the political trappings of a self-fulfilling prophecy with Rhodesian echoes.
Coltart’s cat comes out of the bag with his fourth explanation for the high 81,6 failure rate in the 2012 “O” Level Zimsec examinations about which he said the following in his Press Statement issued on Wednesday:
“There is one other major factor to consider — our O Levels (sic.) are primarily academically oriented whereas many children are more practically oriented. This was a flaw recognised by the Nziramazanga (sic.) Commission in 1999 which we are now seeking to address through the programme of comprehensive review and reform of our curriculum which is now under way”.
Coltart’s insulting and extremely objectionable proclamation is a pregnant disclosure which should be unpacked by the permanent officials in the service of our national education system beyond this commentary because through his telling disclosure Coltart has made clear his dangerous intentions whose damage to our knowledge industry would be incalculable if his agenda is allowed to prevail beyond his tenure in the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture.
To put it mildly Coltart, like the architects of Rhodesian racist education before him, is basically saying that blacks have no academic orientation and cannot be taught through mind-based pedagogy that is cerebral or academic but are rather better taught through observational or so-called practical pedagogy that is based on the “monkey-see-monkey-do” colonial and UDI modules.
The fact that Coltart opportunistically cites the findings of the 1999 Nziramasanga Commission in support of his Rhodesian position whose objectives are the opposite of the goals of that Commission is enough to prove his sinister and unacceptable agenda.
Anyone who is familiar with the goings on in the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture these days of the Inclusive Government will readily attest to the fact that the last four years in that ministry have seen a spirited and determined onslaught against the findings and recommendations of the Nziramasanga Commission as a benchmark for reforming the education sector.
Under Coltart, the Nziramasanga Commission has been turned into a dirty phrase which has been replaced by the so-called “Education Transition Trust” whose vision of education in Zimbabwe doves tails neatly with the Rhodesian vision whose thrust was that blacks should be taught vocational skills and trained to be artisans and do things like carpentry allegedly because they are not academically oriented.
Fortunately, we know for a fact that this is just garbage given the phenomenal strides that Zimbabwe has made in education since independence in 1980. An overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans are without doubt academically oriented and the Nziramasanga Commission acknowledged this fact whose evidence is everywhere nationally and in the Diaspora while noting that, like elsewhere around the world, there is a significant few who are not so-oriented and whose needs for vocational skills should be catered for by our system of education.
It is mischievous for Coltart to seek to falsify the record by giving the false impression that the Nziramasanga Commission concluded that the majority of Zimbabwean pupils are not academically oriented.
Given the foregoing, if Coltart imagines that he will use his impending exit not just from his ministry but also from Welshman Ncube’s MDC and indeed from Zimbabwe on his way to some international NGO to distort our education infrastructure by among other things corrupting Zimsec through criminal instructions, then he needs to think again because Zimbabwe will never be a colony, again. Never!
Professor Jonathan Moyo is MP for Tsholotsho North (Zanu PF) and a former Minister of Information
Labels: DAVID COLTART, EDUCATION, MDC TREASON, RHODESIA
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Coltart: playing cricket with education
05/02/2013 00:00:00
by Simba Chakanyuka
O’ LEVEL results released on Monday – showing a frightening 81,6 percent of children who sat exams last November failing – are quite alarming by any measure. Sports, Education and Culture Minister David Coltart has earned rave reviews over perceived gains in the education sector since he took over in 2009, but these figures tell their own story. The A’ Level results released last month showed a two percentage point drop from the 2011 pass rate.
It can be argued that this is probably the worst crisis facing Zimbabwe – perhaps only matched by a sick health delivery system and unemployment. So, you would expect a minister confronted by such a crisis to be calling emergency meetings with the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC), regional directors, headmasters and consulting ordinary teachers on how to pull together out of this mess.
But no, the minister’s mind is elsewhere: cricket. Like a playful student, Coltart appears more at home stoking racism fires in cricket than discussing the needs of our teachers, pupils and parents – the three pillars of a successful education system.
Coltart will not get away with calling black students dunderheads [“Our O’ Levels are primarily academically orientated whereas many children are more practically orientated”]. Or blaming the education failures on the economic crisis of 2005-2009. We are long past that. A Form 1 pupil in 2009 when he took over is among the 141,000 now sitting at home contemplating a bleak future after getting their results slip from ZIMSEC on Monday.
I will leave the education crisis to others to dissect; it is the minister’s pet subject – cricket – to which I want to return.
After a patently racist directive which sought to re-establish cricket as a white sport, setting back years of racial rationalisation founded on producing young and competent black cricketers from school level and nurturing them through to the top, Coltart made a new intervention on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe Cricket announced that batting coach Grant Flower, bowling coach Heath Streak and fitness trainer Lorraine Chivandire would be staying behind when the national team tours the West Indies later this month.
The technical change, as the ZC explained, was informed by a desire to accommodate more touring players as the tour will feature three ODIs, two Twenty20 Internationals and two Tests.
Critically, media reports suggest financial constraints could also be a factor in the decision.
Coltart took to Facebook to question the ZC move – with a helping hand from a curious statement from skipper Brendan Taylor – claiming that the players had not been consulted.
It is well and good if some still want to give the man the benefit of doubt. But if his meddling in cricket – which is not new by the way – does not do so much as raise your eyebrow, then you cannot be in the land of the living.
It has been said, and if it has been denied I have yet to see such a denial, that Coltart was behind the black armband protest by Andy Flower and Henry Olonga during the 2003 ICC World Cup in South Africa to mourn the “death of democracy in Zimbabwe”.
Subsequent to that, white players like Streak and the Flower brothers – joined by their lackey in the form of Olonga – quit the national team. In part, they were unhappy with a deliberate decision by Zimbabwe Cricket under the leadership of chairman Peter Chingoka and managing director Ozias Bvute to push for the promotion of competent black players to the senior team structure.
Coltart later travelled the world lobbying Test playing nations – in particular England, New Zealand and Australia – not to tour Zimbabwe.
The sum total of his and the actions of the white deserters, led by Heath Streak, was that Zimbabwe Cricket suffered. No-one would tour the country. Without television money, debt piled up – hardly a unique problem in sport but one Coltart, Streak and others cannot now project as Chingoka and Bvute’s doing.
When the ZC is taking austerity measures by rightsizing the travelling party to the West Indies, Coltart’s protests on behalf of his mates ring hollow when he is very much part of the problem.
It was an act of magnanimity by Chingoka and Bvute that they extended an olive branch to deserters like Streak and Flower – the same people Coltart now demands to be consulted over when they are excluded, albeit temporarily.
Is it necessary for Coltart to be throwing his Rhodesian weight around on cricket fields when other crises elsewhere demand his immediate attention, not least education and the non-performing football team? Why cricket?
Zimbabwe Cricket has called a stakeholder conference for late March to deal with racism in cricket. It should not be one where ZC throws in the towel to an obdurate racist minority stuck in a 1970s time warp.
This is no time for surrender. Coltart and his ilk who find representation in the current playing and coaching staff should be left in no doubt that the New Zimbabwe train is hurtling along full steam ahead, they can get off here if they can’t handle the bumps.
