Chissano encourages dialogue in Zimbabwe
By Kabanda Chulu and Noel Sichalwe
Saturday August 02, 2008 [04:00]
FORMER Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano has said Zimbabweans should be encouraged to follow the path of dialogue they have undertaken. And head of Sudanese General National Council for Strategic Planning (GNCSP) Dr Tagelsir Ali said Africa has to stand against the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
In an interview in Lusaka, on the sidelines of the just-ended Global Southern Africa Smart Partnership Conference, Chissano said there was need to encourage Zimbabweans to care for peace and unity.
"We should attempt to help them come closer to each other because Zimbabweans can and will find solutions to their problems.
And when looking at the levels of violence, I was astonished to see the quick signing of the MoU but this shows that a solution is in sight," Chissano said. "We should encourage Zimbabweans to care for peace and unity and on this basis, problems will be solved and conflicts will not occur again."
He said former presidents could not just jump on resolving conflicts without being consulted.
"We only come when we are requested like we did in Congo and Kenya with favourable results and through our association, we are ready to give advice in conflicts and consolidation of peace," he said.
On the ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has sought an arrest warrant against President al-Bashir on charges including genocide and war crimes in Darfur, Chissano urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure that the arrest does not culminate in more bloodshed.
He said the ICC was an independent court, which should carry out its operations without interference.
However, Chissano said the challenge lies in how to implement the court's decision to arrest President Al-Bashir without worsening the situation.
"Naturally, the only way to effect an indictment is to arrest the suspect and in this case, President Al-Bashir, is surrounded by people who will do anything to protect him hence there will be bloodshed that might even cause more deaths than the ones President Al-Bashir is accused of doing," President Chissano said.
"So we appeal to the ICC to ensure that measures are in place that must not worsen or culminate in more bloodshed."
On the just-ended Smart Partnership Dialogue, President Chissano said there has been a major transformation since the inception of the Smart Partnership dialogue conferences.
"There is diversification on a number of issues and also the quality of debate is high and the discussions are very live with most participants showing keen interest," said President Chissano.
"But our shortcomings lie in lack of evaluating and consolidating the ideas discussed at previous conferences and I am glad that this matter will be given consideration at this year's event."
And Dr Ali said people had now realised why the ICC wanted to arrest President Al-Bashir.
"If this thing succeeds in Sudan, then every leader in Third World countries will have to accept a similar thing. Africa should be on the lookout for this because every leader could be subjected to the same treatment.
This will not be allowed because it is affecting the sovereignty of the country. We feel that we have got to stand against this and the West don't have any right," he said.
"At this point, the entire country and everyone who was against the President has unified behind him. We will absolutely in no way allow this.
The ultimatum is behind us. All the international organisations have visited Sudan and even the envoy of United States said there is nothing of that sort on the ground. They all give positive results."
Dr Ali said anything that happened in Sudan had an effect on the entire African continent.
He said Sudan would therefore, like to contribute to the stability of the entire African continent.
Dr Ali said the fight in Darfur was not racial or religious but that the whole issue started as a conflict of land and eventually spread into different groups.
"We put an end to the 20 years of war and now people are enjoying peace and not a single bullet has been fired after the peace agreement.
There is no going back to any war of any kind," he said.
Dr Ali said anybody that visited Sudan with a particular agenda always found what they wanted in order to confirm their suspicions ranging from failure to respect human rights, infringing on press freedom and failing to observe democratic tenets.
He said Sudan was concerned of how it would make use of oil revenues to develop other sectors like the growth of the agricultural sector.
"The most important thing is integration," he said. "If we sit together and say what we can contribute and put our strengths together, all these problems can be solved. It requires political will.
That is why I think about the need for African vision. We should ask questions like where does Africa want to go, where is it and where is it going?"
On the Smart Partnership conference, Dr Ali said the conference was successful because they dealt with issues of national visions and sustainability of economic development.
He said there was good exchange of opinions and ideas from different countries and they discussed the challenges that needed to be addressed to ensure economic development and food security.
Dr Ali said the conference was very valuable as most of the issues affecting Africa were dealt with including poverty eradication.
Labels: GNCSP, JOACHIM CHISANO, ZIMBABWE
Read more...
UK begs Chissano over Zim coalition
Political Editor Munyaradzi Huni
THE British and American governments, working closely with a prominent leader in Sadc, recently made overtures to former Mozambican leader Cde Joaquim Chissano to entice him to take up the leadership of an amalgam of elder statesmen in the region whose mandate was to persuade President Mugabe into accepting a government of national unity with the MDC, diplomatic sources have revealed.
It is also understood that the American government was separately pushing for the involvement of former United Nations Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan in the talks leading to the government of national unity.