Simba Chakanyuka is an avid cricket fan. He can be contacted on e-mail: chakanyukasimba@gmail.com
COMMENT
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Zhenharo Nepfuti
Its obvious that the allocation of Ministers by the MDC was completely void of any desire to get results. It was more to do with just taking ministries away from Zanu PF. But as is just too obvious now. this party realised too late that their lack of strategy would soon be badly exposed. Ever since they came into government, which ministry, or department showed any signs of progress. Even city councils are all way beyond redenption all because of mere visitation by these guys. David Coldheart"s recent disgusting discharges regarding Cricket was a desperate bid to divert attention from the impending disasterous results in the form of :O: and A-Level results.His assumption of his post as the Minister of fducation had nothing to do with the improvement of the system. We all know what the educational policy in Rhodesia was like. At what point then did he becone interested in the quality of education for Blacks? The amount of effort he has put in meddling with the affairs of cricket will never be matched in education. How many people did he want to improve if at all his ill advised directives were to be adopted? Yet education affects the whole nation, he would prefer show that he is THE minister when it comes to cricket while shouting like a mere onlooker when it comes to education. I hope the people will vote wisely this year and get rid of all the dead wood in the issues of governance.
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tendax
Vakuru marasika apa
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ProudZimbabwean
Tinovamamisa ma born and bred racists aTsvangirai awa!!
Labels: CRICKET, DAVID COLTART, EDUCATION, RACISM, RHODESIA
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Coltart directive racist, illegal
26/01/2013 00:00:00
by Prof Jonathan Moyo, MP
DAVID Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, wrongly deployed to that key role by Welshman Ncube’s MDC, just does not get it. His not-so-cleverly-hidden commitment to the Rhodesian racist cause has finally come out of the bag, leaving his human rights and rule of law charade up in stinking smoke.
The irrefutable evidence is now there for all to see from Coltart’s manifestly racist, illegal and even barbaric ministerial directive which he has fraudulently issued in the false name of the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) to the effect that from February 1 no person shall be appointed as a selector by any national sport association for a national team unless they have represented Zimbabwe in that particular sport.
The fact that Coltart’s directive smacks of sickening and intolerable racism last seen in Rhodesia has already been made beyond rational disputation not least by Givemore Makoni, a true son of the soil who is currently Zimbabwe Cricket’s Convenor of Selectors with a solid 26 years of professional experience in the troubled sport of cricket behind him.
Indeed, well experienced and respected sports journalists such as Robson Sharuko, Lawrence Moyo and Kevin Mapasure, among others, have made telling media interventions that have raised questions which Coltart has failed to convincingly answer about the racist implications of his misplaced directive.
While the racism behind Coltart’s directive is now common cause, there are three equally damning aspects of the directive that have not been sufficiently interrogated yet each and all of them expose Coltart for the fake human rights and rule of law activist that he is.
In the first place Coltart issued his directive in a fraudulent manner under the false name of the SRC. This is because the commission does not have a board to formulate and implement the purported directive. A perusal of the record shows that the term of the previous board of the commission expired on October 31, 2012, and there has been no replacement. Where there’s no board, there can be no directive.
In an emotionally-charged response to an article written by Kevin Mapasure last Friday, Coltart revealingly wrote that: “The SRC directive by Col Nhemachena I sent to him last week states clearly that my proposal to the SRC was sent by me to the SRC on December 3 last year." This shows that, in the absence of an SRC Board, Coltart has been abusing Col Nhemachena by making him do unlawful things that he has no power or authority to do in terms of the law.
The fact that Nhemachena has obliged is a total shame. As such, the purported directive sent on January 8 in Col Nhemachena’s name and under his signature on Coltart’s instruction is a fraudulent piece of paper not worth the ink printed on it.
In the second place, the fraudulent directive issued by Coltart through Col Nhemachena is barbaric in that it targets incumbents like Givemore Makoni and seeks to use the backdoor to remove them from their legal, legitimate and contractual roles and obligations by the stroke of a racist pen through a fraudulent decree purporting to be coming from a board that does not in fact exist at law. That is jungle stuff typical of Rhodie antics with no basis in the rule of law.
It is an established human rights principle and a tenet of international best practice that the effect of a change of law or rule must not be retroactive. Givemore Makoni was legally and thus contractually appointed as Convenor of Selectors on November 2, 2012, by Zimbabwe Cricket well before Coltart sent his fraudulent directive to Col Nhemachena on December 3, 2012, and it is barbaric for Coltart or anyone else to seek to shamelessly nullify that appointment through a racist decree which is intended to take effect from February 1 for a specific hidden reason that is too apparent.
In the third place, and above everything else, Coltart’s directive fraudulently issued through Col Nhemachena in the absence of an SRC Board in order to unleash barbaric consequences on targeted individuals such as Givemore Makoni is patently illegal. There is absolutely nothing in the Sports and Recreation Commission Act (Chapter 25:15) that gives either Coltart as the Minister or the SRC Board the power to do what Coltart’s racist directive seeks to do.
In simple terms, while the SRC has the policy duty and responsibility to oversee the affairs of sporting associations in order to co-ordinate and develop sport at the national level, it has no legal right whatsoever to run the affairs of the associations or to make or amend their constitutions through directives.
As a matter of fact, in all situations where the law gives a minister or board any “power”, that power is always specifically defined and is always exercised in statutory terms by first being gazetted in the Government Gazette. In terms of the law, power cannot be exercised arbitrarily or in general and nebulous terms at the whim and caprice of a minister without reference to a specific section of the enabling law and without gazetting the desired action on the basis of that law.
The fact that Coltart is a lawyer and therefore should know this is enough to prove his sinister intentions because no self-respecting lawyer would seek to implement an arbitrary directive that has no legal basis and that does not even have Cabinet authority.
What is particularly shocking in this case is that Coltart is seeking to use an ungazetted and fraudulent directive to amend the constitutions of sport associations such as Zimbabwe Cricket that are legally registered with the SRC. This alone shows that Coltart is a fake human rights activist and the noises he always makes — especially at international fora where he is now seeking a job at some international anti-nuclear proliferation agency — are hollow and self-serving.
Against this background, the position taken by Zimbabwe Cricket should be commended and supported by all Zimbabweans beyond cricket because it is legally and morally correct and is in the national interest.
Instructively, the fact that there’s a not-so-hidden racist agenda in Coltart’s directive has been exposed by his outrageous response to the decision by Zimbabwe Cricket not to implement the illegal directive.
Upon learning of the Zimbabwe Cricket decision last Friday, Coltart took to the social media with a post that made this shocking claim: “I see that one of the reasons for defiance advanced by Zimbabwe Cricket is the following: ‘Further, the actions of the Commission, in that regard, would be in violation of Article 2.9(B) of the ICC Articles of Association which prohibit government interference in the management of the affairs of the member associations’.
"This is one of the most disingenuous arguments I have seen. I wonder how Zimbabwe Cricket reconciles this statement with the following article published on Thursday regarding Sri Lanka’s selection procedures where the Sri Lankan Minister of Sport chooses the selectors."
It is bad for Coltart to base his response on a secondary reason used by Zimbabwe Cricket and worse for him to misrepresent that reason in a manner that clearly shows that he takes Zimbabweans for fools.
Zimbabwe Cricket’s rejection of Coltart’s directive is primarily and essentially based on the law of the land and Coltart knows that because it is in black and white in the five-page letter Zimbabwe Cricket sent to the Col Nhemachena on January 24. Except for only one paragraph in its conclusion, the entire five-page letter is based on the Sports and Recreation Commission Act (Chapter 25:15) and painstakingly shows how and why Coltart’s directive is illegal in terms of this law and this alone.
Coltart’s failure to respond to the detailed legal issues raised by Zimbabwe Cricket in terms of the Sports and Recreation Commission Act and his uninformed reference to a useless newspaper article about how the Sri Lankan Minister of Sport chooses selectors show how childish and irresponsible he has become in defence of his racism in sport.
Zimbabwe Cricket’s reference to Article 2.9(B) of the ICC Articles of Association which prohibit government interference in the management of the affairs of member associations is an important and relevant secondary and not primary reason for rejecting Coltart’s illegal directive. The primary reason is the Zimbabwean law.
What is as shocking as it is revealing is that Coltart, who is a lawyer, wants Zimbabweans to ignore the fact that Article 2.9(B) of the ICC Articles of Association does indeed exist and wants them to focus instead on the fact that Sri Lankan and Pakistan cricket are in violation of this ICC Article 2.9(b) of Association and that this violation somehow justifies his illegal directive.
In other words, Coltart is saying “if Sri Lanka and Pakistan are doing it illegally, then we must also did it illegally”. This is utter crap which shows that Coltart does not get it and is an enemy of the rule of law. His shocking irrationality is equivalent to a stupid lawyer who defends a client accused of murder by submitting that his client must be left alone to murder some more because there are other murderers out there going scot free.
The fact is that the ICC stands by Article 2.9(b) of its Articles of Association and has given Sri Lanka and Pakistan a reprieve and is closely working with them to comply while Zimbabwe Cricket is already in compliance which partly explains why it has rejected Coltart’s illegal directive.
Another example of Coltart’s failure to understand the compelling legal issues raised by Zimbabwe Cricket was exposed last Friday in his Facebook exchange with Darlington Tendai Majonga whom he sought to confuse if not smear by rhetorically asking: “Can you ever imagine Zimbabwe Cricket adopting this attitude if it was a Zanu-PF minister involved?”
Again and because he has no case besides his racist agenda, Coltart failed to give Majonga the legal basis or reasons why Zimbabwe Cricket should comply with his racist directive and instead — and rather foolishly — decided to go political in very personalised terms by claiming that “Zimbabwe Cricket would not insist on following the law if it was a Zanu-PF minister involved”.
This again shows that Coltart does not get it. No Zanu PF minister would treacherously dare seek to reverse the gains of our hard-won and heroic independence by giving a directive intended to disempower the indigenous population in favour of erstwhile Rhodesian interests. That is unthinkable.
It appears from the record that Coltart suffers from an acute case of delusions of the grandeur. He imagines himself to be a champion of human rights and the rule of law only by dint of the white colour of his skin simply because his race easily and readily connects him to Western interests and that gives him an exaggerated sense of a superiority complex.
By his own admission posted on his personal website, Coltart claims to have become a human rights activist for the first time in his life in 1983 yet he was born in 1957. But interestingly he claims in his curriculum vitae that he was “conscripted into the British South African Police Force stationed in Mashonaland, Matabeleland South and Masvingo Provinces” during the height of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle between 1975 and 1978. Although he claims that he was “conscripted” into the Rhodesian Selous Scouts network under the BSAP, he boasts in his curriculum vitae that he was judged to be the “best recruit” in July 1975. Best recruit!
It is unthinkable that an unwilling soldier of conscience in Rhodesia could have been the best recruit. There is clearly more to Coltart’s Rhodesian history than the people have known and his recent racist directive is a telling window into his dark past. This perhaps explains why there i’s nothing in Coltart’s history that locates him in support of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle or its legacy. Nothing!
According to his own curriculum vitae posted on his personal website, he became a human rights activist not by choice or God’s calling as he would have the uninitiated among us believe but after he was “instructed by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace to record affidavits from people who had suffered at the hands of the Fifth Brigade, affidavits subsequently submitted to the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry”.
Coltart prepared these affidavits not as a human rights activist — which he has never been — but as a hired lawyer under instruction from Rhodesian interests! The same is true with his legal defence of the likes of the late Sydney Malunga, Edward Ndlovu, Stephen Nkomo and other members of the then PF-Zapu Central Committee. Coltart defended them as a hired lawyer and not as a human rights activist not least because he did not support their heroic liberation history or role in that struggle.
He just supported their unfortunate misunderstanding with their nationalist colleagues in government. And to this day Coltart does not support the liberation struggle or its gains. This is because to him human rights and the rule of law are the antithesis of the liberation struggle and its gains. It is for this reason that Coltart cannot stand the likes of Givemore Makoni whose rise in cricket is an expression of the gains of the liberation struggle.
Indeed, Coltart’s opposition to the liberation struggle and its gains also explains why more often than not on a given day in his government ministerial office, he is wont to be found surrounded by hordes of Rhodies. In the same vein, his policy thrust as education minister is run by a so-called Education Transition Trust which meets once a month at his ministerial offices and whose composition is 70 percent white with the 30 percent remainder made up of the black employees of the same 70 percent white bloc that runs the trust plus a sprinkling of a few ministry officials.
Under Coltart, the last four years have seen a concerted effort to kill the very system of public education that has been Zimbabwe’s national pride by not only privatising it but also by creating white colonies within it that are reminiscent of the Rhodesian “Group A” schools that are now once again springing up as colonies in our country.
As part of Coltart’s racist initiative in education, these schools are running their own foreign syllabi and have become apartheid islands that are not relating to the rest of the schools in the public educational system even in sports and recreational activities.
Coltart has a dangerous racist agenda which he is pursuing with his racist cabal of Rhodies in a fraudulent manner with no legal basis. He must be stopped by any and all means necessary.
Professor Jonathan Moyo is the MP for Tsholotsho North (Zanu PF) and a former cabinet minister
Labels: DAVID COLTART, JONATHAN MOYO, MDC
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Beware of David Coltart
15/01/2013 00:00:00
by Mai Jukwa
AN EFFECTIVE analysis of the recent back and forth between Givemore Makoni and David Coltart is one that views facts in consideration of wider realities. This examination of wider realities is particularly helpful because it helps the observer to pick out and dismiss specious arguments.
A specious argument is one that has a ring of truth to it but is actually false. Skilled deceivers often make use of this technique. One relies on seemingly plausible foundations to justify a dishonest point.
An example would be a man who has found himself a mistress. The moment his wife fails in even the most minor of issues, he will blow it out of all proportion and speedily demand a divorce. On paper, his complaints may seem legitimate but a closer examination will prove him dishonest.
David Coltart is one such man. A few questions will make my point.
Who benefits if England plays cricket in Zimbabwe? Is it not the vendor who sells burgers and ice-cream? Is it not the nine-year-old who wants to watch his favourite star from SuperSport?
Again I ask, who benefits when an international team comes to this country? Is it not ordinary Zimbabweans who simply want to enjoy their weekend watching a loved sport?
David Coltart led a delegation that advised England not fulfil its World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe. Whose interests was Coltart serving? Was he serving the interests of Zimbabweans who earn a living selling various wares during cricket games? Was he serving the interests of Zimbabweans who wanted to watch the game in their own country? Who sent him to do what he did?