The targeted elder statesmen included former Zambian president Dr Kenneth Kaunda, former Botswana leader Sir Ketumile Masire and former Tanzanian leader Mr Benjamin Mkapa.
Diplomatic sources say the plan by the British and the American governments went up in smoke when Dr Kaunda criticised the British Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, over the way he is handling the Zimbabwean issue.
"The British and Americans made overtures to Cde Chissano to take up the leading role in the set-up. The plan was that the former Mozambican leader would persuade Dr Kaunda, but on the eve of that persuasion, the former Zambian leader released a statement attacking Mr Brown over Zimbabwe," said one diplomat.
In a speech that he delivered last month as a special guest to recipients of recognition awards from Pope Benedict XVI, Dr Kaunda said: "It is sad for Prime Minister Brown to say what he has said about the Zimbabwe situation . . . Brown does not understand what he is talking about. It is a sad thing that he said that (calling for more sanctions against Zimbabwe)."
The diplomat added: "They also wanted Sir Ketumile and Mr Mkapa, but the later was considered too radical and too close to President Mugabe."
The diplomat said the US President, Mr George W. Bush, was also pushing another initiative where Mr Annan was supposed to mediate as he recently did in Kenya.
"If you were closely monitoring events you will realise that on Friday US Secretary of State Ms Condoleezza Rice, alongside the Sadc chairman, President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, and the AU chairman, President Jakaya Kikwete, consulted Mr Annan on Zimbabwe," said the diplomat.
However, the two initiatives failed and the Americans and the British were left with no option but to order the MDC-T leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, to go for the run-off.
Yesterday, after weeks of dithering, Mr Tsvangirai announced that he would be coming back home "in two days’ time" to contest in the run-off whose date has not yet been fixed.
President Mugabe has already said he is ready for the run-off and the ruling party machinery is already at work making preparations for the poll.
Other sources added that now that the efforts to force a government of national unity had failed and that the UN Security Council had refused to be drawn into the politics in Zimbabwe, the UK and US governments, through the international media, will play up incidences of violence in the country and agitate for the international supervision of the run-off.
Indications are that the Government will not bow down to the machinations by these two governments and only the AU, Sadc, countries from Asia and a few selected European countries would observe and monitor the elections.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail yesterday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Publicity, Cde George Charamba, said: "The Zimbabwe case illustrates perfectly that Africa and the Third World are capable of delivering a clean poll. The British and Americans cannot accept the results of the just-ended harmonised polls and at the same time claim any inadequacies in any African observation and election monitoring. They cannot accept the result and disparage the agency that made that result possible."
Labels: JOACHIM CHISANO, NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT, SADC, ZIMBABWE
Read more...
Chissano advises govts on economic policies
By Kabanda Chulu and Mutale Kapekele in Livingstone
Tuesday August 14, 2007 [15:42]
FORMER Mozambican President Joachim Chissano has urged African countries to devise good policies that will translate economic indicators into real development. And Vice-President Rupiah Banda said that despite the strong macroeconomic performance, African countries still faced a huge challenge of economic shocks as a result of globalisation.
Speaking during the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Southern Africa conference held in Livingstone last week, Chissano also observed that globalisation has had negative impacts on developing countries that have continued to remain at its periphery because of the inequality that comes with it.
However, Chissano said that developing countries should not sit idle and blame globalisation for being in a state of backwardness and failures to move forward.
He further noted that economic growth was not equal to economic development.
“For regional business to prosper we need to create and sustain a robust indigenous business community because our countries are challenged today, more than ever before, to adopt and implement bold policies aimed at developing a domestic private sector in each of our nations through the facilitation of access to the relevant knowledge, capital and technologies,” Chissano said.
“And in most cases we are succeeding especially with the positive macroeconomic indicators obtaining on the ground but we should not continue deceiving ourselves that economic growth is economic development. It is just a tool to indicate the level of progress and in the absence of good policies the indicators will not translate into meaningful development for our people.”
He noted that peace, stability and security were fundamental to the requirements for the growth of regional economies.
“But they are not sufficient and they need to be supported by a sound macroeconomic environment that is conducive to business and this implies a functioning transport and communications infrastructure, a stable and predictable economic framework, an enabling regulatory environment and a well managed and effective public administration and service delivery, particularly in health and education,” Chissano said.
He observed that globalisation has brought growing inequality across and within nations.
Chissano said that majority of developing countries had continued to remain at the periphery of globalisation.
“Globalisation brings to developing countries risks, challenges but also opportunities such as greater access to developed countries’ markets and technology transfer but it also brings growing inequality across and within nations and another negative aspect of globalisation is that the majority of developing countries remain at its periphery and they therefore failing to reap benefits while feeling the brunt of this powerful force,” Chissano said.