Today, Coltart speaks of the national interest. I speak of viewing matters with the wider reality in consideration. Examine the man’s record.
Let’s consider the recent directives by Coltart which demand that selectors be persons with international experience; specifically, they should have represented Zimbabweans at an international level.
I need not remind Coltart that he is not the minister of Cricket. He is responsible for sports overall. Would the good minister please educate us as to which other sports he has mandated this regime. If his concern is national interest, why is he not similarly exercised about football? I called them the wider reality.
I spoke of football. What about athletics? Tennis is another sport we play, as is rugby. We have different sports in our country. Why did Coltart not introduce universal reforms in all sports in the national interest? What is it about cricket that motivated him to intervene in such an extraordinary way?
He has not volunteered an explanation as to why cricket is such an exception? This is not because he is a man of few words but rather because he knows any explanation would ring desperately hollow.
Coltart knows full well that his reforms narrow the list of eligible selectors in favour of his white friends. Even if they are not his friends, the fact still remains that his reforms will result in very few eligible black selectors. This is exactly how Coltart wants it.
All Zimbabweans want our national teams to succeed but we also want those teams to be national. They cannot be Rhodie clubs.
The suggestion that one can only be an effective selector if they have played at an international level is idiotic. Some of the best football coaches have never kicked the ball themselves. Some of the best political strategists have never run for public office.
Coltart’s argument is nearly as foolish as a university demanding that would-be business professors be individuals who have in the past run a multi-million dollar enterprise. It is absurd. Coltart knows this but he is doing it because he has already hoodwinked his foolish black colleagues by use of a specious argument.
Coltart esteems himself a lover of democratic virtues and human rights. We are routinely subjected to his howls of disapproval on this matter and the other. Let Zimbabweans be warned, he is a fake.
If he is not an imposter, may he please produce a single essay, article or even a mere High School composition that he wrote in objection to white minority rule. He cannot do so because he is a fake humanitarian, a racist wolf dressed in the unassuming apparel of a lamb.
Amai Jukwa is a loving mother of three. She respects Robert Mugabe, is amused by Tsvangirai and feels sorry for Mutambara
Labels: CRICKET, DAVID COLTART, GIVEMORE MAKONI, MAI JUKWA, RACISM
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Cricket selector Makoni responds to Coltart
14/01/2013 00:00:00
by Givemore Makoni
While the Minister attempts to camouflage the directives with the “national interest” punch line, his statement patently failed to mask that they were crafted for particular sporting disciplines only.
That Minister Coltart mentioned a serious dispute regarding the selection of the Zimbabwe team to participate in a World Bowls event in Australia, as well as selection controversies in some major sports like Football and Cricket is not coincidental.
As far as I know, football has no selection panel as that burden is the prerogative of the coach. That then leaves just bowls and cricket from the examples the Minister gave. He probably mentioned football and cricket as the two biggest sporting disciplines in the country, but it then begs the question why bowls?
What was this selection controversy in bowls about and who are these protagonists that felt the selectors were unqualified and alleged interference in the process? Why is the Minister not giving us the whole story?
The Minister claims my frustration comes from the insecurity of losing my post as national convener of selectors. No Minister; I can leave that post today. I have contributed to the transformation and spread of cricket to previously disadvantaged communities in a manner the Minister cannot dispute.
My frustration actually stems from Minister Coltart’s subtle attempts to reverse the transformation agenda in cricket which he initially resisted as an ordinary legislator. Now that he is the minister in charge of sport, he is using his position to actually regularise that resistance. I have known Minister Coltart in cricketing circles well before I became a national selector and his contribution to the game has been nothing more than divisive.
While the directives appears prudent and in the national interest at face value, their racial poison appears upon close scrutiny as they seemingly target only formerly white-dominated sports. I don’t know much about bowling as a sport but cricket is the only discipline I know a transformation war was waged for the involvement of the current majority black players’ participation.
Minister Coltart is correct in stating that his directives do not prevent Stephen Mangongo from being appointed national coach, but indirectly they disqualify him because a national coach automatically becomes a national selector. The cricket coach is involved in the selection of teams and Minister Coltart knows that. For example, the current 24-man training squad for the West Indies tour was picked by coach Alan Butcher, Zimbabwe High Performance coach and national selector Wayne James and myself.
In fact, the reason I term the Minister’s directives racist is because they are not new at all. They were first presented to the then Zimbabwe Cricket Union by former national cricket captain Heath Streak and his all-white 14 rebel players and consolidated in a 2,714-word public statement they released on April 12, 2004. Among the rebel players’ set of demands was a change in the make-up and policy of national selectors.
The rebel players comprising Heath Streak, Stuart Carlisle, Grant Flower, Craig Wishart, Andy Blignaut, Raymond Price, Gary Brent, Sean Irvine, Travis Friend, Barney Rogers, Trevor Gripper, Richard Simms, Neil Ferreria, Charles Coventry and Gavin Ewing demanded that a selector should possess a Level 3 Coaching Certificate with 5-6 years’ experience as a First Class Coach; to have played 5-6 years of First Class Cricket or to have represented the national team. All these demands were aimed at removing the then national convener of selectors Stephen Mangongo and Macsood Ebrahim, who did not meet this criterion.
The rebel players felt selectors who lacked these qualifications used unofficial quotas to bring more black players into the team. So there is nothing in the national interest in Minister Coltart’s directives. They are just longstanding demands of people opposed to the transformation of cricket from being a preserve of a few families to a truly national sport, disguised as a Sports and Recreation Commission directive.
Is it not ironic that the name of Ethan Dube, who came to the minds of the rebel players in 2004 as a preferred national selector also comes to the Minister’s mind in the same capacity nine years later? Or could it be that it’s the same mind?
Minister Coltart should not try and fool us with his national interest mantra when in fact he is hell bent on removing all those responsible for the survival of cricket in Zimbabwe during a period he and rebel players and their backers sought to collapse the sport simply because more blacks were becoming involved.
Was the Minister not the mastermind of the infamous donning of black armbands by Andy Flower and Henry Olonga to mourn the “death of democracy” during a World Cup match in 2003? Did he not lead a delegation to Cape Town to meet the England cricket team during the same World Cup to advise it not to fulfil its World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe arguing that it was not both cricketing and politically correct for England to do so? Talk of “national interest”.
The Minister is not being entirely honest when he claims his criticism regarding selections during the tour to New Zealand was mainly focused on the non-selection of Vusimuzi Sibanda. I personally fought a directive from the Cricket Committee chairman Alistair Campbell barring Vusimuzi Sibanda from selection and the minister did not intervene. He only got involved when I dropped Keegan Meth for Prosper Utseya during the same tour in conditions that suited spin.
Furthermore, the Minister recently personally gave a directive to Zimbabwe Cricket to reinstate Carl Jarvis in the domestic league after he had been suspended by the disciplinary committee for abusing black umpires. Is this also in the national interest?
So I am not convinced that Minister Coltart has Zimbabwe national teams’ interests at heart in his latest directives but seeks to secure the entry of as well as the continued involvement of his friends, some of who are his sports advisers, in determining the composition and direction of Zimbabwean sport.
Givemore Makoni is the Zimbabwe Cricket National Convenor of Selectors
Labels: CRICKET, DAVID COLTART, GIVEMORE MAKONI, RACISM, RHODESIA
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Coltart responds to racism criticism
13/01/2013 00:00:00
by Sen. David Coltart
THIS week, the Director General of the Sports and Recreation Commission Rtd Col. Charles Nhemachena issued SRC directive NSA 1/2013 regarding the appointment of National Selectors. The directive was issued pursuant to sections 19,21 and 23 of the Sports and Recreation Commission Act.
In terms of section 23 the Minister of Sport is given the power to issue general directions to the SRC “as appears requisite... in the national interest”, subject to the SRC being given 30 days in which to submit its views regarding the proposed directive to the Minister.
Last year, I exercised these powers for the first time when the SRC issued a directive pursuant to section 23 of the SRC Act ordering all sports associations to equitably rotate international sporting events amongst all Zimbabwe’s sporting venues, which meet international standards, nationwide.
In the past few years there have been a variety of problems involving the selection of national sporting teams. Indeed in some disciplines it has been a long standing problem with allegations of bias and incompetence of selectors being made.
For example last year the SRC spent an extraordinary amount of time in seeking to resolve a serious selection dispute in Zimbabwe Bowls regarding the selection of the Zimbabwe team to participate in a World Bowls event in Australia. Part of that dispute arose because some of Zimbabwe’s bowlers felt that some selectors were unqualified to make the best selection or that there had been interference in the selection process. There have also been selection controversies in some major sports such as Football and Cricket.
Accordingly, last year I wrote to the SRC informing it of my proposed direction and seeking its views in terms of the SRC Act. My thinking was that if the appointment of national selectors was confined to those who had actually played their respective sport at international level it would better ensure that selectors were adequately qualified to do the job, that the appointment of selectors would be done on a more objective basis and that players were more likely to respect decisions taken by people who had already achieved internationally in that discipline.
A wide cross section of Zimbabwean sportspersons have told me in the last few years that playing at international level involves a considerable leap in physical and mental expertise which is best understood and appreciated by sportspersons who have experienced that themselves. The same sportspersons have advised me that national players are far more likely to respect and accept hard selection decisions made by people who have achieved themselves at the highest level. The matter was duly considered by the SRC and it concurred with the proposals, and a result the directive was issued by the Director General this week.
I have noted with regret the highly intemperate and defamatory statements issued in response to the the directive this week by the erstwhile convener of selectors of Zimbabwe Cricket, Mr Givemore Makoni, claiming, inter alia, that the directive has some racist motive. Whilst I understand Mr Makoni’s distress at losing his job he would have been better advised to take to take a leaf out of Dale Carnegie’s book regarding how to make friends and influence people.
His abusive remarks are not only unnecessary but ironically the remarks themselves bring into question his suitability for holding such an important national position. I note that Mr Makoni remains manager of the Rocks franchise so his services to cricket will not be lost.
Be that as it may, it is necessary for me to respond to the specific allegation that this is some racist plot to prevent black Zimbabweans from advancing in cricket. Firstly, it is well known that there are numerous black Zimbabweans who have played cricket at international level for Zimbabwe and who have now retired from international cricket, such as David Mutendera, Ethan Dube and Tatenda Taibu, who would make superb selectors.
In this regard, I have noted that Mr Makoni is recorded as stating, in his comments carried in the Zimbabwe, Independent newspaper that Ethan Dube did not play for Zimbabwe and is ineligible, which is false as Mr Dube played for Zimbabwe in 1990.
Secondly, it is ironic that Mr Makoni refers, in his comments contained in the Herald newspaper, to my criticism regarding selections during the tour to New Zealand without mentioning that those criticisms were mainly focussed on the non selection of a black player Vusimuzi Sibanda, which hardly tallies with some racist agenda.
Thirdly, I note that Mr Makoni suggests that the directive will make Mr Stephen Mangongo ineligible for appointment as national coach (as part of an alleged further racist agenda) which is also false as the directive does not apply to coaches. Nowhere in the directive does it state that a prerequisite for appointment as a national coach must be international experience. Only if a coach is to sit on a national selection panel then that person should have international experience, in terms of paragraph 2.2 of the directive.
Historically, the practice in Zimbabwe Cricket is that the coach has not been part of the selection panel although the coach’s views are taken into account. Accordingly these directives do not in any way affect that historical practice. Therefore any suggestions that the directives in general are racist are patently false and nonsensical.
In conclusion, it will be apparent that these directives have been lawfully and properly issued by the SRC in the national interest with a view to improve the competitiveness of all our national teams. Whilst it is regrettable that they inevitably affect some people who do not have international experience it would be improper to allow the personal interests of a few individuals to compromise Zimbabwe's national interest.
It goes without saying that if National Sports Associations have suggestions to make to improve the directives both I and the SRC will obviously entertain and consider them in the national interest. What drives us all is the desire to see Zimbabwe retain its status as world beaters in all sporting disciplines something which has been sadly lacking in the last decade.
Senator David Coltart is the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture
Labels: CRICKET, DAVID COLTART, RACISM, RHODESIA
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COMMENT - David Coltart is a former member of the British South Africa Police (BSAP).
Coltart says 'rights violators' stymying signature of Rome Statute
12/12/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
ZIMBABWE is reluctant to ratify the Rome Statute because hardliners who have over the years thrived on violating human rights fear prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC), says Education Minister David Coltart, a renowned lawyer.
Yet he says the question is not whether the country will ever subject itself to the jurisdiction of the ICC - but rather, when.
“Those responsible for crimes are fearful that ratification will bring prosecutions on their own heads,” Coltart told a Consultative Assembly of Parliamentarians for the ICC in Rome this week.
“But we have made significant progress along the road towards ratification and we are far closer to ratification now than we were in 2008.
“I think that Zimbabwe will eventually ratify but in our experience I think that there are lessons for us all,” he said.
President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist since independence in 1980, has been accused together with his allies in Zanu PF of gross rights violations during his unbroken 32-year rule.
Many people say he should be held accountable for the killing of more than 20, 000 people in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions during a brutal military campaign codenamed Gukurahundi, which means “the early rains that wash away the chaff before the spring rains.”
Mugabe and his security apparatus, including the police and the military stand accused of unleashing violence in the 2008 run-off elections that killed hundreds of MDC supporters.
Coltart says while the violence has dramatically subsided, human rights breaches continue.
“There are ongoing human rights abuses, including the selective application of the law, massive corruption and tight control of the electronic media. The military looms large and constantly threaten that they will not accept any transfer of power away from Mugabe's party, Zanu PF.”
The ICC was formed to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Some 121 countries have subjected themselves to its jurisdiction, but counties like the United States, China and Russia have stayed away citing sovereignty. Of the 121 signatories, 33 are African nations.
Many African leaders, including Mugabe, accuse the ICC of targeting feeble Third World politicians while living Western rights violators to go scot free.
Former US president George Bush and British premier Tony Blair are often cited in such arguments for their role in the Iraqi war.
To dispel such criticism, Coltart said, the ICC should convince America to join it.
“We need to redouble our efforts to persuade our American friends in particular to ratify especially during the important window opened during President Obama's final term of office.