He said that in the globalisation process, Africa had suffered severely from the flight of human capital, commonly referred to as brain drain, in poor countries and brain circulation in developed countries.
“Clearly the impact of globalisation is more felt on business and it is more visible in Southern Africa where the rather weak economic base featured by its countries makes them more dependent on extra-regional economies and thus more vulnerable to global shocks,” Chissano said. “And our inability to generate domestic savings forces our economies to rely on foreign capital flows for investment and our obsolete and less competitive technologies compel our countries to look for their pertinent replacement outside the region and our knowledge and business practices remain inadequate to the high speed the global economy is moving through.”
Nevertheless, Chissano said that African economies could not move forward if they failed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by globalisation.
“I believe we can do it and we can put globalisation to the benefit of regional business and we can do it better under the following pre-conditions such as peace, stability and appropriate macro economic policies that simultaneously fulfill the role of promoting indigenous business and attract foreign investment,” said Chissano.
“But this must be compounded with strong political will to cooperate with one another and all of us must develop and defend a common agenda for development which goes beyond a mere economic growth.”
And Vice-President Banda said that African countries have the huge challenge of remaining economically vigilant in the light of volatile oil prices and unpredictable weather.
“The main challenges we face are sustaining broad-based economic growth and making further inroads in alleviating poverty reduction strategies,” Vice-President Banda said.
He said the economy of the continent could only improve by boosting macroeconomic activities and reducing the cost of doing business.
“This will entail persevering with macroeconomic stabilisation efforts, reducing the cost of doing business and continuing to address governance issues directly, including enhancing the legal framework and strengthening the transparency of natural resource management,” said Vice-President Banda.
And CIMA Zambia president Emmanuel Mbambiko observed that the current economic situation in the country has created an appetite for people to attain greater heights in businesses.
“The economy is moving in the right direction and this position has created an appetite for competitiveness hence businesses are looking forward to attain greater heights,” said Mbambiko.
Labels: JOACHIM CHISANO
Read more...
Globalisation has brought inequality, says Chissano
By Kabanda Chulu and Mutale Kapekele in Livingstone
Friday August 10, 2007 [04:00]
FORMER Mozambican President Joachim Chissano has observed that globalisation has brought growing inequality across and within nations. And Vice-President Rupiah Banda said despite the strong macroeconomic performance, African countries still faced a huge challenge of economic shocks as a result of globalisation.
Addressing the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) 2007 Southern Africa regional conference in Livingstone yesterday, Chissano said the majority of developing countries had continued to remain at the periphery of globalisation.
“Globalisation brings to developing countries risks, challenges but also opportunities such as greater access to developed countries’ markets and technology transfer, but it also brings growing inequality across and within nations. Another negative aspect of globalisation is that the majority of developing countries remain at its periphery and they are therefore failing to reap benefits while feeling the brunt of this powerful force,” Chissano said.
He said in the globalisation process Africa had suffered severely from the flight of human capital, which is commonly referred to as brain drain in poor countries and brain circulation in developed countries.
“Clearly the impact of globalisation is more felt on business and it is more visible in Southern Africa where the rather weak economic base featured by its countries makes them more dependant on extra-regional economies and thus more vulnerable to global shocks,” Chissano said. “And our inability to generate domestic savings forces our economies to rely on foreign capital flows for investment and our obsolete and less competitive technologies compel our countries to look for their pertinent replacement outside the region and our knowledge and business practices remain inadequate to the high speed the global economy is moving through.”
However, Chissano said that African economies could not move forward if they fail to take advantage of the opportunities offered by globalisation.
“I believe we can do it and we can put globalisation to the benefit of regional business and we can do it better under the following pre-conditions such as peace, stability and appropriate macro economic policies that simultaneously fulfill the role of promoting indigenous business and attract foreign investment,” said Chissano.
“But this must be compounded with strong political will to cooperate with one another and all of us must develop and defend a common agenda for development which goes beyond a mere economic growth.”
And Vice-President Banda said African countries have the huge challenge of remaining economically vigilant in the light of volatile oil prices and unpredictable weather.
“The main challenges we face are sustaining broad based economic growth and making further inroads in alleviating poverty reduction strategies.”
He said the economy of the continent could only improve by boosting macroeconomic activities and reducing the cost of doing business.
“This will entail persevering with macroeconomic stabilisation efforts, reducing the cost of doing business and continuing to address governance issues directly, including enhancing the legal framework and strengthening the transparency of natural resource management,” said Vice President Banda.
Labels: CIMA, GLOBALISATION, JOACHIM CHISANO, RUPIAH BANDA
Read more...