“Given President Obama's human rights credentials, it is hard to believe that he personally would be against ratification. I am under no illusions regarding the difficulty of persuading the American military of the need to ratify but I think that President Obama's final term presents us with a unique opportunity,” he added.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, ICC, MDC
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It’s the ideas, stupid!
21/11/2012 00:00:00
by Prof Jonathan Moyo, MP
IF THERE is one thing that Zimbabweans can reiterate and reiterate until the cows come home without twisting their tongues like Elizabeth Macheka over the pronouncement of the word, it would be not only to reiterate that the two MDC formations are ideologically bankrupt and policy-incompetent but also to reiterate that the MDC formations have absolutely nothing to offer to the people of Zimbabwe beyond the self-aggrandisement, self-enrichment and sexual pleasure of the leadership of the two embattled parties.
There are two latest examples of this. One is how Morgan’s Tsvangirai’s MDC has reacted to the theme of Zanu PF’s 2012 people’s conference in Gweru early next month whose banner is “Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment”.
The other example is the reaction of Welshman Ncube’s MDC to Zanu PF’s 2012 Presidential agricultural input scheme that has earmarked $20 million to support at least 800,000 farming households.
Stung by the self-evident policy significance and positive impact of the Presidential agricultural input scheme which is in fact not new as it has been running for years now, Welshman Ncube’s MDC unleashed David Coltart – a former Rhodesian Selous Scouts who by his own admission in his own website only started having an interest in human rights and good governance after independence in 1983 – to attempt an impossible task of trashing the scheme.
In typical Rhodie fashion, Coltart did not care about the beneficiaries of the agricultural input scheme, instead he was manifestly dismayed and apparently scared to his political death that a staggering 800,000 farming households whose livelihood depends on the soil were set to benefit from concrete support given to them by Zanu PF.
And as if to take Zimbabweans for fools, Coltart not only demanded to know the identity of the donors to the $20 million agricultural input scheme but also wondered why the well-wishers could donate such an amount to the agricultural scheme while Tendai Biti had allocated only $8 million for education this year.
Notably and understandably given his anti-people Rhodie roots, Coltart could not bring himself into thinking about Biti’s paltry allocation to agriculture because just like Biti and indeed just like the two MDC formations, Coltart does not understand the strategic importance of agriculture to the Zimbabwean economy including to the sustenance of critical social sectors of that economy such as education and health.
Where money is involved, the accountability rule is that you do not ask stupid questions about where it is coming from but you simply follow it. In other words, you follow the money if you want to know the use to which it is put. But Coltart and those who think like him have not been interested in following the $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme because even fools can see where it is going: to 800,000 farming households across the county and this means the money is going to the masses.
But why, as would be normal in such situations, has Coltart not shown any interest in following the $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme to its destination? It has since emerged that because of his now widely-known sympathies for Tsvangirai’s MDC, driven by his growing fear that he will almost certainly lose his Senate seat in Bulawayo if he seeks re-election on the ticket of Welshman Ncube’s beleaguered MDC which has defined its political fate in narrow geographic terms with no political content, Coltart weighed into the misplaced attack of the $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme to contain the damaging consequences of Tsvangirai’s open zip shenanigans.
It was not a coincidence that Coltart’s outburst happened exactly when there were very serious questions about Tsvangirai’s source of money given his Cabinet salary and background after he was reported to have paid some $300,000 cash to settle a maintenance claim from Locardia Karimatsenga and a reported $200,000 in legal costs bringing the figure to at least half a million dollars.
Coltart must not fool himself into believing that his typically Rhodie diversionary and disinformation tactics perfected by Selous Scouts have gone unnoticed. It was a good try, as they say, but nothing else beyond that.
The bottom line is that there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, Morgan Tsvangirai $500,000 from unknown sources dished out to pay for one of Tsvangirai’s concubines in acknowledgment of his sexual gratification and, on the other hand, Zanu PF’s $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme given to 800,000 farming households across the country.
Does David Coltart or anyone else for that really think that it is better to pay a concubine for sexual services rendered than to support farmers? In the same vein, does David Coltart or anyone else who suffers from similarly warped thinking believe that it is better or is more responsible to demand to know where the money to support farmers is coming from than to demand to know where the money to support Tsvangirai’s sexual interest is coming from? Which of these two raises fundamental moral issues in the public domain?
Is it Coltart’s submission that it is right for some Western donor countries that have refused to support agriculture, and their identities are known, to settle Tsvangirai’s sex bills? It is salutary to know that the story of who gave Tsvangirai $500,000 to settle Locardia Karimatsenga’s claims is yet to be told and like the sun will rise tomorrow that story will be told and maybe by then the 800,000 farming households supported by the $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme will be harvesting their crop.
Meanwhile, and in a failed attempt to support Coltart’s whistle in the wilderness about the unassailable $20 million Presidential agricultural input scheme for 800,000 farming households, Tsvangirai’s MDC issued an inane statement earlier his week preposterously claiming that Zanu PF had allegedly stolen ideas from the MDC-T’s imported Juice policy. This was ostensibly prompted by the “Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment” theme of the 2012 Zanu PF’s people’s conference in Gweru next month.
The MDC-T claimed in an official statement, of all things, that “Zanu PF has now finally seen sense in the MDC thrust on job creation and has at the 11th hour slotted ‘Create Employment’ in their conference theme”. Now if this is not madness, nothing is.
Since when do mere words constitute an idea or a policy? Who on earth is the owner of the words “Create Employment”? Is it the MDC-T and how many in the MDC-T leadership can reiterate these words without tripping over the conceptual meaning?
Seriously, it is inherently foolish and the height of intellectual bankruptcy for anyone to think or believe that any person or any organisation owns words or to claim that words are synonymous with ideas or policies.
When it comes to the words in question, even kindergarten kids know that “Employment Creation” has been at the centre of Zanu PF ideology and discourse for decades. In fact, the Zanu PF government has even had a Ministry of Employment Creation! People who do not know this rudimentary fact are desk politicians of the likes of Alex Magaisa who penned the nonsensical MDC-T statement that stupidly claimed that Zanu PF had stolen the words “employment creation” from the MDC-T’s imported Juice so-called policy which is full of Tsvangirai’s juicy stuff that does not go beyond his personal pleasure.
The issue is not about who is using which words but about the policy premise and the policy substance of the words used. According to its imported Juice policy, the MDC-T believes that jobs can be imported and brought to Zimbabwe in briefcases by the same Western countries whose economies are going through a crippling financial crisis and which the MDC-T believes have loved Zimbabweans so much as to slap them with punitive economic sanctions that have ravaged our economy and devastated the livelihoods of ordinary people.
Zanu PF’s employment creation policy is not based on foreign agendas that are beyond the control of Zimbabweans but are squarely based on the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme whose revolutionary thrust is to ensure that the commanding heights of the economy are in the hands of Zimbabweans to unlock real value for development and opportunities for creating real jobs.
Zimbabweans now know and understand that the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme is not imported, is not a slogan and is not wishful thinking but is tangible and unfolding on the ground with visible success. This success is evidenced by the broad-based compliance by economic players among major corporations and the launch of community and employee share ownership schemes that are now found in at least seven provinces with more roll-outs to come before the end of the year.
In fact, the programme has been so successful in terms of laying the foundation for creating real jobs that many other countries are now making inquiries to draw lessons while others such as Kenya and Indonesia have in fact followed suit.
In the circumstances, the issue is not about words but about ideas and policies. Zanu PF is committed to developing Zimbabwe including creating jobs through indigenisation of all of the 14 key sectors of the economy while the MDC-T believes that jobs can be created by the same countries that have imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe and which are failing to create jobs in their own backyards.
Anybody who believes that countries that cannot create jobs for their own citizens can create jobs for Zimbabweans needs to be examined by a competent psychiatrist.
Professor Jonathan Moyo is the Zanu MP for Tsholotsho North
Labels: AGRICULTURE, DAVID COLTART, FISP, JONATHAN MOYO, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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Gold rush turning Zimbabwe into wasteland: Coltart
Bare surface ... A gold panner uses a metal dictator to search for gold in Shangani
05/11/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
EDUCATION Minister David Coltart has warned that Zimbabwe faces “long term ruin” from the activities of gold panners – barely a week after President Robert Mugabe announced plans to decriminalise goal panning.
Mugabe, opening Zimbabwe’s fifth parliament on Tuesday last week, declared: “For the illegal panners, steps are on the way to decriminalise and allow them to work in a legal way.”
The plan to legalise gold panning by small scale miners, usually working as individuals, was first mooted in May by Mines Minister Obert Mpofu.
At the time, Mugabe voiced support for the move but also sounded caution, saying: “Mpofu gave you the right to korokoza, but let us do it properly. This is our country so we should not leave gullies everywhere or kill our rivers.”
But Coltart has expressed grave concerns about the environmental impact of free-for-all gold mining.
The minister visited Shangani – a small, largely rural outpost between Bulawayo and Gweru – where the discovery of alluvial gold deposits has triggered a massive gold rush.
Here, Coltart says he found “widespread burning of Zimbabwe's bush” by panners who use metal detectors to find gold.
“They cannot operate the detectors in thick bush because obviously grass and bushes get in the way and prevent them from placing the detector a narrow distance above the surface of the ground,” Coltart said.
“I saw the practice 90km from Bulawayo on the Gweru road, near Shangani opposite Fountains Farm... The entire area has been burnt out, as have hundreds of thousands of hectares in Zimbabwe this spring.”
Coltart warned that the burning of the bush would end in large swathes of the country “desecrated”.
“Unless this practice is brought to an end, Zimbabwe is going to be transformed into a wasteland and desert,” he warned.
“Whilst I sympathise with young men who are out of work, we simply have to control this practice as their short term gain is going to be the long term ruin of our beloved nation.”
Free for all ... Gold panners dig up gold in Shangani
According to Mpofu, a third of gold deliveries this year came from small scale miners commonly known as omakorokoza.
The proposals to reform mining laws have not been published, but Mpofu indicated last week that the gold panners would be issued with free operating licences.
Conservationists worry that it would be difficult to police the gold panners to force them to adhere to operating guidelines.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, GOLD, OBERT MPOFU, POLLUTION, ROBERT MUGABE
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Coltart laments Cabinet racial slurs
02/11/2012 00:00:00
by AP
ZIMBABWE’S only white government minister has said racial slurs against whites at the highest political level continue to show “a gross level of intolerance” in the country.
Education Minister David Coltart said if he made similar insults about blacks he would “rightly be branded as a sympathiser of the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan.”
Ministerial colleagues sometimes seemed to forget he was in the same room when they made “shocking” remarks about whites, even at Cabinet meetings, he said on his Facebook page.
Debate on lingering prejudices in Zimbabwe has raged since allegations of racism in soccer have reemerged in Europe.
A weekly newspaper run by loyalists of President Robert Mugabe charged Friday that racism by whites has endured three decades since the end of colonial-era rule.
The Patriot newspaper said since independence in 1980 Zimbabweans have been giving each other “plastic smiles” that tried to conceal the deeply-rooted brutality of past white rule.
It said the tiny white minority of about 30,000 does not want to mix with blacks or respect the majority population of 12 million people.
It said racial polarisation was shown at a writers’ gathering in Harare last month addressed by white and black best-selling authors. It said Alexandra Fuller, author of “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,” an account of growing up as a white child in colonial times, dodged questions on “white assumptions” about black Africans.
Coltart, a lawyer, longtime human rights activist and a politician of the former opposition now in the coalition government, said white attitudes had often been hardened by racist hate speech in media controlled by Mugabe loyalists and “ethnic cleansing” by Mugabe militants since 2000, the start of an often violent campaign to seize thousands of white-owned commercial farms and a black empowerment program to take control of 51 percent of white and foreign-owned businesses. That “entrenched bitterness in the minds of many whites,” Coltart said.
He said he was glad the “important debate” was now being aired openly.
In 1980, after a guerrilla war swept him to power, Mugabe announced a policy of reconciliation toward his former white foes and said he would allow the descendants of British settlers to keep their place in the sun.
Coltart noted no independent truth commission was held in Zimbabwe after white rule ended and so whites never had to face up to the realities of the past. In neighboring South Africa, many apartheid era crimes were investigated and heard by a truth and reconciliation commission.
Coltart said “deeply offensive” generalisations on race were frequently used by all groups in Zimbabwe.
“As always, it is wrong to paint any race or ethnic group with a single, broad brush. There are remarkable white people out there who are deeply committed to the concept of a multiracial, truly democratic Zimbabwe,” he said.
“Sadly, we all make generalizations which would be unacceptable in all genuine democracies,” he said.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, RACISM
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COMMENT - Eddie Coltart gets mystical and claims in the article
Dark Forces Operating In Zimbabwe, Coltart, by Makusha Mugabe (Monday, 02 July 2012 17:19):
" Coltart recently told the Huffington Post that his car wheels were loosened, and the wheel came off. "It could well have been sabotage," he said, adding that he believed “dark forces” were still utterly determined to subvert the political process, and use the same tactics they have used for 30 years to retain political power. "
Or, the same people who were doing dirty tricks for the last 30 years plus UDI are still around.
Hope fades over missing activist
03/08/2012 00:00:00
by RNW Africa
FRIENDS and colleagues of human rights campaigner Paul Chizuze are losing hope of finding him alive amid fears the prominent figure may have been abducted by the country’s feared state security agency.
One source says Chizuze became a target for state security because of his investigations into other disappeared activists and his wealth of information on the Matabeleland massacres.
Last month local media reported finding Chizuze’s car in the border town of Beitbridge. Inside were his old shoes, but no one to fill them. Local police confirmed finding the vehicle, though refused to give further details. One source described the issue as “too sensitive” for the police to handle.
Chizuze left his home in Bulawayo just after 8 pm on 8 February. The 58 year old was seen driving his official car, a Nissan Hardbody with registration number ACJ 3446.
Some family members say they fear Chizuze may have been abducted, hijacked or murdered on the night he disappeared.
A relative who declined to be named said the family was despairing. “I now suspect he was murdered and we should all accept that we will never find him alive,” he told RNW.
Education and culture minister David Coltart, a close friend and former colleague of the disappeared activist, said a search by several organisations and police has failed to locate him. He told a private radio station that his main worry was the lack of any leads, despite so much time spent searching for him.
Information
Coltart and Chizuze worked together on a number of human rights issues at the Bulawayo Legal Projects Centre. The minister said Chizuze had been working on issues that could have embarrassed authorities in the government, especially hardliners.
According to Coltart, the activist had too much information on (1) Gukurahundi, the notorious army unit which massacred (2) an estimated 20,000 people from the (3) Ndebele-speaking minority of Matabeleland and Midlands provinces soon after the country’s independence in 1980.
[Eh... no, no and no. - MrK]
Chizuze’s current colleagues say the missing man’s work involved tracking activists in jail and offering them support. He also investigated the disappearance of Patrick Nabanyama, Colart’s election agent in 2000 and someone who worked closely with Coltart during the 1980s to help victims of the Matabeleland massacres. To this day, Nabanyama has not been found.
Colleague
The director of Masakhane Projects Trust, the human rights organization Chizuze worked for when he went missing, was almost in tears as he described efforts to locate their colleague.
“We have searched everywhere, including hospitals and morgues, but we have come up with nothing,” Dumisani Mpofu told RNW. “We are losing hope of finding him alive because of what happened in the past when other disappeared human rights activists turned up dead.”
When asked whether Chizuze might have skipped the border for self-exile, he said: “We doubt very much that he might have fled the country because there was no reason for him to do that. He was a person who never gave up the fight even when the going got tough.”
He added that if Chizuze had fled, he would have contacted family or workmates.
Mpofu says the disappearance of one of their own will not scare them away from exposing human rights abuses by the government, especially in Matabeleland, where people are still waiting for perpetrators of the 1980s killings to be brought to justice.
The search for Chizuze has taken other activists to the remote villages of Matabeleland. Reportedly no trace of him has turned up at police stations or morgues.
Optimism
While some Zimbabwe-based human activists may doubt they will find Chizuze, their exiled counterparts show optimism.
The Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign (ZSC), based in Northern Ireland, recently staged protests in Belfast calling for global attention to the Chizuze case and to demand an end to other disappearances in Zimbabwe.
“We feel that we have to publicize the disappearance of Paul so that the world will know the plight of Zimbabweans,” said ZSC participant Memory Chatambudza. “He is still missing and we want him found, dead or alive, so that his family can get answers on what happened.”
Chatambudza says the international community appears to have forgotten the violence in Zimbabwe, yet abuses persist. With elections now around the corner, she expects violence to escalate.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, HUMAN RIGHTS
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Coltart in sanctions U-turn
Saturday, 09 June 2012 21:07
Sunday Mail Reporter
Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Senator David Coltart has called for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe in a major climb-down by the MDC-N legal affairs secretary who reportedly helped the United States to craft the heinous Zimbabwe Democracy Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) in 2001.
Senator Coltart was in the US a fortnight ago where he urged that country’s government to mend relations with Zimbabwe and is confident that the call for the removal of the illegal embargo will yield results.
“My main mission was to meet with senators and congressmen in the American government as part of a drive aimed at seeing them engage the inclusive Government on the removal of sanctions.
“On the other hand, I also met money-lending institutions and international education organisations as I sought support for the country’s education sector,” he said.
Among other senior US officials, Sen Coltart met the Deputy Secretary for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, and the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Michael Posner. He also met Senator Jim Inhofe, who recently told his fellow congressmen that sanctions were affecting ordinary citizens in Zimbabwe and stalling economic development.
“The overall reaction to my call for the removal of sanctions was positive. As for the education support for Zimbabwe, I met officials from the World Bank, Unicef and the Global Partnership for Education,” he said.
Asked whether he had assisted the US government to craft ZDERA, Senator Coltart’s response was ambiguous.
“That allegation is totally without foundation because if I had that power, I would go to Washington and ask the US to remove the sanctions right now.
[That makes no sense. Whether he had anything to do with drawing up ZDERA has nothing to dow with whether he has the power to revoke it. It is an evasive answer, to say the least. - MrK]
“However, there were gross human rights violations in 2001 and what we merely said to the US government was that the perpetrators of such abuses should be punished,” he said.
[There were gross human rights violations upto 1980, for which YOU have not been punished. - MrK]
Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who is also believed to have worked with Sen Coltart in assisting the US in crafting ZDERA, recently made a U-turn on sanctions when he told delegates at a World Bank meeting in Washington last month that the West should immediately lift the embargo.
A fortnight ago UN Human Rights chief Ms Navanethem Pillay also added her voice to the lifting of sanctions.
*************************
COMMENTS FROM THE WEBSITE:
TruthHurts! - Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 02:44 PMThis bastard went to America as part of a group comprising of himself, Tendayi mBiti and Welshman Ncube in 2000 before the MDshit split to beg for sanctions hoping that they will catapult them into power and rape us all. He must NEVER EVER try to lie his way out of this one.
Many Zimbabweans died from curable diseases just because there was no medicine in hospitals for their treatment and fuel at service stations to ferry them to hospitals in cases of medical emergency. This was a situation that was a direct result of the sanctions that these murderers had invited upon their own people. The sanctions must not be seen as if it is a game of football where there is a winner and a loser or the teams draw and everyone goes home to celebrate or moan about the missed chances by their strikers if their team had lost or has drawn.
This is about people like them who ultimately died because these egotistical morons thought they are better than other people and that power is their entitlement. They wanted power to abuse and use us all in a humiliating way under the guidance and control of the people they met in America when they went to beg for these sanctions.
Coltart cannot wriggle his way out of this one and when you report about things like this you demean the dead by saying that ''Coltart makes U-turn on sanctions'' as if their effect on people has been harmless (I am not saying that you, Editor or your Reporter say sanctions are harmless but when perceived holistically in the general scheme of things, the whole Coltart thingy in your article seems to imply that sanctions are harmless). When little boys and girls without shoes walk in the depths of sewage spewing in Mbare streets and contracting diseases that cannot be said to be harmless. When students at our Universities and schools are studying under a very difficult environment that never existed when some of those who invited these sanctions went school we cannot say the sanctions are harmless.
When generally the whole economy has had to operate on a cash basis that nearly slid us into being a failed State unlike other countries that are trading openly we cannot say sanctions are harmless. Sanctions and the nightmare that Coltart, mBiti and Welshman Ncube invited cause a lot of untold hardships that have rendered us subjects of ridicule and abuse by people from other nations - some of whom like Lindiwe Zulu who are in govt but not in power - you can not say that is harmless to the dented confidence and pride we have had to endure.
They have had an effect on most of us Zimbabweans in those places that we travel to, the people we meet and in the things we do, the way we do them and how we do them. A Coltart u-turn is therefore for himself, not us. These three bastards are the kind that if we were still living in Shakespearean times we would demand that they reverse all the damage their sanctions have caused us or we demand our pound of flesh to be paid with their lives. We would want to see his u-turn blowing life back into those that perished because of his set Rhodesian ways that sees the death of black people as acceptable ''collateral damage'' to their wars against other races and therefore nothing to think or worry about.
I think there is still need to talk about this today, tomorrow and in the foreseeable future. Its not over. We cannot continue reconciling with people that we pardoned for their heinous crimes in 1980 and then in 2000 they do it again, piss on our heads and tell us it is raining heavily and there is a hailstorm! No-o ways! This time we looked up and saw that the weather is fine and it is them pissing on us and WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!
This is us and this time someone has to be held answerable for the many orphans the sanctions created. And it is those three and their leader who went to invite them.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, JIM INHOFE, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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